Biography (TV program)
Biography is an American documentary television series and media franchise created in the 1960s by David L. Wolper and owned by A&E Networks since 1987. Each episode depicts the life of a notable person with narration, on-camera interviews, photographs, and stock footage. The show originally ran in syndication in 1962–1964, and in 1979, on A&E from 1987 to 2006, and on The Biography Channel from 2006 to 2012. After a five-year hiatus, the franchise was relaunched in 2017. Over the years, the Biography media franchise has expanded domestically and internationally, spinning off several cable television channels, a website, a children's program, a line of books and records, and a series of made-for-TV movies, specials, and miniseries, among other media properties. Biography has won a Peabody Award and three Emmy Awards.
Biography began as an early 1960s syndicated television series produced by David Wolper and narrated by Mike Wallace. It won a Peabody Award, launched Wallace's journalism career, and became a standard in biography films, widely shown in classrooms. After a one-year revival in 1979, the show returned on A&E Networks in 1987. In 1990, A&E began producing new episodes, and expanded the show into a multimedia franchise. By the turn of the century, Biography became A&E's "flagship" program, winning three Emmy Awards, growing from one night per week to seven, and spawning its own cable television channel, several spin-off shows, a website, made-for-TV movies, mini-series, books, audio books, records, and even a board game. The show's ratings eventually slipped and its airtime was reduced to one night per week, then exclusive to The Biography Channel. Production of new episodes ceased in 2011 and Biography was almost entirely off the air by 2012. In 2017, A&E relaunched the Biography franchise with a series of TV specials and miniseries. As of 2022, episodes are also shown on Story Television.
History
Syndicated series
The original Biography was produced by David Wolper and Jack Haley Jr. and narrated by Mike Wallace, who at the time was just beginning his award-winning journalism career. The show featured no interviews, consisting instead of a half hour of film clips, newsreel footage, still photographs and recordings.Production began in 1961 and the show was distributed in syndication by Official Films, premiering in February 1962. The 1960s series profiled world leaders, contemporary American politicians, athletes, and other 20th-century notables, including generals, authors, scientists, actors, and all the modern U.S. Presidents.
The program became popular in syndication, and in 1962, won a Peabody Award, the first of several for both Wolper and Wallace. Biography has been credited with turning Wallace's journalism career around, and in 1963, he left to join The CBS Morning News with Mike Wallace, and later, 60 Minutes. Biography stopped releasing new episodes in 1964, although some episodes continued to be used as educational films in classrooms, became standards for filmed biographies of the persons profiled, and it played for decades in syndication. The series was briefly revived for syndication in 1979 with host David Janssen, profiling Idi Amin and Walt Disney, among others.
1987 A&E acquisition
The Arts & Entertainment Network, a joint venture started in 1984 by ABC, NBC, the Hearst Corporation, and the Rockefeller Group, acquired the broadcast rights to Biography and began airing the show on Tuesday nights at 8pm beginning on April 6, 1987, with Peter Graves as host. In the words of one observer, A&E's Biography "picked up where Wolper left off."In 1990, A&E acquired the rights to the Biography trademark and library, and began producing new episodes of the show, which expanded the subjects from historical figures to contemporary figures, including political leaders and popular celebrities, and which changed the program from one that reported history to one that recorded it as it unfolded. A&E also added on-camera interviews to the Biography format.
In 1994, A&E expanded the show from one night per week to five and commissioned over 100 hours of new programming. Journalist Jack Perkins joined the show as an alternate host along with Graves. For the 1995–96 season, A&E expanded Biography again, adding a sixth night, Biography This Week, which profiled someone from the previous weeks' news, such as Yitzak Rabin, George Burns, Jackie Robinson, Andrew Cunanan and Gene Kelly.
