Pavan
10-24-2002, 09:59 AM
TNN has the rights to Mad TV until end of Aug 2004, but they might give it up instead end of December 2003:
Comedy Central has agreed to fork over about $28 million for the exclusive rights to "Mad TV" reruns.
The young male viewers who flock to "Mad TV" originals Saturday night at 11 on Fox are precisely the demographic targeted by Comedy Central, said Kathryn Mitchell, the cable channel's senior VP of programming.
By contrast, "Mad TV" on TNN, the current licensor of the show, has not made much of a dent in the Nielsens at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m., the time periods where TNN has played the program regularly every day since the fall of 2001.
TNN is in talks with "Mad TV" distributor Warner Bros. to relinquish the show eight months earlier than the end date of the current deal, putting the show in the hands of Comedy Central on Jan. 1, 2004, instead of Sept. 1.
Mitchell said Comedy Central plans to run "Mad TV" two or three times a day, just the way it scheduled reruns of "Saturday Night Live" over the years before it lost those rights to E! Entertainment TV.
Comedy Central's deal covers nine years' worth of "Mad TV" episodes, from the 1995-96 season, when the show premiered on Fox, through the 2003-04 season.
Comedy Central has agreed to fork over about $28 million for the exclusive rights to "Mad TV" reruns.
The young male viewers who flock to "Mad TV" originals Saturday night at 11 on Fox are precisely the demographic targeted by Comedy Central, said Kathryn Mitchell, the cable channel's senior VP of programming.
By contrast, "Mad TV" on TNN, the current licensor of the show, has not made much of a dent in the Nielsens at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m., the time periods where TNN has played the program regularly every day since the fall of 2001.
TNN is in talks with "Mad TV" distributor Warner Bros. to relinquish the show eight months earlier than the end date of the current deal, putting the show in the hands of Comedy Central on Jan. 1, 2004, instead of Sept. 1.
Mitchell said Comedy Central plans to run "Mad TV" two or three times a day, just the way it scheduled reruns of "Saturday Night Live" over the years before it lost those rights to E! Entertainment TV.
Comedy Central's deal covers nine years' worth of "Mad TV" episodes, from the 1995-96 season, when the show premiered on Fox, through the 2003-04 season.