PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
Viceland greenlit American Junkie, a 10-episode docu-reality series about the country’s opioid crisis. The project, a spinoff of indie feature documentary American Relapse from filmmaker Pat McGee and Jenny Daly’s T Group Productions, is set to premiere on Tuesday, September 12 at 10p.
FOX announced orders for three new series at its TCA panel yesterday. Mental Samurai, hosted and produced by Rob Lowe, is being described as the first-ever obstacle course for the mind. From Warner Horizon Unscripted & Alternative Television and Arthur Smith’s A. Smith & Co. Productions, it’s slated to premiere during the 2018-2019 season.
The network is also moving forward with celebrity singing competition The Masked Singer, based on the hit South Korean format. Nick Cannon will host, with the show also featuring Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke. A January 2019 is slated.
Last but not least, FOX is proceeding with a high-stakes show titled Spin the Wheel. Co-created and executive produced by Justin Timberlake and hosted by Dax Shepard, competition offers contestants a chance to win over $20 million per episode.
Nickelodeon is developing Meet the Voxels (wt), an original virtual and augmented reality series from Chris Young, Senior Vice President of Nickelodeon’s Entertainment Lab.
Jill Scott (Why Did I Get Married?, Baggage Claim) and Michelle Buteau (Broad City, Key & Peele) are set as two of the leads in Paramount Network’s First Wives Club. The dramedy series is based on the 1996 film from Paramount Pictures and hails from Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip) and Paramount Television.
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
Bravo Media’s Married to Medicine returns Sunday, September 2 at 8p
A&E Network tells the stories and explores the triumphs of families raising adolescents with Tourette Syndrome in six-part docuseries Raising Tourette’s. Premieres Wednesday, August 15 at 10p, following the season premiere of Born This Way at 8p.
Lackluster Southern homes get a complete overall from house flippers Ken and Anita Corsini in the sophomore season of Flip or Flop Atlanta, bowing Thursday, September 13 at 9p on HGTV.
TLC gets a little bit country with new series Little Life on the Prairie. Show follows a little couple’s pregnancy journey while they adjust to country life and running a farm. Debuts Monday, August 20 at 10p.
COMING UP
NOVA joins the Department of Defense and an international expedition team in NOVA LAST B-24, premiering Wednesday, November 7 at 9p on PBS (check local listings).
Disney Channel new original movie, Freaky Friday, starring Cozi Zuehlsdorff and Heidi Blickenstaff, debuts Friday, August 10 at 8p.
DISTRIBUTION
Television Dominicana reached a multi-year deal with Dominican Professional Baseball Winter League to air games on the network. Beginning October, viewers will have access to up to seven games per week. The 2018-2019 regular season will run through December with playoffs starting in January.
CASTING
Michael Kelly (House of Cards) landed a series regular role on Season 2 of Amazon Prime’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan… Julia Ormand will star in BBC One drama Gold Digger… Donald Faison (Ray Donovan) and Eric Nelsen (A Walk Among the Tombstones) landed key series regular roles in USA Network’s crime thriller pilot Erase… Kaitlin Olson (The Mick) is returning to FOX as the co-star opposite Leah Remini in an untitled comedy pilot.
DIGITAL DATA
Comcast and Amazon have reached an agreement to launch Prime Video on Comcast’s Xfinity X1 platform. It’s the first time Amazon Prime Video content would be integrated on an MVPD platform in the US. The plan is similar to Netflix and YouTube’s integrations on X1, giving the #1 U.S. cable distributor more digital options than its competitors.
Apple has become the first publicly private-sector company in history to reach $1 trillion in market valuation. The company’s share price jumped earlier in the week, following a record June earnings report fueled by IPhone sales and growth in other parts of the company. On Thursday, Apple’s shares were trading at $206.81.
Smithsonian Channel officially launched its 4K On Demand Model with DirecTV. The channel was the first linear US network to offer a 4K On Demand model to MVPDs in 2017, and has already launched 4K content with Layer3 TV/T-Mobile, Altice USA and DISH network.
Crunchyroll premiered its first documentary, featuring Green Bay Packers defensive end Michael Daniels Jr., on Thursday, August 2. He Was Anime focuses on the impact anime has had on Daniels’ life, childhood and career. “For our first documentary project, we couldn’t have asked for a better subject than Pro Bowler Mike Daniels. On top of his fame, Mike embodies the joy and appreciation within the anime community and illustrates what a positive impact anime can have on its fans,” Jennifer Corbett, Head of Audience Development and Brand, Crunchyroll, tells Cynopsis. “You could never exhaust the endless hours of anime on Crunchyroll, but I believe there is an opportunity to present more high-quality content about the anime fans love. No other players in our space are doing this in the way that Crunchyroll can. We hope stories like He Was Anime delight fans and intrigue new viewers to see what the hype is all about!”
CuriosityStream announced a new, sponsored-supported “showcase” service designed for free universal consumer OTT access and distribution partner use as global subscribers near the one million mark. CuriosityStream SHOWCASE is available globally. Sprint is the first of six category-exclusive brands on the re-launched platform, which will also include five other exclusive sponsors before the year’s end in categories like automotive, insurance, banking, pharmaceuticals and aerospace.
Kin added new talent and programming to its “neighborhood” network, comprised of interconnected family-friendly channels across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram TV and Amazon. The lifestyle entertainment company signed Jordin Sparks (American Idol) and The Bachelorette’s JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers and unveiled plans for Vanessa Lachey’s debut series, Beauty School Knockout.
GOING GLOBAL
Sacha Baron Cohen’s Spelthorne Community Television is producing Outrageously Funny for Viacom’s Channel 5 in the UK. The six-part show will feature Britain’s most boundary-pushing comedians (because, Sacha).
NBC Universal International Formats secured a deal with Fuji TV to remake Suits in Japan. It’s the second adaptation for the USA Network legal drama, which also sold the format to KBS in South Korea. The Japanese version is being produced by Fuji TV with Kyodo Television and will debut in October.
DHX Brands inked nine new consumer products licensees for its Teletubbies brand in South Korea, following the recent launch of the new Teletubbies series on the country’s leading public broadcaster KBS and on streaming services Naver TV and Naver Junior.
All3Media International builds on the success of The Broken Mysteries in Europe with German broadcaster DAS ERSTE picking up the hit detective drama from South Pacific Pictures.