Universal Lands Huge Broadcast Deal with USA

If you've been following the movements of Universal Studios over the past several months, you've noticed that it has really become focused on making money the right way. That might sound stupid, but whereas Fox is latching on to Narnia projects, Disney is slashing jobs all over the place, and Lionsgate is buying up everything under the sun (TV Guide network, Summit Entertainment) even though it isn't scoring hits at the box office, Universal is trimming the fat and not saddling itself with more financial burdens. First, the U sold off the great but underperforming horror division, Rogue Pictures, for about $150 million. It appeared for a while that it would essentially swap Rogue for DreamWorks - a step up in anyone's opinion - but when Spielberg et al decided it wanted more of Universal's money, the studio walked away. And now, Variety reports that Universal has sold the cable rights to 24 of its recent and upcoming flicks to USA for about $200 million. Universal did better than last year despite the economic woes in general and in media particularly; in 2007, FX purchased 15 Universal movies for $100 million. Included in the package are two Best Picture nominees, Frost/Nixon and Milk, plus some heavy hitters in 2009: State of Play, Duplicity, Land of the Lost, Public Enemies, The Wolf Man, Funny People, and Couples Retreat. This is one of the largest cable deals ever, and NBC Universal executive VP Frances Manfredi says, “It’s certainly the biggest I’ve ever worked on, both qualitatively and quantitatively. It’s a really diverse slate, and USA identified with it.” There's no doubt this is a huge win for USA, which has done so well over the past couple of years with its own original programming. And for Universal, which marked its best year ever in ticket sales last year, it's anoter gold star that appears to be built less on the redundancies we see so much of in Hollywood and more on its rather diverse and compelling catalog of late. Certainly, because the studio is cousins with struggling NBC, it's not all good news, and yes, every studio lands cable deals, but the last 90 days at Universal have been all about addition, not division.