Bochco Enters Deal With Paramount to Produce Series

Steven Bochco, producer of such Emmy-winning programs as “NYPD Blue” and “L.A. Law,” has entered into a joint venture to produce television series with Viacom’s Paramount Television Group.

Sources say the deal, which becomes effective in January, involves a financial commitment by the studio of as much as $50 million over its five-year term. Paramount will finance production of Bochco’s series, and the parties will split the profits.

For the first time in a dozen years, Bochco won’t be confined to producing for a single network. He has had an exclusive agreement with CBS for the last three years that yielded two short-lived series, “Brooklyn South” and “Public Morals.”

Relations between the producer and network became strained last year when “Brooklyn South” was canceled. Bochco agreed to provide CBS a third show, the medical drama “City of Angels,” to secure his release and seek a new partner. Paramount will not have an interest in that program, which will premiere on CBS early next year.

In 1987, Bochco forged a then-precedent-setting agreement to produce 10 series for ABC, with News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox Television acting as distributor of programs generated by that deal.

Being free to shop concepts to different buyers, Bochco said, “was an absolute condition of any situation that I made for myself.”

Paramount, which recently acquired Rysher Entertainment and absorbed Viacom-owned Spelling Television, is clearly making a push to acquire big-name creative talent. Earlier this month, the studio signed agreements with two other veteran producers of dramatic series, Glenn Gordon Caron (“Moonlighting”) and John Sacret Young (“China Beach”). The studio is also said to be among several companies courting Bochco’s “NYPD Blue” co-creator, David Milch, who is seeking his own separate pact to develop new TV programs.