Company Town

* Television: “Friends” got a jump-start in the syndication market. Warner Bros. announced Thursday that 10 stations covering 26% of the country had bought rights to reruns of the popular show, which is in its second year on NBC. Studios usually wait until they have about 90 episodes of a TV show in the can before they sell the reruns to stations across the country, but Warner Bros. made the move with only 55. Tribune Broadcasting Co., Warner’s partner in the WB network, is picking up the program for seven of its stations, including those in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. Reruns of the top 10 show will begin in the fall of 1998. Warner Bros. says sales in those 10 markets were higher than for the best of three rerun blockbusters--”Home Improvement,” “Seinfeld” and “Frasier.” The deal is impressive considering the number of sitcoms vying for the few slots stations have for reruns these days. Whereas Paramount’s “Frasier” sold well this year, “Mad About You” and “Grace Under Fire” fetched less than their owners expected. Most studios keep a minute’s worth of advertising time per episode for themselves, but Warner Bros. has ransomed a minute and a half during the week. It has simultaneously sold cable rights to Turner Broadcasting System Inc.’s WTBS superstation. Cable rights usually lag syndication rights.