As it has several times this summer, Fox’s New York affiliate will depart from what’s left of the Fox network schedule to air a WNBA game (7 p.m.) between the New York Liberty and the Dallas Wings. At a time when the term “difficult media landscape” is used to describe the state, or decline, of what used to be called television, the audience for women’s sports has surged.
This spring’s women’s NCAA Finals (or March Madness) was watched by a larger audience than the men’s finals. Only a few years back, that would have been unthinkable. It still seems astounding.
To put an exclamation point on this shift in sports fandom, college star (and now WNBA player) Caitlin Clark recently began giving fans a chance to buy her jersey. In a single day, she sold more shirts than the entire roster of the Dallas Cowboys.
It’s not your father’s TV sports world anymore.
Another revolution in sports broadcasting unfolded earlier this month. The Peacock streaming service managed to offer both live coverage of events unfolding at the Paris Olympics as well as the “Primetime in Paris” recap feed that aired on NBC. These combined offerings managed to attract an average of 30 million viewers per day.
Peacock’s coverage of the Summer Games may be remembered as the moment when streaming TV cracked the sports code and presented live events without much of a hitch. As someone who has been covering TV for some time and streaming since at least 2013, it has always been my opinion that once viewers could successfully stream live sporting events without much of a hiccup, the need for both cable and broadcast network TV would soon vanish. They might continue, much like AM radio has, but without the same commercial impact or cultural resonance.
You can pretty much hear the clock ticking on cable TV. As noted recently, both Warner Bros Discovery and Skydance/Paramount, companies with legacy cable properties, lost a combined $15 billion in their last reported quarter. That’s staggering and unsustainable. So, look for big changes coming soon to a TV screen near you!
— Viaplay streams the Nordic noir thriller “Veronica,” an eight-episode Swedish drama about a police officer who battles addiction as fellow officers and family members begin to question her sanity.
— Peacock streams the three-part documentary series “Face to Face With Scott Peterson.” Charged with murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, Peterson has claimed his innocence since his 2004 conviction. This marks his first television interview since 2003.
In other true-crime news, Netflix streams the fourth installment of its sports documentary series “Untold.” This season dwells on “The Murder of Air McNair,” an NFL star for the Super Bowl-bound Tennessee Titans in 1999 who was found slain in 2009.
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— A disgraced former cabinet member may have sold secrets in Vienna on “FBI: International” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
— Live performances from 11 acts on “America’s Got Talent” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
— Coverage of the Democratic National Convention (8 p.m., PBS; 10 p.m., CBS, NBC and ABC) unfolds. In addition to network and cable coverage, the event can be livestreamed on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, X (Twitter), Twitch, Facebook and Amazon Prime Video throughout the proceedings. Viewers can also stream the convention at the DNC website, offering coverage in both English and Spanish.
— New York City faces a string of terrorist bombings on a typically hyperbolic and paranoid episode of “FBI: Most Wanted” (9 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
— Two decorators, a man and a woman, compete for clients with very different sensibilities on the new series “Divided by Design” (9 p.m., HGTV, TV-G).
— While visiting Malta, a beekeeper unearths an ancient fresco in the 2024 romance “For Love & Honey” (9 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
CULT CHOICE
Light enough to be taken for “white,” a woman (Jeanne Crain) returns to her mother (Ethel Waters) in the segregated South in the 1949 drama “Pinky” (8 p.m., TCM, TV-PG). This theme was revisited in “Imitation of Life” (1959) and the Netflix adaptation of “Passing” (2021).
SERIES NOTES
“Beat Shazam” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … “Celebrity Family Feud” (8 p.m. and 9 p.m., ABC, TV-14), the second episode a repeat … “The Quiz With Balls” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
LATE NIGHT
Jimmy Fallon welcomes Adam Sandler, will.i.am, Liz Moore and Julian McCullough on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … Michael Keaton and Conner O’Malley visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC) … Taylor Tomlinson hosts “After Midnight” (12:35 a.m., CBS).
