ION Television Reports Strong Initial Results for RHI Programming
July 13 2007 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
ION Television, ION Media Networks� (AMEX:ION) flagship TV network
reaching over 90 million homes, announced that average weekend
viewership is showing substantial increases with the debut of
content from RHI Entertainment, the global leader in the production
and distribution of groundbreaking movies, miniseries and series
for television. Since the start of RHI Movie Weekend, which began
the weekend of June 29th, Saturday night household impressions have
experienced a 55 percent increase over season-to-date figures. ION
Television�s consecutive Saturday night showings of the newly
digitally re-mastered, Emmy� award winning miniseries Lonesome
Dove, which stars Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover,
Diane Lane, Ricky Schroder, Chris Cooper, and Anjelica Huston, is
the highest rated television movie this season in its 9:00 to 11:00
p.m. time period. Other highlights for the Saturday night movies
include: Compared with season-to-date figures, Lonesome Dove�s
airings have increased delivery in women ages 25-54 by 34 percent.
Between the first and second early Saturday movie, the women 25-54
category increased 50 percent. Overall, ION�s Saturday 7:00 to
11:00 p.m. time period saw a 32 percent climb in household
impressions versus season-to-date numbers. Sunday movie specials
also showed a dramatic increase of 54 percent amongst the women
25-54 year-old demographic. Additional results of interest are: The
Sunday, July 8th movie special, Journey to the Center of the Earth,
a four-hour retelling of the classic Jules Verne tale, starring
Treat Williams, reached 868,000 viewers and delivered 382,000
impressions in the adult 25-54 category. Journey to the Center of
the Earth further improved delivery in the 7:00 to 11:00 p.m. time
period with an additional 57 percent in household impressions above
the previous week. Of the aforementioned week-to-week viewers,
Sunday movies did notably well in the adult 35-64 demographic,
nearly doubling their previous results. �ION Television has seen
significant increases in viewership since the introduction of RHI�s
content,� said Brandon Burgess, CEO, ION Media Networks. �RHI
programming makes for great TV viewing for the entire family, and
we look forward to premiering the first new RHI original movie
Killer Wave on ION Television in August.� �We very much value our
partnership with ION and look forward to also providing original
movies and miniseries that will be developed exclusively for
premiere network broadcast on ION Television,� said Robert Halmi,
Jr., President and CEO of RHI Entertainment. �This is just the
beginning of a long and fruitful relationship.� Killer Wave, an
action-disaster miniseries starring Tom Skerritt, is the first of
12 original productions from RHI. The four-hour miniseries, which
will debut on ION in its entirety on August 5th, features Angus
Macfayden (Braveheart, Alias, Saw 3), Steven McHattie (A History of
Violence, Seinfeld) and Karine Vanasse (Head in the Clouds, Set Me
Free). Select Upcoming ION Television RHI Programming Highlights:
The third RHI weekend programming installment is highlighted by
unforgettable performances from Anthony Edwards, Eric Roberts and
Sam Neill in Truman Capote�s In Cold Blood, slated to air Sunday,
July 15th, 7:00 � 11:00 p.m. The critically-hailed program is based
on Capote�s famous true-crime saga about the murder of a Kansas
farm family. August program highlights include Patrick Stewart in
Moby Dick (Sunday, August 12th, 7:00 � 11:00 p.m.), and the
�prequel� to Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry�s Dead Man�s Walk
(August 18th, 25th and September 1st, 9:00 � 11:00 p.m.), starring
David Arquette as Gus McCrae, Jonny Lee Miller as Woodrow Call, and
a brilliant supporting cast that includes Academy Award� winner F.
Murray Abraham, Keith Carradine, Brain Dennehy, Edward James Olmos
and Harry Dean Stanton. About ION Media Networks ION Media
Networks, Inc. owns and operates the nation�s largest broadcast
television station group and ION Television, reaching over 90
million U.S. television households via its nationwide broadcast
television, cable and satellite distribution systems. ION
Television currently features popular television series and movies
from the award-winning libraries of Warner Bros., Sony Pictures
Television, CBS Television and NBC Universal. In addition, the
network has partnered with RHI Entertainment, which owns over 4,000
hours of acclaimed television content, to provide high-quality
primetime programming beginning July 2007. Utilizing its digital
multicasting capability, ION Media Networks has launched several
new digital TV brands, including qubo, a television and multimedia
network for children formed in partnership with Scholastic, Corus
Entertainment, Classic Media and NBC Universal, as well as ION
Life, a television and multimedia network dedicated to health and
wellness for consumers and families. For more information, please
visit www.ionmedia.tv. About RHI Entertainment RHI Entertainment,
LLC, is the global leader in the production and distribution of
groundbreaking miniseries and movies for television. Since the
company�s inception, under the guidance of Robert Halmi, Sr. and
Robert Halmi, Jr., RHI has produced and distributed over 4,000
hours of quality television programming, received more than 100
Emmy� Awards, and outperformed the competition annually in viewer
ratings. Currently, RHI provides 40-60 new television movies and
miniseries a year to networks worldwide.
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