PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
HBO Films acquired worldwide rights to drama Icebox from director-writer Daniel Sawka. The timely project, which debuted at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, follows the story of Oscar, a 12-year-old Honduran boy who is forced to flee his home and seek asylum in the United States, only to find himself trapping in the immigration system.
FOX greenlit a parenting comedy from Saturday Night Live vet Steve Koren, 3 Arts Entertainment and 20th Century Fox TV. The untitled project, which is written by Koren, centers around what happens when two people who have spent years creating a happy harmonious relationship decide to destroy it all – by adding a baby.
CBS All Access’ Star Trek Universe is expanding with a two-season order of Star Trek: Lower Decks. The half-hour adult animated comedy hails from Rick and Morty head writer and EP Mike McMahan, a longtime Star Trek fan, and will focus on the support crew serving on one of the Starfleet’s least important ships. Project marks CBS All Access’ first original animated series and the first project to be produced by CBS Eye Animated Productions.
E! Entertainment renewed Botched for a sixth season. The series returns for its fifth season with more high stakes procedures and big reveals on Thursday, December 6 at 10p.
Endemol Shine North America signed an overall deal with Craig Plestis and his Smart Dog Media production company to develop original unscripted series. Plestis, who helped develop and launch America’s Got Talent, The Biggest Loser and Deal or No Deal as NBC’s top unscripted executive is set to launch Masked Singer with ESNA on FOX in January.
Production has begun on the third installment of Netflix’s Money Heist. The Spanish-language hit known as La Casa De Papel in Spanish-speaking markets. Alex Pina is returning with some new faces joining the cast. Bows in 2019.
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
E!’s new late-night talker, Busy Tonight, hosted by Busy Philipps, bows Sunday, October 28 at 10p. Airing Sunday through Wednesday, the show’s premiere week features guests Mindy Kaling, Vanessa Hudgens, Kristen Bell and Megan Mullally.
The fifth and final season of Broad City premieres on Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 10p on Comedy Central.
Univision’s Amar a Muerte premieres Monday, October 29 at 10p. The net’s latest telenovela explores the supernatural.
Outside the Bubble: On the Road with Alexandra Pelosi bows on HBO on Monday, October 29 at 8p. Features Pelosi on a cross-country trip to engage conversations with fellow Americans to gain an unfiltered understanding of their perspectives.
Animated preschool series Rainbow Rangers bows on Nick Jr. on Monday, November 5 at 3p. Following the premiere, Genius Brands International is hosting an event at Nasdaq MarketSite on November 6 at their headquarters in Times Square NYC to showcase the brand to the investor community.
COMING UP
COZI TV celebrates the 25th anniversary of The Nanny with an all-day marathon on Saturday, November 3. Runs from 6:30a to 7p.
AXT TV’s Docs That Rock presents Kansas: Miracles Out Of Nowhere on Tuesday, October 30 at 10p. Follows the story of the band’s rise from small town obscurity to touring the world with Queen and taking over the charts with some of rock’s biggest hits. Earlier in the night, drummer Phil Ehart, guitarist Rich Williams and lead vocalist Ronnie Platt, current members of Kansas, sit down with Dan Rather on The Big Interview at 9p.
TNT airs an all-day Supernatural marathon on Halloween. Airs from 8a to 8p on Wednesday, October 31.
FOX News Channel presents one-hour special FOX Nation First Look on Sunday, October 28 at 7p. Showcases the programming offerings on the new streaming service FOX Nation with some platform stars, including The Five co-host and Watters World host Jesse Watters, FOX Nation’s First & Final Thoughts host Tomis Lahren; Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth, and co-hosts of FOX Nation’s UN-PC, Britt McHenry and Tyrus.
PODCAST POSTS
Einhorn’s Epic Productions and iHeartMedia released Lethal Lit, an iHeartRadio original scripted mystery podcast. Follows teen detective Tig Torres, who returns to her small hometown of Hollow Falls where her aunt was framed as a serial kill ten years earlier, to explore the mystery of the Lit Killer murders.
Season 2 of fictional podcast Limetown debuts on Tuesday, October 30. The soon-to-be-released novel by Simon & Schuster and upcoming Facebook TV series, starring Jessica Biel, explores the story of the mysterious disappearance of more than 300 people from a remote neuroscience research facility.
CASTING
Damon Wayans guest stars as Damon Wayans Jr.’s father on the Monday, October 29 episode of Happy Together on CBS… Billy Crudup (Gypsy, Almost Famous) and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Black Mirror, A Wrinkle in Time) nabbed co-starring role in Apple’s untitled morning show drama… Rene Rosado (Major Crimes) booked a recurring role on ABC’s The Conners… Scotty Tovar (Too Old To Die Young) nabbed a recurring role on FOX’s Empire…
OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network announced ten new recurring and guest cast members to the ensemble of lyrical drama David Makes Man. Added are Lela Rochon (Training Day), Trace Lysette (Transparent), Liza Colon-Zayas (Proven Innocent, Law & Order: SVU), Juanita Jennings (Star), Lindsey Blackwell (Stepsisters) and Teshi Thomas (The Good Place, Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance), as well as newcomers Solomon Valdez, Nick Creegan, Kimaya Naomi and Logan Rozos.
ADVERTISING
At an ANA Masters of Marketing session in Orlando, Barbara Basney, former VP, Global brand, advertising and media at Xerox, walked the audience through the company’s “Set the page free” campaign, focused on a collection of stories about the modern workplace that created engagement with sticky, shareable content. It was done on “a very, very small budget,” said Basney, “repurposing and reusing to get lot of mileage out of content.” That meant changing content “for every mouth you want to feed… morphing it to make it optimal.” The program, done in partnership with the 92nd Street Y, had a major earned media component. Basney said the clickthrough rate was four times the benchmark, and Xerox.com had a 20% attribution lift.
A+E Networks, the first television company to offer outcome-based guarantees, is now offering in-campaign optimization for outcome-based partnerships. The announcement was made by A+E Networks’ Peter Olsen, EVP, ad sales, onstage at the A+E-sponsored dinner at the ANA Masters of Marketing event. Utilizing a model that delivers television ascription via cross-screen measurement, the solutions will measure key business outcomes such as foot traffic, sales and website traffic, among others. “Understanding how media investments contribute to business outcomes isn’t just nice to have, it is fundamental,” said Olsen. “We are thrilled to be offering marketers these new in-campaign capabilities as we collaboratively work together to maximize ROI.” Data Plus Math will serve as the platform enabling A+E Networks to use attribution signals for media plan optimization.
Bob Liodice, ANA CEO, pulled no punches during his address. “Marketers, it’s time to take our business back,” he said. “It takes guts and courage to lead the change.”
Liodice would get not argument from Progressive CMO Jeff Chaney, who said that while it’s important for marketers to take risks, “The best marketers go close to the edge but never over.” And if that means some stumbles along the way, so be it: “You gotta learn it, you gotta earn it.”
(Overheard from a marketing exec in the audience: “I always walk away from these with so many ideas, but then I think, wait a minute, we don’t have any money.”)
With apologies to SAG, Ancestry’s Vineet Mehra advised, “Have your customer be the voice of your purpose.” Also important: Inviting participation. Mehra pointed to TLC’s Who Do You Think You Are? as branded content that turns celebrities into customers. The audience must have been moved by videos showing long-lost relatives – as soon as Mehra announced that everyone in the room would get one of the DNA kits om the tables lining the wall, people jumped up to get one (or two or three).
People are hungry to trust, said Suzy Deering, CMO of ebay Americas. To that end, ebay has a money-back guarantee, ensures products arrive on time, and has been a leader in authenticating products and eliminating counterfeits. People should feel good about spending their money, added Deering, and purpose – a word heard over and over throughout the event – is key. “For us, it is about empowering people and creating economic opportunity,” said Deering. “We connect cultures in a way that no one but ebay can… We embrace culture, we embrace communities.”
More than 2000 consumers were surveyed in a new study by CHEQ, MAGNA and IPG Media Lab on their reactions to ads that appeared alongside three different types of “negative” content -- generally unsafe content, brand-averse content and vertical-averse content – and chief among the insights was that many consumers view brand unsafe ad placement as an intentional endorsement of the negative content. “It seems manipulative,” suggested one respondent. “I’d prefer a company that doesn’t use that kind of technique.” Another respondent added, “It’s disturbing that they are generating revenue through disaster.” One respondent went so far as saying it “Looks like they’re exploiting shock value.” The study also showed that when consumers assume every ad placement is intentional, it makes them 2.8 time less willing to associate with the brand when its ads are displayed in unsafe environments. “Our joint research with CHEQ shows that most consumers believe there are no mistakes in advertising, meaning that if an ad runs next to violent and/or offensive content, for example, they assume the brand deliberately placed it there and is in some way endorsing the content,” said Joshua Lowcock, global brand safety officer at UM Worldwide, part of IPG Mediabrands. “Brands need to be aware that blindly following a customer or chasing media price efficiency can have devastating effects on the long-term health of ther brands.”
