Good morning. It’s Tuesday November 20, 2018 and this is your first early morning briefing.

Tonight’s Premieres:

Animal Planet: Lone Star Law at 8p

History: The Curse of Oak Island: Digging Deeper at 8p, The Curse of Oak Island: Behind the Dig at 8:30p, Brothers in Arms at 10p

Tonight’s Finales:

Bravo: Flipping Out at 10p

Comedy Central: The Jim Jefferies Show at 10:30p

IN THE NEWS

The 2019 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner will not be emceed by a comedian, as it has been since the early 1980s. Instead, the WHCA announced esteemed historian and author Ron Chernow will be the speaker. “Freedom of the press is always a timely subject and this seems like the perfect moment to go back to basics,” said Chernow. “While I have never been mistaken for a stand-up comedian, I promise that my history lesson won’t be dry.” Tweeted Michelle Wolf, whose performance at the last event caused debate, “The @whca are cowards. The media is complicit. And I couldn’t be prouder.”

The White House fully restored the press credentials of CNN’s Jim Acosta, prompting the news net to drop its lawsuit. “We have made a final determination in this process: your hard pass is restored,” wrote press secretary Sarah Sanders, adding that if new rules in place weren’t followed, “we will take action.” Those rules include reporters asking just one question at news conferences, with follow-ups at the president’s discretion.

The majority of viewers A18-49 consider local television to be the most trusted source of news and information, according to a survey conducted by SmithGeiger for Hearst Television. Eighty-one percent of video consumers in the demo reported using local TV news at least once a week on at least one platform, while 63% said they get news and information from a local TV station. Seventy-three percent of news consumers – 69% A18-24 and 74% A25-49 – trust at least one local TV news brand in their market.

The merger of 21^st Century Fox and Disney was approved without conditions by Chinese regulators. The EC and the U.S. Department of Justice had forced the divestitures of 22 regional networks owned by Fox and stakes in five unscripted cable nets to win their approval.

Stacey Abrams asked TV and film producers not to pull their projects from Georgia after she lost that state’s hotly contested race for governor. Responding to calls for a boycott from notables like Veep EP Frank Rich, Abrams tweeted, “I appreciate the calls to action, but I ask all of our entertainment industry friends to support #FairFightGA – but please do not #boycottgeorgia. The hard-working Georgians who serve on crews & make a living here are not to blame. I promise: We will fight – and we will win.”

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PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT

Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) inked a first-look production deal with Fremantle. First up: Vivling, a series based on the life of Vivien Leigh.

Netflix ordered a docu-series based on John Grisham bestseller The Innocent Man. Six-parter focused on murders in a small town in Oklahoma drops Friday, December 14.

Deadline alert! Submit your entries by tomorrow night (11:59pm ET) to be in the running to win a Cynopsis TV Award – see last year’s winners here. You can start the process and submit here

SNL alum Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne (Orange Is the New Black) signed a first-look deal with Amazon Studios calling for them to create original series for Amazon Prime Video through their Animal Pictures. Rudolph is producer and star of Amazon Prime’s Forever.

Aspire TV renewed Butter + Brown for a third season. To sweeten the deal, Aspire is giving fans a chance to guest on the show by submitting a video of themselves making their favorite B+B dish or drink.

Also picked up for season three is AT&T Audience drama Mr. Mercedes. Production for 10 new episodes begins in early 2019 in Charleston, SC.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Limited series Deadly Legacy reopens the case of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who died before eight of his victims were identified. “Through the dogged determination and inspiring intrepidness of Detective Sergeant Moran, Investigation Discovery will deliver answers to multiple families in this intense, riveting, and long-overdue investigation,” said Henry Schleiff, Group President of ID, Travel Channel, American Heroes Channel, and Destination America. Three-parter launches Sunday, December 9, at 10p.

VH1’s Love & Hip Hop: New York “returns to the place it all began” with a premiere Monday, November 26, at 8p. The Monday franchise expands to two nights a week starting with the premiere of Love & Hip Hop: Miami on Wednesday, January 2, at 8p.

Daughter/father sitcom Sydney to the Max debuts Friday, January 25, at 8:30p on Disney Channel. Series created by Mark Reisman (Frasier) is set in the present day with flashbacks to the 1990s.

HBO’s Crashing and High Maintenance will both return for season three on Sunday, January 20, at 10p and 10:30p, respectively. Crashing slides into the slot held by Divorce, renewed for season three, while Maintenance takes Crashing’s 10:30p spot.

