HGTV renewed “Flip or Flop” for season 10, to premiere in late 2021. Season nine ranks as the # 1 cable premiere among M25-54, upscale P25-54, upscale M25-54, Households and P2+, and the # 2 cable premiere among P25-54, W25-54 and upscale W25-54 in Thursday prime, according to Nielsen.

William Jackson Harper (“The Good Life”) landed the lead in season two of HBO Max anthology series “Love Life.” This season will focus on a man coming out of a long-term relationship and plunged back into the search for romantic fulfillment.

QUARTERLY RESULTS

Discovery Inc. reported total revenues of $2.6 billion, down 4% from the year-prior quarter. Profit rose to $300 million, from $262 million, even as ad revenue dipped 8%. TLC led Discovery brands, beating top-rated sports and news networks in primetime demos, “even in a record year for cable news,” noted President and CEO David Zaslav. “And as promised, our healthy liquidity position and another robust quarter of free cash flow generation allowed us to return $228 million to shareholders through share repurchases. In the midst of macroeconomic uncertainty with the ongoing COVID pandemic, as well as the continuing evolution of our industry, we remain focused on positioning Discovery for long-term growth and shareholder value creation through the execution of our strategic priorities, including our next generation initiatives.”

In an earnings call, Zaslav said plans for a DTC offering have gelled, and “In early December, we will come out with the whole package.” Zaslav also addressed T-Mobile’s re-bundling of cable channels for its rebranded live-TV service, TVision. “Let’s just characterize it this way: We’re in active discussions with them to quickly resolve that issue,” he said. “We don’t believe they have a right to do what they’re doing right now. And they know – it’s very clear to them and they’re focused on it.”

Roku revenue spiked 73% from 3Q19, reaching a profit of 9 cents a diluted share, versus a loss of 22 cents a year ago and estimates of a loss of 4 cents. The company now has 46 million active accounts, compared to 32.3 million in the same period in 2019. “When released from their annual TV upfront commitments, marketers took the opportunity to reallocate advertising spend more aggressively toward TV streaming,” the company told shareholders.

Meredith Corp.’s Local Media Group’s saw revenue of $226 million for the quarter, up 17% from the same quarter in 2019. Advertising revenue rose 20%, to $131 million, while retrans consent revenue rose 14.8%, to $91.4 million. TV group political revenues for the fiscal quarter ending September 30 were a record-breaking 43% over 2018, and the dollars are still rolling in – President/CEO Tom Harty said the company expects to collect more ad revenue with at least one Senate runoff election.

Nexstar Media Group 3Q results included net revenue of $1.1 billion, up 68.5% from $664 million in the same quarter last year, reflecting the impact of the acquisition of Tribune Media in September. Core ad revenue was up 31.6%, to $382 million, and political ad revenue rose 583%, to $21.6 million. Distribution fee revenue grew 83%, to $538 million.

Gray Television announced revenue totaled $604 million, up 17% from 3Q19. Core revenue totaled $237 million, down 14%. “As anticipated, COVID-19 continued to have an adverse impact upon our business in the third quarter of 2020, although our results continue to recover,” said the company. “In particular, while our total revenue increased by 17%, in the third quarter of 2020, our combined local and national broadcast revenue, excluding political revenue (‘total core revenue’), for the third quarter 2020 only decreased by approximately 14% compared to the third quarter of 2019.”

NEW SERIES

“Trolls: TrollsTopia” lands on Hulu and Peacock on Thursday, November 19. The animated series is inspired by the 2016 DreamWorks Animation film, Trolls. Also coming to Peacock, on Thursday, November 9: DreamWorks’ “The Mighty Ones.”

Mini-series “Wara,” focused on a university caught between students and campus legislation, makes its US debut on Tuesday, November 10 at 11:30p on TV5Monde USA.

AXS TV’s “Music’s Greatest Mysteries,” makes its debut Sunday, November 15 at 9p. The new original series investigates headline-grabbing myths involving musical artists from the past and present.

COMING UP

The series finale of AXS TV’s “Rock & Roll Road Trip with Sammy Hagar” will air live on Sunday, November 8 at 9p. Broadcasting from North Hollywood’s Woodshed Studios, the show features never-before-seen footage, retrospectives, bloopers, live performances and special guests.

BBC America celebrates the late Sean Connery with a James Bond marathon today. First up: 1962’s “Dr. No” at 3:30p. Connery died October 31 at age 90.

Additional performers for the CMA Awards include Jason Aldean, Jimmie Allen, Ingrid Andress, Dierks Bentley, Brothers Osborne, Dan + Shay with Justin Bieber, Jenee Fleenor, Little Big Town, Old Dominion, Jon Pardi, Carly Pearce and Lee Brice, Keith Urban, and Morgan. Hosted by Reba McEntire and Darius Rucker, “The 54th Annual CMA Awards” will broadcast live from Nashville on Wednesday, November 11 at 8p on ABC.

