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PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
Two untitled “Bosch” spinoffs are in development at Amazon Studios. One focuses on Harry Bosch’s former partner, Jerry Edgar, who goes undercover in Little Haiti, Miami. The other project focuses on Bosch mentee Detective Renee Ballard, who runs the LAPD’s cold case division.
Mike Schur, creator of “The Good Place,” has re-teamed with Ten Danson for “The Mole Agent,” based on the Oscar nominated 2020 Chilean documentary. The Universal Television project has sparked a bidding war among streaming services, reports Deadline.
“Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News” has had its season three run extended from 13 to 25 episodes. The animated show airs at 11:30p on Comedy Central.
A revival of acclaimed 1975-79 UK sitcom “Fawlty Towers” is in development at Castle Rock Entertainment. John Cleese, who played Basil Fawlty in the original, will write and star alongside his daughter, Camilla Cleese. Castle Rock’s Rob Reiner, Michele Reiner, Derrick Rossi and Matthew George exec producing.
Great American Family has enlisted Lori Loughlin, let go from Hallmark Channel’s “When Calls the Heart” amid the college admissions scandal, to star in a new Christmas movie, “Fall Into Winter.” It’s not Loughlin’s first GAF role – she also starred in 2021’s “When Hope Calls Christmas.”
FableVision Studios is rebranding its TV & Film group as Moonladder. Tone Thyne, currently VP, Creative, will continue to head up the group and assume the newly created title of VP, Moonladder. FableVision’s Moonladder group will focus on creating, showrunning, and co-producing animated and live-action broadcast properties in the film and TV space. Rachel Reade Marcus has been named VP, Development for the studio. Marcus was previously VP, Creative Development for Guru Studio.
Dentsu Creative announced the launch of an entertainment offering and an investment fund focused on financing original gaming, scripted and unscripted TV and film content. Juan Woodbury will serve as Global Head of Branded Content and Entertainment, working in partnership with Cathy Boxall, previously The Story Lab’s Global Managing Director.
As Banijay Americas officially takes on oversight of the company’s ten production companies in North and South America, Ben Samek has been promoted to CEO, replacing Cris Abrego, who will remain Chairman and focus on acquisitions and new business ventures. “When I decided to step down as CEO, I knew Ben was the ideal person to take the reins as chief executive of Banijay Americas,” said Abrego. “He has been a key partner to me for more than two decades and I know him to be an extraordinary and results-driven leader with the experience and relationships to drive success both domestically and internationally.”
“Friends” alum David Schwimmer will hop over the pond to compete in a special episode of Channel 4’s “The Great Celebrity Bake Off.” The episode will raise money for Stand Up to Cancer.
Casting notes: Henry Czerny (“Mission: Impossible”) and Doug Savant (“Desperate Housewives”) have joined the cast of Starz drama “The Venery of Samantha Bird in recurring roles.
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
“Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head” will make its broadcast premiere on Comedy Central after the season 26 premiere of “South Park” on Wednesday, February 8 at 10:30p. The series, featuring the iconic duo’s first original episodes in over 10 years, originally premiered August 4 on Paramount+.
“Great Expectations” makes its debut Sunday, March 26 on Hulu in the US. The six-part adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic comes from from FX and BBC. The announcement was made on Tuesday, the anniversary of Dickens’ birthday.
Bounce original series, “Act Your Age,” produced in partnership with MGM, will premiere on Saturday, March 4, with the first two episodes back-to-back starting at 8p. The comedy tells the story of three women in their 50s who are each at a personal crossroads and decide the best way forward in life is together. The premieres kick off the two-part, 16-episode first season, with the first eight episodes running weekly throughout the spring and the second half running over the summer.
“RapCaviar Presents,” a docuseries that tackles provocative issues through the stories of hip-hop visionaries and emerging stars, premieres March 30 on Hulu.
The first four episodes of “Godfather of Harlem” season three will air Sunday, February 12 starting at 6p on MGM+. The drama tells a story inspired by infamous crime boss Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker) who in the early 1960s returned from 11 years in prison to find the neighborhood he once ruled in shambles.
SPORTS ROUNDUP
Fox Corp. announced charitable commitments totaling over $300,000, in conjunction with its ongoing FOX Forward and FOX Sports Supports corporate social responsibility initiatives, to create a lasting, positive impact in Arizona, the host community of Super Bowl LVII. These include a commitment to the Pat Tillman Veterans Center to provide scholarship funding and resources for student veterans, as well as the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley to enhance their career development and training programs and Purple Heart Homes through FOX Sports’ Gamechanger Fund. The big game airs Sunday, February 12 at 6:30p on FOX (as if you didn’t know).
Revenue from sports betting companies jumped 40% in 2022, according to SponsorUnited’s NFL Marketing and Partnerships Report for the 2022-2023 season. Other key findings include:
· Russell Wilson is the most-endorsed NFL player, with one more brand deal than Austin Ekeler, despite their drastically different social followings (Wilson with 14M and Ekeler with 320K followers)
· NFL team sponsorship revenues increased 14% YoY, totaling $2.05B.