The method to Harry Houdini’s magic is explored in Science Channel’s Houdini’s Last Secrets. Four-parter launches Sunday, January 6, at 10p.

USA’s Suits returns for the six-episode back half of season eight on Wednesday, January 23, at 10p.

The second half of season three of The Ranch arrives on Netflix Friday, December 7. Dax Shepard (Parenthood) joins as a recurring guest star; Danny Masterson was fired in December after being accused of early-2000s rapes.

Music countdown series Top Ten Revealed returns for a sophomore season on AXS TV on Sunday, January 13, at 8:30p. Each week has a different theme – first up is “Top Ten Roller Rink Tunes.”

COMING UP

Movie Christmas on the Coast, centered on a celebrity novelist who returns to her childhood home for the holidays, premieres on INSP Sunday, November 25, at 8p.

Marilyn Monroe for Sale premieres on Smithsonian Channel Sunday, December 23, at 9p. One-hour special charts the life of the screen legend via personal items sold at auction.

Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants takes a trip to the moon in holiday special SpaceBob MerryPants, premiering Sunday, November 25, at 11a.

How to Holiday with Jordin Sparks and Friends airs on Food Network Canada on Saturday, December 1. One-hour special features Canadian lifestyle creators, who produce, film and edit their own segments, exec produced and developed by Kin.

Discovery Channel celebrates Thanksgiving with a six-episode marathon of the Discovery/BBC co-production Life Story, starting Thursday, November 22, at 6p. Series follows animals’ journeys through six stages: taking their first steps in the world, growing up, finding a home, gaining power, winning a mate and succeeding as a parent.

DIGITAL

Instagram began purging inauthentic likes, follows and comments on Monday from accounts that use third-party apps to inflate popularity. The company said it built machine learning tools to weed out likes and followers created by services employing bots. “This type of behavior is bad for the community, and third-party apps that generate inauthentic likes, follows and comments violate our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use,” said Instagram in a statement.

Discovery Inc. will launch select shows from Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, ID, Discovery Life, Science Channel and TLC on free streaming service Pluto TV this month, its first free, ad-supported internet VOD deal. Via its acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive, Discovery is an investor in Pluto TV, which has over 10 million monthly active users.

Subscribers for Crown Media Family Networks’ on-demand streaming service, Hallmark Movies Now, topped 500,000, on the heels of the rollout of programming event “Movies & Mistletoe.” Since the event launched on October 29, Hallmark Movies Now has recorded a 93% surge in viewership and an 11% increase in subscribers versus the corresponding period in 2017.

Digital out-of-home org DPAA announced that Enlighten, an enterprise solution in the cannabis space, has joined its membership ranks. Enlighten’s in-store digital network is active in more than 650 cannabis businesses, including dispensaries, cultivators and producers, and head shops. Said Barry Frey, DPAA President & CEO, “Enlighten is bringing a broad range of digital out-of-home solutions to what promises to be a burgeoning industry.”

Altice USA introduced its Altice One Operating System 2.0, an update to its Altice One entertainment and connectivity platform that adds enhanced mobility and more advanced features for customers, including the ability to watch Cloud DVR content on the go on the Altice One mobile app. OS 2.0 also brings Altice One customers access to the YouTube Kids app, the ability to use voice search on YouTube to discover videos, more 4K content, and live show restart on more than 20 additional networks.

Users of Amazon’s Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Show devices can now access Pandora’s paid premium tier. In addition to the ability to request songs, albums and playlists on demand, subscribers can listen to Pandora’s personalized radio stations ad-free.

In celebration of the series premier of George R.R. Martin’s Nightflyers on all Syfy platforms on Sunday, December 2, Syfy Digital has launched VR chapters in the saga. The chapters, directed and written by Nightflyers showrunner and EP Jeff Buhler, are a standalone yet complementary experience with the series and focus on supplementary stories involving three characters from the on-air series (Murphy, Thale, Lommie) as well as three new characters specific to the VR series.

ADVERTISING & BRANDS

Thanks to privacy legislation, programmatic ad spend will grow 24% in 2018, down from 32% in 2017, according to Zenith’s Programmatic Marketing Forecasts. Sixty-five percent of advertising in digital media will be traded programmatically ($84 billion), two percent less than last year’s forecast.

DISTRIBUTION

Escape acquired TV rights to Law & Order and Boston Legal in a licensing agreement with Universal Television. Both series will launch on New Year’s Day. Katz sib Laff landed broadcast TV rights to According to Jim, from Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International, and is headed for an early-2019 debut.

AT&T and Fox Networks Group reached a new multi-year carriage deal, covering distribution of Fox programming across DirecTV, DirecTV Now and AT&T U-verse. Fox-owned local broadcast stations and regional sports nets, as well as Nat Geo nets and Spanish-language services, are covered in the agreement.

Ovation digital travel entertainment channel Journy is launching on Fire TV and Apple TV. The AVOD service launched on Android and iOS devices last month.

CASTING

Norbert Leo Butz (Mercy Street) and Margaret Qualley (Novitiate) have joined the cast of FX’s Fosse/Verdon as Paddy Chayefsky and Anne Reinking. Limited series is slated for a Spring 2019 premiere….Sofie Grabol (The Killing) and Katherine Kelly (Happy Valley) have been added to the cast of HBO/BBC drama Gentleman Jack….Jaime Camil (Jane the Virgin) will guest on an episode of CW’s Charmed, directed by Jane star Gina Rodriguez….David Zayas (Dexter) and Kelcey Mawema (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before) will recur on Syfy’s upcoming Deadly Class, premiering Wednesday, January 16.

GOING GLOBAL

Keshet International acquired global rights to Australian political drama Black B*tch (wt), starring Rachel Griffiths (Brothers & Sisters) and Deborah Mailman (The Sapphires).

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

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RATINGS

Nielsen offered insights on the sixth and final season of House of Cards, which landed on Netflix November 2. According to the measurement company’s SVOD Content Ratings, within the first seven days the drama’s first episode reached an average minute audience of 2.9 million U.S. viewers P2+, versus an audience of 4.4 million for season five’s first episode. The show skewed older, with A18-34 making up 22% of the season six audience, versus 35% for season five, and A50-64 accounting for 27%, versus 19% last time around. And with Robin Wright playing president, the audience is 54% female; when Kevin Spacey was in the Oval Office the show skewed 56% male.

Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship posted a series-high 1.3 rating (L+3 P25-54) last Monday, up +8% from week prior, and ranked #3 in the 9p timeslot. The series is averaging a 1.2 rating P25-54 across the first two weeks, up +22% from last season, contributing to the net’s highest-rated Monday ever for L+3 ratings with a .8 P25-54, ranked #3 among cable for W25-54 and #4 among P25-54.

EstrellaTV’s Premios de la Radio awards show topped all networks in the LA market regardless of language for a third consecutive year among A18-34, A18-49, M18-34, M18-49, M25-54, and F18-34.

Tunity Analytics Top 10 Weekly National Out-of-Home Viewer Ratings for Entertainment Programs on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX the week of November 12, 2018

Program, OOH Viewers (000)

52^nd Annual CMA Awards (ABC) 437

Saturday Night Live (NBC) 283

God Friended Me (CBS) 199

2018 Gamer’s Choice Awards (CBS) 191

The Voice (NBC) 188

Big Bang Theory (CBS) 184

The Simpsons (Fox) 164

NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS) 132

NCIS (CBS) 125

The Neighborhood (CBS) 120

Source: Tunity Analytics. Viewing estimates are derived from Tunity mobile app usage. OOH Viewer impressions are calculated using Tunity Analytics proprietary estimation model.

SHAREABLEE SOCIAL TV RATINGS: Top 10 U.S. Shows Overall by Engagement for the week of November 18, 2018

Program, Total Actions (millions), Total Content, Actions per Content (000), Fans/Followers (millions)

E! News (E!) 17.15, 941, 18, 34.25

Ellen DeGeneres (Warner Bros./synd.) 16.9, 136, 124, 167.6

Riverdale (CW) 7.9, 75, 105, 11.28

The Walking Dead (AMC) 3.3, 120, 27, 49.1

TMZ (Warner Bros./synd.) 2.5, 1053, 2, 15.4

Saturday Night Live (NBC) 2.0, 80, 25, 11.5

Today (NBC) 1.6, 673, 2, 12.8

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) 1.5, 48, 32, 32.8

Entertainment Tonight (CBS/synd.) 1.2, 739, 1.6, 7.6

Dancing With the Stars (ABC) 1.2, 90, 13, 9.3

Based on Total Actions (reactions, comments, shares and retweets)

Live + Same Day Viewers AA (millions) Friday, November 16, 2018 time period averages

