Matthew McConaughey and True Detective creator Pizzolatto are reuniting for Redeemer, a drama headlined by the Oscar-winning actor. FX issued a script-to-series order for the project, which was created by Pizzolatto and inspired by Patrick Coleman’s novel The Churchgoer centered on a minister-turned-dissolute security guard (McConaughey), whose search for a missing woman in Texas leads him through a corruption-steeped criminal conspiracy. Pizzolatto inked an overall production deal with Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions, while McConaughey closed a first-look production deal with FXP.

Fox ordered drama pilot The Big Leap from The Passage creator Liz Heldens. Inspired by the UK docuseries Big Ballet, project centers on a group of underdogs from all different walks of life who compete to be part of a competition reality series that is putting on a modern remake of Swan Lake. Heldens will pen and executive produce the pilot, with Sue Naegle also executive producing.

Netflix ordered Zero Chill, a teen series from All3Media-backed Lime Pictures, reports Deadline. Ten-part series centers on 15-year old figure skater Kayla, whose life is upended when her twin brother gets a place at a legendary hockey academy. Project was created by Doc Martin and Free Rein writers Kirstie Falkous and John Regier.

In an effort to prioritize sports programming, Five Films and Sneaky Big signed a co-production partnership. Under its terms, Five Films will create original sports, esports and military projects to be co-produced with Sneaky Big in the U.S. and internationally.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Man With a Plan returns to CBS for a fourth season on Thursday, April 2 at 8:30p. New sitcom Broke, starring Jaime Camil and Pauley Perrette, debuts at 9:30p.

Bravo debuts Family Karma on Sunday, March 8 at 9p. Docuseries offers a look inside the lives of seven young Indian-American friends.

Science Channel’s Shipwreck Secrets locates SS Cotopaxi, a ship that vanished in the Bermuda Triangle in 1925. New series bows Sunday, February 9 at 8p.

Estrella TV launches late-night format Nos Cayo La Noche, on Monday, February 3 at 9p. Hosted by Mexican YouTube sensation Alex Montiel, the show will air nationally Monday through Friday.

Entertainment and science converge with multiplatform animated PBS KIDS series Hero Elementary, premiering Monday, June 1. The program, created for children 4 to 7, helps kids solve problems by encouraging them to think and act like scientists.

Season 2 of Desus & Mero bows Monday, February 3 at 11p on Showtime. Special guest David Letterman joins the duo in-studio to kick things off. New episodes air on Monday and Thursday nights

COMING UP

In honor of Black History Month, American Masters premieres Stanley Nelson’s Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool on Tuesday, February 25 on PBS. Documentary delves into the six-decade career of the music genius.

Coinciding with the debut of the 2020 spring forecast, Accuweather Network and digital video teams will deliver a full slate of Groundhog Day stories, beginning Wednesday, January 29. Tales include “The History of Groundhog Day,” “Do Groundhogs Get Cold?” and “What Is the Tourist Impact On This Small PA Town?”

GetTV is prepping to air episodes of The Sonny & Cher Show and The Johnny Cash Show not shown in decades, along with other classic variety specials, in February. Every Saturday at 10p, the net will air The Sonny & Cher Show, while The Johnny Cash Show will air every Sunday at 10p.

CBS airs Super Bowl Greatest Commercials 2020 on January 29, hosted by Boomer Esiason and Dani Ruah. “Wednesday night marks our 19th year of Super Bowl Greatest Commercial on CBS, where the annual special continues as one of the night’s top shows – no matter whether the Super Bowl is on CBS or not,” Executive Producer from Juma Entertainment, Robert Horowitz, tells Cynopsis. “Each year we add a theme for the special, but are careful not to get in the way of what viewers love most – sitting back, reliving and enjoying their favorite commercials.” The 8p special features a Top 10 countdown and a live Twitter vote.

Fox Business Network will provide live programming surrounding the Iowa Caucuses beginning Friday, January 31 with CAVUTO Coast to Coast at 12p. On Monday, February 3 at 8p, a special primetime edition of the show will air at 8p featuring live coverage and expert analysis of the caucuses and election results.

ADVERTISING

A 60-second Super Bowl spot for drama series Hunters is set to drop during the Super Bowl, airing Sunday, February 2 on Fox. The upcoming Amazon original follows a band of Nazi Hunters led by Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino) and Jonah Heidelbaum (Logan Lerman), determined to stop the Fourth Reich from rising to power in 1970s America. Hunters will be available on Friday, February 21.

Another Super Bowl spot will feature Bryan Cranston and Tracee Ellis Ross in a Mountain Dew commercial recreating The Shining’s “Heeeere’s Johnny” scene, and Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty will be featured in a 30-second Pringles ad premiering during the game’s second quarter.

Community, powered by Xandr, welcomed four new premium media brands – The CW, Tastemade, Accuweather and Microsoft Advertising, to its marketplace. “Community creates a relevant advertising experience for consumers, and a welcoming environment for marketers and publishers,” said Brian Lesser, CEO of Xandr. “We’re excited to add incredible marquee partners to our curated marketplace powered by unique insights and technology from Xandr, as we continue to increase scale and access to premium video content.

STREAMING SNIPPETS

CBS All Access set a new record for sign-ups in January, and is crediting the premiere of Star Trek: Picard. The company said January 2020 has surpassed the previous monthly record from February 2019, with last week marking the second-best sign-up week ever, behind the week of the 2019 Super Bowl. CBS also said the debut of Star Trek: Picard marked a new record for total streams, while driving the highest volume of subscribers streaming CBS All Access original series to date – up more than 115%, and over180% over the prior record set by Star Trek: Discovery. Also of note: the Grammy Awards, which aired last weekend, were the most-streamed Grammys on the service to date and set a record for subscriber sign-ups on Grammy Awards’ Sunday.

Procter & Gamble is getting into the streaming video business. The advertiser has struck a partnership with Stone Village Television to launch a long-form scripted series aimed at boosting gender equality, diversity and inclusion. I Am Keats!, a series based on a self-help book by Tom Asacker, is already in development and being prepped for streaming-video outlets.

All four episodes of Hillary premiere Friday, March 6 on Hulu. The portrait of Hillary Rodham Clinton contains never-before-seen 2016 campaign footage and features exclusive interviews with Clinton herself, Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, friends and journalists.

Amazon Prime Video premieres Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse on Friday, March 13 in the U.S. The two-part mystery stars Rufus Sewell (The Man in the High Castle). Writer Sarah Phelps adapted the acclaimed 1961 novel for television and served as EP.

Glewed TV announced a partnership with international big wave explorer Garrett McNamara to offer viewers wellness and family video content. Bi-weekly series The McNamaras will show McNamara and his family as they travel the globe searching for giant waves and protecting mother nature.

WORLD Channel and Link TV struck a content-sharing partnership to bring news, documentaries and fact-based information programming from around, beginning in February. The collaboration will launch with several titles including WORLD’s multicultural storytelling show Stories from the Stage, the duPont-Columbia documentary series America ReFramed, Link TV’s environmental program Earth Focus, The Migrant Kitchen and daily international newscasts from France 24.

TECH TALK

TV analytics company FourthWall Media and MRI–Simmons, provider of consumer insights, announced a partnership that allows marketers in the television ecosystem to incorporate MRI-Simmons audiences in advanced TV campaigns. The audience solution will use FourthWall’s Reveal analytics platform and Reveal Connect, its secure household matching tool, to create actionable MRI-Simmons audience segments for targeted TV planning, optimization, and attribution. (For more, go here.)

With the 2020 presidential election season underway and the upcoming Iowa Caucus, consumer insights platform DISQO took a look at voter behavior; specifically, how political affiliation impacts the way people consume digital news sources. Highlights include:

· Republican over-indexed on Breitbart (by 305%) and Fox News (by 284%)
· Democrats over-indexed on MSNBC (by 190%) and the New York Times (by 114%)
· Those not registered to vote under-indexed across all new properties, suggesting an overall disconnect with the news media.
“The study reveals that while media consumption behaviors vary wildly by an individual’s political affiliation, our attitudes and motivators around the election process are more harmonious,” Carl Van Ostrand, VP of Consumer Insights at DISQO, tells Cynopsis. “Yes, Democrats over-index on MSNBC by 189%, Republican over-index on FOX by 284%, and those not re glistered to vote under-index across the board with respect to mainstream news media by upwards of 72%. To which degree political attitudes affected the behaviors – or that media behaviors affected political attitudes – was not assessed in this study, though many may make their own inferences.

