The Biggest TV Stories Of 2024

• Death of John Dutton On ‘Yellowstone’

  

  Fans went into the back half of season 5 expecting that something had to be done to address the absence of Kevin Costner, who made it official in June that he was not returning to the Paramount Network drama that relaunched his stardom. But no one expected that creator Taylor Sheridan would go so far as to kill the family patriarch, though it really was the only way to address Costner’s abrupt departure while bringing this version of Yellowstone to a tidy (and massively viewed) close.

• More Layoffs Hit The Industry

  

  The contraction continued this year with layoffs at just about every company, including Paramount, Disney, Lionsgate, Televisa Univision, The CW, CAA, UTA, A+E Networks, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, Hallmark, Great American Media, Amazon and CNN.

• ‘Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story’

  

  Ryan Murphy’s latest installment to his Monster franchise not only blew away expectations and became a viewership behemoth for the streamer, it cracked the zeitgeist by prompting the L.A. District Attorney’s Office to consider resentencing the brothers who are incarcerated together in San Diego.

• Kamala Harris on ‘Saturday Night Live’

  

  In the final SNL episode before the election, Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance opposite Maya Rudolph in the cold open — a tiny cameo that would prompt FCC commissioner Brendan Carr to accuse SNL of a “clear and blatant effort” to evade the FCC’s Equal Time Rule, which requires that broadcasters offer comparable time to opposing candidates. NBC ended up giving Donald Trump a spot during NASCAR.

• ‘Good Omens’ and Neil Gaiman

  

  Instead of a complete third season, Amazon decided to give Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens a 90-minute sendoff after he was accused of sexual assault by a slew of women. At one point, Gaiman offered to step back so that the series would be able to finish its story. Michael Sheen and David Tennant, who play the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley, respectively, will return for the one-off television movie that will begin shooting in early 2025 in Scotland.

• The passing of ‘Days of Our Lives’ stars Drake Hogestyn and Bill Hayes

  

  Two of daytime’s most beloved stars died this year — Days of Our Lives‘ veteran Bill Hayes, the actor who played Doug Williams for more than 50 years, and his colleague Drake Hogestyn, who portrayed John Black since 1986.

• Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough Call On Donald Trump

  

  The Morning Joe hosts faced an online backlash after they met with Donald Trump for what they described as a “restart” of their communication with the president-elect to raise concerns about his attacks on the media. Despite the public spanking, Scarborough claimed they’ve been “flooded with [supportive] phone calls from people” after the now infamous meeting. 

• Kurt Sutter Fired off of ‘The Abandons’

  

  Kurt Sutter — who was fired from FX’s Mayans M.C. in 2019 — got the ‘ol heave-ho yet again in October, this time from his Netflix series The Abandons just three weeks before it was slated to wrap production in Calgary. Sutter was the executive producer/showrunner on the series, which he also created. The departure was believed to stem from creative differences over the direction of the big-scale production — a western that Sutter had always wanted to make. Bro, your fans miss you. Get it together, man! 

• The Record Breaking Season of ‘Dancing with the Stars’

  

  The season that culimated with Jenna Johnson and Joey Graziadei winning the Mirror Ball Trophy was definitely one for the record books. The long-running variety show on ABC hit multiple milestones with its voting, but that was only just the beginning. The November finale broke the fan voting record once again with 32 million votes for the five finalists — 12 million more than what was received for the semi-finals.

• ‘Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV’

  

  The Investigation Discovery docuseries that set out to uncover the toxic and dangerous culture on the sets of Dan Schneider’s Nickelodeon children’s shows in the late 1990s and early 2000s was a pearl clutcher for Gen Xers who grew up loving the goofy tween comedies. After the limited series dropped, Schneider apologized for his behavior that was depicted on Quiet On Set and vowed to hold himself accountable for how he acted on his Nickelodeon shows. Then, he sued Warner Bros, Maxine Productions, Sony Pictures and producers Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz for defamation. Good luck with that, big guy.

• ‘General Hospital’ Fires Kelly Monaco

  

  The strong reaction to the soap’s decision to boot the popular actress who’s played Sam McCall since 2003 was a keen reminder to the broadcast networks that yes, people do still care about their stories. 

• The Triumph That Was ‘Baby Reindeer’

  

  Despite a looming defamation suit and the lingering questions over what should or shouldn’t constitute a “true story” for TV, the semi-autobiographical series Baby Reindeer took home Emmys in September for Best Series, Writing, Actor (Gadd) & Actress (Jessica Gunning). “The show has done some phenomenal things worldwide for so many people,” Gadd told the press after the ceremony.

• ‘Ted Lasso’ Plans Much-Anticipated Return

  

  In a major step toward the long-awaited fourth season of Apple TV+’s hugely popular soccer comedy, the series’ studio Warner Bros. Television in August picked up the options for Hannah Waddingham, who plays AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Walton; Brett Goldstein, who plays hardman Roy Kent; and Jeremy Swift, who plays Director of Football Operations Leslie Higgins. If the heavens align, production on a fourth season may start in early 2025. 

