USA to Push 100 Hours of Original Fare
Cable Network Brings Back Four Series, Adds One and Six-Hour Event
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 3/28/2007 1:35:00 PM
New York -- USA Network expects to heat up the Nielsens this summer with its returning quartet of existing original series, flanked by new entry Burn Notice and six-hour event The Starter Wife.
Factoring in the abovementioned projects with new episodes from original standbys and fresh fare from its professional-wrestling franchise, USA will near the triple-digits in terms of original-hour delivery this summer.
“With The Starter Wife and Burn Notice joining our hits Monk (sixth season), Psych (second), The 4400 (fourth), The Dead Zone (sixth) and WWE Raw, we’re looking at about 100 hours of original content,” said Bonnie Hammer, president of USA and Sci Fi Channel, in a prepared statement. “It clearly positions USA as an industry leader, the go-to place for strong original programming.”
USA will kick off its summer season May 31 with the premiere of The Starter Wife, six hours based on The New York Times best-seller-list novel from author Gigi Levanagie Grazer. Starring Debra Messing (Will & Grace) in a sexy, funny tour de force performance, the story details one woman’s quest to redefine herself following years of marriage to a Hollywood studio head.
Burn Notice joins the characters network’s schedule June 28, with the drama focusing on a secret agent whose career ends as unknown forces put a “burn notice” out on him. He uses his spy training to help people who can’t go to the police and to search for those responsible for his current position.
USA -- which continues to set the ratings paces among entertainment networks in 2007 -- was expected to announce its summer strategy at a press upfront presentation here tonight.
In the pipeline, USA has a number of projects at various stages of development: The Negotiator (working title) eyes Archie Stark, who’s trading in 10 years as a top crisis negotiator for the FBI for some really dangerous work -- a New York City relationship counselor; American Girl, the tale of an agreeable Wal-Mart greeter who elects to follow a more fearless path after she gets shot during a robbery gone awry; Family Values tracks the Peyton brood, whose “teen-agers” and their “parents” are actually a group of undercover FBI agents pretending to be typical suburbanites; The Oldest Rookie, a look at Steve Upstone, a man trading the stability of job and family routine to become a 43-year-old first-timer on the police force; and Spying in High Heels, in which Maddie Springer uses her uncanny eye for fashion details to find her missing boyfriend and then open a detective agency out of her stepfather’s hair salon.
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