As Turner Classic Movies (TCM) prepares to offer a July 4 lineup of patriotic classic movies including 1776, The Declaration of Independence and Take Me Out to the Ball Game, industry observers still remain concerned about the future of the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned service.

Two weeks after releasing several of TCM’s main executives as part of a recent run of WBD layoffs and fielding a call from Hollywood heavyweights Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson about the direction of the service, WBD CEO David Zaslav has recently looked to quell concerns in the entertainment industry and among the network’s passionate fans about its future.

Late last month, Zaslav handed creative programming and development control of TCM to Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group executives Michael de Luca and Pam Abdy. according to published reports. Also, TCM VP of programming and content strategy Charles Tabesh will remain with the network.

TCM will be led on the business side by Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Discovery Family and Boomerang president Michael Ouweleen, who took over for departed TCM general manager Pola Changnon.

Still, industry observers will continue to watch closely what transpires around TCM in the near future. Succession star Brian Cox was recently quoted in a recent Above The Line article called TCM “one of the most vital resources” in the industry and was “horrified” after reading about the executive layoffs at the network.

“For me, the history of cinema, the watching of it, and the way that TCM presents it are incredible resources because they really make me understand how far we’ve traveled,” he added. “But also how far we haven’t traveled.”

Showtime will step into the pay-per-view boxing ring Saturday with a fight card highlighted by the super middleweight bout between undefeated contender David Benavidez and former champion Caleb Plant. 

The fight, which retails for a suggested price of $74.99, is Showtime’s second PPV boxing event this year following Gervonta Davis-Hector Garcia on January 7. The premium network has also scheduled an April 22 event with Davis and Ryan Garcia. 

Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza recently spoke to Multichannel News regarding the Benavidez-Plant event and Showtime’s overall PPV event strategy for 2023. Espinoza also addresses Showtime Sports’s immediate future in light of parent company Paramount Global’s decision to combine Paramount Plus and Showtime under one brand. A lightly edited version of the interview appears below.

MCN: What makes Benavidez-Plant a strong pay-per-view boxing match? 

Stephen Espinoza: Both Benavidez and Plant have been built up as main-event fighters for a number of years. Plant, in particular, got a big boost in his (2021) mega-fight against [undisputed super middleweight champion] Canelo Alvarez, and Benavidez has headlined a number of boxing telecasts. They are two of the best fighters in the division, so for us this is one of those situations where two plus two equals a lot more than four because each of them brings their own respective fan base, and there’s a lot excitement about the quality of the matchup itself, which will bring in even more interest from viewers. When you offer top-tier fights, you get an exponential return.

MCN: Are you already looking ahead to developing another pay-per-view event with the winner of Benavidez-Plant?

SE: Yes, as I mentioned these are two of the three or four best guys in the division. Benavidez has been someone that boxing experts have identified for a couple of years as a very exciting and marketable fighter with a really high ceiling. For him, this is a signature fight that hopefully will lead to even bigger events with some of the division’s top fighters, whether it’s Canelo or [middleweight champion] Jermall Charlo. For Plant, he’s been at the top of the mountain as champion, and he gave Canelo a very tough fight. To be able to get another opportunity at the title he’s going to have to go through David Benavidez. There’s a lot of high stakes in this one because of what the fight could lead to in the future. 

MCN: The fight is the second PPV event already this year for Showtime, with a third scheduled for April. Why is Showtime so bullish on the PPV events category? 

SE: It’s more about the fights that are available and what it takes to make them. We've seen a lot of change and disruption in combat sports generally, and in boxing in particular over the last four or five years and we’re at the point now where the dust has settled a bit. We love the position that we as Showtime Sports are in. Our talent is deeper than ever, and we’re doing as many events as we've ever done. So when you see a matchup like Benavidez-Plant or a matchup like Tank Davis-Ryan Garcia next month, it's not so much a result of us wanting to be in pay-per-view. We want to do big fights, and as those big fights are getting made some of them will naturally require pay-per-view in order to make them happen. 

MCN: Given Paramount Global’s plans to merge Paramount Plus and Showtime, are you concerned about Showtime Sports’s ability to remain aggressive in the combat sports space? 

SE: I think everybody in the media business is somewhat concerned. Some people have called it a market correction, and some think it’s just an economic downturn. Certainly this is a period of transition as companies are adjusting their spend and trying to optimize business models. So there certainly may be change in the future, but our activity level and the quantity and quality of our output I think is a testament to the recognition of the quality that we bring. The fact that we’ve been given the green light to continue doing what we do best, which is delivering big-time boxing matches and high-quality documentary programming, is a recognition that we’re delivering value to our subscribers and to the corporation as a whole, and we look forward to being able to do that for the foreseeable future. ■ 

Fresh off its third straight year as cable’s highest-rated entertainment network without sports in primetime among adult women, TLC will open the first quarter of 2023 with more than 155 hours of new programming targeted to its core female demo.

New shows include the January 15 premiere of MILF Manor, which follows the love lives of women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, as well as returning shows such as 1000-Lb. Sisters, I Am Jazz and Say Yes to the Dress.

Discovery Networks & TLC president Howard Lee spoke with Multichannel News about the ratings success of the Warner Bros. Discovery owned-network, as well as its continued appeal to female viewers. Lee, who recently added oversight of Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Science Channel to his duties, also talked about the future of reality television in this interview, an edited version of which appears below.

MCN: Why has TLC continued to remain successful and relevant in an ever-changing cable television marketplace?

Howard Lee: I think that who you see on the TLC brand is who you see in America. The magic of TLC is that the stories that we witness on our air are parallel to our own lives. It’s as if these folks on the screen become part of us, and we don’t take that lightly. When we decide to bring back a show over one or over many seasons, we really nourish it and make sure that there’s something to tell. If there isn’t, we don’t do it. We want to stay as real as we can about what is going on in that person’s life, and the fact that they decided to be very candid and honest and share that story with everybody at home is crucial to the overall success of the show. I think that’s the most important part of what makes a lot of our programming successful. Everybody on our air has a story that they want to confide to our viewers and they don’t shy away from letting us know their journeys, and it’s really amazing. 

MCN: TLC has a significant amount of original content launching in the first quarter, a time when many networks are cutting back on both scripted and reality programming. How are you able to sustain such rapid delivery of original content? 

HL: Well, it’s never easy. Anybody who makes any nonfiction programming knows that it takes a long lead time to create a show, then it takes quite a while to have it come back on air for new seasons. We really take pride in the fact that we’re telling the proper story and that it’s honest. I do believe that because so much of our programming is serialized, continuous and not self-contained, it hooks people in from week to week and they have to come back until we get to the finales of all of our programs. Even after a season’s over, they always ask when the show is coming back. Our viewers are truly the ones who dictate everything. 

MCN: You’ve been successful in spinning off franchises like 90 Day Fiancé. How do you know when a show has spinoff potential? 

HL: Well, we would never spin off a show unless there was a clamor for more of that show’s story. The obvious example of that is the tried and true 90 Day Fiancé, which started 10 years ago. We are very careful about monitoring the appetite for the franchise and making sure we're doing the proper spinoffs. We are also very careful about ensuring that we protect this franchise and not just doing it for the sake of doing it. It's important that we have a story always at the end of the day to tell — if there’s not a story to tell, then we wouldn’t do it. 

MCN: What are some of the new shows coming down the pike for TLC in the first quarter? 

HL: We recently announced MILF Manor that we’re having a lot of fun with. The show continues to evolve what we develop in the love and relationship space. We know that older women can fall in love age-wise with anybody they choose to, even if [their partners] are younger. Love, I think, is a very enduring storyline that crosses cultures and customs and never gets old. That’s the reason why so many people try to tap into that genre and that space, but I'm really excited about it at TLC because I feel like we are going at it a different way. We also have a spinoff of Sister Wives called Seeking Brother Husband.

MCN: How do you see the reality marketplace evolving, particularly as more streaming services are getting into the business?

HL: There is a lot out there in the nonfiction world to choose from. We often ask ourselves, how do we cut through the clutter and make sure that we make, produce and create content that is impactful and memorable? I think that content has to have a clear premise. Once we do that, it’s amazing how many riveting storylines and hooks you can find that continuously make you want to watch the drama, the relationships and the storytelling. Sometimes we don't know if it'll work or not, but we've been very fortunate that a lot of it does. ■ 

The pay-per-view boxing category will look to pack one last revenue punch this weekend as marquee fighters Terence Crawford and Manny Pacquaio step into the ring in separate fights.

Crawford, the undefeated WBO welterweight champion, will defend his title December 10 against top contender David Avanesyan in an event that will retail at a suggested PPV price of $39.99. Crawford last fought on PPV in November 2021, drawing a reported 135,000 PPV buys in his win over former welterweight champion Shawn Porter.

Pacquiao, the second biggest PPV boxing draw behind Floyd Mayweather, will fight Saturday in an exhibition match against mixed martial arts fighter DK Yoo that will retail for $29.99. The eight-division world champion retired in 2021 after suffering a loss to then welterweight champion Yordenis Ugas in a PPV bout that drew 250,000 PPV buys, according to reports.

Overall, Manny Pacquiao has generated 20 million PPV buys and around $1.25 billion in PPV revenue over 24 PPV bouts.  Pacquiao's 2015 fight against Mayweather remains the biggest PPV event of all time, drawing 4.6 million PPV buys.

The two fights will effectively end a busy PPV boxing year that didn’t include a blockbuster 1 million PPV buy event but included several mid-range events featuring such high-profile boxers as Canelo Alvarez, Deontay Wilder, Gennady Golovkin, Tyson Fury and Gervonta Davis.

Lightweight champion Davis will launch the category’s 2023 PPV lineup with a Showtime-distributed January 7 bout against Héctor Luis García. A Davis win would set up a major spring 2023 PPV fight against unbeaten Ryan Garcia. ■

Fox Sports’s live 2022 FIFA World Cup coverage kicks off Sunday with a heavy emphasis on linear television for the 64-game tournament despite an unprecedented fall start, heavy competition from other North American major sports leagues and an unfriendly time difference between the U.S. and World Cup host country Qatar. 

Still, Fox executives are confident the World Cup will attract both the hard-core sports fan and casual viewers with its coverage of the premiere soccer tournament. The Fox broadcast network will air 35 matches throughout the tournament, including the semi-final round games and the World Cup final, according to the network. FS1 will air the remaining 29 games live. Most Fox televised matches will air between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. ET.

The November start of the World Cup — prior tournaments took place during the summer — presented some logistical problems for Fox. The network airs a full complement of afternoon and evening college football games on Saturdays as well as Sunday-afternoon NFL contests. Fox Sports VP of programming and scheduling Daniela Jeffries said Fox Sports was able to work around its crowded schedule and the eight-hour time difference between Qatar and New York to develop a lineup allowing consumers to watch most of the games during reasonable viewing hours. 

“There was a little concern about how this was all going to fit,” Jeffries told Multichannel News. “As the tournament revealed itself, we saw that it wasn’t so bad. There are some challenges in the sense that there are games that probably would have been Fox games versus cable games at a different time of the year, but overall we’re pretty happy and positioned to have over 200 hours, which is comparable to what we would have done in the summer when the schedule would have been lighter.” 

Jeffries also said Fox Sports worked hard to make sure it could distribute all the games on broadcast or cable TV to broaden viewership. “We felt good about being able to get in as much linear coverage as we were,” she said. 

Fans who wish to view World Cup games live online can watch on FoxSports.com, but only if they subscribe to a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) or virtual MVPD service. Replays of every game will be available on the app, as well as on the Fox-owned Tubi.com streaming service through its World Cup FAST channel, including in high-resolution 4K format.

Fox will also make in-match previews and live pre- and post-match shows for every World Cup game available via the Fox Sports soccer Twitter account. 

The addition of the digital outlets offers fans more options to consume World Cup news and highlights compared to 2018, as well as provides a powerful marketing tool to promote upcoming telecasts. “We’ll be able to offer more features and highlights available on the app and have replays on Tubi — all of which we weren’t able to offer in 2018,” Jeffries said.  

Also different from 2018’s World Cup is this tournament will include the U.S. men’s soccer team, which was eliminated from participating in the World Cup four years ago. The network hopes to draw huge viewership for its USA-England Group B matchup, which will take place in the early afternoon on Black Friday, November 25. 

Given the U.S. men’s team’s participation and Fox Sports broad distribution of the games, Sports TV analyst Lee Berke said the World Cup should perform well from a ratings perspective. In 2018 Fox and FS1 combined to average 2.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen. 

“The games are airing during the busiest time of the sports year, but there’s a built-in audience for the games, and with matches airing early in the morning they’ll avoid  running directly against college and pro football games,” he said. “It should achieve the numbers that they want to achieve this time around.”

NBCU’s Spanish-Language Coverage

NBC Sports Group holds the Spanish-language rights to the World Cup and will offer every World Cup game on Telemundo and, for the first time, on NBCU’s streaming service Peacock. Peacock will offer the first 12 matches free before making the remaining 52 games available to Peacock Premium (pay) subscribers, according to NBC Sports. 

For NBC Sports and Telemundo, having both the broadcast and streaming platforms available for fans to view the games will help boost both awareness and viewership, said Berke.

“The two growing platforms for sports right now are broadcast and streaming,” he said. “The Peacock component in particular will provide a substantial boost overall across different screens.”

The U.S. soccer team’s group stage games are listed below (all times ET). The full 2022 World Cup schedule can be found here. ▪️

• Nov. 21: U.S.-Wales (2 p.m.)
• Nov. 25: England-U.S. (2 p.m.)
• Nov. 29: Iran-U.S. (2 p.m.)

Amazon Prime Video will kick off its exclusive NFL Thursday Night Football package on September 15 when the Los Angeles Chargers meet the Kansas City Chiefs. The regular-season schedule highlights the streaming service's growing lineup of live sports programming.

But TNF, which premiered on August 25 with an exclusive Houston Texans-San Francisco 49ers preseason game, is just part of a mix of live sports events the streaming service hopes to use to lure in fans. The Prime Video lineup also includes regular-season WNBA basketball games, mixed martial arts events from One Championship and exclusive in-market New York Yankees baseball games and Seattle Storm WNBA games.  

Amazon VP of global sports video Marie Donoghue recently spoke to Multichannel News about Prime Video’s live sports aspirations and what the genre adds to the overall value of the streaming service. Here’s an edited transcript of that discussion. 

MCN: How do you see live sports programming fitting into the overall value proposition for Prime Video? 

Marie Donoghue: As you know, Prime is a membership benefit, and so live marquee sports is what we call a headline benefit. We have the NFL — probably the most popular sport in the U.S. — with our Thursday Night Football deal, which we’re really, really excited to launch this season with our first game on September 15. It’s a massive investment for us and we've based it on our track record working with the NFL over the last several years, as well as the experience we've had in Europe. We've been showing top-tier sports for several years with the Premier League in the U.K. and the Champions League in Italy and Germany, Ligue 1 in France and the U.S. Open tennis tournament in the U.K. We know for sure that top marquee sports programming really resonates with our customers, so it's become an essential part of our service in several countries. 

MCN: What drew Prime Video to the WNBA and how has it performed for the streaming service?

MD: We’re huge fans of the WNBA, and overall we saw increased viewership this season for the WNBA. Last year they were developing the Commissioner’s Cup (the WNBA's mid-season tournament), so we thought it would be an awesome opportunity to serve our fans. I think fans really liked it because you get to see the top teams compete.

MCN: Along with the NFL and WNBA, Prime Video has also streamed live local games for such teams as the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and MLS’s Seattle Sounders FC. Is that a strategy that you will look to continue with other teams in other sports? 

MD: Yes, we look at everything. We always consider whether there is a way for us to improve the experience, the accessibility and the value for fans. We found with the Sounders, the Yankees and the Storm that that was all true. We were able to reach an audience that isn't reached by the traditional pay TV bundle, and we've also been able to provide great value to our subscribers — you get the games with your Prime membership. 

MCN: Prime Video has also stepped into the combat-sports ring with One Championship. Does that franchise offer a different sports appeal to Prime Video subscribers than the WNBA or NFL fotball? 

MD: One Championship is the world’s largest martial arts organization, and we’re bringing them live in primetime to the U.S. and Canada exclusively. They are primarily based out of Singapore, but next year we’ll have some events from the US. Those fans are incredibly passionate and engaged and the One Championship organization is fairly unique, and I’m particularly pleased that they treat female athletes equally. We’re really excited about working with them. ■

On the heels of this past Saturday’s Anthony Joshua-Oleksandr Usyk heavyweight championship pay-per-view fight, the PPV boxing industry is gearing up for two more heavyweight fight cards heading into the fall.

Fox Sports will deliver the September 4 PPV bout between former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz and top contender Luis Ortiz, followed by an October 15 fight between former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and Robert Helenius.

Fox Sports Executive VP and head of programming Bill Wanger said that the two fight cards look to take advantage of increasing interest in the heavyweight division, which has featured several PPV events over the past four years. 

