In American television in 2019, notable events included television show debuts, finales, and cancellations; channel launches, closures, and re-brandings; stations changing or adding their network affiliations; and information about controversies and carriage disputes.
Notable events
January
Date
Event
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Tribune Media removes their broadcast stations, subchannels, and cable network WGN America from Spectrum systems in several markets due to the lack of a new retransmission consent agreement with the nation's second-largest cable provider. A short one-day extension had been made to 5 p.m. ET is allowing Spectrum viewers to watch New Year's Day event content on Tribune stations, averting a midnight deadline on December 31, but the stations are pulled at that point among an impasse between Tribune and Spectrum parent Charter Communications. The dispute is settled on January 11 in the early morning hours, on undisclosed terms.
NBC Sports Chicago announces it has reached agreements with Wirtz Corporation and Jerry Reinsdorf to become the exclusive broadcaster for Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox games beginning this year. The deal marks the departure of all three teams from WGN-TV, with the Cubs expected to follow, albeit through the creation of their own network.
National Geographic Channel puts the current season of StarTalk on hiatus while the network investigates sexual harassment claims against host Neil deGrasse Tyson. On February 15, it was announced that Cosmos: Possible Worlds would be delayed from its original March premiere due to the ongoing investigation.
NBC televises a late Sunday afternoon NFL Wild Card playoff for the first time (Fox instead broadcast the Seahawks/Cowboys game the previous evening), where the Philadelphia Eagles escape Soldier Field in Chicago with a 16–15 victory after a game-ending field goal miss by Bears kicker Cody Parkey. The game serves as a sizable lead-in to the Golden Globes, which starts on time. Parkey appeared on the network's Today five days later to talk about his miss, a move that rankled the Bears front office as well as local sportswriters and fans, resulting in his March 13 release from the team.
The 76th Golden Globe Awards airs on NBC, hosted by Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg. It is the first telecast in an eight-year deal to keep the ceremony on the network. In addition, Oh became the first Asian performer to make history as a host and a winner for her role in Killing Eve. Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody won as Musical or Comedy and drama respectively. The Kominsky Method and The Americans win top honors as best television comedy and drama. Afterwards, E! issued an apology to The Good Place star Jameela Jamil during their live red carpet telecast of the Golden Globes, in which they accidentally typed in Kamilah Al-Jamil instead of the actress' real name. Kamilah (played by Rebecca Hazlewood) is the sister of Jameela's character Tahani Al-Jamil, who that character is famously envious of for being one-upped, and Jamil later tweets that it 'is legit the funniest thing I have ever seen' and that it was 'a joyous mistake'.
NBC affiliate WHEC-TV/Rochester, New York announces the firing of chief meteorologist Jeremy Kappell, three days after a weathercam network check-in of area cameras during a weather segment saw him appear to refer to the city's Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park with the racial epithet "coon" during a glance at the park's weathercam. Kappell asserts that he was speaking too fast and stumbled over his words, which he cited occurred with other media personalities in the past including ESPN's Mike Greenberg. However, Rochester mayor Lovely Warren, an African-American, called for Kappell's firing because it was "wrong, hurtful and infuriating." The station apologized for not stepping in to address the matter immediately. He has since campaigned online through petitions to apply public pressure to competing for CBS affiliate WROC-TV to accept him for an open meteorologist position as of early June 2019.
After nearly two years in office, President Donald Trump gave his first prime time address, to talk about the partial federal government shutdown, specifically its key issue, proposed funding for the Mexico–United States border wall. The networks also aired a response from Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer following the address, in which they explained their opposition to Trump's proposal to fund the border wall and to reopen the departments affected by the shutdown. The shutdown ended on January 25 with a short-term deal to re-open to the government that does not include funding for the border wall.
Tribune Media's Fox affiliate KCPQTacoma-Seattle fires a news editor after reviewing video footage of President Donald Trump's presidential address on immigration that the station aired on its 10 p.m. newscast that appears to be altered, which showed a more orange-toned Trump with his tongue protruding after making a statement, making him more saturated and the tongue doctored. In a statement from news director Erica Hill (unrelated to the CNN anchor): "This does not meet our editorial standards, and we regret if it is seen as portraying the president in a negative light."
Netflix announced that its upcoming series OBX would begin production in South Carolina instead of shooting in North Carolina due to the latter state's House Bill 2, otherwise known as "the bathroom bill," which requires transgender people use the public restrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificate. Although North Carolina repealed a section of the law in 2017, it didn't completely overturn it due to a clause that forbids municipalities from enacting nondiscrimination ordinances for any group not included in North Carolina state law until 2020.
In an emotion-filled final broadcast, Mark Rosen bids farewell to WCCO-TV/Minneapolis, retiring after a nearly 50-year tenure as a sports reporter/anchor for the CBS O&O.
Fox announces they do not intend to bid on the Fox Sports Networks that federal regulators have said The Walt Disney Company must divest after Disney completes its acquisition of many of the 21st Century Fox assets. The move paves the way for other companies to go after some or all of the 22 regional services.
Executive producers Alec Sulkin and Rich Appel, along with creator Seth MacFarlane, confirmed Family Guy would no longer write jokes against the LGBT community due to societal changes which have seen the jokes become frowned upon over time. The decision was confirmed in a fourth wall break in the January 13 episode entitled "Trump Guy" in which Peter Griffin (voiced by MacFarlane) tells President Trump that Family Guy would be trying to "phase out" gay jokes.
Brittany Noble, a former news anchor at CBS affiliate WJTV/Jackson, Mississippi, files a complaint against the station and its owner Nexstar Media Group with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over workplace discrimination. Noble, who is African-American and a recent mother, cites racial harassment and issues involving management refusing to allow her to wear her hair naturally and her attire, along with improper accommodations which did not allow her to properly pump breast milk. She was dismissed without explanation from the station in May 2018 during time off she took after her grandfather's death, and was not told she was terminated until months later.
Sinclair Broadcast Group launches Stirr, a free over-the-top content platform. The platform mostly carries Sinclair's owned-and-operated digital subchannel networks and customized feeds from their local broadcast stations.
Bob Costas officially exits NBC Sports, ending tenure with the company that spanned over 38 years. Costas noted that his interest in the sports properties NBC held at the time had waned (he had retired from NFL coverage after the 2016 season), and that his favorite sport, baseball, was not among them, as it hadn't since 2000. He has indicated that he would like to continue on television, suggesting a talk show in the vein of his previous shows On the Record and Later. Costas continues his work for MLB Network.
Former CBS Corporation CEO Les Moonves states he will challenge his firing and denial of his $120 million golden parachute payout from the network in arbitration and continues to deny the sexual harassment allegations which resulted in his firing the previous fall.
Netflix offers an apology to Julie Morin, the mayor of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada, over the use of the footage that was featured in the 2018 horror film Bird Box, which had used news footage of the community's 2013 rail disaster, which resulted in the destruction of the town's centre and the death of 47 people. Netflix licensed the footage of the disaster from the stock image vendor Pond 5, who then stated that the footage "was taken out of context," and wanted to "sincerely apologize." Pond 5 footage of the crash was also used in Netflix's Travelers (which was removed). Netflix then stated that they had no plans to remove the footage from Bird Box despite a further complaint by Quebec Culture Minister Nathalie Roy on the subject, but changed their minds on March 14 and agreed to remove the scene from future airings on the streaming service.
General Motors temporally pulled their Chevrolet "Real People, Not Actors" ad campaign after Toyota, Honda, and Ford each challenged the series' claims as misleading. The complaints were brought to light by the consumer advocacy organization Consumer World, which claimed GM's data is made up from late-model vehicles (2014–2015) rather than new vehicle stock, some of which are models now out of production. The Ipsos survey was regarded by the other three manufacturers and Consumer World as outdated. Chevrolet resumed the campaign in July for its mid-size Blazer crossover SUV that was launched in January.
Wendy Williams extends her hiatus from her eponymous daytime talk show dating back to the holidays due to medical complications from Graves' disease and a shoulder injury, her second such break within a year. The show would feature guest hosts from January 28 on, until Williams is declared medically fit to return; she would return March 4.
Singer R. Kelly's longtime record label, RCA Records, officially drops him from their label, in the aftermath and fallout of Lifetime's docu-series Surviving R. Kelly which had already resulted in music retailers, artists, and radio stations pulling his music, refusing to put further promotional effort into its sale or addition to playlists, and stopping the sale of catalog collaborations and duets with Kelly.
Puffer was launched, a Stanford University research study about using machine learning to improve video-streaming algorithms: the kind of algorithms used by services such as YouTube, Netflix, and Twitch. They are trying to figure out how to teach a computer to design new algorithms that reduce glitches and stalls in streaming video (especially over wireless networks and those with limited capacities, such as in rural areas), improve picture quality, and predict how the capacity of an Internet connection will change over time.
After a five-year battle court battle over copyrighted material and fair use of newsgathering and sharing, Fox News Channel and TVEyes, a media monitoring service which mainly archives the video of television news services for permanent text transcription of closed captioning text, reached a settlement, in which TVEyes agreed to a permanent injunction and will no longer be permitted to carry copyrighted content from Fox News Channel and the broadcast Fox network's Fox News Sunday.
Fox News Channel immediately issues an apology and blames a "technical error" for a graphic that ran during Fox & Friends earlier in the morning that reported the death of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was very much alive at the time of the incident and recently had surgery to treat cancerous nodules, of which she had since recovered. Steve Doocy told viewers "At the beginning of (Ainsley Earhardt's) interview with the process, a technical error in the control room triggered a graphic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a date on it... That was a mistake. That was an accident." Earhardt also apologized, calling it a "big mistake".
With Tom Hanks as the sole guest and a surprise cameo by Milo Ventimiglia, TBS' Conan returns from a three-month hiatus with a retooled format that's a departure from host Conan O'Brien's previous late-night work: a shorter program length (from 60 to 30 minutes), which is less comedy-intensive, and without a house band or host's desk, and a more casual-style wardrobe. Longtime sidekick Andy Richter also returns.
Rent: Live airs on Fox to a mixed-to-negative critical reception, with the caveat that portions of the adaptation of the Tony-winning musical used pre-taped dress rehearsal footage mixed with a live presentation due to Brennin Hunt, who plays Roger, injuring his foot during the last-minute rehearsals. The prerecorded dress rehearsal was carried for the majority of the show, with only the final fifteen minutes of the program, which consisted of the end of the show and an encore performance of "Seasons of Love" featuring the original Broadway cast, broadcast live. The special posted a 1.4 rating among adults 18–49 and 3.42 million viewers, ranking the lowest among NBC and Fox's musical specials throughout the 2010s, though the adult content of Rent meant it could not meet ratings parity with the higher-rated family-friendly productions. The lack of understudies was also criticized by reviewers and social media, citing Hunt's accident.
Empire actor Jussie Smollett is said to be the victim of an attack by two unknown individuals in the Streeterville section of Chicago during the early morning hours. Chicago police say the suspects yelled racial and homophobic slurs at Smollett, who is African-American and gay, then punched him and poured a chemical substance on him. One of the attackers also put a rope around Smollett's neck. The incident was initially investigated as a hate crime. However, law enforcement suspected that Smollett paid the pair, later identified as brothers, to attack him. While Smollett has denied any wrongdoing, he was charged on February 20 with filing a false report, which in Illinois is a Class 4 felony. Police claim Smollett staged the attack because he was "dissatisfied with his salary." Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct on March 8. Smollett was later cleared of all charges on March 26.
Nexstar Media Group announces that three stations owned by Dreamcatcher Broadcasting (ABC affiliate WNEP-TV/Scranton–Wilkes-Barre and the combined duopoly of CBS affiliate WTKR and CW affiliate WGNT/Norfolk), which are operated by Tribune Media (which Nexstar is acquiring) under a shared services agreement, would be divested to comply with FCC regulations. Nexstar already owns NBC affiliate WAVY-TV and Fox affiliate WVBT in the Norfolk market and maintains a grandfathered SSA between Nexstar-owned NBC affiliate WBRE-TV and CBS affiliate WYOU (owned by Mission Broadcasting) in the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre market.
Just a year after it was announced as its next Broadway adaptation, NBC announced that it is canceling the scheduled May 27 performance of Hair Live! to fully focus on general audience broad-audience live musicals. This is the third time in recent years that NBC has postponed or scrapped a live production, as scheduling conflicts have resulted in Jennifer Lopez putting plans to bring Bye Bye Birdie Live! to television on hold, likewise with a planned adaptation of A Few Good Men Live.
The Simpsons was renewed for its thirty-first and thirty-second seasons, bringing the series to 713 episodes, making it the first American primetime scripted series to surpass 700 episodes.
United Communications announces that the company will sell its three television stations – primary CBS/subchannel-only Fox affiliate KEYC-TV in Mankato, Minnesota, and the Watertown, New York duopoly of CBS affiliate WWNY-TV and Fox affiliate WNYF-CD (as well as the latter's repeater, WWNY-CD) – to Gray Television for $45 million. In advance of the purchase, Gray will assume control of the stations under a local marketing agreement to take effect on March 1. The sale marks the end of United Communications, Howard Brown's holding company for his print and television assets; Brown had died in 2011, and his heirs sold off the print assets beginning in 2016.
In an interview with ESPN's Outside the Lines, longtime NBC Sports anchor Bob Costas said he was dropped from the network's coverage of Super Bowl LII after remarks he made a few months earlier at a University of Maryland symposium that the sport of football "destroys people's brains." Costas was told by executives at NBC that the comments "crossed the line." Additionally, NBC forbade Costas from sharing an essay he had written regarding the 2015 film Concussion because it was in the process of bidding for the rights to the NFL's Thursday Night Football package at the time. Costas officially departed NBC after 40 years in January.
Following an investigation into a growing amount of sexual harassment allegations which had already seen him removed from Rooster Teeth's online series RWBY and several upcoming anime convention appearances, dubbing company Funimation severs ties with voice actor Vic Mignogna, removing him from all current roles.
Corday Productions files a breach of contract and fraud lawsuit against Sony Pictures Television – in the Los Angeles County Superior Court involving Days of Our Lives, for which Sony co-produces the series with Corday and NBC, along with handling international distribution. The suit seeks more than $20 million in restitution on allegations by Corday that include, among other claims, that SPT forced it to absorb budget deficits for producing the NBC soap opera, had declined to offer Days to certain foreign territories including the United Kingdom and France (even as Corday's share of distribution revenues decreased by over 50% in recent years) and failed to pay millions of dollars in profits, to "eliminate competition" with CBS's The Young and the Restless, a series Corday holds a 1% stake in, but is majority-owned by SPT and has maintained the #1 ratings position among American soaps for years. Representatives for Sony described the claims made in the suit – which was filed over a month after NBC renewed Days for a fifty-fifth season – as "meritless."
During a rally for Donald Trump in El Paso, Texas, a supporter of the President's entered the section reserved for news media and attacked Ron Skeans, a photojournalist for the BBC. According to the broadcaster, "Skeans was violently pushed and shoved by a member of the crowd." However, he was not hurt and security removed the man. After calls from journalism advocates to condemn the incident, the White House asked for civility among future attendees of a Trump event.
Apollo Global Management officially acquires Cox Media Group's 14 television stations, along with its entire Dayton cluster that consists of CBS affiliate WHIO-TV, radio sisters WHIO-AM& FM, WHKO, and WZLR/W266BG, and newspapers Springfield News-Sun and Dayton Daily News, the latter cluster retaining its legacy in the market due to Cox's origins that began in 1889 with the purchase of the Daily News by founder James M. Cox. The deal, estimated to be around $3 billion, will also include some joint venture agreements with Cox's radio, newspaper, and other media properties owned by the Atlanta-based company. This will be Apollo's second television group acquisition, as it has purchased Okemos, Michigan-based Northwest Broadcasting, which owns 21 stations in ten markets and plans to combine them with the Cox assets once the deal is approved by the FCC. The Cox family will continue to have a minority stake in the television properties.
Federal authorities arrested United States Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson in Silver Spring, Maryland on gun and drug charges, as well as planning to use the weapons he was stockpiling to assassinate individuals associated with the Democratic Party, activists, and broadcast journalists that he felt had a bias or liberal agenda to support his white supremacy beliefs. Prosecutors noted that before his arrest Hasson kept a hit list that featured reporters and hosts from CNN and MSNBC on his computer and using research on his targets through the way of search engines over the course of two years, believing that killing them would inspire a race war and by advocating "biological attacks followed by an attack on food supply" in his manifestos. Among the intended targets, Hasson planned to kill on his list that he labeled as "Traitors" included Joe Scarborough, Chris Hayes, Don Lemon and Ari Melber.
For the first time, the Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour enters reruns as Buzzr, whose parent company Fremantle co-owns the show's archive with MGM Television, adds the show to its schedule. The series had never been seen on television since its first run was canceled in 1984 due to many reasons, including cross-ownership complications, the fact that the series archive has not yet been digitized or restored to 21st-century broadcast standards, and the alleged displeasure of co-host Gene Rayburn, who died in 1999, with the series.
The 91st Academy Awards aired on ABC with no host for the first time since the 1989 ceremony. Kevin Hart, who was scheduled to host this event, backed out due to his previous comments regarding the LGBTQ community who found them homophobic, of which he apologized amid the backlash against him. The event saw Netflix with 15 nominations, the most ever for a studio owned by a streaming service. Ten of those nominations were for Roma, resulting in three awards, including Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón. Green Book won three awards, including Best Picture, and Bohemian Rhapsody won four awards, the most for the ceremony, including Rami Malek for Academy Award for Best Actor. Black Panther also received three awards. All categories were broadcast, following the Academy reversing a decision to move the presentation of four categories, Best Cinematography, Best Live Action Short Film, Best Film Editing, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling, to commercial breaks. A similar attempt to shorten the show, by cutting down the number of Best Original Song nominee performances, was reversed on January 31. The event, which clocked in at 3 hours and 19 minutes, 35 minutes shorter than the 2018 telecast, did not feature any montages or comedic bits, posted a 21.6 rating/36 share in metered-market households, up about 14 percent over the 2018 broadcast, with 30 million viewers, even though it would be the second-smallest audience on record since the 2008 telecast, which had 32 million viewers tuning in.
Tribune Media's CW affiliate KDAF-TV/Dallas–Fort Worth forms a partnership with Urban One's Rhythmic Top 40 KBFB to launch a pop/lifestyle culture-centric morning show simulcast called The Beat on 33, hosted by the DJs from KBFB's Veda Loca in The Morning program (Veda Loca and co-hosts J-Cruz, Jazzi Black and DJ Kayotik).
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing the approved 2018 merger between AT&T and Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) to stand after the court ruled that the Trump Administration's Justice Department had failed to prove that the transaction valued between $85 and $105 billion that would give the nation's largest telecom control over CNN, TBS and TNT amounted to enhanced leverage that would harm the marketplace, a decision that resulted in the merger to go forward. The administration, and notably President Donald Trump, had been against the merger since November 2017, noted by Trump's vocal distaste of CNN and his pledges on the campaign trail to not allow this type of media power consolidation, of which the media industry, in general, have pointed out that the move was immediately seen through a political perspective, with many suspecting undue interference. Circuit Judge Judith Rogers cited "The government's objections that the district court misunderstood and misapplied economic principles and clearly erred in rejecting the quantitative model are unpersuasive" as a reason for her ruling.
In a 66-page ruling that was kept private until now, a $179 million award was handed down by arbitrator Peter Lichtman against 21st Century Fox over a 2015 dispute involving the 2005–2017 crime drama series Bones, in which executive producer Barry Josephson, stars David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel, and Kathy Reichs (a forensic anthropologist who authored the Temperance Brennan novels that formed the basis for the series), filed lawsuits in California state court claiming they had been defrauded by Fox of their rightful profit participation. Lichtman concluded that president Peter Rice, Fox TV CEO Dana Walden, and Fox TV chairman Gary Newman "appear to have given false testimony in an attempt to conceal their wrongful acts." According to the ruling, Fox has taken a "cavalier attitude toward its wrongdoing" and exhibited a "company-wide culture and an accepted climate that enveloped an aversion for the truth" by lying, cheating and committing fraud at the expense of the show's stars and Josephson, who was told by Fox it was their most profitable series, taking in nearly half a billion dollars in its first seven seasons, while it hid the fact that Bones was calculated to be a money loser, which meant there would be no profit sharing (a practice known as Hollywood accounting). Fox later appeals the ruling, eventually leading to a settlement between the parties involved in September.
HBO CEO Richard Plepler, a 28-year veteran of the company, resigns. Turner Broadcasting System President David Levy, a 33-year veteran, did the same the next day. Both came after AT&T's buyout of Time Warner was approved by a federal court two days earlier.
