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TBS Orders More ‘Payne’

Hollywood Reporter is reporting that TBS has ordered an additional 46 episodes of Tyler Perry’s sitcom, ‘The House of Payne’:

“We have a terrific relationship with Tyler Perry, and this deal means new episodes of ‘House of Payne’ will continue to air on TBS well into the future,” said Michael Wright, head of programming for TBS, TNT and TCM. “Tyler stands alone in the entertainment business today as an entrepreneur who knows his audience.”

The orders for 26 and another 20 additional episodes falls into “Payne” distributor Debmar-Mercury’s plan to quickly amass a large number of segments for syndication.

But not that quickly.

“We’re in two years where we thought we would be in three to four years,” Deb-Mer co-president Mort Marcus said.

The story of “Payne,” which has generated more than $250 million in revenue, began a few years ago when, coming off an overall deal at CBS, Perry approached Debmar-Mercury with a proposition: He would fund a new series if they would find a way to get it on television and get him his money back.

That’s how Marcus and Deb-Mer co-president Ira Bernstein came up with the model that is being applied to all their comedy projects.

Perry funded the production of 10 episodes, which Debmar-Mercury gave for free to local stations in key markets and to TBS’ WTBS Atlanta for a test run in summer 2006.

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