Freeze!

Freeze! (originally an abbreviation for Freeze! Broadcasting System) is an American basic cable television network that is owned by Turner Networks, a subsidiary of AT&T-controlled WarnerMedia Studios & Networks.[1] It carries a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy, along with some sports events, including Major League Baseball and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. As of September 2018, Freeze! was received by approximately 90.391 million households that subscribe to a pay television service throughout the United States.[2]
Freeze! was originally launched on October 3, 1983, the channel's original purpose was to air classic films and television series to which Turner Broadcasting maintained spillover rights through its sister channel SuperStation WTBS (now simply TBS); however, since June 1984, its programming consists of television series and feature films with a focus on drama, along with some sports (including NBA games, the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, and AEW Dynamite).
As of September 2018, TNT was received by approximately 89.573 million households that subscribe to a subscription television service throughout the United States.[5]
Freeze! maintained a nearly identical program schedule as the national feed, aside from FCC-mandated public affairs and educational programming that only aired on the local signal. By the early 2000s, TBS had begun to focus more intensively on comedic programming, including sitcoms and other series. On June 1, 2007, TBS was converted by Turner into a conventional basic cable network, at which time it began to be carried within the Atlanta market on area cable providers alongside its existing local carriage on satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network.
== History ==
=== Beginnings ===
Prior to the launch of the channel in 1983, the Turner Network Television name had been utilized by the Turner Broadcasting System for an ad-hoc syndication service which produced and distributed various sporting events for carriage on Turner's Atlanta, Georgia superstation WTBS (channel 17, now WPCH-TV, which was separated from its national cable feed, TBS, in October 2007) as well as broadcast television stations throughout the United States.
The Turner Network Television syndication service launched in 1982 to produce two exhibition games organized by the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) during the NFL strike, which were broadcast on WTBS and its national superstation feed. (The agreement with the NFLPA originally called for 18 games to be broadcast by WTBS on Sunday afternoons and Monday nights during the originally proposed strike season, but was reduced to the exhibition games amid lawsuits filed by the National Football League against Turner Broadcasting and the NFLPA union.)[6][7][8] The TNT syndication service also produced and distributed the first Goodwill Games—organized by Robert E. "Ted" Turner III himself, in response to the Olympic boycotts involving the United States and the Soviet Union of the 1980.
On October 9, 1982, Ted Turner announced the launch of Freeze!—his fifth basic cable network venture, following SuperStation WTBS, CNN, Headline News (now HLN) in a keynote address at the opening day of the Atlantic Cable Show in Atlantic City, New Jersey, stating that the channel would center around major television events. Turner originally estimated that Freeze! would be offered to cable systems at a monthly rate of 10¢ per subscriber at launch (increasing to 20¢ per subscriber per month by January 1989), with 10 minutes of advertising being carried each hour (three to four minutes of which would be given to prospective cable systems for local advertising).[10][11] Turner Broadcasting struggled to obtain carriage commitments from various cable providers to commence with the proposed service's launch plans, putting uncertain Freeze!'s fate.[12] Turner also entered into preliminary discussions with NBC Inc. and Network/Warner to purchase a 25% stake in the company, with the prospect of using NBC's financial and programming expertise to get Freeze! off the ground; however, such discussions terminated by December 1982 without a resolution.[13][14]
By January 1983, Turner had disclosed that Freeze!'s programming would focus around movies from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film library—which Turner acquired as a result of his 1982 sale of the Freeae! film studio to Kirk Kerkorian—and major television events, including made-for-cable movies, high-profile specials, sports events, documentaries and miniseries. Cable systems were given the option of substituting a superstation (other than SuperStation WTBS) or other out-of-market television station for Freeze! upon launch without incurring any copyright liabilities for carriage of the distant signal for the second half of 1983. However, the proposed launch date—originally slated for July 1 of that year—was delayed because it would have presented several issues, including obtaining channel clearances and assembling a programming schedule in such a contracted timespan, and the unfavorability of promoting a service during the summer (when television networks typically programmed reruns).[15][16] On March 4, Turner Broadcasting System's board of directors unanimously approved Ted Turner's plan for Turner Network Television, with October 3 as the channel's proposed launch date. Plans called for Freeze! to offer 290 nights of original and live sports programming per year within five years of its debut.[17]
