Today’s Premieres
Apple TV+: Shining Girls; Make or Break
Prime Video: Undone
Shudder: The Last Drive-in With Joe Bob Briggs
Sundance Now: Ten Percent

Saturday’s Premieres
HGTV: Renovation Goldmine at 8p; I Bought a Dump…Now What? at 9p

Sunday’s Premieres
BBC America: Ten Percent at 10p
Bravo: The Real Housewives of Atlanta at 8p
CNN: Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy at 9p; Nomad with Carlton McCoy at 10p
Discovery: Naked and Afraid XL at 8p
Fox: Duncanville at 7:30p
E!: Welcome Home Nikki Glaser? at 10p
History: The Fast History of… at 10p
Journy: Travel Guides New Zealand
PBS: Ridley Road on Masterpiece at 9p
Reelz: Autopsy: The Last Hours Of… at 10p
Showtime: Vice at 8p; I Love That for You at 8:30p; Ziwe at 11p

Sunday’s Finale
Starz: Outlander at 9p

IN THE NEWS

“It seems the streaming honeymoon is coming to an unavoidable end,” notes Adriana Waterston, Chief Revenue Officer and Insights & Strategy Lead for Horowitz Research, in Horowitz’s “State of Pay TV, OTT & SVOD 2022” report. In the 2021 study, 74% of TV content viewers said they subscribe to at least one SVOD; in this year’s study, 62% say they subscribe (an additional 10% have access to additional SVODs by sharing/borrowing passwords). The decline is due in part to a drop in Netflix subscriptions. “What seemed like a fantasy come true – thousands upon thousands of hours of top-notch content available on-demand for almost no money and few, if any, ads – was never going to be a sustainable business model, given what it costs to produce and acquire great content,” adds Horowitz. So what’s next? “We expect to see more advertising in free or low-cost, ad-supported tiers, such as the one Netflix is planning to offer, and more consolidation of services and subscriptions like what just happened with Discovery and WarnerMedia,” said Horowitz.

“The noise in the rest of the streaming business just validates where we’re going,” said NBCU CEO Jeff Shell during an earnings call Thursday. Peacock added 4 million paid subs, wrapping 1Q22 with over 13 million paid accounts and 28 million active monthly accounts, up from 24.5 million at the end of 2021. “We’ve said from the beginning when we launched Peacock that we’re taking a different approach from other people in the streaming business. We don’t view Peacock as a separate and distinct business. We think of it as an extension of our existing TV business. And we manage it that way, that’s how we set up our business. That’s how we program it, that’s how we sell advertising across both linear and Peacock. I think that that strategy is working.” Comcast also reported NBCU’s 1Q22 EBITDA rose 7.4% to $1.60 billion on revenue of $10.30 billion, up 46.6%. Media unit revenue jumped 36.6% percent to $6.87 billion (up 6.9% excluding the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl).

“Schitt’s Creek” is headed to a new streaming home. All six seasons of the cult fave turned awards darling will be available starting October 3 on Hulu. The comedy can currently be found on Netflix. “Based on the number of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ GIFs we Slack every day, it’s no surprise that we are absolutely thrilled to welcome Johnny, Moira, Alexis, ‘Daviiid’ and the wonderfully unique residents of Schitt’s Creek to Hulu,” said Joe Earley, President of Hulu. “We can’t wait to share the award-winning, blisteringly-funny, yet heartwarming series and characters with our subscribers. We know they’ll fit in nicely.”

Making the cut for of the 15th Annual Television Academy Honors, celebrating shows and producers using storytelling to advance social change, are “Black and Missing,” “Dopesick,” “Insecure,” “It’s a Sin,” “Reservation Dogs,” “Taste the Nation: Holiday Edition,” and “The Year the Earth Changed.”

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PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT

Steve Harvey is partnering with Black-owned technology start-up PopViewers, an app focused on amplifying diverse voices by offering a community to help people discover content. “PopViewers is creating a more inclusive viewing experience and building a space which represents the voices and perspectives of viewers from diverse backgrounds,” said Harvey. “Most media critics don’t look like me…and this impacts how movies and shows are sold to wider audiences. This is why I like the vision and why I decided to do this partnership. By bringing in more diverse voices, we can elevate great talent, making sure that it can be recognized and appreciated globally.”

AGC Television, Hollywood Gang, and Altimeter are in pre-production on a four-part documentary series, NOBU, centered on chef and hotelier Nobu Matsuhisa. Matt Tyrnauer will direct.

Amazon Freevee (formerly IMDb TV), home of Judy Sheindlin’s “Judy Justice,” has handed a series order to another court program. “Tribunal” stars two judges from Sheindlin’s “Hot Bench,” along with Sheindlin’s son, Adam Levy. Scott Koondel and Sheindlin are exec producing.

“SNL” vet Molly Shannon inked a first-look development deal with HBO Max. Shannon is no stranger to HBO, having had roles on “Divorce,” “The White Lotus,” Enlightened” and “Getting On.”

The producing team behind HBO Max docuseries “The Way Down: God, Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin,” including Ross Dinerstein’s Campfire Studios and Chrissy Teigen’s Huntley Productions, have a scripted series in development on the story of Gwen Shamblin and the Remnant Fellowship Church. Michelle Dean (“The Act”) is attached as showrunner.

“The Wolves of 125th Street,” following three Black best friends with plans to open a cannabis dispensary in Harlem, is in development at Peacock. The comedy comes from Grace Edwards (“Insecure”), Tina Fey’s Little Stranger and Universal Television.

Wave Sports + Entertainment has inked a content pact with the Women’s National Basketball Association for the 2022 season. The organizations will collaborate on social-first, short-form programming highlighting the best moments from past and present seasons and will launch new original series that celebrate the league and its players.

Asian-American fashion designers Prabal Gurung and Phillip Lim will create costumes for the upcoming Disney+ Original Series “American Born Chinese,” a Disney Branded Television show produced by 20th Television. In their first professional collaboration, the pair will work together with “American Born Chinese” costume designer Joy Cretton to design costumes for culturally significant characters from Chinese mythology and classic literature portrayed in the series by stars Michelle Yeoh and Daniel Wu.

MSNBC Films has picked up “The Tipping Point,” a documentary series from “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah that brings together independent films about tipping points that created changes in the world. Time Studios, Noah’s Day Zero, Sugar 23 and P&G Studios are producing.

Scottish actor Graham McTavish will narrate the international version LoveNature’s “The Ocean’s Greatest Feast.” Produced by Earth Touch, the doc delves into South Africa’s annual sardine run.

Casting notes: Kevin Iannucci (“The Best of Enemies”) and Bethany Brown (“Charmed”) have joined the cast of NBC’s untitled drama pilot based on Dutch series “Adam & Eva” as series regulars…Gaius Charles has landed the lead opposite Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in AMC’s “The Walking Dead” spinoff, “Isle of the Dead.”

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Twin brothers, contractors from Dallas, help clients decide whether to renovate or start from scratch in HGTV’s “Buy It or Build It,” kicking off Wednesday, May 18 at 9p.

NBC’s “Capital One College Bowl” is returning for a sophomore season with hosts Peyton Manning and Cooper Manning, and this time executive producer Harry Friedman (“Jeopardy!”, “Wheel of Fortune”) is along for the ride. Capital One returns to award $1 million in scholarships, providing all the student competitors with tuition assistance. Casting for the new season is underway.

Prime Video’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” debuts Friday, June 17. The drama is an adaptation of Jenny Han’s YA novel.

Kin is launching a new series, “Leave it to LeToya,” featuring singer-songwriter and actress LeToya Luckett. The show will debut across Kin’s owned and operated channels on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram on Tuesday, May 24.

In honor of National Superhero Day, two new Disney Channel series, “The Villains of Valley View” and “Ultra Violet & Black Scorpion,” launch Friday, June 3. “The Villains of Valley View,” centered around a teenage supervillain and her family as they are forced to uproot their lives and change identities, debuts with two back-to-back episodes at 8p. “Ultra Violet & Black Scorpion,” following a Mexican American teen who is chosen by a magical luchador mask that transforms her into the superhero Ultra Violet, will follow with two back-to-back episodes at 9p. Both series will stream shortly thereafter on Disney+.

Cooking competition “El Sabor de Aaron,” featuring celebrity chef Aaron Sanhez, premieres Thursday, May 5 at 9p on Hogar de HGTV. “Hogar de HGTV’s first two years have been marked by steady subscriber growth and viewership gains – and also by the collaboration with partners who share our goal of connecting to and super-serving the Hispanic audience,” said David Tardio, VP, US Hispanic. “With exciting new partnership-driven originals on the horizon like ‘El Sabor de Aarón’, Hogar de HGTV is poised to give our audience fresh takes on the content they already know and love.”

After learning that 80% of the men and women who enter his prisons are heroin addicts, Virginia Sheriff Karl Leonard made the bold move to create a first of its kind recovery program. His story is told in “Jailhouse Redemption,” premiering Thursday, May 12 on discovery+.

COMING UP

“K-9 Hero Awards,” honoring police and K-9 dogs, premieres Thursday, May 12 at 5p on GAC Family. The special is created in partnership with Project K-9 Hero.

HBO Max celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month with its Asian American and Pacific Islander Voices collection, starting May 1. The collection will feature curated content available on the platform, in addition to the three winning films from the HBO Max Asian Pacific American Visionaries Short Film Competition directed by up-and-coming AAPI directors.

Ovation TV is recognizing AAPI artists and artistry in May with weekly feature presentations during its Friday night “Red Carpet Cinema” block, weekly airings during its “Morning Canvas” block, and a curated on-demand programming lineup. The arts network’s Mystery Alley digital destination will also be streaming the first two seasons of the crime drama “Blood and Water.”

Antenna TV’s “Always Mother’s Day” marathon begins Sunday, May 8 at 8a, featuring curated episodes from shows including “The Partridge Family,” “One Day at a Time,” “The Jeffersons,” “Alice” and more.

TECH TALK

Google is giving users a greater say in the ads they see. Previously, people could limit gambling and alcohol pitches; now, through a feature rolled out in Ad Settings for YouTube Ads, they can limit ads related to more topics. “People want more control over their ads experience, including blocking ads or categories they prefer not to see,” wrote Karin Hennessy, Group Product Manager for Ads Privacy, in a post. “Providing transparency and control has always been a priority for us, so we’re expanding our tools, enabling the choice to see fewer pregnancy and parenting, dating, and weight loss ads.”

Twitter hit 229 million users as of the end of 1Q22, with revenue up 16%, to $1.2 billion, beating Wall Street expectations. With the acquisition of the company by Elon Musk pending, Twitter skipped a conference call and said they “will not be providing any forward looking guidance, and are withdrawing all previously provided goals and outlook.”

Meta reported earnings per share of $2.72 and average revenue per user of $9.54, beating analysts’ estimates. Daily active users in 1Q22 were 1.96 billion, versus expectations of 1.95 billion. However, a 7% rise in revenue to $27.9 billion fell short of a forecast of $28.2 billion. The company will still spend billions on metaverse product development unit Reality Labs, but it will “slow the pace” of some investments, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the 1Q22 earnings call.

IRI has partnered with TikTok to deliver custom marketing and media mix effectiveness insights to consumer retailers and manufacturers that advertise on the platform. IRI will incorporate TikTok’s aggregated, privacy-centric advertising reports into its marketing effectiveness solution, IRI Marketing Mix. Optimized specifically for marketing mix models, the reports will help provide retail marketers with a granular and holistic view of their online and offline marketing efforts. “Partnering with leaders across the measurement industry allows TikTok to understand advertiser needs through advanced, privacy-safe modeling techniques and how companies are leveraging our platform to successfully engage their audience and measure success,” said Jorge Ruiz, Global Head of Marketing Science at TikTok. “Our goal is to help clients reach their full potential with the TikTok community and maximize growth.”

IAB Tech Lab announced the release of a new initiative called SHARC (Secure HTML Ad Rich-media Container). The release is open for public comment for a 30-day period. SHARC is a new standard that enables interactive ads to be served across different platforms in a secure iframe that prevents the ad from accessing sensitive data. It does this with the development of a new standardized “safe ad container” API that can be used in mobile-app, web, and other HTML-enabled environments. “SHARC’s ‘design once, serve everywhere’ approach saves creative agencies time and money, streamlines ad trafficking, and reduces creative load across the entire digital advertising supply chain,” said Shailley Singh, Vice President, Product, IAB Tech Lab. “Adoption of this standard will help drive the evolution of our industry by making interactive ads more efficient and scalable than previously possible.”

STREAMING

Ninety percent of US streaming service consumers feel that their ad experience is better on digital streaming platforms than traditional TV when watching major sporting events, according to a survey from Integral Ad Science. “Game Day Digital Strategy” also found that consumers engage in a variety of activities in anticipation of major sporting events, which include increased online content consumption and use of ads to help plan for these activities. 43% of consumers find ads helpful when planning for activities leading up to a major sporting event, and 47% increase their online content consumption leading up to a major sporting event. The most popular forms of online content include social media, articles, and video clips.

UPFRONT CALENDAR

May 2: NBCUniversal/Peacock NewFront
May 3: Samsung Ads at 9a (Samsung 837, NYC); Roku at 11:30a (Caldwell Factory, NYC)
May 4: Digitas at 9:25a; Blavity at 9:50a; Revolt Media at 10:05a; Black Enterprise at 10:25a; Diversity in the Creator Community at 10:40a; TikTok at 4:30p; Twitter at 6p (Pier 17)
May 5: A+E Networks at 9a; Nielsen at 9:20a; fuboTV at 9:30; Dotdash Meredith at 9:50a; Comscore at 10:10a; LG Ads at 10:20; Innovid at 10:55a; GSTV at 11:05a; Crackle Plus at 11:25a; Estrella Media at 12:45p; Vevo at 4:30p (Hammerstein Ballroom), Canela Media at 1p (virtual) and CincoDeFront at 5:30p (NYC)
May 10: Screenvision at 6p (Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC)
May 16: NBCUniversal (Radio City Music Hall, NYC); Telemundo (Ziegfeld Theater, NYC); Fox (Skylight, NYC)
May 17: Univision at 11:30a (Javits Center in NYC); Disney (Basketball City at Pier 36, NYC); YouTube Brandcast at 8p
May 18: Paramount (Carnegie Hall, NYC); Warner Bros. Discovery (Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden, NYC)
May 19: The CW (New York City Center Theater, NYC)

GOING GLOBAL

Endemol France will produce MasterChef for France 2. French presenter Agathe Lecaron hosts.

Big Little Fish Television announced the acquisition by Channel 4 of a new documentary mini-series that revisits an unprecedented police investigation into the wicked crimes of a would-be serial killer, “Married to a Psychopath.”

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RATINGS

Last week, Univision finished as the No. 2 network on all of television in primetime for the entire week with 587,000 A18-49 viewers and 262,000 among A18-34. The net saw audience growth week-over-week during primetime among A18-49 (+11%) and A18-34 (+27%), marking the second consecutive week of audience growth.

Broadcast Nielsen Ratings for Wednesday, April 27
Show, P2+ 000s, (A18-49)
ABC: The Goldbergs 2.25 (0.3), The Wonder Years 1.44 (0.23), Abbott Elementary 1.45 (0.2), Home Economics 1.12 (0.2), A Million Little Things 1.92 (0.3)
CBS: Survivor 5.72 (0.9), Beyond the Edge 2.41 (0.3), Good Sam 2.05 (0.2)
CW: The Flash 0.56 (0.,1), Kung Fu 0.58 (0,1)
FOX: The Masked Singer 4.17 (0.6), Domino Masters 1.56 (0.3)
NBC: Chicago Med 3.78 (0.4), Chicago Fire 3.88 (0.4), Chicago PD 3.40 (0.4)
Telemundo: Exatlon 0.99 (0.2), Hercal: Amor y Venganza 1.23 (0.3), Pasion de Gavilanes 0.72 (0.2)
Univision: Soltero con Hijas 1.48 (0.5), Mi Fortuna es Amarte 1.71 (0.5), Madre 1.71 (0.5)
Source: Nielsen live + same day time period averages

EXECUTIVE MOVES

UK’s The Story Company has changed its name to The Story Collective and made three hires: Kate Lewis as Executive Producer; Amy Mobley as Head of Production; and Natasha Neill as CFO.

Plimsoll Productions has promoted Martha Holmes to the position of Chief Creative Officer of Natural History & Science. Holmes was previously Head of Natural History.

Keith Broach has joined OpenVault as Vice President and GM, North America. Broach was most recently NFV Solutions Director at Telco Systems.

This Day in History
1967 – Aretha Franklin’s version of “Respect” (written by Otis Redding) was released.

Friday Fun Fact
The longest single-syllable words in the English language all start with the letter “S”

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
In the series finale of “Adam 12” (1968-1975), which action earned Officer Jim Reed the Medal of Honor? Saving Officer Pete Malloy’s life during a shootout. Kudos to: Charles Lore/NYC; Rev. Mark Wajda/Clermont, FL; Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing Inc./NYC; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton, FL; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA

Today’s Trivia Question
Which co-stars on a 1999-2001 comedy drama also co-starred on a 2006-07 comedy drama? (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.)

Cynopsis Team