Turner locks in Conan
Turner says TBS has closed a new deal with Conan O’Brien that extends through 2022. The announcement was made Wednesday as the Turner networks unveiled to advertisers their plans for the season ahead. In Canada, O’Brien’s series airs on Much and CTV.
Talk-show veteran O’Brien has a new four-year pact with TBS that keeps him at the network where Conan debuted in November 2010 after his abrupt exit from The Tonight Show when NBC reinstated Jay Leno as host.
But the format and distribution strategy for O’Brien’s talents will evolve from his current Monday-through-Thursday hour. He will “expand the boundaries from a talk show to a range of personality-based, crossplatform experiences,” according to TBS and TNT president Kevin Reilly.
“In the past few years I’ve stumbled across many new and exciting ways of connecting with my audience,” O’Brien said, “and I’m eager to evolve my show into something leaner, more agile and more unpredictable.”
Plans call for extending his Team Coco brand into digital content, podcasting, gaming, pay TV and live events.
Turner also announced new series set for CNN in 2018:
Detroit 1963: Once in a Great City, a four-part series about the city of Detroit at its high point.
American Heiress: The Patty Hearst Story, a six-part series that will follow the transformation of Patricia Hearst from heiress to terrorist after her kidnapping.
1968: The Year That Changed America, a fourpart series that looks back at a year marked by seismic shifts in American politics, social movements and national leadership.
Kennedys: An American Dynasty, a six-part series that explores how personal relationships within the Kennedy dynasty helped shaped national and global events.
Pope, a six-part series that goes inside the Vatican to reveal the true power held by popes throughout the ages.
On tap for HLN is Unmasking A Killer, a five-part series that goes inside the investigation, case files and mind of The Golden State Killer, a man believed to be the most prolific uncaught rapist and serial killer in the nation.
WITCHER LANDS AT NETFLIX
Netflix has announced it will stream an adaptation of The Witcher series of fantasy novels from Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. The drama centres on “witchers,” who are described as hunters who develop supernatural abilities at a young age to battle ferocious monsters.
The books have already been adapted into a film, a TV series, video games and a graphic novel series.