NBC Hopes ‘Night Court’ Ad Model Will Preside Over Linear and Digital Dollars During TV Upfront

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor When NBC News announced in January that Hallie Jackson, its senior Washington correspondent, would leave the anchoring duties she had held at MSNBC since 2016, some eyebrows rose. But NBC News was chasing something else on the rise: Digital audiences. Since Jackson began anchoring a late-afternoon hour on NBC News Now in December 2021, a growing audience has sought her out. Viewership surged 108% over the course of a year. “You don’t see those numbers in many businesses,” says Janelle Rodriguez, the NBC News executive vice president who oversees the streaming outlet, in an interview. “When you see that level of audience increase, you know you are on to something,” On Monday, Jackson will double her time on her program, “Hallie Jackson Now,” to two hours, which means she will hold forth from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Khloé Kardashian's revenge body was the product of some serious struggles in her personal life. The 38-year-old reality star opened up to about her obsession with her weight in the aftermath of her split from Lamar Odom.«The reason why I turned to the gym was actually through my divorce,» she shared of her 2013 split from Lamar. «I didn't really know what to do.»The former couple met in 2009 and got married one month later.

's season 48 just announced the latest comedy powerhouse they've tapped to host the celebrated sketch comedy series: star and creator Quinta Brunson! The acclaimed comedic actress is set to host April 1.This season, the new cast has looked quite a bit different, with four fresh new faces after a surprising exodus of long-time cast members — including veteran castmember Cecily Strong, who departed the show mid-season during the last episode of 2022. However, the new group have been coming together for a strong series of episodes over the past few months.Check out the full list of the hosts and musical guests who have lent their talent to Season 48, and who are set to take the stage in the weeks to come. Check back as the season progresses, as the list will be updated regularly as new hosts and musical guests are announced.

Khloé Kardashian is opening up about the relationship she had with her weight after splitting from Lamar Odom.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Nexstar Media has spent months assembling a massive roster of TV stations; acquring TV’s CW network; and building the NewsNation cable-news oulet. Now comes the hard part: Getting Madison Avenue to buy ads across all of it. The nation’s largest owner of local TV outlets is ready to make its pitch to advertisers and has already scheduled a presentation for media buyers in New York for April 25. The goal, says Michael Strober, the company’s chief revenue officer, is to showcase the company’s reach among both national and local media. “We can bring local and national to our clients in ways that have never been replicated across the country,” he says in an interview. “The CW, NewsNation, TheHill, Nexstar Digital and over 200 local stations — that to me is our differentiator in the marketplace.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Everything seems like it’s going great at Fox Corporation, except for the fact that everything seems like it isn’t. While speaking at an investor conference Thursday, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch praised his family’s decision to sell off a large swath of cable and studio assets to Walt Disney Co. in 2019, a move that left Fox significantly smaller and focused largely on live TV, mainly news and sports. He even brought up a reference to the 1979 comedy “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” in which a small combatant unencumbered with armor or muscle is able to survive a colosseum fight after his larger opponent suffers a heart attack. “We are the little guy,” said Murdoch. “We are going to be the one that survives.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Max Meyers has at least one firm rule about his new CNBC program, and it might surprise some of the business-news outlet’s die-hards. “I told everyone, ‘No earnings,’” says Meyers, a veteran producer at the NBCUniversal-backed cable network. “I don’t want to hear that.” No net income on CNBC? Such a dictate would be anathema on “Squawk Box,” the morning-news program that Meyers previously ran, but it might just stick on “Last Call,” a new 7 p.m. effort from CNBC executives that aims to keep business-news aficionados hanging out with the network until later in the evening. Over the past week, anchor Brian Sullivan, who is moving from a 5 a.m. roost on “Worldwide Exchange” to anchor the new evening show, has held forth on everything from Tesla to Salesforce during rehearsals, ready to give late-breaking news to CNBC’s market faithful.

Antonio Colak has urged Rangers to keep the head in the Easter Road cauldron on Wednesday and ensure the only “chaos” is in Hibs’ defence.

EXCLUSIVE: The Sturniolo Triplets and Bob the Drag Queen, who have over 35M online followers combined, are among the digital creators that form part of Studio71’s latest podcast slate.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie both returned to their duties on NBC’s “Today” after dealing with personal challenges that kept both anchors off air for several days. Kotb, who had been off the program for abouttwo weeks, told viewers Monday that her youngest daughter had been in intensive care in the hospital for an undisclosed illness, but had recently returned home. Guthrie had to leave the program abruptly last week after discovering she had a new coronavirus infection. The two anchors addressed their absences early in the program, during the broadcast’s opening minutes. The departure of the show’s regular co-anchors came after “Today’ defeated ABC rival “Good Morning America” in the critical advertiser-favored demographic — people between 25 and 54 — for the first time in five weeks. “Today” and “GMA” are locked in an eternal battle for dominance among A.M. audiences ,but “Today,” which once dominated its rival in the advertiser demo, has been trying to parry against an incursion by “GMA” in the category.

