Warner Bros. Television Studios
Warner Bros. Television Studios, operating under the name Warner Bros. Television, is an American television production and distribution studio and the flagship studio of the Warner Bros. Television Group division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, a flagship studio of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Launched on March 21, 1955 by William T. Orr, it serves as a television production arm of DC Comics productions by DC Studios and of The CW, alongside Paramount Skydance Corporation's CBS Studios and CW Studios -- Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery each own 12.5% of The CW, while Nexstar Media Group owns the remaining 75%. It also serves as the distribution arm of Warner Bros. Discovery units HBO, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, while currently partnering in that role with CBS Media Ventures for The CW. As of 2015, it is one of the world's two largest television production companies measured by revenue and library along with Sony Pictures Television.
As of May 2024, Warner Bros. Television is producing nearly 40 scripted series for Warner Bros. Discovery's HBO Max, external streaming platforms, cable, and the five American broadcast networks.
History
Beginning and saturation
The end of World War II led to the rise of television in the late 1940s and early 1950s which saw the eclipse of the Hollywood film studio system, upon the rise of television programming in the wake of the war, many of the film studio executives were in doubt, as they saw the rise of television destroying their film studio business, one of the first major American film studios to move into television was Columbia Pictures in 1947, soon other Hollywood studios such as Paramount Pictures, and Walt Disney Studios started following suit capitalising on the rise of television.Warner Bros. originally planned to move into television back in 1949 as requested by the other Warners, but Jack L. Warner declined and turned down many proposals as he refused to give into the capitalization of TV thus the path to TV was slow, eventually the executives finally gave in and started establishing their television division.
The division was started on March 21, 1955, with its first head being Jack L. Warner's son-in-law William T. Orr. ABC had approached Warner Bros. initially with the idea of purchasing the studio's film library. Warner Bros. 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 Warner Bros. films Casablanca and Kings Row, as well as an original series titled Cheyenne with Clint Walker. The first one-hour television western, Cheyenne became a big hit for the network and the studio with the added advantage of featuring promotions for upcoming Warner Bros. cinema releases in the show's last ten minutes. One such segment for Rebel Without a Cause featured Gig Young notably talking about road safety with James Dean.
With only Cheyenne being a success, Warner Bros. ended the ten-minute promotions of new films and replaced Warner Bros. Presents with an anthology series titled Conflict. It was felt that "Conflict" was what the previous series lacked. Conflict showed the pilots for Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip.
The success of Cheyenne led Warner Bros. Television to produce many series for ABC such as Westerns , crime dramas, and other shows such as The Gallant Men and The Roaring Twenties using stock footage from Warner Bros. war films and gangster films respectively. Warner Bros. Television also produced Jack Webb's Red Nightmare starring Jack Kelly 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 1930s and 1940s; fast-paced, much stock footage from other films, stock music from the Warner Bros. music library and contracted stars working long hours for comparatively small salaries with restrictions on their career.
During the 1960 Writers Guild of America strike, Warner Bros. reused many plots from its films and other television shows under the nom de plume of "W. Hermanos". This was another example of imitating Warner Bros.' B pictures who would remake an "A" film and switch the setting.
File:James Garner Jack Kelly Maverick 1959.JPG|thumb|left|230px|James Garner and Jack Kelly as Bret and Bart Maverick in Maverick, 1959
Two of the most popular stars, James Garner and Clint Walker, quit over their conditions. Garner never returned to the Warners fold during this period, instead moving forward into a major theatrical film career. Successful Warner Bros. television stars found themselves in leading roles of many of the studio's theatrical films with no increase in salary. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. was simultaneously the lead of 77 Sunset Strip briefly overlapping with a recurring role as "Dandy Jim Buckley" on Maverick, and also headlined several films until exhaustion forced the studio to give him a rest. Many other actors under contract to Warner Bros. at the time, who despite their work conditions, did see their stars rise over time, albeit for most only briefly, included Jack Kelly, Will Hutchins, Peter Brown, Ty Hardin, Wayde Preston, John Russell, Donald May, Rex Reason, Richard Long, Van Williams, Roger Smith, Mike Road, Anthony Eisley, Robert Conrad, Robert McQueeney, Dorothy Provine, Diane McBain and Connie Stevens. Edd Byrnes and Troy Donahue would become teen heartthrobs. Another contract player, Englishman Roger Moore, was growing displeased with Warner as his contract was expiring and would relocate to Europe from Hollywood, becoming an international star on television, and eventually, in theatrical films, playing James Bond among other roles. Warner Bros. also contracted established stars such as Ray Danton, Peter Breck, Jeanne Cooper and Grant Williams. These stars often appeared as guest stars, sometimes reprising their series role in another TV series.
