A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HALLMARK CHANNEL

Jingling All the Way to #1

Hallmark Channel
#1 Most-Watched Network
in 4th Quarter

Often Imitated, Never Duplicated
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Today’s Premieres
Disney+: National Treasure: Edge of History
Hulu: Grails: When Sneakers Changed the Game
Netflix: Don’t Pick Up the Phone; Glitter; Blood Ties; Too Hot to Handle
Science Channel: Engineering on the Edge at 10p
TLC: Awake Surgery at 10p
Travel Channel: Merry Scary Christmas at 9p; Tidings of Terror at 10p

Today’s Finales
CBS: Survivor at 8p
Fox: LEGO Masters at 8p
HBO: Shaq at 9p

IN THE NEWS

NBC has renewed “Quantum Leap” for a second season. The reboot is delivering 10.8 million viewers across platforms and a 2.0 rating among A18-49, and is NBC’s best drama launch on Peacock.

Netflix’s “Bake Squad” also scored a season two renewal – and it sounds like the cooking competition is getting hotter. “In our second season we are taking it up a notch with even more spectacular and innovative creations that will blow people’s minds,” said executive producer Yasmin Shackleton. Not coming back to the streamer is “Warrior Nun”; season two of the fantasy drama dropped November 10.

Starz has canceled “Step Up” after three seasons. The drama ran on YouTube for two seasons, then was picked up for a third by Starz after YouTube shifted focus away from scripted originals.

Also over at Starz is “Dangerous Liaisons.” The historical drama had been renewed for a second season last month ahead of its series premiere but failed to find an audience that matched expectations.

Season three of “Sanditon” will be its last – and best? “It’s a thrill to be bringing ‘Sanditon’ back to audiences for one more trip to the seaside,” said Belinda Campbell, Executive Producer for Red Planet Pictures. “This third and final season is full of the heart and joyful spirit that viewers will connect with.” The Masterpiece drama returns for its final PBS run on March 19 at 9p.

The Tony Awards are on the move. Set for Sunday, June 11 on CBS and Paramount+, the ceremony will broadcast not from the theater district but from the United Palace in upper Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood. The United Palace opened in 1930 as one of Loew’s five “Wonder Theatres.”

A retrans fee dispute could black out Nexstar Media Group stations in Comcast markets. In addition to the usual tussle over payments for carriage is an ongoing lawsuit over Nextstar’s management of WPIX-TV in New York City, which Comcast claims violates federal ownership rules. Nexstar started warning customers about a possible blackout earlier this week.

ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” FX’s “The Bear,” HBO Max’s “Station Eleven” and Apple TV+’s “Severance” landed the most TV nominations for the 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards, with three each. The ceremony will be held March 4.

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PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT

Love Nature has greenlit a second season of “Wildlife ER” and will premiere the first season of the series across its linear PayTV channels and FAST platforms simultaneously. It’s Love Nature’s first original production to premiere in the FAST space.

The Lionsgate Television Group inked an overall deal with Rachelle Williams-BenAry (“Run the World,” “Love Life”) to write and produce scripted content. “Since working on ‘Love Life,’ I’ve gotten to know the incredible and supportive team at Lionsgate,” said Williams-BenAry. “I am so honored by this huge vote of confidence.”

FX has ordered a pilot for “Peep Show,” inspired by the UK comedy about the relationship between an assistant and her boss, an unstable tech entrepreneur. The series comes from writer and producer Stefani Robinson (“What We Do in the Shadows”); FX Productions is producing.

Trioscope, the entertainment and technology company behind Netflix’s “The Liberator,” has closed the first tranche of bridge financing, led by Krafton, Inc., a collective of independent development studios that invests across multimedia entertainment. Trioscope licenses its proprietary technology via Trioscope Platform, enabling third-party filmmakers and content producers to create visually arresting worlds at a budget price.

Casting notes: Garcelle Beauvais (“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”) has joined the cast of Hulu’s “The Other Black Girl” in a recurring role…. Luke Kirby (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), Ashley Madekwe (“Summering”) and Gustaf Hammarsten (“Old”) will star alongside Edgar Ramirez and Mandy Moore in season two of Peacock anthology series “Dr. Death.”

