Today’s Premieres
Apple TV+: Invasion
HGTV: Bargain Block at 9p
Netflix: Destined with You; The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On

Today’s Finales
CW: Nancy Drew at 8p; Riverdale at 9p
USA: Temptation Island at 9p

IN THE NEWS

The eight Republican presidential candidates who will take part in tonight’s debate on Fox News include Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former pharmaceutical executive Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will moderate the event. After Donald Trump announced he was not to going to participate, Fox News restricted access to the post-debate spin room to aides of candidates taking part, reported Axios.

Max ordered another round of “And Just Like That…”. “We are thrilled to spend more time in the ‘Sex and The City’ universe telling new stories about the lives of these relatable and aspirational characters played by these amazing actors,” said EP Michael Patrick King. “And Just Like That… here comes season three.”

News anchor, journalist and author Wolf Blitzer and director/producer Barbara Kopple will be the Lifetime Achievement Honorees at the 44th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards. Blitzer will receive his honor at the News ceremony on Wednesday, September 27, while Kopple’s will be presented at the Documentary ceremony on Thursday, September 28.

Direct Connection, Dodge brand’s performance parts line, and “Jay Leno’s Garage” have reteamed for a new line of co-branded car care products. “When it comes to really caring about and maintaining the most amazing vehicles in the world, there’s really no one better to team up with than Jay Leno,” said Tim Kuniskis, Dodge brand CEO.

The Visual Effects Society announced the VFX practitioners who will be honored at a ceremony in October. VFX supervisor and VES founding member Tim McGovern will receive the 2023 VES Founders Award, and lifetime VES memberships have been awarded to McGovern, archivist and curator Sandra Joy Aguilar, producer and AMPAS Governor Brooke Breton and VFX artist agent and executive Bob Coleman.

The 2024 Spirit Awards will include a new television category, Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series. The event takes place Sunday, February 25.

More than half of respondents in a survey from Integral Ad Science called brand safety and suitability a top priority, and more than half of marketers said they have revised spending based on those concerns. Advertisers can achieve balance and protection, according to IAS VP of Research and Insights Jeremy Kanterman, with a strategy calling for measurement, calibration, and optimization. IAS has eight brand-safety category segments and five risk levels per category to help balance the strategy.

STRIKE UPDATES

It’s not just the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA on strike – crew members on a Food Network reality show are taking action, too. “The crew of ‘Worst Cooks in America’ are on strike in Long Island City as Bright Road Productions refuses to serve up fair wages and benefits,” posted IATSE on social media. “‘Worst Cooks’ serves up subpar wages; benefits not on the menu.” The series premiered in 2010.

Cynopsis BIG TV Conference

Time flies in the summer…

…and we’re just five weeks from the start of the BIG TV Conference in NYC. So before you get back to your warm weather bucket list, mark your calendar for September 27-28 at the Edison Ballroom!

REGISTER NOW

PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT

INSP renewed “Into the Wild Frontier” for a fourth season. The historical docudrama follows tales of survival among pioneers of the Western frontier.

Comedy Central UK has greenlit game show “Out of Order.” The series, produced by Rumpus Media and hosted by comedian Rosie Jones, starts filming in the fall for a 2024 premiere.

V10 Entertainment has partnered with digital production and distribution company Shorthand Studios to publish and distribute more than 1,000 hours of its digital content. The deal doubles their current output of digital content on YouTube and Facebook.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Paramount+’s revival of “Frasier” launches Thursday, October 12 with two episodes. The first two installments will also air on CBS on October 17 at 9:15, following a super-sized episode of “Big Brother.”

“All Rise” returns for the second of its third and final season on Saturday, September 16 at 9p. The courtroom drama premiered on CBS in 2019, and moved to OWN for season three in 2022.

Game Show Network’s “People Puzzler” has been cleared in more than 90% of the US. The Debmar-Mercury pop culture game show starring Leah Remini premieres Monday, September 11.

“Love Is Blind: After the Altar” debuts Friday, September 1 on Netflix, followed by the season five premiere of “Love Is Blind” on Friday, September 22.

BritBox will debut crime thriller series “The Sixth Commandment” in North America and political drama “This England” in the US later this year.

AXS TV has teamed with Spin Magazine for listicle series “Spin 100 Greatest Rock Stars,” premiering Monday, October 2 at 8p. “The problem with lists like this is they are invariably BS. So our prime objective was to make sure we didn’t do a BS list,” said Spin co-founder Bob Guccione Jr. “A rock star is, perhaps by definition, undefinable. They just are. They’re luminescent. Even when, in some cases, they didn’t want to be.”

BIG TV PREVIEW

One of the highlights at the Cynopsis Big TV Conference next month will be the panel “What a Brand Wants,” offering advice from brand experts on how marketers are looking to invest in a Web3 world. The discussion will be led by Rachel Herskowitz, SVP, Content Partnerships at iHeart Radio and a Cynopsis Top Women in Media recipient, and include Heineken’s US Media Director Betsy Paynter, who has worked with major brands both on the agency in-house sides. Here, Rachel and Betsy offer a preview of that timely conversation.

Rachel: The video landscape has certainly changed over the past few years. What should networks, streamers, and platforms be able to offer brands like Heineken?

Betsy: It’s a very challenging landscape right now. We went from a very reliable, well proven method of buying linear television, to a very complex, fragmented video landscape with equally fragmented reporting. Without a clear understanding of what content consumers are watching it is infinitely more challenging for marketers to feel like they are making wise investments. The number one thing that video platforms can offer is clarity and transparency into reporting. Not only how many impressions did my buy deliver, but also what is the scale of individual shows and content. Currently, it’s a black box and there must be greater transparency. We also need interoperability between platforms in order to manage the overall buys programmatically and make smarter choices when trying to reach our consumers.

Rachel: Consumer data has always been important to brands to inform strategy. How is Heineken leaning into data to inform their brand marketing campaigns? Are there new forms of data that you’re excited to use, and why?

Betsy: For Heineken, data offers a lot of opportunities. As an alcohol supplier it is vitally important that our LDA (21+) targeting is accurate and reliable. It’s also important that we can eliminate waste against those who are not interested in having a beer or hard seltzer products. As consumers taste profiles are changing and as we innovate to meet these new demands, it’s also important that we are able to sub-segment our audiences. For example, our non-alcoholic beer Heineken 0.0 is targeted to a sub segment of sober curious individuals, whereas our RTD XX Margarita is targeted to individuals who may be more likely to consume hard-seltzers, spirits and mixed drinks. As we are not a DTC company it took a little while for us to begin collecting our own 1st party datas, but now we have data collection as a shared goal across HUSA marketing and we are doing a lot to leverage that data, especially as 2024 and the decline of cookies looms imminently.

TECH TALK

Elon Musk plans to remove headlines from news articles shared on X, according to a Fortune headline. The goal is to reduce the height of the preview posts to users can see more content in a single window. The report also says the move would curb clickbait. “This is coming from me directly,” posted Musk. Will greatly improve the esthetics.”

Quotient, a digital promotions and media technology company, is launching a digital OOH platform to enable retailers to offer brands and advertisers end-to-end planning, activation, and measurement to reach customers in the physical world. “We can identify relevant screens in-store, on-site, or en route to store,” said Norm Chait, Regional Vice President of DOOH at Quotient. “Even many miles away that are seen, based on the data, to score higher against a particular brand or category buyer and drive more store visits and increase basket size.” Last November, Quotient formed a global partnership with Hivestack.

COMING UP

Demi Lovato, Karol G, Måneskin and Stray Kids are the first round of stars slated to perform at the 2023 “VMAs” on Tuesday, September 12th at 8p.

“The Bachelorette” runner-up Joey Graziadei will get a second chance at love as the star of season 28 of “The Bachelor.” Graziadei starts handing out roses next year.

