THE GREATEST SHOW OF ALL TIME…SEINFELD!

Now Sold for an Unprecedented 7th Cycle.
Renewed in Over 88% of the U.S. and Still Counting…

Thanks to our station partners CBS, FOX, Gray, Hearst, Hubbard, Meredith, Mission, Nexstar, Scripps, Sinclair, Tegna, Waypoint, and Weigel Station Groups

Now Available in the 100+ Markets!

Yada. Yada. Yada.

Monday January 11, 2021

IN THE NEWS

Roku is taking a deep dive into original programming with the acquisition of global distribution rights for over 75 shows from Quibi, the short-lived, short-form mobile streaming company. Programming will be available later this year, free with advertising on The Roku Channel. “The most creative and imaginative minds in Hollywood created groundbreaking content for Quibi that exceeded our expectations,” said Quibi Founder Jeffrey Katzenberg. “We are thrilled that these stories, from the surreal to the sublime, have found a new home on The Roku Channel.”

Twitter permanently banned President Trump’s personal account, after Friday afternoon tweets it said violated the company’s policy against the glorification of violence. “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” said Twitter, adding that the tweets “were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.” Trump attempted to use other accounts, including @POTUS, to react, but most of those messages were quickly removed. In a statement, the president said he was negotiating with other sites and looking at building “our own platform.”

While many conservatives have gravitated to social media platform Parler as a Twitter alternative, Apple and Google removed the app from their app stores; Amazon said it would remove the company from its web-hosting service late last night. “In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence,” said a Google spokesperson. “We’re aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the U.S.” Said Amazon in a letter to Parler, “We cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others.” Responded Parler chief executive John Matze in a text to the NY Times, “Big tech really wants to kill competition.”
inaugurated, shared the news in a C-SPAN interview. President Trump had

NBC News’ Peter Alexander and Kristen Welker will serve as chief White House correspondents covering the Biden administration, with Hallie Jackson moving to the role of senior Washington correspondent and Andrea Mitchell becoming chief Washington correspondent.

The NFL agreed to allow CBS, Fox and NBC to sell an additional two minutes of advertising during playoff games. To make the room, the NFL and the networks will each give up one promotional spot totalling one minute, and another minute of ad time will be added. The Super Bowl on CBS, which is commanding as much as $5.5 million per commercial on February 7, is excluded from the agreement.

A $204 million strategic investment from Charter Communications, Qurate Retail and Cerberus breathed new life into Comscore, allowing the measurement company to retire its debt. Charter will also provide enhanced access and rights to use its consumer-level data, and make Comscore its preferred local measurement provider. “The investment and commercial agreements we announced today will supercharge our ability to deliver trusted cross-platform measurement for all customers. We are built to deliver now,” said Bill Livek, CEO of Comscore, which will continue to operate as a standalone company under its current management.

Netflix scored the most nominations in TV categories for the Casting Society of America’s Artios Awards. The streamer picked up 12, followed by eight for HBO nd four for Hulu. A virtual ceremony is slated for April 15.

The wait is finally over. The finalists for Cynopsis’ Best of the Best Awards and Rising Star honorees will named this week – check your inbox for the news, and mark your calendars for our (virtual) awards event on Thursday, February 25.

Our

members will get first dibs on the report!

Everyone who takes the survey will be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

GET STARTED |

surveymonkey.com/r/VFXCSMS

ABC handed a script commitment plus penalty to “August Snow,” a drama starring and executive produced by Keegan-Michael Key, centered on a man who returns to his Detroit roots and becomes a private investigator. The series comes from creator/EP Paul Eckstein, Imagine Television Studios, and CBS Studios.

The CW is not proceeding with “Arrow” spin-off “Green Arrow and the Canaries,” close to a year after the planted pilot aired during the last season of “Arrow.” A prequel to “The 100” is reportedly still in play.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Netflix reality series “Bling Empire,” following a wildly wealthy group of Asia and Asian-Americans in LA, launches Friday, January 15.

Season two of Nickelodeon’s “Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Curse of the Shadows” debuts Friday, February 12 at 8p, following a new group of Midnight Society kids haunted by the Shadowman.

Cynopsis wants YOUR opinion on the return of traditional spring upfronts. Start the survey now: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/H2RTFQ5

Culinary reality series “The Event” launches Thursday, January 14 on HBO Max. The four-parter takes viewers into the kitchen of Wolfgang Puck’s catering company, as his team tackles exclusive events.

The first three episodes of Israeli drama series “Losing Alice” drop on Apple TV+ on Friday, January 22. The show follows a 48-year-old female film director who becomes obsessed with a young screenwriter femme fatale.

COMING UP

Among the movies set to make their debut Sunday nights at 7p on UPtv are “The Baby Proposal” on January 17; “Romance Retreat” on January 24; “Love Is a Piece of Cake” on January 31 and “Sincerely, Yours Truly” on February 14. The romance continues with premieres through March 21.

