Warner Bros. Television

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• Warner_Bros._Television

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Warner Bros. Television

Type	Subsidiary of Time Warner
Founded	1955
Founder(s)	William T. Orr
Headquarters	Burbank, California,  United States
Key people	Barry Meyer, Chairman and CEO Alan F. Horn, President and COO Edward A. Romano EVP and CFO
Industry	Television production
Products	Television programs
Revenue	▲$11.7 billion USD (2007)[1]
Operating income	▲$845 million USD (2007)
Website	http://www.warnerbros.com/

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), though it also produces shows for the other networks, such as Chuck on NBC, Pushing Daisies on ABC, and Fringe on FOX.

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 had major success against its competition with Walt Disney's Disneyland (TV series) and approached Warner Bros. initially with the idea of purchasing the studio's film library (WB eventually sold the rights to the negatives of 750 films and over 1500 shorts to Associated Artists Productions in 1956^[2]). WB formally entered television production with the premiere of its self-titled anthology series Warner Bros. Presents on ABC. The one hour weekly show featured rotating episodes of television series based on the WB films, Casablanca and King's Row, as well as an original series titled Cheyenne. The last with Clint Walker was the first one hour television western and became a big hit for the network and the studio.

The success of Cheyenne led WBTV to produce many series for ABC such as Westerns (Maverick, Lawman, Colt .45, Bronco that was a spin off of Cheyenne, 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 using stock footage from WB war films and gangster films respectively. The company 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 WB's B pictures in the 30s and 40s;^[3]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. Garner never returned to the Warner's fold. Successful Warner's television stars found themselves in leading roles of many of the studio's films with no increase in salary. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. was simultaneously the lead of 77 Sunset Strip, in a recurring role on Maverick, and also headlined several films until exhaustion forced the studio to give him a rest.

WBTV exclusively produced shows for the ABC network until 1963, when Temple Houston premiered on NBC.

The streak of identifiable series subsided in 1963 with a halt of using stock company (acting) contract players and Jack Webb taking over WBTV and not being particularly successful. However, many series were still filmed at Warner Brothers such as F-Troop and The F.B.I. (TV series).^[4]

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.

WBTV has had a number of affiliated production houses that have co-produced many of their shows with WBTV. These include but are not limited to: Bruce Helford's Mohawk Productions (The Drew Carey Show, The Norm Show, The Oblongs, George Lopez), John Wells Productions (ER, The West Wing, Third Watch), Jerry Bruckheimer Television (Without a Trace, Cold Case), Miller-Boyett Productions - which was inherited from Lorimar (Full House, Family Matters) and others.

Partial list of programs produced by WBTV

See also

• Peter Roth (executive)
• Warner Bros. Animation
• Warner Bros. International Television
• Warner Bros. Television Distribution

References

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