Pax, NBC Make Programming a Two-Way Street

While a multibillion-dollar deal has clouded the future of UPN, a lesser transaction is helping another fledgling network, Pax TV, begin its new season amid an array of new possibilities.

Last September, NBC bought a little less than a third of Pax for $415 million, and the network has moved quickly to take advantage of the relationship--offering second showings of made-for-TV movies and the since-defunct quiz show “Twenty One” on the Pax network, which reaches about 80% of the country on weaker UHF stations. (The major networks, by contrast, usually occupy the VHF band, channels 2 through 13.)

As Pax launches its new season this week, however, with a mix of original series and reruns of such shows as “Touched by an Angel,” the network is hoping the benefits of that relationship will begin moving in both directions. One of Pax’s new series, for example, “Mysterious Ways,” ran this summer on NBC, introducing the show to millions more people than would otherwise have been exposed to it.

“The economics of television are going to change,” said Pax TV President and chief executive Jeff Sagansky. “Every network’s going to have a sister network [with which] they can share programming and share costs.”

Pax could also function as a sort of programming lab for NBC, developing shows that could wind up running on the larger network or, when programs flow the other way, providing a venue for NBC to test alternative fare.

Sagansky said the two networks regularly talk about ways to capitalize on their concurrent operations, and NBC has taken over the sale of Pax’s advertising time.

In addition, Pax has begun repeating selected local and national NBC newscasts half an hour after their initial broadcast, in essence time-shifting the programs so a viewer who got home at 7 or 11:30 p.m. could still catch up with “The NBC Nightly News” or KNBC-TV’s late local news, respectively.

Pax’s revised lineup, meanwhile, features such new shows as “Encounters With the Unexplained,” hosted by “Law & Order’s” Jerry Orbach, as well as the return of “It’s a Miracle” and the drama “Twice in a Lifetime.”

Pax is again launching in August--when TV viewing levels are lower--trying to gain a toehold with viewers while other networks remain largely in rerun mode.

“Our strategy’s got to be ‘Hit ‘em where they ain’t,’ ” Sagansky said.