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G4 getting its 'Man'

Net to pay $7.8 mil in three-year cable deal

By JOHN DEMPSEY

'Man,' with Adam Corolla and Jimmy Kimmel, will be on G4 at 10 and 10:30 p.m. starting Oct. 18.

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G4 has engineered the biggest rerun buy in its 3½-year history, ponying up about $7.8 million for a cable-exclusive three-year license term to "The Man Show," the Comedy Central hit that starred Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Corolla.

Deal was completed before G4 parent company Comcast dismissed Charles Hirschhorn as CEO in favor of Neal Tiles 10 days ago. G4 will start running the 104 episodes of "Man Show" weeknights at 10 and 10:30 beginning Oct. 10.

"The irreverent-guy comedy of 'The Man Show' is a great fit for our audience of males 18-34," said a G4 spokeswoman, although, she added, "G4's DNA continues to be focused on videogames and videogame lifestyles."

The problem with all the original series tied to vidgames on G4 is that average viewership doesn't reach even 50,000 homes in primetime. But the preponderance of young males in the audience means G4 will increase its advertising revenues by 18% in 2006 to $85.1 million, according to projections from Kagan Research. Kagan also said G4's license-fee revenue from cable operators is expected to jump by 20% next year to $42.2 million. Operators pay G4 an monthly average of 6¢ per subscriber.

G4 is counting on "Man Show" to provide a strong lead-in to the network's most popular original series, "X-Play," featuring irreverent reviews of the latest videogames by Morgan Webb and Adam Sessler, which will continue to run every weeknight at 11.

Then both "Man Show" and "X-Play" would be better promotional vehicles for G4's other primetime shows, such as "Filter," "Cheat!," "Icons," "Cinematech," "Judgment Day" and "Electric Playground."

Stone/Stanley Prods. produced "Man Show." The distributors are Mort Marcus' Debmar Studios and Ira Bernstein's Mercury Entertainment.

In year three of the G4 contract, Debmar/Mercury reserves the right to premiere "Man Show" on TV stations in off-network syndication simultaneous with its run on G4.