Pivot Picks Up 'Buffy,' 'Veronica Mars'

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Pivot, Participant Media’s new cable network that targets Millennials, has acquired Twentieth’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Warner Bros.’ Veronica Mars.

The network will launch the two off-net series on Monday, Jan. 13, 2014, airing back to back in a ‘Buffy and Veronica Power Hours’ block Monday through Friday at 10 pm and 11 pm ET.  

“Buffy and Veronica Mars are enormously entertaining and celebrated TV shows with significant cultural and social relevance,” said Evan Shapiro (pictured), Pivot’s president, in a statement. “Both focus on smart, strong, young women dealing with critical issues from class struggles to gender roles – challenges facing a great many of our viewers. Pivot will contextualize the shows, presenting them with exclusive commentary from fans, experts and academics, to both celebrate these two great series and begin a dialogue with our viewers.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired first on The WB from 1997 - 2001 and then on UPN from 2001 - 2003. The show stars Sarah Michelle Gellar (CBS’ The Crazy Ones) as Buffy Summers, a high-school girl who battles vampires, demons and other forces of darkness on the side. Buffy is aided by a Watcher (Anthony Stewart Head) and a gang of friends. The series was created by Joss Whedon (The Avengers, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and his Mutant Enemy Productions. Other executive producers on the program included Jane Espenson, David Fury, David Greenwalt, Doug Petrie, Marti Noxon and David Solomon.  

Veronica Mars, which aired on UPN from 2004-2006, and then on The CW in its final series, stars Kristen Bell (Showtime’s House of Lies) as a high-school student who moonlights as a private investigator with her detective father (Enrico Colantoni). The show is currently being turned into a movie, funded in part by $5.5 million in Kickstarter funds, that is scheduled to premiere early next year. Rob Thomas created the series, and executive produced. Veronica Mars was produced by Warner Bros. Television, Silver Pictures Television, Stu Segall Productions and Rob Thomas Productions.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.