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Happy Friday! Here’s everything you need to know before you head into the weekend:
- Paramount Mulls Over Its CNN Options
- “Heated Rivalry” 2 Actor Gets Put In The Penalty Box
- Twitch’s New AI Policy Has Digital Creators Fuming
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In The News
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What to do with CNN? Paramount Skydance discussed creating an editorial board or oversight committee for CNN once the merger with Warner Bros. Discovery closes, the Wall Street Journal reports. Details are scarce, but the idea would be to alleviate concerns about CNN’s journalistic independence under Paramount.
- However, Paramount Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim also said at Politico’s California Agenda conference on Tuesday that a possible sale of CNN by Paramount might be “on the table.”
- Trying to hinge the deal on CNN seems to align with CEO David Ellison’s recent op-ed for the New York Times, in which he argued that his opposition is fueled by politics, not antitrust measures.
Meanwhile, the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) issued a joint letter Wednesday urging California Attorney General Rob Bonta to settle the lawsuit with Paramount, provided that the company agrees to certain conditions.
In lighter news (well, for everybody except Shane and Ilya shippers, maybe), actor Dylan Walsh recently paused his Cameo account after accidentally sharing details about “Heated Rivalry” Season 2.
- Walsh, who plays Shane’s dad in the Crave series, let slip in a recent video that he was “getting ready to go back up to Canada and shoot some more episodes… I think we’re doing 12 this time.”
- Season 1 only ran for six episodes, which creator Jacob Tierney seems to prefer. Now, fans are speculating that Seasons 2 and 3 might be filming concurrently.
- The Takeaway: Both Walsh and “Heated Rivalry” will make it through this hiccup, of course, but it speaks to the double-edged sword of fan accessibility. TV studios increasingly rely on fandoms to maintain cultural relevance and sell themselves to advertisers. Which means that actors need to engage with those fandoms, too – creating plenty of opportunity for leaks and PR snafus like this.
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This Is the Last Chance to Nominate a Top Woman in Media.
The 2026 Cynopsis Top Women in Media Awards close August 14. This is it — the final opportunity to ensure the women driving media, entertainment and advertising forward receive the recognition they deserve. Self-nominations are welcome.
Submit Today
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New & Returning Series
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For sneak peeks, check out Cynopsis Trailer Park.
The gang’s all here. If the new “American Horror Story” trailer is any indication, Season 13 features the return of many fan-favorite characters, including Constance Langdon (Jessica Lang) from “Murder House;” Kai Anderson (Evan Peters) from “Cult;” Marie Laveau (Angela Bassett), Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts) and Cordelia Goode (Sarah Paulson) from “Coven,” and Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch) from “Freak Show.” The first of 13 half-hour episodes drops on FX (plus Disney+ and Hulu) Sept. 24.
Speaking of covens, Freeform released the first look at “Coven Academy,” the new supernatural teen drama series about three young witches at a New Orleans boarding school. (Except unlike Miss Robichaux’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, this school also has boys.) The series premieres Oct. 1 and will be available to stream a day later on Disney+, Hulu and Freeform on Demand.
Netflix set a Nov. 19 release date for “The Altruists,” a new drama series charting the rise and fall of FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried (Anthony Boyle) and Alameda Research’s Caroline Ellison (Julia Garner). The real-life former couple were both sentenced to prison for fraud in 2024.
“King of Drag,” the drag king-focused competition reality show produced by streaming platform Revry, officially announced its cast for Season 2. Comedian Cameron Esposito is replacing Murray Hill as host for the eight-episode season, which premieres Sept. 20.
The Guy Ritchie-directed crime drama MobLand begins its second season on Paramount+ Sept. 18. Despite almost walking away after tensions behind the scenes, Tom Hardy returns as a fixer in the London underworld, along with Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren.
Hulu debuted its official trailer for “Chad Powers” Season 2, which premieres on Sept. 2. This season, “Chad” (Glen Powell) must rely on Ricky (Perry Mattfield) to keep the secret that he’s really disgraced college quarterback Russ Holiday.
TODAY’S PREMIERES
Crunchyroll: “Link Click”
The Roku Channel: “Honest Renovations”
Netflix: “Moria”
SUNDAY’S PREMIERES
Crunchyroll: “Lanterns” at 9 p.m.
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Production
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Netflix revealed some of the celebrity guests appearing in Season 7 of David Letterman’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction”: Matt Damon (“The Odyssey”), Jimmy Kimmel (“Jimmy Kimmel Live!”), Julia Roberts (“Homecoming”) and Alex Honnold (“Free Solo”). The latest season will roll out later this year.
The China-based streaming service Tencent Video unveiled the first footage from a new animated series adaptation of “Warrior Cats,” the children’s feline fantasy book series. The animation studio Original Force will produce the adaptation, directed by Rodrigo Blaas. The series will launch in 2028 across Tencent Video platforms in China and Southeast Asia, and on Disney+ and the Disney channel in the US.
