TORONTO, ON - NITRO Insider Paul McGuire revealed that he was notified by ICE Phederation Chairman Marie Avgeropoulos that her network is ready to get into the streaming game which is something that NBC has already dabbled into this season as they have been consistently releasing their numbers across multiple platforms which include Netflix and Hulu as most notably Rachel has been the #1 streamed NITRO property on any streaming platform to-date. Marie Avgeropoulos is in charge of ICE's television properties and how they're sold and broadcast.
Marie says that her network has been working on it for a while now as Co-Owner Patrick Devine comes from a tech background and has been waiting to rollout a streaming platform for his network. Patrick always knew his network would own their streaming platform that's why he's stay away from making deals with Netflix, Hulu, and other popular streaming platforms. She says that Patrick informed her that the streaming service is ready to launch later in the season.
ICE's platform would be a joint venture between Paramount Television, Warner Bros. Television Studios, and MGM Television. ICE started their partnership with Warner Bros. and MGM after buying both studios for $8 billion back in 2012 with the deals starting in fall 2013 as ICE has already released many television properties and feature films under both umbrellas since then including The Irish Punk which was released under Warner Bros. Pictures back in March 2014 in theaters and will now be making its world broadcast premiere on NITRO Television this Saturday night on the ICE Television Network. ICE's main partnership stands with Paramount Television which they bought under a 20-year deal back in 2009 so that deal won't expire until the end of the 2020s. ICE's licensed deals with Warner Bros. Pictures and MGM are set to expire in 2019-20 and 2020-21 respectively at the end of those television seasons. MGM distributes both The Carpenters Hour as their main property on the ICE programming roster and The Xtina Grimmie Hour which airs on the NBC Television Network right now on Saturday nights this season.
Marie says there's no official name for this streaming project just yet but they want to keep it with something cold-related like ICE such as Glacier, Snowflake, or Igloo. Once ICE makes the official announcement themselves they'll have the name reveal in their own press release.
ICE says all of their television properties including those on other networks like Heather on NBC or Pretty Thieves on ROD along with their movies will be available on the launch date of the platform and ratings will be rolled out on a weekly basis by their own measurement team. Many classic shows that air on the main network right now will be available as well. The network will rollout all episodes of Friends and Three's Company on there as the network picked up the rights to Three's Company before the season began. Also On Demand replays of sporting events like the WFL, Athletic Games, Battle of the Network Stars, and Team ICE will all be played on the streaming service.
The goal for the Pheds in this new streaming venture is to compete against Netflix and Hulu and overtake them as the #1 media streaming service in the world so by doing this the company will not make this a premium platform meaning they're not forcing their viewers to subscribe any money to watch the service. The service will be completely free unlike Netflix and Hulu to every single customer around the world all a person needs is a streaming device and working internet to use the service. ICE will makeup that revenue from ads and exclusive sponsorships just like they do on their NITRO Television Network. With this streaming service being free their reach for viewers will be greater than Netflix and Hulu which works as a plus for ICE.
Look for the new streaming platform to launch after the WFL Playoffs in 2019 as ICE says they want to use the WFL games to promote the service before it launches.
Marie also announced that they dropped their partnership with H&M and H&M Entertainment at the start of this season as they've now partnered with Sarah Jessica Parker's Jordache Jeans brand which will branch out into forming into an entertainment company. This means part of ICE's ownership group that was owned by H&M previously will now transition over to Jordache Jeans. That partnership starts on Monday as ICE will start rolling out commercial ads during Friday night programming during New Girls in Town Pageant live auditions from Detroit and the ads will continue during WFL programming all day on Sunday. Nike had already started designing their jeans for that the WFL players wear on Sundays with Jordache Jeans before this season began which is why you may have seen the Jordache horse logo on the girls back pockets of their designer jeans during games last weekend. ICE Starlets vs. Cheerleaders assistant captain Alyssa Lynch already teased to her social media followers that they will be wearing Jordache Jeans live next Friday evening for the very first episode of ICE Starlets vs. Cheerleaders as apart of their uniform against the Toronto Icegals cheerleading squad. Alyssa says she took home her pair of jeans after she left work yesterday on Wednesday night and she confirms Megan May Williams who's the main captain of the team received her pair as well.
Sarah Jessica Parker herself said she will be in a series of television ads to start the campaign "The Jordache Look" before she chooses one of the young ICE Starlets to become an official sponsor of the brand. Sarah Jessica Parker said she'll be in Toronto all week to see who she wants to make an endorsement deal with Jordache Jeans. You can also see billboards of Sarah's campaign for Jordache Jeans in Times Square in New York City and Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto right now. Sarah says you will see girls wearing the jeans in all of the ICE shows all fall long.
Jordache Jeans
The jingle, "You've got the look I want to know better, You've got the look that's altogether! Work it, Playing. Day or night. Jordache has the look that's fit that's right. The Jordache look. The Jordache look."
Sarah says a new premium collection will be announced later this fall to celebrate the brand's 40th anniversary which got underway back in 1978.
Jordache Jeans will replace all H&M properties starting on Sunday which includes It's High Noon with Pyper America who will transition to Jordache Jeans Entertainment as early as this Friday.
In other NITRO news, rumors are heating up that Allison Shields actually had a private meeting with her sister Barbara to talk to their boss Simon Cowell about possibly bringing in Jessica Lowndes to NBC next season. Allison says she had a personal conversation with Jessica sometime last week saying she was thinking about returning to NITRO next season. We know Jessica left ICE to pursue an opportunity at owning one of the other NITRO studios. She's gonna take this year off to recharge her batteries and film a couple of feature films that are due to release in theaters around 2020. She spent some stressful years running ICE so she needed a break.
If Jessica comes to Paris she'll come there under two situations either buying Simon Cowell's shares as he retires from NITRO which he wants to do no later than 2020 and become an owner of NBC Universal with Jennifer Aniston and her brother Joey and some of the other Rachel cast players.
Jessica isn't only thinking just about NBC though she's already had talks with Lucy Hale about possibly coming there as an owner as Lucy really wants to work with Jessica as the two worked together under Pat Devine back in the day and Lucy worked for Jessica last season. She will definitely not be coming there as CEO as it sounds like Lucy Hale will be ROD's CEO for a very long-time as ROD Co-Owner Denise Richards already said that she's very happy with Lucy's progress this season in keeping the network in 2nd place as NBC has gotten stronger behind them this season. Jessica lives part-time in Hollywood so the move works out perfectly for her.
We can never rule out ICE either as she still has a real possibility returning there as owner as AnnaLynne McCord who's a bestie of hers still dreams of having Jessica work side-by-side her one day. Paige Van Buren is the CEO for life there so she's unlikely getting replaced in the next 5-10 years unless something severely changes.
The last scenario is if NITRO ever adopts a new fourth studio in the future she can land there as well but one thing we know for sure is that Jessica will be back in NITRO starting in the spring as she has said wherever she lands she will like to be there before the summer so she can help whatever studio she's with to prepare for the upcoming 2019 rookie draft class.
Jessica's return to NITRO could be deeply tied to Dasha Dereviankina who's unhappy at ICE right now and wants to move. Whenever Dasha goes, Jessica is likely to follow as Paige has given up on Dasha due to her bad attitude since the day she drafted her. Tammy Oldehoff has a 80% chance of being on the NBC roster before November Sweeps it's just a matter of time before Phederation General Manager Frankie Beckham moves her due to the fact that she pissed off Paige Van Buren really bad this week when she didn't show up for work to film the latest episode of Teen Angels which is scheduled to be aired sometime around October 17th or 24th so that incident alone might get Tammy out of ICE.
