Split deal keeps ‘Friday’ alive

“Friday Night Lights” will be back for a third season, thanks to a deal between NBC and DirecTV that splits costs and distribution rights, giving DirecTV customers first dibs at the high school football drama, starring Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton.

The 13-episode season will air initially on DirecTV, beginning Oct. 1, and then run on NBC at midseason.

David Nevins, president of Imagine Television, which produces the series, declined Wednesday to say how much DirecTV is forking over for the rights but characterized it as “a lot of money, significantly more than if we just did second runs on a cable network.”

Nevins said he wished a deal like it had been possible three years ago when Fox was forced to cancel “Arrested Development,” another series with a small but loyal audience.

“I love these shows, and I think that they’re unique,” Nevins said. Viewers “have an incredibly strong bond with them and seem to appreciate the characters and actors in them at a deep level. My whole goal is to make television that is not boring. For better or for worse, we make these beloved but not-for-everyone TV shows. And I think that the truth is that in this new climate of television, there is more and more room. There are so many programming sources that there’s a hunger for distinctive programming even if it’s not unbelievably mass.”

Though viewers of “Friday Night Lights” number only 6 million to 7 million each week, they tend to be upscale, Nevins said.

“Five years ago, or probably three years ago, this show would have sunk below the water and disappeared without a trace,” he said. “Now, there’s value in these shows that have incredibly passionate audiences.”

NBC Entertainment chief Ben Silverman agreed. “There is such a passion for this show among its viewers,” he said, “and although you would hope that passion would have manifested itself in higher ratings,” the new arrangement allows NBC “to have this jewel of a show and not even need to expand its audience to succeed on a financial basis.”

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maria.elena.fernandez@latimes.com