Fans of ITV’s Love Island have had it with Olivia Hawkins’ “jarring and rude” habit of rolling her eyes when her fellow islanders are talking. Following a rather slow start to the series, Love Island kicked up the temperature in recent episodes as arguments seem to be brewing between several of this year’s islanders.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor ESPN is getting in on the biggest game at corporate parent Disney: shuffling top executive ranks in the wake of the return of CEO Bob Iger. ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro handed oversight of content and newsgathering to Burke Magnus, a veteran executive who has helped the sports-media giant strike sports-rights deals with most of the major sports leagues as well as set in motion new content initiatives. Magnus has been named president of content, according to a new memo from Pitaro reviewed by Variety, and will supervise studio shows, live events, newsgathering, investigative journalism, original content/ESPN Films, talent, audio, digital, and social media. Meanwhile, Rosalyn Durant, a Disney veteran who has been overseeing Disney facilities in its parks division, will return to ESPN as executive vice president of programming and acquisitions, the ESPN position that negotiates for the rights that keep a significant chunk of live sports on Disney’s media portfolio.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Most of the nation’s biggest TV companies are planning to gather under one roof next week and discuss something that has little to do with traditional boob-tube economics but is likely to play a critical role in them in weeks to come. When Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global, NBCUniversal and Walt Disney speak Tuesday morning at an event convened by The Trade Desk, they will give a tacit nod to the growing importance of so-called “programmatic” advertising to their many TV networks. In the not-too-distant past, programmatic sales were an add-on to mainstay TV commercials — and the networks were wary of ceding control to a technology that gave advertisers the ability to essentially use a software algorithm to insert an ad during a particular household’s streaming session or FAST watch, all according to the type of customer seen as most likely to be interested.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Hoda Kotb’s days-long absence from her duties at NBC’s “Today” was explained Wednesday morning: She is dealing with a “family health matter.” Craig Melvin,. Sheinelle Jones and Al Roker, who were on set during Wednesday’s broadcast, didn’t offer additional details, but Melvin said the “Today” co-anchor had been out for several days due to the situation. He added that NBC News hoped both she and Savannah Guthrie, who left the “Today” set on Tuesday due to being diagnosed with coronavirus while at the show, would return “very, very soon.” Kotb has been absent from the show for more than a week, a streak that has been noticed by show observers and the subject of a handful of news reports. Some of the articles have made mention of the inspirational messages Kotb often posts via social media, trying to imply there was something more cryptic about them or that they offered commentary on whatever conditions had kept her off the show.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie had to leave the show Tuesday morning for an unwanted assignment: recuperating from a third coronavirus infection. Guthrie left the NBC News program sometime before 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, NBC News disclosed during the broadcast. “By the way, it has been an interesting morning for us. As we said, Savannah left early, she wasn’t feeling great, so she took a COVID test,” said Sheinelle Jones, filling in for Guthrie and her co-host Hoda Kotb, who has been off the show for the past several days for an undisclosed reason. “It came back positive. So, as soon as we found out, she rushed home to rest up. So Savannah, we love you, wishing you a speedy recovery.”

Kendrick Lamar, Caroline Polachek and Weyes Blood are among a host of new names to be announced for Roskilde Festival’s massive 2023 line-up.The festival will return to Denmark between June 24-July 1 this year, with the list of headliners including Blur, Queens Of The Stone Age, Christine And The Queens, Rosalía and more.Now, a host of new names have been added to the bill including headliner Lamar. Joining him, Polachek and Weyes Blood will be Special Interest, Code Orange and more.Roskilde Festival’s head of programming, Anders Wahrén, said of the announcement: “This announcement features some of the most vehement vocalists and powerful performers right now, acts whom in each their own way convey hope, meaning and change.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Ruben Östlund, the Oscar-nominated director whose latest film “Triangle of Sadness” won last year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes, will be back at the French festival to preside over the jury of its 76th edition. Östlund is a Cannes regular, having won the festival’s top prize twice, for “Triangle of Sadness” in 2022 and for “The Square” in 2017. Before that, he presented two films at Un Certain Regard, including “Force Majeure,” which won the Jury Prize. “I am happy, proud and humbled to be trusted with the honor of jury president for this year’s competition at the Festival de Cannes,” said Östlund, who will be the first Swede to head the jury in 50 years, following the footsteps of Ingrid Bergman. “Nowhere in the film world is the anticipation as strong as when the curtain rises on the films in competition at the  festival.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox is getting ready to put on a new show for advertisers. After scaling back its upfront presentation in 2022, Fox Corporation will return the event to its usual wide-consumption format, moving the event to New York’s Manhattan Center on Monday, May 15. The company intends to focus attention on its broader portfolio of assets that includes Fox Sports, the Fox broadcasting network, Fox News Media and the Tubi streaming hub. “In a time of such complexity, strength, strategic focus and stability are the foundational elements that lead to success. Fox’s advantage is our ability to focus on what matters most — our advertising partners — and delivering for them, and our viewers, the best content across the industry’s leading sports, entertainment, news and streaming platforms,” said Marianne Gambelli, president of advertising sales at Fox, in a prepared statement. “For this year’s Upfront, we are hosting an in-person event — complete with a new venue and format — to connect with our clients in the most meaningful way, by showcasing the value of FOX’s best-in-class portfolio and its ability to innovate and engage with a wide array of consumers.”

Angelique Jackson Just weeks after becoming the most-awarded artist in the history of the Grammys, Beyoncé’s reign continued at the 54th annual NAACP Image Awards, where she added three more awards to her trophy case. During Monday night’s non-televised virtual experience, Queen Bey was named this year’s outstanding female artist, while her hit record “Renaissance” won outstanding album and “Cuff It” took home the prize for outstanding soul/R&B song. Beyoncé had been tied with Kendrick Lamar for the most nominations, with five apiece. Both artists were nominated in the outstanding music video/visual album category, but the trophy went to Rihanna for her “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” ballad, “Lift Me Up.” (The Marvel film was also awarded the outstanding soundtrack/compilation album prize.) Beyoncé’s fifth nomination came in the outstanding duo, group or collaboration (contemporary) category, but that award went to “Call Me Every Day” from Chris Brown feat. Wizkid, one of Brown’s two wins for the night. Brown also took home the prize for outstanding male artist for his album “Breezy”.