Amazon Taps NBC Veteran Krishan Bhatia to Lead Steaming-Video Ad-Sales Team

Fallout has become Amazon Prime Video's second most-watched series of all time.

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has renewed its content partnership with the NFL.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The three media companies planning to launch a much-scrutinized sports streamer later this year are set to give advertisers a sneak peek at the new outlet. Fox, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery plan to use their new streaming joint-venture — the official name of the video hub has yet to be announced — to boost the impressions they have to sell to Madison Avenue during the industry’s annual “upfront” market, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox Corp. has slimmed down since it sold the bulk of its cable and studio assets to Walt Disney Co. in 2019, but its new head of ad sales is eager to take on bigger rivals.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The Onion has a new owner: a company called “Global Tetrahedron,” which is a real thing based on a fake entity invented by the satire site more than two decades ago. G/O Media, a private-equity backed firm that has owned The Onion since 2019, sold the site to a new Chicago-based firm called Global Tetrahedron, which is “made up of four digital media veterans with a profound love for The Onion and comedy-based content,” G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said in a memo to staff Thursday. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

EXCLUSIVE: Noah Hawley has named Michael Garcia as President of 26 Keys, his Austin-based production banner. Hawley has additionally brought on Maddy Bilder as Project Director at the company. Garcia and Bilder join 26 Keys as Hawley continues to grow and build the company’s overall slate of film and television projects.

K.J. Yossman Wondery U.K. has hired Spotify exec Chris Baughen as its new head of podcasts.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Mattel Television Studios has tapped three new executives for key roles: Sidney Clifton as head of creative for animation, Cory Bennett Lewis as head of production, and Amy Suh as head of creative for live action, scripted and unscripted. The trio of execs will report directly to Mattel Television Studios chief Michelle Mendelovitz. “We are thrilled to welcome Sidney, Cory and Amy to Mattel,” Mendelovitz said.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Jo Ann Ross, the first woman to run a broadcast TV network’s ad-sales efforts and one of the last senior ad-sales executives in the TV industry to hold direct relationships with advertisers when primetime broadcast programs were seen as the primary venue for Madison Avenue’s dollars, is leaving the industry, stepping down from her role as chairman of Paramount Global‘s ad sales division at the end of April. Ross had already stepped back from day to day duties, ceding that role to John Halley, who was named president of ad sales for the company in 2022.

Taylor Swift has announced that the first single from ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ will be ‘Fortnight’, featuring Post Malone.The pop star’s 11th studio record arrives tomorrow (April 19) – the follow-up to 2022’s Grammy-winning ‘Midnights’ – and anticipation is at a fever pitch among her fans.With the album dropping at midnight, fans will be able to hear the full record in its entirety before the single’s release, but at 8pm ET, or 1am UK time on Saturday morning, Swift will also release the video for ‘Fortnight’.Sharing the news on Instagram, Swift wrote: The first single from The Tortured Poets Department is…………. Fortnight featuring @postmalone.”A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)“I’ve been such a huge fan of Post because of the writer he is, his musical experimentation and those melodies he creates that just stick in your head forever.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent In a big move to plant their flag internationally, leading Hollywood talent agency CAA has appointed Alex McGuire to oversee the firm’s sports media representation efforts throughout the U.K. and Europe.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony’s 3000 Pictures has set Justin Kuritzkes to adapt City on Fire, the first of a bestselling novel trilogy by Don Winslow that is being developed as a star vehicle for Austin Butler.

Longtime NBC ad sales executive Krishan Bhatia has landed at Amazon as VP, Global Video Advertising Sales, a new position for a new team within ad sales focused on streaming TV offerings across live sports, Amazon Freevee, Twitch, Prime Video ads, and third-party publishers.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor John Dahl, an ESPN veteran who helped produce the much-lauded Michael Jordan documentary “The Last Dance,” is getting into gear at NASCAR, where he will lead new efforts to connect to fans with content. Dahl has been named senior vice president of content, and will start in his new role on May 1.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CBS is forecasting that viewer interest in the ins and outs of national weather is about to gain new wind. Wendy Fisher, a longtime senior executive at ABC News who ran its newsgathering operations, has been named to lead a newly formed national weather-news operation that will work with both national and local news programs across CBS’ news-and-stations unit. “This is a significant team effort, as Weather coverage plays a role in virtually every program produced by CBS News and Stations,” said Adrienne Roark, president of content development and integration for the Paramount Global division, in a memo sent to staffers Monday.

Dominic Burgess is opening up about the sex scene that he shot with Kim Kardashian for American Horror Story: Delicate.

Video-hosting platform Vimeo has named Philip Moyer as its new CEO, effective Apr. 8.

Universal Studio Group has found its new business affairs chief – three months after the departure of Masami Yamamoto.

K.J. Yossman Studiocanal has tapped former Netflix exec M-K Kennedy as its new head of TV.

Their first on-screen romance came in 2019 feature Top End Wedding, and now Miranda Tapsell and Gwilym Lee are getting in the loving mood for a Prime Video Australia series.