Programming

Gaga won five honors Sunday, most of them for her No. 1 hit with Ariana Grande, Rain on Me, which the pop stars performed live for the first time. The Weeknd, the first performer of the night, paid tribute to Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor — two Black people who were shot by police officers — after winning video of the year and best R&B for Blinding Lights.

Questions and answers about the coming National Football League season in the time of the coronavirus pandemic.

The New York Times will no longer include the programming lineup in its print edition, ending an eight-decade run. Gilbert Cruz, the Times’s culture editor, said the time had come because of the increasing number of digital on-demand options. “We are firmly in the streaming age,” he said, “and the TV grid no longer reflects the way people consume television.”

In a joint statement released Friday, the league and the players association said they would immediately establish a social justice coalition, made up of players, coaches and owners, that would focus on issues such as voting access and advocating for meaningful police and criminal justice reform.

CBS’ unscripted combo Big Brother and Love Island helped the network to the top ratings spot Thursday, on a night President Donald Trump’s 70-minute speech from the White House lawn in primetime wrapped the Republican National Convention. Big Brother scored a night-leading 1.0 rating and 4.01 million viewers, with the all-star edition off a tenth from Wednesday’s episode, which had matched season-best numbers in the demo. As for that final night of the RNC at 10 p.m., ABC (0.4, 2.25 million) led among the broadcasters in early numbers from Nielsen, as it did for the final night of the Democratic National Convention.

In yet another marriage of sports media with the rising tide of legalized sports betting in the U.S, NBCUniversal and PointsBet announced a multi-year partnership by which PointsBet becomes the official sports betting partner of NBC Sports. As part of the agreement, NBC Sports will provide PointsBet with year-round, multi-platform media and marketing opportunities across its portfolio of events. The company’s sports programming includes NBC Olympics, the Golf Channel, NBC Sports Regional Networks, and the Olympic Channel.

The NHL has decided to postpone all of its playoff games Thursday and Friday amid the growing sports-led boycotts to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, by a police officer.TH

NBC has set fall premiere dates for some of it scripted series, with This Is Us and all three Chicago series to return in November. NBC, like many of the other broadcast networks, will kick off its fall season with an unscripted- and import-heavy schedule next month as scripted series begin get back into production after delays caused by the pandemic. Though previously announced for a fall premiere, the Christopher Meloni-led SVU spinoff Law & Order: Organized Crime will be held until 2021

The NBA has postponed the three playoff games which were scheduled to take place Thursday, as players continue to strike in light of protests over the shooting of Jacob Blake. However, the season is not officially over, as multiple outlets are reporting that players have voted to resume the playoffs at a later, as-yet-undecided date.

CBS set the bar for Wednesday ratings, topping the night with a new episode of Big Brother: All Stars, which climbed one tenth from last week to a 1.1 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and 4.24 million viewers. The reality series matched season-best numbers in the demo. Tough As Nails (0.5, 2.90 million) also climbed a tenth from last week while the broadcaster saw an uptick in early numbers for Night 3 of the Republican National Convention (0.3, 1.64 million).

In an unusual television season marked by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has kept production mostly at a standstill, ABC is rolling out a fall schedule that so far only includes unscripted series, though the network plans to announce scripted premiere dates in the near future.

A growing number of analysts and insiders are reaching a startling conclusion: While the NFL and its sky-high viewership may be critical to networks as marketers look to unleash their budgets on holiday shoppers, the scrapping of the college Division I football season actually might come with as many silver linings as drawbacks — maybe even more. Why? Because buying the rights to college games has become so expensive that sometimes networks are better off if the games aren’t played at all.

Fox has set September premiere dates for Season 4 of The Masked Singer and the new Ken Jeong-hosted musical game show I Can See Your Voice, the network announced Wednesday. I Can See Your Voice was not on the original fall schedule Fox released back in May, but the show was fast-tracked to debut next month, taking the Wednesday night timeslot previously designated of MasterChef Junior.

All three of Wednesday’s NBA playoff games, including the fixture between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers, have been postponed due to player strikes over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin. A number of MLB games were also not played due to player protests, three WNBA games and five Major League Soccer matches were postponed for the same reasons. In addition, tennis star Naomi Osaka announced she’d pull out of the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open in New York City.

CBS has reshuffled its early fall schedule with a mix of acquisitions, scripted series from other areas of the company and non-scripted programming as it deals with the ongoing impact of COVID-19. he broadcast network is adding Star Trek: Discovery, One Day At A Time and Spectrum’s Manhunt: Deadly Games as well as a documentary spin-off of FBI to the schedule in September and October.

This fall, Meredith will launch People’s new syndicated TV show across all 12 of its markets. The program, People (the TV Show!), will be co-hosted by Kay Adams and Lawrence Jackson.

Netflix is aggressively searching for its own large-scale talent competition and a big-ticket game show as it moves into its next phase of non-scripted originals. The streamer is looking to do more four-quadrant family entertainment shows to build on its recent reality shows such as Too Hot To Handle and Love Is Blind.

A year into his tenure as Television Academy CEO, Frank Scherma held big plans for 2020. And then, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Months later, the Academy has jump-started the recruitment process for a diversity leader, and that membership drive is ready to go once it’s safe to do so. But Scherma is mostly concerned right now with making sure this year’s Emmys go off without a hitch, wrapping up the most unusual awards season ever.

In a rich deal, indie studio Warner Bros. TV has inked a syndication deal with ViacomCBS for Big Bang spinoff prequel Young Sheldon. Under the multiple-year deal, the 1990s-set single-camera comedy from Chuck Lorre will join ViacomCBS-owned Nick at Nite’s syndication lineup in November.

America’s Got Talent topped Tuesday in primetime, delivering a 0.7 in the adults 18-49 demographic and 5.58 million viewers to hold steady with last week’s numbers. The reality talent competition led into Night 2 of the Republican National Convention, which so far trails Night 1 in the early data with NBC (0.3, 2.42 million) and ABC (0.3, 1.74 million) leading in the demo and CBS (0.2, 1.30 million) at No. 3. These numbers will likely be adjusted when finals are delivered.