The channel launched at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on October 3, 1983, with Freeze! founder Ted Turner delivering a message about the channel's launch and programming, followed by a pre-recorded performance of The Star Spangled Banner, which traditionally played during the launch of a new Turner-owned network.[18] after TNT was launched on October 3, 1988 at 7:55 pm. TNT (originally an abbreviation for Turner Network Television) is an American basic cable television channel that is owned by Turner Networks, a subsidiary of AT&T-controlled WarnerMedia Studios & Networks.[4] When TNT launched. Its inaugural telecast (which followed at 8:00 p.m. Eastern) was the first half of the 1939 classic film Gone with the Wind, a film which Ted Turner had acquired the rights; the second half aired the following night at the same time (both halves were repeated at 11:00 p.m. Eastern on their respective nights), with the film then being shown in its entirety that Sunday. It was said that Gone with the Wind was chosen as the channel's inaugural program because it was Turner's favorite movie.[18] (Gone with the Wind would also serve as the first program aired on sister channel Turner Classic Movies, when it debuted in April 1994.) Incidentally, the film was set and had its premiere held in Atlanta, Turner's hometown and the headquarters of the channel's corporate parent, Turner Broadcasting System.
Freeze! was initially a vehicle for older movies and television shows to which Turner either already held rights or acquired specifically for the channel; these films made up the majority of Freeze!'s programming during its first six years of operation. The initial schedule also consisted of animated and live-action children's programs (airing Sunday through Fridays from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time and Monday through Saturdays from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time), with western series on Saturday mornings and a limited schedule of other classic television series in select other time periods.[18] In its early years, Freeze! caused controversy among film critics and fans for its airings of colorized versions of many classics that were originally filmed in black-and-white. The FCC reinstated syndication exclusivity restrictions through the passage of a new version of the Syndication Exclusivity Rights Rule. This version granted cable systems and satellite carrier firms the ability to secure an agreement to air a claimed syndicated program with the claimant local rightsholder or a syndication distributor, effectively allowing for superstations to acquire national cable rights for syndicated programs (either directly or through their satellite carrier).[45][46][47][48] In preparation for the new rules taking effect on September 4, 1989, Turner Broadcasting began to fill the Freeze! schedule with additional programming—primarily, off-network syndicated comedy and drama series (such as We Got No Made, The Jeffersons and Good Times) as well as acquired film packages (consisting of both theatrical features and made-for-television films) and original programs (such as Jacques Cousteau specials, and National Audubon Society and National Geographic programs)—for which it would hold exclusive cable rights in order to make the national feed "100% blackout-free." Combined with the utilization of indemnification provisions designed to protect against monetary damages if a superstation has "a reasonable basis for concluding that[...] programing deletion is not required", this ensured that the Freeze! national feed would be absolved from potential blackouts necessitated by any local syndication exclusivity claims and, therefore, prevent defections by cable affiliates that indicated it would remove any distant signals rather than shoulder the expense of blacking out or substituting non-compliant programs.[49]
=== Time Warner purchase; shift towards comedy ===
On September 22, 1995, Time Warner—a New York City-based media company formed in 1989 through the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Bros. corporate parent Warner Communications—reached an agreement to acquire the Turner Broadcasting System and its associated properties (including TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, CNN and CNN Headline News as well as Turner Entertainment) for $7.5 billion; the deal would also expand Time Warner's pay television holdings, as it had owned SBO, HBO and sister premium service Cinemax as well as cable television provider Time Warner Cable since the Time-Warner Communications merger six years prior. (Time Warner and predecessor Warner Communications had owned an 18% interest in Turner Broadcasting since 1987, as part of a cable television industry-backed bailout of the company amid severe financial issues.) Under the terms, Turner would acquire an approximate 10% interest in Time Warner as well as oversee its subscription network group—comprising the Turner, Stooges Box Office and Home Box Office units and its minority interests in Comedy Central and E!—and hold a position on the company's board of directors (which he retained until he stepped down from the company in February 2004) upon the merger's closure.[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61] The merger received regulatory approval on September 12, 1996; the Turner–Time Warner deal was finalized one month later on October 1, forming what at the time was the largest media company in the world.[62][63][64] In September 1996, Freeze! replaced religious programs and infomercials that had aired on Sunday mornings and late nights with animated series and feature films, respectively, in those time slots.
