Programming

For the second year in a row, CBS Television Studios remained atop the studio pack during the upfront season. Indie Sony TV feels the squeeze while Warner Bros. TV has to give up a piece of the pie to get a show on an outside network.

Turns out the 2018-2019 primetime broadcast TV season is going to look a lot like the last year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency thanks to reboots, recycling and football.

The pact includes 15 critically acclaimed Viceland series including Ellen Page’s Emmy-nominated Gaycation and Gloria Steinem’s Woman, as well as popular shows such as rapper chef-Action Bronson’s F*ck, That’s Delicious. The series will be available for streaming exclusively on Hulu beginning June 8.

Brad Kern, the subject of #MeToo complaints is no longer leading the CBS drama. Sources say EP Chris Silber is set to assume showrunner duties, with Kern as consultant.

Rather than focus on his five new series, the press grilled CW president Mark Pedowitz about his decision to expand his programming from five nights to six a week.

First up, NBC’s The Blacklist (0.7 in adults 18-49, 5.1 million viewers) ticked down in the demo but was even in total viewers. On ABC, The Goldbergs (1.2, 5.1 million) was steady in the demo and up slightly in viewers. The series finale of Alex Inc. (0.8, 3.4 million) ticked up. The finale of Modern Family (1.3, 5 million) was even, as was the finale of American Housewife (1.1, 4.1 million). The series finale of Designated Survivor (0.6, 3.6 million) was up in the demo. On CBS, the season finale of SEAL Team (0.9, 6.2 million) was even. Finally, the season finale of Riverdale (0.4, 1.3 million) was up in viewers.

The CW next season is reclaiming Sunday night to expand its lineup to six nights and 12 hours of original programming — all of it scripted. “Starting in October, we will have 12 hours of original scripted series on our schedule — more than any other broadcast network besides CBS,” said Mark Pedowitz, CW president.

Two well-known properties boomeranged back from the grave this season, when Last Man Standing, Tim Allen’s multi-cam comedy found new life at Fox, while NBC swooped in to revive Brooklyn Nine-Nine just hours after Fox gave it the axe. Those are just this year’s examples of shows that re-emerged after cancellation, a rare but not-impossible feat that shows how the TV business can be exactly like Project Runway: one day you’re out, and then you’re back in.

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that WWE’s Smackdown is being shopped to various networks after NBCUniversal — whose USA Network airs the highly rated pro wrestling matches — declined to re-up its deal. NBCU is said to be focusing on renewing its pact for WWE’s Raw, another wrestling franchise, and that deal is expected to close at as much as three times its current value.

With as much as $9 billion in advertising revenue on the line, the broadcast networks trotted out their new series, their biggest stars and a whole lot of spin during the annual dog and pony show known as the broadcast upfronts. Five key narratives dominated conversations as Hollywood began crisscrossing Manhattan this week.

Perhaps no other annual event on the media business calendar puts CBS chief Les Moonves more in his element than the network’s annual upfronts presentation at Carnegie Hall. Wednesday’s edition kicked off with him back in his usual groove, able to glide past all of the corporate drama unfolding simultaneously in a Delaware courtroom in his battle with Shari Redstone and instead focus on total-viewer metrics, the breakout of Young Sheldon, and next February’s Super Bowl.

The two-part New Girl series finale was up week-to-week in the overnight ratings and on par with what the Fox show has averaged in its final season. Airing at 9 and 9:30 p.m., the two episodes averaged a 0.6 rating in adults 18-49 and 1.5 million viewers. That is up by 20% in the demo and approximately 16% in total viewers compared to the average of the two episodes that aired last week.

As usual, CBS has revealed its fall 2018-19 schedule at the morning press breakfast ahead of its upfront presentation in New York City later today.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s striking down of the federal ban against sports betting, the consensus is that sports viewership both online and on traditional TV will rise as fans have far more interest in games if they wager on them.

New research from the Video Advertising Bureau shows that live TV is still king, with the majority of viewers watching their favorite programs live, rather than time-shifting, or watching them after they’ve already aired. However, it also found that 81% of viewers who binge video-on-demand programming say they can view it at a time that is convenient for them. As a result, VOD ad impressions increased nearly fourfold, to 23.3 billion in 2017 from 6.3 billion in 2014.

CBS cruised to an easy victory in the primetime ratings, as the network averaged 7.1 million viewers. NBC (4.46 million) and ABC (4.44 million) ran neck-and-neck for second. Fox had 2.6 million, Univision had 1.4 million, Ion Television had 1.2 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million and the CW had 1 million.

With a new corporate structure in place designed to stimulate sales, ABC execs made the case that the company’s networks are more integrated and potent than ever. In a sign of increasing integration of TV network brands, Freeform joined the upfront mix for the first time.