Wendy Williams Out, Sherri Shepherd In

►Daytime shake-up: Wendy Williams’ daytime talk show is officially winding down. The Wendy Williams Show will end after 14 seasons, distributor Debmar-Mercury announced Tuesday morning. Sherri Shepherd — who’s been a frequent guest host this season as Williams has dealt with health issues — will headline a new syndicated strip in the fall that will take over the time periods held by Williams’ show on Fox owned-and-operated stations.

Williams has been absent for the entire season of her eponymous show while dealing with health issues, including a case of COVID-19 and ongoing complications from Graves disease, an immune disorder. 

--Quote: "Since Wendy is still not available to host the show as she continues on her road to recovery, we believe it is best for our fans, stations and advertising partners to start making this transition now. We hope to be able to work with Wendy again in the future, and continue to wish her a speedy and full recovery.” Rick Porter has the story.

+Speaking of local TV stations:  Local TV giant TEGNA is selling itself to a pair of private equity firms in a multi-billion-dollar deal. Standard General and Apollo Global Management are teaming up for the deal, which will see them buy the company for $24 per share, TEGNA said on Tuesday. More.

 

Box Office Treasure

►Chart a course for cash: Sony’s Uncharted earned a projected $51 million over the long Presidents Day weekend, including an estimated $44.2 million for the three days.

The video game adaptation stars Tom Holland — who is still in theaters in the mega-blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home — and Mark Wahlberg. Uncharted did far more business than expected thanks to younger males, the demo that has been the most likely to go to the movies despite the pandemic. More than 60 percent of ticket buyers were male, while 71 percent of the audience was 35 and under. The numbers.

+Meanwhile in China: 20th Century’s murder mystery Death on the Nile, the first Hollywood studio release to set sail in China in over a month, is already sinking. The Kenneth Branagh film opened Saturday and came in fourth place for the weekend with $5.9 million, earning just $3.9 million on its first day and $2 million on Sunday. More.

►Netflix's nouveau deal: Netflix has reached a deal with the French cinema guilds that will see the streaming giant invest at least €40 million ($45 million) in at least 10 French and European films over the next three years, all of which will get theatrical releases in France.

--The shortened window, and the new deal with the French guilds, could mean Netflix will return to the Cannes Film Festival. Netflix had stopped submitting films to Cannes because the French festival requires all of its competition titles to have a theatrical release in France. L'histoire, er, the story.

Olympics Ratings Plunge

►A Beijing Bust? The 2022 Winter Olympics ended as the least watched ever for NBCUniversal — but there are still a few bright spots, particularly on the streaming side of the equation, for the company amid the smaller overall figures.

--The bad news: The topline figure is that the Olympics averaged 11.4 million viewers across all of NBCU’s platforms in primetime. That’s down 42 percent from the 19.8 million average for the 2018 winter games in Pyeongchang, South Korea — in keeping with the trend both from the first few days of the games (and, in fact, closing the gap with four years ago a little bit) and the general decline of broadcast network ratings in the past four years.

--On the upside: The streaming audience for Beijing was either the largest or second largest for any Olympics to date, depending on the measurement. Streaming on Peacock, NBCOlympics.com, the NBC Sports app had an average primetime viewership of 516,000 viewers, up 8 percent from the summer and an all-time high for any Olympics in the streaming era. Streaming made up about 4.5 percent of the total primetime audience for the games. The full story.

+From NBC host Mike Tirico's on-air essay during coverage of the closing ceremony: "A series of closed-loop bubbles driven by the nation’s stringent zero-Covid policy left any of us who were there with no chance to experience its unique characteristics or independently explore the many questions the world has about the nation. Right from the messaging of the Opening Ceremony – prominently featuring a member of the Uyghur population, the ethnic minority at the center of the human rights abuses that resulted in the U.S.-led diplomatic boycott – China put a flame to the IOC’s desire to decouple Olympics and politics."

Awards Focus

►NAACP Image Awards, night one: The 2022 NAACP Image Awards is announcing winners in several non-televised categories via streaming presentations this week. On Monday, the NAACP presented awards in a number of literary and podcast categories as well as a special award for youth activist of the year to NAACP Howard University chapter president Channing Hill. The winners.

+Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards: Coming 2 America won three trophies, the most for a feature film. The winners.

+Vancouver Film Critics Circle: Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog led this year’s field with five nominations. The full list.

►It's Britney's book: Britney Spears is set to tell her story in a tell-all memoir. The pop star has secured a book-deal with publisher Simon & Schuster. According to Page Six, which was first to report the news, the deal is said to be worth as much as $15 million and Simon & Schuster secured the deal after a bidding war from multiple publishers. The story.

►More protocols more problems: The Motion Picture Editors Guild (Local 700) sent a memo to members on Friday, informing them of the revised and extended COVID-19 safety protocols agreement between studios and guilds, but in doing so, also acknowledging where negotiations fell short for its members.

--“The joint unions/guilds were pushing (among other things) for increased testing in Zones C and D as a result of the surge of the Omicron variant. The AMPTP was unwilling to agree to additional testing without concessions that the unions were unwilling to agree to,” wrote Local 700 executive director Cathy Repola in the memo. The story.

►Et tu, John Carpenter? THR's Ryan Parker caught up with the celebrated director and composer to mostly chat about his 1996 film, Escape From L.A. (the Paramount movie drops on 4K on Feb. 22). But the conversation naturally shifted to his other topics, including the sequel he wants to make, the Halloween franchise being more popular than ever (as evidenced by last year’s Halloween Kills raking in $131.6 million worldwide), and his thoughts on the theatrical experience versus streaming. The interview.

►Reviews: Dan Fienberg reviews NBC's The Endgame... Angie Han reviews The CW's All American: Homecoming...

In other news...

--The U.K. removed essentially all COVID-related restrictions, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson citing the "heavy toll on our economy, our society, our mental well-being and all the life chances of our children."

--James Gunn is engaged to Peacemaker actress Jennifer Holland.

--Marvel actress Evangeline Lilly urged Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to speak with groups protesting vaccine mandates and pandemic restrictions in the country.

--Austrian period crime drama Vienna Blood has received a third season order from commissioning broadcasters ORF in Austria and ZDF in Germany. I airs on PBS in the U.S.

--Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and his wife, producer Patty Quillin, are donating $10 million to fund scholarship programs at Tougaloo College and Brown University.

--Molly Ringwald had a Sixteen Candles moment on Friday, the actress revealed on social media, sharing that — much like her character in the 1984 movie — her mother forgot her birthday.

--Queen Elizabeth II has COVID.

--Justin Bieber canceled a Las Vegas concert after contracting COVID-19.

--Bob Beckel, a political analyst and former Fox News host, has died. He was 73.

What else we're reading...

--"The ugly truth of how movie scores are made" [Vanity Fair]

--"Populist flamethrowers rock media" [Axios]

--"Trump's new social media app launches on iOS" [The Verge]

--"Returning to Fox Business, Neil Cavuto credits vaccination with saving his life" [NY Times]

Today's birthdays: Dame Julie Walters, 72, Drew Barrymore, 47, James Blunt, 48, Michael Chang, 50.