News

June 2 officially marked a changing of the guard at NBC Nightly News after long-time anchor Lester Holt handed the reins over to Tom Llamas. In the wake of the seismic shift in news, the ratings for the new host are in, and it's been a mixed bag so far. For his first few shows settling in, Llamas came in behind ABC's ever-dominant World News Tonight with David Muir, which topped both it and CBS Evening News on the charts per TV Insider. Moreover, he underperformed Holt in the early ratings, significantly trailing Muir by 17% in total viewers and a staggering 157% among adults aged 25–54 during Holt's final week on air. However, the newly-titled NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamasdelivered the best year-over-year audience retention of any other newscast, pointing to a positive future ahead, even with a new face.

Overall, for Llamas's debut week, Muir's news desk led NBC's program by 28% in overall ratings,...

Tom Llamas has no formal training in juggling, but his new assignment for NBC News will have him working to keep some very big plates spinning in the air.

When Llamas takes over the “NBC Nightly News” desk from Lester Holt on Monday night, one of his first jobs will be to ensure that the program’s audience barely notices, even if a transition in such a program is one of the more seismic things that happens on TV. He will do it even as he keeps his old job, anchoring “Top Story,” an hour-long streaming program for the broadband outlet NBC News Now that starts the minute “Nightly” ends Monday through Friday.

“It’s funny, but most of the questions I’ve received” since NBC News announced his new role have focused on “‘How are you going to do that?”’ says Llamas during a recent interview with Variety. “I...

When Tom Llamas finishes his first night as permanent anchor of NBC Nightly News on Monday, he’ll go right on into his next assignment, Top Story, the nightly NBC News Now streaming newscast he’s anchored for nearly four years.

The rehearsals have included this key switch-off, as the show will move from one production team to the next. “Monday is the real test,” Llamas said. “It will be trial by fire. It’s never been done like that in this capacity but we have the best at 30 Rock and I know we are going to get there.”

Llamas’ dual roles speak to where things are for the face of broadcast news divisions, as networks seek to capture younger viewers who never picked up linear television habits. Top Story, he noted, has captured new news viewers on platforms like Roku and YouTube.

Llamas, 45, is succeeding Lester Holt, who will...

Lester Holt’s next job has him working a role he hasn’t held in a very long time: the new guy.

When Holt, who has anchored “NBC Nightly News” for the past decade through coronavirus, the rise of President Trump and a steady increase of horrific shootings across the nation, steps away from the desk on May 30th, he will do it with the knowledge that he still has a few stories to tell. He will start contributing more frequently to “Dateline,” the NBC newsmagazine that in recent years has focused on true-crime stories — and become a major contributor to the news division’s revenue in the process.

Holt, 66 years old, is a regular “Dateline” presence, but usually as the host of the show, not the teller of the stories that fill its hour. “The big buy-in was to be able to do more of the hours,” the anchor...

Tom Llamas, who left a prominent anchor-in-waiting role at ABC News for one at NBC News in 2021, is no longer standing in queue.

Llamas will take over as anchor of “NBC Nightly News” at some point after Lester Holt steps down from the venerable evening newscast in early summer. Llamas, who has been hosting an early-evening program on the NBC News Now live-streaming service, will continue to do so, meaning that each weeknight, he will lead “Nightly” from 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. eastern, then immediately move to the hour of his streaming program, “Top Story.”

“Anchoring ‘NBC Nightly News’ is a profound honor and one that carries tremendous responsibility. I look forward to working with the world class journalists at ‘Nightly News’ and ‘Top Story’ to bring viewers the most important stories every night,” Llamas said in a statement. “Lester Holt is a great man and one of...

All at once a prince and a criminal, there are few roles James Marsden isn't perfect for. The charming everyman has dazzled audiences for over three decades and in over 80 film and television projects, ranging broadly in genre from experimental comedies and dark satires to indie science fiction stories and comic book blockbusters.

As of writing, Marsden's biggest contemporary projects are the films in the "Sonic the Hedgehog" franchise, in which he plays one of few human characters alongside Jim Carrey, opposite the voices of Ben Schwartz, Idris Elba, and, most recently, Keanu Reeves as Shadow the Hedgehog. But before he was chasing gold rings across dimensions, Marsden was already an unmissable star of screens big and small, so we've ranked his 12 best TV shows and movies, taking into account their overall quality, how they showcased his talent, and their impact on popular culture at large.

Read more: 13 Times Film...

