Television

In the series finale of “Parks and Recreation,” Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) looked around at all of the changes coming for her friends in Pawnee, Ind. and asked her husband Ben (Adam Scott) when this group of people would ever be together again. “That’s all I want: all of these people, in the same place,

The astronaut drifted off into space elimination last night on “The Masked Singer,” but the Fox show didn’t score quite the same galactic audience numbers as usual. Episode 14 of “Masked Singer” season 3 scored a 2.0 rating among adults 18-49 and drew 7.5 million viewers. While that was easily good enough to top the

ITV’s director of television Kevin Lygo has said the U.K. commercial broadcaster will need to “up its game” to keep audiences engaged and away from the lure of content-rich streaming giants such as Netflix and Disney Plus. During a virtual session hosted by the Edinburgh TV Festival, the executive said the broadcasters’ ratings are up

AT&T said it would fold its stand-alone Xandr ad-tech unit into WarnerMedia, just weeks after the CEO of Xandr abruptly departed. Gerhard Zeiler,  who was named chief revenue officer of WarnerMedia last year, and oversees advertising, distribution and international operations, will supervise all ad-sales outreach across AT&T going forward, the company said. Kirk McDonald, chief business

Jack Osbourne was supposed to go to SXSW last month for the premiere of “The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne,” a documentary about his dad that he produced, before the festival was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. “We had a children’s choir that was going to sing ‘Crazy Train,’” Jack says on Thursday’s episode

NBCUniversal chief Jeff Shell is not backing down from Universal’s flap with top exhibitors over the studio’s premium VOD release of “Trolls World Tour.” The NBCU CEO told investors Thursday during Comcast’s quarterly earnings call that premium VOD releases for some titles will be a “complementary element” to traditional theatrical distribution for the studio. Shell

London-based distribution business DRG, owned by Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT Group), has rebranded as NENT Studios U.K. as part of a wider reorganization of the business to focus on premium drama. and rVariety understands a rebranding of the distributor has been in the cards for some time as it becomes more integrated under NENT Group.

Netflix is in production on its second original out of Africa, dance drama “JIVA!” out of South Africa. Produced by Cape Town-based Blue Ice Africa, “JIVA!” follows talented street dancer Ntombi who slowly realizes dancing may be a ticket out of her dead-end job, family drama and turbulent love life. Busisiwe Ntintili, of The Ntintili

In November 2016, the creative team behind “The Simpsons” began work on a special hour-long episode. It was a hip-hop parody of “The Great Gatsby” — laden with references to the Fox soap “Empire” — that would succeed or fail based on the music. The problem, in the view of executive producer James Brooks, was

It isn’t easy staying competitive in a streaming sector crowded with ventures big and small, but Britbox CEO Soumya Sriraman is secure in her corner of the market. Britbox super-serves the super fans of British TV shows including “Vera” and “Hold the Sunset,” and the service’s demographic skews toward women over 45. That’s a core

Amid a day of company-wide restructuring at ViacomCBS, Smithsonian Network president Tom Hayden will leaving his post at the end of May, Variety has learned. The reorganization — which includes layoffs of more than 100 employees primarily at MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Pop and Smithsonian — is part of the ongoing post-merger integration of Viacom

Mario Lopez is looking for the next big Latin boy band. The “Access Hollywood” host is on board to executive produce “,” an hour-long competition show in development at Universal Television Alternative Studio. Named after the iconic band, the show will search for and build the next iteration of Menudo. No network is currently attached

In today’s TV news roundup: Quibi released the trailer for its “Reno 911!” revival, and ABC announced “The Disney Family Singalong: Volume II” will take place on May 10. DATES ABC has announced “The Disney Family Singalong: Volume II” will air on May 10 at 7 p.m. Ryan Seacrest is returning as host for the

Sarah Babineau, who in recent years enjoyed a heady rise at Comedy Central, is slated to depart the ViacomCBS network by the end of the year, the latest executive to leave entertainment operations at the parent company as it continues to work its way through the merger of the former Viacom and CBS late last

Discovery Inc. CEO David Zaslav received $45.8 million in compensation last year, which amounts to less than half of the value of his 2018 haul. Zaslav made headlines last year when Discovery disclosed that his compensation for 2018 reached $129.4 million, including the value of stock options that amounted to more than $100 million after

