Debmar-Mercury's history begins on October 31, 1993, when Mort Marcus founded Debmar Studios, with financial backing from The Walt Disney Company. Debmar signed a deal with CBS to distribute a handful of films and specials, such as My Fair Lady, Gunsmoke telefilms, the first two feature length Peanuts films and some Dr. Seuss/DFE animated specials.
Debmar-Mercury
On July 12, 2006, Lions Gate Entertainment acquired Debmar-Mercury as part of its expansion into television distribution. In November 2006, the company was awarded the syndication rights to Family Feud starting in the 2007–2008 season, and industry rumors suggested that the company could also syndicate some classic Goodson-Todman shows. On January 11, 2007, 20th Television picked up ad-sales for select Debmar-Mercury series in syndication. In April 2019, Debmar-Mercury moved its advertising sales deal to CBS Television Distribution Media Sales.
"10–90" model
Debmar-Mercury was known in the past for pioneering a unique syndication model, known as the "10-90" approach, where the syndicator sells the program to a cable station for a 10-episode test run. If those 10 episodes achieve acceptable ratings, the show would be renewed for an additional 90 episodes. This allows the show to have a profitable life in off-network syndication, in which 100 episodes is considered the desired number for a show to begin entering daily reruns. This unique broadcast syndication model for television was used with the TBS and OWNcable television networks for multiple sitcoms created by the multihyphenate Tyler Perry, and for multiple series with the FXcable television network, featuring the likes of actors Charlie Sheen, Kelsey Grammer and Martin Lawrence, and George Lopez. The model eventually broke down, with Saint George and Partners failing to reach the threshold for a 90-episode renewal, and Anger Management quietly being de-emphasized by FX after middling scripts that went against that network's 'premium' image and accompanying low ratings, and actress Selma Blair accusing Lionsgate of maintaining a hostile workplace and departing the series. The series also performed poorly in its later run in broadcast syndication. The rise of streaming video providers such as Netflix, Hulu and Prime Video and their minimum quality standards also made the 10/90 model untenable in the long run. Tyler Perry also departed Lionsgate in 2011 for more creative freedom on his own in other arrangements with OWN and BET.
