A&E Greenlights Second Season Of `Breakout Kings'

A&E Thursday said it will bring back its freshman crime drama Breakout Kings for a second season.

The series, which stars Laz Alonso (Southland, Avatar) and Domenick Lombardozzi (The Wire) as U.S. marshals who head up a team of convicts pulled from jail to track down and capture prison escapees, averaged 1.9 million viewers during its 13-episode run, said the network.

The series is expected to launch its sophomore campaign sometime in first quarter 2012, said the network.

The March 6 premiere episode of Breakout Kings set a network series premiere ratings record among adults 25-54 (1.6 million viewers) and adults 18-49 (1.5 million viewers), but fell short of the 3.6 million total viewers that A&E's drama series The Glades drew in its summer 2010 debut.

Breakout Kings finished its freshman campaign drawing 2 million viewers in its May 30 finale.

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.