TV Notebook
Live on 'Oprah,' a Memoirist Is Kicked Out of the Book Club

By Edward Wyatt The New York Times January 27, 2006

In an extraordinary reversal of her defense of the author whose memoir she catapulted to the top of the best-seller lists, Oprah Winfrey rebuked James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces," on her television show yesterday for lying about his past and portraying the book as a truthful account of his life.

"I feel duped," Ms. Winfrey told Mr. Frey. "But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers."

She added: "I sat on this stage back in September and I asked you, you know, lots of questions, and what you conveyed to me and, I think, to millions of other people was that that was all true."

In the three months after Ms. Winfrey chose "A Million Little Pieces" as part of her television book club, more than two million copies were sold, making it the fastest-selling book in the club's 10-year history. Alternately appearing to fight back tears and displaying vivid anger at the author and his publisher, Nan A. Talese, who heads an imprint of Random House's Doubleday division, Ms. Winfrey stared straight at Mr. Frey and asked, "Why would you lie?"

"I made a mistake," Mr. Frey (pronounced fry) replied, adding that he had developed a tough-guy image of himself as a "coping mechanism" to help address his alcohol and drug addiction. "And when I was writing the book," he said, "instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image."

It was a stunning bit of drama that had people throughout the publishing industry glued to their television sets yesterday afternoon.

The confrontation on Ms. Winfrey's show was the culmination of events that began with a report on Jan. 8 by The Smoking Gun, an investigative Web site, that found multiple discrepancies between Mr. Frey's life and his account in the book. Among the site's findings were that Mr. Frey had spent only a few hours in jail, not nearly three months as he had written.

On Jan. 11, Mr. Frey appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" and, while acknowledging that he had fabricated some parts of his account, defended its overall message. "I still stand by my book. I still stand by the fact that it's my story. It's a truthful retelling of the story," he said. In a last-minute call to Mr. King's show, Ms. Winfrey defended the book as the "essential truth" of his life and said the controversy was "much ado about nothing."

But yesterday Ms. Winfrey apologized to her audience for that call. "I regret that phone call," she said. "I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter. And I am deeply sorry about that, because that is not what I believe." She added, "To everyone who has challenged me on this issue of truth, you are absolutely right."

She then confronted Mr. Frey about his fabrications, leading him to admit that in addition to exaggerating the amount of time he had spent in jail, he had lied about how his girlfriend had died; about the details of a foray outside a rehabilitation center; and about his claim that he had received a root canal without anesthesia because the center prohibited the use of Novocaine.

"I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate, absolutely," Mr. Frey said yesterday of the Smoking Gun report.

Ms. Winfrey also acknowledged that she had received an early warning that parts of "A Million Little Pieces" were fictionalized from a former counselor at the center where the book takes place. Eight days after she picked the book in September, a former counselor at Hazelden, the Minnesota treatment center now identified as the one where Mr. Frey stayed, contacted her producers and told them that many parts of the book were untrue.

Ms. Winfrey said that she had had her producers ask the publisher about the allegations, but that they were reassured the book was accurate. She had harsh words during the broadcast for the publisher, Ms. Talese, who said that neither she nor anyone at Doubleday had investigated the accuracy of Mr. Frey's book. She said the company first learned that parts of the book had been made up when The Smoking Gun published its report, nearly two years after the memoir was first published.

"An author brings his book in and says that it is true, it is accurate, it is his own," Ms. Talese said. "I thought, as a publisher, this is James's memory of the hell he went through and I believed it."

But Ms. Winfrey pointed out that her producers had asked about reports of the book's truth in September, after the Hazelden counselor raised doubts, and that they were reassured by Random House.

"We asked if you, your company, stood behind James's book as a work of nonfiction at the time, and they said absolutely," Ms. Winfrey said. "And they were also asked if their legal department had checked out the book, and they said yes. So in a press release sent out for the book in 2004 by your company, the book was described as brutally honest and an altering look at — at addiction. So how can you say that if you haven't checked it to be sure?"

Ms. Talese replied that while the Random House legal department checks nonfiction books to make sure that no one is defamed or libeled, it does not check the truth of the assertions made in a book.

Ms. Winfrey replied, "Well, that needs to change."

In a statement issued yesterday afternoon, Random House's Doubleday and Anchor Books divisions, which published the book in hardcover and paperback respectively, said they were delaying the printing and shipping of any more copies of "A Million Little Pieces" to include statements from both the publisher and the author noting that "a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished."

Mr. Frey's second book, "My Friend Leonard," published by Penguin's Riverhead Books, has also been a best seller. It includes a disclaimer that some names and details have been altered, but makes no mention that some events — like the opening anecdote, which takes place during a jail term that it is now clear Mr. Frey never served — are complete fiction.

In a statement, Penguin said it was considering what action to take regarding its book. About a contract it recently signed for two more books from Mr. Frey, the company said: "The ground has shifted. It's under discussion."

Mr. Frey has previously said he offered "A Million Little Pieces" to publishers first as a work of fiction, then as a memoir. But he has also said that in changing the book's designation from fiction to nonfiction, he did not change anything in it.

One former publisher said he believed that the publishing industry would have to change its practices at the behest of its biggest patron, Ms. Winfrey. Laurence J. Kirshbaum, who recently retired as the chief executive of the Time Warner Book Group and who now runs his own literary agency, said in an interview yesterday that "there is no question what she said will have a far-reaching impact on our business."

"Agents, publishers and authors are all going to have to be much more cautious in the way they approach the nonfiction market," Mr. Kirshbaum said. "Traditionally, publishers have not done fact-checking and vetting. But I think you are going to see memoirs read not only from a libel point of view but for factual accuracy. And where there are questions of possible exaggeration or distortion, the author is going to need to produce documentation."

Mr. Frey had previously claimed that he had documents supporting his story. In an interview in December with The New York Times, Mr. Frey said that he had provided more than 400 pages of medical records and other documentation for his book both to his publisher and to Ms. Winfrey's producers. Among the records, he said, was proof of his claim that he received a root canal without anesthesia.

Asked yesterday by Ms. Winfrey about the dental episode, he replied, "I wrote it from memory," a statement that elicited gasps from Ms. Winfrey's audience. He added, "I honestly have no idea" whether or not he received Novocaine or any other painkiller.

The more Mr. Frey revealed, the more heated his confrontation with Ms. Winfrey became. "Since that time, I've struggled with the idea of it — " he began to say in reference to his root canal, only to be cut off by Ms. Winfrey.

"No," she said, "the lie of it. That's a lie. It's not an idea, James, that's a lie."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/books/27oprah.html?ei=5094&en=bf37f10b148fef57&hp=&ex=1138424400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

About Television
There Isn't Enough Good Entertainment to Go Around

Michael Hiltzik: The Los Angeles Times

Buried not far beneath the surface of Tuesday's media merger announcements was an acknowledgment of two facts of life well understood by oil drillers, pro sports managers, and landfill operators: There are finite riches in the world to be mined, and limited room to dump your garbage.

The UPN and WB, which will be folded into a single television network, foundered on the reality that, just as a sports league's aggressive expansion often dilutes the talent on its rosters, there simply isn't enough compelling entertainment material to go around. (Alternatively, there hasn't been enough savvy managerial talent to go around.) The same can be said for the animation business, which saw two of its most significant players, Disney and Pixar, walk down the aisle.
The proliferation of new cable channels, entertainment devices and production studios during the last decade was rationalized partially by the notion that the availability of audience-grabbing content would expand in lock-step with the opportunities to see and hear it.

UPN and the WB both debuted in 1995 with the expectation that, after a ramping-up period, they would have enough solid programming to compete with the existing four broadcast networks on prime time all week long. The same year saw Pixar's initial public stock offering and the release of its first feature, the monster hit "Toy Story" — an event that led its management to believe it could hold its own as an independent studio indefinitely.

A similar theory animated the 1994 founding of DreamWorks SKG: that there was sufficient creative talent uncommitted and available in Hollywood, and enough demand, to generate new revenue from movies, television, video games, music, and Internet content. The day the venture was launched, one of its founders, Steven Spielberg, told The Times that he didn't expect to cannibalize customers from the other studios so much as expand the pie. "The market can expand if the movies are there and people want to see them," he said. "The notion of 'competition' doesn't apply."

Yet, despite the allure of Spielberg and the two other founders, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks never found a formula for lasting success on its own. Last month it agreed to be acquired by Paramount Pictures Corp. (itself a founder of UPN), in a deal that reflects Paramount's recognition that the fastest way to turbocharge its lackluster roster of projects is to buy an existing pipeline. In much the same way, Disney's acquisition of Pixar will enable it to revivify its stumbling animation unit by importing a boatload of new blood all at once.

As for UPN and the WB, neither of the upstart networks has been able to program a consistently profitable prime-time slate. UPN has lost $1 billion since 1995; now owned by CBS Inc., it has never had a profitable year. The WB, a venture of Time Warner, has had two profitable years in its history, but is expected to lose about $35 million this year.

That's not to say that either network has been without what passes for a hit in this age of diluted TV audiences. The series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was launched in 1997 on the WB — from which it was raided in 2001 by UPN. The former also had a hit in the teen demographic in "Dawson's Creek" for several years, starting in 1998. At this moment, its top-rated show is "Gilmore Girls," ranked 77th by Nielsen; UPN's highest-ranked program other than pro wrestling was "Everybody Hates Chris," a critical favorite produced by Chris Rock, mired last week at No. 109. (One of the network's more popular shows, "America's Next Top Model," is currently on hiatus and therefore not ranked.) Of the 20 lowest-rated shows in prime time last week, 15 were on WB or UPN.

The expanding availability of entertainment in myriad new formats has made it even harder for also-rans to stay in the race, but the phenomenon works differently on different companies. New formats such as iPods, webcasts and video game consoles make inroads against traditional media such as broadcast TV; but they haven't yet presented many opportunities for the sale of new material by content providers like Pixar and DreamWorks.

Rather than expanding the market for novel, niche or unheralded material, the new tend to load up on material that has already proven its popularity on the old. Currently, the top 10 TV downloads from Apple's iTunes Music Store for the new video iPod include three episodes of ABC's "Lost" (which was ranked No. 9 on the Nielsen ratings last week), two of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" (Nielsen No. 5), and three of NBC's "The Office" (No. 44, but with desirably youthful and improving demographics).

Interestingly, the networks say that the on-air ratings of these shows improve as downloads increase, more evidence that as new viewing modes proliferate, the rich merely get richer. (It's worth noting that one of the few moguls well-positioned to profit no matter how media content gets viewed is Steve Jobs, the chairman of Apple and Pixar and soon to be the largest shareholder of Disney, the parent of ABC.)

As for the Internet, as a breeding ground of new entertainment talent, so far it's largely barren. Companies from Ifilm to Amazon.com have tried to make a commercial mark with Web-only film clips, but it wouldn't be surprising to learn that the most popular downloaded moving pictures on the Web (outside of pornography) are snippets from "The Daily Show" or "Saturday Night Live."

The ever-receding horizon has made media investors very skittish. The resounding critical and commercial success of every feature film Pixar has ever made tends to obscure the reality that it has released only six full-length films in 10 years, and faces more competition in the computer-animated feature market every year from full-service studios.

A craft that flies on one engine, no matter how swift, can give its passengers a bumpy ride; when Pixar announced last June that DVD sales of "The Incredibles" had fallen short of expectations, its shares fell more than 15% in two days. Nor can an independent studio such as DreamWorks sustain many flops like "The Island," a would-be blockbuster that cost an estimated $126 million to produce and returned a paltry $36 million at the U.S. box office last year.

All this helps account for the alacrity with which media companies founded in an era of lavish expectations have lately gone looking for shelter. To paraphrase Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard," their dreams were big; it's the reality that stayed small

http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/cotown/la-fi-golden26jan26,1,6256089.column?coll=la-headlines-business-enter

About Television
Broadcaster says serious news at risk

By Jan Sjostrom , Palm Beach Daily News Arts Editor

The anchorman whose boss once characterized him as ice compared with his successor's fire was anything but chilly in the impassioned speech he delivered Tuesday at The Society of the Four Arts.

"Truth no longer matters in the context of politics and, sadly, in the context of cable news," said Aaron Brown, whose four-year period as anchor of CNN's NewsNight ended in November, when network executives gave his job to Anderson Cooper in a bid to push the show's ratings closer to front-runner Fox News.

Brown said he tried to give viewers a balanced diet of light and serious news with NewsNight. "But I always knew when I got to the Brussels sprouts, I was on thin ice," he said.

When NewsNight spent four hours covering the arrest of actor Robert Blake for the murder of his wife, Brown received thousands of e-mails criticizing the amount of time the show spent on the story. Nevertheless, that show, which aired in April 2002, received the highest ratings of any program since NewsNight's coverage of the November 2001 crash of American Airlines flight 587.

"Television is the most perfect democracy," Brown said. "You sit there with your remote control and vote." The remotes click to another channel when serious news airs, but when the media covers the scandals surrounding Laci Peterson, the Runaway Bride or Michael Jackson, "there are no clicks then," the journalist said.

With the departure from the screen of the "titans" — Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather — who "resisted the temptations of their bosses to go for the ratings grab, it will be years before an anchorman or anchorwoman will have the clout to fight these battles," he said.

Brown has spent most of his 30-year career in television news. He's covered everything from the Columbine High School murders to the aftermath of the space shuttle Columbia disaster. But viewers may remember best his on-the-spot coverage of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

He's shocked "by how unkind our world has become," he said. E-mail and talk radio appear to have given people the license to say anything, regardless of how cruel or false it may be, he said.

He cited the example of an e-mail faulting what the sender considered to be NewsNight's inadequate coverage of an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. The note ended with, "I hope the violence visited on the people of Iraq will someday be visited on your children."

Those on the opposite side of the political spectrum are no more tolerant, Brown said. "Any criticism of the administration is regarded as hatred of the president and hatred of the country itself," he said.

Important issues, such as the prosecution of the war in Iraq at home and abroad, are being clouded over by "mud-wrestling" that skirts substance, he said. Consider what he called "the swift-boating of John Murtha," the Democratic congressman whose war record was smeared when he called for an exit strategy in Iraq. "Cable didn't search for the truth, but engaged in mock debates pitting those making the charges against Murtha's defenders," he said.

Many Americans on the left and the right aren't interested in the truth, but simply want news that confirms their viewpoints, he said. "You'd think that it's no more complex than good vs. evil," he said.

Journalists have fallen short in presenting important news in ways that allow viewers to see how it matters in their lives. But viewers must take up the battle as well, he said. "It's not enough to say you want serious news. You have to watch it. It isn't enough to say you want serious debate. You have to engage in it."

http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/content/news/brown0126.html

Sports On TV
Study: Ad time in Super Bowl is on the rise

MediaLifeMagazine.com—It’s not your imagination: There are more ads during the Super Bowl than ever before.

During last year’s game between the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles there were a staggering 43 minutes of commercials, up seven minutes over the 1996 game, according to a TNS Media Intelligence report issued this week.

Busch leads all Super Bowl advertisers over the past 20 years, spending some $230.5 million. Second is Pepsi at $180 million and, in a distant third, General Motors at $55.8 million.

According to TNS, in 2005, a 30-second spot during the game cost $2.4 million, bringing in total ad revenue of $1.59 billion to Fox.

This year the price has crept up to a reported $2.5 million to $2.6 million.

The study also found that the average Super Bowl creates more ad revenue than the average World Series or Final Four, despite the fact that those two feature multiple games (The Final Four is three games, the World Series between four and seven).

Study: Young people watch Bowl for ads

Despite a noticeable lack of clever and engaging Super Bowl ads over the past few years, the number of people who watch the game just for the ads seems to be on the rise.

According to a survey conducted by BIGresearch for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association,15.3 percent of respondents said the most important part of the big game is the ads. That’s up from 9 percent who said they watched for the ads in a similar survey conducted by Eisner Communications last year.

The ads seem to be most popular among people 18-24, 18.5 percent of whom said they tune in for commercials. Another 12.5 percent of all respondents said they watch the game to socialize, and 4.6 percent watch to see the halftime show and assumedly any potential wardrobe malfunctions.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/cat_index_31.asp

About Television
NBC's blast to the past: Perry & Sorkin

MediaLifeMagazine.com—It looks like NBC sees the past as a key to its future.

The network, which has seen ratings slump in the past two years, is bringing former “Friends” star Matthew Perry back and teaming him with another past network all-star.

Perry has signed up to play the genius comedy writer in a drama pilot written by “West Wing” creator Aaran Sorkin. Sorkin’s new creation, which he developed with “Wing” collaborator Thomas Schlamme, is a set behind the scenes of a fictional TV comedy show along the lines of “Saturday Night Live.”

Reports surfaced last week that Perry had failed to reach a deal to appear in the new show but that apparently changed. Also starring in the show, previously titled “Studio 7,” will be Steven Weber and D.L. Hughley.

NBC paid a huge sum for the show’s pilot, $3 million, and it is expected to make the network’s fall schedule.

Perry is the third Friend to headline a show since “Friends” exited two years ago.

Matt LeBlanc’s “Joey” is on hiatus at NBC, and Lisa Kudrow’s “The Comeback” on HBO was cancelled.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/cat_index_31.asp

About Television
UPN and WB: We'll profit from this merger, too

By Kay McFadden Seattle Times TV Critic

The play's the thing wherein the TV coffers go ka-ching.

This week's merger of The WB and UPN into one network contains giddy financial possibilities for its 50-50 owners, CBS and Warner Bros. Television. With a focus on 12-to-34 viewers, the emergent CW can rake in revenue from the iPod set and other new media users. Driving these groups to ad-sponsored Web sites and cellphone numbers won't be hard.

But it couldn't happen without content. The lesson of the deal is that success in television still rests on creating shows with great story lines and characters, whether they're make-believe or reality.

That will become clear as CW executives get a rare opportunity to ruthlessly winnow out weak performers and create a fall lineup likely to pair programs such as "Gilmore Girls" and "Veronica Mars."

Even more than the delicious prospect of a crossover episode in which Veronica stares Lorelai and Rory into silence, I'm looking forward to what's bound to be a network worthy of attention six nights a week. CW prime time will run 8 to 10 p.m. weekdays and 5 to 10 p.m. on Sundays.

My guess is that in a season or so, it will resemble a younger version of CBS, with a focus on scripted series and the remaining schedule given over to a few consistently high-rated reality series. "The Amazing Race," "Survivor" and "Big Brother" will have their equivalent in "Beauty and the Geek," "America's Next Top Model" and "WWE Smackdown!"

Even better for us, emphasis will be placed on program development and giving decent shows time to catch on. Leslie Moonves, an ex-actor who once headed Warner Bros. Television and has spent the past decade building CBS into the No. 1 network, believes in attracting audiences the old-fashioned way. His former UPN chief, Dawn Ostroff, will run CW.

The transition will be relatively easy because The WB — despite being at the bottom of the ratings heap lately — also embraced this philosophy.

It's a model other networks could follow: consistency, quality and not yanking around viewers.

I'm thinking specifically of NBC, which will end "The West Wing" in May.

Last year in New York, when networks announced their 2005-06 lineups, NBC couldn't praise "West Wing" enough. NBC Chairman Jeff Zucker noted it drew one of the network's highest-income demographics and had the charts to prove it.

Yet NBC shifted "West Wing" to Sunday nights, where it sank in the ratings. Big duh. The move was made to accommodate "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" and "E-Ring" on Wednesdays, and you know how well that turned out.

That was a case of going for the short grab instead of the long haul. Meanwhile, NBC entertainment head Kevin Reilly has said the network won't bring back "Joey" — a star vehicle that asphyxiated from lack of writing support. Also being put out of its misery in May is "Will & Grace." The short-run series "Book of Daniel" just bit the dust after four episodes.

Let's hope NBC, whose lone Top 20 series performer last week was "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," takes development, patience and viewer loyalty to heart.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Another network that could use stability even as it brought back America's biggest hit is Fox.

"American Idol" blew past all competitors last week. The network also nailed second place with the Seahawks-Panthers match-up, which drew 35 million viewers nationally and was the fourth most-watched show of the entire TV season.

This is all good news. Still (and tossing in "24" and "House"), comedy and drama series at Fox have been streaky. Sunday night's lineup is the only season-long constant, and other attempts to establish nightly blocks — for example, Mondays and Thursdays — have failed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That brings us to the inevitable "Arrested Development" update. Latest word according to statements from Showtime entertainment chief Robert Greenblatt is that the premium cable channel remains in talks with "AD" producer Twentieth Television.

ABC has bowed out of "Arrested" talks, though it does have a Monday-night opening for a comedy or two. The network has axed midseasoner "Emily's Reasons Why Not." Running mate "Jake in Progress" will return at a future time TBA.

Never forget

I wasn't sure I'd be interested in another 9/11-related program at this late date.

But A&E's "Flight 93," airing at 9 PM ET/PT Monday, is a fantastically well-done movie. It stays true to fact while evoking the suspense and heartache of an emotional thriller.

The taut two-hour film reconstructs the events that took place when passengers on a United Airlines flight bound for San Francisco realized the terrorists that had captured their plane were on a suicide mission to attack a national landmark.

Based on research from flight records, news accounts and documented phone conversations between passengers and their families and friends, "Flight 93" is a masterwork of vivid re-creation.

It also binds the disparate details that enable us to understand what took place, and why. I know more than before about the decisions made, the opportunities missed and the risks undergone.

Above all, "Flight 93" brings to life the men and women who took action to prevent another kind of catastrophe. The surreal scene where they vote to take down the terrorists is a testimonial to their belief in democracy — an eloquent double rebuttal to the forces of destruction.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002764129&zsection_id=2002119662&slug=kay27&date=20060127

About Television
Frey's other addiction: Lying

By Maureen Ryan on the Chicago Tribune TV blog January 27, 2006

By now, we all know that James Frey has been treated for drug and alcohol addictions.

That’s seems to be the one aspect of his “memoir,” “A Million Little Pieces,” that has not been disputed.

But what’s Frey going to do about his addiction to lying?

An eternity seemed to pass before the 11 p.m. repeat of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” aired in Chicago on Thursday. The morning edition of Thursday’s live program on “Pieces” was pre-empted by WLS-Ch. 7 for a presidential press conference just as Winfrey began tearing into Frey and his multiple offenses against the word “truth.”

Seen in its entirety, the program was not only riveting television -- Winfrey’s opening abject apology for her defense of Frey was simply jaw-dropping -- but a damning indictment of Frey’s instinctual need to fabricate, embellish and otherwise sidestep reality.

“I still think it’s a memoir,” he whined at one point (and let’s face it, this big guy with the tough guy/hard case reputation came off on Thursday’s “Oprah” like Eddie Haskell put on the spot by the Beaver’s mom).

Really? It’s still a memoir? Well, that would require defining “memoir” as “thing I made up to make boatloads of cash.” If that’s the definition of the genre, I’m going to have to take a break from blogging to pen my memoirs about the career I had as a cross-dressing pirate before becoming the queen of Romania.

Winfrey was determined that the truth about Frey’s book come out, and for that, she should be commended. But she never addressed whether, as two recent New York Times stories have stated, Frey and his publisher talked about how the book should be classified. “We were in discussions after we sold it as to whether to publish it as fiction or as nonfiction,” Frey told the Times in December.

Winfrey had a golden opportunity to ask Frey’s publisher and editor, Nan A. Talese, who also appeared on the program, whether those Orwellian discussions ever took place. But Winfrey didn’t.

Talese, for her part, didn’t come out of Thursday’s broadcast smelling like a rose. She explained that, to her, if something seems plausible, why then, it must be true. It’s plausible that I have a full-time assistant who schedules my interviews and screens my calls. I wish that were true, but it’s not.

But heck, the important thing -- to Talese, anyway -- is that it’s plausible. Believable. Chock full of truthiness, if you will.

Still, Winfrey’s dogged questioning of Frey was to be entirely commended. Once she got into the whole “root canal without Novocain” topic, her relentlessness almost made you feel sorry for Frey (but not quite). Did he, or did he not, she wanted to know, actually have that dental procedure -- twice, in fact -- without any drugs?

“I honestly have no idea,” Frey said.

Come on.

He admitted that The Smoking Gun was right about his fabrications, but he still clearly wanted to leave the impression that most of "Pieces" is truthful. He referred to the two other rehab participants whom his publishers produced to the Times in order to confirm some of Frey's rehab tales (in the Times, these two unnamed sources don't appear to entirely confirm Frey's stories).

Frankly, Frey didn't give the impression of a man hooked on Step 4 of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which directs those who wish to conquer their addictions to make "a searching and fearless moral inventory" of themselves.

At the end of Thursday’s show, when Winfrey asked Frey if he had any other lies he’d like to clear up, he reeled off some pathetic line about how when he was leaving one rehab center, he had one person with him, not two.

Well, thanks for clearing that up.

Frey needs to see if there’s some treatment center for serial fakers. Because on Thursday’s show, he made this assertion to Winfrey, who said she felt “conned”:

“I don’t feel like I conned you guys.”

James, the problem is, you’re only conning yourself now. But you can’t see the truth of that.

http://tempo.typepad.com/entertainment_tv/

Critic’s Notebook
Yay, Oprah!

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

I'm watching the Oprah Winfrey interview with James Frey and am so loving it. (I've also added things here as the show went along.) It's a great common-sense interview, plain and direct questions that require plain and direct answers. She is making Frey look like an even bigger weasel than he seemed on ''Larry King Live.''

While Winfrey could have denounced Frey sooner, it's still admirable that she is taking apart someone that she made a huge emotional, and professional, investment in. (And the groans from the audience just make it all better.) This interview is one of the reasons that people love Oprah. She was heartfelt in her support and defense of Frey, and she is just as heartfelt and passionate -- and even funny -- in taking him apart.

What terrific television.

Oh, and now it's getting better. Nan Talese, who oversaw publication of Frey's book, is doing her own weasel bit -- and Oprah's not buying it either. And she's not buying it in a way that will be perfectly clear to common-sense folks like her viewers, especially by insisting that a self-described true story should be fact-checked.

We have now entered the scorched-earth section of the interview, where Oprah takes apart not only Frey, but the publisher (adding to the unhappiness she expressed with the publisher on ''Larry King Live''). Frey, meanwhile, looks more and more like a convict who sees the guillotine being sharpened outside his cell. He may not realize that his head is already rolling down the stage.

But Oprah's kicking the head into the audience. She wants Frey to use the word ''lies.'' He's trying to avoid saying it -- even in his delusion he must know that would be a major sound bite on cable news -- but he has to at least admit that Oprah's not wrong in using it (and at the end of the show, he finally said it himself).

And now the commentators, Richard Cohen and Frank Rich. More praise for Oprah, who rightly says what she did is ''the only thing to do.''

She knows it wasn't. She knows she could have just kept silent. Or she could have continued her praise of Frey on some paper-thin defense of ''essential truth'' or ''emotional accuracy.'' But no. She stood up and said she was wrong -- AND THEN DEVOTED AN HOUR OF HER SHOW TO THE ISSUE.

I wish politicians could so boldly admit error instead of hiding behind feeble claims of confidentiality. Think of recent reports about White House officials refusing to discuss their actions in response to Hurricane Katrina, including this from David Schuster at msnbc.com: `''Lawmakers say that while FEMA has been cooperative, (former director) Michael Brown has not, refusing, like the White House, to answer questions. But Brown does talk about Katrina for a fee. Recently he was the keynote speaker at a storm response conference where attendees paid $375 each.''

I'm not going to spend $375 to find out if Brown is more forthcoming to a paying audience than he is to Congress. But Oprah knows she paid a price for this Frey nightmare, and she didn't make us pay to hear her regrets. As she said near the end of the show, ''I do believe the truth can set you free.''

All right, so that let-the-healing-begin moment at the end was a bit much. That's very Oprah, too. And I still came away from this both liking and admiring her more than ever.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

The 2005-2006 TV Season
Ask Matt

(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com

Question: We just heard the news that WB and UPN are merging to create the CW network. We are nonplussed to put it lightly, and shocked out of our socks to put it bluntly. UPN and WB have always been each other's closest competitor! We are wondering what your opinion of this development is — especially pertaining to the effect it will have on programming. On one hand, it could mean bigger budgets and better promotion for quality shows like Veronica Mars (which could definitely use a lot more of both). On the other hand, a bigger network means higher expectations and less patience. By that we mean, will the CW continue to nurture well-reviewed but low-rated niche shows or will they turn into another Fox, axing original, high-quality programming when it fails to be an immediate success? Do you think the merge will have any effect on in-development programming (such as Amy Sherman-Palladino's new series)? Also, will the CW be available in all the same areas that WB and UPN are currently? The whole thing is highly unprecedented. UPN and WB are important alternatives to the big four networks, and we're worried that any difficulties with the merge could bring both channels down. We don't want another DuMont network on our hands! — Luke and Steph

Matt Roush: So many questions, so little real information at this point. Jaws dropped all over this office when the news broke this week about the collapse of WB and UPN into the CW, so yes, I'd say it was a surprise. (For my immediate reaction, check out my Dispatch from earlier this week.) Fact is that both of these mininetworks have struggled with profitability, especially WB of late, and while this does make business sense and should result in a much more competitive and viable fifth network, it's never a good thing to lose any outlet for programming. (Erin wrote in to make a salient point: "I will only briefly mention that the number of African-American-centric shows on network television will presumably be next to nil.") She may well have a point, although CBS titan Leslie Moonves mentioned the importance of minority audiences to this new network's mandate. But where to start on answering these questions? First, anyone who now gets either WB or UPN in their market will get CW. In markets where both were always available, I'm not sure which channel gets CW and what happens to the other. The CW mission statement, targeting young 18-34 viewers (largely female) isn't that different from the current UPN and WB playbooks, so I'm still thinking this network will continue to nurture shows like Gilmore Girls as long as they're buzzworthy and attract a healthy percentage of the core demographic. But beyond that, I can't speculate.

Easily the most-asked questions have involved which shows on WB and UPN will survive the merge, with an emphasis of concern over Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars and Everwood. The best early clue comes from the initial news release, which singled out the following shows as obvious assets of the respective networks: Smallville, Gilmore Girls, Supernatural, Veronica Mars, Everybody Hates Chris, Girlfriends, Reba, America's Next Top Model, Beauty and the Geek and WWE's Smackdown. Keep in mind that both networks may also have a limited number of new series already in development for next season (and new contenders could emerge this mid-season), so who knows what else will be in the mix by the time CW presents its first Upfront presentation in May.

________________________________________

Question: Just heard about the big WB-UPN merger and, although I think it's a great business decision, I'm naturally worried about the fate of some of my favorite shows. Gilmore Girls is safe, I assume. But many fans of Everwood, myself included, are understandably worried. It is the best drama on TV, IMO, with the most beautiful writing and acting anywhere, but I'm afraid its relatively low ratings may cause it to be axed to make enough space in the schedule for another ridiculous reality show. There are certainly worse and lower-rated shows on WB that I would hope would be canceled instead (Charmed and One Tree Hill leap to mind). But considering the barely veiled indifference with which the WB has treated Everwood (hardly promoting it, moving it to Thursday nights for no good reason), I'm more than a little concerned. I would hope that some of the critical accolades that you and others have lavished on the show would be a factor, but considering the fate of Arrested Development, I'm not optimistic. So, what do you think will happen? Can you calm my fears and assure me that my favorite show will be back next season? — Rhonda C.

Matt Roush: As you can see from the above list of shows in the CW release, Everwood was not mentioned. But I wouldn't read too much into that as yet. Still, I've been worried for the show ever since WB moved Everwood to Thursdays, though it held its own reasonably well despite impossible competition. And it's true the show's second lengthy hiatus for the second consecutive season isn't the most hopeful sign, either. Third strike: The programmer in charge of CW, Dawn Ostroff, comes from UPN, not WB, so there's a natural tendency (very possibly ill-founded) to be paranoid that she'd favor UPN shows over WB's. Again, way too early to know what the CW schedule will look like, and what its programming priorities will be among drama, comedy, tragedy, reality, new shows, old shows, etc. What a mind-blowing sea change.

To Matt, who asked if Everwood didn't make the cut, "what are the chances that another network might pick up a show that seems to have several good years left?" The answer is, almost certainly, zero. This was the right show on the right network, which, come fall, will no longer exist. We'll have to wait and see.

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Question: I wanted to know your take on NBC's scheduling changes after the Olympics. I personally think that NBC may be putting itself in a grave situation. First I need to talk about the moving of Law & Order to Wednesdays, an hour earlier, at 9 pm/ET. This is a horrible time slot considering its competition. I have to give up Law & Order because I already tape Veronica Mars while I watch Lost. Again Scrubs was denied a Thursday time slot (post-Earl when The Office ends in March). And I feel that NBC is trying to annoy Dick Wolf. First, Trial by Jury was canceled, they move Law & Order to Wednesdays at 9 pm/ET and now they are airing Conviction Fridays at 10 pm/ET (the same slot as Trial by Jury) when they should pair it with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit since many SVU fans are going to watch because of Stephanie March reprising her role as Alexandra Cabot. Also, Deal or No Deal and The Apprentice are the lead-ins to the underappreciated Medium. They should have kept Las Vegas and Law & Order in the same time slots and moved The Apprentice to Fridays, moved Scrubs to Thursdays after Earl and aired Conviction as a lead-in to SVU. — Joshua L.

Matt Roush: Change usually involves risk, and change is almost always met with resistance, even temporary changes like these, and that's the case with the early mail in the wake of NBC's announced mid-season changes. (For my own analysis, check out my Dispatch from earlier this week.) Personally, I think most of these moves (with the exception of leaving Scrubs on Tuesday) are aggressive, provocative and logical. The Law & Order move certainly raised the most eyebrows, but given that NBC has an empty hour on the night, better to use an established franchise like Law & Order to lead an audience to the new Heist than to strand a new mid-season drama against Lost. (As I noted in my Dispatch, Lost and Law & Order couldn't be more dissimilar, and thus this makes for effective counterprogramming, though there's no doubt some viewers watch both.) I don't agree that Conviction and SVU should air back-to-back. I'm leery enough of yet another hour of Wolfian legal drama joining the schedule, but the least NBC can do is scatter them around the week. And I think NBC is right to go after CBS on Fridays with strong, commercial shows. SVU played there successfully for years, so if Conviction is up to snuff (as Trial by Jury arguably wasn't), it may give Numbers a run for its money. Las Vegas is exactly the sort of escapist mind-candy programming that could work on Fridays, and potentially drive an audience to Conviction, but if it doesn't pan out, I'd bet NBC will move Vegas back to Mondays in the fall, depending on how Apprentice does on its new night (and Apprentice will likely make much more money for NBC on a weeknight than it would buried on Fridays, regardless of how many of us feel about this tired show). Bottom line: NBC needs to shake things up, and mid-season's the time to do it.

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Question: Does the news that NBC is moving Law & Order up an hour to go against Lost mean good things for Invasion in the post-Lost time slot? I'm hoping that viewers who'd previously tuned to Law & Order might give Invasion a try now and find one of the best new shows on TV. Is this move by NBC as good for Invasion as I hope it is? — Josh

Matt Roush: It's no secret what a booster of Invasion I am, but I'm also a realist. I seriously doubt the audience that has been watching Law & Order on Wednesdays will all of a sudden jump ship to join a show like Invasion in progress, especially given how antithetical it is to L&O in execution, being serialized and fantastical. It's much more likely that the devoted Law & Order fan will follow the show to the earlier time slot and stay tuned for the new crime drama, Heist, which it's providing with a compatible lead-in. Still, it could open up the time period a bit and, if Heist doesn't take off, may result in Invasion looking more competitive than it does now.

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Question: I was most disappointed to learn this morning that The Book of Daniel was being dropped from NBC's schedule, but what really irritated me was the crowing being done by the self-righteous group the American Family Association, which is apparently taking credit for forcing NBC to make the move. It is a shame. I was truly enjoying it, uneven as it sometimes was, due to the outstanding cast — particularly Aidan Quinn and Susanna Thompson. Damn, that scene with the mafia guy making a pass at Daniel was funny. Doesn't it make you crazy when those bigoted right-wing groups smugly assert this kind of move is due to their influence when it's really all about the numbers? NBC saw constantly declining numbers and made the decision to give up the chance to build viewership. I highly doubt they'd have paid attention to any so-called watchdog group if the show had proved a cult or breakout hit, so why should they do so when it's a low-rated show? What do you think? — Karen

Matt Roush: The only thing more predictable (and aggravating) than the American Family Association taking an anti-Daniel stance before it even aired is the same group taking credit for its premature cancellation. Groups like this, and the hyperventilating Parents Research Council, have lost so many battles in recent years (such as their foaming over FX shows, which are meant for adults only) that it's only natural to see them acting like such sore winners this time around — and, by the way, how very Christian of them to gloat. Fact is, groups like this did have some impact, creating a climate of controversy over the still-taboo subject of religion that kept spineless advertisers away. NBC didn't help matters by its scheduling of the show, and even before this abbreviated run, mixing up the order in which the episodes were being shown. But if the show had become a cult hit — too bad FX didn't snap this one up (and no, Daniel isn't likely to reemerge there) — or, in the best case, an actual sensation like NYPD Blue (which the AFA unsuccessfully lobbied against), NBC would have kept it on proudly. I still feel Daniel was a worthy risk. It wasn't a perfect show, but it certainly got people talking instead of yawning. Hard to imagine anyone making much of a fuss about flatlining tripe like Courting Alex.

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Question: What in the name of god is happening at Commander in Chief? Three or four months ago, ABC fired [series creator] Rod Lurie and brought in Steven Bochco. The show was getting a great deal of publicity and was doing great in the ratings. I really thought that the character of Mackenzie Allen was inspired and a role model for women all over the world. Why they got rid of Lurie is still baffling, but since then the show has taken a horrible turn. The president has now made her first-husband her top advisor (because a woman needs a man by her side), the villain (the great Donald Sutherland) is now her ally with whom she shares Thanksgiving dinner (so all that tension is lost), the kids seemed to have disappeared, the new campaign advisor on the show is a jerk, and I could go on. Worst of all, those two Korean-crisis episodes are not only cinematic rip-offs of The West Wing, but wasn't there an exact same West Wing episode involving a nuclear sub in North Korean waters? According to the Nielsen ratings, the show has dropped like an anvil, and way before American Idol came into the picture. So, finally, the Question: Do you think CiC is suffering from the Sorkin Complex — that is, the show falling apart once its voice has been kicked off the show? — Gerald W.

Matt Roush: What we seem to have here is a case of a network fixing what wasn't broken, and creating a mess in the process. If the network truly felt Lurie wasn't able to produce the show on time or on budget or whatever, the solution this early on — especially considering that the show had the earmarks of an instant hit — shouldn't have been to remove the creator altogether and replace him with someone who had never taken over the reins of someone else's show, even if that someone is as experienced as Steven Bochco. The Bochco hire at first made sense, given his credentials, but these latest episodes make it look like this is an uneasy fit, to put it mildly. Commander in Chief's strength was that it wasn't trying to look like a West Wing clone, but these "crisis" episodes involving the sunken sub and the even worse one about Air Force One held hostage are unconvincing and clumsy rip-offs of West Wing-style action, and they move the show radically away from the domestic melodrama it promised to be. Even more worrying are the character shifts for the president's husband — now her de facto chief of staff, which diminishes Mac's authority and credibility — not to mention her chief nemesis, Nathan Templeton, who now almost seems like he's her acting vice president, the way she leans on him for help and treats him almost like a buddy (albeit a sly one). Worst of all is horndog politico Dickie (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), a flat-out ridiculous character, badly written and played (and I liked him on NYPD Blue). This may be worse than losing a voice: Commander seems to have lost its way. The show may still be salvageable, but first, those in charge need to realize that something is very, very wrong here.

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Question: I just read that some other show will be taking the time slot of The Office in April because Steve Carell needed to take time off from the show to film a movie. Does that mean that this season won't last a full 22 episodes? — Andrew

Matt Roush: I'm not 100 percent sure of the show's schedule between now and early April (when the mid-season comedy Teachers gets a tryout), but if The Office doesn't make it quite to 22, it should be close. When The Office goes off the air in early February for the Olympics, 16 new episodes will have aired, leaving room for at least five new episodes to air on Thursdays in March. Whatever the math, the good news for fans is that Office and My Name Is Earl have already been picked up for a full 22 for next season.

________________________________________

Question: Is there any chance Curb Your Enthusiasm will return for a sixth season? I've read that the ratings for Season 5 were down significantly. In addition, the last episode of the fifth season seemed more like a series finale than a season finale. However, I haven't heard any announcements from HBO regarding the future of Curb, so maybe it will return. My hope is that I will get to see one more season of Larry David acting like the world's biggest jerk! — Ryan

Matt Roush: Seems to me that it will be up to Larry David. If he wants to do another season, I imagine HBO wouldn't stand in his way. Even though the numbers were way down this season, that's probably as much a function of HBO's diminished programming slate as it is of Curb's quality. (There's no Sex and the City driving viewers to Curb anymore, for instance.) But as far as I know, HBO hasn't made a statement about the show returning or not. If this was the last season, at least Curb went out with a suitable final episode.

________________________________________

Question: I was wondering if you had been given a chance to screen Showtime's new show Dexter. From what I've heard, it sounds a lot like Profit, with its "evil" main character. I no longer get Showtime, but I am a huge collector of TV shows on DVD (I have about 1,500 episodes of various shows). I was wondering if it would be worth my while and my dollar. I bought Dead Like Me sight unseen. I thought it a true pleasure though I had already fallen in love with Wonderfalls (both from Bryan Fuller). — Tommy

Matt Roush: Now this is a first, a DVD question about a show that hasn't even premiered yet. I understand clips of Dexter were shown at the critics' press tour in Pasadena this month (which I did not attend), and I heard some good buzz. But all I can say for sure is that I can't wait to see this show, about a forensics expert by day (played by Six Feet Under's Michael C. Hall) who by night is a serial killer, which means he sometimes can be found processing his own crime scenes. The twist here, which separates Dexter from Profit, is that Dexter only targets bad guys who deserve it, so he's actually a crusading vigilante of sorts. A while back, I read the novel (Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter) that inspired the series, and I thought it was terrific. Hope the TV version doesn't disappoint, but you'll have to wait for the reviews before making a call on whether it's actually a collectible.

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Question: I loved the premiere of Bleak House on Masterpiece Theatre Sunday night. I was wondering if you feel that it has any chance of winning the Emmy in September, and if Gillian Anderson has a shot. I was also curious about how many times a Masterpiece Theatre production had won the Emmy for best miniseries. I know The Lost Prince won last year, but I was surprised a few years ago when The Forsyte Saga was not even nominated. Also, thanks to TV Guide for recommending Bleak House. I did not want it to end. — Nicole

Matt Roush: Neither did I, and I watched the whole thing in a daylong orgy. Bleak House's strongest competition in the miniseries arena, as far as I can tell, appears to be HBO's upcoming Elizabeth I miniseries (starring Helen Mirren), which I haven't screened yet. But I can't imagine this won't be nominated. PBS can't mount expensive campaigns the way networks (especially pay channels) tend to do, and there's probably a Hollywood prejudice that has worked against this British franchise for many years. But given the critical buzz over Bleak House, it's got to be seen as an early front-runner, as is Gillian Anderson (but you never want to bet against Mirren). Doing quick research, the Masterpiece Theatre winners list at the Emmys includes, besides The Lost Prince, the peerless The Jewel in the Crown, Tom Brown's Schooldays, Elizabeth R and the breakthrough Upstairs Downstairs (which won four times, several as best drama series). Plus, two seasons of Prime Suspect won best miniseries for Masterpiece sibling Mystery!

http://tvguide.com/tv/roush/askmatt/

Thursday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest Prime Time Ratings news which is the first post in this thread.

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
A royal tumble for NBC's "Four Kings"

Off 13 percent in 18-49s to 3.1, a series low

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 27, 2006

NBC’s “Four Kings” got off to a solid start three weeks ago despite brutal reviews. But the show has stumbled since then, hitting a series-low among adults 18-49 last night, which doesn’t bode well for the sitcom with timeslot competitor “Survivor” on CBS returning next week.

“Kings” posted a 3.1 overnight rating among viewers 18-49, down 26 percent versus the 4.2 it earned for its premiere on Jan. 5. It was off 13 percent from last week’s 3.5.

The show finished third in its 8:30 p.m. timeslot, just barely ahead of a repeat of Fox’s “That ‘70s Show,” which posted a 2.9 that half hour.

“Kings” was also likely hurt by the big death episode of “Smallville” on the WB last night, which earned a strong 2.9 18-49 rating during the 8:30 p.m. half hour. And it also faced ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars,” which posted a 5.4 among 18-49s from 8:30 to 9 p.m.

To be fair, “Kings” is not getting any help from its lead-in, the 8 p.m. “Will & Grace.” It has improved on “W&G” in all four outings, including last night.

But the already tough competition will only become stiffer next Thursday, when CBS premieres its new season of “Survivor.”

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_2514.asp

Critic’s Notebook
Humiliation — but on the last page, absolution

Oprah Winfrey, whatever you think of her, made for remarkable television Thursday
By Paul Brownfield Los Angeles Times TV critic January 27, 2006

Oprah Winfrey delivered an hour that was both substantive and theatrical, featuring a lying writer, James Frey; his chagrined editor, Nan A. Talese; and two journalistic heavyweights, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post and Frank Rich of the New York Times, saying that the truth in our culture still matters.

But the star of it all was — who else? — Oprah Winfrey (she looked great, by the way), whose well-meaning, big-bucks Oprah's Book Club had been duped in its embrace of the partly fabricated "A Million Little Pieces" as straight memoir. Now we would learn what happens when you cross Winfrey, when you go on her show and lie about your pain or your redemption and as a result get her whole Oprah empire behind you and your name is not Tom Cruise.

You get, basically, publicly stoned. And then in the end, Winfrey gives you absolution. And comes out smelling like a rose for being so aboveboard.

Somehow, though, Winfrey broke through her own artifice to deliver something unusual in our culture — something real.

But first, the public stoning.

"It is difficult for me to talk to you, because I really feel duped," she told Frey, who sipped his water and meekly acknowledged the liberties he took in his book. He seemed awesomely frightened. From his point of view, much of the hour must have felt like that scene in the film "Network" when anchorman Howard Beale gets summoned to a meeting with corporate honcho Arthur Jensen for on-air revelations about a company deal.

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale," Jensen says, "and I won't have it. Is that clear?"

"Network" ended with the madman Beale being taken out on the air when his ratings fell.

This was a different kind of assassination, one of character, Frey being officially taken down by the woman who propped him up.

If that was the goal, Winfrey did it brilliantly. Because it was, on the one hand, self-serving and hypocritical of her. (Does she not foster "truthiness," a buzzword that came up during the hour, in every group hug with the Hollywood A-list community?)

And yet it was one of those instances in which talk-show artifice dropped away, and nobody was exactly acting. It happened this month on "The Late Show With David Letterman," when Letterman blurted at Fox News' Bill O'Reilly: "I have the feeling about 60% of what you say is crap."

But that was also a laugh line, not really meant to be probed. This was about Winfrey daring to reveal the fact that she isn't omniscient, that her initial instinct was wrong when she made that ill-advised call-in to "Larry King Live," supporting Frey after the scandal broke on the Smoking Gun website.

She kept Frey onstage for the full hour, as journalistic lions came on to deplore him to his face, to hold him up as a symbol of a bigger problem in the culture — arguably described as a blithe disregard for what is truth and what isn't.

"I mean," Frey said in the end, apparently scared straight, "if I come out of this experience with anything, it's being a better person and learning from my mistakes and making sure that I don't repeat them."

It was one of the few false moments of the hour, Winfrey ending the conversation as "Oprah," offering redemption to a guy who had himself, apparently, peddled redemption.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-critics27jan27,0,5498127,print.story?coll=cl-tv-features

Up Next for HD? Syndication

One of the side topics at the NATPE conference, which ends today, has been HDTV, as syndicators and program producers look to increase the value of their properties. And for local stations itching to get local HD ad dollars HD syndication is a must.

"It's got to happen," says Del Parks, VP of engineering and operations, Sinclair Broadcast Group. "Local stations realize how necessary HD is to get HD to take off for advertisers and there is no question that syndicated HD is coming."

Syndication content providers are getting ready as well. Sony Pictures, for example, will produce Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune in high-definition for the 2006 fall season. And other syndicated programs, like CSI, Everyone Loves Raymond, and E.R. are also available in HD (in fact, Warner Bros. began converting E.R. episodes to HD as far back as 1998 for HD broadcasts in Japan). And as some of the stations that are home to certain syndicated shows make the move to HD, other shows, like Live with Regis and Kelly which is shot at WABC New York, are bound to follow.

All of that content in HD bodes well for TV stations that have been waiting to fill their non-prime time programming slots with HD programming. The big challenge then becomes distribution.. TV stations across the country receive syndicated content via file transfers. Moving HD content introduces bandwidth challenges. Providers of those delivery services, like Pathfire, are currently clearing some of those technical hurdles.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=nocclamp&doc_id=1340006473#NEWS2b

Programming Notes:
ABC Temporarily Votes Out Commander

By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable

ABC is sidelining Commander in Chief and premiering back-to-back episodes of midseason comedy Sons & Daughters in its Tuesday 9 p.m. time slot beginning March 7.

The network says Commander will return in the spring and would have been running repeats for most of its hiatus, anyhow. ABC has 12 episodes of Sons & Daughters, so if it runs two every Tuesday. Commander would be off the air for at least six weeks.

But the move comes on the heels of ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson addressing the show's ratings challenges, despite star Geena Davis’ recent Golden Globe win for her role as a female president of the United States.

"Obviously we’re disappointed in Commander ticking down the last few weeks," he said on January 21 at the Television Critics Association press tour. "I think being off for so long, not being able to hit it with aggressive marketing given our midseason launch has hurt it. You know, we feel like we’ve got to get the viewers back in there and get the demo back in there."

ABC used a similar strategy last year, when it sidelined Boston Legal and replaced it with Grey’s Anatomy. Boston Legal did not return for the remainder of the season.

Sports on TV
Big changes in the works for ABC

By Barry Jackson Miami Herald

When you think of ABC Sports, a few events and personalities instantly come to mind -- Monday Night Football, Al Michaels, Keith Jackson. In earlier years, it was Wide World of Sports (1961-1998), Jim McKay, Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford. And for 36 years, there was one constant: the NFL.

Now, the face of ABC Sports is changing rapidly and radically. That will resonate in nine days, when ABC televises its final NFL game -- and final Super Bowl -- for at least the next six years, possibly longer.

More changes will follow. Also exiting will be almost all of the BCS games (which, except for the Rose, move to Fox) and its PGA Tour schedule (ABC will have only the British Open after 2006).

Meanwhile, ABC has acquired this summer's World Cup (with ESPN), the second half of the NASCAR package (with ESPN, beginning in 2007) and the Belmont Stakes. ABC also is considering airing prime-time college football on Saturday nights next season.

At the same time, some of ABC's biggest personalities are leaving, or considering it. Michaels -- who earlier agreed to transition to Monday Night Football on ESPN while remaining the voice of the NBA on ABC -- might instead switch to NBC's Sunday night NFL games, according to published reports and several industry officials. (Michaels, who isn't commenting, would need ESPN permission to bolt a contract he has already signed.)

John Madden already has signed with NBC. Jackson, college football's signature voice, has hinted at retirement -- again. Lynn Swann is leaving to run for governor of Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, ABC Sports continues to look more and more like corporate cousin ESPN, not surprising considering both are now run by the same management and share many of the same announcers.

ABC Sports' challenge is not only rebuilding an identity, but battling the perception that the over-the-air network without the NFL is the least appealing for sports fans.

''The ABC Sports identity we're starting and working on today is based on three pillars,'' said Len DeLuca, the senior vice president of programming for ESPN and ABC Sports. He lists those as the NBA (including The Finals), college football, and NASCAR beginning 2007.

DeLuca confirmed ABC saw more upside in reacquiring NASCAR than continuing to carry the PGA Tour. Ratings bear that out.

Disney management's decision to bid for Monday Night Football for ESPN -- leaving ABC without the NFL -- was financially driven. ESPN can handle the record $1.1 billion annual rights fee more easily than ABC because ESPN generates revenue not only from advertisers, but also subscriber fees. But DeLuca noted ESPN will be better positioned to air MNF because ''we have the luxury'' of devoting ''24 hours to the game,'' beginning midnight Sundays.

He downplays the loss of the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar Bowls, explaining the fifth game added by the BCS is ``extremely ordinary.''

AROUND THE DIAL

• Several personnel moves this week: Fox's No. 2 baseball voice, Thom Brennaman, will call the next three college football national title games. Former Marlins voice Dave O'Brien will add soccer to his ESPN duties and is expected to call the World Cup. And Rusty Wallace will be the lead ABC/ESPN analyst on NASCAR in 2007 and IRL this year.

• The NFL Network and OLN remain strong candidates for a proposed late-season Thursday/Saturday night NFL package that could compete with ESPN's UM-Boston College game on Thanksgiving.

• Former Bulls center Will Perdue, an NBA analyst for ESPN Radio, told The Chicago Tribune it took him three years to get a broadcasting job because, ``I'm not the proper color they're looking for. That's what I've been told. What's hot in broadcasting are ex-coaches and ex-black players. White males are way down on the list.''

Hmmm. And I thought Perdue didn't get a job for three years because, well, he's Will Perdue, journeymen center. Has Perdue not noticed Tim Legler, Tom Tolbert, Bill Walton and Steve Kerr on network TV?

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/13722780.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Sports on TV
Azinger: PGA on TGC not a very good idea

By Aaron Bracy Louisville Courier-Post Staff Jan. 26, 2006

The Golf Channel signed a 15-year deal with the PGA Tour earlier this year that makes it the exclusive cable home of the Tour beginning next year. However, the landmark agreement hasn't been met with cheers -- or even golf claps -- from everyone.

Some PGA Tour players, including Paul Azinger and David Duval, have said it is a bad idea for the Tour to leave ESPN, arguing that the network's appeal to sports fans -- and not just golf fans -- is good for golf.

"You have to look for golf to find it on The Golf Channel; you stumble on golf to find it on ESPN," Azinger told USA Today last week, echoing similar feelings to the ones Duval shared with The Associated Press. "You've got ESPN on in all the bars and then golf comes on, which is good for the players. The Golf Channel's not on in too many bars."

Azinger went even further, saying TGC likely won't take an objective, journalistic approach to its coverage of the Tour.

"The Golf Channel already treats the Tour with kid gloves. You won't ever see an expose' of any player coming off The Golf Channel," he said.

Responding to those comments in a phone interview Tuesday, TGC CEO David Manougian said, "I don't even get his comments. I would ask Paul to tell me what stories we haven't covered. And I'd like to know what exposes he has done."

Azinger is an analyst for ABC, a network (along with ESPN, USA Network and Turner Sports) left out of the Tour's new TV deal. Beginning in 2007, CBS and NBC will share weekend coverage of the Tour, with TGC televising early-round (Thursday and Friday) coverage in 33 events and full-round (Thursday-Sunday) coverage in 15 events.

Azinger admitted to USA Today that his comments might be viewed as sour grapes, although he said they weren't.

He's probably correct that TGC isn't on in as many bars as ESPN, and it's a fact that TGC currently is in about 20 million fewer homes than ESPN. Will that change now that TGC has the Tour? Manougian thinks it might.

"We're going to work hand-in-hand with the Tour on how to grow viewership," said Manougian, who expects TGC to be in 85 million homes (ESPN is in 90 million) by the end of '07.

And Manougian dismissed Azinger's notion that TGC will avoid stories. "We're not the PGA Tour network," he said.

Some other issues Manougian addressed:

TGC, which is owned by Comcast, will incorporate the On-Demand feature into its coverage. Not only might it be in the form of Tour highlights, but it could include such features as On-Demand player bios.

Other Comcast platforms, such as OLN and Comcast SportsNet, will be involved. Among the possibilities, those networks could replay PGA Tour tournaments or possibly televise live Nationwide, LPGA and/or Champions events if there's a conflict on TGC.

On-air talent has not been determined, but TGC likely will use NBC and CBS talent in some form for its early-round coverage, much like it's done at present, when those networks have weekend rights.

TGC's Web site (thegolfchannel.com) also will be utilized, with the possibility of streaming video of holes similar to what the PGA Tour currently does with the 17th hole of The Players Championship on its Web site (pgatour.com).

"For us, with all of the other tours we have, the PGA Tour was the next logical step," Manougian said. "From the (PGA) Tour's standpoint, it's very important to have one place, week in and week out, for fans to find golf, and that continuity will help build viewership and build story lines."

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060127/SPORTS/601270373/1002/SPORTS&template=printart

About Television
Restaurant pulls plug on 'The Biggest Loser'

Crowd control weighs heavy on casting call
By John Wilkens San Diego Union-Tribune Staff Writer January 27, 2006

The turnout was too heavy.

About 1,500 people, some reportedly from as far away as Hawaii, showed up yesterday morning in Mission Valley to audition for the NBC weight-loss show, “The Biggest Loser,” only to have the casting call canceled at the last minute.

NBC blamed it on “the overwhelming response from potential candidates,” who began lining up in the parking lot of Dave & Buster's around midnight for an event that was scheduled to run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

By 9 a.m., a disturbing-the-peace call had summoned police – officers reported minor problems like public urination but no arrests – and restaurant managers decided to pull the plug.

“Providing a safe environment for our guests and team members is always Dave & Buster's first priority,” Darin Bybee, a regional operations director, said in a written statement. “Unfortunately the situation (yesterday) was not safe despite our very best efforts to make it so.”

NBC promised to reschedule, perhaps as early as this weekend.

The would-be Losers were not happy. “A lot of people were appalled and upset when they canceled,” said Sam Casas, a North Park resident who got in line about 6 a.m. “Some bought plane tickets and took time off work to come here.”

He scoffed at the idea the crowd was getting out of hand. “They said it was because there wasn't enough security, but it wasn't a rock concert or a Chargers game. Come on, it was a bunch of fat people!”

The popular reality show, which premiered in October 2004, features “severely overweight” contestants battling to see who can drop the most pounds through dieting and exercise. The winner gets $250,000.

Yesterday's audition was one of several scheduled around the country to find candidates for the series' third season. Casting directors said they are seeking “outgoing, charismatic and candid individuals with personality.”

The opportunity prompted Brent Hart, 21, to take two days off work as a land surveyor and fly to San Diego from Tucson. “I've watched it a few times, and I really wanted to get on the show,” he said.

About 100 people were ahead of him when he joined the line about 5 a.m. He said he met people who had come from Hawaii and Oklahoma. Disappointment soon set in.

“The whole thing was just poorly executed,” he said. “They didn't have any Porta Potties in the parking lot. Nobody knew what was going on. Then they came out and said there were too many people, and we had to leave.”

Some of those gathered talked openly about going downtown to protest at the studios of KNSD, the local NBC affiliate, Hart said. (There was no organized demonstration, although a few people went to the lobby and dropped off applications for the show, said Penny Martin, a station vice president.) Others vented their anger at Dave & Buster's, vowing to stay out of the restaurant even though they were hungry.

Dave Cohen, police spokesman, said officers were called at 9:10 a.m. and monitored the crowd for about 2½ hours.

Hart said the final blow came when he tried unsuccessfully to give an application and a five-minute video of himself to the casting crew as the crowd was dispersing.

“I told them I'd traveled a long way to be here, and I didn't know if I could come back for another one, but it just fell on deaf ears,” he said.

In written statements, NBC officials stressed they were “in no way involved with the cancellation” and said the auditions would be rescheduled. They encouraged contestants to phone a “Biggest Loser” hotline at (310) 727-3307 or check nbc.com for updates.

They also noted that auditions are scheduled for Feb. 11 at the NBC studios in Burbank, where, presumably, they'll be ready for a turnout of any size.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060127-9999-7m27loser.html

Programming Notes:
ABC Temporarily Votes Out Commander

By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable

ABC is sidelining Commander in Chief and premiering back-to-back episodes of midseason comedy Sons & Daughters in its Tuesday 9 p.m. time slot beginning March 7.

The network says Commander will return in the spring and would have been running repeats for most of its hiatus, anyhow. ABC has 12 episodes of Sons & Daughters, so if it runs two every Tuesday. Commander would be off the air for at least six weeks.

But the move comes on the heels of ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson addressing the show's ratings challenges, despite star Geena Davis’ recent Golden Globe win for her role as a female president of the United States.

"Obviously we’re disappointed in Commander ticking down the last few weeks," he said on January 21 at the Television Critics Association press tour. "I think being off for so long, not being able to hit it with aggressive marketing given our midseason launch has hurt it. You know, we feel like we’ve got to get the viewers back in there and get the demo back in there."

ABC used a similar strategy last year, when it sidelined Boston Legal and replaced it with Grey’s Anatomy. Boston Legal did not return for the remainder of the season.


I just don't understand the logic of taking a show off for 2 months ,then hope the fans "find" the show again. It's not like ER where everyone knows it's on Thursday @ 10 pm.

Maybe new fans would watch the repeats they missed.

The Boston Legal stratgedy wasn't a real big winner.

I wouldn't hold my breath on CiC coming back at all.

Thom Brennaman is a fantastic play by play and color guy.. glad to see that.



• Several personnel moves this week: Fox's No. 2 baseball voice, Thom Brennaman, will call the next three college football national title games.

I agree, Jim. I think he is the about the best.
(Although as a team, Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, the Giants guys, are outstanding.)
But Brennaman's work on the Diamondbacks games, by itself, is a reason -- for me at least -- to sign up for the MLB Extra Innings package.

Its the kind of scheduling move that ABC is doing now with Commander that drove me to Tivo. Heck I don't think the networks get it. Appointment television became fragmented in part because programs are temporarily pulled and then shifted to other time slots on other nights. And repurposing a show's exclusive first run followed up the next week on another network or was that a rerun from a previous season? And when did one or two popular series justify the bandwidth for an entire dedicated channel? Just because I tune in to watch that channel during the summer doesn’t make me feel good about paying subscription fees for the rest of the year when I don’t tune in. Too much clutter. The overwhelming odds for a show to even find a place on a network schedule and then get pulled or canceled after a couple of airings? Perhaps there is hope. Due to the new revenue streams from iTunes has put The Office on better footing. And with DVD revenues increasing for television productions, perhaps some of the current programmers will take a page from the old timers and let a show keep its original time slot long enough for an audience to find it. Then keep their hands off in respect to the audience tuning in to watch. Meanwhile I'll pick it up on Tivo rather than get pushed into sampling some new show I haven't been properly introduced to. Programmers need to learn some etiquette on how to treat a loyal audience.

Friday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest Prime Time Ratings news which is the first post in this thread.

The Business of TV
Identity Crisis

WB and UPN stations are scrambling to find a new model
By Allison Romano Broadcasting & Cable

With The WB and UPN shutting down next fall to form The CW, dozens of orphaned affiliates are scrambling to align with the new network or find a way to go it alone.

The shift could mean more local news and programming in some markets, but it also threatens to put some affiliates out of business. And now some station owners, who had no advance warning about the deal, are threatening legal action.

“These broadcasters woke up one day and found out that, come September, the affiliation agreements were null and void,” says an executive at a major station group who declined to be named for potential legal reasons. “Everyone is trying to figure out what they'll do.”

When Warner Bros. and CBS Corp. unveiled the new network Jan. 24, a large chunk of distribution was immediately resolved. Tribune Broadcasting, a 22% owner of The WB network, and UPN parent CBS Corp. carved up 20 of the top 25 markets. When the CW launches in September, 16 Tribune-owned WB stations and 12 CBS-owned UPN outlets will make the switch. Both companies have agreed to 10-year affiliation agreements.

The smallest TV markets may have also been divvied up. According to executives familiar with the deal, many of The WB 100+ stations, a collection of mostly cable-only affiliates in markets numbered 100 and higher, will likely become CW outlets next fall.

That leaves most of the midsize markets, such as Cleveland, Kansas City, Mo., and Jackson, Miss., still in play. In some, the UPN and WB stations are owned by big media companies and are part of duopolies sharing programming and news. In a handful of markets, one company operates both the WB and UPN affiliates. Many more are owned by small, family-run companies that operate a few stations.

The CW says it will reach 95% of the U.S. TV viewers at launch, but on what stations is still largely unknown. CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves says the deals will be decided in the next few months. “In every market, we're going to look at what is the stronger station,” he said.

Since last week, anxious station owners say they have been calling their UPN and WB representatives but the calls have gone unanswered. Some groups with CBS affiliates hope those ties will help them get the CW affiliation. Others venture that buying Warner Bros. syndicated product might help curry favor. Most are braced for a possible bidding war for the CW affiliation. If they win, it could be more expensive to be a CW affiliate: Like The WB, the new network will take reverse-compensation payments from stations, something UPN outlets did not previously face.

But as they court the new CW, station managers are frantically outlining alternatives. Analysts at influential TV-station consulting firms like Crawford, Northcott & Johnson and Frank N. Magid Associates are fielding calls for nervous clients seeking advice on how to proceed.

“This has put everyone in a mercenary mood,” says Crawford, Johnson & Northcott Managing Partner Bruce Northcott. “You have to take care of your own station.” His advice: Add as much local programming as possible.

The most likely scenario for many is to forge ahead as an independent. Tribune plans to convert three stations to independents. Meredith Broadcasting may do the same with KPDX, its UPN affiliate in Portland, Ore., where Tribune nabbed the CW affiliation. “We are not afraid of the prospect of being an independent,” says Meredith President Paul Karpowicz. “This could be an opportunity for more local programming and more news and sports.”

Those are not luxuries many small owners can afford. Their business is built around network affiliation and programming supplied by The WB and UPN. Losing that supply has some station owners considering legal action.

One such disgruntled operator is St. Louis-based Roberts Broadcasting. The company, run by brothers Michael and Steven Roberts, owns three UPN stations. In St. Louis, its largest market, Roberts already knows The CW will air on Tribune's WB outlet, but its Columbia, S.C., and Jackson, Miss., stations still have a shot. But Michael Roberts says the company has invested millions in branding the stations as UPNs and, even if he wins The CW, the outlets have lost value.

“We've been disadvantaged economically,” he says. “There is a degree of warning, preparation and consideration that should have been given to us.” He and other UPN owners are reviewing their affiliation agreements and evaluating their legal position.

Already, the merger is sending aftershocks across the station marketplace. Granite Broadcasting has deals to sell its WB stations in Detroit and San Francisco for a hefty $180 million, but that was before The CW aligned with CBS-owned UPNs in both markets. At the same time, Granite is in the process of buying the CBS affiliate in Binghamton, N.Y., in a deal that's conditioned on its two WB sales.

Emmis Communications has been trying for months to sell its Orlando, Fla., WB affiliate. In New Orleans, Belo still has not closed its purchase of UPN affiliate WUPN, and the CW affiliation has already been granted to Tribune's WNOL there.

For stranded stations, salvation may come from one of the most affected station owners: News Corp.'s Fox Television Stations unit. At last week's NATPE convention, TV executives were buzzing that Fox may create a second programming service to power its nine UPN outlets that lose their affiliation. Already Fox has begun to remove mention of UPN from the stations.

A “Fox II” service could be first-run shows, such as Twentieth's proposed English-language telenovelas, news from sister Fox News Channel or reruns of Fox shows. The prospect of such a network has other groups, including LIN Television, which owns several endangered UPN affiliates, slightly more upbeat.

“The difference here is that you're not in it alone. You've got Rupert with you,” says LIN Television CEO Gary Chapman, referring to News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The CW and the stations
With deals with Tribune and CBS, the new network is already cleared in 20 of the top 25 TV markets, leaving Fox-owned UPN affiliates out in the cold
Market WB owner UPN owner CW affiliate
New York Tribune Fox Tribune
Los Angeles Tribune Fox Tribune
Chicago Tribune Fox Tribune
Philadelphia Tribune CBS CBS
Boston Tribune CBS Tribune
San Francisco Granite* CBS CBS
Dallas Tribune CBS Tribune
Washington Tribune Fox Tribune
Atlanta Tribune CBS CBS
Houston Tribune Fox Tribune
Detroit Granite* CBS CBS
Tampa, Fla. Sinclair CBS CBS
Seattle Tribune CBS CBS
Phoenix Belo Fox TBD
Minne-St. Paul Sinclair Fox TBD
Cleveland Winston Bcstg. Raycom Media TBD
Miami Tribune CBS Tribune
Denver Tribune Channel 20 TV Co.* Tribune
Sacramento Gannett CBS CBS
Orlando Emmis Fox TBD
St. Louis Tribune Roberts Bcstg. Tribune
Pittsburgh Sinclair CBS CBS
Portland, OR Tribune Meredith Tribune
Baltimore Sinclair Fox TBD
Indianapolis Tribune LIN TV Tribune
*Sale of station pending TBD = Affiliation to be determined
Source: Company releases, B&C research

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6302849.html?display=Feature&referral=SUPP

Sports On TV
NFL Network Will Carry Eight Prime-Time Games

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times January 28, 2006

The National Football League will place eight prime-time Thursday and Saturday games on its NFL Network starting in 2006, a senior league executive said.

The league had been negotiating intently in recent weeks with Comcast, the largest cable operator in the country, about putting games on what would be a reconstituted OLN network and expanding distribution of the NFL Network on Comcast systems, where it is carried on a digital tier.

But yesterday morning, the league decided not to go into business with Comcast and to put the games on the NFL Network, which has had preseason games but no regular-season broadcasts. Comcast had no comment.

Putting the games on the NFL Network is a change for the league, which is accustomed to being richly compensated by networks with rights fees. Now, the NFL Network is building its own asset, for which it can presumably charge higher monthly subscriber fees while still collecting huge payments from CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV.

The schedule is made up of games that would have been on Saturdays late in the season on CBS or Fox, or on those networks' regional schedules, said the executive, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the deal. The first game will be on the Thanksgiving night, between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins. All games will be simulcast on local broadcast stations in the markets of the teams playing.

The NFL Network has 35 million cable and satellite subscribers, and it the addition of regular-season games will probably vastly increase its customer base and add cable operators like Time Warner and Charter, which have so far resisted signing on.

"They'll be able to build the NFL Network into something far more significant," said Marc Ganis, a sports industry consultant. "On the 357 days when games are not being carried, N.F.L. programming will be going into people's homes."

The eight-game package had been the subject of talks with ESPN and News Corporation, the parent of Fox Broadcasting, but at the end, the discussions were between Comcast and the league.

The league's decision to build the NFL Network with regular-season games comes nine months after it completed deals with NBC Universal Sports on a six-year, $3.6 billion deal to carry Sunday night games and with ESPN on an eight-year, $8.8 billion contract to show "Monday Night Football." In November 2004, CBS and Fox extended their Sunday deals for six years, with CBS paying $622 million annually and Fox paying $712 million. DirecTV extended its contract for $3.5 billion over five years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/28/sports/football/28nfl.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Question for all: (I assume the answer is yes, but) does the NFL Network broadcast in HD?

Sports On TV
NFL Network to televise regular-season games
(NFL.com)

(Jan. 28, 2006) -- NFL Network, the NFL's two-year-old television channel, will begin airing a "run up to the playoffs" package of eight primetime regular-season NFL games starting in the 2006 season, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced.

The eight-game package will consist of primetime games airing from Thanksgiving to the end of the regular season on Thursday and/or Saturday nights.

The inaugural game of the package is scheduled for Thanksgiving night on Thursday, Nov. 23, as part of a new Thanksgiving Day tripleheader. Games telecast on NFL Network will include pregame and postgame shows.

"After discussing this new package of games with many potential partners, we decided it would be best presented on our own, high-quality NFL Network, which has developed so rapidly that the time had come to add live regular-season games to the programming," Commissioner Tagliabue said. "In the end, we wanted these games on our network, which is devoted 24/7 to the sport of football, and not on a multi-sport network."

NFL Network will make all of its games available on free, over-the-air television in the participating team markets, continuing the NFL's long-standing practice of making all of its games, including the playoffs and Super Bowl, available on free, over-the-air television.

"The NFL has traditionally been at the forefront of innovation and new technology dating back to starting NFL Films in the ‘60s, and Pete Rozelle and Roone Arledge creating Monday Night Football in 1970," said Commissioner Tagliabue. "With NFL Network, we are creating a fresh, innovative programming package that will complement all of our television partners."

NFL Network's new eight-game package was created by shifting Saturday and Sunday games from previous arrangements. In November of 2004, CBS and FOX agreed to extend their packages for six more years. NBC and ESPN last April secured rights for six and eight years, respectively.

"It was decided after surveying the rapidly evolving media landscape that a year-round channel dedicated to our sport was the best way to continue to develop and serve our fan base," NFL Network President & CEO Steve Bornstein said. "This is an opportune time to present these games ourselves and develop new ways to deliver the game of football at all levels to sports fans."

Agreements for all available NFL television packages now are concluded. Following are the rights holders beginning in 2006:
• CBS -- AFC package -- Sunday afternoons [1 & 4 p.m. ET]
• FOX -- NFC package -- Sunday afternoons [1 & 4 p.m. ET]
• NBC -- Primetime broadcast package -- Sunday evenings [8:15 p.m. ET]
• ESPN -- Monday Night Football package -- Monday evenings [8:30 p.m. ET]
• NFL Network -- Special Late-Season package -- Thursday and/or Saturday evenings [8 p.m. ET] (beginning Thanksgiving)
• DirecTV -- Sunday Ticket satellite package [1 & 4 p.m. ET]

http://www.nfl.com/nflnetwork/story/9193472

Fred, if you use the CODE switch it helps with charts like the one below, it didn't do so well with this particular one, but it generally makes those sort of charts easier to read.

The switch is (CODE) and (/CODE), just replace the () with brackets [].


