It's all soap operas all the time on My Network TV
The minds behind My Network TV, an off beat new network experiment from those sly-as-a-Fox folks at Rupert Murdoch's
OK, it's wildly popular in Latin America and other countries around the world. But now the jaunty telenovela sensibility is being channeled into an Americanized melodramatic mix of catfights and possibly campy delights with My Network TV, which premieres tomorrow on more than 160 TV stations across the country.
The My Network programming -- two series, 8-10 p.m. Monday through Friday with weekly recap shows 8-10 p.m. Saturdays -- is headlined by Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild as dueling divas in the glossy style - industry potboiler ``Fashion House."
The network's other nightly attraction, ``Desire," features a young cast of attractive unknowns in a sibling rivalry odyssey of two brothers on the run from the Mafia who fall for the same woman.
``The appeal of this format is the fast-paced storytelling," says Paul Buccieri, head of programming for Twentieth Television, the studio producing the shows. ``There's this momentum that builds because there's a cliff hanger every night. And there's a sense of urgency for the audience because they know the story's going to end."
Unlike daytime soap operas, which can roll on successfully for decades, each of the My Network series will run for 65 episodes over 13 weeks before careering to a presumably hectic conclusion. ``Fashion House" and ``Desire" will be followed in December by two new dramas and so on throughout 2006- 07, 52 weeks of programming without a rerun.
The fledgling My Network operation has been quickly stitched together from many TV stations left out in the cold with the formation of the new CW network . And it's not a coincidence that My Network TV has that quirky name. News Corp, home to the Fox network as well as cable's FX, Fox News Channel , and National Geographic Channel, also owns the MySpace.com online juggernaut.
