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      Netflix and the N.F.L. Sign a Three-Season Deal

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      Football joins pro wrestling and comedy specials in an expansion of the streaming service’s live offerings, a key step in the company’s overall live TV strategy.Netflix is no longer simply in the “sports-adjacent” business. On Wednesday, the streaming giant announced a three-season deal with the National Football League that will include showing two Christmas Day games on its service this year. It’s the first time Netflix has become partners with a major sports league, and it likely won’t be the last.The move follows Netflix’s increasingly aggressive push into the business of live events. In the past two weeks, “The Roast of Tom Brady” was its most-watched English-language TV show; a quirky six-day John Mulaney talk show went viral as part of the Netflix Is a Joke live comedy festival in Los Angeles; and the stand-up special “Katt Williams: Woke Foke” was viewed 4.3 million times.“Last year, we decided to take a big bet on live — tapping into massive fandoms across comedy, reality TV, sports and more,” Bela Bejaria, Netflix’s chief content officer, said in a statement. “There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences N.F.L. football attracts.”The two Christmas games will pit the Houston Texans against the visiting Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers against the visiting Kansas City Chiefs (raising the odds for greater viewership with a potential Taylor Swift sighting).The streaming business has matured in the United States, and though Netflix is the dominant service, it still needs to keep growing. With subscriptions relatively maxed out in America, the growth of other revenue streams has become crucial to the company’s success. Advertising is chief among them.At a time when more people are dropping their traditional cable subscriptions, live sports remain catnip for advertisers because they are one place where audiences are guaranteed in real time. That is especially true for the N.F.L., which remains a ratings juggernaut.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Luke Newton Steps Cautiously Into the ‘Bridgerton’ Spotlight

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      Luke Newton has been in the sexy Netflix hit from the start. But a new series, premiering Thursday, will be his first as co-lead — or chief hunk.Luke Newton is yet to experience what it means to be a “Bridgerton” leading man, but he has been trying to prepare himself.He has played Colin Bridgerton on the ornate, sexually charged Netflix show for two seasons, but for the third — which premieres on Thursday — Newton is following in the footsteps of Regé-Jean Page and Jonathan Bailey and stepping into the role of a co-lead — or chief hunk.“I feel slightly overwhelmed,” Newton, 31, said in a recent interview, adding that he was only just starting to appreciate the responsibilities of being a “Bridgerton” lead, rather than a co-star.After watching both Page and Bailey navigate successful seasons and, later, careers in Hollywood, Newton asked both actors for advice. Page just suggested he take a vacation as soon as the season wrapped, Newton said, but Bailey — who continues to play Anthony, Colin’s older brother, in Season 3 — was around to support him throughout. “Whatever stress there was, whatever situation, I could just call him,” Newton said.After the last season aired, Bailey’s status — both as a celebrity and a sex symbol — skyrocketed, leading to an “extraordinary change” in his life, Bailey said. But he wasn’t worried about how his co-star would handle the same shift: He said Newton could deal with the “absurd” nature of a sudden rush of fame.“Bridgerton,” which is based on a series of novels by the author Julia Quinn, follows eight siblings as they pine for love and reckon with relationships in early-19th-century London. The show, produced by Shonda Rhimes, has been praised both for its inclusive casting and raw approach to intimacy onscreen.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jimmy Fallon Celebrates 10 Years of Hosting ‘The Tonight Show’

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      Fallon thanked his wife, his kids, “and, most of all, my lawyer, Michael Cohen.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.What a Difference a Decade MakesJimmy Fallon celebrated 10 years of hosting “The Tonight Show” on Tuesday.“Ten years,” Jimmy Fallon said. “It’s hard to believe, when I got the job, Joe Biden was just a fresh-faced 71-year-old.”“That’s right, we’ve been on the air for one pandemic, two presidential elections and 300 ‘Fast and the Furious’ movies.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Of course, I want to say thank you to my wife, my kids, and, most of all, my lawyer, Michael Cohen.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Cohen in Court Edition)“Former President Trump appeared to fall asleep yesterday during Michael Cohen’s testimony for a full half-hour. Again? You know, I was excited for this trial, but it seems like the only thing we’re accomplishing is making sure Trump is well rested before the election.” — SETH MEYERS“During his testimony, Cohen laid out tons of evidence, including tapes, emails, photos and calendar events. It’s pretty impressive — one of Trump’s lawyers might actually win a case.” — JIMMY FALLON“Cohen’s testimony seems to prove that Trump was directly involved in paying off Stormy Daniels. For instance, yesterday, Cohen told the court that after first resisting, Trump eventually ordered him to pay Daniels $130,000, telling him, ‘Just do it.’ In response, Nike has changed their slogan to ‘Yay! Sneakers!’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingMs. Lauryn Hill and YG Marley performed a medley of “Ex-Factor/Survival/Praise Jah In The Moonlight” on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightAmy Ryan, who stars in the Apple+ series “Doubt,” will sit down with Desi Lydic on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutJustice Smith and David Alan Grier in “The American Society of Magical Negroes.”Tobin Yelland/Focus FeaturesRecent Black satires like “American Fiction” and “The American Society of Magical Negroes” have used absurdist humor to examine race, with mixed results. More

