A&E's Maestros

Real life, even the exaggerated versions that get played out in courtrooms and hospital beds, is defined by deficiencies in organization and plot and an almost exasperating scarcity of meaning. And while it's difficult to make sense of the messy snarl of any life, when framed within the context of television, even the most chaotic existence can be transformed into the stuff of high drama.That transformation is one of the core themes that informs A&E's repositioning, a new marketing campaign designed to reintroduce the brand as a home to original scripted drama series. Four years ago, A&E executive vp and general manager Bob DeBitetto began sweeping out the cobwebs at a network that he now says was becoming "largely irrelevant to the commercial demos," aggressively introducing a broad slate of unscripted series with the goal of aging the audience down from a creaky median age of 59.Having developed franchises like Dog the Bounty Hunter and The First 48, DeBitetto followed up with a rather brief acquisition phase, picking up rights to CSI: Miami and The Sopranos, which was acquired from HBO in 2006 for the princely sum of $2.5 million an episode, or around $200 million. Now, as A&E heads into the upfront, DeBitetto tells Mediaweek that he has committed to another major off-net purchase, landing Criminal Minds from CBS TV Distribution."This was the last major off-net franchise that we were interested in, and it will probably be the last one that we will pick up for quite some time," DeBitetto says, adding that A&E has the right to the full strip starting September 2009. Per terms of the deal, A&E will be able to repurpose episodes from the first three seasons of the procedural one night per week beginning next month.While A&E won't go public with the Criminal Minds news until its April 28 upfront presentation in New York, media buyers who are familiar with the deal say the series should prove to be an apt fit for the network. "I think it's a pretty good pickup for them, as it's one of the better shows working for CBS," says Gibbs Haljun, managing partner, director of national broadcast at Mediaedge:cia. "Hopefully, it will do their average age, and not draw a much older audience. That's always a concern with CBS shows." (Since DeBitetto launched phase one of his four-year plan, A&E has trimmed 13 years off its median age, holding firm at 46 years.)In order to prime the pump for the third and final leg of A&E's revitalization strategy, the network is launching a major consumer campaign off the platform of The Andromeda Strain, a four-hour miniseries adaptation of the 1969 Michael Crichton novel about a deadly extraterrestrial biological pandemic that wipes out an entire town in Arizona. Produced by Ridley Scott and Tony Scott, The Andromeda Strain premieres May 26 at 9 p.m., becoming the first scripted original project to air on A&E since Sidney Lumet's courthouse drama 100 Centre Street bowed in January 2001.On the night Andromeda Strain invades the small screen, A&E will begin running a 75-second promo meant to introduce viewers to its new aesthetic. Shot on film, the clip begins with a close-up of network newcomer Benjamin Bratt's face as he careens through the predawn streets of Los Angeles in a beat-up old truck, before giving way to A&E reality-series mainstays like Criss Angel and Gene Simmons. Bratt will pull double duty on A&E this spring, starring in both Andromeda Strain and The Cleaner, the first original scripted series to make the network's prime-time lineup in eight years.An extensive outdoor campaign will coincide with the on-air messaging, both of which will lay out the network's new tag line ("Real Life. Drama.") while showing off a stylized upgrade of the iconic A&E logo. "It is our hope that we do this once, and we do this right," DeBitetto says. "We want this to live a good long time, so that it's something that we don't have to come back to two years from now and have to do all over again. Therefore, this effort is a significant one."While DeBitetto is fired up about the culmination of his long-term strategy, he's not about to go throwing the baby out with the Kool-Aid. "We weren't looking to change the name of the network, even though we're no longer positioning ourselves as the `arts and entertainment' network per se," DeBitetto says. "This isn't an exercise in changing The Nashville Network to TNN to Spike TV. It's more a case of, well, we have a valuable television brand, so let's hold onto those elements of the brand that are valuable

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A&E's Maestros

Anthony Crupi

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Anthony Crupi