• The Olympic Games in Paris

  

  NBC Universal’s coverage of the Paris Olympics was a cornucopia of delight and intrigue, from Celine Dion’s appearance on the Eiffel Tower during the opening ceremony to Stephen Nedoroscik’s stellar performance on the pommel horse for the U.S. Men’s Gymastic Team. Even Raygun of Team Australia — aka the embattled B-girl — became a veritable pop-cultural sensation even though she lost during the round-robin stage of the women’s breaking competition. Also, Snoop Dogg. 

• NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery

  

  The NBA and WBD end their months-long legal dispute in November by agreeing to an 11-year partnership for b-ball content. The pact is also meant to accelerate global growth of WBD’s TNT Sports Bleacher Report & House of Highlights. 

• Cable News Exodus

  

  The year saw significant exits from the cable news world. Just this month, Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto announced he was exiting after 28 years with the network. Alisyn Camerota, Poppy Harlow, Chris Wallace and Gloria Borger signed off from CNN, Andrea Mitchell ditched MSNBC, Eric Molling departed Newsmax, and León Krauze and Jorge Ramos left Univision.

• The Presidential Debates

  

  President Biden’s first and subsequently last debate with Donald Trump in June was a historic game-changer, as his poor performance panicked Democrats into calling for an immediate change to the ticket. VP Kamala Harris stepped up and gave an impressive performance in the next debate against Trump on ABC, but, alas — we know what happened after that. 

• The Cancellations of ‘So Help Me Todd,’ ‘NCIS: Hawaii’ and ‘Blue Bloods’

  

  CBS couldn’t help but feel bullish about its development for the 2024-25 season; it had NCIS: Origins, Matlock and Watson in the pipeline in addition to a second season of the Australian NCIS: Sydney. But that meant something had to go. In that case, it was the sleeper hit So Help Me Todd, not to mention NCIS: Hawaii and the legacy powerhouse that is Blue Bloods. Fans revolted with emails and petitions but CBS stood firm by saying things like “everything needs to come to an end sometime” but not acknowledging that NCIS has been on the air since the Dubya administration. 

• Live on Netflix: Jake Paul Vs. Mike Tyson

  

  Netflix‘s much-hyped matchup between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul took some hits before the former heavyweight champion and the YouTuber even landed their first blows. The event was plagued with glitches because just about every subscriber — and then some — hoped to see the senior Tyson clobber the lippy whippersnapper. Sadly, that didn’t happen. But lots of money was made!

• CBS Cancels ‘The Talk’ To Launch ‘Beyond The Gates’

  

  The soap world got a huge vote of confidence this year when CBS decided to develop Beyond the Gates, a new daytime series from CBS Studios / NAACP Venture in partnership with P&G Studios. It’s the first one-hour, Black daytime drama to air on television and the first daytime drama to premiere since Passions in 1999. But something had to give to make way for another sudser; the victim was The Talk, which launched in 2010 as CBS’ response to ABC’s The View. The Talk evolved over the years, which included introducing a co-ed panel. But modest ratings and high costs prompted the network to say goodbye to the talker after 15 seasons. 

• Hoda Kotb Leaves ‘Today’

  

  In September, Hoda Kotb revealed that she was leaving Today, after co-anchoring since 2018, “I’ve been weighing this decision for quite a while – Am I truly ready? But, my sixtieth birthday celebration on the Plaza felt like a shift. Like a massive, joyful YES, you are! I saw it all so clearly: my broadcast career has been beyond meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead, and now my daughters and my mom need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie.” Her last day is January 10.

• ‘Shōgun’ Sweeps the Emmys

  

  The FX remake of Shōgun took home a staggering 18 Emmys in September, including one for Outstanding Drama Series. During the acceptance speech for the latter award, Co-creator/executive producer/showrunner Justin Marks thanked Disney and FX executives for greenlighting “a very expensive subtitled Japanese period piece whose central climax revolves around a poetry competition.” The series has been picked up for another season. 

• George Stephanopoulos Inks New Deal With ABC Studios

  

  In a not-so-coincidental turn of events, George Stephanopoulos signed a new deal with ABC News after the network agreed to a $16 million settlement with President-elect Donald Trump, who sued in March over comments that Stephanopoulos made on This Week about the defamation case brought against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll. A source told Deadline that the new contract was agreed to before the settlement. Sure, Jan.

• Restructuring at Warner-Bros-Discovery and NBCUniversal

  

  Significant change occurred at the behemoth media companies this year. Warner Bros. Discovery slimmed down from three divisions to two and established a clear separation between linear networks and the streaming and studios businesses. And Comcast formally unveiled plans to spin out most of its linear cable networks (except Bravo) into a separate company, a move that President Mike Cavanagh said puts all of NBCUniversal “on a new growth trajectory.”

• Norah O’Donnell Steps Down As ‘CBS Evening News’ Anchor

  

  Norah O’Donnell exited her role as anchor of CBS Evening News after five years in the chair. She had previously been co-anchor of CBS This Morning and, before that, chief White House correspondent. In the meantime, layoffs at Paramount further impacted the network’s news division; CBS Saturday Morning co-host Jeff Glor got the boot, along with Anna Werner, senior consumer investigative correspondent, and Ben Tracy, senior national and environmental correspondent.

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