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In the television industry (as in radio), syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast programs to multiple stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in countries where television is organised around networks with local affiliates, notably the United States. In Europe however, countries have mainly centralised networks without local affiliates and syndication is less common. Shows can also be syndicated internationally.
Types of syndication:
- first-run syndication refers to programming that is broadcast for the first time as a syndicated show, or at least first so offered in a given country (foreign programs, first presented on a network in their country of origin, have often been syndicated in the U.S. and in some other countries);
- off-network syndication involves the sale of a program that was originally run on network television: a rerun;
- public-broadcasting syndication has arisen in the U.S. as a parallel service to stations in the PBS network and the handful of independent public stations.
Main "whys and hows"
When syndicating a show, the production company, or a distribution company or "syndicator," usually attempts to sell the show to one station in each television "market," or area, in the country and around the world. If successful, this can be lucrative; but the syndicator may only be able to sell the show in a fraction of the markets.
Syndication differs from selling the show to a television network; once a network picks up a show, it is usually guaranteed to run on all the network's affiliates, on the same day of the week and at the same time (in a given timezone, in countries where this is a concern). Many production companies create their shows and sell them to networks at a loss, at least at first, hoping that the series will succeed and that eventual off-network syndication will turn a profit for the show.
A syndicated program is sold to stations for "cash" (rights are purchased by the stations to insert some or all of the ads at their level); given to stations for access to airtime (wherein the syndicators get the ad revenue); or the combination of both. The trade of program for airtime is called "barter."
While market penetration can vary widely and revenues can be unreliable, the producers often enjoy more content-freedom in the absence of network standards and practice officials; frequently, some innovative ideas are explored by first-run syndicated programming, which the networks are leery of giving airtime to; the early-1990s music program Sunday Night, later Night Music, for example, which offered intentionally-odd mixes of critically-favored musicians, such as (in one episode), soul singer Al Green, alternative rock band The Pixies, and avant garde jazz musician Sun Ra. Meanwhile, top-rated syndicated shows usually have a market reach of 98%.
It should also be noted that very often Series that are aired in syndication are cut (for example: A usual sitcom runs 22 minutes. In syndication they are often cut back to 20 minutes to make room for more commercials.)
Syndication can take the form of either weekly or daily syndication. The game shows, some "tabloid" and entertainment news shows, and stripped talk shows are broadcast daily or weekdaily, while most other first-run syndicated shows are broadcast weekly.
First-run syndication
As with radio in the U.S., television networks in their early years particularly didn't offer full-days-worth of programming for their affiliates, even in the evening or "prime time" hours. Also, from the beginning, other stations were not affiliated with any network. Both groups sought to supplement their locally produced programming and whatever network feeds there were with content that could be flexibly scheduled. The development of videotape and, much later, enhanced satellite downlink access furthered these options.
The 1950s and 1960s
Ziv Television Programs, Inc., after establishing itself as a major radio syndicator, was the first major first-run television syndicator, creating several long-lived series in the 1950s and selling them directly to regional sponsors, who in turn sold the shows to local stations. Among the most famous and widely watched Ziv offerings were Sea Hunt and Highway Patrol. Some first-run syndicated series were picked up by networks in the 1950s and early '60s, notably Superman and Mr. Ed. The networks started syndicating their reruns in the late 1950s, and first-run syndication shrank sharply, for a decade (CBS's first syndication arm, Viacom, would eventually be split off from the company and eventually come back to purchase CBS, having already purchased Paramount Pictures and its interests, and created UPN). Some stalwart series continued, notably Death Valley Days; other ambitious projects were also to flourish, however briefly, such as The Play of the Week (1959–1961), produced by David Susskind (of the syndicated talk show Open End and also producer of such network fare as NYPD).However, FCC rulings in the late 1960s curtailed the U.S. networks' ability to schedule programming in what has become known as the "early fringe," notably the 7-8pm (ET/PT) hour of "prime time," with the stated hope that this might encourage more local programming of social and cultural relevance to communities (off-network syndie repeats were also banned); some projects of this sort came to fruition, though usually relatively commercial and slick ones such as the Group W Evening Magazine/PM Magazine franchise, and such pre-existing national projects as the brief commercial-television run of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s interview/debate series Firing Line. The more obvious result was a rash of Canadian-produced syndicated dramatic series, such as the Gilligan's Island knock-off Dusty's Trail and the Colgate-sponsored Dr. Simon Locke; game shows, often evening editions of network afternoon series, flourished, and a few odd items such as Wild Kingdom, cancelled by NBC in 1971, had a continuing life as syndicated programming tailor-made for the early fringe.
