Regular readers might already be aware that I am a slave to numbers. Decades of working with them in companies that claim to use them for accountability and decision-making sort of ingrained that in my psyche for perpetuity. There was once a time when the media that covered and promoted them would regularly use them to give context to why certain results transpired, including the elevation of executives who were responsible for engineering them. Yesterday I was privy to two prominent examples that strongly suggest any such belief that were still true was remarkably naive on my part.
The more prominent one that got a preponderance of attention was the one that the intrepid Nellie Andreeva dropped “exclusively” (translated: a 15-minute head start on the competitors screaming “SCOOP!” with equally tabloidy fervor )on DEADLINE:
In addition to Casey Bloys and George Cheeks, the television/streaming structure of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery, recently named Skydance, would include expanded responsibilities for Channing Dungey who would be taking over the Paramount cable networks, I hear. As Deadline revealed on Friday, Paramount’s Chair of TV Media Cheeks, who currently oversees CBS Studios, is poised to add oversight of Warner Bros Television and Paramount Television Studios, with Dungey, Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros Television Group and US Networks, and PTVS President Matt Thunell both reporting to him alongside CBS Studios President David Stapf.
Continuing the streamlining trend of Skydance putting the combined Paramount and WBD TV studios under Cheeks, film studios under Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg and streamers (HBO Max and Paramount+) under Bloys, the company would be doing the same for the large array of cable networks it will own under Dungey, sources said. She would be adding oversight of the Paramount cable nets, which currently report to Cheeks, including the “core four,” MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET, as well as VH1, Paramount Network, TV Land, CMT, Pop TV, and Logo TV.
And again, regular readers might recall that I’ve been, to be kind, surprised that someone with Dungee’s CV was handed the keys to the WBD networl fiefdom in the first place two summers ago. I mused in a manner that may have regrettably overly snarky when it was announced; shortly afterwards I took the lead from one of Andreeva’s more experienced competitors to offer a few insightful suggestions on how she might be able to execute a gameplan that would have taken full advantage of her talents and track records. To be sure, I share the opinions of many that Dungee has a keen eye for creative talent in the scripted world; Shonda Rhimes in her heyday being Exhibit A among them. And yeah, she’s a genial person who seems to know how to work a room. But running effectively zombie cable networks doing minimal original production–and that which is being done is primarily unscripted–wasn’t exactly what an objective observer might see as a natural fit for such skill sets.
That said, remember my aforementioned slavery. So indeed how were the numbers of Dungey’s portfolio trending in her first and only full year to date at their helm versus their year-ago levels–and where did they rank among their competition? Well, VARIETY! had those receipts at year’s end for all 155 networks measured by Nielsen. Here’s Dungey’ scorecard among at least those significant enough to be among the top third:
10. TNT -5%
11, HGTV -9%
14. TBS -16%
18. TLC -8%
20. Food -10%
22. Discovery -22%
30. Investigation Discovery -30%
47. truTV +46%
Not even the list’s usually even-handed proprietor Michael Schneider was able to avoid provide a caveat for the one plus sign you see:
The French Open clearly had an impact on Tru TV, a channel that has gone through many lives (starting as Court TV, then later as a reality-focused channel, then the comedy-focused home of “Impractical Jokers”). This year, which this year shed most of its remaining comedy product (“Impractical Jokers” is now on TBS) to focus even more as a secondary home for TNT Sports fare. That paid off when it came to the French Open, which included wall-to-wall replays and coverage on Tru TV. Ratings for the full tournament were up 25% this year on TNT and TruTV, and that probably explains why TruTV bucked the trend of cablers (including its other Warner Bros. Discovery siblings), jumping 46% in viewers and 27% in 18-49. (Again, those percentages are huge because TruTV was coming in at a much smaller audience.).
Yes, I’m aware scant few cable networks are showing any growth in an era of truncation and emphasis on their streaming counterparts. So how bad off are the more prominent ones that she is gaining oversight of? Note in particular the “core four” that seems to be her primary charge:
26. TV Land -10%
39. Paramount -33%
40. Nick at Nite +8%
44. BET -21%
49. MTV -16%
50. Comedy Central -7%
60. Nickelodeon +8%
That’s low-hanging fruit for rescuing. So per Andreeva what exactly did Dungee do to achieve her relatively stellar results in Burbank?
She has led the unit through a period of uncertainty as WBD announced a plan to spin off its linear networks before Paramount emerged as a buyer for the entire portfolio. With her at the US Networks helm, Shark Week 2026 garnered its biggest ratings growth in over a decade, Puppy Bowl delivered its largest audience in eight years, Food Network achieved its first quarter of ratings growth in five years (in Q1 2026), and HGTV posted its strongest year-over-year gains this year in nearly two decades. Among the programming synergies between the cable networks and WBTV under Dungey are a Bachelor Mansion crossover with HGTV and The Pitt season 1 getting a run on TNT.
