'Angel' puts $90 mil touch on cable nets

By VARIETY STAFF

NEW YORK --- CBS' Eyemark Entertainment, the distributor of "Touched by an Angel" reruns, is putting the touch on cable networks, asking them to pony up $90 million for the first four years of "Angel" episodes.

The four-year time-span covers 90 episodes and, if Eyemark succeeds in getting the $1 million-per-hour pricetag, "Angel" would become the most expensive rerun series ever sold to a cable network, exceeding the $800,000 an episode extracted from TNT by Warner Bros.' "ER" and the $725,000 an hour harvested from USA by Columbia TriStar's "Walker, Texas Ranger." Eyemark executives were not available for comment.

According to sources who have studied the Eyemark pitch, "Angel" will become available for five-a-week play by cable networks in September 1998. Eyemark will also sell it simultaneously to TV stations market by market in off-network syndication for Saturday and Sunday play under two-year contracts. In these syndie deals, stations won't pay cash, but will hand over seven commercial minutes within each hour to Eyemark for sale to national advertisers.

TNT will pay Warner Bros. an additional $400,000 an episode for "ER," but in exchange, the network is pocketing the advertising revenues from weekend barter syndication of the series. Eyemark would keep the barter-syndication revenues from "Angel."

Although $1 million an hour may be too rich for most cable networks' blood, sources say at least four networks are definitely interested in negotiating for "Angel" --- Lifetime, the Family Channel, TNT and the Nashville Network.

"A lot of people will be kicking the tires on this show," said one cable source, referring to the fact that "Angel" is the second-highest-rated drama series in network primetime, behind only NBC's "ER."

The cable network that buys "Angel" will get 10 runs of each episode over a 3-1/2-year period, sources say. For each year that CBS renews the series beyond the '97-'98 season, the network adds nine months to the license term, paying the same per-episode price for each additional hour.

After "Angel" finishes its two-year run as a weekend series in rerun syndication, Eyemark reserves the right to sell the series to stations for Monday-through-Friday play, ending the cable network's five-a-week exclusivity.