Five pays as much as £500K for Joey
Channel Five has paid what is believed to be a record amount of money for the spin-off of Friends, agreeing to fork out £500,000 an episode for Joey.
It is more than five times what broadcasters normally pay for a licence to screen a sitcom and will be well over the average cost of programmes made by Five.
It won the bidding war for the Friends spin-off starring Matt Le Blanc, after Channel 4 and ITV pulled out because of the spiralling costs.
One source said he believed the sitcom, which does not star other Friends cast members, would only be viable at around $300,000 an episode - that is, broadcasters would not be able to recoup much more than that in advertising revenues to pay for the show.
At £500,000 for each half-hour episode, Five is now paying as much as it costs the BBC to make an episode of a lavish costume drama such as Pride and Prejudice, which would have cost about £1m an hour.
In fact it is close to the average cost of all BBC drama, which according to its annual report is £518,000 an hour and that would include the cost of daytime soap Doctors which would be less than £100,000 an hour to produce.
Only Channel 4 has paid out a similar amount per episode to buy a series - it is believed to have paid in the region of $1m an episode for the Simpsons but it will be able to leverage advertising revenues from repeats of the series.
Channel Five decided to break the records as part of its bid to increase its audience share.
Landing Joey - which sparked more interest among UK buyers than any new US show for some years - is something of a coup for Five, which is looking for hits such as CSI - another American import - to keep its audience share rising towards 7%.
Five is sure to back the UK launch of Joey early next year with a big marketing campaign based around the high recognition factor for Le Blanc's character - who, after 10 years in Friends, is one of the best known faces on TV.
But the Joey acquisition is also something of a gamble for Five, which has bought the show after only seeing a pilot.
US network NBC has ordered a full 22-part series run of Joey for the autumn, but many American shows are axed after only a few episodes if they do not get good enough ratings.
And it remains to be seen whether Le Blanc will be able to carry a sitcom on his own, away from the ensemble cast that made Friends such a durable hit.
Five declined to comment on what it paid for Joey, but according to industry estimates the figure is around £500,000 per episode.
This is a lot of money for a US import, with UK broadcasters normally reluctant to pay more than £100,000 an episode.
As part of the Joey deal with Hollywood studio Warner Bros, Five has also bought Charlie Sheen sitcom Two and a Half Men.
The two US sitcoms will be broadcast in a new weekly Five comedy hour, which is likely to be launched in February next year.
"Five has become synonymous with quality US imports and the acquisition of these two comedy series is a great coup for the channel," said Jeff Ford, Five's managing editor and director of acquisitions.
The network has bought terrestrial and pay-TV rights for Joey, giving it the chance to give the show its UK premiere on Five. Pay-TV rights may be sold on to BSkyB or another multichannel broadcaster at a later date.
Two and a Half Men is already broadcast in the UK, on the Paramount Comedy digital channel.
Five is also looking to get into original UK comedy for the first time, having hired Graham Smith to develop scripted comedy formats in a joint venture with the Paramount Comedy Channel.
Channel 4 was seen as the most likely UK destination for Joey, having been the British home of Friends for 10 years.
The network also had an arrangement with Warner Bros giving it a certain period - believed to be 24 hours - in which to match any bid for the show from a rival UK broadcaster.
However, Channel 4 ducked out of the bidding for Joey on Wednesday, with insiders claiming the price had reached "excessive and ludicrous" levels, opening the way for Five to secure the deal.
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