Since 2018, six PPV boxing events featuring either Wilder, Ortiz or Ruiz have drawn collectively more than 2 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. The fights are led by the second bout between Wilder and current heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, which drew more than 800,000 PPV buys, according to industry sources.

Wilder is stepping into the ring in October for the first time since losing his last two fights to Fury, with the hopes of eventually regaining the heavyweight championship belts. Ortiz and Ruiz are both looking to position themselves for another shot at the title by winning their September matchup.

All three fighters are chasing the current WBO, WBA and IBF heavyweight champion Usyk – who on August 20 defeated former champion Joshua for the second straight time in the rematch of their September 2021 fight – as well as Fury, who holds the WBC title. Fury announced his retirement earlier this summer, but industry observers say a potentially lucrative unification fight against Usyk could lure him back into the ring. 

Outside of the heavyweight division, the PPV boxing category is counting down to the September 17 Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin trilogy fight. The first two Alvarez-Golovkin fights in 2017 and 2018 generated a combined 2.4 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. ■

Inclusivity both in front of and behind the camera was a recurring theme during the August 8 to August 12 CTAM-produced portion of the Television Critics Association virtual summer tour as cable and streaming services showcased a bevy of BIPOC-themed scripted series and movies while addressing diversity issues within the TV industry.

The newly rebranded Hallmark Media (formerly Crown Media Family Networks) unveiled details regarding its African-American targeted Mahogany movie franchise, which includes the August 28 launch of its first original movie, Unthinkably Good Things. Mahogany senior VP of programming Toni Judkins said the franchise  – based on Hallmark’s 34 year-old Mahogany greetings card brand targeting African-Americans – will continue to follow the earmarks of traditional Hallmark movies, but will be told from the authentic, unique lens of Black women.

Hallmark will launch two additional Mahogany movies in 2022, including one holiday film, according to Hallmark executive VP of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly. 

“What was important was to fuse essential elements of the Hallmark brand with the Mahogany brand,” Judkins said. “The pillars of what Mahogany is … are sisterhood, friendship, connection and community.” 

The Mahogany films will also feature diverse talent both in front of and behind the camera, a combination which industry executives speaking at TCA say is still too rare. 

That dynamic however, can be seen in OWN’s original series Queen Sugar, which will launch its seventh and final season on September 6. The Ava DuVernay-produced series has featured more than three dozen female directors over its seven-season run, according to the network. 

DuVernay said when she started the series few television shows featured female directors, but after seven successful seasons of going against the grain and constantly pushing to have a female-exclusive directing team, it has now become more commonplace for women of color to prominently sit in the director’s chair.

“No one would ever need to do that now because you will be looked at sideways if you don’t have any women directing,” she said. “To have been there … when it was scorned and ridiculed, to the time now where it’s pretty much, ‘yeah, you got to include a lady somewhere in there,’ is a remarkable thing.” 

Starz has also announced a continued commitment to work with directors and writers of color for several upcoming series. On the heels of renewing its original series Raising Kanan – the third series in the Courtney Kemp-created Power franchise – for a third season, the premium network announced it will team with producers DuVernay and Tanya Saracho on new original series as well as musical artists Ne-Yo and Christina Milian on a new “premium take” on the Step Up movie franchise, according to network President of Original Programming Kathryn Busby. 

The shows follow earlier Starz announcements regarding new series from Marlon Wayans (Book of Marlon) and Dear White People producers Steven J. Kung and Justen Simien. 

Several streaming services also showcased new and diverse programming. Amazon Prime Video offered a look at a British-based series Jungle, which follows the  struggles and perspectives of several connected strangers uniquely told through hip hop and drill music. Executive produced by Junior Okoli and Chas Appeti, Jungle debuts September 30 on the service.

During BET Plus’s presentation for the second season of its Emmy-nominated comedy series The Ms. Pat Show, series co-creator Jordan Cooper said that services like BET Plus have opened up new avenues for diverse content to make it to the screen, offering greater editorial freedom and control to tell stories in a manner that might not be acceptable on traditional linear channels.

“I think that more is going to come from other artists who are going to come in and shake the table up a bit because we don’t want to see the same old stuff that we’ve seen for the past 50 years,” he said. 

Recently launched Spanish-language subscription streaming service ViX Plus showcased during TCA two of its new original shows – drama series Marea Alta and the Salma Hayek-produced film Quiero Tu Vida – as part of the TelevisaUnivision-owned service’s 10,000 hours of novelas, sports and other entertainment  offerings and 70 original series and movies it plans to offer during its first operating year. 

“There are almost 600 million people in the world who speak Spanish, and yet only a fraction of the global streamers’ content is originally produced in Spanish,” Vix Plus Executive Vice President and general manager Rodrico Mazon said. “We know Hispanic audiences everywhere are hungry to stream more native Spanish language content – this is why we are investing a massive amount of incremental dollars in original content and sports rights, above and beyond our existing linear businesses.” 

Allen Media Group and The Weather Channel chairman and CEO Byron Allen took the issue of onscreen inclusion a step further during AMG’s Thursday panel session by saying diversity in ownership is key to greater, inclusive representation on the small screen. Allen said it’s imperative for the industry to push for an environment that welcomes unfiltered voices and perspectives. 

“I think we have a situation where we do not have enough diversity and ownership – [women and people of color] do not own enough of the media outlets to control their image and how they are produced and depicted,” Allen said. “Until we have a stronger representation of diversity and ownership, we don’t have a true democracy.”■

The pay-per-view boxing schedule for the second half of 2022 is starting to take shape with a number of high-profile fights set and one blockbuster bout in the wings. 

DAZN on Saturday (July 16) will kick off the schedule with a lightweight fight involving contenders Ryan Garcia and Javier Fortuna. Consumers purchasing the $34.99 fight via ppv.com will receive a free month of DAZN, according to the online PPV distributor. 

Showtime will showcase YouTube star Jake Paul as he continues his boxing career in an August 6 PPV fight against Hasim Rahman Jr., the son of former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman. Paul’s last PPV bout was a December 18 knockout of Tyron Woodley in a rematch of their August 2021 PPV event. 

The event will also feature a women’s championship fight between featherweight titleholder Amanda Serrano and Brenda Carbaja.

“Jake clearly moves the needle like no one else, and we at Showtime are proud to be in business with him and he’s clearly bringing the sport to a new audience,” Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza said. “The same can be said of Amanda Serrano, who inspires multitudes of young girls every time she fights. We’re proud of our history with women’s boxing and proud to have Amanda back for a fifth time.”

Arguably the biggest fight scheduled so far is the September 17 Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin trilogy fight, which pits two of the PPV industry’s biggest draws against each other. The first two Alvarez-Golovkin fights in 2017 and 2018 generated a combined 2.4 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. 

Also in September, Fox Sports will offer a Labor Day weekend PPV fight card with a main event bout matching up heavyweight title contenders Andy Ruiz Jr. and Luis Ortiz.

On the horizon is a potentially lucrative PPV welterweight unification bout between Terrence Crawford and Errol Spence. Industry sources say Showtime is in negotiations to bring the fight to pay-per-view this fall, although a deal has yet to be reached. ▪️

Warner Bros. Discovery flexed its content portfolio muscle during its New York upfront presentation Wednesday morning, parading a lineup of content producers, celebrities and executives in front of attending advertisers. 

Nearly a year after announcing the merger, Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav opened the festivities by positioning the newly combined company as the “fifth broadcast network” that surpasses the reach of the four broadcast networks combined among audiences 25-54.

“We have the largest reach with the most complete portfolio, including news and sports,” he said.

Zaslav also said he’s confident that the combined service will thrive in a crowded marketplace. “We are highly confident in our ability to thrive both creatively and financially,” he said. “We are the largest maker of television and motion picture content in the world.” 

Also: Warner Bros. Discovery Confirms Plan To Create Single, ‘Awesome’ Global Streaming Product

CNN Worldwide chairman and CEO Chris Licht outlined several new CNN shows, including Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, which was originally slated for the now-defunct CNN Plus streaming service but will now air Sunday nights on HBO Max. He also announced the network will reimagine its weekday morning lineup, vowing to be a “disruptor to the broadcast shows in this space." 

Other WBD personalities such as Oprah Winfrey, Food Network’s Guy Fieri and Turner Sports’ Ernie Johnson sent video messages touting upcoming programming and the overall on-air strength of the combined company. 

Upfronts 2022: Click Here for Complete Coverage

Warner Bros. Discovery also rolled out other celebrities to announce new shows, including musical artist Lizzo, who will appear in a new HBO documentary focusing on her life and career. Actress Mindy Kaling also touted her new Scooby-Doo spinoff animated series Velma focusing on a brown-skinned, South Asian version of the brainy sleuth. “If people freak out about that, I don’t care,” she said.  

Actress/singer Jennifer Hudson served as host throughout the upfront, touting her upcoming Warner Bros.-produced talk show and introducing a litany of popular celebrities and shows within the Warner Bros. Discovery portfolio, including CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Magnolia Network’s Chip and Joanna Gaines, and Food Network celebrity chef Bobby Flay. She also interviewed HGTV's Jonathan Scott and rapper/ home decorator Lil John and invited the audience to participate in singing her version of Aretha Franklin's classic song Respect to close out the presentation. ■ 

Boxing champion Canelo Alvarez’s upset loss Saturday to light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol may have cost the pay-per-view boxing industry a big fall payday.

The fight, distributed by sports streaming service DAZN and PPV.com, saw Alvarez -- arguably the PPV boxing industry’s biggest draw -- lose an unanimous decision to the undefeated Bivol. The loss was the second for Alvarez, following a defeat to Floyd Mayweather in 2013.

Also: Digital Sportsplay: In Demand Punches Up Streaming PPV Service

Alvarez was scheduled to fight former champion Gennady Golovkin for the third time in a much anticipated September PPV fight. Instead, Alvarez may first ask for a rematch against Bivol as stipulated in the contract between the two fighters.

Last month Golovkin did his part by knocking out Ryota Murata in the ninth round of their middleweight fight to set up the third fight with Alvarez. If Alvarez-Golovkin happens, it could be among the most lucrative events for the PPV category this year. The first two Alvarez-Golovkin fights in 2017 and 2018 generated a reported combined 2.4 million PPV buys.

Alvarez’s last fight, a November 2021 super middleweight bout against Caleb Plant, averaged a reported 800,000 PPV buys. ■ 

The spring pay-per-view boxing calendar is set to rumble with the recent announcement of three marquee boxing cards on tap beginning in April. 

On April 16, World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. will return to the ring to fight World Boxing Association welterweight champion Yordenis Ugas in a PPV unification fight distributed by Showtime. Spence, who will enter the ring for the first time since 2020 when he defeated Danny Garcia, was scheduled to fight Manny Pacquiao in August 2021 but had to withdraw after suffering an eye injury.

Ugas replaced Spence in the fight and defeated Pacquiao by unanimous decision.  

“The welterweight division has always been boxing’s glamour division … this is a three-belt unification fight and exactly the kind of fight that Showtime has become known for,” said Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza during Tuesday’s press conference to announce the fight. 

A week later, current WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury will defend his title against contender Dillian Whyte. The fight, which will be distributed by ESPN PPV, will mark Fury’s first fight since his 11th round knockout of Deontay Wilder in their October 2021 trilogy fight. That fight reportedly generated around 600,000 PPV buys.

Super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez will enter the PPV ring a month later, moving up in weight to face light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol in a May 7 PPV event distributed by DAZN. If Alvarez wins, he has already committed to fight former champion Gennady Golovkin in a highly anticipated third bout between the two in September. 

Fox Sports kicked off the 2022 PPV boxing schedule with its February 5 Keith Thurman-Mario Barrios welterweight event. Given the marquee fighters on the PPV boxing cards and live sports' continued appeal to viewers, April and May’s lineup of fights could punch up some significant PPV revenue numbers for the category. ■ 

NBC‘s Super Bowl LVI telecast will most likely draw the year‘s biggest television audience, but a lot of buzz is building for another show debuting this Sunday, Peacock‘s drama series Bel-Air. 

The series, based on NBC‘s 1990-96 sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,  is the industry’s latest remake/reimagining of a classic TV series. But unlike similar efforts such as Netflix’s Fuller House and Peacock’s own Saved by the Bell, Bel-Air offers a unique twist: it‘s a dramatic revision of the comedy-driven Will Smith vehicle. In other words, it’s not your father’s Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. 

Initially born from a 2019 viral video by Morgan Cooper, the series follows the premise of Fresh Prince as the series’ main character, Will — Smith's character in the original series, now portrayed by newcomer Jabari Banks — moves from gritty West Philadelphia to an upscale California enclave to live with his aunt’s family. That’s where the comparisons end as Bel-Air, which is executive-produced by Smith, turns from a comedy into a gritty drama series.

Also: Peacock's 'Bel-Air' Draws Sponsors Lexus, State Farm, Unilever, Xfinity

Peacock is hoping that Bel-Air can serve as a successful remake that attempts to ”flip, turn upside down” the original series on its head for a new generation of viewers. The fact that the high-profile show is debuting on Peacock Sunday instead of on NBC in the coveted primetime slot right after the Super Bowl (NBC's live Winter Olympics coverage will air after the game) says a lot about NBC Universal's confidence in the show's ability to draw viewers to the streaming service. 

“The original show had a certain feeling to it, and if this show has more than a negative feeling to, it then it's a risk,” TV analyst Bill Carroll said. “At the end of the day, Bel-Air still deals with the premise of a fish out of water in a new situation, but it just isn’t a multicamera sitcom.”

Carroll also predicted that the current trend of TV show remakes and reboots will not end anytime soon. Indeed, among the already announced reboots so far this year are series remakes of films Cheaper by the Dozen, Pitch Perfect and Waiting to Exhale, as well as reboots of classic NBC sitcoms Frasier and Night Court.

“In this current environment with so many options, to get something sampled is the most difficult thing to do,” he said. “The first way to differentiate is to be known, and that’s what these shows have — a known concept that people relate to.” ■ 

Fox Sports enters the pay-per-view boxing ring Saturday (February 5) to distribute the Keith Thurman-Mario Barrios welterweight boxing match as it gears up for what could be a busy year in the genre, according to executives.

The fight, which marks the former welterweight champion Thurman’s return to the ring for the first time since a 2019 split decision loss to Manny Pacquiao, is the first of what Fox Sports and promotion company Premier Boxing Champions hopes to be quarterly PPV boxing matches featuring some of the most popular and successful fighters in the sport.

 It also comes on the heels of a busy end-of-the-year lineup of Fox Sports boxing events, which included a Christmas night fight card on Fox broadcasting and a New Year’s Day PPV event featuring heavyweights Louis Ortiz and Charles Martin. 

Fox Sports executive VP, head of Programming and Scheduling Bill Wanger discusses the Thurman-Barrios fight as well as the company's PPV boxing strategy for 2022 in an interview with Multichannel News/Broadcasting & Cable senior content producer R. Thomas Umstead. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Picture This: What was most appealing to you about Thurman-Barrios from a pay-per-view perspective? 

Bill Wanger: With Keith, as one of the top stars in the sport, coming back from a bit of a hiatus and with Mario going up in weight class, I think it's a really intriguing fight. Also, the PBC put together a great undercard. 

PT: How do you see the PPV boxing landscape developing in 2022 and how aggressive will Fox Sports be in distributing PPV fights? 

BW:  I think there's room for a pay-view-event per quarter. In the ring [welterweight champion] Errol Spence is out there, as well as [middleweight champion] Canelo Alvarez and [former heavyweight champion] Deontay Wilder, so I think that there are plenty of opportunities to develop PPV events. One of the things we're focused on is putting some of the young up and coming stars in front of a large audience on Fox. At the end of the year we featured [super middleweight] David Morrell, [lightweight] Frank Martin, [middleweight] Joey Spencer and [welterweight] Vito Mielnicki Jr.  Having those young up and comers on Fox really helps grow their profile and is good for the sport.

PT: With so many viewing options fans have to watch sports, Is the pay-per-view boxing model still viable?

BW: Yes I do because fans are accustomed to it. If you put out a good product, they will pay for it, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I think it has a bright future. I also see PPV buys from digital continuing to grow. We’ve seen that since we’ve started doing pay-per-views at Fox back in 2019. Our digital buys as a percent of our overall buy continues to increase, and I see it growing. But the traditional way that people buy pay-per-view events through their cable or satellite system is still a very viable option for people and still represents the majority of the buys. 

PT: Are there any new technological innovations that Fox Sports will look to feature during its upcoming pay-per-view boxing events? 

BW: From a technological standpoint, we're very much focused on audio enhancements, bird's eye view camera angles, super slow motion and great storytelling. Some of the things that we're doing from a digital perspective to allow fans to get very up close and personal with the fighters is something that we call All-Access. We have embedded cameras on fight night that, for example, will follow Keith Thurman and Mario Barrios from their hotel to the arena to the locker rooms and really give fans a fly-on-a-wall perspective. It helps with the [PPV] buys because people get interested in what's going on and learn about the fights and then click the button to buy. 