Gray Television announced that it will acquire NBC affiliate WVIR-TV/Charlottesville, Virginia from Waterman Broadcasting. Concurrently, Gray will also keep Fox affiliate WAHU-CD (making it a sister station to WVIR-TV) and sell CBS affiliate WCAV and ABC affiliate WVAW-LD to the Lockwood Broadcast Group. Following the closure of the sale, Gray will not maintain any continuing relationship with WCAV/WVAW under any form of outsourcing agreements, joint retransmission negotiations or news production arrangements, nor will Gray and Lockwood will maintain any options or financial guarantees involving the duopoly or other television stations owned by the two groups. The sale, which was concluded on October 1, leaves NBC affiliate WBBH-TV and ABC-affiliated LMA partner WZVN-TV (owned by Montclair Communications) as Waterman's only remaining television properties.
In the wake of HBO's airing of the controversial documentary Leaving Neverland, a fallout involving the criticism of the special occurs, concerning the credibility of the victims featured in the documentary, of whom were later interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in a follow up special After Neverland that aired March 4 and simulcast with OWN, and a $100 million lawsuit filed by Jackson's estate on February 21, claiming that the four-hour program violates a contractual non-disparagement clause to carry a 1992 concert from Bucharest as part of Jackson's HIStory World Tour. The documentary pulled in an average of about 1.11 million viewers overall for the two nights it aired, making it the third most-watched documentary in HBO's history. Two days later, 20th Century Fox Television, following a decision of the show's producers due to their concerns about the claims made in Leaving Neverland, pulls The Simpsons episode "Stark Raving Dad" – which featured Jackson (who was credited under the pseudonym John Jay Smith) as mental patient Leon Kompowski – from circulation in television reruns and most streaming platforms carrying the program's episode library.
In a fiery interview with Gayle King on CBS This Morning, singer R. Kelly vehemently denies that he sexually abused women, allegations for which he faces criminal charges. King was commended on social media for remaining stoic while Kelly at one point got up out of his chair and began to scream and pound his chest. "It wouldn't have done any good if we both got hysterical," King told co-host Norah O'Donnell. Most of the 80-minute-long interview would subsequently be aired in full in a prime time special on March 8.
The Democratic National Committee announces it will not allow Fox News to host any of its 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates and forums, saying the "network is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates". The move comes on the heels of a New Yorker article (featured in the magazine's March 11 issue) that detailed the close ties between Fox News and the Trump administration, which illustrated Fox News' scuttling of a story by now-former columnist/on-air contributor Diana Falzone about Trump's alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels to protect Trump during his candidacy and the dual influence of Fox News pundits and Trump on their respective rhetoric and the administration's policies. The decision sparks a debate, with many liberals and progressives supporting the move citing concerns about potential bias creeping into Fox News' debate coverage due to the network's conservative slant and Republicans and some moderate Democrats contending the move would be counterproductive to the Democratic Party's efforts to defeat Trump in the 2020 election.
Just one day after Jeopardy! completed airing its first All-Star Games event (won by the team of Brad Rutter, Larissa Kelly and Dave Madden) to commemorate its 35th anniversary, host Alex Trebek announces across the show's social media platforms that he has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer to announce the news on his own terms. Acknowledging that his long-term prognosis is extremely poor, Trebek says he intends on honoring his recently signed contract to host the series until the end of the 2021–22 season for as long as he is able.
Showtime has announced that it is cancelling SMILF after its final airing March 31 and its distributor ABC Signature Studios suspended a two-year deal with series creator and star Frankie Shaw after lawmakers in Massachusetts — where the Boston-set series at least partially shoots — wrote a letter urging the show's tax incentives to be suspended pending the outcome of ABC Studios' investigation into the series. In addition, local legislators and activists called on the state's Attorney General Office to launch a separate and independent investigation into the matter. The fallout came to light after The Hollywood Reporter did a story in December 2018 involving allegations of abusive behavior and violations of industry rules that resulted in one performer leaving the series amid claims her contract was breached due to two mishandled sex scenes, and numerous employees contacting Disney's anonymous tip line about an array of issues and complaints that attracted the attention of major talent guilds, including allegations of separating writers by race. Shaw, who is being accused of these claims, is vehemently denying any wrongdoing made on the set of SMILF.
Fox News Channel issues an apology to its viewers, this time for comments made against U.S. CongresswomanIlhan Omar (D–MN-5) by host Jeanine Pirro during her March 10 broadcast, in which Pirro attacked the Somali-American politician by saying that she is "Sharia-compliant" and has practiced "Sharia-adherence behavior" by wearing a hijab, and went further to add "Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution?" The remarks were also condemned by Hufsa Kamal, who also happens to serve as associate producer for Bret Baier's news show, reminding Pirro that "You have Muslims working at the same network you do, including myself. K thx." Fox issued a statement saying "We strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro's comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar... They do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly." Omar also accepted Fox News' apology through a tweet: "Thank you... No one's commitment to our constitution should be questioned because of their faith or country of birth." Pirro, who has yet to make an apology, later stated that she would offer an invitation to have Omar on the show. On March 12, three advertisers, NerdWallet, Letgo, and Novo Nordisk, announced that they'll no longer air ads on Justice with Judge Jeanine due to her rhetoric opinions, which comes at the same time her colleague Tucker Carlson is also facing backlash over anti-Semitic, racial, and homophobic comments he made over the last decade on the Bubba the Love Sponge Show (which variously aired over broadcast radio and Sirius XM Satellite Radio) that were unearthed and placed online by Media Matters for America, which Carlson has defended and doubled down upon and the watchdog organization says they plan to keep monitoring their actions. Fox News cancelled the March 16 broadcast and five days later (on March 21) announced that a March 23 episode of Pirro's show will not air because of the controversy. Pirro's social accounts also go silent as reports confirmed that the host was placed on suspension until March 30. President Donald Trump posted a series of Twitter feeds supporting Pirro during her suspension.
CBS Corporation announces it has acquired Lionsgate's 50% interest in Pop. CBS – which will operate the network as part of its CBS Cable Networks unit – acquired a 50% stake in the network (then known as the TV Guide Network, and in the process of phasing out the scrolling grid that it had been using since it launched as a program listings service in 1981) from Lionsgate for an investment of $100 million. The terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed by either company.
CBS Sports announces it will trade the rights for Super Bowl LVI in 2022 to NBC in exchange for Super Bowl LV. The move is made to prevent a conflict between the National Football League championship and the 2022 Winter Olympics, which NBC holds the rights to and is scheduled to begin broadcasting two days prior. Furthermore, it allows CBS to position the game alongside its coverage of the NCAA Men's Final Four in 2021.
The 2019iHeartRadio Music Awards aired on Fox. This is the first ceremony to be broadcast by the network, having most recently been broadcast by WarnerMedia-owned networks TNT, TBS, and truTV.
Matt Shepard, Kirk Gibson, and Jack Morris become Fox Sports Detroit's new full-time Detroit Tigers announcers. They are succeeding long-time announcers Mario Impemba and Rod Allen, whose contracts weren't renewed due to an alleged physical altercation after a game last season, which caused then-backup announcers Shepard and Gibson to take their places for its final weeks.
Crown Media cuts ties with actress Lori Loughlin, who starred in the Hallmark Channel drama series When Calls the Heart and the Garage Sale Mystery film series for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, following her indictment and arrest stemming from her involvement in a bribery scandal centering on college admissions that also snared fellow actress Felicity Huffman (whose husband, actor William H. Macy, was also named as an unindicted co-conspirator). Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli are accused of paying "bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters [Olivia Jade and Bella Giannulli] designated as recruits to the USC crew team — although they did not participate in the crew — thereby facilitating their admission to USC," according to the 200-page indictment. Hallmark also decided to pull all episodes (including those that were scheduled to air) of When Calls the Heart, with the show's producers confirming on March 18 that her character, Abigail Stanton, would be written out, likewise with the Garage Sale Mystery films, including one that was about to begin production before her arrest. Netflix also fired Loughlin from her recurring role as her former Full House character Rebecca "Becky" Donaldson in Fuller House, on which she appeared in 13 episodes over four seasons.
The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules that were approved by the United States Congress in 2018, called the Reimbursement Expansion Act, which will go towards reimbursing FM stations as well as low-power and translator television stations that were "forced to incur costs to permanently relocate, temporarily or permanently modify their facilities, or purchase or modify auxiliary facilities" due to the ongoing television repack. The rules apply to all FM signals that were licensed and operating on April 13, 2017, that shared a tower with a repacked television station, of which will be eligible for reimbursement, estimated at $150 million, including costs for relocating, modifications of facilities or to build auxiliary facilities while a television station was rebuilding their facilities. A statutory deadline has been put in place to implement the rules, ending March 23.
The 2019 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament bracket, intended to be announced during a special program on ESPN at 7 p.m. EDT, is inadvertently revealed in full within side-screen on-screen graphics four hours earlier by sister network ESPNU, during a rerun of the Bracketology analysis program from ESPN the evening before. As a result, some schools cancelled public celebrations for teams expecting to be placed in the tourney and their fans or had to change those celebrations, along with some schools trying to keep the early news from their athletes to not ruin their celebrations. ESPN issued an apology for the error.
Nexstar Media Group and Tribune Media announced that the former will sell 19 television stations to Tegna Inc. and the E. W. Scripps Company in separate deals worth $1.32 billion, in a move to reduce Nexstar's national ownership reach under the federally-imposed 39% cap and alleviate ownership conflicts with existing Nexstar properties. Tegna will acquire eleven stations (Tribune-operated WTIC–WCCT/Hartford, WPMT/Harrisburg, WNEP-TV/Scranton–Wilkes-Barre, WQAD-TV/Quad Cities and KFSM-TV/Fort Smith–Fayetteville and Nexstar-operated WATN–WLMT/Memphis, WOI–KCWI/Des Moines and WZDX/Huntsville) for $740 million and Scripps will purchase eight stations (Tribune-operated WPIX/New York City, WSFL-TV/Miami-Fort Lauderdale, KSTU/Salt Lake City, WTKR–WGNT/Norfolk, WXMI/Grand Rapids and WTVR-TV/Richmond, and Nexstar-owned KASW/Phoenix) for $580 million. Scripps gave Nexstar an option to buy back WPIX (which was likely divested as the station operates its digital signal on VHF, which, as the New York market accounts for 6.44% of U.S. television households, would put Nexstar over the national cap as it cannot be counted for 50% of its total reach under the "UHF discount") between March 31, 2020, and December 31, 2021. Due to the sale of WPIX, following the closure of the Nexstar–Tribune merger, KTLA/Los Angeles will become Nexstar's largest station by market size.
