On Tuesday Hello Sunshine announced the launch of their channel on DIRECTV and DIRECTV NOW, including Reese’s first unscripted show:

AT&T and Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Announce Launch of VOD Channel Spotlighting Female Creators and Their Stories

AT&T* and Hello Sunshine is debuting 2 new female-driven series on DIRECTV, DIRECTV NOW and U-Verse with the launch of the Hello Sunshine Video On Demand (VOD) channel. Hello Sunshine produces engaging and distinctive new narratives with women at the center.

The VOD channel will premiere 2 female-driven original series:

– Witherspoon’s first unscripted series, “Shine On with Reese,” premiering July 17.
– The Home Edit’s “Master the Mess,” premiering Sept. 4.

Viewers can also watch curated original content including short-form and library film titles. Go to att.com/hellosunshine for a sneak peek at what’s to come.

Hello Sunshine was launched in November 2016 by Reese Witherspoon in partnership with The Chernin Group and AT&T’s Otter Media portfolio.

“AT&T was one of our first partners in the quest to bring female-centric storytelling to the forefront and we are especially proud of how these original series push that mission ahead,” said Sarah Harden, CEO, Hello Sunshine. “We’re looking forward to working with AT&T to develop more opportunities for women to see themselves and their stories reflected in entertainment.”

To watch, search “Hello Sunshine” on DIRECTV NOW, go to channel 1112 on DIRECTV or channel 1530 on U-verse. New DIRECTV NOW subscribers can get their first 3 months for $10 a month with the promo code SUNSHINE3 – go to att.com/hellosunshine to learn more and sign up.*

“Providing an empowering platform for diverse voices is a priority for us,” said Valerie Vargas, senior vice president – Advertising and Creative Services, AT&T. “Our work with Hello Sunshine gives stories about women the spotlight they deserve, which inspires our viewers and drives authentic conversation.”

“Shine On with Reese” – debuts July 17
Witherspoon’s first unscripted series celebrates the stories of extraordinary women who have created their own unique paths to success. Watch as she uncovers what inspires, motivates and gives joy to each of these trailblazers, and hear their perspectives on ambition, work, family and hopes for the future.

“I am thrilled to have such like-minded, creative collaborators at AT&T to help Hello Sunshine pursue our mission of elevating and showcasing the voices of women that we have such admiration and respect for,” said Witherspoon. “I am so excited for the world to experience the stories from our partnership with AT&T, which are set to be equal parts entertaining, inspiring, thought-provoking and unabashedly real.”

Viewers can look forward to 9 weekly episodes with:

Dolly Parton (singer/songwriter)
Ava DuVernay (filmmaker/producer)
Pink (singer/songwriter/performer)
Cleo Wade (poet) and Elaine Welteroth (journalist)
Candace Nelson (Sprinkles founder) and Sara Blakely (Spanx founder)
Glennon Doyle (author/activist) and Abby Wambach (athlete/author)
America Ferrara (actress/activist)
Kacey Musgraves (singer/songwriter)
Simone Askew (First Captain, USMA at West Point) and cadets

“‘Shine On with Reese’ is about experiencing with Reese the stories of exceptional artists, entrepreneurs and leaders who happen to be women, and reveals how their personal journeys are unique yet relatable,” said Charlotte Koh, head of Digital Media and Programming, Hello Sunshine. “It epitomizes our goal of telling unexpected stories from interesting women’s perspectives.”

“Shine On with Reese” will premiere on DIRECTV, DIRECTV NOW and U-Verse via the Hello Sunshine VOD channel Tuesday, July 17. Viewers can go to att.com/hellosunshine for a sneak peek at the first episode.

“Master the Mess” series from The Home Edit – debuts Sept. 4
Decluttering gurus Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin are The Home Edit, a Nashville-based business that blends functionality with their signature clean aesthetic. In a series that blends comedy with organization, we’ll see The Home Edit tackle the pantries, closets, bathrooms and laundry rooms of families who are about to experience a transformation in their lives. Shearer and Teplin are intelligent, funny and charmingly self-deprecating problem-solvers who make life better for each client in surprising ways. For more information on The Home Edit, go to www.thehomeedit.com, Twitter and Instagram.

AT&T Hello Sunshine Filmmaker Lab – July 30-Aug. 6
AT&T and Hello Sunshine collaborate with Dreaming Tree Foundation (Fresh Films LLC) to create an unforgettable opportunity for the next generation of female storytellers to attend a summer filmmaker lab in Los Angeles. The custom program will host 20 girls for an eight-day immersive program where they will work with industry experts – and Reese herself – to create content for the Hello Sunshine VOD channel.

*After 3 months, service renews at then-prevailing rate (currently min. $35/mo.) unless you cancel. Price for “Live a Little” package after discount. New subscribers only. Limited time offer. Voids 7-day trial. Restrictions apply.

