Latest in Upfronts

The CW has closed its upfront ad sales, according to a person familiar with negotiations between the networks and media buyers, with CPM gains in the range of 14%-15% and volume rising by a single-digit margin. The 2019-2020 season that was sold this spring is the second in the CBS-WarnerMedia joint venture’s history…

The broadcast networks that once hosted Upfront Week mostly have been gobbled up by media behemoths, and the traditional dog-and-pony show gradually is being replaced by daily disgorging of corporate buzzwords. Still, the week had some very memorable moments. Here are few: Most Stunning Star Appearance "Why is that…

"I don’t take coffee, I take tea, my dear," Sting sang back in 1987. I, however, at this point will take any source of caffeine there is to power through my first upfronts. It's been a wild ride, or a long, strange trip, as the CW president Mark Pedowitz put it. As an international TV reporter, I've long covered the…

As we close the book on the 2019 broadcast pilot season, largely overshadowed by the WGA-ATA standoff, here is Deadline's annual honor roll of those who excelled at the 2019 upfronts. The list includes writers/producers/pods who scored at least one new series at the upfronts and have multiple scripted shows. Berlanti…

The annual levitation act known as the upfronts each year reflects an extravagantly orchestrated defiance of reality: Hence the TV network sales forces this week were chasing $10 billion in advertising commitments despite the fact that their primetime audience had fallen 38% over five years and that media news seemed…

If ever there was an expedient excuse to cite the proverb "the more things change the more they stay the same," the broadcast networks’ 2019-2020 fall schedule is such an occasion now that the annual hoopla of the upfronts are over. Gotham is gone on Fox, but Gotham City is swinging back to the small screen with the…

The CW is still keen on a Jane The Virgin spin-off despite not picking up Jane The Novela and is in talks with creator/exec producer Jennie Snyder Urman to develop another take. Jane the Novela, from the creative team of Jane the Virgin, was written by Jane scribe Valentina Garza and directed by Brad Silberling. It…

Three of the four CW pilots that stood out this pilot season, Batwoman, Katy Keene, Nancy Drew and Glamorous, were picked up to series last week. The fourth, Glamorous, the only original concept and only comedy in the bunch, remains in contention. “We are still looking at Glamorous,” the CW President Mark Pedowitz…

The CW is looking for ways to bring back Emily Bett Rickards in some capacity for the final season of Arrow. President Mark Pedowitz admitted that the network would "love to have" Bett Rickards, who played tech-savant Felicity Smoak, back. "Emily was terrific in the show and we believe that Beth Schwartz did a great…

The CW is making a lot of changes for next season, with only four of the 12 time slots on the fall schedule featuring the same occupants they did last fall. The fall 2019 lineup includes two intriguing DC superhero team-ups: a superheroine Sunday with Supergirl and Batwoman and The Flash and Arrow together for the…

"Hello, it's great to be back at Carnegie Hall. Despite Lindsey Graham’s advice, I honored my subpoena to be here today,” Stephen Colbert snarked as he took the stage at CBS’ annual Carnegie Hall Upfront presentation. Like TBS’ Conan O’Brien, NBC’s Seth Meyers, and especially ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, the CBS late-night…

A year ago, Les Moonves drew hearty applause from advertisers for fending off corporate turmoil. On Wednesday, the legacy of the former CEO reappeared in the venue he built into an annual display of his — and the network’s — power: the annual upfront presentation at Carnegie Hall. "Turns out Les Moonves was totally…