What Happened To Hour Long Syndicated Reruns After The Early 80's (1 Viewer)

[John Karras]

Cain's Hundred never had a full run on TNT. They aired maybe a half dozen or so episodes and that was it.

Mr. Novak, Shaft, Chicago Story and Bronk never had full runs either (to name some others)

 

[howard1908]

Cain's Hundred never had a full run on TNT. They aired maybe a half dozen or so episodes and that was it.

You're right they only ran about 7, which includes the two part pilot and a few others.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Good Observation Frank. I do remember watching tons of hour long shows in the 70's that seem to all disappear in the 80's. Another possible contributing factor is when VHS movies and some TV shows really took off for VHS/Beta rental and sales in the mid 80's I noticed a lot of classic movies disappeared from TV. Things like Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy that were staples on TV in the 60's and 70's were rarely seen in the 80's. I had read that the studios pulled back a lot of material from TV that they thought had resale value on VHS so that people couldn't record it. This may have contributed to hour long TV shows as well . The studios were still evaluating TV shows potential to sell on the Home Video Front. Most of the TV show releases in the 80's were through Colombia House. I know TNT showed a lot of more obscure 1 hour tv in the 80's but local channels didn't show much of anything other than sitcoms.

 

[sjbradford]

The half hour shows do better. In the mid-80s, off-network half hour comedies in syndication were in short supply, because prior to “The Cosby Show”, the big three were more focused on dramas in the 80s in the era of the primetime soap. So thats why you saw a slew of comedies with an existing library of episodes revived for first-run syndication (“It’s a Living”, “Mama’s Family”, “Too Close for Comfort”) so they could get over the 100 episode mark and have enough episodes to strip. But then sitcoms experienced a rebirth on the networks, and the advent of the Fox network meant fewer independent stations. So the first-run syndication sitcom model mostly died out.

Just a quick correction to an earlier post in this thread: “Falcon Crest” did run in broadcast syndication: our local CBS affiliate ran it at 9:00 am for about a year before it turned up on Lifetime. And MTM actually bought Jim Victory Television and renamed it, turning it into its syndication arm.

 

[Richard V]

I seem to remember full runs of Crime Story, but can't remember what channel.

 

[danielanderson6500]

The half hour shows do better. In the mid-80s, off-network half hour comedies in syndication were in short supply, because prior to “The Cosby Show”, the big three were more focused on dramas in the 80s in the era of the primetime soap. So thats why you saw a slew of comedies with an existing library of episodes revived for first-run syndication (“It’s a Living”, “Mama’s Family”, “Too Close for Comfort”) so they could get over the 100 episode mark and have enough episodes to strip. But then sitcoms experienced a rebirth on the networks, and the advent of the Fox network meant fewer independent stations. So the first-run syndication sitcom model mostly died out.

Just a quick correction to an earlier post in this thread: “Falcon Crest” did run in broadcast syndication: our local CBS affiliate ran it at 9:00 am for about a year before it turned up on Lifetime. And MTM actually bought Jim Victory Television and renamed it, turning it into its syndication arm.

Have to agree. My ABC station tried airing “Falcon Crest” at 9am- and it didn't work. A year later, i saw it pop up on Lifetime.

 

[danielanderson6500]

Lorimar tried selling Dallas in syndication but it didn't do well and since it was still running, some there must have felt it was cannibalizing the then-current CBS episodes or that audiences couldn't follow the old and new storylines at the same time. They also tried it with Knots Landing and got pretty much the same results, so they scrapped plans to syndicate Falcon Crest and just sold it directly to cable. With serialized drama, you miss one episode, you're out of the loop until it's rerun again, and for a show with over 350 episodes, that could be awhile.

Murder, She Wrote was another 1980s hour-long show that IIRC went directly to cable (USA Network, in fact) and skipped local stations altogether (ironically, Magnum PI was syndicated to local stations, and in my former hometown market of Raleigh-Durham the same station that reran this also reran Dallas at one point). So was Cagney & Lacey, which was rerun on Lifetime shortly after it was cancelled.

The MTM shows were an odd case. Victory Television ended up with the rights to Hill Street Blues, but once St. Elsewhere reached syndication, MTM had founded its own distribution company and distributed it itself; it regained the rerun rights to the whole library by the 1990s after years of their shows being split between Victory and Viacom. I do not recall ever seeing The White Shadow, Remington Steele or Lou Grant in reruns other than cable.

China Beach skipped local stations and went directly to Lifetime.

 

[ScottRE]

I seem to remember full runs of Crime Story, but can't remember what channel.

USA Network ran it a few times and I was thrilled.

Dallas got a hugely promoted run in the NYC market on WOR 9. "Get your daily does of Dallas" said the ads. They ran them until about the 8th season before starting over again. Then TNT got it for awhile and finally SOAPNet.

The fringe channels and the indies starting up would run cheap hour long shows at odd hours, but eventually independent stations were bought up by the networks and everyone starting showing the same schnitz. Now we have the sub-channels running a lot of older one hour stuff, but even they will dry up as we die. Because we ain't getting younger.

