In Australia Neighbours started on Seven, got cancelled then picked up by Ten where it became a hit, Home and Away likely wouldn't have existed had Seven kept it.
In the US, we've seen shows move networks a fair bit, this is just a small selection:
JAG - NBC to CBS
Medium - NBC to CBS
Brooklyn Nine-Nine - FOX to NBC
Scrubs - NBC to ABC
Supergirl - CBS to The CW
Baywatch - NBC to syndication
Last Man Standing - ABC to FOX
American Dad - FOX to TBS
Futurama - FOX to Comedy Central
There's countless examples in the US, seems to have been a pretty routine thing over there going right back to the 40s- some shows in the 40s and 50s seemed to move network every season! One of the earliest US sitcoms, Mary Kay and Johnny, had the honour of appearing on all 4 networks- CBS, NBC, ABC and Dumont- during its 3 year run. guess the fact that over here the BBC and the ITV companies tended to make pretty much everything themselves until indies started creeping in during the 80s made it harder and more unlikely for shows to move,, as the BBC wouldn't make shows for ITV and vice-versa. Happens a lot more these days with increasing numbers of programmes being made by indies, then selling to the highest bidder or pitching to another channel if the previous one axes it. And obviously ITV companies and even BBC studios make programmes for other broadcasters these days.
Probably the earliest UK examples of shows moving channels were the ITV shows which moved to Channel 4 in the 80s, and the BBC and HTV's Welsh langauage content which moved to S4C.
I imagine This is Your Life moving to ITV in the 60s was possible because it was a US format that was licenced from there and the BBC's rights to the format had expired. If the BBC themselves actually owned the rights they probably wouldn't have allowed ITV to make it. Of course the 1994 move back to the BBC literally was a case of the Thames/ITV version transferring directly.
Last edited by james-2001 on 18 March 2021 8:10pm - 5 times in total