MGM+ To Rollout In 2023

The cable network and streaming service is getting a new name and identity as well as a handful of new titles, as part of a relaunch set for January 2023.

MGM+ joins the likes of Disney+, Discovery+, Paramount+, ESPN+ and BET+ with the use of the symbol.

It comes five years after the vaunted Hollywood studio completed its acquisition of Viacom and Lionsgate’s stake in the business, giving it full control of the network, and five months after Amazon completed its own acquisition of MGM.

As part of the rebrand, the network, which will continue to be available in the U.S. on Prime Video, cable, telco, satellite, has handed out a number of greenlights.

Hotel Cocaine, which comes from Narcos’ Chris Brancato, has been handed an eight-episode order and Julian Fellowes’ British period drama Belgravia has been given a follow-up series.

Hotel Cocaine, which was revealed in development in February, is the story of Roman Compte, Cuban exile, CIA operative, and general manager of the The Mutiny Hotel, the glamorous epicenter of the Miami cocaine scene of late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

The Hotel Mutiny was Casablanca on cocaine, a glitzy nightclub, restaurant and hotel frequented by Florida businessmen and politicians, international narcos, CIA and FBI agents, models, sports stars, and musicians — particularly the up-and-coming Latin acts who came from South America with their instruments and four kilos of cocaine in their suitcases. Compte was at the center, doing his best to keep it all going and fulfill his own American Dream.

Produced by Epix Studios, Brancato will serve as showrunner and exec producer. Guillermo Navarro (Pan’s Labyrinth) will direct the pilot and also executive produce.

Belgravia is getting another chapter in Belgravia: The Next Chapter. The original series was written by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and based on his novel. It premiered on Epix in April 2020 and was a co-production with ITV.

Belgravia: The Next Chapter will pick up in 1865, 25 years after the events depicted in the 2020 limited series.

Developed and written by Helen Edmundson, who wrote the Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix-fronted feature Mary Magdalene, it will tell the love story of Frederick Trenchard, who has grown up as the third Lord Glanville, and his new love interest, Clara Dunn, who is a newcomer to London society. Unaware that his birth was the product of an affair between his mother Susan and the scoundrel John Bellasis, a troubled childhood has left Frederick deeply insecure, which challenges his courtship of and marriage to Clara.

It is produced by Carnival Films, which produced Belgravia and Downton Abbey, and Epix Studios. Gareth Neame exec produces with Nigel Marchant and Joanna Strevens.

On the non-fiction side, the network has ordered San Francisco Sounds (w/t) to series. Unveiled as part of its development slate in February, the two-part documentary tracks the history of the San Francisco music scene from 1965 to 1975, which featured artists such as The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone and Janis Joplin.

Exec producers include Marshall, Jeff Pollack, Alex Gibney, Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, and Ellwood, who is also attached to direct. It comes from Jigsaw Productions in association with Amblin Television and The Kennedy/Marshall Company.

Alison Ellwood, who directed History of the Eagles and Epix’s Laurel Canyon, is attached to direct with Anoosh Tertzakian, who has edited docs including Laurel Canyon, Elvis Presley: The Searcher and Sinatra: All or Nothing At All.

Ellwood will exec produce alongside Frank Marshall, Alex Gibney, Jeff Pollack, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, Stacey Offman, Richard Perello and Jeff Jampol. Jigsaw Productions is producing in association with Amblin Television and The Kennedy/Marshall Company.

It joins a non-fiction line-up that also includes Helter Skelter, NFL Icons and an untitled Amityville Murders docuseries that was ordered earlier this year.

The MGM+ service will also have a big library of MGM films such as No Time to Die, House of Gucci, and Licorice Pizza as well as the James Bond and Rocky franchises.

The newly rebranded network and streamer will launch on January 15, 2023 with the launch of the third season of Forest Whitaker drama series Godfather of Harlem, which was one its most successful shows to date.

Other series include Billy the Kid and sci-fi horror thriller From.

“MGM is one of the most iconic and beloved brands from the golden age of entertainment,” said Michael Wright, head of MGM+. “This rebrand is a promise to existing and new viewers that MGM+ is the place to find television that reflects and celebrates the legacy of the iconic MGM brand – cinematic programming with sophisticated storytelling that entertains, delights, surprises, and transports. MGM is television for movie lovers.”

New Channel Alert: BBC Studios To Launch Freemium Channel On The Openview Platform

BBC Studios and South Africa’s Openview have announced the launch of a multi-genre free to view channel, BBC UKTV (channel 114).

Entertaining shows
The BBC’s first free-to-view channel in South Africa will launch on its 100th birthday, Tuesday 18 October 2022 and offer a variety of entertainment, natural history series, soaps and children’s shows from BBC Studios’ catalogue. Scheduled to match the viewing habits of families in South Africa, BBC UKTV will offer a variety of entertainment across all genres:

Entertainment shows can be enjoyed on the channel every day ranging from the award-winning baking competition, The Great British Bake Off (Season 8) and cooking shows Rachel Khoo’s Kitchen Notebook and Mary Berry Cooks to thrilling motoring shows such as Million Dollar Car Hunters on Thursdays at 20:55 and classic Top Gear (Season 19) which will air weekdays at 20:00.

