"Crime Watch" Clears Over 60% of Country

Distributor Program Partners, which scored big this season with syndicated procedural drama Da Vinci's Inquest, has cleared a new two-hour "Crime Watch" block in over 60% of the country.

Clearances include stations owned by ABC, Belo, Gray, Hearst-Argyle, Lin, Meredith, Post-Newsweek, Viacom and others, according to the company.

The block is made up of crime dramas Cold Squad and Stone Undercover, sold for weekend prime time or late-night play as a stand-alone or bundled with other syndicated procedurals.

Program Partners will offer stations two different satellite feeds, each with the same episode of Stone Undercover but a different episode of Cold Squad.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.