By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Saturday, July 23, 2016
AMC's "The Walking Dead" will be back for its seventh season October 23 at 9 p.m.
The show, shot mostly in the Senoia area since 2010, announced the date at Comic-Con in San Diego and showed the trailer below.
The trailer reviews the 11 characters that are in danger of dying at the hands of Negan. Then it shows scenes from season 7 that don't involve those 11, so as not to give anything away. That means we catch glimpses of Carol, Morgan, Enid, Dwight and Spencer, plus new faces. "I don't know what's going on in the most wonderful way," Carol exclaims at one point, totally out of context but apropos. We also meet King Ezekiel, who leads "The Kingdom" and owns a scary tiger as his pet.
The show is no longer set in Atlanta. Rick's crew now resides in a fictional, surprisingly rural-looking Alexandria, VA since the end of season five.
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Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Former Conyers resident Jack McBrayer will have a guest role in the first episode of season 10 of "The Big Bang Theory," which is still by far the most popular comedy out there. (The show averaged 20 million-plus viewers its ninth season.)
McBrayer, who recently participated in the Atlanta Improv Festival, will play Penny's brother, who is apparently the most chipper drug dealer ever with a felony record. Katey Sagal ("Sons of Anarchy," "Married With Children") will play Penny's mom. Katey played Katey Cuoco's character's mom in John Ritter's comedy "8 Simple Rules," which aired from 2002 to 2005.
At Comic-Con, McBrayer was asked about ever going to prison. He joked: "Recreationally ... I look good in orange. I'm good at making new friends!"
The episode will air September 19.
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Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
CNN and Fox News outdrew the broadcast networks on Thursday night during the final night of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Fox News peaked at a whopping 9.4 million viewers during the coverage of Donald Trump's acceptance speech from 10 p.m to 11:45 p.m.. The network, still reeling from creator and boss Roger Ailes' departure in the wake of accusations of sexual harassment, easily beat CNN that time period. CNN brought in a still hefty 5.5 million, ahead of all four broadcast networks.
Across all cable and broadcast networks, about 31.55 million people viewed Trump's speech, more than the 30 million who saw Mitt Romney's acceptance speech in 2012. That's less than the 38.9 million who watched John McCain in 2008.
Of course, many folks may have watched the speech on demand and those figures were not included in the mix. That wasn't an option even four years ago.
In fact, viewership of the convention dropped collectively among the broadcast networks vs. 2012.
Although Fox News easily won the ratings game over the four nights, CNN saw the biggest percentage increase in ratings over 2012.
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Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Atlanta-based TruTV renewed "Impractical Jokers" for a sixth season.
The network has committed to 26 more episodes in 2017.
New episodes of the current season 5 are airing each Thursday at 10 p.m.
It has been consistently one of TruTV's most popular shows.
The renewal, announced Thursday night at San Diego Comic-Con, follows the series' Season 5 premiere on July 14 which ranked as the No. 1 series in its time slot in live+3 among adults 18-34, adults 18-49, men 18-34, and men 18-49, according to Nielsen. Impractical Jokers also has a social footprint of more than 3.6 million followers and 163 million total impressions in the first half of 2016.
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