Small Screen: Pilot Season Begins, Troubling Patterns Continue in FCC Ownership Review
Melvin Mar - Araya Doheny / Stringer
Broadcast: Pilot season, the time of year when networks test out the preliminary episodes of their new shows, has arrived. In recent years, of course, the number of pilots has dropped steadily, thanks in part to the pandemic and in part to the rise of streaming services and alternative ways for audiences to consume series. In 2023, however, ABC and NBC will be offering a few promising pilots.
ABC will run a pilot for Public Defenders, a comedy about four new public defenders and their workplace shenanigans. Eddie Quintana, showrunner and executive producer of Public Defenders, will count this pilot order as his second at ABC.
ABC will pilot The Hurt Unit, a medical drama following nurses and surgeons in the HURT (Hospital Urgent Response Team) unit of a trauma hospital. Matt Lopez is co-executive producer and co-showrunner.
Also coming to ABC’s slate of dramas is Judgement, a legal soap opera whose exposition is told from two different storyline. Set fifteen years in the future, Judgement follows a woman being vetted for a SCOTUS position who must overcome a controversial past in her personal and professional life. Melvin Mar of acclaimed sitcom Fresh Off the Boat is named as co-Executive Producer.
NBC’s Murder by the Book will tell the story of an Instagram-famous book reviewer who becomes a detective to uncover the truth about a small town. Muder by the Book will star stand-up comedian Retta, who is also co-EP.
Rebecca Quinn
Streaming: Netflix has ordered a limited series entitled The Madness starring Colman Domingo. The Madness will span eight episodes, and follows “media pundit Muncie Daniels (Domingo), who must fight for his innocence and his life after he stumbles upon a murder deep in the Poconos woods.” Domingo is known for having won an Emmy for his role as Ali Muhammed on HBO’s Euphoria, as well as for his work in AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead. Viewers may also recognize Domingo from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Lincoln, Selma, Zola, and If Beale Street Could Talk.
Kimberly Harrison of The Crossover has been added to Hulu’s limited series In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr. as showrunner. Harrison joins executive producer Lee Daniels, who will also direct the first two episodes, and Elijah Kelley, who will play Davis Jr. Harrison, Lee, and Kelley previously worked together on Fox’s Star. In Black and White, which will run on Hulu, finds its basis in Will Haygood’s eponymous biography, and inspired Alex Haley’s famous interview with the esteemed recording artist. In Black and White will run eight episodes and follow the life and career of Sammy Davis Jr. from childhood through fame.
Six months after her department was cut following the HBO Max and Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Rebecca Quinn has emerged with a new nonfiction company, Velvet Hammer Media. In partnership with another co-executive from HBO’s axed nonfiction department, Jennifer O’Connell, Quinn’s VHM will specialize in original nonfiction content. O’Connell and Quinn are to serve as co-CEOs and executive producers and have recruited Lionsgate’s Nick Alarcon as VP. Quinn and O’Connell will emphasize an “unwavering” commitment to representation and diversity of voices, spotlighting historically underrepresented groups in their originals. Along with VHM, the duo announced their “Inside Access” initiative, which will work to secure a line item in every VHM production budget for BIPOC talent. Inside Access is to apply to the entirety of VHM’s content.
A dream team has assembled to create Amazon Studios’ thriller series Swarm. Donald Glover (Atlanta), playwright Janine Nabers, and daughter of former president Barack Obama Malia Obama have coalesced on the production, whose trailer is already creating buzz. The logline for Swarm as announced at the SXSW festival is “Murder. Sex. Music,” and co-creator Glover describes the project as “post-truth Piano Teacher mixed with The King of Comedy.” Along with the star-studded cast behind the camera, the show stars Chloe x Halle’s Chloe Bailey and Snowfall’s Damnson Idris. Swarm tells the story of Dre (Dominique Fishback), a young woman with a dark obsession with a pop star. The show is the first project under Donald Glover’s deal with Amazon.
Comcast has announced it will be ending Xfinity subscribers’ free access to Peacock in June. Since its launch in 2020, Comcast’s Xfinity has offered free access to Peacock, which is otherwise $4.99/month to Xfinity TV and broadband users. On June 23, however, this access will end. Xfinity customers will be able to purchase Peacock at a discount, and through April 3, new Xfinity users will be offered Peacock free for six months. Recently, Peacock terminated its free, ad-supported tier – both moves, said NBCU CEO Jeff Shell, were intended to help Peacock make a name for itself as a new platform. Peacock’s offerings will not change, and the service does not intend to stop adding content in 2023. Original series, live sports, live news, and next-day streaming of NBC and Bravo will still be available as the shift occurs.
