Fine Living last week added a pair of reality series to its lineup via syndicated pacts with NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution.
The upscale lifestyle network will become the cable home for NBC’s The Biggest Loser and Bravo’s former cynosure Queer Eye. Deal terms were not disclosed.
With the weight-loss competition show, Fine Living will repurpose the current episode airing on NBC the following week. NBC started the show’s new season Sept. 16, with Fine Living encoring the installment on Saturdays and Sundays at 9 p.m. (ET/PT), beginning Sept. 20.
The Scripps network, which premiered Whatever, Martha!, a new show skewering old episodes of Martha Stewart Living, on Sept. 16, also has secured the reality series’ fourth through seventh seasons and exclusive cable rights to The Biggest Loser: Couples when it bows in 2009.
Meanwhile, male makeover series Queer Eye will join Fine Living’s lineup Monday nights at 9 p.m. The acquisition gives the service access to all 99 of the Emmy Award-winning show’s installments, including the rarely played pilot that features talent that appeared on the show before the “Fab 5” — grooming guru Kyan Douglas, fashion maven Carson Kressley, food and wine expert Ted Allen, culturist Jai Rodriguez and interior designer Thom Filicia — were ultimately cast.
“By bringing these two significant franchises to FLN, we continue our quest to move our channel into the top tier of all lifestyle television networks,” Fine Living general manager Chad Youngblood said in a release last week. “The Biggest Loser is one of TV’s most popular series, a juggernaut in the world of reality television. And in its four-year run, Queer Eye was a ratings superstar, dominating American pop culture.”
Multichannel News noted on Sept. 15 Fine Living was considering pairing Whatever, Martha! and Queer Eye on Monday nights over time.
In other syndicated programming news, Sci Fi Channel last week said its premiere of reruns of Lost garnered a 1.0 household rating and more than 1.26 million viewers on Sept. 15.
Sci Fi officials said Lost helped it attract more than 653,000 viewers 18-49 between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET — the network’s best primetime audience since Jan. 1, 2007.
In addition, NBC Universal-owned Sci Fi was the sixth-most-watched cable entertainment network among 25-to-54-year-old viewers during this primetime period and ranked No. 8 among 18-to-49-year-old viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Comcast-owned G4 also added Lost reruns to its schedule (on Sept. 14), giving it the interactive “2.0” treatment it previously gave Star Trek reruns. G4 said Lostin 2.0 was tracking 33% higher than the network’s total-day rating. And G4 last week said it will be adding current episodes of NBC dramatic action series Heroes to its schedule on Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. ET/PT starting this week (Sept. 23).
G4 last year acquired off-network rights to Heroes from NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution, a deal that covers six seasons of the series. G4 gains access to its entire library in 2010.
G4 also obtained exclusive cable rights to stream the series on G4tv.com and adds free video-on-demand rights for the show in 2010.
