NBC, MTV to Premiere quarterlife on Same Night

Hour-Long Drama from Marshall Herskovitz, Ed Zwick to Air on Broadcast Network Sunday Nights

By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/14/2008 8:16:00 AM

NBC and MTV are banding together on a promotional stunt to each premiere upcoming Marshall Herskovitz/Ed Zwick drama quarterlife on the same day.

The show, about the daily travails of a group of 20-somethings, will premiere Sunday, Feb. 26, on the cable network and that same night on NBC. Regular episodes move to Sunday nights on the broadcast network beginning March 2.

The move is unorthodox, as the networks have different corporate parents -- MTV is owned by Viacom, while NBC is owned by GE's NBC Universal -- but giving quarterlife'spremiere a sneak peek on cable will put the show in front of its target young viewers, who otherwise may not have watched.

For its part, MTV gets to premiere a buzzed-about show, one that began as eight-minute segments created for the Internet. It makes sense given that NBCU entertainment chief Ben Silverman and MTV programming head Tony DiSanto are industry pals.

quarterlife has already had an unusual path to TV. NBC picked up the show as an hour-long midseason replacement after its Web premiere.

Herskovitz and Zwick are the Emmy Award-winning writing and directing team behind My So-Called Life, which was canceled by ABC in the 1990s but became a hit on MTV after the cable network reran it.