Debmar-Mercury has been signed to distribute the program America Now, a joint venture program between Raycom Media and ITV Studios America, as a daily syndicated strip for fall 2011.
Hosted by Bill Rancic and produced by ITV Studios America, America Now is a lifestyle-newsmagazine program featuring content from the various Raycom stations, including WOIO Cleveland and WBTV Charlotte, across the country. Airing weekends on 43 stations in 36 markets, it debuted in October 2010.
"We are delighted with America Now's consistent growth and performance and we are fortunate that we have Debmar-Mercury as our distribution partner to secure top flight clearances, which will make this a top new strip series for fall 2011," said Raycom President/CEO Paul McTear from the NATPE show.
McTear described the show to B&C as "news you can use" in September.
"America Now has proven its worth on weekends and now, working closely with industry sales veteran Bill Marcus, we are able to roll it out as a weekday strip to stations hungry for a lifestyle magazine series with strong local production elements," said Ira Bernstein, Debmar-Mercury co-president.
Debmar-Mercury will work with Bill Marcus' 30 Steps distribution company to get the show out.
