Sony Pictures Television

Plotkin previously was senior vice president of drama development for Sony TV. The promotion comes after the former head of drama development, Lauren Stein, was promoted to the newly created role of head of creative for Sony Pictures Television Studios. In his new role, Plotkin will continue to report to Stein while overseeing development of all scripted drama series at the studio.

Lauren Stein has been promoted to head of creative at Sony Pictures Television, SPT President Katherine Pope announced on Tuesday. Stein will oversee the creative strategy, content and sales for the U.S. scripted division. She will continue to report to Pope in the newly created role.

Monetizing social is the next challenge, said syndication executives from Live With Kelly and Mark, The Drew Barrymore Show, Sony and Fox at TVNewsCheck’s TV2025 conference last week.

Legendary industry executives from Live With Kelly and Mark, The Drew Barrymore Show, Sony Pictures Television and Fox First Run share what it takes to build and maintain programming that connects with viewers and keeps them engaged in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s TV2025: Monetizing the Future conference at the NAB Show New York on Oct. 25. Register here.

Veteran current executive Jeffrey Glaser will be leaving Sony Pictures Studios where he has been EVP of current programming. Marie Jacobson, who has been co-leading the current programming department with Glaser since November, will be become sole head following his June departure. The announcement was made by SPTS President Katherine Pope in an internal memo.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the sitcom starring Kevin James, Leah Remini, Jerry Stiller and Patton Oswalt ran on CBS. Sony Pictures Television is selling all nine seasons of the sitcom across all linear and digital platforms.

Hearst Television has picked up weekly political series Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, which is produced by its sister company Hearst Media Production Group, for two more seasons. Hearst also has reupped Sony Pictures Television to distribute the show for two more seasons.

Channel Surf with Craig Ferguson is set to debut in fall 2023.

Executives expect a quiet ’23 for the syndication market but insist that streaming isn’t hastening its demise altogether. Audiences and advertisers are still hanging in, though programming budgets may need to be right sized under pressure from fragmentation.

Sony Pictures Television has quietly taken full control of The Crown producer Left Bank Pictures in a deal worth £5.5 million ($6.6 million). Sony has acquired the 5.32% of Left Bank it did not own, valuing the production house at £103M ($124M) around 15 years after it first launched in the U.K. The deal was completed last June but was disclosed for the first time in two sets of Left Bank earnings published this week on Companies House, the register of British companies. Above, Elizabeth Debicki as Diana, Princess of Wales, in Netflix’s The Crown.

Nicole Norwood has been named senior vice president of development for TriStar Television, the production studio run by Sony Pictures Television. In her new role, Norwood will report to Jennifer turner, who serves as executive vice president of TriStar Television.

Netflix is seeking to amend its programming deals with major entertainment studios to allow the streaming giant to put content on an advertising-supported version of the service, people familiar with the matter said. Among the studios Netflix has begun talks with are Warner Bros., which makes the hit stalker drama You; Universal, producer of the dark comedy Russian Doll; and Sony Pictures Television, producer of The Crown and Cobra Kai, the people said.

Sony Pictures Television is teaming up with corporate sibling the Game Show Network for the companies’ first joint upfront presentation to advertisers. Live viewing and game shows’ capacity for brand integration will be two key areas of focus, an announcement said. In addition to staples like Jeopardy and some new programming, the pitch will also feature The Good Doctor, a marquee Sony property coming to the off-network syndication market in September.

“What’s for dinner?” is the key question that Sony Pictures Television’s new first-run strip, The Good Dish, aims to answer for audiences as it attempts to fill the gap left by the departed Dr. Oz. Five days a week, hosts Daphne Oz, Top Chef’s Gail Simmons and Food Network’s Jamika Pessoa get together to share recipes, offer tips and interview celebrities. The one-hour show is an expanded version of a weekly segment that has aired during Sony Pictures Television’s Dr. Oz for the past several years.

