Television

Spanish-language media giant Univision has formally changed hands now that the FCC has granted the new owners’ petition regarding foreign ownership restrictions. Wade Davis, former chief financial officer of Viacom, has taken the reins as CEO, as expected. Davis’ ForgeLight investment banner and Searchlight Capital Partners led the acquisition of a majority stake in Univision

William Link, a writer and producer known for co-creating “Columbo” and “Murder, She Wrote,” died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles on Sunday, his niece confirmed to Variety. He was 87. Over the course of Link’s decades-long television career, he became known for working alongside screenwriter and producer Richard Levinson. The duo collaborated on

Rank PROGRAM (NETWORK) VIEWERS (000) DATE AIRED 1. SUPER BOWL LIV: Chiefs vs. 49ers (Fox) 102,031 2/2/2020 2. NFC CHAMPIONSHIP: 49ers vs. Packers (Fox) 43,625 1/19/2020 3. NFL PLAYOFFS: Packers vs. Seahwaks (Fox) 38,023 1/12/2020 4. AFC WILDCARD PLAYOFF: Titans vs. Patriots (CBS) 31,828 1/4/2020 5. AFC DIVISIONAL PLAYOFF: Titans vs. Ravens (CBS) 29,828 1/11/2020 6. THE

Marcus D’Amico, the actor who played the character of Mouse in the original “Tales of the City” miniseries, has died. He was 55. D’Amico died Dec. 16 of pneumonia at his home in Oxfordshire, England, his sister, Melissa D’Amico, told Queerty. D’Amico was known for his role as the genial Michael “Mouse” Tolliver from the

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the full season of “A Teacher,” streaming now on FX on Hulu. The finale of FX on Hulu’s provocative limited series “A Teacher” begins 10 years after the penultimate episode, in which it became clear that both Eric (Nick Robinson) and Claire (Kate Mara) were

Season 13 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” will kick off with a virtual brunch designed to celebrate the new season and the new Queens. The event will take place on Jan. 1, 2021, to coincide with the season premiere. Season 11 contestant Honey Davenport will DJ and Bianca Del Rio will make a guest appearance in

[Warning: The following story contains SPOILERS for the season finale of “The Mandalorian.”] On Dec. 17, a popular Star Wars YouTuber joined roughly 30,000 fans as he livestreamed his reaction to the Season 2 finale of “The Mandalorian.” The YouTuber — who most often goes by the name of his account, Star Wars Theory, and

Forget the Oscars. One of the sites where the battle for on-screen representation matters most may be in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh — the world’s largest refugee camp. Two new inhabitants are set to take up residence there in the new year: six-year-old Rohingya Muslim twins Noor and Aziz. The difference between them and the one

As 2020 comes to a close, Italy’s TV industry is mourning the recent death of Sara Melodia, who was head of drama at Italy’s prominent TV production company Lux Vide, the outfit behind “Medici,” “Devils” and the upcoming high-end “Leonardo” series. Melodia, who died of cancer on Dec. 2 at 46, had been instrumental to

For decades, local fiction dominated free-to-air primetime over much of Europe. Many big U.S. water cooler titles like “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” made the running on pay TV. That old order is now more challenged than ever as Movistar Plus, Spain’s leading pay TV operator, underscored on Tuesday, announcing the top 5 series across

A North Carolina English teacher and author has filed a lawsuit against Netflix and the creators of their hit show “Outer Banks,” claiming copyright infringement. The official complaint was filed on Dec. 21 by Kevin Wooten, who is the author of the 2016 novel “Pennywise: The Hunt for Blackbeard’s Treasure.” Wooten claims that Netflix and

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the second season finale of “His Dark Materials.” Fans of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy, Lin-Manuel Miranda included, have known all along that Lee Scoresby was sailing his balloon towards certain death. But that didn’t make his and Hester’s (Cristela Alonzo) demise any less

In today’s TV news roundup, Netflix shared a trailer for the “Pretend It’s a City’” docuseries about Fran Lebowitz, and Starz offered a teaser video for “Power Book III: Raising Kanan.” DATES Bravo announced plans to bring new series “Below Deck Galley Talk” to television with a 7 p.m. premiere on Jan. 1. The show

The first ever NFL game to be shown exclusively on streaming platforms scored solid numbers, showing encouraging signs for future streaming-only games. Saturday’s encounter between the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals delivered an averaged minute audience of 4.8 million viewers on Amazon, Twitch, Verizon, the NFL and the two teams’ platforms. For comparison,

Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Reed Hastings and other top Netflix corporate executives will not receive salary increases in 2021. Netflix disclosed Monday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO and chief content officer, will see his 2021 salary stay the same as 2020 at $20 million. Hastings, co-CEO and chairman, will be

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Bridgerton,” streaming now on Netflix. A story driven by emotionally complex relationships, with an added mysterious “whodunnit” element about a gossip columnist spilling high society’s secrets under a pen name, in many ways, feels like it walked right out of the minds of those

Fox expanded its “Masked Singer” franchise with the debut of “The Masked Dancer” last night, as the spinoff continued the formats’ strong ratings trend. The show’s premiere delivered a 1.3 rating among adults 18-49 and drew 4.8 million total viewers, which easily represented the top non-football programming of the night. That viewership figure is roughly

Netflix’s “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” which will debut its fourth and final season Dec. 31, reimagines the popular teen witch in a dark coming-of-age drama told through a distinctly feminist lens. The series sees the titular Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) and her ragtag group, The Fright Club, fight against the evil, and often male, powers

Yes, linear TV still exists, and it’s still watched by millions of viewers. But 2020 was another tipping point for traditional television, and it’s not just because of the pandemic. What has been steady viewership erosion for broadcast and cable went into overdrive this year, despite a pandemic that should have increased or at least

Welcome back to Tune In: our weekly newsletter offering a guide to the best of the week’s TV. Each week, Variety’s TV team combs through the week’s schedule, selecting our picks of what to watch and when/how to watch them. As many across the country continue to practice self-isolation due to coronavirus, why not while away

Nick McGlashan, a fisherman who was a regular cast member on Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch,” died Sunday in Nashville, Tenn., his family told TMZ. He was 33. “Our deepest sympathy goes out to Nick’s loved ones during this difficult time,” a Discovery Channel spokesperson told Variety. “Nick came from a long line of crabbers and was

In today’s Global Bulletin, a citizen journalist is sentenced to four years of jail time by the Chinese government, ITV Hub posts record 2020 statistics and Irrfan Khan-starrer “The Song of Scorpion” gets a special re-release to honor the actor. TRIAL Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer-turned-citizen journalist, has been sentenced to four years in prison,

Lori Loughlin is being released from prison Monday after serving nearly two months for the college admissions scandal. Meanwhile, her husband Mossimo Giannulli will continue to serve his five-month sentence. On October 30, Loughlin surrendered to federal authorities and began her sentence at a prison in Dublin, Calif. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons

Few content industries have been harder hit by COVID-19 than Latin America’s. Brazil has the second highest mortality rate in the world. Argentina is still in first-phase lockdown, its Incaa state film-TV fund decimated. Chile hasn’t been able to shoot. In such a context, one sector, animation, has stood tall in 2020, demonstrating a “resilience”

It’s been 36 years since Ice-T’s film debut in the film “Breakin’” — but he briefly relived those poppin’ and lockin’ moments Sunday night on the premiere episode of Fox’s “The Masked Dancer.” The “Law & Order” SVU” star and O.G. rapper was the first celebrity to be unmasked on the new “Masked Singer” spin-off,

Tuck Tucker, a veteran animator and storyboard director known for his work on “Hey Arnold!” and “SpongeBob SquarePants,” died on Dec. 22. He was 59. Tucker’s family announced his death on Facebook, writing: “It is with a heavy and broken heart that the Tucker family announces the death of Tuck Tucker, father, husband, son, brother,

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Death to 2020,” streaming now on Netflix. As “the most average person in the world,” Diane Morgan’s “Death to 2020” character sits on a couch in a comfy sweater during her talking-head interviews about the year that was 2020. She does not have a

“The Masked Dancer” sounds like a good idea on paper: Take megahit “The Masked Singer,” but the disguised celebrities get their groove — instead of their croon — on. But while Fox and executive producer Craig Plestis kicked around the idea of a spin-off in the wake of “Masked Singer’s” boffo ratings, they still weren’t

As just about every other facet of life ground to a halt, television somehow made it through 2020 intact. With enough shows already shot and millions of people stuck at home, TV provided something of an escape at a time when many of us needed it most. Sure, some shows did try to catch up

Lin Qi, the billionaire CEO of Chinese video-game publisher Yoozoo set to executive produce the upcoming Netflix sci-fi series “The Three-Body Problem,” died at 39 on Christmas Day Friday amidst an investigation into whether he was murdered by poison. Lin was an executive producer alongside “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss on