A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM AMC NETWORKS

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Today’s Premieres
Cleo TV: Décor Remixed at 9p, Global Gourmet at 9:30p
Hulu: The Hardy Boys
Netflix: Green Mothers’ Club; Jimmy Savie: A British Horror Story; The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On
TLC: Body Parts at 10p

Today’s Finale
PBS: Expedition With Steve Blackshall: Unpacked at 10p

IN THE NEWS

WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar confirmed he’ll exit the company on Friday, ahead of the imminent merger between Discovery and WarnerMedia. “Leading this team has been the honor of my lifetime,” Kilar wrote in a memo to employees. “My heart is so full, and I am beyond thankful to each of you. There is no better team on the planet, and I will savor every last step as I wander the lot in Burbank several more times this week.” Kilar, a founder of Hulu, joined WarnerMedia in 2020 just before the debut of streaming service HBO Max, and had been expected to step down; it’s anticipated the merger deal will close in a matter of days.

DirecTV has dropped right-wing cable network One America News Network, along with lifestyle channel AWE, at the expiration of their distribution deal. In January DirecTV announced plans to yank OAN, which has been criticized for promoting false 2020 election reports and misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic. OAN/AWE owner Herring Networks filed a lawsuit last month alleging the removal of OAN from DirecTV could be devastating financially.

FX’s “Snowfall” has been renewed for a sixth and final season. “FX first partnered with legendary writer/director John Singleton and the rest of the creative team six years ago to pursue their vision for an ambitious, powerful drama about the explosion of the crack epidemic of the early 80s,” said Nick Grad, President, Original Programming. “Today, as the fifth season of ‘Snowfall’ reaches new heights of acclaim and viewership, there is no question that this series has become an FX classic drama.”

ABC set the series finale date for “black-ish” for Tuesday, April 19 at 9p. The comedy is currently wrapping its season 8 run. Season 18 of “Grey’s Anatomy” will end with a supersized two-hour episode on Thursday, May 26 at 8p, while freshman hit “Abbott Elementary” is out for the summer Tuesday, April 12. The net’s remaining spring finale dates are between May 15-19.

Syndicated series “DailyMailTV” is coming to a close this summer. The newsmagazine from Stage 29 Productions and CBS Media Ventures premiered in 2017.

NBCUniversal and investment firm Atairos are acquiring a 30% stake in country music brand Grand Ole Opry for $293 million. Atairos invested $278, while NBCU kicked in $15 million.

2022 SPORTS MEDIA AWARDS
April 19th @ The NY Athletic Club

Meet the top people in the sports media community – including executives from NFL, Twitter, Crypto.com and NBC Sports —you won’t want to miss it! Join us at this exciting in-person event!

Book my seat!

PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT

Netflix has enlisted Nancy Meyers (“The Holiday,” “It’s Complicated”) to write, direct and produce a film for the streamer. Meyers last teamed with Netflix for 2020 film “Father of the Bride Part 3 (ish)”.

Apple TV+ gave a straight to series order for “Chief of War,” telling the story of the colonization of Hawaii from the point of view of indigenous people. Hawaiian native Jason Momoa (“Aquaman”) will star. Executive producers include Momoa and Thomas Pa’a Sibbett; Endeavor Content and Chernin Entertainment are producing.

Vizio is collaborating with MyTime Movie Network for lifestyle series “@Home with Tori,” starring Tori Spelling (“Beverly Hills, 90201”). The 10-episode series, premiering on VIZIO WatchFree+ in May, is currently in production.

Natalie Chaidez has inked a multi-year deal with Warner Bros. Television to develop and create original programming. Chaidez will also serve as executive producer and co-showrunner on HBO Max’s “The Flight Attendant,” premiering April 21.

