Skip a newsletter last week? “In Case You Missed It” rounds up the top stories in our daily editions, so you can be up on the latest news, Cynopsis-style, in the worlds of linear, digital, and sports television. Enjoy!
Brian Williams isn’t leaving NBC, but he is officially handing over the NBC Nightly News anchor chair to fill-in Lester Holt. Williams, four months into a six-month suspension for embellishing reporting experiences, will instead have a role at cable news net MSNBC, and serve as breaking news anchor for NBC News live reports when Holt is unavailable. An extensive review revealed that while Williams had made a number of inaccurate statements about his experiences covering news, “The statements in question did not for the most part occur on NBC News platforms or in the immediate aftermath of the news events, but rather on late night programming and during public appearances, usually years after the news events in question.” As for Holt, the first African-American solo anchor of a broadcast net’s evening news, “Lester has done outstanding work for NBC News over the last 10 years,” said NBC News chairman Andrew Lack, “and he’s performed remarkably well over the last few months under very tough circumstances.”
FX snatched worldwide television rights to Jurassic World. The Universal blockbuster, which just had the biggest film opening ever with a U.S. take of $208.8 million, will air exclusively on FX, FXX and FXM. FX has already grabbed Taken 3, Pitch Perfect 2 and Kingsman: The Secret Service.
New live-action preschool series Mutt & Stuff, from Sid and Marty Krofft and Bradley Zewig premieres on Nickelodeon Friday, July 10 at 10p. Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan and his son Calvin Millan star with canines both real and imaginary.
Talk about 20/20 vision: Over-the-top programming and video revenue will bring in $51.1 billion by the year 2020, according to a new report from Digital TV Research. The revenue predicted in the next five years will nearly double the $26 billion expected to roll in this year. The U.S. will remain the top market in OTT and video revenue, and increase $16.6 billion by 2020 to $19.1 billion. However, SVOD will overtake OTT advertising to become the largest revenue in 2020. SVOD revenue will rise to $21.6 billion in 2020. The 2010 U.S. SVOD revenue raked in $753 million, and it will hit $6.5 billion in 2020.
YouTube is ramping up the video game live streaming competition this summer. After Amazonsnatched up Twitch in a $1 billion deal from Google a year ago, YT is now working on its own site and app dedicated to video game live streams. Called YouTube Gaming, there will be a page for each of the 25,000 featured games with live streams. Alan Joyce, YT’s Product Manager, wrote in a blog, “You can search with confidence, knowing that typing ‘call’ will show you ‘Call of Duty’ and not ‘Call Me Maybe.’” The announcement was made in advance of the Electronic Entertainment Expo(E3) from June 16-18 in Los Angeles.
SPORTS
Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, which saw the Blackhawks clinch the prize on Monday night, handed NBC with an average of 8.005 million viewers and a 4.44 HH rating, according to Nielsen, which would mark the third-most watched Stanley Cup Final Game 6 in history. Overall, the series averaged 5.551 million viewers and a 3.19 HH rating across NBC and NBCSN, for the second-most watched Final series on record, behind only the 2013 series. Meanwhile, the company reports that the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs averaged 1.430 million viewers for the company, which is the third-most watched post-season for the sport in 18 years.
The 2015 NBA Finals finished with a boom, benefitting ABC as the Warriors victory helped the series rank as the most-watched and highest-rated ever on ABC, according to Nielsen. The six-game series averaged 19,939,000 viewers with an 11.6 U.S. household rating, up 30% and 26% respectively, over the 2014 slate. The deciding Game 6 scored an average audience of 23,254,000 viewers with a 13.4 score. Meanwhile, the NBA Finals on ESPN Deportes averaged a 0.7 Hispanic Household Rating with 144,000 Hispanic viewers to tie with 2014 as the highest-rated ever in Spanish-language.