NBC’s coverage of the 2022 Beijing Olympics continues to sit comfortably atop primetime ratings, with the first Sunday of the games nabbing the night’s largest audience. In early, pre-adjusted numbers, Sunday’s coverage earned a 1.8 rating in the18-49 demo and 10.30 million viewers. The games grew from the very first night’s fast affiliates (1.2, 7.39M). […]
EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has signed an overall deal with Leah Fong, co-creator and executive producer on the streamer’s upcoming horror/thriller drama The Midnight Club. Under the multi-year pact, Fong will write and produce new series and other projects. The first Netflix series Fong worked on was Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor, on which she […]
EXCLUSIVE: Freeform has picked up to pilot AZNBBGRL, an hourlong drama from Natalie Chaidez (The Flight Attendant), Dinh Thai (Wu-Tang: An American Saga), producer Melvin Mar (Fresh Off the Boat) and 20th Television. Set in the vibrant Vietnamese community of Little Saigon in Southern California’s Orange County, AZNBBGRL is a coming-of-age story about three Asian […]
We’ll be seeing more of Isabella on the upcoming fourth season of Freeform’s Good Trouble. Priscilla Quintana who recurred as the character in the second and third seasons, has been promoted to series regular for season four. Also cast as a series regular is newcomer Bryan Craig, and Booboo Stewart (The Twilight Saga, X-Men: Days […]
The lead agency set up to coordinate anti-piracy efforts across the government will soon have studio “embed” to help them track theft of movies and TV shows. The Motion Picture Association and the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a worldwide anti-piracy coalition, expanded an existing framework agreement with the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. […]
Home entertainment spending (mostly streaming) posted a year-over-year increase of 8% to hit $32.3 billion in 2021, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. The fourth quarter showed particular momentum, with overall consumer spending up more than 11% from the same period in 2020 to reach $8.6 billion. Electronic sell-through purchases, on-demand rentals and subscriptions rose […]
Former Saturday Night Live cast member and enthusiastic Olympics tweeter Leslie Jones says the the 2022 Beijing Winter games might be her last, writing today, “Leslie Jones does [not] stay anywhere I’m not welcomed.” Jones, who has been tweeting her comic reactions to Olympic games since the 2016 Rio competitions, wrote on Instagram and Twitter […]
EXCLUSIVE: Djouliet Amara (Devil in Ohio, Superman and Lois), Ally Maki (Home sweet Home Alone, Wrecked) and Crystal Fox (The Haves and the Have Nots, Big Little Lies) are set as series regulars opposite Chris O’Dowd, rounding out the cast of Apple’s The Big Door Prize, a half-hour comedy based on M.O. Walsh’s bestselling novel. […]
Griffin Campbell and his family will be back solving supernatural mysteries after Disney Channel renewed Secrets of Sulphur Springs for a third season. It comes after the second season of the time-travel mystery-adventure series launched last month. Created, written and executive produced by Tracey Thomson (The Young and the Restless), Secrets of Sulpher Springs is filmed and set […]
British pop star Rita Ora is joining Disney+’s Beauty and the Beast prequel series. Ora, who is best known for pop hits such as Your Song and Anywhere, will play a fugitive with surprising abilities who carries with her a secret that could potentially affect an entire kingdom in the eight-episode limited musical series. A […]
Disney Branded Television is expanding its development slate with three new projects — Paolo Santiago and the River of Tears, a live action original series based on the novel, from Eva Longoria for Disney+; Tiny Trailblazers, an original animated series from Reese Witherspoon, who also will star, for Disney Junior; and Superfudge, an original animated […]
Marvel stars Brie Larson and Jeremy Renner are moving in to the unscripted space. Disney+ has ordered two non-scripted series exec produced by the Avengers: Endgame stars. Larson is exec producing Growing Up, a series about adolescence, while Renner is behind Rennervations. Growing Up is a hybrid docu-series that explores the challenges, triumphs, and complexities […]
