While it wasn’t mentioned by name, Netflix was the target of TV network chiefs’ barbs at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour in Beverly Hills, California. Executives from both broadcast and cable took shots at the streaming services, saying traditional television offers more marketing might and heftier audiences than newer players might boast of.

While Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy and Kenya Barris have inked massive production deals with Netflix, the network chiefs suggested the tide may just be turning back to traditional TV.

“We think that actually coming back to broadcast television is kind of the cool place to be,” CBS Entertainment senior executive VP of programming Thom Sherman said. “We still get the biggest audiences. We will continue to get the biggest audiences. You end up reaching a much broader swath of people when you put your shows on the air, and you get to tell really great stories to the country.”

To be sure, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime are the place to be for hot producers and performers. When Emmy nominations were revealed last month, HBO had 137, ahead of Netflix’s 117. NBC had 58, Amazon Prime had 47, CBS picked up 44, FX had 32, ABC 26, Hulu 20 and Fox 18.

But the traditional TV executives said their shop can offer stronger marketing. “We don’t just dump a series, send an email and hope it connects,” Gary Levine, Showtime entertainment president, said. “We premiere each of our shows with our entire company focused on launching that series successfully and then let the conversation build over the months that we continue to roll out new episodes.”

Karey Burke, ABC entertainment president, noted the 15 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, which reaches 350 episodes this coming season. She said ABC’s pitch to producers is to tell stories “that appeal to lots of people and have the capacity to endure over time and be watched by generations.” She mentioned her daughter’s passion for Grey’s.

Burke discussed the marketing of streaming series. “Sometimes they get a billboard on Sunset, and sometimes they disappear into the sunset,” she quipped.

The network chiefs also played up their channel’s distinct identity in an era where Netflix offers everything to everyone. “While an ever-increasing pool of streamers spends billions to try to create their brands, we have spent 30-plus years at Showtime carefully building ours,” Levine said. “Our brand is about the consistency of programming. People don’t come to Showtime for one show or to graze and hope they find something. They come because several of their favorite series and many of their favorite characters are on Showtime.”

Net Losses

The broadcasters and cablers may have been taking shots at Netflix because of its lukewarm earnings in mid July, when the company revealed that U.S. subscribers fell in the second quarter. Or perhaps it is because the streamers are canceling more shows, including Netflix spiking supernatural drama The OA after two seasons and Amazon nixing The Romanoffs after one.

But the streaming influence on the television world is undeniable. In his executive session, The CW president Mark Pedowitz spoke of Netflix bringing a wider audience to network shows such as In the Dark and All American. Streaming has meant shorter seasons for some broadcast and cable series, and cable networks at times stacking two new episodes or more in a nod to binge-watching.

At a press tour session for CBS All Access, producer Marc Cherry spoke of “a richer kind of storytelling,” different than what he was accustomed to in his broadcast days.

The notion of a weekly release may seem archaic in the Netflix age, but some broadcasters said it works better for a series. “The conversation continues and continues and continues,” Sherman said of a broadcast release. “When you are on one of the other places, the conversation is very brief, and then people move on to other things until that show might come back.”

Like Sherman, Showtime’s Levine suggested savvy producers are turning back to traditional networks. “It’s interesting to watch as the pendulum is kind of swinging,” he said, “and the creative talent is once again, after being a little dazzled by the new big boys, now really kind of longing for the kind of attention and care that we take with our programming.”

Two new cable dramas will shine a light on two historical events revolving around racism and prejudice that have for the most part remained in the shadows of American history.

HBO’s Watchmen, which debuts this fall, is set in an alternative universe in which police officers wear masks to protect their identities against a group of white supremacists seeking to kill them. The series takes place in 2019 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where nearly 100 years earlier an angry white mob terrorized black homeowners and destroyed businesses in a thriving area known as Black Wall Street in arguably one of the worst occurrences of racial violence in American history.