Cast members for the third and final season of Paramount+ series “Star Trek: Picard” will include six “Star Trek: The Next Generation” alums: Levar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis and Brent Spiner. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” originally aired in syndication from 1987-1994.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Season 17 of Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” will have an entirely new judging panel. Replacing Nigel Lythgoe, who had been with the show since season one, as well as vets Mary Murphy and Laurieann Gibson, will be Matthew Morrison (“Glee”), YouTube star JoJo Siwa and onetime SYTYCD finalist Stephen “tWitch” Boss. Host Cat Deeley will be the only returnee when the show comes back Wednesday, May 18 at 9p.

Also coming up on Fox are the premieres of a revival of “Don’t Forget the Lyrics!” on Monday, May 23 at 8p, followed by the season premiere of “Beat Shazam” at 9p. On Wednesday, May 23 at 8p, all-star chefs gather for “MasterChef: Back to Win.” Season 3 of “LEGO Masters” premieres on Tuesday, May 31 at 8p, followed by the second season debut of “Fantasy Island” at 9p.

Docuseries “Ghislaine: Partner in Crime” will be available for streaming on Paramount+ starting tomorrow, April 7. The show explores how the former socialite became an accomplice to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“I Bought A Dump… Now What?” follows homeowners who purchased dilapidated properties in hopes of renovating them themselves but end up behind schedule and over budget. During the series, launching Saturday, April 30 at 9p on HGTV, cameras track the progress of each renovation and reveal whether the owners can ultimately finish the job.

Detective drama “Signora Volpe” premieres Monday, May 2 on Acorn TV. The three-parter focuses on a spy played by Emilia Fox (“The Pianist”).

“Preaching Evil: A Wife on the Run with Warren Jeffs” tells the story of polygamist cult leader Jeffs through the eyes of his favorite wife, Naomi Jessop and other family members. The true crime docuseries debuts Tuesday, April 26 on Peacock.

“iCarly” kicks off its sophomore streaming season with two episodes Friday, April 8 on Paramount+.

AXTV’s “Top Ten Revealed” and “A Year in Music” return for their fifth seasons on a new night, Tuesday, April 19 at 8p and 8:30p.

Freeform has three new unscripted series on deck. “The Deep End,” exploring a controversial spiritual teacher and her followers, premieres Wednesday, May 18 at 10p; “Dear Pony: Keep This Between Us,” exposing the widespread grooming of high school students by trusted teachers, debuts Wednesday, June 15 at 10p; and “Day to Night” (wt), taking viewers to the creative underground in NYC, will arrive later this summer.

COMING UP

INSP’s Memorial Day movie event on Monday, May 30 includes “The Green Beret” at 8a; “El Dorado” at 2p; “The War Wagon” at 5p; and “Flying Leathernecks” at 8p.

Reelz’ “Movieguide’s Movies that Inspire” airs Sunday, April 17 at 3p. The one-hour special focuses on the top uplifting movies for families and mature audiences.

Court TV will carry the Johnny Depp/Amber heard defamation trial, slated to begin Monday in Virginia. “Court cases that are as high-profile as this one often create a lot of noise, and it can be difficult for viewers to break through these distractions to have a clear picture of the facts, but that’s where we come in,” said Ethan Nelson, Acting Head of Court TV.

Feature film “Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known,” following the original 2006 cast and creative team of Broadway hit “Spring Awakening” as they reunite for a concert benefiting The Actors Fund, premieres on HBO Tuesday, May 3 at 9p.

TECH TALK

LG Ads Solutions has struck an agreement with Omnicom Media Group to bring LG smart TV and cross-screen ad inventory to Omnicom clients. LG Ads Solutions data will be integrated within Omni, Omnicom’s operating system. The integration will enable account teams across OMG to activate advanced targeting segments from Omni across more than 20+ million LG smart TV households in the US. The deal links LG Ads Solutions’ anonymized household-level data through a privacy-compliant process to Omni’s household graph.

