‘Improvement’ Forced to Stay Home

A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles freed Walt Disney Co. to renew “Home Improvement” on ABC for two more seasons, denying a request for an injunction to stop the deal by the producers of the top-rated comedy.

Wind Dancer Production Group, the Burbank company controlled by producer Matt Williams, the creator of the show, sued Disney in late February, claiming that Walt Disney Television extended a “sweetheart deal” to ABC because the two units are owned by the same studio.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert O’Brien had already turned down the plaintiffs’ request for an immediate court order to stop Disney from renewing the show with ABC.

After hearing more testimony last week, O’Brien sided with Disney in ruling that monetary damages provided an adequate remedy for Wind Dancer if in fact Disney’s deal with ABC is shortchanging the producer.

The production company was trying to force Disney to shop the show to other networks to determine its value. Now that value and any damages would have to be determined through a trial, which is not yet scheduled.

In court papers, Disney called the lawsuit “a subterfuge designed to gain the upper hand in contract discussions” between the parties.

Wind Dancer, which created the sitcom starring Tim Allen, still doesn’t have an agreement to produce the series for the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons, the show’s seventh and eighth.

The lawsuit is being closely followed by the television industry amid growing vertical integration, under which studios gobble up networks that are newly free to produce more of their own programming. Producers worry that such concentration of power vastly reduces their leverage.