Programming

Oprah Winfrey is staying on board as CEO of OWN for the foreseeable future — solidifying a new deal that will retain her as CEO of the Discovery Communications-backed network through at least 2025. Simultaneously, Discovery has paid $70 million to acquire an additional 24.5% stake in OWN from the Winfrey-owned Harpo Inc. That will give Discovery 70% of OWN.

The CBS special dedicated to the 50th anniversary of The Carol Burnett Show pulled in impressive numbers on Sunday night. Airing at 8-10 p.m., the special drew a 1.5 rating in adults 18-49 and 15.2 million viewers. It built on its lead in from 60 Minutes (1.2, 11.3 million) in both measures. That also puts it currently within a million viewers of Sunday Night Football (5.2, 16.2 million) though due to the nature of live sports, the final numbers for Sunday’s game will be released later today.

Fran Drescher’s sitcom The Nanny has a new television home. Kicking off with a special broadcast marathon on Jan. 1, 2018, Cozi TV viewers can plan to raise a glass and ring in the New Year with Maxwell Sheffield and Fran Fine. The Nanny ran on CBS from 1993 to 1999. Cozi TV is owned by the NBCUniversal Owned […]

Seven months after the infamous “grab them by the pussy” recording got Bush fired (and nearly toppled Trump’s White House run), the former Today host goes public with what happened on that bus, the people who knew about the tape, how he broke the “awful” news to his daughters and his bold comeback move: “I plan to return to the job that I love.”

When art director Francis Giglio signed on to work on Louis C.K.’s animated series The Cops last summer, he believed he had a full-time job through next May. But after news broke that the comedian masturbated in front of several women, TBS killed the show and Giglio is out of a job.

NBC News, under intense scrutiny since it fired Today anchor Matt Lauer in the wake of revelations of incidents involving him and sexual harassment under its corporate aegis, said Fricay that it would conduct an internal review of its handling of the matter.

Vice Media fired three employees on Thursday amid a probe into sexual harassment and improper workplace conduct, according to an internal memo. Vice did not name the employees.

Airing at 8 p.m. on CBS, Big Bang Theory averaged a 2.4 rating in adults 18-49 and 13.6 million viewers. It was nevertheless the top-rated and most-watched show of the night. On NBC, Thursday Night Football drew a 10.7 rating in metered market households, making it the highest-rated Thursday night game in nearly two months.

Media mogul John Malone’s Liberty Global has taken an interest in STX Entertainment, the startup film and TV studio behind the Bad Moms movies. Liberty Global, Malone’s international television and broadband provider run by CEO Michael Fries, has invested an undisclosed amount in the Burbank studio, the companies said Thursday.

A 22-year veteran of the network, Evans replaces Vernon Sanders, who earlier this month stepped down from his role as head of current programming and signed a production deal with the network’s sibling studio Universal Television.

CBS is eyeing another streaming product launch, this time turning its long-running syndicated magazine Entertainment Tonight into a VOD offering. Speaking at Variety’s Innovate Summit, CBS CEO Les Moonves said his company is weighing whether to turn ET into a 24-hour entertainment news service.

The TV talk show host and former Cincinnati mayor announced in his weekly podcast recorded Wednesday that he won’t join the race for the 2018 Democratic nomination for governor in Ohio.

Nabors became an instant success when he joined The Andy Griffith Show on CBS in the early 1960s. The character of Gomer Pyle, the unworldly, lovable gas pumper who would exclaim “Gollllll-ly!” proved so popular that in 1964 CBS starred him in Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

Law & Order: SVU hit season highs in both key ratings measures on Wednesday night. Airing at 9 p.m. on NBC, SVU drew a 1.5 rating in adults 18-49 and 7.1 million viewers. Not only is that the show’s best ratings in its current 19th season, it is also it’s most watched episode since September of last year. It was up by approximately 36% in the demo and 42% in total viewers compared to last week.

Family Feud and Jeopardy tie for the top slot in the genre with a 6.8, while Wheel of Fortune is close behind at 6.4.