Market WB owner UPN owner CW affiliate
New York Tribune Fox Tribune
Los Angeles Tribune Fox Tribune
Chicago Tribune Fox Tribune
Philadelphia Tribune CBS CBS
Boston Tribune CBS Tribune
San Francisco Granite* CBS CBS
Dallas Tribune CBS Tribune
Washington Tribune Fox Tribune
Atlanta Tribune CBS CBS
Houston Tribune Fox Tribune
Detroit Granite* CBS CBS
Tampa, Fla. Sinclair CBS CBS
Seattle Tribune CBS CBS
Phoenix Belo Fox TBD
Minneapolis Sinclair Fox TBD
Cleveland Winston Bcstg. Raycom Media TBD
Miami Tribune CBS Tribune
Denver Tribune Channel 20 TV Co.* Tribune
Sacramento Gannett CBS CBS
Orlando, Fla. Emmis Fox TBD
St. Louis Tribune Roberts Bcstg. Tribune
Pittsburgh Sinclair CBS CBS
Portland, Ore. Tribune Meredith Tribune
Baltimore Sinclair Fox TBD
Indianapolis Tribune LIN TV Tribune

Question for all: (I assume the answer is yes, but) does the NFL Network broadcast in HD?
Yes, but it doesn't have anywhere near the carriage of the other major networks. I think it's on a DirecTV special events channel(90-100), but on low bandwidth Comcast systems it's not available. I think Dish has it as well but I'm not positive,

This will be interesting, if I don't have DirecTV come next season it may be the first season in awhile that I won't be able to see some games in HD

NFL Network does have an HD channel, which right now only has "Game of the Week" and some pre-season games in HD. We have it on Adephia/Cleveland. Its distribution is not nearly as broad as other HD channels, though I assume this will change now.

Sacramento Gannett CBS CBS


They're wrong here...WB in the Sacramento market (KQCA "WB 58") is owned by Hearst-Argyle (duopoly with KCRA/3 NBC). Gannett owns ABC affil KXTV/10.

Fred, if you use the CODE switch it helps with charts like the one below, it didn't do so well with this particular one, but it generally makes those sort of charts easier to read.

The switch is (CODE) and (/CODE), just replace the () with brackets [].




Thanks Jim -- maybe it will help with the weekly ratings, too.
I'll experiment a bit.

Commentary: The Business of TV
The Math Behind The CW

Does combining two struggling networks equal one success?
By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable 1/30/2006

Time Warner is the largest media company, not just in the country but in the entire world. Its Warner Bros. Television dominates the TV-production industry, supplying more shows to broadcast networks than anyone. Yet, for all that clout, Time Warner executives couldn't manage to successfully program The WB for two prime time hours, six nights a week.

Viacom and its new spawn, CBS Corp., are smaller but did no better with UPN.

After a decade on the air, the networks are folding, with the pieces combined into a new channel, The CW network.

The inability of such powerful companies to make even modest channels work on the air speaks volumes about the state of TV networks. Consolidation is a classic response of companies stuck in a mature business, and every network is stuck. The broadcast networks' revenue growth averaged an unimpressive 4% over the past five years, and the next five look no better. If the ad market is slow and programmers can't chisel audience from rivals, combining operations is often the only way to squeeze some earnings growth.

“A major, major change”

Irwin Gottlieb was a little bit alarmed by the shrinking number of major broadcast networks. The CEO of Group M—who controls ad-buying firms that spend $20 billion of clients' ad dollars—suggests rewinding five years: “Would you have ever contemplated that we're going from six networks to five, instead of going from six networks to seven? We haven't taken a step back in a long time. We've always moved ahead.”

He adds, “For the first time, we are contemplating the ability to economically produce content for six networks; we are clearly questioning the ability of the [ad] market to support six networks. That's a major, major change.”

Univision and Pax would no doubt object to their exclusion from Gottlieb's network headcount. (Indeed, Univision instantly protested The CW proclaiming itself “the fifth network” since the Spanish-language network's audience already exceeds both The WB's and UPN's.) But Gottlieb's point is clear: Broadcasters' profits are imperiled, nibbled away by cable and further threatened as viewers and advertisers are distracted by the Web.

CBS and Time Warner will be 50-50 partners in The CW, but no money changes hands. Tribune Co. will surrender its 22% stake in The WB (which analysts believed was worthless, anyway) in exchange for an affiliation agreement to The CW for 16 of its old WB stations. CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves says CBS' Paramount Television and Warner Bros. will co-produce programming that appears on CW.

The deal may initially look like a merger of The WB and UPN, but it's carefully crafted in a different way. The two networks are being shut down and some of their assets drawn upon to create what CBS and Time Warner tout as “the new fifth network.” That's more than mere hype. Executives believe that closing the old networks frees them of obligations to angry former WB and UPN affiliates not chosen for The CW. That's a contentious issue roiling station groups, even big ones like Fox TV Stations.

The deal is being driven by years of losses. The WB and UPN were launched for the same reason, providing a TV platform for their studio parents. Executives at Warner Bros. and UPN parent Paramount worried that loosening federal rules would have the networks developing more of their own entertainment programming or strong-arming studios for a big piece of backend sales. So The WB and UPN were started to ensure that the studios' TV factories always had a ready outlet.

But it has been an expensive outlet. Securities filings show that The WB has burned through about $600 million; Morgan Stanley media analyst Rich Bilotti estimates that UPN has lost at least $500 million. The studios have had few giant hits to make up those losses through syndication or DVD sales.

Without detailing any numbers, Moonves says, “These two networks would have closed or would have continued to stumble along.” But by cherry-picking the strongest shows—like The WB's Smallville and Gilmore Girls plus UPN's Veronica Mars and America's Next Top Model—The CW should be profitable from the start.

“You keep the best of both networks,” Moonves says. “That's a pretty good way to start a network.”

However, there is no guarantee that combining the leavings of two troubled networks will breed success.

Is cable next?

Moonves dismisses the notion that the deal is driven by maturity of the whole broadcast-network sector. These netlets aren't in decline; they never really gelled to begin with as they fought it out behind the Big Four networks.

“Five networks was probably the right number of networks all along, even way back when,” Moonves says.

Perhaps. But maybe broadcast networks are simply in the same maturity slump that's gripping TV stations. Local broadcasters are stuck with average revenue growth around 4%, and there's no end in sight. Station groups generally complain that ownership restrictions—particularly those limiting duopolies—keep them from following the natural course, consolidation.

That's the path you see in slow-growth industries around the country from department stores to telephone companies.

Could cable programming be next? Major basic networks are generally growing now, but the easiest gains are from increasing distribution and raising license fees paid by cable and DBS operators. Meanwhile, smaller networks peck away at the top 10 channels, limiting their audience and advertising growth.

Nobody likes to grow old.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6302852.html?display=John+Higgins&referral=SUPP

"The deal may initially look like a merger of The WB and UPN, but it's carefully crafted in a different way. The two networks are being shut down and some of their assets drawn upon to create what CBS and Time Warner tout as “the new fifth network.” That's more than mere hype. Executives believe that closing the old networks frees them of obligations to angry former WB and UPN affiliates not chosen for The CW. That's a contentious issue roiling station groups, even big ones like Fox TV Stations."



If I read this right what will keep Fox from raiding WB & UPN for non Warner Bros. & Viacom shows ?

If they are shuting down then the shows should be free to go to "Fox2"?

I would not put this past Fox trying this for a little pay back.

Excellent observation, gsg8838.

Payback is always fun.

(And welcome to the forum!)

:) My favorite Cleveland Indian player when I was a kid (grew up in Cleveland) was Duane Kiper !! lol - I knew he was broadcasting.. seen him a few times on ESPN national game.. but didnt know he was a regular Giants announcer

jim

Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, the Giants guys,

Directv was dead on last year with game of the week in HD.. always there.. This year it's been off more often then on.. damn you directv!!! lol


Yes, but it doesn't have anywhere near the carriage of the other major networks. I think it's on a DirecTV special events channel(90-100), but on low bandwidth Comcast systems it's not available. I think Dish has it as well but I'm not positive,

This will be interesting, if I don't have DirecTV come next season it may be the first season in awhile that I won't be able to see some games in HD

I think the "Fox 2" rumor is only viable if Sinclair get on board.

:) My favorite Cleveland Indian player when I was a kid (grew up in Cleveland) was Duane Kiper !! lol - I knew he was broadcasting.. seen him a few times on ESPN national game.. but didnt know he was a regular Giants announcer

jim


If you get MLB EI, make sure to tune them in.
(And if you don't taker advantage of the early season free looks).
Kuiper and Krukow are delightful, knowledgeable, have a lot of fun, and while they take the game seriously, they understand it is just a game -- and there are 162 of them!)
(And this comes from a lifetime Giants-hater.)

I think the "Fox 2" rumor is only viable if Sinclair get on board.


That could be, although everyone at NewsCorp has been quick to quash those "Fox2" rumors.

And I am not sure it is in Rupert's style to make deals with small fish (and I don't mean to be offensvive to any Sinclair fans) like Sinclair.

He much prefers to go it alone, or make deals with the (other) big players. I don't think Sinclair is in Rupert's league.

Certainly it isn't financially, and as best I can see, not when it comes to business/financial imagination, either.

Commentary: The Business of TV
CW: Can You Feel the Love?

By J. Max Robins Broadcasting & Cable 1/30/2006

Certainly a number of factors were at play in the decision to combine the flagging fortunes of UPN and The WB, and make lemonade from a couple of lemons. Timing was essential in the birth of The CW, as the new CBS Corp./Warner Bros. network has been dubbed. Both sides' pacts with affiliates were about to run out. Corporate parent Time Warner, with barbarian Carl Icahn at the gate, and the newly single CBS didn't need any more red ink from their respective network offspring.

Without a deal, “these two networks would have closed or would have continued to stumble along,” CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves tells B&C's John Higgins (see Money Talks, page 8). With Wall Street particularly unforgiving toward media companies of late, the former was a more likely scenario than the latter.

Still, none of this would have happened, claim the deal's architects, if the principals didn't have personal and professional bonds that go back some two decades.

Moonves calls Warner Bros. Entertainment chief Barry Meyer a “mentor” from the days when Moonves ran the network-TV department at Meyer's studio.

The deal was put in motion at a dinner party around Thanksgiving. “We started kicking it around there in front of our wives, who got mad because we were talking business,” says Moonves.

Dawn Ostroff, who ran programming at UPN and will do likewise atop The CW, has a relationship with Moonves that goes back to the 1980s, when he was an executive at 20th Century Fox and she was a secretary.

The point guy on the WB side, Warner Bros. TV chief Bruce Rosenblum, calls CBS Paramount TV head Nancy Tellem, herself a Warner alum and Rosenblum's UPN counterpart during almost three months of super-secret negotiations, “somebody who is like a sister” to him. “We talk in shorthand,” he says. “There's a long history of respect and trust.”

Decades-old friendships, personal and professional, not only helped keep this deal quiet but likely were a factor in a co-venture that both sides had discussed privately, on and off, for years. (Though such ties were not enough to protect WB entertainment chief David Janollari, who was a key Moonves lieutenant when both worked at Warner Bros., or Garth Ancier, the departing WB chairman.)

But chumminess is certainly no guarantee of success for The CW. Certain elements of the partnership appear structured to create power centers on each side that play to respective strengths. Most of the sales and marketing functions will come from the Time Warner side, while CBS will head up the programming team.

Both sides, however, need to make programming decisions based on quality, not on loyalty to one or the other's corporate family. Rosenblum says such partisanship will be avoided through co-productions, where risk and profit is shared whichever side initiates them.

Still in the honeymoon stage, both sides are firmly on-message, saying that key decisions on everything from the selection of shows to which stations are chosen as CW affiliates will be based on the best interests of the new network, not its corporate parents.

But all strong marriages, even corporate ones, demand sacrifice and selflessness, no matter how deep the love.

“We could never pull off a WB/UPN merger before, even though everybody knew it made business sense, because, frankly, egos got in the way,” says one Time Warner veteran involved in earlier talks. “Even with a deal in place, there are still plenty of big egos involved that will need to be checked at the door if this thing is going to work.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6302838.html?display=Max+Robins&referral=SUPP

The Business of TV
A New Script: How CBS and Time Warner Brass plan to build The CW

By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 1/30/2006

Dawn Ostroff’s life took a dramatic turn on Jan. 24.

That’s when the rest of the world found out what the UPN president had known for a while: The WB and UPN would become one network, and she would be a big part of it.

Now that the secret is out, the CW entertainment president plans to assemble a team of executives and develop a strategy the new crew can execute in a reasonable time. Next, she’ll identify pilots for the new network’s first development slate. Perhaps just as important as the quality of the product is the brand, which has to be crafted from scratch and then sold to two sets of constituents: advertisers in May, the viewers leading up to the fall launch.

And it all has to happen fast. May and the upfronts are only three months away. Between now and then, Ostroff, who was promoted to UPN president in February 2005, will try to build a schedule that will specifically target the 18-34 demo, something both The WB and UPN shows did with only modest success.

The schedule for now is up for grabs. As much as 10 hours of the 13-hour prime time schedule will be made up of current UPN and WB hits. Ostroff likes her Monday UPN lineup, which includes Girlfriends and One on One, so a slate of African-American–targeted comedies is a good bet. New CW ad-sales chief Bill Morningstar, who will join from The WB, which skewed to a younger audience, likes the idea of an all-African-American night. “I think it is a really smart programming strategy,” he says.

Female-friendly Nights

Morningstar says he can envision a female-friendly Tuesday and Wednesday. For instance, a Veronica Mars/Gilmore Girls night makes sense, but don’t expect Ostroff to commute the death sentence for 7th Heaven, which she knows lost $16 million this season.

Thursdays could begin a shift to a male audience. With Smallville the top-rated 18-34 show in its time slot, keeping it on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET would make sense, with thriller Supernatural a nice fit at 9. That would mean moving comedy Everybody Hates Chris to another night. Wherever it goes, Ostroff’s chief developmental task will be finding a companion piece for the sitcom. She says she may be looking for a single-camera comedy to go with Chris.

The male-centric Thursday would be helpful for promoting Friday night—a relatively safe bet to be filled with a two-hour WWE Smackdown!, which worked well on a night in which The WB struggled.

Sunday is decidedly up in the air, with an all-reality night a possibility up against ABC’s powerful lineup and NBC’s football in the fall. Ostroff has such assets as America’s Top Model and Beauty and the Geek in her reality arsenal, although Top Model may work better on one of the female-themed nights.

Although a network’s shows drive a brand, no new network has a second chance to make a good first impression. The first decision will be what to call the network. A name and logo were unveiled last week, but it was hard to find an executive from either camp who would guarantee that one or both would still be around in the fall. “A lot of this was put together [quickly], and we hope 'The CW’ will be the name of the network,” says Ostroff, adding, “but anything could happen.”

Whatever the logo looks like, the message will have to be crystal clear in a cluttered market: The CW is selling a network targeting 18- to 34-year-olds. And with a decidedly young target, marketing brass will have to be nimble about going to wherever the demo spends its time. “Whether it’s People magazine or someone’s blog, we’ll need to be there,” says CBS Marketing Group President George Schweitzer.

While the shows will bring a modest built-in audience and upgrading affiliates in certain markets will help, Schweitzer is also bullish about the combination of CBS’ media properties and Warner Bros.’ sales prowess. “Between our media power and their entertainment-marketing experience on the theatrical side and with home video,” he says, “there is a lot going on.”

Parental Help

The new network will tap its parents’ assets for help. Field reps for CBS’ recently acquired College Sports TV network will be asked to do viral marketing for The CW, including setting up screenings for programming.

Morningstar, who has been with The WB since its inception in 1995, will have the chance to go back to what his network got away from: pinpointing the young demo. “We’ll go in under the traditional networks from a competitive standpoint and chasing viewers and marketing. There is a huge generation coming in, the babies of baby boomers.”

Morningstar estimates that The WB and UPN combined took in about $900 million in upfront ad revenues this year but adds that it’s too early to guess how much of that the new network can retain come spring.

Ad buyers see an opportunity for the new network to re-focus on the target audience that The WB had let slip away when it tried to broaden its audience recently. “It’s imperative it stays 18-34,” says Steve Grubbs, CEO of media-buying agency PHD North America. “That’s where the opportunity is.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6302850

TV Review
”The Water Is Wide,” but not very deep

Based on a Pat Conroy novel about a teacher in the '60s, the film fails to do justice to the characters or the era
By Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 28, 2006

"The Water Is Wide," which airs Sunday night on CBS as "the 226th Presentation of the Hallmark Hall of Fame," is a heavily filtered adaptation of Pat Conroy's "autobiographical novel" — more a thinly veiled memoir than a proper novel — about his year teaching elementary school on Daufuskie Island, S.C., here called Yamacraw Island, at the close of the 1960s. (Conroy's name stays the same, but other details change.) It's a thing of obvious — too obvious — good intentions, and doubtless there are some who will feel the intended uplift, just as are those for whom a Hallmark Card is the quintessence of poetry.

Any chance to watch Alfre Woodard work is a chance worth taking, but this one pays few other dividends. Woodard plays Mrs. Brown, Conroy's fellow teacher and principal at the island's two-room schoolhouse. She has a high regard for corporal punishment, tells her class to "mind your manners — don't act your color," and tells Conroy (Jeff Hephner) that the only way to teach black children is to "step on them" and keep on stepping. Her authority for this is that she is herself "colored."

Conroy, by contrast, is a slightly long-haired white kid who believes in questioning authority and sparing the rod to save the child. It is yet another talking-picture tale of the idealistic teacher reaching out to kids who've been written off, and it is also yet another tale of the unconventional teacher who breaks through to them by breaking the rules. (See also: "Dangerous Minds," "To Sir With Love," "Dead Poets Society," and also "Mona Lisa Smile," "Stand and Deliver.") Indeed, it is yet another adaptation of "The Water Is Wide," already made in 1974 as "Conrack," starring Jon Voight and directed by Martin Ritt, who also made "Sounder."

The director here is John Kent Harrison, who several years ago directed another Southern tale for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, the excellent "Old Man," from a William Faulkner novella about a flood on the Mississippi, which captured the sense of place, of life and weather in a way "The Water Is Wide" does not. On a technical level, the film is polished and pretty — too much so, really. You can't feel the air, but you can almost sense the dressing room trailers and the craft services tables just behind the camera. None of this is helped by the sweeping and sentimental score, slathered on like pink frosting.

This is a collection of feel-good moments (of a sometimes surpassing phoniness) in search of a plot. This isn't completely surprising, because the book, really just a journal of Conroy's experience teaching, fighting mainland bureaucrats (Frank Langella plays the superintendent of schools) and getting married, doesn't really have a plot. But what it does have is a detail and attitude, both of which are missing here, as well as the amused but critical eye that the author turns on himself.

This Conroy barely registers as anything more than a nice guy with a bit of a stubborn streak, occasionally haunted by the ghost of his martinet military father (immortalized elsewhere as "The Great Santini"). Though he later wonders, in flashback narration, whether the kids changed him more than he changed them, in the film he doesn't change at all. There is Conroy with his ideas, and Mrs. Brown and the Board of Education with theirs, and someone will have to go. The minor characters — who are lively and complex on the page — have become simple signifiersof either goodwill or ill will, with all their personality squeezed into friendly smiles or sullen scowls.

In the same way, the political and racial context of the book — which is significant, and includes Conroy's confession of his own past casual racism — has been downplayed, as if Hallmark, being Hallmark, wishes to give no one offense. (It had only been four years since the Voting Rights Act when Conroy went to the island, and the wings of Jim Crow were still spread wide; it was a time when even people of goodwill mouthed stereotypes.)

Mrs. Brown is also softened, and given a reason for being so deferential to her bosses and hard on her charges — it's that she's "a professional black woman trying to make it in a white male South" — when her model is a more complex picture of ego, religious zeal and self-hatred. And she is allowed her moments of redemption and humanity: As her class sits with hands folded and knees together at a graduation ceremony, Conroy's students clamber over him as if he were a jungle gym, her reflexive disapproval now overcome by regret. Finally, she will speak up in a small way for Conroy, when his bosses have had enough of him. Woodard is good as always, but it's stock stuff, and there's only so much she can do with it.

The child actors do an excellent job of seeming to have been born in a world before hip-hop.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/reviews/cl-et-water28jan28,0,3771358,print.story?coll=cl-tvent-util

TV Review
“The Water Is Wide”

A Teacher Puts Faith in the Overlooked Students
By Alessandra Stanley The New York Times

Pat Conroy, who wrote "The Great Santini" and "The Prince of Tides," spent 1969 on a remote South Carolina island teaching poor black children who could neither read nor write and spoke to one another in Gullah, a blend of Elizabethan English and African languages.

The author chronicled his year of living primitively in an autobiographical novel, "The Water Is Wide," long a favorite of teachers, which was made into a 1974 film, "Conrack," starring Jon Voight.

CBS on Sunday plans to show a new version, a "Hallmark Hall of Fame" presentation starring Jeff Hephner as the young Pat Conroy and Alfre Woodard as Mrs. Brown, his teaching nemesis. Nothing has changed, except the audience.

A generation ago, "The Water Is Wide" was a heartwarming tale spiked with indignation over separate and unequal education in the rural South — a feel-good movie as manifesto. Now it is a feel-good movie as nostalgia, a gauzy look back at a time when nature was untamed and ignorance unspoiled.

On Yamacraw, the fictional name of Daufuskie Island, there are no television sets, boomboxes or video games filling the educational void. Island children are blank-slate innocents, so thirsty for attention and learning that they listen, awestruck, to a recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. They are raised in cultural isolation and subsistence living that is now mostly found in the third world and a few New Age cults in California. It is a disgrace softened by the romance of rarity.

Not that the American public school system has improved so much in the last four decades. Programs like Teach for America attest to the economic and social disparities that still plague communities all over the country. It's not getting better fast: the No Child Left Behind improvements that President Bush campaigned on in 2000 were mostly left behind in the wake of Sept. 11 and the invasion of Iraq.

It is the real estate market that has changed: until the mid-1970's, only 100 or so people, descendants of slaves, lived on Daufuskie Island in a community as untouched and backward as the Appalachia that Walker Evans and James Agee documented during the Depression. Today, Daufuskie Island is a luxury resort area with swimming pools, condos and championship golf courses — a rustic recreational annex to Hilton Head.

Crossing the river to Yamacraw by fishing boat, Mr. Conroy is greeted at the island schoolhouse by Mrs. Brown, a veteran teacher who believes in corporal punishment and what she calls "the fundamentals of refinement." Before the new teacher arrives, Mrs. Brown bangs her ruler and tells the pupils to "mind your manners, don't act your color." She welcomes Mr. Conroy to his new job "overseas" and warns him that the teaching there is "missionary work."

In a way, it is. Mr. Conroy had originally hoped to join the Peace Corps, and ended up teaching instead. Seeing that Mrs. Brown's methods have not worked — her students are cowed but uneducated — he adopts a looser, "To Sir, With Love" approach: desks in a circle, walks on the beach and, when he realizes that his pupils cannot believe that astronauts landed on the moon, a field trip to Washington. At first, the island parents are hostile, but they gradually come to appreciate his more unorthodox, caring approach.

The young teacher is torn between two influences: his fiancée, a sweet-natured teacher, who nurtures his softer, touchy-feely side, and memories — shown in flashback — of his stern, goading father, a Marine Corps martinet. (That kind of abusive father was at the center of Mr. Conroy's coming-of-age novel, "The Great Santini," played by Robert Duvall in the movie, and was also a recurring figure in "The Prince of Tides.") In this film, Mr. Conroy's memories of his tough-talking father are usually triggered by encounters with the head of the BeaufortCounty school district, the verbose and exacting Dr. Piedmont, played by Frank Langella with his customary sinister charm.

Mr. Langella has played villains for much of his career. Ms. Woodard is newer to the dark side — first as a secretive neighbor on "Desperate Housewives" and now as an insecure, narrow-minded teacher whose tongue is as cutting as the strap she uses on her students. "Some of you were born simple-minded; you know who you are," she tells her classroom. "You have to work harder than your lazy, lazy friends."

Mr. Hephner, a newcomer, plays Mr. Conroy as a naïve do-gooder who patiently endures the snubs of Mrs. Brown and school district officials. His character is less prickly and outraged than the one played by Mr. Voight 32 years ago. So is the film. Nothing really terrible happens on or off Yamacraw, and there is little dramatic tension — not even when Mr. Conroy faces dismissal.

This "Water Is Wide" has a Hallmark worldview: painful episodes of the past are cottoned by idyllic scenery and storybook sentiment. The movie is touching and pleasant, without ever breaking a sweat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/arts/television/27wate.html?pagewanted=print

Fred, if you use the CODE switch it helps with charts like the one below,

The switch is (CODE) and (/CODE), just replace the () with brackets [].


It also helps to use blank spaces instead of tabs to line up the columns. For this to work, you need to compose the table in a separate text-editor or word-processor window, and use a monospace font like Courier (or Monaco on a Mac). Then copy and paste into the text box on the posting page.


Market WB owner UPN owner CW affiliate
------ -------- --------- ------------
New York Tribune Fox Tribune
Los Angeles Tribune Fox Tribune
Chicago Tribune Fox Tribune
Philadelphia Tribune CBS CBS
Boston Tribune CBS Tribune
San Francisco Granite* CBS CBS
Dallas Tribune CBS Tribune
Washington Tribune Fox Tribune
Atlanta Tribune CBS CBS
Houston Tribune Fox Tribune
Detroit Granite* CBS CBS
Tampa, Fla. Sinclair CBS CBS
Seattle Tribune CBS CBS
Phoenix Belo Fox TBD
Minneapolis Sinclair Fox TBD
Cleveland Winston Bcstg. Raycom Media TBD
Miami Tribune CBS Tribune
Denver Tribune Channel 20 TV Co.* Tribune
Sacramento Gannett CBS CBS
Orlando, Fla. Emmis Fox TBD
St. Louis Tribune Roberts Bcstg. Tribune
Pittsburgh Sinclair CBS CBS
Portland, Ore. Tribune Meredith Tribune
Baltimore Sinclair Fox TBD
Indianapolis Tribune LIN TV Tribune

Thanks jtbell!

Critic’s Notebook
'Grey's Anatomy' to get Super boost

A slot after next weekend's big game could make the steamy drama hotter
By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic January 28, 2006

PASADENA, Calif. -- Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes compares having her own show to controlling a country. She keeps a tight but creative grip on her land.

"Everybody says what you want them to say," Rhimes says. "They all sort of move where you want them to move."

Her kingdom has become one of prime time's most inviting spots since debuting in March. Grey's Anatomy is a medical drama, but the main attractions are difficult romances and distinctive characters. You'd be in good hands with physicians such as Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd (played by Patrick Dempsey) and Miranda "the Nazi" Bailey (Chandra Wilson).

Grey's Anatomy performed so well, after Desperate Housewives, that it pushed Boston Legal from the 10 p.m. Sunday slot on ABC. Grey's Anatomy ranks No. 9 this season in total viewers, and it's bound to climb. A berth after next weekend's Super Bowl ensures that millions more will be exposed to this addictive show.

To keep football fans in their seats, Rhimes will plunge Seattle Grace Hospital into a crisis. Promos use the term "Code Black." But Rhimes and her cast reveal few details.

"We should all hold hands and pray that it doesn't happen here," Ellen Pompeo, who plays Meredith Grey, tells TV critics gathered in a hotel.

"Something happens, and bad stuff follows," Rhimes says.

No kidding. The episode carries the title "It's the End of the World." ABC publicity says a medical case "threatens the lives of everyone in the O.R."

But Rhimes remains a tight-lipped ruler. Her past connection to a monarchy: writing Disney's The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. These days, she sets a powerful example for her actors.

"One of things I feel strongly about is knowing what's going to happen on an episode of television before you see it," Rhimes says. "It's just a waste. It's crazy. Why tell people what's going to happen instead of getting them to watch to see for themselves?"

She rarely reads discussion boards because she doesn't want fans' comments to influence her writing. She hates to see plots on the Web or hear people talking about what's coming next.

"We all made an agreement that we're going to keep our mouth shut," Rhimes says of her cast.

That approach lets fans speculate endlessly about former lovers Meredith and Derek and whether they will reunite. In last season's finale, Meredith learned her "Dr. McDreamy" had a nightmare side: He never mentioned his estranged wife, Dr. Addison Shepherd (Kate Walsh). Addison was initially a formidable and frightening character. She's less scary these days, and Walsh credits Rhimes and the writers.

"I feel like they did an amazing job of making her more complex rather than just an arch-villainess," Walsh says. "I feel bad for them," she adds, referring to Meredith and Derek. "I didn't want to rain on their parade, but Mommy has got to do what she's got to do."

Rhimes has given depth to surgical interns, as well. Sandra Oh won a Golden Globe for her edgy work as driven Cristina Yang. The show has skillfully exploited the sexual chemistry of Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) and Alex Karev (Justin Chambers).

George O'Malley (T.R. Knight) might seem a hopeless dweeb longing for Meredith, but he has shown heroic and charming sides. He has emerged as TV's most dashing nerd.

Knight says Rhimes is responsible. "It's fascinating, her respect for George," the actor says. "He could be one-dimensional. Her drive to make him a fully realized person and a person who constantly changes . . . I value it so much as an actor."

Rhimes sees Meredith, the lead character, in terms surprisingly complicated for a TV heroine. "She's not always nice. She doesn't always do the perfect thing," Rhimes says. "She's a little screwed up, and that's what makes her interesting."

For Pompeo, the challenge has been portraying what she would never necessarily do as a person. "I welcome all the crazy things that Meredith does, because I just have to learn how to tackle them and how to play them and make them believable," she says.

What's the most frustrating thing Meredith has done? "You have yet to see it, but you will see it soon," Pompeo says.

Rhimes has trained her actors well in clamming up.

But unlike many people in control, Rhimes generously shares the kudos for Grey's healthy ratings.

"Casting is really important to the show's success, not just because they're phenomenal actors and bring so much to the roles," she says. "But also just because somebody looks to the show and thinks to themselves, 'OK, there's no longer anything unusual about having half your cast be people of color.' "

The promos hint that the frantic episode after the Super Bowl could look more like ER than Grey's Anatomy. Don't worry, the network advises.

"It is Grey's a little on acid," says Steve McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment. "But it doesn't lose any of the humor. There's gallows humor. There's great love-story stuff. There's sexy stuff."

So detailed is Rhimes in planning Grey's Anatomy that she says she knows exactly what will happen in the season finale. On top of that, she says she knows what the last scene of the last episode ever will be. She offers no details, naturally. How long does she plan to rule over Grey's Anatomy?

"I love it here," she says. "How could you not? We have really great people. So I don't really have any plans to go anywhere any time soon."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/orl-greys06jan28,0,1676689,print.story

Critic’s Notebook
Their contributions to '24' and 'Lost' are note perfect

By Maureen Ryan in the Chicago Tribune TV blog January 28, 2006

Sean Callery and Michael Giacchino may not be household names, but they’ve made crucial contributions to some of the most exciting, moving and memorable television moments of the last few years.

If you wept after “Lost’s” Boone died in Season 1 or nearly jumped off your seat during any of “24’s” thrilling chase scenes, a good portion of the credit goes to these accomplished composers, who create the music for “24” (Callery) and “Lost” (Giacchino).

The achievements of Callery and Giacchino are even more surprising when you realize how little time they have to compose their scores. Callery has a maximum of five days to compose up to 39 minutes of music for “24,” and the score for each episode of “Lost,” which uses anywhere from 12 to 25 minutes of music, comes together in a mere three days.

“Fear is a great motivator,” Callery says with a laugh.

Callery plays every note of the “24” score, which he describes as a mixture of orchestral, “organic” textures and non-organic, “never heard before” sounds that he creates from scratch. He’s even woven distorted recordings of his own voice into the show’s soundtrack a few times.

“The producers love interesting sounds, sounds that aren’t on-the-nose, traditional [television music],” Callery said in a call from his Los Angeles studio. “When there’s a subliminal feeling in a scene, I try to come up with an eerie, odd sound — I try to design something that will depict that energy.”

Giacchino also likes to use unusual instrumentation;. For the soundtrack to the plane-crash scene in the pilot episode of “Lost,” he actually used a part of the plane from the show’s Hawaii set as a percussion instrument.

“Even for the standard instruments — violins, violas, cellos — I try to use them in very abstract ways,” Giacchino said in a call from his L.A. studio. “[In] my initial conversations with [`Lost’ co-creator] J.J. [Abrams], I told him that I just want people to feel uncomfortable, because the characters are uncomfortable. If we can create this very nervous, uncomfortable setting, then the moments when we actually have a rest, or something to be somewhat happy about, it’s going to make all the difference in the world.”

Both men create recurring themes for the major characters on their shows; on “Lost,” a character such as John Locke may actually have a few different themes, Giacchino explains.

http://tempo.typepad.com/entertainment_tv/

Critic’s Notebook
Oprah's Gratuitous Frey-flogging

By Anne Becker at bcbeat.com

I watched James Frey’s Oprah appearance on DVR last night and felt truly sorry for him. He sat there mute (or as Anderson Cooper put it in 360’s HOUR of coverage devoted to the story that night, “like a cornered rat”) for most of the hour while Oprah towered over him on her metaphorical high horse, lambasting this and that detail of the book.

After every impassioned declaration she made about how he’d lied, in her opinion, Queen Oprah’s doting audience roared with applause, embracing her newfound indignation over the whole ordeal. Let’s be honest – had Oprah kept up her defense of Frey and made equally impassioned declarations of endorsement, the audience would’ve applauded just as loudly – because she’s Oprah. No matter what she’d said, she would’ve had the upper hand.

Coming back from commercials, she ran bumpers of journalists damning the poor guy and repeatedly thanked them all – including Maureen Dowd, who mispronounced Frey’s name – it’s “fry,” not “fray” – before urging Oprah to kick his “bony, lying, nonfiction butt out of the kingdom of Oprah.” Oprah – who no doubt meant to connote her seriousness about the situation with her stick-straight blowout – brought on the Times’ Frank Rich, the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen and some guy from the Poynter Institute, and each pontificated about the situation with equal bemusement.

Bill Bastone, the The Smoking Gun’s unctuous editor, has had the same…garbage-eating grin in all of his own TV appearances talking about how he exposed Frey’s lies. Even Nan Talese, whose Frey defense Oprah repeatedly cut off, managed a detached smile for most of the time.

And you know who was the only one not grinning? Frey. He just sat there dumbfounded, stuttering – when she gave him the chance – to defend himself. Yes, he agreed to go on her show again as her guest. Yes, it’s her forum and this made for some riveting television. Yes, this probably only helped him sell more copies (this morning, A Million Little Pieces is #4 on Amazon’s bestseller list). And yes, he made up sections of the book (Do any of us really believe there’s truth in every single detail of the freakish adolescence Augusten Burroughs describes in his own memoir Running with Scissors?).

But clearly the guy’s unstable and has got some big issues, beyond likely being a pathological liar, and Oprah addressed those only fleetingly in the last minutes of the show to give him some condescending advice about how the truth will set him free and how the scandal shouldn’t be enough to make him use the gun he apparently joked about having backstage.

I’m sure, like she proclaimed to Talese, this is “embarrassing and disappointing” for Oprah, but she and all of her guests will come out of this thing unscathed. And I don’t know if that will be true of Frey’s obviously fragile mental health. Oprah’s built a public persona – and, in my opinion, a inflated sense of self-righteousness – around doling out compassion to those in need. And I think she could’ve shown Frey a lot more of that instead of using the time to polish up her own reputation.

http://www.bcbeat.com/

TV Review
Moving story tells author's fight for human equality

By Jeanne Jakle San Antonio Express-News 01/29/2006

"The Water Is Wide" doesn't have the slap-in-your-face drama of Pat Conroy's other novels-turned-movies.

Don't expect to be drenched in deep, dark secrets or feel the same kind of loathing and fear of other works such as "The Prince of Tides," "Lords of Discipline" and "The Great Santini." This early memoir of the author, however, embodies Conroy's famed independent spirit and fight for human dignity and equality. It takes place between 1969 and 1970, and is set in the south — South Carolina, to be exact — a favorite locale of the Atlanta-born Conroy.

Mainly, it's an elegant, moving and refreshingly honest story of primary school children — black children — who are figuratively and literally beaten down by a system that masks racism with bureaucracy.

"The Water Is Wide," a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation that airs at 9 PM ET/PT. Sunday on CBS, is based on the experiences of then-teacher Conroy, who strives to make a difference in a frustrating and limited world. Desperate to secure a job just weeks before marrying a widow with a young daughter, he takes a job on the remote island of Yamacraw off the coast of South Carolina.

Shocked at the illiteracy and ignorance of history and culture displayed by his fifth-to-eighth-grade students, Conroy does his best to bring them knowledge through unconventional methods and imaginative games. Initially, one of his strongest detractors is another teacher who's also the principal of the school, Mrs. Brown (Alfre Woodard in another one of her subtly strong performances).

She believes in the adage, "spare the rod and spoil the child," and wields that rod frequently and harshly to maintain control over the kids. Conroy firmly disagrees with that approach; instead, he calms and engages his students with exercise, music and personable conversation.

He invites them to his wedding on the mainland and even organizes a field trip to Washington, D.C. In return, he gets all kinds of criticism; he's chided for incurring extra costs, operating out of the box and bucking the school's traditional ways.

Although Mrs. Brown eventually sees the beauty of his approach, the superintendent of the school (Frank Langella) and others of the hierarchy become so incensed they threaten his job.

What they can't threaten is the independence learned by both the students and their once-passive parents, who realize they do have a say in the way their children are treated.

"The Water Is Wide" is a satisfying way to spend a Sunday evening. It's also a reminder of the acting prowess of Woodard, who is essentially wasted on "Desperate Housewives."

Perhaps the best reason to tune in, however, is to witness the wonderfully natural style of the relatively unknown actor who plays Conroy, Jeff Hephner ("The O.C."). The attractive leading man keeps you thoroughly charmed until the very end.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/columnists/jjackle/stories/MYSA012906.0Z.jakle.45821e17.html

That could be, although everyone at NewsCorp has been quick to quash those "Fox2" rumors.

And I am not sure it is in Rupert's style to make deals with small fish (and I don't mean to be offensvive to any Sinclair fans) like Sinclair.

He much prefers to go it alone, or make deals with the (other) big players. I don't think Sinclair is in Rupert's league.

Certainly it isn't financially, and as best I can see, not when it comes to business/financial imagination, either.
My initial reaction was, "There ARE Sinclair fans?"

But seriously, the company does have 20 Fox affiliates on its team, according to its website, so they're not exactly small time players with Fox.

Over saturation because of greed will eventually hurt the product.

ABC News Update

(From Rich Heldenfels' Akron Beacon-Journal TV blog)

STATEMENT FROM ABC NEWS PRESIDENT DAVID WESTIN

Bob Woodruff and his cameraman Doug Vogt were injured in an IED''improvised explosive device”) attack near Taji, Iraq today. They were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division, traveling with an Iraqi Army unit in an Iraqi mechanized vehicle. Bob and Doug are in serious condition and are being treated at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq. ABC News will provide updates on their condition as they become available.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

ABC News' Bob Woodruff and Cameraman Injured in Iraq

"World News Tonight" anchor, Bob Woodruff and his cameraman, Doug Vogt were seriously hurt in Iraq.

(From ABC News)

Jan. 29, 2006 — "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman, Doug Vogt, were seriously injured after their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device in Taji, Iraq, today.

Woodruff and Vogt are undergoing surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad. Both men suffered head injuries. Woodruff sustained shrapnel wounds and Vogt was hit by shrapnel in the head and suffered a broken shoulder.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1553996&page=1

ABC News' Bob Woodruff and Cameraman Injured in Iraq

'World News Tonight' Co-Anchor and Cameraman Slammed by IED While with Iraqi Army

(ABC News)---Jan. 29, 2006- "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman, Doug Vogt, were seriously injured after their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device in Taji, Iraq, today.

Woodruff and Vogt are undergoing surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad. Both men suffered head injuries. Woodruff sustained shrapnel wounds and Vogt was hit by shrapnel in the head and suffered a broken shoulder.

Woodruff, Vogt and their four-man team were traveling in a convoy with Iraqi security forces. They had been embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and were in a mechanized vehicle when the explosive went off. The exposion was followed by small arms fire.

"This is very common over there now," said White House correspondent Martha Raddatz on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" today. "These attacks are planned, and this [the small arms attack] is a secondary attack. Sometimes when the medical personnel come in, they have small arms fire following up on that," said Raddatz, who also covered the Pentagon for years and has had entensive experience in Iraq,

At Risk But Not Reckless

Woodruff and his crew had been traveling in a U.S. armored humvee, but then transferred into an Iraqi vehicle -- which was believed to be a much softer target for attacks.

"It was a mechanized vehicle," Raddatz said. "At least it wasn't one of the pickup trucks they usually drive around in. They were in the lead vehicle, and they were up in the hatch, so they were exposed."

Raddatz said both Woodruff and Vogt were protected. They were wearing body armor, helmets and ballistic glasses. Woodruff and Vogt were taken by medevac to the Green Zone to receive treatment. They were then flown by helicopter to Balad which is about a 20-minute ride from Baghdad, said Raddatz.

"There are very good doctors, the best medical care you can possibly get, in Balad," said Raddatz.

Training Iraq forces to deter insurgent attacks has become one of the central focuses of U.S. strategy toward ultimate troop reduction and withdrawl. Because of this, it is impossible for journalists to truly cover the conflict in Iraq without traveling with the Iraqi troops. Iraqi security forces, Raddtaz said, are a softer target for insurgents but they are still targets. "It's become a primary target. It's a softer target, as you know,but it is a primary target to attack these forces," Raddatz said. "There have been hundreds and hundreds -- thousands, probably -- of Iraqi security forces killed. Sometimes they're attacked by suicide bombers, but they have become a primary target. It is very dangerous business training these troops, for that reason alone."

But Woodruff and Vogt knew this and were very careful.

"I have worked with Doug Vogt so many times. He is no hot dog. Bob Woodruff would not take risks that were -- without his body armor or anything else. They are both very careful. Doug, as a matter of fact, when he was with Terry Moran a few months ago, they hit a very small IED, and one of the Iraqi forces was killed. Doug was also in that convoy, but he was in an armored humvee at that time."

Extensive Experience Overseas

Along with Elizabeth Vargas, Woodruff, 44, was named co-anchor of "World News Tonight" last month, replacing the late Peter Jennings, who died of lung cancer last year. He has been on assignment in Iraq and planned to broadcast from the war-torn country this week for the State of the Union address.

A father of four children, he was one of the first reporters in Pakistan following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Woodruff's overseas reporting of the fallout from Sept. 11th was part of ABC News coverage recognized with the Alfred I. DuPont Award and the George Foster Peabody Award, the two highest honors in broadcast journalism.

He has also covered the Iraq conflict in Baghdad, Najaf, Nassariya and Basra. During the initial invasion, Woodruff reported from the front lines as an embedded journalist with the First Marine Division, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.

Vogt, a 46-year-old father of three daughters, has been with ABC News for more than 15 years. He was sitting next to ABC News producer David Kaplan when the producer was shot and killed in Bosnia.

Vogt has considerable experience documenting war. Earlier this month, he was with Woodruff in Iran and was recently in another convoy in which someone was killed by an IED.

"They've covered all the wars, the hot spots," said ABC New's Jim Sciutto, who is covering the war in Iraq. "The best we have with Doug. He's the cameraman we all request when we go to the field because he's so good, a fantastic eye. He's won so many awards for ABC."

ABC News' prayers are with the families of Woodward and Vogt.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=1553996

About Television
'Buffy' Fight May Have Slain Two Networks on the Edge

When the show shifted from the WB to UPN, it set in motion a fatal fight for young viewers
By Meg James Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 29, 2006

When the obituary is written of the WB network, the cause of death should probably read: complications resulting from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Last week, when the money-losing WB and UPN networks announced that they were pulling the plug to form a single new broadcast network, many television veterans traced the roots of the decision back five years, when a fight over the fate of "Buffy" drove what would prove to be a fatal stake through the WB's heart.

The show, produced by 20th Century Fox Television, was a runaway hit with teenage girls. But in early 2001, the WB balked when Fox executives demanded $44 million to license a single season. That fall, the show shifted to UPN, and with it went the WB's identity as the go-to destination for young viewers.

Now, as CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc. develop the CW, their new jointly owned network, what killed the WB and UPN is a hot topic in the offices of TV executives all over town.

In the end, many agree, the WB's loss of "Buffy" — which breathed new life into the struggling UPN — set in motion a pitched battle for the coveted youth market that would eventually doom both networks.

"It came down to two very large and very well-funded media companies trying to take one seat at the table," said Warner Bros. Television Group President Bruce Rosenblum, who was put in charge of the WB network last year. "Rather than battling the network business, we were battling each other."

Rosenblum is particularly interested in what went wrong because it is now up to him and CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group President Nancy Tellem to make things right. The two will oversee the CW network, which is scheduled to launch in September.

CBS will control the CW's programming, marketing and research functions. Time Warner's former WB employees will run the CW's business operations. One company executive said about a third of the nearly 300 WB and UPN employees would lose their jobs in the consolidation. But Tellem and Rosenblum said no such decision had been made.

The cautionary tale of the little networks that couldn't begins in the early 1990s. That is when the relaxation of federal rules allowed broadcasters for the first time to own the content they aired.

This gave such longtime TV production juggernauts as Warner Bros. and Paramount the chance to get into the network game.

Ironically, the brass at both companies talked about working together to build a single network. Instead each company aligned with a separate, powerful independent TV station group — Paramount with Chris-Craft Industries and Warner Bros. with Chicago-based Tribune Co. Both Chris-Craft and Tribune, which now publishes the Los Angeles Times, wanted their local stations — not each other's — to form the backbone of the new network.

Ultimately, that meant they formed two networks.

In Los Angeles, Tribune's KTLA Channel 5 became the WB affiliate and Chris-Craft's KCOP Channel 13 became the local UPN affiliate. (Fox later outbid Viacom Inc. to acquire the Chris-Craft stations, but still aired the UPN programming.)

Both networks scrambled to recruit affiliate TV stations throughout the country, and both launched within days of each other in January 1995.

The WB started with just two nights a week of prime-time programming, including such shows as "The Wayans Brothers" and "Muscle," a soap set in a Manhattan gym. "Sister, Sister," a sitcom about teenage twins separated at birth and reunited in their early teens, developed a loyal following.

"The WB was moving in the right direction for quite a while," said Richard Greenfield, media analyst for the brokerage firm, Pali Capital Inc.

Meanwhile, UPN — United Paramount Network — had three nights of programming. When it rolled out "Star Trek: Voyager" to eye-popping ratings, it took the early lead in head-to-head competition.

But UPN had trouble defining a clear identity. In 1998, it faltered when it unsuccessfully tried to expand to five nights a week.

In 1999, it had success with professional wrestling's "Smackdown!" but still was a network without a cohesive strategy.

As it grew, the WB consistently marketed itself as a youth-oriented network and gained traction with such signature dramas as "Dawson's Creek," "7th Heaven" and "Buffy."

"The WB had some very good years," said Steve Grubbs, chief executive of ad-buying firm PHD North America. "They always knew who they were."

Not so UPN.

"Every one or two years, they would come up with some new strategy," said Steve Sternberg, research director for the ad-buying giant Magna Global USA. "First they were going for men, then it was the middle of America, then it was African Americans. Then they finally got a hit with 'America's Next Top Model,' so then they decided to go after young women."

In 2000, then-Viacom President Mel Karmazin told investors that UPN's future was far from certain. It had become too much of a money pit.

"If we can't make it profitable, we don't need it," Karmazin had announced.

Viacom's "hail Mary" pass to try to save the ailing network came in 2001, when UPN agreed to pay about $50 million a season for the rights to "Buffy," $10 million more than the WB had offered to keep the show.

Then, in 2002, UPN got something it never had: a charismatic leader who hated more than anything to lose. Leslie Moonves, who had engineered the successful turnaround of CBS, was asked by Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone to fix UPN.

Moonves took the challenge seriously, cutting costs by consolidating some of UPN's operations with those of CBS, including marketing, research and publicity. He recruited a veteran programming executive from the Lifetime cable channel, and then encouraged top producers and other Hollywood talent, who had long turned up their noses at the "Smackdown!" network, to change course and bring their business there.

"Finally, UPN had some direction," Sternberg said.

"Buffy" didn't sustain the high ratings on UPN that it had enjoyed on the WB. Still, its arrival marked a turning point.

"That show represented what this network could be," said UPN President Dawn Ostroff, the former Lifetime executive whom Moonves tapped to run the network in 2002. (Ostroff will become entertainment president at the new CW). "It signified where we could get to, and the kind of audience that we could attract: young, female and cutting edge."

If that sounds familiar, it was. That same demographic formed the WB's core audience.

The move of "Buffy" to UPN wasn't all bad for the WB, which was nearing profitability. No longer having to pay the high license fees for "Buffy" helped it achieve its financial goals. Not only that, the WB replaced "Buffy" with "Gilmore Girls," which is now one of the network's most successful shows.

But, if nothing else, "Buffy" kept UPN alive long enough for Moonves to take the reins. And once he did, the race was truly on.

It didn't help that the WB has failed to launch a big hit in the last three years, industry veterans said, and suffered through falling ratings.

The WB and UPN weren't just battling each other, of course. With each passing year, the media landscape was becoming more and more fragmented.

There are more than 200 television channels, including several successful cable outlets, such as MTV and ESPN, that have tapped lucrative niche audiences, as well as other entertainment options such as video games, DVDs and the Internet.

Television and advertising executives say that, in the end, two networks vying for the same audience just didn't work.

There weren't enough popular shows to attract the number of eyeballs needed to lure advertisers willing to pay hefty ad rates.

During their 11 years, UPN lost more than $1 billion and the WB lost about $700 million.

Last week, Moonves confidently predicted that the CW would be profitable in its first year. The companies plan to pick their most popular shows to form a more mighty prime-time lineup. The strategy is to launch with 30 hours of programming a week, including 13 hours in prime time to cover six nights a week.

Will the CW be able to tackle and solve the problems that doomed its two network forebears?

Some analysts are skeptical.

"The most significant risk is that the two organizations encounter problems integrating their management, sales and creative staffs or that CBS and Time Warner are unable to agree on future strategic decisions for the CW," Merrill Lynch media analyst Jessica Reif Cohen wrote last week in a research report.

CBS' Tellem, who will serve on the board overseeing the CW, said such risks were minimal because the executives in charge had known one another for nearly two decades.

Her relationship with Rosenblum goes back to 1986, when they joined Moonves at Lorimar Television, which later became part of Warner Bros. Television.

Tellem said executives went into the deal with their eyes open.

The agreements structuring the new network call for binding arbitration if disputes arise. Shows developed at either Warner Bros. or CBS would become a co-production, with the two companies sharing the costs and the profit.

"We are very clear on what our objectives are," Tellem said. "We were trying to be very honest and build into the deal provisions that support the goals of the network."

They know they've got their work cut out for them, particularly when it comes to shaping the new network's identity.

Some executives at rival companies are already referring to the CW by the name Moonves jokingly said he had rejected: the WC.

In some ways, the story of the new network echoes a plot line that will be familiar to fans of one of the WB's earliest success stories: "Sister, Sister," the show about the teenage twins who were separated and then reunited.

Could the CW be the network equivalent of "Sister, Sister"?

It could do worse: That show lasted five seasons.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/la-fi-buffy29jan29,0,1102506,print.story?coll=cl-tv-features

Woodruff, Vogt Injured in Iraq

By Anne Becker –Broadcasting & Cable

ABC News anchorman Bob Woodruff and his cameraman Doug Vogt were seriously injured in a roadside explosion in Taji, Iraq today. Both are in "serious condition" and are being treated at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, according to a statement from ABC News President David Westin.

Woodruff and Vogt sustained immediate shrapnel injuries to the head and Vogt a broken shoulder from the bomb, an improvised explosive device, or IED. Both are undergoing surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, according to the network.

They had been embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and were traveling in a convoy with Iraqi security forces. ABC reported that Woodruff and Hogt were in the hatch of a military vehicle taping footage when an explosive went off, followed by a small arms fire.

Woodruff, who co-anchors World News Tonight, had been on assignment in Iraq, preparing to broadcast from the country this week, when the President will make his State of the Union address.

The experienced war correspondent won a DuPont Award and a Peabody Award for his ABC News overseas reporting following the Sept. 11 attacks and has covered the Iraq war in Baghdad, Najaf, Nassariya and Basra.

Vogt, a 15-year veteran at ABC News and three-time Emmy winner, also has significant experience in war reporting. He was sitting next to ABC News producer David Kaplan when Kaplan was shot and killed in Bosnia and he accompanied Woodruff to Iran earlier this month.

In an appearance on This Week With George Stephanopoulos ABC News senior White House correspondent Martha Raddatz said the two took calculated risks in covering the conflict in Iraq.

"I have worked with Doug Vogt so many times. He is no hot dog. Bob Woodruff would not take risks that were — without his body armor or anything else. They are both very careful," she said.

According to ABC, Woodruff and Vogt has been traveling in a U.S. armored humvee and then transferred to the Iraqi vehicle before the bomb exploded. Both were wearing body armor, helmets and ballistic glasses at the time and were medevaced to the Green Zone for treatment and then flown to Balad for medical care.

Raddatz said the two switched to the Iraqi military forces' vehicle to more closely cover the conflict, making them a "softer target."

Because training Iraqi forces is of primary importance to the U.S. military strategy, war correspondents have been embedding themselves with the Iraqi forces to "see how they live." Knowing this, Iraqi insurgents have made these forces their "primary target," she said. Woodruff and Vogt were undergoing "the best medical care you can possibly get."

Woodruff, 44, assumed the co-anchor slot at World News Tonight earlier this month. He and Vargas replaced the late Peter Jennings. Since then, ABC has often kept one anchor reporting from the studio, while dispatching the other to report from the field, as it did in sending Woodruff to Iraq. He was to have remained in Iraq through Tues., ABC said.

Obituary
'60 Minutes' Founder Arthur Bloom Dies

( From CBS) –Arthur Bloom, the award-winning CBS News television director responsible for the distinctive on-screen look of 60 Minutes since its debut 37 years ago and who led the modernization of on-screen graphics at CBS News, died at home today of cancer. He was 63 and resided in Grandview-on-Hudson, N.Y.

He was one of the last remaining original 60 Minutes founders still working for the program. Bloom also played a role in helping to train Dan Rather to succeed Walter Cronkite in the CBS News anchor chair in 1981.

Bloom spent his entire 45-year career at CBS and used his keen eye and a symphonic vision of camera work to become one of the medium’s best directors of live political event coverage. His outstanding talent was recognized with the first Lifetime Achievement Award in News Direction from the Directors Guild of America (DGA) in 1995. The same organization had honored him twice before, once for news direction of CBS News coverage of the 1976 Democratic and Republican conventions and, before that, in 1973 for his work on 60 Minutes.

Most of Bloom’s time was devoted to 60 Minutes; he helped to create and then honed the consistent, classy look of the broadcast. Each week he worked in Studio 33 in the CBS Broadcast Center monitoring the program’s studio production and directing the 60 Minutes correspondents as they taped introductions and tags for their reports. He influenced some of the broadcast’s most basic elements, starting with its famous ticking stopwatch.

The first stopwatch was Bloom’s own. The timepiece symbol began as part of
60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt’s idea for "60 minutes of reality" and came to life when Bloom filmed his own Minerva stopwatch. The concept worked well enough to be used at the beginning of the broadcast’s third edition on Oct. 22, 1968.

Soon it was shown between segments, eventually becoming the iconic logo recognized by generations. Bloom updated the logo, but only in barely noticeable ways at intervals of several years. His modernizing touches included the use of slimmer typography and the addition of subtle shading and texture to the logo’s background. He oversaw the stopwatch’s transition from a filmed image to a computer-generated one.

"Artie had an eye for what worked visually and what didn’t – he was invaluable to me," said Hewitt. "I depended on him to make the broadcast as visually appealing as it turned out to be. He was at my side every step of the way."

Bloom also helped Hewitt execute the graphic concept for 60 Minutes as a magazine for television, deciding on a mock-up of a magazine page to put behind the correspondent to begin each of the broadcast’s segments. Now also computer-generated, the magazine concept has essentially remained the same.

Bloom also directed and helped launch the program’s off-shoot edition, 60 Minutes II, which was broadcast from 1999 to 2005.

"He was a dear friend who loved life and was blessed with a great eye for television," said 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager, who launched 60 Minutes II with Bloom. "When he worked on something, he made it better. We all leaned heavily on him for his taste and judgment."

Every four years from 1974 to 1990, Bloom was called on to direct live political coverage, something he embraced with energy and competitiveness.

Network television political event coverage in the 1970s and ‘80s reached new heights in its scope and the use of new technology. It became a three-network race to cover the events in the most dynamic way, with Bloom leading the CBS News charge with demands for more cameras and better graphics. The feisty Bloom fought hard and could be very persuading. He got an extra camera for the Republican Convention in 1984 almost by force.

A fun-loving jokester (and slightly built) he jumped from a table onto the back of the 6-foot-5-inch director of technical operations, yelling, "I want that camera!"

Bloom also ushered in new and colorful ways to punctuate the coverage with engaging animation enhanced by the computer that greatly modernized CBS News graphics capabilities. Innovative animation included red, white and blue exploding firecrackers and galloping donkeys and elephants used as "bumpers," the visuals used between coverage and commercials. Bloom became so well known for these that CBS News staffers had bumper stickers made reading "Bloom’s Bumpers."

Bloom’s biggest talent was bringing an event to life on the small screen through the lenses of cameras by instinctively and immediately choosing the images that worked from the many camera angles on monitors in front of him. He could orchestrate the images to convey even the subtle sights and sounds of an event.

First, he would lay his "orchestra" out, positioning cameras and selecting their operators based on the individuals’ talents. Once the event began, colleagues marveled at Bloom’s split-second decisions on which cameras to cue, watching him deftly direct up to 17, each strategically placed by him to play a pre-ordained role. Like all live event television control rooms, CBS News’ was chaotic, but as boisterous as Bloom could be, he was in control at all times. As a joke, he once stopped directing, turned his back on the monitor wall and pretended to become disinterested, drawing panicky stares from colleagues.

CBS News political events coverage directed by Bloom includes the Democratic and Republican conventions and the primaries from 1976 to 1988, the 1976 Ford-Carter and the 1984 Reagan-Mondale presidential debates, and all the election nights from 1974 to 1990. He occasionally directed coverage for special news events, such as the return of hijacked TWA Flight 847 (1985) and the Geneva Summit (1985), and "CBS News Special Report: A Celebration of Liberty" in 1986. He also directed documentaries, such as: "JFK: 1000 Days and 10 Years" (1973); "Vietnam: A War That is Finished" (1975); "CBS Reports: Energy: The Fear, The Facts, The Future" (1977); and "Nuclear Arms Debate" (1983).

Bloom saw the transformation of onscreen network reporters into highly compensated television stars beginning in the late 1970s, but never became star struck. So respected was his candor with on-air talent and his talent for television, that Bloom was asked to train rising star Dan Rather, whom he directed on 60 Minutes, to take over for Walter Cronkite in the anchor chair. Bloom coached Rather by taping him reading Cronkite’s script from the night before and then critiquing the read with him.

In another special mission, he served from 1990 to 1992 as special assistant to the president for program production, working with the entire CBS News production staff to assure the quality of its broadcasts.

Bloom joined CBS in the mailroom as a messenger in 1960 at the age of 18. He moved to the News division as a clerk and soon became a member of the DGA, receiving his first directorial assignments at the age of 21. From 1962 to 1965, he served as an associate director and director at WCBS-TV, the CBS Owned station in New York. In 1966, Bloom was named an associate director for CBS News and, in 1968, was named a director/producer when he was asked to direct the launch of 60 Minutes.

Arthur Bloom was born on April 19, 1942 in Manhattan. His family soon moved to Miami Beach, Fla., where, with the exception of three years in California, he spent his childhood. He attended private schools and soon after graduation, moved to New York and joined CBS. He attended New York University at nights while working at CBS, eventually receiving a bachelor’s degree.

He is survived by his wife of 40 years, Marla, and two children: Scott of Westport, Conn., and Jill Bloom Butterman of Grandview-on-Hudson; his brother, Richard, of Sarasota, Fla.; and four grandchildren.
________________________________________

"Artie's death is a painful loss for his many friends at CBS News. He had an enormous impact on this organization because of his superior talent, and his big personality. It's hard to imagine Control Room 33 without Artie barking our directions or bringing the place to full laughter."
Jeff Fager, Executive Producer

"He became a viewer, seeing what the things he designed looked like to the audience. He was brilliant. We will miss him dearly."
Don Hewitt, 60 Minutes creator

"Artie’s talent and humor were the very spirit of CBS television news. He was a perennial on the sets and in the control rooms of all the most important productions. It is difficult to think of our craft without him."
Walter Cronkite, former Anchor and Managing Editor, CBS Evening News

"Artie was a dear old friend who spent decades at CBS News as a studio director who, with good humor, put up with the likes of me who is grateful for the memory of this generous man who had to put up and the fits and foibles of those of us who have fronted the show these past 37 years.”
Mike Wallace, Correspondent

"Artie was there from the beginning, a whirlwind of energy, as passionate about the look of 60 Minutes as we all were about the substance. Through the decades he never became jaded, never faltered, never lost his exuberance for giving everything he touched, a special touch of class."
Morley Safer, Correspondent

"Artie Bloom was the most accomplished director of television news programs in history. The record shows he was the best. More importantly, he was a superb husband, father, and friend whose trademarks were loyalty and a sense of humor."
Dan Rather, Correspondent

"In the control room, he was probably the only person who could go toe to toe with Don Hewitt. But underneath all of that screaming, he was a real softie who would rather tell you about his new cappuccino machine."
Ed Bradley, Correspondent

"Artie was simply one of the greatest directors in the history of television news, a virtuoso in the control room who helped shape the look and sensibility of 60 Minutes. He played a huge role in the success of the show and was huge presence in the 60 Minutes family."
Steve Kroft, Correspondent

"Artie is as engrained in the 60 Minutes DNA as anyone. As our director, Artie, with his exquisite taste, created the look of the show, one we never abandoned in all our years on the air. He was a great innovator and a good friend."
Lesley Stahl, Correspondent

"I always liked going over to Studio 33 because, no matter what else was going on, Artie would make me laugh. He was brilliant, of course. He was also one of the gentlest and most generous people I have ever worked with.”
Bob Simon, Correspondent

"There are not many people in any business who know how to do their job as well as Artie did. He was instrumental in making 60 Minutes look the way it looked."
Andy Rooney, Commentator

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/29/60minutes/printable1249085.shtml

My initial reaction was, "There ARE Sinclair fans?"

But seriously, the company does have 20 Fox affiliates on its team, according to its website, so they're not exactly small time players with Fox.

That isn't the question. The question is how many Sinclair stations are UPN/WB. Those are the stations in trouble, not the 20 FOX affiliates.

And before anyone asks, no I don't know anything and do not expect to find out anything until it is published in the media since we are not effected any in the least.

Saturday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest Prime Time Ratings news which is the first post in this thread.

Breaking News
Bob Woodruff and Cameraman Doug Vogt in Stable Condition After Iraq Attack

(ABC News) Jan. 29, 2006--"World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt are both out of surgery and in stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq. The two and an Iraqi soldier were seriously injured when their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device in Iraq today.

"We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical," ABC News President David Westin said in a statement. "The military plans to evacuate them to their medical facilities in Landstuhl, probably overnight tonight."

Woodruff and Vogt underwent surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad. Both men suffered head injuries. Woodruff sustained shrapnel wounds and Vogt was hit by shrapnel in the head and suffered a broken shoulder.
Woodruff, Vogt and their four-man team were traveling in a convoy with Iraqi security forces in Taji, Iraq.

They had been embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and were in a mechanized vehicle on a combined operation with Iraqi Army and Coalition forces when the explosive went off. The explosion was followed by small arms fire.

"This is very common over there now," said White House correspondent Martha Raddatz on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" today. "These attacks are planned, and this [the small arms fire] is a secondary attack. Sometimes when the medical personnel come in, they have small arms fire following up on that," said Raddatz, who also covered the Pentagon for years and has had entensive experience filing reports from Iraq.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=1553996

Breaking News
Bob Woodruff and Cameraman in Stable Condition After Iraq Attack
(Courtesy Rich Heldenfels from his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog)

"This Week with George Stephanopoulos" transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, everyone. We have to begin today with some news that has hit close to home for all of us here at ABC. Our World News Tonight co-anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman Doug Vogt were reporting today from Taji, Iraq when their convoy was hit by an IED.

Both are in serious condition, and they've been medevaced to a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, where they are now receiving treatment. I'm now joined here in the studio by our White House correspondent, Martha Raddatz, who, of course, has also covered the Pentagon for years. And you've been talking to the military this morning. What more do we know?

RADDATZ: Bob and Doug were in a convoy, and they were with U.S. military as well from the 4th Infantry Division, but they were with Iraqi security forces. As you know, the U.S. military is training Iraqi security forces. Bob and Doug were apparently with the 4th Infantry Division in an up-armored humvee and wanted instead to go in a vehicle with the Iraqi military forces.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Much softer target.

RADDATZ: Much softer target. It was a mechanized vehicle. At least it wasn't one of the pickup trucks which they usually drive around in. They were in the lead vehicle and they were up in the hatch, so they were exposed. They did have all of their body armor on. They had helmets on. They had eye protection. But the IED went off, the improvised explosive device.

They were both immediately injured, taken away. They have shrapnel wounds. Both apparently have shrapnel wounds to the head. They were first transferred to the green zone, the international zone. Their medical condition -- they were stabilized. Then they were flown by helicopter to Balad. Balad is north of Baghdad..

STEPHANOPOULOS: And that is the best military hospital in Iraq.

RADDATZ: That's a very good military hospital in Iraq, and Bob is currently undergoing surgery. This happened several hours ago. Immediately medevac'd, again, both stabilized. Bob is in surgery. I'm not sure Doug is in surgery at this point.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And the initial reports, at least this morning, were that after the IED went off, there was also some gunfire.

RADDATZ: Again, some of the reports I've gotten from people over there, as you know, these things change. Initial reports are sometimes wrong. But the initial reports were that they hit an improvised explosive device, and then that was followed up by small arms fire. This is very common over there now. These attacks are planned, and this is a secondary attack. Sometimes when medical personnel come in, they'll have small arms fire following up on that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Training these Iraqi forces is the heart of the U.S. strategy right now, so there's really no way to cover this story without going out there.

RADDATZ: There's no way. And I've been, in fact, with Doug and others when we have to go with the Iraqi military forces. If you're going to cover the Iraqi military forces, you have to be with them. You have to see how they live. I will tell you one thing, a few months ago when I was there and we wanted to get into an Iraqi pickup truck, one of the American soldiers said, you can't do that. It's way too dangerous.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Because -- and we've actually seen. The insurgents know this as well, so in recent weeks and in recent months, that's been their target.

RADDATZ: It's become a primary target. It's a softer target, as you know, but it is a primary target to attack these forces. There have been hundreds and hundreds -- thousands, probably, of Iraqi security forces killed. Sometimes they're attacked by suicide bombers, but they have become a primary target. It is very dangerous business, training these troops for that reason alone.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And both Bob and Doug understood this. And as you pointed out, they're not being hot dogs here. They were wearing heavy...

RADDATZ: Not in any way. I have worked with Doug Vogt so many times. He is no hot dog. Bob Woodruff would not take risks that were -- without his body armor or anything else. They are both very careful. Doug, as a matter of fact, when he was with Terry Moran a few months ago, they hit a very small IED, and one of the Iraqi forces was killed. Doug was also in that convoy, but he was in an armored humvee at that time.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Martha, I know you'll be following this all morning. Obviously, this is very tough news for all of us here at ABC. It gives us a taste of what so many military families are going through every day. Our hearts and our prayers go to Bob, his wife, Lee, and their four kids, Doug's wife, Vivian, and their three daughters. We're going to be praying for them. We hope you will too. We'll be right back.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

That isn't the question. The question is how many Sinclair stations are UPN/WB. Those are the stations in trouble, not the 20 FOX affiliates.

And before anyone asks, no I don't know anything and do not expect to find out anything until it is published in the media since we are not effected any in the least.

(Foxeng posted this in response to a comment I made in response to fredfa about rumors of a "Fox2" in the works.)

Actually, what I was commenting on was fredfa's statement that, "I am not sure it is in Rupert's style to make deals with small fish (and I don't mean to be offensvive to any Sinclair fans) like Sinclair." My thought was, with 20 affiliates (and their website doesn't even count the LMA they have with OUR Fox affiliate, KFXA), that they weren't exactly "small fish."

I guess I was also thinking Fox2 would be in the subchannel world, a la the rumored cbs.2, as opposed to being a replacement for UPN or WB.

Of course, even in the UPN/WB world, Sinclair is pretty big, with 18 WBs and 6 UPNs, including local marketing agreements. In four of those markets, both the WB and the UPN are in their fold, and in four others, one of the stations overlaps with a Tribune or CBS-owned station which will likely become the CW affiliate. So there will probably be some orphans in the Sinclair family, which already has two independents.

Sorry about the misunderstanding.

Updating
ABC News' Bob Woodruff and Cameraman Doug Vogt Recovering After Iraq Attack

(ABC News) Jan. 29, 2006 --"World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt are recovering from injuries suffered when their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive devise in Iraq today. They remain in serious but stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq and are being flown to a medical facility in Germany.

The two and an Iraqi soldier were seriously injured when their convoy was attacked nar Taji, Iraq, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Woodruff and Vogt suffered shrapnel wounds and underwent surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad.

Both suffered head injuries and Woodruff also suffered wounds to his upper body. Doctors in Landstuhl, Germany, will assess the condition and monitor their recovery in the coming days.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=1553996&page=1

Woodruff as anchor-reporter

By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic in the Sentinel’s TV blog January 29, 2006

When he was injured Sunday, ABC's Bob Woodruff was following his network's renewed emphasis on having anchors work as reporters. He also was following an example set by the late Peter Jennings.

Woodruff talked about Jennings a week ago when meeting TV critics gathered in Pasadena, Calif., to preview the midseason offerings.

"Peter said to me when he was alive, 'You know, this is a difficult job because I'm not able to get out and report the stories in the field the way that I love to do them,'" Woodruff said.

ABC chose to replace Jennings with two anchors, pairing Woodruff with Elizabeth Vargas. That setup allows the network to have anchors in the field more often.

"I think the viewers demand it in many ways," Woodruff said. "The model of the presenter, I think, is gone. I think the model now is anchor-reporter, and I think you're going to see a lot more of that. As a viewer, I like to see that."

ABC News President David Westin explained that the network was embracing its heritage with the anchor-reporter model.

"Ultimately, it's all about reporting," he said. "In watching the memorial service for Peter and in watching the two hours we put on in prime time [in tribute to him], we were all reminded, I think, of how important reporting was to Peter. He, first and foremost, regarded himself as that."

Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt suffered head injuries Sunday when an explosive device hit an Iraqi Army vehicle they were in. They underwent surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq.

In a statement Sunday afternoon, Westin said: "Bob and Doug continue to rest in stable condiction in Iraq after their surgeries. They remain in serious condition with injuries to the head and, in Bob's case, injuries to the upper body as well. In the next few hours, they will be flown to U.S. medical facilities in Landstuhl, Germany, where their doctors have told us that they will assess their condition and monitor them closely in the coming days."

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2006/01/woodruff_as_anc.html

Updating….
ABC News Anchor Is Badly Injured by Bomb in Iraq

By Richard O. Oppel Jr. and Jacques Steinberg The New York Times January 30, 2006

(Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Baghdad for this article, and Jacques Steinberg from New York. Bill Carter and Christine Hauser contributed reporting from New York.)

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 29 — One of the new co-anchors of ABC's evening newscast, Bob Woodruff, and a network cameraman were seriously wounded Sunday when a large roadside bomb struck the Iraqi military vehicle carrying them north of the capital.

The injuries represented the latest crisis for a network news division that has been reeling since Peter Jennings, the longtime anchor of "World News Tonight," died of lung cancer in August. Mr. Woodruff was described as being in serious but stable condition after surgery at an American military hospital, and ABC officials said his brain appeared to be uninjured. But it was not immediately clear when or whether he could resume his co-anchor duties.

For years now, "World News Tonight" has been lagging in the ratings, and ABC has much money and prestige riding on its new co-anchor format, which was intended to stand out from its competitors by having Mr. Woodruff and his partner, Elizabeth Vargas, take turns reporting from the field while the other stays in New York.

By nightfall in New York, after Ms. Vargas had closed the Sunday evening edition of "World News Tonight," Mr. Woodruff and the cameraman, Doug Vogt, were on board an air ambulance that was about to take off to fly the two men to an Army hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, according to a statement from David Westin, president of ABC News.

Mr. Woodruff had serious head lacerations and broke several ribs, in addition to other wounds to his upper body. "The next few days," Mr. Westin said in an earlier statement, "will be critical."

Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt were wounded while standing in the hatch of an Iraqi vehicle near Taji, a restive area northwest of Baghdad. They had been part of a four-member news team accompanying units of the Fourth Infantry Division and had initially been traveling in an American Army armored Humvee. But before the attack, they switched to the more lightly armored — and thus, more vulnerable — Iraqi vehicle, the network reported.

Although both men were wearing body armor, helmets and ballistic glasses, they were exposed to the blast because they were standing in the vehicle, ABC's White House correspondent, Martha Raddatz, said on the network's Sunday morning public affairs program, "This Week." She said there were reports that the explosion was followed by small-arms fire.

Ms. Raddatz and others at the network sought to emphasize that the two were not taking unnecessary risks.

In an on-camera conversation with Ms. Raddatz, George Stephanopoulos, the host of "This Week," observed that his two colleagues were "not being hot dogs here." Ms. Raddatz, who has also traveled with American troops in Iraq in recent months, concurred that both colleagues were "very careful."

Moments earlier, Ms. Raddatz had underscored the dangers facing Mr. Woodruff and other journalists when trying to shadow American troops as they prepare Iraqis to take over their own security. Insurgents frequently use roadside bombs and other explosive devices to attack Iraqi troops, whose soft-skinned trucks and lightly armored vehicles are an easier target than the heavier and thicker American troop carriers. Standing in a hatch increases the risks.

"If you're going to cover the Iraqi military forces, you have to be with them," Ms. Raddatz said. "You have to see how they live."

