Queen Elizabeth will address to Britain on Sunday, calling on the nation to rise to the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic. It will be only the fourth occasion during her monarchy for her to do so beyond her annual Christmas addesses.
‘Hawaii Five-0’ Finale Gets Big Goodbye
The end came with a bang for police procedural Hawaii Five-0, as the CBS series capped off ten years of action with a solid evening to top the Friday ratings. A new version of the original series (which lasted 12 years), this edition of Hawaii Five-0 bowed in Sept. 2010. It scored a solid 0.9 and had the largest total audience of the night by far. Lead-in MacGyver benefited from the anticipation, itself scoring an impressive 0.8. Blue Bloods capped the evening with an 0.7.
President Donald Trump spoke by telephone today with commissioners of various major league sports to discuss the response to COVID-19. Details on the call were not made available by the White House, which just released a list of participants to the White House Press Pool.
The rookie drama starred Stephen Dorff, who had one of last season’s biggest talent deals for the series from Entertainment One. The series launched in January to lackluster reviews and, after completing its 13-episode run, has a 40% and 57% rating among critics and viewers on aggregation site RottenTomatoes.com.
Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi — a snappy amalgam of “quick” and “bite” — is a mobile phone-only platform that will release its snack-sized installments of movies and TV shows each weekday. There will be seven-day-a-week dollops of news, sports and weather, gathered under the umbrella name Daily Essentials, all adding up to a mind-boggling 175-plus programs planned for this year. It launches Monday in the U.S. and Canada with a 90-day free trial and 50 programs.
CBS’ 60 Minutes has grown by more than 2 million viewers over the season average, while America’s Funniest Home Videos has increased by more than 1.3 million viewers. Both are […]
Exclusives
NBC has set Thursday, April 30, at 10 p.m. for the premiere of the 13-episode fifth and final season of thriller drama series Blindspot. The show, starring Sullivan Sullivan Stapleton and Jaimie Alexander, will move to its normal 9 o’clock timeslot the following week on May 7.
Ellen DeGeneres and Wendy Williams are resuming production on their daytime shows after taking some time off during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Both hosts will return to air on April 6, recording shows from their homes.
ViacomCBS said it completed the acquisition of a 49% stake in Miramax from beIN Media Group. beIN Media retains 51% ownership of Miramax, the award-winning studio whose business was disrupted as sexual harassment charges surfaced against founder Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein was found guilty of rape charges in February and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
‘Broke’ Starts Strong For CBS
CBS’s Broke debuted to strong numbers Thursday, drawing the biggest audience for a comedy series premiere this season. Man With a Plan also delivered strong premiere numbers, and Young Sheldon, Mom and Tommy all hit season highs and ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy turned in solid numbers.
Sinclair Broadcast Group announced “significant changes” to the content of three, company-owned multicast networks: Comet, Charge! and TBD. The channels, which are available to the vast majority of households across […]
As with most networks, NBC has had to shift some series’ season finale dates due to the coronavirus-related production shutdowns. Several NBC series will wrap their season runs earlier than planned because they could not finish production on their orders. The list includes all Chicago dramas, Law & Order: SVU, The Blacklist and New Amsterdam.
HBO is unlocking its biggest trove of free programming ever — in a goodwill gesture as people look for a diversion during the COVID-19 pandemic. The WarnerMedia-owned premium cabler is making almost 500 hours of programming available to stream for free (without ads) for a limited time on HBO Now and HBO Go services without a subscription, starting today, April 3.
Beginning Monday, she will welcome viewers into her home kitchen for an hour of new recipes made with pantry staples, solutions for cooking dilemmas and bit of fun as she’s joined by her husband, John Cusimano.
‘Masked Singer’ Scores Biggest Wed. Audience
The Masked Singer scored its best ratings since a post-Super Bowl episode two months ago, leading Wednesday’s primetime in both adults 18-49 and total viewers. CBS’s Survivor also continued its strong recent performance as the two unscripted shows topped a night where NBC aired reruns of its Chicago dramas.
There is one corner of television in which the pantry is relatively well-stocked: basic-cable reality shows, the cozy feeling in TV form. Variety spoke to representatives from more than a dozen cablers about their upcoming programming, and found that by premiering new shows as usual while also making use of old inventory, top-tier networks such as HGTV, TLC, Bravo, ID, Food Network, Discovery, We TV, E!, History, and A&E would fare a months-long production shutdown practically unscathed.
Forced to improvise, hosts have returned with radically stripped down productions made from home. Can they keep it feeling fresh — and their kids out of the frame?
Emmy and Grammy-winning musician and songwriter Adam Schlesinger, known for his work with his band Fountains of Wayne and on the TV show “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” died Wednesday after contracting the […]
The Monte-Carlo Television Festival is the latest entertainment industry event to be claimed by the coronavirus pandemic. The festival was due to take place 18-22 June, but has been canceled amid the “COVID-19 outbreak which continues to grip the world.” The 60th edition of the festival will now take place on the same dates in 2021.
Charter Communications and AT&T have finally reached an agreement on the latter’s carriage of regional sports network SportsNet LA, breaking an impasse that started in 2014.
ndyCar’s virtual racing will be televised beginning with Saturday’s iRacing event, which has been picked up by NBC Sports. The debut virtual race last weekend drew 433,000 combined viewers to both IndyCar […]
Not only are many broadcast TV series seeing their current runs end abruptly, they may need to start production on their next seasons later than usual. In Vancouver, which is home to nearly 20 TV productions, government officials do not foresee life returning to any semblance of normal until the summer, meaning that the shows that traditionally start back up production in late June/early July would have to cool their heels for at least a little bit (if not longer).
The Championships 2020 at Wimbledon has been canceled due to public health concerns linked to the coronavirus epidemic. The Grand Slam tennis tournament was scheduled to be held from Monday, June 29 through Sunday, July 12. The 134th tournament will now be held June 28-July 11, 2021.
‘FBI’ Scores Season Highs As CBS Dominates
CBS was the only English-language network to air a full night of original episodes Tuesday, and it dominated the primetime ratings. FBI set season highs in both total viewers (10.81 million) and adults 18-49 (1.2 rating), topping last week’s numbers (10.67 million and 1.1). The episode also featured a relatively rare cross-network crossover, as Tracy Spiridakos guest-starred as her Chicago PD character (both shows are produced by Dick Wolf).
Fox and Comcast Wednesday announced a long-term renewal of their distribution agreement for Fox’s full portfolio of channels, including retransmission consent for the Fox Television Stations to Xfinity customers.
