NBC

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.

Bernard Kalb worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, CBS and NBC, wrote two books with his more famous younger brother, Marvin, and served as founding anchor and panelist for the CNN media analysis show Reliable Sources. Always smartly dressed in a suit and orange tie often matched by an orange pocket handkerchief, Kalb was a tireless journalist who made virtually every overseas trip with five different secretaries of state before switching to the other side of the podium.

NBC’s Today show announced that weatherman Al Roker will be returning to the program on Friday, Jan. 6. Roker, 68,  was hospitalized in November with blood clots in this legs and lungs. He missed covering the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time in more than 25 years.

Sunday Night Football’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Arizona Cardinals scored a Christmas primetime win for NBC, according to Nielsen’s live plus same-day figures. As football fans tuned in to see Tom Brady go head-to-head with Trace McSorley, NBC’s Sunday Night Football earned a viewership of 17.1 million and a 4.2 rating in the key demographic.

Now that your broadcast TV favorites are on holiday break, TVLine is looking at how each network’s shows are stacking up thus far in the 2022-23 TV season — now turning its attention to NBC.

The network has picked up The Irrational, which stars The Flash and Law & Order alum Jesse L. Martin as a behavioral scientist who helps solve high-stakes problems. NBC ordered a pilot for the series as part of its development for this season, and Martin was cast in April, but it’s still to be determined if the show will air in 2022-23 or be held for next season.

The NFL said Sunday that it is implementing flex scheduling for next week’s primetime Sunday Night Football matchup on NBC, jettisoning the planned Los Angeles Rams-Los Angeles Chargers game in favor of a Pittsburgh Steelers-Baltimore Ravens showdown with greater playoff implications.

Musical artists and special guests helping ring in the new year with Cyrus and Dolly Parton include Fletcher, Sia, Saturday Night Live favorites and more.

Old schoolers like the late Gil Schwartz of CBS used to hate it when the press would commandeer executive sessions at TCA in the aughts with questions about the death of broadcast TV. HBO had come to dominate the Emmys year after year and the perception was that programming on the Big Three just wasn’t sexy, no matter how much Schwartz would argue that the size of CBS’ audience was far more valuable than the trophies it never seemed to collect at the Shrine Auditorium. Looking back, the fact that anyone was defending broadcast TV seems positively quaint these days.

Mario Lopez and Ana Gasteyer have been tapped as co-hosts of NBC’s live broadcast of the 134th Rose Parade. Lopez, who returns as co-host for the second consecutive year, and American Auto star Gasteyer will lead the network’s coverage of the annual event from 11:30-1 p.m. ET (8:30-10 a.m. PT) on Monday, Jan. 2 in Pasadena, Calif. The parade will also be livestreamed on Peacock. This will be NBC’s 96^th year broadcasting the Rose Parade, beginning on radio in 1927 and then televising the annual event beginning in 1954.

Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager will kick off New Year’s Eve on NBC as the hosts of the primetime two-hour special, A Toast to 2022! beginning at 8 p.m. Miley Cyrus, George Lopez, Dolly Parton, and Kenan Thompson are among the talent who will join Kotb and Bush Hager as they look back at the year’s biggest and buzziest moments.