Programming

Nickolas “Nick” Davatzes, CEO Emeritus of A+E Networks who developed and launched A&E Network and History Channel, died Aug. 21 at his home in Wilton, Conn. His cause of death is not being disclosed. Davatzes, one of the architects behind the boom of the cable network business in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, joined what would become A+E Networks in December 1983 following the merger of the Entertainment Network, owned by RCA and the Rockefeller family and the ARTS Network, owned by Hearst and ABC.

Carrie Ann Inaba won’t be returning to The Talk for the CBS daytime talk show’s upcoming season. Inaba, who replaced Julie Chen as a permanent co-host in January 2019, had been on a leave of absence from the show since April.

Tamron Hall is moving to a new part of the Walt Disney empire. The news and talk show veteran, whose current program has been syndicated by Disney since its launch in the fall of 2019, will now be part of ABC News, according to a person familiar with the matter, adding another daytime talk program to the news division’s portfolio.

The former president and general manager of NBC Sports Washington is tapped by Sinclair Broadcast Group to lead its Bally Sports West, Bally Sports SoCal and Bally Sports San Diego regional sports networks.

VidCon 2021 has been canceled due to a spike in COVID-19 cases — marking the second straight year the major creator convention has been scrapped because of the pandemic. The event, which typically takes place in June, was set for Oct. 22-24 in Anaheim, Calif. The next VidCon event in the U.S. is now slated to take place at the Anaheim Convention Center June 22-25, 2022.

Mike Richards ended his just-launched run as host of the syndicated Jeopardy after news surfaced of demeaning comments about women, the homeless and others that Richards had made on a 2013-14 podcast. He announced his exit in an internal memo and said the search for a new host will begin again, with guest hosts returning to continue production for the new season.

Dave Morgan: “There was a time when the media measurement market was pretty simple. You had Audit Bureau of Circulation numbers for newspaper ad buys, BPA for magazines, Arbitron for radio and Nielsen for TV. No more. Digital disruption, the rise of performance advertising — and, most importantly, massive and accelerating audience fragmentation across an expanding number of media channels, suppliers and devices — are to blame.”

When Paw Patrol: The Movie hits theaters and the Paramount+ streaming service today, it will kick off one of ViacomCBS’s most ambitious efforts to take on Disney in the streaming wars. The release of the feature film based on the animated children’s series about a group of rescue dogs who protect their community, will be backed by an “eight figure” marketing blitz, with 1,800 TV ads across channels like Nickelodeon. It involves partnerships with almost 200 companies — from Kellogg’s cereal to Best Western hotels — on tie-ins for toys and other products, many of which will come with a free trial of Paramount+.

For the second consecutive week Netflix’s Virgin River was the most watched program on the major U.S. SVOD services, attracting 1.270 billion viewing minutes during the week of July 19-25, according to Nielsen. Virgin River was the only SVOD program to garner over 1 billion viewing minutes for that week.

Ava DuVernay’s unscripted family social experiment series, Home Sweet Home, has found a home on NBC’s fall schedule — Fridays at 8 p.m. ET, starting Oct. 15.

Los Angeles Country’s COVID database on Thursday showed nine positive tests on Stage 18 of the CBS Studio Center (aka CBS Radford) in Studio City. The outbreak is tied to CBS’s Big Brother, which is filming its 23rd season there, sources said. The nine positive tests for crew members had been registered over several weeks since July 26, with most of those impacted already back at work after being quarantined and subsequently cleared.

Anthony Morina , the executive producer of The Young and the Restless allegedly made repeated advances toward actress Briana Thomas, commented on her body, offered her a “private acting lesson” and had her fired when she rebuffed him, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday against Morina and Sony Pictures Television.

The Television Academy said Thursday that attendees at next month’s Primetime Emmy Awards and Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be required to provide a negative COVID test in addition to being fully vaccinated. This year’s ceremonies are being limited to nominees and a guest with the rise of the Delta variant this summer hampering the return to fully live in-person events in Los Angeles and around the country.

Julie Jarmon, most recently VP scripted programming development at The CW, has been named SVP development for Freeform, overseeing scripted series development for the Disney network. This marks Jarmon’s return to Freeform where she previously was an executive director in development.

In an announcement on Thursday, the ACM Awards will move from CBS, which previously announced that it would be airing the Country Music Television awards show next year. A date and location will be announced later, but the show has been traditionally held in Las Vegas, although the pandemic moved the show’s production to Nashville.

ABC’s Press Your Luck this Wednesday drew 2.8 million total viewers and a 0.4 demo rating, hitting and matching series lows. CBS’ Big Brother (3.6M/0.9) led Wednesday in the demo, while NBC’s America’s Got Talent (5.5M/0.6) was steady week-to-week and led the night in total audience.

Now that all the big media companies have launched at least one streaming service into the overcrowded U.S. market, it’s time to look everywhere else for more customers. Kelly Day, a long-time digital-media veteran, is president of international streaming services for ViacomCBS. She’s charged with the task of debuting ad-supported service Pluto and subscription service Paramount Plus into dozens of countries by the end of 2022.