Broadway’s upcoming revival of Funny Girl, starring Beanie Feldstein, Jane Lynch, Ramin Karimloo and Jared Grimes has completed casting, with Peter Francis James, Ephie Aardema, Debra Cardon and Toni DiBuono among those joining the cast. The complete casting was announced today by producers Sonia Friedman, Scott Landis and David Babani. The complete creative team also […]
Innovid and TVSquared, two companies focused on measuring linear TV and streaming, are merging in a $160 million deal aimed at providing a larger-scale alternative to Nielsen. Innovid, whose shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange, is a connected TV advertising delivery and measurement platform. TVSquared is a privately held measurement and attribution platform […]
Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost are having their minds read by Amazon Alexa in the tech giant’s latest big-ticket Super Bowl ad. Continuing a run of annual spots featuring Hollywood A-listers (last year’s centered on Michael B. Jordan), this one sees the couple at home using Alexa Routines for various tasks. The setup, laid out […]
The filmmakers behind Diamond Hands: The Legend of WallStreetBets, call the story behind the Reddit users’ revolt over the retailer GameStop a “perfect storm.” The project, which will have its premiere at SXSW on March 13 and then air at 10 PM ET on April 10 on MSNBC, tells the story of the Reddit users […]
Euro Box Office Stats For 2021 While European box office in 2021 recovered well from 2020, up 42% to 3.8B euros ($4.23B), the year was still 57% down on pre-pandemic takings in 2019, data from the International Union of Cinemas shows. UNIC, which reps European cinema trade associations and operators, said in its preliminary findings […]
Capstone Launches Toni Collette-Anna Faris Comedy For EFM Capstone is launching sales at the virtual EFM on Toni Collette, Anna Faris and Thomas Haden Church comedy The Estate, the story of two sisters who try to re-ingratiate themselves with their wealthy, estranged aunt when they discover she is ill. The film heralds from writer-director Dean […]
Edinburgh Television Festival is to return in person after two years online. The 2022 edition will be held in the Scottish capital from August 24 to August 26, marking the first time in three years that all the key players from British broadcasting and production have got together. The past two editions have been digital-only […]
British broadcasting heavyweight Michael Grade has predicted another UK channel will pick up Neighbours, which Channel 5 said it will stop funding over the weekend. The much-loved 37-year-old Australian soap will stop airing in six months if producer Fremantle fails to find another UK co-commissioner. Australia’s Network Ten part funds the show for its 10 […]
Fox exec Claire O’Donohoe, who helped launch The Masked Singer and I Can See Your Voice in the U.S., is to team up with her long-time creative collaborator Natalka Znak at Banijay. O’Donohoe joins the European production giant as Director of Programmes, coming shortly after Love Island creator Znak became the CEO of Banijay labels Remarkable and Initial, while […]
Battling criticism for hosting The Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast denounced for the propagation of Covid-19 vaccine misinformation and Rogan’s use of the N-word in 70 episodes, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek released a memo to his employees expressing how “deeply sorry” he is for the way the podcast affected his employees. “There are no words […]
SPOILER ALERT: The following interview reveals major plot points from the Season 2 finale of Starz’ Power Book II: Ghost. The Starz drama Power Book II: Ghost wrapped up its second season on Sunday with a reminder that there is no room for the virtuous in this universe. Not since the murder of Tariq St. […]
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details about tonight’s Power Book II: Ghost Season 2 finale. “Look, there’s a lot in this show that is about family trauma and it’s about the perpetuation of family trauma,” says Power Book II: Ghost creator Courtney Kemp of the Michael Rainey Jr. and Mary J. Blige-led series that unveiled a […]
With the first full day of games tucked away, NBC posted some early numbers from the Beijing Winter Olympics and the glass seems to be half full. According to the streamer, Saturday was the most-streamed Winter Olympics day ever with 323 million minutes watched overall. Last night’s Total Audience Delivery (TAD), a metric of total […]