Wild Card Creative Group has inked a strategic partnership with Skip Chaisson through which his production shingle Skip Film will set up shop under the WCCG umbrella. Skip Film will also collaborate with WCCG’s creative content studio, 3AM.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Apple TV+ series “The Reluctant Traveler,” hosted by Eugene Levy (“Schitt’s Creek”), premieres February 24. The eight-parter follows Levy to destinations in Costa Rica, Finland, Italy, Japan, Maldives, Portugal, South Africa and the US.

Circle Network has acquired “Friday Night Lights” (2006-11), which makes its debut on the country lifestyle net on Monday, January 2 at 8p. “What makes ‘Friday Night Lights’ such an iconic show is that it’s not about football,” said Evan Haiman, SVP Content, Circle Television. “Football is played in the fictional town of Dillon, the show is about families and American towns, and that’s truly who our audience is at Circle.” The drama aired on NBC for two seasons, before moving to DirecTV’s 101 Network.

Upcoming CNN series include “Giuliani: What Happened to America’s Mayor?”, premiering with two episodes on Sunday, January 8 at 9p and 10p, along with “United States of Scandal with Jake Tapper”; and “Vegas” (w/t) making their debuts later in the year.

Six-part docuseries “Gold, Lies & Videotape,” following the case of missing treasure in a New Mexico desert, premieres Friday, January 13 at 9p on Discovery Channel.

Hulu’s “How I Met Your Father” is back for season two on Tuesday, January 24. New episodes will follow weekly.

A new season of “¿Quien es la Mascara?” (The Masked Singer) premieres on Univision’s “Domingos en Familia” (Family Sundays) on Sunday, January 8 at 8p.

Fuse’s “Like a Girl,” premiering March 27, will feature Olympian April Ross, Paralympian Anastasia Pagonis, WNBA Player Angel McCoughtry, and more for an unfiltered look into the world of women in sports.

English restaurateur and hunter Mike Robinson has reached agreements with Outdoor Sportsman Group to air season five of “Farming the Wild” and season two of “Fishing the Wild” on Outdoor Channel beginning in December 2023.

COMING UP

Nickelodeon crossover special “SpongeBob SquarePants Presents The Tidal Zone” premieres Friday, January 13 at 7p, with encores on Saturday, January 14 and Sunday, January 15. The special was originally slated to debut in November.

The Weather Channel is airing season marathons of “Mud Mountain Haulers” (Christmas Day at 1p), “Weird Earth” (Sunday, December 26 at 9p) and “Highway Through Hell (Tuesday, December 27 at 8p) ahead of the shows’ new season premieres on Sunday, January 8 at 9p, 10p and 8p, respectively.

AXS TV heads into 2023 with two days of music, retrospectives, celebrity panels and more, starting Saturday, December 31 at 12p. Kicking things off is a New Year’s Eve Saturday Stack lineup commemorating Dolly Parton’s 50th Anniversary as a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

Adam Sandler will be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for Humor. “Adam Sandler has entertained audiences for over three decades with his films, music and his tenure as a fan-favorite cast member on ‘SNL,’” said Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter. “Adam has created characters that have made us laugh, cry and cry from laughing.”

STREAMING & TECH NEWS

Allen Media Group’s Local Now has teamed with PBS to include livestreaming of local PBS stations, kids’ content and series like “Frontline” and “Antiques Roadshow.” “The addition of local PBS stations is a major achievement for Local Now and cements our position as the leader of free-streaming local news and entertainment in America,” said Byron Allen, Founder/Chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group. “Viewers of all ages know and love PBS and soon they will be able to stream this amazing content for free, anytime.”

DirecTV Stream’s offerings now include Peacock for $2.99/month, $2.00 off the regular price. Customers are able to manage Peacock and other subs purchased via DirecTV through a single bill.

MotorTrend Group programming is now available on Freevee, via MotorTrend FAST TV. “MotorTrend FAST TV is the perfect bridge to help casual viewers become devoted gear heads, which in turn will allow them to delve deeper into MotorTrend’s unparalleled catalog of premium automotive content,” said Mark Jocson, Head of Distribution, MotorTrend Group.

Omens Studios is launching the “Omens Multiverse” to take animation and movie-based IPs into virtual reality and interactive experiences. The studio has two projects currently in development – “Circle Line” and “Oasis” – which will both be available as VR experiences and have NFT collections. Omens Studios is also creating a Roblox experience based on series “Leo the Wildlife Ranger”, coming 2Q23.