In his eight years on Saturday Night Live, Chris Parnell certainly left a mark. From his dead-on impression of Tom Brokaw, to his famous rapping skills, to his earning the nickname “The Iceman” for never breaking in a sketch, Parnell’s legacy on the show is impressive. There is, however, one thing that sets him apart from every other cast member ever: He’s the only guy to have been fired from the show not once, but twice.

I recently caught up with the presently gainfully employed Parnell to discuss those two dismissals as well as the protest sketch one of the show’s writers put together to express to Lorne Michaels their displeasure with Parnell’s termination.

Before we get into the two ends of your tenure, do you have a favorite moment from your time on the show?

I always enjoyed doing the Weekend Update raps to different...

Jimmy Carter, humanitarian, diplomat, and 39th president of the United States, died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, after receiving hospice care, his son James E. “Chip” Carter III confirmed. He was 100.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” Chip Carter said in a statement. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together,...

Jimmy Fallon is disappointed in us. The NBC host opened “The Tonight Show” by highlighting a recent Pew Research Center poll that found roughly one in five Americans say they regularly get their news from social media influencers.

“Somehow in 20 years we went from Tom Brokaw to Hawk Tuah,” Fallon said, referencing the retired news anchor and the woman who went viral for giving oral sex advice during a man-on-the-street interview.

Overall, Fallon’s Monday night monologue was heavy one one-liners. Nodding to the fact that one of his guests for the evening was Cher, the NBC host said, “‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ was all I could sing after wasting my time on the Tyson-Paul fight.”

That wasn’t the only Netflix joke Fallon had up his sleeve. After telling his audience about President Joe Biden’s trip to the Amazon rainforest — a first for any U.S.

Good Morning America star Robin Roberts recently recalled an unforgettable memory from what fans call “an amazing GMA legacy” as a journalist and anchor.

ABC’s morning program is currently having a year-long celebration of its 50-year history.

With that, many memorable moments will arrive through the show and social media highlights.

Robin has co-anchored the program since 2005, after she received her official promotion to replace a departing colleague and permanently anchor the news.

On weekdays, she appears in the anchor role alongside co-anchors Michael Strahan and George Stephanopoulos.

Ahead of election day, GMA and Robin shared a memorable moment from the show featuring a few stars from the program’s past.

Robin shares a memory of a day she’ll never forget from her GMA history

To kick off their “year-long celebration of 50 years of Good Morning America,” Robin and the GMA Instagram account shared a throwback video clip.

On the night of the 2000 presidential election, as the counting began in a tight race between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and incumbent Vice President Al Gore, it all came down to Florida. And then, all hell broke loose.

Director Jay Roach and writer Danny Strong captured the stakes and the personalities that drove that strange moment in “Recount,” the Emmy-winning 2008 HBO movie starring Denis Leary, Kevin Spacey, Bob Balaban and Laura Dern. Instead of “Stop the Steal,” the rally cry in 2000 for Bush supporters was “Stop the Recount.”

“The events in ‘Recount’ were in some way a rehearsal for January 6,” Roach says. “It proved that there was potential to physically disrupt an election.”

As the nation braces for what will surely be a long night of waiting for election returns, it’s eye-opening to revisit the chaos and political theater that ensued for five weeks while Bush and Gore...

Former NBC News anchor Brian Williams will host a live election night special on Prime Video, marking Amazon’s first go at news coverage.

The streamer confirmed on Thursday that Election Night Live with Brian Williams, a one-night special delivering election results and analysis, will stream on Tuesday, Nov. 5 beginning at 5 pm Et.

More from TVLinePrime Video to Offer Apple TV+ as Subscription Add-On in New DealFox News Pitches Harris and Trump on Late October Debate - Harris Already Agreed to Rematch on CNNReacher Gets Early Season 4 Renewal Ahead of Amazon Hit's 2025 Return

Williams will be joined live by guests,...

When it comes to people named “The Iceman,” there’s Val Kilmer’s character in Top Gun, a founding mutant of the X-Men and a rather prolific hitman for the mafia. There’s another famous Iceman, however, and he didn’t have to fly an F-14, battle Magneto or whack anyone to earn the moniker.

SNL alum Chris Parnell had a reputation for never, ever breaking during a sketch. Even when everyone else was giggling themselves into oblivion around him, he wouldn’t crack. But while that commitment has been associated with the nickname, as Parnell explains below, he actually earned it far earlier than you’d think.

How did you get “The Iceman” nickname?

Colin Quinn gave it to me. It was based on my first sketch in my first show, which was a cold open. Cameron Diaz was the host, and The Smashing Pumpkins were the musical guest.

In a seismic shift for Spanish-language TV news in America, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos is leaving the network after a 40-year tenure.

