Programming

Highlighting the steep cost of the original programming arms race currently unfolding in the SVOD market, Hulu’s losses through the first six months of 2017 have spiked 81% to $353 million. The data comes courtesy of BTIG Research analyst Richard Greenfield, who looked at SEC data filed by Hulu parents Fox, Walt Disney, Comcast and Time Warner.

Overall in primetime for the week, NBC averaged 5.4 million viewers. CBS was second with 4.1 million, ABC had 3.2 million, Fox had 1.6 million, just ahead of Univision with 1.5 million, while Telemundo had 1.34 million, Ion Television had 1.28 million, and the CW had 950,000.

The network has had “preliminary conversations” with series creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels about reviving the ‘toon, Fox Chairman Dana Walden confirmed to reporters Tuesday at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour. The series originally ran on Fox from Jan. 12, 1997, to Sept. 13, 2009.

Fox has cast Maya Rudolph as the female lead of its newest live musical event, A Christmas Story, which will air Dec. 17. A Saturday Night Live alum who also showed her song-and-dance chops on a short-lived NBC variety show, Rudolph will star as the mother of nine-year old protagonist Ralphie Parker.

After shopping her Judge Judy library around the industry for as much as $200 million, Judy Sheindlin’s stable of more than 5,200 episodes has landed back at CBS. The deal also includes several more seasons of future episodes of the No. 1 syndicated series.

Summer continues to take its toll on first-run, with only Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Hot Bench, Judge Mathis, Divorce Court and Access Hollywood moving up in the week ending July 30.

ABC’s The Bachelorette closed out its 13th cycle on season highs Monday night. The three-hour episode averaged a 2.1 rating among adults 18-49 and 7.5 million viewers, surging from the penultimate episode. It was also the closest its been all summer to the previous season, trailing the 2016 finale by only 8% in the key demo.

David Letterman is returning to a regular TV gig, setting a deal with Netflix for a show that will combine long-form interviews with reports from the field. Netflix has ordered six episodes of the hourlong series, to be produced by New York-based RadicalMedia and Letterman’s Worldwide Pants banner. The untitled show is targeted to debut next year.

To dig into out-of-home (OOH) viewing, Nielsen analyzed data to see what content Americans are consuming beyond the comfort of their own couches. The analysis, which looked into total day out-of-home TV viewership from the beginning of 2017 to the end of May, uncovered a bevy of trends — some intuitive, and some surprising — that begin to scratch the surface of this new horizon in measured behavior.

Two decades ago ago, Barbara Walters had a groundbreaking idea. She wanted to launch a talk show where she could stop by, on top of her full-time job on 20/20, to spar with a multi-generational panel of women about the headlines of the day. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of a show that changed the rules of daytime TV, ABC is re-airing the first episode of The View this Friday.

For those existing Xfinity TV customers who pay $5.99 for a monthly upgrade, they can get FX+, a commercial-free option of FX Networks: FX and FXX. It will be available Sept. 5.

Fox’s American Grit closed out its second season Sunday with a modest showing in the overnight ratings. Big Brother (1.9, 6.6 million) on CBS was again the top-rated and most-watched show of the night. Candy Crush (0.5, 2.2 million) was even at 9.

There are rumblings at the highest executive levels that AT&T’s top executives are considering divesting some Time Warner assets — including news organization CNN and celebrity gossip site TMZ — after they merge.

If this is the Platinum Age of Television, why is everything starting to look rusty? The commercial broadcast networks last week trotted out the casts of their fall shows at the annual Television Critics Association meeting in Los Angeles. The new season, about six weeks away, looks shockingly like previous ones. Where’s the creativity? Where are the fresh ideas?

How much lived experience should a person have before tackling certain TV or movie projects? I’m talking about shows and films that confront stories, maybe controversial stories, about communities long pushed to the margins by Hollywood. How much — from the inside — does a writer or director or producer need to know and understand, in their bones, about a place or a culture in order to portray and explore it with nuance and intelligence?