fredfa-

Are there any ratings news for Saturday night? Looking for NBC/NHL ratings in particular.


Harley1: I just posted them in the first item in the thread.

From Marc Berman:

"...The ongoing low-rated Stanley Cup Finals on NBC remained just that at a last-place 3.11 million viewers, and a 1.2/ 5 among adults 18-49 from 8-11 p.m."

Saturday's overnight used to be readily available on Sunday mornings (which is when I posted them), but recently I have found I have to wait until Monday to get Saturday's overnights.
Sorry for the delay.

Washington Watch
NCTA Reacts to FCC’s Multicast Must-Carry Delay

NCTA News Release)

President & CEO Kyle McSlarrow of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association Regarding Decision to Eliminate “Multicasting” Item from FCC Meeting Agenda for June 21, 2006
“We’re pleased the Commission has reconsidered its intention to impose multicast must-carry rules.

The FCC correctly decided this matter on the two previous instances in which it determined that multicasting mandates would be unwise.

We believe multicasting mandates are harmful to consumers. And we believe that marketplace and consumer demand – not the government – should determine what programming services are carried.”

] TV Notebook
Abrams Ascends on Net's Upswing

New MSNBC General Manager Has Put Thought Into Changes
By Michele Greppi TVWeek.com June 19, 2006

The promotion of MSNBC on-air legal pundit Dan Abrams to become general manager of the network surprised many who know him-but not all.

Mr. Abrams is competitive; so competitive that his close friend and Hamptons housemate, Men's Health Editor David Zinczenko-known to those who chronicle New York's nightlife as Mr. Abrams' wingman since the end of his engagement to "Law & Order" alumna Elisabeth Rohm-said simply, "I've never known him to fail at anything."

Mr. Abrams beat testicular cancer, which was diagnosed in July 2003, and says now, "I am in better shape than ever."

He acknowledges his promotion has prompted "head-scratching at every level, from people I know and care about to people who don't like me."

He speaks with a directness that comes from knowing his way around MSNBC as few do. The Duke University and Columbia University grad joined the network in 1997 as a general assignment correspondent after having reported and anchored for Court TV. His father is the famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams.

"For years I have thought about changes I thought could help MSNBC," Mr. Abrams said. Last year, he began putting his thoughts into often lengthy e-mails to NBC News President Steve Capus.

Mr. Capus also served time at MSNBC and understands the baffling and elusive nature of success in cable news. As executive producer of "The News With Brian Williams," he was never able to build an audience for the well-regarded anchor.

Glimmers of Hope

MSNBC has been tinkered with relentlessly since NBC and Microsoft launched it as equal partners planning to capitalize on the convergence of TV and the Internet. Microsoft remains a partner on MSNBC.com, but NBC has assumed control of the troubled network.

There have been glimmers of ratings hope at MSNBC in recent months, especially in the evening, where the most money can be made. Led by "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" and "Hardball With Chris Matthews," MSNBC's season-to-date prime-time total viewership is up 14 percent year over year, and its performance in the news age group of 25- to 54-year-old viewers is up 23 percent, according to data from Nielsen Media Research.

MSNBC still has a much smaller audience than second-place CNN and ratings leader Fox News Channel, but both of those channels this year have lost audiences among all viewers and younger audiences.

Abrams' prospects at the network have been buoyed by ratings of his show.

"The Abrams Report," which launched in December 2001 to cover legal issues and crime stories, is up in both categories year-to-date in its 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. time slots.

On June 7, Rick Kaplan, a longtime network news producer and once president of CNN's U.S. operations, left his position as president and general manager of MSNBC with six months to go on his contract.

A ratings upswing is a good time to change captains, Mr. Capus says.

Last week Mr. Abrams was named general manager, reporting to Phil Griffin, former VP of MSNBC prime time and now the executive in charge of MSNBC and NBC's "Today" show.

"I'm comfortable saying I intend to be running this network and that Phil is going to be a regular guru type whom I will turn to probably more early on, for advice, for counsel and for suggestions," said Mr. Abrams.

He's likely to be looking at it more often as he immerses himself in his new job, which is likely to cut into his time for hanging out at the hip Pastis in Manhattan or in the Hamptons.

He will continue to do double duty as NBC News' chief legal correspondent, but the show that continues to bear his name has been turned over to substitute hosts. Mr. Abrams already is working to praise the MSNBC stable of talent, even the "testy characters."

"I know what it's like to be on the air," he said. "I know what drives a lot of people to go on the air. I wouldn't have taken this job unless I felt I could deal with a wide variety of personalities. I really do have a lot of respect for all of the people who are on the air. I'm telling you that part of what I have told some of them is why I think their show is better than mine."

Visible changes at MSNBC are said to be a few weeks away. However, Mr. Capus and Mr. Abrams say MSNBC will not become a crime channel. "That's not part of the plan," Mr. Capus said.

http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=30064

Harley1: I just posted them in the first item in the thread.

From Marc Berman:

"...The ongoing low-rated Stanley Cup Finals on NBC remained just that at a last-place 3.11 million viewers, and a 1.2/ 5 among adults 18-49 from 8-11 p.m."

Saturday's overnight used to be readily available on Sunday mornings (which is when I posted them), but recently I have found I have to wait until Monday to get Saturday's overnights.
Sorry for the delay.


Thanks

Washington Notebook
Sports Access Out of New Senate Draft

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 6/19/2006

The latest draft of a video franchise reform/telecom bill rewrite--number three--from the Senate Commerce Committee puts more teeth in network neutrality language and targets neutrality protections to consumers, requires networks to sell stand-along Internet service, and encourages cable operators to offer family tiers.

What it doesn't do is mandate sports programming access requirements, which had been pushed by telcos and opposed by cable and had been included in the telco-friendlier draft number two.

Prompted by some high-profile sports access fights, the second draft had closed the so-called terrestrial loophole, which allowed a cable operator like Comcast not to give the satellite competition access to its regional sports network because it was delivered terrestrially. Current law requires access only to satellite-delivered programming networks.

Net neutrality is a key issue in the bill, one of whose key provisions is revising the video franchising system to make it easier for telcos and others to compete with cable. The idea is to spur price and service competition, as well as to extend Internet service to more Americans.

Network neutrality is a tough term to get agreement on. It seems to mean both nondiscriminatory access to Internet sites, software and services, but also to others it meants government regulations against charging more for, say, the extra bandwidth and security to deliver video.

That, say big computer companes, could discourage innovation repress speech.

Billion-dollar computer companies are fighting with Billion-dollar cable and telephone companies over the issue in a lobbying campaign that has blanketed the nation's capital.

In the latest bill draft, Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) followed through with his pledge to add consumer protections and more teeth to FCC guidelines on open Internet access/net neutrality, though whether they are enough to satisfy net neutrality proponents is the big question.

The bill contains what it bills as an Internet Consumer Bill of Rights, which is certainly more than the old bill said about the issue, which was essentially only that the FCC would have to study it.

The bill of rights is essentially about access--to software, devices and search engines--but not about prices and services that networks want to offer and net neutrality backers say would create a tiered world of Internet haves and have-nots, although the bill does require clear notification of differences in speeds, service and price.

It also makes it illegal to limit access for political or religious reasons. Some groups, including religious organizations and gun owners, were concerned that networks would impede their ability to mount e-mail campaigns pushing various policies.

The bill gives the FCC power to write regulations enforcing the bill of rights, something the House version of the video franchising bill does not do.

Still, the early returns from network neutrality fans was not promising given its relative silence on the tiered pricing issue.

"Don't be fooled by claims of 'compromise,' said the It's Our 'Net Coalition, which is backed by the bucks of Google, Microsoft, eBay and Yahoo!, among others. "This latest Senate draft may be dressed up in a new outfit. But underneath, the language remains the Internet Bill of Wrongs instead of an Internet Bill of Rights that Internet users deserve.

"The new bill does nothing to prevent the network operators from creating a two-tiered, pay-to-play Internet and does nothing to protect American Internet users and small businesses from discrimination at the hands of the network operators.

"The Internet still ends up split into Lexus lanes and dirt roads, and an FCC rendered powerless to protect American consumers."

One thing it does allow networks to do is block access to "obscene or adult" content. Obscenity is already illegal and so should already be blocked. But "adult" would appear to give a network the ability to block protected Internet speech it decided its users should not see.

Saying Congress endorses voluntary efforts by a number of cable operators to launch family tiers, the bill also charges those operators with submitting an annual report to Congress on whether they offer a family tier and, if so, how much they charge, how extensively they market it, and how popular it is.

The committee is scheduled to amend and vote on the bill June 22, after which it must be reconciled with a much different House version if it is to become law in this session of Congress.

Unlike the House version, which only deals with video franchising, the Senate bill establishes that unlicensed wireless devices can be used in the broadcast band--in part to spur wireless internet access, also in competition to cable; give the FCC authority to establish a broadcast flag content protection scheme, lays out some ground rules for the DTV transition, and more.

Sports On TV
World Cup Notes

By Michael Malone at bcbeat.com

I must say, this soccer stuff is pretty addicting. When we were home this weekend, the games were on. And for the most part, they were good ones. U.S./Italy, of course. Ghana/Czech Republic. Korea/France.

But is soccer winning over Joe Sixpack, sitting on his couch in his oversized Peyton Manning jersey, engorging himself on the hockey and/or NBA finals (not to mention fistfuls of Chicken Kickers from Dominos)? Does Joe realize that a 1-1 draw, such as U.S./Italy from Saturday, can be one of the most intense sporting encounters he’ll ever witness?

Probably not. Discussing that match with someone who won’t be named, that someone (Hey Dad!) seemed proud to report he had not, in fact, watched the game. “I heard it was 1-1,” he sneered, full of soccer-is-boring indignation, before adding, “Hey, did you watch the U.S. Open?”

There you have it. Soccer is dull. Golf, on the other hand – now that’s exciting!

A handful of futbol thoughts from the weekend…

I wonder if the image of Brian McBride’s bloody face, which ran on the back cover of the NY Post yesterday, will change the thinking of those who still see soccer as some pansy Eurotrash activity. When was the last time you saw an NFL guy with blood streaming down his face?

The coverage on ESPN and ABC has been very good, though I have a few quibbles. I know the announcers are forced to spoon-feed information for soccer neophytes without alienating the serious enthusiasts. But I have no idea what an offside trap is (though I bet it’s painful), and to have the phrase repeatedly tossed at me in crucial game situations without an explanation is irritating.

So is the use of the term “result,” as in, the U.S. needs a result against Ghana. I know that, in this context, result means win. But if we want to get nit-picky, like that freakin’ Uruguayan ref who did U.S./Italy, a loss is a result too. So is a draw. So is everything short of a rainout.

http://www.bcbeat.com/

TV Notebook
'CBS Evening News' Preparing Rather's Farewell Story

Report to Include Interview With Longtime Anchor
By Michele Greppi TVWeek.com June 19, 2006

Though CBS News still hasn't commented on last week's flurry of stories reporting that Dan Rather is being forced to leave the network at which he worked for some than 44 years, TelevisionWeek has learned that "CBS Evening News" is preparing a story bidding farewell to Mr. Rather on the flagship newscast he anchored for 24 years.

Veteran CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason is working on the story, for which Mr. Rather, 74, is expected to be interviewed, according to a source at another network, who said she was told it was scheduled for tonight's "Evening News."

A CBS News spokesperson declined to comment, and Mr. Rather's agent was not immediately available for comment.

After a CBS executive told the Washington Post last week that there no longer is a place for Mr. Rather at CBS News, Mr. Rather began acknowledging to reporters who have covered his career that the final details of his separation from CBS News were being worked out.

He said he has formed a production company named News and Guts and is considering more than one option that would keep him in the hard-news game. One possibility he is seriously considering, he has said, is producing and hosting a one-hour weekly news program to run on Mark Cuban's HDNet.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10215

Washington Notebook
Sports Access Out of New Senate Draft


Crap....

Crap....

My sentiments exactly.

It is amazing to me how Comcast can refuse to bid on the NFL ST package, then scream how it is the equivalent of their Philly RSN -- and people buy the analogy!

Here is a simple fix which gets away from all the terestrially-delivered gobbledegook:

If a team plays in a publicly-funded stadium, TV deals which aren't available to all providers would be forbidden.

If a team builds its own facility, it can do whatever it wants regarding its TV rights.

Thanks


I wish the news were better for you, harley1. :(

I wish the news were better for you, harley1. :(
It's been a great final series.

My highlight from Saturday's game was when the commentators were trying to determine if Carolina had really had too many men on the ice. They were counting the players and could only come up with 5 skaters. Number 6 was over in the HD area, plain as day to those of us watching in HD :) They showed the HD screen letterboxed a few minutes later to show the SD crowd what they (including the commentators, who must have SD monitors) had missed.

Obituary
Arthur Franz, 86

Played Friendly Guy in Movies, TV
By Jon Thurber Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 19, 2006

Arthur Franz, a character actor whose credits from a steady career in films and television include the 1957 movie "Hellcats of the Navy," which also featured Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy Davis, has died. He was 86.

Franz died Saturday at St. John's Hospital in Oxnard of heart failure and emphysema, friends and family members said. Franz, who lived in New Zealand until the last month or so, had been in failing health for some time and wanted to spend his remaining days in California.

Characterized in most references as a reliable character actor in roles calling for a friendly and sympathetic character, Franz achieved something in the prime of his career that every actor wants: steady work.

He was in the 1949 John Wayne film "Sands of Iwo Jima," supplied the narration to 1954's "The Caine Mutiny" and played a naval officer in 1951's "Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man." One of his better-known B films from the 1950s was "Invaders From Mars."

His one starring role was in the 1952 film "The Sniper," in which he played against type as an ex-soldier who snaps after being rejected in romance and goes on a killing spree in San Francisco. Directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Stanley Kramer, the film earned Franz the best reviews of his career.

When television started gearing up in the early 1950s, Franz often was cast in anthology theater series, including "Studio One," "The Ford Television Theater" and "Zane Grey Theater."

For nearly 30 years, he was one of the more recognizable faces to show up in guest roles on such popular television series as "Perry Mason," "The FBI," "The Mod Squad," "The Virginian" and "Rawhide."

His last film credit came in a production of "That Championship Season" in 1982.

Born in Perth Amboy, N.J., Franz became interested in acting in high school.

During World War II, he served in the Army Air Forces as a navigator. According to his daughter Gina, he and his crew were shot down over Romania and spent a short time in a POW camp before escaping.

After the war, he earned his first screen credit in the 1948 film "Jungle Patrol," which started a steady stream of screen work. After his starring turn in "The Sniper," he was featured on the Ralph Edward's television program "This Is Your Life."

Two of his four marriages ended in divorce. His third wife, actress Doreen Lang, died in 1999.

Survivors include his fourth wife, Sharon; daughters Gina Martenson and Melissa Franz, both of Taos, N.M.; and son, Michael, who lives in the Lake Tahoe area.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-me-franz19jun19,0,3714441.story?coll=cl-tvent

TV Notebook
Sesame Street adds a year; CNN digs teeth into -- Jolie?

By Rick Kushman Sacramento Bee TV Columnist Monday, June 19, 2006

(Note: all times are Pacific)

Here's something that'll make you feel ancient. On Aug. 14, "Sesame Street" will start its 37th season. (Pause here to take deep, slow breaths.) It's … been … on … 36 … years. Oh my poor youth.

Right. OK. I'm fine. So, "Sesame Street" started in 1969 -- and is it just me, or shouldn't a few of the Muppets have learned the alphabet by now? They may be friendly and kind, but I wouldn't call them the brightest fuzzy creatures on the block.

Seriously, the folks at Sesame Workshop, the people who produce "Sesame Street," say that this year, their emphasis will be on teaching kids the traits that will help them be ready for a classroom.

Those traits, they say, are: problem solving, getting along with others, recognizing the feelings of others, paying attention, following directions, and cooperating in a group setting. When you say it out loud, it sounds like more people than just kids should be watching "Sesame Street."

Hot on the heels of NBC's "scoop" interview with Britney Spears last week (when she said she wanted less attention, as she leaned forward in her very, very low-cut top), CNN is showing it can do real news, too.

A press release from CNN for "Anderson Cooper 360" -- sent out twice so that no one would miss it -- screams about how Cooper has an interview with, apparently, the most important person on the planet: Angelina Jolie.

That's on Cooper's show at 7 Tuesday night. It's the first interview with Jolie since the birth of her daughter, and she sat with Cooper "for nearly an hour," the release says. Wow. Nearly an hour. Imagine the insight Cooper's going to get from her.

If you keep reading the press release, you find out the show Tuesday also includes reports on famine, poverty and refugee camps in Africa, and on health challenges for people who are refugees around the world.

Famine, poverty, disease. What downers. Although you get the sense that maybe Cooper would prefer to cover those subjects, CNN's publicity staff knows what to tout in headlines: "Exclusive: CNN's Anderson Cooper Interviews Angelina Jolie." And you thought cable news was lightweight.

HBO can't seem to get out of the news. The financial news. After the recent kerfuffle over the final season of "Deadwood" -- which resulted in a deal for a pair of two-hour movies -- now we get reports that actors playing some major characters in "The Sopranos" are holding out for better money for the last eight episodes of that show.

Money disputes are never unusual in Hollywood, and even less rare when a TV series is heading for its goodbye episodes because everyone is trying to get one last payday.

But HBO has generally had fewer of these fights -- or has been better at keeping them private. Not lately, however. And one of the forces in play this time is HBO's recent deal to syndicate "The Sopranos" to A&E for a reported $195 million.

According to news reports, a number of cast members -- including Steven Van Zandt (Silvio), Tony Sirico (Paulie Walnuts), Jamie-Lynn DiScala (Meadow) and Robert Iler (A.J.) -- are holding out for raises, and they're arguing that they otherwise will get none of the syndication bucks, or any of the money HBO will take in for years of DVD sales and other deals.

Leads James Gandolfini and Edie Falco, plus some others, are under contract for the final episodes, but HBO and the other actors apparently are still far apart.

HBO plans to show the last run of "The Sopranos" in early 2007, which means production should be starting fairly soon. HBO did not comment on the dispute.

Fans of TNT's "The Closer" flocked back to the second- season opener last week, setting a record for scripted shows on ad-supported cable (basically, everything that isn't sports or HBO), with 8.3 million viewers.

"The Closer" averaged nearly 5.5 million viewers last season, which also was a record.

At 9 tonight, we finally meet the mom of Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) -- possibly the only person in the world who scares Brenda. Mom is played by Frances Sternhagen, and Brenda works to keep her live-in relationship secret from her mom, who seems to have some detective skills of her own.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/columns/kushman/v-print/story/14269247p-15080385c.html

TV Review
The Washington Post's Ben Bradlee on the record

By Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 19, 2006

In "Free Speech," airing tonight at 10 on PBS (in Los Angeles; check your local PBS listing), Jim Lehrer of "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" climbs the walls of prime time for an entertaining and sometimes enlightening talk with former Washington Post executive editor and current Vice President Ben Bradlee about their common profession. The title refers to the fact that they are speaking freely, not to any 1st Amendment issues they discuss, since they don't really discuss any.

Lehrer and Bradlee are friends, and we find them almost knee to knee in matching armchairs in a corner of a room in Bradlee's Washington town house. But it's an interview, not a conversation. Lehrer doesn't really share his opinions or trade anecdotes, although he allows himself the occasional enthusiastic "yeah, yeah" and is perhaps a little more folksy and unbuttoned than usual, especially when asking questions on behalf of "Billy Bob Citizen." (He puts on different voices for this.)

Bradlee — who at 84 maintains his wits, his hair and a jaunty stride — is better known than most newspaper editors because of Watergate, which is really to say because of "All the President's Men," in the film of which he was played by Jason Robards, who won an Oscar for the role. (Newspaper editors usually only get famous during a scandal. Bradlee has had those erupt under his watch too, most famously in 1981 when reporter Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize with a fabricated story about an 8-year-old heroin addict.)

Watergate made him in the public mind, or at least that portion of it that didn't hate the Post for its part in the fall of President Nixon, the very figure of the (carefully) crusading editor whose only cause is the truth. He still wears that suit.

"The pursuit of truth is a holy pursuit," Bradlee says here, and the business of journalism is to report "not what they said happened, not what you think should happen, but what did happen." He dances around certain subjects — as how his friendship with President Kennedy might have affected his reporting, for example — but Lehrer does not let a question drop until he is through with it.

The talk ranges over conflict of interest, anonymous sources — the ongoing rage for which Lehrer lays at the Post's feet, in the person of Deep Throat — and the low esteem in which journalists are held. Bradlee believes in mandatory national service, that reporters shouldn't march in demonstrations and that good reporters are made from a range of experience. "I don't necessarily believe in J school or anything like that," Bradlee says.

And experience is really what's on display here. This is the first of a quarterly series for Lehrer, in which he will sit down with big fish from various walks of life. In a time when so much TV talk is conditioned by the transient need to pitch something or comment on a current event, it's good to see two people of experience speaking for no other reason than that they are people of experience. And while it's all very well enlisting the hoi polloi in the fictions of reality television, there is a world of actual reality out there to mine and people with remarkable experience to share. I do not mean being stuck on an ice floe for a week or eating 50 hot dogs in 20 minutes, although there is a place to hear about that as well. I mean, having led a long life that touched and possibly shaped history.

Let's hear it for the old guys.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-free19jun19,0,1390711.story?coll=cl-tvent

My sentiments exactly.

It is amazing to me how Comcast can refuse to bid on the NFL ST package, then scream how it is the equivalent of their Philly RSN -- and people buy the analogy!

Here is a simple fix which gets away from all the terestrially-delivered gobbledegook:

If a team plays in a publicly-funded stadium, TV deals which aren't available to all providers would be forbidden.

If a team builds its own facility, it can do whatever it wants regarding its TV rights.I don't want to start a big discussion about this, especially in this thread, but I do have a couple of questions for you.

What would you be sayng IF Comcast had bid on ST and won the rights whereby broadcast would be limited to Comcast markets and not nationally? At least on D* they are available across the country for anyone who wants to pay the price.

Many of the teams in the ST package play in publically funded stadiums, so why should they even be allowed to be a part of an excluisve package in the first place? I think we mix apples and oranges a bit with this argument. According to funding agreements, taxpayers are supposedly getting their payback regardless of exclusive/non-exclusive broadcast rights, so the source of funding may not really be an issue IMHO.

Here is the difference to me, Dave:

The NFL invited everyone to join in the NFL ST bidding. Comcast refused, saying at the time that it was "too rich for our blood".

On the other hand, Comcast has refused to allow DBS access to its Philadelphia RSN.

And Comcast, it seems to me, is the one mixing apples and oranges by trying to equate NFL ST with its own RSN. It also, along with TW and Cox, insisted that language forbidding NewsCorp to favor DirecTV be inserted in the FCC agreement for NewsCorp to take control of DirecTV.

The Comcast actions seem, at the very least, hypocritical to me.

So, to simplify my position: there is a major, major difference between allowing anyone to purchase exclusive rights and simply refusing to allow certain people to buy anything at all.

Washington Notebook
Senate Creates a Third Draft of Pending Telecom Bill

By Todd Shields MediaWeek.com June 19, 2006 -

A new draft of U.S. Senate telecommunications legislation that was unveiled on Monday eliminates language that would have forced cable operators to share regional sports programming.

The draft is the third version of the massive bill that faces initial votes before the Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday. The new version would let consumers complain directly to federal regulators about violations of their right to freely access content via the Internet.

But a key Democrat said the new language falls short, indicating the bill could face a turbulent passage at the Thursday markup. The provisions “utterly fail to protect consumers and preserve an open Internet,” said Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), “Under the current language, network operators will have the ability to dictate what the Internet of the future will look like, what content it will include and how it will operate.”

The dropped language affecting regional sports programming was aimed at situations like Comcast’s in Philadelphia, where the cable company controls access to major league televised sports.

The bill retains language aimed at easing telephone companies’ entry into markets to challenge cable with TV service over high-speed lines.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690497

Maybe it should be called FSN lite?

TV Notebook
OLN Unveils First Versus Programs

New Shows Set Scene for Fall Rebranding
By James Hibberd TVWeek.com June 19, 2006

Gearing up for its upcoming rebranding, OLN has announced several new shows for this fall.

The new titles blend OLN's traditional focus on outdoor adventures and the network's upcoming emphasis on competition programming under the new moniker Versus, which the network will adopt in September.

The shows include "The Barbecue Championship Series" (working title), a sort of "Iron Chef" for brisket; "The Huntley Way" (working title), about the hunting and fishing adventures of Hollywood actor Huntley Ritter and veteran outdoorsman Ronnie Hall; "Off The Hook," a reality series about a group of New York fishing buddies; "Shark Hunters: East vs. West," chronicling a shark fishing tournament; and "Soul of a Champion," a series developed in part with sports editors at USA Today that attempts to define the traits that make a true champion and to develop a test that measures such traits.

http://www.tvweek.com/printwindow.cms?newsId=10216&pageType=news

More details and reaction.

Washington Notebook
FCC Cancels Vote on Cable-Broadcast Digital Fight

Chairman Changes Plan in Unusual Sunday Night Press Release
By Ira Teinowitz TVWeek.com June 19, 2006

In a surprise about-face, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin canceled an agency vote planned for this week on whether cable companies will be forced to carry digital signals from local television broadcasters.

In a Sunday night press release, the FCC said it was pulling a vote on a proposal from the agenda of Wednesday's FCC meeting. The agency put out the news release after 6 p.m. Sunday, when the FCC rarely issues statements.

"There did not appear to be consensus for moving forward at this time," said FCC spokeswoman Tamara Lipper.

The canceled vote signals Mr. Martin, a Republican, is having difficulty persuading some commissioners that cable companies should be forced to carry all the digital signals that local broadcasters will air when they make the transition from analog to digital transmissions.

Mr. Martin kept a vote on media ownership rules on the agenda for the Wednesday meeting. His cancellation of the so-called multicasting vote marked a win for cable companies.

"We're pleased the commission has reconsidered its intention to impose multicast must-carry rules," National Cable & Television Association CEO Kyle McSlarrow said in a statement. "We believe multicasting mandates are harmful to consumers. And we believe that marketplace and consumer demand-not the government-should determine what programming services are carried."

It's the second time Mr. Martin, who gained a 3-2 Republican majority on the FCC this month, has delayed a vote on the issue. He had been expected at the Wednesday meeting to reverse earlier FCC votes against placing the multicast requirement on broadcasters.

The digital signal issue is an outgrowth of some of the changes coming with the digital television transition, which allows broadcasters to choose between airing a single high-definition signal or multicasting several lower-quality digital signals.

Broadcasters want cable companies to carry the extra channels, while cable companies, with limited bandwidth, want to be able to choices which channels to carry.

The FCC originally was to consider the requirement last week, but delayed the meeting a week.

The National Association of Broadcasters, which has pushed to require cable companies to carry local stations' digital signals, said it would continue to lobby for new multicast rules. "We appreciate FCC Chairman Martin's steadfast support for more program choice, and we will continue to educate policymakers on the pro-consumer benefits of multicasting," Dennis Wharton, an NAB spokesman, said in a statement.

http://www.tvweek.com/printwindow.cms?newsId=10213&pageType=news

The Digital Revolution
Jersey Senate Approves Franchise Bill

By Linda Haugsted Multichannel.com 6/19/2006

The New Jersey State Senate has given its final approval to a bill reforming state video franchising policy.

The chamber voted 31-5 on Monday to approve the bill and send it on to Gov. Jon Corzine. The state Assembly passed its version of the same bill in May.

If signed by the governor, the bill will allow new competitors to apply for statewide franchises. The state’s Board of Public Utilities will have 45 days to grant the operating authority.

The legislation requires the authorized video competitors to build out to communities with populations of 7,111 per square mile and to county seats. Those requirements should require coverage of the state’s 60 largest communities, which cable incumbents noted were concentrated in North New Jersey.

