Sterling Entertainment Group (formerly United American Video (or in short: UAV) Corporation, and more commonly known as UAV Home Video or UAV Entertainment) was an American independent entertainment company founded in 1984 as a small local company originally located in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

, then, from late 1986,

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 United ...

. Its headquarters would later relocate to

Fort Mill, South Carolina Fort Mill, also known as Fort Mill Township, is a town in York County, South Carolina, United States. It is a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population of the town was 24,521. Some businesses and residents in th ...

in 1996. UAV was the longtime competitor of

GoodTimes Entertainment GT Media, Inc. was an American home video company that originated in 1984 under the name of GoodTimes Home Video. Though it produced its own titles, the company was well known due to its distribution of media from third parties and classics. The ...

Anchor Bay Entertainment The revived Anchor Bay Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company owned by Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz. Anchor Bay Entertainment markets and releases "new release genre ...

and Celebrity Home Video and many other sell-through discount home entertainment companies.

History

United American Video began in 1984, by "The Pettus Family" with four employees, 50 public domain titles and 200 professional grade

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

and

Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, and stylized as the Greek letter Beta, β in its logo) is a discontinued consumer analog Videotape, video cassette recording format developed by Sony. It was one of the main competitors in the videotape format war ag ...

recorders. The founders changed the name a few years later to UAV Corporation to better reflect its entry into the prerecorded music and PC software businesses. In 1991, it entered into an agreement with

Viacom Enterprises Viacom Productions (formerly Viacom Enterprises) was a television production arm of Viacom. Viacom Enterprises was also a movie producer, and a sports producer. The division was active from 1971 until 2004, when the company was folded into Par ...

to license titles of ''

The Andy Griffith Show ''The Andy Griffith Show '' is an American sitcom television series that was aired on CBS from October 3, 1960, to April 1, 1968, with a total of 249 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons—159 in black and white and 90 in color. The series ...

'' onto videocassette. The company had operated different sublabels like Gemstone Entertainment, Hep Cat Entertainment and Ovation Home Video to release videocassette titles and Karaoke Bay to release record label titles. In 1992, UAV acquired 150 titles from the defunct

VidAmerica VidAmerica was a home video distributor established in 1979 as a subsidiary of Video Corporation of America and headquartered in New York City, New York. It was set up to pioneer the concept of renting videocassettes through mail, which led to ...

, which was eventually rebranded as Sterling Entertainment Group, and later began releasing a line of

MTM Enterprises MTM Enterprises (also known as MTM Productions) was an American independent production company established in 1969 by Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker to produce ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' for CBS. The name for the produc ...

titles through the MTM Home Video label. Sterling will be located on the old VidAmerica headquarters. In 1993, UAV created a video gift pack that was designed specifically for all holiday stores under the Video Gift Pak brand line. In 1996, UAV relocated from Charlotte to

, into a custom built 100,000 square feet headquarters housing manufacturing, distribution and all sales and marketing functions. In 1994, the company began to produce several original titles that were made for videocassette, which included a line of fitness videos starring

Kathy Ireland Kathleen Marie Ireland (born March 20, 1963) is an American actress, author, entrepreneur, fashion designer, philanthropist, and former fashion model. Ireland was a supermodel in the 1980s and 1990s, initially known for appearing in 13 consecut ...

, as well as a line of children's animation videos. Also that year, UAV invested into their own

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

technology and four new animated titles were introduced at the Summer

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

. In late 1998, UAV rebranded its home entertainment division under the Sterling Entertainment Group name, although UAV was continued to be used as a legal name for the company. In 1999, UAV added 210,000 additional square feet to its headquarters with over 250 associates. In 2002, UAV was sold to a

private equity firm A private equity firm or private equity company (often described as a financial sponsor) is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of a Startup company, startup or of an existin ...

. On June 14, 2006, the private equity firm lost control of the company to the lenders and UAV filed, laying off over 300 employees, claiming payroll funding had been cut by its lenders. A week later, the total number of layoffs had increased by approximately 100 extra. On June 30, ContentFilm announced its intent to acquire Allumination Filmworks as well as certain assets from UAV Corporation and UAV Holdings. The acquisition was completed that September. In 2017, Content Media Corporation was acquired by Kew Media Group, which was later liquidated and collapsed in 2020, and the Kew Media Distribution library was later acquired by the Quiver Entertainment division of

Quiver Distribution Quiver Distribution is an American-Canadian film production and film distribution company founded in 2019 by Berry Meyerowitz and Jeff Sackman. The company, sometimes referred to as an indie film company, is best known for releasing films '' The ...

in the same year. Quiver is the current rights holder for most of UAV's original productions, while properties licensed by UAV are now owned by other distributors.

Products

Most of the products produced by Sterling Entertainment Group were VHS and DVD releases of films, cartoons and TV series that are now in the public domain, original productions and exclusive licenses, as well as a full line of music and computer software. Under their UAV Gold banner, Sterling (which was known as UAV at the time) also distributed original production animated fairy tale and classic literature adaptations, often released around the time of more popular and widely known theatrical releases by Disney or other major studios, which this attempt was not used by other generic companies due to their tendencies against

plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...

(owing to one company got sued by Disney after releasing their god-awful version of ''

Aladdin Aladdin ( ; , , ATU 561, 'Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with '' One Thousand and One Nights'' (often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part of the original ...

''). Notable releases included ''The Secret of the Hunchback'', ''The Secret of Anastasia'', ''Young Pocahontas'', ''The Secret of Mulan'', ''Moses: Egypt's Great Prince'', ''The Adventures of Tarzan'', and ''

Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid is a Japanese anime film based on Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 fairy tale, released in 1975 by Toei Animation. This film is close to Andersen's story, notably in its preservation of the original and tragic ending. The two main protagonists ar ...

'' (originally released in Japan in 1975, and edited to remove approximately two minutes of footage containing shots of topless nudity in 2001). UAV also had the exclusive licenses for the entire

library which included ''

The Mary Tyler Moore Show ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' (also known simply as ''Mary Tyler Moore'') is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns and starring actress Mary Tyler Moore. The show originally aired on CBS from September 19, 1970 ...

'', ''

Hill Street Blues ''Hill Street Blues'' is an American serial police procedural television series that aired on NBC in prime-time from January 15, 1981, to May 12, 1987, for 146 episodes. The show chronicles the lives of the Metropolitan Police Department staff ...

'' and '' The White Shadow''. They also distributed many public domain episodes of TV series, including ''

The Beverly Hillbillies ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family ...

'', ''

The Dick Van Dyke Show ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'' is an American sitcom created by Carl Reiner that initially aired on CBS from October 3, 1961, to June 1, 1966, with a total of 158 half-hour episodes spanning five seasons. It was produced by Calvada Productions"Calv ...

'', ''

'' and ''

The Lucy Show ''The Lucy Show'' is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1962 to 1968. It was Lucille Ball's follow-up to ''I Love Lucy''. A significant change in cast and premise for the fourth season (1965–1966) divides the program into two distinct ...

''. Sterling also released DVDs and VHS tapes of

DiC Entertainment DIC Entertainment Corporation (; also known as DIC Audiovisuel, DIC Enterprises, DIC Animation City, DIC Entertainment, L.P., and DIC Productions, sometimes stylized as DİC) was a French American film and television production company that ...

shows beginning in 2003.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sterling Entertainment Group 1984 establishments in Tennessee 2006 disestablishments in South Carolina American companies established in 1984 Companies based in Charlotte, North Carolina Companies disestablished in 2006 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018 Defunct companies based in North Carolina Entertainment companies established in 1984 Entertainment companies of the United States

History

Products

See also

References