Sony Pictures Television will sell the national ad time in syndicated drama Da Vinci's Inquest.
The Canadian procedural crime drama is being distributed by Program Partners.
According to Sony, the show has been sold on a barter basis (stations pay for it in ad inventory, which Sony will sell) for fall 2005 in over 80% of the country, including CBS O&O's in top markets New York, L.A., Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Miami, and Minneapolis.
The show would seem a natural fit for CBS, where the granddaddly of procedural crime dramas, CSI, has been fruitful and multiplied.
The success of CSI and its spin-offs has prompted a wave of forensic shows, from Medium to ABC's Numb3rs, to Fox's House (which essentially applies the same sort of forensic sensibility to bodies that are still warm), to new shows, including from Bruckheimer, on next fall's schedules.
The off-network run of CSI is currently the top drama in syndication.
Da Vinci's Inquest, in its seventh year, is about a "charismatic, controversial and mercurial Coroner," Dominic Da Vinci, as he works with homicide detectives, forensic investigators and pathologists to solve the mysteries of unnatural, accidental or suspicious deaths."
Ninety-one episodes of the show, from MacGyver creator Chris Haddock, will be available beginning this year.