TelevisaUnivision said that Ramos and Univision News both agreed not to renew his contract, which is soon to expire. He will step down as co-anchor of Noticiero Univision at the end of 2024, after the U.S. Presidential Election.

Ramos has been the anchor or co-anchor of Noticiero Univision, which is the most-watched Spanish-language evening news broadcast in America, for 38 years, a tenure that began in 1986. He was the face of Univision’s news division for decades, drawing comparisons to Walter Cronkite for his length of tenure and the trust he had with viewers.

However, as he himself noted in a 2021 column, the TV landscape of 1986 bears little resemblance to that of the present day.

“I started at a time when the big network’s TV anchors – Peter Jennings,...

CBS wants to get back in the battle for evening-news viewers with a new take on the format that looks very little like the evening news viewers have come to know.

The network plans to rebuild its long-running “CBS Evening News,” retooling anchors, format and segments in a bid to make the half-hour once led by Walter Cronkite more valuable for modern news viewers who don’t recognize the show as the cultural touchstone it was in the 1960s and 70s.

After the 2024 election, with current anchor Norah O’Donnell stepping away for a new senior correspondent role at CBS News, executives at the Paramount Global news operation will put the show under the aegis of Bill Owens, the executive producer of “60 Minutes.” Working with a new on-air team that includes co-anchors John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, chief weathercaster Lonnie Quinn and Washington-based “Face The Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan,...

Edward L. Scanlon was the ultimate insider.

The long-serving NBC executive was a hugely influential player in the life of the network during the decades when it was owned by RCA and later General Electric. Scanlon was involved in everything from corporate recruiting and personnel vetting to labor negotiations to high-level M&a activity during his 44 years with RCA, Hertz and NBC. He was a close confidant of Ge chairman Jack Welch. But Scanlon never courted the spotlight, preferring to stay behind the scenes. In 2001, as Scanlon prepared to retire from NBC, the New York Times published a rare profile that described him as “NBC’s Negotiator and Fixer.”

Here, veteran media consultant and corporate recruiter Stuart Sucherman pays tribute to his longtime friend and colleague. Scanlon died March 17 in Naples, Florida, one day before his 90th birthday.

The role that Ed played at NBC for 30 years is hard to define.

Somehow it’s gone unreported until now, but for several days in 2001, then-SNL writer Paula Pell was believed to be a victim of anthrax poisoning after a letter containing the lethal substance was sent to 30 Rock.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, letters containing anthrax were sent to a number of politicians and journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw. As was publicly reported at the time, Brokaw’s assistant was exposed to the substance and hospitalized after she tested positive for anthrax poisoning. A second NBC employee, a desk assistant for NBC News who opened the letter, also fell ill.

What we didn’t know until now is that several weeks later, Paula Pell was also sent to the hospital with suspected anthrax poisoning. It’s a pretty remarkable footnote to a story that was front-page news at the time, but for Pell it’s most notable for the...

When Band of Brothers debuted on HBO — on September 9, 2001, two days before a devastating, epochal terrorist attack on American soil — the miniseries felt like the culmination of a whole era of World War II myth-making. Band of Brothers plays like a companion piece to its producer Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning 1998 hit Saving Private Ryan, which itself came out the same year as Tom Brokaw’s bestselling book The Greatest Generation.

All of these projects — the book, the movie, the TV show — venerated the men who fought the Nazis, while also acknowledging that their heroism came at a steep personal cost. HBO’s 2010 sequel miniseries The Pacific (released after a grueling decade in “the war on terror”) reiterated that theme, showing how violence and loss leaves an indelible stain on a soldier’s soul, even when their cause is just.

There’s a reason the word honors is in the title. To help celebrate the lifetime contributions of artists in music, dance, theater, opera, movies and TV, the Kennedy Center Honors routinely pay tribute to its recipients by rewarding them with memorable performances.

Scores of artists have been feted since the Honors got their start in 1978, but there are certain tributes that remain sketched in our hearts forever. In anticipation of the 46th annual event honoring Billy Crystal, Renée Fleming, Barry Gibb, Queen Latifah, and Dionne Warwick on Dec. 27, we look back at some of the show’s most unforgettable performances — starting with Lenny Bernstein’s opening speech from the very first Kennedy Center Honors, of course.

Kris Kristofferson, Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris and Rosanne Cash honor Johnny Cash in 1996

Three of country’s greats performed hits from Cash’s eclectic songbook — “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “Folsom Prison Blues.” and...