Watchmen series creator Damon Lindelof said during the recent Television Critics Association press tour that reading about the Tulsa race riot in author Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2014 essay The Case for Reparations gave him the idea to use the city as a symbolic launching pad to tackle the subjects of race, prejudice and law enforcement in his version of Watchmen, which is inspired by the classic 1980s graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

“That was the first time that I heard about Black Wall Street and what happened in Tulsa in ’21 … that was the beginning of my education,” said Lindelof. “When I started thinking about what Watchmen was going to be and trying to think about the original source material, the book was highly political ... it was about what was happening in American culture at the time. What in 2019 is the equivalent of the nuclear standoff between the Russians and the United States? It just felt like it was undeniably race and policing in America.”

AMC’s horror anthology series The Terror: Infamy -- premiering Aug. 12 -- bases its storyline around the true-life relocation of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans from their homes into internment camps during World War II after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The series, created and produced by Alexander Woo (True Blood), prominently features Asian-Americans both in front of and behind the camera, including 82-year old actor George Takei of Star Trek fame who experienced life at an internment camp first hand. Takei, who was five-years old when his family was incarcerated, said the series's inclusion of a supernatural entity derived from vintage Japanese ghost stories -- or kaidan -- that ultimately terrorizes the inhabitants of the internment camps, helps to highlight the real horror stories of racial prejudice and imprisonment experienced by interned Japanese Americans in the 1940s.

“It was a harrowing experience, but the kaidan adds to the intensifying of that story,” said Takei. “I hope The Terror: Infamy will remind people that [racism] is still existing today. What we have is this endless cycle, the repetition of this kind of horror and injustice being inflicted on minority people. And we see it again today on our southern borders.”

Indeed, the two series serve as a creative spotlight in which fiction brings to light dark periods in American history.

Amazon Saturday released the first video trailer for the second season of its drama series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. 

The second season of the series finds CIA Officer Jack Ryan, portrayed by John Krasinski (A Quiet Place), heading down to South America to investigate a potentially suspicious shipment of illegal arms in the Venezuelan jungle. As Jack’s investigation threatens to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy, the President of Venezuela launches a counter-attack that hits home for Jack, leading him and his fellow operatives on a global mission spanning the United States, UK, Russia, and Venezuela to unravel the President’s nefarious plot and bring stability to a country on the brink of chaos, according to the streaming service.

Related: Amazon Studios Signs Development Deal with Lena Waithe

Amazon Studios Saturday released first-look trailers for several of its upcoming series premieres as part of its Television Critics Association press tour session.

Below are the trailers as well as premiere dates (if available) and short descriptions for each show:

Transparent (movie, premiering Sept. 27): The musical-tinged finale of Amazon’s long-running series follows the Pfefferman family as they face a life-changing loss and begin a new transition, confronting grief as they come together to celebrate connection, joy, and transformation.

Carnival Row (new series, premiering Aug. 30): The series, which stars Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, is set in a Victorian fantasy world filled with a growing population of mythological immigrant creatures that struggles to coexist with humans — forbidden to live, love, or fly with freedom. A recent string of gruesome murders threatening the uneasy peace of the Row.

Modern Love (new series, premieres Oct. 18):The romantic comedy anthology series explores love in all of its complicated and beautiful forms as each standalone episode brings some of the most beloved stories to life with a stellar cast, including Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, John Slattery and Brandon Victor Dixon.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (returning series): The second season of the series finds CIA Officer Jack Ryan heading down to South America to investigate a potentially suspicious shipment of illegal arms in the Venezuelan jungle. As Jack’s investigation threatens to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy, the President of Venezuela launches a counter-attack that hits home for Jack, leading him and his fellow operatives on a global mission spanning the United States, UK, Russia, and Venezuela to unravel the President’s nefarious plot and bring stability to a country on the brink of chaos.

Undone (animated series, Sept. 13): Amazon's new animated series that explores the elastic nature of reality through its central character Alma, a twenty-eight-year-old living in San Antonio, Texas. After getting into a car accident and nearly dying, Alma finds she has a new relationship to time. She develops this new ability in order to find out the truth about her father’s death.

BYUtv has renewed a new season of its sketch comedy series Studio C in advance of the show’s 10th season premiere.

