AXS TV said that a new original series, Cash Cab Music, will be part of its winter programming slate.

Cash Cab Music puts a new spin on the long-running Cash Cab format, with host Adam Growe surprising passengers with a chance to win prizes by answering questions about tunes and artists.

Questions will increase in value from $50 to $100, with a final round in which correct answers are worth $200 each. 

A final “Cash Cab Karaoke” question will enable them to double their money, if they sing the correct tune.

Cash Cab Music was produced for AXS TV by Castlewood Productions.

The new weekly show launches January 8 and is part of AXS TV’s winter schedule.

The new slate also features two new acquired series, You Gotta Eat Here! With John Catucci and Hot Ones, a viral celebrity series in which host Sean Evans sits down with an eclectic roster of A-listers including Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis, Bryan Cranston, Steph Curry and Bear Grylls.

In addition to music, there’s grappling action, with TNA Impact! and New Japan Pro-Wrestling. 

“AXS TV has always been the premier destination for the absolute best in music programming, and we’re taking that to the next level in 2024 — pushing the bounds of music-centric content with this slate of original and acquired series, many of which mark the network’s first foray into several new and exciting genres,” Katie Daryl, VP of programming for AXS TV, said. “AXS TV’s latest additions offer a little something for everyone, and we cannot wait to share them all with our viewers in the new year.”

AXS TV is owned by Anthem Sports & Entertainment.

Batwoman has begun on The CW. Ruby Rose plays Kate Kane, a.k.a. Batwoman, a lethal street fighter with a passion for social justice. Meagan Tandy plays Sophie Moore, a military-grade security officer who has been kidnapped.

Batman has mysteriously disappeared, and Gotham is in a bad place. Tandy said America is ready for a fearless female, or two, thwarting the heels. “I think it will be really awesome for people to see a woman out there, defending Gotham and being strong and powerful,” she said at the TCA Press Tour.

Berlanti Productions produces Batwoman in association with Warner Bros. Television. The cast also includes Dougray Scott and Rachel Skarsten.

Sophie has a soft side to go along with her toughness. “People are really going to love Sophie because she can be bad-ass, but is also really sweet,” Tandy said.

The CW described Batwoman as “an out lesbian and highly trained street fighter primed to snuff out the failing city’s criminal resurgence.” The show shares Sundays with Supergirl.

“If people are looking for something dark and sexy, but also funny,” Tandy said, “this is the show.”

If people are looking for something offbeat and funny, and set in a taxicab, there are few choices other than Cash Cab. Bravo is bringing back the game show on the move, which debuts Oct. 7. Cash Cab ran on Discovery from 2005 to 2012, then again in 2018 and 2019.

Bravo feels it is right for the network. “We’re always looking for new opportunities to diversify our programming, and for ways to extend our programming to co-viewers,” Rachel Smith, executive vice president of development, Bravo and E!, said. “It’s smart, it’s irreverent and it’s pop culture-focused.”

The reboot won’t feature major changes. Maybe a bit more pop culture, and likely some familiar faces from the Bravo universe. “The format is truly beloved,” Smith said.

That means Ben Bailey stays on as host. Smith noted how he can drive a taxi, host a game show and crack jokes all at the same time. “It’s a juggling act not many people can do,” she said.

Cash Cab premieres on a Monday, but will air Sundays- Thursdays. Contestants get two shout-outs if they need help — one on social media, and one to a stranger on the street. Three wrong answers and they’re booted out.

It being 2019 and all, has Bravo ever considered Cash Uber or Cash Lyft? Those may not roll off the tongue like Cash Cab, but still. “It’s something we’re definitely looking into,” Smith said, “and continue to explore.”

Cash Cab is back, five years after the mobile game show wrapped. Ben Bailey hosts once again, but the Discovery Channel program feels a wee bit different. “It’s been a while since we made new episodes, and television moved on,” executive producer Tony Tackaberry said. “So we modernized it, adapted it.”

