Merv Griffin Enterprises was an American television production company founded by Merv Griffin, in operation from March 7, 1963, to June 4, 1994, when it was folded into Columbia TriStar Television.
History
The company was first established as Milbarn Productions on March 7, 1963, and later as Merv Griffin Productions on March 5, 1964. Griffin's first production under the Milbarn name was Word for Word. Griffin's second game show was Jeopardy! as Griffin's first production under the MGP name on March 30, 1964. In May 1965, his talk show The Merv Griffin Show returned to television. Griffin also created the game show Shopper's Bazaar, which changed its name to Wheel of Fortune on January 6, 1975, after Jeopardy! was canceled on January 3, 1975. Griffin revived Jeopardy! as The All-New Jeopardy! on October 2, 1978, though it was proven to be unsuccessful. Merv Griffin Productions also owned the post-production studio Trans-American Video (TAV) that was founded on June 29, 1981.[1]
In 1982, the company joined forces with King World (now CBS Media Ventures) to syndicate a nightly version of Wheel of Fortune. The company also had the rights to syndicate The Merv Griffin Show. KW also distributed the first two pilots of Jeopardy! in 1983 and January 9, 1984.