The stars appeared in Warner Bros. cinema releases with no additional salary, with some such as Zimbalist, Walker, Garner, and Danton playing the lead roles; many of the stars appeared in ensemble casts in such films as The Chapman Report and Merill's Marauders. Some stars such as Connie Stevens, Edd Byrnes, Robert Conrad and Roger Smith made albums for Warner Bros. Records. One particular recording, a novelty tune titled Kookie, Kookie became a big hit for Edd Byrnes and Connie Stevens. The following year, Connie Stevens had her own hit, with Sixteen Reasons.
It was during this period that series, particularly Westerns like Cheyenne and Maverick, and the crime dramas like 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye and Surfside 6 featured catchy theme songs that became just as much a part of the American pop culture landscape as the shows themselves. Depending on the particular series, William Lava or David Buttolph would compose the music, with lyrics by Stan Jones or Paul Francis Webster, among others. For the crime shows, it was up to the songwriting team of Jerry Livingston and Mack David, who also scored the themes for the sitcom Room for One More, and The Bugs Bunny Show.
In 1960, Warner Bros. Television turned its attentions to younger audiences as they brought Bugs Bunny and the other Warner Bros. cartoon characters to prime time, with The Bugs Bunny Show, which featured cartoons released after July 31, 1948, combined with newly animated introductory material. Also, that year saw the debut of The Roaring Twenties, which was thought to be a more benign alternative to Desilu's The Untouchables. Whether or not that was actually the case, it was, in fact, much less successful.
Warner Bros. Television expanded on its existing genre of Westerns and crime dramas, and in January 1962, produced its first sitcom, Room For One More. Based on the memoirs of Anna Rose, which in 1952 Warner Bros made into a movie starring Cary Grant and his then-wife Betsy Drake about a married couple with two children of their own who went on to adopt at least two more. The TV series starred Andrew Duggan and Peggy McCay as George and Anna Rose. Acting legend Mickey Rooney's son Tim, and Ahna Capri, who would continue to do episodic TV roles and feature films were cast as the Rose's natural children. The show only lasted for half a season. In the fall of that year, a WWII drama The Gallant Men debuted, but lasted for only one season.
Warner Bros. Television exclusively produced shows for the ABC network until 1962, when GE True premiered on CBS.
In 1964, Warner Bros. Television once again tried to turn a classic film comedy of its own into a sitcom, with No Time for Sergeants. Both the sitcom and the 1958 movie were based on the 1955 Broadway play, which starred Andy Griffith. The sitcom starred Sammy Jackson as Will Stockdale, a naive Georgia farm boy drafted into the military. 1965 saw the debut of F Troop, a Western spoof taking place at a U.S. Army post after the Civil War. Despite lasting only two seasons, it is still considered a classic of its type. Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, and Ken Berry led an ensemble cast featuring military misfits, and an Indian tribe, who, among other things, forgot how to do a rain dance.
The streak of identifiable series subsided in 1963 with a halt of using stock company contract players and Jack Webb taking over WBTV and not being particularly successful. However, many series were still filmed at Warner Bros. such as F Troop and The F.B.I.''
Later years
For four years, from 1967 to 1971, Warner Bros. Television's lone output was the existing television series The F.B.I., by 1970, several of the former talent from 20th Century-Fox Television as well as former agent writers was defected to Warner Bros., such as Paul Monash, Rod Amateau, Bill Idelson and Harvey Miller, Saul Turteltaub and Bernie Orenstein, Jerry Gardner and Dee Caruso, Hal Kanter and A.J. Carothers. By 1971, Warner Bros. Television returned to prime-time shows after producing one show for four years. One of the first shows upon returning were the NBC shows Nichols and The Jimmy Stewart Show and the CBS show The Chicago Teddy Bears. Also that year, animation studio Filmation and Warner Bros. entered a deal to produce cartoons for film and television, with its television subsidiary having global distribution rights.In 1975, the stars of Lynda Carter, Warner Bros. and DC Comics produced the television series Wonder Woman. National was purchased by Kinney National Company in 1967 and remained the part of the company until Kinney bought Warner Bros. in 1969. Also that year, Warner Bros. Television secured a deal with Bill Carruthers and his production company to develop its game shows and other videotaped programming.
