Channel Hop / Production Company Examples

• Punky Brewster not only switched from network to syndication, it also changed producers. It was originally produced in-house by NBC, but the network had to license the rights to Columbia Pictures Television. Under Federal Communications Commission rules at the time, a network could not be involved in a syndicated show. Funny to think now considering that all five networks are owned by conglomerates that have their own TV syndication units.
• The Golden Girls nearly went towards this: In 1991 Touchstone Television decided against making any more episodes for financial reasons. Warner Bros. Television said they'd step into the breach, but that plan fell apart when Beatrice Arthur announced she was quitting. Touchstone would make a pseudo-spinoff, The Golden Palace, which aired on CBS for one year (making it a pseudo-Channel Hop, as The Golden Girls aired on NBC).
• When Cannon Television ran into financial problems of their own after the first few episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger, CBS (with some help from Columbia Pictures Television) agreed to foot the bill thereafter.
• The NBC episodes of Baywatch were produced by GTG Entertainment — making for a strange-but-true link between this series and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as MTM's ex Grant Tinker was the "GT"^note Gannett Newspapers supplied the second "G" — while the syndicated ones were produced by Tower 12 Productions/The Baywatch Production Company (and due to financial involvement from Britain's London Weekend Television thanks to Brits and Germans loving David Hasselhoff, the end credits (at least on its ITV run in the UK) carried the card "A Baywatch Production Company Production for LWT").
• The pilot for The Highwayman was made by Glen A. Larson's company at 20th Century Fox, but the series was produced on a lower budget by Larson's New West Entertainment.
• When The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'s reunion movie The Return Of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair got the go-ahead in 1983, it wasn't made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (home of the original series); writer-producer Michael Sloan convinced MGM to lease the property to his company and Viacom Productions.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers moved from DiC to Hanna-Barbera, starting with its fourth season, following Ted Turner's purchase of Hanna-Barbera. Ted Turner eventually purchased the copyright to the DIC-produced seasons from them.
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction — the CBS episodes (which had Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, George Carlin and Bernie Casey voicing the characters they played in the movie) were made by Hanna-Barbera in association with Orion, while when it moved to Fox (making this a channel hop AND a company hop) DiC took over production with the voices of the actors starring in a live-action adaptation of the movie.
• Doug: Jumbo Pictures was there for all episodes, but their co-producers varied. Nickelodeon Season 1 was mostly produced by Jumbo with the network only handling the production duties associated with owning the show, as Nickelodeon did not have an animation studio at the time. Starting in Season 2, Ellipse Programme took on co-producer duties in exchange for the European rights to the Nickelodeon episodes. With the Disney acquisition of the franchise, Jumbo co-operated with Disney Television Animation on the ABC episodes.
• The 1980s Alvin and the Chipmunks series started out being animated by Ruby-Spears (a sister studio to Hanna-Barbera) for its first five seasons, before animation was switched over to DiC for the final three seasons, with 11 episodes in season six done by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, the same company behind the first TMNT series.
• For Care Bears, the shows started out being produced by DiC Entertainment with Care Bears (1980s), then moved to Nelvana before the bears went on a long hiatus. When they returned, Nelvana produced two direct-to-video CGI movies before the animation production changed hands again with Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot, when production went to Sabella-Dern Entertainment, then finally to the US branch of MoonScoop with Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot, who then rebranded themselves as Splash! Entertainment after a takeover and produced Care Bears & Cousins under the new name. Care Bears: Unlock the Magic is animated by Copernicus Studios in Canada.
• The vast majority of Direct to Video Disney sequels, while still being produced and distributed by Disney, were animated by Disney Television Animation, as opposed to Walt Disney Animation Studios.
• The pilot for Codename: Kids Next Door was produced by Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, but the series was made at Curious Pictures in New York, where creator Tom Warburton was based.
