Acquisition of Wonderland
Starting in January 2009, the channel aired Wonderland, a drama series that had briefly aired on ABC in the spring of 2000.[14] The run included all eight episodes of the series, six of which were not originally aired during the program's ABC run.[14]
Partnerships with NBC
Acquisition of Passions
DirecTV and NBC Universal Television Studio announced on April 25, 2007, that new episodes of the soap opera Passions would begin airing exclusively on the channel on September 17, 2007,[15][16] retaining its 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time timeslot that it held during its NBC run, with reruns airing on weekends. The series had aired on NBC since July 1999, however in early 2007, the network announced they were canceling the series as a result of replacing it by a fourth hour of Today and shortly afterwards DirecTV acquired exclusive broadcasting rights from NBC to renew the series and move it to 101 Network. The final NBC episode was aired on September 7, 2007, ending its eight-year broadcast on NBC before the new episodes began airing exclusively on DirecTV starting September 17, 2007. Although Passions moved to DirecTV's 101 Network, NBC continued to maintain the series official website on NBC.com due to the fact that their parent company NBCUniversal maintained ownership and production rights to the series, however the free streaming service of the new episodes of Passions on NBC.com and the option to purchase the episodes for download on iTunes, which had started in the 2006-07 season were completely discontinued once DirecTV began exclusively airing the new episodes.
Shared broadcast rights of Friday Night Lights
DirecTV, NBC, and Universal Media Studios announced a deal on April 2, 2008, in which The 101 would carry the 13-episode third season of Friday Night Lights beginning on October 1.[19][20] Through the deal, after the season ended on The 101, the drama series' third season aired in second-run form on NBC (with some scenes edited) starting on January 16, 2009. On March 31, 2009, NBC and DirecTV announced that they had renewed Friday Night Lights for two additional seasons, again to be broadcast first on DirecTV and then on NBC.[21]
Acquisition of Passions
DirecTV and NBC Universal Television Studio announced on April 25, 2007, that new episodes of the soap opera Passions would begin airing exclusively on the channel on September 17, 2007,[15][16] retaining its 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time timeslot that it held during its NBC run, with reruns airing on weekends. The series had aired on NBC since July 1999, however in early 2007, the network announced they were canceling the series as a result of replacing it by a fourth hour of Today and shortly afterwards DirecTV acquired exclusive broadcasting rights from NBC to renew the series and move it to 101 Network. The final NBC episode was aired on September 7, 2007, ending its eight-year broadcast on NBC before the new episodes began airing exclusively on DirecTV starting September 17, 2007. Although Passions moved to DirecTV's 101 Network, NBC continued to maintain the series official website on NBC.com due to the fact that their parent company NBCUniversal maintained ownership
Shared broadcast rights of Friday Night Lights
DirecTV, NBC, and Universal Media Studios announced a deal on April 2, 2008, in which The 101 would carry the 13-episode third season of Friday Night Lights beginning on October 1.[19][20] Through the deal, after the season ended on The 101, the drama series' third season aired in second-run form on NBC (with some scenes edited) starting on January 16, 2009. On March 31, 2009, NBC and DirecTV announced that they had renewed Friday Night Lights for two additional seasons, again to be broadcast first on DirecTV and then on NBC.[21]
Acquisition of Damages
On July 19, 2010, DirecTV announced it had acquired the rights to the FX drama Damages, and renewed the series for two additional seasons following FX's cancellation of the series. The 101 Network began airing reruns of its first three seasons on January 5, 2011. Season 4 premiered on the rebranded Audience Network on July 13, 2011, and the fifth and final season premiered on July 11, 2012.[22]
Off-network reruns
The channel aired repeat episodes of SoapNet's original soap opera limited series, General Hospital: Night Shift throughout the series' run from July to October 2008.[23]
The channel broadcast the Nat Geo Adventure's documentary travel/adventure series Odyssey: Driving Around the World starting in June 2008.
The short-lived ABC drama The Nine began airing on the channel on May 27, 2009.[24]
The channel also aired reruns of the 2005–06 Showtime drama series Sleeper Cell.[25] On April 21, 2009, it was announced that DirecTV acquired the syndication rights to HBO's Oz and Deadwood.[26][27]
International programming
In its later years, DirecTV began acquiring exclusive US broadcast rights to series from fellow English-speaking countries UK, Canada and Australia.
The 101 began airing the Canadian comedy series Trailer Park Boys on February 5, 2009.[31]
On September 17, 2009, DirecTV announced that The 101 had acquired the rights to the Australian miniseries Underbelly, which began airing on February 3, 2010.[32]
On September 28, 2010, DirecTV acquired rights to the British shows No Heroics, How Not to Live Your Life and Mutual Friends, which premiered on The 101 in November 2010.[33]
On February 10, 2011, DirecTV acquired rights to the Canadian series Call Me Fitz, which premiered on the network on April 21, 2011.[34]
Specials
Celebrity Beach Bowl – Starting in 2007, during Super Bowl week, DirecTV held an annual celebrity flag football game, which promoted DirecTV's exclusive sports package NFL Sunday Ticket. A concert followed the game, which was simulcast on Chicago television station WGN-TV, its sister network WGN America, now known as NewsNation, and in 2013, NBC Sports Network.
Bracket Breakdown was an exclusive NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship pre-game show with several college basketball analysts and insiders, including the University of Louisville's Rick Pitino, the University of Kentucky's John Calipari, the University of Oklahoma's Jeff Capel, the University of Tennessee's Bruce Pearl and the University of Washington's Lorenzo Romar and former UCLA player and current sports talk radio show host Sean Farnham.[39] It served as supplemental coverage to DirecTV's exclusive (now defunct) Mega March Madness package.
SXSW – the channel exclusively carried the 2009 South by Southwest Festival concert live.
Films and previews
In October 2006, to mark Halloween, Audience Network aired several horror-themed movies, including The Toxic Avenger.
On February 23 and 24, 2007, Audience Network aired a preview of Chiller, a then-recently launched cable channel owned by NBC Universal dedicated to horror programming that launched on DirecTV channel 257 on March 1, 2007. Programming featured during this preview included the two-hour pilot episode of Twin Peaks, the pilot episode of American Gothic, episodes of Monsters, Tales from the Crypt, Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Friday the 13th: The Series, and various horror movies.
Audience Network aired a number of dramatic series a few days before their scheduled premieres on Showtime including The Tudors in March 2007 and Nurse Jackie in June 2009, as well as the Starz series Party Down on April 22, 2010.
On August 24, 2007, Audience Network aired an exclusive high-definition broadcast of High School Musical 2, one week after its premiere on the Disney Channel (Disney Channel did not launch a high definition simulcast feed until April 2, 2008).[43]
