ABC Family Renews Original Series

BEVERLY HILLS,
July 18: ABC Family has ordered an additional 13 episodes of The Secret Life
of the American Teenager,
which debuted as the highest-rated original series telecast in the network’s history,
along with new seasons of Greek and Lincoln Heights.

The Secret
Life of the American Teenager, which premiered July 1 with 2.8 million total viewers, focuses
on the relationships between families and friends and how they deal with an
unexpected teen pregnancy. One of the additionally ordered episodes will air
this September, while the further 12 are tentatively slated to debut in January
2009.

Greek will head into its sophomore season on
August 26 at 9 p.m., with a nine-hour marathon of season one airing the same
day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The second season will feature ten new episodes,
picking up as the students return to campus from spring break.

The third
season of Lincoln Heights will launch on September 16 at 8 p.m. with ten new episodes. The
series centers on the family of a police officer who has moved his wife and
three kids to an inner-city neighborhood with the hopes of cleaning it up.

"We just launched The
Secret Life of the American Teenager
a couple of weeks ago to our highest original series numbers ever,” said Paul
Lee, the president of ABC Family. “We're thrilled obviously. This show has
definitely hit the sweet spot of our millennial audience. So I couldn’t be more
pleased to announce that we’re picking up 13 additional episodes of the
series."

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski