Wednesday, June 30, 2010
USA Network Buys Modern Family Repeats Starting Fall 2013, Oxygen Buys Glee Repeats; Futurama Returns Scores for Comedy Central
Modern Family stars Ed O'Neill as Jay, Julie Bowen as Claire, Ty Burrell as Phil, SofĂa Vergara as Gloria, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell, Eric Stonestreet as Cameron, Sarah Hyland as Haley, Nolan Gould as Luke, Ariel Winter as Alex and Rico Rodriguez as Manny. The series is produced by Twentieth Century Fox Television in association with Levitan Lloyd Productions. Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd are executive producers/creators.
Modern Family is the biggest sitcom acquisition by USA Network since Wings in 1995. Wings aired on USA Network from 1995-2002 to good numbers. It returned to early morning in June 2008 and is sill airing. Financially, Modern Family is their biggest sitcom acquisition ever. Some of the past sitcoms they have aired were all in the morning hours such as Coach, Becker, Perfect Strangers, Gimme a Break!, Webster, The Facts of Life, Major Dad, Saved by the Bell: The New Class, Martin and Living Single. USA Network was also famous for airing short-lived sitcoms in the mornings in their USAM block, such as Hearts Afire, Veronica's Closet, Jesse, and Something So Right. They also had original comedies such as Weird Science and USA High in the '90s.
By Fall 2013, Modern Family will be entering its fifth season on ABC. Currently, USA Network has no other comedies to pair Modern Family with, so they will either buy another comedy or pair it with original programming.
Meanwhile, Oxygen Media and Twentieth Television have reached an exclusive agreement for the basic cable syndication rights to Twentieth Century Fox's critically-acclaimed television hit series Glee. The hour-long Glee will join the Oxygen line-up with a weekend marathon of the second season in January 2011. This will be followed by a companion unscripted reality competition series to discover the next Glee star scheduled to premiere in June 2011 to appear on the third season of the series in Fall 2011. Oxygen will retain exclusive basic cable rights to telecast all seasons throughout the Oxygen schedule beginning in Fall 2013.
Entering its second season this fall and renewed already for a third season on Fox, Glee is a biting musical comedy that has quickly become a pop-culture phenomenon. This is by far the biggest acquisition for the 10-year-old network. Past acquisitions have mainly been sitcoms such as Roseanne, Living Single, Mad About You, Grace Under Fire, Ellen, Kate & Allie, and A Different World. Non-sitcoms included Xena, America's Next Top Model, and The Tyra Banks Show. As with most cable network, Oxygen is focused primarily on original programming.
The Emmy(R) Award-winning animated sci-fi comedy Futurama, resurrected by Comedy Central, made an out-of-this-world return and, with 2.92 million total viewers, became the highest-rated and most-watched season premiere for an animated series on cable with the exception of South Park.
Airing its first original episode in almost seven years, the sixth season premiere of Futurama titled "Rebirth" (Thursday, 10:00-10:30 p.m.) averaged a 2.0 HH rating, 1.9 Adults 18-49 rating, 4.5 Men 18-24 rating and 3.5 Men 18-34 rating, finishing the night as the most-watched and highest-rated show in all of television for Thursday Prime among M18-24 and M18-34, as well as the highest-rated show in all of television among Adults 18-49 (tie).
With 2.92 million total viewers tuning in to watch the next chapter in the lives of Leela, Fry and Bender, the premiere powered Comedy Central to its highest-rated and most-watched night of 2010 among total viewers (1.7 million total viewers) and A18-49 (1.1 rating) and the highest-rated and most-watched Thursday night in the network's history among M18-24 (2.4 rating) and M18-34 (1.9 rating).
The second of two all-new, back-to-back premiere episodes of Futurama (Thursday, 10:30 p.m.-10:59 p.m.), averaged a 2.1 HH rating, 1.7 A18-49 rating, 4.2 M18-24 rating, 3.2 M18-34 rating and 2.78 million total viewers to rank as the #2 program of the night in all of television among M18-34 and M18-24, and the #1 cable show in its timeslot with A18-49 (tie), M18-34 and M18-24.
Encore presentations of the season premiere of Futurama air Sunday at 12:00 a.m., Monday at 12:30 a.m., Tuesday at 8:30 p.m., Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. and Thursday at 9:30 p.m. (all times ET/PT). And the series airs new episodes Thursdays at 10:00 p.m.
Sitcoms Airing Tonight / Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows
Thursday, November 21
Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage - "The 6:10 to Lubbock" (CBS, 10:00PM ET/PT) (Repeat)
Georgie and Mandy get fed up staying with her parents and reconsider their living situation after a fight with Mandy’s mom, Audrey.
Ghosts - "Man of Your Dreams" (CBS, 10:30PM ET/PT) (Repeat)
Sam learns that one of the ghosts’ powers is to enter the dreams of the livings and influence their decisions. Also, two of the ghosts think they’ve learned the secret to moving on.
Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows (Week of November 18)
Thursday, November 21
- Jim Gaffigan (The Jim Gaffigan Show/My Boys/The Ellen Show/Welcome to New York) - Catch Jim on Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 11:35pm on ABC.
- Rita Moreno (One Day at a Time/Happily Divorced/9 to 5) - Rita appears on Late Night with Seth Meyers at 12:36am on NBC.
- Justine Lupe (Nobody Wants This/Cristela), Jackie Tohn (Nobody Wants This/GLOW) and Timothy Simons (HouseBroken/Veep) - Justine, Jackie and Timothy are guests on After Midnight at 12:37am on CBS.
- Kristin Chenoweth (Trial & Error/Kristin) - Kristin appears on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen at 10pm on Bravo.
- Maura Tierney (NewsRadio/The Van Dyke Show) - Maura is in the studio to discuss the neww season of Law and Order on Live with Kelly and Mark, so check your listings.
- Paul Reiser (Mad About You/Red Oaks/Married/My Two Dads) - Paul is telling Drew about his huge return to comedy after thirty years with his standup special, Life, Death and Rice Pudding, and his new movie The Gutter on The Drew Barrymore Show, so check your local listings.
- John O'Hurley (Seinfeld/Over the Top/The Mullets) - John will be on PIX11 Morning News on WPIX in New York at 9:40am.
New on DVD and Blu-ray
09/10 - Rick and Morty - The Complete Seasons 1-7
09/10 - The Ropers - The Complete Series (VEI)
09/10 - Ted - Season One (Blu-ray) (DVD)
09/17 - The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet - Video Scrapbook
09/17 - Top Cat - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
09/24 - Friends - The Complete Series (4K UHD)
09/24 - Young Sheldon - The Complete Seventh Season (DVD) / The Complete Series (DVD) (Blu-ray)
10/08 - Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete Twelfth Season / The Complete Series
10/22 - Veep - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
11/05 - I Love Lucy - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
11/12 - The King of Queens - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) (2024 Release)
11/19 - SpongeBob SquarePants - The Complete Fourteenth Season
11/26 - Looney Tunes Collector's Choice - Volume 4 (Blu-ray)
12/03 - Angel (1960-1961) - The Complete Series, Volume 1
12/17 - Seinfeld - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) (4K UHD)
02/04 - Bewitched - The Complete Series - 60th Anniversary Special Edition (Blu-ray)
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