Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the lead negotiator for SAG-AFTRA, will be a key player as the guild begins talks with the studios again today.
MARKET SHARE MONDAY MEMO
Quad Cities’ WQAD Hires Major Market News Director To Fill In As Temp
There is no 1-800 number to get a major market news director to parachute into market 104 on a temporary basis. How WQAD pulled it off is a matter of timing and providence.
The momentum behind organizations that aim to combat online falsehoods has started to taper off.
BRAND CONNECTIONS
“We got a call from our friends at NBC sports asking us to put tonight’s story in language that the legions of Swifties would understand,” Daly explained. With Swift’s Welcome to New York playing in the background, the Voice host went on to use the singer’s song titles (or parts of song titles) to explain the upcoming game. Pictured: Taylor Swift, second from left, Brittany Mahomes, second from right, and Ryan Reynolds, right, stand before an NFL football game between the New York Jets and the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Oct. 1, in East Rutherford, N.J. (Adam Hunger/AP)
For some writer-producers, the enthusiasm over going back to work this week was dampened by the news that their overall deals, suspended during the WGA strike, are being reinstated but not extended. Nowhere has this been more prevalent than Universal Studio Group, which includes Universal Television and UCP. The company has reinstated all of its writing and non-writing producers but did not extend the term on any of the deals,
Exclusives
ABC‘s The Golden Bachelor seems to have reenergized The Bachelor audience as the show opened to solid ratings on Thursday night, delivering the strongest debut performance from a Bachelor franchise series since 2021.
The Senate has confirmed the re-nominations of Democrat Geoffrey Starks and Republican Brendan Carr for new terms on the FCC, insuring there won't be any more FCC nomination drama, at least in the near term following last week's swearing in of Democrat Anna Gomez. The pair were confirmed by voice vote late Saturday (Sept. 30).
CBS's The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live and NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon were the first shows to leave the air when the writers strike began on May 2, and now will be among the first to return on Monday night. Comedian John Oliver got his first take on the strike out, exuberantly returning Sunday night to his Last Week Tonight show on HBO and delivering full-throated support for the strike.
The FCC has 90 days to finish its review of the rules governing how many broadcast stations a company can own, a federal court said in a ruling on Friday (Sept. 29). The agency is required to review the laws every four years to see if they continue to serve the public interest. It kicked off the review in 2019, but a series of legal entanglements delayed the actual start of the process. After further stalling this year, the National Association of Broadcasters filed a petition with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in April to get the process moving.
The end of the writers’ strike marks a new era. Studios and streamers are likely to order fewer TV shows. Consolidation could follow.
TVN’S MEDIA JOBS
New Jobs Posted To TVNewsCheck
New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include an opening for a director of digital content for Lockwood Broadcast Group in either Richmond or Hampton, Va.
5G Broadcast, a technology that is starting to be tested by US low-power TV stations, took a big, official step forward. 3GPP on Friday formally published the technical specs for 5G Broadcast in version 18.3.0 of the specs for 36.101 (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access, or E-UTRA). The updated specs show approval for "LTE based 5G terrestrial broadcast" to operate in a new 108 band (470MHz – 698MHz). This effectively makes all U.S. low-power UHF stations 3GPP-eligible to broadcast in 5G.
Space City Home Network launches on Tuesday and will be a joint venture of the two franchises. The teams say the move will be seamless for fans, who will be able to watch games on the same channels they used previously.
ABC is making some changes to its lineup following the resolution of the writers strike. Comedy Home Economics has been canceled and High Potential has been moved to fall 2024. ABC still has to make decisions on a renewal for The Rookie: Feds and the status of The Good Lawyer, a backdoor pilot spinoff of The Good Doctor.
A chief information and security officer will take the stage with two media industry attorneys and a trial lawyer from the Securities and Exchange Commission at TVNewsCheck’s Cybersecurity for Broadcasters Retreat. The goal: offer guidance on significant new regulations handed down in June. Register here.
Executives from Gray Television, Morgan Murphy Media, Graham Media Group, Ticker and Newsbridge will break down the key elements of AI’s rapidly widening role in broadcast TV and what the C-suite needs to know about the business implications in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s TV2025: Monetizing the Future conference at the NAB Show New York on Oct. 25. Register here.