Vin Di Bona Productions, the producers of America's Funniest Home Videos, placed Vice President of business development and strategy Philip Shafran on administrative leave in the wake of a March 19 lawsuit filed against the company by three unidentified women, who claimed that they were being racially and sexually harassed during their tenure in 2018, as well as their dismissal in October of that year, and, according to one of the women, discovered the following November that the company had moved her from salaried employee status to that of an hourly employee in July, all of which pointed to actions directed by Shafran. The women are hoping to seek a jury trial, which is pending in the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Marshall Broadcasting Group files a lawsuit against Nexstar Media Group in the New York Supreme Court, accusing it of sabotaging the value of Fox affiliates KPEJ/Odessa–Midland, KMSS-TV/Shreveport and KLJB/Davenport for future direct acquisition under a waiver of duopoly rules (which allow groups to seek approval for duopolies involving two of a given market's four highest-rated stations), being undermined in favor of Nexstar under the terms of Marshall's financing deal with that group (which Nexstar is alleged to have threatened to withdraw), being given an $16-million overevaluation of the collective worth of the stations, and withholding retransmission fees. (Before the 2014 deal with Nexstar, which was designed to appeal to FCC efforts to encourage broadcast ownership by minorities and address conflict-related divestitures through Nexstar's acquisitions of Communications Corporation of America and Grant Broadcasting, Marshall owner Pluria Marshall Jr. [who is African American] had struggled to obtain financing for station purchases – including a rebuffed 2008 offer to buy stations from eventual Nexstar acquiree Media General – dating to the late 1980s.) Nexstar issued a statement calling the allegations "spurious and without merit."
News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) announces its intent to acquire ABC affiliate KQTV/St. Joseph, Missouri from Heartland Media for $13.65 million. The deal would result in News-Press & Gazette maintaining a monopoly on broadcasting and print media in St. Joseph (where the company is headquartered) as it already owns the namesake St. Joseph News-Press newspaper, the NPG-founded trio of KCJO-LD (CBS), KNPG-LD (NBC) and KNPN-LD (Fox), and local news rebroadcast channel News-Press NOW. While it would be a quadropoly in structure, the purchase may not violate FCC broadcast ownership rules as KQTV is a full-power station while NPG's three existing stations are all low-powered. (FCC local ownership rules restrict a single broadcasting company from owning more than two of the four highest-rated television stations in the same market, but applies the rule exclusively to full-power stations due to their broader signal reach.) However, it could be subject to antitrust issues under DOJ review, due to the concentration of St. Joseph's print and broadcast media outlets under one entity in exceedance of its measure of market concentration constituting a tight oligopoly under the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index.
Nexstar Media Group announces its intent to sell the Indianapolis duopoly of WISH-TV (The CW) and WNDY-TV (MyNetworkTV) to Circle City Broadcasting I Inc. (owned by DuJuan McCoy, who already owns CBS/Fox affiliate WEVV-TV/Evansville through his existing company Bayou City Broadcasting) for $42.5 million. The sale of the two stations – which Nexstar acquired as part of its 2016 acquisition of Media General – hinges on obtaining a waiver from FCC rules that prohibit common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations within a media market to acquire the duopoly of WXIN (Fox) and WTTV and satellite WTTK (CBS) as part of its merger with Tribune Media.
By this date, ATSC 3.0 test broadcasts had begun in Phoenix, Arizona; Dallas, Texas; and Lansing, Michigan. There had been plans to use Phoenix as the "test pad" for all-ATSC 3.0 broadcasting in 2018; since no consumer ATSC 3.0 receivers have yet been publicly released, these plans have been postponed indefinitely.
Sara Gilbert announces she will step down as co-host and moderator of The Talk at the end of its ninth season. Gilbert – who has been part of the CBS talk show's panel since she created it in 2010 – cited difficulty balancing her day-to-day role on the show with her acting opportunities (including her role as Darlene Conner on the Roseanne spin-off The Conners, which ABC renewed for a second season two weeks prior) and her desire to produce other projects for her decision to leave the show, to lighten her workload so she can spend additional time with wife Linda Perry and their three children. Gilbert did not disclose whether she will retain her role as executive producer of the show.
Professional gambler James Holzhauer establishes one of the most dominant runs in the history of the game show Jeopardy! with the game show's first-ever six-figure single-day winnings totals. Holzhauer won $110,914 during the April 9 episode, then surpassed that with a $131,127 win on April 17; combined with three other single-day totals over $80,000, Holzhauer now holds the top five single-day totals in Jeopardy! history, pushing the previous record of $77,000 (set by Roger Craig in 2010) to sixth place. By April 23, Holzhauer had become only the third millionaire in the show's history, following Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Holzhauer achieved his totals largely through aggressive but successful wagers on Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy! clues. Holzhauer was narrowly defeated on June 3, concluding a victory streak of 33 games with an earning total of $2,464,216, and falling short of the current record set by Ken Jennings in 2004. Holzhauer would later return to compete in two tournaments, Tournament of Champions (held on November 4–15) and The Greatest of All Time (held January 7–14) and won $250,000 on each tournament (for the former in which he went on to win), putting him as the third-largest winner for an American game show contestant.
PBS member station WGBY-TVSpringfield–Holyoke, Massachusetts (a semi-satellite of Boston's WGBH-TV and licensed to parent organization, the WGBH Educational Foundation) and the six-station local network of New England Public Radio announce a merger between the two organizations, rebranding as New England Public Media. The newly formed organization will take advantage of the two entities' strength to provide better news and arts coverage of Western Massachusetts, with WGBHEF investing $6 million over six years in the new venture. All owners of the various stations involved (including the WGBHEF for WGBY, and Amherst College, American International College, UMass and the New England Public Radio Foundation for NEPR's stations) will retain control of their individual licenses and facilities.
After nearly four decades of legal issues that prevented it from being offered in syndication except for DVD releases, MeTV began airing the first five seasons (1967–72) of The Carol Burnett Show in its original format, marking the first time since its CBS broadcasts that it has aired on any television broadcast entity. MeTV currently airs Carol Burnett and Friends, which has aired in syndication and cable since 1977, featuring packaged sketches from seasons six through eleven (1972 to 1978).
The Weather Channel became the victim of an apparent malicious software attack on the network's infrastructure that temporarily suspended regular forecast programming that morning. The network's morning show, AMHQ (which was scheduled to start at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time) was substituted with episodes of the Canadian reality-documentary program Heavy Rescue: 401, before the former program was able to start an abbreviated edition 99 minutes later at 7:39 a.m. ET. In a statement apologizing to viewers for the disruption, the network issued a statement disclosing that federal law enforcement was investigating the issue.
CBS Sports acquires rights to the Women's National Basketball Association beginning in the 2019 season. Under the multi-year agreement, whose terms were not disclosed, 40 games will air live on the CBS Sports Network in primetime and on weekends during the league's regular season. ESPN will continue to carry select regular-season games and the playoffs.
ABC (via its ESPN on ABC division) joins sister networks ESPN, ESPN2, and NFL Network in airing the 2019 NFL draft for the first time live and in its entirety, as a secondary broadcast hosted by ESPN's College GameDay personnel over the course of three days focused on the stories and players of the draft rather than ESPN's traditional data and team-focused broadcast. Singer Taylor Swift uses ABC's coverage to promote the midnight launch of "Me!", the first single off her upcoming untitled seventh album.
The 2019 Billboard Music Awards aired on NBC for the second straight year with Kelly Clarkson returning as host. Drake was the night's biggest winner with 12 awards, while Cardi B, who led with a record-setting 21 nominations (a first for this event) took home five BBMAs. Mariah Carey received this year's Icon award.
CBS News announces anchor changes to its two flagship newscasts: Norah O'Donnell is named anchor of the CBS Evening News (succeeding Jeff Glor), and John Dickerson will become a correspondent for 60 Minutes (on which O'Donnell also serves as and will remain a correspondent). Succeeding them as co-anchors of CBS This Morning alongside original co-anchor Gayle King, effective May 20, will be existing co-anchor of its Saturday edition, Anthony Mason, and correspondent Tony Dokoupil. The news division also announces that the Evening News will move from its longtime home at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City to the network's Washington, D.C. bureau in the fall, which would make it the second nightly network newscast to originate from the Washington metropolitan area, after PBS NewsHour.
Tegna Inc. announces it will purchase the digital multicast assets of Cooper Media – Justice Network and Quest – for $77 million. The acquisition covers the 85% interest in the two networks that Tegna does not already own. The transaction was finalized the following month on June 18; Brian Weiss, president and general manager of Cooper Media, became a Tegna executive upon closure of the deal and will continue to handle the operations of Justice and Quest.
Allen Media Broadcasting (owned by Byron Allen, founder/president/CEO of Entertainment Studios) announces its intent to purchase the Bayou City Broadcasting's four television stations – the Evansville, Indiana duopoly of CBS primary WEVV-TV and Fox affiliate WEEV-LD (which is simulcast on WEVV-DT2) and the Lafayette, Louisiana duopoly of KADN (Fox) and KLAF-LD (NBC) – from the latter group's owner, DuJuan McCoy, for $165 million. The purchase would mark Allen's entry into broadcast television ownership, and would likely provide financing for McCoy's pending purchase of WISH-TV and WNDY in Indianapolis (though his new company, Circle City Broadcasting) from Nexstar Media Group.
WJZ-TV/Baltimore announces the termination of Mary Bubala after the anchor seemed to suggest during an interview with a Loyola University Maryland professor that African-American women were not fit to be the city's mayor. "Is this a signal that a different kind of leadership is needed to move Baltimore City forward," Bubala asked, referring to the resignation of two mayors, both black women. The CBS owned-and-operated station apologized via statement for the remarks made by Bubala, who had been employed by WJZ-TV for 25 years.
During NBC Sports Chicago's live broadcast of the Cubs game with the Miami Marlins at Wrigley Field, a fan can be seen flashing an OK symbol behind Doug Glanville as the former player was delivering analysis. Believing that the gesture was intended to be racist (the Anti-Defamation League has noted it is used to declare white power), the Cubs said in a statement that the fan would not be allowed at Wrigley Field "indefinitely."
