coronavirus

As a result of people following the new “social distancing” guidelines and spending more time at home, the typical Daylight Saving Time slump was nonexistent this year. What’s more, broadcast networks have been posting across-the-board, week-to-week, Live+SD ratings increases the likes of which we had not seen in ages, and which had been considered a thing of the past amid the proliferation of streaming.

Now that the gravity of a growing coronavirus pandemic has settled in and people are looking to safeguard their health and their livelihoods, the entertainment industry is grappling with three essential questions: How painful will the toll of shutdowns be on the industry’s lowest-paid workers? How high will the financial losses climb? And how will the business handle the unprecedented domino effect on Hollywood’s traditional calendar?

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah got inventive as it tries to navigate the television production shutdown brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Following the example of other latenight shows that have broadcast segments produced remotely, on Wednesday, The Daily Show‘s YouTube channel posted a video introducing the The Daily Social Distancing Show.

Fitch Ratings has put The Walt Disney Co. on credit watch, with a negative outlook, over concerns about how the Hollywood studio will weather the coronavirus outbreak in the near term.

With most of the TV industry shutting down production because of the COVID-19 emergency, Conan O’Brien will be making new episodes of his TBS show from his home. Conan will be shot on an iPhone and the comic will interview guests via video chat. “The quality of my work will not go down because technically that’s not possible,” O’Brien said.

Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Honda, and Toyota said they would shut down all factories in the region, citing concerns for employees who work in close quarters building automobiles. Nissan will close U.S. factories. Hyundai shut down its Alabama plant after a worker tested positive for the virus.

The White House said Wednesday it’s joining with major media companies, digital platforms and the Ad Council to share “accurate and timely information directly to the American people” about social distancing, hygiene and mental health.

Fox News is making a return to Twitter, more than a year after going silent on the social-media platform. Now the news outlet is poised to resurface on the venue, with executives envisioning the chance to use it as a service or a means of getting information about the coronavirus outbreak to followers. Approximately 18.5 million people follow the network on Twitter.

Mmedia companies have begun to formulate their short-term ad sales strategies, with Disney becoming the first to publicly share its plans. They include pointing its live sports advertisers to other programming in its portfolio, including Good Morning America and its Freeform original series.

In recent days, we have seen presidential primaries delayed by the coronavirus in at least six states.  We expect that additional states will be looking at extensions in the coming days. As lowest unit rate windows had already opened in many of these states, the postponement will result in the presidential candidates getting another 45-day window for those low rates in advance of the rescheduled primary date.

Fox News and Fox Television Stations will provide unlimited access to facilitate public availability of latest COVID-19 information.

A Comcast technician who works in Bloomfield, N.J., has tested positive for the coronavirus, roughly 10 days after the worker served customer homes, Bloomfield city officials announced yesterday.

Despite the broad and profound human and economic toll being exacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the so-called streaming wars are going on as scheduled, at least for now.

GM said the shutdowns will begin today, while Ford’s will take place Thursday. Fiat Chrysler is expected to announce a similar move.

It had been slated for this Thursday, March 19. Planning for the organization’s 60th annual conference is continuing.

ViacomCBS could see a $350 million hit this quarter on the cancellation of the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, says one media analyst. David Miller from Imperial Capital has cut earnings forecasts for the company and his price target for the stock, which is down 16% Wednesday.

Even though all the nation’s wee-hours programs are taking a production hiatus due to America’s coronavirus crisis, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, David Spade and Trevor Noah are putting out monologues, jokes and sketches that — for the most part — aren’t being seen on TV. Only Colbert’s new segments have been incorporated into CBS’s broadcast of The Late Show, where they are being grafted onto repeat segments from earlier shows.

Last Wednesday, CBS News president Susan Zirinsky announced the temporary closure and cleaning of two network buildings in New York City due to an outbreak of the novel coronavirus. But she said that she expected both buildings to reopen Monday of this week. In a new memo Wednesday morning, however, Zirinsky told staffers that the buildings will not be opening. Instead, starting Thursday, the network’s morning show — CBS This Morning — will broadcast from The Ed Sullivan Theater, home of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Industry insiders mull everything from filming in trimmed-down shifts, opening writers rooms and picking up pilots to series without producing a single scene as fallout from the coronavirus global pandemic turns the industry upside down.

Gray Television has withdrawn its offer to acquire larger peer Tegna because of concerns about the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on U.S. regional TV station operators, people familiar with the matter said. Gray had offered to buy Tegna for about $8.5 billion, including debt, Reuters reported earlier this month. After Gray’s stock tumbled on the news and concerns about the coronavirus pandemic’s financial impact became widespread, the Atlanta-based company decided this was not the time to pursue the transformative acquisition, one of the sources said.

Coronavirus is a fast-moving and challenging story for every newsroom. The Knight-Cronkite News Lab has curated some of the most useful resources found across the web. We hope these will help you serve and inform your communities while keeping your teams safe and supported as well.

The coronavirus pandemic could slash as much as $3 billion from advertising and marketing budgets in 2020, according to a new report. “This is a global human disaster that impacts every company,” said Jack Myers, who authored the report and who has been tracking the ad spend market since the 1980s.

The International Olympic Committee is facing its strongest headwinds in decades as it briefed national committees on Wednesday on the state of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics amid the coronavirus pandemic, with voices of dissent growing louder. The IOC has remained committed to staging the Tokyo Games as planned from July 24 to Aug. 9, saying on Tuesday after a meeting with international sports federations that measures against the virus were delivering results.

We’ve always hoped that our digital tools would create connections, not conflict. We have a chance to make it happen.

Noticias Telemundo anchor Julio Vaqueiro on Tuesday hosted a new half hour of news devoted to coronavirus at 11:35 p.m. ET/10:35 p.m. PT — Coronavirus: Un Pais en Alerta (Coronavirus: A Nation on Alert). The program focuses on the latest developments regarding the coronavirus and its impact on the Latino community.

American Idol is the latest TV show to shut down in light of the coronavirus outbreak: The ABC singing competition is suspending production, effective immediately. Filming has been halted to ensure that contestants can get home to their families, according to a source; the rest of the production is working remotely, and has been since last week. For now, episodes will continue to air as scheduled through the beginning of the live shows, which were slated to kick off in mid-April, but producers will continue to evaluate things on a week-to-week basis.

“Through it all, we have each other. And no matter what, we’re all in this together.” That’s the message in a new PSA from CBS aimed at reaching a jittery public amid the coronavirus scare. Stars from NCIS: Los Angeles, Young Sheldon, Hawaii Five-0, The Amazing Race, FBI, Star Trek: Discovery, S.W.A.T., MacGyver and CBS News shows offer some reassuring words in the minutelong clip.

In the wake of dozens of film and television productions abruptly shutting down amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, several organizations and high-profile showrunners — Greg Berlanti, Shonda Rhimes, David Benioff, Julie Plec, Damon Lindelof, Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan — have come together to fund a relief effort for Hollywood’s support staffers, a low-paid group that often goes overlooked.