It’s a good day for syndication deals involving Fox and Warner Bros. It has been announced that Extra, TMZ, TMZ Live, & The Real have all earned multi-year renewals but with a bit of a twist.
The twist is that all will have new formatting that eliminates the commercial breaks at the end of the shows. The hope is that changing when the ad breaks come in a way that preserves the net amount of advertising but avoids cutting away at the end of a programming block, will see both business partners maintaining healthy viewership in the process. The final 90 seconds to two minutes of the block will be programming, not advertising, with some efforts to specifically have one show toss to the other.
The news of the renewal comes at an interesting time for entertainment news program, Extra. The long-running entertainment staple shifted its station deal from NBC to Fox and installed longtime Access Hollywood veteran Billy Bush as its main host. The show is now in its 26th season and they took a gamble on Bush who had been on the sidelines after a turbulent 2016 that saw him caught up in the Donald Trump/Access Hollywood scandal. That situation got him axed from the network and some thought he couldn’t make a comeback but so far his time on Extra has been scandal-free and all parties involved appear to be happy with the work he has done on the show.
TMZ is entering its 12th season on-air while its off-shoot TMZ Live is approaching season seven. Chat show, The Real, is entering its sixth season and continues to draw in young female viewers that the syndication Gods actively seek, especially during daytime television.
