State Champ Radio TV/Film
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As Taylor Swift would say, “‘Tis the damn season,” and for some of us, the holiday season officially begins once the iconic Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is lit.
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Rockefeller Center will be hosting its 91st annual lighting ceremony is on Wednesday (Nov. 29) at 8 p.m. ET. Whether you’ve snagged travel deals to see it in person or plan to watch it from the comfort of your couch, the 2023 Christmas tree lighting ceremony is bound to get you in the holiday spirit with the help of a slew of guests and musical performances.
This year, popstar and talk show host Kelly Clarkson will be hosting the tree lighting ceremony with appearances from Today‘s Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Al Roker and Craig Melvin. You can also expect musical performances from Clarkson as well as Chloe Bailey, Adam Blackstone, Cher, David Foster, Liz Gillies, Darlene Love, Seth MacFarlane, Barry Manilow, Katharine McPhee, Keke Palmer, Carly Pearce, Manuel Turizo, Radio City Rockettes and more.
If you want to join in on the festive fun (from the comfort of your own home, not the Big Apple), we’ve compiled everything you need to know to watch the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony online and on TV for free.
Check below for the streaming options available.
How to Watch the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony 2023 on NBC & Peacock
The ceremony will air on Wednesday (Nov. 29) at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock. If you have cable, you can watch the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony on TV through your local NBC affiliate — just check your cable provider’s channel guide to find your local NBC channel. Don’t have cable? You may be able to watch the tree lighting ceremony for free with an HD antenna like this one here from Amazon.
Cable cutters can also use NBC’s official streaming platform, Peacock, which will be live streaming the ceremony. Already have Peacock? You can watch the ceremony for no additional cost by logging into your account and going to live TV.
Don’t have a subscription? Peacock is currently slashing its monthly and annual plans to $1.99/month (reg. $5.99/month) or $19.99 for the year (reg. $59.99/year) for 12 months. To redeem the offers use the promo code BIGDEAL for the monthly plan or YEARLONG for the annual plan. The offer ends at midnight Monday (Nov. 27), so don’t wait too long! Click here or the button below to sign up for Peacock.
Besides the 2023 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, a Peacock subscription will give you access to the entire Peacock library including exclusive and original TV series, movies, sports and more such as Bupkis, Mrs. Davis, Poker Face, Bel-Air, Poker Face, Yellowstone and Based on a True Story. You’ll also be able to watch NBC and Bravo programs like the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Saturday Night Live, Parks & Recreation, The Office, Vanderpump Rules and more.
Additional Ways to Watch Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony 2023 for Free
Looking for more money-saving options? Live TV streamers are offering free trials and promos that can save you even more without having to pay hundreds of dollars on cable each month.
FuboTV offers a seven day free trial, which means you can watch the tree lighting ceremony and more for free. You can also take advantage of $20 off each plan for the first two months. Plans start as low as $55/month and include over 100 channels, DVR storage and more. Once your free trial and promo are over, you’ll pay the regular subscription price based on the plan you choose. Click here or below to launch your free trial.
Hulu + Live TV comes with a 30-day free trial and gives you the most content options as you’ll not only have access to the NBC channel as well as many more live TV channels, but also the entire Hulu library. You can also bundle it with Disney+ and ESPN+ for even more programs to watch. Once your free trial is over, you’ll be charged the normal subscription fee of $77/month. Click here or below to launch your free trial.
SlingTV is also offering 50% off its plans for the first month and a free Amazon Fire TV Sick Lite when you sign up. The Blue plan includes NBC and its affiliated channels for $20 for the first two months (reg. $40) and will give you access to DVR storage, the ability to stream on up to three devices at once and more. You can expand your channel offerings by combining the Blue and Orange plans for even more content for only $27.50 (reg. $55). Click here or the button below to sign up.
Turkey with a side of spell-check? Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour movie trailer for the extended version of the film is out now, but with misspelled album title Monday (Nov. 27) on two verified accounts associated with the superstar, and Swifties are having some fun with the oversight. The typo in the new teaser follows Swift’s […]
Howard Stern revealed on Monday morning (Nov. 27) that he almost had a role in Bradley Cooper‘s hit A Star Is Born remake. The old friends got together to discuss Cooper’s new Leonard Bernstein biopic, Maestro, but talk soon turned to Stern’s fascination with Cooper’s singing in the 2018 Oscar-winning film in which the actor co-starred with Lady Gaga.
