Programming

The media venture run by Disney alums Kevin Mayer and Tom Stags and backed by private equity firm Blackstone has acquired Moonbug Entertainment, maker of popular kids shows like CoComelon. The valuation of the deal, which had been rumored in recent weeks, was not specified in the official announcement, but people familiar with the transaction pegged it at $2.75 billion. With earn-out incentives, the final pricetag could reach $3 billion.

Fox has picked up a second season of its popular summer drama series Fantasy Island. The renewal, announced by Fox Thursday, follows strong ratings for the contemporary version of the classic 1977 series, from writer-producers Liz Craft and Sarah Fain. This past summer, the reboot starring Roselyn Sanchez and Kiara Barnes, ranked as the No. 1 new scripted program among adults 18-49 and was Fox’s most streamed new drama series since 9-1-1: Lone Star.

Squid Game remained the dominant force in U.S. streaming from October 4 to 10, according to Nielsen, once again racking up more than 3 billion minutes of viewing. The Korean drama, Netflix’s top all-time original with viewing by 142 million global households according to the company, attracted 3.26 billion viewing hours in its previous week. That made it just the sixth title to clear the 3 billion mark since Nielsen began tracking streaming in 2020. The most recent week saw a slight dip to 3.02 billion, but the show’s hold was impressive.

Another sports-focused cable channel is set to shut down, as entertainment companies and pay TV providers seek more streamlined channel lineups. The latest shutdown is ESPN Classic, which launched as an independent channel called Classic Sports Network in 1995, and which the company acquired in 1997.

Fox’s The Masked Singer and CBS’s Survivor tied for the Wednesday demo win, while NBC’s Chicago Fire delivered the night’s largest audience.

From 1 to 3:30 p.m. ET today, you can watch TVNewsCheck’s latest conference featuring TV production and technology executives and managers addressing what a post-pandemic new normal may look like, addressing what remote production best practices have emerged and what will be kept in place for the long haul.

The Wendy Williams Show on Wednesday said it is adding additional guests hosts to the calendar through most of the month of November as Williams continues to recover from recent health issues.

Peacock has a serial TV problem and is counting on a pandemic-delayed pipeline of programming to help overcome it. More than a year after its launch, NBCUniversal’s streaming service lacks the buzzy original TV shows of its rivals or even the fan-friendly Star Trek offerings of Paramount Plus, the ViacomCBS service formerly known as CBS All Access. And while top brass praised Peacock as “headed in the right direction” during Comcast’s earnings call with Wall Street analysts last week, the lack of breakthrough hits, considered key to streamer growth, suggests the service has much work to do before it becomes truly competitive with its rivals.

The network has ordered a new version of its dating show Joe Millionaire to debut in January — 19 years after the first iteration of the show became a huge hit. The new show is officially titled Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer and will feature two men courting 20 women. One of the guys is, in fact, a millionaire, and the other decidedly isn’t; the women won’t know which is which at the outset.

The Atlanta Braves’ six-game victory over the Houston Astros averaged 11,750,000 viewers on Fox, the network said Wednesday. This year’s Series averaged a 6.5 rating and 16 share, up from a 5.2 rating/12 share last year.

Though Netflix’s most popular (OK, “sampled”) original series has yet to be renewed for any additional season, the nine-episode Korean thriller will compete as a drama series, and not as a limited series, at upcoming awards shows (including next fall’s Emmys). It thus will throw in against the anticipated likes of Succession, Better Call Saul‘s final season, The White Lotus and the farewell season of This Is Us.

The comedy series returns on Dec. 1 on FXX, with new episodes then available to stream the following day on FX on Hulu. The premiere will include the first two episodes. With the debut, It’s Always Sunny will now be the longest-running live-action comedy series in TV history, surpassing previous record holder The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet.

The complaint estimates there are somewhere between 300,000-700,000 individuals in about 181 countries who missed out on watching crucial moments of the 2020 matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

Fox’s broadcast of the sixth and deciding game of the World Series averaged 11.8 million total viewers (and a 2.7 demo rating) on Tuesday night, down a tick from the preliminary numbers for the Braves and Astros’ previous match-up.

Some of the most-watched sketches featuring cast members of Saturday Night Live aren’t taking place on NBC’s venerable latenight show. Last year, SNL was the most-watched traditional TV series among viewers between 18 and 49, the demographic most coveted by advertisers in entertainment programming.

Overall last week, Fox averaged 11.9 million viewers in primetime, followed by NBC with 5.4 million. CBS had 3.9 million, ABC had 3.5 million, Univision had 1.3 million, Ion Television had 970,000 and Telemundo had 930,000. Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable channel in primetime with an average 2.21 million viewers. It was followed by ESPN with 2.17 million.

NBCUniversal said several of its NBC Sports franchises will be finding new homes on cable on USA Network in 2022, including Premier League soccer, NASCAR and IndyCar races. The shift comes as the company shuts down the NBCSN cable network at the end of the year. Some sports programming will also be appearing on CNBC and Peacock.

The 33% uptick for the guest-hosted premiere week was the most for any syndicated strip in the frame ending Oct. 24.