Nielsen Streaming Top 10: ‘Bridgerton’ Watched for More Than 2.5 Billion Minutes Over Season 2 Premiere Week

Jordan Moreau SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched the sixth episode of “Better Call Saul” Season 6, titled “Axe and Grind.”Giancarlo Esposito didn’t appear in the latest episode of “Better Call Saul,” but that was because he was busy behind the camera directing this crucial episode, the penultimate entry in Season 6’s first half.“Axe and Grind” covered a lot of ground, taking place in Albuquerque, Germany, a long highway to Santa Fe and even a flashback to Kim Wexler’s (Rhea Seehorn) childhood. The episode started and ended with Kim, who hits her heartbreaking “moment of doom,” according to Esposito.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “A Bright and Cloudless Morning,” the May 16 season finale of “9-1-1: Lone Star.”The third season of “9-1-1: Lone Star” came to an end Monday with a moment years in the making: T.K. (Ronen Rubinstein) proposing to his boyfriend Carlos (Rafael Silva). It’s been a long and rocky road at times for these two, but “9-1-1” and “Lone Star” showrunner Tim Minear finally gave the couple what they — and fans — have long hoped would happen.But, in typical “Lone Star” fashion, the proposal was very unconventional and prompted by advice T.K.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway invested about $2.6 billion in Paramount Global during the first quarter of 2022, according to a Securites and Exchange Commission filing that disclosed the quarterly stock trading activity of his Berkshire Hathaway holding company.The 91-year-old Buffett, who serves as the owner and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has garnered the reputation of a value investor over his career, picking up shares in companies that he believes are undervalued or misunderstood by the markets.His investment in Paramount Global bodes well for the entertainment company as it continues to gain steam in Hollywood’s ongoing streaming wars, using its growing service Paramount+ to compete against Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Apple and more in the digital space.

the just-announced fourth season? Following the finale, Minear breaks down the biggest moments from the episode (and the season), the impact of Owen's near-death experience (and cancer scare) and why it was time for T.K. and Carlos to take the next step in their relationship.  It might be too soon for me to figure out what my postmortem thoughts are. I just literally finished cutting the finale a couple days ago, but I was really happy with the season.

 romance?As Monday's action-packed episode revealed, the answer is a little more complicated than a simple yes or no.For several weeks now, the duo has been dancing around a potential budding romance in season 19. But finally, a case brought the pair out into the field where they were forced — under dire circumstances, of course  -- to acknowledge and talk about their (maybe) more-than-friendly feelings toward each other.

Jeannie Mai says she feels so happy to welcome motherhood and embrace «the gift» of getting to see her baby girl learn and grow and thrive, but notes it's been a long journey getting to this point. The  star shared how she dealt with postpartum anxiety. Mai sat down with ET's Kevin Frazier on Monday and opened up about how her worries and concerns about having a baby — which she experienced while pregnant — transformed into a feeling of gratitude and unmitigated love with her baby's arrival.«I honestly can say that the whole time I was pregnant I was nervous because I was like I almost feel like I don't deserve this beautiful privilege,» Mai recalled. «I honestly got a lot of anxiety because I thought, for somebody who said their whole life that they didn't wanna be a mom and here this gift was being given to me, I felt like, 'Don't put yourself in risky situations, like don't get on a plane or — you are the one to have this taken away from you, because you didn't appreciate it when you had the choice.'»«So now, I am beyond grateful,» she added. «Because I cannot believe, as every parent can tell you, how much a child changes your life. And I like myself better.

Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker are giving fans a look at their courthouse wedding. Both Kourtney and Travis took to Instagram Monday to post pics from the ceremony, held in Santa Barbara, California Sunday.With the caption, «Till death do us part,» the Blink-182 drummer and the Poosh founder shared a series of black-and-white snaps of their big day, including photos posed in and outside of their wedding getaway car, shots of them walking out of the courthouse and a photo with their two witnesses — Kourtney's grandmother, MJ and Travis' father, Randy.Travis wore a black tuxedo for the occasion, while Kourtney was in a white, corseted mini dress.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway reported Monday in a securities filing that it has acquired a stake in Paramount Global after acquiring $2.6 billion in Class B shares.