Warner Bros. Discovery has abandoned a plan to merge streaming services HBO Max and Discovery+ into one platform. Instead, WBD will continue to offer Discovery+ and move ahead with a service featuring programs from both platforms. Citing fears that consumers would hesitate to pay more for the combination streaming service, WBD decided that audience overlap between the two platforms was not great enough to warrant a merger. The decision comes as both Warner Bros. and HBO juggle other rebranding decisions: HBO Max will soon become just “Max,” and WBD is dipping a toe into both ad-supported streaming and FAST channels. Discovery+ and HBO Max are both newer services, with the former having launched in 2021 and the latter in 2020. Last April, WBD closed a $43 billion merger with Discovery, and has yet to release subscriber numbers for Discovery+, preferring to count them in an overall figure along with HBO.
Nina L. Diaz - LA Times
Industry: British pay-TV broadcaster Sky Group Limited has announced recruits for its two-year assistant commissioner program. The program, intended to attract outside talent, will add 7 people to Sky’s 23-person commissioner team. Selected assistant commissioners are Sholla Caramba-Coker in drama, Leanne Cosby in arts and entertainment, Ziyaad Desai and Giberte Phanor in factual, Isaac Nartey in kids and Sabrina Parmar in film, with a seventh recruit in comedy yet to be announced. Assistant commissioners will be tasked with development of Sky originals and pitching of new ideas. Caramba-Corker previously worked at South of the River Pictures and Left Bank as a development producer. Cosby worked at the Barbican theater in London as a theater and dance producer. Desai and Giberte are documentary filmmakers, Parmar a development editor at Paramount, and Nartey a co-creator of the BAFTA-winning Life and Rhymes.
Paramount Global has announced that, after co-presidents Jana Winograde and Gary Levine stepped down, what remains of the Showtime team will merge with MTV. The new entity will be called Paramount+ With Showtime, and will be headed by Paramount’s president and CEO of streaming Tom Ryan and president and CEO of both Showtime and Paramount Networks Chris McCarthy. McCarthy announced further cuts to leadership, including Paramount Global Premium Group CFO and COO Michael Crotty, Senior VP of documentaries, unscripted and sports programming Vinnie Malhotra, creative director Rob Rosenberg; and EVP of content acquisition at Showtime Kent Sevener. Among those remaining at the company are Nina L. Diaz, CCO and President of Content, and Keyes Hill-Edgar, COO. In a statement, McCarthy wrote:
Hello everyone,
As we continue to integrate SHOWTIME across the organization partnering with Tom Ryan and his team in streaming, I’m excited to share that we’re combining SHOWTIME and MTV Entertainment Studios into one unified leadership team.
Together, these creative powerhouses make some of the biggest hits in TV: From Yellowstone to Yellowjackets, Dexter to The Daily Show, Billions to Beavis, The Chi to The Challenge, Jersey Shore to Tulsa King, Drag Race to The Department, Love and Hip Hop to Your Honor, plus Emily in Paris, South Park and Mayor of Kingstown, to name just a few.
Additionally, below you will also find the leadership team for our new unified group as well as the key SHOWTIME executives.
Everyone listed reports to me except where noted. Please join me in congratulating these seasoned and exceptional leaders with whom I’m privileged to work alongside as we maximize our full creative potential and harness our creative strengths.
Q’orianka Kilcher, who last year was accused of workers compensation fraud, has been cleared by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. In 2022, while working on Yellowstone, it was revealed that Kilcher had simultaneously been collecting disability insurance. Attorneys for Kilcher explained that she had suffered a “serious and life-altering injury” while on the set of Dore and the Lost City of Gold. In a statement, Kilcher said of having been cleared,
“Today, I am beyond grateful that my case has been dismissed – tomorrow my journey begins to help raise awareness and demand more transparency for worker’s rights within the workers comp system.”
Last month, the FCC launched its quadrennial ownership review, a period of review to address gaps in racial and gender ownership diversity among broadcast TV and radio stations. 25 years ago, in an effort to avoid monopolies in media ownership, the FCC lowered media holding caps. Since that time, however, diversity in ownership has remained stagnant and even worsened. Only 15% of radio and TV stations are owned by women (with 9% owned by corporate entities, and the rest by men), and a whopping 93% of them are majority-owned by Whites. 3% are majority-owned by Latinos, 2% by Native Americans, and 1% by African Americans. Since the quadrennial review, the Media Bureau has failed to release any prospective rule changes. Rather, a comment period has opened in an effort to pursue regulation to amend the yawning gaps in racial and gender diversity of ownership. Under federal law, the Media Bureau must adhere to a standard of public interest in pursuing rules that are “necessary in the public interest as the result of competition,” which includes promoting equity in ownership. Among the rules subject to review this period are the Local Television Ownership rule, which limits ownership of a broadcast station by one entity in the local market, and the Dual Network Rule, which prohibits mergers between the Big Four broadcast networks ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. Comments must be submitted by March 3, and replies by March 20.