Tuesday January 4, 2022

IN THE NEWS

USA Network grabbed rights to seasons 1-4 of Fox drama “9-1-1” and is launching a Wednesday night, 7p-11p block of the procedural. The deal also includes future seasons of the show and the fifth season, to air later this year. “’9-1-1’ is the perfect addition to USA Network, which has long been a destination for big, iconic characters and event television,” said Val Boreland, EVP, Entertainment Content Acquisitions, NBCUniversal Television & Streaming.

As the omicron variant surges in NYC, host Whoopi Goldberg missed the post-holiday return of “The View” after testing positive. While “The View” has aired from its ABC studio since this season’s launch in September, on Monday, co-hosts Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines and guest host Ana Navarro appeared remotely. Behar said symptoms for the vaxxed and boosted Goldberg have been “very, very mild.”

Liberty Mutual replaced GEICO as the most-seen brand on TV in 2022, with 0.97% Impressions SOV in 2021 versus 0.95% for GEICO, according to iSpot.tv’s year-end report. The report also noted CPG is the most seen industry on TV, with $6.27 billion spent on TV in 2021. Downy topped the charts with 2.19% Impressions SOV, followed by Tide (2.17%) and Neutrogena (1.47%). On the auto front, among female audiences ages 35 to 49, reality TV led all show genres for the category, with 12.4% of impressions attributed to the demo.

Robert Bruce, collectibles expert and a cast member of AMC reality show “Comic Book Men,” was found dead on December 31. He was 62. No cause of death was reported. A self-described “popculturist,” Bruce appeared in 34 episodes of “Comic Book Men,” which ran from 2012-18, and was credited as a consulting producer on 82 episodes.

Tegna and Verizon have extended their retrans negotiations for five stations until today at 6p. The agreement, for stations in Washington, D.C.; Buffalo, NY; Hartford, CT; Norfolk, VA; and Harrisburg, PA, had been set to expire December 31.

Hear from Nascar, Rumble League Studios, Super League Gaming and other industry leaders paving the way in this untapped universe.

LISTEN IN NOW

Peacock will premiere three new documentaries about Olympic athletes leading up to NBCUniversal’s presentation of the 2022 Games. On the way are “Meddling,” a four-parter detailing the 2002 figure skating scandal, launching Thursday, January 6; “Picabo,” a film chronicling the life of alpine skier Picabo Street, premiering Friday, January 21; and “American Rock Stars,” a docuseries focused on this year’s curling team hopefuls, kicking off Wednesday, January 26.

Season two of out-of-this-world workplace comedy “Space Force” is set to land on Netflix Friday, February 18. Returning series regulars include series co-creator Steve Carell, John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Tawny Newsome, Diana Silvers, Jimmy O. Yang and Don Lake.

“NCIS” stars Wilmer Valderrama and Katrina Law are jetting to Hawaii to shoot a crossover episode with “NCIS: Hawai’i.” The CBS stunt is scheduled for Monday, March 28.

SailTrek SOC, covering a crew traveling the Caribbean mid-pandemic, premieres Friday, January 7 on One Caribbean Television and Black News Channel.

TECH

On Monday, Apple reached a market cap of $3 trillion, a new worldwide milestone in valuation. In 2018, the company was the first to hit a $1 trillion valuation. As noted by the NY Times, Apple is now worth more than Walmart, Disney, Netflix, Nike, Exxon Mobil, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Morgan Stanley, McDonald’s, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, IBM and Ford combined.

Close to 900 major brands continue to finance websites that publish misinformation about the 2020 election, according to watchdog NewsGuard. “The vast majority of the sites spreading election misinformation a year ago have continued to promote the narrative that the election was not legitimate, while defending, downplaying, or redirecting blame for the riot,” noted the report, which did not name the brands.

Speaking of misinformation, one day after Twitter permanently banned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account for spreading Covid-19 misinformation, Facebook also suspended the Republican from Georgia’s personal account – but for only 24 hours. “A post violated our policies and we have removed it, but removing her account for this violation is beyond the scope of our policies,” explained a Facebook spokesperson.

