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Thursday March 11, 2021

Today’s Finales
Discovery: “Battlebots” at 8p
TBS: “Go-Big Show” at 9p
WE tv: “Growing Up Hip Hop Atlanta” at 9p

IN THE NEWS

“CBS This Morning” got a royal ratings boost on Monday with new clips from Oprah Winfery’s interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, which aired on CBS the night before. With 4.79 million total viewers and 1.026 million among A25-54, the show was up 74% from the week prior in viewers and 54% in the demo, and beat NBC’s “Today” (3.18 million/1 million) and ABC’s “Good Morning America” (3.35 million/872,000) for the first time on record. “We are covering history – and again we are making it,” said CBS News President Susan Zirinsky in memo to staff.

Gray Television is placing a bet on gaming, leading a $40 million investment round for Envy Gaming. As the lead investor in Envy’s Series C round, Gray will invest $28.5 million and name two directors to the Envy Gaming board of directors. “Esports and gaming is the fastest-growing area across all of media and entertainment,” said Adam Rymer, CEO of Envy Gaming. “Building global communities through content and engagement, similar to what the world has seen in the music, film and TV industries, is an endeavor we’re incredibly excited to work on with Gray as our partner.”

HBO Max introduced HBO Max Pa’lante!, focused on the ambicultural movement that embraces being both fully Latino and fully American. “For more than a decade we’ve been developing creative, audience-first campaigns that strategically engage Latinx, Black, Asian-American and LGBTQ+ audiences,” said Jackie Gagne, SVP, Multicultural Marketing, WarnerMedia. “With the launch of HBO Max Pa’lante! we are creating a home for Latinx viewers and a community committed to nurturing Latino voices and sparking provocative conversations.” The Pa’lante! launch includes the rebranding of the HBO Latino Twitter, Instagram and Facebook social handles to @palantehbomax.

Charter Communications announced that virtually all current and newly hired salaried and hourly employees will now earn at least $18 an hour, including target commissions, in addition to company-paid benefits, including medical, life and disability, education and training, and retirement plan. It’s part of the company’s planned path to a minimum starting wage to $20 an hour in 2022.

Amazon picked up Audience Network comedy “Loudermilk.” Seasons one and two premiere on Prime Video Friday, March 12; season three, which has been filmed but has yet to make it to the screen, will debut at a later date. Audience Network was shuttered by AT&T last May.

Animated musical comedy series “Central Park” was picked up for season three by Apple TV+, ahead of its season two debut in June.

The Sports Media Awards team is curating the list of finalists. Watch the industry’s most prestigious players claim the gold live on April 21 at 1p. Save your virtual seat now.

ESPN will welcome the NHL back after a 17-year break, thanks to a media rights deal that starts next season. The agreement includes four Stanley Cup Finals for ESPN’s Disney sib, ABC. “This partnership of the world’s top hockey league and the platforms of The Walt Disney Company is a big win for our fans and our game,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “Not only will this groundbreaking, seven-year deal enable the NHL to benefit from the incomparable power, reach and influence of The Walt Disney Company and ABC/ESPN, it sets a new standard in delivering our game to the most passionate and tech-savvy fans in sports in the ways they now demand and on the platforms they use.” ESPN was the NHL’s main TV partner from 1992 until 2004, when the league struck a deal with NBC Sports.

Forest Road launched a second SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) with Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs as co-CEOs. Mayer, newly-named chairman of sports streaming service DAZN, and Staggs, former COO and CFO of Disney, will look for a target company in the tech, media, telecommunications or consumer space.

ADVERTISING

CBS Media Ventures is partnering with NuTime, a Minority Business Enterprise certified ad sales rep, to help advertisers find Black viewers of CMV’s syndicated shows, like “Judge Judy,” “Inside Edition” and “Dr. Phil.” “This opportunity gives us the ability to engage content creators focused on producing high quality programming for the Black consumer,” said NuTime CEO Morris McWilliams. “We can now offer our advertising partners more opportunities to reach this valuable consumer group in a significant way in syndication and other platforms.” Noted CBS Media Ventures President Steve LoCascio, “It is exciting for us to be able to provide advertisers a robust vehicle to reach this important audience through our portfolio.”

The Weather Channel is running hot and cold with Lincoln. The companies have teamed to align Lincoln SUVs with three extreme weather conditions: Cold, Rain, and Heat. The three-spot campaign, titled “Comfort in the Extreme,” features The Weather Channel meteorologists as they travel and find comfort and sanctuary from the elements in a Lincoln.

Discovery is unveiling an enhanced marketing solutions offer for brand partners across its international markets that unites sports and real life entertainment into a single proposition. The move builds on the global launch of streaming service discovery+ in January. “Today is a monumental step for our sports offer as we fully unify our international marketing solutions and advertising-sales within the broader offering of the Discovery family,” said Mike Rich, Head of Sports Marketing Solutions. “We believe this will further strengthen our market-leading proposition and help brands tell their stories at scale, supporting them to deliver against communications goals which positively impacts their business objectives.”

Disney+ “is performing much stronger than the company, or analysts, had ever predicted,” noted Todd Krizelman, CEO of MediaRadar, in an analysis of the streamer’s year-over-year ad spend from January-February 2021. Highlights include: Disney+ ad spend is up 158% YoY in January – February 2021. The allocation of spend has changed slightly, moving 13% of their digital spend in January- February of 2020 ($1mm) to national television which now accounts for 96% of their ad spend in January – February of 2021. From December 2019- February of 2020, Disney+ spent an average of $6.2mm per month across national television and digital formats. Their monthly spend did not vary more than 4% month-over-month. And in the creative dedicated to the digital format, Disney+ maintained consistency across 2020 and 2021, advertising content rather than a streaming service.

VIEW THE LIST WATCH THE GALA NOW

Netflix handed a two season renewal

to real estate show “Selling Sunset,” through season five, and picked up a second season of “Bling Empire,” which follows an uber-wealthy group of friends in LA. The streamer is diving deeper into reality shows with orders for another real estate show from “Sunset” producer Done and Done, and “My Unorthodox Life,” focused on fashion mogul Julia Haart, from “Bling” producer Jeff Jenkins Productions.

Mr. SAS Productions (“Stephen A’s World”) has struck a deal for a docu-series celebrating and highlighting the importance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The series will be produced in partnership with Propogate (“Hillary”) and Confluential Films (“Black Love”).

Comedy Central’s latest project with Roy Wood Jr. is a podcast , “Roy’s Job Fair,” produced in partnership with iHeartMedia. The 40-episode series will debut on Wednesday, March 17 and roll out weekly. Additionally, Comedy Central will produce and air Roy’s third one-hour stand-up special this year. His second special, “No One Loves You,” premiered as part of Comedy Central’s Stand-Up Month in January 2019, and remains the network’s highest rated original stand-up premiere since Wood’s February 2017 one-hour, “Father Figure.”

“Wild Cards,” based on the book series edited by George R.R. Martin about survivors of a virus released over Manhattan, is in development at Peacock. Melinda Snodgrass, Vince Gerardis and Martin will executive produce.

Animation writers/producers Kevin and Dan Hageman (“The Croods: A New Age”) inked an overall deal with CBS Studios. The Hagemans will continue as creators, EPs and showrunners for “Star Trek: Prodigy,” as well as create and develop new content.

Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”) and Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”) will star in “Lady In the Lake,” adapted from the book by Laura Lippman, for Apple TV+. The limited series is produced by Jean-Marc Vallée’s Crazyrose and Bad Wolf America; studio is Endeavor Content.