In 1976, Warner Bros. Television acquired The Wolper Organization, producer of Chico and the Man and Welcome Back, Kotter. In 1978, Stan Margulies, who produced Roots, signed a three-year exclusive contract with the studio. The following week, Warner had acquired contracts with big names like James Komack, Danny Arnold, the trio of Don Nicholl, Michael Ross and Bernie West and the duo of Alan Blye and Bob Einstein to distribute programs worldwide.
In 1979, Warner Bros. Television produced the television series The Dukes of Hazzard.
In 1980, Phillip Saltzman and his Woodruff Productions company signed a deal with the studio.
In 1982, Aaron Spelling and his production company had struck a deal with the studio to distribute the shows. The pact would continue until 1988.
On March 25, 1986, Ted Turner and his Turner Broadcasting System purchased Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from Kirk Kerkorian for $1.5 billion, and renamed MGM Entertainment Company, Inc. Turner immediately sold MGM's United Artists subsidiary back to Kerkorian for roughly $480 million. However, Turner was unable to find financing for the rest of the deal because of concerns in the financial community over the debt-load of his companies; thus, on August 26, 1986, Turner was forced to sell MGM's production and distribution assets to UA for $300 million. The MGM lot and lab facilities were sold to Lorimar-Telepictures. Turner kept the pre-May 1986 MGM film and television library, along with the Associated Artists Productions library, and the RKO Pictures films that United Artists had previously purchased. Warner Bros. Television has produced new productions based on Turner Entertainment's properties.
On June 1, 1986, Alan Shayne has left as president of the studio after 10 years, to start out a new production company, Alan Shayne Productions, which will be affiliated in association with the studio, in order to develop four made-for-TV movies and miniseries projects, which was developed for the 1987–1988 season.
Prior to the merge with Time Inc., Warner Communications acquired Lorimar-Telepictures. The acquisition completed on January 12, 1989. Lorimar Television folded into Warner Bros. Television in July 1993. Telepictures later became a television production company.
In 1992, Witt/Thomas Productions signed a television contract with Warner Bros. after the previous contract with Disney was not renewed. In 1993, two Time Warner-affiliated production companies Quincy Jones Entertainment and David Salzman Entertainment had merged their companies to form Quincy Jones-David Salzman Entertainment, which was affiliated with Warner Bros. and Time Warner. Not too long after that, Lorimar Television was folded into WBTV, taking some key members with them. In 1993, Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr via Wapello County Productions struck a deal with the studio. Later that year, Warner Bros. Television partnered with Bud Grant Productions, a company led by CBS executive Bud Grant, and formerly of Grant/Tribune Productions for a two-year, non-exclusive deal.
In 1994, writers-producers of Friends, Kevin Bright, Martha Kauffman and David Crane, and associated with the studio since 1992 had struck its exclusive deal with the studio. In 1996, Warner Bros. Television collaborated with Universal Television to develop the series Spy Game for ABC, with Universal alumnus Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert of Renaissance Pictures, and Warner alumnus John McNamara producing the series, but it did not last long, as it only lasted one season on the air.
In 2001, Warner Bros. Television fully took over distribution of Hanna-Barbera related properties produced by Warner Bros. Animation such as Scooby-Doo, producing a steady stream of Scooby-Doo direct-to-video films and two new series, What's New, Scooby-Doo? and Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!. In 2006, Warner Bros. Television made some of its vast library of programs available for free viewing on the Internet, 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.
On June 11, 2012, Warner Bros. Television acquired Alloy Entertainment. On June 2, 2014, Warner Bros. Television Group purchased all of Eyeworks' companies outside of the United States, rebranding as Warner Bros. International Television Production. Eyeworks USA however, will remain independent.
In 2020, Warner Bros. Television was renamed Warner Bros. Television Studios as part of WarnerMedia's restructuring of its television divisions. The Warner Bros. Television name continues to be used on-screen, as well as the company's trade name.
On November 30, 2022, Warner Bros Television head Channing Dungey announced that they were in talks with Amazon to make animated DC content for its streaming service Amazon Prime Video.