 

[John*Wells]

Growing up in Columbia SC, the local NBC Afilate WIS Ran Dallas in the afternoons ...On the other hand, the local CBS Channel WLTX ran Star Trek TOS at 5 PM in the afternoon. The station management took Star Trek TOS off the 5 PM hour and about a year later, I remember reading an interview with the Station GM admitting he made a blunder. WLTX also ran Andy griffith at 11 PM for a number of years. The local Fox affiliate WACH ran Knight rider at 6 PM When it first started. Knight Rider showed up on USA not long after that

 

[danielanderson6500]

Growing up in Columbia SC, the local NBC Afilate WIS Ran Dallas in the afternoons ...On the other hand, the local CBS Channel WLTX ran Star Trek TOS at 5 PM in the afternoon. The station management took Star Trek TOS off the 5 PM hour and about a year later, I remember reading an interview with the Station GM admitting he made a blunder. WLTX also ran Andy griffith at 11 PM for a number of years. The local Fox affiliate WACH ran Knight rider at 6 PM When it first started. Knight Rider showed up on USA not long after that

The NBC station WYFF/4 in Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville made the same mistake too. They tried running the soap opera Somerset at 4, and the station manager got complaints from Star Trek TOS fans too!

 

[bmasters9]

The NBC station WYFF/4 in Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville made the same mistake too. They tried running the soap opera Somerset at 4, and the station manager got complaints from Star Trek TOS fans too!

Did they get such complaints because their viewers were used to seeing O-R 60s Trek at that time slot in the afternoon?

 

[danielanderson6500]

I'd guess so.

4:00 was when Somerset aired in pattern on NBC, so maybe NBC insisted they clear Somerset at the "in pattern" time. Once Another World moved to a hour, WYFF paired AW with Star Trek, and it was a winning combination.

 

[danielanderson6500]

Another popular show that aired in reruns after AW was Batman. it aired on WYFF for a year or two after AW.

 

[danielanderson6500]

The area where I grew up ran OTA the syndicated BJ/Lobo show package endlessly in the mid-80s, along with Buck Rogers. In fact I went to work for that station in 1993, and was eventually given 4 episodes (3 BJ & 1 Lobo) that were never sent back. That same station ran The Rockford Files (still on a film chain!) until a couple of years before I started. They also ran Quincy and The Dukes Of Hazzard in the 80's, and stopped around 1990. Another local station ran Street Hawk, Voyagers!, and The Greatest American Hero. Someone aired those bizarre 30 min Knight Rider episodes (each episode cut into 2 parts, because as Bob said in the post above "the powers that be (sheep) decided that hour-long shows didn't do well in syndication") but I can't remember if it was OTA in my area, or cable.

Three 80's series that were sold exclusively to USA Network in the 80s were Airwolf, Riptide, and Miami Vice. So those would have not turned up anywhere while those contracts were in place. I wish I still all my Airwolf episodes from the USA Network broadcast, since some episodes had different dialogue than the CBS versions, plus some had strange almost "work print" type dubbing and sound fx. I'm probably only one of the few that remember that. After Hardcastle & McCormick was cancelled it was sold exclusively to the CBN network, that would have kept it out of syndication for the run of that deal.

I'm thinking there are a couple of more 80s series that ran in my area OTA in the 80's early 90s, but I would need to go back through my TV guide collection to turn up those titles.

Marcus Welby, M.D. is another one that wasn't very successful when syndicated.

 

[sjbradford]

It also had one of the strangest syndication titles ever: “Robert Young, Family Doctor”.

 

[bmasters9]

It also had one of the strangest syndication titles ever: “Robert Young, Family Doctor”.

Was it a strange one because it had the actor's name in it, as opposed to his character's name?

 

[John*Wells]

Dallas also had a Syndication run on The Nashville Network (TNN). When I was in College, I remember having classes in the early morning and being done by noon 3 days a week. The other 2 days I was done by 10 am. TNN Would run one Episode at 11 Pm, again at 1 PM and a 3rd time at 11AM .. Thats when I was able to see the early seasons from my youth .. Mom and Dad allowed me and my sister to hear the Dallas them in the late 70s and early 80s and thats it

 

[Tony Bensley]

It also had one of the strangest syndication titles ever: “Robert Young, Family Doctor”.

Was it a strange one because it had the actor's name in it, as opposed to his character's name?

I'm thinking it's more the correlating of his real name with the fictional character's profession. That's how it strikes me, anyway.

CHEERS!

 

[bmasters9]

I'm thinking it's more the correlating of his real name with the fictional character's profession. That's how it strikes me, anyway.

Why would the syndie reruns of Marcus Welby, M.D. have a title that would make it seem like the late Robert Young was a real physician?

 

[mattfire64]

What's crazy is when they run two half-hour cut versions back to back of a show that was originally an hour long in the first place. Yes, it's happened.

And it's still currently happening with Night Gallery on Me-TV, they are airing two episodes back to back currently on Sunday nights.