ABC Family has acquired rerun rights to the WB Network series Smallville and JKX: The Jamie Kennedy Experiment from Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution. Smallville, the drama starring Tom Welling as Superman in his teenage years, topped a long list of Warner Bros.-syndicated series, movies and specials that ABC Family has acquired in a wide-ranging deal that could signal a shift in programming strategy for the cable network. ABC Family has spent the past year weathering rocky ratings and executive turnover with the departure last year of president Angela Shapiro and the death in December of programming head Linda Mancuso.
- 3/26/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Disney Channel executives have taken on responsibility for original telefilm development and production for their ABC Family Channel cable sibling, ABC Family executives confirmed Wednesday. The shift is the latest move taken by ABC Cable Networks Group under its president, Anne Sweeney, to absorb ABC Family, which until recently operated outside of Sweeney's purview. Marketing, research and public relations divisions have already been assumed by the cable unit. The shift on the telefilm side also comes after the departure in October of ABC Family president Angela Shapiro and after the death in December of ABC Family's head of programming, Linda Mancuso (HR 12/9).
- 2/12/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Linda Mancuso, head of programming at ABC Family Channel and a longtime NBC executive who helped launch the teen comedy genre with Saved by the Bell, died Sunday of cancer at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. She was 44. Mancuso had spent the past year as senior vp, overseeing all programming at ABC Family Channel. Before joining ABC Family late last year, Mancuso spent more than 20 years at NBC in a variety of programming posts. She was part of the team that developed ER and served as the current programming executive on the hit medical drama in its first two seasons.
- 12/9/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
NEW YORK -- Under the working title Phenom, ABC Family, KCW Prods. and TWI -- a global distributor, producer and packager of sports programming -- are developing a series that would be based at IMG's Bradenton, Fla., facilities, said Bob Horowitz, senior vp and director of U.S. television at TWI. "It's under consideration for the teen block in the fourth quarter, and we like it a lot," said Linda Mancuso, head of programming for the cable network. ABC Family said it has not formally ordered any episodes or a pilot, only a presentation tape, but Horowitz hopes the network will pick up Phenom for a 13-week run. TWI also is pitching a new reality series, The Agent, to unspecified networks in hopes of leveraging its sports agency arm to ink deals to produce reality programming.
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