ViacomCBS Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

ViacomCBS continues to shed non-core assets, announcing Tuesday a definitive agreement to divest the CBS Studio Center and associated businesses to the partnership of Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management for $1.85 billion.

Naman Ramachandran Ahead of the early 2022 U.K. launch of Paramount Plus, VIS, a division of ViacomCBS International Studios, has signed five emerging writers from underrepresented groups.One of the main criteria for choosing this group is their “potential to collaborate on distinctive development projects intended for Paramount Plus,” according to a statement from VIS.

.This is the second iconic Brando film to go the making-of route for TV. Paramount+ (which shares parent company ViacomCBS with CBS Studios) is doing a drama series about making “The Godfather.” Justin Chambers will play Brando on that one.“When José and Stampede approached me, I was instantly taken by the project and the chance to look closer at one of the biggest scandals of our industry’s history – despite it not being treated as such at the time,” Brühlmann said in a statement.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentViacomCBS Networks International, a division of ViacomCBS, has joined forces with Scandinavia’s leading streaming company NENT Group to launch a new Pluto TV service across Sweden, Denmark and Norway in 2022. Under the partnership, NENT’s standalone AVOD service, Viafree, will be integrated into Pluto TV.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorThe Biden administration made a statement earlier this month when the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit to block the $2.1 billion sale of Simon & Schuster.Merrick Garland’s body block of the deal that ViacomCBS struck with Bertelsmann’s Penguin Random House sends the message that the White House is paying attention to the pace of consolidation in media and entertainment.

The streaming era is coming to Black Friday. In a bid to juice subscription numbers, some streaming services are giving away deals that include heavily discounted (or sometimes outright free) months.

Jamie Lang Germany’s Osthaus Museum in Hagen is presenting a retrospective of American actor and filmmaker Sylvester Stallone’s decades-long oeuvre of paintings on the occasion of his 75th birthday.

ViacomCBS has promoted Scott Mills to Chief Executive of BET.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorChristina Spade was named chief operating officer of AMC Networks as the company continues to fine-tune its executive suite after longtime chief Josh Sapan stepped back from his role in August.Spade, formerly the chief financial officer of ViacomCBS, was named CFO for AMC Networks at the start of 2021, and she will retain her current CFO duties.  She held CFO roles for both Showtime and CBS Corp. before it was re-merged with Viacom.

NBCUniversal has extended one of its key sports properties, Premier League soccer, for another six years.

sued McGraw and his talk show’s parent company, ViacomCBS, for negligence, claiming she was sexually assaulted at a Utah treatment center that McGraw recommended to her parents.Jerry Sharell, a spokesman for McGraw and the “Dr. Phil” show, said in a statement to TheWrap at the time: “After Hannah Archuleta’s appearance on ‘Dr.

Paramount+, the rebranded streaming service that went live last March, had its “most successful week ever” with more than 1 million new subscribers, according to ViacomCBS.

ViacomCBS announced the seven writers selected out of 1,000 applicants to participate in the Writers Mentoring Program for 2021-2022. Currently in its 18th year and helmed by the ViacomCBS Office of Global Inclusion, the program provides mentorships, access and opportunity for writers.

EXCLUSIVE: Star Trek: Discovery is heading home.

Following the recent restructurings at ViacomCBS — in which Chairman and CEO of Showtime Networks David Nevins added oversight of Paramount Television Studios and was named Chief Content Officer, Scripted Originals, Paramount+, while Paramount TV Studios President Nicole Clemens also became President, Paramount+ Original Scripted Series under Nevins — several senior executives across the portfolio are getting responsibilities expanded or titles upgraded.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterParamount Television Studios has promoted Jenna Santoianni, Cheryl Bosnak, and Erika Kirkwood.Jenna Santoianni has been upped to executive vice president of Paramount Television Studios after previously serving as executive vice president and head of development.

Wall Street Journal reported.Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management LLC posted the (gigantic) winning bid. While the deal is not yet signed, the agreed-upon price was more than $500 million dollars beyond what the studio was projected to sell for just a few months ago.CBS Studio Center includes 18 sound stages and more than 210,000 square feet of office space.

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of its Season 2 finale, Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan has been renewed by Nickelodeon for a 20-episode third season, which will begin production early next year at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. The size of the order matches Season 2; Young Dylan’s first season consisted of 14 episodes.

William Earl Kristina Shepard, Head of Agency Partnerships & National Brand Team Lead, Roku; Dan Aversano, SVP, Data, Analytics & Advanced Advertising, Univision; Stacie Danzis, VP Digital Ad Sales, A+E Networks; Brendan Murnane, SVP of Digital Sales Strategy, ViacomCBS; and Mark Douglas, President and CEO, MNTN, will join “The Golden Age of TV Advertising: What an OTT-First Future Means for TV Advertising” panel on Nov.

