Paramount Expects DTC Content Spend to Increase to More Than $6 Billion in 2024

Did you know that Kid Cudi and Quinta Brunson are friends?

Tinashe gave such a great performance of “X” during her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week!

Jack Harlow is embracing the sober life.

A new book about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is marking the 25th anniversary of the beloved series’ premiere, and includes star Sarah Michelle Gellar confronting longstanding rumours that she used to feud with her co-stars.

Angelina Jolie spent Wednesday in Washington, D.C., where the updated Violence Against Women Act finally became law.

Here are your Manchester United morning headlines for Thursday, March 17.

Gogglebox has shared throwback snaps where she looks unrecognisable.The mum-of-three, who first appeared on the hit Channel 4 show in 2020, penned an adorable social media tribute celebrating her firstborn child Danny's birthday.In the Instagram post Lisa, 50, who's typically noticeable on the hit show for her luscious bleached blonde streaked locks, shared a throwback snap from over three decades ago where there was no blonde in sight.In the adorable picture Lisa wore her much shorter natural brunette hair below her shoulders as she opted for a more retro-looking style to fit the time period.In the precious grainy picture a much younger Lisa is holding her firstborn Danny as a toddler. Sharing the precious snaps online, Lisa penned: "33yrs ago today I became a mummy for the very first time!"Happy Birthday @DBayley, Have a wonderful day, my darling Danny, Love you so much x x x," followed by a string of birthday emojis.Firstborn Danny doesn't appear alongside his family in the hit Channel 4 show which sees his mum, her husband Terry and sons George and Joe take centre stage.The other photos in the birthday photo carousel include Danny alongside his younger brothers in various throwbacks and more recent snaps.Adoring fans left comments underneath the lovely tribute.One wrote: "OMG, I love the brunette hair, such a 70s hair-do."A second penned: "You have 3 beautiful sons!! Love you and your family, honestly bring me so much joy.

Ben Affleck, 49, looked relaxed and stylish during a recent outing with his son Samuel, 10. The actor was spotted riding around in his brand new black Tesla car while running errands and at one point walked on a sidewalk with his youngest child. He wore a red and gray plaid button-down shirt and dark gray jeans while Samuel rocked a navy blue polo shirt and tan pants.

Emily Longeretta SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched “Kiss Me and Smile for Me,” the March 16 episode of “Good Trouble.”The Fosters family is changing again — Maia Mitchell has exited Freeform’s “Good Trouble.” The actress has portrayed Callie Foster since “The Fosters” premiered in 2013, and went on to reprise the role in its spinoff series, with her final episode airing on Wednesday night.During the episode, Callie revealed that Kathleen (Constance Zimmer) had helped her land her dream job with the ACLU, but that meant she had to move to Washington, D.C. She had invited her moms (guest stars Teri Polo and Sherri Saum) and brother Jude (Hayden Byerly) to town in order to soften the news for Mariana (Cierra Ramirez), who was shocked to learn her sister was moving across the country in two days.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterWith Peak TV still getting peak-ier, it’s harder than ever for a series to really break through with audiences. And that means it’s even harder for a new writer to get their project noticed with the studio executives who are sifting through pitches looking for the next show that will break through with audiences.During a “Meet the Executives” virtual panel at SCAD TVfest last Thursday, five top programming execs offered up some key advice to SCAD students on what they are looking for in a script from the next generation of TV series creators.The panel, which was hosted by Variety‘s TV business writer Jennifer Maas, included JoAnn Alfano, executive vice president of scripted current series and head of international business development at Universal Studio Group; Jasmine Russ, vice president of development and production at Fabel Entertainment; Max Kisbye, executive vice president of development and production at MGM/UA Television; Tana Nugent Jamieson, senior vice president of creative affairs at A+E Studios; and Naomi Funabashi, senior vice president of film and television at Hillman Grad Productions.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterInvestment firm Standard General has struck a deal to purchase TV broadcaster Tegna Inc. for $24 per share in cash, the companies announced Tuesday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Good News About Hell” and “Half Loop,” the first two episodes of “Severance,” which premiered Friday on Apple TV Plus.The Ben Stiller-directed “Severance” debuted its first two episodes Friday, revealing a fictional world where people, like Adam Scott’s Mark Scout, are able to undergo a procedure that allows them to mentally separate their work and home lives. Why a person would choose to do this and why Lumon, the company that created the process, would require it of some of its employees is just the start of the questions posed by the initial pair of “Severance” episodes.“What we know of them is that they are a med-tech company.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Yellowstone” prequel “1883” has been renewed for Season 2 at Paramount Plus, and the ViacomCBS-owned streaming service has ordered another Taylor Sheridan-created origin-story show following the Dutton Family called “1932.” Yes, you guessed it — the show will follow a new generation of Duttons “during the time of western expansion, Prohibition and the Great Depression.”“1883″ stars Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Billy Bob Thornton, Isabel May, LaMonica Garrett, Marc Rissmann, Audie Rick, Eric Nelsen and James Landry Hébert.The show follows the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. It is a stark retelling of western expansion and an intense study of one family fleeing poverty to seek a better future in America’s promised land — Montana.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus will begin integrating Showtime content this summer, launching an in-app upgrade that includes access to the pay TV channel’s programming, ViacomCBS announced during its Tuesday investor event.“So let’s talk about how we’re helping subscribers access even more of our amazing streaming services, right there in the Paramount Plus app,” Tom Ryan, president and chief executive officer of streaming at ViacomCBS, said during the virtual presentation, which covered the company’s fourth-quarter 2021 results and forward-looking goals for this year. “Our existing bundle, of Paramount Plus and Showtime, has performed very well out of the gate.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus and Showtime topped a combined 56 million subscribers by the end of last year, ViacomCBS revealed Tuesday ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings presentation and investor event. That’s up 9.4 million from where it was in the previous quarter.At the end of Q3 of 2021, Paramount Plus (formerly CBS All Access) and Showtime OTT added 4.3 million global subscribers, raising their combined total to nearly 47 million.For comparison, HBO and HBO Max ended 2021 with 73.8 million global subscribers, Disney Plus closed the year with nearly 130 million worldwide, and Netflix reached 221.8 million total in Q4.ViacomCBS said last February it expects to reach 65-75 million global subscribers between Paramount Plus and Showtime by 2024.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterMelissa Joan Hart will star in multiple new “It’s a Wonderful Lifetime” holiday movies, as well as the made-for-TV hoarder film “Dirty Little Secret” at Lifetime, as part of a new multi-year deal with the cable channel, Variety has learned exclusively.Under her new pact, Hart will star in, direct and executive produce several movies for Lifetime. For the “Ripped From The Headlines” movie “Dirty Little Secret” (working title), which is set to debut this summer, Hart stars as a mother hiding her extreme hoarding tendencies that are destroying her family.Additionally, Hart will star in and executive produce new movies for Lifetime’s 2022 and 2023 Christmas slates, having previously starred in six holiday films for the cabler, including “Mistletoe in Montana,” “Dear Christmas” and “A Very Merry Toy Store.” Hart has previously executive produced eight Lifetime films with her production company Hartbreak Films, including the recent “Christmas in Tune” starring Reba McEntire.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“What is it we actually do here?” That’s a question posed by Adam Scott’s Macro Data Refinement department head Mark Scout in the new Apple TV Plus series “Severance,” a show about Lumon Industries, a mysterious company whose employees, like Mark, have undergone a surgical severance procedure that gives them a very literal “work-life balance.” It’s also a question that series creator Dan Erickson, director Ben Stiller and stars Scott, Patricia Arquette and Tramell Tillman found themselves asking a lot during the making of “Severance.”“The jumping off point is so fascinating, and there are so many interesting questions set up by it,” said Stiller, whose Red Hour Productions picked up the script from Erickson and brought it to Apple. “It was a question of, where should we go tonally with the show? Because we didn’t want it to go to a familiar place, necessarily.” Stiller went on to say that “because the tone was so unique,” and had a “strange humor about it,” the creative team really wanted to establish the “rules” of “Severance’s” world and “that’s what a lot of the time was spent doing.”“Severance” showrunner Erickson first got the idea to create this world while he was working a stereotypical 9-to-5 job that had him wishing he could block out that part of his day entirely.“I worked a string of office jobs when I first got to L.A., and one in particular was in this weird little windowless office,” Erickson told Variety.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAMC Networks dropped a teaser during Super Bowl LVI Sunday featuring the first look at its Anne Rice series “Interview with the Vampire,” along with footage from the sixth and final season of “Better Call Saul,” the middle third of the 11th and final season of “The Walking Dead” and upcoming anthology “Tales of the Walking Dead,” the fourth and final season of “Killing Eve” and several other shows coming to AMC, streaming service AMC Plus or BBC America this year.A longer 60-second version of the TV spot was released online, which teased the upcoming series “61st Street,” “Dark Winds,” “Moonhaven” and “That Dirty Black Bag.”AMC’s “Interview with the Vampire,” adapted from Rice’s iconic novel of the same name, centers on the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (played by Jacob Anderson) as he relates the story of his life to a reporter, in particular how he was turned into a vampire and then mentored by Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid). The show is currently in production in New Orleans.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterDisney plans to increase spending on Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution (DMED) programming by more than $1 billion this quarter versus the same period last year.For the current quarter, the company plans to up its spending on direct-to-consumer programming by between $800 million and $1 billion versus the comparable fiscal 2021 quarter, CFO Christine McCarthy said during Disney’s fiscal Q1 2022 earnings call Wednesday. On the linear network side, content spend is expected to go up by approximately $500 million.“It’s all about content, content, content,” CEO Bob Chapek said on the call, which followed Disney’s announcement that Disney Plus had reached nearly 130 million subscribers by the end of 2021.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Child Care,” Monday’s episode of “9-1-1: Lone Star.”Baby made three for Judd (Jim Parrack) and Grace (Sierra McClain) on last week’s “9-1-1: Lone Star” — and on Monday’s episode, an estranged teen son and his mother made five. Totally unbeknownst to Judd and Grace, he had a son Wyatt (Jackson Pace) with Marlene Harris (Robyn Lively), a barrel racer he can hardly remember having met at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo in 2005.On Monday’s “9-1-1: Lone Star,” that boy comes to find Judd with the help of an online DNA ancestry website and Judd and Grace, just getting the hang of taking care of newborn daughter Charlie following her birth at the tail end of the Fox drama’s weeks-long ice-storm plot.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNational Geographic announced a slate of more than a dozen upcoming original programs Monday, all of which are produced by the brand but will debut exclusively on Disney Plus — not on the Nat Geo cable channel. But despite the shift, Nat Geo content president Courteney Monroe promised that it’s not a sign that the Disney-owned brand has completely moved away from linear content.“I realize that all of my announcements today were for Disney Plus originals, but that in no way diminishes our focus and investment in National Geographic programming for the linear channel,” Monroe told reporters Monday during Nat Geo’s virtual presentation at the Television Critics Association winter press tour.