HBO’s “Game of Thrones” Tops 2019 Emmy Award Nominations

Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) July17, 2019 –ON THIS DAY John Chancellor replaced Dave Garroway as host of NBC’s “Today” show in 1961…NBC police drama “CHiPS,“ with Erik Estrada, sailed into the sunset after a six-season run in 1983. Larry Wilcox, Estrada’s original co-star, exited in 1982…Celebrity Birthdays: Donald Sutherland (“MASH”) is 84; London’s Camilla Parker Bowles is 72; Lucie Arnaz is 68; David Hasselhoff (“Baywatch”) is 67; country singer Luke Bryan is 43.

-Did You Know?:
The fourth season finale of CBS sitcom “Here’s Lucy” (“Kim Finally Cuts You-Know-Whose Apron Strings,” originally telecast on Feb. 21, 1972), was a backdoor pilot for a spin-off series focused on Lucie Arnaz as Kim Carter moving into her own apartment. But the network did not pick it up and Kim was back home with her TV Mom Lucy Carter (Lucille Ball) at the beginning of season five. Arnaz did eventually headline her own sitcom, “The Lucie Arnaz Show,“ as a radio psychologist. It aired on CBS for six episodes in the spring of 1985…Early in season five, Erik Estrada walked off the set of “CHiPS” and was briefly replaced by  former Olympian and “I Am Cait” star Caitlyn Jenner (then known as Bruce Jenner) as new character named Steve McLeish. Jenner filmed six episodes and was listed as a guest star.

-Percent Change From the Year-Ago Week Featuring the MLB All-Star Game – 7/17/18)
Note: Fox aired The MLB All-Star Game on the year-ago evening.
ABC: +27, CW: no change, NBC: – 8, CBS: -44, Fox: -82

Ratings Breakdown:
“America’s Got Talent,” as usual, led NBC to a solid Tuesday overnight victory with a 6.7 rating/13 share in households from 8-10 p.m. Comparably, the network beat the four competing networks combined.

With this stellar lead-in support, recent NBC non-scripted entry “Bring the Funny” won the 10 p.m. hour with a 3.3/ 6 in the overnight households. Comparably, this bested competing CBS News special, “Man on the Moon” (#2: 1.8/ 4), by 83 percent. But it was also 53 percent below the 9:30 p.m. portion of “America’s Got Talent” (7.0/13).

For the remainder of the analysis for Tuesday, July 16, click here

Weekly Ratings Scorecard 
What follows are the Live+Same Day results for the five broadcast networks for the week of July 8. Change versus the comparable year-ago week appears in parentheses.

-Total Viewers:
NBC: 3.55 million (-17), ABC: 3.24 (- 5), Fox: 3.09 (+45), CBS: 3.03 (-23), CW: 660,000 (-27)

-Adults 18-49:
Fox: 0.7 rating/4 share (+17), ABC: 0.6/ 4 (-14), NBC: 0.6/ 3 (-25), CBS: 0.5/ 3 (-17), CW: 0.2/ 1 (no change)

-Adults 25-54:
Fox: 0.9/ 4 (+29), NBC: 0.9/ 4 (-18), ABC: 0.8/ 4 (-11), CBS: 0.7/ 3 (-22), CW: 0.2/ 1 (-33)

-Adults 18-34:
Fox: 0.5/ 4 (+25), ABC: 0.4/ 4 (no change), NBC: 0.3/ 3 (-25), CBS: 0.3/ 2 (-25), CS: 0.1/ 1 (-50)

Source: Nielsen Media Research

Netflix Orders Sketch Comedy “Astronomy Club”
Netflix has ordered six episodes of a variety sketch series called “Astronomy Club” from Khalabo Ink Society and Irony Point, featuring New York-based improv and sketch comedy group, Astronomy Club. The series will use comedy to discuss real-world topics, with the sketches focused on an array of topics ranging from pop culture and social issues to the Black experience.

The series is executive produced by Kenya Barris (“black-ish,” “Girls’ Trip”) through his transmedia company Khalabo Ink Society and Daniel Powell (“Inside Amy Schumer,” “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson”) for Irony Point.

2019 Emmy Award Nominations
The final season of HBO blockbuster “Game of Thrones” led the 2019 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, with a record 32 nods. If the medieval fantasy drama does win for Outstanding Drama for the fourth time, it will join “Hill Street Blues,” ”L.A. Law,” ”The West Wing” and “Mad Men” with that distinctive honor.

Second overall among the nominations was Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” with 20. Next was HBO nuclear disaster miniseries “Chernobyl” with 19 nominations, followed by NBC’s veteran “Saturday Night Live,” with 18. “When They See Us,” the Netflix miniseries that dramatized the Central Park Five case and its aftermath, received 16. And VH1 reality/competition “RuPaul’s Drag Race” scored 14 nominations — the most for any series in cable net’s history.

The 71st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will air live on Fox on Sunday, September 22nd. The two-night Creative Arts ceremony will be presented on September 14 and 15. For the complete listing of nominees, click here

Netflix Edits Out Suicide Scene from “30 Reasons Why”
The controversial scene from the first season of drama “30 Reasons Why” depicting a suicide has been removed by Netflix. The original scene showed the character of Hannah cutting her wrists in the bath. Now, the scene will skip from Hannah entering the tub to her parents’ horrified reaction upon finding her body.

The streamer Netflix did include include a content warning
before the episode, alerting viewers that the finale “contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing and/or may not be suitable for younger audiences, including graphic depictions of violence and suicide.” But criticism from the media was fierce, with some flagging the series for potentially glamorizing and causing a rise in suicide attempts in young people.

DISH Network Drops Meredith-Owned Television Stations
Twelve Meredith-owned stations were dropped from the DISH Network lineup. By law, cable and satellite companies must negotiate in good faith with television stations before dropping the TV stations’ signals. DISH failed to reach an agreement. Meredith-owned stations’ programming, including local news and network programming will not be available on DISH systems until further notice.  Meredith-owned stations will still be available over-the-air and from all other cable, satellite, and OTT providers serving their respective markets.

The affected stations are Atlanta CBS affiliate WGCL, Phoenix CBS affiliate KPHO and KTVK (IND), St. Louis CBS affiliate KMOV, Portland FOX affiliate KPTV and KPDX (MYN), Nashville NBC affiliate WSMV, DMA, Kansas City CBS affiliate KCTV and KSMO (IND), Hartford-New Haven CBS affiliate WFSB, Greenville-Spartanburg FOX affiliate WHNS, Las Vegas FOX affiliate KVVU, Mobile-Pensacola FOX affiliate WALA, Flint-Saginaw CBS affiliate WNEM, and Springfield-Holyoke CBS affiliate WSHM.

”Quality or Quantity? If you had a choice of the following two options, which one would you choose? – Click here

Linear or Digital…or Both – Click here

“Henry Danger: The Musical” will air on Nickelodeon on Saturday, July 27 at 8 p.m. ET. The special, which features 26 songs, marks the return of Frankie Grande as the villainous Frankini who puts a musical curse over the town of Swellview, while Kid Danger and Captain Man are forced to find a way to stop him.

Humor announced that “Gods of Food,“ a mockumentary culinary profile series, will debut on their subscription-based streaming service Dropout on Thursday, August 8. The six-episode season, featuring celebrity chefs Hugh Acheson (“Top Chef”), Richard Blais (“Top Chef”), Jet Tila (Food Network) and Alison Roman (The New York Times) commentating throughout each episode of the season, will skewer the gamut of fine dining tropes, from the overly rustic chef to the esoteric molecular gastronomist. A new episode will be released every Thursday through September 12.

“The Woodstock Bus,” a special that follows a group unlikely friends as they join forces to help  artist Robert “Dr. Bob” Hieronimus find and resurrect his most famous work – the Volkswagen bus known as the Woodstock Light Bus — will be available on Curiosity Stream beginning on Monday, August 12. The logline: CuriosityStream, the streaming and on-demand destination from the founder of the Discovery Channel, brings viewers on the epic cross-country search for and resurrection of the famous, but missing, camper van.