Warner Bros. Television

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Image:Warner Bros Television.jpg
Warner Bros. Television shield.

Warner Bros. Television is the television production and distribution arm of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself part of Time Warner. Alongside CBS Paramount Television, it serves as a television production arm of The CW Television Network (in which Time Warner has a 50% ownership stake).


Contents

[edit] History and Production

The division was started in 1955 with its first and most successful head being Jack Warner's son-in-law William T. Orr. ABC television had major success against its competition with Walt Disney's Disneyland TV series and approached Warner Brothers intially with the idea of purchasing the Warner Brothers film library (Warner Brothers sold the rights to the negatives of 750 films and over 1500 shorts to Associate Artists Productions in 1956[1] with the premiere of its self-titled anthology series Warner Bros. Presents on ABC Television. The one hour weekly show featured rotating episodes of television series based on Warner Brothers films, Casablanca, King's Row, and Cheyenne. The last with Clint Walker was the first one hour television western and became a bit hit for the network and the studio that led Warner Brothers to produce many series for ABC such as Westerns (Maverick, Lawman, Colt .45, Bronco, Sugarfoot, and The Alaskans), private detective shows (77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye, Bourbon Street Beat, and Surfside Six, and other shows such as The Gallant Men and The Roaring 20's. Warner Brothers also produced Jack Webb's Red Nightmare for the U.S. Department of Defense that was later shown on American television on Jack Webb's General Electric True. All shows were made in the manner of Warner Brothers B pictures in the 30's and 40's, fast paced, lots of stock footage from other films, stock music from the Warners music library and contracted stars working long hours for comparatively small salaries with restrictions on their career. Two of the most popular stars, James Garner and Clint Walker quit over their conditions, though Garner never returned to the Warner's fold.

The streak of identifiable series subsided in 1963 with a halt of using stock company (acting) contract players and Jack Webb taking over Warner Brothers television from and not being successful. However, many series were still filmed at Warner Brothers such as F-Troop and The F.B.I. (TV series).[2]

In 1989, it acquired Lorimar-Telepictures. Telepictures was later absorbed into WBTV's distribution unit, and in the late 1990s, came back as a secondary syndication arm. In 1993, Lorimar Television was absorbed into WBTV.

In 2006, WBTV made its vast library of programs available for free viewing on the Internet (through sister company AOL's IN2TV service), with Welcome Back Kotter as its marquee offering. Some of these programs have not been seen publicly since their last syndicated release in the 1980s.

[edit] Partial list of programs produced by WBTV

Live action

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sperling, Cass Warner, Warner Jr, Jack, Millner Cork Hollywood Be They Name
  2. ^ Woolley, Lynn, Malsbar, Robert, Strange Jr, Robert G Warner Brothers Television: Every Show of the Fifties and Sixties Episode-By-Episode McFarland Company (1985)

Woolley, Lynn, Malsbar, Robert, Strange Jr, Robert G Warner Brothers Television: Every Show of the Fifties and Sixties Episode-By-Episode McFarland Company (1985)

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