Programming

NBCUniversal’s Access Hollywood companion series All Access has been canceled after a year-and-a-half run. The half-hour entertainment news program, which featured Access Hollywood hosts Mario Lopez, Kit Hoover, Scott Evans and correspondent Sibley Scoles, debuted in September 2019.

Fremantle, the RTL-owned global production empire behind shows including American Idol, Too Hot To Handle and We Are Who We Are, suffered a 39% drop in earnings as the coronavirus pandemic wiped out TV shoots across the world.

Andrea Downing has been named president of PBS Distribution (PBSd), the for-profit outlet for public media content. Downing will head up strategic, financial and operations for the distributor, which offers more than 4,000 hours of content. She had been co-president with David Bernstein.

Fox’s The Masked Singer opened Season 4 with 5.4 million total viewers and a 1.2 demo rating, down from both its fall premiere (5.9M/1.6) and its Season 4 averages (6.6M/1.7), yet still leading Wednesday in the demo. CBS’s SEAL Team (3.4M/0.4) slipped, hitting a new series low.

Advertising inventory in NCAA’s Men’s College Basketball Tournament — “March Madness” — is “virtually sold out,” says John Bogusz, EVP sports sales and marketing at CBS Television Network. “There were [price] increases in all rounds through the championship weekend,” he added, speaking on a call with reporters Wednesday. Bogusz did not provide details.

Ad sales have been “remarkably strong” following last year’s cancellation. Turner and CBS have now had an entire year to prepare for the return of March Madness, which is going to look a little different from 2019. All 67 games will be staged entirely in Indiana, and 10 production teams will work the event, up from the usual eight.

Fox’s fresh take on America’s Most Wanted, features new host Elizabeth Vargas and uses technology like 3D avatar of suspects to enlist viewers to help solve crimes and identify perpetrators.

Michael Wright, who is president of cable network Epix, is to take over MGM’s scripted television duties following the departure of Steve Stark. Wright, who is extending his contract with the company, becomes President of MGM Scripted Television and will serve a dual role, continuing in his position as boss of Epix.

Hockey will return in a big way to Walt Disney’s ESPN in a new seven-year deal that breaks NBCUniversal’s dominance of the sport’s TV rights and makes some National Hockey League games available for streaming in broader fashion. ESPN’s new deal with the NHL will last from the 2021-22 season through the 2027-28 season, the network announced today.

NBC says that America Ferrera will return for the series finale of Superstore on March 25. Details about her return are being kept quiet, although the network shared a first photo of Ferrera in the finale wearing the familiar blue vest of Cloud 9 workers. Ferrera, who was also a producer of Superstore, departed the series at the beginning of the current season (and before NBC announced it would end after six years).

CBS Media Ventures said it is teaming up with NuTime Media to help advertisers looking to reach Black viewers who watch CBS’s syndicated shows. NuTime Media, formerly Related Media Inc., is a Minority Business Enterprise certified ad sales rep. Under the new agreement, NuTime, led by CEO Morris McWilliams, will work closely with Scott Trupchak, EVP of media sales and partnerships at CBS Media Ventures. Above, Hot Bench is one of the CBS syndicated shows with a large Black audience.

NBC’s The Voice drew 6.7 million total viewers and a 0.9 demo rating on Tuesday, holding steady week-to-week and leading the night in the demo. On CBS, NCIS (9.6M/0.8) was steady and easily copped Tuesday’s largest audience.

The three participants’ ties to Netflix and Apple, along with Winfrey’s desire to reach a big live-viewing audience, paved the way to an old-school deal with CBS.

Powered by Oprah Winfrey and royals Prince Harry and Meghan, CBS won last week with an average of 6 million viewers in primetime. ABC had 3.5 million, NBC had 3.2 million, Fox had 2.5 million, Univision had 1.3 million, Ion Television had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 1 million. Fox News led the cable networks, averaging 2.37 million viewers in primetime. MSNBC had 1.88 million, TNT had 1.41 million, CNN had 1.25 million and HGTV had 1.11 million.

President Biden is giving a primetime address on Thursday night and the networks are shuffling their schedules accordingly. The president will mark the one-year anniversary of the shutdowns linked to the Covid pandemic in the U.S., which has led to the death of over 525,000 Americans. ABC, NBC and Fox have confirmed that they are airing the address, which is set to start at 8 p.m. ET, and is expected to last 15-30 minutes. CBS has yet to confirm but is likely to.

This year’s Super Bowl lead-out program, CBS’s The Equalizer, has scored a touchdown in the form of an early Season 2 renewal.

After 13 weeks in a tie as No. 2 or in a tie with Live with Kelly and Ryan, Dr. Phil returned to the top of the chat pack despite giving back 5% to a 1.9.

NBC’s The Voice this Monday drew 7.4 million viewers and a 1.0 demo rating, dipping week-to-week yet dominating the night in total audience. Leading out of that, Debris (3.4M/0.4) dropped 23% and 33% in Week 2.

“They’re only going to get more serious over time,” Greg Maffei told an investors conference about the e-commerce giant eyeing live sports agreements, including with the NFL in the U.S. market.

Two major moves will happen over the next six weeks — the WWE Network’s move to Peacock on March 18, along with the search for a new home for the ThunderDome, which is where Raw and Smackdown are being held due to the coronavirus pandemic.