Billy Bush is named the new host of the syndicated infotainment newsmagazine Extra, premiering on September 9 with its new base of Fox Television Stations carrying the program in major markets after moving from NBC's owned stations. The series will expand its focus from entertainment news to pop culture, sports and politics, airing from a new broadcast center and newsroom at The Burbank Studios (by coincidence, where Billy Bush's former program for NBCUniversal Television Distribution, Access Hollywood, originated until 2015), while continuing to report from bureaus in L.A. and New York and establishing new outposts in Nashville and Las Vegas. The program will continue in syndication via Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. Bush, who is expected to succeed Mario Lopez (who himself was named the host of Access on July 17), is an Extra alumni, starting as their correspondent before joining Access. It is his first hosting gig since Access fired him in 2016 over the controversial tape in which Donald Trump made misogynistic remarks toward women in 2005. A further change of the show's title to Extra Extra is stopped a week before the season premiere, when an entertainment industry expo trade publication titled ExtraExtra Show Daily steps in to protect their 22-year-old trademark on the title.
The Trump administration for the first time will require pharmaceutical companies to include the price of prescription drugs in television advertisements if the cost exceeds $35 per month beginning this Summer. The new rules, put in place by the Department of Health and Human Services, and for which has been controversial despite bipartisan support, will affect all direct-to-consumer television advertisements for drugs covered by Medicare or Medicaid, and must include the list price, also known as the wholesale acquisition price (updated every quarter), along with disclaimers that provide a list of potential side effects and an added message, "if you have insurance that covers drugs, your cost may be different." While the companies have agreed to the new rules, it could be challenged by the drug industry, which argues that revealing the list price will confuse consumers and could violate the companies' First Amendment rights, while the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, concerned that D-T-C television advertising featuring the costs could be confusing for patients, have already set up a website that would link patients to financial assistance for drugs as well as to company websites that provide data on list prices, typical out-of-pocket costs and sources of financial assistance.
At 35 years, 198 days, Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak breaks former The Price Is Right host Bob Barker's record for hosting a single game show. Two days later on the 10th, the series celebrates the airing of its 7,000th primetime episode in syndication.
Conan O'Brien settles a lawsuit filed by San Diego man Robert Alexander Kaseberg who claimed the late night host and his writers on Conan stole five jokes from his Twitter account in 2015. O'Brien also penned an essay in Variety explaining why the case was settled instead of going to trial.
The 22nd season premiere of Arthur shows schoolteacher Nigel Ratburn marrying his male partner, Patrick. While not specifically referred to as gay, it marks the first time the children's animated series has addressed the character's sexuality, with a PBS Kids spokesperson indicating the importance of having a diverse representation in their programming. However, the episode was not shown by two state-run PBS member networks, Alabama Public Television (APT) and the Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN), citing issues with whether the episode's subject matter was appropriate for young children. APT substituted it with a rerun, marking the second time that it pulled an episode of a PBS Kids program with an LGBTQ storyline (the state-owned network replaced a 2005 episode of spin-off Postcards from Buster titled "Sugartime!", in which Arthur character Buster Baxter visits a friend who has two mothers, with another); an AETN spokesman stated that it had screened the episode before deciding not to air it. Regardless of those over-the-air pre-emptions, it still aired without restriction on the website and app of PBS Kids.
The Walt Disney Company and Comcast strike a deal, under which Disney will oversee operational control of the streaming video site Hulu effective immediately; a concurring "put/call" agreement would also allow either Comcast to require Disney to buy or, at fair market value, Disney to require Comcast to sell it the latter's 33% interest by January 2024. The deal establishes a minimum total valuation of Hulu at that time of $27.5 billion, which means Comcast could come away with more than $9 billion for its stake as long as it continues to invest in the service. The arrangement is expected to solve a series of minor conflicts between the two companies that saw them battling for a purchase of 20th Century Fox and related television assets (which Disney successfully won), as well as Comcast having agreed to help Disney buy out AT&T's stake in the service after the latter acquired WarnerMedia. Disney plans to incorporate Hulu into its expanding digital/streaming portfolio with Disney+ that is scheduled to begin in November.
Freeform announces that it has acquired rerun rights to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman for its 25 Days of Christmas block. This marks the first time the specials, which had aired every year on CBS since 1972 and 1969 respectively, will air on a cable network. CBS will continue to share the rights and air the specials twice on broadcast television.
The Coca-Cola Company announces New Coke will be reintroduced for a limited time, in a campaign tied to the third season of Stranger Things, which takes place in 1985 when the controversial cola was released, but soon discontinued. 500,000 cans will be made available via vending machines in select cities and through mail orders.
After months of speculation as to whether she'll end her show after 2020, Ellen DeGeneres confirms that she has signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution to continue hosting her talk show until 2022. DeGeneres made the news official on her program, telling her audience "I'm excited to announce that I'll be doing my show for three more years," then joked that "Mostly because I love doing it so much every day, but also because that takes me to the end of my car lease."
Speaking to Brian Stelter on CNN's Reliable Sources, Scott Pelley indicates he was removed from the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News in 2018 after sharing his concerns about a "hostile work environment" at CBS News with David Rhodes, then the president of the department. In turn, Rhodes allegedly warned Pelley he would be let go if he continued to press on the matter. Pelley then went to former CBS Corporation chairman Les Moonves before eventually being succeeded by Anthony Mason on the evening news. Rhodes denies that Pelley ever approached him regarding working conditions at CBS.
Jamie Simpson, a meteorologist at Dayton's WKEF-TV (ABC) and WRGT (Fox/MyNetworkTV), calls out viewers on-air complaining on social media about continuous severe weather coverage preempting that evening's episode of The Bachelorette on WKEF during the Sinclair-run virtual duopoly's severe weather coverage. The conditions culminated in three tornadoes – two EF3s and one EF4, respectively – hitting the northwestern suburbs of Dayton, claiming at least one life, injuring dozens, and damaging and destroying close to 600 homes and businesses. Simpson later apologized for taking his frustration out on viewers. The live coverage, which has gone viral, also received support from Bachelorette star Hannah Brown, thanking fans for the loyalty but urging them to be safe, saying "Naders are no joke..."
The FCC commences accepting applications for full-power, low-power and Class A television stations seeking to transmit over the ATSC 3.0 transmission standard. Stations currently maintaining channel sharing agreements are not currently able to apply to operate ATSC 3.0 signals, pending further revisions to FCC forms to accommodate those stations to file applications, but can operate 3.0 signals under a special temporary authority designation.
DirecTV drops 17 stations in 14 markets owned by companies associated with Sinclair Broadcast Group (including Deerfield Media, Howard Stirk Holdings and several others) after failing to reach a retransmission agreement. The stations were re-added on November 11, when a new agreement was reached.
After four years serving as their analyst for the New York Mets broadcasts, SNY fires Nelson Figueroa after coming to work on May 31, in what The New York Post quoted sources as stating was "a state not fit to work." Figueroa, an alumnus of the Mets as a pitcher with the team and who is also employed by MLB Network, still wanted to appear on SNY's evening program, Baseball Night in New York, but was not allowed to appear. Figueroa's behavior became an issue with SNY, which resulted in being demoted this season from his previous post as a No. 1 studio analyst on the Mets pregame and postgame shows and was relegated to features on SNY's ancillary programs.
Joe Crain – a weekday morning meteorologist and 15-year veteran at WICS/WICD (ABC) and WRSP/WCCU (Fox) – criticizes the "Code Red Alert Day" initiative by the Springfield/Champaign, Illinois virtual quadropoly's parent, Sinclair Broadcast Group, on-air, addressing viewer complaints that it is used overbroadly (even during low-end severe weather threats) that it unnecessarily alarms residents and harms local business revenue on the declared days. Crain was subsequently fired by Sinclair amid the critique, prompting an advertising boycott by several local businesses, an online petition urging the station to reinstate Crain and a complaint from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) stating that the "Code Red" system "overstat[es] the danger to our community." WICS/WICD later stated it would rebrand its severe weather alerts to the Sinclair-required "Weather Warn" moniker.
Gray Television announces its stations in 93 markets will resume playing The Star-Spangled Banner at the start of the broadcast day, a tradition that has faded on most American broadcast stations as many have stopped signing-off nightly to maintain full 24-hour schedules; they thus become the first station group to return it en masse across a station group. Gray's film uses patriotic imagery over the voice of nine year-old Reina Özbay, a young singer from South Florida. The film was later syndicated to other station groups, beginning with the owned-and-operated stations of CBS in late August in the same year.
The 73rd Tony Awards was broadcast on CBS with James Corden as the host. The telecast was watched by 5.4 million viewers, a 15% decline from the 2018 broadcast attributed partly to competition from Game 6 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Finals, along with the show being among the last nationally broadcast awards ceremony continuing to maintain a west coast tape delay (with some of Corden's segments having been uploaded to YouTube well before the show started there). Hadestown had the most wins among the nominated stage productions with eight awards (including Best Musical).
Dispatch Broadcast Group announces its withdrawal from broadcasting with the announcement it will sell all of its television and radio assets (including CBS affiliate WBNS-TV/Columbus and NBC affiliate WTHR/Indianapolis) to Tegna for $535 million. The deal, which is expected to close later that year, will allow Tegna to expand its presence in Ohio (where Tegna already owns WKYC/Cleveland and controls the Toledo duopoly of WTOL and WUPW, the latter two of which were acquired as part of Gray's acquisition of Raycom Media in 2018) and Indiana (which would result in Tegna's re-entry into that state since their sale of ABC affiliate WPTA/Fort Wayne to the now-defunct Pulitzer Broadcasting 36 years prior). The deal was consummated on August 8.
NBC's broadcast of Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Finals, in which the St. Louis Blues defeat the Boston Bruins to win their first ever Stanley Cup and the city's first championship win since 2011, was watched by 8.72 million viewers, the largest audience for an NHL game in nearly 50 years.
The 2019 Radio Disney Music Awards, renamed ARDYs: A Radio Disney Music Celebration, was broadcast on Disney Channel and DisneyNow with Sofia Carson as the host. It is the first telecast to be broadcast live on the platforms, after having aired on a delayed basis since Disney Channel began televising the event in 2014. BTS won the "Global Phenom Award", actress/singer Meg Donnelly won the "Next Big Thing NBT Award," and Avril Lavigne won the "Hero Award".
Five anchors employed with NY1 – Roma Torre, Jeanine Ramirez, Amanda Farinacci, Vivian Lee and Kristen Shaughnessy, who range in age from 40 to 61 – file an age and gender discrimination lawsuit against the New York City-based regional news channel and its parent company, Charter Communications, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that network executives hired by Charter following its 2016 purchase of former parent Time Warner Cable had reduced their airtime and anchoring duties in favor of younger female and male journalists, and had excluded them from promotional campaigns. The suit asks for an injunction for Charter to place the plaintiffs "in the positions they would have occupied" if not for "discriminatory and retaliatory treatment" and compensate them for "mental anguish, humiliation, embarrassment, stress and anxiety." In a statement, Charter spokesperson Maureen Huff said that the company is taking the allegations seriously as it "thorough[ly] review[s]" the issue, but has "not found any merit to them." Two former NY1 reporters, Thalia Perez and Michelle Greenstein, filed a separate lawsuit on July 31, alleging that they were each denied opportunities and ultimately fired in late 2017 because they were over 40 and were either pregnant or returning from maternity leave.
