NBC

After serving as Season 23’s mega mentor on The Voice, Reba McEntire is officially returning to Season 24 as a coach. The announcement was confirmed at NBCU’s upfront presentation on Monday. The Country Music Hall of Fame inductee joins veteran coach John Legend and returning coaches Niall Horan and Gwen Stefani.

NBC is opening up a new fall comedy block on Tuesday nights and has pushed a couple of its drama series to midseason. The network unveiled its fall schedule, which sees Jon Cryer’s Extended Family run after Night Court, Quantum Leap moves to Tuesday night, while Found replaces Law & Order: Organized Crime on Dick Wolf’s second night in the fall and La Brea, with its short order season, also pushed to midseason. There are plenty of strike contingencies built into the schedule, in part as a result of NBC renewing shows early and keeping them in production ahead of the writers walking out.

Password, the game show from Jimmy Fallon and hosted by Keke Palmer, is returning to NBC for a second season. However, filming of season two of the series has been postponed as a result of the writers strike with The Tonight Show host Fallon among those not wanting to cross the picket line.

Broadcasters — including their primary lobby group in Washington and affiliate associations — have told the FCC that if it does not extend its waiver of the requirement to provide oral descriptions of weather radar and other visual emergency information, they may have to cut back on those graphics for everyone.

NBC earlier this week picked up all six Wolf Entertainment series — Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime — for next season. The renewals came with an asterisk as casts were told that they will appear in fewer episodes next year. The development comes on the heels of CBS recently renewing veteran drama Blue Bloods for a 14th season after the cast agreed to a 25% pay cut. And, the actors on another recently renewed CBS series, comedy Bob ❤️ Abishola, also had to agree to a substantial, double-digit salary reduction for the show to get a Season 5 renewal. (According to sources, it was less than 25%). Blue Bloods comes from CBS sibling CBS Studios, Bob ❤️ Abishola from an outside supplier, Warner Bros. TV.

Turning 90 this month, the sketch trailblazer has a TV special, Emmy buzz for her turn in Better Call Saul, a new Apple TV+ series and thoughts on which recent Oscar nominee she’d spoof if she still had a variety show (it’s Tár!).

NBC today renewed all six of its Dick Wolf-produced shows including the One Chicago franchise — Chicage Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. — and the trio of Law & Order dramas — the mothership series, Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime — for the 2023-24 season.

TV’s nail-biting season has arrived. Although most of the cancellation headlines continue to be focused on the continuing purge at big streamers and premium cablers like Showtime, attention has begun to shift to the beleaguered Big 5 broadcasters as the May upfronts draw closer. While many in-limbo shows are a lock to return (NBC’s #OneChicago and Law & Order troikas and ABC’s Good Doctor, Station 19, The Conners and assorted Rookies), there are a handful of high-profile series on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW that remain very much on the bubble.

NBC has announced its summer slate, which includes new seasons of America’s Got Talent and American Ninja Warrior, as well as the premieres of Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge and docuseries LA Fire & Rescue.

The network has canceled the dancing competition, which starred Nick Jonas,  Liza Koshy and Shakira, after one season. The decision, which was made a few months ago, comes after the show, which was hosted by Camille Kostek, premiered last May and ran for eight episodes. The news emerged after NBC set its summer lineup.

The People’s Choice Awards are expanding. NBCUniversal revealed that there will now be an entire ceremony dedicated to country music. The People’s Choice Country Awards will air in September across NBC and Peacock, live from the world-famous Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville.

Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge is a described as a car makeover series where car fans will face off to transform an ordinary vehicle into a Hot Wheels showstopper, inspired by personal stories and pop culture touchstones, in a high-tech, decked-out garage. The 10-episode series will be hosted by Rutledge Wood (Top Gear US), who will also serve as one of the show’s judges.

Night Court, the NBC sitcom that was recently rebooted, enjoyed its heyday after its debut on NBC’s Thursday primetime schedule in 1984. But NBCUniversal is hoping the retooled comedy will lead Madison Avenue into the future. When the original program launched, built around star Harry Anderson as a non-traditional metropolitan judge, NBC sold ads against the debut broadcast of each episode as well as a rerun later in the season. Now, says Mark Marshall, the executive recently given wider oversight over NBCUniversal’s national ad sales, the company is selling broad-reach ads attached to the linear debut of each episode as well as targeted advertising that appears adjacent to the series when it streams on Peacock.

