Trump tweeted news of his test results just hours after the White House announced that senior aide Hope Hicks had come down with the virus after traveling with the president several times this week. The positive test reading for the leader of the world’s largest economy heaps uncertainty onto a growing pile of unknowns investors are grappling with, first among them how it might affect the Nov. 3 election and American policies on trade, tariffs and many other issues beyond then.
The NFL is again postponing the game between the Tennessee Titans and Pittsburgh Steelers because of further positive coronavirus tests among the Titans, moving it back to later in the season. Two more members of the Titans organization, including one player, tested positive in the results returned Thursday from testing done Wednesday, according to the NFL. That brought the total number of positive tests for the Titans this week to 11, including five players and six other members of the organization.
Dwayne Johnson, who teamed with Dany Garcia and RedBird Capital Partners to acquire the XFL over the summer, says the football league will take 2021 off but plans to return in 2022. “It’s an uphill battle,” Johnson wrote in a tweet, “but we’re hungry, humble and no one will outwork us.”
New remote production techniques, distributed workflows and onsite safety protocols have dramatically reshaped sports production. As COVID-19 continues to be a threat, sports producers can expect less travel, trucks staying in place and a slowdown of UHD production until the crisis abates.
Just as U.S.-based location shoots in Vancouver get back up and running amid the pandemic, the cameras have stopped rolling on a number of popular TV series due to a shortage of rapid COVID-19 testing capacity in the city. Charmed, Nancy Drew and DC Legends of Tomorrow are also affected.
Sunday’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans has been postponed to either Monday or Tuesday. The NFL said in a statement Wednesday that a new game date and time will be announced as soon as possible, adding that the postponement will “allow additional time for further daily COVID-19 testing and to ensure the health and safety of players, coaches and game day personnel.”
Exclusives
The year 2020 has forced many changes on TV broadcasters — one of the most visible has been through electronic newsgathering. With more sources stuck at home, broadcasters have increased their use of Zoom, WebEx, Skype and other consumer-grade Wi-Fi video conferencing services to help deliver the news.
NBC’s Chicago Med has paused filming for the next two weeks due to a positive COVID-19 test. The Chicago-based medical drama shut down production Tuesday when a regular rapid test, part of the show’s safety protocols, delivered a positive result. The person in question, a production team member, was immediately sent home, sources said.
Two-thirds of the planned layoffs at parks in California and Florida involve part-time workers but they ranged from salaried employees to hourly workers, Disney officials said. Disney’s parks closed last spring as the pandemic started spreading in the U.S. The Florida parks reopened this summer, but the California parks have yet to reopen as the company awaits guidance from the state of California.
Three Tennessee Titans players and five staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, forcing that NFL team and the Minnesota Vikings, who played the Titans on Sunday, to suspend in-person activities. The Titans tests came back Tuesday morning, according to a joint news release from the NFL and the players union. The Vikings have not announced any positive cases.
OTT Ad Impressions Spike During COVID Crisis
Streaming executives from E.W. Scripps, NBCUniversal Owned Stations, CBC and Sinclair say the pandemic drove record numbers to their streaming sites, boosting ad impressions and creating more inroads to advertisers.
NBC’s Saturday Night Live returns Oct. 3 with Chris Rock as host. In an interview, Michaels, the show’s creator, talks about pandemic preparations and why “a little danger” can be good for comedy.
In a world where we are all programmers with thousands of hours or shows available on demand with just a few clicks of our remotes, there is nothing quite like the power of a shared live TV moment. Whether it’s live footage from hurricanes, or protests or sports bubbles, it’s hard to forget those images that cause you to call or text a friend saying, “You have to put this on right now.”
President Donald Trump claimed credit Thursday for the Pac-12 Conference restarting its college football season, the week after the Big Ten made the same call. “You’re welcome!!!” the president tweeted, following a unanimous vote by university officials to allow Pac-12 football teams to begin seven-game, conference-only seasons on Nov. 6, as long as they get approval from state and local health authorities.
Pandemic Proves OTT Workflow Resiliency For News
Executives from CNN, Sinclair, Fox Television Stations and Gray Television say COVID-19 has tested the capacities of their streaming workflows and found them even more adaptable and robust than they imagined.
North Carolina officials have approved a quintet of film and television projects to being filmed in the state as a part of its 25% rebate on production expenses, with shooting starting by the end of October. The news was announced Tuesday, six months after almost the entire entertainment industry halted production due to the COVID-19 pandemic. State officials said the new projects will generate a direct in-state spend of more than $107 million while creating 8,671 job opportunities, including 650 crew positions for the state’s film professionals.