Once the bill is officially presented to the governor’s office, Corzine will have 45 days to decide whether to sign it into law.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6345472.html?display=Breaking+News

Sports On TV
Woods Exit Hurts U.S. Open

By John Consoli MediaWeek.com JUNE 19, 2006 -

Tiger Woods failing to make the cut in the U.S. Open golf tournament this past weekend cut into the NBC telecast ratings.

According to Nielsen Media Ratings overnight data, the Saturday telecast of the Open on NBC produced a 3.2/8 household rating, down 27 percent from last year's comparable coverage, while the Sunday telecast of the tournament won by Australian Geoff Ogilvy got a 5.1/12 rating, down 12 percent from last year.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/networktv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690470

The Business of TV
Merrill Adjusts Upfront Call to Down 1% From Flat

By Anthony Crupi MediaWeek.com JUNE 19, 2006 -

Merrill Lynch research analyst Jessica Reif Cohen today issued a note to investors reducing Merrill’s six-network upfront projection to -1 percent, down from a previous projection of flat.

In hard dollars, Merrill now sees the six broadcast nets landing $8.98 billion in total upfront sales, versus the $9.12 billion it projected in May. The big four are also projected to be down, taking in $8.34 billion of the total broadcast kitty versus the $8.47 billion Merrill estimated a month ago.

Merrill also revised its cable projection, saying that the cable upfront may come in lower than anticipated, reducing its forecast to +3 percent from its original +5 percent estimate, and dropping cable’s take from $7.46 billion to $7.31 billion.

Cohen said that NBC is the surprise story of this year’s upfront, keeping its dollar volumes flat in the face of declining ratings, thanks to the addition of Sunday Night Football this fall and strong numbers at its Today franchise. Long serving as the network’s most valuable property, Today generated an estimated $600 million in revenue last year alone.

The big story that did not pan out this year was the rush to integrate digital media sales with linear TV buys, Cohen wrote. “Upfront participants have suggested that digital media has played a less significant part in the upfront selling process than we (and others) had expected,” Cohen noted. “Indeed, price apparently has been the key issue (as in past years).”

Cohen added that while the total dollars tied to the various multiplatform deals may not be significant, Merrill “still believe[s] there will be a large number of digital deals reached during the upfront.”

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690517

Sports On TV
Miller provides quality time with thoughts on U.S. Open fades

By Michael Hiestand USA Today 6/19/2006

NBC's Johnny Miller is one of the best TV sports analysts in part because he's not a salesman, or apologist, for the action he covers. He said Sunday that he couldn't "say anybody has played a great U.S. Open ... the course has held everybody down."

And that was before Colin Montgomerie's meltdown. After Montgomerie nailed a long birdie putt on the 17th hole Sunday, Miller had a fun take — "He's thinking about crying right now." Then Montgomerie, tied for the lead with Phil Mickelson, blew an approach shot at 18 — NBC caught Montgomerie yelling, "What kind of shot is that?" — and Miller weighed in on his double bogey: "He hasn't hit an iron like that in maybe five years —really bad."

Then came Mickelson's turn at 18. NBC could have used more replays of Mickelson's wild finish — it didn't show a timely replay of his drive at 17 that went into a garbage can. But again Miller didn't pull any punches on Mickelson's double bogey: "I know you all love Phil. But come on, you just need to make par at 18 — just crazy shot selection. To be honest, that's one of the worst collapses in U.S. Open history. Just incredible, there's no other word for it."

Actually, as Geoff Ogilvy won, that word might have been "choke." But, instead, Miller tastefully said, "It hurts to watch that finish."

Earlier, Miller noted Mickelson had fans at the Mamaroneck, N.Y. course "whipped to a froth" and Dan Hicks suggested Sunday's finish seemed to have "a Tiger Woods feel" as other players couldn't keep up with Mickelson. But Miller also seemed to miss Woods, who'd missed the cut in a major for the first time in a decade. And, not surprisingly, NBC's rating dipped Saturday: Its 6½ hours of third-round coverage drew 3.2% of the 56 urban markets used for overnight ratings — down 20% from last year.

Ripping the ref: ABC's coverage of the USA-Italy World Cup game Saturday might have set a TV record for kvetching about the officiating after two U.S. players were ejected and the team could only have nine on the field. Game analyst Marcelo Balboa was irate about Uruguayan referee Jorge Larrionda, saying he had "no clue," "blew the game" and "ruined the game." (ABC analysts agreed. Even Giorgio Chinaglia, the ex-Italy star, said the ref was "disastrous.")

But Balboa, who'd candidly pointed out U.S. mistakes that led to Italy's goal, didn't seem angry just because calls went against the USA — Balboa seemed fairly objective. And play-by-play announcer Dave O'Brien, scorned by some soccer fanatics before the Cup because he hadn't called soccer, was workmanlike and dutifully used terms such as "nil" and "pitch."

ABC/ESPN World Cup ratings are way up from 2002. That's predictable, given that 2002 viewership was hampered by the extreme time-zone challenge presented by games being played in Japan and South Korea. But this is impressive: The 5.2 overnight rating for the Italy-USA tie — translating to 5.2% of 56 urban TV markets — is higher than every game overnight in the 1998, 2002 and 2006 Cups except for the Brazil-France title game in 1998.

Top reporting: David Segui, who played 15 Major League Baseball seasons before retiring in 2004, said in a taped interview Sunday on ESPN he's taken human growth hormone and he was named as having done so in an affidavit by ex-teammate Jason Grimsley. But Segui said it was prescribed and perfectly legal.

So, try it: John McEnroe, in an episode of the Tennis Channel's Center Court airing Monday, offers an opinion that should inspire a made-for-TV match between the middle-aged announcer and a top female player. Says McEnroe: "Do I think, on a given day, I could beat the best woman in the world? Yes, I do."

Spice rack: Martina Navratilova, on HBO's Real Sports airing Tuesday, recalls government wiretapping in her native Czechoslovakia and decries what she sees as apathy at the idea of wiretapping in the United States: "We don't care that they're listening? It's nuts!" ... Clever line by NBC's Dan Hicks on Sunday's U.S. Open: "This has the feeling of a Game 7, and it all comes down to a Game 7 in the NHL Monday night!"

NBA: ABC's NBA Finals Game 4 drew 7.8% of U.S. households — up 8% over last year's fourth game — putting ABC on track for the third-lowest-rated prime-time Finals. The key: Will ABC get a Game 7?

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2006-06-18-hiestand-weekend_x.htm

Washington Notebook
Top Senate Democrat Attacks 'Net Neutrality' Bill

Stevens Drops Broadcast Flag Provision
By Ira Teinowitz TVWeek.com June 19, 2006

A top Senate Democrat criticized Republican legislation that would preserve Internet service providers’ ability to charge Web-content providers different rates for different levels of service, setting up a conflict that could derail the bill.

Daniel K. Inouye, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee said the legislation offered by Republican panel Chairman Ted Stevens would hurt consumers by damaging the open nature of the Internet, where content providers currently are treated equally.

The so-called net neutrality issue is part of a larger bill that would ease telephone company’s way into the pay-TV business by freeing them from having to seek franchise approvals jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction the way cable-TV providers have had to.

"Under the current language, network operators will have the ability to dictate what the Internet of the future will look like, what content it will include, and how it will operate," Mr. Inouye, who represents Hawaii, said.

He warned it would give network operators "the unfettered capacity to discriminate against unaffiliated online content."

Video franchising legislation that helps the phone companies easily passed in the House. Senators have often taken a more skeptical view of issues involving media competition and may subject the bill to greater scrutiny.

Mr. Inouye's comments came after Mr. Stevens altered his original proposal to drop some controversial elements, increasing consumer protections. Mr. Stevens replaced his original proposal for a study of net neutrality with language that would create a new “Internet Consumer Bill of Rights,” aides to the senator said today.

Those provisions would bar phone companies from blocking access to content from Internet content providers and rivals such as Internet phone operators. It would also give the Federal Communications Commission new authority to punish after violators.

The legislation introduced by Stevens, who represents Alaska, bans the Federal Communications Commission from ever imposing net neutrality requirements.

In the latest version of the bill, Mr. Stevens abandoned a proposed requirement that cable providers allow phone companies access to their regional sports networks. It also dropped a line requiring companies air a broadcast flag for TV, but not for audio and moved to require most court challenges of FCC actions be decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a court that has been very friendly to business.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10219

TV Notebook
Dead on 'CSI: Miami'; Alive on 'Law & Order'

By Roger Catlin Hartford Courant TV Critic in his “TV Eye” blog

There is a healthy rivalry between NBC’s hit “Law & Order” franchise and CBS’ “CSI” shows.

So you have to figure a little of that rivalry was involved in the latest hiring for “Law & Order.”

Soon after the fiance of David Caruso's Horatio Caine was shot and killed at the end of the season’s “CSI: Miami,” actress Alana de la Garza who played the poor victim Varisol Delko was free to be picked up as a second-chair prosecutor for San Waterston’s character District Attorney Jack McCoy on “Law & Order.”

She’ll fill the vacancy of Annie Parisse, whose character Alexandra Borgia was killed in the “L&O” season finale.

As such De la Garza will be the latest in a long line of women working alongside Waterson’s McCoy, after Jill Hennessy, Carey Lowell, Angie Harmon and Elizabeth Rohm.

The “Law & Order” mothership will be changing further for its 17th season this fall, moving to Friday from its long stint on Wednesdays, and losing Dennis Farina, who spent two seasons playing a detective filling the slot of Det. Lennie Briscoe, who was going to be spun off to the failed “Law & Order: Trial by Jury” before actor Jerry Orbach died in 2004.

Also Milena Govich, from the canceled “Conviction,” will move over to the show, though her character from that Dick Wolf creation (which had some other “L&O” crossover) might change. Govich was also the conniving hooker on last season’s “Rescue Me” and an early love interest in the short-lived “Love Monkey.”

http://blogs.courant.com/roger_catlin_tv_eye/2006/06/dead_on_csi_mia.html

TV Notebook
Dan Rather's Last Day?

By Louis Hau Forbes.com 06.19.06

New York - Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather could announce his departure from the network as early as Tuesday, bringing an end to a four-decade career at the network where for a quarter-century he served as its public face.

Through the corridors at the CBS Broadcast Center on New York's West 57th Street, rumors swirled that the veteran newsman’s departure was imminent. Rather's agent, Richard Liebner, said that an announcement was likelier on Tuesday, declining to elaborate further. CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius declined to comment on the matter.

Officials at CBS News have reportedly been anxious to have Rather leave the building before the arrival this summer of his replacement, Today show anchor Katie Couric, who has already left General Electric's NBC. Rather's contract officially expires in November, but the network and Liebner have reportedly been negotiating an earlier exit.

Rather, who joined CBS News in 1962, was anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, stepping down in March 2005 following a controversy over a CBS report questioning President George W. Bush’s National Guard record, which was based on allegedly forged documents. Rather has remained with the network as a correspondent for 60 Minutes.

Rather is mulling an offer from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to host and produce a one-hour weekly news program on Cuban’s HDNet cable TV channel.

In an e-mail Monday, Cuban told Forbes.com that the new program's "goal is to go a little retro in our approach to news. No fluff. No have-your-PR-person-call-us news. That's today's 60 Minutes."

Cuban said he expects further programming details will be available in the next few weeks.

"We feel there is a big opportunity for news that matches the story rather than matches the time slot, demographic, advertisers and segment length," he said. "I think Dan has something to prove, and we are looking to enable him and let him do his thing."

Cuban touted the opportunities that he said high-definition TV would offer a news program.

"Combine Dan's ability, along with the unique capabilities of the HD medium (widescreen resolution, 5.1 sound, bigger screens), and not only will we have the first all-HD news feature show, but I think we are going to take a lot of people by [surprise]. Which will make both Dan and I very happy."

http://www.forbes.com/2006/06/19/cbs-rather-network-exit-cx_lh_0619rather_print.html

TV Notebook
Rather eyes exit after 44-year CBS run

By Paul J. Gough The Hollywood Reporter June 20, 2006

NEW YORK -- CBS is expected to announce Tuesday that former "CBS Evening News" anchor Dan Rather will leave the company after 44 years at the network.

Rather's contract runs through November but he is expected to leave the network immediately to pursue other opportunities.

A news release most likely will be issued Tuesday morning. A special tribute to Rather's career is expected to appear on Tuesday night's "CBS Evening News."

Rather didn't respond to a request for interview Monday.

The move was widely expected in the past few weeks after the 74-year-old had said that he would be leaving CBS after negotiations on a new contract hadn't guaranteed him anything but an office at the network.

After leaving "CBS Evening News" in March 2005, Rather became a full-time correspondent with "60 Minutes." While he filed several stories that appeared on "60 Minutes," Rather was said to be unhappy that he hadn't been working on anything in recent weeks.

Rather's position with the network had been strained after a September 2004 report he did for "60 Minutes Wednesday" that questioned President Bush's National Guard service during the Vietnam War. The report, which was prepared by producer Mary Mapes and only involved Rather minimally, was based upon documents that failed to live up to intense scrutiny.

Mapes was fired, and three other executives were forced to resign. Rather wasn't disciplined but said before Thanksgiving 2004 that he would leave the anchor desk the following March.

Rather is said to be talking to others about opportunities, including doing a one-hour newscast/interview show for HDNet. HDNet chief Mark Cuban confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday that he was talking to the former CBS News anchor.

Rather's departure would close a career with CBS News that has been, with the exception of the National Guard story, one of the most distinguished in network news history.

After becoming famous as the reporter who first confirmed that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in November 1963 in Dallas, Rather's career has taken him to covering the Johnson and Nixon White Houses, Watergate, the Vietnam War, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and both the Persian Gulf war and the war in Iraq, among many others.

He was anchor of "CBS Evening News" from 1981-2005.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690635

Fred,

Any HD news re: the July 1 shuttle launch?

None that I have heard yet.
But I would be surprised if HDNet didn't cover it.
Who knows, perhaps Dan Rather could anchor?
That would give Mark Cuban quite a bang for his buck!

Critic’s Notebook
Back on the Online Block (Expanded)

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

… I've been working my way through fall series pilots, as well as brain-picking colleagues doing likewise, and don't have an overarching theory (aside from my post-9/11 musing, below). I do see some of the battle lines being drawn; I've written here about the ''30 Rock''/''Studio 60'' parallels, and expect at some point to get to ''Vanished''/''Kidnapped.'' An early consensus seems to favor ''Kidnapped,'' which has a really good cast, but I found ''Vanished'' better paced, if unbelievable in the way of Fox adventure serials. (That opinion, like any expressed about a series pilot, is subject to change before my review of the premiere appears, since the show may change cast, concept, title and nuances.)

This is, after all, ping-pong time, since there are new summer shows to deal with even as the fall stuff looms. The two intersected last week when I had a nice interview with Ron Livingston, who is in the summer cable series ''Nightmares and Dreamscapes'' as well as fall's ''Standoff.'' There were plenty of other things to talk about as well, from dealing with home projects to ''The Cooler'' (where Livingston had a supporting role) and at least a glance toward cult fave ''Office Space,'' where Livingston starred. But we talked about his series, and it felt as much like a conversation as an interview, and I hope to get a good story out of it.

But I'm rambling, and what I really want to talk about is ''Friday Night Lights,'' the NBC drama for the fall, which is so far my favorite of the new series I've watched. In fact, it feels better every time I watch another show that isn't quite as strong and self-assured. ''FNL,'' as you could easily guess, is inspired by Buzz Bissinger's book and the movie derived from it; although it has new characters, it is still about a small Texas town where high-school football reigns.

''FNL'' aims to be about more than just football, although the game provides a focus for all the characters, whether rich or poor, young or old, serene or sad. In fact, the football part of the storytelling in the pilot may be the most predictable. You'll know what the future holds for a couple of characters not long after you meet them. But it's a show where predictability can still be entertaining.

And the show jumped high on my list for a scene that took place on a football field after the big game was over. It involves people kneeling in prayer, and it summed up part of what the series has to say, and it puts football in its proper place, and it moved me. That scene told me this is a series I'll want to watch a second time, and probably a third, and it will have to pretty bad to get me to quit even then, because I know it has the possibility of a scene like that one.

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

Sports On TV
Notes

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times June 20, 2006

• ABC Sports' viewership through the first five games of the N.B.A. finals between Dallas and Miami is up 9 percent to an average of 12.2 million a game, with Sunday's overtime victory by Miami drawing 14.2 million viewers, up 8 percent from last year. It is still in line to be one of the least-viewed finals.

• NBC will add four N.H.L. regular-season games and three playoff games next season.

This column ran last week, and I missed it. Sorry. But it still reads well.

TV Notebook
New blood on Emmy wish list

By Chuck Barney Contra Costa Times TV critic

The Emmy ballots went out earlier this month, which means the Emmy rants can't be far behind.

Every summer, industry insiders cast their ballots, and once the nominees are announced (July 6 this year), TV fans and critics proceed to blast the picks for their astonishing lack of insight.

In order to diminish some of that outrage, the television academy has decided to use "blue-ribbon" judges panels to supplement the process. The goal is to avoid the tired rubber-stamping ways of past years.

We're all for the fresh approach, but we still want to throw our two cents in. And so what follows is an Emmy wish list that puts a heavy emphasis on new blood and underappreciated talent. Obviously, we don't expect to get our way on everything, but we can dream, can't we?

Best drama

"Battlestar Galactica" (Sci Fi), "Grey's Anatomy" (ABC), "Lost" (ABC), "Rescue Me" (FX), "The Sopranos" (HBO).

THE LOWDOWN: You know all about "The Sopranos" and last year's winner, "Lost," but don't laugh at the "Battlestar Galactica" pick. It's so much more than a geeky sci-fi show. Also, isn't it about time the fiery "Rescue Me" gets some Emmy love? As for "Grey's Anatomy," well, it was only the most addictive hour on television.

Best comedy

"Arrested Development" (Fox), "Entourage" (HBO), "Everybody Hates Chris" (UPN), "My Name Is Earl" (NBC), "The Office" (NBC).

THE LOWDOWN: We're still mourning the premature passing of "Arrested Development," but the good news is that there's lots of new life in this category. "Chris," "Earl" and "The Office" are all hilarious freshman shows and "Entourage" blossomed in its sophomore season. Our only regret is that we couldn't find room for "Scrubs," which had one of its best seasons yet.

Lead actress, drama

Kristen Bell ("Veronica Mars," UPN), Geena Davis ("Commander in Chief," ABC), Edie Falco ("The Sopranos"), Mary McDonnell ("Battlestar Galactica" ), Kyra Sedgwick ("The Closer," TNT).

THE LOWDOWN: Falco remains the class of this category, so we couldn't leave her out. Davis and McDonnell were both very presidential in their riveting roles, and Sedgwick injected some personality into the shopworn police procedural. As for Bell, it's a shame more people aren't witnessing the wit and vigor she brings to "Mars."

Lead actor, drama

Matthew Fox ("Lost"), Patrick Dempsey ("Grey's Anatomy"), James Gandolfini ("The Sopranos"), Hugh Laurie ("House," Fox), Denis Leary ("Rescue Me").

THE LOWDOWN: This is, without question, the most competitive Emmy category and, perhaps, the toughest one to call. We left out two-time winner James Spader, for crying out loud, along with Kiefer Sutherland, Wentworth Miller and Michael Chiklis. But we'll stand by this bunch any day.

Lead actress, comedy

Tichina Arnold ("Everybody Hates Chris"), Marcia Cross ("Desperate Housewives," ABC), Lauren Graham ("Gilmore Girls," The WB), Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("The New Adventures of Old Christine," CBS), Mary-Louise Parker ("Weeds," Showtime).

THE LOWDOWN: Because "Desperate Housewives" went into a creative tailspin, we dismantled the chokehold the show had on this category last year. We're still captivated by Cross, though, and if Graham finally makes the list, we'll take it as a sign that Emmy voters have finally gotten a clue.

Lead actor, comedy

Jason Bateman ("Arrested Development"), Zach Braff ("Scrubs," NBC), Steve Carell ("The Office"), Ricky Gervais ("Extras," HBO), Jason Lee ("My Name Is Earl").

THE LOWDOWN: These goofballs have a remarkable array of styles, ranging from Bateman's deadpan approach to Braff's bizarre wackiness. The differences make for an intriguing competition, but the front-runners should be Lee and Carell, who headlined the two funniest new shows of the season.

Supporting actress, drama

Sandra Oh ("Grey's Anatomy"), Yunjin Kim ("Lost"), CCH Pounder ("The Shield," FX), Jean Smart ("24"), Chandra Wilson ("Grey's Anatomy").

THE LOWDOWN: Can you tell that we really love "Grey's Anatomy"? We easily could have tossed in Katherine Heigl to give the medical drama an imposing triple threat, but where's the fun in that? Our favorite is Smart, who wowed us with her trippy first lady.

Supporting actor, drama

Michael Imperioli ("The Sopranos"), Gregory Itzin ("24"), Jorge Garcia ("Lost"), T.R. Knight ("Grey's Anatomy"), Forrest Whitaker ("The Shield").

THE LOWDOWN: If the picks went our way, Imperioli would be the only veteran amid a field of Emmy newcomers. Garcia and Whitaker are probably long shots, but they shouldn't be. Meanwhile, we hope Itzin, who was so deliciously creepy as a duplicitous president, gets his due.

Supporting actress, comedy

Jenna Fischer ("The Office"), Alyson Hannigan ("How I Met Your Mother," CBS), Jaime Pressly ("My Name Is Earl"), Judy Reyes ("Scrubs"), Jessica Walter ("Arrested Development").

THE LOWDOWN: Pressly may be a newcomer, but the brassy blonde has to be considered a sure bet for her scene-stealing turn as Earl's venal and vindictive ex. The others can form a line behind her.

Supporting actor, comedy

Neil Patrick Harris ("How I Met Your Mother"), John C. McKinley ("Scrubs"), Jeremy Piven ("Entourage"), Ethan Suplee ("My Name Is Earl"), Rainn Wilson ("The Office").

THE LOWDOWN: If the category list goes down like this (and it probably won't), Piven would be the only returnee. Again, we're talking fresh blood here.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/entertainment/columnists/chuck_barney/14806332.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

The business of TV
Nielsen switching channels for new view of viewers

By Phil Rosenthal Chicago Tribune Media Columnist

The scapegoat for why your favorite television series was canceled is trying to address at least a few of its shortcomings in measuring viewership.

Nielsen Media Research, the ratings outfit whose audience figures help establish the ad rates that drive the TV industry, announced an ambitious, perhaps even revolutionary, initiative the other day that it's calling "A2/M2," which stands for "Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement."

Nielsen is now acknowledging that people watch TV programs not only on their set at home but also in bars, airports and hotels, as well as on the Internet and portable gadgets such as mobile phones and iPods. So it says it intends to account for all that viewing by fall of next year and the start of the 2007-08 season.

And as long as it's entering the 21st Century, Nielsen also is promising to phase out the dubious practice of having selected families self-report viewing through the use of handwritten diaries in even the smallest of TV markets--that means you, No. 210, Glendive, Mont.--by 2011.

That's the plan, at least.

"It's very Nielsen-esque, really," said Richard Fielding, vice president and research director for the Insight and Analytic Group at Chicago-based agency Starcom. "It's a manifesto of intent, but nothing's actually been done yet.

"I think they've finally come to the realization that if they don't have a vision and a stated course of action of how to address these issues, someone else will."

Brad Adgate, a senior vice president of research at Horizon Media, a New York-based ad buyer, calls the diaries "ridiculous" and said that even if this broad "A2/M2" plan results in nothing but their elimination, "a lot of people would be happy."

Diaries "harken back to a day when `Leave It to Beaver' was on and everyone sat in the living room and watched it on one black-and-white set and the mother filled out the diary," Adgate said. "That's just not how it is."

The diaries have been OK at measuring habitual viewing, not so good at tracking shows outside of prime time and away from the major broadcast and cable networks, observers say.

Nielsen, which only recently began measuring the use of digital video recorders and previously announced it will measure college dorm viewing, hopes to start replacing the diaries for viewers in its sample with mailable battery-powered meters in medium-size markets as soon as next year.

It's expanding the use of its local people meters from the top 10 markets to the top 25, meaning the devices will cover nearly half the U.S. population, and it will upgrade the set-meters used in markets 26 to 60. At the same time, it will be testing so-called go-meters to measure viewing away from home and on portable devices.

"That old cliche term of media with a capital M and a capital E is increasingly becoming a reality," Fielding said. "Technology is enabling consumers to consume video whenever they want, wherever they want and program it however they want. Then, obviously, advertising becomes more and more addressable and accountable. So what's the role of Nielsen in that world?"

The "A2/M2" initiative, Nielsen Media Research President and Chief Executive Susan Whiting said in a statement, is the result of "clients who told us clearly that we should `follow the video'" and "recognizes that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to measuring television. ... As digital distribution of television transforms the way our clients do business, Nielsen is keeping pace with new ways of measuring TV wherever it is viewed."

Nielsen also said it hopes to gauge viewer engagement, which is of particular interest to advertisers even though there is no agreement on a single definition of what engagement is.

"There are going to be some mistakes and missteps," Adgate said. "Nielsen, though, has had a tendency to delay these things rather than get them wrong. ... But for a company that for years has been criticized for being laid-back and not moving with the industry, you have to tip your hat to them at least for the announcement."

Said Fielding: "I don't want to be the wizened cynic saying it's all a bunch of hot air. But Nielsen being Nielsen, they've got a lot of proving to do."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0606180171jun18,0,2757247,print.column

The New York Times Obituary
Bill Lamb, 76

Vital Figure in Shaping Public Television
By Dennis Hevesi The New York Times July 20, 2006

Bill Lamb, a key member of the team that founded New York's public television station Channel 13 and the station's director of production for programs that included "Nature" and "Great Performances," died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 76.

The cause was complications after a stroke, said Marcie Setlow, Mr. Lamb's companion.

In 1962, when a group of philanthropists and business leaders took over what had been a commercial station showing mostly cartoons and westerns, Mr. Lamb was a member of a small team of executives recruited to transform it into a nonprofit educational channel. Until 1972, he was a senior vice president, a member of the board and the station's director of production, responsible for bringing together the artistic and business sides.

From 1975 to 1981, Mr. Lamb played a similar role as vice president of production and business affairs and then chief operating officer at KCET, the public television station in Los Angeles, where he oversaw the production of programs including "Cosmos" with Carl Sagan and "The Cousteau Odyssey."

"Bill was an exceedingly important figure in the formative years of what we now know as public broadcasting," said John Jay Iselin, the president of Channel 13 from 1972 to 1987. "He helped guide the critical early years of Channel 13. He put the money together and helped direct it toward fruitful productions."

After Mr. Lamb moved to KCET, Mr. Iselin said, "he certainly nurtured the connections between the two stations and, more importantly, the workings of the entire national system."

In 1981, Mr. Lamb — who had homes in Manhattan and in Santa Cruz, Calif. — rejoined Channel 13 with the title of senior vice president in charge of national and international production. Under his supervision, the station produced shows like "The Brain," segments for "American Playhouse" and Abba Eban's "Heritage: Civilization and the Jews," for which he shared a Peabody Award in 1984.

William Joseph Lamb was born in Manhattan on Oct. 29, 1929. His father, Vincent Lamb, had been an announcer in the early days of radio. He graduated from Hofstra College (now Hofstra University) and earned a master's degree in business administration from Harvard.

His marriage to Marylou Lamb of Santa Cruz ended in divorce. In addition to Ms. Setlow, his survivors include a daughter, Diane Tobey-Harding of Lancaster, Calif.; two sons, William, of Santa Cruz and Matthew, of Nashville; a sister, Rosemarie Collins of Chicago; and four granddaughters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/arts/television/20lamb.html?pagewanted=print

TV Notebook
Harvard says Rather has the goods for fellowship

By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist Tue, Jun. 20, 2006
Who needs CBS when Harvard's hot for you?

Dan Rather, whose departure is expected to be announced today, would be a jolly good fellow for Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, its director says.

"I'd love to have him come here for a semester or full year on campus," says Alex Jones. "Dan Rather has all the credentials, as far as I'm concerned."

