ViacomCBS Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Comcast and ViacomCBS have appointed a CEO for soon-to-launch JV streamer Sky Showtime.

Discovery has bought a minority stake in five-year-old advertising joint venture OpenAP, joining Fox, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS as a part-owner of the entity.

PBS Masterpiece and ViacomCBS UK’s Channel 5 have shown faith in All Creatures Great and Small with a rare double season order.

Amy Schneider, an engineering manager from Oakland, Calif., has became the fourth person in the 38-year history of Jeopardy! to earn more than $1 million in non-tournament play. She moved past that milestone in today’s episode of the show.

Discovery shares, which have been in a funk for months, roared back to life today, jumping 17% on heavy trading volume after a validation from a veteran Wall Street analyst.

The CW may get a new majority owner. Fifteen years after the broadcast network’s launch, its co-parents, ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia, are considering a controlling stake sale, sources confirm to Deadline. Nexstar Media Group, which is the CW’s largest affiliate group following its acquisition of Tribune, is believed to be among interested buyers. Sources caution that conversations with multiple suitors are in exploratory stages and no deal is imminent.

Yellowstone continues to defy gravity — and an industrywide decline in linear ratings. The Season 4 finale of Paramount Network’s hugely popular drama starring Oscar winner Kevin Costner hit a new series high with 9.3 million total viewers in Live+Same Day, up +81% vs. the Season 3 finale (5.2 million). The Jan. 2 closer eclipsed the previous L+SD viewership high mark set by the Season 4 premiere (8 million) to become the most watched telecast on cable since The Walking Dead Season 8 premiere on AMC in October 2017 (11.4 million).

Covid, neither gone nor forgotten in 2021, batted investors and markets for another year as attempts at business as usual were stymied by cycles of angst and rebound. Defensive stocks, growth stocks, value stocks, stay-at-home stocks were in one day, out the next. After a volatile year of ups and downs, broader markets ended on a high note, but it was it was mixed bag for media.

Mónica Marie Zorrilla As Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” universe expands, so does its audience.

The Sunday premiere of the Yellowstone prequel, 1883, set a new record as Paramount+ most watched original series premiere, more than doubling the previous viewership record across the service’s owned and operated platforms, with additional third party reporting still to come, the ViacomCBS streaming platform said without providing any ratings data.

EXCLUSIVE: ViacomCBS continues to expand the Yellowstone brand — and the Taylor Sheridan universe overall — on Paramount+. The streamer has set ET Presents: Yellowstone Aftershow, a two-part special featuring the Yellowstone cast, led by Kevin Costner, and co-creator/executive producer Sheridan.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaViacomCBS chief Bob Bakish was forced to apologize to staff on Wednesday after statements he made during a company-wide town hall about return-to-work plans were seen as insensitive by some employees.Bakish was hosting one of his “Bob Live” discussions with Chief Technology Officer Phil Wiser and Chief People Officer Nancy Phillips when he began musing that the move back into a combination of remote work and a return to offices was “the greatest

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorViacomCBS is among the big media companies rushing to find new ways to measure video audiences. Starting next year, the entertainment conglomerate expects to start doing deals based on a new yardstick.Dentsu, the Japanese ad conglomerate that owns Carat and Merkle, among other U.S.

It’s Scene 1, Take 1 for the 2021-22 class of ViacomCBS’ Directors Initiative. This year’s group, which is guaranteed to helm an episode of television on CBS, includes Julie Herlocker, Joy T. Lane Steven J. Kung, Pat Santana and Bao Tran.

Katie Song ViacomCBS announced the five participants for its 2021-2022 Directors Initiative: Julie Herlocker, Bao Tran, Joy T. Lane, Pat Santana and Steven J.

Paramount+ will continue to probe Why Women Kill. The ViacomCBS streaming service has handed a Season 3 renewal to the hit anthology series from Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry, Imagine Television Studios and CBS Studios.

professional advancement; subjected to unjust criticism; and, when she complained about the unrelenting discrimination, fired in retaliation,” the lawsuit says.Senior said that on her first day, a vice president she reported to, Richard Morris, “had her sit beside him while he dictated emails for her to send to SVP [Andrea] Fasulo and other executives.” The lawsuit continued that after a month she was not allowed to email Fasulo directly over what was described as “minor grammatical mistakes.”