With the ushering in of the the new year came the demise of several cable networks which ceased operations by January 1.

NBC Sports pulled the plug on its national sports network NBCSN, nearly a decade after being rebranded from the former Versus network. The network had served as the outlet for NBC Sports Premier League Soccer and NASCAR auto racing programming – all of which will now shift to USA Network and NBCU’s streaming service Peacock, according to network officials. 

Year's end often brings at least temporary outages of channels as carriage agreements expire. In other cases, disputes get settled, as was the case with Mediacom's cable operations and Paxton Media's NBC-affiliated TV station in Paducah, Kentucky. 

Originally launched as the Outdoor Life Network in 1995 and later renamed Versus in 2006, NBCSN was also the home of NBC Sports’ National Hockey League coverage before losing league TV rights to ESPN/TNT in 2021. 

 “We are excited to transition the cable coverage of many of our premium sports events to USA Network, Peacock, and other widely-distributed NBCUniversal platforms, which will give us a significant boost in television homes and will put us in an even stronger position as we grow our business,” said NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua in a statement.

Another national sports network, ESPN Classic, closed its doors on Jan. 1. The service, originally launched in 1995 by Brian Bedol and Steve Greenberg as Classic Sports Network, was purchased by ESPN in 1997 and featured replays of vintage sports events and some live programming. The network in recent years had lost carriage to other ESPN-owned sports services before being decommissioned on Saturday.

Univision on December 31 also ceased operations for its English-language cable news and lifestyle network Fusion TV. The Spanish-language network launched Fusion TV in 2013 in an effort to reach young, Hispanic viewers.

Univision pulled the plug on Fusion TV to turn its focus toward serving Spanish-language audiences, according to Forbes. 

In a statement Univision said: “As a company and a brand, Univision is committed to serving Spanish-language audiences, currently in the U.S. and soon globally with the launch of our streaming service in 2022. To continue delivering on that mission, our sole focus will be on this growing audience – currently nearly 600 million strong – and, to that end, we ceased operations of English-language network, Fusion TV on December 31, 2021. With this renewed direction under our new leadership, Univision is doubling down on its focus and strategic investments to fill the need for in-language and in-culture content for Spanish-speaking audiences around the world.”■

The beleaguered Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced its 2022 Golden Globe Awards nominations Monday (December 13) as the organization continues to operate with no TV home for its January 9 awards ceremony and under a cloud of controversy that threatens to undermine its relevance

With Snoop Dogg reading the names of the nominees — often incorrectly, to humorous effect — the Golden Globes will forge ahead even as the HFPA continues to face criticism over the lack of diversity among its board members. In a release, the HFPA said it had admitted “their largest and most diverse class to date of 21 new members, all of whom are first-time Golden Globe voters.” Still, it’s unclear if the January 9 show will air on traditional television after longtime distributor NBC announced earlier in the year that it will not televise the Globes ceremony due to the controversy.  

This year’s Golden Globes nominations in the television categories featured more diversity than last year’s nomination class. Nods for Uzo Abdula (HBO’s In Treatment) and Michaela Jae Rodriguez (FX’s Pose) in the best actress drama category, as well as Issa Rae (HBO’s Insecure) and Tracee Ellis Ross (ABC’s Black-ish) for best comedy/movie actress, and Cynthia Erivo (National Geographic’s Genius: Aretha) for best actress in a television motion picture come one year after no actresses of color were nominated in any major TV category for 2021. That was despite industry recognized performances from Emmy-nominated actress Jurnee Smollett in HBO’s Lovecraft Country and Critics Choice Awards-nominated Michaela Coel in HBO’s drama series I May Destroy You.

Also, the HFPA recognized shows featuring people of color in lead roles such as Netflix’s Squid Game and Lupin as well as FX’s Pose (best drama series), Amazon’s The Underground Railroad (best television motion picture) and FX’s Reservation Dogs (best musical/comedy series). 

The HFPA gravitated to streaming services in a big way in its nomination choices. Hulu and Netflix were the big standouts with 10 nominations each — behind only the 15 nods from the combined HBO/HBO Plus — with Apple TV Plus coming in with eight nods. 

In addition, seven of the top 10 most-nominated shows were from streaming services, led by Apple TV Plus'sThe Morning Show and Ted Lasso with four nominations each, followed by three nominations each for Hulu’s Dopesick, The Great and Only Murders in the Building, HBO Max’s Hacks, and Netflix’s Maid and Squid Game.

Also, the HFPA has often been lauded — and at times criticized — for its penchant for nominating shows that are considered outside of Hollywood’s mainstream, but this year’s list of nominations seemed to have fewer surprise nominations than in previous years. With the exceptions of Netflix’s Lupin and Squid Game along with FX’s Reservation Dogs, many of its nominations were given to the industry’s most high-profile and most talked-about shows, from top-nominated series, HBO’s Succession, to Apple TV Plus's Ted Lasso.  ■  

NBCUniversal will remain the home for the English Premier League soccer games as part of a new six-year television deal announced Thursday. 

The agreement calls for NBC Sports to remain the Premier League’s official broadcast partner through 2028. NBC Sports, which has aired Premier League games in the U.S. since 2012, will telecast all 380 matches each year across such networks as NBC, USA Network and Peacock, as well as Spanish-language rights for Telemundo Deportes, according to NBC Sports.  

“We are excited to come to this long-term extension with the Premier League,” said  NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua in a statement. “Our Premier League team, led by Jon Miller, has been incredibly dedicated to growing the Premier League in the United States over the last nine years. This new agreement is also a testament to the hard work of production, marketing and other areas of our company, as well as the tremendous partnership that has been established with the leadership and club owners of the Premier League.”

Added Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters: “We are delighted to announce our new US broadcast deal with NBC Sports, who have been brilliant partners for the Premier League over the last nine seasons. NBC Sports has significantly strengthened the popularity of the League in the United States in that time through its fantastic coverage and promotion.”

The deal comes as NBC Sports plans to shut down its NBCSN national sports network -- which has carried a significant amount of Premier Soccer games over the years -- at the end of 2021. Much of that inventory is expected to move to USA Network as well as NBCU streaming service Peacock. Miller and Bevacqua said in a Thursday afternoon press conference that Premier League games will maintain a strong presence on the linear platform as well as on the streaming service. ■ 

Also: NBCU Pushes More Sports Programming onto USA Network

History will go behind the scenes of famous prison escapes as part of a new original docuseries, Great Escapes With Morgan Freeman, premiering Nov. 9.

The eight-part series, produced by Freeman’s Revelations Entertainment, will chronicle through dramatic recreations and cutting-edge visual effects how prisoners escaped from such notoriously secure prisons as Alcatraz, Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY and the HM Maze Prison in Northern Ireland, according to network officials. 

 Great Escapes With Morgan Freeman executive producer James Younger recently spoke to me from a production shoot in Athens, Greece about the series as well as the overall viewer appeal of prison escape-themed content. Younger also talks about future Revelations Entertainment projects as part of the interview, an edited version of which appears below.

Picture This: What makes this series unique from previous shows focused on prison escapes?

James Younger: It's pretty different because it's a very active and direct type of storytelling. We're actually putting the viewer inside the prisons by rebuilding them using CGI -- we have this fantastic game engine called Unreal Engine that’s used in first person shooter games. We’re using it to rebuild the cells, the ventilation shafts, tunnels and walls of the prisons. We’re putting the viewer into the prison and sort of gameifying the escape, and really seeing it from the point-of-view of the people who were digging or cutting their way out.

PT: What’s behind the continued viewer fascination with the genre?

JY: The stories are amazing. How do people dig out of concrete with a spoon as they did at Alcatraz or cut through a concrete ceiling as I believe they did at Elmira [Correctional Facility]? It seems like impossible obstacles to us, and yet it was done by people who have nothing but time on their side and a whole bunch of ingenuity. They may not always be the best people in the world, but they're certainly resourceful and smart, and know how to solve problems. So I think that's just fascinating and makes for great stories.

PT: Is there one particular episode from the series that really caught your interest and fascination?

JY: The one that I thought was most remarkable was El Chapo's escaping from a prison that was basically designed to be inescapable. In fact, he didn't actually escape it, but somebody broke in to get him out. The remarkable precision of his team of engineers and excavators who were able to somehow break through the security of the Mexican authorities to get the precise coordinates of where the shower pan in his cell was fascinating. The shower pan was the only part of his cell that was not visible by CCTV camera, which was being watched 24 hours a day by the federal Mexican agents. Yey they got this tunnel exactly under his shower, which was just incredible. They got within like six inches of where they needed it to be after digging for hundreds and hundreds of yards underground. So that to me is mind blowing.

PT: What does Morgan Freeman bring to the table?

JY: He’s famous for being in one of the great prison films in the Shawshank Redemption, so people recognize him as someone who might be able to get into the mind of a prisoner. He’s an amazing storyteller and he makes you feel like you are there. He doesn’t seem like just a host telling you the facts; he’s telling you the story from the point of view of the people trying to get out. His name automatically brings a broader audience, so it’s our job to make sure the story is well told and compelling. If we tell a story well and Morgan is reading it, then I think people are very likely to get hooked and to be drawn to it.

PT: What other projects can we expect to see from Revelations Entertainment?

JY: We’re looking at bringing to the marketplace a new breed of historical stories that we really bring to life through storytelling. There are other areas like manhunts, for example, where we’d love to explore. I think in general Morgan has an immense curiosity for history -- everything from military to civil war to civil rights -- so there's many parts of history that Morgan and our company can explore.

Fubo Sports Network is ramping up its live sports offerings this Saturday with coverage of the LXF 6 Lights Out Xtreme Fighting mixed martial arts event, part of several live sports events the network is offering its growing base of viewers.

Traditionally known for unscripted sport-themed content, the two year-old network -- part of FuboTV's streaming platform and available to 75 million devices through such platforms as Samsung TV Plus, The Roku Channel, Vizio Channels and XUMO -- has in the past year offered live Conmebol South American World Cup 2022 Qualifying matches as well as live games from Spain’s premier pro basketball league, Liga Endesa along with LXF MMA fights.  

To complement its live sports telecasts, the network and FuboTV this past September launched free-to-play predictive gaming offerings. For this Saturday’s LXF 6 event, the network will allow viewers to engage in free-to-play trivia games to earn points toward a $1,000 prize. Viewers can access the games -- which will appear on the same screen with the event’s live feed -- via remote control without having to open another app, according to the network. 

The live events join the network’s lineup of unscripted, sports-themed series including No Chill with Gilbert Arenas, starring the former NBA all-star basketball player; Getcha Popcorn Ready with T.O. and Hatch, featuring former NFL wide receivers Terrell Owens and Matthew Hatchett; soccer-themed sports talk show The Cooligans; and Drinks with Blinks, hosted by sports broadcaster Julie Stewart-Binks.

Fubo Sports Network head Pamela Duckworth recently spoke to Multichannel News regarding the network’s live sports acquisition strategy as well as the network’s continued focus on athlete-themed original series. An edited version of the interview appears below. 

Multichannel News: How important has the addition of live sports programming been to the evolution of Fubo Sports Network?

Pamela Duckworth: I think it puts us in the game. With our deal with Conmebol, which is a South American World Cup qualifier event, we were able to air some of the games for free on our network. We also did some original shoulder programming around every weekend that we aired the live games in both English and Spanish, and that’s been super successful. We’ve also added Lights Out Xtreme Fighting events, of which we have one this weekend, so it’s been a pretty exciting time for the network.

MCN: Has the addition of live sports programming helped attract a younger audience to Fubo Sports Network?

PD: Yes, particularly the mixed martial arts events. We’ve done some really fun things with it on the digital side. For instance, we’re going to have a social media person at [Saturday's] live event providing some behind the scenes footage, which will go out to viewers at the same time that we’re doing the live show. We think that will help bring in some new, younger viewers as well.

MCN: Overall, how do you see the live TV sports landscape shaping up over the next couple of years?

PD: Just looking at the landscape you’re seeing non-traditional players getting into the field and snatching up a lot of the live sports event rights. We know that live sports is the number one draw for viewers on television … it’s everything that you would want on your network. So we’re out there just like everyone else trying to find any sports that could work on our network.

MCN: Along with live programming, you’ve also added some interactive features to the service. How has that helped serve the network from a viewership and advertiser perspective?

PD: Our free-to-play integrated games do increase the time viewers remain with the platform. I don’t know about you but I love playing trivia, so if viewers are being served up trivia and other games while they’re watching the live event, they’re obviously going to be more engaged. As for advertisers, we’ve had [Anheuser-Busch's] Michelob Ultra as part of our games and we’re actively looking to get other advertisers to be a part of the games. That can only grow exponentially.

MCN: What will Fubo Sports Network look like in 2022?

PD: We’re going to draft off of our successes, which includes our originals. I think it's great to give these athletes a platform where they can showcase the other side of themselves, so I want to grow in that area along with obviously the live sports area.

Saturday night’s Tyson-Fury-Deontay Wilder pay-per-view trilogy fight surpassed all expectations in the ring -- now the industry waits to see if the epic fight will meet PPV buy projections.

The Oct. 9 event, in which Fury knocked out Wilder in the 11th round of an action-packed fight in which both fighters hit the canvas a combined five times, was arguably worth the $80 PPV retail price event distributors ESPN and Fox Sports set for the third and most likely last bout between the two heavyweight fighters. 

Industry observers expected the third Fury-Wilder fight to at least match the close to approximately 1 million PPV buys the February 2020 second Fury-Wilder fight generated. While industry executives said it’s too early to project PPV buys for fury-Wilder III, PPV distributors were confident the fight would perform up to expectations.

Fury’s win clearly places him at the top of the heavyweight division, and could set up a potential unification fight in 2022 against the winner of the upcoming rematch bout between current champion Oleksandr Usyk and the fighter he beat last month for the title, Anthony Joshua. Wilder could also fight either or both Joshua and Usyk, setting up a number of PPV event opportunities in the marquee heavyweight division. 

“The heavyweight division is much bigger than any one fighter,” In Demand senior VP of programming & marketing Mark Boccardi said. “There are a bunch of top-drawing heavyweights right now, and boxing fans are going to want to see the best, no matter who they are.”

This Saturday (Oct. 9) ESPN and Fox Sports will team to deliver the third pay-per-view fight between heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and top challenger Deontay Wilder. Industry observers are cautiously optimistic that the fight could match or surpass the more than 1 million PPV buys generated for the February 2020 second bout between the fighters, in which Fury stopped Wilder in the seventh round. Fury and Wilder’s first fight in 2018 ended in a draw.

“We think Fury-Wilder III is going to be huge,” said Mark Boccardi, senior VP programming and marketing for PPV event purveyor In Demand. “When’s the last time we had such a highly anticipated trilogy, much less a heavyweight trilogy? Between the growing popularity of Wilder and Fury and their in-ring skills, this has the makings of a mega-event.”

ESPN and Fox are hoping to maximize PPV buys for the fight — which was rescheduled to Oct. 9 from its original July 24 date after Fury tested positive for COVID-19 — through an aggressive, multi-platform marketing campaign that featured spots in high-profile sports events like Monday Night Football, marquee college football games and baseball post-season telecasts.

ESPN VP of programming and acquisitions Matt Kenny spoke to me in the final days leading up to Fury-Wilder III about the PPV appeal of the event, Fox Sports and ESPN’s marketing strategy for the fight and ESPN’s plans for future PPV boxing events. An edited version of the story appears below.

Picture This: Do you feel that there’s as much momentum heading into the third Fury-Wilder fight than there was for the first two fights between the two champions?

Matt Kenny: Yes. We couldn‘t be more excited for Saturday night. We’re talking about Fury and Wilder — the two fighters at the top of the heavyweight division — in a trilogy match. They've obviously participated in two iconic bouts with incredible promotions in their own right, so we couldn’t be happier to partner again with Fox Sports to help bring a massive event like this to not just boxing fans but mainstream sports fans as well.

PT: Is there a greater promotional push for this fight than the previous two events?

MK: The best way to describe it is in both instances, the promotion was incredibly strategic and well thought out between us and Fox. Fury-Wilder 2 took place in February of 2020 after the Super Bowl, so we were able to capitalize on all the live events that led up to that date, including the Super Bowl itself. What we're finding here is we're doing the exact same thing, but again being opportunistic with the live events that we have in front of us as we push towards Saturday night. For instance, we had promotion within Monday’s Raiders-Chargers Monday Night Football game, and then the following night we had promotions within the Yankees-Red Sox [MLB] Wild Card game, which was the most watched baseball game on ESPN since 1998. We have had massive events that we have been able to leverage to create exposure and awareness for the fight, and that'll continue to be the case as we head into the weekend.

PT: Having said that, are you confident that the fight can match Wilder-Fury II in breaking the 1 million pay-per-view buy mark?