TECH TALK

DoubleVerify, the software platform for digital media measurement, has made Brand Suitability Tiers, first announced in November, generally available for advertisers and publishers. Brand Suitability Tiers offer 13 categories of content tiered by three levels of risk, determined by content type and topic. “At a time when brand alignment with appropriate content has never been more important, our launch of Brand Suitability Tiers delivers a more nuanced and brand-specific way to assess content and context,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify.

STREAMING

Young consumers who watch online video spend almost as much time watching videos as they spend watching traditional TV shows and movies, according to Hub’s annual “Video Redefined” study. In addition to greater online video viewing among 13-24 year olds, the study also shows that ads in online videos resonate more strongly with this age group than traditional advertising. While two thirds of 13-24 year olds say they’re watching more online video than they did before COVID, the pandemic has had less of an impact on online viewing among older consumers, with 59% reporting they’re watching the same amount, and fewer than 1 in 3 watching more.

The FAST Track: AMC Networks announced the launch of five free ad-supported streaming channels on VIZIO SmartCast, an operating system that comes equipped with VIZIO Smart TVs. Channels include AMC Presents, Rush by AMC, Slightly Off by IFC, Absolute Reality by WE tv, and IFC Films Picks. “We set a goal last year of making our popular and critically acclaimed content as widely available as possible on emerging ad-supported platforms, which is great for the fans of our shows and for the advertising partners who reach fans through our AMCN Digital ad sales offering,” said Evan Adlman, SVP of Advanced Advertising and Digital Ad Sales for AMC Networks.

Roku is now the top supplier of smart TV operating system software in the US and Canada, surpassing Samsung, said Roku CFO Steven Louden at the Citi 2021 Global TMT West Virtual Conference. “We’ve gone from no market share to #1 in five years, and we’re making tremendous progress in Mexico,” said Louden.

Sinclair’s Stirr is exclusively streaming Alex Trebek’s final episodes as “Jeopardy” host. The episodes are available in markets where Sinclair stations carry the syndicated game show. Trebek taped his last episodes in October, and died November 8 at age 80 of pancreatic cancer.

Join us on Thursday, February 25 for our virtual celebration of the industry’s Best of the Best.

Finalists will be announced later next week!

The premiere of ABC drama “Big Sky” rose to 14.7 million total viewers in multiplatform +35 days viewing, hitting a 3.97 rating among A18-49. The show’s Live+SD numbers were 4.2 million views and 0.68 in the demo.

On December 29, HGTV’s “Fixer to Fabulous” delivered its highest ratings performance since its October premiere: 0.75 Live+# rating among P25-54 and 1.03 Live+3 rating among W25-54. Attracting more than 4.4 million total viewers, the episode also delivered a 1.01 L+3 rating among upscale W25-54, a 0.91 among P2+ and a 1.74 L+3 household rating.

The premiere of ABC’s “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune” won Thursday with a 1.1 rating among A18-49 and 7.8 million viewers. Over at NBC, the debut of “Mr. Mayor” scored 0.6 in the demo and 4.9 million viewers at 8p, and 0.5/4.3 million at 8:30p, matching “Superstore” in the demo and handily beating its average 2.4 million viewers.

TLC was the #1 non-sports cable network in Prime the week of December 28 among W25-54/18-49/18-34 in Live+3 ratings, driven by the #1 non-sports cable program of the week, “90 Day Fiancé.” TLC was the #2 network in all of TV among W25-54/18-49/18-34 last Sunday night, seeing season highs for “90 Day Fiancé” and “Unexpected.”

OWN’s “The Haves & The Have Nots” averaged over 1.5 million P2+ and was the week’s most-watched telecast on all of TV among African-American W18+ the week of December 28 in Live+3 data, and was the week’s #1 non-sports cable telecast among African-American Households and P2+.

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Ernesto Mourelo, Hearst Television’s Senior Director, Digital Content, has been promoted to VP, Digital News. In his new role, Mourelo will continue to lead the digital strategy for the station group while also leading Hearst Television’s central news team.

IN MEMORIAM

Artist Dave Creek died January 7 after a skydiving accident. In addition to serving as lead character designer on “Bob’s Burgers,” Creek’s credits included “Central Park,” “Brickleberry” and “Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown.”

Actor/rapper Deezer D died January 7 of a suspected heart attack. He was 55. Deezer (birth name Dearon Thompson) was best known to TV audiences for his role in “ER.”

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which Fox series was the first to be nominated for an Emmy? “The Tracey Ullman Show” (1987-90). Kudos to: Ferran Marin-Barlovento Communication/Madrid, Spain, Austin Cassidy-Meridian Interactive/Jacksonville, FL, Douglas Hochstadt-Disney/NYC, Anthony Salerno-Horizon Media/NYC, Matt Sautter-WideOrbit/York, PA, Kyle Krebs-Intersection/Dallas, Dan Whitford-WTTW/Chicago, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA, David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank, Lorrie Shilling/El Segundo, CA, Heidi Flydal-KFMB-TV/San Diego

Today’s Trivia Question
Who was chimpanzee Bear named after on “B.J. and the Bear” (1979-81)? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four answers per time zone.)