Programming

If Nexstar seals a deal for a majority stake in the WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS broadcaster, insiders speculate the programming strategy may shift toward politics and reruns.

Now that Amazon has established itself in live sports, most recently through a $1 billion deal to air “Thursday Night Football,” Apple is trying to jump into the game. Apple is in talks with Major League Baseball to acquire the rights to its weekday package, according to people with knowledge of the deal who asked not to be named because discussions are confidential. An agreement would, for the first time, align the most valuable U.S. tech company with a pro sports media package and give Apple a major content boost for its streaming service, Apple TV+.

The NFL’s regular season viewership rose 10%, benefiting broadcasters and advertisers after the previous year’s drop. About 17.1 million viewers tuned in to regular season games on TV and online. It was the highest regular season audience for the NFL since 2015, according to a statement from the league. With the audience for dramas and comedies on traditional TV falling, NFL games continue to dominate the ratings, ranking as 91 of the top 100 telecasts this season, the league said.

MGM Television is launching sales of two new original unscripted series, Teen Court and Ring Nation, for barter syndication.

It picked up 10% in the week ending Jan. 2 to squeak past a 6% higher Family Feud.

Naomi debuted on Tuesday night to 800,000 total viewers and a 0.15 demo rating, marking The CW’s third-most watched season premiere this TV season. The CW freshman also delivered its time slot’s largest audience since July. On CBS, FBI International (6.1M/0.5) led in total audience.

The deals cover 30 markets serving approximately 11 million households and include stations for which Sinclair provides sales and other services to under joint sales agreements or master service agreements.

Major League Wrestling is accusing WWE and its CEO Vince McMahon of forcing Tubi to scuttle a streaming deal with MLW in a new lawsuit. The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday in California, also goes on to accuse McMahon of intimidating Vice TV, which had a programming deal with MLW, out of airing more content from the upstart wrestling league.

His show’s premiere was the most-watched non-football program on ABC last week, its audience of 5.2 million people nearly two million more than a season-opening episode of the much better known The Bachelor, Nielsen said. CBS was the most popular network in primetime last week, averaging 5.5 million viewers. NBC had 5.2 million, ABC had 4.8 million, Fox had 3.3 million, Univision had 1.7 million, Ion Television had 1.04 million and Telemundo had 950,000. ESPN was the top-rated cable network, averaging 3.37 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.25 million viewers, MSNBC had 1.24 million, Hallmark had 1.2 million and HGTV had 1.17 million.

The Oscars will return with a host, three years after it last had one. The announcement came from Craig Erwich, president, Hulu Originals & ABC Entertainment, during his TCA executive session. The exec didn’t give any more details in terms of who will host the annual movie bash but joked that it might be him.

AT&T’s WarnerMedia and Altice USA have reached a new long-term renewal of their distribution agreement, sources familiar with the situation said. The agreement covers the former Turner cable networks including TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network and truTV. Financial details were not disclosed.

ABC’s The Bachelor this Monday drew 3.1 million viewers and a 0.7 rating, ticking down from its season opener but still leading the night in the demo. Fox’s 9-1-1: Lone Star (4.9M/0.6) also was down, but easily delivered Monday’s largest audience. And Fox’s The Cleaning Lady (3.2M/0.4) was down 13% and 20% from its debut.

ABC has renewed Station 19 for a sixth season, with Krista Vernoff remaining as showrunner. Through the first eight episodes of Season 5, the firefighter drama is averaging 6.3 million total viewers and a 1.0 demo rating (with Live+7 DVR playback), ranking third and second among all ABC dramas.

Great Point Studios, which has created the $500 million TV and film campus, Lionsgate Studios Yonkers, claims the ever-expanding facility, scheduled to be completed next year, will surpass anything New York City has to offer. By the end of next year, the 14.5-acre campus plans to have a backlot (for outdoor scenes), two screening rooms, a postproduction area for editing and a total of 11 soundstages, several of them already claimed by Lionsgate. And now Great Point says it is in contract to buy land for a second production facility in Yonkers.

Last week was the week the latenight hosts contracted Covid with Late Night’s Seth Meyers and The Late Late Show’s James Corden both being hit by the virus. Meyers returned to host his NBC show Monday evening, although the former SNL star recorded it remotely after receiving his positive test last week.

Beginning in September, she will preside over the Fox First Run syndicated courtroom.

Ron Howard and Brian Grazer today named Tony Hernandez and Lilly Burns as presidents of Imagine Entertainment. The two, who founded Jax Media (which Imagine took a majority stake of in 2018), will oversee both film and TV.

The network has ordered four additional episodes of the family comedy series, bringing its season nine total to a full 22. The news, announced by Wendi McLendon-Covey, has nothing to do with the previously announced departure of fellow original star Jeff Garlin.

In addition, Charlotte Stoudt is hoining the series as showrunner. Stoudt coming on as showrunner is part of a new, multi-year overall deal that she has signed with Apple. Kerry Ehrin, who served as showrunner on the show’s first two seasons, will serve as a consultant on season 3 while also developing new projects for Apple under her overall deal.

ABC has handed out an early season 19 renewal for the Shonda Rhimes-created medical drama after reaching a new deal with leading lady Ellen Pompeo to return. Pompeo joins fellow original stars Chandra Wilson and James Pickens Jr. in coming back for season 19.

Fox’s Call Me Kat opened Season 2 on Sunday night with 3.7 million total viewers and a 0.9 demo rating — its best numbers since its series opener, which also was specially scheduled to lead out of season-ending NFL games.

The veteran TV program sales and marketing executive will oversee Hearst television’s program acquisition and planning, succeeding longtime Hearst programming executive Emerson Coleman upon his retirement this summer.

Fox News Channel’s comedic host Greg Gutfeld has become a ratings champ of latenight TV. Defying predictions, Gutfeld! is regularly generating higher ratings than more established latenight fare, such as Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, and has at times even topped The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.