'Passions' heads to DirecTV

Segments to begin airing this fall

By JOSEF ADALIANNBC is closing in on a deal that will keep sudser "Passions" alive via an unusual outlet: DirecTV.

In what would be its biggest-ever original programming initiative, satellite provider is set to acquire original episodes of the soap opera from NBC U TV Studio. Segs would likely begin airing this fall, after the sudser ends its run on NBC.

There will be some changes, however.

Instead of five days per week, "Passions" will air only four times per week. It's also expected the show's budget will be reduced further to accommodate the different business model.

Neither NBC nor DirecTV would comment, but insiders said a deal could be finalized by week's end. It's unclear how much DirecTV will pay NBC, but a typical sudser costs a little more than $1 million per week to produce for network TV.

DirecTV has been edging further into the original content business, airing several first-run skeins on what it calls the 101. It's unclear if the company will program "Passions" on that channel or use the sudser as part of a larger programming initiative.

Peacock said earlier this year that it was canceling "Passions" after an eight-year run on the net (Daily Variety, Jan. 15).

I don't really know what to say. A part of me is happy/thrilled but another part of me is cautious and worried and think it could just be prolonging it's death.

As a fan of PASSIONS (well, former fan), I'm happy yet I'm worried.

If Juliet Mills isn't a part of it, I probably won't be watching. I wonder how many cast members will be cut?

YAAAAAAAAY!! I knew it would happen!! :D

I am just overjoyed that my favourite show is staying on the air!!!!!!!

I really hope Global continues to air Passions in Canada.

I just found this press release...

NBC’S PASSIONS TO WORK ITS MAGIC ON DIRECTV VIEWERS WITH ALL NEW EPISODES BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 17

Fan Favorite Daytime Drama Joins DIRECTV’s The 101 Lineup; New Episodes Produced by NBC Universal Television Studio Will Air on DIRECTV

El Segundo, Calif., April 25, 2007—NBC Universal Television Studio and DIRECTV, the nation’s leading satellite television provider, today announced that the NBC Universal-produced daytime drama Passions has found a new home on DIRECTV where the popular program will continue for a 9th season. Under the new agreement, NBC Universal Television Studio will produce brand-new episodes to air Monday-Thursday on DIRECTV’s original programming channel, The 101.

The celebrated daytime drama, which currently averages over 2 million viewers and enjoys an intensely dedicated fan base, will end its network run on NBC September 7 with a series of cliffhangers and will resurface on DIRECTV September 17, picking up where the series left off. The show will remain in its current time slot of 2 PM ET and DIRECTV will air encore marathons of the show each weekend.

“Passions fans no longer need to mourn the demise of their beloved program as it has found new life on DIRECTV,” said Eric Shanks, executive vice president of Entertainment for DIRECTV. “We care about this show and are extremely proud to give it an exclusive home here at DIRECTV.” “This new arrangement with DIRECTV is truly a landmark development that allows NBC Universal to extend the Passions brand in a fresh and entirely new way, to DIRECTV’s 16 million homes,” said Marc Graboff, president, NBC Universal Television, West Coast. “It will reward the dedicated fans of the daytime drama who can continue to enjoy it on DIRECTV and also opens up a great new model for other television programs to find new life on other non-traditional platforms.”

The majority of the cast and crew is expected to return when the one-hour series begins shooting the new DIRECTV episodes in August. DIRECTV will make it easy for Passions viewers to keep track of the happenings in “Harmony” by providing fans free installation, a DVR or HD receiver upgrade, and a portable DVD player by calling a special phone number (866-788-0003) or visiting the Web (www.directv.com/passions) that will give those without DIRECTV plenty of time to switch before the new season begins. Passions fans can also visit www.nbc.com for more information about the show. Passions will be the first scripted drama series to join The 101 original program lineup which includes viewer favorites like Project MyWorld, The Fizz, havoc on The 101, and Championship Gaming Series. The series will broadcast four one-hour episodes per week, as well as a weekend marathon of that week’s shows so fans can catch up on the action each week.

Passions explores the lives, loves and losses of four core families in the small New England town of Harmony: the Cranes, the Lopez-Fitzgeralds, the Bennetts and the Russells, each of whom have their own distinct and diverse personalities. The series debuted on NBC in 1999 and has routinely been amongst the top daytime programs for women ages 18-34, and currently is tied for #1 among all daytime dramas in both women ages 18-24 and females 12-24. New episodes of Passions will begin shooting in August and will continue to be taped at the CBS Studio Center in Studio City, Calif. The show is produced by NBC Universal Television Studio in association with Outpost Farms Productions, Inc.

About DIRECTV

DIRECTV, Inc., the nation’s leading satellite television service provider, presents the finest television experience available to more than 16 million customers in the United States, through exclusive content, industry-leading customer satisfaction (which has surpassed cable for six years running) and superior technologies. Each day, DIRECTV subscribers enjoy access to over 250 channels of 100% digital picture and sound, exclusive programming and the most comprehensive collection of sports programming available anywhere, including NFL SUNDAY TICKETâ„¢ and MLB EXTRA INNINGS®. DIRECTV (NYSE:DTV) also leads the digital television technology revolution with exclusives such as NFL SUNDAY TICKET SuperFanâ„¢, US Open Interactive and YES Network Interactive and will soon have the capacity to offer over 150 channels in HD. For the most up-to-date information on DIRECTV, please visit directv.com.

About NBC Universal:

NBC Universal is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80 percent owned by General Electric and 20 percent owned by Vivendi Universal.

Edited April 25, 200718 yr by RionPassions

Wow, still staying an hour? Awesome. I also feel a little better hearing that the "majority" of the cast will remain in-tact.

