General
Pete Buttigieg Sets Hollywood Fundraisers With Ellen DeGeneres, Chelsea Handler and More
Gene Maddaus, Variety
Pete Buttigieg has rescheduled several Hollywood fundraisers that were canceled last month after a police shooting in South Bend, Ind. Buttigieg is set to appear at the Hancock Park home of Kevin MacLellan, chairman of global distribution and international at NBCUniversal, and Brian Curran on the evening of July 25.
Hollywood’s #MeToo Dilemma: When Alleged Predators Also Give Generously to Charity
Rebecca Sun, The Hollywood Reporter
Pity the Trojans. In August, the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism scrubbed the names of Leslie Moonves and Julie Chen from its media center after six women accused the then-CBS CEO of sexual harassment and intimidation.
Podcasters need listening data, so Nielsen is going to call people’s homes to ask for it
Ashley Carman, The Verge
Nielsen, a company best known for tracking TV shows’ popularity, is getting into the podcast data collection business. The company will begin assembling information on podcast listeners’ consumption habits, like their genre preferences and how long they listen to shows, and it will then sell access to that data to podcasters and podcast ad networks.
New Star Wars Rides May Help Boost Lighter-Than-Expected Crowds
Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg
Walt Disney Co. set the opening dates for attractions at new Star Wars lands in Florida and California, completing major expansions at a time when light crowds at Disneyland have surprised fans and observers. Rise of the Resistance, a ride that puts guests in a simulated battle between the evil First Order and the rebels, opens Dec. 5 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando and Jan. 17 at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
Film
New ‘Lion King’ movie lands with a critical whimper
Jill Serjeant, Reuters
The much-anticipated new version of animated movie classic “The Lion King” landed with a whimper rather than a roar on Thursday with critics hailing it as visually impressive but tame in terms of character and storytelling.
Will The Sleeping Box Office Giant Wake Up For Tarantino? Let’s Hope
Michael Cieply, Deadline Hollywood
When will the Sleeping Giant wake up? In the second half of every year for the past 10, the grown-up audience has opened its eyes, stretched its legs and gone to the movies in numbers big enough to make a certified hit of at least one non-animated, not-too-scary, non-sequel drama.
Television
Cops and Classic Sitcoms Fuel TV’s Latest Live Programming Boom
Michael O’Connell, The Hollywood Reporter
If live TV is now the lifeblood of linear television, networks appear eager for a transfusion — tackling live programming in new arenas, such as reality and comedy, in an effort to jump-start the genre. Familiar opportunities for live are either slim or less of a guarantee for eyeballs, with few available sports broadcast rights, waning audiences for awards shows (down a collective 15 million viewers in 2018) and even live musicals starting to miss the mark.
Viacom And CBS Teeter Toward Merger With Their Master Dealmaker On The Sidelines
Peter Bart, Deadline Hollywood
The meetings are conducted with the secrecy of a national security briefing. Attendees pledge not to disclose deliberations.
CBS holds bizarre ‘pep rally’ for staffers amid ‘Evening News’ shake-up
Oli Coleman, Page Six
There were unsettling scenes at CBS Wednesday when top talent and execs hosted a peculiar “pep rally” for the revamped “CBS Evening News” — which left some staffers “embarrassed” and “confused.” We’re told that as part of the morale booster at CBS headquarters, incoming anchor Norah O’Donnell, heavyweight news division president Susan Zirinsky and “Evening News” executive producer Kim Godwin starred in a taped “music video” set to a DJ Khaled song — complete with a dance routine.
‘How To Get Away With Murder’ To End With Season 6 On ABC
Denise Petski and Nellie Andreeva, Deadline Hollywood
The upcoming 15-episode sixth season of ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder will be its last. Created by Peter Nowalk, How to Get Away with Murder has been an anchor in ABC’s TGIT programming block since its premiere in 2014, and has cemented star Viola Davis’ name in history as the first woman of color to win an Emmy Award in the Lead Actress in a Drama Series category.
