The LAT notes that HBO is looking to sell syndication rights to True Blood for $800,000 an episode, but that history may not be on the network's side:
The most recent example of this is Spike, which shelled out $600,000 per episode for reruns of "Entourage," only to see it struggle on its network. "Entourage" premiered on Spike in January and since then the network has tried it on four different nights with less than stellar results.
Another HBO show that cost a lot but didn't deliver for the buyer was "Six Feet Under," which Bravo paid $250,000 an episode to acquire. It didn't last too long there, and now Bravo parent NBC Universal is burning off the purchase on its little-seen cable network Universal HD.
The money spent on those two shows is chump change when compared with the roughly $2.6 million per episode A&E coughed up for "The Sopranos." While the mob drama had a strong debut, drawing 4.4 million viewers, more than half were gone just two months later.
I put it to you: while Sex and the City could get away with cutting a Samantha Jones subplot or two for syndication, how will True Blood cut some of its most pivotal, R-rated scenes and make any sense at all? Are they going to take a cue from VH1's treatment of Showgirls and superimpose bikinis onto everyone, or will they reedit Bill's recent head-twisting hate-f**king of Lorena so that it's just Russell with his ear to the door, giggling like a schoolgirl?