Liv Tyler has opted out of season two of Fox’s 911: Lone Star. The actress, who had a multiple-year deal for the Fox procedural, will not return to the Tim Minear drama amid issues related to the coronavirus pandemic. Tyler had previously commuted from London to Los Angeles, where the Austin-set series is filmed.
Chaotic 2020 Sparks News Streaming Creativity
Executives from NBC LX, CBS Local Digital, Graham Media and Fox Television Stations say the pandemic, protests and other dramatic news developments this year have spawned creative programming decisions, along with innovative new remote workflows to realize it.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel’s Steve Doocy apologized on Monday “for any confusion” in reporting a now-debunked story about the mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, supposedly concealing the number […]
The deal includes mandatory and comprehensive use of personal protective gear and testing of cast and crew members, and a dedicated coronavirus supervisor to oversee it all. It requires the use of a “zone system” that strictly limits interactions between people on sets based on their job’s requirements.
Broadcasters Tackle Election Challenge With Tech
Executives from Fox News and Graham Media say they’ll rely heavily on IP contribution, cloud editing systems and other remote production tools in their coverage of the 2020 election, and they’re also ready to settle in for the long haul if final results aren’t confirmed for days, if not weeks, after Nov. 3.
Meredith is laying off 130 people at its 17 stations as part of companywide “initiatives to address the ongoing Covid-19 crisis and position our business for continued growth.”
Broadcasters such as Sinclair and Vice are increasingly shifting playout functions to cloud platforms, seeking more flexibility and agility there and testing the waters with disaster recovery strategies, OTT channels and diginets. “In the cloud, you can build up a whole separate system in parallel, test it, then cut over to it,” says one consultant.
The breakout series starring Cobie Smulders, which was renewed for a second season in May, will not be going forward with the Season 2 order. The studio behind the show, ABC Signature, plans to shop it and find a new home for it.
The Big Ten announced that its Council of Presidents and Chancellors has voted to allow the league to play football this fall. The Big Ten will open its season on the weekend of Oct. 24 with teams playing eight games in eight weeks and a Big Ten Championship Game scheduled for Dec. 19, sources tell CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. That would make the Big Ten eligible for the College Football Playoff as the final CFP Rankings announcement of the season is set or Dec. 20.
The pandemic that instantly changed the 2020 presidential campaign forced news organizations to reevaluate coverage plans, too. It’s an ongoing process: several reporters who followed Trump to Nevada on Sunday stayed outside when they learned the president’s rally would be held indoors. For months, news executives wondered if they would be covering a campaign without campaigning, although it has grown more public after Labor Day.
The spectacle will be broadcast as usual from 9 a.m. to noon ET on NBC and will include both live and recorded elements, Macy’s officials said.
TV2025 Conference Targets Monetization Amid Accelerating Change
TVNewsCheck’s annual TV2025: Monetizing the Future conference, to be presented virtually this year, will tackle opportunities for revenue growth in an industry buffeted by COVID-19, an economic downturn and accelerating consolidation in the media and entertainment sector. Register here.
CBS and ABC suffered lower primetime scatter pricing in the spring and summer 2020 periods due to the cancellation or postponement of major sports events as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both networks see typically higher pricing levels during those periods.
The online event this week underscored 2020’s biggest TV tech trend — moving on-premise broadcast workflows and vendor products to the cloud — while anticipating 5G’s potential use in remote production. Above, a 5G-enabled camera used in a BBC-led trial exploring multi-camera synchronization.
MIPCOM organizer Reed MIDEM has cancelled the physical edition of its TV market, which was due to take place next month in Cannes, citing ongoing coronavirus-related uncertainty. Instead, it will take place entirely online as MIPCOM ONLINE+, a digital platform that will host various events Oct. 12-16.
NAB CEO Gordon Smith: “The pandemic remains a significant threat and the evidence suggests it will be well into next year before it could be under control in the U.S. We have decided to move the 2021 NAB Show, previously scheduled for April 11-14, to October 9-13, 2021, in Las Vegas. With a new date set for the 2021 NAB Show we are looking at the entirety of the calendar next year with fresh eyes.”
NBC’s perennially top-rated Sunday Night Football broadcasts will sound fairly normal this fall, Executive Producer Fred Gaudelli promised Thursday, but they will feature fewer crowd shots due to few if any fans attending games.
The NCAA’s women’s basketball oversight committee and men’s basketball oversight committee jointly agreed on Tuesday to propose Nov. 25 as the start date for the 2020-21 college basketball season. Nov. 25 is the day before Thanksgiving. The proposal will be sent to the Division I Council, which is scheduled to meet on Sept. 16.
Ad buyers are pressing TV networks for unprecedented flexibility to back out of spending commitments given a lack of new entertainment and potential pitfalls for the NFL season.
