Lorimar Television (formerly Lorimar Productions, Inc. and Lorimar Distribution, commonly known as Lorimar) was an American production company that was later a subsidiary of Warner Bros., active from February 1, 1969 until December 1, 1993, when it was consolidated into Warner Bros. Television. The company was founded by Irwin Molasky, Merv Adelson, and Lee Rich. The brand was a portmanteau of the name of Merv's then wife, Lori, and Palomar Airport, in San Diego.

In the late 1960s, Lorimar Productions was founded with the aid of a bank loan of $185,000 from Adelson. Prior to Lorimar, Rich had an established reputation first as an advertising executive at Benton & Bowles, then as a television producer, co-producing (with Walter Mirisch) successful series such as The Rat Patrol.

Lorimar initially produced made-for-television movies for the ABC Movie of the Week. Rich bought the script to an adaptation of Earl Hamner Jr.'s novel The Homecoming and subsequently sold the rights to CBS. The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, airing during the 1971 holiday season, was a ratings success, and served as the pilot for Lorimar's first major hit, The Waltons, which premiered in 1972. Throughout the 1970s, Lorimar produced a number of hit shows, including Eight Is Enough; of these, the most popular by far was Dallas.

Lorimar's operations gradually expanded, first with a syndication unit. In late 1978, Lorimar Productions and United Artists (UA) entered into a partnership; UA distributed Lorimar-produced films, while Lorimar sought to adapt UA properties into television series. However, nothing would come of the latter, and UA's distribution deal with Lorimar ended in 1980. In 1980, Lorimar purchased the Allied Artists Pictures Corporation library.

In the 1984–85 season, three of the top 10 shows in the United States were produced by Lorimar; Dallas, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest. In the mid-1980s, Lorimar's output swung toward family-friendly sitcoms; among these were The Hogan Family (initially titled Valerie), Perfect Strangers, and Full House, which were produced by Miller-Boyett Productions. 1985 saw a concerted effort to expand into the lucrative field of first-run syndication with the acquisition of Syndivision, whose rights include syndication of The Greatest American Hero and It's a Living, with ultimately-aborted plans to tape new episodes of the CBS game show Press Your Luck.

In October 1985, Lorimar, as part of their first-run syndication expansion, announced it would merge with television syndication firm Telepictures, becoming Lorimar-Telepictures. That same year Lorimar announced their intention to buy a 15% share in the then-financially troubled Warner Communications. On February 19, 1986, the Lorimar-Telepictures merger was completed and the company started trading on the New York Stock Exchange as "LT". In 1986 they purchased the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio lot in Culver City, as well as the Metrocolor laboratory from Ted Turner. L-T turned around and sold off the Metrocolor facility to Technicolor for $60 million. Around that same year, Rich left the company and moved to MGM.

In 1987, Lorimar-Telepictures's production arm became Lorimar Television and the L-T distribution business was rebranded as Lorimar Syndication. This was part of a strategy where the Lorimar name would be used as an operating name for all of L-T's business units. Plans were announced for a television series based on TV Guide magazine, but these plans did not come to fruition (TV Guide would come to television in 1999, when the Prevue Channel was rebranded as the TV Guide Channel).

In January 12, 1989, Lorimar was purchased by Warner Communications, which in 1990 merged with Time Inc. to form Time Warner. Lorimar's distribution business was folded into Warner Bros. Television Distribution and became Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution; since then, the Telepictures name has been resurrected as both a production company (circa 1990), and once again as a syndication company (1995).