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Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet & ID Unveil Programming Slates

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday April 4, 2013 @ 10:24am PDTTags: Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Investigation Discovery, TLC
Nellie Andreeva

At Discovery Communications’ upfront today, the company’s Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet and Investigation Discovery presented their slates of new and returning series. (See Discovery/Harpo-owned OWN’s announcement here). Discovery Channel, which had its highest-rated January ever in total viewers and adults 25-54, is putting an emphasis on live events with specials Fast N’ Live and the Grand Canyon tightrope walk Wallenda Live as well as scripted TV with its first scripted project, miniseries Klondike. The network’s unscripted slate features 10 new series, including The Huntsmen, Rock Raiders, two Naked shows, Hidden Kingdom and Survival.

Related: Discovery Shows Off Star Power At Upfront Presentation

TLC’s slate features 52 new and returning series, including the return of pop culture hit Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Breaking Amish and its spinoff. Animal Planet returns 20 series and new ones like Eel Of Fortune, about hunting prized eels off the New England coast. Its best-performing series ever, River Monsters, returns April 7. Investigation Discovery, meanwhile, is offering up its second original newsmagazine Deadline: Crime With Tamron Hall and the Jerry Springer-hosted Tabloid.

Here are details for all the Discovery networks: READ MORE »

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Jerry Springer To Host Investigation Discovery’s ‘Tabloid’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Thursday April 4, 2013 @ 6:46am PDTTags: Investigation Discovery, Jerry Springer

(New York, NY) – Scandalous headlines. Surreal true-life stories. Who doesn’t scan the supermarket tabloids in the checkout line? Investigation Discovery (ID) introduces TABLOID, a new weekly series guaranteed to satisfy inquiring minds. Hosted by the Emmy Award-winning king of tabloid television, Jerry Springer, TABLOID peels back the curtain to probe the most bizarre larger-than-life stories you can’t possibly imagine. With an initial run of ten, one-hour episodes co-produced by Radley Studios and Espiritus Productions, TABLOID will premiere on ID in 1Q 2014.

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Investigation Discovery Renews ‘Deadly Affairs’ With Susan Lucci For Season 2

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday November 12, 2012 @ 7:00am PSTTags: Investigation Discovery, Susan Lucci
Nellie Andreeva

Investigation Discovery has greenlighted a second season of Deadly Affairs for summer 2013. The series hosted by Susan Lucci premiered in September to a 1.22 HH rating and 3.5 million total viewers, the second-best series debut in … Read More »

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UPDATE: Discovery Chief Sticks By Oprah As Q4 Earnings Blast Past Expectations

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday February 16, 2012 @ 4:09am PSTTags: David Zaslav, Discovery Communications, Investigation Discovery, Oprah Winfrey, OWN

UPDATE, 7:05 AM: CEO David Zaslav refused to put any daylight between himself and Oprah Winfrey as analysts in a conference call this morning asked for more insight into the prospects for their struggling OWN joint venture. Now that Winfrey is running the operation, it has “a team she has confidence in, and I have confidence in,” he said. He sidestepped a question about whether Discovery has the right to terminate its agreement with Winfrey, or to re-purpose the channel — for example by moving it to the Web. “We’re up for about a year,” he says. “If we grow a meaningful audience, and we think we will, this will be a significant asset.” Zaslav says that the channel “learned a great deal about its audience” last year and is “off to a nice start in 2012″ with returning shows including Our America With Lisa Ling and Sweetie Pie. Also, “Oprah will be featured in additional formats. … We’re excited to grow this network in 2012.” The company says that, as a matter of policy, it doesn’t break out profits for individual channels. Read More »

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Werner Herzog Finds More Stories To Tell ‘On Death Row’: TCA

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Friday January 13, 2012 @ 4:02pm PSTTags: Investigation Discovery, Werner Herzog

Ray Richmond is contributing to Deadline’s coverage of TCA.

Oscar-nominated feature filmmaker Werner Herzog (whose projects have included the acclaimed documentaries Grizzly Man and Into The Abyss) has a new series of films coming to cable’s Investigation Discovery under the title On Death Row. Premiering later this year, the limited series has Herzog interviewing death row inmates in Florida and Texas to “look into the dark recesses of the human soul,” as Herzog told Deadline in an exclusive interview prior to a TCA session this afternoon. Interestingly, the series evolved from what began as a single film with Into The Abyss. On Death Row is a spare, bleak story literally devoid of bells and whistles — just Herzog’s disembodied narration with unadorned images from Herzog’s one-on-one interviews with four death row killers. And while some will find it odd that a filmmaker of Herzog’s renown could seamlessly move between film and nonfiction TV, he and producer Erik Nelson have been doing so for several years. “It’s sort of a puzzling question that I hear all the time,” he says. “People ask, ‘How can I make both feature films and documentaries? Isn’t that some sort of contradiction?’ But that makes nobody nervous if, say, I’m a writer, if I am Shakespeare writing stage plays and also poetry. That doesn’t make anyone nervous.” Read More »

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Discovery Urges Investors To Be Patient With Oprah Winfrey: Citigroup Confab

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday January 5, 2012 @ 1:09pm PSTTags: Discovery Communications, Investigation Discovery, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, The Hub

Discovery CFO Bradley Singer couldn’t have been surprised to be asked at Citigroup’s Global Media, Entertainment and Telecommunications Conference about what’s up with OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. Bankers and investors are still waiting to see significant progress at Discovery’s struggling, high-profile joint venture with the talk show host and entrepreneur. But his answer was also familiar: Wait. Now that Oprah’s running the operation “we feel real good about the direction the network is headed in. It’s just building block after building block.” The channel’s financial prospects, he added, depend on how well it can build its viewing audience.

Most of the other questions were a lot easier considering that Discovery has one of the highest profit margins in cable programming. Singer says the ad market continues to improve. “We have not been impacted yet by anything you might read” about weakness in the overall economy. Meanwhile channels that have taken off over the last year, led by ID: Investigation Discovery, have “that much room to grow in terms of advertising.” He’s also optimistic about The Hub, the joint venture with Hasbro. “Long term, that could be Read More »

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Investigation Discovery Buys Docu From Meredith Vieira Prods.

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday November 16, 2011 @ 9:24am PSTTags: Investigation Discovery, Meredith Vieira

Investigation Discovery has acquired domestic TV rights to the documentary The Woman Who Wasn’t There from Meredith Vieira Productions. The film, which delves into the mind of “history’s most influential 9/11 survivor,” is set to premiere on the network sometime … Read More »

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Cable Notes: ID, VH1 Exec Hires, Weather Channel Series And Kardashian Divorce

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday October 31, 2011 @ 11:47am PDTTags: E!, Investigation Discovery, Kim Kardashian, VH1, Weather Channel
Nellie Andreeva

Kevin Bennett has been named SVP Programming and Research, ID, Military Channel and Planet Green. It marks Bennett’s return to ID, aka Investigation Discovery, which he helped launch four years ago. His hire is part of a new management structure in which Bennett will lead a newly centralized programming, scheduling and research division across the three brands and will oversee development for ID.

Tom Huffman, formerly of Shed Media, has joined VH1 as VP Original Programming. He will step into to the network executive producer role for VH1′s Basketball Wives, which he developed and originally pitched to VH1 in 2009 when he was at Shed.

With Coast Guard Alaska debuting November 9, the Weather Channel has greenlighted another “guard” reality series, Lifeguard! Premiering in February, the 13-epiosde half-hour docudrama, produced by LMNO Prods, follows the men and women who guard the 150 miles of California coastline. Read More »

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Oprah Winfrey And Rosie O’Donnell Shows To Debut On Five Discovery Networks

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday October 6, 2011 @ 6:58am PDTTags: David Zaslav, Discovery Communications, Investigation Discovery, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Network, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, Rosie O'Donnell, Rosie O'Donnell OWN Network, Rosie O'Donnell Talk Show, TLC

(Los Angeles, CA) – OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network announced today that the premiere episodes of the new OWN series “The Rosie Show” and “Oprah’s Lifeclass” will air concurrently across five Discovery Communications networks when the series debut

… Read More »

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Discovery Renews Licensing Deal With Netflix For Two Years

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday September 21, 2011 @ 4:35am PDTTags: Animal Planet, David Zaslav, Discovery Channel, Discovery Communications, Hasbro, Investigation Discovery, Netflix, Oprah Winfrey, OWN, Science Channel, The Hub, TLC

The joint-venture channels — OWN with Oprah Winfrey, and The Hub with Hasbro — aren’t included. What’s more, “there is not any specific content that Netflix is entitled to,” Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav told investors this morning at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia Conference. He wouldn’t talk about the economics of the deal but says that they will “become apparent” the next time the company reports its quarterly earnings. He adds that while “we don’t know what’s going to happen with Netflix” — which is grappling with consumer fury after it raised prices 60% for those who want to stream video and rent DVDs –”right now we think that will not create an issue for us.” Here’s the release about Discovery’s new Netflix agreement:

Los Gatos, Calif. and Silver Spring, Md. — Netflix, Inc. and Discovery Communications today announced a two-year non-exclusive licensing agreement that allows Netflix members to instantly watch prior-season series and specials, including an expanded selection of additional seasons of popular series from Discovery, TLC and Animal Planet, as well as Investigation Discovery, Science and Military Channel. Among the highlights are Discovery Channel’s Man vs. Wild, TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress, and Animal Planet’s River Monsters and other titles from Discovery’s rich program library.

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UPDATE: Discovery Chief Says 3D TV Growing “Slower Than Expected” As 2Q Company Results Beat Estimates

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday August 4, 2011 @ 4:12am PDTTags: 3net, David Zaslav, Discovery, Discovery Channel, Discovery Communications, Investigation Discovery, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Cable TV, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, TLC

UPDATE, 6:50 AM: Not much from the conference call with analysts about the most interesting story at Discovery: the recent changes at its struggling joint venture with Oprah Winfrey, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. Oprah recently named herself CEO and Chief Creative Officer. Zaslav says that “she is in place as CEO already,” and “we now have her creative team in place.” That means Discovery COO Peter Ligouri — named OWN’s interim CEO in May when the partners dumped Christina Norman — can “spend more time with us.” Read More »

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TCA: Mark Burnett’s Latest Unscripted TV – ‘Dancing Behind Bars’ & Prison ‘Idol’

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Friday August 6, 2010 @ 2:46pm PDTTags: Investigation Discovery, Mark Burnett, TCA, Unscripted TV

Mark Burnett keeps putting his unscripted TV company up for sale, negotiates with the likes of IMG and even Ben Silverman’s Electus, and then loses the buyer because he’s asking too much. And, increasingly, Burnett has lost his programming touch, … Read More »

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