BRIEFS

CABLEWORLD STAFF

Lifetime finished 2002 with a 2.0 Nielsen Media Research rating for households in prime time, the highest among cable networks for the second-straight year. TNT was tops in delivery of prime-time viewers in both the 18-to-49 and 25-to-54 demographics.

ESPN said its Sunday Night Football drew an average 7.42 rating for the 2002 NFL season, an increase of 17% from the previous year.

Showtime Networks will premiere the original picture Deacons for Defense during Black History Month on Feb. 16. Starring Forest Whitaker, Jonathan Silverman and Ossie Davis, the film is based on the true story of a black militia group in Louisiana that organized neighbors and armed itself to fight against the Ku Klux Klan.

Outdoor Life Network will launch a new adventure series, Global Extremes: Mt. Everest ? 4Runners of Adventure Jan. 6, with original episodes airing Mondays through May. Participants compete to be elected to go on an international expedition up Everest.

MTV will launch a new documentary series examining the origin and growth of pop cultural trends Jan. 8. The first episode, The Social History of the Tattoo, digs into the art of tattooing, hearing from over two dozen young people about the significance of their tattoos. The show also contains sound bites from various tattooed celebrities, including Travis Barker of blink-182, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes and Tommy Lee. Future episodes of The Social History of? will explore such topics including concert T-shirts, sneakers and video games.

The Tennis Channel will telecast the elite European elements of the 2003 Tennis Masters Series, including Monte Carlo, Rome, Hamburg, Madrid and Paris. These events will be shown in their entirety in the U.S. for the first time.

Speed Channel's January Nielsen universe estimate is 55,514,000 U.S. homes, an increase of 708,000 homes from December. In the last 12 months, Speed has added nearly 9 million homes.