MUMBAI: Fox Television Stations (FTS), Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution (WBDTD) and Telepictures Productions have teamed up for an eight-week preview of Beyond Twisted, a new, first-run television series from the producers of the entertainment news program TMZ.
Fox Television Stations senior vice president of programming Frank Cicha said, "As we proved last year with The Wendy Williams Show, these limited test runs allow us to effectively gauge viewers’ response to a program while minimizing the risk to everyone involved. Given the great success of TMZ, it made sense to expand our relationship with Warner Bros. and Telepictures."
Debuting on 6 July, Beyond Twisted will draw on professional and user-generated content to present an irreverent and funny take on jaw-dropping moments from around the world. The reality-based program will make use of new technology and creative production techniques to present these stories with a unique visual style and a powerful voice.
Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution president Ken Werner added, "With the launch of Beyond Twisted, the producers of TMZ are applying some of the same innovations they brought to entertainment magazines to another venerable television genre: reality programming. They have created a new franchise that we think has all the qualities our Fox partners and the marketplace demand: The show can air in virtually any important time period and can run multiple times per day. It will be produced efficiently, and we will deliver a robust number of original episodes, with more weeks per year of new shows than the competition."
Telepictures Productions president Hilary Estey McLoughlin said, "We are thrilled to be partnering with Fox and Harvey Levin and his talented team on Beyond Twisted, which we believe will be another breakthrough concept like TMZ. As we have seen with TMZ, there is real viewer appetite for storytelling with an honest and humorous point of view. And we will continue to marry what’s working on the Internet and on television by mining the endless array of amazing video out there that our viewers will immediately want to talk about and share. We think Beyond Twisted has all the elements to make some real noise in the syndication marketplace this summer."