The start of fall season is still four months away, but the returning network shows are already gearing up for their next go-round in primetime with hardly any time to celebrate their good fortune.The growth of streaming television and other platforms has severely weakened viewership for comedies and dramas on traditional broadcast TV; on the other hand, it’s also given a new lease on life to shows that might once have been cancelled due to low ratings — since the renewal bar has been significantly lowered as the networks try to hold on to their dwindling audiences in a fractured landscape.That’s good news for fans of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — which retained a fair number of their shows unlike The CW, which cancelled nine series going into the new season.With the networks firming up their fall schedules this week, it’s a good time to circle back to the returning tried-and-true favorites.

9-1-1 season five has ended and the finale saw Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) come close to the brink of drinking again - before Eddie Diaz (Ryan Guzman) interrupted him for a heart to heart. Elsewhere, Evan 'Buck' Buckley realized the differences between him and girlfriend Tayor Kelly were too great to overcome, and Henrietta Wilson and wife Karen renewed their vows.EXCLUSIVE: Corinne Massiah opens up on 9-1-1, working with Angela Bassett - and finding her voiceThe season has been a rollercoaster but it comes to a close with the 118 all in a good place - no cliffhangers for this first responder show, with executive producer Kristen Reidel admitting they "like to go out on a happy note", and mostly because the showrunners themselves like it.WATCH: Maddie returns to 9-1-1 9-1-1 was officially renewed for a sixth season just hours before the finale aired; the show is consistently the top-rated series in key demographics, and was named the fourth highest-rated scripted series of the 2021-2022 television series.But Kristen has been looking ahead for a while, telling HELLO! that she currently sees season six as an extension of these final few season five episodes with a focus on getting "back to basics" and "having fun" with the characters...Exclusive: 9-1-1 Lone Star's Natacha Karam talks season three's 'personal drama' and challenging her own expectationsExclusive: 9-1-1: Lone Star actor Ronen Rubinstein shares what he really thinks of TK’s 'traumatic' storylinesBobby is an alcoholic and he always will be, but him getting to the precipice of drinking again, and not, is where he will be for a while.

Dupont tells hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Jada’s mother, Adrienne Banfield Norris, that he hadn’t heard from “The Wire” actor on that September day and decided to go to his house to check on him. “I went upstairs, opened up his door, it was quiet. Michael always played music.

Amber Heard has confirmed media reports that her role in “Aquaman 2” is smaller than it was in the franchise’s first installment.

Neil Patrick Harris is finally addressing the resurfaced Amy Winehouse joke.

Uh, permission to treat the witness as hostile? The cross examination of Amber Heard finally began on Monday afternoon, and it started off SO combative!

Shanna Moakler is wishing her ex-husband, Travis Barker, and his new wife, Kourtney Kardashian, all the best. "I wish them the best.They both look truly happy and I am pleased and excited for them as they embark on this new journey," Moakler told Fox News Digital in a statement on Monday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer(SPOLER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Starting Over,” the May 16 season finale of “9-1-1.”)“9-1-1” gave its characters a well-deserved break with its Season 5 finale Monday. Almost everyone got a happy ending of sorts, with the exception of Buck (Oliver Stark) and Taylor’s (Megan West) complicated relationship, which came to an end — but that means happier things should come for both of them.The episode, titled “Staring Over,” saw almost everyone doing just that in one way or another, with Bobby (Peter Krause) escaping his almost-relapse thanks to Eddie (Ryan Guzman), Bobby and Athena (Angela Bassett) deciding to take that honeymoon they’ve been waiting many seasons for, Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) keeping the door open for each other, and Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Karen (Tracie Thoms) getting treated to a beautiful backyard vow renewal by Hen’s mother Toni (Marsha Warfield), who objected to their first wedding.

