Tonight’s Finales
ABC: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire at 8p
HBO: We’re Here at 9p
Science: Mysteries of the Abandoned at 9p

IN THE NEWS

Snapchat said is no longer promoting President Trump’s content on its Discover platform. “We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover,” said the company. “Racial violence and injustice have no place in our society and we stand together with all who seek peace, love, equality, and justice in America.” Trump’s content remains available to users who subscribe or search for it.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, a tech group supported by Facebook, Google and Twitter, filed a lawsuit against President Trump, claiming his executive order on social media – which could allow the government to assume oversight of political speech on the internet – threatens to “curtail and chill constitutionally protected free speech.” The CDT said the White House violated the First Amendment, which “prohibits government officials from using government power to retaliate against and individual or entity for engaging in protected speech.” Trump issued the order after Twitter fact-checked one of his tweets.

As protests over the death of George Floyd continue, The Walt Disney Co. has pledged $5 million to support nonprofit social justice groups. “The killing of George Floyd has forced our nation to once again confront the long history of injustice that black people in America have suffered, and it is critical that we stand together, speak out and do everything in our power to ensure that acts of racism and violence are never tolerated,” said CEO Bob Chapek. “This $5 million pledge will continue to support the efforts of nonprofit organizations such as the NAACP that have worked tirelessly to ensure equality and justice.”

Google is donating $12 million to groups working to address racial inequities, said CEO Sundar Pichai in an email to employees. “Our black community is hurting, and many of us are searching for ways to stand up for what we believe, and reach out to people we love to show solidarity,” said Pichai. “Supporting worthy organizations is a step in the right direction, but it is not a replacement for doing the harder work ahead both within and outside of Google.” The first grants of $1 million each will go to the Center for Policy Equality and the Equal Justice Initiative.

Netflix canceled Astronomy Club: The Sketch Show after one season. The series, exec produced by Kenya Barris, launched December 6. “Seems like a good time to mention ‘Astronomy Club’ was sadly not renewed by Netflix,” said a post on the show’s Twitter account. “Thank you to all the fans who watched! Hoping that more black artists & comedians are given the platform to have voices in the future.”

The Real co-host Amanda Seales said in an Instagram Live video that she does not plan to renew her contract with the Fox daytime talker. “It doesn’t feel good to my soul to be at a place where I cannot speak to my people they way they need to be spoken to,” said Seales, who signed on as a permanent co-host six months ago.

A Florida sheriff has confirmed that the will of Don Lewis, late husband of Tiger King star Carole Baskin, was forged. “They had two experts declare it a forgery,” said Hillsborough County sheriff Chad Chronister in a video. “We knew that before, because the girl who came forward and said, ‘Hey, I was forced to say I witnessed these signatures.’” Basin responded with a statement saying, “All of the documents were authenticated by at least two expert firms and everyone involved in the conservatorship agreed by stipulation ratified by the court to their authenticity.” During the Netflix show, Joe Exotic – now in prison for hiring a hit man to kill Baskin – accused her of feeding Lewis to a tiger.

Responding to a Wall Street Journal report of imminent layoffs, Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman assured staffers in a memo on Wednesday that no employees are getting cut. “Nothing has changed since our last company meeting two weeks ago,” the memo said. “Quibi is in a good financial position. As we said in that meeting, we will look for ways to tighten our belt. We are not laying off staff as a part of cost saving measures. We’ve recently added a dozen new Quibi employees.” Senior executives agreed to take a 10% pay cut “because it’s the right thing to do,” according to the memo.

The CW’s Batwoman will have a new identity when the show returns for season two without Ruby Rose in the lead. Rather than recast Kate Kane, a casting notice called for a character named Ryan Wilder who is “likable, messy, a little goofy, and untamed” – unlike the character Rose played. Rose made the surprise announcement that she was leaving the show last month.

Local TV viewership is still significantly higher than pre-COVID-19 levels, but 18-24-year-olds are turning away from local TV as their news source, reports SmithGeiger. While 25% of the age group relied on local news in a March study, the number dipped to 23%in April and 11% in May. “We are post-peak in this environment; there is no question,” said Dr. Seth Geiger, President and co-founder of SmithGeiger. “But the trust that has been placed in local news has stayed relatively stable and is still at a very high level.”

Have you seen the lineup for Tuesday’s FREE virtual event? View the agenda e and join Cynopsis on June 9th as we interact with A-list speakers who will tackle the many different ways brands, leagues and networks are aiming for success in a post-COVID world. Register for The Great Sports Disruption today and let’s get back to the business of sports.

FilmRise’s new linear channel FilmRise Action has debuted on The Roku Channel, with a lineup of movies like Stolen Blitz and Sharpshooter. All films have been edited to ensure a PG-13 rating suitable for family viewing.

COMING UP

PBS is broadcasting a series of films and new specials focused on race in America. In addition to re-broadcasting films focused on African American history by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Stanley Nelson, PBS will also curate a playlist of programs from Frontline, POV, Independent Lens and other series that explore the impact of racism on Black Americans and the larger country. Tonight, June 4, PBS is re-airing The Talk – Race in America at 9p.

Coverage of the preliminary hearing of the murder case of Ahmaud Arbery starts today, June 4 at 9a on Court TV. Father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael are accused of felony murder in the shooting death of Arbery as he was jogging in Georgia.

Also airing today is a virtual town hall to discuss the current political and racial climate. We Are One: More Than A Hashtag will stream live at 8p on the digital platforms across the Urban One brands Radio One, Reach Media, TV One and iOne Digital.