After much internal wrangling at ABC — including an unsuccessful attempt to appoint one of the network's most recognizable anchors, Charles Gibson, as Mr. Jennings's successor in the short term — Mr. Westin had sought to herald a period of newfound stability for the network, when he announced early last month that he was appointing Mr. Woodruff, 44, and Ms. Vargas, 43, as co-anchors.

Since his first night as co-anchor, on Jan. 3, Mr. Woodruff has crisscrossed the globe, from Tehran to Jerusalem to northern California, and back again to Jerusalem, in an effort to imbue the program with an on-the-scene immediacy and vitality that ABC executives hoped could improve the program's ratings against its main competitors, NBC and CBS.

For the moment, the standings remain much as they had in recent years, when the broadcasts had been presided over by the so-called Big 3 anchors. NBC, led since Tom Brokaw's retirement in December 2004 by Brian Williams, is comfortably in first place; ABC remains a solid second; and CBS, with Bob Schieffer serving as anchor until a permanent successor to Dan Rather is appointed, is trailing in third.

At least in the short run, Mr. Woodruff's recovery figures to focus even more attention on the three broadcasts, particularly if he makes a quick return, but an extended leave could also upend ABC News, at a moment when Katie Couric of NBC's dominant "Today" show is mulling whether to further shake up the evening-news race by jumping to the "CBS Evening News."

All three evening-news broadcasts have been losing viewers for years, as people's workdays push past 6:30 p.m. — when the evening news typically begins — and the Internet is increasingly sought out as a news source.

Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt, 46, arrived in Baghdad on Friday after covering the Palestinian elections. Their forthcoming reports, including on the progress American troops were making training Iraqi security forces, were pegged to President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and Mr. Woodruff was to have played some role in analyzing the speech from Iraq.

There was no indication that the Iraqi vehicle carrying Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt was a target because there were journalists inside.

Yet the attack was the latest to strike journalists in Iraq. In separate attacks last year, insurgents tried to destroy the two Baghdad hotels most popular with foreign journalists, the Hamra and the Palestine. On Jan. 7, the American journalist Jill Carroll was kidnapped in western Baghdad.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York watchdog group, at least 61 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the United States invaded in 2003. Bombings and other insurgent attacks killed 36 journalists while American fire killed 14, the group says.

Ms. Raddatz said Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt were first rushed to the Green Zone, the heavily fortified American and Iraqi government compound in central Baghdad, and then taken by helicopter to Balad.

A military spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said one Iraqi soldier was also wounded in the attack, which he said occurred north of Taji about 12:25 p.m. Officials did not provide information on the nature and extent of his injuries.

Mr. Vogt, who was born in Alberta, Canada, and lives in France with his wife and three daughters, has been with ABC News for 15 years, covering events in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the network said. He was in Iran earlier this month, with Mr. Woodruff.

ABC journalists, many of them trained by Mr. Jennings, streamed into the network's news headquarters on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Sunday morning, to monitor bulletins — including some from the highest echelons of the Pentagon — on the fate of one of Mr. Jennings's designated heirs.

That Mr. Woodruff was seriously injured in the line of duty in Iraq also evoked memories, for colleagues across broadcast journalism, of the death of his close friend David Bloom of NBC. Mr. Bloom died in Iraq in April 2003 after suffering a blood clot that was apparently a result, at least in part, of extended time spent cramped in a military vehicle.

The two network war correspondents had met initially through their wives, at a benefit dinner in Washington. At the time Mr. Bloom died, Mr. Woodruff was also on assignment with the American military in Iraq. He immediately departed for the United States, to be of support to his own wife and four children, as well as to Mr. Bloom's widow, Melanie, and her children.

At the time, Mr. Woodruff was quoted as telling The Daily News of New York that "every time you come back you ascribe it to luck." He added, "I've got four kids and without question it's the kind of work I love doing. So it's a dilemma."

Just before Mr. Bloom died, Mr. Woodruff had told The Daily News, Mr. Bloom had sent a message to him through the main assignment desk of ABC News in New York. It said, "I just wanted to make sure you're all right — keep your head down."

Mr. Woodruff's route to a broadcast network anchor chair was a circuitous one. Mr. Woodruff graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1987 and was briefly a corporate lawyer for the firm of Shearman & Sterling.

He began to make the transition to journalism two years later, while living in China. At the time, Mr. Woodruff, fluent in Mandarin, was teaching American law to Chinese lawyers, and was hired by CBS News as a translator during its coverage of the crackdown at Tiananmen Square.

Susan Zirinsky, who was directing CBS's coverage in China at the time, said in an interview on Sunday that from the outset, Mr. Woodruff "had to be on the scene." She added, "He knew real reporting took place there."

Upon returning to the United States to resume his career as a corporate lawyer, Mr. Woodruff confided in Ms. Zirinsky, as she recalled: "I can't go back to doing what I was going to do. I love your business so much."

"I told him to get over it," said Ms. Zirinsky, now executive producer of the CBS newsmagazine "48 Hours." "He went and achieved the all-time American dream."

Mr. Woodruff's first job as a news reporter was for an NBC affiliate in Northern California. He later joined ABC as a correspondent, in 1996, and has reported from the campaign trail (he traveled with the vice presidential campaign of Senator John Edwards in 2004) and from abroad, covering the tsunami in Asia and, earlier, life within North Korea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/international/middleeast/30woodruff.html?ei=5094&en=86a467f803f3fb80&hp=&ex=1138597200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

NFL Network does have an HD channel, which right now only has "Game of the Week" and some pre-season games in HD. We have it on Adephia/Cleveland. Its distribution is not nearly as broad as other HD channels, though I assume this will change now.

In some places INHD programming is pre-empted just to show the Game of the Week. In Baltimore on Comcast we used to get it on a Special Events channel that showed only that and a few INHD shows. It was mostly "off air". This season we had the preseason games, and then it went away. (Maybe because it was always heavily pixellated and unwatchable.)

This season NFL Network has a second HD show: Six Days to Sunday.

Critic’s Notebook
'Grey's Anatomy' to get Super boost

A slot after next weekend's big game could make the steamy drama hotter
By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic January 28, 2006
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Did you all see the preview for next week's episode (the Super Bowl one)? Wow! I can not wait. I don't see this doing anything other than propelling it's ratings to Idol/DH/CSI numbers.

Loved tonights episode too.

TV Notebook
Why Hold the Superlatives? 'American Idol' Is Ascendant

By Bill Carter The New York Times January 30, 2006

Simon Fuller was on vacation in Africa three weeks ago when the fifth season of "American Idol" started on the Fox network.

In the back of his mind, Mr. Fuller, an executive producer of the program, hoped that "Idol" would be strong again this year. But he and the others involved in the production were willing to be pragmatic: in a fifth go-round, no previous reality television show, and very few programs of any kind in television history, had significant ratings increases.

At Fox, the executives who buy the show from the company Mr. Fuller founded, 19 Entertainment, were similarly anxious about how yet another new season of "Idol" would start out. After all, the show's ratings increased a year ago, after Fox had anticipated that it might decline as much as 10 percent. This season, Peter Liguori, the president of Fox Entertainment, did not really want to go out on a limb with a prediction.

On the morning of Jan. 18, both Mr. Fuller and Mr. Liguori called for the overnight ratings of the "Idol" premiere as soon as they could. What they heard startled them almost into silence, a state surpassed only by the shock at networks competing with Fox. "American Idol," already top-rated, was up an astonishing 15 percent among the 18-to-49-year-old viewers that Fox most sought to reach. It was up almost 10 percent among all viewers, at 35.5 million, the second-largest audience ever for an entertainment show on Fox.

And the figures for the second week were mind-boggling. Last Tuesday's show was up 25 percent both in total viewers and in the 18-to-49 group from the corresponding week a year earlier.

The effect on overall network competition is staggering. Numbers like this every week from now until the end of the season would make Fox a threat to repeat its seasonal triumph in the 18-to-49 competition among the networks, despite not having the Super Bowl this season. ABC, which does have the game, had been expected to battle CBS to the end in that 18-to-49 category. Now, with "Idol," it looks as if Fox could zoom past both of them.

It would be far easier for Fox to accomplish that than another network because it programs only 15 prime-time hours a week, compared with 22 hours at the three other broadcast networks. Thus, a huge hit like "American Idol," especially when it adds so many hours — more than 40 — in just half the television season, can have a disproportionate impact on Fox's overall ratings.

Because it has fewer hours to sell, Fox will not surpass any other network in terms of total ad revenue during this spring's upfront buying season. But Fox's average price for a commercial is bound to increase. "Idol" was already the highest-priced show in television at a reported $600,000 for each 30-second commercial (compared with about $480,000 for the top NBC drama, "E.R.").

That figure will only increase next season as a result of this performance. Nothing any other network puts on approaches the popularity of "American Idol." Tuesday's two-hour edition averaged a 37 share among 18-to-49-year-old viewers. That was more than double the share of the three other networks combined from 8 to 10 p.m.

Among teenage girls, the show had an extraordinary 49 share — meaning that of every girl in the country watching television for those two hours, with about 100 channels to choose from in most homes, half were watching Fox. Probably nothing on television since the heyday of "The Cosby Show" has regularly posted numbers like that.

Mr. Liguori, who acknowledged that his unspoken, best-case expectation had been for a small increase of 2 percent to 3 percent in the ratings, said: "I would be lying if I didn't say this is in some way humbling. There is no way you can ever calculate that you will have this kind of phenomenon."

"American Idol" has damaged all the other networks, though CBS the least. With its audience made up mostly of adults over 35, CBS has managed to stay reasonably stable against the "Idol" wave. ABC's efforts to start a comedy block on Tuesdays have been all but wiped out, and its new dramatic show this season, "Commander in Chief," which was already beginning to decline, has been devastated by the competition with "Idol" in the last two weeks. The WB network, which basically aimed at the same young female viewers who are the core of "Idol," announced last week that it was combining with UPN.

Mr. Fuller — who along with his fellow British music industry mogul, Simon Cowell, traveled to the United States five years ago to try to sell a talent show competition called "Pop Idol" — took stock in Africa of how far their program had come.

"There are a lot of reasons why it's still so big," Mr. Fuller said. "It has become definitive. Other shows like it have come and gone. All the challengers have fallen in our wake."

Then, alluding to the fact that the program is off the air about half the year, he added: " I think the fact that we do it once a year is important, and the talent continues to be great. Kelly Clarkson has become the biggest-selling recording artist around the world."

Ms. Clarkson was the first "Idol" winner. Mr. Fuller also noted that last year's winner, Carrie Underwood, had sold more than two million copies of her first album.

Mr. Liguori declared that "Idol" now had a place in the nation's cultural cycle. "You have an N.F.L. season, a Nascar season and now an 'Idol' season," he said.

These limited broadcasts of "American Idol" stand in contrast to what other networks have done with their reality hits, like CBS with "Survivor," ABC with "The Bachelor," and NBC with "The Apprentice."

"Scarcity has started to mean something in television," Mr. Liguori said.

Mr. Fuller noted that Fox had pushed for more of the show in the early years. "I have been very resistant to extend to more in one season," he said. Now, "Peter Liguori and I are of very like minds about the program and the number of times we're doing it."

He said continuity had played an important role as well, with two top producers, Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick, sticking with the show since it originated in Britain. And he praised the Fox executive in charge of the program, Mike Darnell.

"Things on the whole have been pretty good between us and Fox," Mr. Fuller said. "There have been some issues, but they invariably have backed down."

No issue was bigger than the impending end this past fall of Simon Cowell's contract as the show's chief judge and leading star. Fox's plan to renew the contract was greatly complicated by a suit that Mr. Fuller had filed against Mr. Cowell in Britain, contending that Mr. Cowell had stolen the idea for his new hit British talent series, "The X-Factor," from "Pop Idol."

After some tense months, the suit was settled in November, and Mr. Cowell signed on for five more years of "American Idol." Now, Mr. Fuller said, he and Mr. Cowell have renewed their old friendship and "we anticipate doing some new things together in the coming weeks."

It might be difficult to imagine anyone connected with a hit of this magnitude preserving bad feelings. Mr. Fuller said of the new season's spectacular start, "It only adds to the mystique and magic and wonderment of 'American Idol.' "

Mr. Liguori said the best thing Fox and the producers could do from now on was probably just to get out of the show's way. "I think we just have to let the kids do their thing," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/media/30idol.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

TV Notebook
Screen Actors Primetime Television Awards

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
Paul Newman / EMPIRE FALLS – Max Roby HBO

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
S. Epatha Merkerson / LACKAWANNA BLUES – Rachel “Nanny” Crosby HBO

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
Kiefer Sutherland / 24 – Jack Bauer FOX

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
Sandra Oh / GREY’S ANATOMY – Dr. Cristina Yang ABC

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
Sean Hayes / WILL & GRACE – Jack McFarland NBC

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
Felicity Huffman / DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES – Lynette Scavo ABC

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
LOST ABC

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES ABC

http://www.sagawards.com/PR_060129.htm

Azinger: PGA on TGC not a very good idea

Making Paul Azinger a commentator wasn't a good idea. He's awful. The only people from ABC and ESPN that deserve to keep broadcasting golf are Judy Rankin and Andy North.

TV Review
A& E's 'Flight 93': From Tragedy to Tripe, Nonstop

By Tom Shales The Washington Post TV Critic Monday, January 30, 2006; C01

Who will profit the most from exploiting the obscene tragedy of Flight 93? In the days and weeks following the terrorist attacks on America in September 2001, it seemed unthinkable that even the sleaziest producers, Hollywood studios or TV networks would attempt to exploit any aspect of a nightmare that the nation had witnessed in horror as it occurred, especially one that left a scar so deep it may never heal.

But we were naive. It wasn't that long before CBS and HBO aired documentaries about the tragedy -- both produced, it must be said, with great restraint and dignity. The farther we get from the date of the tragedy, however, and the more time that passes, the less likely such qualities will be evident in any films made about it.

Such is the case with the A&E Network's "Flight 93" airing tonight at 9 -- the second TV movie dramatizing what happened on a United Airlines flight from Newark to San Francisco that was to be the fourth of four planes involved in the 9/11 attacks; the terrorists' destination in this case was probably the Capitol or the White House.

In addition, there have been published reports that a theatrical movie about Flight 93 will be ready by next summer, the peak moviegoing period of the year. Seeing the story enacted does offer a degree of catharsis; we get to witness hijackers being punished, to some degree, for the vile thing they are a part of; with a cry of "Let's roll," passengers stormed the cockpit that terrorists had commandeered, apparently forcing the plane down in a Pennsylvania field well short of its conspicuous intended targets, and killing all 44 aboard.

But the headline on a network press release reflects hype more than respect for the heroes: "A&E Network Proudly Presents 'Flight 93,' " it says of the film, described disingenuously as "a moving tribute" to those who died fighting terrorism on that plane. The film is airing about four months after the Discovery Channel offered "The Flight That Fought Back," which premiered on Sept. 11, 2005, the fourth anniversary of the tragedy. No doubt that film was meant as a "moving tribute," too.

Racing to the air with movies based on news events is nothing new, but one might have thought the magnitude and enormity of 9/11 would have made it somehow sacrosanct, untouchable, not to be defiled by the polished ploys and slick gimmicks of professional writers, directors, producers and actors.

A&E not only "proudly" presents its version, but at the conclusion dedicates the movie "to the passengers and crew of Flight 93 and to their families." A&E will make a contribution to the "Flight 93 National Memorial Fund," and so on. One needn't be very cynical to scoff at such attempts to cloak the film in high-mindedness. It will air on a commercial network, it will include about 30 minutes of ads, and it will figure in the network's nightly, weekly and monthly ratings.

For all the misgivings justified by its existence, the film is unquestionably well made, though it does not represent as substantive an effort as the Discovery Channel production, which intercut dramatized scenes of what is believed to have happened on the plane with the comments of family members and friends of some of those who gave their lives in the counterattack.

The movie spends its first eight minutes unreeling credits and showing us details germane and irrelevant as Flight 93 is prepared for takeoff; the pilots suit up, passengers wait at the gate (one woman carrying the book "What to Expect When You're Expecting"), and the terrorists shave -- one of them even, for some reason, shaves his chest.

Before long, relatives of those in the plane see on TV the appalling, astonishing scenes of the World Trade Center towers aflame and then collapsing after two hijacked passenger planes were flown into them. Telephone calls are made to and from the United Airlines jet as the hijackers, after tying red sashes around their heads, take over the plane, brutally stab a passenger who tries to protest, and eventually abort their plan when passengers use a serving cart to smash through the cockpit door.

Most people are shown behaving heroically or bravely. There are the inevitable yet still achingly poignant moments of final goodbyes said over the cold mechanism of the telephone, as when a mother and daughter part forever, ending their lives together, with the simple banal act of hanging up.

But the film raises one question it can't answer. The pilot and first officer are twice warned, via text message, that a multi-pronged terrorist attack is in progress and are advised to "beware cockpit intrusion" on their plane. And yet when there's a subsequent knock on the door, they hesitate hardly at all before casually opening it.

The terrorists, who had been holding knives or box cutters on members of the flight crew, storm in. It's not made clear if the pilots feared for the safety of those crew members and thus opened the door for that reason, or if they just did it unthinkingly. The simple fact is that the filmmakers don't know what happened at every moment of the crisis in the sky and much of the docudrama is of necessity speculation -- speculation that in some instances could be misleading.

Some of the acting seems woefully inadequate, but the director, Peter Markle, as well as veteran executive producer David Gerber seem to be trying to minimize histrionics. The terrorists aren't depicted as ghouls; they don't snarl or growl or look filthy, and a couple seem young and frightened. But there is no particular virtue in humanizing those whose acts were inhuman. It becomes just another of many troubling things about the film -- troubling in ways the filmmakers did not intend -- and all these stem from the fact that there's no real reason for it to exist in the first place.

Yes, the sacrifice of the passengers and crew must be remembered. And those involved in "Flight 93" try to make that point. But how many more TV movies, or theatrical movies, or books or iPod downloads or whatever does that justify? In the end, the main point of "Flight 93" is the same as everything else that will precede and follow it on A&E tonight, and that, quite simply, is the lust to make a buck.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012901118_pf.html

Updating…..
ABC News' Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt Show Improvement


(ABC News) Jan. 30, 2006 --"World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt may be brought to the United States for further treatment as soon as tomorrow.

Doctors at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in western Germany said the two had shown signs of improvement and remained in serious but stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq. They were flown to the medical facility in Germany to recover from injuries suffered when their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device in Iraq on Sunday.

The two and an Iraqi soldier were seriously injured near Taji, Iraq, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Woodruff and Vogt suffered shrapnel wounds and underwent surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad.

"They're very seriously injured, but they are stable," Col. Bryan Gamble, Landstuhl's commander, said today on "Good Morning America."

He said the men were heavily sedated to help with their recovery from head injuries they suffered. The two were under the care of the hospital's trauma team, he said.

Their body armor likely saved them, "otherwise these would have been fatal wounds," Gamble said.

In a letter to ABC employees, ABC News' President David Westin said: "Both Bob and Doug continue to need our thoughts and prayers. We have a long way to go. But it appears that we may have also come some distance from yesterday."

In addition to head injuries, Woodruff also suffered wounds to his upper body and broken bones.

Woodruff's wife, Lee, has flown to Germany to be by her husband's side. She is accompanied by close friend Melanie Bloom, the widow of David Bloom, an NBC reporter who died from an apparent blood clot while covering the Iraq war in April 2003.

'He Wanted to Get Out and Report the Story'

Woodruff, Vogt, and their four-man team were in the lead vehicle traveling in a convoy with Iraqi security forces. They were standing up in the back hatch of their vehicle taping a video log of the patrol at the time of the attack.

"Wherever the story was he's always been the first to volunteer and go there," Westin said on "Good Morning America." "He had been to Iraq several times. He was anxious to get back because it had been awhile since he had been there. He wanted to go to Iraq." The ambush of the convoy was complex. The explosions was followed by small arms fire from three different directions. Iraqi security forces spread out looking for the triggermen while U.S. troops tended to Woodruff and Vogt. The convoy was equipped with improvised explosive device jammers, which would interfere with the signals from a remote-controlled device using wireless signals.

"He wanted to get out and report the story and not be locked in and taking information from someone else who was experiencing it," said ABC senior producer Kate Felsen, who had been working with Woodruff for the past two weeks.

"I spoke with both of them," Felsen continued. "Doug was conscious, and I was able to reassure him we were getting them care. I spoke to Bob also and walked with them to the helicopter."

Woodruff and Vogt had been embedded with the 4th Infantry Division.

"This is very common over there now," White House Correspondent Martha Raddatz said of the attack on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "These attacks are planned, and this [the small arms fire] is a secondary attack.

"Sometimes when the medical personnel come in, they have small arms fire following up on that," said Raddatz, who also has covered the Pentagon for years and has had extensive experience filing reports from Iraq.

Officials believe the IED was detonated through a hard wire in the ground. The attack on the convoy occurred in the same area where a U.S. Apache helicopter was shot down earlier this month.

Iraqi Troops Are 'Soft Targets'

The U.S. military said it was conducting an investigation into the attack. The White House released a statement extending its condolences to Woodruff and Vogt.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt. We are praying for their full and speedy recovery," the statement said. "Our thoughts are with their families and their loved ones. The White House is offering to help in any way as the government does when any American is injured in the line of work."

Woodruff and his crew had been traveling in a U.S. armored Humvee, but then transferred into an Iraqi vehicle -- which was believed to be a much softer target for attacks.

"It was a mechanized vehicle," Raddatz said. "At least it wasn't one of the pickup trucks they usually drive around in. They were in the lead vehicle, and they were up in the hatch, so they were exposed."

Raddatz said both Woodruff and Vogt were protected. They were wearing body armor, helmets and ballistic glasses. Woodruff and Vogt were taken by medevac to the Green Zone to receive treatment within 37 minutes of the blast. They were then flown by helicopter to Balad, which is about a 20-minute ride from Baghdad, said Raddatz.

"There are very good doctors, the best medical care you can possibly get, in Balad," said Raddatz.

Training Iraq forces to deter insurgent attacks has become a central focus of U.S. strategy toward ultimate troop reduction and withdrawal. Journalists must travel with Iraqi troops to truly cover the conflict in Iraq, but doing so makes them more vulnerable to attack.

"If you're going to cover the Iraqi military forces, you have to be with them," Raddatz said. "You have to see how they live. I will tell you one thing, a few months ago when I was there and we wanted to get into an Iraqi pickup truck, one of the American soldiers said, 'You can't do that. It's way too dangerous.' "

Iraqi security forces, Raddatz said, are a target for insurgents.

"It's become a primary target. It's a softer target, as you know, but it is a primary target to attack these forces," Raddatz said. "There have been hundreds and hundreds -- thousands, probably -- of Iraqi security forces killed. Sometimes they're attacked by suicide bombers, but they have become a primary target. It is very dangerous business training these troops, for that reason alone."

But Woodruff and Vogt knew this and were very careful.

"I have worked with Doug Vogt so many times. He is no hot dog. Bob Woodruff would not take risks that were -- without his body armor or anything else. They are both very careful. Doug, as a matter of fact, when he was with Terry Moran a few months ago, they hit a very small IED, and one of the Iraqi forces was killed. Doug was also in that convoy, but he was in an armored Humvee at that time."

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=1556157

Updating…..
ABC's big worry: Woodruff's injuries

By Dan Weil MediaLifeMagazine.com Jan 30, 2006

The timing for ABC's “World News Tonight” could not be worse nor more painful, coming only months after the death of Peter Jennings and just weeks after the evening news show named its new anchor team of Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas.

The network again faces major issues after the combat injuries suffered yesterday by Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt in Iraq.

There's no word as to how long Woodruff will be absent from the nightly broadcast, and the network says it has not begun to even think of what decisions must be made.

“It’s far too early to say how long Bob will be out. Both he and Doug are very seriously injured,” an ABC spokesman tells Media Life.

It will be certainly be weeks at the least and likely months before Woodruff, who is 44 years old, appears before the camera again, judging by the reports of the head injuries he suffered.

As of this morning, Woodruff and Vogt are reported in serious but stable condition at a U.S. military hospital in Germany after the military convoy they were traveling in was hit by an improvised explosive device in Iraq Sunday.

Woodruff and Vargas were teamed up as co-anchors earlier this month, taking over for Jennings, who died last August. Vargas anchored the program by herself last night and will likely continue doing so until a decision on Woodruff’s health is made.

“We haven’t even begun to think about format questions yet,” says the network spokersperson. “We will do what makes the most sense. The focus is almost entirely on Bob and Doug’s health at this point. Questions about format are for another day.”

The two ABC staffers and an Iraqi soldier were hurt when their convoy of Iraqi security forces was attacked outside Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Woodruff and Vogt suffered shrapnel wounds and head injuries. Woodruff also sustained wounds on his upper body and several broken bones, though ABC News has not released any more details.

The duo was first taken by medevac to the Green Zone to receive treatment. Then they flew by helicopter to Balad, which is about a 20-minute ride from Baghdad. From there they were flown to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, where doctors will assess their condition and monitor their recovery in coming days.

"We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical," ABC News President David Westin said in a statement.

Woodruff, Vogt and their four-man team were in the lead vehicle traveling with Iraqi security forces. The two were standing up in the back hatch of their vehicle taping a video log of the patrol when the attack occurred. They were in an Iraqi vehicle—considered less secure than U.S. military equipment—to get the perspective of the Iraqi military.

Woodruff and Vogt had been embedded with the 4th Infantry Division. Both Woodruff and Vogt were wearing body armor, helmets and ballistic glasses when the attack happened.

Dozens of journalists have been killed, injured or kidnapped in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. Last year, 22 journalists were killed in Iraq, the World Association of Newspapers said today.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_2520.asp

18-49 Over nights (Friday)
Most starry night for ABC's 'Dancing'

Results show boosts network 17 percent

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 30, 2006

ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” has revived the network not just on Thursday night but on now Friday night as well.

For the third straight week, the “Stars” results show was the most-watched show on Friday, besting CBS’s popular “Ghost Whisperer” and “Numb3rs” with 14 million total viewers. It was No. 2 for the night among adults 18-49, averaging a 3.5 rating at 8 p.m. That was just behind “Numb3rs’” 3.7 at 10 p.m.

“Stars” led ABC to a solid No. 2 on the night, behind CBS, among 18-49s. Before “Stars” debuted on Friday, the network was averaging a 2.3 rating for the night. Friday it was up to 2.7, a 17 percent jump.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the competition is just short of pathetic Fridays at 8 p.m. outside of “Whisperer.” The third-place show in the timeslot, Fox’s “Bernie Mac,” averaged just a 1.9 for the hour.

Programming on NBC, with a rerun of its Wednesday Jamie Foxx special, the WB’s sitcoms, and UPN, with “WWE,” was at a 1.3 rating or below. In fact, they all placed behind Univision’s 1.6 for “Contra Vientro y Marea.”

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_2521.asp

How much Superbowl pre-game on ABC/ESPN will be HD and can you find a schedule?

I need to watch at least 9 hours of pregame or the game itself just isn't worth it :rolleyes:

Sunday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

TV Notebook
Could CW Lead to a CBS, CNN Union?

By Anthony Crupi MediaWeek.com JANUARY 30, 2006 -

A successful launch of CW could very well presage a momentous transformation in how co-parents Time Warner and CBS Corp. gather and disseminate news. According to sources in both camps, CNN and CBS have never quite closed the door on the idea of merging their news operations, although the last formal talks were dissolved in 2003, thanks in large part to the financial distractions posed by Time Warner’s struggling AOL.

Now that the companies have sidled closer to each other, many observers expect merger talks to resume. “Some kind of combination is inevitable,” said Hal Vogel, principal of Vogel Capital Management. “The cost of having far-flung bureaus is way too high for any one organization to take on alone.” Financial considerations aside, the affinities between CNN and CBS are inarguable.

CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein served more than 20 years at CBS News before joining the cable news net in November 2004, so he knows the operation inside and out. And like CBS Corp. president and CEO Leslie Moonves, Klein has been searching for the formula that will propel his news organization into first place.

“CBS clearly has been looking for a cable presence for awhile,” said Prof. Robert Thompson, director, Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. “If the evening news does finally die, it would hasten a lot of things…but I don’t think it will happen in the short term.”

Vogel said Moonves’ impatience with CBS News could hasten a deal. “Whether it’s CBS and CNN or some other outlet, I can foresee a deal being made within 12-18 months.”

“It’s a good fit, but there’s still a lot of pride at stake,” said media analyst and author Jeff Alan. “CBS is going to give it one more go to make the news division profitable again…but in the long run, a news share is a better fix than simply putting Katie [Couric] or Diane [Sawyer] in the anchor chair.”

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001920144

18-49 Demo Overnights Report
Sinking 'Jordan:' NBC show in fast fade

Suffering opposite ABC's surging 'Grey's'
By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 30, 2006

For a show that will be looking for a new timeslot next season, NBC’s “Crossing Jordan” isn’t making a very good case for itself. Next year NBC will have football filling all of Sunday night, forcing its current Sunday lineup into new timeslots.

If, that is, they stick around at all. Based on comparisons to last year, “Jordan” may not.

“Jordan” posted a 3.3 overnight rating among viewers 18-49, off a 3 percent versus the 3.4 it averaged over its last four original episodes. But it was off a considerable 27 percent versus the same night last year, when the show averaged a 4.5 overnight rating.

ABC’s hit drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” which also airs in the Sunday 10 p.m. timeslot, has been the main reason for “Jordan’s” decline. “Grey’s” did not debut until midseason last year, and until that time “Jordan” held up quite well against “Boston Legal” and often repeats of ABC’s smash “Desperate Housewives.”

Last year’s 4.5 for “Jordan” on the same night came against a repeat of “Housewives,” while last night’s 3.3 came against an original of “Anatomy,” which was a full five points higher.

Still, interest in “Jordan” has faded even more as the season has progressed. Last night’s rating was down 11 percent versus the 3.7 the show earned for its season premiere back in September. Last night’s episode even lost a small portion of its lead-in audience, a 3.4 for a repeat of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”

Meanwhile, even with a rerun of “Housewives” in the mix, ABC finished first for the night among 18-49s with a 6.0 average rating and a 14 share. Fox was second at 3.6/9, CBS third at 3.1/8, NBC fourth at 2.8/7, Univision fifth at 2.0/5 and WB sixth at 1.1/3.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_2545.asp

How much Superbowl pre-game on ABC/ESPN will be HD and can you find a schedule?

I need to watch at least 9 hours of pregame or the game itself just isn't worth it :rolleyes:

The pregame starts at 2:30 PM ET, the game itself at 6:18 PM PT, the post-game (is scheduled) at 9:40 PM ET.

All are scheduled to be broadcast in HD.

NBC should put Crossing Jordan right after Las Vegas, they're both lightweight, somewhat silly shows. And the crossover eps they did seemed to work fairly well.

The Business of TV
Network Merger Prompts a Hollywood Shuffle

By Julie Bosman The New York Times January 30, 2006

LAS VEGAS-Television executives are not exactly known for keeping secrets.

So when CBS and Warner Brothers Entertainment announced Jan. 24 that the UPN and WB networks would combine to form a youth-oriented network called the CW, people attending the conference of the National Association of Television Program Executives in Las Vegas — where executives trade gossip and sign programming deals — were understandably dazed.

"It was like setting off a bomb in a church," said David Lyle, the chief operating officer and general manager for Fox Reality.

The deal occurred after two months of secret talks between CBS and the Warner Brothers unit of Time Warner. It had many people at the conference buzzing about how they would be affected.

The impact is far-reaching because many cities have both UPN and WB affiliates, and after the deal is closed, one affiliate in each market will not be part of the CW network. That leaves a gaping programming hole for the left-out affiliate.

This, however, made the merger welcome news for syndicators at the conference. CBS Paramount Domestic Television quickly renewed the pop newsmagazine show "Entertainment Tonight" through 2012 in 60 percent of the country. Its spinoff, "The Insider," was renewed in five major markets, including New York, Los Angeles and Boston.

Smaller independent syndicators were also in high spirits after the announcement. At the Carsey-Werner booth on the exhibit floor, executives held final discussions with representatives from the Sinclair Group, which owns 56 stations nationwide.

Jim Kraus, the president of domestic television for Carsey-Werner, said new programming space had created openings for several of their shows, including "Roseanne" and "A Different World."

"The merger has created opportunities that didn't exist prior to this," Mr. Kraus said. " 'That 70's Show' typically plays between 6 and 8 p.m. in stations around the country, but now there will be opportunities in prime time."

Fox, whose affiliation agreement with UPN stations will expire in September, was hit hardest by the surprise merger. Under it, nine UPN affiliates in top markets, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, will become independent stations in September, with their programming options suddenly up in the air.

But Fox executives put on a happy face at the conference, offering a new English-language telenovela, "Desire," as a prime-time replacement for shows like "Gilmore Girls" and "Everybody Hates Chris" that the stations will no longer have access to. (At the end of the conference, a Fox spokesman said that "Desire" had been purchased for 70 percent of the country.)

"We would have preferred that the announcement come last week, so that everybody would have had an opportunity to digest it," said Bob Cook, the president of Twentieth Television, Fox's syndication arm.

Three days after the CW announcement, the company had not yet made programming choices for stations like the Fox-owned Channel 9 in New York, said Andrew Butcher, a spokesman for the News Corporation, which owns Fox.

"There is no plan yet for us to announce," Mr. Butcher said. "This is obviously a new development, and we have many months to formulate a plan. But essentially we'll be putting on high-quality entertainment series. I don't think there'll be any radical plan."

NBC Universal came out of the conference with two positive talking points: It said it had renewed "Martha," the daytime talk show starring Martha Stewart, and had sold its new offering, "The Megan Mullally Show," a talk show featuring an actress from "Will and Grace."

Joe Schlosser, a spokesman for NBC Universal Television Distribution, said that "Martha" would be seen in 95 percent of the country and "The Megan Mullally Show" in more than 75 percent. The latter, which Ms. Mullally says will borrow from her favorite talk show hosts, including Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin, will begin in September.

At this stage, the impact of the CW network on NBC Universal is uncertain, Mr. Schlosser said: "The CW sure shook up our industry, but we'll see if it changes anything in the weeks and months to come."

One immediate consequence is that many stations will inevitably struggle with branding woes, Mr. Kraus of Carsey-Werner said.

"In our conversations with TV stations, one frustration is that they've spent 10 years establishing whether they're a UPN affiliate or WB affiliate, and now they have to throw that out and rebrand," he said. "It's hard for them, it's expensive, and it's time-consuming."

By early afternoon Jan. 26, as most of the conference attendees had left or were packing up, executives from the independent syndicate Program Partners relaxed in their suite on the 61st floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel here.

Josh Raphaelson, a principal of Program Partners, said that his company was in high demand this week, closing deals with soon-to-be-ex-WB stations in San Francisco, Dallas, Detroit and Sacramento. The company had come to the conference with a ready-made two-hour block of prime-time programming made up of the procedural dramas "Cold Squad" and "Stone Undercover."

"Immediately after the announcement, we had some accelerated meetings with some WB affiliates who knew they weren't going to be CW," Mr. Raphaelson said.

But given the unpredictable results of the merger, his partner was careful not to gloat yet.

"People were thinking that we were sitting here rubbing our hands gleefully," said Ritch Colbert, the other principal of Program Partners. "It's a great opportunity for us, but it's a great opportunity for everybody."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/media/30adco.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Making Paul Azinger a commentator wasn't a good idea. He's awful. The only people from ABC and ESPN that deserve to keep broadcasting golf are Judy Rankin and Andy North.

I don't know how many watched the Buick at Torrey Pines, but I thought some of the comments made by the comentators were really great. They put some humor into the broadcast. I don't remember all their names, but I hope they get to keep doing their current jobs after all the PGA broadcast shuffles.

Super Bowl XL
For Super Bowl, the score's the thing

Ratings will be way up if it's a close matchup
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 30, 2006

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks aren’t exactly ABC’s dream Super Bowl matchup. Far from it. Neither comes from a big TV market, with Seattle ranking No. 13 and Pittsburgh No. 22. Neither has an appreciable national following, much less a player such as Peyton Manning who appeals to fans and non-fans alike.
But even so the game could still be a big scorer. In football, unlike baseball, for example, viewership for the season's final major game is all about what the two teams do on the field, a lot less about how popular they are off the field.

The Dallas Cowboys will always draw a big initial tune-in but people won’t stick around if the game is dull. But give viewers an exciting Super Bowl game and ratings will be way up, no matter that it's between two less-popular NFL teams from small markets.

What matters is how close the game is. The trend over the past few years has been high ratings for games where the two teams are separated by seven or fewer points.

The highest-rated Super Bowl of the past six years was the Tennessee Titans versus the St. Louis Rams in 2000, which averaged a 43.4 household rating, though neither team was from a top 20 TV market. The Rams won that game 23-16.

The second-highest rated game was last year's matchup between the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, which drew a 41.1. The Patriots won 24-21.

The least-watched Super Bowl during this span actually included a New York team, the Giants, who were thumped 34-7 by the Baltimore Ravens in 2001. New York is the nation’s No. 1 TV market.

The highest-rated Super Bowl of all time was between the Cincinnati Bengals and San Francisco 49ers in 1982, which averaged a 49.1. The 49ers won 26-21.

Out of the last 10 Super Bowls, the three with the highest ratings during the final 15 minutes came in games where the point differential was seven or fewer, according to an analysis of Nielsen ratings conducted by Magna Global USA.

This pattern stands in stark contrast to other sports, such as pro baseball and basketball, where viewing depends a lot on the matchups. Last fall’s World Series, for example, had very low ratings despite featuring several excellent games because fan non-favorites the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros played.

But the year before, in a series that featured mediocre baseball at best, the Boston Red Sox fueled record ratings for Fox. And though the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs have built a dynasty around Tim Duncan, years when they appear in the finals have consistently lower ratings than years when the Lakers play, even if they lose.

That’s because the Super Bowl has become an event while the baseball and basketball playoffs are still simply sports. Even non-football fans plan parties around the Super Bowl, yet viewers easily drift away if the game is not exciting. Basketball and baseball fans, meanwhile, are loyalists who watch their teams almost exclusively, win or lose.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_2519.asp

Sports On TV
ESPN Nets Snag World Baseball Classic

By Jon Lafayette TVWeek.com January 30, 2006

ESPN's networks will televise the World Baseball Classic, scheduled to be played in March, according to an announcement Monday by the company, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Taco Bell will be the presenting sponsor of the tournament. ESPN and ESPN2 will have 16 live telecasts, including the semifinals and finals. ESPN Deportes will televise all 39 games in Spanish. ESPN Syndication will distribute 14 games to other English-language outlets. ESPN Radio and ESPN International will also provide coverage.

The World Baseball Classic features 16 teams from around the world, including the U.S., Cuba, China, Japan and Korea. The teams will include professional players.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=9303

TV Notebook
Up the corporate ladder

The iPod helps turn the fortunes for "The Office," which is becoming a hit for NBC
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 31, 2006

Kevin Reilly gambled his job on his own "Office" pool.

Last year, Reilly, NBC's entertainment president, decided to renew "The Office," a corporate satire featuring "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" star Steve Carell, despite first-season ratings so low they made the rest of the network's tottering schedule look good by comparison. Reilly's move drew disbelief and even derision from skeptics inside and outside the company. Why was NBC, which desperately needed hit shows, wasting time with a show that viewers had obviously rejected?

Reilly, whose job status has been the subject of whispered speculation on the Hollywood rumor mill for months, admitted that his loyalty to "The Office" wasn't appreciated by some colleagues at NBC. "I would have felt exposed, personally and professionally, if this had not worked," he said in an interview last week.

Luckily for Reilly, "The Office" has, over the last few weeks, turned into a ray of hope for the fourth-ranked network. Since the start of this year, its average ratings have jumped 69%, to 9.1 million total viewers, compared with last spring, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research. What's more, the series is catching on among the affluent young-adult viewers who've made up the core of NBC's audience for decades.

"I always thought this was the classic NBC-type of show," said executive producer Greg Daniels, a former writer for "Seinfeld" and "Saturday Night Live." "I don't know if [network executives] thought that last year," he added with a laugh, "but they do now."

Last week, in a measure of popularity often cited by TV executives, the program kept a record-high 92% of the viewers ages 18 to 49 who watched "My Name Is Earl," TV's No. 1 new comedy this season.

As Steve Sternberg, who analyzes programming for New York-based ad giant Magna Global, points out, "The Office" "appeals to the under-35 audience," while its major competition, CBS' smash "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," tends to attract somewhat older viewers.

How did a show that looked moribund in May get so hot in January? In addition to Reilly's protective wing, the producers caught some lucky breaks from a hit summer movie, a gutsy scheduling play and even the ubiquitous iPod.

Perhaps most important, the NBC show has gradually carved out an identity apart from the successful series that inspired it. "The Office" is adapted from the BBC program of the same name, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Gervais starred as David Brent, a pathetically inept middle manager at a London-area paper company whose subordinates are alternately bored and mortified by his antics, which are captured on tape by documentary filmmakers. The American version has Carell playing Michael Scott, the feckless boss at a paper company in Scranton, Pa.

Network executives have often looked overseas for inspiration. CBS' groundbreaking "All in the Family," for example, derived from the 1966-1975 BBC series "Til Death Us Do Part." But NBC's recent experience with English imports had been grim. In 2003, "Coupling," an Americanized version of the randy British sitcom, was savaged by critics and lasted only four airings. NBC also had big plans for an adaptation of "The Kumars at No. 42," a popular mock talk-show on BBC2, but the project never got off the ground.

Idea crosses the pond

"The Office" presented some hurdles of its own, because the British version had become well known among many TV fans thanks to a successful run on the cable outlet BBC America (Gervais even won a 2004 Golden Globe for his performance, further raising the show's profile). Early on, the American producers decided to keep many of the British version's memorable touches, including the absence of a laugh track and the trick of having the characters tell their stories to documentary filmmakers. But comparisons were inevitable, and the website tvsquad.com runs a lengthy discussion board arguing the merits of each version.

The American producers eventually realized that many viewers were put off by the funny-but-pathetic tone that prevailed in the BBC series — in one famously brutal scene, David pretends to fire his secretary, who is not in on the joke and promptly bursts into tears. So this season the NBC writers have added more upbeat plot developments, such as occasionally revealing Michael's (limited) competence. "I think Americans need a little bit more hope than the British," Reilly said diplomatically.

"The 40 Year-Old Virgin," meanwhile, grossed more than $100 million at the U.S. box office and turned Carell into a movie star. (His work on the upcoming "Evan Almighty," a sequel to "Bruce Almighty," means the second season of "The Office" will end in late March).

A deal to sell episodes on Apple's iTunes website for $1.99 apiece has increased awareness among a critical audience segment: college-age viewers. On Monday, last week's episode — in which someone mysteriously soiled Michael's office carpet — was the No. 2-selling TV program on iTunes. "The last time I was in New York, I had three different people come up to me and go, 'Dude, you're on my iPod,' " costar Rainn Wilson, who has developed a strong fan base as the arrogant dweeb Dwight, told reporters earlier this month.

But maybe what helped "The Office" most of all was a move early this month from Tuesdays to Thursdays, where it's helping revive NBC's fortunes on a night the network had traditionally dominated. On the one hand, the switch enabled the show to escape Fox's monster hit "American Idol," which has returned this winter stronger than ever.

But the Thursday maneuver also reinforced NBC's growing confidence in the show. Reilly is already comparing the show to another quintessential urban comedy that tested unimpressively with preview audiences and was slow to gain traction. Everyone knows how that story ended.

"My dream," he said optimistically, "is that this is another 'Seinfeld.' "

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-office31jan31,0,1118631,print.story?coll=cl-tv-features

From The Hollywood Reporter,

Nets look to big screen for pilots

Jan. 31, 2006
By Nellie Andreeva

Remakes of hit 2005 feature "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" and 2001 pilot "More, Patience" highlight the latest crop of pilot pickups at the broadcast networks.

ABC has picked up "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," based on Doug Liman's film about a married pair of assassins for hire, for midseason 2006-07 or fall 2007 consideration.

Regency TV, co-venture of the film's producer, New Regency; and Fox TV Studios will produce the pilot, penned and exec produced by the feature's writer, Simon Kinberg.

Liman and Dave Bartis also are exec producing through their company, which has changed its name from Hypnotic to Dutch Oven.

Liman also is expected to direct, subject to availability.

Fox is bringing back its 2001 one-hour comedy pilot "More, Patience," which has been redeveloped as a single-camera half-hour comedy.

The project's original writer, Jed Seidel, penned the new version and will executive produce.

Sony Pictures TV, the studio behind the 2001 pilot, and Gavin Polone, who executive produced the original with Seidel and Maya Forbes, also are on board for the new take. Jamie Tarses, Polone's partner at his SPT-based company Pariah, also will exec produce.

"More, Patience" centers on a New York psychiatrist who has her own relationship problems.

Mary McCormack starred in the 2001 pilot, which was directed by Jon Turteltaub.

CBS has picked up four more pilots, including three comedies and a drama.

The untitled Tom Hertz comedy, from SPT and Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Prods., examines the different stages of relationships through the eyes of an engaged couple, a married couple and a happily single guy.

Hertz penned the script and is exec producing.

The comedy "Welcome to the Jungle Gym," from Warner Bros. TV, revolves around a working mom and her two best girlfriends who try to keep their friendships intact while raising kids.

Gaby Allen (NBC's "Scrubs") is the writer-exec producer.

The untitled Joe Port/Joe Wiseman comedy, from NBC Universal TV Studio, centers on a young couple who moves to the woman's home town in Michigan and has to deal with her complicated extended family.

The project's writers, Port and Wiseman, will serve as co-exec producers.

Port's brother, writer-producer Moses Port, and David Guarascio will exec produce.

The drama "Shark," from 20th Century Fox TV and studio-based Imagine TV, centers on a celebrity lawyer in Los Angeles who becomes a prosecutor.

Ian Biderman (NBC's "Crossing Jordan") wrote the script and will exec produce with Imagine TV's Brian Grazer and David Nevins.

Over at NBC, the network has picked up "Community Service," a comedy pilot from Jim O'Doherty and David Israel.

The project, from NBC Uni TV, where O'Doherty and Israel have an overall deal, centers on a high-flying New York real estate developer who has to do community service in a small town.

O'Doherty and Israel, who most recently created the NBC comedy pilot "Grand Union" last fall, are repped by BWCS.

TV Notebook
ABC: No plan yet to fill Woodruff's slot

By Jonathan Storm Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist Tue, Jan. 31, 2006

Still in shock as their World News Tonight coanchor lay seriously wounded in a German hospital, ABC News executives yesterday said they had no solid plans for the immediate future of their flagship evening newscast. Indications were, however, that they would move quickly to establish a temporary replacement for Bob Woodruff.

For the second day, Elizabeth Vargas went solo on the broadcast, as reports from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in western Germany said Woodruff was improving after receiving serious head injuries Sunday when a shrapnel bomb exploded near the Iraqi military vehicle he was riding in.

The emotional effects of the injuries to Woodruff and the lesser, though serious, wounds to veteran cameraman Doug Vogt were still reverberating yesterday through ABC headquarters in New York, said Jeffrey W. Schneider, ABC News vice president of communications.

"After keeping Bob and Doug and their families first and foremost in our hearts," Schneider said in a phone interview, "our major concern today is getting the broadcast on the air and taking care of staff, who are greatly affected.

"At the appropriate time, I'm sure we'll have more to say."

ABC News installed the coanchor arrangement early this month with the idea that one (so far, mostly Woodruff) could gallivant the globe and report the news from where it was happening, while the other took care of business at home. It also upped the World News Tonight anchor workload by inaugurating a 3 p.m. Webcast and three separate live feeds for the TV news show.

"We are dedicated to continue to cover the news in the way we planned when we first named Bob and Elizabeth to coanchor," Schneider said.

Does that mean the Webcasts and separate feeds will continue? "That is our goal."

Reporter Dan Harris yesterday substituted for Vargas anchoring the Webcast, which primarily covered Woodruff's and Vogt's condition. The two were said to have come through well on the long flight from Iraq to the American military base near Landstuhl. David Woodruff, the coanchor's brother, reported that with every hour, Woodruff had either improved or maintained his condition. Harris said that the two would be airlifted to the United States "as early as tomorrow."

On Good Morning America, Vargas, who has worked with Vogt, and ABC News president Dave Westin discussed the situation.

"They are really not only total pros," Vargas said, "but they do not take undue risks. Doug has his very own custom-made flak jacket and helmet."

Westin was asked if there was any alternative to putting reporters in the middle of a war.

"What choice do we have?" he said. "As long as the United States is over there, and our men and women are over there, and they are in harm's way, this is a story we have to [report] every day, every single day. What choice do we have but to figure out as best we can how to cover that story? That's what we do."

Both newsmen suffered head injuries when the bomb exploded as they were apparently filming at least partially outside the hatch of the vehicle. Woodruff's upper body reportedly was also wounded. Doctors Sunday said body armor saved his life.

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, a Woodruff family friend, said it wasn't clear whether shrapnel had penetrated Woodruff's brain or if he was suffering from a concussive injury. "The doctors had told them once they arrived that the brain swelling had gone down. In Bob's case, that had been a big concern. Yesterday they had to operate and remove part of the skullcap to relieve some of the swelling," Brokaw said on NBC'S Today show.

Even before Peter Jennings left the anchor chair to battle lung cancer (he died Aug. 7), ABC had been second in the evening news ratings most weeks for several years. NBC's Brian Williams, who replaced Brokaw as anchor of NBC Nightly News, has extended the lead. CBS, still figuring out who will take Dan Rather's chair on its flagship broadcast, is a distant third.

It's doubtful Woodruff's absence will do anything to upset the ratings order, though his plight as a celebrity war victim could boost ABC's numbers short-term as it focuses the country's attention more closely on the danger American soldiers and civilians face daily in Iraq.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//13752552.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Updating….
ABC News' Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt Show Improvement


ABC News, Jan. 30, 2006 ---Doctors, colleagues and family members received positive news about the progress of "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt, who are responding well to treatment.

Woodruff was brought out of sedation long enough to open his eyes briefly and respond to stimuli to his hands and feet, said ABC News correspondent Jim Scuitto, reporting from the German hospital where Woodruff and Vogt are being treated.

Vogt has been sitting up and speaking, Scuitto said. The two injured journalists may be brought to the United States for further treatment as soon as Tuesday.

Woodruff's brother, Dave, said he is optimisic about his brother's recovery. "Having seen him, we think he's going to recover eventually," said Dave Woodruff. "It's gonna be a long road, but he's a strong guy, and he's gonna make it, and he's gonna do well. And I think the care he's gotten has been just world class so far. So with that, we can feel pretty good about him."

Doctors at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in western Germany said the two had shown signs of improvement and remained in serious but stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq. They were flown to the medical facility in Germany to recover from injuries suffered when their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device in Iraq on Sunday.

The two journalists and an Iraqi soldier were seriously injured near Taji, Iraq, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Woodruff and Vogt suffered shrapnel wounds and underwent surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad.

Doctors say the immediate treatment Woodruff and Vogt received in Iraq, and the fact that both were wearing body armor, were crucial in their survival.

Dave Woodruff says he believes his brother will want to get back to journalism as soon as he can. "We want to see them recover and return to what he loves to do," he said. "Maybe not back to Iraq, but certainly I know he'll want to get back to what he's always wanted to do."

Long Way Still to Go

Earlier today, Col. Bryan Gamble said the men were heavily sedated to help them recover from their head injuries. The two were under the care of the hospital's trauma team, he said.

Initial reports said the Iraqi soldier was "walking wounded," according to the American military. There was no update available on his condition.

In a letter to ABC employees, ABC News' President David Westin said: "Both Bob and Doug continue to need our thoughts and prayers. We have a long way to go. But it appears that we may have also come some distance from yesterday."

In addition to head injuries, Woodruff also suffered wounds to his upper body and broken bones.

Woodruff's wife, Lee, has flown to Germany to be by her husband's side. She is accompanied by close friend Melanie Bloom, the widow of David Bloom, an NBC reporter who died from an apparent blood clot while covering the Iraq war in April 2003.

'He Wanted to Get Out and Report the Story'

Woodruff, Vogt and their four-man team were in the lead vehicle traveling in a convoy with Iraqi security forces. They were standing up in the back hatch of their vehicle taping a video log of the patrol at the time of the attack.

"Wherever the story was he's always been the first to volunteer and go there," Westin said on "Good Morning America." "He had been to Iraq several times. He was anxious to get back because it had been a while since he had been there. He wanted to go to Iraq." The ambush of the convoy was complex. The explosion was followed by small arms fire from three different directions. Iraqi security forces spread out looking for the triggermen while U.S. troops tended to Woodruff and Vogt. The convoy was equipped with improvised explosive device jammers, which would interfere with the signals from a remote-controlled device using wireless signals.

"He wanted to get out and report the story and not be locked in and taking information from someone else who was experiencing it," said ABC senior producer Kate Felsen, who had been working with Woodruff for the past two weeks.

"I spoke with both of them," Felsen continued. "Doug was conscious, and I was able to reassure him we were getting them care. I spoke to Bob also and walked with them to the helicopter."

Woodruff and Vogt had been embedded with the 4th Infantry Division.

"This is very common over there now," White House Correspondent Martha Raddatz said of the attack on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "These attacks are planned, and this [the small arms fire] is a secondary attack.

"Sometimes when the medical personnel come in, they have small arms fire following up on that," said Raddatz, who also covered the Pentagon for many years and has had extensive experience reporting from Iraq.

Officials believe the improvised explosive device was detonated through a hard wire in the ground. The attack on the convoy occurred in the same area where a U.S. Apache helicopter was shot down earlier this month.

Iraqi Troops Are 'Soft Targets'

The U.S. military said it was conducting an investigation into the attack. The White House released a statement extending its condolences to Woodruff and Vogt.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt. We are praying for their full and speedy recovery," the statement said. "Our thoughts are with their families and their loved ones. The White House is offering to help in any way as the government does when any American is injured in the line of work."

Woodruff and his crew were traveling in a U.S. armored Humvee earlier in the day, but then transferred to an Iraqi vehicle -- which was believed to be a much softer target for attacks.

"It was a mechanized vehicle," Raddatz said. "At least it wasn't one of the pickup trucks they usually drive around in. They were in the lead vehicle, and they were up in the hatch, so they were exposed."

Raddatz said both Woodruff and Vogt were protected. They were wearing body armor, helmets and ballistic glasses. Woodruff and Vogt were taken by medevac to the Green Zone in Baghdad to receive treatment within 37 minutes of the blast. They were then flown by helicopter to Balad, which is about a 20-minute ride from Baghdad, said Raddatz.

"There are very good doctors, the best medical care you can possibly get, in Balad," said Raddatz.

Training Iraq forces to deter insurgent attacks has become a central focus of U.S. strategy toward ultimate troop reduction and withdrawal. Journalists must travel with Iraqi troops to cover the conflict in Iraq, but doing so makes them more vulnerable to attack.

"If you're going to cover the Iraqi military forces, you have to be with them," Raddatz said. "You have to see how they live. I will tell you one thing, a few months ago when I was there and we wanted to get into an Iraqi pickup truck, one of the American soldiers said, 'You can't do that. It's way too dangerous.' "

Iraqi security forces, Raddatz said, are a target for insurgents.

"It's become a primary target. It's a softer target, as you know, but it is a primary target to attack these forces," Raddatz said. "There have been hundreds and hundreds -- thousands, probably -- of Iraqi security forces killed. Sometimes they're attacked by suicide bombers, but they have become a primary target. It is very dangerous business training these troops, for that reason alone."

But Woodruff and Vogt knew this and were very careful.

"I have worked with Doug Vogt so many times. He is no hot dog. Bob Woodruff would not take risks that were -- without his body armor or anything else. They are both very careful. Doug, as a matter of fact, when he was with Terry Moran a few months ago, they hit a very small IED, and one of the Iraqi forces was killed. Doug was also in that convoy, but he was in an armored Humvee at that time."

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=1556157

From Multichannel News,

DBS Rules Rural America

By Linda Moss 1/30/2006 8:24:00 PM

Albuquerque, N.M. -- Direct-broadcast satellite is now the dominant provider of video services in rural America, a buying cooperative for small independent cable operators was told Monday.

DBS subscribers outpaced cable subscribers in rural America in 2005, analyst Bruce Leichtman said during the opening session here at the winter educational conference of the National Cable Television Cooperative, the membership of which includes many small cable companies that compete head-to-head against DBS in America’s heartland.

“What we see is that in rural America, the No. 1 provider of multichannel video is now DBS,” Leichtman said. “And that was for the first time ever in 2005.”

Leichtman and Robert Thalman, president of consulting firm One Touch Intelligence, did a panel called “Do You Want to Beat the Competition?” They outlined the strides that DirecTV Inc. and EchoStar Communications Corp. -- which are only surpassed in size by Comcast Corp. -- have made in gaining distribution, their marketing tactics and their weaknesses: namely, churn and shockingly high per-subscriber acquisition costs.

Clearly, DBS has made some of its biggest inroads in areas outside of the cities and suburbs, according to Leichtman’s remarks. Of those who subscribe to cable or DBS in rural areas, 42% of those customers now take satellite, versus 37% buying cable, according to data from Leichtman’s company, Leichtman Research Group Inc. Rounding out the numbers, 2% have both cable and DBS.

Some of those rural DBS subscribers have no choice, as Leichtman pointed out, since 28% of satellite customers live in areas where cable service isn’t available.

Both he and Thalman agreed that EchoStar chairman Charlie Ergen’s most threatening rival is DirecTV, which News Corp. owns a 34% stake in. “Clearly, Charlie’s biggest competitor is Rupert,” Thalman said.

Both he and Leichtman presented data that illustrated that EchoStar’s Dish Network has greater penetration in rural markets than DirecTV, which has been targeting urban and suburban customers.

For example, about 55% of EchoStar subscribers say they live in rural areas, compared with about 45% of DirecTV subscribers, according to Leichtman.

Dish uses more local advertising to promote its video product, while DirecTV focuses on national media, Thalman told the NCTC members.

Churn is up for both DirecTV and EchoStar, Leichtman said. In the third quarter of last year DirecTV’s churn was 5.7%, while EchoStar’s was 5.6% -- both up from the 5.3% they each had in the same quarter the prior year, according to Leichtman.

Overall, consumers said the biggest drivers for them signing up for satellite are “more channels” and “a better price” than cable, Leichtman told the NCTC group.

During the past two years, DBS has gained 2.67 million subscribers, while the top 10 cable operators lost 489,500, he added. “They grew too fast,” Leichtman said.

With 15 million subscribers, DirecTV has 56% of DBS’ market share, with 12 million-subscriber EchoStar at 44%, according to Leichtman.

He also said EchoStar’s cost to acquire customers averages $647 per subscriber, a gross figure, which nets out to $1,495 per subscriber for those customers Dish keeps without them quickly churning out.

“The breakeven is very difficult for them,” Leichtman said. “That’s why they have to be more disciplined in their growth.”

Broadband is the service that is luring DBS subscribers back to cable, according to Thalman.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6303308.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP&nid=2226
Multichannel News: The Cable Industry Book-of-Record

I don't know how many watched the Buick at Torrey Pines, but I thought some of the comments made by the comentators were really great. They put some humor into the broadcast. I don't remember all their names, but I hope they get to keep doing their current jobs after all the PGA broadcast shuffles.

That tournament was broadcasted by CBS, they will be doing more golf next season. It's ABC that is dropping golf.

Updating….
ABC News' Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt Heading Back to United States

Both Responding Well to Treatment for Injuries in Iraq

(ABC News) Jan. 31, 2006 –"World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt are on their way to the United States to receive further treatment for the injuries they suffered during a roadside bomb attack in Iraq. Doctors say they are continuing to respond well to treatment.

"They couldn't ask for better stats at this time. The signs are good, and we are very optimistic," the doctors told ABC News' correspondent Jim Sciutto, who was reporting from the German hospital where Woodruff and Vogt were being treated. "They still have a long road to recovery. They've taken baby steps but very important milestones."

Woodruff and Vogt are expected to arrive in Washington, D.C., this evening and will be transported to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland to receive further treatment.

The two were taken to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in western Germany late Sunday night after their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device early Sunday near Taji, Iraq, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. The two journalists and an Iraqi soldier were wounded in the attack.

Woodruff and Vogt suffered shrapnel wounds and underwent surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=1559988

'Brokeback' rounds up 8 Oscar noms

By Gregg KildayThe Hollywood Reporter

With eight nominations, Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," a tale of two ranch hands struggling with their love for each other, was king of the rodeo as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its nominations for the 78th annual Academy Awards on Tuesday morning.

In the select best picture circle, it was joined by Bennett Miller's "Capote," Paul Haggis' "Crash," George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck" and Steven Spielberg's "Munich."

TV Notebook
ABC's big Oscar bummer: 'Brokeback'

Expect low viewer turnout for the awards show
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 31, 2006

Traditionally, the highest-rated Academy Awards shows tend to be those in which a blockbuster movie such as “Titanic” or “Lord of the Rings” dominates the nominations.

So what to make of this year’s Oscars, where the polarizing independent film “Brokeback Mountain,” about two gay cowboys, is the year’s top nominee? Aside from giving first-time host Jon Stewart plenty of fodder for his monologue, the movie could produce the lowest-rated Oscars telecast in history.

Nominations for the Academy Awards were announced this morning, and “Brokeback” led with eight, including best picture, best actor for Heath Ledger and best director for Ang Lee.
Ratings for the Academy Awards, which air on ABC March 5, rise and fall on the popularity of the films nominated, and “Mountain” is certainly one of the smaller headliners in the past 10 years. It has grossed only $51 million at the box office and has turned off conservative moviegoers with its untraditional love story between male cowhands Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who is up for best supporting actor.

The lowest-rated Academy Awards ever came in 2003, when the best picture went to musical “Chicago.” Though the movie went on to gross more than $100 million, it was only marginally popular at the time and like “Brokeback” had not opened in wide release. That year’s telecast averaged a 20.4 household rating.

The highest-rated Oscars of the past 10 years came in 1998, when “Titanic” captured best picture. That movie grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide and boosted the awards to a 34.9 rating, its highest since 1983.

The two highest-rated Oscar telecasts of the past five years came in 2004, when blockbuster “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” won best picture, and in 2001, when another $200 million-grosser, “Gladiator,” took top honors.

Of course the other problem for ABC is that there wasn’t really a breakout movie in 2005, when box office tallies were so low, that would have generated interest along the lines of “Rings” or “Gladiator.” This year's other Oscar frontrunners are mostly independent movies, such as “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “Crash” and “Transamerica.”

While most of this morning’s nominations were not surprising, the Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line” was notably not recognized for best picture. Leads Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon did earn acting nods.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_2552.asp

Video Franchising Hearing Postponed


By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/30/2006 8:27:00 PM

The Senate Commerce Committee has postponed its video franchising hearing, which had been scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday.

The reason was at least two-fold.

For one, the Senators all have have been asked to be in their seats for a roll call vote at 11 a.m. on the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.


For another, Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.) was in an auto accident in Nevada Tuesday and won't be able to make the hearing.


Ensign is one of the chief authors of a video-franchising bill that would speed the rollout of telco video franchises.

http://broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6303304.html?display=Breaking+News

Monday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

Last week’s complete network average prime-time results (with demographic averages) are now at the top of RATINGS NEWS the first post in this thread.

Last week’s top 10 prime-time program ratings are now at the top of RATINGS NEWS -- the first post in this thread.

18-34 Overnights
So way way cool: 'Skating with celebs'

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 31, 2006

Getting rid of the smart, nuanced sitcom “Arrested Development” certainly wasn’t a popular move among media people, but the ratings for the show that took its place suggest it was a good decision.

For the second week in a row, the reality ripoff “Skating with Celebrities” posted huge gains over what “Arrested” was delivering in the Monday 8 p.m. timeslot for Fox.

“Skating” averaged a 3.3 overnight rating among viewers 18-49 last night, a 94 percent improvement over the 1.7 the network averaged in that slot over four Mondays in December with a combination of “Arrested Development” originals and reruns, and an episode of the canceled “Kitchen Confidential.”

Among total viewers, the difference is even more pronounced. Fox averaged 9.9 million at 8 p.m. last night, first in the timeslot and up some 183 percent over the 3.5 million it averaged in the slot in December.

Fox’s improvements come despite a ratings cool for “Celebrities,” which is down since its debut. Nearly two weeks ago, the premiere rode a cushy post-“American Idol” Wednesday 9 p.m. slot to a 7.2 overnight rating among 18-49s and 18.7 million total viewers. That slipped to a 3.7 and 10.8 million viewers last week, when it moved to Monday, and to a 3.3 and 9.9 million viewers last night.

But even a declining “Celebrities” should stay above where “Arrested” was when it was yanked.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_2554.asp

18-34 Overnights
So way way cool: 'Skating with celebs'

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 31, 2006

Getting rid of the smart, nuanced sitcom “Arrested Development” certainly wasn’t a popular move among media people, but the ratings for the show that took its place suggest it was a good decision.

For the second week in a row, the reality ripoff “Skating with Celebrities” posted huge gains over what “Arrested” was delivering in the Monday 8 p.m. timeslot for Fox.

“Skating” averaged a 3.3 overnight rating among viewers 18-49 last night, a 94 percent improvement over the 1.7 the network averaged in that slot over four Mondays in December with a combination of “Arrested Development” originals and reruns, and an episode of the canceled “Kitchen Confidential.”

Among total viewers, the difference is even more pronounced. Fox averaged 9.9 million at 8 p.m. last night, first in the timeslot and up some 183 percent over the 3.5 million it averaged in the slot in December.

Fox’s improvements come despite a ratings cool for “Celebrities,” which is down since its debut. Nearly two weeks ago, the premiere rode a cushy post-“American Idol” Wednesday 9 p.m. slot to a 7.2 overnight rating among 18-49s and 18.7 million total viewers. That slipped to a 3.7 and 10.8 million viewers last week, when it moved to Monday, and to a 3.3 and 9.9 million viewers last night.

But even a declining “Celebrities” should stay above where “Arrested” was when it was yanked.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_2554.asp

Believe me, I tried and tried countless times to watch the critically acclaimed "Arrested Development". I just could not see what the fuss was about, I think the show is just downright STUPID. I hope FOX finally lays it to rest. I guess the ratings show that most of the country agrees. No I'm not watching "Skating" either.

The Business of TV
FTC OK's Adelphia Deal

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable

The Federal Trade Commission Tuesday approved the approximately $12.7 billion purchase of bankrupt Adelphia by Time Warner and Comcast without any conditions attached.

The two companies plan to split Adelphia’s 5.2 million subscribers between them and to swap some of their own existing subscribers between each other.

Even so, the commission said its investigation "does not suggest that the proposed transactions are likely to substantially lessen competition in any geographic region of the U.S."

The commission said it was not persuaded that the deal would harm consumers by affecting the terms of contracts for regional sports networks, as some deal critics have argued. But two of the five commissioners dissented in part, saying they thought the new companies could tie up sports programming contracts to the detriment of consumers. They said they would have preferred conditions insuring that did not happen, but did not oppose the merger.

Earlier in the day, at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on program access, representatives of satellite company DirecTV and an independent cable network argued that is just what will happen.

The commission did not have to find that harm "absolutely" would not occur, only that it was not likely.

The FTC said that because it did not find a likelihood of reduced competition, "it is not appropriate for the commission to enter into any agreement with the parties concerning their conduct.

Some of the conditions that had been sought included setting aside capacity for independent cable nets and requiring the companies to open up their programming contracts to government scrutiny.

The commission promised to keep an eye on Comcast and Time Warner and said if it concluded they were being anticompetitive, would take appropriate steps.

The FCC still has to sign off on the deal.

If the FCC gives it the go-ahead, as is expected, Comcast will serve approximately 26.8 million subscribers, or 28.9% of U.S. pay-TV subscribers.

Time Warner Cable says it will add 3.5 million subscribers, increasing its share of national pay-TV subscribership to 17.9%.

The two companies shave aid the deal would benefit consumers by allowing more Adelphia subscribers to receive advanced services such as cable telephone, high-speed Internet and high-definition television. Adelphia systems lag in delivering new cable products because of the company’s financial woes. The Coudersport, Pa., company declared bankruptcy in 2002.

Comcast spokesman Joe Waz said Tuesday his company plans to spend more than a billion dollars to bring advanced services to Adelphia customers.

The companies also say the deal will set them up to better compete with regional Bell phone companies by boosting the size of their regional clusters. It is that regional clustering that has worried some consolidation critics.

Sheesh...Godzilla and King Kong just got even bigger...

Not quite yet, Jim.
The FCC still has to be heard from. And it is what placed the restrictions on the NewsCorp takeover of DirecTV.

:p :p

I misread the title...thinking FCC instead of FTC...and yes, this should be interesting to see how that plays out.

Sports Media and Business
Wooed by Many, N.F.L. Chooses Itself

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times January 31, 2006

The N.F.L.'s decision last week to award its final, and newest, television package to its own NFL Network is yet another chapter in the evolution of the most powerful sports entity this side of ESPN.

The supply-demand equation works to near perfection in the N.F.L.'s universe, in which there always seem to be more bidders than TV packages to sell. In 1993, CBS bowed out, but Fox stepped in. NBC exited in 1998, but CBS returned. And in the newest round of deals — which unfolded in three stages — ABC got out, NBC came back and ESPN paid twice what ABC had.

After months of discussions with an estimated nine media companies regarding a newly carved octet of games to be played Thursday and Saturday nights, the league chose the NFL Network as its newest partner.

Times change. Before the network's debut in late 2003, its president, Steve Bornstein, said he did "not foresee the NFL Network being a player in the next contract."

The Thursday-Saturday package comprises games that belonged to Fox and CBS in their now-expired contracts. CBS and Fox may also be hurt by the flexible schedule given to NBC for its Sunday night schedule, allowing for the selection of a better game in the latter part of the season from CBS's and Fox's afternoon schedules if NBC's game looks like a bad attraction.

CBS and Fox knew of these possibilities when they signed contract extensions in late 2004. "The caveat for us is if the quality of the games on the NFL Network hurt our package more than we anticipated, and if the flexible schedule on NBC disadvantages our schedule," said Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports.

Such is the power of the N.F.L. that CBS and Fox reupped without knowing many details of the flexible schedule or the Thursday-Saturday deal.

The months spent wading through the Thursday-Saturday proposals by the suitors — including Comcast; News Corporation, Fox's parent; ESPN; NBC; and Verizon, which is building its TV business — indicate that the league seriously considered a deal that would have combined rights fees and stakes in a new or an existing network, like Comcast's OLN.

"Comcast was the No. 1 bidder," said Pat Bowlen, the chairman of the league's broadcast committee and the owner of the Denver Broncos.

Comcast's bid was worth, according to two estimates, $300 million to $440 million a year. Bowlen said that getting another $300 million or $400 million a year was not paramount in his mind (although the NFL Network, enhanced with games, could reap hundreds of millions of dollars). "Come on," he said by telephone, "We have huge television contracts."

The league's new contracts with CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV are worth $3.7 billion annually.

Dan Snyder, the Redskins' owner, who sits on the league's broadcast committee, said by telephone, "The games are ultimately so powerful that we could propel this into a major network."

He said the decision came down to this question: Does the league enrich its network with eight games "or shelve it and make it a news and information site?"

Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the Patriots and a third member of the committee, said by telephone, "In some ways, I had hoped that we would be able to do a deal with Comcast." But, he added, "We're into the development of our sport, and our network is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year."

Kraft, Bowlen and Snyder want to use the eight games to speed the NFL Network's growth beyond its 35 million cable and satellite subscribers. The network doesn't have deals with Time Warner and Cablevision, and its agreement with Charter, the first cable operator to enlist, has unraveled acrimoniously.

The N.F.L. surmises that the addition of games will turn its television progeny into a must-carry network for cable operators who have resisted it.

But Fred Dressler, the executive vice president of Time Warner Cable, is not so certain. He is looking at a network that charges a monthly subscriber fee of 19 or 20 cents a month, and expects that to rise, perhaps significantly.

Placing the NFL Network on the widely available basic tier is not part of his mind-set, at least until he hears the price. He said its place was on the narrow $4.95-a-month sports digital tier, along with NBA TV and CSTV.

"The question is whether 100 percent of our subscribers should have to pay for the interests of a smaller minority," he said by telephone.

Surprisingly, Bowlen said, "The last thing on my mind is raising the fees."

Pat Bowlen, meet Fred Dressler. Have a chat!

Cable operators may be concerned that the league could sell the eight games to an outside bidder, quickly shrinking the NFL Network's appeal.

"We have that flexibility, two years from now, if a new media company wants it," Kraft said. "But I'm not saying we'd do it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/sports/football/31sandomir.ready.html?pagewanted=print

Sports Media and Business
Wooed by Many, N.F.L. Chooses Itself

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times January 31, 2006



The N.F.L. surmises that the addition of games will turn its television progeny into a must-carry network for cable operators who have resisted it.

But Fred Dressler, the executive vice president of Time Warner Cable, is not so certain. He is looking at a network that charges a monthly subscriber fee of 19 or 20 cents a month, and expects that to rise, perhaps significantly.

Placing the NFL Network on the widely available basic tier is not part of his mind-set, at least until he hears the price. He said its place was on the narrow $4.95-a-month sports digital tier, along with NBA TV and CSTV.

"The question is whether 100 percent of our subscribers should have to pay for the interests of a smaller minority," he said by telephone.

Surprisingly, Bowlen said, "The last thing on my mind is raising the fees."


Hmm....this could get interesting. In the SF bay area, to the best of my knowledge the NFL Network is only on a special events channel whenever there is a game to be broadcast, and I can't see Comcast paying for a 24/7 channel that essentially will only have 8 games per year, especially since they are the jilted suitor.

NBC Resurrects Daniel Online

By Ben Grossman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/31/2006 2:44:00 PM

NBC will temporarily resurrect The Book of Daniel by streaming the show’s three unaired episodes online for free. The first unaired episode is available online now through Friday at NBC.com, and the network will then put up a new episode each of the next two Fridays (Feb. 3 and 10) at 8 pm ET.

NBC pulled the plug last week on the midseason drama, with no further episodes currently scheduled to air on the network.

