PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
VH1 greenlit season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, as well as aftershow RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked. RuPaul’s Drag Race is currently the most watched season in franchise history across both Drag Race and All Stars, averaging 794,000 P18-49 Live+7 viewers and 1.2 million Live+7 total viewers.
Beano Studios and UK’s Lime Pictures are developing a live-action comedy drama featuring classic comic book character Minnie the Minx. The Magnificent Adventures of Minnie will target kids 8-12.
Patrick Walsh (Living Biblically) is stepping in to replace Kevin Abbott as exec producer and showrunner on upcoming Fox comedy The Cool Kids. Abbott is moving over to the net’s Last Man Standing revival.
AXS TV gave a season two order to reality show Real Money, starring rocker Eddie Money and his family. Sophomore run is slated to air in early 201; production starts this summer.
An untitled docu-series following the frustrations and successes of rising comedians will stream on Amazon Prime. Six-parter comes from Amazon Studios and Just for Laughs.
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
Comedy Central greenlit Jeff Ross Presents Roast Battle for round three. “They say the line between love and hate is very thin. Roast Battle makes it nearly transparent,” said Kent Alterman, president, Comedy Central. Mexico will get its first, localized version of Roast Battle, while Comedy Central UK and Comedy Central South Africa ordered second seasons of the format.
Anthony Ray, aka rap artist Sir Mix-A-Lot, will show off his home renovation skills in DIY’s Sir Mix-A-Lot’s House Remix, premiering Saturday, June 30 at 8p.
Among the July offerings on Acorn TV is Proof, featuring an 11-year-old Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird), starting Monday, July 2.
Oh, baby – TLC’s Outdaughtered is back for a season three in a two-hour premiere on Tuesday, July 10 at 8p, followed by the season three bow of Rattled at 10p.
Kingdoms of the Sky premieres on PBS Wednesday, July 11 at 9p (check local listings). Three-parter made in conjunction with the BBC’s Natural History Unit explores animals and people in the Rockies, the Himalayas and the Andes.
IFC’s Stan Against Evil is back for season three on Wednesday, October 31 at 10p. Horror comedy is in production in Atlanta.
Season two of Urban Movie Channel soap-within-a-soap The Rich and the Ruthless starts streaming today. Prepare for a surprise villain, sibling rivalry and a counterfeit art dealer.
Season five of History survivor series Alone premieres tonight, with competitors documenting harsh conditions in Mongolia, and no cameras allowed. Shawn Witt, EP of the series and co-president of Leftfield Pictures, shares five things you might not know (one involving a wild bull, yogurt and a yurt) about the show in the new Cynsiders.
COMING UP
Paul McCartney will sing a medley of hits as well as “brand new material” on Carpool Karaoke, when the former Beatle joins James Corden on a UK broadcast of CBS’s The Late Late Show next week.
Founding member of the The Police Stewart Copeland hosts his own television event for HDnet Movies, “Classic Rock Week with Stewart Copeland,” July 16-22 at 8p. For seven nights, the legendary drummer will help tell the stories of 19 of rock’s most influential artists with a line-up of rock docs. First up: Everyone Stares, The Police Inside Out.
Game Show Network goes behind the curtain at America’s longest-running game show in Cover Story: Access Pass: The Price Is Right, premiering Sunday, June 17 at 7p.
Body-swap movie Freaky Friday will be retold for a new generation, this time with music, premiering Friday, August 10 at 8p on Disney Channel.
Former One Tree Hill castmates Danneel Ackles, Hilarie Burton, Robert Buckley and Antwon Tanner have reunited for Lifetime movie The Christmas Contract. Lifetime acquired the film to add to its “It’s a Wonderful Lifetime” holiday offering.
This Is A.I., a special exploring advances in artificial intelligence and its power to transform disciplines and industries, debuts Thursday, June 21 at 9p on Discovery and Friday, June 22 at 9p on Science Channel.
Monica or Rachel, Chandler or Ross – who’s your favorite Friend? (You know you still watch.) Let us know in the new Cynopsis poll: http://cynopsis.com/poll/. (In our last poll, we asked which trash-tastic reality show you’d like to see remade. Top vote-getters? Joe Millionaire with 42%, and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo with 30%.
ADVERTISING
Six-second ads generate 8% more attention than 30-second ads on TV and 11% more attention than 15-second spots, according to a study from the Advertising Research Foundation. Data came from over 100,000 unique airings on broadcast and cable nets between November 1, 2017 and April 30, 2018, using TVision insights. Important caveat: the six-second ads were typically placed in premium positions.