The Weather Channel reaches a multi-year carriage agreement with Verizon FiOS, ending a three-year dispute over retransmission fees – the first such disagreement that resulted in a television provider removing TWC from their lineup – that began in March 2015 and resulted in it subsequently being supplanted by AccuWeather Network (which will continue to be carried by FiOS). The deal with Entertainment Studios (which bought the channel from a consortium of NBCUniversal, The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital in March 2018) will see TWC return to the FiOS lineup on June 24 and be made available on the FiOS TV mobile app in the fall.
Gray Television announces plans to convert silent translator stations in two of the nation's smallest markets into NBC affiliates. In St. James, Minnesota, Gray plans to convert K07AAH-D, formerly a translator of CBS/Fox affiliate KEYC-TV, into KMNF-LD, returning NBC to the Mankato market for the first time since KEYC-TV switched to CBS in 1961. (Since no over-the-air CW affiliate exists in Mankato, KMNF-LD is also adding a LD2 subchannel affiliated with the network.) Meanwhile, in Fort Kent, Maine, plans are to convert WWPI-LD, which used to be a translator of CBS/Fox/CW+ affiliate WAGM-TV, giving the Presque Isle market its first full-time NBC affiliate (WAGM-TV itself had been a primary NBC affiliate from 1957 to 1959, but shared that affiliation with ABC and CBS; WAGM-TV would drop NBC entirely in 2005). The move will leave Harrisonburg (where WVIR-TV in Charlottesville, which Gray is in the process of buying from Waterman Broadcasting, operates a translator) and Alpena as the two remaining markets without a locally based NBC affiliate. While no specific dates have been announced, the two stations are anticipated to sign-on before the end of the year.
Netflix announced that effective immediately all new shows it commissions with TV Parental Guidelines ratings TV-14 or below, along with theatrical projects with an MPAA rating of PG-13 or will exclude smoking and e-cigarette use, except for "reasons of historical or factual accuracy," including new and future projects with higher ratings that will not depict smoking or e-cigarette use "unless it's essential to the creative vision of the artist or because it's character-defining (historically or culturally important)," and it will include labels and/or disclaimers on programs if the scenes/content featured smoking. The changes comes in the wake of a Truth Initiative report that came at the same time as Netflix's season 3 premiere of Stranger Things on July 4, in which Truth Initiative's analysis cited that its season 2 episodes had a 44% increase in smoking depictions from the freshman run, climbing from 182 in season 1 to 262 in season 2, and its season 1 had the highest incidence of tobacco depictions among the shows in Truth Initiative's inaugural study on the topic in 2018.
Univision Communications, owner of Univision and Univision Deportes Network, has contracted three investment banks, Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Moelis & Company LLC and LionTree LLC, to perform a strategic review of its assets and whether to sell the privately owned company. The news comes after Haim Saban, Madison Dearborn Partners and Providence Equity Partners were seeking at least a partial exit through a public stock offering or to sell the company completely. The three investors acquired the Hispanic-focused multimedia entity in 2006 and have explored offers to sell since 2014, although it did turn down a $15 billion bid by John Malone in 2017.
A series of earthquakes that were located near Ridgecrest, California (which started on July 4, registered at 6.4; on this day it registered between 6.9 and 7.1 following a series of aftershocks) cause disruptions throughout Southern California, as far north as Sacramento, and Southern Nevada. The event is immediately caught live on air during a Los Angeles Dodgers-San Diego Padres game at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on SportsNet LA and ends an NBA Summer League game in Las Vegas that was broadcast on ESPN due to a fear of the scoreboard at the Thomas & Mack Center falling onto the court (a second game on NBA TV in a venue with wall-mounted scoreboards continues). It also disrupted Los Angeles independent KCAL-TV's 8:00 p.m. newscast, sending its anchors under their desk and causing equipment to dangle. The local stations in Southern California, Las Vegas, and west coast studios of cable news television networks interrupted programming for wall-to-wall coverage as news of serious reports of possible activity developed.
Public Media Connect-owned PBS stations WCET/Cincinnati, WPTD/Dayton and WPTO/Oxford, Ohio are knocked off the air after a multiplexer in the master control power supply at WPTD/WPTO's downtown Dayton facility – which handles master control for all three stations – fails; the failure also affected its direct-to-fiber feed for cable and satellite providers. A new multiplexer (which selects input signals for output to the three stations and was not immediately available from their manufacturer) was installed by July 9, with programming resuming around 11:40 a.m. that morning, and forcing all three stations to reschedule more than a dozen PBS programs that were preempted by the outage for mid- and late-July. Cable and satellite subscribers in the Cincinnati region had to rely on WCVN-TV/Covington (a KET member station) for PBS programming during the outage.
The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup final, which saw the United States defeat the Netherlands in a 2–0 victory to retain its back-to-back championship title (and their fourth overall since the inaugural 1991 event, in which they won the first trophy), became the most-watched in Women's World Cup history in the U.S. with 25.4 million viewers on all platforms. The broadcast drew more than 13.98 million viewers and a 10.0 household rating during its airing on Fox, 1.6 million viewers on Telemundo, the most ever for a Women's World Cup match on a Spanish-language network, and an average minute audience of 289,000, bringing the total to 14.27 million. The broadcast also placed third among all-time Women's World Cup games, behind the 2015 final and the final match of 1999 (18 million), while the cross-platform audience outperformed the 2011 final's 13.5 million viewers, and ranked sixth among all-time for any U.S. national team World Cup match, men or women.
The Federal Communications Commission substantially softens its requirements for educational children's programming (E/I), while backing off from the full repeal of the rules that the agency originally proposed the year before. Among the most prominent changes are that digital subchannel services will no longer be subject to the E/I requirements, and primary channels of television stations will only need to average three hours per week over the course of a year (156 hours per year) instead of at least three hours every week. Thirteen hours of programming per year can be offset onto the schedule of a digital subchannel, and an additional hour before the start of the school day (6:00 to 7:00 a.m. local time) will be opened up to count toward the E/I rules.
After eight years, four of those as an all-night service similar to sister network Nick at Nite and with the move of much of its content to a new dedicated channel on Pluto TV, TeenNick's overnight classic program block (currently known as NickRewind) is reduced to a two-hour rotation of early 90s Nicktoons as TeenNick sees its first new programming in several years in primetime. The new schedule is made up of library MTV series such as Teen Wolf and former YouTube Originals from AwesomenessTV (a recent Viacom acquisition), which is branded as an "AwesomenessTV on TeenNick" block of programming. NickRewind would be restored to the full overnight block later in the year (it was moved to a five-hour block within days), albeit with a reduced program variety.
Following the expiration of an existing seven-year contract, AT&T removes 29 CBS owned-and-operated stations (including the company's CW, MyNetworkTV and independent stations) in 17 markets as well as the Smithsonian Channel and CBS Sports Network from DirecTV, DirecTV Now and AT&T U-verse amid a carriage dispute over retransmission fees as well as whether AT&T could sell CBS All Access as an optional streaming service, if CBS would be required to produce some programming in a higher 4K UHDTV format and if CBS content (including past episodes and complete seasons of series) would be available to all AT&T television subscribers. The blackout – which affected 6.5 million customers – ended after 20 days on August 8, after AT&T and CBS Corporation reached a new multi-year carriage agreement.
The Walt Disney Company has struck a settlement deal with Wind Dancer Production Group and writer-producers Matt Williams, Carmen Finestra, Tam O'Shanter and David McFadzean, to put an end to a lawsuit seeking $40 million in damages that was filed in 2013 over allegations that they had been cheated out of syndication profits from the 1991–1999 sitcom Home Improvement that resulted in a consequential appellate ruling and was within weeks of going to trial. The creative team alleged that Disney had charged massive distribution fees as well as selling the repeats of the series into the New York market (where it aired on Fox O&O WNYW) for no money, undercutting the pot of net profits, upon which they asserted a 75 percent stake. Since its syndication run in 1995, Disney has generated $1.5 billion from the show alone. The plaintiffs also claimed that Disney applied 35 and 40 percent distribution fees when licensing the domestic basic cable rights of the series and questioned the royalties they were getting from subscription video-on-demand services including Hulu (which Disney had acquired a major stake and full control of back in May). Disney however contended that it was authorized to do so under the contracts. As part of the settlement, both parties have not commented on the condition of the agreement or terms.
Dish Network and Sling TV drop 21 of the Fox Sports Networks due to a carriage dispute. Because the sports networks were still in the process of being sold from The Walt Disney Company to Sinclair Broadcast Group when the blackout began, Disney management took a hands-off approach, having the Fox Sports Networks Group negotiate directly with Dish. The dispute continued after Sinclair took full control of the networks in August.
The Walt Disney Company, CBS Corporation, NBCUniversal, and Fox Corporation – the respective parent companies of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox – file a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Locast, an over-the-top streaming service that retransmits signals of network-affiliated stations from select large and small markets. The four media companies are seeking a judgement to shut down Locast, claiming that its unpaid retransmissions of television signals violate their copyrights and threatens their retransmission fee agreements with pay television providers, accusing it of acting on behalf of Dish Network and AT&T (owner of DirecTV and DirecTV Now). (AT&T had made a $500,000 donation to Locast shortly after its founding, and founder David Goodfriend has served as a lobbyist for Dish.) Locast has held that its not-for-profit business model legally allows it to stream network programs without compensation.
Warner Bros. Television announces it has "part[ed] ways" with Extra co-host A. J. Calloway – who had been under suspension by the show's production company since the investigation was announced on February 9 – amid a broad investigation of allegations of sexual misconduct levied by two women in January in a report for The Daily Beast. (Calloway had previously been arrested in 2006 amid accusations of sexual assault by author/activist Sil Lai Abrams; those charges were later dropped.)
At 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time (17:00 UTC), phase four of the FCC's "repack," a reorganization of the broadcast spectrum stemming from the broadcast incentive auction, took place. At that point, over 80 television stations throughout the United States simultaneously changed frequencies to free up spectrum claimed by telecommunications providers for use by next-generation broadband networks.
