Telco unveils Missing for fall 2003

Independent distributor Telco Productions Inc. is launching in syndication a new
weekly half-hour reality series titled Missing, looking at cases of
missing persons.

The FBI, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and local
law-enforcement agencies are helping with the series, said Alex Paen, president
of Santa Monica, Calif.-based Telco.

At the end of each episode, a Hollywood celebrity will offer safety tips and
promote information hotlines.

To customize the show for stations, each episode will include a space where
stations can insert a segment about a local missing-persons case.

Stations also can avail themselves each week of five different brief cases to
use in newscasts or other programming, and they can buy one or two episodes per
week, Paen said.

Telco and Paen have created two other successful weekly syndicated programs:
Animal Rescue, now in its sixth season, and State Police, in its
third. Telco also distributes daily court show We the Jury.

Missing will be executive-produced by Paen and Bill Grundfest of NBC's
Mad About You. It is scheduled for next fall, but it may be ready to debut
this spring, Paen said.

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.