Cooper has become a regular on Stern’s SiriusXM show — with both now saying that they are also friends off the air as well — which might explain why Howard spent several minutes berating Cooper for not going out on the road for a proper tour in support of Star while further heaping praise on his friend’s singing ability.
“It’s really good,” Stern said of the Star film’s music, which included the hit “Shallow.”
The notoriously picky Stern — whose first, and so far only, starring role in film is as himself in the beloved 1997 biopic Private Parts — said that he’s only told a handful of people in his private life about the Star offer from Cooper. “And they look at me like, ‘what the f–k?! You didn’t do it?’,” Stern said of the role that Cooper clarified was eventually written specifically for the person who ended up playing the part.
“This was early-early things swimming in my head when I offered it to you,” Cooper said of his initial thought of including Stern in the mix on the film that also featured Sam Elliott, Anthony Ramos and Andrew “Dice” Clay. Stern said the initial offer was for him to play the brother of Cooper’s troubled singer, Jackson Maine.
“And I went, ‘whoa! You must think I’m a lot better looking than’… they’re gonna be like… what is this movie gonna be like Twins?’ I’m Danny DeVito and he’s Arnold Schwarzenegger?,” Stern joked. The plan was for Stern to play Maine’s older brother/manager, a role Stern said he found intriguing. “I said I’m going to go full-on into it. I’m gonna shave my head, I’m gonna change my whole look,” Stern recalled thinking of what would have been the unthinkable method actor act of buzzing off his signature flowing curly hair.
Cooper said the radio veteran –who often spends large segments of his SiriusXM show lamenting anything and everything he has to do that does not concern the broadcast — did not, as longtime fans might expect, immediately turn down the offer. “You really contemplated this,” Cooper said of the three weeks he waited around for Stern’s answer.
“Man, I would have won him an Oscar too!” Stern joked about the awards that would have surely rolled in thanks to his participation; the film scored eight Oscar nominations and won best original song for “Shallow.”
“But when we started talking about you shaving your head that was very exciting,” Cooper said of the role that was then reworked to fit veteran actor Sam Elliott, who played Cooper’s cantankerous older half-brother/manager Bobby Maine. “Oh it would have been amazing.” And though it did not end up coming together, Cooper said he’s confident he will eventually find the right project to lure Stern back to the big screen.
Cooper is currently out promoting Maestro, a six-years-in-the-making biopic depicting the relationship between American composer Leonard Bernstein and wife Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan).
Jennifer Lopez’s long-awaited new album, This Is Me…Now, has a release date.
J. Lo’s ninth studio album will arrive on Feb. 16, 2024, through Nuyorican/BMG, she announced Monday morning (Nov. 27).
It’s the star’s first full-length solo release in nearly a decade. Her last album, 2014’s A.K.A., reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and featured Billboard Hot 100-charting singles “I Luh Ya Papi,” “First Love” and “Booty.”
This Is Me…Now is the sister album to 2002’s This Is Me…Then, which was dedicated to her partner at the time, Ben Affleck. Lopez and Affleck have since rekindled their romance, and the couple married in 2022.
The new album is written and executive produced by Lopez and Rogét Chayed, along with Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman and HitBoy. Additional songwriter-producers are Angel Lopez, Drew Love, INK and Prince Chrishan. BMG’s Brandon Riester serves as A&R.
The first single fans will hear from This Is Me…Now is titled “Can’t Get Enough,” and it’ll be here in the new year, on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. “Can’t Get Enough” will mark Lopez’s first release under her recording and publishing partnership with BMG.
On the same day of Lopez’s new album release, This Is Me…Now: The Film, which has been acquired by Amazon MGM Studios, will become available globally on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories. She first teased the project over the weekend, sharing an 18-second clip with fans.
The Nuyorican Productions and Dave Meyers-directed film is described as a “narrative-driven, intimate, reflective, sexy, funny, fantastical and highly visual musical reimagining of her publicly scrutinized love life.” J. Lo’s husband Affleck appears in the writing credits with the star and Matt Walton.
Additional This Is Me…Now: The Film credits include story by Lopez, Meyers and Chris Shafer; produced by Nathan Scherrer; and executive produced by Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Benny Medina and Courtney Baxter on behalf of Nuyorican Productions.
