While reading some TV listings from my home area (Eastern Washington), it brought back some interesting memories of shows that always aired together. Obviously they must been sold as package deals to local stations. For example, "Branded" and "Guns of Will Sonnett" always aired as an hour block on weekends. Also, my local station in the 80s would air a package of Sherlock Holmes/Charlie Chan/Mr. Moto flicks on weekend afternoons; the rotation of flicks always stayed the same. What TV shows in your area were packaged for sale and airing?
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Packaged TV Shows
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Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie are almost always shown together, even now on Antenna TV.
It used to seem like WKRP and Newhart Have been shown together a lot, although Antenna isn't doing that now.
And Antenna has always seemed to put Learcoms together in prime time.
It used to seem like WKRP and Newhart Have been shown together a lot, although Antenna isn't doing that now.
And Antenna has always seemed to put Learcoms together in prime time.
Happy Days Again and Laverne & Shirley & Co. seemed to get programed together in a few major markets.
Me TV has had Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley in two hour blocks over the summer and starting this week they will be together every weeknight in prime time. I wish they still had Taxi and the Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart shows in prime time, but it's still better then the overkill of Learcoms on Antenna TV.
It always seemed like "Tic Tac Dough" and "Joker's Wild" were packaged together (and usually aired back-to-back in some markets).
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy yet. They don't always run back to back but they usually run on the same station.
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I believe when Nick-at-Nite and/or TVLAND used to have the rights to The Addams Family and The Munsters they used to run them back to back. Now The Addams Family is on This-TV and starting in October The Munsters will be on COZI.
Speaking of Subchannels are the main channels allowed to show programs from their subchannels? FOX 61 in Hartford sometimes shows both The Jeffersons and The Addams Family in the overnight hours on Saturdays. FOX 61's .2 channel is AntennaTV and they have the rights to The Jeffersons. FOX 61s sister station is WCCT and WCCT's.2 channel is This-TV which shows The Addams Family.
Speaking of Subchannels are the main channels allowed to show programs from their subchannels? FOX 61 in Hartford sometimes shows both The Jeffersons and The Addams Family in the overnight hours on Saturdays. FOX 61's .2 channel is AntennaTV and they have the rights to The Jeffersons. FOX 61s sister station is WCCT and WCCT's.2 channel is This-TV which shows The Addams Family.
There's actually an entire thread on the subject.
What about the court shows (Divorce Court, Judge Alex, Judge Judy etc.)?
KBHK in San Francisco used to run 'Three Stooges' and 'Little Rascals' in a half-hour format, occasionally as separate shows,back-to-back, and sometimes mixed into one 30-minute show. I don't know if they were packaged that way.
KBHK also used to rotate Abbot and Costello movies with Bowery Boys films on Saturday afternoons, and Sunday mornings(after the Stooges and Rascals) were rotations of Shirley Temple flicks, and the 'Blondie' and 'Ma and Pa Kettle' series.
Universal originally sold The Rockford Files and Quincy as a package in an attempt to defraud James Garner out of his interest in his show. If you wanted Rockford, you had to take Quincy with it or "no deal." They got busted when a station in Washington state revealed invoices that listed Quincy at a hugely inflated price, but Rockford being virtually given away with it. By doing this, they were paying Garner peanuts for his show, but stuffing their pockets on Quincy. Garner sued and won a bundle.
In the 70's and maybe early 80's there was a distributor named Leo Gutman who specialized in "genre" films; he distributed the Sherlock Holmes pictures and possibly the other detective film series you mentioned.
In the 70's and maybe early 80's there was a distributor named Leo Gutman who specialized in "genre" films; he distributed the Sherlock Holmes pictures and possibly the other detective film series you mentioned.
In the 60's and 70's WREC/WREG CBS 3 in Memphis carried Tarzan movies on early Saturday afternoons and Laurel and Hardy and Shirley Temple movies on Sunday mornings. Could these have been part of some package?
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Reading some of the posts in this thread, it may be useful to understand that in television syndication "packaged" means more than one program -- pretty much always in the same genre -- sold as a set to stations, as opposed to each program being sold individually.
So, for examples:
The I Dream Of Jeannie/Bewitched combo is sold as a package, and has been for well over a decade now. As noted, they are both on Antenna TV now and always run back-to-back, although in keeping with Antenna's programming philosophy it is two episodes of each; back when they were first syndicated as a package to local stations (circa 1999 or around there) they would run daily single episodes back-to-back on whatever station carried them ... never split on the schedule, never split between stations in a market. In fact, IIRC, the original syndication was barter rather than cash and running them together was a contractual obligation to the sponsor.
Wheel Of Fortune/Jeopardy has been sold as a package since the syndicated version of the latter premiered in September, 1984. Wheel (officially at that point the "nighttime version" since it was still on NBC's daytime schedule) had been offered solo for the 1983-84 season. I read somewhere that Wheel's success was what caused Merv Griffin to bring back Jeopardy and offer it as a companion, but that may have been opinion rather than fact as I read it several years ago and can't find where that remark was. You did all know that Merv created both shows, right?
Hercules/Xena and Tic Tac Dough/Joker's Wild were also packages, never airing on different stations in the same market.
And yes, there have been movie packages like the Holmes/Chan/Moto and the Temple/Tarzan/Laurel and Hardy, although those are not as well known as stations have always been able to mix those into the other movie libraries they have bought airing rights to (that is to say, not all stations gave them exclusive timeslots).
