Debmar-Mercury

Debmar-Mercury is a television syndication company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lionsgate.

History

Debmar-Mercury was formed from a merger of Debmar Studios and Mercury Entertainment in 2006. On July 12, 2006, Lions Gate Entertainment expanded into television distribution and acquired Debmar-Mercury.^[1][2] In November 2006, the company was awarded the syndication rights to Family Feud and industry rumors suggest that the company could also syndicate some classic Goodson-Todman shows.^[3] Its logo and mascot is a jaguar jumping out of a filmstrip. On January 11, 2007, 20th Television picked up ad-sales for Debmar-Mercury series in syndication.^[4][5]

The 10-90 Model

Debmar-Mercury is known for pioneering a unique syndication model, known as the "10-90" approach, where the syndicator sells the program to a cable station for a 10-episode test run. If those 10 episodes achieve acceptable ratings, the show would be renewed for an additional 90 episodes. This allows the show to have a profitable life in off-network syndication, in which 100 episodes is considered the desired number for a show to begin entering daily reruns.^[6] This unique broadcast syndication model for television was used with the TBS and OWN cable television networks for multiple sitcoms created by the multihyphenate Tyler Perry,^[7] and for multiple series with the FX cable television network, featuring the likes of actors Charlie Sheen^[8] and Kelsey Grammer and comedians Martin Lawrence, Kevin James^[9] and George Lopez.^[10]

So far, three shows have failed to reach the ratings threshold for a 90-episode: Comedy Central's Big Lake^[11] (2010), which was produced by Funny or Die co-creators Will Ferrell and Adam McKay,^[12] and the 2014 FX sitcoms Saint George and Partners.

Partial list of series

This is the list of series distributed by Debmar-Mercury. Aside the Lionsgate libraries and the Revolution Studios film library, Debmar-Mercury distributes from the following:

Note: Some shows denoted with an asterisk (*) are distributed in conjunction with 20th Television for ad-sales.

• ALF (1986-1990) (produced by Alien Productions. Debmar-Mercury syndicated the series in 2006)
• South Park (1997–present) (Syndicated the series since 2005)*^[13]
• Family Feud (1999–present) (produced by FremantleMedia North America and Feudin' Productions (1999-2010) and by Wanderlust Productions (2010–present). Syndicated the series since 2007)*
• American Chopper (2003-2010)
• Deadliest Catch (2005–present)
• Tyler Perry's House of Payne (produced by Tyler Perry Studios) (2006-2012) on TBS*
• The Wendy Williams Show (2008–present)*
• Trivial Pursuit: America Plays (2008-2009)*
• Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns (2008-2011) (produced by Tyler Perry Studios on TBS) (co-distributed by Turner Television with ad-sales by Disney-ABC Domestic Television)
• Are We There Yet? (2010-2012) on TBS*
• The Jeremy Kyle Show (2011-2013)*
• Anger Management (2012–2014)*
• Celebrity Name Game (2014–present) (produced by FremantleMedia North America, CBS Television Studios, and Entertain the Brutes)*
• Tosh.0 (2009–present) on Comedy Central*

See also

• Lionsgate Television

References

External links

• Official website