Fox, Paramount See Dollars Move to Sports, Streaming in Weak TV Upfront

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Dana Perino has long relied on a panel of experts and trusted sources to help guide her sense of the political landscape. Now she’s going to let some followers listen to her conversations with them. Fox News Audio will launch “Perino on Politics,” a new weekly podcast hosted by the co-host of Fox News Channel’s “The Five” and the co-anchor of its “America’s Newsroom.” The program, which will launch on August 21 — the week of the first debate among Republican presidential candidates — will last throughout the 2024 election cycle, Perino says.

Viet Dinh, a key strategic and business leader at Fox Corp. and a longtime consiglieri in the Murdoch empire, is leaving his executive post in the wake of the Fox News settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Viet Dinh, the influential general counsel of Fox Corp. who is believed to have played a significant role in the company’s failed legal strategy against a massive defamation suit filed against it by Dominion Voting Systems, is leaving his role at the media conglomerate at the end of the year.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Madison Avenue pulled hundreds of millions of dollars out of primetime TV and sent them to streaming venues in the industry’s recently completed “upfront” market, the latest sign that one of the media sector’s most stable mediums is in an era of severe flux. Ad commitments for primetime broadcast TV fell 3%, to $9.595 billion, compared with $9.91 billion in last year’s market, according to Media Dynamics Inc., an advertising consultancy that tracks the upfront, when U.S. TV networks try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory for their next programming cycle.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Bleacher Report has a new type of game to analyze. Surf on over to the sports-commentary site that has been part of the Warner Bros. Discovery stable since 2012, and you’ll see the usual stuff: a ranking of the best superstar duos in the NBA; speculation over whether the Atlanta Hawks will trade for the Toronto Raptors’ Shams Chanria; and an aggregation of a story about the Kansas City Chiefs and defensive tackle Chris Jones.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor ESPN muscled aside the upstart Barstool Sports and struck a major sports-betting pact with operator Penn Entertainment that will put the Disney-owner sports giant into gaming and wagering in a major way.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor A tough advertising market sent dollars toward Disney’s sports and streaming properties, the company said Tuesday, but not flocking at the same rate to its traditional TV networks. “Overall revenue and volume commitments made in the Upfront are in line with the prior year,” the company said in a statement.

Fox Corp. revenue stayed flat in the quarter ending June 30 compared with the year-earlier period, but it matched Wall Street analysts’ consensus estimate as earnings beat expectations.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox Corp. relied more heavily on its ability to drive revenue from the transmission of the Fox broadcast network and its Fox stations, as it grappled with downturns in advertising during its fiscal fourth quarter. The owner of Fox News, Fox Sports and the Fox broadcast network said it generated profit of $375 million, or 74 cents per share, compared with $306 million, or 55 per share in the year-earlier period.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Tom Cruise helped Paramount Global’s operations do good business last year, but he wasn’t able to lend a similar boost in the second quarter of 2023. The New York owner of CBS, Nickelodeon and the Paramount movie studio posted a second-quarter loss after ad revenue at its various TV networks sunk 10% and the company proved unable to devise a movie hit a movie hit on the order of last year’s “Top Gun: Maverick.” The tough results on the company’s linear side came even as it saw robust performance from streaming.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Paramount Global is near a deal to sell its Simon & Schuster publishing operations to investment giant KKR for as much as $1.62 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. Paramount Global, the owner of CBS, Paramount+ and Nickelodeon, is expected to report its second-quarter earnings Monday afternoon.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery appears to have bigger digital plans for Charles Barkley and Anderson Cooper. Warner Bros.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery trimmed its losses in its second quarter but saw revenue fall in key areas such as advertising and content production as the company, built from a merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery Communications, continues to navigate shifting terrain in the media sector.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Fox Corp.’s Tubi, its free, ad-supported streaming TV service, has pounced on two high-profile Fantasia titles, led by “Where the Devil Roams,” the Adams family’s follow-up to “Hellbender,” Rotten Tomatoes No. 1 movie on its Top 10 of best-rated horror films of 2022, just besting Eskil Vogt’s “The Innocents.” Estimating that it reaches 64 million monthly active users, Tubi also pounced on doc feature “Satan Wants You,” which world premiered at March’s SXSW.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor While its English-language competitors had to grapple with price reductions in this year’s TV upfront market, Spanish-language giant TelevisaUnivision was able to do the opposite. The owner of the Univision broadcast network and the Vix streaming hub was able to increase the volume of ad commitments it secured in upfront talks, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Fox Corp. and Flutter Entertainment are shuttering sports betting platform Fox Bet in a phased closure between July 31 and August 31.

CBS and Fox weighed in on their upfronts today, following NBC last week. CBS has closed its 2024 selling season up “low-to-mid single digits” in dollar commitments. Fox Corp. showed gains in news and is looking at a fall slate of sports, animated and unsripted content.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor ESPN’s “SportsCenter” has long seemed like a bastion of guy TV. Not tonight. When ESPN viewers tune in to the 11 p.m.

Mike Biard, a 23-year veteran of Fox Corp., has been appointed president and chief operating officer of Nexstar, the No. 1 owner of local TV stations in the U.S. and the parent of The CW and NewsNation.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor TelevisaUnivision is speaking a different language in TV’s weakened upfront market. Where most media companies and media buyers expect the overall volume of ad commitments to decline owing to a tough economy and a Hollywood work stoppage, the Spanish broadcaster is anticipating gains and even rate hikes. “We expect to fare better than the market on pricing” said TelevisaUnivsion CEO Wade Davis during a call with investors Thursday, a reference to measures known as CPMs, or the cost of reaching 1,000 viewers. In many cases, according to media buyers and other executives, advertisers have called for “rollbacks” of as much as 5%,’ with sports the only category notching true positive gains.