Franchise expansion
In the mid-1990s, A&E expanded Biography into a media franchise, including multiple cable channels, a website, a monthly magazine, home videos, books for adults and children, audiobooks, music CDs, CD-ROMs, several spin-off shows, mini-series, and made-for-TV movies, and even a board game called "Who Am I? The Biography Game."In January 1995, A&E launched The History Channel, followed in November by The History Channel U.K., which included a British version of Biography with a British host. By 1996, its tenth year on A&E, Biography had achieved its highest ratings yet, drawing over 1.5 million viewers, six nights per week, and received its first Emmy nominations. A&E started producing approximately 130 hours of new programming each year, and expanded the franchise into other media. Barnes & Noble began selling Biography videos in its 400 stores. In the summer of 1996, A&E launched Biography.com. In the fall, a Saturday-morning children's version, Biography for Kids, was released.
The next year, Biography won its first Emmy Award, and was nominated in two other categories. The same year, Biography was allowed to interview sitting First Lady Hillary Clinton for an episode profiling billionaire Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. Also in 1997, A&E released Biography audio tapes, and replaced its eight-year-old A&E Monthly magazine with Biography magazine. Circulation started at 100,000 in 1997 and grew for several years. Crown Publishing Group, a subsidiary of Random House, began publishing a line of 200-page Biography paperbacks in 1997, beginning with books on Muhammad Ali, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II.
In 1998, Biography was airing twice a day, six days a week. The episode profiling Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, aired on three separate time slots on Sunday, June 21, 1998, became the show's highest-rated episode up to that point. A&E released Biography Movies, featuring subjects such as P.T. Barnum, Lillian Hellman, and Dashiell Hammett. Bill Kurtis hosted a spin-off show, Biography: American Justice, and a series of Biography record albums by artists who had been profiled on the show, including Dean Martin, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, and Lena Horne, was released by EMI-Capitol Entertainment Properties. In November, A&E created a spin-off network called The Biography Channel featuring historical figures and current political and social leaders.
By 1999, Biography had profiled 600 people. It won its second Emmy Award and was on television in some incarnation seven nights per week, including an "international-figure-personality-of-the-week," Biography International. That year's episode profiling Ron Howard was viewed in 3.5 million homes, becoming a new Biography record. Journalist Harry Smith joined Biography as the primary host, though Peter Graves and Jack Perkins continued to appear on the show.
By the end of the century, Biography had profiled over 800 people, and on October 1, 2000, A&E Networks expanded its British partnership with Sky UK with the launch of a UK market Biography Channel.
Biographys ratings declined 15% from 2000 to 2001, and another 17% from 2001 to 2002, before increasing 6% in 2003. Despite the decrease in ratings, by 2002, Biography won its third Emmy Award, and marked its 1,000th profile.
A&E responded to the ratings decline by changing Biographys management personnel and launching a marketing campaign centering on photographs taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz of well-known subjects that had been profiled on Biography, including Jerry Seinfeld, Muhammad Ali, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford.
In 2002, host Harry Smith left to join CBS's The Early Show. A&E began reducing the number of nights Biography aired starting 2003, when Neil Ross became the show's final host, narrating episodes on Elizabeth Taylor and Elvis Presley. The growth of Biographys magazine circulation slowed in 2002 and declined 9% in 2003. In 2004, A&E scaled back Biography magazine from monthly to quarterly publication.
By 2006, Ross had left the show and Biography was airing only once a week, usually on Friday nights with three back-to-back episodes. A&E removed Biography from its lineup in August, making new episodes of the show exclusively available on The Biography Channel. Its first year on The Biography Channel featured 64 hours of new programming, including episodes on the Onassis family, Jamie Oliver, Russell Simmons, George Lopez, Anthony Hopkins, Grace Slick, Elmore Leonard and Olivia Newton-John. The following year, The Biography Channel was rebranded "Bio." In 2008, Biography released a documentary, Johnny Cash's America, together with a companion DVD/CD package published by Legacy Recordings containing an unreleased recitation by the singer entitled "I Am the Nation."
The last new episode aired in 2011, and the show ended its run in 2012. In 2014, A&E replaced its underperforming Bio channel with The FYI Network and partnered with digital publisher SAY Media. SAY Media began operating Biography.com, while A&E continued producing short-form videos for the website.