New York -- Continuing to its extend its brand, Lifetime Television will bow
a new reality-oriented network this summer, president and CEO Carole Black
announced at the company's upfront advertising presentation here Tuesday.
Ad-supported Lifetime Real Women will feature a combination of new and
returning original series,including profile skein Intimate
Portraits, The Things We Do for Love and UnsolvedMysteries, as well as true-story-based films.
Executive vice president of distribution and business development Louise
Henry Bryson said Lifetime will begin pitching LRW -- which has been incubated
and the subject of testing and focus groups over the past eight months -- to
operators over the next month.
Meanwhile, Lifetime Movie Network, the distaff channel's first spinoff
network, averaged a 0.6 rating in primetime within its current coverage area,
encompassing some 14 million cable and satellite homes, according to Lifetime
executives.
The debut of LRW will coincide with the launch of Saturday night as
Lifetime's second night of original programming.
The 'Real Women' block will begin with new original skein Women Docs,
profiling heroic female physicians, as well as returning Melissa Etheridge skein
Beyond Chance. Those shows, both of which will appear on the new network,
will be joined by a third series in January, according to executive vice
president of entertainment Dawn Tarnofsky-Ostroff.
All told, Lifetime will outlay some $700 million for original and acquired
programming over the next two years, Tarnofsky-Ostroff added.
She also announced Lifetime Now, a half-hour, magazine-style talk
show. The weekend show, premiering in the third quarter, will touch on issues
ranging from fashion and finance to wellness and family, while also serving up
conversations and opinions.
On the movie front, Lifetime will air one-dozen original flicks. Among the
projects touted at the upfront: Their Last Chance (working title),
starring Ellen Burstyn and Laura Dern in the true story of a nun who helps to
transform prisoners' lives; and We Were the Mulvaneys, an adaptation of
the Joyce Carole Oates best-seller.
