New Fashion Series “Fashion Star” Partners with Retailers

NBC’s “Fashion Star,” produced by Electus and Magical Elves, recently set its retail partners for its upcoming inaugural season. Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and H&M will all team up with the show this coming fall. The show, which is currently taping, features 14 unknown designers who are vying to win an exclusive capsule line in all three stores. The contestants will be judged by a panel of celebrity mentors, who were announced earlier this month by the network — Nicole Richie, Jessica Simpson and John Varvatos.

Nicole Richie has her own jewelry line, House of Harlow 1960, which she launched in late 2008 and later expanded to include shoes and apparel. She also partnered with maternity store Pea in the Pod to do an exclusive maternity line with the retailer. Jessica Simpson started her self-titled collection, featuring shoes and handbags, in 2005. John Varvatos is a leading menswear’s designer who has worked for both Polo Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Elle Macpherson will host.

Each hour-long episode will feature a fashion show where designers will show their work in front of a live audience. The contestant whose design doesn’t get picked up by a retailer will be eliminated.

"Partnering with the world's best retailers will offer audiences an intimate, real-world look into how the fashion industry works and what makes buyers tick," Ben Silverman, CEO and founder of Electus, said.

Electus’ “Mob Wives” Reunion Racks Up the Ratings

“Mob Wives,” produced by Electus, hosted a reunion special on Sunday night and was met with season-high ratings. VH1 aired the special at 8 p.m. and also had an encore airing at 11 p.m. During the 8 p.m. showing, 1.1 million of the viewers were in the age 18-49 demographic. The show garnered 2.7 million viewers for its special, and had an average of 1.33 million total viewers per episode in its first season. Throughout the season, “Mob Wives’” premieres have made VH1 the no. 1 non-sports cable network in the 8 p.m. timeslot with women age 18-34.

Because of its high viewership, VH1 picked up “Mob Wives” for a second season, which will premiere in the fall. The network slated “Mob Wives” for 12 new episodes. “Mob Wives” goes into the lives of four Staten Island women — Renee Graziano, Drita D’Avanzo, Carla Facciolo and Karen Gravano — whose husbands or fathers have been arrested or imprisoned for mob-related activities. Graziano’s father has been charged with mob-related crimes, and her sister is the creator of the show. D’Avanzo’s husband has been imprisoned for crimes relating to narcotics and robbery. Facciolo’s father was the former acting boss of the Lucchese crime family. Gravano’s father was the underboss of the Bambio crime family and also served as a federal informant.

Electus’ “Mob Wives” will return the same four women for its second season.

DumbDumb Co-Founder to Star in New NBC Comedy

This year’s TV upfront week revealed a new project in the works for actor Will Arnett, a co-founder of DumbDumb, an Electus partner. The announcement came from NBC, the network with one of the most anticipated lineups. In “Up All Night,” Arnett will play a stay-at-home husband to Christina Applegate, who also serves as one of the show’s producers, alongside “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels and writer Emily Spivey. Maya Rudolph, another familiar face from “Saturday Night Live” who is most recently known from “Bridesmaids,” will also star in the pilot, as Applegate’s best friend and boss.

The show will mark Applegate’s return to television, two years after “Samantha Who?” was cancelled. Since then, the actress has appeared in movies including “Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” “Going the Distance,” and “Hall Pass.”

Arnett will also guest-star on the season finale of “The Office” tonight, which will be Steve Carell’s last show. As the season closes and we bid Carell adieu, we assure you there’s more to come from Electus, so stay tuned!

Electus’ Jordan Hoffner Speaks at Variety Summit

Variety’s Entertainment & Technology Summit was held on May 2, and among the renowned industry executives who were chosen as speakers was Jordan Hoffner, President of Digital at Electus. The summit’s panels explore recent buzz topics in the entertainment industry, including social networking popularity, exploding mobile platforms and new distribution strategies.

After the event, Variety spoke to Hoffner about the evolution of consumers purchasing and storing digital content for access by any digital device. He explained to the publication that “profits tend to flow more in the direction of platform owners like Facebook or YouTube than to the content creators who utilize the platforms.”

“The reality in digital is that it’s the platform that makes the most money,” he said.

Speakers who joined Hoffner include Steve Mosko, President of Sony Pictures Television; Thomas Gewecke, President of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution; Robert Kyncl, Global Head of Film and TV at Google; and director and producer Eli Roth.

At Electus, Hoffner oversees all content and distribution deals in the digital market. Before working with the company, he was the director of content partnerships at YouTube.