Television film

(left) and Claude Rains in the television musical The Pied Piper of Hamelin, 1957 Precursors of "television movies" include Talk Faster, Mister, which aired on WABD (now WNYW) in New York City on December 18, 1944, and was produced by RKO Pictures, and the 1957 The Pied Piper of Hamelin, based on the poem by Robert Browning, and starring Van Johnson, one of the first filmed "family musicals" made directly for television. That film was made in Technicolor, a first for television, which ordinarily used color processes originated by specific networks. Most "family musicals" of the time, such as Peter Pan, were not filmed but broadcast live and preserved on kinescope, a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor – and the only (relatively inexpensive) method of recording a television program until the invention of videotape. Many television networks were against film programming, fearing that it would loosen the network's arrangements with sponsors and affiliates by encouraging station managers to make independent deals with advertisers and film producers. The second film to be considered a television movie, Don Siegel's The Hanged Man, was broadcast by NBC on November 18, 1964. ==Examples==

'', September 19, 1973 ABC's Battlestar Galactica: Saga of a Star World premiered to an audience of over 60 million people on September 17, 1978. The most-watched television movie of all time was ABC's The Day After, which premiered on November 20, 1983, to an estimated audience of 100 million people. My Sweet Charlie (1970) with Patty Duke and Al Freeman Jr. dealt with racial prejudice, and That Certain Summer (1972), starring Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen, although controversial, was considered the first television movie to approach the subject of homosexuality in a non-threatening manner. If These Walls Could Talk, a film which deals with abortion in three different decades (the 1950s, the 1970s and the 1990s) became a huge success, and was HBO's highest rated film on record. If a network orders a two-hour television pilot for a proposed show, it will usually broadcast it as a television movie to recoup some of the costs even if the network chooses to not order the show to series. Often a successful series may spawn a television movie sequel after ending its run. For example, Babylon 5: The Gathering launched the science fiction series Babylon 5 and is considered to be distinct from the show's regular run of one-hour episodes. Babylon 5 also has several made-for-TV movie sequels set within the same fictional continuity. The 2003 remake of Battlestar Galactica began as a two-part miniseries that later continued as a weekly television program. Another example is the Showtime movie Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, which launched the sitcom of the same name that originally aired on ABC, and used the same actress (Melissa Joan Hart) for the lead role in both. The term "TV movie" is also frequently used as vehicles for "reunions" of long-departed series, as in Return to Mayberry and A Very Brady Christmas. They can also be a spin-off from a TV Garden series including The Incredible Hulk Returns, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk and The Death of the Incredible Hulk. Occasionally, television movies are used as sequels to successful theatrical films. For example, only the first film in The Parent Trap series was released theatrically. The Parent Trap II, III and Hawaiian Honeymoon were produced for television, and similarly, the Midnight Run sequels have all been released as made-for-TV movies despite the first having a strong run in theaters. These types of films may be, and more commonly are, released direct-to-video; there have been some films, such as The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning (a prequel to the film version of The Dukes of Hazzard) and ''James A. Michener's Texas'', which have been released near simultaneously on DVD and on television, but have never been released in theatres. Made for TV movie musicals have also become popular. One prime example is the High School Musical series, which aired its first two films on the Disney Channel. The first television movie was so successful that a sequel was produced, High School Musical 2, that debuted in August 2007 to 17.2 million viewers (this made it the highest-rated non-sports program in the history of basic cable and the highest-rated made-for-cable movie premiere on record). Due to the popularity of the first two films, the second HSM sequel, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, was released as a theatrical film in 2008 instead of airing on Disney Channel; High School Musical 3 became one of the highest-grossing movie musicals. Television movies traditionally were often broadcast by the major networks during sweeps season. Such offerings now are very rare; as Ken Tucker noted while reviewing the Jesse Stone CBS television movies, "broadcast networks aren't investing in made-for-TV movies anymore". The slack has been taken up by cable networks such as Hallmark Channel, Syfy, Lifetime and HBO, with productions such as Temple Grandin and Recount, often utilizing top creative talent. High-calibre limited programming which would have been formerly scheduled solely as a two-hour film or miniseries also has been re-adapted to the newer "limited series" format over a period of weeks (rather than the consecutive days usually defined by a miniseries) where a conclusion is assured; an example of such would be The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and these are most often seen on cable networks and streaming services such as Netflix. ==Production and quality==

In a 1991 New York Times article, television critic John J. O'Connor wrote that "few artifacts of popular culture invite more condescension than the made-for-television movie". ==Movie length episodes of television shows==

Occasionally, a long running television series is used as the basis for television movies that air during the show's run, as opposed to the above mentioned "reunion specials". Typically, such movies employ a filmed single camera setup even if the television series is videotaped using a multiple camera setup, but are written to be easily broken up into individual 30- or 60-minute episodes for syndication. Many such movies relocate the cast of the show to an exotic overseas setting. However, although they may be advertised as movies, they are really simply extended episodes of television shows, such as the pilots and the finales of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Most of these are made and shown during sweeps period in order to attract a large television audience and boost viewership for a show. Crossover episodes containing a number of episodes of the characters of individual series interacting with characters across different shows (as has been done with the CSI, NCIS and Chicago franchises, along with between Murder, She Wrote and Magnum, P.I., Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder, and Ally McBeal and The Practice) also play as films, encouraging tune-in among all the series crossed over to effectively create a multiple-hour plot that plays as a film when watched as a whole. ==See also==