8 articles

1 hour ago

After creating fake ads for dubious products like Mom Jeans, Little Chocolate Donuts, the Bathroom Monkey and the CNN Pregnancy Test, “Saturday Night Live” is developing a stronger interest in real ones.

Broadway Video, the production company behind the venerable program, is seeking a sponsor or sponsors for activities related to the 40th season of the comedy showcase, which could give a marketer the opportunity to have its name associated with an exhibit related to the show, among other things. And “SNL” has in recent months allowed cast members like Cecily Strong and Kyle Mooney to appear in ad campaigns for Jeep and Sprint. These practices, say ad-agency executives familiar with the program, have been viewed warily by “SNL” creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels for years.

Does “SNL” see more commercial opportunities for a show that once boasted of its cast as “The Not Ready for Prime Time Players »

- Brian Steinberg

1 hour ago

The NFL returned on Sunday with its annual Hall of Fame Game, down in the ratings from last year’s contest but big enough to dethrone CBS’ “Big Brother” as the night’s top program among young adults.

According to preliminary affiliate-based national estimates from Nielsen, NBC’s telecast of the Hall of Fame exhibition game between the New York Giants and Buffalo Bills averaged a 2.5 rating/8 share in adults 18-49 and 7.6 million viewers overall on the network’s stations from 8 to 11 p.m., with these numbers expected to rise by roughly 10% in the nationals when all West Coast viewing is accurately included. Last year’s game, featuring the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins, did a 3.3 demo rating in the prelims and a 3.8 in the nationals (and 10.1 million total viewers).

In Nielsen’s metered-market households, probably the most reliable apples-to-apples comparison for sports, the game was down 15% from last year (5.8 vs. »

- Rick Kissell

1 hour ago

The three central stars of “The Big Bang Theory” are closing in on megabucks new deals that will keep them on the hit CBS/Warner Bros. TV comedy through the 2016-17 season.

Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco are poised to see their salaries triple to about $1 million per episode under the three-season pact, according to a report on Deadline.

Plus, each of the three thesps is expected to receive a full backend point in the show, up from a fractional point under their previous pacts. And the deals include other perks such as development agreements. A rep for Warner Bros. TV declined comment.

“Big Bang” became the source of big drama in the TV world last week as the studio was forced to delay the start of production on the show’s eighth season because the key cast members had yet to finalize new deals. After a few days of finger-pointing, »

- Cynthia Littleton

2 hours ago

Nickelodeon has given a straight-to-series order for “School of Rock,” Variety has confirmed. The cable network will partner with Paramount TV for the adaptation, which is based on the 2003 Jack Black comedy of the same name.

The show will focus on Dewey Finn, a wannabe rock star who poses as a substitute teacher at an elite prep school and introduces the precocious students to the appeal of rock ‘n’ roll. “School of Rock” has received a 13 episode order in its freshman season, with production slated to commence this fall for a spring 2015 debut. Jim and Steve Armogida will write, executive produce and serve as showrunners, while “School of Rock” director Richard Linklater and producer Scott Rudin will executive produce.

Musical maestro Andrew Lloyd Webber is also developing “School of Rock” for the stage, aiming for a 2016 Broadway bow for his adaptation, which will utilize new material written by Webber as »

- Laura Prudom

3 hours ago

After establishing deals with Comcast’s NBCUniversal and 21st Century Fox in recent months, Nascar is turning its attention to international opportunities: The racing organization said it selected Img to help it navigate pacts with foreign broadcasters as its international agreements are set to expire at the end of the 2014 season.

Currently, Nascar races are broadcast in more than 175 countries through more than 20 broadcast partners worldwide. Img will begin assisting Nascar with creating and executing a new international media strategy for 2015 and beyond.

Img will work to secure broadcast exposure for Nascar’s national series as well as other Nascar series in hundreds of countries across the globe outside of North America and South America, including countries which have not broadcast Nascar content in the past.

These new international broadcasting rights will coincide with the domestic broadcasting rights partnerships with Fox and NBC announced last summer. Beginning in 2015, Fox Sports »

- Brian Steinberg

5 hours ago

Rome – Expanding Italian production company Wildside is looking to grow its presence in the international TV arena with several new projects, including high-concept skeins being penned by two of the country’s best-selling authors, Niccolò Ammaniti and Paolo Giordano.

Giordano, whose novel “The Solitude of Prime Numbers” won Italy’s top literary nod, the Premio Strega, is at work on a scripted series working-titled “Lo Sciamano” (The Shaman) about a man who emanates what are believed to be magic powers in a European city outside Italy. “Numbers” was adapted into a Wildside-produced film helmed by Saverio Costanzo. It went to Venice in 2010.

Ammaniti is instead at work on “The Miracle,” a mystery/thriller/drama which turns on a magical event that impacts the lives of characters across borders, including in an anglo-saxon country. A top Italian director will helm the skein, now in advanced scripting stages. Ammaniti’s books have been made into six movies, »

- Nick Vivarelli

7 hours ago

London — AMC Networks is rebranding its MGM Channel in international territories as AMC. The rebrand marks the first distribution outside of North America for AMC.

AMC will begin launching locally versioned channel feeds on cable and satellite platforms across Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East later this year. Also accompanying these channels will be AMC VOD, HD and TV everywhere services.

AMC Networks’ original series “Halt & Catch Fire” and “The Divide,” produced by AMC Studios, will be among the first original series to premiere on the channel internationally in an exclusive first TV window, this year.

In addition to premiering original programming from AMC Networks’ own studios, AMC will also feature movies from the Hollywood film libraries, including MGM, Paramount and Sony.

Bruce Tuchman, president AMC Global and Sundance Channel Global, said, “There is a huge appetite for AMC original programming abroad. That interest, coupled with our »

- Leo Barraclough

14 hours ago

Few TV shows turn the corner creatively speaking quite as quickly as “The Leftovers,” which with its fifth and sixth episodes has significantly raised the bar from where the show began, becoming a far more engrossing experience. Indeed, had the HBO drama started out with similar vigor it would have likely drawn a rave review from this quadrant, instead of the tepid response it received.

Producers Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, working from the latter’s book, have been frittering around the edges of something interesting in the early episodes, but seriously struggled with conveying why the audience should give a damn about its characters despite the sobering nature of their situation. There’s also the little matter of the triggering event — the sudden disappearance of 2% of the world’s population, which some perceive as the Rapture.

Initially, the series was weird, even eerie, but not particularly engaging. Sure, there »

- Brian Lowry

8 articles

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