CBS was so close to working out an exit deal with Rather yesterday morning that a "goodbye" piece was assigned to run on last night's CBS Evening News.

Later in the day, it was pushed back when Rather told management he wanted to sleep on it before announcing the end of his 44-year career at the network, according to industry sources.

The announcement is expected today; his swan song, Friday. Rather's contract runs until late November.

Once his exit is official, the Evening News tribute will run tonight. No word whether Rather will agree to be interviewed for the piece.

A similar video salute ran in March '05, when Rather was forced from the Evening News anchor chair after 24 years following the Memogate scandal.

Rather, 74, reportedly has been offered a contract to develop and host a weekly interview show on HDNet, a high-definition TV network cofounded in September '01 by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

HDNet reaches about three million homes, says a network rep. Its current lineup includes sports, original music programming, and reruns of such broadcast-network series as Joan of Arcadia and Smallville.

Its lone news presence: HDNet World Report, a weekly documentary series.

Back to Harvard... Shorenstein Center fellowships come with a "modest stipend" of $15,000 per semester, including living expenses, Jones says. Rick Kaplan, ex-president of CNN/U.S. and MSNBC, and CNN alum Judith Woodruff are both former on-campus fellows.

In addition to teaching, Rather, a 1953 graduate of Sam Houston State Teachers College, would do "serious reporting research on the evolution of TV news - where it's going, where it's been, what's up," Jones says.

Also, he'd make himself available "to share his knowledge with a community of scholars and students... . He'd be the elder statesman and truth-teller. He could speak about television with a very powerful voice."

Like many others, Jones agrees it's time for Rather to move on.

"I regret that his last chapter at CBS was so unhappy. As far as I'm concerned, it was not the last act in his career, or his life... . I think it's a good moment for him to do something else somewhere else."

Rather could not be reached for comment.

Tonight's the night.

Oh, is Anderson Cooper talking to Angelina Jolie tonight? We didn't notice.

After incessant promotions touting the "exclusive" post-baby get, Cooper's piece - taped last week in L.A. - will actually run tonight at 10 ET on CNN.

Cooper denies buzz that the interview was part of a package deal with People magazine, which paid more than $4 million for photo rights to Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt,bornMay 27 in Namibia. (Time Warner owns CNN and People.)

"I never heard anything more absurd," he says testily. "They approached us about doing the interview. It's as simple as that. They knew it would be substantive.

"I'm interested in a lot of the countries in Africa she's traveled to, and I've been doing a lot of stuff on the Congo recently."

Cooper asked Jolie "a few" personal questions about the baby, future babies and Brad Pitt, but the tender queries "were usually in relation to things she was already talking about. Frankly, I'm not that interested in delving into every aspect of her life. It's just not what I do."

"I don't really talk to celebrities very often, frankly. Basically, they're off my radar."

But not CNN's, clearly.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//14856761.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

TV Q&A
A 'House' call

By Alan Sepinwall Newark Star-Ledger Tuesday, June 20, 2006

LETTERS, All TV gets letters, and this week's mailbag has questions about three of TV's oldest occupations: doctors, cops and crooks.

The doctor is...?

Dear Alan: In your column of May 24, you wrote about a lot of season-ending shows, and you promised to write more in a day or two about the season finale of "House." I read your column every day, and either I missed something or you forgot your promise. Maybe you're like me, still trying to figure out what exactly happened on that show. Did House really get shot? What was real, and what wasn't? I would love to hear your thoughts on this ending, since I have come to realize that you are an obvious fan of the show. It was a very thought-provoking episode. I'm sorry if you already addressed this in a previous column. I might have missed it. -- Mary Ann Bucsko, Vernon

Alan says: No, you didn't miss it, Mary Ann, and no, I didn't forget. Without going into too many boring logistical details, I got tied up with other things, and then I wanted to wait for a chance to interview "House" producer David Shore, who wrote and directed the finale.

First, according to Shore, the beginning (House tries to diagnose the patient with the swollen tongue, House gets shot) and the end (House is wheeled into the ER and asks for ketamine) were the only parts of the episode that were real. Everything else -- the exploding eyeball, the visits to the taco stand, the robotic foreplay, House punching out Wilson -- took place inside House's mind.

I heard some people theorize that the opening scenes, with House taking a patient history himself and an unusually giddy Foreman deciding to go to the movies, were also part of the dream, but Shore insists they happened. "If people thought it was strange," he says, "that was probably just because the guy directing didn't have a lot of experience."

But Shore also says, "I really do think of that stuff in the middle as very real. House isn't debating with some jerk who shot him, he isn't debating with his staff, it's all in his own mind, but it's a very real debate within himself about how he should live his life."

(Warning: Some spoilers for next season ahead, so skip to the next letter if you don't want to know.) Shore suggests that House read a medical journal article about ketamine, which inspired the part of the fantasy where ketamine cured his leg pain -- and which will lead to the first arc of the new season.

"We're going to go somewhere with it," he says. "They're going to try that, and have some success with it."

Note the "some," since whether or not the pain is completely or permanently cured, Shore promises, "ultimately, we're not going to change him (emotionally). House is who House is. I think he was probably that way to a great extent before anything happened to his leg."

But even a temporary respite for House would also be one for Hugh Laurie. Like Laura Innes on "ER," hobbling around on a cane for 22 episodes a year when his legs are perfectly fine is taking a physical toll. ("ER" fixed Kerry Weaver's hip because Innes had taken too much of a pounding over the years.)

"His shoulders have been sore, and we want to do whatever we can to help that," Shore says.

One element from the finale that won't be carried over to the new season is the identity and motivation of the man who shot House. (Elias Koteas, who played the shooter, won't be back.)

"I was more interested in House's view of why somebody might shoot him, instead of, frankly, a mundane reason," says Shore. "A guy who shoots you is crazy. I don't care what his real reasons are."

Farewell to Farina

Dear Alan: Read where Dennis Farina is leaving "Law & Order." I am one of his biggest fans since his starring stint in "Crime Story." Whatever he does or whatever the story line he is in, he brings a class that is his and his only. --Sanford Weissman, Lakewood

Alan says: NBC has lined up the replacements for Farina and Annie Parisse. Milena Govich, who had played one of the young prosecutors on the quasi-spin-off "Conviction" (set in the "L&O" universe but without the title), will become the show's first regular female detective, while Alana De La Garza, who played Marisol Delko on "CSI: Miami," will be Sam Waterston's new sidekick.

Stolen away

Dear Alan: Whatever happened to the new TV show "Heist"? Why was it canceled? I didn't see a warning coming. --Tom Jones, South Plainfield

Alan says: "Heist" was canceled for the same reason virtually everything on TV gets the ax: low ratings. NBC did the show no favors by sliding "Law & Order" to Wednesdays at 9 and airing "Heist" in the familiar "L&O" 10 p.m. timeslot; instead of providing an established lead-in for the new show, it just ticked off "L&O" fans and made them less likely to watch it.

Between "Heist" and FX's "Thief," which won't be back after a little-watched first season, it wasn't a good spring for shows about daring robberies. Probably not a good sign for "Smith," CBS' upcoming show starring Ray Liotta as a thief trying to get out after a few last scores.

On patrol

Dear Alan: We were wondering if Comedy Central will be airing any new episodes of "Reno 911." --Robert & Esther Jones, Edison

Alan says: The cops of "Reno" will be back on July 9, teamed with the "lost" episodes of "Chappelle's Show" season three as part of Comedy Central's attempt to set up a Sunday night programming bloc.

http://www.nj.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/columns-0/1150779011189360.xml&coll=1

TV Notebook
The Late Riser

After 30 Years and Many Early Mornings, Charles Gibson Is the Face of ABC's Nightly News
By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 20, 2006; C01

NEW YORK--Charlie Gibson is strolling around the set of "Good Morning America," away from the cameras, when an aide to celebrity animal trainer Jack Hanna scurries over bearing a furry creature clinging to a gnarled stick.

"This may be the last time," Gibson announces, greeting his old friend Hanna with a bear hug.

The segment begins and Hanna is soon cradling an alligator, allowing Gibson to assume the role of nervous host: "Would you hold it with two hands, please?" And moments later he pointedly declines an invitation to feed worms to the slow loris, wiggling on the stick.

It's a safe bet that Gibson won't be bringing any cute animals onto the set of ABC's "World News Tonight," where he assumed the anchor chair three weeks ago. That night, he reported on Iraq war planning, a Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty, surging crime rates and a tropical storm threatening Florida -- a far more serious diet than the high-calorie smorgasbord that is morning television.

Clearly, Katie Couric's switch from "Today" to the "CBS Evening News" has generated far more debate, in part because of her status as the first woman taking over one of the Big Three newscasts. But Gibson, who recently became a grandfather when one of his two daughters had a son, simply doesn't generate polarizing arguments. He is a comfortable, easygoing figure who filled in so many times for Peter Jennings over the years that it seems perfectly natural to find him as the face of a news division where he has worked for 31 years.

Indeed, the one controversy surrounding Gibson's anointment is not whether a man who has covered Washington and traveled around the world has the chops for the job, but whether the previous anchor, Elizabeth Vargas, was unfairly shoved aside in the process.

"This place has been rocked twice," says Gibson, 63, recalling Jennings's death and the Iraqi bomb that wounded Vargas's co-anchor, Bob Woodruff, within the last 11 months. He says he keeps describing himself as an "old codger" because ABC staffers "just want some sense that calm has descended. It's not to emphasize that I'm old, which is stupid, but I just want them to know things are okay. Unless I'm hit by a Mack truck, I'm going to be around for a while."

Gibson is accustomed to competing against Couric. He has spent the last 7 1/2 years, with Diane Sawyer, trying to catch Couric and Matt Lauer in the morning-show wars, and he knows that the press will focus on whether his second-place newscast can stave off a challenge from Couric at CBS and gain ground on Brian Williams's top-rated "NBC Nightly News." But Gibson disdains the obsession with Nielsen numbers.

"I have assiduously avoided knowing what the ratings are for shows," he says. "Some people get paid a lot of money to worry about that stuff. If you begin to broadcast or program depending on what a consultant tells you or the ratings indicate, what the hell have you been doing in journalism for 40 years? If you get too immersed in what you think people want to know, based on ratings, you've made a tremendous mistake."

Gibson insists that "World News Tonight" is not so much about him but about the correspondents, the same self-effacing approach that Bob Schieffer has taken since succeeding Dan Rather.

"He owes me," jokes Schieffer, 69, "for proving there's a future for old guys on TV. Charlie's just a good guy. He's been out on a beat and knows how to cover news, and I think he'll be a stabilizing force and formidable competition."

Despite his contention that anchoring shouldn't be a popularity contest, the wry, low-key Gibson ultimately will be judged a success or failure at the box office.

"You get comfortable with a particular newspaper," Gibson says. "It's the same thing with evening news shows. That's why it's hard to change people's habits. You can lose people rather quickly -- Dan got very controversial and all of a sudden people left. But it's difficult to get them to come to you."

A Heavy Load

At an editorial meeting for "World News Tonight" last week, the talk turned to a motorcycle accident involving Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

"He's said in the past that he prefers not to wear a helmet -- isn't it in his contract that he has to?" Gibson asked. When he was a local reporter in Washington, Gibson said, he owned a motorcycle, but his boss made him sell it by saying the company had so much invested in him.

"He was paying me $20,000 a year," Gibson said.

One producer suggested that ABC reporter John Berman take a look at Roethlisberger and motorcycle safety for the evening newscast, but another staffer said Berman was working on an unrelated story for "Good Morning America."

"Which show dominates?" Gibson asked. The conference room filled with laughter.

Gibson is working both the morning and evening shifts this month before bidding farewell to "Good Morning America" a week from tomorrow. On this particular morning he overslept -- waking up at 5:30 a.m., half an hour after he usually reports to the Times Square studio of "GMA" -- and can't suppress a few yawns.

Since signing Gibson to a new three-year deal, ABC has wasted little time in touting him as the voice of experience. "Charles Gibson: He's been there, seen it, brought us the world," a promotional spot says. "Times when the truth needed to be uncovered, he never backed down. . . . In times like these it's important to trust the source."

Such accolades make him sound like an obvious choice. Gibson is "very much in the Peter Jennings tradition," says ABC News President David Westin. "Particularly in time of national emergency or some of the bigger stories we've covered, having someone tried and true, who people have experience with over a long period of time, is very reassuring."

But Westin decided against giving Gibson the job last fall, rejecting his insistence on serving at least three years and rolling the dice on two younger anchors. Vargas, who soon discovered she was pregnant, found herself working impossible hours after Woodruff's injury.

Last month, though Vargas had been assured she could return to "World News" after her maternity leave, Westin handed the job to Gibson, who had no interest in being Vargas's co-anchor.

"I said to David all the way through that I don't believe in two anchors sitting at the desk next to each other," Gibson says. "It never made any sense to me. It never made any sense when Barbara Walters and Harry Reasoner did it or when Connie Chung and Dan Rather did it."

Gibson says he told Vargas he "felt badly" for what she had gone through. He says he had been scheduled to retire next year before getting the offer. "I was okay with the idea that 'Good Morning America' would be my last job at ABC. . . . There was never any foot-stomping," he says.

But to some staffers at the network, it looked as though Vargas was being sidelined by Gibson's stance, along with sagging ratings and an unplanned pregnancy.

"We didn't have the natural person to pair with Elizabeth," says Westin, who chose Gibson after Sawyer took herself out of the running for "World News." He calls Vargas "a consummate professional" but says the job changed on her because of Woodruff's injuries. "I don't rule out the possibility that Bob and Elizabeth will be co-anchors again," Westin says.

Vargas, who remains a "20/20" anchor, says that stepping aside under pressure was "an excruciatingly difficult decision. The problem of my maternity leave was and remains an insurmountable one. I had to leave the show for two months at a crucial time, and it would be unfair to the staff to leave them without a strong anchor. For now, this is the best decision for my family and for my colleagues."

Gibson, for the moment, is carrying a heavy load. He had just finished "GMA" last Tuesday and was posing for pictures with audience members when a producer said in his earpiece, "Get up to the desk right away. Bush is in Iraq."

"You mean the 2:30 news conference is a ruse?" Gibson said. The White House had announced, as a cover story, that the president would talk to reporters in the Rose Garden.

Gibson anchored two breaking-news specials without missing a beat. When Bush met reporters the next day, Gibson was struck by how energized the president looked, despite having had only a few hours' sleep, and how he seemed to be laying out a defense of the war that could become the Republican message in the fall elections. Gibson asked for a report on the politics of the secret trip to Baghdad, which became a "Closer Look" segment.

Colleagues say Gibson is deeply involved in every aspect of "World News," from writing scripts to picking the "Person of the Week." "He's a wonderful presence in the newsroom," says Executive Producer Jon Banner. "He's very aggressive in questioning pieces and making sure we cover this or that angle of the story."

But Gibson is the first to say that this is an unaccustomed role for him. For one thing, he has long been collaborating with Sawyer and the "GMA" staff. For another, he received a Quaker education at Washington's Sidwell Friends School -- he still goes to meetings occasionally -- and believes in the gradual deliberation that Quakers call "a sense of the meeting."

A native of Evanston, Ill., Gibson returned to Washington with a degree from Princeton University in 1966 and got a job as a $325-a-month radio producer. After enlisting in the Coast Guard to avoid the draft, Gibson landed a slot in a training program at Channel 7, now WJLA-TV. He edited down B-movies to fill the available slots on Sunday afternoon. He did cleanup duty at the "Claire and Coco" children's show, Coco being a French poodle. He kept score for a bowling show taped downstairs from the Van Ness Street offices. The station later sent him to another ABC affiliate it owned in Lynchburg, Va.

"He was elegant and had a tremendous command of the English language," says Bob Sprague, who was the station's news director. "He was very interested in the way words were used, which impressed me." Gibson was so interested in politics that he paid his own way to the 1968 Republican convention in Miami. He also aggressively covered Lynchburg's desegregation battles. When he left town for the last time, all the tires on his car had been slashed.

Channel 7 brought Gibson back as a reporter and weekend anchor in 1970. "From the moment he walked in the newsroom," says Leonard Deibert, then the news director, "it was evident he was smart and savvy, but not in a cocky way. He had a great curiosity. He was unafraid of any reporting assignment."

But Deibert recalls the general manager, Tom Cookerly, saying: "He'll never make it in television. He looks too preppy." When Cookerly moved Gibson to radio, he quit and wound up working for a short-lived television news service bankrolled by conservative beer magnate Joseph Coors. Gibson covered the Watergate hearings on the Hill and sat next to ABC's Sam Donaldson, who recommended him to the network.

After covering the Ford White House for ABC, Gibson spent a decade stationed at the House. Brit Hume, who covered the Senate for ABC, says he and Gibson agreed over lunch not to sabotage each other in the nightly competition for airtime. "We never had a cross word or disagreement, mostly because he was so self-effacing," says Hume, now Fox's Washington managing editor. "He's such a good guy that he makes you behave better."

In 1987, after occasionally filling in as the news anchor on "GMA," Gibson was tapped as Joan Lunden's co-host. With his wife, Arlene -- then the director of the lower school at Holton-Arms in Bethesda -- Gibson moved to New York, beginning a successful morning run. "He certainly hasn't made up this soft-shoe, knowledgeable but friendly style," Donaldson says. "That's who Charlie is."

John Reiss, a former Gibson producer who is now executive producer of "NBC Nightly News," calls him "absolutely brilliant at ad-libbing." But Reiss remembers being puzzled at "GMA" when Gibson kept ignoring his instructions, talking right up to the last second before a commercial break, and finally asked him why.

"I could do the best interview in the world with some world leader and I'll come back and some producer would say my tie is crooked," Gibson told him. "This is my way of getting even."

In 1998, after "GMA" fell behind Couric and Lauer at "Today," Gibson was replaced by Kevin Newman. Seven months later, ABC dumped Newman and his co-host, Lisa McRee, and Westin persuaded Gibson to return by teaming him with Sawyer. What was originally billed as a temporary fix has lasted until now.

A Meat-and-Potatoes Man

The highlights have been airing each morning as "GMA" pays tribute to its departing host: Gibson anchoring from the CIA, from the Pentagon, from Buckingham Palace and Vatican City and a refugee camp in Macedonia. He is not the kind of interviewer who draws attention to himself, but caused a stir in 1999 when he challenged President Bill Clinton on gun control in the wake of the Columbine massacre.

"There are very basic measures that could be taken that people agree on," Gibson said. "We register every automobile in America. . . . That's a step that would make a difference."

"Look," Clinton shot back, "let's join the real world here. Now you want to have an honest conversation?"

Gibson says he tries to be "agnostic" on all issues -- except for smoking, which he says killed both his parents and his sister -- and took that approach after learning that gun control advocates as well as the National Rifle Association were unhappy with Clinton. "I just thought it might be something he wouldn't expect if I pressed him about what they were saying as opposed to the usual tack of asking about the NRA folks," he says.

In his new role, Gibson makes no secret that he is a meat-and-potatoes man, interested in Washington and foreign news and cool to softer features. He is well aware that viewers have been deserting the once-dominant network newscasts for two decades, but believes that they remain a formidable force.

"We've lost some audience because people's choices are so much broader now," Gibson says. "But I happen to believe there are three national printing presses in television, and now I've got one of them."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061901336_pf.html

Sports On TV
Without Tiger, U.S. Open ratings tank

By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jun 20, 2006

The Tiger Woods effect has been seen many times over in men’s golf over the past decade. When Woods is not in contention for a tournament title, ratings sink.

But until this weekend, golf had never seen a Woods effect this severe. For the first time ever, Woods missed the cut at a major tournament. With Tiger off to an early start on his weekend, ratings for the U.S. Open dropped to record-low levels.

There are two more major events left this season, and that begs the question: Can Woods return to form, and what will happen if he can’t? Golf ratings are sure to plummet.

Woods exited the tournament on Friday after shooting 12 over par for two days and missing the cut by three strokes. Thus Saturday’s Tiger-less third-round coverage of the U.S. Open on NBC averaged a 3.2 household rating, according to Nielsen overnights.

That was the lowest Saturday average since Nielsen began measuring the tournament in 1982. It was down 27 percent from the previous year, when Saturday averaged a 4.4.

Sunday’s final round averaged a 5.1, down 12 percent from a 5.8 the previous year, when Woods finished second. It was the lowest-rated final round in three years and second-lowest-rated since 1994.

NBC’s two-day average of 4.2, if it holds when final ratings are released later today, would be the worst two-day average since 1988 and tie for second-worst ever.

Ratings for Thursday and Friday were off as well, with Woods never really finding a rhythm and finishing well behind the leaders on each day.

Clearly audiences were not interested in watching a major where Woods had no chance of winning. Too, they may have felt deceived by all the pre-tournament build up, which focused on a showdown between Woods and Phil Mickelson, winner of the past two majors who missed a third straight win with a double bogey on the final hole Sunday.

The media thus deserves much of the blame for the lackluster ratings. It was unrealistic to expect Woods, who took a two-month break to be with his sick father, who passed away a few weeks ago, to contend in the year’s toughest major after so much time off. He looked out of sync for most of his two rounds.

What’s more, it may be weeks or even months before Woods returns to form on the golf course, much less contends for a title. His father was a huge influence in his life and on his golf game, and Woods has seemed understandably uninterested in playing since he became ill.

If Woods’ game remains off when the British Open begins on July 20, ABC will suffer similarly poor ratings. Despite the attempts by the Tour and the media to build Mickelson into the same sort of fan favorite as Woods, the U.S. Open ratings indicate it’s not working.

If Woods misses another cut, even interest in him may start to fade as he shows a heretofore unseen human side.

The hope years ago had been that Woods would bring new viewers to golf, who would stay long after he’d gone because they enjoyed the game. That hope seems less and less likely, as the golf craze continues to rise and fall on his game nine years after he won his first major.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_5473.asp

TV Notebook
Dan Rather Signs Off

(from cbsnews.com)

NEW YORK, June 20, 2006 (CBS) -- Dan Rather is leaving CBS after 44 years with the Tiffany Network.

Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports, made the announcement.

“Of all the famous names associated with CBS News, the biggest and brightest on the marquee are Murrow, Cronkite and Rather,” McManus said. “With the utmost respect, we mark the extraordinary and singular role Dan has played in writing the script of not only CBS News, but of broadcast journalism."

CBS News is working on a primetime special on the newsman’s career. It is scheduled to be broadcast sometime this fall. CBS News also will make a contribution to Rather’s alma mater, now called Sam Houston State University.

Rather's contract with the network was scheduled to expire in November, but he was unable to reach agreeement with CBS on a new pact. He had worked as a correspondent for 60 Minutes since stepping down as anchor of the CBS Evening News last year.

Rather told the New York Times that he is considering an offer from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to do a weekly news program for Cuban's HDNet cable channel.

Rather bid a bittersweet goodbye to the Evening News in March 2005 after 24 years in the anchor chair. He stepped down 24 years to the day after he replaced another CBS News icon: Walter Cronkite.

Bob Schieffer has been the interim anchor since Rather's departure. Katie Couric, who joins the network this summer, will take over the anchor chair in September.

During his long and prolific career with CBS News, Rather has written six books, anchored six presidential election campaigns and covered a dozen wars on five continents.

He has braved hurricanes, waded through flood waters, dodged bullets, comforted wounded GIs, mouthed off to presidents, wept on camera, become a lightning rod for conservatives and been badly beaten by a dangerous maniac on Park Avenue.

A 50-year career in journalism has made Rather a witness to modern American history: the assassination of President Kennedy, the civil rights movement, Watergate, wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The correspondent and anchorman has also interviewed hundreds of world leaders and newsmakers ranging from Mother Teresa to Saddam Hussein.

This road well traveled has been strewn with "Ratherisms," folksy sayings that can make one smile or wince or both. It was Rather who told us that the Florida presidential race was as "hotter than a Times Square Rolex" and who reminded us of the importance of swing states: "It don't mean a thing if they don't get those swings."

Rather's departure from the Evening News was clouded by his high-profile role in a flawed CBS News story about President Bush's National Guard service and some harsh comments from old CBS colleagues, including Cronkite, who suggested Schieffer should have been given the anchor job years ago.

In September 2004, Rather was the correspondent on a "60 Minutes Wednesday" piece that used documents that purported to show Mr. Bush received preferential treatment during his years in the Texas Air National Guard.

The authenticity of the documents was almost immediately questioned, but CBS News and Rather continued to defend the story long after it was broadcast. An independent panel that probed the network's handling of the story concluded CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece.

Rather has repeatedly apologized for his role in the story and expressed regrets about the fate of his colleagues.

Although the Guard story was a low point in Rather’s career, it was far from his only brush with controversy. There were well-publicized run-ins with two top Republicans, Richard Nixon and President Bush the elder. And in 2001, he made an embarrassing appearance at a Democratic fundraiser in Texas hosted by his daughter.

These events contributed to Rather’s status as a lightning rod for conservative critics who view him as a symbol of what they see as the media’s liberal bias.

The Texas-born Rather has always dreamed of a career in journalism. He grew up in Houston, where he began reporting the news for local radio and TV stations.

"We didn't own a TV set, and we didn't know anybody who did," Rather recently told the Texas Monthly. "My dream was to be a byline reporter on either the Houston Chronicle or the Houston Post."

His breakthrough came in 1961, when his daring coverage of Hurricane Carla for KHOU-TV attracted the attention of CBS.

Below are some memorable events in his CBS career:

• 1962: Joins CBS News as chief of the network's Southwest bureau, in Dallas, where it was his job to cover 23 states, Mexico and Central America.

• Nov. 22, 1963: Reports live from the scene of President John F. Kennedy's assassination. Not only was CBS the first network on the scene, but Rather was also the first to report Kennedy had died.

• 1964: Promoted to White House correspondent for CBS News.

• 1965: Sent to Vietnam — at his own request — to cover the war.

• 1966: Returns to the U.S. and resumes his role as White House correspondent.

• 1974: His combative style is captured in a memorable moment while exchanging verbal jabs with President Nixon. First, Rather is booed and applauded when he stands to ask Nixon a question. Mr. Nixon turned the question around: "Are you running for something?" "No, sir, Mr. President," Rather shot back. "Are you?" This angers the White Houses. Several CBS affiliates asked for his resignation.

• 1974: Co-wrote a book about Watergate, "The Palace Guard," which became a best-seller. Another book, "The Camera Never Blinks," was published in 1977.

• 1980: Slips into Afghanistan in disguise following the Soviet invasion. The escapade earns him a nickname: "Gunga Dan."

• March 9, 1981: CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite retires, and Rather takes over.

• 1986: Rather is attacked and badly beaten on Park Avenue by a deranged man later convicted of murdering an NBC stagehand. Rather’s woozy recollection of his attacker’s words, "What’s the frequency, Kenneth?," becomes the title of a song by rock band R.E.M.

• 1987: Rather walks off the CBS Evening News set in anger after the network decided to let the U.S. Open tennis tournament run overtime, cutting into the news broadcast. CBS was left with dead air for six minutes.

• Jan. 25, 1988: In an interview with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, Rather presses the future president about his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. A heated exchange follows, with Mr. Bush asking Rather whether he wished to be judged for the tennis walk-off.

• 1990: Is the first American journalist to interview Saddam Hussein after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

• March 31, 1999: Secures an exclusive first sit-down interview with President Clinton following the Lewinsky scandal and his impeachment by the House.

• 2001: Breaks into tears twice while discussing the 9/11 attacks on David Letterman’s late-night show a few days after the tragedy.

• Feb. 24, 2003: Gets the most sought-after interview in the world: an exclusive one-on-one with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, the first time the Iraqi leader talks with an American journalist since 1991.

• March 9, 2005: Rather steps down as anchor of the CBS Evening News.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/19/national/printable1727285.shtml

TV Notebook
Mark Cuban blogs about Dan Rather

HDNet is talking to Dan Rather and we hope to do a deal where he produces a show that uncovers news. Information with a payoff. Some people have already decided that working with Dan alone defines positions we will take in our programming. Of course we have a 5 year history of news features already with World Report, but why let that get in the way.

….You may think you know what Dan Rather and HDNet will do together. But you dont. You have no idea. I will tell you that there wont be any corporate considerations. No earnings per share issues. No worries about advertisers and what they might think.

Right is its own defense.

http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000377073756/

Monday’s network prime-time ratings are now at the top of RATINGS NEWS (the first post in this thread).

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Stanley Cup win pulls decent crowds

By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jun 20, 2006

The Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup last night with a 3-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers. They also gave a small but significant victory to NBC, closing out its first season as hockey’s home after last year’s lockout: an uptick in ratings.

Last night’s Game Seven averaged a 2.3 adults 18-49 overnight rating from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., according to Nielsen fast nationals. Those numbers measure only timeslot data, not program data, so the final number may jump when the bit airing after 11 p.m. is factored in to final ratings.

Regardless, this will be the highest-rated game of the series by far. It was up 92 percent over the 1.2 final average earned by Saturday’s Game Six. It also bettered Game Five’s 1.6 average and Game Four’s 1.3 average while becoming NBC’s first game to break 4 million total viewers.

In fact, it broke that barrier by a great deal, averaging 5.45 million total viewers.

Still, things must be put in perspective: Good for hockey doesn't mean much. NBC managed just a third place on the night among 18-49s, behind even a slate of reruns on CBS. And among total viewers, it was only 300,000 ahead of ABC, which was dragged down by another dismal showing by the new “How To Get the Guy.”

Meanwhile, Fox squeezed into No. 1 for the night with a 2.7 rating and 8 share among 18-49s, followed by CBS at 2.6/7, NBC at 2.3/7, ABC at 2.0/6, Univision at 1.6/3, UPN at 0.8/2 and WB at 0.7/2.

At 8 p.m., CBS was No. 1 with a 2.3 for repeats of "King of Queens" and "How I Met Your Mother," followed by ABC's "Wife Swap" rerun at 2.1 and Fox's "Hell's Kitchen" repeat at 2.0. Both NBC's Game 7 of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals and Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" averaged a 1.9, trailed by UPN's "One on One" and "All of Us" reruns at 0.8 and WB's "7th Heaven" repeat at 0.7.

At 9 p.m., Fox moved to No. 1 for an original "Hell's Kitchen" at 3.4, followed by NBC's Stanley Cup Finals at 2.4. CBS's "Two and a Half Men" repeats were No. 3 at 2.3, ahead of ABC's "Supernanny" rerun at 2.1, Univision's "Barrera de Amor" at 1.7, and a 0.7 each for the WB's "7th Heaven" repeat and UPN's reruns of "Girlfriends" and "Half and Half."

At 10 p.m., CBS led at 3.2 for a "CSI: Miami" rerun, followed by NBC's 2.7 for the end of the Stanley Cup game, ABC's 1.7 for "Guy" and Univision's 1.3 for "Cristina."

Among households, CBS led for the night with a 5.8 rating and 10 share, followed by Fox at 3.9/7, ABC at 3.6/6, NBC at 3.5/6, Univision at 2.0/3 and the WB and UPN each at 1.3/2.

• Ratings courtesy Nielsen Media Research. Ratings information is taken from fast national data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change, especially in the case of live telecasts.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_5498.asp

The Digital Revolution
Louisiana Passes Franchise-Reform Bill

By Linda Haugsted Multichannel.com 6/20/2006

A franchise-reform bill that will allow incumbent cable operators to immediately opt into state franchises has been approved by the Louisiana State Legislature.

The bill passed Monday, the last day of the state's legislative session. It must now be signed by Gov. Kathleen Blanco in order to become effective.

If the bill is signed, new competitors will file affidavits requesting certification to the office of the Secretary of State. That office will have 10 days to act on the request or the affidavit will automatically become effective. The franchise will be for a 10-year term.

The new providers will describe the areas they intend to serve, and build-out requirements are forbidden under the new law.

New providers must pay a franchise fee on their gross revenues, remitted to local governments. The amount will match that paid by the incumbent video provider. But the new providers must also pay 15 cents per month, per subscriber to help fund public, educational and government production studios and equipment.

Cheryl McCormick, CEO of the Louisiana Cable & Telecommunications Association, said the latter term was added in recognition of the financial support provided in the past by incumbent operators.

The bill seeks to prevent discrimination in service deployment, based on the average income for an area, but it also said a provider can consider technology issues and construction costs when deciding whether to serve an area. Discrimination complaints are to be directed to the state Attorney General.

Although the bill would give incumbents the ability to apply for state franchises immediately, McCormick expressed doubt that any current provider would pursue one.

"I know of no one who's expressed interest," she said.

TV Notebook
Dan Rather Leaves CBS

By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 20, 2006

NEW YORK — CBS News officials confirmed today that longtime anchor Dan Rather is ending his four-decade run at the network after executives declined to renew his contract as a full-time correspondent for "60 Minutes."

Rather's departure marks a sharp break with CBS' past and a sour ending for the veteran newsman, who sought to remain at the network where he anchored the evening news for almost a quarter century.

But CBS officials, preparing for the arrival of anchor Katie Couric this fall, wanted to signal a fresh start for the news division and spotlight a new generation of broadcasters, according to people familiar with the internal thinking.

CBS News President Sean McManus declined to discuss the negotiations in detail, but denied that the 74-year-old newsman was treated ignobly.

"We just couldn't come up with a schedule of assignments on '60 Minutes' that was satisfactory for both him and CBS," McManus said in an interview. "There's nothing disrespectful whatsoever in that we've tried to do this in a very fair and equitable way, knowing that we couldn't come to an agreement on a contract extension. It was an ongoing process that from our perspective was as cordial, lengthy and respectful as we could have made it."

Rather and his agent Richard Leibner did not immediately return calls for comment.

According to network sources, the decision to end CBS' relationship with Rather was not directly tied to the furor that erupted in fall 2004, when he reported a story that questioned President Bush's service in the Texas Air Guard.

Rather eventually apologized for the reporting flaws in the piece, which an independent panel determined as based on unsubstantiated documents. He stepped down from the anchor desk in March 2005. While network executives believe the news division has largely recovered from the controversy, the incident shadowed Rather's reputation after 44 years at the network.

The broadcaster's last day at CBS has not been set -- officials said it was up to him -- but it's clear he will leave long before his contract expires at the end of November.

In an interview last week, Rather said that while he wanted to stay on at CBS, he was upbeat about the next chapter in his career and eagerly considering several opportunities.

"My view of it is I'm a pro and it's a business and I'm focusing on the future," he said.

One offer on his plate is from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who has invited Rather to do a weekly news program on his high-definition television channel, HDNet, available in about 3 million homes through cable and satellite providers.

"We hope to do a deal where he produces a show that uncovers news," Cuban wrote on his blog Monday, describing the program as "information with a payoff."

"You may think you know what Dan Rather and HDNet will do together," he added. "But you don't. You have no idea. I will tell you that there won't be any corporate considerations. No earnings per share issues. No worries about advertisers and what they might think."

In the meantime, CBS officials said they plan to produce a prime time special for this fall about Rather's career at the network, a program in which they hope he will participate. The network is also making a contribution to his alma mater, Sam Houston State University.

"It's not as if we're taking away the key and locking the door," McManus said. "In a difficult situation, we're trying to do this with as much respect and recognition of his enormous legacy at CBS as we can."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-062006rather,0,2599912,print.story?coll=la-home-entertainment

Fred,

I understand your position re Comcast, but I would have been amazed if any cableco would have won exclusive rights to ST and I feel the offer was really a hollow one. Individual cableco's can reach far fewer subs than a nation-wide satco can and there is simply no way IMHO for a cableco to compete for the ST rights. A lot of bidding invites are offered by businesses all the time when it's all but a foregone conclusion who will win. :)

Fred,

I understand your position re Comcast, but I would have been amazed if any cableco would have won exclusive rights to ST and I feel the offer was really a hollow one. Individual cableco's can reach far fewer subs than a nation-wide satco can and there is simply no way IMHO for a cableco to compete for the ST rights. A lot of bidding invites are offered by businesses all the time when it's all but a foregone conclusion who will win. :)
Not really, Comcast has around 6-8 million more subs than DirecTV has so if Comcast had ST it would have been able to provide it to far more subs than DirecTV can.

Bottom line, Comcast just didn't want to pony up the money.

DoubleDAZ:

And I understand your point.

But the NFL has never been known for leaving even a single penny on the table. (And can you imagine the reaction of Jerry Jones if millions of dollars were left untapped?)

In fact, the NFL has left many of its "partners" at the altar at one time or another when someone came up with more cash. (Remember Fox stunning CBS back in the early 90s?)

If Comcast (or a consortium of cable operators) had wanted to pony up the $$$ for the NFL ST, the NFL would have been happy to sell it to them.

I would think DirecTV could be in big trouble when the current ST contract runs out, because the telcos will be needing the NFL games more than DirecTV.

Critic’s Notebook
Goodbye, Dan, Again (Updated)

(And Bye, Connie, Please!)
By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog June 20, 2006

Much buzzing the last couple of days about Dan Rather leaving CBS after 44 years. No doubt this will prompt extended reflection on his career, his influence and his decline.

But didn't we do this already?

When Rather stepped down as anchor of ''The CBS Evening News'' in March 2005, that effectively marked the end of Rather as a bright star in the TV news universe. His place in TV news was duly assessed, and the only thing that has changed since then is, well, nothing. He went into network limbo, and there he has stayed.

The end of his deal with CBS will free him from that limb, allowing him to pursue other work, of course. Big-name former newsmen can keep working as long as they choose -- be it on public television, cable or in commercials.

They can also be sought out for the occasional pithy quote during anything that looks like a major change in TV news. (''So, Dan, did you watch Katie's debut?'') Already there are reports that Rather will sign with HDNet to do a newscast once his CBS gig is over, although I'd prefer a weekly hour of Rather talking with HDNet boss Mark Cuban. (Yes, the guy who owns the Mavs -- giving him and Rather both an association with Dallas.)

That's not a slam at Cuban, either. I met Cuban a few years ago and liked him; he may be outspoken, but he also stands ready for the heat. It's remarkable to meet a guy that rich who gives out his e-mail address to a roomful of reporters. So put him with a Rather who has nothing to fear -- and no further need to overload metaphors -- and we could all have some fun.

I suppose Connie Chung -- Rather's former co-anchor -- thought she was having fun when she ended her MSNBC series with a musical number. (You can find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLY3dz97jyM and be glad that there is YouTube.) But it's just bad. Scary bad. So bad, I may watch it again.

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

DoubleDAZ:

And I understand your point.

But the NFL has never been known for leaving even a single penny on the table. (And can you imagine the reaction of Jerry Jones if millions of dollars were left untapped?)

In fact, the NFL has left many of its "partners" at the altar at one time or another when someone came up with more cash. (Remember Fox stunning CBS back in the early 90s?)

If Comcast (or a consortium of cable operators) had wanted to pony up the $$$ for the NFL ST, the NFL would have been happy to sell it to them.

I would think DirecTV could be in big trouble when the current ST contract runs out, because the telcos will be needing the NFL games more than DirecTV.

You and Jim are right. The NFL hasn't seen a dollar it doesn't like. If the telcos outbid Directv for the 'Sunday Ticket', then the NFL will go with that. I would suspect that the bid will have to be in the billion dollar range b/c Directv is currently spending about 730 million.

TV Notebook
The Late Riser

After 30 Years and Many Early Mornings, Charles Gibson Is the Face of ABC's Nightly News
By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 20, 2006; C01

"We never had a cross word or disagreement, mostly because he was so self-effacing," says Hume, now Fox's Washington managing editor. "He's such a good guy that he makes you behave better."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061901336_pf.html

Either this story was written months ago or Howard forgot that Brit is now the Press Sec for the Prexy (a little Variety lingo for you) over there at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

You are thinking of Tony Snow, Antonio.

Either this story was written months ago or Howard forgot that Brit is now the Press Sec for the Prexy (a little Variety lingo for you) over there at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Brit isn't the press secretary - that's Tony Snow from Fox News.

Brit isn't the press secretary - that's Tony Snow from Fox News.

Sorry, my bad. :)

You are thinking of Tony Snow, Antonio.

Yeah, I knew it was one of those Fox guys. :D Come to think of it, Tony has more gray hair than Brit does, so it should been obvious to me, but I guess not.

TV Notebook
Dan Rather’s statement

(from tmz.com)

"I appreciate the words and gestures contained in today's press release by CBS.

I leave CBS News with tremendous memories. But I leave now most of all with the desire to once again do regular, meaningful reporting. My departure before the term of my contract represents CBS's final acknowledgement, after a protracted struggle, that they had not lived up to their obligation to allow me to do substantive work there. As for their offers of a future with only an office but no assignments, it just isn't in me to sit around doing nothing. So I will do the work I love elsewhere, and I look forward to sharing details about that soon.

As I go about deciding where and with whom that can best be done, I want to say how grateful I am to have worked with so many outstanding CBS men and women over the years. From producers, to correspondents, to technical crews, it has been my great fortune to have had some of the best pros in journalism at my back and at my side. They are the true heart of CBS News, and they will always have my respect.

Too much is made of anchors and their personalities, their ups and downs. The larger issues -- the role of a free press and of honest, real news in a democracy, the role of technology in supporting a free press, the "corporatization" of news and its effects on news content -- all deserve more attention, more discussion and more passionate debate."

Not really, Comcast has around 6-8 million more subs than DirecTV has so if Comcast had ST it would have been able to provide it to far more subs than DirecTV can.

Bottom line, Comcast just didn't want to pony up the money.

Your logic is flawed. The number of existing tv subscribers is entirely irrelevant to valuing the Sunday Ticket. Sunday Ticket is priced at such a premium that it is the product, and subscription television is an afterthought; not the other way around. For DirecTV the market for that product is any NFL fan with view of the southern sky. For Comcast the market for that product is any NFL fan whose house is passed by Comcast cable, a market maybe 25% as large. There's no way Comcast could justify outbidding DirecTV.

Realistically, Echostar is the only company that can do a NPV analysis and justify bidding competitively with DirecTV for Sunday Ticket. I suppose the cable companies (or in the near future the telcoms) could band together for a joint venture to make Sunday Ticket exclusive to cable (fiber), but that could create regulatory headaches.

I thought of that too, but I seriously doubt that would happen.

Anyway, I didn't want to generate a big discussion, just wanted to get my $.03 into the foray from a different POV. I've seen too many contracts go up for bid in my Air Force days and too many job offerings advertised when the winners were all but assured. I still believe that was the case with ST, but understand opinions differ. :)

Now back to your regularly scheduled progrmming.

A good discussion is always welcome here, Dave.

As long as it's not political, right? :)

Yes, politics seems to get folks all worked up.

But Ken H, CPanther95, Alan Gouger, markrubin and DrDon have allowed me remarkable freedom here for which I am very thankful. (I'd be very surpirsed ikf there aren't a number of complaints mnade about my lack of HD-only focus, for example) But I make every effort to see that we don't, in this thread, cause them to rethink that policy which has allowed me to discuss almost anything connected with TV, whether it fits strictly in an HD thread or not.

I think that for the most part, our discussions, though often lively, have remained civil and devoid of the kind of contentious trolling that too often seems to infect other threads.

For example, we can generally talk about Comcast with dozens of "Comcrap" posts. Or discuss DirecTV without the seemingly obligatory derisive HD-Lite or Rupert posts. Etc.

Obviously I have my opinions, and some of them are pretty strongly held. I post what we watch at the top of the thread so people can get an idea of my preducices. And I try hard to keep this thread open for all who have their own thoughts and beliefs.

It is only TV, after all, and we all enjoy it in our own way.

Critic’s Notebook
Wednesday's reality invasion

From Maureen Ryan’s “The Watcher “ Chicago Tribune blog June 20, 2006
(Note: all times are Central.)

If you’re not a fan of reality TV, Wednesday might be a good night to visit the outlying corners of cable TV or to check out one of the broadcast network repeats (such as the second-season repeats of “Lost”), because Wednesday is when reality’s firm hold on the summer schedule becomes a death grip.

Though it isn’t the official start of the new season of “Big Brother,” viewers of a special “America’s Vote” (7 p.m. Wednesday, WBBM-Ch. 2) will meet the 20 former contestants vying for a spot in the upcoming “All-Stars” edition of the reality franchise. A quick Web search reveals that online “Big Brother” devotees already have a fairly good idea of which 20 “All Stars” wannabes will be on Wednesday’s show; no doubt many past winners will turn up as possible contestants (for more on who might be on the "All Stars" special, check out Reality Blurred).

And if you have any doubt as to whether “Big Brother 6’s” controversial Kaysar Ridha will be back, rest assured, he will be. Viewers will choose half the contestants who end up in the “All-Stars” house, but the show’s producers will choose the other half, and one way or the other Ridha is bound to make the cut.

What remains to be seen is whether this “All-Stars” season will be as good as “Survivor’s” all-star edition was. “Big Brother” has always been tawdrier and saddled with more complicated rules than “Survivor,” and the tacky house setting can feel claustrophobic, all of which has limited “Brother’s” appeal, for me, anyway.

By the way, the show’s official return is July 6, which is when the final roster of housemates will be revealed. Fans can read online pitches from various “Big Brother” candidates and vote on who should end up on the show on cbs.com through June 28.

Also Wednesday, NBC unveils — or should I say “unleashes” — “America’s Got Talent” (8 p.m., WMAQ-Ch. 5), the latest offering from Simon Cowell, the acerbic judge on “American Idol” and the creator of the mostly wretched “American Inventor.”

What sets “Talent” apart from “Idol” is that any sort of performer could try out for this new reality contest: not just singers, but dancers, jugglers, sword-swallowers, whatever. Wednesday’s premiere is two hours long, and NBC did not send out advance screening tapes to critics, but if it’s anything like the premiere of “American Inventor,” by about the middle of the second hour you may be losing the will to live.

There’s nothing “Idol” and “Inventor” loved more than shoving talentless, screechy, possibly mentally unstable people in front of cameras. Most of us, truth be told, are up for at least a smidgen of that sort of cruel voyeurism, but it’s exceedingly wearing over time.

For some, though, Wednesday is all about “The Hills” (reruns begin at 8 p.m., new episode at 9 p.m Wednesday, MTV), the sequel of sorts to “Laguna Beach.” Can you believe that Heidi’s job as an entry-level lackey at a party-planning firm involves, like, stuffing envelopes and answering the phone? Yes, it turns out her “dream job” in the entertainment field involves lots of mindless drudgery and longer hours than she expected. But hey, at least her torment as the world’s most put-upon young person ever is televised, and everyone can see how, like, hard her life is.

What’s most revelatory about “The Hills” is not how it makes such mundanity so addictive (it’s really the television equivalent of Twinkies), but that “Laguna’s” Lauren now appears to be the second fiddle on what should be her show. Heidi, with her glossy locks and her sneering sense of entitlement, is the MTV poster child now. Which means she comes complete with a spray-on tan and a spoiled attitude.

Finally, if you have an appetite for poker on TV (and speaking of voyeurism, how fascinating was it to watch, on the Travel Channel over the weekend, Yale student Alex Jacob age visibly before he lost the final hand of the World Poker Tour’s Foxwoods New England Poker Classic?), or just for Jenna Fischer of “The Office,” it might be worth checking out “Celebrity Poker Showdown” (9 p.m. Wednesday, Bravo). Fischer, who plays Pam Beesley on the fine NBC comedy, is one of the contestants in a new episode of this long-running poker series, along with random celebs Rocco DiSpirito and Mario Cantone of “Sex and the City.”


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

Critic’s Notebook
Griffin's Iraq tour is surprisingly human

By Joanna Weiss Boston Globe June 20, 2006

It is an axiom of politics -- and entertainment -- that one cannot be too cynical when dealing with matters of war.

For a comedian like Kathy Griffin, whose humor relies on a particularly acerbic world view, that makes a comedy tour in Iraq a delicate proposition. How do you entertain the troops when they might not appreciate your celebrity-skewering shtick? And how do you shift into do-gooder mode when reality TV portrays you as unpleasantly self-centered?

That is, after all, the big flaw in the Bravo series ``Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List." It's hard to be self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing at the same time, and Griffin seldom strikes the balance. Still, the ``Iraq Tour" episode, which airs tonight at 9 PM ET, is a worthy endeavor -- if only because shows like this, with current events as a backdrop, often get to the truth as effectively as the most earnest news reports.

One can, for instance, glean the danger in Iraq from the throwaway details: When Griffin's military plane prepares to land in Tikrit, the pilot announces they're going to drop from 23,000 feet to ground-level in seven minutes.

There is also, it seems, the fact that Griffin is here at all; entertainment-starved troops really are down to the D-list, judging from the blank looks Griffin gets from by some soldiers in Kuwait.

Griffin is, indeed, an odd choice for war duty, not least because a big chunk of her natural fan base is technically forbidden from military service. (She acknowledges this herself, onstage in Tikrit: ``Sometimes when I do shows, I'll just come out and say, `Where my gays at?' But not tonight.") Griffin may be here because she cares. She may be here because it's fodder for her Bravo show. But, hey, at least she's here.

And it turns out there's something appealingly human about a comic who -- to cop a sorry pun -- is perilously close to bombing. We watch Griffin falter in Kuwait, fret about her audience reaction, and alter her material. She seems to score best when she and her costars, Michael McDonald of ``Mad TV" and Karri Turner from the defunct ``JAG," revert to their Groundlings improv days.

The glimpse we see is raucous, profane, and very funny, and the troops' reaction seems to shift from shock to awe. Afterward, one private declares it ``highly inappropriate and hilarious. It was exactly what the soldiers needed."

The private goes on to offer the best argument for why war entertainment is important, and patriotic. She lost a good friend two days earlier. She hasn't slept in two days. A two-hour comedy show was her first and best escape. It's tough to be cynical about that.

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/06/20/griffins_iraq_tour_is_surprisingly_human?mode=PF

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.

I think I have posted more than enough Dan Rather stories.

After all, there was a similar spate of them when he left the CBS Evening News last year.

I'll try to restrain myself until we get news of his next job.

I appreciate the lack of a mutiny by readers. :)

Since I am carefully editing my Rather references, I’ll leave out the amusing ones from From Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog.

But he does enjoy the sometimes delicious irony of the TV news business in his blog entry titled “Rather Gets Boot In Ass; Anderson Interviews Cher”

“…Meanwhile, over at CNN - the cable channel that also unceremoniously dumped its "old" anchor, Aaron Brown - we learn today that Anderson Cooper is going to interview fading actress Cher on the Iraq war, of all things.

Among the topics will be her take on getting better helmets for Marines.

No, seriously.

But CNN had the audacity to embargo this monumental scoop until Wednesday, so I'm not able to give you more details on why television news is god-awful.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/indexn?blogid=24

TV Notebook
New HBO laffer may be 'Lucky' after all

'Entourage' shaping up to be a broad-based hit
By Denise Martin Variety.com

Don't count "Lucky Louie" out just yet.

With a weak Sunday premiere audience of 1.5 million viewers, the HBO sitcom was pronounced DOA by TV experts last week. But after a week's worth of plays, seven in total, that number shot up to 3.8 million overall viewers.

That's a big leap and a strong showing for the skein, an R-rated, multi-camera sitcom starring Louis CK as a blue-collar family man. By way of comparison, the season opener for established drama "Deadwood" cumed a similar 3.9 million over its first week (down from last season's first-week cume, which included a larger number of plays).

Meanwhile, "Entourage" is shaping up to be a broad-based hit, drawing a total aud of 5 million viewers in week one.

HBO exec VP of program planning David Baldwin said that most subscribers tend to find shows like "Louie" -- that is, "shows without destination appeal" -- during the course of a week. Another likely factor in the weeklong ratings boost is that the sitcom's Sunday premiere was up against the NBA finals.

Though the series garnered mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, Baldwin said he had no ratings expectations for the show either way.

"Quite honestly, we knew it was different. We knew were taking some chances and risks," he said. "But part of the HBO brand is to do things for different segments of our audience. We're not always going to be the network for dramatic hours.

" 'Lucky Louie' is a show that appeals to the people who perhaps aren't hooked up to our other series," Baldwin added.

Series' second episode drew 1.3 million viewers on Sunday (down just slightly from last week's 1.5 million). Elsewhere, new episodes of "Deadwood" and "Entourage" dipped to 1.9 million and 2.1 million on Sunday, respectively.

HBO offered the first episode of "Louie" as a free download on TV.com for a full week prior to its premiere.

The TV Column
The Week’s Winners and Losers

Boo-Hoo, She Did It Again
By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 21, 2006; C07

ABC had NBA but CBS had "CSI" and WON the week.

Here's a look at the week's Lauers and Spearses.

WINNERS

Britney Spears. Britbrit's tear-shedding, nose-wiping, gum-smacking, bosom-heaving interview with Matt Lauer on "Dateline" copped a time-slot win among 18-to-49-year-olds Thursday, beating NBA play, Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance" and even CBS's "CSI." It was the first time the newsmag has cracked the top 10 since that post-Katrina edition late last summer. The next night, NBC's replay of Brit's meltdown tied for No. 1 in its time slot in the demographic.

NBA Finals. Last week's three games were the top three shows among the 18-to-49-year-olds advertisers love and three of the top four among viewers of all ages. The crowd watching the games is up 12 percent compared with last year.

"Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior." Disney Channel's flick about a wannabe homecoming queen/reincarnated Chinese warrior attracted 5.7 million viewers, beating all networks including broadcasters from 8 to 9:45 p.m. Friday.

"The Closer." More than 8 million viewers means Monday's second-season debut of TNT's Kyra Sedgwick starrer is the all-time most-watched ad-supported, scripted series cablecast.

Connie Chung. YouTube.com's newest star had by late yesterday attracted nearly half a million views with her career-scorching rendition of "Thanks for the Memory." In contrast, 352,00 people caught the act when it first aired on MSNBC, bringing down the curtain on her short-lived act on that network, "Weekends With Maury & Connie," with husband Maury Povich. Based on her sudden YouTube stardom, it appears the problem wasn't Chung, it was MSNBC.

LOSERS

Stanley Cup. So, ice hockey in June is of interest to a max of 3.9 million viewers these days. Go figure.

Reality television. Summer reality television is highly overrated. Actually, summer reality television is highly underrated, according to last week's unveilings. Monday's premiere of ABC's "How to Get the Guy" logged a lousy 4.3 million viewers; the start of CBS's "Tuesday Night Book Club" snagged a measly 5.1 million; and Sunday's premiere of NBC's "Treasure Hunters" bagged just 6.9 million. They ranked No. 59, 47 and 25, respectively, out of 106 programs last week.

AFI. The American Film Institute's TV franchise, "AFI: 100 Years, 100 [fill in the blank]," suffered its second smallest audience ever -- 8.3 million viewers -- on Wednesday. Last year's "AFI: 100 Years, 100 Quotes" logged 9 million. All-time high remains '00's "100 Years: 100 Laughs," with 13 million viewers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062001423_pf.html

Nielsen Notebook
At last, reality shows its summer stuff

By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jun 21, 2006, 01:10

Seven years after ABC’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” became a surprise late-summer hit, reality television is at last reversing the traditional loss of network viewers to cable and the beach.

This comes after many summers of tinkering on the part of the networks, rolling out one new reality show after another to see what viewers will flock to.

Two things are different this summer.

New reality shows, like ABC’s “How to Get the Guy” and CBS’s “Tuesday Night Book Club” that might have caught on in past years are flopping. They are being outperformed by returning reality shows, such as Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Hell’s Kitchen,” as well as NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.”

But perhaps more significant, this summer two networks, Fox and NBC, are up among adults 18-49 over last summer, while CBS is even to last year. ABC, the only network without a returning summer show, is down 8 percent, according to Fox estimates.

Last year, ABC was the only network to see improvements by July, and that was a scant 4 percent over the previous year, while NBC and CBS saw double-digit declines.

