Background: The Paramount Stations Group was a company that controlled a group of American broadcast television stations. It was formed in 1991 when Paramount Communications (the then-current owner of Paramount Pictures) bought the last remaining investment of an American media company named the TVX Broadcast Group. By 1994, Viacom bought and took control of Paramount, adding stations they owned to the group. On January 16, 1995, Viacom in a joint venture with Chris-Craft Industries, launched the United Paramount Network (UPN). After about five years of obtaining and selling off television stations, PSG bought Chris-Craft's stake in UPN. On May 24, 2000, PSG was folded and renamed to "Viacom Television Stations Group" after Viacom merged with CBS, also merging both companies' stations together. Following Viacom splitting to two companies (the current Viacom, and the "old" Viacom was renamed to "CBS Corporation") in 2005, the company's name changed to its current name "CBS Television Stations" on January 3, 2006.
(1998?-2000)[]
Logo: On a background with moving clouds, we see the Paramount mountain used from the 1986 movie logo with the words "Paramount Stations Group Inc." in its trademark font below. The Paramount print logo, a long blue line under it, and the stars in their near-circle formation appear from the center of the mountain zooming in. As this happens, the background starts fading to black, the blue line grows longer, and the stars circle around the logo to their spots around the blue border. Once the logo forms, the copyright stamp "© [YEAR] PARAMOUNT STATIONS GROUP, INC." fades in below the name and both the border and the line shine.
Variants:
- On a few episodes of The Teen Files, there is no background and "Paramount Stations Group Inc." fades in along with the copyright stamp.
- The copyright stamp may be in a different font.
- Sometimes, there's no copyright stamp.
FX/SFX: The clouds moving, the zoom-in of the print logo and line, the background fading to black, the stars circling around the logo, the fade-in of the copyright stamp, and the shine on the border and line.
Music/Sounds: The 1987 Paramount Television theme. Sometimes, the theme fades in, partially cutting out the first note.
Availability: Extremely rare. Can be seen on The Teen Files and the 1999 documentary Scared Straight! 20 Years Later.