The series, which offers comic perspective scenarios and pop culture commentary through various sketches, will debut its 11th season in 2020, according to network officials. The show’s 10th season will debut Sept. 30.

“BYUtv comedy has been and continues to be one f the most successful genres across all of our platforms,” said Michael Dunn, managing director of BYTtv. “Studio C was unexpected and not what people thought they’d find at BYUtv, but since we launched the show in 2012 it has consistently churned out brilliant entertainment that fans of all ages enjoy.”

The network also announced premiere dates for three new unscripted series The Fixers (Sept. 11), Making Good (Sept. 11) and The Parent Trip (Sept. 19). 

TNT will jump back into the pro wrestling ring on Oct. 2 with a weekly series from All-Elite Wrestling, the network announced during its Television Critics Association tour session Wednesday morning. 

The as yet titled series will be the first wrestling series on the WarnerMedia-owned TNT cable network since 2001 when it aired content from the now defunct WCW wrestling franchise. WarnerMedia's Bleacher Report Live sports streaming service will also stream the episodes as well as other AEW content. 

AEW will compete against the WWE in the pro wrestling ring, but AEW executive vice president Cody Rhodes said the company is not focused on the competition.

“The thing we have to do is not focus on WWE,” he said. “The WWE coins itself as sports entertainment; we’re coining ourselves as pro wrestling. We just want to be our best selves.” 

Turner Sports has also stepped into the combat sports ring with martial arts organization One Championship as part of a three-year partnership agreement reached this past January. Bleacher Report Live will stream 24 One Championship events in 2019, with TNT televising at least 12 one-hour, taped re-airs featuring One Championship events per year, according to the organization. 

Amazon will stream its new drama series Good Omens on May 31, the service announced during its Television Critics Association session. 

The series, based on the best-selling novel by renowned authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, follows the story of an angel and demon who have formed an unlikely friendship spanning 6,000 years who join forces to find a way to save the world from the approaching Armageddon, said Amazon. 

Investigation Discovery has teamed with producer Will Packer for a new special, The Atlanta Child Murders, premiering March 23.

The special follows the murders of 29 children in Atlanta in the early 1980s and the investigation that surrounded the case, said network officials. The special looks at the case and whether sinister elements were at play in the heart of the South.

“This case remains one of our countries’ most perplexing mysteries, and at ID we are proud to shine a light on every angle of this largely forgotten story,” says Henry Schleiff, Group President of Investigation Discovery, Travel Channel, American Heroes Channel, and Destination America in a statement. “Will Packer’s vision to revisit this national tragedy through the never-before heard perspective of the victims’ families brings home the true devastation of these cases.”

In other Discovery Networks news, Travel Channel will bring back series America Unearthed featuring forensic geologist Scott Wolter. Travel Channel has acquired the previous three seasons comprising 39 episodes, and will premiere a fourth season of the series -- which formerly aired on H2 -- with 10 new one-hour episodes this summer, according to the network. The network has also greenlit paranormal series Portals To Hell, in which television personality Jack Osbourne and paranormal researcher and investigator Katrina Weidman investigate haunted houses in search of irrefutable evidence that a spirit world exists, said the network. 

--TLC will bring back Kate Gosslin (Kate Plus 8) for a new series dubbed Kate Plus Date, debuting June 2019. The well-known mother of multiple children will hit the dating scene in the new series, according to network officials.

“Kate has been such a big part of the TLC family, and we are ecstatic that she is letting us follow along as she starts this new journey,” said TLC President and General Manager Howard Lee. “Viewers know Kate as the multi-tasking mother of multiples. Now, in Kate Plus Date they will see a whole new side of her, as she looks to find that special someone to share in her next chapter.”

Hulu’s original series chief believes the Walt Disney Company will continue to back his joint-venture subscription streaming platform, despite its plans to launch its own SVOD service later this year.

“Hulu is a very important strategic asset for our owners,” said Craig Erwich, senior VP of original programming, told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif. Monday.

Erwich noted Hulu’s 48% year-over-year subscriber growth in 2018 to 25 million users. “You don’t get that kind of growth without the support of our ownership,” he said.

