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National Telefilm Associates (NTA) was an audio-visual marketing company primarily concerned with the syndication of American film libraries to television, including the Republic Pictures film library. It was successful enough on cable television between 1983 and 1985 that it renamed itself Republic Pictures and undertook film production and ...
Jul 5, 2024 · National Telefilm Associates, Inc. (NTA) was a distribution company established by Ely A. Landau and Oliver A. Unger in 1954 as the successor of Ely Landau, Inc.
- Overview
- History
National Telefilm Associates (otherwise known by its initials, NTA) was an independent distribution company that handled reissues of American film libraries, including much of Paramount Pictures' animated and short-subjects library.
NTA was founded by Ely Landau and Oliver A. Unger in 1954 when Ely Landau, Inc. was reorganized in partnership with Unger and Harold Goldman. NTA was the successor company to U.M.&M. T.V. Corp, which it bought out in 1956.
In October 1956, NTA launched the NTA Film Network, a syndication service which distributed both film and live programs to television stations not affiliated with NBC, CBS, or ABC (DuMont had recently gone out of business). The ad-hoc network's flagship station was WNTA-TV, channel 13 in New York. The NTA Network was launched as a "fourth TV network", and trade papers of the time referred to it as a new television network.
The NTA network launched on October 15, 1956, with over 100 affiliate stations. NTA programming included syndicated programs such as Police Call (1955), How to Marry a Millionaire (1957-1959), The Passerby, Man Without a Gun (1957-1959), and This is Alice (1958). The network also distributed 52 Twentieth Century Fox films in 1956. In November of the same year, it was announced that 50% of the network had been purchased by Twentieth Century-Fox, which would also produce original content for the network.
In January 1959, Ely Landau was succeeded by Charles C. Barry, who took over as president of network operations. Landau continued to chair National Telefilm Associates. Despite the 50% ownership of Twentieth Century Fox, the film network never developed into a major commercial television network on a par with the "Big Three" television networks; modern TV historians regard the NTA Film Network as a syndication service rather than a major television network. TCF would later launch a network of its own in 1986; the Fox Broadcasting Company is now regarded as part of the "Big Four" networks.
Among NTA's holdings:
•Most of the pre-1949 feature films produced by Twentieth Century-Fox (these would later revert back to Fox through their own TV division; as NTA held only a license to distribute, while Fox retained ownership),
NTA network operations did not continue without a flagship station, although parent company National Telefilm Associates continued syndication services. Four television series ( Probe , Tintin , The Fair Adventure and A Day with Doodles ) were syndicated by NTA between 1962 and 1966.
Dec 20, 2016 · It’s a Wonderful Life’ s status as an American classic is owed largely to a quirk of paperwork — after National Telefilm Associates, which owned the film after a long, convoluted chain of...
Apr 22, 2024 · National Telefilm Associates (NTA) was an audio-visual marketing company primarily concerned with the syndication of American film libraries to television, including the Republic Pictures film library.
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List of former NTA Film Network affiliates in the United States. Between July 1956 [1] to around November 1961, the National Telefilm Associates (NTA) operated the NTA Film Network, an early television network and syndication service that operated in the United States and Canada.