The networks have been hoping for years to build some sort of summer identity after their long history of ceding the summer to cable by airing reruns. And as cable took the opportunity to roll out many of its top shows, like TNT’s “The Closer” and USA’s “The 4400,” the networks began to see their ratings go into an even deeper slide.

Now, with reliable summer reality franchises, the networks can at last swat back at cable during its most important time of the year.

Several factors that have helped build up these summer franchises, and one is learning from mistakes. One big lesson: Don't be too quick to move a successful summer show to the fall. After two successful summers, NBC moved “Comic” to the fall in 2004, where it bombed. NBC then wisely kept it off the schedule for nearly two years. It's now back and doing better than it was in its last summer outing.

Only megahits like “Millionaire,” “Survivor” and “Dance” can handle that big move. Shows like “Comic,” which draw good but not great ratings, are better off staying in summer.

Another lesson is that reality competitions, where the pace is fast and energetic, work best in the summer. “Kitchen,” which features cookoffs, is very popular among 18-34s and teens. "Dance” is up 28 percent over last summer in 18-49s.

Relationship-focused shows, with their slower pace, do not do well, which explains why “Guy” and “Book Club” tanked.

Finally, all the returning shows also have an element of conflict. Though drama does not generally do well on broadcast in the summer, overly melodramatic reality shows do.

Hence the good performances for “Dance,” which this year includes viewer voting for the worst dancer, “Comic,” in which the contestants are living together as well as competing, and “Kitchen,” which, in addition to chef Gordon Ramsey’s flammable temper, has contestants competing in a battle of the sexes.

In other broadcast ratings for the week ended June 18:

Among adults 18-49, NBA-fueled ABC captured its first week of the summer with a 2.5 average rating and 8 share, followed by Fox at 2.4/8, CBS at 2.2/7, NBC at 2.0/7, UPN at 0.9/3, and the WB at 0.7/2.

Among adults 18-34, Fox led with a 2.4/9, followed by ABC at 2.1/8, NBC at 1.8/6, CBS at 1.4/5, UPN at 0.8/3, and the WB at 0.6/2.

Among adults 25-54, CBS was first at 2.9/8, followed by ABC at 2.7/8, Fox at 2.5/7, NBC at 2.3/7, UPN at 0.9/3, and the WB at 0.7/2.

Top five (18-49s): 1. ABC’s “NBA Finals-Game 5” 5.9; 2. ABC’s “NBA Finals-Game 3” 5.1; 3. ABC’s “NBA Finals-Game 4” 4.6;” 4. Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance-Wed.” 4.1; 5. NBC’s “Last Comic Standing 4” 4.0

Bottom five (18-49s): Tie-100. WB’s “Supernatural,” WB’s “7th Heaven” 0.6; Tie-103. WB’s “One Tree Hill,” UPN’s “Veronica Mars,” UPN’s “Eve” 0.5; 106 UPN’s “Cuts,” 0.4

Bottom five (total viewers): 102. WB’s “Twins” 1.33 million; 103. WB’s “One Tree Hill” 1.29 million; 104. UPN’s “Cuts” 1.26 million; 105. UPN’s “Eve” 1.24 million; 106. UPN’s “Veronica Mars” 1.17 million

Show on the rise: “CSI: Miami,” CBS, Monday 10 p.m. It’s in reruns but it’s also on the rise, jumping more than 1.5 million total viewers over the previous week to finish No. 2 on all of broadcast last week. It was the highest-rated scripted series among 18-49s with a 3.9 average.

Show on the decline: “Lost,” ABC, Wednesday 9 p.m. Perhaps fans are catching up with shows they missed via ABC.com’s free webcasts? A repeat of the hit drama averaged a 1.2 last week, barely more than half the 2.3 a repeat the same week last year averaged. Of course, the show also aired after “Dancing with the Stars” last summer, a much more powerful lead-in than “Freddie.”

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_5500.asp

Sports On TV
Low Ratings for US Open

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times

The final round of the United States Open on NBC generated a 4.7 rating Sunday, the lowest since 1991, when the tournament was won by Payne Stewart.

The round, in which Geoff Ogilvy won after Phil Mickelson double-bogeyed the 18th hole, was viewed by an average of seven million people, down from eight million last year.

The weekend average rating of a 4.0 (with an average of 5.7 million viewers) was off 17 percent from a 4.8 (6.7 million viewers) last year.

OK, I couldn’t stop with Dan Rarher postings entirely. If you want to read the full versions, Just go to TVNewser and link to the stories.

TV Notebook
Dan Rather Coverage

A compilation by Brian Stelter of TV Newswer at mediabistro.com

Dan Departs: His Identity Was CBS, & Now They Say "We Don't Need You Anymore"

"Dan's bitter," a CBS correspondent tells the Philadelphia Inquirer anonymously. "He feels like he's been pushed out the back door. This transition has been absolutely brutal for him. He's tied his entire identity to this place, and now this place is saying, 'We don't need you anymore.'"

"As much as virtually everyone at CBS saw this day coming, Rather 'believed that at the 11th hour, Sean would call and make some kind of deal and he'd stick around,' the correspondent says..."

Dan Departs: Morning Papers

> Dusty Saunders, Rocky Mountain News: "To paraphrase a favorite bromide of the veteran anchor: 'The media has been on this story like a raven on road kill.'"

> Verne Gay, Newsday: "Rather's sin here was the sin of wishful thinking. He believed that if he just kept doing his thing - work, work, work - then the company would come around and let bygones be bygones. He'd get more stories, handle some big interviews, and otherwise assume the dignified mantle that was his due after so many years of service."

Alan Sepinwall, Newark Star-Ledger: "Rather already was turning into the Ghost of Newscasts Past, so the only surprise to some is the way his tenure ended with such a whimper."

> Gail Shister, Philadelphia Inquirer: "Several longtime CBS correspondents were asked to contribute to the goodbye piece that aired last night on CBS Evening News. 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl was the only one to appear. Moreover, some 60 Minutes veterans who have known Rather the longest...weren't even approached, sources say."

> Glenn Garvin, Miami Herald: ""While the controversy over the Bush report undoubtedly sealed Rather's fate, he was probably headed for the CBS scrap heap anyway for another reason: his failure to attract viewers."

> Douglas Durden, Richmond Times-Dispatch: "I have this vision of Rather, former anchor demoted to occasional '60 Minutes' contributor, being hurried out the back door while future anchor Katie Couric stands poised at the front."

Dan Departs: Legal Action Not Ruled Out

Dan Rather "has not agreed to any settlement with CBS; the network plans to keep paying out his current contract, which runs through November," the Observer's Rebecca Dana reports.

Even more important: "Rather has not signed a nondisclosure agreement -- and he has not agreed to rule out legal action against the network. In his final statement, Mr. Rather emphasized that he was leaving 'before the term of my contract' and wrote that CBS 'had not lived up to their obligation to allow me to do substantive work.'" Sean McManus said the thought of legal action hadn't occurred to him...

Dan Departs: "Rather Had Held Out Hope..."

Dan Rather had hoped to continue "as a full-time correspondent for 60 Minutes," Wednesday's Variety says.

The Observer adds: "Till the end, Mr. Rather had held out hope, urging his three-producer team in recent weeks to submit 'bluesheets' containing story pitches for the fall season of 60 Minutes."

And if he couldn't have 60 Minutes, he "sought something akin to the deal NBC had made with Tom Brokaw in 2004:" A big paycheck, some primetime specials, and "an emeritus role that entitled him to do commentary and analysis." Instead, he was offered "a tidy corner office" and "a modest stipend," Rebecca Dana says...

Dan Departs: "CBS Wanted To Move On"

USA Today's Peter Johnson: "Dan Rather's troubles with CBS News began in 2004 with Memogate, the scandal that stemmed from his 60 Minutes report on President Bush's military service.

But 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft says Rather's CBS career, which came to its official close Tuesday, ended much like those of two other CBS News legends, Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite: CBS wanted to move on and, news icons or not, they had to go.

'The past two years have been extremely difficult for Dan and uncomfortable for everyone at CBS News,' Kroft says. 'But he has handled the adversity with his customary grace and leaves with his head held high. This has much less to do with the National Guard story than management's decision that it was time to make a change and move in a different direction.'

Dan Departs: He's Retreating To The Catskills, Then Heading To Alaska To Fish

Is Tom Shales the only writer who talked to Dan Rather on Tuesday? "Reached at his home in New York, Rather did not sound rattled," the Washington Post columnist writes. "It is unlikely he will make an appearance at the fly-infested CBS News building on New York's West 57th Street this week; the contents of his office -- including the family Bible that was always opened to a different verse -- have been removed and will be sent to him. As of Friday, officially, Dan Rather and CBS News will no longer be one.

Now that the smoke has cleared from a final skirmish, Rather says he and his wife, Jean, and one or two of their children are headed for a retreat in the Catskills that has been in the family for decades. Then the couple will head to Alaska because Dan loves to fish there, and because the air is so clean. Especially when compared with the air on the Upper West Side..."

Dan Departs: Getting Older, Wanting Work

Susan Estrich writes on FOXNews.com: "What is happening to Dan, unfortunately, is not so different from what happens to lots of people his age -- the difference being that for Dan, it is happening on a much more visible scale.

Dan Rather was, for a time, the golden boy. Then he got older. Not old, but older. There was a time when a man his age would be done working. No more. In Dan's case, of course, he doesn't need the money. Most of us, on the other hand, never stop needing the money. And virtually all of us, no matter how old we are, need work."

http://mediabistro.com/tvnewser/

Nielsen Notebook
Top cable shows

(Week of June 12-18)
(from USA Today)

Rank Show title Network Viewers in millions
1. The Closer TNT 8.3
2. WWE Raw (Monday, 10 p.m.) USA 5.8
3. Wendy Wu Disney 5.6
4. Saved TNT 5.1
5. WWE Raw (Monday, 9 p.m) USA 4.9
6. The Suite LIfe of Zack and Cody Disney 3.6
6. Spy Kids Disney 3.6
7. ECW Sci Fi 3.4
8. Without a Trace TNT 3.3
8. The Suite LIfe of Zack and Cody Disney 3.3
10. Bruce Almighty USA 3.2
10. Law & Order TNT 3.2
10. Cheaper by the Dozen TBS 3.2
13. The 440 USA 3.1
14. Law & Order: SVU USA 3.1
15. The Suite LIfe of Zack and Cody Disney 3.0
15. The Dead Zone USA 3.0
15. Without a Trace TNT 3.0
15. Deadliest Catch Discovery 3.0
15. Get a Clue Disney 3.0
15. Law & Order: SVU USA 3.0
Note: Only first airings of movies shown
• Source: Nielsen Media Research data
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/nielsen-more.htm

Nielsen Notebook
‘Closer' sets cable record

By Gary Levin USA Today

•TNT explosion. The second-season opener of TNT's The Closer averaged 8.3 million viewers Monday, a basic-cable series record that eclipsed last summer's 7 million premiere. New drama Saved, which followed, had a solid premiere with 5.1 million. USA's Dead Zone began its fifth season Sunday with 3 million, vs. 3.5 million last year.

•Disney magic. Disney Channel's latest original movie, Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, premiered with 5.6 million viewers Friday, a solid showing but shy of recent hits High School Musical and Twitches.

•Sports beat. Sunday's Game 5 of the NBA Finals drew 14.3 million viewers, the best so far. The Heat-Mavericks matchup is averaging 12.5 million, up 12% vs. last year but behind 2004's Lakers-Pistons series. NBC's first Stanley Cup finals didn't fare so well: Games last week on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday averaged about 3.3 million as the hockey championships flirted with 10-year lows.

•Treasure map. The two-hour premiere of NBC's Treasure Hunters Sunday averaged 6.9 million viewers, an OK showing against the NBA Finals with an audience that built each half-hour. The show settles into its regular Monday 9 ET/PT slot next week.

•Flop sweat. Two more reality series were DOA: CBS' Tuesday Night Book Club opened with 5.1 million viewers, and ABC's How to Get the Guy on Monday offered pointers to just 4.3 million. Fox's two-hour Hell's Kitchen, averaging 6.7 million viewers Monday, matched last year's opener.

•HBO slide. Week 2 of Deadwood slumped to 1.9 million viewers from last week's season opener (2.4 million); Entourage fell to 2.2 million from 2.7 million; Lucky Louie had an unlucky 1.3 million, down from last week's 1.5 million.

•Etc. ABC's Commander in Chief left office Wednesday with 5.5 million viewers, flirting with the series low set earlier this month. Week 2 of NBC's Windfall (7.8 million) was down a modest 13% from the drama's premiere. And FX's Rescue Me (2.6 million) held steady vs. last week but is down 19% from its season premiere.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-06-20-nielsen-analysis_x.htm

Sports On TV
Big Ten Channel to debut in 2007

League to partner with DirecTV, cover non-revenue sports
Teddy Greenstein Chicago Tribune June 21, 2006

The Big Ten will announce Wednesday that it is about to enter into the television business, forming its own network that will launch in 2007.

Sources said the conference also will announce the ABC/ESPN family will remain the exclusive carrier of some of its signature events. The current deal, set to expire in June 2007, is said to be worth up to $50 million per year.

So while ABC/ESPN continues to get all the choicest cuts—think Michigan-Ohio State football and high-profile basketball games—league officials believe there will be plenty left on the menu to attract viewers to the Big Ten Channel.

What kind of programming should fans expect? The meat of it figures to come from non-revenue sports—volleyball matches, wrestling meets and women's basketball games. But also look for lower-profile football and men's basketball games that can't find a home on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU. Coaches shows would be a natural, as would spring football games.

Bottom line: The Big Ten Channel will give many sports significant exposure, and that will be a boon for recruiting. And, if successful, the conference should make significant money.

Sources said the Big Ten will partner with DirecTV in forming the Big Ten Channel. Fox's parent company, News Corp., owns a sizable share in DirecTV, so Fox will play a significant role in the operation and distribution of the network.

DirecTV reaches just 15.4 million homes, so one of the keys will be Fox's negotiations with cable distributors such as Comcast, Cox and Time Warner. Those talks will play out over the next year.

But for now, conference officials have to be thrilled with the prospect of finding a home for their sporting events that often get overlooked. And they continue a relationship with ABC/ESPN that has helped both entities grow over the last 20 years.

/sports/columnists/cs-060621greenstein,1,7935971.column?coll=cs-home-utility

Sports On TV
Big Ten Channel to debut in 2007

(Big Ten Press Release)
Many Events to Be In HD

PARK RIDGE, Ill. -- The Big Ten Conference has reached two milestone media agreements that will provide the organization with its greatest media exposure ever and ensures long-term vitality for its member institutions' broad-based athletic programs, it was announced today by Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany. The conference has signed a new 10-year national rights contract with ABC/ESPN and has reached a landmark deal with Fox Cable Networks to create the Big Ten Channel, a national network devoted to Big Ten athletic and academic programs. The ABC/ESPN contract takes effect, and the Big Ten Channel is expected to launch, in August 2007.

ABC/ESPN Contract

Big Ten action has been featured on ABC since 1966 and on ESPN since 1979, the network's first year. Details of the new ABC/ESPN agreement include, but are not limited to:

• Up to 41 Big Ten football games will be televised - up to 17 on ABC and up to 25 on ESPN or ESPN2;

• All regional afternoon football games aired on ABC will be aired by ESPN/ESPN2 in outer-markets, making these games nationally available;

• Approximately 60 men's basketball games will air on an ESPN network (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN360), including games on each Tuesday and Thursday of the nine-week conference season, plus up to eight Saturday games during conference play;

• A total of 100 women's basketball and volleyball events on an ESPN network, including the championship games of the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament, over the course of the agreement; and,

• Through ESPN's collection of new media outlets such as ESPN.com, Mobile ESPN, ESPN360 and ESPN VOD, fans will receive live events (including simulcasts), extended video highlights including in-progress games, features and more. In addition, Big Ten coverage will be available on ESPN Classic and throughout the world through ESPN International.

"The letters ABC and ESPN connote excellence, worldwide reach and innovation," said Delany. "The Big Ten is extremely proud to partner for the next decade with George Bodenheimer and his ABC/ESPN team to bring our events, student-athletes and coaches to fans and alumni across the country and beyond."

"The words `Big Ten' represent passion, history and excellence, and we are thrilled to continue our unmatched relationship with the conference for another decade," said George Bodenheimer, President, ESPN Inc. and ABC Sports. "This agreement, among the most expansive ever, reinforces our position as the number one college sports destination and serves the ever-evolving appetites of fans by providing premier Big Ten action through traditional outlets like ABC and ESPN and emerging entities such as Mobile ESPN and ESPN360."

Big Ten Channel

The Big Ten Channel is dedicated to covering both the athletic and academic content of the Big Ten member institutions on a national level. Showcasing a wide array of sports as well as original programming produced by the conference's 11 institutions, the Big Ten Channel will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It will be available to all carriers and distributors nationwide. The Big Ten Channel's first affiliate, DIRECTV, will deliver the Channel to its Total Choice Package subscribers at launch.

Many events will be produced in High-Definition television (HDTV).

In addition to traditional distribution through cable and satellite, select Big Ten Channel content will also be available through alternative media platforms such as the Internet, iPods, cell phones and/or other emerging technologies.

"Fox has a proven and impressive track record of launching and managing networks," Delany said. "That coupled with our compelling athletic competition will make this channel the go-to destination for our alumni and fans across the nation."

"The Big Ten is clearly one of the most successful collegiate athletic conferences in the country, and its member institutions are among the most prestigious universities in the world," said Tony Vinciquerra, President & CEO, Fox Networks Group. "Given a loyal and passionate fan base that's powered by millions of alumni across America, it makes sense that the Big Ten is the first conference to take this step nationally, and we're excited to be a part of it."

The Big Ten Channel will carry many of the games and events previously available only through syndication, providing greater exposure for these and other Big Ten sports. The sports programming on the Big Ten Channel and/or through alternative Big Ten Channel platforms will include, but is not limited to:

• 35-plus football games, with each school having at least two games aired (at least one of which will be a conference game);

• At least 105 regular-season men's basketball games;

• At least 55 regular-season women's basketball games;

• Big Ten championships and tournaments;

• 170 Olympic sporting events; and,

• Coverage from the conference's vast library of historic sporting events, including bowl games.

In addition, each school will have the right to provide 60 hours of its own content annually. "We anticipate this will create enormous opportunities for journalism, film and other academic programs and provide the ability to highlight academic achievement throughout the universities," Delany said. " How schools utilize this exciting new opportunity is limited only by their own creativity."

The Big Ten Channel will launch in August 2007 and will be available for cable operators and satellite distributors nationwide to carry on their basic tiers. Fox will work to secure carriage agreements with all distributors. Fox has already entered into a charter affiliation agreement with DIRECTV, which will carry the Channel at launch nationwide on Total Choice, its most broadly distributed package, currently received by more than 15.4 million households.

The Channel also plans to exploit emerging technologies to distribute its programming content. "The depth and breadth of the new media environment in which we find ourselves demands the type of accessibility to programming that we have created with the Big Ten Channel," Delany said. "Consumers are taking advantage of all types of emerging technologies, and the way they access sports will only continue to change. The Channel aims to keep pace with the evolving demands of our fans."

The Big Ten Channel represents a 20-year partnership between the Big Ten and Fox. It will be majority-owned by the Big Ten Conference, with Fox holding a minority interest. The Channel will establish its studios and headquarters in Chicago. Fox will handle the administration and daily operations of the Channel. The Big Ten will establish general guidelines regarding the types of programs and advertising aired on the Big Ten Channel to ensure consistency with the Big Ten's brand values. As such, no alcohol or gambling-related advertising will be accepted.

"The Big Ten Channel will provide our conference the ability to strengthen both its brand and its long term destiny as one of the leading academic and athletic conferences in the nation," Delany said.

The financial terms of the agreements with ABC/ESPN and Fox were not disclosed.

http://bigten.cstv.com/genrel/062106aaa.html

Sports On TV
Big Ten Channel Details

(Big Ten Press Release)

• Agreement: 20-Year Partnership between Big Ten Conference and Fox Cable Networks
• Headquarters: Chicago, Ill.
• Ownership: Big Ten Conference majority owner; Fox Cable Networks minority owner
• Launch date: August 2007
• Sports televised: Football; men's basketball; women's basketball; Olympic sports
• Other programming: Historic footage and games; coaches' shows; up to 60 hours per year of original programming from each institution
• Distribution: Available nationwide to all cable and satellite distributors on basic tiers; DIRECTV has signed on as first affiliate and will deliver the Channel at launch to subscribers of its Total Choice package; Select content will be distributed through alternative media platforms including the Internet, iPods, cell phones and other emerging technologies

Big Ten Channel Programming
• Greater exposure to Big Ten sports
• Big Ten championships events
• 660 hours per year of institutional programming
• Coverage from the conference's vast library of historic sporting events, including bowl games

Football
• 35+ football games per season
• Each school will have at least two games aired (at least one of which will be a conference game)

Men's basketball
• At least 105 regular-season games
• Three Big Ten Tournament games

Women's basketball
• At least 55 regular-season games
• Nine Big Ten Tournament games

170 Olympic sporting events

http://bigten.cstv.com/genrel/062106aaa.html

Washington Notebook
FCC Votes to Re-examine Media Ownership Rules

Democratic Commissioners Voice Warnings
By Ira Teinowitz TVWeek.com June 21, 2006

The Federal Communications Commission voted to restart its review of restrictions on media ownership, two years after an earlier attempt to loosen the rules failed.

FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin Wednesday called the work a “vital process” concerning important issues. He promised the agency would approach the issue differently than the it did last time, when a court blocked changes in the rules.

Democratic commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein voted against parts of the FCC’s decision to re-examine the media-ownership rules. They said that the FCC this time needs to weigh more carefully the impact of any changes on the number of different media voices local viewers and listeners have access to. They said the agency should commit to giving the public a chance to comment again once a specific proposal is offered.

The FCC’s next rewrite of media-ownership rules will determine how many media outlets a company can own in a single market. Media conglomerates such as Tribune Co. have argued that ownership of multiple television stations, radio broadcasters, cable providers and newspapers in the same city helps them compete. Opponents say such concentration mutes diverse voices in the media.

Mr. Adelstein called the new examination of the rules “totally inadequate,” citing the FCC’s failure to commit to offering consumers a second chance to comment after the agency proposes new rules.

“We seem to be repeating past mistakes,” he said. “It’s like a blank check, to giant media companies.”

Mr. Copps also voiced concerns.

“If we make the wrong decision, our communities will suffer and our country will suffer,” Mr. Copps said.

Mr. Martin said the FCC this time will hold six hearings around the country and it will undertake some of its own research on issues including how the public gets the news and changes in the media marketplace.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10234

Washington Notebook
Ownership Rule Review Launched

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 6/21/2006

Veteran media policy watchers could be forgiven a cry of "here we go again" as the FCC Wednesday officially launched its review of media ownership rules with some of the same fireworks and contentious talk that characterized its first attempt to deregulate media ownership in 2003.

The vote was unanimous to--finally--launch the proceeding, part of which is actually required by Congress to begin in 2006, the other part on orders from a federal court over two years ago.

While they agreed it was time to get on with it, Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein dissented in part, arguing passionately that the proceeding was not sufficiently attuned to issues of localism and diversity.

Adelstein called it an inadequate start, saying it was akin to turning in a high school term paper for a PHD thesis. If we don't change course, he said, the rules would be rejected once again.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin pledged an open and neutral process, saying the FCC would hold at least a half-dozen public hearings, fund studies of the effects of consolidation on family-friendly programming, kids programming, news, localism, independent programming and more, budget willing.

The FCC will also hold an extended comment period of 120 days to provide the public ample opportunity to weigh in, said Martin.

But Adelstein and Copps argued that the review was deficient in failing to incorporate a completed localism review launched in 2003, that it failed to assure that the public would be able to comment on individual proposed rule changes before they were voted on, and that the rules were not being treated as an organic whole, with studies of the changes in one rule, say lifting the ban on newspaper/TV station cross-ownership, on other changes, like allowing companies to own more stations in a single market.

Martin said the FCC would incorporate an interim status report on the localism proceeding in the rule review, calling it an important element. While he saluted the passion of his colleagues on the left, he also said his "dissenting colleagues may be rushing to judgment," likening it--to pick up on Adelstein's school theme--to giving him an F grade on the first day of school.

He said the Democrats were focusing on past processes, and that he was confident that they would "be able to work together through all this very contentious process."

Andrew Schwartzman, whose Media Access Project was instrumental in the suit that resulted in the court remand of the original rule changes, said that if the FCC actually does take a neutral look at the rules, rather than approaching them from a deregulatory presumption, it will leave them alone.

He was also unhappy with the FCC's inability to complete the localism proceeding.

"We are especially disappointed that Chairman Martin continues to ignore public and Congressional requests that he complete the FCC’s long delayed localism inquiry," he said in a statement. "Broadcasters can best serve the public by addressing local needs. We are certain that the results of a serious study of broadcasters’ performance will support our position that media consolidation is incompatible with effective public service."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6345862

I am amazed that RAW still pulls down such a large audience.. in fact, isn't their rating up from like a 3 or so just a few years ago...

jim

Tuesday’s network prime-time ratings are now at the top of RATINGS NEWS (the first post in this thread).

I am amazed that RAW still pulls down such a large audience.. in fact, isn't their rating up from like a 3 or so just a few years ago...

jim

I am amazed, too.

I do think the ratings are up. I don't remember where they were though.

Its been a few years since I followed wwf/wwe - kids kinda change that :) - funny thing is, my wife hates it, but I equate it to one of her soap operas that she tivos on a regular basis!! Its just a man soap opera.. lol .. maybe that should be a miller lite man law too :)

jim

Tuesday’s network prime-time ratings are now at the top of RATINGS NEWS (the first post in this thread).

(From Marc Berman’s Wednesday, June 21, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
National Ratings in Primetime: Week of June 12-18, 2006

In this third week of summer 2006, CBS remained the network to beat in households, total viewers and adults 25-54; ABC was dominant among adults 18-49 as a result of games three through five of The NBA Finals; and Fox was No. 1 among adults 18-34. The NBA Finals held the top three spots among adults 18-49, and three of the top 4 in total viewers; while summer favorites So You Think You Can Dance on Fox and NBC’s The Last Comic Standing 4 filled out the top 5 in the demo. NBC finished the week of June 12 No. 4 in four of the five surveyed categories (excluding a third-place finish among adults 18-34), UPN was a distant fifth, and the WB was the cellar-dweller this week.

Year-to-year, Fox built by as much as 22 percent, while ABC (which also included three games of The NBA Finals on the year-ago week) and CBS finished close to comparable levels. NBC had mixed results, increasing by 20 percent among adults 18-34, but decreasing by 23 percent in households. Erosion elsewhere was as high as 40 percent for the WB among adults 18-34.

In series-premiere news, the two-hour launch of NBC reality/competition Treasure Hunters (opposite game five of The NBA Finals) on Sunday opened with a so-so 6.87 million viewers (#25 overall) and a 2.8/ 8 among adults 18-49 (tied for #17) from 8-10 p.m.. Comparatively, however, that was up from a half-hour edition of lead-in Dateline (Viewers: #43, 5.25 million; A18-49: #40t, 1.7/ 6 at 7:30 p.m.) by 1.62 million viewers and 65 percent among adults 18-49. Also on NBC, week two of scripted drama Windfall (in place of repeats of ER) was on the map with 7.79 million viewers (#20) and a 3.2/ 9 among adults 18-49 (tied for #9). In the case of Windfall, waiting for the less competitive summer environment was the right decision to make.

Over at ABC, the debut of Monday 10 p.m. docudrama How to the Get the Guy could not get the ratings, with a mere 4.25 million viewers (#59) and a 1.8/ 5 among adults 18-49 (tied for #36). Comparably, retention out of a repeat of Supernanny (Viewers: #30, 6.63 million; A18-49: #22, 2.6/ 7 at 9 p.m.) was not so super at 64 percent in total viewers and 69 percent among adults 18-49. The Tuesday Night Book Club on CBS, meanwhile, kicked off with a weak 5.07 million viewers (#47) and a 1.7/ 5 among adults 18-49 (#40t) Tuesday at 10 p.m. A repeat of lead-in The Unit was considerably more potent at 7.45 million viewers (#23) and a 1.9/ 5 among adults 18-49 (#35) at 9 p.m.

In season-premiere news, the Monday 9 p.m. installment of year two of Fox’s non-scripted Hell’s Kitchen kicked off with a comfortable (albeit non-spectacular) 7.54 million viewers (#21) and a 3.7/10 among adults 18-49 (#8).

Elsewhere (and, trust me, there was not much), games four through six of The NHL Stanley Cup Finals (Carolina vs. Edmonton) on NBC dragged sluggishly along, with no higher than 3.85 million viewers (#66) and a 1.6/ 5 among adults 18-49 (tied for #45) for Wednesday primetime match-up. CBS’ annual AFI special, themed AFI’s 100 Years…100 Cheers, was also below average with 8.28 million viewers (#16) and a 2.2/ 7 among adults 18-49 (tied for #27) on Wednesday from 8-11 p.m. ABC’s once promising Commander in Chief bid a low-rated adieu with 5.53 million viewers (#39) and a 1.5/ 4 among adults 18-49 (#54t) in the Wednesday 10 p.m. hour. Poor Geena Davis -- she just can’t seem to find a hit TV show!

Here are the final national ratings for the week of June 12, 2006 (with percent change versus the comparable year-ago period in parentheses).

Households:
CBS: 5.6 rating/10 share (+ 4)
ABC: 4.5/ 8 (- 2)
Fox: 3.9/ 7 (+22)
NBC: 3.4/ 6 (-23)
UPN: 1.5/ 3 (-12)
WB: 1.3/ 2 (-19)

Total Viewers:
CBS: 8.08 million (+ 3)
ABC: 6.77 (- 2)
Fox: 5.82 (+18)
NBC: 5.28 (-14)
UPN: 2.23 (-13)
WB: 1.78 (-23)

Adults 18-49:
ABC: 2.5/ 8 (no change)
Fox: 2.4/ 8 (+ 9)
CBS: 2.2/ 7 (+ 5)
NBC: 2.0/ 7 (no change)
UPN: 0.9/ 3 (-18)
WB: 0.7/ 2 (-30)

Adults 25-54:
CBS: 2.8/ 8 (no change)
ABC: 2.7/ 8 (- 4)
Fox: 2.5/ 7 (+19)
NBC: 2.3/ 7 (- 4)
UPN: 0.9/ 3 (-10)
WB: 0.7/ 2 (-30)

Adults 18-34:
Fox: 2.4/ 9 (no change)
ABC: 2.1/ 8 (- 5)
NBC: 1.8/ 6 (+20)
CBS: 1.4/ 5 (no change)
UPN: 0.8/ 3 (-27)
WB: 0.6/ 2 (-40)


CABLE

What follows are the top 10 rated cable networks in primetime for the week of June 12:

Total Viewers:
USA: 2.84 million
TNT: 2.73
TBS: 2.14
Lifetime: 1.67
Nick at Nite: 1.51
Fox News: 1.40
Cartoon Network: 1.38
Discovery: 1.37
Spike TV: 1.32
Hallmark Channel: 1.20

Adults 18-49:
USA: 1.27 million
TBS: 1.17 million
TNT: 1.12 million
Discovery: 757,000
Spike TV: 713,000
FX: 614,000
MTV: 585,000
Lifetime: 562,000
Comedy Central: 540,000
A&E: 514,000

Adults 18-34:
TBS: 595,000
USA: 589,000
MTV: 457,000
TNT: 442,000
Spike TV: 365,000
Discovery: 338,000
VH1: 335,000
Comedy Central: 323,000
FX: 303,000
Nick at Nite: 280,000

Adults 25-54:
TNT: 1.28 million
USA: 1.26 million
TBS: 1.08 million
Discovery: 752,000
Spike TV: 688,000
Lifetime: 652,000
FX: 591,000
HGTV: 568,000
Sci Fi: 560,000
A&E: 521,000

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data (R = repeat)

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/newsletters/proginsider/index.jsp

(From Marc Berman’s Wednesday, June 21, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
Ratings Box: What’s Hot/What’s Not

Strong The Closer on TNT:

Week two of season two of hit TNT drama The Closer did not disappoint, with a stellar 4.91 million households and 6.11 million viewers in the Monday 9 p.m. hour, according to preliminary Nielsen data. Comparatively, that was an increase over the second episode in season one of 18 percent in households (4.91 vs. 4.15 million), 510,000 viewers (6.11 vs. 5.60 million), and as much as 16 percent among adults 25-54 (2.58 vs. 2.22 million). The Closer led into week two of new drama Saved, which averaged 2.94 million households and 3.51 million viewers at 10 p.m. Comparatively, that was a decrease from last week’s opener of 920,000 households (2.94 vs. 3.86 million) and 1.59 million viewers (3.51 vs. 5.10 million).

The Dead Zone Scores on USA:

The fifth season-premiere of USA drama The Dead Zone opened with 3 million viewers, and 1.7 million in both adults 18-49 and adults 25-54 in the Sunday 10 p.m. hour. Compared to the prior four-week time period average, that was an increase of 11 percent in total viewers and as much as 10 percent among adults 18-49. Versus the year-ago time period average, growth demographically was as much as 22 percent among adults 25-54.

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/newsletters/proginsider/index.jsp

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Miami heat: Boffo ratings for NBA final

By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jun 21, 2006

The Miami Heat’s improbable comeback from an 0-2 deficit to the Dallas Mavericks, winning four straight games in the NBA finals, helped boost interest over last year’s low-rated series.

Last night’s clincher, won by star guard Dwyane Wade and the Heat to give them their first title, averaged an 11.1 household metered market rating from 9 p.m. to 12:15 a.m. That was up 6 percent over last year’s 10.5 for game six between the San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons in a series that went seven games.

Last night’s game six also jumped 13 percent over the metered market rating for Sunday’s game five, which averaged a 10.2.

Among adults 18-49, overnight ratings were also up over last year, from a 4.7 to a 5.3. Those ratings measure only the 9 to 11 p.m. timeslot data, however, and the game six final rating will rise once the last 75 minutes of the game are factored in. The 2006 game should still be up over 2005, though the percentage may be different.

This will likely be the second-highest-rated NBA finals since the league moved to ABC three years ago. Last year’s Spurs-Pistons final was the second-lowest-rated ever.

ABC was No. 1 for the night with an average 4.4 rating and 13 share in 18-49s, followed by NBC at 3.1/9, Fox at 2.9/9, CBS at 1.6/5, Univision at 1.5/5, UPN at 0.8/2 and WB at 0.6/2.

At 8 p.m., ABC was No. 1 at 2.8 for an "According to Jim" repeat and the "NBA Nation" pre-game show, followed by NBC "Fear Factor" at 2.5, Fox’s "House" repeat at 2.4, CBS’s "NCIS" rerun at 1.9, Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" at 1.8, UPN "America's Next Top Model" repeat at 0.9 and WB "Gilmore Girls" repeat at 0.7.

At 9 p.m., ABC was No. 1 at 4.8 for the start of NBA finals. Following were NBC's "Last Comic Standing" at 3.5, Fox's "House" repeat at 3.3, CBS "The Unit" rerun at 1.6, Univision "Barrera de Amor" at 1.6, UPN's 0.7 for a "Veronica Mars" repeat and WB's 0.6 for "Pepper Dennis."

At 10 p.m., ABC's second hour of the NBA finals game scored No. 1 with a 5.7, followed by NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" at 3.2, CBS's "Tuesday Night Book Club" at 1.4 and Univision's "¡Qué Madre Tan Padre!" at 1.1

Among households, ABC grabbed No. 1 with a 7.1 rating and 12 share, Fox No. 2 at 5.3/9 and NBC No. 3 at 5.0/9 followed by CBS's 4.4/8, Univision's 1.9/3, UPN's 1.7/3 and WB's 1.3/2.

• Ratings courtesy Nielsen Media Research. Ratings information is taken from fast national data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change, especially in the case of live telecasts.

fredfa -

First, thanks for all the great info you post ALL the TIME!!!!! Kudos!!!!!!

Is there a link to info on ratings for the RSN's? I know from being in NY that YES claims all the time to be the most-viewed RSN.

I am also curious as to the typical viewership on SNY and NESN. Can you steer me?

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
CNN gets less stodgy, less newsy

Who needs substance when you (or rather, Anderson Cooper) can chat up Angelina Jolie?
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 21, 2006

Back in the day when he ran CNN, Ted Turner resorted to a motto to explain why the network avoided high-priced anchors and other showbiz trappings. "News," Turner would say, "is the star."

News may still be a star at CNN today, but I'm guessing it might be on the verge of throwing a tantrum about the reduced size of its dressing room. And who can blame news, with bigger stars like Angelina Jolie flitting around, sucking up all the attention with her tousled hair and beauteous bee-stung lips?

As a star-dazzled Anderson Cooper wrote Monday on his CNN blog, "To say I was impressed would be an understatement."

In case CNN's PR machine somehow missed your house, Jolie was the centerpiece — and my stars, what an unspeakably gorgeous centerpiece she is! — of Tuesday night's two-hour "Anderson Cooper 360." The promos for the show (which aired after Calendar's deadline) promised a 360-degree view of Jolie's thoughts on Africa's humanitarian crises, although Darfur-news junkies should beware that 5 or 10 degrees or so might be devoted to her thoughts about her Namibian-born baby daughter, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt.

Based on the excerpts of the interview available on CNN's website, Jolie will offer such penetrating insights into Africa's crises as: Some of what's happening there is awful. And this: We must do more.

Some — not me, of course — might accuse Cooper of doing a 180 on real news coverage with such a celebrity interview. Jolie's bona fides as goodwill ambassador aside, is she really the most knowledgeable expert on Africa? You can say that celebrities help raise awareness of issues, but isn't that the same thing we were told 20 years ago with "We Are the World"?

The Jolie interview does seem a watershed moment in the history of CNN, though, or maybe in the history of celebrity journalism. For years the network was derided as stodgy and out of it, as grandpa's video wire service. The Anderson-Angelina meeting of minds does seem to whisper goodbye to all that. This is like ABC making Barbara Walters co-anchor in the 1970s, or CBS launching the yuppie newsmag "West 57th" — a deliberate break with the past.

But Cooper doesn't seem too concerned with that. He seems mostly angry about Internet haters who claim some sort of shadowy deal between his show and People magazine's purchase of Shiloh baby photos. "CNN did not pay anything — directly or indirectly — to get Angelina Jolie to sit down for an interview," he wrote on his blog.

Is he protesting too much? Or upset about the wrong thing?

One thing's clear. After the interview runs, Jolie will still be big. It's the news networks that got small.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-channel21jun21,0,3381102.story?coll=cl-tvent

Cable TV Notebook
Fox Hopes to Be in Business by Mid-2007


By Linda Moss Multichannel.com 6/21/2006
News Corp. is looking to launch Fox Business Channel in early to mid-2007, according to a report issued Wednesday by UBS Warburg LLC.

Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes told analyst Aryeh Bourkoff the target launch date for the financial network -- mid-2007 -- during a recent meeting with UBS Warburg.

Ailes also talked about the $1 monthly license fee News Corp. will seek for Fox News Channel when its deals expire, saying that the network will fight if need be to get value for its content, according to Bourkoff’s report.

The analyst estimated that Fox News’ current license fee is 27 cents per month, per subscriber -- below the estimated 46 cents CNN receives.

“We currently forecast new affiliate contracts to be established at 50 cents per subscriber, per month, which is likely conservative,” Bourkoff wrote. “Ailes noted that negotiations with Comcast [Corp.], Cablevision [Systems Corp.] and DirecTV [Inc.] are expected ‘fairly soon, with Time Warner Cable expected in the next year.”

According to Bourkoff, “Ailes noted that carriage negotiations are typically challenging, and while he hopes to avoid any conflicts, he believes News Corp. will fight if necessary to receive fair value for Fox News content.”

Ailes doesn’t expect News Corp. to use negotiations for Fox News to bolster the launch of the new business channel, “[i.e., offer operators discounts on Fox News in exchange for carriage] as he believes the Fox Business content will stand on its own,” according to the UBS report.

fredfa -

First, thanks for all the great info you post ALL the TIME!!!!! Kudos!!!!!!

Is there a link to info on ratings for the RSN's? I know from being in NY that YES claims all the time to be the most-viewed RSN.

I am also curious as to the typical viewership on SNY and NESN. Can you steer me?

Thanks for the compliment, ScoBuck.

There is no regular published source for RSN ratings I am aware of.

In your area, I'd just keep up with the sports media columns in the NY TImes, NY Post, Daily News, Newark Star-Ledger, Bergen Record and Newsday. They usually come up with ratings news fairly regularly.

And the Boston Globe and Boston Herald often report on NESN ratings.

Sorry I don't have better news for you. But maybe someone else can steer us both to RSN ratings nirvana.

The TV Watch
Jolie's Extravagant Philanthropy Is Hard to Fault

By Alessandra Stanley The New York Times June 21, 2006

It must be a law of celebrity physics: When journalists act like movie stars, movie stars act like journalists.

It has always tempting to sneer at an actor's passionate embrace of charity work as a gimmick — method giving. But on Tuesday night, Angelina Jolie gracefully slipped past viewer cynicism, speaking with candor and self-deprecation about the plight of third world refugees, a cause that led her to give birth to a daughter in Namibia last month. When CNN's Anderson Cooper marveled that she gives away one-third of her earnings, Ms. Jolie laughed. "Yes, well, I have a stupid income for what I do for a living," she said.

Mr. Cooper, the silver-haired CNN anchor, did not conduct an interview with the elusive actress; he held a conversation in which he seemed a little too eager to put himself on par with his guest, as if the two of them belonged to an elite club of the concerned and caring.

"You're not just talking the talk; you are walking the walk," he told Ms. Jolie, and then proceeded to talk a lot about his own walk through war zones and disaster areas, as if somehow that was an eccentric choice for a journalist.

He even managed to wedge in a mention of Hurricane Katrina: "One of the stories that we're doing, in this program, is about Niger," he said. "And I was there last summer right before Hurricane Katrina. And one in four children in Niger dies before the age of 5, which to me, I still cannot wrap my mind around."

By choosing CNN's most pious anchor for her first interview since the delivery, the actress ensured that the topic would be refugees, not her postpartum slimness or Brad Pitt's spurned ex-wife, Jennifer Aniston. Ms. Jolie is not the first or only celebrity to siphon fame and media attention to a worthy cause, but she is the star of the moment, a glamorous sex symbol at the peak of her career.

Even more than Bill Gates or Bono, she signals a shift in mores among the hyper-rich. After 25 years of ever-escalating exorbitance, the pendulum has swung toward conspicuous nonconsumption. Extravagance is measured not by how much is spent, but how much is given away.

And that can't be bad. Ms. Jolie may be susceptible to extreme gestures (it was only a few years ago that she wore a vial of her husband's blood around her neck and a tattoo of his name on her arm and elsewhere), but her current obsession is a lasting fancy that is impossible to fault. She has adopted two orphans (she revealed that she and Mr. Pitt are planning to take in a third), traveled extensively for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and lavished time, money and her fame to a difficult cause.

She hasn't lost her fondness for body ink, however: she told Mr. Cooper she wears the phrase "know your rights" tattooed on her back, which shows when she wears a low-cut shirt. "I wore it to a prison once," she said saucily.

She and Mr. Pitt have mastered the art of celebrity jujitsu, turning tabloid brawn against itself. Their latest coup was selling the first picture of their new baby, Shiloh, to the highest bidder, then donating the proceeds to charity, reportedly several million dollars.

Hollywood doesn't offer many savory alternatives, as Matt Lauer's ghastly interview with Britney Spears on NBC's "Dateline" last week proved. That display may have been the nadir of celebrity narcissism. Even Cher has taken on the cause of helmet safety for American troops in Iraq and was scheduled to discuss it with Mr. Cooper last night.

As much as Ms. Jolie used the occasion of motherhood to showcase her humanitarian work on CNN, the network used her humanitarian work to showcase its own talent. And that was a bit much. Mr. Cooper, who just published his autobiography, "Dispatches From the Edge," and was on the cover of Vanity Fair, has surely received plenty of publicity and praise.

For understandable reasons CNN relentlessly promoted the exclusive, and the network even persuaded Paula Zahn and Larry King to take time from their shows to interview their colleague about his scoop. Both seemed a little put out by the task. "You're talking more about the interview than the interview," Mr. King said to Mr. Cooper. "Are you getting a little tired of it?"

Apparently not. On ABC's "Good Morning America" yesterday Mr. Cooper once again explained why Ms. Jolie chose CNN. "I do a lot of reporting in Africa; I'm interested in Africa," he said. "It was sort of a natural fit."

He praised Ms. Jolie for doing the interview solely to draw attention to the plight of refugees and not to promote a movie. He then seamlessly moved on to vigorously promote his best-selling book.

With journalists like that, its a small wonder celebrities are starting to do their own reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/arts/television/21cnd-watch.html?ei=5094&en=cdbae2185427b7ed&hp=&ex=1150948800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

The Business of TV
Moonves: CBS Is Well Past 'Murder She Wrote' Days


Wants Credit for Digital Innovations
By Nat Ives AdAge.com June 21, 2006

NEW YORK () -- CBS President-CEO Leslie Moonves today said analysts and investors aren't giving his media empire the credit it deserves for modernizing.

Speaking at the "Outlook 2010" seminar hosted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mr. Moonves was asked why CBS isn't getting more credit from Wall Street for its many digital innovations of the past six months.

"There is a perception out there that we are 'old media,' that we are stuck in the old days of being the network of Edward R. Murrow and 'Murder She Wrote,'" Mr. Moonves said. "When I took over CBS, Angela Lansbury was the sexiest woman we had on CBS. It's gotten a little better since then, fortunately."

Old company, new media

"But I think there's the perception, 'Oh they're in the old broadcast and old radio and old outdoor,'" he said. "Since we formed Jan. 3, we have probably done over 20 new-media deals. We did a Comcast deal. We've done a Google deal. We've done numerous deals with Verizon. We're doing video on demand on our own website. We did the NCAA basketball tournament."

The company took in $4.2 million in new revenue from advertisers supporting its March Madness webcasts, according to Mr. Moonves, who said he expected that figure to double next year.

"So we are able to take what is an existing great business, which is delivering great cash flow, and taking our content -- whether it be news, whether it be sports, whether it be entertainment -- and delivering it all over the place and getting paid in new ways for it," Mr. Moonves said. "As people really buy that we're as cool as Yahoo is, even though we're called CBS, I think then people will give us more credit on our stock."

If his analysis is correct, investors certainly haven't bought his story yet. Company shares closed yesterday at $25.79, down from an opening price of $26.27 Jan. 4.

The CBS mantra

In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session, Mr. Moonves also expressed confidence in terrestrial radio despite the loss of Howard Stern to satellite; called digital deals like that with Verizon the tip of an iceberg; and identified the company mantra as "getting paid in new ways for exactly what we're doing today."

Asked by an audience member about the departure today of Dan Rather after 44 years and the arrival of Katie Couric to anchor the "CBS Evening News," Mr. Moonves was pragmatic.

Once "60 Minutes II" was canceled and "60 Minutes" needed room for segments by Ms. Couric and CNN star Anderson Cooper, he said, CBS could only offer Mr. Rather a few "60 Minutes" slots.

"He wanted a bigger role, which we understood," Mr. Moonves said. "I'm sorry he's leaving us. I'm sorry for a lot of things. He had a very distinguished career. He's a man I respect and honor a great deal. I'm sorry it ended the way it did.

'Brand new ballgame'

"Katie Couric, I'm very excited about the prospect. I think it's changed the world of news. I think, right now, the evening news is now up in the air. It's a brand new ballgame, as well as it is for the morning news.

"Charlie Gibson has left, Katie Couric has left," he said, "Julie Chen is staying." That prompted laughs from the crowd; Ms. Chen, an anchor on the "The Early Show" on CBS, is married to Mr. Moonves.

http://www.adage.com/print?article_id=110061

The Business of TV
PwC Predicts Modest Station Growth

Telco to boom, DBS continue to build, Cable to lose subs
By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable 6/21/2006

Growth in the distribution side of the U.S. TV business should grow modestly over the next four years, with TV stations increasing revenues an average of 4% annually, and cable, satellite TV and telephone companies boosting video sales at the rate of 6%.

That’s the conclusion of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ annual media forecast, to be released at a firm conference Wednesday in New York. The forecast expects cable and DBS revenues to grow from $69.1 billion this year to $86.6 billion in 2010.

At the same time, TV stations should increase sales from $32.5 billion to $37.2 billion.

The study includes an exceptionally aggressive forecast for telephone companies’ entry into video. PwC estimates that telephone companies will snag 10 million video subscribers by 2010, excluding any subscribers secured through marketing relationships with DBS operators. That’s quadruple the growth seen by other studies, including, for example, one by UBS Securities.

Further, the study estimates that cable will be damaged far more than DBS as telcos roll out video service, predicting that cable systems will drop from 68.8 million subscribers at the end of last year to 62.8 million, down an average of 1.8% yearly. DBS, by contrast, is seen as continuing to grow an average of 4.6% anually, from 26 million subscribers to 32.5 million.

"We’re expecting some robust effort on the part of the telcos," says Stefanie Kane, a partner in PwC’s media practice. She added that cable operators should be able to maintain revenue growth by increasing prices and adding new services.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346008

Cable TV Notebook
Comedies a funny biz

Cablers try to resurrect slow genre
By Andrew Wallenstein The Hollywood Reporter June 21, 2006

Like moths to a flame, cable can't resist swarming to narrative comedy series -- no matter how many channels get burned.

The elusive genre continues to challenge just about every network from Comedy Central to Lifetime. All are determined to launch a healthy half-hour live-action comedy, but whether scripted or improvised, or shot with single or multiple cameras, little success has been achieved.

"We're not giving up on this format, we've got to give it a shot," said Lauren Corrao, executive vp original programming and development at Comedy Central. "There's no better way to get an audience to tune in week after week than to fall in love with the characters and the storytelling."

Even as cable proves its hit-making abilities in other genres, like the record-breaking 8.2 million-viewer haul last week of TNT detective drama "The Closer," narrative comedies can barely crack 1 million viewers. Two such underachievers launched this month, Comedy Central's "Dog Bites Man" and Lifetime's "Lovespring International," the first narrative comedies from both networks in years.

Last month, VH1 watched its first scripted comedy, "So Notorious," with Tori Spelling, end its underwhelming rookie season to an average of 762,000 viewers. The network had fared much better in its Sunday berth with such unscripted fare as "Flavor of Love" and "Hogan Knows Best."

There are, however, exceptional exceptions like "Entourage," the HBO series that may finally be coming into its own in after two seasons of ratings that paled in comparison to the standard bearer of scripted cable comedy, "Sex and the City." "Entourage" opened its third season last week to a robust 2.7 million viewers.

But even the mighty HBO is not immune to missteps in comedy. Despite having "Entourage" as a lead-in, the multicamera "Lucky Louie" grabbed 1.5 million and earned some of the most scabrous reviews the network has ever received. "You might not get an argument if you called it the worst series HBO ever created," sniped a critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. ("Louie" did experience strong growth in rebroadcasts that week, mushrooming to 3.8 million).

Despite the high degree of difficulty, plenty more cable channels are coming to narrative comedy. FX is returning "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" on June 29 for a second season after an unremarkable debut last year. Showtime also will be back in August with "Weeds," which got more buzz than audience. TBS plans to move into scripted comedy as well by year's end, while TV Land and ABC Family are developing in that arena, too.

Ask any a cable exec and they will tell you there is just too much upside in cracking the comedy code to ignore its potential.

"I'm not a cockeyed optimist, but you can't be in this job and say, 'I'm not going to go there,' " said Michael Wright, senior vp programming at TBS and TNT. "I acknowledge the risks and the track record, but it doesn't mean the form is dead."

Cable gospel dictates that developing a hit original series is key to establishing a channel's brand identity, especially with scripted material. That hasn't been a problem on the drama side, where "The Shield" put FX on the map, as did "Monk" at USA and "The Sopranos" at HBO. Unscripted fare did the same for Bravo ("Queer Eye for the Straight Guy") and A&E ("Dog the Bounty Hunter").

The kiddie cable channels have had less difficulty with scripted comedy, as Disney Channel and Nickelodeon have more than a few to their credit, including "That's So Raven" and "Zoey 101," respectively.

But cable hasn't been able to elude the malaise that has affected broadcast as well in recent years, though CBS and NBC have a handful of such bona fide live-action hits as "Two and a Half Men" and "My Name Is Earl," respectively. Still, the very paucity of hit comedies on broadcast is the main reason cable feels the need to counterattack.

"I think when people started talking about the situation comedy being dead, it certainly inspired me and a lot of others working in cable to prove people wrong," Corrao said.

Often enough, cable even mines for gold in the detritus of the broadcast development process. "Man" and "Notorious" both were discarded by NBC before being snatched up. ABC Family is considering "The Other Mall," which once was a Fox development project.

Comedy Central has scored hits in a variety of comedic formats, from sketch shows ("Chappelle's Show"), mock newscasts ( "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart") and animation ( "South Park"). But narrative comedies have been a tougher road to hoe, from outright bombs like the 2001 sitcom "That's My Bush!" to the relatively successful improv "Cops" spoof "Reno 911!" which kicks off its fourth season next month. "Reno" has been a reliable addition to the network's schedule but has never approached true hit status.

Nevertheless, Corrao has made developing narrative comedies her top priority in the past year. Whether or not "Man" finds an audience, more are coming including "The Sarah Silverman Program" and "Halfway Home."

The key for Comedy Central though is giving TV's most traditional format a distinct tweak, as it did with "Man," which blurs genres by mixing improv comedy with "Daily"-style ambush interviews with real people. You wouldn't catch "Halfway" on a broadcast network anytime soon given its cast is a group of parolees including a drug dealer and gigolo.

"You always run a risk when you attempt to do something brand new," Corrao said.

But Wright believes reinvention isn't always the answer to breaking through in comedy. He recalls the eight years he spent before Turner at CBS, where "Everybody Loves Raymond" was as conventional as comedies come, but he believes the key to its success was its authenticity.

"When 'Raymond' came on there was nothing distinctive about the idea, but the writing and performing were so authentic that it worked," he said. "I'm not sure comedies fail just because they're not fresh or innovative."

At TBS, execs decided to explore scripted comedy after finding no success last year with unscripted comedies including "Daisy Does America" and "Minding the Store." Now the plan is to make good on TBS' comedy-themed brand exactly the same way TNT has proven its drama bona fides with original scripted material including "Closer."

However, Wright realizes doing the same at TBS will be a tougher challenge. "The single most difficult thing about comedy is how subjective it is," he said. "There is a certain universality to drama."

Nevertheless, TBS has two scripted comedies ready to go for the fourth quarter: "My Boys" and "10 Items or Less." What will make them stick, Wright hopes, is that each is strategically positioned to appeal to TBS' female-skewing core audience. "We're looking for shows that are compatible with the shows they are already watching on the channel," including syndicated fare like "Sex and the City."

For John Landgraf, president and general manager at FX, the key to grooming comedy is patience. That's why he's taking a second shot at "Sunny," a risque but amiable comedy about friends running a bar, though it barely did better in the ratings than another canceled FX comedy, "Starved," with which it launched as a block last year. FX has never succeeded in comedy going back to "Lucky," a 2003 half-hour set in Las Vegas gambling dens that died after one season.

"Sunny" returns with the addition of a high-profile cast addition in Danny DeVito, who Landgraf hopes will bring the comedy more attention. With a little luck, "Sunny" could catch fire. "There's a history of comedies that aggregate a larger audience over time," he said, noting the slow emergence of "Cheers" and "Seinfeld."