About Hello Sunshine
Hello Sunshine is a media brand and digital content company dedicated to female authorship and storytelling across all platforms. Hello Sunshine is producing feature films, scripted and unscripted television, audio storytelling and social series under the Hello Sunshine brand, all anchored by a singular mission: to change the narrative for women. Hello Sunshine is also the home for Reese’s Book Club, fast-growing in reach and influence. Hello Sunshine has also partnered with Audible to highlight the female-centered books from Reese’s Book Club, as well as to produce upcoming original audio content. Some of the film and TV projects that have already been announced include the limited series from Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington, based on Celeste Ng’s 2017 bestseller Little Fires Everywhere, as a Hulu Original Series; a 10-episode comedy series for Apple that was created by Colleen McGuinness (30 Rock) and inspired by Curtis Sittenfeld’s short-story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It; Are You Sleeping, executive produced by and starring Octavia Spencer, based on the true-crime novel by Kathleen Barber, created and written by Nichelle Tramble Spellman (The Good Wife, Justified) for Apple; and an Untitled Morning Show Project produced by and starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, which was given a two-season, straight-to-series order by Apple with Kerry Ehrin (Bates Motel) serving as showrunner. Hello Sunshine launched its first original podcast series, How It Is, featuring powerful, personal stories told by a diverse group of high-profile women and hosted by actor and author Diane Guerrero (Orange Is The New Black, Jane the Virgin) and a series on Facebook Watch, Meet My Mom, showcasing honest and entertaining chats between high-profile celebrities and their moms.

(PR Newswire)

Reese Witherspoon To Host ‘Shine On’ Female Profile Series For Hello Sunshine VOD Channel On DirecTV With AT&T

After 2017’s Emmy-winning success of HBO’s Big Little Lies and the timely Meet My Mom on Facebook Watch earlier this year, Reese Witherspoon’s female-focused Hello Sunshine shingle is about to put the Oscar winner’s inaugural unscripted series on a video-on-demand channel with AT&T.

Debuting on July 17, Shine On With Reese will feature on-location conversations, at home and on the front lines with the likes of A Wrinkle In Time director Ava DuVernay, the legendary Dolly Parton, author Glennon Doyle, as well as World Cup champion Abby Wambach. Spotlighting women who have weaved their way to success uniquely, the nine-episode first season of Shine On will premiere on DirecTV, DirecTV Now and U-Verse on the Hello Sunshine VOD channel a week from today. The Hello Sunshine channel will be located on DirecTV’s channel 1112 and U-Verse’s channel 1530.

“I am thrilled to have such like-minded creative collaborators at AT&T to help Hello Sunshine pursue our mission of elevating and showcasing the voices of women that we have such admiration and respect for,” Witherspoon said today of the deal with the communications conglomerate that recently acquired Time Warner.

The nimble Hello Sunshine already has the new season of Big Little Lies in the works for 2019 which will reunite Witherspoon with Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley as well as second-season addition Meryl Streep. There’s also a feature-length documentary on tennis star and activist Martina Navratilova, a Witherspoon- and Kerry Washington co-starring limited series based on the Little Fires Everywhere book, and a Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston series based on TV morning shows on the go too.

In early September, the VOD channel from Otter Media, the joint venture formed between The Chernin Group and AT&T, and Witherspoon’s nearly 2-year-old production company will roll out its second original series with Master the Mess. Fronted by Nashville-based declutterers The Home Edit’s Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin, the transformation show pledges to mix smart organizing skills with good humor.

The latter is a bit of a mantra for the Hello Sunshine VOD effort in many ways.

“For us, empowering women and underrepresented voices in entertainment is not a one and done initiative,” AT&T SVP Advertising and Creative Services Valerie Vargas told me of the greater cultural innovation the corporation seeks. “It’s just actually an overall strategy for us. We will continue to invest. Hello Sunshine is such a great example of it to ensure those underrepresented voices continue to get exposure on our platform so they can tell their story to as wide an audience as possible.”

“We have a singular mission and we’re bringing those stories to life in lots of different ways and on the platforms that fit that form,” Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden added. “We know it’s a noisy media environment for anyone and you have to make things that are creatively distinctive and for us that are really on mission,” the former Chernin Group VP noted.

“Launching these things back to back with a sort of fresh episode every week allows us to celebrate women and put the full marketing muscle of Hello Sunshine and also AT&T behind these shows,” Harden told Deadline of the big-picture expanded relationship between the parties. “I think that’s a bit of the theme for this channel. It’s not about aggregating everything under the sun. It’s about tight curation and a specialness. As we roll forward into ’19 I think it’s having something premium there and eventually to where every week of the year you come and you can have a fresh episode of something really distinctive and distinctively Hello Sunshine and that it’s showcasing female stories and storytellers.”

In terms of storytellers to come, Witherspoon’s company and AT&T are going off screen by working with Dreaming Tree Foundation this month on a Filmmaker’s Lab for female artists. “We’ve solicited nationwide for a camp that we will be hosting 20 girls at the end of July for a two-week immersive program where they get to work with Reese as well as other industry experts to create content that actually at the end will then air on the Hello Sunshine VOD channel,” Hello Sunshine’s head of Digital Media and Programming Charlotte Koh explains. “This is really an opportunity because there aren’t really enough women in writing and directorial roles as there should be.”

At least not yet.

(Deadline)

Reese Witherspoon Interview Series to Kick Off Her Hello Sunshine Channel Debut on AT&T, DirecTV

Reese Witherspoon will show her personal side in “Shine On with Reese” — the actress-entrepreneur’s first unscripted TV show in which she visits with female celebs and other trailblazing women.

The half-hour series is set to debut next week exclusively on AT&T’s DirecTV and U-verse platforms on Witherspoon’s new Hello Sunshine channel. For the telco, the new programming initiative is aimed at attracting — and retaining — subscribers to its video services with a slate of content showcasing women’s stories and perspectives.

The nine-episode “Shine On with Reese” comes from Hello Sunshine, Witherspoon’s production company formed under a pact with AT&T and Chernin Group’s Otter Media in November 2016.

The first three “Shine On with Reese” episodes debut July 17, featuring Dolly Parton, Ava DuVernay and P!nk. According to Witherspoon, Hello Sunshine’s content is intended to be “entertaining, inspiring, thought-provoking and unabashedly real.”

“I am thrilled to have such like-minded, creative collaborators at AT&T to help Hello Sunshine pursue our mission of elevating and showcasing the voices of women that we have such admiration and respect for,” she said in a statement.

Subsequent “Shine On with Reese” segments will profile poet Cleo Wade and journalist Elaine Welteroth; Candace Nelson, founder of Sprinkles, and Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx; author-activist Glennon Doyle and athlete-author Abby Wambach; actress-activist America Ferrara; singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves; and Simone Askew, the first black woman named West Point’s First Captain.

Also coming to the Hello Sunshine channel: “Master the Mess,” which premieres Sept. 4. The 12-part series features decluttering experts Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin of the Home Edit, a Nashville-based interior design business, giving makeovers to rooms in their clients’ homes.

The Hello Sunshine programming for now will not carry any advertising, said Valerie Vargas, AT&T’s senior VP of advertising, creative services and consumer marketing. “It really provides the ideal destination for female-driven programming. There just aren’t nearly as many women in writing and directing roles as there should be,” Vargas said.

AT&T will be tracking viewership and subscriber acquisition rates fueled by Hello Sunshine, Vargas added.

In a bid to attract DirecTV Now subs, AT&T is offering new customers of the internet-delivered TV service’s “Live a Little” entry-level package for three months at $10 per month (normally $40) with the promo code “SUNSHINE3” at att.com/hellosunshine.

“Shine On with Reese,” which began production in October 2017, will be exclusive on AT&T and DirecTV platforms for one year. “We’ve been heads-down making this show,” said Sarah Harden, CEO of Hello Sunshine (who previously was with Otter Media). One of the challenges was scheduling time with the interview subjects: “They are all incredibly ambitious and busy women,” said Harden.

The women featured in “Shine On with Reese” each have a personal connection to Witherspoon, said Charlotte Koh, Hello Sunshine’s head of digital media and programming. “The idea was to showcase women who have made notable achievements, but through the lens of Reese’s relationship with them,” she said. “There’s truly an intimacy, where you feel like you’re crashing a coffee date with Ava [DuVernay] and Reese.”

To watch “Shine On with Reese” and other Hello Sunshine programming, users can search “Hello Sunshine” on DirecTV Now, or tune to channel 1112 on DirecTV or channel 1530 on AT&T’s U-verse.

While AT&T obviously hopes the Hello Sunshine partnership helps boost subscriber metrics, more broadly it’s part of the telco’s brand-buffing effort to fund the development of programming from historically underserved filmmakers and creators.

Another element of the pact includes the AT&T Hello Sunshine Filmmaker Lab. Slated to run July 30-Aug. 6 in Los Angeles, the lab is a two-week immersive camp where 20 girls aged 13-18 will work with industry mentors — including Witherspoon — to create content for the Hello Sunshine VOD channel. The AT&T Hello Sunshine Filmmaker Lab is being produced in collaboration with Dreaming Tree Foundation (Fresh Films LLC).

In addition to the channel for AT&T and DirecTV, Hello Sunshine is producing feature films, scripted and unscripted TV shows, audio content, and social series, and also is the home for Reese’s Book Club.

Hello Sunshine projects in development include: a limited series for Hulu based on Celeste Ng’s novel “Little Fires Everywhere” from Witherspoon and Kerry Washington; a 10-episode comedy series for Apple created by Colleen McGuinness (“30 Rock”) inspired by Curtis Sittenfeld’s short-story collection “You Think It, I’ll Say It”; “Are You Sleeping,” also for Apple, executive produced by and starring Octavia Spencer, based on the true-crime novel by Kathleen Barber and created and written by Nichelle Tramble Spellman (“The Good Wife,” “Justified”); and an untitled morning show produced by and starring Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, which was given a two-season, straight-to-series order by Apple with Kerry Ehrin (“Bates Motel”) serving as showrunner.

(Variety)