Yup, the PTC has been pretty quiet lately.

(And let's not get into a Howard Stern debate here. Please.)

Or an O & A debate if your under 100! :D

End of Star-Anchor Era Presents
Options, Challenges for Networks
THE SMALL SCREEN: By JOE FLINT
The Wall Street Journal
August 17, 2005

The death of Peter Jennings last week has left many wondering if we have seen the last of the star anchors. If that is the case, what will it mean for the television news business?

With the departures in the last year of both NBC's Tom Brokaw and CBS's Dan Rather, Mr. Jennings was the last of the larger-than-life evening news personalities. Although the audience for the evening news on all three networks has eroded sharply over the last 20 years, the veteran trio still held tremendous sway at their respective networks.

That was often a good thing, especially in the case of Mr. Jennings, who was a strong advocate for more coverage from overseas and frowned upon having to devote time to celebrity trials and tawdry murder cases. Once loss leaders that added prestige and clout to the networks, news divisions have endured massive cuts and are now expected to be profit centers. Anchors became strong advocates for serious news, although they often lost more battles than they won.

But there was a downside to the power and influence that the anchors wielded. Mr. Rather had become such a force inside CBS News that his strong defense of the ill-fated report on President Bush's military service likely hindered internal investigations about the story, which ultimately embarrassed the network.

And for all the attention the long-serving anchor triumvirate received, their absence hasn't as yet resulted in a further rating decline at the nightly newscasts. Some 37 million people tuned in on average to one of the three networks in the early 1990s; this year, the three shows have been drawing some 26 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

For network executives, the transition has both positive and negative repercussions. Fewer stars means smaller paychecks -- Messrs. Jennings, Brokaw and Rather all had contracts in the range of $10 million a year. The loss of these imposing presences who often resisted change also creates an opportunity for the networks to innovate the format for the first time in decades.

"I think the networks are happy to get out of the Jurassic age and find cheaper mammals to replace the dinosaurs, says Dr. Robert Lichter, head of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

What's more, having lower-profile nightly news anchors could help the networks shift the emphasis to their morning shows, which are significantly more profitable than the high-budget evening telecasts. The morning shows also have better prospects for ratings and advertising growth, because they attract a younger audience demographic that marketers desire. In that arena, too, the networks are facing a generational shift in the next several years, and will need to fill seats as the Sawyers, Courics and Lauers exit.

One downside, however, is that without those veterans around, it will be tougher for the networks to stand out against their cable competition. "Maybe $10 million was a small price to pay to have something to distinguish you from the universe of cable channels," Mr. Lichter said.

With new faces occupying the key anchor slots, the networks also are going to have to find new ways of affirming the credibility and authority of their newscasts.

For many years, network news anchors established their reputations with viewers during marathon broadcasts of election-year political conventions. The party gatherings, which used to be televised gavel-to-gavel by the networks, played a big role in boosting the careers of legendary anchors like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, notes former NBC News President Larry Grossman. Today, conventions exist largely as pep rallies, with little drama or news. Except for hardcore political junkies, most viewers have abandoned these scripted exercises.

Today, it is during a crisis where an anchor looks to bond with the audience. Mr. Jennings logged an incredible 60 hours on the air during the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Dan Rather was famous for racing off to cover breaking stories, from wartime battles to tropical storms. Whether having him there really improved the coverage is debatable, his presence on the scene immediately suggested to viewers that the network believed the story was important.

While it could be difficult for less-established anchors to convey a similar sense of gravitas, the rising stature of the networks' other newscasts has made that mission easier. NBC "Today" show co-host Matt Lauer might not be viewed in media circles as the equal of "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams, but many viewers probably would be comfortable with either during a crisis.

But as the network news landscape changes, viewers are likely to lose out in the end. Messrs. Jennings, Rather and Brokaw all arrived at their anchor perch after rising up through the reporting ranks, a path that gave them perspective when covering major world events. Even if the audience didn't always agree with what came out of their mouths, viewers knew that those observations had been formed by years of experience. "All it means is that the role of news divisions and seriousness of news divisions have been undermined," says Mr. Grossman.

Grooming anchors by having them spend time anchoring other newscasts rather than in the field might make for a smoother delivery, but the meal will be less filling.

NIGHTLY NEWS RATINGS

Network Average Audience
(in millions) % Change
vs. 2004
ABC 9.0 million -3%
CBS 7.1 million -6.6%
NBC 9.4 million -6%
Source: Nielsen Media Research

Few Late-Summer Viewers, but Many Tune In to Peter Jennings Tribute

The TV Column: By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post

Only eight prime-time programs cracked 10 million viewers last week as the broadcast networks crawled to the end of the summer slump.

Here's a look at the week's winners and losers:

WINNERS

Peter Jennings. The night after Jennings died at age 67 of lung cancer, "World News Tonight," the show he anchored for more than two decades, clocked 10.5 million viewers -- its biggest audience since 1998. Had that Monday newscast aired in prime time, it would have ranked No. 6 in the Prime Time Top 10. As it was, the public's spontaneous viewing tribute to the longtime ABC anchor meant the show was of more interest to people than 110 other programs that the six broadcast networks aired in prime time last week. It was watched by more viewers than anything offered on any of the nearly 400 cable networks now available. Two nights later, ABC's two-hour prime-time salute to Jennings logged 9.4 million viewers, which also would have put it in the official top 10 list had not ABC decided to run the special "sustaining," which means without advertising. Nielsen Media Research doesn't rank such programming.

Pamela Anderson. An average of 4.3 million people caught Comedy Central's telecast of Courtney Love's Truly Spectacular Meltdown, which masqueraded as a roast of ABC sitcom star/ Playboy pinup/ animal rights activist Anderson. Though it was jammed with jokes about Anderson's store-bought breasts (uninspired, yes, but a sure-fire magnet for the network's core young male audience) and though Love's Lost Weekend interpretation was Oscar-worthy, this roast was no match for Jeff Foxworthy's back in March, which had bagged more than 6 million fans. Still, the Love/Anderson comedy team copped cable's largest haul of the week among 25-to-54-year-olds -- ironically, that's the news demographic. Grievously, only 77,000 children between the ages of 2 and 11 were on hand to see Love's this-is-your-brain-on-drugs performance.

LOSERS

Miss Teen USA. Up from last year's smallest audience on record -- not so hard a feat, given that the show moved from Friday to Monday night -- the young-chick pageant instead nabbed its second smallest audience ever: 5.7 million viewers.

"Hooking Up." ABC News's documentary series sounded great on paper, since online dating services are reportedly used by 40 million Americans. All but about 4 million of them, it turns out, really do not wish to watch a show about it in their spare time. That's the number of people who suffered through the final episode of this series following 12 women as they online-dated.

"I Want to Be a Hilton." "On second thought, no I don't," said almost all Americans, except the paltry 3.7 million who watched the final episode of Paris's mom's sad stab at celebrity.

"Weeds." It may be "the most talked-about comedy in ages," as Showtime keeps telling us, citing Newsweek.com as its source, but only 488,000 watched the Monday premiere of the new comedy about a pot-selling suburban mom. In its "sneak peek" the night before, it had done better than that, luring 540,000 viewers.

Dennis Farina plays a cop where he was once was one

By BY RICK KOGAN Chicago Tribune

Some people are impossible to imagine as a kid, and Dennis Farina is one of them, even as he sits across a table saying, "And the teacher, the nun, would say to us, 'OK, boys, now move these boxes' or 'Put these chairs over there,' and then she would say, 'Here's your reward' and give us some candy."

He is saying this — remembering what it was like growing up and going to school in Chicago and learning lessons that he continues to carry through life — while sitting in a restaurant named Phil Stefani's 437 but which was once called Riccardo's and was the setting for the opening scene of the 1986-88 NBC television series Crime Story.

This is important because with that opening scene, Farina's life was changed forever.

Before then he was an 18-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, a detective moonlighting on Chicago theater stages and in small movie roles. With the series, he became a full-time actor much in demand for feature films (Midnight Run, Saving Private Ryan, Get Shorty, Snatch), TV movies (The Case of the Hillside Strangler, Empire Falls) and TV series (The In-Laws, Buddy Faro).

He is currently one of the stars of Law & Order, playing tough, nattily dressed Detective Joe Fontana.

"I had met (Law & Order creator and executive producer) Dick Wolf a long time ago when I worked on some episodes of Miami Vice when he was a producer of that show," Farina says. "I wasn't so sure about signing up for Law & Order. I liked the show, but another TV series?

"I'll tell you, though, it's been great, and I had no idea how popular the show was."

Farina was born on Feb. 29, 1944, a leap-year baby and the fourth son and youngest of the seven children of Joseph and Yolanda Farina. The father was a doctor, the mother a homemaker, and they raised their kids in what was then a working-class neighborhood with a broad ethnic mix predominated by Italians and Germans.

He went to school right around the corner from his home, at St. Michael's Elementary and St. Michael's Central High School. They no longer exist.

"Change never bothers me, not really," Farina says. "I don't need to see the old school to remember it and the teachers there. They changed the way that I've always looked at life and learning."

After graduating from high school, Farina decided to "get the Army out of the way" and served three years before returning to Chicago. He worked for a while at the South Water produce market until, on the advice of his older brother, a lawyer, he joined the police force and studied criminal justice at Truman Junior College.

He does not like to talk about his years on the force, primarily because during his first interviews as an actor, writers continually asked him questions such as, "Did you ever kill anybody?" (He did not.)

"I left that life a long time ago," he says. "I was a good cop, a good detective, and I've still got some good friends on the force. No, I don't offer any inside information to the Law & Order writers. I'm an actor now."

He left Truman College a few hours short of his criminal justice degree. "I'm still thinking that I might go back and finish," he says. "I can only imagine how that would please my brother Joe. He was a lawyer. He's in Heaven now."

His brother was a big influence on him, he says, as were other members of his family and his teachers. "Not like today," he observes. "There weren't sports stars or singers or actors as role models. The models were at home and at school."

Farina is 61, and his former teachers are all "in Heaven now." But he saw some of his classmates at the recent wedding of one of his sons; he has three from a previous marriage, Michael, Joseph and Dennis Jr.

When not working, which has been most of this summer, Farina is here, splitting his time between a 25th-floor apartment on the North Side and a house in New Buffalo, Mich., in an area where he has dozens of relatives. He likes to play golf, to read and to see his family.

"Sometimes I think we're all stuck in about 1948," he says. "When I get together with my brothers and sisters, playing cards or whatever, it's always like: 'Do you remember this guy or that place?' 'Do you remember when we saw such and such a movie at the Plaza?' It's fun to come back home."

Tuesday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

After Lance, a far bolder race for OLN
As a challenger to ESPN's dominance in sports
By Dan Weil medialifemagazine.com

There’s certainly some irony here. Weeks ago ESPN passed on renewing its hockey rights deal, having implied during the lockout that it didn’t care if it ever got hockey back, so poor were its ratings.

But this week, possibly as soon as today, ESPN may extend its deal after all, and not entirely out of choice. The network might do it simply to keep the NHL out of the hands of OLN, which has suddenly become a big worry for ESPN.

How things have changed.

The question confronting OLN after its coverage of the Tour de France ended last month was what it would do after Lance Armstrong’s retirement.

Now we have the answer. The network long known for hunting and fishing is fast emerging as a challenger to ESPN's preeminence in sports coverage.

And while the question of whither OLN was much-talked about during Armstrong's final tour, the ambition to challenge ESPN appears to have been in the works for some time, long before the race and probably since owner Comcast's failed Disney takeover bid last year. Comcast wanted ESPN.

OLN, formerly the Outdoor Life Network, changed its name to simply OLN in July to distance itself from the hunting and fishing crowd. Now OLN is going after major sports: the NHL, NFL and perhaps even NASCAR, and it has the considerable wealth of Comcast to either win these sports away from ESPN or at the least bid the price up to new levels.

The question for advertisers is when OLN will be competitive with ESPN. The answer may be sooner than you’d think.

“I think it will be a viable competitor to ESPN2 and ESPN Classic in two to five years, and it could challenge ESPN’s main network in 10 years,” says Karen McCallum, who supervises ad buying for McKee Wallwork Henderson Advertising in Albuquerque.

Media buyers would welcome a competitor to ESPN to give them leverage, much as they value Telemundo as a point of leverage against the far larger Univision for reaching the Hispanic audience.

For certain, OLN still has a long way to go, with bull riding its most popular non-Tour programming. Its expansion has begun with reruns of “Survivor” and recently acquired rights to the Boston Marathon, America’s Cup and the Iditarod.

Its bid for the National Hockey League would be an important step, in a deal that would pay the league $100 million over two years. OLN would take over from ESPN, which dropped the struggling sport after last season’s lockout.

Though the NHL limped to a 0.2 rating in its last season on ESPN2, that’s double OLN’s primetime average during second quarter.

OLN also is reportedly negotiating with the NFL to broadcast late-season Thursday and Saturday games. There is even talk that OLN will go after NASCAR.

“It’s been clear that Comcast has been interested in a national sports network for years,” says Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp, a sports business consulting firm in Chicago. “[Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts has made clear that sports is the company’s centerpiece.”

OLN, based in Stamford, Conn., debuted in 1995, and Comcast took full control in 2001. The network reaches some 60 million homes, compared with nearly 90 million for ESPN. In a recent conference call with analysts, Roberts and Comcast CFO Stephen Burke denied they are looking to take on ESPN.

But given that Comcast carries ESPN on its cable system, it makes sense that it would keep any intentions quiet. Comcast obviously has no incentive to tip its hand to the company that would be its major competitor. Comcast clearly has the financial wherewithal to compete with ESPN. It needs the content to do so.

“Now they need compelling programming,” Ganis says. “It’s no surprise they’re talking to the NHL and NFL. The NHL fills time, and the NFL is compelling programming.”

Yup, the PTC has been pretty quiet lately.

(And let's not get into a Howard Stern debate here. Please.)

No need to get folks up in arms until the next election cycle ... :rolleyes:

Hand Me a Camera
At Channel 2, reporters become photogs, photogs become reporters and a world is turned upside down

By Liz Garrigan NashvilleScene.com

NASHVILLE, TN---Michael Rosenblum, once described as the "guru of one-person television journalism," is the mastermind behind what's known as the video-journalist revolution, which has been employed widely for the last five to 10 years by the likes of cable television (Trauma: Life in the E.R., for example), the BBC and filmmakers. But aside from niche bloggers and industry folks who follow these sorts of things, few realize that Rosenblum's experiment is beginning to gain traction in television news too. And the ground floor of it all is happening right here in Nashville.

Nashville's third-rated local news station, WKRN-Channel 2, is the first newsroom in the country to move to a comprehensive "VJ" model, wherein the TV news staff is told, as Rosenblum puts it, "to forget everything you know or think you know about television because everything you know is wrong."

Videographers who were once responsible only for shooting film are now charged with reporting stories, often even nuanced public policy news that they've never before needed to understand in any sophisticated way. Conversely, reporters who have never shot film in their lives are given cameras and laptops and trained to shoot as well as report, edit their own packages, etc. It turns conventional TV newscasting on its head.

Rosenblum, in Nashville this week conducting ongoing training for WKRN staff, tells the Scene that there's been "enormous resistance on the news side for doing this." But, he says, at Channel 2, "I think they're delighted—unless they're all lying to me."

Yeah, about that, Michael...they are.

"I feel like the station hasn't thought this all the way through," says one Channel 2 photographer. "I feel like my job is hard enough. Now, I'm missing things. My photography is suffering because I'm worried about trying to get the facts. And the reporters are so busy composing shots that their notepads are on the coffee table."

That's not to say that this kind of fear or grousing trumps the groundbreaking nature of the new format. Both Rosenblum and WKRN general manager Mike Sechrist make a compelling case that scrapping conventional newscasting has been due for a long time. ("Rosenblum has an answer for everything," one Channel 2 reporter says.)

Until just recently, WKRN had six camera crews to document the news every day. "That's kind of like the equivalent of a newspaper having only six pencils to make the paper with every day," says Rosenblum, who, at the tender age of 30, left a plum producer position at CBS Sunday Morning to stumble into founding this sort of democratization of television. "As a journalist, if you had to book the pencil crew every time you wanted to go do a story, it would drive you crazy. And that's exactly the way television has functioned." When WKRN's training and transformation is complete in a few months, 35 cameras, instead of six, will document the news of the day.

Some Channel 2 staffers aren't wholly resistant to the new format, but they do question why more fundamental issues haven't been addressed to improve the newscast and, thus, ratings. "We've never invested money in the bad signal, and we don't promote stories," one reporter says. It's been long known that there are places around Nashville where News 2 crews can't get a signal—"blind spots all over Middle Tennessee."

Morale is in the gutter, newsroom staffers say, and three valued staffers have fled the station in the last few months, among them reporter Lilla Marigza and weekend anchor L.J. Moody. "If everything was going fine here, they would want to work here. It just gave them an excuse," one reporter there says.

What's more, they wonder whether the motive for a wholesale transformation of the newsroom has been driven by station owner Young Broadcasting's financial health. The owner of 10 stations nationwide, Young reported its worst quarterly loss in more than a decade earlier this month.

GM Sechrist says it's not about the money, that it would be folly "to do things the same old way and expect them to come out differently." Moreover, he says, the station has invested in 30 new cameras and nearly 20 Dell laptops and is considering buying a new fleet of cars for staffers. "This was not a money decision. It was a decision based on looking at the way news looks now."

For now, viewers can expect some jarring dispatches from newbie VJs, awkward voice-overs and ill-advised camera angles. Yet to completely shake out is whether, in spot news situations when timing and staffing are crucial, some semblance of the traditional model will survive. Sechrist says it will, but staffers are more skeptical.

In the meantime, Rosenblum sees better ratings on the horizon. "This thing is going to roll across the country in the next few years."

NHL TV Decision Could Come Today
NHL is in line to skate to Outdoor Life Network

By Michael Hiestand USA Today

The NHL leaves ESPN for an up-and-coming network willing to pay more for the league's national TV rights — although the upstart reaches fewer homes.

That happened when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. And the NHL, probably today, might pull off a similar slap shot.

Sometimes, the NHL seems like one lucky league.

In 1988, now-defunct SportsChannel America hoped NHL games would help it cobble together a network of fewer than 10 million households. It paid $17 million annually over three years — twice what ESPN had been paying — to show NHL games in about one-quarter of the households ESPN then reached. That ended up being too much: SCA managed to get a fourth NHL season for just $5 million.

Likewise, the Outdoor Life Network seems ready to outspend ESPN in hopes of using NHL games to heighten its profile.

ESPN passed this spring on extending its NHL deal for $60 million annually. So unless ESPN was simply bluffing, figuring it would end up getting the NHL at a reduced price because no other bidders would step up, then it follows that ESPN won't ante up OLN's offer of about $70 million annually by today's deadline.

If so, OLN will join the ranks of networks that tried to develop from NHL's supposedly untapped TV potential. After SCA's run ended in 1992, ESPN regained NHL cable games, partly to help launch ESPN2 in 1993. In 1994, Fox announced a five-year broadcast deal at $31 million annually, partly because it had ventured into TV sports with NFL games — getting hockey meant Fox Sport could become Fox Sports.

But even as Fox's tiny NHL broadcast ratings had been shrinking, Disney replaced Fox with new deals for ABC and ESPN that started with the 1999-2000 season — and cost a whopping $120 million annually. Disney suggested its vaunted corporate synergies could work magic — a type of wishful thinking in vogue in the late 1990s.

Instead, ABC and ESPN got teensy NHL ratings. In the 2003-04 season, ESPN's NHL games averaged 0.5% of its cable TV households — ESPN2's drew 0.2%.

Not surprisingly, the NHL proved replaceable during last season's NHL lockout, when ESPN's hastily assembled shows drew ratings comparable to the previous season's NHL playoffs. And NBC, in a rare instance where an NHL TV rights fee seemed to reflect the actual viewer interest in the league, got NHL games next season without paying any rights fee.

Maybe the NHL's heritage — the league formed in 1917, and the Stanley Cup dates to 1893 — casts some sort of spell on networks otherwise awash in made-for-TV sports. It can't be the ratings: Based on recent years, it's possible to project the NHL's national ratings could hit zero in the not-too-distant future.

And yet OLN, owned by giant cable TV operator Comcast, wants this perpetual fixer-upper as a draw meant to expand the network. There's some logic: ESPN's 0.5% NHL average is higher than any regular series on OLN, where bullriding and Survivor reruns are top draws.

For the NHL, OLN might represent a TV sports version of the federal witness protection program: In addition to its puny ratings, it reaches about 26 million fewer households than ESPN or ESPN2.

It's theoretically possible Disney's ESPN will match OLN's offer, figuring on principle that Comcast's OLN can't be allowed to poach on any ESPN turf. Comcast is a big-enough rival that it tried to buy Disney last year.

Either way, the NHL seems ready to cash in on its eternally unrealized potential. Again.

HBO renews "Extra's" before it even airs.

The folks at HBO seem to be getting a tad desperate in the long days between Sopranos and post-Sex In The City.

Not Really. David Chase saved their hides again by adding those "bonus" episodes that they'll drag out in classic HBO fashion. Whatever they're paying him, it's not enough...

ESPN passed on the NHL; Outdoor Life Network on INHD gets the deal.

From Broadcasting & Cable (www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA635809.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP).

CBS To Air Fall Lineup Special

By Jim Benson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/17/2005 2:56:00 PM

Illustrating the importance that CBS is placing on Two and a Half Men, which will anchor its Monday night comedy lineup this fall in place of the departed Everybody Loves Raymond, the network has named the series’ stars--Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jone--to host a 30-minute special previewing the new 2005/2006 Fall prime time lineup.

It will air at 8 p.m. Sept. 14.

While the special will not be carried in as many venues as NBC’s fall preview (which airs over an extended period of time on the network’s broadcast and cable properties, as well as a number of outside outlets), CBS will offer it to affiliates and owned stations.

The sneak peak special will feature exclusive previews from the six new series joining the CBS prime time schedule, including Monday night sitcoms How I Met Your Mother and Out of Practice.

CBS Moving to Find a New Look for News

By JACQUES STEINBERG The New York Times

Seven months after Leslie Moonves, the chairman of CBS, exhorted his colleagues to re-engineer the network's evening newscast, the drafting process has reached an apparent milestone: the news division has begun to record and edit prototypes of how that broadcast could soon look.

One version opens with a five-to-seven-minute presentation of the news of the day by John Roberts, the network's chief White House correspondent, complete with "two-ways" between Mr. Roberts and several reporters. After a commercial break, the pace of the broadcast slows, and two or three "60 Minutes"-style segments are presented, albeit not at "60 Minutes" length, the last of them light and more humorous. After another break, Mr. Roberts, who is neither seen nor heard introducing those segments, returns to wrap up the broadcast with a good-night.

The elements of that particular version - one of several, and more of an experiment than a polished pilot - were described earlier this week by three CBS News employees, including two who had been present during a taping late last month in a studio at CBS's broadcast center on West 57th Street in Manhattan. All said the process was far too sensitive for them to be identified by name. Some elements were reported on Tuesday by USA Today.

In an interview, Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News, confirmed the taping. But he cautioned that on that day, producers and executives had recorded a variety of material that could be edited in various ways as a means of experimenting with multiple formats. He also said that the participation of Mr. Roberts - once widely believed within CBS to be the probable successor to Dan Rather - should not be interpreted as a sign that Mr. Roberts (or anyone else involved) will be part of the next "CBS Evening News" iteration.

Such decisions, he said, have yet to be broached.

"It's not a casting call," Mr. Heyward said of the process. "This is not a test of who should be on the evening news. It's a test of how best to present a broadcast that plays a distinctive and important role in today's crowded news landscape."

He would not describe any of what had been recorded or how it had been edited. But one colleague who was present said several correspondents had taped introductions that could be presented in a way that elevates them to virtual co-anchors. In remarks to a gathering of television critics in Los Angeles in January, Mr. Moonves emphasized his desire to move beyond the "voice of God, single-anchor" format that has long characterized the evening news.

By various accounts within CBS, the effort to meet Mr. Moonves's mandate, rooted in a desire to attract a bigger and younger audience, has been painfully slow. In a sense, that is hardly surprising: it has been more than two decades since a broadcast network sought to make wholesale renovations in the architecture of its evening newscast. The last was ABC, which introduced a three-man anchor format on "World News Tonight" in the late 1970's, before scrapping the experiment (which was relatively low-rated) in favor of a more traditional structure that featured just one of those anchors, Peter Jennings.

In trying to elicit fresh ideas, Mr. Moonves has cast a wide net. Earlier this year he sought advice from executives far afield of the news division, including those who conceived the "Dr. Phil" talk show and others from MTV News. A report yesterday in The New York Observer said the network had asked dozens of college-age summer interns to give Olympic-style ratings - on a scale of 1 to 10 - to ideas for revamping the news.

And yet the recent taping at CBS News and the swirl of subsequent activity at the editing consoles suggest that the network may be in position, as soon as early fall, to resolve the question of what its next evening newscast will be.

"Leslie has not set a firm timetable," Mr. Heyward said. "But we're making good progress."

Asked whether Mr. Moonves had viewed any tape from last month's session, or would do so soon, Mr. Heyward declined to comment, saying only, "He's aware of everything we're doing."

Among the factors that would seem to be nudging CBS to make a decision well before year's end are the promotional opportunities afforded by its prime-time lineup - the most-watched of any broadcast network's last season - which begins its new season late next month.

The network has also seen its evening newscast, the lowest-rated among the so-called big three, lose even more ground since March, when Mr. Rather yielded the anchor desk to Bob Schieffer. The 6.6 million viewers that Mr. Schieffer's newscast has attracted on average each night since then represent a loss of about 4.2 percent, or 289,000, compared with the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen Media Research. Over the last five months, Mr. Schieffer's broadcast has drawn nearly 2 million fewer viewers than the ratings leader, "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams."

There are competing reasons, however, for CBS to feel no urgency.

Since taking the baton from Mr. Rather, Mr. Schieffer has actually shed fewer viewers than Mr. Williams, who has lost nearly a half-million (or 5.2 percent) compared with the same period a year ago, when the broadcast was anchored by Tom Brokaw. ABC has lost about as many as CBS - nearly 300,000, or about 3.5 percent - at a time when it was using substitutes for Peter Jennings during his treatment for lung cancer.

With Mr. Jennings's death on Aug. 7, ABC now finds itself in need of a new anchor, though it is not expected to make changes on the scale CBS is contemplating. Still, it could be in Mr. Moonves's interest to let ABC News go first, particularly as ABC decides whether to move one of its most recognizable hosts, Charles Gibson of "Good Morning America," to the evening shift.

And there is always the possibility that CBS might hire a dark-horse candidate from outside the network. Katie Couric, perhaps the biggest star on network news, whose contract with NBC's "Today" expires next year, was quoted in The New Yorker this month as saying she had met twice with Mr. Moonves and would make a decision on her future this fall.

"It's still a work in progress," Mr. Heyward said of the news division's efforts to fulfill Mr. Moonves's mission. "We've built ourselves a lot of options. It's not clear which ones will be most effective."

Thanks Ken H.

I would guess that would mean InHD will be available on D* (and E*) by the first NHL game.

It will also complicate life for InHD, since neither Comcast (Phillies) nor Cox (Padres) will want their baseball games on InHD in the future.

This should be fun!

ESPN decides not to match Comcast's offer

By Darren Rovell ESPN.com

The NHL will have a new television home next fall.

ESPN, which has had a stake in NHL broadcasts since the 1992-93 season, informed the league on Wednesday that it would not match the offer put forth by Comcast.

"Tonight, we informed the NHL that we did not accept their final contract offer," ESPN and ABC Sports president George Bodenheimer said in a statement. "We worked very hard to build and sustain our relationship with the league and would have liked to continue. However, given the prolonged work stoppage and the league's TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered."

In the 2003-04 season, NHL games on ESPN drew an audience in 416,000 homes and games on ESPN2 were watched in 209,000 homes.

In May, ESPN informed the league that it would not pick up the $60 million option it had to broadcast the league's games for another season. After the league and the players' association settled on the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement in mid-July, Comcast, the nation's largest cable television provider, became the most interested in picking up the NHL's broadcasts. Comcast offered a three-year deal worth more than $200 million, and ESPN officials were brought back to the table. They had until Wednesday to once again decide if it was in the network's best interest. Comcast and the league agreed to a two-year deal that can be extended up to six years.

"Over the years, thousands of great NHL moments were presented to our fans through the lenses of ESPN cameras," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said. "ESPN was a supportive partner, and both the National Hockey League and ESPN enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. We wish ESPN continued success."

Comcast, which owns four regional sports networks as well as a majority share in the Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers, is expected to put its NHL games on OLN. An OLN spokesperson did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Over the past year, the channel has endured a major shift. The network's name is now what was once its acronym. The Outdoor Life Network is no longer and its motto is now, "We've Got A New Attitude." The hunting and fishing the network was founded on a decade ago is now mostly replaced with events ranging from the Tour de France and America's Cup to the All-Star BBQ Showdown. One of OLN's greatest assets is the 10 seasons of "Survivor" re-runs it purchased from CBS for a reported $10 million.

The deal appears to be a winning proposition for all the parties involved.

Despite a season-long work stoppage, the NHL will still collect a good deal of money on the sale of its broadcast rights. That's an amazing achievement, given that the league agreed to a revenue-sharing deal with NBC before the lockout that came free of any rights fee.

Since NHL programming is going to be OLN's most important asset, Comcast officials could be willing to spend more money to capitalize on the relationship. For the networks that have had hockey, including Fox and ESPN, investing in growing the hockey audience simply didn't pay off when considering how much more they had invested in other sports programming. The agreement calls for OLN to show Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup finals before NBC takes over for the remainder of the series. Comcast will also bring the NHL Network to cable systems in the United States, and provide on-demand game broadcasts and computer streaming of live games.

Comcast might also have additional motivation to spend -- to prove to leagues it is willing to be a great partner if leagues should seek to use OLN to build a sports network from scratch. Last year, Comcast offered an unsolicited bid of $66 billion to buy the Walt Disney Co., which owns ESPN. The offer was rejected by the Disney board.

"It seems clear that OLN is setting itself up as a competitor to ESPN," said Bodenheimer. "We welcome it. It will make us better."

The potential audience is smaller. ESPN is in 90 million homes and ESPN2 is in 89 million homes. OLN is in 63 million households, a 75 percent increase from the number of households the network was in four years ago. That makes it easier for hockey fans to find the channel and, if they don't have it, they might be willing to pay for it.

"With the NHL deal, OLN is now further away from being that niche channel for serious sports recreation enthusiasts and moves closer to the sports fan who is enthusiastic about sitting on his couch watching the sport he loves," said David Carter, principal of The Sports Business Group, a sports consultancy firm.

A year without hockey proved to ESPN executives that picking up the option or matching Comcast's offer didn't make much financial sense, even at half the price it paid when the deal started in 1999. In the NHL's place, ESPN filled the air with original programming, like "Bowling Night" and "Stump The Schwab." Programs like these drew ratings that were at least comparable to the number of people watching NHL games.

ESPN Passes on N.H.L. Television Rights, Ending 21-Year Relationship With League

By RICHARD SANDOMIR The New York Times

OLN won the cable television rights to the post-lockout National Hockey League yesterday after ESPN declined to match a surprisingly lucrative offer.

OLN will carry games on Mondays and Tuesdays and will pay $65 million this season, $70 million in 2006-7 and $72.5 million in the third season, which is at the option of OLN and its owner, Comcast. The contract could extend for three more seasons, also at OLN and Comcast's option. With 21.4 million subscribers, Comcast is the largest cable operator in the United States and owns several cable networks.

George Bodenheimer, the president of ESPN and ABC Sports, said that he told the league last night that he had refused to match the OLN offer. In a statement, he said that "given the prolonged work stoppage and the league's TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered."

In a statement, Gary B. Bettman, the N.H.L. commissioner, praised ESPN for its past support. OLN and Comcast officials were unavailable for comment.

For the league, OLN's financial commitment is a triumph; three months ago, ESPN declined to exercise its option to pay the league $60 million to carry the upcoming season, reasoning that the lockout had greatly diminished its value.

OLN's deal mandates that Comcast carry the NHL Network, which is now only available in Canada, on its digital sports tier. If certain subscriber levels for the network are not reached after two years, Comcast would have to pay the league $15 million, said a television executive who is familiar with the OLN deal, but would not speak for attribution because the contract has not been signed.

OLN must pay the league $15 million more if it exceeds 80 million subscribers, the executive said. It now has 64 million, well below ESPN's 90 million.

For OLN, carrying the N.H.L. is a more than subtle shift in direction for a channel that is built on the Tour de France, plus hunting, fishing, rodeo, bullriding and adventure programming and "Survivor" reruns. In July, it de-emphasized its roots by changing its name to OLN from the Outdoor Life Network.

Comcast is also believed to be using OLN as a possible launching pad for a national sports network, and is interested in National Football League rights.

"It seems clear that OLN is setting itself up as a competitor to ESPN," Bodenheimer said. "We welcome it. It will make us better."

For ESPN, the refusal to match OLN's terms ends a 21-year relationship with the N.H.L., but one that has grown steadily less important because ratings have slipped and the network acquired National Basketball Association rights.

Wednesday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

ESPN Passes on NHL, Eyes Potential Challenger
By Ben Grossman and John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable

ESPN passed on matching Comcast’s offer to put the NHL on OLN, then passed judgment on Comcast’s claims it was not positioning the network to compete with ESPN.

“OLN is certainly setting itself up as a competitor to ESPN,” said George Bodenheimer, president, ESPN, Inc. and ABC Sports, in a statement late Wednesday night. “We welcome it. It will make us better."

And regarding Comcast executives who on a recent earnings conference call denied any intent to reshape OLN to directly challenge ESPN, ESPN Director of Media Relations Josh Krulewitz added, “Actions speak louder than words.”

This after ESPN Wednesday night made the decision not to bring the NHL back.

“Tonight, we informed the NHL that we did not accept their final contract offer,” said Bodenheimer in a statement late Wednesday night. “We worked very hard to build and sustain our relationship with the league and would have liked to continue. However, given the prolonged work stoppage and the league’s TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered. We wish the NHL all the best.”

And as it turns out, ESPN’s decision not to match Comcast’s offer for the NHL television package may have been a result of more than just a high rights fee.

According to sources, Comcast’s deal with the NHL to put the games on OLN also includes the genesis of an NHL network in the U.S., for which Comcast can assure distribution to 21 million cable households. The deal also includes a clause that the cable network carrying hockey will have to air the games on its primary sports network.

Those may have been deal breakers for ESPN, who first of all would not want to put the low-rated NHL on its main network, but would rather show the games on ESPN2. And unlike cable operator Comcast, ESPN does not have the ability to guarantee carriage for a startup channel.

As for the OLN deal, sources said Comcast offered to pay $65 million the first year, $70 million the second year, and an option for a third year at $72.5 million. (The previous deal was $60 million annually, a price at which ESPN previously turned down an option). Both sides have the option to pull out after the second year, including an NHL option to back out and shop for a new partner if OLN does not reach a guaranteed number of households by that time.

Further backing the talk that Comcast is shaping OLN to become a more mainstream sports network, sources said the company is sniffing around for smaller rights packages for big sports, including the Sunday-Wednesday baseball package currently held by ESPN, which expires this season.

Sources said OLN is a possible outlet for the package should ESPN not renew. ESPN also has a separate deal to air a limited amount of post-season baseball in a deal that came to Disney when the company purchased the Fox Family Channel, which held the rights. That deal expires at the end of next season.

OLN has also been mentioned as a possible suitor for a proposed Thursday-Saturday package of NFL games, although it remains to be seen whether such a package will be created by the league.

A new cable deal for the NHL would follow its agreement with NBC for broadcasts beginning this season, although the league will be paid no rights fees from the network in a profit-share arrangement.

More details on the info piratess posted here yesterday:

HBO's Extras Gets Extra Season

By Anne Becker Broadcasting & Cable

HBO has picked up a second season of Ricky Gervais’ entertainment industry spoof Extras, before even premiering the first season of the BBC co-production.

The pay cable network’s move follows a second season nod the received show yesterday from the BBC in England, where its first season has already been airing on BBC2 to glowing reviews.

The show features Gervais, who starred in and co-produced BBC’s The Office, as a wannabe actor who can’t land a big gig after leaving his day job, and features cameos from actors including Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Stiller and Kate Winslet.

Gervais is also a co-producer of Extras, along with comedy partner Stephen Merchant, who appears in the show as the agent for Gervais’ character, Andy Millman.

HBO will debut Extras’ first season Sept. 25 at 10:30 p.m., after the fifth season premiere of fellow entertainment industry parody Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The series is the first joint production on a comedy between HBO and the BBC. The two previously partnered on upcoming period epic Rome, and HBO Films’ Dirty War and The Gathering Storm.

In its first season on BBC2, the show has doubled audience size in its Thursday night time slot, averaging 3 million viewers for its first four episodes.

This is not the first time HBO has renewed a series for a second season before the show even premiered. In 2001, HBO added a second season to Six Feet Under before its pilot aired.

Feels like a 'Lost' déja vu

By William Keck USA TODAY

KAHUKU, Hawaii — The stars of the hugely successful TV drama Lost gathered Tuesday night in a tropical jungle on Oahu's Turtle Bay Resort to herald the Sept. 6 release of the ABC series' first season on DVD.

The setting of the party, thrown by Buena Vista Home Entertainment, was a re-creation of the plane crash that started the series. Having already "survived" that crash of the fictitious Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, the cast arrived to the tiki lamp-lit party in grand style.

First to step out of his chauffeured car: Matthew Fox (who plays Jack), dressed in a pink shirt and black suit, smoking a cigarette and escorting his wife of 14 years, Margherita, a former model.

"I thought we were going to be inside," marveled Fox as he started down the dirt carpet arrivals line. "I hope everybody brought bug spray."

Impressed by the party's theatrics, which included flight attendants, a tram and the eerie metallic clangs of the show's mysterious monster, was Terry O'Quinn (Locke), who "thought we were just going to come and have a few drinks in the woods."

"Powerful" was the word Naveen Andrews (Sayid) used to describe a local cover band performing in front of a large section of plane wreckage.

Female cast members were advised to wear sensible footwear. "It's Hawaii," reminded Maggie Grace (Shannon) in gold, strappy sandals. "No call for high heels."

Evangeline Lilly (Kate) arrived looking like a '60s-era go-go dancer in a super-short, vintage, yellow tweed dress with white, knee-high boots that were "made for walkin" the treacherous terrain.

Asked to comment on the vintage Batman T-shirt her party companion and cast mate Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) was sporting, Lilly simply said, "That's pretty cute."

Also looking tropical chic: Emilie de Ravin (Claire) in an elegant gown by Aussie designer Lisa Ho and Yunjin Kim (Sun), wearing a casual striped dress by Penguin.

Jorge Garcia (Hurley) brought his girlfriend of four months, Malia Hansen. The two are raising a rescued Chihuahua /dachshund puppy.

Missing from the party: young Malcolm David Kelley (Walt), who was not due on the island to shoot his scenes until later in the week, and new cast members Michelle Rodriguez (Ana-Lucia) and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Emeka).

"Michelle wanted to hang back and let the Season One guys be in the limelight," explained Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, who said he is close to signing a veteran female actress to play the role of a third new regular in the second season.

As cast members are added, Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), who is about to purchase a house on Oahu, hopes his character remains.

With Kim's character set to develop his use of English, the actor has been taking lessons to learn how to speak English with a Korean accent.

Barely making it to the party was an exhausted Josh Holloway (Sawyer), who arrived after 10 because he was filming scenes for the second episode.

At the party, Lindelof disclosed that Episode 3 will be the show everyone will be talking about.

"We go into the hatch in the first episode (airing Sept. 21) and sort of see what's in there, but it isn't really explained to us until the middle of Episode 3," he teased.

"That episode is going to blow away anyone who has ever said, 'You guys don't give enough answers.' "

ABC and ESPN to broadcast World Cup

espn.com

BRISTOL, Conn. -- ABC and ESPN will broadcast their fourth straight World Cup next year and will televise all 64 games in high definition.

The networks will not decide until after the draw on Dec. 9 how to split the games among ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, they said Wednesday.

All games of the tournament, which will be played in Germany from June 9 to July 9, will be broadcast live. For the 2002 World Cup, which was in Japan and South Korea, 58 games were televised live, with the final on ABC, 16 on ESPN and the rest on ESPN2. Because of the 13-hour time difference to the East Coast of the United States, games were on during the middle of the night.

All games were broadcast live during the 1998 tournament in France, with ABC televising 14, ESPN 27 and ESPN2 23. Germany, like France, has a six-hour time difference to the U.S. East Coast.

The networks, owned by The Walt Disney Co., acquired the rights from Soccer United Marketing, an affiliate of Major League Soccer. SUM said it basically gets the air time for free, sells advertising and covers production costs, while the networks' affiliates sell some advertising time.

Leah LaPlaca, ESPN's senior director of programming and acquisitions, declined comment on the financial arrangements.

At least 20 high-definition cameras will be used for each game by the host broadcaster. ABC and ESPN plan to have their announcers at a majority of the games but will have them call some of the games from studios in the United States.

LaPlaca said that ESPN/ESPN2 also plans to televise two European Champions League games most weeks when the tournament is going on this season. In recent years, ESPN/ESPN2 have broadcast only one game in many weeks.

SUM paid about $40 million to buy the U.S. TV and radio rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups and the 2003 Women's World Cup from German media company Kirch Group. Kirch purchased the rights from FIFA, soccer's governing body, in May 2001.

Evangeline Lilly (Kate) arrived looking like a '60s-era go-go dancer in a super-short, vintage, yellow tweed dress with white, knee-high boots that were "made for walkin" the treacherous terrain.Where are the PICTURES!?

Xesdeeni

USA Today has a couple in their print edition -- I don't know about the web - but you could check :)

USA Today has a couple in their print edition -- I don't know about the web - but you could check :)

I checked, sorry only one picture - that of Charlie and Sayid.

ESPN decides not to match Comcast's offer

I've read just about all of these articles and have a couple of comments. Comcast evidently, has as been mentioned, is betting a bundle on this OLN being a premier sports network. It seems to me they could have paid far less for the NHL had they just let ESPN get the contract. You have to think that ESPN has a much better sense of value about what the NHL contract is worth, and they begged off, the price being way too much, and I agree based on the history and the ratings. One has to wonder how much of the price Comcast has paid the NHL will end up being subsidized by raising rates to subs who could care less about hockey. While I haven't studied it in depth, on the surface, I have a bit of a problem with a provider(Comcast) owning the exclusive rights for a national professional sports league. I realize this sort of integration of content ownership with providers is becoming commonplace but it just seems as if creates a situation where abuse of that control might happen. Comcast is already abusing that control, IMO, with their owned sports nets(DirecTV vs INHD).

And unless I missed, I never saw anything related to any HD broadcasts of the NHL on OLN...?

Just some thoughts anyway...feel free to tear it apart... :)

BTW, here is the Comcast press release WRT the NHL deal,

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=147565&p=irol-newsArticle&t=Regular&id=744836&
Comcast Press Room -- News Article

NHL Fans Will Experience a Whole New Game on OLN

STAMFORD, Conn. and NEW YORK, Aug 18, 2005 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- OLN, a television leader in action and adventure sports, and the National Hockey League (NHL) today announced that OLN will be the new national cable television home for the NHL.

Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, OLN will televise at least 58 regular-season games. These games will air consistently on Monday and Tuesday nights and be exclusive to the network. OLN will carry the NHL All-Star Game exclusively in the US and will provide wall-to-wall coverage throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including exclusive Conference Finals action and the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final. OLN will kick off NHL coverage beginning with the Rangers-Flyers matchup October 5, the first day of the new season.

OLN and the NHL will bring television viewers closer to the ice by leveraging the League's new telecast enhancements - increased behind-the- scenes access, microphones on the players and coaches, netcams and in-game interviews.

The partnership between OLN, Comcast and the NHL will redefine the sport for hockey viewers. More action on video on demand (VOD), in HDTV and online will create an experience like never before, including:

* VOD game highlights and library footage of hockey's greatest moments with full fast-forward, rewind and replay capability;
* HDTV game coverage in a crisper, faster-moving, more exciting game for hockey fans every week;M
* Online streaming of two live games per night (subject to local blackout), broadband highlights, commentary, and library footage;
* Round-the-clock coverage on the NHL Network, to be launched in the US in the future; and
* Comcast will have the ability to carry and/or syndicate additional games on Comcast's regional sports networks where it has the consent of the local team and team's rights holder.

"We are entering into a great partnership with the NHL. Hockey is excellent, exclusive programming for OLN and will be a marquee sport for the network. We are proud to be the new national television home of the NHL when the puck drops on October 5," said OLN President Gavin Harvey. "Adding hockey to our lineup when the NHL returns to the ice with a fresh season, new energy, new players and a new attitude adds tremendous value to OLN and builds upon the momentum of our other premier sports programming like the America's Cup and The Tour de France."

"We recognize and appreciate that Comcast is making a tremendous investment in the NHL and that hockey will be a priority on OLN," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. "This multifaceted partnership with OLN and Comcast creates exciting opportunities for our fans and for us, and we look forward to a terrific relationship in the years ahead."

The NHL revised its schedule format, to emphasize divisional and conference rivalries, and implemented a number of changes that will reduce the number of play stoppages while heightening hockey's action, flow, offense and excitement. The attacking zone has been enlarged, and the goaltenders have been limited - not only in the size of the equipment they will be allowed to wear but also in the areas of the ice where they will be allowed to play the puck. As well, the introduction of the shootout as a tiebreaker, featuring hockey's most exciting play, the breakaway, will ensure that every contest has a winner.

"Comcast's leadership and innovation in delivering integrated sports and other entertainment on HDTV, VOD and on the Internet is being met with rave reviews from our customers. We will use this experience to bring the NHL to hockey fans in ways that they have never seen before," said Jeff Shell, President of Comcast Programming for Comcast Corporation.

Additional details about the OLN television schedule, hockey commentators, HDTV and VOD schedules will be released as details become available.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They talk about games being in HD but there are no details, has OLN been announced as going HD..?

wow...the NHL is coming back-- and they ain't messin around this time...

keenan:

Let's assume OLN doesn't add any subs, but it raises its fee a nickel a month a sub.

That 60 cents a year (based on 64 million subs) would be $38.4 million a year.

And if OLN does raise its subs total (as I assume it will) there will be even more money for Comcast. In addition, the value of OLN will increase at least somewhat.

So while the anemic ratings made the NHL a loser for ESPN, it is a good deal -- -- maybe even a very good deal for Comcast.

What will be most interesting will be to see how the NHL deal impacts InHD 1 & 2 going forward -- especially as it relates to making those channels available to E* and D*.

If InHD remains "unavailable" to D*, I wouldn't be surprised to see it retaliate by taking OLN off its starter "Total Choice" tier ($41.99) and sliding OLN over to the "Total Choice Plus" tier ($45.99).

That would cover any extra costs involved, deprive Comcast of several million viewers, and make it that much tougher for Comcast to hit its guaranteed viewer levels of 80 million homes.

Yup, it will be interesting, especially how it relates to the INHD issue... :)

On a different but somewhat related subject, I noticed that FX is not on Dish's lowest tier, you have to get the more expensive one to get FX. AFAIK, every other cable system and DirecTV of course have FX in their lowest priced offering. A bit of politics from Ergen..?

I am sure Charlie enjoys playing that kind of game -- among others.

But back to D*.

If I were negotiating with Comcast over hockey, I'd insist on InHD at the same prices Comcast, Cox, and TW pay (for HD subs only, not all 14.6 million D* subscribers).

If I didn't get it, I would tell my DirecTV subs that I was enhancing their Total Choice package by adding Biography and The Golf Channel (both from Total Choice Plus), while moving OLN over to Total Choice Plus.

The change would be effective October 1. (Doesn't the NHL begin play on Oct. 5?) :)

:D

(Note: Bold face is my addition to points I found interesting.)

NHL Improves Standing With New OLN Deal
August 17, 2005
By John Consoli
MediaWeek [link: http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001016934]

The National Hockey League came out better in its new TV rights deal with Outdoor Life Network and Comcast than most observers thought it would, gleaning more money than it was guaranteed under its previous agreement, and gaining a commitment for cable carriage of a new NHL Network. In addition, the new deal includes a broadband component, under which some NHL games will air via streaming video, and a video on demand component.

The NHL is guaranteed $65 million for the first year of the deal, $70 million for the second year, and there is a third option year, which, if both parties agree to exercise it, will give the NHL another $72.5 million. There are also options for a fourth, fifth and sixth years, with floating amounts of compensation, depending on OLN subscriber levels.

The deal also provides that many of the games be offered in high definition.

Most observers had figured the NHL, after ESPN last May exercised its option to drop the final year of its agreement under which it would pay the NHL $60 milllion, would be forced to do a cable TV rights deal much like the broadcast rights deal it had done with NBC--a pure cost/revenue sharing deal, with no guaranteed rights fee.

But OLN, trying to grow its male sports audience, came in with a strong bid, one that ESPN on Wednesday night decided it did not want to match.

George Bodenheimer, chairman of ESPN and ABC Sports, said, "We worked very hard to build and sustain our relationship with the league and would have liked to continue [televising NHL games]. However, given the prolonged work stoppage and the league's TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered."
ESPN was not only unwilling to pay as much as OLN, but it was also not able to meet some of the provisions that OLN had agreed to with the NHL. Among them, a provision that if agreed to, would require ESPN to carry all NHL games on ESPN, which has greater distribution and ratings, and none on ESPN2.

For competitive reasons, it was thought that ESPN had no choice but to match the offer, because gaining TV rights for the NHL would give OLN a foot in the door toward becoming a full-fledged sports programming network competitor to ESPN. OLN has also bid on the new National Football League Thursday-Saturday TV rights package.
Garnering both the NHL and NFL, along with the Tour de France TV rights which it already owns, would make OLN a legitimate rival to ESPN.

"It seems clear that OLN is setting itself up as a competitor to ESPN," Bodenheimer said. "We welcome it. It will make us better."

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said he is not concerned that OLN reaches only 64 million households, compared to the 90 million households reached by both ESPN and ESPN2. He believes that once the games begin airing on OLN, more cable systems will want to add OLN based on viewer demand.
Comcast has 24 months to rollout the new NHL Network, and if it fails to do so, it must pay Comcast $15 million.

Also, if certain subscriber levels are not reached after two year, Comcast has to pay the NHL $15 million. Finally, if OLN does do a TV rights deal with another sports league, like the NFL, it will have to pay the NHL $15 million.

Gavin Harvey, OLN president, called the TV rights deal a "monumental acquisition for OLN," and said he is "optimistic about growing the [audience for the] sport."

OLN will carry 58 regular season games, which will air on Monday and Tuesday nights. Several nights will include doubleheader games, and the Monday night games will be exclusive. OLN will also air the NHL playoff games and the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals. NBC will air the final five games of the Cup finals, and NBC also has weekend broadcast rights.

Comcast is also expected to offer two games a night via streaming video on the Internet.

Bettman said although ESPN will no longer be airing NHL games, he has been assured by Bodenheimer and ESPN senior vp of programming Mark Shapiro, that the network "will continue to cover [the NHL] in a meaningful andsignificant way," as part of its nightly Sports Center coverage.

TV Review:
"Six Feet Under" finale ****
A COFFIN FIT

By LINDA STASI New York Post

Sunday night at 9PM ET/PT on HBO

How can you have "a very special" "Six Feet Under" when killing off a character, doing drugs or going gay (the shockers on regular shows) are not only part of "SFU's" ongoing plotline, but are the regular plotlines?

How then, we've all been wondering, would the show that brought us death, drugs, incest, bipolar incest, ghosts, homosexuality, over-the-top heterosexuality, sudden, horrifying accidental death, embalming, corpses as set decoration, mothers who screw around, ghosts with mistresses - the show that forced us viewers to come to grips with the death as a part of life - go out of this world itself?

So it was with great curiosity and not a little bit of anxiety that I screened the final "Six Feet Under" the other night for a bunch of my girlfriends and one of their very ladylike aunts.

And let me say right up front that somehow Alan Ball, the creator/writer found a way to push the envelope so far that we were all left speechless. And breathless.

No, I'm not - God forbid - going to give it away, but when you do see the show, you will understand that it is the right and the logical way for this show to end - no matter how shocking.

But more shocking than how they end the show is that Alan Ball thought of it in the first place. I can honestly say that this show goes where no TV show has ever gone before. Ever. And you (me, us, them) thought everything had been thought of already!

What I can tell you is that like on regular show finales (where the theme is, say, life as opposed to death and dying), they do tie up most of the loose ends - "Friends" style. Or so it seems.

Nate and Brenda's baby is born, Keith refuses to put up with David's increasingly bizarre behavior (especially around the kids), Claire is offered a gig in NYC, Rico and Vanessa force the Fishers to put up or shut down, Ruth is still mostly inconsolable over Nate's death, a decision is made regarding custody of Maya, and most importantly, Ted is there for Claire - but can she really accept a Republican?

But like the Broadway show "Mama Mia," it's not until the finale is finito (or so you think) that the most exciting part begins. Yes, since it's a 75-minute finale, it's after all the loose ends are tied up neatly that the show really begins to take off and knock you down and wear you out.

It's the only way it could have ended, but it's the one way that nobody would have ever imagined. Except, of course, if you happen to be Alan Ball. But to backtrack a bit, I would never have imagined that I'd be so involved once again after the show seemed to jump the shark at the end of last season.

In fact, I thought I'd rather kill myself than watch one more minute of the Fishers self-destructing with self-indulgence, (how many spoiled, delusional nuts can one family sustain?) But somehow I got hooked again one night recently when I started watching all the episodes I'd recorded on my DVR.

After being re-riveted by six episodes in a row, I rolled into bed at 4:30 a.m. with hope renewed for great TV. The Fishers were still annoying and self-indulgent, but the writing improved.

After we bury the show this Sunday night, there will be no more Fisher family to kick around, and I for one will miss them, well, like hell.

"Dancing With the Stars" controversy results in 'dance-off'

By Gail Pennington St. Louis Post-Dispatch TV Critic

ABC hopes to end the "Dancing With the Stars" controversy once and for all with
a "dance-off" set for Sept. 20.

Winner Kelly Monaco and her partner, Alec Mazo, will take on second-place team
John O'Hurley and Charlotte Jorgensen in the 90-minute special (7:30-9 p.m. on
Channel 30). As ABC puts it: "Both champ and runner-up have agreed to reunite
for one more electrifying showdown!"

In part because of a complicated and confusing voting structure, the result of
the original competition led to complaints from supporters of O'Hurley. In the
finale, judges gave Monaco and Mazo three perfect scores of 10 despite what
seemed to be mistakes in the program.

The viewer vote, which Monaco and Mazo also won, was based not on that week's
performance but on the previous dance. To solve that problem, ABC announced
that it would add a results show to the second season of "Dancing," set to
debut after the football season.

ABC also had to deny charges that it fixed the competition so that Monaco, who
appears on ABC's "General Hospital," would win. O'Hurley is best known for the
character of J. Peterman on "Seinfeld."

In the special, each pair will perform several styles of dance, including Latin
and freestyle. The judges will return for commentary, but the viewer vote will
decide the winners, with the results announced two nights later, on Sept. 22.

The special will also include dance demonstrations by the professionals from
the series, Ashly Delgrosso, Jonathan Roberts, Edyta Sliwinska and Louis van
Amstel.

At last, a solution to the 21st Century's most important issue. :p

At last, a solution to the 21st Century's most important issue. :p

For ABC, it is! :D

They'll promote the heck out of this thing and it will garner huge numbers which will be subjected to an onslaught of new/returning series promotion. They'll pay Monaco and O'Hurley a tidy sum as well, so it's a solution to their problems too. Everybody wins this time!

This has the potential to be a real opening week bonanza for ABC...getting good ratings while really hurting the other guys.

The TV Column
ABC Plans a 'Dance-Off' to Answer Charges of a Rip-Off
By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Friday, August 19, 2005; C07
ABC programming chief Steve McPherson is so talented he can come up with a great stunt-programming idea while simultaneously fending off a couple hundred rabid TV critics.

The network announced yesterday that John O'Hurley and Kelly Monaco will go mano a mano on a 90-minute dance competition special, "Dancing With the Stars: Dance-Off" on Sept. 20 -- the first Tuesday of the new TV season.

O'Hurley, you'll recall, outdanced other C-list celebrities such as former model Rachel Hunter and ex-boy-bander Joey McIntyre in the summer series "Dancing With the Stars," but he was robbed of its Really Ugly Trophy in the final episode by ABC daytime hussy Monaco.

Monaco was a rotten dancer, the likes of which prime-time TV hasn't seen since Elaine on "Seinfeld."

But she was smart enough to cut down the size of her costumes to match the size of her dancing talent. Plus, she got votes from soap-opera fans who didn't care how bad she was, speculated TV critics who were outraged, and who, they said, had heard from lots and lots of viewers outraged as well.

The show's three judges also will return, only this time they don't get to vote. This is only fitting, they having lost all credibility after handing Monaco three perfect 10s for her final performance.

This time viewers have all the power, and the results of their voting will be announced two nights later, during a half-hour special on the first Thursday of the new season.

Back in July, when he appeared at Summer TV Press Tour 2005, McPherson was blasted with questions about the show's very confusing voting process, in which judges' scores from that week's performances were combined with viewer votes from the previous week's performances -- only the viewer votes counted for 60 percent of the final score.

Critics grew more agitated as McPherson performed a pasodoble around their questions, leading one critic to ask what he would say to viewers so dismayed by Monaco's win that they say they'll never come back to watch it again.

"Should there be a rematch between the two -- would that satisfy people?" he quipped.

And thus, a Premiere Week programming strategy was born.

Given that "Dancing With the Stars' " season finale clocked more than 22 million viewers -- the highest-rated summer series telecast since the "American Idol" finale back in 2002 -- yesterday's announcement might give pause to suits at the other broadcast networks, who had planned to debut new shows in those time periods.

On that Tuesday, for instance, while O'Hurley is once again dancing rings around that cat Monaco from 8:30 to 10 p.m., NBC will be running the second half of the season's second episode of "The Biggest Loser," premiering its new sitcom "My Name Is Earl" and debuting the second season of "The Office."

CBS, meanwhile, has scheduled the season debut of "NCIS" and its "Big Brother Whatevernumber" finale.

(Fox will air episodes of "House" and its new drama series "Bones" -- both of which will have debuted the previous week.)

On Thursday, opposite the dance-off results show, NBC will debut the next season of "The Apprentice" and CBS will kick off the next season of "CSI," while Fox will air the third episode of its new drama series "Reunion."

The real question -- unanswered by ABC as of press time -- is how the network got Monaco to agree to the rematch. After McPherson jokingly suggested it at the press tour back in July, critics asked Monaco if she'd be game.

"That's really funny," she snarled. "You want a dance-off, come on up here -- I'll give you a dance-off!"

Comcast out to turn pucks into bucks

By Don Steinberg Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer

Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. yesterday made its biggest splash yet in national sports television, and the resurrected National Hockey League found someone willing to pay millions to put its games on TV in the United States.

The league and the cable company unveiled details of their TV deal, under which Comcast-owned cable channel OLN will dedicate Monday and Tuesday nights to NHL games beginning in October.

OLN, available in 64 million U.S. homes, will show at least 58 regular-season hockey games, the NHL All-Star Game, and the playoffs up through Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals, when NBC will pick up coverage.

NHL and Comcast officials would not comment publicly on financial details, but sources involved in the deal have said OLN is paying about $65 million, $70 million and $72.5 million for each of the first three years.

The first NHL on OLN game will be Oct. 5, opening day of the 2005-06 season, when the New York Rangers play the Flyers at the Wachovia Center. It will not be blacked out locally. Comcast says no Flyers games carried on OLN will be blacked out locally, even to satellite customers.

Flyers games will still be shown on Comcast SportsNet, although a few during the season will be shown on OLN.

Indeed, much of Comcast's payback for its investment in hockey, besides revenue from TV advertisers, will be its ability to charge cable providers more money to carry OLN, the former Outdoor Life Network.

OLN is in fewer homes than ESPN or ESPN2 (available in 90 million and 89 million homes, respectively), and in a few areas it is available only on digital cable or in extra-price sports tiers. Steve Burke, Comcast's chief operating officer, said a number of cable affiliates' contracts to carry OLN will expire at the end of this year and will be renegotiated.

"If you're in an NHL market, you have to assume your affiliate fee will go up," Burke said.

That does not automatically translate into higher fees for consumers, but the math is compelling. Sports TV consultant Lee Berke calculates that if OLN can get carriers to pay an extra 10 cents per month per subscriber, as a rough example, at nearly 60 million subscribers, that's almost $6 million a month or $72 million a year in new revenue, covering the entire rights fee before one ad is sold. "I don't think it's a tremendous financial risk for them at all," Berke said.

Comcast's rise to potentially rival ESPN as a national sports programmer makes for a good soap opera, but Comcast's bottom-line desire is not to become king of sports. Its priority is to get the most money out of the multibillion-dollar investment it has made running fiber-optic cable to millions of U.S. homes.

Sports lead the way

Exclusive sports content has always driven media businesses, consultant Berke says. The cable giant is set to launch a New York Mets channel in 2006, adding to its collection of regional sports channels.

The NHL deal gives it credibility to pursue other leagues. It is considered a contender to get rights to some NFL games in 2006. ESPN's contract with Major League Baseball expires after this season. ESPN charges Comcast more than any other programmer does. That may not change, but Comcast has gained leverage in fee negotiations.

Three months ago ESPN declined to pick up its $60 million option on this NHL season, citing poor ratings and the lockout that wiped out the 2004-05 schedule. Mark Shapiro, ESPN's outgoing executive vice president, said at the time that NHL rights were not worth half that much.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman described the new deal as a "multifaceted national media relationship" with the nation's top cable and broadband Internet company that "will allow fans to get closer to hockey than they ever have before."

OLN's broadcasts will include technology and gimmicks such as miked players, in-game interviews, and net-cams to enhance a game whose rules have already been tweaked for the new season to encourage offense. Comcast and OLN will offer on-demand video highlights and archival programming to digital-cable subscribers and produce at least one game weekly in high definition.

On the ice, online

Comcast and OLN also will work with the NHL to make live game video available this season to broadband Internet users, probably as a pay service. Later they plan to bring the NHL Network, now available in Canada, to the United States. It will have 24 hours of hockey shows and eventually carry live games, although, Bettman said, "OLN gets first choice in the schedule."

OLN and the league want to create a national hockey night. For the 2006-07 season, the league will devise its schedule so that on a certain night each week, probably Monday, only one game will be played in the NHL, and it will be on OLN. The strategy seems to put hockey night against Monday Night Football, which is shifting to ESPN in 2006.

There's work to be done. OLN does not have a high-definition HD channel. OLN president Gavin Harvey said it will produce games in high definition and "make those available to our affiliates and distributors." Some OLN hockey games may be carried on local sports channels.

OLN and Comcast must build a national hockey production team and hire announcers. OLN plans to produce a postgame hockey show that will air after its live games, so it must build a studio.

Other than Fox, Comcast produces more hockey games than anyone in the United States through its regional SportsNet channels, but its resources are scattered. Comcast's local hockey production capability must stay local, covering teams including the Flyers, Chicago Blackhawks and Washington Capitals.

Harvey said OLN has contacted announcers, but "we're not ready to talk about exactly who they are."

OLN officially has expunged the word Outdoor from its name, going with just OLN since a July "rebranding." Harvey has been widening the channel's stated mission, saying it is about "competition of all types."

Bettman recalled the one NHL game played outdoors in 2003, on an iced-over football field in Edmonton, Alberta, with a windchill factor below zero. It was not televised in the United States.

"In the course of this [OLN] relationship, we'll probably endeavor to put on an outdoor game every season," Bettman said.

NHL TV Ratings

Ratings for nationally televised NHL games, with number of games per season in parentheses:

YEAR ABC ESPN ESPN2
01-02 1.4 (5) 0.49 (27) 0.23 (75)
02-03 1.1 (5) 0.46 (21) 0.23 (50)
03-04 1.1 (5) 0.47 (20) 0.24 (50)
Each point equals about 900,000 households, but the formula varies from year to year.
Sources: Nielsen Media Research, SportsBusiness Daily

Major-League Deals
TV rights fees for the four major professional sports:
Net Annual $$$ Duration
NFL
CBS $500 million 1998-2005
Fox $550 million 1998-2005
ABC/ESPN $550 million 1998-2005

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
Fox $416.7 million 2001-2006
ESPN $141.8 million 2000-2005

NBA
TNT/TBS $367 million 2002-2008
ESPN/ABC $400 million 2002-2008

NHL
NBC No fee; ad-revenue split 2004-2005
OLN $65 million At least two years

Sources: SportsBusiness Daily, Inquirer research

Thursday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

For ABC, it is! :D

They'll promote the heck out of this thing and it will garner huge numbers which will be subjected to an onslaught of new/returning series promotion. They'll pay Monaco and O'Hurley a tidy sum as well, so it's a solution to their problems too. Everybody wins this time!

And no matter how well John and Christine dance, the soap-opera throngs will STILL vote Kelly and Alex the winners. :D

Friday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Heh, either you're psychic or you meant Thursday night's ratings... :)

You are right, of course!

I can make myself look like an idiot in so many other ways -- I've changed the post :)

Cable guise
Channels built on arts, education and high culture now go low with cheesy programming

By Robert P. Laurence San Diego Union-Tribune TV Critic

Dog the Bounty Hunter wears his hair in a mullet, struts around in black leather and camouflage, and sports several tattoos. His speech is frequently punctuated with bleeps.

Prowling Waikiki Beach, ruthlessly hunting down a fellow he describes as "the godfather of Waikiki," who is wanted for several traffic violations, he blends in with vacationing beachgoers in shorts and swimming suits like a clown at a funeral.

Nor does Dog appear to resemble the target audience of cable's A&E Channel, at least not the folks who once tuned in for dramatizations of Jane Austen novels, "The Great Gatsby," "Longitude" and "Sherlock Holmes Mysteries."

Nevertheless, "Dog the Bounty Hunter" is one of the biggest shows on A&E these days. Dog, along with the dudes and chicks who hang around the Hart & Huntington Tattoo Co., in the lobby of a Las Vegas casino, today are staples of the channel TV Guide once described as "a kind of BBC West."

A&E, where the initials first stood for Arts & Entertainment, is not what it was, nor are Bravo or TLC (where the L once stood for Learning). They used to be three of cable's most rewarding channels, home of smart programming, the better movies, original dramas, interesting documentaries.

Now, true-crime series bump against custom motorcycle builders. Home makeover shows abound. A&E's Las Vegas tattoo parlor reality show is called "Inked," while TLC offers "Miami Ink."

Bravo, where prime-time lineups once included films like "Romeo and Juliet" and "Jules and Jim," where viewers could revisit "Brideshead Revisited" without commercials, on Wednesday kicks off "Battle of the Network Reality Stars," a series of quasi-athletic matches involving former contestants from "Survivor," "The Bachelor" "Big Brother," "The Real World" and the like.

Lauren Zalaznick, president of Bravo, calls "Battle of the Network Reality Stars" "the smartest show we'll produce this year."

For many years, A&E competed with PBS for American rights to the prestige British dramas. Some critics foresaw the day when PBS would no longer be necessary, thanks to A&E, Bravo and TLC. You seldom hear that anymore, not from anybody's who's actually seen Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown" or "Being Bobby Brown," perhaps the most unwatchable celebrity-reality program anywhere. "Inside the Actors Studio" lingers on, a vestigial remnant of what Bravo used to be, before it carried commercials and became the "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" channel.

"That's an argument for PBS," said Tim Brooks, Lifetime's vice president for research and co-author (with Earle Marsh) of "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows." "Whatever else you say about it, (PBS) doesn't seem to be going in the direction of 'Battle of the Network Reality Stars,' or probably ever will."

The changes may have been inevitable, given the constant need of commercial television for bigger ratings numbers and younger audiences. It was that demand that prompted TLC to abandon its educational mission in favor of endless reruns of "Trading Spaces."

"High culture has never had much of a place on American television," noted Brooks.

Kevin Downey, who covers the cable industry for MediaLifeMagazine.com, an industry Web journal, described the typical cycle:

"These cable networks start out with a nice niche that separates them from the pack and works very effectively. The sad part of an advertiser-supported medium is that they have to grow the audience. And there's a limited audience for being in a nice niche."

Bravo is now a vassal of NBC, itself a property of General Electric, while TLC is part of the Discovery Communications group of channels. Founded in 1972, TLC may be cable's longest-running channel, and may have traveled the furthest. It was started jointly by the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare and NASA, and for a time was called the Appalachian Community Service Network.

A&E, owned jointly by the Hearst Corp., ABC (in turn owned by Disney) and NBC, has made the strategy work. With reality shows like "Dog the Bounty Hunter," "Growing up Gotti" (following the travails of New York's Gotti mob family) and "Knievel's Wild Ride" (the daily life of motorcycle daredevil Robbie Knievel), it has lowered the age of its median viewer from 61 to 49 and won double-digit growth among viewers 25-54 and 18-49.

"It's not your father's A&E," said Brooks.

Each of the channels was originally distinctive, he added, but each found it had "a limited audience. Or the audience they started with went in another direction.

"Then the pressure was on them, especially now that they're all part of large conglomerates, to keep ratings rising and keep profits increasing.

"Eventually, they say, 'Why do we have to be tied to this thing we were when we started? We'll morph into something else, hopefully something attractive to younger viewers and advertisers.' "

Bob DeBitetto, general manager of A&E and its sister channel, Biography, said in an interview that not only had A&E's median reached age 61, it was "going up one year every year. We've welcomed an entire generation of new viewers to our community."

He added that "the last two years have represented a further evolution of where we're going. There is no question, the name of the network notwithstanding, we are an entertainment network. We're not an arts programmer.

"So-called 'reality programming' now finds itself the backbone of broadcast as well as cable prime-time lineups. Programming that adult audiences would gladly watch five or 10 years ago, you can't get them to watch it anymore. . . . A&E was at risk of not being able to monetize its business."

DeBitetto characterized A&E reality programs – "Dog," "Family Plot," "Inked" – which follow the everyday lives of more-or-less everyday people, as "docu-soaps."

"We're not doing the contest shows, we're not doing our version of 'Fear Factor' or 'Survivor' or 'The Bachelor,' " he said.

Zalaznick, a former VH1 programmer who took over at Bravo a year ago, doesn't acknowledge that changes have happened. "There's really been no change in what Bravo's trying to do in the pop-culture arts and entertainment world," she said in an interview. "It's always been about the creative process, it's always been about casting a very keen eye on what celebrities do to make their art."

With "Reality Stars," she said, Bravo will "simultaneously celebrate old and nostalgic pop culture but also not be afraid of change, the way so many people are afraid of change. So the fact is we are truly paying homage to the old favorites."

So far, the strategy hasn't worked at Bravo. As reported by the show-business trade paper Variety, ratings in July were down 8 percent from last year, which in turn was down 17 percent from 2003.

TLC, where prime-time titles 10 summers ago included "Great Battles of the Civil War" and "Archaeology," is also still struggling, according to Downey. "TLC is a shining example of that downside right now," he said. "They're virtually indistinguishable from any other network. I challenge a person on the street to tell what TLC stands for. They don't stand out from the other cable networks; they don't have a clear identity.

"Their programming isn't that great, they're suffering huge losses in audience, and their advertising revenue is seriously on the decline.

"They don't exactly know what to do to distinguish themselves and at the same time increase their ratings. They'll probably play around with a lot of different concepts."

Besides "Trading Spaces," "While You Were Out" and "What Not to Wear," TLC this fall will bank on "Going Hollywood," an eight-part reality series following young adults who try to get into show business by starting as interns for firms operated by producer Robert Evans and performers Kevin Spacey and Method Man.

"It's less of the listen-and-learn type of documentary approach of 20 years ago and more of a live-and-learn approach through the programming," said David Abraham, TLC's new executive vice president and general manager. "The viewer learns through their experiences about what they're learning. Yes, it's entertainment, but it's really a program about going into the world of work."

TLC, he said, was "never a one-genre network. What we're in the process of doing now, and it's going to take us a little bit of time, is re-balancing the schedule so that one genre doesn't totally dominate.

"I absolutely believe that there should be a very strong level of clarity around TLC, what it means to viewers, and the connection between that and the programs."

Meanwhile, history's evolutionary process continues.

Ovation, a new cable channel dedicated to the arts, seems to be sidling into that seat once occupied by A&E and Bravo. It's still not carried on every cable system, but Ovation's Wednesday lineup – opposite "Battle of the Network Reality Stars" – includes a profile of opera singer Maria Callas, a "comic drama" based on artist Salvador Dali, and a documentary about Tuscany's Batignano Opera Festival.

"As a network abandons a niche, somebody else will come in who's very hungry and at the back of the pack to try to fill that niche," said Brooks. "I'd predict that there will be more cultural channels bubbling up."

But once Ovation gets just a little popular, and begins lusting for ratings, can Dog the Bounty Hunter be far behind?

Serial Shifts:
To Beat Up Rivals, TV Networks Do The Lineup Shuffle
In TiVo Age, Fox Says Viewers Find Shows, but CBS Sees Gains by Staying Consistent

By BROOKS BARNES Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL August 19, 2005

"King of the Hill," a comedy on News Corp.'s Fox network about a propane salesman, is a moderate hit that draws a weekly audience of about five million people. But don't ask fans what time it's on.

Fox changed the show's time slot seven times between October and June. "King of the Hill" started out at 7 p.m. EST on Sunday night before moving to 9:30 p.m. In subsequent weeks, it aired at 8:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. before moving to 7 p.m. By season's end, it was back at 7:30 p.m.

Says Preston Beckman, Fox executive vice president of strategic program planning: "Our viewers are smart enough to follow shows as we move them."

Are they? How modern audiences find TV programs to watch is a debate roiling the broadcast networks as they struggle to adapt to a rapidly changing entertainment landscape. One camp says that shows attract audiences the same way they did when TV was in its infancy -- by habit. It's why Viacom Inc.'s CBS has aired "Survivor" in the same spot for the past five seasons, and why General Electric Co.'s NBC is trying to break its recent history of serial schedule-shuffling.

"Truthfully, I have a hard time finding where some stuff is," says Kevin Reilly, NBC's president of entertainment.

But Fox and Time Warner Inc.'s WB network, among others, say habit isn't as crucial as it used to be. Digital video recorders and on-demand services give viewers the power to watch a show whenever they want. Schedulers -- whose high-stakes decisions can make or break a star, show or corporate boss -- are also experimenting with such drastic departures from tradition as limiting repeats and abandoning the September-to-May season.

Fox's strategy: aggressively shuffle shows, even ones that are working where they are, to achieve ratings advantages and to inflict damage on rivals' lineups. It's a technique that risks alienating viewers, not to mention annoying producers and studios. But Fox says using the schedule to block and tackle has gained a new urgency as the network ratings race has grown tighter. Indeed, the ratings gaps between the Big Four networks shrunk to just tenths of a point at the end of the 2004-2005 season, or about 250,000 viewers. This season, says Mr. Beckman, "hundredths of ratings points will matter."

TV networks have always mixed up their schedules, but for decades they made big changes just once a year in the fall. A show might move time slots or nights when it returned from summer hiatus, but the lineup would otherwise remain largely unchanged for the season. Schedulers aimed to usher the same audience from show to show, fostering allegiance from demographic groups prized by advertisers. The ratings performance of a single show wasn't as important as keeping viewers dialed in for the evening.

Schedules became more chaotic in the late 1980s as the TV dial grew crowded, the VCR came of age and Nielsen Media Research, a unit of VNU NV, began delivering detailed overnight ratings. Suddenly, network chiefs and advertisers received daily ratings report cards. If part of the grid wasn't working, networks felt pressure to tweak it sooner rather than later. Program shifts grew especially frequent at the start of "sweeps" months, when ratings are used to set local ad rates.

Programmers have continued to obsess over audience flow. To discourage viewers from switching channels between programs, for example, Walt Disney Co.'s ABC scheduled "Lost" last season so that it ran over into the next time slot. But shuffling the deck is intensifying to the point where changes are occasionally made with 24 hours' notice or less, often during the formerly quiet months between sweeps. It's one reason TV Guide in July announced it would stop publishing much of its signature listings: The magazine's information is sometimes wrong because of last-minute changes.

An Influential Role

Perhaps no executive is playing as influential a role in carving out a new scheduling paradigm as Fox's Mr. Beckman. Now 55 years old, he put himself through college by driving a New York City taxi. He eventually got a doctorate in sociology, which helped him land a job in NBC's research department in 1980. His work caught the eye of superiors and in 1991 he was hired as the chief scheduler.

Just a couple of years into the job, he drew harsh criticism from some consumer groups for slating an adult-oriented sitcom, "Mad About You," in the so-called family hour, during the first hour of prime time. The show turned into a hit and held the slot for three seasons. "That move changed the way networks thought about where they could place their programs," says Warren Littlefield, NBC's former president of entertainment.

Mr. Beckman joined Fox in 2000, about the time the network bought exclusive rights from Major League Baseball to air playoff games. The baseball contract blew a hole in Fox's entertainment programming for most of October and made it virtually impossible for new shows to gain traction. At the same time, Fox needed to compete more nimbly with cable outlets in the summer.

Mr. Beckman was an architect of the strategy, adopted last season, to abandon the September-to-May season and introduce new programs year-round. The change meant asking viewers to adapt to three very different prime-time schedules. Fox now has one distinct lineup for June through August, a drastically different one for September through December, and yet another for January through May. In comparison, other networks generally run the same slate September through May, mixing things up a bit in the summer.

Mr. Beckman's "gonzo" scheduling, as some of his counterparts call it with disdain, is delivering results for News Corp. Fox finished the 2004-2005 season as the No. 1 network among 18-to-49-year-olds for the first time since its inception in 1987. This is the demographic group that advertisers pay a premium to reach. The No. 1 ranking is crucial to attracting top talent and boosting ad sales, not to mention its impact on internal morale. Amid a difficult TV-advertising climate, Fox used the ranking to secure stable ad commitments for the coming season.

Not everyone is convinced that Mr. Beckman's formula is a winner, however. As Fox's programming shifts have grown bolder, those of some competitors have moved in the opposite direction. NBC's Mr. Reilly partially blames his network's current woes on too many changes over the past few years. NBC dropped to last place among the Big Four last season as viewership plunged 16% in the critical 18-to-49 age group. "People have so much to keep track of these days that we think a little consistency will go a long way," Mr. Reilly says.

Analysts, meanwhile, cite CBS's steady-as-she-goes approach as one of the reasons the network finished last season in its best competitive position since the early 1980s. That doesn't mean CBS doesn't yank poorly performing shows and substitute reruns of hits such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." But it basically adheres to a conservative model of scheduling that harks back to the glory days of network TV in the 1950s and 1960s. Since 1975, "60 Minutes" has occupied the 7 p.m. Sunday slot.

A shifting schedule makes sense for Fox partly because it heavily targets teen and young-adult viewers, a fickle group accustomed to fast-paced change in the media it consumes. "We feel that mixing things up is absolutely critical to attracting a younger audience," says Peter Liguori, Fox president of entertainment.

These viewers locate TV shows differently than their parents, network research suggests. Some industry people disagree, but it's generally believed that Web sites, cellphone alerts and on-screen guides have made it easier to keep track of shifting air times. Previous generations either memorized the network schedule or kept a dog-eared copy of TV Guide on the coffee table.

Competitive Weapon

Digital video recorders -- about 38 million homes are expected to have one by 2009, up from 12 million today, predicts Kagan Research LLC -- automatically track favorite shows as they zoom around the schedule. A TiVo programmed to record "King of the Hill," for example, wouldn't have had any trouble finding the show last season.

Mr. Beckman used the 10-year-old series, especially popular with young men, as a competitive weapon because it attracted a consistent core of viewers no matter when it appeared. So Mr. Beckman moved the show to different slots to improve Fox's nightly score and target what rivals were offering. "I spend a lot of time trying to psych-out the competition," he says.

"King of the Hill" producers say they understand the logic, but that doesn't mean they have to like it. "You call and you yell, but at the end of the day there's nothing you can do," gripes John Altschuler, an executive producer. "I obviously have not been happy with the way we've been bounced around. We get angry emails from fans who can't find us, and that's really sad."

Moving a hit is highly unorthodox. Fox did just that when it moved its soap, "The O.C.," to Thursday nights from Wednesdays last year. Fox wanted to use the show to open a beachhead on Thursdays after the retirement of "Friends." Another example is Paris Hilton's reality show "The Simple Life," a hit that attracts an average of 11 million viewers. Mr. Beckman moved the show five times during its five-month run last season.

Juggling Shows

As Mr. Beckman juggles shows in a bid to deliver daily ratings wins and help new fare find viewers, he moves quickly to block shows on rival networks that could pose a threat. One such program was "Revelations," a high-profile miniseries that premiered on NBC in April. Backed by a megawatt $2 million marketing campaign, the religion-themed drama looked like formidable competition.

So Mr. Beckman went in for the kill. NBC had slated "Revelations" at 9 p.m., pitting the hour-long show against two half-hour shows at Fox -- the hit "American Idol" followed by a struggling new comedy called "Life on a Stick." Three days before "Revelations" premiered, Fox abruptly canceled "Life on a Stick." In its place: a second half-hour of "American Idol." The change was made with such haste that TV Guide had already gone to press with the week's listings.

NBC brass, along with "Revelations" producer Gavin Polone, were shocked at Fox's aggression. "They murdered us," says Mr. Polone. The producer says he phoned Mr. Liguori to "jokingly scream" at him. "I wanted to know how he could stick a knife in my heart that way," Mr. Polone says. "I know it's a competition, but this seemed extreme."

Mr. Liguori confirmed the conversation, but otherwise declined to comment on it. NBC ran out subsequent episodes of "Revelations," but Fox's scheduling maneuver helped prevent the miniseries from getting a foothold on its first night.

Broad scheduling decisions at Fox reach the highest ranks of News Corp. To lay out the network's various schedules for the coming 2005-2006 season, a dozen of the media conglomerate's top executives, including Chairman Rupert Murdoch and President Peter Chernin, met in a blitz of top-secret meetings in Los Angeles in early May.

Holed up in Mr. Chernin's office on the Fox lot, the executives, fueled by red jelly beans and Juicy Fruit gum, settled on a schedule marked by flip-flopping time slots.

"Bones," a new drama about a brilliant but hostile archeologist, would air at 8 p.m. Tuesday, followed by "House," a newly minted hit about a brilliant but hostile doctor. The lineup would shift again in January after the return of "American Idol" and "24," two hits that would rest in the fall due to the baseball playoffs.

Rivals say that this isn't prescient scheduling as much as an indication of weakness. Without a stable of monster-sized dramas and comedies, Fox needs to rely more heavily on stunt scheduling to stay competitive. "I think they're trying to make the best out of what they have," says NBC's Mr. Reilly.

There are signs Fox knows this strategy is risky. The network has made an effort recently to convince advertisers its schedule is gaining more consistency. Mr. Liguori told advertisers in New York in May that the coming season represents "Fox's most consistent and stable schedule in years." He says he was referring to the number of returning shows more than individual time periods.

Mr. Beckman says his notions of scheduling actually don't depart that much from the slot-it-and-leave-it classical method. He says he believes in building blocks of compatible programming that will keep viewers tuned into Fox. He says the action-packed drama "24" will return in January to the same slot on Monday nights, while "American Idol" will return to its familiar spots on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

But if "gonzo" programming can win rating points, or beat the competition, then Mr. Beckman is all for it. "I've never been afraid to go nuts," he says, because "the greater the risk, the greater the reward."

An arresting link
Rashida Jones stars in a cop drama. So did her mom, Peggy Lipton

By Lynn Smith Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 21, 2005

WHEN Rashida Jones was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" at the Buckley School, the child of music producer Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton was thinking of a career in politics or law. Then a bout of depression caused her to seek an outlet in theatrical productions at Harvard University, where she was studying religion and philosophy. Jones subsequently built a career as an actress known for her beauty and quiet confidence.

Single and living in Los Angeles, Jones, 29, recently landed the female lead in TNT's new crime drama "Wanted" as a former naval intelligence officer who becomes the lone woman in an elite crime-fighting squad in Los Angeles.

Q: Your mother starred in "The Mod Squad" [1968 to '73]. Did you have any preconceptions about working on another Aaron Spelling production?

A: It's not "The Mod Squad" at all. That was 30 years ago. My mom and I had a good giggle about the fact that we were both cops on Aaron Spelling shows. The shows are very different. Her hair was probably longer than her skirts. I'm in jeans out there, arresting guys, shooting guys, getting beat up, spitting in people's faces.

Most people have a preconceived idea of what a Spelling production is. I loved "Melrose Place" and "Beverly Hills, 90210." I was a bit hesitant when I first saw his name on the front of the script. I didn't want to do a nighttime soap. I wanted to do something edgier. When I started reading it, I realized it was going in absolutely a new direction.

Q: Both you and your character [Carla Merced] are greatly outnumbered by men at work. They give her a hard time as she tries to fit in. Is there any mixing of life and art on the set?

A: They're all great guys. I love the cast and the crew. There is something that happens when they're all put together. They become like a herd. There's a lot of macho behaviors. They get really loud. It's not easy. I'm usually the most tomboyish one in the pack. Now I feel really ultra feminine.

Luckily, we all have the same sense of humor. I'm a little more protective with myself, a little more cautious. Like my character, I'm a little more wary. The more time goes on, the less guarded I am. She's gauging what the atmosphere is like. She gets more comfortable and lets down her guard a bit more. I start to wear a little more makeup as the show goes on.

[Carla] is not a cookie-cutter woman cop role. She shows them through her actions and her expertise that she's worthy of being there. She can play their game, which is great.

Q: How did your parents react to your choosing an acting career?

A: My father was initially a little disappointed that I wasn't studying business or law. I think he thought I would pick some legitimate trade.

A: My dad is so unconditional about his support for me. He would support me as long as I was committed and I was happy. He knows how ridiculous this business can be, how working hard, being steadfast and talented doesn't necessarily mean you do well. Now he's really proud of me.

My mom helped me with every audition I had. She was never a stage mom. She's an incredible coach. I'm so lucky to have that expertise in the family that I don't have to pay for.

Q: Does it help to have parents in Hollywood?

A: The nice thing is, I know more about the business from them. And they definitely have friends in the business who are really great. No way would that ever get me a job. You have to do well once you get in the door. I haven't been handed anything.

Q: How did you make the transition from Harvard to Hollywood?

A: I left school and moved to New York. It was really hard to get auditions for theater at the time. I knew it would be easier in L.A. Out of necessity I came back home.

My parents are such cool, regular, healthy people, I didn't make some kind of blanket judgment about Hollywood. There is something disturbing, a self-importance, that is adopted by some people in Hollywood. There's this weird thing — fame and celebrity trumps almost any other ability and talent in the world. It's a powerful thing and not to be taken lightly. You can have that amount of power and be incredibly smart and astute. But just because you're famous doesn't mean you have a worthy opinion. Especially now that you can be famous for doing nothing.

Q: You spoke out when Tom Cruise denounced Brooke Shields for taking medication for depression.

A: It upset me a lot. I'm a true believer in you do what you need to do for yourself to become a better person. To so arrogantly criticize the use of SSRIs in public is really unfortunate. A lot of people use those drugs to get better. It's not about being addicted to them or being on them forever. I would hate for anybody with that much power and talent to discourage somebody to help themselves.

I'm not on medication now. I was, and it helped me through a difficult time. I would never take that back.

Q: Does acting help with depression?

A: I wouldn't say it helps me battle depression. I think working, having a job, helps with that. It could be an actress or a stenographer. The bottom line is my parents. I had great parents who are concerned with their mental and spiritual well-being.

They named me Rashida, which means "rightly guided on the true path."

No pressure.

Closing the lid on “Six Feet Under”

By Vinay Menon Toronto Star

In this final season, Six Feet Under would be different if Peter Krause was in charge.

Fans were gobsmacked this month when Nate Fisher, a central character, collapsed and later died after suffering a brain hemorrhage. When the series finale airs this weekend (TMN, Sunday, 9 p.m.), more surprises await.

For Krause, the actor who masterfully breathed life into Nate's troubled bones, it was an exhausting journey, a draining experience that reached its zenith when Nate died.

"That was very hard for me because I knew that even though I would have to go back to work I would no longer be Nate Fisher," he says.

I ask about some of Nate's strange actions this season. The character was by turns gloomy, resigned, petulant, distant, but most of all, stagnant. Why didn't Nate learn from past mistakes?

"I was frustrated, you know, at a certain point," Krause confides. "There were certain things that happened in the series that I didn't buy.

"For instance, Nate and Brenda getting married while she has a miscarried baby inside of her did not strike me as something that organically came out of their individual characters."

There is creative tension on any television show. And Six Feet Under — a richly textured drama that operated with the mantra, "Human beings are bundles of contradictions" — was not immune to friction.

Actors and writers often differ when it comes to telling stories, to developing characters.

"The problem for me after a while was I was having a difficult time surrendering to the material because I didn't feel like the writing staff was always surrendering to character," says Krause. "There were story ideas being forced upon the character rather than stories growing out of character."

In an age of Hollywood sound bites and key messages, his candour is startling and refreshing.

"Look, people have creative differences," he says. "It was definitely a creatively vibrant place to work. There is nothing invalid about the stories that we told this season. But if it had been me captaining the ship, I would have told a slightly different story."

At creative issue is the way Nate reacted to myriad heartbreaks and challenges over the five seasons. His father dies. He returns, against his instincts, to the family's funeral business. He has a tempestuous relationship with Brenda. He nearly dies. He marries Lisa. She mysteriously dies. Maya, their daughter, might not even be his child. He witnesses a gruesome suicide.

"I don't know how many times somebody has to get whacked upside the back of the head to become at least a little bit enlightened," he says.

So when did he realize Nate's growth would be stunted? That Nate was doomed to float with miserable inertia?

The realization, he says, dawned at the end of Season 4. After watching Hoyt blow his brains out, Nate returned to Brenda and proposed. It struck Krause as a decidedly un-Nate thing to do.

"That was the first notion that I had that Nate was not going to `wake-up'," he says.

This season, Krause also had problems with Nate and Brenda's hospital bed breakup, which came moments before his character died.

"I think, honestly, there was something that was rather unclear and murky about this story arc — why it was exactly that Nate and Brenda couldn't remain intimate together.

"I didn't buy it. Let me just say that."

Later in our conversation Krause says, "I think my favourite thing about the show was its ability to portray human existence honestly.

"When it did that, that's when Six Feet Under was at its best.

"I think that it's enjoyable to watch a soap opera. But sometimes the storylines, for me, got — I don't want to say crossed a line — but definitely moved into a space that seemed less honest and more sensational.

"Those moments were always less appealing to me because I don't think they revealed anything. I don't know. The element of truth was lost. It was disappointing because that's what we captured in the early episodes, those nerve endings of emotional truth."

Was it hard not to bring some of Nate's baggage home?

"It was difficult at times," Krause concedes. "I will say that I have very little desire after doing Six Feet Under to play tortured characters."

Krause turned 40 last week. I ask what it was like to play a character who suddenly dies at 40.

"I didn't give my own 40th birthday a second thought until I had to spend four days in a row celebrating a 40th birthday as Nate Fisher," he says. "And that will get you thinking about why people take the 40th birthday to mean something. I have arrived at the conclusion that the reason 40 is a big deal is because everybody banks on about 80 years. So at 40, you're halfway there."

Good lord, Peter. You're starting to sound like ... Nate. "Yeah, I've probably played him for too long," he jokes.

Another interesting revelation: Nate was almost spared. There was talk, says Krause, that Claire would be killed but Nate's death was not a surprise.

"I learned about the possibility of it during the first season," he says. "That was something (creator) Alan Ball was eyeing as the climax to the series, so to speak."

In the real world, Nate's death impacted Krause's family and friends.

"It was very difficult for people who know me to see those two episodes (the death and funeral). I think they did a really fantastic job creating the vacuum, the crater that was left after Nate was gone."

Krause will soon decamp to Vancouver, to begin shooting a new film, Civic Duty. It's about a man who believes his neighbour is a terrorist.

He's looking forward to parting company with Nate Fisher. In fact, the entire cast was utterly spent when the series finished shooting in June.

"It was a sad and tough series," he says. "We all grew to love each other. Because we were all asked to do such difficult things as performers, we really supported one another and championed each other's work on the show."

As he reflects on all this, ultimately, what was the message of Six Feet Under?

"If it did have a message," says Krause, pausing, "it's that we're all going to die. So get on with your life."

Cable’s Summer Slam
Ad-supported networks hope to ride momentum into fall

By Anne Becker Broadcasting & Cable 8/22/2005

With just two weeks left in its high season, basic cable is on track to notch its fifth straight summer ratings triumph over broadcast, winning by its largest margin ever. From the beginning of summer through Aug. 15, cable averaged a 60.9 share to broadcast’s 32.4. That’s compared with a 58.1/34.6 split last year.

Cable’s summer task, beyond producing new hits, is to use those shows to create viewer loyalty. That way, viewers keep tuning in when the big boys in broadcast come out swinging with new fall series. Turner’s TNT, for example, has laid out plans to ride its summer ratings wave into fall. The network grew 16% over last summer in prime, averaging 2.9 million total viewers through Aug. 15 (and 1.21 million in 18-49)—the most of any basic-cable network.

That was due to a record-breaking ratings draw in The Closer and a second original hit in Wanted, along with successful Friday-Sunday scheduling of its $100 million limited series Into the West. TNT also buffeted its originals with acquired series and movies, such as Saving Private Ryan and Jurassic Park III, that fit into the drama niche it has carved out over the past few years.

“Cable Made a Lot of Fans”

The network will keep its summer characters top of mind by weaving them into promotional spots that will run throughout the year. It will also run Wanted into the fall, luring viewers into the premieres of three new acquired dramas: Alias, Cold Case and Las Vegas.

“Cable made a lot of fans this summer, not only eyeballs,” says TNT/TBS Executive VP/COO Steve Koonin. “We’re not only open three months a year.”

Lifetime also triumphed this summer, notching a 9% increase in total viewership over last summer with an average 1.81 million viewers in prime, 723,000 of those 18-49. Because the women’s network scored largely through Monday-night original movies (including Murder in the Hamptons and The Dive From Clausen’s Pier), Lifetime aims to hold viewers through the fall season with more flicks. It will pack early September with not only more Monday movies but some Sunday ones, too, sometimes preempting original dramas.

“We’re delivering on a promise we’ve made as a network to deliver a certain type of genre,” says Tim Brooks, executive VP of research at Lifetime. “You come back to the network, not the programming.”

Finding a Branding Niche

But not all basic-cable networks saw gains. USA, summer’s second-most-viewed, dipped 10% in prime from last year, averaging 2.3 million total viewers (1.07 million 18-49). Although the network brought back hit dramas Monk, The Dead Zone and The 4400, it still seems to be finding its branding niche. In July, USA introduced a new logo and slogan “Characters Welcome,” and it will drive home the catchphrase going into fall, with promos for U.S. Open tennis running in August and September, and WWE’s Monday Night Raw, which returns to USA in October after a five-year absence.

FX also dropped in the ratings, losing 8% of total viewers from last year, with an average 1.17 million in prime (681,000 in 18-49) this summer. Returning favorite Rescue Me performed well, but new comedies Starved and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, as well as Iraq-war drama Over There, saw dwindling audiences each week. FX will promote Nip/Tuck’s September return with promos that will run in three of the five commercial breaks during each hour-long episode of Over There, and graphics bugs for Nip during the credits.

Summer: TNT triumphed in the ratings with originals, including The Closer.

Fall: Turner’s drama network begins running a trio of new acquired shows, including Alias.

Summer: Lifetime scored with original movies, including Murder in the Hamptons.

Fall: The women’s network keeps flicks going with Human Trafficking Oct. 24.

Summer: USA’s originals, including Monk, performed, but the network dipped 10% in prime.

Fall: Newly rebranded, the network brings back WWE on Oct. 3.

Friday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Cool Off With These DVDs
The Washington Post Sunday, August 21, 2005; Y05

In case you haven't noticed -- and we're pretty sure you have -- it's a little hot outside. (Welcome to Washington in August.) But if you're willing to brave the heat just long enough to get to your nearest DVD retailer, you can spend these steamy summer evenings in the comfort of your living room with the following flicks and TV shows, released within the past two weeks:

"ALF: Season Two" (Lions Gate Home Video: four-disc DVD $39.98; not rated; available Tuesday) The adventures of Gordon Shumway, the furry brown wiseguy from the planet Melmac, continue as ALF is relocated to the family garage for bad behavior. Extras include an interactive menu hosted by ALF and a pair of animated ALF cartoons.

"Dallas: The Complete Third Season" (Warner Home Video: five-disc DVD $39.98; not rated; available now) The prime-time soap opera set among a rich, spoiled and scheming Texas oil family ended its third year with one of the most-talked about cliffhangers in TV history as master conniver J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) found himself on the wrong end of a gun barrel. The set has 25 episodes, with commentary by co-stars Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray.

"Six Feet Under: The Complete Fourth Season" (Warner Home Video: five-disc DVD $99.98; not rated; available Tuesday) The dark HBO drama may be deep-sixed for good, but starting Tuesday you can rest in peace knowing that the penultimate season has made it to DVD. The season begins with Nate (Peter Krause) grieving over the loss of his wife, Lisa (Lili Taylor), and ends with his proposal to Brenda (Rachel Griffiths).

"The O.C.: The Complete Second Season" (Warner Home Video: seven-disc DVD $69.98; not rated; available Tuesday) The wealthy youngsters of Newport Beach are back for another season of getting it on, breaking it off and everything in between. Extras include a featurette, "Beachy couture: How O.C. fashion is made"; a retrospective, "The O.C.: Obsess Completely"; and gags and goofs from the first two seasons.

Upcoming TV on DVD Releases
From TVShowsOnDVD.com

August 23rd

First & Ten Seasons 1 and 2
Adam-12 Season 1
ALF Season 2
Boy Meets World Season 3
Emergency! Season 1
Good Times The 5th Season
Kung Fu Season 3
Life As We Know It Season 1
The O.C. The Complete 2nd Season
Once and Again Season 1 (rerelease) Season 2
Six Feet Under The Complete 4th Season
That's My Mama The Complete 1st Season The Complete 2nd Season
What's Happening!! The Complete 3rd Season

August 30th

As Time Goes By Complete Original Series Complete Series 8 & 9
Chef! Complete Collection The Complete 1st Season The Complete 2nd Season The Complete 3rd Season
Combat! Season 5 - Invasion 1 Season 5 - Invasion 2
Curb Your Enthusiasm The Complete 4th Season
Highway to Heaven Season 2
House Season 1
Married... with Children The Complete 4th Season
The Mind of the Married Man The Complete 1st Season
Nip/Tuck The Complete 2nd Season
Petticoat Junction Ultimate Collection
Roseanne The Complete 1st Season
The Saint Early Episodes - Set 2

September 6th

21 Jump Street Season 3
Buffalo Bill The Complete 1st and 2nd Season
The Bullwinkle Show Complete Season 3
Charmed The Complete 2nd Season
Degrassi Junior High Season 3
Doctor Who Story #045: Mind Robber Story #092: Horror Of Fang Rock
Doogie Howser, M.D. Season 2
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Halloween Special
Fraggle Rock Season 1 Vol 4: Doin Things That Doozers Do
Lost The Complete 1st Season
MacGyver Season 3
Millennium Season 3
Power Rangers S.P.D. Vol 02: Stakeout Vol 03: Wired

September 13th

Da Ali G Show The Complete 2nd Season
The Brady Bunch The Complete 3rd Season
The Bullwinkle Show Best Of Rocky & Bullwinkle: Volume 1
Cheers Season 6
The Dick Cavett Show Ray Charles Collection
Empire Falls (mini-series)
Everybody Loves Raymond The Complete 4th Season
Frasier Season 6
Las Vegas Season 2 - Uncut & Uncensored
One Tree Hill The Complete 2nd Season
SCTV Network 90 Volume 4
Smallville The Complete 4th Season
Taxi The Complete 3rd Season

September 20th

Andromeda Vol 5.1
Battlestar Galactica Season 1
Clone High Season 1
Crime Story Season 2
Desperate Housewives The Complete 1st Season
From the Earth to the Moon (mini-series)
Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats Volume 1
Justice League Unlimited - Season 1, Volume 2: Joining Forces
My Dad the Rock Star Vol 1: Dad's Debut
Ned and Stacey The Complete 1st Season
Penn & Teller: Magic and Mystery Tour (mini-series)
The Pretender The Complete 2nd Season
The Ren and Stimpy Show Season 5 and Some More of 4
Rides The Complete 2nd Season
SpongeBob SquarePants Absorbing Favorites
Taboo The Complete 2nd Season
Teen Titans Vol 3 (season 2, vol 1): Fear Itself

September 27th

The Amazing Race 1 Season 1
The Beverly Hillbillies Ultimate Collection Vol 1
Cheyenne TV Favorites
Chico and the Man Television Favorites
Creature Comforts The Complete 1st Season
Dr. 90210 The Complete 1st Season
The Dukes of Hazzard Television Favorites
F Troop TV Favorites
Gilmore Girls The Complete 4th Season
Hogan's Heroes The Complete 2nd Season
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit The 2nd Year
Maverick TV Favorites
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters Season 1
SpongeBob SquarePants The Complete 3rd Season
Star Trek: Enterprise The Complete 3rd Season
The X-Files Mythology Collection Vol. 3: Colonization

October 4th

Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 1
The Bob Newhart Show The Complete 2nd Season
Drawn Together Season 1
Into the West (mini-series)
Stargate SG-1 Season 8 Box Set

October 11th
Arrested Development Season 2
The Duchess of Duke Street Series 1
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Vol 2
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air The Complete 2nd Season
The Jeffersons The Complete 4th Season
Only Fools and Horses Complete Series 6
Soap The Complete 4th Season
South Park The Complete 6th Season
Veronica Mars Season 1

Upcoming TV on DVD Releases
From TVShowsOnDVD.com

Nip/Tuck The Complete 2nd Season

This is the one I've been wanting, just finished the 1st season...this is a very good show. :) Of course, it's yet another FX product that needs to be in HD... :rolleyes:

BTW, nice work on that post, putting all that color and bold in is not an easy job.

Whoops, missed this one Veronica Mars Season 1, wish this one was coming out earlier...

Six Feet Under" Finale Sunday
A happy conclusion would be quite an undertaking

By Gail Pennington St. Louis Post-Dispatch Television Critic Sunday, Aug. 21 2005

Our five years with the Fisher family of HBO's "Six Feet Under" haven't always
been happy ones. Funny, sometimes; involving, usually. But happy? No, not so
much.

That's understandable, because the Fishers themselves were so rarely happy.
Even at the most joyous times, the funeral-home clan - mother Ruth (Frances
Conroy); sons Nate and David (Peter Krause and Michael C. Hall); daughter
Claire (Lauren Ambrose); and their various spouses, lovers and friends - proved
to be a relentlessly morose group, seemingly determined to turn every pleasure
into the pain they were sure they deserved.

All too often, it was tempting to try to reach through the TV screen, grab them
by the shoulders and demand that they grow up, lighten up, get over themselves.

Mostly, though, they never did. Self-involved from the beginning, the Fishers
proved stubbornly unwilling to evolve much. When they took a step forward, they
almost always fell back (or were slapped back) two.

This, of course, was the doing of creator Alan Ball ("American Beauty") and his
team of writers, plunging ahead through 63 episodes in five seasons with no
clear idea - as Ball readily admits - of where they were going.

The resulting journey, like most unplotted travel, was by turns fascinating and
frustrating.

The idea, Ball says in a retrospective preceding the finale, was to "create as
many doors that could be opened as possible." Where they would lead, he adds,
"I had no idea."

The concept of the series, which came from HBO, was to show death not as the
ultimate taboo topic but as a mundane part of life. Thus Ball opted to begin
every episode with a death - usually arbitrary, often humorous, eventually
merely expected. ("Let's kill someone every week" is how he puts it, and the
retrospective features cast members laughing over their favorite deaths.)

But in "Six Feet Under," the dead rarely went away. Patriarch Nathaniel Fisher,
killed in the opening scene when his hearse crashed into a truck as he
attempted to light a cigarette, remained a regular character, played by Richard
Jenkins. Corpses on the embalming table or in their casket liked to open their
eyes and chat a bit, delivering unsettlingly personal lessons. ("I'm not you,"
Nate Fisher told his dead father in one early scene. Responded Nathaniel: "Just
keep telling yourself that.")

"Sadness and laughter come from the same place," Ball says in noting the
deliberately dark balance of comedy and drama in "Six Feet Under." The need for
love and the fear of it also come from the same place for the Fishers -
brittle, repressed Ruth; conflicted, gay David; searching Claire; puzzling,
contradictory Nate.

Ah, Nate - did anybody, even your creator, really understand you? Ball
describes Nate as the series' pivotal character, but just who Nate was seemed
to vary wildly from season to season. All these Nates, though, had one thing in
common: a need to destroy any happiness they found.

With all this enduring gloom hanging over the Fishers, it's surprising when in
the series finale a ray of light breaks. Not that this happens quickly. The
episode, titled "Everyone's Waiting," opens with all still mourning Nate's
death in the fourth-to-last episode.

Typically for "Six Feet Under," the death blindsided us. After facing his
mortality and undergoing brain surgery between seasons 2 and 3, Nate had gone
on to become a husband, a father, a widower and a husband again. Even after the
quirk inside his skull (an arteriovenous malformation, or AVM) ruptured once
more, he underwent surgery and was declared fine. Then, quietly, he died -
shortly after telling wife Brenda that he was leaving her and had slept with
someone else just before collapsing.

People have to die "to make life important," Nate himself once said. In this
case, though, Nate apparently had to die to force his loved ones, finally, to
save themselves.

Before an unfortunate epilogue, it's particularly satisfying in the finale to
see Claire, at last, begin to grow up and get over herself. David's progress
takes him where he should have gone all along, and even Ruth - yes, even Ruth -
puts down the "crushing burdens" she has shouldered.

Happy ending? No, not really. But for the Fishers, even a single beam of light
through the gloom makes for a gala farewell.

"Six Feet Under" series finale
When: 9-10:15 PM ET/PT Sunday, preceded (at 8 PM ET/PT) by a one-hour
retrospective .
Where: HBO

Requiem for a gem
'Six Feet Under,' HBO's stunning, revolutionary series about life and death and love and fear and grace, all set in a family-run funeral home, will die Sunday after a lengthy run of greatness

Dave Walker New Orleans Times-Picayune Saturday, August 20, 2005

You knew that HBO's "Six Feet Under" would make a grand exit the second it killed off one of its principal characters four episodes from the end.

Nate Fisher's stunning death set the show in motion toward an even more stunning finale, an extended-length episode scheduled for Sunday at 8 p.m. following a one-hour retrospective clip show.

In a conference call with TV reporters earlier this week, "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball talked about his show's life and death.

The reporters had seen a preview tape of the 75-minute finale, so some of the questions and answers dealt with material that, if dealt with here, would be spoilers.

So the "Six Feet Under" obituary will appear in two parts, the second of which will run in this space Monday morning. If ever a series finale is worth a double-dip, this one's it.

I'd fallen a little out of love with "Six Feet Under" in recent seasons, after falling head-over-heels early on, but the way it will end makes me moony all over again.

No spoilers here. But Monday, Ball discusses the series' artful conclusion in detail. DVR time-shifters, you've been warned.

At its best, "Six Feet Under" was TV's most daring drama. Set in a funeral home, it dived into the darkness of the owner-operator Fisher family and its grim business. Episodes opened with a fatality, but the messy entanglements among the living were its core subject matter.

I've always felt that the subtext of "Six Feet Under" was hopeful and uplifting, given the omnipresence of mortality -- and the sometimes gleeful celebration of immorality -- in its stories.

The characters could oscillate between contemptible and dreary, but the show's mantra -- life is a fight, then you die -- was a reminder that staying an active member of this particular fight club sure beats the alternative, especially if you manage en route to stay kind and forgiving to the people you love and who hopefully love you back.

Black humor was the show's best weapon in this regard, and "Six Feet Under" slipped from its creative heights only when that humor was submerged beneath soapsuds.

Nate Fisher often drowned in those bubbles. A cad who accepted worldly responsibility only with utmost reluctance, he had flaws that were seldom endearing.

And yet, he was ultimately a sympathetic character, a spiritual seeker who was, as weird stepfather George Sibley said at his funeral, "an idealist" who "struggled all through his life to be a good man."

In a lovely redemptive moment -- for himself and for more or less the last couple of seasons of a once-great series gone merely good -- George continued:

"He wasn't perfect, but who among us is? And he never gave up on himself, the people he loved or even love itself, in all its vexing, beautiful forms."

The idea of killing Nate, Ball said, met with considerable resistance in the show's writers' room.

"I just couldn't find any other way (that felt) as organic and as real to what the series is about," he said. "The show is about death and its place in our lives, and Nate, especially, is the character whose overall series arc has always been inching toward full acceptance of his own mortality."

The final step of which logically must be . . .

"It's death," continued Ball, an Academy Award winner for his script for the 1999 film "American Beauty."

"Nothing else clicked the way that that did. I felt like it needed to be him. Even though it's an ensemble drama, Nate had always been the central character, at least in the beginning."

The deadly device also gave Ball and his writing staff the opportunity to show the grieving process that Nate's survivors undergo.

Again, totally in character for a series that has been less about death itself than its impact on the living.

"You want to see the process, what happened to the survivors," Ball said.

Which, in this case, included the audience.

Nate's death was TV's water-cooler moment of the summer. Everyone has an opinion.

"Nate is one of those characters who shows his tragic flaws, but that is also his salvation," Ball said. "One of his flaws is that he can always envision a better life. How does the world get better without people who can do that?

"At the same time he creates a pretty constant state of dissatisfaction with life the way it is."

Killing him led to considerable dissatisfaction among viewers of the show, a reaction that surprised Ball.

"But I think what it means to me is the diehard fans of this show really felt a connection to these characters, and it really was upsetting to them when he died," he said. "I don't have an agenda I set out to fill, but sometimes in retrospect I can feel what the motivation was behind something. I think in these last four episodes, I wanted to create an atmosphere in which the show kind of forced one to grieve.

"It was something that all of us who worked on the show went through over the course of those last four episodes. The show was tremendously meaningful to everybody who worked on it.

"I think the reaction also reminded people how much they truly cared about him. Because everybody (said), 'Oh, Nate. He's such a (jerk). I can't believe he's doing that.' When he died, people realized, 'But we liked him. He did some unlikable things, but underneath it all, he wasn't a bad person.'

"We wanted it to be upsetting. We wanted it to be dramatic. We were surprised at how really angry people were."

Almost as angry as they were after the episode last season in which Nate's brother David was terrorized by a street punk.

Poor David. The punk continues to haunt him, one of many specters and poltergeists that inhabit "Six Feet Under."

Populated as it is by beings in various states of being, the show has been TV's most metaphysical drama during its run, at least on the surface. (And an unlikely trendsetter: I see dead people all over TV these days, with more coming in the fall in such new series as "Ghost Whisperer.")

One of the show's most lovable characters, Fisher family patriarch Nathaniel, perished via car wreck in the series' opening seconds, but never went away. So he has been dead through the entire series, but yet more lively than almost any other character.

This show was full of frequent fliers between the void and the meat world. Morgue-slab corpses were as chatty as telemarketers.

Nate's wife Lisa was such a nag even after death it's a wonder he survived as long as he did.

And in just two episodes since breathing his last, Nate has already proven himself an incredibly durable dead guy.

Somewhat surprisingly, Ball said he doesn't believe in ghosts.

Characters who saw them in "Six Feet Under" were "interacting with their own ideas, their own selves and whatever the dead character represents to them within their own psyches," Ball said. "That's the way I've seen it. I'm sure other people probably see it another way.

"Once somebody is dead, there's really not any communication that takes place between them and the living. I still have conversations with my (dead) father. Do I believe it's me talking to my father? No. I don't think so."

Sunday, "Six Feet Under" passes on.

Ball said he doesn't foresee an afterlife for the series, at least not in the form of a televised cast reunion sometime in the distant future.

"Unless," he said, "my career has totally tanked."

'Inside 9-11' issues a challenge: Remember
Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic August 20, 2005

The horror of Sept. 11, 2001, has spawned hundreds of hours of programming. The thought of four more could send viewers scurrying for their remotes.

But Inside 9-11, a new documentary, tries something different. In giving a sweeping timeline of al-Qaeda and the U.S. government's missed opportunities, the program becomes a bracing challenge to the country: Remember the war on terror.

Inside 9-11 premieres from 9 to 11 p.m. Sunday and Monday on the National Geographic Channel. The four hours will be repeated Sept. 8.

The National Geographic Channel is also making the program available free to all cable systems to offer to subscribers who currently don't receive the network. Bright House Networks will present the documentary Sunday and Monday to all standard and digital subscribers in Central Florida.

"What we want people to come away with is a better understanding of the sequence of events," says John Bowman, National Geographic Channel's vice president of production. "We feel that there is a need for the public to have a clearer idea of what happened from 1982 all the way through the events of 9-11."

To build the timeline, the program tells the story chronologically and draws on current and former officials, intelligence analysts, reporters, 9-11 survivors and victims' families. The speakers include former Sen. Bob Graham; Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars; John Miller, former co-anchor of ABC's 20/20; and Cofer Black, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA and the State Department.

Some terrorism experts from the program put the issue in stark terms. One is investigative reporter Peter Lance, author of Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror. He and other speakers in the program met TV critics last month in Beverly Hills, Calif.

"Al-Qaeda has tremendous bench strength," Lance says. "I don't think anybody on this panel will disagree that they're going to hit us again. And therefore, how do we fix the system that really hasn't been fixed since 9-11?"

Michael Scheuer, a former CIA analyst and author of Imperial Hubris, faults the government's changes since 9-11.

"More bureaucracy is never the answer for bad bureaucracy to start with," Scheuer says. "In my mind, the reorganization was simply done to avoid placing blame on the individuals who deserved it. Whenever you hear someone say, 'We're not here to point fingers' in a governmental commission, it means that the politicians are going to protect the politicians."

Executives at the National Geographic Channel stress that they want to explain little-known information. It's a deeply personal project: Two National Geographic employees were aboard Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.

"Our goal is not to investigate 9-11," says channel president Laureen Ong. "It's not to point fingers, but rather to present the facts."

The first half traces the rise of Osama bin Laden, the crafting of the 9-11 plot and the terrorists' movements in the United States. The second half explains how the attacks unfolded four years ago.

The attacks will be recounted in other upcoming programs and movies. Discovery Channel will present The Flight That Fought Back, about Flight 93 that crashed in rural Pennsylvania, this Sept. 11. Universal and the A&E network are making films of that story as well.

Oliver Stone will direct a film about two Port Authority police officers (one played by Nicolas Cage) who were trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center. ABC is doing a six-hour miniseries, starring Harvey Keitel, about events leading up to 9-11.

As a documentary, Inside 9-11 mostly maintains a low-key tone. It ends, however, with chilling conclusions that al-Qaeda has momentum, no matter what happens to bin Laden. The panel promoting Inside 9-11 highlights its value to viewers.

"It has some respect for the American public," Scheuer says. "It doesn't tell them how to think, as the 9-11 Commission did, as Michael Moore did in his movie. It doesn't point fingers, but it clearly shows there was negligence along the way."

Speakers say they want to warn the public that more forceful action must be taken to thwart terrorists. Bogdan Dzakovic, who is a whistle-blower at the Federal Aviation Administration, notes that the situation has worsened for employees who speak out.

"Before 9-11, we actually had a mechanism to talk to Congress and to talk through our chain of command," Dzakovic says. "There really isn't one now. The federal government whistle-blowers engaged in national security work are at an increasing threat from their own government when they bring out problems within the bureaucracy."

The FBI still does not have an effective computer system, investigative reporter Lance says. He hopes the documentary infuriates viewers.

"Anger results in action," Lance says. "We just can't let what happened to . . . the [nearly] 3,000 [killed] that day just go unremembered."

High-Def Meets Low-Cost
Cheaper gear means more players in the game

By Ken Kerschbaumer Broadcasting & Cable

Until very recently, conventional wisdom held that only those with deep pockets could afford HDTV production. A high-definition–capable camera and recording deck cost at least $80,000, and—while far less than the $200,000 price tag of a decade ago—that was high enough to prevent HD production from moving beyond prime time programming and network sports broadcasts.

But today, small local broadcasters, production companies and even independent producers can afford to create content in HD, thanks in part to Sony’s HVR-Z1U camcorder, introduced late last year, and JVC’s GY-HD100U camera. The former uses the HDV format—a high-def version of the low-cost consumer DV format—and costs about $4,900. JVC’s camcorder, introduced at NAB earlier this year, costs slightly more, but, along with the HVR-Z1U, it has opened the door to affordable HD production.

In the next few weeks, high-definition will gather even more momentum as networks move to meet the needs of the quickly growing HD-viewer base, which is expected to hit 15 million by year-end (up from 11 million last year). By the time the NFL regular season kicks off early next month, broadcast outlets will have shown 55 preseason games in high-definition. The Late Show With David Letterman makes its HD debut Aug. 29, ESPN2 HD will be available over DirecTV beginning Sept. 8, and Good Morning America brings HD to the morning news show segment in a matter of weeks.

“Knowing what the price point is, we’re definitely interested in seeing how [HDV] looks and providing some guidance to producers of our programs,” says Scripps Networks VP of Production Dave Metz, who’s gearing up HGTV and Food Network for a high-definition launch in the first half of 2006.

High-End High-Def

While HDV is expanding high-definition on the low end, Sony is doing it on the high end as well. The YES Network, which began broadcasting Yankees baseball games in HD this season and expects to do the same for New Jersey Nets basketball games this fall, is shooting its games in 1080-line progressive and using Sony HDCAM-SR decks, a high-ticket item (about $8,000) usually reserved for mastering prime time programming. On a typical telecast, YES will use 15 HD cameras and tape decks, an equipment complement that gives the crew considerable resources to get the shots it wants.

“The transition to HD isn’t cheap,” says YES Network Director of Operations Ed Delaney. “You can do a game with five cameras, but it’s all a matter of what kind of quality you want to deliver.”

While HDV allows those with more-modest budgets to enter the high-def game, the wealthier swear by the higher-end cameras, such as HDCAM and Panasonic’s Varicam. “HDCAM’s strengths are clearness and clarity, with quality detail right down to the pixel level,” says Gene Brookhart, VP of operations, The Outdoor Channel. He’s using 11 HDCAM systems and two Varicam systems—those offering more flexibility in frame rates—on more than 100 hours of HD programming each month.

As more networks jump headlong into high-definition, program producers are following. High Noon Entertainment in Denver, one of 15 companies that produce content for HGTV and Food Network, will provide more than 375 hours of HD content—including versions of Unwrapped, Generation Renovation and Designer Finals—for Scripps. Four HDCAM decks make it possible to get four streams of content onto the server at once, and 40 viewing stations are on hand for logging shots. The facility now has 28 HD offline editing rooms and only six standard-definition rooms.

“We’re shooting on HDCAM in the field and dumping the content on an Avid Unity storage system,” says High Noon Entertainment CEO Jim Berger.

To be sure, high-definition does pose considerable challenges, particularly when it comes to lighting, set design and makeup, according to many who have made the move. “Working in HD lets you capture rich detail and beauty, but you also capture things you may not want to see on-screen,” says High Noon Co-COO Chris Wheeler. “It has the potential to be warts and all—literally—if you don’t handle it right.”

More Editing Time

HD also lengthens the editing process, making time management more important. Berger says working in HD can add as much as half a day to the editing of a 30-minute program because it takes longer to create graphics and to ingest material. Moving to HD production, he points out, is about more than just buying cameras and decks. Anything that isn’t broadcast live needs to be edited, and producers find themselves facing a range of editing options that is nearly as wide as the shooting ones.

Scripps is leaning toward Avid’s Symphony Nitris for editing, Metz says, and while he expects about 25% of his systems to be HD-capable by the end of the year, he is proceeding with caution. “From a technical standpoint, everything is still unfolding,” he says. “There are issues around the HD technical specs, like which format to use, and you need to sort those out before you can build an entire soup-to-nuts HD facility.”

50 Million Viewers Next Year

Those that are making the jump can take comfort in the fact that, by mastering its nuances today—when audiences are relatively small—they’ll have an advantage when high-def viewers swell to the 50 million forecast by the end of next year.

“The cost difference is minimal compared to what we get out of it, which is a chance for our team to work on a high-quality project,” says WNBC New York President/General Manager Frank Comerford of his station’s high-def NFL broadcasts. “We’ve had a lot of expenses in going digital, and now we have to figure out how to use the signal.”

So 'Six Feet's' Over

Los Angeles Times---HBO's series "Six Feet Under," a sometimes surreal drama laced with dark humor, set in a family-run funeral home, ends its five-season run.

Life (and death) at the Fisher & Diaz Funeral Home was filled with grief and dysfunction that had little to do with the business itself. For the actors it's been an amazing ride as the show's creator, Alan Ball, stretched the boundaries of television. We asked some of the cast about the experience.

Michael C. Hall
David Fisher

What will you miss most about your character? I enjoyed the fact that David was inherently conflicted, because that makes a character juicy. Fundamentally he is conflicted with his relationship to his sexuality and his relationship to his work, to his family and to his faith.

What will your funeral be like? I would hope it was something that turned into a party. Hopefully people would be celebrating my life and not the fact that I had died.

Your most surreal moment on the show: Having the experience of burying Nate's body with people I've spent five years with who felt like a family to me. We were all, in a way, mourning the fact that the show was ending — there was a collision of fact and fiction.

Your favorite scene: The scene that Peter, Lauren and I did in the hospital, when we went to sleep and Nate died. There was something really sweet about it, and there was a sense of relative peace in the room. We all knew it was the last time we would be on screen together … alive, at least.

What are you going to do now? I'm going to shoot a pilot called "Dexter" for Showtime in Miami. It's about a blood-spatter expert with some substantial secrets. It's certainly a change of pace.

Peter Krause
Nate Fisher

What will you miss most about your character? Nate wasn't having much fun most of the time after the pilot, [so] maybe that brief encounter with the girl in the janitor's closet at the airport. I got to exorcise a lot of demons playing Nate.

What will your funeral be like? I guess I'd want it to be very simple. Lots of good food to eat, good music to be played and lots of wine to be drunk.

Your most surreal moment on the show: Seeing myself on an embalming slab down in the prep room. I had to go have a latex mold made of myself. You sit there while they put algin all over your whole body, head to toe.

Your favorite scene: I got to film myself with what's called a doggie cam strapped onto me. There were lots of drugs being done; we were smoking out of a bong, and Brenda had a friend visiting her from Australia who was naked. That was a fun episode.

What are you going to do now? I'm starting a film in September called "Civic Duty," in Vancouver, about an American obsessed with watching cable news and keeping track of news about terrorism with a Middle Eastern student living next door.

Lauren Ambrose
Claire Fisher

What will you miss most about your character? It's been interesting to chart [Claire's] journey from childhood to early adulthood. It's strange to leave that person behind. It's been a big fraction of my life as a young lady.

What will your funeral be like? I guess Nate's funeral was kind of a good option. It was a green funeral and very natural — he was buried in a shroud in a park, and it was very earthy, maybe too earthy.

Your most surreal moment on the show: The first season, I walked by a pile of overturned coffins — props that were sitting in the corner — and I thought, "This is a weird job."

Your favorite scene: I will always go back to the scene where we are burying our dad, in the pilot. Frances slowly puts dirt on the grave, and she gets herself into this state, and her hat comes off and snot is running out of her nose. We did it like 20 times from all these different angles.

What are you going to do now? I just finished a movie called "Diggers," about Long Island clam diggers of the '70s, with Paul Rudd.

Frances Conroy
Ruth Fisher Sibley

What will you miss most about your character? I'll think fondly of Ruth whenever I meet a woman who is just delighted to talk to me. People just relate to [Ruth], they like her, and to see the person who has been playing her astounds them and makes them really happy.

What will your funeral be like? That's one of the great mysteries of life, and I just hope that life has had some meaning for me when it comes to its completion. It's strange to talk about your own funeral. I'd rather think about life than death.

Your most surreal moment on the show: There was sort of an awfully comic situation where a very large person that died had fallen off the embalming table. Four of us had to somehow get him back on it. The reality of that was kind of astounding. It was terrible to the point of being comic.

Your favorite scene: I will always love the episode where [Ruth] chases the bear through the woods in her nightgown. I always smile when I think of that.

What are you going to do now? I'm working on a film with Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn called "The Wicker Man."

Rachel Griffiths
Brenda Chenowith

What will you miss most about your character? [Brenda's] got such brass that no episode is going to have predictable behavior. It's kind of the great pleasure of not knowing what she'll do or say.

What will your funeral be like? I don't like to think about my own funeral. I think it's bad luck.

Your most surreal moment on the show: I was in the nursery one day and my [real-life] little boy came in and said, "Lady flying, lady flying." I went out to see, and they were filming the blue screen where the sex dolls were flying through the air like angels.

Your favorite scene: The scene where [Brenda's mother, Margaret] is advocating vaginal rejuvenation surgery. That was pretty hard to get through without laughing.

What are you going to do now? I just had a baby girl six weeks ago, so I'm focused on that at the moment. I have a feature film early next year called "Up." I'm also adapting a novel to direct next year called "B Model."

Freddy Rodriguez
Federico Diaz

What will you miss most about your character? I've never seen anyone play a mortician on TV, so I enjoyed being a pioneer. I like finding out what's going to happen before the rest of the world does.

What will your funeral be like? I think it will be the traditional kind where they pickle me and put me out on display and have my family come and see me and celebrate and cry and grieve.

Your most surreal moment on the show: A lot of scenes I had were with dead bodies in the embalming room. I got used to it after a while, but every so often a certain body would gross me out. There would be one with the head split open and the brains hanging out or something crazy like that.

Your favorite scene: The scene during the second season when I caught my cousin having sex in my living room. I loved seeing the reactions of people I knew. They couldn't believe it.

What are you going to do now? I just wrapped a remake of "The Poseidon Adventure" with Wolfgang Petersen, and I'm doing M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water

Saturday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Interns Tell CBS Brass How They'd Fix News

By Michael Grynbaum The New York Observer

It was straight out of a reality show. With the performance over, the panel of judges slowly held up their scores, stenciled in black ink on white notebook paper: 7, 8, 7.

American Idol? Olympic figure skating? Not quite. The scene took place late last month in an executive boardroom at CBS News’ headquarters on West 57th Street, and the judges carried a bit more gravitas than Simon Cowell. Manning the scorecards was a group of top-ranking Tiffany executives, including Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News, and Susan Zirinsky, executive producer of 48 Hours. Facing them stood a half-dozen or so unpaid interns.

The panel was the culmination of a summer-long project that divided CBS News’ nearly 100 college-age interns into small groups to come up with strategies to attract younger viewers to the network’s third-ranking evening newscast.

“Basically the assignment was to come up with a presentation and concept for how you would revamp the evening news, to captivate a younger demographic,” said one intern who participated in the program. “They are not getting the audience that they want.”

Several interns spoke with The Observer about their experiences, asking that their names not be used. (Shortly after an Observer reporter contacted a CBS coordinator last week, interns received an e-mail instructing them not to speak with members of the press.)

Interns said they were encouraged to brainstorm freely, suggesting changes to the show’s anchor lineup, its news content, set design, marketing techniques and any other aspect of the newscast. One ground rule: The 6:30 time slot had to stay the same.

The groups presented their ideas to CBS executives on July 27. Judicial duties were shared by Eric Shapiro, director of the evening news and Linda Mason, senior vice president, standards and special projects, as well as Mr. Heyward and Ms. Zirinsky, according to the interns.

Several groups suggested adding a younger anchor to complement Bob Schieffer: “Someone who a younger audience will relate to a little more than a grandfather figure,” as one participant put it. The executives were also surprised to hear calls for more emphasis on international coverage, according to the interns.

“I think a lot of us felt there was a dearth of international news reporting in American news,” said one intern. “Every other country when you watch the news … you learn about the genocide in Sudan, you learn about these types of international issues.”

The judges nixed a proposal for a one-hour newscast, as well as a plan to eliminate the recently introduced “debriefings” of the Schieffer newscast, the off-the-cuff question-and-answer periods between anchor and correspondents.

“That was a big idea we wanted to get rid of. We wanted to put less emphasis on [correspondents],” said an intern. “They did not like that.”

Executives also dismissed adding weather and sports segments to the newscast, according to the interns. But a proposed increase in “MTV-style” national reporting was warmly received, as was a call to expand coverage of minorities and minority-related issues.

In at least one case, the brass was more enthusiastic about innovation than the interns were. “Podcasting was a big deal to them,” said one intern. “That’s because podcasting just came out on ABC and NBC… That’s just a tiny little thing to us. That sort of showed us that they would rather hear what they were already thinking.”

The reinvention project, not included in official descriptions of CBS’ internship program, was assigned for the first time this summer, in the midst of a period of self-examination for the Eye’s news operation. Mr. Heyward told CBS affiliates in June that the Evening News is in a “process of evolution,” and in recent months the network has looked outside traditional circles to mine fresh ideas for its ailing flagship newscast, including online video and a Web log.

The project was intended by the network to be educational, said Ms. Mason, the executive in charge of CBS News’ internship program.

“The purpose was so they could see how the business works,” Ms. Mason said last week, adding that the project was “for them. This was for them to learn. It was not for us. Frankly, we weren’t looking for ideas for the evening news. We have a whole group of people working on that right now.”

So why bring the brass onto the panel? Ms. Mason said that network executives were the most qualified for the task. “When it came time to judge the program it seemed smart to have senior management involved,” Ms. Mason said. “These are the people who have been doing this line of work all our life.”

Impressed by their high-ranking audience, some interns said they felt their ideas could make a difference at the newscast.

“We got an e-mail a couple days afterward from Andrew Heyward, saying he was tremendously impressed with our efforts and that they were far better than many so-called expert panelists,” said one intern. “We have a feeling that our ideas will be integrated into the evening news in the future.”

And another participant invoked an old corporate adage: Time is money. “Andrew Heyward wasn’t listening to interns present ideas to him to be nice to the interns. Clearly he thought he could get something out of it,” the intern said.

For the network’s part, Ms. Mason said she and the other executives were impressed with what they heard.

“We couldn’t believe how much work, how much research, how careful the interns were. And in fact we thought it was so great we’re going to do it again next year,” she said.

And the grand prize for the winning group? Dinner and a show, say the interns; CBS paid for rush tickets to The Producers and an Italian meal.

Issues with tabloid content keep Costas from gig on CNN

By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times

NEW YORK — The cable-news fixation on Natalee Holloway's disappearance in Aruba has at least one high-profile dissenter.

Veteran sports broadcaster Bob Costas declined to fill in as a guest host on CNN's "Larry King Live" Thursday night because of the program's focus on the missing Alabama teen and Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer.

Costas — who has been an occasional substitute host for King since June — bowed out of the Thursday show after he was unsuccessful at persuading producers to change the program's lineup, which included an interview with Beth Holloway Twitty, the mother of the 18-year-old who disappeared in Aruba in May.

"I didn't think the subject matter of Thursday's show was the kind of broadcast that I should be doing," Costas said in a statement, adding that he "respectfully declined to participate."

"There were no hard feelings at all," he added. "It's not a big deal. I'm sure there are countless topics that will be mutually acceptable in the future."

Senior executive producer Wendy Walker said in a statement that Costas "was not comfortable with the subject matter that we were covering on the show" and called it "a mutual decision" for him to not anchor the program.

Costas' refusal to participate in a show about the Holloway case comes at the end of a summer in which images of her have become a staple of cable-news programs.

While coverage of the Holloway case has drawn strong ratings, critics have decried the amount of time spent on the disappearance of a young white woman, arguing that the media does not put equal resources into covering missing Latinos or blacks.

On Thursday's "Larry King Live," substitute anchor Chris Pixley conducted a lengthy live interview with Twitty, who remains in Aruba looking for her daughter, noting that it had been 81 days since Holloway disappeared. Later in the program, he interviewed Holloway's uncle, a private investigator working on the case, the Holloway family attorney and a forensic pathologist.

The show concluded with an interview with the children of one of the victims of Rader, who was sentenced in Wichita, Kan., on Thursday.

When he joined CNN as a substitute for King, Costas — a well-regarded broadcaster who has spent 25 years at NBC Sports — called it "an honor" to fill in for the veteran host.

CNN officials said they expect Costas to host future programs.

Fall TV full of sci-fi themes
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News

Science fiction is coming back big. This fall will find more television shows with sci-fi/fantasy themes than audiences have seen in five years -- for reasons that may lie deeper than demographics.

Emboldened by the surprise success of ``Lost'' on ABC last season and other recent successes on cable, major networks are adding new shows covering an array of fantastical themes: alien invasion (CBS's ``Threshold,'' NBC's ``Surface,'' ABC's ``Invasion''), dead people talking (CBS's ``Ghost Whisperer'') and scary creatures of the night (a remake of ``The Night Stalker'' on ABC). These shows are being given prime spots and are being backed with sizable promotional budgets.

Over the years, sci-fi has proven a durable and effective vehicle for reflecting unease and uncertainty in the world, feelings being sparked now in a post-Sept. 11 climate where invisible enemies are seen as lurking among us, striking when we least expect it out of motives we don't understand.

``Science fiction had a big resurgence in the 1950s, the era of potential nuclear war, the Cold War and the Red Scare,'' said Rockne O'Bannon, a veteran of such sci-fi series as ``Farscape'' and the creator of a new miniseries, ``Triangle,'' set in the Bermuda Triangle, the Atlantic Ocean region where ships and planes have been reputed to have disappeared mysteriously.

``Here we are facing the same kind of questions and the same kind of uncertainties about how safe we are, how safe our children are going to be and what world is going to be like. It's something we haven't had to face in the post-Vietnam generation,'' O'Bannon said.

Since the earliest days of television, science fiction and fantasy have existed largely on the medium's fringes, like a wayward stepchild who was never really part of the family.

Even though the genre spawned some of TV's finest series -- ``The Twilight Zone,'' ``Star Trek,'' ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' -- sci-fi programs only rarely achieved anything more than cult status in viewership. In recent years, sci-fi largely has been relegated to smaller networks (WB and UPN) and cable, where lower viewership is acceptable.

But last season, ``Lost,'' a mythology-laden series about survivors from a jetliner crash stranded on a mysterious island, averaged 16 million viewers, with an audience that included otherwise-hard-to-attract young males, and that grew over the course of the season, generating as much Internet traffic and water cooler chat as any show on TV. It also received 12 Emmy nominations including one for best drama.

Until ``Lost'' came along, the last network sci-fi series to reach hit status was Fox's ``The X-Files'' back in the mid-90s, a top 20 series during its heyday.

Asked how his new series ``Invasion'' got on the air, creator Shaun Cassidy replied, ``I think you can answer that in three words: `Lost,' `Lost,' and `Lost.' `Lost' has changed the climate for shows that don't answer all your questions at the end of every episode.''

Meanwhile, large audiences were drawn to such series on cable as the Sci Fi Channel's ``Battlestar Galactica'' and USA's ``The 4400.'' In its first season, the latter averaged 6.2 million viewers an episode -- more people than watched such high-profile cable shows as HBO's ``Deadwood'' and FX's ``Nip/Tuck.''

Unsettled times

But it's about more than big numbers. NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly says that in choosing new shows for the fall, the network keenly was aware that ``these are paranoid times.''

``Look at what just happened in London and what's going on in Iraq and the West Bank,'' said David Goyer, who wrote ``Batman Begins'' and is executive producer of ``Threshold.'' ``People are scared.''

``Who's friend? Who's foe?,'' Reilly continued. ``What's in our interest in national security? You don't want to literally go at those themes because they make you uncomfortable. You want to kind of bring them out and manifest them in other ways, give us a way to work them out.''

Which means if viewers want to find larger, real-life meaning behind the ideas expressed in the new series, they will have to recognize the allegorical references.

``In science fiction, historically, you're telling allegorical tales,'' Goyer said. ``You're shining a light back on society -- what's happening now. It's a way to talk about what's going on, but from a sideways angle.''

The creators of the new TV science fiction say they try to not put too much emphasis on politicized references. Some even try to separate their work from the sci-fi genre entirely. ``Lost'' executive producer Damon Lindelof maintains that his series has ``more in common with `Desperate Housewives' than with `Night Stalker.' It's a character drama. That's why people watch `Lost.' ''

Issues to address

Still, O'Bannon noted that back in the late 1950s, Rod Serling ``invented `The Twilight Zone' because he had issues he wanted to address and couldn't on ``serious'' shows, because of sponsor issues and censorship issues at the time.

``On `The Twilight Zone,' he could tell the same tales and address the same social issues, but in an arena that was somehow acceptable.''

Cassidy -- whose ``Invasion'' bears a strong resemblance to the 1956 film ``Invasion of the Body Snatchers,'' a vivid reflection of McCarthy era paranoia -- suggested that ``we're living in a society where a lot of things are being taken away from us for our own protection. We're at war. There's a red and blue country out there. There's divisiveness, and who's an alien is kind of a subjective thing.

``I'm not making a political statement with the show. But it's certainly in the air and it's in my head and my heart, so it's going to come out on the page.''

Complete series DVD sets in the works

The Hollywood Reporter August 21, 2005

With the TV-DVD business still on its explosive growth curve, studios are steadily pumping out new seasons of old and new shows. So what happens when they run out of seasons? Judging from two recent product announcements, the answer appears to be elaborate gift sets containing the entire series.

Warner Home Video is preparing a massive, complete-season package of ''Friends'' DVDs to arrive in stores Nov. 15, the same day the 10th and final season arrives in a four-disc set.

''Friends: The One With All Ten Seasons,'' priced at $299.98, features all 229 episodes on 40 discs -- 110 hours of programming. It comes in a limited-edition collectible case that's also available separately by mail for fans who have been collecting individual season sets.

The ''Friends'' complete-series gift set comes two weeks after HBO Video releases a similarly ambitious complete-series package of ''Sex and the City.'' The 20-disc ''Sex and the City: The Complete Series,'' priced at $299.95.

TV Review:
HBO's Roman Holiday

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY The New York Times

Like science fiction, the allure of ancient Rome is that it promises a society that is just like us, only more so.

Ever since Robert Graves' historical novel "I, Claudius" was turned into a hugely successful BBC series, screenwriters have reveled in the possibilities of an empire with mail delivery, dental work and plumbing, but no Christian inhibitions or Senate subcommittee hearings.

HBO is the latest network to fall under the imperial spell with "Rome," a 12-episode series produced jointly by the BBC and HBO at a cost of $100 million. Filmed at the Italian film studio Cinecittà, it features if not a cast of thousands, at least the television equivalent of Cecil B. DeMille extravagance.

HBO is the ideal place for such imaginative play. The Sopranos, after all, are mobsters with Prozac, flat-screen television sets and social slights. (We sulk or sue, they slaughter, but otherwise, the discontents are eerily the same.) No other network, cable or broadcast, has a stronger mandate to update the rivalry of Julius Caesar and Pompey or the filial strains between Octavian and his mother Atia. Certainly no other network has more license to depict sex, violence and family intrigue (all premium cable gall is divided into three parts.)

"Rome," which begins on Aug. 28, was supposed to mark HBO's crossing of the Rubicon - setting a new level for its original programming with a lavishly produced costume drama whose contemporary sensibility would make the forum the next Bada Bing club.

HBO was hoping, that is, that "Rome" would be the new "I, Claudius." But that series, a depiction of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Nero, set an impossibly high standard. It featured some of the most distinguished actors of the day (Derek Jacobi played Claudius) in an intelligent, rollicking soap opera about the depravity and dysfunction of ancient Rome - scandalous fare, at that time. "I, Claudius" was high-low pop culture at a time when the line between art and entertainment was rarely breached. (Even the novel was daring: traditional classicists sniffed that Graves had relied on the most lurid accounts of Suetonius and Tacitus, historians who were the In Touch magazine of their day. )

Now every television rendition of ancient Rome has British actors and huge dollops of debauchery and carnage, most recently the 2003 TNT drama "Caesar" and ABC's mini-series "Empire," in June. (Prior to that, accents posed a different challenge: Tony Curtis impersonators still thrive on "I love you, Spartacus, as I love my own fadder.")

"Rome" is no different. The upper-class Romans speak with posh Oxbridge accents. (When Caesar's envoys enter the city throwing necklaces and other spoils of war to the roaring masses, two aristocrats in the crowd are disdainful. "What a dreadful noise plebes make when they are happy," one drawls to the other.) The plebeians themselves have a slight British working-class intonation. And as for the house slaves, they speak like Father Guido Sarducci.

THE story begins in 52 B.C., when Julius Caesar defeats Vercingetorix (the leader of the Gauls is stripped naked and forced to kneel and kiss the Roman conqueror's gold Eagle standard) and begins setting his sights on seizing power in Rome. Roman loyalties are divided between Caesar and his erstwhile ally, Pompey. Everyone from Atia to the lowliest legionnaire has to scheme and double-deal their way through the treacherous political landscape.

"Rome" has magnificent sets and delicious small touches, down to the way the town crier moves his hands like a traffic cop to mime his pronouncements. But somewhere along the Appian Way, HBO lost its nerve: the writers seem so intimidated by the legacy of Livy, Gibbon and Graves that they surrendered the necessary creativity and impiety.

It's as if the creators felt obliged to keep the pace stately and the characters one-dimensional because they didn't trust their audience to follow the basic plot: aristocrats want to prevent Caesar from seizing power in order to preserve their privileges and corrupt practices. But the politics of "Deadwood" are much more complicated. (How many viewers really understand what Yankton is all about?)

HBO has always distinguished itself by its villains. In "Rome," however, there is no one as complicated and compelling as Tony Soprano or Deadwood's Al Swearengen. Cato, who wears a black toga on the Senate floor and bullies Pompey into a confrontation with Caesar, is a by-the-book Roman scold played with starchy indignation by Karl Johnson.

Even Atia, Caesar's seductive, conspiratorial niece (Polly Walker) - who gets to utter threats like "I'll use the eyes of your children as beads" - is nowhere near as psychologically complex and scary as Augustus's wife, Livia, played by Siân Phillips in "I, Claudius." For that matter, she's not as complex as Tony Soprano's mother, Livia, who was in spirit as well as name the epitome of the ruthless Roman matriarch.

From the very beginning, "Rome" follows the historic record too dutifully, making reference to famous events and real-life figures from Brutus and Mark Antony to Cato, Cicero and Calpurnia. Everybody knows something about ancient Rome, if only from Shakespeare or even just the matchbooks at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Few remember all the historic details exactly. They don't matter.

Besides, historic accuracy in made-for-television dramas is a bit like frugality in the restaurant business: admirable, but not the kind of virtue that attracts four stars. "Rome," would have been better off exploring psychological strains that link us to a remote past that is ever present, from our legislative system to the nomenclature of plants and the costume of choice at a college fraternity party.

Bruno Heller, who wrote "Rome," and is also one of the series' creators and executive producers, has insisted that his script breaks with clunky classicism of the swords-and-toga genre to reveal a grittier, more realistic side of Rome, but is hard to see where. Sure, the first few episodes include scenes set in the teeming, Calcutta-like slums of ancient Rome, but so did "Gladiator." Even "Ben-Hur," included leper colonies along with chariot races.

The bright spot of "Rome" is in its subplot, the friendship of two Roman soldiers caught up in the larger frieze of empire-building and political intrigue. Centurian Lucius Vorenus, (James Purefoy) is a straight-arrow officer in Cesar's 13th Legion, while Legionnaire Titus Pullo, (Ray Stevenson), is a drunken, womanizing lout - a soccer hooligan in sandals.

The two hate each other at first sight. After the battle of Alesia, Vorenus has Pullo flogged then imprisoned for breaking battle formation to go on a wild killing streak. But fortune and misadventure bring them together after the war is over.

There is one other compelling character: Octavius, (Max Pirkis) Caesar's 11-year-old great nephew who grows up to become the Emperor Augustus: a boy with imperial cruelty and prep school self-consciousness. Mr. Pirkis, who looks a lot like the former child actor Neil Patrick Harris, plays Octavian as solemn, brainy and eerily precocious: a Doogie Howser, B.C.

Sex and violence in "Rome" are predictably explicit and unsuitable for children. (Suffice it to say that back then, men not only worshipped goats, they borrowed their mating habits.) The depiction of Roman religious practices is more interesting - a confused pastiche of piety and superstition that ranges from monks in red robes singing pre-Christian chants to disgusting animal sacrifices.

To secure Octavius's safe return from a dangerous mission, for example, Atia takes a bovine shower: she sits in a tub while, from a loft above her head, priests slit the throat of a live bull, letting the still warm blood pour down all over her face and bared chest. (It works better than Calgon: Octavius lives, and Atia's skin looks radiant)

But over all, "Rome" cries out for more imaginative casting, an unorthodox central character, and richer, smarter writing. Instead, much of it is expository and trite. "Without the gold, the people will turn on him with a vengeance," Pompey says of Caesar. "Without the people, he has nothing."

The success of "The Sopranos," and "Six Feet Under," and more recently, "Deadwood," lies in the way they paint sweeping, deeply layered psychological themes into the most humble, inauspicious frames: a mob family in New Jersey, a family-run funeral parlor in Los Angeles. Even "Deadwood" is just a 19th-century frontier town.

"Rome," takes on an entire civilization and whittles it down to less than its ruins.

"Rome" has arresting scenes and enjoyable moments, but it does not open a new frontier in HBO's empire. HBO is supposed to be the Caput Mundi of American television, bold, inventive and invincible. "Rome" is closer to Carthage.

Rainbow seeks Voom boom
Cablevision, Sapan go high-def

By JOHN DEMPSEY Variety.com

NEW YORK -- If Josh Sapan has his way, James Bond will be blasting his way out of tight scrapes for the first time ever in the full glory of high-definition TV.

Sapan, president-CEO of Rainbow Media, is about to engineer a relaunch of 10 Voom high-def channels, including Rush HD, a network for action-sports fans; Ultra HD, dealing with fashion, beauty and style; and Majestic HD, a movie channel that will include the first 17 United Artists Bond movies, from "Dr. No" through "License to Kill."

Voom's partner in the high-def venture is EchoStar, which bought a 20% stake in the Voom channels earlier this year when it agreed to purchase the entire satellite TV business of Rainbow parent Cablevision.

Cablevision lost more than $1 billion in trying to compete with DirecTV and EchoStar with a full satellite operation, including the Voom channels, which at the time numbered 21. But DirecTV, with just under 15 million customers, and EchoStar, with about 13 million, were too firmly entrenched; Voom had fewer than 50,000 subs when EchoStar bought it out.

EchoStar and Rainbow decided to keep Voom alive because more people are buying high-def TV sets, and the volume of HD programming to keep those people happy is fairly sparse. EchoStar is cheerleading for Voom to return to programming 21 HD channels by the first quarter, all of which it has agreed to carry.

Sapan, who'll be pitching the major cable operators over the next six weeks, said Voom is planning to commission original movies and TV series in HD, as well as concerts, art auctions, fashion shows, animated shorts, exclusive news reports and nature documentaries, among many other programming forms.

Voom also has signed theater artist Robert Wilson to create high-def video portraits of renowned personalities ranging from Brad Pitt and Winona Ryder to Mikhail Baryshnikov and Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka.

But EchoStar is leaving art to the culture vultures as it hypes the Voom network Monsters HD, which will highlight six of the seven "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies, topped off by the 2003 remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Summer reality sinks in
Seasonal slump hits new lows as auds tune out Big Six

By JOSEF ADALIAN Variety.com

It's been a bummer of a summer for webheads.

Most of the dozen-plus reality skeins launched by broadcasters since Memorial Day have flat-out flopped. Original dramas like Fox's "The Inside" and ABC's "Empire" were ignored.

And even repeatable warhorses like the "Law & Order" and "CSI" skeins -- while still valuable -- are showing signs of age.

Bottom line? With three weeks left to go, the broadcast nets are down a collective 10% among adults 18-49 vs. last summer -- and 15% in viewers 18-34. ABC is the only net up over last year, while Fox is flat; other four nets are down sharply.

This summer's slump is particularly disappointing after a regular season in which the Big Six managed to stem the tide of erosion with a bevy of buzzmaking skeins.

So what happened?

"There was too much reality, and most of it sucked," says one web wiseguy who's had his own share of ratings disappointments this summer. Exec adds that much of what the nets programmed "felt like burnoff. It seemed like it was just sitting around rather than made for summer."

Indeed, most of the half-dozen reality skeins launched by NBC since June had been languishing on Peacock shelves for months. In the case of "Average Joe: The Joes Strike Back," production had been completed nearly a year ago.

Even shows designed for summer -- like CBS' "The Cut" and Fox's "Princes of Malibu" -- felt like carbon copies of previous reality skeins. Viewers responded with a yawn.

Eye had high hopes for Mark Burnett's "Rock Star," but while the show was visually stunning and featured a stellar cast, it still suffered in comparison to "American Idol."

"A couple years ago, just about any reality show you launched in the summer could at least improve the time period if not move toward the top of the ratings," says NBC scheduling czar Mitch Metcalf. "That's over."

Fox scheduling guru Preston Beckman concludes, "People are more discriminating."

Genre's hardly toast, however.

ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" was the most-watched summer series on any network since "Survivor" changed the rules of the game back in 2000. "Hell's Kitchen" was a solid hit for Fox, while ABC also had some success with "Brat Camp."

Even NBC's "Tommy Lee Goes to College" posted encouraging numbers with last week's bow, while Fox is still hopeful about "So You Think You Can Dance."

"If it had a distinctive hook or a bigger-than-life character to it, people responded," Metcalf says.

Reality isn't the only problem facing broadcasters, however.

In what could be a sign of things to come, ratings for procedurals like "Law & Order" suffered some serious erosion this summer.

Last summer, NBC's "L&O: SVU" held on to 66% of its in-season average for original episodes. This year, skein retained just 48% of its 2004-05 average.

CBS' Thursday edition of "CSI" also dipped, holding onto 42% of its in-season average vs. 48% last summer.

Nobody's sounding the alarm just yet, in part because procedurals remain potent even at reduced levels.

After all, "CSI" Thursday repeats rank as the No. 2 show of the summer in young adults. Fox also has to be happy with how well "House" has held up over the summer, even without an "American Idol" lead-in.

The "CSI" and "L&O" franchises are still doing far better than repeats of serialized smashes like "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost." Latter two skeins have barely registered in repeats, though webheads say rerunning the skeins exposes them to new viewers.

Still, the problem could get worse down the road when the slew of serialized skeins in the pipeline hit summer airwaves.

Another worry for webheads this summer has been the poor performance of scripted dramas.

Fox put some major marketing muscle behind crime drama "The Inside," but viewers didn't even show up for the premiere. ABC's big budget "Empire" also fared poorly, while the WB's "Summerland" stunk in its sophomore summer season.

Even cable hasn't been immune to the summer malaise. While TNT's "The Closer" has done nicely, there's been no breakout smash a la "Nip/Tuck" or "Monk."

Programmers haven't given up on the idea of firstrun scripted fare during warm weather months, however. They note, for example, that Fox comedies "Family Guy" and "American Dad" did very well with originals this summer.

"If a show like 'Desperate Housewives' was put on in the summer, I bet it would work," says ABC exec veep Jeff Bader. "It all depends on what kinds of shows people try."

Fox's Beckman thinks networks should consider informally extending the regular season -- starting some shows in April and running episodes through July, for example. Fox announced "Prison Break" as a fall show but decided to give it a late summer launch -- a strategy that worked for "The OC" two years ago.

"If you start a show in the summer but announce it as part of your fall schedule, it's not seen as burnoff theater," he says.

Big question, of course, is just how much summer ratings matter anyway.

While studios derive their big bucks from summer B.O., network TV is all about the fall. Advertisers simply don't pay as much for ad time in summer, which is one reason nets have always been a bit ambivalent about the season.

Networks do like to keep the lights on between June and September, if only to ensure there's an audience to see promotions for new fall skeins. According to Bader, however, low summer primetime ratings do not disaster spell.

Indeed, ABC had a terrible summer last year but had no problem turning "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" into instant hits.

"At the end of the day, it's going to be the strength of the shows that determines whether they succeed," Bader says.

From MediaWeek (www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/cabletv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001018604)

OLN NHL Move May Cause Feud With MSOs
August 22, 2005
By Anthony Crupi

OLN’s pickup of the NHL cable rights could engender yet another war between a cable operator and a network.

According to a source close to the proceedings, NHL games will be blacked out in cable systems that relegate OLN to a digital sports tier, including all of Cablevision’s footprint and Cox Communications’ Phoenix system.

While 90 percent of OLN’s carriage is on standard analog tiers, the network is likely to use the threat of a blackout in order to win total analog carriage, which would significantly boost its number of homes reached.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is just the sort of thing I was talking about earlier...

From MediaWeek (www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001018603)

Comcast/OLN Eyes ESPN's MLB Rights

August 22, 2005
By John Consoli

Like a hungry shark circling its prey, Comcast and its Outdoor Life Network, now referred to as OLN, is continuing its low-key but determined move to take a bite out of cable sports kingpin ESPN.

Not only did it snatch away cable rights for the National Hockey League for the next several years last week, but now Comcast/OLN has set its sights on landing Major League Baseball’s Sunday-Wednesday-night cable package, the rights to which expire at the end of the current season.

That package also includes the MLB All-Star Game home run derby telecast, which produced hefty one-night ratings for ESPN this season.

“Baseball is the bedrock of ESPN’s summer programming,” said one rival sports network executive. “There is so much baseball and very little other programming to replace it with during the summer. Hockey can be replaced by running more college basketball, but Comcast could deliver a severe body blow to ESPN if it can steal away these baseball rights.”

ESPN does have the Tuesday-Thursday MLB TV rights through the end of the 2006 season, which also includes the MLB division playoff games that Fox does not air. That package was obtained when ESPN parent Disney acquired Fox Family Channel (now ABC Family) and is currently valued at $100 million. ESPN is also currently paying $141.5 million per year for the Sunday-Wednesday rights package.

Sources familiar with the negotiations believe they have been delayed and slowed by ESPN’s efforts to gain broadband and cellular phone rights, among other value-added, nontraditional rights, which MLB has been hesitant to give up.

“It’s late in the process for negotiations to still be going on” for the Sunday-Wednesday package, a competing network executive said. “It seems like ESPN was playing hardball with MLB and didn’t think there would be any other bidders. Now, they’ve put MLB in the driver’s seat.”

The executive added that “for building-block purposes, baseball would be even more important to Comcast than hockey. And having both, plus maybe even the [Thursday-Saturday] NFL package, would give Comcast a year-round presence with major sports.”

Another sports exec also questioned why ESPN decided in May to opt out of the final year of its NHL deal for which it would pay $60 million: “Even if ESPN were losing $40 million on the deal, it seems like a reasonable insurance policy to absorb it in order to keep the big bad wolf out of the hen house.”

Losing a sizable portion of its MLB rights would present problems for ESPN. In particular, it could cause cable operators to push for a reduction in their subscriber fees and would cost the network significant ad revenue. “ESPN doesn’t need to have coverage of every sport, but it cannot lose coverage of its jewels. Major League Baseball is one of its jewels,” said a rival sports net exec.

George Bodenheimer, chairman of ESPN and ABC Sports, acknowledged last week that Comcast and OLN “appear to be setting themselves up as a competitor,” but believes that the competition will push his network to get even better. “Our world is filled with competitors, but the prospects for ESPN have never looked brighter,” he added. “Our brand has never been stronger. We are comfortable with our position in the marketplace.”

Bodenheimer said ESPN’s goal is to renew its Sunday-Wednesday package, although he would not comment on where the discussions stand or why a deal isn’t done yet. He also believes ESPN brings lots to the table for MLB. “Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter are the national programs of record for chronicling baseball,” he said. “And we feel we are in the best position to promote baseball.”

Chris Tully, senior vp of broadcasting, MLB, also wouldn’t discuss the negotiations or why they have dragged out, but said, “Our challenge is to maximize the value of our national telecast packages from both an economic and promotional perspective. The sports marketplace is changing rapidly, and we’re taking a long-term strategic view. Obviously ESPN is not only a key player in that market but also a longstanding partner of MLB, and our continuing discussions with ESPN have been our primary focus to date.”

But sources at MLB said while approving a new deal with ESPN would be a reality if all terms were equal, should another party come in with a more attractive offer, the league would not hesitate to choose that alternative.

ESPN’s exclusive negotiating window expired in June, and sources inside and outside of MLB confirmed that TV rights discussions have taken place with Comcast/OLN.

Another factor in the negotiations is MLB’s plan to start its own Baseball Channel, possibly before the start of next season. Were Comcast to include a provision to carry the Baseball Channel in any rights offer it proposed, it could be a sweetener that might lure MLB.

For its part, Comcast and OLN officials are being careful not to rile ESPN, stating that their only goal is to “grow” OLN’s male audience base where it makes sense. But one sports league exec sees Comcast/OLN becoming a major factor in the sports TV world. “I think they can be a player,” he said. “Not necessarily on the ESPN level, but it doesn’t have to be to have an impact. If I were betting, I would bet that it will be a success story.”

While preoccupied with negotiating new TV rights deals, ESPN’s Bodenheimer also has to deal with replacing Mark Shapiro, executive vp of programming and production, who oversaw all ESPN/ABC Sports programming.

From MediaWeek (www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001018563)

2005 TV Trends Survey: Surface and Ghost Whisperer Will be Suprise Hits

August 22, 2005

Media buyers have panned CBS’ new fall drama Ghost Whisperer as a show destined to fail, but if you listen to the buzz and sentiment expressed by average TV viewers on the Internet, the show has a strong chance of getting solid audience levels and succeeding.

Other new prime-time network shows that received low marks from media agencies and TV critics—from NBC’s Surface and CBS’ Threshold to Fox’s Bones and Kitchen Confidential—are all being talked up positively online among potential viewers, according to the 2005 TV Trends survey produced by Trendum. The New York-based company creates trend reports based on its monitoring of daily Web conversations about television, movies and celebrities that take place on message boards, bulletins, online communities and in-digital media.

Trendum, started in 2000, became a business affiliate of Mediaweek parent VNU earlier this year. In its 2004 TV Trends survey, Trendum predicted, based on the unsolicited Internet conversations it monitored, that new ABC drama Lost would be a breakout hit, an opinion not shared by most media agencies and TV critics going into last season. Trendum also predicted the runaway success of ABC’s Desperate Housewives last season when other media observers hedged their bets on the show.

Not everything Trendum forecast to succeed was indeed a hit. For example, NBC’s Joey was picked as the show with the biggest buzz last season. And while Joey is returning this fall, it was far from a hit last year. (Talked about doesn’t necessarily mean successful, it seems.)

For its 2005 TV Trends, Trendum software looked at 14 million unsolicited messages on the Internet from 360,000 viewers and found 2,600 messages from 2,000 viewers that talked about new TV shows. Its monitoring period for the survey ran from April through July 2005.

From a buzz standpoint—the volume of online discussion about a given show—NBC’s The Apprentice: Martha Stewart received the most, followed by Fox’s Prison Break, The WB’s Supernatural, Fox’s Bones and ABC’s Invasion. Other shows garnering lots of buzz were CBS’ Threshold, NBC’s Surface and another surprise, ABC’s Freddie.

Ghost Whisper ranked first among viewer sentiment—positive, negative or neutral opinions of the online chatter—followed by Supernatural, UPN’s Everybody Hates Chris, CBS’ How I Met Your Mother and Prison Break.

Factoring in both buzz and sentiment, Supernatural came out on top as the show with the best chance of success, followed by Prison Break, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, Ghost Whisperer and Fox’s Reunion.

Trendum president Rich Nelson said the track record of his company’s surveys is solid. For example, in fall 2003 when Fox was heavily promoting its new drama Skin during World Series telecasts, Trendum monitoring showed that viewer sentiment was extremely negative. Skin was cancelled after three episodes due to poor ratings.

In addition to monitoring conversations about the shows themselves, Trendum also monitors comments about the characters on the shows and conducts customized reports for media agencies and networks. Among its clients are several broadcast and cable networks and some media agencies.

Sunday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

NEW YORK -- If Josh Sapan has his way, James Bond will be blasting his way out of tight scrapes for the first time ever in the full glory of high-definition TV.Been there, done that. Several Bond movies were broadcast in HD on UPN last year.

Xesdeeni

Re trendum:
It seems very suspect to me.
Judging what will be popular throughout the country by gauging internet interest.
Most people just haven't startedf to pay attention to the fall season promos yet, and I would bet many will be surprised when Fox begins its season in a few days.
Like political campaigns, I don't think people really focus in on the new TV season until after Labor Day.
But we will see.

Rescue Me Renewed

By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable

FX has ordered a third, 13-episode season of firefighter series Rescue Me.

The audience for the series, which stars Denis Leary, is averaging 2.7 million viewers, about even with the first season.Viewership in the 8-49 demo is down 12%, however.

The Sony Pictures Television-produced show has four episodes remaining this season.

Rescue Me Renewed


http://www.emotipad.com/newemoticons/Big-Thumbs-Up.gifhttp://www.emotipad.com/newemoticons/Big-Thumbs-Up.gif

Rescue Me Renewed

Now we just need FX-HD! :D

A summer of lost viewers for TV networks
Despite "Dancing With the Stars'" success, ratings for the six major broadcast companies are down, as basic cable and Univision reach new heights

By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 23, 2005

Movie studios wondering where filmgoers went this summer can rest assured of one thing: For the most part, those missing Americans weren't glued to the broadcast networks.

With the notable exception of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" — by far the summer's biggest new hit, with an average of 16.8 million viewers — the six major broadcast networks have slogged through a disappointing summer, with household viewing down about 6% compared with the same period last year. Among the advertiser-friendly demographic of adults ages 18 to 49, the slide was even worse, off 10% according to figures from Nielsen Media Research.

A number of heavily promoted reality series tanked, including CBS' "Rock Star: INXS" and NBC's "I Want to Be a Hilton," and David E. Kelley's first venture into reality TV, "The Law Firm," which moved to Bravo after two low-rated episodes.

But scripted series failed to deliver as well. ABC watched its Roman epic "Empire" decline and fall. And viewers showed little interest in repeats of hits like "Desperate Housewives" or "Lost."

The network losses were good news for basic cable, which increased its share of the prime-time audience to a record high of 61%, up four percentage points from last year. (Broadcast share slipped four points, to an all-time low of 32%; the remaining share consisted of pay cable networks and independent broadcasters.)

As in recent years, basic cable took advantage of broadcasters' summertime slowdown and unleashed a blitz of original scripted series. TNT's crime drama "The Closer" was a sleeper hit, averaging 5.3 million viewers — an impressive number for ad-supported cable — and the network also drew strong numbers with its series "Wanted" and the miniseries "Into the West." FX's Iraq drama "Over There" started out powerfully, although it dropped in subsequent airings.

"The fall is the time when broadcast comes out with new scripted stuff, but summertime is when cable does it," said Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer at Turner Broadcasting, which includes TNT.

Spanish-language network Univision, meanwhile, dominated the rapidly growing young Latino audience with the telenovelas "La Madrastra" and "Apuesta Por Un Amor." Univision, in fact, was probably the summer's greatest success story; the Spanish-language network is up 23% among adults 18 to 49 compared with last summer.

In Los Angeles, Univision station KMEX had six of the top 10 programs among all local broadcasters this summer, including the most-watched scripted program, "La Madrastra." Only Game 7 of the NBA Finals on KABC delivered better ratings locally this summer. Overall, Univision was the fifth most-watched TV network this summer, with 3.5 million average viewers. While not yet a threat to No. 1 CBS (7.4 million), the Spanish-language network has more prime-time viewers than TNT (2.9 million), UPN (2.6 million) and the WB Network (2 million).

The summer numbers raise doubts about broadcasters' oft-expressed hopes of grabbing momentum away from cable during the warmer months. Over the last five years, network executives have increasingly eyed summer as a platform for new reality series; both CBS' "Survivor" and Fox's "American Idol" started as summer shows and became top performers during the regular season too. But the search for the next hot reality offering may have created a glut since May.

"It's not that the broadcasters struck out," said Steve Sternberg, executive vice president at New York-based ad firm Magna Global. "There was just so much reality that there were more flops than successes."

Agreed Preston Beckman, executive vice president of Fox Broadcasting Co.: "There were just a lot of mediocre — at best — reality shows" this summer.

Perhaps the most surprising fizzle was CBS' "Rock Star," which was overseen by one of TV's most successful reality producers, Mark Burnett of "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" fame, and featured a rock group, INXS, that scored a number of hits during the 1980s. What's more, CBS' youth-skewing reality series "Big Brother" continued to post decent numbers in its sixth season.

Some commentators attributed "Rock Star's" low ratings to the decline in the popularity of rock music. "Idol," by contrast, features songs from a number of different genres, including rhythm & blues, pop and country. Overexposure may have also played a role: CBS eventually dumped the Monday airings of "Rock Star," although Tuesday and Wednesday episodes were left intact.

"We realized that for a new show, three days a week is asking an awful lot of the audience," said Kelly Kahl, CBS' executive vice president of program planning and scheduling. But he added that even though "Rock Star's" ratings "were not as high as we'd like," the show still brought younger-than-usual viewers to CBS this summer.

There's even a chance the network may bring back "Rock Star" next summer, he said; after all, CBS has turned "Big Brother" into a summer favorite despite less-than-impressive ratings its first season.

"Rock Star" didn't hurt CBS' overall performance too badly: The network is No. 1 in total viewers this summer, with an average of 7.4 million, and has a razor-thin lead over runner-up Fox in adults 18 to 49.

NBC woes

NBC had worse problems. The network sank 20% in its core young-adult audience, partly because this summer it depended more heavily than last year on repeats of dramas that attract older viewers, such as "Law & Order." But the network also bombed with reality debuts like "Meet Mister Mom" (4.5 million viewers) and Kelley's "The Law Firm" (4.5 million).

Other networks had scattered success with reality, albeit on a modest scale. Fox will renew "Hell's Kitchen," the chef bake-off that did particularly well with young-adult viewers. The network may also bring back the competition show "So You Think You Can Dance." The WB Network, which plummeted 20% overall in the 18-to-49 demographic, had a bright spot with "Beauty and the Geek," Ashton Kutcher's wry reality romance.

But those shows paled beside "Dancing With the Stars," which spun into an early-summer sensation and gave the suddenly resurgent ABC its fourth major hit of the 2004-05 season, after "Housewives," "Lost" and "Grey's Anatomy." ABC is the only broadcaster to post gains this summer in both total viewers and among young adults.

ABC executives explain that, like "Idol," "Dancing" was a contest designed for family viewing.

"It's one of the only shows on television that everyone can watch, and watch together," said ABC Executive Vice President Jeff Bader. The network has already announced a midwinter return for "Dancing."

As for Univision's phenomenal summer, some of that performance is due to the explosive population growth among young Latinos, which Univision executives say compose the fastest-growing demographic group in the U.S.

But the network is also clearly benefiting from viewers' appetite for novelas, the often-racy soap operas that run every weeknight for several months. One key attraction, beyond the outlandish plot lines: The novelas — imported from Mexican broadcaster Televisa — are all new episodes, with no repeats.

"These continuing novelas strike a chord among Hispanics," said David Woolfson, senior vice president of network research at Univision. "They come across like a mini-movie, if you will."

Much of Univision's strength comes from markets with high Latino populations, such as Los Angeles, Miami and San Antonio. But Woolfson said Univision is also turning in strong numbers in non-traditionally Latino markets that have lately seen increased immigration, including Charlotte, Atlanta and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

2005-06 Network Comedy Preview
TV's situation comedies will either take off or continue to go over the side

Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic

Television lore has it that, at its debut in 1984, The Cosby Show resuscitated dying sitcoms. Yet six half-hour comedies had performed well the season before: Kate & Allie, The Jeffersons, Newhart, The Facts of Life, Webster and Alice.

The situation for comedy is far gloomier today. Only two placed in the Top 30 last season: CBS' Two and a Half Men and Everybody Loves Raymond, which won't be back this fall after ending a nine-year run.

The medium desperately needs a few good sitcoms. In a bit of welcome timing, the most positive buzz for the fall season centers on three new half-hour comedies: NBC's My Name Is Earl, UPN's Everybody Hates Chris and CBS' How I Met Your Mother. This year, for a change, hope mingles with concern about the state of the sitcom.

"We're all uncertain," says Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal Television Group. "There's no question the audience has been willing to laugh. It just has been hard on television the last five years."

During the television critics' tour last month in Los Angeles, actors, producers and programmers cited various reasons for the sitcom decline.

"Most of them haven't been very good -- you have to start there," Zucker says.

Reality has overshadowed the sitcom, says Candice Bergen, who won five Emmys for Murphy Brown. "Maybe if people are getting worn out with reality shows, which they don't seem to be, comedies will start reasserting themselves," Bergen says.

Jane Curtin mastered the sitcom form on Kate & Allie and 3rd Rock From the Sun. She hopes to do it again for ABC at midseason in Crumbs by playing a crazed mother in a wildly dysfunctional clan. She blames network interference for hurting comedies.

"It seemed as though prior to all of the consolidation of the networks and everything, it was easier to get an individual voice heard on television, and that voice would be nurtured," Curtin says. "Now it seems as though there is a formula that has to be followed, and I think the audience suffers."

Fred Savage plays Curtin's gay son in Crumbs. He gained stardom as Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years, a distinctive comedy. He agrees that a terrible sameness hurts the half-hours.

"A lot of them are very homogenized," he says. "Those shows that do stand out are the ones that have a unique voice."

Programmers don't disagree. Les Moonves, who as Viacom co-president oversees CBS and UPN, points to the lack of creativity for sapping the comedies.

"What's happened in drama, they've been able to put old wine in a new bottle," Moonves says. "That was harder to do in sitcoms. Sopranos, CSI to a certain extent, 24 -- they're traditional, but they're not. Sitcoms have been harder to do that way. They feel like we've seen them before. The dramas don't, even though arguably, they're not that different."

The most successful new bottle last season was ABC's Desperate Housewives, an hour show that's as much a mystery and a drama as it is a comedy. It is the heavy favorite to win the best sitcom award at the Emmys in September.

Comedy has been poured into other hours. ABC's Boston Legal started as a dramatic spinoff of The Practice. Now James Spader and William Shatner act as though they are in a farce. That change was by design, and it was helped along when Bergen joined the show as acerbic Shirley Schmidt.

"We discovered that the series really wants to be a comedy more than a drama," says creator David E. Kelley, who was also responsible for Ally McBeal.

2 ways to do it

Television comedy flourishes in many forms, from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart to Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" block. Half-hour sitcoms generally have been produced two ways. There's the studio-based, multicamera show, which has been a staple from I Love Lucy through Raymond and Two and a Half Men.

Then there's the single-camera method: The show is filmed as if it's a movie. Examples include HBO's Sex and the City, NBC's Scrubs and Fox's Arrested Development.

Darren Star, who created Sex and the City, has a new Fox comedy shot as a movie. Kitchen Confidential is based on chef Anthony Bourdain's autobiography.

"To be able to get away with doing single-camera film comedies without laugh tracks is fantastic," Star says. "The networks are trying more sophisticated shows, and I think that's all to the audience's benefit."

My Name Is Earl and Everybody Hates Chris are made in the single-camera style. The pilot for each reveals a strong, distinctive voice. Everybody Hates Chris depicts comedian Chris Rock's childhood with strict parents in 1980s Brooklyn.

"Comedy is never dead," says Ali LeRoi, who created the show with Rock. "It's just that usually funny people aren't in charge of comedy. Comedy has become commerce. They're just trying to duplicate a thing that they can sell."

Earl tells of a small-time crook (Jason Lee) who wins the lottery and, worried about bad karma, decides to help those he has wronged. NBC says the show is its highest-testing sitcom in 15 years.

"It's as good a comedy as we've produced in many, many years," NBC's Zucker says.

How I Met Your Mother is a hybrid of the single-camera and multicamera formats. The writing adds an unusual wrinkle: The story of a romance unfolds in flashbacks. Think Friends told from the future.

Viacom's Moonves is so bullish on How I Met Your Mother and Everybody Hates Chris that he predicts the sitcom form is coming back. Viewers will make that decision when the series start debuting the week of Sept. 19.

More comedies are lined up for midseason. Critics were effusive last month about Sons & Daughters, a sitcom about a large, wacky family. The show's scripts allow the actors to improvise some dialogue. ABC decided to start Sons & Daughters after the fall so it wouldn't be lost in the clutter of so many premieres.

It comes down to the cast

In an era when comedies are having such a hard time, what are viewers looking for?

"The way into a show is always through the cast," says Lorne Michaels, an executive producer of Sons & Daughters. He learned that lesson as creator of NBC's Saturday Night Live.

"We found over the years that, when we have a cast that the audience likes, the writing gets praised," Michaels adds. "When we have a cast that the audience doesn't like, the writing gets blamed. And I think that it is always about the cast."

Curtin, who was an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, has her own theory about what the audience wants.

"Comedy should be explosive," she says. "It's very safe now.''

If a few sitcoms can change that, perhaps this fall will usher in a new era in comedy.

Questions (and answers) about the fall season
Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News

Over the past few weeks, I've received a ton of e-mail about various aspects of the upcoming TV season. Here are some of the more interesting questions the writers raised:

Q:--You wrote that NBC is going to get away from such irritating scheduling tricks as unusual start times, moving shows around all the time and canceling series after only a couple of episodes. Do you honestly believe network executives when they tell you that?

A:--The really short answer: no. Or, more precisely, I'll believe it when I see it.

I do have more faith than I probably should in NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly's pronouncements that he wants to stick with a consistent schedule as much as he can. Certainly, he has put together a fall rollout that is more traditional and logical than NBC has mustered in recent years. And he seems less likely to do stunts, like ``supersizing'' series episodes.

But tinkering with schedules is the drug of the TV world. Executives do it just because they can. So you probably can look forward to another year of abrupt lineup changes and shows that vanish before you even know they're on the air.

As for those little network tricks of starting some shows a minute or two before the hour or running them five minutes past the hour, they're not going away either. ABC was the biggest offender last season, and it was strictly a business decision: Running a series such as ``Desperate Housewives'' a few minutes past the hour allows the network to sell a few more ads at the high prices a top-rated series commands.

Q:--Why in the world did the WB move ``Smallville'' and ``Everwood'' to Thursday nights, where the competition is so strong?

A:--The same reason ABC put ``Alias'' and the remake of ``The Night Stalker'' on Thursdays, UPN shuffled in its new and very hot ``Everybody Hates Chris'' and Fox scheduled one of its big new shows, ``Reunion,'' after ``The O.C.'' that same night.

While none of those networks thinks it can challenge CBS's powerhouse Thursday lineup, they all see viewers (particularly younger viewers) to be had, now that NBC's schedule is no longer must-see TV. There's also big money to be made if a show gets even halfway decent ratings -- as ``The O.C.'' did last year -- because Thursday is the night when the Hollywood studios pour millions into advertising their new films.

In other words, a show such as ``Smallville'' could make more money for its network by drawing a smaller audience on Thursdays than it would by playing to more people elsewhere in the week.

Q:--What happened to reality shows like ``Fear Factor'' and ``The Bachelor''? They're not on the fall schedules I've seen.

A:--Here's some good news for those who prefer scripted dramas and comedies: The percentage of airtime that the networks devote to reality programming will plunge come September. Reality is no longer the quick fix for anything wrong with a network schedule.

Most of the returning reality shows have stood the test of time: ``American Idol,'' ``Survivor,'' ``The Amazing Race,'' ``Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.'' (How well ``The Apprentice'' holds up with two editions -- Donald Trump and Martha Stewart -- on the air remains to be seen.) There's only one new reality show on the fall schedule: NBC's ``Three Wishes,'' a ``Queen for a Day'' kind of thing with Amy Grant.

Another thing worth noting: The really mean-spirited shows have vanished in favor of feel-good series a la ``Home Edition.'' Last season, the American TV audience clearly voted for uplifting and nice over humiliating and abusive.

Q:--I keep hearing from other fans of the show that the upcoming season of ``The Amazing Race'' ran into trouble during filming. Is it true?

A:--Boy, has there been message traffic on this one.

According to online reports and some published stories, the cycle of ``The Amazing Race'' that begins Sept. 27 is, at best, disappointing and, at worst, a mess. The producers decided to do something different with the show in its eighth go-round and came up with ``The Amazing Race: Family Edition,'' which features teams with four members of the same family.

Biggest problem: With younger kids involved, the race was limited in terms of distances and where it went. As a result, ``The Amazing Race'' apparently never wandered outside the Americas, spending much of its time in the States and Canada. (Huntsville, Ala., and Niagara Falls, N.Y., are perfectly nice places, but in terms of appeal, they don't compete with Kenya and Singapore.)

I don't know how much stock to put in some of the reports, but I fear the worst. When I recently asked two CBS executives about the coming ``Race'' season, both rolled their eyes and quickly changed the subject. That's not a good sign.

The sitcom is alive and well, in reruns
Older syndicated comedies are outperforming newer shows

By Kevin Downeymedialifemagazine.com

The sitcom isn’t dead, television viewers are simply holding out for good ones to watch.

Despite all the talk of the sitcom fading from network television, TV viewers are still big comedy fans, only they’d rather watch old greats like “Seinfeld” in syndication than newer ones on broadcast that pale by comparison.

In fact, sitcoms in syndication this summer are outperforming network comedies, according to a report released yesterday by the Syndicated Network Television Association.

Reruns of “Raymond,” “Seinfeld” and “Friends” ranked among the 20 highest-rated programs on TV in July. And sitcoms in syndication averaged a 1.6 adult 18-49 rating, compared to a 1.4 for network sitcoms.

Moreover, the 18-49 audience watching syndicated sitcoms went up 1.9 percent over last year for the period October through June.

“These shows are proven properties that people know will provide laughs,” says Mitch Burg, president of the SNTA. “It helps syndication that we have the best programs on television.”

It also helps that that syndication has had such a strong base of supply. In effect, it's riding on the success the networks enjoyed a few years ago. And without that success, syndication would not be doing nearly has well, observes Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate research director at Horizon Media.

Syndication, like network TV, hasn’t been able to drum up successful original sitcoms in recent years, leaving it to rely on such carry-over network favorites as “Friends.”

“Syndication in previous years tried to put out original sitcoms but they were not met with overwhelming popularity, outside of some teen comedies like ‘Saved by the Bell,’” he says.

“What you have in syndication are shows like ‘Everybody Loves Raymond,’ ‘Frasier,’ ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Friends’ that have been on TV for nine, 10, 11 years. There’s nothing new coming in that will dislodge them from their time periods.”

But just how long that might last is a different matter.

The lack of fresh content from the broadcast networks may prove problematic in a few years as viewers grow tired of these aging shows.

Steve Sternberg, executive vice president and director of audience analysis at Magna Global, points to a time just over 20 years ago when NBC had not yet premiered “The Cosby Show” when the networks were facing a similar dearth of sitcoms.

Only this time, he notes, the networks will have a tougher time finding a hit, ironically because of the competition from their earlier successes.

“How is today’s situation different? Well, a lot of the great comedies that have left the broadcast airwaves are actually still on television, in syndication and on cable, not to mention full seasons available on DVD,” he explains in a report issued last week.

“Viewers are still watching 'Seinfeld,' 'Frasier,' 'Friends' and 'Everybody Loves Raymond' in fairly large numbers, just not on network television, which makes putting something on broadcast to draw those viewers all the more difficult.”

For sure, the broadcast networks haven’t given up trying to revive the sitcom. As the broadcast networks gear up for the fall television season next month, there are 10 fewer comedies on the air than two years ago but four more than premiered last fall.

Horizon’s Adgate says the networks are also actively sticking with low-rated, on-the-bubble shows that in the past would have been canceled.

“If you look at all the shows that were on the bubble [last season], a lot of them were brought back, like ‘The Office’ and ‘Arrested Development,’” he says. “The networks have said they are willing to nurture a comedy, and they’re going to do everything they can to help these comedies find an audience. They are bending over backwards to find a breakout comedy.”

Monday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

FCC chief considers forcing cable TV competition

By Leslie CauleyUSA TODAY August 23, 2005

NEW YORK — One little-noticed provision of the 1992 Cable Act could give the Federal Communications Commission the power to compel cities to let the regional Bells compete head-on with cable TV operators. And to do so quickly — no foot-dragging allowed.

At least that's what FCC Chairman Kevin Martin thinks, and if he's right he may try to use that authority to widen broadband's reach across the USA.

Martin, in a written statement for USA TODAY Monday, confirmed that he is considering taking such action.

"Several weeks ago I asked the staff to explore what the commission can do to ensure that local authorities are not unreasonably refusing to award additional competitive licenses" for video, he said.

Granting additional franchises, he added, "would promote competition and stimulate broadband deployment."

The chairman's comment is a not-so-veiled reference to a short passage in the 13-year-old Cable Act. The provision — Section 621(a)(1), to be exact — states that local franchising authorities "may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise" for video.

By some readings, that means cities can't erect obstacles to keep out video competitors.

One city wanted Verizon to install a fiber-optic ring to connect its traffic lights. Another wanted it to provide a wireless connection for a local library.

Verizon and SBC are spending billions to deploy advanced broadband services — voice, data and video — across the country. Before they can deploy video, however, cities want them to submit to the cable TV franchising process.

The problem? There are thousands of local franchising authorities, and each has its own licensing process and timetables.

Verizon has only a few video licenses. SBC says that its Internet TV service isn't "cable TV" so it doesn't need a license.

It remains to be seen if the FCC will act. But the mere fact that Martin is even considering pulling rank like that is bound to alarm local franchising bodies, which are loath to cede power to Washington.

"The cities are already upset" about ongoing attempts to curb their authority, notes Paul Glenchur, an analyst at Stanford Washington Research Group. "What you're talking about here is the usurpation of local authority."

Blair Levin, who was an assistant to former FCC chairman Reed Hundt, agrees. But he also thinks Martin's straight shot across the bow could aid broadband's expansion.

"It's smart for the chairman to use the FCC's bully pulpit to warn the cities against log rolling the Bells" on broadband, says Levin, an analyst at Legg Mason Wood Walker in Washington. "The only question is at what point does he think he should intervene."

Martin isn't saying. But he clearly intends to stay on top of the issue.

Says Martin: "I intend to do whatever I can to help meet the president's goal of 'universal and affordable access for broadband technology' by 2007."

Summer shows fail to excite viewers
By Robert Bianco USA TODAY

For TV, it has been a long, cold summer.

The chill hasn't been for lack of trying. Through June and July, broadcast and cable networks generated a blizzard of premieres. Yet combined, they've created only one true blockbuster: ABC's Dancing with the Stars.

Granted, getting even one hit the size of Dancing is no small accomplishment. But while Dancing was huge while it lasted, it lasted only six weeks, and there's been precious little to sustain viewers' interest since it exited in July. What's missing are longer-running, midlevel hits like Amazing Race and Simple Life, which were top 10 performers last August.

Instead, this year we've been treated to a dismal array of reality shows that either start well and then fade, such as Fox's So You Think You Can Dance, or start badly and vanish, such as Fox's Princes of Malibu and NBC's The Law Firm. And, of course, there's ABC's Welcome to the Neighborhood, which didn't start at all. Who can blame viewers for sitting the summer out?

Nor has reality provided the only disappointments. Fox failed with The Inside, a dark drama that went dark after a handful of episodes. ABC flopped with Empire, a huge project that was perceived as a desperate summer dump. And to make matters worse, the network bungled the repeat run of Lost, chasing viewers away by skipping episodes.

In other summers, you could have turned to HBO for relief. But this year, the network crashed with The Comeback. And it lessened whatever momentum it might have gotten out of the final season of Six Feet Under by starting the so-over Under on Monday before moving it back to Sunday.

Things on TV are never all bright or all bleak. TNT's The Closer may not be a blockbuster, but its 6 million viewers have put it on top of the cable ratings. And you have to give FX credit for Over There, a wonderful series that probably was ill-timed.

So what went wrong? For starters, too many networks gave us too much of the same thing, as everyone from ABC to VH1 clogged the airwaves with variations on The Apprentice and The Osbournes. On some nights, it seemed as if every camera that wasn't recording the faux life of some C-list celebrity was helping some fame-seeking contestant compete for a job. Next summer, leave the want ads to newspapers.

To be fair, we all may have been a little bit spoiled by success. In June, we had just come away from a wonderful season, climaxed by the much-discussed finales of 24, Lost, Desperate Housewives and American Idol. Many viewers apparently needed a rest, and those who didn't probably had unfair expectations of what summer could provide.

So we'll make the networks a deal. You don't have to be hot next summer. Just try not to freeze us out.

[B][SIZE=4]The ''Friends'' complete-series gift set comes two weeks after HBO Video releases a similarly ambitious complete-series package of ''Sex and the City.'' The 20-disc ''Sex and the City: The Complete Series,'' priced at $299.95.

Not to mention that Fox will also be releasing a collector's set of all seven seasons of Buffy on DVD, also this November. Amazon currently has it for around $139.

~Alan

Summer of TV's disconnect
By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Seldom have so many people seemed so eager to see a summer end. There's no question this has been a bleak season for TV; the only question is why. USA TODAY examines a few of the good and the bad — and one that just turned ugly.

The good

Beauty and the Geek (WB)

Why it worked: Innocence is a rare quality in reality.

Increasingly, the prevalent tone is one of ugly, exaggerated, often falsified conflict.

From Gordon Ramsay screaming at his would-be employees in Fox's accurately named Hell's Kitchen to the misguided, exploited children screaming at each other in ABC's repulsively named Brat Camp, the genre seems intent on setting as many people at as many throats as possible.

Which is why WB's Beauty and the Geek, with its unlikely partnership between dumb-but-pretty girls and smart-but-klutzy guys, was such a breath of fresh air.

Wisely, it didn't ask us to believe these people would find love, just that they could find common ground.

And when they did, viewers responded.

No, Beauty didn't produce the kind of jaw-dropping moments that have made Bravo's Being Bobby Brown a summer cult favorite (particularly among the anally fixated). But really, your jaw can only drop so far and so often before it starts to hurt.

The Closer (TNT)

Why it worked: Sometimes, all we want from summer is some untaxing entertainment.

Though it's not stupid, The Closer is not exactly challenging. It has neither the hard-to-watch subject matter of FX's superior Over There or the even-harder-to-watch camerawork of TNT's inferior Wanted. It isn't trying to plow new comic territory like HBO's The Comeback, or tell the entire story of Western expansion like TNT's Into the West.

Instead, it offers the pleasures of an old-fashioned procedural built around an interesting character and a fabulous actress: Kyra Sedgwick. It isn't the most talked-about show on TV or the most groundbreaking. But it has pulled in enough viewers to become cable's top-rated series.

Maybe that's the real lesson: We don't want to be overwhelmed in summer, just engaged.

The bad

The Princes of Malibu (Fox)

Whyit didn't work: Winter or summer, shows still have to hurdle a basic "who cares" barrier.

Fox's quick-flop faux sitcom Princes of Malibu was designed to do for music mogul David Foster's stepsons Brandon and Brody what The Simple Life did for Paris Hilton.

The designers, however, didn't study their model closely enough. Unlike the boys, Hilton was already famous (at least in certain quarters) when her show premiered.

And unlike Princes, her show gave you a choice: You could mock Hilton in her efforts to interact with the "common folk," or you could take her side.

Who were you supposed to root for in Princes? The spoiled slacker sons? Their clueless, indulgent mother? Their screaming step-father?

Please — it was like being trapped in a cottage with Cinderella's family after she left to marry the prince.

And it was no more believable than Cinderella to boot.

Rock Star: INXS (CBS)

Why it didn't work: For one thing, it aired in excess.

There's little doubt that the summer's biggest hit, Dancing with the Stars, prospered in part because it demanded so little of us. Dancing was in and out in six episodes. INXS, which has aired up to three times a week, is currently on Episode 4,092 or so. Pick a singer and move on.

The show isn't awful. Some of the singers are talented, and the INXS band members are personable. But it never seemed likely that the Idol format could be successfully transferred to rock, or that there were enough viewers concerned about the fate of INXS to support a network show. Extending the game has only made matters worse.

Most of us didn't care who won that goofy Dancing trophy, either. But the risk-free, virtually pointless nature of Dancing was part of the show's charm, a point lost on the folks who have demanded and received a "dance off" between Dancing's two lead-footed finalists. Way to harsh our buzz, folks.

The ugly

Welcome to the Neighborhood (ABC)

Why it never should have been shot: Here's the problem with reality. The same executives who lift your ratings with a Dancing will, if left unsupervised, eventually besmirch your image with a Neighborhood.

Even if you tried, you'd be hard-pressed to invent a more irresponsible, anti-social bit of TV debris than this never-aired game show that allowed a group of white Texas suburbanites to sort through various minorities to pick their new neighbors. We were supposed to be chilled by the homeowners' initial bigotry and then moved by their eventual enlightenment.

That's what was so pernicious about the show: It acted as if the neighbors' opinions were of some overriding social significance, when the law says otherwise. Here's the message Neighborhood should have sent to its homeowners: Neither your bigotry nor your newfound love of your fellow man has anything to do with someone else's right to buy a house.

And here's the message TV should be sending to everyone: Obey the law, treat your neighbors with respect, and feel free to say whatever you like in the privacy of your own home. Just be smart enough to keep TV cameras out.

Thinking big
On their 10th anniversary, UPN and the WB look to shake up their old, familiar formulas
David Kronke Los Angeles Daily News Staff Writer

When the Fox network turned 10 years old in 1997, it had three top-30 programs ("The Simpsons," "The X-Files," "Married … With Children").

UPN and the WB both turned 10 earlier this year, have never had a top-30 hit and haven't moved beyond being niche networks, or "weblets' as the trades call them, as opposed to being full-fledged networks like ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

While UPN and the WB have so far shown little inclination to grow up, next season both networks are taking significant steps in an effort to attract more mainstream audiences.

As the fall launch of new shows nears, however, the weblets face significant challenges in overcoming their past images as the doormats of the ratings race.

This past season, the highest-ranked show of the WB, a network that has relied heavily on teen dramas over the years, was "7th Heaven," No. 124 out of 200 network series, averaging 5.28 million viewers a week.

The highest-rated show on UPN with its lineup of comedies aimed at African-American audiences, WWE Wrestling, a "Star Trek' spinoff and the occasional reality show was "America's Next Top Model," ranking No. 127 (5.13 million viewers).

One of the reasons for the low rankings is that UPN and the WB have less national market exposure than the big four networks, being in around 90 percent of U.S. TV households.

As Earle Marsh, co-author of "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows," notes, "For the 20 percent of the country not wired for cable, UPN and the WB are niche networks on UHF channels. That makes it hard to compete on a national level."

Another obstacle the two networks faced in 1995 that Fox did not when it began was the explosion of cable programming. That reality isn't changing.

Whether the next season brings the best of times or the worst of times or just business as usual for UPN and the WB remains to be seen. Here are the tales of two networks. THE WB

Virtually since its inception, the WB has been associated with polished series geared to teens. "Dawson's Creek," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "7th Heaven," "Gilmore Girls' and "Smallville' combined youthful beauty with a deft mixture of comedy and melodrama; the latter three added parent-teen interaction in explorations of key issues affecting their target audience.

"You could spot a WB show within 15 seconds; they had a discernible visual and thematic sensibility," says Bob Thompson, founding director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television. "They were doing interesting stuff, with elan and elegance at times. The next generation of 'Beverly Hills, 90210' and 'My So-Called Life' started. They were peaking in brand identity."

The WB has now placed a moratorium of sorts on series set in high schools, instead introducing a number of series aimed at general audiences, cast with older stars and produced by people who have enjoyed success at the big four networks.

- "Just Legal," a cheeky legal procedural starring Don Johnson as a burned-out lawyer paired with an 18-year-old prodigy, comes from Jerry Bruckheimer (who will also kick in a midseason sitcom).

- "Related," from "Friends'" Marta Kauffman, is a dramedy about 20-and 30-something sisters.

- "Twins," from "Will & Grace" creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, offers a Melanie Griffith vehicle a sitcom about mismatched siblings working at their parents' underwear company.

"It's just a little tonal shift, the way I look at it," explains David Janollari, WB Entertainment president. "The WB has been thought of as a teen destination. Somehow we had the perception of not being a destination for (ages) 18 to 34. We wanted to send the impression out to viewers and showrunners that you didn't have to have a show set in high school to come to the WB. Part one of our mission is accomplished."

Industry observers question how quickly part two of the mission luring post-teen viewers can be accomplished.

"That'll be really hard to do," says Marc Berman, Mediaweek programming analyst. "To be known for attracting a certain demo and then say, 'Now we're mass-appeal,' it doesn't happen overnight."

Berman believes "Related' and "Twins' could find a female audience, but says " 'Just Legal' is not going to work," particularly on Monday, a night formerly occupied by the family drama "7th Heaven," which had successfully been paired with the family drama "Everwood' for several seasons. "Everwood' and "Smallville' have been moved to Thursday's highly competitive lineup, a night in which the network has traditionally struggled.

Janollari notes those shows have loyal viewers, and much of Thursday's advertising comes from the movie studios seeking young filmgoers.

And he's sanguine about his network's chances of expanding its viewership while retaining its core of fans.

"The name of the game is bigger ratings and big hits. Our returning series have performed remarkably well. … What we need is that next generation of hits. My job is finding the building blocks of that next generation. I think we have some really good shots."

UPN UPN Entertainment president Dawn Ostroff has done what few could have predicted: brought respectability to a longtime industry punching bag.

Previously, the network was known for lowbrow fare like "The Secret Diaries of Desmond Pfeiffer," "Chains of Love' and "Homeboys From Outer Space."

"They had an advantage when they launched; they had the 'Star Trek' franchise, and automatically had an audience," notes Mediaweek's Berman. "But they squandered it. They put a lot of crap on. That hurt them."

Today, shows like "All of Us' and "Girlfriends' still attract African-American audiences, but primarily younger female viewers, which has become, as was once the case with the WB, UPN's target demographic.

Ostroff improved the quality of the programming. Shows like "Platinum," "America's Next Top Model," "Veronica Mars' and "Kevin Hill," while not always luring sizable audiences, proved the network had a measurable IQ.

This upcoming season, while solidifying its core audience of women and girls ages 12 to 34 with the new shows "Sex, Love & Secrets' and "Love, Inc.," UPN is also making the gutsiest move of the season.

It has scheduled "Everybody Hates Chris" comic Chris Rock's semi-autobiographical look at growing up in the '80s, a potential mainstream hit roundly considered the season's most promising new sitcom on Thursday, the week's most competitive evening. It goes up against "Joey," the faltering anchor on NBC's once-indomitable Thursday lineup.

Last month, UPN's wrestling franchise earned a larger average audience on Thursday than NBC, underscoring how vulnerable that network is. (Wrestling moves to Fridays in the fall.)

"There are fewer comedies on Thursday now, with NBC waning," Ostroff says. "When we got the pilot (for 'Chris'), we figured, if ever there were a time to do it, this is the show to do it with."

Berman thinks the gambit will work. "The pilot is hilarious," he says, "and Rock is a big name, so it will get lots of attention. It will beat 'Joey' in certain demographics. It's the kind of show they need, and though it's in a tough time period, I still think it's going to work."

"We're very realistic," Ostroff says. "'Chris' is the only new show in that time period. We're not going to beat 'Joey' perhaps in our target demos we can. It's a family comedy for this decade; it has an edge. It stands out."

Ostroff insists that the network's past sins have not made viewers reluctant to sample its current fare.

"I hope we've gotten past that," she says. "Since we've been here, we've had critics give us support. … A lot of shows have been viewed as quality programming."

Thompson isn't so sure. "UPN is a perpetual programming problem," he says. "The most talked-about shows when you mention UPN are (last year's controversial reality series) 'Amish in the City' and 'Desmond Pfeiffer.'" They've never really established an identity."

Ostroff allows, "Word of mouth will help. We want to be the little engine that could."

Two More Fox Premiere Dates

Fox announced Tuesday “That 70s Show” would have an one-hour season premiere on Wednesday Nov. 2 at 8 PM ET/PT.

The Pamela Anderson series “Stacked” will begin its second season on Nov. 9 at 8:30 PM ET/PT

Martin Gives Bells Another Boost

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has given notice to cities not to throw up barriers to easing telco entry into the video space.

Rolling out broadband and ramping up competition to cable are priorities for the FCC. Martin, who has already cleared away mandatory access regs on telco-delivered internet service, gave the Bells another boost in a written response to USA Today Monday in which he suggested he might invoke a provision of the 1992 Cable Act preventing local franchising authorities from "unreasonably refus[ing] to award additional competitive licenses for video."

Martin confirmed to the paper that he was considering invoking the clause, saying: "Several weeks ago I asked the staff to explore what the commission can do to ensure that local authorities are not unreasonably refusing to award additional competitive licenses" for video, he said.

There are several initiatives on the local and federal level to make it easer for telcos to start cable-like video service by exampting them from having to seek deals with each city or town. Cities understandably don’t like losing control of the franchise process or the revenue potential it represents.

Texas just passed a law establishing statewide franchises, effecitvely exampting telcos like Verizon and SBC from having to seek town-by-town agreements.

At least two bills have been introduced in Congress to make it easier for telcos to launch video competition to cable, including one that would give cable its playing field.

The first, introduced by Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Gordon Smith, gives any phone company currently operating the right to add video without obtaining an additional franchise, though it would be subject to essentially the same franchising obligations as the cable system in the market it is entering.

More sweeping and controversial legislation was introduced by Sen. John Ensign. It would eliminate the need for cable, a telephone company, or any other pay-TV provider to obtain local or state franchises.

Existing cable franchises also would be eliminated under his bill, which Ensign said is designed to "update the nation’s telecommunications laws and increase choices for consumers."

Inside 9/11 Sets NGC Ratings Record
By Anne Becker Broadcasting & Cable

National Geographic Channel more that doubled its network ratings record with last night’s conclusion to a two-part original special on 9/11. The two-hour installment of Inside 9/11 posted a 3.62 household rating at 9 p.m., shattering the 1.6 record set by Unlocking Da Vinci’s Code, a special telecast last December.

Inside’s conclusion earned a 2.88 rating in the network’s target demo, adults 25-64.

The two-parter, executive produced by Michael Cascio, featured interviews with experts, survivors and observers; photos and video from amateurs and news organizations; audio from the hijacked airplanes and air traffic control and computerized interiors of the World Trade Center and the planes.

Part one, titled "War on America," chronicled al Qaeda’s infancy during the 1978 Soviet-Afghan war and its earlier terrorist activities against the U.S., including 2000’s bombing of the USS Cole. It earned a 2.52 household rating Sunday night.

Monday night’s second half, "Zero Hour," recounted the events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath, including cockpit voice recordings of lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and first-person accounts from survivors.

National Geographic Channel, co-owned by National Geographic Television & Film and Fox Cable Networks, continues to raise its profile. The network recently announced plans for an HD channel for early 2006 and grew its viewership 47% this July over last, averaging 245,000 total viewers in prime. It also doubled its upfront ad-dollar volume over last year.

Since its launch in Jan. 2001, the network has grown from 10 million to 55 million subscribers.

Last week’s network prime-time ratings have been posted near the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

'Six Feet Under' Ends on Ratings High Note

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com)—The series finale of HBO's "Six Feet Under" has drawn widespread praise from critics, and it appears viewers were satisfied with the ending as well.

The show's 63rd and final episode Sunday (Aug. 21) drew close to 3.9 million viewers -- by far the most of any episode this season, which began with an aborted run on Monday nights and never attained the heights of previous years. The audience of 3.9 million also places it in the top 15 for all of cable last week, something no HBO show has done in recent months.

(We're going to discuss plot points in the finale here, so if you're still waiting to see the episode, you might want to skip the rest of the story.)

"Six Feet Under," which had a penchant for denying its characters real happiness for much of its five seasons, allowed them all at least some measure of hope in the finale. After a false ending in which the extended Fisher clan toasted the memory of the departed Nate (Peter Krause), the show closed with a flash-forward montage of the end of each primary character's life -- a fitting way to go out for a show set largely in a funeral home that opened nearly every episode with a death.

The bigger-than-usual audience for the 75-minute finale also gave a boost to its lead-out, "Entourage." The Hollywood comedy averaged just over 2.7 million viewers, well above the show's usual audience of about 2 million.

Reality, crime pay
Nonfiction, Thursday dramas boost Eye

By RICK KISSELL Variety.com

A nice combo of firstrun reality fare and repeats of its scripted hits enabled the Eye to lash its rivals in last week's primetime ratings race.

"Big Brother 6" and "Rock Star: INXS" were on the ratings upswing, and Thursday crime duo "CSI" and "Without a Trace" cleaned up for CBS, which won in adults 18-49 for a fourth straight frame. Net's 2.5 rating/8 share easily topped the tightly bunched other nets, with Fox (2.1/7) followed by ABC (2.0/6) and NBC (1.9/6), according to Nielsen Media Research.

The Eye also led in adults 25-54 for an eighth straight week (3.0/8) and remained perfect in total viewers for the summer, averaging 7.8 million.

WB trails pack

It was an embarrassing week, meanwhile, for the WB, whose all-repeat lineup slipped to 10th place among adults 18-34 (0.7/2) -- behind the other five broadcast nets as well as cablers TNT, USA, MTV and TBS. Net did well earlier this summer with "Beauty and the Geek" but has pretty much gone dark since then.

CBS dominated the program rankings, claiming six of the top 10 programs in 18-49, seven of 10 in adults 25-54 and eight of 10 in total viewers.

While "CSI" led the way as usual -- standing as the week's No. 1 program in adults 18-49 (4.1/12) and total viewers (13.03 million) -- lead-out "Without a Trace" was right on its heels (4.0/12 in 18-49, 12.92m).

These marked summer bests for "Trace" and its best retention to date coming out of "CSI." Many viewers likely missed the first airing of Thursday's "Trace" repeat, which originally aired on a Wednesday in May and thus attracted fewer viewers than usual.

Also for CBS, "Big Brother 6" won all three of its hours, led by Tuesday's 9 o'clock seg (3.4/9 in 18-49, 8.70m). Saturday's seg hit summer highs (2.3/9, 5.85m), with a bonus eviction helping attract more viewers.

"Rock Star: INXS" drew its largest overall auds to date on both Tuesday (3.0/8 in 18-49, 6.49m) and Wednesday (2.2/7, 5.34m).

CBS also benefited from its first National Football League preseason game of the year, as the Minnesota Vikings-New York Jets clash delivered the net's best Friday numbers of summer (1.8/7 in 18-49, 5.41m).

Fox rolls on

Fox, which led in adults 18-34 (2.1/7) for a 32nd straight week, was paced by improved numbers for Wednesday's "So You Think You Can Dance" (3.5/10 in 18-49, 8.72m) and by repeat Sunday laffers "Family Guy" (2.9/8, 6.15m) and "The Simpsons" (2.6/8, 5.53m).

Also, Thursday's New Orleans Saints-New England Patriots preseason NFL game significantly improved the net's Thursday standing (2.6/8 in 18-49, 6.78m), but Tuesday's "Teen Choice Awards" (2.0/6 in 18-49, 4.86m) plummeted 23% year-to-year in 18-49, placing fourth in its slot.

ABC got a nice boost from Monday's rebroadcast of feature film "Remember the Titans" (2.8/8 in 18-49, 7.67m), but again was unable to muster much enthusiasm for Sunday unscripted skein "My Kind of Town" (2.2/6, 5.65m).

NBC got off to a solid start Tuesday with "Tommy Lee Goes to College" (Daily Variety, Aug. 18) and saw "Joey" hit a 10-week high on Thursday (2.1/7 in 18-49, 5.16m).

While the WB is struggling with repeats of its core sked, UPN is keeping the lights on with originals of "WWE Smackdown" on Thursday (1.7/5 in 18-49, 4.57m) and music competition series "R U the Girl" on Wednesday (1.0/3, 2.48m).

TNT, led by Monday drama "The Closer" (1.5/4 in 18-49, 5.11m), edged past USA for the week in 18-49, 25-54 and total viewers. Both "Closer" and USA's "Monk" topped 5 million viewers with original episodes.

'9/11' doc delivers

The young National Geographic Channel topped 2 million viewers for the first time Sunday night with part one of doc "Inside 9/11" (2.12 million) and then hit 3 million Monday with the conclusion.

Discovery Channel scored Tuesday with its series "Dirty Jobs" (0.8/2 in 18-49, 1.83m) and "Going Tribal" (0.7/2, 1.45m), and Lifetime's "Strong Medicine" (1.1/3, 3.27m) achieved 5 shares in key femme demos while drawing its largest overall aud since February 2003.

Disney Channel scored yet again with an original Friday movie, animated "The Proud Family Movie" (4.81 million, including 2.04 million kids 6-11). Pic helped the net post its highest-ever weekly primetime aud among the 6-11 crowd (1.22m).

HBO averaged 3.89 million viewers for the initial airing of the series finale of "Six Feet Under."

Although it hasn't generated significant audiences on any single night, Showtime has been pleased with the perf of "Weeds," whose eight airings last week combined to attract 2 million unique viewers.

In the hour following primetime, Spike scored on Monday of the current week with the second season of "The Ultimate Fighter," which averaged 2.1 million viewers and was up sharply in key male demos vs. last year's opener.

HBO's 'Rome' wasn't built in a day
The cable channel is nervously awaiting the premiere of what
could be the most expensive 12-episode television series ever
By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 24, 2005

NEW YORK -- At one point during the 14-month, $100-million production of HBO's new series "Rome," actor James Purefoy, who plays Mark Antony, was introduced to a group of Italian extras undergoing rigorous boot-camp training to portray Roman soldiers.

The cameras weren't rolling, and on any other set the moment would have consisted of behind-the-scenes chitchat. But months of immersion in a painstakingly detailed re-creation of the ancient city had its effect. As he stood in a replica of the Forum — constructed to scale at the renowned Cinecitta Studios in Rome — Purefoy addressed the men not as himself but as the famed Roman commander. They, in turn, stood sharply at attention, facing him with respectful awe.

"There he was in the Forum, bellowing at these soldiers, and the whole thing was entirely real," recalled Bruno Heller, writer, co-creator and executive producer of the series. "It was a very strange moment. Everyone felt a shiver."

HBO is feeling its own nervous shiver in the days leading up to Sunday's premiere of "Rome." The premium-cable channel spent seven years developing and producing what may be the most costly 12-episode television series ever, striving to create a portrayal of the Roman Empire so grittily authentic that the city's ancient inhabitants would have recognized it. The key question, though, is will contemporary audiences embrace this vision?

"Everyone is on tenterhooks to see how it is received," Heller said.

The large-scale project comes at a key juncture for the network, which has recently had trouble duplicating the water-cooler buzz it generated with such shows as "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City" and "Six Feet Under."

With 27.7 million paid subscribers, HBO is highly profitable and still commands the largest audience of pay-cable channels. But its growth has slowed in the last two years as programs like the now-canceled "Carnivàle" and the Lisa Kudrow comedy "The Comeback" struggled to draw viewers.

The most talked-about recent addition to the HBO lineup, "Entourage," has gotten critical acclaim but modest ratings. The finale of "Six Feet Under" last Sunday commanded almost 4 million viewers, far short of the 13.4 million who watched "The Sopranos" at its peak in 2002. The hit mobster drama, which averaged 12.9 million viewers last season, is now expected to end its run in 2007.

Meanwhile, the network must compete with a similar brand of edgy dramatic programs now found on basic cable and network television.

"They were kind of the undisputed leader in the late '90s in terms of quality television, and I don't think they are anymore," said John Landgraf, president of FX Networks, which has made its mark with such contemporary-themed shows as "Rescue Me" and "Nip/Tuck."

HBO needs "a series that has long legs to it and generates a kind of buzz, excitement and ratings that 'The Sopranos' did," said Jack Myers, editor of mediavillage.com, a television fan website. "Anything less than exceptional performance has to be considered underperformance."

Early reviews of the series have been mixed; critics have admired its look and intelligence, but some question whether it has the kind of genre-busting writing and attitude of "The Sopranos," or its western "Deadwood," or the compelling quality of the famed 1970s "Masterpiece Theatre" series "I, Claudius."

HBO executives acknowledge that they no longer have a monopoly on the kind of original programming that first distinguished the channel in the 1990s but reject the notion that their fortunes will rise or fall on the success of "Rome."

"I don't think it's fair to put the burden on this show and say this show has to be the next 'Sopranos,' because nothing could really wear that mantle," said Carolyn Strauss, president of HBO Entertainment.

That said, "Rome" is "something that we think very, very highly of," she added. "We expect that it will be very successful."

It remains to be seen whether HBO can do for ancient Romans what it has done for mobsters, cowboys and undertakers. Rival studio executives wonder whether television viewers have an appetite for another swords-and-sandals epic, noting the poor ratings ABC earned for its recent miniseries "Empire."

"I just don't know if this is something that feels cutting edge," said Angela Bromstad, president of NBC Universal Television Studio. But HBO believes it has found a new approach to the 2,000-year-old story, both through the quality of the production and the narrative.

Co-produced with the BBC, "Rome" features all the usual players: Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, Mark Antony. But the series also revolves around two soldiers: the severe Lucius Vorenus and his unlikely comrade-in-arms, the garrulous Titus Pullo. Through them, viewers are given a glimpse into the rough-and-tumble life of the plebian class.

"The novel aspect is that it's about everyday life in a time of great historical import," Heller said.

To convey everyday details, Heller said he wanted to get away from the "kitsch pastiches" of helmets and swords that have been used to signify the ancient world in other productions. Instead, the producers sought to create a more fully realized version of Roman life, circa 52 BC.

"The more real you make the world, the more real the actors and directors can be in that world," he said.

No detail was too small; costumes — more than 4,000 pieces — were made only out of natural fabrics that would have been available during that period. The temples and streets were painted in vivid colors, based on the original markings uncovered by archeologists at the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The crew was delighted when creatures like rats, pigeons, hawks and stray dogs took up occupancy in the 5-acre back lot in Rome where they constructed the set, the largest of its kind.

"I was immediately struck by the fact that they were offering up an antidote to what I describe as 'Hollyrome,' the version of Rome we've all got in our heads of cleanliness and marble and togas that looked pressed," said historical consultant Jonathan Stamp, the head of the BBC archeology department, who worked on the project for a year.

Dust and chaos dominate this teeming city. To convey the density of the crowded capital, HBO employed a cast and crew of cinematic scope, assembling 750 actors and extras for a pivotal scene of Caesar's triumph. Strauss called the production "exhaustive and exhausting."

The result is a vivid portrayal of a dirty, cacophonous, amoral metropolis steeped in the tumult of the time. There are graphic depictions of both the city's violence and sex within the first few minutes of the premiere, which features blood-splattered soldiers thrusting fatal blows into their Gallic enemies and the full-frontal nudity of a woman emerging from a post-coitus bath.

Stamp delved deeply into Cicero's speeches and the plays of Titus Maccius Plautus and Terence to help the cast determine everything from the appropriate way for an upper-class woman to greet a senator to the length of time it would take for a letter to arrive in Rome from an outlying city.

It's the rare viewer who will appreciate such details, but Stamp said the approach affected "the texture and perhaps the confidence with which the world is presented, and that's something I think absolutely the viewers will respond to."

Despite the age of the material, Heller said he believes audiences will be struck by the contemporary feeling of ancient Rome.

"The problems they face are the same we do today: how to build a civil society, how to balance individual rights, employment, kids, money, power," he said.

And although the producers did not attempt to stress any parallels between the Roman Empire and any modern-day equivalents, Heller added that "the transition of a small republic into a vast empire ... is obviously intensely resonant today."

For their part, HBO executives are hoping "Rome" will draw audiences for a simpler reason.

"These are well-crafted stories and compelling characters," Strauss said. "No matter what time period they're in, we think those elements are magnetic."

Comcast/OLN Eyes ESPN's MLB Rights day

By John Consoli mediaweek.com

Like a hungry shark circling its prey, Comcast and its Outdoor Life Network, now referred to as OLN, is continuing its low-key but determined move to take a bite out of cable sports kingpin ESPN.

Not only did it snatch away cable rights for the National Hockey League for the next several years last week, but now Comcast/OLN has set its sights on landing Major League Baseball’s Sunday-Wednesday-night cable package, the rights to which expire at the end of the current season.

That package also includes the MLB All-Star Game home run derby telecast, which produced hefty one-night ratings for ESPN this season.

“Baseball is the bedrock of ESPN’s summer programming,” said one rival sports network executive. “There is so much baseball and very little other programming to replace it with during the summer. Hockey can be replaced by running more college basketball, but Comcast could deliver a severe body blow to ESPN if it can steal away these baseball rights.”

ESPN does have the Tuesday-Thursday MLB TV rights through the end of the 2006 season, which also includes the MLB division playoff games that Fox does not air. That package was obtained when ESPN parent Disney acquired Fox Family Channel (now ABC Family) and is currently valued at $100 million. ESPN is also currently paying $141.5 million per year for the Sunday-Wednesday rights package.

Sources familiar with the negotiations believe they have been delayed and slowed by ESPN’s efforts to gain broadband and cellular phone rights, among other value-added, nontraditional rights, which MLB has been hesitant to give up.

“It’s late in the process for negotiations to still be going on” for the Sunday-Wednesday package, a competing network executive said. “It seems like ESPN was playing hardball with MLB and didn’t think there would be any other bidders. Now, they’ve put MLB in the driver’s seat.”

The executive added that “for building-block purposes, baseball would be even more important to Comcast than hockey. And having both, plus maybe even the [Thursday-Saturday] NFL package, would give Comcast a year-round presence with major sports.”

Another sports exec also questioned why ESPN decided in May to opt out of the final year of its NHL deal for which it would pay $60 million: “Even if ESPN were losing $40 million on the deal, it seems like a reasonable insurance policy to absorb it in order to keep the big bad wolf out of the hen house.”

Losing a sizable portion of its MLB rights would present problems for ESPN. In particular, it could cause cable operators to push for a reduction in their subscriber fees and would cost the network significant ad revenue. “ESPN doesn’t need to have coverage of every sport, but it cannot lose coverage of its jewels. Major League Baseball is one of its jewels,” said a rival sports net exec.

George Bodenheimer, chairman of ESPN and ABC Sports, acknowledged last week that Comcast and OLN “appear to be setting themselves up as a competitor,” but believes that the competition will push his network to get even better. “Our world is filled with competitors, but the prospects for ESPN have never looked brighter,” he added. “Our brand has never been stronger. We are comfortable with our position in the marketplace.”

Bodenheimer said ESPN’s goal is to renew its Sunday-Wednesday package, although he would not comment on where the discussions stand or why a deal isn’t done yet. He also believes ESPN brings lots to the table for MLB. “Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter are the national programs of record for chronicling baseball,” he said. “And we feel we are in the best position to promote baseball.”

Chris Tully, senior vp of broadcasting, MLB, also wouldn’t discuss the negotiations or why they have dragged out, but said, “Our challenge is to maximize the value of our national telecast packages from both an economic and promotional perspective. The sports marketplace is changing rapidly, and we’re taking a long-term strategic view. Obviously ESPN is not only a key player in that market but also a longstanding partner of MLB, and our continuing discussions with ESPN have been our primary focus to date.”

But sources at MLB said while approving a new deal with ESPN would be a reality if all terms were equal, should another party come in with a more attractive offer, the league would not hesitate to choose that alternative.

ESPN’s exclusive negotiating window expired in June, and sources inside and outside of MLB confirmed that TV rights discussions have taken place with Comcast/OLN.

Another factor in the negotiations is MLB’s plan to start its own Baseball Channel, possibly before the start of next season. Were Comcast to include a provision to carry the Baseball Channel in any rights offer it proposed, it could be a sweetener that might lure MLB.

For its part, Comcast and OLN officials are being careful not to rile ESPN, stating that their only goal is to “grow” OLN’s male audience base where it makes sense. But one sports league exec sees Comcast/OLN becoming a major factor in the sports TV world. “I think they can be a player,” he said. “Not necessarily on the ESPN level, but it doesn’t have to be to have an impact. If I were betting, I would bet that it will be a success story.”

While preoccupied with negotiating new TV rights deals, ESPN’s Bodenheimer also has to deal with replacing Mark Shapiro, executive vp of programming and production, who oversaw all ESPN/ABC Sports programming.

(OK, so none of them are in HD. But they are clogging up the airways and keeping HD programs off the air!)

Real losers!

Facing up to the horror that is reality TV this summer

By Jonathan Storm Philadelphia Daily News

Now is the summer of my discontent. My brows are bound in disgust at the hordes of no-name morons who court the amorous looking glass of television. I hate the idle pleasures of these days.

That little prelude of pidgin Shakespeare has surely shooed the slack-jaws to the comics pages, so now let's howl with indignation, you and me, at the horror of summer reality TV.

On NBC, I Want to Be a Hilton (it made me want to be a Motel 6) mercifully ends, but then tattooed C-lister Tommy Lee jumps in, pointlessly struggling to make it in college. Smarmy Big Brother remains a summertime CBS fixture, now augmented with the wretchedness of Rock Star: INXS.

Continuing its copycat tradition, Fox galumphs onto the scene with a mean dance show, simultaneously inspiring boredom, aggravation and a sweet longing for the long-ago days of ABC's Dancing With the Stars, the only palatable offering in a cornucopia of summer silliness - even if the guy who played Mr. Peterman should have won.

Once again, ABC gets the gold star. It actually canceled a reality show before it began, though it was just luck, coupled with public outcry - "racist," "homophobic," "demeaning to Christians" - that killed Welcome to the Neighborhood.

Normal viewers' bleats of "insipid," "insulting" and "insufficiently entertaining" are never enough.

Let the kids have their MTV in the rec room. It is summer, after all. They're off. They can rest their brains watching the spoiled louts of Laguna Beach, that Andy show with the creepy fat kid (who's actually 29), or the self-involved preeners on The Real World.

But what has TV done to us grown-ups? Our channels are awash with awful offal, transcending the usual reruns of lame sitcoms and hackneyed dramas. Though there's still a chance to catch good, fresh stuff on cable (Monk, The Closer, Over There, Rescue Me, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and a rerun of an episode of CSI or Arrested Development you might have missed, it's just plain scary to turn on the tube.

The crisis hit Red Alert this week when Bravo premiered Battle of the Network Reality Stars. It still says "the Film and Arts Network" when you Google Bravo, but Inside the Actors Studio is all that remains from the network's former glory days. That's apt. James Lipton is a perfect candidate for The Surreal Life.

Not only does Battle feature "stars" you never heard of (Valerie Penso from Temptation Island?), it features "stars" from shows you never heard of (Showbiz Moms & Dads - on Bravo, of course). They square off in pointless competitions, like running obstacle courses or jousting. It's all pretty gentle. Nothing as brutal as, for instance, watching a 90-minute reality show (which Battle is) without interruption.

Amazon Rachel Love Frasier, whose plastic surgery made her look more like an albatross than The Swan she was supposed to become, and Charla Faddoul, the dwarf from The Amazing Race, battled to a tie, while festering viewers became the big losers.

The show is so dumb it couldn't even come up with different colors for its four teams. Their uniforms are red, green, light blue and dark blue.

Richard III went to his death hollering, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" If autumn's sanity does not soon arrive, we may all be forced to follow the lead of an earlier tragic character, Oedipus. He poked his eyes out.

Right nice sendoff for 'Six Feet Under'
Nearly 4 million pay their respects to the series

By Abigail Azote medialifemagazine.com

Early in the season, it looked like “Six Feet Under” was headed for a slow, dismal death. But after a summer of viewership decline, the series ended its five-year run Sunday respectably with its most-watched episode of the season.

The 75-minute finale drew 3.9 million viewers. The final episode was up 53 percent from the series’ modest season average, though up only 4 percent from last season’s finale.

While many former fans obviously returned to pay their final respects, it could not undo two years’ worth of declining ratings. Season five averaged 2.5 million viewers, down 32 percent from last year and less than half its season two peak.

Much of the slip was because of a move to Mondays to start the season, where it averaged barely 2 million viewers. HBO returned the show to Sundays in July, where it received tons of finale publicity during this slow summer.

The finale averaged less than half of last year’s “Sex and the City” sendoff or a typical “Sopranos” episode. But it was a dignified end to the once-critically acclaimed series that became increasingly morbid its final two years.

“There were times when the incessant story-line darkness obliterated the humor and pushed the characters into the predictable world of dissolute soap opera,” writes Dusty Saunders of the Rocky Mountain (Colo.) News. “But the series nearly always rebounded and returned to its emotional roots, sometimes with a brutal honesty rare on television drama.”

The final minutes of the dark comedy showed how members of the Fisher family met their end, a very different finish from the feel-good finales of late for “Sex,” “Friends” and “Frasier.” Which is exactly what creator Alan Ball wanted.

“It was rare to see a show that so deftly melded the merry with the macabre,” writes Teresa Wiltz of the Washington Post. “Deep down, we were wishing that ‘Six Feet Under’ would turn out to be immortal.”


In other cable ratings for the week ended Aug. 21:

Top five networks in primetime (18-49s): TNT, USA, TBS, Fox, Spike

Top five networks in primetime (total viewers): TNT, USA, Nick at Nite, Fox News, TBS

Top movie (18-49s): TBS’s “My Cousin Vinny” (Sunday 8 p.m.) 1.88 million

Top sporting event (total viewers): TNT’s Nextel Cup (Sunday 2:25 p.m.) 6.87 million

Shows making the top 10 among 18-34s, 18-49s and 25-54s: ESPN’s NFL Preseason Eagles v. Steelers (Monday, 7:50 p.m.); Spike’s WWE Entertainment (Monday, 10 p.m.); Spike’s WWE Entertainment (Monday, 9 p.m.); FX’s “Rescue Me” (Tuesday, 10 p.m.)

Show on the rise: “Inside 9/11,” National Geographic Channel, Sunday, 9 p.m. Some 2.1 million total viewers tuned in to the first part of a two-part miniseries, the first time NGC has ever broken 2 million. The show averaged a 2.0 rating among adults 25-54.

Show on the decline: “Wanted,” TNT, Sunday, 10 p.m. The show averaged 1.4 million viewers 18-49 last week, down 6 percent from the previous week and 21 percent from its July 31 premiere. It didn’t make the top 50 show on cable among total viewers last week.

Tuesday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

For the WB, summer stumbles into fall
Ratings sink 20 percent among key 18-34 viewers

By Diego Vasquez medialifemagazine.com

It’s been a rough summer for the WB, and it may be an even rougher fall.

The network, which is refocusing to target the older end of the 12-34 age group, is down significantly in every major demo this summer, most notably 20 percent among those key 18-34s.

Perhaps worse, one of the network's biggest schedule adjustments for fall is already looking like a bad idea.

The WB moved teen-focused dramas “Smallville” and “Everwood” to Thursday night last month. Since then, the WB’s 18-34 Thursday average has fallen 40 percent to a 0.6.

For the six previous Thursdays, the WB averaged a 1.0 among 18-34s mainly showing back-to-back reruns of “Blue Collar TV” at 8 p.m. and reruns of “Beauty and the Geek” at 9 p.m.

“Smallville” and “Everwood’s” 0.6 average is also 33 percent down from last summer's 0.9 average on Thursdays, when the reality bomb “Studio 7” aired.

Both shows are in repeats now. “Smallville” previously aired on Wednesday and “Everwood” on Monday.

True, serial dramas don’t repeat well, and “Everwood” in particular does poorly in reruns no matter where it airs. And summer tune-in isn’t always indicative of regular-season performance, as big hits like “ER” and “Desperate Housewives” are also getting low ratings this summer.

But it’s not the kind of start the WB wanted, and the night will get much tougher come fall.

Thursday will be the most competitive night of the week, with CBS’s “Survivor” and “CSI,” NBC’s “Joey,” “Will & Grace” and “The Apprentice,” Fox’s “The O.C.,” UPN’s new “Everybody Hates Chris” and even ABC’s “Alias” all expected to post decent ratings among 18-34s.

On TV, death's actually quite common
And less a matter of art than necessity, history tells us

By Ed Robertson medialifemagazine.com

From all the attention he received, you’d think “Six Feet Under’s” Nate Fisher was the first TV character ever to die.

Not hardly. Television deaths occur with surprising regularity. The one interesting thing about them, and perhaps to the credit of the shows' writers, is that so few people seem to remember them.

Where Nate’s death was remarkable was in its ingenuity, coming as it did in the weeks leading up to Sunday's finale. The writers' aim, a pretty clever one, was to use his death to wrap up the series, as a metaphorical shroud. Nate, a man who never found satisfaction at home or at work, finally finds in death the sense of purpose his life lacked.

And though he dies, he remains as a ghost, there to usher the others on their way. In the final sequence we witnessed the deaths of all the Fishers in a flash-forward. Television being the way it is, expect to see this plot device, death as doorway, coming to you on another network real soon.

But ordinarily TV deaths are less the work of creativity as of necessity. It's an ugly business, for sure, but there are times when there's little or no choice in the matter but to kill off the character.

Below are three occasions when death is the best option.

When a key actor dies

Actually, it's happened far more often than people may recall: Dan Blocker (“Bonanza”) in 1972, Jim Davis (“Dallas”) in 1981, Michael Conrad (“Hill Street Blues”) in 1983, Redd Foxx (“The Royal Family”) in 1991, John Ritter (“8 Simple Rules”) in 2003. This poses a problem for TV executives, especially if the series happens to be built around a specific actor, as in the case of Ritter.

In choosing to continue a show, as ABC did with “Rules,” the network faces the challenge of doing it in a manner that won't alienate the audience. ABC addressed Ritter's death head on by writing it into the show: His character, Paul Hennessy, died suddenly, just as Ritter died suddenly.

Death is also the only likely option where it's a supporting actor dies

The network knows that loyal viewers won’t likely accept another actor in the role. Rather than recast the character, it’s better to lay him to rest. That was done with Hoss when Blocker died and with Jock Ewing when Jim Davis passed away while "Dallas" was shooting. Hoss’s death was alluded to in the 1972 season premiere of “Bonanza,” while Jock’s death was part of the storyline that launched the 1981 season on “Dallas.” To explain a transition. A character's death can help a show address a change in concept or some other transition, such as when an actor leaves a show.

“The Sopranos” does this every season. Ralphie (Joe Pantoliano), Adriana (Drea de Matteo) and Big Pussy (Vincent Pastore) are just a few of the characters who have found themselves “whacked” at the end of their story arc.

“NYPD Blue” handled Jimmy Smits’ exit by killing off Bobby Simone. Henry Blake on “M*A*S*H” perished when McLean Stevenson left. James Evans (John Amos) on “Good Times,” Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton) on “All in the Family” and Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) on “Dallas” likewise died when the actor who played them departed, though Bobby, of course, rose from the dead after Duffy came back to the show.

To salvage the show

When ratings are low, the options are few: either axe the show or try changes that will breathe new life into it.
At that point, there's still some risk that changes will drive off remaining viewers, but it's a minor one for sure. Changes can include switching time periods, revamping the format, introducing new characters, or killing off old ones.

Often it's supporting actors who get the bump when a show is struggling, as when Manny Quinlan (Henry Darrow) got knocked off in 1975 as part of the overhaul of “Harry O.”


But sometimes, though far less often, it's a lead character. James Garner did himself in on “Nichols,” an offbeat series the actor produced and starred in for NBC in 1971-1972.

“Nichols” was a turn-of-the-19th-century Western about a drifter (Garner) who reluctantly serves as sheriff of a small Arizona town. Nichols was also an amiable conman similar to the anti-heroes Garner had played on “Maverick” and in movies such as “Support Your Local Sheriff.” Yet viewers never warmed up to the character.

NBC not only switched “Nichols” to another night but changed the title to “James Garner in Nichols,” hoping that Garner’s name might attract more viewers. But nothing worked. “Nichols” struggled all season.

By the time filming began on the year’s final show, “Nichols” was on the bubble. In a last-ditch attempt to win renewal, Garner had Nichols gunned down in the opening minutes of the final show of the season and replaced with a new character, Nichols’ stalwart twin brother (also played by Garner), a more conventional hero. The plan called for Nichols’ brother to avenge the murder and take over as the focus of the series in the second season.

It was an audacious move, and it might have worked had the network stuck with the show. NBC chose not to, instead canceling “Nichols” just before the episode aired.

(Ed Robertson is a TV historian and a regular contributor to Media Life. )

Dutch TV Outdoes Itself

bcbeat.com—Yet another sign of the impending TV apocalypse:

New Dutch TV network Talpa will air a reality show about a woman seeking a sperm donor. The show is called "I Want Your Child ... and Nothing Else!", Reuters reports.

The show is a one-off that will compete against other reality pilots (including one about former prostitutes that band together to start a cafe) to become a series.

It's almost time to play hail to chiefs in prime time

By Diane Holloway Cox News Service August 24, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas -- This television season, look for three U.S. presidents in prime time. That's not counting the occasional address by President Bush, which would make a quartet of presidents. Too many.

We know for sure that one prez will be a woman; another has a 50-50 chance of being Latino. The third, whoever takes over on "24," won't be revealed until the thriller returns in January, and even then we won't know anything about his/her politics.

Until President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) moved into the White House on "The West Wing," we had never had a president starring in a TV series. In some opinion polls conducted before last year's real presidential election, Bartlet scored better than either President Bush or opponent Sen. John Kerry.

It is perhaps a reflection of the divisions in the country and the generally low esteem in which we hold our politicians that a fictional leader (and a liberal Democrat to boot) is the president of choice in our conservative-leaning country.

The new crop of TV presidents is diverse, something that has been missing in our real Oval Office.

Geena Davis will star as the first female president in ABC's "Commander in Chief," which debuts Sept. 27. (Yes, that means Thelma, of "Thelma & Louise" fame, will become the leader of the free world.)

Rumors of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton contending for the White House notwithstanding, "Commander" creator-executive producer Rod Lurie has Davis' character taking charge not through popular election but through the back door. Lurie thinks a woman will have a tough time being elected president as long as national security is the nation's top concern.

In the pilot for the new ABC series, the Republican president suffers a stroke, and Vice President Mackenzie Allen (Davis) is alerted. She is told -- by the dying president and by Republican staff and leaders -- that she is expected to resign so that Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland) can assume the presidency.

It's unclear how much of the opposition to Allen is due to her being a woman and how much is due to her politics. She is an Independent who was put on the ticket as a vote-getter among women, but the party isn't thrilled with her unpredictable views.

Obviously Allen ignores the naysayers and assumes office after the president dies. Besides malcontents in her own party, she must deal with her husband, who becomes the first first gentleman, and their three children.

Sees need for female politicians

Lurie, a former reporter, is a self-proclaimed feminist who laments the absence of female politicians at the national level. He said recently that he wrote "Commander in Chief" for his daughter. He also wrote the movie "The Contender," in which Joan Allen faced political attacks in an attempt to be confirmed as vice president.

"If we don't consider women for high office, we knock out 50 percent of our greatness," Lurie said.

Hollywood tends to lean left; no doubt about it. And Lurie and Davis are both Democrats, but Lurie promises he will not use "Commander in Chief" as a soapbox.

Right off the bat, taking the politics out of "Commander" sets the show a world apart from "The West Wing," which loves to deal with partisan issues and the inner workings of the government. That's what creator Aaron Sorkin set out to do, and what executive producer John Wells has continued to do.

At the end of NBC's "West Wing" last season, Bartlet's tenure was ending, and two attractive candidates were on the campaign trail. It seemed a foregone conclusion that Jimmy Smits' U.S. Rep. Matt Santos, a Democrat from Houston, would win. How else would the show keep Bartlet's staff of Democrats?

Alda for president?

But now there is speculation that Alan Alda, who plays Sen. Arnold Vinick, a Republican from California, could win in a squeaker. NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly told TV critics in Los Angeles recently that the election will not be resolved right away -- probably not until the November sweeps.

So "The West Wing," when it returns Sept. 25 in a new Sunday time slot, will either give us a moderate Latino Democrat or a moderate, aging white Republican. It also will give us a live debate between the two fictional candidates during the November sweeps.

And what of "24"? As usual, everything is a big dark secret on the Fox suspense thriller. We don't know how much time will have elapsed from Jack Bauer's departure from CTU or who will be in office to direct our counterterrorism efforts when the show returns.

We do know that past "24" presidents have included David Palmer, a strong leader except when it came to dealing with the women in his life, and last season's odd duo. First came President Keeler, about whom we knew little before he was injured in an attack on Air Force One, and then came weak-kneed President Logan, who was elevated from vice president after the plane crash.

Unlike "The West Wing" or "Commander in Chief," "24" doesn't present its presidential character in a focal role of power. This year would be a good time to beef up the prez, swear in a woman (two female presidents in prime time might have an impact on real-life politics!) and send Jack to the White House to thwart a terrorist coup.

A TV series will never really show us what life is like in the White House, which is probably just as well. It's either a lot more intense or a lot more boring than fiction can conjure.

Ailes Claims New Fox Turf
By Rebecca Dana The New York Observer

First Roger Ailes took over part of Lachlan Murdoch’s old job. Now, according to a News Corp. staffer, Mr. Ailes is taking Lachlan’s old office—on the eighth floor of company headquarters, one door down from Rupert Murdoch himself.

Even without the new digs, Mr. Ailes’ appointment earlier this month to head the Fox Television Stations group marks him as the ascendant figure in the post-Lachlan realignment of News Corp.

Mr. Ailes’ newest territory is the most profitable unit of News Corp., bringing in $900 million in operating income last year, or more than one quarter of the company’s total operating income. But unlike the Fox Broadcasting Company or the Fox News Channel, it remains one of the more vaguely known parts of the Murdoch empire, with no Homer Simpson or Bill O’Reilly to embody it.

The station group has been around since 1986, when Mr. Murdoch began buying up local television stations to carry his Fox network programming around the country.

Eventually, buying affiliates from independent owners and from other station groups, News Corp. amassed 35 stations. Among those were pairs of stations in nine markets—including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago—which allowed Fox to save money by sharing a certain amount of staff.

All told, the Fox Stations Group now accounts for around 20 percent of the Fox network’s affiliates and employs some 5,300 people. It is the second-largest station group in the country, behind only Viacom’s station group.

Yet it has largely remained an aggregation of individual stations, not a streamlined national brand reaching out to local communities. Said one high-ranking executive who has worked both with Mr. Ailes and in local television, “That’s what’s missing at Fox, and that’s the first thing Roger’s gonna try to do.”

Mr. Ailes, a product of Warren, Ohio, has a history of connecting to small-town America. After producing the Ohio-based Mike Douglas show, the young Mr. Ailes made his name by putting Richard Nixon on television in 1968, making him look appealing to local viewers.

Building a station-group identity would be another feat of packaging. Right now, the affiliates get two hours of prime-time programming from Fox on weekdays, seven hours of kids and nighttime programming on Saturdays, four hours on Sundays, and an assortment of sports events and specials. That’s less than what ABC, NBC and CBS offer their affiliates, because the Big Three also have morning and late-night shows and national evening newscasts.

The individual Fox affiliates fill up the rest of the day with local newscasts and syndicated programming, either first-run or reruns.

In another bit of centralization, Mr. Ailes will also oversee Twentieth Television, which produces some of this first-run syndicated programming and distributes off-network programming.

And Mr. Ailes will remain busy running the top-ranking Fox News Channel he helped build from scratch. But to varying degrees, the job of heading a stations group can be a hands-off job.

Mr. Ailes’ rough organizational equivalent at Sinclair, which owns 61 stations (including 20 Fox affiliates), would be David Smith, the company’s president and C.E.O. Mr. Smith is described by his company as a big picture, long-term strategic thinker; day-to-day operations are run by chief operating officer Steve Marks. Mr. Marks is an approximate analog to Jack Abernethy, C.E.O. of the Fox Stations Group, and Mr. Ailes’ right-hand man and former deputy at Fox News Channel.

Each Fox Group station has a general manager, who reports up the corporate ladder to Mr. Abernethy, who reports to Mr. Ailes, who reports jointly to Mr. Murdoch and News Corp. president and chief operating officer Peter Chernin.

Much has already been made about the initial challenges that Mr. Ailes will face in the job: what to do (if anything) with morning and late-night time slots; how to convince Nielsen to change its people meters to boost Fox-friendly urban-viewership numbers; how to make local news more watchable; how (or whether) to proceed with the development of a Fox business channel; how to balance his new responsibilities with his old ones at Fox News.

Said one insider: “I don’t think there will be time for a lot of golf.”

'Housewives' Won't Tease to Start Season

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com)—Fans of "Desperate Housewives" won't have to wait very long to get a resolution to last season's closing-shot cliffhanger.

ABC says that the second-season premiere of the hit series, scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 25, will pick up pretty much where May's finale left off, with plumber Mike Delfino (James Denton) coming home to find Zach Young (Cody Kasch) holding a gun to Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher). What happens, of course, is a secret; the network is saying only that he "has to find a way to rescue them both."

The premiere will also continue a few other storylines set up in the first-season finale. Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) will interview for a job at an ad agency after she and her husband, Tom (Doug Savant), agreed to flip roles and he's staying home with their four kids. Her prospective boss ("Wild Card's" Joely Fisher, who will have a recurring part), however, is skeptical about hiring a mother.

Shirley Knight ("Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood") will also guest-star in the episode as Rex Van De Camp's (the departed Steven Culp) mother, who comes to town for her son's funeral and promptly sets about driving his widow, Bree (Marcia Cross), nuts.

Alfre Woodard ("Beauty Shop," "Miss Evers' Boys") and Mehcad Brooks also join the cast as a mother and son who have just moved onto Wisteria Lane.

This won't apply to too many viewers, but ...

FCC Clarifies SHVERA Rules for Alaska, Hawaii

The FCC announced it has clarified a portion of SHVERA aimed at giving viewers in the "noncontiguous states" access to digital broadcast networks. (.pdf of news release) (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-260682A1.pdf)

The new rules, adopted by a Report and Order, will require U.S. satellite companies with more than five million subscribers -- currently DirecTV and Dish Network -- to carry analog stations from Alaska and Hawaii by December 8 of this year, and digital stations from these states by June 8, 2007. Many viewers in Alaska do not live in any designated market area, hence the special provision.

Stations in these states have until this October to choose whether they want "must carry" status for their analogs. They have until April of 2007 to make the same choice for their digital signals.

With this order, commissioners tied up what they saw as "loose ends" in this part of SHVERA:

- When a satellite company starts carrying these stations' digital signals, they no longer have to carry their analogs.

- Satellite companies will have to carry all HDTV and multicast channels which are part of these stations' digital signals.

- "Noncontiguous states" does not include U.S. territories such as Guam and Puerto Rico. Satellite carriers had argued that serving these regions would be technologically difficult.

The full order, in Acrobat format, is here (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-159A1.pdf).

Weekly Ratings Notes
'Six Feet' gets good send-off

By USA Today Contributing: By Bill Keveney

•Crowded funeral. On Sunday, 3.9 million watched the entire Fisher family and their friends pass away on the final episode of HBO's Six Feet Under. It was the series's best showing since the fourth-season premiere in June 2004, and a jump of 700,000 over the previous week's episode (which had been the most watched of the season). Still, the fifth-season finale's audience was only slightly above last season's average of 3.7 million; in earlier seasons, episodes topped 5 million. With Six Feet Under as a lead-in, Entourage crept to a series high of 2.7 million viewers.

•Dance revival. After three weeks of decline, Fox's So You Think You Can Dance had its second-best showing, 8.7 million viewers. It was No. 3 among young adults, with an audience of 4.6 million ages 18 to 49. Last week's episode was the first featuring the final 16 dancers in an elimination competition.

•Good grades. The second of back-to-back premiere episodes of NBC's Tommy Lee Goes to College cracked the week's top 10 among young adults with 4 million viewers. The total audience, 6.1 million viewers, for the rocker's matriculation was less impressive, but gets a passing mark in TV's underperforming summer school.

•Reality rebound. Four other network reality shows made the week's top 10 among young adults: two episodes of CBS' Big Brother (Nos. 4 and 5), a rerun of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (No. 6) and the Tuesday edition of CBS' Rock Star: INXS (No. 10).

•Happy birthday. MTV's My Super Sweet 16 grabbed an enviable 3.6 million viewers in its second-season premiere. It marked its best performance ever among the core demographic, ages 12 to 34.

•Proud performance. About 4.8 million viewers watched Friday's premiere of The Proud Family Movie, a Disney Channel film based on the network's animated series. It marked the best showing for a Disney original film since October.

•High absenteeism. Steve Carell's new film, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, was No. 1 at the box office, but a four-episode marathon of reruns of his NBC comedy, The Office, called in sick in the ratings with an average of 3.2 million viewers.

dline:

Stations will have to carry all multicast signals?

Wow, that is going to be a mess for D* and E*.

Will the same rules apply to MSOs?

TiVo's Rogers Says Co Has New Marketing Strategy

By ELLEN SHENG Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES August 24, 2005 6:34 p.m.

NEW YORK -- TiVo Inc. (TIVO) will be changing the way it markets its independent, standalone products, TiVo's new chief executive Tom Rogers said Wednesday after the company released its fiscal second-quarter earnings report.

The Alviso, Calif., company gets the majority of its customers through a partnership with DirecTV Group Inc. (DTV). But with that relationship winding down - DirecTV has said it will focus on marketing a rival digital video recorder in the future - TiVo has been putting more emphasis on its own independent product.

Despite efforts that included price slashing and a splashy ad campaign, increasing independent subscriber numbers hasn't been easy. TiVo's independent sales came in at the low end of expectations with 40,000 customers in the second quarter, which ended July 31. A year ago, the company added 63,000.

TiVo will be attacking the whole retail distribution side more aggressively, attacking the issue with "new energy and focus," Rogers told Dow Jones Newswires. Specifics about the company's new strategy weren't disclosed but will be announced in the coming months. Rogers said they will extend beyond tinkering with prices.

"Mass distribution is our goal" and both standalone subscribers and partnerships are important, Rogers said, but "the reality is the Comcast deal we've done and others we hope to do won't be kicking in until the middle of next year. In the meantime, retail sales take on importance."

TiVo landed an important partnership with Comcast Corp. (CMCSA, CMCSK), the country's largest cable operator with 21.5 million subscribers, earlier this year. Under the agreement, Comcast will be offering TiVo as a premium service.

TiVo also came to agreements with the National Cable Television Cooperative and closely held Cebridge. The company also said Wednesday that it is running a marketing trial with Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC) of Bethpage, N.Y., through which Cablevision will be offering TiVo boxes to satellite customers who switch to cable.

Late Wednesday, TiVo said it earned $240,000, or break-even on a per-share basis, and posted net revenue after subtracting rebates of $39.3 million in the second quarter. A year ago, the company showed a net loss of $10.8 million, or 13 cents a share, on net revenue of $39.8 million.

Total net subscribers were 254,000 in the second quarter, with 214,000 coming from DirecTV. Rogers said the high number of DirecTV customers was due to promotions. The company ended the quarter with 3.6 million total subscribers.

USA and Universal-HD US Open Tennis Schedule
released by USA Network/Universal HD

For the 22nd consecutive year, USA Network is proud to present the US Open Tennis Championships. In his 14th year behind the mike, Hall-of-Famer and two-time Emmy-nominated analyst John McEnroe headlines the USA broadcast team, with fellow Hall-of-Famer Tracy Austin sitting beside McEnroe for her 15th year of calling US Open action. USA's announce team also includes four-time Grand Slam champion Jim Courier as well as Bill Macatee, Ted Robinson, Michael Barkann, and Al Trautwig.

More than 95 hours of live coverage on USA begins Monday, August 29th. Some 65 hours of USA Network's US Open coverage will also be simulcast in high-definition on Universal HD - visit universalhd.com for more information. Don't miss a second of the action!

Mon, August 29 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Tue, August 30 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Wed, August 31 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Wed, August 31 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Thu, September 1 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Thu, September 1 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Fri, September 2 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Fri, September 2 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Sat, September 3 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Sat, September 3 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Sat, September 3 1:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Sun, September 4 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Sun, September 4 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Sun, September 4 12:30 AM 2005 US OPEN
Mon, September 5 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Mon, September 5 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Tue, September 6 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Tue, September 6 11:00 AM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Tue, September 6 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Wed, September 7 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Wed, September 7 11:00 AM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Wed, September 7 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Thu, September 8 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Thu, September 8 11:00 AM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Thu, September 8 7:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD
Fri, September 9 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Sat, September 10 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Sun, September 11 6:00 AM 2005 US OPEN
Sun, September 11 1:00 PM 2005 US OPEN LIVE HD

Will the same rules apply to MSOs?


This may be the first salvo in that fight and a signal to the way this FCC will move.

It could be, foxeng, or it could be just because there are so few TV signals available in those two states (and the fact that Alaska Sen. Stevens heads the Commerce Committee.) So, in effect, it would give more TV service to DBS subs in the 49th and 50th states.

We'll have to see.

An Anchor by Evening, a Blogger Any Time

By JACQUES STEINBERG The New York Times August 25, 2005

He was the first anchor to take over a network evening newscast in the 21st century, so it was probably inevitable that Brian Williams would begin channeling his inner Gawker by getting his own daily blog.

While Mr. Williams is careful not to traffic in gossip or observations that might breach his journalistic objectivity on matters like the course of the war in Iraq, his dispatches for what is known as "The Daily Nightly" on nightly.msnbc.com are striking in two main respects. One is the light he periodically sheds, in real time, on deliberations among his "NBC Nightly News" colleagues, including their disagreements on the evolving lineup of that night's newscast. The other is the criticism he occasionally levels at himself and the program when he feels either has come up short.

"About last night's broadcast: immediately after we got off the air it was clear (based on my own gut, those whose opinions I respect, and viewer response) that we had missed the mark on two elements," he wrote, under the heading "Morning Mea Culpa," at 12:05 p.m. on Aug. 18. He went on to describe a series titled "Pain at the Pump," which had sought to answer the basic question of why gasoline prices vary wildly, even on the same street.

"We called the dynamic 'maddening' - and I'm afraid our attempt at an answer might have been equally maddening," he wrote, before adding, a few sentences later, "While the segment was the work of some our most talented folks ... I fully accept the ultimate blame for any miscommunication." He also took "full responsibility" for the intermittent failure of a search tool on the MSNBC Web site, to which he had directed viewers as a means to find the cheapest gas in their neighborhoods.

For several years, newscasts - on both the broadcast networks and cable - have sought to stoke the interest of viewers with mass messages sent via e-mail describing that night's program. As a logical extension, CBS News will introduce a new Web site next month that will feature an ombudsman charged with, among other tasks, answering viewer questions about the workings of the news division.

Meanwhile, a fledgling group of cable hosts - including Greta Van Susteren of Fox News - have begun their own blogs – hers is "Gretawire," reachable through foxnews.com.

But none of the Big 3 anchors who dominated network news for more than two decades - including Peter Jennings of ABC, who occasionally defended an editorial decision by mass e-mail - sought to do what Mr. Williams has been attempting since his blog went up, with little fanfare, on May 31: to communicate with his audience more informally, sometimes several times a day, in a voice that is effectively unfiltered.

"There is no better way to say this than to whip out a cliché from the old cliché bag or drawer," Mr. Williams said in an interview. "We are trying to lift the veil. We're trying to expose ourselves as a collection of humans grappling with how to spend our precious 22 minutes each night."

"I said to my wife," he added, " 'I don't have a therapist. I have my blog.' "

Mr. Williams and his colleagues (who sometimes post their own entries) have been motivated to show a little leg at least in part because of a financial reality of the news business: though the three broadcast newscasts still draw an average of more than 20 million viewers a night, they have been losing hundreds of thousands of viewers each year. As it has for other businesses, the Web offers a fresh marketing opportunity - in this case, a chance to lure younger people who might be thirsting for a little inside baseball.

In that quest, Mr. Williams has managed to captivate at least one influential viewer. He is Brian Stelter, whose own blog - a compendium of the daily doings in television news tvnewser.com - reads as if it were written by a grizzled veteran, not, as is the case, by a 19-year-old junior at Towson University in Maryland.

On 10 occasions over the last three months, Mr. Stelter has provided links to "The Daily Nightly" on his own blog. Never mind that at this early stage, Mr. Stelter receives about as many page views, or entries called up on his site, in a weekday (about 27,000) as "The Daily Nightly" does in about a week.

"It makes me want to watch the evening news, and I haven't watched in years," Mr. Stelter said in an interview. "It's so honest. Sometimes I'll wonder why he's allowed to tell us what he's telling us."

Mr. Williams - who at 46 is more than twice Mr. Stelter's age - said that he had struggled at times to find a tone that did not have the "coat of polish" that his words might in a "Nightly News" script.

His inaugural posting, at 4:20 p.m. on May 31, provided little more than a recitation of that night's newscast - a head's up that "The Daily Nightly" has provided every weekday since.

But as he has grown more comfortable, Mr. Williams has also begun posting musings on the editorial process that, he says, are virtually stream-of-consciousness and copy edited only lightly.

On June 23 at 4:09 p.m., for example, under the heading "Debating the Rundown," Mr. Williams wrote: "During our editorial meeting (which I will politely call a boisterous and vigorous exchange of views between colleagues) we debated the competing merits of our two lead story candidates: the changing administration position on the insurgency in Iraq, and today's Supreme Court decision on private property."

Mr. Williams then identified particular colleagues by name, and the positions they staked out. The reader was left with a cliffhanger, the matter unresolved. Only at 6:23 p.m., seven minutes before he went on the air, did Mr. Williams take to his blog to write, "And the lead is ... the Supreme Court decision."

And then, Mr. Williams's online alter ego provided a "billboard" or "tease" to the correspondent who would deliver that report by introducing him in a way that Mr. Williams's stentorian, on-air persona never would.

He called him "Pete 'no relation that we know of' Williams."

HBO plots to make history via 'Rome'

By Bill Keveney USA TODAY

They spent. They filmed. Will they conquer?

That's the question as HBO launches one of the most expensive series ever made, Rome (Sunday, 9 p.m. ET/PT). The pay-cable network, looking for the next Sopranos as it awaits the 2006 return of the original, is hoping the lavish story of the Roman empire in Caesar's time will be its next buzzworthy hit.

The 12-episode Rome comes weeks after ABC's Empire, another epic covering roughly the same period. Empire foundered with viewers and came in the wake of disappointing domestic box offices for Alexander, King Arthur and Kingdom of Heaven.

Executive producer Bruno Heller doesn't sense a larger rejection of the historical epic and says Rome will be judged on its own merits, not on generalizations about a genre reborn in the success of 2000's Gladiator. "It's about telling compelling stories and creating characters that people can identify with, whether it's a cowboy movie or a sci-fi show. That's what draws people in, not period costumes," he says.

Still, $100 million bought plenty of costumes, along with what producers say is a Rome studio set that is the largest ever for a TV series.

"We were on horseback riding up the Via Sacra, and it's almost a 360-degree full-sized set," says Ray Stevenson, who plays the impulsive soldier Titus Pullo. "You couldn't see the cameras, they're so far away. It gives your character a sense of the scale" of the city.

Rome starts in 52 B.C. with Julius Caesar (Ciaran Hinds) about to return after conquering Gaul. The Senate, led by Caesar's mentor, Pompey Magnus (Kenneth Cranham), is nervous about Caesar's plans and the fate of the Republic.

The series, a co-production of HBO and the BBC, depicts a filthier, grittier city than the white-marble edifice portrayed in many films. The political scheming and historical battles of the history books are balanced by the intimate domestic dramas of soldiers, slaves and aristocrats. Blood, gore, sex and nudity are plentiful — "the Western id unleashed" in a pagan society, Heller says.

HBO entertainment president Carolyn Strauss believes Rome will stand out against other historical epics. "There's a painstakingness to production (detail) and a sort of worm's-eye view that is fresh and new," she says. "It's a little bit offbeat and a little bit wry."

All Yankees, All the Time Works for YES

By RICHARD SANDOMIR The New York Times August 25, 2005

YES Network is a study in Yankees immersion. Oh, there are Nets games, but YES is clearly the sod of the Yankees, a pinstriped gift box, a special-interest channel packed with 130 games and past classics, 34 adoring episodes of "Yankeeography," a magazine program and a series in which four fans travel to every Yankee game.

It offers no nightly sports news wrap-ups like "SportsCenter" but uses its studios for pregame and postgame Yankees and Nets shows and the "CenterStage" talk show.

The real news at YES is the Yankees - past and present, dead and active.

In its four years, YES has become the most-watched regional sports network in the country - outpacing its local rivals, MSG Network and Fox Sports New York - an achievement that would have been impossible if the Yankees did not have 26 World Series titles and an owner who prefers winning to breathing.

"The team has played real well for 10 years, so the question is, what's our risk profile?" said Tracy Dolgin, a former Fox Sports executive who became the YES president last September. "With an incredible brand like the Yankees, you could go some period of time not performing well without the business going to hell."

Despite an inconsistent season, the Yankees (69-56) have been the stars of local prime time. Twelve of their last 17 prime-time games through Tuesday had beaten all other local programming among YES's target audience, men 18 or older. For the season, Yankees games held that distinction 17 times in 56 games.

On Tuesday night, the Blue Jays-Yankees 7 p.m. game generated a 5.8 local rating - more than five times higher than that of the Mets' victory over Arizona, which started at 9:30. The Yankees' postgame show tripled the Mets' rating.

Through 98 YES telecasts, Yankees games had an average 4.4 rating, down 4 percent from last year, but 158 percent better than that of Mets games, which suffered in April and May from Time Warner's blackout of MSG and FSNY.

While the primary goal of Leo J. Hindery, Dolgin's predecessor, was to make sure YES was fully distributed around the region, Dolgin's role has been to raise YES's value and revenues. If fans crave comfort by tuning in to Yankees games, he reasons, advertisers should feel as cozy about tying their products to the team.

"I view YES as a business," he said. "Maybe when you own a team there is a public trust element, but this is a business."

Lee Berke, a consultant to several regional sports networks, said, "Tracy was brought in to improve profit margins, and he's been pushing it to the max in terms of advertising inventory and innovative marketing."

Dolgin said that his approach was to appeal to the core fan by acting like a fan, with a clear view that the network wanted the Yankees and the Nets to succeed - not unlike many other team- and league-owned cable channels.

Some of Dolgin's most noticeable changes have been on the advertising side. During Yankees telecasts this season, advertisers have bought 90-second "content breaks" to sell films ("The Bad News Bears" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith") and television programs (Fox's "24," National Geographic's "Extraterrestrial" and FX's "Over There") on the belief that viewers will not surf away the way they would from traditional 30-second commercials.

Each break is preceded by two "teases" in earlier innings by Michael Kay, the Yankees' play-by-play announcer. Dolgin anticipates breaks lasting up to 2 minutes 40 seconds during halftime of Nets games and for nonentertainment companies, like banks, to buy time for 90-second breaks next baseball season.

A more intriguing, if immodest, innovation occurs in "The Ultimate Road Trip," in which four fans attend all home and away Yankees games. In these, the sponsors are kings, enablers of this season-long fantasy. The four extol the comfort of their Dodge Durango, compete to win a Fujifilm digital camera, fly on Continental Airlines, sip Dunkin' Donuts Coolattas and make sandwiches at a Blimpie in Manhattan to raise money for the Jorge Posada Foundation. And don't forget those glimpses at the Fujifilm blimp or the lingering close-ups of the Durango grille.

The aggressive integration of the sponsors' products into the series was planned by Dolgin as a kitschy extension of traditional product placement, a way to make the products the program's heroes, without which it would not exist.

"It helps them achieve their goals, and I'm not trying to fool viewers," he said.

Jarrod Moses, the president of Alliance, the entertainment marketing firm that is part of the Grey Global Group, said that over-the-top product integration might hurt the believability of the series.

"The rule of thumb," he added, "is what wouldn't happen in your own day wouldn't happen on the air."

Two of the sponsors said they were pleased with the results so far.

Adam Yates, a spokesman for Fujifilm, said the company did not want its cameras to be used shamelessly, but suggested that "it's not too far a reach for people on a road trip to record their adventures with a Fujifilm digital camera."

Ron Feigenbaum, the marketing director of Blimpie, said his fast-food chain coveted having its message inserted into the series and proposed turning over one of its stores to the four "Road Trip" participants for the day (during which Posada, the Yankees catcher, and his wife, Laura, made appearances).

Next season, Dolgin is planning a series tentatively called "Boys' Toys," which will integrate the types of products that appeal to demographically appealing guys.

As for the Nets, Dolgin said they were less exploitable than the Yankees. Their history is less glorious, their players less worthy of a "Netography."

"What we can do is improve the telecasts, and the easiest way is with the announcers," he said.

YES has hired Marv Albert - the former longtime Knicks announcer - as its play-by-play voice and is expected to add Kenny Smith, Mark Jackson or Mike Gminski as his partner.

"Being a better team this year, with more marketable players, and with Marv, we have a chance to outrate the Knicks," Dolgin said.

Last season, the Knicks averaged a 1.0 rating, the Nets a slim 0.6.

"If we beat the Knicks," Dolgin said, "we can go to sponsors no longer being the second banana.”

Your Attention will 'Rome'
By David Bianculli New York Daily News August 25th, 2005

** 1/2

ROME Sunday night at 9 PM ET/PT, HBO

Just as Rome the city wasn't built in a day, "Rome" the HBO series requires patience, also.

Maybe too much - because after watching six episodes, I'm still not sold on the overall worth of this ambitious period drama.

With HBO, patience often is rewarded as well as required. "Deadwood" didn't reveal its full potential until episode five; "Six Feet Under" really kicked in during its second season, as did the current, increasingly enjoyable "Entourage."

"Rome," set in 52 B.C. and unspooling its action slowly over 12 first-season episodes, falls somewhere in between. The show, premiering Sunday night at 9, aspires to be "The Sopranos" in togas, taking the warring Italian factions to their ancient historical roots.

Yet where "The Sopranos" featured brilliant and vibrant writing from the start, "Rome" provides only occasional snippets, and is more muddy and confusing than crisp and entertaining.

And where "The Sopranos" is bursting with outstanding, charismatic, unforgettable characters and performances, the first half-season of "Rome" presents only one: Polly Walker as Atia, the scheming niece of Ciaran Hinds' Julius Caesar.

Walker's villainess is everything you'd want, and hope for, from an HBO-BBC co-production about ancient Rome: She's ruthless, twisted, gorgeous, oversexed and frequently naked. When she's on screen, almost no one matches her intensity.

The closest are Max Pirkis and Kerry Condon as Atia's dangerously intelligent and observant children, Octavian and Octavia, and James Purefoy as Marc Antony.

History tells us to expect more from these characters in future episodes and seasons of "Rome," and this could well be another HBO series that shifts into gear in its sophomore year.

There's a sense here, though, that a lot more attention and energy was invested in the look of the series - the sets, costumes and photography are marvelous - than in the areas of scriptwriting and casting.

"Rome," as it gets started, tells the often intertwined stories of two sets of men. One story focuses on the power struggle between victorious returning warrior Julius Caesar and Rome-ensconced Republic political leader Pompey Magnus (Kenneth Cranham). The other is a class-struggle comparison involving two odd-couple friends who served Caesar in the same armed legion: loyal centurion Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and unbridled spirit Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson).

The power and status of these men shifts significantly over the first several hours, and can be expected to shift even more. Subplots include spurned lovers, illegitimate children, and even Atia's determined attempts to nudge her young son into manhood by feeding him goat testicles and asking him, during a sword-fighting lesson, a question that turns out to have nothing to do with swordplay:

"Octavian," she asks pointedly, "have you penetrated anyone?"

Lines like that are why Atia, and Walker, stand out so vibrantly in "Rome."

Walker props up these early episodes almost singlehandedly. Stevenson has charm, but not enough screen time, and the other primary roles, for the most part, are played somewhat flat.

"Rome" may still turn out to be an exciting series for HBO, but it could take another I or II seasons to bear fruit - and in this competitive TV universe, that's much too much to ask.

Wednesday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Cable Continues Summer Run
By Anthony Crupi mediaweek.com

According to Nielsen Media Research data crunched by Turner's chief research officer Jack Wakshlag for his quarterly ratings report to the media, ad supported cable is on track to win its fourth consecutive summer, taking in a projected 61.1 household share from June to August compared to the six broadcast networks' 32.0 household share.

Much of the share shift is happening in the adults 18-34 and 18-49 demos. Compared to last season, the six broadcast networks are down an average 21 percent in prime time among adults 18-34 , and off 14 percent in prime in the 18-49 demo.

The four-year trend shows no sign of stopping largely due to the broadcasters' inability to engague younger audiences, said Wakshlag.

"Young viewers continue to abandon and be abandoned by broadcast television," said Wakshlag, adding that the medium age of the big three's cumulative audience is now 49, up two years from 2000 and nine years from 1990.

Broadcast TV is also losing viewers because of its reliance on repeats, Wakshlag said. According to Nielsen data cited by Wakshlag, 69 percent of the broadcasters' summer fare are reruns.

Meanwhile cable's blend of original programming and movies is keeping it in the lead, Wakshlag said. Top-ranked TNT, which leads cable in 18-49, 25-54 and persons 2 plus, grew 8 percent versus summer 2004 thanks to its three new original series--The Closer, Wanted and Into The West--and the use of its extensive film library.

Other cable nets that fared well this summer were Spike TV, up 60 percent from last summer, AMC (24 percent), BET (23 percent) Lifetime (9 percent), VH1(8 percent) and A&E (8 percent).

However, not all of cable enjoyed a sunny summer. Despite a lineup of original critical darlings like Rescue Me and Over There, FX is down 7 percent this summer. ESPN is off 16 percent, having suffered ratings slides with Major League Baseball and its X-Games coverage.

TLC and Discovery limped into fall with both down 19 percent. Tent pole programs like American Chopper (down 45 percent), Monster House (down 55 percent) and American Hot Rod (down 32 percent), cooled considerably compared to last summer.

And more on the dismal summer ratings for the broadcast networks:

A summer of major gains for cable
Household share rises to 61, up 7 percent
By Toni Fitzgerald medialifemagazine.com

This summer the broadcast networks threw a slew of reality shows on the air in hopes that some would stick. Few did. Discriminating viewers sampled the shows once and clicked away.

Where did they go?

Off to cable, and in greater numbers than ever before. Broadcast’s losses this summer, rather big losses, have been cable’s gains.

Cable drew a best-ever 61 household share between May 30 and Aug. 21, according to Nielsen data analyzed by Turner Broadcasting and released yesterday. That was up 7 percent over last year's 57. Broadcast sank to a 32 share for the seven networks, including Pax, down 12 percent from last year.

It was the biggest summer dropoff since 1997, according to Turner, and it marks the fifth straight summer that cable has outdrawn broadcast in households.

Declines were even bigger in key demographics. The six broadcast networks are down 14 percent in 18-49s this summer and 21 percent among 18-34s, even though ABC and Fox have remained fairly steady.

At the same time the number of hours viewers spent per week this summer watching cable has risen to 15.8 from 11.2 five years ago, up 41 percent, according to Jack Wakshlag, Turner's chief researcher. By contrast, broadcast viewership has fallen 23 percent, from 12.4 hours to 9.5 hours.

At least part of this summer's dramatic declines can be attributed to last summer's Olympic coverage on NBC, which had the effect of boosting all the broadcast networks. With no Games this summer, viewing was bound to fall.

But also to blame for the networks' declines were a higher share of repeats this summer versus last and the flock of reality shows that sputtered after their debuts.

And as it happens they were airing during a summer when cable was at its strongest with original programming. Low-quality, lowbrow shows like NBC’s “Meet Mister Mom” and Fox’s “Princes of Malibu” bombed, while shows like TNT’s “The Closer” and USA’s “Monk” thrived on cable.

New shows have done particularly well on cable this summer among 18-49s. “Closer,” TNT’s “Wanted” and FX’s “Over There,” have averaged more than 1.5 million in the demo. Returning shows “Monk” and “The 4400” on USA, FX’s “The Shield” and “Rescue Me” and Sci Fi’s “Battlestar Galactica” are all at 1.49 million or above.

Several networks also made big summer gains among 18-49s in primetime, including Spike, up 60 percent, AMC, up 24 percent, and BET, up 23 percent.

But sports also gave cable a big boost this summer, with TNT’s NBA playoffs and NASCAR racing taking four of the summer’s top five spots.

Among the broadcast networks this summer, NBC is down the most, falling 42 percent among 18-49s, though if you take out last summer’s Olympic numbers it’s down 24 percent.

Perhaps of interest to some of us who have left the favored 18-39 demographic…..

Gunsmoke marks 50th anniversary
Actor Arness remembers his favorite episodes

By GLENN LOVELL Knight Ridder Newspapers

At 6 feet 7, James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon redefined "tall in the saddle."

So imposing was the star of CBS's pioneering Gunsmoke series that when he told some no-account varmint to get out of Dodge, the skunk seldom needed a second invitation.

"Matt Dillon was the kind of guy who's low-key but stands for what is right," says Arness, 82, in a rare interview from his Los Angeles home. "And he goes about seeing that things turn out that way — with, of course, a lot of people suffering along the way."

Expect plenty of shooting and suffering and darn good storytelling on the Encore Westerns channel starting at 7 p.m. Friday. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of TV's longest-running drama series, Encore is hosting a 50-hour Gunsmoke marathon. The show, often referred to as the first "adult" Western series, made its way from radio to a half-hour TV format in 1955. After climbing to No. 1 in the ratings, it was extended to an hour and was on the air until 1975.

John Wayne was originally approached about the Marshal Dillon role. He turned it down but recommended buddy Arness, his co-star in Hondo and a real-life hero who had received the Purple Heart for injuries sustained in Anzio, Italy, in 1944.

"It was ridiculous that they even went to Wayne," Arness says now. "He was the biggest Western movie star of all time, and they must have known he couldn't take it."

Arness earned $1,200 an episode at first, but after the show won Emmys and topped the ratings, he renegotiated for $20,000 an episode.

Since leaving prime time, Gunsmoke has been periodically reprised with Arness as producer-star of five made-for-TV movies, including Gunsmoke: The Long Ride (1993). It has always been a cash cow in syndication. (Encore and TV Land devote six hours daily to the show.) To what does Arness attribute its staying power?

"The only thing I can say is that we had great writers like Sam Peckinpah, and we always tried for realism," replies the actor who, though "retired from public life," still drives, and fields questions from fans at http://jamesarness.com.

The series also benefited from Arness' acting style. He would shoulder his way into a scene and let his physique do the talking.

"Yes, Dillon was a no-nonsense but multidimensional character," he agrees. "I just pretty much played the lines. I always said, 'I didn't play the character as much as the character played me.' "

Even after logging 600-plus episodes, Arness has no troubling ID'ing his favorites. Among these: Chato (1970), with Ricardo Montalban as a renegade Apache, and the two-parters Snow Train (1970) and The River (1972).

"The episode Chato is probably my all-time favorite show," he says. "Matt is sent out of his territory to stop the Apache, whose family was killed by U.S. cavalry, and we wind up having a certain understanding and friendship as the story evolves.

"Like a lot of the later shows, The River was shot on location, up in Oregon. The whole story takes place coming down this river, and these bad guys, played by Jack Elam and Slim Pickens, are after me, trying to kill me."

Each week, Marshal Dillon was joined by his worrywart deputy, Chester (Dennis Weaver), and the phlegmatic Doc (Milburn Stone) and hard-bitten Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake), who ran the Long Branch saloon. Burt Reynolds and Ken Curtis, who replaced Weaver, would later join the ensemble.

Given the show's often grim tone — and fearless tackling of such issues as rape and revenge — it's not surprising that CBS' front office had to battle the censors. The censors, he recalls, "limited us down to so many shootings per show and so many fistfights, but it didn't seem to affect the show. We kept on ticking; the producers wrote around this new set of rules."

This won't apply to too many viewers, but ...

FCC Clarifies SHVERA Rules for Alaska, Hawaii

The FCC announced it has clarified a portion of SHVERA aimed at giving viewers in the "noncontiguous states" access to digital broadcast networks. (.pdf of news release) (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-260682A1.pdf)

The new rules, adopted by a Report and Order, will require U.S. satellite companies with more than five million subscribers -- currently DirecTV and Dish Network -- to carry analog stations from Alaska and Hawaii by December 8 of this year, and digital stations from these states by June 8, 2007. Many viewers in Alaska do not live in any designated market area, hence the special provision.

... Satellite companies will have to carry all HDTV and multicast channels which are part of these stations' digital signals.
dline:

Stations will have to carry all multicast signals [from Alaska and Hawaii stations]?

Wow, that is going to be a mess for D* and E*.

Will the same rules apply to MSOs?
On your second question: I doubt it.

The "must carry" rules for MSOs come from a completely different law, one which was written before most people even thought of multicasting on a single TV channel. As I recall, the FCC ruled that broadcasters were only entitled to must-carry status for their "primary video" from cable systems under that law, because that law only covered "primary video."

As for the burden on the satcos, it shouldn't be huge. This SHVERA provision covers one DMA in Hawaii and three DMAs in Alaska. (By comparison, there are seven DMAs in Iowa.) Plus, a TV channel is only 6 MHz, no matter how much a broadcaster crams into it.

(DISCLAIMER: I'm less of a lawyer than Denny Crane is.)

Good.
But it would be nice if the must carry laws were the same for DBS, MSOs and the new Telco entrants -- though they all spend millions in lobbying to mainatin their various advantages.

'Closer' Finale Goes into Overtime

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com)—The biggest cable hit of the summer is extending its season -- by 10 minutes.

TNT says the season finale of "The Closer," which is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 5, will run for 70 minutes instead the usual 60. The episode will find Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) charged with "conduct unbecoming" an officer.

"'The Closer' is a huge television success," says Steve Koonin, TNT's chief operating officer. "We are delighted to bring the first season of this top-notch show to a close by giving viewers even more of what they have come to love about the show."

The finale, written by series creator James Duff and directed by executive producer Michael Robin, sees the intramural fight between Johnson, head of Priority Homicide Division and Capt. Taylor (Robert Gossett) of the LAPD's Robbery Homicide Division come to a head, which results in the charges against Johnson. Meanwhile her squad is assigned to the murder of a Hollywood producer.

"The Closer" debuted in June to just over 7 million viewers -- one of the best showings ever by a scripted series on basic cable. It has shown staying power since then, averaging better than 5 million viewers per week and occasionally beating some of its broadcast counterparts on Monday nights.

TNT has already picked up a second season of the show.

(If you missed it last weekend, don’t miss it again.)
Awesome 9-11 miniseries to return

By Jeanne Jakle San Antonio Express-News

A chilling documentary miniseries that revisits the tragedies of 9-11 in intricate detail certainly caught the interest of viewers here and elsewhere.

It drew record ratings for the National Geographic Channel, and audience numbers in San Antonio and Austin for the two-part premiere were among the highest in the country.

As a result, the entire four hours of "Inside 9/11," which aired earlier this week across two nights, will be repeated Friday. On that night, NGC has scheduled a special telecast from 6 to 10 p.m. (Time Warner Cable subscribers can watch it here on Channel 57 of the standard basic cable lineup.)

It's certainly worth seeing. I warn you, though, even four years later, the sights and sounds of that terrible day are hard on both the nerves and the heart. The second two hours, which detail what happened on the morning of Sept. 11 in the airports, on those fateful flights, as well as the shocking results in New York City, D.C. and elsewhere, are especially difficult to take.

We hear from people who were there — in the twin towers of the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon when the planes hit — and how they managed to escape. Also interviewed are the widows of two of the heroes from United Airlines Flight 93.

They describe phone calls they got from their husbands before the two men and others rushed the cockpit and forced the terrorists to crash the plane early in a rural area instead of into the U.S. Capitol or another major Washington landmark.

We also hear that unforgettable call from Betty Ong, the flight attendant on the first plane to hit the towers, as she gives details of the hijackers' actions to ground officials before the crash.

You'll no doubt feel the painful irony in the memories of a ticket agent who checked in two of the terrorists responsible for so many deaths. Though instinct told him there was something not right about the two men, he let them pass anyway; he tells of the horror and guilt he felt when discovering what they did.

Much of this has been broadcast before, but what makes this documentary different — and so compelling — is the way it's put together: in a step-by-step timeline that ties all the different elements together.

It took more than a year to realize the project, NGC representatives told me Wednesday, and you can see the painstaking efforts that went into this well-crafted, intense piece of television.

Episode 1 (7 PM ET.) gives the back story of the terrorists under mastermind Osama bin Laden and the activities that led up to Sept. 11. Episode 2 (9 PM ET) is a look back at the realization of their murderous plans.

NGC earned record ratings for both parts of the miniseries, with the audience nearly doubling the second night. Austin and San Antonio ranked fourth and sixth, respectively, in local ratings for the special.

An NGC official said both cities seem to have an affinity for the channel; it doesn't hurt that Time Warner has it on a more accessible channel rather than on its digital tier.

If you can't watch Friday, another encore showing happens Sept. 8 from 7 to 11 PM ET. On Sept. 11, the special airs from 11 AM to 3PM ET.

More 18-34s This Summer, Says Nielsen

By Joel Meyer Broadcasting & Cable

Local people meters (LPMs) recorded higher levels of young adult viewership this July than set meters and diaries did in the same month last year, Nielsen Media Research announced Thursday.

In six markets where Nielsen has deployed LPMs, the number of 18-34-year-old viewers has increased in almost all time periods this summer compared to last, the ratings company said.

The time period that showed the greatest percent increases in all six markets were early morning (weekdays, 5-7 a.m.), overnight (weekdays, 1-5 a.m.) and Saturdays (7 a.m. to 5 p.m.). Nielsen did not release ratings to accompany the market-by-market percentage increases.

Washington, San Francisco and Philadelphia showed an increase in prime time among 18-34s.

For the study, Nielsen compared LPM data from July 2005 with diary and set meter samples from the 2004 July sweeps. It drew measurements from markets where LPMs have been rolled out since 2004: New York, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. (Boston received the meters in 2002, but was not included in the study.)

Thursday’s announcement was part of Nielsen’s ongoing campaign to compare the LPM data with the older set-meter and diary systems to counter critics who say LPMs undercount minorities and young viewers.

Washington had the most dramatic change this summer, with increases in 18-34 viewership for every single hour and daypart. Nielsen reported that the total day average for the Washington market jumped 83% from July 2004 to July 2005.

Philadelphia had the second-biggest year-to-year change, at 56%, followed by San Francisco at 55%.

The 2 faces of Martha
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star

My favorite part of this morning's double-dip press conference at Martha Stewart's new TV studio -- she was promoting both her daytime syndicated show and "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" -- was when she was answering a question and turned to Mark Burnett, the reality titan who's producing both, and said, "What's that word you use, Mark -- fun?"

There, there. I know Martha knows from fun. Still, it took a videotape of her serving shakes and hot dogs at a popular New York City walkup stand to prove that she was going to try pushing out of her comfort zone and making herself into that more down-to-earth personality that seems to be required of every big time American TV star. As for the press conference, it was strictly business, the lines rehearsed, the spontaneity forced.

We got to see the opens for both "Martha" (the daytime show) and "Martha Stewart: The Apprentice" (theme song: "Sweet Dreams" by Eurythmics). And, obviously, we got to see the TV studio where "Martha" will be shot (more pictures on the jump page). One thing is clear -- Mark Burnett has planned a daytime show that is every bit as high powered as its host. I doubt it will remind anybody of her old daytime show, which was notable for its dead air and slow pacing (and, lest we forget, very decent Nielsen ratings).=


So Miss Stewart, what will "The Apprentice" be like? "Businesslike." Any plans to talk about your jail time in either show? "I may talk about it, I may not." (Although later it was revealed that on the second day of her show, every member of the studio audience will be wearing a poncho that they crocheted based on the pattern of the one she wore when leaving prison. And that on day three, over 100 women named Martha Stewart, ages 12 to 80, will be in the audience.)

There was a revealing exchange involving Martha, Burnett, and daughter Alexis Stewart, who along with Charles Koppelman (chairman of MSL Omnimedia) will be at the host's elbows on "The Apprentice." I think they're setting Alexis up to be the hardass on the show. Want proof? Burnett and Martha were joshing about how hard it was to come up with a Martha version of "You're fired" (which of course, they didn't reveal to us). The domestic diva, somewhat improbably, offered that "I don't think I've ever said You're fired to anybody."

Just then Alexis, who'd been quiet up to that point, said tartly, "Even when you should have."

O-kayyyyy.

Back to the whole prison thing. In the opening to "Martha," we saw not only pictures of the host with her mom and daughter, but a brief clip of her being led out of the Manhattan courthouse where she was found guilty of obstructing justice relating to her imClone insider trading deal. Somebody asked what that jarring bit of video was doing in an otherwise feelgood clip.

That, Stewart said, was about "reality. Accessibility. People are used to seeing me like that for the last year. ... We're not going to avoid things."

B&C's version of the info dline posted earlier:

FCC OK's First Multicast Must-Carry

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable

The FCC has decided to grant broadcasters analog and digital multicast must-carry in Alaska and Hawaii.

Analog must-carry becomes effective Dec. 8 of this year, digital must-carry by June 8, 2007. The FCC did not grant dual must-carry, finding that the analog signal does not have to be carried once the digital must-carry deadline kicks in.

In the contiguous 48, DBS companies are not required to carry local broadcast stations, though if they choose to carry one, they must carry all. Alaska and Hawaii were considered special cases, with remote populations that may not have adequate access to either local TV stations or cable service.

The ruling came as part of the FCC's implementation of Congress' reauthorization of the Satellite Home Viewer Reauthorization Act (SHVERA), essentially the rules of the road for satellite broadcasting.

Unfortunately for broadcasters seeking precedent, the FCC was careful to write the rules so that it was clear that the multicast-must carry decision was limited to this special case in these two states (it ruled Guam and Puerto Rico shouldn't be included). "Congress took steps to confine the breadth and burden of the regulation by directing the multicast and HD carriage obligation to apply only in the states of Alaska and Hawaii*," said the commission.

The FCC has already ruled that it did not interpret digital must-carry to apply to cable carriage of all of a broadcasters' multicast signals, but instead to only a replication of its primary signal. The FCC's cable must-carry decision was based on its interpretation of Congress' use of the phrase "primary video" to describe the digital broadcast signal that cable must carry.

The SHVERA language did not include that phrase, and beyond that, referred to carriage of “the signals originating as digital signals,” which it saw as clear direction to include multicast signals.

Broadcasters are hoping to get Congress to give similar direction in a new DTV transition bill teed up for September mark-up.

The FCC commissioners have said Congress is free to correct them if they have misinterpreted the limitations of "primary video."

Coincidentally or not, the co-chairmen of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the FCC, are Senators Ted Stevens (Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), both of whom are concerned about their state's access to the full spectrum of the communications revolution.

Nielsen: U.S. TV Homes Up 0.5%

By Linda Moss multichannel.com

The total number of U.S. TV households is now estimated at 110.2 million, an increase of 0.5% over last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. That estimate will be used for the entire 2005-06 television season.

The number of ethnic-TV households has also increased significantly since last year, and because of people migrating to the Southern and Western regions of the United States, Nielsen is also reporting many shifts in its local market rankings.

The number of Hispanic television homes increased by 2.9%, to 11.2 million, and Asian TV homes gained 3.2%, to 4.2 million. African-American TV households went up 0.8%, to 3.3 million.

In terms of DMA rankings, the changes included Houston moving into the Top 10 TV markets, bumping out Detroit. Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., moved up to No. 12 from 13, displacing Seattle-Tacoma. And Phoenix moved up to No. 14, taking the place of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Columbus, Ohio, moved up two spots, to No. 32.
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If AC Nielsen market sizes interest you, you can find the new 2005-2006 DMA numbers here:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/DMAs.html

Nielsen Media Research Local Universe Estimates* (US)

(*Estimates used throughout the 2005-2006 television season which starts on September 24, 2005)
RANK Designated Market Area (DMA) TV Homes % of US

1 New York 7,375,530 6.692
2 Los Angeles 5,536,430 5.023
3 Chicago 3,430,790 3.113
4 Philadelphia 2,925,560 2.654
5 Boston (Manchester) 2,375,310 2.155
6 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose 2,355,740 2.137
7 Dallas-Ft. Worth 2,336,140 2.120
8 Washington, DC (Hagerstown) 2,252,550 2.044
9 Atlanta 2,097,220 1.903
10 Houston 1,938,670 1.759

11 Detroit 1,936,350 1.757
12 Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota) 1,710,400 1.552
13 Seattle-Tacoma 1,701,950 1.544
14 Phoenix (Prescott) 1,660,430 1.507
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul 1,652,940 1.500
16 Cleveland-Akron (Canton) 1,541,780 1.399
17 Miami-Ft. Lauderdale 1,522,960 1.382
18 Denver 1,415,180 1.284
19 Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto 1,345,820 1.221
20 Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne 1,345,700 1.221

21 St. Louis 1,222,380 1.109
22 Pittsburgh 1,169,800 1.061
23 Portland, OR 1,099,890 0.998
24 Baltimore 1,089,220 0.988
25 Indianapolis 1,053,750 0.956
26 San Diego 1,026,160 0.931
27 Charlotte 1,020,130 0.926
28 Hartford & New Haven 1,013,350 0.919
29 Raleigh-Durham (Fayetteville) 985,200 0.894
30 Nashville 927,500 0.842

31 Kansas City 903,540 0.820
32 Columbus, OH 890,770 0.808
33 Milwaukee 880,390 0.799
34 Cincinnati 880,190 0.799
35 Greenville-Spartenberg-Asheville-And 815,460 0.740
36 Salt Lake City 810,830 0.736
37 San Antonio 760,410 0.690
38 West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce 751,930[/COLOR] 0.682
39 Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek 731,630 0.664
40 Birmingham (Ann, Tuscaloosa) 716,520 0.650

41 Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York 707,010 0.641
42 Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News 704,810 0.640
43 New Orleans 672,150 0.610
44 Memphis 657,670 0.597
45 Oklahoma City 655,400 0.595
46 Albuquerque-Santa Fe 653,680 0.593
47 Greensboro-HighPoint-Winston-Salem 652,020 0.592
48 Las Vegas 651,110 0.591
49 Buffalo 644,430 0.585
50 Louisville 643,290 0.584

51 Providence-New Bedford 639,590 0.580
52 Jacksonville 624,220 0.566
53 Austin 589,360 0.535
54 Wilkes Barre-Scranton 588,540 0.534
55 Albany-Schenectady-Troy 552,250 0.501
56 Fresno-Visalia 546,210 0.496
57 Little Rock-Pine Bluff 531,470 0.482
58 Knoxville 516,180 0.468
59 Dayton 513,610 0.466
60 Richmond-Petersburg 510,770 0.463

61 Tulsa 510,480 0.463
62 Mobile-Pensacola (Ft Walton Beach) 501,130 0.455
63 Lexington 478,560 0.434
64 Charleston-Huntington 477,890 0.434
65 Flint-Saginaw-Bay City 475,500 0.431
66 Ft. Myers-Naples 461,920 0.419
67 Wichita-Hutchinson Plus 446,820 0.405
68 Roanoke-Lynchburg 440,390 0.400
69 Green Bay-Appleton 432,810 0.393
70 Toledo 426,520 0.387

71 Tucson (Sierra Vista) 422,480 0.383
72 Honolulu 414,960 0.377
73 Des Moines-Ames 413,590 0.375
74 Portland-Auburn 407,050 0.369
75 Omaha 399,830 0.363
76 Syracuse 398,240 0.361
77 Springfield, MO 395,820 0.359
78 Spokane 389,630 0.354
79 Rochester, NY 385,460 0.350
80 Paducah-Cape Girardeaux-Harsbg 383,330 0.348

81 Shreveport 382,080 0.347
82 Champaign&Springfield-Decatur 378,100 0.343
83 Columbia, SC 373,260 0.339
84 Huntsville-Decatur (Florence) 370,820 0.336
85 Madison 365,550 0.332
86 Chattanooga 354,230 0.321
87 South Bend-Elkhart 333,190 0.302
88 Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-IWC&Dub 331,480 0.301
89 Jackson, MS 328,350 0.298
90 Burlington-Plattsburgh 325,720 0.296

91 Tri-Cities, TN-VA 323,690 0.294
92 Harlingen-Wslco-Brnsvl-McAllen 318,800 0.289
93 Colorado Springs-Pueblo 315,010 0.286
94 Waco-Temple-Bryan 310,960 0.282
95 Davenport-R.Island-Moline 308,380 0.280
96 Baton Rouge 305,810 0.277
97 Savannah 296,100 0.269
98 Johnstown-Altoona 294,810 0.267
99 El Paso (Las Cruces) 290,540 0.264
100 Evansville 288,800 0.262

101 Charleston, SC 283,730 0.257
102 Youngstown 276,720 0.251
103 Lincoln & Hastings-Kearney 274,150 0.249
104 Ft. Smith-Fay-Sprngdl-Rgrs 273,000 0.248
105 Greenville-N.Bern-Washington 271,130 0.246
106 Ft. Wayne 270,500 0.245
107 Myrtle Beach-Florence 265,770 0.241
108 Springfield-Holyoke 264,840 0.240
109 Tallahassee-Thomasville 261,250 0.237
110 Lansing 256,790 0.233

111 Tyler-Longview(Lfkn&Ncgd) 255,770 0.232
112 Reno 255,090 0.231
113 Traverse City-Cadillac 247,600 0.225
114 Sioux Falls(Mitchell) 246,020 0.223
115 Augusta 245,590 0.223
116 Montgomery-Selma 245,090 0.222
117 Peoria-Bloomington 241,800 0.219
118 Fargo-Valley City 234,190 0.212
119 Boise 230,100 0.209
120 Macon 229,870 0.209

121 Eugene 229,280 0.208
122 Santa Barbara-San Mar-San Luis Obispo 224,290 0.204
123 La Crosse-Eau Claire 224,090 0.203
124 Lafayette, LA 220,030 0.200
125 Monterey-Salinas 218,080 0.198
126 Yakima-Pasco-Rchlnd-Knnwck 211,610 0.192
127 Columbus, GA 205,300 0.186
128 Bakersfield 201,850 0.183
129 Corpus Christi 192,380 0.175
130 Chico-Redding 191,190 0.173

131 Amarillo 190,250 0.173
132 Columbus-Tupelo-West Point 186,510 0.169
133 Rockford 183,090 0.166
134 Wausau-Rhinelander 182,620 0.166
135 Monroe-El Dorado 174,370 0.158
136 Topeka 170,650 0.155
137 Duluth-Superior 168,650 0.153
138 Columbia-Jefferson City 167,860 0.152
139 Wilmington 167,810 0.152
140 Beaumont-Port Arthur 167,430 0.152

141 Medford-Klamath Falls 163,090 0.148
142 Erie 158,660 0.144
143 Sioux City 156,950 0.142
144 Wichita Falls & Lawton 154,960 0.141
145 Joplin-Pittsburg 153,720 0.139
146 Lubbock 152,150 0.138
147 Albany, GA 152,140 0.138
148 Salisbury 147,890 0.134
149 Bluefield-Beckley-Oak Hill 145,850 0.132
150 Terre Haute 145,630 0.132

151 Bangor 142,790 0.130
152 Rochestr-Mason City-Austin 142,770 0.130
153 Palm Springs 142,730 0.130
154 Wheeling-Steubenville 142,020 0.129
155 Anchorage 141,290 0.128
156 Binghamton 138,560 0.126
157 Panama City 136,450 0.124
158 Biloxi-Gulfport 135,540 0.123
159 Odessa-Midland 135,100 0.123
160 Minot-Bismarck-Dickinson 133,910 0.122

161 Sherman-Ada 124,060 0.113
162 Gainesville 117,190 0.106
163 Idaho Falls-Pocatello 114,560 0.104
164 Abilene-Sweetwater 112,510 0.102
165 Clarksburg-Weston 108,730 0.099
166 Utica 106,130 0.096
167 Hattiesburg-Laurel 105,000 0.095
168 Missoula 104,700 0.095
169 Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk 103,890 0.094
170 Yuma-El Centro 103,170 0.094

171 Billings 102,620 0.093
172 Dothan 98,370 0.089
173 Elmira (Corning) 97,210 0.088
174 Jackson, TN 95,010 0.086
175 Lake Charles 94,090 0.085
176 Alexandria, LA 93,120 0.085
177 Rapid City 91,070 0.083
178 Watertown 90,930 0.083
179 Jonesboro 89,530 0.081
180 Marquette 89,160 0.081

181 Harrisonburg 85,870 0.078
182 Greenwood-Greenville 76,800 0.070
183 Bowling Green 75,420 0.068
184 Meridian 71,210 0.065
185 Lima 70,940 0.064
186 Charlottesville 69,750 0.063
187 Grand Junction-Montrose 65,190 0.059
188 Laredo 64,410 0.058
189 Great Falls 64,130 0.058
190 Parkersburg 63,990 0.058

191 Lafayette, IN 63,330 0.057
192 Twin Falls 60,400 0.055
193 Butte-Bozeman 59,300 0.054
194 Eureka 58,340 0.053
195 Cheyenne-Scottsbluff 54,320 0.049
196 Bend, OR 54,250 0.049
197 San Angelo 53,330 0.048
198 Casper-Riverton 52,070 0.047
199 Ottumwa-Kirksville 51,290 0.047
200 Mankato 50,930 0.046

201 St. Joseph 45,840 0.042
202 Zanesville 33,080 0.030
203 Fairbanks 32,310 0.029
204 Presque Isle 31,140 0.028
205 Victoria 30,250 0.027
206 Helena 25,810 0.023
207 Juneau 24,130 0.022
208 Alpena 17,790 0.016
209 North Platte 15,320 0.014
210 Glendive 5,020 0.005

Total 110,213,910 100.000


Notes: NSI® and DMA® are registered trademarks of Nielsen Media Research, Inc.
Nielsen Media Research is a trademark of Nielsen Media Research, Inc.

Issues of Past Not Off Limits in TV Return, Stewart Says

By BILL CARTER The New York Times August 26, 2005

Martha Stewart had not one but two new television shows to promote at a news conference yesterday, so she was quite willing to show a little leg.

The famous leg, that is, the one with the ankle encircled by an electronic monitoring bracelet. Ms. Stewart, when asked, did not hesitate to raise the pants leg on her brown business suit to reveal the bracelet, which she has worn for five months while under house confinement after her release from prison.

The message of the day was about looking forward, however, to her new syndicated daily daytime show "Martha" and her NBC prime-time series "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" - not looking backward at the tribulation of having been convicted of lying to federal investigators about a stock trade and spending five months in a federal prison in Alderson, W.Va.

Ms. Stewart noted that she was wearing a microphone battery pack on her other ankle for yesterday's appearance, "so I'm well balanced today."

The bracelet, which the court ordered Ms. Stewart to wear for an extra three weeks after she committed undisclosed violations of her house confinement, has been no impediment to mounting either show, Ms. Stewart said. "It has had no impact whatsoever on the production of the shows," she said.

Ms. Stewart said she would acknowledge her time in prison when she begins her live daily syndicated show on Sept. 12. The opening credits for the show, which include a montage of images from Ms. Stewart's life, accompanied by a song with the lyrics "I'm not the same girl you used to know," prominently include a picture of her on the courthouse steps after her conviction.

"People are used to seeing me that way for the last year," Ms. Stewart said. "We're not going to avoid things." Ms. Stewart intends to take questions from a live audience every day on the daytime show and expects the issue of her conviction to be raised.

"It's not off limits, let's put it that way," Ms. Stewart said. "I think it will come out naturally. It's part of my life. It's there. It's not going to go away."

But her daytime show, which has been ordered by stations in 98 percent of the country, will mainly celebrate Ms Stewart's lifestyle empire. It will be staged on a set that looks as large as the runway of an aircraft carrier, with an enormous working kitchen, a prep kitchen behind soundproof glass, a stairway apparently to nowhere, a library sitting area and a greenhouse full of live plants.

The daytime show, with the reality television maestro Mark Burnett as executive producer, will include celebrity guests as well as Ms. Stewart's familiar how-to segments. But the show will also embrace Ms. Stewart's more recent notoriety.

Rob Dauber, the co-executive producer, said the second show, on Sept. 13, would feature an entire audience of women who have knitted or crocheted the poncho that Ms. Stewart wore home from prison. Susan Lyne, the president of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, said that more than a million people had downloaded the pattern for Ms. Stewart's poncho after seeing her wear it on television.

The daytime show will give Ms. Stewart daily television exposure again, but the higher-stakes gamble is her prime-time reality entry, NBC's second edition of "The Apprentice," which will have its premiere Sept. 21. That will be one day before Donald J. Trump returns in the original "Apprentice."

Yesterday Mr. Burnett, who produces both shows, said he had taken pains in the production to differentiate the two "Apprentice" programs, though the format is the same: 16 candidates attempting weekly tasks in an elimination contest to win an executive position under the show's business-mogul star. "The palette of the coloring and the look and feel of the show are entirely different," Mr. Burnett said. "I wanted the palette to mirror who they are."

That means a tougher tone for Mr. Trump, who Mr. Burnett noted works "in the very rough and tumble business of real estate in the toughest city in the world" and a softer one for Ms. Stewart, who he said had a "more artistic business."

Mr. Burnett said the shows would have contrasting rhythms exemplified by their different theme songs. "Money, money, money," Mr. Burnett sang, a line from the O'Jays hit "For Love of Money," which is Mr. Trump's theme. It is faster, a harsher theme, Mr. Burnett said. "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics, the new theme for Ms. Stewart, has lyrics perfect for her, he said.

The song includes such lines as "everyone is looking for something" and "I'm gonna know what's inside you." Mr. Burnett said Ms. Stewart was a big fan of the Eurythmics lead singer, Annie Lennox.

Ms. Stewart said she had committed totally to "The Apprentice" during its seven weeks of shooting. "I was very involved," she said. "I got to know the candidates better and better as they were narrowed down."

She said she found the process "not at all artificial - in fact it was shockingly real." The shock, she said, came from seeing how the contestants interacted in private and how that contrasted to the faces they offered when she was present.

Though much has been made of the catchphrase Ms. Stewart will use to dispatch the losing contestants each week (the elemental "You're fired" is wholly owned by Mr. Trump), Ms. Stewart tried to play down any emphasis on the words she will say.

But Mr. Burnett said, "There is a wonderful commonality to the end of every show, which Martha came up with." He added, "It's something you definitely will remember."

As Aug. 31 approaches, the date when the surveillance bracelet is scheduled to be removed, Ms. Stewart said, "I am very much looking forward to being released from home confinement." She declined to say how she planned to celebrate the event. She added that she would be on probation for another year and a half.

Asked whether she felt the additional time on her house confinement had been justified, Ms. Stewart said that to make any comments before her release date "would be inappropriate."

Markets Shift In New Nielsens
By Allison Romano Broadcasting & Cable

Several fast-growing Southern cities moved up in the latest Nielsen market rankings, while several Midwestern and Northern markets lost ground.

Houston, formerly Nielsen’s 11th largest market per the 2004-2005 rankings, moves up to the 10th spot. Texas’ largest city swapped places with Detroit.

Similarly, Tampa-St. Petersburg edged up a spot to the 12th largest market, replacing Seattle-Tacoma, now 13. And Phoenix, formerly No. 15, traded places wither former No. 14 Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Other Southern markets edging up include Charlotte, now No. 27; West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, Fla., now No. 38, Albuquerque, N.M,, to No. 46, and Las Vegas, which climbed three spots to No. 48. One of the biggest jumps was Palm Springs, Calif., moving up six spots to become the 153th largest market (out of 210 total).

Several cities in the Northeast and Midwest fell multiple spots. In upstate New York, Buffalo dropped three places to market No. 49, Rochester, N.Y., fell four rungs to No. 79 and Watertown, N.Y., dropped to No. 178 from No. 175. The Providence-New Bedford market slipped two spots to No. 51 and Dayton, Ohio, dropped three rungs to No. 59.

The total TV universe continues to grow. For the 2005-2006 TV season, Nielsen counts 110.2 million homes, up from 109.6 million last season.

TV Review:

Lend them your eyes
HBO’s "Rome" is peopled with intriguing and complicated characters and politics
By Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 26, 2005

HBO's 'Rome' is peopled with intriguing and complicated characters and politics."Rome," which premieres Sunday night on HBO — a fact that, like ancient Roman graffiti, seems to have been plastered on every spare surface in town — is the show that gave birth to "Deadwood": David Milch had proposed to HBO a series about lawlessness and order in the time of the Caesars and when told that the network already had a Roman project in the pipeline switched his sights to the Old West.

As it happens, "Rome," which was created by John Milius — whose interest in issues of gladiatorial manliness and troop loyalty has long been noted — Bruno Heller and William J. Macdonald, is close in spirit to "Deadwood" in the way it attempts to portray a bygone time, not only its art and technology but its spirit and psychology.

Set in 57 BC, in the difficult twilight of the Republic and the dawn of the Empire, "Rome" starts slowly — indeed, it stays slow, betraying a deliberation that marks it as a BBC co-production — but rewards attention. If it is neither as deep nor as strange as "Deadwood" and lacks a performance as operatically grand as Ian McShane's, it nevertheless has the some of the same gathering force, and like the Milch show, and "The Sopranos" as well, gets you sympathetically interested in the fate of people for whom you should probably have no sympathy.

Indeed, there are episodes here the latter show could import whole — one concerning a loan shark, a deceptively quiet fellow wearing a thick gold chain — feels like a pointed homage, and there is a clear shared interest in sex, violence and half-naked dancing girls.

I have long harbored a suspicion that nudity is contractually required of HBO series — the people have to feel as if they're getting something for their money they can't see elsewhere — and "Rome" does nothing to allay that.

Here, of course, it's unusually appropriate, or at least traditional — from the lurid history painters of the 19th century, to C.B. DeMille to "Gladiator," to ABC's sword-and-sandal summer miniseries "Empire," the Roman world has provided a pretext for vicarious thrills mixed with a hint of approbation — the whole darn Satyricon.

"Rome" does not shirk this responsibility. Before you can say "veni, vidi, vici," there is Polly Walker, as the ambitious Atia, niece of Julius Caesar (Ciarán Hinds), rising like a ripe Venus from her bath, as sullen teenage son Octavian (Max Pirkis) — the future emperor Augustus Caesar — nervously averts his eyes. Most of the show's other female stars will strip for their art, as well, along with many of the men — full-frontally speaking, "Rome" is an (almost) equal opportunity employer.

The political intricacies of the show are not always easy to follow — the Roman system was even more complicated than it seems here — but it's generally easy to tell what side a character is on, at any given time. (Allegiances shift.) What's more important is that the characters are real characters — not just historical resumes and accurate haircuts — and that the historical bigwigs mix plausibly with the invented plebeians.

And because they're not written to sound a single identifying note, because they show different and even contradictory facets in different situations, the people of "Rome" get more intriguing, more unknowable as you get to know them.

Octavian appears at first to embody a certain cliche about callow future dictators, but we soon see that he is also a kind of ancient-world policy wonk, who also likes to paint his sister's toenails, and is almost but not quite ready to stand up to a manipulative mother pushing him to learn the masculine arts, "how to fight and copulate and skin animals and so forth."

Atia, for her part, though in many respects an "evil" character, feels like she's doing right by her family and that she's the only one of them with a lick of sense. Walker is not the show's central character — though Atia is tireless in her efforts to become so — but she is its star, as funny as she is horrible. And Hinds' Julius Caesar and James Purefoy's Marc Antony seem, for once, like the military rock stars they were, the latter the Keith to the former's Mick.

On occasion the show seems to be showing off its deep research — even the sexual positions have been carefully selected — as when Atia instructs a servant how to cook lamprey ("long enough to kill them, no more"), or Octavian uses the word "trivium" (the singular of "trivia") as if particularly to remind the viewer of its Roman roots, or a town crier inserts an advertisement into his spiel ("This month's public bread is supplied by the Caroline Brotherhood of Millers — the Brotherhood uses only the finest flour; true Roman bread for true Romans"). But these things are somehow not irritating even when obvious.

If the metropolis does not teem quite so teemingly as it might, this is true of all but the costliest epics, and for the most part, the Rome of "Rome" seems like a place people actually live in. It feels like the bones of the modern Rome, recognizably Italian, with its painted walls and crooked spaces, cosmopolitan and busy, the Rome of Ovid, Juvenal and Plautus, a lively, nasty place. I haven't seen ancient ordinary life so well represented since "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," and I am not being funny.

TV Review:

HBO's 'Rome' burns with realistic depiction of ancient life
* * * 1/2

By Robert Bianco USA TODAY

Rome wasn't built in a day — or an episode.

As extravagant, enticing and chaotic as Rome itself, HBO's latest series boasts all the opulent pleasures that lavish expenditures of time and money can buy. Every detail in its re-creation of ancient Rome may not be correct, but the spirit and the overall picture ring true — and the entertainment value resounds.

Even with those virtues, Rome cannot topple the best of the Roman epics, I, Claudius, which had an all-conquering cast and script. But by moving outside the halls of power and into the city's streets, this series does create a sense of Rome as a living and breathing place — the vibrant, colorful, sensual, crowded center of the ancient world — that has never been matched on TV.

It does not, however, build its empire quickly. Like most HBO shows, which don't face the instant sink-or-swim pressures of broadcast TV, Rome makes little initial effort to draw an audience into its sprawling story. It may take you a few episodes to find your way to Rome. But once there, you may never want to leave.

Written by Bruno Heller (Touching Evil) and directed by Michael Apted, this 12-episode HBO/BBC co-production treads some of the same ground as this summer's Empire on ABC, but in wiser and more convincing fashion.

Rather than opening with the assassination of Julius Caesar (Ciaran Hinds), and losing one of history's most interesting characters, Rome steps back eight years to tell the story of Caesar's battle with Pompey (Kenneth Cranham) for control of the Republic.

Their conflict forces all of Rome to take sides, while firing the ambitions of Caesar's niece Atia (Polly Walker), who combines the political drive of Claudius' Livia with the sex drive of Dynasty's Alexis. She beds Mark Antony (James Purefoy) for fun and profit, but the focus of her attention is her son Octavian (Max Pirkis, one of the show's real finds).

As the Romans did themselves, Rome revels in the sheer, scheming gamesmanship behind this pursuit of power, with Julius the master and Octavian his brightest student. Unlike Claudius, however, Rome is not solely interested in the machinations of the high and mighty. It devotes equal time to the travails of two Roman soldiers: the strict, old-guard centurion Lucius (Kevin McKidd) and his "cheerful brutish" friend Pullo (Ray Stevenson).

McKidd and Stevenson are a wonderful pair, with more than enough chemistry to compensate for the sometimes soapy nature of their plebian story line. The problem is with the aristocrats: Walker is too colorful, and Hinds is not colorful enough. Hinds needs to blossom a bit, and Walker, fun though she can be, really needs to be reeled in.

Though further away in time, there are ways in which these ancient Romans seem closer to us than the settlers in Deadwood. Still, like Deadwood, this is not a series for the squeamish or the prudish. Rome could be a rough and licentious town, and Rome exercises that historical license through throat-slashings, brain-drillings and full-frontal nudity, male and female.

The Romans probably wouldn't have been shocked at all. If you are, well, no one ever said all viewer roads lead to Rome.

Everybody Loves ABC

By Daniel Fienberg zap2it.com

The last time ABC helped lead a network television paradigm shift was at the turn of the millennium when the success of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" prompted other networks to jump on the game-show bandwagon with temporary hits like "The Weakest Link" and instant duds like "The Chair." Back then, the other networks all bailed first, leading ABC into an over-reliance on "Millionaire" and a programming hole that lasted several seasons.

Flash forward to the 2005-06 season and ABC is hot again, thanks to "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" (and more recently, "Grey's Anatomy" and "Dancing with the Stars"), hits that both proved to be that rarest of network television commodities, the game-changing smash. Naturally, the competition rushed out to produce imitators. While several networks had "Housewives"-esque serial primetime soaps on their pilot slates, those offerings apparently weren't up to snuff. Everybody, however, seems to have an alien-centric "Lost" clone this season. ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson still thinks his originals are special.

"One is such a specific, incredible idea and really reinvents storytelling -- in terms of 'Lost' -- and 'Desperate' is such a specific voice that I think it would be a mistake to think that you can do those shows again," McPherson tells television reporters. "I think you can do shows that are maybe influenced by those or that appeal to the same audience, but I think it gets a little risky when people are trying to imitate them."

McPherson suggests that "Lost" and "Housewives" -- both favorites at next month's Emmy Awards -- aren't the only ABC successes to spread their influence onto other networks. "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" became a breakout last season, building its audience almost by the minute every Sunday night. Whereas the model for unscripted shows had previously climaxed with bug-eating and testicle milkshakes, "Makeover" is warmer and fuzzier than nearly any show on television, reducing a terrifyingly high percentage of viewers to tears weekly. Even the most popular show on television hasn't been immune to the "Makeover" magic.

"The marketing campaign of 'Idol' last year changed," McPherson argues. "You know, the year before it was all making fun of everybody and then, you know, last year after 'Home Makeover' worked, it was all about how this is the American Dream."

"Housewives" and "Lost" can change a network's fortunes and shift industry storytelling, but they can't directly help ABC win Thursday nights. Or Friday nights. They can, however, give the network a tiny bit of extra flexibility. As a result, "Alias" is shifting onto its third night in as many seasons, bringing a tiny established audience to 8 p.m. Thursdays. And "Supernanny" is taking its fans off to Friday. Will either move make a difference?

"Every night of the week is really important to us," McPherson insists. "We're going to have greater strength on some and weaker on others."

TV Review:

An Inside View of the Angst and Elation of Space Exploration

By NED MARTEL The New York Times August 26, 2005

Rarely does the History Channel, or any other splicer of yesteryear's reels, get as complete a chance to depict the soul of an extraordinary human undertaking as Gene Kranz provides in "Beyond the Moon: Failure Is Not an Option II." (Sunday at 9 PM ET/PT.)

It must be noted that in bringing the story to the channel, Mr. Kranz, NASA's resident missionary at Mission Control for many years, was giving himself another opportunity to sell his life story. His memoirs came out a few years ago, and before that, in 1995, he was lionized through Ed Harris's Oscar-nominated performance in "Apollo 13." But the glory that motivates this man is decidedly larger than his own; his focus is otherworldly, ad astra.

Mr. Kranz amasses not only his memories, but also those of his gifted underlings, many of whom chime in for Sunday's program, a sequel to the History Channel's 2003 chronicle of the first lunar missions. By lending his imprimatur to these retrospectives, Mr. Kranz gets his fellow NASA insiders on camera and off message, as they unpack episodes of guilt, betrayal and grief. They tell stories they could never tell when they were in NASA's employ, when the organization seemed determined to mask any dissent, miscalculation or danger.

In this startlingly frank retelling of space exploration to date, much of the post-Apollo history at NASA is seasoned with bitterness. The specialists come to feel less than special as their celestial successes are deemed pedestrian by a fickle public or wasteful by grandstanding politicians. Many NASA veterans bemoan that the space program was capable of so much more, had those of us confined to inner space fully considered what could be learned in the outer realm.

"Nearly a half century after reaching the moon, NASA is at a crossroads, searching for a vision it hasn't had since Apollo," says Scott Glenn, the narrator, who earned his space props in the 1983 film "The Right Stuff." If the mission was murky to the public, it was always perfectly mapped out in Mr. Kranz's head. He comes off as the Vince Lombardi of space travel, leading astronauts beyond their corporal capacity. Clearly, some mental fire made these feats possible, and Mr. Kranz knew how to stoke it. In archival film over many decades, he is seen pacing back and forth among the bays of machines as if they were the gridiron sidelines.

In his hindsight debriefings, he is frank about his dashed hopes for the space program, which was used for maximum political benefit and then denied its proposals to walk on Mars, to build a base on the moon. If you look at the numbers, the billions spent at NASA since Apollo could hardly be called a pittance, but forgivably, Mr. Kranz still sees the place as an underfinanced workshop. If he had had his pecuniary druthers, Mr. Kranz asserts, space travel could have transformed higher education, science, industry and, he's not afraid to declare, humanity.

From the thin, pursed lips of this buzz-cut technophile comes some heady oratory. By the end of the program he's philosophizing about his realizations of "how finite we are," in contrast with the infinite that he explores in his day job. But the program's other true achievement is not merely to present Mr. Kranz's agenda. It also shows the subtle but substantial effects of an organization reaching maturity, learning from catastrophe, adjusting to generational change.

No matter how much bureaucratic institutions may dominate the livelihoods of most Americans, you may not wish to see their inner workings in your spare time. But the space program is so thoroughly photographed during life-or-death moments that the day-to-day decision-making can be riveting.

Some days are triumphant, yet the buttoned-down atmosphere prevails even during the space shuttle's first-ever re-entry and landing. Intricate calibrations guided the spacecraft to the ground as it glided on a 4,000-mile course to land on a 1,300-foot landing strip. The flight controller on duty warns those gathered at the monitors to confine themselves to a brief outburst of celebration upon touchdown, after which they should return to silent concentration. "Room, get ready for exhilaration," he says.

On a solemn occasion in 1986, no one at the controls notices the flash of fire at the bottom of the space shuttle Challenger's solid-rocket booster. Out of the corner of his eye, the flight director, Jay Greene, spots the contrails of the exploding wreckage at the exact moment the viewing public does. His disbelief seems as painful now as then. He humbly, hauntedly vents about the tragedy as the producers insert film clips from that day.

"The look on his face was something you see only a few times in your life," Mr. Kranz recalls. "This horror grips you, becomes almost unimaginable in your ability to live with it. But that is our job, to live with the risk. This is the nature of people who hold lives in their hands."

The program also winningly captures the culture clash when T-shirted dudes with mutton-chop sideburns first sat among the buzz-cut old-timers, who preferred short-sleeves and ties. To recreate the moment women arrived at the control bays, the camera pans up a period photograph of Linda Patterson, a flight controller, as the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey" blares. Back then, she recalls, veterans were asking one another if this woman or that one had proper qualifications, in full-throated, passive-aggressive conversations that the newcomers could hear.

Ultimately, Mr. Kranz's promotional goals are met, even as he bemoans the measly results. Certainly his era of experts has inspired its successors to think big, to go further with less financing. One relatively new arrival asserts that as a toddler, he first learned to say numerals backward by mimicking rocket countdowns, and then went on to work in mission control.

Through this televised oral history, viewers can finally comprehend the tension that is never explained in the oh-my-golly live coverage of shuttle launchings. Mistakes of leaders and flaws in machines are openly discussed. Controllers fret, curse and anguish for decades over their failings. But above all, NASA's triumphs emerge as both commonplace and extraordinary, rarely hailed in the years between a few costly, deadly accidents.

Coincidentally or not, the co-chairmen of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the FCC, are Senators Ted Stevens (Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), both of whom are concerned about their state's access to the full spectrum of the communications revolution.

Well, isn't that a different version of "pork?"

'Chris' crusades
UPN launches pricey push for laffer

By JOSEF ADALIAN variety.com

UPN has what's shaping up to be the season's best-reviewed new comedy with "Everybody Hates Chris." Now the net just has to get viewers to watch.

To woo auds to the Chris Rock/Ali LeRoi-created laffer, UPN has launched the most ambitious marketing and promotional campaign in its 10-year history. Goal of the multimillion-dollar effort is to get the "Chris" pilot in front of as many as eyeballs as possible -- even before the show's official debut Sept. 22 at 8 p.m.

"We're spending more money on this than any other promotion in UPN history," said CBS/UPN marketing guru George Schweitzer. "They've delivered to us a great pilot, and we want to get this out in as many places as we can."

Marketing campaign for Paramount Network TV-produced "Chris" includes at least a dozen components, one of which is a deal with American Airlines to put the "Chris" pilot in front of some 4 million passengers during September flights -- a first for the Viacom-owned nets.

"Before it goes on the air, it'll premiere in the air," Schweitzer quipped. "They won't have to pay a thing, and we know they're going to see it. They have no place to go."

Launching "Chris" is critical, since the preseason buzz surrounding the show was a major reason Madison Avenue bet big on "Chris," helping UPN to a record upfront haul. Ad buyers will be watching closely to see if the series delivers on the promise of its pilot.

In addition, while UPN is hardly the only net mounting a major campaign on behalf of a new fall show-- try to escape ABC's relentless tubthumping for "Commander in Chief" -- hyping "Chris" poses some unique challenges.

For one thing, smaller webs like UPN and WB get very little viewership during summer months. By contrast, the Big Four can usually count on getting a substantial number of viewers to a new show just by hyping it on their own airwaves.

What's more, UPN faces the difficult task of not just launching a show but of transforming an entire night.

In one of the season's biggest scheduling gambles, net moved "WWE Smackdown!" to Friday nights in order to slot "Chris" on Thursdays. Weakness of NBC's "Joey" convinced execs there was room for a new comedy in the slot once ruled by "Friends" and, two decades ago, "The Cosby Show."

"This is a game-changing move for UPN," network prexy Dawn Ostroff declared in the spring. "We believe Chris Rock will have a huge impact on UPN (and that) the coming season will be a turning point in our competition with the WB."

Hence the high-profile hype:

* * * Millions of DVDs of the pilot are being distributed across the country, many by street teams handing them out at major events like this month's X Games and next month's Emmy parties.

Street teams have even been handing out the DVDs outside movie theaters Friday and Saturday nights during big opening weekends, and subscribers to Entertainment Weekly will find a copy of the full pilot in an upcoming issue.

Discs being handed out come in a bright yellow package so that "even if you don't watch the pilot, we've reached you with the advertising" on the wrapper, Schweitzer said.

* * * The front of every New York City MTA bus -- all 5,000 of them -- will be emblazoned with "Chris" ads throughout September. UPN also bought all the ad space at Grand Central Station next month for a "Chris" blitz.

Helicopters and planes will fly "Chris" banners in Gotham and L.A.

* * * Trailers for "Chris" will run in more than 1,400 AMC theaters as well as at an additional six dozen Magic Johnson Theaters.

* * * UPN is also on track to hand out 1 million bumper stickers and T-shirts that read "Honk if You Hate Chris." On a recent weekend, hundreds of shoppers at the Westfield Century City mall in West L.A. discovered the "Chris" bumper stickers on their windshields.

* * * Rock, who narrates "Chris," will be front and center on the talkshow circuit next month, touting his series almost as aggressively as if it were one of his tentpole features. UPN and Par's PR teams have also been working closely on a massive press campaign for the skein.

* * * Look for a massive cable ad buy in the week leading up to the "Chris" premiere. Viacom-owned radio stations will also push the skein -- when they're not hyping CBS shows, that is.

Because UPN's young adult target aud is "doing other things" besides watching TV during the summer, Ostroff said the net had no choice but to go after them in other ways.

"We need to be very creative to reach people," she said, with Schweitzer adding that it was crucial to "get the chatter going."

Three other comedies will air on UPN on Thursdays, but none of them will get the same promo push as "Chris." That may get other producers peeved, but Schweitzer says opening the night has to be UPN's top priority.

"The night is all about 'Everybody Hates Chris,' " he said. "As 'Chris' goes, so goes Thursday."

Ostroff noted that all nets "pick one or two shows to really focus their attention on," and said that if "Chris" works, it will help other shows on UPN. "A rising tide lifts all boats," she said.

Big promo push, plus the critical raves, is bound to lead to expectations of a big premiere night number for "Chris." Ostroff already is trying to manage expectations.

"Launching a show on UPN is not the same as on CBS or another network," she said. "It takes a while for us to find an audience and for our audience to find us.

"We're going to be patient."

Thursday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

TV Review:

Toga Party
The Romans are coming to HBO

By Ellen Gray Philadelphia Daily News

HBO CHAIRMAN Chris Albrecht gets a little testy when he reads stories about the premium-cable network's inability to find anything to put on at 9 p.m. Sundays that will pack the ratings wallop of "The Sopranos."

Which, as you may have heard, won't be back till March 2006.

Still, it's impossible not to look at "Rome," a series about Italians who love food, fighting and sex (not necessarily in that order) but who live a couple of thousand years - and several thousand miles - from present-day New Jersey and not ask, as A.J. Soprano once did:

"What? No f- - - - - - ziti?"

No ziti, but "Rome" does boast enough intrigue, whackings and full frontal nudity - from both sexes - to satisfy the most exacting thrill-seeker.

I mean, when was the last time you saw anyone on "The Sopranos" take a shower in the blood of a slaughtered bull?

That dubious honor fell to actress Polly Walker, who plays Julius Caesar's niece, Atia, and who in Sunday's premiere can be seen displaying a good deal of the glory of "Rome" in one scene, only to return a bit later, fully clothed, to have what she recently described to reporters as "a cherry syrup thing" poured over her from high above in the depiction of a Roman ritual sacrifice.

"I knew it would look amazing, and I just went for it," she said of the bull's blood ritual. "The other one [a sex scene], I just sort of closed my eyes and thought of England."

It may be impossible for American audiences, at least, not to think of England, since the accents and actors are British, and HBO's co-producing the 12-episode "Rome," which it has some hopes of turning into a longer-running series, with the BBC.

And though another Roman epic, "I, Claudius," broke new ground in terms of content when it aired on PBS in the late '70s, in a post-Janet Jackson world, it's also impossible to imagine this series, with its down and dirty Romans - who make the denizens of ABC's Roman romp, "Empire," seem like Disney characters - anywhere but on HBO.

Yet even HBO doesn't seem entirely sure it can sell its viewers on the oft-told tale of the fall of the Roman republic and the rise of the Roman empire, with co-creator Bruno Heller's pilot script setting things up as a sort of buddy comedy/drama, the story of Julius Caesar, as seen through the eyes of two of his soldiers, Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson).

Caesar (Ciaran Hinds) is "a known character," Heller told reporters. "We designed it so that when you see Caesar it's through other people's eyes... because to a degree, a character like Caesar is always unknowable," he said.

Maybe so, but though Vorenus, particularly, turns out to have a complicated family life, neither man is half as interesting as the upper-class Romans whose whims appear to rule their lives.

It's at times as if "The Sopranos" were being told from the point of view of a couple of guys who run Tony Soprano's errands.

Fortunately, Heller clearly found those nearer and dearer to Caesar interesting enough, and you don't have to be a classics major to know that Atia's young son Octavian (Max Pirkis) is worth keeping an eye on, or to appreciate Atia's soap-opera diva machinations or the emotional torment of Caesar's lover Servilia (Lindsay Duncan).

It's not necessary, either, to focus on the $100 million, 14-month (on and off) shooting schedule for a project that took years to bring to the small screen or to do more than note that the massive set built at Rome's Cinecitta Studios as well as the scenes shot on location elsewhere in Italy put "Rome" in a time and place every bit as specific as 21st century North Jersey.

Heller, who insisted on all those British accents, is nevertheless eager to offer Americans something to hang on to, noting that that "transformation of a republic into an empire" is something "America is dealing with" right now.

Perhaps, but as much fun as it is to write about the sociological and psychological aspects of "The Sopranos," it's not midlife crises or the breakdown of the corporate structure that people are talking about the next day - it's the murders and the mayhem.

And the stories.

"Rome" has the murders and the mayhem, and a hell of a good story, but will it be able to reassert HBO's Sunday night mastery, especially with ABC's "Desperate Housewives" coming back with new episodes Sept. 25?

HBO's Albrecht would argue that it doesn't matter.

"When we started Sunday night, people weren't paying much attention to Sunday nights, and we've had tremendous success there," he said last month. "But what we've been able to do over the course of the last few years is migrate our own strategy into taking advantage of all of the platforms that we have."

Thus, "Rome" wasn't built in a day, and it won't be launched in one, either. In an attempt to maximize sampling for the series during this tricky end-of-summer period just before the broadcast networks begin their fall attacks - a time when many of us are less focused on the water cooler and more on staying cool near the water - HBO's chosen the instant-gratification model over the big-event model.

So the episode that premieres Sunday will rerun every day, at various times, for the rest of the week, on either HBO, HBO2 or HBO Signature, and also will be available on HBO On Demand. This will continue with subsequent episodes, except that the third episode will be available to On Demand subscribers on Sept. 5, the day after the second episode premieres and six days before its main HBO premiere.

So tune in Sunday or whenever you feel like it - because HBO seems determined that the sun won't set on this empire.

TV Review:

See HBO's 'Rome' and sigh

By MELANIE MCFARLAND SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER TELEVISION CRITIC Friday, August 26, 2005

In a bid to continue its long-standing rule as the emperor of premium cable, HBO is returning to the basics of giving the people what they want with "Rome," 12 episodes fueled by blood, thirst for power and bare-naked lust.

By that, we mean that within its first few hours, Roman soldiers stab into barbarian guts and plunder villages; a naked vixen writhes atop her "goatish" lover, with a servant standing ready to hand off a goblet of wine after she climaxes; and politicians weave schemes to wrest power from one another.

All of this sounds like very ancient "Sopranos," doesn't it? To adopt the phrasing of a patrician stick in the mud, would that were so. What you're picturing is far more exciting than the reality of "Rome's" initial six hours, the first of which premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday.

"Rome" isn't so much a Sunday night diversion as a task, lacking the poetry that makes expletive-laden "Deadwood" sparkle with eloquence. Unlike HBO's western, you won't exactly be clamoring for the next week's episode at the end of "Rome" -- not after hour one or hour six.

A co-production of HBO and the BBC, "Rome" lavishes us with spectacular sets and splendid acting, taking extraordinary pains to re-create the era down to the silks and rags everyone wears. If it doesn't hit, it won't be for lack of trying -- which "Rome" does in earnest, only far less successfully than one would expect of a $100 million series.

Heavy attention to detail isn't enough to make up for the plodding, haughty pompousness threatening to rob the series of its potential to seduce. This is in spite of a plot saucy enough to be considered prime-time soap material even if the main events have been retold too many times to count.

In 52 B.C., the noble classes are embroiled in a power play between Gais Julius Caesar (Ciaren Hinds), set to return to Rome after his conquest of Gaul, and Pompey Magnus (Kenneth Cranham), his former ally who wields power with the Senate. We know how that tale ends, and if you don't here's a hint: "Hail Caesar!" Stabbity-stab-stab-stab.

That's not the saucy part. While Caesar conquers abroad, his cruel, cunning niece Atia (Polly Walker) busily secures power in the failing Republic. She's keen on playing both sides, bedding Mark Antony (James Purefoy) while pushing her daughter Octavia (Kerry Condon) on Pompey by destroying the girl's marriage when the ruler suddenly finds himself a widower.

Atia's contemplative, studious teenager, Gaius Octavian (Max Pirkis), watches from the sidelines, parsing strategies and dissecting the peculiarity of human behavior. (Whether this would be considered a spoiler or a slice of trivia is up to you, but Octavian eventually becomes Caesar Augustus, the greatest of Roman emperors.)

Patient history buffs may be pleased enough that HBO's version of the ancient city seems closer to the truth of what it probably was like -- a place as wretched, grimy, amoral as it was glorious and cosmopolitan, where life was cheap and plebeian women little more than pleasure receptacles.

Seeing Antony rape a shepherdess during a marching break becomes about as ho-hum as a handshake, and for all of the "that's just the way it was" arguments one can use to give a scene like that weight and reason, the notion that such a horror is another flat note in a monotonous symphony is more evidence of "Rome's" insufficiency.

The heart of "Rome" is supposed to be provided by the stoic, honorable Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and jolly, thickheaded Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson), two of Caesar's soldiers who begin the series at odds but become fast friends. A kill-'em-now-ask-questions-later kind of guy, Pullo the brute's more entertaining than morose Vorenus, who returns to his wife, Niobe (Indira Varma), after an eight-year absence to find she is hiding a secret. They serve as the steps connecting palace life to the slums in this "Upstairs, Downstairs" setup, although you have to look closely to figure that out.

Read enough stories about "Rome" and its trappings, and the series seems to take on a mythical status of its own. Originally put into development in 1998, "Rome" began life as a miniseries. That probably would have been a better idea, considering what happened to ABC's "Empire," a harmless, lightweight six-hour series that took a different, more liberally fictional swing at the same material.

"Empire" also was a flop. That probably isn't an indicator of "Rome's " success or failure, because "Rome" is to "Empire" what "I, Claudius" was to an especially cheesy episode of "Xena: Warrior Princess." One is out to make a mark on television history; the other just wants you to get a kick out it.

There's something to be said for simple entertainment. Even the producers of the BBC's legendary "I, Claudius" television series that aired on PBS understood how a combination of masterful dialogue and Derek Jacobi's rendition of the stuttering aristocrat made Claudius' survival into a feat both terrifying and hilarious. (If you've never seen "I, Claudius," I urge you to check it out from the library and see what a superior drama looks like.)

We'll grant you, of course, that the simple promise of a naked woman writhing atop her lover is more than enough reason for some to tune in. Walker, the actress often in flagrante delicto in "Rome," isn't tough to look at even after a shower in bull's blood.

Full frontals aren't Walker's finest achievement here, of course; her rendition of a tart-tongued viper deserves most of the credit. The series is most amusing when Atia enters Martha Stewart mode: An angry mob threatens to crash her party, and she peppily makes the rounds to ensure her guests have what they need to commit an honorable suicide if the doors don't hold. Without her, Pirkis and Stevenson's magnificent performances, "Rome" wouldn't even be worth the tease.

TV Review:

Class warfare, sex and death -- HBO charges boldly into 'Rome'

By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Friday, August 26, 2005

Let's be crass for a moment. There's an egregious amount of f -- and killing in "Rome," the bold new dramatic series from HBO. Having already watched half the season -- six of 12 episodes -- there's no question that the sheer amount of bloodshed and fornication will get headlines.

When in "Rome," as it were.

Ah, easy cleverness. It's so comforting. But how's this for a new, perhaps more apt, cliche: "When on HBO." It's like a free creative pass, is it not? Violence can be off the charts, the sex can be dirtier, swearing can buttress both and, when it comes to nudity, well, you've got full-frontal male nudity here. Several times over. Let's see Fox try that.

It's easy for rival producers making series for broadcast television to claim that HBO is true to its advertising slogan -- that it's really not TV. But for all the boundless artistic license one gets on HBO, there's also an intimidating, righteously fearful standard to uphold. If you put a series on HBO, it will be judged against the best television has to offer -- other HBO series.

As good as "Rome" is -- and it's an epic, multilayered thing of beauty -- it's still not on the level of "The Sopranos" or "The Wire" or "Deadwood." That's almost an unfair comparison, but it's also true. On the other hand, "Rome" unfolds like a marvelously shot big-screen movie, each scene (filmed on location in Italy) dripping with money well spent and a meticulous grandeur that rewards you for paying extra for HBO.

The comparisons to HBO's other industry-leading series does not diminish the artistic experience of "Rome," it only magnifies the difficulty of standing out in such august company. There is nothing, in six episodes -- each leaving you wanting more and still more when finished -- that indicates "Rome" will falter. It's likely only to get better -- particularly after the slower first two episodes, which carry the burden of setting up civilization in Rome circa 52 B.C., with careful but not dramatically hurtful attention to historic detail.

While the cast of characters in "Rome" is deep, layered and complicated, the main story line is deceptively simple. This is a series about class warfare, emphasis on the war. Some 400 years after the forming of the republic, the elite in Rome are fat and happy, wealthy and corrupt; presiding over an empire with steep class divides. The story of "Rome" begins with the leader of the Senate, Pompey Magnus (Kenneth Cranham) fretting with the rest of the aristocracy about Gaius Julius Caesar (Ciarán Hinds), who has just spent eight long and bloody years taking Gaul -- forging a powerful reputation, untold riches and the best fighting army in all of Italy, the 13th Legion.

Caesar has change on his mind, and the ruling class wants no part of him returning. Hence, your now-historic battle for control of the Empire. Less tied to the books are the stories of those below the power and money. In "Rome, " we follow two extremely different men of the 13th Legion: Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd), a man of loyalty, honor and duty to the Empire. And Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson), an enormous fighting machine, a goon who thinks with his genitals, has an extremely short temper and a very quick sword (which often, and with precision, guts someone's throat from front to back).

Vorenus is torn between his loyalty to the 13th and his belief that the Empire is crumbling from years of corruption and greed. He knows that Caesar is likely to speed the decline. Pullo, though dim-witted, is more enlightened about changing times. Rome, and the world, has changed, he tells Vorenus. Don't get hung up on history -- there's no going back.

Into their world -- from senators to slaves -- comes a brilliantly nuanced group of other characters. This is where HBO really shines. A great drama goes beyond two leads and opens up and explores the lives of auxiliary characters, each making the series in question resonate much more powerfully. When television is done extremely well, you get maybe four additional characters of merit. In HBO gems such as "The Sopranos," "The Wire," and "Deadwood," truly fleshed-out characters often number in double digits -- a grand dramatic achievement.

That's also true in "Rome," which more than excuses the languid, complicated pace of the first two episodes. And it will be mighty handy, once you get hooked, to have access to the HBO Web site, which has set the standard for character identification, family trees, lines of power, etc.

As the episodes unfold, there are wonderful performances from Polly Walker as Atia of the Julii, James Purefoy as Mark Antony, and Max Pirkis as Atia's son, Gaius Octavian.

This is in addition to four riveting performances from McKidd, Stevenson, Cranham and Hinds. Credit must also go to series writer, co-creator and executive producer Bruno Heller, who has turned "Rome" into an addictive, open- ended, page-turner of sorts. Each episode is like a chapter in a book, and you don't want to wait another seven days to move forward.

What hurts "Rome," however, is that same kind of epic sprawl, that novelistic extravagance -- a breadth of vision too ambitious to tell simply. Where David Milch managed to take the Wild West -- the full tired husk of the Western genre, in fact -- and turn it into a personal story about a handful of people in "Deadwood," that dramatic reduction seems to stymie Heller. Part of the problem is that "Rome" -- here it comes -- wasn't built in a day, nor its history easily compactible. You know that Caesar is going to play an enormous role in this series, but it takes him half a season to get back to Rome (then he leaves again). It doesn't exactly allow Hinds, a superb actor, to work up the kind of televised cult of personality that Ian McShane has perfected with Al Swearengen or, for that matter, James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano.

With no character -- hero, antihero or villain -- rushing to fill your screen, what you're left with is a rich little tapestry of players. Nothing too wrong with that. Through half a season it's McKidd, Stevenson and Walker dominating -- and there's much to appreciate there. But what a nagging suspicion there is that by season's end, and certainly by the start of the inevitable second season, Hinds as Caesar will be the poster boy for "Rome. " And yet, six episodes in, there's an unsettled drift to "Rome" that is almost unexplainable. Let Caesar be Caesar!

This is another example of where "When on HBO" becomes handy. Because when you're on HBO, ratings pressure is nonexistent. And if people are already shelling out $12 or more just for the pleasure of your offerings, they tend to invest time a little wiser, to be a tad more understanding. Few broadcast network series can be as ambitious as "Rome" and tell the story in such a way that it holds viewers' very limited attention span. "Lost" is perhaps the finest example of that.

So what's to be made of "Rome" if it falls a bit shy of the greatness of its stablemates, if it unfurls slower than one would like? Patience. There's a reward beyond the f -- and the killing that begins to pay off, ever so slowly, as the story unfolds. Besides, there may be a plethora of noble dramas on television right now, but none of them are set in ancient Rome. In a country already obsessed with shields-and-swords movies, on a channel that has a proven fearlessness for shifting the storytelling paradigm, sometimes you take a chance on brilliance before it's fully formed.

TV Review:

Prison Break Monday, August 29, 8 PM ET/PT
Ultimate Escapism: Could Fox have a new breakout hit?

By Matt Roush TV Guide

Watching the opening hours of Prison Break, I kept trying to blot out the inner voice telling me, "C'mon, Jack Bauer could get out of this mess in less than a day." In other words: If you think 24 stretches the bounds of logic, wait till you see this doozy.

But for thrill-hunters willing to suspend disbelief and sign up for another tense, violent, improbably entertaining adventure, this new exercise in serialized suspense will do just fine until 24 returns in January. (It sure beats letting Fox's reality hacks get the time period.)

The first leap of faith comes early, as stoic hero Michael Scofield (the terrifically taciturn Wentworth Miller) clumsily robs a bank for the express purpose of being sent to a maximum-security prison where his brother (John Doe's Dominic Purcell) is on death row for murdering the vice president's brother. Scofield, a structural engineer by trade, has a crazy plan to get both of them out. It involves an intimate knowledge of the prison blueprints and an uncanny knack for manipulating everyone in his orbit, including a sadistic Mob boss, a codger who may be the legendary D.B. Cooper, a pretty doctor and even the warden (Stacy Keach).

It's good, pulpy fun, with each of the first two hours ending on a surprising jolt, though the show isn't as propulsively gripping out of the gate as the ticking-clock 24. The personal subplots tend to drag, and an overarching government conspiracy is cartoonishly obvious. Still, Prison Break gets the new season off to an early, instantly enjoyable start.

Sam Gangee Meets Jack Bauer

By Jim Benson Broadcasting & Cable

Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings), Jean Smart (Garden State) and Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), along with newcomer Brady Corbet (Thirteen), will join star and co-executive producer Kiefer Sutherland in the cast of the Fox hit, 24.

The series will conspire against Fox’s usual Sunday night comedy toon block with its fifth-season launch, comprising a four-hour, two-night season premiere at 8-10 p.m. Jan. 8, followed by another two-hour dose. Jan. 9, which will be the show’s 100th episode.

The fifth hour of 24 will settle into the show’s regular 9 p.m. Monday time period Jan. 16.

Relying on its successful scheduling strategy, the mid-season launch will allow Fox to continue to air the series without repeats or preemptions through its finale.

FOX Expands 'Mac' Premiere, Moves 'Malcolm'

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com)—Fox is tinkering with its fall premiere schedule a little, expanding the season debut of "The Bernie Mac Show" and moving "Malcolm in the Middle" back a week.

The network will open the fifth season of "Bernie Mac" with two episodes, featuring guest stars Anthony Anderson and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, on Friday, Sept. 23. "Malcolm" will now begin its seventh, and possibly final, season on Friday, Sept. 30.

"The Bernie Mac Show" is coming off an abbreviated fourth season, due mostly to the fact that Mac was laid up with pneumonia for part of last fall. Four episodes aired in September 2004, and a dozen more ran starting in January. The show has also been off the air for longer than most others, as it finished its season in April.

Anderson, coming off a dramatic turn on "The Shield," will return to comedy on the "Mac" premiere as a man named Bryan who says he's Byrana's (Dee Dee Davis) father. Bernie wants to support him but becomes suspicious when Bryan ignores Jordan (Jeremy Suarez) and Vanessa (Camille Winbush).

Former WWE champion Austin will appear in the second episode, offering Bernie some advice after Jordan joins his school's wrestling team.

Rosanna Arquette, who stars in ABC's midseason show "What About Brian," will guest-star in the "Malcolm in the Middle" premiere. The episode finds Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) and Reese (Justin Berfield) trying to sneak off to the Burning Man festival. Hal and Lois (Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek) discover their plan and decide to make it a family outing, with predictably disastrous results.

“ Monk” Finale

Tonight (Friday, August 26, USA, 10 PM ET/PT)

The best thing about it is that this series of “Monks” is that much closer to appearing in HD on Universal HD. :)

FOX Looks to Avoid a Fall Freefall

By Rick Porter zap2it.com

Fox ended the 2004-05 season in first place among adults 18-49, its target audience and the demographic group advertisers pursue most fervently. It also finished in a virtual tie for second in total viewers (ABC had about 10,000 more per night), thanks in large part to the continuing "American Idol" juggernaut and the Super Bowl.

The midseason resurrection story was nice and everything, but for every comeback there has to be a setback. Which is a highly charitable way to describe much of FOX's fall 2004 performance.

Thanks to a lineup that consisted primarily of short-run unscripted shows no one cared about, FOX found itself a distant fourth at the end of December, more than a million viewers and three-tenths of a ratings point in adults 18-49 behind even struggling NBC. Strip out the week that featured the climax of the Red Sox-Yankees series and the deficit is even more pronounced.

The network will try very hard not to repeat its mistakes again this year. Rather than hold off on most of the schedule until after the World Series -- a strategy that contributed to last fall's dismal showing -- new network head Peter Ligouri is rolling out much of FOX's lineup early, starting this week with "Prison Break."

"We think that makes a lot of sense," Ligouri says. "When you look at shows like 'Prison Break,' which will have seven hours of originals before we take a two-week hiatus for baseball, we think with a show like that we're going to get the hook in deep."

The network will take a similar tack with its other serial dramas, third-year veteran "The O.C." and the rookie "Reunion," both of which premiere Thursday, Sept. 8. Ligouri promises "a good solid cliffhanger" for all three shows before they take their baseball break.

Just as significant is the makeup of the fall slate: With the exception of Saturday staples "Cops" and "America's Most Wanted" and "So You Think You Can Dance," which will run into late September, everything on FOX will be a scripted comedy or drama. Compare that to last year, when the likes of "The Complex: Malibu," "The Next Great Champ" and "The Rebel Billionaire" littered the schedule between September and December.

"American Idol," along with "24," is set to return again in January, and both shows will likely give FOX a ratings bump. But Ligouri isn't necessarily banking on that.

"I think the approach that we're taking is a, 'What if "American Idol" didn't exist?' approach," he says. "By doing that, it focuses us on being incredibly aggressive with ... every other timeslot on the schedule."

This season's for the ladies

By Brooks Barnes The Wall Street Journal Friday August 26, 2005

Jerry Bruckheimer isn't particularly subtle about who he's targeting with "Close to Home," a new CBS crime drama. "We wanted to make a show for women," he says.

No kidding. A baby gurgles in a cutesy suburban home in the opening sequences. The main character, Annabeth, is a young mother and a legal genius who says things like, "I want to be a mommy and I want to work." Breast milk figures prominently in the premiere episode. The theme song? Sung by Sarah McLachlan.

Sorry, guys. Come fall, the networks will load their schedules with dramas and comedies aimed at the females in the house. Playing to your audience is a basic tenet of showbiz, and these days women not only outnumber men when it comes to prime-time viewing, but the shows they watch also are an easier sell to advertisers. So the new season, kicking off informally next week, has "Commander in Chief," a drama starring Geena Davis as the first female president, and "Hot Properties," a comedy about a bunch of sexy real-estate agents. CBS, which last year was pushing a baseball drama, has three new series built around female leads, including one with Jennifer Love Hewitt as a softhearted psychic ("Ghost Whisperer") and another with Stockard Channing as a comedic heart surgeon ("Out of Practice"). Pushing up the estrogen factor at Fox: "Bones," a drama about a brilliant female archeologist.

The For Her Eyes Only approach is in part an industrywide reflex to last season's No. 1 hit, "Desperate Housewives," which proved men would actually watch a show with a girly title. But the strategy also reflects shifting demographics. The number of men tuning in to prime-time network TV has fallen 17 percent since 2000, according to Nielsen Media Research, compared with a 4 percent drop for women. Last season, an average of 9.8 million men watched the six broadcast networks in prime time, compared with 13.6 million women. TV executives say, too, that women are more loyal, coming back week after week despite the occasional weak episode. Men are fickle, skipping shows they like in order to watch sports.

Judging by at least two high-profile attempts to go after women, the strategy isn't foolproof. In 2002, CBS pulled "That's Life," a lighthearted drama about a woman who defied her parents and went to college (instead of getting married and having children), before it completed its second season. A few years earlier, the network also canceled "To Have & to Hold," a romantic drama about newlyweds, after just two months. Generally, targeting modern women with stereotypical subject matter is a mistake, says Marc Cherry, the creator of "Desperate Housewives." "You can't just add a baby and -- presto! -- women love your show," he says. "That's simplistic thinking."

David E. Kelley, producer of such hits as "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal," adds that even tinkering with a show's premise to make it more female-friendly can be risky. But he's done just that: Last season, Mr. Kelley's "Boston Legal" was struggling to hold onto viewers of "Desperate Housewives," which preceded the legal drama. Though he wasn't entirely convinced it was the right decision, Mr. Kelley propped up the female point of view by adding Candice Bergen to the cast. The move both boosted ratings and encouraged ABC to bring the show back this season, after shelving it last January. "The changes have served our show well," says Mr. Kelley. "But it's always folly to look at what sells and then go about creating it."

Still, the maneuvering is already under way, and NBC is pumping up the heartthrob factor. The network, which lost 16 percent of its viewership last season, is particularly focused on a new Pentagon drama by Mr. Bruckheimer, "E-Ring," starring ladies' favorite Benjamin Bratt as a Green Beret. As conceived, Mr. Bratt's character was married, a minor yet important plot premise. But NBC brass decided the wife had to go after focus-group testing showed that women didn't like her. Says Mr. Bruckheimer, who has eight other shows on this fall: "They wanted Ben datable."

The focus on women even dips down into teen viewers. This fall, five new series prominently feature science-fiction elements, with "Supernatural" on the WB, dishing out some cover-your-eyes scary moments. This is an attempt to bring in younger girls, media buyers say. "Networks have looked at the movie business and realized that teen girls love to be scared," says Laura Caraccioli-Davis, a senior vice president at ad buyer Starcom Entertainment. She says it was teenage girls who drove last year's "The Grudge," about a frightening supernatural curse, to a hefty $110 million domestic gross.

Of course, not all these shows will last. Of the 31 shows launched last fall, only 10 remain. To find out the likely survivors this year, we talked to producers, network executives, agents and ad buyers. Here are some of the series sparking early interest. (All times are Eastern Daylight Time.)

How I Met Your Mother CBS, Monday 8:30

PITCH: A dad sits his two children down in the den and recounts, in detailed flashbacks, how he met their mother. (Suffice it to say he doesn't find her easily.)

BACK STORY: CBS is betting the flashback and mystery gimmicks will resonate with younger viewers bored with traditional sitcoms. The show's creators have never done a sitcom before, much less a high-concept one. But CBS hopes a cushy time slot between "King of Queens" and "Two and a Half Men" will ease the pressure.

ODDS: Better than average. It's unclear how the premise will play out, but the cast is appealing ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer" star Alyson Hannigan is a regular), and the first episode has genuinely funny moments.

Prison Break Fox, Monday 9 PM ET/PT

PITCH: "The Great Escape" meets "The Fugitive." A structural engineer believes his brother, convicted for murder, is innocent. He tattoos the prison's blueprints over most of his body, gets himself thrown into the same jail and sets about escaping and proving his brother's innocence.

BACK STORY: Fox censors have already nixed a nude shower scene. "Standards and Practices is suggesting we use our alternate shot that had them in their tighty-whities," says creator Paul Scheuring. Despite the somewhat ludicrous premise, Fox hopes lots of action will turn the series into another "24."

ODDS: Unclear. Will attract early attention but faces tough competition for male viewers -- its target audience -- from ABC's "Monday Night Football" and NBC's "Las Vegas."

My Name is Earl NBC, Tuesday 9 PM ET/PT

PITCH: A honky-tonk "Robin Hood." A petty crook wins the lottery and sets out to correct the wrongs from his past in a half-hour comedy.

BACK STORY: Actor Jason Lee grew a mangy handlebar moustache for the title role, but NBC told him to shave it off. (Excluding Tom Selleck's Magnum, facial hair famously doesn't play well to TV audiences.) Creator Greg Garcia fought for the follicles and won, though NBC did make Mr. Lee trim his sideburns.

ODDS: A slam-dunk critical hit, but unlikely to be a commercial success. NBC says "Earl" scored higher in focus-group testing than "Friends," but media buyers predict the edgy, lowbrow humor will be hilarious to some and an acquired taste for many.

Commander in Chief ABC, Tuesday 9 PM ET/PT

PITCH: America's first female president, a mother of three, shrewdly balances bare-knuckle politics and a challenging family life.

BACK STORY: Creator Rod Lurie is familiar with women-in-politics stories from his big-screen "The Contender." In a bid to draw in the conservatives who steered clear of the left-leaning "West Wing," Mr. Lurie peppers the first episode with Hillary Clinton digs from a snooty White House staffer. ("Mrs. Clinton had her office in the West Wing. That didn't go over very well.")

ODDS: An uphill battle. ABC is lavishing a megawatt marketing campaign on the drama, but "The West Wing" may have already sucked this well dry. Mr. Lurie says he's not worried because his show will focus more on family life in the White House. "We're going to devote a lot of time to East Wing stuff," he says.

Close to Home CBS, Tuesday 10 PM ET/PT

PITCH: A young prosecutor returns to work after having her first child and tackles a stream of crimes flowing out of her own seemingly perfect neighborhood.

BACK STORY: Set in glamorous suburban ... Indianapolis? Networks usually set shows in bigger markets, but creator Jim Leonard pushed to base the drama in his home state. "We're after the normalcy of the Midwest to provide contrast with what's not so normal sometimes behind the doors," he says. The producers had a hard time casting the central role. They settled on Jennifer Finnigan, known to "Bold and the Beautiful" fans as the lovelorn Bridget Forrester.

ODDS: Never bet against Jerry Bruckheimer -- he's got nine series running on three networks for fall. It's worth tuning in to the show's first episode, if only for the movie-quality house fire.

Supernatural WB, Tuesday 9 PM ET/PT

PITCH: "The X-Files" hits Route 66. Two brothers crisscross America's lonely and mysterious back roads in search of their missing dad, battling evil supernatural creatures along the way.

BACK STORY: The WB won a bidding war with Fox for this "horror" series. The network is betting that international revenue and licensing fees will be strong. In a clever twist, the supernatural creatures will be exclusively pulled from folklore and urban legend. (Like the "Vanishing Hitchhiker," where a driver turns to say goodbye to his unusual hitchhiker, only to find she's disappeared.)

ODDS: The WB's best shot at a new franchise, and it badly needs one. The first episode is loaded with special effects and is truly scary -- a rarity for TV -- and should go over well with the network's target 18- to 34-year-old audience.

Invasion ABC, Wednesday 10 PM ET/PT

PITCH: Something mysterious comes to life under the water in the Everglades after a hurricane and creeps inside the bodies of some locals. Evolution ensues.

BACK STORY: The lengthy hurricane scenes in the first episode were shot with so many wind and rain machines that 8-year-old actress Ariel Gade says she had a hard time breathing.

ODDS: The mystery and character focus should convince fans of last year's "Lost" to check it out. The challenge will be persuading them to add another high-maintenance series to their TiVos long term. The competition isn't easy, either: "Law & Order" might be old enough for an AARP card, but is still up for a fight.

The Apprentice: Martha Stewart NBC, Wednesday 8 PM ET/PT

PITCH: In an extension of the Donald Trump series, 16 Martha wannabes compete for a job somewhere in her empire.

BACK STORY: According to associates of the domestic diva, Ms. Stewart would be interested in doing a second season only if there were a clear benefit to her corporate empire.

ODDS: Good, at least early in the season. Unless you count "America's Next Top Model," Ms. Stewart doesn't have any competition in the time slot.

Everybody Hates Chris UPN, Thursday 8 PM ET/PT

PITCH: "The Wonder Years" as interpreted and narrated by Chris Rock. A teenager navigates the challenges of growing up in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1980s.

BACK STORY: Sorry, Brooklyn: To save money, the series will film exclusively on the Paramount lot in Hollywood. Fans of Mr. Rock, known for cursing, will need to adapt to a kinder, gentler brand of his humor. Jokes Mr. Rock on his entry into family-friendly entertainment: "People that curse have families, too."

ODDS: UPN has never launched a blockbuster comedy before, but media buyers are cautiously optimistic "Chris" will be a hit. One warning sign: Rival Fox developed the script twice -- and passed twice.

Reunion Fox, Thursday 9 PM ET/PT

PITCH: The story of six friends over 20 years, with a twist: Each episode represents one year in their lives, starting with their high-school graduation in 1986.

BACK STORY: To find six people who could look and act the ages of 18 to 38, Warner Bros. auditioned more than 300 actors in New York and Los Angeles. Frazzled casting directors have about six months to recover: If "Reunion" is a hit, they'll need to find a whole new set of friends for season two.

ODDS: Iffy. The storytelling gimmick is intriguing, but nothing Fox has recently tried in this time slot has worked, because of the extreme competition from "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "The Apprentice."

Second-Season Slump?

By Brooks Barnes The Wall Street Journal Friday August 26, 2005

Seven new television dramas became bona-fide hits last season, the best track record the industry has had in more than a decade. Now comes the hard part for these shows: Staying hot even as networks transfer their marketing muscle to the new stuff. Below, a look at how some sophomore hits plan to stay atop the Nielsen charts.

Boston Legal ABC, 10 PM ET/PT Tuesday
WHAT’S NEW: Two new junior lawyers join the law firm, placing more focus on office politics. Heather Locklear and Rupert Everett guest star early on.
COMMENT: ABC yanked this drama from its 10 PM ET/PT Sunday slot last January. It's now seeing if "Boston" will fare better on Tuesdays. "We've been able to go back and spend extra time on each of those episodes and make them better," says executive producer David E. Kelley.

CSI: NY CBS, 10 PM ET/PT Wednesday
WHAT’S NEW: New sets, storylines with more color and less grit, a cross-over episode with "CSI: Miami," and one of the six principal characters leaves the series.
COMMENT: Creator Anthony Zuiker says CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves ordered him to lighten this third "CSI" spinoff, which lost many franchise fans with its dark tone and look. "We tried it your way and it didn't work," Mr. Zuiker recalls Mr. Moonves saying. "Now let's try it mine."

Desperate Housewives ABC, 9 PM ET/PT Sunday
WHAT’S NEW: A new housewife arrives on Wisteria Lane, spurring a season-long mystery. "Let's just say she has a very interesting relationship with her son," says creator Marc Cherry.
COMMENT: The first-season DVD set hits stores Sept. 20. ABC hopes the release will create buzz for the show's second season. Not that it needs much help: More than 30 million people tuned in for the May finale, making the series last season's No. 1 new show.

Grey's Anatomy ABC, 10 PM ET/PT Sunday
WHAT’S NEW: Minor tweaks, at least early on, such as less reliance on voiceover narration, according to creator Shonda Rhimes.
COMMENT: "Sideways" star Sandra Oh is up for an Emmy for her portrayal of a no-nonsense surgical intern on this hospital hit. It's the fledgling series' only acting nomination. If she wins -- and she could -- expect her supporting character to get more camera time.

House Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Tuesday
WHAT’S NEW: Look for celebrity patients. Rapper LL Cool J appears in the premiere as a death-row inmate with a bizarre ailment.
COMMENT: Fox is counting on this drama, which centers on an acerbic physician with a knack for solving medical mysteries, to give the network a boost in a competitive time period. (It's up against one of the season's most hyped freshman shows, ABC's "Commander in Chief.")

Lost ABC[/B][/COLOR][/SIZE], 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
WHAT’S NEW: More exploration of the island -- and more survivors.
COMMENT: Turbulence ahead? "Lost" is a huge hit, but ABC's decision to shuttle the plane-crash survivors to a new time slot puts them in the path of "American Idol." ABC notes that the finales of both shows aired opposite each other in the spring and each held up fine.

Medium NBC, 10 PM ET/PT Monday
WHAT’S NEW: Producers are trying to line up financing for a 3D episode. "What's more fun than sitting in your living room in funny glasses?" says creator Glenn Gordon Caron.
COMMENT: Studio and network executives weren't sure this drama, about a psychic who helps law enforcement solve crimes, could be a hit. They changed their minds after Allison DuBois, a psychic who serves as the inspiration for the show, conducted readings with them over the telephone.

More on the new Nielsen DMAs

By Katy Bachman mediaweek.com August 26, 2005

The total number of TV households increased 0.5 percent to 110.2 million, according to Nielsen Media Research’s new universe estimates for the 2005-2006 TV season, released Thursday.

Nielsen also reported the increases among ethnic populations were even more pronounced than the general population. Hispanic households increased 2.9 percent to 11.2 million. African-American TV households are up 0.8 percent to 13.3 million and Asian TV households increased 3.2 percent to 4.2 million.

Aging baby boomers are also having an impact on the demographic makeup of TV households. The number of Women 55+ TV households increased by 2.5 percent to 36.2 million while the numer of Men 55+ was up 3.1 percent to 29.7 million.

Nielsen, owned by Mediaweek parent VNU, also reported significant shifts in its local market rankings, primarily due to population growth in the southern and western regionls of the U.S. As a result, Houston moved up in rank to No. 10 from No. 11, while Detroit moved down to No. 11 from No. 10. Among the top 15 markets, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., (formerly No. 13) is now ranked No. 12. Phoenix moves up to No. 14 from No. 15, and Portland, Ore., moves up to No. 23 from No. 24.

Markets losing rank include Seattle (from No. 12 to No. 13), Minneapolis (from No. 14 to No. 15), and Baltimore (from No. 23 to No. 24). Las Vegas also continues to be one of the fastest growing markets in the country, moving up three ranks to No. 48.

Even though Houston is now the 10th largest TV market, a Nielsen spokesperson said the ratings firm will continue with its originally-planned schedule to rollout the local people meter service to Detroit, now ranked No. 11. “We haven’t announced plans to go beyond the 10-announced markets,” said the spokesperson.

Second-Season Slump?



Medium NBC, 10 PM ET/PT Monday
WHAT’S NEW: Producers are trying to line up financing for a 3D episode. "What's more fun than sitting in your living room in funny glasses?" says creator Glenn Gordon Caron.
COMMENT: Studio and network executives weren't sure this drama, about a psychic who helps law enforcement solve crimes, could be a hit. They changed their minds after Allison DuBois, a psychic who serves as the inspiration for the show, conducted readings with them over the telephone.
So NBC has been reduced to palm reading for new programming inspiration, hey if it works.... :D

So NBC has been reduced to palm reading for new programming inspiration, hey if it works.... :D Interviewed Allison a few months ago on my show. It's almost scary to know the number of times she's not only been brought in on cases, but her success rate (rather high). Assuming one believes her. I'm a perpetual skeptic. And the police departments who have used her all decline comment.

Doc

I suspect that final comment about "Medium" was more than a little tongue-in-cheek from Brook Barnes.

But then again......(given how NBC's programming decisions have gone lately, they can use all the help they can get.)

(Actually we have found the show enjoyable -- especially the interaction between Allison and her husband on the show.)

Fredfa..

Wait 'till you see some of the new fall shows. The clone wars are on. I've seen "Ghost Whisperer" and, while I personally like it, I can't see it lasting long. Think "Tru Calling" meets Haley Joel Osment.

The new Henry Winkler vehicle isn't long for this world, either. "How I Met Your Mother," however, could be a hit.

Still have the UPN and NBC upfronts to tackle during my vacation.. <sigh>

There doesn't seem to be a lot to worry about with those two networks, Dr Don!
"My Name Is`Earl" and "Everybody Hates Chris" look possible, and I've met some actors who've worked on "Inconceivable" who claim the scripts are first-rate and Angie Harmon is great.
I would think that for your audience, "Three Wishes" would be of interest. I think the idea is a great one -- if they can just pull it off. And with the older-skewing Friday night audience an innocent, optimistic feel-good show just might work against some of the cynical and somewhat sleazy shows on against it.
I look forward to the new season (obviously!) :)

I suspect that final comment about "Medium" was more than a little tongue-in-cheek from Brook Barnes.

But then again......(given how NBC's programming decisions have gone lately, they can use all the help they can get.)

(Actually we have found the show enjoyable -- especially the interaction between Allison and her husband on the show.)
I like the show a lot, it's a very good blend of crime drama, a bit of suspension of belief blended in with the everyday activities of family life. I just thought it was funny NBC could very well be using psychics, they need something.. :D

“Prison Break”--Inside, looking out
Shooting on location can sometimes mean an extended stint at an exotic locale,
but for Paul Scheuring's new series on Fox, all it meant was prison

By Maria Elena Fernandez Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 28, 2005

Paul Scheuring thought he was ready to do his time.

Scheuring had fleshed out his new series "Prison Break" from a jail-break thriller to a love story between two brothers. He had read dozens of books about prison, visited several, and had become addicted to the website www.prisontalk.com.

But what Scheuring never counted on was what it would feel like to step on the grounds of the former Joliet prison in Illinois, a 147-year-old penitentiary that once housed such infamous prisoners as serial killer John Wayne Gacy. The prison, now empty, is where much of "Prison Break" was filmed, and if the location looks familiar when the Fox show premieres Monday, that's because it's the prison John Belushi walked out of in the opening scene of "The Blues Brothers."

"My first day there, I got depressed," said Scheuring, a 36-year-old screenwriter ("A Man Apart") who's making his TV debut with this show. "I didn't know if I could film there. I didn't know if I could make a story that was fun and exciting in that place. That prison was built in 1858, and it's just gorgeous, so we're trying to show that side of it as well. That's why there's a sense of light from above in every scene. It's important to me to have this sense of an open feeling because at the end of the day, it's a show about hope."

Stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell, who play imprisoned brothers Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows, respectively, also were taken aback by the visceral responses they had to the buildings, tiny cells and air of despair that permeates the facility. (Michael, who never knew his father, opts to keep his mother's maiden name.)

"It's got a stark beauty to it: the yellow brick of the walls, the green of the prison yard, the blue sky overhead," Miller said. "It has its moments of haunting beauty, but then when I'm sitting in the prison yard hanging out with the cast and crew getting ready to shoot a scene and enjoying myself, suddenly I'll remember that if I were an inmate at that facility, I'd only be outside one hour a day. The main surprise is how sad the place still is. It's got 150 years of pain and fear and violence soaked into those walls."

Purcell perceived "a lot of horror in that place. When you think of who's been in that place and that capital punishment was administered there in the '50s and '60s, a lot of really bad, bad people went through there. You can feel the energy in the place."

On the show, Scheuring and director Brett Ratner (known best for the "Rush Hour" films and "Red Dragon") hope to bring that sense of horror and hope as well as Joliet's dark energy to the small screen.

When the pilot opens, Michael robs a bank and deliberately gets caught so he can be sentenced to the Fox River State Penitentiary, where his older brother, Lincoln, is sitting on death row for killing the brother of the vice president of the United States. With 30 days until the execution, Michael thinks he can break them both out because he is an engineer who worked on the prison's blueprints and now has them tattooed all over his body.

The tattoo, which Scheuring designed with artist Tom Berg, covers Miller's entire torso and depicts an ascension of angels up one arm and an ascension of devils up the other, and an angel and devil fighting on his chest and on his back. Hidden in the artistry are codes and information about the design of the prison to aid Michael in his plan.

"It's the struggle that Michael has: doing an illegal thing to do something that's good," Scheuring said. "And that will be his perpetual struggle in the series: 'I've got to do something that's right, but at what price?' "

It takes two artists four to five hours per episode to transfer the tattoo onto Miller using a series of decals that fit together like a puzzle and must be scrubbed off with solvents.

"I have no complaints," Miller said. "It's such a genius special effect that it's worth the time."

Building the back stories

BEYOND the story of the brothers whose mother died when Michael was 11 and Lincoln was 16, there are several other mysteries and characters that Scheuring explores in the two-hour premiere: The warden who wants to build a model of the Taj Mahal for his wife; a cat-loving, aging con; a mob boss; and a beautiful infirmary doctor, all of whom figure inexplicably into Michael's elaborate plans.

Played by Miller with smoldering sex appeal, Michael is an intellectual and enigmatic protagonist. Clues about his planned escape are littered throughout the pilot: He drops a magazine down a drain, pretends to have diabetes and extracts a particular screw from the bleachers in the prison yard. "It's a very rich script and will be really rewarding for the attentive and patient viewer with lots of little puzzles to solve every episode," Miller said. "I think this show has a little bit of something for everyone. It's got some 'Oz,' a little bit of '24,' and a little bit of 'The Sopranos.' Prison is such a fascinating subject. I think it speaks to our deepest and darkest fears, and add a little bit of Houdini to that, which people also love."

Fox, which has been developing the series since 2003, is counting on this to be its next signature show, a serialized drama to carry the No. 1 network in young viewers beyond its success with "24," another action-adventure-thriller that changed television with its real-time approach to a single day in the life of its main character, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland).

By launching it earlier than its competition and airing seven consecutive episodes before postseason baseball takes over Fox's prime-time schedule in October, executives hope to build an audience that will return in November. Fox has been challenged in previous seasons when it waited to premiere shows after baseball, two months after the competition.

With the jail break at the center of the action for the first season, Scheuring and company face the daunting task of continuing the story outside Joliet's walls should viewers tune in the way Peter Liguori, Fox's president of entertainment, is hoping they will.

"There is no doubt that most series, upon their inception, pretty readily lay themselves out there for a 10-year life," Liguori said. "Given the time pressure of this show, much like the time pressure of '24,' it breaks what you typically try to do with TV. How do you easily create a blueprint, which easily lays out a number of years? This show lays out a time clock that is ticking pretty quickly — the month until the execution. I wish we had all the answers about what's going to happen. We don't. But in a bizarre way, that's great. It is showing that we're basically breaking some bones here to move the medium forward."

Beginning, middle and end

BUT the calm and collected Scheuring is confident that he's got his prison-escape story under control. Coming from the features world, Scheuring wasn't satisfied with knowing just where Michael and Lincoln were headed. He also had to figure out where all their cohorts would wind up, whether the show survives or not.

"I know the beginning, middle and end," Scheuring said. "It's a matter of how dense we make it or how protracted. The second season is way bigger because it's like 'The Great Escape,' where they broke out 20 characters and went in all these different directions."

The success last season of ABC's complex, heavily serialized "Lost" demonstrated to the industry that viewers are willing to stick with a show as long as the characters and stories are compelling, said "Prison Break" executive producer Dawn Parouse.

"When you take a risk, if people get invested in the characters, as long as you can take the time to figure it out, they'll be with you," she said. "By season's end, you're going to be really invested in the plight of these people who break out of prison, and you're going to want to see the satisfaction of these stories and the hunt."

"I know where Season 2 ends for all the characters," Scheuring assured. "The ones that make it to the end of Season 2. All one of them."

Scheuring was joking, but Purcell, whose character is awaiting execution, is a little worried: "If we do break out, the show becomes like 'The Great Escape' or 'The Fugitive.' We'll have to wait and see. If the ratings break through the roof, we might be stuck in prison for seven years. I hope that's not the case, trust me."

Meanwhile, Scheuring is enjoying another kind of break. The features writer, who sold 15 scripts but has only had one film made, has signed a three-year (reportedly seven-figure) deal with 20th Century Fox Television. "TV stuff is easy. I really recommend it," he said and laughed. "If you're not liking your job and you're in Topeka, Kan., come on out, they're minting money in L.A."

Mel Welles, 81
Actor in TV Shows, 'Little Shop of Horrors,' Many Movies

From Los Angeles Times Staff and Wire Reports August 26, 2005

Character actor Mel Welles, 81, who played the florist Gravis Muchnik in Roger Corman's 1960 black comedy "The Little Shop of Horrors," died Aug. 19 of heart failure at a hospital in Norfolk, Va., his wife, Annie, said.

Welles appeared in dozens of movies, including "Attack of the Crab Monsters" and "Rock All Night," in which he played Sir Bop and for which he wrote the "Unabridged Hiptionary" to help moviegoers understand the dialogue, his wife said.

Besides his acting, which included many television roles, he directed B movies, mostly in Europe; produced and directed concerts in Australia; did voice-overs; was a teacher; and, in later years, was a script supervisor.

"He had a very eclectic career," Annie Welles said.

He also appeared in episodes of such early TV shows as: FRIDAYS, MAVERICK, CHEYENNE, BRONCO, PETER GUNN, YOU ARE THERE, THE DEPUTY, TOPPER, I LIVED THREE LIVES, LONE RANGER, TALES OF THE TEXAS RANGERS, CIRCUS BOY, RIN TIN TIN, WHIRLYBIRDS, WYATT EARP, PASSPORT TO DANGER, DEATH VALLEY and many more. All told, he was in more than 300 episodes of early TV shows.

More info at:

http://www.melwelles.com/bio.html

Survivor: Burbank
Who, if anyone, will NBC vote out of a job if this fall season bombs like last year?

By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable 8/29/2005

With the start of the fall season looming, the chief topic of speculation in the TV community is not Martha Stewart’s post-incarceration prospects or what’s inside that tunnel they found on the last episode of Lost. No, the big mystery that has networks, producers and agents buzzing is: Will NBC’s Jeff Zucker and Kevin Reilly keep their jobs?

The two executives are the ones that have primary responsibility for reviving the network, whose plunge from first place to fourth in the Nielsen ratings over the past year will cost parent company GE hundreds of millions of dollars. The pressure would be high anywhere, but it’s perhaps worst at a company where the mantra is to be first or second in whatever business it’s in.

“I hear it every day,” Reilly says of the speculation about his job security. Having spent plenty of time in the past trading rumors “about those guys who are in trouble or about to go down,” he says, “I don’t like being in that position.” Zucker was vacationing and unavailable last week.

Former NBC President Warren Littlefield has an idea of the kind of pressure on Zucker and O’Reilly. Running a network is so intense, Littlefield recalls, that he truly knew that pilot seasons were over only “when my dreams were no longer a conglomeration of all these characters from all these different shows acting together.”

Earlier this summer, senior NBC Universal executives acknowledged that Zucker and Reilly were on the line. Reilly, as president of NBC Entertainment, is most directly responsible for programming. But NBC Universal Television Networks President Zucker is very hands-on when it comes to the shows and, as a consequence, is tied tightly to their failures and successes.

With more distance from last fall’s disastrous season, some NBC Universal executives contend that the situation at the top is not quite as dire as they had suspected. “This is not a company that changes horses in midstream,” says one, who two months ago questioned the two network executives’ ability to survive if this season is weak.

But there’s still plenty of anxiety within the company. NBC is clamping down on discretionary spending, curtailing everything from travel to the issuance of new BlackBerrys. Insiders talk darkly about the possibility that a weak fall debut will prompt layoffs.

Their gloom increases as the extent of the financial damage from NBC’s plummet becomes clearer. As last season commenced, the network was expecting to generate around $3.7 billion in prime time ad sales. If things go really well this season, it will be lucky to generate $2.9 billion. If the new schedule sags, $2.7 billion will be more realistic.

It’s not helping matters that, on the movie side of NBC Universal, a