NBC Has New Olympic Sport: Helping Athletes Gain Social-Media Traction Before Paris Games

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News Channel is getting ready to shake up weekends. In the aftermath of the departure of weekend opinion host Dan Bongino, Fox News intends to add a new panel show to its Saturday-night grid, while ending Steve Hilton’s Sunday-night program, “The Next Revolution.” Hilton will take a contributor role. Bongino and Fox News parted ways in April after failing to come to terms on a new contract. “We are excited to launch a new dynamic weekend line-up that will further solidify our position as the number one cable news network for more than two decades,” said Megan Albano, the Fox News senior vice president who oversees weekend programming and the weekday panel show “The Five,” in a statement. “We thank Steve Hilton for his show’s contributions and look forward to continuing to feature his valuable insights across our daytime and primetime programming.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Brooke Bower, a veteran of CNN and MSNBC, will take the reins of ABC News’ “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” as its new executive producer, filling in a gap left by the tragic demise of the show’s previous leader. Brower, who had been managing editor of CNN Politics, will report to Kim Godwin, president of ABC News. Kendall Heath, who had been working as the show’s interim executive producer, was named executive producer of politics, reporting into Stacia Deshishku, ABC News’ executive editor, and will work with political director Rick Klein during the election season. “As the 2024 election season gets underway, I look forward to Brooke and Kendall working closely with the talented teams at ‘This Week’ and all our great reporters and producers in the Washington bureau, led by Jonathan Greenberger, and the political unit under the leadership of Rick Klein and Averi Harper, to bring straightforward political journalism to our viewers at a time when it’s needed more than ever,” Godwin said in a memo sent to staff Wednesday.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Lisa Ling has, over the course of her career, traveled to far-off places including Costa Rica and North Korean. Her next stop: CBS News. Ling, who recently cut ties with CNN after the Warner Bros. Discovery-based cable-news outlet canceled her documentary program, “This Is Life,” will join CBS News as a contributor, says co-president Neeraj Khemlani. She is expected to debut on CBS News later this summer, and will be based in Los Angeles. “If you look at her work over the years, she is really excellent at embedding with communities,” says the executive, in an interview. “You can only do that if you are afforded time and resources that fits with the kind of storytelling that we do.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Big media companies and Nielsen have battled for months over the exact way to count TV viewers who no longer watch traditional TV when they want to see a favorite sitcom or drama. One media agency wants to test a different tactic. Mediahub, a media-buying agency that is part of Interpublic Group, has been asking big media companies to consider ad deals that involve not just guarantees of audience impressions, as has long been the norm. but commitments to other sorts of measures that examine whether the commercials spur the people who saw them to take new action. Such a deal could put “more skin in the game from media partners,” says Carrie Drinkwater. the agency’s chief investment officer. “It also helps them change the conversation to get away from the Nielsen linear discussion.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Many TV networks have struck measurement deals with VideoAmp, one of a handful of companies eager to provide an alternative to Nielsen’s tabulation of audiences. Now a company that buys TV time for blue-chip advertisers has done the same. Horizon Media, a large media-buying firm that works for clients including Corona and the National Football League, will use VideoAmp’s audience-measurement tools to help negotiate and transact ad deals between select clients and sellers for national linear TV inventory. Horizon will also use VideoAmp for planning, analytics, and measurement. “There has been a more meaningful movement this year to actually participate with alternative currencies and transact on them,” says David Campanelli, Horizon’s chief investment officer, in an interview. The bulk of the deals, he says, “are still happening on advanced audience targets, versus what we commonly think of with Nielsen ratings, which are demo and impressions counting.”