Discovery, Inc. has selected EDO, the data, measurement and analytics company, as its preferred behavioral measurement partner. Discovery will utilize EDO’s Ad EnGage offering to measure consumer interest and intent with proprietary data measurement tools that focus on search activity following a TV advertisement. The data will be leveraged during the 2022/23 Upfront season. “Offering clients reliable and predictive behavioral measurement data is the linchpin of Discovery’s advanced advertising solutions, and this partnership with EDO allows us to build upon that and emphasize our influence on consumer habits,” said Jon Steinlauf, Chief US Ad Sales Officer, Discovery.

Artificial intelligence-enabled media will represent the majority of all ad buys in 2022, projects GroupM, with $370 billion in spend. “AI infiltration of the advertising industry has happened largely behind the scenes, with the general public aware primarily of its failures: the ‘creepy’ retargeting ad that follows someone around the internet, the disastrous outcomes of weaponizing targeted advertising systems to sow division and misinformation,” said GroupM Global Director of Business Intelligence Kate Scott-Dawkins in the report. “These examples are unfortunately more common than we would like to think — and probably largely unattributed by consumers to the use of AI.”

Xandr announced the launch of Inventory Library on its Invest DSP, offering a deal discovery and activation workflow with visual navigation and searchability. When using Inventory Library on Invest DSP, buyers have access to curated deals from hundreds of publishers across multiple sell-side platforms, organized in catalogs. “The premium video ecosystem is fragmented, with most CTV inventory transacted through deals and many platforms developing proprietary deal marketplaces. As such, it is hard for buyers to discover and access relevant inventory in one place to enable their campaigns to scale. This is especially true for CTV and premium video supply,” said Eric Hoffert, SVP, Video Technology, Xandr. “Inventory Library is deal buying the way it should be, as it offers a highly intuitive and visual design with greater visibility into deal inventory than ever before, taking ease of use to an entirely new level.”

Elon Musk has joined Twitter’s board of directors after acquiring 9% of the company last month. “Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our board,” tweeted Twitter Parag Agrawal, who acknowledged Musk is “both a passionate believer and intense critic” of the service. Responded the billionaire, “Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”. Musk’s ownership stake as a member of the board is capped at 14.9%.

Integral Ad Science announced ??new reporting enhancements that provide advertisers with a unified view of their global campaigns. Clients will be able to analyze data by custom filters created automatically from their unique campaign naming convention. This Unified View will allow clients to slice and dice their data by dimensions such as regions, lines of business, campaign types, and more. Additionally, IAS augmented its Report Builder to include IAS’s time-in-view insights as well as several new open web video metrics so advertisers can evaluate their performance beyond core verification.

Geopath has integrated place-based media into its Impression Variation Dashboard, a component of the Geopath Insights Suite. The addition of this inventory will enable buyers and sellers to analyze how the forecast for their placed-based media is performing compared to observed data. Geopath’s audited place-based OOH inventory currently includes airports, retail stores, shopping malls, health clubs, offices, bars, restaurants and more.

STREAMING

The CW Network has launched a new CW App, combining new original programming from The CW and library series from CW Seed. “The CW was one of the first broadcast networks to fully embrace streaming as a way to serve our core young audience, and the new CW App is the natural next step in our growth and evolution, as we are now the only network with a single unified brand across all of our,” said Rick Haskins, President, Streaming & Chief Branding Officer, The CW. The app is available for free on major platforms.

Inspired by a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, Netflix has created a “Short-Ass Movies” category. On an “SNL” segment on Saturday, Pete Davidson, Chris Redd, Simon Rex and rapper Gunna bemoaned the length of movies today, saying they wanted to see films at most an hour and 40 minutes long. “Good idea,” tweeted Netflix on Monday, with a link to the new Short-Ass Movies category.

FuboTV is eliminating its least expensive plan and moving subscribers to its $70/month Pro plan, effective May 1. Subscribers billed via Roku are exempt from the change “for now,” said fuboTV on its website.

