Comedian and indie producer Tyler Perry, who has strong appeal within the African-American community, is going out on a limb, but the payoff can be enormous if he's right about the TV market.
Perry is self-financing a brand-new half-hour syndicated television sitcom, "House of Payne," about an Atlanta firefighter who moves in with his parents after his drug-addicted wife burns
down his house. The twist: Perry and his partners will offer the show free to a selected group of TV stations that agree to give it extra-heavy promotion in the local market. In time, if the program
catches on and finds a loyal audience, Perry can roll it out across the country to stations willing to pay for the privilege. It's a gamble. However, small stations seems intrigued by the prospect of
free content. "Not surprisingly, interest... has been strong," reports The Wall Street Journal. "'I like the ethnic skew, and I like Tyler Perry's track record,' says Neal
Sabin, executive vice president of Weigel Broadcasting Co., a Chicago-based company that owns nine stations in the Midwest. 'If it's anything like what he's done before this will be a big
success.'"
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