The controversial show, featuring Aidan Quinn as a priest with a challenging family life, aired its fourth and final episode Jan. 20. The show averaged just a 2.3 rating/6 share in the 18-49 demo over its three-week run (the first week featured two episodes back-to-back).

The show’s ratings in the demo had trended down each week, from a 2.7 the first week to a 2.2 and then a 1.9 on Jan. 20. That final airing attracted just 5.8 million viewers overall.

NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly was upfront about the show’s challenges prior to the decision, saying recently the show was "not quite pulling the numbers we were hoping for. It’s having a tough time finding an audience."

Reilly also said the show had faced "tough sledding on the advertising front." The controversial nature of the show had caused nine NBC affiliates to decide not to air the show at one time or another.

Reilly actually joked to reporters about the lack of advertisers in the most recent episode, which was heavy on network promos during commercial breaks.

"Well, Mattress King has stepped up, and he's going to sponsor the entire hour," Reilly quipped. "Look, we knew there was going to be fallout because advertisers take a cautious approach to risky shows."

The show was from NBC Universal Television and Sony Pictures Television.

The American Family Association (AFA), which has recently become more active in rallying members to protest TV content, had asked members to e-mail stations and the network to protest the show, which the AFA felt mocked Christianity.

But mainstream critics had also pointed to a show that seemed calculated to offend, including storylines of a drug-addicted priest, his drug-selling daughter, affairs by bishops, a Catholic priest with mob ties, and jokes at the expense of a woman with alzheimers.

NBC had defended the show, which opened to mixed reviews, saying: "We're confident that, once audiences view this quality drama themselves, they'll appreciate this thought-provoking examination of one American family." --John Eggerton contributed to this report.

http://www.nbc.com/The_Book_of_Daniel/

About Television
Conventional wisdom never saw creation of CW coming

By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News

Even in a world where leaks and rumors are the coin of the realm, almost no one in television land saw last week's merger of the WB and UPN coming. And coming as it did on the same day as the Pixar-Disney merger, it didn't get the kind of attention you might expect for a significant shift in the TV landscape.

Actually, for many Americans, the “new'' network -- being called the CW -- is hardly major news. Collectively, the Time Warner-owned WB and CBS-owned UPN average just more than 7 million viewers in prime time; there are millions who have never seen or even heard of “Gilmore Girls,'' “Everybody Hates Chris'' and “Everwood.''

But as a single entity, the CW -- which stands for CBS and Warner Bros. -- could be a legitimate player, artistically and economically. It still won't challenge the big networks, but with decent management and creative programming, it could carve out a healthy niche market with younger, urban viewers -- something both UPN and the WB tried to do but failed.

So, how will the CW work? And what WB and UPN series are likely to survive?

The WB and UPN will continue to offer their current schedules until Aug. 31. Then, starting Sept. 1, the CW will air locally on KBHK (Ch. 44), the old UPN station that is owned by CBS as part of a duopoly with KPIX (Ch. 5). KBWB (Ch. 20), the current WB affiliate, will be left out in the cold to scramble for syndicated programs.

The CW's creative side has ended up in the hands of Dawn Ostroff, who has been UPN's entertainment boss in recent years and is the person responsible for such quality programs as “Chris'' and “Veronica Mars.'' (Of course, she also put on “South Beach,'' the wretched new Jennifer Lopez-produced drama, but no one's perfect.)

Ostroff, who also programmed Lifetime back in the days when the cable channel actually did good stuff, is smart, tough, likes good TV and has the ear of CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, the major shaker behind this deal. It seems she'll be given every chance to put together a viable schedule and then some time to make it work.

So what stays and what goes?

That, folks, gets really, really complicated. It's nowhere near as clear-cut as it may have appeared immediately after the merger was announced.

While most of the top series on the WB and UPN were produced either by Warner Bros. Television (WB) or by Paramount Television (UPN), each has its own complicated deal. “Gilmore Girls'' creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has not, for example, signed for next season, and it's hard to imagine the show without her.

And there are shows that come from outside studios and would involve cutting new deals. The WB's “Reba'' is a comedy the CW probably would like to have, but it's produced by 20th Century Fox.

Still, at this point, I'm willing to bet the CW will keep the WB's “Reba,'' “Gilmore Girls,'' “Smallville,'' “Beauty and the Geek'' and “Everwood.'' And UPN's “Chris,'' “America's Next Top Model,'' “Veronica Mars,'' “Girlfriends'' and “WWE Smackdown!'' almost certainly will be part of the new schedule.

It probably won't shake out precisely that way. But that lineup could give the CW building blocks on Monday (family shows with “Chris,'' “Reba'' and “Everwood''), Tuesday (“Gilmore Girls,'' “Veronica Mars''), Thursday (“Smallville,'' “Supernatural'') and Friday (the two-hour “Smackdown!''). In addition, “Model'' would be a good start for a Wednesday-night lineup.

Again, that kind of a fall schedule wouldn't scare the executives at other networks -- but it sure would be an improvement over what the WB and UPN have right now.

One final note: The CW has to go as a name for the new network. Every time I hear it, I want to yell, “Yippee-ki-yay!'' and go round up a herd of cattle.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/13746134.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

About Television
The WB Sets Final Spring Schedule

By Christopher Lisotta TVWeek.com January 31, 2006

A week after its corporate parent announced The WB will cease to exist come fall, the network has set its final spring schedule.

The comedic drama "Pepper Dennis," starring Rebecca Romijn, will premiere Tuesday, April 4 at 9 p.m. (ET) in the post-"Gilmore Girls" time slot. Current time period holder "Supernatural" will transition to Thursdays at 9 p.m. starting March 16, replacing the latest cycle of the soon-to-be-completed reality series "Beauty and The Geek." Lead-in "Smallville" will remain at 8 p.m.

"Everwood" will return with a two-hour episode Monday, March 20, before settling into its old post-"7th Heaven" 9 p.m. slot.

College drama "The Bedford Diaries" will debut at 9 p.m. Wednesday, March 22, replacing "Beauty" encores. "One Tree Hill" will remain in the 8 p.m. Wednesday time slot.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=9305

About Television
The WB Sets Final Spring Schedule ..."Supernatural" will transition to Thursdays at 9 p.m. starting March 16$#^@$%&#$!!!

I finally get to watch Supernatural in HD since they moved Earl and The Office (I can't watch anything live, and I can record only two HD shows, so Earl/Office and House took priority), and now they move it back against them and CSI on Thursday!

If that scheduler loses his job in the merger, I think I know why.

Xesdeeni

The TV Column
The Week’s Winners and Losers

Fox Over Foxx: 'Idol' Smashes Everything in Its Path
By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 1, 2006; C07

The fourth week of January, aka the real start of Fox's television season, saw that network finishing a close second to CBS among viewers of all ages but way out in front among the 18-to-49-year-olds advertisers crave.

Here's a look at the week's idols and false idols:

WINNERS

"American Idol." Tuesday's broadcast clocked 35 million viewers (let's see NBC's upcoming Winter Ebersolympics try and beat that on a Tuesday night) and Wednesday's more than 32 million. Each night the singing competition's audience was larger than that of the combined ABC, CBS, NBC and both halves of the new CW network. Two weeks in, "American Idol" is already up 15 percent compared with last year.

"Jamie Foxx: Unpredictable." More than six times as many Americans prefer watching a bunch of nobodies from Greensboro, N.C., pretend to be professional singers on Fox than are willing to sit through an hour on NBC of Jamie Foxx pretending to be a professional singer/"I-always-loved-older-women-fast-women-all-types-of-women" lounge lizard. And yet, of the 10 times that NBC has faced a full hour of "American Idol" in that time period over the past two years, Foxx clocked the network's best numbers among 18-to-49-year-olds. So NBC is calling the special a winner, while former fans of Foxx just call it sad.

"Dancing With the Stars." In its fourth week back, ABC's inexplicable bad-dancing hit logged its largest audience yet -- 19.4 million viewers. That's also the second-largest audience ever for the series, behind only last summer's first-edition finale. Thanks to "Dancing," ABC beat NBC soundly on Thursday night. Who'd have thought we'd ever say that ?

"Courting Alex." In her CBS debut, Jenna Elfman retained 88 percent of her "Two and a Half Men" lead-in -- a better hang-on rate than any episode of "Out of Practice" in the time period this season.

LOSERS

"Commander in Chief." Suffered its smallest numbers yet on Tuesday. ABC announced it is taking the show off the lineup for a limited time to run a comedy in that slot. We thought they already had a comedy in that time period. Da dum bum!

"Bones." Moved to the post-"Idol" time slot, "Bones" fumbled 21 million "Idol" viewers. When "House" started its run post-"Idol," it fumbled only 16 million. Plus, while "Bones" stars David Boreanaz, "House" stars Hugh Laurie. Ipso facto "Bones" = Loser.

UPN's Wednesday. "South Beach" in its third week was down to 1.4 million viewers -- about half as many as WB's "One Tree Hill" in the time slot. Meanwhile, ratings sieve "Veronica Mars," at 1.6 million viewers, was 1 million shy of WB's "Beauty and the Geek" repeat in the same time slot.

"Will &; Grace" posted its smallest audience yet for a regularly scheduled episode -- 6.9 million viewers. Having heard cast member Sean Hayes's SAG Awards acceptance speech on Sunday, we think it's a pity he's not writing the episodes this season.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/31/AR2006013101606_pf.html

Tuesday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

About Television
ABC Looks at Fill-Ins for Anchor

By Jacques Steinberg and Bill Carter The New York Times February 1, 2006

ABC News is planning for two of its highest-profile journalists, Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson, to fill in on "World News Tonight" while the program's co-anchor, Bob Woodruff, continues to recover from injuries suffered on Sunday in Iraq, a person apprised of the plans said yesterday.

Under the arrangement, Mr. Gibson and Ms. Sawyer, co-anchors of "Good Morning America," will alternate in the job, sitting alongside Elizabeth Vargas, who was named co-anchor of "World News" with Mr. Woodruff in December, said the person, who insisted on anonymity because of the delicacy of the situation and the negotiations.

Other ABC journalists also may take turns alongside Ms. Vargas. ABC was preparing to announce its interim plans as early as today.

In a preview of how the broadcast might look, the network tapped Ms. Sawyer and Mr. Gibson to assist Ms. Vargas last night with its coverage of President Bush's State of the Union address.

Ms. Vargas reported from near the White House; Mr. Gibson from Capitol Hill and Ms. Sawyer from New York. Before his injury, Mr. Woodruff had been expected to analyze the speech from Baghdad, with Ms. Vargas in Washington.

By parachuting two of its best-known faces into "World News," the network would be able to give the program an air of stability until it is known when, or whether, Mr. Woodruff can return to the broadcast. Asked last night about the network's interim plans, an ABC spokesman, Jeffrey Schneider, declined to comment.

A military plane carrying Mr. Woodruff and an ABC cameraman, Doug Vogt, both of whom suffered head wounds in the bomb attack Sunday, arrived outside Washington late yesterday. They were then transferred to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., for treatment.

Mr. Woodruff's recovery is expected to take at least several months, and the extent of his injuries is not yet known.

One person close to the family quoted doctors as saying yesterday that the best indication of his progress was that the swelling in Mr. Woodruff's brain was "completely gone."

Among the options for ABC was to allow Ms. Vargas to serve as a solo anchor for the immediate future. But when David Westin, president of ABC News, announced that Mr. Woodruff and Ms. Vargas would be the permanent successors to the late Peter Jennings, he emphasized that the job of leading "World News" on camera had become too big for just one person.

Among the anchors' new responsibilities is leading a 3 p.m. Webcast, which previews the evening's newscast, as well as updating the broadcast throughout the evening for transmission to West Coast markets.

However much Ms. Sawyer and Mr. Gibson would be recognizable to viewers, the plan is fraught with potential complications. There is, for example, the matter of how long a day each can work. Each arrives at the "Good Morning America" studios several hours before it begins its broadcast at 7 a.m. on the East Coast, which could make it difficult to be working as late as 10 p.m., when the West Coast editions of "World News" have been completed. Ms. Sawyer also serves as co-host of the prime-time news magazine "Prime Time Live" on Thursday.

For several months after Mr. Jennings announced in April that he had lung cancer, Mr. Gibson took turns with Ms. Vargas leading "World News Tonight," while also taking an occasional day off from "Good Morning America." But ABC executives acknowledged at the time that Mr. Gibson could only work so much, and after Labor Day he largely returned to his morning job, leaving Mr. Woodruff to alternate with Ms. Vargas.

But as was the case after Mr. Jennings took ill, giving Mr. Gibson and now Ms. Sawyer a regular day off from "Good Morning America" risks further weakening the network's standing in the morning, as it is struggling to catch the top-ranked morning program, "Today" on NBC. In recent months, "Today" has widened its lead over "Good Morning America." But over the same period, "World News Tonight" has struggled to gain ground on "NBC Nightly News," which is also the ratings leader.

Then there is the matter of travel: in naming Mr. Woodruff, 44, and Ms. Vargas, 43, Mr. Westin had emphasized that the arrangement would allow at least one of them to report from the field at any one time, an advantage that its competitors on NBC and CBS did not have. Nights when both would be in the studio together were to be rare.

Since the introduction of the new "World News Tonight" on Jan. 3, Ms. Vargas has traveled to Sago, W.Va., to cover the coal mine accident and to Los Angeles, while Mr. Woodruff has hopscotched from Iran to Jerusalem to Northern California, before returning to Jerusalem and then going to Iraq.

It is not known how much travel Mr. Gibson and Ms. Sawyer would be willing to undertake in Mr. Woodruff's absence.

Meanwhile, there is the question of whether a 30-minute evening news program can accommodate three high-profile personalities. After Mr. Westin announced in December that he had selected Ms. Vargas and Mr. Woodruff, Mr. Gibson said that he had been in negotiations with Mr. Westin to succeed Mr. Jennings, but that the discussions had broken down over the potential length of his tenure.

The intense interest in Mr. Woodruff's condition has been reflected, at least in part, in the strong ratings that "World News Tonight" scored on Monday night, the day after his injury.

For the first time since Oct. 12, the ABC broadcast had a significant lead over "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" in overnight ratings. NBC regularly surpasses ABC by about a million viewers. But in Monday's overnight ratings ABC had about a million-viewer margin over NBC.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/business/media/01abc.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

About Television
DISH, Lifetime Strike Deal

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable

Lifetime and its companion movie network are back on EchoStar's DISH satellite service as of last night.

The two had been in a pitched carriage battle that has ended in a multi-year deal.

About Television
Connie Nielsen temping at 'SVU'

[B]The Hollywood Reporter[/B Feb. 01, 2006

Connie Nielsen has been recruited to guest star in six episodes of NBC's "Law & Order: SVU" while series star Mariska Hargitay is on maternity leave later this year.

Nielsen will play a NYPD detective on temporary assignment to the sex crimes unit that the show revolves around, while Hargitay's character, Detective Olivia Benson, is working on a special assignment.

Dick Wolf, co-creator and executive producer of "Law & Order: SVU," said Nielsen was expected to begin shooting her first episodes sometime next month.

"This is an unremittingly positive situation for us," Wolf said. "I'm thrilled that Mariska is having a baby and thrilled that we have someone of Connie's obvious talent, beauty and stature to come in for these episodes. I think she's going to be a great addition."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001921853

18-49 Over nights (Friday)
Most starry night for ABC's 'Dancing'

Results show boosts network 17 percent

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 30, 2006

ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” has revived the network not just on Thursday night but on now Friday night as well.

For the third straight week, the “Stars” results show was the most-watched show on Friday, besting CBS’s popular “Ghost Whisperer” and “Numb3rs” with 14 million total viewers. It was No. 2 for the night among adults 18-49, averaging a 3.5 rating at 8 p.m. That was just behind “Numb3rs’” 3.7 at 10 p.m.

Well, so much for ABC's worries about the ratings on this show. People like it and they're watching it.

The dancing should also be better, since that clod-hopper Master P was (finally!) voted off. Kudos to him for stepping in for his injured son and trying, but it was clear the man was not into ballroom dance, not withstanding his attitude and his lack of willingness to practice!

NBC Resurrects Daniel Online




While I'm glad they're allowing us to see these remaining episodes, I wish there was a way to download them so we could view them on the TV as opposed to the small window that it streams on.

While I'm glad they're allowing us to see these remaining episodes, I wish there was a way to download them so we could view them on the TV as opposed to the small window that it streams on.
You can open it up to full screen on your computer monitor, just right click on the image and click Full Screen. It's shown in a letterboxed 16x9 format.

You can open it up to full screen on your computer monitor, just right click on the image and click Full Screen. It's shown in a letterboxed 16x9 format.

I found something on-line that would allow me to download it. If it was just me I wouldn't mind watching on the computer monitor. My setup is not conducive for two people to sit comfortably for 45 minutes in front of the computer.

Verizon Lays It on the Line
CEO Sticks By Costly Rollout of Fiber-Optic Network

By Arshad Mohammed
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 1, 2006; D01



His company's stock has sunk, its debt has been downgraded, and its investment in a new fiber-optic network is regarded by some as a pipe dream, but Verizon Communications Inc.'s chief executive is certain he is doing the right thing.

"This is almost religious . . . religious with proper financial accounting," Ivan G. Seidenberg said with a laugh during an interview this week.

Seidenberg, 59, is by no means a messianic executive. Soft-spoken, self-effacing, and dressed in a sober suit and crisp blue shirt, Seidenberg is faced with deep skepticism on Wall Street about Verizon's multibillion-dollar investment in a fiber-optic network to carry TV, high-speed Internet and old-fashioned phone service.

Seated in his corner office in Lower Manhattan with intricately carved maple paneling and a sweeping view of the city skyline, the executive betrayed no hesitation about his strategy, saying it was the best way to reinvent a company whose roots stretch back to the opening of local telephone exchanges in the Northeast in the late 1870s.

"When it's all said and done, the growth opportunity here will be far greater than anybody is accepting at this point," he said, suggesting that Verizon's fiber-optics project could someday allow people to consult their doctors by video link, to telecommute in numbers large enough to reduce global warming and to enjoy services not yet dreamed up.

Doubts about the undertaking -- which is called Fios and is expected to give consumers far greater bandwidth than Verizon's main competitors now offer -- have helped drag the company's stock down by more than 10 percent over the past year and influenced Moody Investors Service's and Standard and Poor's Corp.'s recent decisions to downgrade Verizon's debt.

Analysts are particularly worried about the company's spending on Fios as Verizon's traditional local phone business shrinks -- it lost nearly 3.5 million lines last year alone -- in the face of competition from cable, wireless and Internet phone providers.

Company officials say the line losses are easily offset by growth from Verizon Wireless Inc., high-speed Internet and long-distance service. To Seidenberg, wireless is another example of an area where the company had the vision to make early investments over the objections of skeptics -- and now it's driving the company's growth.

"Even 20 years ago, people never saw the full capability of wireless, but yet there were people in the industry, some of us . . . who believed that this was going to change behavior, and you know what, [we] were right," he said.

Speaking softly but intensely, Seidenberg said 2006 is likely to be the year in which the Fios investment drags the most on Verizon's earnings per share, to the tune of 25 to 30 cents.

"You have to spend money to make money," he said. "It's fair to say that in '06 we are hitting about a level of dilution that would be about the maximum, and that from now on out, we'll start to get better."

The company's second-ranking official, Lawrence T. Babbio Jr., the vice chairman and president, said Verizon has made significant progress in cutting the cost of installing fiber -- which it initially estimated at $1 billion for the first 1 million homes.

Babbio said this fell by about 30 percent last year and is likely to drop another 15 to 20 percent this year, so that by the end of 2006, "we will probably have cut the cost in half" from the start of 2005. He also said many investors do not grasp how much cheaper a fiber-optic network is to run than the old copper-based system, in place for decades.

Even as company officials are trying to reassure Wall Street, they are pushing Congress and state legislatures to make it easier for them to offer video by streamlining the laborious process of negotiating franchises one by one in thousands of localities.

If the company does not get some relief, Seidenberg said, it will have to reconsider whether to serve small franchises and might instead focus on big ones.

"This is the only threatening comment I'll make. . . . Remember, there are some franchises that are big. So let's take the city of Philadelphia -- it's big," he said. "Then you've got all these oodles of them in the state of New Jersey, or Virginia.

"So at some point, if we don't clean up this process, we just won't be in a position to do all the things that we think could be done," he said. "If we don't see some change in behavior here, I think we are going to have to question how much we can do and how fast we do it."

Asked if that meant he would focus on big franchises rather than little ones, he replied, "It's something that we have to think about."

His stance on streamlining the video franchising system is fiercely opposed by cable companies, which had to go to every locality in the country for approvals and want phone companies to have to do the same.

Cable executives say they believe phone companies will "cherry-pick" by wiring only wealthy areas if they are not forced to serve entire communities, as local franchise deals routinely require.

"It's important to retain the local franchising process so that there is a level playing field in the video industry," said Thomas M. Rutledge, the chief operating officer of Cablevision Systems Corp., the sixth-largest U.S. cable TV operator. "We encourage competition, but we think that competition requires that the players have similar obligations.

"To allow someone to come through and just serve affluent suburban areas, not the rural communities, not the poor communities, gives the new provider a tremendous economic advantage," Rutledge said in an interview.

The House and Senate commerce committees are considering legislation that would make it easier for the phone companies to enter the video market.

Regulatory analysts see little chance of a bill passing this year, citing the short congressional calendar, the reluctance of lawmakers to enact legislation that would anger either industry in an election year, and the opposition of towns and cities reluctant to lose control over the local franchising process.

"Why kick 30,000 hornet's nests?" said Scott C. Cleland, chief executive of the research firm Precursor Group.

Winning franchising relief is Verizon's top legislative priority this year, partly because it would allow the company to deploy the network and earn a profit from it faster, possibly allaying investor concerns.

"We recognize that we are making some bets," Seidenberg said, speaking from his office in the soaring art deco skyscraper built in the 1920s for the New York Telephone Co., one of Verizon's predecessors. "We don't consider them all that complicated because we have done this for a hundred years."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

About Television
John Roberts Named CNN Washington Correspondent

By Jay Sherman TVWeek.com February 1, 2006

CNN has hired John Roberts as a senior national correspondent working out of Washington, the company announced Wednesday.

Mr. Roberts will report on a wide range of stories coming out of Washington and will contribute to programs throughout the network. He starts Feb. 20.

Mr. Roberts comes to the cable network after six years as CBS News' White House correspondent. He has been with CBS since the early 1990s after working 10 years as a news reporter and anchor in Canada.

Mr. Roberts was considered a contender to replace Dan Rather on "CBS Evening News," but many saw his chances for that post decline as time passed without a new anchor being announced. Bob Schieffer has served as interim anchor since Mr. Rather's departure, and CBS is said to be pursuing NBC's Katie Couric to fill the position.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=9317

About Television
I Guess You Can Only Twist So Long...

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

It was about a year ago that CBS announced that Bob Schieffer would temporarily replace Dan Rather while the network figured out its master plan for a new anchor. That put John Roberts, thought to be on the short list of Rather's successors, in limbo. Now, with nothing changed, he's getting out, according to this announcement from CNN.

“…John Roberts, a veteran broadcaster and award-winning journalist, will join CNN as senior national correspondent, it was announced today by Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S. Roberts’ new assignment with the cable news network will begin Monday, Feb. 20. ...

Roberts joins CNN after more than six years as CBS News’ chief White House correspondent. He has also served as anchor for the Sunday edition of CBS Evening News since March 1995 and substitute anchor for Face the Nation.

Prior to 1995, Roberts was a New York-based correspondent primarily for the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather contributing reports on medical and health issues as well as on a variety of other subjects.

In addition, he served as anchor of the Saturday edition of CBS Evening News from February 1999 until his assignment with the White House unit…” (end excerpt from announcement)

To put that job change in context, consider this from the Washington Post's report on the Schieffer appointment:

“…The prolonged period of speculation about who will take over the evening news has been a frustrating one for John Roberts, CBS's White House correspondent and Rather's principal substitute, who has long been viewed by outsiders as the heir apparent.

Unlike NBC, which announced 2 1/2 years ago that Brian Williams would succeed Tom Brokaw at the end of 2004, CBS never firmed up a succession plan. Some of Roberts's friends say that he has been unfairly diminished by the discussion about seeking multiple anchors and that he would consider leaving the network if he is passed over entirely.

Roberts said he stopped thinking about the matter some time ago, is concentrating on his job and expects CBS to do what is best for the network….”

And now Roberts is apparently doing what is best for him.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

I found something on-line that would allow me to download it.

You are leaving us dangling!

About Television
Why do we still watch 'Survivor'?

By Maureen Ryan on the Chicago Tribune TV blog February 1, 2006

What is it about that show?

Since the summer of 2000, tens of millions of Americans have been glued to their screens whenever “Survivor” airs. At the end of each TV season, when Nielsen Media Research compiles its top 10 shows for the past nine months, “Survivor” is always on that list — twice, actually, thanks to its usual two-editions-per-season schedule.

That’s amazing when you consider how many more channels there are now than there were six years ago, and how much the TV audience has fragmented.

Network audiences may be eroding and viewers may be flocking to other forms of entertainment, but “Survivor” still pulls us in. Twenty million of us — or more — watch every episode. That’s a staggering number in this day and age.

Also, look at all the other reality shows that made a splash in “Survivor’s” wake but faded over the long term: “The Apprentice” (sinking), “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart” (dead); “Queer Eye” (played out); “The Bachelor” (on life support).

So why does this reality series — which changes its locale each time, but sticks to the same basic formula — thrive?

Stumped to explain that the mysterious allure of this powerhouse, which debuts its 12th edition, “Survivor Panama: Exile Island,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, we turned to the experts:

The host: It’s an ever-changing ethical odyssey.

Ever since “Survivor” debuted in 2000, Jeff Probst has given the play-by-play for every challenge, moderated every tribal council and tallied every single vote. In a conference call with reporters Monday, he mused on the reasons for the show’s staying power.

“This is real life drama. It’s not scripted drama. … This is really happening right now,” Probst said. “In the first or second episode, there’s a moral dilemma for somebody who gets offered alliances by two different groups and finds themselves in the catbird seat. Ethically, [this person] is already conflicted and says, `I don’t want to betray anyone; it’s really challenging for me right now, but it’s the best position to be in.’ If you are ethically challenged, and you’re competing for a million dollars, what do you do? That question never gets old.”

Probst also thinks the show has found ways to keep viewers engaged; this season, competitors who are sent to Exile Island will be able to look for an immunity idol that will keep them from being voted out — even after the tribal council vote. “Someone said at tribal [council], `I think this [immunity idol] changed the game too much,’” Probst said. “I cracked up. That’s definitely a sign that it’s working.” (There's more from Probst and executive producer Tom Shelly about Exile Island and how the immunity idol works lower in this story.)

The reality TV expert: It doesn’t go on too long.

Andy Dehnart, a lecturer at Stetson University in Florida, runs the invaluable unscripted-TV Web site RealityBlurred.com. He thinks the show’s brevity is one reason for its success — along with our taste for voyeurism:

“Our attachment to the characters and drama pulls us in and keeps us hooked for the entire season, just like a soap opera,” Dehnart says. “But the show also doesn’t go on long enough to let us grow tired of them, a la `The Real World.’ `The Apprentice’s’ central conflict is between Donald Trump and the cast, and thus there isn’t the same level of viewer engagement. Would you rather peer into the window of an office where someone is conducting a job interview, or into the window of your mysterious neighbors?”

And there’s a sociological reason for watching as well, Dehnart notes: “Watching a society form is a huge part of the appeal of ABC’s ”`Lost,’ and that show borrows heavily from `Survivor.’

The producer: We let them tell their own unpredictable stories.

“Survivor” executive producer Tom Shelly has been with the show since its inception, and he’s heard a million times that reality TV producers make up story lines and create conflict. Shelly says that’s far from being true of “Survivor.”

“We are really letting people tell their own stories,” Shelly says. “They’re in charge of their own fate. We truly don’t mess with that. When they’re out there, we just let them survive. Watching real people under pressure, I believe, is fascinating to us. We can all identify with that.” And besides, the producers don’t need to bother making up stories, because “we could never write the stuff they come up with.”

Not that the producers haven't fretted at times, Shelly says.

“When we start each season, we have no idea what people are going to do. There have been times when we get nervous out there, `Oh gosh, it’s going to be really predictable!’ Shelly says. But producers have learned “you can’t predict [who will win]. We’ve stopped trying.”

The recapper: It’s something to talk about.

Linda Holmes, a.k.a. Miss Alli, wittily recaps each episode of “Survivor” for the popular TV site TelevisionWithoutPity.com. Her reasons to watch are simple: “The cynical answer to the [question of why I still] watch the show is that I’m paid to, basically. But it’s true that it’s still a topic of conversation with like-minded friends, which is probably the real reason. It’s certainly not because it offers up very much that’s new anymore.”

The fans: Rooting for the good guys; loving or loathing the competitors; and, of course, the eye candy.

Last November, near the end of the 11th edition of “Survivor,” readers of the Watcher site were asked what kept them tuning in to the show. Also, last week, the same question was asked of fans on Television Without Pity’s “Survivor” message boards. Here are a few of the answers:

Tribune reader Lisa Hennessey: “I guess I watch in the hope that I will see justice — that somehow, the deserving will triumph and the undeserving will be disgraced. Since real life (reality?) doesn’t work that way, I want the satisfaction of seeing it on the TV screen. It doesn’t usually happen, but I keep hoping.”

TWOP reader Netful: “Loving or loathing certain contestants certainly draws me in. Even in the yawn-inducing seasons, there was at least one person who kept my interest enough to keep me watching. … The people can be so unpredictable that you’re afraid to miss a minute. One person can turn the game on its head at any given moment.”

Tribune reader Ellen: “Much of the fun is in seeing how people interact with each other; and of course, there’s the eye-candy factor.”

The longtime "Survivor" watcher: It's a puzzle.

Mo Ryan: All the insights that everyone mentioned above — they’re all part of the appeal of the show. The interpersonal drama, the ways in which people’s morals and ideals are tested, the way people are stripped of their pretensions and facades after a month with no food in a grimy jungle — that stuff certainly draws me in. But I’m not sure any of us has truly figured out the basis for the show’s appeal — and maybe that’s part of the draw. We’re mystified by why we watch; we just know we can’t not watch.

All I really do know is that I grew up being told that watching television is a passive experience (actually, the full quote from mom was that it’s “a passive experience that will turn your brain to mush, young lady”). Still, when I watch “Survivor,” I often pause my DVR to have a debate with whomever I’m with about what we’re watching.

Why did that bonehead do that? What would be the best strategy at this juncture? What will happen next? Which alliance will come out on top? What’s it like to try to sleep in the rain or freezing cold or live with a howler monkey five feet from your “bed”? How much smarter, in fact, are we couch potatoes than these “Survivor” competitors?

The show makes me think. Sure, it’s escapism, but it’s not passive escapism. It’s televised Sudoku. Watching how the parts fit together — or don’t — is fun, but it’s also an interesting challenge to try to figure out where the game will go.

So for me, it’s an unpredictable, escapist puzzle. With eye candy.

More from executive producer Tom Shelly about Exile Island and the new, reusable immunity idol:

“We thought it was an interesting idea, to banish someone to an island [which the show did once before on a previous edition]. And then we thought, what would happen if we really make it part of the overall complications for this edition? Instead of just doing that to one person, have one person go, every [episode], and be out of the loop, away from tribal politics. Surviving on your own is a lot harder than with a group. It kind of throws a wrench into the game.

"But the hidden immunity is there [on the island], if you can find it. That’s the one good thing about going [to Exile Island]. You can use it after the votes are cast at tribal. That’s something different. There isn’t a new vote after you bring out the immunity idol, [the person with the next highest vote total goes home.]"

[Shelly says that once the idol is used at tribal council, it’s then put back on Exile Island -- so in theory, the idol can be used many times]. “It’s another strategy element. If someone finds it, the next person might be looking for an idol that isn’t there. [When it's used], it goes back to Exile Island, if and when the person who found it uses it. The great thing is, if you find it, you don’t have to tell people you have it.”

Jeff Probst on Exile Island: “[Exile Island] starts to wreak havoc midway through. But there’s a silver lining. This immunity idol [is there to be found]. ... [Going to the island is] not fun. People come back and say, ‘Now I know I can live through anything, because I lived through Exile Island.’ It rains all night, you’re freezing, you’re hungry, your mind is breaking down because you’ve been playing this game for 20 days.”

Probst talked about some of the ways the immunity idol could be used:

• a contestant could lie and say he has it, even when he doesn’t

• a contestant with the idol could theoretically cast a single vote for one person, and if that one vote was the second-highest vote total, could kick the person he or she voted for out of the game.

• the idol could be tradedm or a contestant could have it and keep it for a while.

The idol, Probst said, “changed the game dramatically.”

More from my conversation with Tom Shelly:

What makes “Survivor” still such a big draw after all these years?

“When you’re producing a TV show, you want to produce a show that you would want to watch. We really are letting these people tell their own stories, about these interesting social dynamics they’re in. Certain things are structurally built into the show -- the challenges, the tribal council -- but [other than that], they’re in charge of their own fate. They’re in charge of telling us the story. We truly don’t mess with that. When they’re out there, we just let them survive. Watching real people under pressure, I believe, is fascinating to us. We can all identify with that.

"I love documentaries, fly-on-the-wall documentaries, the cinema verite movement, [movies by documentary filmmakers] the Maysles brothers, [Frederick] Wiseman. Anything where you watch people exist under pressure."

Do you ever worry that the participants will disappoint you, and it won’t be interesting?

“Honestly, when we start each season, we have no idea what people are going to do. There have been times when we get nervous out there, ‘Oh gosh, it’s gonna be really predictable!’ But there are just too many elements in every person’s personality. Somebody’s going to do one little thing, and that can break down [the game] in ways you never could have predicted. It can just change everything.

"Every time you put 16 or 18 people together, you can’t predict [who will win]. We’ve stopped trying. We’ve been right maybe once. So many times we’ve been proven wrong. You just cannot predict how people are going to behave in this situation.”

What do you think accounts for the unpredictability?

“People are under extreme pressure in so many ways. There’s the [goal of] winning a million dollars, you have to get along with your tribe mates, but at the same time you have to look out for yourself. We tell them at the beginning of the casting process, ‘This will be the most uncomfortable thing you have ever done in your life.’ But they can’t know.

"Wait until you’re in a jungle with sounds you’ve never heard and animals you’ve never seen before. There’s rain, in the day you’re dying from the heat, at night you freeze, there’s no shelter, no food, no water. It’s extreme pressure.”

What is the deal with the food? You give them the bag of rice or corn or whatever and that’s it, right? But then sometimes there’s been no food or rice given out at the start.

“In Guatemala, there was a pile of food at the beginning of that [opening] race, they had a choice of what food to take, corn or fruit or nothing. They had to choose how much to take with them, whether to travel light and leave more food, or travel slower and take more. Aside from [food that could be won as part of reward challenges], that was the only food. A lot of people don’t quite understand that when they show up for auditions. I think they think we give them food off camera. We don’t."

I’ve also been wondering, whatever happened to the “personal luxury items”? You guys made a big deal of them in the beginning, but now you don’t seem to mention them much.

“They always have them, they pick one to bring along, but we don’t always give it to them. We may hold it and give it [during the game] as part of a reward. It varies season to season.”

You seem to be tweaking the game each time out, not in ways that changes it entirely, but in ways that keeps it from staying the same each time.

“People who come on the show, they’ve studied it and seen it. They’ve come to expect how it’s going to play out. What we want to do is keep them on their toes. Just as how they play the game evolves -- some games the older players are taken out first, other games it’s the younger and stronger players -- what we try to do is come up with twists that will keep them on their toes. We want the game to always be one step ahead of them. Just when they’re figuring things out, we want to mess with that and see how they deal with it.

"And also, we like to change it up for ourselves. It’s fun for us to think of ways to change it each time. In certain ways, 'Survivor' is familiar, fans know certain things will happen and they come back to that each time, but within the parameters of the game, we want to throw in enough [changes] so it still has that [ongoing] appeal.

Are you surprised that the show still ends up in the Top 10 each season, after many pundits have predicted the demise of reality TV?

“I don’t look at it that way [as reality TV]. We don’t think of it as reality TV. Good TV is good TV. If a show is good, the audience responds to it. It’s like any scripted comedy or drama, if it’s good and has elements that the audience response to, [that makes it quality TV]. We don’t look at it as reality TV, we look at it as, ‘This is “Survivor” and how can we make it the best show it can be?’ We just want to uphold our own standards.”

Finally, some random quotes from the Monday conference call with Probst:

• On Richard Hatch's recent conviction on tax charges: "I was very sad to hear what happened… Life is hard. People make mistakes. You know, I'm not justifying what he did. It's just sad to hear it. I felt badly for him. That's the truth.”

• Probst would not comment on allegations made at Hatch’s trial that some contestants got food from production staff: “That whole story has been around for so long. I told Richard I would not comment on anything he said in the trial and I’m not going to. He said what he said. I think that unfortunately, the truth is that Richard just made a mistake and didn't pay his taxes."

• On why Panama was picked for the third time: “For our locations, we figure out [whether] we have a destination theme -- like Palau, the theme presented itself, there were war relics and old ships and planes. [Or we think of a] theme like Exile Island, where the theme has nothing to do with the location. [If that’s the case], we don’t want to waste a great location because they’re very hard to come by.” But in Panama, they found a location with five beaches -- one for each tribe and one on Exile Island, and also a good base camp location. Also, “we were on the right side of the world. We have to ship a lot of stuff.” For the next edition of the show, he added, the location is the theme.

• On whether he likes “Lost”: “I have tried to watch ‘Lost.’ I’m not into it.”

• On whether “Exile Island” will be any good: He bets it’ll be one of the “top 5” seasons of “Survivor.” “We’ll see if the audience agrees. I never thought ‘Guatemala’ would be a popular season. I said it was a feisty season.” Though the “Guatemala” gang left him “more than frustrated” at times, the “Exile Island” bunch, he said, is a “fun group.” “I had a good time doing this show, and what’s going to emerge are two of the most popular people we’ve ever had.”

• In Probst’s opinion, the best-ever “Survivor” player was “Palau’s” Tom Westman: “Hatch understood how to play a game like that” but also had the advantage of playing the first “Survivor,” Probst says. But Westman was “one of the most likeable people ever, a fireman, a dad, an athlete and somehow still lasted and won. That’s saying a lot.”

• And what he called the worst-ever “Survivor” blunder: Lex not voting Amber out on “All-Stars.” “Lex could have won that game. He’s a very good player who made one of the worst moves ever, and he knows it.”

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2006/02/why_do_we_still.html#more

You are leaving us dangling!


http://sdp.ppona.com/

If that scheduler loses his job in the merger, I think I know why.


Except for the minor point that many TV critics believe it's a decision the new network would have made by September.

(When President Bush Signs It, It Becomes Official)
House Approves Feb. 17, 2009 DTV Deadline

By Doug Halonen TVWeek.com February 1, 2006

The House of Representatives approved legislation Wednesday evening that sets Feb. 17, 2009, as the deadline for the transition to digital television.

The bill caps the federal subsidy to help consumers buy digital-to-analog converters at $1.5 billion. The measure, included in a controversial budget reconciliation package, was approved on a 216-214 vote.

The measure recently passed the Senate in a 51-50 vote, and now awaits President Bush's signature, which is expected imminently.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=9321

TV Notebook
''Everwood'' Fans, Please Note

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog February 1, 2006

Here's an upcoming schedule for The WB, including plans for the return of ''Everwood,'' a new night for "Supernatural" (paired with "Smallville,'' which sure feels like a scheduling move the UPN/WB-combined CW will want to make in the fall*) and some new shows.

(From The WB) The WB Network announced today that the star-studded one-hour romantic comedy PEPPER DENNIS will headline an exciting midseason lineup. PEPPER DENNIS will be joined by controversial midseason drama THE BEDFORD DIARIES and the highly anticipated return of acclaimed drama EVERWOOD. PEPPER DENNIS, which stars Rebecca Romijn as a television news reporter, will kick off on Tuesday, April 4 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET). The series, which also stars Josh Hopkins and Brooke Burns, will follow Tuesday-night hit comedy, GILMORE GIRLS, (8:00-9:00 p.m. ET). Regular encores of PEPPER DENNIS will air on Sundays (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET), beginning April 9.

THE BEDFORD DIARIES will debut on Wednesday, March 22 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET) as the lead-out to ONE TREE HILL, which returns with original episodes that same night. THE BEDFORD DIARIES stars Matthew Modine as the professor of a sex and the human condition seminar at a New York university, along with Milo Ventimiglia and Penn Badgley as two of his students.

EVERWOOD, starring Treat Williams, Gregory Smith and Emily Van Camp, returns with a two-hour episode on Monday, March 20 (8:00-10:00 p.m. ET). The family drama then returns to its original Monday time period, following 7TH HEAVEN, on March 27.

Replacing BEAUTY AND THE GEEK on Thursdays will be SUPERNATURAL, beginning March 16 (9:00-10:00_ p.m. ET). This move should advantage the first-year hit, pairing it with the compatible and über-successful SMALLVILLE (8:00-9:00 p.m. ET), which is enjoying its best season ever, both creatively and in the ratings.

(end announcement)

Of the new stuff, the only one I remember watching is "Pepper Dennis," which had a nice opening sequence and then fell to pieces. More on the other shows as their premiere dates get closer.

*At least, that's the Thursday lineup I proposed for The CW in my "If I Were King'' post (last week).

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

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

It also appears to be the end of the line for the vastly-improved ”Related” now on Mondays at 9 PM ET/PT. That is a pity.

TV Notebook
It's sweeps month -- but will anybody notice?

By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Thursday, February 2, 2006

Step back from 12th Man Mania, from pre-Olympics excitement, from "American Idol's" parade of tone-deaf warblers. Put all of that on pause for one moment for this brief, almost impact-free announcement: Your friendly neighborhood February sweeps begins today.

Ah, remember when you used to care? Sweeps were like holidays to TV freaks, when your favorite shows went bonkers and movie stars came to visit. Anything could happen! Even if that thing was an abysmal mistake, it was spectacular in its horror.

But the idea of sweeps, the months during which Nielsen Media Research measures ratings in local markets to set advertising rates, lost its pizazz seasons ago.

From a viewer's perspective, sweeps degenerated from a month of "anything can happen" surprises into a groaning stretch of derailed plot continuity. As such, normalcy in February isn't such an unusual concept. That's kind of what we want these days.

This is not to say the classic idea of sweeps is moldering in the grave. Last November, CBS gave us a CGI-fueled superstorm miniseries and a major death on "Lost." They were easy to spot in the crowd. However, February doesn't contain much in the way of whiplash-inducing "anything can happen" television because everything is happening.

NBC has the Winter Games in Turin starting next week. On Sunday, ABC plays host to the Seahawks trouncing the Pittsburgh Steelers (we hope and pray), and every Thursday and Friday, it has "Dancing With the Stars." Fox's "Idol" season is under way. Tonight "Survivor" gets going again on CBS (KIRO/7) at 8, and on Feb. 28, "The Amazing Race" returns. The Big Four all have something clawing for our attention, in addition to the scripted series that'll continue to dominate the Nielsen top 20 slots regardless. They're all counting on this sweep to be good to them, whether we even notice it's there.

And the guys soon to be known as The CW? UPN and The WB may as well scuttle under the rug and watch as the hurricane crushes the likes of Fox's "Arrested Development's" four-episode series finale. It airs Feb. 10 -- directly opposite the Olympics' opening ceremonies.

Although there are still a few guest appearances, outrageous plot twists and teasers about the Biggest! Episodes! Ever! coming around the bend, the standard programming line says something about "relying on the strength of original programming." That's code-speak for, "If you're gonna watch it anyway, go ahead, but we know there's a high probability that you will abandon us for figure skating at any moment. Why should we bother?"

So you'll have James Woods popping up on "ER" tonight to get his shot at a guest-appearance Emmy. The other end of the ratings ladder has Kristin Cavallari playing a gay cheerleader on UPN's "Veronica Mars" on Feb. 15. In business terms, this is meant to be a cross-promotional boost for Cavallari's new UPN series "Get This Party Started," kicking off Tuesday at 9 p.m. on KSTW/11. Laymen are equally correct in interpreting her "Veronica Mars" visit as Stern's Law of Television Dynamics at work. (As in Howard Stern, who famously declared, "Lesbians equal ratings." And "Veronica" needs viewers more than cult worship right now.)

You can bet bubble gum that "Without a Trace," "House," "Lost" and "24" will contain mind-blowing revelations, because they always do. "Desperate Housewives" may even get back on course. That would be a lovely surprise.

But any show used to doing battle for a smaller portion of the ratings pie in a typical month is really going to be hurting during this atypical February. Worse, in addition to whiz-bang trickery, sweeps also tends to be the classic determinant of a series survival.

What can the faithful viewer do? The answer's obvious -- you look forward to March. The weakest network fledglings will be gone by then, and the stuff you've been missing returns.

• "Everwood," for example. A long-standing cult favorite among critics and fans, this WB show escaped mention in last week's CW release of shows that have a chance of making the fall schedule. You can worry about it, or you can watch when it makes its two-hour return March 20. Continue watching after that and get your friends to watch. Of course, that may be tough because Fox's "Prison Break" comes back the same night at 8.

• "The West Wing," which surely would have been lost in Olympics mania, returns March 12 for its final approach. That leaves one president on the air next month; ABC's "Commander in Chief" takes a six-week break in March, temporarily replaced by the midseason improvisational comedy "Sons & Daughters" as of 9 p.m. March 7.

That's not good news for the first female president; "Commander" lost viewers to "American Idol" and "House" after its midwinter return. Geena Davis fans may be peeved, but anyone who liked "Significant Others" on Bravo may celebrate the switch. ABC also announced its reality series "Miracle Workers" premieres March 6 at 10, and another competition from "Idol's" Simon Cowell, "American Inventor," has a two-hour debut March 16 at 8, settling into its 9 p.m. time period March 23.

• Another unscripted comedy, "Free Ride," hits Fox's lineup at 9:30 p.m. March 1 before settling into its regular time slot at 9:30 p.m. Sundays as of March 12. By that point you'll be ready for some laughs, or so Fox hopes, because it has another comedy, "The Loop," previewing March 15 at 9:30 p.m. (Normal time slot will be 8:30 p.m. Thursdays as of March 16.) Really, though, finding a comedy is more about adding feathers to Fox's nest at this point; it has several successful dramas in its favor.

• The same is true of CBS, where Jenna Elfman has a hit in "Courting Alex" largely thanks to her slinky suits. Nevertheless, "Out of Practice" is set to return in March. Joining the schedule next month as well is Julia Louis-Dreyfus' comedy "The New Adventures of Old Christine" and "The Unit," in which Dennis Haysbert plays a role decidedly different from "24's" President Palmer.

Notice: There's not much in the way of new UPN fodder beyond the return of "America's Next Top Model" on March 8. With everything else going on and a merger coming down the track, it's just doing what any TV gawker would be doing in its place. Waiting.

Consider this a warning, then, if you're not partial to skiing, singing, Seahawks, Steelers, the samba or starvation for cash. Sweeps is here, and it's largely an afterthought. Pop your head out if you wish; otherwise duck, take cover and wait for next month.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/257824_tv02.html

TV Notebook
ABC Spring Premiere Dates 2006

ABC Television Network PRESS RELEASE February 01,2006

ABC ANNOUNCES PREMIERE DATES FOR "MIRACLE WORKERS," "AMERICAN INVENTOR," "THE EVIDENCE" AND "WHAT ABOUT BRIAN," AND AIRDATES FOR A SERIES OF "EXTREME MAKEOVER: HOME EDITION" HURRICANE RECOVERY SPECIALS, PLUS THE RETURN OF "COMMANDER IN CHIEF" AND "SUPERNANNY"

The ABC Television Network today announced premiere dates for alternative series "Miracle Workers" and "American Inventor," new scripted dramas "The Evidence" and "What About Brian," four "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" hurricane recovery specials and the return of "Commander In Chief" and "Supernanny."

On Monday, March 6, "Supernanny" returns with new episodes (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET), followed by the premiere of "Miracle Workers" (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET), a life-changing series about real people overcoming almost insurmountable odds with the help of an elite team of medical professionals. "Miracle Workers" will air in the time period for four weeks. "Wife Swap" continues to lead off the night (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET). "The Bachelor: Paris" will have completed its run.

On Thursday, March 16, "American Inventor," an exciting series from Simon Cowell and the producers of "American Idol" about the biggest search ever for America's best new invention, will premiere with a special two-hour installment from 8:00-10:00 p.m., ET, and will air from 9:00-10:00 p.m., ET, as of Thursday, March 23.

"The Evidence" premieres on Wednesday, March 22 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET). The series revolves around Inspectors Sean Cole (Orlando Jones) and Cayman Bishop (Rob Estes), two long-time partners and best friends in the San Francisco Police Department. In the series, the crucial "evidence" in the case will be presented at the outset of the story. All of the pieces to the puzzle will be known by viewers from the beginning. The question is -- how does it all fit together?

"Invasion" will go on broadcast hiatus to accommodate the run of "The Evidence," and is slated to return with all original episodes in April.

On Thursday, March 23 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET), preceding the regular time period premiere of "American Inventor," the network will air the first of four consecutive "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" specials -- "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition -- After the Storm" -- in which the design team and some very special guests impact the lives of residents of four of the Gulf Coast states hardest hit this past hurricane season - Louisiana, Texas, Florida and Mississippi. The remaining three installments - each focused on a project in a different state - air in this time period over the next three weeks.

"What About Brian," a contemporary, heartwarming ensemble show about a group of supportive friends in various stages of romantic relationships and friendships living in Los Angeles, will have a special preview on Sunday, April 2 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET) - following an original episode of "Desperate Housewives" -- before moving to its regular time period on Monday, April 3 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET).

On Tuesday, April 18 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET), "Commander In Chief," on which Geena Davis stars in her Golden Globe-winning role as the first female President of the United States, returns to the schedule.

SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE:

As of Monday, March 6
8:00-9:00 p.m. "Wife Swap"
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Supernanny" (return)
10:00-11:00 p.m. "Miracle Workers" (new series premiere- in the time period for four weeks)

Thursday, March 16
8:00-10:00 p.m. "American Inventor" (new series -- special two-hour premiere)
10:00-11:00 p.m. "Primetime"

As of Wednesday, March 22
8:00-8:30 p.m. "George Lopez"
8:30-9:00 p.m. "Freddie"
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Lost"
10:00-11:00 p.m. "The Evidence" (new series premiere)

As of Thursday, March 23
8:00-9:00 p.m. "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition -- After the Storm" (four specials over four weeks)
9:00-10:00 p.m. "American Inventor" (regular time period premiere)
10:00-11:00 p.m. "Primetime"

Sunday, April 2
7:00-8:00 p.m. "America's Funniest Home Videos"
8:00-9:00 p.m. "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Desperate Housewives"
10:00-11:00 p.m. "Wha About Brian" (new series -- special preview)

As of Monday, April 3
8:00-9:00 p.m. "Wife Swap"
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Supernanny"
10:00-11:00 p.m. "What About Brian" (time period premiere)

As of Tuesday, April 18
8:00-8:30 p.m. "According to Jim"
8:30-9:00 p.m. "Rodney"
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Commander In Chief" (return)
10:00-11:00 p.m. "Boston Legal"

The Week’s Winners and Losers
TV Notebook
Thursday night is dancing with success

By Gary Levin, USA Today

Is Thursday must-see TV again?

For nearly 20 years, NBC laid claim to the networks' most lucrative night, with a steady stream of hits from Cheers to Seinfeld to Friends and ER. Then CBS boldly moved Survivor and CSI to the night, Friends ended, NBC's bottom fell out, and the competition has been lopsided ever since, with CBS a dominant first place.

But the fight has intensified for No. 2.

ABC's Dancing with the Stars managed to re-create its status as a summer phenomenon on Thursdays, where it has been winning its 8 p.m. time slot with an average 18 million viewers; the network's Crumbs is holding steady at 9:30, against CSI, with 11 million.

WB, facing an otherwise tough season, is up 65% on Thursdays, and it set records among young men with a rejuvenated Smallville and second-season reality hit Beauty & the Geek. UPN has established a beachhead with Everybody Hates Chris.

CBS' fourth season of Without a Trace neared record highs last month. And even NBC has gained some traction by successfully transplanting My Name Is Earl and The Office to the hour vacated by the fading Apprentice. Although the network's overall Thursday ratings are down 27%, The Office has climbed to new highs.

"There's not just more genres of programming, but there are more buzz-worthy shows on the night in total," says Initiative Media analyst Stacey Lynn Koerner. And "they're dispersed across more networks, not just CBS and NBC."

"It's a much more competitive night," says Fox scheduler Preston Beckman. Fox will throw three American Idol semifinals results shows into the Thursday mix starting Feb. 23, when it will face Survivor, Dancing and Olympics.

"It's tougher, sure," says CBS scheduling chief Kelly Kahl. "But we haven't seen anything at this point that suggests it's coming out of our hides. Good network programming just leads to more viewers."

Thursday night is crucial for networks' financial health because it's coveted by movie studios and other major advertisers willing to pay high rates.

The surprisingly durable Survivor opens its 12th installment —Panama: Exile Island — Thursday (8 ET/PT) with four tribes, and sends one contestant each week packing for a temporary stay on a remote island.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-02-01-thursday-tv_x.htm

TV Notebook
For This Comedy Writer, No Is Never an Answer

By Bill Carter The New York Times February 2, 2006

Behind every hit on television there is usually a miss — or several misses. That is certainly the case with NBC's one true hit this season, "My Name Is Earl," one of the freshest new network comedies in years, which, if its charms had been recognized earlier, might be playing tonight on the Fox network.

Then again it could have been on CBS and ABC as well, or NBC could have had the show a year earlier than it did. Instead the program is on NBC on Thursday nights as the top-rated comedy on television in the important audience group of 18-to-49-year-old viewers. Its star, Jason Lee, has become an instant television favorite (and as of yesterday had recovered from a bout of chicken pox to resume shooting the series.)

As happens so often with hit shows, the story behind "Earl" is a tale of the passion of one creator, in this case, a veteran comedy writer named Greg Garcia, who simply would not stop pushing past a series of rejections to find a home for his cherished idea.

As Mr. Garcia told the story, sitting in his office on the soundstage in Los Angeles that accommodates Earl's motel home and other sets, it began on a beach in the summer of 2003. Mr. Garcia, whose main previous credit was creating the successful but critically disparaged CBS comedy "Yes, Dear," was on vacation in Nags Head, N.C., with his extended family. He was determined to come up with an idea for a new show, and his thoughts ran to what he called "the trailer-park world," which had always fascinated him.

"I didn't come from that world," he said, "but I had a friend, who did — he's a writer on the show now."

Mr. Garcia said he had always been drawn to the notion of karma as well, and the two separate threads came together in Earl, a career petty criminal who wins the lottery and decides to reform his life after hearing Carson Daly talk about karma on television. In television, the next step after an idea is the pitch. Because Mr. Garcia had a deal with 20th Century Fox Television, that meant working through that studio and then to the network it is affiliated with: Fox. So he pitched his "Earl" idea to the comedy executives at the Fox network. They passed. "Did not seem like a series," Mr. Garcia was told.

He was angry, enough so that he told the Fox executives that when the show became a hit he would have a job for them pushing a broom on the set.

Otherwise he was not discouraged. "My career has been a long string of people telling me no," Mr. Garcia said. Running his plan past the executives in charge of 20th Century Fox Television, Dana Walden and Gary Newman, Mr. Garcia decided to write a pilot script anyway.

Still working on "Yes, Dear," he got up at 4 every morning, wrote until 10 a.m., and finished in two weeks. Ms. Walden loved it, and sent it back to the Fox network. The same comedy executives who had dismissed the pitch loved the script and sent it up the chain of command to the top entertainment executives, Sandy Grushow and Gail Berman.

"It came back with a pass," Ms. Walden said. "They just felt very certain that there wasn't a show there." Mr. Newman added that Fox had implied the show's setting and characters felt "too downmarket" for what the network's sales department wanted at that point.

Fox was not alone. The studio sent the script everywhere and got a series of no's from each of the other networks — including NBC.

Mr. Garcia went back to work on "Yes, Dear" and was also commissioned by Fox to work with some actors they had under contract, including Jenna Elfman, to develop show ideas for them.

"And everybody that they would send me, I'd pitch 'Earl' to them," Mr. Garcia said. "Finally they called me and said, if you keep pitching 'Earl' we're not going to send you any more talent. I was like, whatever."

Mr. Newman said, "Greg was so passionate about this show, it was so embedded in his soul, that we couldn't really get him to focus on doing something else with Jenna Elfman or anyone else."

By the next development season, NBC had a new executive in charge of entertainment, Kevin Reilly, and the network was facing a serious ratings collapse. Mr. Reilly put out word that he was wide open to any and all original ideas. The script for "Earl" arrived on his desk. He sent back word: this was a smart script that he liked very much.

That did not mean NBC was committed. As Mr. Garcia interpreted it, NBC, as Fox had the year before, had concerns about the show's ambience being "outside their brand." Mr. Garcia said, "They were worried about, are we going to be able to sell BMW's in this show?" All Mr. Garcia and the studio got at that point was what is called a "cast contingent pickup." That meant find the right "Earl" and you'll get a pilot order.

Mr. Garcia wanted to "shoot for the moon," and approach real movie stars. At least he did after first trying out Trace Adkins, a country music singer, whose reading of Earl initially made Ms. Walden and the other studio executives "fall out of our seats laughing" at his audition. (Mr. Reilly agreed he was funny but was not near committing to him.)

Jason Lee was the dream casting choice, but he was still pursuing a film career. Ms. Walden said the studio had tried numerous times to land Mr. Lee for television projects. "The message would come back from his agents: 'Lose our number.' "

The script for "Earl" however, captivated Mr. Lee. Negotiations commenced. Mr. Garcia heard a signing was imminent. The next morning he woke to an e-mail message: "Jason is out." He said, "I've woken up to a lot of ugly things in my life, but that was the ugliest."

By chance, the same day at an art show in Santa Monica, Mr. Garcia ran into Gay Ribisi, Mr. Lee's manager. She promised to talk further to the actor. The next morning she called with a new message: "Jason is in."

NBC committed to the pilot. That should have been the end of the show's tribulations, because the result was what critics called one of the outstanding pilots of recent years. But Mr. Garcia said that after NBC had the pilot he got a call from what he called "one of the powers that be" at the network, who told him, "It just isn't funny."

The pilot was tested, and it scored brilliantly. Some at NBC remained unconvinced. "We found out our poor little pilot had to go through four or five tests," Ms. Walden said. "Each time it did better." She had special praise for Mr. Reilly, who stuck his then very vulnerable neck out to push an unusual show.

"Kevin gets all the credit," she said. "In terms of a network executive who recognizes there was something there was very relevant, that felt fresh and funny. There were a lot of reasons to say no but the bold choice was yes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/02/arts/television/02earl.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

TV Notebook
A chillier February for CBS's 'Survivor'

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Feb 2, 2006, 01:00

CBS delayed the return of its long-running hit "Survivor" until the February sweeps, which start tonight. But as the reality show enters its 12th season, it faces its toughest competition in two years, since NBC's "Friends" went off the air, and from the network favored to win sweeps, ABC.

This could be the worst season of "Survivor" ever in terms of ratings, and it could also turn out to be CBS's worst February sweeps in several years.

"Survivor" is already coming off a season of record-low viewership. Meanwhile, ABC has been averaging some 18 million total viewers for the reality show "Dancing With the Stars," also at 8 p.m.

CBS has tweaked the “Survivor” formula in hopes of keeping the show fresh and attracting new viewers against the stiffer competition. Instead of two tribes, the 16 contestants will be split in four groups: older women, younger women, older men and younger men.

And then there’s Exile Island, hence the show's title: "Survivor: Exile Island." Each week one castaway will be voted to live there alone. But the island, which is miles away from camp, is also the location of a hidden immunity idol that could lead a lucky contestant to the $1 million grand prize.

Tonight’s premiere should easily push CBS to a first-day lead in sweeps. The issue is how much it will help the network over the month. Media buyers think not much.

ABC, which has the year’s biggest sweeps stunt in the Super Bowl, is the odds-on favorite to take the rating period among viewers 18-49. Some 45.1 percent of respondents to a recent Media Life survey predicted an ABC sweeps win.

Fox was voted the next likely to win, at 31.9 percent, driven by a stronger “American Idol.” Even with the Winter Olympics, NBC only came in third, at 15.4 percent. Dead last was CBS at just 7.7 percent.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_2608.asp

TV Notebook
Lots of life in 'Ghost Whisperer'

By William Keck USA Today

HOLLYWOOD — At one time, Jennifer Love Hewitt wouldn't be caught dead in a cemetery.

Hewitt, whose character sees and speaks to ghosts, finds the Hollywood Forever Cemetery a soothing place.

"I refused to go because I always thought they were scary," explains Hewitt.

The 26-year-old star of such films as I Know What You Did Last Summer, TV's The Audrey Hepburn Story, Garfield and this summer's sequel is en route to a cemetery from the set of her CBS drama, Ghost Whisperer (Friday, 8 p.m. ET/PT). She produces and stars in the show as an anti-ques store owner who talks to the dead.

As her van passes through the gates of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hewitt, whose breakthrough role was playing Sarah Reeves on Fox's Party of Five, smiles. After shooting graveyard scenes for Whisperer, cemeteries "don't feel scary to me anymore. There's something very calm about sitting in a cemetery, listening to your iPod alongside your fellow man."

This afternoon, her eyes are drawn to the headstones — many dating to the early 1900s. "I wonder who these people were, how they died, and what their stories were," she says. "I look at them hoping they are at peace and didn't have any unfinished business."

Therein lies the premise of her show. Hewitt plays Melinda Gordon, a woman who helps the dead deliver messages to loved ones. Averaging 10.6 million viewers, Whisperer is holding its own against ABC's Dancing with the Stars.

In researching the role, Hewitt sat with medium James Van Praagh, who is a producer on the show, and believes she made contact with her friend Alan, who died when she was 12.

"Whether you believe or not, the smile this 'magic' puts on your face is worth everything in the world," says Hewitt of her character's abilities. People worry that when they die, "it's all over and you don't get a say in it. We try to say in our show that maybe you go on to something new."

Hewitt hopes to die in her sleep in her 80s, "when I'm still kicking with some energy and lots of wrinkles." When her time comes, she wants her children to choose her resting place. "If they'd like to come visit me at a place like this, I'd be fine with that. If they want to keep me in a jar, I'd be fine with that, too. I just don't want to be made into a velvet painting of Elvis."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-02-01-hewitt-cover_x.htm

TV Notebook
Echostar to Lifetime: You're a turn-on

Two abruptly settle their bitter pricing squabble
By Dan Weil MediaLifeMagazine.com Feb 2, 2006

First they called each other names, now they’ve kissed and made up. EchoStar and Lifetime agreed to a multi-year deal yesterday for EchoStar’s Dish Network satellite service to resume carrying Lifetime networks after a month of ugly fighting.

Dish dumped Lifetime network and Lifetime Movie Network, which are jointly owned by Hearst and Disney, Dec. 31 after the two companies couldn’t agree on terms for a new carriage contract. Yesterday, Lifetime network returned to Dish’s America’s Top 60 package. Lifetime Movie Network moved to America’s Top 180 package from its previous position on America’s Top 120 package.

EchoStar officials couldn’t immediately be reached by Media Life for comment. A Lifetime spokesman said that the two reached a fair agreement in which EchoStar proved flexible. But the dispute between the two companies had grown nasty, with Lifetime running ads in newspapers around the country accusing EchoStar of abandoning its female viewers.

The meat of the dispute naturally was money. EchoStar claimed that Lifetime demanded a 76 percent price increase to carry its networks, while Lifetime claimed that it merely wanted about four cents more per customer for each month.

Last month EchoStar replaced Lifetime with Oxygen Media, another women's network. And when talks between EchoStar and Lifetime broke down last week, EchoStar said it would have a permanent replacement for Lifetime by the end of January.

Then the two companies reached their agreement. It’s not clear yet exactly what made them come to terms, but both sides had incentive to make peace. Lifetime obviously didn’t want to lose the 12 million Dish subscribers who could view its networks, not to mention the payments from EchoStar. And EchoStar didn’t want to risk alienating its female customers by eliminating the most popular women’s network.

Dozens of women’s organizations protested Dish’s move to drop Lifetime, saying women need the channels for vital information about abuse, breast cancer and teen pregnancies. Protest rallies were held in several cities.

In a deal related to the agreement with Lifetime, EchoStar also revised its retransmission consent agreement with Hearst-Argyle Television local stations. Hearst, a 50 percent owner of Lifetime, has a controlling stake in the stations.

For years, Lifetime acted as Hearst-Argyle’s agent in retransmission consent agreements with cable and satellite providers. But during the spat with Lifetime, EchoStar gave Hearst-Argyle a separate deal to blunt Lifetime’s negotiating strength. Had it not, EchoStar would have had to deal with some mighty angry college football fans who would have missed their bowl games if the satellite service dropped the Hearst-Argyle stations.

In a new securities filing Tuesday, Hearst-Argyle said it went back to letting EchoStar to pay Lifetime, which in turn compensates Hearst-Argyle.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_2612.asp

TV Notebook
What happened to “Alias”

The notes on the new March ABC-TV schedule (listed in an earlier posting) have one slight little omission.

Where is “Alias”?

ABC had said the show would return in March.

Yet there is no mention of it.

What gives?

The notes on the new March ABC-TV schedule (listed in an earlier posting) have one slight little omission.

Where is “Alias”?

ABC had said the show would return in March.
Yet there is no mention of it.

What gives?

This smacks of a conspiracy even bigger than Rimbaldi! It's the evil ABC executives, controlled by Arvin Sloan, no doubt. :eek:

Wednesday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

Dead last was CBS at just 7.7 percent.

That just sounds weird.

18-49 Overnights
Hanging by a limb: WB's 'One Tree Hill'

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Feb 2, 2006

When the CW, the network being created out of the merger between the WB and UPN, launches this fall, it will feature a lineup that includes the top-rated and most promising shows from each. It’s beginning to look like the WB’s “One Tree Hill” won’t be among them.

Last night “Tree” posted a 1.5 Nielsen overnight rating among viewers 18-34, down 12 percent versus the 1.7 it had averaged its previous four original episodes. Last week it had dipped all the way to a 1.3 in the 8 p.m. timeslot.

The trend is similar among WB’s traditional 12-34 target audience: last night “Tree” posted a 1.6 overnight rating in the demo, down 11 percent from the 1.8 the last four originals averaged.

Ratings for each one of its previous new episodes in December and January had declined versus the prior week. Though part of the decline can be blamed on the return of Fox’s “American Idol,” that’s only been back for three episodes. “Hill’s” dip started before that.

If the show does manage to make it to The CW next season, perhaps as a midseason replacement, it’s a good bet it won’t be in the same slot as “Idol.”

Meanwhile, Fox used its “Idol” boost to average an 8.8 rating and grab a 22 share among viewers 18-49 last night for first place. CBS was second at 3.8/9, NBC third at 2.7/7, ABC fourth at 2.4/6, Univision fifth at 1.9/5, WB sixth at 1.5/4 and UPN seventh at 0.7/2.

Fox started the night with a 12.4 average rating during the 8 p.m. hour for “Idol,” followed by a 2.2 rating for CBS for “Still Standing” (2.2) and “Yes, Dear” (2.2). Univision was third that hour with a 2.0 for “Contra Viento y Marea,” ABC fourth with a 1.9 for “George Lopez” (1.8) and “Freddie” (2.0), NBC fifth with a 1.8 for “E-Ring,” WB sixth with a 1.3 for “Tree” and UPN seventh with a 0.6 for “South Beach.”

At 9 p.m. Fox led again, this time with a 5.2 rating for “Bones.” CBS remained in second that hour with a 3.8 for a repeat of “Criminal Minds,” with NBC third with a 3.6 for “The Biggest Loser” and ABC fourth with a 3.4 for a repeat of “Lost.” Univision was fifth that hour with a 2.2 for “Alborada,” WB sixth with a 1.7 for a repeat of “Beauty and the Geek” and UPN seventh with a 0.9 for “Veronica Mars.”

CBS took the lead at 10 p.m. with a 5.3 average for “CSI: NY.” NBC was second with a 2.8 for a repeat of “Law & Order,” ABC third with a 2.0 for an “Invasion” rerun and Univision fourth with a 1.5 for “Don Francesco Presenta.”

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_2613.asp

The Digital Revolution
Get set as industry switches to digital TV

Mike Himowitz The Baltimore Sun February 2, 2006

For the last 10 days I've been watching a rare bird - a standard-definition digital television, or SDTV. It's the no-frills set of the future for the nearly 20 percent of American households that get their TV the old-fashioned way - over the air.

You haven't seen many of these, because TV makers have been concentrating on big-ticket, high-profit, high-definition (HD) sets that most buyers hook up to cable TV feeds.

But high-definition video is only part of the spectrum as the country moves to a new digital broadcasting system. TV stations are already broadcasting in several digital formats, including one called standard definition (SD).

This looks a lot like today's analog TV and doesn't require expensive HD electronics - only a relatively inexpensive digital tuner. Until now, TV makers didn't want you to know about this. But starting March 1, the government will require over-the-air digital tuners in all sets with screens 25 inches and larger. The 27-inch RCA Model 27F524T I reviewed has both digital and analog tuners - something you should demand in any over-the-air set you buy over the next three years.

Here's the good news. With over-the air broadcasts, the $339 RCA set produced a picture that was crisper and clearer than today's comparable analog sets. It was also slightly better than a good analog set hooked to a cable feed.

The industry calls this "DVD quality," and that's a good description of what you get. It's not quite high-def, but it might be all you need, particularly with a screen smaller than 30 inches. As my wife says, "I don't care about seeing every pimple on Alex Trebek's face."

Now the bad news. I couldn't get a usable signal from some stations with the set-top antenna that RCA provided. And I live on high ground less than 8 miles from Baltimore's Television Hill, and even closer to Maryland Public Television's towers in Owings Mills. I also couldn't get Washington stations, as I can with analog broadcasts. I don't know how other sets in this category will fare, but they'll probably need a rotating rooftop antenna.

If you're even thinking of buying a set over the next few years, it's important to know something about the continuing switch from analog to digital broadcasting because the industry is dumping as many obsolescent analog sets on the market as it can.

It knows these sets will be useless for over-the-air broadcasts starting Feb. 17, 2009.

That's when Congress says broadcasters must cease analog transmissions. Local stations are broadcasting both kinds of signals now.

But after the deadline, the only way to get an over-the-air broadcast with an analog TV will be to buy a converter box and possibly a new antenna. Which, of course, the industry will be happy to sell you.

If your TV is hooked up to a cable or satellite feed, you don't have to worry about this - the cable company will provide the signal you need. But the switchover will affect any sets in the house that depend on broadcast signals.

To protect unwitting consumers from buying obsolete junk right up to the deadline, the government is requiring digital tuners in all larger sets manufactured after March 1.

So it was that I got to try out the new RCA 27F524T a few weeks early. RCA offers three similar 27-inch models with slightly different features, at slightly higher and lower price points, as well as a 32-inch version for $599.

The set has two coaxial antenna inputs and two tuners - one for standard analog broadcasts and cable stations, the other for over-the-air digital broadcasts. RCA provided me with an amplified "rabbit ears" antenna, which I plugged into the digital input.

Like most modern TVs, the RCA has a setup routine that runs through the spectrum (analog and digital), looking for live stations. That's where I got my first nasty surprise. The Baltimore area has three VHF and five UHF stations, but the set picked up only three out of the eight.

Trying to tune the others manually resulted in a blue screen with an "Unusable Signal" message. So I jiggled the rabbit ears and ran the setup again. This time I picked up three more stations but lost one I had the first time.

Frustrated, I ditched the new RCA antenna and plugged in an unamplified, four-year-old RCA model of a different design that I found in the basement. Oddly enough, that worked better. Even so, with another hour of twiddling the rabbit ears and re-running setup, the best I could manage was six stations out of eight.

Another problem: the so-called "cliff effect." With an analog tuner, you can watch a weak or snowy signal if you really want to - which is how Washington stations often appear to Baltimoreans.

Digital tuners do not tolerate ambivalence - for the most part, you either get a great signal or you get zip - sort of like falling off a cliff. The only Washington station I was able to tune in with the rabbit ears was Channel 9, and that lasted for only about 10 minutes, until the voodoo expired, I guess.

Digital TV also requires more patience than adolescent males of all ages are likely to possess. The RCA set took four seconds to change channels, which isn't unusual, according to George R. Beneman II, vice president for technology at Maryland Public Television, who watches TV over-the-air at home.

"I guess you can say there's no such thing as channel surfing any more," he observed wryly. "The TV essentially has to reformat itself every time you change channels, and that takes time."

I called Beneman because MPT is one of the nation's leaders in digital broadcasting. It's the only local broadcast outlet that takes full advantage of the most exciting feature of the new system: Each station can now broadcast separate programs on up to five sub-channels.

From 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., MPT has additional channels for kids, families and classrooms. In the evening, its main broadcast and high-definition channels often have different fare. It takes time, effort and money to do all this, and MPT obviously understands what the new digital medium is about.

Elsewhere, additional digital programming is thinner. Most stations use the new bandwidth to broadcast two versions of their main programming, one in the standard 4:3 ratio of analog TV and the other in a "letterboxed" version of the more rectangular format that digital broadcasters prefer.

WBAL (11) and WMAR (2) have added 24-hour weather channels, while WNUV (54) offers an additional channel of entertainment, mostly music.

Merely tuning a digital set will require new habits. Technically, digital broadcasts use a new set of channel numbers, but the industry and FCC didn't want to confuse current viewers. So they set up "virtual channels" that allow each station to keep its old channel number, with subchannels for multicasting.

If you punch in a channel number on the remote control, it shows up in an "X-X" format on the screen. For example, MPT's broadcasts will show up here as 22-1, 22-2 and so on. This will take some time for people to figure out.