The 1970s
Into the 1970s, first-run syndication continued to be an odd mix: cheaply produced, but not always poor-quality, "filler" programming. These included the dance-music show Soul Train, several sports history series, and 20th Century Fox's That's Hollywood, a television variation on the popular That's Entertainment! theatrically released collections of film clips from the MGM library.There were also many imported programs distributed this way. These include the impressive documentary series Wild, Wild World of Animals (repackaged by Time Life with narration by William Conrad) and Thames Television's sober and necessarily grim The World at War. The Starlost (1973) was a Canadian series, apparently modified from the vision of science fiction writers Harlan Ellison and Ben Bova. UFO (1970) and 1999 (1975) came from British producer Gerry Anderson and his partner Lew Grade, previously best-known for their Supermarionation (puppet/animation) series, like Thunderbirds. The most successful syndicated show in the US in the 1970s was probably the The Muppet Show, also from Lew Grade.
Game shows thrived in syndication in the decade. Five-day-a-week versions of What's My Line? and To Tell the Truth premiered in the late '60s and found loyal audiences until 1975 and 1978, respectively. Several daytime network games began producing once-a-week nighttime versions for the early-evening hours, usually with bigger prizes and often featuring different hosts (emcees were limited to appearing on one network and one syndicated game simultaneously) and modified titles (Match Game PM or The $25,000 Pyramid, for example). Of these shows, Let's Make a Deal and The Hollywood Squares were the first to jump to twice-a-week syndicated versions around 1973. The nighttime version of Family Feud (1977) quickly jumped from once-weekly to twice, and finally to five-days-a-week, and its massive popularity, along with that of new five-a-day entries like Jack Barry's The Joker's Wild (1977) and Tic Tac Dough (1978) and Chuck Barris's increasingly-raunchy remakes of his '60s hits The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, brought an end (with rare exceptions) to the era of once-a-week games.
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home (1973) was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series attempting to ape the All in the Family-style sitcoms; Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (1969) was an Australian children's series in the manner of Flipper or Gentle Ben (a decade later, the decidedly not-for-children Australian Prisoner: Cell Block H would have a brief US syndicated run); and a Canadian sketch-comedy series began appearing on U.S. television stations in 1977—Second City Television would eventually find a home, for two seasons, on NBC, as SCTV Network 90 (and on cable station Showtime later).
The Universal / Paramount-produced package of original programming, Operation Prime Time, began appearing on ad hoc quasi-networks of (almost by necessity) non-network stations in the U.S. in 1978, with a mini-series adaptation of John Jakes's The Bastard.
From the latter '60s into the late '70s, Westinghouse also found considerable success with The Mike Douglas Show, a variety/talk show hosted by a singer with an easygoing interview style, which played in afternoons in most markets; similar programs soon followed featuring Merv Griffin, who had been the host of CBS's most sustained late-night answer to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson previously, and another network veteran, Dinah Shore. Also notable was the growing success of audience-participation talk shows, particularly that of the innovator of the format, Phil Donahue.
First-run syndication in the 1970s also made it possible for some shows no longer wanted by network television to remain on the air. In 1971, ABC cancelled The Lawrence Welk Show, which went on to produce new episodes in syndication for another 11 years. Also in 1971, CBS dropped Lassie and Hee Haw, the latter show's run ending as part of the network's cancellation of all of its rural-oriented shows (see The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres). Lassie entered first-run syndication for two years, while Hee Haw continued to produce new episodes until 1992.
The 1980s through today
During the latter 1980s and early 1990s and throughout the remainder of the decade there was a resurgence of dramatic first-run syndicated programs, many of them in the science fiction and fantasy fields, or adventure dramas with fantastic elements. Baywatch aired on NBC for one season and was cancelled, but became very popular in the U.S. with new episodes in syndication and extremely popular worldwide. The Next Generation debuted in 1987 and became one of the most-watched syndicated shows throughout its seven-year run. Deep Space Nine was also syndicated. The Legendary Journeys and its spin-off series Warrior Princess helped build the audiences for such shows; Babylon 5 and Forever Knight drew devoted "cult" audiences; Psi Factor and The Legacy attempted to draw on the audience for the FOX series The X-Files (as did, even less probably, the shortlived spinoff Baywatch Nights). Among the slightly less fantasticated series were Relic Hunter and VIP, She Spies and Once a Thief. In 1997, Final Conflict, based on ideas from the late Gene Roddenberry, premiered in syndication. Three years later, a second Gene Roddenberry series, Andromeda also premiered in syndication.Also in the 1980s, news programming of various sorts began to be offered widely to stations. Independent Network News, which was produced at WPIX studios in New York City, was a half-hour weekdaily program that ran for several years on independent stations; CNN would offer a package of its Headline News to broadcast stations later. Entertainment Tonight began its long and continuing run as a "soft" news daily strip, with a number of imitations following; and "tabloid" television, in the wake of ABC's 20/20 and, more immediately, Fox's A Current Affair, would become a syndication staple with such series as Extra and Real TV. Another area where network dominance was challenged by syndicated programming in the 1980s was in late-night talk shows; The Arsenio Hall Show was the first and only very successful one, but Alan Thicke's earlier shortlived Thicke of the Night, Lauren Hutton's innovatively-shot Lauren Hutton and..., and Dennis Miller, Whoopi Goldberg, David Brenner and Keenan Ivory Wayans attempted similar programs; the only syndicated latenight contender to fail as infamously in ratings and critical reception as CBS's The Pat Sajak Show and Fox's The Chevy Chase Show was Magic Johnson's The Magic Hour.