Greg Berlanti, one of TV’s busiest producers who had 17 series in the works before the coronavirus lockdown, has donated $1 million to support production staffers on his shows and other coronavirus relief efforts. Berlanti, who is based at Warner Bros., told his team of showrunners in a message sent Wednesday that a $600,000 fund

The long-tail effect of “This Is Us” — the only network drama launch in recent memory to achieve its particular alchemical blend of popular and critical acclaim along with awards attention — remains very much in effect, as evidenced by “Council of Dads.” This new NBC drama would seem to take its network-mate as a

Spanish-language broadcaster Univision will make a streaming-video presentation to advertisers on May 12, the latest of the traditional media companies to announce a formal business presentation to Madison Avenue in the wake of the disruption spurred by the coronavirus pandemic. Univision executives plan to discuss the advertising marketplace and the effects of the contagion on

As part of the ongoing integration of Viacom and CBS, more staffers were laid off Wednesday at divisions across ViacomCBS, including at MTV News and elsewhere. As Variety has previously reported, the media conglomerate had been planning to enact several rounds of layoffs as early as late February, just months after the closing of Viacom’s

When “The Bachelor” franchise launched in 2002, the very first season aired in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The original idea was to shoot the final rose ceremony in front of the Eiffel Tower, but due to safety precautions in the wake of 9/11, production was limited to domestic locations, so plans

and the lede: British actor Jill Gascoine, known for starring in 1980s TV drama “The Gentle Touch,” has died after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 83. Gascoine played Detective Inspector Maggie Forbes in ITV’s “The Gentle Touch,” the first British police drama with a woman in the main role. She continued playing

Imagine a world in which technology has become so advanced the wealthy all have self-driving cars, 3D-printed food, wrist holograms with which to speak to each other from afar and the option of living posthumously in a digital afterlife. That kind of future may feel like sheer fantasy even as some of it feels like

CBS announced Wednesday that it is delaying the planned premiere of “The Amazing Race” Season 32, while also announcing the premieres of new unscripted series “Game On!” and “Tough as Nails.” “Amazing Race” was originally set to debut on May 20 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, taking over “Survivor’s” time slot after that show’s season finale.

U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 says it will have to operate “a mixed economy” when commissioning new shows, as a result of plunging ad revenue during the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking as part of an online Q&A organized by the Edinburgh International TV Festival, Channel 4 director of programs Ian Katz said the broadcaster will have to

The people who like to flash “breaking news” across your TV screen are also working on breaking new ground. The swirl of the Trump White House had already set the nation’s news media at the apex of a cycle. Now, the spread of the coronavirus pandemic has been like an adrenaline shot on top of

Hulu has swooped for BBC coming of age comedy “In My Skin.” Produced by Expectation Entertainment for the U.K. broadcaster’s digital channel BBC Three and BBC Wales, “In My Skin” follows Welsh teenager Bethan (Gabrielle Creevy), who lives a double life as she tries to keep her mother’s mental illness and her father’s alcoholism a

To love classic Hollywood and live in the world at the same time is hardly the greatest of conundrums, but a conundrum it is. It means being transported by the craft and the art of films made under political conditions one may find entirely unacceptable, or engaging deeply with characters who all look a certain

Cartoon Network veteran Michael Ouweleen has been promoted to president of Adult Swim. Ouweleen has been with Cartoon Network and Adult Swim for more than 20 years, most recently in the role of chief marketing officer for Cartoon Network, Adult Swim and Boomerang. Cartoon Network and Adult Swim operations were moved out of Turner and

Sony Pictures Television is close to taking a stake in “Sex Education” producer Eleven. It is understood that Sony has beaten off a number of potential buyers for U.K.-based Eleven, whose standing has been buoyed internationally by the success of Netflix hit “Sex Education.” Sony is said to be close to taking a significant stake

Hong Kong’s TV industry has managed to keep churning out new episodes and even some new series, despite the city’s coronavirus restrictions. Shows have had to adopt clever working practices, and in some cases modify their story lines, but they have emerged better than the territory’s feature film sector, where production remains largely halted. The