· Alcohol brands had the highest volume of sponsorship deals
· The Jacksonville Jaguars have the most brand deals out of all 32 teams for the 5th consecutive year
Major League Fishing is launching the General Tire Team Series, a new format in professional bass fishing in which 27 teams have the ability to communicate and share information with each other as they compete for a $300,000 top prize. Each of the 2023 MLFNOW! Livestreams will be available on MOTV, starting with the premiere event MLFNOW! Tackle Warehouse Invitational #1 today, February 8, through to the final event in August.
FloSports announced that for the 2023 season, all 19 race weeks split between the CARS Late Model Stock Car (LMSC) and Pro Late Model (PLM) divisions will be streamed live on FloRacing. CARS Tour founder Jack McNelly will partner with FloRacing and utilize all their resources following an offseason of change including a new ownership group for the series consisting of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Justin Marks.
STREAMING
Amazon spent $16.6 billion on digital video and music content in 2022, up from $13 billion the year prior. About $7 billion went toward Amazon originals, live sports and licensed third-party video content, said Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky on the company’s quarterly earnings call. “We regularly evaluate the return on the spend and continue to be encouraged by what we see, as video has proven to be a strong driver of Prime member engagement and new Prime member acquisition,” said Olsavsky.
Pluto TV and channel operator, Blue Ant Media are partnering for content with four Blue Ant Media-owned channels now live on Pluto TV in Canada. The new channels include HauntTV, Crimetime, HistoryTime and Homeful.
Guru Studio and Future Today are teaming to launch a dedicated FAST channel for the series “True and the Rainbow Kingdom” in the US. The new channel will deliver content from Gurus’ preschool series across Future Today’s partnerships with CTV and OTT platforms.
Magnite, the omnichannel sell-side advertising platform, announced Magnite Streaming, a supply-side platform that merges technology from the Magnite CTV and SpotX platforms. Magnite Streaming empowers media owners to maximize the value of their assets holistically across live and VOD inventory, CTV and OTT environments, and addressable linear. Magnite also launched research around streaming growth that showed:
* Streaming TV is now the most watched form of TV – 81% of respondents said they watched streaming TV, compared to 48% and 30% who reported watching paid traditional TV and broadcast TV, respectively.
* 86% of streaming TV viewers reported watching some form of ad-supported content.
TECH TALK
Disney is unlocking increased interoperability across the advertising ecosystem, to help marketers tap into first-party data in planning, buying and measurement, even if they don’t have an in-house Audience Graph or first-party data at scale, by creating a direct integration between Disney’s Audience Graph and Experian and LiveRamp IDs. The latest integration “represents another building block toward powering automation and addressability at scale, rooted in first-party identity, and offering access to unified audiences at scale,” says the company.
Ben Schwerin, SP, Content and Partnerships at Snap, is exiting the company at the end of March. Schwerin, who joined Snap in 2015, said he is leaving to “pursue a new opportunity.”
SSIMWAVE® will employ its technology to compare the video quality of more than a half-dozen broadcast and OTT streams of this Sunday’s Super Bow. SSIMWAVE will measure every second and every frame of the United States (FOX) and Canadian (CTV and TSN) broadcasts of The Big Game, as well as five streaming services. Using technology that replicates the human visual system, SSIMWAVE will check for video impairments, latency, and other issues that can impact the fan experience in the home and on the go.
Web3 entertainment and gaming company Orange Comet announced the latest extension of its collaboration with AMC’s “Immortal Universe of Anne Rice” with the introduction of the Mayfair Witches Pass. Set to mint on March 7, the limited collection will broaden the Immortal Universe community through a variety of virtual and real-life experiences.
COMING UP
MGM+ announced it has picked up “The Portable Door,” to premiere in the US market in April. The fantasy-adventure comedy stars Sam Neill (“Jurassic Park”) and Patrick Gibson (“The OA”). Jeffrey Walker (“Ali’s Wedding”) directed the film, which is adapted by Leon Ford (“Griff the Invisible”) from Tom Holt’s seven-book fantasy series.
The 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards return on Sunday, May 7, in LA’s Barker Hangar, combining scripted and unscripted ceremonies. In 2021 and 2022, they were separate events.
New original ViX+ film Malcriados” debuts February 15. The comedy shares a lesson about life and what it means to be a parent.
PBS SoCal and KCET, Southern California’s flagship PBS stations, announced a year-long celebration to recognize the PBS SoCal (formerly known as KOCE) 50th anniversary with the tagline “Continue Learning With Us.” The 2023 programming slate will recognize five decades of connecting communities in Orange County (where the station originated), LA and across Southern California.
Cast members from the original “Charmed” (1998-2006) including Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs, Rose McGowen, Brian Krause, Drew Fuller and Dorian Gregory will reunite for a cast reunion at 90’s Con, taking place March 17-19 in Hartford, CT.
GOING GLOBAL
Beach House Pictures announced the launch of its new natural history and wildlife content unit with the appointment of Claire Clements, a former zoologist turned wildlife filmmaker, as Head of Wild.
Big Bad Boo Studios is launching European enterprise “Big Bad Boo Vienna GmbH,” based in Vienna, Austria. Co-founders Aly Jetha and Shabnam Rezaei are heading up the expansion to scale their efforts in development, production, and distribution of children’s programming.
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