Gene Maddaus Senior Media WriterAttorneys for Penguin Random House and ViacomCBS argued on Monday that the proposed sale of Simon & Schuster will benefit authors, and should not be blocked under federal antitrust law.The Department of Justice filed the suit last month, seeking to block ViacomCBS from selling Simon & Schuster to Bertelsmann, the parent of Penguin Random House, in a $2.1 billion transaction.Penguin Random House is the world’s largest publisher, and Simon & Schuster is the fourth

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorParamount Plus is taking a page from ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV streaming service with the launch of 18 linear channels that let subscribers surf through always-on themed collections of shows — you know, just like old-fashioned television.On Thursday, Paramount Plus launched Live Channels, a new feature that curates popular shows and movies on the service in linear channels, pulled from ViacomCBS properties including CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, BET and the

BBC Studioworks Inks Scottish Studio Deal

Naman Ramachandran ViacomCBS International Studios and Wattpad Webtoon Studios have revealed a global partnership to source emerging content and creatives from around the world to develop a slate of original series based on hit Wattpad and Webtoon stories. Wattpad Webtoon Studios and ViacomCBS International Studios’ production arm, VIS, will co-produce content for ViacomCBS’ networks and platforms, including its premium streaming service Paramount Plus.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentMónica Barbaro (“Top Gun: Maverick,” “Unreal”) has been cast opposite Mexican star Diego Boneta as the female-lead in Boneta’s film “At Midnight,” one of Paramount Plus’ banner upcoming Latin American originals produced by ViacomCBS International Studios (VIS).Set to start production shortly for a 2022 release on Paramount Plus, the romantic comedy turns on two people who have made the “safe” choice not to fall in love – until fate throws them

ViacomCBS’s Bob Bakish said he and chair Shari Redstone both bought stock last month in a show of faith that the shares are undervalued and investors to will start acknowledge that, with a few prods.

comprehensive pact, ViacomCBS and CJ ENM will team on co-productions for original series and films, content licensing and distribution across both ViacomCBS’ Paramount+ and CJ ENM’s streaming service, TVING.

,‘” Dan Cohen, president of global distribution group at ViacomCBS, said.

ViacomCBS and CJ ENM have struck a global strategic partnership that will see the pair co-develop and co-finance scripted series and movies, while Paramount+ will launch in South Korea next year.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorViacomCBS and South Korea’s CJ ENM announced global content deal encompasses coproductions for original TV shows and films as well as content licensing and distribution across the companies’ streaming services.Also under the pact, the companies will launch Paramount Plus in South Korea in 2022 as an exclusive bundle with CJ ENM’s TVING streaming service — marking its first launch in Asia.News of the deal comes less than a month after CJ ENM paid nearly $1 billion

Ethnic diversity at ViacomCBS’ U.S. operations nosed up to 37.7% from 36.2% over the past year and, at the VP level or higher, moved to 27.7% from 24.9%, according to the company’s second DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) report since Viacom and CBS merged in late 2019.

Mónica Marie Zorrilla ViacomCBS has released its second combined DE&I (diversity, equity and inclusion) update, highlighting both its strength internally and externally in terms of its commitment to social justice and equity, as well as where the entertainment conglomerate still has room for improvement.

VIS Social Impact, the cause-driven production division of ViacomCBS International Studios, is teaming with Pedro Almodóvar’s El Deseo and Spanish indie Mogambo for documentary series Not A Bride. Frequent Almodovar collaborator Penelope Cruz will executive produce and narrate the four-part series which Paramount+ has acquired internationally.

ViacomCBS Networks International (VCNI) has promoted Fathima Beckmann to Vice President of Global Inclusion.

Following this morning’s announcement that ViacomCBS has reached an agreement to sell the CBS Studio Center (Radford) and associated businesses to the partnership of Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management for $1.85 billion, CBS President and CEO George Cheeks laid out the plans for moving employees out of the complex after the transaction.

Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, who has been CBS News Washington bureau chief since July, 2020, will now have oversight over all network newsgathering worldwide.

Amazon has hired Kelly Day to head up its international streaming business.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDigital media veteran Kelly Day is exiting ViacomCBS to join Amazon as VP of Prime Video International, a newly created role overseeing the ecommerce giant’s streaming video businessDay will join Amazon in early January 2022, reporting to Mike Hopkins, senior VP of Amazon Studios and Prime Video.Most recently, Day has served as president of streaming for ViacomCBS Networks International as she had been president of Viacom Digital Studios for over two years.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorViacomCBS announced a deal to sell L.A.’s CBS Studio Center to two investment firms for $1.85 billion, the latest in a series of real-estate divestitures for the company.The media conglomerate had confirmed that it was looking to sell CBS Studio Center, which sits on a 55-acre site in Studio City, this summer.