Jennifer Maas: Last News

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The Nielsen data for the 2022 Emmys on NBC is in and its not looking good for TV’s biggest night. The awards show was down 25% from last year in total viewers and hit a new record low in ratings. On Monday, the Kenan Thompson-hosted 74th Emmy Awards had a 1.0 rating among adults 18-49, the lowest-ever key demo stat for the Emmys. The previous record low was set by the 2020 show, which aired on ABC, and settled for a 1.3 rating. The following year, the Emmys rebounded to a 1.9. Last night’s show drew 5.9 million total viewers compared with last year’s outing on CBS, which netted 7.9 million. That’s a new low and in stark contrast to the 2021 show, which marked a reversal in the Emmys’ steady decline in audience size. Last year’s Emmys saw a 16% gain of viewership over 2020’s historic drop-off of 12% with 6.37 million viewers.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The death of Queen Elizabeth II prompted the Claire Foy-led first season of “The Crown” to crack the Netflix Top 10 last week. Per Netflix, “HRH Queen Elizabeth II was in the hearts and minds of viewers” as Season 1 of the streamer’s Royal Family drama was watched for 17.6 million hours between Sept. 5-11. That put it in the No. 7 spot for English-language TV series. Meanwhile, the fifth season of “Cobra Kai” easily took the No. 1 slot on that list with 106 million hours viewed in the first three days post-Friday launch. In second place was limited series “Devil in Ohio,” which had 70.8 million hours viewed, followed by the first season of “The Imperfects” with 24.1 million.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The 74th annual Emmy Awards are about to begin at the Microsoft Theater at L.A. Live. The Monday event, hosted by Kenan Thompson, kicks off at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, and will include the bestowment of 25 awards during the live, three-hour telecast. Up for the top award of the evening, outstanding drama series, are “Better Call Saul,” “Euphoria,” “Ozark,” “Severance,” “Squid Game,” “Stranger Things,” “Succession” and “Yellowjackets.” On the comedy side, the contenders include “Abbott Elementary,” “Barry,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Hacks,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Only Murders in the Building,” “Ted Lasso” and “What We Do in the Shadows.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Fox’s Susan Sarandon and Trace Adkins-led country music drama “Monarch” didn’t the highest of Nielsen notes Sunday night, but it did manage to keep enough of its NFL lead-in audience to land the network’s most-watched fall scripted premiere in three years. Immediately following an NFL doubleheader, “Monarch” debuted at 7:45 p.m. ET/4:45 p.m. PT to a 0.8 rating among adults in the 18-49 age demographic and 3.8 million total viewers, according to initial Nielsen data. Due to the nature of live sports, these results will likely adjust (likely down) when finalized numbers come in later Monday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Magnolia Network’s top PR exec John Marsicano has been tapped as Endeavor’s new vice president of internal communications, Variety has learned exclusively. Beginning in the New York-based position Monday, Marsicano will be leading internal communications efforts across Endeavor’s network of more than 7,000 employees and supporting engagement with the company’s subsidiaries. He will report directly to Kim Ulrich, senior vice president of corporate communications at the Ari Emanuel-run company. Marsicano has worked with the Gaineses since 2017, when he began at the “Fixer Upper” couple’s national home and lifestyle brand by overseeing all communications efforts, both internal and external, for the company and its portfolio of businesses. He exited that role to join Magnolia Network, the Gaineses’ joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery (previously Discovery, Inc., ahead of the April merger with WarnerMedia), in the comms chief role under network president Allison Page.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Better Call Saul” actor Michael Mando has signed on to star opposite Brian Tyree Henry in Peter Craig and Ridley Scott’s upcoming Apple TV+ series “Sinking Spring,” Variety has learned. Based on the book “Dope Thief” by Dennis Tafoya, Apple’s eight-episode series “Sinking Spring” follows long-time Philly friends and delinquents who pose as DEA agents to rob an unknown house in the countryside, only to have their small-time grift become a life-and-death enterprise, as they unwittingly reveal and unravel the biggest hidden narcotics corridor on the Eastern seaboard. Mando will play the co-lead role of Manny Cespedes, a good-hearted friend of Ray’s (Henry), who he first met when they did time together in the Youth Authority, per the official character description.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Hillary Clinton remembered Queen Elizabeth II as “a woman who served with such honor and distinction” on Thursday, just hours after news broke of the longtime monarch’s death. “We lost a woman who served with such honor and distinction from literally the time she was a child, until two days ago when she received the new prime minister,” Clinton told Variety at the New York premiere of “Gutsy,” her and daughter Chelsea Clinton’s new Apple TV+ docuseries. “And I was privileged to meet her and spend time with her. Probably one of the highlights of my time in public service was when I was secretary of state, staying in Buckingham Palace and talking with her about her gardens, which were a great love of hers, and actually walking around the gardens with her gardener and going to a white-tie dinner in the grand dining room. I had many really pleasant and wonderful conversations. She loved to ask questions, she was so lively and she’ll be missed.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Squid Game” star Lee Jung-Jae has been cast as the male lead in Disney+’s “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte,” Variety has confirmed. “Russian Doll” co-creator Leslye Headland is showrunning the series, with Amandla Stenberg (“The Hate U Give”) set to star in the leading woman role. Going farther back in time than any live-action “Star Wars” title before it, “The Acolyte” is set a century before the events of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.” The series promises to depict the galaxy at the peak of the era of the High Republic, when the Jedi were at their strongest and the Sith were believed to have been eradicated from the galaxy.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The Fall TV season is upon us and Fox is kicking things off with the returns of “9-1-1,” “The Resident” “The Cleaning Lady” and its iconic Sunday animation block, as well as the debut of Susan Sarandon and Trace Adkins country music drama “Monarch” and an eye toward more fresh scripted content to come. Though Fox won’t be the home of the “Ally McBeal” reboot or the “Married… With Children” animated series, both in-the-works projects based on titles that originated at Fox, and is still remaining tight-lipped on more seasons of the Disney-owned “The Simpsons,” Variety found plenty to discuss with Fox Entertainment president of entertainment Michael Thorn pegged to the broadcaster’s day of panels at the virtual Television Critics Association press tour Wednesday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Desperate Housewives” and “Devious Maids” creator Marc Cherry is developing a new female-fronted drama at Fox. Titled “Jenny Is a Weapon,” the one-hour series follows the story of a sheltered Maryland housewife who, at the moment her marriage falls apart, discovers she has special psychic powers and is recruited by a secret government agency where she will have to juggle her broken family and save the world, per its official logline. The drama has received a script commitment from Fox Entertainment and is being eyed for a potential straight-to-series order at the broadcaster under a direct deal with Cherry.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer CBS’ 24th season of “Big Brother” has been watched for more than 8 billion minutes just over two months into its run, with still one-third of the season to go. Since the July 6 Season 24 premiere on CBS, “viewers have already watched nearly 8.3 billion minutes of ‘Big Brother’ so far this summer on the CBS Television Network, Paramount+ and CBS.com/the CBS app,” per Nielsen linear ratings and Paramount+ internal data provided by Paramount Global Wednesday. That tally encompasses both full episodes of “Big Brother” Season 24 watched via broadcast and streaming, as well as the live feeds from the “Big Brother” house that are only available on Paramount+. This data marks the first time that Paramount Global has released specific viewership figures surrounding broadcast content available on Paramount+. (For reference, Paramount+ now has 43.3. million paid subscribers, as of August.)

