PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
ABC ordered a pilot inspired by the life of Hannah Simone (New Girl). Simone will star, co-write and executive produce the ABC Studios comedy about a woman and her Indian-American immigrant father. The net also ordered two drama pilots, both from ABC Studios: Stumptown, inspired by the graphic novel, and Triangle, about a family shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle.
Just months after CBS Studios let go NCIS: New Orleans EP and showrunner Brad Kern following allegations of sexual harassment and racially charged comments, exec producer Adam Targum is out. Vulture reports a recent complaint to HR as the cause.
The Jim Henson Company will produce a fourth season of the vocabulary-building early preschool series, Word Party. The Netflix original is available for streaming on Netflix in the U.S. and in territories around the world.
Fox ordered a pilot for Flirty Dancing, a British format. Second Star, producer of the of Channel 4 original, and All3Media will produce.
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
The season two premiere of BBC America’s Killing Eve will simulcast AMC on Sunday, April 7 at 8p. What’s behind the move? “When we launched Killing Eve on BBC America last year we had high hopes, but no idea it would become this obsession,” said Sarah Barnett, President, Entertainment Networks for AMC Networks. “We believe we’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential viewers and we want to expose this brilliant series to the largest audience we can.”
Oxygen true crime limited series Deadly Cults debuts Sunday, February 10 at 8p, recounting chilling tales of manipulation that led to murder.
Vacation rental company HomeAway, A+E Networks and Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment are teaming for a second season of Vacation Rental Potential, premiering tonightat 10p on FYI as part of the net’s Home Made programming bock. Ten episodes will also encore on A&E Saturday mornings beginning February 2.
COMING UP
Smithsonian Channel is partnering with Charter, Comcast and Altice on its fifth annual Black History Month screening tour. This year’s tour will feature upcoming documentary The Green Book: Guide to Freedom and kick off tonight at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia.
TLC’s Kate v. Meghan: Princesses at War? premieres Tuesday, February 5 at 10p. One-hour special examines whether there’s truth to the rumor that there’s a rift between Meghan Markle and her sister-in-law, Kate Middleton.
HEARD AT TCA
Speaking of, the chance of a visit by original cast member/wife of Prince Harry Meghan Markle during the upcoming last season of Suits is “pretty close to zero,” said series creator Aaron Korsh. Not that he wouldn’t love it, added Korsh, at TCA to promote Suits spin-off Pearson, but the show is “not currently pursuing asking Meghan to leave her position with the royal family and join us.”
Kate del Castillo said that while she wished she hadn’t needed a double for scenes shot in Mexico for the comeback of La Reina del Sur, because of fears of retaliation for her part in setting up a meeting between Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Sean Penn in 2015, it “was an episode of my life that I do not regret at all.” Del Castillo is reprising her role in the Telemundo narco drama, shot in seven countries.
“We’ve got the next new spin on the variety show,” said reality TV mastermind Mike Darnell (American Idol, Hell’s Kitchen), on the topic of upcoming CBS talent competition The World’s Best. Exec producer Ben Winston promised there would be no bad acts to sit through. “In this culture, I don’t think that’s suitable anymore,” he explained. “Nobody is being laughed at.”
CBS All Access had big news – the streamer has issued a 10-episode order for The Stand, based on the horror/fantasy novel by Stephen King originally published in 1978. Limited series comes from Josh Boone (The Fault In Our Stars), Ben Cavell (SEAL Team) and CBS Television Studios. “The people involved are men and women who know exactly what they’re doing; the scripts are dynamite,” said King. “The result bids to be something memorable and thrilling. I believe it will take viewers away to a world they hope will never happen.”
CBS All Access also set a debut date for The Twilight Zone. Anthology series launches with two episodes on Monday, April 1, then will be available weekly on Thursdays beginning April 11.
And season three of CBS All Access’ The Good Fight premieres Thursday, March 14. The show makes frequent mention of President Trump, but if the political landscape changes, no problem. “We have a few backup plans if the world runs ahead of us, involving two or three scenes we would have to reshoot,” said exec producer Robert King. Added exec producer Michelle King, “I think everyone will cheerfully rewrite.”
