Brian Steinberg-Senior Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor NBC News may trump its rivals when it comes to interviewing a certain former Commander-in-Chief. David Muir, Lesley Stahl, John Dickerson, Chris Wallace, Bill O’Reilly, Kaitlan Collins and Jim Acosta have all tried their hand at interviewing Donald Trump; lobbing questions at him; or moderating a debate or event in which his participation was key. Some have drawn blood and others have been bloodied (and some others left agog as Trump walked out unexpectedly).

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor “Fox & Friends” will need a longer curvy couch. Lawrence Jones has been named a co-host of the Fox News Channel flagship morning program, in a move that brings the number of on-air personnel to four on weekdays and nods to a growing need at the cable outlet for more diversity on its schedule. Jones will start September 18.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Nielsen named Karthik Rao its new chief executive, replacing his predecessor David Kenny, who has steered the measurement giant through an era of tumult and strained relationships with top clients like the TV networks. Kenny will stay on as the company’s executive chair.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Bill Maher will soon be operating by some “New Rules” — and not just the ones he makes up in the signature segment of his HBO program. The comedian and commentator plans to re-start production of “Real Time” on HBO without writers, the first of TV’s phalanx of late-night hosts to try and do so despite the continuing Hollywood strikes by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. “Real Time is coming back, unfortunately, sans writers or writing.” Maher said on social media Wednesday night.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor While Madison Avenue seems focused on shiny new technologies, iHeartMedia is encouraging advertisers to get back to basics. Research conducted by Morning Consult and Advertiser Perceptions on behalf of the audio-media giant and podcaster Pushkin Media found a growing disparity between what marketers think top consumer priorities are and the things to which consumers are actually gravitating.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The popular sitcom “Modern Family” is picking up some new real estate — while keeping its other homes. Warner Bros. Discovery’s TBS cable network will start showing a three-hour block of the landmark comedy, which ran on ABC for 11 seasons between 2009 and 2020.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor NPR veteran Lakshmi Singh has signed with CAA for representation.; Singh, who has been with NPR for 23 years and has one of the public-broadcasting service’s most familiar voices, anchors midday coverage for NPR Newscasts, some of the most-heard content produced by the news outlet. Her work has drawn recognition from Women of Color in Communications for “contributions to the field, mentorship to other women in communications and broad impact on the promotion of ethnic diversity in journalism”, as well as the Asian American/Asian Research Institute and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor After working for Walt Disney Co. for decades, Woody, Buzz Lightyear and their “Toy Story” friends have been given new jobs by the large entertainment conglomerate. Characters from the popular animated Pixar films will in October take part in the latest in a series of experiments aimed at getting young kids to watch live sports.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Disney and Charter have decided to let ESPN sports take the field on traditional cable after all. The two media giants, battling for the past week over a renewal for carriage of Disney’s various cable networks on Charter’s major-market cable systems, have come to new terms, according to the companies.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Nielsen is putting a new media yardstick out of arm’s reach, for the time being. Nielsen backed off a plan to incorporate first-party data from Amazon in its study of the audience for the company’s streamcast of “Thursday Night Football.” a move that was opposed by TV networks, putting to rest — at least for the moment — the idea that the measurement giant might utilize inputs from the companies it examines in its national viewership methodology.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News opinion host Mark Levin is getting a bigger perch on the network’s weekend schedule. Fox News said it plans to expand his program, “Life, Liberty & Levin” so that it will air at 8 p.m.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Jen Psaki is stretching beyond her weekend shift at MSNBC. The former Biden White House Press Secretary turned Sunday commentator is expanding her purview at the NBCUniversal-backed cable outlet. She will begin anchoring MSNBC’s 8 p.m.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor When Megyn Kelly launched a new podcast via her own production company in 2020, she feared it would have an audience of only two: her husband and her therapist. Three years later, her worries appear to have been unfounded. In a sign of how her listenership has grown, she is extending a multi-year deal she has in place for the program to run first on SiriusXM — which has raised her visibility — that will keep her broadcasting “The Megyn Kelly Show” live on the company’s Triumph channel live between noon and 2 p.m.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Gambling is often full of risk, but it may also be the surest bet stressed executives in the frenzied media business these days can make. Disney earlier this month became the latest of the traditional media conglomerates to hook upwith purveyors of sports wagering. Under terms of a deal struck with Penn Entertainment, Disney’s ESPN stands to receive $2 billion in cash and warrants over10 years from the gambling purveyor.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Streaming fans may associate NBC’s Peacock with original shows like “Poker Face” or a place to watch “Saturday Night Live” when one lacks a cable subscription. But the hub’s backers would like people to consider it along with live sports ranging from Premier League soccer to IndyCar racing.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The battle between Charter Communications and Walt Disney, spurred due to cord-cutting, is now getting very tangled. Charter suggested last week that it might be ready to cut Disney networks from its programming lineup after the two companies reached an impasse in talks to extend their carriage contract Now Disney is hinting to Charter subscribers that they might want to cut their connection with the large cable distributor.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Cable giant Charter Communications and content titan Disney are squabbling over about $2 billion in programming costs, but the price of their battle for the media industry overall could be exponentially higher. Disney on Thursday yanked its popular TV networks, which include ESPN, ABC and Disney Channel, from Charter’s Spectrum cable service, which reaches nearly 15 million homes, including many in big markets like New York City and Los Angeles.