Debmar-Mercury's history begins on October 31, 1993, when Mort Marcus founded Debmar Studios (named for his wife Debbie), with financial backing from The Walt Disney Company (where he had worked as senior vice president of sales at its Buena Vista Television syndication arm). Debmar signed a deal with CBS to distribute a handful of films and specials, such as My Fair Lady, Gunsmoke telefilms, the first two feature length Peanuts films (A Boy Named Charlie Brown and Snoopy Come Home) and some Dr. Seuss/DFE animated specials.[1][2] The first iteration was folded into Buena Vista Television after Mort Marcus became president of its syndication arm.[3][4]
The company was revived in 2002 after its founder Mort Marcus, leaving Miramax Television,[5] with its first rights picked up being that of the animated sitcom South Park for off-net syndication, in association with Mercury Entertainment.[6][7]Tribune Entertainment was then attached as South Park's advertising sales agent in 2004.[8] This was followed by the syndicated launch of Farscape, in association with Mercury Entertainment in 2004.[9]
Mercury Entertainment
Mercury Entertainment was formed in 1999 by Ira Bernstein after his employer Rysher Entertainment sold its distribution operations to Paramount Domestic Television. The company handled advertising sales of the television show Tracker. In 2000, the company struck a deal with Paramount to co-distribute the series Queen of Swords.[10] In 2001, Bernstein joined Lionsgate Television, temporarily folding Mercury into the company.[11] After Bernstein left Lions Gate, the company was reestablished to partner with Debmar Studios to handle sales of its programming, such as South Park and Farscape.[6][7][9]
Debmar-Mercury
In 2005, the two companies were merged into the new studio Debmar-Mercury.[12][13] The company started its relationship with Lions Gate Entertainment, obtaining the syndication rights to its movie library,[14] followed by the distribution rights to the television show The Dead Zone.[15]
On July 12, 2006, Lions Gate Entertainment acquired Debmar-Mercury as part of its expansion into television distribution.[16][17] In November 2006, the company was awarded the syndication rights to Family Feud starting in the 2007–2008 season, and industry rumors suggested that the company could also syndicate some classic Goodson-Todman shows.[18] On January 11, 2007, 20th Television picked up ad-sales for select Debmar-Mercury series in syndication.[19][20]
Debmar-Mercury was known in the past for pioneering a unique syndication model known as the "10-90" approach, where the syndicator sells the program to a cable station for a 10-episode test run. If those 10 episodes achieve acceptable ratings, the show would be renewed for an additional 90 episodes. This allows the show to have a profitable life in off-network syndication, in which achieving 100 episodes is considered the desired number for a show to begin entering daily reruns.[22] This unique broadcast syndication model for television was used with the TBS and OWN cable television networks for multiple sitcoms created by the multihyphenate Tyler Perry,[23] and for multiple series with the FX cable television network, featuring the likes of actors Charlie Sheen (Anger Management),[24]Kelsey Grammer and Martin Lawrence (Partners), and George Lopez (Saint George).[25]
The model eventually broke down, with Saint George and Partners failing to reach the threshold for a 90-episode renewal (along with Comedy Central's 2010 series Big Lake, a co-production with Lionsgate and Funny or Die[26]), and Anger Management quietly being de-emphasized by FX after middling scripts that went against that network's 'premium' image and accompanying low ratings, and actress Selma Blair accusing Lionsgate of maintaining a hostile workplace and departing the series.[27] The series also performed poorly in its later run in broadcast syndication. The rise of streaming video providers such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video and their minimum quality standards also made the 10/90 model untenable in the long run. Tyler Perry also departed Lionsgate in 2011 for more creative freedom on his own in other arrangements with OWN and BET.