Culver City, Calif. – Continuing the fan-favorite and award-winning series—and as part of the upcoming 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures—Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is proud to debut six more beloved films from its library on 4K Ultra HD disc for the first time ever, exclusively within the Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 4, available February 13. This must-own set includes films with which audiences around the world have fallen in love: His Girl Friday, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Starman, Sleepless In Seattle and Punch-drunk Love. Each film is presented in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision High Dynamic Range, and five of the films have all-new Dolby Atmos mixes.

The six films in the Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 4 are only available on 4K Ultra HD disc within this special limited edition collector’s set. The collection includes a gorgeous hardbound 80-page book, featuring...

“Sleepless in Seattle,” “Punch-Drunk Love” and four more films from Columbia Pictures will make their 4K Ultra HD debut Feb. 13, 2024, via Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Vol. 4, the latest installment in Sphe’s series of limited edition sets culling critical and commercial hits from the studio’s storied library, will feature Nora Ephron and Paul Thomas Anderson’s romantic comedies — along with Howard Hawks’ “His Girl Friday,” Stanley Kramer’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” Robert Benton’s “Kramer vs. Kramer” and John Carpenter’s “Starman.” In addition to more than 30 hours of legacy bonus content for each film, the set includes a bonus disc featuring the entirety of the 1986 “Starman” television series, as well as an 80-page hardbound book exploring the impact and legacy of the six films.

Matching its predecessors, the packaging for the set showcases the included titles, and opens to display...

When Apple TV+ first launched, one of its marquee shows was undoubtedly "The Morning Show." Starring Steve Carell, Jennifer Aniston, and Reese Witherspoon as the anchors of a popular morning talk show in trouble, it quickly gained notice for its star-studded cast as much as for its deliberate parallels to the upheavals in real-life broadcast journalism of the time.

Over the seasons, the series has become less directly based on real-life events, but echoes of familiar stories still remain.

Is "The Morning Show" Based on a True Story?

When the first season of "The Morning Show" debuted in 2019, it centered on a badly behaved, popular man anchor on a beloved morning show, which seemed almost ripped from the headlines. Mitch Kessler, the fictional anchor in hot water (played by Carell), is at the center of a sexual misconduct scandal, including the discovery of a remote "close door" button under his office desk.

A fresh-faced comedian walks through New York after having woken up and feeding his fish. He's got a nearly beatific smile on his face as he's wished good luck and almost instantly told by those same people (with sarcastic tones) that there's no pressure, because he's been chosen to replace one of the most beloved comedians to ever grace the small screen. He's tall, lanky, with a shock of red hair, and he's just barely reached the age of 30. Everyone from John Tesh to Tom Brokaw to passers-by give him some version of these remarks ("Ya better be as good as Letterman!"), and he takes them all in good stride. He walks into 30 Rockefeller Center, gets ready for his first TV hosting gig, taking over the "Late Night" show on NBC at 12:35 am. He walks into his dressing room, where he proceeds to attempt hanging himself. It's only when...

Bob Barker was a pillar of television’s greatest generation.

Barker, the enduring host of “The Price Is Right” who died Aug. 26 at the age of 99, was a World War II veteran who trained as a Navy fighter pilot. But his destiny was not to fly missions in the Pacific theater. Barker’s service to his country came in the years after the war, when he and an elite corps of seasoned radio announcers laid a large part of the foundation for commercial television as we know it today.

Barker was a born broadcaster. He had a resonant voice, and his 6-foot-1 frame didn’t hurt in making an impression on viewers in the early days of grainy TV pictures. But his biggest asset was the gift of being to speak extemporaneously on live television – and make it look and feel natural while doing so.

Bob Barker, Longtime Host of ‘The Price Is Right,...

WrapPRO is free this week. See the inside scoops, expert analysis and exclusive data subscribers get daily. Click here for more information.

Olivia Metzger’s client list is a who’s who of some of the biggest names in broadcast journalism: MSNBC president Rashida Jones, “CNN This Morning” anchor Poppy Harlow, newly named host of “Meet the Press” Kristen Welker, CNN senior legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid and Fox News’ Ben Hall, who was recently gravely injured while covering Ukraine and now a New York Times bestselling author.

It helps to have connections: Before she founded her talent development firm, OManagement, she counted names like Lester Holt and Jeff Zucker as colleagues at NBCUniversal and worked as an agent for 10 years at CAA.

Not bad for someone who started her career as an unpaid NBC intern after “having failed out of college.” She studied at Hartwick College but “didn’t...

David Bohrman, the veteran news producer and executive who worked for ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Current TV, and most notably CNN, has died. He was 69.

Bohrman died Sunday after complications with hip surgery, his family told CNN.

