Technology and communications stocks pushed U.S. stock indexes to more records Friday. Energy sector stocks were the only decliners. Bond prices fell, sending yields higher.
CLOSING BELL
CBS's Young Sheldon and Fox's Last Man Standing helped their respective networks to a share of the nightly ratings crown on Thursday. Young Sheldon was the top show on the broadcast networks across the board, scoring a 1.0 in adults 18-49 and 8.8 million viewers. The latter figure is the show's third-largest same-day audience of the season and up by more than a million viewers over last week (it was steady in the 18-49 demo).
CBS Television Stations is introducing nightly 10 p.m. news at owned CW affiliates in Detroit, Atlanta and Tampa. None of the stations currently feature newscasts. Each of the three stations is hiring multimedia journalists to create news content. The newscasts will be produced at another CBS-owned station, which will add national news, sports and weather, then sent back to the station where it will air.
BRAND CONNECTIONS
When CBS Sports closes out its NFL season with Sunday’s Tennessee Titans–Kansas City Chiefs AFC Championship matchup, it will mark the conclusion of one the network’s most technologically innovative campaigns. From the addition of Field Eye (Line-to-Gain camera technology) to an increase in high-speed cameras to more live aerial shots, the CBS Sports team has significantly boosted its NFL production complement this year and will lift equipment levels even higher for its largest production of the year on Sunday in Kansas City.
When Charter Communications executives needed someone to run their Spectrum News operation in Ohio, they found a candidate with just the right amount of TV experience. None. “I’m playing catch-up on the TV part,” says Karl Turner, who held senior editorial jobs at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and Cleveland.com. “And I’m helping to think about stories in a different way.”
Exclusives
The effort by TV signal streamer Locast.com to raise $500,000 to fight a lawsuit filed by the broadcast networks has so far raised only a fraction of its goal. Almost a a month in, Locast's gofundme page has raised only $10,948, and only about $1,000 in the past 10 days.
The Media Rating Council today revoked accreditation for measurement services from Extreme Reach, Hulu and Protected Media, and denied accreditation for a service from DoubleVerify. It also granted accreditation for services from C3 Metrics, Hulu and Flashtalking.
Fresh off seven seasons of HBO stalwart Veep, she has signed a sweeping overall deal with the tech giant and streaming platform. Under the multiple-year agreement — which should be seen as a massive "get" for Apple video heads Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht — the Emmy-winning actress will develop new projects exclusively for Apple — as both an executive producer and star.
20th Century Fox, a name and klieg-lit logo that stretches back 85 years in Hollywood, is dropping the word Fox, a move that may prevent consumers mistakenly thinking the movie studio has anything to do Rupert Murdoch’s polarizing Fox News media empire. It also dropped the Fox moniker from art-house sibling Fox Searchlight.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings today officially opened Netflix’s vast new French headquarters in the center of Paris. Currently home to 40 employees in film, TV and marketing, and with ample space for at least 100 more, the shiny new space is a major sign of intent for the streamer in one of Europe’s most important — and heavily regulated — markets.
NBCUniversal on Thursday afternoon revealed details of its plan for new streaming service Peacock that differ from other streaming services. Networks typically offer free access to TV episodes the day after their broadcasts through their own apps and Hulu. Peacock will offer next-day access to first-year shows for free. For returning shows, it will be part of a premium offering that costs $5 with ads and $10 without.
THE PRICE POINT
An Ode To CBS’s Black Rock
My first thought when seeing Viacom’s announcement that William S. Paley’s architectural masterpiece Black Rock will be put on the market was horror. But then I checked. Black Rock is on the National Register of Historic Places, so I, for one, breathed a sigh of relief.
At about the same time that Chief Justice John Roberts was being sworn in to preside over the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, a pair of legislators, one a current and one a former House impeachment manager, were introducing a bill that would make the default setting that "real time or near-real time [access] on the internet," either audio or video, of all appeals courts, including the highest court in the land, would be allowed.
In a positive sign for the ad economy, demand slid only slightly from November to December 2019, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Ad Market Tracker, a collaboration of MediaPost and Standard Media Index. The index declined only 0.7% in December, which is a positive sign, because November historically is the highest-demand month of the year and the fall-off is normally more pronounced.
Google’s parent company becomes the fourth tech company — after Apple, Amazon and Microsoft — to reach the market milestone.
The private equity CEO with a fearsome reputation skates on the edges of other people’s catastrophes and manages to walk away richer.
'The Greatest of All Time' game-show event is part of the network's effort to have one big live (or live-feeling) special on its air each month.
News crews are always in a hurry, trying to be the first with a liveshot from the latest breaking story. Two critical pieces of gear that facilitate speed of deployment are tripods and battery packs and manufacturers are making pods and power supplies that offer new, innovative tools for news shooters.
NEWS ANALYSIS
Comcast Tries To Squash Antitrust Lawsuit
Comcast has moved to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit filed by Altitude TV by shooting down claims that the cable operator has refused to deal with the Denver-based regional sports network and that the cable op has a monopolistic pay-TV position in the market.
A Republican group is launching a $1 million ad campaign aimed at pressuring Senate Republicans into calling witnesses during the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Republicans for the Rule of Law, a group of anti-Trump conservatives, said the two ads will run nationally on both Fox & Friends on Fox News and Lou Dobbs Tonight on Fox Business every day next week.
TVN'S CYBERSECURITY FOR BROADCASTERS RETREAT
Election Year Threats In Spotlight At CBR
An incident response simulation focused on a period of heightened risk will open TVNewsCheck’s Cybersecurity for Broadcasters Retreat on Feb. 12 in Orlando.
TVN’S MEDIA JOBS
Sales Management & Creative Services Openings
New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings at Sinclair and Nexstar stations for sales management in Las Vegas and Indianapolis, and a creative services director opening for Graham’s station in Roanoke, Va.
TVN’S MEDIA JOBS
Social Media Specialist Opening At Sinclair
The social media specialist’s primary responsibility is to work directly with Sinclair’s stations to define and enhance their social media strategy.
TVN’S MEDIA JOBS
Environmental Journalist Opening In Illinois
Illinois Public Media, WILL-AM-FM-TV, licensed to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, needs a visiting multimedia environmental journalist to research, report and edit issues about the environment and climate change.
