Lassie? Did Timmy Go to Syndication? | The Saturday Evening Post
Join Lassie can still claim a spot as one of the longest running prime-time dramas in the history of television. The show ran for 17 seasons from 1954 to 1971 before a strange quirk caused by a new Federal Communications Commission rule resulted in Lassie moving into a new territory, that of first-run syndication, for two more seasons. While syndication has been part of the regular TV landscape since the 1950s, it’s still a function of programming that not a lot people understand. Here’s a look at the three main types of TV syndication, along with Lassie’s strange journey from networ...