Programming

Roseanne seems to have only whet ABC’s appetite for comedy. The network, which revealed its 2018-19 schedule on Tuesday morning, is set to air a whopping 10 half-hour sitcoms every week in the fall. It’s the most ambitious comedy play a broadcast network has put out in years — NBC, by contrast, has only four half-hours on its fall lineup. One night that’s not really changing is Thursdays. The block will still belong to a trio of Shonda Rhimes-produced dramas, interesting considering the producer left her deal with ABC Studios for Netflix since last year’s upfront.

Fox TV Group Chairmen and CEOs Dana Walden and Gary Newman are in advanced negotiations for one-year extensions to their contracts so they can continue to oversee the company through the pending sale of key 21st Century Fox assets to Disney. (Comcast also has reportedly been prepping a possible hostile bid for 21st Century Fox).

The regular panel does just fine, delivering a double-digit increase in both ratings and demographics in the week ending May 6.

Both Fox’s Lucifer and CBS’s Superior Donuts were up week-to-week in the overnight ratings, with both shows airing their series finales due to being canceled within the past week. Airing at 8 p.m., Lucifer drew a 0.8 rating in adults 18-49 and 3.2 million viewers, up from a 0.7 and 2.9 million last week. Superior Donuts, meanwhile, drew a 0.9 and 4.6 million viewers at 9 p.m. on CBS. That is up from a 0.7 and 4.3 million last Monday.

Michael Jay Solomon, former president of Warner Bros. Television and owner of Digital Content International (DCI), together with Espen Huseby, owner and CEO of NordicWorld, a distributor of television formats, are offering short-form scripted series […]

Following her final episode on NCIS on May 8, Pauley Perrette explained over the weekend that she left the CBS show after “multiple physical assaults.” In a series of tweets, Perrette, who starred on the series for 15 seasons as Abby Sciuto, tweeted that although she never told her story publicly, she left NCIS, attributing it to “multiple physical assaults” and a “machine” keeping her silent.

The annual selling season has Fox reviving Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing, canceled last year by ABC, because Fox says, it’s a “great comedy” and not as a conservative statement. Over at NBC, it’s picking up Brooklyn Nine-Nine after Fox kicked that sitcom to the curb.

Fox execs offered ad buyers a vision of the “New Fox” future, walking them through its new “JAZ” commercial pods and a fall lineup they expect will draw 82% live viewing thanks to the addition of Thursday Night Football.

LIVINGSTON, Mont. (AP) — Margot Kidder, who starred as Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve in the “Superman” film franchise of the late 1970s and early 1980s, has died. Franzen-Davis Funeral […]

The two-part season finale of Timeless ticked up in the overnight ratings from last week, but it is unclear if that will be enough to earn the show a third season. Airing from 9-11 p.m., Timeless averaged a 0.6 rating in adults 18-49 and 2.4 million viewers on NBC. That is up 20% from the 0.5 the show drew last week and up approximately 8% in total viewers.

Eight years after Fox opened a single-camera comedy block on Tuesday, the network is ending it following the cancellation of all but one of its single-camera half-hours, LA to Vegas, which is still in contention for midseason. Instead, the network, which picked up three multi-camera comedies, newbies The Cool Kids and Rel and a new season of Last Man Standing, is opening a multi-camera comedy block on Fridays, with LMS in the anchor 8 p.m. slot it held for most of its run on ABC.

The upfront presentations remain important from a broadcast network perspective, because when you walk out, you are left with the distinct feeling that despite everything else that is going on, the broadcast networks are still the biggest and most effective game in town.

For America’s most powerful media companies, the battle for dominance may be best fought overseas.

But it’s not as easy as it used to be. “The viewer is desensitized,” says Mike Darnell, head of unscripted programming at Warner Bros. “It’s much, much, much harder to get people’s attention.”

Dropping ratings, especially among young people, and more viewing options mean broadcast TV is in a precarious position as it pitches itself to advertisers.

Elementary is heading into its seventh season. The end for 9JKL had been expected.

The Kevin James vehicle underwent a creative overhaul between seasons one and two, with original co-star Erinn Hayes’ character written off the show and Leah Remini joining the cast, reuniting James with his former King of Queens co-star. But the show still saw a big ratings slide in its second season.

All told, the network canceled five series last Thursday and Friday. So, what’s behind the bloodshed? To put it simply: the network’s deal with the NFL for Thursday Night Football, which will take over more than 30 hours of space on an already truncated schedule as Fox, unlike ABC, NBC and CBS, does not program the 10 p.m. hour. 

The DC Comics drama needs only 13 episodes to get to the mark needed for syndication.

With Upfronts Week 2018 here, NBC, as is tradition, was the first broadcast TV network to announce its schedule for the fall TV season. It adds two dramas and one comedy. Conspicuously missing from the Peacock net’s lineup — remaining bubble series Timeless and Champions. During a conference call with reporters, NBC Chairman Robert Greenblatt said a final decision on both shows will come down quickly “after they finish” their current runs. (Timeless wrapped its second season Sunday night.)

A day after Fox canceled Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the praised cop comedy has been picked up by NBC for a 13-episode season six.