ViacomCBS Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

ViacomCBS badly missed Wall Street forecasts for earnings per share in the fourth quarter, but added a record 9.4 million streaming subscribers and smashes revenue projections.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus and Showtime topped a combined 56 million subscribers by the end of last year, ViacomCBS revealed Tuesday ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings presentation and investor event. That’s up 9.4 million from where it was in the previous quarter.At the end of Q3 of 2021, Paramount Plus (formerly CBS All Access) and Showtime OTT added 4.3 million global subscribers, raising their combined total to nearly 47 million.For comparison, HBO and HBO Max ended 2021 with 73.8 million global subscribers, Disney Plus closed the year with nearly 130 million worldwide, and Netflix reached 221.8 million total in Q4.ViacomCBS said last February it expects to reach 65-75 million global subscribers between Paramount Plus and Showtime by 2024.

The European heads of Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max and Paramount+ have talked up their autonomy from the U.S., with Amazon Studios Europe boss Georgia Brown stating: “In my head we’re a European streamer.”

Current and former employees of Phil McGraw’s talk show Dr. Phil made allegations of having experienced toxic work conditions—including verbal abuse, intimidation, and racism—and inappropriate interactions with guests, in a Buzzfeed expose released on Thursday.

Phil McGraw’s personal attorney, is speaking out against accusations of a toxic workplace environment against the long-running daytime talk show “Dr. Phil.” A dozen current and former employees of the long-running series spoke to BuzzFeed News about the verbal abuse, fear, intimidation and racism they faced behind the scenes of the production.“It is a clickbait story, because as everyone knows, Dr. Phil sells tickets,” Morris said in a statement to Variety.

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.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterBrightcove Inc. has named former ViacomCBS exec Marc DeBevoise chief executive officer and board director of the software company and video platform.Previously chief digital officer of ViacomCBS and CEO and president of CBS Interactive, DeBevoise will begin his tenure as Brightcove CEO on March 28.

EXCLUSIVE: ViacomCBS has cut ties with Gobstopper TV following an investigation into bullying at the Just Tattoo Of Us producer, Deadline can reveal.

Naman Ramachandran Long-running Australian soap “Neighbours” has been canceled at ViacomCBS owned U.K. broadcaster Channel 5 as their focus shifts to original U.K. drama.

K.J. Yossman SkyShowtime, the joint streaming venture between Comcast and ViacomCBS, has received full regulatory approval.It will launch in Europe later this year.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus and Showtime are two separate subscription services owned by the same company in a market that is already overcrowded with streaming and pay-TV competition. But that’s the way it’s going to stay for the two ViacomCBS brands — for now at least — as Paramount Plus president of original scripted series Nicole Clemens says the young streamer continues to carve out its identity as the home of “big blockbuster originals” versus Showtime’s slightly “more coastal” audience.“I think they’re complementary and I think there’s going to be some overlap in a Venn diagram,” Clemens told Variety Tuesday, following Paramount Plus’ day of presentations at the virtual Television Critics Association winter press tour.

Yellowstone has become a huge ratings performer for Paramount Network – the crown jewel in ViacomCBS’ scripted arsenal.

Showtime is coming off the ratings success of two drama series – Yellowjackets and a Dexter sequel series.

Halo, after more than eight winding years in development, will finally land at Paramount+ this spring.

The David Boreanaz-led SEAL Team will be back for another go-round on Paramount+: the ViacomCBS streamer has renewed the military drama series for a 10-episode sixth season.

ViacomCBS announced the Season 2 renewal of freshman series The Game on Tuesday.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter“Mayor of Kingstown” has been renewed for Season 2 at Paramount Plus.The first season of the drama series debuted in November, with the season finale airing on Jan. 9. The first two episodes of the series also aired on Paramount Network immediately after “Yellowstone.” The series premiere drew 2.6 million viewers on the linear network, with the second episode drawing 2.1 million.The series follows the McLusky family – power brokers in Kingstown, Mich., where the business of incarceration is the only thriving industry.

EXCLUSIVE: Former MTV topper Van Toffler is back in a formal relationship with the company where he spent almost three decades as an executive. MTV Entertainment Group has signed a multi-picture deal with independent studio Gunpowder & Sky, co-founded and run by Van Toffler, former CEO of Viacom Media Networks Music & Logo Group. The pact follows MTVE’s collaboration with Gunpowder & Sky on Comedy Central’s Hot Mess Holiday movie, starring Kal Penn, which was recently nominated for two NAACP awards, and signals a push in that area for the ViacomCBS division.

