Paramount Television

Paramount Television is an American television production/distribution company that was active from 1967 until 2006 and revived in 2013. Most of this time was as the television arm of the Paramount Pictures film studio. Its predecessor is Desilu Productions.

Background

The company was known for producing and distributing programs such as The Andy Griffith Show in the 1960s, Happy Days on ABC in the 1970s, Cheers and its spinoff Frasier on NBC in 1982 and 1993, the Star Trek franchise, Girlfriends in 2000 (with Grammnet Productions, 2006-2008 episodes by CBS Paramount Network Television) on UPN (later CW), Duckman in 1994 (with Klasky Csupo) on USA Network, and the daily Paramount staple Entertainment Tonight in 1981, among others.

Origins

Desilu Productions

The predecessor company, Desilu Productions, was originally founded in 1950 by Lucille Ball (1911–1989) and Desi Arnaz (1917-1986) for the purpose of producing Lucy's CBS radio series "My Favorite Husband" and later their sitcom, I Love Lucy, for the CBS network. It later produced Ball's follow-up series, The Lucy Show, as well as such other shows as Our Miss Brooks, The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, and Star Trek (the latter three as well as The Lucy Show would be continued under Paramount Television).

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting sound with moving images in monochrome (black-and-white), or in colour, and in two or three dimensions. It can refer to a television set, a television program, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium, for entertainment, education, news and advertising.

Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s. After World War II, an improved form became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the US and most other developed countries. The availability of storage media such as VHS tape (1976), DVDs (1997), and high-definition Blu-ray Discs (2006) enabled viewers to watch recorded material such as movies. At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity. Another development was the move from standard-definition television (SDTV) (576i, with 576 interlaced lines of resolution and 480i) to high-definition television (HDTV), which provides a resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in various formats: 1080p, 1080i and 720p. Since 2010, with the invention of smart television, Internet television has increased the availability of television programs and movies via the Internet through services such as Netflix, iPlayer, Hulu, Roku and Chromecast.

Paramount

Paramount may refer to:

Companies

Music