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Shares of several big media and entertainment companies tumbled Friday as investors considered the potential fallout from an impasse between cable giant Charter Communications and media titan Walt Disney Co. On Thursday, Disney said it had pulled major networks such as ESPN and ABC from Charter systems after the two companies could not come to terms on a renewal of their carriage license. Charter’s systems reach a little under 15 million subscribers in markets that include New York City and Los Angeles.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Charter Communications, enmeshed overnight in a massive carriage dispute with Walt Disney Co., said Friday it hopes it can turn the breakdown into a new fix for the media industry as cable subscribers keep migrating to streaming alternatives. “This is not a typical carriage dispute,” said Christopher Winfrey, Charter’s CEO, during a call with Investors Friday morning.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Here’s an act of counting that isn’t going to be as easy as 1-2-3. Representatives of 80 different parties will at some point on Wednesday hear the latest about technology that will help tabulate the number of people who watch a streaming presentation of “Thursday Night Football.” Such a task is typically left to Nielsen.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Mark Marshall, the executive who led NBCUniversal’s ad-sales outreach on an interim basis, will take the role officially. Marshall, who was given oversight of NBCU’s ad-sales after former leader Linda Yaccarino departed abruptly to take the CEO role at X, the social-media company previously known as Twitter, will report to Mark Lazarus, chairman of the company’s media operations.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery is widely expected to name Mark Thompson, the former New York Times Co. and BBC leader who has demonstrated a knack for guiding media into digital realms, as the latest executive to oversee CNN, according to a person familiar with the matter, putting in place the fifth executive structure around the news giant since early 2022.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Selling commercials for the Super Bowl, once one of the least complicated processes in modern media is growing infinitely more complex. In 2024, Paramount Global will air Super Bowl LVIII on CBS and, in a first, on a separate kids-focused broadcast on Nickelodeon. In doing so, the company has created a few new wrinkles that TV networks in charge of televising the game typically don’t have to face.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Kristen Welker’s tenure at NBC News’ venerable “Meet The Press” won’t start until September 17, but the network isn’t waiting to tell viewers about it. On Saturday, during the NBC News journalist’s last time co-anchoring the Saturday broadcast of “Today” with Peter Alexander, those who tune in will see a new promo alerting them to Welker’s imminent move.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The Republicans don’t need Donald Trump to get people to pay attention to their causes. Approximately 12.8 million viewers tuned in Wednesday night to see a telecast of the first Republican primary debate in the race for the 2024 presidential election, according to data from Nielsen, with 11.1 million viewers watching the event on Fox News Channel and another 1.7 million viewing it on sister outlet Fox Business Network. Eight candidates took part.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor You might call it CNN Headline News — for the streaming era. Warner Bros. Discovery plans to unveil a 24/7 live-streamed news service called “CNN Max” on September 27, and indicated the outlet would focus initially on breaking news.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery is back in the hunt for a new executive to oversee CNN. Mark Thompson, the former CEO of New York Times Co.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CNN+ may not have worked, but perhaps CNN on Max will. Warner Bros. Discovery is planning to launch new original programs from CNN that will stream on its Max streaming service, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor When Amazon’s Prime Video streams a new “Black Friday” NFL game later this year, viewers won’t be greeted solely by a live match. The company plans to offer commercials featuring its talent around the event, according to Danielle Carney, who heads up NFL sales for Amazon. During remarks made at an industry conference, Carney envisioned different “talent” being tapped to talk to viewers about possible buying opportunities.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CNN anchor Laura Coates has moved to CAA for representation, a move that could signal a new era of influence for the talent-agency giant at the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed news outlet. In a broad overhaul of CNN’s schedule, Coates was recently named to anchor a new 11 p.m.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Technology giant IBM seems to think the wind is blowing in a different direction. The company said Tuesday that it had agreed to sell its Weather Company — a collection of digital and analytical assets it originally acquired in 2016 that were previously part of the Weather Channel — to Francisco Partners, a private equity fund that is focused on technology.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor When Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum moderate Wednesday night’s Republican primary debate, they won’t be running for office. But they will be at the forefront of a very important popularity contest. The Fox News duo will kick off a coverage cycle that every TV-news executive hopes will reverse some of the recent trends of the medium, which has contended, like many other TV formats, with downturns in viewership and advertising dollars.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor YouTube has enlisted an interesting partner to help it get the word out about its new rights to show NFL Sunday Ticket. Online sports bettor FanDuel will team up with the Alphabet-backed video-streaming outlet to make a limited-run promotional offer for the Sunday Ticket package, which offers access to NFL games not available on TV affiliates in specific markets.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Chloe Melas, a journalist whose work covering the entertainment industry has helped her gain traction at CNN, will join NBC News starting August 21. Melas will be charged with coverage of “the intersection of entertainment, business and culture and report for all platforms of NBC News, including Digital, and MSNBC,” according to a memo from Catherine Kim, senior vice president of NBC News Editorial.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Selina Wang, who served as CNN’s only reporter on the ground during the coronavirus-challenged Beijing Winter Olympics, will soon become one of ABC News’ key personnel in a very different arena: The White House. Wang, who had been with CNN since 2020, was named ABC News’ new senior White House correspondent Tuesday, during the Disney news unit’s daily editorial meeting.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Sage Steele, the veteran ESPN sportscaster who became better known in recent years for her stances on hot topics like coronavirus vaccinations, has left the Disney sports giant. Steele, who joined ESPN in 2007, said on social media that she had recently settled a lawsuit with her employer after she was suspended in 2021 for comments she made on an outside podcast about getting vaccinated, how women dress and former President Barack Obama’s lineage.