Mike Tirico Joins NBC’s ‘Sunday Night Football’ in Latest Sports Talent Maneuver

She’s spent months secretly killing off the village’s residents but Meena Jutla’s time in Emmerdale appears to be nearing the end, if her murder trial goes her victims’ way.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorThere’s a new contender in the arena.As Discovery begins its new era of operating Warner Bros., HBO and Turner, all eyes are on how the new company will navigate the media sector’s streaming wars with thousands of hours of content from popular TV brands like TLC, TBS, TNT, CNN and HBO. Behind that effort, however, could look a new sports giant that is poised to add another deep-pocketed player vying for major league negotiations that it previously ignored.Warner Bros.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorOne reward for a successful journalism career at The Washington Post might be a move into a different medium, like NBC News. Leigh Ann Caldwell is reversing the dynamic.Caldwell, who has been with NBC News since 2014, will join The Washington Post as one of the two writers on its morning newsletter, “The Early 202,” as well as an interviewer of newsmakers and Congressional leaders on Washington Post Live, the news outlet’s streaming-video forum.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorThere’s a new regular Joe calling baseball games on Fox.Joe Davis, a veteran sportscaster who has been known on the West Coast for calling Los Angeles Dodger games and as a Fox Sports regular, will take over as the lead play-by-play announcer for Fox Sports’ Major League Baseball coverage. He succeeds Joe Buck, the longtime Fox baseball and football announcer who has moved to ESPN to work on “Monday Night Football.” Davis will join John Smoltz in the network’s lead baseball booth.“If you had asked me when I was 10 what I wanted to do when I grew up, I would’ve told you ‘Call the World Series.’ So when I say this is a dream-come-true, I really mean it,” said Davis, in a statement.  Davis and Smoltz, along with reporters Tom Verducci and Ken Rosenthal, are expected to call Fox’s coverage of the 2022 MLB All-Star Game, MLB at Field of Dreams Game and the MLB post-season Postseason, including its 25th Fall Classic.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorDisney has over the past two years spent billions to snare new rights deals with top sports properties like Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, the PGA Tour and others. But in months to come, the company may place new emphasis on programming around those big properties.New research from the company indicates more sports fans are interested in “the game around the game,” says Lisa Valentino, executive vice president at Disney Advertising Sales, in an interview, and that could manifest itself increasingly in sports content that is found on smartphones; activity related to fantasy sports; or content related to sports-betting.

EXCLUSIVE: Abhi Sinha is set as a series regular opposite Matt Passmore and Floriana Lima in Blank Slate, NBC’s drama pilot from Dean Georgaris, John Fox, Davis Entertainment and Universal Television.

Shirley Ju Separately from each other, producers Mike Dean (pictured above) and Jeff Bhasker (below) are both synth gods in their own right. As a unit, performing their first show on Friday (April 1) at OffSunset in West Hollywood, the two were otherworldly.The intimate set reunited the Kanye West collaborators, who each have five Grammy Awards, and included an all-star guest list that both teased on socials prior to the event.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorFor at least one evening, worlds are colliding in late-night TV.Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel decided to switch up their hosting duties on April 1, with Kimmel traveling to New York to lead NBC’s “Tonight Show” and Fallon journeying to California to host ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” The studio audiences attending each broadcast were not informed of the move ahead of time, leaving them just as surprised as the TV viewers who tuned in Friday night. The Red Hot Chili Peppers served as musical guests for both programs.While such stunts are rare — each late-night program vies with the others for viewership and social-media activity — they are becoming less unique.