DIGITAL DATA
Apple revoked Facebook’s access to its enterprise developer certification program after learning the social media giant was using the program to distribute a market research app capable of accessing private chat messages. “Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple,” said Apple. “Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.” Facebook employees found the move prevented them from running internal company apps on their iPhones.
In better news for Facebook, the company delivered 4Q18 results that lifted the stock over 4% during the day, and another 8% in after-hours trading. Revenue for the quarter hit $16.91 billion, versus Wall Street’s forecast of $16.39 billion, and earnings were $2.38 per share, well above the anticipated $2.18.
Ad-supported VOD service Tubi announced record growth in 2018, with customers watching 4.3 times as much content over the past year, and streaming as much content in December alone as in all of 2017. This year, Tubi plans to spend $100 million licensing TV shows and movies. “We will continue to use profits to make bigger bets on content, enhance the viewing experience, and continue to press ahead into new grounds in what is our core advantage: technology and data,” said Tubi CEO Farhad Massoudi.
TECH TALK
Altice France is in exclusive negotiations to acquire a majority stake in OTT platform Molotov. Altice’s support would “accelerate the development of Molotov, give the French platform the means to become a major player in France and abroad, [and] to distribute French and international content around the world,” said the companies. With the addition of Altice’s sports channels, the number of channels on the app is expected to double.
Vistar Media, focused on programmatic technology for digital out-of-home, announced the launch of a third-party measurement suite to provide foot traffic studies on the impact of DOOH campaigns. Partnerships include NinthDecimal, MFour, Factual, Cuebiq and PlaceIQ. “Our aim is to provide clients with best-in-class offerings that put digital out-of-home on par with all media channels in terms of intelligent targeting and actionable measurement,” said Laura Kasakoff, Senior Partnerships Manager at Vistar Media.
How are businesses investing in technology? A study from Dell Technologies, “Digital Transformation Index II,” surveyed 4600 business leaders worldwide, and 58% of respondents reported investing in cybersecurity, followed by the Internet of things technology (46%), the multi-cloud environment (44%) and AI (40%). Sixty-eight percent said they believe they will use new tech to improve supply chain transparency, traceability and efficiency.
FreeWheel has completed the first stage of a technology unification initiative with Comcast sib NBCUniversal. With linear and digital delivery systems now connected, NBCU is using FreeWheel’s dynamic ad decisioning technology to optimize linear TV schedules in tight coordination with their linear tracking system. “Linear has been the missing piece in the one order, one report solution that marketers need,” said FreeWheel GM Dave Clark. “What we’re most excited about is the long-term implication for both publishers and advertisers, and what it means to the ultimate vision of a unified strategy across all screens.”
ADVERTISING
Reddit is targeting cost-conscious marketers with the introduction of a cost-per-click ad offering, served up to people based on interest targeting. Advertisers can find ad inventory on the Reddit dashboard. “While cost-per-click advertising isn’t innovative, in itself, the launch marks a big moment for the Reddit Ads business,” said Zubair Jandali, VP of Brand Partnerships. “This is a point of inflection that helps get us to parity in the market and will change the way advertisers think about our capabilities.”
BMO Capital Markets paints a rosier picture than earlier this year of Amazon’s ad business, upgrading its outlook for 4Q18 and 2019 and 2020 ad revenues. BMO now estimates $9.21 billion in advertising revenue in 2018 (versus its prior $9.06 billion), $13.72 billion in 2019 (versus $12.97 billion), and $18.71 billion in 2020 (versus $17.58 billion).
CASTING
David Straithairn (McMafia) will star in CBS All Access true crime drama Interrogation, reports Deadline…Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard), Sally Phillips (Veep) and Jill Halfpenny (Three Girls) landed guest star roles on IFC and Channel 4’s upcoming Year of the Rabbit…Matt Lauria (Kingdom) will recur in Apple comedy Dickinson.
GOING GLOBAL
Red Arrow Studios International secured new international sales for crime drama Stella Blómkvist, with AMC Networks’ Sundance Now. The series has also been ordered for a second season by Síminn in Iceland.
PODCAST POSTING
Tenderfoot TV is expanding its partnership with podcast company Cadence13 to create a slate of six new podcast series, including bestselling author Neil Strauss’ first foray into the genre.
