Today In Entertainment NOVEMBER 05, 2020
What's news: Election night TV ratings, streaming data, Trump vs. Fox News, TV critics take on coverage, top anchors remember 2000's dragged-out election, Stacey Abrams doc filmmakers weigh in. Plus: ESPN cutting 500 positions citing "tremendous disruption," Discovery and Cinemark earnings, Truman Capote charity sues Paramount over Breakfast at Tiffany's. --Alex Weprin Where Things Stand The presidency remains uncalled by all of the networks, but Joe Biden is nearing the 270 electoral votes needed to win. In the meantime, the vote-counting continues in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Alaska. Hollywood activists, meanwhile echoed Biden's message of calm and offer their own statements of support and hope. ➤Election night TV ratings: The main cable news networks dominated TV coverage of the presidential election, racking up much larger audiences than their broadcast counterparts. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC combined to average 31.13 million viewers in primetime on election night, a whopping 59 percent more than the 19.57 million who followed coverage on the Big Four broadcast nets — ABC, CBS, Fox Broadcasting and NBC. The three cable channels made up about 62 percent of the audience across the seven largest outlets, per Nielsen. --Fox News was the clear leader in primetime, averaging 14.09 million viewers from 8-11 p.m. ET. CNN finished second with 9.41 million viewers, followed by MSNBC (7.63 million), ABC (6.29 million), NBC (5.79 million), CBS (4.49 million) and Fox Broadcasting (3 million). Spanish-language broadcasters Univision (1.95 million) and Telemundo (1.53 million) drew just under 3.5 million people in primetime Tuesday. Fox Business drew 662,000 people in primetime and CNBC, 127,000. Overall ratings were down quite a bit from 2016. The story. +What about streaming? While many streaming numbers are not publicly available, there signs that viewers chose to watch the returnson digital platforms. Streaming technology firm Akamai reports that streaming traffic was 5X what it is on a normal day, and 2X what it was on election day 2016. --What numbers do we have? CBSN says it had 28.5 million streams and 19.5 million unique viewers... CNN says its live stream of CNN’s 2020 Election Night in America coverage saw 1.1 million concurrent viewers streaming at the 10:35pm peak on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 3rd. CNN saw a total of 6.5 million unique live video viewers and 14 million live starts on CNN’s owned platforms... Fox News says there were 11.8 million total livestreams during election day 2020, with a peak of over 3 million concurrent users... ➤Trump vs. Fox News: Ever since the Fox News decision desk called Arizona for Joe Biden, the Trump campaign has been waging a war of words with the channel, both on-camera and behind-the-scenes. On-air, Trump surrogates have called out the network for the call, receiving pushcback from anchors like Bret Baier. Behind-the-scenes, The New York Times reports that Jared Kushner spoke with Rupert Murdoch about the call, with Vanity Fair reporting that Trump himself complained to Murdoch, to no avail. --Fox's opinion hosts largely mirrored the Trump campaign lines, citing his baseless claims of fraud, and criticizing mdia coverage. “This isn’t about networks. it’s about an election. So this race to be first and getting the greatest ratings is awesome, but at what expense?” Fox The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld said. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham made similar comments expressing outrage. --This morning, Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox & Friends, where she once again criticized the channel's Arizona call. "That was a decision desk decision. And, you know, we stand by the Arizona decision. But that's done by the decision desk," Brian Kilmeade responded. TV Critics' Take ➤Critics' conversation: Election night coverage struggled to capture the gravity of the moment. THR's TV critics Daniel Fienberg and Inkoo Kang break down Tuesday night's feverish, often glib news coverage of a high-stakes presidential contest that's still unfolding. The story. ➤"It was unbelievably tense and a little scary": Top anchors remember 2000's dragged-out election. At ABC, Fox News and CNN, Ted Koppel, Judy Woodruff and Brit Hume covered the Al Gore versus George Bush race until the Supreme Court ruling over a month later: "I remember the 37 days [after] even more vividly than election night." --“We live in a totally different universe,” says Koppel. “Whatever the influence of the so-called mainstream media may have been back in the year 2000, it is a fraction of that today....These days, there are no longer the major information gate keepers out there, and social media leads to extremism on both sides." He adds: “Democrats were gnashing their teeth after the [2000 Supreme Court] decision, and yes, it was a political decision. But if it had gone the other way, I would have expected George W. Bush to also pick up the phone and say, ‘OK, that’s the way it goes, it was a hell of a fight.’ ” The story ➤"Don't panic. Buckle in": Stacey Abrams doc filmmakers on voter suppression and homestretch impact. All In co-directors Lisa Cortés and Liz Garbus spent 18 months immersed in the issues of a fragile democracy—and election night trying to channel Abrams' calming message. --“I spent a lot of time thinking about legacy, ancestors, how progress is slow, but progress is made,” Cortés says. “And how our engagement doesn't stop when the decision has been made. The fire in my belly has always been burning, but it's super stoked now.” The story. ➤Wall Street freaks out about Fox, too. Fox Corp.'s latest quarterly financials, reported on Tuesday, drew positive reviews from Wall Street analysts. But the company's stock took a hit on Wednesday despite broader market gains as analysts discussed the potential fallout of the U.S. elections. --"As we write this note, while we have no idea of what will be the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, we do know that investors are worried that if President Trump loses this election, he will seek to launch his own news network," writes MoffttNathanson's Michael Nathanson. "Given the singular financial importance of Fox News to Fox Corp., the fear of a new rival competing with Fox News has created a new bearish narrative that appears to be restraining Fox’s equity momentum." The story. ESPN Cuts 500 Positions ➤Layoffs hit ESPN: ESPN will lay off 300 employees and leave 200 open positions unfilled, citing the "tremendous disruption in how fans consume sports" and a need to invest in direct-to-consumer and digital offerings. --"Prior to the pandemic, we had been deeply engaged in strategizing how best to position ESPN for future success amidst tremendous disruption in how fans consume sports," wrote chairman of ESPN and sports content Jimmy Pitaro in a memo to staff Thursday morning. "The pandemic’s significant impact on our business clearly accelerated those forward-looking discussions." The story. ➤Discovery earnings: Discovery on Thursday reported its third-quarter financials, including an 8 percent U.S. advertising revenue drop compared to the year-ago period due to the coronavirus pandemic. That marked an improvement over the 14 percent U.S. ad revenue decline recorded for the second quarter. "The worst is behind us," Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav had told the second-quarter earnings conference call this summer about the ad market. --Discovery on Thursday also said it would unveil details of its much-anticipated U.S. streaming service and global direct-to-consumer strategy in "early December." The story. +Also: Cinemark earnings. Cinema giant Cinemark Holdings swung to a loss for the third quarter due to the financial hit from the coronavirus pandemic, but said it was "encouraged" by the reopening of its U.S. circuit and its impact on its liquidity. --CEO Mark Zoradi also championed the concept of "dynamic theatrical windows," where tentpoles get longer movie theater runs than mid-range budget films. "It allows a studio to monetize a movie quicker, because it won't be in theaters as long," Zoradi told analysts.More. ➤Truman Capote charity suing Paramount over Breakfast at Tiffany's rights. A few years before he died, Truman Capote, who wrote the 1958 novella that serves as the movie's basis, set up a charitable trust. Now, Alan Schwartz, the trustee of the charity, alleges that rights to the property reverted to Capote's Executor upon his death in 1984 and then was transferred to the charity. --"The suit further details negotiations over the property this past January where the Capote charity has been engaging with producers about a potential Breakfast at Tiffany's television series. The charity says it has gotten numerous bids of hundreds of thousands of dollars plus backend too. But Paramount has raised objections and negotiations have come to a halt." The story. ➤Warner Bros. has issued a statement saying the studios regrets "any offense caused" by a character design seen in recent release The Witches after online backlash from the disability community. --In the Robert Zemeckis-directed adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl children's book, the villainous witches, including the coven leader played by Anne Hathaway, are seen as having only three fingers. The design looks similar to ectrodactyly, also known as split or cleft hand, which is a limb disability that is the absence of one or more digits from the hand. The story. ➤TV review: Dan Fienberg reviews the CBS comedy B Positive, writing that the show "combines inoffensive writing with a cast of impressive depth, giving this bittersweet sitcom room to grow its world in a variety of directions, several of which have real potential." The review. +Film review: Frank Scheck reviews Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, writing that "featuring a cast almost entirely composed of people of color, the film is a proudly over-the-top, entertaining musical comedy extravaganza that should prove very popular this holiday season, especially considering a potentially bleak winter when people will probably need a feel-good experience more than ever." The review. In other news... --Giona A. Nazzaro, an Italian film programmer, critic, and regular on the international festival circuit, is the new artistic director for the Locarno International Film Festival. Locarno's festival board announced his appointment on Thursday. --The United States-Mexico border is the scene of an unusual court fight between an artist and the government contractor building Trump's wall. On Wednesday, Cosimo Cavallaro filed suit in California federal court over the destruction of his "Cheese Wall." --Ruth Wilson is addressing her The Affair departure. In an interview ahead of the return of her new HBO show His Dark Materials, Wilson says she left the Showtime series because there were things she "didn't feel safe about." --The LAPD has declared another citywide tactical alert Wednesday as "Count Every Vote" marches are set to take place around Los Angeles while President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are locked in a tight race. --Samuel Goldwyn Films has picked up U.S. rights to Pal Oie's Norwegian disaster movie The Tunnel. What else we'e reading... --"Cable news needs to take election day off" [Politico] --"Streaming TV advertisers want better targeting—minus the privacy backlash" [WSJ] --"Social media companies survived elction day. More tests loom" [NY Times] --"How athletes have forced ESPN and other networks to change their game plan on mixing politics and sports" [LA Times] Today's birthdays: Bryan Adams, 61, Tilda Swinton, 60, Art Garfunkel, 79, Kris Jenner, 65, Kevin Jonas, 33.
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