Saturday’s Premieres
Animal Planet: Pitt Bulls & Parolees: Looking for a Home at 8p
Disney XD: Beyblade Burst Rise at 8a

Sunday’s Premieres
Animal Planet: The Aquarium at 8p, Cody Peterson: Brave of the Wild at 9p
Bravo: Shahs of Sunset at 9p
ID: The Lake Erie Murders at 10p
Science Channel: Shipwreck Secrets at 8p, Curse of the Bermuda Triangle at 10p
Showtime: Homeland at 9p, Kidding at 10p
Starz: Wrong Man at 9:51p
Travel Channel: The Alaska Triangle at 9p
The Weather Channel: Heavy Rescue: 401 at 9p

Sunday’s Finales
Starz: Power at 8p, Power Confidential at 9:23p

IN THE NEWS

CBS This Morning anchor Gayle King posted a two-part video on social media on Thursday, explaining that she was “mortified” at the posting of a “salacious” clip of her interview with Lisa Leslie. In the clip, King asks the former WNBA star about Kobe Bryant’s legacy being complicated by his sexual assault case in Colorado. (The criminal complaint against Bryant was dropped, after he reached an out-of-court settlement with his 19-year-old accuser and issued a statement conceding that their sexual encounter may not have seemed consensual to her.) Leslie responded that in all her dealings with Bryant, she never knew him to be “the kind of person that would… do something to violate a woman or be aggressive in that way.” King replied, “But Lisa, you wouldn’t see it, though. As his friend, you wouldn’t see it.” King took issue with CBS releasing a clip that she felt didn’t show the full scope of the interview. “[It was] totally out of context, and when you see it that way, it’s very jarring,” said King. A CBS News spokesperson acknowledged that the clip “did not reflect the nature and tone of the full interview. We are addressing the internal process that led to this and changes have already been made.”

The Conners are going live the night of the New Hampshire primary. On Tuesday, February 11 at 8p, ABC will air a special episode of the sitcom with the cast performing live for both the East and West coast broadcasts. ABC News coverage of the New Hampshire primary will be incorporated into the story in real time as the results roll in during the evening, with Mark watching the results for a school report with Harris, while the rest of the Conners share their different takes on why they think everyone should vote..

Saturday Night Live’s 45th season continues February 29 with John Mulaney as host for the third time. David Byrne will return to studio 8H to perform as musical guest. Daniel Craig will host SNL for the second time on March 7 with The Weeknd making his third appearance as musical guest.

Tamron Hall will host The Oscars Red Carpet Show in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 9, alongside Billy Porter, Lily Aldridge and Elvis Mitchell. The official pre-show begins at 3:30p on ABC. Meanwhile, for the second year in a row, Oscars All Access: Red Carpet Live will stream exclusively on Twitter at the same time. Louis Virtel is back as host and will be joined new co-host Sydney Park and social media correspondent Natalia Perez.

A little drizzle didn’t dampen spirits at the Cynopsis Best of the Best and Rising Star Awards luncheon, a rousing celebration held yesterday at Tribeca Three Sixty in NYC. Cynopsis honored the best in the media business, from reality series, to documentaries, to kids and sports series, and more. David Osmond, actor, musician and host of Wonderama, emceed the proceedings, with lively assists from presenters Angela Robinson (OWN’s The Haves and the Have Nots), comedian Megan Stalter (National Lampoon Comedy Hour The Podcast) and Cody Harris and Booger (“It’s his Christian name” Brown, stars of INSP’s The Cowboy Way. Rising stars were asked to give career advice in nine words or less. Some examples: ”It’s always nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice”; “The limit to what you can learn doesn’t exist”; “People and projects go, but your team is always there”; and “Never take a job for the money, but for what you can learn.” For a list of awards winners and Rising stars honorees, go here.

ABC issued a pilot order for Work Wife, a comedy inspired by the real-life partnerships of co-hosts and pals Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest, and David Windsor and Casey Johnson, the longtime writing-producing team and co-creators of The Real O’Neals. From Ryan Seacrest Productions, Ripa and Mark Consuelos’ Milojo Productions and ABC Studios, where Ryan Seacrest Prods and Milojo Prods are based, it explores platonic male-female team in the real estate world.

The Gotham Group inked a multi-year first look deal with Fox 21 Television Studios. The management and production company behind the Maze Runner franchise and Netflix film Kodachrome will create projects for linear and streaming platforms.

Fox greenlit pilot Pivoting, a half-hour comedy about tragedy from writer Liz Astrof, Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and Warner Bros TV. Written by Astrof, the project is set in a small, middle class town in Long Island and follows three women after the death of their childhood best friend. Realizing life is short, they make a series of impulsive, ill-advised and self-indulgent decisions.

Baby Octopus is expanding its portfolio of female-led fantasy animation series, optioning the rights to the series of Nadya Skylung books and signing a development deal for television and merchandising with author Jeff Seymour. The 26 half hour episodes being developed for tweens will reunite Baby Octopus with Auckland, New Zealand animation company Toybox, co-producers of YouTube Kids show Sherwood.

Aardman Animations is prepping a Christmas adventure for Shaun the Sheep, set to debut on BBC One in 2021. A Winter’s Tale From Shaun the Sheep (wt) is set to follow Shaun as his holiday excitement turns sour when a farmhouse raid to get bigger stockings for his flock leads to baby lamb Timmy going missing. Netflix has picked up the project in the U.S., Latin America, Spain, CIS and Greece.

Jennie Snyder Urman re-upped her overall deal with CBS Television Studios through 2025. Urman, the showrunner behind Jane the Virgin, the Charmed reboot, Emily Owens, MD and the upcoming Broke, will continue to create and develop for CBS TV Studios through Sutton Street Productions. The deal is said to be one of the biggest in at CBS TV Studios and well into eight figures.

Fox issued a cast-contingent pilot order to Blood Relative, a forensic genealogy-themed crime drama from writer-producer Christ Levinson (Tyrant) and producer Liza Chasin (Tales of the City). It’s base on James Renner’s 2018 article “Beyond the Jungle of Bad: The True Story of Two Women from California Who Are Solving All the Mysteries,” about Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick and Dr. Margaret Press.
came up with the theme for the five-part series which bows Sunday, February 16.

Fred Rogers Production named Kristin DiQuollo as Supervising Producer of upcoming puppet series, Donkey Hodie, debuting winter 2021 on PBS KIDS. DiQuollo was previously Executive Producer and Story Editor of Cyberchase, the PBS KIDS series from WNET New York.

Above Average Productions has teamed with producer M. Blair Breard. The partnership will focus exclusively on premium scripted production services.

Call for submissions: To be included in the Cynopsis Upfronts Online Navigator, the go-to resource for buyers and planners during the 2020 Upfronts season, please submit the dates/times/locations of upfront events (if no events are planned, include a tagline or up to 25-word mission statement) and logo by March 1 to [email protected]. For sponsorship opportunities, contact [email protected].

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

History gains full access to hotspots of paranormal and UFO-related activities on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, a one-hour nonfiction series premiering Tuesday, March 31 at 10p.

The Busch Family Brewed, a reality sitcom about the descendants of the Anheuser-Busch clan, debuts on MTV on March 5 at 9p. It centers on nine people under one roof setting out to build the first new family brewery in over 150 years.

EPIX bows Slow Burn on Sunday, February 16 at 10p. The docuseries, based on the critically podcast of the same name, will feature host Leon Neyfakh looking back on the Watergate crisis.

Smithsonian Channel explores the evolution of weapons throughout history and how they changed the course of mankind in World of Weapons. Docu-series premieres on Sunday, March 15 at 9p.

CASTING

Benjamin Bratt nabbed a series regular role in the HBO Max pilot of DC/Vertigo Comic Series DMZ from Warner Bros Television, while Mark Feuerstein (Prison Break, Royal Pains) and Kelly Williams (The Practice, Lie to Me) landed recurring roles in Paramount Network’s drama series Coyotes … Ian McElhinney (Game of Thrones) and Steve Toussaint (Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time) will guest star in the two-part season finale of Doctor Who.

STREAMING SNIPPETS

A new partnership with Viasat will make fuboTV the first virtual MVPD to live stream at 35,000 feet. Airlines that partner with Viasat/fuboTV can enable passengers to stream fubo Sports Network for free, log into their fuboTV accounts, or sign up for a free fuboTV trial to access live content in-flight.