In the latest in a string of distribution deals, Comcast Cable has reached a comprehensive, multi-year agreement with AMC Networks.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorGayle King, who over ten years at CBS News has become one of that ViacomCBS division’s most recognizable personnel, has signed a deal to stay with CBS News.“I still feel that in many ways I’m just getting started,” King told listeners of her SiriusXM radio program on Friday.Speculation has risen in recent weeks whether CBS News would keep both King and her colleague Norah O’Donnell, both of whom had contracts that were set to lapse this year. King last signed an extension with CBS News in 2019, when Susan Zirinsky, the former CBS News president, rebuilt the network’s morning-news program, now known as “CBS Mornings,” with her at the center.

EXCLUSIVE: Comedy Central is launching the first new original series under ViacomCBS network’s current push in adult animation. Fairview, executive produced by Stephen Colbert and the team behind Paramount+’s Emmy-nominated Tooning Out the News and Showtime’s Our Cartoon President, will debut Feb. 9 at 8:30 pm, following South Park. 

Following the same path of other broadcast networks, the CW plans to resume its annual in-person upfront event in May.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorThe CW will joins the parade of TV networks returning to in-person upfronts, with a presentation slated for Thursday, May 19 in New York City. Time will tell whether the network will present as a joint venture of ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia or under the aegis of a new corporate owner.The home of “Riverdale,” “The Flash” and “Walker” will present its next programming lineup to advertisers at New York City Center Theater in midtown Manhattan, with executives and actors present.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorSnap secured multiyear renewals on global content deals with a trio of big media companies — Disney, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS — which encompass a range of new shows coming to Snapchat.The three companies will continue their collaboration with Snap to provide their current shows on Snapchat’s Discover and individually plan to bring more shows to the platform in the future.David Brinker, senior director of media partnerships at Snap, said the renewals validate the position of Snapchat Discover as a powerful way for traditional media players to monetize hard-to-reach millennial and Gen Z audiences. “The extensions really affirm the value we provide and reach, relevance and monetization,” he said.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorSome things just don’t change. CBS and Carnegie Hall go together during TV’s upfront week like Roger Daltrey singing the refrain to a Who song, which he once performed at one of CBS’ glitzy events.While some media companies are shaking up the way they approach the kickoff to TV’s annual ad-sales market, ViacomCBS is not. The company intends to hold its presentation at the storied New York venue on May 18, charting a return to some semblance of TV operations as they were conducted before the advance of the coronavirus pandemic.

The CBS upfront, now under the umbrella of ViacomCBS, will return to its longtime home at New York’s Carnegie Hall on May 18.

Ethan Shanfeld Paramount Network will remain Paramount Network — at least for now — as the cabler nixes plans to rebrand as the Paramount Movie Network.According to insiders, the rebrand plans have been put on ice partly due to COVID-19, which has had an immense impact on production, as well as the success of “Yellowstone,” which has grown into a tremendous hit for Paramount Network and is now the No. 1 entertainment program on cable.The initial plan, first announced in September 2020, was for the ViacomCBS subsidiary to focus on television movies and cancel its unscripted programming.

1883,” TheWrap confirmed on Monday.A source close to the network also cited ensuing pandemic delays as a reason for pausing production on the planned slate of 52 new movies a year. “Yellowstone’s Season 4 finale hit an all-time high with 9.3 million total viewers in Live+Same Day numbers, a leap of 81% from the Season 3 finale.

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Network is safe, for now.

As discussions continue about a potential deal for control of the CW, network co-owner ViacomCBS has renewed CBS affiliate deals in 39 markets with top station group Nexstar.

Paramount+, the streaming service from ViacomCBS, has annouced 10-episode-long season pickup orders and premiere dates across the service’s Star Trek Universe:

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorKendis Gibson, a veteran anchor who  worked most recently for MSNBC, is jumping to a new role at CBS’ Miami station, WFOR, where he will anchor the morning and noon newscasts.The move shows ViacomCBS bringing in new local staffers under Wendy McMahon, co-president of the company’s news and stations unit, and Gibson says he welcomed the chance to take on a wider range of reporting than he was able to do at MSNBC, where he was anchoring early mornings on weekends. “I wanted to get away from working in the hyper-partisan 24/7 political news space,” he tells Variety.

ViacomCBS and Comcast have reached a distribution renewal that continues carriage of CBS and a roster of cable networks on the No. 1 cable system in the U.S. while also deepening the companies’ streaming ties.

Paramount+ is to air live Premier League football in Mexico and Central America from next season.

EXCLUSIVE: Middle Eastern outfit S Productions is producing local versions of U.S. hits Why Women Kill, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and The Affair after striking a format rights deal with licence-holder ViacomCBS Distribution Group.

EXCLUSIVE: Meow Wolf, the US-based arts and entertainment company, will welcome a new CEO, Jose Tolosa, formerly of ViacomCBS. Tolosa brings with him 25 years of experience in emerging industries and will be focused on continuing Meow Wolf’s expansion and growth.