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Nine sells Daisies, Chuck, Privileged, Terminator to Foxtel.

Nine has sold four key US titles to now air exclusively on Foxtel from next month.

As previously hinted here, Foxtel has acquired now broadcast rights to Chuck, Privileged, Pushing Daisies and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

They will begin airing from January.

Foxtel’s Brian Walsh said: “In obtaining these compelling, quality U.S. programs, Foxtel reinforces its robust commitment to provide our subscribers with more exclusive and first run programming.”

This is not the first time Nine has on-sold some of its programming including Gossip Girl (now airing in rerun on Nine), The OC and The West Wing -to name a few.

TV Tonight understands Nine felt the shows were too niche for its audience, despite promises earlier this year some of them would air in 2008.

Press Release:
FOXTEL announced today it has secured a range of exclusive new U.S. programming for its Owned & Operated Channels following an agreement with Channel Nine and Warner Bros.

The new series, Chuck, Privileged, Pushing Daisies and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, will all screen exclusively on FOXTEL from early next month. Under the deal terms, Channel Nine has relinquished its first run window to FOXTEL, which will have exclusive first run rights to all series.

FOXTEL Executive Director of Television and Marketing Brian Walsh said: “In obtaining these compelling, quality U.S. programs, FOXTEL reinforces its robust commitment to provide our subscribers with more exclusive and first run programming.

“We continue to deliver the premium programming across a range of genres to our viewers – ahead of other television networks – and the new Warner Bros series add to the already impressive line-up of first run series screening on FOXTEL this summer including the hit shows Gossip Girl, Entourage, America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway and American Idol, as well as Australian programs An Aussie Goes Calypso, and new series The Phone.”

Chuck
Season One Exclusive Australian Premiere in January 2009 on FOX8 (as seen on U.S. network NBC).

When Chuck Bartowski opens an email subliminally encoded with the government’s most precious secrets, he unwittingly downloads an entire server of sensitive data into his brain. Now the fate of the world lies in the unlikely hands of a guy who works at a Buy More Electronics store. Instead of fighting computer viruses, he must now confront assassins and international terrorists.

Privileged
Season One Exclusive Australian Premiere in early 2009 on FOX8 (as seen on U.S. network CW).

Megan Smith is having a bad day, her New York apartment burned down, she just got fired from her job at a tabloid magazine and she accidentally dyed her hair an unnervingly bright colour. Things start to look up when she is offered a position in Palm Beach, working as a tutor for 16-year-old twin billionaires. In exchange for getting the girls into Duke University, Megan will get to live amongst the rich and fabulous, and have the remainder of her college loans covered. Privileged is based on the book How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls by Zoey Dean.

Pushing Daisies
Series One Exclusive Australian Premiere in early 2009 on W. (as seen on U.S. network ABC).

As a boy, Ned discovered that he could return the dead briefly back to life with just one touch. Now a pie maker, Ned puts his ability to good use touching dead fruit to make it ripe with everlasting flavour, and working with a private investigator to crack murder cases by raising the dead to name their killers. But the tale gets complicated when Ned brings his childhood sweetheart, Chuck, back from the dead – and keeps her alive. Life would be perfect for Ned and Chuck, except for one cruel twist – if he ever touches her again, she’ll go back to being dead and this time for good.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Season One begins January 2009 followed by Australian Premiere of Season Two on FOX8 (As seen on U.S. network FOX).

At the end of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” Sarah Connor vanquished the Terminator sent from the future to kill her 15-year-old son, John. Sarah and John now find themselves alone in a very dangerous, complicated world. Fugitives from the law, they are confronted with the reality that still more enemies from the future and the present could attack at any moment. John knows he may be the future saviour of mankind, but he is not yet ready to take on the mantle of leadership that he’s told is his destiny.

These exciting new programs add to the stellar line-up for the 2009 season, including 15 local productions such as Australia’s Next Top Model Series Five, Project Runway (Australia) Series Two, Football Superstar Series Two, and new comedy programs The Pam Ann Show and 30 Seconds.

45 Responses

  1. Good one Nine, not only can you not keep to your advertised schedule, roughly 10-15 minutes behind, moving a show around in the schedule and not advertising it, stopping a series halfway through a season to increase DVD sales – The West Wing.

    It is no wonder that people are more than happy to download TV episodes from the net. TV execs just do not understand that the more they screw around with people the more they will lose people to programmes on Torrent.