Bottom line: The first low-end digital TV that I tried produced an excellent picture - when I could get a picture at all.

Once they have enough over-the-air viewers, broadcasters will undoubtedly be able to tune their transmissions better. But if even a fraction of their viewers have the same trouble I did, they'll be marching on Washington with pitchforks and axes, trying to find the culprits who stole their perfectly good TV signal.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-bz.himowitz02feb02,1,4303925,print.column?coll=bal-home-columnists

Re:
The Digital Revolution
Get set as industry switches to digital TV

Mike Himowitz The Baltimore Sun February 2, 2006:

Good reading. Thanks

This smacks of a conspiracy even bigger than Rimbaldi! It's the evil ABC executives, controlled by Arvin Sloan, no doubt. :eek:
With 5 series premieres, one of them is sure to tank, opening up a spot, and CiC isn't doing all that great either.

Agreed, and CIC may not return next season, but you'd think ABC would do everything in its power to bring it back.

Alias, of course, is already on the scrap heap.

TV Notebook
CBS Cuts Out Download Middleman

The network will make 'Survivor' episodes available for $1.99 on its own website, bypassing Apple's iTunes service
By Meg James Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 2, 2006

CBS Corp. has spoken: When it comes to making its reality hit "Survivor" available for downloading, iTunes has been voted off the island.

The company announced Wednesday that it was experimenting with cutting out the Internet middlemen by offering downloads of its popular show for $1.99 an episode on its own website, CBS.com. The service is to be launched tonight, immediately after the show airs on the West Coast.

CBS would be the first broadcast network to sell its shows via its own Internet storefront. The move signals that CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves believes the network is a potent enough brand that it can go it alone — without Apple Computer Inc.'s popular iTunes software and website — and thus not have to split the spoils.

Network executives cautioned that the experiment, allowing buyers to view episodes of "Survivor" for just 24 hours after buying them, did not rule out the possibility that CBS later could strike a deal with Apple, which sells popular shows such as ABC's "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" for $1.99 an episode.

CBS already has an arrangement to make "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" available on Google Video. But Google Inc. is still testing that service, and by simultaneously offering "Survivor" on both sites, CBS will quickly see which website has more traction with viewers.

"It's been our strategy to exploit content across as many platforms as possible," Moonves said in a news release. "This is not only a boon to fans of the show, who can now watch it at their leisure, but it also represents a great way to generate traffic for CBS.com while opening a whole new revenue stream for CBS."

In launching the "Survivor" downloads, CBS is endorsing a different purchasing model from the one used by iTunes. On CBS.com, buying an episode would be more like a video rental, because buyers have a temporary window in which to view a show.

A buyer of an iTunes download, by contrast, can replay it endlessly.

CBS is hoping that its system may better safeguard future DVD sales of its shows.

"It's unclear how [iTunes downloads] will affect DVD sales," said Larry Kramer, president of CBS Digital Media.

In addition, CBS wants to protect its overseas markets. Foreign countries continue to be lucrative outlets for TV producers to resell their programming, and CBS wants to avoid violating agreements that it has for shows that have been sold overseas. Only viewers in the U.S. will be permitted to download "Survivor" on CBS.com.

CBS executives say nothing in this experiment is set in stone. Kramer said the network might tinker with its pricing, for example, to offer lower-priced shows that contain one or more commercial spots (though "Survivor" would be ad-free).

"Survivor" was a natural choice for jump-starting the service. CBS owns the show along with Mark Burnett Productions, which means it doesn't have to get permission from any TV production partners. What's more, because each episode builds upon the action from the previous week, viewers who miss an episode are more likely to pay to watch an instant rerun so they will know which contestant got booted, and why.

CBS has had discussions with Apple, Kramer said, and will continue to stick its toe in the water on other entertainment-oriented websites. In September, the company partnered with Google to offer free streaming video of "Everybody Hates Chris," a new comedy on its UPN network.

Last month, CBS offered free streaming video of two popular comedies, "Two and a Half Men," and "How I Met Your Mother," on Yahoo Inc.'s site. That experiment yielded nearly 500,000 downloads — and a jump in viewership.

"We saw a pop among the younger demos the following week," Kramer said, referring to the coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic.

Jupiter Research television analyst Todd Chanko said that CBS' move may give the network leverage in negotiations with other partners.

"This goes to show the power that a broadcast network has," he said. CBS, he said, seems "to be saying that they see no reason to feel obligated to sell their content through other sites."

But Chanko predicted that downloading video to computers won't replace the TV experience anytime soon. At $1.99 a download, CBS would have to sell a lot of episodes to equal the advertising revenue it rakes in for its top-rated shows.

A 30-second commercial spot in a show like "Survivor," for example, sells for about $350,000. With 12 minutes of ads per hour-long episode, Chanko said, CBS makes as much as $8.4 million. Since CBS runs two installments of "Survivor" each year, each with 13 episodes, that means the network takes in about $218 million a year in ad revenue. Even if CBS gives Burnett a cut — say $52 million a year — that would mean CBS itself would still take in about $166 million, Chanko estimated.

"At $1.99 a download, to make the same amount, they would need 83 million downloads a year," Chanko said. "It's all about the numbers."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cbs2feb02,1,74803,print.story?coll=la-headlines-business

TV Notebook
For Fans of ''The Closer''
(From Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog)
This arrived from TNT today:

Cable's top sensation is heading before cameras once again on Feb. 27, when TNT's THE CLOSER begins production on its second dramatically charged season.

In just its first year on the air, the series earned star Kyra Sedgwick (Something To Talk About, Loverboy, TNT's Door to Door) both Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, while also ranking as cable's #1 new series of 2005.

TNT is currently in the midst of airing an encore of the first season, which is scoring extremely high ratings, this week delivering 5.2 million viewers and outperforming the original telecast of the episode, as well as series' premiere average, among targeted adult demos.

Production for the second season in Los Angeles will also feature the return of the entire SAG Award(tm)-nominated ensemble cast, including Sedgwick as Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson; Jon Tenney (You Can Count on Me, Get Real) as FBI Agent Fritz Howard, Brenda's love interest who also sometimes works with her on investigations; J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man, Law & Order, Oz) as Brenda's boss, Assistant Police Chief Will Pope, with whom she once had an affair; Corey Reynolds (The Terminal, Tony nominee for Hairspray) as Sgt. David Gabriel, Brenda's right-hand man; Robert Gossett (Arlington Road, The Net) as Commander Taylor, head of the robbery homicide division and a frequent thorn in Brenda's side; G.W. Bailey (M*A*S*H, St. Elsewhere, Police Academy) as quick-witted veteran Detective Lt. Provenza; Tony Denison (Melrose Place, The Amy Fisher Story) as disgruntled Detective Andy Flynn; Michael Paul Chan (Robbery Homicide Division, The Insider) as technology-minded Detective Mike Tao; Raymond Cruz (Collateral Damage, Training Day) as Detective Julio Sanchez; and Gina Ravera (The Temptations, Soul Food) as Detective Irene Daniels.

THE CLOSER follows the ever-challenging world of Chief Detective Brenda Johnson (Sedgwick), a transplant from Atlanta who is now working for the Priority Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Her position on this elite detective squad, which handles high-profile cases of a sensitive nature, is one a tenuous balancing act.

She faces sometimes-antagonistic roadblocks, even from her own peers within the department, and must manage a team that is only now to the point of accepting her unconventional style and giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Meanwhile, she finds herself trying to keep her head above water in the rushing mayhem of Los Angeles, finding comfort in her beau, FBI Agent Fritz Howard (Tenney), or sometimes in a package of snack cakes. But Brenda's primary focus is her job.

She has an impeccable talent for knowing a person's secrets and obtaining confessions, with skills that stem from understanding her own quirks, imperfections and neuroses. No matter the personal costs, she does whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if it means alienating others in her squad.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

TV Notebook
‘Exile Island’ excites Probst

By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star February 2, 2006

“Survivor: Panama — Exile Island” (8 PM ET/PT tonight, CBS). Quick show of hands: When you first heard that the new “Survivor” included something called “Exile Island,” how many of you wanted to see James Frey on it?

“Survivor” No. 12, starting tonight, is plotted to make you dizzy with twists. First there’s the matter of the four tribes (older men, older women, younger men, younger women). Then there’s “Exile Island.”

Like that old comedy routine about the game show where the losers have their assets seized, this is “Unreward Island.” Lose a reward challenge and risk banishment to a beach where there’s no shade, no shelter … but where there is something called an “immunity idol” buried in the sand that will bring special powers to the finder.

“I’m saying right now it’s going to be one of the top five seasons,” said host Jeff Probst. “We had more people with more life, more vitality … (and we’ll have) at least two of the most popular characters we’ve had.”

Probst has been telling people that he was willing to walk away from “Survivor” after “Exile Island,” when his six-year deal expired. “Survivor Guatemala” may have been a joy to watch, especially in eastern Kansas, but it ate up the host.

“Exile Island,” Probst said, turned him around. “There were a couple of times at tribal council this season where I was having an almost out of body experience and I realized: I’m getting paid to do this fascinating job!”

And as for Richard Hatch being sent off to the gray bar hotel for not paying taxes on his “Survivor” winnings? “People make mistakes,” Probst said. “I’m not justifying what he did. It’s just sad to hear it. I feel badly for him.”

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/13766084.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Legislation Notebook
Burns, Inouye Team On Video Franchise Principles

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable, 2/2/2006

Ranking Senate Commerce Committee member Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and co-chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) have released a "series of principles" they say are "essential" to any video franchising reform legislation.

Essentially, they are backing streamlining the process, with the caveat that state and localities must not be stripped of their authority; that terms for new entrants, like cable video, should be essentially the same as for incumbents; and that the playing field should be technologically neutral, or as they put it: "Definitional arbitrage on the basis of a particular technology should not be permitted."

Telephone companies like Verizon and SBC are pushing hard for changes to state and federal law that will free them from the time-consuming local franchise negotiating process, arguing that the government has a compelling interest in doing so in order to speed the rollout of broadband and price and service competition to cable.

The legislators three main principles:

• Recognize and Reaffirm the Role of States and Localities in the Video Franchising Process.

"The regulation of video services under Title VI relies upon a type of “deliberately structured dualism” where state and local authorities have primary responsibility for administration of the franchising process within certain federal limits. Because each community may be unique, this framework recognizes that the local franchising authority is uniquely positioned to ensure that video providers meet each community’s needs and interests in a fair and equitable manner, and are most effective in seeing that provider obligations are enforced. The Federal government has neither the resources nor the expertise to address such issues.

"Consistent with existing law, state or local franchise authorities should retain the authority to supervise rights-of-way use and recover the associated costs, to require the payment of a reasonable franchise fee, and to require sufficient outlets for local expression and appropriate institutional network obligations."

• Promote Competition by Facilitating Speedy Entry on Fair Terms.

"Video Franchise Reform should promote competition in video services. Obstacles to reform that result in unnecessary procedural delay should be eliminated. If the current process results in unnecessary delay, procedural timetables could be established to ensure a decision by the relevant franchising authority by a date certain.

"Nevertheless, the desire for a process facilitating swift entry should not result in a blank check for would-be competitors. Instead, franchising authorities must ensure that similar (though not necessarily identical) responsibilities attend to any would-be franchisee, so that consumers throughout the franchise area can enjoy the benefits of such services on a non-discriminatory basis."

• Promote Competitive Neutrality and a Level Playing Field.

"The regulatory regime should be the same for providers of video services where the operator, and not the consumer, controls the video content offering. Definitional arbitrage on the basis of a particular technology should not be permitted.

"The franchising process should be designed to promote fairness for consumers in local communities and to promote a level playing field for providers. If a competitive entrant negotiates better terms and conditions for a franchise, other providers in that community should be entitled to adopt those same terms and conditions."

The Committee had planned to hold a hearing on the franchising issue Jan. 31, but had to postpone it to Feb. 15 so committee members could participate in the vote on the nomination of Samuel Alito, and because Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.) couldn't make the hearing after he was in an auto accident in his home state.

Ensign last July introduced sweeping and controversial legislation that would eliminate the need for cable, telephone company, or any other pay-TV provider to obtain local or state franchises.

Existing cable franchises also would be eliminated under his bill, which is to be a big topic of conversation at the hearing.

Missing from the statement of guiding principles was the name of Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), but according to Andy Davis, communications director for the minority, said Stevens had been briefed and given a heads-up that it was being circulated among the members.

Majority Communications Director Melanie Alvord concurred, saying Stevens is "supportive of Senator Burns and Co-Chairman Inouye sharing their principles on video franchising, as he has been supportive of other Committee Members who have done the same in recent weeks and months on a variety of communications issues."

TV Notebook
ABC Spring Premiere Dates 2006

ABC Television Network PRESS RELEASE February 01,2006

"Invasion" will go on broadcast hiatus to accommodate the run of "The Evidence," and is slated to return with all original episodes in April.



So they're going to kill Invasion, give up on the last few episodes of Alias and no mention at all about Grey's Anatomy? Just when I start to think ABC has pulled it's head out of it's...

As I understand it, "Brian" replaces "Grey's Anatomy" only on April 2nd, then (the next night) it moves to its regular Monday slot.

"Grey's" should return April 9.

ABC appears to be trying to get "Brian" a boost from the "Desperate Housewives" lead in.

TV Notebook
Panama rains down again on 'Survivor'

By Verne Gay Newsday Staff Writer February 2, 2006

If there appears to be something familiar about tonight's "Survivor: Panama - Exile Island" (8 p.m., CBS/2) - the beach, the palms, the rain, always the blasted rain - then do not be concerned. Memories are not playing tricks, and this is not a deja-all-over-again thing either: For the third time in 12 editions, "Survivor" is back in Panama and the Pearl Islands. We know, we know. Enough already.

A coincidence, or the possibility that "Survivor" über-emperor Mark Burnett has purchased a nearby island on which to perch his own private Xanadu (as has been rumored in showbiz circles)? Neither, but the Panama connection grows ever curiouser and curiouser.

As "Survivor: Panama" gets under way tonight, viewers and fans should expect (as always) some new twists, but this time they relate directly to that glorious archipelago that spreads out deep into the Pacific: There are 57 of these beautiful islands, and they are only about 60 or so miles as the seagull flies south of Panama City. On the return to the Pearls, host Jeff Probst said in a recent conference call, "We don't want to waste a great location - they're extremely difficult to find - and we needed four islands . Panama was perfect, and it had another hundred islands that we hadn't even explored yet. It also wasn't on the other side of the world and we had a lot of stuff to move ."

OK, there was convenience. We get that, but what else is there besides the natural beauty and all that rain (and you do remember, don't you, those biblical torrents during "All Stars" and "Pearl Islands," the previous editions filmed there?).

That's where the new twist comes in: Castaways will be split into four tribes of four each - older women versus older men and younger women versus younger men. And during each episode, one contestant will be banished onto a different island, called "Exile Island."

No, this is not supposed to be fun for them, but they will also find out that on each of these islands, there's a hidden immunity idol, which - if found - could save the person from getting voted out at a Tribal Council. (Take note: "could" but not necessarily "will.") In other words, we've got a familiar location but a very unfamiliar and potentially interesting new wrinkle.

As for the survivors, their ages range from 52 to 24, and their professions are equally diverse. They include a retired astronaut (Dan Barry from Massachusetts), a yoga instructor (Aras Baskauskas from L.A.), a singer (Melinda Hyder from Tennessee), an airline pilot (Terry Deitz from Simsbury, Conn.), a performance artist (Courtney Marit, also from L.A.) and a logging sports promoter, whatever that is (Tina Scheer from Wisconsin).

Will the winner get invited to Mark's Xanadu when this edition wraps? Just asking.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-ettv0202,0,5786928,print.story?coll=ny-television-headlines

TV Notebook
'Grey's' goes 'Black' after The Big Game

By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Friday, February 3, 2006

Barring a massive power failure, Sunday's clash between the Pittsburgh Steelers and our Seahawks is set to the highest-rated television event in Seattle history. With some 90 million viewers predicted to tune in nationwide, it is reasonable to expect 80 percent of the area's TV sets will be tuned in to ABC's broadcast on KOMO/4.

That means most of Seattle probably is sorting out its blues and greens right now. Fantastic. Go Seahawks.

But since I am not a sports fan (that's a confession, not a complaint), I am not quivering in anticipation of Game Day. Nor do I care about this year's Super Bowl commercials, even though they tend to be more interesting than usual. Anything costing $2.5 million for 30 seconds had better be.

(Comcast is kind enough to make the best of those ads available through the NFL Network's video on demand service after midnight on Sunday through Feb. 12, so technically no one needs sit through the Super Bowl to see them.)

One show will have me glued to the set come Sunday, however. It also has me contemplating a different hue: black.

Not, I repeat, not black and yellow. Perish the thought. (Go Seahawks.) I mean "Code Black," the mysterious phrase coloring the post-Super Bowl episode of "Grey's Anatomy."

Code Black seems to mean all hell has broken loose at Seattle Grace Hospital, the kind that makes Meredith Grey's ongoing slog through emotional purgatory an afterthought.

As to what Code Black means, your guess is as good as anyone else's. ABC has kept the episode under wraps, refusing to even send it out for review.

A quick Internet search yielded definitions as varied as a bomb threat, a quarantine breach, or mass casualties incoming. Its meaning changes with every hospital; the one commonality is, as creator and executive producer Shonda Rhimes told critics two weeks ago, "Something happens ... and bad stuff follows."

Co-executive producer and Seattle-area native Peter Horton was only a touch more forthcoming. "All I can add to what she said is that the stakes are higher than we've seen," he said. "It still has our humor and our personal connection, but with the stakes higher in that mix, it's a really different feel to the show. And it was a bit of an experiment heading into it, because we just didn't know how that mix would go.

"What we didn't want to do was do a Super Bowl episode, to change the show for the Super Bowl," he added. "We really didn't. It's still our show, but it just has much more of a kick to it."

Enough, they hope, to rivet a significant portion of Super Bowl XL's extra large audience in place when it airs right after the game. ("Grey's Anatomy" usually airs at 10 p.m. Sundays on KOMO.)

That's always the hope of any series that wins the post-game slot. In "Grey's" case, it could mean the difference between being the network's second highest-rated scripted show, ranked eighth on the ratings chart, and wresting that title away from "Desperate Housewives," currently in fourth behind broadcasts of "American Idol" and "CSI."

"Grey's" isn't hurting for attention; nearly 18 million viewers on average tune in it every week. As one of several hospital dramas on TV, the show stands out by putting its focus on the characters' relationships, as opposed to medicine. But these are not sweet, empathetic doctors; they are interns and surgeons trying not to kill their patients while attempting to navigate the emotionally charged minefield of their workplace. By playing with this recipe of sex, egotism and pain, Rhimes captures the difficulty of a doing a job that requires a person to instill trust, and practice intimacy and detachment all at once.

"I can feel it when there's too much medical and not enough personal, and that's the most important balance to keep. We've done episodes where there's a ton of personal and not very much medical. Works just fine," said Rhimes, who also wrote the episode. "But when the medical sort of overtakes the personal, the show doesn't feel like the show."

So the crux of the entire code-black business will be to maintain that balance.

At the center of this season are two love affairs gone wrong: Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) broke Meredith Grey's (Ellen Pompeo's) heart when his wife, Addison (Kate Walsh), took a job at Seattle Grace.

Turns out Addison cheated first with Derek's best friend. Since they're married, they decide to try and work it out. But Shepherd is still in love with Meredith, creating an agony no anesthesia can dull.

Another significant entanglement is between Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh, who recently won a Golden Globe for her portrayal) and Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington), which has tested the unique dangers of a superior dating a subordinate in a hospital setting.

And the above passage is probably enough to ward off the average Seahawks fans who don't want to bust their post-game testosterone high. So think of it this way: "Grey's Anatomy" is a Seattle-set series that portrays its denizens as smart, romantic and charismatic, a whole new side to the high-toned image perpetuated by "Frasier." The more people who tune in, the better we look. Regardless of the Super Bowl's outcome, Seattle stands to win.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/258102_tv03.html

The TV Column
CBS's Correspondents Course: Three Advance


By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 3, 2006; C07

CBS News named its new White House correspondent the very next day after CNN announced it had hired CBS White House correspondent John Roberts.

Jim Axelrod, a CBS News correspondent since 1999, has been named chief White House correspondent, CBS News and CBS Sports President Sean McManus said in a news release titled: "CBS News Announces Major New Correspondent Assignments."

"I have never seen a reporter as intensely driven as Jim," said McManus, who was named CBS News Big Cheese in October.

"I can't wait to turn him loose."

Continuing his "Morale Is Back and Everybody's Job Is on the Line" march through the news division that he first announced a couple of weeks ago at Winter TV Press Tour 2006, McManus has named Lara Logan to be chief foreign correspondent.

This comes as no surprise, McManus having already told the New York Times in no uncertain terms that the swimsuit model turned journalist, who joined CBS News in 2002, reporting primarily for the evening news and "60 Minutes," had "star value."

(In that same article, Logan said that "being attractive can really hurt you," so we know she has a sense of humor.)

Finally, Byron Pitts, who was the lead reporter for CBS News's coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has been named national correspondent, in which capacity he will cover the "biggest domestic and breaking stories" and get a new beat focusing on faith, family and "the culture."

And, in one of those incredible coincidences that make covering this industry so spine-tingly, just hours after Pitts was named national correspondent at CBS News, NBC News named his wife, Lyne Pitts, executive editor of the weekend edition of "Today."

Lyne Pitts had a 23-year career at CBS News, most recently as senior broadcast producer of the "CBS Evening News."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ABC is replenishing its reality pool after the February ratings sweeps, when "The Bachelor" and "Dancing With the Stars" will have wrapped their runs.

In early March, Monday nights will kick off with "Wife Swap," followed by "Supernanny," leading into the new "Miracle Workers," in which people with serious medical issues get the treatment they need, compliments of the producers. "Miracle Workers," which went over like gangbusters in May when ABC unveiled this season's prime-time plans to advertisers, has a short, four-episode order.

Come mid-March, ABC's Thursday, which finally has some traction thanks to "Dancing," will house "American Inventor" from the producers of "American Idol," only instead of singing and makeovers it will feature competing gadgets. I know, but ABC thinks it'll get a big audience.

"American Inventor" is airing at 9 p.m. At 8, for four weeks, ABC will give it a big lead-in in the form of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition -- After the Storm," which, as its name suggests, is a series of special broadcasts set in states hit hardest in the past hurricane season. Which should give CBS's "Survivor" a run for its money in the time slot.

A new crime drama called "The Evidence" has landed the plum post-"Lost" time slot starting March 22. Unlike other procedural crime dramas so popular with viewers these days, this show will begin by giving viewers all the pieces of the crime puzzle, but they will not know how they fit together.

And Geena Davis's lips will be back as first female president of the United States on April 18 for you dwindling number of "Commander in Chief" fans out there.

ABC's announcement makes no mention of the promised return of "Alias." ABC has about nine episodes left to go on the series order; shooting restarted only this week after a break while star Jennifer Garner had a baby. ABC programming chief Steve McPherson had promised that the show would go out with a bang, instead of a whimper, which presumably means during the official television season, which ends in May.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020202423_pf.html

A Critical View:
'Bernie Mac' in danger of being forgotten

By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Friday, February 3, 2006

Tonight is the 100th episode of "The Bernie Mac Show" on Fox, a milestone for any TV show. And yet there's no getting around this thought: "Is that show still on?"

Indeed it is, though ratings for what was once a top-notch comedy have sunk to the nether regions, and a once curious, supportive audience seems to have moved on. Neither of those events is outlandishly rare. Networks shift shows around the schedule all the time, pulling them off for long periods and moving them to unfamiliar nights. Blame certainly starts there. Because in the ridiculously competitive world of television, viewer loyalty is hard earned and easily lost.

But there's a bigger question haunting the room, and this is it: "Why do popular series lose their way?"

Entertainment presidents are vexed by this issue. Look no further than "Commander in Chief" on ABC. Once a bona fide hit and now a show on the ropes, "Commander" is going on a short hiatus. It will return to finish out the year, but that's the second stop-and-start moment the freshman series has had, and about 6 million viewers who were around for the premiere are watching something else now.

As for "Bernie Mac," it's still a good show. As is stablemate "Malcolm in the Middle." As funny as the glory years? As dead-on great as in the past? Probably not. But neither is "Will & Grace" or "ER" or "Law & Order" or any number of other series. No, what we have here is a wholesale abandonment of a series that still merits attention.

Why do viewers give up on their favorites -- or at least on shows they've had loyalty to in the past? Beyond network knuckleheadedness, there's the old curse of better shows elsewhere. Nothing tempts wandering eyes more than a hot new time-slot competitor. Then there's the notion that people only have so many hours they can devote to television in a given week. Sacrifices need to be made. And there's the all-too-common phenomenon of good shows going bad. If not bad, then boring, predictable, unfunny or staid.

A perfect recent example of that can be found in "Joan of Arcadia." From hit to miss in two seasons, "Joan" was canceled by CBS, which stunned its die-hard fans, who are upset about it to this day. But the trouble that harms a series is never caused by the die-hards; it rests with viewers who have picked that show as their fourth or fifth favorite. Once they decide the party is over, it's really over. And the blame for "Joan" imploding had much to do with a tonal change in the second season that made the show seem more trite, more overtly religious and more good versus evil rather than the story of Joan's personal, quirky teen journey. When fans left, CBS was convinced they'd never come back, and killed the series.

Do you think ABC has similar worries about "Commander in Chief"?

The network doesn't seem to be particularly worried that mega-hit "Desperate Housewives" is creatively off this year. The series has never matched the highs of last year and early on was feeling the heat from viewers who were upset that the wives of Wisteria Lane weren't clicking. So much critical backlash rose up that even creator Marc Cherry promised improvements.

They haven't come.

But the series has managed to tamp down disgruntled fans and toss them periodic bones. Critics, on the other hand, are a tougher sell. There's no question "Desperate Housewives" is seriously off its game. The addition of the Applewhites as the new family on the block sporting a secret has been a gigantic bore. It seemingly took weeks before the housewives were all together in the same shot. The writing has been weak and the twists trite, and there appears to be an early fatigue factor settling in (whenever you see them at an awards show -- and they've been to a lot -- don't they seem like overexposed interlopers?).

And yet, the quality drop hasn't had much impact on the ratings. And it probably won't. Mega-hits take years to tear down (see "ER") if the wounds are self-inflicted rather than the result of truly fearsome competition.

But the worry here is that "Desperate Housewives" will never rekindle the creative sparks that set it apart in the first place. Cherry's spot-on voice hasn't been duplicated by the other writers, and though he has said that nothing gets shot without his approval, that doesn't rule out the possibility that Cherry could be struggling to get the mix right.

If "Desperate Housewives" has lost its ability to be a hyper-real send-up of suburban angst and the painful, horrible secrets that lie beneath placid "housewife" exteriors, then what is left? The humor seems forced when it's not clashing against the archly dark drama, as it did in the first season. Now the drama seems to be mere soap, and soap is all too common on television (and done better, besides, on BBC America's "Footballers Wives," which doesn't even pretend to have the lofty David Lynchian ambition that "Desperate" went for in the first season -- "Wives" opts for "Dynasty" and offers no apologies).

"Desperate Housewives" hasn't had the severe audience deterioration that was feared after the first month's shows proved that the decline in quality was no fluke. Perhaps fans are content with what they're getting, though the series now pales compared with eye candy like "Grey's Anatomy."

There's little chance that "Desperate Housewives" will ever find itself in the desperate straits "Bernie Mac" has gone through. (Then again, the show is still a long way away from 100 episodes.) But it's worth examining in seasons to come. When "The West Wing" was a critical and audience favorite and the glory show for Emmy voters, nobody ever envisioned that it would fall from grace so swiftly. But it does happen. And networks do panic (when NBC moved the series to Sunday nights, it did fans no favor). Not a lot is explainable in television. It makes no sense that "ER" has been on the air this long. It makes no sense that a series is a major hit one season, then ignored the next.

If it was so easy to figure out, we'd all be programmers. So cheers to "Bernie Mac" for making 100 episodes the hard way. And let the housewives pray they never end up so forgotten, that Wisteria Lane never becomes a dead end.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/03/DDG1AH1CDP12.DTL&type=printable

TV Notebook
Missing "Commander in Chief"

By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic in the Sentinel’s TV blog

Can you find the female president of the United States? ABC's scheduling of "Commander in Chief" is bound to confuse fans over the next few weeks. Don't be surprised if President Mackenzie Allen's poll numbers -- the ratings -- take a drubbing.

There's no new episode Tuesday. But the White House drama will offer fresh installments on Feb. 14, 21 and 28. Then the show disappears for six weeks to make room for the new comedy "Sons & Daughters," which debuts March 7.

Geena Davis returns as President Allen on April 18.

Although "Commander" has averaged the biggest audience of any new fall series, that's no certainty the show will be renewed. Declining ratings and limited appeal among younger viewers could mean this administration leaves the air after a single season.

"Obviously we're disappointed in 'Commander' ticking down the last few weeks," ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson told TV critics last month.

He blamed the slide on the show's being off the air for weeks, which curtailed the network's marketing. "We feel like we've got to get the viewers back in there," McPherson added.

Yes, but maybe ABC needs to send out bulletins explaining the erratic scheduling.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2006/02/missing_command.html

TV Sports
Is He Staying or Going? Michaels Isn't Definitive

By Larry Stewart Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 3, 2006

The blitz was on and Al Michaels had to do some fancy sidestepping. On a conference call with reporters this week to promote Sunday's Super Bowl telecast on ABC, Michaels was hit with questions from all directions.

Michaels, who will handle the play-by-play, is under contract to announce "Monday Night Football" next season, its first on ESPN. However, it has been reported that he may instead end up announcing Sunday night NFL games on NBC.

"I'll tell you I am under contract for next season at ESPN," said Michaels. "I can't do anything about the swirling rumors. … I'm not going to be a party to anything that is remotely distractive to our crew and what we're trying to do on Sunday."

Michaels reportedly has had a change of heart and is trying to get out of the ESPN contract he signed in July.

Sources said one reason is because Michaels would like to continue to work with his old "MNF" team — commentator John Madden, producer Fred Gaudelli and director Drew Esocoff. All three are now headed to NBC. Another factor is that NBC has the 2009 Super Bowl and wild-card playoff games beginning this season; ESPN has no playoff games.

What started out as an unattributed story in the New York Post is now a hot topic in sports television. It's not the only one, though.

The Times has learned Fox's James Brown, currently in contract negotiations, could be headed back to CBS, where he used to work. Exactly what Brown's role at CBS would be is not known, and his agent, Sandy Montag, declined comment. Fox spokesman Dan Bell said only that contract negotiations are continuing.

If Brown were to leave Fox, Terry Bradshaw might be moved into the host's chair on the network's NFL pregame show, leaving an opening for another studio analyst.

The Times also has learned that ESPN's Andrea Kremer and CBS' Armen Keteyian are moving. Kremer will become the sideline reporter for NBC's Sunday night telecasts. And Keteyian, CBS' top NFL sideline reporter, is headed for CBS News. Another CBS sideline reporter, Bonnie Bernstein, did not have her contract renewed.

As for Michaels, his deal with ESPN, reportedly worth about $4 million a year, was announced on July 26 — only hours after negotiations with NBC broke off. NBC reportedly offered around $3 million.

If Michaels does bolt to NBC, then Mike Tirico would probably take his spot in the ESPN "Monday Night Football" booth alongside commentator Joe Theismann and possibly Tony Kornheiser as well.

Mike Breen is said to be in line to replace Michaels as ABC's lead play-by-play announcer on NBA telecasts if Michaels leaves the Disney fold. Walt Disney Co. owns both ABC and ESPN.

As the questions mounted during this week's conference call, Michaels said, "I wouldn't read anything into anything. There is a lot of stuff out there, and it's not attributed to anyone. I can't stop what is swirling around."

Michaels — who at one point said, "I may sound like the State Department" — was asked why he thought he couldn't stop all the speculation. Couldn't he just come out and say he was going to be with ESPN next season?

"Whatever I address at this point, everyone will run with it and it will get parsed," Michaels said. "I have too much respect for everybody on this show. I don't want to become any sort of an issue in regard to anything because once you start, the questions just keep coming from different angles."

They were coming anyway.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/printedition/la-sp-tvcol3feb03,1,5021387,print.column?coll=la-headlines-pe-sports

TV Sports
ABC plans a glowing send-off

By Neil Best Newsday Staff Writer February 3, 2006

When Sam Flood, the producer of NBC's new hockey coverage, was asked about production gimmicks last month, he promised "no glowing pucks or glowing helmets or glowing goalposts."

It was a joke, but it turned out he was on to something.

Coming to a TV screen near you Sunday evening: glowing goalposts.

Sort of.

ABC's funkiest technical innovation for Super Bowl XL is a virtual extension of the uprights that would enable viewers to judge whether a kick that sails just over the post was good.

The technology is similar to the much heralded virtual yellow line that extends the first-down markers, but ABC plans to use it only for a replay of a controversial field goal, not in the live shot.

Blessedly, that's about it for new electronic toys. "A lot of them have just kind of mucked it up more than anything else," producer Fred Gaudelli said. "On this day, you want to provide clarity."

If the ABC team is to be believed, the network's final Super Bowl for the foreseeable future will, as executive VP Norby Williamson put it, "not lose sight of the prize. The prize is the game."

That can be difficult when you are the helm of a joint ESPN/ABC extravaganza that begins at 11 a.m. and includes 53 cameras inside Ford Field alone. But ABC has assigned its A-team to the task.

Which brings us to the day's juiciest non-football sub-plot. Only in the ratings-dominant NFL could the roster of an announcing team for the following season generate rampant interest within the industry.

So it has been, though, with Al Michaels. He is under contract to remain on "Monday Night Football" when it moves to ESPN but is widely believed to be aching to join analyst John Madden, director Drew Esocoff and Gaudelli in migrating to NBC's new Sunday night package.

Michaels will not confirm or deny it, but the circumstantial evidence is mounting. "I can't do anything about the swirling rumors," he said Monday, insisting he did not want to be a distraction to Super Bowl preparations.

If Michaels bolts, ESPN likely would have Mike Tirico join analyst Joe Theismann. Tony Kornheiser, co-host of the ESPN show "Pardon the Interruption" is being considered for a role in the booth, which has the makings of a fascinating disaster.

Before any of that can happen, there is a game to play. And before it can be played, corporate siblings ESPN and ABC will test whether 9½ hours of combined pregame shows is useful or just plain silly. Oops, sorry. Host Chris Berman took issue with the word "silly."

"I don't think fun equals silly," he said. "I wouldn't say one necessarily has to bring the other."

Anyway, ESPN's show runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. ABC goes from 2:30 to 6. Williamson said during the overlap ABC will try to appeal to a broader audience while ESPN will "take a hard turn" toward X's and O's for a serious football audience.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick will offer insights on ABC, presumably in his usual monotone.

"We understand people do have to drift in and out during the day," Berman said. "They do have a life."

Speak for yourself!

Kickoff is set for 6:23. The Rolling Stones will play at halftime.

You know the drill. After XL years of this the formula mostly is just that, a formula.

The only variable that really matters is the quality of the game.

"I just hope that we can wrap it up with a perfect telecast in double overtime," Michaels said. "That would be sublime."

If that includes a controversial field goal, so much the better.

"Freddy," Michaels asked Gaudelli, "are we working on a virtual doink?"

Best's bets: No Tom, but still a very Brady Sunday

Just wondering: XL price tag for Super Bowl XL

Has staging the game in chilly Detroit put a freeze on the price of Super Bowl tickets?

On the contrary, according to Siva Kumar, president of FatLens, an Internet search service that collects offers from secondary market sites such as StubHub, RazorGator and eBay.

Kumar said the average price has been $3,300, which is $300 more than in 2005. He said the accessibility of Detroit compared with Jacksonville has helped, especially the proximity to the Steelers' avid fan base.

Where do the tickets come from? A year after Vikings coach Mike Tice was caught scalping his, Kumar said players and coaches are more careful but are still willing to deal.

An NFL spokesman said it has several policies designed to make it more difficult for club personnel to resell tickets and easier to detect if they do.

Football is TV king

Here are the six most-viewed programs between Feb. 5, 2005 and Tuesday (not including Super Bowl pre- and postgame shows, which would have ranked second and third):

Show Viewers (in millions)

1. Super Bowl XXXIX 86.1

2. 2005 Academy Awards 42.1

3. 2006 AFC title game 39.0

4. 2006 Rose Bowl 35.6

5. American Idol (1/17/06) 35.5

6. 2006 NFC title game 35.2

http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/ny-spwatch034611677feb03,0,3951928,print.column?coll=ny-sports-columnists

TV Sports
Last hurrah for Madden-Michaels pairing?

By Ted Cox (Chicago suburban) Daily Herald TV/Radio critic Friday, February 03, 2006

After 36 seasons of broadcasting “Monday Night Football,” ABC bows out of the NFL with Super Bowl XL on Sunday.

As play-by-play announcer Al Michaels put it on a media conference call earlier this week: “‘Monday Night’ comes to an end on a Sunday afternoon, early evening in February.”

Usually, these Super Bowl conference calls — conducted by whichever network is doing the game — are tub-thumping hypefests full of bluster and hyperbole. But the ABC call had the feel of everyone just trying to get out without making a huge mistake. Michaels, color analyst John Madden and producer Fred Gaudelli all spoke of focusing on the task at hand — each battling his own set of distractions.

For Gaudelli, it means trying to finish with a flurry — after all but wrapping up the “MNF” franchise weeks ago.

“We’re a little different from the other networks who cover the Super Bowl,” he said, “because after the Wild Card games, we haven’t had any other games. … You try to minimize any potential chaos by having a really good plan.”

His plan is simply to make full use of the innovations ABC has already brought to its “MNF” coverage this year. It will actually be the first Super Bowl done entirely in high definition, and ABC will also make use of wireless cameras, giving viewers access to places previously unseen, and Super SloMo. Gaudelli will have about a dozen more cameras than usual at his disposal, but his intention is to make them functional, not to dazzle the viewer with excess.

“There aren’t many technical advancements over the years that have made the game more understandable and more enjoyable,” he said. “They usually just muck it up.”

Instead, they’ll deploy the 39 cameras as best they can — for instance, with single cameras shooting down both sidelines and both goal lines — and pick the best shots and replays from play to play. “All of our focus is on having cameras in place to provide angles on all the critical plays,” Gaudelli said.

For Madden, meanwhile, there is the distraction of possibly being voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend — something he eminently deserves, both as coach and commentator. But he brushes it aside.

“I’m just concentrating on the Super Bowl,” he said. “I don’t think it’s something you can or should talk about out of respect for the players and coaches in the Hall of Fame.”

Yet there is also the possibility of this being Madden and Michaels’ last game together. They’re set to go separate ways, with Madden signed to do NBC’s Sunday-night games next season, while Michaels stays on Monday nights moving to ESPN.

Madden called his “MNF” tenure with Michaels “four of the most enjoyable years I’ve ever spent in football,” while Michaels added, “I’ve never enjoyed working with anybody more than with John.”

Notice, however, how I wrote “possibility.” Michaels himself had to address what he called the “swirling rumors” that he might try to shoot the moon on his Disney ABC-ESPN contract to join Madden (and Gaudelli) at NBC.

“I don’t let anything distract me and unsettle me,” he said. “I don’t want this to be a story. … The only thing we’re thinking about is Sunday.”

Even so, all he said was at the moment he’s under contract for next season, not that he was looking forward to working for ESPN next season, which didn’t exactly still the swirling rumors.

As much as everyone insisted they were all just concentrating on the game, they didn’t much discuss the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks.

“I love this matchup,” Michaels insisted, while acknowledging it was largely one for football aficionados. “I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see a No. 6 seed advance to the Super Bowl — and be a favorite over a No. 1 seed.”

“Seattle, for some reason, is a better team than they’re given credit for,” Madden added.

“It was a lame-duck season,” Michaels said somewhat wearily toward the end of the call. “It was a very difficult season to do.” But he added that they got through it concentrating on one game at a time, and that’s what they intend to do Sunday.

http://www.dailyherald.com/sports/beatwriters.asp?column=cox

Thursday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

TV Sports
ABC to Tape-Delay Super Bowl
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable, 2/3/2006

The Janet Jackson ripple effect (or should that be "rip" effect) has finally come around to the game that started it all. Sunday's Super Bowl will be on a five-second tape delay pregame, postgame and halftime.

ABC has had the same five-second delay on its Monday Night Football broadcasts, but this will be a first for the big game.

According to National Football League spokesman Brian McCarthy, the decision to delay the Super Bowl was entirely up to ABC, which delays other live entertainment programming.

Fox did not delay its broadcast of the game last year, however, telling CBS News at the time that it was treating the broadcast as a news event. The half-time performer was Paul McCartney.

CBS probably wishes it had delayed the game the year before that, however, when the Jackson reveal at halftime of the 2004 contest helped prompt the ensuing wide-scale tape delays of "live" programming (with an assist from the FCC's decision that Bono's f-word on the live Golden Globes awards telecast was indecent).

The delay gives monitors a chance to bleep audio or snip video that might offend viewers or legislators.

The Super Bowl halftime show this year features another British rocker, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, who have already run afoul of the ABC football content controllers.

Jagger got bleeped for language by ABC on two occasions when the Stones performed at the kick-off of the NFL season back in September, but Mick and Mickey have been tight this year, with Monday Night Football working Stones songs into NFL broadcasts and promos.

According to a radio news report of an interview with Jagger, when asked about the halftime content, he joked that ABC was worried about how many times he would say the f-word ("One!" chimed in a voice that sounded like a band mate). He also added that the network was worried about Aretha Franklin "stripping during the Star Spangled Banner."

18-49 Overnights
Mixed message for returning 'Survivor'

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Feb 3, 2006,

“Survivor” may recover from last season’s series-low ratings, but it doesn’t look like it will reach the heights of past seasons.

The season premiere of “Survivor: Panama—Exile Island” averaged a 7.0 Nielsen overnight rating among viewers 18-49 in the 8 p.m. timeslot last night, a 9 percent increase over the 6.4 last fall’s premiere earned.

But while the show was No. 1 in its timeslot and helped solidify CBS’s already-strong Thursday night lineup, don’t look for “Survivor” to dominate at 8 p.m. as it once did. The premiere was down 17 percent from last February’s season 10 debut, which averaged a 9.0.
This season it faced stronger competition than it has seen in the past 18 months.

“Survivor” last night averaged 19.3 million total viewers, only 8 percent higher than the 17.8 million ABC averaged that hour for the first 60 minutes of “Dancing With the Stars.” And viewership for that show should grow during February as the limited-run season draws to a close and competition heats up.

During the 8:30-9 p.m. half hour CBS led ABC by less than a million total viewers, 20.2 million to 19.4 million.

Elsewhere last night, two new comedies, NBC’s “Four Kings” and ABC’s “Crumbs” fell to new overnight season lows, which does not bode well for their chances at renewal. “Kings” grabbed just a 2.9 among 18-49s at 8:30 p.m., while “Crumbs” averaged a 2.7 at 9:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, CBS placed first the night, leading it No. 1 on the night among 18-49s with a 7.7 average rating and a 19 share. NBC was second at 4.6/12, ABC third at 3.6/9, Fox fourth at 2.6/7, WB fifth at 2.2/5, Univision sixth at 1.8/5 and UPN seventh at 1.0/3.

CBS led at 8 p.m. with its 7.0 for the “Survivor” premiere, followed by a 4.4 for ABC for the first hour of “Stars.” NBC was third with a 3.0 average for “Will & Grace” (3.0) and “Kings” (2.9), Fox fourth with a 2.8 for an hour of “That ‘70s Show” and WB fifth with a 2.3 for “Smallville.” That left Univision sixth with a 1.9 for “Contra Viento y Marea” and UPN seventh with a 1.2 average for “Everybody Hates Chris” (1.5) and “Love, Inc.” (1.0).

At 9 p.m. CBS led with a 9.4 for “CSI,” the night’s highest-rated show in the demo. NBC was second that hour with a 4.9 average for “My Name is Earl” (5.0) and “The Office” (4.8), ABC third with a 4.2 for the last half hour of “Stars” (5.7) and “Crumbs” (2.7), and Fox fourth with a 2.5 for “The O.C.” WB and Univision tied for fifth at 2.1, WB for “Beauty and the Geek” and Univision for “Alborada,” with UPN seventh with a 0.8 average for “Eve” (0.8) and “Cuts” (0.8).

CBS completed the sweep at 10 p.m. with a 6.7 average for “Without a Trace.” NBC was second with a 5.9 for “ER,” ABC third with a 2.1 for “Primetime” and Univision fourth with a 1.4 for “Aqui y Ahora.”

CBS also led the night among households with a 13.4 average rating and a 21 share. ABC was second at 8.8/13, NBC third at 6.7/10, Fox fourth at 3.6/5, WB fifth at 3.1/5, Univision sixth at 2.1/3 and UPN seventh at 1.7/2.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_2642.asp

TV Sports
Fourth and Long

By Holly M. Sanders New York Post Feb. 3, 2006

The clock is ticking to line up advertisers for Super Bowl XL.

ABC has refused to say if the Super Bowl is nearing a sellout, fueling talk that the network is having a harder time offloading the spots than in past years.

Speculation has dogged ABC since December, when ad buyers predicted that competition from the Winter Olympics later this month and the growing pressure on advertisers to perform before a huge audience would make this year's game a tougher sell.

Industry sources also said ABC has been pushing advertisers to buy spots across a range of sports properties, including cable network ESPN, which is also owned by Walt Disney Co., in addition to the Super Bowl.

Ed Erhardt, president of sales for ESPN/ABC Sports, declined to discuss ad inventory but maintained that the game remains a huge draw for advertisers.

"It is the one time people come to watch the ads," he said. "I do believe advertisers remain interested."

In early January, ABC said it had sold out the first half of the game. Fox, last year's Super Bowl broadcaster, said it was more than 90 percent sold by that time. Fox is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Post.

Selling Super Bowl spots often comes down to the wire with a last-minute flurry of negotiations. Several industry sources said ABC is holding out rather than cutting prices, but could end up running more in-house ads. Reports suggest that a 30-second spot is selling for $2.5 million, but not all advertisers pay the same price. The negotiations depend on the quarter in which the ad airs and the number of spots the advertiser buys.

At least one returning Super Bowl advertiser who last year paid $2 million for a 30-second spot in the second half said the company is paying the same amount this year.

Some advertisers may also have a bad case of nerves. The pressure to not fall flat in the post-game popularity polls, especially USA Today's closely watched Ad Meter, continues to rise each year.

So far, more than two dozen advertisers, including Pepsi, FedEx and Sprint, have bought this year. Anheuser-Busch has 10 spots alone.

That leaves several spots open, although there are always advertisers who sign on late or who remain unknown until the actual game.

For instance, after wrangling with ABC for months, Internet domain registration company GoDaddy.com finally got its ad approved yesterday after its risqué ad last year was pulled.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/pfriendly_new.php

TV Notebook
Tears For The Son

By Don Kaplan The New York Post

In the final weeks of his life, Johnny Carson wrote a letter to NBC Sports boss Dick Ebersol to console the network executive on the death of his young son, Teddy, 14, in a plane crash.

"The letter said, 'It's going to hurt like hell a long time, and then it's going to get better,' " Ebersol said on "Oprah" yesterday. " 'But there will never be a day the rest of your life that you won't ask why.' "

Years earlier, Carson had also lost a son — who had once worked for Ebersol — in a car crash.

Yesterday was the first time the Ebersol family had appeared together in public to talk about the 2004 plane crash that killed Teddy and two others, and severely injured Ebersol and another son, Charlie.

Ebersol said Charlie — who paused often to cry during the interview — got him off the plane and saved his life.

"He not only got me off of the plane . . . he ran back into the plane, which had three- or four-foot flames all around it, to look for his brother one more time, not knowing that his brother wasn't on the plane," Ebersol said.

"And he lived through hell for two days 'cause somehow or other he thought he hadn't found his brother, and it wasn't until they found Teddy's body, which was under the plane . . . that he knew that he had done everything he possibly could do."

Ebersol's wife, actress Susan Saint James, said the family often talks about the crash.

"I think we would all agree, the whole family would agree, that the amazing thing is you get up the next day, you brush your teeth, you comb your hair . . . Life is so powerful, you just go on living," she said.

The letter from Carson was among the first of about 4,000 that the Ebersol family received in the weeks after the plane crash. Saint James said she answered almost every single one of the letters in the months that followed Teddy's death.

But, wracked with grief, Saint James said she still cannot bear to touch Teddy's clothes.

"Here's the bad part . . . I've never touched his clothes, I've never been able to move his things," said Saint James, wiping away tears.

Dick, Charlie and Teddy were aboard a chartered Canadair CL-601 Challenger on Nov. 28, 2004, when it crashed during takeoff in light snow and freezing temperatures at an airport near Telluride, Colo.

The pilot, Luis Alberto Polanco, 50, and flight attendant, Warren Richardson III, 36, were also killed.

Just before takeoff, Ebersol saw slush sliding off the jet, according to National Transportation Safety Board interviews released yesterday. But the wings looked clear to the pilots, so they tried to leave without deicing.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/pfriendly_new.php

TV Sports Business
Rising doubts over Super Bowl's value

By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Feb 3, 2006,

Media buyers and planners can agree on one thing about the Super Bowl: It's a big deal in sports media. But on the matter of the $2.5 million price tag for a 30-second spot in the big game there's a deeper sense that it's just not worth it.

That’s the finding from a recent survey of Media Life readers about Sunday’s Super Bowl.

As in surveys past, a goodly number of readers said Super Bowl ads were totally worth it as a way to reach viewers. But this year for the first time an equal number thought that the price was simply ridiculous and did not represent a good buy for their clients.

That represents a big change from last year, when Media Life asked a similar question of readers. Then, nearly 80 percent of respondents said the price was worth it, even if it was outrageously expensive, because of the game’s vast reach. Only 13.5 percent said the prices were overinflated and absurd.

By contrast, this year many agreed with that sentiment. We asked: "Prices for 30-second Super Bowl ads averaged a record high $2.5 million to $2.6 million this year. Do you think that price is worth the money?"

Readers responded in their own words, and many said absolutely not.

"The Super Bowl ads are not worth that kind of money. I would not advise placements of this kind due to the likelihood of a positive ROI being slim to none," wrote one reader.

"Not worth it without a great deal of hype around the spot itself before or after," opined another. "If you are just buying a spot and not doing the hype then you've wasted your $'s."

Perhaps one reason for the change in attitude year to year has to do with the commercials themselves. After last year’s timid, unfunny bunch, there has not been much buzz over this year’s crop.

"No way is it worth the money. The reason is because none of the advertisers are willing to take any kind of chances in approving milestone (aka edgy) creative a la Apple's 1984 spot, that gets enough buzz and press coverage to justify the cost," one reader reasoned. "That's the only way the spots are worth it and in today's climate, none of the creative will justify that type of hype."

One thing readers did agree on--71 percent of them--was that the Steelers will win. The Seattle Seahawks should be worried. Media Life readers have correctly predicted the winner two years running.

Further, it would appear those readers are expecting a blowout. They don’t have high hopes for household ratings. Half predicted a rating of between 39.1-41, or just below what last year’s game averaged. And 23 percent forecast a rating of 39 or under, which would put the game in record low territory.

For the second straight year, readers chose Budweiser as the commercial they most anticipate. Bud received 47.3 percent of the vote, more than double the 18 percent for second-place GoDaddy.com, which after numerous attempts has finally gotten its ad past ABC censors.

Burger King edged Pepsi for third place with 12 percent to the latter’s 11 percent.

As for the post-Super Bowl show, readers are optimistic about ABC’s "Grey’s Anatomy" special. We asked how many viewers the show will draw, and 45 percent predicted between 25.1 million and 30 million. That would make it the third-most-watched post-Super Bowl show in the past seven years. Another 18 percent think it could draw 30.1 million to 40 million viewers.

Most readers, 56 percent, intend to watch the game at home. Nearly 8 percent don’t plan to watch it at all.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_2641.asp

Critic’s Notebook
seven shows to watch this weekend:

From grizzlies to 'Grey's Anatomy'
By Maureen Ryan and Sid Smith Chicago Tribune
Note: (all times are Central)

• “Grizzly Man,” 7 p.m. Friday, Discovery Channel: Werner Herzog’s partly beautiful, partly creepy look at Timothy Treadwell, the odd, unfathomable nature lover whose 13 years living with bears in summertime Alaska ended in his and his girlfriend’s death. Treadwell is a complicated mix of naive Pied Piper, environmentalist goofball, adventurer, explorer, naturalist daredevil and ham. He can be seductive and persuasive in rhapsodizing about the bears and foxes he loves, just as his eccentricities fluctuate from goofy antics to hints of strange obsession, including one scene in which he lovingly strokes bear feces. Herzog serves as a revealing, ultimately poetic narrator. Like Treadwell, he crosses the line and becomes a participant, listening in on the recording of Treadwell and his friend, Amie Huguenard, during their death screams while fighting the deadly bear. And then the filmmaker chillingly tells the person who owns the tape to destroy it: A case of life trumping art. An unscreened 30-minute feature after the film reportedly explores some controversies surrounding it.

• “Bernie Mac,” 7 p.m. Friday, Fox: “Bernie Mac,” a single-camera comedy that was once hailed as a Fox savior, hasn’t been the darling of the network for some time. Now stuck on Friday nights, usually with the soon-to-be-gone “Malcolm in the Middle,” “Mac” has persevered despite Fox’s indifference and maltreatment, and, to the show’s credit, reaches its 100th episode with this outing, in which Bernie’s nephew Jordan decides he wants to get on board onboard the lucrative bar mitzvah circuit — despite not being Jewish.

• “Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials: Top 40 Countdown,” 7 p.m. Saturday, CBS: Celebrities, including Chevy Chase and Neil Patrick Harris, comment on the top Super Bowl ads of all time, leading to the No. 1 winner determined by a viewer vote. Finalists include Apple’s “1984” spot directed by Ridley Scott, Reebok’s “Terry Tate” assault by a linebacker on office workers and the melting of “Mean Joe Greene” in a stadium passageway in 1980 when a young fan offers him a Coke.

• “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” 7 p.m. Saturday, NBC: In the slate of repeats found on the broadcast networks on Saturday nights, there are gems to be discovered. This 2-hour crossover between the two alternating casts of “Criminal Intent” — one led by the quirky Vincent D’Onofrio and the other headed by “L&O” vet Chris Noth — is kept afloat with easy chemistry and stellar guest turns, including one by veteran character actor Colm Meaney as an arrogant judge trying to hide some sick family secrets.

• “Raising the Roof: A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” 7 p.m. Saturday, WGN: As part of its Black History Month programming, WGN-Ch. 9 airs an event made more poignant by the passing this week of the civil rights pioneer’s widow, Coretta Scott King. In this hourlong tribute, readings and recollections celebrate King’s legacy, and the Chicago Children’s Chorus, the Boston Children’s Chorus and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City pay tribute to his work in song.

• “Super Bowl XL,” 5:25 p.m. Sunday, ABC: The day each year even some vegetarians break down and munch on a chili dog. Normally a respite from winter, this Detroit-set game will still no doubt inspire the usual round of parties and bar celebrations. Aretha Franklin, Aaron Neville and Dr. John are thankfully on board onboard to sing the national anthem, and the Rolling Stones star at halftime.

• “Grey’s Anatomy,” 9:15 p.m. Sunday (after the Super Bowl), ABC: Let’s hope this terrific medical soap is not veering down the road toward “ER”-style overwrought “event” episodes. Not to give away too much, but in this post-Super Bowl episode, titled “It’s the End of the World,” something cataclysmic threatens the staff and patients at Seattle Grace. Perhaps guest star Christina Ricci offers to host a hospital screening of her ill-fated star vehicle, “Prozac Nation”?

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2006/02/from_grizzlies_.html#more

TV Review
A 'Grizzly' film that you can't forget

By David Bianculli New York Daily News TV Editor Friday, February 3rd, 2006

GRIZZLY MAN. Tonight at PM ET, Discovery Channel.

For 13 consecutive summers, Long Island native Timothy Treadwell went to Alaska to live among grizzly bears - filming them the last five of those years and capturing more than 100 hours of footage.

But Treadwell's 2003 voyage to the Arctic wilderness was a one-way trip: He and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, who had accompanied him on his last two trips, were killed by bears.

Werner Herzog, the film director whose best films, like "Fitzcarraldo," are about solitary men with singular obsessions, finds in Treadwell's story a real-life subject that's perfect for him. "Grizzly Man," premiering tonight at 8 on The Discovery Channel, is a documentary that's amazing to watch, and impossible to shake.

Herzog interviews Treadwell's parents and friends, and a few others, but the weight of "Grizzly Man" comes from the film shot by Treadwell himself.

Some scenes show the bears cavorting and fighting in the wild; others show Treadwell boldly, sometimes foolishly, getting within arm's reach of the bears and sharing their camera space, and still others show Treadmill addressing the camera directly, like a wild-eyed Travis Bickle from "Taxi Driver," but talking to the lens instead of a mirror.

Treadwell's parents talk of his onetime dream of being an actor, and of a time when he supposedly tried for the part played by Woody Harrelson in "Cheers."

Yet the only credit in Treadwell's resume is a 2001 appearance on "Late Show With David Letterman," where the host elicits laughter and applause from the studio audience by asking, "Is it going to happen that one day we read a news article about you being eaten by one of these bears?"

In retrospect, that's prescient, not funny. And watching Treadwell on tape, and listening to his wide-ranging mood swings and tender appreciation for the foxes and bears in his midst, gives "Grizzly Man" a range, a weight and a reality that are singularly hypnotizing.

Amazingly, the attack that killed Treadwell and Huguenard was recorded on camera, though so suddenly that the lens cap was on, and only the audio was captured.

Even more amazingly, Herzog avoids the more sensational route and refuses to play that audio during the film, other than its first few quiet seconds (with Treadwell whispering, "Get away; go away"). Instead, he films himself listening to the tape on headphones - and advising its owner, who has not heard it herself, to destroy it.

At 10:30, The Discovery Channel complements the film with a half-hour special, "Diary of the Grizzly Man," that addresses the film's content and authenticity. The film itself, though, is the main attraction. As a study of both man and beast, it's unforgettable.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/col/dbianculli/

TV Notebook
Donald to Lead In to “The Apprentice” Return

(NBC Press Release) February 3, 2006

DONALD TRUMP REVEALS THE ART OF THE DEAL AS HE MAKES A SPECIAL CAMEO APPEARANCE ON NBC’S HIT GAME SHOW "DEAL OR NO DEAL" MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27

BURBANK, Calif. -- February 3, 2006 -- Business mogul and "The Apprentice" star Donald Trump will make a special guest appearance on NBC's "Deal or No Deal" when the exhilarating hit game show returns on Monday, February 27 for its week-long mid-season premiere (8-9 p.m. ET).

As contestants on "Deal or No Deal" are confronted with life-altering financial decisions in a time sensitive and highly pressured environment, Trump may just be the man to make their lives easier when host Howie Mandel asks the all important question, "deal, or no deal?"

Immediately following "Deal or No Deal" that night, "The Apprentice" will premiere its fifth cycle, in its new timeslot on Mondays at 9 p.m. ET. As candidates anticipate learning the art of the deal from Trump – the original deal master – this season promises new fireworks and explosive boardrooms. The candidates will vie for the coveted position of Trump's newest employee and a $250,000 "Apprenticeship." Let the tasks begin.

"Deal or No Deal" will run Monday through Friday (February 27-March 3 from 8-9 p.m. ET) and will return on a weekly basis beginning Monday, March 6 at 8 p.m. ET.

Hosted by Howie Mandel ("Hidden Howie"), "Deal or No Deal" is an international hit game show from Endemol USA, the producers of NBC's "Fear Factor" and "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." Contestants on the show play for a top prize of one million dollars in a high-energy match of nerves, instincts and raw intuition. Each night, the game of odds and chance unfolds when a contestant faces 26 sealed briefcases containing anything from a measly penny to one million dollars. Without knowing the amount in each briefcase, the contestant picks one -- his to keep, if he chooses, until its unsealing at game's end.

Super Bowl XL
Don Mischer: ABC's signal caller

The veteran producer gets his Super Bowl halftime/pregame show team ready for the big day
By Steven Barrie-Anthony Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 4, 2006

DETROIT -- It's only a few days before Super Bowl Sunday, and the guy directing and producing the pregame and halftime shows would like to know, please, which songs the Rolling Stones will perform. But the Stones aren't ready to decide yet. And so Don Mischer, who is reprising this role from last year and has also produced opening and closing ceremonies for two Olympics, eight Emmys and the 2004 Democratic National Convention, is sitting in his temporary office in a converted locker room in the bowels of Tiger Stadium, guessing.

It's an elaborate game of pretend. Numbered pieces of paper taped to lockers represent some 20 cameras awaiting Mischer's command at neighboring Ford Field. "Keith and Mick often make great moves away from the band," Mischer tells Gregg Gelfand, the show's associate director. "But I'm assuming that Keith will always start on the left side of the stage." This isn't a blind assumption; Mischer took in four Stones concerts in the last year and has reviewed countless hours of tape. He knows their lyrics, their moves. Everything except their darn set list.

"What if they sing 'Get Off of My Cloud,' " he says, pressing buttons to find the song on a CD. And in an instant he's on his feet, chair flying backward, calling out camera switches in rapid fire to best capture the essence of these imaginary Stones. Gelfand sets cues — "ready camera five on Mick" — and Mischer waits, waits, waits: "Take!" he shouts, fists pounding the air. Take, take, take!

Mischer can appreciate secrecy. When Muhammad Ali was chosen to light the torch in the 1996 Olympics, Mischer sent nearly all staff and security packing and practiced with the boxer late at night with a flashlight. But secrecy has a different tilt to it after Janet Jackson bared a breast — the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" — in the 2004 halftime show, prompting a flood of viewer complaints and a Federal Communications Commission fine of $550,000 leveled against CBS. This year's halftime show will be on a five-second tape delay for the first time in Super Bowl history; it wasn't deemed necessary for last year's show, perhaps since the more staid Paul McCartney wasn't likely to go off script (he turned in his final set list months before the game).

Yet while McCartney was a safe choice, he was an odd fit for an audience fueled by beer and adrenaline, and even Mischer, who directed the show, admits that the stadium didn't reverberate with sing-alongs and applause. There must be some middle ground between McCartney and a naked breast, and in late spring 2005, the National Football League began a dialogue with the Stones about "a season-long platform," says Charles Coplin, vice president of programming for the NFL, which has kept a closer watch on the halftime show ever since a breast marred its family-friendly spectacle. "They agreed to play a few songs at our kickoff show, and ABC used one of their songs, 'Rough Justice,' for Monday Night Football, and it will all culminate in those 12 minutes at halftime."

Not only did the Stones agree to participate, they agreed to do the halftime show for Super Bowl XL (40 for you non-Latin speakers) gratis, even paying for some of their own special effects. At a news conference Thursday, Mick Jagger noted that "America has changed since we first came here, it's almost unrecognizable," as has Mick, who's a long way from his bad boy days. But maybe not that far. He ended his comments with his own mini shocker, turning to a bank of TV cameras and saying, "Network television, they're always worried about how many times you're going to say [expletive] on the air." Then, to soothe NFL nerves: "They needn't worry about it. Calm down more and take life as it comes."

Halftime conundrum

The question is, does anyone really care about the halftime show? Millions of people watch the Super Bowl, sure, but at some point they've got to get off the couch to use the loo and burn some more nachos. Commercials used to serve that purpose, but who wants to miss the Bud Bowl? "Of the three parts of the Super Bowl — the game, advertisements and the halftime show — the halftime show is the least evolved, the least thought out and the poorest," says Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It remains an ancient anachronistic remnant of the Ed Sullivan era." Not so, says Coplin. "People perceive the halftime show as big entertainment and spectacle."

Whether or not the halftime show matters to a worldwide audience, it matters in Detroit. Aretha Franklin, who with Stevie Wonder will appear in the Super Bowl pregame show, made headlines in Michigan when she criticized the NFL for failing to showcase Motown at halftime. "We thought it was a little bit remiss that they came to Detroit and didn't use at least one artist from Detroit," she said at a news conference. (The invitation for her and Wonder to play in the pregame mollified her somewhat.)

Regulars at the Sweet Water Tavern, a few blocks from Ford Field, hear Franklin loud and clear. There's a sense at the tavern, amid smoke and liquored good cheer, that Super Bowl XL is in Detroit but not of Detroit. The Steelers and Seahawks are playing rather than the hometown Lions, and recent cutbacks at General Motors and Ford mean that many Detroiters are more concerned with paying rent than buying Super Bowl tickets.

"What they should've done is have the Motown theme for halftime," says Johnny "Cheese" Petracci, the tavern's manager. "The Stones are 60 years old, man. They're dead." A friend at a nearby table raises his beer in agreement. "People would've liked to see the Temptations or Diana Ross," says Darryl Powell, an assistant manager. "It should've been another act. The NFL is just another elite group of people. Everything has to go their way."

Mike Kunik, a 26-year-old musician wandering by the tavern with a friend, disagrees. "I think Detroiters just need something to [complain] about. Motown is not a current thing. People don't listen to it. And anyway, during the halftime show I'll probably be getting another beer."

Regardless of the halftime snub, locals are pitching in to make halftime happen. About 300 unpaid volunteers spent long hours the week before the Super Bowl learning how to pitch the Stones' massive stage (117 by 100 feet), which on Sunday they must do in a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, Mischer and various ABC producers joined dozens of volunteers on Wednesday before the game to rehearse part of the pregame ceremony honoring MVPs from all the previous Super Bowls.

"We want to thank you guys for doing this," Mischer told the group of mostly twentysomethings assembled at nearby Wayne State University's basketball gym. Cue music, cue announcer, and here come the MVPs. John Elway has lost weight, he's wearing dangling earrings, and — wait, that isn't Elway. It's Summer LaViolett, a 23-year-old Detroit native, waving to imaginary fans, carrying a picture of Ellway before her face.

Mischer, again, is guessing. The real MVPs don't arrive until Saturday, and they'll likely walk and act a little differently than these Detroiter stand-ins. "Do you think we should have them stop in the middle?" he asks Fred Gaudelli, a producer at ABC. "No," Gaudelli says. "Some guy might want to milk the moment because of his ego."

The scene at Wayne State is jovial and lively and feels like summer camp; in contrast, Ford Field, with its layers of security and metal detectors and thousands of workers with badges milling about, seems more like the Pentagon. On game day, Mischer and his team will race between a trailer across the street stuffed with video monitors and controls and a skybox in the stadium. Thursday evening finds Mischer in the trailer watching Stevie Wonder, Joss Stone and John Legend rehearse the pregame show on the field, and practicing cues and cuts.

Mischer is on his feet as Wonder sings, scanning all available camera angles and yelling — Take! Take! — until Wonder waves a hand and halts the number. He can't hear Legend, he explains. And "my ears keep popping," he says, fiddling with an earpiece. "These are valuable ears. I need them."

At 9:45 or so, rehearsal ends and the musicians pack up. And Patrick Woodroffe, the Stone's lighting designer, drops by the trailer to say hello to Mischer. The Stones have still not set a playlist, but what's "really interesting," says Woodroffe, is that the NFL will allow the band to sing the word "come" even if it can have another spelling and meaning, and same with "cocks."

Mischer laughs nervously, but smiles.

"As long as everybody's happy," he says.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-super4feb04,0,2496001,print.story?coll=cl-tv-features

Media Notebook
Battle lines form over shares of distribution pie

By Phil Rosenthal Chicago Tribune Media Columnist February 3, 2006

Like prospectors in what they hope will be a modern-day California Gold Rush, Hollywood's studios and TV networks are dabbling in online downloads, mobile phone programming and other new on-demand distribution models.

But the people who create the precious commodity these outfits are mining fear they won't get to dip their pans in whatever new revenue streams these added platforms create.

"All the guilds refer to it as the hole in the doughnut," said John Wells, executive producer of NBC's "ER" and "The West Wing," and a former Writers Guild president. "You hear a lot of talk about other things that are important [to the unions], but the one thing that will shut the whole town down is if we don't resolve the hole in the doughnut--for all the creative guilds."

There are plenty of issues surfacing with the advent of new technologies. TV stations don't want viewers to bypass them to get to their favorite programs. Retailers worry that downloads will replace DVD sales and rentals.

And others in Hollywood, including the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild, are concerned the potential riches from these new technologies won't be shared fairly.

"In my humble opinion we're getting short shrift on [home video], and we know what that market looks like," Howard Gordon, executive producer of Fox's "24," said. "Obviously there's a lot of rumblings at all the guilds."

Current experimentation falls under existing guild residual provisions. But Wells says one likely scenario, where Internet providers sell subscribers unlimited access to studio TV and film libraries, could be trouble.

"If anything is going to put anybody on strike, that's it," Wells said. "The creative guilds have always felt that the initial compensation is for a ... couple of uses, that you're really just renting it, and every use past that needs some additional compensation to the creative community.

"If the companies want to put forward a notion that that's not true, there are going to be people with signs. That's not something where the DGA thinks one thing and SAG thinks something and the Writers Guild thinks something else. This will be everybody. It's like a perfect storm."

When Gordon was asked to make so-called mobisodes, short "24"-like episodes for mobile phones, he was required to do so without union personnel. The result, in his own words, was "cheesy" and "by definition, really kind of amateurish."

"Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) wasn't in it, but some guy who didn't even have a SAG card was," he said. "I don't think it's something we would be doing again."

ABC Entertainment head Steve McPherson, whose parent, Walt Disney Co., took new technology distribution to a new level by cutting the first network download deal with Apple and its iTunes site, believes everyone has to proceed carefully.

"There's a little of technology kind of wagging the dog," he said. "We look at our franchises and our shows ... across all platforms and all products in terms of how we can grow them to, again, complement the mother ship."

CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler said her network, which has on-demand deals with Google and Comcast and just announced an arrangement to sell downloads of "Survivor" on cbs.com, is encouraged.

"The truth is we don't know where we're headed. We know that we are going for the ride," she said. "We embrace all the new media. I think philosophically we know that we need to get our programming to the audience where they are, when they want to watch it. ... We're very curious as to where this is going to lead."

Here's hoping it doesn't lead to a picket line.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0602030096feb03,0,5875432,print.column

The 2005-2006 TV Season
Ask Matt

(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic

Question: I have grown tired of shows like Gilmore Girls that don't make use their quality actors enough! Instead they settle for bizarre story lines, they neglect their essentials (like Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann), and they show much too much of the random Yalies and Lane's band. Is this something that will change or do you think it will become more like ER's ever-changing cast? — Carole

Matt Roush: Relax. Gilmore Girls services an enormous number of characters, in Stars Hollow, Yale, Hartford, the Dragonfly Inn, etc., not all of whom are logically going to be needed in every episode. Given the current circumstances of Lorelai and Rory's reunion, it makes sense in story terms for there to be a frosty distance between them and the grandparents right now. The good news is that Richard and Emily will return in this week's (Jan. 31) episode, as Lorelai and Rory finally resume the Friday-night dinner ritual, and the dinner scene between all four of the Gilmores looks and sounds unlike anything you've ever seen on the show before. Confrontational, veering between screaming matches and fits of laughter, it has a quasidocumentary/reality show/fly-on-the-wall aspect that makes it one of the standout sequences of the entire season. Gilmore Girls may not showcase everyone equally each week, but the primary characters by and large are never abandoned for long, and they always return, unlike on ER, which seems more depleted than ever of compelling characters this year.

Meanwhile, Shane asks: "I know it's really early to comment on this, but do you think that now that the CW will be a network (instead of a netlet like the WB and UPN were), will awards shows finally take its shows seriously? What I basically want to know is whether Lauren Graham will finally get the recognition she deserves at the 2007 Emmys?"

It is too early to speculate, but the CW by its mission statement is still going to look and feel to much of the industry like a niche service, albeit a more viable one since the two rivals will no longer be cannibalizing the same audience. But this is an audience that institutions like the Emmys refuse to take very seriously. So my answer is still: Probably not.

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Question: As entertaining as 24 is and has been, I have a tiny complaint that I hope doesn't signal things to come. Is it just me or have they milked that CTU mole thing a bit too much? It seems like every season someone sneaks into CTU who shouldn't be there. I was hoping this season would spare us that plotline, but, once again, it wasn't too shocking this week when Chloe's boyfriend turned out to be a spy. Maybe it is a sign that they should quit before we start to notice more repetition. I don't want to see 24 die a painful death like ER or The West Wing (we almost saw that in Season 3). What are your thoughts on this, one 24 fanatic to another? — Brandon

Matt Roush: Look, 24 is fabulous TV, but it is a TV show after all — and one that, like so many others, has established its own formulas, including the introduction of a mole each season. The novelty here, and I believe it's a significant one, is that the big-bad main mole is in the White House, and as Michael M. commented in a fretful e-mail, "In the 11 am-12 pm episode alone, the national threat changed, a new quasi-mole was revealed and discovered, and Jack and company learned all about Walt Cummings. It was a breathless hour indeed, but if they keep speeding through the plotline like this, I'm afraid they'll run out of ideas by mid-season." That's always a danger with a show like this, but that's part of the tension of the formula, a form-vs-content battle that invites all kinds of nitpicking but still tends to result in a wondrous thrill ride most seasons. I'm far from giving up hope yet, especially given the sensational quality of these first episodes. I also thought it was a great twist that the CTU mole this time wasn't on the side of the villains, but had been duped, because he couldn't believe (though having watched 24 for so long, we could) that the president's right-hand man was this year's mole. I'll just say: Bring it on.

And I'll end this part of the 24 discussion with these thoughts from John S. on what he considers "the most shocking (and enjoyable) move that 24 has made this season: playing against type. After four seasons where colleagues are obsessed with petty infighting, moles somehow escaping detection for weeks on end and annoying kids continueing to get into dangerous situations, it's like the producers finally realized that they could maintain shock value by changing course. I think the show's creators deserve much applause for mixing things up this season and by altering the show's dynamic with a weak president and intelligent agents. This might not hold up all season, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts."

Me, too.