Martha Stewart's latest gig has resulted in several potential suitors coming forward. ET's Rachel Smith spoke to the 81-year-old cover star of 's swimsuit edition at the magazine's New York City party on Thursday, and Stewart revealed how her love life has changed since she landed the coveted gig.«I've gotten a few inquiries. Just a couple,» Stewart told ET, without naming names as to who slid into her DMs. Entering into a new romance isn't Stewart's priority now, as she noted that she's «still working really hard.»«You have to make time for certain things.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Andrew Ross Sorkin is the co-creator of the Showtime series “Billions,” but he isn’t really known for drama in his professional life, just financial reporting. So it came as something of a surprise on Monday, when the CNBC and New York Times journalist got up on stage at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall to tout some of the dramatic fare that NBCUniversal was able to cobble together for the advertisers and media buyers assembled in the audience. It was all part of the industry’s annual “upfront,” when U.S. media companies try to sell the bulk of their advertising inventory before the release of their next cycle of programming.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor When Lester Holt visits Florida next week, it won’t be for a vacation. But he will take the regular format of “NBC Nightly News” on a short trip. The veteran anchor will visit Fort Myers Beach and Miami early next week, and on each of two nights will spend a significant amount of time delving into news and issues pertinent to those locations. “There are a lot of stories to be told in Florida, not just from a political standpoint, but environmental and tourism and recovery from storm disaster,” Holt says in an interview. He’s traveled to Fort Myers before, when a hurricane was making its way through the city, but “the idea is to visit places when they are not necessarily going through their worst day,”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The upfront presentation that looks most like traditional TV came from a company that likes to tell investors, advertisers and consumers how it’s leapfrogging that entire business. Netflix on Wednesday showed dozens of scripted series and movies that could support advertising — if only Madison Avenue would take a chance and bet on its nascent efforts to sell commercials. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Chris Hemsworth and Julia Roberts were only some of the actors whose efforts could be tied to advertising. Counterparts like NBCUniversal and Fox Corp. were hard-pressed to do the same earlier this week. “We are just getting started,” said Peter Naylor, vice president of global advertising sales at Netflix.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News Channel is considering “multiple scenarios” for its primetime lineup after the ouster of Tucker Carlson, with the network declining to comment on a recent report that veteran Sean Hannity might move into its 8 p.m. lead-off hour. “No decision has been made on a new primetime line-up and there are multiple scenarios under consideration,” Fox News said in a statement Wednesday. Fox News issued the comment in the wake of The Drudge Report posting the notion that Hannity would move to 8, while Jesse Watters, who has fared well at 7 p.m., would move into the primetime schedule, along with Greg Gutfeld, who hosts a late-night-styled 11 p.m. program. Such a move would have significant ramifications that would not dovetail with recent Fox News strategy. Gutfeld’s 11 p.m. program has been a break-out success with the network’s viewers, and part of a move that has extended the outlet’s opinion block from 7 p.m. to midnight. Watters’ show at 7 has also been considered successful, and he might seem like a natural successor to Carlson. Watters is also more right-leaning than others on the roster and he got his start making appearances at 8 p.m. on Bill O’Reilly’s show. But people familiar with Fox News say executives have suggested that Watters was doing well in the 7 p.m. hour he began anchoring in 2022 and may not be Carlson’s successor.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor On his Fox News program, Tucker Carlson would often declare himself “the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and group think.” So now he wants to launch a show on Twitter? The social-media platform has given millions of people the ability to express themselves and communicate in ways they never could before, but it has also become a haven for bullying, tribalism and disinformation. Carlson may become part of the venue’s latest effort to keep traffic flowing even as many advertisers keep more than an arm’s length away. Figuring out how to handle Carlson could be one of the first challenges for Linda Yaccarino, who has been named Twitter’s new CEO. The former NBCUniversal ad-sales chief knows what it takes to line up blue-chip sponsorships at scale. But doing that on behalf of Carlson may be a mission impossible. HisFox News show suffered from a dearth of mainstream national advertisers, despite the show’s high ratings. After recent revelations about the host’s use of racist and misogynist language, disclosed in documents tied to Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation litigation against Fox News, Twitter’s new bosswould have to hunt far and wide for any traditional sponsors willing to associate Carlson with their brands.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CNN on Wednesday broadcast one of the most controversial news events of the year, a runaway town hall interview with former President Donald Trump, and advertisers like Subaru and Fidelity Investments went along for the ride. There are new questions about whether all of Madison Avenue will do so in the future. The nation’s big TV-news outlets are about to enter what should be a healthy cycle. The closer the U.S. gets to a presidential election, the more audiences tend to watch. CNN, for example, has indicated it expects to telecast more primetime town halls with candidates (last week’s lured nearly 3.31 million viewers), while Fox News Channel is expected to broadcast the Republican Party’s first primary debate in August.