Casting notes: Series co-creator Shawn Vance will star as himself in ABC comedy pilot “Adopted,” along with Wendie Malick (“Hot in Cleveland”) and Bruce Campbell (“Evil Dead”)…Michelle Gomez (“The Flight Attendant”) has joined season three of HBO Max’s “Doom Patrol” as a series regular.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

“Gutfeld!” premieres Monday, April 5 at 11p on Fox News – and host Greg Gutfeld (“The Five”) promises something different. “If you cannot tell the other late night shows apart, join the club. They’re as bland as string cheese and not nearly as appetizing,” said Gutfeld. “We aren’t going to be like them.”

Three-part documentary film “Hemingway,” by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the tumultuous life of Ernest Hemingway April 5-7 at 8p on PBS (check local listings).

HBO’s “Q: Into the Storm” follows filmmaker Cullen Hoback on a journey to uncover the forces behind QAnon, revealing how “Q” uses information warfare to game the internet, hijack politics and manipulate people’s thinking. “Audiences can take an unfiltered look at what transpired behind the scenes and uncover the forces that drove Q’s most ardent believers to storm the Capitol,” said Holback of the six-part docu-series, debuting Sunday, March 21 at 9p.

TECH TALK

Facebook motioned to dismiss antitrust lawsuits filed by the FTC and 48 state attorneys general on December 9. The social media giant contends the suits do not provide enough evidence that it engaged in anticompetitive practices, and the states waited too long to act and could not have proven that WhatsApp and Instagram would have been competitors had they not been scooped up by Facebook.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers reintroduced legislation that would allow the news industry to collectively negotiate content deals with tech companies like Facebook and Google, creating an exemption from existing antitrust laws. Sponsored in the Senate by Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Kennedy (R-LA) and in the House by David Cicilline (D-RI), Ken Buck (R-NY) and Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), similar legislation was first introduced in 2019 but failed to advance. Australia recently passed a law requiring tech companies to negotiate with publishers for their content.

Comcast Technology Solutions, a division of Comcast Cable, announced a new technology integration with ad server Flashtalking that centralizes linear and online video creative management. “This is a best-of-both-worlds solution for advertisers,” said Richard Nunn, VP and General Manager of Advertiser Solutions at Comcast Technology Solutions. “Creative management has always been a pain point for marketers and their agency partners as it consists of many moving parts usually managed through manual workflows. Comcast Technology Solutions has an enterprise ad management solution that brings these moving parts together – media buy system(s), creative asset library, rights management and traffic and delivery engines – into a single unified platform.”

FreeWheel, A Comcast Company announced the launch of Data Warehouse, part of the Strata ad management platform. Data Warehouse provides Strata users with a single source of consolidated insights into their cross-media campaigns from the Strata system, and it is interoperable with agencies’ existing business intelligence solutions. “In today’s cross-screen advertising world, multi-platform data insights are a must,” said Mark McKee, Chief Revenue Officer, FreeWheel. “But often, the process for obtaining these insights can be time-consuming and complicated. With the Strata Data Warehouse, our clients are seeing measurable time savings.” Data Warehouse will be available to all Strata users in April.

Looking for the latest in technology, streaming, network offerings, and tools to help you reach your goals? Check out Cynopsis’ NEW resource center, a one-stop information hub for media executives.

STREAMING

Vudu, the on-demand streaming service from Fandango, is rolling out on Amazon Fire TV Edition smart TVs and Fire TV streaming devices. “Fire TV has been one of our customers’ most-requested devices for streaming content,” said Kevin Shepela, EVP, Chief Commercial Officer at Fandango.

HBO Max app is now available to Cox Contour customers on their set top boxes. Cox customers can access HBO Max via their Contour 2 or Contour Stream Player devices by opening the HBO Max app using their Contour remote or by saying “HBO Max” into their voice remote. Customers are also able to subscribe to HBO Max directly via their Contour TV device using their remote.

Crackle Plus is launching the Crackle app on smart TVs and set-top boxes powered by Vewd, the provider of OTT and hybrid TV solutions. Vewd powers the app store, home screen, and promotion experiences on such brands as Sony, Hisense, Vestel, Vodafone, Swisscom. At launch, Crackle content will be available to customers in the US on TVs powered by Vewd’s software.

Arts streaming service Marquee TV announced the Access Digital program, aimed at aiding arts organizations’ digital efforts. Access Digital offers a suite of digital solutions to help arts organizations host, promote and monetize their digital content. “We created this capability based on feedback we received from arts organizations who are looking for a more effective solution to deliver digital and hybrid seasons to their patrons while growing their audience and brand,” said Marc Kirschner, Marquee TV co-founder and Head of Product.

Future Today, a streaming solution that packages branded channels, announced the launch of two new, omni-platform streaming channels dedicated to two children’s brands on YouTube, “Pinkfong” and “Like Nastya.”

COMING UP

UPtv’s “Easter Lives Here” programming slate, including over 20 titles, kicks off Palm Sunday with “The Passion of the Christ,” and culminates with the world broadcast premiere of the theatrical film “When We Last Spoke,” starring Corbin Bernsen, Melissa Gilbert and the late Cloris Leachman, on Easter Sunday (April 4) at 7p. The net will also be sprinkling Easter eggs on air March 29-April 2 with MPKs every day between 5p and 8p during “Gilmore Girls” and “Reba.”

“Hall of Flame: Top 100 Roast Moments,” set to March 29-April 2 at 10p on Comedy Central, will feature comedians, actors, commentators and pop culture historians reviewing the most scorching barbs given to past roastees including Alec Baldwin, Justin Bieber, James Franco, Bruce Willis, Rob Lowe, the late great Joan Rivers and more. Nikki Glaer hosts.

“High Stakes Duel II” streams live on PokerGO on Tuesday, March 16 at 8p, following a match between poker stars Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu.

America Ferrara will check in to “Superstore” for the series finale on Thursday, March 25 at 8p. Ferrara announced her exit from the show last year, shortly before its season six renewal.

COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the head of the World Health Organization one year ago today, a date CBS News is marking with reporting across all broadcasts and platforms. CBS News’ “The Pandemic: One Year of COVID” will examine the many aspects of life the pandemic has impacted, including the massive social and economic changes, the ocietal shifts underway and the state of vaccinations, plus the return to a “new normal.”

Noticias Telemundo will present a live news special, “COVID: One Year“ tonight at 6:30p, reporting on the social and economic impact of the coronavirus crisis and the challenges ahead. Anchors José Díaz-Balart, Arantxa Loizaga and Julio Vaqueiro will broadcast live from Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital.

And a special edition of “The Search for a Cure” airs on Cheddar from at 4:30p, looking back at what the country lost during the pandemic, highlighting how the world has changed, and looking ahead.

The TCM Classic Film Festival will run virtually this year, from Thursday, May 6-Sunday, May 9, on the TCM network and for the first time within the Classics Curated by TCM Hub on HBO Max. The 12th Annual Festival will open with a 60th anniversary screening of “West Side Story” (1961), with stars Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn giving new interviews. The cast reunion will air on TCM and be available on HBO Max simultaneously for opening night on May 6 at 8p.

GOING GLOBAL

LIT announced its first UK distribution partnership with Samsung TV Plus. The channel is now available to more than 70 million subscribers across platforms worldwide.

UK-based Buccaneer Media (“Marcella’”) landed the rights to dramatize bestselling author C.J. Tudor’s The Burning Girls with Hans Rosenfeldt attached as screenwriter.

Fox Nation and ARD in Germany have joined ITV in the UK in boarding “A Year on Planet Earth,” from Plimsoll Productions in association with ITV Studios. ITV Studios is also teaming with Nippon TV for “Stacking It!” a new global format created through the co-development deal agreed between the two companies last year.

