MSNBC Sends Stephanie Ruhle to Brian Williams’ Slot As ‘Morning Joe’ Expands

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorIn TV’s never-ending morning wars, one law has been immutable: When NBC shows the Olympics, its “Today” wins in the ratings. That is not the case in this go-round.ABC’s “Good Morning America” won more viewers overall during NBC’s first week of coverage of the Winter Olympics from Beijing, the first time it has done so in more than three decades, according to data from Nielsen.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorMadison Avenue used its most tried-and-true techniques to keep Super Bowl watchers from being overwhelmed Sunday night by a brave new world that emerged with great speed as the nation was hunkered down during the coronavirus pandemic.General Motors, one of the nation’s most staid corporations, put its marketing heft behind a fleet of electric vehicles, using revivals of media favorites like “Austin Powers” and “The Sopranos.” Verizon touted quickening telecommunications service by reviving Jim Carrey in his role as “The Cable Guy” and T-Mobile pressed viewers to think about 5G by showing Dolly Parton with a phone pressed close to her chest. Rocket Mortgage dressed its digital service in bright Barbie overtones along with the familiar site of Anna Kendrick.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorToyota no doubt hopes Super Bowl viewers will be jones-ing for its new series of Tundra pick-up trucks after the Super Bowl is over.A 60-second spot that aired just before the automaker’s sponsored halftime report on NBC featured three famous Jones actors — Tommy Lee, Leslie and Rashida — in a humorous scene. The trio puts individual vehicles through their paces and then gets a surprise visit from Nick Jonas,  who shares most of the consonants in the actors’ surname (Meanwhile, the entire ad takes place to the tune of “It’s Not Unusual,” by Tom Jones).

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorPret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty….surprising.FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange, did its best to stand out in its first time advertising at the Super Bowl by tapping an actor who has never appeared in commercials before: Larry David.David, best known for his contrarian, curmudgeonly humor, took to the Super Bowl stage for FTX in a minute-long commercial that showed him turning down some of history’s best ideas, era by era. In various historical mini-dramas, David dismisses the wheel, the fork, the toilet, the electric light bulb, the Walkman and even the notion of American independence (because “even the stupid ones” will get a chance to influence major political decisions.)He isn’t much for cryptocurrency, either.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorJamie-Lynn Sigler has been keeping a secret for weeks. On Sunday, it finally came out.Sigler, who played Meadow Soprano for more than eight years on the iconic HBO series “The Sopranos,” stepped into the role again Sunday for a Chevrolet commercial that aired during NBC’s telecast of Super Bowl LVI. The ad updated, shot for shot, the show’s opening montage, which used to feature James Gandolfini’s  Tony Soprano driving a Chevy truck.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorLast year, Dolly Parton contributed a song for a Super Bowl commercial. This year, she’s raised her game, by appearing in two.The iconic singer and songwriter was planning to be at home Sunday night watching NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LVI with plenty of snacks, dips and wings on hand so she could see her performance in two short Big Game commercials from T-Mobile.“I have to watch it this year, ‘cause I’m in it,” Parton quipped during a phone interview earlier this week.Parton debuts alongside Miley Cyrus, making a rare joint appearance with the singer who also happens to be her goddaughter (see their past antics in episodes of Cyrus’ Disney Channel mainstay “Hannah Montana”) for T-Mobile, the telecommunications carrier.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorTony Pace, an advertising industry veteran who parlayed top jobs at two of Madison Avenue’s biggest agencies into a role at a major restaurant chain where he prodded TV networks to test new ways of weaving products into programming, has died. He was 64 years old and was in a snowmobile accident Feb.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorNBC News has a lot of stories to tell during the Olympics and the Super Bowl. One of them is about itself.The large NBCUniversal news division is using both events to get the word out about its growing package of streaming news programming at a time when the battle for broadband info junkies appears to be reaching a new apex.NBC News will tout its streaming-news outlet NBC News Now with a 20 second promo in the first quarter during NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LVI this Sunday, as well as with a 15-second promo during the pre-game.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorOn Sunday, actor Ty Burrell will fulfill a goal that has long been on his bucket list: taking part in a Super Bowl commercial.He put a lot of work into it. In a 30-second spot slated to air in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, Burrell will be spotted making frivolous purchases like a jetpack, a giant yacht called the “TyTanic” and a life-size robot. He even agrees to buy a live Pegasus — all to the detriment of the character he portrays.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorNickelodeon is taking a new swing at mixing professional sports with its young audiences.After broadcasting two NFL Wild Card games aimed at kids in the past two football seasons, the ViacomCBS outlet will next tackle golf. Nickelodeon plans to air a new one-hour special, “Nickelodeon Slime Cup,” that sets four teams of three against each other on a “Nick-ified” golf course with one-of-kind tee boxes, physical challenges, and far-out fairways.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorOne of the self-proclaimed greatest villains in history is coming to the Super Bowl to take over the world — but only if he can save it first.General Motors is likely to cause a stir on Sunday when it debuts a Super Bowl commercial for its growing fleet of electric vehicles that reunites the cast of the 1997 hit “Austin Powers.” The goal is to get consumers thinking about cars and trucks that are better for the environment. In the spot, Dr.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorPeyton and Eli Manning have more yards to gain for Walt Disney Co. and ESPN.The two football brothers, whose “ManningCast” alongside ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” has gained significant notice this season, have extended their relationship with the sports-media giant.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorMSNBC’s “Morning Joe” will soon become a mid-morning affair when the cable-news outlet expands it to four hours starting April 4.MSNBC plans to air the program from its usual starting point at 6 a.m. until 10 a.m. now, pre-empting a 9 o’clock hour that had previously been earmarked for more traditional news coverage.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorNBC plans to inject some Hollywood tinsel and technicolor into its Super Bowl broadcast.Taking a cue from the Big Game’s location, SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, NBC plans to kick off Super Bowl LVI at 6 p.m. with an opening vignette featuring Halle Berry and a bevy of stars and athletes.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorUber Eats has found a way to turn shots of celebrities snacking on vegan chocolate into what might be one of the most eye-popping Super Bowl commercials in this year’s ad game.Gwyneth Paltrow, Trevor Noah, Jennifer Coolidge and Nicholas Braun all take part in a new 30-second ad for the delivery service that reminds people of the food it might bring while showing them that Uber can deliver a host of other products to the door. But instead of actual treats, the actors dine on a light bulb, soap, a pencil, and even, in Paltrow’s case, a rather distinctive candle.Viewers won’t know the props are crafted out of edible material, but that’s beside the point, says Georgie Jeffreys, director of marketing for Uber Eats, in an interview.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorSteve Buscemi has gone bowling before — but not quite like this.The actor, who played the bothersome kegler Donny Kerabatsos in the 1998 film “The Big Lebowski,” is hanging out at a bowling alley once again, and this time he’s at the center of activity. In a new series of Super Bowl ads for Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Michelob Ultra, the “Boardwalk Empire” star works at the Superior Bowl, where athletes including Peyton Maning, Serena Williams, Jimmy Butler, Nneka Ogwumike, Brooks Koepka and Alex Morgan hang out and help promote a suite of Ultra products.“I didn’t even try and bowl while I was there,” says Buscemi, who did in fact get bowling lessons for the Coen Brothers’ “Lebowski,” but hasn’t really thrown strikes and spares in a while.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAs CNN’s many journalists tried to get past the ouster of Jeff Zucker, they ran up against one of their biggest professional hurdles: a source who refuses to talk.Some of WarnerMedia’s best-known on-air personalities pressed the company’s CEO Jason Kilar again and again on Monday, asking him to divulge more details around why Zucker resigned after acknowledging a personal relationship with Allison Gollust, CNN’s chief marketing officer. But Kilar would not.The WarnerMedia chief faced questions from Don Lemon, Alisyn Camerota, Brian Stelter, Jim Sciutto, Bill Weir, Richard Quest, John Avlon and Victor Blackwell, as well as longtime producer Jim Murphy, many of them pressing him for more information about whether the parent company felt Zucker was given a harsher punishment than was necessary; about whether WarnerMedia was negotiating with Chris Cuomo, fired by Zucker last year, over severance; and whether the looming merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery forced his hand when it came to deciding what to do about the now former CNN chief.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAlex Wagner is returning to MSNBC.Wagner, who anchored a noontime hour on MSNBC before moving out as the network placed new emphasis on covering breaking news in daytime hours, will work as a senior political analyst adn guest anchor for the NBCUniversal-backed outlet. She joins as many big TV-news organizations are gearing up for coverage of the U.S.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorJonah Goldberg, one of the two conservative political analysts who resigned from Fox News Channel in colorful fashion over its coverage, is joining CNN as a contributor, the WarnerMedia network confirmed Monday.Goldberg, a longtime editor at National Review and a founder of The Dispatch, will appear on CNN programs as news networks gear up for the 2022 midterm elections. He and another popular conservative commentator, Stephen Hayes, took to the “Media Equation” column of The New York Times in November to say they were cutting ties with Fox News Channel, where they had been contributors since 2009.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAs Americans chow down on buffalo wings, beer, quesadillas, and chips, during the Super Bowl Unilever thinks it’s found a flavor that will help them swallow a serious message.The company is sending its venerable Hellmann’s  mayonnaise back into the Super Bowl ad fray in a second effort to use the Big Game to get people at home to cut back on wasting food. In the ad, linebacker Jerod Mayo tackles people getting ready to toss out old food, telling them instead they can use Hellman’s to turn potatoes into potato salad. “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson (and his mother) turns up at the end to drive the lesson home.“There is a bigger ambition here, a bigger mission, says Benjamin Crook, senior marketing director for Hellmann’s North America, in an interview.