MK: We don’t get into projections, but what I can say is we are incredibly optimistic for what's ahead. It really starts with the event participants at the top of the marquee, and that’s Fury and Wilder. They have a long track record, and there are no shortage of human interest stories related to this bout. Both ESPN and Fox are continuing to walk hand-in-hand to help tell that story and to help present these athletes in a way in which boxing fans won't want to miss it.

PT: Does former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua’s recent upset loss take some luster away from Fury-Wilder III since the winner was projected to fight Joshua in a mega PPV unification fight?

MK: The best way to answer that question is to say that this is boxing and anything can happen. Obviously that was a fight that many fans were interested in seeing, but at the end of the day, again anything can happen in boxing. I think fans on Saturday night are going to be in for a treat, and where it goes from there nobody knows.

PT: Do you believe that the PPV boxing category in general can remain a viable option for big events going forward in a very crowded TV sports marketplace?

MK: We do. We really like to be opportunistic and we like to think of pay-per-view as one of several distribution options that we have, depending upon the nature of the event and our relationship with [boxing promotion company] Top Rank. We have live events that air on ESPN and we have exclusive events that are on ESPN Plus. We also have pay-per-view events, both on a non-exclusive basis, like Fury-Wilder III, and we're excited about the ESPN Plus pay-per-view exclusive for the Terence Crawford-Shawn Porter fight on Nov. 20. So we do believe that pay-per-view is very much a viable option, and we just like to be opportunistic as we consider which live events we put where.

Nickelodeon Wednesday night (Sept. 15) will look to endear young viewers to the sport of football with its new original primetime series NFL Slimetime.

The weekly series, a collaboration between Nickelodeon, the NFL and CBS Sports, looks to build on Nick’s successful, network-branded telecast of last January's Chicago Bears-New Orleans Saints NFL Wildcard playoff game by offering league highlights and player interviews delivered from a Nickelodeon perspective. The series is hosted by former NFL player, The NFL Today analyst and CBS Mornings co-host Nate Burleson and Dylan Gilmer, star of the network series Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan series, and also includes sports correspondent Dylan Schefter.

I had a chance to speak to NFL Slimetime executive producer and showrunner Shawn Robbins shortly after he finished filming the series' first episode to discuss expectations for the 23-episode series as well as the collaboration between the league and the kids-targeted brand. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Picture This: What is Nickelodeon looking to accomplish with NFL Slimetime?

Shawn Robbins: The show is really an extension of what we did with the Wild Card game — it extends the partnership with the NFL and it brings sports to Nickelodeon. We know that we were able to really merge the NFL and CBS Sports with Nickelodeon, and obviously nobody reaches a youthful audience better than Nickelodeon.

PT: Was the Wild Card game and now NFL Slimetime an effort to provide kids with a greater understanding of football, or was it an opportunity to provide sports programming for Nickelodeon’s lineup?

SR: Both of those things. I think the game of football is great in itself, but if you want to reach kids, Nickelodeon has this fantastic [intellectual property] that touches kids of all ages. There’s also a nostalgic value to the Nickelodeon brand that also touches adults, so we know that there’s a crossover opportunity where we can reach both kids and their parents. Mom and Dad may watch the live football games on Sunday, and now we’re giving them a product where they can introduce their kids to the game using the Nickelodeon brand. It’s just really special.

PT: What should viewers expect to see on the show?

SR: What’s great is we have a lot of fun with the show. Much like the wildcard game we want to keep the values and tradition of the game and be respectful to the game of football, but we had fun with it. The show will feature action from the games on Sunday, Monday and Thursday mixed with what the Nickelodeon brand represents. We asked the players fun, Nickelodeon-style questions and they had a great time with it. The players aren’t that far off [age-wise] from the Nickelodeon target audience, so it’s been really special to see that come together.

PT: What kind of questions did you ask the players?

SR: Questions like, ‘is having good breath important coming into the huddle, or what might have been the worst thing that you’ve eaten before the game?’ The players really responded fantastically to that. Also Dylan Schefter did an interview yesterday with [wide receiver] Christian Kirk from the Arizona Cardinals who scored two touchdowns in Sunday’s game. They had such a fun interview about the game. I’ve done a lot of these interviews before with all of our big guys at CBS Sports over the years, and it’s such a different experience to see how players talk to kids. The players get it, and I loved how they interacted with Dylan. I’m looking forward to doing a lot more of that throughout the season.

PT: Does the show get into the X's and O’s of the sport?

SR: We do a little bit. You’ll see during the show that Nate Burleson does break down a play, so we will get into some X’s and O’s from a broader base standpoint. We want to bring kids into the game and that’s how we’ll do it … there’s definitely some teaching involved.

Also Read: For CBS Sports's Sean McManus, a Whole Different Ballgame

PT: Do you expect you’ll have to make adjustments to the show as the NFL season progresses?

SR: Oh my goodness, I hope so. We’re going to build on it. This was our first show and we put the team together pretty quickly to get this out. Like any show, you look at the last episode and see what you did and how we can make it better.

Showtime will examine the fascination surrounding unidentified flying objects with its new four-part documentary series, UFO, premiering Sunday (Aug. 8). 

The four-part limited docuseries, executive produced by J.J. Abrams, Glen Zipper, Mark Monroe and Sean Stuart, examines the history of UFOs through cultural and political touchpoints, including testimony from eyewitnesses across the country. Ignited by the 2017 New York Times story revealing the Pentagon had been secretly tracking UFOs for years, UFO looks to find the truth behind the phenomenon, according to Showtime.

I recently spoke to Zipper about the series, the appeal of UFO-themed content as well as his own thoughts and beliefs about the phenomenon in a wide-ranging interview, an edited version of which appears below.

Picture This: What influenced you to develop the series? 

Glen Zipper: I’ve always had an interest in UFOs but I'm a very pragmatic and practical thinker. I think I fell into that ‘I want to believe’ category, but not necessarily the ‘I believe’ category. When I surveyed all the content that was out there about UFO's and unexplained phenomena, the majority of it seemed to be sensationalistic and trended toward what you would come to expect of the National Inquirer. But then when the New York Times and the Washington Post started to cover the UFO phenomenon, I thought the time was right for us to take a closer look at the topic in film and television. But we wanted to look at it through the same lens that the New York Times and Washington Post were viewing it and to give a really credible, wholesale look at UFO phenomena, from the beginning of our fascination with it up to the present day. 

PT: What is it about UFOs that continues to fascinate the American public?

GZ: Well, there's the entertainment factor -- we've been conditioned to enjoy science fiction and horror content, and every time you go see a scripted film or watch a scripted television show about aliens, they are usually here to kill us. I think that in some measure has stoked the flames of our interest in the UFO phenomenon. But I think on a more thoughtful level UFOs represent the unknown. If UFOs exist, that means that there's a lot more out there than we understand. If there's more out there than we understand, there's also the potential for more hope that if something bigger than ourselves arise, perhaps that could help us with the issues that we're suffering through here on earth. That could include cures for diseases, or maybe the fractures between us as a society and as a world start to heal once we see that, relative to an alien species, we’re all brothers and sisters. So when you combine those two things there’s an irresistible pull toward UFOs. 

PT: You mentioned the New York Times and Washington Post stories on UFOs. Did those stories aid in getting this series developed and picked up by Showtime?  

GZ: The inception of the project was a meeting between myself and (Showtime Networks EVP, Nonfiction Programming) Vinnie Malhotra. We were trying to find something to collaborate on and we both were interested in UFO's. Once we started to do the actual work the New York Times story became very much the spine of the entire series. We have Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal who were two of the reporters involved in that [New York Times] story participating in our series. They are really credible, persuasive and thoughtful voices in the space.

PT: What, what are you hoping to accomplish with the series?

GZ: I don't think we're going to convince anyone that UFOs exist or don't exist. That was never the mission of the series. I think it was about presenting UFOs and unexplained phenomena through a different lens. What you'll see in this series is that civilians who have claimed to see these phenomena for decades are often subjected to ridicule. I think what we want to do is slide the conversation to a place where it is no longer living in that context. We want to be able to have thoughtful conversations about the UFO phenomenon and be open-minded about it, and allow people to express their views without fear of ridicule. When you watch this series there are dissenting opinions as well and they're treated with equal respect. So I think it's about leveling up the conversation to a different place that allows for a better and more thoughtful dialogue. 

PT: Do you foresee the opportunity to maybe extend this series beyond the episodes that you currently have if the government continues to release more information about UFOs? 

GZ: That’s an interesting question. I think when we started this series, myself, [J.J. Abrams’ production company] Bad Robot and Showtime viewed it as a one off limited series. Once we started to turn over some rocks and to see how many stories there are to tell -- not just as it pertains to the UFO phenomenon but what you also might consider about paranormal activity, whether or not there are multi-verses, and life after death, it really gets interesting. In researching UFOs, these other threads started to reveal themselves internally. I’m not  speaking for Showtime, but we were very curious about maybe continuing on and exploring some of these other themes and storylines, and having something that was much more akin to a documentary X-Files series.

PT: You started out by saying you weren’t necessarily a believer in UFOs. Once you completed the show did that change at all?

GZ: I think that I feel more comfortable believing. But I'm one of those people -- and I think there's probably a lot of people that are like me -- who aren't really going to believe until [extraterrestrials] show up and shake our hands, literally or figuratively. It’s just one of those things where I'd be far less surprised now if that happened then I would have been before I produced the series.

Also Read: Growing UFO Interest Spawns Cable, Streaming Shows

NBCUniversal Friday morning will tee up live coverage of the 2020 Summer Olympics’ Opening Ceremony as it prepares to offer more than 7,000 hours of Olympics coverage from Tokyo across multiple platforms.

The Olympics' Opening Ceremony, hosted by Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie and NBC Olympics’ primetime host Mike Tirico, will air live on NBC beginning at 6:55 am (ET). After the ceremonies, NBC will air a special edition of Today followed by an Olympics Daytime show, according to NBC officials. 

NBC will air a primetime encore of the Opening Ceremony beginning at 7:30 pm. 

Guthrie said during a June Olympics press conference that American audiences are anticipating the Olympics games. 

“People want to feel good, root for the home team and feel inspired,” she said. “I think people will catch the fever -- there’s nothing like the Olympics. We’ve all been binge watching … Tiger King is great, but I think people are really going to want to see something special.”

Read Also: NBCU Builds Olympics App for NCTC, Verizon Set-Top Boxes 

NBCU says it's up to the herculean task of covering the Summer Games, which were postponed last year due to the pandemic. The network’s current Olympics deal, which runs through 2032, provides the network with rights to all media platforms, which the company will take full advantage of during the two-week event. 

“As the games have grown both in scale and in the number of sports and athletes, we as a company have grown and evolved as well,” said NBCU Television and Streaming chairman Mark Lazarus during the June Olympics presser. “Essentially every technology known today or to be invented between now and the year 2032 we have the rights to, which gives us the ability to try new things and to experiment. That’s what we’re going to do across the platforms.” 

Indeed, with the NBCU cable networks set to distribute 1,300 hours of Olympics coverage; NBC Sports Digital offering 5,500 hours -- including all sports and all medal events -- Telemundo Deportes offering 300 hours of Spanish-language coverage and the flagship NBC broadcast networks televising 250 hours of coverage, virtually every event will be available to avid Olympic sports fans. 

Streaming service Peacock will also play a major part in NBCU’s Olympics coverage, offering live coverage of men's and women's gymnastics, track & Field and the U.S. men’s Basketball games, as well as live daily shows and Olympic highlights.  

Read Also: Peacock's Olympics Plans Include Kevin Hart, Snoop Dogg, Kenny Mayne

Despite concerns related to the ongoing pandemic -- Olympics events will be held without fans in attendance due to the pandemic  -- industry observers say NBCU is prepared to adjust to any challenges it may face. 

“They will be faced with a substantial number of challenges … this will be an improvisational type of Olympics,” said sports analyst Lee Berke. “That being said, I’m confident that NBC is the most qualified organization to get the utmost out of these Olympics."

Just months after the major pro sports leagues resumed play after the pandemic forced an unprecedented shutdown of live sports for nearly a year, COVID-19 is still having an adverse effect on the live sports event business.

While the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines has paved the way for a return of most pro sports events in 2021 — and has allowed fans to attend events at full capacity in many venues — observers said the industry has not yet declared victory against the virus.

“We’re not out of the woods yet with COVID,” sports analyst Lee Berke said. “The industry still has to be cautious. There will be these outbreaks that will cause last-minute switches and cancellations.”

Indeed, last Thursday (July 15), several New York Yankees players tested positive for COVID-19, forcing a postponement of the Yankees-Boston Red Sox game two days after Major League Baseball's high-profile All-Star Game. Fortunately the series was able to be completed, but baseball and ESPN missed out on a chance to showcase one of baseball’s fiercest rivalries in a primetime window with very little sports competition. 

Two marquee pay-per-view boxing matches — the scheduled June 19 Teofimo Lopez-George Kambosos fight and the July 24 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder trilogy bout — were postponed after fighters Lopez and Fury tested positive for COVID-19. Both fights have been rescheduled. 

As NBC Sports kicks off its live coverage of the Tokyo Summer Olympics coverage today (July 20), several high-profile U.S. Olympians will not participate in the two-week event due to positive COVID tests. Tennis sensation Coco Gauff and U.S. gymnastics alternate Kara Eaker both recently tested positive for the virus and will not participate in the games. U.S. men’s basketball stars Bradley Beal, Zack LaVine and Jerami Grant were placed under USA Basketball’s health and safety protocols and will not travel with the team. 

The men’s basketball team cancelled an exhibition game against Australia last Friday out of an abundance of caution.

Berke says while the COVID-19 vaccines have allowed live sports producers and programmers to entertain the prospect of returning to a sense of normalcy, he says that for now the industry has to remain vigilant. 

“We’re still in this new normal,” Berke said. “We’re not out of this yet.” 

The main headline coming out of the Television Academy’s Emmys nomination announcement Tuesday is the dominance of the streaming services. With shows from streaming services representing eight of the top 10 most nominated shows, it’s clear that the online platform resonated with viewers, critics and Emmy voters.

With that said, there were a few highlights that traditional television distributors can hang their hats on heading into the Sept. 19 Emmy Awards show telecast. Here are several takeaways for cable and broadcast networks from Tuesday’s 73rd Emmys nominations announcement.

Read Also: Streaming Shows 'The Crown,' 'The Mandalorian,' 'WandaVision' Lead Emmy Awards Nominations 

• Along with 18 nominations, HBO’s recently cancelled Lovecraft Country became the first series ever to have Black actors nominated in both the drama best actor (Jonathan Rogers) and best actress (Jurnee Smollet) categories. The horror-themed show also has the distinction of having Black actors nominated in six of the seven drama acting categories. Overall, actors of color drew four of the six nominations in the best actor in a drama series category and half of the nominations for the best actress in a drama series award. 

Read Also: 'Lovecraft Country' Creator Outlines New Season Plot Despite Series Cancellation

• NBC’s Saturday Night Live continues to rack up Emmy nominations. The late-night series drew 21 nominations — one off its record 22 nods for a variety show garnered in 2017— and now has a record 306th Emmy nominations overall. It was one of the few bright spots for the broadcast networks, which found itself either shut out or with only one nomination in the outstanding drama, comedy and limited series categories. NBC led all broadcast networks with 46 nominations.

• HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show is the only show that stands in the way of Saturday Night Live winning its fifth straight Emmy in the Outstanding Variety Sketch Series category as only two shows qualified for the award.  

• FX was the most nominated basic cable network with 16, nine of which were generated by Pose, including a lead actress in a drama nomination for MJ Rodriguez — the first ever in the category for a lead trans person. VH1 (11) and National Geographic (10) also generated double-digit nominations. Overall 16 cable networks garnered Emmy nominations, matching the number of online services with Emmy nods. 

• HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will look to make it six Emmy wins in a row in the Outstanding Talk Series category, while VH1’s RuPaul’s Drag Race will go for four straight wins in the Outstanding Competition Program category.  

Tonight’s ESPY Awards show on ABC will look to ride the momentum of the return of live sports after an unprecedented shutdown in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event, hosted by actor Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), will honor major sports achievements and salute the leading performers and performances. 

Last year’s June ESPYs event was held without a live audience and, with the lack of live sports events due to the pandemic, focused mostly on humanitarian issues. 

I recently spoke to ESPN Content SVP and Editor-At-Large Rob King about this year’s ESPYs presentation and how ESPN has had to navigate around the pandemic to produce its annual sports awards show. An edited version of the interview appears below. 

Picture This: How has ESPN adjusted to producing the ESPY Awards during an unprecedented time in sports due to the pandemic? 

