Scoop! USA Network is Buying Scripted TV Again. Here’s What They Want
Exec Michael Sluchan, overseeing the Versant net, reveals ‘Blue Skies’ can be cloudy now, original ideas are wanted and a new strategy to survive
I cover TV from L.A. I wrote about Starz’s post-Lionsgate plans, interviewed the directors of Netflix’s global hit KPop Demon Hunters and reported on what’s expected from Cindy Holland in her role at Paramount. I’m at lesley.goldberg@theankler.com. As a paid subscriber to Series Business, you’ll receive dispatches from me, Elaine Low and Manori Ravindran on the TV business. This is a standalone subscription separate from The Ankler. For access to Series Business and everything The Ankler publishes, including The Wakeup and Richard Rushfield, subscribe here.
In 2023, as Suits was becoming the year’s most-streamed TV show, the basic cable network that originally developed the legal drama — along with many other shows that have gone on to become hits on Netflix — had exactly zero scripted shows in the works. What’s more, the two top programming executives who helped launch USA Network’s former “Blue Skies” brand — powered by such optimistic, often quirky dramas as Suits, White Collar, Burn Notice and Royal Pains — were both long gone. Chris McCumber and Bill McGoldrick, who both spent years building USA’s slate, had exited in 2020 as the result of the first of many recent restructurings at parent NBCUniversal, and original architect Bonnie Hammer was no longer chief of the once-vast cable programming empire as it began shrinking within Comcast.
Now, a mere five years after the last USA Network-produced original series wrapped (remember Briarpatch?), the cabler officially reenters the scripted fray this Friday (Aug. 15) with The Rainmaker. The John Slattery-led legal drama, based on John Grisham’s 1995 novel (and the subsequent 1997 film starring Matt Damon), was picked up a year ago and took the industry by surprise as media conglomerates including NBCUniversal had reallocated funds for scripted originals to their in-house streamers. The series landed at USA as part of an effort to bring eyeballs back to the network and keep affiliates happy (and ensure ad rates remain high) while also making Versant — the Comcast spinoff that also includes MSNBC, CNBC, Syfy, Oxygen, E! and Golf Channel — more appealing to potential buyers.
NBCU announced the spinoff of nearly all of its shrinking linear cable assets (save for Bravo) in November 2024 — back then, the company was known as SpinCo — with a plan, under CEO Mark Lazarus, to invest and build additional scale as well as possibly partner or acquire other complementary assets. The spinoff is expected to be completed by year’s end, transforming networks including USA into true independents that will be operating, for the first time, without a corporate studio counterpart or parental financial bulwark. The Rainmaker, for example, is a co-production between Blumhouse TV and Lionsgate TV, while the majority of USA’s previous scripted slate — including Suits — was produced in house by what’s now known as Universal Studio Group.
The Rainmaker and the upcoming drama Anna Pigeon (due in 2026) are both overseen for USA by Michael Sluchan, who was installed in May as senior vp scripted at Versant and also oversees Syfy. Sluchan first joined NBCUniversal in 1999 and has developed hits across its portfolio including Peacock’s Bel-Air, Saved by the Bell and We Are Lady Parts as well as former USA favorites Monk, Mr. Robot, The Sinner, Suits and Royal Pains. He reports to Val Boreland, who was named Versant’s entertainment president in January after overseeing acquisitions at NBCUniversal (where she has been since 2016). Together, Sluchan and Boreland purchased Anna Pigeon after NBCU’s scripted content president, Lisa Katz — before USA was spun off as part of Versant — originally picked up The Rainmaker.
Now, Sluchan tells me that USA is officially open for pitches from writers as he charts its next scripted course. While it’s too soon to know how much volume USA plans to have — the network once programmed more than a dozen originals annually — the mandate is to make lower-budgeted scripted shows that move beyond its former “Characters Welcome” and “Blue Skies” brands of programming.
“I love and respected the ‘Characters Welcome’ brand and think there's a lot that we can tap into without necessarily duplicating it,” he tells me. I spoke to Sluchan and others with knowledge of USA, past and present, to understand its scripted strategy as part of a newly independent player in a constantly shifting marketplace.
What I cover today for paid subscribers:
Sellers’ guide: The types of shows and formats USA is looking for
Role models: Sluchan names the broadcast and streaming hits he considers good templates for USA
Good business: Why USA is betting on scripted again as the broader marketplace contracts
Budgets: The exact numbers to hit for scripted dramas at USA
Originals vs. IP: The network’s appetite for both, plus spinoffs
Still “Blue Skies”: How the new team is tweaking brand DNA
“We make the rules”: Sluchan’s take on how USA, as an indie, can now buy from other studios and sell second windows to any streamer
On the block? What the scripted strategy must accomplish to lure buyers
Cable Hunger Games: As USA joins other distressed channels, why one source says, “nobody can outrun a bear — they just need to outrun the competition”
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