FX wins bid for 'Married' cable rights
Cabler shells out $175,000 per episode for sitcom
By CYNTHIA LITTLETON, JOHN DEMPSEY
Rupert Murdoch's FX has outbid Comedy Central for the cable-TV rights to Columbia
TriStar TV Distribution's "Married ... With Children" for a four-year license term,
beginning in September 1999. Despite the fact that reruns of "Married" have run
consistently in off-network syndication for the last seven years, sometimes twice a
day in specific markets, FX will pony up a license fee of about $45.3 million, or
$175,000 an episode for the 259 half-hours that Col TriStar filmed throughout its
10-1/2-year run on the Fox network.
Columbia gets spots
In addition to the license fee, FX has agreed to let Col TriStar extract two 30-sec
spots for the firstrun of "Married" each day. If FX plays the show a second time in
the day, the network will keep all of the advertising time.
Peter Liguori, president of FX, says it was hard for him to give up time to Col
TriStar within "Married" -- a first for FX -- but "we regard the show as a corner-
stone piece for our network. We'll use it as a lead-in to the heavy volume of
original programming we plan to produce."
The show will continue in TV syndication when FX picks it up next fall. The network's
exclusivity extends only to cable and to superstations like WGN.
Value is up
The value of "Married" has shot up this year because its gross-out humor parallels
that of the surprise summer theatrical hit "There's Something About Mary," and Adam
Sandler's "The Waterboy," which delivered a smash $39.1 million in its opening
weekend. TBS and USA also showed interest in the show along with Comedy Central,
according to sources.
" 'Married ... With Children' put the Fox Network on the map" when it premiered in
April 1987, said Marc Berman, associate program director of Seltel, a company that
advises TV station clients on their programming strategies. Berman says "Married" is
valuable to stations because it's one of the rare sitcoms that can play successfully
both in the early evening and in latenight time periods.
The stars of "Married" are Ed O'Neill, Katey Sagal, Christina Applegate and David
Faustino. Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye created the series.
FX reaches about 38 million cable homes.