Paramount Television Network

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Paramount Television Network
Type	Broadcast television network
Country	United States
Availability	defunct
Owner	Paramount Pictures
Launch date	January 1949
Closure date	1953

The Paramount Television Network was an ill-fated attempt by American film corporation Paramount Pictures to launch a successful television network in 1949.^[1] The company had built television stations KTLA in Los Angeles and WBKB-TV in Chicago. It had also invested $400,000 in the DuMont Television Network, which operated stations in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh.

The network launched in January 1949 with a full-page advertisement in Television.^[2] However, a few years earlier, the Federal Communications Commission had placed a five-station cap on all television networks, and later ruled DuMont and Paramount were branches of the same company. Since DuMont owned three stations and Paramount two, the federal agency ruled both networks could not launch additional television stations. Paramount refused to relinquish its stake in DuMont, and both networks suffered as a result, with neither company experiencing growth in the number of its owned-and-operated stations. Meanwhile, ABC, CBS, and NBC each owned five stations.

At its peak in late 1950, the Paramount Television Network was distributing five television series a week to over 40 affiliated stations.^[1] In 1953, Paramount divested itself of the Chicago station (which became a CBS affiliate), but held on to KTLA. The programming service never gelled into a true television network. In 1956, with much prompting from Paramount, the DuMont Network folded, ending Paramount's first, early ventures into television.

However, executives at Paramount continued to toy with the idea of entering the television medium once more. The company produced series seen on the Big Three Television Networks, and in 1978 planned to launch the Paramount Television Service, a new "fourth" television network; its programming would have consisted of only one night a week. Thirty "Movies of the Week" would have followed Star Trek: Phase II on Saturday nights. This plan was aborted when the decision was made to transform Phase II into Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In 1995, Paramount launched UPN, which lasted until September 15, 2006.^[3]