NBC

Tegna is the largest independent owner of NBC affiliates. The 20 markets renewed cover more than 21 million households, nearly 17% of U.S. TV households.

Some DirecTV customers were able to watch a national programming feed of NBC in areas where the local affiliate has been unavailable for weeks due to a prolonged dispute with Tegna, StreamTV Insider confirms. The test appears to be a first step toward replacing local broadcast affiliates with national network feeds in order to offset the loss of programming during programming disputes, like the one DirecTV currently faces with Tegna.

The new contract covering stations in 56 markets replaces one that was set to expire at the end of the year.

NBC, the only broadcast network to have original, homegrown scripted series on the fall schedule with The Irrational and Found, will also launch most of its strike-impacted scripted slate the fastest. The network has announced its midseason premiere dates, which include mid-January returns for Wolf Entertainment’s three Chicago and three Law & Order dramas on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

Season 3 of the NBC sci-fi drama La Brea will be its last. The series will conclude with an abbreviated season that will consist of 6 episodes. La Brea will premiere on Tuesday, Jan. 9, at 9 p.m. and serves as a lead-in to the season’s final two episodes of the hit fall drama Found.

Chicago Fire will say goodbye to Kara Killmer during the NBC show’s twelfth season. It is as yet unknown how many episodes her character Sylvie Brett will appear in. Killmer joined the popular procedural during its third season with Sylvie serving as a central character throughout.

Chicago Med is staffing back up, adding a new doc for the upcoming ninth season — and he’s already got a history with one of the hospital’s finest.

The actor took a leave of absence from the NBC drama in the latter part of the 2022-23 season.

Titled Barry Manilow’s A Very Barry Christmas, the one-hour special will air on NBC Dec. 11 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and will be available to stream the next day on Peacock. It will be filmed at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino where he performs his hit show, Manilow: Las Vegas – The Hits Come Home!

Chicago P.D. is losing another member of Intelligence. Tracy Spiridakos, who portrays Hailey Upton, will be leaving after Season 11, multiple sources confirm. It is unknown how many episodes she will appear in in the upcoming season.

There’s change at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. A.D. Miles, who was previously head writer on the NBC show and also worked with Fallon on Late Night, is returning to the show as head writer. Mason Steinberg, who was hired in the role last year, is exiting.

NBC is adding another medical show to its roster. The broadcast network has greenlit Dr. Wolf, a drama inspired by the life and work of Oliver Sacks with Zachary Quinto set to star as the famed neurologist.

Saturday Night Live was welcomed back to the airwaves with open arms. The Season 49 premiere managed 4.8M viewers on NBC, according to Nielsen data. That marks a 19% audience increase versus the Season 48 premiere. The episode, hosted by Pete Davidson with musical guest Ice Spice, also scored a 0.96 rating among the 18-49 entertainment demographic, which is up 31% over last year to become the best demo performance since the season premiere in 2020.

NBC is betting that the next big thing in streaming might be your local high school football game. The media giant is launching a new streaming service that’s part ESPN+, part YouTube, and part MasterClass, meant to appeal to families, schools and communities with amateur sports teams. The service, SportsEngine Play, will stream live matches from amateur teams, (think high schools, etc).

The third Republican presidential debate is set for Nov. 8 in Miami. NBC News, which will produce the debate for its linear TV, streaming and digital platforms, takes over from Fox News and Fox Business, which hosted the first two Republican primary debates. The third tangle between GOP candidates organized by the Republican National Committee will be held at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County from 8 to 10 p.m. on Nov. 8.

The San Fransisco 49ers defeat of the Dallas Cowboys is without a doubt the talk of the town for Week 5 of the NFL regular season. Sunday night’s matchup on NBC drew 24.3M viewers on linear TV — which rose to 26.3M when streaming viewership was factored in. That was by far the most-watched game of the week and, in fact, is the most-watched Week 5 NBC Sunday Night Football game since the program began in 2006.

Who’s doing it better — Kristen Welker or Jake Tapper? The two journalists, one the new moderator of NBC News’ Meet The Press, the other the anchor of the weekday The Lead and a co-anchor of State of the Union at CNN, aren’t typically pitted against one another. But there they were on a recent Thursday afternoon around 4:30 p.m., duking it out for the future of their medium.

The long-running sketch comedy show will premiere Season 49 on Oct. 14, NBC announced Wednesday. Former cast member Pete Davidson will host, making good on a plan to have him host last May. The comedian will be joined by first-time musical guest Ice Spice.

Season 18 of NBC’s summer mainstay America’s Got Talent concluded Wednesday night with a finale at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium which culminated with Adrian Stoica & Hurricane named the winners. Also Wednesday night, NBC announced officially that America’s Got Talent has been renewed for Season 19, which will air next summer. Current judges Simon Cowell — who is also creator and executive producer — Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, Sofia Vergara as well as host Terry Crews are all set to return. Auditions are already underway.

Saturday Night Live should get pretty much a full season after the writers and the studios reached an agreement to end the strike. The NBC show had Season 48 cut short by three episodes when the writers walked out at the beginning of May. The show, which traditionally restarts at the very end of September or the beginning of October, is now likely to return on either Oct. 7 or 14, pending a vote by the WGA.

NBC has unveiled its latest America’s Got Talent spinoff and its got a fantasy football-style format. The network will launch AGT: Fantasy League in 2024 with judges including Mel B, Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum and Howie Mandel. Terry Crews will host.

Fall’s upfront would have been a lot worse were it not for leveraging NFL packages with advertisers, and the league continues to pull them in in all sizes.

NBC has shuffled the order of its lineup on Wednesdays beginning Oct. 4. Quantum Leap will now air at 8 p.m., followed by Magnum P.I. at 9 and Chicago encores at 10. The previous lineup was Chicago encores at 8, followed by Quantum Leap at 9 and Magnum P.I. at 10.

Days of Our Lives executive producer Albert Alarr has left the NBC soap opera after 20 years working for the show. His departure comes after a reported internal misconduct investigation by Sony Pictures Television, which produces the show. Janet Drucker, who has been a producer on Days of Our Lives since the 1980s, has stepped into his role as co-executive producer.

The queen of 30 Rock could be making her return to 30 Rock. A source tells the New York Post that Tina Fey is being courted to take over as executive producer of Saturday Night Live when creator and current executive producer Lorne Michaels departs. So far, Michaels, 78, has not formally announced any intention to leave the weekly sketch comedy series he created for NBC in 1975.

Several of the country’s biggest entertainment and streaming companies are teaming up to fight hundreds of local broadcasters over a years-old provision that would determine whether they are forced to negotiate directly with those local stations for distribution deals.  The Preserve Viewer Choice Coalition, which launched Wednesday, is made up of major entertainment companies and their broadcast networks, including Disney/ABC, Paramount/CBS, Fox Corp./Fox, NBCUniversal/NBC/Telemundo, Warner Bros. Discovery, Univision and Roku.

Fall schedule revisions continue at the broadcast networks, with NBC the latest to tweak its lineup. NBC’s makeover for its lineup isn’t as drastic as that of CBS — which had to do a nearly full teardown of its initially announced slate — but amid ongoing labor strikes in the industry, the network won’t have several shows it planned to roll out in the fall.

Magnum P.I.‘s reprieve at NBC is coming to an end. The network has opted not to order additional episodes beyond the 20-episode fifth season picked up last year.

It’s one and done for NBC’s The Wheel. The U.S. adaptation of the U.K. game show has been canceled after one season. Airing five nights a week over two weeks last December, The Wheel debuted to 1.4 million total viewers and a 0.2 demo rating, and finished with 2.2 mil and a 0.3.

NBC has announced its panel of coaches for The Voice Season 25, with Grammy-winning artists Dan + Shay joining the show as its first coaching duo. Dan + Shay will serve as coaches alongside Reba McEntire, John Legend and Chance the Rapper. Season 25 will air in the spring of 2024.

NBC has opted not to proceed with a third season of its workplace comedy series American Auto, created and executive produced by Superstore creator Justin Spitzer. The news comes a week after the network picked up to series Spitzer’s workplace comedy pilot St. Denis Medical.