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor NBCUniversal shook up its ad-sales executive suite with just days to go before the company is slated to present its next slate of programing to advertisers. Linda Yaccarino, the company’s longtime chairman of advertising and partnerships, is leaving the company.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Linda Yaccarino, a hard-charging veteran of TV’s ad-sales wars, is in talks to become the next chief executive of Twitter, according to a person familiar with the matter. Yaccarino, who spent a good chunk of her career at WarnerMedia’s TV operations before joining NBCUniversal last decade, supervises the Comcast-owned company’s ad-sales efforts across the globe, with Peacock and NBC among the assets she helps fortify with revenue. In recent years, she has spearheaded initiatives to generate new cash flows through e-commerce, and worked to redefine the way the TV industry measures its audiences for advertisers in hopes of giving more credibility to the way Madison Avenue pays for people who watch their favorite programs via streaming video.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor NBCUniversal’s efforts to broadcast the spectacle of the Olympics has long faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge: How to telecast sporting events that often take place in odd parts of the day? In 2024, the answer is easy: Just put them on when they happen. NBC plans to pre-empt at least nine hours of its daytime schedule each day of its broadcast of the 2024 Paris Olympics, slated to take place between July 26 and August 11, 2024. Paris time is six hours ahead of the U.S. eastern time zone, but NBC’s daytime coverage will feature the most opular events live in the morning and afternoon. The network will then deliver a three-hour primetime show that curates big events with behind-the-scenes coverage and inside looks at the athletes. The company’s Peacock streaming hub meanwhile, will stream every sport and event, including all 329 medal events, and will feature full-event replays; all NBC programming; curated video clips; virtual channels; exclusive originalprogramming; and more.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor ABC News is betting on a new duo to keep shining daylight at “GMA3.” Eva Pilgrim and DeMarco Morgan will officially take over as co-anchors of the program, a news-and-lifestyle hour in the early afternoon that is seen as an extension of the Disney network’s flagship “Good Morning America.” They will join Dr. Jen Ashton. Meanwhile, Gio Benitez has been assigned to the team at the weekend version of “GMA.” Staffers at ABC News were informed of the decision Thursday morning by Kim Godwin, president of the division. “I know these programs – and our viewers at home – will be well-served by all of their collective talents,” said Godwin in a memo.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Netflix is backing away from the live-in-New-York showcase it planned to hold for advertisers during the industry’s annual week of “upfront” presentations for advertisers, a move that threatens to put a damper on the company’s first big public attempt to woo advertisers to its service. The streaming giant is scrapping the event it planned to hold at its own Paris Theater in New York, slated for May 17, and informed advertisers of the switch Wednesday evening. The decision was previously reported by Adweek. Netflix’ decision takes place amid a massive writers strike that is likely to keep many of the actors, comedians and showrunners who might regularly attend away from the glitzy affairs held by most of the networks each year as part of the upfront, the annual attempt by U.S. media companies to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory attached to their next cycle of programming.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” isn’t slated to kick off until the fall of 2024. But that doesn’t mean NBC has to wait until then to start lining up sponsors. NBCUniversal intends to start talking to advertisers about the possibilities in the industry’s annual “upfront” sales session, says Mark Marshall, the company’s president of advertising sales and partnerships, in a recent interview. NBC could start calling attention to the landmark season during its telecasts of the 2024 Summer Olympics from Paris, he says, which means the media company is eager to start discussing ideas soon. TV’s “upfront,” when U.S. networks try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory, is expected to kick into gear next week, when NBCU and its competitors hold a series of glitzy presentations for Madison Avenue. “Saturday Night Live” generated approximately $74,7 million dollars in ad sales in 2022, according to Vivvix, a tracker of ad spending. That figure represents a 12% dip from the nearly $85.3 million “SNL” generated in 2021.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Mick Mulvaney, the former Director of the Office of Management and Budget acting White House Chief of Staff during the Trump administration, has been named a contributor to NewsNation, the upstart cable-news service operated by Nexstar Media. Mulvaney, who has left a contributor role at CBS News, is expected to take up his new duties immediately, appearing on the new politics-roundtable program “The Hill” at 5 p.m. Tuesday. “Mick’s enormous experience in the political sector will make him an incredible resource to viewers,” said Michael Corn, president of news at NewsNation, in a statement. “We are excited to welcome him to our growing powerhouse team of political analysts, especially as we enter another important election season.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Hadley Gamble, a CNBC reporter who ended up as part of the headlines involving the business-news outlet’s corporate parent and the ouster of its most recent CEO, is departing the company herself. “CNBC today announced that Hadley Gamble, Anchor and Senior International Correspondent, is leaving the company,” the network said in a statement. “Gamble has been a distinguished journalist for more than a decade for CNBC, undertaking highly visible and challenging assignments, and developing deep expertise in the Middle East and beyond. Her initiative and drive have secured valuable interviews with several world political leaders. We wish her every success in her future endeavors.”