TV Guide Network Picks Up Punk’d

LOS ANGELES: TV Guide Network has reached a deal for the exclusive basic cable rights to Punk’d, Ashton Kutcher’s celebrity hidden camera series for MTV, to air as a weekly one-hour strip.

The one-year deal includes 100 half-hour episodes for launch later month. Two episodes will air back to back during the week. The acquisition follows TV Guide Network’s pickup of Ugly Betty and its deal with Carrie Ann Inaba and Chris Harrison to host its signature Red Carpet shows. The channel has already had a trial run of Punk’d, which it aired as a weekly strip on a non-exclusive basis earlier this summer.