ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TELEVISION 441 UNIVERSAL TV-leading supplier of TV series to the period. Robert Stack played Eliot Ness, head of the "un- networks since the mid -60s, usually having three times the touchable" government agents cracking down on the mobs. number of weekly hours on the air as the runner-up Hol- Although it was highly popular, the series was attacked lywood studio. A subsidiary of Universal Pictures, UTV has by Italian -American groups for ethnic defamation and by been responsible for such series as Ironside, Kojak, Columbo, others for the sensationalism of machine-gun murders and Baretta, Emergency, The Rockford Files, Rich Man, Poor Man acts of brutality. It was produced by Quinn Martin for and the NBC World Premiere movies, among scores of other Desilu, in association with Langford Productions. shows. Its sister company, MCA -TV, engaged in domestic and foreign syndication, habitually turns huge profits from the network hits through the sale of reruns. Universal Pictures was a foundering company when the talent agency MCA (originally, Music Corp. of America) bought control of the studio in 1962. MCA then divested itself of the talent agency and concentrated on making movies, television series and recordings (it had also pur- chased Decca Records). Earlier, MCA had bought the old Republic film studios and created Revue Productions, which turned out low -budget TV series. With Universal, MCA Inc. had the largest studio in Hollywood and the best- equipped backlot, and the show -business savvy of its princi- pal officers, Jules Stein and Lew Wasserman, quickly turned the facilities into a giant TV production source. Adding to the networks' trust in the studio is the fact that it maintains a large roster of contract producers and writers. Sid Sheinberg, who had been president of UTV, became president of MCA Inc. in the early 70s and was succeeded as head of the TV company by Frank Price. When Price left for Stack as Eliot Ness Columbia Pictures in 1978, he was succeeded by Donald Sipes. See also MCA. UPITN-a leading international newsfilm agency jointly owned by United Press International (UPI), Britain's Inde- pendent Television News and Panax Corp., a midwest news- UNIVERSITY OF MID-AMERICA-a four -state pro- paper chain which acquired Paramount Picture's 50% ject developed by the University of Nebraska and the interest in 1975. The company, with principal offices in Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Center which London and New York, claims to supply 17 million feet of represents the first attempt in the U.S. to establish an open - newsfilm a year to 100 clients in 70 countries. In 1976 learning system offering a four-year college degree program UPITN expanded by taking over the foreign newsfilm ser- via public television. Formed in the early 70s, the system vice from ABC News, which withdrew from film syndica- expanded when it received major federal funding in 1974. In tion outside of North America. Under the arrangement addition to TV, the system involves the use of radio, tele- ABC News supplies its U.S. newsfilm in exchange for phone and books and provides for personal consultation. UPITN's foreign materials. For about two years in the early 70s, UPITN attempted to provide a daily electronic feed to subscribing stations in "UNTAMED WORLD"-syndicated (1969) documentary the U.S. but ran head-on against another company, TVN series on the struggle for survival of animals in the wild, via Inc. (backed by Joseph Coors), which was attempting to do Metromedia Producers Corp. and sponsored by Kellogg Co. the same thing. Neither company was able to enlist enough clients to justify its costs, and in 1974 UPITN bowed out because the venture had driven the entire company into the "UNTOUCHABLES, THE"-landmark police series on red. ABC (1959-63) which became notorious for its escalation of UPITN came back into the picture, but in a different violence in prime time and its association of Italian names capacity, when TVN disbanded in November 1975. Major with the gangland crime of the Prohibition Era. On the independent stations, needing a daily national and interna- positive side were its quasi -documentary style, with Walter tional news feed, then created a cooperative, Independent Winchell narrating in the staccato idiom of headlines, and Television News Assn. (ITNA), which purchased its foreign the careful attention to authentic detail in depicting the news from UPITN..