Dateline, which airs as a one-hour strip in syndication, has been renewed for an eighth season by the NBC Owned Television Stations, Sean O’Boyle, executive vice president of syndication sales, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios, said Thursday.
The true-crime focused newsmagazine also airs on the Tegna, Fox Television Stations, Gray Television, Cox Media Group, Scripps, Nexstar Media Group, Hearst TV, Sinclair, Sunbeam TV, Graham Media Group, Weigel Broadcasting, Block Communications and Hubbard Broadcasting station groups.
“Dateline in syndication is a sustained and proven ratings success, consistently placing among the top-rated programs in daytime with remarkable continued growth, making it a perfect station offering for the new realities of our business,” O’Boyle said in a statement. “Dateline’s compelling storytelling and high-quality, recognizable brand, continues to appeal to local news viewers and is the perfect program to attract top-tier advertisers.”
“Dateline delivers compelling, best-in-class content in the ever-popular true crime genre,” Therese Gamba, chief marketing officer and executive VP of acquired programming, NBCUniversal Local, said, also in a statement. “We are delighted to extend our partnership and to continue to bring ‘Dateline’ to audiences across our markets.”
Averaging 1.9 million daily viewers, Dateline in syndication has grown its audience 19% compared to last year, and ranks second among one-hour syndicated strips, according to NBCU.
NBCUniversal first introduced a repackaged version of primetime news magazine Dateline to the syndication market in 2017. This fall, CBS followed suit with a syndicated version of 48 Hours. Repackaging long-standing libraries and offering them to TV stations on an all-barter basis is a growing trend in syndication as TV stations face shrinking margins and less cash to spend on acquired programming.
The series is in its 32nd season on NBC. It is anchored by Lester Holt and features correspondents Andrea Canning, Josh Mankiewicz, Keith Morrison and Dennis Murphy. It also streams on Peacock’s Dateline 24/7 channel, which can also be seen on Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Tubi, Pluto TV, Freevee, Local Now, Xfinity, the Amazon Fire News App, TuneIn and Xumo. It also produces podcasts, including Murder in Apartment 12. David Corvo is senior executive producer and Liz Cole is executive producer.
