Programming

Dan Lin, the streaming service’s new film chief, wants to produce a more varied slate of movies to better appeal to the array of interests among subscribers.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship, whose 300th numbered pay-per-view fight card was last weekend, was once effectively banned on television because of its violence.

The Iowa native delivered a heartfelt message about her basketball future, thanking many of the great players who came before her. “I’m sure it will be a big first step for me, but it’s just one step for the WNBA thanks to all the great players like Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, Cynthia Cooper, the great Dawn Staley, and my basketball hero, Maya Moore,” Clark said. “These are the women that kicked down the door so I could walk inside. So, I want to thank them tonight for laying the foundation. Clark came back on stage at the end of the show, bringing her former Hawkeye teammates Kate Martin, Gabbie Marshall and Jada Gyamfi with her. (Chrlaie Neibergal/AP)

Many in the veteran genre are introducing apps, QR codes, the metaverse and more to retain and engage audiences, grow viewers and optimize monetization.

McManus, who turned 69 in February, started to consider retirement two years ago. With CBS carrying the Super Bowl this year along with the NCAA Tournament and the Masters, McManus and CBS President-CEO George Cheeks agreed the timing was right. David Berson, president of CBS Sports for over 10 years, is McManus’ hand-picked successor.

Following a data breach earlier this year affecting 15,000 user accounts, Roku has revealed a much larger security episode. In a blog post Friday, the streaming giant said 576,000 user accounts had been affected in the second breach. Roku noted that its investigation had found that it was not responsible for the breach, which it said occurred via third-party websites. The company, which has more than 80 million active accounts, said its systems were not compromised.

After bringing back CSI: Crime Scene Investigation with CSI: Vegas, CBS is looking to revive another Jerry Bruckheimer Television-produced crime procedural from the 2000s. The network is in negotiations with Warner Bros. TV for a reboot of Cold Case, which aired on CBS for seven seasons from 2003 to 2010. The followup comes from the series’ creator/executive producer Meredith Stiehm.

Netflix has landed Rather, the documentary about veteran journalist Dan Rather‘s landmark career in news. The film, which premieres April 24 on the streamer, uses the story of of Rather’s life on television to also explore the evolution of broadcast journalism, the troubles a free press now faces, along with the slide of American society from hard-fought advances in social justice and democratic freedoms.

Dennis Miller took over as president of The CW in October 2022, after the network was acquired by Nexstar Media Group. He quickly set about refashioning The CW by bringing in more live sports, decreasing the number of scripted series that are exclusive to the network and deploying a coproduction model that sees series air on The CW and another network in a different country, Canada. Here, he talks about his eventful first 18 months atop The CW, including the network’s shift away from the younger demo it once targeted, and what’s next. (Chris Frawley/The CW)

The Talk is coming to an end: CBS revealed today that its daytime talk show has been picked up for a 15th and final season and will wrap its run in December.

Mary Connelly will be departing as executive producer and co-showrunner of The Jennifer Hudson Show at the end of daytime syndicated talk show’s current second season. The daytime veteran is leaving The Jennifer Hudson Show‘s producer Warner Bros. Unscripted Television/Telepictures, her studio home of more than two decades, to pursue new projects. She made the announcement to the show’s staff and crew Thursday.

After nearly nine years, Showtime’s streaming apps are fading to black. The Showtime standalone service will be shut down on April 30, according to notices sent to subscribers. The end of Showtime’s streaming apps comes just less than a year after parent company Paramount Global integrated Showtime’s programming into the top-tier Paramount+ plan.

Taylor Swift made her chart debut in Nielsen’s streaming rankings, as her concert movie The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) had a strong showing over its first four days of release on Disney+. The film racked up 677 million minutes of viewing in the U.S. in the week of March 11-17 (it debuted on Disney+ on March 14), finishing second among movies and eighth among all titles for the week.

CBS has renewed S.W.A.T. for the 2024-2025 season, which will be Season No. 8 for the drama. Shemar Moore leads the cast. The show was canceled in 2023, but resurrected three days later amid protests on social media, including those from Moore.

The run of season-ending races will start September 20 in the Xfinity Series Championship from Phoenix Raceway on Saturday, Nov. 9. NBC Sports will handle production, with Rick Allen serving as lead race announcer alongside analysts Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte, and NBC Sports VP of Motorsports Jeff Behnke in charge of production.

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has set two new unscripted series at Netflix via her and Prince Harry’s Archewell Productions banner, which is under an overall deal at the streamer. Though titles and release dates are yet to be announced, both projects are currently in early production.

Amazon and the BBC are teaming to revive the Emmy- and BAFTA-winning thriller The Night Manager, eight years after its initial run. Tom Hiddleston will reprise his role in the show, which scored a two-season order from the BBC and Amazon’s Prime Video streaming platform. Series creator David Farr is also set to return as writer. Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie, who starred in the first season, will also be executive producers.

CBS will feature some high-profile soccer matches, with Barcelona playing Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) Tuesday, April 16, and Manchester City taking on Real Madrid Wednesday, April 17. Both matches are UEFA Champions League quarterfinals and will air on CBS and Paramount Plus at 2 p.m. ET on their respective days. Both matches will have the UEFA Champions League Today show on before, starting at 1:30 p.m. on CBS Sports Golazo Network, and 2 p.m. on CBS and Paramount Plus.

The Indiana Fever, which will most likely draft Clark with the No. 1 pick on Monday, appear on Disney networks eight times this season.

CBS’s FBI was Tuesday’s most-watched show and it led the night in the coveted 18-49 demo (6.4 million total viewers and a 0.5 rating).

Tim Kring‘s Heroes is eyeing a second encore with Heroes: Eclipsed, a new incarnation of the popular 2006 superhero drama series, sources say. Appropriately, the project is being pitched to buyers now, the week of the solar eclipse. (The original series started off with a solar eclipse in the pilot, which became a recurring element throughout the series, also reflected in its logo.)

Welcome back to WeHo. Three popular Melrose Place original cast members, Heather Locklear, Laura Leighton and Daphne Zuniga, are reuniting for a followup to the 1990s staple. A Melrose Place reboot, with the trio attached to star, is in development at CBS Studios and is currently being shopped to networks and streamers.

The 2025 Critics Choice Awards will not be airing exclusively on The CW. The broadcast network has opted not to renew the awards show’s current option for next year, sources say. However, it is still possible to see the ceremony on the CW in 2025 as the network is looking for a path to continue to carry it, shared with another network or a streamer. There was a similar arrangement for the 2022 Critics Choice Awards, simulcast on The CW and TBS.

The April 7 finale had a first-night audience of 1.1 million viewers on HBO and Max (including replays), which was the best performance for Curb since the Season 10 finale drew 1.4 million cross-platform viewers in March 2020. The initial airing on HBO drew 530,000 viewers — about 51% higher than the show’s linear average for the previous nine episodes — with streaming on Max and replays contributing the remaining 570,000 viewers.

Low-cost, family-oriented streaming service Frndly TV said it will add local TV stations to its lineup in six markets this month. The stations will give Frndly subscribers more access to local news and syndicated programming.