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Fox’s “Bloom County” animated series has signed “The Simpsons” writer Tim Long as co-showrunner on the project, Variety has confirmed. Long will write, executive produce and showrun the comedy, which is still in the development stage at Fox, alongside original “Bloom County” comic strip creator Berkeley Breathed. Per Fox, “Bloom County” centers on a collapsed lawyer, a lobotomized cat and an overly-carbonated penguin immigrant living in the world’s last boarding house in the world’s most forgotten place deep in the dandelion wilds of FlyWayThe@%!#OVER country. To wit, today’s America at a glance.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer (SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Solaricks,” the Season 6 premiere of “Rick and Morty.”) “Rick and Morty” kicked off its sixth season with an even bigger reveal than it dropped in its fifth season finale: Rick Sanchez is not Morty’s grandfather — at least this Rick (C-137) is not this Morty’s grandfather. Due to an accidental “reset” in portal travelers on the Season 6 opener, “Solaricks,” rather than Rick’s intended reset of port travel after the collapse of the Citadel and Evil Morty’s escape through the Central Finite Curve blew it all to hell in the Season 5 finale, Rick, Morty and Jerry were each pulled back into their original worlds/realities.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Amazon broke a long held precedent Saturday by revealing viewership data for a Prime Video series for the first time ever, making the exception on remaining tight-lipped about its internal TV ratings for its big-budget “The Lord of the Rings” TV series. According to the e-commerce giant, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was viewed by 25 million viewers globally over the initial 24 hours that the TV series’ first two episodes were available for streaming on Prime Video in 240 countries and territories. Amazon’s “The Rings of Power” debuted globally Sept. 1/Sept. 2, depending on what territory and time zone Prime customers were streaming from across the world when the first two episodes dropped at 6 p.m. PT/ 9 p.m. ET Thursday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the two-episode premiere of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” At the end of the first episode of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” one of two installments dropped by Amazon Prime Video on the show’s launch day, young Harfoot Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) follows a fiery object that’s come shooting down from the skies of Middle-earth to find a mysterious, barely clothed man unconscious at the center of a flaming crater that’s been hollowed out in the earth. By the end of the second episode, Nori and her best friend Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) are watching the large man, played by Daniel Weyman and credited only as “The Stranger,” throw fireflies into the sky to create what Nori thinks is a map of specific stars he’s trying to find — before those fireflies burn out and fall to the ground.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Hulu Originals and ABC Entertainment president Craig Erwich and president of content marketing for Hulu and Disney General Entertainment Shannon Ryan have both been promoted to expanded roles. Erwich has been upped to president of ABC Entertainment, Hulu & Disney Branded Television Streaming Originals. With this new title, Erwich will continue to oversee ABC Entertainment and Hulu Originals, while adding unscripted and alternative entertainment to his purview, as well as Disney Branded Television Streaming Originals. Erwich, who has overseen the Hulu Originals brand since 2014, is expected to “help bolster DBT’s content strategy for fueling Disney+ with broad, family-appealing original programming.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer UTA’s influencer management firm Digital Brand Architects has acquired golf marketing and digital talent management company Digital Golf Collective, Variety has learned exclusively. Founded by Jess McAlister and Sean Guerrero, DGC focuses on managing strategy and branding for leading creators, brands, events and tournaments in the golf industry. Under the acquisition, DGC’s individual digital talent and branding clients, including Tisha Alyn, Ryan Rustand and Cassandra Meyer, will join DBA’s client list. DGC’s day-to-day operations will continue to be run by McAlister and Guerrero, who will dually report to DBA’s CEO Raina Penchansky and senior vice president of finance AD Rastogi. 

