Reruns of Party of Five, the hit Fox drama about
five brothers and sisters trying to cope and stay together after the death of their
parents, may be on their way to cable in the fall.
The syndicator of the hour-long series, Columbia TriStar TV
Distribution, is shopping rerun rights to the show to both broadcasters and cable networks
for a reported $800,000 per episode, or $76 million for the 95 episodes produced over the
show's first four seasons.
If Columbia finds a broadcast buyer for Party of Five
as a five-day-a-week strip, a cable deal would be precluded. However, knowledgeable
industry sources believe that it's more likely that Columbia will make a deal with a
cable network seeking a strong young adult demographic -- such as MTV: Music Television,
The Family Channel or FX -- and then sell the series to a broadcast group to air on
weekends. That has been evident in recent years with reruns of such series as Walker,
Texas Ranger (USA Network) and The X-Files and NYPD Blue (FX).
Party of Five has consistently placed in Nielsen Media
Research ratings' top five of all primetime series among women 18 to 34, and in the
top 20 of primetime shows among women 18 to 49.
MTV, which has been retooling its primetime programming and
which previously bought rerun rights to ABC teen drama My So-Called Life, has been
condsidered a front-runner to obtain rights to Party of Five. However, a spokesman
said that while the network was approached by Columbia on rerun rights, it is 'not in
negotiations at this time.'
Industry sources speculated that a number of other cable
networks -- including Lifetime Television, USA, Turner Network Television and PaxNet --
may be interested in the series.
