NBC

NBC’s Kathy Bates legal drama rose 33% in the adults 18-49 demo for its most recent episode when Live+3 numbers are factored in.

Friday marked the 15th anniversary of the Fox News Channel, and after 10 years as the most watched network in cable news, what’s left? Having beat the original cable news channel, CNN, at its bread and butter of breaking news,  Roger Ailes and his boys are going after Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams and Scott Pelley. “To be honest, we’re looking up to try to get to CBS or one of the networks at 6:30 during my timeslot,” Bret Baier, host of Fox’s Special Report, says.

Sunday Night Football continues to bring in big ratings for NBC, propelling the network to its fifth consecutive Sunday night win, while ABC’s Pan Am dropped 27% in the coveted adults 18-49 demo versus last week. With the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers playing the Atlanta Falcons, a team it bounced from the playoffs last year, the game notched a 14.0 overnight rating. That’s up 20% from last year’s week five game and up 30% from 2009.

NBC has canceled the Hank Azaria comedy Free Agents, an individual familiar with the series confirms. The series, which debuted this season, had been struggling in the ratings. Last Wednesday, the series slipped 23% from its second-week numbers, posting just a mere 1.0/3 and 3.1 million total viewers. The last episode, airing on Wednesday, falied to improve on those numbers, running flat with last week.

LiveU today announced that NBC is expanding its use of its LU60 live video transmission system, deploying more of the bonded-cellular units to cover the 2012 U.S. presidential race. The […]

The Parents Television Council call for advertisers to boycott NBC’s The Playboy Club has resulted in seven advertisers pulling their ads from the series’ second episode. That’s according to the PTC, who is now pressing Capital One, Samsung and Chrysler to follow their lead. According to the group, Kraft, Sprint, Lenovo, UPS Store, Subway, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro and Campbell’s Soup did not advertise in the second episode on Monday.

New fall series featuring women are paying off well for the broadcast networks, led by CBS’s 2 Broke Girls and Fox’s New Girl.

Sunday night may be the easiest night to predict this fall. Media buyers and planners predict that NBC will be an easy winner on the night, based on the strength of Sunday Night Football, a show they predict will see ratings rise once again this season after tying for No. 1 with American Idol last year.

For several months, Dateline personnel have studied the behavior and postings of the show’s fans on Facebook and other social media milieu, allowing them to create an ad campaign that speaks to the way viewers interact with the program, not its smiling personalities or lurid headlines.

The odds of succeeding with any newsmagazine are tough in the age of instant information on cable, the Internet and smartphones. No network has launched a new one since CBS tried Public Eye With Bryant Gumbel in 1997. Steve Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal, ignored those trends and made finding a high-class platform for Brian Williams and the news division one of his first orders of business when he took over earlier this year.

The day after NBC had an uninspiring first night of the season, Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis reiterated that the company believes it will take a while for the fourth-place network to move up the charts.

As the fall season ramps up, NBC is promoting its fall lineup by allowing Bloomingdale’s shoppers to pose with the new stars — virtually. The “Look the Part, Be the Part” program uses the GoldRun augmented reality app, which superimposes images and data atop phone cam snapshots.

By the time the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks has passed, American television networks will have presented more than 75 hours of new programming — documentaries, memorials, dramas, live broadcasts — connected to the event. But not every major outlet is flying the Sept. 11 flag that night. Three in particular — Fox, HBO and NBC — are conspicuous by the absence of programs directly tied to the anniversary during those hours.

With a good five months before the Super Bowl kicks off in Indianapolis on Feb. 5, NBC has nearly sold out all of its most valuable football inventory. Such is the strength of the market that NBC is guaranteed to smash all previous pricing records for the game. While Fox commanded $3 million per spot a year ago, NBC has raised the bar to as high as $3.5 million a pop.

American football fans can rest easy: President Barack Obama’s nationally televised jobs speech to Congress will not conflict with the season-opening NFL game between the Green Bay Packers and New Orleans Saints. Obama agreed late on Wednesday to move his jobs address to a joint session of Congress back by a night from Sept. 7 to Sept. 8 to avoid overlapping with a debate by Republican presidential candidates on the first night. The White House says Obama’s address will be finished before the game begins at 8:30.

The NBC show, which saw Ann Curry replace Meredith Vieira two months ago, still leads ABC but only by about 500,000 total viewers.

Latino groups raise an issue with KNBC Los Angeles, and NBC’s fall schedule shows a reversal from characters’ ethnic diversity last season.

The network commits to a pilot of the single-camera comedy from Imagine TV and 20th Century Fox Television.

The Peacock Network’s popular talent show America’s Got Talent included more appearances by outside brands in July than any other primetime show on broadcast TV.

Community and 30 Rock were each seen by 1.7 million people last week, the Nielsen Co. said. Parks and Recreation had 1.5 million viewers and The Office had 2.1 million. It follows a trend hurting reruns on broadcast networks, particularly with fresh material plentiful elsewhere.