I Scream, You Scream: Newbie Joins Name Game

Coming up with a new network is undoubtedly tough these days, but naming it may be just as hard. Horror/thriller/suspense-based net Scream Channel (Cfax, 4/14) looks like it may be joining a slate of startups that had to change their names because of potential legal entanglements. Miramax apparently got shirty over the proposed name "Scream" (one of its titles), so the net may have another moniker by launch, which was targeted for Jan. If all goes well, launch may come as early as Halloween. Scream Channel signed veteran movie commentator Joe Bob Briggs as on-camera host and is discussing roles for Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider and "Survivor" winner Jenna Morasca. No original series have been greenlighted, although a few spec pilots (including a reality series about NJ ghostbusters) are in production. The network will feature a "Dark Castle Presents" night, and is offering operators a related SVOD service (for now dubbed "Extreme Scream") that would include nudity and explicit content cut from the linear net. "When I was working for Showtime Networks, there was a list of ‘too grisly for cable’ movies that had never been shown on TV, even on pay networks," Briggs says on ScreamChannel.com. "I intend to push for that list on Scream-or at the very least, on Extreme Scream." Those advising SC include Galileo Mgmt’s Thomas Burchill and Peter Frame for affiliate negotiations, analyst Howard Horowitz, Bill Riker and TBS/USA/WWE vet Stuart Snyder. The net is a partnership between pres/founder Kim Bangash’s Orchid Prod and producers Joel Silver and Bob Zemeckis’ Dark Castle Ent. — A Rose Would Smell as Sweet…: Other victims of the name game: Reality Central, which is now Reality 24-7, following a challenge from Comedy Central; and Stand Up Comedy Television, which dropped the acronym SCTV after a letter from a co-creator of "Second City TV." – Shirley Brady