The Witcher, which returned to Netflix for a second season on Dec. 17, dominated Nielsen’s weekly U.S. streaming chart with almost 2.2 billion minutes of viewing that week. The latest chart covers Dec. 13-19. A distant second place was CoComelon on Netflix, with 840 million viewing minutes.
Scott Bakula may be involved in project, which is set 30 years after the original series. (Photo courtesy Everett Collection)
Exclusives
Sinclair Broadcast Group‘s regional sports network unit Diamond Sports Group has signed a new deal with the National Basketball Association that gives its Bally Sports networks permission to offer streaming content including live games on an authenticated and direct-to-consumer basis.
The deal covers 16 NBA teams in their local territories.
The Critics Choice Association has announced that it will hold the 2022 Critics Choice Awards ceremony on March 13, the same day as the BAFTA Awards, after being delayed from January. Taye Diggs and Nicole Byer will host the 27th Critics Choice Awards at an in-person event at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, Calif. The CW and TBS will air a live broadcast of the ceremony at 7 p.m. ET.
On The CW, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow resumed Season 7 on Wednesday with 582,000 total viewers (veritably matching its season high) and a 0.1 demo rating (steady versus its fall finale). On NBC, Chicago Med (7.1M/0.8) ticked up, Fire (7.2M/0.8) dipped and P.D. (5.7M/0.7 was steady. Med and Fire tied for the nightly demo win, and Fire delivered Wednesday’s biggest crowd.
Litton Entertainment to be rebranded as Hearst Media Production Group and will be led by Bryan Curb, Angelica Rosas McDaniel and Chris Matthews.
Nielsen and Spanish-language media company Estrella Media, announced a multi-year renewal agreement for local TV measurement. In addition, Nielsen will provide a suite of analytics and performance services for Estrella’s […]
Filming on Season 9 of the NBC drama Chicago PD was suspended Wednesday after a number of positive COVID tests, including cases in Zone A, which includes the cast and those who directly interact with them.
NBC has handed out a put-pilot commitment to a sequel to the former ABC drama, with original star Kellie Martin attached to reprise her role. The potential series hails from writer/executive producer Nkechi Okoro Carroll and is set up at Warner Bros. Television, where the All American showrunner is based with a rich overall deal.
The network cites COVID-related impacts on production in its decision to move the Susan Sarandon-led series off a Jan. 30 premiere date.
If Nexstar seals a deal for a majority stake in the WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS broadcaster, insiders speculate the programming strategy may shift toward politics and reruns.
Now that Amazon has established itself in live sports, most recently through a $1 billion deal to air “Thursday Night Football,” Apple is trying to jump into the game. Apple is in talks with Major League Baseball to acquire the rights to its weekday package, according to people with knowledge of the deal who asked not to be named because discussions are confidential. An agreement would, for the first time, align the most valuable U.S. tech company with a pro sports media package and give Apple a major content boost for its streaming service, Apple TV+.
The NFL’s regular season viewership rose 10%, benefiting broadcasters and advertisers after the previous year’s drop. About 17.1 million viewers tuned in to regular season games on TV and online. It was the highest regular season audience for the NFL since 2015, according to a statement from the league. With the audience for dramas and comedies on traditional TV falling, NFL games continue to dominate the ratings, ranking as 91 of the top 100 telecasts this season, the league said.
MGM Television is launching sales of two new original unscripted series, Teen Court and Ring Nation, for barter syndication.
‘Jeopardy’ Edges Out ‘Feud’
It picked up 10% in the week ending Jan. 2 to squeak past a 6% higher Family Feud.
Naomi debuted on Tuesday night to 800,000 total viewers and a 0.15 demo rating, marking The CW’s third-most watched season premiere this TV season. The CW freshman also delivered its time slot’s largest audience since July. On CBS, FBI International (6.1M/0.5) led in total audience.
The deals cover 30 markets serving approximately 11 million households and include stations for which Sinclair provides sales and other services to under joint sales agreements or master service agreements.
Major League Wrestling is accusing WWE and its CEO Vince McMahon of forcing Tubi to scuttle a streaming deal with MLW in a new lawsuit. The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday in California, also goes on to accuse McMahon of intimidating Vice TV, which had a programming deal with MLW, out of airing more content from the upstart wrestling league.
‘Judge Steve Harvey’ An Initial Hit
His show’s premiere was the most-watched non-football program on ABC last week, its audience of 5.2 million people nearly two million more than a season-opening episode of the much better known The Bachelor, Nielsen said. CBS was the most popular network in primetime last week, averaging 5.5 million viewers. NBC had 5.2 million, ABC had 4.8 million, Fox had 3.3 million, Univision had 1.7 million, Ion Television had 1.04 million and Telemundo had 950,000. ESPN was the top-rated cable network, averaging 3.37 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.25 million viewers, MSNBC had 1.24 million, Hallmark had 1.2 million and HGTV had 1.17 million.
The Oscars will return with a host, three years after it last had one. The announcement came from Craig Erwich, president, Hulu Originals & ABC Entertainment, during his TCA executive session. The exec didn’t give any more details in terms of who will host the annual movie bash but joked that it might be him.
