LIFETIME TELEVISION ACQUIRES LAVERNE & SHIRLEY FROM PARAMOUNT TELEVISION

- Series Begins Airing March 8 -

New York Adding another popular sitcom to its daytime schedule, Lifetime Television has acquired Laverne & Shirley from Paramount Television, it was announced today by Leslie Glenn-Chesloff, Senior Vice President, Planning, Scheduling and Acquisitions, Lifetime Entertainment Services.
Beginning Monday, March 8, Laverne & Shirley airs weekdays at 11AM (ET/PT) and 12 Noon (ET/PT), joining Lifetimes comedy block of The Golden Girls, Designing Women, Mad About You and The Nanny.
Lifetimes stable of top sitcoms will grow in 2005 when Will & Grace joins the network schedule.
Theres an enormous appetite among viewers for quality, classic comedies, as demonstrated by our success with such series as The Golden Girls. We’ve also seen how well these sitcoms, like The Nanny, do with younger women. We expect that Laverne & Shirley, one of the icons of womens television, will be a popular addition to our daytime lineup, said Glenn-Chesloff.
Regularly one of televisions top-rated sitcoms, Laverne & Shirley ran on ABC from 1976-1983. The series, a spin-off of Happy Days, starred Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams as two spunky working-class women with little education and less money, but with the determination to succeed.

LIFETIME is the leader in women's television and one of the top-rated basic cable television networks. A diverse, multi-media company, LIFETIME is committed to offering the highest quality entertainment and information programming, and advocating a wide range of issues affecting women and their families. Launched in 1984, LIFETIME serves more than 87 million households nationwide. In 1998, LIFETIME launched Lifetime Movie Network, now in 41 million homes, and in 2001, Lifetime Real Women. LIFETIME Television, Lifetime Movie Network, Lifetime Real Women, and Lifetime Online are part of LIFETIME Entertainment Services, a 50/50 joint venture of Viacom Entertainment Group is part of the entertainment operations of Viacom Inc., one of the worlds largest entertainment and media companies, and a leader in the production, promotion, and distribution of entertainment, news, sports and music.The Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company, as is Lifetime magazine, which debuted in April 2003.
Paramount Worldwide Television Distribution is a part of the Viacom Entertainment Group, which includes the Paramount Motion Picture Group, Paramount Television Production, Paramount Domestic Television, Simon & Schuster and Paramount Enterprises (which is comprised of Paramount Parks, Famous Players Inc., Paramounts interest in United Cinemas International, Famous Music Publishing, Consumer Products and Paramount Digital Entertainment).