Comcast’s NBCUniversal is preparing to make a strong bid to win back National Basketball Association broadcast rights more than 20 years after the company lost them to Disney and Turner Sports, according to people familiar with the matter. NBCU executives have informed the NBA of their interest, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. NBC Sports wants a package that would include playoff games to air on NBC’s broadcast network, two of the people said. Some regular season games could be exclusive to NBCU’s streaming service, Peacock. The NBA could also decide to force media companies to simulcast all games on streaming to increase reach, the people said.

The two-hour special Co-Hosted by Byron Allen, Kenan Thompson, Cedric The Entertainer, Howie Mandel, Tiffany Haddish and Gabriel Iglesias featuring some of the biggest names in comedy and music, will air Saturday, Feb. 11, from 8 to 10 p.m.

It’s the latest major labor action to strike a national news organization in recent months as the media industry faces headwinds and cut-backs.

Projections for ’23 suggest an $18 billion-plus sports advertising business with potential growth of 15%-20% as the business remains a bulwark against streaming’s fragmented sports landscape.

Leave it to a sitcom vet like Melissa Rauch to remind the industry that everything old can be new again. After persuading Warner Bros. TV to dust off Night Court and revive it for NBC, multi-cams are suddenly hot again, with every broadcast network — and even a few streamers like Netflix (home to new hit That ’90s Show, which just got renewed) are putting studio audience comedies in development.

NBC says that Night Court has reached an audience of 25.7 million in delayed viewing since it premiered on Jan. 17. The premiere episode ranked as the No. 1 broadcast premiere of the 2022-23 season in both the ad-friendly 18-49 demographic and in total audience. In total viewers, it raked in the most viewers for any comedy premiere since The Conners debuted on ABC in 2018. It was NBC’s best comedy premiere since Will & Grace in 2017.

As it approaches one full decade on the air, The Blacklist is coming to a close at NBC. The drama series’ upcoming 10th season will include its 200th episode, will be its last. The season premieres on Feb. 26.

The network has picked up a third season of the sci-fi series from creator and showrunner David Appelbaum. The early renewal for La Brea on Tuesday comes a few hours before the series begins the back half of its 14-episode second season.

The revival of the 1980s show is the most popular new sitcom in years. Even some of the people behind it are surprised by its early ratings success.

NBC will pay tribute to Carol Burnett on her 90th birthday with Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love. The two-hour special will air on her birthday, Wednesday, April 26, at 8 p.m. ET/PT and will also stream the next day on Peacock.

Keith Dawkins, president of the Harlem Globetrotters, talks with TVNewsCheck’s Michael Depp about the team’s return to TV with Play It Forward and how the beloved, near-century-old franchise is connecting with new generations across multiple media. A full transcript of the conversation is included.

Although most of the canceled TV show headlines of late have been focused on the big streamers, attention will soon shift to the beleaguered Big 5 broadcasters as the May upfronts draw closer. Many in-limbo shows on the 2023 Renewal Scorecard are a lock to return, but there are a handful of high-profile series on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW that remain very much on the bubble.

The Jan. 21 episode hosted by Plaza with Sam Smith as musical guest received a 0.98 rating in the advertiser friendly 18-49 demographic, which is the highest of the season. It also drew 4.8 million total viewers, according to Live+Same Day Nielsen data. That’s the second largest audience of the season, trailing only Steve Martin/Martin Short episode’s 5.1 million viewers on Dec. 10.

Taylor Kinney, who portrays Kelly Severide on Chicago Fire, is stepping away from the NBC drama. A source close to production confirms that the actor is on a leave of absence to deal with a person matter. Kinney has led the Dick Wolf series since its debut in 2012. In addition to the firefighter series, he has appeared on all of the spinoffs, including Chicago Med, Chicago P.D. and the short-lived Chicago Justice.

NBC, which already successfully rebooted Quantum Leap last fall, continues to drink from the 1980s well.

“Can NBC afford to give up something that someone else will snatch and possibly make even bigger?”

After a diversity and ethics scandal caused NBC to take the Globes off the air last year, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s attempted comeback didn’t gain back viewers and instead may have lost them. The 2021 edition, held bicoastally during the pandemic, was watched by 6.9 million. The pre-pandemic 2020 Globes drew an audience of 18.4 million. Above, host Jerrod Carmichael during his monologue at the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 10.

After dumping the telecast in the aftermath of a damaging expose by the Los Angeles Times last year, NBC will put the battered 80-year-old Globes back on the air Tuesday under a one-year deal, as opposed to multi-year contracts of the past worth tens of millions of dollars. A wave of celebrities plan to attend, along with star presenters and funnyman host Jerrod Carmichael after the embattled controllers of the Globes dug deep into the work of implementing top-down reforms following the scandal over lack of diversity, accusations of sexism, and ethical and financial lapses among members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.