NBC made the announcement during its primetime Olympics show Friday. Taylor had been with ESPN since 2014 but her contract expired Tuesday. Her last assignment for the network was Tuesday night at the NBA Finals, where she was the pregame and postgame host for the network’s NBA Countdown show.

Wall Street rallied on Friday to close out a record-breaking end to a turbulent week. The S&P 500 index climbed 44.31, or 1%, to 4,411.79 to top its prior all-time high, set early last week.

The CW’s Walker this week drew 1.2 million total viewers — its largest audience in 10 episodes (dating back to March 18) — while also ticking up to a 0.2 demo rating. CBS’s Big Brother (3.7M/0.9) was steady week-to-week and led Thursday in both measures.

Gun violence is an issue that has plagued the United States for years. ABC News hopes its efforts to track the problem across a recent week will shed new light on it. The Disney-backed news outlet is on Sunday launching One Nation Under Fire, a new project in conjunction with news staffers at ABC’s owned stations that hopes to explore the root causes of gun violence by tracking a week of shootings across the U.S. from July 17 to July 24.

The broadcast network affiliates want the FCC to "clarify" that its new enhanced sponsorship ID rules for foreign-owned government-supplied programming does not apply to long-form advertising (infomercials). The FCC in April voted to boost broadcasters' disclosure requirements for programming on airtime leased by a foreign entity. The move comes amidst heightened focus on disinformation campaigns and despite some pushback from broadcasters, who argue the FCC is adding regs to an already overregulated service.

When the day came to tape the first of LeVar Burton’s week's share of episodes as one of a succession of guest hosts, the show's pace and the challenge of following in Alex Trebek's much-admired footsteps threw Burton off stride. It made for a rough start to the five back-to-back tapings that begin airing Monday, said the veteran actor known for Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Reading Rainbow. He turned for advice to wife Stephanie Cozart Burton, who as his makeup artist was on hand to play coach during a production break.

The Cleveland Indians new name is. . .The Guardians. The Indians announced the new name on Twitter on Friday morning. They have been called the Indians since 1915. The franchise announced the name change in a video narrated by Cleveland fan Tom Hanks with music supplied by The Black Keys from the Akron area. There will be a press conference on Friday afternoon at Progressive Field to officially announce the name change.

TVNewsCheck's Michael Depp and Harry Jessell discuss the uncertainty lingering at the FCC, where Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel may be facing contention for the permanent job and a fifth commissioner has yet to be appointed.

The canceled NBC series again ranks No. 1 in Nielsen's metric for the week of June 21-27. For the second week in a row, the first two seasons of Manifest recorded more than 2 billion minutes of watch time on Netflix — marking some of the highest tallies for an acquired show since Nielsen began releasing weekly rankings 10 months ago.

ESPN will retake the ice for the first time since 2004 when it airs an NHL opening-night doubleheader in the fall. And the league’s other new TV partner, Turner Sports, also revealed its inaugural games on TNT. The league unveiled its 82-game 2021-22 regular-season schedule today

Seven lessons for your newsroom from the fast-growing Black News Channel.

HBO and its streaming service, HBO Max, have attracted 67.5 million customers, and the company expects to reach 73 million by year end. The release of made-for-the-big-screen spectacles like Godzilla vs. Kong on HBO Max helped to increase the service’s customer rolls.

The San Francisco-based company earned $65.6 million, or 8 cents per share, in the April-June quarter. That's up from a loss of $1.38 billion, or $1.75 per share, a year earlier. Revenue jumped 74% to $1.19 billion from $683.4 million, surpassing Wall Street's expectations. Ad revenue in the U.S. alone nearly doubled.

TVNewsCheck will present its annual conference charting the industry’s revenue path ahead in a virtual format once again this year with sessions on data and spot TV; NextGen TV’s monetization buildout; capitalizing on the cloud; and the event’s annual discussion with four station group leaders who offer their outlook on broadcast’s most impactful trends. Register here.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings for an executive producer, a senior producer and an associate producer for Newsmax.

Executives from Tegna, E.W. Scripps, Hearst Television, Gray Television and Bitcentral will explore the possibilities for hubbing some or all TV station group operations — and how much of a role the private or public cloud may play in those future designs — during an Aug. 5 TVNewsCheck webinar. Speakers are (clockwise from upper left): Dave Burke, SVP and CTO, Gray Television; Kurt Rao, SVP-CTO, Tegna; Ray Thurber, VP engineering, E.W. Scripps; Stefan Hadl, VP engineering, Hearst Television; Sam Peterson, GM, core business unit, Bitcentral. Glen Dickson, TVNewsCheck contributing editor, will moderate. Register here.

On July 29, technologists will share perspectives on how long-term remote work and a growing focus on the cloud are creating opportunities for innovation in television workflows and facilities design. Speakers, (clockwise from left) will be Kevin Brosnan, solutions architect, Teradici; Tim Murphy, principal program manager for media and entertainment, Microsoft Azure; Ray Thompson, senior director, partner and industry marketing, Avid; Mike Kralec, VP technical operations and deputy CTO, Sinclair Broadcast Group and moderator Glen Dickson, contributing editor, TVNewsCheck. Register to attend the webinar here.

Executives from the E.W. Scripps Co., Dentsu, WABC New York and WideOrbit will look at how leading media buying agencies are targeting beyond traditional demographics in a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar on July 28. Register here.