Famed as a news innovator, Bohrman created dozens of programs over a career that spanned six decades and was widely credited with introducing cutting-edge technology into news broadcasts including interactive video walls, 3D holograms and real-time visualizations. Among the many news programs he created for CNN included State of the Union, Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, MoneyLine News Hour with Lou Dobbs and NewsNight with Aaron Brown.

Born in 1954 in Los Angeles, Bohrman was the son of Delle, a television writer and Stan, a TV news anchor on CBS Kpix in San Francisco. Stan Bohrman made his mark in television news through Kpix’s use of “Instant Eye” feature, the at-the-time...

Never Give Up is the title of Tom Brokaw’s new book — and, it seems, his attitude toward his struggle with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. The former NBC News anchor, now 83, sat down with his former Today co-host Jane Pauley for an interview that aired on CBS News Sunday Morning on Sunday, June 25. And he reflected on the nearly-decade-long battle he has waged since his 2013 cancer diagnosis. “I’ve had a bad experience,” Brokaw told Pauley. “I kept thinking bad things wouldn’t happen to me. But as I grew older, I began to develop this condition. And what you try to do is control it as much as you can. And I’ve had to change my life in some way.” Brokaw was diagnosed with multiple myeloma at the Mayo Clinic in August 2013, as his then-employer reported the following year. As the clinic explains, multiple myeloma occurs...

Tom Brokaw has sat down with his former Today co-host Jane Pauley for an interview on the upcoming CBS News Sunday Morning, this time to give an update on his battle with blood cancer.

“I’ve had a bad experience,” Brokaw said in an excerpt shared by the network. “I kept thinking bad things wouldn’t happen to me. But as I grew older, I began to develop this condition. And what you try to do is control it as much as you can.”

Brokaw was diagnosed with multiple myeloma 10 years ago. He’s written about his experiences in the 2015 book A Lucky Life Interrupted. He had continued to make appearances on NBC News and MSNBC, but announced his retirement from the network in early 2021 after 55 years.

He told Pauley, “I’ve had to change my life in some way. I really had to give up my daily activity with NBC.

NBC News stalwart Tom Brokaw is doing some of his deepest confessional talking this Sunday via CBS News.

Brokaw talks to longtime friend Jane Pauley, who anchors “CBS News Sunday Morning,” and tells her about his battle with incurable blood cancer, which he has been fighting for a decade. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma ten years ago.

“I’ve had a bad experience,” Brokaw tells Pauley of his illness. “I kept thinking bad things wouldn’t happen to me. But as I grew older, I began to develop this condition. And what you try to do is control it as much as you can.” He says doctors did not think he would make it to his current age, 83 years.

He says the disease forced him to walk away from NBC News, even as he enjoyed a sort of elder-statesman position there after his exit from anchoring “NBC Nightly News,...

Jenny Tartikoff has stepped down as Paramount’s EVP of Global Communications, president and CEO Brian Robbins announced Wednesday.

Tartikoff’s departure from the studio is effective immediately.

In his memo to staff, Robbins wrote that “she has been a trusted colleague to us, and I am grateful for her contributions to the studio and our team. Please join me in wishing her the very best.”

In her own memo to staff, Tartikoff added that “there’s no easy way to share this news,” but she’s “made the hard decision to leave the company.”

“In just under two years, we’ve accomplished and achieved so much together, helping to restore Paramount’s legacy as one of Hollywood’s most iconic and successful studios. Without a doubt, the best part was getting to know and work with you,” she wrote. “Along with all our hard work and hustle, we shared...

Get in line, because Cocaine Bear has made its way to Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital following a successful theatrical run. The “Maximum Rampage Edition” features several featurettes, including a fun audio commentary by director/producer Elizabeth Banks and producer (and Banks’ husband) Max Handelman.

Here are eight things I learned from the Cocaine Bear commentary…

1. The film opens with a Wet Hot American Summer reference.

Cocaine Bear opens to the tune of Jefferson Starship’s “Jane,” which many will recognize as the theme song to Wet Hot American Summer, the film in which Banks got her start. She explains:

“This song straight up is an homage to Wet Hot American Summer. Anybody who knows my work knows Wet Hot American Summer was technically my first movie as Elizabeth Banks. That’s my SAG card, got it on that movie. This is the opening song to Wet Hot American Summer, and I sent David Wain,...

The Fall of 2001 was a tense time in America, to say the least. The 9/11 attacks had permanently altered the course of history as grief and paranoia swept the country over. A brewing war in Afghanistan heralded escalating violence overseas, while at home there appeared a strange, spooky bioterrorism campaign that weaponized the bacteria called anthrax. "Amerithrax," as the FBI called it, involved a series of infected letters mailed to prominent media figures and two Senators, leading to the death of five people and long-lasting health problems for more. 30 Rockefeller Plaza, headquarters of NBC, was among the targets, which meant that "Saturday Night Live" and its host during the height of the attacks, Drew Barrymore, could do nothing but crack jokes knowing that anthrax may have been floating through the building.

