PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
Bounce’s Saints & Sinners was renewed for a fourth season, set to premiere in the summer of 2019. The net also announced a new licensing agreement that will make previous seasons of the drama available on Hulu.
Get ready for more tricks and illusions. Syfy has ordered a fifth season of The Magicians, ahead of the drama’s fourth season debut tonight. Henry Alonso Myers was upped to co-showrunner for the next chapter.
BBC picked up Our Girl for a fourth season. The war drama, starring Michelle Keegan and produced by BBC Studios, is returning to BBC One and takes place one year after Georgie Lane’s (Keegan) last tour in Bangladesh.
TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé was renewed for a seventh season. The series hit record highs in its sixth go-round, with its two-part tell-all episodes averaging a 2.95 rating among W25-54.
Our Cartoon President received a 10-episode renewal from Showtime. The animated comedy’s second season is slated to debut later this year.
Edward Burns and his Marlboro Road Gang Productions are partnering with Radar Pictures to develop Tosca Lee’s upcoming thriller novel, The Line Between, into a TV series. The first book is set to be released later this month from Simon and Schuster. The Line Between explores an ancient disease that re-emerges from the melting permafrost to cause madness in its victims.
Jamie Sives (Game of Thrones) and Mark Bonnar (Catastrophe) are teaming on Guilt, a crime caper for BBC. Written by Neil Forsyth (Eric, Ernie And Me), the project will be the first drama for BBC Scotland’s new digital channel and will air on BBC Two. Sives and Bannar play brothers Max and Jake, who accidentally run over and kill an old man while driving home from a wedding.
Verance Corporation teamed with Fincons Group to expand the development of Next Gen TV experiences in the U.S. and Europe. The partnership combines Fincons Group’s Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV applications with the Verance Aspect watermark technology, which allows Next Gen TV experiences to reach 100% of ATSC 3.0 and HbbTV-connected TVs, regardless of distribution path.
COMING UP
TLC airs a marathon, Dr. Pimple Popper: The Poppy Bowl, on Sunday, February 3, from 5p to 11p. Event includes behind-the-scenes stories, pop-up factoids and updates on some of the good doctor’s most memorable patients.
American Dad returns for its 16th season on Monday, February 11, at 10p on TBS.
FOX Sports Films explores the rivalry between NASCAR’s seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt and four-time champion and FOX NASCAR analyst Jeff Gordon in Unrivaled: Earnhardt vs. Gordon. Sixty-minute documentary bows Thursday, February 14, on FSI at 10p.
20/20 presents a documentary on Dennis Rader, the notorious BTK serial killer, who tormented Wichita, KS, for decades. The two-hour episode, which features the first television interview with the killer’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, bows Friday, February 1, at 9p on ABC.
FOX Business Network host Trish Regan interviews Vice President Mike Pence tonight, January 23, at 8p on Trish Regan Primetime.
NATPE NEWS
25 Words or Less, hosted and produced by Meredith Vieira, has been sold in 75% of the country in advance of its debut this fall. Launching on the FOX Television Stations, the half-hour game show was sold into 125 markets including to station groups Sinclair, Gray, Hearts, CBS, Scripps, Northwest and Tribune. The show pits two teams composed of celebrities and civilians against each other in a word game.
Endemol Shine North America is teaming with Michael Strahan’s SMAC Entertainment to develop a U.S. version of hit global game show The Money Drop. The format has been produced in 54 global territories and currently airs as a five-day-a-week series in the UK. Strahan will serve as an executive producer on the show.
The new Court TV added five journalists, four of whom are lawyers, to its on-air news team as the network builds to its launch in May. Seema Iyer and Julie Grant will join Vinnie Politan at the Court TV anchor desk, while Chanley Painter was named legal correspondent and veteran crime and justice journalists Ted Rowlands and Julie Jenaé were tapped as field producers and reporters.
Bill Geddie, who co-created The View, was named executive producer of the new syndicated daytime talk show hosted by Tamron Hall. Distributed in national syndication by Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International, the show has been sold in over 70% of the country for fall 2019.
The Kelly Clarkson Show has been sold in more than 80% of the U.S. for its fall 2019 debut. The new daily one-hour talker will air as a lead-in to Ellen on NBC-owned television stations. The show will also air on station groups across the country including Scripps, Hearst, Meredith, Sinclair, Gray, Hubbard and more.
Parrot Analytics announced that The Walking Dead was the most-in-demand TV series in the world in 2018, during NATPE’s inaugural Global TV Demand Awards. Cast members Josh McDermitt and Pollyanna McIntosh and producer Denise Huth were on hand to accept the award.
A+E Networks and Trifecta Entertainment & Media announced the broadcast syndication renewal of History series Pawn Stars. Highlighted by the Tribune Station Group and CBS’ WCBS/WLNY renewal of the Monday-through-Friday strip, the series will return for the 2019-2020 season with 100 additional new episodes.
MGM Worldwide Television Distribution’s half-hour syndication strip Personal Injury Court was picked up by multiple CBS-owned stations nationwide including WLNY New York, WPSG Philadelphia and WUPA Atlanta, as well as CBS-owned stations in San Francisco, Tampa and Seattle.
CASTING
Aloha, Joan Collins. The Dynasty icon is set to guest on CBS’ Hawaii Five-0… Peter Sarsgaard landed the lead in Fabrik Entertainment’s upcoming CBS All Access true-crime drama series Interrogation… Bradley James (Merlin, Damien) was cast as the lead in Netflix’s World War II drama series The Liberator… Hosea Chanchez (The Game) will recur on The CW’s Black Lightning… TNT’s Animal Kingdom tapped Leila George (Mortal Engines) to recur during its fourth season.
PODCAST POSTS
Pinna, the kids programming-focused paid listening service that originally launched in 2017 under the Panoply umbrella, is being spun out into a stand-alone company. CEO Maggie McGuire, a vet of children-focused media divisions including Scholastic, Viacom’s Nickelodeon and Cablevision, will lead the new entity.
Westwood One and Suze Orman launched season two of Suze Orman’s Women & Money, an original podcast with an interactive approach. New episodes air twice a week.
DIGITAL DATA
The Expanse, which was canceled by Syfy and picked up by Amazon Prime Video, debuts its third season on Friday, February 8.
The weekend combination of Star Trek: Discovery’s second season premiere and Sunday’s AFC Championship Game pushed CBS All Access new subscriber sign-ups and unique viewers to record levels. According to CBS Interactive, CBS All Access added more subscribers in a single weekend than ever before and broke the previous record set during the 2017 series premiere of Star Trek: Discovery by +72%.
Mobile news publisher NowThis launched a new division that creates a distinction between NowThis News Group and NowThis Originals. The News Group will focus on award-winning journalism, original reporting and political coverage while continuing to bring daily news stories via video to social feeds.
GOING GLOBAL
HBO Asia is set to debut 10-part Taiwanese crime drama The World Between Us on Sunday, March 24, with back-to-back episodes. The series, which will launch on the linear channel, HBO Go and Catchplay On Demand, is produced by Taiwanese broadcaster Public Television Services.
