Pink to host the Tonys Awards / Hacks is crossing over for a fictional The Amazing Race episode / HBO renews Rooster for Season 2
PLUS: Justice Department opens an antitrust investigation into the NFL over games on paid streaming platforms.
Pink to host the Tonys Awards
The Grammy-winning pop star has been tapped to host the 79th Annual Tony Awards on June 7 from Radio City Music Hall. The Tonys will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. “It is the honor of an entire lifetime to host a night celebrating the literal hardest working people in showbiz,” Pink said in a statement. “Broadway has shaped my life and how I put my own shows together – it is a community that is supportive, and inclusive, and full of talent and love. These people give magic every single day, and I cannot wait to celebrate them with the entire world.” Pink has never appeared on Broadway, unlike her predecessors. But she says she recently moved to New York City so her daughter Willow could experience more theater in pursuit of a Broadway career. “When I was asked to host the Tonys, I immediately thought, ‘I have to get permission from my daughter,’” said Pink. “I’ve never been on Broadway, and shouldn’t you have to have been on Broadway in order to host? That seems fair and right. But when I asked my daughter, she was really excited about being able to have a ticket to go to the Tonys, so I’m hosting the Tonys and I’m really, really excited.” The American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League hope having a non-traditional host will boost the award show’s appeal beyond the theater community. “Each year, the Tony Awards creates new theater fans around the world, expanding Broadway’s reach and shaping its future,” said Heather Hitchens, president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing, and Jason Laks, president of the Broadway League. “Over the course of her extraordinary career, Pink has built one of the most passionate and enduring fan communities in the history of popular music, given her a unique ability to bring even more people into this growing family. Simply put: we could not be more excited to get this party started.”
Hacks is crossing over for a fictional The Amazing Race episode
Titled “D’Amazing Race,” the fifth episode of Hacks’ fifth and final season will feature Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance and her daughter DJ, played by Kaitlin Olson, as contestants on The Amazing Race — with host Phil Keoghan playing himself. The Amazing Race co-creator and executive producer Elise Doganieri was on set, supervising production. “I’ve been wanting Deborah to go on Amazing Race, and it was always an idea to have Deborah and Ava go,” Hacks co-creator Lucia Aniello tells Variety. “It’s something we mentioned in Season 2 when they’re watching Amazing Race, they like talk about how they would be a good team. And we actually wrote an early draft of this where it was Deborah and Ava. But as the season went on and we were formulating things, we were looking for a really rich Deborah/ DJ story.” Doganieri adds: “It was like an out-of-body experience, because I’m so hands on in the field on Race, and I was hands-on here, but we’re dealing now with actors. I dealt with the art department and set designers on the placement of the clue boxes and how the clues are ripped and read. They made sure that the way it was shot was in the reality style and how we would film it — where the camera crews would stand, and how they would race along the contestants.” When the idea came up, Jean Smart tells Deadline: “I was trepidatious because I was recovering from knee surgery.” But she gamely agreed, despite not being fully mobile. “I felt so bad because that was our first AD (Jeff Rosenberg) that got to direct his first episode of Hacks, so this was hugely important to him,” she said. “He was a massive Amazing Race fan. I thought, ‘I’m going to just screw up his dream, his pet project.’ I felt so bad. But I think that they were able to edit around not being able to run like a normal person. It ended up being really fun. And Kaitlin is so much fun to work with.”
HBO renews Rooster for Season 2
The Steve Carell-led comedy from Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses has been picked up for a second season after airing five of its 10 Season 1 episodes. “Rooster has performed well for HBO and HBO Max so far, averaging 5.8 million cross-platform viewers per episode since its March 8 premiere,” says The Hollywood Reporter’s Rick Porter. “The Warner Bros. TV series is on pace to be HBO’s most watched first-year comedy in more than a decade.”
Philomena Cunk will be back with Cunk on Cinema
Diane Morgan’s British presenter character, who was created by Black Mirror’s Charlie Brooker, will return to Netflix and the BBC for a new mockumentary that is being billed as her “most glamorous series to date.” The three-part Cunk on Cinema follows Cunk on Britain, Cunk on Earth and Cunk on Life. “Cunk will attempt to demystify it all while sitting in lumpy seats with stale popcorn, asking herself where did cinema come from? And why? What does it want? And why can’t it tell us?,” reads the official description. In a statement, Philomena Cunk said: “Cinema has given the world some of the most profound, memorable and moving visual moments in its unswerving depiction of the human condition: the shower scene in Psycho, Death playing chess in that Swedish thing, and Tom Selleck’s glistening moustache in Three Men And A Little Lady to name but all three of the only examples I can think of at the moment. There will, unfortunately, be some bits in black and white, but we’ll keep that to the barest minimum.”
