SYDNEY, January 23: Australian broadcaster Network Ten has a stockpile of American drama episodes to air in the next few months, according to the network head of programming, Beverley McGarvey, but she is still looking to local productions and, in a new move, British reality shows, to fill possible gaps in the schedule.

TEN has output deals in place with Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution, CBS Paramount International Television and NBC Universal International Television Distribution, with rights to shows such as House, NCIS, Law & Order: SVU, Numb3rsand Medium. “Obviously we would expect between 22 and 25 episodes of all of our U.S. drama series,” McGarvey tells World Screen Newsflash. “This year we’re generally getting between 10 and 14 episodes—that does impact what we’re doing.”

McGarvey notes that the Australian networks’ survey period—when the broadcasters assess their performance—kicks off next month. With at least 12 episodes available of its U.S. drama imports, “we’re in a very strong position for quarter 1 and quarter 2,” she says.

If the writers’ strike persists, the crunch time will be July and August—”that’s when we’ll start to see some of the episodes run out, but we have plenty of time to commission by that stage. And we will re-work things slightly; we may hold things, we may pull things up early. When we get to September, October, we would hope that the strike is resolved by then and we could potentially have some U.S. episodes to go with.”

McGarvey also notes that TEN’s U.S. shows are, for the most part, not serialized. “Things like Law & Order: SVU tend to repeat very well. We’re in a fortunate position in that some of our competitors tend to have more serialized shows, and they don’t repeat as well.”

She does, however, still want to be prepared with a variety of alternatives. The network will continue looking to formats, recently launching a new season of The Biggest Loser as a strip and commissioning a local version of the FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance. “We commissioned that just around the time when we thought the strike may or may not happen.”

TEN is also commissioning locally originated content, such as Good News Week. “It had been on air here in the past and we just reinvented the format a little bit,” McGarvey says. “We commissioned it about two weeks ago and it goes on air in about two weeks!”

McGarvey has also widened her acquisitions mandate to look at British reality shows, “which we normally would do less of. The interesting thing is, if some of those shows start to work, then that’s a market we can shop in more regularly.”

Indeed, McGarvey is planning to spend some time in London this April before heading to MIPTV, where she’ll be on the lookout for more formats, particularly titles for early evening slots, as well as short-run factual fare. “We’ll spend a bit more time [than usual] in London talking to our British colleagues and investigating things more thoroughly.”

And McGarvey is still expecting to fly to Los Angeles this May for the L.A. Screenings. “We’re quite hopeful that the strike may be resolved and I know that a lot of the studios have already ordered pilot scripts, so even if we can’t see full episodes, we might be able to see some teasers. It’s important for us to talk to the studios regularly and that’s the one time of the year when we do spend quite a bit of time with them. At this point, we would be planning to go, if there’s something worth going to.”

—By Mansha Daswani