“However, we are all relatively aligned in our plans to vote this November, and in our motivations for doing so,” Van Ostrand continues. “For instance, 59.7% of Democrats, 60.2% of Republicans and 55% of independents all strongly agreed that they would vote in November. Likewise, the majority of people across all groups vote to support policies they believe in, even if very few enjoy the actual voting process.”

GOING GLOBAL

Bureau of Magic Studios inked a deal with Banijay Group’s Zodiak Kids for its new animated action-adventure comedy series Save the Legends!

ITV Studios is the international distribution partner to Plimsoll Productions’ new natural history series, A Year on Planet Earth.

HITN TV reached a carriage deal with Liberty Puerto. Starting this month, subscribers to Liberty’s Ultimate News and Education package and U-Pick Learning package, can access HITN TV on channel 171 of Liberty’s lineup.

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The midseason finale of Tyler Perry’s The Oval and new episode of Tyler Perry’s Sistas delivered 3.5 million Total Viewers for BET. Both series captured double-digits lift with Live+3 numbers vs. L+SD.

The launch of FOX’s 9-11: Lone Star posted a 3.8/18 Live+7 rating and 14.6 million Live+7 viewers, making it this season’s #1 series debut among A18-49 and Total Viewers. It also marks the net’s most watched debut in more than six years.

E! Live from the Red Carpet: The 2020 Grammy Awards delivered year-on-year ratings growth with an average of over 1.3 million Total Viewers and 522,000 P18-49, up 3% in both demos, according to Nielsen.

Hallmark Channel’s annual Winterfest programming event boosted the network to be the #1 Household-rated entertainment cable network and the #1 most-watched among Women 18+ in Total Day for the month of January. The franchise’s new Saturday night premieres averaged a 2.4 Household rating, 2.4 million Total Viewers and 307,000 W25-54, and were the highest-rated and most-watched programs of the day on their respective air dates, excluding news and sports.

TV Time Binge Report: Most Binged TV Shows for the week of January 20 (Show/Share of Streams)
Sex Education (Netflix) 13.18%
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Netflix) 5.59%
You (Netflix) 2.77%
Friends (NBC) 1.77%
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (NBC) 1.67%
Grace and Frankie (Netflix) 1.62%
Titans (DC Universe) 1.25%
Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) 1.00%
Lucifer (Netflix) 0.95%
How I Met Your Mother (CBS) 0.90%
*The weekly Binge Report ranks shows with the most binge sessions. A binge session is when four or more episodes of a show are watched and tracked in our TV Time app within a given day.

Late Night Shows Weekly Average Ratings week of January 20
CBS: The Late Show 2.94 million total viewers; 0.32/3 A18-49
NBC: The Tonight Show 1.74 million total viewers; 0.32/3 A18-49
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live 1.70 million total viewers; 0.29/2 A18-49

Live + Same Day Viewers AA (millions) Monday, January 28 time period averages
Source: Nielsen Live+SD
ABC: 5.82 million
The Bachelor 5.98, The Good Doctor 5.65
NBC: 5.53 million
America’s Got Talent: The Champions 7.32, Manifest 3.74
FOX: 4.35 million
911: Lone Star 5.52, Prodigal Son 3.17
CBS: 4.29 million
The Neighborhood 5.43, Bob Hearts Abishola 4.64 Undercover Boss 3.42, Bull 3.67
UNI: 1.68 million
Ringo, 1.64, Amor Eterno 1.86, Rubi 1.55
TELE: 1.20 million
Exatlon Estados Unidos 1.33, La Dona 1.08, El Senor de los Cielos 1.18
CW: 0.68 million
All American 0.68, Black Lightning 0.67
Monday A18-49 Rating
ABC 1.3/6, NBC 1.0/5, FOX 0.8/4, CBS 0.6/3, UNI 0.5/3, TELE 0.4/2, CW 0.2/1

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Ben Smith is exiting as Editor in Chief of BuzzFeed. He’ll be joining the New York Times as a media columnist.

Brandon Zimon was named EVP for the US Television Division at Constantin Film.

ITV Studios hired Lisa Perrin as Managing Director of its international production business. She joins from Endemol Shine, where she was CEO Creative Networks.

Endemol Shine North America appointed Michael Heyerman SVP, Unscripted Original Series. He previously had and executive producer deal with Endemol. Veteran unscripted producer Shyam Balse was named VP, Unscripted Original Series.

Bridget Davidson joined Loaded as VP of Talent. She last served as Senior Esports Manager at Riot.