PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
Showtime is developing an untitled comedy about swingers, from Dynamic Television and Alanna Thompson. Series follows a monogamous couple, an open couple and two singles who meet and fall in love at a swingers party.
Pixcom Productions inked an exclusive agreement with Dr. Vincent Di Maio and co-author Ron Franscell which includes an option on their book, Morgue: A Life In Death. True crime series will focus on “the real world of autopsies, exhumations and courtroom testimony.”
History greenlit Grant, a six-part docu-series centered on Ulysses S. Grant, based on the biography by Ron Chernow and produced by Appian Way Productions and RadicalMedia. “Grant is one of the most brilliant, yet flawed figures in U.S. history and Chernow’s extraordinary biography has transformed our understanding of him at the deepest level,” said Eli Lehrer, EVP of programming, History.
Mattel greenlit another series of Thomas & Friends to premiere in 2019, continuing the themes of exploration and discovery while adding new locations and friends. The order brings the Thomas & Friends library of content to over 550 episodes.
Comedy Dickinson, starring Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) as poet Emily Dickinson, landed a straight-to-series order from Apple. Series comes from new studio wiip., David Gordon Green, Darlene Hunt, Michael Sugar and Anonymous Content.
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
TLC renewed its reboot Trading Spaces for a season two (10 if you count the original run). In its return season, Spaces ranks #1 in cable in its premiere time period among A25-54/18-49.
Comedy Central ordered weekly interstitial series Stupid Questions with Chris Distefano, designed to intertwine the net’s Friday night stand-up premieres with its archive of classics. Distefano (Benders) and a new guest each week will do their best to answer truly stupid questions.
Showtime’s Our Cartoon President is back with seven new episodes starting Sunday, July 15 at 10:30p. During its first 10-ep run, the animated series averaged over two million weekly viewers.
The National Hockey League debuted a multiplatform video series featuring NHL legend Wayne Gretzky. The Great One on One is being previewed during the 2018 Stanley Cup Final, with the first three episodes featuring Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Taylor Kitsch (Waco) and David Boreanaz (SEAL Team). The show will return with more episodes in the fall.
Please Understand Me, a five-episode comedy created for Facebook Watch, was released yesterday. Each stand-alone episode features two purposefully mismatched up-and-coming comedians who hash out the problems of their fake relationship with a real therapist who is in on the joke. Sarah Silverman is among the exec producers. Also coming to Facebook Watch: Huda Boss, starring beauty influencer Huda Kattan, on Tuesday, June 12.
Sundance Now thriller Next of Kin will make its U.S. debut Thursday, June 21 on the streamer. Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife) and Jack Davenport (White Famous) star.
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz, along with his brother Zach, has entered a partnership deal with Outdoor Sportsman Group to create the net’s first digital original series. Wentz Bros Outdoors will be available on OutdoorChannel.com beginning Tuesday, June 5, and ending in September.
COMING UP
Television Dominicana has added Dominican cinema to its weekend line-up with a new weekly programming block every Saturday at 9p featuring Dominican blockbusters.
TV festival SeriesFest announced its lineup of events and panels. Season 4 is dedicated to artists leveraging their content as a catalyst for action, as part of a “Year of Impact,” with program highlights including “Who Runs the Show? Women,” “Inclusion Impact: Disability Representation On-Screen and Behind-the-Scenes,” and “Virtual Realith: Igniting Global Impact.” Event takes place June 22-27 in Denver.
ADVERTISING
The 4A’s smells conflict of interest in Accenture’s programmatic services launch. “We find this unacceptable and are concerned about whether Accenture will be transparent in ensuring that the massive amount of information it has collected from ad agencies – both as an auditor as well as via the agency review process – is not leveraged for the benefit of its new practice,” said the organization in a statement, urging agencies to “take a moment to think critically about whether they will continue to participate in any review that Accenture is leading and determine if they will allow Accenture to continue auditing their media.”
Advanced data and analytics company 605 has launched The 605 Impact Index, a science-based approach for measuring the impact of TV advertising on both branding and sales. “It’s no secret that the legacy TV measurement system has not kept pace with modern day marketing demands,” said Ben Tatta, Co-Founder and President of 605. “Although recent developments in the field of TV attribution are a move in the right direction, most of these solutions focus on sales attribution only. These ‘bottom-funnel’ methods fail to capture the enormous impact TV delivers in terms of brand awareness, perception and favorability.”
Just 40% of advertising and agency execs buy TV and video as an integrated plan, according to the Advertiser Perceptions 2018 Video Advertising Convergence Report, with respondents blaming “siloed sales organizations” among suppliers as a challenge. 63% of execs said it was “very important” for suppliers to offer a multiplatform solution integrating TV and video options.
Dentsu Aegis Network and Index Exchange are teaming to offer Dentsu clients the ability to target precise audiences across comScore 200 publishers. Conde Nast is the launch partner. “Index’s transparent and nearly latent-less technology along with their established premium publisher relationships allows us to activate 1:1 targeting capabilities for our clients in way that’s never been done before,” said Gerry Bavaro, global chief strategy officer at targeting platform M1.