KID STUFF
The first touring show based on the PBS KIDS series Peg+Cat -- Peg+Cat LIVE!: The Big Dog Problem -- hits the road on February 2019. From Fred Rogers Productions, Brad Simon Organization and Bay Area Children’s Theater, it brings musical, math-fueled interactive fun to preschoolers across the U.S.
Nickelodeon’s Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a reimagined take on the iconic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, will roll into the 92nd Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on a brand-new float inspired by the 2D-animated series. The multi-tiered float will give fans a look at the famous fighting foursome’s underground lair and will bring the series’ New York City streets to life for more the spectators lining the route and television viewers nationwide.
Hasbro announced a new line of collectibles for Transformers fans, BotBots. The little robots come to life from everyday objects inside a shopping mall. Each BotBots character belongs to a themed team based on what kind of store they belong in. There are 61 unique 1-inch characters to collect in the first series.
DIGITAL DATA
Facebook is working on a new app designed to win back the attention of teens, while capitalizing on its newly attained major label music licenses. The standalone product would allow users to record and share videos of themselves lip syncing or dancing to popular songs, reports TechCrunch. The app is designed to be a standalone competitor to Musically, which was a hit with teens and pre-teens before it was acquired by Chinese tech giant ByteDance and rolled into the company’s TikTok app.
Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj debuts on Netflix on Sunday, October 27, with the streamer having committed to a 32-episode of the series. Minhaj is the first Indian-American host of a weekly comedy show. The streamer also set November 30 as the Season Three premiere of animated series F Is For Family, from Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Television and Gaumont Television. Set in the 1970s, it takes look at time when political correctness, helicopter parenting and indoor smoking bans weren’t the norm.
Queen America, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, debuts on Facebook Watch on Wednesday, November 21. The weekly, 10-episode series centers on renowned and ruthless pageant coach Vicki Ellis (Zeta-Jones) and the hapless Samantha (Belle Shouse), who hopes Vicki can mold her into a contender.
A 2018 Beta Research Digital Basic Network Evaluation Study shows the top ranked digital basic networks. On percent with high scores on being a “must have” channel the top ranked digital basic networks among total adults were FX Movie Channel (31%), Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (26%), NFL Network (26%), Cooking Channel (24%), Nat Geo Wild (24%) and BBC America (23%). All of these networks were also among the top six in the 2017 survey. On average perceived value among viewers, the top ranked digital basic networks were: NFL Network ($1.89), Nick Music ($1.84), Nick Tunes ($1.80), Disney XD ($1.79), Universal Kids ($1.73), ESPNU ($1.65), DIY Network (($1.63), Hallmark Movies & Mysteries ($1.63) and OWN ($1.63). Compared to 2017, rankings significantly increased for Disney XD, Nick Jr., Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and OWN. On mentions as a favorite digital basic network among heavy Netflix/Hulu/Prime viewers, the top ranked nets were FX Movie Channel, BBC America, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and Cooking Channel.
GOING GLOBAL
Crown Media Networks’ Hallmark Channel and Crus Entertainment’s W Network struck a deal that brings the U.S. family-friendly entertainment brand to Canada. The partnership grants W Network exclusive Canadian licensing rights to all movies and scripted series produced by Crown Media for Hallmark Channel and sister network Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. W Network will launch Hallmark Channel on Thursday, November 1.
Netflix continues its investment in German content with the development and production of five new German projects launching on the streamer from 2019. Included is the first project out of Gaumont Germany, The Barbarians, which tells the story of an arduous fight between the Roman army and the Germanic tribes.
Apple, Nike and Spike Jonze were among the Gold Honorees at the shots Awards Ceremony in London. The program honors agencies, directors, producers and others for exceptional creative work across digital, TV, videos, content and more.
Turkish production company MEDYAPIM won the “Special Award” at the Tokyo Drama Awards for its version (Kadin) of Nippon TV’s scripted format Woman – My Life For My Children. The drama series centers on the daily life of a single mother and her young family trying to find peace and happiness in a harsh reality.
