King World Productions

King World Productions, Inc. (also known as King World Entertainment, King World Enterprises, or simply King World) was a production company and a syndicator of television programming in the United States until its eventual 2007 incorporation into CBS Television Distribution. The company continues to exist on paper as an intellectual property holder, and under the moniker KWP Studios (the initials standing for King World Productions) to hold the copyright for the TV show Rachael Ray.

History

Founding with The Little Rascals

The division was started in 1964 by Charles King. It was a company that expressly handled television distribution of the classic Hal Roach Our Gang shorts. When Roach lost the rights to the name Our Gang (it was retained by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 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 from 1929 through 1938 have been made available to audiences for the past fifty years. King World later co-produced an animated version of the shorts with Hanna-Barbera. King died in 1973 and the company was taken over by King's children: Roger King (who died in December 2007), Michael (who died in 2015), Robert, Diana, Richard, and Karen.

World Productions

World Productions is a British television production company, founded in the early 1990s by acclaimed producer Tony Garnett, and owned by the Marcus Evans Group following a takeover in 2012.

History

The company's first major series was the police drama Between The Lines (BBC1, 1992–94), and throughout the decade they went on to produce a succession of drama series. The most notable of these include This Life (BBC2, 1996–97), about a group of young law students in London; vampire-based thriller Ultraviolet (Channel 4, 1998); and a police series for the BBC, The Cops (BBC2, 1998–99), which was so controversial in its depiction of the police force that official police advice was withdrawn for the second series.

More recently, the company has made the series No Angels for Channel 4 (2004-2006), a drama based around the lives of young nurses, and also Goldplated and for Channel Five it has produced the Perfect Day trilogy and Tripping Over, a co production with Network Ten in Australia. It also co-produced, with BBC Wales, a one-off This Life reunion special, transmitted in early 2007.