Looking at the 2018-19 TV schedule is like flipping the dials on a time machine. What’s the difference between a reboot and a revival — and can either ever be as good as the original?
‘Making It’ Finale Holds Steady For NBC
At 10 p.m., Making It drew a 0.8 rating in adults 18-49 and 3.8 million viewers. That is only slightly below the show’s live-plus-same-day average for the season, and it was also the top-rated show in its time slot. NBC previously renewed the show for a second season.
Off-Net Sitcoms Perk Up In Summer Heat
While almost every first-run syndicated show was flat or down in the week ending Aug. 26, four of the top 10 sitcoms (including Last Man Standing) reported weekly ratings increases.
The Wall Street Journal reports that 21st Century Fox has struck a four-year agreement with Premier Boxing Champions for the rights to carry fights on the Fox broadcast network, Fox Sports 1 cable channel and pay-per-view, starting in December. The media giant is stockpiling programming in preparation for life after it completes the sale of the majority of its entertainment assets to Walt Disney Co. , a deal that will leave behind a “New Fox” focused heavily on sports and its Fox News Channel. Journal subscribers can read the full story here.
Exclusives
NBC said Tuesday that it’s ordered 13 episodes of Law & Order: Hate Crimes. The drama from Law & Order creator Dick Wolf is based on New York state’s Hate Crimes Task Force. The show will be introduced in the upcoming 20th season of sister program Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Owner Byron Allen says this will allow it to “make large-scale acquisitions, which is a major part of our strategy going forward.”
Mariel Brooke, Chetan Dave and Jenna Dim have all earned promotions at the studio.
A three-hour episode of Bachelor in Paradise is at a 1.1 rating in adults 18-49 with 4.2 million viewers, while American Ninja Warrior is at 1.0 and 4.8 million viewers. Bachelor hit a new Monday low with this week’s episode, while Ninja was also down from last week. Neither drop was unexpected, however, given the holiday.
Owners want players to agree to stand for the anthem. The union has so far backed the players’ right to protest. That leaves very little middle ground on the issue, and both the league and union must deal with factions within their ranks, complicating deliberations even further.
Shows are scrambling to hire more minorities, but the pipeline of experienced writers is thin, a problem of the industry’s own making.
Entertainment companies are grappling with a fan base that is splintering into political factions as never before. Examples of fans embracing or rejecting entertainers because of their politics now occur regularly.
NFL Preemptions Throw Off Thursday Numbers
NFL preemptions across much of the country means the current fast national numbers for Thursday are not accurate and will be subject to significant revision later today. As it stands, Big Brother on CBS is at a 1.8 rating in adults 18-49 and 6.9 million viewers, making it the top show of the night.
Tribune Media’s NBC affiliate WHO Des Moines, Iowa (DMA 68), is packing up and moving out Monday morning for RVTV 2018, the station’s annual week-long Iowa/Iowa State tailgate party. The […]
WOAI Names Irene Cruz 10 P.M. Anchor
The new Thursday night tie-up between the National Football League and Fox will apparently lead to some more football-themed programming on the network on Sundays. Fox will this season offer NFL GameDay Prime Sundays at 11:30 p.m. to its affiliates, according to two people familiar with the situation. In an unusual twist, the NFL will sell the national advertising surrounding the program.
Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s chief business and media officer, called the runup to 2022 an “inflection point” for the league’s lucrative TV rights, with the current broadcast deals expiring and tech giants likely to flex their financial might. Even so, he said the NFL is taking a wait-and-see approach to dealmaking with Silicon Valley, primarily because of streaming capacity concerns.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A new study says that the TV industry’s hiring of first-time female directors and directors of color hit record highs for the second year in a […]
Big Brotherand America’s Got Talent tied each other in the key demo in the Wednesday overnight ratings. Both shows drew a 1.5 rating in adults 18-49, though AGT was ahead in total viewers on NBC with 9.8 million. Big Brother drew 5.7 million viewers for CBS. Both shows were approximately even with their performance last Wednesday as well.
Sony Pictures TV on Wednesday laid off a number of employees at its programming, home entertainment, and worldwide distribution divisions as part of its on-going consolidation at the company. The exact number of job cuts is unknown, but an insider confirmed that several people were let go. Sony declined to comment.
Long gone are the days when consumers had only one option to view their favorite TV show. Today, the content options are seemingly infinite, and so are the places they can tune in. Whether it’s watching at a friend’s house, in a waiting room at a doctor’s office or at the workplace, consumers are taking their viewing habits out-of-home (OOH) and wherever the road takes them. There’s no dispute that news and sports are the leading beneficiaries of OOH viewership. But an in-depth, year-to-date analysis of OOH TV viewing data from the Nielsen Total Audience framework highlights that many other genres benefit.
Country music news and entertainment show Nashville Insider launches into season three adding 51 stations to its existing affiliate list. “We are proud to announce that starting the week of […]
Syndication’s Fall Docket On The Light Side
The new entries include Face the Truth with Vivica A. Fox and Caught in Providence with real-life judge Frank Caprio. However, looking out a year, there are signs of more shows, some with big budgets, coming in 2019.
America’s Got Talent was down slightly week-to-week in the Tuesday overnight ratings but still handily won the night for NBC. AGT drew a 1.9 rating in adults 18-49 and 10.6 million viewers. That is down a little over 10% in the demo compared to last week’s Tuesday episode and around 5% in total viewers. Afterwards at 10 p.m., Making It drew a 0.8 rating and just under 4 million viewers, notching a similar drop in the demo that AGT saw.
