Last-Run Syndication

If you’re a longtime reader of Tedium, you might be aware of my ongoing fascination with first-run syndication—TV shows that skip the network and instead get sold to local channels to air whenever.

In the days before we found a fourth network, this model was an essential part of what made independent stations work. Some of the most popular television shows of all time—Star Trek: The Next Generation, Baywatch, The Muppet Show—relied on syndication to spread. It also was key to keeping shows alive in the culture long after their original runs. Charles In Charge, for example, likely would be forgotten today had it not successfully made the leap.

It also made for a more attractive business model for show creators, who were at the mercy of the network to ask for more product. As explained in a 1986 piece from the Knight Ridder wires:

What happened? It’s simple economics.

National advertisers learned their dollars went further buying spots in syndicated cartoon shows, where the commercials reach kids five times a week, rather than in network shows, which are on Saturdays only. They began to flock to syndicated shows.

At the same time, the cartoon-makers smelled a much better deal for themselves, Networks usually order only 13 episodes of a new cartoon show, then may order only six more new ones for the following season. It takes about 65 episodes for a show to be profitably syndicated.

Good deal for the production company, great deal for advertisers. Easy enough to figure out.

But a lot has changed in 40 years, and a big decision on the part of NBCUniversal explains why. This week, the company announced it would be shutting down its first-run syndication business, killing Access Hollywood, The Steve Wilkos Show, and other programs. (The still-on-the-air Kelly Clarkson Show, also distributed by NBCUniversal, already announced its plans to end its run this year.)

“NBCUniversal is making changes to our first-run syndication division to better align with the programming preferences of local stations,” the company said in a statement to Variety. (It emphasized it was “very proud of the teams” that made the show.)

While other shows are likely to continue—Live With Kelly and Mark, Drew Barrymore, and Jennifer Hudson are mainstays—there haven’t been any new shows announced to replace the departing series. The model is in real risk of shrinking away, as audiences and advertisers head online.

We used to syndicate the best stuff.

If it were to happen, it wouldn’t be the first time first-run syndication evolved away from a format. In the ’70s, it helped keep network-shunted variety shows like Hee Haw alive. In the ’80s, it gave us weekday cartoons like DuckTales and G.I. Joe. And in the ’90s, it became the home base of heady sci-fi like Babylon 5. These formats, one by one, have moved elsewhere.

The Variety piece suggests first-run syndication is a dying medium. But that’s only really for some types of programs. For some program types, particularly game shows, first-run syndication is secretly doing better than prime time, at least if you narrow the scope to what actually gets broadcast on television. In the most recent week on Nielsen, Wheel of Fortune got better linear television ratings than any show in prime time, and Jeopardy! was right behind it. (The only show that tops them is their common lead-in, ABC World News Tonight.) And the newness of the program doesn’t determine its success, either: Judge Judy drove 5.1 million viewers last week, all the more impressive given its last new episode came out five years ago. (Repeats spring eternal, after all.)

Just one of NBCUniversal’s own shows, a syndicated repackaging of Dateline, appeared in the top 10. And two shows similar to Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition, outpace it. Put another way, the medium might be in decline in general, but NBCUniversal was likely feeling it more than anyone else. Its most popular show is reheated leftovers.

Trash TV like TMZ and reality court shows are likely not going away in the near future—they’re cheap to produce and, for the right kind of person, addictive. But they may not be with us forever.

Byron Allen is one of the few people who has figured out how to consistently make syndication profitable in 2026.

Maybe this model just doesn’t work for giant companies like NBCUniversal

Eight years ago, in a piece titled “TV’s Hidden Math,” I described first-run syndication as an innovative model that favored creators. In the piece, I drew on a 1986 quote from Edwin T. Vane, a syndicator with Westinghouse’s Group W Productions that I think explains why this model stuck:

“The producer can’t make any money on the first network run,” Vane explained. “He may be on the network four years and still not have enough episodes to syndicate, That’s not a very attractive business.”

It may not be attractive for a large network, but if you aim lower, it can still be plenty successful as a business.

Some, such as Byron Allen, have tried to keep it alive. His Comics Unleashed, whose original run dates back to 2006, is likely to be the replacement for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. (It already replaced After Midnight, and Allen, a media mogul who just bought a huge chunk of Starz, has a lot of episodes of the long-running program in his archives.) His model, which essentially involves giving the network the program for free, along with some of the ad revenue, is likely why CBS went for it. “It’s not cheaper,” Allen told the Los Angeles Times last year. “It’s zero.”

As media moguls go, Barry Diller is one of my faves. I can take or leave Eisner.

And then there’s In Depth with Graham Bensinger, a long-form interview show that has managed to outlast many programs of its kind. It’s a rare beast in 2026: A syndicated TV show distributed independently by its creator, one that oddly got its start on regional sports networks.

Bensinger knows his television history. In recent weeks, he released interviews with both Barry Diller and Michael Eisner, who once tried to parlay ’70s-era syndication success with Star Trek into a dedicated Paramount network. (Diller, for what it’s worth, has soured on the modern-day Paramount.) The ploy didn’t work, but it nonetheless proved the latent power of the model Bensinger has spent the past 15 years exploiting.

It is absolutely fitting that he talked to both of them, as Bensinger may be the last man standing on first-run syndication. He’s already outlasted NBCUniversal’s entire syndication business.