IN THE NEWS

Former Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins is diving back to streaming waters as head of Amazon’s video entertainment business. Hopkins will step down from his current post as chairman of Sony Pictures Television later this month to join Amazon in a role where he’ll over see Prime Video and Amazon Studios, among other ventures, and report directly to chairman/CEO Jeff Bezos. Hopkins will assume duties previously held by Amazon SVP Jeff Blackburn, who went on a sabbatical last summer. Hopkins returns to the streaming ecosystem as a slew of new contenders enter the field. Supporting Prime Video’s international growth and improving the customer experience are on his short list. Hopkins joined SPT in October 2017.

Banijay Group is moving full-speed ahead in its bid to complete its takeover of Endemol Shine Group. Banijay raised $2.6 billion in a major refinancing, and said the funds would re-finance the group’s existing debt, as well as that of Endemol Shine.

Kevin Hart’s Laugh Out Loud is launching experiential division LOL X! First event under the new banner is Nick Cannon’s Wild N’ Out tour, which will feature stand-up comedy, sketch comedy and musical acts. In partnership with Viacom, Cannon and Live Nation, Laugh Out Loud will lead tour promotion, marketing and content extensions for the 27-arena tour featuring Cannon, Wild N’ Out talent, DC Young Fly, Saweetie and other musical guests.

The 2020 Makers Conference is under way this week in LA. Around the theme of “Not Done”—both an ode to the suffragettes and passing of the 19th Amendment 100 years ago—speakers include Time’s Up CEO Tina Tchen, Olivia Wilde & Katie Couric, Chelsea Handler & Judy Blume, Monica Lewinsky & Mj Rodriguez (Pose), WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and Billy Eichner & Gloria Steinem.

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President Donald Trump’s new budget proposal takes aim at public media. It’s the fourth consecutive year the White House wants to slash funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding to public TV stations, PBS and NPR. Past proposals have been stopped in Congress; but even when Republicans held both chambers of Congress, lawmakers kept public media funding close to its current level of about $445 million.

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The doctor is still in. ABC renewed for the 2020-21 season The Good Doctor, the network’s most-watched show this season after 35 days of delayed viewing across all linear and digital platforms. Series averaged 15.6 million total viewers with multiplatform playback.

Alexander Woo, who most recently co-created The Terror: Infamy, signed an overall deal with Netflix. The True Blood alum will write and produce scripted series and other drama and sci-fi content.

Sean Tretta, Mayans M.C. co-exec producer, inked a two-year overall deal with Fox 21 Television Studios, home to Sons of Anarchy spinoff. Tretta will continue his work on Mayans, recently renewed for a third season, and will develop and pen new projects.

CBS is mulling a CSI event series to mark the 20th anniversary of the original series’ October 2000 premiere. New project, from writer Jason Tracey (Elementary), CBS TV Studios and Jerry Bruckheimer TV, would be set in Las Vegas and serve as a sequel to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

British comedy drama Sex Education will get a third season on Netflix. The Gillian Anderson-starring series will return in 2021, following its second season launch this January.

BBC Studios is making a TV series with Greta Thunberg that will explore the 17-year-old’s environmental activism, her transition into adulthood and the science behind her crusade. At this time show does not have a broadcaster attached.

Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) and Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds, The Bridge) will topline Swimming With Sharks, a Lionsgate-produced series that’s a short-form update of the 1994 film for Quibi. In the adaptation, a young female assistant works for a sole female studio head at a company filled with schemers and intrigue.

Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones, creators of Netflix’s Black Mirror, set up a new production outfit, Broke and Bones, just days after exiting House of Tomorrow, the duo’s Endemol Shine Group production house. Each has a 50 percent stake in the company, through which they’ll create their future work.

Disney+ gave a 12-ep order to a series based on 1989 Tom Hanks Disney comedy film Turner & Hooch. Matt Nix is writing and exec-producing the Josh Peck-starring reboot, with Josh Levy co-exec-producing.

UK production firm Blink Films will explore the secret lives of cats and dogs via a new PBS commission for its science shingle NOVA. The dual hourlong docs, Dog Tales and Cat Tales will comprise interviews with geneticists, animal behavior experts, archaeologists, vets and scientists and also will air on BBC Four in the UK.

Film & Arts, AMC Networks International – Latin America’s arts and entertainment brand, commissioned documentary Breaking Music. The doc, set to premiere later this year, probes connections between different music genres by following German baritone Benjamin Appl on the streets of both Buenos Aires and Berlin.

COMING UP

NH Primary pundits: Fox News Channel will provide live coverage today (February 11) from Bedford, NH, beginning with The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino at 2p, followed by Bill Hemmer Reports at 3p, Your World with Neil Cavuto at 4p, and a 6-8p special hosted by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum …CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell will lead the net’s coverage from Manchester, NH. O’Donnell will anchor the CBS Evening News (6:30-7p) and the network’s primetime updates beginning at 8p, joined by chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett, political correspondent Ed O’Keefe and correspondent Nikole Killion.

20/20 will present two-hour primetime report on the Jodi Arias murder case on Friday, Friday, February 14 at 9p on ABC. Special will feature never-seen interview footage with Arias.

Colossus, the story of a family’s struggle after deportation leads to family separation, debuts on Fuse Wednesday, February 26 at 8p. From director Jonathan Schienberg, doc follows 15-year-old Jamil Sunsin, the only US citizen in his family, who finds himself alone in the country of his birth.

