SPTI’s Damages Scores BBC Slot

LONDON, August 15: The BBC has acquired the U.K. free-TV
broadcast rights to the new FX drama series Damages, starring Glenn Close, from Sony Pictures Television
International (SPTI).

The series will debut on BBC One in early 2008 and will
subsequently be shown on the Sparrowhawk Media-owned Hallmark
Channel in the U.K., which has also picked up the series.

Damages premiered on
FX in the U.S. on Tuesday, July 24, and was that night’s most watched prime-time
program on basic cable, with 3.6 million viewers. The series also garnered the
best lead-in retention levels of any drama premiere for the network.

Set in New York, Damages follows a rising star lawyer who begins
working with a ruthlessly ambitious litigator who will stop at nothing to win
the cases she handles. Damages is directed by Allen Coulter (The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Rome)
and stars five-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close (Dangerous Liaisons, Fatal Attraction, 101 Dalmatians, The Shield), Ted Danson (Becker),
Tate Donovan (The O.C.), Zeljko
Ivanek (Black Hawk Down), Noah
Bean (Stay) and Australian
actress Rose Byrne (Marie Antoinette).
The show is executive produced by Todd Kessler (The Sopranos), Glenn Kessler (Robbery Homicide Division) and Daniel Zelman (Fool’s Gold).

Sue
Deeks, the head of series program acquisitions at the BBC, commented: “BBC One
is the home of great drama and the perfect place for such a taut and
intelligent series—think of John Grisham’s The Firm crossed with Murder One and you’ll get an idea of just how good Damages is.”