Pretty much the rest of the other examples given are not cases of packaging (the story about Universal vs. Garner is legendary but I don't believe Quincy/Rockford was ever officially promoted as a package in the trades ... please prove me wrong if I missed an ad for it anywhere!) but just individual stations' programmers coming to identical conclusions about what shows play well scheduled next to each other.
So, for examples:
The I Dream Of Jeannie/Bewitched combo is sold as a package, and has been for well over a decade now. As noted, they are both on Antenna TV now and always run back-to-back, although in keeping with Antenna's programming philosophy it is two episodes of each; back when they were first syndicated as a package to local stations (circa 1999 or around there) they would run daily single episodes back-to-back on whatever station carried them ... never split on the schedule, never split between stations in a market. In fact, IIRC, the original syndication was barter rather than cash and running them together was a contractual obligation to the sponsor.
Wheel Of Fortune/Jeopardy has been sold as a package since the syndicated version of the latter premiered in September, 1984. Wheel (officially at that point the "nighttime version" since it was still on NBC's daytime schedule) had been offered solo for the 1983-84 season. I read somewhere that Wheel's success was what caused Merv Griffin to bring back Jeopardy and offer it as a companion, but that may have been opinion rather than fact as I read it several years ago and can't find where that remark was. You did all know that Merv created both shows, right?
Hercules/Xena and Tic Tac Dough/Joker's Wild were also packages, never airing on different stations in the same market.
And yes, there have been movie packages like the Holmes/Chan/Moto and the Temple/Tarzan/Laurel and Hardy, although those are not as well known as stations have always been able to mix those into the other movie libraries they have bought airing rights to (that is to say, not all stations gave them exclusive timeslots).
Pretty much the rest of the other examples given are not cases of packaging (the story about Universal vs. Garner is legendary but I don't believe Quincy/Rockford was ever officially promoted as a package in the trades ... please prove me wrong if I missed an ad for it anywhere!) but just individual stations' programmers coming to identical conclusions about what shows play well scheduled next to each other.
Thanks for the info KM. Were WKRP and Newhart (80's) sold as a package? I know they both ran on TNN efore it became Spike TV, then WGN, and for a while on Antenna TV, although WKRP is currently off their schedule. also, are the Learcoms sold as a package since they're carried heavily by Antenna in prime time and also on Family Net? Thanks again!
For KM. I noticed when Family Ties and Cheers came into syndication in 1987 through Paramount several stations in the outer areas (New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Memphis etc) would carry both shows. In Jackson, Miss., they, along with Webster, were originally announced for WDBD 40 Indy/Fox. However, the WDBD owner filed for bankruptcy months later so WLBT 3 NBC debuted all 3 shows. Was that a deal where to get Cheers and Family Ties you had to take Webster as well? There is a promotional video on You Tube about a Sacramento or SF Channel 40 in the mid 80's advertising for upcoming programing including Taxi, Gimme a Break, Family Ties and Cheers (3 of the 4 were Paramount Distribution I believe). Was their pairing just a case of luck or the way things worked back them. An info would be appreciated.
New York's WPIX 11 (Independent/The WB), for instance was broadcasting the Hercules/Xena combo in the NY market.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
I don't know about WKRP and Newhart, although it's entirely possible they were sold as a package since both came from MTM. But there have also been lots of cases where a station purchased multiple programs from the same company even if not packaged together, so it could also have been a really good sales effort by MTM's salespeople at NATPE (the annual convention at which most syndicated fare is officially offered for sale to stations).
As for the Learcoms, those are syndicated by Sony, so the fact that they are together on Antenna is just due to the fact that Tribune buys a lot of shows from Sony. So do cable networks. There isn't a lot of packaging of reruns; that has happened much more with first-run syndication and has happened occasionally when a hot off-network program can boost sales of other shows in a syndicator's library. Again, more likely it's a case of a sales rep giving a station or cable network a deal on the hot title if they also buy one or more of the lesser-selling shows.
Again, it's very rare for off-network reruns to be packaged. In the case of Family Ties and Cheers, both were very hot titles for Paramount when first introduced in syndication and so whichever station got to one ahead of the others was likely to take the other at the same time just to keep the competition from getting it. And Webster may have been a case of getting a price reduction on the other two if all three were taken by the same station. Promos on the local stations are not indicative of any kind of deal ... they're just trying to do the best they can to keep people from switching channels by promoting all the shows they carry as a group, in hopes that enough viewers will like most of them and keep the proverbial and obsolete "dial" set to their channel.
So did every market in which both were carried. As I said earlier, they were sold as a package and it is not likely you would find any evidence of them being split between stations in a market.
The question was not which markets these shows were carried in, but which programs were sometimes sold to stations in syndication packages.
What about The Nanny/Mad About You? I think they were sold as package at some point.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Let me say this for the THIRD time.
Off-network rerun packaging happens only rarely. That practice is pretty much reserved for first-run syndication. That does not prevent the syndication companies from running ads in the trades promoting multiple programs ... in fact, most ads right before the NATPE convention tend to include all the programs a syndicator offers. That does not mean they have been packaged, but it does increase the possibility of station buyers purchasing multiple programs from a single syndicator, especially if perceived as being potential ratings-grabbers with their viewers.
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