HBO scraps Stewart-led digital animation venture

‘No punishment for Colbert’s Trump joke’

LOS ANGELES, May 24, (Agencies): HBO and Jon Stewart have scrapped plans for a short-form animation venture that was designed to provide topical segments to various HBO platforms.

The venture was announced in November 2015, shortly after Stewart signed off of “The Daily Show” after a 17-year run. HBO said it would continue to pursue other projects with Stewart. HBO set a four-year production pact with Stewart that included the animation project and a first-look option on film and TV projects.

“HBO and Jon Stewart have decided not to proceed with a short form digital animated project. We all thought the project had great potential but there were technical issues in terms of production and distribution that proved too difficult given the quick turnaround and topical nature of the material,” HBO said in a statement. “We’re excited to report that we have some future projects together which you will be hearing about in the near future.”

Stewart’s initial plan was to work with cloud graphics company OTOY Inc. on what was described as a new technology to allow him to produce “timely” short-form video content to be featured on various HBO platforms.

“Appearing on television 22 minutes a night clearly broke me. I’m pretty sure I can produce a few minutes of content every now and again,” Stewart said when the deal was announced.

Stewart has mostly kept a low profile since stepping down from “Daily Show.” He’s made several appearances on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” on which he is an exec producer.

Stewart and his wife, Tracey, opened an animal sanctuary on their New Jersey farm in 2015 in partnership with the Farm Sanctuary animal shelter org.

The US Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday it would not take any action over thousands of complaints about a crude joke that late-night television host Stephen Colbert told about US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The joke was bleeped before the airing of the May 1 episode of CBS Corp’s “Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” but prompted a social media campaign to get Colbert fired.

FCC spokesman Neil Grace said the agency had reviewed the complaints and “concluded that there was nothing actionable under the FCC’s rules.”

A CBS spokesman declined to comment on the decision.

FCC rules for programs on broadcast television after 10 pm only bar obscene content. For content to be ruled obscene, it must meet a three-pronged test established by the US Supreme Court.

It is rare for the FCC to impose fines for obscene or indecent conduct. It has issued just two fines since 2010 to television stations for improper conduct, most recently in 2015 to a Virginia TV station for a sexually explicit video aired during an early evening newscast.

James Corden is coming to Snapchat Shows.

The messaging app’s growing roster of TV-style short-form series will be joined by “James Corden’s Next James Corden,” a sixepisode satire of reality-competition shows launching this fall featuring the late-night host himself.

“The line between your television screen, your computer and your phone has never been more blurred,” Corden told Variety.

The series pretends that Corden is searching for a successor at “Late Late Show with James Corden,” so he decides to put a group of young potential replacements to the test.

The Corden project will mark the first collaboration between CBS and Snapchat for Discover, the content platform where Snapchat Shows can be found. NBCUniversal, Disney, Vice and MGM are among the other media partners Snapchat has brought in for original programming on Discover.

Corden’s Snapchat Show will also feature other familiar faces including bandleader Reggie Watts. Ben Winston and Rob Crabbe will serve as executive producers of the series, from CBS Interactive in partnership with Fulwell 73, and in association with CBS Prods.

Do not read on unless you’ve seen the “Dancing With the Stars” Season 24 finale, which aired May 23 on ABC. One couple just danced their way to victory. After a season full of shocking send-homes, “Dancing With the Stars” awarded its mirrorball trophy to winner Rashad Jennings and his partner Emma Slater Tuesday night. They beat fellow finalists David Ross and Lindsay Arnold, and Normani Kordei and Val Chmerkovskiy in order to win Season 24 of the ABC staple.

Jennings joins a line of NFL players who have won the dancing competition, including Donald Driver, Hines Ward, and Emmitt Smith. It was the first win for pro dancer Emma Slater. Had Ross won, he would’ve been the first MLB player to take the title.

Kordei’s Fifth Harmony bandmates Ally Brooke, Dinah Jane, and Lauren Jauregui were all in the audience for the live finale and visibly disappointed by the results. Kordei’s third place finish matched her result on “The X-Factor.”

A contestant on “America’s Got Talent” filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming that host Tyra Banks humiliated her daughter at a recent taping of the show.

The contestant, identified in the suit only as Jane Doe, performed a song with her husband at the taping on March 19. The song is about her bond with her daughter, who is identified as Mary and who was present at the taping. She says that she and her husband were “humiliated” by the judges and the audience, who criticized the song.

According to the suit, Banks added to the humiliation by making fun of the song in front of Mary. The contestant alleges that Banks pulled her daughter’s hair back, physically manipulated her, and insinuated that the girl was accidentally conceived.