CBS’s comedy Mom will go into its eighth season without one of its two leads. In a surprise move, Anna Faris is exiting the series she has starred in for seven years. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter her departure is not due to COVID-19 concerns; instead she wanted to pursue other opportunities.
Big Brother continued its steady performance on Thursday, easily leading the broadcast primetime ratings. It was a pretty quiet night otherwise, however, with ABC’s game shows returning lower after two weeks off for the political conventions.
The Atlanta Falcons and Fow-owned WAGA Atlanta (DMA 10) have scheduled programming leading into the 2020 Falcons season. The new slate will include three weekly shows and a season preview special […]
NBC’s perennially top-rated Sunday Night Football broadcasts will sound fairly normal this fall, Executive Producer Fred Gaudelli promised Thursday, but they will feature fewer crowd shots due to few if any fans attending games.
Exclusives
The Umbrella Academy was the runaway top title on Netflix in its first full week of release, according to figures from Nielsen. The ratings data provider is launching a weekly streaming top 10 list, with the first set of data covering the week of Aug. 3-9. For now, Nielsen measures only programs on Netflix and Amazon, with other streaming providers to be added in the future.
CBS’s Big Brother led Wednesday’s primetime among adults 18-49, beating America’s Got Talent head to head. The NBC show, however, scored a victory among total viewers.
After an unprecedented three-month coronavirus-imposed hiatus, Jeopardy will be back on the air with fresh episodes beginning Monday, Sept. 14. “I feel good, and I feel excited because once again Jeopardy! has demonstrated that it’s at the forefront of television programming,” host Alex Trebek said. “I believe we are the first quiz show to come back on the air in the COVID-19 era.” In addition, newly-minted Jeopardy G.O.A.T. Ken Jennings is joining the show as a consulting producer.
The NCAA’s women’s basketball oversight committee and men’s basketball oversight committee jointly agreed on Tuesday to propose Nov. 25 as the start date for the 2020-21 college basketball season. Nov. 25 is the day before Thanksgiving. The proposal will be sent to the Division I Council, which is scheduled to meet on Sept. 16.
W. Russell Barry, a former president of 20th Century Fox Television and chairman of Turner Program Services, died Aug. 26 of pulmonary fibrosis. He oversaw shows like M*A*S*H and Dinah! and brokered the deal to put CNN in airports and hotels. He was 84.
Marie Osmond is leaving The Talk after one season as a co-host of the CBS daytime talk show. She is currently working on other projects, including a new show with ViacomCBS. Osmond’s departure comes as The Talk is wrapping up its summer hiatus ahead of the Season 11 start of production later this month.
The Tuesday night ratings race was a battle between the NBA playoff game between the Utah Jazz and the Denver Nuggets, and the latest edition of America’s Got Talent. In the end, the basketball came out on top, averaging around a 0.9 rating among adults 18-49 and 2.7 million total viewers for ABC. The game itself was the decider between two evenly-matched teams, and ended in a narrow 80-78 victory for the Nuggets.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have signed a deal with Netflix. It will include scripted series, docuseries, documentaries, features and children’s programming. The focus will be on creating a wide range of programmes about stories and issues that resonate with them personally — including highlighting issues that their nonprofit Archewell is focused on. There are already several projects in development including an innovative nature docu-series and an animated series that celebrates inspiring women. Markle has no plans to return to acting.
The free service is offering 66 TV channels in the nine counties comprising the 14th DMA.
ABC’s Black-ish will air a pair of special episodes — one of them animated — in early October prior to its official premiere later in the fall. The hourlong special will focus on the upcoming election, with Junior (Marcus Scribner) embarking on his journey as a first-time voter and Dre (Anthony Anderson) exploring local politics. Both the live-action and animated portions of the special will be directed by Oscar winner Matthew A. Cherry (Hair Love).
The FCC isn’t particularly alarmed by the prospect that for some TV watchers, shows like The Walking Dead, Better Call Saul and Killing Eve could be going away. On Monday, the FCC’s Media Bureau denied AMC’s request for a standstill order to preserve its current program carriage agreement with AT&T. As a result, upon the imminent expiration of the deal, AMC could go dark on AT&T platforms including DirecTV and AT&T TV Now. At the moment, that accounts for a quarter of AMC households.
Meredith Vieira, host of Fox Television Stations’ game show 25 Words or Less, offered viewers a tour of the show’s COVID-ready set in the basement of her home outside of New York City from which she host its upcoming second season.
Events Push ‘Black Panther,’ FNC To Big Ratings
Fox News Channel was easily the most watched network, cable or broadcast, of the week with an average of 5.1 million viewers in primetime. NBC was the most popular broadcast network last week, averaging 2.77 million viewers in primetime. ABC had 2.75 million, CBS had 2.4 million, Ion Television had 1.3 million, Univision had 1.2 million Fox had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 1 million.
