Bringing cable reality programs to syndication, South Park distributor Debmar-Mercury has acquired domestic cable and syndication distribution rights for The Surreal Life’s family of celebrity-based reality shows from 51 Minds Entertainment.
The package includes VH1’s comical reality series The Surreal Life, Flavor of Love, The Surreal Life: Fame Games, Strange Love and My Fair Brady.
Debmar-Mercury, under Co-Presidents Mort Marcus and Ira Bernstein, is rushing the 175 half-hour episodes of the five shows to the market for fall 2007 to take advantage of the shortfall in off-network sitcoms.
The episodes will be sold as a strip, with each of the five series airing consecutively in the same time period over the course of a season. Licensing terms have yet to be determined.
Bernstein says that, until now, the explosion of the reality genre on cable has not been represented in syndication.