“A Woman’s Prayer,” a comedy special from Kountry Wayne, premieres on Netflix on Tuesday, September 19. Stand-up comedian Wayne is currently on his “Help Is on the Way” tour. Shane Gillis (“Bupkis”) special “Beautiful Dogs” hits the streamer Tuesday, September 5.

HBO documentary “Donyale Luna: Supermodel” debuts Wednesday, September 13 at 9p. The film chronicles the life of the first Black model to grace the cover of Harper’s Bazaar (1965) and Vogue (1966).

SPORTS ROUNDUP

OutKick will host one-hour “OutKick on Fox” on Sunday, August 27 at 10p on Fox News Channel. OutKick founder Clay Travis and hosts Tomi Lahren and Charly Arnolt will offer opinions on sports, culture, and other topics, with guests Riley Gaines, host of the “Gaines for Girls” podcast, columnist Mary Katherine Ham, and former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom.

Home appliances producer Midiea announced Manchester City striker Erling Haaland as its Official Global Brand Ambassador. The announcement is the latest extension of Midea and Manchester City’s partnership that began in January 2020 and was renewed in May.

The Association of Pickleball Players has partnered with Lexus to make the car the Official Vehicle of the 2023 APP Chicago Open, held August 30 – September 3. The agreement expands the partnership between Lexus and the APP that started in 2022.

GOING GLOBAL

beIN Media Group has expanded its partnership with software provider Synamedia to add immersive capabilities for viewers across 24 countries in Middle East and North Africa. One of the new features allows sports fans to watch two live matches simultaneously on a single screen.

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RATINGS

The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 final on Fox was the most-watched non-USWNT WWC final in US English language TV history, with 1.658 million viewers and a peak of 2.446 million viewers.

Telemundo’s Spanish-language coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup scored record-breaking viewership during the Group Stage, up 57% versus 2019 held in France, highlighted by USA-Netherlands as the most-watched Group Stage Women’s World Cup match and second highest TAD ever in Spanish-language television history (only behind 2019 Final) with 1.5 million viewers.

Top 10 Basic Cable Networks for the Week of August 14
Network, P2+ AA (000)
Primetime
Fox News 1638
MSNBC 1606
NFL Network 1032
HGTV 803
CNN 770
TLC 755
Hallmark Channel 699
ESPN 683
INSP 663
USA 619
Total Day
Fox News 1100
MSNBC 10002
CNN 551
ESPN 451
HGTV 438
Hallmark Channel 391
NFL Network 367
INSP 362
USA 358
ID 322
Source: Nielsen

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Dominick Milano has been named SVP, Sales Director and Programmatic Audio Lead for Katz Digital Audio. Most recently, Milano served as SVP of Sales and Business Development for Azerion North America (formerly known as Targetspot).

Kids At Play has promoted coordinator Lexi Campbell to Manager of Production and Development, where she will take on a more involved position contributing to the company’s slate of scripted and unscripted projects, as well as their latest forays in the book, app, and game space.

Asylum Entertainment Group has tapped Chris Corcoran to run Audity as GM and Chief Content Officer. Corcoran is a Founding Partner of Cadence13.

Buzzer has hired Liz Villafan as VP of Digital Entertainment and Consumer Technology. At Amazon, Villafan oversaw the PR strategy for Alexa’s entertainment capabilities.

This Day in History
1933 – The first televised boxing match aired, on the BBC.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which drama aired from 2005-2009 on NBC, then moved to CBS for two more seasons? “Medium.” Kudos to: Ken DuBow-Access Entertainment/LA; Lorrie Shilling/El Segundo, CA; Justin Pierce-JP Consulting Group/LA; David Garber-Loyola Marymount University/Playa Vista, CA; Ted Linhart-NBCU/NYC; Aaron Goldman-CampNova TV/NYC; Louis Lewow-FITE/Atlanta; Aaron Paquette-AccelerateSG/Fort Worth, TX; Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing Inc./NYC

Today’s Trivia Question
Which series was spun off from a season three episode of “The Rookies” (1972-76)? (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.)

Cynopsis Team