ABSTRACT
Regular, televised film had not only become viable by the end of the 1950s; it had proven dominant. Network prime-time programming was almost completely produced on film in Hollywood, while local stations relied upon several varieties of syndicated film, including older features, animated shorts, and reruns of network-originated series. Like the stereotype plate, theatrical film, phonograph record, and electrical transcription before it, television film had solidified its status as a tangible cultural property that could be repeatedly exploited over time. Accordingly, the syndication of film to local stations was an increasingly lucrative sector of the television industry. The Big Three networks, their initial resistance to film now all but forgotten, embraced film as a means of extending their control of programming, while minimizing its production, promotion, and development costs. Having conquered Hollywood, vanquished first-run telefilm syndicators, and (increasingly) wrested the programming reins from sponsors, they were the only viable buyers of new fictional television series remaining in the national market, and often acquired proprietary and distribution rights to new series in exchange for a network run. Accordingly, network film divisions greatly expanded during the 1960s, bolstering their firms’ domestic and foreign syndication market shares with these new acquisitions. By the end of the decade, and at the height of their power, the networks even made some tentative forays into feature film financing. Off-network syndication had only just begun to impact the U.S.
television industry in the late 1950s. Over the next two decades, the rerun would move from the periphery of the industry to its very center, becoming no less than the ideal product of U.S. commercial television: the perfect incarnation of stability in an often unpredictable programming game. Because of its increasing significance, rerun syndication helped usher in new practices, priorities, and powers throughout the industry in
the 1960s and 1970s. Organizations like NATPE (the National Association of Television Programming Executives) and INTV (the Independent Television Association) formed to promote the syndication trade, and the rerun functioned as the dominant nexus of national and local broadcast distribution. The rerun also marked the rise and fall of network power during the same period, as unprecedented network control over broadcasting was met in the 1970s by extensive federal broadcasting regulations and a growing number of independent stations. Although the FCC ostensibly intended the new broadcasting rules-the Financial Interest and Syndication rules (i.e., Fin-Syn), which forced the networks to divest their ownership stakes in programming, and the Prime Time Access Rule (i.e., PTAR), which scaled back the evening hours of network prime time-to foster diversity in programming, the rules ultimately only assisted the growth of new program buyers and sellers, in the form of independent producers and stations. The resultant nonnetwork television was not a striking alternative to the networks, but instead largely relied upon safe, familiar genres (e.g., game shows and talk shows) and, increasingly, safe, familiar programs (off-network reruns). Rerun syndication was such a staple of the industry by the mid-1970s that a futures market was developed which attempted to cash in on today’s network hits with projections of tomorrow’s off-network profits. By the end of the 1970s-the peak of the over-the-air broadcast era-offnetwork syndication had profoundly affected network and local station schedules, FCC regulations, production guild and union contracts, studio and distributor profitability, the formation of trade organizations and events, and, with Paramount’s Christmas 1979 release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, had even generated a successful feature film franchise. The off-network rerun became the key form of television in the United
States at this time because of its market flexibility and durability. As previous chapters explored, the primary motive of the U.S. broadcasting industry has always been the sale of potential audiences (in the form of scheduled time) to advertisers. However, the sale of programs to broadcasters represents the beginning of that cycle; generally speaking, the more appealing a program is to an audience, the more appealing that same program is to an advertiser. Accordingly, in a conservative industry that, as Thomas Streeter describes, is predicated much more on stability and ‘‘systems maintenance’’ than on innovation or even true competition, a known quantity, a safe bet, is always sought.2 A successful rerun, an I Love Lucy, Star Trek, M*A*S*H, or Friends, has been as safe a bet as they come: programs that can be efficiently exploited time and time again. This chapter traces how off-network syndication (i.e., ‘‘off-net’’) fostered significant changes in the industry in the 1960s and 1970s. The syndication market both expanded and reorganized in the 1960s, resulting in the development of new industrial practices, and the long-delayed blossoming of UHF and independent stations. In the 1970s, the networks,
bowing to new FCC regulations, ceded sectors of the industry and local broadcast schedules to independent interests. However, these rules were not the reorientation of television broadcasting toward localism and alternative voices that they were ostensibly intended to be. Instead, the regime of repetition was further solidified, as off-network reruns were not only ensconced but also virtually codified into particular parts of the schedules on local stations nationwide, sanctioning the development of the television heritage in the 1970s, which redefined television’s role in American culture.
