Since taking over the network, Chris Licht has instituted sweeping changes, but the network’s ratings have continued to suffer.
The decision by UCLA and USC to join the Big Ten further consolidates power within two college conferences and escalates the rivalry between their two biggest media partners, Fox and ESPN. The Big Ten said Thursday that the schools, which have large fan bases and famous histories in football and basketball, will join the conference in 2024. Their arrival will benefit Fox Corp., which owns 61% of the Big Ten Network through a joint venture and just renewed its deal with the conference.
Univision has come to terms with virtual MVPD provider FuboTV on a broadcast retransmission deal, ending an impasse that threatened to black out channels including the flagship Univision, UniMas, Galavision and TUDN.
BRAND CONNECTIONS
How much promotional time do ABC, CBS and NBC have in primetime? A fascinating analysis from the Promax Station Summit shows how many promos they have and how they divide the time between all their priorities.
NBC Sports will be winding down the Olympic Channel, which is home to Team USA, on Sept. 30, an NBC Sports spokesperson confirmed. The move comes after the company sunset NBCSN, a long-running sports cable destination, to close out 2021.
Exclusives
The internet has pretty much killed local news wars. The Baltimore Banner, a nonprofit start-up, is trying to change that by taking on The Baltimore Sun.
MARKET SHARE
Promax’s ‘State Of Our Art’ Never Disappoints
At the annual Promax Station Summit in Las Vegas last week, one of the most inspiring sessions was the annual State Of Our Art. In another chapter of Market Share's coverage from the Station Summit, you'll see why State of Our Art never disappoints, year after year.
The House committee is laying out the facts in a way optimally designed to cultivate trust.
WEDNESDAY OVERNIGHTS
‘The Flash’ Is Flat With Finale; ‘MasterChef,’ ‘TPIR’ Rerun Lead Wed.
The CW's The Flash‘s Season 8 finale drew 570,000 total viewers and a 0.1 rating, dropping a few eyeballs week-to-week while steady in the demo. Fox’s MasterChef (2.2M/0.4) tied CBS’s 9 p.m. Price Is Right at Night rerun for Wednesday’s demo title, while that TPIRaN delivered the night’s biggest audience: 3.4 million.
SAG-AFTRA and Netflix, which have been negotiating under a media blackout for a new contract, have agreed to extend their current contract through July 31 to allow bargaining to continue. Their current contract — known as the 2019 Netflix Agreement — had been set to expire June 30.
Film and TV productions shot in Los Angeles will now require crew members to wear mask indoors. The announcement was made on Thursday by Barbara Ferrer, the public health officer of Los Angeles County. During a media briefing, Ferrer said the change was made due to increasing hospitalizations in L.A. county due to COVID-19.
In a huge coup for Amazon Prime Video, the streamer has scored rights to the Champions League in the U.K. for the first time, shared with BT (British Telecommunications). From the 2024-25 season, Amazon will show the big games on a Tuesday night through to the semifinals, amounting to around 20 games in total. BT, which has held the rights since 2015 when it took over from ITV and Sky, will continue showing both the Champions League and the smaller European football competitions, the Europa League and Europa Conference League.
Magnum P.I. has been saved. It came down to the wire but a deal just closed for NBC to order 20 new episodes of the action drama starring Jay Hernandez following its cancellation by CBS last month. The 20 episodes will be split into two seasons, bringing the reboot’s run to 96 episodes, with an option for more.
CBC News is launching a free, ad-supported streaming channel in the fall, with a daily news show led by The National's Andrew Chang as its flagship program, the public broadcaster announced Thursday. The channel will be available to stream 24/7. Chang will step back from The National in August, with co-anchor Adrienne Arsenault taking over hosting duties from Monday to Thursday under a new title, chief correspondent for CBC News.
TVN’S FRONT OFFICE BY JOE ANNOTTI
Audio Takes Center Stage
Media companies seeking to expand their presence are turning to podcasting as a great way to attract advertisers and solidify their brands. As podcast listenership continues on an explosive trajectory, advertisers are following, media companies are acquiring and investing, and more local companies are getting on board to take part in this disruptive, creative medium.
Scripps moves him from senior director of news at its WXYZ-WMYD Detroit to oversee its Nevada ABC affiliate.
Tom Swift has swiftly gotten the boot by The CW. The low-rated, Nancy Drew spinoff only launched on May 31. The series, which features a predominantly Black cast, started off as an unconventional backdoor pilot, with only Tian Richards (as Tom) getting an introduction on Nancy Drew last season. The rest of the characters were cast after the project was picked up to series in August. We hear CBS Studios, which is behind Tom Swift, is trying to extend the options on the cast and plans to shop the series elsewhere.
Animated family comedy Duncanville is coming to an end. Fox has canceled the series, which comes from Amy Poehler, The Simpsons veteran Mike Scully and former Simpsons writer-producer Julie Scully, after three seasons. The series is averaging a 0.2 in live+7 numbers with 641,000 viewers and around 1.1 million multiplatform viewers per episode.
TVN’S MEDIA JOBS
New Jobs Posted To TVNewsCheck
New jobs post to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings a local sales manager, an investigative reporter, anchor/producer, digital content manager, MMJ and news producer.
Executives from NBCUniversal, Disney Advertising, UM Worldwide and ICON International will look at the increasing use of data to target and track customers and to assess the impact of campaigns in a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar at 1 p.m. on July 28. Register here.
Executives from Fox Corp. will share insights from building a pioneering new cloud-native operations center in Tempe, Ariz., dubbed the Gryphon Project, and where it sits in a larger reinvention of the technology powering Fox’s broadcast and digital businesses in a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch webinar on July 12 at 1 p.m. ET. Register here.
