Comedy Central in 2008

Friday October 28, 06:28 PM

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Futurama" will have a new cable home starting in January 2008.

Comedy Central said Thursday that it has signed a multiyear deal with syndicator Twentieth Television to acquire all 72 episodes of the animated comedy series. (Cartoon Network, which airs the show as part of its "Adult Swim" programming block, has rights through 2007.)

Sources said that Comedy Central paid about $400,000 per episode, but the network and Twentieth declined comment on financial terms of the deal. The Emmy-winning "Futurama," which aired on Fox from 1999-2003, was created by "Simpsons" Svengali Matt Groening.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

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I can't imagine Adult Swim without Futurama. It's been vastly more successful in reruns than it ever was in prime-time.

But if any network could front the money for *new* Futurama eps...it's Comedy Central. And it makes sense to buy the reruns from Turner (Cartoon Network) if you plan to resurrect the show and pair it up with South Park or Drawn Together.

crossing fingers...again.

Sat

Sat wrote:

I hope they don't do to it what they did to Duckman. (Then again, I have all of the Futurama episodes on DVD, so it doesn't really matter what they do to it, now does it?)

-- Don

Don Del Grande wrote:

I'm still hoping they do to Duckman what they did to Futurama: -release it on DVD in all its uncut glory (it's even about the same # of episodes), or at least -show it on Adult Swim, in all its uncut glory, so I can make a new set of tapes

Matt Garvey wrote:

Duckman was supposed to be released on DVD sometime this year, according to one report from Klasky-Csupo. The only reason I can think of why they wouldn't is some sort of music rights issue (I hope it's not something stupid like Dweezil didn't like the way he across as Ajax so he's using some rights he may have under his father's estate not to clear the first season music for video release).

-- Don

Don Del Grande wrote:

I doubt it's that specific scenario (Dweezil seems like a pretty cool guy with stuff like that), but now I'm wondering what else it could be. Did that report suggest a release of all 70 episodes at once (or at least a definite plan to release them all), by the way, or just the first season to test the waters?

Matt Garvey wrote:

It didn't say. However, I doubt it would be 70 episodes at once.

And while I seriously doubt Dweezil is behind any delay, I would not be surprised if it is a music licensing issue of some sort that is holding it up.

-- Don

Yeesh, for $400k/episode, that's getting close to the cost of making new ones!

On 2 Nov 2005 12:33:26 GMT, Matthew Miller wrote:

Welllll, not really. If I recall, they said Futurama cost about 1 million per episode to produce. But still, $400k per episode for repeats that have already been shown over and over again on Cartoon Network is huge. Almost makes me think there's more to this than meets the eye.

Crash7 remove x's from email address to reply

"Matthew Miller" wrote in message news:[email]...

Uh, try $960,000 per ep.

Oh, _I'm_ not trying anything. But if you would like to double-check your math, you'll notice that $400k is almost half the cost of a new episode -- it's not like we're talking orders of magnitude of difference.

Or to put it another way.... which would you rather have: reruns of the existing episodes which you already have on DVD, or two more seasons of brand new episodes?

Honestly, I think the story is probably in error and this wasn't actually a 28.8 million dollar deal. But who knows....

On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 11:40:34 -0700, "Ralph Snart" wrote:

But $400,000 per for repeats that have already been shown many times on another cable network is borderline ridiculous.

Crash7 remove x's from email address to reply

"Sat" wrote in message news:[email]...

FOX killed Futurama by constantly pre-empting it with NFL overruns, the last season saw several time slot changes without promotion, etc.

CN has promoted the show, it has run consistantly for over two and a half years in practically the same timeslot - ratings-wise it has beat Letterman and Leno several times. CN deserves the applause for allowing this series to have a chance.

Here's hoping that FOX pulls its head of its ass and orders more eps.