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Hello, readers! Here is the news you need to know heading into this week:
- The New York Post Shoulders Its Way Into TV And Film
- Apple TV Hikes Its Subscription Prices – Again
- Disney+ Introduces new “Pokémon” Titles
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In The News
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Front page of a New York Post newspaper in New Jersey earlier this year
Television’s allure keeps wooing publications and platforms. The New York Post inked a deal with Crazy Legs Productions for help turning the tabloid’s content archives into episodic TV as well as films.
- Crazy Legs plans to adapt the publication’s archives into stories for TV and film spanning genres such as true crime, sports and pop culture. Crazy Legs is based in LA and is the studio behind TV shows including TLC’s “1000-Lb. Sisters” and HBO’s “The Great Lillian Hall.”
- This deal is not the first time a news publication has tried juggling a TV business. The New York Times premiered “The New York Times Presents,” an adaptation docuseries on FX and Hulu in 2019, and more recently, The Washington Post struck a film and TV production deal with the studio Imagine Entertainment in 2022. Now, the New York Post is the latest pub to jump on the TV and video bandwagon.
- Zooming out further, the pursuit of TV and media revenue isn’t limited to news publications, either. Social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram are trying to monetize TV viewing engagement with episodic miniseries and widescreen viewing formats, respectively.
- The Takeaway: As streaming TV grows in popularity and revenue, other types of media platforms are trying harder to snag their own slice of the connected TV revenue pie.
Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikis and Tanya Reynolds in Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso”
Pay up, viewers! Apple just raised the cost of Apple TV subscriptions – again. Apple TV now costs $14.99 per month, a $2 price hike, while the annual plan now costs $119.99, which is up $20. Prices are effective for new subscribers as of Friday, while existing subscribers get one month’s notice.
- Apple is also raising its Apple One subscription service by $2 to $21.95 per month. That service bundles Apple TV and Apple Music with other Apple features, including Apple Arcade and cloud storage.
- Apple’s latest streaming price hike marks its second in just a year. In August 2025, Apple raised the monthly subscription cost for Apple TV from $9.99 to $12.99, while the annual subscription stayed stable at $99.
- Other streamers have also been jacking up their prices as the competition and pressure for profitability intensifies. NBCUniversal’s Peacock raised its prices earlier this month for the first time in four years. Netflix, HBO Max, Paramount+ and YouTube Premium have all bumped up their prices in the past two years.
- The Takeaway: While streaming platforms keep raising prices to try to stay profitable, the frequent price hikes are making the streaming landscape even more competitive as viewers become more cost-conscious and choosier about which streaming services they pay for – and how much they’re willing to pay for them.
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New & Returning Series
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For sneak peeks, check out Cynopsis Trailer Park.
Actors Tracy Oliver (“Harlem”) and Issa Rae (“Insecure”) teamed up to create a series project called “Open,” which explores the dramatic effects of a couple’s decision to open their marriage. Paramount Television Studios will produce the series with Oliver serving as showrunner. Oliver and Rae are two of the co-executive producers for the series. And it’s not the duo’s first collaboration together, either – the two actors co-created “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl,” a series that premiered on a dedicated YouTube channel in 2011.
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Forward 2026: A Forum for the Future of TV Advertising—Oct. 29, NYC
Join us at Forward 2026, where Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman will deliver the keynote and marketing leaders from MANSCAPED, Liquid I.V., Avocado, and Jones Road Beauty will share how they’re using TV to reach new audiences, measure impact, and drive real business growth.
Attendance is free, but space is limited.
RSVP Now
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Production
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Happy 8/28 to all who celebrated! On Friday, Netflix announced that it ordered “Arrivals: A New Manifest Mystery,” a spinoff of the “Manifest” supernatural drama series exploring the mystery of Flight 828, which reappeared after its passengers and crew had been presumed dead for five years. Netflix announced the series order exactly five years to the day after the streamer shared plans to revive the show for a fourth season after its NBC cancellation. “Manifest” creator Jeff Rake will share the executive producer and showrunner duties with Margaret Easley (“Big Love”) and Laura Putney (“Mistresses”) for the spinoff, with Warner Bros. TV serving as the production studio.
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Visit ads.philo.tv to learn more.
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Coming Up
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On Sept. 1, ABC will air a new documentary titled “9/11: United We Stand – 25 Years Later.” The documentary highlights the first responders, reporters and cultural figures who played a pivotal role in the nation’s recovery efforts and collective healing following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The documentary, led by sports analyst and ABC co-host Michael Strahan, will feature interviews with Pete Davidson (“Saturday Night Live”), Jimmy Fallon (“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”) and Billy Crystal (“Soap”), among others.
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Sports Report
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Approximately 128 million viewers tuned into Fox’s coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup over the summer, which the broadcaster credits in large part for the 28% year-over-year revenue increase it reported for the second fiscal quarter this year. Even so, it appears that viewership numbers of that scale aren’t immediately turning into a drastic increase in advertising investments for club soccer, which remains fairly steady. Sports and media experts told Digiday that steadiness in the face of World Cup wins could be due to the timing of soccer programming and marketers’ efforts to reach both passive and impassioned sports fans.
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Distribution
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Key art for the upcoming series “Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d & Pichu”
Disney+ announced a global distribution deal with the Pokémon Company International, which will include a new stop-motion series called “Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d & Pichu,” created by animation studio Aardman and slated for release in 2027. Also included in the distribution deal is the classic animated series “Pokémon the Series: The Beginning,” now streaming on Disney+ in the US and select international markets.
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Ratings
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CBS announced that “Big Brother” received two Guinness World Records titles for most episodes of a prime-time TV show and most episodes of a competitive reality TV show. The series aired its 1,000th episode on Thursday. CBS also announced the series averaged 5.21 million weekly viewers across platforms this summer, up 10% year over year based on Nielsen data.
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Executive Moves
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Chris Sussman will become the BBC’s next director of comedy. Jon Petrie, who held the role before Sussman, announced earlier this year that he is joining Hat Trick Productions, the studio behind “Derry Girls” and “Have I Got News for You.”
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A pair of twin sisters who appeared on TLC’s “90 Day Fiancé” received their own spinoff series highlighting their personal lives and relationship dramas following their appearance on the hit TV reality show. Name one of the two sisters.
Email answers to Trivia@Cynopsis.com and include your name, company and city/state (don’t forget!). Only the first four correct responses from each time zone will be included.
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Yesterday’s Trivia Answer
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The “Spider-Man” animated series (1994-98) used which word in place of “radiation” to avoid scaring kids in describing the DNA mutation that Peter Parker underwent as a result of a spider bite? “Neogenic.”
Congrats to: Aaron Sherman-fire5films/NYC; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions; LA
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