Canelo Alvarez retained his undisputed super middleweight championship Saturday in a unanimous decision win against John Ryder. Time will tell whether the fight will continue to cement Alvarez’s unofficial title as the pound-for-pound pay-per-view boxing champion.

While it’s too early to determine PPV buys for the DAZN-distributed fight, Alvarez-Ryder was expected to be one of the higher-performing events in an already busy 2023 PPV schedule that has featured four other PPV events. Alvarez has been the category's most PPV draw, having averaged more than 600,000 PPV buys in his last three PPV fights since 2021.

Showtime’s April 22 Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia fight has set the high performance bar for the category so far in 2023, averaging a reported 1.2 million PPV buys.

Next up for the PPV boxing category is ESPN Plus’s May 20 undisputed lightweight championship bout between champion Devin Haney and former champion Vasiliy Lomachenko.

Scripps acquired The CW affiliate KASW from Nexstar Media Group two years ago in an eight-station, $580 million deal. CW61 has emerged as a news destination. 

KASW offers weekday news at 7-9 a.m, noon-1 p.m. and, most recently, 9-9:30 p.m. The morning news happened in late March. “Our plan was to extend our community presence and the strong connection our team has with our ABC15 Mornings viewers,” said Anita Helt, VP/general manager of KNXV-KASW. “Little did we know that the connection would only deepen as we have helped our viewers through these unprecedented times.”

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KASW’s news features ABC15 on CW61 branding. The noon program happened when daytime viewership spiked amidst the pandemic and the primetime newscast premiered in July. 

KASW has also enjoyed an upgrade in its syndicated programs, which include Seinfeld and Friends. “Nostalgia really seems to resonate,” said Helt. 

KASW had a minimal news presence prior to the acquisition. “We’ve really expanded our news footprint,” Helt said. 

The Widower, a three-part true-crime miniseries from the producers of Dateline NBC, starts on NBC Thursday, Feb. 18. The twisting and turning series, about a man who has had four wives die under mysterious circumstances, represents the first time the network is airing a multi-night, true-crime series from Dateline. 

“It just seemed like an unusual show that probably deserved a different kind of treatment,” said Paul Ryan, co-executive producer. “It deserved multiple nights.”

Thomas Randolph, who is 66, is accused of murdering his sixth wife. Ryan called him “a strange and outrageous and unusual character.” 

The producers had extraordinary access to Randolph. The perp loved the attention, Ryan said, and was convinced he could persuade viewers of his innocence. “He has supreme confidence in his ability to evade the system, and to charm people — lawyers, judges, producers,” Ryan said. 

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The producers also got ample access to the law enforcement people chasing down the bad guy. 

“You’re literally there with the cops when they’re interviewing witnesses,” said Ryan. “You’re really putting the puzzle together with them.”

Dateline investigative producer Dan Slepian began documenting the murder investigation in 2008 while embedded with the Las Vegas Police Department. Ryan noted the work of Det. Dean O’Kelley, who appears in the miniseries. “He’s the most amazing, dogged, dedicated public servant you’d ever want to see,” said Ryan. “I was blown away by how much this guy cared and how far he was willing to go.”

Episode one on Feb. 18 is one hour. Episode two a day later is two hours, and the conclusion, on Sunday, Feb. 21, is two hours. It will also stream on Peacock, which has a dedicated Dateline 24/7 channel. 

Dateline NBC airs Fridays at 9 p.m. (ET). It at times goes to two hours, but a multi-night series from Dateline is uncharted territory. “Stories like this don’t come down the pike all that often,” said Ryan. 

If The Widower finds a large audience, he added, the producers are up for going multi-night on future stories that merit it. 

Thomas Randolph will draw a few viewers. “He’s such an intriguing and unusual guy,” said Ryan. 

Aliens in Alaska begins Monday, Feb. 15, on Discovery Plus. Our 49th state is a “hotbed” for UFO sightings, abductions and extraterrestrial encounters, according to Discovery Plus. The series checks in with “dog mushers, trappers and bush pilots,” according to executive producer Christine Shuler, as well as plenty of regular folks, and gets everyone’s accounts of alien encounters. 

The hardy nature inherent to Alaskans gives their stories extra oomph, Shuler said. “Seeing their testimony, you realize you’re hearing from very stoic individuals who are not easily startled,” she said. 

People are typically interviewed outside, giving Alaska something of a starring role in the series. Viewers will see “how vast and open and alienating the environment is,” Shuler said. 

There are eight hour-long episodes. UFO believers and skeptics alike are welcome to tune in. “Forcing someone to become a convert is not fun,” said Shuler, who added that Aliens in Alaska is more about “giving viewers enough information to make their own decision.”

The Pentagon’s UFO unit is releasing a giant trove of information on alien encounters. That may give a bit of credence to those sharing their testimonies on Aliens in Alaska. 

“It helps people who have had these oddball experiences feel less alone,” said Shuler. 

On Tuesday, Feb. 16, Young Rock premieres on NBC. The comedy comes from Dwayne Johnson, and is about the different chapters in the life of the man once known as The Rock. The son of wrestler Rocky Johnson, Dwayne had pro wrestlers — Junkyard Dog, Andre the Giant —- in his life at an early age. 

Young Rock has the family moving around to follow wrestling jobs, including to Hawaii and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Dwayne playing football at the University of Miami. 

“He’s had so many different experiences,” said executive producer Jeff Chiang, who describes Johnson as “larger than life when he enters a room. He has a special energy to him.”

Johnson went to high school in Bethlehem. The pilot covers Johnson at 15, standing 6’ 2” and rocking a moustache. “His classmates thought he was a narc,” Chiang said, describing a “21 Jump Street scenario.”

Besides his teenage ’stache, viewers will see the extraordinary perseverance of Johnson as a child, Chiang shared. “The amount of times life throws him a curveball,” he said. “His life has been a series of highs and lows. You see where he is now, and you see how he got there.”

Young Rock shoots in Australia. Joseph Lee Anderson, Stacey Leilua and Adrian Groulx are in the cast alongside Johnson. Nahnatchka Khan executive produces. 

“The story is deeply relatable,” Chiang said. “It’s about perseverance, it’s about love, it’s about finding the joys in life.”

On the U.S. and international sports stages, powerful women’s teams -- from the FIFA World Cup-winning U.S. women’s national soccer team to the the University of Connecticut Huskies, winners of four consecutive NCAA Division I National Championship titles -- are changing the sports landscape.

Women also are having a powerful impact among the ranks of sports media companies. That’s why since 2011 Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable have selected a team of all-stars we call Women in the Game. Meet the Class of 2015 here.

Nominations for the 2016 class are now open to our readers through Monday, May 23. Women with leadership roles in sports-related media who have not been members of a prior Women in the Game class (2011-2015) are eligible. To nominate someone you know, click here to complete the nomination form, which covers some information about her, about you and, importantly, why you think she should be a Woman in the Game.

The 2016 Women in the Game class will be honored in the June 20 issues of Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable.

Click here for more Women in the Game stories.