Tuesday November 30, 2021

Today’s Finale
Cooking: Food Truck Face Off at 9p

IN THE NEWS

NBC will ring in the new year with a dynamic duo—Miley Cyrus and “Saturday Night Live’s” Pete Davidson. The special, which will also stream on Peacock, will air live from Miami on Friday, December 31 at 10:30p. Exec-produced by “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels, Cyrus and Lindsay Shookus, “Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party Hosted By Miley Cyrus and Pete Davidson” will feature guests and musical performances to be announced. It’s produced by Den of Thieves in conjunction with Hopetown Entertainment, Miley Cyrus and Tish Cyrus’ production company.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is stepping down from his executive post but will remain a board member at the company until his term expires. Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief technology officer since 2017 and a 10-year Twitter veteran, will take on the CEO role. “I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart, and soul,” said Dorsey of his successor. “It’s his time to lead.” Additionally, Bret Taylor was named the new chairman of the board, succeeding Patrick Pichette, who will remain on the board and continue his role as chair of the audit committee.

Kevin Steele, the district attorney from Montgomery County, PA, who put Bill Cosby in prison three years ago, filed an appeal to the US Supreme Court to reinstate Cosby’s conviction. The disgraced comedian and actor was released from prison this June after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled his non-prosecution agreement from 2005 with former prosecutor Bruce Castor should have prevented him from being charged again.

Jury selection is under way in Chicago in the case of former “Empire” star Jussie Smollett, who stands accused of faking a hate crime against himself in 2019. Smollett faces six counts of “disorderly conduct” for allegedly filing a false police report about the attack. The trial is anticipated to last about a week.

New org the Property Masters Guild has formed, with Joshua Meltzer, whose credits include “Dexter,” “Will & Grace” and “2 Broke Girls,” serving as its first president. The guild has 78 founding members and seeks to raise awareness of the craft of property master to those both within and outside the TV and film industries; educate members so they can maintain the highest quality of standards; cultivate and train future generations of property masters, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds; and foster a greater collaboration amongst property masters.

Is the metaverse a digital world that “transforms the real one in ways that are fun, freaky and sometimes frightening,” a “shared universal economic system,” or “an embodied internet”? Find out which execs offered these definitions — and, more importantly, learn how to leverage the power of this new world — here.

ABC’s “Good Morning America” announced GMA Gives Back, an initiative that spotlights of viewers who have been making a positive impact on their community. The initiative, which runs through the holiday season, includes daily gift box giveaways.

“Insecure: Music From The HBO Original Series, Season 5,” features songs from Saweetie, Thundercat and Amindi, among others, and debuts on Issa Rae’s Atlantic-distributed label Raedio this Friday, December 3… Glow Up Games and HBO also launched free mobile game “The Come Up Game,” based on “Insecure” and available in the App Store with content updates scheduled throughout 2022.

Join us on Tuesday, December 7 from 1:00-3:30 PM ET and hear from top executives who created some of the most successful platforms in this space today, see case studies on activations in this space, and more!

REGISTER TODAY

Kurt Sutter, co-creator of “Sons of Anarchy” and “Mayans M.C.”, is getting comfortable at Netflix since departing FX. He’s set “The Abandons,” a potential hourlong series rooted in the Old West, at the streamer. Sutter is also prepping his feature directorial debut, “The Beast,” for Netflix.

He’ll be back. Horror drama series “Chucky” will get a second run on USA Network and Syfy. The eight-part first season has its finale tonight (November 30).

HGTV said yes to a new season of “No Demo Reno,” starring designer and social media creator Jenn Todryk. The series will return for a 10-episode sophomore run in summer 2022. Its first season, during which Todryk and her team combined clever design and cost-saving ideas to create home overhauls for clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, attracted more than 25.1 million viewers.

A second season of British crime drama “Whitstable Pearl” is headed to Acorn TV. From Buccaneer Media and based on the Julie Wassmer novels, the second six-part run will see the return of Kerry Godliman (“Ricky Gervais’ After Life”) in the lead role as Pearl Nolan, chef and owner of the eponymous Whitstable Pearl restaurant who is also proprietor of a detective agency.

Anonymous Content is teaming with Europe’s Federation Entertainment to launch France-based TV label Anonymous/Federation. The development and production label will be overseen by Dawn Olmstead and David Levine on behalf of Anonymous Content, and by Pascal Breton, Lionel Uzan and Patrick Wachsberger on behalf of Federation. First up: “The Abduction of Yossele Schumacher,” a limited thriller series based on the true story of the abduction of an 8-year-old Jewish boy by his ultra-Orthodox grandfather in the ‘60s.

Incendo and BlackBox Multimedia are partnering for development and productionof a modern take on the classic mystery detective franchise “Ellery Queen.” The companies optioned rights to the collection of novels and short stories, and will develop a TV series with a reimagined female lead.

J. A. Bayona is onboard to direct Spanish-languagedisaster movie “Society of the Snow” for Netflix. Bayona, whose credits include “The Impossible” and “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” penned the screenplay and will helm the film based on the book by Pablo Vierci which charts the true account of what happens after an Uruguayan Air Force flight transporting a rugby team to Chile crashes on a glacier in the Andes. Only 29 of the 45 passengers survived, and were forced to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.

