WarnerMedia, Interpublic Group Will Test Three New Audience Measures

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorA new film created with Toyota sounds the turning of the ignition on a new venture from TelevisaUnivision aimed at generating more interest from advertisers for the company’s Spanish-language media offerings.Así Studios aims to produce inspirational films that speak to Spanish-speaking viewers and can appear across TelevisaUnivision’s linear, streaming, digital and audio properties. The entity’s first creation, “Imparable: Ismael Guzmán, tells the story of a Texas man who has dedicated two decades of his life to helping the youth of East Austin play soccer.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorCity Parks Foundation has announced the 2022 season of Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage, New York City’s outdoor performing arts festival, bringing nearly 90 free and benefit shows to Central Park and 12 neighborhood parks across the five boroughs.Citywide parks and venues hosting SummerStage this season include Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, Von King Park and The Coney Island Amphitheater in Brooklyn, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, Crotona Park in the Bronx, Corporal Thompson Park in Staten Island, as well as the newly refurbished SummerStage flagship venue at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park. All performances will be free and open to the public, except for benefit concerts, and select shows will also be live-streamed on SummerStageAnywhere.org.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorWarner Bros. Discovery said profit rose in the first quarter despite declines in traditional TV audiences, as revenue from advertising and distribution rose thanks in part to the company’s streaming inititiatives.Warner Bros.

Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff got pretty intimate during Broadway’s “Spring Awakening”, which premiered in New York City back in 2006.

Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff share a sweet embrace on the red carpet at the premiere of Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOLER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Matryoshka,” the Season 2 finale episode of “Russian Doll.”In Season 2, “Russian Doll” broke out of its first season’s “Groundhog Day”-style time-loop format with a “Quantum Leap”-like time-travel device that allowed Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) and Alan (Charlie Barnett) to jump into the bodies of their deceased loved ones by taking a trip on the New York City subway. Nadia becomes her mother, Lenora “Nora” (Chloë Sevigny), in the East Village in 1982, and grandmother Vera (Irén Bordán, younger version Ilona McCrea), in World War II-era Budapest, while Alan is inhabiting his grandmother Agnes (Carolyn Michelle Smith) in Germany during the Cold War in 1944.

Donald Trump at the start of Mike Bartlett’s play “The 47th,” an audaciously Shakespearean take on recent and future U.S. politics.The title of the play, running at London’s Old Vic Theatre, refers to the next president of the United States.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorSome TV viewers who watched a special kids’ broadcast of an NFL game on Nickelodeon might have witnessed an interesting special effect: a slime monster rising from the football field. Executives at ad giant Interpublic Group saw something else: an opportunity.Interpublic, the ad giant that owns agencies such as Deutsch and McCann WorldGroup, is taking what is believed to be a minority stake in The Famous Group, a technology company that creates mixed and augmented reality experiences for live events.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorNetflix has held Madison Avenue at arm’s length for years. Now, the popular streamer wants to draw the advertising industry in a tighter embrace.After years of resisting the prospect of running commercials, Netflix signaled on Tuesday that it’s ready to consider launching an ad-supported tier of its service, which has lured traditional TV viewers with ad-free series like “Stranger Things” and “Ozark” and commercial-free movies like “Don’t Look Up.” Figuring out an ad strategy could take months, said Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-CEO, during an investor meeting, “but think of us as quite open to offering even lower prices with advertising as a consumer choice.”The company announced its intention to court commercials just weeks before the start of the industry’s annual “upfront” ad sales season, when U.S. TV networks try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory for the next programming cycle.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAs TV networks race to find a new yardstick to measure modern video audiences, one top buyer of commercial time says it’s already waiting at the finish line.Horizon Media, an independent Madison Avenue media agency that works for big-spending clients like Berkshire Hathaway’s Geico and Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Corona, said it intends to commit “up to 15% of its deals” in the industry’s coming upfront market using new measurement currencies that don’t rely on the sector’s longtime tabulator of audiences, Nielsen. Horizon issued a request for information to various media companies in the fourth quarter of 2021, and expects to work “with media entities including Paramount, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorVideoAmp has gained notice in recent months for its work with various media agencies and TV networks that are trying to take on the increasingly difficult task of measuring video audiences. The company hopes its latest maneuver will help make that complex assignment more simple.VideoAmp has acquired Elsy, a company that helps advertisers optimize the money they are spending to place commercials on various media platforms.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorMelissa Stark clearly knows the value of staying in touch.The veteran sportscaster served as the sideline reporter for “Monday Night Football” between 2000 and 2002, when she was just 26 and the game — then one of TV’s biggest weekly events — was still broadcast on ABC. She worked with everyone from the legendary TV executive Don Ohlmeyer to “MNF” announcers like John Madden and Dennis Miller —  and with Fred Gaudelli, the producer who would move on to work for NBC Sports and oversee “Sunday Night Football,” then all of NBC’s NFL coverage.

