Programming

League schools are working on production and broadcast space for the ACC Network’s launch in August 2019 . The conference is mulling football and basketball scheduling that adds extra zip to first-year programming for the ESPN-partnered channel.

MSNBC’s marquee personality took advantage of a busy week of bad news for the president, led by former lawyer Michael Cohen’s plea deal and former campaign manager Paul Manafort’s conviction on corruption charges. In broadcast, NBC won the week in primetime with an average of 4.9 million viewers. CBS had 4 million viewers, ABC had 3.6 million, Fox had 2.6 million, Ion Television had 1.4 million, Univision and Telemundo were tied with 1.21 million and the CW had 770,000.

ABC’s Bachelor in Paradise maintained its standing as the top show among adults 18-49 Monday night, but not by much. Ninja Warrior, meanwhile, had its biggest total audience of the season with 5.81 million people tuning in to the NBC series.

The Atlanta-based production company is a provider of urban content production and programming, delivering more than 60 original productions in the last six years.

Coverage of the life and career of Aretha Franklin rescued most of the entertainment magazines from sluggish syndicated ratings in the week ending Aug. 19.

The Cubs will pull away from their partnership with NBC Sports Chicago — as well as the White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks — and start their own television venture in October 2019, according to industry sources.  The Cubs have hired Mike McCarthy to lead the television venture moving forward, sources said. McCarthy was previously the president of the MSG Network and the CEO of the St. Louis Blues.

The NBC game is currently at a 1.6 rating in adults 18-49 and 6.6 million viewers, though due to the nature of live sports those numbers will be subject to adjustment later today. In metered market households, which are time zone adjusted, the game is at a 4.8 rating.

Simon originally started as a radio and TV writer with his older brother, Danny. Yet Simon grew dissatisfied with television writing and the network restrictions that accompanied it. Out of his frustration came Come Blow Your Horn, which centered on two brothers (not unlike Danny and Neil Simon) trying to figure out what to do with their lives. The comedy ran for more than a year on Broadway.

Fox’s first primetime NFL telecast of the season carried the network to a ratings win Thursday night. CBS’s Big Brother, meanwhile, held pretty steady vs. the stiffer-than-usual competition.

Jason Hirschhorn, the CEO and chief curator of Redef, returned to Recode Media with Peter Kafka this week to talk about media moguls, the virtues of taking time off and what Netflix got right that everyone else in TV got wrong. The old guard’s first mistake: Thinking Reed Hastings and co. were “suckers” for paying a lot of money to license old content in the early days.

Jennifer Lopez’s World of Dance hit a Wednesday high in TV ratings, when the dance competition series paired nicely with America’s Got Talent for a comfortable NBC win. NBC was first in ratings with a 1.3 rating/6 share in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic and in total viewers with an average of 6.6 million, according to preliminary numbers.