Programming

Nielsen is getting an early jump on Nielsen One, its cross-platform tool that will enable publishers and marketers to transact on a single metric across linear and digital platforms. While the metric isn’t set to roll out until next December, Nielsen will be debuting the first version of the offering — called Nielsen One Alpha duplicated ad measurement — at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

A latenight target throughout his time in office, Donald Trump remained a favorite subject, along with COVID’s ongoing impact and President Biden’s first year in the White House.

After much speculation Monday in which a number of early January awards events such as AFI, Palm Springs, the BAFTA tea and more have either postponed or canceled plans to hold their events due to COVID complications, the Critics Choice Awards on Jan. 9 (televised on The CW and TBS) plans to go ahead with its show at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles as originally planned.

The NHL has postponed more games, becoming the first major American professional sports league to halt play entirely in the face of rising infections from the fast-spreading omicron coronavirus variant. The pro hockey league announced Monday night that the league’s holiday break, previously scheduled for Friday-Saturday, will start after the Tuesday games. All games slated for Wednesday have been postponed.

The Saturday Night Live boss says the show’s upcoming 50th anniversary could very well be the right time to exit.

Universal Television and CBS made a joint announcement Monday that Noth would no longer be part of filming “effective immediately.” Two women accused Noth of sexual assault in a story reported last week by The Hollywood Reporter. Noth vehemently denied the allegations, which date back to 2004 and 2015.

NBC’s coverage of Sunday Night Football was an obvious winner for primetime, the same way the New Orleans Saints were the clear conquerers of the latest NFL game. Earning a 3.6 rating in the 18-49 demo and 14.13 million viewers in fast affiliates, SNF was the highest-rated and most-watched program of the evening. SNF, which saw the Saints dominate the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 9-0. Following SNF, other sports-related content lead the pack. Fox’s The OT (2.6/10.26M) came in second, followed by Football Night In America (2.4/9.86M).

The Television Academy today announced rules changes for the 74th Emmy Awards competition, including eliminating the program time length for comedy and drama series and further defining what a “limited series” is.

With the possibility of several of its key syndicated shows ending after this season, Fox Television Stations has both influence and flexibility headed into 2022.

From nude survivalists to singles going on dates while caked in makeup and animal masks. As 2021 comes to an end, it’s time to look back on the year’s TV offerings, which were chock full of outrageous reality TV. Above, daters get to know each other while caked in outrageous prosthetics and animal makeup in Netflix’s Sexy Beasts.

Pour one out for Pose, Superstore, Pen15 and too many more.

In the current 2021-22 television season, the program is averaging 9.1 million viewers, up 6% compared to last year, according to Nielsen data. The program’s resilience at a time when traditional TV audiences are shrinking has not gone unnoticed. While Disney/ABC has aired Jeopardy on its owned TV stations since 1984, competitors ViacomCBS and NBCUniversal have discussed making a play to get the legendary game show and Wheel of Fortune for their major-market TV stations, according to several network and studio executives who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Among the thousands of hours of television that came out this year, episodes of Call My Agent, For All Mankind, Mythic Quest, Pose and WandaVision, among others, stood out.

YouTube told viewers Sunday it was restoring service so customers could once again watch networks provided by Disney such as ESPN, FX, National Geographic and local ABC stations.

After negotiations failed to reach fruition on Friday, Disney networks, including ESPN, have gone dark on YouTube TV. Disney had indicated earlier this week it was “optimistic” about the prospect of resolving the carriage dispute. But the parties said the discussions had not resulted in an agreement.

Production on CBS’ new hit comedy Ghosts has halted after an individual on the set of the series tested positive for COVID-19. The show, which shoots in Montreal, had been in the middle of producing its season finale when the COVID case forced the premature shutdown, according to sources.

ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy entered the holiday break with 4.1 million total viewers and a 0.6 demo rating Thursday night, rebounding a bit from last week’s series lows. Over on Fox, Thursday Night Football (11.6M/2.7) was up sharply from last week’s early numbers.

Actress and director Zoe Lister-Jones issued a lengthy statement Thursday on Instagram calling Chris Noth a “sexual predator” who she witnessed being “sexually inappropriate” at least once. Lister-Jones also accused the actor of behaving inappropriately on the set of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, including being drunk on set.

Survivor‘s three-hour finale event on Wednesday averaged 5.1 million total viewers and a 0.9 demo rating, down a tick from its previous December finale but delivering the night’s largest audience and tying Masked Singer in the demo.

Ahead of American Dad!’s Season 17 premiere, TBS has renewed the hit animated comedy series for two more seasons, 18 and 19. Series co-creator/executive producer Matt Weitzman and executive producer Brian Boyle have signed new deals to continue as showrunners.

District Attorney Jack McCoy is back. Sam Waterston, one of the longest-tenured Law & Order cast members, has closed a deal to reprise his beloved character in the upcoming 21st season of Dick Wolf’s venerable crime drama, which premieres Feb. 24 as part of a Law & Order Thursday lineup. This will mark Waterston’s 17th season on the show as DA McCoy.

Seacrest has signed a multi-year extension of his deal to continue as host and executive producer of the annual ABC special, which is produced by MRC Live & Alternative. The extension will take Seacrest past the 20-year mark as host; this year’s broadcast, which is also the 50th anniversary of the first New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, will be his 17th.

Actor Chris Noth has been accused of sexual assault by two women. The Law & Order and Sex and the City star has denied the allegations, asserting that the encounters were consensual. “The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false,” Noth said in a prepared statement.

The Grammy winner has made a first-look deal with the streamer to produce new series.