Netflix is allowing subscribers to turn off the autoplay function for previews, which pop up instantly after an episode of movie finishes. It’s a quick fix for users, who can now go to “Manage Profiles” in the Netflix menu, select the profile they want to update, and uncheck the option that says “Autoplay next episode in a series on all devices.”

Pluto TV and Vidaa International announced a multi-year global pact bringing Pluto TV’s platform onto Hisense’s new Vidaa platform in the US, Europe and Latin America for free. With the partnership, all new Hisense TVs sold in the U.S. and Mexico will feature a Pluto TV button, designed to be a one-click solution that drops users directly into the service on Vidaa.

The news keeps getting better for Disney. Analyst firm Digital TV Research upgraded its forecasts for Disney+, projecting it to be the biggest SVOD winner over the next five years, with Disney+ adding 105 million paying subscribers between end-2019 and 2025 to take its total to 126 million. In addition, Disney+ is projected to reach 53% of Netflix’s subscriber total by 2025, up from 27% in 2020. “Much of the initial growth will come from the US, principally due to the attractive bundling of Disney+ with ESPN+ and Hulu,” said Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research. “ESPN+ and Hulu are not year available outside the US, but we still expect strong Disney+ take-up globally.”

ZeroZeroZero premieres Friday, March 6 on Amazon Prime Video in the US, Canada, Latin America and Spain. The international crime drama, which follows the journey of a massive cocaine shipment, was inspired by the book of the same title from best-selling author Robert Saviano (Gomorrah).

The Last Conversation launched on The New Yorker’s website and YouTube page on Thursday. The short documentary explores the story of Sarah and Isidore Kornberg, who were married for 59 years.

TECH TALK

Twitter posted its first billion-dollar quarter, a surge that comes as the social network attempts to distinguish itself by banning political ads. The company also continues to attract new users. In the fourth quarter, the number of monetizable active viewers hit 152 million, up almost 21% from the 126 million in the same period last year.

Google Fiber will stop offering traditional linear TV service to new subscribers, instead directing them toward streaming service options. It has been offering YouTube TV as an option for new subscribers since December 2019 and will now be adding virtual MVPD FuboTV. “As we return our focus to where we started – as a gigabit Internet company – we’re also ready to challenge the status quo, to finally come right out and say it: customers today just don’t need traditional TV,” Google Fiber posted in its company blog. New Google Fiber broadband subscribers can now decide to also sign up either YouTube TV or Fubo TV, or buy Fiber broadband and buy an online video service separately.

PODCAST POSTS

Original comedy series Escape from Virtual Island, written by John Lutz (Saturday Night Live) and produced by Broadway Video Enterprises, bows on Audible on Thursday, April 2. It centers on Derek Ambrose (Paul Rudd), who runs an island resort in 2038 where the wealthy come to live out their wildest fantasies in virtual reality.

GOING GLOBAL

Marblemedia’s All-Round Champion, a challenge series featuring 10 of North America’s most celebrated young athletes competing in each other’s sports, has been renewed for a second season and gone into production. The news comes ahead of season one’s debut on BYUtv in the US and Thursday, March 19 and on TVO in Canada on Wednesday, March 25. The series will also air on Canada’s Knowledge Network this summer.

Screen Glue confirmed its first commission for CBBC, Hey You! What If…, a comedy that provides answers to questions like, What if… the earth was flat? Beyond Distribution has signed its first international deal for the series with Noga Communications in Israel for its Logi Channel.

Channel 5 greenlit a third and fourth series of 2D animation Daisy & Ollie for its multiplatform pre-school brand, Milkshake!. Jason Manford will continue to create and star in both series.

This Day in History
1961 – Jane Fonda made her acting debut in the NBC drama A String of Beads.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which actors who portrayed on-screen siblings played siblings in a fast food commercial before they landed the TV show? Kirk Cameron and Tracey Gold of Growing Pains (1985-1992).

Today’s Trivia Question
Although Matthew Brock worked as a reporter on NewsRadio (1995 to 1999), what did the character hold a degree in? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four.)