DIGITAL DATA
Democrat Senator Mark Warner said Facebook was “slow to the game” with its new requirements forcing political advertisers to confirm their identity and location. Speaking at the 2018 Code Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, Warner said, “Transparency around paid political advertising? I just don’t think it’s going to be enough. That is not really where the rubber hits the road.” Fake accounts based overseas pose a bigger threat, said Warner.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, also at Code 2018, addressed that controversial Snapchat redesign. “It’s really important to try and understand the problem that we were trying to solve,” said Spiegel. “When we looked at social media, one of the biggest problems that really stood out to us was this constant conflict between needing to have a small group of friends to feel comfortable expressing yourself, but also needing to have a large group of friends so that you can watch more content….We wanted to find a way to empower people to express themselves, to keep that small group of friends, but at the same time, expose the whole world of content that’s on Snapchat.” In terms of the philosophy behind the change that caused such a ruckus, said Spiegel, “I’m excited about the progress we’re making.”
As AT&T creeps closer to June 12, when the company will find out whether a judge will block its $85 million proposed acquisition of Time Warner, CEO Randall Stephenson took to the Code 2018 stage to explain his strategy for dealing with Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google as they gobble content. “I believe if you don’t create pure vertical integrated capabilities, from distribution through content creation and ad models, you’re going to have a hard time competing with these guys,” said the exec. And if the merger is blocked? “I don’t even want to go there,” said Stephenson.
The number of subscribers to Hulu’s skinny bundle pay-TV service has nearly doubled over the past six month, CEO Randy Freer told CNBC. At $40/month, no-contract-needed Hulu Live has drawn 800,000 paying customers.
Brazil has the most out-of-home video viewing among the countries surveyed by IHS Markit. More than half of Internet users in the U.S., UK, Brazil, Japan and Germany consume content out of their homes at least once a month, and of those, one out of six do so daily.
Comcast’s Xfinity and Fandango businesses have teamed for an integration that gives movie fans the ability to find local showtimes and movie tickets on their TV – just in time for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Xfinity X1 customers can say “Get tickets” into their X1 voice remote while watching the movie trailer to search more than 30,000 theatrical screens in the U.S., the first time this capability is available on a set top box. The companies expect to extend this feature to additional new releases throughout the year.
NGL Collective inked a deal with Latina media platform YoAmo Media to represent YoAmo in the U.S. Hispanic market, where it will serve as the centerpiece of NGL’s newly launched ELLA (Exclusive Latina Lifestyle Access) platform.
LA lifestyle entertainment company Kin introduced neighborhood, an interconnected, family-friendly network of premium, owned and operated, lifestyle channels starring mainstream personalities like Tia Mowry, Derek Hough, Adrienne Houghton, and Vanessa and Nick Lachey. Target audience is “mainstream USA millennials,” ages 25-54 years old, focused on careers, family and home.
PBS miniseries Tales of the City celebrates its 25th anniversary with a run on Acorn TV beginning Monday, June 4. Netflix is developing new episodes for 2019.
SHORT FORM VIDEO
Sony Crackle will run Rog & Davo’s Guide to Russia, a series of 10 original shorts, from June 11 to June 13, ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. Sports writer Roger Bennett and TV producer Michael Davies, soccer enthusiasts from the podcast Men in Blazers, will host.
GOING GLOBAL
The Split has been renewed for a second season on BBC One. Divorce drama airs in the U.S. on SundanceTV.
India’s One Life Studios announced historical drama series Porus has been licensed in Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Laos and Myanmar with JKN Global, and in Indonesia with Soraya Intercine FIlms. Porus premiered on Sony Entertainment Television in India on November 2017.
KABO International finalized a broadcast licensing agreement with Sky Italia for two Avanti Groupe factual entertainment series, Matchmaking Kids and Planning Mom and Dad’s Wedding. Both series are scheduled to air on the Italian network this summer.
Armoza Formats’ singing competition The Four has been licensed for local adaptation in Israel by Reshet 13. It’s the 19th deal for a local production of the series, which airs on Fox in the U.S.
Viacom International Media Networks announced the UK debut of its first mobile streaming app featuring long form content, Nick Play. Virgin Media customers who subscribe to Nickelodeon channels will have free access to the Nick Play VOD mobile app.
Toronto-based digital distribution company Syndicado and UK digital content studio Little Dot Studios struck a deal that will see over 250 hours of factual content debut on Little Dot’s YouTube channels, including Real Stories, Timeline and Wild Things.
Drive Media Rights announced a number of sales for factual content to new clients in China, including Bilibili, one of China’s leading community platforms aimed at viewers under 24, which has acquired the SVoD rights to a range of factual one off-films and series.
BBC Panorama – Tessa Jowell: Her Last Campaign follows the final days of former culture secretary Dame Tessa Jowell as she fought to transform care for cancer patients in the UK. Doc airs Monday, June 4 at 7:30p on BBC One.