BBC2 and PBS commissioned “First Contact,” a series that combines real documentary interviews with scientists alongside a fictionalized narrative to spotlight a near future when extra-terrestrial life has been detected. The project is written and directed by Nic Stacey (“World According to Jeff Goldblum”).

In related news, BBC Studios Drama Productions inked a development partnership with Nigerian TV pioneer Mosunmola “Mo” Abudu, founder and CEO of entertainment network EbonyLife Media. The studio and Abudu will develop thriller heist series “Reclaim,” written by Rowan Athale (“The Rise”) and melding themes of colonialism and cultural ownership.

“The Lehman Trilogy,” currently on Broadway as a Sam Mendes-directed adaptation, is being developed as a TV series by Italy’s Fandango. Fandango acquired an option for TV rights to Italian playwright Stefano Massini’s treatment, which follows the three Lehman brothers from their arrival from Germany in NY in 1844 to the 2008 bankruptcy of the global financial services company they founded.

NEW & RETURNING SERIES

Season 2 of “Trafficked With Mariana Van Zeller” debuts on Nat Geo on Wednesday, December 1. Ten new eps offer viewers a mission-driven adventure to places rarely seen, providing an intimate look at poorly understood trafficking networks ranging from romance scams to a meth superhighway to California’s black market for weed.

ABC set Tuesday, January 4 as the debut date for “Judge Steve Harvey.” Harvey serves as the judge, jury and star of the one-hour unscripted courtroom comedy featuring real-life people with real-life conflicts, who will present their case in his courtroom. Episodes of the show, produced by Den of Thieves in association with Walt Disney Television’s newly formed alternative unit, will be available on demand and on Hulu the day following their premieres.

I spy season two of “Alex Rider,” heading to IMDb TV Friday, December 3. Based on the book franchise written by Anthony Horowitz, the series follows a London-based teenager who’s unknowingly been trained since childhood for the dangerous world of espionage.

Netflix dropped a trailer for “Coming Out Colton,” the six-ep series featuring “The Bachelor‘s Colton Underwood that premieres Friday, December 3. Series follows Underwood as he comes out as a gay man, addresses his past and embraces his place in the LGBTQ community. Underwood also addresses the pain he put his ex Cassie Randolph, whom he met on the ABC reality show—through, as he shares in the trailer: “I put a poor girl through a hell of my own insecurities.”

Also at Netflix is a first trailer for “Saturday Morning All-Star Hits!,” the adult animated live-action comedy series produced by Broadway Video and Universal Television. From “Saturday Night Live‘s” Kyle Mooney, Bento Box Entertainment’s Ben Jones and Lorne Michaels, the series debuts Friday, December 10 and stars Mooney as twin hosts Skip and Treybor, who take viewers on a zany romp through the Saturday morning cartoon experience of the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Disney+ released character posters and a TV spot for new live-action series “The Book of Boba Fett.” The streamer also announced the LucasFilm series will have seven weekly episodes, which will begin airing Wednesday, December 29. The series, which follows the legendary bounty hunter, was first teased in a surprise end-credit sequence following the season 2 finale of “The Mandalorian.”

Food Network and Discovery+ are back in the kitchen with a new competition series starring chef Alex Guarnaschelli. The five-part “Alex Vs. America,” which will see 15 chefs from across the US attempt to beat Guarnaschelli in a variety of culinary challenges, will premiere Sunday, January 2 at 10p. The twist here is chefs will have the ability to work together in selecting variables for their dishes and the amount of time they give themselves and Guarnaschelli to cook.

Vice TV docuseries “Black Market with Michael K. Williams” will premiere its second season Monday, January 10 at 10p. The series explores the complex underworld of illicit trades and unravels how these criminal networks are reshaping our way of life.

COMING UP

Performances by Jose Feliciano & CNCO, Pentatonix and the cast from Broadway musical “Come From Away” join the previously announced lineup for NBC’s “Christmas in Rockefeller Center,” airing Wednesday, December 1 at 8p.

FX and Hulu set the premiere for their next New York Times Presents doc, “To Live and Die in Alabama,” for Friday, December 3 at 10p on both platforms. The film, from producer and director Matt Kay, follows the aftermath of the killing of three police officers in a shootout at a drug house in Alabama, for which one man was sentenced to death even though he was never accused of even touching the murder weapon.

Comedy Central kicks off its “31 Day’s of Going Home for the Holidays” lineup with “A Clusterfunke Christmas” on Saturday, December 4 at 7p. The parody of the traditional TV holiday romance that follows a go-getter real estate exec from NY who heads to a small town to buy an inn and transform it into a mega-resort. “Hot Mess Holiday,” about an overachieving finance exec who gets unceremoniously dumped by her cheating fiancé during the Diwali holidays, follows on Saturday, December 11 at 7p.