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      Captain Sandy Yawn of ‘Below Deck Mediterranean’ Marries Leah Shafer

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      Sandy Yawn of “Below Deck Mediterranean” married Leah Shafer on — what else? — a superyacht in Florida.Sandra Dolores Yawn has been locked up, left for dead on a Florida highway and chased through the Red Sea by pirates.In the summer of 2018, Leah Rae Shafer reached out on Facebook to send Ms. Yawn her blessings. Not because she thought Ms. Yawn, who goes by Captain Sandy, needed her well wishes, but because she had started watching “Below Deck Mediterranean” on Bravo.The show follows a crew tasked with catering to a revolving cadre of guests who have chartered a superyacht. Ms. Yawn, a star of the series, is at the helm. Ms. Shafer had written to congratulate her on the show’s success. There was another reason, too. “I thought she was hot,” she said.Ms. Yawn, 59, has been a yacht captain for more than 30 years. Her foray into television, which started in 2017, was not exactly foreordained. Until her mid-20s, “I was a mess,” Ms. Yawn said. “I was always in trouble. I got kicked out of 11th grade. I didn’t go to college.” At 13, at the start of an adolescence spent between Dundee, Fla., where her father lived, and Bradenton, Fla., where her mother lived, she started drinking. By 17, “I was getting arrested so many times I couldn’t even count how many,” she said. Usually a parent bailed her out. Her father’s refusal to do so after one drunken incident landed her a night in jail.In 1989, when she was 25, the revolving door of South Florida treatment centers she had been pushing through quit spinning when a counselor told her she couldn’t return. “She said, ‘Sandy, as soon as you get some money in your pocket you’re going to start drinking again,’” Ms. Yawn said.Fifty-five guests, the maximum allowed aboard She’s a 10 Too, were in attendance. Kelly MartucciWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Zendaya for $200? ‘Jeopardy!’ Plans to Stream a Pop Culture Spinoff

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      Sony Pictures Television said that “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” — which will pit teams of three against one another — would be streamed on Prime Video.“Jeopardy!” has long been ruled primarily by broadcast TV. As a staid, reliable quiz show that had the same host for 36 years, viewers have grown to depend on it at a certain time, on a certain channel.But on Tuesday, Sony Pictures Television, which produces the show, announced a new spinoff — a pop culture edition — that will be streamed only on Prime Video. The spinoff, called “Pop Culture Jeopardy!,” is part of a yearslong expansion of what the show’s producers have called the “Jeopardy!”-verse, as they have pushed new spinoffs and tournaments to shake up the brand, while also avoiding any major changes to the main show that might rankle its most devoted fans.The announcement about the new spinoff said contestants would compete in teams of three. Some of the topics that might come up, it said, include alternative rock music, “The Avengers,” Broadway, mixed martial arts and high-profile celebrities such as Zendaya.Under Michael Davies, who has been an executive producer of “Jeopardy!” since 2021, “Jeopardy!” has undergone a wave of expansion, featuring a new masters league with the show’s most successful players, a Second Chance Tournament that invites back promising contestants and a revival of “Celebrity Jeopardy!”It has not yet been announced who will host the pop-culture spinoff. Since the death of the show’s longtime host, Alex Trebek, in 2020, the succession process has been somewhat tortured. The initial plan to promote the show’s executive producer, Mike Richards, to host imploded after revelations that Richards had made offensive comments on a podcast. For a while, the actor Mayim Bialik split hosting duties with Ken Jennings, the show’s former champion, until Bialik abruptly announced late last year that she had been removed, leaving Jennings as the sole host, at least for now.“Jeopardy!” has had limited ventures into streaming before now. Viewers can stream some “Jeopardy!” episodes on Pluto TV, and the prime-time spinoffs stream on Hulu the day after they first air. The show used to have a sports trivia spinoff that could be found on Crackle, an online streaming service that never quite took off. More

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      Podcasters as TV Heroes? We’re All Ears

