Debmar-Mercury
| Subsidiary of Lionsgate | |
| Industry | Television syndication |
| Predecessors | Debmar Studios Mercury Entertainment |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Headquarters | United States |
| Parent | Lionsgate |
| Website | debmarmercury |
Debmar-Mercury is a television syndication company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lionsgate.
Debmar-Mercury was formed from a merger of Debmar Studios and Mercury Entertainment in 2006. On July 12, 2006, Lions Gate Entertainment expanded into television distribution and acquired Debmar-Mercury. In November 2006, the company was awarded the syndication rights to Family Feud and industry rumors suggest that the company could also syndicate some classic Goodson-Todman shows. Its logo and mascot is a jaguar jumping out of a filmstrip. On January 11, 2007, 20th Television picked up ad-sales for Debmar-Mercury series in syndication.
Debmar-Mercury is known for pioneering a unique syndication model, known as the "10-90" approach, where the syndicator sells the program to a cable station for a 10-episode test run. If those 10 episodes achieve acceptable ratings, the show would be renewed for an additional 90 episodes. This allows the show to have a profitable life in off-network syndication, in which 100 episodes is considered the desired number for a show to begin entering daily reruns. This unique broadcast syndication model for television was used with the TBS and OWN cable television networks for multiple sitcoms created by the multihyphenate Tyler Perry, and for multiple series with the FX cable television network, featuring the likes of actors Charlie Sheen and Kelsey Grammer and comedians Martin Lawrence and George Lopez.
So far, three shows have failed to reach the ratings threshold for a 90-episode: Comedy Central's Big Lake (2010), which was produced by Funny or Die co-creators Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, and the 2014 FX sitcoms Saint George and Partners.
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