ITV

Tag: Pretty Little Liars

  • ABC Family to change name to Freeform in January

    ABC Family to change name to Freeform in January

    MUMBAI: ABC Family will be officially renamed Freeform from 12 January, 2016, a name that speaks to the network’s ongoing priority to super-serve the ‘Becomer’ audience.

     

    According to the company, traditionally ‘Becomers’ are in high school, college and the decade that follows and they’re navigating the wonderful, fun, exciting and scary time when you experience many of life’s firsts – from first kiss to first kid. Becomers are on that epic adventure of becoming an adult.

     

    The audience’s identity and experience are fluid as they explore endless possibilities and their passions take shape. Freeform is inspired by the interconnection between content and audience, media and technology, interactive and linear, life stage and life style and the way Becomers interact with them all.

     

    “The Freeform brand represents the passion, fun, energy and new ideas that infuse young adulthood. We’ve been evolving naturally for a while now, so it’s time that our name reflects the true essence of our brand. We are excited to take our network in some new directions and continue to evolve alongside culture while delivering those favorite shows our viewers already love,” said ABC Family president Tom Ascheim.

     

    The name change coincides with the season premiere of the network’s No. 1 original hit series, Pretty Little Liars, and the world premiere of Shadowhunters, a new original series based upon novelist Cassandra Clare’s bestselling young adult fantasy book series The Mortal Instruments. Both shows kick off their season on 12 January, while the midseason premiere of The Fosters and the debut episode of the brand-new series Recovery Road air on 25 January.

     

    Freeform also has several new series in the works including the supernatural series Beyond from executive producer Tim Kring; thriller series Guilt; horror tale Dead of Summer, from Once Upon a Time creators Adam Horowitz & Edward Kitsis, with Ian Goldberg; and the recently unproduced new reality series The Letter.

     

    Additional projects include the pilot Famous in Love, from Pretty Little Liars producer Marlene King, based on the novel by Rebecca Serle; and the highly anticpated Nicki Minaj comedy project, which is inspired by Nicki’s life growing up in Queens with her vibrant family after immigrating from Trinidad – as well as her personal and musical evolution that led to her eventual rise to stardom.

     

    The network is also planning new seasons of established series including Switched at Birth, Stitchers andThe Fosters, as well as a second season of recent unscripted hit Monica the Medium.

  • DishTV ups HD channels offering to 48 with Zee Cafe HD

    DishTV ups HD channels offering to 48 with Zee Cafe HD

    MUMBAI: After adding Ten Golf HD to its offering earlier this month, direct-to-home (DTH) operator DishTV has now added Zee Café HD, taking its HD channel and services’ count to 48.

     

    This is the largest HD offering in the country so far by a DTH operator. As of August, rival DTH operator Videocon d2h had 39 HD offerings.

     

    Zee Café HD syndicates popular American television shows like Pretty Little Liars, Two And A Half Men, Gotham and Look Who’s Talking With Niranjan amongst others to appeal to the English-speaking population of India.

     

    Dish TV chief operating officer Salil Kapoor said, “Being a pioneer and market leader Dish TV has always stood up to its promise of providing maximum width and depth of content with an overall of 500+ channels & services. DishTV has always taken the lead in enhancing the value proposition and believes in providing the maximum and the best in entertainment to its subscribers.”

     

    “Our endeavor is to increase affinity with our audiences by providing them the choice of content they would like to watch. And now by adding Zee Café HD exceedingly popular English entertainment channel in our channel bouquet, we take pride to offer maximum Hi-Definition content to our customers and we will continue to expand our offerings with further additions,” he added.

  • ‘Pretty Little Liars’ renewed for seasons 6 and 7!

    ‘Pretty Little Liars’ renewed for seasons 6 and 7!

    MUMBAI: In anticipation of the fifth season premiere of Pretty Little Liars (PLL), ABC Family president Tom Ascheim and ABC Family executive VP original programming and development and chief creative officer Kate Juergens have announced that the network has picked up unprecedented two seasons of its longest-running original hit series, Pretty Little Liars, from Warner Horizon Television. Season six is set to air mid-2015, and season seven in mid-2016 on the American network ABC Family.

     

    According to the Nielsen US television viewer ratings, Pretty Little Liars is ABC Family’s #1 series in the network’s history in Total Viewers (3.8 million) and across all target demos: Adults 18-34 (1.5 million/2.2 rating), Women 18-34 (1.3 million/3.7 rating), Adults 18-49 (2.0 million/1.6 rating), Women 18-49 (1.7 million/2.7 rating), Viewers 12-34 (2.6 million/2.8 rating) and Females 12-34 (2.3 million/4.9 rating).

     

    Pretty Little Liars holds the record as the most-tweeted scripted-series telecast of all time, and across all genres, it holds 7 of the Top 15 most-tweeted series telecasts ever. The show also generated the highest average number of tweets per episode (675,000 tweets) of any TV series during the 2013/14 broadcast season. Based on total followers, Pretty Little Liars recently became the #1 scripted television series on Instagram, according to ListenFirst Media.

     

    “Pretty Little Liars has taken its place in the zeitgeist and reigns supreme in pop culture,” said Ascheim in a statement. “I am glad to bring another two seasons to our audience because ‘A’ has a lot in store for our Liars.”

     

    The season five premiere of Pretty Little Liars, entitled ‘Escape from New York’ aired in the US on Tuesday, 10 June and the storyline picked up where the season four finale left off, with Aria and the Liars reeling from Ezra’s shooting at the hands of “A.” The five girls quickly realise that as the one person who truly knows “A’s” identity, Ezra is in grave danger. While Aria watches over Ezra at the hospital, Alison and the PLLs lay a trap to finally flush out “A” and are shocked by who is ensnared. Meanwhile, Detective Holbrook steps up his efforts to find the girls and puts the Hastings family on alert. And as news of Alison’s “resurrection” spreads, Mona is not pleased.

     

    The new season of Pretty Little Liars will debut in India on 14 June, airing Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m., exclusively on Zee Cafe!

  • Pretty Little Liars writer to pen teen horror film

    Pretty Little Liars writer to pen teen horror film

    MUMBAI: The writer/creator of the blockbuster teenage drama, Pretty Little Liars, I. Marlene King will soon write the screenplay for the motion picture adaptation of an upcoming teen horror novel. Lionsgate, has acquired the film rights to Daniella Vega’s upcoming book, The Merciless with Alloy Entertainment, a television production unit of Warner Bros. Television. Through her chilling debut, Vega aims to deliver blood-curdling suspense and terror on every page. According to the official synopsis of the book, by the shockingly twisted end, readers will be faced with the most haunting question of all: Is there evil in all of us?

     

    Here is the official synopsis of the book:

     

    Brooklyn Stevens sits in a pool of her own blood, tied up and gagged. No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream.

    Sofia Flores knows she shouldn’t have gotten involved. When she befriended Riley, Grace, and Alexis on her first day at school, she admired them, with their perfect hair and their good-girl ways. They said they wanted to save Brooklyn. They wanted to help her. Sofia didn’t realize they believed Brooklyn was possessed.

    Now, Riley and the girls are performing an exorcism on Brooklyn—but their idea of an exorcism is closer to torture than salvation. All Sofia wants is to get out of this house. But there is no way out. Sofia can’t go against the other girls . . . unless she wants to be next. . . .

     

    Kirkus Reviews opines on the book that, “It’ll take a sturdy reader not to keep flinching—or put this exercise in sensation down altogether.”

     

    Lionsgate recently achieved tremendous success with Divergent, the dystopian teen romance starring Ansel Elgort and Shailene Woodley. The film just grossed a worldwide box office of $260 million including India.

     

    Pretty Little Liars will soon return to Zee Cafe with the fifth season which will deal with the girls, and how they have to adjust to the new world where Alison is in.

  • Zee Cafe to woo viewers with fact, fiction and fantasy

    Zee Cafe to woo viewers with fact, fiction and fantasy

    MUMBAI: The planet’s first-ever vampires, an adolescent queen, a twisted sociopath and much more… Zee Cafe has a lip-smacking roster of shows, new and old, lined up for its audience this year.

     

    As Zee Cafe EVP and business head Anurag Bedi puts it, “We have a good mix of reality and scripted series lined up for our viewers. You will be seeing a lot of new show launches that haven’t been aired in the country before. And we will continue to bring the latest seasons of all-time favourites such as The Mentalist, Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal among others.” 70 per cent of the channel’s viewership is made up by young and evolving viewers (15 to 34 years) based in metros.

     

    Indiantelevision.com brings you a brief overview of the delectable fare on offer:

     

    New kids on the bloc

     

    The Fosters:

    With Bradley Bredeweg and Peter Paige (Queer as Folk) as creators cum writers cum executive producers and Jennifer Lopez (American Idol, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, The Back-Up Plan) as executive producer, The Fosters stars Teri Polo (Meet the Parents), Sherri Saum (In Treatment), Jake T. Austin (Wizards of Waverly Place), Hayden Byerly (Parenthood), David Lambert (Aaron Stone), Danny Nucci (Titanic), Cierra Ramirez (The Secret Life of the American Teenager) and newcomer Maia Mitchell (Teen Beach Movie). Telecast as one-hour episodes, the series is about a multi-ethnic family with both biological and foster kids raised by two moms.

     

    Twisted:

    True to its name, this is a mystery full of twists and turns and revolves round a charismatic 16-year-old with a troubled past. He becomes the prime suspect when a fellow student is found dead in her house. With executive producers: Gavin Polone (Gilmore Girls, Zombieland, Curb Your Enthusiasm, My Boys, Jane By Design), David Babcock (Brothers & Sisters) and Adam Milch (Greek) – who also wrote the pilot, the drama stars Avan Jogia (Victorious), Maddie Hasson (The Finder), Kylie Bunbury (Prom), Kimberly Quinn (Terriers), Sam Robards (Treme, Gossip Girl), Denise Richards (Two and a Half Men) and newcomer Ashton Moio.

     

    The Originals:

    Move over protagonists of The Twilight Saga, this one’s the original vampire family and it’s here to stay. Except that time and power games have broken the centuries’ old bond among the members. Werewolf-vampire Klaus Mikaelson gets a tip-off about a conspiracy brewing against him in supernatural haven – the French quarter of New Orleans. There, he bumps into his diabolical former protégé, Marcel, a charismatic vampire who has absolute control over the city. The series follows Klaus’ struggle to reclaim all that once belonged to his family.

     

    The series stars Joseph Morgan (The Vampire Diaries, Immortals), Charles Michael Davis (Grey’s Anatomy, Switched at Birth), Daniel Gillies (The Vampire Diaries, Saving Hope), Claire Holt (The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars), Phoebe Tonkin (The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle) and Daniella Pineda (The Fitzgerald Family Christmas, Homeland), among others. The executive producers are: Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries, Kyle XY, Wasteland), Leslie Morgenstein (The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl) and Gina Girolamo (The Lying Game).

     

    Reign:

    Somewhere between the lines of history books is a story waiting to unravel – that of Mary Stuart, the young woman the world would come to know as Mary, Queen of Scots. The series traces her story from the time she was a beautiful, headstrong adolescent to the brewing love triangle between her, Prince Francis of France, and his rakish half-brother, to her tumultuous rise to power. There’s enough danger and sexual intrigue here to keep viewers hooked.

