Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Yes, shows were always cut to insert additional commercials for off-netowrk reruns, and regardless of whether they were taped or filmed. (It was a matter of time, not medium. Even show shot on film were eventually distributed on videotape rather than acutal film.)

When Star Trek first went into syndication, back when shows actually were distributed on film, local station editors would physically cut the film themselves, and discarded the bits of film. More than a few local editors found themselves unexpectedly befriended by girls in their late teens and early twenties who were happy to take this unwanted material off their hands. There was soon quite a brisk trade in original film frames (often mounted in cardboard slide holders) at conventions, in catalogs and through ads in fanzines.

Regards,

Joe

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Not here. In the 70s Star Trek was not cut here in Tulsa, OK, however when i went to Hayward, CA to see family it was. It was cut bad, as in the edits were obvious! Of course it was only 2 or 3 minutes, not the almost 10 minutes they cut from 52 minute shows now.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

The excellent quality reissued film prints of Hawaii Five-O turned up on local stations across the country in the 1990s. They also included all of the 2 parters and 2 hour shows. WTXF in Phildelphia aired them uncut (50 minutes in a 60 minute slot) with limited commerical interruption. That was when I first collected the series (on VHS) and recording them most in LP speed and portions of a few in SP it took 71 tapes!!!

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Syndicated cuts really varied station by station in the 70s and 80s. Going back to "Hawaii Five-0" as an example, WOR aired the 16MM prints of the show in the 80's and chopped a few minutes out of each. When they got the new prints in the 90's, they made new edits but still continued to chop them. However, WOFL in Orlando had these same prints but aired them unedited (50 minutes).

Nowadays, syndicators deliver prints to the station already chopped, and the stations have the option of making additional cuts for even more commercials.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

As far back as I can remember, the syndicated versions were indeed cut.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

I think it may have depended on the show, and the company distributing it, as well as the station that aired it. Half the fun of independent local TV "back in the day" was catching a fuzzy signal (when the weather and the wind were right) from an out-of-town TV station and seeing a show on some other channel in another city, where a show might either (1) not be cut, or (2) be cut in different places. There certainly were cuts being made on some shows that affected all syndicated prints (which tended to be distributed on 16mm film), but it wasn't until about the mid-1980s that pretty much across the board, almost all shows started to be distributed on pre-edited tapes, with the same edits no matter what station aired it. One of my friends used to call this "sneaky editing," because unlike in the past, where a station might drop an entire scene (such as the "tag" from the end of a show), now an episode might have a minute cut here, a line cut there, a few lines cut here, where if you hadn't seen that episode numerous times, you might not immediately notice the edits. I know of people who used to trade tapes and do their own reconstructions of, say, "Lost In Space," using a tape from one station and re-inserting cut scenes from a showing in another city. I remember "Make Room For Daddy" being cut one way on WFBN-Channel 66 in Chicago, and cut in different places on Nick At Nite. MTV/Nick ran "The Monkees" uncut (apart from some rather abrupt fades) while the versions aired in syndication at the same time were chopped by about 5 minutes. Nowadays (well, for the most part since the late 1980s), it's a lot more "streamlined."

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

I'm telling you, Jeff. I saw the remastered Five-O reruns on a Philadelphia station in the mid 90s, and they were definitely uncut from start to finish. 50 minutes is complete! I didn't save the tapes though, because I got rid of VHS when I got my first DVD player when I moved some years back.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

As someone else already said, although most off-network reruns have been edited since they were first distributed, this was (and is) not always the case. Remember, back in the late '60s and early '70s, stations didn't sell all that much commercial time. It's quite likely that smaller, independent stations could've run shows unedited due to lack of paid ad space.

Before the 1980s, all filmed shows were syndicated on film as uncut prints. Its was up to the individual TV stations to do as little (or as much) editing as they needed.

Someone else here also mentioned how editing on video (a line here, a line there) made things less obvious. I guess that's all down to a matter of convenience: it's far easier to edit out a one or two-minute continuous segment of film than to go and try to physically splice out a line here and there. That's why whole scenes were often edited out at the local level, and consequently, the edits were often both obvious (the "pop" in the soundtrack being the most recognisable clue) and sometimes, made little sense (i.e. an episode referring to something that happened in the "missing" scene).

Some stations, though, even into the early 1990s, would sometimes run something unedited, even a few cable networks. I recall TNT doing this with Logan's Run. I almost suspect it was down to lack of advertiser support than anything, but I certainly didn't mind! I know these showings were unedited, though, because at the time I still had ropey CBS off-airs to compare them with.

I seem to remember when the "edited on video" version of Star Trek was sold into syndication in the mid '80s, and that it was being marketed as "edited, but the edits make more sense now, since it's just a line or two of dialogue here and there, rather than entire sequences being cut". Of course, another benefit of this "redistribution" was the improved picture quality, as some stations (like WPIX) were running really tatty-looking 16mm prints (I remember when WPIX took Star Trek off the late-night schedule for awhile, and ran a commercial saying that it would be back, but was having a "facelift" or something like that. A side-benefit of this to me, though, was they replaced it on the schedule with Space: 1999, which I hadn't seen in years!).

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Dude, you really need to read my post more closely before you comment. I mentioned some stations ran these episodes uncut and others cut them up. My post notes that 50 minutes is uncut.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

No problem, Jeff. It's just that a few people on this board were getting on my nerves in other threads.

I remember the WWOR prints of Five-O were edited, so I avoided them in favor of WTXF's instead.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

My local UHF station ran syndicated "Brady Bunch" reruns for several years in the late '70s -- not only were they completely unedited with all bumpers, the first several episodes from the first season even included the original network "next week" previews! (Wish I'd had a VCR back then, since these previews are missing on the DVD sets.)

That same station then abruptly began editing the episodes by 1979 -- it was quite jarring, really, to see 22-minute episodes where I used to see 25-minute ones. (When I wrote them a complaint letter about it, they replied, "The FCC allows us 16 minutes of commercials per hour.") They also began editing "Star Trek" episodes for censorship reasons (they were a CBN affiliate), but that's another story.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

I think syndicated editing must have been going on since the dawn of time...because if you notice in the extras in the "I Love Lucy" dvds, they are always mentioning scenes that were cut before the first syndication airings (and occasionally restored for the dvds). In other words, this has been going on for at least 50 years!

I can confirm that Star Trek, at least, was almost always cut for syndies in the 70s. I was too young to have seen the episodes in first-run; the only reason I even knew things had been cut was because in the late 70s, those fotonovels came out. And the fotonovels always depicted scenes that hadn't aired on my local channel (KTLA in Los Angeles at the time).

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Once syndicators trashed their 16mm libraries and only sent the shows out on pre-cut tape, you could no longer get a show complete no matter where it ran. But in the 80s, if you hunted around, you could find smaller stations that ran the shows complete. The smaller the market, the better chance you had of getting an unedited show.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

1) On WPIX in New York (NOW THE CW) in the early 70's there were a handful of Star Trek episodes that were shown uncut from time to time. Most of them were cut by the local editors however. I remember visiting my aunt and uncle in New Jersey (mid seventies), and watched an episode from a New Haven CT station. I was so excited because I saw a few scenes not present in the new york version.

Flash forward to the 80's My local PBS station boasted they were going to show STAR TREK complete and uncut. They showed a sample episode (ARENA) during a pledge drive. When I saw it was a edited on video (by paramount) syndicated print, I called them up and complained. The next thing I know; the pledge drivers were refuting me on air, insisting their prints were uncut! They had no idea....or didnt care....


2) WSBK in Boston during the late 80's showed uncut network versions of the Bob Newhart show in syndication. They chose not to edit them.

