Programming

Third quarter media revenues were down 10% to $684 million. Distribution revenues dropped 11% to $565 million and advertising revenues declined 5% to $112 million. However, Sinclair COO Robert Weisbord had some good news: “On a per-game basis, ad revenues were up by a mid-teens percent, driven by healthy demand in many categories — with the largest gains in service, retail, food and entertainment,” he reported. “Looking forward, we see some positive signs for advertising demand.”

Bruce Christensen, who led PBS from the mid-1980s to the early ’90s amid attacks on public TV for airing controversial documentaries, died Nov. 19 at his home in Orem, Utah. He was 79. PBS President Paula Kerger called Christensen “a giant of public television.”

Distributed production can deliver more of the angles, replays, graphics and insights that viewers want while tuned into a game, match or other competition. To maximize what goes on screen, supporting technology must use automation and metadata to make it easy for producers to access exactly what they need to work on at exactly the right time.

Some people turn on closed captions because they like how it helps them understand the plotlines of shows and movies, and multitask in front of the tube. Others turn them on because they can’t hear what actors are saying. That doesn’t always mean they are hard of hearing. Muddled audio is the top reason why more people are watching video with on-screen text, according to a May survey commissioned by language-teaching app Preply. As more video-production studios embrace advanced audio formats for at-home content, not every device can keep up. Plenty of viewers can’t keep up, either.

The eventual demise of its DVD-by-mail service has been inevitable since co-CEO Reed Hastings decided to spin it off from a then-nascent video streaming service in 2011. Back then, Hastings floated the idea of renaming the service as Qwikster — a bungled idea that was so widely ridiculed that it was satirized on Saturday Night Live. It finally settled on its current, more prosaic handle, DVD.com. The operation is now based in non-descript office in Fremont, Calif., located about 20 miles from Netflix’s sleek campus in Los Gatos, Calif.

The Cowboys 28-20 victory on Fox averaged 42 million viewers, according to Nielsen, surpassing the 41.55 million average for the Dec. 3, 1990, Monday night game between the Giants and San Francisco 49ers on ABC. Average viewer record numbers date to 1988.

The match, which kicked off at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, was seen by 15,377,000 viewers on Fox, the most for a U.S. English-language men’s soccer telecast. The figure was 6% above the 14.51 million for Brazil’s penalty-kicks win over Italy in the 1994 final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., a Sunday 3:30 p.m. ET start that July 17 viewed by 14,510,000 on ABC, according to Fox.

With a 10 p.m. primetime hand back hanging over broadcast, Fox Television Stations CEO Jack Abernethy says producing more of the same local news will have diminishing returns for the whole industry. In a wide-ranging Executive Session interview, Abernethy weighs in on programming challenges and their pressures on newsrooms, streaming opportunities and his outlook for syndication, measurement, auto’s resurgence in spot and broadcast’s ability to compete against the big streamers.

A few days before the expiration of a carriage deal with DirecTV, Fox Corp. is warning viewers of its networks about a potential blackout as the companies continue to negotiate. On Sunday, Fox began airing a crawl across the bottom of the screen on networks including FS1, the Big Ten Network and Fox News. The message advised viewers of the potential outage. Ahead of a Dec. 2 deadline at midnight PT, the companies are continuing to hold active talks.

The company agreed to some exclusive theatrical distribution for Glass Onion and Matilda the Musical, but it’s not clear exhibitors will get much more.

In a matter of days, one first-year ABC drama series has surpassed the other for the title of strongest series debut in two years among both the 18-49 demographic and total viewers. Alaska Daily now holds the title, which was previously claimed by The Rookie: Feds. After 35 days of multi-platform viewing, the premiere episode of Alaska Daily has managed a 3.02 rating among the 18-49 demographic, which is a show-stopping 844% increase from its 0.32 live+same day rating.

Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager are pushing for a shake up in their morning routine. Last week, the duo led their 10 a.m. hour of Today in front of an audience gathered in NBC’s Studio 6A, a big change for a program that usually is closed off from crowds. They got to award luxury vacations to audience members who had been through hardship or emotional moments, and interact with viewers they would normally never see. The experience left the two hosts feeling such a burst of energy that they are trying to make the in-house crowd a regular feature of their show. “It adds energy and juice,” Kotb says.

CBS’s The Neighborhood (5.7 million/0.6) tied NBC’s The Voice (6M/0.6) for the nightly demo win, while CBS’s NCIS (6.8M/0.4) copped Monday’s largest audience.

The Crown Season 5 continues to dominate the Netflix Top 10 chart. During the Nov. 14-20 viewing window, the latest installment of the British royal family drama starring Imelda Staunton and Jonathan Pryce earned 84.3 million hours viewed. The show’s fifth season opened on Nov. 9 to 107.39 million hours viewed within its first five days of availability and ranked in the Top 10 in 88 countries.

Television Critics Tour will resume in-person panels in January, but not everyone is coming back to the party at The Landham Huntington in Pasadena. Fox and CBS — both of which have virtual panels planned for December and January — will be a no-show, as well as The CW. Half of the press tour is Disney.

Sky, owned by Comcast, will launch an advertising-free linear kids TV channel in the U.K. and Ireland in February. It will be available to Sky subscribers with the Sky Kids package, which costs 6 pounds a month, and subscribers of Sky’s streaming service Now that have the 9.99 pound a month entertainment membership.

The Miami Beach resort levies charges of  “insider dealing” and asks the bankruptcy court to slow down the auction of NATPE assets.

The game Sunday was seen by 3.228 million on the English-language telecast on FS1 and Fox’s streaming services. It was viewed by 4 million on the Spanish-language broadcast of Telemundo, Peacock and Telemundo Deportes’ digital platforms, all parts of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal.

The annual event drives a 4% gain in the week ending Nov. 13. Among the newcomers, Sherri remains No. 1 for another week.

A series of three 15-second commercials produced by the Creative Partnerships @ NBCU team will demonstrate how the Google Pixel 7 smartphone can help create their dream holiday photo as the spots demonstrate how the device’s Magic Eraser and Photo Unblur features bring new life to classic Thanksgiving Day Parade moments.