As long as Juliet Mills remains (and Nicole Cox), I'll tune in.

Hopefully Lindsay, Liza, McKenzie, Juliet, Ben, Kim, Tracey and James stick around as well. I can see James Stevenson jumping ship. In a recent interview he didn't sound too positive about sticking around, despite his Emmy nod and happiness being on the soap. I think Brook Kerr is 50/50 ... is it OFFICIAL she's leaving? No. She just landed a pilot. Odds are she probably will ... Not sure about Emily or Galen sticking around but we'll see.

Yup. As a comedy, the show's great. As a soap? Not so much.

The show is its own identity crisis.

Which is why I'm a naysayer; still am.

Passions is nothing more than a parody and has no place on the daytime lineup. These are crticial times as it is for soaps without this mockery being a part of the represntation.

With that said, I'm happy for some of the fans that they have a new outlet to enjoy their show. I've been saying for a while that soap operas should be independent of the newtworks and branch out to other mediums.

How many people do they expect to switch to Direct TV for one show? If the average viewership for the show was two million already on network tv, how viewers would they get.

I am less negative after the new press release:

- Still produced by NBC Universal, and I hope it will still be distributed to Global. I don't see why not. The deal isn't mentioned as exclusive, and all avenues of revenue should be explored.

- "DIRECTV will make it easy for Passions viewers to keep track of the happenings in Harmony? by providing fans free installation, a DVR or HD receiver upgrade, and a portable DVD player by calling a special phone number (866-788-0003) or visiting the Web (www.directv.com/passions)..." While they still have to pay the monthly charges, this is a good way to help fans.

- A series of cliffhangers? The stories will never end!! Hopefully four episodes a week will make things happen faster.

- How angry must AW fans be? Passions is finally cancelled and they get to live on.

I'd happily tune in for Juliet and Nicole (that's what I tune in for now), even if it's on youtube, so I'm glad to hear it'll still be on the air, as long as Tabitha and Endora remain characters on the show.

What does it mean for Canadian viewers that the show will air on Direct TV? I wonder if it will be sold to a Canadian network. Hope so.

Here's a little new info. to add to that...

From: http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertain...ons_wont_e.html

"Passions" won't end on NBC; soap jumps to DirecTV

Posted on Apr 25, 2007 1:02:48 PM

Don't despair, "Passions" fans. The steamy supernatural shenanigans won't end when the soap stops running on NBC. The show will jump to DirecTV.

"Passions" will end on NBC on Sept. 7 with numerous cliffhangers. The story resumes Sept. 17 on DirecTV's original programming channel called The 101.

I've never been a "Passions" fan -- this daytime drama is clearly no "Dark Shadows." But soaps are struggling, and it's reassuring to see that they don't have one life to live. They can find live elsewhere.

I know people who would go into yearlong funks if "Guiding Light" or "All My Children" wrapped up their sprawling plots.

The folks at the satellite television provider were celebrating their acquisition.

"We care about this show and are extremely proud to give it an exclusive home here at DirecTV," Eric Shanks, the channel's executive vice president of entertainment, said in a statement.

The show will offer new episodes at 2 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. DirecTV plans to provide marathons on the weekends.

NBC Universal Television Studio will continue to produce the soap opera about the strange little town of Harmony. A statement said that most of the cast would return to make the DirecTV episodes.

And if you don't have DirecTV, the satellite provider is going to use the soap to try to interest you. You can go to the Web site www.directv.com/passions to learn more.

The deal "opens up a great new model for other television programs to find new life on other non-traditional platforms," said Marc Graboff, president of NBC Universal Television, West Coast.

So take hope, my "Guiding Light" and "All My Children" pals. Remember: This means there's another world where the young and the restless can live as the world turns.

I cannot believe that the show is going to end with a "series of cliffhangers" on NBC.

This isn't a small break before the Olympics, or a short break before Wimbledon -- this is the show's network finale! Give people a resolution, for Christ sakes! At the very least, give everyone their payoffs and then have a bomb go off at the last minute, leaving viewers on the edge of their seats. The characters are happy, but do they live on? A "series of cliffhangers" tells me that the vast majority of the plots won't be ending, just carrying on until they fizzle out into nowhereland on 'the 101.'

Hmmm. The show ends with a series of cliffhangers on NBC Sept. 7 and then goes to DirecTV Sept. 17... I don't know. I honestly don't know if this will work out.

And yes, I'm sure many an AW fan is honked at this news, but I look at it this way... I was a huge AW fan and P&G's budget for AW was probably much more than Passions... I don't know if stomaching the huge cuts it would have required would have been worth it.

Good luck to them. We'll see if it works out in the long run.

That blog says that the show's new home will be exclusively on DirecTV and now DirecTV is going to use the show to entice you to buy them.

Which basically means that we won't see it anywhere else? I know that DirecTV has a deal with ESPN.com to make selected games from the major sports packages available to purchase online, and in some instances, the entire sports package can be purchased and viewed online.

I don't know if this is going to work. Passions has dismal ratings now while on a major network. Moving to DirecTV is going to take away nearly their entire audience.

Passions did what Another World, Sunset Beach, and Port Charles couldn't: survive.

Passions gets to live on, and that's all that matters. It's not another casualty like those soaps I listed above.

Passions did what Another World, Sunset Beach, and Port Charles couldn't: survive.

Passions gets to live on, and that's all that matters. It's not another casualty like those soaps I listed above.

It's the power of James E. Reilly.

I bet a certain AW fan is going to blow when he reads about this news.

Now, I think airing at 2pm is a bad idea. They have a chance to get the younger market be airing after school. A 3pm or 4pm timeslot would've been perfect.

I really hope Global is able to pick up the show.