That includes digital lifelines and celebrities hopping into the cab, helping the contestant answer questions. Famous people signed up include Matthew Perry, Brooke Shields and Scott Bakula. “They got right into the tone and feel of the game,” Lion USA’s Tackaberry said.

To truly modernize Cash Cab, which (re) starts tonight (Dec. 4), might that mean shifting from taxicabs to Uber? Tackaberry said it’s something they’ve thought about. “There’s something still so iconic about yellow cabs in New York City,” he countered. “People really respond to little yellow cabs.”

The second season of Shut Eye, with Jeffrey Donovan playing a con man with a chain of fortune-telling storefronts in Los Angeles, kicks off on Hulu Wednesday (Dec. 6). Production shifted from Vancouver to L.A., and John Shiban is now showrunner. “It was conceived and written to be about Los Angeles,” Shiban said. “Shooting in Canada, Hulu felt it was lacking a bit of L.A. flavor and character.”

Shiban knew Shut Eye producers Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein from Breaking Bad. He said a goal for the Breaking Bad scribes was creating a “water cooler moment” — a scene that prompted discussion at the office the next day.

Shiban said there’s a “scary-funky-interesting moment” in season two, episode two. Donovan’s Charlie thinks he’s struck his son with his car, but it turns out he hit a “creepyass doll,” Shiban said. “It’s a really great moment.”

On a lighter note, Psych: The Movie runs on USA Network Thursday night (Dec. 7), picking up where the series left off in 2014. James Roday’s Shawn Spencer and Dulé Hill’s Gus Guster are chasing down bad guys in San Francisco. Roday and Hill are executive producers.

Hill said Psychnever really wrapped. “From the time the show ended, it’s always been about us moving the story on,” he said. “The main thing was timing.”

Psych ran for eight seasons on USA. As with American Idol restarting in March, one wonders about the ideal amount of time to be off the air before a show returns. Roday said he believes Psych got it right. “Three years is enough time to be missed,” he said, “but not be forgotten.”

He referred to the movie as “a thank you present for the best eight years of our lives.”

Creator Steve Franks plans on doing multiple Psych movies. “As long as fans want it, there’s an appetite for it,” Hill said, “we’ll be down to do it.”

Some entertainment-themed cable networks are betting on game shows to drive new audiences with escapist fun and comedic programming.

Game shows like BET’s Face Value, TBS’s Snoop Dogg Presents The Joker’s Wild and truTV’s Talk Show the Game Show offer a fun, less-expensive alternative to dark scripted dramas and often outlandish reality series that dominate cable network lineups, network executives said. Such shows also serve as comfort food for viewers weary of the constant drumbeat of the 24-hour news cycle.

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“I think that everyone right now is growing fatigued by current events and politics and are looking for an escape,” truTV senior vice president of development and original programming Lesley Goldman said. “Game shows in particular create an alternative universe — you’re really entering a world where there are really clear rules that you can play along with and temporarily get away from the real world.”

And Discovery Channel is reviving Cash Cab, the taxicab-based quiz show it aired from 2004 to 2012, with original host Ben Bailey once again picking up would-be contestants on the streets of New York. New episodes will begin airing Dec. 4.

Cable’s game-show fascination comes after a major push by the broadcast networks into the genre this past summer with new shows like CBS’s Candy Crush and Fox’s Beat Shazam, along with revivals of such classic shows from the 1970s and 1980s as ABC’s The Gong Show and Fox’s Love Connection.

A New Generation of Fans
While game shows have been a staple of television since the early days of the medium, the genre has found new life by appealing to a new generation of viewers looking for escapist programming that’s heavy on humor and celebrity stars.

“In the world that we live in, it’s just a fun way to decompress and escape and have some fun doing it,” Connie Orlando, executive vice president and head of programming for BET Networks, said. “In this climate, we’re striving to bring people from all backgrounds together to celebrate the things that unite us and not divide us, and I think game shows are a perfect reflection of that.”