Harry Friedman, the longtime executive producer of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! since 1995 and 1997 respectively, announces that he will retire as executive producer of both shows at the end of the 2019–2020 television season when his contract expires on May 1, 2020 (his 25th year at Sony Pictures Television). In August 2021, it was revealed that the real origins of his retirement plants began back in April 2018 when he was hospitalized for 30 days for a series of three abdominal surgeries, which were life-threatening episodes, in which he made a full recovery. He was succeeded later in the month by The Price Is Right and Let's Make a Deal executive producer Mike Richards as the executive producer of both shows.
Afton Williamson announces she will not return as training officer Talia Bishop in the ABC cop drama The Rookie, alleging bullying and racist comments made by hair department head Sallie Nicole Ciganovich throughout the production of the show's first season that she states had gone unaddressed to the show's human resources office after being reported to creator/executive producer Alexi Hawley, and incidents of sexual harassment and assault by actor Demetrius Grosse (who recurred as Det. Kevin Wolfe in five episodes that season) during its Season 1 wrap party. ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke said she learned of Williamson's allegations at the end of June, when Entertainment One – which co-produces the series with network sister company ABC Studios – opened an investigation into the matter. The network confirmed that Williamson will be replaced by a new character in the second season's fourth episode.
Alf Clausen, the longtime composer of The Simpsons from 1990 to 2017, files a wrongful termination lawsuit against Fox, Gracie Films and 20th Century Fox parent The Walt Disney Company in the Los Angeles County Superior Court over his dismissal from the long-running Fox animated series. The suit, which alleges that he was discriminated against because of his age and a perceived (and unidentified) disability, claims that told that show producer Richard Sakai had informed Clausen that he was being replaced because the series was "taking the music in a different direction," with Hans Zimmer-backed music production company Bleeding Fingers Music assuming composing duties, noting that the company's operators "[were] substantially younger in age [and] was not only paid less, but was not disabled." After a portion was dismissed in August 2020, the suit would be dropped in January 2022.
National Amusements reaches an agreement to re-merge CBS Corporation and Viacom – which were split into separate companies in 2005, five years after the then-Sumner Redstone-controlled company purchased CBS's assets – in an all-stock deal worth $28 billion. The deal, which is expected for completion by the end of 2019 with the entity being renamed ViacomCBS, will bring CBS and Showtime back under common ownership with the respective basic cable properties of Viacom Media Networks and BET Networks (including MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, CMT, Comedy Central, Paramount Network and BET). However, the companies' respective production entities, CBS Television Studios and Paramount Television, will continue as separate operations for some time after the merger is completed. Current Viacom CEO Bob Bakish will head the re-merged company, while acting CBS CEO Joseph Ianniello will be tasked with managing CBS's brands. Meanwhile, Christina Spade, CFO at CBS, would assume the same role at the new company.
The FCC reached a settlement deal with AMC, Discovery's Animal Planet, and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live over misuse of the Emergency Alert System tones. Together, the FCC is collecting over $600,000 from the offenders collectively in civil penalties, with all of them committing to a "strict" compliance regime as part of the consent decrees, according to the FCC's Enforcement Bureau. The fines that were handed out resulted from an October 3, 2018 Kimmel broadcast which simulated the WEA (Wireless Emergency Alert) tone three times during a sketch (ABC also paid fines for its O&Os and affiliates as compensation in the settlement), AMC's The Walking Dead airing the EAS tone twice in February 2019 on eight separate occasions, and Animal Planet for including an actual WEA warning in its Lone Star Law series when a crew following Hurricane Harvey caught a tone while filming that aired eight times.
In a letter to the National Cable Television Cooperative, Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of NBC affiliate WJAC-TV in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and operators of Fox affiliate WWCP-TV and ABC affiliate WATM-TV, announces that it is affiliating WJAC-TV's DT4 subchannel, currently affiliated with the Sinclair-owned TBD network, with The CW on September 16. This will give the Johnstown-Altoona-State College market its first full-time CW affiliate (WPCW in the Pittsburgh market, which was formerly licensed to Johnstown, has served the Johnstown market since the CW's 2006 launch).
Nexstar Media Group becomes the second station group in 2019 to return The Star-Spangled Banneren masse as a part of the start of the broadcast day on its current 171 stations in 100 markets, later expanding to Tribune Broadcasting stations after Nexstar completed its acquisition of that group on September 16. Rather than a standard anthem recording from a non-profit organization played on all stations, Nexstar will partner with BMI and Belmont University's Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business to feature a number of emerging singers and songwriters performing the anthem on a rotation.
Just nearly six months after she was suspended by Fox News Channel over controversial comments regarding congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Jeanine Pirro, appearing on the show of former Trump administrator official and current radio personality Sebastian Gorka (apparently on an open mic during commercial time which was broadcast on a web feed of the program), revealed that the network barred her from competing conservative-oriented networks and platforms, and is unable to promote her newest book through those venues, including Bill O'Reilly's podcast, programs on Newsmax TV, and Eric Bolling's weekly Sinclair Broadcast Group show, America This Week. In addition to competing networks and ex-Fox News personalities, Pirro is not allowed to participate in any political campaign events under her contract with Fox News Channel.
On the first Sunday of the NFL's 100th season, a power outage affecting a CBS Sports production truck stationed at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville, Florida for the Kansas City Chiefs-Jacksonville Jaguars regional broadcast forces the network to switch viewers, including those in Kansas City and Jacksonville, to other games. The initial explanation by NFL on CBS host James Brown was that the network was cutting away from the game for more competitive action (at the time of the outage the result was not in doubt, with the Chiefs leading 37–19 and eventually winning 40–26), but later revealed to be technical difficulties.
The addition of comedian Shane Gillis to the 45th season cast of Saturday Night Live causes controversy when it was discovered he has made derogatory remarks about Chinese Americans, Muslims, women, and the LGBTQ community on the online comedy show Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast. A Lorne Michaels statement announces that Gillis was fired four days later, on September 16.
Just three weeks after she was announced as a competitor for season 28 of Dancing with the Stars, Christie Brinkley withdrew from the event due to injuries to her wrist and arm in rehearsals, which would require surgery and made her unable to compete. Her daughter, model Sailor Brinkley Cook, takes her place.
The FCC approves Nexstar's deal to acquire Tribune Media, which closes three days afterwards. Tegna Inc. took its share of stations including various Fox affiliates, one CBS affiliate (KFSM-TV/Fort Smith), and four ABC affiliates (WNEP-TV/Scranton, WATN-TV/Memphis, WQAD-TV/Quad Cities, and WOI-DT/Des Moines). E. W. Scripps acquired two CBS affiliates (WTVR-TV/Richmond and the duopoly of WTKR and CW affiliate WGNT/Norfolk) and two Fox affiliates (KSTU/Salt Lake City and WXMI/Grand Rapids) in addition to its share of its CW-affiliated stations. Graphics, mobile/web, and master control operations for the new Tegna and Scripps stations will remain under Nexstar's control until such time those stations are re-hubbed to their new ownership.
During the finale of the eleventh installment of American Ninja Warrior, two contestants, Daniel Gil and Drew Drechsel became the second pair of contestants to reach the fourth and final stage of the Las Vegas-based national finals round – both scale a 75-foot (23 m) rope climb within the 30-second time limit; Drechsel successfully completed the stage at a time of 27.33 seconds while Gil timed-out during the challenge, making Drechsel only the third contestant to conquer the Mount Midoriyama obstacle, as well as the second contestant to win the $1 million grand prize, following Isaac Caldiero from the seventh installment in 2015.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in a 2–1 ruling, has vacated the Federal Communications Commission's 2017 broadcast ownership rule changes that loosened cross-ownership and duopoly prohibitions, and remanded them to the commission for further consideration of how the changes affect ownership diversity. The decision was deemed a victory for grassroots media groups and organizations who challenged the changes, while at the same time criticized by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who along with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and National Association of Broadcasters EVP of Communications Dennis Wharton, had supported the changes in an effort to allow media companies to consolidate television, radio, and newspapers entities in order to avoid financial difficulties and possible shutdowns or closures due to increasing competition from other platforms. The FCC plans to appeal the decision.
Ray Lewis, along with his partner Cheryl Burke, is the second season 28 contestant from Dancing with the Stars to withdraw due to a foot injury that the former Baltimore Ravens linebacker had sustained, which would require surgery stemming from suffering three torn tendons during a recent practice. Both had been in danger of being eliminated during the second week but survived (both Mary Wilson and Brandon Armstrong were eliminated instead during that previous week).
Just one day after the completion of its acquisition of NBC affiliate WVIR-TV in Charlottesville, Virginia from Waterman Broadcasting, Gray Television announces it is converting W30CT-D, a WVIR-TV translator located in nearby Harrisonburg (where Gray also owns ABC affiliate WHSV-TV and dual Fox/CBS affiliate WSVF-CD), into WSVW-LD, a separate NBC affiliate for the Harrisonburg market. (Since Harrisonburg has no over-the-air CW affiliate, WSVW-LD is also adding The CW Plus on its LD2 subchannel.) The new station, along with sister station KMNF-LD in Mankato, Minnesota, sign-ons December 1. With WWPI-LD in Presque Isle, Maine due to sign on in January, NBC will then have affiliates in every American market except for Alpena, Michigan (which currently has only one commercial station, WBKB-TV with the three other Big Three networks, along with a CW cable channel).
HBO Max signs a five-year programming and development agreement with Sesame Workshop, granting the premium rights to much of the company's archive, along with the first-run broadcast rights to Sesame Street while the HBO networks moves to the HBO Max content to replace HBO Go and HBO Now.
Veteran television executives Bill Fielder (owner of Coastal Television LLC and former Gray Television chief financial officer) and Stephen Brissette (principal owner of Vision Alaska LLC) announce a joint venture to acquire three Wyoming television stations – Fox affiliates KLWY in Cheyenne and KFNB in Casper from the Wyomedia Corporation, and ABC affiliate KTWO-TV in Casper from Silverton Broadcasting Company, LLC – for an initially undisclosed price. The transaction will result in two Alaska-based ABC affiliates (KJUD/Juneau and KATN/Fairbanks) that are operated under time brokerage agreements with Coastal being transitioned to that group's ownership upon the Wyoming station purchases' completion.
The Price Is Right celebrates the airing of its 9,000th daytime episode on CBS. Four days later on the 14th, as part of the Big Money week, Michael Stouber wins a total of $262,743 cash and prizes on the show, including $202,000 cash in the Pricing game Plinko, surpassing Christen Freeman's total of $213,876 (from October 28, 2016) as the largest daytime winner in the show's history, as well as the biggest known daytime winner in the history of American daytime television.
