View Full Version : Hot Off The Press! The Latest Television News and Info
humdinger70
11-17-05, 08:50 PM
Thanks, fredfa, for the comment. One last posting on the subject and then I'll leave follow-ups, if any, in the San Diego HDTV section.
Looks like the situation is no sick joke, it is apparently for real. The following was posted on San Diego Channel 10's web site...
Link here: http://www.10news.com/station/5347903/detail.html
One final follow-up (Really!! Honest!!)
At 5:35 PM Pacific time today (November 17), KGTV aired a story on the Time-Warner/KGTV situation. Looks like the e-mail campaign worked. Negotiations had been going on since August, but had gotten nowhere. The station did the crawl to notify viewers of potential loss of signal.
Well, after a deluge of e-mails, the KGTV station manager announced (on air!) that an agreement has been reached between the two parties. No loss of programming from ABC for San Diego viewers who get ABC thru Time-Warner Cable (hey that's me!).
Ok, that's the end of that. :D
Glad it all worked out! :)
Kudos to you Fred for this impressive thread. I usually just lurk in these forums but over the past month I started to keep up with this one and I'm just blown away by the amount of info available on here. Thanks.
Chuck
Thanks Chuck, kind words are always good to hear!
And this gives me an opportunity to remind folks that Ken H and David Bott have generously allowed me almost unbelievable leeway here (after all this is an HDTV forum) to discuss all kinds of TV-related material. Moderators CPanther93 and DrDon have also been a great, great help and have gone out their way to give fantastic support.
But I am always delighted to hear from someone who enjoys the thread!
The 2005-2006 Season: The November sweep
November Sweep at the Halfway mark
With the November sweep about half over, it looks like CBS might pull out wins in total viewers and all the advertiser-sought demographics.
I am sure MediaWeek’s Marc Berman will add his own thoughts shortly, but for now, Rick Kissell of Variety is saying that “…(ABC) which won the night in key demos thanks to "Lost," remains the most improved net compared with a year ago. It trails CBS in the closely watched 18-49 demo race, and it should be a tight battle down the stretch.
The Eye, riding a winning perfby "CSI: NY," was a solid second Wednesday in demos and took the night in total viewers. Net is expected to win the month in adults 25-54 and is the runaway leader in total viewers.
NBC and Fox are also-rans for the month, with the Peacock down sharply and the Murdoch net up a bit. UPN has the lead on the WB in their target 18-34 demo race (1.7 to 1.6) and is up year to year after the former's "America's Next Top Model" delivered more potent numbers Wednesday night.”
Much more about this (almost) anachronism called the November sweep will be coming out soon!
I have been waiting for a lifetime to find a review using the words “inert” and “entropy” in the very first sentence. Eureka, I have a winner!
TV Weekend: “The Poseidon Adventure”
Red Update Alert: Poseidon Goes Belly Up Again
By Alessandra Stanley The New York Times November 18, 2005
Re-creations of 70's schlock, from "Starsky & Hutch" to "The Dukes of Hazzard," all seem to obey the second law of movie dynamics: remakes drift to a state of inert uniformity known as entropy.
NBC's three-hour "Poseidon Adventure," to be shown Sunday night, (8 PM ET/PT)may be the exception that proves the rule. It is not quite as deliciously awful as the original 1972 disaster movie, but it comes pretty close. Pauline Kael once described "The Poseidon Adventure" as a "waterlogged 'Grand Hotel.' " The TV version is closer to a massacre on "The Love Boat."
Not a single cruise director is spared.
The writers wisely chose to update the plot, which was based on a novel by Paul Gallico. Instead of a freak weather disaster, Islamic terrorists disguised as kitchen workers take over the luxury cruise ship and blow it up with explosives hidden inside beer kegs. (These terrorists are much better prepared than the pirates who tried to board a cruise ship off the coast of Somalia earlier this month with a grenade launcher.)
Modern audiences have short attention spans and need a movie to kick off with a little violence. The terrorist twist allows the film to open with a scene of a Special Forces team raiding an enemy safe house in Jordan and opening fire on the conspirators - always a bracing way to start. The terrorists are slaughtered ("all targets are reduced," one agent says to another), but not before their leader manages to destroy evidence of the secret plot to blow up the S.S. Poseidon.
The cast of characters has been updated as well, though, oddly, not to reflect multiculturalism. There are no black or Hispanic heroes. Only feminism gets a tip of the cap: one of the smarter, tougher survivors is Rachel (Alexa Hamilton), a successful entrepreneur who booked the cruise to improve relations with her whiny husband, Richard (goes without saying: Steve Guttenberg). But she also chooses to share the cabin suite with their two children, putting a damper on candle-lit reconciliation. Richard, a failed novelist, seeks adulterous consolation in the arms of the ship masseuse, Shoshanna (Nathalie Boltt).
Ernest Borgnine played Detective Lt. Mike Rogo in the original. In the post-Sept. 11 version, Rogo (Adam Baldwin) is a gruff, buff officer in the Department of Homeland Security who is assigned to the Poseidon as an undercover sea marshal. Rogo is a man of few words, but lots of disaster movie aphorisms ("Everything is safe, until it's not").
The script even takes account of grade inflation at the Vatican: the take-charge Roman Catholic priest Gene Hackman played in the original is now a monsignor, Bishop Schmit, played by Rutger Hauer ("Blade Runner"). Secular Hollywood, however, gets equal time: Bryan Brown ("The Thorn Birds") plays a Hollywood schlockmeister, Jeffrey, who goes on the cruise with his sexy, young French beloved, Aimee (Tinarie Van Wyk).
Perhaps the most striking addition is the remake's post-Iraq war humility. When the United States Navy is finally alerted to the hijacking (the terrorists destroy the ship's communications system, but Rachel manages to tack an S.O.S. message to her e-mail Christmas list), the admiral in charge finds he cannot get an American satellite in position to locate the missing vessel. The British secret service comes to the rescue, led by a crisp senior agent, Suzanne Harrison, played by Alex Kingston ("ER").
Since John le Carré, British spy thrillers have brooded over the inequities of the "special relationship," gleefully portraying C.I.A. agents as blustering bullies who undermine British spy craft, notably in the BBC series "MI-5." In its own small way, "The Poseidon Adventure" is a way of saying we're sorry.
Sadly, the famous theme song, "The Morning After" sung by Maureen McGovern, which won "The Poseidon Adventure" its only major Oscar, was left out. But the Shelley Winters role remains intact. The British actress Sylvia Syms plays the elderly passenger, Belle Rosen, and while this time she is a widow (the tiresome kind who always quotes her late husband, Manny), she has just enough avoirdupois to give viewers chilling expectations for Mrs. Rosen's underwater swimming scene. It would be churlish to ruin the suspense, but as soon as the ship flips, the producers tantalize viewers with ominous shots of Mrs. Rosen's rear end as she climbs fire ladders in a blue dress with a long slit up the back.
The original movie was one of the first all-star disaster movies, a precursor to "The Towering Inferno," starring Paul Newman, but that genre has faded. For one thing, in an era when Robert De Niro and Kate Winslet do ads for American Express, few movie stars have the same cachet. The cast of NBC's disaster movie is not particularly high powered, but it doesn't really matter.
Nor are the special effects particularly special - it's hard to detect any major technological advances in the depiction of rushing waters and crashing furniture. Nevertheless, the high point, when the ship first capsizes and New Year's Eve revelers in the grand ballroom fall from the upside-down floor to the ceiling, is quite satisfying - especially when one of them crashes through the ceiling's stained glass.
Three hours is a lot for a cruise-ship hijacking, but "The Poseidon Adventure" manages to keep a straight face throughout even in its silliest moments. And that is a fitting tribute to the original.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/arts/television/18tvwk.html?pagewanted=print
TV Weekend: “The Poseidon Adventure”
NBC turns this “Poseidon” into true disaster
By Robert Bianco USA TODAY
Did there really have to be a movie after? Given the pre-sold value of that instantly recognizable title, it was probably inevitable that someone would remake Irwin Allen's 1972 genre-starting all-star disaster The Poseidon Adventure, although you might not have guessed someone would do so for TV and the big screen within the same year.
Still, what NBC may have forgotten is that our lingering fondness for this Adventure has less to do with its merits than with its contributions to the camp pantheon: Carol Lynley lip-syncing The Morning After in her hot pants; Shelley Winters swimming to her death; Bette Midler mocking Winters' swimming to her death. Treasures all — and all impossible to re-create.
Still, while the original Poseidon was not a great movie, it did have one of the all-time-great, easy-to-grasp movie hooks. (Passengers trapped in a capsized ocean liner have to work their way up to the bottom before the ship sinks. Go.) And indeed, as long as this bloated three-hour remake sticks closely to the original flipped-ship idea, it gets by. It's when the filmmakers try to get creative that the new Poseidon goes under.
Let's be clear: This low-star-wattage not-so-extravaganza is tedious whether you've seen the original or not.
Knowing the old film makes the new film's flaws more obvious, but even a Poseidon novice will have no trouble spotting them.
This new adventure's first major mistake is to have the ship turn over not because of a rogue wave, but because of a terrorist blast. Never mind that the hole-in-the-hull explanation for the ship's propellers-to-the-wind condition makes so little sense, the movie has to come to a dead stop twice to justify it.
What matters more is that the terrorist twist introduces a real-world issue that is too weighty for a silly, fragile film like this to support.
But worse lies ahead. Just when the film finally gets the ship upside down and the passengers on their way, it starts cutting away to a botched rescue effort that does as little for the passengers as it does for the movie. It torpedoes any sense of claustrophobia and makes it virtually impossible to remember where anyone is at any given moment.
Given the general ineptness around them, from the plodding script to the humorless, unevocative set design, you can't blame the actors for seeming at a loss. None of them transcends the material. None of them damages it, either, although you may be amazed to find that the young boy in this version is even more annoying than the kid in the original, which is something of an accomplishment.
Still, like the first version, this new Poseidon does teach one potentially lifesaving lesson: If you're in the dining room when a ship starts to flip, don't hang on to the table. It seldom works out.
That's just one more adventure you don't need.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/reviews/2005-11-17-poseidon-adventure_x.htm
Inundated
11-18-05, 01:43 AM
Since INDemand says it will begin carrying the Howard Stern TV show on Friday, I'll report the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story. Personally I have no idea which stiry is accurate, so believe which ever source you wish. :)
(Re: Howard Stern's PPV debut)
Sorry 'bout that...but I think I have the answer.
The quote above is from AllAccess.com, a very popular and usually accurate radio trade website, which is quoting MultiChannel News, a pretty reliable (from what I hear) source about the cable/satellite industry.
Here's the story which prompted the quote:
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6283481.html
A Sirius Holdup for Stern
In Demand’s Shock: Jock Will Have To Wait Until March
By R. Thomas Umstead 11/14/2005
Fans anxious to view footage from Howard Stern’s uncensored broadcasts on Sirius Satellite Radio are going to have wait a little while longer. In Demand will launch its Howard Stern On Demand subscription service Nov. 18 for $9.99 per month, featuring archival programming from the shock jock’s syndicated Infinity Broadcasting Corp.
So, it appears the story - at least as it's up on MultiChannel News now - is that the In Demand folks will be running old Stern footage for now...and may not have the new Sirius-driven stuff until March.
EDIT: Sure enough, from the AllAccess folks:
HOWARD STERN ON DEMAND is set to launch TOMORROW (11/18) with a selection of archival material, but new videotaped material from his SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO show will be held for a MARCH debut. The TV package will cost $12.99/month until APRIL 1 and $13.99/month thereafter to reflect the addition of the SIRIUS shows, which will be made available about 36 hours after the shows air on SIRIUS.
Game Plan Schedule Saturday, Nov. 19th
Fortunately, there is a much more interesting HD College Football Schedule (listed at the top of the very first post in this thread) available this Saturday. In fact, it is about the most extensive HD college football Saturday I can remember. But if you need to look elsewhere for your pigskin fun, here is this week’s Game Plan lineup. (All times Eastern, and channel assignments are on DirecTV.)
12:00 PM
Ch. 775 - Northwestern @ Illinois
Ch. 776 - Cincinnati @ South Florida
12:30 PM
Ch. 777 - Kentucky @ Georgia (14)
Ch. 778 - Vanderbilt @ Tennessee
3:00 PM
Ch. 775 - Utah @ BYU
Ch. 776 - Idaho @ Boise State
Ch. 777 - Nevada @ Utah State
6:00 PM
Ch. 776 - New Mexico State @ San Jose State
7:00 PM
Ch. 777 - California @ Stanford
Ch. 778 - Clemson @ South Carolina (19)
8:00 PM
Ch. 775 - Wyoming @ San Diego State
Thursday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s analysis of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the second post in this thread.
George Thompson
11-18-05, 11:55 AM
NBC UNIVERSAL, P2P FIRM LAUNCH ON - DEMAND FILMS
By Staff, Hollywood Reporter, 11/18/2005
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - NBC Universal has struck a deal with technology and commerce specialist Wurld Media that will make selected movies available for on-demand downloading via peer-to-peer distribution early next year.
NBC Universal said it marks the first time a major studio has licensed content to a P2P service.
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based Wurld Media is one of the companies striving to rehabilitate the image of P2P, whose distribution technology is popular among pirates. Its main competitors in the legitimate P2P space include PassAlong, Intent Media, iMesh and Snocap-powered services like Mashboxx.
NBC Universal added that it partnered with Wurld Media because of its commitment to carry only authorized content on its secure Peer Impact network.
The companies have not yet determined the fees that it will charge for film downloads. NBC Universal said it would offer all of the titles that are available on its existing video-on-demand and pay-per-view services carried by cable and satellite operators. That means a range of contemporary releases -- including ``The 40-Year-Old Virgin,'' ``Cinderella Man,'' ``Ray'' and ``The Motorcycle Diaries'' -- as well as 75-100 older titles from the Universal library.
The deal at present does not include any NBC Universal-produced TV series, but it does cover special programs that NBC Universal offers on VOD/PPV such as ``Jerry Springer: Uncensored,'' uncensored versions of the syndicated dating shows ``5th Wheel'' and ``Blind Date'' and the Spanish-language novela ``Laura Sin Censura.''
Peer Impact users will be able to view the films for a 24-hour period once they hit the ``play'' button on their computers. The file will remain on a user's computer for 30 days in an effort to hasten the download speeds of other Peer Impact users who purchase the same titles, because P2P gains speed and efficiency with each additional copy of content on the network.
Consumers log on to the secure network, where they can preview clips of all available content. Payment is due upon checkout, though Gregory Kerber, chairman and CEO of Wurld Media, said many users choose to keep a balance to draw from.
Kerber said the strength of NBC Universal's brand will help overcome users' lack of technical knowledge. ``This is content they know, so that will give people a sense of familiarity,'' he said. ``People won't need to know P2P, they'll just know the convenience it gives them at a price point they find worthwhile.''
The November Sweep
(From Marc Berman’s Friday, November 18, 2005 Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
Half-Time Results
Midway through the November 2005 sweep, which consists of less stunting and more of an emphasis on regularly scheduled programming, CBS has extended its lead in total viewers, while moving into the No. 1 spot among adults 18-49. Based on ratings from Nov. 3 through Nov. 16, CBS holds an advantage over an improved No. 2 ABC of 3.09 million viewers and 5 percent among adults 18-49. CBS is close to year-ago levels, while ABC is up by margins of 10 and 8 percent, respectively.
Although fourth-place Fox (which will, no doubt, improve its ranking after American Idol returns) is also on par with the first two weeks in November 2004, all is not well at distant No. 4 NBC. Year-to-year, NBC is down by 14 percent in total viewers and 20 percent among adults 18-49. UPN and the WB remain neck-and-neck for the No. 5 position, with results mirroring one year earlier.
What follows are the results for the first two weeks (or one-half) of the November 2005 sweep (with change versus the comparable year-ago period in parentheses):
Total Viewers:
CBS: 14.62 million (- 2)
ABC: 11.53 (+10)
NBC: 9.40 (-14)
Fox: 7.32 (+ 4)
UPN: 3.77 (- 3)
WB: 3.62 (- 8)
Adults 18-49:
CBS: 4.5/12 (- 6)
ABC: 4.3/11 (+ 8)
NBC: 3.3/ 9 (-20)
Fox: 3.1/ 8 (no change)
UPN and WB: 1.5/ 4 (- 4 each)
Source: Nielsen Media Research data
(From Marc Berman’s Friday, November 18, 2005 Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
TV Tidbits: Notes of Interest
New Faces on Fox’s "24":
The fifth-season of Fox drama 24, which returns in January, will feature Julian Sands (A Room with a View), Peter Weller (Robo Cop) and JoBeth Williams (The Big Chill). 24 will kick-off with a two-night, four-hour event on Sunday, Jan. 15 and Monday, Jan. 16, from 8-10 p.m. ET.
Correction:
UPN sitcom Love, Inc. which airs out of Everybody Hates Chris on Thursday, has been renewed for the remainder of the season, and not on the fence as reported yesterday.
Reader Feedback: Without A Trace
“While CBS’ 'Without a Trace' is a top 10 show thanks, in part, to its CSI lead-in, I don't think it gets the attention it deserves. Last night’s episode was one of the best hours of television I have seen in recent years. It took the regular formula, and reversed it, to see the events unfold in the eyes of a missing teenager's parents. This episode of 'Without A Trace' was a masterpiece, and deserves Emmy recognition.
Without A Trace does not always have happy endings, and they have characters that are all flawed in many ways. Sometimes you root for them, while at other moments you can't stand them. And every week, it delivers an hour of top-notch drama with outstanding performances. I wish more people talked about Without A Trace at the water cooler the way other shows often are.
-Andrew Brandner, Hartsdale, NY
Marc Berman Comments:
Had Without A Trace started a trend instead of riding on the wave of momentum, chances are more people -- critics, in particular -- would be taken notice. Even so, Without A Trace is a key part of CBS’ strategy, and is expected to be around well into the future.
Programming notes: A last hurrah for Jennings
MediaLifeMagazine.com--The late Peter Jennings will make one last TV appearance on ABC. The network said yesterday that on Dec. 15 it will air the final documentary reported by Jennings, entitled “Peter Jennings Reporting: Breakdown -- America's Health Insurance Crisis.”
Shot months before his death on Aug. 7, it will open with an introduction from Charles Gibson.
In other programming, ABC’s “Alias” is expected take over “Invasion’s” Wednesday 10 p.m. timeslot for two weeks starting on Dec. 7, airing the final two episodes from last season in an effort to goose ratings for the Thursday show as star Jennifer Garner goes on maternity leave.
“Invasion” will reclaim the Wednesday slot on Dec. 21, and originals of “Alias” will return in midseason. CBS, confident that tonight’s “Close to Home” will perform as well as it did last Friday, has scheduled the show for next Friday as well.
NBC will air the new Howie Mandel-hosted game show “Deal or No Deal” on four nights next month, from Dec. 19 to 22 at 8 p.m.
http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/cat_index_31.asp
Critic’s Notebook
Network overboard!
By Kay McFadden Seattle Times Friday, November 18, 2005
Underwater dreams supposedly symbolize that you're in over your head. No wonder NBC's remake of "The Poseidon Adventure" feels like a cry for help.
"The Poseidon Adventure" airs at 8 p.m. Sunday and is the Peacock's latest water-fixated production. Other examples have been "Penn & Teller: Off the Deep End" and the sea-monster series "Surface."
Perhaps the ocean is an inevitable setting as TV runs through an epidemic of disaster flicks. What with "Category 6: Day of Destruction" and "10.5" having used up so much land last season, location scouts must turn to the cheap and beckoning Pacific.
But the cheap and beckoning metaphor provides a better explanation. "The Poseidon Adventure" isn't merely the latest sign of NBC's flailing effort to stay above the fourth-place waterline; its crummy execution embodies the wreck of a once-titanic network.
Wiser heads might have avoided this glacier in the first place. What audiences got from "The Poseidon Adventure" in 1972 was a front-row seat at the start of a trend and the end of an era. The movie worked because while kids enjoyed the novel disaster elements, their parents paid homage to actors who had thrilled them years earlier.
The cast had Oscar winners Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons and Shelley Winters — past their prime, yet still kicking in every sense. The scene where Winters as the zaftig Belle Rosen swims her way to heroism and then dies is a peak in sentimental schlock.
Utilizing old stars was big in the 1970s, when Hollywood went nostalgic for its past. But the formula's limits were clear by 1979. Shirley Jones, Karl Malden and Slim Pickens couldn't create magic in the sequel "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure."
And neither do the stars on Sunday's voyage, although blaming the actors isn't entirely fair. Adam Baldwin, Steve Guttenberg, Bryan Brown and Sylvia Syms, among others, simply match a project driven by expedience.
An overly explanatory teleplay adds the stalest of twists: This time, terrorists set off a bomb and flip the ship. The Department of Homeland Security and the military are dragged in, undermining the sweaty personal dramas at the core of the story. The special effects are just OK.
Some actors endure. Rutger Hauer actually improves on Gene Hackman's old role as religious leader. Syms really works that final, fatal swim. Brown seems to have taken tips from Michael Caine on earning one's pay without getting too involved.
The effort to gull curious viewers with sensation instead of substance isn't a singular crime in TV. CBS just gave us "Vampire Bats" and "Category 7: The End of the World."
But CBS has enough hits to offset such trash. For NBC, "The Poseidon Adventure" is a higher-stakes event — and an SOS. The network better pray there'll be a morning after.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002630269&zsection_id=2002119662&slug=kay18&date=20051118
I have posted a few items by Ken Parish-Perkins and found him an interesting read.
Too bad.
Star-Telegram busts critic for lifting from EW
MediaLifeMagazine.com--It’s fine, as a fellow TV critic, to admire the writing in Entertainment Weekly; it is not fine to pass that writing off as your own. Fort Worth Star-Telegram TV critic Ken Parish Perkins resigned this week after a reader pointed out just such a lapse. An entire paragraph of background information in Perkins’ Nov. 10 piece on “Lost” was lifted directly from Entertainment Weekly without proper attribution.
The paper subsequently investigated all of Perkins’ work since July 2003 and found several more instances of borrowed phrasing and sentences, which is a violation of its ethics policy. When confronted, Perkins resigned.
In a column published yesterday, the paper’s ombudsman, David House, said the paper had not suspected Perkins of any ethical lapses and would not have realized the problem if not for the alert reader.
It's unclear why exactly Perkins lifted the material. Executive editor Jim Witt called Perkins one of the paper’s best writers and hardest workers.
http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/cat_index_31.asp
This was supposed to be filed here a few days ago when it first appeared. But I forgot. Oops.
However its thoughts are just as relevant as they were a few days ago, so here it is:
The Digital Revolution
The Brave New World of TV
By J. Max Robins Broadcasting & Cable
The week that just passed will be remembered as the one that changed television forever.
In breathless succession, a slew of alliances were announced: First Yahoo! and TiVo, then an NBC Universal and DirecTV video-on-demand (VOD) pact, followed mere hours later by a VOD deal between CBS and Comcast.
While the industry was still sorting out those bombshells, America Online announced new programming offerings, including one in which AOL will feature TV shows from corporate sibling Warner Bros. Studios (see story, page 20). As if that wasn’t enough, the Associated Press and Microsoft finalized a deal to deliver video online to 3,500 AP subscribers.
Yes, I know that just because last week was the week TV truly changed forever, it doesn’t mean prime time will change tonight. I share the healthy skepticism of this week’s cover story, which makes a cogent case for doubting claims that the Internet giants are going to take over TV as we know it (see page 10).
I feel the pain of those in the station business who believe they’ve been betrayed because their “most valuable real estate” is being washed away by the raging stream of deals, including the one that Disney made with Apple for iPod video weeks ago. It’s easy to understand the station folks’ ire when such hits as Desperate Housewives, CSI and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit are slated to become downloadable staples.
I’m realistic, too, about the near-term threat of these recent deals. There’s still a long way to go before you start receiving TV bills that resemble a Tapas menu instead of a cable or satellite bill.
Still, give what’s percolating now a little time to get going. We’re going to have financial models for a wide range of VOD deals. From the ABC/Disney deal, we now know that major media players believe a monster hit like Lost makes sense at $1.99 per episode, while a cable hit like Monk works at a price point of 99 cents.
Surely, everybody looking to get into this game is now running numbers, trying to figure out the correct price point for their own deals to make sense. This is the time where everyone in the industry is doing some soul-searching, with an eye on a calculator. How do advertisers get involved? What does this do to the DVD market? Is there a piece of the action for syndicators? For stations? How many more layers are there to the back-end—from producers to actors to studios to distributors, who gets what and when?
With an increasing amount of A-list shows becoming available on-demand, how high does the value soar of TV properties—such as sports events and watercooler shows with time-sensitive reveals like Survivor and American Idol—that are VOD-proof, especially if they allow seamless product placement?
We won’t have to wait too long for the answers to these kinds of questions.
The onslaught of deals last week was remarkable because it made clear that virtually all the major media families have come to the same conclusion. They are cutting deals that in some cases—Disney and Comcast jump to mind—mark a major shift in corporate policy from mere months ago, when such arrangements were thought of as sleeping with the enemy.
It’s like the Bonanos, Lucheses, Gambinos, Columbos and Genoveses all decided to go to the zoo instead of the mattresses—or at least split up various neighborhoods with as little violence as possible.
Make no mistake—last week a bunch of giants took much more than baby steps toward that day when there is only one network: the ever-evolving channel that viewers design for themselves.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6283403.html?display=Max+Robins&referral=SUPP
TV Ratings
“Apprentice” regains some of its juice
NBC show hits second-best rating among 18-49s
By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Nov 18, 2005
In a magazine article published this month, Martha Stewart claimed that NBC wanted her to replace Donald Trump on the original “Apprentice.” But it looks like the Donald still has some juice in him.
Unlike the past two seasons, Trump’s “Apprentice” is actually starting to build as the season finale nears. Last night “Apprentice” tied its second-best overnight rating of the season among adults 18-49, a 4.9. It came airing opposite the much-hyped conclusion of a two-part “CSI” episode on CBS.
That’s up 4 percent over his 4.7 season-to-date average. More impressive, the show was up 7 percent over the 4.6 average for the first four weeks of the season.
Perhaps with Martha’s cancellation and Trump forever in the news, people are once again getting interested in “The Apprentice.” Certainly the show seems to have at least erased any thoughts that it will take a steep tumble during the second half of the season as it did last spring, when ratings dipped by more than 10 percent from start to finish.
It also makes a fifth edition of “Apprentice” seem like a good idea. Many have called the franchise tired and wondered if NBC would get rid of it after the spring. If Trump’s ratings continue to show some growth, that becomes less likely.
http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_1407.asp
Critic’s Notebook
You can TiVo, but you can't hide
By Kay McFadden Seattle Times Friday, November 18, 2005
Last Monday, "Medium" finally jolted me out of my usual puzzlement over its Top 20 status.
Halfway through the episode, Patricia Arquette's character and her husband began to rave about going to see the new Sony film "Memoirs of a Geisha." The scene was followed immediately by a commercial break and a promo for ... "Memoirs of a Geisha."
Paid-for product mentions have begun popping up in other shows. Eva Longoria's bad girl recently became a Buick spokesbitch on ABC's "Desperate Housewives." All the cool kids are doing it.
The development has pros and cons. A reader recently asked if federal laws limit commercial time on network TV. The answer is no, except for children's programs. European Union countries set a maximum of 12 minutes per hour in prime time; the unregulated U.S. average is now about 20.
American viewers, not surprisingly, have embraced TiVo and DVR technology that lets them skip ads. Networks have countered with more product placement in shows and sponsorships like the new one between CBS' "60 Minutes" and Royal Philips Electronics.
In that arrangement, Philips gets to be the sole advertiser and in turn cut the usual number of spots in half, from 12 to six. Other networks have similar deals, though often on a single-program basis: Sony sponsored the September return of FX's "Nip/Tuck."
Sponsors usually mean fewer ads. But some watchdogs perceive a problem. What if Philips does something that requires a "60 Minutes" investigation? The same question has come up for years in public television, where corporate underwriters are the norm for many types of programming.
Meanwhile, the rising tide of product mentions has riled a Hollywood group — the Writers Guild of America (WGA).
The union threatened this week to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission over TV product-placement if producers did not start negotiating with the WGA on how commercials are woven into story lines.
"Along with being asked to create memorable stories and characters, our writers are being told to perform the function of ad copywriter, but to disguise this as story telling," read part of a statement released Monday.
You could quibble a bit. The Alan Alda-Jimmy Smits live debate on "The West Wing" openly promoted NBC News. That can't have been hard to work into the script, even if it raises an eyebrow over blurring news and entertainment.
I do sympathize with the implied corruption of the creative process and the WGA's hints for monetary compensation. If you add brand-touting to your duties, a residual seems in order, which may be why the Screen Actors Guild has backed the WGA.
Then again, mental anguish is in a writer's job description. How bad can it be to create a competition touting the movie "Zathura" when you already work on "The Apprentice"?
The weirdest aspect of weaving product placement into story lines is that it's becoming a badge of success. Advertisers are less likely to clamor for mention on "Life With Fran" or "Night Stalker" or "The Poseidon Adventure."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002630269&zsection_id=2002119662&slug=kay18&date=20051118
A note of caution:
The Howard Stern situation as it eveolved over the past day on this thread is very disturbing to me. I would prefer not to debate rumors here, and certainly I do my best to keep mis-information or mis-understood information to a minimum.
I work very hard to keep this thread credible and informative. Once it loses its credibility it loses its usefulness to those who read it.
So please be careful posting items here unless you are very sure of their validity. No offense is meant here, but if you don't have experience in an area, or directly with the media you are quoting, be wary.
For example, George Thompson, with a lifetime of experience, is one of many participants here who often posts items of interest. But he knows the subjects he is posting about and has good (and many) reasons to believe what he posts is factual material.
I am not trying to censor anyone in any way, but I would ask that if you are unsure of a story, or whether a source is a good one or not, please, please contact me before posting to the thread.
House, Senate Must Reconcile Differences in Competing DTV Bills
By Doug Halonen TVWeek.com November 18, 2005
The House of Representatives voted 217-215 early Friday morning to approve a major budget bill that includes a provision that would force broadcasters to make the switch to digital TV by Dec. 31, 2008. The Senate previously approved legislation that also sets a deadline for the transition. But since the Senate set its deadline for April 7, 2009, the actual date won't be known until House and Senate leaders meet in conference to work out the differences between their DTV bills-something that's expected to happen as early as December.
During the conference, lawmakers will also have to iron out other differences between the House and Senate bills, including how large a federal subsidy to provide to help consumers buy digital-to-analog converter boxes to ensure that analog-only TV sets will continue to be able to receive over-the-air broadcast signals after the transition. The Senate legislation provides up to $3 billion for the subsidies, while the House bill would cap federal payments at $990 million.
The House legislation approved also contains a series of controversial provisions that aren't included in the Senate measure, including one that would require broadcasters to provide more than $5 billion in advertising time to promote the DTV transition on-air.
Another controversial provision in the House bill that is opposed by the National Association of Broadcasters would allow cable TV operators to downconvert high-definition broadcast signals to standard definition DTV for five years after the transition.
Also during the five-year period, the House legislation would require most cable TV operators to carry analog and digital versions of must-carry broadcast signals to ensure that cable customers equipped with analog-only TV sets won't have to get a new set-top converter box to continue receiving broadcast signals.
http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=8937
House Passes DTV Bill
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable
The full House passed the budget reconciliation bill 217 to 215 in the wee hours of Friday morning. House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Tex.) cast the last vote, but don't look for a final bill on a DTV hard date or converter box subsidy anytime soon.
Passing intact as part of that legislation was the Commerce Committee's DTV transition bill.
That bill sets a hard date of Dec. 31, 2008, for the cut-off of analog TV service and the return of spectrum for auction, bringing billions to the treasury--some say as much as $30 billion.
But before Uncle Sam gets his hands on that money, $990 million will be set aside for a converter box to let analog-only sets receive a DTV signal after analog is cut-off on that date. The bill also contains a number of other DTV-related items, including money for first responders, a consumer education campaign and TV set labeling, and provisions for allowing cable to convert an HDTV signal to standard DTV, and DTV to analog.
Now comes the hard work of reconciling that bill in conference with the already-passed Senate version, which sets aside $3 billion for a subsidy, sets an April 7, 2009, hard date, and gives twice as much money to first responders (over a billion versus $500 million). But that is about all it does because Senate rules prevent legislating on appropriations bills.
The gulf between the two subsidies is philosophical as well as monetary.
The House version is a first-come, first-served plan that rewards the first people who get an application, apply to the government for the subsidy, then redeem the coupons for $40 toward a converter box (up to two coupons per household).
The subsidy will only cover the first 10 million or so households who need them. Some estimates put the number of analog-only households at over 20 million, including many older people and minorities who might not have access to online forms or be eager to have extended dealing with the government.
The Senate subsidy would cover all who need the box, simply sending everyone $40 coupons. Republicans see that plan as a welfare program, while Democrats frame the House versions as an attempt to save tax cuts by returning most of the billions from analog spectrum auctions for deficit reduction at the expense of minorities and poorer people who most need the DTV subsidy.
The Senate Commerce Committee plans to deal in a second bill with a number of the issues it had hoped to deal with in the first, including cable conversion of the DTV signal, set labeling, and perhaps mandatory cable carriage of a broadcasters digital multicast signals.
Since the conferenced bill must also meet the Byrd rule test for not legislating on appropriations bills, the House might have to knock out some of the provisions not directly related to a hard date and subsidy and deal with those in a second bill of its own.
Whatever the outcome, the conference negotiations are likely to stretch into 2006, if they even begin before the legislature returns from its winter break in January.
Critic’s Notebook: Sports on TV
Pregame shows can lead to better game ratings
By Michael Hiestand USA Today
When TV broadcast networks were superpowers — with a virtual stranglehold on all the American eyeballs peering at electronic screens — their Cold War was fought across time slots.
Today, that seems quaint. Asking, say, whether broadcast network news shows are even relevant anymore might be more telling than asking which network is winning the evening news ratings race. In TV sports, games overwhelm viewers from every direction — cable, satellite, broadband — and obscure the old 20th-century broadcast network rivalries.
But there's one TV sports hot spot where broadcasters battle head-to-head with shows they create — the NFL pregame shows. The old saw on that: The network with the NFC game package, now Fox, has more big TV markets than the network with the AFC package, now CBS, so the NFC pregame show inevitably will win the pregame ratings race.
Which is true. The idea is that fans likely will tune into pregame shows on channels where they'll later see their team play. The NFC has teams in all the top 10 TV markets except Los Angeles and Boston. That helps Fox; its pregame ratings are 200% better than CBS' in NFC cities
But there's more to the story. The overall ratings for Fox's pregame show this season are down 11% from this point last season, and CBS' are down just 4%. Still, Fox is averaging 3.2% of U.S. households, CBS 2.3% — a 39% gap.
That might sound like a big difference, but the gap hasn't been that small in two years.
However, CBS doesn't seem to have made big inroads in places that would seem to be up for grabs — cities without NFL teams. Of the 56 major TV markets used to compile overnight TV ratings, 26 don't have teams. In those cities, which account for about 22% of U.S. TV households, Fox's pregame advantage over CBS is almost identical to its national lead — 40%. In Los Angeles, the biggest market without an NFL team, Fox's lead is 117%.
For ESPN's pregame show, every place is a neutral market — it doesn't air Sunday afternoon NFL games. Still, it manages to draw the equivalent of 1.8% of U.S. households.
On tap
CBS had first rights to Saturday night's Clemson-South Carolina game and passed. Then ESPN passed. When regional syndicator Jefferson-Pilot also passed, the game was headed for local TV pay-per-view in South Carolina — until South Carolina politicians protested the cruelty of capitalism and ESPN decided to air the game regionally in South Carolina.
ESPN has tested regionalized coverage, which broadcast networks routinely use to build ratings. But ESPN's Josh Krulewitz says this latest move isn't part of a new plan to regionalize more: "We have no plans to alter our national programming strategy.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2005-11-17-hiestand-nfl-pregame-shows_x.htm
chris_h2
11-18-05, 02:05 PM
NBC UNIVERSAL, P2P FIRM LAUNCH ON - DEMAND FILMS
By Staff, Hollywood Reporter, 11/18/2005
Peer Impact users will be able to view the films for a 24-hour period once they hit the ``play'' button on their computers. The file will remain on a user's computer for 30 days in an effort to hasten the download speeds of other Peer Impact users who purchase the same titles, because P2P gains speed and efficiency with each additional copy of content on the network.
Argh! They are going to use my storage for 29 days?!? Are they gonna pay me for that? What if I do not want to share the bandwidth of my pipe when another user is pulling it down from my machine? Boy am I glad that I do not use P2P.
Since I do not use it, maybe I am missing something here. Please feel free to edumacate me.
Some Ratings definitons
Many of you read the daily ratings and aren’t sure about the different methodology -- or terms -- used.
Here is the explanation of the two major overnight ratings sources from Nielsen itself:
Metered Market Overnight Ratings: This is normally the first available ratings information, and consists of household ratings and shares based on the electronic measurement service that Nielsen Media Research provides in 56 of the nation’s largest markets. In each market a separate sample of homes is selected to represent that individual market. Often, networks or syndicators provide metered market information as an early indicator of a program’s performance. In aggregate, the 56 metered markets represent 75,427,430 homes, or 69.58% of all U.S. TV households.
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not useful for live programs, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, on Monday Night Football, ABC’s Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 9-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 6PM PT. The same would be true of Major League Baseball Playoffs and Presidential debates. “
Since Marc Berman issued a correction to his list of the status of new prime-time programs, I thought I should repost the corrected list:
(From Marc Berman’s Thursday, November 17, 2005 Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
Freshman Series Scorecard: Primetime Recap
What follows is the updated status of the 31 new primetime series.
ABC
Commander in Chief: full season renewal.
Freddie: full season renewal.
Hot Properties: on the fence.
Invasion: full season renewal.
Night Stalker: canceled.
CBS
Close To Home: expected full season renewal.
Criminal Minds: full season renewal.
Ghost Whisperer: full season renewal.
How I Met Your Mother: full season renewal.
Out Of Practice: full season renewal.
Threshold: three additional scripts ordered.
NBC:
The Apprentice: Martha Stewart: canceled.
E-Ring: full season renewal.
Inconceivable: canceled.
My Name Is Earl: full season renewal.
Surface: full season renewal.
Three Wishes: additional order for six episodes canceled.
Fox:
Bones: full season renewal.
Head Cases: canceled.
Killer Instinct: three additional episodes ordered.
Kitchen Confidential: canceled.
Prison Break: full season renewal.
Reunion: on the fence.
The War at Home: full season renewal.
UPN:
Everybody Hates Chris: full season renewal.
Love, Inc.: renewed.
Sex, Love & Secrets: canceled.
WB:
Just Legal: canceled.
Related: six more episodes ordered.
Supernatural: full season renewal.
Twins: five more episodes ordered.
Critic’s Notebook:
“Desperate” dims; “Curb” still calls for enthusiasm
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Friday, November 18, 2005
There are strange and stringent demands in the world of television, and when they are not met -- utter weirdness and bedlam.
Viewers have demands they enforce both knowingly and unknowingly. Expecting something more or different from Martha Stewart -- and not getting it -- the viewers revolt and stay away. Excitedly anticipating a remake worthy of the original "Night Stalker" -- and not getting it -- the buzz dies and the series is killed. Aggrieved and annoyed fans feel hurt and angry that the rest of the country doesn't view "Arrested Development" the way they do -- and a network ultimately rises up and speaks for the masses and the bottom line.
Nobody cared that "Joey" was spun off one of the most successful sitcoms of all time. Networks can create as many can't-fail star vehicles as they wish -- but the audience will always decide. That never changes.
What then to make of all this talk, bubbling up through at least a portion of the masses and given credence by critics, that two of television's most acclaimed series -- "Desperate Housewives" on ABC and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO -- have taken turns for the worse?
Partially right, mostly wrong, for very different reasons.
Let's start with the show 26 million people watch every Sunday, the second most popular show on television, "Desperate Housewives." Has it faltered? You bet it has. But in ways not necessarily as dire as presented at the water cooler.
It's true that one of the main weaknesses of "Desperate Housewives" is that the stars are assembled into so meagerly coherent a story line. At times the series has played out as a less-than-intricate collection of short stories, rather than a novel everyone seems to crave. The writing has not been as crisp -- also true -- and when executive producer, creator and writer Marc Cherry came to the defense of his writers earlier this season, saying, in effect, that even though he hadn't written any scripts, his fingerprints were still on them and he approved of each episode, it was either an overly kind act of parental protection or proof that the series was well off course.
What's more accurate is this: The recipe that "Desperate Housewives" used in its freshman season to completely and stunningly entrap a nation was a souffle of intricate proportions -- one inelegantly recooked this season. By contrast, a cop show is mere spaghetti. It takes real effort to mess it up.
"Desperate Housewives" is a hyper-real kind of nighttime soap opera, a brightly lit, broadly played allegory of suburban life. One false move and it becomes a spoof, a minor variation over there and it becomes schmaltz. What the country embraced last year was a season of creative plate spinning that was not only ridiculously successful, but also nearly felled Cherry. Literally sick from overwork, he vowed to take it easier this year.
You can make the argument that his leaving the writing to others has produced a -- if not tone-deaf, then toneless -- reproduction of his original. But it's more likely that even if the immensely talented Cherry had written every word, "Desperate Housewives" would still have stumbled creatively. It was inevitable.
Though most critics weren't as easily smitten as viewers during the first season, there's no denying that the women of Wisteria Lane were intoxicating -- a result of dramatic flash, fiercely written dialogue and wonderful dramatic acting. Everybody's story, even those of the minor characters, was interesting. And it didn't hurt that the pilot featured the suicide of the narrator, leading to a seasonlong story arc that addressed why she killed herself and in the process unraveled many mysteries.
This season? We already know why Mary Alice shot herself. With the damage done, her family -- husband, alleged son -- has proved less than intriguing. The romances on the street are either tired (Susan and Mike), boring (Lynette and Tom), pointless (Gabrielle and Carlos) or stupid (Edie and Karl). Only Bree's weird dalliance with creepy pharmacist-killer George holds any interest, and that lost its mileage when George used that psycho smile for the 100th time.
The arrival of Betty and son Matthew -- with crazy Caleb in the basement -- has been nothing if not insipid. And "Desperate Housewives" outed itself at the Emmys by opting to be in the comedy category. There has been precious little humor in this series and, at least this season, none of it very evident or worth the investment in the absurd premises the writers demand for each punch line. Face it, this is a drama, and this season "Desperate Housewives" has been dramatically worse than last season.
But wait -- this isn't scorn or piling on. It's a reaffirmation of two things: (1) that last year's show was sublimely rare, a longshot fan favorite with a big kick down the stretch, and (2) it's nearly impossible to do that twice.
It could be that "Desperate Housewives" will never be as good as the first season and, if you want to look back with clear eyes and cold blood, it really wasn't that great in the first place. But Cherry is very talented and he should not be counted out. "Desperate Housewives" is a tough creative balancing act, and though it has stumbled this year, it won't completely topple in coming seasons. Look for a return to balance, if not form.
In comparison, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has proved its brilliance episode after episode, season after season. That's four, if you're counting. Some seasons have been better than others, some individual episodes vastly superior to others. Now in its fifth season, "Curb" is no different. It didn't help that the first episode was flat and that the misses have been more glaring (maybe because the hits were so hilariously obvious?). But it's far too early and certainly ill-advised to suggest that "Curb" has gone downhill. Sideways, maybe. But when the season ends, a true evaluation will most likely reveal that this was a season like any other.
What viewers are griping about probably stems from overfamiliarity and predictability. Look, as dipped in genius as this series has been, the premise is not too difficult: Larry David, like Curious George before him, gets into a lot of trouble. Mostly, it's wince-inducing trouble. It's a torturous kind of humor for the viewer, where you find yourself recoiling into the couch to escape Larry's awkward social situations, the unfiltered passageway between his brain and his mouth.
Creating that conflict is, well, labor intensive. When "Curb" is painfully brilliant it's because separate comedic themes all come together seamlessly by the end of the half hour. Larry's antics cause a ripple effect that grows more hilarious as the episode goes on, and viewers appreciate the contortions Larry and friends have gone through -- ridiculous as they may be -- to ensure our belly laugh. At it's best, "Curb" is audacious and childish at the same time.
Only now, perhaps, five seasons into the show, we're seeing just how much labor goes into the delivery. We are familiar with it. When Larry gets a sandwich named after him, you immediately know it won't be good enough. In "The Christ Nail," if you didn't see the punch line(s) coming, then you've never watched the show closely enough. "Kamikaze Bingo"? An implosion of good intent. "Lewis Needs a Kidney"? Much, much better.
This is probably how "Curb Your Enthusiasm" will play out its season. Wonderfully inspired highs and lows that bemoan (and betray) our unfettered loyalty. The obstacle in the series is that sometimes we know that Larry can't be that clueless, that uninterested in others, that prone to embarrassing situations.
Now, when he gets into those situations, ever more elaborately, we're not that impressed. Five seasons on, we can count off the beat, the pause and sometimes even the punch line. Does this make it less funny? Sometimes -- but not with alarming frequency. Loyal viewers are still getting what they've always got from "Curb Your Enthusiasm" -- a jolt to the side, a reaffirmation that mean-spiritedness is not only wholly inappropriate but also wildly funny.
The difference this year is we're less startled by Larry's antics. But as long as he delivers a laugh more often than not, what's the crime in seeing them coming? That's not failure -- it's familiarity. And certainly no reason for David or HBO to get all desperate on us.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/18/DDGM2FPE451.DTL&type=printable
The 2005-2006 TV Season
Ask Matt
(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
Question: I'm not sure how to respond to the news of Arrested Development being canceled without a string of obscenities. I knew that it was going to happen eventually, but I still say to Fox: coo-coo-coo coo-coo-coo coo-coo (clap, clap, clap). — J.P.
Matt Roush: And thus (with a much-needed smile, I hope: thanks for channeling the chicken dance, J.P.) we begin the mourning for Arrested Development, whose curtailed (and almost certainly final) season generated by miles the most mail of any topic so far this season. I wish I had the resources to print more of the eloquent, angry (and sometimes amusing — again, thanks, J.P.) responses to this situation. As it is, I hope the non-fans will indulge the column — and yes, I also got quite a few inevitable "never liked it, don't care" e-mails — as we spend some time discussing the fallout of Fox's decision to call it quits after 13 episodes this season (and we don't even know when or if all of them will air).
________________________________________
Question: I wanted to be one of what I'm sure will be about four million people to say what a shame it is that Arrested Development finally bit the dust. Perhaps the worst part is that we were all so sure this was going to happen over the summer, but when news came that it had received a renewal for a full season, it was like a weight had been lifted from our collective shoulders. Now Fox cancels it mid-season? It's almost enough to make me boycott Fox altogether, but how can I turn my back on Prison Break and 24?
And I suppose we should be thankful that we even made it to a third season. That aside, I hope they can find a way to give the show a proper send-off and at least we still have the DVDs. It's just such a shame so many people missed out on this great show. While I've got you, I just wanted to throw in my support for the U.S. version of The Office. What a show! I know you have made public your distaste for the Yank version and perhaps the extremes of the Michael and Dwight characters, but I think you need to look again. Every episode has gotten better and better and the show is now at the top of my list of favorite comedies, along with Arrested and Scrubs. I think it is sad that people who loved the U.K. version (which I never watched, by the way) let their experience with that show affect their experience with a U.S. version that definitely has merit. And as others have argued, give me a half hour of The Office any day over a half hour of Joey and most of the other drab comedies out there right now. — David
Matt Roush: As I noted earlier this week, I am annoyed but not surprised by Fox's ultimate decision. I agree we should be thankful that we got as much of the show as we did, but the way Arrested was continually yanked around did neither the show nor its fans much good in the long run. I don't agree with those who think Arrested would have had more luck on another network. No other network, except maybe NBC (at its best), would even have attempted such a daring and innovative comedy, and even NBC would have shuttered it long before now.
Which brings me to The Office, a show that has improved a lot since its spring run. I'm glad NBC has picked it up for a full season, although if it disappeared, I'm not sure I'd really miss it. But the Jim and Pam characters are at least as good (maybe even better) than the Tim-Dawn counterparts of the original, and Steve Carell has toned down his portrayal of Michael, making him more bearable and even empathetic (although the NBC version sometimes strains in its attempts at poignance over pathos). I still can't abide Dwight, who feels like he's stumbled in from a standard-issue sitcom, but the overall tone of the show and most of the characters (including the temp, an inspired twist on the original format) generate such a feeling of uncomfortable realism that I'll admit the show has grown on me. Still, I think My Name Is Earl would be better off paired with Scrubs (which shouldn't be made to take a backseat to [B]The Office or to any NBC comedy).
________________________________________
Question: Now that Fox has sent Arrested Development to the quality-television graveyard, I'm really curious as to why they ever renewed it at all. Being thrown up against Monday Night Football, preempted during the World Series, then canceled after one more episode, it was obviously never given a fair chance to gain any traction on their schedule. Can you provide any insight into the mentality of the Fox (de)programmers who orchestrated this travesty? And is there any realistic chance this gem could be resurrected at another network — perhaps HBO? — Daniel E.
Matt Roush: To be generous to Fox (although I'm sure most of you wouldn't see the need), I have always believed in the network's belief in the show. Renewing it and pairing it with a similarly offbeat comedy in Kitchen Confidential was a good-faith effort of sorts (however feeble), but the death knell sounded when Fox moved Arrested off of Sunday. Not that it was a surprise. Given the audience tune-out after The Simpsons, there's a point at which you just have to face the business realities of the situation.
Arrested probably would have done no better on Wednesday (the only other feasible night) than on Monday, but it was sheer folly to expect the series to kick off a night; 8 pm/ET is way too early for a show this sophisticated and edgy. Still, I can't exactly condemn Fox for actually swinging the bat again, even if its heart may not have been in it this time. As for HBO picking it up (a theme I'll be returning to), don't count on it. The pay giant has often made it clear they're not in the business of assuming others' castoffs, even if it might drive some traffic to the channel from grateful fans. As I suggested in my Dispatch, Showtime is a much more logical option, but for now, that's mere speculation.
________________________________________
Question: Now that Arrested Development's run appears to be over, I was wondering what you think of how Fox handled the show over its three seasons. Fox definitely deserves some credit for sticking with the show longer than some other networks might have, but I feel very strongly that Fox blew several opportunities to expand the show's audience. Why, for example, didn't Fox put Arrested Development on after the Super Bowl during its first season (The Simpsons certainly didn't need any more national exposure)?
Also, I don't understand why Fox never tried putting the show on after episodes of American Idol to try to build up its audience base. House became a hit and gained a wider viewing audience because it had Idol as a lead-in and I don't see why the same thing couldn't have worked for Arrested. I just hope that another network will pick up this great show. NBC definitely needs some good sitcoms and Arrested would be a perfect companion piece to a show like Scrubs. Arrested would be a great substitution for the currently awful and unwatchable [B]Joey. — Matt
Matt Roush: Again, I wouldn't hold out much hope of another broadcast network picking up a series with cult potential at best. As for Fox not giving Arrested the Super Bowl or post-Idol berths, there's a solid argument against that strategy as well. Think of all the failed shows (none as good as Arrested, of course) that followed Friends and Seinfeld (or whatever the 8 and 9 pm/ET shows were) on NBC on Thursdays for years.
There's a downside to getting a cushy time period. If Arrested had been put into any of these high-profile slots only to generate a modest (or worse) turnout, its demise might have come even sooner. And this is far too demanding and bizarre a series to put at the end of a long night of Super Bowl programming. (Mainstream like The Simpsons is better, and far more suitable.) There's something to be said for being put where there are fewer expectations. Unfortunately, because Prison Break is doing reasonably well, Fox felt it was doing more harm than good as a lead-in.
And finally (for now), this rant from CoCo pretty much sums up the general mood toward Fox these days, and I'll let it stand without comment: "I know others have said it before, but I really don't understand TV executives. Why did Fox even order a show like Kitchen Confidential when they're not going to give it a chance? The network put all its advertising money behind Prison Break, but scheduled KC after a show that, while beloved, pulls in low ratings. KC gets three airings and gets pulled for baseball. On Nov. 6 Fox starts advertising its return set for Nov. 14, and then they pull it again and decide not to order the back nine episodes (and I won't hold my breath about it really returning Dec. 5, either). Why not give it and Arrested Development another shot in another time slot? Is the Fox lineup really so solid that there was no opportunity to find the right spot for these shows? Why run Prison Break into the ground with double airings, and not give these shows a chance to actually build an audience on Monday nights during sweeps? When will executives learn that having the patience of hyperactive monkeys does a disservice to viewers, and that's why so many people refuse to even start watching a show on Fox?"
________________________________________
Question: Now that Fox has all but canceled Arrested Development, and Kitchen Confidential looks like it's headed down the same road, does this open room for Prison Break to air Mondays with 24, or is American Idol taking up the spots? — Josh S.
Matt Roush: It's not entirely clear how Idol will be scheduled at mid-season, but the original plan (which still stands for now) is for House to move to Monday as a lead-in to 24, although I'm sure there will be occasional Idol Monday-night specials; Fox would probably just as soon air an Idol element every night of the week if they thought they could get away with it. Tuesdays will pair Idol with Bones, moved an hour later. There is a chance, I guess, that if Stacked continues to tank (we can only hope), then either Arrested or Kitchen will get some shots at a Wednesday slot, in and around Idol episodes. And there are always the graveyards of Thursdays and Fridays (where The Bernie Mac Show and Malcolm in the Middle are now buried). All in all, not a hopeful picture.
________________________________________
Question: Everybody has been saying that Desperate Housewives is in a slump. I'm not sure if that's an opinion I truly agree with, or merely one I've acquired from others who have been saying so pretty much since the day after the second-season premiere aired. Whatever the case, I have to say there is one part of the show that I have come to loathe: George. In the first season he was a creepy character who proved to be an interesting wrinkle in Bree and Rex's marriage.
This season, with Rex out of the picture, George has taken on a bigger role in Bree's life as well as the life of the show, and I, for one, can't say it has been for the better. We have gotten to see just what level of crazy he is, and to what lengths he will go to get what he wants. I mean, not only did he manipulate Bree into having sex with him when she obviously wasn't ready, but now he's killed her therapist and proposed to her just seven weeks after her husband's death (which he, of course, caused)! To me he is a highly unredeemable and unlikable character whom I don't love to hate, but merely hate. What do you think? — Amy
Matt Roush: First off, the Housewive’s slump. Last week's (Nov. 13) episode, the first this season with series creator Marc Cherry as the author, was a near-return to form: entertaining, amusing, eventful, a bit suspenseful, with some actual meaningful housewife interaction, especially where Bree and Gabrielle were concerned. I know Cherry says the writing of all episodes are overseen by him, but this was a marked improvement.
As for George: I agree, he is completely icky (and not in a good way), but I'm reasonably sure he'll be getting his comeuppance eventually. I have always enjoyed Roger Bart onstage (as Tony-winning Snoopy in the Charlie Brown revival, in The Producers and elsewhere) but this sexually ambiguous and smarmy psychopath isn't a great fit. I too will be happy when Bree moves on. What Housewives (and Bree, for that matter) is lacking these days is some hot new beefcake on the block. Alfre Woodard's son (romancing Bree's daughter now?) is a good starting point.
________________________________________
Question: I have been wondering what your thoughts were on the Nov. 9 episode of Lost. I haven't seen any talk about it and I am wondering if I am the only one who is mad about it. I have to admit that I disliked Shannon at first, but the character started to grow on me, especially after she and Sayid got together. Now she's gone. Why kill Shannon right after Boone? It just seems too easy. Can you help me understand this one, Matt? — Maria
Matt Roush: I was traveling on business last week and wasn't able to see the episode until the weekend, by which time I knew exactly what was going to happen (I'd known for weeks who would bite the dust, courtesy of working here, where there are few secrets and spoilers kept, regardless of how hard you try). Even so, I thought it was pretty powerful stuff, as I almost always do where Lost is concerned. For an explanation of "why," pick up the Nov. 21 issue of TV Guide. You may not agree with their reasoning, but it worked for me. Someone's gotta die — they've made that clear — and Shannon's exit may have been made more effective (as in: tragic) by the writers humanizing her, both in the relationship with Sayid and in her flashbacks. If a death on Lost had no impact, it would mean the show was failing in the area where it arguably works best: in its character development, something this show does better than anything else I can think of on TV.
Lisa also wrote in to express her unhappiness in losing Shannon and Maggie Grace from the show. An excerpt: "When Boone died, it was tragic but I was OK with his end, especially knowing that Shannon was still on the island so we could learn more about Boone through her (and we did get to see a bit more of Ian Somerhalder in last week's Shannon backstory). Now it seems as though we won't really be able to learn much about these two characters anymore (although it is J.J., so anything is possible). I did and didn't like the way Shannon was killed. I thought it was interesting to have Ana Lucia shoot her, thinking she was one of the "others." And how this horrible accident brings everyone to the same side of the island. That should allow for some good tension. And I'm always up for that, but Shannon didn't get to say goodbye. Boone at least got an episode to say goodbye. Obviously, life on the island will go on and there is no way I'm going to stop watching, but I just wanted to put it out there that someone was upset to see Shannon go. And since I just realized that this wasn't actually a question, let me ask you: How did you feel about Shannon's death?"
I'm at peace, especially knowing there will be consequences as the tribes merge in next week's episode.
________________________________________
Question: Matt, sorry to hear Over There has been cut. I guess the families of deployed soldiers might have had something to do with its ratings. I, for one, enjoyed the show, having been deployed to Iraq in the early '90s. When my son asks how it was for me, I have him watch the show. During this past run, I found myself armchair-editing the special effects, i.e., shooting the enemy with an "M2 .50 cal" is not likely. Shooting a guy with a M203 25 feet away and blowing him in half — not likely. I could go on and on, and the interaction between the chain of command and the squad members sure brought back some fond memories. I'll be the first to buy this once it's out on DVD. — Barry T., Retired U.S. Army
Matt Roush: I'm still getting quite a bit of mail about FX's hardly unexpected decision not to renew Over There. Frustrated e-mails like this from Jan K., who wrote: "It's a shame that more folks haven't tuned in to this incredible show. The acting is some of the best work I've ever seen, and the scripts show the reality our soldiers are facing in the Iraq war. Is the problem with advertisers who don't want to support a show with true-life moral dilemmas, or have they given in to political pressure? I know you'll say that enough people simply didn't watch, but there's got to be some way to keep this fine show on the air."
Sadly, the situation is that if more people had watched, FX very likely would have continued with a second season (this not being a network that is known for caving in to criticism from the standards/practices police or from politically motivated critics). I believe this was more a business than a creative decision, and given the turbulent climate in which we live, it's amazing a show this grim and topical ever saw the light of day, even for one season.
________________________________________
Question: I've seen some "experts" write that Everwood is doing well enough on Thursdays (relative to past WB performance) to please the network. Others say its performance is poor and it could be in trouble. What's the real story? Is this great show on track to return next season? If so, do you think it will stay on Thursday, or would the WB consider returning it to Monday to replace the now departing (finally) 7th Heaven? — Matt
Matt Roush: By WB's standards, the show is doing unexpectedly well on Thursdays — not quite as well as Smallville, but then, Clark isn't facing CSI, is he? Of all the networks taking on the big guns on Thursday, ABC is the one hurting the most. (See following letter.) I was assured before the season began that Everwood's future didn't hinge on its Thursday performance, but since it's doing OK there (considering), I'm sure it's safe for next year. It certainly deserves to be. The show is so enjoyable this season; loving Hannah and Bright, especially, but really, what's not to like? I would love to see Everwood return to Monday after 7th Heaven checks out, and be christened as TV's best (and most moving) family drama, which it has been for at least a year (notwithstanding the too-early departure of American Dreams, which is still much missed.)
________________________________________
Question: I just heard that Night Stalker is being canceled, and they are not going to be showing the second part of the two-parter. They are just giving it the ax. Yet crap like Stacked and Wife Swap are still on the air. What gives? Is the American viewing audience really getting that dumbed down that they watch crap, and shows like Night Stalker and Arrested Development are shut out? — Tim
Matt Roush: 'Fraid so, but you'd have to be asleep not to have known that Night Stalke r succeeding in the long term was improbable to impossible, even if you were a fan (which I wasn't, not because of the concept but because of the casting and the show's ponderous-to-pretentious tone). I wasn't surprised Night Stalker didn't make it, but I was annoyed for all the fans' sake that ABC yanked it in the middle of a two-parter. That's just wrong. Taking the long view, there will always be "crap" on the air, and there will always be people who would rather watch mindlessly grating swill (someone explain to me The War at Home, for instance) than become engaged in more challenging and memorable sorts of shows. But the failure rate for junk is pretty high, too, although I agree that lately it doesn't seem high enough. As this week has shown all too painfully, it isn't easy to be a true TV fan.
http://tvguide.com/tv/roush/askmatt/
The 2005-2006 TV Season
Downhill tumble for WB's “One Tree Hill”
Teens fail to follow throbber to Wednesday
By Abigail Azote MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Nov 18, 2005
Last year, high school sudser “One Tree Hill” looked well poised to become WB’s next teen drama smash, the heir apparent to “Dawson’s Creek.” So confident was the network in the show’s performance that it gave “Hill” a new timeslot, leading off Wednesday nights.
Now it looks like the move may have come too soon. The show’s core teen audience has not followed it to its new night, and ratings are in a tumble.
Since its Wednesday premiere five weeks ago, “Hill” has averaged 511,000 viewers 12-17, down 39 percent from last season, when it aired on Tuesdays at 9 and drew an average of 842,000 teens.
The third-year “Hill” is faring a little better in the demo compared to last year’s timeslot occupant, “Smallville,” up 4 percent from the latter’s 490,000 average. But that show has an older-skewing audience.
Among 12-34s, “Hill” is down 28 percent to 1.79 million versus last season’s average of 2.47 million. Compared to “Smallville,” it’s down 6 percent from the former’s 1.9 million average last year.
“I don’t think the program was as strong as the WB thought it was,” says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate research director at Horizon Media.
And Adgate finds it surprising that the show isn't winning the timeslot among teens when it’s the only program that specifically targets that demo. “Hill’s” biggest competitor, UPN’s “America’s Next Top Model,” squarely targets 18-34s. That show is averaging a 2.4 teen rating versus “Hill’s” 2.0.
Several factors appear to be behind "Hill's" dramatic decline, and leading the list is the loss of “Gilmore Girls” as its lead-in. Casual fans who tuned in to “Hill” after watching “Girls” Tuesday didn’t follow the show to Wednesday.
Adgate also says that the recent off-screen breakup of married “Hill” stars Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray, who was rumored to have cheated on her with Paris Hilton, may have angered the show’s young fans. It’s been the topic of much speculation on the message boards, where former fans have sworn to stop watching any show with Murray.
As the WB sees things, “Hill’s” decline is temporary, and its departure made way for a successful new show on Tuesday, "Supernatural." Says a WB spokesperson: “It takes a while for the audience to know that it’s [on a new night].” He also notes that both “Dawson’s Creek” and “Smallville” experienced similar slumps when they made the same schedule change in years past.
http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_1381.asp
The 2005-2006 TV Season
18-49 Ratings Week Ending Nov. 13th
# / Program / Net/ Viewers 18-49 (in millions)
1 Desperate Housewives ABC 14.352
2 CSI CBS 13.270
3 Grey's Anatomy ABC 11.513
4 NFL Monday Night Football ABC 11.403
5 Lost ABC 10.805
6 Survivor: Guatemala CBS 8.971
7 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. ABC 8.810
8 E.R. NBC 8.679
9 CSI: NY CBS 8.415
10 CSI: Miami CBS 8.354
11 Without A Trace CBS 8.235
12 NFL Monday Showcase ABC 7.912
13 The Simpsons FOX 7.237
14 Fox NFL Sunday Night Post-Game FOX 7.033
15 House FOX 6.887
16 Law and Order: SVU NBC 6.710
17 My Name Is Earl NBC 6.780
18 Two and a Half Mern MEN CBS 6.767
19 Apprentice 4 NBC 6.221
20 The Family Guy FOX 6.203
21 The Amazing Race 8 CBS 5.946
22 The OT FOX 5.831
23 Criminal Minds CBS 5.651
24 CBS Sunday Movie CBS 5.416
25 NCIS CBS 5.480
Source: Nielsen Media Research
Robert Blake found liable
A criminal jury acquitted one time “Baretta” star Robert Blake in the murder of his wife, but a civil jury announced a few minutes ago in Burbank, CA, that it believed Blake was behind the killing.
The jury, which deliberated for eight days, ordered Blake to pay Bonny Lee Bakley’s children $30 million.
Blake had been acquitted of the criminal charges last March.
Blake Liable for Wife's Murder
Jury in civil lawsuit awards children of Bonny Lee Bakley $30 million in damages
By Andrew Blankstein Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 1:07 PM PST, November 18, 2005
A jury today found Robert Blake liable under civil law for his wife's murder four years ago, and awarded her children $30 million in damages against him.
The 72-year-old entertainer, best known for his roles in "Our Gang," "In Cold Blood" and "Baretta," was acquitted of murder earlier this year when a separate jury could not find evidence beyond a reasonable doubt against him for the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley.
But with a lower burden of proof in the civil case, jurors needed only to decide that Blake was more likely than not responsible for Bakley's death. The Los Angeles County Superior Court jury in Burbank panel voted to hold the actor financially liable.
Blake did not testify at the criminal trial, but spent eight days on the stand during the civil trial.
The nine-man, three-woman jury, who heard from more than 40 witnesses during two months of testimony, also rejected the allegation brought by the Bakley heirs that Blake's handyman, Earl S. Caldwell, participated in a conspiracy with the actor to kill Bakley on May 4, 2001.
Jurors returned the verdict on the eighth day of deliberations. They voted for damages in favor of Bakley's daughter by Blake, Rosie, now 5, and Bakley's three other children: Glen Gawron, 25, Holly Gawron, 24, and Jerri Lee Lewis, 12.
The result mirrors the outcome of the O.J. Simpson case. The football star was found responsible for killing his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman after an acquittal by a criminal jury.
As in the Simpson civil case, Bakley family lawyer Eric J. Dubin successfully pursued a connect-the-dots strategy, underscoring the differences between what Blake told authorities and his testimony.
Jurors asked about those issues in questions they posed to Blake during the trial, and ultimately agreed with Dubin that they showed inconsistencies in Blake's story.
For Blake, the verdict culminated a four-year legal fight that started with his arrest on a charge of murder in April 2002, a year after his wife's slaying in Studio City. Before his release, the actor spent 11 months in jail, which he constantly referred to as the "cement box."
At the criminal trial, prosecutors argued that Blake shot Bakley after failing to convince two ex-Hollywood stuntmen to carry out the killing. Blake's motive, authorities argued, was to gain sole custody of Rosie. Blake hated Bakley, prosecutors argued, because she tricked him into marriage, and because of her past, including a fraud conviction, her sale of nude photographs of herself and a lonely hearts club scam.
Bakley had been married to Blake for sixth months and had lived in a back house on his Studio City property for only five days when she was shot to death in Blake's car two blocks from Vitello's restaurant, where the pair had dined.
Dubin insisted that Blake was the only person "on the planet" with a motive to kill Bakley. The lawyer had rejected a $250,000 offer to settle the case before the trial began in the courtroom of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David M. Schacter.
Blake testified that he thought Bakley was smart and charming, and said he married her to help try to turn her life around. His adult daughter is now raising Rosie.
Dubin hammered at inconsistencies between Blake's statements to police and from the witness stand. The lawyer stressed that authorities found no evidence of blood on Blake's clothing, despite his testimony that he shook his bleeding wife.
The actor also claimed under oath that he did not know how to work his wife's cell phone, and instead ran to two houses to try to summon aid. Others testified that Blake knew how to operate a phone.
In the civil trial, Blake testified for the first time that three undocumented workers saw him return to the restaurant at the time Bakley was shot. But he earlier told police that one of the co-owners of the restaurant had seen him, though he admitted in the civil trial he had been mistaken.
In contrast, Blake's lawyer, Peter Q. Ezzell, argued that the most likely person to want Bakley dead was Christian Brando, the son of the late actor Marlon Brando.
Brando, who was cleared by police of any involvement in the Bakley slaying, took the 5th Amendment on all questions related to Bakley when he was called testify last month.
Ezzell argued that Brando was a prime suspect because Bakley had first tried to force Brando to marry her, claiming Rosie was his child -- until DNA tests proved Blake was the father.
Legal observers noted how the two trials differed in seeking the same result.
"In many ways, a civil trial is a more pure search for the truth," lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said today.
"There is a wide open discovery process. There is a lower burden of proof. And most important of all, the defendant has no Fifth Amendment right not testify."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-111805blake_lat,0,5527001,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The critics seem to pretty much agree on this one. Its sounds like it makes “Category 7” look like “Gone With The Wind”.
TV Review
Down with ship: 'Poseidon' seems like parody
(Zero stars) (8 PM ET/PT Sunday, NBC)
By Doug Elfman Chicago Sun-Times Television Critic November 18, 2005
"The Poseidon Adventure," NBC's big Sunday movie, is a heartwarming tale of how love conquers all in the face of ... nah, I'm just kiddin'. It's terrible, terrible, terrible. It's even worse than it sounds.
A terrorist blows up a beer keg full of explosives on a cruise ship, and the ship goes kerplunk and turns upside-down. Brave passengers scramble to escape and learn to love again for three cliche-crammed hours.
Here's a typically awful scene. Before this good ship lollipoop goes boom, Richard (Steve Guttenberg) is receiving a naked-under-the-towel massage from a ship masseuse who is sassily named Shoshanna (Nathalie Boltt). He tells her he's having troubles with his wife, who owns a popular boutique.
"I love that place," Shoshanna says of the boutique. "You should tell her to stock more styles for busty women!"
"I can see why you have that problem," he says, ogling the masseuse's prodigious cup sizes, a move that apparently revs up her randy button so much she bad-mouths his wife: "A woman who treats her man that way can't expect to hold onto him forever!"
Watching this scene, I laugh out loud, but not as much as I laugh later when Richard and his wife fight and he storms off by opening a door, only to find his son standing there -- just standing there, on cue, tears streaming down his cheeks. In his baseball cap. Shaking his head at his adulterous dad. Ha! That's moronically delightful.
"The Poseidon Adventure" is why people make fun of TV movies. The ones that are this bad are almost worth watching under certain conditions. It reminds me of seeing Stephen King's "The Langoliers" with a couple of people, a 12-pack of beer and a bellyful of laughs that were unloosed by the movie's "rip in the fabric of time" high jinks.
It's not certain "The Poseidon Adventure" is funny-awful enough to recommend for that purpose. But if it is to be viewed, it is with the understanding it fits most synonyms of the word "horrendous," even if it is inadvertently comical at times.
Comical, as when survivors plot their way through the upside-down ship, and someone says, "The Internet Lounge is on the way. We should try to get an e-mail out," and another character replies, "Yes, like a virtual mayday!"
It's so stupefyingly rotten that when a terrorist shoots a ship commander in the heart, it takes 25 seconds -- I counted -- for the dead victim to fall to his knees.
This is the kind of vapidity that the satirical makers of "Airplane!" and the "Naked Gun" series made irrelevant two decades ago by ridiculing such movies as -- 1972's "The Poseidon Adventure."
But maybe this "Poseidon Adventure" is right for you, if you and your friends enjoy sitting around, getting buzzed and watching a terrorist in a jaunty blue vest mumble "Dinner is served!" before he plugs a couple of bullets into ship cooks.
That scene plays as if it's a "Simpsons" parody of this movie. But a parody of "Poseidon" is not necessary. It is quantifiably ludicrous all by itself.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainment/cst-ftr-elf18.html#
What to watch this weekend
By Robert Bianco USA Today
• Looking for a holiday movie with a bitter but funny twist? Try The Ref (AMC, Friday, 8 ET/PT), a dark comedy starring Denis Leary as a Christmas thief who hides out in the home of a headed-for-divorce couple, played by Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey. It never quite comes together, but the parts that work make up for the parts that don't.
• TCM devotes Sunday night to a nine-movie marathon salute to silent star Harold Lloyd. The fun begins with Safety Last! (8 ET/5 PT)
• Sometimes, a series hits its stride so confidently and with such steady skill, it can't seem to put a foot wrong. That's been the case so far this season with ABC's breakout hit Grey's Anatomy (Sunday, 10 p.m. ET/PT), which celebrates Thanksgiving with a funny yet poignant episode about love and loss and turkeys and making up your mind to be happy. Izzie makes dinner, Dr. Bailey tortures a smug visiting doctor, and George teaches his rough-hewn family a lesson — and learns a greater lesson in return.
As for Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Dr. McDreamy, their efforts to help a man move on from a coma bring them back together, at least at work. It's an hour without a single letdown: Each story is equally strong and each star is as compelling and letter-perfect as the next. You need something for which to be thankful as the holiday approaches? Try Grey's Anatomy.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/criticscorner/2005-11-17-critics-corner_x.htm
Critic’s Notebook:
A quality show fizzles, and it's your fault
By Renée Graham Boston Globe Staff
Television's checkered history is littered with smart, inventive critical gems that never managed to find an audience, at least ones sizable enough to continue to justify the shows' existence on a prime-time schedule. The latest casualty is Fox's ''Arrested Development."
A surprise best comedy winner at last year's Emmys, the deliriously offbeat sitcom was booted from the schedule during the all-important November sweeps. Then last week it was announced that the network had declined to order the season's final nine episodes, meaning the program will probably be done after airing 13 shows this season. Going into this TV year, network execs wanted to see if the show, in its third season, could finally catch on with viewers, but it never happened.
Moments like this would usually warrant criticism of Fox's network gurus for being more concerned with making money than making quality TV shows. After all, shows from ''All in the Family" to ''Seinfeld" to ''Everybody Loves Raymond," all now considered sitcom classics, took years to find and hold the devoted audiences that eventually propelled them into the top 10.
Yet it's not as if ''Arrested Development" was yanked after its initial 13 episodes. Though the show had previously come close to cancellation, the network, realizing it had something special, stuck with it for 2 1/2 seasons. In the bottom-line business of TV programming, ''Arrested Development" just didn't garner enough of an audience. From a paltry average of 6 million viewers last year, the show had slipped to 4 million this season.
So maybe it's time to blame the viewers.
See, while everyone loves to condemn TV as a wasteland filled with lowbrow programs such as ''Trading Spouses," also on Fox, there's often a struggle when something like ''Arrested Development" comes along. Yes, the show is challenging, with bizarre characters and labyrinthine subplots, but any single episode was laugh-out loud funnier than an entire season of ABC's ''Freddie," which, by the way, was picked for the entire season.
Oh, and did I mention that ''Freddie" draws about twice as many viewers as ''Arrested Development"?
I came late to ''Arrested Development." While I am wont to complain about the dearth of worthwhile TV programs, (which translated means shows I might like), I initially resisted watching the Fox comedy about the selfish and scheming Bluth family. I feared that, like HBO's ''Six Feet Under," the show would buckle under too much forced quirk and that compelling storytelling would be submerged by wackiness run amok.
Still, after numerous friends and colleagues crowed about the show, I began renting the first season on DVD. Yes, the show was quirky and wacky, but it was also innovative, provocative, and ridiculously funny. Truth be told, it was so good, I was hard-pressed to believe it was on Fox. Thoughtful television has never been the strong suit of a network that has inflicted on the world ''The Simple Life," ''Temptation Island," and ''Totally Outrageous Behavior Caught on Tape."
Yet after years under the dead weight of increasingly stupid reality shows, ''Arrested Development" reminded those willing to tune in that network television was still capable of producing smart, scripted comedies. Why the show never found an audience is anyone's guess; then again we're talking about a national viewership content to overdose on three different versions of the ''CSI" franchise a week.
If only Fox could have hung in there, as NBC did with ''Homicide: Life on the Street," arguably the best police drama in TV history. From 1993 to 1999, the show anchored the network's Friday night lineup with a stellar ensemble cast, led by Andre Braugher's brilliant performance as the difficult, erudite Detective Frank Pembleton. Yet, the show was never a hit, never won a best drama Emmy (it was never even nominated), never received the attention of such contemporaries as ABC's long-running ''NYPD Blue." Still NBC brought the show back season after season, perhaps realizing the show deserved to be judged by more than top 10 finishes and shiny industry trinkets.
There's a possibility that ''Arrested Development" could return. Last year, the show's episodes were cut from 22 to 18, but it was still renewed for its third season. This time around, however, that scenario is remote.
So if this is goodbye, here's props to the Bluths of ''Arrested Development" and its wily creators. This is less about failure than about a show that succumbed to the bitter reality of an uncompromising TV universe where millions of viewers tune in each week to pedestrian dreck but can find no enduring place for a series that had already become one of the best of the past decade.
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2005/11/15/a_quality_show_fizzles_and_its_your_fault?mode=PF
“Shocking” Revenue hit at Big 3 Networks
Steve McClellan MediaWeek.com November 18, 2005
The big three broadcast networks took a top-line beating in the third quarter with a 21.5 percent revenue decline to $2.2 billion, according to figures compiled by Ernst & Young and released by the Broadcast Cable Financial Management Association.
The sports sector took the biggest hit with a $700 million drop compared to third quarter of 2004 due mainly to the fact that there were Olympic games last year. Sports, news, late night and children's programming revenues were all down for the quarter, although prime-time revenues were up 8 percent to $1.3 billion.
Broadcast financial analyst Mark Fratrik called the overall third quarter decline "shocking....The networks need to be concerned as to the long term growth history."
Through the first nine months of the year, combined revenues for the big three are down 8 percent to $8 billion. Prime-time revenues for the year-to-date period are up a little less than 2 percent to $4.6 billion.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001524609
jim tressler
11-18-05, 08:44 PM
watch out for that drdon guy....
Thanks Chuck, kind words are always good to hear!
And this gives me an opportunity to remind folks that Ken H and David Bott have generously allowed me almost unbelievable leeway here (after all this is an HDTV forum) to discuss all kinds of TV-related material. Moderators CPanther93 and DrDon have also been a great, great help and have gone out their way to give fantastic support.
But I am always delighted to hear from someone who enjoys the thread!
I'll keeps my eyes open, jim :)
President of NBC speaks on future of network television
by Patrick St. Michel Daily Northwestern November 17, 2005
NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker is far from intimidated by the big changes broadcast TV faces in the coming years, he told a full McCormick Tribune Center on Wednesday afternoon.
“I don’t think this is the end of network television,” Zucker said. “I actually have never been more excited.”
Zucker spoke about the future of television as part of the Crain Lecture Series.
Zucker, who became president of the television group in 2004, is responsible for all NBC programming except NBC Sports. He also served as the executive producer of “Today” and helped to bring programs like “Fear Factor” and “The Apprentice” to NBC.
The television chief focused his lecture on new methods of distributing programming, such as downloading shows onto an iPod or buying individual episodes through DIRECTV.
Technological advances are already paying off for NBC, Zucker said.
Ratings for “NBC Nightly News” improved over the last two weeks after the television company started offering daily newscasts on its Web site.
But Zucker said he is wary of some of these advances, especially the blog craze and its effect on TV.
“We pay too much attention to blogs,” he said. “It is absurd how much attention they receive.”
Zucker said NBC’s primetime lineup is spiralling down, and it will take two to three years to rebound from the current slump.
He said the building blocks of change are in place, thanks to the highest rated new comedy of the season “My Name is Earl” and another comedic program called “The Office.”
“These shows have generated a considerable amount of buzz,” he said.
Zucker also reflected on his experiences at Northwestern. Even though he graduated from Harvard in 1986, Zucker attended the NU National High School Institute program for journalism 25 years ago.
He said the one-month program gave him the passion for journalism that helped him end up in the broadcast world.
Zucker added regardless of the direction TV is taking, people who work in the field should do what they think is best.
“Nothing in television is the same as it was 10 years ago,” he said. “You should follow your heart.”
Some students said they found the lecture very informative. Communication junior Nathan Johnson said he enjoyed it because it focused on the future of television, one of his biggest interests.
“I learned what TV executives have on their minds right now,” he said.
But Johnson also said he believed the presentation targeted one Northwestern school in particular.
“I think it was geared more toward Medill,” he said.
http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/17/437c36b2e6f13
Area man sues for gay 'Wife Swap'
By Donna Hales (Muskogee, OK) Phoenix Staff Writer Nov. 1i8, 2005
A man who participated in the popular "Wife Swap" television show is suing producers for $10,225,000 after the "wife" they sent to his home was a gay man.
Jeffrey D. Bedford of Haileyville, which is southeast of McAlester in Pittsburg County, is suing Walt Disney Company, dba American Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC Television Network and RDF Media Ltd.
Bedford's suit in U.S. District Court in Muskogee states defendants began shooting the show on Oct. 14, 2004, and misled him by not sending a female from a heterosexual family to his home.
The Bedfords said Thursday they would like to comment on their experiences in regard to the show, but hesitate to do so until they talk with their attorney, who is out of town until next week.
The suit filed Oct. 11 claims:
• Bedford was distraught over the misrepresentation to the point of nonparticipation.
• Defendants threatened if Bedford did not film the show that they would not tell him his wife's location and would not pay for her to be sent home.
• Bedford conducted a Bible study for the Haileyville Baptist Church, wherein the gay swap participant invited a gay coalition into Bedford's home for the study.
• Defendants repeatedly told him his wife was leaving him. He claims he became emotionally distraught over his and his family's situation to the point of becoming physically and mentally ill. His wife was not informed of his illness.
• Bedford was not allowed to speak to his wife during the filming of the episode and not allowed to continue his college work during the filming. Subsequently, he was dropped from one class.
• Defendants acted with reckless disregard. As a result of intentional infliction of mental distress he has incurred medical bills, public humiliation, embarrassment and undue grief. He seeks $5 million for that distress and punitive damages of $5 million.
He seeks $75,000 for breach of contract and in excess of $75,000 because of defendants' fraud or misrepresentation, and punitive damages in excess of $75,000. He also seeks court costs and attorney fees.
ABC spokeswoman Annie Fort e-mailed a statement Thursday to the Phoenix: "ABC is confident that RDF Media, the producer of 'Wife Swap,' treats participants professionally and with respect. The show is meant to challenge a family's norms and moreover, the agreement between the plaintiff and RDF specifically stated that the swapped spouse could be either male or female."
Fort said the episode hasn't aired yet, but only because it hasn't been scheduled.
"We have a number of 'Wife Swap' episodes stockpiled," Fort wrote.
"Since each is self-contained, we don't have to air them in any particular order, so I can't predict when we'll book this one."
http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051118/NEWS01/511180303/1002
October Basic Cable Ratings
Prime-Time Network Ranking
Sept. 26-Oct. 30, 2005
Net / Rating / Households
ESPN 2.4 2.160
Disney 2.4 2.058
USA 2.1 1.878
TNT 1.9 1.679
Lifetime 1.6 1.436
Nick At Nite** 1.5 1.380
Fox News Channel 1.5 1.348
Cartoon Network 1.5 1.303
TBSC 1.3 1.181
Spike 1.1 .988
MTV 1.0 .877
FX 1.0 .837
TV Land 0.9 .813
Sci-Fi Channel 0.9 .791
History Channel 0.9 .774
A&E 0.9 .774
AMC 0.9 .752
HGTV 0.8 .737
Comedy Channel 0.8 .730
Hallmark 1.0 .709
CNN 0.8 .693
ABC Family 0.8 .690
Court TV 0.8 .645
Discovery 0.7 .627
ESPN2 0.7 .615
Food Channel 0.6 .565
The Learning Channel0.6 .548
VH1 0.6 .518
BET 0.6 .482
Animal Planet 0.5 .412
Bravo 0.4 .355
EN 0.4 .333
The Weather Channel 0.4 .332
Lifetime Movie Network 0.7 .318
MSNBC 0.4 .301
Headline News 0.3 .301
Travel Channel 0.4 .300
CMT 0.3 .262
TV Guide 0.3 .245
Soap Channel 0.5 .218
WGN 0.3 .214
GSN 0.4 .211
National Geographic Channel 0.4 .201
Discovery Health 0.3 .190
Oxygen 0.3 .186
SC 0.3 .171
Womens Entertainment 0.3 .141
OLN 0.2 .134
TDSN 0.3 .131
Noggin 0.3 .113
*Cable universe rating.
**Broadcasts less than 51% of minutes in a 24-hour day.
Source: CableWorld.com from Turner Entertainment Research and Disney Media Networks, from Nielsen Media Research data.
http://www.cableworld.com/cgi/cw/show_mag.cgi?pub=cw&mon=112105&file=octoberratings.htm
Friday’s prime-time ratings – and Fredfa’s analysis of what they mean (in this case very good news for CBS -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the second post in this thread.
TV Notes
(from BroadcastingCable.com)
The Pope Projects: CBS Versus ABC
In the Dueling Popes Derby, CBS now has the lead, breaking ahead of ABC last week in the home stretch, with only days to go before their competing bios of Pope John Paul II hit the air.
After trailing for months, CBS surged ahead on Thursday when its miniseries was screened at the Vatican for Pope Benedict XVI. That was a publicity coup in itself, but the resulting story from the Associated Press was a network publicist's dream.
It started with the headline “Pope Watches Latest John Paul II Movie” and only got better: The story mentioned spontaneous applause during the screening but didn't reference ABC's rival production, Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II.
It was a late comeback for CBS, which broke out of the gate in first place last April—not long after Pope John Paul II passed away—when the network signed up a project being pitched by the European (and Vatican-connected) producers of a successful CBS miniseries on the life of Jesus in 2000.
But then, as B&C reported in the June 6 issue, ABC enlisted a splinter group from the Jesus production and was rushing its own project into production—and, unlike CBS, they had a script ready to go.
That put ABC ahead of CBS, as far as we were concerned. But this fall, CBS made a bid for the lead when it announced that its four-hour Pope John Paul II would air on two nights, Dec. 4 and 7. Clearly, ABC had fallen behind.
But no! The network battled back, galloping ahead with its own air date: Dec. 1. We thought that settled it, but CBS' late move in Rome may bring home the roses.
In the event of a photo finish, we'll let the stewards at Nielsen Media Research pick