Sasha Urban editorNeil Patrick Harris responded to criticism of a resurfaced image from a Halloween party he hosted 11 years ago, which included a buffet platter made to look like the corpse Amy Winehouse.Winehouse, a genre-defining jazz vocalist and songwriter, died on July 23, 2011 at the age of 27. A few months later, Harris and his husband, David Burtka, hosted a party with a platter that featured a gruesome fake corpse with a cigarette hanging out of its mouth alongside a note that read, “The Corpse of Amy Winehouse.” Below that, the note detailed what was included in the platter: “Beef ribs, pulled pork, chicken sausage in a spicy BBQ sauce.”On Monday, Harris wrote in a statement to Entertainment Weekly that the act was “regrettable then, and it remains regrettable now.” “A photo recently resurfaced from a Halloween-themed party my husband and I hosted 11 years ago,” Harris said.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle EditorClick through the gallery to see the hottest party pics from Hollywood and beyond.

pic.twitter.com/O8P60fdx8g Full interview here: https://t.co/NLDylPYa1M @RealAmVoice #2000Mules“The reality for me is 2020, under the cover of COVID, was an example of how you should not run an election. Here in Pennsylvania people are really worked up about it,” Oz said. “I already said on the debate stage — I was the first to say we cannot leave 2020 behind.”“We have to get under the hood, examine exactly what went down and address those issues.

financial filings made public on Monday.Paramount is the third company with a major streaming service that Berkshire Hathaway has invested in, joining Apple with its service Apple TV+ and Amazon with Amazon Prime. Paramount Global reported in quarterly earnings earlier this month that Showtime and Paramount+ had a combined 62 million subscribers. Buffett also more than quadrupled his stake in scandal-ridden video game company Activision Blizzard ahead of its planned acquisition by Microsoft.

SPOILER ALERT: The following story reveals important plot points from the Season 5 finale of 9-1-1.

