IN THE NEWS

ABC News landed the first joint interview with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. World News Tonight anchor David Muir and GMA co-anchor Robin Roberts will quiz the pair for a special slated to air Sunday, August 23, as well as appear in segments on other ABC shows.

Tracee Ellis Ross (black-ish), Kerry Washington (Scandal) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep) have been added to the lineup at this week’s Democratic National Convention. Ross appears tonight, Washington on Wednesday and Louis-Dreyfus on Thursday.

CBS All Access animated series Tooning Out the News will deliver convention coverage, with special guests beginning tonight with Major Garrett, Chief Washington Correspondent for CBS News; followed on Wednesday by Sarah McBride, Democratic candidate for the US Senate; political advisor Jennifer Palmieri on Thursday; and Rep. Jim Himes on Friday.

As America’s Got Talent judge Simon Cowell recovers from back surgery, SNL’s Kenan Thompson will guest judge the NBC competition series this week, starting tonight. Last week, Kelly Clarkson subbed for Cowell.

Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) has joined the season three cast of Amazon’s The Boys. And at least one person will be super happy to see him on set. “Jensen is an amazing actor, an even better person, smells like warm chocolate chip cookies, and I consider him a brother,” said showrunner, EP (and Supernatural creator) Eric Kripke. “As Soldier Boy, the very first Superhero, he’ll bring so much humor, pathos, and danger to the role. I can’t wait to be on set with him again, and bring a bit of Supernatural to The Boys.”

Speaking of Supernatural, the first of the CW series’ seven final episodes is set to launch Thursday, October 8 at 8p, with a series finale slated for November 19. The net’s fall season kicks off Friday, September 18 with the season seven premiere of Masters of Illusion at 8p, followed by the series debut of World’s Funniest Animals at 9p. Season two of Pandora premieres Sunday, October 4 at 8p, followed two nights later by the broadcast premiere of Swamp Thing. Conspiracy thriller Devils has its CW debut on Wednesday, October 7 at 8p, followed by the season two launch of Coroner. Fantasy adventure The Outpost kicks off season three on Thursday, October 8 at 9p, and Tell Me a Story returns for its sophomore run on Tuesday, October 13 at 9p.

Sara Haines is making a comeback as co-host for ABC daytimer The View, launching season 24 in September. Haines, who is replacing Abby Huntsman, co-hosted The View from 2016 until 2018, when she left to host the now-canceled third hour of GMA with Michael Strahan.

The Crown has cast its Di. Elizabeth Debicki (The Tenet) will play Princess Diana for the final two seasons of the Netflix series. Emma Corrin is playing Diana on the upcoming season four; season five is expected to premiere in 2022.

Apple ordered country music contest My Kind of Country from Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, country music manager Jason Owen, and Izzie Pick Ibarra (The Masked Singer). The series will be executive produced by Done + Dusted.

HGTV has picked up a sophomore season of Rock the Block, set to launch in early 2021. The competition series attracted more than 20.3 million total viewers in its debut season. In season two, four pairs of HGTV renovation experts will team up to take on identical three-story suburban properties and transform them into custom dream homes – in only one month and on a $175,000 budget .

WWE live events are transitioning to a virtual arena experience. WWE ThunderDome,, featuring a state-of-the-art set, video boards, pyrotechnics, lasers, graphics and drone cameras, starts Friday, August 21 at 8p on Fox’s Friday Night SmackDown; USA Network’s Monday Night RAW airs Monday, August 24 at 8p. “WWE has a long history of producing the greatest live spectacles in sports and entertainment, yet nothing compares to what we are creating with WWE ThunderDome,” said Kevin Dunn, WWE EVP, Television Production. “This structure will enable us to deliver an immersive atmosphere and generate more excitement amongst the millions of fans watching our programming around the world.”

Ewan McGregor (Birds of Prey) will narrate Love Nature’s Stormborn. The three-part natural history series was filmed in Norway, Scotland and Iceland.

TECH TALK

First-party data platform Dynata has integrated with Google’s Ads Data Hub, enabling brands to measure the performance of their ad campaigns running on YouTube. Dynata has a panel of 62 million consumers worldwide. Google announced in January that it planned to end support for third-party tracking cookies in its Chrome browser within two years, prompting a scramble for solutions following the phase-out.

Movies Anywhere, which brings users’ movie collections from across digital retailers, devices and platforms, has linked up to DirecTV. Movies Anywhere recently launched a co-viewing feature enabling users to watch together via a synced experience across devices.

Havas Media has joined Prebid.org, created to improve programmatic trading transparency, as its first agency dues-paying member. “The digital media landscape is mired by opaque practices,” said Havas Media North America CEO Colin Kinsella. “At Havas Media, we invest in media that matters and are deeply aligned in Prebid’s mission to execute open-source projects for the betterment of the digital media industry.”

