Canada’s Boat Rocker Media has acquired Matador Content, the full-service production company behind Emmy-winning format Lip Sync Battle. Under the terms of the deal, Matador’s name and leadership will remain, with founder Jay Peterson and Todd Lubin continuing to helm the company. The prodco’s creative and production teams will have immediate access to Boat Rocker’s […]
Pilgrim Media has signed a development and production deal with Josh Greenberg, the showrunner and co-executive producer of Lip Sync Battle. Greenberg will develop and executive produce a range of formats in the music competition space, as well as other unscripted content. He will work closely with Pilgrim’s chief creative officer, Johnny Gould, and the […]
The US’s newest general entertainment station, the Paramount Network, launches in January 2018. Jesse Whittock hears how channel president Kevin Kay plans to change cable with premium originals and unscripted hits for a broad audience. There’s no better way to better encapsulate Viacom’s strategy change under Bob Bakish than to look at the creation and […]
Paramount Network’s first slate includes programming from the network it replaces, Spike, and TV Land. The network is one of six that Viacom is restructuring its strategic focus around, with the others being MTV, BET, Nick Jr., Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. Lip Sync Battle is transferring from Spike to upcoming general entertainment net Paramount, while […]
Nickelodeon is taking the kids to the Lip Sync Battle arena with a spin-off of the popular Spike format. Lip Sync Battle Shorties is a half-hour, ten-part series, and will go into production later this, the Viacom network revealed at its latest upfront presentation in New York City. This comes after an hour-long special of […]
The best-sellers, the trend makers, the battles, the emerging territories, the industry favourites… here is the TBI Formats Year in Review. If This Time Next Year and Lip Sync Battle were among the best sellers, there were also new distributors on the ground this year. Twenty-sixteen was the first full year for Vivendi’s new formats […]
Viacom’s Lip Sync Battle continues to travel well, with new format and option deals for the buzzy show. In Hungary free-to-air net RTL Klub has produced its own local version of the show – Playback Párbaj. As well as going out on RTL Klub, it will also run on the new RTL Spike channel, announced […]
Viacom will launch Spike channels in the Netherlands and Hungary next month. The male-skewing cable net is already available in the Netherlands as a five-hour branded block on the Nickelodeon kids service, but will roll out as a full round the clock channel from December 12. It will be carried on the Liberty Global-owned Ziggo […]
Former Viacom CEO Tom Freston has attacked Philippe Dauman, claiming his successor is the wrong person to turn the media giant’ fortunes around. Speaking on CNBC yesterday, Freston said Viacom should be run by a person that’s steeped in the popular culture with young audiences, the person who owns that chair should be somebody who […]
Middle Eastern pay TV platform OSN has added the Comedy Central channel to its line-up. The Viacom channel will join stable mates MTV, Nickelodeon channels on OSN. Viacom International Media Networks has been aggressively rolling out its comedy net under president and CEO Bob Bakish. Comedy Central will launch on OSN on May 7, with all […]
