Sinclair Joins Tribune in Picking up Third Cycle of 'Friends'

By Paige Albiniak
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Sinclair Broadcast Group is the second station group to renew Warner Bros.' Friends for a third cycle, joining Tribune in keeping the show through 2017, said Rick Meril, executive vice president and general sales manager of Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. To date, the show has been renewed in half of the country.

Sinclair has renewed the show in all 16 of its incumbent markets, including Sinclair's largest markets, Pittsburgh, Raleigh and Baltimore. Tribune picked up the show's third cycle on 15 of its stations, including in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Cycle three of the show begins December 2013 and will be available for the first time in TrueHD.

Friends -- starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer -- is a Bright/Kauffman/Crane Production in association with Warner Bros. Television. It's distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.