MSNBC Anchor Hit Parade Assails Ronna McDaniel Hire at NBC News; ‘Inexplicable,’ Says Rachel Maddow

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor As Amazon ramps up its efforts to woo ad dollars that once were earmarked for traditional TV, it is also luring ad executives who tried to capture that money for TV networks. Krishan Bhatia, previously a senior executive at NBCUniversal who ran the business aspects of the company’s ad-sales division, is joining Amazon as vice president of global video advertising for Amazon Ads. He will be charged with leading a global sales seeking to monetize Amazon’s growing video operations tied to sports, Freevee, Twitch and Prime Video.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Richard Leibner, a celebrated talent agent who represented some of the best-known anchors in TV news, first at a firm he helped build and then for UTA, died Tuesday after a battle with cancer. He was 85 years old. In his time, Leibner served as an agent and adviser to Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Morley Safer, Bob Simon, Steve Kroft, Bill Whitaker, Diane Sawyer, Chuck Scarborough, Paula Zahn, Brian Stelter and Fareed Zakaria, among others.

Emiliano De Pablos In a move that could suggest the start of a promising future for Portuguese telenovelas in Spain, sales house Onza Distribution has sold primetime hit soap “Cacau” (“Cacao”) to Mediaset España, one of the country’s two big commercial free-to-air broadcasters. Premiering Jan. 15 in Portugal via broadcaster TVI, the telenovela scored a standout 19.5% ( 861,944 viewers) audience share on its debut.

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.

returning to the storied late-night franchise for the first time since he dramatically left it in 2010 after his public spat with NBC: the Nimrod Broadcasting Corporation.To quote that network in the 1990s: It’s must-see TV. Why? Conan is one of the last hosts who purely entertained us before the format devolved into tedious, partisan political lectures — and is always a riot. (Fallon doesn’t act like Rachel Maddow, but he’s not entertaining either).More grippingly, though, revenge is in the air.

A TikTok user has gone viral for her hot take — or should we say, not-hot take? — about the women of Saturday Night Live!

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Lord of the Rings,” “Elvis” and “Faraway Downs” star David Wenham is to reprise one of other his best-known roles in upcoming feature “SPIT.” The picture is a sequel to 2003 comedy crime thriller “Gettin’ Square,” in which Wenham played Johnny ‘Spit’ Spitteri, a recently-released ex-convict and Sam Worthington (“Avatar”) played an older brother trying to keep the kid out of trouble. Production of “SPIT” has got underway in Gold Coast and Brisbane, Queensland and will continue through May. The new film is directed by ‘Gettin’ Square” and “The Railway Man” director Jonathan Teplitzky, from a screenplay by Queensland-based writer and lawyer Christopher Nyst. It is produced by Trish Lake of Queensland-based Freshwater Pictures alongside Greg Duffy, Felicity McVay and Wenham. It received major production investment from Screen Australia with local distribution by Transmission Films and international rights sales managed by Moviehouse Entertainment.

Fire away.Before Donald Trump was the 45th president of the United States, he was the host of a little show called “The Apprentice.”The NBC business-competition show ran for 15 seasons, with the entrepreneur helming the round table from 2004 until 2017.Trump left the show in 2015 so he could focus on his presidential campaign — a race he won a year later. In author Ramin Setoodeh’s forthcoming book, “Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass,” Trump reveals that he wanted his daughter Ivanka Trump to sub in for him on the show.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Romantic comedy series “Top End Bub” will begin production next month in Australia as a sequel to hit 2019 feature film “Top End Wedding.” Stars Miranda Tapsell (“The Sapphires”) and Gwilym Lee (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) will reprise their roles. The series is created, executive produced and written by “Top End Wedding” writers Joshua Tyler and Tapsell and produced by Goalpost Pictures.

Colin Jost and Michael Che took shots at Donald Trump and Ronna McDaniel on Saturday Night Live‘s “Weekend Update.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor One of the benefits of hosting any sort of news or discussion program on TV is an authorization to talk. Now some TV journalists and personalities are also being given permission to bite. NBCUniversal needs to get out the proverbial Bactine after being savaged earlier this week by many of its top news personalities over the hire made by NBC News executives of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel.

NBC News has cut ties with former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, just days after she was announced as a paid analyst for the network. There had been a growing internal backlash at the division over her hire.

Ronna McDaniel is out at NBC News.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CAA, the agency that helped broker the recent deal that brought former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel to NBC News as a political analyst, has parted ways with her, according to a person familiar with the matter, as she wrangles with the media outlet over appropriate terms for an exit. McDaniel has been advised to seek an attorney to represent her, this person said. A representative for CAA did not respond immediately to a query seeking comment.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel has only appeared once on NBC News programming in her new capacity as a political news contributor, and already, senior executives are gathering to conduct a review. Top executives from NBC News were expected to meet Tuesday to hash out the growing controversy around her recent hire, according to two people familiar with the matter, in a bid to stop a growing insurrection by the NBCUniversal unit’s editorial staff.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Ronna McDaniel was supposed to be the new star contributor at NBC News. Now her position there is looking increasingly untenable. NBC News hired the former Republican National Committee chief last week, betting that her recent access to the Trump campaign and Republican politicians would make her a valuable analyst as the 2024 election cycle intensified.

MSNBC‘s Morning Joe co-anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski called on NBC News to reconsider its decision to hire former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Chuck Todd left moderating duties at “Meet The Press” behind several months ago, but he isn’t through with the show yet. During a surprising appearance on Sunday’s broadcast of the program on NBC, Todd took issue with a decision to hire former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as an NBC News contributor, then put her on “Meet The Press” for an interview with current moderator Kristen Welker, who had booked McDaniel prior to the hiring becoming known.

NBC News is facing an internal and external backlash over its hiring of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor, with critics blasting the decision given her past support of Donald Trump’s unfounded election claims.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Ronna McDaniel is no doubt going to create a lot of sound and fury over at NBC News. Shakespeare could tell you what it’s all going to signify.