Columbia Pictures Television (CPT) was the second name of the Columbia Pictures television division Screen Gems (SG). The studio changed its name on September 4, 1974.
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As the successor in interest to Screen Gems, it assumed productions of the daytime soap operas Days of our Lives and The Young and the Restless. During the 1970s and '80s, CPT made many co-productions with Spelling-Goldberg Productions, including S.W.A.T., Starsky & Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Fantasy Island, Hart to Hart, and T.J. Hooker. It also acquired the syndication rights to several independently produced series: Barney Miller from Danny Arnold, What's Happening! from Bud Yorkin, and Soap and Benson from Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions.
The 1980s brought significant changes to CPT. In 1982, The Coca-Cola Company bought Columbia Pictures. In 1984, CPT joined forces with Lexington Broadcast Services Company by creating a joint venture between the two companies called Colex Enterprises to distribute library shows such as Father Knows Best and The Monkees, while throughout the 1980s and 1990s other shows such as Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and The Partridge Family were licensed to The Program Exchange.
In 1985, Norman Lear sold his company, Embassy Television to Coca-Cola, The company gained the rights to such shows as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, Good Times, Maude, Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, One Day At A Time, Who's The Boss?, and Silver Spoons, among others. In 1986, the former Lear brands (Embassy Television, Embassy Telecommunications and Tandem Productions) were merged to become Embassy Communications; the Tandem brand ceased to be used after the cancellation of Diff'rent Strokes, while the Columbia and Embassy brands continued to exist separately until 1988. Under Coca-Cola's ownership, Embassy saw success with 227 and Married with Children.
In 1985, Columbia and LBS Communications launched What's Happening Now!! in first-run syndication. The show was a sequel to the 1970s ABC sitcom What's Happening!!, which they had acquired from Bud Yorkin's production company. The following year, the sitcom Designing Women began a successful seven-year run on CBS. The same year, Coke also acquired Merv Griffin Enterprises, producer of the popular game shows, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune; (the nighttime versions were distributed by King World, which is now handled by successor CBS Television Distribution. However, Sony Pictures Television handles off-net syndication reruns by broadcasting them on GSN, while sister company Sony Pictures Home Entertainment owns DVD rights, though, as game shows, are unlikely to get a proper release).
Major changes took place in 1987. The studio formed Coca-Cola Telecommunications for branding of the second season of The Real Ghostbusters with DiC Enterprises, Dinosaucers, and the last two seasons of Punky Brewster in 1987 and 1988. A former NBC in-house production, Columbia acquired the rights to Punky from NBC because fin-syn regulations prevented the network from producing more episodes for syndication after they cancelled it. During the same year, Tri-Star Pictures formed Tri-Star Television and produced the sitcom My Two Dads. TriStar also had another series called Werewolf. In late 1987, Coca-Cola spun off their entertainment holdings to a separate company (which they partially owned) called Columbia Pictures Entertainment after a film Ishtar turned out to be a notorious failure. In February 1988, Embassy Communications was later renamed to ELP Communications. Meanwhile, Colex Enterprises, Coca-Cola Telecommunications, and Embassy Communications (the distributor arm) were merged into the new Columbia Pictures Television Distribution. All shows now ended with the Columbia logo between 1988 and 1991.
On September 1989, Sony Corporation bought Columbia Pictures Entertainment for $3.4 billion and the next day, Sony acquired the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company (including Barris Industries library of game shows including The Newlywed Game, The Dating Game, and The Gong Show) for $200 million after hiring film producrs Peter Guber and John Peters to run the company. In 1991 changed its name to Sony Pictures Entertainment and TriStar Television was relaunched that same year. Throughout the 1990s the studio launched such successful shows as Beakman's World on TLC and CBS in 1992, Mad About You on NBC in 1992, Ricki Lake, The Nanny on CBS in 1993, Party of Five, NewsRadio, Malcolm & Eddie on UPN in 1996, and the short lived cult animated series The Critic on ABC and FOX in 1994. The most successful by far was Seinfeld, a Castle Rock Entertainment production which Columbia distributed in syndication.
During this time company acquired a vast back catalog of independently produced game shows with the acquisition of Stewart Tele Enterprises and Barry & Enright Productions. Along with the Chuck Barris and Merv Griffin game shows they already owned, these were part of the basis of the Game Show Network, launched on December 1, 1994. The same year when SPE formed Columbia TriStar Television and it's global arm Columbia TriStar Television Distribution in 1995. In 1998 the name ELP Communications was folded entirely into Columbia TriStar Television and now only operates as an in-name unit. In early 2001, Columbia Pictures Television was retired for good and was folded into Columbia TriStar Television. In 2002, Sony Pictures announced that it would change the name of its TV subsidiary to Sony Pictures Television.
CPT Holdings, Inc. was introduced in 1974 as a copyrighting name and the holder for classic shows for Columbia Pictures Television from recent buyouts. It is currently a service mark of Sony Pictures Television
Other than its own series Designing Women and its daytime drama The Young and the Restless, the company holds What's Happening!!, The Joker's Wild, incarnations from Pyramid, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and 3's a Crowd.
During the years of Columbia Pictures Television, the company identified itself in the credits as Columbia Pictures Television, CPT Holdings, Inc., Columbia Pictures Television, Inc. and Columbia Pictures Television Distribution.
Colex Enterprises was created in 1984 as a partnership between CPT and Lexington Broadcast Services Co. The venture ended in 1988 and was succeeded by CPTD, which was succeeded in 1995 by CTTD, then in 2001 by CTDT which is now known as SPT since 2002.
Colex was most popularly known for distributing classic shows from the libraries of Screen Gems, CPT, and the later films of Bob Hope (The Seven Little Foys, The Lemon Drop Kid, etc.).
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