Cybill Suit Filed by CBS
January 25 -- The same week Cybill Shepherd was booted off her current TV show (Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus), the corpse of her former CBS sitcom is raising quite a stink.
CBS has filed a $53 million suit against Carsey-Werner Productions — the powerhouse behind That '70s Show and 3rd Rock From the Sun — claiming that the company never repaid the substantial loan it took out to fund Cybill, which was canceled in 1998.
According to The Associated Press, CBS claims that Carsey-Werner pledged to pay back the loan if Cybill was sold into syndication. But it wasn't, and the network alleges that that's because Carsey-Werner didn't bother to market the Emmy-winning Cybill to syndicators in order to escape fulfilling its promise to CBS.
"Now that the series has been off the air for more than a year," the lawsuit states, "its marketability in the second-run distribution market has diminished, and there is little hope that CBS can ever recoup its substantial deficit."
Reps for Carsey-Werner refused to comment to the AP.
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