3) The 5th season episodes of Get Smart usually are shown uncut but sped up, as they ran a minute shorter than the rest of the seasons.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

How come some shows use Time Compression more often than cutting, like The Bob Newhart Show for example? Wouldn't that be better than the poor hack up jobs that syndicated stations and TV Land are doing with their shows? Thank God for my owning the complete sets of shows like The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island. The syndicated and TV Land runs have more holes in those shows than swiss cheese!

Did you know that in Canada, there is some law that says they can't censor shows? I head that in Australia, The Brady Bunch is shown uncut. (According to Brady World, the long-ago deleted, now only available on DVD, skinny dipping scene is still intact down under.)

Why can't they offer uncut shows in the USA?

Jack

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

If such a law exists, it gets broken often. All thru my youth, I saw television shows being edited for time, on both the CBC and CTV networks. Edits on the CBC tended to be done with film splices, and the soundtrack would go silent for a second at the edit point. Space: 1999 on CBC was the most memorable example. Nearly every time an episode aired, a different set of edits occurred. Sometimes, CBC would make the edit coming back from a commercial break so that it might not be as obvious. I remember CBC still doing this sort of editing as late as 1983 with its airings of Dallas. As for CTV, I always preferred to watch television shows on American network stations because they would be uncut there (of course when cable companies performed program substitutions/simulcasts, viewing the American network broadcasts became impossible). As late as 1989, CTV was editing scenes out of TV movies like The Trial of the Incredible Hulk just for more commercial time.

Going back to Space: 1999, YTV Canada cut scenes out of episodes in its 1990-2 run of the series but claimed otherwise. The fact that the scenes often involved violence or implied violence (blood on a tunic) or a heated exchange between the Commander and his chief technician, would suggest that the edits were made for content and not time. Most episodes were also time-compressed, even when it was unnecessary- in the case of the slightly shorter second season episodes.

I do know that Prime's reruns of M*A*S*H were the edited syndicated versions, in as much as a memorable scene where a nurse throws a pot of fudge at a door after Maj. Houlihan gives her a tonguelashing was always missing on Prime. And as for Star Trek, CBC and Space used to air the edited, 46-minute versions until about 1998 when complete episodes started making the rounds again on Space.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

In Philadelphia, STAR TREK got its first off-network re-runs on the local indie at the time, Channel 48, WKBS-TV. Initially, the series was cut locally by the station, angering the die-hard Trekkies. So the station responded by announcing that they would air the show complete and uncut and in original network running order. That was a nice gesture for a commercial station to make.

Harry

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Channel 48 ?? I remember the station (which eventually went out of business), but when I first watched
Star Trek reruns in the very late 1970s / early 1980s it was WPHL Channel 17 that had them.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Before your time Jeffy, before your time.

These would have been in the early '70s. Ch. 48 aired STAR TREK in the early evenings following its network run. After they milked the airings they let the package lapse, allowing Channel 17 to pick them up later in the decade. I know when I first got a VHS recorder, Channel 17 was airing them, with those awful prints on their awful color chain. Sposck was not the only green-skinned person on the show on Channel 17!

At some point, and it probably dates to the TNG era, Channel 29 in Philly picked up STAR TREK, giving it, at the time, the distinction of having run on three of the Philadelphia independents.

It now airs through Viacom on Channel 57 in Philly, the CW affiliate, so it's now gone to a fourth station, fifth if you count the initial network airings on then-NBC channel 3.

Harry

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Not exactly, because I was born in 1968, Harry. But as far as discovering Star Trek that's accurate.

Is long dead Channel 57 back in business? I moved to southern California 5 years ago, so I haven't kept up on the Phialdelphia stations.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

As Andy McKinney and others have stated, back in the late 60s and early 70s the syndication prints were apparently delivered to stations uncut and the stations were left on the own as to how and where to make cuts. Back in those days, for example, Ch. 39 in Houston would air "I Love Lucy" in tattered 16mm prints. Half the time, they would lop off about 2 minutes from the opening of the first act (often starting the show in mid-sentence) and half the time they would lop off about 2 minutes from the opening of act two.

