Who owns the rights to “Little House”?
In light of recent events within the Paramount/Viacom organization, this issue is now a confusing one, but one that deserves explicit explanation. LHOTP was originally an NBC (National Broadcasting Company) production in association with Ed Friendly. The syndication rights to the series reverted in the mid-1980s to WorldVision Enterprises, which had been the outlet of Spelling Entertainment Group. WorldVision, which later became Republic Pictures, also has in its library most of the Quinn Martin and NBC series, shows produced by Aaron Spelling (“Beverly Hills 90210”, “The Love Boat”, “Twin Peaks”, “Melrose Place”), and a huge library of over 3,000 feature films from the Republic backlog (“High Noon”, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, and most of United Artists’ early films). Spelling Entertainment itself had been, until 1999, only partially owned by Viacom, the company that owns Paramount Pictures. Viacom now has the remaining portion of Spelling it did not own previously. As of this writing, N