    The series stars Adelaide Kane (Teen Wolf), Toby Regbo (One Day), Torrance Coombs (The Tudors), Megan Follows (Anne of Green Gables), Alan Van Sprang (The Tudors) and Celina Sinden, among others. Coming from CBS Television Studios and Warner Bros. Television, the executive producers of Reign are Stephanie SenGupta (Hawaii Five-0), Laurie McCarthy (The Ghost Whisperer), Frank Siracusa (Beauty and the Beast) and Brad Silberling (Moonlight Mile). Zee Cafe is learnt to be looking at a June premiere for this series.

     

    The 100:

    It’s nearly a century since nuclear Armageddon destroyed planet Earth and civilization as we know it. The only survivors then were inhabitants of a few space stations in orbit. Ever since, three generations have been born but resources in space are dying out. Among many last-ditch attempts to survive, the powers that be decide to exile 100 juvenile prisoners to the surface of the Earth just to see if it can still be habited. For the chosen 100, returning to Earth is not without its fair share of perils; one minute, it’s magical while the next minute, it’s lethal. However, they must find a way to overcome their differences and forge a new path on this intense, primitive and alien planet.

     

    The series stars Eliza Taylor, Paige Turco (Person Of Interest, Damages), Thomas McDonell (Suburgatory), Eli Goree (Emily Owens, M.D.) and Marie Avgeropoulos (50/50), among others. Based on an upcoming book by Kass Morgan, The 100 is a joint production of Bonanza Productions Inc., Alloy Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios. The executive producers are Matthew Miller (Human Target, Chuck), Jason Rothenberg, Bharat Nalluri (Torchwood, Emily Owens, M.D.), Leslie Morgenstein (The Vampire Diaries) and Gina Girolamo (The Secret Circle).

     

    Believe:

    Levitation, telekinesis, the ability to control nature, the ability to predict the future – Bo’s been a gifted girl ever since she was two years old. A group called the ‘True Believers’ have raised the orphaned girl and protected her from outsiders who might use her powers for personal gain. However, now that she is 10, they turn to the only person they see fit to be her full-time protector – Tate. This wrongfully imprisoned death row inmate is at first reluctant but later relents when he sees Bo’s extraordinary abilities. Thus begins Bo and Tate’s collaboration to keep the dark forces at bay. Executive producer of the series is J.J. Abrams (Revolution, Star Trek: Into Darkness) while Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) is the executive producer cum writer cum director.

     

    Hostages:

    Dr Ellen Sanders, a prominent Washington D.C. surgeon, is handpicked to operate on the President of the USA, when she and her family are taken hostage by rogue FBI agent Duncan Carlisle and his gang of goons. Dr Sanders must kill the Prez during surgery else her captors will kill them all.  With Jerry Bruckheimer as executive producer, this edge-of-the-seat thriller stars Emmy award winner Toni Collette (United States of Tara) and Golden Globe winner Dylan McDermott (The Practice, American Horror Story: Murder House) among others.

  • ‘Pretty Little Liars’, ‘Gossip Girl’ and ‘ER’ in Asian adaptations

    ‘Pretty Little Liars’, ‘Gossip Girl’ and ‘ER’ in Asian adaptations

    MUMBAI: Three scripted series from the Warner Bros portfolio, Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl and ER, are set for local adaptations in Asia, with commissions and options secured in the Philippines, Thailand and India.

    Pretty Little Liars is currently in production in the Philippines. The 22-episode local version, produced by ABC Development Corporation, is due to debut on TV5 in April.

    In Thailand, Kantana Public Company is producing an 18-episode local adaptation of Gossip Girl. The first local adaptation of the series, Gossip Girl Acapulco, aired last year in Mexico and received well by all.

    ER has been optioned in India by Gold Television Network. A Colombian version of ER was announced at NATPE. The Indian adaptation will see famous Bollywood actress Juhi Chawla play the lead role.

    There is a significant increase in the number of Warner Bros’ scripted formats which have travelled successfully around the world and partnered with high caliber of production companies to bring its programs to the screen in Asia. Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl and ER are all iconic Warner Bros. shows that have proved to be audience favorites in US and the production house is confident about its potential to equally entertain the audiences in the Philippines, Thailand and India.