| PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
Roku and the UFC are teaming for docuseries “Fight Inc.: Inside the UFC.” The Roku Channel three-parter will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the fight business, as well as storylines of stars like Heavyweight Champion Jon James.
Monumental Television (“Ghosts”) has optioned the rights to The Three Graces, from British novelist and short-story writer, Amanda Craig. Development will start soon on an adaptation of the novel, which centers on three friends who have retired to Tuscany.
PBS Kids has a new series, “Carl the Collector,” an animated show featuring a lead character on the autism spectrum, in production. The series is being produced by Fuzzytown Productions and Spiffy Pictures for a fall 2024 premiere.
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
“Death and Other Details,” telling the story of a petty thief who’s the prime suspect in a locked room murder mystery, premieres Tuesday, January 16 on Hulu. Mandy Patinkin stars as a genius detective.
Season two of “The Black Hamptons” hits BET+ on Thursday, December 7. The series, set in Sag Harbor, will include new cast members Richard Lawson, Steven Williams, RonReaco Ledd, Blue Kimble, Niki Taylor, and Thomas Calabro.
“The Pike County Murders: A Family Massacre” premieres on Oxygen on Friday, November 24. The true crime series follows the story of the 2016 murders of eight people in Ohio.
Netflix is dropping all 20 episodes of season one of “Star Trek: Prodigy” on Christmas Day. The animated series started on Paramount+, but plans for a second season were scratched and the show was removed from the streamer. Netflix grabbed distribution rights for season one, and will introduce a second season in 2024.
At its Geeked Week event, Netflix also announced the return of animated show “Arcane” for season two in November 2024, three years after The Riot Games adaptation debuted.
Shailene Woodley (“Big Little Lies”), Martha Stewart, restaurateur José Andrés and Baratunde Thurston (“America Outdoors”) are onboard David E. Kelley’s first docuseries, “Hope in the Water” (fka “Eating Up the Oceans: How Do We Save Our Seas?”). The three-parter produced by Andrew Zimmern’s Intuitive Content will air on PBS in summer 2024. “Our series is a fresh take on how we can rewrite menus worldwide that will create meaningful and lasting impact for generations to come,” said Kelley.
Season 22 of Nat Geo Alaska-set survival series “Life Below Zero” launches Tuesday, November 14 at 9p.
How Lowe can you go? Four-part historical series “Liberty or Death: Boston Tea Party,” hosted and exec produced by Rob Lowe, premieres Sunday, November 19 on FOX Nation. Lowe is also hosting FOX quiz show “The Floor” starting January 2, in addition to starring in FOX procedural “9-1-1 Lone Star.”
Curiosity Stream is reviving “Connections with James Burke,” which features the science historian interlocking threads of knowledge to show how seemingly unrelated ideas connect. Burke will address issues such as AI and quantum computing, and will jump in a sensory deprivation tank with a man who took LSD with dolphins. The series premiered on the BBC in 1978.
COMING UP
NewsNation is hosting the fourth Republican presidential primary debate of the 2024 election cycle on Wednesday, December 6 from 8-10p. The debate will air live across the US exclusively on the Nexstar Media Group’s cable news network, and will be simulcast in the country’s Eastern and Central time zones on Nexstar’s broadcast television network, The CW. Moderators include Megyn Kelly, host of “The Megyn Kelly Show” on SiriusXM; Elizabeth Vargas, anchor of NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports”; and Eliana Johnson, Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Free Beacon.
Court TV documentary “The Case Against Bryan Kohberger” airs Sunday, November 12 at 8p, coinciding with the one-year mark of the murder investigation around four University of Idaho students. The one-hour special will explore the strength of the case and provide audiences with a picture of what authorities believed happened, as local prosecutors prepare to go to trial.
On Black Friday, November 24, Antenna TV is holding a “Black-and-White Friday Marathon.” Starting at 5a, classic shows in monochrome will be featured, from “The Burns and Allen Show” to “Bewitched.”
AXS TV is also looking to the past for the holidays. On Thanksgiving, November 23, the network is running a 12-hour marathon of “The Partridge Family” starting at 8a.
TECH
FreeWheel announced the launch of Audience Manager, a new solution that enables publishers to unlock faster audience activation across screens. “We launched Audience Manager, which is powered by the FreeWheel Identity Network, to help address many of today’s industry challenges, including a need for real-time insights and interoperability,” said David Dworin, Chief Product Officer, FreeWheel. “With the shift towards audience based buying and with the impending disappearance of identifiers, marketers today need solutions to reach more precise and addressable audiences in premium video. FreeWheel’s Audience Manager helps them do exactly that.”
