Company record contains undocumented properties

[m0nk3y2k4]

Hey there, while playing around with the various "Companies" endpoints I noticed the following behavior:

According to the OpenAPI documentation, the /companies/{id} endpoint should returns records of type #/components/schemas/Company. However, looking at the actual JSON, it seems like all(?) companies contain some additional property which is not declared in the corresponding schema inside the OpenAPI documentation:

"companyType": {
    "companyTypeId": 0,
    "companyTypeName": ""
}

According to its name and the contained fields, this property seems to be a #/components/schemas/CompanyType.

Moreover, for some companies another undocumented property is returned within the JSON which does not match to any of the declared schemas though:

"parentCompany": {
    "id": 30319,
    "name": "NBCUniversal",
    "relation": {
        "id": 0
    }
}

And now it gets a bit weird:

• The companyType property seems to be always included in the JSON returned by the /companies/{id} as well as the /companies (getAllCompanies) endpoint. So far so good.
• The additional parentCompany property though never shows up when invoking the /companies endpoint. As for the /companies/{id} endpoint, it seems this property is only returned for specific companies but not for all.

Here some practical examples

1. https://api4.thetvdb.com/v4/companies/266 - Some company that doesn't contain a `parentCompany` property ```json "data": { "id": 266, "name": "The Weather Channel", "slug": "the-weather-channel", "nameTranslations": [ "eng" ], "overviewTranslations": [], "aliases": [], "country": "usa", "primaryCompanyType": 1, "activeDate": null, "inactiveDate": null, "companyType": { "companyTypeId": 0, "companyTypeName": "" } } ``` 2. https://api4.thetvdb.com/v4/companies/47816 - Some other company that contains a `parentCompany` property ```json "data": { "id": 47816, "name": "Universal Content Productions", "slug": "universal-content-productions", "nameTranslations": [ "eng" ], "overviewTranslations": [ "eng" ], "aliases": [ { "language": "eng,Universal Cable Productions", "name": "UCP" } ], "country": "usa", "primaryCompanyType": 3, "activeDate": null, "inactiveDate": null, "companyType": { "companyTypeId": 0, "companyTypeName": "" }, "parentCompany": { "id": 30319, "name": "NBCUniversal", "relation": { "id": 0 } } } ``` 3. https://api4.thetvdb.com/v4/companies?page=93 - Same company as above but this time contains no `parentCompany` property ```json {...}, { "id": 47816, "name": "Universal Content Productions", "slug": "universal-content-productions", "nameTranslations": [ "eng" ], "overviewTranslations": [ "eng" ], "aliases": [ { "language": "eng,Universal Cable Productions", "name": "UCP" } ], "country": "usa", "primaryCompanyType": 3, "activeDate": null, "inactiveDate": null, "companyType": { "companyTypeId": 0, "companyTypeName": "" } }, {...} ```

[antheaezzell]

@m0nk3y2k4 thank you for reporting. I have ticketed.

Internal ticket for our reference - https://mediamorph.atlassian.net/browse/TVD-2616

[m0nk3y2k4]

@antheaezzell for the sake of completeness: Looks like the described behavior is not limited to the aforementioned Companies endpoints but also occurs on other endpoints that return (nested) company information.

For example,

• {SeriesExtendedRecord}.originalNetwork
• {SeriesExtendedRecord}.latestNetwork

contain the additional parentCompany property whereas

• {SeriesExtendedRecord}.companies
• {MovieExtendedRecord}.companies

don't.

Detailed examples

1. https://api4.thetvdb.com/v4/series/280619/extended ```json "companies": [ { "id": 361, "name": "SYFY", "slug": "syfy", "nameTranslations": [ "eng" ], "overviewTranslations": [], "aliases": [], "country": "usa", "primaryCompanyType": 1, "activeDate": "1992-09-24", "inactiveDate": null, "companyType": { "companyTypeId": 1, "companyTypeName": "Network" } }, {...} ], "originalNetwork": { "id": 361, "name": "SYFY", "slug": "syfy", "nameTranslations": [ "eng" ], "overviewTranslations": [], "aliases": [], "country": "usa", "primaryCompanyType": 1, "activeDate": "1992-09-24", "inactiveDate": null, "companyType": { "companyTypeId": 0, "companyTypeName": "" }, "parentCompany": { "id": 30319, "name": "NBCUniversal", "relation": { "id": 0 } } }, ``` 2. https://api4.thetvdb.com/v4/movies/5391/extended ```json "companies": { "studio": [], "network": [], "production": [ { "id": 361, "name": "SYFY", "slug": "syfy", "nameTranslations": null, "overviewTranslations": null, "aliases": null, "country": "usa", "primaryCompanyType": 1, "activeDate": "1992-09-24", "inactiveDate": null, "companyType": { "companyTypeId": 3, "companyTypeName": "Production Company" } }, {...}, ], "distributor": [], "special_effects": [] }, ``` 3. https://api4.thetvdb.com/v4/series/292157/extended ```json "companies": [ { "id": 37, "name": "BBC One", "slug": "bbc-one", "nameTranslations": [ "eng" ], "overviewTranslations": [], "aliases": [], "country": "gbr", "primaryCompanyType": 1, "activeDate": null, "inactiveDate": null, "companyType": { "companyTypeId": 1, "companyTypeName": "Network" } } ], "originalNetwork": { "id": 37, "name": "BBC One", "slug": "bbc-one", "nameTranslations": [ "eng" ], "overviewTranslations": [], "aliases": [], "country": "gbr", "primaryCompanyType": 1, "activeDate": null, "inactiveDate": null, "companyType": { "companyTypeId": 0, "companyTypeName": "" }, "parentCompany": { "id": 956, "name": "BBC", "relation": { "id": 0 } } }, "latestNetwork": { "id": 37, "name": "BBC One", "slug": "bbc-one", "nameTranslations": [ "eng" ], "overviewTranslations": [], "aliases": [], "country": "gbr", "primaryCompanyType": 1, "activeDate": null, "inactiveDate": null, "companyType": { "companyTypeId": 0, "companyTypeName": "" }, "parentCompany": { "id": 956, "name": "BBC", "relation": { "id": 0 } } }, ```

[antheaezzell]

Thanks for the additional examples @m0nk3y2k4 I have added them to the aforementioned ticket.