Airlines for America has filed an emergency petition asking the FCC to stop the January 5 rollout of new 5G service near airports. A delay was also requested by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and aviation regulators until studies can prove the signals won’t disrupt airplane instruments. Verizon and AT&T had said Sunday that they plan to move forward with the service. “Spectrum interference disputes typically involve simultaneous transmissions on the same frequencies. But radio altimeters do not operate on, or anywhere near, the C-Band frequencies,” wrote AT&T CEO John Stankey and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg in a letter to Buttigieg and Stephen Dickson of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Twitter closed the sale of MoPub to AppLovin Corporation for $1.05 billion in cash. “With the sale of MoPub completed, we continue to concentrate our efforts on enhancing ads across our platform. Our goal is to deliver faster growth in key areas and accelerate our product development,” said Bruce Falck, GM of Revenue Products, Twitter.

Users of BlackBerry devices running on BlackBerry OS 7.1 and BlackBerry 10 will lose access to data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality starting today. Which should surprise no one – the shutdown was announced in 2020. “We have chosen to extend our service until [January 4] as an expression of thanks to our loyal partners and customers,” said the company.

Stay tuned as Sports Media Awards, celebrating its 10th anniversary, releases this year’s award categories on Monday, January 10th.

VIEW LAST YEARS WINNERS

CBS’ “S.W.A.T.” drew 3.7 million viewers and 0.4 among A18-49 in its new Sunday perch, a season low but an improvement over the final episodes of “SEAL Team” (3.5 million/0.4) in the timeslot, according to early Nielsens. NBC topped the night with “Sunday Night Football” averaging an impressive 14.3 million viewers and 3.7 in the demo.

In 4Q21, Fox News’ 5p weekday show “The Five” became the first non-primetime program to rank #1 in total viewers in cable news for a full quarter, with 3.296 million viewers.

Shareablee Top 10 Streaming Shows for the week of December 27
Program, Platform, Total Actions, Total Content, Actions per Content, Fans & Followers
Cobra Kai (Netflix), 2.8m, 60, 47,363, 3.3m
Euphoria (HBO Max), 2.5m, 4, 629,758, 3.1m
Umbrella Academy (Netflix), 1.3m, 12, 108,800, 4.6m
Insecure (HBO Max), 1.2m, 94, 12,459, 1m
The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+), 1.2m, 43, 27,141, 129k
The Witcher (Netflix), 668k, 29, 23,030, 2.2m
Get Organized With The Home Edit (Netflix), 475k, 37, 12,824, 5.9m
Hawkeye (Disney+), 397k, 27, 14,696, 553k
Queer Eye (Netflix), 385k, 33, 11,655, 2.7m
Nanatsu No Taizai (Netflix),346k, 73, 4,736, 1m
Netflix is a Joke (YouTube), 251k, 52, 4,821, 2.5m
You (Netflix), 217k, 3, 72,444, 1.9m

Broadcast Nielsen Ratings for Thursday, December 30
Show, P2+ 000s, (A18-49)
ABC: Frozen 2.25 (0.3), Home Economics 0.95 (0.2), Home Economics 0.81 (0.1)
CBS: Young Sheldon 4.17 (0.4), United States of Al 3.07 (0.3), Ghosts 2.94 (0.3), B Positive 2.42 (0.2), Bull 2.42 (0.2)
CW: iHeartRadio 0.56 (0.1)
Fox: All Madden 1.86 (0.4), Call Me Kat 0.92 (0.2)
NBC: Law & Order: SVU 2.30 (0.2), Law & Order: SVU 2.42 (0.3), Law & Order: Organized Crime 1.95 (0.3)
Source: Nielsen live + same day time period averages

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Jeannae Rouzan-Clay has been promoted to SVP of Specials at Jesse Collins Entertainment. Rouzan-Clay had been VP of Specials.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question
Which actor played two of Rose’s boyfriends on “The Golden Girls” (1985-92)? Harold Gould guested as Arnie, and later recurred as Miles. Kudos to: Ray Ellin-Aruba Ray Worldwide/Palm Beach, Aruba; Christalyn Hampton-Wright Now Casting/Atlanta; Vern Calhouhn-Vertcal Productions/NYC; Rhonda Seaton-AccuWeather/State College, PA; William King-NBCUniversal/Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Sandy Spiegel-WTTW/Chicago; Paul Blutter-Walk and Talk Production Rentals-Burbank; David Garber-Loyola Marymount University/Playa Vista, CA; Cherie Wall-Sandbox Entertainment/Nashville; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA

Today’s Trivia Question
Which two-time Academy Award winner guested on her brother’s sitcom as a child? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four answers per time zone.)