The anthrax saga started with the hospitalization and subsequent death of Robert Stevens on October 4, 2001, an event that initially seemed like an isolated incident.

Andrew Freedman, the news and entertainment publicist who ran the New York-based Andrew E. Freedman Public Relations for more than three decades, died February 8 following a cancer diagnosis last year. He was 67.

His death was announced by sons Al and Chris on the firm’s website.

Related Story Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries Related Story Crime Procedural 'Archie & Pete' In The Works At Fox From Amy Holden Jones & Matt Nix Related Story Hilary Weisman Graham Tapped As Co-Showrunner For CBS' 'The Never Game' Starring Justin Hartley

“To us, he was our best friend, our biggest supporter, our inspiration, and our hero,” Al and Chris Freedman said of their father. “We’re thankful that he’s without pain and with our beloved mother, Patty, and our family dog Riley.”

Born on March 26, 1955, Freedman’s first major PR post came within the news division of NBC during the 1980s.

Andrew Freedman, the veteran news and entertainment publicist whose clients included Gayle King, Barbara Walters, Joan Collins, Margo Martindale, Christopher McDonald and Harry Shearer, has died. He was 67.

Freedman died Feb. 8 at Mount Sinai West hospital in New York, his son Chris told The Hollywood Reporter. He was diagnosed with liver cancer in August.

Freedman served as a senior spokesman for all NBC News programming from 1984-91 — managing media relations for NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press and the Today show — then was vp corporate communications for Special Olympics International for a year.

Those jobs overlapped with the launch of Andrew E. Freedman Public Relations in 1990 in New York.

His wife of 30 years and business partner, actress Patty Dworkin, died in February 2017 of breast cancer at age 64. She appeared on Broadway with Jackie Gleason, on TV shows including Eight Is Enough and The Love Boat and in such films as Airplane II and Mr. Mom.

Brian Williams has enlisted the representation of CAA, a signal that the veteran TV journalist is devoting more thought to his career trajectory after leaving longtime home NBCUniversal at the end of 2021.

In December of that year, Williams signed off from his MSNBC program, “The 11th Hour,” warning viewers that, in the wake of the insurrection in Washington on January 6, 2020, “the darkness at the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods. It’s now at the local bar and the bowling alley, at the school board and the grocery store, and it must be acknowledged and answered for.”

He may seek out new opportunities to do so in the not-too-distant future.

In CAA, Williams has selected an agency that also works with some of his contemporaries, including MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace and ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. Williams will retain his longtime attorney, Robert Barnett,...

Comedian Dana Carvey appeared as a regular cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 1986 to 1993, and it could be argued those were some of the best years of the long-running sketch comedy show. And many of the accolades from that era go to Carvey. The list of his memorable characters is long and led to two successful "SNL"-inspired films, "Wayne's World" and "Wayne's World 2." Party on, Garth!

But Garth Algar is just the tip of the iceberg for Carvey's "SNL" career. President George Bush Sr., presidential candidate Ross Perot, Johnny Carson, and Tom Brokaw (Brokaw's pre-tapes remain one of my favorite "SNL" skits) were some of his memorable impersonations. Original characters included Hans from the weightlifting Hans and Franz duo, The Grumpy Old Man, and singer/songwriter Derek Stevens (you know you sang along about "Choppin' Broccoli").

But Church Lady ... oh, Church Lady. The indelible host of the fictional...

Dick Ebersol is one of the seminal figures in the past 50 years of broadcast television. He helped create “Saturday Night Live.” He hired Brandon Tartikoff, genius programmer and innovator, to revive NBC’s primetime fortunes. As president of NBC Sports, he oversaw the network’s Olympic strategy for many years. “Sunday Night Football” was his idea.

Ebersol recounts the high (and sometimes low) points of his career in television in a new autobiography, “From Saturday Night to Sunday Night: My Forty Years of Laughter, Tears and Touchdowns in TV,” published this week by Simon & Schuster.

While all of the great moments in his career were at NBC, Ebersol, now 75, started as a researcher at ABC Sports in 1967. Legendary ABC Sports chief Roone Arledge, Ebersol tells Variety, “was the most important figure in my life,” and the executive who eventually took on Ebersol as a trusted associate.

It was also...

Sun Valley, Idaho — The Elon Musk watch is on.

