NEW YORK, Sept 23 (AFP) - Martha Stewart Omnimedia has inked a deal with a reality TV expert, news the market welcomed as a good thing Thursday as the soon-to-be-jailed domestic diva's company share surged 17.16 percent in a day.
Martha Stewart Omnimedia CEO Sharon Patrick said the show would contain "new and exciting entertainment and interactive elements."
But the company in its announcement on Wednesday had no details on the projects that might come out of the deal with Mark Burnett, mastermind behind shows such as "The Apprentice" and "Survivor."
MSO's share rose by 2.57 dollars Thursday to finish at 17.55 dollars a share.
Stewart said she looked forward to working with Burnett to bring "new programming to new audiences in prime-time next year."
She is set to begin a five-month jail term, followed by five months of home confinement at her estate in Bedford, New York.
Tuesday, a US federal judge ordered Stewart to report to prison by October 8. Stewart, convicted earlier this year on charges stemming from a dodgy stock deal, last week requested Judge Miriam Cederbaum to assign her to prison without waiting for her appeal to be heard.
Stewart, who has built a multimillion-dollar, home catering business empire, said she wanted to put the "nightmare" of her criminal case behind her and "reclaim my good life."
Stewart and her former broker, Peter Bacanovic, were convicted in March of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false statements over Stewart's sale of nearly 4,000 shares in the biotechnology company ImClone Systems.
She did not face criminal charges of insider trading, but of thwarting the probe into the questionable trade.
At her trial, prosecutors charged that Stewart was tipped off by Bacanovic to sell the ImClone stock in late 2001, just before a government announcement about an ImClone drug sent the share price plummeting.
Stewart and her broker had argued that they had a pre-existing agreement to sell the stock if the price dropped below 60 dollars a share.