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Question: I know you seem to blow hot and cold with The Office, and I'm just trying to figure out why. I understand that you feel that Michael and Dwight are over-the-top sometimes, but even when they are, I still find them very funny. I think the problem is that you seem to be comparing the show to the British original, which had a more realistic tone and felt more like a real office. However, just because the show is shot like a documentary doesn't mean it has to be one! (And it's not like the documentary style has made Arrested Development any less off-the-wall — or any less enjoyable, for that matter.) Instead of comparing the tone of the show to the British original, I choose to view the show as being more tonally similar to workplace comedies like Scrubs and Ally McBeal, which balance heartfelt and realistic moments with absurd and ridiculous ones (Turk stuffing JD into his backpack, anyone?) If you stop trying to view Michael and Dwight as realistic people and just accept them as the "only on TV" characters they are, I think you'll find both them and the show more enjoyable. — Jake

Matt Roush: It may relieve many Office fans to know (if they care, and I'm not sure that they should) that I have finally come around on these shows, in large part due to the game-changing episodes of January in which Jim drunkenly spilled his "secret" crush on Pam to Michael and lived to regret it. This is taking the best part of this version into uncharted territory, and I thought everyone stepped up. Well, I'm still not nuts about Dwight and/or Rainn Wilson (a purely personal reaction), but I do enjoy watching Jim and especially enjoy watching Pam toy with him. I've also loved watching the subsidiary characters (Meredith the lush, uptight Angela — who's crushing on Dwight!! — closeted Oscar, deadpan Kevin and Stanley, etc.) emerge as smartly drawn and essentially funny characters on their own. The Office is a show that has benefited from NBC's patience, and while I still believe Scrubs is getting the shaft at the expense of Kevin Reilly's devotion to The Office, which I would resist putting on my top tier, I also think (as I say in a review in the Feb. 6 issue) that NBC should be applauded for nurturing something so offbeat. That's becoming increasingly rare nowadays.

________________________________________

Question: Like you and many others, I am so thankful that Scrubs is back (and better than ever) after its inexcusable mistreatment by NBC, my former favorite network. I see that the ratings so far are decent but not spectacular. It's a little bittersweet because I have this sinking feeling that we may be seeing its last hurrah. I understand the argument that Scrubs is not a NBC-owned show, but still.... Anyway, Matt, what's your gut feeling about Scrubs' chances for renewal next season? And if it were to be canceled (shame on you, NBC), is there any possibility it would be picked up by another network? I know that's happened from time to time, with varying degrees of success. Your take? — Leonard

Matt Roush: I almost never answer yes when asked what the chances are of a show moving from one network to another. That almost never happens. In the case of Scrubs, however, the possibility is much more likely, since ABC entertainment chief Steve McPherson used to run the studio (Touchstone) that developed and produces Scrubs. He's made no secret that he would snatch the show up for ABC should NBC let it drop. But I doubt that will happen yet. Scrubs has not been well treated by NBC, but the network still considers it an asset (more on the level of a NewsRadio than a Friends, to be sure), so unless NBC has a killer development season for new comedies (unlikely), I would be surprised if NBC doesn't keep it around for at least one more season.

________________________________________

Question: First of all, I look forward to reading your insights every Friday and Monday. I wanted to get your opinion on CBS replacing Out of Practice with Courting Alex. I really think that this was a big mistake. The Courting Alex pilot was generic and unfunny, while Out of Practice had steadily been improving each week in quality, but CBS still pulled it off the schedule until March. I don't think Out of Practice is the best sitcom on TV, but it has greatly improved over time and seemed to be doing well in the ratings, too. I also think that Out of Practice is much more compatible with lead-in Two and a Half Men than Alex is. What is your take on this? Will Out of Practice return to Mondays if Courting Alex is a success? — Brian

Matt Roush: I'm no special fan of Out of Practice, but I agree it has evolved and somewhat improved. Compared to Courting Alex, it's the next Frasier. (Disclosure: I've only seen Alex's pilot episode as of this writing, but it's hard to see any room for improvement given the tired setup.) Still, Alex did quite well in its premiere week, because it has one of TV's cushiest time periods, sandwiched between two hits. (What are Two and a Half Men fans going to do while waiting for CSI: Miami — turn over midway through an hourlong show?)

________________________________________

Question: Grey's Anatomy is one of the best shows on television at the moment and they so deserve the slot after the Super Bowl, but I'm starting to get fed up with the character of Meredith. I realize she is supposed to be the star, but her pining over McDreamy (her one-night stand) is getting annoying. She has not developed and acts like a little girl. On the other hand, I find the character of Addison very refreshing, and I hope the creators of the show give her more of a story line away from Derek. I'm hoping for a love story with Alex or George because Derek doesn't deserve her. I have read various websites and most of them agree that Meredith is annoying, yet the other characters are far more developed and more likable, especially "Prestina" (Cristina and Preston). Do you think the character of Meredith needs a major overhaul? — Elizabeth

Matt Roush: I'd agree with you if Meredith didn't already consider herself pathetic for not being able to get over McDreamy, who's much more than a one-night stand. They spent nearly half a season together before she knew he was already married. (And do me a favor and don't tell me what web/fansites are saying about anyone; they exist to tear characters down, which I find predictable and a bit depressing.) Meredith often seems to me to be as disgusted with herself as you are, so I'm content to see where the writers will take her without urging an overhaul myself. If she got over Derek overnight, that would ring even less true than her ongoing malaise. Besides, while she may be the title star and does the (often self-deprecating) voice-overs, one of the many great things about Anatomy is how it has flourished into a full ensemble piece. (And I do agree that the Cristina-Burke relationship is fascinating, entertaining and superhot). Speaking of the ensemble...

________________________________________

Question: I know that Sandra Oh and Patrick Dempsey are getting all the award nominations for Grey's Anatomy, but after watching some recent episodes, T.R. Knight has been the standout for me. In "Begin the Begin" he helped a teenage girl understand what she really wanted to be in life, and in "Tell Me Sweet Little Lies," he and Carole Cook had maybe the best scene I've seen in this show since Cristina screamed and sobbed, "Somebody sedate me!" Knight has finally come into his own; he has become moving and distinguished in subtle ways. If anything, I think he deserves some award recognition. I know you don't base your TV-watching on awards, but I'm an awards-show aficionado. What do you think his chances are at the Emmys this year? P.S.: I admire your column and read it every Monday and Wednesday. Thanks! — Ethan P.

Matt Roush: Thank you. I'd seen T.R. Knight a number of times on stage before he got this big break with a character that fits him like a surgical glove. He is terrific: hilarious, poignant, adorable, you name it. To me, there really isn't a weak link in this cast, but he's one of the essential elements that give Anatomy its heart. But awards? Don't count on it. The drama categories are ridiculously glutted with potential nominees, and much as I'd love to see him singled out, I figure that Anatomy may have to stand in line behind the supporting players on shows like The Sopranos, Lost, The West Wing (surely John Spencer will rate a posthumous nomination) and who knows what else. But if I were compiling the names, he'd be on my short list.

________________________________________

Question: I'm sure NBC is happy with their deal to get Sunday Night Football this fall, but it makes me leery about the fate of Crossing Jordan. NBC's been a little mean to this show as of late, having long pauses in between episodes and showing horrible made-for-TV movies in its stead. So I hope that it gets another season. But even if it does, will we be seeing it on a new night or at mid-season? — Aaron

Matt Roush: I wouldn't worry about Jordan or NBC's other Sunday fixture, Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Both have solid followings and perform admirably against stiff Sunday competition. I would imagine that NBC would find new slots for them on a weeknight — Jordan would probably play well on any night, and both that and CI tend to repeat pretty well. Which is why I'd be surprised if NBC pulls a 24 on these shows and keeps them off the air until the football season is over.

________________________________________

Question: It's well known that ABC has a difficult time trying to fill Monday nights after football ends in December. Now with the NFL moving to ESPN on Monday nights next season, that leaves ABC with a three-hour gap that it can't (or shouldn't) plug with all untested shows. What do you think the chances are that ABC will move Grey's Anatomy to Mondays for next season? It would be a strong show to anchor the night and the strongest show to move without having the rest of its original night (Sunday) fall apart. — Chris L.

Matt Roush: It's anyone's guess, but there's an upside and downside to this theory. First, it's a big risk for a network to dismantle a winning night, as tempting as it might be to move a hit like Anatomy to shore up a crucial new night of programming. If ABC develops another show as compatible as this to Desperate Housewives, that might make it easier. Pitting Anatomy against a powerhouse like CSI: Miami may also give ABC pause, though it would be compelling counterprogrammming and an interesting battle to cover. But ABC can't afford to be timid when it comes to launching a Monday lineup for fall. Having a proven winner onboard would be a good start.

________________________________________

Question: Despite your disapproval of the show, I've gotten really hooked on NBC's Surface. It isn't perfect, but few shows are, and I think it has more potential than a lot of the current so-called hits. I've heard it's on the bubble, and I was wondering if you know what the odds are of it being renewed. — S.M.

Matt Roush: Given the fact that Surface's numbers have not rebounded since it returned from a long December hiatus, I'm thinking the chances for a second year are pretty slim. It is definitely on the bubble.

On a similar note, here's this question from Dan: "Why is there so much talk about Invasion being canceled? I just looked at the ratings today and the show was ranked 39th with a 9 rating. That's pretty solid for a 10 pm/ET show. Unfortunately, it doesn't beat out CSI: NY or Law & Order (which is moving to 9 pm/ET, right?), though it still holds its own, but that doesn't mean it's done for, does it?"

Invasion isn't yet done for, and, all things considered, is doing better than ABC has typically done in this tough time period, especially with a show as demanding and unusual as this sci-fi thriller. But there is reason for worry. Invasion's ratings may not be a complete disaster, but the crucial factor here is how much of Lost's audience Invasion loses each week, which is considerable. Invasion is also on the fence when it comes to renewal, although its chances may be a bit better than those for Surface, if only because of the critical acclaim and media buzz Invasion has enjoyed from time to time. That alone, however, won't save it.

http://tvguide.com/tv/roush/askmatt/

The TV Column
Dave Chappelle, Rematerializing Guy

By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, February 4, 2006; C01

Dave Chappelle told Oprah Winfrey yesterday that he'll come back to his Comedy Central show if he can redo his $50 million contract so that half of the revenue from DVD sales of his series goes to charities of his choice.

On the other hand, he also told Oprah that he already gets half of the so-called back end on DVD sales, and "I would like to contribute my half of the DVD revenue to some of these causes."

So why doesn't he just cut a check to his fave charities?

Oprah didn't ask. Oprah doesn't do follow-up questions unless you're an author who's embarrassed her by fabricating portions of a supposed memoir she's plugged for her book club.

Chappelle's appearance was his first television interview since April, when -- about eight months after signing the $50 million deal to keep his series going for a third and fourth season, making him one of the most highly paid people in the television industry -- he abruptly bolted from production, aborting the debut of the third season, which the network had already spent millions promoting.

Chappelle fled to Africa, setting off a torrent of reporting that he was (a) missing, (b) on drugs, (c) spinning out of control, (d) checking into a mental health facility or (e) other.

Comedy Central suits have said repeatedly that they would love for him to come back to work. In December they finally announced they were going to put on a third "season" of the series with or without him, in an effort to recoup some of the money they'd already spent. The new season would have at least four half-hour episodes, composed of material Chappelle had shot before vanishing.

"Here's the scenario that I could come back to the show," Chappelle said during his much ballyhooed appearance on Oprah's syndicated show, which was taped last week and aired yesterday. This kickoff of his I'm Not Crazy I Just Play That Way Tour (second stop: "Inside the Actors Studio" on Feb. 12) -- in another of those incredible coincidences that make covering this industry so spiritually fulfilling -- just happens to fall a few weeks before the March 3 release of his docu-flick, "Chappelle's Block Party."

"I do want to do my show again, provided . . . I can make the proper work environment. . . . But more importantly . . . contribute my half of the DVD revenue to some of these causes. I would rather give the money to the people," he said, mentioning "people who suffered in Katrina and . . . people who need the money, and I can give back to my high school."

"Be careful, you need boundaries . . . you're on national television," cautioned Oprah.

"You cannot just say, 'I want to give money to the people.' . . . You just can't do that -- people will be lined up at your farm with every sad sob story in the world," she added, showing viewers some of that compassion for which she is so loved by her fans that they lobbied to get her the Nobel Peace Prize.

Chappelle insisted he is not angry at the folks at Comedy Central or his writing partner of many years, Neal Brennan, who is the co-creator of "Chappelle's Show."

But he had nothing good to say about either.

On Comedy Central:

• We're having all these arguments: "Dave, you've got to cut the poop jokes." And we had a lot of discussion about "We know what our audience wants." Yeah, whatever. I mean, they were wrong 100 percent of the time.

• I was doing sketches that were funny but socially irresponsible. I felt like I was deliberately being encouraged and I was overwhelmed. It's like you are cluttered with things and you don't pay attention to things like your ethics.

• They put in the paper that I had pneumonia. . . . And they were, like, "'Well, Dave, you know, you should just back up the pneumonia story." And I was, like, "That was your thing. I'm not backing up a pneumonia story." And then, the next day, it was in the paper that I had writer's block. Then I knew something was getting ready to get stressful because I hadn't even started writing.

• I went back to work and the vitamin love was gone because it was a real ugly negotiation. . . . It was getting ridiculous, and I knew I was going to leave. . . . I didn't tell anybody where I was going. The whole time, they are trying to convince me I'm insane. They were trying to get me to take psychotic medication.

• I show up to work the first week and they, where my office used to be, they built a wall there."

Called for comment yesterday, Comedy Central issued this statement:

"Dave is a comedic genius whose work we truly value and our door will always be open to him."

Which is just so creepy that you wonder if maybe there isn't something to what Chappelle was saying.

Anyway, he also pounded away at Brennan:

• How many times do you think he called his "'sick" buddy since he went to Africa? I haven't heard from him.

• I also thought it was strange that the whole media was dumping on me and he had a quote, like, "Dave was spinning out of control." I was, like, "Dude, they called me a crackhead. Why didn't you say, 'Dave doesn't do drugs'? Come on, buddy, tell them!"

Calls to Brennan's agent and attorney were not returned yesterday.

And, through the whole show, Oprah worked as hard as she could to do what she does best: Make it all about Oprah.

Starting with her introduction, in which she told viewers that Chappelle had become so huge that "his skits have been quoted by fans everywhere" and "nothing was off-limits -- including me."

Cut to a clip of a "Chappelle's Show" skit in which someone impersonates Oprah.

A couple of minutes later, Chappelle was onstage, telling Oprah that his show was "fun and all these things, but there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into making a show like that."

"Yeah. I wanted to just take a look at one of the skits. Me, having your baby," Oprah segued.

Oprah's production people had trouble bringing up the clip. Oprah stared daggers.

Dave and Oprah chatted a couple more seconds.

Oprah: "Okay. All right. Do you have it? Are you going to roll it? Let's take a look. I thought this was hysterical."

Cut to a skit in which Oprah calls Chappelle to tell him she's pregnant with his baby, and Chappelle moves into her house in Chicago and sits around holding a wad of money, wearing a crown on his head.

Oprah: "Okay. So we see how much work -- I mean, it's a lot of work."

Later Chappelle was telling Oprah about a sketch he did for the third season involving a character in blackface and how he was uncomfortable with the laugh it got from a white person on the set when Oprah cut him off:

"I completely understand. . . . Finish, because I have a story to tell you."

She launched into a lengthy account of the time she had some KKKers and skinheads on her show and realized halfway through that giving them airtime was giving them a voice. Duh.

"That moment occurred when I realized what comes with this kind of power is a responsibility," Oprah said.

And again, when Chappelle told Oprah, "You cannot imagine what celebrities go through as far as how your integrity, your self-image and all these things are challenged."

You can imagine how this played with Oprah, having someone tell her she could not imagine what celebrities go through.

"Okay!" she said. "This is a theory that I've always had and I've discussed this with other people. The idea that if you don't know who you are when natter, natter, natter, natter, blah, blah, blah, blah, because everybody is pulling on you. Would you say that that was part of your issue?"

"Absolutely," Chappelle responded.

But then, what else could he say?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/03/AR2006020302967_pf.html

Sports On TV
Fox's Brown Will Leave to Be CBS's N.F.L. Host

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times February 4, 2006

In a series of changes expected to be announced Monday, James Brown will leave as the host of Fox Sports' N.F.L. pregame program to take the same job on CBS's "The NFL Today."

Brown will replace Greg Gumbel, who will shift to calling games with Dan Dierdorf as the network's No. 2 announcing team, according to three executives apprised of the changes but granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Brown, who left CBS to be a founding member of "Fox NFL Sunday," the highest-rated Sunday pregame program, became available because he had not signed a contract renewal. Gumbel agreed in 2004 to move from the No. 1 play-by-play job to the "NFL Today" studio, swapping jobs with Jim Nantz.

The changes also mean that Dick Enberg, Dierdorf's partner, will work with a different partner. "I was shocked when I got the call," Enberg said in a telephone interview. "I still regard myself as being very strong on football, and I think we had a great season. I can't accept that my work is any less than it was in the past. I feel I story-tell as well as anyone. I won't take this as a defeat."

In other changes, Bonnie Bernstein is leaving as one of CBS's N.F.L. sideline reporters, and Armen Keteyian, another sideline reporter, is expected to shift to investigative work at CBS News.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/sports/football/04nfl.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

TV Notebook
Kermit's big leap back toward the green

These days a frog has to jump to make a buck.
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 4, 2006

A quarter-century ago, Kermit the Frog was one of the most beloved characters in family entertainment, a sweet-tempered, banjo-picking amphibian who sang of racial tolerance and undying dreams in tunes like "It's Not Easy Bein' Green" and the Oscar-nominated "The Rainbow Connection."

These days, though, the frog has to jump to make a buck — and get attention. On Sunday, Kermit and his longtime love interest, Miss Piggy, will star in two new ads pitching cars and pizza during ABC's Super Bowl XL. Walt Disney Co., which acquired the rights to Kermit and other non-"Sesame Street" Muppet characters for a reported $60 million in 2004, hopes the spots will spark a revival of the franchise, which faded after the 1990 death of creator Jim Henson.

As with many Hollywood comebacks, the saga of how Kermit is trying to leap back on top is a story of changing tastes and the eternal quest for green.

The executive in charge of the Muppets says the studio envisions Kermit and Miss Piggy as "evergreen" characters, akin to Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. Every division at the company is contributing ideas to the renewal project. Among the proposals under consideration: a mock reality TV series and a Broadway musical à la "The Lion King."

Kermit "has been resting on his reputation from the TV show of the late '70s," said Disney Executive Vice President Russell Hampton, referring to "The Muppet Show," which had an extraordinarily successful syndicated run from 1976 to 1981.

The Super Bowl spots — Kermit will plug the Ford Escape SUV, while Miss Piggy will dance with Jessica Simpson to shill for Pizza Hut (a larger Muppet crew appeared in the food chain's ad last year) — are guaranteed to put the characters before a large audience again, Hampton noted.

But some skeptics wonder whether even a studio as vast and deep-pocketed as Disney can rekindle the Muppet magic.

Kermit was so popular during his heyday that he once subbed for Johnny Carson on NBC's "The Tonight Show." But while the talking frog remains a nostalgic touchstone for aging boomers, executives admit that most kids today recognize him only vaguely, if at all. Over the past decade, theatrical movies and TV shows featuring the characters have received scant notice, with some viewing the Muppets' gentle, unassuming humor as hopelessly out of step with the times. And Disney's pending $7.4-billion purchase of "Toy Story" producer Pixar Animation Studios may heighten the company's focus on newer, computer-generated characters.

"It's sad to see them doing pizza commercials," said Bernie Brillstein, a veteran Hollywood manager who guided Henson's career for 30 years. But "I think [Disney] will have a very difficult time bringing them up to date. They define a time and a special place ... there are things that don't work anymore."

Director Frank Oz, Henson's longtime creative partner as well as the original Miss Piggy, feels Disney is sincere about wanting to recharge the Muppets, but remains dubious about the studio's efforts so far. "The way they're going about it, they don't understand it's going to take more than organization," he said. "You're trying to take a mom and pop organization and recreate it through a corporation."

Kermit's fate shows how relatively quickly even a world-famous brand can ebb without constant upkeep. Since Henson's unexpected death at age 53, corporate control of Kermit and Miss Piggy has changed hands three times. Even today, Disney doesn't own the rights to all the characters that sprang from Henson's shop; Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Elmo and other icons of the preschool set belong to the nonprofit Sesame Workshop, producer of PBS' "Sesame Street."

Perhaps more important, the decline of the Muppets offers an instructive lesson in the vagaries of the market for family entertainment. Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and others are vying for children's attention, constantly churning out a panoply of new characters for every age range and taste. While the latest generation of kids tuned in to Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants, the Muppets fossilized, as much a cultural artifact as mood rings or vinyl records.

"There was a certain creative malaise, post-Jim Henson," said Martin Brochstein, editorial director of EPM Communications, which publishes newsletters on product licensing and other marketing issues.

It all began ...

In a sense, such malaise was understandable, given Henson's acclaimed gifts as creative overseer. He first introduced Kermit in 1955 on "Sam & Friends," a kids' show that ran in Washington, D.C. A few years later, the young puppeteer showed up at the William Morris Agency in New York. Initially skeptical, Brillstein, then a young agent, watched Henson do a bit with a two-headed cow puppet and decided to sign him on the spot.

The Muppets' popularity slowly grew with commercials and TV guest spots during the 1960s. But they shot to national fame in 1969 with the premiere of "Sesame Street," a milestone in educational TV. Henson characters such as Grover, Cookie Monster and Count von Count established an instant rapport with young children learning basic language and math concepts. Meanwhile, Kermit's rendition of "Bein' Green" (Henson himself operated and voiced the character) drew wide praise as a plea for racial understanding in an educational system that was still grappling with desegregation.

By the end of the 1970s, the Muppets reached the apex of their fame. Over five seasons in syndication, "The Muppet Show" drew an eclectic mix of celebrity guests, and their first feature, 1979's "The Muppet Movie," grossed more than $76 million in domestic box office.

Henson began to branch out with non-Muppet fantasies and sci-fi fare. But in 1990, just days before Disney was to buy his company for a reported $150 million, he died unexpectedly of complications from pneumonia. In the wake of his death, the Disney deal was scotched — and Kermit and Miss Piggy fell into more than a decade of creative and commercial limbo.

Brian and Lisa Henson, the puppeteer's adult children, sold the Jim Henson Co. in 2000 to a German firm, EM.TV & Merchandising, for a reported $680 million. But the company quickly ran into financial trouble and was forced to put the Muppets back on the block. Sesame Workshop, which had been paying Henson's company a license fee of up to $20 million annually to use Elmo and other Muppets, leaped in to buy the characters from EM.TV for $180 million.

Bought and sold

That meant that the remaining characters, including Kermit and Miss Piggy, were on their own — which critics like Brillstein say has diluted their value. The Henson children repurchased the remnants of their father's company in 2003 and then sold Kermit and other "classic Muppet" characters to Disney, whose then-chief, Michael Eisner, had remained a big fan. (Through spokespersons, Brian and Lisa Henson and Eisner declined to comment.)

The Henson Co. still actively produces (recent projects have included Sci-Fi Channel's "Farscape") and retains the rights to "Fraggle Rock" and other properties.

So far, Disney has little to show for its investment. In May, the studio's ABC network tanked in the ratings with "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz," a TV movie starring Kermit, Miss Piggy and the rest of Henson's distinctive crew. At least two proposed TV series starring the Muppet gang have yet to appear. The feature film and Broadway show are tied up in development; Disney's Hampton characterized them only as "ideas."

Brochstein said that the Super Bowl ads may help remind viewers of what they loved about the Muppets. But the commercials won't be nearly enough to restore Kermit and Miss Piggy to their former luster. "It's a matter of re-injecting the characters into the culture with high-quality content that people relate to," he said. "It sounds like a simple thing, but it ain't."

Disney's Hampton, for his part, said the studio is not about to give up. "We recognize we have a job in front of us," he said. "But we're going to take the time to do it right."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-muppets4feb04,0,5196890,print.story?coll=cl-tv-features

The Winter Olympics
The Olympics Versus The Competition
By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 2/6/2006

The best competition of the Olympics may be far from Torino.

On Thursday, Feb 23 at 8 p.m. ET, NBC should be airing the popular women’s figure-skating finals. Fox should have a new episode of American Idol and CBS has scheduled a new episode of Survivor. ABC has slated the Dancing With the Stars finale for that night but is thinking better of it. Now, that’s a battle.

Counter-programming the Olympics can be tricky. While such events as women’s figure skating are almost sure-fire ratings bonanzas, you never know what suddenly hot American athlete or new controversy is going to randomly turn an event into must-see TV for NBC.

Programmers are a competitive bunch. They’re also not stupid. Each network will decide its best course of action: schedule its own hot shows or run repeats until the Olympics are over, and come back fighting.

Fox Entertainment President Peter Liguori, for one, isn’t handing the nights to NBC, especially with the hot start this season for American Idol. “We think the Idol audience is unbelievably loyal,” he said recently. “This is their favorite show, and we anticipate that ratings will be solid.”

Here is a look at four nights when Olympics ratings could be especially golden and what the competition has in store.
________________________________________

Monday, Feb. 20

NBC PRIME TIME: On President’s Day, NBC has the gold-medal round of the ice-dancing (skating) competition. Americans could have their best chance at gold in decades, so this should be a big draw.
THE COMPETITION: While CBS will be in repeats, ABC has a two-hour Wife Swap special followed by a Bachelor special, and Fox trots out new episodes of its solid Monday-night lineup of House and 24.
________________________________________

Tuesday, Feb. 21:

NBC PRIME TIME: The first night of what is traditionally the Winter Olympics’ biggest event, women’s figure skating.
THE COMPETITION: Fox is going straight after Michelle Kwan and friends with a two-hour American Idol. CBS has a new Love Monkey but then airs repeats the rest of the night. ABC has originals of According To Jim and Rodney at 8 and a new Boston Legal at 10. ABC is supposed to air a new Commander in Chief at 9 p.m., but the network has not made a final decision on whether it wants to put the show against the popular figure-skating event.
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Thursday, Feb. 23

NBC PRIME TIME: The finals of women’s figure skating, which should be the biggest night, ratings-wise. The competition will air at some time that evening, but NBC can spread coverage out over the night.
THE COMPETITION: If NBC has figure skating in the 8 p.m. hour, this will be the biggest battleground hour of the entire Games, as CBS has a new Survivor slotted and Fox is going with an hour of Idol. ABC has the Dancing With the Stars season finale scheduled at 8-9:30, but the network is already looking at pushing it back a week. Later in the night CBS runs repeats of CSI and Without a Trace, Fox has a repeat of Skating With Celebrities, and ABC plans an edition of Primetime.
________________________________________

Saturday, Feb. 25

NBC PRIME TIME: Two of the best-known U.S. Olympians could be competing for gold this night.
Apolo Anton Ohno, part of a speed-skating controversy in Salt Lake City four years ago, could be in the 500-meter finals, while the men’s slalom-skiing finals could feature Bode Miller, who gained a new level of fame recently when he told 60 Minutes about his penchant for having a few cocktails before swooshing down the slopes.
THE COMPETITION: There isn’t much of it. Saturday will be the typical mix of repeats and movies, such as ABC’s airing of theatrical film Forrest Gump.

The Business of TV
Cable, Broadcast Battles End

But the retransmission war may get nasty

By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable 2/6/2006

Two major TV-industry battles concluded on the same day last week. EchoStar agreed to resume delivering Lifetime Television to DBS subscribers, and station group Nexstar Broadcasting ended its bruising fight with cable operators.

But cable and broadcasting executives will spend months examining fallout from the disputes, calculating how they shift the balance of power over one of the most divisive issues in the TV business: retransmission consent. The central question: Will major cable operators start writing big checks in order to retransmit the signals of local TV stations?

In agreeing to restore Lifetime to its 12 million subscribers, EchoStar’s Dish Network cut a new retransmission-consent agreement with Lifetime corporate cousin Hearst-Argyle Television. The station group essentially affirmed that it will collect $11 million a year from a side deal in the EchoStar/Lifetime agreement that allows EchoStar to retransmit Hearst-Argyle’s stations. That’s a fat 50¢ per EchoStar subscriber.

At the same time, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook says he expects to collect around $12 million from its recent, tough round of negotiations with cable and DBS operators.

Those numbers may sound relatively small, but the ultimate stakes are huge. If TV stations dramatically strengthen their hand, cable systems could pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That money could substantially bolster the profit picture at broadcast groups starving for good financial news.

Cable operators have resisted paying even strong broadcast stations, arguing in part that even CSI and Lost are available free to anyone with a cheap antenna. Stations counter that they command 10 times the audience of, say, MTV, which collects 25¢-50¢ per subscriber monthly. (ABC stations want $2.)

Systems might commit to buying advertising on a station or carry a new cable network owned by the broadcaster’s parent company. But all but the smallest operators say they have not paid straight license fees.

Nexstar’s struggle ran the longest. Hoping to set a precedent, Sook in December 2004 stood up to Cox Communications and Washington Post Co.’s CableOne. In four cities where small-market broadcasters’ old retransmission-consent agreements were expiring, Sook levied a take-it-or leave-it demand: Pay 30¢ monthly per subscriber, or we’ll yank our signals.

The operators said no, and the stations went dark. Some cable subscribers went to DBS or simply connected rabbit-ear antennas, the Nexstar stations’ ratings plunged, and advertisers fled. After 10 long months and what Sook describes as several million dollars of lost revenue, Nexstar cut a deal.

None of the companies have disclosed terms, but industry executives say Cox and CableOne did not pay the straight license fees Sook was demanding, instead agreeing to buy a certain amount of advertising on his stations.

But smaller operators seem to have capitulated to Sook’s willingness to go dark. At the end of 2005, Nexstar cut a flurry of deals that it says pay license fees. DBS services already freely pay stations cash because they need the local signals to able to compete with cable.

Sook tried to allay doubts last week by summarizing the deals. Nexstar released a statement saying it expects to collect $48 million over the life of current three- to five-year agreements. The annual revenue would drop directly to the bottom line, accounting for a “low-double-digit” percentage of the company’s 2006 operating cash flow, which Bear Stearns analyst Victor Miller pegs at $78 million. Figure $12 million per year, which Miller estimates at 11.5¢ per cable and DBS subscriber in Nexstar’s markets.

“We accomplished what we set out to do,” Sook says. “I think there’s a lesson in it for other broadcasters.”

But what does the $12 million really mean for Nexstar and other companies’ negotiations? Sook says 15%-20% of that money comes from DBS companies, not cable. Also, 30% isn’t straight fees but is tied to ad time that cable systems are buying on Nexstar stations. Is that new money, or would those spots have been sold to car dealers and grocery stores? My estimate: Just $6 million actually comes from fees paid by dozens of small operators.

The details of the Hearst-Argyle story are murkier. Before dropping Lifetime on New Year’s Eve, Dish Network signed an unusual retransmission-consent deal with the stations owned by Hearst-Argyle stations, whose controlling shareholder—Hearst Corp.—also owns 50% of Lifetime. Dish agreed to pay around $11 million a year, or about 50¢ monthly for each subscriber in Hearst-Argyle’s markets.

EchoStar could get by without Lifetime, but subscribers would scream without Lost from Hearst-Argyle’s ABC stations. Since 2000, Lifetime has negotiated on Hearst-Argyle’s behalf with every major cable and DBS operator in the country but paid the broadcaster a mere 4¢ per sub.

The EchoStar retransmission-consent deal has changed. Now Hearst-Argyle says it is returning to the old structure, allowing EchoStar to pay Lifetime for its networks and Hearst-Argyle’s stations. Lifetime in turn will compensate Hearst-Argyle for the value of the retransmission-consent rights in the negotiations, around $11 million.

So, is EchoStar really still paying 50¢ per subscriber for the stations? Or did the DBS service hammer Lifetime’s rates down so far that the broadcast deal is a wash? Publicly traded Hearst-Argyle isn’t saying, but it’s a safe bet that it’s got the industry talking.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6304947

TV Notebook
'Anatomy' of a hit

It may have started as filler, but cool ‘Grey’s’ is red hot,
and for ABC, it’s just what the doctor ordered
By Verne Gay Newsday Staff Writer February 5, 2006

Contrary to what you may have heard, or strongly believe, television producers are not idiots. Most are bright, capable, literate people who know a lot of stuff, such as which actors are better than others, or which writers can write, or which composers, cinematographers and directors are superior and which ones are nincompoops. They know the mechanics of this jigsaw craft, but what they don't know far more often than not is how to fit all these maddeningly disparate pieces together into a pleasing, intelligent, long-lasting hit. That's one reason why most TV is so execrable.

It's all a crapshoot. A guessing game. A throw-it-on-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks game. In that respect, it's a lot like life - only the pay's much better.

And that's also why "Grey's Anatomy" - the shimmering hit that ABC now holds in its hands - is a minor show-biz miracle. When this show began as midseason filler a little less than a year ago, life expectancy could reasonably have been measured in weeks. "Grey's" seemed derivative, a pastiche, a refraction of TV past and present: It wasn't even a pale reflection of "ER"; it was a pale reflection of "MDs."

And now take a look.

On Sunday night, "Grey's" will fill a post-Super Bowl slot that will ensure millions of additional viewers over the 17.9 million who have made it a regular stop this season. Suddenly, "ER" (12.9 million viewers) seems a pale reflection of "Grey's."

Plus, consider this: As the lead-out of "Desperate Housewives," all "Grey's" had to do was hold on to at least a few of that show's 23.6 million viewers. But "Grey's" has now added 2 million viewers over the number who were watching it this time last year, while "DH" has added 1 million. In other words, "Grey's" is now the hotter show.

A clever little bauble

How does this stuff happen? Therein lies the tale of one of the more craftily crafted shows now on TV - a clever little bauble that is soaked in television culture (and history) and is cagily aware of its own artifices. Those who enter the fictional portals of Seattle Grace Hospital will find a little bit of "Northern Exposure," a little "General Hospital," a little "ER" - and some "Gilmore Girls," "House," "Once and Again," and every David E. Kelley show going back to "L.A. Law" thrown in as well.

"Grey's Anatomy" is also conspicuously designed for women - a "chick show," in the vernacular of show biz, where the chicks drink too much, make dreadful choices in the romance department and fret about the impossible balance of life and work. That's right - "Ally McBeal" in scrubs (without the boozy barroom singing, although like "Ally," music plays a central role in "Grey's," in which every episode is named after a famous song).

It's easy to be cynical about "Grey's," which - for you newbies out there - is about the entanglements of a group of green student surgeons with the harder-edged attending surgeons at Grace. When doe-eyed Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) gets that sinking feeling that Dr. "McDreamy" - Patrick Dempsey's Derek Shepherd - is just never gonna come around, the music track kicks in with a velvety rendition of Mike Doughty's "Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well" or maybe Kate Earl's "Someone to Love." (Oh yes, the music on "Grey's" may be the biggest star of all.)

The character archetypes of "Grey's" sometimes teeter on the precipice of cliche: Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) is the Tough but Warmhearted chief of surgery; Isobel "Izzie" Stevens (Katherine Heigl) is the Beautiful Ex-Model who has the darndest time trying to convince everyone she's no bimbo.

The rhythm of the show is so conspicuously rooted in television tradition that most viewers should find it as familiar as their dear old Aunt Mabel. There's the big soap opera arcs: Will Meredith ever find true love with McDreamy? What will happen to her mother suffering from Alzheimer's? Will the relationship of Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) and Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington) founder one of these days? These are intertwined with the many little soap bubbles that populate each episode. Those are the B stories where the softie docs try to help the lives of suffering patients. There are exactly three per episode, all of which are almost always neatly, and happily, resolved.

But as with all good shows, there is also an original core here, too. The African-American characters (in addition to Drs. Burke and Webber, there's Dr. Miranda Bailey, played by Chandra Wilson) on "Grey's," for example, aren't simply part of some politically correct prime-time rainbow coalition; they are the dominant characters, the leaders and the voices of calm, insight, intelligence and humanity. They are, for the most part, also more interesting.

The authorial voice of "Grey's" - which can be funny, cutting, arch and sentimental, sometimes all at once - belongs to Shonda Rhimes, the 36-year-old creator who went to Dartmouth but who really studied and absorbed what she saw on her family's TV set while growing up in the Chicago suburb of University Park. Later, while at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, Rhimes also apparently picked up the first rule of her craft - write what you know.

She's also one of the rare black female producers in television and, for a lengthy profile that ran in Ebony last fall, she said, "I remember everybody in the room looking at me like I was crazy, but I was like, 'There will never be any black drug addicts on our show. There will never be any black hookers on our show. There will never be black pimps on our show.' A lot of shows feel the need and enjoy stereotyping, and we're going the other way. [Stereotypes] isn't something I'm interested in promoting."

But as she also freely admitted in a recent interview with the in-house magazine of the Writers Guild of America, "['Grey's'] is a chick show. I'm sorry, but at the end of the day it's a chick show because it's a show I want to watch, and I have no problem with that. Dr. McDreamy is Dr. McDreamy for a reason. It's not so that men can feel macho. He's dreamy so we can stare at our televisions, turn to our boyfriends, and say, 'Why don't you talk to me like that?'"

A woman without ties

At the recent TV critics' press tour in Los Angeles, Rhimes was the star of her own session, which is kind of unusual considering that the session also featured onetime teen idol Dempsey, whose career has been supercharged by "Grey's."

"There's some part of every character [in the show] that's a little bit of me when I started to write it," she told the critics, "although once the show started going, these [actors] inhabited those roles, and it really changed who they were in wonderful ways."

"Grey's" cast is divided among interns and attending physicians, though Rhimes said she is more like the interns. One in particular. Grey is a woman "without ties" who "goes to a bar, gets drunk, picks up a boy and brings him home. That's how you first are introduced to her. I remember there being a lot of discussion about how you can you introduce a character, who is our narrator, who is going to be that kind of woman? [But] I remember thinking, she's like every woman I know, maybe a little heightened, but every woman I know. And that makes her more interesting to me."

By now, you've figured out, no doubt, that viewers love this show. The passion isn't only reflected in the numbers - 21 million tuned in for the Jan. 22 episode alone - but in fan sites such as www.televisionwithoutpity.com, where chats are jammed with speculation about McDreamy, and why is he just so damned cute?

But the craft of television is a fragile one, and now come the questions. Clearly, ABC is happy with the show, but just as clearly wants to expand its viewership beyond the overwhelming female base. That's why it will follow the Super Bowl, of course, and also why the episode will probably feel a little more like "24" than "ER." The storyline is about when Seattle Grace is forced to go into "code black." What's "code black"? All Rhimes would say is that it's "real bad."

Then, there's Dempsey. He was a core character at the series' outset, but the George Clooney-Doug Ross Syndrome appears to have already begun. He's slowly become a minor character on the show, barely visible some weeks. He recently started filming "Freedom Writers," a movie with Hilary Swank, then it's on to the Disney movie "Enchanted." If those are box-office hits, anyone care to bet how much longer McDreamy will be on "Grey's"?

Meanwhile, Rhimes is beginning work on a new series (about journalists), though she insists she will continue to work closely on "Grey's."

Like we said, TV's a crapshoot.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-fftv4609919feb05,0,5878950,print.story?coll=ny-television-headlines

TV Notebook
What’s up, docs?

By Kevin McDonough Newsday Staff Writer

The secret to the popularity of "Grey's Anatomy" may be its ensemble cast. Although these faces seem fresh to some, they also have a familiar quality that TV audiences find intriguing.

So where have we seen them before?

Viewers now know Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey, but "Grey's Anatomy" is not even her first stint on a medical drama. She appeared in an episode of the Lifetime show "Strong Medicine" in 2001. Viewers also may have caught her on two "Law & Order" episodes. She worked on the critically acclaimed Denis Leary comedy "The Job" and hit the holy grail of comedy cameos, appearing in a 2004 episode of "Friends," "The One Where the Stripper Cries."

Patrick Dempsey, the seductive Dr. Derek Shepherd, is no stranger to television fans, having appeared on the small screen since the short-lived 1986 teen sitcom "Fast Times." He's been on multiple episodes of "The Practice," "Once and Again" and "Will & Grace." He also starred as John F. Kennedy in the 1993 miniseries "JFK: Reckless Youth" and co-starred with Reese Witherspoon in 2002's "Sweet Home Alabama."

Sandra Oh, who recently won Golden Globe and Screen Actor's Guild awards for her portrayal of Dr. Cristina Yang, is probably best known for her fearsome supporting character in "Sideways" (2005). Beating your cheating lover with a motorcycle helmet leaves an indelible impression.

She also had a notable supporting presence in the 2003 big-screen romance "Under the Tuscan Sun." Her biggest TV role to date was a seven-year run on HBO's "Arli$$," playing the sports agent's sassy assistant, Rita Wu. She was also a humanities teacher on several episodes of "Popular," the 1999 teen soap on the soon-to-depart WB network.

Do you think Katherine Heigl (Dr. Isobel Stevens) looks familiar? Her many film and television roles began with a childhood cameo in a Cheerios commercial. "Roswell" fans will recall her performance as Isabel Evans. Her recent credits include the Johnny Knoxville comedy "The Ringer."

Justin Chambers (Dr. Alex Karev) isn't new to Sunday nights. He acted on "Cold Case" some years back. He can also be seen in the J.Lo movie "The Wedding Planner."

James Pickens Jr., who portrays chief of surgery Dr. Richard Webber, was a regular on "The X-Files," as FBI director Alvin Kersh. His extensive resumé includes stints as a semiregular on "NYPD Blue," "The Practice" and "Philly."

If you blinked, you probably missed T.R. Knight's turn on the 2003 comedy "Charlie Lawrence." That summer sitcom, starring Nathan Lane as an openly gay former child star-turned-congressman, was quickly abandoned by CBS. But Knight had better luck, appearing later on "Frasier," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and three episodes of "CSI" before landing on "Grey's Anatomy" as Dr. George O'Malley.

Knight isn't the only "Grey's" regular to appear on a quickly canceled series. Chandra Wilson (Dr. Miranda Bailey) has credits on Oliver Platt's short-lived "Queens Supreme" and Jason Alexander's post- "Seinfeld" flop, "Bob Patterson." She's also appeared in episodes of "The Cosby Show" and "Cosby"; "Law & Order" and "Law & Order: SVU"; "Sex and the City," and "The Sopranos."

Before playing Dr. Preston Burke, Isaiah Washington had multiple appearances on "Soul Food," "Touched by an Angel" and "Ally McBeal." His film credits include "Ghost Ship," "Hollywood Homicide," and "Clockers."

Along with Oh, you can catch Kate Walsh (Dr. Addison Shepherd) in "Under the Tuscan Sun." She was in the Will Ferrell comedies "Bewitched" and "Kicking and Screaming." Her television credits include "CSI" and "Karen Sisco," but she is probably best known for playing Nicki, Drew's hefty girlfriend on "The Drew Carey Show."

Most "Grey's" fans will agree that going from Drew Carey to Patrick Dempsey, and from the Warsaw Bar to medical rounds is a step in the right direction.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-fftv4609919feb05,0,5878950,print.story?coll=ny-television-headlines

Super Bowl XL
A Rush To Score Buzz?

Advertisers Lined Up For One Goal: Pay Dirt
By Matt Eagan Hartford Courant Staff Writer February 2 2006

The first Super Bowl commercial - in the modern sense of the word - aired 22 years ago and was seen only once.

Ever since Apple interrupted Super Bowl XVIII with its iconic "1984"-influenced ad that helped usher in the era of personal computers, advertisers have been treating the Super Bowl as, well, the Super Bowl.

"With DVR and TiVo making it harder for advertisers to reach consumers, this is the one day they can be assured people are watching," said Tim DeSchriver, assistant professor of sports management at the University of Delaware. "There really is nothing comparable in the U.S. Maybe the summer Olympics and, worldwide, the World Cup. But in the U.S., this is the event."

As many as 90 million people will be watching the Super Bowl in the U.S., and many have been anticipating the commercials almost as much as the game. The pressure on the players is nothing compared with the stress that marketing firms will be under as each 30-second, $2.6 million spot unfurls before the watchful eyes of America.

The trick is to come up with an ad memorable enough to capture office conversation the next morning while making sure people remember the product as much as the commercial. For every clever commercial that connects with an audience there is another that entertains them but ultimately leaves no imprint on potential customers' brains.

"Sometimes the creative department gets so focused on being unique and creative, and they lose site of whether or not the ad will get the product across," says marketing consultant Karen Post, author of "Brain Tattoos: Creating Unique Brands that Stick to Customers' Minds."

Post, known as the Branding Diva, says the Apple commercial was a perfect example of an ad that was striking and bold and yet also advanced the brand name. The idea that personal computers were for individual thinkers who were breaking free of a herd mentality resonated.

Not all commercials make such a lasting impact. Quick quiz: Which company's ad during Super Bowl XXXIX featured chimpanzees?

If you didn't know it was CareerBuilder.com, you aren't alone. According to research conducted by Schneider Associates in Boston, 57 percent of people could not identify any new products launched in 2005, despite pervasive marketing campaigns for products such as Coca-Cola Zero and iPod nano. This suggests that its harder now to make an impact on viewers than it once was.

"There are so many ads, and they run them in packs against all these other amazing ads," says company president Joan Schneider, who authored "New Product Launch: 10 Proven Strategies."

Schneider says companies are trying to expand the reach of Super Bowl commercials by using them on the Internet and as downloads to cellular phones. The additional marketing opportunities make the expense of a Super Bowl ad worth the gamble for some companies hoping to generate buzz.

Of course, all strategies depend on having a commercial people want to see again, which means Super Bowl viewers can expect to see ads that play on three basic themes.

"Humor is a unanimous winner because it makes it easier for people to connect," Post says.

This is the most obvious tool, but Post says advertisers may also try to appeal to some heartstrings. During last year's Super Bowl, Budweiser rolled out a commercial showing people applauding troops as they marched through an airport.

"That got a great response," Post says. "It really hit the hearts of people."

Technology also figures to be popular as companies blow out the budget to produce commercials with eye-popping special effects.

One overlooked market, at least in Super Bowls past, has been women, who watch the game in nearly equal numbers as men. Post says Dove is planning to continue its campaign using real women during the Super Bowl in an effort to get its products on the frontal lobe of the 50 million women who might be watching.

Despite these general guidelines, it's impossible to determine which ads will be a hit with viewers.

"You never know what the American public is going to be dazzled by," Schneider says. "That's the reason it's so difficult. It's really hard to predict."

But the buzz surrounding the game makes it an irresistible attraction despite the risk.

"Now they even have ads promoting the ads that are going to be in the Super Bowl," says DeSchriver. "Some companies are even trying to ratchet down expectations because people's expectations are so high that it's hard to reach them."

http://www.ctnow.com/tv/hce-commerce.artfeb02,0,7879375,print.story?coll=hce-headlines-tv-top

The Winter Olympics
NBC Climbs the High-Def Mountain

The network faces logistical, technical challenges
By Glen Dickson Broadcasting & Cable 2/6/2006

NBC will make Olympic history this year, broadcasting the entire Olympic Games in high-definition—even though only a small fraction of U.S. homes own HD TV sets.

The network’s complete conversion to HD underscores a new reality in the TV business: After years of waiting for cheaper prices and more-flexible equipment, the HD experience is ready for prime time, reliable enough for NBC to make a total-HD production out of one the most popular and most valuable sports franchises in the world.

“One of the first things I saw when I walked into the IBC [International Broadcasting Center] in Torino,” says David Neal, executive VP, NBC Olympics, “was a whole monitor wall dominated by high-def screens. The test shots coming out of some venues, running off high-def tape, were stunningly spectacular.”

The network faces some complex hurdles, in part because it must support standard-definition (SD) feeds for a predominantly analog U.S. audience. NBC will also have to work with the European 50-frames-per-second television standard and convert it to the U.S. 60-frames-per-second frame rate before transmitting it back to New York. NBC will produce a single stream of widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio) HD coverage for all sports, downconverting to 4:3 standard-definition for NBC’s analog networks, which include MSNBC, CNBC and USA.

NBC Universal will offer a total of 302 hours of HD coverage. A simulcast of NBC’s primary analog coverage will be carried on NBC’s digital stations on NBC HD. High-def cable network Universal HD will provide simulcasts of Olympic programming carried on USA, MSNBC and CNBC.

More than 50% of the Olympic sports will be shot and produced in HD, including figure skating, hockey, speed skating, ski jumping, freestyle skiing, and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Other sports will be shot in 16:9 standard-definition and upconverted to HD when they hit NBC’s 75,000-square-foot IBC.

The only sport that won’t be produced and edited in HD is curling, which proved surprisingly popular the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. It will be produced in SD, partly because it airs on cable network CNBC and partly because NBC is trying a new remote production setup it calls “Curling-At-Home” (see box, p. 8).

“Still a Learning Curve for HD”

While the Winter Olympics have far fewer venues than the Summer Games, Torino presents logistical challenges because the sites are scattered and Sestriere, the site of the Alpine events, is a 90-minute drive from the IBC in good weather. Fortunately, advances in communications technology will allow most NBC staffers to remain on-site at individual venues. In total, NBC will rely on just under 3,000 people to produce the Games.

There is “still a learning curve for HD,” Neal says. One challenge is that technologies taken for granted in the SD world, such as wireless radio-frequency (RF) camera systems, have just been developed for HD. Another challenge is focusing on an SD audience in an HD production environment. “As users of HD technology, what the directors have to do here is still frame for traditional 4:3,” says Neal. “They want to make sure the center of the action centers on 4:3, and they will use a little grid superimposed on the viewfinders to do that.”

Even without HD, many viewers will be surprised at NBC’s graphics and specialized cameras that will help fans more easily understand the action. Speed skating can be a difficult sport to follow, as the skaters switch lanes during races and the sleek full-body suits and aerodynamic goggles they wear make them hard to differentiate. So NBC will be using optical tracking technology that Sportvision originally developed for NASCAR coverage to insert a flag graphic identifying each skater by name and country. For ski jumping, NBC will use a Sportvision system to place a virtual line, similar to the company’s “1st and Ten” effect for football coverage, in the landing area to mark leading jumps. NBC had tried a similar system from another vendor in Salt Lake City, but the camera framing wasn’t right, says Neal. This time it will be. “It’s an easily understood way for the viewer to see how each respective jumper is doing relative to the leader,” says Neal.

Sportvision is also providing NBC with the “StroMotion” and “SimulCam” technologies invented by Dartfish, a Swiss firm specializing in sports-video analysis. Used in the Athens Games for diving coverage, in Torino, StroMotion will enhance coverage of the snowboard halfpipe and freestyle-skiing competitions.

“We will use that to far greater effect for snowboarding and aerials, breaking down the moves the athletes are doing in midair,” says Neal. “It gives the audience a much deeper appreciation for the athleticism involved.”

For the Alpine events, NBC will use SimulCam, which can produce a replay of a skier’s downhill run with a “ghost” effect superimposing the course of a fellow racer and showing where each gained or lost time. The system was used sparingly during coverage of the 2002 Games but was realistic enough that concerned viewers called NBC to ask out why two skiers were being allowed on the course at the same time. Neal says the SimulCam has been improved. “I expect we will be alarming an entire new generation of viewers,” he jokes.

SimulCam is a particularly powerful production effect, making it easy for a viewer to compare the relative performance of downhill stars like Hermann Maier and Bode Miller. “You can see who’s taking the straighter line [downhill], who’s cutting the gates on a tight line and who’s cutting the gates wider,” says Neal. “Sometimes, simple is the most effective thing to understand why one person is leading and the other isn’t.”

Feed From TOBO

One unique wrinkle to the Olympics is that NBC relies on camera feeds from host broadcaster Torino Olympic Broadcasting Organization (TOBO) for the bulk of its coverage. For example, for the men’s downhill, TOBO might have 35 cameras, where NBC might have six, located primarily at the start, finish and family area.

“The core coverage is really from the TOBO cameras, except for the start and finish, super-slo-motion cameras, and specialty cameras,” says Dave Mazza, senior VP, engineering, NBC Olympics. “So it’s important to understand their plans.”

Fiber-optic links will serve the basis of NBC’s communications infrastructure for Torino, both between the various venues and the IBC and between the IBC and NBC’s 30 Rock headquarters in New York. NBC is using AT&T fiber to send HD feeds back to New York at a little over 90 megabits per second (Mbps) while SD pictures come back at both 40 and 20 Mbps; Tandberg is providing the video encoders. NBC maintains a satellite link, too, but relies increasingly on fiber.

Major vendors for NBC’s Olympic effort include Sony, Avid Technology, Dolby and systems integrator Ascent Media; all will have support staff onsite in Torino. The workhouse machine for NBC’s production is Sony’s HDCAM high-def tape deck, which is in most of the mobile trucks NBC has booked. The SD trucks and edit suites have a mix of Sony IMX or Digital Betacam tape decks. NBC will also use the Sony MVS-8000 production switcher and new Sony 1000 and 1500 1080-line–progressive HD cameras.

NBC will be using a host of production gear from Avid Technology, including 36 Avid Media Composer Adrenaline nonlinear editors; a large Avid shared-storage system that will give NBC roughly 800 hours of high-def video storage; Pinnacle Deko character generators and Thunder production servers for graphics; and a Digidesign Icon audio postproduction system.

“All the systems are networked together and capable of moving media between them, and they are tied into the shared storage,” says Avid VP of Broadcast David Schliefer. “A couple editors are tied into the Unity ISIS, and that is all available on the network.”

To handle the high data rates of HD video, NBC is using Avid Technology’s DnxHD compression format, which compresses the 50-frame HD video down to a manageable 120-Mbps bit rate.

The most challenging venues are the Alpine-downhill and giant-slalom events, because the length of the courses requires a lot of cable and a mid-mountain technical area that has to be powered and heated. “That means lifting generators in with a helicopter. Then there are a lot of fiber conduits,” Mazza says. He quickly adds, “That cable went in before it started snowing.”

For some of us..uh.."well seasoned" guys :p and maybe even some of the gals, this DVD set of the show would no doubt be a trip down memory lane. I know it was an absolute must see show for me when I was 11-13 years old. Interesting that it was one of ABC's first shows in color.
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"Rat Patrol" DVD good for unintentional laughs

By Glenn Abel Fri Feb 3, 5:08 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Call it "Mission: Preposterous." The once-ultra-cool WWII desert combat series "The Rat Patrol" is back in action via a season 1 package from MGM/Sony.
ADVERTISEMENT

"Rat Patrol" ran on ABC from 1966-68, featuring the exploits of four soldiers and two jeeps who tormented Field Marshal Rommel's tank korps in North Africa.

Three talented actors rose above the material: Christopher George played the head rat and Gary Raymond was the British explosives expert. Most weeks, the four allied commandos outfoxed a decent-enough German officer (let's code-name him Wily E. Coyote). The Nazi was played by Hans Gudegast, known these days as soap star Eric Braeden.

"Rat Patrol" retains plenty of entertainment value, not much of it by design. Imagine storylines developed by the troika of Yogi Berra, Sgt. Schultz and Kramer. Between all those explosions and the jeeps-a-leaping, the 30-minute episodes had little time left for detailed plots -- almost certainly a good thing.

The sillier the better, contemporary "Rat Patrol" fans say: It's all part of the fun: Nazis don't notice their new officer speaks with a brisk English accent. "Arabs" appear in blackface lite and have blonde-haired blue-eyed kids. Men digging ditches in the Sahara break no sweat -- and there appears to be a hairdresser lurking in the dunes. Jeeps armed with 50-caliber machine guns lay waste to armored tanks. Bullets ricochet off sand. Anglo fashion models show up riding donkeys, looking for romance, then dutifully die when the lovemaking is over. Cool. (Learn more on the fan Web sites affectionately devoted to the show's goofs and gaffes).

"The Rat Patrol: The Complete First Season" contains 32 episodes on four discs (retail $39.95). DVD images look surprisingly good considering this was one of the first ABC series in color. The show was filmed in Spain, making for some splendid visuals. Audio passes inspection.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Friday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest Prime Time Ratings news which is the first post in this thread.

TV Notebook
Changes at ABC, Where the War Is More Than News

By Jacques Steinberg The New York Times February 4, 2006

Charles Gibson, the co-anchor of "Good Morning America," and David Westin, the president of ABC News, had long been scheduled to have lunch last Monday in Mr. Westin's plasma-screened office five floors above West 66th Street in Manhattan.

But the agenda for that meeting changed radically on Sunday, when Bob Woodruff, the new co-anchor of "World News Tonight" — who, along with Elizabeth Vargas, had been given the job only after Mr. Westin would not meet Mr. Gibson's request for a three-year term — was seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

As Mr. Gibson recalled in an interview yesterday, Mr. Westin had come to their luncheon armed with a simple proposal: "We need to do this again." What Mr. Westin meant was that he was asking Mr. Gibson to serve temporarily as a co-anchor of "World News," the network's flagship broadcast, just as he had after Peter Jennings's announcement in April that he was suffering from lung cancer.

"There is no answer to that but, 'Yeah, sure,' " Mr. Gibson said yesterday. "I was doing it before. They gave the job to Bob and Elizabeth. Then back you come. I can see the viewer might be a bit confused about what's going on. But you just do it."

The delicate entreaty to Mr. Gibson was one of a series of strategic moves — some behind the scenes, others visible on camera — that Mr. Westin executed this week in the midst of guiding his division through the second medical crisis in less than a year involving one of his most high-profile journalists and the same high-profile broadcast.

"I wish you didn't have a sequel here," Mr. Westin said sadly in an interview yesterday.

In the latest of a series of medical updates that he has provided since Sunday, Mr. Westin said yesterday that Mr. Woodruff, 44, remained in a medically induced coma as his doctors tended to head injuries and other serious wounds caused by shrapnel in the attack. Doug Vogt, a cameraman wounded alongside Mr. Woodruff, is already up and walking, though still recuperating, Mr. Westin said.

While Mr. Woodruff's life is no longer thought to be in danger, the unknown timetable for his recovery continues to jar the network's evening newscast, one of the most lucrative franchises within ABC News, and to send ripples across another, "Good Morning America."

Most immediately, the sidelining of Mr. Woodruff has indefinitely pre-empted the seasoning of the two-person anchor team that, only last month, Mr. Westin described as representing the long-term future of the network's evening newscast.

But in tapping Mr. Gibson — as well as his morning co-anchor, Diane Sawyer — to take turns assisting Ms. Vargas on camera for at least the next month, Mr. Westin is also putting strain on "Good Morning America" at an especially inopportune moment, when it is losing ground to its dominant rival, "Today," on NBC. (Perhaps the only consolation for ABC is that its two main news broadcasts were already expecting to be eclipsed in February by the Winter Olympics coverage on NBC.)

Just by heeding Mr. Westin's call, Mr. Gibson and Ms. Sawyer might also have complicated Mr. Westin's choices for the longer term at "World News," in the event that Mr. Woodruff is unable to return to the broadcast any time soon. Either Ms. Sawyer or Mr. Gibson, if not both, could be asked to serve on a more extended basis. (Mr. Gibson's current contract with ABC goes through spring 2007; Ms. Sawyer also has a "long-term commitment," said Jeffrey Schneider, a network spokesman.)

Such personnel concerns, however, have been of little import in the short run.

Instead, Mr. Westin has devoted much of his time after the attack on Mr. Woodruff to providing assurance — both within ABC and well beyond its studio walls — that not only were Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt in stable condition, but so was the news division.

Among the first steps he took was to appear in the first half-hour of "Good Morning America" on Monday, when he and Ms. Vargas were interviewed by Ms. Sawyer and Mr. Gibson.

Among the questions Mr. Gibson had asked was whether Mr. Westin would continue to send ABC journalists to Iraq; Mr. Westin said that given the importance of the war, he did not see how he could not. Asked in the interview yesterday if he intended to take new safety precautions as a result of the injuries to the two journalists — Mr. Vogt and Mr. Woodruff had been recording a so-called stand-up in the open-air hatch of a moving Iraqi military vehicle — Mr. Westin said he did not yet know.

Emphasizing that he had not sifted through all the particulars of the accident, Mr. Westin said, "I think Bob and Doug and, for that matter, we, were taking all the reasonable precautions we could."

"Believe me," he added, "we are constantly reassessing and saying, 'Is there something we could do better or differently?' "

Asked yesterday why he had moved so decisively to have Mr. Gibson and Ms. Sawyer help preserve the two-anchor experiment he had inaugurated on Jan. 3, Mr. Westin said he was intent on demonstrating that "we're not going to let this move us backward."

After this coming week — when Mr. Gibson plans to appear on the first four evening newscasts, with Ms. Sawyer occupied by a previous commitment — he said he would probably work Monday and Tuesday nights, with Ms. Sawyer working Wednesdays and Thursdays. Neither is expected to miss many days, if any, in the morning.

The temporary arrangement is expected to crimp some of the innovations Mr. Westin had wanted Ms. Vargas and Mr. Woodruff to bring to the broadcast: Mr. Gibson said he did not anticipate that he and Ms. Sawyer would travel much (Mr. Woodruff had been on the road almost continuously since Jan. 3), nor did he expect that he and Ms. Sawyer, with their early-morning schedules, would be able to linger much to provide updates of the evening-news broadcast throughout the night as it is transmitted to West Coast markets.

Nonetheless, the very involvement of Ms. Sawyer and Mr. Gibson has already served to allay some of the early concerns of at least two constituencies that are of great import to ABC News and its parent, the Walt Disney Company: the nearly 200 affiliates who carry "World News" and the advertisers who spend more than $100 million on it annually.

Tim Spengler, an executive vice president of Initiative, a media planning company that buys spots on "World News" for Bayer, Merck and S. C. Johnson, said: "There was a lot of anticipation about the new team, which has not really gotten going yet. But this is about as classy a Band-Aid as you're going to get."

Deborah McDermott, a former chairman of the ABC affiliate board of governors and the president of Young Broadcasting, which owns five ABC stations, said she had begun the week with a sense of trepidation.

"Whenever this happens, you sit there and wonder, like when Peter was sick, how is this going to work?" she said. "But I think they've done a great job, putting top-notch people in there to support the team while there's a vacancy."

"By David handling it quickly," she added, "it kind of calmed the fears."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/arts/television/04abc.html?pagewanted=print

The Winter Olympics
Olympian Effort

NBC's 416 hours of coverage—virtually all in HD—tests its mettle
By Stuart Miller Broadcasting & Cable 2/6/2006

For two weeks every four years, the Winter Olympics mesmerize millions of viewers. The nation goes crazy watching figure skaters, snowboarders, even curlers compete for the gold.

NBC Universal kicks off its Winter Olympics coverage on Feb. 10, from Torino, Italy (known as Turin in this country) and plans a stunning record 416 hours of coverage, on NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo and USA. Events will also be available on nbcolympics.com and as video-on-demand. For the first time, viewers will be able to see much of the Games in high-definition. But just as awesome as those pictures is the story of how nearly 3,000 NBC staffers are pulling off this massive technological, logistical and programming feat.

The single most astonishing statistic regarding NBC Universal's coverage of the Winter Olympics from Torino, Italy, is the sheer size of the endeavor. More hours of Olympics coverage are planned than there are hours in a day: The 416 total hours that will be televised across various NBC platforms from the opening Feb. 10 to the closing Feb. 26 average out to 24.5 hours a day.

“We are reinventing the clock,” quips NBC Sports executive producer and Olympics Executive VP, David Neal.

If it works the way NBC hopes, the 2006 Winter Olympics should be some great news in a so-so season for the network. It shelled out $1.5 billion for rights to these Games and the 2008 Summer Games from Beijing. Happily for NBC, the U.S. team promises strong performances in several arenas, which ought to drag in viewers. And give or take a million, NBC has more than $800 million in advertising commitments.

NBC is determined to create viewer-friendly experiences with what Neal calls its on-air and online “road maps” to what's on now and what's coming up. That's necessary because there will be so much Olympics coverage. NBC Universal is using MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Telemundo, Universal HD and NBC HD, plus nbcolympics.com to show the games. NBC is also debuting Olympic video-on-demand (VOD). The VOD package will feature daily highlight videos and one-hour figure-skating programs. In 2002, some 170 million viewers saw at least part of the Salt Lake Winter Games.

And it will dominate the national scene, especially in troubling times. “The nations of the world are all gathered for two weeks of friendly competition, and that in effect is comfort food to viewers,” Neal says. “It's reassuring TV.”

For a brief time at least, the Olympics hooks viewers. In fact, although nbcolympics.com will show in real time results of contests that viewers may not see until hours later, Gary Zenkel, president of the NBC Olympics division, says flatly, “I don't think that's a liability.” Remarkably, rival espn.com will add a link to NBC's Olympics site.

The most important piece of NBC's Olympics game plan in terms of innovation, says coordinating producer Molly Solomon, is how much will be in HD (see story, p. 7). But, while the Games become a major showcase for the technology, the Olympics promote NBC's interests, too. For instance, Solomon touts hockey's fast-paced action as perfect for HD. It doesn't hurt that NBC also is in the first weeks of a contract to air NHL games.

Beyond high-definition, NBC's grandest achievement is just pulling all of this material together and helping viewers digest it. Recognizing the huge interest that viewers, particularly women, have in figure skating, every night on USA at 6-7 p.m., the network will feature a one-hour special called Olympic Ice, highlighting everything from the day's performances to personalities to rumors or judging controversies. Solomon credits NBC Universal Sports and Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol with making the idea work.

Brad Adgate, senior VP/director of research at Horizon Media, likes the idea. “It's fishing where the fish are: There is a lot of audience for this sport, especially because Americans are historically strong in it and, since the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan Olympics, it has taken on a life of its own.”

Indeed, figure skating brings the same unpredictability as American Idol: The favorites don't always win. “It's a subjective sport,” Solomon says. “It has the costumes and the music and the whole creative side of it, and there seems to be such a drama every time.”

Curling Fever: Catch It!

The network's other major programming move is at the opposite end of the excitement spectrum. It's curling-mania! Most Americans have little to no knowledge about the sport, but maybe because it is so esoteric, it got “hot” during the 2002 games. So NBC is adding more curling, mostly on MSNBC and CNBC. “We didn't do any complete games in Salt Lake City, but this time we're doing two a day,” Solomon says. “There's an audience for it.”

The curling play is “a gamble worth taking,” says Larry Novenstern, executive director for national electronic media for Optimedia. “ Look at reality shows or poker on TV; this is something they can play out until it bottoms out.” Playing on CNBC and MSNBC, there's hardly a risk that too much curling will hurt ratings.

Then again, NBC Universal has substantially increased the amount of everything it will offer—41 hours more than two years ago—and particularly in terms of how much it will show live and in its entirety. That's especially true on the women's side of the ledger. The various networks will show all 54 hockey games live and carry all Team USA hockey games and the gold-medal games—both men's and women's—not only live and in their entirety but also completely commercial-free.

To fit all these sports into a cohesive package, NBC execs spent months placing each event into a grid and then moving each piece into its proper place.

Because of the time difference, events that air on NBC in prime time will all be on tape. Neal explains that, even though news competitors and even NBC's own Web site will post up-to-the-minute results and final scores, network research shows the masses want to sit and watch in prime time. NBC loves that idea.

The Olympics Versus The Competition
Monday, Feb. 20
THE COMPETITION: Fox trots out new episodes of its solid Monday-night lineup of House and 24.
________________________________________

Tuesday, Feb. 21:
THE COMPETITION: Fox is going straight after Michelle Kwan and friends with a two-hour American Idol.
________________________________________

Thursday, Feb. 23
THE COMPETITION: Fox is going with an hour of Idol.


What? Fox is moving new House episodes to Monday and doing more 2 hour Idol shows on Tuesdays and then is doing another hour on Thursday, the wrong night for the show? Talk about messing with people.... Fox exec's should be shot!

I agree, I really get weary of FOX and their scheduling gymnastics.

Solid lineup? Has House ever followed 24?

I remember watching the Rat Patrol as a kid. It is amazing how far action tv shows have gone in the years since then.

TV Notebook
A last-minute primer on Super Bowl XL

By Rick Kushman Sacramento Bee TV Columnist

As most people know, federal law requires all American media over the next few days to have a Super Bowl reference in everything we write.

So, let's start with this: The halftime show stars the Rolling Stones. If any of those guys takes off his shirt, I'm leaving.

The Stones, by the way, will perform live, not lip-sync à la Ashlee Simpson, and they aren't saying what their set will be. I'm telling you, I smell a wardrobe malfunction. Next comes congressional resolutions against old rock bands on tour, which may not be such an awful thing.

Other than that, here are the basics. This is Super Bowl XL. That's a Roman numeral, not a size. The game is supposed to kick off at 6:18 p.m. ET (on ABC). I do not know why they don't just round it off, especially since it never starts on the dot. Figure 6:23ish.

Pregame coverage on ESPN starts at 11 a.m. ET, more than seven hours before kickoff. ABC will start its pregame coverage at 2:30 p.m. ET and ESPN will keep going. Anyone who watches the whole pregame run-up needs to ask themselves serious questions about their use of time.

The on-the-field pregame entertainment will be led by Stevie Wonder and include John Legend and Joss Stone. Aretha Franklin, Aaron Neville and Dr. John are joining together for the national anthem. Janet Jackson is expected to be locked in a room somewhere.

Play-by-play comes from John Madden and Al Michaels. It's the last time they will work together, at least for ABC. Madden is going to NBC and Michaels, who has signed with ESPN to continue doing Monday Night Football, is rumored to maybe possibly perhaps be going somewhere else instead. Or not.

ABC's pregame and game coverage are in high-definition. Someone somewhere will not get it in high-def. I can never explain why. If that happens to be you, take it up with your cable or satellite provider.

Ads are costing up to $2.5 million for 30 seconds this year. No one knows if it's worth it. Anheuser-Busch bought the most time. Expect the best ads early in the game (when advertisers assume viewers are sober) and at the start of the second half (when advertisers think everyone will at least have used the restroom).

And in case you don't know but are going to a party anyway, the teams are the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks. The Steelers will be in white.

________________________________________

Also on Sunday, we'll get Round Two of the most brilliant, bizarre and adorable counter-programming on TV.

I give you Puppy Bowl II.

This is Animal Planet's nearly all-day "coverage" of 21 puppies basically just hanging out. But in a really, really cute way.

The network got a good-sized pen, painted it to look vaguely like a football field, and let the puppies just wander around, wrestle, play with toys and do general puppy things for three hours.

There is no narration, no talk and not a lot of plot - though occasionally a puppy will go for the water bowl and we'll see a puppy nose close-up through the water-bowl cam.

At halftime, they'll switch to kittens for a while.

It all starts at 3 PM ET and repeats until midnight, and you have to trust me when I say, as stupid as it sounds, the Puppy Bowl is irresistible if you have any kind of a soul.

Last year, I was in a room full of eating, drinking, football-watching adults and during a Super Bowl timeout, we got mesmerized by the Puppy Bowl. Totally hypnotized. People said, "Awwww."

We weren't the only ones. The Puppy Bowl drew 2 million viewers last year, according to Animal Planet - about 10 times what the network might get on an average Sunday, and this was against the Super Bowl.

The pups and kittens, by the way, are from animal shelters, and Animal Planet will tell viewers during the show how to adopt pets. More information, as well as adoption links, are available at www.animalplanet.com. So, too, are previews of the puppies.

A new feature this year is that viewers can vote for the MVP - yeah, the Most Valuable Puppy. I'm thinking Badger and Danny look like players, but I wouldn't rule out Louie, Mickey or, of course, Cha Cha. There's an old Puppy Bowl adage: Never bet against Cha Cha.

________________________________________

The post-Super Bowl show this year is ABC's lively "Grey's Anatomy." It's scheduled for 10:15 ET but, really, who knows when it will actually air.

This is something of a change of strategy for the network carrying the game. In previous years, the game network used the huge audience to try to launch a new show, such as NBC's "The A-Team" (1983) and "Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993), or, uh, ABC's "MacGruder & Loud" (1985). I'm not saying it always worked.

More recently, the nets picked their most popular shows, such as NBC's "Friends" or Fox's "The Simpsons," just to get more huge ratings. That 1996 episode of "Friends" drew more than 56 million people and set the postgame ratings record.

Airing "Grey's Anatomy" is a combination of both concepts. The show is a consistent top-10 series, but still is something of a secret outside its loyal fan base. The reason is, it looks from the outside like just another medical show with a soap-opera plot. But it isn't exactly either.

It's the story of young docs and their generally messed-up personal lives, but it's written with a bright, ironic tone, moves briskly, and has a set of unusual, slightly to enormously flawed characters, all of whom are instantly interesting.

Producers are saying nothing about the postgame episode, except that you don't need to know back stories to appreciate it. Sounds like a good chance to try it out. Besides, after all the chips and chicken wings, staying on the couch might be the best move.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/columns/kushman/v-print/story/14143273p-14971707c.html

How in the world can they let a lame pretender like Joss Stone on the same stage as Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin? I thought it was blaspemous enough when she duetted with Mavis Staples, for crissakes.

TV Notebook
A Survivor Figures Out What to Do With Himself

By Claire Federer The New York Times February 5, 2006

Back in October, Jeff Probst, the host of the "Survivor" series, considered quitting the show after this coming season. He implied that his problem was with his higher-ups at CBS. "I honestly have no idea what they think about me," he told Entertainment Weekly. "If they even know what I do, or if they look at me as disposable."

Eventually they showed their appreciation: In December they signed him up for two more years, encompassing four more seasons of the show. "Survivor Panama: Exile Island" had its premiere last week.

His contractual issues may be settled, but the underlying question remains: What does Jeff Probst do?

In the show's first episodes, shown during the summer of 2000, it was hard to take him seriously. He was eager and freckly. He buddied up to the contestants. He smiled constantly. His voice was softer than it is now. Tribal council seemed actively to pain him. He wore shorts. Since then it's become clear that he does a lot more than that, but it has taken him a while to define the job.

My friends and I love strategy games, so we were "Survivor" fans from the beginning. During commercials the phone lines burned from house to house: "Can you believe she said that?" "Why don't they just vote him out? He's so annoying!" "Why is that big fat man naked?"

