PRODUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Bravo Media ordered its first original scripted event series, All That Glitters. It examines the rivalry and friendship between fashion icons Anna Wintour and Tina Brown.
A&E ordered an untitled docuseries that follows seven young adults sent to Highland Park High School by Topeka school officials. It takes an unbiased look at life before and after the bell rings at the public school.
MGM Television landed the adaptation rights to New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva’s collection of novels based on spy Gabriel Allon to develop into a series. Bidding for the series was reportedly highly competitive.
Eleven Sports struck a partnership with FIA World Rally Championship to become its exclusive pay TV partner. All remaining rallies in the 2017 season, as well as a pre-event magazine program ahead of every round, will be seen live on Eleven.
Poker Central inked a new four-year deal, giving the net global television and digital media rights to the annual summer World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. In addition, Poker Central and ESPN reached an agreement to expand programming from the tournament including live event coverage and original episodes throughout the year.
UPFRONTS UPDATE
Changes abound at Fox with Empire switching time slots and Lethal Weapon moving to Tuesday and Gotham heading to Thursday. Meanwhile, the net bows three new series this fall: Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi drama, The Orville; Marvel drama The Gifted; and comedy Ghosted.
The network is featuring a Lee Daniels music-themed block on Wednesdays. Ratings hit Empire will lead things off at 8p, followed by Star at 9p.
On deck as midseason replacements are medical drama The Resident and airplane comedy LA To Vegas. Plus, there’s a new installment of The X-Files and 9-1-1, a straight-to-series drama from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk about first responders.
Fox executives revealed that they wanted the American Idol reboot that landed at ABC. The hitch? Fox wanted to revive the show for 2020. In a call Monday, Fox Television Group chairman and CEO Dana Walden said it would be “extremely fraudulent” to revive the show so soon after its big farewell season.
Fox Networks Group will no longer sell standard commercials for digital and on-demand content. It plans to work to sell advertisers exclusive sponsorship of on-demand streams and sequenced creative executions through shows that are streamed. The company noted that the hope is to “bring better attention and focus” to ads appearing in digital streams.
Here’s the schedule:
MONDAY
8-9p Lucifer
9-10p The Gifted
TUESDAY
8-9p Lethal Weapon
9-9:30p The Mick
9:30-10p Brooklyn Nine-Nine
WEDNESDAY
8-9p Empire
9-10p Star
THURSDAY
8-9p Gotham
9p-10p The Orville
FRIDAY
8-9p Hell’s Kitchen
9-10p The Exorcist
SATURDAY
7-10:30p Fox Sports Saturday: Fox College Football
SUNDAY
7-7:30p NFL on Fox
7:30-8p The OT/Bob’s Burgers
8-8:30p The Simpsons
8:30-9p Ghosted
9-9:30p Family Guy
9:30-10p The Last Man On Earth
NBC hosted its Upfronts on Monday at Radio City Music Hall. Megyn Kelly, who launches a Sunday night newsmagazine in June and a daytime talk show this fall, announced that she was “psyched” to be a part of the NBC News team. She promised her talk show “will inform people, entertain them, inspire them and empower them to take on new challenges.” As for her newsmag she assured it would be “hard hitting.”
A clip premiered of Kylie Jenner’s Life of Kylie, the latest spinoff of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. The show follows Jenner as she navigates life as an entrepreneur, fashion designer, CEO/founder of Kylie Cosmetics, author and social media star. Premieres Thursday, July 6 at 10p on E!
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
The Next Step returns to Family Chanel on Friday, May 26 at 4:30p. Season five represents a new chapter for the studio as dancers are divided into two separate teams led by hosts Victoria Baldesarra and Alexandra Beaton.
FOX Television Stations debuts an original slate of seven new shows this summer. IWitness, Punchline, Watch What Happen Live, Culinary Genius, The Q, Ana Polo and The Jason Show will be broadcast on select FOX-owned stations for three to six week previews, starting in June.
Man v. Food began production, this week. Series is slated to return to Travel Channel in August.
Paisones network will air Korean novella Contrato Para Una Boda on both its U.S. and Latin America feeds. The drama makes its Latin American debut on Monday, May 15. (Times vary by country.) The series premieres in the U.S. on Monday, May 22 at 6p.
Season 2 of Cleverman premieres Wednesday, June 28 at 10 on Sundance TV in the U.S. The series also bows on Thursday, June 29 at 9:30p on Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia.
COMING UP
National Geographic airs Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of Isis on Sunday, June 11 at 9p. The film offers an intimate portrait of the Syrian Civil War and the refugee crisis.