Production is underway on the Paramount+ legal thriller “Discretion,” starring Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning and Josh Lucas. The A24-produced series also added two new cast regulars: Stephan James (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) and Colton Ryan (“The Girl From Plainville”).
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Tech News You Can Use
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Amazon’s streaming video platform Twitch is in hot water for automatically enrolling all its creators to have their content scraped for AI training purposes, requiring them to manually opt out if they do not consent.
- When asked about the move during the latest Patch Notes stream on Tuesday night, Twitch Chief Product Officer Mike Minton said that “If it was opt-in, nobody would opt in.” Minton also admitted he didn’t know if Amazon had already been using Twitch livestreams to train its models.
- Twitch Head of Community Mary Kish also added, “We don’t expect you to be happy or excited about this. I don’t expect anyone to react to this favourably.”
- The Takeaway: The backlash reflects similar criticisms made against AI within the traditional entertainment industry. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA, for example, are both expected to include more AI-related protections and disclosures in their contract negotiations this year. But digital creators, who rely on tech platforms for distribution and aren’t able to unionize as easily, are more susceptible to these kinds of sudden policy changes – and to having their copyright claims overlooked in the process.
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Coming Up
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On Sept. 6, FETV is planning a six-hour marathon of “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” the black-and-white Western program that propelled Steve McQueen into television stardom. The marathon will then lead into a screening of “Bullitt,” McQueen’s 1968 detective film.
PBS science series NOVA announced the release date of a new TV documentary, “Knowledge Keepers.” The film documents how First Nations and Native Americans developed their own approach to scientific knowledge and discovery over generations, and will premiere Sept. 23.
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Sport Report
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Prime Video announced its 2026-2027 NBA schedule. The season begins Oct. 23 with two games: the New York Knicks vs. the Boston Celtics at 7 p.m. and the Houston Rockies vs. the San Antonio Spurs at 9:30 p.m. later that night. Amazon’s schedule also includes five weeks of the Emirates NBC Up 2026 Group Play starting Oct. 30; two NBC Global Games in Paris and Manchester on Jan. 14 and 17, respectively; and exclusive coverage of the SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament.
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Distribution
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Paramount Global Content Distribution secured the licensing deals for Australian medical drama “The F Ward” in 100 territories. The series was co-produced by Roadshow Rough Diamond and CBS Studios, and launched last month on Stan in Australia.
Google TV Freeplay now hosts on-demand videos in addition to free, ad-supported streaming channels.
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Ratings
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During the week of Aug. 3, the WNBA reached an audience of 2.5 million viewers or more for the fifth week in a row, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel media ratings. Roughly 2.56 million viewers tuned in to see the Indiana Fever at Chicago Sky on ABC on Aug. 8, just to name a highlight.
The Primetime Prince Who Was Promised? The “House of the Dragon” Season 3 finale reached 21 million viewers for HBO in its first three days of availability, according to Nielsen’s measurement of both linear and streaming. Although that number represents a 2% viewership slide from the premiere, the season has averaged 34 million viewers per episode overall, putting it among HBO Max’s top three most-watched returning seasons.
Meanwhile, “Ted Lasso” Season 4 set a premiere day viewing record for Apple TV, drawing almost 300 million minutes of viewing time on Aug. 4 and 5.
Top 10 Broadcast Networks for the Week of Aug. 3
P2+ AA (000)
NBC 2,806
ABC 2,223
CBS 2,196
FOX 1,323
Univision 876
MeTV 622
Telemundo 607
ION 515
CW 393
Grit 355
Source: Nielsen Big Data + Panel, Live + Same Day
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In Memoriam
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Christy Knowings, who appeared on Nickelodeon’s “All That” comedy sketch series from Season 4 through Season 6, died Tuesday after an asthma attack. She was 46.
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Friday Fun Fact
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The dark area at the top of Pluto’s moon, Charon, was once given the informal nickname “Mordor Macula,” after the land in “Lord of the Rings.” Its official name is now “Neverland Regio,” after the land in “Peter Pan.”
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Which of Jim Henson’s Muppet characters was the first to appear regularly on network television, primarily on “The Jimmy Dean Show” (1963-1975)?
(Email answers to trivia@Cynopsis.com and include your name, company and city. Answers limited to four per time zone.)
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Yesterday’s Trivia Answer
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Which TV show produced more spinoffs: “All in the Family” (1971-1979) or “The Walking Dead” (2010-2021)? “All in the Family” has seven; so far, “The Walking Dead” has just six.
Congrats to: Phyllis McQuillian-MSG Networks/NY; Rev. Mark Wajda/Clermont, FL; Jackie Howell-Nexstar WCMH-TV/Columbus, OH; Tom Boyd-WGN/Chicago, IL; Kevin Moran-Blarney Productions/CA; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA
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