SPORTS ROUNDUP

A custom survey of group viewing found the NFL’s Thanksgiving Day games had an average-minute audience of 44.1 million viewers, up 31% from Nielsen’s original report. “Quantifying the exact number of people watching NFL games on Thanksgiving presents additional challenges due to the fact that so many people gather in different group settings with family and friends,” said Paul Ballew, Chief Data and Analytics Officer of the NFL. “As was the case with our study around the Super Bowl, we feel this Nielsen custom survey helps provide a more complete picture of the total viewership for this unique day on the NFL calendar.”

In FIFA World Cup ratings news, France vs. England scored 8.855 million viewers on Fox and Fox Sports streaming services on Saturday, making it the most-watched men’s quarterfinal telecast on record, up 39% from the Russia/Croatia match in 2018. Argentina vs. Netherlands averaged 6.44 million viewers on Friday, making it the second-most-watched quarterfinal.

By iSpot.tv’s count, with four games remaining, the 2022 games in Qatar exceeded 8.4 billion TV ad impressions across both the English and Spanish-language airings, a 20% increase from the 7.1 billion TV impressions delivered in 2018. The World Cup was the third most viewed programming, with 1.89% of all TV ad impressions from November 20-December 11, behind only the NFL and college football, respectively.

Telemundo’s Spanish-language coverage of the World Cup drew 4.9 million viewers for the England vs. France Quarter-Final match, up 142% vs. 2018’s Quarter-Final match between England vs. Sweden and up 115% compared to France vs. Uruguay (2.3 million). The match was the third most-streamed World Cup match ever regardless of language with a digital average minute audience of 1.5 million. Morocco vs. Portugal’s Total Audience Delivery was 3.5 million including a digital AMA of 1.2 million.

NBA Entertainment has hired Horizon Sports & Experiences, a new marketing agency business led David Levy, former President of Turner, and Chris Weil, former chair/CEO of Momentum Worldwide. HS&E says its focus is on “IP creation and monetization, strategic advisory and consulting, media rights, sponsorship, sales, and experiential, metaverse, and Web3.0 strategy and activation.”

HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” wraps its season with a roundtable review of the year’s most memorable moments from the show, on Tuesday, December 20 at 10p. Host Bryant Gumbel is joined by correspondents Mary Carillo, Jon Frankel, Andrea Kremer, Soledad O’Brien, and David Scott and more for discussions about the most significant stories of 2022.

The 10-round bout on BLK Prime between 4-division world champion Adrien Broner (34-4-1, 24 KOs) and Ivan Redkach (23-6-1, 18 KOs) is slated for February. A fight date and location will be announced at a later date.

GOING GLOBAL

Netflix has signed up as a subscriber to Kantar’s audience measurement data service in Brazil. Starting in January, Netflix will have access to a cross-platform view of its performance alongside linear and on-demand networks and platforms.

TeamTO announced new partnerships for action-comedy animated series “Jade Armor” with the Australian Broadcasting Company and Canada’s CBC.

Discovery+ is now available to customers on Prime Video in Canada. “Prime Video has long been a valued partner, and as our relationship with them continues to expand, we are very excited to be able to reach more of their customers across the globe,” said Sarah Bergman, Senior Vice President, Distribution at Warner Bros. Discovery.

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RATINGS

Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan” premiered to 81.55 million hours viewed, the best opening for a documentary ever for the streamer.

The December 5 series premiere of USA game show “Barmageddon” delivered 1.2 million viewers in Live+3 Nielsens, making it the net’s most-viewed series debut in almost three years.

Hallmark Channel’s original holiday movie premieres this past weekend, “The Most Colorful Time of the Year,” “Christmas Class Reunion,” and “The Holiday Sitter,” propelled Hallmark Channel to be the #1 entertainment cable network of the week in Total Day and Weekend Total Day among key demos, including Households, Women 18+, Total Viewers, Women 25-54, and Women and Persons 18-49.

In syndication, several shows recovered following steep falls in the previous preemption-heavy Thanksgiving holiday week. The only access program pacing ahead of last year at this time was “Entertainment Tonight” (2.2, up 16%), which logged a 10% annual increase.