Source: NTI, Galaxy as dated Live+SD

CBS: 7.57 million

MacGyver 6.20, Hawaii Five-0 7.88, Blue Bloods 8.63

FOX: 4.39 million

Last Man Standing 5.97, The Cool Kids 4.38, Hell’s Kitchen 2.81

ABC: 2.90 million

Fresh Off the Boat 3.47, Speechless 2.60, Child Support 2.38, 20/20 3.13

NBC: 2.62 million

Blindspot 2.54, Midnight, Texas 2.08, Dateline 3.24

UNIVISION: 0.92 million

Jesus 1.06, Mi Marido tie Mas 0.88, Ama a Muerta 0.83

TELEMUNDO: 0.75 million

La Sultana 0.79, Falsa Identitad 0.79, Senora Acero 0.66

CW: 0.53 million

Dynasty 0.66, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 0.40

Friday A18-49: Fox 0.9/4, CBS 0.8/3, ABC 0.6/3, NBC 0.4/2, UNI 0.4/2, TELE 0.4/2, CW 0.2/1

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Universal Television Alternative Studio head Meredith Ahr has been promoted to President, Alternative and Reality Group, NBC Entertainment. Ahr will oversee all aspects of unscripted at the network, Universal Television Alternative Studio and first-run syndication.

Courtney White has been upped to President of Food Network. White was formerly Executive Vice President and General Manager of HGTV and Food Network.

Carrie Stimmel has been promoted to Executive Vice President, Lifestyle and Hispanic Advertising Sales, NBCUniversal, leading the sales teams responsible for national advertising and marketing partnerships on Bravo, E!, Oxygen, Telemundo, Universal Kids and Universo. Stimmel was most recently SVP, Lifestyle Advertising Sales.

CBS Corp. elevated Kelli Rafferty to Executive Vice President, Communications. Rafferty had been SVP Communications.

A+E Networks International appointed Moreyba Bidessie as Director of Scripted Development and Sales. Bidessie was previously Scripted Acquisitions Manager at Sky Vision.

Jen Robertson has been named to the newly created position of Vice President, Marketing at PBS Distribution. Robertson joins from Walter Presents, where she was General Manager.

Advanced location data technology company Blis named Ben Phillips as Vice President of Strategic Accounts. Phillips comes from MediaCom, where he was Global Head of Mobile.

This Day in History: 1983 - ABC movie The Day After, about nuclear war, drew 100 million viewers.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question: Which fictional TV reporter was the proud winner of the "Silver Sow" award? WKRP in Cincinnati's (1978-1982) Les Nessman. Kudos to: Alan Dorfman-Super Impulse USA/Bristol, PA, Ken White-KWTV/Charlotte, Robert Owen-Millenia 3/Atlanta, Eric Ruhalter-Very Clever Productions/NYC, Arthur Reinstein-Corus Entertainment/Toronto, Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station, TX, John Kukla-KDFW/Dallas, Patti Rodriguez-Sinclair Broadcast Group/Colorado Springs, CO, Garret Blutter-Walk and Talk Production Rentals/Burbank, Judy Margolis-The Ad Place/Dallas, Brad Stern/Carbondale, IL, Jack Hodgson-Oklahoma State University/Stillwater, OK, Miriam Falcon-BET Networks/Royal Oak, MI, Will Allmendinger-Clear Channel Outdoor/Chicago, Dan Haberer-Creo Entertainment/Playa del Rey, CA, Lorrie Shilling/El Segundo, CA, Ken DuBow-Bob’s Your Uncle/LA, Kathy Kraft-Abelson Taylor/Chicago, Eric Merrill-The Davis Group/Austin, Anne Wettig-Fox Cable Networks S&P/LA

Today’s Trivia Question: Which two popular 1971 TV-movies had theatrical releases? (Email trivia@cynopsis.com with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four correct answers from each time zone will be selected.)

Answer to the Monday Anagram: In Ran Auditors = Dinosaur Train. Kudos to: Paul Blutter-Walk and Talk Production Rentals/Burbank, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA

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WHAT'S ON TONIGHT - TUESDAY NOVEMBER 20

ABC: The Conners, The Kids Are Alright, black-ish, Splitting Up Together, The Rookie

CBS: NCIS, FBI, NCIS: New Orleans

CW: The Flash, Black Lightning

FOX: The Gifted, Lethal Weapon

NBC: The Voice, This Is Us, New Amsterdam

PBS: We’ll Meet Again, Frontline, Frontline

TELEMUNDO: La Sultana, Falsa Identidad, Senora Acero

UNIVISION: Jesus, Mi Marido Tiene Mas Familia, Amar a Muerte