Fuse Media is teaming up with Doritos® for a custom branded-content sponsorship of cooking series “Made From Scratch.” Created by Fuse Studios, “Snacking After Hours presented by Doritos,” features Tim Chantarangsu (“We Need to Talk About America”). The :30 spots will run during two-hour blocks of “Made From Scratch” between November 11 – December 2 on Fuse and its social platforms, as well as Chantarangsu’s socials channels. Doritos is also sponsoring a special Thanksgiving episode that will feature Mario and Courtney Lopez on November 22.
ShowSeeker, creator of a cloud-based order management system for the advertising industry, is collaborating with Spectrum Reach for the launch of Pilot®, ShowSeeker’s solution to automated workflows in the media sales business. “We launched the Pilot platform as our dedicated order management system after collaborating with ShowSeeker to create a solution to optimize the order entry process,” said Chris Faw, SVP of Operations at Spectrum Reach. “Pilot not only streamlines our workflows, but also equips us with a modernized solution that adapts to the evolving demands of both linear television and advanced advertising.”
SPORTS ROUNDUP
The National Women’s Soccer League reached a multi-year agreement for its distribution with ESPN, CBS Sports, Prime Video and Scripps Sports. “These partnerships fundamentally change the game for our league and the players who take the pitch each week,” said NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman. “On behalf of the NWSL, our owners and players, I want to commend CBS Sports, ESPN, Prime Video and Scripps for investing in our league and affirmatively declaring to the marketplace that this league is exciting, valuable, and important.”
The tech-forward Boston Common Golf team, featuring Rory McIlroy, Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott and Tyrell Hatton, is partnering with NBC Sports Next and its GolfNow business, including plans to produce a digital reality docuseries to create a national following for the team. “We’re thrilled about establishing this foundational relationship with Boston Common Golf for GolfNow,” said Will McIntosh, President, NBC Sports Next. “Making big events bigger through innovation is our mission at NBC Sports Next and we’re excited to continue the great partnership we have with Rory to help showcase the stories of Boston Common Golf’s entry into TGL.”
The National Hockey League’s transformation of the city of Toronto for the 2024 NHL® All-Star Weekend festivities will include hosting the 2024 Hyundai NHL Fan Fair, a four-day, festival at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre South Building from February 1-4. Tickets are now available for purchase.
Relo Census, a data set for sports marketing, has launched, enabling rights holders, brands, agencies and media companies to measure real time sponsorship performance. Relo Census brings a real time, census level dataset of all the values of what’s happening across the major sports, helping stakeholders determine the best investments for their sponsorship dollars.
Organizers of the Pickleball Slam 2 announced the addition of James Blake and Jack Sock to the live, primetime event on February 4. Both tennis players-turned-pickleballers will act as coaches and participate in the event as players.
Dink up! In more pickleball news, Tennis Channel and the Carvana Professional Pickleball Association have launched Pickleballtv, a television network devoted to the sport. Available on Amazon Freevee and Fubo, the channel will show more than 30 top-level live PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball team events, original programming and a weekly studio news show.
In honor of Veterans Day, “FOX NFL Sunday” will continue its tradition of broadcasting from a military installation. The special two-hour show, live from the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, begins Sunday, November 12 at 11a. Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan, Jimmy Johnson, Jay Glazer and Rob Gronkowski will appear along with one thousand US Air Force Academy cadets.
The Elevance Health Women’s Fort Myers Tip-Off will have the first women’s college basketball games ever to air live on the Women’s Sports Network, with two contests streaming on the network this November. The network will air two live games on November 25, the Island Division matchup of Oklahoma-Tennessee at 1:30p, and the Shell Division championship game between the winner of Wisconsin-Arkansas and Boston College-Marquette at 5p.
GOING GLOBAL
Paramount+ struck a new partnership with Microsoft to bring Paramount+ to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S across Canada, Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latin America (including Brazil), Switzerland and the UK.
CANAL+ will be the exclusive home of the six-part thriller series, “Night in Paradise” for Austria, Slovakia and Czech Republic as well as Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary and Romania. Produced by Windlight Pictures, the series is based on the graphic novel by Frank Schmolke.
Blue Ant Studios has begun production on “The Inigo Philbrick Story” (w/t), a three-part, documentary exploring the rise and fall of American art dealer, Inigo Philbrick, who was convicted in a fraud case that duped investors out of $8 million. The series, commissioned by BBC Arts for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer, will air in spring 2024 for audiences in the UK.
The BBC will broadcast “Pokémon Horizons: The Series” in December, giving fans in the UK the first chance to see the new adventure in the franchise. The first six episodes will air on iPlayer and CBBC.
Pluto TV and Stingray are adding five new FAST Channels on Pluto TV for audiences in Canada: Stingray Naturescape, Qello Concerts by Stingray, Stingray Classics, Stingray DJAZZ, and Stingray CMusic. |