British hospital-based soap Casualty (season 36) will debut in South Africa every Thursday at 18:20 and Doctors (season 22) will premiere weekdays at 19:00.

Plus, the long-running sitcom My Family (Season 1) joins the channel launch line-up which follows the trials and tribulations of a British family, starring American-British actress Zoë Wanamaker CBE (Harry Potter) and British actor Kris Marshall (Death In Paradise; Sanditon; Love Actually), airing at 06:00 and 19:30 every day.

Viewers will be able to experience the BBC’s natural history collection every day at 09:00 and weekdays from 15:35 – from BBC Studios Natural History Unit’s nature documentary Wild Africa weekdays at 15:35 to unique local travelogue exploring Africa, Africa with Ade Adepitan, Tuesdays at 21:00. Plus a selection of Sir David Attenborough’s docuseries; Big Bird, Giant Dinosaur, Giant Egg, Fabulous Frogs and Natural Curiosities join the channel later this year.

The channel will also provide entertainment for children under twelve between 06:00 and 09:00 every morning including the first seasons of action-packed geographical adventure, Go Jetters, Children’s cookery show, My World Kitchen, wildlife show, Andy’s Safari Adventures and My Pet & Me which helps children appreciate what it really means to have a pet.

Proud partnership
Arran Tindall, senior vice president, EMEA Key Markets, BBC Studios said “We are proud to partner with Openview to launch our first ever free-to-view channel in South Africa. The launch will enable us to reach wider audiences utilising the richness of the BBC’s catalogue across multiple genres. I can’t wait for new families in South Africa to experience the very best of British content and discover their new favourite shows.”

Pierre Cloete, Commercial Director Africa BBC Studios, said, “I am so excited for even more families in South Africa to access BBC Studios’ incredible catalogue of Bold, British shows. From British soaps, fascinating documentaries and children’s shows, BBC UKTV has been carefully crafted to match the viewing habits of the whole family, providing all age groups entertainment at every moment of the day.”

“Openview is a growing platform and constantly adding new channels and genres to appeal to a broad audience. Earlier this year we added eXposed (a raw, unfiltered lifestyle and entertainment channel aimed at Gen Z), ePlesier (showcasing the most loved Turkish Telenovelas dubbed in Afrikaans), and The Home Channel+ (Homemakers and Gardeners delight). We are pleased and excited to give our audiences even more choice, and more of the best in world-class entertainment with the addition of BBC UKTV” says Marlon Davids, group executive for programming.

The launch of BBC UKTV joins BBC Studios’ existing channel offering in the market including BBC Earth, BBC Brit, BBC Lifestyle, CBeebies and BBC World News on DStv and BBC Kids which is available to MTN customers on the Play Store.

Warner Bros. Discovery Sets Out Leadership Team For The France, Benelux, And Africa Region

Pierre Branco, General Manager of Warner Bros. Discovery for the France, Benelux and Africa region, announced today his new leadership team with immediate effect.

Branco said: “The new leadership team will work with me on writing the next chapters for our organization with a ‘one company’ mindset. I am convinced that we have the content, brands, talents and passion to grow our business even further and position ourselves strongly for the future in a competitive and challenging region that is also full of opportunities.”

- Romain Carbonne will manage the Insights and Research teams across the region
Guillaume Coffin will lead the region’s Affiliate Sales, Ad Sales and Content Licensing
- Yves Elalouf will lead the retail business for the region across Home Entertainment (Video, Games & Digital) and Consumer Products
- Tatiana Lagewaard will lead Content & Programming for General Entertainment (GE) and factual brands in the region, including Local Unscripted Productions for discovery+ and Discovery networks
- Stephane Queneudec will continue to lead the French Theatrical Local Production business reporting to Pierre Branco and will have a dual role, also managing the Content Licensing team reporting to Guillaume Coffin
- Gregory Schuber will lead Group Marketing & PR for the region. Marketing and PR teams for GE and factual brands and Content Licensing in the region will, therefore, now report to Gregory
- Olivier Snanoudj will continue in his role as head of Theatrical Distribution for France & Benelux.

New Channel Alert: Long Awaited Youth Channel Finally Surfaces On DStv

A new television channel dedicated to teenagers in Africa has been birthed by filmmaker Charles Novia and will start broadcasting on DStv later this month. Called Teen Africa TV, the channel marks a major limestone in the history of broadcasting in Africa as it is the first indigenous television channel for teenagers in Africa.

“Teen Africa TV is a new and exciting niche television channel poised to be the first platform for teenagers in the African broadcast space, running for 24 hours daily across African countries and targeting first line audiences of pre-teens, teenagers aged 13 to 19 as well as young adults and family,” said Novia.

The channel was initially slated to rollout on the platform in 2019 but got delayed within the following year only to surface on rival platform, StarTimes.

Teen Africa TV features talk shows, lifestyle, educational, entertainment and events programmes that are specifically tailored for teens. Some notable titles include Breakfast Club, Street Live, Fashionista and Culture Connect.

The channel rolls out on channel 394 on the DStv platform.

