NBC Hopes Paris Olympics Make Peacock Fans Hungry for New Ads That Order Snacks, Drinks

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CBS News is ready to launch a new salvo in TV’s streaming wars. With many of its rivals bolstering their streaming offerings in recent months, CBS News plans to broaden its efforts by debuting a new signature “whip-around” live-streamed program, “CBS News 24/7” that will rely on journalists both from the national news outlet as well as from CBS local stations — and serve as the new name of the broadband outlet.

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.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor U.S.-based global distributor PBS Intl. is bringing a squad of sports-themed documentaries to MipTV to tie in with the Olympic Games that’ll run this summer in Paris. “Olympic Dreams” travels to Sierra Leone, one of the world’s poorest nations, as it struggles to recover from its 11-year civil war.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Does the sports world have room for April Action after weeks of March Madness? Fox aims to answer the question in 2025 when it launched a new post-season college-basketball tournament in tandem with large sports and music promote AEG Worldwide. The College Basketball Crown will rely on 16 teams drawn largely from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East conferences, with the possibility of other participants.

Jon Bernthal‘s Punisher is back!

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Add “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper to the list of non-traditional commentators taking part in NBCUniversal’s activities around the 2024 Paris Olympics. Cooper will lead “Watch with Alex Cooper,” a series of interactive watch parties that will stream on NBCU’s Peacock during Olympics activity.

Peacock is adding some A-list podcaster firepower to its Olympics coverage.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fierce media rivals like ESPN and Fox Sports aren’t often eager to see the other do well. But the competitors may be cheering one another this weekend. Fox and ESPN will this weekend each broadcast two games from the new — depending on how one looks at it — UFL, a league that has been built out of the former USFL and its rival, the XFL.

Tommy Kail knew all about the book “We Were the Lucky Ones” by Georgia Hunter years before it became a best-selling novel.“I met Georgia in 1999 before I graduated college,” he told the NY Post in an exclusive interview, “and she married one of my best friends.”The New York Times bestselling book is inspired by the unbelievable true story of Hunter’s Jewish family who were living in Radom, Poland at the onset of World War II.Somehow, despite being flung all over the globe and facing unbelievable hardships and danger, they managed to survive.The sweeping epic is now a Hulu mini-series, starring Joey King, Logan Lerman, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star Marin Hinkle and several Israeli actors including Ido Samuel, Michael Aloni and Amit Rahav.Kail directed two of the episodes and is also an executive producer.He shared that he “supported” Hunter as “she was going through the process of researching it and then deciding to turn it into a book proposal, and when it was finally published even conducted a Barnes & Noble interview on the Upper West Side.“I obviously read the book and it just stayed with me,” he shared.

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.

Shakira is hitting the town with Lucien Laviscount!

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 A long line of MSNBC‘s most popular anchors spent Monday calling out the network’s corporate sibling, NBC News, for its hire of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel in a stunning display of internal rifts laid bare on the TV screen. The hire of McDaniel as a contributor is “inexplicable,” Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC Monday night as part of a half-hour commercial-free monologue that painted the former politico as one in a line of fascists and would-be usurpers who have tried to take over America’s political process.

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.

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.

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.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Nearly every commercial that runs on TV is backed by a guarantee of how big an audience will watch it. Late last year, Fox and Netflix decided to throw out that rule, one of the oldest in media economics. In November, Fox ran a two-minute-long segment during its Sunday-afternoon NFL showcase — one of the most-watched programs on TV.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Hallie Jackson is taking NBC’s venerable “Nightly News” to Washington D.C. for one night each week. The NBC News senior Washington correspondent has been named the new anchor of NBC’s Sunday evening-news broadcast, taking the reins from Kate Snow.

NBCUniversal is adding a set of features to Peacock as it gets set for the streaming outlet’s live coverage of the Paris Olympics this summer.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Taylor Tomlinson has proven herself to be a big draw among younger crowds and those savvy with social media. Now CBS hopes the new “After Midnight” host will have similar appeal with a decidedly niche sector: B-to-B advertisers. The network is trying to develop partnerships with a cluster of marketers that typically find their customers among decision-making executives at corporations.