Basic Cable Top 10 Ratings for the week of December 5
P2+ AA (000)
Primetime
Fox News 2176
ESPN 2159
MSNBC 1456
Hallmark Channel 1307
Paramount 866
HGTV 750
History 739
TLC 738
CNN 701
INSP 671
Total Day
Fox News 1419
MSNBC 842
Hallmark Channel 746
ESPN 712
CNN 551
HGTV 398
INSP 383
Food Network 381
ID 369
Hallmark Movies & Mysteries 368
Source: Nielsen

Broadcast Nielsen Top 10 M-F Syndicated Strip Series for the week of November 28 ranked in order by HH Rtg
Jeopardy (CMV) 5.7 AA
Wheel of Fortune (CMV) 5.2 AA
Family Feud (CMV) 4.6 AA
Judge Judy (CMV) 3.9 AA
Inside Edition (CMV) 2.3 AA
Entertainment Tonight (CMV) 2.2 AA
The Big Bang Theory (WB) 1.8 AA
Live With Kelly and Ryan (DAD) 1.5 AA
Dr. Phil (AT) 1.4 AA
Dateline (AT) 1.2 AA
Hot Bench (AT) 1.1 AA

Broadcast Nielsen Ratings for Monday, December 12
Show, P2+ 000s, (A18-49)
ABC: The Great Christmas Light Fight 2.54 (0.4), The Good Doctor 3..56 (0.3)
CBS: The Neighborhood 3.61 (0.4), Bob Hearts Abishola 3.13 (0.3), NCIS 3.18 (0.3), NCIS: Hawai’I 3.10 (0.3)
FOX: The Cleaning Lady 2.09 (0.3)
ION: Criminal Minds 0.69 (0.1), Criminal Minds 0.59 (0.1), Criminal Minds 0.52 (0.1)
NBC: The Voice 6.90 (0.78), Baking It 2.48 (0.4)
CW: Dogs of the Year 0.47 (0.1), Scooby-Doo, Where Are You 0.19 (0.1)
Telemundo: Exatlon Estados Unidos: All Stars 1.13 (0.3), La Reina del Sur 0.89 (0.3), Amor Y Traicion 0,84 (0.2)
Univision: Copa por Mexico 0.74 (0.2), Copa por Mexico 0.58 (0.2)
Source: Nielsen live + same day time period averages

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Jeff Zucker, former President of CNN Worldwide, will serve as CEO of joint venture RedBird IMI, from RedBird Capital Partners and International Media Investments, which has committed $1 billion in funds for media and sports opportunities. “I’ve spent 35 years running media businesses at the intersection of news, sports and entertainment, creating new brands and resurrecting old ones,” said Zucker. “That experience has given me unparalleled perspective for this unique time in media, and the combination of the RedBird and IMI capital and strategic discipline, combined with my operational experience, will give this joint venture a unique advantage in the current media landscape.”

Lifetime has tapped Amy Savitsky as Senior Vice President, Unscripted Development and Programming. Savitsky joins from sister network History Channel and will drive Lifetime’s non-fiction programming.

TMB has named Kanuj Malhotra as Chief Financial Officer. Malhotra was previously at Barnes & Noble, where he was COO of Digital Education and Chief Strategy and Development Officer.

Jimmie Blount has joined creative agency Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners as Creative Director. Blount previously served as Creative Director at Preacher.

Helen Greatorex has stepped up as Head of Format Acquisitions at Banijay. Greatorex was previously Senior Global Development Producer.

Stephen Michael has boarded Wolf Entertainment as Vice President of Audio. Michael joins from Gunpowder & Sky, where he was an Executive Producer and Vice President of Audio.

DNEG has named Alaric McAusland as Managing Director. Most recently, McAusland served as Executive Director for the Australian Directors’ Guild.

IN MEMORIAM

Actor Stuart Margolin died December 12. He was 82. An Emmy winner for “The Rockford Files,” Margolin racked up dozens of TV and film credits over his career.

This Day in History
1993 – “Philadelphia,” starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, premiered.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which show won the Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries in 2000? HBO’s “The Corner.” Kudos to: Linda Walker-Smith-Comcast Cable/Orlando, FL; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA; Albert Kent Ordway-Fox 54/Huntsville, AL; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing Inc./NYC

Today’s Trivia Question
Which actor was a series regular on legal drama “Storefront Lawyers” (1970-71) and later “L.A. Law” (1986-94)? (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