| The Program Exchange | |
| Type: | Subsidiary |
| Parent: | Zenith ROI Agency |
| Fate: | dissolution |
| Owner: | Publicis |
| Founder: | Hill Blackett and John Glen Sample |
| Defunct: | 2016 |
| Location: | New York, United States |
| Industry: | Television syndication |
| Homepage: | The Program Exchange |
The Program Exchange was a syndicator of television programs. It was founded as DFS Program Exchange in 1979, which became elongated to the DFS-Dorland Program Exchange from 1986 to 1987. From 1986 to 2008, it was a division of Saatchi & Saatchi, an advertising agency (which acquired Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, the original owners), while merging with Dorland Advertising in 1986,[1] and would later be acquired by Publicis in 2000. In January 2008, Publicis transferred The Program Exchange from the Saatchi & Saatchi subsidiary to its ZenithOptimedia subsidiary, the logo was then changed to reflect this move. In 2016, the programexchange.com website was shut down; the shutdown coincided with NBCUniversal's purchase of one of its most prominent clients, DreamWorks Classics[2] while Jay Ward Productions has been sold to WildBrain, as of 2022.
The Program Exchange was a "barter syndicator," distributing programming on behalf of the shows' producers, many of them having their own cash distribution services. Instead of paying a cash fee, television stations who ran those programs agreed to a barter exchange (hence the syndicator name), wherein the station agreed to air a certain number of commercials for various General Mills products per program. This arrangement allowed for the programs to air on stations that may not have large budgets to acquire them. The Program Exchange typically distributed older programming that was no longer widely distributed in syndication, as well as programming designed to meet federal educational/information mandates. The Program Exchange continued to hold distribution rights to the Jay Ward Productions and Total Television archives throughout the exchange's existence; both of those companies' programs were produced at the DFS-owned Gamma Productions studios in Mexico until that studio shut down in 1968.
The Program Exchange handled distribution for all titles listed below. The dates listed are the dates that they were distributed, not the dates they originally aired.
From the company's beginnings as DFS Program Exchange, which was originally headquartered in Dallas, the company's initial goal was to syndicate several shows that were abandoned by other syndicators, such as the Hanna-Barbera and Gamma Productions archives; the former brought them Scooby-Doo and The Jetsons.[3] The company grew with Olympic Champions, which starred Bruce Jenner; it was the first ever live-action show distributed by DFS themselves.[4] In 1983, it purchased the exclusive syndication rights for Bewitched from Columbia Pictures Television.[5] It also acquired the exclusive syndication rights to two other Screen Gems shows, I Dream of Jeannie and The Partridge Family.[6] These shows were re-popularized thanks in part to a boom in independent TV stations.[7]
In 1985, DFS Program Exchange made its first bold move by syndicating their own straight barter strip, Dennis the Menace, as well as acquiring U.S. syndicated rights to Woody Woodpecker and Friends, which the Program Exchange began to syndicate (taking over from MCA TV) in January 1988.[8] In 1986, DFS was bought out by Saatchi & Saatchi, which was then merged with Dorland Advertising, another Saatchi & Saatchi subsidiary; to reflect this, the company was renamed as the DFS-Dorland Program Exchange.[9] After less than a year, it was renamed again to simply The Program Exchange. In 1992, the company picked up the off-net syndicated rights to the hit CBS saturday morning series Garfield and Friends, which began barter syndication runs in September 1993.[10] In 1997, The Program Exchange secured the syndication rights to the first 65 episodes of the original English dub of Sailor Moon. A year later, it helped DiC broadcast the remaining 17 episodes on Cartoon Network's programming block Toonami.