Television

The Wildscreen Festival, the world’s leading natural history TV and film event, is to take place online for its 20th anniversary edition this October. The biennial festival has become the latest in a long line of events to go virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic. Wildscreen is based in Bristol, a city in England’s southwest

Red Arrow Studios International has secured two European commissions for its new gameshow format “Block Out,” with local versions ordered by broadcasters in Spain and The Netherlands. RTVE Spain has commissioned a domestic adaptation of the show which will air on its La 1 channel this year, and will be produced by Endemol Shine Iberia-owned

Ruby Rose has addressed her departure from the CW series “Batwoman,” amid reports that she was unhappy with the long hours required of her as the series lead. Although the actress did not go into detail about why she was exiting her role on the series, in a Instagram post shared on Wednesday, Rose wrote

In today’s TV News Roundup, Netflix released a trailer for Jo Koy’s new comedy special, and ABC announced impressive ratings for the 16th season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy.”  DATES Disney Plus has announced that its original movie “Secret Society of Second-Born Royals” will debut on the streamer on July 17. The film follows stars Peyton

Manny Jacinto is the latest name to be added to the “Nine Perfect Strangers” series at Hulu. The “Good Place” star joins previously announced cast members Melissa McCarthy and Nicole Kidman. The show, which was greenlit by Hulu in May 2019, is based on the book of the same name by “Big Little Lies” author

“We’re Here” stars Bob The Drag Queen, Eureka O’Hara and Shangela Laquifa Wadley will join Variety’s Marc Malkin for an exclusive Q&A interview and look at clips from the first season on June 8 in the Variety Streaming Room presented by HBO. The new six-episode, unscripted series recruits local residents across small-town America to participate

Over the course of his presidency, President Donald Trump has hurled invective at any number of TV journalists, whether it be Don Lemon, Arthel Neville, Neil Cavuto, Nicolle Wallace, Brian Williams, Chris Cuomo, Leland Vittert, Peter Alexander, Yamiche Alcindor, Weija Jiang, Jon Karl or Paula Reid. But he seems to launch his worst material at

SpaceX was supposed to make history with NASA astronauts on Wednesday, but due to threatening weather conditions in Florida, the launch has been called off. Another attempt will be made on Saturday, May 30, at 3:22 p.m. ET, weather permitting. The mission, called Demo-2, is the first crewed launch in the history of Elon Musk’s

“Legendary” is a fascinating, messy study in contrasts. The new reality competition series is a celebration of ballroom culture, a chronically underappreciated queer subculture, premiering on the launch day of HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s new streaming service backed by billions of corporate dollars. It shines a gorgeous, sleek spotlight on its fearsome dancers, who have traditionally

Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande made a surprise appearance on The Weather Channel’s “AMHQ” forecast this morning (May 27) to report that it is, indeed, raining. The pop singers, who released their collaborative single “Rain on Me” on Friday (May 22), joined meteorologists Jim Cantore, Stephanie Abrams and Jen Carfagno to promote their new single

When costumer Anna Terrazas was tasked with creating the look for National Geographic’s new series “Barkskins,” she set out to put her own stamp on the period drama.  The eight-episode series, based on the novel by Annie Proulx and shot in the woods of Quebec, examines 1690s New France and the mysterious massacre of settlers

In lending her voice to this week’s cover story on Gabrielle Union, #MeToo Movement founder Tarana Burke expands on the importance of speaking up at work in Hollywood and beyond.   Gabrielle Union is unique. She is what older black folks would call a “born truth-teller.” She’s a person that is going to be physically uncomfortable

It seems like every other week brings a new streaming service with it, but the May 27 launch of HBO Max is, indeed, a potential watershed moment. While presented as a branch of the existing HBO brand, it’s more accurately a WarnerMedia behemoth effort that unites the conglomerates many properties (plus a few original efforts)

HBO Max makes its much-anticipated debut on Wednesday as a $4 billion bet by AT&T and WarnerMedia to vault into the global streaming TV marketplace. For WarnerMedia insiders, launch day is “really is just the beginning,” Bob Greenblatt, chairman of WarnerMedia Entertainment and Direct to Consumer, tells Variety podcast “Strictly Business.” WarnerMedia plans to integrate

ViacomCBS has engaged in another round of layoffs, this time at CBS, as Viacom and CBS continue their post-merger integration as a combined company. The staff reduction includes those at CBS Entertainment, CBS News, CBS Sports, CBS Studios and CBS Television Studios. “We are restructuring various operations at CBS as part our ongoing integration with

Better late than never: WarnerMedia clinched a deal with Comcast for HBO Max, with the final pact officially hammered into place just hours after the super-size streaming service launched earlier Wednesday. Comcast, one of the last big holdouts in picking up HBO Max, will help expand the fledgling streamer’s reach. The U.S.’s largest cable operator,

Fremantle has scored a raft of deals on the Iraq war drama series “Baghdad Central” following its well-received world premiere on Channel 4 in the U.K. and its U.S. debut on Hulu. Produced by Fremantle’s scripted label, the series explores the U.S occupation of Iraq in 2003 and is told from the perspective of Iraqis.