  2. And they wonder why we download television from the internet – at least you can watch it!!!! Chuck is the best new show on TV for the last couple of years, it’s funny, charming and witty, and it’s too bad for Channel 9 that it didn’t even get a chance, like another commenter said it could have been a comedy goldmine. Too bad Channel 9, the only thing that sucks is that many people without Foxtel will never view this great show. Considering how much absolute garbage is on that channel during normal viewing hours and how poorly they’re going in the ratings, why not give them a shot? I’m sure “finding my long lost relative’s pets in vetinary hospitals and watching the lawsuit in real time” is a much better show.

  3. I’m thrilled to hear these great series are coming to Foxtel. I no longer watch Free to Air as I was constantly angry at Nine etc rescheduling programs (without notice), failing to air the whole series or suddenly screening 2 episodes of a show in one week, without advertising the fact!
    At least Foxtel treats series/viewers with respect, screening them consistently at appropriate viewing times.
    I can’t wait for Dexter series 3 on Showcase, my favourite show to come out of the USA since the Sopranos!

  4. It’s a sad state of affairs when people are thrilled to paying for a show that they could otherwise watch free because a channel (Nine, in this case) makes such a mess with airing episodes, etc…

  5. ch9 must really need the money. usually if a network cannot air a series they keep paying for the rights anyway.

    this is particularly strange, first of all as ella said; 9 are looking for warmhearts. and secondly this should be the time that the networks try to get their hands on as many american series as possible (let alone unaired ones) for their 2nd SD channel. i trust nines 2nd SD network to be just as dissapointing as 9HD. it will probably be 20 to 1, 2.5 men, and CSI re-re-re-runs just like ch9.

  6. i’m now hearing that foxtel have also got damages and smallville season 8! lets just hope 7 don’t join 9 and 10 and sell something like stargate atlantis season 4 and 5 to foxtel. but 7 are the only ones not in financial trouble, 10 is just broke, 9 is in huge debt but 7 is doing fine. and so much for 15 freeview channels, down to 14 coz ONE is simulcast on 2 channels and down to 13 coz it now looks like 9’s additional SD channel will just be their regular channel timeshifted coz they have sold off all the shows in their stockpile there is nothing left to air really, moonlight is the only one i can think of.

  7. I’m sure Pushing daisies could have built an audience. It would have been better if it had been picked up by another station other than Nine, they have a habit of ruining decent quirky shows (Six feeet under and Weeds spring to mind) I have the first series on DVD and I will get the DVD of the second series once it is released in the U.S. I’m not paying to watch it on cable. It should be on FTA.

  8. #@%! you Channel Nine!
    Thank God I imported Pushing Daisies and Chuck from the U.S. months ago. Both are brilliant! I didn’t really like Terminator but was looking forward to Priveleged. Every day my hatred of the commercial networks grows.

  9. The people at Nine’s programming department frustrate me so much. I have been told by them throughout the year that certain shows would be returning this summer and now they think it is OK to just pass them onto Foxtel. Why don’t they just make these shows available to download for free from their site? That seems like the fair and logical thing to do. I am surprised that Moonlight wasn’t included in that “off-load” list. It seems to fall into the “too hard (read “not CSI & Two and a half men”) basket.

  10. I was looking forward to chuck…ever since visiting Warner Bros in LA earlier this year and being part of the show for a day Oh well may have to switch on Austar or FOXTEL now…. very dissapointing

  11. I’m glad I downloaded Pushing Daisies each week it aired, instead of waiting all year for Nine to air the episodes like it promised with the advertising (including the first episode on dvd) it did last summer. How utterly predictable.

  12. Chuck’s second season is down as just about everything that started last season is, but the ratings are slowly going up, last episode was the highest this season, and it had a full season two order.

    PDs fate is what it is, still is a great show and so why not show it over summer. they show so much lesser quality crap to never air future episodes when there are some.

    I am out of step with the tasts of most australians. I just think FTA tv is going downhill as more people switch to downloads and cable for drama and comedy shows. TV sucks, so people switch to other means, so tv gets worse in a response to it as it caterers more and more for the lowest common denominator who just was disposable tv. Watch, entertained, forget. Nothing with good characters or stories that you follow. Something you can flick on, see them do up a back yard, come halfway during a punchline in two and a half men, and it doesn’t matter what came before.

  13. To all the people who complain about not being able to afford Foxtel – you can get it for $40 a month. That is $9 a week – the cost of a sandwich and drink at a take away food store.

    My guess is that is you are online posting about TV shows – you have enough interest in TV to warrant spending $9 a week.

  14. Does Nine still own half of Foxtel ?
    Is Nine trying to be another cut price network like Ten ?
    Why buy product , then not trial it, then months later onsell it.
    Nine’s buying and programming dept suck big time..

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