CNN chief Jeff Zucker has urged editors and producers at the network not to shift focus from coronavirus news updates despite weeks of wall-to-wall coverage of the pandemic.
Lester Holt is discussing hard news with a softer touch. The NBC Nightly News anchor is leading an experimental version of NBC’s flagship newscast aimed specifically at children and teens. The first edition of Nightly News Kids Edition streamed Wednesday evening on YouTube and the show, viewed as a test within NBC News, is likely to appear at least twice per week and potentially with greater frequency.
Channels ranging from TLC to Nickelodeon have seen their audiences grow with millions more potential viewers at home.
The long-running entertainment show’s executive producer compares Entertainment Tonight’s new way of remote working to a relay race, but host Kevin Frazier is geeking out over getting to use his arsenal of cameras and home tech to keep the show looking sharp.
How To Recruit During A Global Pandemic
The coronavirus has upended every aspect of the local television business, but it needn’t completely freeze hiring efforts.
Exclusives
Stocks sank Wednesday following grim data on the economic hit from the coronavirus. Markets are already bracing for what’s forecast to be the worst downturn since the Great Depression, but Wednesday’s data was even more dispiriting than expected, including a record drop for U.S. retail sales.
At a time when the nation could really use a news figure like Walter Cronkite, his heirs are commanding the sort of attention that evening news hasn’t seen in at least a generation.
Linear TV advertising revenues are down 27% because of the Coronavirus crisis according to ad sales executives surveyed by the Internet Advertising Bureau. The executives expect that the crisis will have its biggest impact on advertising between March and June, and they said that declines in digital spending were smaller than those in traditional media.
Traditional TV Offers What We Need Now
Joe Ferullo: “It turns out broadcasting delivers us something suddenly in short supply: human connection. The universal themes and populist appeal of most network shows allow everyone stuck at home to watch something together. And the set-in-stone broadcast TV schedule means you share that viewing experience in real time with millions of other people across the country.”
The Part 107 rules for unmanned aircraft require pilots flying drones for commercial purposes to renew their certification every two years. But the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the closing of the bulk of the private contractor centers in the United States where drone pilots can go for testing and renewal.
The association is offering a weekly mix of free and premium content as well as networking opportunities, with physical conferences to return in 2021.
Google is offering financial support to local newsrooms hit by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of its Google News Initiative. The company isn’t disclosing the size of what it’s calling its Journalism Emergency Relief Fund, but in a blog post, Google VP of News Richard Gingras said the goal is to fund “thousands of small, medium and local news publishers globally,” through awards ranging from “low thousands of dollars for small hyper-local newsrooms to low tens of thousands for larger newsrooms, with variations per region.”
House members call on colleagues, President Trump, to support local media during pandemic.
The media industry continues to see widespread cuts as Valence Media slashes jobs across several of its brands, including The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and Vibe. About a third of the company’s media division was laid off on Tuesday, which amounts to more than 100 job cuts, according to a source familiar with the matter.
It’s official: next week’s 18th episode of Empire’s sixth season, airing on April 21, will be the hip-hop family drama’s finale for the foreseeable feature, and quite possibly a series finale. In separate statements, Empire creators/executive producers Lee Daniels and Danny Strong addressed the abrupt ending of their show due to the coronavirus pandemic while holding out hope that they could film a proper finale one day.
Shares of Hollywood stay-at-home streaming stocks keep rising as Americans get their TV fixes online amid the coronavirus pandemic.
As production quickly shut down across Los Angeles in light of the coronavirus pandemic, the Fox Television Stations turned to their syndication partners to help keep them in the day-and-date programming that they prefer. And those partners stepped up.
PGA Tour officials are expected to announce this week their intention to resume the tour season, halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on June 11-14 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, multiple sources have told Golf Digest. It’s also expected that fans will not be allowed to attend that first tournament at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.
WALB Grapples With Pandemic And Poverty
Gray-owned WALB Albany, Ga., found itself at the center of one of the coronavirus’ earliest and unlikeliest hotspots in rural Georgia. Its news coverage is tackling the virus’ ravages on both the community’s health and its fragile, poverty-laden economy. (Photo: Phoebe Putney Health System)
NBCUniversal makes its streaming debut with the early preview of Peacock that will be exclusive to Comcast subscribers starting Wednesday, ahead of the July nationwide rollout. But with so many people forced to stay at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, Peacock executives suggested the service could come early.
A half-hour linear broadcast premiere of Check In rated No. 1 in all key demos in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Houston
The rapid postponement or cancellation of most sports due to the coronavirus pandemic means technicians who were booked for events through the spring and summer now have an open calendar. Besides audio technicians, those affected include camera operators, stage managers and producers.
President Trump on Monday used the White House briefing room to lash out at critics of his response to the coronavirus outbreak, rattling off a litany of grievances about press coverage and airing a reel of cable news footage that portrayed his actions in a positive light.
In a filing Monday with the SEC, Disney said that it had signed a new 364-day revolving credit agreement with Citibank that would provide access to as much as $5 billion. The agreement, which matures on April 9, 2021, can be extended for an additional year with the lenders’ consent.
The April 23-25 draft was originally scheduled to be in Las Vegas but has been moved due to the coronavirus pandemic. It will now originate from ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn. Draft hosts and a limited number of commentators will be in-studio but will adhere to social distancing guidelines.
Fox News Channel’s panel show The Five relies on the combative camaraderie of its longtime hosts. Now patched together from five separate locations, its characteristic conversations can sometimes literally miss a beat.
Still regaining his strength (he lost 12 pounds during the ordeal) and with a slight cough and what he calls a “shipwreck survivor” beard, the former FCC commissioner details his harrowing medical journey.
Dish Network will let go of an undisclosed number of employees as the pay-TV giant looks to weather the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. A Dish spokesperson confirmed the layoffs to TheWrap, but did not elaborate on the number of employees or divisions impacted.
ESPN, struggling to keep fresh programming on its schedule with live sports sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic, is asking some of its best-known personalities to take pay cuts.
Broadcasters are giving new meaning to the phrase “dynamic spectrum access” in arguing that an FCC proposal to free up WiFi spectrum in the 6 GHz band could take away electronic newsgathering spectrum just when a pandemic-sequestered nation needs it most. That came in phone calls last week between National Association of Broadcasting executives and FCC officials.
The company said it will donate an amount equal to those cuts to a fund to support its employees affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos said that his test results came back positive for coronavirus, as he has been caring for his wife Ali Wentworth as she recovers from the virus. But Stephanopoulos said that he has not shown any symptoms, as he continues to anchor the show from home.
The coronavirus has halted most of the globe, but there’s one movement it has fueled — media literacy. In India, the United States and Brazil, fact-checking and media literacy organizations are training citizens to confront the new coronavirus “infodemic.”
