Programming

American Ninja Warrior is returning for a ninth season. NBC said it has renewed the four-time Emmy-nominated series for a return this summer. Production will begin in the spring with a premiere date TBD. Hosted by Matt Iseman and Akbar Gbajabiamila along with sideline reporter Zuri Hall, the obstacle course competition series will shoot in three cities this season: Los Angeles, Washington and St. Louis. The show’s national finals will once again take place in Las Vegas.

CBS Television Distribution’s new daytime talker The Drew Barrymore Show, is now a firm go for fall 2020, Steve LoCascio, chief operating officer of CBS Television Distribution, said Tuesday. CTD has added such station groups as Nexstar, Sinclair, Weigel, Scripps, Gray, Tegna, Meredith and Mission to its initial launch group of CBS-owned stations, bringing the show’s total clearance level to 85% of the country.

The Bachelor bounced back from last week’s ratings dip to lead ABC to a first-place finish among adults 18-49 Monday night. NBC’s America’s Got Talent: The Champions also improved week to week. The time-period debut of 911: Lone Star on Fox unsurprisingly came down a lot from its NFL-fueled premiere Sunday, but it still tied for first among scripted shows in the 18-49 demo.

The free streaming platform now exceeds 1.6 million downloads, offers 100 linear channels, including a new 2020 election live-feed channel, and rolls out local on demand viewing of hit broadcast syndication TV shows.

The streamer offered a peek at its upcoming shows at TCA, but its future is still cloudy.

The Byron Allen studio orders production of 650 new half-hour episodes for the 2020-21 season.

The 57th annual NATPE conference — the 10th edition held in Miami — will unfold January 21 to 23 with the syndication business experiencing an upswing. While ratings are not what they used to be, renewals of major 2019 talk debuts for Kelly Clarkson and Tamron Hall have restored confidence in the sector’s core business model. Newcomers like Drew Barrymore and Nick Cannon are leading a new wave of hopefuls, giving a new shot of energy to NATPE, which some had given up for dead a decade ago.

Fox’s NFC Championship broadcast is off by a large amount in Sunday’s early ratings, but the game still gave a big launchpad for 9-1-1: Lone Star.

Fox Stations and Debmar-Mercury will roll out a revamped magazine show in September, offering two original weekly half-hour episodes. The move follows a test run during the November 2019 sweeps.

Last May, YouTube made a major shift with its original programming strategy, putting all of its original shows free in front of its paywall and streaming them with advertising. Less than a year later, the platform has plans to double its original output this year while continuing to offer both ad-supported (free) and ad-free (subscription) options.

BBC director-general Tony Hall will step down from running the U.K. public broadcaster this summer after seven years in the role. The news was unveiled Monday morning in London.

Winners in the comedy series categories were The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel cast for best ensemble and star Tony Shalhoub for best actor in a comedy series, while Phoebe Waller-Bridge took home the statuette for best actress in a comedy series for Fleabag. On the drama series side, The Crown’s cast won the award for best ensemble, with Jennifer Aniston taking best actress honors for The Morning Show and Peter Dinklage named best actor for Game of Thrones.

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.

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).

‘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.

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.

Netflix will spend $17.3 billion on content in 2020, according to a new forecast by Dan Salmon, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets. The company spent a bit more than $15 billion in 2019. Salmon sees the tally rising past $26 billion by 2026.

Programming executives Sarah Rabineau and Keith Cox have been promoted to new roles within ViacomCBS’s Entertainment & Youth Group. Rabineau has been upped to head of Comedy Central Content and Creative Enterprises, overseeing all development for the cable channel and its expanding roster of podcasts, games and other endeavors. Cox has been named president of Entertainment & Youth Studios, in addition to his role as president of originals for Paramount Network.

NBC’s Chicago dramas swept Wednesday’s ratings, recording the night’s three best performances on the broadcast networks across several measures. ABC’s The Goldbergs returned from hiatus to a same-day series low in adults 18-49.