As UPN and the WB began offering their affiliates ever-more nights of primetime programming, less call has been felt for first-run drama, at least, in the U.S.; much as with the closing of windows that provided opportunity for Ziv in the '50s and various producers in the early '70s. The more expensive dramatic projects are less attractive to syndicators (particularly when they might be sold, with somewhat less risk, to cable channels); "reality" series such as Cheaters and Maximum Exposure and several series about dating stunts began to be more common in the early 2000s; even among these, a few programs have gained some positive critical attention, notably Animal Rescue and Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures.
Several game shows are currently syndicated; the most popular by far are Wheel of Fortune and the latest incarnation of Jeopardy!, premiering in 1983 and 1984 respectively. The shows have been 1-2 or 1-3 in the syndication ratings consistently since at least the late-'80s. In fact, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Wheel is the most popular syndicated television program not only in the United States, but worldwide as well. Family Feud ended its first syndication run in 1985; a revival was a moderate hit from 1988 to 1994 and still another revival has been airing since 1999. By far the most successful entry into the market in the 2000s has been the daily version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, premiering in 2002. New game show concepts (that is, not based on an existing or pre-existing format) are rarely tried and usually unsuccessful in syndication; Street Smarts was somewhat of an exception.
The dominant form of first-run syndication in the US for the last three decades has been the "stripped" talk show, such as Donahue, Oprah Winfrey, The Tyra Banks Show, and The Jerry Springer Show. In many markets, a stripped show will be seen twice daily, usually with different episodes. Sometimes, station groups with more than one station in a market, or a "duopoly," will run one episode of a strip on one of their stations in the morning, and the other available episode on another of their stations that night. Meanwhile, the popularity of some of the audience-participation talk shows continues to encourage new participants, some of whom, such as Morton Downey, Jr. and Rosie O'Donnell, have brief periods of impressive ratings and influence; others, such as Oprah Winfrey and Maury Povich, have a sustained run. A notable scheduling decision was made by KRON-TV in San Francisco; a dispute with NBC led to their disaffiliation from the network, and since all the other larger networks were already represented in San Francisco, KRON decided to become the largest-market independent commercial station on the VHF band in the US, with the exception of Los Angeles's Viacom-owned KCAL (coincidentally once owned by KRON's current owners, Young Broadcasting), and soon tried running Dr. Phil, a popular new stripped series hosted by Winfrey-associate Phil McGraw, in primetime, with impressive ratings results.
While in earlier times, independent TV stations thrived on syndicated programming (including some venerable and quite profitable stations such as KMSP in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market), with the loosening of FCC regulations and the creation of new additional TV networks (Fox, The WB, UPN and i), most of these independents have joined one or another of these or smaller (religious or low-budget) networks.
Off-network syndication
It is commonly said in the U.S. industry that "syndication is where the real money is" when producing a TV show. In other words, while the initial run of any particular television series may theoretically lose money for its producing studio, the ensuing syndication will generate enough profit to balance out any losses.
Off-network syndication occurs when a network television show is syndicated in packages containing some or all episodes, and sold to as many television stations/markets as possible. Sitcoms (short for "situation comedies") often do better in syndication than some dramatic shows due to the fact that most sitcoms have few ongoing storylines; a viewer can tune into many half-hour sitcoms without worrying about having missed the last episode. With some dramatic series, missing an episode can throw off the viewer, even if the episode itself is a self-contained story. Moreover, syndicators and stations often will run episodes of some series out-of-order to satisfy other requirements at the expense of viewer satisfaction; this is less costly for sitcoms than other shows with more pronounced serial elements.
As an example of off-network syndication, the comedy show Seinfeld ran on the NBC television network from 1989 to 1998. Sony/Columbia Pictures syndicated the show to local TV stations in 99% of the markets in the country in 1994, the year that the show entered the top 10 list of network shows, and it became the most successfully syndicated rerun ever. In 1998, TBS bought cable rights to all 180 episodes of the show for 4 years, paying somewhere between States dollar|US$" target="_blank" >*120 million and US$180 million.
Cable stations have been known to vie among themselves for off-net syndication; in 2006, episodes of the series Full House were appearing on two cable channels (ABC Family and Nick at Nite); Roseanne likewise was visible on multiple cable channels. Other series seen on multiple cable channels simultaneously were often being shared by channels which had the same corporate owners.