More from the ARF: Consumers aren’t eager to share data that can be used to personally identify them, even if it would enhance customization of their content experience, according to a new study commissioned by the Advertising Research Foundation. Among the findings: While the overwhelming majority of adults are fine with sharing gender (95%), race or ethnicity (91%) and sexual orientation (82%), they are not willing to hand over their social security number (91%), home (57%) and work addresses (67%), any form of phone number (66% will not share home landline and 65% will not share mobile number), financial (78%) or medical information (71%). “We must respect the right to privacy and not fool ourselves that we have communicated clearly about how data are being collected and used” said Scott McDonald, president and CEO of the ARF. “Ad tech, in particular has created something of a House of Babel where we assume privacy policies filled with jargon and thousands of words of clarification are being read and understood.”
Placed Inc. is launching a new offering, “Placed Attribution for TV,” that tells advertisers which TV ads are driving actual foot traffic. Last quarter, Placed measured over $3.8 billion in TV ad spend to store visit, and has results for 100 brands across over 100 networks. Among the findings: The five best-performing TV networks when it comes to store visits are Food Network, Golf Channel, OWN, TV Land and NBC. The best day for TV ads to drive store visits for quick serve restaurants is Wednesday, while the best for casual dining is Saturday. “Placed Attribution for TV is set to deliver a new and additive metric to measuring the success of television advertising, store visits,” David Shim, founder and CEO of Placed, tells Cynopsis. “By introducing a metric that is about less audience and more direct response, Placed is giving advertisers and networks a different perspective on the value of TV advertising.”
A demand for higher-value product integrations will push the U.S. product placement marketplace over $10 billion this year, according to PQ Media. “While the number of product placements being executed per year has declined, mainly due to less background cameos, the value of brand integrations being done has increased each year since 2009,” said PQ president Patrick Quinn in MediaPost, adding that the trend is being driven by a growing number of more valuable plot integrations in media content, primarily in live TV and OTT video.
Data Plus Math has entered into a preferred partner agreement with Verance Aspect, an open watermark technology, to bring analytics and attribution measurement to broadcasters. The agreement will combine Verance Aspect data with analytics and attribution solutions from Data Plus Math aimed at providing more precise audience data and analytics to local broadcasters. “This partnership is a crucial piece toward fulfilling the promise of Next Gen TV,” says John Hoctor, co-founder and CEO of Data Plus Math. “We will be connecting the tools to enable better local programming analytics and attribution.”
More than two-thirds (67%) of consumers globally have streamed live video content and 52% of that group prefer free, ad supported live streaming over subscription and a la carte services, according to “Live Video Streaming: A Global Perspective,” a global study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. 64% of those that have streamed live video have engaged with an ad, such as pre-roll or sponsored ads, while live streaming. Viewers in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates are the most likely to engage with ads; the most common actions taken in response to seeing an ad during a live streaming session were remembering the brand that was advertised, clicking on the ad, and visiting the brands’ website.
Entravision acquired Barcelona-based digital ad tech company Smadex, a mobile programmatic solutions provider that lets advertisers execute performance campaigns on mobile devices using machine learning-assisted bidding algorithms.
CASTING
Joining the cast of Apple’s Are You Sleeping are Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Elizabeth Perkins (Weeds), Mekhi Phifer (ER), Tracie Thomas (UnReal), Haneefah Wood (Baskets) and Ron Cephas Jones, who will continue to recur on NBC’s This Is Us….Dania Ramirez (Devious Maids) landed a lead role in CBS All Access thriller Tell Me a Story….Barret Swatek (Awkward) is set to recur on Paramount’s Yellowstone.
DIGITAL DATA
Twitter is rolling out updates focused making it easier for users to follow news they’ve demonstrated interest in, including a redesigned explore tab, and curated news on top of people’s timelines. New events pages will aggregate live videos and tweets to help follow and catch up on unfolding events, and the list of trending topics will be replaced with a personalized section connecting users to tweets and videos.
Season one of Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk, hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith and family, has been extended by thirteen episodes, which will launch in the fall. “There is so much more to explore together and so many people to bring to the table to do it with us,” said Pinkett Smith. “We have learned so much along the way. With that being said, I believe, this next 13 … is going to be fire!”
DPAA, the global organization for everything digital out-of-home, has a new member: HERE Technologies. Said Barry Frey, DPAA President & CEO, “HERE has developed some tremendous location and mapping technology that has great value to the digital out-of-home industry.”
GOING GLOBAL
Peru’s Latina commissioned a second season of Armoza Formats singing competition The Four. Production is underway.
Viasat World pay-TV channel Epic Drama is now available on UPC’s platforms in Poland, Romania and Hungary. Epic Drama launched in December 2017.