My favorite edit was in the episode you may have seen called "The Great Train Robbery," (the train ride back to NY from California). After the mid-commercial break, Lucy discovers that the man in the next compartment has a gun and suspects he's a jewel thief. In one Ch. 39 airing, we came back froim a commercial break to hear Lucy breathlessly telling Ricky, "You better get out of the way of flying bullets!"

There was no attempt to make the cuts subtle but if you were a devoted fan and watched regularly, you eventually saw everything there was to see because of the way they varied the cuts.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Yes. Our station line-up in Philadelphia is:

3 CBS KYW-TV
6 ABC WPVI-TV
10 NBC WCAU-TV
12 PBS WHYY (Wilmington)
17 MY WPHL-TV
23 PBS/NJN WNJS-TV
29 FOX WTXF-TV
35 PBS WYBE
48 Christian WGTW
57 CW WPSG-TV
65 UNI WUVP-TV (Spanish)

Channel 57 first came on in the '80s as a subscription station offering PRISM programming to over-the-air receivers. It then switched to an independent as WGBS-TV owned by Milt Grant. Finally, Viacom ended up owning it and it's a sister station to KYW Channel 3. Both are co-located in new state-of-the-art facilities in Center City Philadelphia.

As for the Channel 48 airings of STAR TREK, I seem to recall them doing something similar, like starting the wrong episode and switching it by the first commercial break!

Harry

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

In the late 70s channel 8 (ABC) ran Trek at 1030 at night. More than one time they had the reels out of order. The old days of beat up film prints, ahh yes. Channel 23 first started as an independent in Tulsa, now a FOX station. They ran Space:1999 when they first started in 1980, first time we got the show. I remember they ALWAYS got a hair, lint, you name it caught in the projector. Sometimes you could even see a shadow of a finger, but most times they just stopped the show for a second to pull it out. They didnt edit much when they first started. I remember watching a movie on channel 23 called The Iron Cross. It had female bare breasts! Hey, 1981, and i was 18. Dont think i didnt do a double take to see breasts on a local Tulsa station!

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

Something not mention is that today most syndicated programs are sold for cash plus barter which means the syndicator sells some of the commercials nationally and the syndicator keeps the money from the national commercials.
The stations download the shows from satellites. The shows are all edited with the national commercials in them. The station then inserts its local spots.
The stations, as part of their contract with the syndicator, agree to erase the shows after they air. Today everyone gets the exact same show.

Today older shows like I Love Lucy if still on local stations are probably all cash with no barter but shows like Friends, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and Everyone Loves Raymond all are shown with national spots and are precut.

I remember back in the day that shows would sometimes be edited differently
on different viewings so that if you watched a show twice you would see most if not all of the show. I am not sure if this was because the shows were mailed between stations and different prints had different edits.

I know WSBK TV 38 used to request that films be sent to them unedited and they would show them uncut or make their own cuts. I don't know if they were able to do this with TV series.

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

I'm afraid that ROOTS may have been taken from syndication prints for two main reasons:

1. The opening title has been changed from an ABC one to a generic one.
2. The episodes run a little short (I also read in a 1978 book that there was a longer version of, shall we say, Kunta's manhood ritual.)

Re: Were syndicated airings of TV series always cut?

QUOTE:"My local UHF station ran syndicated "Brady Bunch" reruns for several years in the late '70s -- not only were they completely unedited with all bumpers, the first several episodes from the first season even included the original network "next week" previews! (Wish I'd had a VCR back then, since these previews are missing on the DVD sets.)"

Hi,

Question to the poster who posted this, did your station include the long lost "The Brady Bunch Will Return in a Moment," generally spoken by one of the kids, whom the story was about between the last commercial break and the credits?

I don't believe I have seen this since the first 1970's syndication cycle.

Jack