Smallscreen News

Sarah Palin's in the money: Alaskan reality TV coming to Discovery

By April MacIntyre Mar 24, 2010, 2:36 GMT

Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as she arrives with her son Trig EPA/JEFF KOWALSKY

Ex Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, will host a reality TV series that focuses on her big state of Alaska.

The series, reported by Variety, is to feature the characters, traditions and physical attributes and attractions of Palin's home state.

According to Variety, Discovery Communications bought the series, called "Sarah Palin's Alaska," for in excess of $1 million per episode.

Palin had been shopping the series with uber producer Mark Burnett. After meetings with ABC, CBS and NBC fell flat for the pitched travelogue show, Burnett and Palin turned to cable, with Discovery and A&E emerging as front-runners.

A&E reportedly dropped out of the running, leaving Discovery as the winner.

Discovery's programming seems a natural fit for Palin's Great White North series, as the cable conglomerate is home to "Deadliest Catch", "American Loggers" and "Man vs. Wild."

Palin also appeared in the 2008 Discovery documentary "Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod," which was shot before she was selected as the Republican vice presidential candidate.

Discovery Channel's sister networks are Science, TLC, Travel Channel, Animal Planet and OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, which is set to launch in January of 2011.

Palin is currently a political analyst for FOX News. In an interview with Sean Hannity after the Health care initiative was signed into law, she told Hannity that it was a time for the GOP party to take action. Palin said, "But those who love America and don't want to see that transformation of America into some kind of socialized country, let's get on our high horse and start doing all that we can to provide more education, more information to voters so that in these midterm elections they can elect people who will undo what happened to America last night."