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      Why have podcasters emerged as the rumpled protagonists of numerous television shows? We’ll discuss after the break.Gilbert Power, a public radio veteran and the host of the podcast “On Record,” went to a small town in Ireland to make a show about a 20-year-old missing-persons case. The podcast, he explained, was meant to be “a bit of fun, something to listen to on your drive home. I didn’t understand then how much power a story actually has. But stories can change us.”Gilbert, played by a grinning Will Forte, is the lightly inane hero of “Bodkin,” a seven-episode series that premiered last week on Netflix. And as the fictional host of a fictional podcast, he has plenty of onscreen competition.In the past five years, podcasters have emerged as the rumpled protagonists of numerous television shows (“Based on a True Story,” “Truth Be Told,” “Only Murders in the Building,” “Alex Inc.”) and films (“C’mon C’mon,” “Vengeance,” “Monolith,” “Bros”). Even the trendsetting Carrie Bradshaw was onboard; in “And Just Like That…,” she moved from print journalism to the advice podcast “X, Y and Me,” before going solo.Some of these works are comedies, some dramas. Many of them involve one or more mysteries in homage to or parody of true-crime podcasting. In these shows and movies, podcasters fill the roles once occupied by journalists or amateur sleuths, as tyros desperate for answers. These protagonists are often bumbling, and their relationship to ethics is distinctly off-and-on. But characters like these help fulfill a very particular fantasy: that we can tell the truth while also telling a good, possibly even powerful, story. And maybe land a mattress sponsorship while we’re at it.From left, Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin in “Only Murders in the Building,” which revolves around a true-crime podcast.Patrick Harbron/HuluWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Watching the New ‘Doctor Who’ With 5 Superfans

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      Five British fans gathered to watch the premiere, wondering what a new Doctor and Disney+’s co-production would mean for their favorite show.“Doctor Who,” the BBC’s beloved sci-fi series about an alien time traveler and his human companions, has had 875 episodes over 61 years. The show first ran between 1963 and 1989 on the BBC, was revived in 2005 and has been airing ever since.As a result, the TV shows has one of the most diverse a fan bases when it comes to age. It appeals to older people who sat down to watch the first broadcast on black-and-white televisions, as well as to children watching on their iPads in 2024.On Friday, a new season started airing, featuring Ncuti Gatwa — the 31-year-old Scottish actor who was previously best known for his role as Eric on “Sex Education” — as the latest Doctor. Russell T Davies, who was the showrunner between the reboot in 2005 and 2010, is back at the helm. The show also has a new home on Disney+, the first time the BBC has produced “Doctor Who” in partnership with another company in the show’s history.On a recent evening, Richard Unwin, a 44-year-old writer and actor, gathered four other “Doctor Who” fans at his apartment in East London to watch the first two episodes. They were a little nervous about what the Disney influence, and the need to cater to a new, international audience, might have done to their favorite program.“I am worried that they will Americanize it,” said George Norohna, a 61-year-old retired civil servant, who remembers the show as the first thing he ever saw on a color television. They were joined by the fantasy author Janelle McCurdy, 28, Francis Beveridge, a 27-year-old neuroscience researcher, and Beth Axford, 26, who writes for “Doctor Who Magazine,” a fan publication.Surrounded by shelves packed with “Doctor Who” memorabilia, the fans helped themselves from a platter of vegetarian sandwiches as they watched the episodes: the first about a baby farm in space and the second about a villain who steals the world’s music. From one corner of the room, a full-size replica Dalek watched over the scene.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Bridgerton’s’ Nicola Coughlan on Her Season 3 Glow Up

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      The stars of the Shondaland series, streaming on Netflix, are given very different looks when they’re promoted from the supporting cast — a phenomenon fans have dubbed “the Bridgerton glow-up.”When the actress Nicola Coughlan joined the cast of Shondaland’s period costume drama “Bridgerton,” as the young socialite and secret gossip pamphleteer Penelope Featherington, the hair and makeup artist Marc Pilcher informed her that the creative brief they had for her character was only one word: “dowdy.”Penelope, the demure youngest daughter of the domineering matriarch Lady Portia Featherington, was to be done up in garish pastel dresses and gaudy jewelry, with a hairdo clogged with curls — none of it particularly flattering. “For the first two seasons, the objective, in the nicest way, was not meant to make me look nice,” Coughlan said in a recent interview. “A lot of the Featherington aesthetic was a ‘more is more’ approach.”A supporting player through the show’s first two seasons, Penelope is the main character of Season 3, which begins streaming May 16 on Netflix. And as she has moved into the spotlight, her entire style has been altered: a transformation that fans of the show refer to as the “Bridgerton glow-up.”Gone are the canary-yellow gowns and tacky headpieces. She’s now wearing milder colors and less ostentatious jewelry, and her hairstyles are looser and more elegant. In short, she is no longer dowdy. “At the first fitting for Season 3, I got teary-eyed,” Coughlan said. “It felt like a ‘Pretty Woman’ moment. They were finally going to let me shine.”In Season 1, the brief for Nicola Coughlan’s character was a single word: “dowdy.”Liam Daniel/NetflixIn Season 3, as the leading lady, Coughlan gets a romantic look that showcases Penelope’s growing confidence.Laurence Cendrowicz/NetflixThis kind of stylistic reinvention has become common practice on a series known for rotating actors in and out of its sweeping ensemble, and adapting their appearances accordingly. “When the transition is made from side character to leading character, we think a lot about what story it is we’re trying to tell,” the showrunner and executive producer Jess Brownell explained. When it comes to styling, she said, “it’s a lot more heady when it comes to the main characters.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More