syndication—the practice of selling content directly to local stations and station ownership groups without going through a network. The stations can air these shows at whatever time and with whatever frequency they desire. There are two primary types of syndication: First-run syndication such as talk shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show or Ricki Lake; game shows like Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune; court shows like Judge Judy or scripted originals like Xena: Warrior Princess or Star Trek: The Next Generation. And second-run syndication, most often referred to as reruns of popular shows. This means my objects of study are often limited by what is available and how. Many television shows from the last 50 or 60 years have been officially released on physical media like VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, or DVD, or made available via streaming or on-demand services, but these are primarily primetime network or cable programs, not daily syndicated talk shows, game shows, public affairs programs, or kids’ TV. Despite accurate cleaned numbers list from frist database its own ephemerality, syndication remains television’s best archivist: It preserves shows that can still turn a profit in reruns, even if it doesn’t always ensure their accessibility or proper care. While syndication keeps certain programs alive in archives, they often remain unaired or improperly preserved without enough demand. Those that no longer generate revenue, no matter how innovative, tend to disappear—left to decay on shelves or locked away in obsolete formats under the weight of copyright restrictions–or worse. One of the most tragic examples of this vanishing culture, allegedly twenty feet below the surface of the Upper New York Bay, is the lost
That year, DuMont gave the greenlight to the half-hour show, Faraway Hill. Although “firsts” are hard to claim given that much of early TV history is lost, Faraway Hill is often thought to be the first network television soap opera. The show was created by David P. Lewis, who adapted it from his unfinished novel. According to Elana Levine in her history of soaps, Her Stories, like with radio soaps before, the show included “stream-of-consciousness” style voice-overs that allowed women to look away as needed under the social expectations of household duties. As reported in his obituary, Lewis said DuMont was desperate for programming, particularly during the nine hours of weekly programming it aired in competition with NBC. The show aired only ten episodes, and reportedly made no money, with Lewis claiming he did it to “test the mind of the viewer.” Through Faraway Hill, Levine argues that DuMont “experimented with visuals, including set changes, establishing shots, and some visual effects while, narratively, it tried a recapping strategy that would become a fixture of daytime TV soaps, repeating the last scene of the previous episode as the start of the next.” A second soap effort, A Woman to Remember, ran daily for five months in 1949, with half of that run appearing in daytime. Although Faraway Hill is recognized as the first primetime television serial—a format that would define all Primetime Emmy winners for Outstanding Drama Series in the 21st century—it has vanished because DuMont broadcast it live and, as far as we know, never recorded it.
Faraway Hill wasn’t the only first in its genre from DuMont. The network also aired Captain Video and His Video Rangers from 1949 to 1955, considered the first popular sci-fi television show and DuMont’s longest-running program. If you’re a fan of television comedy, you can thank Mary Kay and Johnny, often thought to be the first network sitcom—a multi-camera comedy that premiered on DuMont in 1947. DuMont was also the first network to broadcast the NFL championship game in 1951, launched Jackie Gleason’s career, and aired the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.”