AXS TV rounds up a posse of classic country concerts for a special Memorial Day marathon airing Monday, May 29 at 8a. It begins with Rock Legends: Johnny Cash and includes three episodes of Dan Rather’s The Big Interview featuring Vince Gill, Charlie Daniels and Big & Rich.
getTV celebrates the 30th anniversary of La Bamba with a “Get Lost in TV” lineup featuring a special presentation of the 1987 classic, as well as appearances and performances by legendary musical artists from variety shows. Airs Sunday, May 28 at 7:45p.
Estrella TV late night talk show host, Platanito, guest-stars on TV Land’s Lopez on Wednesday, May 17 at 10:30p.
SYNDICATION
Byron Allen ’s Entertainment Studios, Inc.’s new syndicated strip comedy game show, Funny You Should Ask, is now cleared in 95% of U.S. Television markets , including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and nationwide for the 2017-2018 and 2018-1019 seasons. It launches its premiere season in September on broadcast television stations throughout the country, as well as on Allen’s 24-hour HD cable network, Comedy.TV.
ADVERTISING
Bill Rosolie , SVP, national ad sales for Reelz, is in the thick of Upfront season, which he estimates will involve close to 100 presentations. Like an increasing number of networks, Reelz is forgoing a big event in favor of individual meetings – with a twist. “We’re using an interactive game show as a format to get our message across,” Rosolie tells Cynopsis. “We started doing it last year, and it’s really resonating – the messaging is good and it’s fun.” Exactly what is that message?
“We approach your business from a partner standpoint,” Rosolie tells Cynopsis, adding that one of the things many agencies have been upset about is networks not delivering on their estimates or delivering on their schedules at the appropriate time. “We’ve built a reputation on it,” he says. Agencies also told Reelz to grow their audience, and Rosolie reports in the last 2 years the network has grown its audience about 37% in A25-54. “They also asked us to get an audience more valuable to them, and we flipped our audience – not that there’s anything wrong with a 58-year-old male! – but we went from being 58 years old and 58% male, to much younger and 59% female, and our new programming is close to 63% female.” The response? “The agencies are looking at us saying, ‘You’ve got a really good celebrity brand, you’re investing in programming, you’re growing, and you’re taking care of us.”
CASTING
Adam Goldberg (Fargo) and Spencer Graham (Greek) will recur on Season 2 of EPIX series, Graves, to return later this year. Goldberg plays Margaret’s (Sela Ward) new campaign manager, Christopher Sachs; while Grammer portrays campaign communications director, Katie Farrell.
Leslie Grossman joins the Season 7 cast of FX anthology American Horror Story. Character details are under wraps.
BBC America announced guest stars John Hannah, Alan Tudyk, Amanda Walsh and Aleks Paunovic for the second season of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
Cameron Scoggins was upped to series regular on Nashville. Meanwhile, Odessa Adlon was cast in the recurring role of Live. Series returns to CMT on Thursday, June 1 at 9p on CMT.
DIGITAL DOINGS
Netflix is producing its first Australian original series, supernatural crime drama Tidelands. It was co-created and will be written by Stephen M. Irwin, who penned the original Aussie version of Secrets & Lies.
According to Advanced Television, Apple is set to announce that Amazon Prime Video will be available on Apple TV at the Worldwide Developers Conference, next month. In exchange, Amazon will resume sales of Apple TV devices. Sales of the device were halted in October 2015, because Apple’s box did not offer a way for Prime subscribers to access Amazon’s content.
WinView Inc . secured a $12 million Series B funding round to expand a platform where fans predict sports, including baseball and football, live via the WinView Games app while watching TV. Available on iOS and Android, it allows users to play along in real time for a chance to win cash prizes.
GOING GLOBAL
GRB Entertainment announced a slate of sales in Africa to MNET and ETV. Series include Braxton Family Values, Cleveland Hustles starring LeBron James and Maverick Carter, and Raising Whitley.
Armoza Formats and 360 POWWOW reached a multi-regional agreement for Sex Tape with sexologist and TV host Alessandra Rampolla.
MM2 Entertainment and Turner inked a deal to co-produce five films, marking Turner’s first foray into film production in Southeast Asia and wider effort to invest in more Asian content.
Cable Onda agreed to expand its offerings and offer customers the latest TiVo Gateway DVR solution. It will allow customers in Panama access to TiVo’s multi-room solution that complements Cable Onda’s TV offerings with available OTT content, including Netflix, YouTube and hundreds of apps.
