CBS Paramount Television
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Image:CBS Paramount Television Logo.jpg CBS Paramount Television (re-incorporated from Desilu Productions) (a.k.a. Paramount Television, Paramount Network Television, Paramount Domestic Television, and CBS Productions) is an American television production/distribution company that was launched in 1967.
Background
The company is famous for producing and distributing programs such as The Andy Griffith Show, Happy Days, Cheers, the Star Trek franchise, Girlfriends and the daily Paramount staple Entertainment Tonight, among others. After Viacom's merger with Paramount Communications in 1994, Viacom Enterprises was reincorporated as Paramount Domestic Television, (which the company was also called Paramount/Viacom) and Viacom launched the UPN (United Paramount Network) network with Chris-Craft Industries a year later. In 1999, the company acquired 80% of Spelling Entertainment Group and Rysher Entertainment's TV holdings. In 2000, after Viacom's merger with CBS, Paramount TV acquired CBS Enterprises, which included King World Productions at that time. In 2004, Viacom merged the international television banners of CBS Broadcast International and Paramount International Television to form CBS Paramount International Television.
Among Paramount Television's holdings are libraries from its own studio including those acquired from Desilu (but not its pre-1950 films, which are owned by EMKA, Ltd., a name-only division of Universal Studios), Bing Crosby Productions, some of the Rysher Entertainment programs, Viacom (the CBS catalog, which includes The Twilight Zone and I Love Lucy (which CBS bought back from Desilu); the Terrytoons library; the television rights to most of Cannon Films' library; and Viacom's in-house productions, including Matlock and Diagnosis Murder), and Republic Pictures (including High Noon, It's a Wonderful Life, and the inherited holdings of National Telefilm Associates [which includes Paramount's own classic animated library and some early United Artists material], and Worldvision Enterprises [which itself includes the Aaron Spelling library]). In the U.S., however, King World distributes its product independently from Paramount Television, while internationally CBS/Paramount Television handles distribution and sales.
When the CBS/Viacom split took effect in 2006, CBS inherited Paramount's TV program library, with Viacom keeping Paramount's films; on January 17, 2006 CBS Corporation CEO Les Moonves announced that the company would be renamed 'CBS Paramount Television' as of that day, with both the CBS 'eyemark' and Paramount's mountain united in the new logo. Since the split, all Paramount TV shows still use the Paramount Television closing logo, while all CBS-produced shows use the CBS Productions closing logo, even though the copyright to the Paramount TV shows are now credited to CBS Studios, Inc. (CBS Paramount Television's alternate moniker) in which CBS Paramount Television is a disvision of.
Formerly, the company used the credit name for television distribution was known as CBS Paramount Domestic Television