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media AnalystNetflix may have redefined what an original hit series could be with its recent worldwide smash “Squid Game,” but ViacomCBS can dare to dream of producing programming that reaches similar heights.Tom Ryan, president and CEO of streaming at ViacomCBS, touted his company’s growing overseas capabilities on the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” in an interview conducted Monday at the Future of Television conference.Listen

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorViacomCBS and Twitter announced a multiyear renewal of their global agreement under which the media conglomerate will continue to deliver premium digital content from its tentpole live events, shows and franchises on the social network.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

EXCLUSIVE: Manolo Cardona and his brother Juancho’s production company 11:11 Films & TV has signed a first-look deal with VIS, a division of ViacomCBS. The agreement will encompass creating and developing content including series, films, and special-format programs for a global audience.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorParamount Plus is playing well with pint-size viewers as “Paw Patrol: The Movie” and other kids and family content was the biggest driver of growth and engagement in third quarter for ViacomCBS’ streaming platform.Bob Bakish, ViacomCBS president-CEO, talked up the higher levels of activity on Paramount Plus as well as the long-term vision for Paramount Pictures and ViacomCBS’ increasing investment in Spanish-language TV production on Thursday morning during the

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorViacomCBS said third-quarter profit declined as it invested in more content for streaming audiences, but noted that its revenue from just that consumer activity was on the rise, with 4.3 million new subscribers to its broadband outlets added during the period.The New York owner of the CBS broadcast network, the Showtime premium cable network and outlets such as Nickelodeon and Comedy Central said third-quarter net income  fell to $538 million, or 80 cents a

ViacomCBS cracked the $1 billion mark in streaming revenue in the third quarter, but overall results were more mixed, with total revenue rising 13% to $6.6 billion and earnings per share declining to 69 cents.

ViacomCBS saw some nice streaming increases in the third quarter of 2021, when Paramount Pictures still didn’t pitch in all that much. Not from movie theaters, at least.Wall Street had forecast ViacomCBS earnings per share (EPS) of 76 cents on $6.57 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate compiled by Yahoo Finance.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorT-Mobile is adding another streaming freebie to its customer perks.ViacomCBS, looking to beef up Paramount Plus’s subscriber rolls, inked a deal with T-Mobile under which the wireless carrier will give one free year of the ad-supported tier of the streaming service to all new and existing customers on postpaid plans.Starting next Tuesday (Nov. 9), eligible T-Mobile customers can redeem one year of Paramount Plus Essential via this link.

42 million worldwide subscribers that ViacomCBS reported it had reached across Paramount+ and Showtime at the end of Q2. ViacomCBS debuted Paramount+, which was rebranded from CBS All Access on March 4, in Australia and New Zealand this August.

Bodyguard star Nina Toussaint-White is to lead a Channel 5 thriller from Deceit producer Story Films.

Jessie Dicovitsky’s rise at Showtime continues.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorStephen Colbert’s Spartina Productions banner has set a three-year first-look deal to develop television and streaming content for CBS Studios.Colbert, host of CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” is a principal in the company along side Evelyn McGee Colbert, who is married to Stephen Colbert.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentViacomCBS Networks International (VCNI) has acquired a majority stake in Fox TeleColombia & Estudios TeleMexico from The Walt Disney Company. ViacomCBS International Studios’ VIS, a division of VCNI, will operate Fox TeleColombia & Estudios TeleMexico as a collaborative partnership with the company’s founding family.

Earlier today, it was announced that ViacomCBS is spending $900 million to keep Trey Parker and Matt Stone around to make a ton of “South Park” content (14 films plus more seasons of the series, to be exact). Obviously, this is because ViacomCBS is desperate to make the Paramount+ streaming platform into a serious contender.

original “seven strangers” of MTV’s “The Real World” are back — and they’re still fighting the same arguments three decades later.A new trailer for “The Real World Homecoming: New York” dropped Friday, with all the familiar faces from Season 1 — Becky Blasband, Andre Comeau, Heather B.

in Variety.“Rugrats is one of the most iconic cartoons recognized by fans around the globe, and this original version is one we are taking great care and pride in creating for a brand-new audience,” President of Nickelodeon Animation Ramsey Naito said at Investor’s Day.

the “Frasier” reboot teased in recent months.“Having spent over 20 years of my creative life on the Paramount lot, both producing shows and performing in several, I’d like to congratulate Paramount+ on its entry into the streaming world,” Grammer, 66, said in a statement. “I gleefully anticipate sharing the next chapter in the continuing journey of Dr.