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Independent TV and syndication

TV syndication is the practice of selling or leasing shows to television stations independent of network packages. Before the 1990s, many TV stations ran on a steady diet of syndicated TV and TV packages.

Independent TV stations were often low-budget affairs in the high-band (and thus more interference-ridden) Ultra-High-Frequency (UHF) channels, which picked up and ran a mix of poorly-rated or obscure programming, aging afternoon kiddie cartoons and shlocky movies. "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1989 film UHF was a loving homage to the mixture of odd syndicated programming and high-band broadcast television.

Only a very few independent stations were sufficiently well-founded or sufficiently wealthy (such as the Twin Cities' KMSP, and most stations in the major broadcast markets) to afford quality programming; most of these joined up with either Fox, The WB or UPN in the early to mid-1990s.

Syndication and independent television often went hand in hand, and were generally seen as the "afterlife" for a program with mixed success in its first run, or for cult TV classics like Gilligan's Island and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Programs which are extremely successful (such as Seinfeld and Friends) often see earlier seasons syndicated while new shows are still being produced, to maximize profit for the production company. Two of the handful of scripted programs to be made for "first-run" syndication are Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

In the late 1990s, syndicated programming declined sharply. Changes to FCC regulations made first-run syndication less profitable, and with the rise of cable and satellite television, "specialty" channels arose into showcase reruns that might otherwise be syndicated.

Examples of specialty channels are TV Land (showcasing past hits like Gilligan's Island and The Andy Griffith Show), Boomerang (featuring past cartoon characters like Yogi Bear and The Jetsons), and Game Show Network (which, although it now produces its own line-up of programming, still shows reruns of programs like Match Game and The Newlywed Game). As a result of these changes and the growth of alternative networks like UPN and PAX, independent TV stations all but disappeared by the end of the 1990s.