Programming

Actor Jeff Garlin will not return to ABC’s comedy series The Goldbergs following a string of misconduct allegations against the actor and an HR investigation into his on-set behavior.

Verizon Fios subscribers could lose access to programming from TV stations owned by Tegna in a year-end retransmission dispute. A potential blackout would mainly affect Verizon subscribers in the Washington, D.C., market. Tegna’s current agreement with Verizon Fios expires at the end of the year.

CBS has renewed freshman drama CSI: Vegas, a sequel to the groundbreaking 2000 series, for a second season to premiere during the 2022-23 broadcast season. Season 1 of CSI: Vegas was led by the original series’ stars William Petersen and Jorja Fox. Petersen had signed on only to reprise his role as Gil Grissom in the initial 10-episode installment. He will not continue as an actor but will remain an executive producer for Season 2. According to sources, Fox’s contract allows her to continue as Sara Sidle if she chooses to, and the series’ producers are hopeful that she may come back.

FBI: Most Wanted and The Voice‘s season finale landed in a four-way tie for the nightly demo win, while FBI proper copped the largest audience.

NBC Sports will televise USFL games along with Fox Sports when the pro football league returns in a new incarnation next spring. Starting in April, NBCUniversal will carry 21 USFL games in 2022, with eight on NBC, nine on USA Network and four on Peacock. Fox will have 22 games, 12 on its flagship broadcast network and 10 on cable’s FS1. The USFL’s 20 national over-the-air broadcast windows will exceed the number for any regularly scheduled sport in the first half of 2022, according to the league.

You Bet Your Life, 25 Words or Less, Dish Nation and Divorce Court will run on the Fox Television Stations through the 2022-23 season.

Augmented reality, immersive mixed reality and virtual sets continue to see increased adoption, moving beyond special events like election night and the Olympics. In this roundtable, leaders from the motion graphics production solutions industry along with key design firms talk about augmented reality’s future, workflows and remote production implications.

Sandra Bullock is back on Netflix, and this time, it isn’t blindfolded in a post-apocalyptic horror (a la 2018’s Bird Box). Her latest feature flick on the streamer, The Unforgivable, directed by Nora Fingscheidt, debuted at No. 1 globally on Dec. 10 and generated 85.86 million hours of subscriber viewership.

On Monday morning, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominations for the 79th annual Golden Globe Awards — and what followed was near radio silence. In the days leading up to the Golden Globe nominations, it was unclear what impact the announcement would have — and since the film and television nominations were revealed, the answer has been not much.

ABC’s special, star-filled live presentations of old episodes of The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes reached some 4.8 million viewers last week, Nielsen said. That wasn’t earth-shattering, and didn’t even crack Nielsen’s list of top 30 programs. But it was the network’s most-watched program. CBS eked out a weekly win, averaging 5.94 million viewers in primetime to NBC’s 5.89 million. Fox averaged 4.5 million, ABC had 2.8 million, Univision had 1.5 million, Telemundo had 1 million and Ion Television had 880,000.

NCIS star Wilmer Valderrama is fixin’ to saddle up as Don Diego de la Vega and his masked alter ego Zorro in an update of the ABC series from the late 1950s. The project, which is in development at Disney Branded Television, is described as a reimagining of the Zorro series that starred Guy Williams and aired from 1957-59, and spawned a quartet of Walt Disney anthology specials.

Moving forward, the competitions will be organized solely by content genre as opposed to the current method, which separates programs based on program airtime. The changes, which will be included in the Call For Entries put out in January, will result in digital daytime dramas as well as other daytime programs, including some talk shows and game shows, potentially moving to the Primetime Emmy Awards.

Brooke Bowman has been promoted to executive vice president of drama development and programming at Fox Entertainment. She succeeds Charlie Andrews in the role, with Andrews exiting the company. The parting with Andrews is said to be on good terms, with his contract simply coming to an end.

ABC’s slice of the Monday Night Football pie this week drew 6.7 million total viewers and a 1.5 rating, dominating the night in the demo. NBC’s The Voice, meanwhile, delivered Monday’s largest audience (7.1M) while steady in the demo (with a 0.7)

Many of the top five turned in double-digit advances in the week ending Dec. 5.

In fast affiliates, the Packers’ 45-30 victory scored a 4.0 rating in the 18-49 demo and 15.06 million viewers for NBC, leaving the rest of Sunday’s titles, including premieres and special coverage behind by a large margin. Sunday Night Football was up against Fox’s coverage of the 70th Miss Universe (0.5, 2.68M), which saw Miss India Harnaaz Sandhu walk away with the highly-coveted crown. Numbers are set to change pending adjustment, as is the cast with most live events.

Nominations for 2022 Golden Globes were announced on Monday morning by Snoop Dogg and HFPA President Helen Hoehne, from the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. HBO’s Succession led TV with five total nominations, while AppleTV+’s The Morning Show and Ted Lasso netted four each.

Fox Entertainment has acquired MarVista Entertainment, the prolific independent studio which produces and distributes original movies for traditional and streaming networks worldwide. No one would comment but sources pegged the value of the deal at over $100 million.