Related: BET Sets ‘Black Card Revoked’ Game Show

TBS senior vice president of unscripted series and special event programming Michael Bloom said the network recently looked to the game show genre to complement its lineup of comedy programming and came up with a revival of the 1970s staple The Joker’s Wild, hosted by hip hop superstar Snoop Dogg. He said the series — which retains the format of the 1972-86 original, adding some hip hop flourishes and Snoop-themed questions and categories — gives its audience an opportunity to laugh and be entertained through a different programming lens.

“Fun and funny were the first two filters we applied to every decision we made for the series,” Bloom said. “We approached it by asking how we could take the original, easy, exciting show and add as many comedy layers as we could to it, and we were able to do that.”

So far the show is winning with viewers: Snoop Dogg Presents The Joker’s Wild drew nearly 1.2 million viewers for its Oct. 24 premiere — on par with the network’s average primetime rating for that week.

Other cable networks are looking to put their own stamp on the game show with new genre concepts. TruTV’s sophomore series Talk Show Game Show is a mashup of the two television formats that pits comedians and celebrities against each other. Hosted by comedian Guy Branum (Chelsea Lately), it places celebrities in various talk show-inspired challenges judged by a panel of comedians who award points while roasting the celebrity’s performances, according to the network.

“The key for us was finding a show with an original hook and a unique point of view that at the center featured a great personality behind it,” Goldman said. “It’s highly relatable and so fun for audiences to play along.”

Talk Show the Game Show, produced by comedian Wanda Sykes’s Push It Productions, will return for its second season in early 2018, according to Goldman. “It combines two genres that our audience loves, and creates a competitive environment where we get to see comedians and celebrities really let their hair down and have a ball,” she said. “It just attracts an audience that’s looking for some fun and satisfying arc and ending that they can walk away from. There are no winners and no losers — it’s a very concrete experience for our viewer.”

‘Face’ Up to’ Prejudice
BET’s Face Value challenges people’s own prejudices and biases by allowing celebrity contestants to make snap judgments about people they see based on their looks and mannerisms.

“Face Value is fun and engages people in lively debate, and over the course of the game the players and viewers realize that when they stop judging and start listening to others they find out each person is uniquely individual,” said BET’s Orlando. “It’s a unique mix of both the comedy and game show formats, and that mix makes for good television and appeals to audiences of all ages and all walks of life.”

The show is hosted by Black-ish’s Deon Cole and produced by Sykes, providing the series with name recognition that helps build viewer awareness. “It’s good to put a face that people can relate to and know to introduce these shows,” she said.

TBS also turned to a celebrity in Emmy-nominated hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg to host its remake of The Joker’s Wild. Bloom attributes the presence of Snoop Dogg to drawing in new viewers to the network — 30% of the show’s audience had never watched TBS, he said.

“Snoop is a prolific social media superstar, and he has stepped up and absolutely done a great job of promoting the show,” he said. “It’s unique to see a superstar like Snoop doing something like this. We’re glad he’s brought all of these new eyeballs to TBS.”

Executives said game show programming competes well in a very crowded television marketplace and will continue to find time slots on cable network programing lineups. TruTV’s next game show, slated for next year, will be a trivia-themed program that will help ordinary people pay off their student debt, according to Goldman. “Whether its celebrities or ordinary people, game shows are fun no matter who’s playing it,” she added.

BET has already green-lit a second game show, Black Card Revoked, based on the card game of the same name that tests players’ knowledge of the African-American experience from pop culture and entertainment to historical facts and politics. Comedian Tony Rock will host the series, which will debut in January, according to Orlando.

“We have found that our audience likes to laugh and decompress, and game shows are a great way to do that,” she said. “Our filters are always to be relevant, fun and radically bold, and game show programming checks off a lot of those boxes.”

Several cable networks are going back to the future this fall by resurrecting high-profile, unscripted series franchises in an effort to lure back old fans as well as to bring in a new generation of viewers.