Rob King: So we went from being in a theater of 5,000 people two years ago to having to do it all virtually last year. That was a struggle on a number of fronts: in some ways you had a bit of a captive audience in terms of athletes and performers who joined the show, but it was also trying to do a virtual show in the middle of a pretty dramatic shift in human history between the pandemic, a reckoning around race, and the early stages of an election cycle. Meanwhile, we didn't have live sports to watch or enjoy, so it felt wrong to hand out awards for best college basketball team when we didn't have an NCAA tournament or to offer a whole host of superlative awards for seasons that were stopped. So we had to shift course last year and really make it be about a celebration of heroism and courage at a time when everyone needed it. Now you flash forward to this year, and we’ve had sports return in a way that we have all needed. You've seen incredible performances around the world and fans have worked their way back into stadiums, so we have an opportunity to return to some of that celebratory feel around the performance of athletes.

Picture This: How will this year’s ESPYs look and feel different from last year?

RK: First let me say that we are not quite out of pandemic, so we've worked tirelessly to think of ways to start our way back to what we believe will be a full theater show next year by creating this safe environment where people can celebrate together. Logistically it meant that you’ll have 500 people instead of 5,000; it'll mean that we'll have folks socially distant, but with the ability to be with one another.

Picture This: Last year the ESPYs moved to Saturday night from Wednesday. Is Saturday an optimal night for the event in terms of reaching viewers?

RK: We’ll see. The Wednesday slot after the [Major League Baseball] All-Star game was chosen strategically because there isn’t anything else going on so you can be the only show in town. We just feel like we’re well situated this year based on the general excitement about the return of sports.

Picture This: What does host Anthony Mackie bring to the ESPYs?

RK: First of all, he is a genuine sports fan, and there have been so many moments of just pure joy working on this show because he really gets why a night like this matters. Secondly, working with Anthony Mackie has made me a lot cooler with my teenage kids -- I’m not saying that’s the only thing that matters, but it matters (laughing).

Picture This: Are you confident that this year’s ESPYs will resonate with viewers?

RK: I think so. I think producers of the show have done a fantastic job of making sure that some of those athletes that we just love, want to spend time with and celebrate will be present. We're going to have a bunch of moments that will be immediately viral and draw a lot of attention. It’s also a really big night in terms of sports across ESPN and ABC with the Wimbledon finals and UFC 264 with Conor McGregor, so I think our time on ABC from eight o’clock until 11 fits nicely into what's really going to be a pretty big day for sports fans.

Read Also: ESPN's Rachel Nichols Sidelined for NBA Finals

Live sports programming has generated some strong ratings numbers so far this summer as fans settle into having their favorite sports events return to their traditional seasonal time periods.

The NBA playoffs have scored big for the league and for ESPN thus far. The league’s conference semifinal round which ended June 20th averaged 4.1 million viewers over 24 telecasts across ESPN, TNT and ABC, up 33% from the same 24 games during last year’s conference finals, which took place during the late summer/early fall of 2020 due to the pandemic, per a Sports Business Journal analysis.

The NBA Playoffs have helped propel TNT and ESPN to the top of the cable network ratings charts. Through June 20, TNT has averaged more primetime viewers during the last four weeks than any other cable network, topping perennial chart leader Fox News, while ESPN finished among the top five rated cable networks in primetime during those weeks. While the league’s playoff ratings are slightly down compared to 2019, the league was able to rebound nicely with viewers after struggling while in a COVID-avoiding bubble last year. 

Read also: Weekly Cable Ratings: TNT Tops Primetime; Fox News Rules in Total Day

It’s not just basketball that’s scoring on the ratings front. NBC Sports two weekends ago generated its second-most watched U.S. Open golf tournament in five years, while ESPN last week reported Sunday Night Baseball viewership is up 31% from last year’s full season average and up 7% compared to the same time period in 2019. 

Read also: TV By the Numbers: NBA, U.S. Open Soar in Watch-Time, TV Ad Impressions

“With sports coming back to a somewhat normal schedule, the excitement of the  crowd as well as the relief of people going back to their daily routines all contribute  to driving up sports ratings,” said sports analyst Lee Berke.

The live sports programming lineup will continue to heat up in July, with high profile events like the NBA Finals, NHL Stanley Cup finals, the Copa America and UEFA Euro 2020 soccer tournaments and the Summer Olympics -- along with major pay-per-view events like the July 10 UFC 264 Conor McGregor-Dustin Poirier 3 event and the July 24 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder 3 heavyweight boxing event.

Even as people return to their normal lives after the pandemic shutdown, Berke says viewers will continue to return home to watch must-see live sports events on the small screen.

“If they are going to be outside for a picnic or a party they know they can watch a movie or series later on demand,” he said. “But when it comes to watching a game seven or other big sports event, they’ll have to be in front of the TV set watching the game.” 

OWN tonight (June 22) returns its drama series David Makes Man for a new season in which the series’ teenage prodigy returns as a 30-year old man, played by Kwame Patterson (Snowfall).

The series’ sophomore season -- executive produced by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Michael B. Jordan and showrunner Dee Harris-Lawrence -- picks up with the now adult David as a rising businessman facing an opportunity that will change him and his community forever. The mounting pressure forces David to choose between the instincts that helped him survive or finding a new way to live, according to OWN. 

During its first season run, David Makes Man ranked second in its time period across all cable with African-American women and reached over 4.1 million unique viewers on OWN, according to Nielsen.  

Academy Award winner McCraney (Moonlight) spoke to me about David’s transition from teenager to adult in the series' sophomore season as well as the success of the show’s first season. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Picture This: Was it difficult for you to make the main character’s transition from a teen in season one to an adult in season two?

Tarell Alvin McCraney: When we first approached [Oprah] Winfrey about the show, we knew that we always wanted to talk about the ways in which acute childhood trauma shows up in our adult life. So the first season was laying the groundwork for showing how David, with all of his resiliency, survival skills, defense mechanisms, and his amazing imagination matures to a place where he can handle the adult situations that he's in, even though he's a 13-year-old kid. In season two, we'd always planned to show how those defense mechanisms and survival skills were hindering him from clearly living in the present. It shows an older David who has reached maturation and a place of respect from where he quote-unquote comes from, but is he actually living in his present? Is he having relationships that are bountiful and nourishing? It’s an exciting place to be because we knew where we were going -- whether or not we were going to get here was the question. You always have to wait and hope that the show will be picked up for another season, but we’re really excited to bring this to the home viewers and to the world.

Picture This: Following up on that, were you surprised by the success of season one, both from an audience perspective and from the critical acclaim that the show received? 

TAM: I'm always surprised … you never can count those things. As an artist, there's always a chance that someone is thinking about their taxes at the same time that they're looking at your show and they could absolutely miss all of the things that you're hoping to engage them in. I think for me, it has been exciting to see people engaged in a deep way. For example, there's a college course that's been created by multiple institutions -- one at Morehouse College, one at UConn Health Disparities Institute -- that look at the show on a scholastic level, and then there’s all of these groups on Facebook who have conversations about the work we’re doing. That's always really exciting and I certainly didn't expect it.

Picture This: We see David’s maturation in season two, but what else should viewers expect to see in the upcoming season? 

TAM: When we were in season one, we focused on the narrow path of a 15 year-old kid who was trying to get into a school. What came with that were certainly some side roads, but when we get into adulthood, there's a lot more chaos. It offers a 360 degree panorama of David’s life as an adult and how he's trying to handle that with the same amazing tools of a 15 year old in the 30 year old body. And I think that you can expect some of that to be really funny, sexy, and heartbreaking, but all of it with intention and love. 

 TBS June 18 will debut its “Friday Night Vibes” weekly block of diverse theatrical movies interspersed with original comedy segments, celebrity interviews and musical performances that are reflective and inclusive of Black culture. 

“Friday Night Vibes,” hosted by Tiffany Haddish and co-hosted by Deon Cole, will debut with feature films Creed and Creed 2, while in-studio celebrity guests Snoop Dogg and Tina Knowles Lawson discuss issues and topics surrounding the films as well as Father’s Day and Juneteenth, according to the network.

I recently spoke to TBS EVP, head of unscripted Corie Henson about the “Friday Night Vibes” concept as well as its appeal to viewers. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Picture This: What do you see as the biggest audience driver of “Friday Night Vibes” -- the movies or the original programming segments? 

Corie Henson: People will definitely come for the films but I also believe that Tiffany will bring her own audience. We're hoping to get a foothold in the public conversation and be topical. We've only shot the first episode, but once we really get into the rhythm I think we'll be able to reflect on and talk about stuff that's going on in the real world. I don't think any of us envisioned this as a talk show -- the vibe is very different and much looser than a traditional talk show. They're bite-size pieces of content woven throughout the film, but I do think people will come to see what she and her guests are talking about. Sometimes it’ll be driven by the content of the movie -- for example in the first episode, the movies are Creed and Creed 2, so Tiffany is talking to guest Snoop Dogg about her top three boxing knockouts of all time. Our second guest, Tina Knowles talks about Juneteenth -- she happens to be from Galveston where Juneteenth was originated. So there’s information and fun in a discussion that I think it's very fluid and very spontaneous.

PT: You mention Tiffany Haddish. What does she bring to the table?

CH: First of all, she brings energy and crazy comedic chops. I think what’s most interesting is that she has a warmth and a curiosity … she’s interested in learning. We put hosts into a lot of different shows and many of them come from TV, film or sports where they're used to people asking them questions. The hardest thing to find in a great host is someone who listens and is genuinely curious about what the other person has to say, and she does that. When her name came up in conjunction with this project, I couldn’t think of anyone better for the role.

PT: What are your expectations and goals for "Friday Night Vibes?"

CH: Ideally we would like to bring in some new audiences that we weren't necessarily focused on programming for. I think there are a lot of diverse voices across all of TBS both in front of and behind the camera, but I don't know that we'd ever planted our flag on a show or a night. Certainly this is going to be a place and a destination that celebrates diverse voices. Honestly this one is not about the ratings -- I hope people come and I think people will come to see Tiffany and to hear what she has to say. The win for us is introducing new viewers to the network, having conversations that you're not really hearing from other places and delivering on that commitment to the audience.

PT: If successful, can you see the “Friday Night Vibes” franchise serving as a springboard to new and original content?

CH: I wouldn’t count that out. I would love to have a show that nests perfectly in that evening. Right now we’re focusing on the movies as the tentpole of the evening to build around, but I would love to use it as a way to launch a new show if that show speaks to the audience.

NBA legend and social activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has teamed with History to highlight the social justice movements that helped shape America. 

The documentary, Fight The Power: The Movements That Changed America, premiering on Juneteenth (June 19), explores the way in which various movements have changed the country for the better, from the labor movement to women’s suffrage to the LGBTQ+ and Black Lives Matter movements, according to History. 

Abdul-Jabbar, who has worked with History in the past as executive producer on the 2020 documentary Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution, recently spoke to me about The Movements That Changed America project as well as his thoughts on the recent movement against racial injustice and police brutality stemming from the 2020 death of George Floyd. Abdul-Jabbar also chimes in on the controversy surrounding the social activism of NBA players in a wide ranging interview, an edited version of which appears below. 

Picture This: What attracted you to this project? 

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: I think it gives a good perspective on free speech and the ability to challenge situations that we don't accept. I think that that's really what we should point out and I think this is a great way to show people how they're all really related. 

PT: What does History bring to the table for you? 

KAJ: I think History focuses on things that most Americans didn't understand when they were in history class or were never exposed to. I think by having this opportunity for people to see how important it is and what these changes involved and how they are still with us in our daily lives now, I think that will help people understand its importance. 

PT: How relatable and relevant are some of the past movements to a new generation that is driving today’s social activism?

KAJ: The way that they can react to it is to understand that unless all people who are marginalized are involved, none of us are going to be free because they’ll just go from one group to another in terms of singling them out and making their lives miserable. So we have to understand that it's a cyclical thing. We have to constantly be involved in making sure that no one is left out, that everyone is included and everyone's rights are respected. Unless everyone's rights are respected eventually they will get around to your group and start stepping on your toes.

PT: Have you been impressed by the continuing social justice movement that began last year?

KAJ: Yes. What’s really made me feel encouraged is the fact that it's not just one narrow group, but a lot of different groups. You have Black Lives Matter, you have LGBTQ groups who are talking about their issues, you have the labor group issues, and it goes on and on. I think that it's really great that we're starting to get some cooperation between all of these groups and that they're starting to support each other in ways that can make for meaningful change.

PT: Are you also encouraged by athletes who have been outspoken on many of these issues?

KAJ: NBA players have built a decades-long tradition of activism, championing their communities and advocating for change. I remember when I came into the league my team, the Milwaukee Bucks, had the very first Black general manager, and that was a step forward. I could see that the NBA was interested in making sure that inclusion and openness is part of what they're all about.

PT: Some people have criticized NBA players in particular for speaking out on social and political issues, saying that they should stick to playing the game. What do you say to those people?

KAJ: Everybody has the right to talk about the things that concern them, even professional athletes or entertainers. The whole idea of shut up and dribble is like saying, ‘you have a good job so don't complain about things that are definitely disturbing and need to be changed.’ The fact that I have a certain type of job should not exclude me from being able to speak my mind.

PT: Do you aspire to develop and produce content for television?

KAJ: I hope to do more productions like this and also to get into some dramatic depictions of all of this. There’s a series on Amazon called The Underground Railroad that’s talking about things that we should all know about. The Underground Railroad itself is very misunderstood, so I see the opportunity for people to understand our struggle and to give them the opportunity to empathize.

This morning Showtime announced it will air a replay of last night’s Floyd Mayweather-Logan Paul pay-per-view exhibition boxing match on June 12. Given some of the negative reactions from spectators at the fight and some PPV buyers after the eight-round event went the distance and produced no knockdowns, it’ll be interesting to see how many viewers actually tune in.

Neither Mayweather nor Paul were declared the victor of the much-hyped event because there were no judges to score the fight round-by-round other than Logan Paul’s brother Jake, who gave his very unofficial and biased scorecard halfway through the exhibition event. When the official PPV numbers roll in however, many observers believe that both fighters and event distributor Showtime will be the big financial winners. 

Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinoza told Multichannel News prior to the event that Mayweather-Paul could top the 1 million PPV buy mark, a figure that Mayweather has surpassed several times during his undefeated boxing career. In fact, Mayweather fights account for the top two performing PPV events of all time -- his 2015 bout with Manny Pacquiao drew 4.6 million PPV buys and his 2017 fight with UFC star Conor McGregor notched 4.3 million PPV buys. 

Also Read: Showtime Hoping to Expand Boxing Fan Base with a Pair of Paul PPV Fights 

Add to Mayweather’s PPV pedigree Paul’s millions of social media followers, and the event had all the ingredients to generate huge PPV business. Showtime even struggled early with demand for the PPV event, acknowledging on social media last night that its online services and apps had technical difficulties delivering the PPV event to purchasers. The network today instructed viewers who couldn’t stream the fight to request a refund.

Showtime went out of its way not to label Mayweather-Paul as a legitimate boxing match but as an exhibition and spectacle, both in promotion leading up to the event as well as during the telecast.

“I certainly think it's important for our credibility that we be honest about what this is -- it isn’t a championship level, elite boxing competition,” Espinoza told Multichannel News. “This is a spectacle and an event featuring a retired Floyd Mayweather coming out of retirement to do an exhibition.”

The PPV industry is closely watching the growing emergence of the exhibition boxing category. Last November an exhibition bout between former champions Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. -- which also featured musical performances -- drew more than 1.8 million PPV buys. Other retired champions such as Evander Holyfield and Oscar De La Hoya are planning exhibition ring returns later this year.

Meanwhile, fans of true pro boxing will also have the opportunity to watch several quality PPV boxing matches later this summer when such current boxing champions as Manny Pacquiao, Errol Spence and Tyson Fury step into the ring.

Read also: PPV Boxing's Summer Bonanza  

Last night, boxing fans were able to see two official boxing matches on the PPV telecast. Beyond that, anyone looking for a competitive, action-packed fight between a 44-year old former champion and a YouTube star looking to further build his social media following were disappointed.

With Logan Paul’s brother Jake set to step into the ring this August in a Showtime-distributed PPV event against UFC fighter Tyron Woodley, the industry is still trying to see if the PPV boxing ring is big enough to support legitimate as well as "spectacle" exhibition events.

Showtime is hoping for big pay-per-view numbers for its June 6 Floyd Mayweather-Logan Paul exhibition fight as it looks to draw both Mayweather’s traditional boxing fans and Paul’s social media followers. The network in August will again look to tap into the Paul social media mystique as the network distributes Jake Paul’s Aug. 28 boxing match against UFC fighter Tyron Woodley.

Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinoza spoke to me on the eve of the Mayweather-Paul fight about the network’s decision to distribute boxing matches featuring the Paul brothers. Espinoza also talks about the potential PPV performance of the events as well as potential backlash from boxing purists revolving around the network’s association with non-traditional boxing events. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Picture This: What attracted Showtime to the Floyd Mayweather-Logan Paul exhibition fight? 

