'The Game' Producers Sign New Deal with BET

BET Signs 'The Game' Producers To Development Deal
Akil Productions to develop new shows for network

By R. Thomas Umstead, Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/12/2011
BET has reached a multi-year development agreement with The Game producers Salim and Mara Brock Akil (pictured left), the network announced Thursday.

The deal with Akil Productions calls for the husband and wife team to continue their current roles as executive producers for BET's hit comedy series, as well as to develop and unspecified number of new shows for BET Networks.

The Game is the most watched series in BET's history, averaging 4.6 million viewers during its freshman run on the network earlier this year.

Along with The Game, Salim Akil directed the current theatrical hit Jumping The Broom. In 2000, Mara Brock Akil created and executive produced the former CW broadcast network hit series, Girlfriends, which currently airs in repeats on BET.

"We're thrilled to build on the very important relationship between our network and the Hollywood creative community, especially with two proven powerhouses in entertainment - Salim and Mara Brock Akil," said Loretha Jones, President of Original Programming at BET Networks in a statement. "Through this partnership we hope to continue to bring our audience high quality content that reflects their lives and our communities."


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BET Announces MORE New Shows

BET puts more original players on 'Game' field
By Gary Levin, USA TODAY
April 12, 2011

BET is playing The Game, riding the success of its football-themed comedy into a new wave of scripted programming.

The top network for African Americans announces plans today for Reed Between the Lines, a family comedy starring Malcolm-Jamal Warner (The Cosby Show) and Tracee Ross Ellis (Girlfriends), due in October. They'll play professional parents (she's a psychologist, he's an English professor) of three kids. Two more new comedies are on tap for next summer, and BET is exploring its first foray into drama, developing a movie for 2012.


From left to right: Malcolm Jamal Warner and Tracee Ross Ellis

The stunning success of The Game has been a driving force. In January, two years after CW canceled the comedy about football players and the women in their lives, BET — which had been airing syndicated reruns of the series — launched new episodes.

The fourth-season premiere drew 7.7 million viewers, cable's biggest comedy opener ever, more than doubling the show's previous peak. All told, the winter season averaged 5.3 million; companion series Let's Stay Together claimed 2.9 million; and BET's prime-time audience jumped 24% to 950,000 viewers, its most-watched quarter ever.Both shows have been renewed for 22-episode seasons and return in January.

BET's CEO, Debra Lee, calls the results an "empowering and satisfying" payoff for its entry into scripted programming, years after the network took heat for a steady diet of suggestive hip-hop videos. (Somebodies, a 2008 comedy, fizzled.) "Our community is still starved for good original programming," Lee says. "The networks haven't had much to offer the last few years, and people are hungry."

Fox, WB and UPN, partly built on programming aimed at black audiences, have dropped it or no longer exist, and CW stopped airing comedies in 2009.

So the success reminded Hollywood and Madison Avenue about the value of African-American viewers, who watch more TV than any other group. The audience "is extremely loyal," says original-programming chief Loretha Jones, "and if you deliver a quality show to them week to week, they'll show up."

Game creator Mara Brock Akil says the new home is a better fit with more marketing support. At CW, "our numbers were competing with Gossip Girl, which got all the money and attention." And unlike Tyler Perry's broad family sitcoms on TBS, the show's adult appeal "allows us to deal with characters who are more complicated and flawed," she says.


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BET's 'The Game' Season Finale Draws 4.4 Million

The half-hour sitcom, which drew record numbers for its premiere, averaged 2.1 million viewers on its old network the CW.

by Philiana Ng - The Hollywood Reporter

3/30/2011

The fourth season finale of BET comedy, The Game, drew 4.4 million total viewers Tuesday night.

That’s still a ways off from its premiere in January when it debuted on its new network -- when it attracted 7.7 million viewers (read more about that at the link below) -- but still a major boost from its CW days. The Game averaged 2.1 million viewers on the CW.

BET’s launch of the half-hour sitcom, which originally aired on the broadcast net for three seasons before getting the axe in May 2009, was the series’ best showing ever and the cable network’s most-watched telecast.

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