On Labor Day (Sept. 4), A&E will bring back its Emmy-winning Biography series after a five-year hiatus. The series, which aired in syndication before debuting on A&E in 1987 and ran on FYI (formerly Bio) through 2012, will again profile the lives of marquee entertainers and their impact on culture, executive VP and head of programming Elaine Frontain Bryant said.

The first installment of the new series, "The Notorious Life of Biggie Smalls," chronicles the slain hip-hop pioneer.

“Bringing back the Biography brand is so important for us,” Bryant said.

RELATED: A&E 's Elaine Frontain Bryant discusses 'Biography' and the network's Emmy-nominted unscripted shows (VIDEO)
Also returning to the television stage in September is MTV’s Unplugged. The series, which first debuted in 1989, features musical acts playing their most popular songs on acoustic instruments and bows Sept. 8 with pop music star Shawn Mendes.

Later this year, Discovery Channel will offer a revival of game show Cash Cab, starring Ben Bailey, who originally drove the New York taxi that gave unwitting passengers an opportunity to win prizes during the show’s first run on the network from 2005-12.

Discovery Group president Rich Ross said the familiarity of reboots like Cash Cab gives such shows a leg up.

“When you don’t have to resell a premise, it’s much easier to break through in a crowded environment,” he said.

Cable networks are looking to breathe new life into classic reality series in an effort to get a leg up in a very crowded and competitive television environment.

Iconic reality series such as Trading Spaces (TLC), Cold Case Files (A&E), Cash Cab (Discovery Channel), Cold Justice (Oxygen), Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (Netflix) and Biography (A&E) will return to the small screen later this year and into 2018, hoping to trade on their familiarity with viewers to recapture old fans and draw in new viewers, according to network officials.

“There’s a nostalgia about it,” TLC president and general manager Nancy Daniels said of Trading Spaces, the network’s popular home design and decorating series that ran from 2000-11. The network will resurrect the series next year.

“It’s a brand that people know and love,” Daniels said. “In a world where it’s so hard to break through with something new, to have something that has an automatic, built-in fan base is a gift.”

Indeed, the reality genre is joining its scripted brethren in creating updated versions of classic shows. Decades-old sitcoms such as One Day at a Time and Full House have been resurrected into more contemporary versions by Netflix, while movies such as Lethal Weapon and Westworld were turned into successful scripted series this past fall by Fox and HBO, respectively.

Discovery Channel Group president Rich Ross said bringing back a well-known franchise like Discovery’s unscripted game show series Cash Cab — which will return to the network later this year after a five-year hiatus — provides a network with a built-in marketing advantage that other new shows don’t give it.

“There is no doubt that familiarity gives you a leg up in a crowded universe, and when you don’t have to resell a premise its much easier,” he said. “It’s a simple premise, but seemingly timeless.”

Other networks are bringing back shows that resonate with some of TV’s hottest programming-genre trends. A&E this past February relaunched its documentary series Cold Case Files after an 11-year hiatus, amid the growing popularity of true crime programming within the TV marketplace.

Advancements in crime-solving technology — along with good, old-fashioned detective work — have created new interest in the series, Elaine Frontain Bryant, A&E executive vice president and head of programming, said.

“Good ideas are good ideas, and when they can be revamped in new ways and come back as fresh, it can work again,” she said. “The show had been off for several years, but given this renewed interest in crime programming, we thought this was the perfect time to bring it back.”

The surge in popularity for home improvement-themed content in recent years was the catalyst for TLC’s decision to resurrect Trading Spaces, according to Daniels.

“The home and property shows are huge and everybody has their favorites,” she said. “We absolutely think there’s still a rabid consumption of property shows, and with Trading Spaces we can draw in those viewers that are nostalgic about the show as well as new viewers.”

TLC is just starting the process and has not made any decisions on the reboot, Daniels said, including who will host the reality series. She did not rule out bringing back the original Trading Spaces cast, including host Paige Davis.

“There’s such an affinity for it, and it just felt like the time was right,” Daniels said.