UPFRONT CALENDAR

April 5-7: Magna’s Equity Upfront
April 6: Disney’s Sports Summit (virtual); AMC Networks at 6:30p (The Peak in Hudson Yards, NYC); National CineMedia at 11a (Academy of Motion Pictures, LA)
April 12: Black Owned Media Upfront at 1p (virtual)
April 13: FETV (Empire State Building, NYC); TV One (virtual)
April 19: SeeHer SheFront (virtual)
April 25: Disney Storyteller’s Showcase
April 26: FETV (Empire State Building, NYC)
May 2-6: IAB NewFronts
May 2: NBCUniversal/Peacock NewFront
May 3: Roku at 11:30a (Caldwell Factory, NYC)
May 16: NBCUniversal (Radio City Music Hall, NYC); Telemundo (Ziegfeld Theater, NYC); Fox (Skylight, NYC)
May 17: Discovery (Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC); Disney (Basketball City at Pier 36, NYC); YouTube Brandcast at 8p; Univision (Javits Center in NYC)
May 18: Paramount (Carnegie Hall, NYC); WarnerMedia (Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden, NYC)
May 19: The CW (New York City Center Theater, NYC)

GOING GLOBAL

Electric Entertainment struck a licensing deal for its three new series: “The Ark,” “Leverage: Redemption,” and “Almost Paradise.” A multi-territory deal with NBCUniversal International Networks & Direct-To-Consumer for “The Ark” includes SYFY in France, Spain and Portugal and SCIFI in the Balkans and Poland.

FilmRise has acquired Broadway Video’s Canadian sketch comedy series “Kids in the Hall,” including SVOD, AVOD and FAST streaming rights. The company also announced its second deal with Fuji Creative Corporation, the distribution arm of Fuji Television Network, for AVOD and FAST streaming rights to classic anime titles for distribution on the FilmRise Streaming Network’s Anime Channel and App.

Kids SVOD platform Azoomee has picked up season one and two of “Go Green with the Grimwades” for Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa as well as seasons one and two of “Zoe & Milo” for the UK and ROI, Netherlands, CEE, Asia and Africa.

Feature documentary “The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft” has been acquired by Arte for France and Germany.

Abacus Media Rights has acquired Adrian Munsey’s Odyssey Television documentary “Could Hitler Have Been Stopped? The Politics of Appeasement” and has sold the series to SBS Australia and ViacomCBS-owned broadcaster Channel 5 in the UK.

Cineflix Rights has announced international sales for Irvine Welsh’s “Crime,” the adaptation of his best-selling novel. Britbox/ITVX recently announced the second season of the drama, produced by Buccaneer Media and distributed internationally by Cineflix Rights.

STUDIOCANAL has secured a distribution deal with US streaming service MHz Networks for CANAL+ Creation Originale series. The sales agreement, which covers VOD and Home Entertainment rights, will see season one and season two of mystery comedy “UFOs”, along with period crime drama “Paris Police” become available to viewers across North America.

MEASUREMENT & DATA CONFERENCE
June 7th @ Edison Ballroom, NYC

Paramount, CIMM, Crackle Plus and GroupM have joined the 2022 speaker line-up.

View the updated speaker list and full day agenda, including a networking event to end the day.

FIND OUT MORE

RATINGS

Ratings for the Oscars jumped to 18.4 million viewers and a 4.38 rating among A18-49 in Live+7 data, reports ABC. The numbers, which include out-of-home viewers, are up from 16.6 million viewers and 3.8 in the demo for Live+Same Day viewing.

The sneak peek episode of “Impractical Jokers” airing on Saturday, April 2 reached 7.2 million viewers across TBS, TNT and truTV, following the NCAA Men’s Final Four Championship game. All three “Impractical Jokers” telecasts were top 3 watched cable entertainment telecasts of the day in P18-49.