In recent years, more and more fee plugs have appeared during off-network syndication non-game shows such as Seinfeld and Crime Scene Investigation. Some of these fees charged pay for the distribution and editing of these shows for syndication, while others pay for closed captioning and promotional consideration.
In any event, the amount of stations airing syndicated shows depends on which station in a particular market airs a particular show.
Sometimes, how a program is acquired for syndication varies. In the case of shows syndicated by King World, stations loyal to the company generally have first choice on any program King World offers. For example, Sacramento, California's KXTV is a charter affiliate of King World, and is offered first choice in the Sacramento/Stockton/Modesto market on King World's programming, and thus has first right of refusal (this is despite King World parent CBS owning both KOVR and KMAX in the same market)--for example, KXTV passed on the local syndicated rights to CSI, so King World offered it to other stations in the market in order of importance (this is generally the rule of thumb for all available television markets). For other shows syndicated by other companies, the syndication rights may be auctioned off to the highest bidder in a particular market.
Strip/daily syndication
Off-network syndication can take several forms. The most common form is known as strip syndication or daily syndication, when episodes of a television series are shown daily five times a week. Typically, this means that enough episodes must exist to allow for continual strip syndication to take place over the course of several months, without episodes being shown again. If a small number of episodes exist, the entire run of the series can be shown in a matter of weeks. As explained by 'David Crane' (Creator and Executive Producer of Friends): A show will go in syndication for sure when it has reached it's 5th year or 100th episode. If a Network Show only runs for 2 years or so there is usually no demand for Syndication. But as you can read below, there are exceptions.For example, the sitcom The Honeymooners ran in syndication for decades despite having produced only 39 episodes during its original one-season run (1955–1956). When shown in strip syndication, the entire series run could have been broadcast in seven weeks and four days. (Beginning in 1985, Jackie Gleason released additional episodes consisting of Honeymooners sketches which had originally aired as part of The Jackie Gleason Show and eventually became part of the Honeymooners syndication package.) Seinfeld had 180 episodes and thus could be aired in strip syndication for 36 weeks without repeating an episode, if one episode was shown daily.
In some cases, more than one episode is shown daily. Half-hour sitcoms are sometimes syndicated in groups of two or four episodes, taking up one or two hours of broadcast time.
Weekly syndication
If a series is not strip syndicated, it may be aired once a week, instead of five times a week. This allows shows with fewer episodes to last long in syndication, but it also may mean viewers will tire of waiting a week for the next episode of a show they have already seen and stop watching. More often, hourlong dramas in their first several runs in syndication are offered weekly; sitcoms are more likely to get stripped. In recent years there has been something of a trend toward showing two consecutive episodes of a program on Saturday and Sunday nights after prime time (generally following the local news). This pattern has been particularly prominent for shows which are still in production but have run long enough to have many episodes; both ER and The West Wing are currently being shown in this manner, as The X-Files was during and immediately after its network run.Public-broadcasting syndication
As with commercial stations, not all the air time nor all the perceived audience are met by the productions offered U.S. public-broadcasting stations by PBS; additionally, there are some independent public stations in the U.S. which take no programming from that (somewhat) decentralized network. As a result, there are several syndicators of programming for the non-profit stations, several of which are descendents of the regional station groups which combined some, not all, of their functions into the creation of PBS in 1969. American Public Television (APT) is the largest of these, nearly matched by NETA, the National Educational Telecommunications Association; similarly, the recently defunct Continental Program Marketing was another of the syndicator-descendents (of the Northeastern, Southeastern, and Rocky Mountain educational networks, respectively) of the pre-PBS era. Among the other notable organizations in the U.S. are Westlink Satellite Operations (based at Alburquerque's KNME), BBC Worldwide Americas (which often works with other distributors and individual stations, since it has no satellite access of its own in the U.S.), Deutsche Welle, Executive Program Services, the Program Resource Group and its member-station WLIW, Long Island, NY's PBS station, which is (with the arguable exception of KNME) the most prolific contributor of any individual station of syndicated programming, most obviously the BBC World News, Doctor Who and Monty Python's Flying Circus in the U.S.
International syndication
Syndication also applies to international markets. Programs from the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina are syndicated to local TV stations in the United States, and programs from the United States are syndicated elsewhere in the world.
One of the best-known internationally syndicated television series has been The Muppet Show, which was produced in the United Kingdom and shown on ITV, and appeared around the world, including the United States, where it aired in syndication, and Canada, where CBC aired the show.
Colombian, Brazilian, Mexican and Venezuelan telenovelas are programmed throughout the Portuguese and Spanish-speaking world and even in India, China and Russia.
See also
Sources
"Television syndication"