Nicole Byer is starring in her first hourlong Netflix comedy special. Debuting Tuesday, December 7, “Big Beautiful Weirdo” was filmed at NY’s Gramercy Theatre and features Byer discussing everything from how she’s “basically” a vegan, what she’s looking for in a man.

PBS has a parcel of upcoming holiday fare including “20 Years of Christmas With the Tabernacle Choir” on Monday, December 13 at 8p and “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” on Tuesday, December 14 at 8p.

Hulu unleashed a trailer for true crime doc “Dead Asleep,” which debuts on Thursday, December 16. Directed by Skye Borgman, the film flips the traditional thriller narrative to explore a deeper and more troubling mystery: Did a remorseful Randy Herman Jr. really commit a brutal murder in his sleep, or was it a convenient cover story?

STREAMING

ViacomCBS Networks International and Nordic Entertainment Group are teaming for a new Pluto TV service to debut across Sweden, Denmark and Norway in 2022. The service combines ViacomCBS’ free ad-supported streaming TV platform with pan-Nordic AVOD platform Viafree. NENT Group will serve as the platform’s leading ad sales partner.

UK SVOD service True Royalty TV has announced a 25 million pounds fundraising round to capitalize on the success of its recent distribution deal with Amazon Prime. The service has grown subscribers and revenue by 75 percent since launching on
Amazon in May.

CASTING

Ivanna Sakhno scored a role in the unnamed Ahsoka Tano series at Disney+. She’ll appear in the series opposite Rosario Dawson.

www.cynopsis.com/resource-center

“You,” whose third season bowed on Netflix in mid-October, repeated as the top overall show in US streaming for the week of October 25 to 31, according to Nielsen, which said the series’ 30 eps drew 1.55 billion minutes of view time during that week.

Shareablee Top 10 Streaming Shows for the week of November 22
Program, Platform, Total Actions, Total Content, Actions per Content, Fans & Followers
Gossip Girl (HBO Max), 640k, 64, 10,002, 16.2m
Netflix is a Joke (YouTube), 606k, 52, 11,646, 2.5m
You (Netflix), 439k, 6, 73,170, 1.9m
The Grand Tour (Prime Video), 433k, 12, 36,074, 5.9m
Get Organized With The Home Edit (Netflix),291k, 21, 13,833, 5.9m
The Witcher (Netflix), 290k, 4, 72,485, 1.9m
Trailer Park Boys (Netflix), 246k, 71, 3,458, 3.1m
One Piece (Hulu), 215k, 4, 53,721, 3.8m
The Boys (Prime Video), 189k, 18, 10,480, 1.5m
Lost in Space (Netflix), 137k, 17, 8,085, 198k

Broadcast Nielsen Ratings for Wednesday, November 24
Show, P2+ 000s, (A18-49)
ABC: “The Goldbergs” 2.24 (0.3), “The Wonder Years” 1.50 (0.2) “The Conners” 1.76 (0.2), “Home Economics” 1.21 (0.2) “The Queen Family Singalong” 1.06 (0.1)
CBS: “Survivor” 5.23 (0.9), “Tough as Nails” 2.92 (0.4), “CSI: Vegas” 4.02 (0.4)
CW: “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow” 0.51 (0.1), “Batwoman” 0.47 (0.1)
FOX: “The Masked Singer” 1.86 (0.3), “Alter Ego” 1.07 (0.2)
NBC: “Chicago Med” 3.04 (0.3), ”A Saturday Night Live Thanksgiving” 2.94 (0.5)
Telemundo: “Por Amor o Por Dinero” 0.81 (0.1), “Hercal: Amor” 1.11 (0.2), “Malverde: Santo” 0.82 (0.2)
Univision: “Futbol Central” 0.75 (0.3), “Liga-Mx” 1.31 (0.5), “Desalamada” 1.19 (0.4)
Source: Nielsen live + same day time period averages

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Hero4Hire Creative named Christina Augustinos as head of content production. Augustinos previously served as VP of production for the brand creative team at Nickelodeon.

Beyond Rights brought in David Smyth as its new CEO, replacing Kate Llewellyn-Jones, who is stepping aside. Smyth most recently founded and served as CEO of YouLook.tv, the UK’s first multichannel AVOD service.

Rachel Arnold and Jon Green, co-founders of UK indie Definitely, are seguing to Banijay company RDF to head up its creative team. As part of the move, Definitely will fold into RDF.

IN MEMORIAM

Arlene Dahl, who aside from starring in the 1959 sci-fi film classic “Journey to the Center of the Earth” held may TV and film roles, has died. She was 96. Among her television credits, Dahl appeared on multiple soap operas including “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” and guested on series including “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” “The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island” and “Love, American Style.”

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which was the third sitcom for Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen? “So Little Time” (2001). Kudos to: Heather Allen-WWE Corp./Stamford, CT; Emily Hepworth-IAS/NY; Faye Kulik-Disney/Brooklyn, NY; Charles Lore/NY; John Kukla-KDFW-KDFI/Dallas-Fort Worth; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Westberg-SAG*AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank

Today’s Trivia Question
What was the first sitcom to use a laugh track? Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four answers per time zone.)