King World Productions

King World Productions, Inc. (also known as King World Entertainment or simply King World) was a syndicator of television programming in the United States until its eventual 2006 incorporation into CBS Television Distribution.

History

The division was started in 1964 by Charles King. It was a company that expressly handled television distribution of the classic Hal Roach "Our Gang" shorts. When Roach lost the rights to the name "Our Gang" (it was retained by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who bought the series from Roach in 1938), the shorts were retitled "The Little Rascals". It was through this acquisition that the comedy shorts from 1929 through 1938 have been made available to audiences for the past forty years.

In 1983, company chairmen Roger King (who died in December 2007) and Michael King, acquired the syndication rights to Merv Griffin's game show "Wheel of Fortune" when no other studio would step in. The acquisition paid off, and "Wheel" became the most popular show in the history of syndication, and has continued to be for over 20 years. At one point, the program was generating a 21 national rating. Fact|date=December 2007

A year later, King World bought the syndication rights to another Griffin show, "Jeopardy!", and the latest version of the series (with Alex Trebek) has since become the number-two show in syndication. Shortly after this, King World launched Harpo Productions's successful "Oprah Winfrey Show", which eventually lead to the creation of the spin-off series "Dr. Phil", as well as the latest Harpo contribution, "Rachael Ray". Oprah Winfrey was originally a local talk show host in Chicago prior to her King World launch. "Dr. Phil" is co-produced by CBS Paramount Television and Winfrey's Harpo Productions.

One thing that made the company incredibly successful in the 80's was its landmark advertising and promotional campaigns. Michael King hired wunderkind David Sams who is said to have reinvented television marketing. Sams helped to turn Pat Sajak and Vanna White of "Wheel of Fortune" into well-known names, made "Jeopardy!" a mega-hit, and launched a massive campaign to introduce "Oprah Winfrey" to the American public. Sams' creativity and the King's promotional war chest paid off. The three programs immediately garnered the top three positions in the syndicated ratings race - a position they still maintain today. Even CBS' "60 Minutes" did a full report on the success of the King World marketing and promotional strategy.

Stuart Hersch, a lawyer by trade, was the financial expert who helped to take the company public, making it one of the hottest stocks on Wall Street at the time. The company traded as "KWP". King World had virtually no debt and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues after going public. Fact|date=December 2007

Television stations nationwide that broadcast King World programming were loyal to the company, as they had first choice on any series King World offered to distribute. CBS Enterprises was bought by Viacom, Inc. around the time of CBS's acquisition of King World, thus becoming owned by the post-split CBS Corporation as well as all of Viacom's former TV production and distribution operations.

In its latter days, King World was considered the syndication branch of the CBS network - a role Viacom actually first served upon its creation. King World, however, distributed newer CBS shows, while the older shows were syndicated by corporate affiliate CBS Paramount Television, the successor to the original distributor Viacom Enterprises. Additionally, from 2000 to 2006, King World distributed several programs from Westinghouse Broadcasting, such as "The Mike Douglas Show".

Library

King World was responsible for the highest rated shows in syndication for over two decades. They also had the television rights to a large library of theatrical films. When it was acquired by CBS Enterprises in 2000, it distributed a number of CBS-produced series for syndication, such as "Touched by an Angel", "Everybody Loves Raymond", and "".

King World also turned part of its attention to producing in-house newsmagazines including "American Journal", "Martha Stewart Living", and "Inside Edition".

Closing

On September 26 2006, CBS Corporation announced that King World and CBS Paramount Television's syndication operations would be combined to form the CBS Television Distribution Group (CTD). Roger King was announced as CEO of the new entity. However, he died on December 8, 2007 after he had a stroke the day before.

For one year, the King World on-screen identity was kept for the programs it distributed at its closure. However, most of the programs handled by King World were distributed under the name CBS Television Distribution. On August 20, 2007, CBS Television Distribution introduced a new closing logo to replace old King World and CBS Paramount Domestic Television logos. On September 27, 2007, the CTD logo began to replace the King World logo on shows formerly distributed by King World including "Inside Edition", "Dr.Phil" (along with CPDT), "Rachael Ray", "Half & Half", "Jeopardy!", "Wheel of Fortune", "America's Next Top Model", "The Amazing Race", and '. Sometime in 2007 or 2008, just months after the company's official closure, King World's website was redirected to CBS Television Distribution's new website. Later that year, CTD began to plaster old King World logos along with CBS Paramount Domestic Television logos on such shows as "Everybody Loves Raymond" , ', and other shows. King World's logos are sometimes salvaged on networks like TBS and Spike TV.

External links

* [http://www.cbscorporation.com/news/prdetails.php?id=1023 CBS Press Release concerning the new distribution group]
*imdb company|id=0048768