We loved "Survivor," but were kind of embarrassed about loving it, and Mr. Probst embodied everything shaming about the show. He was corny, with his dimpled pretty-boy looks and his gigantic torch snuffer. He didn't seem connected to the made-up rituals. He just stood there in his shorts and mouthed the lines: "Survivors, go!" and "The tribe has spoken." And he barely even pretended to believe the fiction that he ran the game. In that first season Mr. Probst just seemed to be a jolly campmate who was never voted off.

But in the second season he became cooler, more dignified. He stopped making friends with the contestants and started asking them questions. He became what he is now: a methodical, meticulous interviewer, more police investigator than talk-show host. He has a knack for asking just the right question and then, of all things, actually listening to the answer.

Mr. Probst's agile questioning challenged my assumption that he was a mere mouthpiece. Indeed, Mark Burnett, the show's creator, explained that Mr. Probst is not fed his material. "Jeff gets some information about what's going on, but he doesn't need to know much," Mr. Burnett said. "He likes to figure out on his own what's going on. Some tribal councils might last one-and-a-half to two hours while Jeff gets the talk to where he wants it to be. Jeff is very interested in people and things, and that comes across."

It was during the Pearl Islands season — the fall of 2004 — that Mr. Probst really came into his own. For starters, he had great material to work with. That season saw some of "Survivor's" biggest personalities ever: the piratic Rupert, the slimy Jonny Fairplay, the sport-coat-clad lawyer Andrew Savage, and the buff-yet-exhausted Ostin.

It was in his exchanges with Jonny Fairplay and Ostin that Mr. Probst's new steeliness came into view. At tribal council, he asked, "What are you basing your vote on?" Jonny Fairplay, with his tangle of bleached curls and his weasel's face, answered, "Whatever the astrological signs tell me." And then something happened that you rarely see on television: pure silence. Mr. Probst stopped and just stared at Jon. All of a sudden Mr. Probst looked like an immunity idol himself. Perfectly still. Perfectly comfortable with the quiet and with the tension he was causing. Finally he asked, "Is that a respectful way to treat somebody you've lived with for 12 days?" When he sent the group home from tribal council that night, he looked as though he was sick of the sight of them.

A couple weeks later Ostin decided to quit. A big, brawny, gym-built guy, he said his body — which he referred to, unfortunately, as his "temple" — just couldn't take it anymore: "My temple has nothing to offer me right now." At tribal council, Mr. Probst duly snuffed Ostin's torch but didn't give him the respect of the traditional goodbye. Instead he said, "Ostin, per your wishes, go home." Then he turned to the remaining group: "With all due respect to Ostin, people work too damn hard to get in this game and fight to stay alive." Mr. Probst's message was clear: Don't disrespect this game.

Those episodes seemed to kick off a new era. Mr. Probst isn't just a host anymore — he has become the game's guardian. He has no patience for people who, as they say in England, lower the tone. He still roots for players and is excited by a good challenge, but as often as not he conducts tribal councils in the key of I've Had It With You People. Sometimes he throws in a half-laughing dose of Utter Disbelief.

And with good reason. "Survivor" is now in its 12th installment, and contestants still arrive not knowing how to make fire. They still haven't thought about how to build a shelter, or what they'll do if an alliance swings against them. They still boss each other around and pick ridiculous fights. It makes it hard to identify with them. But "Survivor" is not a show about contestants anyway — anyone you might root for is likely to be booted off the island. It encourages a cooler, more detached way of viewing. You savor the characters like a cannibal contemplating a feast: Who's next?

Non-"Survivor" people who say, "Oh, it's all just done with editing" are missing the point. "Survivor" fans love the editing. We love the — forgive me — artistry of the show. We love the twists, the ingenious casting and the deprivations. The producers are like the Greek gods, sitting on Mount Olympus, setting dramas and scenarios and defeats into motion. As we sit at home trying to guess what's going to happen next, we feel closer to these gods than we do to the actual contestants.

Mr. Probst is in a unique position. He's a producer, one of the gods, but he's also a viewer like us. Like the gods, his job is to protect his realm. Like the viewers, he just cannot believe what he's seeing. His gift is that he has found a way to project both these personae at the same time: He's simultaneously haughty and fascinated. This weird hybrid makes him the best reality-show host on television, though to some that might sound more like an insult than a compliment. At any rate, he has one thing nailed down: These days he always wears pants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/arts/television/05dederer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Sports Media and Business
Warning: Pregame Develops Bloating

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times February 5, 2006

The Super Bowl pregame show is no mere show but a symbol of the rampant gigantism endemic to the event. It was once a fairly ordinary presentation, a couple of hours long, back in a prehistoric era when TV executives had a sense of proportion and Terry Bradshaw wore a hair system.

Then they learned that the bigger they grew the program, the more advertising they could sell, and they said that was very, very good. The Super Bowl pregames were XL long before time caught up to the game itself.

Now the ESPN empire, which has swallowed ABC Sports but has not yet spit it out, has taken a giant leap beyond the annually enormous pregame load.

As befitting its ever-growing size, the empire of all media has (to use a phrase we will hear at least three dozen times today) stepped up with the largest one-day buffet of pregame programming ever attempted.

At 11 a.m., ESPN will start its six-hour pregame extravaganza. Then, at 2:30 p.m., ABC's three-and-half-hour production will start, preceding the Steelers-Seahawks match. With the pregame festivities lasting nine and a half hours, the game that made this bloating necessary will be one-third the size of what preceded it. (The NFL Network is carrying a five-hour pregame extravaganza.) No other sport's final game can boast of this, and let us be thankful for that.

Only three years ago, when ABC last carried the Super Bowl, ESPN's "NFL Countdown" went from 11 to 2, and ABC followed with four hours. They didn't overlap, but then, that was before ESPN ate ABC Sports.

The man in charge of ESPN's and ABC's pregame activities disagrees with my theory of the radical distending of the pregame. Norby Williamson, an executive vice president of ESPN, said last week during a conference call: "I don't think it's a bit much at all. Our goal is to serve the sports fan."

He added: "There's an insatiable thirst for news, information and stories about the Super Bowl. It's the biggest event there is."

In recent years, the Super Bowl networks have given increasing detail to the news media about what they will show in their pregame. What they promise sometimes sounds dandy, but the execution is lousy, especially in the delivery of behind-the-scenes, all-access, in-your-nose-hairs footage.

For today, the ESPN and ABC rundowns sound lovely enough. New England Coach Bill Belichick's analysis of Super Bowl defenses will be seen on ABC at 4:43 p.m. A report on a Pop Warner league for disabled children will be on ESPN at 12:46, then repeated, at a shorter length, on ABC, at 4:20.

Each show will feature profiles of Steelers Coach BIll Cowher (by Al Michaels on ABC and by Greg Garber on ESPN). Jerome Bettis and Ben Roethlisberger will be the subjects of separate features on ABC, but ESPN will squeeze them into a single segment. ESPN will examine Seattle Coach Mike Holmgren's influence on quarterbacks, while ABC will focus on the medical work of his wife, Kathy, in Africa. And, for some reason, Kenny Mayne, who got a quick hook recently on "Dancing with the Stars," will make nachos on ESPN with Martha Stewart.

One danger of the two networks airing separate, overlapping programs is the overload of personnel; they may resemble the number of extras when Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea.

On ABC, the cast will be Chris Berman, Michael Irvin, Tom Jackson, Steve Young, Mike Tirico and Belichick.

The ESPN roster includes Stuart Scott, Trey Wingo, Mike Ditka, Sean Salisbury, Joe Theismann, Mark Schlereth and Darren Woodson. There is no evidence at this writing that Nick Lachey, who was inexplicably hired last season for "College Gameday," will be there for some sports-entertainment fusion.

How much entertainment Belichick brings may depend on whether he's being tickled underneath the studio desk in Detroit. Perhaps without game pressure, and in a suit and tie, Belichick will be wittier and chattier than he is in his gray sideline hoodie.

Berman insisted that Belichick was "a very interesting person, although you don't know that from his pre- and postgame press conferences." (Yes, we've heard that.)

He added, "He wasn't invented for the sound bite, but he's interesting, and my God, he breaks down stuff."

The nine and a half hours will eventually end, followed by an actual game. It will be ABC's final N.F.L. game for the foreseeable future, after the end of its 36-season "Monday Night Football" run.

John Madden will complete his ABC tenure and make his move to NBC, his fourth broadcast network, for Sunday night games.

Al Michaels will wrap up his 20th season as ABC's play-by-play voice of football. At that moment, he will morph into ESPN's "Monday Night" voice, but that gig may last as little as a few days before the ever-likelier announcement that he has been freed from his eight-year deal to join Madden on NBC for the next six years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/sports/football/05sandomir.html?pagewanted=print

Sports Media and Business
Olympic TV forecast: Total snow coverage

By Jonathan Storm Philadelphia Inquirer Television Critic

NBC plans a Winter Olympics lineup that Frosty the Snowman would love, if he could stay cozy by the tube without melting. But not even a slip-slide fanatic like Frosty will be able to keep up with it all.

Running Friday through Feb. 26, the coverage will average 241/2 hours a day across broadcast and cable networks.

Snowmen and figure fanatics aren't the only ones anticipating the Games from Turin, Italy.

The avalanche of blade, board and broom competition - including comprehensive curling coverage on cable - has attracted attention from TV folks and advertisers far more interested in cold cash than snow and ice.

As in the past, other TV networks will try to duck competition with the Olympics ratings behemoth. Hollywood has moved the Oscar ceremonies to March, and the networks will rely more heavily on reruns, going lighter on premieres and events.

But in 2006, the networks have also slotted some big shows against NBC's winter wonderland, including American Idol and Survivor.

"This is probably the most competition the Olympics have ever faced, considering the heavy hitters like Survivor and American Idol," said Kelly Kahl, CBS executive vice president of program planning and scheduling, in a telephone interview.

On the morning of Feb. 15, TV industry eyes will focus not on the stick-handling of Kazakstan's hockey forward Andrey Pchelyakov in his game against Sweden, shown live on MSNBC, but on the Nielsen ratings to see if Fox's American Idol outpointed NBC's skiing, skating and luge.

If Idol comes out on top, it would be an extremely rare ratings victory for an entertainment show over the Olympics.

During the Games, there will be four more nights of American Idol, the only show currently on TV whose audience rivals the size of Winter Olympics audiences of the past.

"Ratings for an event like the Olympics aren't necessarily drawn from the usual prime-time television audience," said Preston Beckman, Fox's executive vice president for strategic program planning. "For us to suddenly program differently for those two weeks would be a mistake for our network."

On the other hand, NBC, and some of its cable allies - MSNBC, CNBC, the USA Network - will be unrecognizable during the Games.

Despite the six-hour time difference, the cable channels will be awash in live coverage, the most ever from a Winter Olympics, including all 54 men's and women's hockey games live without commercials on cable, except the gold medal games, which will be on NBC - and 15 of 26 curling matches.

(Curling proved strangely popular during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, executive producer David Neal said in a telephone interview from Turin. "Maybe it's because a beer at the end is an absolute ritual," he speculated.)

The marquee prime-time programming of the most popular sports - including figure skating, snowboarding and downhill skiing - will be entirely tape-delayed on NBC itself.

"We do studies repeatedly on this," Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics, told TV critics in Los Angeles last month. "Over 90 percent [of viewers] say that they're available in prime time and at no other point during the day."

With the Internet and other cable news stations, it will be harder than ever to avoid knowing who won the day before, as the TV show starts in Philadelphia at 2 a.m. Italian time. Most viewers don't care, he said.

The Winter Olympics provide a slippery slope for networks going up against them. Excluding the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway, when the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan soap opera sent audience interest into a frothy frenzy approaching that of the annual Oscar show, the February Games since 1988 have averaged an 18.4 prime-time rating, night in and night out, according to Nielsen Media Research.

That's four points higher than Desperate Housewives has averaged this season, 2.5 points higher than CSI. Only one series this season has higher numbers: the Tuesday edition of American Idol.

"We have to probably gamble a little bit on how we anticipate the Games will do," said CBS's Kahl. "For us, it's a mix. Most of our scripted programming will be repeats. But we have original movies, and Survivor."

At ABC, which plans some new series installments and some reruns, Jeffrey Bader, executive vice president of ABC Entertainment, said, "It makes sense to save some original episodes for March. Still, this is about as competitive a February 'sweeps' as we could hope to have in an Olympic year."

Easy for him to say, with not just Desperate Housewives, Lost, and Dancing With the Stars, but also today's Super Bowl, the ultimate American sporting event, inflating the numbers.

Both Neal and Ebersol promise that their coverage, though providing strong emphasis on American athletes - "these incredible kids," Ebersol called them - will avoid the xenophobia of some previous Olympics programs.

One of the building blocks of NBC's Olympic production is to be international, Neal said: "Our profile unit has a hard-and-fast rule that we will always do more than 50 percent about international athletes." Of about 60 packages, he said, fewer than 25 feature Americans.

"This is the single best international gathering, bar none - the youth of the world gathered for nothing but friendly competition," Neal said.

The TV competition isn't so friendly. With $1.5 billion gone for the rights alone, NBC is looking for a clean sweep in the ratings to rival the Olympic champion curling brooms.

And ABC, CBS and Fox, with twinkle-toed dancers, half-naked island tribes, and full-throated screechers and warblers, are hoping to put a little melt into those expectations.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//13783223.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Sports Media and Business
Super Bowl ads aim to score with Latinos, families

By Joanne Ostrow Denver Post TV Critic

There is a 108 percent increase in the retail sales of chili seasoning mix in the week before a Super Bowl, says reliable A.C. Nielsen research. As a predictor of this weekend's gastrointestinal challenges, that figure may be instructive.

What we can expect on the screen during ABC's telecast of the Pittsburgh-Seattle matchup may be equally savory:

Fewer tech ads. Lots of car ads because the game is beaming from Detroit. Clean humor. And the first bilingual commercial.

Those are the expectations for what 90 million viewers will see during the Super Bowl, some of us more focused on the commercial content than the on-field action. Spots are $2.5 million per 30 seconds this year, up from $2.4 million last year.

Burger King has a Busby Berkeley-style musical number in which 92 Whopperettes sing and dance, dressed as ingredients. Sprint cellphone users can download the ad for repeat viewing. Pizza Hut also promises a musical production number, starring Jessica Simpson and the Muppets.

Cadillac Escalade will offer a high-styled fashion show in a 60-second spot replete with 125 extras. The $5 million extravaganza for the gas guzzler employs Hall of Fame running back Marcus Allen and supermodel Rachel Hunter.

A running back may be intriguing for a fraction of the audience, but those of us who watch for the commercials rather than the football will be more intrigued by the nonplayers in the advertising. Namely, Fabio.

The macho model will pitch for Nationwide Insurance in a sly mini-story line: What at first appears to be a shampoo ad takes a turn to depict a suddenly aged Fabio, illustrating the need for insurance.

Driving into new commercial turf, Toyota will showcase its hybrid by comparing it to the country's bilingual Latinos. The conceit is considered smart for the company since the Super Bowl audience will include many young Latinos and the hybrid Camry is a top seller with Spanish-speaking consumers.

Sunday's biggest spenders are longtime Super Bowl customers Anheuser-Busch and Pepsi.

One ad has spurred controversy even before its airing. A spot for Coke's Full Throttle energy drink shows an 18-wheeler tailgating a smaller truck and blasting its air horn. The smaller truck, representing rival Red Bull, is forced off the road as the Full Throttle driver bellows "Yahoo!" The American Trucking Association has protested, Advertising Age reported.

The only possibility for suspense, beyond the game itself, is the GoDaddy.com spot, which will try to sneak by the censors with "edgy" material. ABC, owned by Walt Disney Co., is known to employ tough censors. Given the hoopla over alleged indecencies in recent years, this year's ads are expected to be "family-friendly."

Another trend achieving prominence this year is the spreading of ads from TV to cellphones. Sprint, as a sponsor of the telecast, is the key facilitator of that move. The theory is, if you like the ads Sunday, you'll want to be able to replay them Monday.

As a weary nation knows, halftime is no longer just for bathroom breaks. It's touted as a cultural deconstruction, a window on America' soul and everything wrong with same.

In 2005, afer Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," Paul McCartney was the featured halftime entertainment. No stripping or innuendo from Sir Paul. This year, the Rolling Stones are on for halftime, in what could be a return to riskier fare. At least it won't just fill the world with silly love songs.

http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=3470049

Critic’s Notebook
''House''

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

Well, it's Super Bowl morning and they're talking about the game on ESPN's 'Sports Reporters'' (today's lineup: Albom, Wilbon, Lupica). But I'm still thinking about ''House.'' The bride and I wound down last night by watching a disc of two new episodes, including the one airing Tuesday.

In some ways, it's very familiar ''House'' -- complicated medical mysteries and glimpses of the personal side of the doctors. And, in more than a glimpse, House's complicated relationship with his ex-wife takes a couple of new turns.

But what's also interesting about the show is that the way the characters seem to be talking about the show itself as well as themselves. In one episode, as a doctor tries to explain a medical condition, House objects -- insisting that metaphors are his territory. (You can almost hear the same conversation happening in the writers' room.)

Even more pointed are remarks by Wilson to House about his irascible friend's emotional state: ''You're afraid if you change, you'll lose what makes you special.''

That's said in the context of House's overall unhappiness, and it illuminates the ongoing challenge for ''House'' and for other TV shows. If you establish a character the audience likes, and keep the character exactly the way the audience likes him, then eventually everyone gets bored. But if you change the character, you risk alienating the viewers who liked him exactly the way he was.

We're not just talking about characters, of course. We're talking about physical appearance -- when a cute little kid in the first season of a show has the gall to grow older, bigger and less cute -- and relationships -- when romantic tension between a couple is charming at the beginning but over time either becomes redundant or has to be resolved. ''Grey's Anatomy'' has proved very smart in dealing with the whole Meredith/McDreamy situation, which looked like a huge cliche at the beginning of the series; of course, ''Grey's'' is also is in just its second season, and it seems to have settled in for a long run.

Before Wilson makes that comment to ''House,'' he says something else: ''You don't like yourself. But you do admire yourself. It's all you've got, so you cling to it.'' The show constantly faces the problem of not clinging too much to House's self-loathing and the way it affects his dealings with others. But if it stops clinging, where does it go?

We've already seen times when House was indeed likable; he has been very good with children, for instance. How many moments like that will we see before House becomes a different character? While watching those two episodes, I wondered if ''House'' would have been better off as a British series, making only a handful of episodes every year, and so under less pressure to keep the story going; I also wondered if there were times when the producers, writers and cast wished they could just give a big farewell after a couple of seasons -- sending ''House'' to a logical narrative point and then not having to drag it out long after their (and the audience's) patience had worn out.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

TV Notebook
More about that special “Grey’s Anatomy” following Super Bowl XL

From Shonda Rhimes, creator and writer of upcoming post-Super Bowl episode

Episode Airdate: 2/5/06 -- After the Super Bowl!!!

So I’m all…”Pitch for the Superbowl episode? Sure, why not…they won’t pick us...so it’s no big deal…” I typed out a one page synopsis and sent it in to the powers-that-be at Touchstone and ABC. Then I lay back down on the couch and promptly forgot about it.

They picked us.

Now, to understand what this meant to me, you have to understand how I write. I don’t. Not until the last possible minute. Then I churn it all out in a crazed frenzy while eating ice chips and cursing the gods for not making me something sensible like an astronaut or a prima ballerina. Prima ballerinas do not have to write things. But I guess since they have to be freakishly thin, they may have it worse off than me.

But I was sick. Actually sick – not my usual drama sick. So sick that members of the cast were peering through the door at me in my office and very kindly trying to suggest that maybe I might want to consider heading over to the nearest hospital and moving in for a while. So sick that the medical research team did an intervention and sent one of their own in to examine. So sick that the entire show had to be shut down for a week so that I could recover enough to not cough up pieces of my lung on my computer screen while writing. Let me tell you: it sucked.

Now, I tell you this as a shameless ploy for sympathy. I love sympathy as I am a neurotic writer. And to distract you from the fact that, because I am a neurotic writer, I procrastinated and procrastinated until literally the DAY of the read-through (a read-through is when we gather together the entire cast and they do us the honor of reading the script out loud at a big round table – even after a season and a half, it is amazing to me that I get to hear my words read aloud by these truly talented people). At which point, I started writing like a crazed fiend. I finished writing the script just in time for my team to make copies of the script and race them over to put them into the cast’s hands as they were taking their seats at the big round table. None of us, including me, had any idea if what I’d written would even work. I was nervous and wishing I was still sick. Because you never know. I love my actors and my actors like me well enough. But still…

Perhaps they would chase me with torches and stone me to death with rage at my idiocy. Perhaps they’d smile politely but coldly at me and run to call their agents so that they could beg to get off this show. Or, you know, perhaps they would raise me on their shoulders and carry me around singing showtunes in my honor.

They did nothing of the sort. What they did do was gasp, yell, hoot with laughter, applaud and openly weep as they read the pages aloud. Ellen Pompeo shrieked “HOLY CRAP!” right in the middle of the reading. Katie Heigl started to cry somewhere around page 20. Sandra Oh just kept whispering “oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh, oh, OH MY GOSH.” And after I got hugs. I am not the hugging kind but still…if you stand very still and hug back, it is nice. The director, Peter Horton, was thrilled. The writers were thrilled. The studio and the network were thrilled.

Thrilled. It’s good, that word. Thrilled.

So please watch.

I hope you like it. A lot of work by the cast and crew went into this episode. Work I’ll be able to explain to you after the episode airs and it stops being the big giant secret episode that we don’t talk about…

http://www.greyswriters.com/2006/01/from_shonda_rhi.html

TV Notebook
`Grey's' gets its chance at postgame glory

By Phil Rosenthal Chicago Tribune Media Columnist February 5, 2006

It's the end of a long day. The party's over, and you're about as fresh as that big bowl of guacamole you put out hours earlier.

The Steelers and Seahawks will have finished battering each other--on a five-second delay, lest someone utter a naughty word--and ABC will have wrapped up its postgame show. Sometime after 9 p.m., millions will find themselves watching the medical melodrama "Grey's Anatomy."

It might be the biggest audience ever for "Grey's," though how many will be alert and engaged is anyone's guess.

So "Grey's" creator Shonda Rhimes has come up with an episode she hopes will wake everybody up. "Something happens and bad stuff follows. ... It's our show sort of on speed, I guess," she said, characteristically tight-lipped.

Networks make a big deal out of the program they showcase after the Super Bowl. It's considered a position of honor for the shows and their producers.

The Chosen Show pulls a big number because the Super Bowl, its lead-in, pulls a bigger number. But the track record is uneven, to say the least.

Yes, the post-Super Bowl slot has been used to introduce "The A-Team," "The Wonder Years," "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "Family Guy." But does anyone remember "MacGruder & Loud," "The Last Precinct," "Grand Slam" or "Extreme"?

Quick. Name the shows that followed last year's Super Bowl?

Time's up.

It was "The Simpsons" and the premiere of "American Dad," almost as hard to recall as the Eagles' loss to the Patriots, and Paul McCartney kept his shirt on at halftime.

After 86 million viewers watched the game and Fox's postgame show, "The Simpsons" came on at 9:45 Chicago time and drew 23 million viewers, its biggest audience in 11 years but fewer viewers than watched both editions of "American Idol" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" that week.

By the time "American Dad" was unleashed on viewers, the number of viewers was down to 15 million.

Just how big a bump Ellen Pompeo, Patrick Dempsey and the gang on "Grey's" will get is debatable. The show averages a robust 17.9 million viewers at 9 p.m. Sundays this season. But then its regular lead-in, "Desperate Housewives," is no slouch with 23.1 million viewers each week.

"`Grey's Anatomy'? We chose it because it's one of the best shows on television, and it's gaining momentum," ABC Entertainment boss Steve McPherson said. "We feel like it's an asset that is only growing, and we wanted to expose it to a larger audience. ... It's going to be a huge part of our future, and so we wanted to give it every boost we could."

When already successful shows follow the Super Bowl, they tend to do all right, though it's hard to gauge if Super Sunday has a lasting effect.

An extra-special "Friends" with Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields and Jean Claude Van Damme drew 53 million viewers in 1996 after Dallas and Pittsburgh drew 94 million viewers.

Some say the big number for that '96 episode is why NBC gave Shields "Suddenly Susan," which shows you just how misleading these things can be.

In the long view, clearly, the post-Super Bowl posting did little to help shows such as "Third Rock From the Sun," which tried an overblown 1998 episode in the "Friends" mold with Cindy Crawford and other supermodels, and "The Practice," which sent its Boston lawyers to Los Angeles in 2000.

In 2003, the last time ABC had the Super Bowl, the network got greedy and its postgame show (and postgame show ads) ran almost 45 minutes, complete with a dopey stunt from the team of Penn & Teller, until just after 10 p.m.

The result that year was the 89 million or so viewers who watched the big game were squandered. "Alias," which had hoped the postgame slot would give it a new chance to win over viewers, wound up drawing only 17.4 million and outside prime time.

McPherson said that he has been assured the postgame show won't run that long this year. If it does, your guacamole won't be the only thing going bad.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0602050184feb05,0,7251690,print.column

Saturday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest Prime Time Ratings news which is the first post in this thread.

TV Notebook
Meet your maker, couch potatoes

By Ted Gregory Chicago Tribune staff reporter February 5, 2006

On Sunday, when about 90 million people are expected to gather around TVs for the biggest sports party of the year, it might be fitting to raise the remote controls in a salute to Eugene Polley.

Polley, 90, who lives in a junk-cluttered house, plays pool for pocket change and likes a smooth gin and tonic, is the patron saint of couch potatoes--or he would be, if they knew who he was.

Fifty years ago, Polley invented the wireless remote. In return, he got $1,000 and a lifetime of gnawing irritation at being squeezed out of pop culture history. Now, he's trying to set the record straight.

"Not only did I not get credit for doing anything," said Polley, whose friends call him "Zapper," "I got a kick in the rear end."

About a half-billion remotes, in various incarnations, are on coffee tables, between couch pillows or who knows where in homes across the U.S. They have revolutionized the way TV is viewed and produced. Their technology has been adapted to open garage doors and turn on furnaces.

But the man who gets almost all the credit for inventing them is not Eugene Polley, a college dropout from Lombard. It is Robert Adler of Northbrook, an Austrian-born physicist with a PhD from the University of Vienna.

Adler came to work at Zenith Electronics Corp., then based in Chicago, in 1941. Polley joined Zenith as a mechanically inclined stock boy in 1935 and navigated his way into the engineering department.

The wireless remote Adler invented, known as the Space Command, was vastly more popular than Polley's earlier version. Zenith and other electronics manufacturers sold 9 million of the Adler-inspired "ultrasonic" units from the time they were introduced in the fall of 1956 until about 1982, when technology using infrared light began overtaking the consumer market.

But the Space Command came about a year after Polley created his remote for Zenith. Called the Flashmatic, it was a flashlight shaped like a sprinkler nozzle. The viewer would direct the beam of light at sensors in the corners of the set to change channels or turn the picture and sound on and off.

The Flashmatic was so popular Zenith was unable to keep up with demand. In less than a year, the electronics manufacturer sold 30,000 of the units. For his work, Polley received a $1,000 award from Zenith.

Glitches doom device

But the Flashmatic had some glitches. If the set were placed in direct sunlight, the TV could pop and sputter as if a poltergeist had taken up residence. And when the batteries in the remote started to run down, consumers thought the TV was malfunctioning.

When Zenith's founder and president, Eugene F. McDonald Jr., called for development of a better remote, Adler came up with the concept of using sound. His "clicker" had small hammers that struck rods to produce a high-frequency sound that signaled the TV.

But Adler's "ultrasonic" technology also was flawed. The TV could be set off by keys jingling, dog tags rattling or a coin jar being emptied on the carpet in front of the set. It also was expensive, adding $100 to the TV's cost.

Those flaws, however, were perceived as less obvious than the problems with the Flashmatic. So corporate muscle got behind the ultrasonic technology, leaving historians and experts to scratch their heads at the mention of Eugene Polley.

"I've heard Adler's name," said Jim Barry, spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association and former editor of what is now Sound & Vision magazine. "Polley doesn't ring a bell."

Barry added that electronics inventions typically are the product of "a variety of people working on them." As time passes, Barry said, "it kind of coalesces around one person."

Adler, 92, agrees that history has focused on him, and he is more than a little uncomfortable with the distinction as father of the remote.

"I don't believe it has a single father," said Adler, who continues to work as a consultant. "But the general public wants one name to attach to something."

Bob Gerson, founder of This Week In Consumer Electronics (TWICE) magazine who has written about consumer electronics since 1961, noted: "Everybody's always referred to Adler as the true father of the remote. But Polley came first. That doesn't always make you the hero."

In the end, Polley's technology, crude as it was, proved best. Today's infrared remotes use a low-frequency light beam detected by a receiver in the TV or DVD player or any number of consumer electronic devices.

Zenith's corporate history Web page credits Polley with the first practical wireless remote. But its biography of Adler calls him the "Father of the TV Remote Control," a status that gained strength and depth over the years. Adler surfaced on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno and was featured routinely in news stories on the anniversaries of the Space Command's debut.

In 2000, he was among the inaugural class of electronics pioneers inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame, in large part because of his creation of the Space Command. His fellow inductees that year included Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Alva Edison and Guglielmo Marconi.

Polley merited a brief mention in Adler's biography for the induction.

Years of perceived slights have aggravated Polley. He said history, assisted by Adler, has blurred important distinctions--that Polley's technology came first and was widely accepted and that today's infrared technology is the same essential approach Polley pioneered--which support Polley's claim that he is the father of the remote.

Adler acknowledged those distinctions and agreed Polley is justified in feeling slighted. "It's something that makes me sad because it certainly wasn't my intention," Adler said. He said that, when he was sought to speak about the invention, he repeatedly requested Polley be included. Those requests typically went unheeded, he said.

"They would completely short-circuit him," Adler added. "That didn't make any sense to me."

Zenith corporate historian John Taylor maintains that the company, now owned by South Korean electronics manufacturer LG Electronics Inc., has "worked very hard to try and make sure [Polley] gets his due." Taylor noted that the company directed that both men accept an Emmy given to Zenith in 1996 for developing the remote.

"I don't know why Gene feels that he's been somewhat overshadowed in the last few years," Taylor said. "We think both men deserve credit. They're both towering figures in the history of consumer electronics."

Life after Zenith

Their statures are a little more stooped these days. Adler retired in 1982 with more than 180 patents and a Zenith technical excellence award named for him. He was vice president and director of research.

Polley also retired from Zenith in 1982 as an assistant division head. A widower, he lives with his daughter and memories of 18 patents in his name.

Until four years ago, Adler enjoyed downhill skiing. He still hikes with his wife, Ingrid. Apart from consulting, which he acknowledged has slowed lately, Adler is reading "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene. He has "mixed feelings" about his place in consumer electronics history. "People keep asking about it as if it was the only thing I've ever done," he said. "After a few years, it gets on your nerves a little."

Polley has served on the Lombard Zoning Board of Appeals for 32 years and drives a 1993 Buick with license plates POLLEY 2 to his thrice-weekly pool games with buddies at the Lombard Community Center and golf outings at the Village Links in Glen Ellyn. He still likes to tinker with mechanical devices. In the summer, he cuts his lawn on a riding mower and tends a tomato garden.

While admitting to being a little bitter, Polley noted that he and Adler are cordial when they chat, the last time being in 2002 on the set of a History Channel taping of "Modern Marvels: Boys' Toys," which featured the story of the remote.

And, for all the influence they have had on television, their revolutionary work is now somewhat irrelevant to the two men. Polley's vision is fading, making it increasingly difficult to watch TV. Three months ago, looking for a way to reduce costs, he and his daughter cut their cable TV service.

Adler said he watches perhaps three hours of TV a week, almost all of it on one channel--public television. He won't be watching the Super Bowl.

"No," he said. "I'm sorry, but those type of sports don't interest me. I don't see why people watch these."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0602050309feb05,1,3882638.story?coll=chi-ent_tv-hed

TV Notebook
Shhhh ... 'Grey's' can keep a secret

By Chuck Barney Contra Costa Times TV critic

Tight-lipped coaches for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks would never, in their right minds, consider revealing key pieces of their Super Bowl game plans, so why should "Grey's Anatomy" executive producer Shonda Rhimes? When a reporter asked her to divulge "just a general description" of Sunday's big post-Super Bowl episode, the woman who created one of television's most lusciously entertaining dramas doesn't exactly bubble over with details.

"Something happens and bad things follow," she teased, refusing to budge any further.

This kind of deft side-stepping is typical for Rhimes, who operates under a shroud of anti-spoilers secrecy and has been known to pass out memos to her cast and crew warning them to clam up -- or else. So if you're looking for revelatory insights into the love triangle involving Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Derek (Patrick Dempsey) and Addison (San Jose's Kate Walsh), or if you're wondering what the future holds for the oversexed surgical interns of Seattle Grace Hospital, you've come to the wrong place.

"I grew up watching a lot of television, and one of the things I feel strongly about is knowing what's going to happen on an episode before you see it," she said. "It's crazy. Why tell people what's going to happen rather than getting them to watch it and see for themselves? To me, the show is more interesting because no one knows what's going to happen next."

So far, the strategy is working. "Grey's Anatomy" is one of those warm-and-fuzzy television success stories that seems to pop out of nowhere. When it debuted last March, the series was only intended to be a temporary place-holder for "Boston Legal" on Sunday nights. But taking advantage of the hefty lead-in audience of "Desperate Housewives," it attracted 16 million viewers to its premiere.

That sent "Legal" trudging off to another time slot, and ever since, the "Grey's Anatomy" fan base has been swelling. The medical drama currently ranks No. 9 in total viewers, and ABC hopes that number will climb even higher after millions of post-game fans sample its addictive blend of comedy, drama and soap.

"We feel like it's going to be a huge part of our future, so we wanted to give it every boost we could," said ABC entertainment chief Steve McPherson on why "Grey's Anatomy" was awarded the showcase position.

Whenever a series hits big, there's an urge to search out clues by breaking down its DNA. Although "Grey's Anatomy" is labeled a medical drama, it in no way can be confused in style and tone with an "ER" or a "House." It mainly hinges on five first-year surgical interns -- three of whom are strong and distinctive women -- and floats along at its own breezy pace. Another vital cog: It's a show in which ever-changing relationships take precedence over brain surgery.

"I can feel it when there's too much medical and not enough personal (in the scripts), and that's the most important balance to keep," Rhimes insisted. "When the medical overtakes the personal, we're going down the wrong path."

And then there's the diversity factor. Unlike so many of prime time's white-washed shows, "Grey's Anatomy" features African-American and Asian doctors, and a Latina character will arrive soon. Rhimes, the lone African-American woman running a broadcast network drama series, said she and her collaborators made a choice from the start to bring in "all kinds" of actors during the casting process and not worry about skin color.

"Casting is really important to the show's success, not just because they're phenomenal actors and bring so much to the roles," she said. "But also just because someone can look at the show and think, 'OK, there's no longer anything unusual about having half your cast be people of color.'"

And although the narration for "Grey's Anatomy" comes from Meredith Grey's perspective, it is undeniably an ensemble production, with subplots centering on, among other things, the pregnancy of tough-as-nails resident Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), known as the Nazi, and the dysfunctional coupling of doctors Cristina Yang (Golden Globe-winner Sandra Oh) and Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington).

But it's that aforementioned love triangle that has most fans buzzing -- and wondering if former lovers Meredith and Derek will ever reunite. In last season's finale, Meredith discovered that -- gasp! -- her so-called "Dr. McDreamy" actually had an estranged wife, Dr. Addison Shepherd, who has followed him from New York to Seattle and joined the hospital staff.

This season, Meredith has spent much of her time in a funk, silently, and sometimes embarrassingly, pining for him. Along the way, there have been hints that Derek might be tempted to rekindle their forbidden love -- but Addison isn't about to go down without a fight.

"I feel bad for them," said the statuesque Walsh, with a sly smile. "I didn't want to rain on their parade, but Mommy has got to do what she's got to do."

As for Meredith, Rhimes likes the fact that she's a flawed heroine who "doesn't always do the right thing" and is "a little screwed-up." Adds Pompeo, "I welcome all the crazy things (Meredith) does, because it's a challenge to learn how to tackle them and how to play them and make them believable."

The challenge for the "Grey's Anatomy" team is to keep their momentum going, beginning with Sunday's highly-hyped episode. It comes with a sensationalistic title -- "It's the End of the World" -- and a promotional ad spot looked more like an amped-up "ER" disaster plot than a typical "Grey's Anatomy." It even contained a reference to something ominous called a "Code Black."

"I know what it is, but I can't tell you. She'd have my head on a plate," said Walsh, referring to you-know-who.

Oh yes, Rhimes does love her little secrets -- and she's apparently pretty adept at plotting them out.

She reveals that she already knows "exactly what's going to happen in our season finale," and she even knows what the "last scene of the last episode ever of 'Grey's Anatomy' is going to be."

ABC bigwigs, who have given Rhimes the OK to proceed on another drama project about female journalists, obviously hope she won't have to put that last scene on film for many years.

Until then, good luck trying to get her to spill the beans.

THE RATINGS GAME

Broadcast networks cherish the Super Bowl not only for the colossal ratings (and ad revenue) it delivers, but also for the spillover audience it brings to the show that follows.

Yet if anyone knows about the flaws in the system, it's ABC, the network that has plopped "Grey's Anatomy" in the plum post-game slot. In 2003, ABC teamed "Alias" with the big game and got little bang for its buck. After 88.6 million viewers watched the Tampa Bay Buccaneers thrash the Raiders -- and after an excruciatingly long post-game show -- only 17.4 million fans stayed in their seats for Jennifer Garner's spy drama. It was the smallest post-game crowd since a 1975 NBC newscast lured just 15.9 million.

Still, there are success stories. In 1996, NBC aired a guest-star-packed "Friends" special after 94.1 million viewers watched the preceding Dallas Cowboys-Pittsburgh Steelers contest. The episode drew a remarkable 52.9 million.

Five years later, the premiere episode of "Survivor: The Australian Outback" on CBS had 45.4 million viewers on the heels of the Baltimore Ravens-New York Giants game (84.3 million).

Usually, the numbers are significantly lower, albeit still impressive. Last year, a Super Bowl-themed episode of "The Simpsons" drew 23.1 million viewers after 86.1 million watched the New England Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles. It was "The Simpsons'" largest audience in 11 years.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/entertainment/columnists/chuck_barney/13791639.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Sorry I missed this previously….
Obituary
Goodbye 'Grandpa'

By Don Singleton The New York Daily News Staff Writer Sunday, February 5th, 2006

Actor-comedian Al Lewis, who played Grandpa on the famed 1960s sitcom "The Munsters," died Friday night, friends said yesterday.

Lewis was widely reported to have been born in 1910, but his son Ted said yesterday that his father was born in 1923 and was 82. With an unforgettable face and an ever-present cigar, in his later years "Grandpa Al" became a popular New York restaurant owner who was active in politics and even ran for governor.

Lewis was born Albert Meister in upstate New York and was raised in Brooklyn. He worked as a salesman, waiter, poolroom owner, store detective, circus clown and vaudeville performer, and along the way he earned a Ph.D. in child psychology from Columbia University.

Then television made him famous, first in the role of Officer Leo Schnauser on the police sitcom "Car 54, Where Are You?" - which ran from 1961 to 1963 - and then as the vampire Grandpa Munster on "The Munsters" from 1964 to 1966.

"The Munsters" especially has enjoyed an extended life in reruns worldwide.

"You have no idea of the love I get from total strangers because of 'The Munsters,' " Lewis once told the Daily News.

Later, he ran a brokerage firm in Los Angeles for a time and made cameo appearances in a number of Hollywood films, including "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and "Married to the Mob."

Moving back to New York in the '90s, Lewis opened Grandpa's restaurant in Greenwich Village and got into politics. In 1998, he ran for governor and got 50,000 votes as the Green Party candidate.

"Some people thought his antics were over the top, such as when he remarked at a Capitol press conference that the way to get rid of PCBs in the Hudson was to get a big spoon and feed it to the CEOs of GE," recalled Mark Dulea, the party's campaign manager at the time. "He told me later, 'You have to act a little crazy to get the media to write about you. But the real people, the people on the streets, they understand what you are saying when they hear the joke.' "

Lewis was hospitalized in 2003 for an angioplasty but complications led to an emergency bypass and the amputation of his right leg below the knee and all the toes of his left foot. He was in a coma for a month but recovered.

Survivors include his wife, Karen Ingenthron-Lewis; three sons, and four grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were pending.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/v-pfriendly/story/388645p-329778c.html

Note: For a great blow-by-blow (and commercial-by-commercial) report on SB XL, check out Rich Heldenfels’ blog, linked at the bottom of this item.

A Critical View:
''Grey's Anatomy''

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

… ''Grey's Anatomy'' undoubtedly kept male Super Bowl viewers around with that group shower at the beginning. And actually managed to make fun of the scene (and any jaw-dropped men remaining) after doing it.

Pretty rotten, though, to have the episode to end with multiple cliffhangers to be continued next week.

I wish ''Code Black'' had proven something more surprising than the very thing the promos had been hinting at. And the business with Bailey felt like piling on.

You can see why Christina Ricci was cast, though. Not just because she's an interesting actress, and one who can play the naif well. With those big eyes, she's very expressive even if a surgical mask is covering half her face.

And, as much as I disliked the cliffhanger, there are other things to like in any episode of ''Grey's.'' This had the scene where the men gather outside the room where Bailey's being examined, and several good scenes for Bailey, and the way a couple of people put aside any urge for heroism in a crisis and acted, well, human.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/2006/02/greys_anatomy.html#comment-13668600

TV Notebook
Still mourning Jennings, ABC News is tested anew

The wounding of Bob Woodruff poses another challenge for a recast 'World News Tonight.'
By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 6, 2006

NEW YORK -- The last time ABC's Elizabeth Vargas saw her co-anchor, Bob Woodruff, he and his producers had their suitcases with them and were readying to leave the newsroom, bound on a week-and-a-half-long swing through Israel and Iraq.

"I was envious — I wanted to go," Vargas recalled in an interview. "I was sort of joking with him, 'I can't believe you guys are going without me!' "

Such good-natured banter over who got assigned the big trips had become regular repartee between the new partners in their first month together on "World News Tonight," but it was rare that they had those exchanges in person. With one usually in the studio and one on the road, the anchors communicated largely through nightly e-mails, offering words of encouragement amid an exhausting swirl of travel.

"Despite massive geographical distances, we were really bonding and I feel jelling into a great team," said Vargas, who had socialized for years with Woodruff and his wife but never worked with him directly until they were named co-anchors.

Six days after he left, she was awakened at dawn by a phone call: Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt had been badly wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq. The attack not only interrupted the launch of the newly remade broadcast, but also triggered a wave of emotion in the ABC newsroom, where employees are still mourning anchor Peter Jennings' death from lung cancer six months ago.

"This is a staff that has been tested already," Vargas said. "I don't think anybody can believe we're asking this amazing group of people to endure this kind of experience again."

For Jon Banner, executive producer of "World News Tonight," last week's flurry of events felt all too familiar: the alarming news about an anchor's health, the scramble to temporarily replace him, the flood of calls and e-mails from concerned viewers.

"I sort of thought that having been through this once, it might be a little easier," Banner said wearily at the end of last week. "It's not."

Woodruff and Vogt, who both sustained shrapnel wounds to the head, among other injuries, are now being treated at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. Vogt, who is awake and talking, will need further rehabilitation but is making excellent progress and could be released soon, ABC News President David Westin said.

Woodruff is also improving, but he remains sedated and the severity of his head injury remains unclear — along with the question of how it will affect his ability to return to the anchor chair.

"I don't know how long Bob is going to be recuperating," Westin said. "At the same time, we have real reason for hope and for optimism."

For now, the network has turned to "Good Morning America" co-anchors Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson to fill in for Woodruff. But ABC officials acknowledge that the solution is a temporary one, and all they can do now — as they did when Jennings fell ill — is to wait.

"I think we'll just have to play it by ear," Banner said. "It's far too early to tell how long we'll have to do this for. It's a difficult time, but we're very hopeful and we're counting on Bob coming back as co-anchor."

It remains to be seen what affect the changes will have on the ratings in the meantime. When Jennings fell ill last spring, the newscast — split among substitute anchors Gibson, Vargas and Woodruff — held steady behind top-ranked NBC.

'Rising to the occasion'

The effect of the attack was magnified, ABC staffers said, as it came less than a month after Woodruff and Vargas kicked off an expanded version of "World News Tonight" that features an afternoon webcast and two late editions for West Coast viewers. The network was still working on a new set and promotional campaign to showcase the anchor team, which officials hoped would be able eventually to catch up with "NBC Nightly News."

"Everyone was getting used to each other and we were hitting our stride and starting to see the promise of what this new anchor team could produce," Westin said. "To have that disturbed by an event like this is very upsetting."

But he praised the newsroom for "rising to the occasion," adding that Vargas has done "a terrific job at being very solid and stable throughout this."

For her part, the anchor said that she's determined not to let the broadcast falter in Woodruff's absence.

"We had all sorts of great plans," Vargas said. "We're trying to figure out now how to persevere and to continue to put on the very best show we can, not only because we all want to, because we all know that's what Bob would want. Selfishly, I want Bob to return to a strong show that we can all be proud of and that is competitive."

In the meantime, ABC employees are trying to cope with the event on a personal level. George Stephanopoulos, the network's chief Washington correspondent and host of "This Week," was at his desk early the morning of Jan. 29, preparing for the day's show, when the news came in that Woodruff and Vogt had been wounded.

"I thought, 'It's happening all over again,' " he recalled. "It's a huge blow."

"It's difficult, I won't lie to you," said Kate Snow, co-anchor of the weekend edition of "Good Morning America," who lives with her family in the same Westchester County town as Woodruff, his wife and their four children. "It's on our minds all the time."

In the last year, the two families have frequently gotten together over pizza and Chinese food with their children.

"He's the kind of guy that makes scrambled eggs on the barbecue and goes to his kids' games on the weekend," Snow said. "He's not in any way ostentatious or formal."

The anxiety over Woodruff's injuries comes with its own unique contours. Jennings, 67, was a broadcast icon, but his 44-year-old successor is a member of the network's young generation of correspondents, many of whom have done stints in Iraq.

"What happened with Peter was beyond-description awful, but this was different," said correspondent Dan Harris, whose fourth-floor office is next to the one Woodruff used before he was named anchor. Woodruff "is one of us and he was doing what we all do, so it is a different sort of shock and distress that set in."

On the day they were attacked, Woodruff and Vogt had been traveling with members of the 4th Infantry Division but had switched into a less-protected Iraqi vehicle for a piece they were doing on the readiness of Iraqi troops. Minutes later, the vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device.

Vargas said that she "probably" would have made the same decision Woodruff did to get into the Iraqi carrier.

"Although, truth be told, if now I were confronted with the same decision, I would weigh all the things I know," she said, but added: "I still might decide to do it."

In December, Vargas spent a week reporting in Iraq and said she quickly realized that the only way to get an accurate sense of the preparedness of the Iraqi troops was to spend time with them.

"We saw soldiers who didn't appear to be as ready as we were led to believe, and we had some very tough questions for the general in charge of training them," she said. "But I couldn't have seen that and made my own judgment call if I hadn't spent two days out with them."

Westin has emphasized that ABC had no intention of scaling back its coverage of the war or changing its approach to reporting in the region in the wake of the attack.

But much as Jennings' illness drove the network to launch an extensive series on lung cancer and the dangers of smoking, the news president said the wounding of the two ABC newsmen has prompted the network to contemplate doing more stories about what happens to injured soldiers once they return from the battlefield.

"In an ironic sense, Bob is still reporting as an anchor," he said. "He's shining a spotlight on this."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-abc6feb06,0,651643,print.story?coll=cl-tv-top-right

TV Notebook
Lifting Super Bowl Ads Above the Lowbrow Level

By Stuart Elliott The New York Times February 6, 2006

For those of us who watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, effusive thank-you's are in order the morning after: to Steven P. Jobs, for the video iPod; to Al Gore, for inventing the Internet; and to Janet Jackson, for the malfunctioning wardrobe.

They deserve the kudos because they could be deemed responsible for the marked improvement in the commercials during Super Bowl XL last night. The fact that the spots are to be made widely available — on Web sites, for downloading, as video-on-demand programs — outside the broadcast of the game on ABC, seemed to inspire advertisers and agencies to broaden the appeal beyond the typical male football fanatic, who stays glued to the set to giggle at ads with jiggling cheerleaders or flatulent horses.

And the pledge by most Super Bowl sponsors to steer clear of crass, frat-boy humor, made after Ms. Jackson's halftime mishap of 2004, remained largely in effect. To be sure, some spots were aimed at the lowest common denominator — after all, the game usually draws 90 million or more viewers — but refreshingly, they were outnumbered by spots reaching for a higher form of hilarity or trying to tug at the heartstrings.

What follows is an assessment of some of the best and worst commercials during the game. The spots described below are among 35 provided to reporters before the game, out of the total of about 50 that were scheduled to run.

AMERICAN HOME HEALTH A commercial evocative of the 1995 film "Safe" presented the P.S. line of cleaners and hand washes made by American Home Health as the alternative to wearing hazmat suits in public. Creepy but clever. Agency: the Ronin Advertising Group.

AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR The Ridgeline truck sold by American Honda Motor played Cupid to two cartoon characters usually found on mud flaps. A delightful spot that mashed up Looney Tunes and the Pep Boys. Agency: RPA.

BUD LIGHT Commercials for the Bud Light beer brand sold by Anheuser-Busch were centered on sight gags that ranged from slight to superb. The weakest reprised a tired tale of two friends confronted by an angry bear. The standout showed a "magic fridge" inspiring an urban cargo cult. Agency: the Chicago office of DDB Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group.

BUDWEISER Never mind stupid tricks, pet or human. The performers in three commercials for Budweiser beer, also sold by Anheuser-Busch, were smarter than the average Letterman guest. The best spot asked this offbeat question: What do you call a shorn sheep that disrupts a football game played by the Bud Clydesdales? Why, a streaker, of course. Agency: DDB Chicago.

BURGER KING The Burger King Corporation offered a twisted, over-the-top tribute to Busby Berkeley, the movie musical maven, by way of "Springtime for Hitler" from "The Producers." The hilarious spot presented chorus girls dressed as Whopper ingredients, piling atop each other to simulate the making of a sandwich. Let's hope there is a sequel next year honoring Berkeley's big number from "Dames," retitled "I Only Have Fries for You." Agency: Crispin Porter & Bogusky, part of MDC Partners.

CAREERBUILDER The chimpanzees that were so (inexplicably) popular in spots last year for the job-search Web site CareerBuilder, owned by a consortium of publishers that includes the Tribune Company, returned in two commercials, much to the dismay of animal-rights activists and many viewers with I.Q.'s in the three digits. But in the end, it is difficult to hate party animals when they are actually animals. Agency: Cramer-Krasselt.

FEDEX A far-out spot for FedEx, giving a goofy glimpse at the dangerous life of prehistoric man, was among the funniest in the game. But fans of the current crop of Geico cave-man commercials, Monty Python or the 1981 movie "Caveman" may cry copycat. Agency: the New York office of BBDO Worldwide, a unit of Omnicom.

GODADDY A risqué commercial in the game last year for GoDaddy, the Web site registrar, worked because it used the stereotype of a buxom babe to mock the hypocrisy of the hysteria over Ms. Jackson's halftime performance. But the spot this year brought back the babe without that higher purpose. As a result, it seemed trite and sexist. Agency: in-house.

MASTERCARD Another sign that the phrase "witty Super Bowl spot" may no longer be oxymoronic came in a commercial for MasterCard, which simultaneously celebrated and sent up the TV series "MacGyver." The star, Richard Dean Anderson, returned to parody how he used random items to help save the world. Among his purchases: an air freshener, tweezers, nasal spray and a turkey baster. Agency: McCann Erickson Worldwide, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

NATIONWIDE A commercial for Nationwide Financial showed there is some life left in a Super Bowl ad mainstay: the surprise ending. The spot seemed to be selling "Shampoo di Italia," endorsed by the model Fabio, but the "aha!" moment revealed the pitch to be for retirement planning. Agency: TM Advertising, part of Interpublic.

PEPSICO Two commercials for Diet Pepsi, sold by the Pepsi-Cola division of PepsiCo, followed the company's Super Bowl ad playbook so closely that watching them seemed, to quote a former Pepsi-Cola spokesman, like déjà vu all over again. Celebrities? Check. Music? Check. Frantic pacing? You bet. Knocking Coke? Uh-huh. Still, there were some cute touches, like a rap-music spoof that renamed the brand "D. Pepsi." Agency: DDB New York.

PROCTER & GAMBLE The creation of the new Gillette Fusion razor, sold by Procter & Gamble, was compared to the effort of master fusion, the process that powers the sun. Really. No kidding. This smug, self-important spot may be the most bombastic since a campaign that peddled the 1957 Mercury as "dynamite from Detroit!" Agency: BBDO New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/06/business/media/06adcol.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

A Critical View:
During Timeouts, A Very Physical Super Bowl

By Tom Shales The Washington Post TV Critic Monday, February 6, 2006; C01

It wasn't a particularly brutal football game, and there were no "wardrobe malfunctions" during the halftime show, but the commercials that aired during Super Bowl XL last night were full to the brim -- and beyond -- with sex and violence.

In olden times -- say, the 1970s, '80s and '90s -- it was uncommon for people to be depicted as being killed or just plain dying in TV commercials, or for death to be mentioned at all unless the sponsor was a mortuary or life insurance company. But the costly, caustic commercials shown during this year's orgy of football and merchandising were violent when they weren't sexy, sexy when they weren't violent, and sometimes both at once.

By contrast, the game -- in which the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Seattle Seahawks, 21-10, in a clash aired on ABC from Detroit's Ford Field -- was not particularly rough-and-tumble. While the first half was largely a snooze, both teams came to life in the second and gave viewers a fairly good show -- visually the most gorgeous Super Bowl in history, since more of it was telecast in high definition than ever before.

The notorious "wardrobe malfunction" of 2004, when singer Janet Jackson revealed more cleavage than CBS bargained for, was mockingly referred to by ABC in a promo for its semi-hit series "Dancing With the Stars." Shapely babes were seen in scanty attire cavorting with dance partners or simply and sensuously caressing themselves while a caption taunted, "Wardrobe malfunction? You wish!"

Hypocritically perhaps, ABC had arranged for the entire telecast, including a halftime show by those still slithery senior citizens the Rolling Stones, to air on a five-second delay. Thus could any unforeseen shocks be eliminated with the flip of a switch. And yet the network itself ran promos that were remarkable for their blatant suggestiveness.

According to the Associated Press, there was no visual censoring of the Stones but edits were made to lyrics for two of the band's songs: "Rough Justice" and "Start Me Up."

The prevailing theme was violence, however. A comical commercial for FedEx, set in prehistoric times, ended with a caveman being squashed to death by the gigantic foot of a dinosaur. In the pregame show, Coca-Cola introduced its new "energy drink" called Full Throttle Fury with outrageous, almost self-parodying scenes of macho men virtually destroying a town -- cars, trucks and motorcycles crashing and bashing -- in pursuit of this stupid refreshment.

Apparently the drink contains a sizable amount of pure testosterone. Its slogan is "Let your man out."

Bud Light led the way with, for the most part, the cleverest commercials and the largest number of different ads. In one, however, a company employee announces he has hidden bottles of the beer all over the office as a work incentive. Cut to scenes of other employees knocking down walls, overturning desks, doing everything but setting the place on fire in order to locate the hidden brew.

We Americans love our beer -- more than we love anything else, if these commercials are to be believed.

Perhaps the most talked about commercial, at least prior to the Super Bowl, was a lavish musical number staged on behalf of Burger King and using the long-retired "special orders don't upset us" musical theme. Gorgeous girls dressed as lettuce, pickles, tomatoes and various condiments danced and pranced and hurled themselves onto giant waiting patties. The ad was a spoof of the old Busby Berkeley musicals of the 1930s.

However, Berkeley's style has been imitated in other commercials for years, including one memorable spot by legendary adman Stan Freberg in which musical star Ann Miller danced on, among other things, a gigantic can of Campbell's Soup.

Cheery musical spoofs were easily the exception, not the rule. A trailer for one of this summer's new movies, "V for Vendetta," offered heaps of graphic mayhem including the destruction of both Houses of Parliament and London's iconic Big Ben via terrorist bombs. A commercial for the Tom Cruise movie "M:I:III" (the third "Mission: Impossible" film) was similarly wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with rabid destruction. Jackie Chan was enlisted in a mock commercial for Diet Pepsi and did his usual highly physical if also largely whimsical violent stunts.

In a commercial for Sprint cell phones, a happy customer told a friend that the phone not only downloaded e-mail and music videos but also acted as a "crime deterrent." The friend asked how the phone could be a crime deterrent, and the customer demonstrated by bashing him over the head with it -- perhaps killing him?

Other ads with high violent content included one for Degree, the deodorant; and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," a movie sequel due July 7 from the ever-desperate Disney, which owns ABC. One of the most blatantly sexual ads -- which had been shown on other programs prior to the Super Bowl -- showed a heavy-breathing Jessica Simpson in a tight-tight dress seducing a boy who appeared to be 14, 15 or at most 16 by sexily popping Cheesy Bites from Pizza Hut into his eager open mouth.

Sometimes sex and violence could, in the time-honored American tradition, be combined, and not always offensively. One ad depicted a gigantic robot stalking a city in the company of a huge, and hugely pregnant, green monster. Eventually a red Hummer is born to the grotesque couple. Slogan: "It's a little monster."

At least that one was funny.

So many of the ads were violent, though, that it was unsettling. Sometimes the violence was only by implication but included unusually morbid innuendo. As part of a series of comic vignettes from the Ameriquest Mortgage Co., two interns in a hospital room zap a pesky fly with the paddles normally used to revive cardiacpatients. The patient's wife and two children enter the room and see their husband and father lying motionless as one intern exclaims, "That killed him!"

Looks of horror and fear crossed their shocked faces.

Unquestionably, the business of making Super Bowl commercials has also become something of an art -- so much so that many of the ads were shown in advance as news items well before making their "debut" on the game. Those who had the terrible misfortune of missing the commercials during the game could see them on Yahoo and other Web sites.

Maybe some year the networks will do us a favor and air all the commercials in one big hour-long clump so that people who don't like football can see them. As for this year's spots, it was often a relief when the violent commercials ended and the comparatively gentle game of professional football could resume.

Something is wrong with this picture. But then something is wrong with so many pictures these days.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/05/AR2006020501297_pf.html

Super Bowl XL: The Commercials
Magic fridge' of Bud Light ices an advertising win sers

By Bruce Horovitz USA Today (Contributing: Theresa Howard in New York, Laura Petrecca in Phoenix and Anne Carey in McLean, Va.)

Anheuser-Busch's beer sales might be falling flat, but its Super Bowl advertising certainly isn't.

For a record eighth-consecutive year, the beer kingpin topped all marketers with the top-rated commercial in USA TODAY's exclusive Ad Meter real-time consumer focus group ranking of the Super Bowl commercials.

The star of the No. 1 ad: a refrigerator stocked with Bud Light with the ability to disappear to keep unwelcome guests from grabbing the brew. The fridge disappears via a revolving wall that, unbeknownst to the fridge's owner, spins it into the adjoining apartment. (For the guys next door, it becomes the "magic fridge" — an idol to be worshipped.


Another A-B ad finished second: a heart-tugger about a young Clydesdale that dreams of pulling the Budweiser beer wagon. (A-B aired six of the top 10 ads, but had plenty of competition this year. A funny FedEx ad about a cave man trying — but failing — to send the first FedEx delivery via dinosaur finished third.

A Sierra Mist ad with comedian Kathy Griffin as an airport security worker who "beeps" to get a passenger's Sierra Mist, finished fourth. A-B led the field without being crass. By some measures, this was the Slightly More Tasteful Bowl. The A-B ads that finished in the top three didn't feature sex, undue violence or locker-room humor.

"In the past, a lot of beer ads were about sex and pretty women," says Carli Weber, 22, a Mesa, Ariz., resident who sells fragrances at a Dillard's department store. "But these are funnier; they reach a broader audience — they reach everybody."

Not that this will get her to drink Bud. The former bartender is a Miller Lite loyalist. "I'll drink that no matter what's advertised," she says. "I don't think people change (brands) easily."

A-B was trying, though. "We listened more closely to our male and female drinkers," says Marlene Coulis, vice president of brand management at Anheuser-Busch. "We're continually raising the bar on humor, and you find you can deliver humor and tell our stories in many different ways."

For ad entertainment, tasteful isn't always better, however. It can also mean, well, slightly boring.

Although this was billed as Super Bowl XL (extra large), beyond the A-B ads, many commercials looked a little small. Small in new ideas. Small in big belly laughs. Small in touching the heart.

Two years after Janet Jackson bared her breast during Super Bowl halftime — and one A-B ad featured a flatulent horse — perhaps the most provocative image to come from Madison Avenue was a naked sheep streaking through a Clydesdale football game for A-B.

Any sex was, at most, suggestive — and not at all visual.

Even the GoDaddy.com commercial, though overtly sexual, actually showed little more than the snapping strap of a buxom woman's tight tank top. The ad scored poorly with Ad Meter panelists. (An Ameriquest ad showed what appeared to be a partially disrobed woman straddled atop another airplane passenger, but it wasn't what it seemed, and not an inch of inappropriate skin was in view.

The evening didn't come cheaply for the winners — or losers. Each 30-second time slot cost a record $2.5 million — or $83,333 per second. The cost to air a Super Bowl spot far exceeds the cost to create one — even though some of the special effects-laden ads cost upwards of $1 million to make.

Even then, more than 30 advertisers ponied up.

Perhaps the odds were stacked in A-B's favor. As usual, the beer giant purchased the most ad time. It aired nine ads, including one for the beer industry. That gave it three times more ads than the No. 2 buyer, Pepsi, which aired three spots. Most advertisers purchased only one 30-second slot.

A-B has good reason to advertise on the big game. It remains the nation's biggest brewer, owning 50% of the U.S. beer market. But in 2005, AB's volume sales fell 1.8%, to 101.1 million barrels, and it had an 18% earnings drop, its first annual decline since 1995.

An important Super Bowl first: A purely female-targeted ad for Dove skin products scored unusually high. The result could lead to more marketers targeting female viewers in future Super Bowls.

The Dove commercial promoted self-esteem for young girls who might think they should be thinner, prettier, even blond. The ad scored just outside the Top 10.

The Dove ad was out of character, in a positive way, for a Super Bowl ad, says Cheryl Levine, 24, a paralegal from Olney, Md. "I think we need more encouragement. Too many people have self-image problems. Why is there so much emphasis on a false notion of what beautiful is?"

Within 10 minutes of the ad airing, 7,000 people logged onto the related website, www.campaignforrealbeauty.com, said Dove marketing head Philippe Harousseau.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2006-02-05-super-bowl-winner_x.htm

Super Bowl XL: The Commercials
Super Bowl XL 18th Annual Ad Meter

(USA Today)

10 most popular Super Bowl Commercials
Company Description Score
Bud Light A secret fridge stocks Bud Light. 8.39
Budweiser Young Clydesdale dreams big. 8.18
FedEx Cave man uses prehistoric overnight delivery. 7.95
Sierra Mist Sierra Mist can't clear airport security. 7.86
Bud Kight Men pretend to work on rooftops, but relax instead. 7.82
Budweiser Sheep streaks at big game. 7.81
Ameriquest Patient's family walks in on medical misunderstanding. 7.80
Bud Light Office manager motivates employees with hidden bottles. 7.69
Ameriquest Plane turbulence creates awkward situation. 7.67
Budweiser Stadium crowd turns a wave into a Bud promotion. 7.65
The rest
Bud Light Man saves himself from scary bear. 7.64
CareerBuilder Chimps celebrate strong sales quarter. 7.55
CareerBuilder Employees commiserate about workplace animals. 7.43
Sprint Man downloads music for burning couch from Sprint phone. 7.22
Michelob Ultra Amber Touch football gets ugly. 7.03
Dove Dove promotes self-esteem fund for young girls. 6.96
Sharpie Pirate mascot uses retractable Sharpie to sign autographs. 6.82
Nationwide Insurance Life moves fast for romance novel cover star Fabio. 6.73
MasterCard MacGyver buys lifesaving gadgets with MasterCard. 6.59
Walt Disney Promo for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. 6.54
Honda Ad for Ridgeline pickup brings trucking icons to life. 6.53
Ford Motor Kermit says green is good when he sees Escape hybrid. 6.40
GM Hummer Monsters marry and have a Hummer baby. 6.37
Degree for Men People living on the edge in Stunt City. 6.28
Burger King Whopperettes sing and dance. 6.24
Walt Disney Theme park celebrates 50 years. 6.22
NFL Mobile Fan checks scores at checkout line. 6.21
Toyota Tacoma pickup rides out the incoming tide. 6.16
Diet Pepsi Jackie Chan appears in an action film. 6.15
Aleve Leonard Nimoy's hand pain gets in way of an appearance. 5.95
Here's to Beer.com Drinkers toast to beer in different languages. 5.91
GoDaddy GoDaddy woman returns in steamy ad. 5.88
Warner Bros. Promo for Poseidon. 5.87
Magnolia Pictures Promo for The World's Fastest Indian. 5.85
Toyota Boy compares bilingual father to hybrid vehicle. 5.80
Walt Disney Promo for Cars. 5.78
Outback Steakhouse Devoted fan makes like a boomerang. 5.77
Fidelity Paul McCartney as role model. 5.72
Paramount Ads promote Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible III. 5.71
GoDaddy GoDaddy woman sends man for oxygen again. 5.68
Major League Baseball Players promote World Baseball Classic tournament. 5.68
Motorola Meteoric explosion helps create new Pebl phone. 5.54
Taco Bell Love blossoms at stoplight. 5.49
Emerald of California Machete men love Emerald Nuts. 5.36
ESPN Mobile (60 sec.) Fan is in sports heaven when he uses ESPN's mobile phone. 5.34
Walt Disney Chris Berman calls play-by-play on The Shaggy Dog. 5.30
Gillette Five-blade razor is a top secret until now. 5.27
Diet Pepsi Diet Pepsi sings with Diddy. 5.22
PS Cleaning Products Some people avoid germs by living in green suits. 5.20
Warner Bros. Promo for V for Vendetta. 5.14
Westin Hotels Breathe and relax in smoke-free hotels. 5.06
New Line Cinema Ad for new action movie Running Scared. 5.05
Warner Bros. Promo for 16 Blocks. 5.04
5 least popular
ESPN Mobile (30 sec.) Fan is in sports heaven when he uses ESPN's mobile phone. 5.04
GM Cadillac New Escalade truck poses on the catwalk as fashion model. 4.96
Overstock.com O as part of life. 4.91
Slim-Fast Four-hour hunger control. 4.28
Gillette Razor brand unveils 5-blade system. 4.05

http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2006-ad-meter-results-chart.htm

The Winter Olympics
Nets to Slate Original Content vs. NBC's Olympics

By John Consoli MediaWeek.com FEBRUARY 06, 2006 -

The broadcast networks will aggressively program against NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympic Games beginning Feb. 10, hoping to make inroads with first-run, regularly scheduled shows rather than repeats.

Preston Beckman, executive vp strategic program planning for Fox, said he thinks the games don’t warrant scheduling changes. “The Winter Olympics aren’t the draw they used to be, and it would be a mistake to pre-empt our regular first-run programming for two weeks.”

Fox, of course, is generating huge ratings for its new cycle of American Idol (18 million viewers 18-49 on average). The network plans to heavy up on Idol telecasts during the Olympics. It will air a third episode on Thursday, Feb. 23, in addition to its twice-weekly regular run. The Olympics on NBC will run from Feb. 10–26.

Fox will also air two episodes of Skating With the Celebrities during the Olympics but not during the week of the Olympic skating competition finals. Beckman said that was done to pair it up with an original episode of The O.C. during the first week of March.
Historically, the games have crushed rival schedules. During the 2002 Winter Olympics, NBC averaged a 19.2 household rating in prime, while CBS averaged a 6.2 followed by Fox (4.7), ABC (4.6), UPN (2.6) and WB (2.2).

ABC is airing virtually all first-run content during the Olympics, including its breakout series Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy. While ABC sales president Mike Shaw would not comment on pricing, ABC insiders said the network did not discount its programming opposite Olympic action.

Except for two first-run Survivor episodes, CBS will primarily air repeats during the winter games. CBS’ procedural dramas, in particular, do solid ratings in repeats during the regular season and summer, so it will be interesting to see how they do against the Olympics, whose older audience is in CBS’ demo wheelhouse.

The WB will air first-run episodes during the first week of the Olympics but will stick with theatrical movies in prime time during the second week, when NBC rolls out its heavyweight Olympics figure skating finals, traditionally the event’s highest-rated nights. While 66 percent of the viewers for the 2002 Winter Olympics on NBC were 40-plus, the audience does get a bit younger for figure skating.

A WB insider said that will allow the network’s affiliates to use three weeks of sweeps ratings for shows like Smallville, Gilmore Girls and Supernatural and not a diluted fourth week.

UPN will also pit first run against the games, with special guest stars on its shows. However, it will wait to run the next cycle of America’s Next Top Model until March.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001957389

TV Notebook
Boston doctor finds a home with 'House's

By Ellen Gray Philadelphia Daily News Mon, Feb. 06, 2006

A year ago, Dr. David Foster was working in two very different worlds: treating patients at an inner-city clinic in Boston, then periodically flying across the country to help plot the medical mysteries that arise each week on Fox's "House."

His commute came to an end last March, after "House" creator David Shore added the Harvard Medical School graduate to the show's writing staff and Foster, who'd worked as a technical consultant in television for the past 10 years, decided it was time to jump into show business with both feet.

"I miss my patients in Boston, their crazy lives," Foster said last month in an interview on the show's Century City, Calif., set. "But I love the job I have now, and have great fun doing it and couldn't imagine adding anything on top of it."

And while this may come as news to anyone who's currently plowing through organic chemistry in hopes of someday adding the initials "M.D." to his or her name, Foster insists that the leap from medicine to TV writing isn't that big.

"I've always been interested in telling stories," said the doctor, who originally became involved in television through a former medical school classmate, Neal Baer, a producer on NBC's "ER."

"I mean, that's how I got into medicine, because I liked storytelling. Doctors are really storytellers. They don't think of themselves as storytellers, but we spend all day listening to people talk about themselves and then pulling out the aspects that tell the narrative, that... tell the story of the disease. And then we talk to each other about our patients, which is really storytelling," he said.

"But not in the elevators, not in public places, and not loudly, so they could be overheard by anyone," he quickly added, laughing. "Not in the cafeteria."

Fortunately for Foster, privacy laws are less of an issue in television, where "House's" stories have been reaching an average of 12.6 million viewers a week this season.

While few of us are likely to tune in on a Tuesday night and find Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) treating a patient with the same one-in-a-million condition we had only last week - I'll admit this is a recurring nightmare of mine - pieces of real patients' stories do find their way into the show.

Starting with House himself.

"The story of House's leg, the infarction" that left him with a limp and constant pain, Foster said, "is adapted from a story" that first appeared in the New York Times Magazine's "Diagnosis" column, which deals with dilemmas faced by real-life doctors.

"Lisa Sanders, who writes those columns, is one of the consultants on our show," he said. "I think that some pieces" of those columns have been incorporated into other storylines.

"People often ask, 'Well, are you ever going to run out of these medical mysteries?' We won't ever run out of medical mysteries 'cause there's so many interesting diseases and ways that diseases can present," he said.

"The harder thing is... [finding] ways that patients can almost die three times an hour."

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//13802248.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

TV Notebook
Report: Murdoch to launch CNBC rival by year's end

(The Hollywood Reporter) NEW YORK -- News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said he plans to launch a rival to business news channel CNBC by the end of 2006, according to an article in the February 13 issue of Newsweek magazine.

"We're in pretty intense discussions with the biggest cable companies, and making quite considerable progress," Murdoch said in the Newsweek interview. "You can expect something fairly soon."

Asked if it would be on by year end, Murdoch said, "Yes."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001957551

TV Notebook
Super Bowl Ratings Down Slightly

(courtesy drudgereport.com)

SUPER BOWL RATINGS DOWN FROM LAST YEAR, ACCORDING TO NIELSEN OVERNIGHTS... ABC'S 41.8 RATING/62 SHARE OFF FROM FOX'S 2005 43.4/63... 84 SHARE[!] RECORDED IN PITTSBURGH...

TV Notebook
Mick nicked: ABC censors Stones' lyrics

MediaLifeMagazine.com—Half-naked cheerleader are okay, but decades-old Rolling Stones lyrics are just too much for the NFL.

The league and its producers had ABC censor two words in songs played by the legendary rock band during halftime of the Super Bowl last night.

During the song "Start Me Up," ABC editors excised the word "come" from the end of "You make a dead man ..."

And the word "****" was taken out of the song "Rough Justice." Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction two years ago apparently still has the NFL on edge.

The league and ABC instituted a five-second delay for the game to avoid any sort of shenanigans this year.
Ironically, the third song the band sang, "Satisfaction," which describes sexual frustration, was allowed to be heard in full.

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/cat_index_31.asp

Super Bowl XL
A Final Broadcast by ABC, by Rote

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times February 6, 2006

I feel frustrated. What can I say about this quirky, herky-jerky, occasionally interesting Super Bowl XL? I feel as if my critique lacks a firm plan, as John Madden described Pittsburgh's offense during the first half last night.

"They haven't gotten established," he said.

Same with me. My notes are a jumble. I haven't written "Great!" or "What a lunkhead thing to say" next to anyone's remarks.

It was such a peculiar game and broadcast that ABC's Madden and Al Michaels were looking for tea leaves in the folding of Coach Bill Cowher's arms. Did the Jutting Jaw's pose mean the Steelers would run, pass or bunt?

It was such an odd game that the most thrilling moment by an announcer came when Madden imitated the bark/scream of Jerome Bettis, who was wired for sound, and emitted the sound in celebration of Willie Parker's 75-yard touchdown run. "Arrrrrrrrgh!" Madden shouted.

