Good morning and welcome to Cynopsis — the media industry’s essential morning read. Today:
· Signals Restored at DirecTV and Scripps
· YouTube Bros Hit Netflix
· Prime Video Bets Big on the Good Book |
 IN THE NEWS |
DirecTV and Scripps have ended a five-week standoff — but the fight isn’t over. The companies struck a multi-year deal restoring 54 local stations across 36 metro markets, following a carriage dispute that knocked out the NHL Stanley Cup Final, the NBA Finals, and chunks of the FIFA World Cup for millions of subscribers.
· The outage hit sports fans especially hard — Las Vegas Golden Knights faithful lost their local coverage, and Salt Lake City viewers missed a significant portion of the World Cup.
· DirecTV CCO Rob Thun welcomed the resolution but used the occasion to call out what he characterized as outsized rate demands from broadcasters, saying families are “too often asked to pay more while receiving less.”
· Thun also took aim at consolidation in the broadcast space, arguing that as ownership concentrates among fewer, larger players, those broadcasters gain disproportionate leverage in carriage negotiations — able to withhold programming from the very communities they’re licensed to serve.
· The Takeaway: Signals are back on, but this deal changes nothing structurally. With broadcasters continuing to consolidate and retransmission fees rising faster than inflation, expect this script to repeat — and DirecTV is clearly building a public case for regulatory intervention before the next blackout clock starts ticking. |
 The line between YouTube and Netflix just got blurrier. The Stokes Twins — YouTube creators Alex and Alan Stokes, who have amassed 160 million subscribers — are coming to Netflix. Beginning July 18, an archive of their most-watched content will be available on the platform.
· Known for high-energy challenge videos, myth-busting stunts, and elaborate pranks, the identical twins have accumulated nearly 100 billion views across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
· The twins are expanding into long-form content with a new Netflix series, set to premiere in 2027.
· Netflix has also struck licensing deals with major publishers, including BuzzFeed Studios, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, Penske Media, and People Inc., for their short videos. And the streamer is diving into video podcasts, including a deal with Spotify.
· The Broader Play: Nielsen data has consistently shown YouTube eating into traditional streaming’s share of TV screen time. Netflix isn’t just chasing new content types; it’s defending the living room TV against an app that is technically free. The strategic question is whether Netflix’s curation and UX can justify the cost premium over just… opening YouTube. The Stokes deal is an early test.
The oldest story in the world is suddenly the hottest show in the room. Prime Video’s hit biblical drama “House of David” is heading into a third season. The show, a co-production from Wonder Project and Amazon MGM Studios, has already proven its audience appeal — Season One alone drew more than 40 million viewers globally. Biblical shows are having a moment — a wave of Scripture-based shows, including “The Testaments” and “The Chosen,” have shown there is a real market for faith-based content. |
 |
PROGRAMMATIC IO
The Content Gets You in the Door. The People Are Why You Come Back.
Programmatic I/O isn’t just where you learn what’s next—it’s where the people shaping the future of programmatic come together.
Meet the buyers, sellers, publishers, agencies, brands, and tech leaders driving the industry forward.
Sept. 28–29 | NYC
Be in the room.
REGISTER TODAY |
| NEW & RETURNING SHOWS |
| Hulu documentary “My Grandfather Charles Manson” premieres Wednesday, July 22. The film follows the journey of a woman who discovers her connection to the notorious criminal cult leader.
Season 2 of “Boston Blue” launches Friday, Oct. 9 on CBS. The police drama is a spinoff of “Blue Bloods.”
“Obsession” hits Peacock this Friday, July 17. The horror breakout earned its delay — a June 2 digital debut got pushed after the film’s May theatrical run refused to quit. On a budget of $750,000, the film has grossed $370 million globally. |
Today’s Premiere
ABC: Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro at 8 p.m.
CW: All American at 8 p.m.
Discovery: 120 Hours Behind Bars at 9 p.m.
Disney+/Hulu: Rabbit Hole
Food Network: Pitmasters at 9 p.m.
Fox: The 1% Club at 8 p.m.; The Quiz With Balls at 9 p.m.
Netflix: Hot Ones: Extra Heat
Prime Video: Murder 101 |
| THE DOWNLOAD |
The FIFA World Cup isn’t just a national event — it’s a hyperlocal one. New data from Madhive shows that across all 11 U.S. host markets, the tournament is driving sharp spikes in CTV engagement, reshaping audience demographics, and revealing just how linguistically divided — and deeply passionate — American soccer fandom really is.
· New York topped every host market, with 1.75 million households tuning in on match day. Cities with games on the schedule — Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, and San Francisco among them — saw notably higher local viewership than their non-hosting counterparts.
· Spanish-language broadcasts are outperforming English ones in key markets by a wide margin. In both Miami and Los Angeles, the Spanish feed reached roughly twice as many households as the English broadcast. Miami claimed the highest Spanish soccer ad exposure of any market nationwide, at 12.1%.
· In Atlanta, nearly half the crowd at Mercedes-Benz Stadium — around 47% — traveled in from out of town. Dallas told a similar story, with out-of-town visitors accounting for roughly 40% of match-night attendance at AT&T Stadium.
· Los Angeles reflected its broader demographics on-screen, with Spanish-language tune-in running 2-to-1 over English — and the energy spilling into the streets: taquerias near SoFi Stadium reported sales surges of six times or more on match nights.
· The Takeaway: The World Cup is a reminder that “national TV” is a fiction. Viewership is local, linguistic, and deeply tied to community identity. For advertisers, that means market-by-market strategy isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s the whole game. The brands that win this tournament won’t be the ones with the biggest budgets; they’ll be the ones that showed up in the right language, in the right city, at the right moment.
Meta has pulled the plug on a new Instagram AI feature, Muse Image, after swift backlash from users and privacy advocates. Launched Tuesday, the tool allowed users to generate AI images based on people’s public accounts — automatically enrolling them without consent. The opt-out structure drew immediate criticism over privacy and copyright concerns. “Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool,” Meta said in a statement. “We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available.” The episode marks the latest stumble for an AI industry still navigating the boundaries of acceptable use around real people’s likenesses. |
|
 |
|
| RATINGS |
| Telemundo is running up the score — and the scoreboard is ratings. Through the first 27 days and 96 matches of the FIFA World Cup, coverage across Telemundo, Universo, Peacock, and Telemundo streaming platforms averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 5.7 million viewers, up 157% vs. the 2022 tournament through the Round of 16 (2.2 million). The linear match window average was up 90% (3.0 million) while the digital average minute audience (AMA) rose 326% (2.7 million).
On the non-sports front, Telemundo’s triple premiere night on Tuesday, featuring music competition “Operación Triunfo Estados Unidos,” the tenth and final season of “El Señor de los Cielos,” and Turkish series “El Turco,” averaged 579,000 adults 18-49 and 1.46 million total viewers, according to Nielsen.
The BIG3’s Sunday, July 5, afternoon basketball broadcast on CBS generated 0.3/2 HH ratings/share and 578,000 viewers. That’s up from 537,000 for last year’s Week 3, and the third straight week of ratings increases against the World Cup. |
|
Today’s Trivia Question
On which children’s show did Bill Cosby host a segment from 1980-84? (Email answers to trivia@cynopsis.com and include your name, company and city. Answers limited to four per time zone.)
Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
For which 1970s miniseries were Louis Gossett Jr. and Olivia Cole nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress Emmys? “Backstairs at the White House” (1979).
Congrats to: Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA; Phyllis McQuillan-MSG Networks/NYC; Barbara E. Bevel/Staten Island, N.Y. |
|