Stephen Espinoza: The Logan Paul-Floyd Mayweather event was sort of a no brainer for us, given our history and track record of success with Floyd Mayweather. He's the one who came up with the concept, made the arrangements, and then brought the fight to us. That was a relatively easy decision. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think that we want to be in the position of turning our nose up at what could be a new trend in the sport. I certainly think it's important for our credibility that we be honest about what this is -- it isn’t a championship level, elite boxing competition. This is a spectacle and an event featuring a retired Floyd Mayweather coming out of retirement to do an exhibition. It’s about fun and about something unexpected. It’s a different flavor of combat sports than we’ve done before, but it certainly is something that has attracted more than its fair share of interest from the audience.

PT: Does the event have a chance of hitting the industry’s gold standard of 1 million PPV buys?

SE: I certainly think this has the potential. There aren’t many personalities in the world with the following that Logan Paul has. When you're talking about the pay per view business, the ability to bring a built in audience to the table is really an attractive factor in the whole mix. I think it’s really the combination of a few things: the chance to see perhaps the greatest living boxer back into the ring and performing at some level again; the intrigue of seeing how  a younger, bigger, stronger, opponent would do against a Mayweather who's been retired for almost five years; and just the melding of two worlds and two huge fan bases from very different demographics. I don't know if this is a once in a lifetime thing, but in terms of commercial attractiveness and financial viability, again, it was a no brainer. This thing was definitely going to attract a lot of attention, and it was definitely going to do business. Given our relationship with Mayweather it was an immediate yes for us.

PT: Showtime is planning to distribute Logan Paul’s brother Jake Paul’s August boxing event against UFC fighter Tyron Woodley. With now two PPV events featuring non-traditional boxers, are you concerned about potentially turning off fight fans going forward? 

SE: We have to be protective of our credibility and our reputation. We’ve worked 35 years to establish ourselves as the most experienced and credible boxing outlet in the sport, and we certainly wouldn’t sacrifice that for anyone. So obviously we believe that the two can co-exist side-by-side. We’ve seen this sort of crossover before -- we've seen UFC stars and WWE stars crossover. Even [TNT's The Match golf event] with Aaron Rogers, Tiger Woods and Tom Brady is a crossover event. No one looks at a golf event featuring Rogers, Brady and Phil Mickelson, or looks at Charles Barkley and Tony Romo playing in a golf tournament at Lake Tahoe and calls it an affront to The Masters tournament or that it is somehow an insult to what professional golfers do on the PGA Tour. The audience is smart enough to know the difference. We do high level MMA, we do championship boxing, we do premium sports documentaries like The Kings, and we’re in the midst of this spectacle. So for those who are worried about [Mayweather-Paul] diverting resources or attention from other events, I say  we can do these things side-by-side. In the long run we believe that this is just broadening the tent and extending the potential universe of boxing fans. If they come through the door for a Logan Paul or Jake Paul event and become boxing fans, I think that’s a positive thing for the sport and certainly a positive thing for the network.

TV networks will recognize the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre with several documentaries that reflect on one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. 

Cable and broadcast networks such as CNN, History, National Geographic and PBS will debut over the next few weeks documentaries and specials that document the events surrounding the 1921 massacre, in which a white mob burned down a wealthy Black-owned stretch of businesses and homes in the Greenwood section of Tulsa. As many as 300 Black people were killed and more than 1,200 Black-owned homes and businesses were destroyed during the two-day massacre, which has  mostly been ignored by historians until recently. 

DeNeen Brown, Washington Post writer whose reporting is at the center of National Geographic’s Rise Again: Tulsa and Red Summer and PBS’ Fire and Forgotten documentaries, says the massacre’s depiction through such scripted series as HBO’s Lovecraft Country and Watchman has helped bring attention to the massacre. As more people become aware of the tragedy -- and as the country continues to discuss issues revolving around race and inequality in the wake of the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death -- the more they want to know more about it. 

"I think the reason we’re seeing so much media interest around the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is that it is one of the worst incidents of racial terror violence committed against Black people in U.S. history," Brown said. "For nearly 100 years, the massacre was deliberately covered up, kept out of textbooks and erased from history. Historians told me that for almost a century, civic and city officials in Tulsa orchestrated a deliberate campaign of silence."

The documentaries have also attracted such celebrities as NBA All-Stars LeBron James and Russell Westbrook, who serve as executive producers of CNN’s Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street and History’s Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre, respectively. 

Read Also: Programming Review: History's 'Tulsa Massacre' Spotlights a Forgotten Tragedy

Below is a partial list and premiere dates of documentary chronicling the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre:

May 30 -- Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre -- History 

May 31 -- Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street -- CNN

May 31 -- Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten -- PBS

June 1 -- The Legacy of Black Wall Street -- OWN

June 18 -- Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer -- National Geographic

As the TV sports world continues to recover from the pandemic, few sports are in a position to experience a greater renaissance than boxing -- particularly on the pay-per-view event platform.

The addition this week of the July 24 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder trilogy fight to an already stacked summer PPV boxing schedule creates a dream lineup that could generate significant revenue for the PPV industry.

The PPV boxing industry was poised to have a strong 2020 after the second Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury heavyweight championship fight in February of that year drew a reported 1.2 million PPV buys -- the first fight to break the industry standard mark since 2018. With potential fights being lined up featuring the top draws in the sport including Manny Pacquiao and Canelo Alvarez -- as well as up and coming PPV draws such as Gervonta Davis and Errol Spence Jr. -- the category in 2020 was well positioned to generate significant revenue. 

Also Read: Tyson Fury Defeats Deontay Wilder in Big Heavyweight PPV Fight

Then COVID-19 hit and nearly all of the proposed big PPV events fell by the wayside. Showtime and Fox Sports jump started the category in late 2020 with PPV fight cards headlined by champions Jermall Charlo, Davis and Spence that averaged around a reported 220,000 buys across three fights. But it was a November exhibition fight between Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. that proved that boxing could still deliver significant PPV purchases and revenue.  

That event, distributed by social media company Triller and featuring musical performances alongside traditional fights, drew more than 1.6 million PPV buys -- finishing among the top 10 biggest PPV events ever -- and set the category in motion to create in 2021 one of the more impressive stretches of PPV fights in recent memory. 

The June 6 Showtime-distributed exhibition fight between all-time PPV revenue champion Floyd Mayweather and YouTube sensation Logan Paul is one of three PPV fights scheduled over the next three months that have a puncher’s chance of hitting the 1 million PPV buy mark. 

The Wilder-Fury trilogy fight as well as the Aug. 21 Pacquiao-Spence Jr. welterweight unification fight -- Spence is arguably among the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport and Pacquiao is the second-biggest PPV revenue draw ever behind Mayweather -- could provide the industry its first year of three or more 1 million PPV buy events since 2017 when Mayweather-Conor McGregor, Alvarez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., and Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin II all surpassed the mark.   

Also Read: Manny Pacquiao-Errol Spence PPV Fight Set for August

Also on the summer PPV boxing schedule is Triller’s June 19 Teófimo López-George Kambosos Jr. lightweight championship PPV event and Showtime’s June 27 Mario Barrios-Gervonta Davis junior welterweight title PPV fight.

And that’s all before the fall when iconic fighters Oscar De La Hoya, Evander Holyfield and Tyson potentially return to the ring in PPV exhibition fights.

"2020 was incredible for PPV - we didn’t think we could top it but we’re on our way," said In Demand SVP programming and marketing Mark Boccardi. “2021 is shaping up to be a great year for PPV with a heavyweight title at stake, the return of Floyd Mayweather, possibly Manny Pacquiao’s last fight which will be against superstar Errol Spence, crossover social media fights, and still more to come.”

Even as the country begins to open up this summer and show signs of returning back to some sense of normalcy, the PPV boxing category is set to keep millions of fight fans glued to their TV screens over the next few months

News media personality Roland Martin, along with along with legendary gospel music singer Erica Campbell, are co-hosting TV One’s Urban One Honors awards show this Sunday (May 16), as the third annual awards event showcases individuals and organizations whose work significantly impacts society and culture. 

Martin, formerly host of TV One’s daily news show News One Now, has recently taken his talents to the digital platform, hosting a daily web-based YouTube series -- #RolandMartinUnfiltered -- which focuses on news and analysis from an African-American perspective. Martin also recently launched a new Facebook Watch series, We Got Next: An Intergenerational Dialogue, which features discussions between youth and elders involved in social activism.

I recently spoke to Martin about his transition to digital media from traditional television and the opportunities the emerging platform affords diverse voices. Martin also discusses the need for more African-American owned news outlets and outlines what needs to be done to create a path for success. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Also Read: TV One's 'Uncensored'  to Air Final Interview with DMX

Picture This: What is the theme and message of this year’s version of the Urban Honors event? 

Roland Martin: The focus this year is specifically on the work that black women have been doing in areas dealing with activism, with COVID, voting rights and things along those lines. That’s what makes this year’s ceremony a lot different than in years past. For me it was pretty cool to be one of the few guys involved with it given this year’s focus.

Picture This: You’ve remained active over the past year even with the media slowdown due to the pandemic. How were you able to navigate through COVID?

RM: It’s been really interesting because we were properly positioned for COVID. When COVID hit the television networks had to pivot, but it highlighted what we were already doing digitally. I had a studio at home, so when COVID hit it was a boon to us because we were already positioned to work remotely, and we saw our numbers grow exponentially. I think that will continue through 2021 and 2022 because I just don’t think we’re going back to so-called normal anytime soon. We’re positioned to be mobile and versatile.

PT: From a news perspective, is the industry moving more toward the digital space as more consumers turn to digital for their information and entertainment?

RM: What we're experiencing right now is market fragmentation. The traditional gatekeepers no longer get to control everything. It used to be that you had no choice but to go to MSNBC, Fox News or CNN for 24-hour news coverage. What we've proven on the digital side is that people will seek out information beyond traditional television. Now look where we are -- CBS has expanded their digital offerings; NBC has created a separate digital channel. We started with 157,000 subscribers on YouTube and now we have more than 770,000 subscribers. If you know how to do it and understand the technology then you can be successful.

Also Read: TV One Pushes the Power of Representation

PT: How do we make sure that African-American owned and targeted content providers competed in an otherwise crowded media environment?

RM: What we’re doing right now with distributors and advertising agencies is drawing the line. We’re saying that there’s a reason why Black owned media has been strangled … it’s an abomination that these companies have been spending 1% with black-owned media when they know that black people are spending far more.  [Entertainment Studios CEO] Byron Allen has made it clear that he will sue companies, and I have made it clear that I will shine a light and call you out publicly. If companies have a $2 billion advertising budget, then 10% of that needs to be in black media. That would be a game changer. It means that we can do in one year what it took us 10 years to do. Now you can deal with capacity and you’re able to grow. That’s how we’re able to compete.

PT: So what is the outlook next year for Black-owned media companies? 

RM: I think next year we're going to be having a conversation where black owned media moves from getting 1% of the [advertising] dollars to 5% of the dollars. I believe you're going to see exponential growth. But it is only going to happen if you have people who are willing to stand up. We need major corporate leaders to say this has to change.

PT: What’s next for you and your production company Nu Vision Media?

RM: The next thing for us, and I’ve stated it publicly, is our OTT channels. People will soon be able to access our content on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung TV and other platforms. This environment is great for independent content creators to reach audiences. We also just launched a six-part series with Facebook as part of its “We The Culture” programming Initiative where I create these intergenerational conversations, such as Black Voters Matter co-founder Cliff Albright and Ambassador Andrew Young and young activist Kris Payne with Public Enemy’s Chuck D.

Veteran actor Brian Tee has played numerous roles on television and film, but none more prestigious or more popular than Dr. Ethan Choi in NBC’s medical drama Chicago Med.

As the industry in May celebrates Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, Tee -- who has also appeared in such films as The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift and Jurassic World -- recently spoke to me about the importance of playing a strong, diverse character on television. He also opined on what needs to be done to increase the representation of Asian Americans both in front of and behind the screen in an edited version of the interview, which appears below. 

Picture This: Why do you believe there seems to be greater media focus on AAPI Heritage Month this year than in previous years? 

Brain Tee: I think to be honest, it's happening this year because all of the recent AAPI hate crimes. I think history tells us that this is nothing new. If you talk about the Exclusion Act or about the internment camps of the 1940s, Asian hate has been around for a very long time -- since the first immigrants came here from Asia to the United States. So I think this year, it’s bridging this gap between AAPI and history in America. I think that's why you're going to see much more historical content being actually produced and talked about, especially during AAPI Heritage Month.

PT: What message do you hope emerges from the increased focus? 

BT: If we’re talking about purely historical content, I think having an understanding of one another definitely bridges certain gaps. I think this hate stems from fear, and if we can have that connection and historical factual sense of belonging and being here, I feel it would bridge certain gaps of hate and fear that we all live with today. At least we're trying to create progress in a larger way. The state of Illinois (House of Representatives) just passed AAPI history education for all schools, and that’s really amazing. When I was growing up I didn’t even learn about my own history at all. I had to learn it in college and I had to seek it out. Now, if it's communicated within the general population, then it creates the kind of relatability that brings it all together.

PT: Do you feel that the industry is offering more positive Asian-American images onscreen?

BT: I would say that there are more opportunities. I mean the bar was set pretty low, so you didn’t have to edge that much higher to get more, but I’m very hopeful that it will continue to grow and stay for a very long time. If art imitates life and us being a part of society as a whole, I think being a part of the medium in which we broadcast on television and or film is a necessity because we all grew up watching television and watching movies and are educated by them. It’s in our living rooms every day --   I grew up watching television and was very influenced by it. Our medium has the power to move mountains and change rhetoric in such a tremendous way.

PT: What does the popularity and success of your character on Chicago Med represent?

BT: He is a positive role model and a veteran of the armed forces. He really serves as the moral compass of the show -- he lives through his own integrity and his own code to try to do the right thing for the greater good. He bends but he doesn’t break. I feel that Ethan is one of the very few AAPI characters to be represented in all of television, especially network television. We have yet to see an AAPI lead a show -- not to say I’m the lead of the show -- but I’m still waiting for that one to happen, but he’s definitely a step forward. I would like to see more of a conscious storytelling in Ethan in the next couple of seasons to hopefully get in-depth into his culture and into who he is as a human instead of just a doctor. It's growing and evolving, but to have AAPI representation in one of the largest franchises on television is pretty amazing.

PT: How does the industry make sure there are more AAPI images on television going forward?

BT: I think we need people to be bold and brave. We need people to be conscious of what they're writing and the stories that they're telling. I feel like so many people are afraid about whether people will watch it, but the bottom line is our industry has proven that if it's good, people will watch it. If you find a good, compelling story, whether it's AAPI, multicultural or not, be brave to tell it. As far as the AAPI community is concerned, we as a community need to stand up, speak up and speak out much more. We need to be in the room where the decisions are made. We need to be in front of and behind the cameras, but also sharing our stories for the next generation. If you put all of those things together, we’ll have the progress that we need in order to create change.

Fox Sports’ Andy Ruiz Jr.-Chris Arreola heavyweight pay-per-view boxing event this past Saturday night ushered in what is shaping up to be a busy -- and hopefully lucrative -- spring and early summer period for the PPV boxing category. 

After a relatively quiet 2020 -- mostly due to the crippling effects of the pandemic on live sports events -- 2021 is already shaping up to be a comeback year for the PPV boxing category. It’s too early to tell how many PPV buys were generated from Saturday’s event -- in which Ruiz Jr. won in a majority decision over the veteran Arreola -- but the event serves as a launching pad for at least four PPV flights over the next three months. 

This Saturday, arguably PPV boxing’s current pound-for-pound champion Canelo Alvarez fights Billy Joe Saunders in a super-middleweight unification championship fight that will also stream on the DAZN sports service. 

Showtime will step into the PPV ring June 6 with an exhibition bout featuring retired PPV boxing champion Floyd Mayweather and  YouTube star Logan Paul, according to sources. Showtime will follow that fight up with a more conventional PPV fight card June 27 headlined by its Gervonta Davis-Mario Barrios super lightweight championship fight.

Read Also: Showtime Sets Gervonta Davis-Mario Barrios PPV Boxing Event 

The company having arguably the biggest influence on the PPV boxing genre this year is social media company Triller. Fresh off its April 17 Jake Paul-Ben Askren event that featured a mix of boxing matches and musical performances -- and still giddy over the success of last November's Mike Tyson-Roy Jones Jr. exhibition boxing/concert event which drew north of 1.6 million PPV buys -- the company will offer via PPV a June 5 fight card featuring the Teofimo Lopez-George Kambosos Jr. lightweight championship fight. The card will also feature the return of former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield to the ring against journeyman Kevin McBride.  

The company is also reportedly working on a July 3 fight that would mark the ring return of former six division champion Oscar De La Hoya. 

Read Also: Triller Looking to Shake Up PPV Event Category

The industry is hoping that the success and appeal of these events could help build momentum for some potentially lucrative Fall PPV boxing events that could feature such PPV draws as Manny Pacquiao, welterweight champion Errol Spence, heavyweight champions Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, as well as a second Tyson event. 