The long-running daytime syndication series The Dr. Oz Show will come to an end on Jan. 14, 2022, distributor Sony Pictures Television said today. The fate of the show, which had been renewed until 2023, became uncertain after host Mehmet Oz announced his candidacy for Senate in Pennsylvania, with the Fox stations in New York and Philadelphia pulling the program right away. The Dr. Oz Show spinoff, The Good Dish, hosted by Oz’s daughter, Daphne Oz, Gail Simmons and Jamika Pessoa, has been picked up by station groups across the country that carry The Dr. Oz Show, including Fox, which had been The Dr. Oz Show’s core station group, Hearst, Nexstar, Gray and Sinclair.

Co-president Jason Clodfelter, working with established showrunners including Shawn Ryan, hopes the program provides emerging writers with the practical experience they need to run their own shows.

With Jeopardy in a host vacuum following the botched search for a successor to the beloved Alex Trebek, Sony Pictures Television has locked in the hosts of its other hugely popular — and profitable — syndicated game show, Wheel of Fortune. Pat Sajak and Vanna White have agreed to continue hosting the show through the 2023-24 season. As part of the deal, Sajak has added consulting producer to his responsibilities.

John Weiser, president, first-run television at Sony Pictures Television, is leaving the studio after more than 30 years. Weiser, who has been responsible for successfully negotiating multiple cycles of Seinfeld syndicated sales in the U.S. among a plethora of deals, will exit in September. Sources say he’s unlikely to be replaced directly, with his responsibilities taken over by other execs.

Richards had signed an overall development deal with Sony in 2019, and became executive producer of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune in May 2020. He quickly became controversial when he went from behind-the-scenes to Sony’s pick for host of Jeopardy — even before his 2013-14 podcast comments demeaning women and making stereotypical comments about Asian, Jews and others surfaced.

Anthony Morina , the executive producer of The Young and the Restless allegedly made repeated advances toward actress Briana Thomas, commented on her body, offered her a “private acting lesson” and had her fired when she rebuffed him, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday against Morina and Sony Pictures Television.

Think of Sony Pictures Television as clutching the rose, and Mayim Bialik, Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric and Jeopardy champs Ken Jennings and Buzzy Cohen among the suitors so far, with more to come including Robin Roberts, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and LeVar Burton. Sony has “the most robust team of people I have ever seen looking at this and analyzing it in a very cerebral way,” said Executive Producer Mike Richards. “It’s a real change from the way casting has traditionally been done on television.”

After debuting in September in Meredith’s 12 markets, the daily half-hour newsmagazine is rolling out nationwide with distribution by Sony Pictures Television.

Sony Pictures Television and the Fox Television Stations are partnering on a four-week test of off-Game Show Network’s Common Knowledge starting Aug. 3, the partners said Monday.

After A&E decided to cancel its top-rated show, Live PD, in the wake of nationwide protests over police brutality, Sony Pictures Television has followed suit and asked stations to pull the show’s syndicated spin-off, Live PD Police Patrol, which SPT distributes. Stations are taking the show off their air this week, a SPT spokeswoman confirmed.

Sony Pictures Television is moving ahead with The Good Dish, a new syndicated daytime series from The Dr. Oz Show producers, which is on track for a fall 2020 launch. Hosted by Daphne Oz (MasterChef Junior), Vanessa Williams, Gail Simmons (Top Chef) and Jamika Pessoa (The Next Food Star), The Good Dish spinoff grew out of weekly cooking segments featured on The Dr. Oz Show.

Harry Friedman, executive producer of both Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, will retire when his contract expires on May 1, 2020, Sony Pictures Television, which produces both of the veteran syndicated games, said today.

The new syndicated talk show now has been sold in 90% of the U.S. for a Sept. 16 launch.

In an effort to produce quality shows on a leaner budget, Sony Pictures Television is launching a yet-to-be-named boutique TV production label inspired by independent film. Leading the team as head of creative is Marie Jacobson, who was most recently EVP of programming and production for the company’s networks group.