Founding with The Little Rascals The division was started in 1964 by Charles King (1912–1972). It was a company that expressly handled television distribution of the
Hal Roach-produced
Our Gang short comedy films from the 1930s. When Roach lost the rights to the name
Our Gang (it was retained by the
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio, who bought the series from Roach in 1938), the shorts were retitled as
The Little Rascals. It was through this acquisition that the comedy shorts made from 1929 through 1938 have been made available to audiences for the past fifty years. King World later co-produced an animated television special with Muller-Rosen Productions and
Murakami-Wolf-Swenson in 1979 called
The Little Rascals Christmas Special and later co-produced a 1982–1984 animated
The Little Rascals television series with
Hanna-Barbera. King died in 1972 and the company was taken over by King's children:
Roger M. King (1944–2007), Michael (1948–2015), Robert (1940–2020), Diana (1949–2019), Richard (1941–2020), and Karen.
1980s expansion In 1983, the company acquired the syndication rights to
NBC's
daytime game show
Wheel of Fortune.
Merv Griffin, the show's creator and producer, had shopped the program to various other studios prior to reaching a deal with King World. King World also would acquire the rights to distribute
Griffin's own long-running talk/variety program from
Metromedia's syndication division. A year later, Griffin announced plans to revive another of his game show creations,
Jeopardy!, and King World agreed to distribute that program as well. In 1984 King World formed an ad-sales barter division called
Camelot Entertainment Sales. Later that year president Robert King left the company to form
The Television Program Source; a television syndication company that was founded as a joint venture between King, Alan Bennett, and
Columbia Pictures Television. King World also purchased television and film distributor Leo A. Gutman, Inc. whose titles included the theatricals
Joan of Arc,
Anna Karenina and the
Sherlock Holmes and
East Side Kids series; and two 1960s television westerns,
Branded and
The Guns of Will Sonnett. In 1986, King World signed
Oprah Winfrey to a syndication deal and agreed to distribute her
Chicago-based daytime talk program nationally, resulting in the premiere of
The Oprah Winfrey Show in September of that year. The acquisitions paid off, and
Oprah,
Jeopardy! and
Wheel of Fortune became three of the most popular shows in the history of television syndication, drawing high ratings consistently well into the 21st century. In particular, the success of
Oprah eventually led to the creation of the spin-off series
Dr. Phil,
Rachael Ray, and
The Dr. Oz Show.
Other acquisitions On February 11, 1985, King World formed the King World Enterprises division to develop joint-venture programs with advertisers and station groups and to handle international distribution for King World and Camelot. In 1987, King World's Camelot Entertainment Sales entered into an agreement with
Buena Vista Television, whereas Camelot would sell all national spots for all programming produced by Buena Vista Television, which included
Siskel & Ebert,
DuckTales,
Disney Magic I and
Win, Lose or Draw, and Camelot was willing to accept the lower figure because
DuckTales represented King World's first foray into the animated strip business, and
Disney Magic I marked King World to the barter movie operation business for the first time. In 1988, the company made its only foray onto television stations when it bought out
WIVB-TV in
Buffalo for $100 million. King World ended up selling the station to
LIN TV Corporation in 1995.
Former King World-owned stations Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and
city of license.
1990s: King World Direct and KWP In the 1990s, King World operated an "
As Seen on TV" VHS service called
King World Direct. Stuart Hersch, a lawyer by trade, was the financial expert who helped to take the company public, making it one of the hottest stocks on Wall Street at the time. The company traded as "KWP". King World had virtually no debt and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues after going public. Television stations that broadcast King World programming had first choice on any series King World offered to distribute. On November 25, 1991, King World acquired the
Hollywood Squares format rights from
Orion Pictures after Orion closed down its television division. In 1995, King World made a partner deal with
Columbia TriStar Television to launch game shows. In 1996, King World began co-distributing
Geraldo (later
The Geraldo Rivera Show) with
Tribune Entertainment, and would continue co-distributing the show until its cancellation in 1998. On September 28, 1998, King World acquired the worldwide leasing rights to the solo-developed game shows by Merrill Heatter Productions for a limited time.
Acquisition by CBS In April 1999, King World was acquired by
CBS. On January 19, 2000,
Eyemark Entertainment, the successor to
Westinghouse Broadcasting following the CBS/
Westinghouse Electric Corporation merger, was folded into King World. The sale was first discussed on March 28, 1999, for $3 billion. After CBS purchased King World, CBS was bought by
Viacom outright in 2000; such buyout was
reversed at the end of 2005, when King World became part of the post-split
CBS Corporation as well as all of Viacom's former television production and distribution operations. In its latter days, King World was considered the syndication branch of the CBS network (a role Viacom actually first served upon its creation), having succeeded Eyemark in that role. King World, however, distributed newer CBS shows such as
Everybody Loves Raymond while the older shows were syndicated by corporate affiliate
CBS Paramount Television, the successor to the original distributor
Viacom Enterprises. Additionally, from 2000 to 2006, King World distributed archive programs from Group W, such as
The Mike Douglas Show. On September 26, 2006, CBS announced that King World and CBS Paramount Television's syndication operations would be combined to form the CBS Television Distribution Group (CTD). Roger King was announced as CEO of the new entity and retained that position until suffering a stroke on December 7, 2007, and dying the next day. Paul Franklin then served as President of CTD. For one year, the King World on-screen identity was kept for the programs it distributed at its closure. However, most of the programs handled by King World were distributed under CTD. On August 20, 2007, CBS Television Distribution introduced a new
closing logo to replace the old logos of King World, CBS Paramount Domestic Television, and its predecessors. CBS Television Distribution was renamed
CBS Media Ventures in 2021. ==Programming==