Several streaming services could experience a nice Oscars-related bump in streams and subscribers sign ups -- to go along with an increase in industry prestige -- given the platform's strong performance during last night's Academy Awards ceremony.

The biggest winner during ABC's live Oscars broadcast Sunday was Netflix, who took home an industry leading seven Academy Award statuettes for five different projects, including two for its drama films Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Mank. 

While Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom star Chadwick Boseman did not posthumously take home the best actor award as he did within the category at the Critics Choice, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild awards -- he was upset by 83-year old Anthony Hopkins’ performance in The Father --  the film did win best makeup and hairstyling as well as best costume design. The film, produced by Denzel Washington, stars Academy Award nominated Viola Davis in the role of 1920’s blues singer Ma Rainey and follows the exploits of a 1927 recording session in Chicago. 

Oscars 2021: Photos From the 93rd Academy Awards

Netflix’s Mank, which chronicles the making of the 1941 Citizen Kane film, also took home two statuettes for production design and best cinematography. Netflix’s documentary My Octopus Teacher won for best documentary feature, while short films Two Distant Strangers and If Anything Happens I Love You won for the best live action and best animated short categories respectively. 

Netflix's Oscars showing is good news for the streamer, which last week reported an anemic, pandemic-addled first quarter performance in which it tallied a lower than expected 4 million new subscribers.

Also Read: Netflix adds Just 4 Million New Subscribers in 1st Quarter

Other services like Hulu should benefit from having the streaming rights to this year’s best picture, Nomadland. The movie, which premiered on Hulu in February, also won the best actress award for star Frances McDormand and best director for Chloe Zhao. Zhao becomes the first woman of color to win the award, and only the second woman behind The Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow.

Amazon Prime is currently the home for two-time Academy Award winning film the Sound of Metal, which won the Oscar for best sound and best film editing. The movie, which follows Oscar-nominated star Riz Ahmed as a rock band drummer who begins to lose his hearing, was also nominated for best picture.

Disney, which finished second to Netflix with five Oscars wins, should generate increased interest for its Disney Plus streaming service through its owned studio Pixar’s animated film Soul. The movie, which stars Jamie Foxx as a black musician whose soul hovers between Earth and the afterlife, won Oscars for best animated film and best score. Disney Plus debuted Soul this past Christmas and it currently streams on the service. 

Also Read: Disney Plus' 'Soul' Ranked No. 1 for Christmas Week Streaming, Nielsen Says

Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney stormed this year's Academy Awards with a slate of prestigious, well-reviewed films that had already secured the streaming platform's position among the most successful and prolific producers and distributors of Hollywood films before the first envelope was opened during last night’s ceremony. Now, with a truckload of Oscars and streaming rights to many of last night's biggest winners in tow, streamers are sitting pretty among the major power brokers in the film world.

 Multi-media company Triller is throwing its hat back into the pay-per-view event  ring Saturday, working with PPV event purveyor In Demand to distribute via traditional linear TV a boxing and music event headlined by YouTube personality Jake Paul’s boxing match against former mixed martial arts fighter Ben Askren. The event, which retails at a suggested price of $49.95, also features musical performances from such artists as Justin Bieber, The Black Keys, Doja Cat, Snoop Dog and Ice Cube. 

The event follows Triller’s successful Mike Tyson-Roy Jones Jr. PPV fight/entertainment event this past November, which drew a reported 1.6 million PPV buys. Triller also recently announced a June 5 PPV fight card which will feature the return of former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield to the ring against Kevin McBride, as well as a lightweight title fight between champion Teofimo Lopez and George Kambosos Jr. 

I recently spoke to In Demand senior VP, programming and marketing Mark Boccardi about Triller’s influence within the PPV event category and how the company’s new boxing/entertainment strategy will affect traditional PPV boxing events going forward. Here’s an edited excerpt from our conversation. 

Picture This: What is your take on Triller’s approach to pay-per-view boxing events? 

Mark Boccardi: Boxing promoters have been forced to look at events differently, and that's a good thing. There is a tried and true way of doing things that still works, but I think when you look at the mix of sports and entertainment that Triller is doing, they are featuring legitimate pro boxers along with retired athletes and social media stars, as well as major music acts including Snoop Dog. That’s not to say that the traditional boxing way doesn't work, but when you have some opportunistic entrepreneurs who mix boxing and entertainment, it’s a combination that really does work. So when we look at this weekend, it’s a great way for us to leverage our decades of pay-per-view expertise and experience with what Triller brings to the table and grow an even broader fan base for the sport.

PT: You mention broadening the fan base -- are the viewers purchasing Triller events a new generation of PPV boxing consumers?

MB: Absolutely. We saw that with the Tyson event back in November. What we had was a huge pay-per-view number -- it was the eighth best pay-per-view event of all time. It was a remarkable number that wasn’t just made up of your traditional boxing fan base, nor was it  just a young, new fan base who wanted to watch the Jake Paul fight; it was a combination of the two. It was a perfect storm of attractiveness that turned it into a mega event. So with respect to this weekend and what Triller is doing, they are absolutely tapping into a new fan base, but I wouldn't say that they're not picking up the older fan base. I definitely think that there's widespread appeal for it,   but bringing in the new audience is really such a key point here. 

PT: Can this event generate a million PPV buys without the added appeal of a Mike Tyson or another marquee boxer? 

MB: We’ll see --  there are a number of boxing matches, and they have some big name musical acts from Justin Bieber to Snoop Dog to Doja Cat. I think that helps draw in a different fan base that would otherwise not be interested in a boxing event. We have everything aligning on our end in terms of distributor marketing support, Triller marketing support and social media support. The whole marketing machine is cranking. 

PT: Do events like this diminish the value and appeal of traditional PPV boxing events that don’t feature musical entertainment or social media celebrities?

MB: No, not at all. I really do believe that both scenarios can work. We’ve been busy over the last few months planning multiple pay-per-view events this year with several major fighters including Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder, Errol Spence and Gervonta Davis. These are the names that represent the future of boxing. I think we’re going to have a really busy summer and fall for boxing, and we really feel good about the future of PPV boxing. There’s a lot of pent up demand because there hasn’t been a lot of those big events lately. 

 TBS on April 1 will resurrect popular reality competition series, Wipeout, 13 years after it first debuted on ABC. The 20-episode series, hosted by actor/WWE superstar John Cena and comedian Nicole Byer, will feature a group of teams attempting to navigate through an extreme obstacle course that will test participants’ endurance and stamina, according to the network. 

Wipeout creator, showrunner and executive producer Matt Kunitz recently talked to me about the timing of the show’s return, how this version of Wipeout differs from the original format, and what the prospects for future seasons of the competition series are. Here’s an edited excerpt from our conversation. 

Picture This: Why bring back Wipeout now? 

Matt Kunitz: Of all the shows that I've done in my career, this is the one that I sort of always knew was going to come back. We premiered originally in 2008, right after the recession when America was in a little bit of a slump. We came out with this silly and quite frankly, mindless show that you could just watch and forget about all the troubles in your life. It was perfect timing after the recession and it brought families together. Flash forward 13 years later, and we're coming out of a similar kind of psychological slump where Americans have been trapped in their homes dealing with COVID for the last year and are looking for different ways to be entertained. We're coming back and it's the same kind of thing --  it doesn't matter how bad your day was, when you tune in to Wipeout for an hour you can just laugh, forget about the troubles of life and just have a good time.

Read also: TBS Takes Flying Leap and Orders New 'Wipeout' Series

PT: Today’s television environment has changed over the past 13 years since Wipeout first launched. Are you concerned about reaching those viewers who might have seen the show previously as well as drawing in new viewers in such a crowded TV environment?

MK: When we first came out there were basically four channels and now there's probably 400, so it is very different. How people watch television is also very different. Having said that, we have a robust plan to find those viewers. While we may not have 18 million people tune in for any particular episode, we will find viewers through social media, through streaming, through multiple airings of the show on TBS. So while I think that viewers will come into the show from different directions, we'll still get those viewers. We’re getting a tremendous promotional platform with the NCAA [college basketball tournament] that is going on right now, and I think that's a very similar audience. TBS has put a full court press into promoting the show, so I'm not concerned about awareness. TBS has done everything they could to set us up for success. 

PT: How does this version of Wipeout differ from its previous iteration? 

MK: When we started talking about this a year ago with [TBS, TNT and truTV EVP of unscripted] Cory Henson, she said, ‘if we're going to bring it back, it needs to be bigger, bolder and edgier than it ever was before.’ I said to her, ‘bigger and bolder generally means more money,’ and they were willing to put the money into it. The evidence of that is the star power that we’re bringing to the table in [series hosts] John Cena, Nicole Byer and Camille Kostek. It really freshens the show to have this new, comedic talent come in and give their take on it. The only thing that’s the same are the big balls, because they're so iconic -- other than that, everything's changed. It'll be a completely fresh course and it'll be a completely fresh look from the way we shoot it. Technology has advanced leaps and bounds in the way that we shoot -- we now are shooting with drones, 360-degree cameras and underwater cameras that just didn't exist back in the day. That makes it much more of an immersive experience, which for the viewer I think will be a lot more fun. This season features all teams -- so it could be a mother and a son running the course together -- and that adds a whole new dynamic. So it's going to be very fresh, but there also will be familiar elements like the big balls.

PT: There seems to be a resurgence of reality competition shows on television. Is that pandemic-driven or are there other factors involved with the genre’s growing appeal? 

MK: I think that television is cyclical so yes, we are seeing a resurgence of game shows and reality competition shows. I think that the timing of that is good for us, but I think the primary thing is that people are looking for an escape, and Wipeout is going to be the perfect escape for them. 

PT: What are the prospects for a second season of Wipeout, and what other projects are you working on? 

MK: We're absolutely in discussions about a second season. Ratings will be the ultimate decider on whether there's a season two and we should know that in the next two weeks, but we've actually started casting already for season two and we are actively starting to design the season two course. While Wipeout has kept me busy, I'm also in a long-term deal with Lionsgate, and we're continuing to develop a slate of content. At the beginning of the quarantine we were fortunate to have sold three shows -- one to HBO Max and two to Fox -- that were in active development. I can’t really say exactly what those shows are yet because they haven't been announced, but I'm keeping busy. While Wipeout is incredibly important it is just part of my focus at this point.

In 2015 the entertainment industry called out the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences after none of the Academy Awards’ 20 acting nominations went to people of color. The #OscarsSoWhite hashtag became a rallying cry for greater inclusion and recognition of performances by and content from women and people of color.

While some may argue that this year’s crop of 2021 Oscar nominations snubbed many quality and arguably deserving and diverse film performances (Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods most notable), there’s no doubt that the Academy has made some strides with regards to inclusiveness, and presented one of its most diverse list of nominees ever.

Nearly half of the Academy’s acting nominations went to people of color this year, including three actors of Asian descent: two for best lead actor (Sound of Metal’s Riz Ahmed and Minari’s Steven Yeun) and one for best supporting actress (Minari’s Yuh-Jung Youn). In addition, six Black actors were nominated for acting awards: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’s Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman; The United States vs. Billie Holiday’s Andra Day; One Night in Miami’s Leslie Odom Jr. and Judas and the Black Messiah’s LaKeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya.

Davis’s best actress nomination for her performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was her fourth acting nomination, the most for any Black actress.

Behind the camera, Chloe Zhao’s best director nomination for her work on Nomadland is the first for a woman of color in the category. Overall, a reported 70 women received a whopping 76 Oscar nominations, a remarkable and precedent-setting achievement.

In a pandemic-influenced year that featured an expanded Oscar field that for the first time included cinema-targeted movies that debuted first on streaming services along with theatrically-released films, diversity and inclusion was the big winner. 

Multichannel News will explore the topic of diversity and inclusion in front and behind the camera as well as in the C-suites a part of its March 16 Culture X Conversations virtual conference,  which will feature insights from television and media leaders who are engaged in diversifying their workspace as well as content they produce so that its inclusive of those who identify by their ethnicity, nationality, language, special needs or sexual orientation. To register, click here.

OWN tonight (March 9) launches its  new original series Delilah, from Greenleaf creator Craig Wright. The series stars Maahra Hill (Black-ish, How to Get Away With Murder) as Delilah Connolly, a, highly-principled lawyer raising two kids alone while seeking justice for those who need it most, according to OWN. The series also stars Jill Marie Jones, Connolly’s courtroom antagonist who also happens to be her best friend. 

“It means everything to me to be able to represent someone who's as empowered and strong-minded and has such a strong moral compass,” Hill said last month during OWN’s Television Critics Association Winter tour presentation. “I think she reflects Black women and Black America in ways that we haven't seen on a consistent basis.”  

OWN is hoping Delilah has similar success with African-American women viewers as Greenleaf, which finished its five-season run in 2020 as the most watched show within the demographic. 

I spoke to Wright -- who along with Greenleaf has written for such shows as Six Feet Under, Lost and Dirty Sexy Money -- about his inspiration behind Delilah as well as how it fits within the OWN brand. Wright also discusses the success of Greenleaf as well as the show’s upcoming spinoff series. Here’s an edited excerpt from our conversation. 

Picture This: How does Delilah differ from other shows you have produced?

Craig Wright: It's a more realistic show, much, much less like Greenleaf, which I always thought of as a bit of a fable. I think the show more than anything I've done really required me to depend on all my partners, even more for making sure that we were capturing the real world correctly. 

PT: Do you think Delilah can appeal to a similar audience that watched Greenleaf?

CW: I hope so. With everything I work on, I hope to present some real moments of life that maybe you won't see on other TV shows. I feel like TV as an art form sometimes can be very subtly, insulting to the viewers in the way that it divides the world into the people on TV and the people not on TV. So I really think that television owes it to the viewers to give back to them moments of their own lives so that it becomes more of an equal playing field. Delilah probably more than any show I've ever worked on is hopefully full of lived moments that are going to make viewers  say, ‘that's just like what happened to me,’ or ‘that's just like my sister, that's just like my friend.’

PT: What’s the message that you want to convey to viewers with Delilah?

CW: I think the message of the show is that Black women are literally holding the world together for all of us. Holding it together in their families, holding it together in the workplace, holding it together in the political life of the nation. And the message is that we see it, we honor it, and we're grateful for it.

PT: What was your inspiration for the show?

CW: My inspiration for practically everything I do at this point in my life is from conversations with Oprah Winfrey. Everything starts and ends for me with Oprah. So after Greenleaf we started to talk and ask what we wanted to do next, and we decided we wanted to go broader in scope than just the church. We had talks about the OWN viewer and also about the people that were connecting with Greenleaf on Netflix and other outlets and asked what would those viewers want to see next. So we just gradually came up with this idea of a woman who is moving through so many different things in her life and making it work. It was really a desire after five years of wanting to give that Greenleaf audience an image of themselves right back at them.

PT: Were you surprised at how popular Greenleaf had become over its five-season run?

CW: Yes I was, but more than surprised I was just grateful. Oprah talks a lot about intention and, and when your intention is clear, it makes it a lot easier to do the work. Our intention with Greenleaf was to start a conversation about the black church and from the way the audience came along, obviously that was the conversation that was waiting to happen. As I start work on the spinoff, I'm so excited to get back to Lady Mae because I think her voice is one of the most prominent facets of the Greenleaf universe. We got a little taste of it near the end of the show where she starts to preach, and we start to see what she has to say. I'm just so excited to begin to tell the next chapter of that story where we can see Lady Mae placed in that position of power she was always destined to be in.

Read also: Primetime Ratings Sunday: CBS on Top With Oprah’s Royals Interview

The pro basketball world will be focused on Atlanta this Sunday as the NBA holds its annual All-Star game festivities, which TNT will air live.

Unlike previous NBA All-Star weekends, where events were held over two days, contests like the 3-Point Contest, the Slam Dunk Contest and the All-Star Game itself will all take place on March 7. The NBA will also pay tribute to Historically Black Colleges and Universities through HBCU-inspired elements incorporated into the broadcast and in-arena during the event.  

I caught up with Turner Sports executive VP and chief content officer Craig Barry to discuss the challenges in producing this year’s All-Star game while still in the midst of the pandemic. Barry also talked about audience expectations for the game, as well as TNT’s second-half season NBA coverage. Here’s an edited excerpt from our conversation. 

Picture This: What adjustments did you have to make for this year’s All-Star game in comparison to last year’s contest? 

Craig Barry: Usually, as soon as we finish an All-Star Game, we're preparing for the next All-Star Game — we look at what we did right, what we did wrong and how to make it a better experience for the fan. This year, it was probably about six weeks ago when we had the realization that an All-Star Game was going to happen. So the challenges of preparing for something in six weeks that we normally quite frankly have a year to think about — and then layered on top of that, the challenge of health and safety, which is obviously the priority — is a relatively large undertaking. Being in Atlanta definitely helps. We’re in our backyard where there's infrastructure already in place. We do have a lot of experience around health and safety protocols having worked in [last season’s NBA] bubble, having done The Match [golf event in 2020], and throughout the [NBA] season this year, but it doesn’t eliminate the risk and the necessary due diligence that needs to be done in order to create the safest environment possible.