Lopez, of course, stars in the This Is Me…Now film, and additional cast members are yet to be announced.
Marty Krofft, the TV producer known for imaginative children’s shows such as H.R. Pufnstuf and primetime hits including Donny & Marie in the 1970s, has died in Los Angeles, his publicist said. Krofft was 86.
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He died Saturday (Nov. 25) of kidney failure, publicist Harlan Boll said.
Krofft and his brother Sid were puppeteers who broke into television and ended up getting stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Along the way, they brought a trippy sensibility to children’s TV and brought singing siblings Donny and Marie Osmond and Barbara Mandrell and her sisters to primetime.
The Osmonds’ clean-cut variety show, featuring television’s youngest-ever hosts at the time, became a lasting piece of ‘70s cultural memorabilia, rebooted as a daytime talk show in the 1990s and a Broadway Christmas show in 2010. The Kroffts followed up with Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, centered on the country music star; it ran from 1980-82.
“I am so saddened by the passing of my dear friend, Marty Krofft,” Donny Osmond wrote Sunday in a statement posted on social media. “He and his brother, Sid, created the whole format of The Donny and Marie show. Together, they put my sister and me on the map and both of us will be forever grateful for their vision and creativity. Marty Krofft’s television legacy is incredible. His fingerprint is on generations of entertainment and the impact he’s had in connecting people around the world is an astonishing legacy he leaves behind. Our best wishes and love go out to his family and loved ones. As Marie and I sang at the end of every show, ‘May God keep you in His tender care, ’till He brings us together again.’”
Like the Osmonds, H.R. Pufnstuf proved to have pop culture staying power. Despite totaling just 17 episodes, the surreal show, featuring an island, a witch, a talking flute, a shipwrecked boy and a redheaded, cowboy boot-wearing dragon, came in 27th in a 2007 TV Guide poll ranking of all-time cult favorites.
More than 45 years after the show’s 1969 debut, the title character graced an episode of another Krofft brothers success, Mutt & Stuff, which ran for multiple seasons on Nickelodeon.
“To make another hit at this time in our lives, I’ve got to give ourselves a pat on the back,” Marty Krofft told The Associated Press ahead of the episode’s taping in 2015.
Even then, he was still contending with another of the enduring features of H.R. Pufnstuf — speculation that it, well, betokened a certain ‘60s commitment to altering consciousness. Krofft rebuffed that notion: “If we did the drugs everybody thought we did, we’d be dead today,” he said, adding, “You cannot work stoned.”
Born in Montreal on April 9, 1937, Krofft got into entertainment via puppetry. He and his brother Sid put together a risqué, cabaret-inspired puppet show called Les Poupées de Paris in 1960, and its traveling success led to jobs creating puppet shows for amusement parks. The Kroffts eventually opened their own, the short-lived World of Sid & Marty Krofft, in Atlanta in the 1970s.
They first made their mark in television with H.R. Pufnstuf, which spawned the 1970 feature film Pufnstuf. Many more shows for various audiences followed, including Land of the Lost; Electra Woman and Dyna Girl; Pryor’s Place, with comedian Richard Pryor; and D.C. Follies, in which puppets gave a satirical take on politics and the news.
The pair were honored with a Daytime Emmy for lifetime achievement in 2018. They got their Walk of Fame star two years later.
Sid Krofft said on Instagram that he was heartbroken by his younger brother’s death, telling fans, “All of you meant the world to him.”
While other producers might have contented themselves with their achievements far earlier, Marty Krofft indicated to The AP in 2015 that he no had interest in stepping back from show business.
“What am I gonna do — retire and watch daytime television and be dead in a month?” he asked.
Beyonce certainly knows how to make an entrance.
The 42-year-old superstar singer was a vision of beauty with long silver hair and a stunning Versace dress at the premiere of Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce, held Saturday evening (Nov. 25) at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif.
The star-studded event featured a chrome carpet graced by Destiny’s Child members Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams, LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett, along with other celebs like Janelle Monáe, Lizzo, Chloe X Halle‘s Chloe and Halle Bailey, Gabrielle Union, Lupita Nyong’o, Tyler Perry and Kris Jenner, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Bey’s parents Tina and Mathew Knowles were also in attendance.
Beyonce didn’t formally walk the carpet, but snuck in and out of the screening with her family, THR reports.