Turner Classic Movies will celebrate the life and career of seminal actor Kirk Douglas with a 24-hour programming tribute Thursday, March 5 as well as a special screening of Spartacus (1960) at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood in April. Douglas died February 5 at age 103.

Australian drama series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries will return with its first new installment in five years with Acorn TV’s first-ever feature film, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears. Debuting Monday, March 23 on the streamer, the film—starring Essie Davis as the ‘20s-era slinky sleuth—will be screened later this spring in select US theaters.

Comic Sam Morril’s second one-hour special, Sam Morril: I Got This, premieres this week on Comedy Central’s Stand-Up YouTube channel.

Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project will debut Sunday, April 5, at 7p on Oxygen. Two-hour doc delves into Kardashian West’s mission to impact the criminal reform crisis, and efforts to secure freedom for Americans she believes have been wronged by the justice system. “I’m raising four black children who could face a situation like any of the people I help,” KKW said at the recent Television Critics Assn. Winter Tour.

STREAMING SNIPPETS

In a relevant dispatch from the audio world, 11 million people were effectively stealing their streaming-service audio fix last year, sharing a log-in that was not from an authorized family plan, although only 4% shared with friends who don’t live in the same home. This from MusicWatch’s Monitor series of consumer research conducted during 2019, which also found during the past year, 95 million people in the US used a major streaming service, 68 million were self-paying, 25 million had access through a family plan and 13 million were on a free trial. Among other data:
* 32% of paid subscribers who don’t use a family plan shared their log-in with someone else. Sharing is more pervasive among millennials.
* 73% of family plan account holders share with spouses, partners or significant others residing in the same home; 44% share with kids residing in the same home; 22% are sharing with children or family members who do not live at home.
* After learning the key features of family plans, 57% of respondents expressed interest in upgrading.

TECH TALK

News Corp. announced the Wall Street Journal has topped 2 million digital subscriptions for the first time, and that Dow Jones had topped 3.5 million digital subs. The announcement came on the heels of the New York Times’ proclamation it reached 5.25 digital subs (including Cooking and Crosswords), and 3.43 digital news readers.

As part of the relaunch of Cinedigm’s Viewster ad-supported VOD service, the company is partnering with Foxxum to expand Viewster’s device support to include Foxxum-supported devices—including Hisense, Sharp, TCL and Vestel TVs.

Sports book operator William Hill is now the exclusive sports book and wagering data provider of CBS Sports Digital, thanks to a new partnership. CBS Sports will use William Hill’s odds, experts and more than 140 sports books to bolster its current digital offerings.

PODCAST POSTS

For Life, the ABC legal drama series debuting today from Hank Steinberg, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Doug Robinson and Alison Greenspan, will bow with a companion podcast series. Produced by Treefort Media with Sony Pictures Television and ABC, the six-part For Life: The Podcast shares first-person accounts of people who were wrongfully convicted and eventually exonerated.

Netflix feature doc Abducted in Plain Sight, about the kidnappings of actress Jan Broberg when she was a child, is getting the podcast treatment. Obsessed With: Abducted In Plain Sight will be hosted by the film’s director, Skye Borgman and is the first podcast from Patrick Hinds’ Obsessed Network.

Double Elvis Productions and iHeartRadio launched pop culture podcast Citizen Critic. Exec-produced by Disgraceland’s Jake Brennan, hosts Scott Janovitz and Greg Conley focus on TV, music and movies as they riff on the critical commentary that occurred at the time. Ep 1 focuses on Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film.

CASTING

Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding) will recur in the final five eps of season 1 of Fox’s Prodigal Son… Sharon Catherine Brown (Introducing Dorothy Dandridge) will guest on The Good Fight for CBS Access… Michael Rainey Jr., Shane Johnson and Naturi Naughton will reprise their roles in original series Power in new Starz spinoff Power Book II: Ghost. Previously announced series stars Mary J. Blige and Cliff “Method Man” Smith.

KIDS NEWS

Discovery Kids Media’s Big Top Academy will stream on Hulu in the US and air on the Sony Pictures Television Pop network in the UK. Both Hulu and SPT acquired rights to seasons 1 and 2 of the live-action series. Produced by Apartment 11 Productions in association with Discovery and TVOkids, in collaboration with Cirque du Soleil Images, the series transports young viewers to the colorful circus universe.

Beach House Pictures, a Blue Ant Studios company, and JumpStart Games, a NetDragon company, are developing the first-ever Neopets animated TV series. Series will be based on the global Neopets virtual pet universe. Beach House Pictures is developing new characters and stories to expand the storytelling and bring added dimension to the brand.

Nelvana is ramping up production on season 3 of preschool series Ranger Rob, which will welcome new characters and storylines. New eps are slated for delivery beginning summer 2020.

Cake secured a global deal on behalf of Fresh TV with Cartoon Network and Boomerang for new CGI animated series Lucas the Spider. Based on the YouTube hit, series follows the adventures of a little spider as he and his friends try to navigate the big and curious human world around them.

GOING GLOBAL

John Malone outfit Liberty Global extended its European partnership with Netflix via a multiyear deal that continues to provide Liberty’s 11 million video subs with access to the streamer.

The British version of Top Gear is moving to Viacom18 in India from its previous home at Sony Pictures Television’s AXN. Viacom18 is a joint venture between ViacomCBS and local broadcaster TV18.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
How long were episodes of TV’s first network news program? 10 minutes. Kudos to: Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing/NY; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station, TX; Paul Blutter-Walk and Talk Production Rentals/Burbank; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Westberg-SAG*AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank

Today’s Trivia Question
Who was the Walt Disney Co.’s first-ever animated critter? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four.)