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith leaves the network after 23 years. One of the last original members of the network since its 1996 launch, Smith was known for his neutral reporting on the conservative-leaning channel, often causing riffs among management, fellow anchors, and viewers.
Major media outlets, as well as celebrities, politicians, and organizations, are condemning a video depicting a macabre scene of a fake President Trump shooting, stabbing and brutally assaulting members of the news media and his political opponents that was shown at a three-day conference held by a pro-Trump group, American Priority, at Trump National Doral Resort in Miami between October 4 and 6. The video, which includes the logo for Trump's 2020 re-election campaign, comprises a series of internet memes that featured Trump's head superimposed on the body of a man opening fire inside the "Church of Fake News" on parishioners who have the faces of his critics (among them Rosie O'Donnell and Kathy Griffin), the logos of media organizations (like CNN, MSNBC, BBC News, PBS, CBS News, and ABC News), activists groups (among them Black Lives Matter), and rivals (like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain) superimposed on their bodies, which had been edited from a scene of a church massacre from the 2014 film Kingsman: The Secret Service. A person who attended the conference took a video of the clip on his phone and had an intermediary send it to a reporter for The New York Times, which broke the story. While both the Trump Administration and Campaign quickly distanced itself from the video and were not aware of it nor had anything to do with the clip, CNN, Griffin, The White House Correspondents' Association, and Cindy McCain all condemned the video and called on President Trump to denounce it.
The largest one-day frequency change takes place across the United States, as viewers rescanned their television channels as part of the national spectrum repack due to the discontinuation of RF channels 38 and up, allowing their UHF bandwidths to be sold to cellular companies. The move saw several markets (predominantly in the Midwest region, like Milwaukee, with eight of its eleven stations having made the changes) heavily impacted due to its proximity to nearby markets.
During an outbreak of tornadoes in Dallas, NBC-owned-and-operatedKXAS-TV remained with the Sunday Night Football contest in nearby Arlington between the Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, waiting six minutes after a warning had been issued for Dallas County before breaking into programming. Following criticism on social media, the station issued a statement apologizing for not reacting faster. "We...want you to know that we're doing everything in our power to make sure this does not happen again," it said.
Telecommunications provider 3 Rivers Communications, which serves portions of north-central Montana (including Great Falls), discontinued its cable television service to its 1,800 customers within the state after only 10 years, citing difficulty competing with streaming services and satellite providers due to its lack of video on demand offerings. The company – which honored existing discounts and bundle pricing until the cessation of its television service – will continue to offer telephone and broadband internet services, as they have been providing for 65 years (telephone) and 20 years (internet) respectively, to 15,000 customers across Montana.
Fox Television Stations announces it will acquire the Seattle duopoly of Fox affiliate KCPQ and MyNetworkTV affiliate KZJO and Fox affiliate WITI/Milwaukee from Nexstar Media Group for approximately $350 million in cash. Nexstar, in turn, will purchase the Charlotte duopoly of Fox O&O WJZY-TV and MyNetworkTV O&O WMYT-TV from Fox for approximately $45 million. The acquisitions of KCPQ/KZJO (the former of which Fox had sought to buy since 2014, under previous owner Tribune Media) and WITI give Fox O&Os in two additional NFL markets with teams in the National Football Conference, which the Fox network is under contract to televise games (the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers, of which Milwaukee is a secondary market), and would give Fox station properties in 14 of the top 15 media markets; it would also mark the return of WITI to the Fox fold, having previously been owned by the network from 1997 to 2007. In addition, the deal is seen as a move by Nexstar to clear space to allow it to exercise its purchase option for CW affiliate WPIX/New York City, which, as part of Nexstar's purchase of Tribune, was spun off to the E. W. Scripps Company to address ownership cap issues related to WPIX's uncompliance with the UHF discount.
Vanna White is named the temporary host for Wheel of Fortune, marking the first time a woman has hosted the game show since its 1975 debut. White, who has been the co-host and letter turner since 1982, will fill in for Pat Sajak, who is recovering from surgery for a blocked intestine, and will miss two weeks of taping until December, when he is expected to return.
According to TVLine, in a budgetary decision by the company and amid ongoing negotiations between the network and show distributor Sony Pictures Television, Corday Productions – which handles the NBC soap opera's cast contracts – released the entire 27-member main cast of Days of Our Lives from their contracts as the show prepares to go on an indefinite production hiatus beginning at the end of November. (Due to the eight-month window between production and broadcast, NBC would continue to air first-run episodes of Days through the summer of 2020 under its current backlog.) A renewal would result in Corday potentially offering its main cast reduced salaries to reduce production costs in negotiations for new contracts, a scenario which opens the possibility that some of the actors may not return if they do agree to the offers. Despite the unique circumstances, the unprecedented move sparked speculation of Days' possible cancellation, leading some of the show's actors – including Kristian Alfonso (Hope Williams Brady/Gina Von Amberg), Chandler Massey (Will Horton), Camila Banus (Gabi Hernandez) and Freddie Smith (Sonny Kiriakis) – to assure fans and refute the cancellation rumors. The concern for the show's future has been surmised as expediting a renewal deal for a 56th season (lasting through September 2021), which was announced on November 21, with production expected to resume sometime between January and March 2020.
The cable provider in Braintree, Massachusetts, the Braintree Electric Light Department, stops carrying cable television signals through their wires after 19 years, due to increased retransmission consent and carriage agreements the provider was unable to shoulder, as well as problems competing with streaming services and traditional satellite providers. BELD will continue to offer full cable Internet access, while asking customers to contract with OTT television providers and over-the-air means for television reception with the provider offering Roku devices to customers.
The Chevrolet Suburban, one of the oldest SUV models on the market, became the first vehicle to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for its excellence in film and television, having appeared in more than 1,750 films and over 250 television series since 1952. The General Motors vehicle can also claim to have appeared in at least one television series every year since 1956, and at least one film every year since 1960, the most ever for an automobile of any type. The star, placed at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, will also carry the Chevrolet "Bowtie" symbol instead of the entertainment symbols (film, stage, television, radio, and recording artist), another first for the Walk of Fame.
Fox & Friends co-host Pete Hegseth confirms that he has been banned by Twitter for posting an anti-American manifesto that was written from Mohammed Alshamrani, the Saudi Arabian military cadet who shot and killed three people and injured 12 when he opened fire at Naval Air Station Pensacola on December 6. The assault was filmed by several fellow Saudi cadets, several of whom went missing in the aftermath. A few others have been detained by the US military. Hegseth took to Instagram to criticize the media, and especially Twitter, for not allowing him to speak out on what he sees as a person's opinions on "Islamic" rhetoric towards Americans.
Host Steve Harvey has another lapse during his hosting duties for the Miss Universe 2019 broadcast, airing on Fox in the United States. The first moment came when Harvey introduced the winner of the national costume contest; after showing a photo of Miss Philippines Gazini Ganados in costume and declaring her the winner, he is immediately "corrected" on the photo by Miss Malaysia's Shweta Sekhon, who thought she was the actual winner, only to be proven wrong as Miss Universe confirmed Ganados did win the competition. The other moment came when he joked that "The cartel is still trippin' a little bit" over the flub involving the 2015 event when he mistakenly read out Miss Colombia as the winner that year, prompting the country's 2019 entrant Gabriela Tafur to remind him if he got the results right this time. Zozibini Tunzi of South Africa is named this year's winner, the country's third in the event's history.
In CBS, contestant Dan Spilo became the first contestant to be removed and ejected from the 39th season of the long-running reality program Survivor, due to an off-camera incident that "did not involve a player", among which concerns on his inappropriate conduct were raised by female contestants, notably up until the eighth episode. The end of the episode confirmed his removal by Jeff Probst, and the season was panned with criticism following Spilo's misconduct. As a result of the removal, the live finale airing the week after marked the first time it was pre-recorded four hours before airing (and also the first season not to be held live since the inaugural season), while Spilo (along with two other contestants) were absent in the reunion show, and produced the lowest rated finale in Survivor.
Luken Communications announces that it has rebranded as Reach High Media Group and that Joel Wertman has replaced founder Henry Luken as president and CEO.
Sinclair Broadcast Group discontinued its daily commentary segment Bottom Line with Boris/CrossPoint, which had been airing over most of its 193 television stations nationwide since Boris Epshteyn, the former foreign affairs adviser to President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, joined Sinclair in April 2017. (Epshteyn will remain with Sinclair in a corporate sales role.) The often pro-Trump commentaries—which replaced the Mark Hyman-hosted segment The Point, and were amended to include a liberal commentary by former Pretrial Justice Institute Director of State Policy Ameshia Cross in February—re-fueled criticism over the company's use of right-leaning commentaries that drew opposition from various media advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers to Sinclair's aborted 2017 purchase of Tribune Media. An internal memo states that Sinclair will re-allocate its resources toward local investigative journalism at its news-producing stations, addressing longstanding internal criticism from some Sinclair station employees over the company's mandated allocation of newscast time to run the commentaries over locally produced stories.
Just six days after a video that showed NBC affiliate WSAV-TV/Savannah reporter Alex Bozarjian getting slapped on the rear end during a live report on the Enmarket Savannah Bridge Run on December 7 goes viral and garnered national attention due to Bozarjian speaking out on having to deal with a culture on how women like her can be verbally and physically assaulted while on the job, Thomas Callaway, the person who admitted to doing this but said was caught up in the moment and now regretted what he done by apologizing to the management at the Nexstar Media Group-owned station for his actions, turned himself in to the Chatham County Sheriff's Office and was charged with sexual battery, and has been banned from participating in sanctioned running events. Bozarjian, who is being represented by Gloria Allred, and WSAV management, are confident that this incident will likely go to trial pending further investigation from authorities.
Hallmark Channel pulls a series of advertisements for wedding planning website Zola featuring two brides kissing after receiving complaints by the conservative group One Million Moms. A Hallmark spokesperson says the ad violated network standards, though a similar ad with a heterosexual couple was not challenged. The decision prompted backlash from pro-LGBT advocates, who called for a boycott of the Hallmark company on Twitter. On December 15, Hallmark Channel reversed course and apologized to viewers. It also offered Zola a chance to reinstate the commercials, which they do after reluctantly saying they wouldn't advertise with them.
A list of programs (current or canceled) that have accumulated enough episodes (between 65 and 100) or seasons (three or more) to be eligible for off-network syndication and/or basic cable runs.
^"Bizaardvark". The Futon Critic. Retrieved March 21, 2019. Current Season: 3 (21 episodes), Additional Notes: The show's current season will be its last
