Tonight’s Finales
E!: Celebrity Game Face at 9:30p
FYI: Barrett-Jackson Revved Up at 11p
HBO Agents of Chaos at 9p
TBS: Last Resort at 10p
UPtv: Bringing Up Bates at 9p

IN THE NEWS

Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers were picked up for two more seasons at Fox, taking the animated series through a 20th and 13th season, respectively. “Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers are key pillars of our network’s success,” said Michael Thorn, President of Entertainment for Fox Entertainment. “By taking the genre to new heights and driving pop culture in meaningful ways, they’ve laid the foundation for making Animation Domination one of the most powerful programming blocks in all of television.”

ViacomCBS Entertainment & Youth Group announced a First Time Directors program with executive producer deals with Angela Bassett, Idris Elba, Salma Hayek, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, John Leguizamo, Eva Longoria and Courtney B. Vance and their respective production companies.

With Hallmark Channel’s “Countdown to Christmas” and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries’ “Miracles of Christmas” kicking off on Friday, October 23, Crown Media Family Networks announced its 2020 holiday campaign. On the programming front, there will be holiday-centric episodes lifestyle series Home & Family. Meanwhile, Hallmark stars are returning in new projects, including Candace Cameron Bure (Fuller House) in movie, If I Only Had Christmas, and Lacey Chabert (Mean Girls) in two flicks, Time for Us to Come Home for Christmas and Christmas Waltz.

Plimsoll Productions announced the full acquisition of Andrea Jackson’s distributor Magnify Media. With access to Plimsoll’s resources and infrastructure, Magnify, which took a minority stake in the company in 2016, expects to continue to expand. Magnify represent titles from leading rights owners such as Argonon, Rare TV, NRK YLE, Seventh Art Productions, Kite Entertainment and CNN International.

ELECTION 2020

Seth Meyers is heading to primetime with an election special. The Late Night with Seth Meyers host will headline Closer Look Thursday on October 8 at 8:30p on NBC. Filmed live from Studio 8G at 30 Rock, the special will delve into events of the day, breaking news and important facts as Americans get ready to cast their vote.

Two more networks have boosted their pre-election content. ABC News is adding Your Voice, Your Vote: The Breakdown to streaming channel ABC News Live. Anchored by Diane Macedo and Terry Moran, the show will dive into an issue and provide context with first-hand accounts from people across the country whose lives are being affected. The show premiere on Monday, September 28 at 3p.

NBC News unveiled a national polling average and has collaborated with TargetSmart to offer an analysis of early voting nationally in states where information is available. Meanwhile, Swing the Election, another tool in collaboration with Cook Political, features data on changes in turnout and support among different demographic groups.

HBO Max issued a straight-to-series order to Peacemaker, based on the upcoming film, Suicide Squad, starring John Cena. The film’s writer and director, James Gunn, is set to write the series and direct multiple episodes, including the pilot. Cena will reprise his role from the movie.

HGTV picked up six additional episodes of Bargain Mansions. To date, the series’ third season is its highest rated yet, attracting 17.6 million total viewers.

Discovery ordered wildlife series The Bond. Executive produced by Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey and Emily Barclay Ford of Team Downey and writer/producer Glen Zipper (Dogs), the program explores the bond between animals and humans.

Amazon grabbed the rights to adapt Demi Moore’s erotic drama podcast Dirty Diana to adapt for TV. Moore is attached to star in the project, while the podcast’s creator, Shana Feste (Endless Love) is set to direct. Loosely inspired by the story of a fractured moment in Feste’s marriage, Dirty Diana examines how a couple can find their way back to one another through perseverance, connection and sex.

Nickelodeon greenlit Brendar the Barbarian (wt), a live-action puppet comedy series from co-creators Mike Mitchell (Trolls, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part) and puppeteer Drew Massey (Mutt & Stuff, Sid the Science Kid). The series follows Evan, a bridge troll in search of adventure, and Brendar, a fierce female warrior, on a quest to defeat an evil demon.

Francesca Sloane (Atlanta, Fargo) has inked an overall deal with Amazon Studios to create content to premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video worldwide. The writer-producer’s first project is a series based on the works of Anais Nin.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

David Letterman’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction returns on Wednesday, October 21 on Netflix. The show’s third season features one-on-one interviews with Kim Kardashian West, Robert Downey Jr., Dave Chappelle and Lizzo.

Amazon premieres Nick Frost and Simon Pegg’s supernatural comedy Truth Seekers on Friday, October 30. The series centers on a team of part-time paranormal investigators who work to uncover and film ghost sightings across the UK.

A new season of BBC America’s Top Gear debuts Sunday, October 18 at 8p, as hosts Paddy McGuinness, Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris tackle a new array of motoring challenges. The episode airs immediately following the current season’s finale.

The former president of J. Crew is the focus of Stylish with Jenna Lyons, landing Thursday, November 26 on HBO Max. The show follows Lyons as she starts a new business in the home, beauty and fashion space.

COMING UP

PBS presents RBG: Her Legacy & The Court’s Future, A PBS NewsHour Special on Thursday, September 24 at 8p (check local listings) examines the life of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and explores the process of filling the vacant Supreme Court seat.

Also from PBS, Not Done: Women Remaking America debuts Tuesday, October 27 at 8p. The documentary film from Sara Wolitzky surveys the landscape of the women’s movement and features interviews with America Ferrera, Natalie Portman, Shonda Rhimes and Gloria Steinem.

