Ziv Television Programs, Inc. was an American television syndication and production company, producer of popular 1950s syndicated TV programs like Sea Hunt, Highway Patrol, Men Into Space, The Cisco Kid, Mr. District Attorney, and I Led Three Lives. 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. ... Sea Hunt was an American television adventure series from pioneering syndicator Ziv TV that ran from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in repeats for decades afterward. ... Highway Patrol, after Sea Hunt, was probably the most popular and influential of the dramatic series offered to station in the 1950s by syndicator Ziv TV. It starred Broderick Crawford and was famous for its location shooting, in the still very studio-bound early years of television (it was produced... Men Into Space is the name of a half-hour American television series broadcast in black and white in 1959 and 1960 by CBS which depicted the efforts of the US Air Force to explore and develop space. ... The Cisco Kid was a popular radio, television and film series based on the fictional Western character created by author O. Henry in his short story The Caballeros Way, published in 1907 in the short story collection Heart of the West. ... Mr. ... I Led Three Lives is a US television show which was syndicated by Ziv Television Programs from 1953-56. ...
The company was founded by Federic W. Ziv in 1948 and was a subsidiary of his successful radio syndication business. In 1960 the company was purchased by United Artists and merged with UA's own television company. In 1962 the company became United Artists Television. 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ... The current United Artists logo (a variant was used during the 1980s). ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... United Artists Television is an American television production/distribution company of United Artists Corporation that was formed in 1956 and the division of MGM Television. ...
ZivTelevisionPrograms, 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.
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.
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.
Frederick W. Ziv, the companys founder, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1905.
Programs were priced according to the size of each market; this gave local sponsors a chance to break into radio with affordable quality programming that could be scheduled in any available slot on a stations schedule.
His fortunes in television were entirely tied to the market for first-run syndication, which grew enormously during the first half of the 1950s before going into a steep decline by the end of the decade.