Turner Entertainment Company[1] is an American multimedia company founded by Ted Turner on August 2, 1986. Purchased by Time Warner on October 10, 1996, as part of its acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), the company was largely responsible for overseeing the TBS library for worldwide distribution. In recent years, this role has largely been limited to being the copyright holder, as it has become an in-name-only subsidiary[1] of Warner Bros., which currently administers their library.[2]
Background
On March 25, 1986, Ted Turner and his Turner Broadcasting System purchased Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) from Kirk Kerkorian for $1.5 billion, and renamed MGM Entertainment Company, Inc. However, due to concerns in the financial community over the debt-load of his companies, on August 26, 1986, he was forced to sell the MGM name, all of United Artists (UA), and the MGM Culver City-based studio lot back to Kerkorian for approximately $300 million after months of ownership.[3] But in order to still go about his plans to broadcast the MGM/UA assets as "originals" on his TBS and upcoming TNT channels, Turner struck a deal with Kerkorian; Turner kept the studio's film, television and cartoon library as well as a small portion of the United Artists library (MGM originals up to Killer Party), forming Turner Entertainment Company during the exchange.[4][5] The company was headed by Roger Mayer, who was former executive of MGM, and formed a development division with the intention of making movies and TV shows.[6] The library also included the pre-1950 Warner Bros. library (as well as most of the pre-August 1948 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons), the Fleischer Studios/Famous StudiosPopeye cartoons originally released by Paramount Pictures, the US/Canadian/Latin American/Australian distribution rights to the RKO Radio Pictures library (save the Disney, several Goldwyn and now-Viacom films), and most of the Gilligan's Island television franchise (not counting the TV movie sequels owned by other companies), all of which were owned by United Artists.[7] In order to use funds, Turner instituted a policy that they would pass on making sequels to classic Turner-owned properties, in favor of making colorization of old black-and-white movies.[8] On December 2, 1987, Turner Entertainment had entered into an agreement with American Film Technologies to computer-colorize three films that were originally in black-and-white, namely the three films from the MGM library, such as Boom Town, They Were Expendable and Catered Affair, and Turner would have the option to have AFT to have an order for additional 22 films and has a second option for another 24 films between now and 1992.[9] On December 10, 1987, Turner acquired the worldwide licensing rights to 800 of RKO's films from its then-parent company Wesray Capital Corporation.[10]
On November 29, 1989, Turner made another attempt to buy MGM/UA, but the deal failed, and they formed Turner Pictures and Turner Pictures Worldwide instead.[11]
Turner Entertainment self-distributed much of its library for the first decade of its existence, but on October 10, 1996, Turner Broadcasting was purchased by Time Warner and its distribution functions were largely absorbed into Warner Bros. As a result, Turner is now an in-name-only subsidiary of Warner, serving merely as a copyright holder for a portion of their library. Hanna-Barbera's current purpose as the in-name only unit of Warner Bros. Animation is to serve as the copyright holder for its creations such as The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and Yogi Bear while Warner Bros. handles sales and merchandising.
Production company
As a production company, Turner Entertainment also created original in-house programming, such as documentaries about the films it owns, new animated material based on Tom & Jerry and other related cartoon properties, and once produced made-for-television films, miniseries, and theatrical films such as Gettysburg, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, Fallen, The Pagemaster and Cats Don't Dance under the Turner Pictures banner. In 1995, the Turner Pictures production company developed a film slate.[16] Turner also had an international distribution sales unit, accordingly named Turner Pictures Worldwide Distribution, Inc. Turner Pictures was folded into Warner Bros. after the Turner-Time Warner merger, and currently holds the distribution rights to the films made by the production division. Time Warner transferred some of Turner's leftover projects like City of Angels and You've Got Mail into Warner Bros.[17]
In the first decade of its existence, Turner released most of its own catalogue on home video through Turner Home Entertainment (THE). However, the MGM and Warner film libraries which Turner owned were still distributed by MGM/UA Home Video along with THE until their rights expired in 1999, while THE handled the home video distribution of titles from the RKO library. THE released films produced by Turner Pictures on home video with their distributors and independently released the Hanna-Barbera cartoon library on home video.
Turner Home Entertainment also released World Championship Wrestling (WCW) pay-per-view events, wrestler profiles, and "Best Of" packages on video until the demise of WCW in 2001; the WCW video library, along with the rights to the WCW name and certain talent contracts, were sold to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now known as WWE) in March 2001.[19][20][21] In 1987, Turner Home Entertainment had inked a distribution deal with the Video Institute of the Soviet Union to release 10 titles from the pre-May 1986 MGM library in Russian videocassette rental shops, and the deal with Turner would be a first for the Soviet home video market, where officials indicate that there are 660,000 VCR recordings, and films include Zabriskie Point, and other titles, none of them were colorized.[22]
From early 1995 to early 1997, THE also distributed home video releases from New Line Home Video, taking over from Columbia TriStar Home Video as well as distributing PBS programs on home video the year before (taking over from the defunct Pacific Arts). NLHE distributed New Line films on video by itself from 1997 until New Line Cinema merged with Warner Bros. in 2008.[23][24][25] PBS shows are now distributed on video and DVD by PBS's own distribution company, PBS Distribution.
In 1995, THE entered a distribution deal with Columbia TriStar Home Video in France, Britain, Germany, Austria and Switzerland,[26] the deal expired in 1997 (although some films released on VHS by THE are distributed in the UK by First Independent Films).
Upon the Turner-Time Warner merger, THE was absorbed into Warner Home Video as an in-name-only unit in December 1996.[27] However, Turner Classic Movies does release special edition DVD boxsets of films from both the Turner and Warner catalogs under the TCM label. (Some magazines, most notably Starlog, when listing upcoming releases from Warner related to Cartoon Network programming listed it as being released by THE, likely to differentiate it from other, adult-oriented titles.)[28]