The first full day of Allen & Co.’s exclusive conference and retreat for the wealthy and well-connected concluded Wednesday at the luxe Sun Valley resort. Even among the assembled 1-ers, there was anticipation for the arrival of the maverick leader of Tesla and SpaceX, who is expected to make an appearance at the annual meeting of moguls and C-suite titans.

Following Tuesday’s many arrivals and some solo morning time, during which Verizon chief Hans Vestberg went for a run around the resort in the 6 a.m. hour, the agenda kicked off with an outdoor breakfast held for the business, media and tech moguls and their guests in a shaded area behind the lodge.

After the catered affair, the day was filled with private meetings and well-guarded guest speaker sessions, which usually focus on heady global economic and public policy topics.

“I’m always interested in the moral ambiguities in all of us,” declares Tony Goldwyn about the complicated character he portrays in “The Hot Zone: Anthrax,” the latest installment of the hit National Geographic anthology drama thriller. “We all cross moral boundaries and tell ourselves that we’re not doing it, so Bruce had a need to see himself as a hero, and as a patriot and as a soldier of good and a do-gooder and that was tremendously important to him,” he explains, adding for our recent webchat that, “he really formed an identity of goodness, service, expertise, intellect and faith.” Watch our exclusive video interview above

See over 400 interviews with 2022 Emmy contenders

Goldwyn stars as real-life microbiologist Bruce Edwards Ivins in “The Hot Zone: Anthrax,” which is based on the 1994 non-fiction book of the same name by Richard Preston. Developed by Brian Peterson and Kelly Souders, it also stars Daniel Dae Kim,...

His goal was to become the second-best filmmaker in his house. Well, George Stevens. Jr. accomplished that and much more.

When he was celebrated last week in Washington, D.C. — where Stevens has lived for many years — the joke became: Is there anyone who hasn’t met this man, now 90 and the author of a new autobiography? “I want to be George when I grow up,” three-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Tom Friedman said.

Tom Brokaw, another longtime friend who will interview Stevens at New York City’s 92nd Street Y on Sunday, added, “George has written a wonderful book about his showbiz parents, especially his dad, who was a top-tier director in the ’30s and then took his skills to World War II.”

Also Read:

AFI Fest 2022 Announces Dates and Calls for Entries

The elder Stevens enlisted and spent three years away from his wife and son, filming virtually...

“One of the things we loved about the first season is that it was a bit of a procedural, a bit of a horror story,” declares co-creator and co-showrunner Brian Peterson about revisiting the high-stakes tension of the acclaimed “Hot Zone” anthology series, particularly in a time when we are living within a shared experience of a real-lie pandemic. “it really, at the end of the day was a character study of these people caught in this impossible situation,” he explains, adding for our recent Q&a, “what ‘Anthrax’ gave us was another one of those situations.”

We talked with Peterson and co-creator and co-showrunner Kelly Souders as part of Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2022 Emmy Awards contenders. Watch our exclusive video interview above.

See over 200 interviews with 2022 Emmy contenders

“The Hot Zone: Anthrax” is the second installment in National Geographic’s “Hot Zone” anthology series,...

Richard C. Wald, a former president at NBC News and a senior vice president at ABC News who worked behind the scenes with Tom Brokaw, Jane Pauley, Ted Koppel and Roone Arledge, died May 13 after suffering a stroke earlier in the month. He was 92.

Wald was involved with the creation of “Nightline,” the signature ABC News late-night program that grew out of special coverage in 1979 on the taking of U.S. embassy staff in Tehran by Iranian militants. Wald gave the show, which devoted itself to a single topic each night under the aegis of Koppel and remains on the air at ABC in modernized form, its name, trying to create an analogue to the “morning line” at a race track. He also put Brokaw on NBC’s “Today,” and hired Pauley, while working to modernize the format of “NBC Nightly News.”

His time in TV news, however, was preceded...

Jim Hartz, who hosted the Today show with Barbara Walters in the mid-1970s, died April 17 in Fairfax County, Va. He was 82 and passed from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to his wife, Alexandra Dickson Hartz.

Hartz was in mid-career when he joined Today, deploying a low-key style that was the low-key foil to the energy put out by Walters. He was 34 and succeeded Frank McGee, who died at 58. Hartz was a reporter for Wnbc covering local stories when he got the nod.

He joined Today and covered President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation, the end of the Vietnam War, and the American Bicentennial during his two years as a part of the morning show.

Hartz was born on Feb. 3, 1940, in Tulsa, Okla., the fifth child of Rev. Marvin Dillard Hartz, an Assembly of God minister, and Helen Elvira (Potter) Hartz.