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Netflix comedy The Duchess debuts Friday, September 11. The series, created by and starring Katherine Ryan, follows the “powerful and problematic choices of a fashionably disruptive single mom living in London.”

Also coming up on Netflix is Sneakerheads, a six-episode comedy from Complex Networks about a former sneakerhead turned stay-at-home dad who enlists fellow shoe lovers to help him score a pair of kicks that could get him out of debt.

Frozen lakes filled with bones…mummified bodies in a glacier…a 30,000-year-old frozen virus (!!!). Science Channel series Secrets in the Ice uses state of the art archaeological techniques and CGI animation to spotlight mysteries in some of the coldest place on Earth, starting Thursday, August 20 at 10p.

Disney+’s first original talk show, Earth to Ned, premieres Friday, September 4. Produced by The Jim Henson Company, Earth to Ned is hosted by alien commander Ned and his lieutenant Cornelius, who call off the invasion of Earth after they fall in love with human cultre.

Season two of My Game: Tiger Woods will be released on GolfTV globally on Thursday, August 20. In the ten-parter, Woods offers his shotmaking secrets. The show was filmed in Jupiter, Florida in June, with COVID-19 safety precautions in place.

Syndicated talker Tamron Hall returns for season two on Monday, September 14, broadcast from the show’s New York studio.

STREAMING SCOOP

Hulu is thinking small. The SVOD has launched creative advertising services for small- and medium-sized businesses, providing access to creative partners who can create unique, rather than template, commercials. In July, Hulu launched a “self-service” tool to make it easier for small businesses to buy ads on its service.

Disney and Verizon have expanded their distribution partnership to give customers of Verizon’s “Play More Unlimited” and “Get More Unlimited” packages the full Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ bundle at no charge for a year. “The addition of The Disney Bundle to our agreement with Verizon reinforces our commitment to providing their subscribers with access to high-quality entertainment from Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+,” said Sean Breen, EVP of Platform Distribution for Disney. “We are always looking for the most advantageous ways for consumers to experience our content.”

To avoid conflicting with the Democratic convention, fundraiser Feelin’ A-Live, a star-studded virtual table read of 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, has been moved from Thursday, August 20 to Friday, August 21 at 8p. Jimmy Kimmel and Brad Pitt will join previously announced participants Jennifer Aniston, Dane Cook, Morgan Freeman, Henry Golding, Shia LaBeouf, Matthew McConaughey, Sean Penn, and Julia Robert for the “unrehearsed, anything goes” table read.

Comedy Dynamics launched its comedy app on Roku. Available free to Roku users, the library of stand-up comedy specials includes performances from Jim Gaffigan, Whitney Cummings, Janeane Garofalo and more.

Cloudco Entertainment, owner of entertainment brand Care Bears, signed a long-term deal with Moonbug, the digital kids media company, for content creation, distribution and management of the Care Bears YouTube channel. Cloudco and Moonbug partnered to produce a YouTube-first show featuring the Care Bears characters and original pop music.

Animal brand The Dodo announced the launch of a new pet health and wellness destination, DodoWell, with exclusive launch sponsor Petco. DodoWell spotlights pet wellness resources, curated pet product picks and expert advice. “We’ve taken caring for animals from a niche cause into the mainstream,” said The Dodo’s President, YuJang Kim. “97% of our audience consider their pets as family members, which is why we decided to lean into our fans’ love for The Dodo’s content to create the go-to destination and community.”

With a 35% rise in engement for kids and family content since COVID-19 hit, Vizio has added 12 free linear kids and family channels to its SmartCast platform. “With the uncertainty of the upcoming school year, parents will be looking for alternate ways to entertain and educate their children from inside the home,” said Katherine Pond, VP of Business Development.

News brand NowThis will exclusively stream The Future is Now, a virtual community conversation about increasing Latino representation. Presented by the Latino Victory Project and featuring special guests Joe Biden and Lin-Manuel Miranda, as well as Latino artists and elected officials, the event will stream as part of the Democratic National Convention events today, August 18 at 3:30p.

COMING UP

#SayHerName, Justice For Breonna Taylor, will premiere Saturday, August 22 at 9p on BET Her. Produced by NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving, the the one-hour special examines how the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT who was fatally shot in her home by Louisville police enforcement executing a no-knock search warrant, highlights the lack of awareness around Black women victims of police brutality. The show will feature panel conversations with voices on the frontlines of the movement, including Irving, artist Common, journalist Jemele Hill, author Dr. Brittney Cooper, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham, and Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza. An encore presentation will air Saturday, August 29 at 11p on BET.

HISTORY recounts the events of September 11, 2001 with two new one-hour documentaries: 9/11: The Final Minutes of Fight 93, and 9/11: The Pentagon, premiering Friday, September 11 at 8p and 9p. Original eight-part podcast, Blindspot: The Road to 9/11, co-produced in partnership with WNYC Studios, will tell the story of the lead-up to the tragic day.

Add Miley Cyrus to the list of performers for the MTV VMAs, airing live on Sunday, August 30 at 8p. Cyrus will perform her just-released single, “Midnight Sky.”

A special edition of True Royalty TV’s talk show The Royal Beat will feature the first in-person interview with Omid Scobie, co-author of Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family. The show will be available across all platforms starting Wednesday, August 19.

GOING GLOBAL

Canadian house expert and host Bryan Baeumier is building new audiences with the acquisition of Bryan Inc. by HGTV in the US and Imagine Media in Israel, which also picked up House of Bryan and Leave It to Bryan.

Shareablee Top 10 TV Shows for the week of August 10
Program, Network, Total Actions, Total Content, Actions per Content, Fans & Followers
E! News 13.3M, 635, 21,003, 37.8M
Hannity 3.2M, 296, 10,958, 9.5M
The Daily Show 3.1M, 132, 23,327, 25.4M
The Rachel Maddow Show 2.2M, 84, 26,014, 12.8M
Today Show 2.0M, 949, 2,062, 13.7M
Entertainment Tonight 1.7M, 540, 3,163, 9.1M
World of Dance 1.4M, 152, 9,453, 5.9M
Good Morning America 1.4M, 856, 1,605, 14.0M
Fox & Friends 1.3M, 102, 12,554, 4.8M
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 907.1K, 95, 9,549, 7.3M

Shareablee Top 10 Streaming Shows for the week of August 10
Program, Platform, Total Actions, Total Content, Actions per Content, Fans & Followers
Umbrella Academy 5.4M, 56, 97,159, 2.8M
Lucifer 340.2K, 19, 17,906, 5.7M
Netflix Is A Joke 284.6K, 48, 5,929, 2M
Cursed 254K, 32, 7,936, 185.8K
Black Clover on Funimation 200.7K, 15, 13,382, 639.7K
Toei Animation (US) 183.2K, 35, 5,233, 1.4M
One Piece 174K, 11, 15,815, 3M
The Crown 147.6K, 6, 24,595, 1.2M
The Boys 140.7K, 22, 6,396, 589.5K
Trailer Park Boys 103.8K, 19, 5,466, 2.9M

TV Time’s Shows on the Rise for the Week of August 10
Teenage Bounty Hunters (Netflix) – 99.9%
Glow Up: Britain’s Next Make-Up Star (BBC Three) – 94%
3% (Netflix) – 92.2%
The Big Show Show (Netflix) – 89.8%
Dirty John (USA) – 87.8%
Infinity Train (Cartoon Network) – 86%
Family Reunion (Netflix) – 80.1%
Greenleaf (OWN) – 76.7%
Rita (TV 2) – 75.8%
Mr. Iglesias (Netflix) 73.6%
Methodology: Every week, millions of viewers around the world use TV Time to track their favorite series. “Shows on the Rise” is calculated by determining the week-over-week growth in episodes watched for a given program.

Broadcast Nielsen Ratings for Friday, August 14
Show, P2+ 0000s, (A18-49)
ABC: Shark Tank 2.59 (0.4), 20/20 2.52 (0.4)
CBS: The Greatest #AtHome Videos 3.83 (0.4), Magnum P.I. 3.18 (0.3), Blue Bloods 3.68 (0.3)
CW: Masters of Illusion 0.43 (0.1), Being Reuben 0.20 (0.0), Being Reuben 0.16 (0.0)
FOX: WWE Friday Night Smackdown 2.00 (0.6)
NBC: The Wall 2.17 (0.3), Dateline Classic 2.89 (0.4)
Telemundo: Exatlon Estados Unidos 1.01 (0.3), Cennet 1.15 (0.3), Enemigo Intimo 0.73 (0.2)
Univision: Rosa de Guadelupe 1.17 (0.3), Medicos Linea di Vida 1.34 (0.4), Como Tu No Hay 1.59 (0.5)
Source: Nielsen live + same day time period averages

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Virtual entertainment experience company Wave hired Tina Rubin as CMO. Rubin joins from Netflix, where she was Head of Strategy and Consumer Marketing.

Leigh Kittay has joined Black Bear as Head of Film. Kittay previously held that role for 26 Keys. Black Bear’s Ben Stillman will move from SVP of feature films to run the newly created Black Bear Television.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which series was set in the year 2517? Firefly (2002). Kudos to: Marni C. Gold/Hawthorne, NJ, Jeremy Cyril-Just Ducky/Toronto, Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton, FL, Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing Inc./NYC, AJ Feuerman-@ajfeuerman Communications/LA, Paul Blutter-Walk and Talk Production Rentals/Burbank, David Garber-Loyola Marymount University/Playa Vista, CA, Bob Telford-SAG-AFTRA/Valley Village, CA

Today’s Trivia Question
What was Stockard Channing’s first TV role? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four per time zone.)