Hollywood Foreign Press Association released details of their upcoming annual grants presentation, “HFPA Philanthropy: Empowering the Next Generation.” James Corden will host the virtual event taking place on Tuesday, October 13 at 5p on the Golden Globes YouTube channel and website. Participants will include Mary J. Blige, Millie Bobby Brown, George Clooney, Salma Hayek, Anna Kendrick, Nicole Kidman and more.

The Paley Center for Media released its lineup of bosses set to attend its 25th annual International Council Summit, including Mike Bloomberg, Ted Sarandos and Vice Media CEO Nancy Dubuc. Titled “Globally Connected: Media in the 21st Century, the summit aims to gather leaders from today’s top media and tech companies to exchange ideas and foster a sense of community.

Hillary Clinton sits down for an episode of Kal Penn Approves This Message, airing Tuesday, September 29 at 10:30p on Freeform. Clinton discusses higher education and the importance of the youth vote.

A National Geographic documentary film from Sebastian Junger and Nick Quested explores the factors that have made it impossible for everyday people in Mexico and Central America find justice. Blood on the Wall premieres on Wednesday, September 30 at 9p.

SOCIAL GOOD

Univision Communications Inc. partnered with Pitbull to provide tablets to students in public and charter schools in predominantly Hispanic communities. As part of the effort, students received 1,000 Amazon Fire tablet to help them navigate a school year where many districts have transitioned to a remote learning model.

RESEARCH

Jose Antonios Vargas’ media advocacy group, Define American, partnered with the Norman Lear Center at USC Annenberg to release its second annual “Change the Narrative, Change the World” report. The findings reveal that the portrayal of immigrants on television is getting slightly better, but there’s work to be done for more accurate representation. The report, analyzing 129 unique immigrant characters across 97 episodes of 59 scripted TV shows on broadcast, cable and streaming platforms, airing between August 2018 and July 2019, showed that 22% of immigrant characters are associated with some sort of crime, an overrepresentation, although it is down from 34% in 2018. There was a huge drop of immigrant characters with an accent from 77% to 47%. In addition, 63% of immigrant-identifying characters were undocumented or asylum seekers, while the real-world figure is only 24 %.

STREAMING SNIPPETS

CBS TV Studios licensed the first seasons of Evil and The Unicorn to Netflix in advance of the shows’ upcoming second seasons on CBS. The deal is for one year and not exclusive, with the first seasons of both series continuing to stream on CBS All Access. Netflix introduces its new additions on Thursday, October 1.

FilmRise acquired exclusive streaming rights to Beyond Belief: Fact of Fiction for North America, the UK, Germany, Australia and New Zealand in a deal with Dick Clark Productions. Each episode of the cult anthology series presents several stories that appear to defy logic – the supernatural, ghosts, psychic phenomena and more, and offers viewers a chance to decide what’s fact and what’s fiction.

TECH TALK

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter took a big step forward toward a new self-regulatory process negotiated by the World Federal of Advertisers. The three platforms agreed to adopt a common set of definitions of hate speech and other harmful content, and to collaborate on the development of industry monitoring efforts that would help curtail harmful content being distributed in the future. The agreement, which comes after 15 months of “intensive talks” between marketers, agencies and digital platforms under the auspices of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, contains four key areas for action: adoption of GARM common definitions for harmful content; development of GARM reporting standards on harmful content; commitment to have independent oversight on operations, integrations and reporting; and commitment to develop and deploy tools that better manage advertising adjacency. Three other platforms, TikTok, Pinterest and Snap have also given firm commitments to provide plans for developing similar controls by the year’s end.

Amobee struck a partnership with Lotame for global social audience activation. The deal allows advertisers to reach custom audience segments across major social networks. Now available in all global markets, this offering will drive customer insights and turn personas into addressable advertising for enhanced audience targeting and activation across Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Twitter.

MarketCast is buying Deductive, a big data service provider to US media and consumer electronics companies. The deal is aimed at helping studio clients better predict audience behavior, including box office and PVOD consumption, and determine how best to target marketing dollars.

CASTING

Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey), Rupert Friend (Strange Angel) and Sienna Miller (The Loudest Voice) have been set as the lead cast in upcoming Netflix series Anatomy of a Scandal.

GOING GLOBAL

Distro TV added Law&Crime to its lineup. The network offers coverage of multiple trials daily, as well as original legal and true crime series.

India’s streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar acquired the rights to Dabangg. The animated family show, from Cosmos-Maya and Arbaaz Khan Productions, is based on the Bollywood franchise of the same name.

Comedy Central UK greenlit two new programs: Guessable, a play-along panel show, and topical TV round-up Channel Hopping with John Richardson

TAC Studios, the production arm of The Africa Channel, secured several licensing deals for lifestyle shows with l broadcast and digital networks in the US and around the globe. Networks include Tastemade (US), SBS Food (Australia), Radio Television Brunei (RTB), Discovery Networks (Middle East and Africa), OSN (Middle East) and SABC (South Africa).

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
What was the name of the TV show where Karen briefly worked on Knots Landing (1979-1993)? Open Mike. Kudos to: David Young-Disney/NYC; Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing Inc./NYC; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton, FL; Len Klatt-The Winning Run/Los Angeles, CA; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/Los Angeles, CA; Paul Blutter-Walk and Talk Production Rentals/Burbank, CA; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank, CA

Today’s Trivia Question
What song was the title character on Frasier (1993-2004) forced to sing on PBS? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four.)