EXCLUSIVE: Dave Annable is set as a lead opposite Matt Passmore and Floriana Lima in Blank Slate, NBC’s drama pilot from Dean Georgaris, John Fox, Davis Entertainment and Universal Television.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorThe nation’s biggest TV-news outlets have made it increasingly easy for top officials in the White House to have a presence in your house.If White House press secretary Jen Psaki joins MSNBC as expected, she will be the second Biden official to land at the NBCUniversal-owned network in the space of less than a year. She will join Symone Sanders, a former campaign adviser to President Biden and Sen.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorWill Packer, the producer of this year’s Oscars telecast on ABC, is expected to speak about the controversy at the event that involved actor Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock, in an appearance on Friday morning’s broadcast of “Good Morning America,” according to two people familiar with the matter.The interview may be one of the first public eyewitness accounts from one of the executives in charge of the Oscars broadcast.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has launched a formal review following Smith’s assault on Rock at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony. Conflicting accounts have emerged, with the Academy claiming it asked Smith to leave Sunday’s Oscars ceremony after hitting Rock, who had made a joke about the appearance of Jada Pinkett Smith.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorSome people who tune in ESPN2 for an April 6 NBA match-up between the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Knicks may think they’ve gone back in time.The game will open in black and white and use graphics that evoke ABC’s 1960s coverage, then shift to a look that mirrors CBS’ NBA telecasts of the 1970s and 1980s. Look for a presentation that emulates NBC’s 1990s telecasts as well, complete with that network’s signature music.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorThe people who make NBC’s “Dateline” are trying to solve another mystery — but this one will likely never be seen on TV.The show has become known for presenting true-crime stories on NBC’s Friday nights, when Lester Holt and correspondents including Andrea Canning, Josh Mankiewicz, Keith Morrison and Dennis Murphy take viewers across difficult emotional terrain. A crime has been committed and the victim’s loved ones want justice.

A heavy moment. Willow Smith subtly weighed in after her father, Will Smith, slapped Chris Rock in the face at the 2022 Oscars.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorEveryone’s talking about this week’s furor at the Oscars — even the hosts at Fox News Channel’s “The Five.”On Monday afternoon, regulars Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Jesse Watters and Jeanine Pirro held forth with guest Piers Morgan — the British journalist and TV host who has demonstrated a proclivity for getting into celebrity feuds — sitting in a chair typically reserved for someone with more liberal political views. In the show’s opening segment, however, politics went out the window.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorCBS News hasn’t put the same kind of spotlight on weather as many of its rivals, but that may all be about to change as quickly as a shift in the wind.The Paramount Global news unit is teaming with The Weather Channel to bring more reporting on weather and climate to CBS News programs including “CBS Mornings” and “The CBS Evening News,” as well as the division’s streaming efforts. Some of the most popular Weather Channel personalities — including Stephanie Abrams, Jim Cantore and Mike Bettes — are likely to turn up on CBS News programs in reports that originate from Weather Channel’s Atlanta headquarters.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorFans of “Thursday Night Football” will next season hear one of TV sports’ most recognizable voices calling the games for a rather sizable upstart hoping to gain new yards off his play.Michaels, who has offered play-by-play patter for “Monday Night Football” and “Sunday Night Football” since 1986, will lead a new effort by Amazon’s Prime Video, which has gained sole rights to telecast the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” in the fall. Starting Thursday, September 15, Michaels will team up with analyst Kirk Herbstreit, known for his college football prowess at ESPN, to lead coverage of the games as Amazon becomes a bigger player in TV sports rights — which have largely been the domain of traditional broadcasters.

After the legendary Al Michaels all but confirmed his move to Amazon to call games as part of the streamer’s new NFL package, NBC announced today that Mike Tirico will “join Cris Collinsworth full-time in the booth this season” for Sunday Night Football. The announcement would seem to confirm Michaels’ exit.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAfter nine years of generating headlines for CNN, Jeff Zucker is giving new thought to testing his acumen for the world of sports.The former WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal executive, who abruptly left his job as head of CNN in February after acknowledging he failed to disclose a romantic relationship with Allison Gollust, CNN’s former chief marketing officer, is said to be mulling some offers from the sports sector, according to two people familiar with the matter. None of these conversations are believed to be in their final stages, according to one of these people, and Zucker is said to be having discussions around a wide array of potential opportunities.Sports wouldn’t be a new area for Zucker.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorA new NBCUniversal advertising executive is taking on the task of tackling advertisers to link themselves to such sports properties as “Sunday Night Football” and the soon-to-launch USFL.Peter Lazarus will take the lead on selling ads behind the bulk of NBCUniversal’s sports programming, part of a gradual overhaul of the company’s work behind connecting Madison Avenue with some of TV’s biggest and most-watched properties.Lazarus has been named executive vice president of sports ad-sales, taking up responsibilities previously held by Dan Lovinger, a longtime NBCU ad-sales exec who has been assigned to focus more intently on the company’s efforts behind Olympics advertising. Lovinger was elevated to president in January and will lead Olympics ad-sales efforts as NBCU works harder to fulfill a commitment it has made along the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, pledging to offer long-term deals to partners for TV, digital, and live event advertising, as well as brand activations and associations with Team USA.