Programming

Brad Samuels, Damian Riordan and Yvonne Haugh will report to Jeffrey Wolf in overseeing distribution of the national networks on platforms including broadcast, cable, satellite, over-the-top and streaming.

The former Today co-anchor will be among a series of fill-ins after the final Alex Trebek episodes air this week.

The Oscar winner has joined the network’s drama Prodigal Son for its second season. She’ll be a series regular and foil for Michael Sheen’s character in the series. It’s her first series role on a U.S. broadcast network.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is singing a happier tune in its family-friendlier time slot. On Tuesday, NBC’s musical dramedy — which used to air Sundays at 9 ET — returned to 3 million total viewers and a 0.5 demo rating, improving on its freshman averages (2M/0.4) and, in fact, delivered its largest audience to date.

YouTube executive Kelly Merryman has been instrumental in improving content partnerships with large media companies like Disney and Viacom.

When you’ve acted, directed, written, produced, married, divorced, mothered and sold lipstick, what do you do next in America? Host a talk show, of course.

Fremantle is the latest company to extend the holiday production hiatus on a number of its shows to protect against the latest surge in COVID-19 numbers. Daytime game shows The Price Is Right and Let’s Make A Deal have extended their breaks coming out of the Christmas holidays. Both were originally set to return to production in the first two weeks of January but will now not start back until the end of the month.

The 2021 Grammys, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, have been postponed due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19, multiple sources confirm to Rolling Stone. Organizers have not confirmed a new date, but sources say they are aiming to hold the event sometime in March.

Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski, two additional members of the coaching staff and two players have tested positive for COVID-19 and will not be available for the AFC wild-card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday night if the game remains as scheduled. In making the announcement Tuesday, the Browns said special-teams coordinator Mike Priefer will serve as the acting head coach. Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt is expected to call the offensive plays in place of Stefanski, a source told ESPN.

The news channel’s audience nearly doubles over 2019, while ABC’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve maintains its position as the most watched year-end special.

ABC’s The Bachelor opened its 25th season with 5 million total viewers and a 1.3 rating, dominating Monday in the demo though hitting premiere lows in both measures.

Film and TV production in Los Angeles has been exempt from COVID restrictions and continued after the current new stay-at-home order was instituted in early December. But, amid an unprecedented surge in coronavirus infections and COVID-19 deaths in L.A. County, the vast majority of TV studios and streamers have postponed January production for one or more weeks. Like its traditional media counterparts, Netflix also has hit the pause button on its Los Angeles-based productions, which had been slated to start filming this week, until at least mid-January.

Confirming a plan it started exploring last fall, the NCAA said it will host the entire men’s basketball tournament — the event known as March Madness — in Indiana due to Covid-19. The extraordinary initiative is aimed at ensuring that this year’s 67-game extravaganza does not meet the same fate as the 2020 edition. The cancellation of the tournament last year was one of the most jarring spectacles of the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Fox’s Call Me Kat sneak-previewed to 5.4 million total viewers and a 1.3 demo rating (leading out of The OT), easily topping all of Sunday’s non-NFL fare in the demo and trailing only CBS’s 60 Minutes in audience.

Along with the coming of a new year, there’s another streaming service for your consideration: Discovery+. Launching today, the new subscription video service boasts more than 55,000 episodes from shows on the Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Animal Planet, TLC and other Discovery Inc.-owned channels. The service will also have series from which will be available for $4.99 monthly or $6.99 for an ad-free version. Discovery+ will also have series from A&E, BBC, The History Channel and Lifetime.

Around the country, educators and local television stations have teamed up to help teachers make their broadcast debuts and engage children who are stuck in the doldrums of distance learning. The idea — in some ways a throwback to the early days of public television — has supplemented online lessons for some families, and serves a more critical role: reaching students who, without reliable internet access or a laptop at home, have been left behind.

Michael Ausiello: “While I appreciate the fact that Sony Pictures Television prolonged the inevitable by scheduling two weeks of curated reruns over the holidays (Trebek’s last airdate was originally slated for Dec. 25), I now find myself wishing and hoping for another continuance.”

The new deal covers 20 markets that cover 17% of the U.S. Tegna is the largest independent owner of NBC affiliates.