'Office' Politics: Turner Beefs Up Comedy Lineup

As Turner begins upfront negotiations, the network has added two popular comedies to its sale menu. TBS has acquired off-net rights starting this fall for NBC hit "The Office" and "My Name is Earl."

A separate deal also calls for "The Office" to go into wider syndication on the Fox owned-and-operated stations starting in fall 2009. Those stations are in the country's top-three and other large markets.

The TBS deal gives the network the rights to also offer the comedy on broadband, VOD and wireless, once the show goes into syndication. NBC has made a slew of its shows available online so far, but has held "The Office" back in order to boost its value in syndication sales.

"The Office" finished the season among the top 35 shows in adult 18-to-49 viewers with a 4.1 rating, by one metric. The show also is heavily viewed by DVR viewers.

For the first two years of the deal--starting this September--NBC will just get a license fee from TBS for the re-purposing of an episode of "The Office" that runs on NBC in that given week.

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For the part of the deal that starts in September 2009, the deal will resemble more of a syndication deal, with "The Office"'s entire library becoming available as a Monday through Friday show on TV stations and TBS. NBC will sell the show to stations and TBS for cash, as well as retaining three 30-second commercials that it will sell to national advertisers.

Also in 2009, TBS has a deal with Twentieth Television giving it the rights to NBC's second-year comedy "My Name is Earl," which had a strong freshman year and then saw a drop this past season. The deal includes broadband and VOD rights.

NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution made the deals.

TBS runs original comedies, such as this summer's hit "House of Payne" and "My Boys," as well as off-net fare like "Friends" and "Sex and the City."

Frank Cicha, senior vice president-programming at the Fox stations, said: "We are thrilled to add a program of this strength and quality to our Fox and MyNetworkTV comedy lineups. It's going to be a pivotal player for us."

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