Such shows as "Queer" and "Monk" have such heavy comedic elements to them that cable may very well be cannibalizing the half-hour format with success in other genres. And then there are networks like Lifetime, which have been devoid of comedy for so long that getting something going in the genre is a part of ensuring the brand is well-rounded.

"I think that the general viewer has a general perception of Lifetime as being a very somber network," said Susanne Daniels, Lifetime's president of entertainment. "Lifetime should have broader appeal and be known for more varied dynamic offerings."

Cable may end up finding more success with comedy on new platforms. Nearly every channel in existence is sprouting broadband offshoots like Comedy Central's MotherLoad, which is becoming a whole new breeding ground for comedy.

"I get a lot of great pitches for ideas that I love how they sound but don't sustain a half-hour," said Lou Wallach, senior vp original programming and development at Comedy Central, where he oversees MotherLoad. "Writers, producers, animators now have a platform in shortform. I don't have to stretch it into something that it's not."

For Landgraf, a great comedy from cable is a matter of time. "Any time a genre is dead, that means the genre that is alive -- drama -- is getting more and more oversaturated every year. And every year the appetite for a great comedy is getting whet."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002691279

TV Notebook
Fox Unveils Fall Schedule Start Dates

By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 6/21/2006

Fox will kick off its fall season Monday, Aug. 21, with the season premiere of sophomore drama Prison Break followed by the series debut of rookie drama Vanished.

The network's latest primetime premiere date before the Major League Baseball playoffs begin in October will be Sunday, Sept. 10, when it rolls out the season premieres of returning comedies The Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy and The War At Home.

Trading Spaces: Meet Your New Mommy will bow on Friday, Oct. 6 at 9 pm, in a slot that until then will be home to the results show for talent series Duets.

The OC will premiere on Thursday, Nov. 2 at 9, taking the place of the weekly performance show of Duets.

Fox’s new entrant into the late-night world, Talk Show With Spike Feresten, will debut at midnight on Saturday night, Sept.16 (technically Sunday morning, Sept.17).

With the season premiere of Vanished now set for Aug. 21, of interest will be when NBC decides to roll out its new offering Kidnapped. Both shows are heavily serialized dramas that revolve around the disappearance of a character. NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly has said previously that he is considering rolling out some shows in the late summer, especially with the NFL as a promotional launching pad.

The following is the full Fox fall schedule:

Monday, August 21
8:00-9:00 PM PRISON BREAK (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM VANISHED (Series Premiere)

Wednesday, August 30
8:00-9:00 PM BONES (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM JUSTICE (Series Premiere)

Thursday, August 31
8:00-10:00 PM DUETS (2-Hour Series Premiere)

Tuesday, September 5
8:00-9:00 PM STANDOFF (Series Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM HOUSE (Season Premiere)

Thursday, September 7
8:00-8:30 PM ‘TIL DEATH (Series Premiere)
8:30-9:00 PM HAPPY HOUR (Series Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM DUETS (Time Period Premiere)

Friday, September 8
8:00-9:00 PM NANNY 911 (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM DUETS Results Show (Series Premiere)

Saturday, September 9
8:00-8:30 PM COPS (Season Premiere)
8:30-9:00 PM COPS (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM AMERICA’S MOST WANTED: AMERICA FIGHTS BACK (Season Premiere)

Sunday, September 10
8:00-8:30 PM THE SIMPSONS (Season Premiere)
8:30-9:00 PM AMERICAN DAD (Season Premiere)
9:00-9:30 PM FAMILY GUY (Season Premiere)
9:30-10:00 PM THE WAR AT HOME (Season Premiere)

Saturday, September 16
11:00 PM-Midnight MADtv (Season Premiere)
Midnight-12:30 AM TALK SHOW WITH SPIKE FERESTEN

Friday, October 6
9:00-10:00 PM TRADING SPOUSES: MEET YOUR NEW MOMMY (Season Premiere)

Thursday, November 2
9:00-10:00 PM THE O.C. (Season Premiere)

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346070

OK, I already broke my “no more Rather stories” promise once.
(Which makes it easier to break the vow again.)
I’ve debated whether to post this Tom Shales story for hours.
Finally, I weakly gave in.
If you are Rathered-out, I apologize.

TV Notebook
CBS to Rather: Good Night, And Good Luck

By Tom Shales Washington Post TV Critic June 21, 2006; C01

Dan Rather is a free man. After an appropriately acrimonious final round of legal wrangling, his 44 years with CBS News came to an end yesterday -- or will come to an end today. Or will end Friday. There's a bit of confusion on that point.

Those who have followed the awkward exit of Rather from his position first as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" last year, then as a CBS News employee this year, often ask a simple question: How could a network for which Rather has done so much and served so loyally treat him so shabbily as the curtain falls?

Some think there is a strange personal grudge against Rather by CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves, who was quoted diplomatically in a CBS news release yesterday as saying of Rather, "The unique mark he has left on his craft is indelible." Others think there is intense pressure on CBS News President Sean McManus to clear Rather and all remnants of him from the premises in preparation for the arrival of Katie Couric, the former "Today" show host who will anchor the "Evening News" this fall and has a growing reputation in the business as the neediest diva on the block.

An explanation from one of Rather's many supporters inside the company: "We're dealing with a bunch of classic idiots."

Reached at his home in New York, Rather did not sound rattled. It is unlikely he will make an appearance at the fly-infested CBS News building on New York's West 57th Street this week; the contents of his office -- including the family Bible that was always opened to a different verse -- have been removed and will be sent to him. As of Friday, officially, Dan Rather and CBS News will no longer be one.

Now that the smoke has cleared from a final skirmish, Rather says he and his wife, Jean, and one or two of their children are headed for a retreat in the Catskills that has been in the family for decades. Then the couple will head to Alaska because Dan loves to fish there, and because the air is so clean. Especially when compared with the air on the Upper West Side.

CBS will pay Rather, either by lump sum or biweekly paychecks, through November, when his contract is officially up. Since he makes $12 million a year, that was worth arguing about, and CBS executives did argue until Monday. As most of those who follow such events know, Rather was removed as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" a year short of his 25th anniversary after the airing of an apparently flawed "60 Minutes II" report on George W. Bush's alleged special treatment while in the Texas National Guard. Rather was the correspondent on that report. One producer lost her job, others are suing.

Don Hewitt, executive producer of "60 Minutes," and Mike Wallace, its most famous correspondent, huffed and puffed and declared that Rather should resign. Dan Rather is not the resigning type. Wallace has since apologized.

Although the CBS farewell statement issued yesterday was mostly bland and laudatory, it was updated later in the day on the CBS Web site after Rather's statement was released; a small blog war ensued. "In response to the [Rather] statement," said the Web site, "a CBS spokeswoman said: 'We value and respect Dan's tremendous career at CBS News. Despite the fact that we couldn't reach an agreement that satisfied everyone, we wish him all future success.' "

Rather was reassigned after the Bush report to join the correspondents on "60 Minutes" and "60 Minutes II," a then-successful spinoff of the original classic news program. If "60 Minutes II" went off the air, the agreement said -- and it did go off the air -- Rather was to join "60 Minutes," where he'd earlier made a major mark as an investigative reporter, full time. But Rather discovered in fairly short order that he was a correspondent in only a token, perfunctory way.

He contributed a mere seven reports to the shows over the past year and a half, Rather said Monday. "From 18 to 22 is the norm."

Some of his detractors claimed this was poetic justice because Rather, on ascending to the anchor chair March 9, 1981, supposedly banished his predecessor, Walter Cronkite, from ever appearing on the program and even from doing other reporting work for CBS News. But one of Rather's supporters said yesterday that, first of all, Rather would hardly have had the authority to "ban" Cronkite from the airwaves and, second, Cronkite hosted a series, "Universe," in prime time on the network.

That his last weeks and days at CBS should be marked by turbulence seems somehow appropriate for Rather, although through the years he has been among the most ferociously loyal of company men where CBS News was concerned. As with such illustrious predecessors as Edward R. Murrow, Rather's in-house enemies were up in the corporate stratosphere, not down in the trenches with the hard-working journalists.

He suffered and squirmed under the disastrous reign of CBS Chairman Laurence Tisch, who slashed the news division budget and, by losing professional football to another network, lost a number of important affiliates, too. Rather's "Evening News," which had been No. 1, eventually fell to third place. In some major markets its lead-in, the local CBS station's news, was paltry, further handicapping the Rather program.

Over the years he endured all kinds of advice and counsel on his delivery of the news. There were plans to do the newscast standing up after Cronkite left, but those were abandoned. For a while, Rather wore a sleeveless sweater under his jacket to try to "warm him up" on the air. Some found his formality too rigid. As the hired entertainment at a Clinton-era press dinner, radio shock jock Don Imus observed, "Dan Rather delivers the news as if he were making a hostage tape."

But all the comments only tend to "underscore," as Rather liked to say, his controversiality on the air, his status as a national lightning rod, a dynamic personality about whom no one seemed to lack an opinion. On the CBS Web site yesterday, former rival Tom Brokaw spoke in mellow tones of the old three-anchor era that is now history, Brokaw having retired, ABC's Peter Jennings having died and the great Rather having been brought down from his pedestal.

"Dan, Peter and I chased each other around the world a lot," Brokaw recalled. "We made each other better, I think, by being so competitive." It was Rather who was the most competitive of all and whose trips to the news sites of the world forced his fellow anchors to follow. This might be his great contribution: redefining the term anchor to such a degree that "anchor" is an anomaly. An anchor holds a ship in one place, but Rather was always on the go, whether interviewing terrorists in the Mideast or clinging to a tree in the midst of a torrential hurricane.

He was and remains a living legend in the business he loves, and the bumpy years that ended his CBS run cannot change that. One of Rather's former bosses, Sir Howard Stringer (now president of Sony Corp.), used to marvel that when he'd walk down the street with Rather, the anchor had a magnetic effect on people -- real people, who would come up to him to shake his hand or express a grievance or offer words of admiration.

Last night, Bob Schieffer -- Rather's temporary successor -- said on "CBS Evening News": "Dan Rather was one of the great reporters of his time." This followed an affectionate and even stirring report by Anthony Mason that retraced a few of Rather's giant steps.

Rather says that, though 74, he has no intention of leaving broadcast news. But watching the farewell report last night, one couldn't help thinking: We shall not see his like again. Ever. Because the domain he dominated is one of the things he is taking with him.

The world has changed a lot in Rather's 44 years at CBS. Yesterday, it changed a little more.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062001637_pf.html

Washington Notebook
Martin: Adelphia Action in Mid-July

By Ted Hearn Multichannel.com 6/21/2006

Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin said Wednesday that the agency would likely act on the acquisition of Adelphia Communications Corp. by Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp. in mid-July.

Martin indicated the mid-July action in comments to reporters following the agency’s public meeting. “I think the commission will try to address it by the middle of July," he said.

Time Warner and Comcast have agreed to buy bankrupt Adelphia’s 5 million cable subscribers in a $16.9 billion transaction.

The Federal Trade Commission approved the deal without conditions in January. The FCC has had the merger under review for 382 days, but only since June 1 has Martin had a 3-2 Republican majority.

Opponents of the deal have called on the FCC to impose a host of conditions, including access to regional sports programming owned or controlled by Time Warner and Comcast.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6346018.html?display=Breaking+News

TV Notebook
'Prison Break' is back soon

From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” June 21, 2006

“Prison Break” returns two months from today.

Fox announced premiere dates for the network’s shows Wednesday, and the first one on the list is “Prison Break,” which comes back 7 p.m. Aug. 21. That’s a full week earlier than the show’s debut last year, which aired Aug. 29, 2005. And this fall “Prison Break” will return with a new show, “Vanished.”

The reason for the early start for these shows is that Fox likes to get a good chunk of momentum going with its programs before the baseball playoffs arrive in October. Last year, however, “Prison Break” kept on going during baseball playoffs, only to take a four-month break that began in November.

Fox made us suffer through some dopey reality show for the first few month of this year on Mondays; it’d be a far better move for TV fans if “Prison Break” and “24” aired back to back from January 2007 onward (the two shows did share that night for a few months starting in March).

In any case, Fox’s schedule for 2007 has not yet been announced, and we might be looking at another extensive “Break” break. But let’s look on the bright side -- only two months to go until we find out what the heck happened to T-Bag’s hand.

Other Fox return dates: “Bones” returns Aug. 30, “House” comes back Sept. 5, and “The O.C.” won’t come back until Nov. 2, after baseball’s run is done.

By the way, actor Wade Williams, who plays jail guard Brad Bellick, reports that the temperature of the “Prison Break” set down in Texas, where Season 2 just began filming, has already hit 100 degrees. As he noted, that’s a full 100 degrees higher than the temperature when “Break” filmed its first-season finale in Chicago back in March.

And history seems to be repeating itself, despite the different locale: Last year, Chicagoans on the crew told the “Break” cast that the city’s November temperatures weren’t really all that bad and that the truly nasty weather was yet to come. Now the Texas crew is trying to prepare the actors for how much worse the summer temperatures will get.

“They just keep telling us, ‘Oh, the heat hasn’t even really started yet,” Williams said.

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

Welcome to the club, James.
(Well, almost to the HD club. Good luck with the TW techs!)

Critic’s Notebook
In Which My New TV Threatens My Livelihood

By James Poniewozik Time Magazine television critic Wednesday, Jun. 21, 2006

I've bragged on this blog before about having the worst television set of any TV critic in America: a clunky 20-incher that dates back to the first Bush administration (41, not 43). Well, I've lost my bragging rights: I recently broke my home-electronics piggybank and became the owner of my first almost-big-screen plasma TV. (It's 37 inches, as big as would work in my skinny Brooklyn townhouse living room, and if you think Time Warner picks up the bill for it, hey, from your lips to Dick Parsons' ears.)

It's the best thing that has ever happened to me as a TV viewer. And the worst thing that has ever happened to me as a TV critic.

The problem: everything looks great on it. Everything. (Sorry--if that sounds like boasting, it's because, well, I guess because it is. Hey, I've been watching a cereal-box toy for the past decade--cut me some slack.) Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, a movie notable mainly for being slightly less crappy than the other crappy Star Wars prequels, practically made me weep. Closer, a movie that probably would have seemed sterile and precious to me a week ago, was luminescent and gorgeous. I want to watch sports all the time, and I do not like sports. The CNBC ticker is like a glowing river of liquid money.

Nor am I the only one so affected. My 4-year-old son goggles at the new machine, as if to say, "As God is my witness, I will never read a book again." His little brother walks around the living room repeating, "Beeg TV. Beeg." And mind you, I have not even watched anything in high-definition yet, because getting an HDTV cable box will involve lengthy negotiations with the lethargic despots of Time Warner Cable's Ministry of Technology, Set-Top Box Division, Digital-Cable Subdepartment. (Anyone who believes that big corporations are efficient monopolies has never seen Time magazine's TV critic try to get a cable-service appointment from the same company that signs his paycheck.)

The upshot is, my critical faculties are screwed up. Even bad TV looks good to me now--not just good, but spectacular and mind-controllingly, propagandistically persuasive. Fox News's explosive graphics and lurid colors are especially fantastic on widescreen: I watch for two minutes and I want to donate to the Republican Party. I see an Army ad and I want to join the Army. I watch MTV and I want to get platinum grillz on my front teeth. Until I adjust, I am going to assume that any new TV show I watch is actually 33% worse than I think it is.

On the other hand, I will probably be able to understand phenomena on TV that I never completely appreciated because I had a worse TV than 95% of the people I was writing for. For instance, I can see why so many of the new fall pilots I'm seeing--from NBC's Friday Night Lights to comedies like ABC's Betty the Ugly--look so cinematic and bank-breakingly expensive. Wide-screen TVs are in more and more houses, and the technology demands it. These machines are made for spectacle, not intimacy--in the future, intimacy will be for your cellphone, computer and video iPod. (Maybe that's the schism we're heading for--impossibly small screens on the go, impossibly big ones in the living room, and entertainment tailored for each.)

When so much of the audience owns TVs that look like movie screens, you have to produce TV that looks like movies. That can't help but affect what TV looks like, and maybe even what kind of TV is successful. I have to wonder, for instance, if 24 would have been the hit it is today in the days of meeker TVs, and if the big-screen effect is why today, instead of the cool greys of Twin Peaks, you have the color-saturated Hawaiian vistas of Lost.

Of course, like any theory, this one will require extensive testing. Time to watch some more beautiful, bad TV.

http://time.blogs.com/tuned_in/

The outlook for serious news continues to get worse.
There was the NBC News Dateline interview with Britney Spears last week which finished 14th in the Nielsen ratings with 8.97 millionsviewers. (A repeat the next night got 5.10 million more!)
OK, OK, I realize Dateline has never been exactly the epitome of hard news. But still.
And now there is this:

TV “News” Notebook
Anderson-Angelina #1 In Cable News Demo Tuesday

(from Brian Stelter’s TVNewser at mediabistro.com)

Anderson Cooper's interview with Angelina Jolie was the number one program in the 25-54 demographic Tuesday night.

In the 25-54 demo, Cooper averaged 754,000 at 10pm and 511,000 at 11pm. Among total viewers, Cooper averaged 1,568,000 at 10pm and 1,097,000 at 11pm. His two-hour average was 633,000 demo and 1,333,000 total viewers. (He was up 96% in total viewers and 218% in demo viewers versus his year-to-date average.)

The 10pm hour of Cooper's two-hour special beat Larry King (253k demo, 973k total), Hannity & Colmes (295k demo, 1528k total), and Greta Van Susteren (284k demo, 1344 total). Bill O'Reilly still beat him among total viewers (with 2,197). Thanks to the interview, CNN beat FNC in primetime in the demo, but FNC was #1 among total viewers...

http://mediabistro.com/tvnewser/

Washington Notebook
FCC Begins Review of Corporate Media Ownership

By Todd Shields MediaWeek.com JUNE 21, 2006 -

Amid sharp partisan differences, federal regulators on Wednesday commenced a sweeping review of rules that limit corporations' ownership of broadcast stations and newspapers.

Acting for the first time since a federal court rejected previous rules, the Federal Communications Commission requested comments on local ownership limits for radio and TV, on the ban on daily newspapers owning nearby broadcast stations, and on other issues.

The last time the FCC considered such matters it encountered a firestorm, with 3 million public comments and two votes by the U.S. Senate to reverse its 2003 decision to loosen the rules. In 2004 a federal appeals court rejected the rules and sent them back to the agency.

On Wednesday, agency Democrats said the FCC should promise substantive studies and public hearings, and should reveal its proposed new rules for public comment before voting on them.

Democrats also warned against splitting parts of the rules off for separate votes-–a fate some speculate may lie in store for the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban, which has been singled out for criticism by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican.

“The manner in which the commission is launching this critical proceeding is totally inadequate,” said Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat. “The large media companies wanted, and they get, a blank check to permit further media consolidation.”

Martin said the proceeding was designed to be “neutral and evenhanded.”

“It could be my dissenting colleagues who are rushing to judgment today,” Martin said. “I think they want to grade our performance and give us an “F” but it’s only the first day of class.”

Martin promised “a half-dozen” public hearings and studies on topics including how the public gets its news, competition, and recent marketplace changes.

All three agency Republicans voted to begin the proceeding; both Democrats approved in part and dissented in part.

The meeting was the first with three Republicans since Martin moved up to become chairman early last year. An attempt to begin the media ownership proceeding last year ended in partisan deadlock, over many of the same issues discussed Wednesday.

As usual, the agency set no date for a vote. It established a comment cycle that runs for 120 days, or at least into late October. But the promised studies and hearings could carry beyond that. Some agency officials do not expect a vote until next year.

National TV ownership limits are not at issue, since Congress set them amid the controversy over the 2003 rules.

The agency earlier backed away from voting on forcing cable operators to carry all of each broadcasters’ multiple digital programs, saying it could not form a consensus.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002725665

Critic’s Notebook
The week's most sickening scene

From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” June 21, 2006

“Rescue Me” has crossed a troubling line.

Sure, Tommy Gavin, the troubled firefighter at the heart of the FX drama, has done awful things in the past. But when he raped his estranged wife, Gavin (who's played by "Rescue Me" co-creator Denis Leary) hit a sickening new low.

On the June 20 episode of “Rescue Me,” Gavin had a conversation with his estranged wife about how to split up their possessions. The conversation grew heated, and he became violent with her, shoved her on the couch and forced her to have sex with him.

It apparently wasn’t enough that the show depicted Gavin raping a woman, but it had to show that Janet Gavin appeared to enjoy it, or at least go along with it, by the end of the act.

The worst part? Gavin exited the house with a giant smirk on his face.

The smirk seemed to say, “Women love me, no matter what I do to them.” After all, Gavin had just gotten a string of phone calls (on “crazy chick call-in day,” as he dubbed it) from four of the women in his life, all of whom are needy or shrewish or sexually obsessed with him -- if not all three.

It’s one thing to create a show about a troubled alcoholic with rage issues, a guy who never shows much self-knowledge or any real interest in personal growth. It’s tiresome that Gavin only thinks of women as either sexual partners, nags or crazy sluts. But it’s another thing entirely to make the lead character of the show a scary sociopath who assaults women.

If FX wants to expand its viewer base beyond its largely male demographic, allowing the lead character on one of its flagship shows to be not just a sexist jerk but a rapist as well is not a good way to do it.

The irony is, “Rescue Me” has some meaty roles for women at the moment; Susan Sarandon is having a good run as the older lover of one of Gavin’s fellow firefighters (and her character calls Gavin on a lot of his b.s. in an excellent scene in Tuesday’s episode). Marisa Tomei, who begins a guest stint on the show on Tuesday, is highly watchable and her story line as Johnny Gavin’s uptown, upmarket ex has potential as well. (On the other hand, Tatum O’Neal is flat-out terrible as Gavin’s sister, Maggie, who is, what a surprise, a crazy slut).

“Rescue Me” has often glorified Tommy’s immature behavior and shown a lack of depth in other story lines (remember Probie with a gun?). It has been relatively easy to overlook those flaws, though, thanks to the overall excellence of the cast (especially John Scurti, Daniel Sunjata and Jack McGee), the good stories “Rescue Me” does tell and the cutting, bitter wit at the heart of the show.

Still, the scene between Tommy and Janet was not just gut-churning, but implausible as well. Wouldn’t the Janet Gavin we know get up from that couch full of rage? But she just sat there, and moments later was leafing through a magazine. Janet and Tommy chatted amiably on the phone in the next episode. And by the way, did Tommy have to trot out the “I’m a firefighter, I go into burning buildings when other people are running out of them” rationale yet again, just before he assaulted Janet? The entire scene was full of not just gratuitous violence but bad storytelling choices on the part of the show’s creators.

John Solberg, the head of FX, recently told Variety that one of his goals for the network was to cultivate shows “that weren’t only for men.” A laudable goal, and the steps the network has taken in that direction (the casting of Sarandon and Tomei on “Rescue Me,” Glenn Close’s sensational run on “The Shield”) have often turned out well.

(Having said that, what the heck happened to Roma Maffia on “Nip/Tuck”? I hope she gets some good story lines when that show returns in September, and that her screen time isn’t eaten up by yet another of “Nip/Tuck’s” shrill and/or crazy female characters).

As a woman who’s enjoyed many of FX’s programs, I’ve understood that much of the networks’s edgy, male-oriented fare was bound to push the buttons of its female viewers. But with the rape of Janet Gavin, “Rescue Me” came close to having me push the Off button on my remote.

And I’d bet a lot of male fans felt the same way.

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

TVNotebook
Which Titans of TV Have Lost Their Way?

Did HBO's "Entourage" take a wrong turn? Can "Lost" find its way home?
By Deborah Netburn Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 22, 2006

Last Sunday evening between 9 and 9:30 we were dutifully watching "Entourage," the HBO show that we never considered brilliant but always generally enjoyed. It was super lightweight fun — There's Urth! There's Barney's! — but we weren't having any fun at all! Ari's once-hilarious rants felt stale and left us cold. And when the twist was revealed about the blackout and the box office numbers, well, we just about rolled our eyes out of our head. And that's when we got to wondering: Do all good shows inevitably go bad?

To find out, we selected 10 shows that have at one point in their lifespan been popular and successful (with critics, the general public, or both) and asked a panel of TV experts to tell us if the quality of the shows has started to wane. There were some differences in opinions, as well as some meeting of the minds. And not everybody agreed with us on "Entourage."

The Panel:

Sarah Bunting: Co-editor in chief of Televisionwithoutpity.com
Keith McDuffee: Editor of TVSquad.com
Morgan Murphy: Comedian and TV writer, formerly of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and "Crank Yankers"
Joseph Fahs: Writer and co-founder of tvgasm.com
Jon Hein: Founder of JumpTheShark.com

'The Sopranos'

SB: No. "Conventional wisdom is that the last season sucked; I disagree."

MM: No. "You mean the best show on TV? I won't utter a negative word about it, or my Sunday night watching party will have me shot."

JF: Yes. "I would have to say the show has faltered. It's always been one of the most highly anticipated shows and the acting itself is still excellent, but when we are talking about the storyline it's sort of been whatever. I think the Ralphie season was the last really good season."

'Entourage'

MM: No. "My favorite parts of the show are jokes so inside that I can only bet that the rest of America is sitting in silence waiting for another celebrity cameo. I think it's a positive that they realized both Jeremy Piven and Kevin Dillon's characters deserved more time."

JF: Yes. "…It was like a pop culture thing and you had an idea that it was subversive and kind of funny, but now they are being too self-aware. In previous seasons, you always watched just for Jeremy Piven and just dealt with the other characters for him, but this year even his performance hasn't quite lived up."

JH: Not yet. "I think it is too soon to tell, but it is in danger. You can see it becoming a victim of its own success, like what happened with 'The Osbournes.' Once Ozzy is at a White House Correspondents dinner it is too mainstream. The more they focus on Ari the closer it will come to jumping. He is a great supporting character, but not more than that."

'The Simpsons'

KM: Yes. "It's getting a little tired and running out of ideas, so the upcoming movie might be just what this series needs to either give it a boost or send it off on its way."

JF: Yes. "It has been around so long it is hard to keep completely fresh, but it has probably been in the same place for six years. They have episodes that are funny, but I don't worry if I catch it on TiVo."

JH: Yes. "This is the trickiest of them all. The worst episode of 'The Simpsons' will make you laugh from your gut three times, but the last two seasons haven't been up to par. It's still good, but is it still the same show it once was? I don't think so."

'Lost'

SB: Yes. "The writers don't seem to have a plan; it has its moments where it's compelling, but the sloppiness and repetition give up any ground gained there."

KM: No. "I don't think so. That one has been pretty consistent."

JH: Yes. "Without a doubt it jumped the shark when they opened the hatch. I think it is still worth watching but I think the mystique is gone. And that happened the second they went down the hatch and found Desmond."

'Law & Order'

SB: No.

JF: Yes. "I'm a huge fan, but I don't watch main 'Law & Order' when it is new. It's like, 'Some day when I'm sick and I have to stay home I can catch that on TNT.'"

JH: Yes. "I think 'Law & Order' jumped the shark when Elisabeth Röhmbecame the D.A., or as people on the site say, 'Barbie became the D.A.' She didn't fit the profile. I gotta give the show credit. It is still going strong, but Elisabeth Röhmis the jump shark moment."

'American Idol'

SB: No. "They need to cut the filler, but that's always been true."

KM: No. "It was stronger than ever last season, so it's hard to say it has lost its way. A lot depends on the likeability of the contestants, so anything could happen season to season. Why would Fox turn down this moneymaker?"

JH: Sort of. "Obviously it is still a huge success, but it probably jumped the shark when Fantasia won. That's when people started to realize it is not really about how good the singer is but about how good the whole package is. It's a little too formulaic, but you can't argue with the numbers. People are still watching."

'24'

SB: Yes. "The show is a parody of itself at this point. There's a lot of departure from realism I can tolerate, but the twist that Logan was the driving force behind the conspiracy was unearned."

JF: No. "I thought this was an amazing season. They did a good job of not trying to outdo the first twist. And since they weren't trying to make everything so crazy we saw a lot we hadn't seen before."

