Famed statistics guru Nate Silver and his website FiveThirtyEight are on the “chopping block,” as ABC News looks to cut costs. A decision on the future of the famed politics, economics, and sports analysis website is set to be made by the summer when Silver’s contract is up, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation.
The opening round of the NFL playoffs drew a slightly smaller — though still huge — TV audience than it did a year ago. The six games of the wild-card round averaged about 28.4 million viewers, a 4% decline from 2022’s opening round (29.65 million). Three of the telecasts topped 30 million viewers, led by the 33.21 million for Fox’s Sunday telecast of the New York Giants’ win over the Minnesota Vikings. That contest, however, was off by about 20% from the same window last year, when 41.5 million people watched the San Francisco 49ers beat the Dallas Cowboys — the biggest audience for a wild-card game since 2015.
Jeopardy is officially taking “Tournament of Champions” to the next level. ABC on Wednesday announced that it has picked up Jeopardy! Masters, a Ken Jennings-hosted primetime spinoff that will find the six highest-ranked, current Jeopardy contestants facing off in a Champions League style event.
ABC has picked up a third season of its breakout comedy series, which is coming off a Golden Globe win for best comedy series and acting awards for Quinta Brunson (who also created the show) and Tyler James Williams. The show also won three Emmys in 2022, for Brunson’s writing, supporting actress Sheryl Lee Ralph and casting for a comedy.
ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve knocked its countdown telecast competition out of the water once again, but the pre-2023 event dropped significantly in both ratings and total viewers compared to the year-ago special. On Dec. 31, the Ryan Seacrest-hosted event averaged a 4.1 rating among adults 18-49 and 13.7 million total viewers from 11:30 p.m.-12:36 a.m., according to Nielsen’s timezone-adjusted Live + Same Day data.
Exclusives
The NFL announced just over an hour after the injury to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin that the game would not resume. When or if the teams would return to the field was not immediately clear. Hamlin collapsed on the field, was administered CPR and then taken to a hospital, where the NFL said Monday night that he was in critical condition. Above, the Buffalo Bills players praying for teammate Damar Hamlin. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean)
Now that your broadcast TV favorites are on holiday break, TVLine is looking at how each network’s shows are stacking up thus far in the 2022-23 TV season — now turning its attention to ABC.
Old schoolers like the late Gil Schwartz of CBS used to hate it when the press would commandeer executive sessions at TCA in the aughts with questions about the death of broadcast TV. HBO had come to dominate the Emmys year after year and the perception was that programming on the Big Three just wasn’t sexy, no matter how much Schwartz would argue that the size of CBS’ audience was far more valuable than the trophies it never seemed to collect at the Shrine Auditorium. Looking back, the fact that anyone was defending broadcast TV seems positively quaint these days.
“We think Bob Iger is returning to Disney to make big changes. Spinning [off] ESPN/ABC is the best path forward, and we see it as a reasonably probable late-’23 event.” Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall opened a Tuesday report on The Walt Disney Co., led again by Iger as CEO, with a big call that is certain to cause debate.
Beauty and the Beast averaged 4 million total viewers and a 0.7 demo rating, after which The Parent Test retained 1.9 mil and a 0.4. Ghosts‘ hour-long Christmas episode averaged 6.8 million viewers and a 0.6 rating, eyeing its best audience ever and matching its season high in the demo.
Gayle King was asked on Thursday’s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen for her thoughts about the situation at ABC’s GMA3, in which co-hosts Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes where at least temporarily pulled from hosting duties after their romantic relationship was made public. “It’s just gotten very messy and very sloppy,” she said.
In the latest TV ratings, the NBC TV-movie Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas dominated a quiet-ish Thursday in total viewers (with 6 million) and is currently tied for the nightly demo win (with a 0.5 rating). Leading out of that, a holiday edition of The Wall retained just 2.1 mil and a 0.2.
The new deals cover 25 markets and run through Dec. 31, 2024.
In a matter of days, one first-year ABC drama series has surpassed the other for the title of strongest series debut in two years among both the 18-49 demographic and total viewers. Alaska Daily now holds the title, which was previously claimed by The Rookie: Feds. After 35 days of multi-platform viewing, the premiere episode of Alaska Daily has managed a 3.02 rating among the 18-49 demographic, which is a show-stopping 844% increase from its 0.32 live+same day rating.