FETV’s “Welcome to the Family” marathon of “Emergency!” episodes from 5p-12a delivered 181,000 P2+ viewers, with a +44% lift among A25-54 (19,000) versus the prior month, and a +100% lift over the prior year time period average.

In syndication the week of March 21, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” (0.9, up 13%) was one of the few programs to have held 100% of its year-ago rating. Recently cancelled “Maury” (0.7, down 30% from the same week last year) had the steepest year-to-year decline of any talk show. In access time periods “Family Feud” (5.2, unchanged) set the pace among game shows for the second consecutive week.

Season two of Netflix’s “Bridgerton” was watched for 251.7 million hours over seven days, the streamer’s most for an English-language series. In first place is “Squid Game.”

Nielsen Top 10 M-F Syndicated Strip Series for the week of March 21 ranked in order by HH Rtg
Family Feud (CMV) 5.2 AA
Jeopardy (CMV) 5.1 AA
Wheel of Fortune (CMV) 4.6 AA
Judge Judy (CMV) 4.5 AA
Inside Edition (CMV) 2.0 AA
The Big Bang Theory (WB) 2.0 AA
Entertainment Tonight (CMV) 1.8 AA
Live With Kelly and Ryan (DAD) 1.6 AA
The Dr. Phil Show (CMV) 1.5 AA
Hot Bench (CMV) 1.4 AA

Basic Cable Top 5 for the week of March 28
Network, P2+ AA (000)
Primetime
Fox News 2529
TBS 2043
ESPN 1701
TNT 1524
MSNBC 1129
Total Day
Fox News 1618
MSNBC 698
TBS 640
CNN 620
HGTV 575
Source: Nielsen

Broadcast Ratings for Monday, April 4
Show, P2+ 000s, (A18-49)
ABC: American Idol 5.58 (0.6), The Good Doctor 3.66 (0.4)
CBS: The Neighborhood 3.90 (0.4), Bob Hearts Abishola 3.54 (0.4), NCIS 3.48 (0.3), NCIS: Hawai’i 2.59 (0.2)
CW: All American 0.31 (0.1), All American: Homecoming 0.22 (.01)
FOX: 911 2.27 (0.3), 911: Lone Star 1.68 (0.3)
NBC: American Song Contest 1.65 (0.3), Weakest Link 1.47 (0.2)
Telemundo: Exatlon Estados Unidos 1.08 (0.3), Hercai: Amor e Venganza 1.19(0.3), Pasion de Gavilanes 0.70 (0.2)
Univision: Soltero con Hijas 1.45 (0.4), Mi Fortuna es Amarte 1.72 (0.5), Madre 1.96 (0.5)
Source: Nielsen, live + same day time period averages

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Peacock has tapped Shannon Willett to serve as Chief Marketing Officer and Brian Henderson as Executive Vice President, Programming. Most recently, Willett was VP, Global Marketing Strategy and Operations at Netflix and Henderson was SVP, SVOD Content, Programming and Partnerships at Hulu.

Strong Studios has named Scott Weinstock as EVP of Development & Production and Melissa Traub as VP of Marketing & Development. Weinstock was previously Executive Producer at Landmark Studio Group, where Straub was Director of Development and Marketing.

Omnichannel ad exchange Sharethrough is opening a new office in London and has appointed Richard Ottoy as General Manager, EMEA. Ottoy was most recently VP of Business Development, EMEA at OpenX.

This Day in History
1974 – in the 19th Eurovision Song Contest, ABBA won for “Waterloo.”

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which channel was announced in February 1993, and launched in January 1995? The Golf Channel. Kudos to: Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing Inc./NYC; Larry Kahn-Datanautix/Orlando, FL; Louis Lewow-FITE/Atlanta; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Garber-Loyola Marymount University/Playa Vista, CA; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA

Today’s Trivia Question
Which singer won one singing competition as part of a duo, then went on to be runner-up in another singing competition as a solo artist? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four per time zone.)

Cynopsis Team