Related: TCA 2019: Hulu To Premiere 'Catch 22' in May; Releases Video Trailer

Disney is in the process of absorbing 21st Century Fox, another co-owner in Hulu, and will have a 60% ownership stake in the platform when that acquisition is completed.

The conglomerate is also in the process of launching Disney+, a subscription streaming home for movies and TV shows, which Disney CEO Bob Iger recently labeled “the biggest priority” of 2019 for the company.

Speaking during Hulu’s fourth-quarter earnings call last week, Iger said he’d be better able to lay out long term plans for Hulu once the Fox deal closes. For now, he continues to speak in broad strokes, noting Hulu’s place in Disney’s audience grand segmentation plans that not only involve Disney+, but ESPN+, as well.

“What we said when we decided to launch ESPN+ and Disney+ is that rather than creating one gigantic fat bundle of sports, general entertainment programming and family programming, we thought we'd serve the consumer better by segregating all three,” Iger said.

“Ultimately, our goal would be to use the same tech platform to make it easier for people to sign up for all three should they want to, same credit card, same username, same password, et cetera, but give the consumer the kind of choice that we think consumers are going to demand more and more in today's world,” he added. 

Hulu Monday rolled out premiere dates and video trailers for several of its original projects during its Television Critics Association press tour session.

The streaming service will debut its war-themed limited series Catch-22 starring George Clooney on May 17 with all six episodes, according to the streaming service.

Hulu also announced start dates for comedy series RAMY (April 19) and documentary series Ask Dr. Ruth (May 10).

The announcements join previously announced premiere dates for new original series Shrill (March 15) and The Act (March 20).

National Geographic will profile the life of music legend Aretha Franklin in the next installment of its Genius anthology series, with Pulitzer Prize award-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks serving as executive producer, the network announced Sunday during the 2019 TCA winter press tour.

Genius: Aretha Franklin will chronicle the life of the Queen of Soul, who passed away in 2018. Franklin follows Genius installments on Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso.

Parks will serve as showrunner for the third season of the anthology series, with veteran music producer Clive Davis — along with Atlantic Records Chairman and CEO Craig Kallman — serving as executive producers. Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Francie Calfo will also serve as executive producers, according to Nat Geo executives.

Related: National Geographic to Premiere 'Free Solo' Commercial Free in March

In other Nat Geo TCA news, the network has secured the rights to NBC’s non-fiction series RunningWild With Bear Grylls, which is currently in production and slated to premiere in December 2019.

-- The network has greenlit to series The Right Stuff, an adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s best-selling nonfiction account of the early days of the U.S. space program. Production will begin this Fall 2019.

-- Premiere dates for several new and existing series include The Story of God with Morgan Freeman (March 5), Hostile Planet (April 1), Science Fair (May 9), The Hot Zone (May 27), Going Viral (May 2019), Yellowstone Live (June 2019), and Apollo: Mission to the Moon (July 2019).

History has renewed its sci-fi-themed series Project Blue Book for a second season, the network announced during its Television Critics Association winter press tour presentation.

Project Blue Book, based true, top-secret investigations into Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force in the 1950s and 1960s and stars Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones) and Michael Malarkey (The Vampire Diaries), is averaging 3.4 million viewers in Live+3 delivery, according to network officials.

“We are believers in Project Blue Book and so is our audience who has sparked a conversation about the hundreds of unsolved cases and our nation’s military response to UFOs that have remained relatively secret until now,” said Eli Lehrer, Executive Vice President and Head of Programming for History in a statement. “We’ve touched on a very relevant topic and look forward to a second season.”

The network also set an March 25 premiere date for the sophomore campaign of its drama series Knightfall. Mark Hamill (Star Wars franchise) will join the cast of the show, which goes inside the medieval politics and warfare of the Knights Templar, the most powerful, wealthy and mysterious military order of the Middle Ages.

AMC Networks will bring its Shudder and Sundance Now digital streaming series A Discovery Of Witches to television with the horror show’s April 7 premiere on BBC America and AMC, the network said Saturday.