Shaunie O’Neal is down to share her fiancé Keion Henderson, but not with Basketball Wives. The executive producer recently talked to HollywoodLife, where she opened up about her relationship with the pastor, and was adamant that we would never see him on the reality show. Shaunie has been starring in and executive producing Basketball Wives since its season 1 birth in 2010.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterLimited series “Anatomy of a Scandal” has ended “Bridgerton” Season 2’s reign as the No. 1 English-language TV series on Netflix, according to the streaming service’s newly release Top 10 rankings.For the week of April 18-April 24, “Anatomy of a Scandal” was viewed for 75.6 million hours in its second week of availability, while “Bridgerton” racked up 46 million and landed in the No.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNBCUniversal Television and Streaming has promoted Orit Blankrot to senior vice president of entertainment business and legal affairs, Variety has learned exclusively.In her new role, Blankrot, who most recently served as vice president of entertainment business and legal affairs for NBCU’s TV and streaming arm, has increased oversight of business and legal affairs for NBCUniversal’s syndication studios. This includes Stamford (Conn.) Media Center’s first-run programming, E! News and co-productions for distribution on both internal and external platforms.As SVP of the department, she will report to Inge Van Herle, the head of entertainment business and legal affairs for NBCUniversal Television and Streaming.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOLER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched “Farnsby & B,” the Season 2 finale of “Ghosts.”Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) finally opened their bed & breakfast in the “Ghosts” Season 1 finale Thursday — only for their dreams to come literally crashing down moments later thanks to a curse. In the closing seconds of the episode, titled “Farnsby & B,” Sam and Jay are ready to welcome their first guests to the Woodstone B&B after defeating their enemy neighbors the Farnsbys in a game of pickle ball to get them to close their spitefully opened competitor, the Farsnby & B.But just as they open the doors, the floorboards crumble beneath them, suggesting the curse Thor (Devan Chandler Long) put on them before he got to know Sam is actually real.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Abbott Elementary” got an A+ from ABC on its season finale, tripling its ratings with seven days of delayed viewing across DVRs, Hulu and other digital platforms, Variety has learned exclusively.The 9 o’clock on Tuesdays freshman comedy managed an initial 0.6 rating among adults 18-49 and 2.8 million total viewers for its April 12 finale, according to Live + Same Day data from Nielsen. Adding in a week of multiplatform viewing, the episode jumped 200% to a 1.8 rating, tying the show’s series high, and added 3.1 million viewers to reach 5.9 million total, per ABC.In looking at this same week-out metric, the “Abbott Elementary” finale’s key demo rating is up 50% from the show’s Dec.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAfter months of criticism and anticipation, “The Masked Singer” episode featuring the unmasking of Rudy Giuliani finally aired Wednesday on Fox. The show’s installment with the disgraced former mayor of New York City and former personal attorney for President Donald Trump, got a 0.6 demo rating and 3.6 million total viewers, according to fast-affiliate Nielsen data.Viewership for Season 7 has been in flux since its March 9 premiere, with the Fox celebrity singing competition drawing a season high 4.3 million viewers on March 30, only to reach a season low of 3.9 million last Wednesday — which was beat by last night’s new low.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOLER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Matryoshka,” the Season 2 finale episode of “Russian Doll.”In Season 2, “Russian Doll” broke out of its first season’s “Groundhog Day”-style time-loop format with a “Quantum Leap”-like time-travel device that allowed Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) and Alan (Charlie Barnett) to jump into the bodies of their deceased loved ones by taking a trip on the New York City subway. Nadia becomes her mother, Lenora “Nora” (Chloë Sevigny), in the East Village in 1982, and grandmother Vera (Irén Bordán, younger version Ilona McCrea), in World War II-era Budapest, while Alan is inhabiting his grandmother Agnes (Carolyn Michelle Smith) in Germany during the Cold War in 1944.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterIrony Point is a production company that might not yet be known widely by name, but its projects, Netflix’s critically acclaimed “I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson”; Paramount Plus’ revival of “Inside Amy Schumer” and Schumer’s recently renewed Hulu dramedy “Life & Beth”; Michael Che’s Lorne Michaels-produced HBO Max show “That Damn Michael Che,” and Marvel’s new scripted “Squirrel Girl” podcast, certainly are.The banner, which is currently one year into a three-year deal at Netflix, is headed up by co-presidents Alex Bach and Daniel Powell. And their rapidly ramping up company is one that studios and talent are going to regret not having gotten into business with earlier five years from now.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNetflix reported its first-quarter 2022 earnings Tuesday, revealing how the company did in terms of subscriber signups and financial growth in the three-month period that included the debuts of “Bridgerton” Season 2 and “The Adam Project.”The streaming service lost 200,000 subscribers in Q1 and said it expects to lose another 2 million in the current second quarter. In January, Netflix reported it had 221.84 million subscribers at the end of 2021. The new total is 221.64 million subs.Netflix previously forecast 2.5 million paid net adds in Q1 while Wall Street analysts expected Netflix to add 2.8 million new subscribers worldwide in the first quarter vs.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAll hail the viscount. The second season of “Bridgerton” has knocked the show’s first season out of the No.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOLER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched “Ariadne,” the Season 1 finale of “Russian Doll.”It’s been more than three years since the first season of “Russian Doll” launched on Netflix, and as such, even the most die-hard fans of the Natasha Lyonne time-loop dramedy need to forgive themselves if they don’t remember exactly how the first-season ending played out. But it is important we get that straight now if you want to enjoy Season 2 right when it launches Wednesday.So here to clear up what she considers a “misnomer” about the conclusion to “Russian Doll” Season 1, which had a lot of threads to follow in its closing moments, for Variety is star and co-creator Lyonne herself.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterIt should come as no surprise that cost is the main reason given for why someone will likely cancel a streaming service subscription — but what might be surprising is what those consumers feel is actually a fair price for Netflix, Disney+ and more platforms.According to Fandom’s second annual State of Streaming report, which was released on Tuesday by the mega-fan platform, 61% of those surveyed believe their streaming subs are too expensive and value the average streamer at $7.46 monthly.Here are the “average prices” consumers want to pay for top SVODs, per the Fandom study, in descending order: Netflix ($10.60), HBO Max ($9.30), Disney+ ($9.20), Hulu ($8.60), Amazon Prime Video ($8.60), Apple TV+ ($6.9), Paramount+ ($6.8) and Peacock ($5.5). The same report also revealed that 62% of surveyed consumers think “genre is the key differentiator” between streaming platforms, “with Disney+ being acknowledged as the genre-leader to date.”“I always look at originals and the way that they market originals is really the key to not only capturing audience, but keeping audience,” Anthony Iaffaldano, Fandom’s vice president of insights, told Variety.