(UltimateTV.com) - CBS will pay in the neighborhood of $475 million over five years to keep the popular daytime soap "The Young and the Restless." The network has inked a wide-ranging agreement with Columbia TriStar Television that allows CTTV to run same-day repeats of the sudser on its planned SoapCity cabler, according to Daily Variety. CBS, whose current deal for "Y&R" expires at the end of the month, will pay CTTV an above-the-line license fee around $1.5 million per week, with other costs knocking the weekly tab for the soap to around $1.8 million per week. "Y&R" has been the mainstay of CBS daytime as the most-watched soap for 555 consecutive weeks, making the Eye network the top-rated in daytime for 12 years. "It's the anchor to our daytime schedule," CBS Television prexy and CEO Leslie Moonves told Daily Variety. "For my money, it's truly the 'ER' of daytime." |