Tonight’s Finales
Animal Planet: Coyote Peterson: Brave the Wild at 9p
Fox: The Resident at 8p
HGTV: Unsellable Houses at 9p
MotorTrend TV: Texas Metal at 10p
Pop TV: Schitt’s Creek at 8p

IN THE NEWS

Late night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel are teaming to host One World: Together at Home on Saturday, April 18 at 8p, to raise funds and celebrate efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic. The two-hour event, building on the digital series of the same name, will air across ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as numerous cable and international networks and streaming services. Curated by Lady Gaga, the special is being put together by Global Citizen and the World Health Organization. Guests will include the likes of Paul McCartney, Chris Martin, Elton John, Stevie Wonder; Live Animals is producing in partnership with Global Citizen.

NBCUniversal is reducing ad load to offer viewers more content, and advertisers new ad innovations, said Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Advertising and Partnerships, in a blog post on Monday. “Some marketers across every industry have asked to pause their advertising plans or shift their messages, and they’re looking for ideas, tools, and strategies from their most trusted partners,” said Yaccarino. “So, in light of everything we’re seeing and hearing, we want to do what’s right for our audiences and marketers.” The company will build custom marketing for more clients and give more access to remote production teams and talent, “without the associated fees,” added Yaccarino. NBCU is also offering free editing and translation services to reach people in both English and Spanish, and donating inventory for public service messages.

How sweet it is: James Taylor will serve as the Mega Mentor on season 18 of NBC’s The Voice. The “Fire and Rain” singer joins coaches Kelly Clarkson, Nick Jonas, John Legend and Blake Shelton to mentor the artists remaining from the Battle Rounds and prepare each team for the Knockout Rounds, which begin airing Monday, April 13 at 8p.

While local TV stations are seeing an increase in viewership due to the coronavirus – Meredith’s afternoon and evening viewership rose 30% from the beginning of March to the middle of the month – that might not translate into dollars, as companies rein in ad spending, noted the Wall Street Journal. “We have more viewers than ever, but advertisers are unfortunately stuck in the same economic boat as many of us,” Patrick McCreery, President of the local media group of Meredith Corp., told the WSJ. Dropping auto sales and postponed election primaries aren’t helping matters, but continued revenue from distribution rights make companies less exposed to ad declines.

Comscore launched a TV ratings report that offers insights on viewership to local media within 48 hours of broadcast. Comscore QuickScore “delivers a rapid yet representative, view of local television consumption to help local television stations proactively manage schedules, and make important sales, programming and promotional decisions more quickly and confidently,” said the measurement company, which will provide preliminary ratings for the top 30 markets along with Columbus, OH and Hartford, CT.

The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the role of resources used by advertisers to produce ads, according to data from the Association of National Advertisers. According to a survey conducted March 30 and 31, 55% of ANA members said their in-house agency was “very important,” with “another internal team” cited by 42% as “very important.” External agencies made the cut by 26% of respondents, media partners by 22% and production companies by 11%.

Responding to a petition from public interest group Free Press, which claimed President Trump’s misstatements about COVID-19 have caused “substantial public harm,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the federal government “will not – and never should – investigate broadcasters for their editorial judgments simply because a special interest group is angry at the views being expressed on the air as well as those expressing them. In short, we will not censor the news.” Free Press had argued that when the president tells “dangerous lies” about a public health emergency, broadcasters have an obligation to not air them, or run disclaimers.

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The Roddenberry Foundation and A Day of Unreasonable Conversation, a program of the social impact agency Propper Daley, announced the new Roddenberry Impact Awards to accelerate and inspire positive social change through storytelling. Ten Roddenberry Impact Awards of $10,000 each will be granted to television content creators who are committed to – and have innovative ideas and approaches for – reimagining the processes for writing and telling stories that represent the diversity of people, thought, and expression.

Former 21st Century Fox marketing executives Hernan Lopez and Carlos Martinez were charged with bribing soccer officials for media rights to international events, in the US government’s FIFA corruption investigation. “The schemes had powerful anti-competitive effects, distorting the market for the commercial rights associated with soccer and undermining the ability of other sports marketing companies to compete for such rights on terms more favorable to the rights-holders,” said the indictment. A lawyer for Martinez told Bloomberg the charges were “nothing more than stale fiction.”

The ATX Television Festival, scheduled for June, has been turned into a virtual event due to concerns over coronavirus. “To ensure the ongoing safety of all, this year we will not be having a physical festival in Austin, but will instead be celebrating Television where we all enjoy it, the couch!” shared festival co-founders Caitlin McFarland and Emily Gipson. The virtual weekend is slated for June 5-7.

Fox renewed Duncanville for season two on its Sunday Animation Domination block. The network’s most-streamed new comedy, Duncanville will return during the 2021-22 season.

ID’s got Tiger King by the tail. The true crime net ordered Investigating the Strange World of Joe Exotic, a sequel to the Netflix hit. “Viewers are understandably riveted by Netflix’s Tiger King, but the millions of true crime fans around the world were left wanting more,” said Henry Schleiff, Group President ID, Travel Channel, American Heroes Channel and Destination America. “ID is the perfect place to find the inevitable sequel to this drama – featuring a missing husband, a hit man, and the illegal business of exotic animals.”

Cream Productions announced a co-production partnership with actor, host, and producer Dominic Monaghan and his production company Monkey Spunk. Under the deal, Cream and Monaghan will create, develop, and produce unscripted programming as well as AR/VR content. They currently are partnering on a new nature-adventure series.

CBS’s All Rise is going back into production for a virtually-produced episode inspired by the COVID-19 crisis. The drama, from Warner Bros. TV and CBS TV Studios, will be filmed using Facetime, Zoom and other online technology. “It’s a unique chance for our All Rise family to band together – in our different homes, even cities – to tell a story about resilience, justice and the power of community,” said executive producer Greg Spottiswood. While talk shows have returned with hosts working from home, All Rise is the first scripted series to be produced virtually.

Syndicated The Kelly Clarkson Show will air new original weekly episodes, including “Messages from Montana” from host Clarkson, with glimpses of life on her ranch, never-before seen in studio content plus new digital original exclusives. The new content will be included in episodes taped before the show paused production on March 13 due to growing concerns around the coronavirus. The show is also staying in originals over the summer, with The Kelly Clarkson Show: Summer Studio Sessions.

Starz greenlit Black Mafia Family, from executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (Power) and writer/EP Randy Huggins (Power). The drama is inspired by the true story of two brothers who rose from the decaying streets of southwest Detroit in the late 1980’s and gave birth to one of the US’s most influential crime families.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Five-part docu-series Asian Americans will air May 11 and 12, during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, on PBS (check local listings). The project, created by an all-Asian American team of filmmakers, documents the Asian American experience through personal histories.

Debmar-Mercury’s new, nationally syndicated daytime talker Nick Cannon will debut on Monday, September 21, in more than 90% of the US. The lineup of station groups, which reach all of the top-20 and 29- of the top-30 TV markets, is comprised of Fox, CBS, Sinclair, Hearst, Nexstar, Mission, COX, Sunbeam, Capitol, Meredith, Tegna, Lockwood, Gray and CW Plus.

The season 11 premiere of FXX’s Archer has been postponed due to production delays. Originally slated to return May 6, the animated comedy will be back later this year.

Beginning tonight, House Hunters and House Hunters International will premiere with new episodes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10p and 10:30p. Prior to each night’s episode of House Hunters, fans can interact in real time by visiting @HGTV on Facebook, Twitter. “House Hunters is the gold standard of HGTV comfort programming,” said Jane Latman, president, HGTV. “This is feel-good entertainment that everyone loves to watch – especially when our families are social distancing together at home.”

TECH NEWS

DoubleVerify, the software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics, announced an integration with Pinterest that enables advertisers to authenticate ad viewability and identify digital ad fraud and sophisticated invalid traffic across its platform. “Our mission is to give global brands the clarity and confidence they need to make digital investments wherever their audiences consume media,” said Laura Desmond, Interim CEO at DoubleVerify. “Our integration with Pinterest furthers that commitment – ensuring buyers have transparency into media quality and performance across the platform.”

ODMedia Group announced a new partnership with MediaCloud Networks that will expand the company’s services by setting up an official content aggregation and processing hub in the South African region to service Netflix over-flow requirements.

STREAMING SNIPPETS

Mobile platform Quibi launched yesterday, in a world very different from the one in which the home of bite-size content was conceived. What are its chances for success? “There couldn’t be a better place than streaming these days with massive user acceptance and adoption. That said, the ‘streaming wars’ are truly shaping up to be a dense battle field,” Tal Chalozin, co-founder and CTO of Innovid, tells Cynopsis. “We are great believers in ad supported TV as the way of the future but coming out of the gate with a paid subscription model, with ads, isn’t an easy sell (even though Quibi did offer a 90-day free trial).” And while a Quibi’s new mobile-focused, short-form format is very suitable for commuters, “Not many people are commuting right now as a result of coronavirus,” notes Chalozin. “While we are indeed seeing mobile usage numbers rapidly increase, connected TV is shaping up to be the king of streaming video.”

Not even the $1.75 billion it had raised kept Quibi from experiencing the kind of hiccup Disney+ suffered when that streamer launched in November. Some users experienced problems with the Quibi app, tweeted the Quibi customer support account on Monday, but the issue appears to have been resolved quickly.

Viewership for video game streaming platform Twitch increased by 23% in March, as stay-at-home policies took effect. Hours watched for Microsoft Mixer increased by 14.9%, YouTube Gaming saw a 10.7% lift and Facebook Gaming rose 3.8% for the month.

HBO documentary Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections is available for free outside the HBO paywall on HBO.com and YouTube, until May 25. Film explores the weaknesses of today’s election technology.

Celebrating 25 Magical Years of Disney on Broadway, a benefit concert that took place in November in NYC, will stream on April 13 to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund. Live interviews with Disney stars will be interspersed throughout the event.

COMING UP

People Presents Harry & Meghan: A Royal Rebellion airs Wednesday, April 22 at 8p on The CW. A team of full-time royals reporters re-tell the story of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in the two-hour special, via interviews, archival footage, commentary and animation.

Discover your team’s measurement solutions during this time of peak fragmentation. The Cynopsis Measurement & Data Conference on November 17 in NYC will bring together a diverse panel of experts to discuss how to find and maximize the data you need to tell your brand’s story. You’ll hear from – and network with – leading agencies, measurement analysts and networks. Learn more here.

Food Network offers a morning of comfort food recipes tomorrow, April 8. From 9:30a-1p, The Pioneer Woman will feature dishes like lobster mac and cheese, Tex-Mex tamale pie and hot Hawaiian beef sandwiches.

CONNECTING IN A COVID-19 WORLD

On Wednesday, April 8, the Ad Council, in conjunction with Google, the ANA, and other leading advertising, media, and marketing trade associations, is launching an industry-wide movement to promote the message: #StayHome. Save lives. “We are an industry of communicators, so let’s all communicate this message at the same time, starting on April 8 and continuing in the days and weeks ahead,” wrote Bob Liodice, CEO of the ANA. “Together, through speed and scale, we can make an enormous impact to help save countless lives.”

MLM is waiving option fees for their author clients’ books for six months. “We are thinking ‘outside the box’ in trying to attract top talented writers, directors, producers a chance to work with us in developing projects,” wrote Sharlene Martin, Literary Manager, in a letter sent to agencies. “We see this as ‘sweat equity’ in development, at a time in our lives when we all have more time than we’ve ever had, to develop what will be much needed content when we come out of this pandemic.”

Cartoon Network has expanded its response to the coronavirus pandemic with a new initiative, CNCheckIn, to help kids Stay Safe. New public service announcements and tutorials will be made available featuring hand-washing tips, and how to stay in touch with friends while practicing social distancing. The network will also provide do-it-yourself projects, how-to-draw lessons and more.

Norm Hill Entertainment is offering 13 episodes of its animated series, The Centsables, to help kids and parents staying home during the health crisis. The Centsables teaches kids about money using edutainment; multi-media web components are also available.

Camp Care Bears launched yesterday, April 6, to create a positive, uplifting digital space for all ages. Camp Care Bears was created as a response to COVID-19 and imposed quarantines; weekly activities such as arts and crafts, journaling, reading, games, cooking and nature walks are aimed at easing the stress of solitary time.

Podcast company Acast has launched “Staycast,” a campaign encouraging people to stay at home. Listeners will hear messages of support from shows including Watch What Crappens, Fat Mascara, and Forever35, as they remind people of local government advice around staying at home and isolating, as well as giving recommendations of other podcasts to listen to while they do so.

Popsugar has created a new advertising program to support women-led small businesses impacted during the health crisis. The lifestyle site will donate 50 million advertising impressions across its owned and operated channels to women-led businesses as well as design resources to help create the new ads to reach diverse women across platforms and interests. The donated media placements will include a rotation of standard banner ad sizes across the Popsugar network, banner placements in Popsugar newsletters, and inclusion in editorial and custom posts where relevant.

Popsugar also launched a daily workout series on Instagram Live, offering free workouts led by fitness experts. Most classes are 30 minutes long. “We are committed to meeting our audience where they’re spending their time and want to help everyone who is home right now looking for workout inspiration to stay healthy and maintain a peace of mind,” said Popsugar founder and President Lisa Sugar.

GOING GLOBAL

ViacomCBS Networks International announced the acquisition of Ananey Communications Group, the Israeli content producer and pay TV channel provider. VCNI is acquiring the shares in Ananey it does not already own, following its acquisition of a minority stake in the company in December 2016. Ananey will be consolidated into VCNI, with its Chief Executive Officer, Orly Atlas-Katz reporting to Maria Kyriacou, President of VCNI’s operations across Australia, Israel and the UK.

ITV is creating a $615,000 development fund to build up a production slate during the current shut-down. “ITV’s success is based on the ideas that are brought to us by indies from across the UK and we don’t want that to stop,” said ITV Director of Television Kevin Lygo. “We have this money specifically available to ramp up development over the next few months so we can hit the ground running when current restrictions are lifted.”

UK’s Cineflix Rights has acquired Coast Guard: Mission Critical from US producer RumLime Productions. Series follows the men and women of the United States Coast Guard as they patrol and protect America’s borders.

Skydance Media has acquired the animation unit of Madrid-based Ilion Studios, to form Skydance Animation Madrid. The strategic acquisition combines the creative capital of Skydance with Ilion’s talent, giving Skydance Animation full oversight of all production aspects.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which future TV start first grabbed the attention of television audiences as a masked singer known as “Covered Man” on The Merv Griffin Show? David Soul. Kudos to: John Ferlazzo/London, Charles Lore/NYC, Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing Inc./NYC, Mike May-R2 Innovative Technologies/Wellington, FL, Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Inc./Boca Raton, FL, Paul Blutter-Walk and Talk Production Rentals/Burbank, Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA, Ken DuBow-Bob’s Your Uncle/LA

Today’s Trivia Question
Who was Tony engaged to when Jeannie first met him on I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70)? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four.)