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Spike Puts Scripted Development On Hold

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday August 29, 2011 @ 4:10pm PDTTags: Back Nine, Blue Mountain State, Dustin Davis, Playing with Guns, Repo Games, Scripted TV, Spike TV
Nellie Andreeva

The writing had been on the wall for a while, and Spike executives began quietly telling agents over the past couple of weeks that the network is getting out of the scripted business, at least for the time being. One of the network’s 2 scripted executives, Laurence Sullivan, has already departed to join Conan O’Brien’s production company Conaco. The last time Spike announced a scripted development slate was last October. Of the 7 projects on it, one, the Walt Becket-produced and Andy Tenant-directed Thunderballs, went to pilot but hasn’t been picked up to series. Spike also passed on its 2 pilots ordered last year, Back Nine and Playing With Guns. (Playing With Guns was later redeveloped by Comedy Central). Spike’s only remaining scripted executive, Dustin Davis, will continue to oversee existing development, including a script the network bought last month about an NYPD bomb squad, as well as Spike’s sole scripted series, Blue Mountain State. Spike’s recently picked up 4 new series, all in the reality genre, where the channel has had ratings success with such hits as Auction Hunters and Repo Games.

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Spike Picks Up John Langley Cop Show, 3 Other Reality Series, Renews ‘Repo Games’

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday August 10, 2011 @ 2:00pm PDTTags: John Langley, Repo Games, Spike TV, TV Pickups, TV Renewals, World's Worst Tenants
Nellie Andreeva

Spike TV has greenlighted four new reality series: Undercover Stings from Cops creator John Langley, about cops orchestrating sting operations; Big Easy Justice from Al Roker and Jennifer Lopez’s production companies, about a New Orleans bounty hunter; American Digger from the producers of Spike’s hit Auction Hunters, about a relic hunter digging up people’s properties for histotic artifacts; and World’s Worst Tenants from Zoo Prods., about a professional evictor. Additionally, Spike has ordered 20 more episodes of the SallyAnn Salsano-produced Repo Games. Sharon Levy, Spike’s EVP original series, said that the new shows are part of the network’s push to expand its core men 18-34 demo to the older men 34-49 demographic that was launched with such recent series as Auction Hunters, Bar Rescue and Repo Games. In primetime, Spike’s median age is currently 40, up from 38 last year. The median age for the network’s highest-rated unscripted original, Auction Hunters, is 41; for Bar Rescue it’s 42. “We have had success in our quest to broaden out our audience,” she said. “The new series continue that and hone our brand as a destination for dynamic characters that exist in high risk/high reward situations.” The goal is to have 52 weeks of originals on Spike every year, she added. Here are detailed descriptions of the new series, including the sizes of their orders: Read More »

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Spike TV Orders Two New Reality Series

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday January 31, 2011 @ 8:30am PSTTags: Repo Games, Spike, Spike TV, TV, TV Deals
Nellie Andreeva

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