Paramount clocks Time deal

Forthcoming US channel Paramount Network has agreed a deal to create multiple non-scripted series with the production arm of magazine publisher Time Inc.

Among the projects in development as a result of the partnership are Sports Illustrated: True Crime (working title), which will be coproduced with Jerry Bruckheimer Television.

The one-hour pilot will explore examples of athletes being involved in criminal activity and misdeeds. Each episode will be accompanied by a piece on the Sports Illustrated website and in the print magazine.

Paramount has also ordered a pilot of Entertainment Weekly: The Bullseye, a late-night comedy panel/talkshow based on the magazine’s The Bullseye column.

The half-hour series will have a celebrity host and panellists who square off and debate which of the week’s pop culture stories are “on target” and which ones “miss the mark.”

It will be produced by Time Inc. Productions and Conveyor Media, with the column’s writer Marc Snetiker consulting on the project.

Chachi Senior, senior VP of alternative programming for Paramount Network, will oversee the projects for the network along with Tori Socha, VP of development, and Dana Tuinier, VP of development and original programming.

Time Inc Productions is led by Bruce Gersh, senior VP of strategy and business development, and Ian Orefice, head of programming.