The new WGN Sunday Night TV line-up

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: Sunday-night outsourcing on CW : : For the CW network's first two seasons, its Sunday-night lineup was a rumor, one in which the young women it targeted weeknights had no interest. : So this fall it has outsourced its Sunday slate to a TV, film and digital outfit called Media Rights Capital, which thinks it actually can build on the CW's vacant lot. : "It's a rare opportunity to get that kind of real estate," said former Endeavor agent Modi Wiczyk, who founded MRC six years ago with Harvard Business School classmate Asif Satchu. : MRC ostensibly will supply shows aimed at a slightly older viewer than the CW does Monday through Friday, encouraged by Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co., which has CW outlets in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and 10 other markets. Tribune has said it wants viewers who might watch its newscasts. : "Because that's lucrative for an affiliate," Wiczyk said, "and young teenage girls don't really do that." : Besides, the former boss of Tribune's WGN-Ch. 9 in Chicago told staff that the station grossed only about $15,000 with its weak CW Sunday prime-time slate last season. : That's a low bar to clear for MRC's lineup, which debuts this weekend with reality show "In Harm's Way" at 6 p.m., romantic comedy "Valentine" at 7 p.m. and "Easy Money," an 8 p.m. drama about a family loan biz. : The shows themselves break fewer barriers than the deal that brought them to the CW. The CW gets shows from MRC, and MRC gets ad money, but neither will talk details. : MRC, whose backers include Goldman Sachs, AT&T and ad giant WPP, paints itself as a partner with the CW. The CW, a venture of CBS and Time Warner, casts the arrangement as similar to its time-sell to World Wrestling Entertainment, which this season shifts "Smackdown" to News Corp.'s My Network. : "It's almost like we took the WWE and, instead of having wrestling on Friday night, we wanted to have scripted programming," CW leader Dawn Ostroff said this summer. "They're giving us the opportunity to have more scripted programming on the CW schedule than we had last year or than we would have been able to have this year." : MRC—which over the next year will deliver 10 or 11 shows to networks such as ABC, MTV and HBO, six or seven movies and digital projects, including original content from "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane and Second City—is trying something new. Or old. : "We always say we're not innovators, we're historians," Satchu said. : "If you ever opened up our playbook, you would go 'Castle Rock did that' or 'Norman Lear did that,' " Wiczyk said. : One thing that distinguishes MRC, which produced the award-winning movie "Babel," is it makes partners of creative talent such as Sacha Baron Cohen and Mike Judge, sharing copyrights and other particulars that studios usually retain. : "The way Asif and I think about it is we're this big syndicate," Wiczyk said. "When a show runner is working with us, they have access to all the data we have from the ad agency, the phone company, all the financial stuff. It changes things." : Said Satchu, "They behave like owners." : Wiczyk and Satchu are dismissive of those who suggest MRC is actually a Trojan horse, poised to take over more programming responsibilities for CW stations should the network stumble. : If anything, they believe their arrangement makes the CW stronger by reducing ad inventory for its target audience and creating new ad opportunities for the broader 18-to-49 demo. : "They can have two independent conversations with advertisers," Wiczyk said. "A different need is being met." : Or so it's rumored. : : (Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune)

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