• Concentration originated in 1958 as a Jack Barry-Dan Enright production. Less than two months later, NBC took over production of the show (as well as fellow B&E shows Tic Tac Dough and Dough Re Mi) after Barry and Enright were implicated in the Quiz Show Scandals. After Concentration was canceled in 1973, NBC (who to this day still holds the rights to it) licensed Jim Victory Television to create a new syndicated series, with Goodson-Todman Productions subcontracted to produce it. Victory and G-T would also make Classic Concentration for NBC in 1987.
• Cartoon Network originals that Hanna-Barbera first made (Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, The Powerpuff Girls (1998)) would have production moved to CN's Burbank studios after H-B closed its doors in 2001 and was absorbed by Warner Bros. Animation.
• The Price Is Right began as a Goodson-Todman Production (followed by Mark Goodson Productions after Bill Todman died). Over fifteen years after Mark Goodson died, Price became a Fremantle Media Production (which it had been but the Mark Goodson vanity plate was retained). Similarly, Family Feud was a G-T production; it is now co-produced by Fremantle with Wanderlust Productions.
• Let's Make a Deal was first a Stefan Hatos-Monty Hall production, but later editions were made by Catalina, Dick Clark/Ron Greenburg Productions, and Renegade 83 (co-produced with Hall). The current show on CBS is a Fremantle production.
• The original four-season run of Pingu was made by The Pygos Group's Trickfilmstudio. After Pygos was sold to HiT Entertainment in 2001, they had their in-house studio, Hot Animation, make a two-season revival of the show. Over a decade later Mattel, who had bought HiT in 2011, contracted Polygon Pictures to make a new series, Pingu in the City.
• Rankin/Bass started out as an independent studio until General Electric bought R-B (then known legally as Videocraft International) in 1971, giving them ownership of their library (including the iconic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman specials). When R-B was spun-off as an independent company three years later, GE retained their library.
  • Through a string of mergers and acquisitions, the library is now split: StudioCanal now owns the Videocraft theatrical library (except one film that carried over to DreamWorks, who also retains the copyrights to all the movies in question). Universal through DreamWorks Animation owns all R-B works prior to 1974, while R-B material made from then on (starting with The Year Without a Santa Claus) are owned by Warner Bros. through Telepictures, who bought R-B in 1978. This may explain why The Year Without A Santa Claus, Frosty's Winter Wonderland, Rudolph's Shiny New Year and Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July don't feature any footage from either Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, even though all the specials are set in the same continuity as those three.
• Maury was distributed by Paramount Domestic Television (now CBS Television Distribution) from its premiere until Paramount considered canceling it after its seventh season in 1998. Maury Povich instead pitched the series to Studios USA Television (who also produced then-competitor The Jerry Springer Show) for its eighth season, and has stuck with them ever since even after Studios USA later became Universal Television and then NBCUniversal. The change in companies coincided with the show's leap to more outrageous topics, much like Springer though more subdued.
• Of the pre-TV variety; Felix the Cat was originally made by the Pat Sullivan studio and distributed by at least five different companies (Paramount, Winkler, Educational, First National, and Copley Pictures). By 1936, Van Beuren Studios licensed the character for their cartoon studio, and for that brief period, they were distributed by RKO Radio Pictures.
• The 1999-present run of Family Feud has had several different syndicators throughout its run. Pearson Television, who owned the franchise by then, handled both production and distribution duties until Fremantle Media bought the company in 2001. Although Fremantle has handled production duties since then, they transferred syndication duties to Tribune Entertainment until the company folded in 2007. Lionsgate-owned Debmar-Mercury then picked up syndication duties and has handled distribution of the series ever since. However, from that point ad sales services were handled separately by 20th Television, Fox's syndication unit. After Disney absorbed that unit in 2019, along with the rest of Fox's entertainment properties, Debmar-Mercury contracted CBS Television Distribution to handle ad sales in 20th's place.
