Tyler Perry, who astonished box-office analysts when his Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which cost $5 million to make, earned $50.4 million in theaters and its sequel, , brought in $63.3 million, has now hit it big on television.
The debut of his House of Payne pulled the biggest audience ever for a cable-TV sitcom last week when it attracted an average of 5.2 million viewers for its debut. The show, which aired on TBS, was also basic cable's No.
1 scripted show of the year. Turner Entertainment Networks president Steve Koonin told Reuters, "We weren't expecting the best of all time. We had high hopes, but even our highest hopes were exceeded.
" While competition from satellite TV providers DirecTV and and Echostar's DISH Network were originally expected to increase competition among cable companies, just the opposite may prove to be the case, Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons implied during an address to a Merrill Lynch media conference in London Thursday. Parsons said that it was conceivable to him that within five years, the industry could reach "a point in time when there's two separate stand-alone companies." However, he added, "I'm not prepared to make that call yet.
" In addition to his own company, Comcast, the largest cable-TV provider, has been gobbling up smaller cable systems. He predicted that the consolidation will intensify, "and we want to participate in that consolidation." He also suggested that the Time Warner Cable unit could eventually be spun off into a separate company.
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