Justice Department opens an antitrust investigation into the NFL over games on paid streaming platforms
“The Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether the National Football League has engaged in anticompetitive tactics that harm consumers, according to people familiar with the situation,” reports The Wall Street Journal’s Jessica Toonkel and Dana Mattioli. “The Sports Broadcasting Act grants the league limited antitrust protection to allow the teams to collectively negotiate packages of TV rights. Media companies, regulators and members of Congress have raised concerns in recent months over how difficult it is for consumers to be able to watch their favorite sports games as a result of rights deals in which leagues offer smaller packages of games to streamers. The nature and scope of the investigation couldn’t immediately be learned. Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the NFL declined to comment. When the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 was passed, consumers largely were able to watch NFL games over broadcast TV. Now, games appear on a host of different channels and platforms, some of which require a subscription. In February, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it was seeking public comment on how this dynamic had affected consumers.” As The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Weprin notes: “The FCC and DOJ investigations could have real-world implications for the league and its media partners, which include companies with broadcast networks like Paramount, Fox and NBCUniversal, and partners like Amazon, Disney and Netflix, which have largely used live sports as a subscription driver (Disney does put some games on ABC, while Fox, Paramount and NBC simulcast games on their streaming services).” In a statement, the NFL said: “The NFL’s media distribution model is the most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry. With over 87% of our games on free, broadcast television, including 100% of games in the markets of the competing teams, the NFL has for decades put our fans front and center in how we distribute our content. The 2025 season was our most viewed since 1989 and reflects the strength of the NFL distribution model and its wide availability to all fans.”
Kevin Bacon to lead Hulu drama pilot Southern Bastards
Based on the award-winning graphic novel series by Jason Aaron & Jason Latour and directed by King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green, Southern Bastards is based on the award-winning graphic novel series of the same name. “Southern Bastards follows a tenacious military vet into Craw County, Alabama, in search of her estranged father. What she finds is a murderous hornet’s nest of organized crime run by the winningest high school football coach in the South,” according to Deadline. “Bacon plays Earl, the son of the legendary Sheriff Bert, who ruled Craw County with an iron fist. Earl is a tough but humble blue-collar army veteran — eager to mend fences and reconnect with his daughter, and not afraid to stir the hornet’s nest that is Craw County.”
Apple TV announces Juno Temple’s The Husbands husbands, including Joe Alwyn, Richard Gadd, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Joel Kinnaman
Daniel Ings, Bob Morley and Fehinti Balogun will also play the spouses of Temple’s Lauren. In The Husbands, Lauren “returns home to her London flat one night and is greeted by her husband, Michael. The problem is she’s never seen this man before. As Lauren tries to fathom how she is seemingly married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, an entirely new husband emerges.”
Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie will reunite on the Today anchor desk
Kotb will fill in for co-anchor Craig Melvin next week, sitting alongside Guthrie for the first time since stepping down in January 2025. “Speaking of tomorrow, Craig you are heading off on a very well-deserved vacation, you’ve been holding it down here for a long time,” Guthrie said Thursday. “And Monday, we’re going to try a new host here. Her name is Hoda.” “Oh, I’ve heard of her,” Craig joked.
Kerry Condon to star opposite Maya Hawke on Netflix’s The God of the Woods
In the TV adaptation of Liz Moore’s 2024 novel of the same name, “a multi-generational drama series set in the Adirondacks, exploring the Van Laar family’s dark secrets, class tensions, and the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of 13 year old Barbara Van Laar from her family’s summer camp—in the wake of an earlier family tragedy that may be related. As the past and present collide, the Van Laars’ wealth and influence unravel, revealing the damaging consequences of privilege and the abuse of power.” Condon will play Alice Van Laar, Barbara’s mother who is “hardened by the grief of a past family tragedy and trapped in a contemptuous marriage.”
Wednesday Season 3 adds Lena Headey, Andrew McCarthy and James Lance
The trio’s roles are being kept under wraps, but they’ll appear as guest-stars.
Nestor Carbonell boards Mayor of Kingstown for Season 5
Carbonell will recur on the Paramount+ drama’s fifth and final season as Enrique Molina, described as “a boss who comes to Kingstown to avenge a relative who has gone missing.”
Peabody Awards’ 2026 nominees include Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Heated Rivalry, Andor, The Pitt and Pluribus
Adolescence, Common Side Effects, Death by Lightning, Dying for Sex, Forever, Mo, The Rehearsal, Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur are also among the TV shows nominated. The 86th Annual Peabody Awards winners will be announced on April 23 and honored on Sunday, May 31. “We are very honored to have been nominated for the first-ever FIFA Peabody Award,” Kimmel posted to social media. The Peabodys said of its nomination of Jimmy Kimmel Live!: “For more than 23 years, Jimmy Kimmel Live! has used humor and satire to critique powerful figures and reflect American culture, embracing the responsibility of comedy to reveal truths amid political volatility. The show faced unprecedented challenges as President Trump’s second administration came to power, culminating in a brief suspension by ABC (at the behest of the FCC) that sparked a bipartisan defense of free expression on the airwaves, ultimately reinforcing the importance of satire as a vital form of democratic speech.”
