TBS to Drop the Mic with James Corden

Turner-owned cable network TBS has greenlit a comedy-music series from CBS talk show star James Corden and producer Ben Winston.

Like Carpool Karaoke, Drop the Mic is based on a segment from The Late, Late Show with James Corden and is already a popular online video strand.

The format sees four celebrities pitted against each other in rap battles, with each episode’s winner decided by a studio audience. TBS’s series will run to 16 episodes.

CBS Television Studios and Winston’s UK-based Fulwell 73 are coproducing Drop the Mic, echoing the production set-up of The Late, Late Show.

The commission marks the first order new TBS and TNT senior VP of unscripted and special event programming Michael Bloom has made since joining in June.

“James Corden [pictured] and Ben Winston have struck a nerve with their celebrity-driven, music-infused, incredibly fun content,” said Bloom. “This series embodies the kind of unique and surprising programming we are looking for as we reinvent our approach to this genre within the new TBS brand.”

Drop the Mic will debut on TBS in 2017

TBS president Kevin Reilly said the US cable network would, with ex-IMG exec Bloom’s hire, begin to “inject some different thinking in the unscripted arena”.

For Winston, this latest commission comes in the same week Fulwell 73 secured a multi-genre development deal with CBS TV Studios. Fulwell 73 is also producing the upcoming Apple Music version of Carpool Karaoke.