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Open Mic

CBS Makes a Case for the Broadcast Model

Even as audiences continue to fragment in this multiplatform world, there’s no question that broadcast network television has still got game — and lots of it. Perhaps the argument for the desirability of network TV was most succinctly made by…

Aug 6, 2019

PBS Unveils Slate of New Programming at TCA

While other networks are undergoing the aftereffects of consolidations and management changes, PBS remains under the steady hand of Paula Kerger, whose contract as president and CEO has been renewed for five years. Kerger kicked off the public broadcaster’s TCA…

Aug 1, 2019

Cable Highlights From Summer TCA

It’s not often when someone gets a warm round of sustained applause at the Television Critics Association press tour, but that’s what happened when HBO’s Quentin Schaffer took the stage at the Beverly Hilton last week. The week before, he…

Jul 30, 2019

Television Takes a Giant Leap Into the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing

July 16, 1969, dawned bright, hot and sunny on Florida’s Atlantic coast. It was the perfect weather on Earth to send its very first three inhabitants to the moon. As the clock ticked down to the moment Neil Armstrong, Buzz…

Jul 16, 2019

With Many Top Media Executives Ensconced in Sun Valley This Week, the Biggest Pending Deal – the Rejoining of CBS and Viacom –Is Not on the Agenda

As media moguls were huddled in Sun Valley this week at the 36th annual Allen & Co media conference, the biggest pending media deal being talked about in the press wasn’t coming from Idaho. “While the resort town of Sun…

Jul 12, 2019

CNN Launches ‘The Movies’ This Weekend — Here’s the Inside Story

The legacy of movies released in the 1980s runs deep and wide, from Oscar-winning pictures like “Ordinary People,” “Amadeus” and “Terms of Endearment” to blockbusters including “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Back to the Future,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “Fatal…

Jul 3, 2019

A ‘State of the Union’ for Women in Entertainment

“The stats are crap and the glass ceiling is still hella thick.” Actress Xosha Roquemore didn’t mince many words as she hosted the 2019 Women in Film Annual Gala, which celebrates female achievements in the entertainment industry while also acting…

Jun 18, 2019

Television Academy Honors Go to Seven Programs

In the midst of Emmy FYC season, with a wide range of contenders vying for hundreds of coveted nominations on the ballot, the Television Academy handed out an exclusive number of other prestigious awards at its 12th annual Honors ceremony….

Jun 3, 2019

Redefining Premium Content and Re-Examining the Reboot: A Look Back at the Network Upfronts, Part 2

The dust is still settling from last week’s upfronts in New York, even as nearly all of the top network executive chairs were rearranged due to consolidation or misconduct. There was much discussion about the promise of data-driven accountability in…

May 22, 2019

Mergers, Acquisitions, One High-Profile Fall From Grace and a New Buzzword: A Look Back at the Network Upfronts, Part 1

What a difference a year makes. Mergers, acquisitions and an ignoble fall from grace meant many of the pieces on the chessboard were rearranged during last week’s series of major network presentations for the 2019 TV upfronts, held in a…

May 21, 2019