Emma Roberts returns as Madison Montgomery in the latest American Horror Story Season 13 casting announcement
“Surprise, bitch. Bet you thought you’ve seen the last of me,” Roberts’ Madison says in a new AHS teaser.
Late-night hosts get the Mad magazine treatment
Mad’s “Stays Up for Late Night” June issue cover features caricatures of David Letterman, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. Illustrated by longtime Mad artist Tom Richmond, the cover shows the late-night hosts having a sleepover.
Amazon orders Glen Powell-produced Texas crime drama series Calamities
Powell and his producing partner Dan Cohen are teaming with Hunters creator David Weil on Calamities, described as “a gripping and propulsive Texas crime thriller like no other. After a drug deal explodes into violence, a quiet border town is thrust into a deadly collision course between a small-town sheriff looking for answers from her past, a sociopathic hit woman, an overly eager FBI agent, and a ruthless sect of the cartel.”
The Testaments creator on casting Stephen Colbert as the voice of Radio Free Boston: “We had a list that was one person long”
“Both actors asked me that question: Whether they’re playing themselves or playing a DJ,” says creator and showrunner Bruce Miller. “My sense is that if you had Radio Free America, you would pick Oprah (on The Handmaid’s Tale). So I think she is Oprah. And I think Stephen Colbert, because of who he is — they’ve hired Stephen Colbert to be the voice of Radio Free Boston. I think he’s a good choice as a voice of American freedom for a lot of reasons — we had a list that was one person long.”
Pickleball is getting the reality TV spotlight with Partners
Shutterstock Studios, “the production arm of the image library, has announced a six-part series that follows more than 25 players, coaches and executives at the center of the Carvana Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) tour,” per Deadline. “The series is the first to go behind the scenes with America’s fastest-growing sport and will follow players across one full season of the tour. It will see the players train together, party together, date each other and show up at the same hotel the morning after a loss, a breakup or a contract dispute.”
Noah Wyle: The Pitt’s ICE storyline was “driven by political reasons, creative reasons, fear, uncertainty, all sorts of legitimate reasons”
“I’ll be honest and say that I was concerned about the edits we were making initially,” says Wyle in an interview with Variety tied to his Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony this afternoon. “When I saw what we had done, I actually think we arrived at something more elegant and a little bit more restrained, which leaves a little bit more ambiguity in it than we may have started out with. I think it’s healthier for the storyline in the long run. It ended up being show the bear, don’t poke the bear in a lot of ways, which is enough. Because the context came out after we’d filmed that episode, we didn’t have to do half of what we had done. That had already been imprinted into the mind of most Americans.”
Jean Smart says she lost one of her seven Emmys
“I have seven, but I lost one,” Smart told Jimmy Kimmel. “I don’t know where it is.” To which Kimmel replied: “That means you have too many Emmys!”
Sheriff Country promotes Amanda Arcuri and Ian Quinlan
They’ll become series regulars after recurring since Season 1.
Natasha Lyonne escorted off a Delta flight hours after attending the Euphoria Season 3 red carpet premiere
Lyonne, who is guest-starring on Euphoria’s third and final season, was booted off a red eye flight hours after attending the premiere at the TCL Chinese Theater Tuesday evening. As Page Six reports, Lyonne “had appeared in an eye-popping sheer top. But on the flight to NYC later, Lyonne seemed out of it in a first class seat, and when flight attendants asked her to close her laptop and fasten her seatbelt for takeoff, she didn’t respond. The plane took off without further incident, with the empty seat in first class.” A rep for Lyonne didn’t respond to Page Six’s request for comment. Last month, Lyonne gave an update on her sobriety after announcing to fans she’d relapsed in January, posting on X: “Proud to report this kid is doing a whole lot better & back on her feet.”
Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle is back in action in Disney+’s The Punisher: One Last Kill trailer
As Frank Castle searches for meaning beyond revenge, an unexpected force pulls him back into the fight,” a new plot description reads for the Marvel series, premiering May 12 — one week after the Daredevil: Born Again season 2 finale.
Watch Apple TV’s trailer for animated kids’ series My Brother the Minotaur
“A thrilling mix of folklore, mystery and adventure about a young minotaur – half boy, half bull – found and raised in the human world,” says Apple TV of the series premiering April 24. “With the help of his fiercely loyal human brother, he recruits a bold group of friends to uncover the mystery of his minotaur past and fulfill his destiny, all while battling dark forces determined to see him fail. The animated series features voice performances from rising stars Ely Solan, Billy Jenkins, Luciana Akpobaro and Billie Boullet, alongside Michael Sheen, Brian Cox, Paul Kaye and T’Nia Miller.”