Nia DaCosta (Candyman) has been tapped to direct an adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2019 debut novel The Water Dancer for MGM, Plan B, Harpo Films and Maceo-Lyn.

Police are investigating after a mother of two was murdered in Queens, New York, and found hours later in a duffel bag at a popular walking spot.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorWarner Bros. Discovery wants to interest Madison Avenue in everything from “Full Frontal” to “90 Day Fiancé.”The newly merged media conglomerate will fold what we’re once two separate upfront presentations into one, the company said Monday, reserving May 18 for a.showcase of both the Warner and Discovery properties as part of a unified portfolio.The new event essentially takes over the spot in May’s upfront week preciously occupied by WarnerMedia.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorNorah O’Donnell and CBS News have come to terms on a new deal that will keep the anchor at “CBS Evening News” beyond the 2024 election, according to three people familiar with the matter.A CBS News spokesperson declined to offer immediate comment, and a spokeswoman for O’Donnell declined to make the anchor available for comment. O’Donnell disclosed her new contract Friday evening while having a toast with her crew at CBS News’ Washington, D.C., facility, according to these people.The deal was cemented despite growing speculation that CBS News, under the direction of co-president Neeraj Khemlani, might seek to replace the anchor, who has seen her profile grow during a stint co-anchoring the formerly-titled “CBS This Morning” and a tenure at a “CBS Evening News” that has moved its main operation to the nation’s capital.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorNielsen investors just got a nice payday. Will the company’s biggest customers benefit financially as well?The media measurement giant raised eyebrows last week when it agreed to be sold to a private-­equity consortium led by Evergreen Coast Capital Corp., an affiliate of activist fund Elliott Management — which has been lobbying for a Nielsen sale — and Brookfield Business Partners.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorThe people who once said they’d like to teach the world to sing now want to instruct it on how to recycle.Coca-Cola has over the decades used TV commercials to make consumers feel good about buying drinks that range from Sprite to Smartwater. To instill similar feelings about recycling the many bottles and cans that contain its beverages, however, it’s testing a different tactic.Coca-Cola has enlisted science educator Bill Nye to star in a nearly three-minute animated vignette that is available to stream on YouTube and takes viewers inside the recycling process.

Source Music has revealed Kim Ga-ram as the second member of its new six-member group LE SSERAFIM.On April 5 at Midnight KST, the HYBE subsidiary uploaded a new introduction video featuring Kim Ga-ram, the second member to join its highly-anticipated girl group LE SSERAFIM after former IZ*ONE member Miyawaki Sakura.In the vibrant new visual, Kim is seen posing against a minimalistic set, occasionally dancing to the clip’s upbeat background music. Not much is known about the up-and-coming star at this point, apart from her being born in 2005, placing her between 16 to 17 years old by international reckoning.Source Music has also shared images of the soon-to-debut idol on its social media accounts, similar to those uploaded of Miyawaki Sakura yesterday.