Amari Television

Amari Television was a network operator and media production company founded in 1941. The company distributed shows and was a close partner with CBS since 1951. The company peaked in 1973, making the 1970s the best decade for the network. The company reported it’s first major financial loss since 1958 in 1986, and began to rapidly decline until mid 2000, when Charter Communications purchased Amari from Viacom, and rebranded all operations to Charter Networks Television.

Logo since 1956

### Fate

Purchased by Charter Communications, folded into Charter Networks Television

## Early life (1941-1953)

   Amari Television was founded in 1941 as Amari Film Corporation. The company created and distributed shows for syndication, and occasionally would get involved in movies, however their work would go uncredited, until 1943 when the first Amari logo was created (shown on left). The logo would only appear in the credits, and their work was still entirely uncredited in films. The logo consists of a slab-serif bold letter A. There was no "full logo" or wordmark.

## 1951 CBS partnership

In 1951, shortly after the "Eyemark" logo was finished for CBS, Amari proposed to be an exclusive producer for some of CBS' shows, along with $1.4 million. CBS accepted the proposal and a majority of CBS' shows were produced by both CBS and Amari.

## Exiting film industry, 1953 company restructuring

   In 1953, Amari exited the film industry to focus solely on television. The idea was first proposed in 1949, and was dismissed until 1952, when the company began planning a major restructure, which would allow Amari to rely on just television production, instead of film and television. The restructuring was planned to begin in 1955, and the exit to begin in 1953. Both the exit and restructuring finished in 1956 and Amari introduced a new name and logo as part of the restructuring. The new name was decided to be "Amari Television", and the new logo included a full wordmark, consisting of "AMARI" on one line, and "TELEVISION" on the next, both left-aligned. The font was chosen to be relatively close to the original "A" logo, but different enough to be new.

## 1970s Viacom purchase and peak

When CBS Films had split from CBS in 1973 to create Viacom, the first financial move of the new Viacom was to purchase Amari for $11.6 million. The purchase allowed Amari to be involved with producing all of CBS' shows. This drove the company value past $25 million, and made the the 1970s the best decade for the company, financial-wise.

## 1986-2000 decline

In 1986, Viacom produced the pilot episode of the TV show *Matlock,* which did not have Amari involved. Viacom began distancing itself from Amari, which caused the company to go down a rapid financial decline. *Matlock* turned out to be a hit show compared to most other Amari-Viacom produced shows, not only forcing Amari to miss out on lots of money raked in from the series, but also made Viacom produce less and less shows with Amari. In 1990, Viacom started to push Amari out of producing existing Amari-Viacom shows, causing more money to be lost on the Amari side, but also causing those shows ratings' to raise by an average of 90%. By 1998, less than 3 shows were being produced by Amari, and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. In November 1999, Amari announced that it would file for chapter 7 bankruptcy in July 2000. By February 2000, the company was valued at less than $10,000; and a large portion of the value was simply because they were owned by Viacom. In May 2000, the founder and president, Charles Amarisson, died due to complications caused by a heart attack.

## 2000 purchase and fold

In June 2000, Charter Communications offered to buy the company for $560 thousand; more than 50 times the value of the entire company. The offer was accepted and Amari Television was folded into Charter Networks Television, with the production arm immediately killed off.