Technology and New Media
‘What’s Facebook Watch?’: VidCon teens and tweens on video platforms
Tim Peterson, Digiday
Teens and tweens have tons of programming they can watch across traditional TV and online. So what are they actually watching?
Nielsen says new ‘Stranger Things’ season had record 26.4 million US viewers in first four days
Sarah Whitten, CNBC
A record 26.4 million U.S. viewers watched the third season of Netflix’s hit show “Stranger Things” over the July 4 holiday weekend, about 17% higher than the debut of season two, according to Nielsen. “Compared to the second season, ‘Stranger Things 3’ was an even bigger hit,” Nielsen said in a press release.
‘Pretty Little Liars’ Will Be Unavailable to Stream Until HBO Max Launch After Netflix Departure
Todd Spangler, Variety
Sorry #PLL fans: “Pretty Little Liars” is rolling off Netflix in the U.S. later this month — and the teen mystery drama will not be available on any streaming platform in the States until WarnerMedia’s HBO Max officially launches in early 2020, Variety has learned.
‘Paper Girls’ Graphic Novel Adaptation From Legendary TV & Plan B Gets Amazon Series Commitment
Nellie Andreeva, Deadline Hollywood
In a competitive situation, Amazon Studios has landed Paper Girls, a drama based on Brian K. Vaughan’s best-selling graphic novel. The project, which has received a series commitment, hails from Legendary Television and Plan B (12 Years A Slave, Moonlight).
Want to be YouTube famous? These social media stars say TikTok is the first step.
Kalhan Rosenblatt, NBC News
Two dozen people huddled around Sammie Lewis, 18, as she prepared to belt out her signature catchphrase. “Here’s the mother frickin’ tea,” Lewis said, punctuating each breath by slamming her yellow acrylic nails into her phone screen while another person recorded the moment.
With linear viewership down, Sinclair looks toward sports and OTT to steady the ship
Andrew Blustein, The Drum
After striking out on acquiring Tribune Media, Sinclair has turned its attention to local sports and over-the-top (OTT) television as it suffers the same linear decline plaguing the TV industry. In May, Sinclair bought 21 regional sports networks (RSN) from Disney for $9.6bn.
Your Spotify and Apple Music subscriptions pay artists you never listen to
Dan Kopf, Quartz
Anna, a fictional Spotify subscriber, is a big jazz fan. She recently fell in love with a jazz trio called The Expressionists (also fictional).
Drake’s e-sports franchise 100 Thieves now valued at $125M
Josh Kosman, New York Post
Drake’s e-sports franchise, 100 Thieves, just raised another heap of cash from investors — and boosted its value by nearly 40% in less than a year. The fast-fingered team of video game prodigies has completed a $25 million fundraising round that was oversubscribed, valuing the team at $125 million, a source with direct knowledge of the situation said.
Opinions, Editorials, Perspectives and Research
Netflix Will Be Fine Without Friends or The Office
Josef Adalian, Vulture
For years, the story of Netflix has been almost exclusively one about growth: more spending, more subscribers, more international production, more talent deals, more everything. But as this week’s news that Friends will be leaving the service for WarnerMedia’s upcoming HBO Max platform underscores, the years-long narrative surrounding the streaming giant has started to shift.
Do you really want to live in a world where ‘Friends’ and ‘The Office’ are TV’s most valuable shows?
Hank Stuever, The Washington Post
As your lowercase-f friend, may I suggest that you’ve seen more than enough reruns of “Friends” and “The Office” and that it is long past time to move on? I recognize the primal comforts offered by each (to say nothing of “The Office’s” emergence as the common meme-based language for young, wired ones to convey their full range of ooky emotions), but I cannot condone this cultural rut, this zombielike obsession for two old shows.
What HBO’s Emmy Strategy Tells Us About the 2019 Race Overall
Ben Travers, IndieWire
During the many months of campaigning preceding the actual Emmy nominations, anything is possible. That low-rated, critically hailed, but never-nominated show?
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