A Season of Witches will run over eight weeks on both cable networks beginning April 7, the network announced during the Television Critics Association winter press tour presentation.

The series, set in a world where witches, vampires and demons secretly live and work alongside humans, has set Sundance Now records for total video plays, and in its first week on the site accounted for more than half of all streaming activity on the platform, according to the service.

“Thanks to the critical acclaim and overwhelmingly positive audience response to A Discovery of Witches, the series has found a new legion of fans. We are thrilled to bring it to a wider audience and pair it with Killing Eve on both AMC and BBC America,” said Sarah Barnett, President of AMC Entertainment Networks in a statement. “This is a great example of our cross-network strategy; to expose our series to new audiences across our ecosystem of networks and streaming services.”

In other streaming news, Shudder announced it has begun production on its first long-form series, Creepshow, based on the iconic 1982 anthology film written by Stephen King and directed by George A. Romero.

The six-episode season will be executive produced by Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead), according to the streaming service.

AMC will launch the final episodes for two of its original scripted series Into the Badlands and The Son later this spring, the network said Saturday during its Television Critics Association winter press tour session.

The network’s martial-arts drama Into The Badlands will end its three-season run with its final eight episodes beginning March 24 -- following an episode of The Walking Dead -- before moving into its regular time slot on March 25, said network officials.

The Son, starring Pierce Brosnan, will end after its second season, which launches on April 27, said the network. The Son is produced by AMC Studios and Sonar Entertainment.

The network also announced that it has opened up a writers’ room for a potential new series 61st Street, from Peter Moffat (Criminal Justice, The Night Of,) and Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society (David Makes Man).

In other AMC Networks news, BBC America set premiere dates for season 26 of Top Gear (April 25) and Luther (June 2); while IFC will bring back Brockmire for a third season April 3.

BBC America will produce sequels for two of its successful nature-themed franchises, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet.

The eight-episode Planet Earth III, set to air in 2022, will feature new technology -- including robotic cameras, stabilized rigs and deep submersibles -- to take viewers from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans, from the darkest caves to the hottest deserts, according to the network.

In Frozen Planet II, the six-part series will continue to explore snowy forests and frozen Arctic oceans around the world and the animals that live there, the network said.

“One of the things we’re most proud of at BBC America is that we’ve established the network as the U.S. destination for the very best nature programming on the planet, from the BBC’s award-winning natural history unit,” said Sarah Barnett, President, Entertainment Networks, for AMC Networks in a statement. “We are delighted to renew our successful partnership with BBC Studios, and to continue to co-produce these groundbreaking series. To bring together audiences for this kind of transcendent event television is a true privilege, we couldn’t be happier to continue to do this for the next five years.” 

HBO will say goodbye to its Emmy award-winning comedy series Veep beginning next month, the network said Friday.

The Julia Louis-Dreyfus starrer will return for a seven-episode, seventh season on March 31, the network announced during its Television Critics Association Tour panel session for the series. Dreyfus has won six Emmys in the best female comedy category for her role as politician Selina Meyer in Veep.

“I was so overcome with a joy and grief mashup as this show ended and caught me by surprise,’ she said via satellite during the Veep TCA session. “We’ve been through a lot as a group with illness and losing people — it's been an enormous journey. Saying goodbye to it is a very hard thing to do even though it was our decision to do it.”

The network also announced it will launch a new Spanish-language series, Los Espookys, from Saturday Night Live stars Fred Armisen and Lorne Michaels. The half-hour series follows a group of friends who turn their love for horror into a peculiar business, said network executives. 

HBO will premiere the documentary film Leaving Neverland on March 3, the network announced during its Television Critics Association winter press tour session Friday.

The four-hour documentary, which tells the story of two men who claim they were abused by pop star Michael Jackson as children, will debut as a two-part special, with part one debuting March 3 and the finale premiering on March 4, said the network.

The controversial film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last month. The estate of Michael Jackson has bashed the documentary as “tabloid character assassination.” 

The network also announced it will premiere this Spring Running With Beto, a behind-the-scenes documentary that follows Democratic Congressman Beto O'Rourke's rise from virtual unknown to national political sensation.