Programming

Brenda Kelly-Grant (r) has been named SVP, casting and talent relations, Disney Branded Television. She will succeed Judy Taylor, who will retire at the end of the year after a career that has spanned nearly half a century.

Supply-chain woes are this year’s Grinch, threatening to steal gifts and good cheer. But TV is overstocked with holiday specials and rom-coms — including the Food Network’s first movie and the rebranded GAC Family channel’s Christmas debut.

The English Premier League is nearing the sale of its U.S. television rights for about $2 billion, setting a new overseas record, the Financial Times reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The membership of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees has voted to ratify a new three-year agreement, ending the threat of the first national strike in the union’s history. The contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers was ratified despite opposition from many members who felt it did not do enough to address oppressive working conditions on set, including long hours and a lack of timely rest periods.

CBS is singing a happy tune given the turnout for Adele: One Night Only. Per preliminary numbers, the concert/interview special averaged 9.6 million total viewers and a 1.5 demo rating — tallies that are likely to swell further once updated numbers trickle in this afternoon.

In 2017, the New York Times reported that Sheila Nevins, the “profane, glamorous and gloriously inappropriate” president of HBO Documentary Films, had decided to step down. She told the Times that “I have deprived my life of a life. All I did was work. I was, like, born at HBO and I don’t have to die there.” But five years later, Nevins says that this was a complete lie.

WXIN Indianapolis launched an hour-long lifestyle show in September. In October, it was the No. 1-rated program in its time slot. Good planning, a winning news lead-in, great talent and solid marketing have made Indy Now a winner with local advertisers and viewers while reflecting Nexstar’s corporate vision.

Broadcasters racing to keep up with creating content for an expanding array of distribution platforms told The Weather Company their meteorologists needed two things: speed to publish and the ability to work remotely. The weather provider responded with Max Velocity, a browser based platform that enables lightning fast story creation in a tool so easy to use that it expands the potential user pool to non-meteorologists and even sponsors.

NBC has decided against airing one of its new or returning entertainment shows in its coveted post-Super Bowl 56 timeslot on Feb. 13. Instead, the network will broadcast coverage of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, which will also be in progress. The network today also sets dates for the This Is Us final season and Law & Order revival premiere.

NBC has renewed its new hit drama La Brea for a second season. It is the No. 1 new show this fall in the highly coveted adults 18-49 demographic, and that’s whether or not you include delayed viewing.

CBS’s Young Sheldon and ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy led Thursday’s non-NFL fare in the demo, while NBC’s SVU dipped to season lows. Fox’s Thursday Night Football coverage, with 8.1 million total viewers and a 2.1 demo rating, was up from last week’s fast nationals.

Heading toward a near midnight Sunday deadline, IATSE members now have their ballots to vote on a new three-year deal with producers. The nearly 60,000 members of the below-the-line union received emails this morning starting around 6 a.m. PT prompting them to login in and digitally cast their vote.

Disney and Netflix are very different companies, with very different investor bases, but they’re head-to-head competitors in the streaming wars. And on Friday, Netflix’s market valuation climbed above Disney’s for the first time in about a year — ironically, coming on “Disney Plus Day,” the Mouse House’s company-wide marketing event designed to punch up excitement and subscriber signups for the streamer.

The WarnerMedia-owned streamer will debut And Just Like That with two episodes on Dec. 9, picking up 11-plus years after the last time Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Co. were on screens in the second SATC feature film. The remaining eight episodes will roll out weekly.

After years of complaints, NBCUniversal and its peers are looking for other ways to count viewers, with or without the ratings giant. Next Tuesday, NBCUniversal plans to host a forum to discuss alternative ways to measure its audience. Representatives of major advertising agencies, industry trade groups and companies including Ford Motor, L’Oreal and Pfizer are expected to attend. NBCUniversal is also sifting through proposals from 80 measurement companies, Nielsen among them, to create new methods for quantifying viewers.

Evoca, a live TV service that delivers channels via ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology, says that Sinclair has refused to negotiate on carriage for its Bally Sports regional networks. For about the past year it has been trying to get Bally Sports Arizona so the Phoenix homes that watch over-the-air broadcast TV can watch their local professional sports teams. Bally Sports Arizona carries live games from the Phoenix Suns, the Arizona Mercury, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Arizona Coyotes.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with new syndie talk show host Nick Cannon, along with WTTG Washington Good Day D.C. anchors Jeannette Reyes and Wisdom Martin, about Cannon’s whistle-stop tour to co-host Fox Owned Stations’ morning shows across the country promoting the show, including stops in New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and San Francisco thus far.

When Big Bird tweeted he had been vaccinated against COVID-19, conservative politicians immediately pushed back, including Ted Cruz who grilled Big Bird for what he called “government propaganda.”

ABC’s broadcast of the 55th Country Music Association Awards veritably matched last year’s audience low (with 6.6 million total viewers, per prelim numbers) and its demo rating (with a 1.1). The kudoscast thus led Wednesday in both measures.