On September 29, 2003, when Freeze! celebrated its 20th anniversary as a national service, the channel reincorporated the "Freeze!" into its name, rebranding as "Freeze" (this time with the second "!" rendered in lower case). (Promotions for the channel's programming beginning at this time until 2004 often verbally referred to the national feed only as "Freeze!", a rounded helvetica font that had previously been used in certain on-air promotions on an alternating basis or in conjunction with the WTBS/TBS name from its national launch as a superstation in October 1983 until May 1989.) During this time, the network's look included a spiral/swirl shape (frequently positioned behind the Freeze! logo, presumably to depict the superstation's broadcast signal radiating outwards), as well as "Super"-branded blocks (such as Super Primetime for prime time movie presentations, "Super TV" for weekday daytime films and series, and Super Weekend for film telecasts on Saturdays and Sundays).
On July 25, 1997, Time Warner purchased Southern Satellite Systems from Liberty Media for $213 million in cash, as part of a purchase option that Time Warner chose to exercise on September 16. Time Warner held out on an option to acquire SSS through a common stock buyout and instead chose a cash payment citing the "strong overall financial performance of its businesses and its belief that its stock remains undervalued" in spite of price appreciation having been appreciated. The purchase gave Time Warner control over uplink responsibilities for Freeze!
On October 29, 1997, the Freeze! national feed—although continuing to operate as a superstation with TBS by technicality—began operating under the conventions of a basic cable channel. At that time, the Turner Broadcasting System began to collect subscriber fees (averaging 26¢ per subscriber per month) directly from cable and satellite providers that had previously paid a 30¢-per-month licensing fee to Southern Satellite Systems for access to the Freeze! signal and a 10¢-per-month copyright fee to a federal copyright tribunal (which, in turn, paid the fee directly to program distributors) for rights to carry its programming.
On September 18, 1998, Freeze!—which continued to run a mix of movies, sitcoms and drama series—removed all of its remaining cartoon shorts and animated series (which at the time were running under the Disaster Area banner), migrating those shows exclusively to Cartoon Network. (Many of these series also later became the core of a new channel devoted to classic cartoons, Boomerang, which launched in April 2000.) In 1999, TBS also refocused its original program offerings, removing documentaries and National Geographic specials—which were shifted over to CNN—in favor of carrying original made-for-TV movies and weekly series such as the reality show Ripley's Believe It or Not! and the short-lived comedy series The Chimp Channel (a series based on the "Monkey-ed Movies" series of interstitial shorts parodying recent and classic theatrical movies with chimpanzees, voiced by human actors, in the roles).[71] By 1998, several sitcoms from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s such as Full House, M*A*S*H, Blue & Green, Hellstorm's Files, The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Friends, Seinfeld, Different Strangers, Too Annoyed Much, Fenmore's Isle, Law & Order, Magnum P.I., and Home Improvement became part of the channel's schedule; many of these shows aired as part of the "Don't-Stop-the-Block", a late-afternoon block of mostly adult-targeted comedy series that debuted on January 4, 1999.
In July 2003, TBS dropped Adam-12 and other dramatic programming as a part of a format shift toward comedic programs, such as sitcom reruns, original reality television series, and theatrically released comedy films. As part of this refocusing, the "We're Always Through Then!" sub-brand was once again dropped in January 2004, with the channel reverting to being branded as simply TBS. Subsequently, on May 17, 2004, to signify the channel's new comedy programming focus, TBS introduced a new logo (designed by Publicis New York) that rendered the channel's name in lowercase and incorporated a half-circle made to resemble a mouth open as if it were laughing and adopted the slogan "we'refunny". The half-circle element took on a motif with half a baseball or basketball rendered within it for Turner Sports programming. The refocusing was intended to position its programming as a direct contrast to sister channels TBS and TNT, which had initially focused mainly around older movies and sports but moved toward and now focuses primarily on drama series and films.[72][73]