Sharon Levy

TV Real Weekly, April 16, 2008

Senior VP, Original Series

Spike TV

Earlier this month, the MTV Networks-owned entertainment channel Spike TV launched DEA. The six-part series, produced by Al Roker Entertainment and distributed on the international market by FremantleMedia Enterprises, delivered more than a million viewers in its debut outing, taking audiences inside the Detroit office of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“Not only are you there with the DEA and seeing exciting stuff like criminals getting taken down, but you are also seeing how they operate, how they make their way up the drug trafficking food chain, how they raid a house—that’s something that has never been seen on television,” says Sharon Levy, the senior VP of original series at Spike. “There’s a methodology to how they stay alive while doing their job and we take viewers through it step by step. I’m a big scripted [drama] fan so I watch a lot of procedurals and half the time I’m like, what are they saying? We explain it in a very fast, Spike way.”

The alternative TV genre is one that Levy is very familiar with; although she got her start at Comedy Central, working in public relations, Levy eventually landed at Stone Stanley Entertainment (today Stone & Company), where she led the development on series like The Mole for ABC and The Joe Schmo Show for Spike. After six years, Levy decided she wanted to return to the network side and soon made it back to the MTV Networks fold with her position at Spike.

She is overseeing a new wave of unscripted fare at Spike, all part of the cable network’s efforts to deliver original, distinctive entertainment for male viewers. One show that has already proven itself as a hit with Spike viewers is MANswers, which Levy says reflects the channel’s first foray into the “infotainment” space. The half-hour comedic show provides helpful tips on a range of scenarios. “Now, what you’re learning might be outrageous, but the truth of the matter is that the next time you’re at the bar with your buddies you can sound really smart by telling them, for example, how to survive an elevator plummeting to the ground!”

Levy’s team has a range of other unscripted shows in the works, among them Declassified and Surviving Terror. Another project that she is excited about is one with motorcycle expert Jesse James, of Monster Garage fame. Levy is enjoying the possibilities afforded by her current mandate at Spike. “We have an attitude and a brand that says entertainment for men, and to me, that means it could be anything. It could be action. It could be comedy. It could be information. As long as it is told through a male perspective and finds the ingredients that guys are going to love, we’ll want it.”

Conceding that men’s entertainment is at times perceived as being low-brow, Levy notes Spike TV fare is delivered “with a clever wink.” She says of MANswers: “Yes we have beautiful women, we have information being given out about various bodily functions, and everything else. But in between, I can tell you how to survive an anaconda attack. I think that as long as you insist and demand clever, you can do anything you want.”

—By Mansha Daswani