The 32-time Grammy winner wrote, executive produced, as well as co-directed the concert documentary, which chronicles her record-breaking Renaissance World Tour.
Director Ava DuVernay, who attended the L.A. premiere, shared a lengthy statement about the concert film on her Instagram Story following the event.
“My favorite part was a section that made me so emotional I felt as if she was speaking for me,” DuVernay wrote. “She talks candidly about having to fight to be heard as a Black woman leader working at a high level of difficulty. Having to endure being second guessed often and gaslit constantly. We actually see moments of this happening to her on camera. People directly doubting, shortchanging, gaslighting her. I haven’t seen that described in a film before. Something that I’ve experienced far too often, unfolding on the big screen, in detail, as proof, as evidence that this is real and not in our heads.”
Beyonce’s longtime publicist Yvette Noel-Schure also shared a photo of her client’s gorgeous look at the premiere.
“There is so much I want to say about RENAISSANCE: A Film by Beyoncé, after the Los Angeles premiere, but nothing could top what @ava has said,” Noel-Schure wrote on Instagram, referencing DuVernay’s post. “You are about to explore the most creative mind on Mother Earth. And she looks Foine. Foine. Foine.”
Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce opens worldwide on Friday (Dec. 1). Following the L.A. premiere, Renaissance will have another major screening in London on Thursday (Nov. 30).
Tiffany Haddish was arrested Friday (Nov. 24) and charged with driving under the influence, police said. The actor and comedian was detained after Beverly Hills police received a call about 5:45 a.m. Police said she appeared to be found slumped over the wheel of the vehicle while the car engine was still running. Haddish, an Emmy and Grammy […]
Kara Tenae proved she’s a force to be reckoned with during The Voice playoffs, and Billboard is exclusively revealing her powerful cover of SWV‘s 1997 classic “Rain” ahead of Monday night’s new episode. “Rain down on me/ Let your love just shower me/ Just rain on me,” the 34-year-old Atlanta native sang, as she effortlessly […]
Beyonce gave the Beyhive something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving morning (Nov. 23): a new and final trailer for her upcoming concert documentary, Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce. The two-minute teaser kicks off with a sideways home video before Queen Bey reveals who the cameraperson is when she addresses them: “Rumi, now can I […]
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The annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is returning for its 97th installment this year and will air across the country on Thursday (Nov. 23).
This year’s parade is set to take place in New York City in front of a live audience, making its 2.5-mile trek through Manhattan and featuring performers and attendees as it travels from the city’s Upper West Side to Midtown.
Fans looking to watch the parade this year are in luck because there are several ways to tune in to the event with or without cable. Find out how below.
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How to Watch Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade
The 97th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be broadcast on NBC and Telemundo from 8:30 a.m. to noon ET.
How to Stream Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade
If you have cable (or a digital TV antenna like this one from Amazon), you can watch the parade on TV through your local network NBC affiliate. The parade will also stream live on Peacock Premium (click here for more details on Peacock’s Black Friday discount).
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade can be viewed online, as NBC can be streamed using SlingTV, fuboTV, DirecTV Stream, or Hulu + Live TV. Most these services offer free trials, which will allow you to watch the Thanksgiving parade fun for free online without cable.
How to View the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in Person
There are a small number of viewing areas for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, but fans can start arriving at 6 a.m. ET Central Park West between West 75th to West 61st Streets. Great views can be found on 6th avenue between West 59th to West 38th Streets, and limited public viewing on the south side of West 34th Street between Broadway and 7th Avenue will be available.
Who is performing at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade?
This year’s parade will feature lots of performances, including Cher, Brandy, ENHYPEN, Jon Batiste, Jesse James Decker, En Vogue, Manuel Turizo, Jabari Banks, Bell Biv Devoe, Pentatonix, Ashley Park, Chicago, David Foster, Katherine McPhee, Alex Smith, Amanda Shaw, Miss America Grace Stanke and Paul Russell.
Last year, Gloria Estefan and her family sang atop the Deck the Halls float by Balsam Hills, while Joss Stone appeared on a Hallmark Channel float, and Jordan Sparks performed on a Toys R Us float. Paula Abdul, Big Time Rush, Kirk Franklin, Cam, Betty Who, Sean Paul, Zigg Marley and more were featured during the 2022 parade. Mariah Carey, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, and Ariana Grande are some of the stars who have performed at the Thanksgiving Day Parade in previous years.
