Slow Start For ABC’s ‘Million Little Things’
The series premiere of A Million Little Things on ABC failed to generate much heat in the Wednesday overnight ratings. Airing at 10 p.m., A Million Little Things averaged a 1.1 rating in adults 18-49 and 5.1 million viewers. By comparison, the Season 2 premiere of Designated Survivor last September also drew a 1.1 rating but 5.5 million viewers in the same time slot. Designated Survivor was also down significantly from its series premiere the previous year.
Exclusives
The U.S. media group, which shoots Star Trek: Discovery locally, will launch the CBS Stages Canada complex, with six soundstages, in mid-2019.
‘This Is Us’ Season 3 Premiere Slips 26%
Airing at 9 p.m., NBC’s This Is Us averaged a 2.9 rating in adults 18-49 and 10.3 million viewers. That’s down approximately 26% in the key demo and 20% in total viewers compared to the Season 2 premiere, which drew a 3.9 and 12.9 million viewers last September. The debuts of NBC’s New Amsterdam and CBS’s FBI were both solid.
‘America’s Got Talent’ Finale Boosts NBC
NBC averaged 8.2 million viewers for the week. CBS was second with 4.2 million, Fox had 4 million, ABC had 2.7 million, Univision has 1.33 million, Telemundo had 1.32 million, Ion Television had 1.2 million and the CW had 650,000.
Following the retirement of Ken Werner announced earlier today, Decker now becomes responsible for all of Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution sales.
New-Season Premiers Send Syndies Soaring
Most of the magazines and talk shows post solid gains as repeats give way to fresh episodes in the week ending Sept. 16.
‘Manifest’ Pops In Premiere, ‘Magnum’ Solid
The series premiere of Manifest on NBC got an excellent start in the Monday overnight ratings, while CBS’s reboot of Magnum P.I. enjoyed a respectable launch. Airing at 10 p.m., Manifest drew a 2.2 rating in adults 18-49 and 10.3 million viewers. That built on the lead in it got from the season premiere of The Voice, which drew a 2.0 rating and 9.6 million viewers. Manifest was also the second highest-rated show of the night, behind only The Big Bang Theory.
Instead of looking at off-the-shelf syndicated programming, Raycom Media decided to tailor its own, a half-hour talk show featuring two comediennes. Me Time with Frangela features the team of Frances Callier and Angela V. Shelton, who have been friends for more than 20 years. Ken Reiner, Raycom’s programming VP, sees the show as an opportunity “to really look at something that’s new, unique, fun and dynamic.”
The president of Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution since 2006, he will step down at year’s end, segueing into a consultant role. Prior to joining WBDTD, starting in 1997 Werner was EVP of distribution for The WB network, increasing its U.S. coverage from 56% to 94% and was a key member of the Warner Bros. team that formed The CW network, and led the initial rollout of its distribution.
It’s official: Bob Greenblatt’s tenure as NBC Entertainment has come to an end. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke, in a memo to staff Monday morning, officially announced that George Cheeks and Paul Telegdy would take over for Greenblatt and serve as co-chairmen of NBC Entertainment.
Former Today co-host Tamron Hall is officially heading to daytime TV. Disney ABC has cleared the new syndicated daytime talk show hosted by Hall on the ABC Owned Television Stations Group for fall 2019. The project had been in development at Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International for the past couple of months.
‘9-1-1’ Opens With Series Highs, NFL Up
An NFL lead-in gives the second-season premiere of 9-1-1 double-digit improvements over its series debut. NBC also got good returns from its primetime football broadcast, posting double-digit gains over the same night in 2017.
Fox Networks Group is sounding the alarm to viewers in a carriage dispute with cable operator Altice USA as a Sept. 30 contract deadline looms for FX, Fox Sports 1, Fox’s New York O&O and National Geographic Channels. Fox began airing warning spots on select channels on Altice USA systems Sunday in the New York City area to warn viewers of a potential blackout coming.
After three rounds of secret bidding on Friday and Saturday, Comcast offered the higher price of 17.28 pounds ($22.58) per share for European broadcaster Sky, the equivalent of nearly 30 billion pounds ($39 billion). Rival 21st Century Fox offered 15.67 ($20.47) per share.
NBC Chairman Robert Greenblatt is in negotiations to leave NBC after almost eight years. Talks are still ongoing, with a resolution expected as early as this weekend. Reps for the network declined comment.
The Academy Awards could eventually go to a streaming service, because, as some stakeholders believe, “TV is going nowhere.” The growing sense of broadcast obsolescence is why key people at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences have begun to talk quietly about taking their valuable telecast to a streaming service.
