Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: After a two-year run as an independent producer, Steve Stark has signed an overall deal with Universal Media Studios. He  is already in business with the studio on the freshman UMS drama series for NBC The Event, which he brought to the network and is now executive producing.  He also has a long-standing relation with NBC through the Grammnet/CBS Studios-produced Medium, on which he serves as an executive producer. The supernatural crime drama started off on NBC where it aired for 5 seasons before moving to CBS. Additionally, Stark is executive producing the upcoming USA light legal drama Fairly Legal.

Stark, a longtime development executive at Paramount TV and Columbia TriStar TV, ran Kelsey Grammer’s then-CBS Par TV-based Grammnet Prods. for seven years before going solo in early 2009 with the launch of Steve Stark Prods. “I’ve certainly enjoyed my independence these last two seasons but it’s really comforting to have a home that has been so supportive of what I want to do,” Stark said. With Fairly Legal premiering on Thursday and Medium ending its seven-season run on Friday, “for 24 hours I’m a lucky guy to have 3 series on the air,” Stark noted. He called Medium‘s series ender on Friday a “beautiful, emotional soliloquy to the love and complex relationship of Allison (Patricia Arquette) and Joe Dubois (Jake Weber)”.

Right now, CAA-repped Stark is focused on the launch of Fairly Legal, which stars Sarah Shahi as a mediator, and the relaunch of The Event, which returns from hiatus on Feb. 28 with an hourlong recap followed by a two-hour original. Additionally, he is already working on ideas for the next development season and is looking to expand into other genres, including reality TV. This would mark a return to the unscripted field for Stark, whose student project at Northwestern, a variety pilot starring his classmates, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, landed him an invite to Hollywood to collaborate with producer Bob Banner and syndication veteran Al Masini on a new show. That show became Star Search, on which Stark worked for four years.

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