Tamron Hall seeking talk show; Hulu strikes deal for Bob’s Burgers, Futurama, and more; DuckTales returns on Aug. 12
Now you can add social media to ABC 7’s dominance: according to Share Rocket data over the last thirty days, the ABC-owned station ranks first in social media usage with an overall share of 33.8, followed by Fox 32’s 31.2, and WGN-TV a distant third with a 21.9, as reported by TV Spy.
WLS-TV scored the social media hat trick, ranking first in Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram usage. Weather personality Cheryl Scott – who often drew scorn on a now-defunct message board – is the station’s most popular draw on Instagram, with a 5.29 share.
Share Rocket measured the market’s seven news stations and the rest of the bunch are as follows: NBC’s WMAQ ranked a distant fourth with a 6.6 share and Univision’s WGBO came in fifth with a 3.7. Ranking at the bottom are CBS’ WBBM with a 1.5 share and Telemundo’s WSNS ranked last with a 1.2. Given both WMAQ and WSNS are owned by NBCUniversal, their combined score is a 7.8, but still behind the three front-runners.
WFLD’s big social media presence is a bit of a surprise, given the station lags behind others in the Nielsen ratings.
Among individuals, WFLD’s Jenny Milkowski ranks first; followed by WGBO’s Ericka Pino and Erika Maldonado. WGN’s Marcus LeShock and Paul Konrad round out the top five, respectively. Both are part of the WGN Morning News team, whose show’s sub-page ranked first in the market.
Milwoski also ranked first on Facebook with more than 200,000 engagements.
It goes to show you – yes, social media works and is a must if you are in the news business.
The latest name in to surface in the daytime talk show “wars”? Tamron Hall, who left NBC’s Today Show last year after she was brushed aside for Megyn Kelly, whose new one-hour talk show debuts on September 25 on NBC at 9 a.m. The Weinstein Co. signed Hall to launch a new syndicated talk show, set to launch in September 2018. The company is looking for a distributor to sell the program to stations. As you know, Hall left the Today Show last spring when NBC signed Kelly to do a talk show at 9 a.m. – the same slot Tamron Hall and other Today co-hosts had.
This could be easier said than done: several syndicators (Disney, CBS, Warner Bros.) already have talk shows on the air – and Warner is still considering launch a talker with Drew Barrymore next year. Given the failure of big-budget talk shows over the years, stations are hesitant to add any to their schedules. Though Megyn Kelly’s Sunday night newsmagazine has gotten off to a slow start (despite the much-ballyhooed Alex Jones interview), Kelly’s show is airing on the NBC, not in syndication and at 9 a.m. almost in every market. Kelly is going up against Live With Kelly (Ripa) and Ryan, whose ratings have dropped since adding Ryan Seacrest to the show back in April.
Also keep in mind at least to Chicago viewers, Hall was “the other woman” when she replaced Marianne Murciano opposite Bob Sirott on Fox-owned WFLD’s Fox Thing In The Morning, whose decline coincided with the rise of WGN’s morning newscast, which now is the market’s top morning show. Whether she (or Megyn Kelly) can sustain a talk show strip in this day and age is questionable at best as daytime viewership continues to fall.
If you are an adult animation fan, you might want to rethink your Netflix subscription: Hulu announced last week it has struck a deal with Twentieth Television for exclusive streaming rights to the complete library of Bob’s Burgers and Futurama episodes, with the former beginning immediately. Burgers had been streaming on Netflix exclusively until last year when the deal expired.
Also included in the deal are back episodes of The Cleveland Show and American Dad, the latter to start streaming on Hulu in a few weeks. Already, Hulu is exclusive streaming home to South Park, The Boondocks, and all past and present adult swim animated shows, including Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
The move comes as Netflix is letting many off-network series’ rights platform expire and is now focusing on movies and it vast number of original television series, including Orange Is The New Black, the upcoming Defenders, Fuller House, and animated wonder Bojack Horseman. However, Netflix continues to stream some off-net fare, including Marvel’s Agents of Shield and the original version of The Twilight Zone.
Recently, Warner Bros.’ launched Boomerang as an over-the-top service to showcase its library of classic animated series content.
The warm-up act for Comic-Con – otherwise known as the D23 Expo in Anaheim, Calif. took place this past weekend and the major attraction of the Disney/Marvel fanfest was the reboot of 1980s animated series DuckTales, which held a packed panel at the Anaheim Convention Center. At the panel, fans were treated to a sneak peek of the pilot to launch the TV series, which premieres August 12 on Disney XD and launches as a series on Sept. 23 as a weekly Saturday morning series (see the clip below.)
DuckTales premiered in syndication on September 18, 1987 and became the nucleus of The Disney Afternoon, which launched in September 1989 as an hour-block (paired with Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers) and expanded to two hours a year later with the addition of Tale Spin. DuckTales aired in the block until 1992, when it was replaced by Goof Troop.
DuckTales and The Disney Afternoon became a focal point of a war of words and a lawsuit between Disney and Fox, which started in late 1988 when Disney syndicator Buena Vista Television pulled Ducktales from Fox-owned stations in large markets (including WFLD-TV here) and moved it to Tribune stations (including WGN-TV) and others after Fox officials wouldn’t commit to the proposed block as the network planned to launched its own animated series block in September 1990. Roughly 65 Fox affiliates carried The Disney Afternoon – which were broken up and some shows bumped into less-desirable morning time slots. Disney sued Fox, claiming it was trying to undermine its product.
Fox and Disney settled their lawsuit in 1993. As children’s programming became less and less profitable as the ’90s wore on (WGN-TV left the daily children’s TV business in 1994), The Disney Afternoon became repackaged in 1997 and shortened to 90 minutes, and moved to UPN in 1999.
Fortunately, this new version of DuckTales won’t have that problem.
