• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 11 hours ago

Trying to reconfigure linear TV networks -- broadcast and cable -- seems like a monumental task.

Selling/spinning off cable TV networks is good for some companies (NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery), but perhaps for not everyone.

Executives at Paramount Skydance -- including Jeff Shell, president of Paramount -- believe they can re-launch/re-commit to networks like MTV, VH1 and BET. Details are sketchy. But it is looking at the obvious to some extent

The “2025 MTV Video Music Awards” moving to CBS Television Network (and simulcast on MTV and Paramount+) recently earned a healthy 5.5 million viewers -- up 42% versus last year’s airing on just MTV and other Paramount networks.

The latest edition of the award shows was the best result for the show in six years.

This isn’t new. Think about ABC Television Network pulling back to air -- sometimes simultaneously -- ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” -- starting last year, partly because of the writers'/actors' strike earlier that summer.

Are more co-branding/co-airing efforts from legacy TV to come? 

Big-time events and sports, of course, still pull viewers back. And that brings us to another still struggling legacy TV network: The CW.

Its ever-growing addition of sports programming -- including college football and basketball, NASCAR Xfinity Series, AVP Beach Volleyball and WWE NXT -- means sports now comprise 40% of the CW schedule.

The CW still doesn’t turn a profit. But next year, Nexstar Media Group -- the owner that moved the network into this direction after buying The CW in 2022 -- will get into the black.

The CW remains the fifth-largest broadcast network and the eighth-biggest (broadcast and cable), according to the company.

The lessons learned may not be too focused on sports -- at least for Paramount’s networks. There may be other ways to attract, reconfigure and possibly build on whatever programming assets and resources a legacy TV group has left.