coronavirus

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact people and newsrooms, Tegna has implemented corporate policies to keep reporters, producers and news executives safe.

Conan O’Brien is heading to Largo at The Coronet in Los Angeles to shoot his TBS talk show, becoming the first of the latenight hosts to move his show out of his house and make tentative steps to a return to full production. Conan will begin filming at the comedy club from Monday, July 6, in accordance with government and industry health and safety protocols.

“Broadcast television has seen a bit of a renaissance with COVID-19…. Local news ratings have actually been up 20%-40% depending on the market. We haven’t seen those kinds of ratings gains in years,” Wells Fargo Securities media financial analyst Davis Hebert said at a virtual Media Institute event Tuesday. “That has really kept the retrans outlook intact. That piece of the revenue stream should be quite visible for the most part.”

CBS’s action crime drama Magnum P.I., starring Jay Hernandez, is targeting a mid-August tentative production start date for its upcoming third season. The reboot of the classic CBS series shoots in Hawaii where the show is set.

An informal group of major media trade groups, unions and some high-powered sports organizations — led by Fox — is asking Congress to pass legislation that would provide “pandemic risk insurance” for businesses attempting to, well, do business during the current pandemic. Among those signing on to the letter were NAB, NCTA, MPA, NFL, SAG-AFTRA and NASCAR.

U.S. advertising revenue fell 31% in May as the nation had only a handful of major sports events take place due to the coronavirus pandemic and most major ad categories cut back the amount of money they spent significantly — by 10% or more — according to Standard Media Index, a tracker of ad spending. Among specific types of advertisers, only pharmaceutical manufacturers spent more in May than they did in the year-earlier period.

CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are in talks to coordinate pool coverage to reduce the number of journalists in potentially infectious areas.

Becket Adams: “The only thing worse than a viral pandemic is the person who would weaponize it for political gain. The Washington Post published a report this week claiming conservative media may be responsible for the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States. Are we really still doing this — even after members of the not-conservative press, healthcare officials, and elected representatives cheered and even participated in the massive rallies to protest the wrongful death of George Floyd?

Margaret Sullivan: “Three serious research efforts have put numerical weight — yes, data-driven evidence — behind what many suspected all along: Americans who relied on Fox News, or similar right-wing sources, were duped as the coronavirus began its deadly spread. Dangerously duped.”

Content consumption shot up during quarantines, but a new study shows that when restrictions began to be lifted, streaming numbers came down from what they were during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Strategy Analytics surveyed U.S. adults over March, April and May to find COVID-19’s impact on SVOD. For Netflix, 47% of respondents used the service in March, then 50% did so in April. However, in May, when many states began to ease lock-down restrictions, that number dropped to 42%.

The National Basketball Association and the National Basketball Players Association announced today that they have finalized a comprehensive plan for a July 30 restart to the 2019-20 season, which includes […]

ABC’s General Hospital is joining fellow daytime dramas The Bold and the Beautiful and The Young and the Restless in setting a target date for return to production. ABC is tentatively planning to resume shooting its long-running soap in mid-July contingent on the CIVID-19 situation in Los Angeles, which has been fluid.

I know of no crisis communications manual or management course that instructs one on how to lead during a worldwide pandemic. The reality is that managers must continue to find ways to engage, motivate and lead an anxious workforce while dealing with those same anxieties themselves.

The NFL is canceling its annual Hall of Fame Game, which this year was to feature the Dallas Cowboys against the Pittsburgh Steelers on August 6 on NBC. The traditionally preseason opener in Canton, Ohio, the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is played ahead of the hall’s induction ceremony, which has now been postponed.

“After careful consideration, we concluded that it would be impossible, due to the continuing coronavirus pandemic, to guarantee safety for the honorees and the several hundred people who regularly attend the Giants of Broadcasting awards luncheon,” said Virginia Hubbard Morris, LABF chair.

While streaming use is outpacing year-ago levels, a linear viewership rise in March and April has faded.

Wendy Granato, president-GM of ABC O&O KTRK Houston, says she tested positive for COVID-19 after contracting it from her 22-year-old daughter, Frankie. Wendy and Frankie are both working from home and said they have made it through the worst part, and are feeling much better.

After a day of NewFronts panels in which multiple presenters talked about consumers’ accelerated migration from linear to streaming during the pandemic, the Interactive Advertising Bureau released its annual video ad spend study, which indicates that many buyers are starting to shift some of their broadcast and cable ad spend to connected TV.

Major League Baseball is set to return. The MLB Players Association informed the league on Tuesday that players will comply with commissioner Rob Manfred’s imposed outline for a 2020 season. Players are set report for another version of “spring” training on July 1, and the league’s imposed 60-game season will start either July 23 or 24, the league announced.

The bitter, months-long negotiation between Major League Baseball and its players’ union effectively ended Monday night when the union’s executive board voted to reject the owners’ last offer of a 60-game regular season and expanded postseason, and MLB responded by saying it intended to exercise its power to implement a 2020 schedule — which it will attempt to shoehorn into a dwindling calendar amid a global pandemic.

CBS’s The Young and the Restless is poised to become the second U.S. daytime drama to return to the set. The producers of the soap have sent a letter to the cast and crew, notifying them of a tentative plan to restart production on July 6.

With 11 of 12 pilots unable to complete production before the novel coronavirus forced production to shut down across the industry, NBC has opted to adopt a staggered schedule for its 2020 slate and has identified five that it will film this season.

Monday represented a key phase in New York City’s reopening, with many offices bringing employees back for the first time. Despite moves back by CBS and Fox News, most news employees continue to work remotely, and the television programs that originate here have a patchwork of approaches that have quickly become familiar.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Golden Globes is refusing to let the pandemic get in the way of its party. The ceremony will be held Feb. 28, 2021, in Beverly […]

Spring in Hollywood is a time when billboards bloom with For Your Consideration ads, and almost every night offers a glamorous red-carpet event for Emmy voters. Not this year. With so much shut down due to the pandemic and protests, the Emmys and ABC have moved quickly to institute changes.

The surge of coronavirus cases in key states, and a flood of positive tests for athletes returning to work, could spoil plans for a sports restart. Above: A fan has his temperature checked by a security guard before being allowed to tour Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers baseball team in Arlington, Texas.

Over the past several weeks, Mediaite has spoken with dozens of correspondents, anchors and behind-the-scenes personnel from the three major cable news networks to find out how they’ve navigated this unprecedented time.

Broadcasters are telling the FCC that the pandemic makes it that much more important to streamline reviews of foreign ownership in broadcast properties, in part because pandemic-hammered stations may need to convert foreign debt into equity to avoid defaulting on the loans.

Production on the long-running CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful has been “paused” after just one day back on set. The show returned to production Wednesday in Television City Studios, however, production has been halted to “better accommodate the large volume of testing needed,” according to a spokesperson for the show’s producer Bell-Phillip Television.

News consumption has fallen 11% since its peak when the COVID-19 pandemic was originally declared in March, according to a new study by LoopMe.