Programming

Behind a Thursday night NFL game and the Atlanta Braves’ World Series-clinching win, the Fox broadcast network won the week in primetime. Fox averaged 6.9 million viewers, with NBC at 5.2 million, CBS at 4.9 million, ABC at 2.8 million, Univision at 1.3 million, Ion Television at 890,000 and Telemundo at 820,000. On cable in October, Fox’s The Five eclipsed every show on cable news in popularity for the first time ever, Nielsen said. That’s highly unusual for a program that airs at 5 p.m. Eastern and in the midafternoon on the West Coast.

Nielsen has begun internal tests of its new multimedia audience measurement methodology, Nielsen One, and will begin testing it with clients next year, the company’s top management executives said during a briefing with a Wall Street securities firm. “Most of the methodology is built from Big Data sources like [connected TV] makers and Roku, but Nielsen’s panel remains vital to calibrating the data for fraudulent accounts, non-viewed content (e.g., streaming or set-top box showing video, but TV is off) and better accounting for underrepresented audiences,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon disclosed in a report sent to investors.

It’s the only top talker to post gains in the session ending Oct. 31 and has grown 150% over the past 13 weeks in this its final season.

NBC’s The Voice, Fox’s 9-1-1 and ABC’s Dancing With the Stars tied for the Monday demo win, while CBS’s NCIS commanded the night’s largest audience.

The multiyear deal extends relationship across 47 markets.

Former Quantum Leap star Dean Stockwell, an Oscar- and Emmy-nominated actor whose career on stage, in film and TV spanned more than 70 years, died in the early morning of Nov. 7 at home of natural causes, a rep for the family confirmed. He was 85.

Ingo Rademacher also shared an anti-transgender meme on social media Sunday, prompting backlash from some castmates.

New series The Cleaning Lady, Pivoting and Monarch are also set for early 2022 premieres at the broadcaster.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with Lyle Schulze, VP and GM of Gray’s WIS Columbia, S.C., about how the station is taking back its programming inventory amid a dearth of syndication options, along with how the “Great Resignation” is playing out at the station level.

The first group of public broadcasting stations to appear on DirecTV stream are being launched early this week by the virtual multichannel video programming distributor. DirecTV Stream and PBS reached a deal to stream PBS member stations in October.

When The CW was announced in January 2006, the idea was to take the two smallest broadcast networks (UPN and The WB) and combine them into one less-small network with the backing of two media titans,  UPN owner CBS and WB namesake Warner Bros. Entertainment.Fifteen years and several sea changes in the television landscape later, The CW is still a broadcast network, though its stewards would prefer it to be called a “multiplatform network.”

NBC’s Sunday Night Football coverage averaged 11.3 million total viewers and a 3.2 demo rating, down a bit from last week’s preliminary numbers but easily leading the night in both measures. Buoyed by a football lead-in, The Simpsons (3.4M/1.1) on Fox led Sunday’s non-sports fare in the demo, while a steady 60 Minutes (7.3M/0.6) on CBS drew Sunday’s biggest non-sports audience

The eight ABC Owned Television Stations lead the renewal through the 2023-24 syndication season.

The Walt Disney Co. has enlisted just about every part of the company for Disney Plus Day — which is actually a weeklong series of promotions, events and content premieres. It’s ultimately aimed, of course, at driving up paying subscribers for the global streaming service. Among the deals: Starting today (Nov. 8) through Sunday, Nov. 14, new and eligible returning Disney+ subscribers can get one month of the service for $1.99 (available in the U.S. and select countries). After the first month, the service goes back to the regular price ($7.99/month in the U.S.).

Distributed production is gaining traction among broadcasters, particularly around live sporting events, enabling creative new approaches and a redefined viewing experience for fans.

AEW is WWE’s first real fight in decades. It may change the face of pro wrestling in the U.S. Though the television contracts are just below those of professional sports leagues in the United States, the money spent on broadcasting pro wrestling is serious. AEW is in the middle of a $175 million television deal with WarnerMedia to air matches on Dynamite and Rampage twice a week on TNT, before moving to TBS next year.

Univision has selected Comscore as its exclusive linear local audience measurement provider for Hispanic TV stations it is acquiring in Washington, D.C., and Tampa and Orlando, Florida. The companies said they will also work together to “refine” Comscore’s measurement capabilities to capture more of the Hispanic audience.

Todd Boehly, the hedge-fund billionaire and interim CEO of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is seeking to merge the nonprofit organization behind the Golden Globe Awards with his for-profit company MRC Entertainment, which produces the annual awards show. The proposal has alarmed reform-minded members of the group and was discouraged as “unjustifiable” by a lawyer.

The CW will have an all-DC footprint on Tuesday nights in early 2022, with the second season of Superman & Lois helping to launch new series Naomi. Both shows will premiere in January, taking over the night from The Flash and Riverdale after their brief fall runs. The network has also a February premiere All American: Homecoming and dates for Dynasty, Kung Fu, Charmed and Two Sentence Horror Stories as part of its midseason slate. The Flash and Riverdale, meanwhile, will both move to new nights when they return in March.

Fox’s Thursday Night Football coverage averaged 7.7 million total viewers and a 1.8 demo rating, down sharply from last week‘s preliminary numbers but still leading the night in both measures.

Oscar winner and American Idol alum Jennifer Hudson is adding something completely different to her resume: Talk show host. Hudson, most recently seen on the big screen playing Aretha Franklin in “Respect,” is pitching a new daytime talker to be produced by the team from The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Although not technically an Ellen replacement — her show wouldn’t be a continuation of the Ellen deals and is being shopped as an entirely new series — it would be positioned as Warner Bros. TV’s new flagship daytime talk show now that Ellen is ending its run.