• In terms of Batman media, DC Comics parent Warner Bros. produces and owns almost every adaptation out there....almost. First, there are the Columbia Batman serials The Batman and its sequel Batman and Robin from the 1940's. Unlike the Superman serials, they did not revert to DC and thus are now owned by Columbia parent Sony Pictures. Then there's the 1966 TV series and its tie-in movie, both of which were produced by 20th Century Fox. Fox's parent Disney (who owns DC rival Marvel Comics) now owns both the show and movie, though WB is currently licensed to handle home video distribution for the former. In both cases, the films and shows were produced long before WB bought out DC, and because WB doesn't own syndication rights to any of them, they are all barred from appearing on HBO Max.
• After Fox's syndication unit 20th Television was absorbed into Disney-ABC Domestic Television, Fox Corporation formed Fox First Run to syndicate first-run programs they held onto, such as Divorce Court^note Seasons 1-15, as well as previous incarnations, are retained by Disney; Disney licensed Season 14 to Fox for repeats on Tubi and Dish Nation^note Pre-2014 episodes remain with Disney. They also assumed syndication and promotional duties for MyNetworkTV, which was previously syndicated through 20th. In addition, in 2021, Fox Alternative Entertainment took over production of TMZ on TV^note Pre-2021 episodes remain with Warner Bros., with Fox First Run handling syndication duties.
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was originally produced by Sunbow Entertainment, which produced two five-episode miniseries followed by two seasons and G.I. Joe: The Movie. Sunbow intended to continue the series with a third season, but Hasbro cancelled their license and instead had the show receive a continuation helmed by DiC Entertainment, which began with a Five-Episode Pilot and lasted two seasons.
• The Wonder Years; both the original series and the reboot aired on ABC. However, the original show was produced by New World Television, while the reboot is produced in-house via sister studio 20th Century Fox Television (the current Wonder Years rights-holders, after they folded New World).
• The long running CBC series This Hour Has 22 Minutes has been through quite a few producer changes, for a Canadian production that is. For the first 10 seasons the show was produced by the independent Halifax-based studio Salter Street Films.^note Who also created Lexx and financed the film Bowling for Columbine, plus children's programs and other CBC shows such as Made in Canada. In 2001, Alliance Atlantis purchased the company, becoming a wholly owned subsidiary. In 2003, Alliance closed down nearly all of it's production division, but kept the show as a direct production very briefly.^note Alliance's formal demise came in 2007 when it was purchased by CanWest Global (predecessor of what is now Corus Entertainment). Which led to the massive sell off of Alliance's library piece by piece. In 2004, Halifax Film (started by former Salter Street executives) purchased the rights from Alliance and took over production. Halifax Film would later become DHX Media (now WildBrain) in 2006. As a result of DHX's financial troubles, the show is now produced by Island of Misfits (which acquired DHX's Halifax studio), as per the CBC press release.
• Stargate: the original movie was produced by Carolco Pictures and released by MGM under a short-lived distribution arrangement. The debt-ridden Carolco ended up selling the Stargate IP to MGM so that it could raise financing for Cutthroat Island, which ended up a box office bomb. While MGM turned the cult hit into a Cash-Cow Franchise with Stargate SG-1, current Carolco library holder StudioCanal has gotten nothing but checks for sales of the film and nothing else.
• When Rooster Teeth parent company WarnerMedia decided to make a season 2 of gen:LOCK, it moved onto HBO Max, with animation handled by Bardel Entertainment.
• Osamu Tezuka's Unico started out as a joint effort with Sanrio. The 1979 short film Unico: Black Cloud and White Feather was animated in-house by Sanrio Animation which served as a pilot for a potential anime series. The film series (The Fantastic Adventures of Unico and Unico in the Island of Magic) was handled by Sanrio Animation, Tezuka Productions, and Madhouse between 1981 and 1983. After Tezuka's passing in 1989, future animated Unico projects would be handled at Tezuka Productions beginning with the 2000 short film Saving our Fragile Earth: Unico Special Chapter.
  • Sanrio previously had the merchandise rights to Unico between 1976 and throughout the 1980s. Following Tezuka's passing, Tezuka Productions took over the merchandise to the Unico franchise.
• Rubble & Crew is animated by Jam Filled Entertainment, instead of by Guru Studio like its parent series.

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