• by August 13, 2001

Cable networks, clobbered by the worst advertising marketplace in a decade, are beginning to feel the squeeze on their programming budgets.

Some major general-entertainment networks such as TNT, Lifetime and USA have not given the go-ahead to any new weekly series, at least during the next six months.

Because hourlong drama series can cost $1 million or more an episode, cable networks are moving more cautiously than they were two years ago, when the economy was so buoyant that advertisers were pouring money into cable.

The belt-tightening goes beyond original series. Expensive broadcast network dramas such as "Third Watch," "Felicity" and "Dawson's Creek" have not yet landed rerun deals on cable despite many weeks of sales-pitch meetings and discussions.

The atmosphere was vastly different in the spring, before networks started selling ad space for the fall 2001 season and suffered big price cuts. Back then, TNN bought reruns of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" for a record $1.6 million per episode, while Bravo paid $1.3 million an hour for "The West Wing," and USA Network forked out $1.2 million for repeats of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

Theatrical-movie buys are also suffering. USA Network purchased the exclusive network-window rights to Universal's "The Fast & the Furious" for a license fee approaching $22 million. Within 10 days of the deal, USA had backed off on its "Furious" exclusivity, agreeing to let ABC buy the first three runs in the network window. Instead of getting "Furious" in February 2004, USA will have to wait until the summer of 2005, but ABC will pick up more than half of USA's original license fee.

Comedy Central recently canceled "That's My Bush," the latest comedy series from "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, mainly because its $1-million-an-episode cost couldn't justify the decent but unspectacular rating. A much cheaper original series, Martin Short's "Primetime Glick," got a 13-episode pickup from Comedy Central even though its ratings were lower, on average, than those of "Bush."

It's not just entertainment networks that are feeling the pinch: CNN has stepped up talks with both ABC and CBS to form news alliances that would give CNN access to big-name broadcast-news personalities who might pump up ratings, allowing the network to hike its advertising rates. In exchange, ABC and/or CBS would be able to draw on CNN's foreign bureaus for some of their news coverage.

- Reuters/Variety