After college, he was hired as a reporter for...

David Letterman celebrates his 40th anniversary as a late night talk show host today. His first episode of “Late Night with David Letterman” aired on February 1, 1982, following “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” for the next decade (plus an 11th year after Jay Leno‘s show). Letterman returns to his former NBC home tonight to visit “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

He departed NBC in 1993 for a 22-year run as host of “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS. His combined 33+ years on both NBC and CBS make him the longest-running late night talk show host in American history.

That remarkable length of service and his influence on younger hosts like Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and others should make him a lock for induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. But they’ve never asked him to join. Several of his...

It’s the end of an era at MSNBC, as Brian Williams ventures into “the great unknown” following a 28-year stint at NBC News.

Williams announced Nov. 9 that he would be leaving NBC News entirely by year’s end — and exactly one month later, the veteran journalist signed off as host of The 11th Hour. As he bid a fond farewell to his audience on Thursday night, Williams reflected on the state of democracy and his three decades with NBC.

More from TVLineBrian Williams Leaving NBC News After 28 Years: 'I Have Been Truly Blessed'Rachel Maddow Renews Deal to Stay at...

Brian Williams didn’t go gentle into that good night.

In a noticeable break from the journalistic demeanor he has projected for nearly three decades at NBC News and MSNBC, the veteran anchor used the final minutes of his tenure on MSNBC’s “11th Hour” to warn viewers of the frailty of American democracy and urged them to keep it safe — if they could.

“My biggest worry is for my country. I’m not a liberal or a conservative. I’m an institutionalist,” he told viewers as the clock neared midnight on the east coast and his five-year term on the show came to a close. “I believe in this place and in my love of country. I yield to no one, but the darkness at the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods. It’s now at the local bar and the bowling alley,...

Brian Williams ended his MSNBC show The 11th Hour – and his long career at NBC – with a warning of what is happening to democracy, telling viewers in his sendoff, “My biggest worry is for my country.”

“The truth is I am not a liberal or a conservative. I’m an institutionalist,” he said. “I believe in this place and in my love of country I yield to no one. But the darkness on the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods. It is now at the local bar and the bowling alley, at the school board and the grocery store. And it must be acknowledged and answered for.”

He added, “Grown men and women, who swore an oath to our Constitution, elected by their constituents, possessing the kind of college degrees I could only dream of, have decided to join the mob and become something they are not,...

Bob Dole, a longtime elder statesman in the Republican party who was its vice presidential nominee in 1976 and presidential nominee 20 years later, has died. He was 98.

The Elizabeth Dole Foundation, named for his wife, said in a statement that Dole died early Sunday morning in his sleep. Dole had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer earlier this year.

With a baritone voice and sharp wit, Dole was a leading figure on the political scene for more than a generation, with a career highlighted by his work on behalf of veterans and veterans issues. Dole himself faced life threatening injuries in World War II, when he was severely injured in a German attack in Italy in 1944. He spend three years in rehabilitation, and his right arm was permanently paralyzed. Dole was awarded two Purple Hearts and two awards of the Bronze Star.

Dole was from a bygone era of the Senate,...

“Our nation is gripped with fear,” declares news anchor Tom Brokaw (a mannered impersonation by Harry Hamlin) as anthrax-laced letters are sent to media outlets, including NBC, in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Office workers and unsuspecting postal employees from Florida to the Northeast are among the early victims of the airborne menace. I remember the panic well. At the time, our offices occupied the same midtown Manhattan building as the New York Post, which received one of the poisoned envelopes. Unfortunately, National Geographic’s six-hour (over three nights) procedural docudrama The Hot Zone: Anthrax rarely works up more than a lukewarm head of tension as it depicts the dogged investigation by FBI agents who tend to talk in terse headline-speak. “We don’t need just the smoking gun. We need the bullet,” barks Dylan Baker as an FBI bureaucrat particularly prone to cliché. Lacking the in-depth and wrenching...

MSNBC’s The 11th Hour will soon go dark, with veteran journalist Brian Williams set to depart NBC News after a 28-year run.

Per Variety, Williams opted not to renew his contract with MSNBC, where he has hosted The 11th Hour since 2016. He will leave NBC News entirely by year’s end.

More from TVLineRachel Maddow Renews Deal to Stay at MSNBC Beyond 2022Natalie Morales Leaves NBC News to Join CBS' 'The Talk'Natalie Morales Exiting NBC News After 19 Years -- to Join CBS' The Talk?

“After nearly three decades as an award-winning journalist and anchor at MSNBC and NBC News,...