Pittsburgh's 21-10 victory against the Seattle Seahawks made me wish that Fox's Terry Bradshaw was at Ford Field. He was at home in Oklahoma, perhaps content that as a bald man he led the Steelers to four Super Bowl titles, yet a tad upset that the shiny-headed Matt Hasselbeck lost.

This was, for now, the final N.F.L. game for ABC Sports, as it downsizes into the New York office of ESPN. One of the mysteries left unsolved was Michaels's future. Michaels, who is under contract with ESPN to continue with "Monday Night Football," offered no clues as to whether he was about to escape from that deal and join Madden at NBC to call Sunday night games.

The closest parallel during the broadcast to the choice Michaels faces occurred when he and Madden discussed whether Bettis would retire afterward. (He did.) "I'm not sure he knows," Michaels said.

I don't know if Michaels is uncertain, or if he's planning his schedule this week around the schedule of Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports, who will be awfully busy Friday with the start of the Winter Olympics.

A mediocre game usually yields a less-than-scintillating broadcast. Cowher used more gadgets than ABC, which produced a good, careful, conventional game. It did not overwhelm with graphics, although the first group of player graphics obscured the second play of the game, and did not get terribly adventurous with the Skycam. Madden rarely first-guessed.

But he and Michaels criticized Pittsburgh for not running the ball on a play that led to Kelly Herndon's 76-yard interception return and questioned Seattle's messy time management at the end of both halves.

Madden noted early in the third quarter that "if Pittsburgh can go down and score, they can run more and get into their blitz mode," and almost immediately, Parker ran to daylight in the covered comfort of Ford Field.

Good coincidence.

Ben Roethlisberger's scrambling 37-yard pass to Hines Ward in the second quarter received smart graphic treatment when ABC put a red line on the screen to show if Roethlisberger had crossed the line of scrimmage.

Heck, I'm stretching here like Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four.

So what should I write about?

That Mobile ESPN, the empire's new cellphone product advertised heavily yesterday, comes equipped with downloads of Motown-loving Chris Berman singing "Build Me Up Buttercup"?

That those black-and-white promotional vignettes showing players in various adoring poses with the Lombardi Trophy were a little overdone? When did the Vince became a totem of male desire like the Stanley Cup?

What surprised me most came in the postgame coverage. What happened to New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick? ABC hired him as an analyst for its three-and-a-half-hour pregame program, seriously underutilized him, and then did not use him afterward. Would you rather hear him or Michael Irvin, Steve Young, Tom Jackson and Berman, the ESPN quartet of "Sunday NFL Countdown," toiling for ABC? The answer should be obvious.

I will not belabor the inherent problems of the combined nine and a half hours of pregame programming on ESPN and ABC. Any viewer who watched a lot saw as much, for there was maybe two hours of sit-up-in-your-seat material.

The best live material was provided in smart, heated conversations between ESPN's Ron Jaworski and Sean Salisbury. The most memorable feature was about a Pop Warner football league in upstate New York for disabled children; versions of the report appeared on ESPN and ABC. I could have done without Stuart Scott's "dudes," "dawgs," "hizzies" and "big ups."

An idea: Let the network showing the Super Bowl, and the others with N.F.L. deals, each produce a 90-minute program. Maybe the competition will make them sharper and more creative, rather than too chatty and too wedded to what we already know.

Oddly, an hour before the game, ABC did a feature on Bettis's return home to Detroit, the most overdone tale since networks discovered how cute Tiki and Ronde Barber were.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/06/sports/football/06sandomir.ready.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Super Bowl XL
ABC delivers worthy finale

By Barry Jackson Miami Herald

ABC made a grand exit Sunday night, ending its 36-year NFL association with a polished, professional production of Super Bowl XL.

But this wasn't a completely praiseworthy day for the Disney networks. The ABC/ESPN decision to combine for an unprecedented 9 ½ hours of pregame shows proved to be the most egregious example of TV overkill in Super Bowl history.

Once the pregame babbling was over, Al Michaels and John Madden delivered a credible effort, though Madden should have offered stronger opinions on controversial calls. (In particular, it seemed odd that Madden didn't point out that replays left serious doubts about whether Ben Roethlisberger crossed the goal line on Pittsburgh's first touchdown).

The announcers were at their best late in the second quarter. After Madden alertly questioned Seattle for calling a time-consuming running play, Michaels called it ''stunning'' that a Mike Holmgren-coached team so badly mismanaged the clock in that situation. And the announcers justifiably ripped the Seahawks for similar inefficiency late in the game.

Madden doesn't just criticize. He says specifically what teams should do differently. He encouraged the Seahawks to run more in the second half -- which they did at times, and often successfully.

Madden missed on a prediction that Pittsburgh would pass on the play in which Roethlisberger scored. But Madden came up big when he predicted the Steelers would run a ''gadget play'' just a series before they scored on one in the fourth quarter.

PREGAME MUSINGS

More than 3 ½ hours into the pregame show that cured insomnia, ESPN's Stuart Scott delivered a warning: ``If you move, we'll rip your cable out.''

Don't worry, Stuart. I didn't have the energy to move, being as I was already in a boredom-induced trance from hearing Sean ''I have an opinion about everything'' Salisbury and Mike Ditka debate every topic short of the Bush administration's Middle East policy.

And that was even before ESPN gave us not one, but two, interviews with experts on FieldTurf, one of whom started babbling something about how they ''mixed the sand with the tires.'' By that point, reading the phone book seemed more appealing.

At times, the ESPN pregame resembled a Saturday Night Live parody, but the humor wasn't intentional (except for the mildly amusing segment in which Kenny Mayne spewed running commentary as Martha Stewart whipped up nachos).

Here was Sal Paolantonio, breaking in at 1:59 p.m., with this urgent report from Pittsburgh hotel headquarters: ''The team meal is over, the meeting is over. They're making final preparations to board'' the bus.

Paolantonio returned at 2:31 to assure us that the Steelers ``were ready to board.''

Ed Werder then broke in with the shocking news that Matt Hasselbeck had been spotted walking through the hotel lobby. And on it went, irrelevant information streaming endlessly from 24 correspondents.

So desperate to fill six hours, ESPN devoted entire segments to debates of such lame topics as: Which is the longer wait for players -- before you get to the stadium or after?

Between ABC and ESPN, 10 -- 10! -- commentators shared their opinions on the merits of Joey Porter's trash-talking. ESPN debated the issue twice within two hours, apparently hoping we didn't remember the first conversation.

Even Salisbury couldn't keep his concentration, referring to Scott as Trey (as in Trey Wingo, ESPN's overexuberant anchor).

ABC's 3 ½ hour pregame show was faster-paced and offered a more diverse mix of stories than ESPN's six hours.

Patriots coach and ABC guest analyst Bill Belichick -- not exactly Mr. Charisma -- was actually decent. He gave the pregame edge to Pittsburgh, noting they have ``more playmakers on defense.''

It was no surprise that the two best pieces of the TV marathon were delivered by Andrea Kremer, including a report on the nightclub fight that left Seahawks safety Ken Hamlin with a fractured skull and blood clot on the brain. (He implied he would play next season.)

She also interviewed ex-Raiders safety Jack Tatum, who revealed he has never spoken to former Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley since delivering the hit that left him paralyzed 27 years ago. Stingley told Kremer off camera that he wants an apology and blamed Tatum's ``foolish pride.''

RANDOM THOUGHTS

ABC's most poignant shot of the night was the close-up of Bill Cowher embracing his family as the game ended. . . . Nice touch by ABC to put a microphone on Jerome Bettis, who was heard giving sage advice to teammate Willie Parker, then calming his teammates late in the game by telling them, ''It's no different than Week 1.'' . . . Thankfully, ABC stays with the traditional camera angle on field goals -- not the disorienting low-level perspective that Fox uses.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/13802447.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Super Bowl XL
Like Steelers, ABC insights hit stride after half

By Marc Narducci Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer Mon, Feb. 06, 2006

Going into the Super Bowl, ABC executives had said their goal when it came to the game's TV coverage was to get it simple and get it right.

In its last game before bowing out of covering NFL games, ABC clearly achieved its goal last night during Pittsburgh's 21-10 win over Seattle in Super Bowl XL.

One blemish came when Ben Roethlisberger scored the Steelers' first touchdown on a 1-yard run. It was difficult to tell on replays whether the ball crossed the goal line, even with 40 cameras at ABC's disposal.

On the play that set up the touchdown, ABC did a great job of showing that Roethlisberger did not cross the line of scrimmage while scrambling and hitting Hines Ward for 37 yards. The network had an imaginary red line at the line of scrimmage, showing clearly that the Pittsburgh QB was behind it when he passed.

Play-by-play man Al Michaels has an effective way of slipping in facts without bombarding the viewers with information. For instance, he told us that Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck had not lined up in the shotgun formation all season.

Michaels later added that Pittsburgh's Chris Gardocki had never had a punt blocked in 15 seasons.

ABC analyst John Madden, who used to entertain audiences with his humor, has changed over the years, but that's not such a bad thing. Madden is more serious but still insightful. He passes the major test of an analyst - not telling the audience the obvious. Few do a better job of analyzing replays.

Madden pointed out how Seattle linebacker Lofa Tatupu plays deep at linebacker but is able to close quickly on the ball and make plays. The next play, Tatupu did just that.

Halftime interviews, which are usually about as meaningful as a dropkick, proved useful last night when Steelers coach Bill Cowher told sideline reporter Michele Tafoya that Roethlisberger had to settle down, a candid reply.

ABC, like the Steelers, started out strongly in the second half. On Willie Parker's 75-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter, Madden pointed out that all-pro guard Alan Faneca had thrown the key block to spring Parker. The replay then showed how Faneca opened up a huge hole.

The replay of the 16-yard TD reception by Seattle tight end Jerramy Stevens on a corner route showed how Steelers safety Troy Polamalu was drawn away from the play when Darrell Jackson ran a post pattern. Again, it was insight by Madden that was backed up by the replay.

Showing a feel for the game, Madden said a trick play would be coming. One Pittsburgh series later, the Steelers scored on a 43-yard pass from Antwaan Randle El to Hines Ward on a wide-receiver option play.

Michaels showed his knowledge of the game on Hasselbeck's fourth-quarter fumble. While the play was being reviewed, Michaels pointed out the rule that the ground could cause a fumble only if the player is not brought down by contact. Michaels added that the officials should reverse the call because the replay showed that Hasselbeck was touched by linebacker Larry Foote. The official did reverse the call.

ABC directors Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff will join Madden with NBC next year, and Michaels is rumored to join them for Sunday night games.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/13802198.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Super Bowl XL
Game, audience spend harmless night together

By Ron Rappaport Chicago Sun-Times Columnist February 6, 2006

We're bringing you this column on a five-second delay. You can never be too careful.

Actually, there was nothing to worry about when it came to hiding the children and keeping the congressional investigators at bay during the Super Bowl telecast Sunday. Any show that begins with former Super Bowl MVPs turning Dr. Seuss' Oh, the Places You'll Go! into "Do You Want to See Some Football?'' and continues with a Busby Berkeley tribute in a Burger King commercial can be sure it has put Janet Jackson in its rear-view mirror.

Just to show you how worried the NFL was that things might turn contentious, the minute referee Bill Leavy saw a Steeler move to shake hands with a Seahawks player after the coin flip, he interceded and said, "Will you turn your backs, please?'' Good sportsmanship before a game? That will never do.

Al Michaels and John Madden were with the program, providing their customary commentary -- nice and comfortable, nothing too excitable, we've done this a hundred times before. We'll leave the shouting to Chris Berman and company as they keep the tube warm until Mick Jagger's stage can be wheeled into place for a halftime show that, despite a few lines that were needlessly cut by nervous censors, exhibited about as much a sense of danger as a Lawrence Welk tribute would have.

Adding to the feel-good nature of the show was the fact that comedy made a comeback in what, to many, is the most important element of the show -- the commercials. Not everything was a hit -- the right-to-lifers aren't going to complain that Hummer's Little Monster commercial makes fun of childbirth, are they? -- but Bud Light's magic fridge, Leonard Nimoy's Aleve spot and Diet Pepsi's Jackie Chan bit were funny. So was Shaquille O'Neal's little ad for "Desperate Housewives.''

Yes, this was a Super Bowl of family values. Except for the members of the Seahawks family, of course. Even the spot featuring the GoDaddy girl, who got everybody so hot and bothered last year, had a been-there, bored-by-that quality to it this time.

Must-not-see TV

The Seahawks might want to keep Mike Holmgren away from a replay of the telecast for a while. Their coach is not going to be thrilled when he hears Madden questioning him several times for choosing not to go for a field goal at the end of the game, then try to get the touchdown he needed after an onside kick. ... Holmgren also might want to kick himself for not insisting on a replay on the first-quarter pass to Jerramy Stevens. The picture showed Stevens taking several steps downfield before losing the ball. ... "Breaking News!'' shrieked the graphic on ESPNews an hour before the game. "Steelers LB Joey Porter Pregame Incident!'' Uh, never mind. "Nothing happened,'' Sal Paolontonio said via cell phone. "They never came within 10 yards of each other.'' Tell the graphics guys to go take a cold shower. ... I know it all worked out, but the last person you want to see standing before the cameras the day before the Super Bowl is the guy in charge of emergency snow removal.

Wired

Will we one day be watching the NFL's Super Bowl on the NFL Network on the NFL cable system, listening to it on NFL Radio, downloading it on NFL.com and checking in on our cell phones through NFL Mobile? One thing is certain -- nobody can accuse the league of being indifferent to the possibilities of new and expanding technology. "They've realized that the next generation of fans wants sports delivered any time, anywhere,'' Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, told the Washington Post. "They're astute in remembering that in every arrival of new media, sports has always been second to porn as the most compelling content.'' ... Speaking of which, those wanting to watch the game in racier surroundings than staid old Detroit could head across the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario, where Cuban cigars, nude lap dancing, gambling and legalized prostitution were all available.

And finally ...

Tell the truth: Seattle didn't lose the game in the second half when the Steelers scored, but in the first half when the Seahawks couldn't.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/rapoport/cst-spt-rap06.html

Super Bowl XL
Super Bowl commercial highlights and lowlights

By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic February 6, 2006

Sure, you know the highlights of the game, but here's a look at what you really missed if you failed to watch every minute of the Super Bowl XL broadcast on Sunday night -- some classic and not-so-classic commercials:

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] BURGER KING[/FONT][/COLO

This tacky sendup of Hollywood musicals featured garish costumes and clunky dancing. Worst of all, in a scene that killed the appetite, female dancers created a mighty ugly hamburger by throwing themselves on a bun. Have it this way? No thanks.

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] FEDEX[/FONT][/COLO

This hilarious and elaborate commercial depicted workplace problems -- during prehistoric times. A dinosaur wrecks an early version of air mail. A man is fired for not using FedEx -- which doesn't exist yet -- and then he meets a crushing fate.

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] MICHELOB[/FONT][/COLO

"The world of light beer just got a little darker," the spot says. No kidding. A man and a woman face off in a football game. She taunts him. He knocks her to the ground. She repays him in a bar. This beer ad was simpler than most and funnier as well.

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] CAREERBUILDER.COM[/FONT][/COLO

You'd want to find another job if you worked for chimpanzees that won't acknowledge declining sales and prefer to party. In praising this funny spot, I have to note that Tribune Co., which publishes the Sentinel, is behind CareerBuilder. Still a hoot, though.

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] SPRINT NEXTEL[/FONT][/COLO

Wireless music downloads let you have a song for every occasion, even when your couch catches on fire. This zany ad featured four people running around that couch in slapstick fashion. This one wasn't hilarious, but it wasn't pretentious either.

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] EMERALD NUTS[/FONT][/COLO

This weird spot celebrated the snack's name with a strange scene. "Eagle-eyed Machete Enthusiasts Recognize A Little Druid Networking Under The Stairs," the announcer said. "Even Druids Love Emerald Nuts." How nice. There wasn't a lot to love.

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] BUDWEISER[/FONT][/COLO

So many ads celebrated beer, and a few sent contradictory messages about responsible drinking. Yet you could enjoy this splashy spot in a stadium. Fans flipped cards to show their devotion to the brew and their satisfaction in drinking up.

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] MASTERCARD[/FONT][/COLO

This brisk, charming spot drafted Richard Dean Anderson of MacGyver to promote a debit card. He did it by purchasing little things (tube socks, tweezers) that helped him stage a heroic escape. It's smart advertising to salute a beloved character.

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] NATIONWIDE[/FONT][/COLO

Fabio was shilling for a shampoo with his name -- until the over-the-top commercial took a nifty twist. He morphed into an old man, and the announcer said, "Life comes at you fast." This trick commercial was another winner for Nationwide.

FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] ABC[/FONT][/COLO

Networks always push their shows, but ABC did a bang-up sales job for Lost, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. In witty commentary, Shaquille O'Neal, Hugh Hefner, Tony Hawk and Sugar Ray Leonard endorsed the women of Wisteria Lane.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv/orl-sbads0606feb06,0,2065303,print.story?coll=orl-caltvtop

Super Bowl XL
Researchers get a super handle on ads that work

A study at UCLA employs brain scans to gauge responses to the $2.5-million, 30-second television commercials during the big game
By Julie Tamaki Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 6, 2006

Every advertiser would love to know what runs through a viewer's head when he watches a television commercial — and on Super Bowl Sunday, a group of UCLA researchers had the answer.

Their study measured the emotional response of a human brain as it was bombarded by some of the most creative and expensive ads Madison Avenue has to offer.

Advertisers paid about $2.5 million to air a 30-second spot during Sunday's broadcast. If preliminary results from an experiment conducted by Dr. Joshua Freedman and his colleagues at UCLA are any indicator, some got more for their millions than others.

How did the ads measure up — at least according to the brain of Fred Kipperman, a 36-year-old attorney from Santa Monica?

Michelob beer: big.

Sierra Mist soda: decent.

Bud Light: flat.

Researchers plan to use Kipperman's responses to compile a list of the most- and least-engaging Super Bowl ads based on the activity they triggered in the human brain.

That activity is measured by the flow of blood in portions of the brain involved in emotions such as wanting, sexual arousal, fear and indecision.

Freedman said Kipperman's brain response matched his verbal response to the ads about 70% of the time. "When he said he liked something, usually the area of his brain lit up that's associated with liking."

"But in about 30% of the cases, what [Kipperman] reported looked very different than the major activity" in his brain, Freedman said.

Freedman is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA and co-founder of FKF Applied Research, a privately funded company that uses a functional magnetic resonance imager (fMRI) technology to study how people make choices. Sunday's experiment, a collaboration between FKF and the Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center at UCLA, represents the latest attempt by researchers to use fMRI to gain insight into how marketing affects the human brain.

A Caltech team previously used the device to investigate how the brain responded to celebrity faces and designer products. UCLA researchers have also tested how Democrats and Republicans reacted to the faces of presidential candidates.

On Sunday, Kipperman was one of five people who participated in the Super Bowl ad experiment.

Outfitted with a headset and goggles, Kipperman watched more than a dozen ads as he lay in a fMRI machine.

He saw Jessica Simpson's Pizza Hut pitch, Leonard Nimoy's ad for Aleve painkiller and Jackie Chan's plug for Diet Pepsi. But it was a Michelob beer spot that featured a twisted version of a touch football game that garnered the biggest reaction from Kipperman.

"The funny ads grabbed my attention," Kipperman said.

Kipperman's positive response to the Michelob ad was confirmed by the activity in his brain recorded by the researchers. That's not always the case, however.

"There is a little bit of a disconnect between what people say they like and … what you see when you look at brain responses," said Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist with the brain mapping center who was also involved in Sunday's experiment.

When it comes to Super Bowl commercials, advertisers have traditionally worried more about greenbacks than gray matter.

Last year, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, Super Bowl advertisers collectively experienced a 27% jump in website visits, rising from 17.6 million unique visitors on Super Bowl Sunday to 22.3 million the following day. Fox Sports, CareerBuilder.com and Verizon Wireless experienced some of the healthiest growth rates the day after the game.

Whether the UCLA findings will jibe with results from an untold number of focus groups and advertising experts remains to be seen.

"Is the brain going to be the better predictor, or is the focus group going to be the better predictor?" Iacoboni asked. "We're going to find out."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-fi-ads6feb06,0,4518275,print.story?coll=cl-tv-features

The Digital Revolution
Nets' iTunes gamble paying off s

The Hollywood Reporter Feb. 06, 2006

Television networks took a leap into the unknown when they started selling their shows on Apple's iTunes online store, but even in these early days, it's starting to look like that faith in digital downloads was well placed.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs welcomed Walt Disney Co. and Pixar Animation Studios content to the service in October.

Now there are 40 different series, each episode of which costs a standardized $1.99 to purchase, and more are on the way.

Nobody will disclose numbers for these television downloads.

It's easy, however, to keep an eye on the iTunes download chart, which usually shows NBC's "The Office" as the top full-length program, followed by ABC's "Lost" and Comedy Central's "South Park."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001957537

Sunday’s preliminary prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

Super Bowl XL: The Commercials
Super Bowl XL 18th Annual Ad Meter

(USA Today)

[]

I actually particpated in this survey about 5 years ago. I live in Arlington, VA (former home of USA Today - now they are down the road in Tysons Corner) and got a call saying I'd been selected at random to view and rate the commericials during the Superbowl. I was told to come by 5:30 p.m. and I could bring a friend - each of us would be paid $50 for the evening and get a free meal (cold sandwiches and chips - no alcohol). It was interesting to watch the crowd (this was pre-HD - though they had a nice "giant" projection screen) participating. It seemed to be a good mix of the general population. There were some folks who brought books and would read during the game, then put the books down and watch the commercials. They gave us the results at the end of the game.

My only questions was this "sampling" was limited to folks from the DC metro area who could make it to Arlington to watch the game. I was never convinced it was a "national representative sample".

Anyway that is my .02 worth (by the way the $50 was saved toward the purchase of my first HDTV, representing approximately 2% of the purchase price :) )

From Mediaweek,

ABC to Buyers: Live-Only is A Deal Breaker
John Consoli

FEBRUARY 06, 2006 -

ABC sales president Mike Shaw has thrown down the gauntlet to media buyers, stating in no uncertain terms that he does not plan to write business in the 2006-07 upfront with media agencies that insist on using only Nielsen Media Research “live” ratings as the measurement currency.

Nielsen, on Dec. 26, began issuing three sets of TV ratings measurement: live, live plus same day and live plus 7 days, to take into consideration non-live digital video recorder viewing. While the broadcast network research executives recently held a press conference to state their case as to why commercials viewed in DVR playback still have value to advertisers, the network sales executives, up until now, have stayed mum on how they plan to negotiate with buyers during the upfront. Several media agencies, including Magna Global USA and Carat, have publicly taken the position that live ratings should be the basis for ad-pricing negotiations.

Shaw, whose sales team brought in $2.1 billion in prime-time ad sales for ABC during last year’s upfront marketplace—a 30 percent bump over the previous year—said in no uncertain terms that “for the media agencies to come to the TV networks and tell us they want to give us zero credit for TV viewing via DVRs is not a tenable position. It is unreasonable, unfair and unjust. It is just not a responsible way to approach this issue.”

Shaw said while it is the agencies’ mandate “to pay us as little as possible for the advertising they buy [for] their clients,” taking the position that any viewing but live viewing has no value “is ridiculous.” He said if media agencies try to negotiate with that position in mind, “it’s not going to happen.”

ABC, he said, developed a special episode of its Sunday drama Grey’s Anatomy to air leading out of last night’s Super Bowl XL broadcast. “Are the advertisers saying that those people who may have watched seven hours of Super Bowl coverage, who then may have decided to record Grey’s Anatomy and watch the show the next night don’t matter, and shouldn’t be counted as viewers?” Shaw asked.

Adding fuel to Shaw’s fire is that Grey’s Anatomy, for the week of Jan. 9-15, recorded an 8.7 live-plus-7-day rating versus an 8.5 live rating in the 18-49 demo, according to Nielsen, the highest rated prime-time show to receive that large a boost from time-shifted viewing.

Shaw sees his argument as simple. “Since the advent of VCRs, Nielsen always counted VCR viewing as live viewing because there was no way for Nielsen to determine when the VCR was started and stopped. So now the DVR replaces the VCR and you can make that determination. So we are going to lose everyone of the viewers who records a show? We would be going from 100 percent credit of those viewers to zero credit. We can’t do that.”

Shaw, whose network has several of the hottest shows in prime time, including four of the Top 10, and which is expected to narrowly win this season’s key adults 18-49 demo race, said he decided to go public with his thoughts after several media agencies issued public position papers stating they’ll only consider live ratings. “If the media agencies felt it was appropriate to go public with their positions, then I felt it was no longer necessary to keep my position low key,” Shaw said.

Calls to several top national TV media buyers were not returned at press time.

Through 19 weeks of this season, ABC is leading the 18-49 race, with a 4.0 average rating, ahead of CBS (3.9) and Fox (3.5). It’s also the only network up (3 percent) over last season, and the only net up in viewers, reaching 10.9 million a night (up 5 percent), which trails only CBS. And among 18-34 viewers, ABC, with a 3.2 rating, ranks second to Fox’s 3.3.

Not all network sales chiefs were eager to join Shaw in the public debate. CBS sales president JoAnn Ross did not want to comment and Jon Nesvig, sales president at Fox, said, “Public proclamations serve no purpose in this discussion.” NBC issued a statement that agreed with Shaw that the live-plus-7-days “provides the most accurate and comprehensive measurement of view currently available,” and “it is NBC Universal’s position that Live Plus 7 is the metric we believe should be the industry standard for viewing measurement.”

Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development at NBC, told Mediaweek that “at the end of the day, isn’t it in the best interest of everyone to insure that most complete measurement metric is used?”

Wurtzel, a veteran TV research executive who has witnessed a variety of alterations to the Nielsen’s measurement methodology over the past two decades, added, “These changes are never easy, but we [the TV networks and media agencies] have always been able to come to an agreement. There will be many, many conversations to try to work out the issue” before the upfront.
Shaw hopes he’s right. “We will have to come up with some type of compromise before the upfront,” he said.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001957417
ABC to Buyers: Live-Only is A Deal Breaker

DIRECTV and NBC to Deliver Interactive and On Demand Olympic Experience; DIRECTV Customers will have Access to a Variety of Interactive Olympic Features

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 6, 2006--

More Than 100 Hours of HD Olympic Programming from Universal HD,
Up to 200 Hours of NBC Coverage in HD and More Than 15 Hours of On
Demand Programming for DIRECTV DVRs

To celebrate the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy, DIRECTV and NBC will deliver an outstanding Olympic viewing experience to its customers nationwide. In addition to offering comprehensive Olympic coverage from NBC, MSNBC, CNBC and the USA Network, DIRECTV will also offer enhanced features, such as the Sports Mix channel that will display multiple NBC Olympic channels simultaneously on one screen, up-to-the-minute medal counts, NBC's entire Winter Olympics television schedule and more.

In addition, DIRECTV will offer more than 100 hours of high-definition (HD) Olympic coverage from Universal HD and up to 200 hours of NBC network Olympic Coverage in HD, as well as more than 15 hours of on demand NBC Olympics content available to DIRECTV DVR customers.

DIRECTV will dedicate its Sports Mix channel (channel 104) as an interactive hub for NBC's Olympic coverage for customers with interactive-enabled receivers. During NBC's Olympic coverage, which begins Feb. 10 and runs through Feb. 26, the Sports Mix channel will feature multiple NBC Olympic channels including NBC, MSNBC, CNBC and the USA Network. Viewers can click through to these channels from the Sports Mix channel to view their favorite Olympic programming. The Sports Mix channel will also feature interactive medal counts, Team USA updates, and NBC's entire Winter Olympics television schedule.

"DIRECTV's more than 15 million customers across the country will have access to the ultimate Olympic viewing experience via NBC's multi-channel HD coverage," said Eric Shanks, executive vice president, DIRECTV Entertainment. "With so many Olympic events available for viewing, the enhanced interactive features will enable fans to get the most out of NBC's comprehensive Olympic coverage and gives our customers greater choice and control over their TV experience."

"NBC Universal is excited that DIRECTV will be offering NBC's coverage of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games," commented David Zaslav, president, NBC Universal Cable. "Our unprecedented network and cable coverage this year will provide viewers with a more extensive and interactive Olympics experience including up-to-the-minute updates and medal count."

With the Sports Mix channel, customers can use their remote to select and highlight specific Olympic events that are being broadcast simultaneously and watch them full-screen, then return to the six-screen "mix" format at the push of a button. The interactive Olympic features will be available to DIRECTV customers at no additional cost.

DIRECTV will offer NBC's extensive Olympic coverage in HD that will include more than 100 hours of HD Olympic programming from Universal HD (Channel 74) and up to 200 hours of HD Olympic programming from the NBC network. DIRECTV customers that have HD equipment and live in markets where DIRECTV offers local HD channels or who qualify for distant network signals will have the opportunity to enjoy NBC's broadcast network coverage in HD of the Olympics. DIRECTV customers can also access Olympic programming from Universal HD if they subscribe to the DIRECTV HD package and have the necessary HD receiving equipment.

http://phoenix.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=127160&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=813120&highlight=
DIRECTV News Release

I thought this might be of interest, a link provided by HDSportsGuide.com. It tracks the quest by GoDaddy.com to get approval for their Super Bowl ad. It contains both video and storyboards.

https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/superbowl06/timeline.asp?se=%2B&ci=5478
Go Daddy's Quest for Super Bowl XL

Obituary
NBC News Pioneer Reuven Frank Dies

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 2/6/2006

Reuven Frank, former NBC News President and NBC board member who pioneered election coverage and was instrumental in teaming Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on the evening news, then picking successor Tom Brokaw, has died of pneumonia at age 85, according to NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust, who said a family member had reached out to NBC with the news.

Frank joined NBC News in 1950 as a writer and was the producer of the Huntley-Brinkley Report, which established the mold for news anchor teams, from its inception in 1956 to 1962, when he was named executive producer. He was named a VP of NBC news in January 1966 and an executive VP two years later.

He was also named president in 1968, a that saw journalists working overtime to cover the Tet offensive, and the events surrounding the Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations. "There has been no time for TV anybody in TV News to take a breath," he told B&C at the time.

He served until 1973, then did a second tour of duty as president in 1982-84.

Frank's legacy includes pioneering the half-hour news format when he was helping develop the Huntley-Brinkley Report, as well as pioneering presidential convention TV reporting, teaming his two nightly news anchors for the coverage and introducing floor reporters, elevated cameras, and an internal wire service.

Like many a TV newsman of his era, Frank got his start in the newspaper business, having spent three years as a reporter, rewrite man and night city editor on the Newark (N.J.) Evening News before joining the network.

Frank was born in Montreal Dec. 7, 1920, and served in the U.S. Army in World War II for four years, including two years in Europe, joining the paper after his discharge and getting a degree in journalism from Columbia.

Brokaw said Monday of Frank: "I had the privilege of starting my journalism career when Reuven was producing The Huntley Brinkley Report, which was a model of incisive reporting, astute analysis and engaging story telling in a new medium that required a deft combination of the visual and the narrative form. Those broadcasts became a school for a new generation of journalists coming of age in a new medium and I am forever grateful for what I learned from him.

"Reuven had an uncanny ability to balance the serious imperatives of journalism with a keen appreciation for the absurd. As a result he was always not just wise, but entertaining."

NBC News said in its statement: "Reuven Frank was a giant of broadcast journalism, who in many ways was a founding father of the modern form of broadcast journalism."

A full Frank bio can be found at the Museum of Broadcast Communications:

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/frankreuven/frankreuven.htm

NBC News Pioneer Reuven Frank Dies

With the passing of Reuven Frank, former NBC News President (1968-73, 1982-84), the following statements are released on behalf of NBC News and Tom Brokaw:

STATEMENT FROM NBC NEWS:

Reuven Frank was a giant of broadcast journalism, who in many ways was a founding father of the modern form of broadcast journalism.

He was the first executive producer of "The Huntley Brinkley Report," the groundbreaking evening news broadcast that dominated the ratings and became a fixed part of the popular culture.

He was also the producer of NBC's hugely popular political convention and election night coverage led by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and a team that included, among others, John Chancellor, Frank McGee, Edwin Newman and Sander Vanocur.

Reuven twice served as president of NBC News and was held in high esteem throughout the industry for his innovative programming, strong views on the unique qualities of television news and his commitment to serious journalism.

STATEMENT FROM TOM BROKAW:

I had the privilege of starting my journalism career when Reuven was producing "The Huntley Brinkley Report," which was a model of incisive reporting, astute analysis and engaging story telling in a new medium that required a deft combination of the visual and the narrative form.

Those broadcasts became a school for a new generation of journalists coming of age in a new medium and I am forever grateful for what I learned from him.

Reuven had an uncanny ability to balance the serious imperatives of journalism with a keen appreciation for the absurd. As a result he was always not just wise, but entertaining.

When he later selected me to be the sole anchor of "The NBC Nightly News," I was personally grateful and professionally proud to have earned his trust.

Competition: FiOS TV Plays Catch-Up in Virginia—One Dry Cleaner at a Time

By Simon Applebuam

While not everybody's convinced that Verizon's FiOS TV will pose a formidable challenge to cable, you have to admire the telco's marketing.


GROUND ATTACK: In addition to its street-based marketing, Verizon sent Fed Ex packages to residents containing FiOS marketing material like this letter and postcard.

Its campaign in Herndon, Va., is all about meeting masses on the spot, as opposed to using mass media.

A relatively affluent community 20 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., Herndon is Verizon's second all-digital overbuild. The system launched in November, weeks after FiOS landed in Keller, Texas. Herndon falls within Cox's Fairfax County system (242,000-plus customers) and Comcast's system in Reston. Verizon won't divulge how many subscribers it's attracted so far in Herndon, or even how many households FiOS passes. The way it's spending marketing money speaks volumes about Verizon's confidence in its product, though. Perhaps with good reason--as in Keller, Verizon offers some 330 channels in Herndon. Expanded basic (180-plus channels) costs $39.95 per month. Cox's expanded basic (100-plus) costs $41.99.

Most of the marketing attempts to catch residents at places they frequent. Verizon reps appear at neighborhood dry cleaners, take-out joints and restaurants, distributing flyers and urging citizens to watch service demonstrations in a truck. Sometimes business proprietors allow Verizon to print FiOS TV information on dry cleaning bags or Chinese food containers. Verizon also collaborates with restaurants on events, such as a free-food night where customers can win prizes and see TV with Verizon's logo on the set.

Obviously Verizon believes street marketing is an effective tactic. Indeed, a radio/TV campaign was considered, but declared unsuitable. "Operating in one community doesn't lend itself to a big TV buy," Chris McKay, Verizon's Virginia regional marketing director, says. "You get a broad reach, but it's cluttered. The challenge is breaking through...intercepting consumers where they shop or are entertained communicates that we are a local company investing to give them more TV and broadband choice."

CTAM president and CEO Char Beales wonders whether these techniques will succeed. "It will be hard, because they're the latest entrant in a market with two operators that consumers are happy with," she says.

Cox hasn't changed its marketing approach. "In our view, Verizon's simply playing catch-up," Cox Fairfax's Alex Horwitz says.

Perhaps, but Verizon's playing catch-up with gusto. Potential residential customers have received two packages of marketing materials via Federal Express: one touts the channel lineup, the other hawks Internet access. This is followed by regular calls from FiOS' door-to-door salesmen. Prior to the launch of FiOS TV, Herndon residents received postcards in the mail telling them the service was coming.

Cable might do well to heed Beales' advice: Cox and Comcast should "watch what Verizon is doing very carefully," she says.

http://www.cable-accessintel.com/cgi/cw/show_mag.cgi?pub=cw&mon=020606&file=competitionfios.htm

Super Bowl XL
TiVo Super Bowl Favorites

(TiVo Press Release) 02/06/2006

TIVO SUPER BOWL DATA SHOWS ACTION ON THE FIELD RIVALED INTEREST IN COMMERCIALS BETWEEN THE SNAPS FOR FIRST TIME IN YEARS

Ameriquest Spots Land Top Two Slots on TiVo Top 10; Replay Activity Spikes Around Controversial Touchdown, "Gadget Play"

ALVISO, Calif. — February 6, 2006 — Dozens of multi-million dollar commercials got their chance to impress the largest television audience of the year during the Super Bowl, but Ameriquest may have gotten the most bang for its advertising buck as it managed to land both of its spots at the very top of the list of favorite ads, according to an annual analysis of TiVo households.

"Our annual analysis of Super Bowl commercials shows once again that if you want to get the audiences attention during the game, you've got to get them laughing," said Katie Ho, Vice President of Consumer Marketing at TiVo, which has more than 4 million subscribers nationwide. "Literally all of the ads in replayed most often in TiVo households utilized humor to deliver their brand message. And TiVo viewers were able to tickle their funny bones again and again without missing a single second of the action on the field."

TiVo bases the annual review of viewer reaction to the commercials, action on the field and the halftime entertainment on a more than 10,000 household sample of anonymous information. No personal information is gathered or collected in this review of data.

Every year TiVo has analyzed how viewers utilize the replay and rewind features, it has been the commercials that viewers most often watched again rather than the action on the field. This year may have provided an exception. A controversial touchdown call in the second quarter spurred almost as much replay and rewind activity as the most popular commercials. On average, TiVo households watched more than four times the controversial touchdown by Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the "Gadget Play" touchdown that clinched the Steelers victory.

In fact, TiVo households found themselves reaching for the remote many times throughout the game, the analysis shows. TiVo households hit replay, pause or rewind buttons on their remote an average of about 100 times during the Super Bowl broadcast, the analysis shows. TiVo households hit the replay button alone about 30 times on average during the game.

While the Ameriquest ads used humorous scenes in a hospital and an airplane to assure viewers the mortgage lender would not "judge too quickly," TiVo viewers were quick to replay both ads many times over. And Budweiser, a perennial Super Bowl advertiser, landed four spots among the top 10 ads in TiVo households, with its streaking sheep among football playing Clydesdales landing in the third spot.

The list of top 10 most replayed ads in TiVo households included...

1. Ameriquest Friendly Skies
2. Ameriquest That Killed Him
3. Budweiser Streaking Sheep
4. Fed Ex Caveman
5. Michelob Touch Football
6. Bud Light Hidden Bud Lights
7. Sierra Mist Kathy Griffin
8. Bud Light Bear Attack
9. Aleve Leonard Nimoy
10. Bud Light Revolving Wall

http://www.tivo.com/cms_static/press_74.html

TV Notebook
ABC's Grey's Pulls Big Post-Super Bowl Stats

By John Consoli MediaWeek.com FEBRUARY 06, 2006 -

ABC's telecast of drama Grey's Anatomy immediately following Super Bowl XL, airing from 10:27 to 11:27 p.m., drew 38.1 million viewers and a 16.6 rating among adults 18-49, according to Nielsen Media Research data.

It was the largest post-Super Bowl entertainment show audience in five years, since the second season premiere of Survivor on CBS in 2001, and the third most-watched entertainment program folowing the Super Bowl in 18 years.

The telecast of Grey's was also the highest rated entertainment program on all television since the finale of NBC's Friends on May 6. 2004, and was ABC's highest rated show among adults 18-49 in almost 9 years.

The show was the first of a two-part episode, which will conclude next Sunday, Feb. 12, in its regular 9 p.m. time period.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001958078

Critic’s Notebook
''Love Monkey''

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

Now that we're done with the Super Bowl, and waiting for resolution of that ''Grey's Anatomy'' that followed the game, it's time to move on to other TV topics. Like ''Love Monkey,'' a show I am growing ever more fond of, even if the audience hasn't committed yet.

The Tuesday night CBS comedy-drama stars Tom Cavanagh as a music-industry executive who -- like so many people on TV -- is looking for love. He's good at looking, not so good at keeping, and better at his job than at either of those personal pursuits.

Tomorrow night's episode involves Cavanagh's company shooting a music video -- a risky enterprise since the company does not command a big budget -- but the making of the video intersects with his personal life, and not in a good way.

There are so many good things about the show, from the characters to the way they get angry, to the music itself, a blend of older material familiar to ancients like myself and new, accessible tunes. If you haven't caught the show yet, now's the time; you have seen how quickly shows get the hook these days, and ''Love Monkey'' deserves a longer chance.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

TV Notebook
Show may be a go, but its network isn't
With the WB and UPN closing, producers jockey for a spot on the new CW's fall lineup

By Maria Elena Fernandez Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 7, 2006

In Hollywood, television shows get canceled every day. But when an entire network — or two, for that matter — announce they are going out of business simultaneously, just before a new show is supposed to launch, what exactly is a producer to do?

This is not a rhetorical question. When it was announced last month that the WB and UPN were folding to form a new network, the CW, the artists and executives behind the new shows were left in a quandary.

Some take the philosophical approach: "The good news is that our show is going forward," said Jeff Kleeman, co-creator of "Misconceptions," a WB sitcom that is supposed to premiere in March or April. "The bad news is that the network it's on is getting canceled."

Veteran producer Tom Fontana, Barry Levinson's longtime partner on both winners ("Homicide," "Oz") and losers ("The Jury"), has a similar attitude. Like Kleeman, he has a new show ("The Bedford Diaries)" scheduled to debut on the WB on March 22.

"It's like when the Titanic is going down, you can either swim to the shore or you can sing along with the band," he said. "Well, I'm singing along with the band. My attitude is that this is business. I think our cast is terrific, and I think it's fun to watch and I'm very proud of it, and I can't wait for people to see it. But obviously I'm worried about how many people will actually see it."

The future is always precarious in the ruthless world of television. But this fall, when CBS and Warner Bros. launch the CW, a new youth-oriented network, and shut down the WB and UPN, there will be one less network renewing shows and buying new ones.

"The immediate effect this has on 'Misconceptions' is that we know going in that we won't be getting the promotional ad dollars that normally accompany a midseason launch," said co-creator Michael Saltzman.

Fontana's "The Bedford Diaries" has the advantage of having an air date, even if it has been placed in one of prime time's toughest slots — 9 p.m. Wednesdays (against "Lost" and "American Idol"). The drama, set at a New York City college campus, explores those years in a young person's life through the prism of a human behavior and sexuality class.

"I know my mother will be watching, but I don't know if she will count for much," Fontana joked. "In the past few months, it became clearer and clearer to us that the resources at the WB were shrinking, so it wasn't like I expected a huge, massive, expensive promotional campaign to be coming. The hardest thing about premiering any television show in this day and age is that you have to make as much noise as possible."

Of course, everyone wants their midseason shows to pop. But all eyes are really on May, when the networks announce their fall schedules to advertisers. Those who produce shows on the WB and UPN — and those who had hoped to — will be competing for 13 hours of programming available on the CW.

Contenders for renewal

The Jan. 24 news release that announced the new network listed a lineup of strong contenders for renewal on the CW. From UPN, those are "America's Next Top Model," "Veronica Mars," "Everybody Hates Chris," "Girlfriends" and the WWE's "SmackDown!" Of the WB's shows, "Beauty and the Geek," "Smallville," "Gilmore Girls," "Supernatural" and "Reba" were highlighted.

If all of those shows make it to the fall schedule, UPN President Dawn Ostroff, who was named president of entertainment of the CW, will have only 3 1/2 hours of programming to fill. "Every one of the upcoming midseason series has a shot at being considered for the network," said Chris Ender, CBS Corp. senior vice president of communications, who is temporarily acting as the CW's spokesman. "And they will be evaluated in the same manner as any show premiering under ordinary circumstances — the quality of the program, ratings performance and growth, and does the show generate a spark among young audiences."

Not all of the slots will be filled with returning shows, however. Ostroff is reviewing the WB's and UPN's development rosters and has already picked up two pilots from UPN's slate: A "Girlfriends" spinoff tentatively titled "The Game" and the soapy "Palm Springs." The CW also has picked up the "Aquaman" pilot, the "Smallville" spinoff the WB was developing, starring Will Toale as the new superhero.

Additionally, the CW has picked up two reality series developed at the WB: "Fountain of Youth," a competition that pits twentysomethings against senior citizens in a mad dash across the U.S. created by "Beauty and the Geek" partners Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg; and "Survival of the Richest," a six-episode RDF Media venture that pairs up society's disadvantaged with those who grew up wealthy.

"If I was in the middle of a show that was slated for fall, I'd certainly be in a much different frame of mind right now, but we've produced a show that we're happy with and it's in the can," said Allison Grodner, executive producer of "Get This Party Started," which will premiere on UPN today. "Certainly there's the competition for the time slots, which will definitely be a lot more fierce in the fall," Grodner said. "But if I can have a show that does air on that network, it will be supported by hit programming because now you have a combination of programming from both networks, which is certainly a better platform than either one had on its own. In the reality genre that I'm in, now I've got two hits — 'America's Next Top Model' and 'Beauty and the Geek' — to launch a reality show and that's exciting."

Tyra Banks' modeling franchise could also boost the television career of another former model, said Aaron Harberts, co-creator of "Pepper Dennis," which will premiere on the WB at 9 p.m. April 4.

Starring Rebecca Romijn as a successful broadcast journalist with a not-so-hot love life and a tendency toward clumsiness, "Pepper Dennis" is a perfect match for "Top Model" or "Veronica Mars," Harberts said.

"It's about an exciting time in a woman's life, a woman who is doing great at her career and trying to have it all," he said.

"The comedy and the tone of it, I think, would appeal to audiences of those shows. I also think it could work with 'Gilmore Girls.' It's strange to think of the TV landscape without these two little networks, but when you think about it, it's kind of a no-brainer that they are merging. What's on our minds now before we launch is making the shows that air before [May] fantastic so we can really hook the viewers in."

Just getting on the air has proved challenging for the series. First, there was a production delay to accommodate Romijn's movie career. The actress just completed "X-Men 3." Then Brooke Burns, who plays Romijn's sister, broke her neck while diving in her pool in November and was not able to work until last month. "There just doesn't seem to be a straight line when it comes to this show," Harberts said. "It just seems to be the nature of 'Pepper Dennis,' so our mantra has been let's keep our heads down and do the best show, and it will find a way to work itself out."

One advantage "Pepper Dennis" has over the other midseason shows clamoring for a spot on the new network, including Jerry Bruckheimer Television's "Modern Men," which premieres March 17 on the WB, is its star's magnetism. The WB's promotional coffers may be running low, but the gorgeous Romijn has been attracting media interest since the show was announced last May.

"I do know [The WB] plans to spend more money on 'Pepper Dennis' than they do on my show, but that's OK. They can keep their lousy money," Fontana joked. "I guess if we do any numbers at all against our competition, maybe the network might decide to take another look at us. But I think it's a slim chance. You know, I'm not sitting here counting my residuals from next season."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-cw7feb07,0,7170718,print.story?coll=cl-tv-features

Super Bowl XL
Super Bowl most-watched in 10 years
By David B. Wilkerson MarketWatch.com

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- ABC's telecast of Super Bowl XL was the most-watched TV program of the past 10 years, the network said Monday.

The Pittsburgh Steelers' 21-10 victory over the Seattle Seahawks drew an average audience of 90.7 million viewers, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research.

The game, not considered one of the most well-played in recent years, garnered a 34.6 rating among viewers 18-49 years old, ABC said.

Super Bowl XL was the most-watched Super Bowl since Super Bowl XXX in January 1996. The common denominator was the Steelers, who lost that game to the Dallas Cowboys, 27-17.

Last night's broadcast reached a total audience of 141.4 million viewers, including viewers that watched at least six minutes of the game. Its 18-49 rating was up 4% over last year's game on Fox, a thrilling contest that saw the New England Patriots defeat the Philadelphia Eagles 24-21.

After the Super Bowl, ABC's second-season drama "Grey's Anatomy" drew its biggest audience ever, 38.1 million viewers. In both total viewers and adults 18-49, it delivered the best ratings for any post-Super Bowl telecast in five years.

The "Grey's Anatomy" segment was ABC's most-watched series telecast in almost 12 years.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B8A536516-7B91-45AF-8A47-428204FFC7BE%7D&siteid=google

TV Notebook
Shots, shorts and showers

The Newark Star-Ledger’s Alan Sepinwall TV blog
Monday, February 06, 2006

After staying up late last night to file the Super Bowl ads column, I'm a little beat, so some quick thoughts on non-pigskin weekend TV:

A guy at work came up to me this morning and said, re: the "Grey's Anatomy" episode, "Boy, they sure went after that football audience with the shower scene, huh?" Though it felt more like an "ER" episode than I think Shonda may have intended, I liked it, particularly Christina Ricci as the increasingly freaked-out paramedic. Marian had one complaint about Kyle Chandler as the bomb squad guy: "Shouldn't he have already known about this yesterday?" I had only two real problems: 1)The bit where Meredith and Cristina are doing their girl talk thing and shushing Chandler as he talked about the danger of explosion felt too cutesy even for this show, and 2)Would it have killed them to put on a "To Be Continued" card? I know the house style at ABC is to end every drama with a logo card, but with the irregular start time and my fatigue, I was waiting for the next act to start until I saw the opening credits of the late news.

Another heavily pre-recorded "SNL," which you already know I think is a good thing. We had the Steve Martin/Alec Baldwin gag in the beginning, which couldn't have been pulled off (at least not well) live, a filmed commercial parody (plus a live one) and two different digital shorts. None of them were extraordinary, but none were horrendous, either. In fact, most of the episode felt that way: not as good as anything in the Jack Black show, but nothing like the usual 40-60% of godawful we usually get. Definitely a step in the right direction. On the other hand, why no Prince in "The Prince Show"?

Finally, after an episode that even the creator felt the need to badmouth in public, "Battlestar Galactica" was back on its game on Friday. Starbuck is my favorite character (Ronald Moore's, too, conveniently), and I like episodes that don't shy away from the harsh emotional reality of what life on the run after genocide would be like. I loved that Kara just lets Kat get away with calling herself the new Top Gun, yet still finds a way to piss on Kat's big moment with her toast to all the dead pilots. This show almost never does the predictable, and for that I'm very grateful.

http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/

Super Bowl XL
Super Bowl draws 90.7 million viewers

By Paul J. Gough The Hollywood Reporter Feb. 07, 2006

NEW YORK -- Super Bowl XL came up big for ABC, scoring an average 90.7 million viewers -- not only the most-watched Super Bowl in 10 years but also the most-watched TV program since 1996.

The Pittsburgh Steelers' 21-10 victory over the Seattle Seahawks delivered a 41.6 household rating/62 share, according to data released Monday by Nielsen Media Research. That was up slightly from last year's 41.1/62 for the battle of two bigger-market teams, the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots.

Last year's Eagles-Patriots game drew 86.1 million viewers to Fox.

And ABC's post-game programming, a special episode of "Grey's Anatomy," was able to hold onto more of its audience than Fox's shows last year. Nielsen said "Grey's Anatomy" averaged 38.1 million viewers and a 34.6 rating between 10:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. EST.

That made "Grey's" the most-watched (and best rated in adults 18-49) entertainment program following a Super Bowl since the premiere of "Survivor II" on CBS in 2001. It also attracted the most viewers of an entertainment program to broadcast TV since the finale of "Friends," and ABC's best in 12 years.

By comparison, Fox's post-Super Bowl programming didn't fare as well when it began at 10:45 p.m. "The Simpsons" averaged 23.1 million viewers and, a half hour later, the premiere of "American Dad" kept only 15.1 million.

Among metered markets, it's not surprising that Pittsburgh and Seattle were standouts. Pittsburgh, which took home its first Super Bowl championship since the 1970s, averaged a 57.1/83. Seattle, whose team made its first Super Bowl appearance, did even better: 55/83.

The game was popular in the markets of last year's Super Bowl teams, Boston (40.1/59) and Philadelphia (48.8/67). It was slightly less popular in New York (37.0/53) and Los Angeles (34.2/61).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001957906

Sports on TV
NFL Hot Stove League: The TV Edition

By Ben Grossman at bcbeat.com

Now that one of the most poorly-played Super Bowls in recent memory is behind us, we can turn to an off-season that should be thoroughly enjoyable.

And while just last week I was having a couple of adult beverages with some network flaks debating Reggie Bush vs. Vince Young, it is not on the on-field transactions that will have my attention, but rather the movement in the broadcast booth.

Will Al Michaels jump to NBC? If he goes, who takes over as lead play-by-play guy alongside Joe Theismann on a little cable show called Monday Night Football? While we’re at it, if Michaels goes, who replaces him as ABC’s lead NBA guy?

But back to MNF, what about the reports that ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser may end up in that booth as well? If you haven’t seen his Pardon The Interruption show with Michael Wilbon lately or at all, do yourself a favor and check it out.

I checked back in on it the other day and every time I watch it, I wonder why I don’t do so more often.

Next up is Fox’s pre-game show.

The talented James Brown just jumped to CBS as Greg Gumbel moves back to play-by-play. So who does Fox bring in to play traffic cop for Terry, Howie and Jimmy? Or does Terry move over to that role, leaving Fox to go and bring in another personality?

And if you’re really desperate for more, you can even talk sideline reporter movements. New CBS News President Sean McManus is reportedly taking CBS Sports’ Armen Keteyian to the news side, while CBS’s Bonnie Bernstein also is jumping ship.

And the best thing about all this action? The refs have no way of screwing it up.

http://www.bcbeat.com/

I'd love to find out how much money ITMS is bringing in for the networks and what percent a favorite like The Office does compared to NBC's offerings as a whole.

I doubt they'll break out the sales figures.
The trade unions are all watching like hawks to see how much money will be generated by these downloads.
As are the local stations.
It is just the very first baby step in the networks selling their programming directly to consumers.
Others think the local TV model will not fell any effects for a long time, but I happen to (very respectfully, of course) disagree.
I think the current network/local model is unravelling more quickly almost day by day.

Sports on TV. Sort Of.
Gillette Grooms Roethlisberger on Letterman

By John Consoli MediaWeek.com FEBRUARY 06, 2006 -

Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback of the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, will shave his beard tonight on CBS' Late Show with David Letterman, as part of a promotion for Gillette's new Fusion razor.

CBS was not involved in the deal with Gillette, which will receive exposure for its new razor on the show. According to a CBS representative, the producers of the Letterman show put the deal together.

Steiner Sports Marketing, which represents Gillette, got the quarterback to agree to shave using the Fusion. "We had been in ongoing discussions with Roethlisberger for weeks," said Mattrhew Latin, executive vp of Steiner. "It is our job to bring our clients the biggest names in sports to help them sell their product and shape their message"

Roethlisberger has had the beard since just prior to the Steelers' game with the Indianapolis Colts on Nov. 28. That started the team on an 8 game winning streak, that continued into the playoffs and to the Super Bowl.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/networktv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001958073

Critic’s Notebook
Skip the 'Party,' go straight to the 'House'

By Maureen Ryan on the Chicago Tribune TV blog February 06, 2006

There’s so much fine TV on Tuesday that we should dispense with the dud first, then get to the juicy “House” details and other good stuff.

“Get This Party Started” (9 PM ET/PTUPN) has such a festive title, but the show itself, a reality offering in which deserving folks have celebrations thrown in their honor, is uninspired and flat. The New Orleans resident who gets a surprise 21st birthday party in the debut episode is surely deserving, but whether or not you like this show depends in large part on your tolerance level for host Kristin Cavallari. Some of us find the former “Laguna Beach” personality wooden, vacuous and irritating; you may not. In which case, happy viewing.

Now: House. Stacy. It’s on.

If you need filling in on what that means -- and “House” (9 PM ET/PT, Fox) is a show that you can (and should) start watching in the middle of the season -- here’s the deal: Grumpy Dr. Gregory House has been flirting all season with his former love, Stacy (Sela Ward), who took a job at the hospital at which he’s the resident genius.

Well, the flirtation gets turned up several notches on Tuesday’s episode, but that’s far from the only reason to tune in. Sure, sometimes the medical plot echoes previous stories (“The diagnosis is this!” “No, wait, it’s that!”), but the show is so sharply written that that minor quibble is easily glided over.

The dialogue alone is a reason to tune in: At one point, House knocks on the office door of his longsuffering best friend, the empathic Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard). When he doesn’t answer, House says, “I know you’re in there. I can hear you caring.”

But the best part of Hugh Laurie’s performance in the episode unfolds in total silence: In the climactic scene between House and Stacy, watch his face as a devastating truth dawns on him. It’s a masterful, moving performance.

Some of the best moments on the first of two “Scrubs” episodes that air Tuesday (9 PM ET/PT, NBC) are musical: Sacred Heart Hospital is the site of some fierce air-band tryouts, and Donald Faison’s tribute to Bell Biv Devoe is impressive to behold. Mandy Moore also has an enjoyable turn in Tuesday’s episodes as J.D.’s clumsy new love interest.

Speaking of tuning in midway through a show’s run, you may think that since “Scrubs” has been on for several seasons, it’s too late to get into this comedy. Don’t think that way; you’ll be depriving yourself of one of television’s most poignant and hilarious half-hours. “Scrubs” is having its best season yet; last week’s sweet and knowing tribute to “The Wizard of Oz” was one of the most impressive comedy outings this season.

http://tempo.typepad.com/entertainment_tv/

TV Advertising
Can You TiVo to See Just the Ads?

By Stuart Elliott The New York Times February 7, 2006

Scientists work hard to determine the radioactive half-life of elements. Now, Madison Avenue is busy figuring out the Web-active afterlife of the more than 50 commercials that appeared during Super Bowl XL on Sunday.

In the past, Super Bowl spots virtually vanished after the game was finished, apart from unauthorized clips posted by some enthusiast Web sites. This year, the commercials are gaining far more visibility because they have officially been made widely available through streaming video online — for watching again, forwarding to friends, adding to personal Web pages and even downloading to video iPods.

Also, the proliferation of blogs in the last year means that many more would-be ad critics are getting a chance to instantly and publicly proclaim in their personal online journals which commercials scored or flopped. The resulting postgame buzz is resulting in a veritable midwinter festival of advertising, which can make the high price tag for a spot during the game on ABC — estimated at $2.5 million for each 30 seconds — seem less so, perhaps even something of a bargain.

"It's one commercial that aired once," said Steven R. Schreibman, vice president for advertising and brand management at Nationwide Financial in Columbus, Ohio, referring to the humorous spot featuring Fabio that his company ran in the third quarter. It was its first Super Bowl ad ever.

"But what's happening in the postgame, on the back end, more than made up for the cost," he added.

Another first-time advertiser agreed.

"The Super Bowl is about generating impressions as much as anything else," said Ruly Lora, chairman and chief executive at American Home Health in St. Petersburg, Fla., which ran a commercial in the third quarter to promote its P.S. line of cleaners and hand washes. "We feel we've achieved our milestone," he added.

Among the Web giants that have put up video clips of the Super Bowl commercials are AOL, Google, MSN and Yahoo, in some cases with partners like ifilm.com. The spots are also available on Web sites operated by the National Football League and media outlets like ESPN, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. Many Super Bowl advertisers, like FedEx, Ford Motor, the Bud Light and Budweiser brands sold by Anheuser-Busch and the Cadillac and Hummer brands sold by General Motors, also have posted ads.

AOL, part of Time Warner, reported that a record of more than 23 million Super Bowl commercials had been streamed by yesterday afternoon, from an elaborate Web page (sports.aol.com/nfl/superbowlads) that sorts the spots by quarter and identifies them with thumbnail sketches.

The commercials are even accompanied by a commercial, for another Time Warner unit, HBO, promoting the coming new season of "The Sopranos."

Ifilm attracted 230,000 visitors to its Web site on Sunday, according to a report yesterday from Nielsen/NetRatings, compared with so little traffic on the previous Sunday that it could not be measured.

At Google, "the Super Bowl ads are some of our most popular video," said Peter Chane, product manager for Google Video (video.google.com), adding: "It's our online water cooler. It was popular right after the game ended and it's surging today."

"We've also received a lot of positive feedback on a feature we call 'play back-to-back,' " Mr. Chane said, "which enables you to click one link and in about 20 minutes watch all the ads."

The MSN Video service (video.msn.com), part of Microsoft, reported that its streaming video figures for Sunday totaled 2.9 million, almost three times normal Sunday traffic. And the total for yesterday, as of the afternoon, had reached five million, four times the volume by that time on a typical Monday.

Many Super Bowl sponsors created microsites — special Web sites with different addresses — to catch the attention of the postgame audience.

For instance, the Burger King commercial that ran in the first quarter is available at whopperettes.com, along with tongue-in-cheek features like cast profiles, sketches of the costumes worn by the dancing Whopperettes and sheet music for the jingle.

Other examples include microsites for the Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist sodas sold by PepsiCo (brownandbubbly.com and mist-takes.com), a campaign sponsored by Anheuser-Busch and the Beer Institute (herestobeer.com), MasterCard (priceless.com) and the Dove line of personal care products sold by Unilever (campaignforrealbeauty.com).

Traffic to the MasterCard microsite doubled on Sunday from the traffic for an average day, the company reported, fueled by its inclusion in a commercial in the fourth quarter, which was inspired by the TV series "MacGyver." The number of visitors to priceless.com continued to climb yesterday.

The microsites offer "a differentiated call to action that pushes people to the Web," said Kieran Taylor, director for product marketing at Akamai Technologies, which handles Internet traffic for 23 of the Super Bowl advertisers including Dove.

"The convergence of the Internet and television is only for those who understand the handoff from TV to online," he added.

In some instances, said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer at Intelliseek, which is seeking to measure the postgame word of mouth about the commercials, consumers are saying they like the microsites better than the spots.

"It's parallel to using TiVo," said Mr. Blackshaw, whose company is soon to become Nielsen Buzz Metrics. "It's about consuming advertising at your own pace, and the microsites are almost like portals for watching ads."

TiVo, the maker of digital video recorders, has been measuring the postgame replays of the Super Bowl commercials for several years. The two most-watched commercials were the darkly humorous spots in the first and third quarters for Ameriquest Mortgage, said Katie Ho, vice president for marketing at TiVo, followed by a commercial in which a shorn sheep acted like a "streaker," interrupting a football game being played by the Budweiser Clydesdales.

"Celebrities also helped generate replays as viewers asked, 'Is that someone I should know?' " Ms. Ho said. Her reference was to the Sierra Mist commercial, featuring comedians including Kathy Griffin, and the spot for Aleve pain reliever sold by Bayer, featuring the actor Leonard Nimoy.

Because this is the first time that the commercials have been so broadly available after the game, there are still a few kinks to be ironed out. For example, several Web sites included commercials that ran before the game, for advertisers like the Pizza Hut unit of Yum Brands, among those that ran during the game.

They also offered spots that appeared only in local or regional markets, for advertisers like the United Airlines unit of UAL, among those that ran nationally.

And on a list of "most referenced individuals" for Super Bowl Sunday compiled by Intelliseek, which includes commercial actors, football players and performers, there appears in two places a man who goes by the name "Bud Light."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/business/media/07adco.html?pagewanted=print

The TV Column
Super Bowl Scores Big, But It Doesn't Ad Up

By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 7, 2006; C01
Inexplicably, almost 91 million viewers watched the nation's biggest advertisers vie for Commercial of the Year on Sunday, with breaks during which the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks pretended to play something loosely called football, and the Rolling Stones sang three songs, which the producer cleaned up for the kiddies.

It's the biggest Super Bowl audience in 10 years. Heck, it's the most-watched program of any kind on all of TV since 94.1 million people watched the Dallas Cowboys beat the Steelers at the Super Bowl in 1996.

It's also 5 percent more people than the approximately 86 million who watched the New England Patriots' exciting win over the Philadelphia Eagles last year, according to earlier stats from Nielsen Media Research.

I know, all this fuss over a game that was such a mess it made Sunday's Puppy Bowl, which aired at the same time on Animal Planet, look like an all-star game.

ABC wants you to know that the 21-10 Super Bowl XL snoozefest had a "reach" of more than 141 million viewers -- the second-biggest total ever for a Super Bowl.

"Reach" clocks people who watched as little as six minutes of the telecast.

In other words: the people who watched for the commercials.

Speaking of which, can we all just agree that Super Bowl ads aren't what they used to be?

Sure, we all loved Budweiser's adorable naked sheep streaker. And, based on yesterday's reax, it appears Pepsi has done much to reunite people in our horribly divided country by making all Americans realize that "brown and bubbly" is a very bad way to pitch a cola drink.

And who didn't feel smarter after figuring out that Eagle-Eyed Machete Enthusiasts Recognizing a Little Druid Networking Under the Stairs makes the acronym E-m-e-r-a-l-d- N-u-t-s? And, privately, if not publicly, you have to admit the CareerBuilder.com office chimps make you chuckle because they ring so true.

On a personal note, we have made calls to see if we can get a hamburger-patty gown like the one from Burger King's Busby Berkeleyesque musical ad to wear to the next White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

But, honestly, did any single ad make you sit up and take notice, as did the mother of all Super Bowl ads, Apple's unsettling, Ridley Scott-directed "1984," in which the blond athletic chick, hotly pursued by guys in riot gear, throws a sledgehammer at the Big Talking Head on the giant screen, freeing the Gray Brainwashed People?

Virtually everyone who rated the ads yesterday put Bud Light's hidden-fridge ad at the top of their list. You know, the one in which the 25-year-old guy installs a secret revolving wall to make his refrigerator disappear at the pull of a sconce so his Bud Light stock won't be depleted by unwelcome guests, only on the other side of the wall is an apartment of 18-year-old guys who take all the beer and then kneel down and worship the "magic fridge," teaching viewers that 25-year-old guys are much smarter than 18-year-old guys, or maybe the other way around.

USA Today loved it -- it topped its exclusive Super Bowl Ad Meter real-time, consumer-focus-group ranking.

Even Western Michigan University loved it. A panel of faculty and spouses from WMU's advertising and promotion program ranked the advertising on a 10-point scale based on creativity, strategy, execution and production values. (I know, sounds like a way to write off the cost of beer and pizza for a faculty Super Bowl party to me, too.)

Anyway, in a news release, the panel announced that the "Bud Light ad featuring a magic revolving wall and refrigerator took top honors as the best commercial of Super Bowl XL."

This year's biggest dud, most agreed, was the Bud ad that kicked off the game, in which a toady has hidden bottles of Bud Light around his office, causing havoc as his co-workers search for them.

"What a letdown--America waits all year for these ads, and this is how we kick things off?" asks Slate.com, pretty well summing up the consensus among the alarming number of folks who navel-gazed about the Super Bowl ads.

Yes, everybody thought the magic fridge ad was the best of this year's crop.

Everybody, that is, except Marco Iacoboni, associate professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA and director of the transcranial magnetic stimulation lab of UCLA's Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center.

Iacoboni and a bunch of pals used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the brains of "five healthy volunteers" who watched the Super Bowl ads.

They found that the ads with the Bud Light hidden in the office was one of the two best, while the magic fridge ad was one of the two biggest flops.

How can hordes of navel-gazers have gotten it so wrong?

"What is quite surprising," Iacoboni said in a news release, "is the strong disconnect that can be seen between what people say and what their brain activity seems to suggest."

In other words, people may have said they liked the magic fridge ad, but it apparently elicited very little response in emotional, reward-related and empathy-related areas of the brain. Or something like that.

Yesterday afternoon, ABC was dancing the happy dance upon learning that the episode of "Grey's Anatomy" that aired after "The Post-Super Bowl Blather Show" clocked more than 38 million viewers, by far the biggest audience for that show and the biggest audience for any entertainment program on TV since the very last episode of "Friends."

Helping "Grey's Anatomy," ABC made sure "The Post-Super Bowl Blather Show" wrapped up in time for "Grey's Anatomy" to kick in at 10:47.

The last time ABC aired the Super Bowl, in 2003, "TP-SBBS" lasted so long the Very Special Post-Super Bowl Episode of "Alias" didn't start until after 11, which technically threw it out of prime time and into late night. The result was that a Very Special Post-Super Bowl Episode of "Alias" wound up with only about 17 million viewers, making it the Worst Rated Very Special Post-Super Bowl Episode of Anything in Recent History.

ABC imposed a five-second delay on the entire telecast for the sake of the children of America. According to published reports, several ABC employees had their fingers on the bleep button in case someone lost an undergarment or said something that might turn America's children into juvenile delinquents, if not serial killers.

Someone like Mick Jagger, or Keith Richards, aka the Halftime Act.

But ABC suits did not have to put their digits to work, because the producer of the halftime show, Don Mischer, and the NFL had worked it out with the Rolling Stones that they would sing some of the racier lyrics in the three songs they performed, but Mischer would cut off Mick's mike during the offending bits.

So while the estimated 7 million kiddies ages 2 to 11 who watched the Super Bowl did get to see those slo-mo replays of that second-quarter "touchdown run" in which Ben Roethlisberger was tackled and the ball hit the ground short of the goal line, after which he is seen lifting the ball and putting it over the line, their little ears were protected from Jagger's play on roosters and male anatomy in the song "Rough Justice."

And while those nearly 7 million moppets got to enjoy the ad for Warner Bros.' new R-rated flick "V for Vendetta," which ran during the game, the mighty blade of Machete Enthusiast Mischer was there to save them from Jagger making his reference to a girl arousing a dead man in "Start Me Up."

And thank goodness for that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020601922_pf.html

The New York Times Obituary
Reuven Frank, Producer Who Pioneered TV News Coverage at NBC, Is Dead at 85

By Jacques Steinberg The New York Times February 7, 2006

Reuven Frank, a pioneering television news producer whose career at NBC ran from Huntley and Brinkley (whom he first paired on the evening news in the 1950's) to Tom Brokaw (whom he installed as a solo anchor in the 1980's), died Sunday at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey.

He was 85 and lived in Tenafly, N.J. The cause of death was complications of pneumonia, said a son, James A. Frank.

In a review of Mr. Frank's 1991 memoir, "Out of Thin Air: The Brief Wonderful Life of Network News," Bill Carter of The New York Times described Mr. Frank as a founding father of broadcast journalism, one of a rarefied few "who made up the rule book of television news as they went along" and whose every decision on how to cover a particular event was a precedent.

But where CBS programs like Edward R. Murrow's "See It Now" owed much to radio, Mr. Frank's NBC-TV news programs often seemed to be more directly descended from the newsreels shown as teasers before motion pictures in the days before television.

Among Mr. Frank's most durable contributions to television news was his emphasis on the nascent medium's basic advantage over radio and newspapers: that it could impart information through a palette of visual techniques.

"Pictures are the point of television reporting," he once wrote, as recounted in a profile of him posted on the Web site of the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

He is also credited with helping imprint on the DNA of the earliest television journalists, to say nothing of their descendants, the notion that their nonfiction reports must borrow the most time-tested techniques of good narrative storytelling.

But Mr. Frank was no mere theorist. He continually put his ideas onto the small screen through programs that became the building blocks of modern television news.

As an executive producer, he first fused Chet Huntley and David Brinkley as an anchor team for an evening news program ("The Huntley-Brinkley Report") that lasted 15 minutes when it was first broadcast (in 1956) and had stretched to a half-hour by the time it ended (1970.)

In his memoir "Out of Thin Air" (Simon & Schuster), which Mr. Carter described as "commendably unself-congratulatory," Mr. Frank did note one contribution, however simple, that he had made to the television lexicon: when struggling to find an ending for "Huntley-Brinkley" each night, he typed out the words "Good night, Chet," and "Good night, David."

Mr. Frank twice served as president of NBC News. His first term began in 1968, in the final years of "Huntley-Brinkley," and ended in 1973. He was also president of the division from 1982 to 1984, a period that included his selection of Mr. Brokaw as the solo anchor of "NBC Nightly News" in 1983.

Earlier, he had all but drafted the blueprint for how to cover a political convention — in the days when such gatherings had more in common with a raucous mystery novel than with a rubber stamp — by sending reporters, microphones in hand, onto the convention floor and then pointing them toward nearby cameras.

"Our men are already on the job from coast to coast," Mr. Frank said in a news release issued by NBC on June 8, 1960, a month before the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. "They'll arrive at the conventions with their own assigned delegations or personalities. And when the conventions get under way, our men will belong to and be an integral part of their assignments."

He added, "It's a kind of aboveboard and perfectly ethical journalistic 'espionage,' if you will."

Similarly, Mr. Frank is credited with conceiving the networks' modern approach to election night coverage, with the results often marshaled to support an overall theme.

Israel Reuven Frank (he later dropped his first name) was born Dec. 7, 1920, in Montreal. His father, Moses, was a journalist and teacher. His mother, Anna, was a homemaker.

Mr. Frank attended University College of the University of Toronto from 1937 to 1940. But it was only after he left Canada for the United States that he earned a bachelor's degree, in social science, from the City College of New York, in 1942. Mr. Frank later enrolled in the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, but his studies were interrupted by service in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946. The highest rank he attained was sergeant. Among his postings was France.

Upon returning to the United States, Mr. Frank married Bernice Kaplow on June 9, 1946. Mrs. Frank, a longtime librarian in Tenafly, survives him, along with two sons, Peter Frank of Los Angeles, and James A. of Manhattan; two grandsons; and a sister, Devora Wagenberg of Fort Lee, N.J.

Mr. Frank worked briefly as a reporter, rewrite man and night city editor at The Evening News in Newark before joining NBC News in 1950. His first job was as a writer on the "Camel News Caravan," the network's first 15-minute evening news program.

Among the award-winning documentaries he also produced along the way was "The Tunnel," a "fly on the wall" account of the escape of 59 East Berliners through a tunnel dug underneath the Berlin Wall. The United States State Department tried to keep the program off the air, for reasons that, as Mr. Frank described in his memoir, remained something of a mystery.

In person, Mr. Frank was wise and thoughtful, but with a dry sense of humor — much like Mr. Brinkley's, Mr. Brokaw said. In his later years, Mr. Frank, who could be a tough critic of what he watched on television, also remained in touch with those, like Mr. Brokaw, whose careers and approach to journalism he had helped mold.

Mr. Brokaw said in an interview yesterday that he last heard from Mr. Frank in December, in a typically succinct e-mail message, after NBC had broadcast Mr. Brokaw's prime-time documentary "To War and Back."

"Tom: Stunning," the message had read. "Reuven."

"That," said Mr. Brokaw, "was all I needed to hear."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/business/media/07frank.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print