PT: What should fans expect from this year’s game that’s different from previous events?

CB: There’s a new format going from two days worth of events and consolidating it into a single evening. We’ve worked with the NBA to come up with a format that makes sense for everyone involved. Disruption breeds innovation, and I think it's an interesting prospect that we are putting all of the weekend into one, six-hour window. It's not optimal, and it's nothing that we would do going forward, but it is an opportunity to be creative and innovative around the opportunity that's given to us. This idea about doing the three-point contest and the skills competition in the hour and a half leading up to the All-Star game, and then airing the dunk contest at halftime is, I think from a fan experience, a really interesting prospect.

On top of that, having all of our talent — whether they're in the booth or in the studio contributing to the entire night of events — is, for me, an interesting opportunity for the fans. We’re leaning into a one-off opportunity and we’re hoping to be as creative and innovative with it as possible.

PT: Are you satisfied with the ratings performance of Turner Sports’ NBA telecasts leading up to the All-Star Game?

CB: We've seen about an 8% to 10% uptick in general. That's pretty admirable when you think about the emotional and mental fatigue that has set in across the nation, and it says a lot about the NBA that people are still tuning in and ratings are up. For the All-Star game, viewers will see the best 24 best players in the world play on the court, and that is a compelling enough reason to watch. I think people are going to be genuinely interested in the format to kind of buckle up for a Sunday evening and watch it all the way through. I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll see good numbers.

PT: Are you also confident the league’s ratings momentum will carry over into the second half of the season?

CB: The second half of the season is the most important season — I’m not discounting the first half of the season, but it’s the drive for the playoffs. The games elevate, the players elevate and the stakes elevate. I feel confident that we're going to continue to see strong, sustainable ratings, if not a certain amount of lift.

Read also: TNT Commissions Documentary on 'Inside the NBA' Show

As the nation continues to celebrate Black History Month, a number of television distributors are making sure that the recognition of African-American contributions to the country echo loudly on the small screen beyond February.

National Geographic on Feb. 10 said it will mark the 100th anniversary of the devastating Tulsa, Oklahoma massacre in which white racists burned down a thriving Black community in the city. The documentary, Red Summer, recounts the two-day massacre that left as many as 300 Black people dead and more than 10,000 homeless and displaced. The documentary will air in June as part of Nat Geo’s celebration of Juneteenth, when the last African-American slaves in the U.S. learned of their emancipation. 

Until recently, this dark period in the United States was all but buried in the history books. National Geographic Global Television Networks president Courteney Monroe revealed during her TCA Winter Tour opening remarks that she had only recently become aware of the incident. “This tragedy was the most visible during a period in the early 20th century when Jim Crow laws were at their height and the [Klu Klux Klan] was resurging across the nation,” she would add. 

ALSO READ: Black Voices Rising

Nat Geo will also pay homage to the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, through its March limited series Genius: Aretha. It’s the third installment of the network’s Genius franchise, built around prominent and creative historic figures, and the first featuring an African-American legend. Nat Geo will follow up Franklin with a Genius focused on Martin Luther King Jr. 

HBO in March will sing the praises of a legendary female R&B singer, Tina Turner, in Tina. The documentary charts the singer’s career of more than five decades, recounting her early fame, her personal and professional struggles, including her tumultuous marriage to Ike Turner, as well as her even more improbable resurgence as a global star in the 1980s. Also in March, Lifetime will air a movie chronicling the life of iconic gospel singer Mahalia Jackson — the first of four films the network will develop with Good Morning America host Robin Roberts. 

Making Awards History

African-American images and stories are teeing up history in the upcoming awards season as Black actors and projects garnered a record-setting number of nominations. For example, four of five SAG Awards best film nominations are led by people of color — three of them with predominately African-American casts: Netflix’s Da 5 Bloods and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Amazon Video’s One Night in Miami. 

Other Black historically themed shows, like HBO’s Lovecraft Country — which weaves the negative history of the 1950s Jim Crow period within an equally scary sci-fi tale — Hulu’s The United States vs. Billie Holiday and Judas and the Black Messiah, which focuses on the government’s infiltration of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, drew multiple nominations in major categories across nominations for Screen Actors Guild and Critics Choice Awards.

Black History Month has arguably taken on greater significance this year in light of the social justice movement ignited by the death of George Floyd last May. TV One president Michelle Rice said that the continued proliferation of content created about, by and for African-Americans will help ensure that the history, stories, images and messages resonate throughout the year. 

“Even though TV One targets black people and we feel like we get that message out to our audience every day, I think it’s also important to get that message out to consumers who are not Black,” she said. “When you talk about this whole anti-racism movement, it’s really about educating and getting people to understand that our stories are part of the fabric of this country.”

The entertainment industry lost one of its most important and influential treasures when actress Cicely Tyson passed away Thursday night at 96 years old.

I had the opportunity to interview Ms. Tyson a little more than a year ago during the Television Critics Association’s Winter Press Tour. I asked her whether she felt the television industry had changed for the better or worse since the 1960s and 1970s, when she fought to help set a standard for strong, dignified and positive on-screen roles for Black actors and actresses.

Ms. Tyson thought about it for a second, then said very succinctly: “I don’t know if I would put it in the category of better or worse. I have never known a day in my life when I could just sit around and watch a network that just aired Black culture, and it was quite an experience, I would dare say. I am so proud and pleased that I lived to see the day when we just didn’t have to look at Amos ’n’ Andy. We have some variety — it runs the gamut finally of what the industry is supposed to be about.”

The same TV industry that Tyson lauded for its evolution took time to celebrate Tyson’s remarkable seven-decade entertainment career that garnered her 16 Emmy nominations — including a 2020 nod for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Ophelia Harkness in ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder — and three Emmy wins.

Oprah Winfrey, whose OWN Network aired the drama series Cherish the Day, Tyson’s last starring role in a television series, recalled Tyson’s magnificence both as an actress and as a person.

Also Read: OWN Renews 'Cherish the Day'

“Of all the times and experiences we shared together, this was one of my favorites: The weekend of the Legends Ball in 2005,” Winfrey said in a statement. “The idea for the ball originated because I wanted to celebrate her, and other remarkable Black women who carved a path and built a bridge for me and generations to follow. What a joy to honor her and feel her receive it! I loved her hat so much, she sent it to me afterwards. Cicely decided early on that her work as an actor would be more than a job. She used her career to illuminate the humanity in Black people. The roles she played reflected her values; she never compromised. Her life so fully lived is a testimony to greatness.”

Also Read: Cicely Tyson has Died

OWN this Saturday and Sunday (Jan. 30-31) will present a special re-airing of 2014's Oprah’s Master Class: Cicely Tyson in memory of the actress.

 “Ms. Tyson was a rare talent both on and off the screen, one that we at OWN were blessed and honored to work with and be inspired by,” said OWN president Tina Perry. “We are so grateful for the gifts she gave us with her art, her activism, and her passionate love of life. May she rise in power.”

Turner Classic Movies said Friday it will air on Jan. 31 two of Tyson's memorable films — Sounder and A Man Called Adam — as part of its “TCM Remembers Cicely Tyson” celebration.

Other networks and celebrities took to social media to celebrate Tyson’s life and career.

Streaming sports service DAZN is taking a unique approach to adding subscribers with Saturday’s distribution of the Canelo Alvarez middleweight championship fight.

The SVOD streaming service will offer the Alvarez-Callum Smith fight via pay-per-view through PPV event aggregator In Demand for $69.99. As part of the deal, viewers purchasing the fight will receive a four-month subscription to the sports service, according to DAZN officials.

Alvarez will be fighting on PPV for the first time since signing a 12-fight deal with DAZN in 2018. That deal was nullified last month after Alvarez settled a breach of contract suit filed in September against DAZN and boxing company Golden Boy.

Also Read: DAZN Sets Canelo Alvarez Fight for December

DAZN senior VP of marketing Rob Stecklow said the offer provides an opportunity for the SVOD sports streaming service to introduce itself to boxing fans while luring back former subscribers who may have dropped the service earlier in the year when the pandemic halted most pro sports events, including marquee boxing shows.

“We’re taking the best pound-for-pound boxer in the sport and someone who has been on our platform for three fights," he said. “We want to put this fight in front of as many fans as possible, which is why we’re opening up the DAZN subscription package through the more traditional pay-per-view purchase.”  

For In Demand, the Alvarez-Callum fight is the third PPV boxing event in four weeks, following the successful Nov. 28 Mike Tyson -Roy Jones Jr. exhibition bout -- which drew 1.9 million PPV buys, according to industry sources -- and the Dec. 5 Errol Spence Jr.-Danny Garcia welterweight championship fight. Neither In Demand nor DAZN would say whether cable distributors would receive a split of the revenue generated from Alvarez-Callum PPV buys.

“We just came off two hugely successful fights with Tyson/Jones and Spence/Garcia; in fact, the Tyson event was one of the top 8 PPV events of all time,” said Mark Boccardi, senior VP, programming & marketing for In Demand. “While we recognize that the structure of the deal with DAZN is unique, it gives us the opportunity to get Canelo back on PPV and allows our customers to conveniently order from their existing cable, satellite, and telco providers. DAZN clearly recognizes the broad reach that we provide, and wants to tap into our audience with this arrangement.” 

DAZN’s recent run of big fights, including the Dec. 12 Anthony Joshua-Kubrat Pulev fight and tomorrow night’s (Dec. 18) Gennady Golovkin-Kamil Szeremeta middleweight fight, has helped the service reach its pre-pandemic subscriber numbers, although the service would not reveal specific figures. Stecklow added the PPV offer will provide greater exposure for DAZN’s combat sports-centric lineup of programming, but he would not project how many PPV buys the Alvarez-Smith fight will generate. 

Stecklow also wouldn’t rule out stepping into the PPV ring for future fights. “We ideally would like to do this with other fights, potentially with our Ryan Garcia-Luke Campbell fight on Jan. 2,” he said. 

The January 2021 launch of Discovery Inc.'s new direct-to-consumer service Discovery Plus will also serve as a first-look opportunity to access content from the upstart Magnolia Network. 

While Magnolia Network has yet to announce a launch date, the service -- a joint venture between Discovery and Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna Gaines -- will have some of its new content prominently featured on the Discovery Plus service, according to Magnolia President Allison Page.

As part of Discovery Plus’  Jan. 4 launch, Magnolia Network will feature four preview shows: Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines; Magnolia Network: A Look Ahead; Road to Launch and The Courage to Run with Chip Gaines and Gabe Grunewald. 

Related: Discovery Enters the ‘Plus’ Wars with Jan. 4 U.S. Streaming Launch

In addition, the streaming service will debut premiere episodes from 10 new Magnolia Network series, including the Andrew Zimmern-hosted Family Dinner and First Time Ever, which will feature first time house flippers who take their own home renovation dreams into their own hands. 

“We are so eager to show some of our content,” Page told Multichannel News. “We’re  excited that we get to sneak peek some of our content early in the year and then work toward our own launch as shortly as possible thereafter.”

Fox Sports this Saturday will step in the pay-per-view boxing ring for the first time in 2020 with the much anticipated Errol Spence Jr.-Danny Garcia welterweight championship fight card from AT&T Stadium in Dallas. 

The Premier Boxing Champions-promoted fight card -- which was moved to Dec. 5 from its original Nov. 21 date to allow fans to attend the event -- is the fourth PPV boxing event for the industry since the pandemic virtually shut down all sports programming this past March, and features two of the biggest names in the sport. The fight, which will retail for a suggested price of $74.95, is the third straight PPV fight for Spence, who has reportedly averaged more than 350,000 buys for his March 2019 fight with Mickey Garcia and his Sept. 2019 bout with Shawn Porter. 

Fox Sports executive VP and head of programming and scheduling Bill Wanger recently spoke to Multichannel News senior content producer, programming R. Thomas Umstead about the big fight and outlines Fox Sports’ boxing plans for 2021. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Does the fight’s date change to December help or hurt the event’s PPV buy potential? 

I don’t think there’s a difference in terms of buys between late November and early December -- I think we’re in early enough before the huge holiday crush. I do think that this PPV event represents the two of the best of the best. They are both great fighters, and Errol -- with the storyline of him coming back after his horrific [October 2019] car accident.-- taking on the former champion in Danny represents a fight in which viewers will see sparks fly.

Are you concerned that the current economic environment that we’re in given the pandemic could dampen PPV buys? 

Of course, we’ve very cognizant of the fact that there’s unemployment, however we do feel that with this fight at this time of the year and people not traveling as much, this could offer a bit of an escape for people, and allow some families to get together and watch. We also feel confident that we’re giving the consumer a great product.

Any projections of how many buys the fight will generate?

No, but I would say that with the reported figures for some of the earlier PPVs that the category has had, I feel like the PPV industry is right where it was pre-pandemic in terms of number of buys in relation to the fights. We’re expecting this fight to do what some of the other Errol Spence [PPV] fights have done. 

Have you changed any specific marketing tactics to help drive buys for the fight? 

Our marketing tactics in general are similar to what they were pre-pandemic. What I would say is that on our digital platform we’re making it easier for people to buy the fight. We’re offering more of a one-click option like Apple Pay and PayPal versus entering your credit card. So in that aspect we are trying some new things that will benefit the consumer.

How do you see the business evolving in 2021?

I think for us we’ll see our normal load of about 10 Fox fights and maybe 12 FS1 fights, and I see us doing four to five PPV events. I do think there are a few interesting things out there within the boxing industry -- will [Tyson] Fury and [Deontay] Wilder fight each other again? What will happen to [middleweight champion] Canelo Alverez after his next fight? I think we’ll see some clarity in 2021 that will create some exciting matchups that viewers will want to see. 

Media ownership among people of color needs to increase in order to improve industry diversity and inclusion efforts, according to veteran media executive and former Time Warner Chairman and CEO Richard Parsons. 

Parsons recently spoke to Multichannel News regarding his thoughts on the industry's ongoing diversity efforts as he prepares to be honored tonight (Nov. 11) by the Multicultural Media & Correspondents Association for his long and distinguished career in media.

The media diversity advocacy group’s fifth annual Multicultural Media Correspondents Dinner will also honor journalist Lisa Ling, Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Jacky Rosen, NPR host Maria Hinojosa, journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and Revolt TV COO Detavio Samuels. Comedians Sherri Shepherd and Kym Whitley will host the virtual event, which recognizes media industry legends and luminaries of color. 

“The event is significant, especially the way the country has been in an uproar over systemic racism," said Whitley. "People of color are coming to the forefront -- especially in the media. We need to push them forward, and this is an event that honors those leaders and brings awareness to their efforts.”  

Parsons talked about his upcoming honor as well as the industry's diversity efforts as part of the interview, an edited version of which appears below.  

Where is the TV industry today in terms of its commitment toward increasing diversity and inclusion within its executive ranks? 

We are making inroads, but in the area where MMCA is focused -- ownership within the various distribution platforms -- we’re not moving as fast as we need to in my judgement. That’s been a slower go compared to making sure that more African Americans and people of color appear on the screen. Who determines what stories get produced and shown are up to the owners, and we still have a way to go there in terms of diversity and inclusion. 

Have the recent social injustice protests throughout the country helped magnify some of the issues that we’re seeing with regards to diversity within the C-suites? 

[The protests] signify a new awareness that we’re seeing in the country. I was around in the 60s when we were dealing with some of the very issues we’re talking about now, including racial discrimination in housing, education and employment. We’ve made some progress since then, but we’re not there yet. We’re experiencing a re-awakening of people to the fact that this is a problem and we have to deal with it. There’s no one silver bullet or key to the kingdom, but one of the ways forward is to have more diversity in the ownership of the institutions that bring us together and also pull us apart. Getting more diverse ownership of the media will help tell stories and reveal things that heretofore have not been put in front of people to consider and deal with. 

Does the continual growth of the digital platform offer more potential media ownership opportunities for people of color? 

The world is moving toward the digital space, and the barriers to entry on the digital end are lower than they are on the linear side. The big network conglomerates are blocking positions to get into the linear game, whereas content creators and distributors can move into the digital space more easily and more cheaply. I look for more progress on that side, and the good news is that’s where the public is going anyway. 

What’s next for Richard Parsons?

I’m mostly retired. I have a few investments that I’m following, and I’m still chairing a number of institutions that require attention, including the Apollo Theater Foundation, the Jazz Foundation of America [and] the Rockefeller Foundation. So I have a nice balance. 

From your perspective, how significant is this MMCA honor given all of your accomplishments throughout your career?

That’s a good question that I didn’t anticipate (laughs). It’s always humbling to be recognized for something that was part of your job. It’s a humbling experience, and I suppose that’s a good thing. My grandmother always said that humility and grace are the two qualities of a true gentleman, and occasionally I need to be reminded about the humility part. I think the MMCA is an important, new organization and I endorse their mission. Anything I can do to help give some visibility to that mission was the major cause of accepting the award.