Nice to know she was able at least get a few days out of the year to produce stories and a crossover with one of her few true success stories in the most toxic season of its existence. And I personally know how difficult it is to extract rerun rights for a show that the company is hell-bent on doing Emmy campaigns for. It goes something like this: The chairman called, you’re gonna find a schedule that ties directly into when the ballots are sent out and you’re gonna hypermarket to sites like, say, DEADLINE, to promote that catch-up opportunity to voters. I take some pride in having a hand in doing that exact thing for 24 on FX when the exact same scenario presented itself in an era where the only option to our effort were academy screeners. I guess at the time a certain segment of the rank and file had as much trouble hooking up a DVD player as they may now connecting to the Internet where entire seasons of the PITT lay waiting to be binged. On behalf of those technically challenged many thanks, Ms. Dungee.
Now lest anyone thing my skeptiscism might have anything to do with perhaps the optics as to why someone with her track record won out in the job derby allow me to share the other somewhat lesser scale anointing which Andreeva’s nuanced underling Ted Johnson shared later yesterday:
Chris Wayland will succeed Valari Staab as president of NBCUniversal Local, overseeing NBC and Telemundo local stations and other outlets. Staab disclosed her plans to retire earlier this year, and will work with Wayland in the coming weeks, with the transition before the end of the year, according to Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCU News Group.
Wayland joined NBCU in 2019, and has led NBC10 Boston, Telemundo Boston and NBC Sports Boston. Conde wrote in a memo to staffers that Wayland “has been instrumental in the growth of NBC10 and was a key leader in the development and launch of the NBCUniversal Boston Media Center.
NBC10 is the group’s newest local station, created in reaction to Wayland’s former employer WHDH-TV, a legacy NBC affiliate on an actual Channel 7 frequency, echoing the exact same playbook it engineered decades earlier at the company’s Miami flagship–it dropped the network, dedicated itself to aggressive local news with attractive personalities for expanded daypart and avail opportunities and found larger and younger audiences amidst their increased avails. NBC10 was actually a negotiated channel position amidst local providers including Comcast (kinda helps when it’s all in the family) that solved a complicated web of acquisitions and retransmissions that cobbled together a variety of low-power and legacy UHF signals from as far away as Nashua, New Hampshire. All of these decisions predated Wayland being poached from Sunbeam Media.
So how’s “NBC10” (in reality, WBTS) actually doing, especially in the key local news time periods in the equally key persons 25-54 demo? August 2026 vs. August 2025 actually showed a few decent relative stories amidst competitive struggles. At 6 PM it ranked fourth versus the ABC, CBS and FOX affiliates as well as the aforementioned WHDH, growing by double-digit percentages year/year at almost the same rate as FOX affiliate WFXT and beating CBS O and O WBZ. At 11 PM it was the only one of the five to show statistically significant growth but still finished dead last. Among all households their 11 PM news even finished behind a secondary ABC affiliate based out of Manchester, New Hampshire. The races were much closer and the growth curves equally respectable in time periods like 5 PM and 5 AM–but the revenue at stake is far smaller.
I wonder how that stacked up against the trend lines and actual eyeballs contributed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco–the other Top 10 markets where NBC Local Media operates stations (and, in the cases of Philadelphia and San Francisco also still successfully operate regional sports networks with more year-round content than Wayfair’s purview).
Conde didn’t bother to disclose any such actual numbers nor even hint at relative revenue growth that his Boston history might have been able to move over from his former employer. At least Staab took a stab at trying to explain “her” decision as Johnson shared:
In a statement, Staab said, “What gives me the greatest confidence is knowing that Chris leads with both vision and heart. He values our people, our culture, and the relationships that have been foundational to our success.”
Oh. I guess that’s what catapulted him to head up the entire group. “Maximum lethality”, anyone?
Ultimately, at some point someone in some corporate office will hold executives like this liable for results that are promised to shareholders. Assuming these management teams are in place long enough to actually see three or five-year plans fully executed so that those receipts are actually meaningful. Dungee fortunately was part of one that ultimately had little intention of anything of that sort. Depending upon which rumor you’re inclined to believe, the long-term fate of NBC Local might be heading down a similar path. Comcast is planning to spin off its NBCUniversal holdings next year as a separately traded company–a similar strategy employed when it spun its zombie cable networks off into Versant a year ago. These are naked plays to unlock stock upside–nothing more. Doing that with NBC Local would require the approval of the current FCC. It has been speculated by several different sources in recent months that removing the potential of being threatened with license review would avoid future headaches and stalling of that process.
So maybe in both of these cases it’s not the person best capable to deliver tangible growth that is seen as the choice, but rather the person least likely to stand in the way of getting the uber-top execs the numbers they care about most of all? Their cash out?
Perhaps my naivete–and my slavery–might slowly be waning for once.
Until next time…