Moonbug Entertainment is partnering with POPS Worldwide to bring its children’s content to the POPS Kids app. The app features 150 episodes of “CoComelon,” among other live-action and animated content.

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Piers Morgan’s last “Good Morning Britain” show was watched by 1.29 million ITV viewers, beating “BBC Breakfast” for the first time since its 2014 launch. Morgan resigned after his negative comments about Meghan Markle drew criticism from co-hosts and over 40,000 complaints to the network. On Wednesday, Morgan noted the ratings win in a tweet, adding, “My work is done.”

Broadcast Nielsen Ratings for Tuesday, March 9
Show, P2+ (millions), (A18-49)
ABC: “To Tell the Truth” 3.55 (0.6), “black-ish” 1.83 (0.4), “mixed-ish” 1.46 (0.3), “Soul of a Nation” 1.38 (0.2)
CBS: “NCIS” 9.77 (0.8), “FBI” 7.66 (0.7), “FBI: Most Wanted” 4.12 (0.6)
CW: “The Flash” 1.00 (0.3), “Superman & Lois” 1.24 (0.3)
FOX: “The Resident” 3.46 (0.6), “Name That Tune” 1.190 (0.3)
ION: “NCIS: New Orleans” .77 (0.2), NCIS: New Orleans” .83 (0.2), NCIS: New Orleans” .83 (0.2)
NBC: “The Voice” 4.12 (0.6), “The Voice” 6.89 (1.0), “New Amsterdam” 4.23 (0.6)
Telemundo: “Exatlon Estados Unidos” 1.10 (0.3), “La Suerte de Loli” 1.03 (0.3), “Buscando a Frida” 1.05 (0.3)
Univision: “Vencer el Desamor” 1.84 (0.5), “Te Acuerdas de mi Ton”1.36 (0.4), “Hija del Embajador” 1.21 (0.3)
Source: Nielsen live + same day time period averages

Jennifer Lyons, VP of News at Nextstar’s NewsNation, has resigned, following the exits of two other senior news managers after it was disclosed that former Fox News President Bill Shine was consulting with Nexstar. “We thank her for her efforts in spearheading the launch of NewsNation and we wish her success in whatever she does next,” said Perry Sook, Nexstar CEO. “We have begun a search for her replacement and hope to have that person in place quickly.” On Nexstar’s earnings call last month, Sook said NewsNation’s mission is “being down the middle” in terms of news coverage.

Comcast Advertising has appointed Pooja Midha as its Chief Growth Officer, a new role within the organization. Most recently, Midha served as President of true[X].

Rohde & Schwarz has appointed Jörg Fries as VP Broadcast, Amplifier & Media Solutions.

Shorts International has appointed Valerio Motti as EVP EMEA, Business Development and Strategy. Previously, Motti was VP, Business Development, Digital Media and Content Distribution for ViacomCBS.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which penny-pinching TV attorney loved hotdogs and drove a Ford Crown Victoria? Ben Matlock on “Matlock” (1986-1995). Kudos to: Benjamin Zander-MSNBC/Great Neck,NY, Frank Fleming-FETV/NYC, Brianne Maciejowski-Miles/Sarasota, FL, Mike May-R2 Innovative Technologies/Wellington, FL, Adam Sumrall-FETV/South Bend, IN, Joe Leydon-Cowboy & Indians Magazine/Houston, Dan Whitford-WTTW/Chicago, Beth Tallent-TallentPR/Nashville, John Kukla-KDFW/Dallas, Kyle Krebs-Limestone Minerals/Dallas, Wendy Holmes/Denver, Sally Sluss-Pectrum Reach/St. Louis, MO, David Garber-Loyola Marymount University/Playa Vista, CA, Julie Houston-Tom Scott Agency/Bosie, ID, Steve Fisch-Bento Box Entertainment/North Hollywood, Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA, Darren Wadyko-DarrenWadyko Media/LA

Today’s Trivia Question
For which series did Wanda Sykes win an Emmy? (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.)