Programming

Grey’s Anatomy and Blue Bloods are also strong performers over the first quarter of the 2019-20 season.

20th Century Fox SVPs Dana Sharpless and Steve Sicherman have been named co-heads of the studio’s Current Programming department. They will succeed Carolyn Cassidy who was promoted to president of creative affairs in July.

NBC’s Sunday Night Football drew a big audience to watch the Houston Texans beat the New England Patriots, 28-22. The game averaged 18.92 million viewers in the fast nationals, up 11% over last week’s early numbers (which ended up at 20.83 million in the finals) and the best for NBC’s telecast since Nov. 10.

Congress is debating whether to renew the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, commonly referred to as STELAR, past Dec. 31, when it’s set to expire. Dr. George Ford, with the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, says focus is on a key question: Should broadcasters get to charge whatever retransmission fee the market will bear?

Morrison played Rosario Salazar, a maid from El Salvador, in the original run of Will & Grace from 1999 to 2006, becoming part of a cast that won a Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble in a comedy series. She was 83

According to reports, Union and Julianne Hough have been dropped as America’s Got Talent judges after a single season. “Just when you feel lost, adrift, alone … you got me up off the ground. Humbled and thankful, forever,” the actress tweeted Wednesday night. She didn’t directly address her status with NBC’s talent show.

TVNewsCheck will not publish Thanksgiving Day and Friday. We will return Monday, Dec. 1. Watch out for falling turkeys.

Cartoon Network President Christina Miller is exiting the WarnerMedia-backed cable network. Miller, who will stay on until year’s end and help with the transition, will be replaced on an interim basis by marketing chief Michael Ouweleen.

A Santa bag of options are available to distract you from gift-wrapping and family squabbles, including the Grinch, the Brady Bunch and John Legend. Here’s a sampling from broadcast networks, cable and streaming services, all times ET.

NBC got solid ratings Tuesday from its special devoted to Dolly Parton, with the two-hour show outdrawing the same-day season averages for This Is Us and New Amsterdam in total viewers.

Disney has been heavily marketing its new service and working hard to make potential subscribers aware that Disney+ is the home of Iron Man and Luke Skywalker. The fact that Disney+ is also the exclusive home of 30 seasons of The Simpsons has flown a bit under the radar. The show and its irreverent humor aren’t an obvious fit for the family-friendly service. But The Simpsons may be just as important to Disney+ as Buzz Lightyear or Queen Elsa.

AT&T reached a renewal of its retransmission agreement with Nashville License Holdings, which owns the CW affiliate in Nashville, lifting a six-month blackout and ending a dispute that affected a dozen stations that operate under shared service agreements with Sinclair Broadcast Group.

CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC showed every minute of the hearings, even the two times it stretched into the evening. And they were rewarded: Fox (2.5 million viewership average over five days), MSNBC (2.48 million) and CNN (1.68 million) each had more people watching the hearing than would tune in on a typical day. In the cases of MSNBC and CNN, the networks more than doubled their daytime average, Nielsen said. NBC returned to the top of the broadcast primetime rankings last week with a strong Sunday night football matchup between Green Bay and San Francisco.

Actress Lucy Hale joins Ryan Seacrest in Times Square to co-host Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2020 on ABC Dec. 31. Hale starred in Pretty Little Liars on Freeform and stars in Katy Keene on The CW, which debuts Feb. 6.

Most of syndication was flat to down after running into heavy preemptions for the impeachment hearings in the session ending Nov. 17. But Jeopardy’s Tournament of Champions with the return of James Holzhauer posted a 7% increase to set a new season high.

Fox’s 9-1-1 continued its solid fall run Monday. Although its same-day ratings were off a little, it still will likely end up leading the broadcast pack among adults 18-49 ahead of The Voice and the finale of Dancing With the Stars.

Dec. 27 is the airdate for America Salutes You Presents Guitar Legends 3, the concert featuring  Nancy Wilson of Heart, George Thorogood, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Steve Lukather of Toto, to name just a few. The post-Christmas Monday night special will air as a one-hour special starting at 8 p.m.