Tubi has curated a collection of movies and documentaries under the banner, “United Against Inequality.” Among the offerings are Harriet Tubman: They Called Her Moses (1918), Up From Slavery (2011), Freedom Road (1979), and The Injustice System in America (2007).

Antenna TV celebrates Father’s Day with an all-day marathon of Coach, starting at 5a on Sunday, June 21.

Decades TV is airing Pandemic Amnesia: Recovering the Memory of the 1918 Influenza Outbreak, a documentary investigating the catastrophic impact of the 1918 health crisis, on Monday, June 8 at 9p.

TECH TALK

RealNetworks has two new tools that use AI to help video viewers identify who they’re seeing. Browser extension StarSearch by Real identifies famous people in any video streamed from YouTube, Netflix and other popular sites, while media player RealPlayer 20/20 offers one-click video downloads and instantly spots and identifies people in videos, and enables organization of media files based on who appears in them. RealAudio was introduced 25 years ago, and “Streaming has since become a central part of society, especially in these challenging times,” said RealNetworks founder and CEO Rob Glaser. “We hope that millions of consumers worldwide will find StarSearch and RealPlayer 20/20 delightful and useful.”

Identity resolution company Tru Optik announced an agreement with Deep Root, an audience-powered analytics company, to integrate Deep Root’s proprietary audience-based segments – political, public affairs and corporate advocacy – to Tru Optik’s Political Data Cloud. The integration will enable media companies and political advertisers to leverage Deep Root’s audience segments with data sets of voter history, consumer and behavioral insights across OTT/CTV. “There’s no denying that now, more than ever, registered voters are engaging in content from connected TV. Political candidates, campaigns and advocacy groups must recognize this and leverage these platforms in order to reach targeted voter audiences,” said Richard Kosinski, EVP, Sales, Tru Optik.

Google is being sued for allegedly collecting data on Chrome users who were using the browser’s incognito mode, in what the lawsuit describes as a violation of California privacy laws and the federal wiretap law. “Google tracks and collects consumer browsing history and other web activity data no matter what safeguards consumers undertake to protect their data privacy,” allege two California residents and a Florida resident in a class-action complaint filed Tuesday in US District Court for the Northern District of California. A Google spokesperson said the company “strongly” disputes the claims.

ADVERTISING

While 82% of viewers want to see relevant ads, only 54% find ads they see relevant, according to a DISQO study conducted in May – and a majority of people (56%) said they responded negatively when seeing irrelevant ads. Advertisers are faring better with younger generations, found DISQ, with 60% of 18-24-year-olds most likely to agree that the ads they see are relevant, versus 41% of 65-74-year-olds.

CTV continues to grow, with 36% year-over-year volume increases, despite continued declines across mobile (-26%) and PC (-20%) device types, according to the Innovid iQ dashboard, offering a weekly view of the video ad landscape amid COVID-19. For the week of May 24 to May 30, key takeaways include:
· After 4-weeks of year-over-year growth, global video volume dropped 8% year-over-year.
· Even with an overall decline, several verticals including CPG (+ 59%), Telecom (+18%), Finance (+11%), and Pharma (+3%) experienced year-over-year volume growth. Auto (-80%) continues to see significant declines year-over-year, alongside Retail (-37%).
· On the publisher front, programmatic publishers led growth with +33% year-over-year impression volume.

GOING GLOBAL

BBC One, Heyday Television and NBCUniversal International Studios’ surveillance thriller The Capture will return for a second run. The first season on BBC One was BBC iPlayer’s biggest new title of 2019 with over 22 million requests on the platform to date.

Nucleus Media Rights has reached an agreement with kids streaming service Kidoodle.TV for the preschool series Bubu and The Little Owls. Beginning June, Kidoodle.TV will feature the first two seasons of the animated children’s series globally on connected devices including iOS, Android, AppleTV, Fire TV, LG, Samsung, Chromecast, Roku, Amazon, and other streaming media devices.

Cineflix Rights has signed a partnership deal with Live PD Host/Executive Producer Dan Abrams’ Law&Crime Productions and Justice Network to greenlight the new crime series Killer Cases. The series has been pre-sold to A+E Networks Crime + Investigation channels across its EMEA territories including the UK, Africa, Italy, Iberia, Germany Poland, and Africa, where the series will broadcast as Murder Masterminds.

GoQuest Media inked a deal with streaming platform MX Player that sees GoQuest Media acquire the worldwide distribution rights for two of its top-rated epic drama originals, Queen and Ek Thi Begum (The Mafia Queen).

Melbourne’s Fred Media acquired kids’ TV shows Brainbuzz and Smashdown! from Nine Network, adding nearly 175 hours to its kids’ catalogue.

BBC Storyville has acquired the UK rights to Scandalous, a documentary about the National Enquirer, from AGC International. BBC Storyville will broadcast the film on BBC Four in June.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
On Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976-77), who was the “Fernwood Flasher”? Mary’s grandfather, Raymond Larkin. Charles Lore/NYC, Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing Inc./NYC, Rev. Mark Wajda/Lakeland, FL, Phyllis McQuillan-MSG Networks/NYC, Ed Horwitz-The Talk/Studio City, CA, Paul Blutter-Walk and Talk Production Rentals/Burbank, Lorrie Shilling/El Segundo, CA, Miriam Aardahl-OMD/LA, Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station, TX

Today’s Trivia Question
The opening music for which 1989-1991 sitcom was “Good Lovin’”? (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.)