This Just In
By Staff -- Multichannel News, 11/4/2007 7:00:00 PM
Items:
CMT, Fremantle Team on 'Can You Duet?’ Series
Crown Says NICC Can’t Exercise a 'Put’ Option
NCTA Chief McSlarrow Endorses New Farm Bill
FX Picks Up 'Rescue Me’ For 22-Show Fifth Season
TV Writers Are Set to Walk Out Today
Clearing the air
CMT, Fremantle Team on 'Can You Duet?’ Series
Nashville — CMT has teamed with FremantleMedia North America — producers of American Idol — to create a new series designed to find the best country music duet in America.
The 11-part series Can You Duet?, slated to debut next spring, will pair individual singers in a competition series to see which two can create the best duet, according to Bob Kusbit, head of development for CMT.
Each contestant will work with different partners week after week as the competition progresses. Contestants will be eliminated on a week-to-week basis until two winners are chosen.
“We’ve always wanted to be in the music competition business, but we hadn’t found the right partner or just the right concept until now,” Kusbit said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to team up with FremantleMedia, the world’s foremost music competition experts, to create the kind of buzz-worthy series that not only has the potential to be a hit for CMT, but to create the next big country stars.”
Crown Says NICC Can’t Exercise a 'Put’ Option
New York — Crown Media Holdings, parent of Hallmark Channel, claims that one of its investors has negotiated away its put right for 4.4 million shares of the company’s stock, according to a securities filing Thursday.
The National Interfaith Cable Coalition on Monday notified Crown Media that planned to exercise its put option, which expired Nov. 1.
But Crown Media, in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, claims that “as a result of recent negotiations, we have a binding agreement with NICC which negates the put right, itemizes remaining financial obligations under the prior agreement with NICC and handles related matters.”
According to Crown Media, “Crown views the attempt by NICC to exercise the put as a breach of that agreement.”
In early October, Crown Media CEO Henry Schleiff said that his company was trying to reach a deal regarding the put option.
NICC has programming agreements with Hallmark Channel that are set to expire at the end of the year.
The NICC can either put its shares to Crown, costing the company about $29 million, or retain the stock and sell it on the open market.
NCTA Chief McSlarrow Endorses New Farm Bill
Washington — National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow is endorsing a Senate farm bill that would help ensure that a federal broadband loan program directs funding at truly unserved areas of the country.
“We commend you for restoring the program to its original intent of helping to promote broadband deployment in unserved rural areas,” McSlarrow said Nov. 1 in a short letter to the Senate Agriculture Committee chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), and the panel’s most senior Republican, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.
For several years, NCTA and small cable firms represented by the American Cable Association have complained that the U.S. Agriculture Department has been providing loans to broadband providers in rural markets where cable and possibly phone companies already offer high-speed Internet access, undermining competition and the intent of the loan law.
Evidently, the Senate bill would impose new loan criteria to ensure that USDA money flowed into areas that do not have broadband access.
In his letter, McSlarrow said he understood that the bill would insist that at least 25% of the households involved in a loan project do not have access to broadband.
“By requiring applicants to specifically target these unserved areas, the Senate Farm Bill will improve the program and help to increase broadband deployment throughout rural America,” McSlarrow’s letter said.
The five-year, $288 billion farm bill passed Harkin’s panel two weeks ago. It is expected to reach the Senate floor next week.
FX Picks Up 'Rescue Me’ For 22-Show Fifth Season
New York — Firehouse series Rescue Me has been renewed for a fifth season.
FX has ordered a 22-episode fifth season of the show from Sony Pictures Television. Production on the series, for which Denis Leary has twice received best actor Emmy nominations for his portrayal of Tommy Gavin, a troubled New York City fireman still trying to emerge from the personal/professional ashes of Sept. 11, is slated to begin next spring. Leary, Peter Tolan and Jim Serpico will return as executive producers and show runners, along with all of the series regulars, according to network officials.
The fifth season will be split into two separate cycles, a tack taken by FX with the current fifth campaign of Nip/Tuck, USA Network with Monk and Sci Fi Channel with Battlestar Galactica.
The network has also renewed sophomore seasons of The Riches and Dirt. There was no word at press time whether FX has elected to return Glenn Closer-starrer Damages for a second season.
Since its launch in July 2004, Rescue Me has been one of basic cable’s strongest performers among adults 18 to 49. Last season, first-run episodes delivered an average 1.9 million viewers in the Madison Avenue-coveted demo and 2.8 million total viewers. The show’s weekly four telecast cume averaged 3.2 million demo watchers and 4.8 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data from the network.
TV Writers Are Set to Walk Out Today
New York — The nation’s TV writers will strike on today (Nov. 5), the first such job action in nearly two decades.
On Friday, the board of the Writers Guild of America West and the council of the WGA East unanimously voted to approve the strike, which was to start at 12:01 a.m. The news was announced at a press conference in Los Angeles.
On Thursday, the WGA’s negotiating committee unanimously recommended that the WGA West board and the WGA East council call a strike. (See “TV Braces for a Writers’ Strike, page 4.)
The contract between the writers and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Writers expired Nov. 1, and negotiations between both sides and a federal mediator broke down the day before, Oct. 31.
The AMPTP represents more than 350 producers, while the WGA represents about 12,000 writers. WGA membership voted to authorize a strike several weeks ago.
The job action would be the first strike by the WGA since 1988, when a walkout lasted five months.
On Friday morning, the WGA East started its pre-strike campaign when nearly 100 of its member handed out informational leaflets at Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, where NBC is headquartered.
“We are very disappointed with their press conference and the action they took,” AMPTP president Nick Counter said in a statement Friday afternoon. “Their press conference was full of falsehoods, misstatements and inaccuracies, and we’ll respond at an appropriate time.”
One immediate impact: Comedy Central said The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report would go into reruns starting Monday night.
Talks between the producers and scribes have been hung up on several issues, mainly those related to digital rights.
The WGA wants residuals for DVDs to be doubled, while producers say no to an increase, that DVD sales make up their production deficits. Writers want residuals for TV shows that are streamed on the Internet, but the AMPTP says that usage is promotional and no payments should be made.
Clearing the air
• The headline on an Oct. 29 interview misidentified Paul Crouch Jr. of Trinity Broadcasting Network (Oct. 29, 2007, page 17). The headline should have read: “TBN’s Crouch: Sizing Up To Succeed.”
• A headline on the Policy page in this issue (page 26) should read “FCC Voids Exclusives.”
Hallmark 'Puts’ Stock Question to Rest
01/04/2008Crown: NICC Put Right Is Kaput
11/02/2007Hallmark Channel Settles Dispute With NICC
01/03/2008HD Movie Network In Cards at Hallmark
08/11/2007
