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ABC Sells a TV-Movie for Showing on CBS : Television: The sale is another example of the growing interdependence among the networks. The movie is about a policeman and an ex-con.

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TIMES TELEVISION WRITER

Would Saks tell Bullock’s?

In a TV equivalent of unlikely cooperation, ABC said Thursday that it has sold a two-hour film--”Fugitive Among Us,” starring Peter Strauss and Eric Roberts--for broadcast on competing CBS.

It is the first project from ABC Productions for another network, and spokesmen for ABC, CBS and NBC said that they believed it was the first time any of the Big Three networks had sold a program to one of the others.

All of the networks have been beefing up their in-house production units as they try to combat sinking revenues by now dealing openly with many competitors in order to improve profits. The ABC-CBS deal would have been impossible in past years when all of the Big Three flourished handsomely and independently.

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But interdependent deals now are emerging with regularity. ABC and the Nickelodeon cable service recently came up with a comedy series, “Hi Honey, I’m Home,” for broadcast on both outlets. It was produced by Nickelodeon. ABC has also commissioned MTV to produce a prime-time special celebrating the cable channel’s 10-year anniversary.

In addition, NBC and PBS announced that they will cooperate in covering the 1992 political conventions. NBC’s Tom Brokaw and other of the network’s correspondents will appear on PBS.

“Fugitive Among Us” will be produced by the Andrew Adelson Co. in association with ABC Productions. A CBS spokeswoman said that CBS had initiated the project with the Adelson firm last year but that ABC Productions then bought the company.

“Fugitive Among Us” is inspired by a true story and “deals with a policeman’s obsessive pursuit of an escaped convict and the haunting relationship between the two men,” ABC said. Strauss plays the policeman, Roberts the convict.

Other production companies, from Fox to the pay-TV channel HBO, are also involved in the new interdependent relationship of competing companies as they all struggle for survival in a market of growing alternatives.

NBC formerly considered buying a series produced by ABC Productions, but the deal was never consummated.

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With their in-house production units, the Big Three are attempting to share further in ownership of programming. A recent relaxation of government rules allows the networks to participate in ownership of up to 40% of their prime-time schedules.

The networks, which have lost nearly one-third of their audience over the past decade, have pressed the government for a free hand in selling reruns as well in order to compete in a market where production costs keep spiraling.

Referring to Thursday’s deal, an ABC spokesman said, “This has never been done before.” The network indicated that a deal in which one of the Big Three produced a show for another marked a new era in TV.

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