Owner National Amusements Founded 1952 | Industry Television shows Ceased operations 2012 | |
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Fate Merged with Paramount Network Television Defunct 2006 (original company)2012 (revived company)2016 (second revived company) | ||
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CBS Productions is a production arm of the CBS television network, now a part of CBS Corporation, formed in 1952 to produce shows in-house, instead of relying solely on outside productions. Its first production was CBS Television Workshop, a drama anthology series. It featured an early appearance of Audrey Hepburn.
Later productions of note included the original Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, The Wild Wild West, Hawaii Five-O, Touched by an Angel, Walker, Texas Ranger and 1998-2006 episodes of The King of Queens, the CSI franchise and season 1 of 90210.
Prior to 1978, CBS Productions was credited in its entertainment programs merely as "The CBS Television Network". From 1978-1995, the company was known as CBS Entertainment Productions.
Distribution rights to most CBS-produced entertainment programming, especially those that debuted prior to 1971, was acquired that year by Viacom Enterprises, the syndication unit of Viacom, which was created to spin out CBS's domestic syndication and cable television operations. CBS retained ownership of these programs (including the rights to release them for other media, such as VHS and later DVD) with at least one exception—the Terrytoons library, which was acquired by Viacom with the split, as CBS saw no value in the cartoons. Viacom and CBS rejoined in 1999 with Viacom's acquisition of CBS. In 2004, CBS Productions merged with Paramount Network Television.
In January 2006, as a result of the splitting of CBS and Viacom into separate companies, the former company acquired Paramount Television and renamed it CBS Paramount Television, whose main production division, CBS Paramount Network Television, continued to produce the former CBS Productions shows that are still running. Later on September 26, 2006, CBS Paramount Domestic Television, CBS Paramount International Television, CBS Home Entertainment, and King World were combined to form CBS Television Distribution.
On September 2, 2008, after becoming defunct in 2004, the CBS Productions name was re-activated to continue producing new episodes of 90210 on The CW. 90210 was the first series produced by the resurrected CBS Productions name. Its name was also used on Hawaii Five-0, 90210 and Blue Bloods for a brief period of time.
On March 4, 2015, the CBS Productions name was activated for a third time to produce CSI: Cyber globally but was deactivated when the show was cancelled in March 2016.