True to its word, Turner unveiled a solid slate of scripted and unscripted shows at its upfront presentation on Wednesday morning, as well as a major digital initiative: TNT and TBS will stream live content to the networks' websites and by way of newly launched tablet and mobile apps. The streams will be authenticated, as part of parent company Time Warner's much-evangelized initiative, TV Everywhere. TNT's scripted slate added a third title with an odd couple joined by fate and an ampersand: King & Maxwell (not to be confused with Franklin & Bash or Rizzoli & Isles), as well as a new show from Walking Dead creator Frank Darabont, Lost Angels. The network's reality shows looked a lot like its scripted fare, especially police show Boston's Finest. Dwayne Johnson will star in unscripted series Hero, as well. The presentation started off with Turner boss Steve Koonin doing his usual shtick by joking around with the audience. This year, the generously-proportioned exec ran backstage and then appeared to back flip, breakdance, unicycle and juggle in an effort to impress ad buyers as body doubles emerged in padding and white wigs.
Read MoreUPDATED: Turner's Adult Swim has greenlit five new series, including a show from retired heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson called Mike Tyson's Mysteries, from Warner Bros. Animation (Warner Bros. owns Turner). Community creator Dan Harmon also got a pick up for new series Rick and Morty, a show about a scientific genius and his nephew, who is not a genius. Renewals, interestingly, included Odd Future's sketch comedy series Loiter Squad, which helped Adult Swim produce a series of Mountain Dew commercials—one that
Read MoreAfter three years of sharing the rights to the NCAA Men’s Division I National Basketball Tournament , CBS and Turner Sports have agreed to accelerate their transition game. Beginning in March 2014, TBS will begin carrying the two national semi-final games, better known as the Final Four. Per terms of the original pact, TBS was to begin hosting the Final Four in 2016. The revision of the April 2010 agreement ensures that yet another high-profile sporting event is making the jump to cable. In 2016, for the first time in the tournament’s storied history, the National Championship game will be telecast on a basic cable network.
Read MoreCNN has begun casting its net for pundits to appear in the revival of its debate show Crossfire. According to Politico , the news network has approached former Speaker of the House and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and President Obama’s former deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter. Gingrich hasn’t held down a regular TV gig since 2011, when Fox News Channel voided his $1 million contract after he announced his plans to run for president.
Read MoreWhen you think of CNBC, naturally you think of gossipy puppets and bacon tacos, right? OK, maybe not. But that’s where the power suit crowd-serving cable network wants to take viewers, as it looks to seriously dial up its Web video output. This week marks the debut of the CNBC Digital Workshop , an in-house production studio designed to crank out Web originals for CNBC.com and partners like Yahoo . Among the projects in development are Chew & Brew, a weekly cooking show hosted by CNBC reporter Jane Wells that’s focused on guy-skewing concoctions like bacon tacos and beer milkshakes, and The Puppets Can Hear You, featuring puppets reciting tweets from the popular Wall Street Twitter feed @GSElevator , which mocks the sometimes out-of-touch traders at Goldman Sachs. CNBC is clearly going lighter and broader with some of its digital fare, as it attempts to move past simply repurposed TV clips. Meanwhile, it is also ramping up a daily postmarket round-up show, 3 to Watch, hosted by CNBC reporter Josh Lipton, and this Friday marks the debut of Hacking America, an investigative series examining weighty topics like the fight against global cyberterrorism. “We’re building on the success we already have,” said Kevin Krim, svp, gm of CNBC Digital. “We have a fantastic TV brand and a very strong digital team, which has been doing a better and better job of fundamental blocking and tackling. But now we’re interested in going after a broader base, offering viewers a holistic view of their lives, not just [what they’re doing during] trading hours. And we’re also addressing advertiser demand.” Though the workshop is being formally announced this week, CNBC already has started churning out Web-only franchises. Among them, Off the Cuff, a collaboration with Yahoo, features interviews with executives outside their business milieu, as well as celebs and sports stars like the New York Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony; and the recently launched, twice-daily series Big Data Download
Read MoreEasily NBCUniversal’s biggest cable launch this year, the $100 million-plus science fiction series Defiance bowed last night to 2.73 million total viewers. That puts its far ahead of the season-to-date average for Smash on Syfy’s sibling network NBC. According to a source, the network had 200,000 pre-orders for the game by the time Defiance hit GameStops and Best Buys on April 2. At $60 a pop, that gives Syfy and developer Trion Worlds $1.2 million back on their investment immediately, and the game continues to push against the reigning king of the gaming charts, BioShock: Infinite (no shame there—the latter was called the
Read MoreThe power dynamic will not shift overnight, but the newly announced launch of Google Fiber in the tech-savvy gulch that is Austin, Texas , has legacy cable operators shaking in their boots. And with good reason. On paper, literally everything about Google Fiber makes standard digital-cable service look like something that was cobbled together by members of a lesser phylum. Boasting gigabit download/upload speeds (up to 1,000 Megabits per second), Google’s connectivity is roughly 70 times faster than Time Warner Cable’s standard 15 Mbps plan. Google Fiber TV is just as head spinning, allowing subscribers to record up to eight programs simultaneously while offering two terabytes of storage, on par with the capacity of DISH Network’s Hopper. When Google Fiber late last year began transforming Kansas City into the nation’s sole “no-buffering zone,” incumbent Time Warner Cable established a hotline for locals to report tips and rumors about the construction effort. To sweeten the pot, TWC rewarded select members of its spy network with $50 gift certificates. TWC is by far the dominant operator in the Austin DMA, which boasts 705,280 TV households. The MSO serves approximately 50 percent of Austin’s pay-TV subs, followed by DirecTV (18 percent), DISH Net (17 percent) and relative newbie AT&T U-verse (15 percent)
Read MoreEverything old is new again at the Game Show Network. At the Sony Club this morning, the cable channel said it has green-lighted a new version of Minute to Win It, hosted by Olympic skater Apolo Ohno, as well as The Chase, a new quiz show. GSN is banking on its new centerpiece show, American Bible Challenge , to provide the template for its future, at least if its development slate is anything to go by. The network has It Takes a Church, a matchmaking show in which a congregation tries to set up its parishioners with suitable mates; and Dance Rivals, a dancing competition show set in Orem, Utah. Other shows in development: Mind of a Man, in which female contestants try to figure out what men are thinking; and The Imposter, in which an outsider must determine which member of a family isn't really a member. The network saw Q1 gains in total viewers for both prime and total day, with an uptick for total day logged in the 25-54 category and (for prime) among viewers 55+. Staples at the cable channel include Family Feud, hosted by Steve Harvey , and The Newlywed Game, hosted by Sherri Shepherd. American Bible Challenge (hosted by Jeff Foxworthy) has been notable for the network in primetime, bringing in 1.7 million viewers for its premiere episode and sustaining an average of more than 1 million over the course of the season.
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