The final Grey’s Anatomy episode of 2022 began the setup for Ellen Pompeo’s forthcoming break from the show — and drew the biggest audience for the long-running series since its season 19 premiere. After seven days of viewing across all platforms, the Nov. 10 episode, “Thunderstruck,” gathered 8.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen and internal ABC figures. That’s the best showing for the drama since its Oct. 6 season debut.
The Rookie: Feds has locked up a strong audience. The premiere episode for the spinoff of the long-running police procedural is now ABC‘s strongest series debut since November 2020 in both the 18-49 demographic and total viewers. After 35 days of multi-platform viewing, the September episode has skyrocketed to a 2.65 demo rating, which is a whopping 755% increase from its 0.31 live+same day rating, according to the network. That marks the biggest-ever delayed-viewing increase for an ABC series debut across both comedy and drama.
In the latest TV show ratings, NBC’s Law & Order: SVU led Thursday both in total viewers and in the demo, while CBS’ Pickled proved to be a dead ball.
Actress Liza Koshy and country artist Jessie James Decker are co-hosts. The show begins at 8 p.m. ET and ends at 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day.
It’s the end of an era on Dancing With the Stars. Len Goodman, the head judge on the reality series, will be exiting after this season. He has been on the ABC-turned-Disney+ show since Season 1 in 2005.
Disney is giving the acclaimed Diego Luna drama an unprecedented cross-platform holiday rollout across ABC, FX, Freeform and Hulu.
ABC on Monday revealed its midseason lineup, which includes a new Tuesday night block featuring The Rookie and its spinoff The Rookie: Feds. The new block kicks off Jan. 3 with a crossover story for both The Rookie at 8 p.m. followed by The Rookie: Feds at 9 p.m. The new new crime drama Will Trent starring Ramón Rodríguez — based on Karin Slaughter’s bestselling book series — will follow.
Jimmy Kimmel has been set by the Academy and ABC to return as host for the 95th Academy Awards, which will be held on Sunday, March 12. Executive Producers and showrunners Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner announced the news this morning. This will be Kimmel’s third time at bat on the Dolby Stage for Hollywood’s biggest night of the year after previously hosting in 2017 (89th awards) and 2018 (90th awards).
ABC’s Nathan Fillion-starring procedural picked up an additional 5 million viewers across the week.
The new agreement covers the group’s 30 ABC affiliates, plus three stations for which Sinclair provides sales and other services under JSAs.
The audience members, who were speaking out about climate change, were “escorted out by security,” according to a spokesperson for the ABC show.
Under the new deal that runs through the 2025 season, at least 16 races will be on ABC or ESPN and all race weekends will include live coverage of practice and qualifying.
ABC has picked up a full season of its first-year show The Rookie: Feds, starring Niecy Nash-Betts as new FBI agent Simone Clark. The network has given an old-school, back nine order to the drama, bringing its total for the season to 22 episodes.
ABC’s rookie drama Alaska Daily gathered a solid audience over its first week of circulation. Aided by a strong showing on streaming — where the majority of its adult 18-49 audience tuned in — Alaska Daily’s series premiere brought in 8.7 million viewers over its first seven days, according to Nielsen and ABC figures. The Hilary Swank-led drama also drew the biggest audience of the network’s three Thursday shows in Nielsen’s seven-day ratings.
Year-round development for the broadcast networks became something of a buzz phrase during Covid as the likes of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC battled the pandemic to get new shows on the air. But plans were afoot at a number of these linear networks before the world changed in March 2020 to try and become less reliant on the traditional pilot parade. ABC is now refreshing its plans to introduce clear first- and second-cycle development routes for shows to air in the fall and midseason as the industry comes out of the pandemic.
The launch of John Dickerson’s CBS News Prime Time in September means that all three broadcast network news divisions have unique streaming newscasts at night, a nod to the future and bid to reach young people who aren’t watching television at dinnertime. Above (l-r): Tom Llamas, host of Top Story with Tom Llamas, Linsey Davis on the set of ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis, and John Dickerson, host of CBS News Prime Time with John Dickerson.
