“Lost in Space,” “Cocomelon,” “Home Alone” and “Hawkeye” dominate Nielsen’s SVOD Top 10 lists from Dec. 6-12, proving that family programming is mighty, especially during the holiday season. Six out of the top 10 movies that week were Christmas-related, with Macaulay Culkin’s “Home Alone” topping the list, amassing 307 million viewing minutes. Its sequel clinched
Television
Betty White’s career ran through practically the entire history of television. And before White died on Dec. 31 at the age of 99, her longevity was a tribute not merely to persistence but to the willingness of a classic Hollywood talent to be versatile and to adapt. In moving from television in the 1940s and
“Euphoria,” Sam Levinson’s trippy-dippy HBO show about love, sex and drugs from the perspective of a ragtag group of beautiful, bedazzled teens, will feature more than one tense, amorous triangle in its upcoming sophomore season. A trailer for Season 2 teased one of these triangles — one between Zendaya’s relapsed Rue, Hunter Schafer’s kawaii-cool Jules
THEATER London’s West End is rallying to keep its audiences amid the surge of the Omicron variant. A new campaign entitled “Don’t Stop Me Now” is offering reduced tickets in the range of £10-£50 ($13-$67) for performances throughout January and February. The sale can be accessed through the Official London Theatre website. (LINK: https://officiallondontheatre.com/new-year-sale/) The West End was
The further history gets from us, the easier it becomes to dismiss it as some far-flung past when, in fact, it remains all too relevant to our present. “Women of the Movement,” premiering Jan. 6 on ABC, directly aims to rectify that, putting a sharp focus on a story that, for too many, keeps fading
The CW Network’s chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz assured the staff at the younger-skewing network Thursday that it’s “too early to speculate what might happen” as joint-parent companies ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia explore a sale of the broadcast channel to Nexstar Media Group. “So, what does this mean for us right now?” Pedowitz wrote in a
Alison Roman, the outspoken food author and influencer, is set to try a new video recipe at CNN Plus. Roman, the author of cookbooks such as “Nothing Fancy” and “Lemons,” will launch a cooking program for the CNN-backed video hub, which is set to launch in the first quarter of 2022. Episodes will show her
Christopher Chatham has made the leap from boutique firm to legal powerhouse. The attorney, who represents television personality Phil McGraw and his show “Dr. Phil” alongside a variety of other TV properties, has moved from his Los Angeles-based Chatham Law Group to partner at the Entertainment Group in the L.A. office of Manatt, Phelps and
WarnerMedia is the latest traditional media company to put together a non-traditional way to measure video audiences. The owner of CNN, TNT and HBO said it has tapped Comscore, iSpot.TV and VideoAmp to help build a new suite of technologies that will help count viewers across linear, digital and connected television. In doing so, the
The BBC has appointed ITN chief executive Deborah Turness as its CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs. Turness, who effectively takes on one of the most high-profile news roles in the U.K., takes over from Fran Unsworth following what the BBC has described as a “competitive” recruitment process. The latter 40-year BBC veteran revealed
“Hype House,” a new reality soap series on Netflix, opens with a very fair question. “My whole goal with this house in the first place,” states Thomas Petrou, “was, why can’t people who hit millions of other people be as famous as A-list celebrities?” The house in question is one shared by TikTok stars, whose
Derren Lawford, the former creative director of British indie producer Woodcut Media, has launched a new film and TV outfit focused on premium content with diversity at its core. Headquartered in London, DARE Pictures will span documentaries, drama, film and podcasts, with plans to enlist an award-winning international network of directors, authors and producers who
Argonon Group, the parent company behind “The Masked Singer U.K.” has unveiled a company re-brand and new strategy for growth. With offices in London, LA, New York, Glasgow and Liverpool, Argonon owns Scottish indie production company Bandicoot, which makes the U.K. version of “The Masked Singer” as well as “The Masked Dancer.” The company celebrated
Production on NBC’s marquee drama series “Chicago Fire” has been suspended after several cast and crew members tested positive for COVID-19. A source close to the production confirmed to Variety that operations have ceased for the moment “out of an abundance of caution.” “Chicago Fire” recently returned to filming after a holiday break. Members of
Nexstar Media Group is in negotations with ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia to acquire a sizable stake in the CW Network, the broadcast network born in 2006 out of the union of the WB and UPN. A representative for Nexstar declined to comment. CBS and WarnerMedia could not immediately be reached for comment late Wednesday. News of
Michael Imperioli is set to star in Season 2 of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” Variety has confirmed. Imperioli, best known for starring as Christopher Moltisanti in “The Sopranos,” will play Dominic Di Grasso, who travels to the White Lotus resort with his eldery father and son, a recent college graduate, in tow. Imperioli is the first cast
Amazon Prime Video announced that “Phat Tuesdays” will debut on Feb. 4. The three-episode docuseries tells of the Comedy Store’s Phat Tuesdays. Comedian Guy Torry founded and hosted the event after the 1992 L.A. riots in order to spotlight Black performers, and ended up launching the careers of several prominent comics. Celebrities including Nick Cannon,
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the first episode of HBO Max’s “And Just Like That.” Chris Noth has been removed from the upcoming finale of HBO Max’s “Sex and the City” sequel series “And Just Like That,” Variety has confirmed. The series will stream its final episode of the season on Feb. 3.
Andy Cohen dominated New Year’s Eve television headlines with his drunken hosting stint on CNN’s “Live From Times Square” special alongside Anderson Cooper. Cohen went viral for dissing outgoing New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, saying, “The only thing that the Democrats and the Republicans can agree on is what a horrible mayor he
AMC Networks has acquired Cool Japan Fund’s anime content distributor Sentai and its assets, including niche subscription streaming service HIDIVE. Sentai’s anime-centric direct-to-consumer platform will join AMC Networks’ lineup of targeted streaming services, which includes AMC Plus, Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now and ALLBLK. Those digital offerings are in addition to the company’s linear channels
Apple has ordered the limited series “Manhunt,” which tells the story of the hunt for U.S President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. The series hails from Monica Beletsky and is based on the book “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer” by James Swanson. Tobias Menzies will star as Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s War Secretary
Chip and Joanna Gaines have made television work on their terms ever since the dynamic design duo first arrived on HGTV with their Magnolia home design and lifestyle brand in 2013. Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET, the pair reach an Oprah Winfrey-level summit with the launch of their Magnolia-branded linear cable channel with Discovery. Magnolia
Rita Wilson is set to guest star on “1883” at Paramount Plus, Variety has learned exclusively. Wilson will appear in an upcoming episode of the “Yellowstone” prequel series in the role of Carolyn, a storekeeper at Doan’s Crossing who helps Margaret (Faith Hill) decompress with some whiskey punch. Wilson’s role on the show makes her the
ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest” maintained its title as the highest-rated and most-watched New Year’s Eve celebration telecast, hitting a four-year high in ratings and viewers for the show as the world said goodbye to 2021 last Friday. Though new offerings from NBC (“Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party, Hosted by
Hulu’s upcoming eight-part limited series “Pam & Tommy” tells the true story of how Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, early in their relationship, made a sex tape that no one was ever meant to see. Instead, the video was stolen by a disgruntled contractor, and eventually dubbed thousands of times. And even when Anderson and
Former ABC executive Andy Kubitz is going to Netflix in a newly created role, Variety has learned exclusively. Kubitz will join the streamer later this month as the content finance director of programming and launch analytics. In that role, he will lead a team that develops tools and strategies to monitor and advise on content investment
At the very least, Katie Wech’s “Good Sam” knows what you might be thinking when you hear it’s a show featuring a chronically cocky doctor with no respect for authority outside his own. Even after spending six months in a coma, Dr. Rob “Griff” Griffiths (Jason Isaacs) takes over a crucial diagnostic brainstorm session to
Comscore, a longtime rival to Nielsen in the business of measuring media audiences, is vowing to keep pace as advertisers seek new ways of counting viewers who watch their favorite shows in a dizzying array of new formats. Comscore said it would launch “Comscore Everywhere,” a measurement product that aims to count unduplicated audiences across
Susan Zirinsky is back in a job where she can do one of her favorite things: tell a few stories. For decades, Zirinsky, who left her role as president of CBS News last year, had big tales to relate. As a senior producer at CBS News, she played a role in preparing some of the
The “Yellowstone” domination of linear TV stayed consistent from its Season 4 premiere to last Sunday’s finale, wrangling over 10 million total watchers per Nielsen time-adjusted Live+Same Day stats. Viewership was up 81% compared to the previous season’s conclusion, with more than nine million of those (9.3) that tuned in were on Paramount Network alone.