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer MTV’s 2022 VMAs increased ts key demo rating by 1% compared to last year, when counting adults 18-49 who tuned in for the awards show across all 13 networks that it was simulcast on Sunday. The VMAs simulcast got a 2.81 rating in the advertiser-coveted demographic, compared to 2.78 the prior year. Like last year, these channels included MTV, VH1, the CW, Comedy Central, Nick At Night, Pop, TV Land, MTV2, Logo, Paramount Network, BET, BET Her and CMT. Sunday’s VMAs drew 3.9 million total viewers across those 13 networks. That’s up 3% from 2021’s comparable number of 3.7 million sets of eyeballs. (Both of those figures exclude out-of-home viewing, which won’t be reported by Nielsen until Tuesday.)

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer HBO drama chief Francesca Orsi has extended her contract with the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned pay TV channel through 2026, Variety has confirmed. As part of Orsi’s re-upped pact, she has been given the new title of executive vice president of HBO programming, head of HBO drama series and films. Orsi first joined HBO in 2003 as an executive assistant. She has been the solo head of drama series development and programming since her former co-head David Levine exited in February 2019. They were both appointed to the position originally in 2016. News that Orsi, a direct report to HBO and HBO Max content chief Casey Bloys, will be continuing her tenure at HBO comes on the heels of the enormous launch success for “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon,” a series Orsi has played a big part in developing and marketing.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Netflix has set a third installment of Joe Berlinger’s “Conversations With a Killer” docuseries, this one focused on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Variety has learned exclusively. Titled “Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes,” the three-part series will launch Oct. 7 on the streamer. Here is the official description for “Conversations With a Killer” season 3, per Netflix: When Milwaukee police entered the apartment of 31-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer in July of 1991, they uncovered the grisly personal museum of a serial killer: a freezer full of human heads, skulls, bones and other remains in various states of decomposition and display. Dahmer quickly confessed to 16 murders in Wisconsin over the previous four years, plus one more in Ohio in 1978, as well as unimaginable acts of necrophilia and cannibalism. The discovery shocked the nation and stunned the local community, who were incensed that such a depraved killer had been allowed to operate within their city for so long. Why was Dahmer, who had been convicted of sexual assault of a minor in 1988, able to avoid suspicion and detection from police as he stalked Milwaukee’s gay scene for victims, many of whom were people of color?

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Amid record-breaking viewership performance for “Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons,” Hulu has set the premiere date for its next big doc: the Adam McKay and Billy Corben-produced Jerry Falwell Jr. project, “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty,” Variety has learned exclusively. Hailing from McKay’s HyperObject and Corben’s Rakontur banner, “God Forbid” tells the sensational story of evangelical leader and former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., his wife Becki Falwell and Giancarlo Granda, the Miami pool boy who had an affair with Becki and claims that Jerry was aware of and involved in the relationship. The streamer says Granda is closely involved with the doc and his point of view is largely the focus of the movie.