STREAMING SCOOP

TEGNA has completed an update of its stations’ over-the-top streaming apps on Roku, and announced plans to launch OTT streaming apps for its stations on Amazon Fire TV by the end of 2020. TEGNA’s station apps offer streaming viewers free, ad-supported access to live news and recent news broadcasts, breaking news and weather forecasts, in addition to VERIFY fact-checking reports and TEGNA’s live entertainment program, Daily Blast LIVE. A new “Watch” feature has also been launched on stations’ websites and mobile apps. And TEGNA’s True Crime Network app is now available on Roku, after an initial launch on Amazon Fire TV and other platforms in August.

GOING GLOBAL

Woodcut Media and Keshet International announced Season 5 of “Britain’s Most Evil Killers” and “World’s Most Evil Killers” have been commissioned by SKY Crime.

Spiral International has secured a pan-regional deal with Disney Channel Latin America for “Holly Hobbie.” The new music-driven series is produced by Aircraft Pictures and Holly Hobbie brand owner Cloudco Entertainment in association with Wexworks Media.

The attention span of the younger audience is elusive and harder than ever to capture and keep! Which is why Cynopsis is thrilled to honor the breakthrough campaigns and innovative content in the kids, tween and teen media sector. These are the companies that are ahead of the curve and manage to thrive with this tough (but fun) demographic.

VIEW CATEGORIES ENTER BY 11/19

Presidential election coverage on 21 TV networks from 8p-11p averaged 56.9 million viewers on November 3, versus 71.4 million on 13 networks in 2016, according to Nielsen. OOH and CTV viewing were included in the 2020 total.

On Wednesday night, as Americans waited for the results of the election, CNN was #1 in primetime with an average 7.1 million viewers. The news net also topped the news demo.

Through eight weekends, viewership for NFL games is 14.5 million, down 8% from last year, amid a sports crunch due to COVID-19 sports scheduling shifts. NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” has slipped 17%, to 16.1 million viewers, while ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” is down just 1%, to 11.2 million viewers.

Spectrum News’ local Decision 2020 Election Night coverage posted a +65% increase (versus the previous 30 weekdays) in Nielsen household ratings during the 7p-2a time period, the highest increase in ratings compared to the broadcast networks across nine metered markets where Spectrum News is available: Austin, Charlotte, Greensboro, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Raleigh, San Antonio and Tampa.

Nielsen Top 10 SVOD Content Ratings for the week of October 5
(SVOD, Show, # of episodes, minutes in millions)
Netflix: Schitt’s Creek, 80, 1,456
Netflix: The Haunting of Bly Manor, 9, 1,175
Netflix: Hubie Halloween 1, 969
Netflix: The Office, 192, 862
Amazon: The Boys, 16, 752
Netflix: Emily in Paris, 10, 676
Netflix: Grey’s Anatomy, 361, 668
Netflix: The 100, 100, 664
Netflix: Criminal Minds, 277, 656
Netflix: The Blacklist, 152, 644
Source: Nielsen SVOD Content Ratings (Amazon Prime, Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix), Nielsen National TV Panel, U.S. Viewing through Television. Data does not yet reflect viewing to the program Evil, and will be updated next week if it does achieve Top 10 status.

Broadcast Nielsen Ratings for Wednesday, November 4
Show, P2+ 000s, (A18-49)
ABC: The Goldbergs 3.78 (0.8), American Housewife 3.14 (0.6), The Conners 4.00 (0.7), black-ish 2.39 (0.5), Your Voice 2.61 (0.5)
CBS Amazing Race 4.03 (0.7), S.W.A.T. 1.65 (0.3), Campaign 2020 1.99 (0.4)
CW: Devils 0.42 (0.1), Coroner 068 (0.1)
FOX: The Masked Singer 6.56 (1.7), I Can See Your Voice 4.38 (1.1)
NBC: Decision ’20 4.03 (0.9), Decision ’20 3.53 (0.9)
Telemundo: Domo del Dinero 0.83, Todo Por Mi Hija 1.39, Falsa Identidad 0.76
Univision: Rosa de Guadelupe 1.84 (0.6), Imperio de Mentiras 1.32 (0.4), Dulce Ambicion 1.12 (0.3)
Source: Nielsen, live + same day time period averages

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Kantar appointed Chris Petranto as Global Head of Kantar Analytics. Petranto, who has been with Kantar since 2004, replaces Gonzalo Fuentes, who has taken on a new role as Chief Operating Officer for the Insights division of the company.

ViacomCBS Networks International announced that Jarrod Villani will join Beverley McGarvey, Chief Content Officer and EVP, as co-lead of ViacomCBS Australia and New Zealand. Most recently, Villani was Queensland’s Head of Restructuring and Brisbane’s Head of Office at KordaMentha.

IN MEMORIAM

Actress Elsa Raven died November 3. She was 91. In addition to film roles, Raven appeared on TV’s “Amen,” “Wiseguy” and “Days of Our Lives,” among others.