The BBC has acquired “DNA,” a Danish-french crime thriller series starring Charlotte Rampling, from Newen Distribution. Co-created by Torleif Hoppe (“The Killing”), “DNA” is an eight-part series following Rolf Larsen, a respected detective working for the Copenhagen police whose life is brutally turned upside down when his baby daughter goes missing. Five years after the

Executive producer Willow Grylls has been appointed as co-chief executive officer of New Pictures, whose output includes “The Missing” and “Catherine the Great,” working alongside existing CEO Charlie Pattinson. Elaine Pyke also takes on a new role as creative director. Grylls joined Pattinson and George Faber’s Company Pictures when it was set up, working initially

The nation’s TV-news outlets have spent countless hours covering the coronavirus pandemic. On late Wednesday afternoon, for at least a little while, they will focus on something entirely different. CBS News, NBC News and ABC News are preparing to break into regularly scheduled programming a few minutes before 4:30 p.m. eastern Wednesday in a bid

Andre Harrell, the music executive who launched Uptown Records and helped usher in a new era of hip-hop flavored soul and R&B, was laid to rest on Saturday (May 23) at George Washington Cemetery in Paramus, NJ. The funeral followed a celebration of his life at Vander Plaat-Caggiano Funeral Home in Fair Lawn, NJ. Harrell

In today’s TV news roundup, Quibi has released the trailer for “Royalties” starring Darren Criss, and Hulu shared a first look at “Love, Victor.” DATES Fox Business Network will air a fourth installment of its “America Works Together” town hall on May 28 at 11 a.m. during “Varney & Co.” Hosted by Stuart Varney, the town

The BBC is to mark the 50th anniversary of the Glastonbury Festival with “The Glastonbury Experience,” five days of highlights and sets from past festivals which will air at the end of June when the event was due to take place. The organisers of Glastonbury announced in March that this year’s festival was cancelled due

The Roy family (and Gerri) will join Variety’s Kate Aurthur for an exclusive Q&A conversation in the Variety Streaming Room. Brian Cox (Logan Roy), Jeremy Strong (Kendall Roy), Sarah Snook (Shiv Roy), Kieran Culkin (Roman Roy), Alan Ruck (Connor Roy), Nicholas Braun (Greg Hirsch), Matthew Macfadyen (Tom Wambsgans) and J. Smith-Cameron (Gerri Kellman) will all

Jimmy Fallon apologized on Tuesday after drawing criticism for a “Saturday Night Live” sketch from 2000, featuring him in blackface, resurfaced online. In the skit, which first aired in 2000, Fallon was portraying comedian Chris Rock while talking to Darrell Hammond as TV host Regis Philbin. NBC had previously removed the video from the internet,

Amazon is developing a series centered on Lisbeth Salander, the character created by for the so-called Millenium books. The project, which is currently titled “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” will not be a sequel or continuation of the story from the books or the films into which they were adapted. It will instead take

ATX Television Festival has added the HBO series “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” “I May Destroy You” and “Room 104” to its first-ever virtual festival programming lineup, Variety has learned exclusively. In addition, “A Black Lady Sketch Show” creator and showrunner Robin Thede will be joining the festival as part of the “Showrunners: State

Renee Pritchard is a server at Nicoletta’s Italian Café on Main Street in the heart of Cooperstown, N.Y. Like most businesses in the village of 1,852 best known for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Café is just trying to survive. Memorial Day Weekend is usually the start of the thriving summer season that’s

Despite the ill effects of the coronavirus pandemic on all live sports, hockey fans may well get a Stanley Cup in 2020. The top official of the National Hockey League said the sports organization anticipated its teams might return to play in the summer and fall, and sketched out a plan to hold post-season playoffs

What’s the way forward for Spanish-speaking TV players in a post COVID-19 landscape?  Executives from four of the region’s biggest players – ViacomCBS, Spain’s Movistar Plus and RTVE, and Colombia’s Caracol Television – thrashed out possible scenarios on Tuesday at an Iberseries online panel. Their answers are hardly industry footnotes. After English and Mandarin, Spanish-language