Teen Africa TV joins a list of upcoming channels set to rollout on the DStv platform by the end of the year including the jazz infused channel Qwest TV by Quincy Jones and the preschool sensation Moonbug Kids from Moonbug Entertainment.

 

7 Things You Didn't Know About The Classic Tom's Diner As You Wait On The Coffee

Suzanne Vega wrote her wordy a cappella tune "Tom’s Diner" in 1981 during a visit to a diner in her neighborhood, the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The place itself is actually called Tom’s Restaurant and would become even more famous as the exterior of the diner frequented by the characters on Seinfeld. The song appeared as the opening track on Vega’s second album, Solitude Standing, in 1987, but her label passed it over as a single in the States, going instead for “Luka,” a beautifully melodic downer about an abused child. ("Luka" reached No. 3 on Billboard’s chart, so it wasn’t a bad decision.) But “Tom’s Diner” ended up with a much longer, more interesting life full of revivals, remakes, and other shots at immortality, including a prominent sampling in Fall Out Boy’s hit “Centuries” last year and a recent, well-received cover sung by Britney Spears on the Giorgio Moroder album Déjà Vu. Some of the other highlights of “Tom’s” enduring life:

1. "Tom's Diner" was written from a male perspective.
Vega wrote the song when she was attending nearby Barnard Collage and stopped in for coffee. It’s written from a specifically male perspective, inspired by her photographer friend, Brian Rose, who told her that he perceived the world as if through a pane of glass. She thought of that as she sat at Tom’s and tried to imagine how her friend would see the things she saw that day. (She never mentions being a male narrator in the song, but she does imply that the character at first thinks the woman “hitching up her skirt” outside the diner is flirting with him, then he realizes “she does not really see me ‘cause she sees her own reflection.”)

2. The song references real places and events.
The “bells of the cathedral” Vega sings about are those of the nearby St. John the Divine, a majestic structure with a long history of its own, where she once had a "midnight picnic " with songwriter Jack Hardy.

3. Some intrepid fans figured out which day the narrator was at Tom's.
The official “Tom’s Diner Day”—the day Vega presumably wrote the song—is Nov. 18, 1981. An article posted on her official website traces the lyrical evidence, mainly the reference to the newspaper of that day, specifically “the story of an actor who had died while he was drinking/it was no one I had heard of.” Her friend Brian Rose, in his own article, placed the writing of the song between 1981 and 1982. Actor William Holden’s body was discovered Monday, Nov. 16, 1981, having lain in his California home for a week after he fell and fatally hit his head while drunk. The news broke Tuesday, Nov. 17, but The New York Post , one of the only two New York papers with the “funnies” the narrator is seeking, reported it on Wednesday, Nov. 18. And the horoscopes that the narrator had to turn through were, in fact, near the funnies in the Post. Alas, it didn’t rain that day, as the lyrics suggest it was doing while she wrote it. Vega, asked about the contradiction, said she actually wrote it on at least two separate mornings at Tom’s.

4. The remix wasn't Vega's creation, but she loved it anyway.
In 1990, three years after the original was released, two record producers from England working together as DNA remixed Vega’s original a cappella version with an R&B beat that sounded similar to Soul II Soul’s “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me) .” They called it “Oh Susanne!” and sold it at their local record store without proper permission from Vega’s label, A&M Records. When A&M got wind of this, they considered legal action. But Vega asked to hear the version and loved it, so she convinced A&M to pay DNA a flat fee and distribute it. The track got instant radio play and became a hit, peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

5. The song became so popular, Vega was able to release an entire album of covers.
There have been many versions and samplings since DNA’s release, including an entire 1991 record called Tom’s Album that collected nine versions by other artists along with several Vega versions. It included a track by an act called Bingo Hand Job, which was the nom de plume R.E.M. used for a couple of secret London shows with English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg. Other “Tom’s” riffs explored accidental pregnancy (Nikki D’s “Daddy’s Little Girl”), the Gulf War (Beth Watson’s “Waiting at the Border”), and TV’s I Dream of Jeannie (Marylin E. Whitelaw and Mark Davis’ “Jeannie’s Diner”).

6. Hip-hop artists love sampling "Tom's" beats.
Other samplings and reimaginings throughout the years have come from a surprising number of hip-hop artists: Felt’s “Suzanne Vega, ” Lil’ Kim’s “Right Now,” 2 Pac’s “Dopefiend’s Diner, ” Drake’s “Juice, ” Aaliyah’s “Hot Like Fire.” Timbaland even sampled the song on “Nothing But a Number ” for the TV show Empire earlier this year.

7. The song was used to create new music technology.

Vega is known as “the mother of the MP3” because her a cappella version was used by German engineer Karl-Heinz Brandenberg to fine-tune his compression algorithm when he was creating the format we all use now for our digital song files. Vega even visited the lab where it was done (and briefly haggled with the engineering team about the perfection of their sound quality). And there’s a haunting “version” of the song called “moDernisT," composed of the echoes from the compression process. So when you download Britney’s new version of “Tom’s Diner,” you have Vega to thank in more ways than one.

Credits: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong