Television Industry Contracts

The stars of "Mad About You" have picked up mad money and then some, agreeing to another year of the hit NBC comedy that reportedly will pay them each in the neighborhood of $1 million an episode. The deal announced Monday provides further evidence of the television networks' desperation to hang onto popular programs, while securing another key component of NBC's prime-time lineup for next season, albeit at a steep price.

Jerry Seinfeld dropped a Christmas Eve bomb on NBC by deciding the time had come to end his long-running series. Now the network can only sweat it out as the stars of "Mad About You" debate whether to light their own fuse. Series leads Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt say that they've yet to determine whether to return next year and that peripheral considerations--including NBC's dire need and Hunt's burgeoning film career--won't sway that decision.

The three supporting actors on "Seinfeld" have indicated a willingness to consider two-year deals to continue on the top-rated NBC comedy series, sources said. A two-year agreement would secure a key prime-time anchor for NBC. "Seinfeld," one of most profitable shows on television, charging $1 million per minute of advertising, provides a vital platform to promote NBC programming to more than 30 million viewers each week.

CBS has signed former NBC "Today" show anchor Bryant Gumbel to a multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract that will move him from early mornings to prime time, sources said Wednesday. The network is expected to announce today that it has lured Gumbel with an unusual offer that includes hosting a prime-time newsmagazine and making him a partner in developing syndicated programming with CBS' Eyemark Entertainment. The deal--which includes stock options in Westinghouse Electric Corp.

Calling his decision "a close call" because of his loyalties to NBC, Bryant Gumbel said Thursday that it was the management of CBS News and the opportunity to create programming that led him to switch networks. "I was impressed with the executives at CBS, and I'm excited about the chance to create a newsmagazine from scratch and to be a partner in a syndication company where I can come up with ideas for programming," Gumbel said in an interview.

Although they came up short of their $1-million asking price, the supporting cast of NBC's "Seinfeld"--a show billed as being about nothing--has agreed to stay on the job for two more seasons at a per-episode fee that some industry sources speculated might be as much as $600,000 each.

"Seinfeld," the crown jewel of NBC's "Must See TV" lineup, became perhaps the most expensive series in TV history with the lucrative deal awarded its supporting cast for next season. Whether the deal will mark the beginning of "must pay-up TV" is now being debated within television circles.

The United States and Mexico signed an agreement to allow television satellite transmissions to be beamed into both countries from Mexican or U.S. satellites. The pact is designed to promote competition in the direct-broadcast satellite, or DBS, business. The agreement offers Mexican companies a way to provide DBS service in the U.S. without having to obtain a DBS license. In January, MCI Communications Inc. paid $682.5 million for the last remaining U.S. DBS license.

Five years ago, Victoria Jackson, a onetime Bullock's cosmetics saleswoman, became a star overnight in one of those often-maligned TV commercials known as "infomercials." The makeup line she developed and started pitching on television, Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, has since generated $200 million in sales. Jackson was touted quickly in the press as an entrepreneur who rose from obscurity to clean up financially. But things aren't always what they seem.