NBCU Reveals Peacock Has 9 Million Paid Subscribers

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Insecure” creator and star Issa Rae has been named the recipient of the Producers Guild Awards’ 2022 Visionary Award.The Visionary Award honors producers across television, film or new media who share inspiring, uplifting stories that add unique value to society and culture. Past recipients include: Octavia Spencer, Kenya Barris, Ava DuVernay, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner’s Plan B Entertainment, Illumination Entertainment’s Chis Meledandri, Laura Ziskin and Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll.Rae first garnered attention for her web series and subsequent best-selling book, “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.” She created and stars in HBO’s “Insecure,” which just concluded its fifth and final season in December.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNBC Sports says 16 million viewers tuned in to watch the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, an all-time low for Olympic ceremonies on linear television.That’s around 43% down compared to the 28.3 million viewers that watched the PyeongChang Winter Olympics opening ceremony in February 2018.Friday’s torch-lighting in Beijing aired live on NBC and the streaming service Peacock beginning at 6:30 a.m. ET yesterday morning and was replayed again in primetime.

WWE said its decision a year ago to shift its streaming setup from its own stand-alone service to a marquee spot on NBCUniversal’s Peacock, has dramatically boosted its audience.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe Los Angeles Rams beat the San Francisco 49ers 20-17 on Sunday to clinch the NFC Championship in a Fox primetime broadcast that drew more than 50 million viewers. That makes it the most-watched NFC Championship since 2014.A total of 50,420,000 viewers tuned in across Fox, Fox Deportes, Fox Sports streaming platforms, NFL Digital and Yahoo! Sports properties for the telecast. Viewership for the game peaked at 55,218,000 from 9:15-9:30 p.m.

Rege-Jean Page is posing for a new Armani commercial!

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterFox revealed a first look at some of the costumes for “The Masked Singer” Season 7 during the network’s telecast of the NFL’s NFC Championship game on Sunday, with a promo showing six competitors from the season’s three groupings: The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly.The specific classifications are a new touch, seeing as “The Masked Singer” has only referred to a season’s groups by an assigned letter (i.e. Group A) throughout its first six seasons.

Bolton Wanderers expect there to be no more than two loan depratures from the club in the coming days as the January transfer window approaches its climax.

Dani Dyer has been enjoying a romantic getaway to Milan alongside her footballer boyfriend Jarrod Bowen. The Love Island star, 25, recently jetted off with West Ham United ace Jarrod, also 25, for a mini-break, having gone public with their romance last year. The couple looked as loved-up as ever in a string of snaps shared to social media, with Dani documenting their trip over on her popular Instagram page.

It seems that rumors of a romance between Brad Pitt and Lykke Li are just that — rumors. In recent days, speculation had surfaced that the 58-year-old actor and 35-year-old singer had begun a relationship, but a source recently cleared the air, disclosing that the relationship between the two is purely platonic. An insider told People magazine that the "Little Bit" singer is a member of "a large group of artsy friends that [Pitt] enjoys hanging out with." Actress Alia Shawkat is another member of this group, said the source.

Brad Pitt and Lykke Li are just friends.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNBCUniversal is about to begin broadcasting the second half of a rare Olympics doubleheader — and fatigue has set in.The Winter Games in Beijing begin Feb. 4, just six months after the close of the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games that were postponed from 2020 because of the pandemic.

Jeff Goldblum loved walking the Prada runway at Milan Fashion Week. The ‘Search Party’ star strutted his stuff along with ‘Twin Peaks’ star Kyle MacLachlan, and he enjoyed the “fun opportunity” of sashaying down the catwalk for the Italian fashion house’s Autumn/Winter 2022 menswear collection - which was inspired by work uniforms - despite being a relative newbie to the fashion industry. In a chat for Interview magazine with 43-year-old designer Mel Ottenberg, the 69-year-old actor said: "I was enjoying myself, I must say.

54 million signups by July 29, 2021, which was the day Comcast reported its second quarter financial results. At that time, Comcast also said the streaming platform boasted 20 million monthly active accounts.Conveniently, NBCU’s Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony took place on July 23, meaning we were nearly midway through the Games at the time of that update.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterComcast reported its fourth-quarter 2021 earnings Thursday, beating Wall Street’s expectations on both revenue and earnings. NBCUniversal revenue was $9.338 billion, up 25.6% from the previous year’s Q4.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSunday’s Kansas City Chiefs-Buffalo Bills game on CBS was the most-watched NFL divisional playoff game on any network in five years, drawing an average of 43 million viewers, according to Nielsen’s final time-zone adjusted data.The Chiefs’ dramatic overtime win over the Bills, airing from 6:41-10:02 p.m. ET, drew the largest audience for an NFL divisional playoff game since the Green Bay-Dallas game on Jan.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterPeacock has canceled “Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol” after just one season of the drama.“We were so proud to bring this action-packed mystery thriller to our members and enjoyed watching this compelling series unfold with a satisfying, complete story,” Peacock said in a statement to Variety. “We’re grateful to Dan Dworkin, Jay Beattie, Dan Brown, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard along with CBS Studios, Imagine Television and UTV for bringing this international bestselling novel to life.”Based on Dan Brown’s international bestselling thriller “The Lost Symbol,” the series follows the early adventures of young Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who must solve a series of deadly puzzles to save his kidnapped mentor and thwart a chilling global conspiracy.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNetflix stock fell more than 10% Monday morning, continuing the steep downward trend it’s been experiencing since the streaming giant reported last week it had ended 2021 with slightly lower-than-expected subscriber gains and anticipated a weak start to Q1.At approximately 11:50 a.m. ET, Netflix stock was trading at $353.31 per share, down from the $397.50 per share the stock closed at Friday.Last Thursday, Netflix reported a net gain of 8.28 million subscribers for Q4, again driven by markets outside North America, to reach 221.8 million total worldwide.

Martin Dale ContributorBrad Pitt has teamed up with Emmy-award winning music producer Damien Quintard to relaunch the historic Miraval Studios, where Pink Floyd, Sting, The Cure and AC/DC recorded their albums. It is being redesigned as an exclusive film and music production and post-production facility in a beautiful setting.The studio is located in a majestic vineyard estate, Château Miraval, that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie leased in 2008, purchased in 2011 and held their wedding there in 2014.

Posing for a thirst trap didn’t exactly work out for Shawn Mendes!