JH: Yes. "To me '24' jumped the shark during the first season after Teri got killed. It was such a great moment and such a great show, and when it came back it was not as strong. Technically it is the best show on television, but it has never been as good as the first season.

'The O.C.'

SB: Yes. "I think so; I don't watch it."

KM: Yes. "Sorry, I gave up on this long ago."

JH: Yes. "'The O.C' jumped the shark when Oliver came on. This is 'The Brady Bunch' rule, that any time you bring on a character named Oliver, the show is no longer good. And with Mischa Barton getting killed off, you know it has another year and then it's gone. But Oliver was the moment for me."

'The Real World'

SB: Yes. "Alcoholic drama queens are interesting for a while, but past a certain point, it's been done."

MM: Yes. "'The Real World' went south somewhere around its Miami season. The show began as this wonderful experiment, and has devolved into a 'Girls Gone Wild' infomercial. I guess if you like 'Girls Gone Wild' infomercials, the show is still great."

JF: No. "'The Real World' has been around so long it is difficult to say if it has faltered. I think 'The Real World' still has moments of brilliance, but it is just not as consistent. With the Key West cast it is back to what it was in some of its better days. I don't want to say it is faltering. It still has its moments."

'Desperate Housewives'

KM: Yes. "Last season was a disappointment. The first season had a plot it followed and was really interesting. This past season was kind of boring and nobody really cared how the whole Applewhite story was going to end. I heard a lot of people saying they are not bothering next season."

JF: Yes. "I think it is starting to falter. When it started it was a fun show, it had a great new concept, and seemed to have a great cast that looked like they were having a lot of fun. Then this year it seems like they are always trying to do these crazy shocking things, but more often than not people are talking about if somebody had problems on the set or when Teri Hatcher and Ryan Seacrest had that awful little thing."

JH: Yes. "The jump the shark moment happened when Alfre Woodard moved to town at the end of the first season. When they came back second season it was a completely different show. The story line of Mary Alice ran out and they were stuck trying to build new story lines for their cast. It wasn't a must-see anymore."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-tvshowsfalter22jun22,1,5790573.htmlstory?coll=la-headlines-entnews

Critic’s Notebook
The week's most sickening scene

From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” June 21, 2006

“Rescue Me” has crossed a troubling line.
....with the rape of Janet Gavin, “Rescue Me” came close to having me push the Off button on my remote.

And I’d bet a lot of male fans felt the same way.


...I was offended that it wasn't in HD, but I'm a barbarian.

Actually I was shocked at first, then I wondered if they weren't just playing out some old game of theirs...and he smirked because he knew he was back "in" while his brother was too late and probably soon to be out.

Actually, I agree with Maureen.

The show crossed the line for me -- and I don't think I am usually a very politically correct kind of person.

Actually, I agree with Maureen.

The show crossed the line for me -- and I don't think I am usually a very politically correct kind of person.

OTOH, there's something to be said for not whitewashing the subject. This type of stuff probably happens more than we'd like, but it gets swept under the rug and we pretend not to notice.

Absolutely true.

As does, say, child molestation, which I also would prefer not to see portrayed in an entertainment TV show.

LOL ... but I assume "Whackings" and "Beatdowns" are ok ... not to mention Sheila's uber-violent run in with her abusive girlfriend last season? No? ;)

Good point.

I can't argue, but I think the line was crossed this time with the way the rape was written/acted.

Sports On TV
Finals' TV Ratings Rise but Rank as Third Lowest

By Larry Stewart Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 22, 2006

The six-game NBA Finals on ABC averaged an 8.5 national Nielsen rating, up from an 8.2 for last year's seven-game series in which San Antonio beat Detroit.

The 8.5 average rating equates to 6.2 million households and 13 million viewers.

ABC had the highest prime-time ratings on network television all six nights.

The 8.5 average rating, however, is third lowest since the Finals began airing live in prime time. Last year's 8.2 was second lowest, and the record low of 6.5 was set in 2003, when San Antonio beat New Jersey in six games.

Through six games, last year's Finals were averaging a 7.6. Game 7 last year got an 11.9.

In 1998, when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls won their sixth title in eight years, the average rating was an 18.7.

Game 6 of this year's Finals had a 10.1 rating, up from an 8.8 for Game 6 last year.

In Los Angeles, Game 6 had a 12.2 rating and a viewing audience of 947,000. The six-game average was an 11.0 and 853,000 viewers.

NBC ended up with a 2.3 average rating for the five games it televised during the seven-game Stanley Cup finals won by Carolina over Edmonton. ABC averaged a 2.6 for the five games it televised in 2004, when Tampa Bay beat Calgary in seven games.

Game 7 Monday night got a 3.3 national rating and a 2.1 in Los Angeles. The 2.1 equates to 158,000 Southern California viewers.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-sp-nbarep22jun22,0,2822278.story?coll=cl-tvent

Sports On TV
Big Ten Network Is Set Up With Fox

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times June 22, 2006

The Big Ten Conference knows that the core appeal of its sports rests inside an eight-state realm (population: 66.7 million), but that is not stopping it from starting a national television network with Fox in 2007.

The establishment of the Big Ten Channel, announced yesterday along with a 10-year extension of the conference's contract with ESPN, is not a surprise, and it may presage similar moves by other conferences.

The Big Ten has seen the growth of team-owned regional networks like YES — and how they exist to make money and pump up the club's exposure — and the advent of college sports networks like CSTV, ESPNU and the Mountain West Sports Network, in which CSTV is a partner. It also witnessed the financial benefits reaped by Notre Dame since it sold its package of home football games to NBC.

• The Big Ten appears well suited to exploit the apparently insatiable desire for college sports, with its 11 teams, from Illinois, Indiana and Michigan to Ohio State, Purdue and Wisconsin.

What better way to spread the Tao of Buckeyeism or the Happy Valley State of Mind than with a network that will carry 35 football games, 105 men's basketball games and 55 women's games, 170 Olympic sports events, conference tournaments and championships, old games and "institutional" programming (like commencements or reports on university research)?

Jim Delany, the Big Ten commissioner, said in a conference call that the 20-year deal with the Fox Cable Networks "provides us with a branding opportunity for our universities and our conferences in a way that CBS, ABC and ESPN couldn't," referring to the networks that carry Big Ten games.

But can what is essentially a super-regional network thrive as a national channel? Delany said there were four million Big Ten alumni nationally (including 250,000 in Southern California, 185,000 in the New York area and 150,000 on the east coast of Florida). How many of them are sports fans is uncertain.

The conference and Fox, which holds slightly less than 50 percent ownership in the channel, examined the ratings for its games outside the core markets — which make up 22.5 percent of the United States population — and concluded that they should go national.

"With our alumni base, a big bit of Big Ten diaspora and compelling product, we have a chance of distributing beyond our confines," Delany said.

Kevin O'Malley, a TV adviser to the Big Ten and other conferences, said the strategy was to assume that the channel would be heavily distributed within its native habitats, and that anything else in the 42 other states would be a bonus.

"What happens with cable operators outside the eight states is up in the air," he said in a telephone interview. "They didn't take a flier on this or predicate their decision on the outer markets."

The channel will start with a national boost that will reduce the angst about slow distribution in non-Big Ten markets. It will be available to 15.4 million DirecTV subscribers. (DirecTV is controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which owns Fox.)

How vigorously a Time Warner or a Comcast will add the Big Ten Channel beyond cable systems in the Midwest may not matter if distant Badgers, Gophers, Wildcats and Hawkeyes fans can get programming via the broadband, wireless and iPod elements of the deal.

The Big Ten started thinking of developing its own channel about 18 months ago and got serious with Fox earlier this year. At the same time, the conference was negotiating the extension of its deal with ESPN.

On March 28, the day before Delany visited the ESPN corporate castle in Bristol, Conn., a memo was sent to employees from John Skipper, ESPN's executive vice president for content; it urged them to make Delany and his associates feel that "Bristol is Big Ten Country."

He pointed to the "pennants, banners and Big Ten flags" on campus and asked that workers wear the "Bristol is Big Ten Country" buttons made for the occasion. Delany said Fox made him feel welcome, but not in such a boola-boola way.

• The ESPN extension, worth $90 million to $100 million a year (up from $60 million annually in the contract that runs through this season), gives more football and basketball games to ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, and adds offerings to ESPN's broadband, cellphone, Internet and video-on-demand businesses.

ESPN will also augment ABC's regional slate of football games by showing them in markets where ABC is showing another game.

But to create its network, the Big Ten showed its muscle by carving out for itself a portion of the games that ESPN will no longer syndicate to local TV outlets after this season. ESPN will also share its Big Ten game archive with the new channel.

"We have secured absolutely everything we cared to in this agreement," George Bodenheimer, the president of ESPN and ABC Sports, said during the conference call. "This is an expansion, not a renewal of the current deal."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/sports/ncaafootball/22tv.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Sports On TV
Big Ten again ahead of curve

By Drew Sharp Detroit Free Press Sports Columnist June 22, 2006

The Big Ten Conference has provided a new conundrum for the beer-swilling "Men of the Square Table" in those popular Miller Lite commercials.

There may not be a marriage more faithful than the union of a cold one and a good football game, but the Big Ten wants nothing to do with Miller Lite nor any other alcoholic beverage on its new television network, announced Wednesday.

The Big Ten Channel, the first 24-hour national cable network exclusively devoted to single-conference programming, will not accept advertising for alcohol nor gambling when it makes its expected debut next year.

"It was one of the first things that we discussed when this opportunity presented itself," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said Wednesday during a teleconference.

Few enterprises produce more ad revenue than beer companies. According to Street and Smith's Sports Business Daily, only the automobile industry subsidizes television sports as much as the makers of Budweiser, Coors and their cousins. Taking an ethical stand is fine, but a product's financial standing is what ultimately dictates how a business operates, or whether it operates at all.

"We're confident that we have a brand strength that will prove attractive to the corporate partners we'll seek out," Delany said. "We have our objectives and our challenges. We thought we could do more if given this opportunity. And we could do it in a way that best serves not just our athletic interests, but our university interests as well."

It's no secret that I regularly mock the Big Ten, one of the most overrated athletic conferences in the country.

But there's no question it has muscle behind the scenes. The birth of the Big Ten Channel and its unwillingness to accept alcoholic advertising money is further evidence that it's not afraid to step out on its own, take a chance and potentially take the hit from critics.

The Big Ten took the lead by experimenting with instant replay two years ago, and now it's the norm in college football. It's only a question of time before the Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference appreciate the promotional and financial benefits of forming their own networks.

And if Delany can make his conference's network highly profitable without the support of beer money, don't think the NCAA won't think long and hard about evaluating its relationships with networks that sell advertising to such companies.

Owning and, thus, controlling more of its own TV content is the new desire of sports leagues. It spawned the NFL Network and NBA TV. If the NHL could grow beyond a niche sport, it certainly could create a network to replace its home on the desolate Outdoor Life Network.

Give the Big Ten credit for taking action rather than merely offering more lip service about its disturbance with the proliferation of alcohol companies' sponsorship of college athletics. It can happily toast its good fortune as it blazes yet another new trail.

But the beverage of choice might be nothing stronger than Gatorade.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060622/SPORTS06/606220357/1048/SPORTS&template=printart

The TV Column
Surfing Shark Swallowed by Big Fish Gemstar

By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 22, 2006; C01

Jump the Shark has jumped the shark.

TV Guide parent Gemstar -- 41 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. -- has purchased the Web site Jumptheshark.com and related assets from Jump the Shark Inc.

For the uninitiated, the expression "jump the shark" comes from the episode of the '70s sitcom "Happy Days" in which Fonzie, on water skis, actually jumped over a shark. Fans believe the episode signaled creative bankruptcy on the part of the writers as well as the beginning of the end for the show.

On the Web site, TV fans debate whether various shows have "jumped the shark" and, if so, when.

For instance, the majority of participants believe the long-running prime-time soap "Dallas" jumped the shark when Bobby Ewing showed up in Pam's shower, meaning that his death -- and the entire 1985-86 season -- had been Pam's dream. You can see their point.

The majority of site fans also believe the 1980s ABC comedy "Moonlighting" jumped the shark when Maddie and David -- Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis -- had sex for the first time. Again, hard to argue.

More recently, there has been a raging debate as to whether "24" has jumped the shark and, among those who say yes, whether it happened at 3 p.m. on the First Day, when Teri got amnesia, or at 6 p.m. on the Second Day, when Kim encountered the Sherman Oaks mountain lion.

As part of the Gemstar deal, Jon Hein, founder of Jump the Shark Inc., will show up on TVGuide.com, TV Guide magazine and the TV Guide Channel.

"We believe Jump the Shark will be a valuable addition to our repertoire of entertainment content," Gemstar-TV Guide Senior VP Sanjay Reddy said in a statement. Hein did him one better with: "Gemstar-TV Guide was a natural fit for Jump the Shark and I'm excited to expand and enhance the brand with the leader on all things television."

Yup. Totally jumped the shark.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Anderson Cooper is the new Larry King.

A.C.'s "360°" program snagged 1.3 million viewers Tuesday night thanks to his celebrity-with-a-cause interview with Angelina Jolie.

It was Cooper's contribution to World Refugee Day at CNN; day-long programming on CNN and CNN International featured the global refugee crisis.

"It may seem strange that a glamorous actress like Angelina Jolie would devote so much of her time and money to help these displaced people," Cooper said at the top of his show about Jolie's role as goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Refugee Agency, which helps nearly 15 million displaced people around the world.

"But I think, in the next two hours, you will come to understand why she does it and how her mission and motherhood has changed her life."

The Jolie interview was considered quite the "get" for celebrity journalist Cooper. She and Brad Pitt had only recently returned from Namibia, where she had given birth to their baby girl, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt.

Cooper's interview with Jolie, padded with other material to fill out the 10-to-midnight time slot, doubled his calendar-year average and beat all cable news competition in its two hours, including Fox News Channel's combination of Greta Van Susteren's "On the Record" and a repeat of "The O'Reilly Factor." (In its first play, at 8 p.m., "The O'Reilly Factor" had averaged about 2 million viewers.)

"360°" was CNN's most watched show Tuesday night; "Larry King Live" logged 973,000 viewers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062102142_pf.html

LOL ... but I assume "Whackings" and "Beatdowns" are ok ... not to mention Sheila's uber-violent run in with her abusive girlfriend last season? No? ;)


I really don't want to let this topic, sensitive though it is, hijack the thread.

(Though the point of when TV goes too far to try to keep our attention from straying to another channel is a very good one.)

But if the topic resonates, here is another commentary on that episode from Ellen Grey of the Philadelphia Daily News

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//14874316.htm

and Alan Sepinwell of the Newark Star-Ledger (with bloggers' responses)

http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2006/06/raping-shark.html

Commentary
On the evils of consolidation in media

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jun 22, 2006

Yesterday the Federal Communications Commission officially began a review of media ownership laws, two years after the courts struck down changes made in 2003 with the aim of easing media ownership consolidation.

This time, FCC chairman Kevin Martin has promised a longer comment period and more public hearings. These hearings are expected to focus on limits on cross-ownership of TV stations and newspapers and the cap on the number of TV and radio stations that can be owned in one market.

The issue is a contentious one, and almost immediately opponents of consolidation began rallying against the FCC.

A group hoping to lead that opposition is Stop Big Media, launched Tuesday under the slogan “Save Your Local Media From Corporate Control.”

Some of the more than 30 coalition members include Consumers Union, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Free Press, a watchdog group that encourages competition in media and has crusaded against radio payola and for net neutrality.

Bob McChesney, president of Free Press, talks to Media Life about big media, politicians, the FCC and Nigerian hockey players.

How did the coalition get started?

The people at Free Press and other groups did the hard work; the coalition sort of emerged organically. While we were doing the fight in 2003 and 2004, it was always implicit that we had to have a coalition to be effective.

We’re going to be in opposition to stop the bad guys at doing bad things this summer, or at least we’ll have a shot at it.

They’re probably spending a million dollars for every $10 we spend to privatize the internet. We can really increase our political effectiveness. I’m really optimistic it will work.


What is your goal?

We’re driven by a conviction that we need to have multiple voices in every community. There’s been a pattern toward fewer and fewer owners, fewer and fewer newsrooms, less coverage, etc. It’s only good for a handful of owners. I think we’d like to see there be a serious debate about local media, I think it’s a debate the FCC needs to encourage.

Our biggest concern is there’s so much political pressure to ram through a change in the media rules without public participation. We want the public to be allowed to participate in the process that the FCC takes part in, meaning numerous public hearings around the country that are taken seriously, unlike 2003 when the FCC boycotted public hearings and ignored what was said. We want to make sure the public is involved in this.

We think if it is, there will be an excellent chance to create more diverse voices.

And there has to be research. It can’t be the sort of industry-sponsored sort of hack research that we’ve seen. It has to be from companies that don’t stand to make a profit from the new rules.


How are you voicing your concerns to the Federal Communications Commission?

We’re just getting started, but we’re going to go through the web site (www.stopbigmedia.com) for Americans to submit comments to the FCC. We’ll make it easy for Americans to give their thoughts on the matter of local media. We’ve got to make clear in our comments that the FCC is no longer a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street. It needs to represent the public.


What’s your big fear about media ownership consolidation? How do you think it would affect the average consumer?

Specifically, the main issue is cross ownership, which is the prohibition against a monopoly license. The government grants these licenses.

The deal has always been that the public has a right to say how many licenses a company is allowed to have. It wouldn’t be good if one company owned all the TV or radio stations in a community. There has to be conditions on how many licenses these companies are allowed to have.

If a company gets a TV or radio station in a city, they shouldn’t be able to own, say, the local newspaper. It has been grandfathered in a few markets, but it’s generally not the rule.

Radio became much more profitable when it became more consolidated. It became a cash register for Clear Channel. The situation that is heaven for these companies is our hell. If you understand it that way, you understand it’s not really a left versus right issue.

We’ve got all the numbers on our side, they’ve got all the money on their side. It’s organized money versus organized people. But we’ve got to organize enough people to match the millions of dollars these companies are willing to spend for monopoly ownership.


Why should media buyers and planners be concerned about media consolidation?

The ad community gets completely screwed by this because it’s no longer a competitive market. Prices are going to be higher without any increase in value. It’s especially bad for small businesses in communities that aren’t chains. They need lots of local media to let their presence be known.


What do you think the chances are that the FCC will get the rules through this time?

Well, three and a half years ago when they tried it, the moment they announced it, it was like a slam dunk, there was no chance [against it] whatsoever. The FCC members showed no interest about learning about the issue, they were basically brain dead, so it looked terrible.

Congress didn’t seem at all concerned, and the Bush administration was pushing it heavily, but we managed to stop it. We ultimately relied on a court decision to do the work for us.

So compared to then, I’m much more optimistic going into it. Now I think our chances are vastly superior. But I also don’t want to act like we can take it easy and coast. The profit potential for media companies is off the charts, and they’ll stop at nothing. They’re battling like their lives are on the line.

In fairness, they aren’t the bad guys here. Clear Channel, Rupert Murdoch, Tribune Company, they’re not the bad guys. They’re doing what they should be doing, making as much money as they can for their shareholders. So they’re not the bad guys per se.

The bad guys are the politicians who let them own all the media. They’re supposed to be representing our interests, not the interests of these companies.


What sorts of things are you doing at the grassroots level to fight big media?

Well, it’s just starting. In three months hopefully I can talk for hours on that, but there will be, I guarantee. The effort just launched [yesterday].


You claim that there is overwhelming public opposition to big media consolidation. What do you base your claim on?

Well, there’s a possibility that in the last three years Americans have had some epiphany where now they want someone eight states away running their local media, but there’s also a possibility that I will be the starting center on an NBA championship team.

The more people know about the issue, the more they are likely to oppose consolidation. The FCC’s enemy in this is an informed public. The two Democrats on the FCC right now rank at the very top of committed public servants in the group’s history, although I understand that saying that is like saying someone is the best ice hockey player in Nigeria.


Will the court ruling on the FCC’s last attempt at a rules change influence this year’s decisions?

I think it will. It sort of forces the FCC to understand that you can’t ram some corrupt thing through and think it will fly. They have to square it with the U.S. Constitution, they can’t have an auction with corporate lobbyists. That court ruling made it clear that those days are over.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_5533.asp

Interview with Andrea Roth in TVGuide. I think many are mis-interpreting that scene a little bit. There's a lot more going on there than what appears on the surface.

Jim: If almost everyone seems to be mis-interpreting something, I would offer that perhaps the people who worte/acted/produced it might have made a miscalculation.
Or just done their jobs sloppily.
Or, perhaps, shouldn't have used such a sensitive topic as fodder for popular entertainment in the first place. But then, to the males in charge of "Rescue Me" maybe the topic just didn't seem all that sensitive.
After all, this is not a show -- or a network -- geared to women. Perhaps the testosterone levels just got a little out of whack

Interview with Andrea Roth in TVGuide. I think many are mis-interpreting that scene a little bit. There's a lot more going on there than what appears on the surface.

My last post on the subject ... promise :)

I had a thought this morning that it's possible the whole scene was a) one of Tommy's "visions/fantasies," or b) a nasty bit of provocation / setup on the soon-to-be-ex-again wife's part.

Honestly, at this point I don't know which behaviour is more reprehensible: Tommy's reactions, Wife shacking up with Tommy's brother, or Brother shacking up with Tommy's soon-to-be-ex-again wife. Humm ... take your pick I guess.

Critic’s Notebook
Miniseries captures grandeur, themes of Old West

By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News June 22, 2006

(note: All time are Pacific)

Earlier this year, Robert Duvall was asked about the seemingly timeless appeal of the Old West in American culture.

``The western is ours,'' he replied. ``The English have Shakespeare. The French have Molière. The Russians have Chekhov. But the western is uniquely ours. It is our genre, our thing.''

Putting tales of the American frontier in the same frame of reference with Molière, Chekhov and the Bard may be a bit of a stretch. But Duvall helps to make a strong case with ``Broken Trail'' (8 p.m. Sunday and Monday, AMC), a lyrical, poignant four-hour miniseries about western life in the last days of 19th century.

Duvall plays Print Ritter, an aging cowboy who is a distant cousin to, but not a copy of, the actor's memorable Gus McCrae in the epic ``Lonesome Dove.'' Ritter inherits some property that he feels should have gone to his estranged nephew Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church from ``Sideways''), and he goes in search of Harte to ``make things right.''

The two men decide to sell the land to buy a herd of 500 horses, which they'll move from Oregon to Wyoming to sell and divide the profits. The drive becomes complicated when they rescue five young Chinese women destined for a mining-camp brothel run by Big Rump Kate (Rusty Schwimmer).

The two cowboys refuse to return Big Rump Kate's ``property.'' Instead, they flee the town with their horses, the women and a faded prostitute named Nola (Greta Scacchi).

The remainder of the film is taken up with a chase across the frontier after Kate hires ruthless outlaw Big Ears Bywaters (Chris Mulkey from ``North Country'') to track down Ritter and his party. The final confrontation results in a measure of justice, but not before it takes a human toll.

Duvall brings a mythic quality to Ritter without ever losing touch with the character's humanity. Church, Mulkey and the rest of the supporting cast are pitch perfect, with Church a particular revelation as he trades the sharp wit of ``Sideways'' for melancholy and a barely submerged anger.

Using Canadian locations to evoke an Old West that no longer exists, veteran director Walter Hill (``The Long Riders,'' the first episode of ``Deadwood'') has captured the grandeur and beauty of the frontier, while never letting the landscape overwhelm his characters (a problem with last summer's epic ``Into the West'' on TNT). A scene in part two on Monday, when the herd thunders over a mountain pass and down onto the plains below, is simply breath-taking.

But the real heart of ``Broken Trail'' is its beautifully nuanced script from newcomer Alan Geoffrion. The story has the sweep and drama of all great westerns while finding room for the timeless themes of loyalty, lost loves and chances, the brutality of the frontier and adherence to a simple code of honor.

Geoffrion's dialogue has a poetic quality without becoming overwrought. In one lovely moment, Ritter eulogizes a murdered friend by saying, ``Birth to death, we travel between the eternities.''

Things like that are what make ``Broken Trail'' the finest purely American TV film to come along in some time -- and validate Duvall's observations about the enduring appeal of the classic western.

Remote controls

• Back in 1988, veteran newsman Bill Moyers and author Joseph Campbell explored mythology with the highly acclaimed ``The Power of Myth.'' Now, Moyers turns to religion and spirituality in the modern world, with the six-part ``Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason'' (starting at 9 p.m. Friday on PBS). It's a series of articulate, sometimes humorous and often enlightening conversations with such authors as Margaret Atwood, Mary Gordon and Martin Amis. First up in Friday's installment: Salman Rushdie, talking about the conflict between free speech and the beliefs of individuals. Television doesn't get any better, or more literate, than this.

• ``Cold Case,'' one of network TV's least appreciated series, repeats a particularly strong episode from January this Sunday (8 p.m., CBS). The case involves four high school friends, unfulfilled dreams and an unsolved murder from 1988. The real selling point, though, is the show's brilliant use of Bruce Springsteen songs from the 1980s, including ``Atlantic City,'' ``Glory Days'' and ``No Surrender.'' Springsteen rarely gives permission for his music to be used on sound tracks; he made the right exception for this episode.

By the way, ``Cold Case'' will move to 9 p.m. Sundays starting July 16. That will be its spot in the CBS lineup come September, when it will be asked to take on ABC's ``Desperate Housewives.''

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/14875524.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

TV Notebook
Big Changes Coming to Law & Order

by Ileane Rudolph tvguide.com

For its 17th season, the aging legal drama Law & Order will undergo an extreme makeover. The NBC warhorse moves to Fridays at 10 pm/ET in the fall and will add two new cast members, including — for the first time — a female street detective.

After owning Wednesdays at 10 for more than a decade, L&O finally met its match the past two seasons against CSI: NY. Now NBC is going to see if the show will fare any better against another CBS hit, Numbers, on a night with lower expectations.

Notoriously brusque creator and executive producer Dick Wolf initially admitted he "liked the first schedule better," but he now says, "I'm sure we'll do fine."

Media analyst Steve Sternberg of Magna Global agrees. "NBC realized that the show isn't as strong as it used to be. However, it will probably do very well on Friday," he says. "There's room for two shows in that time period."

Major cast changes are also on tap following the departure of Dennis Farina, who played Det. Joe Fontana for the past two seasons. (Farina says he quit the show to focus on other projects.) Wolf quickly moved to hire Milena Govich to join Jesse L. Martin's Det. Ed Green on the police beat. Govich was most recently seen on Wolf's latest legal drama, Conviction, which NBC canceled after its mid-season tryout, and also had a recurring role on the FX drama Rescue Me.

Additionally, a new assistant DA — to be played by Alana De La Garza, fresh from her arc as Horatio Caine's ill-fated bride on CSI: Miami — will replace Alexandra Borgia (Annie Parisse), who was murdered in L&O's season finale last month.

Despite all the changes, Wolf is optimistic about Law & Order's future. "The new blood will refresh the show in the way it's been refreshed in the past, since we first added women to the cast in 1993," he says.

A ruling from the ultimate judges — the TV audience — should come in September.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Insider/default.htm?cmsGuid={6CD1FCDB-11A8-43E0-BE94-F00618F90947}

TV Notebook
Ray of light

HBO in talks with Romano about return

What would you get if you mixed "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "24" and put it on HBO?

Apparently, a single-camera comedy starring Ray Romano as billionaire who learns he has only six months to live, with executive producers Joel Surnow and Bob Cochran of "24" supervising.

A proposed 10-episode series is currently in early development, according to the Hollywood Reporter, with Dennis Klein of HBO's "Larry Sanders Show" writing and "24" show-runner Howard Gordon somehow involved.

Romano, who may not be a billionaire but is certainly doing well after nine seasons of top sitcom "Raymond," reportedly pitched the idea several months ago to HBO, which co-produced his CBS series through its HBO Independent Productions arm.

“Raymond” was broadcast’s top-rated comedy when it went off the air a year ago.

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

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.

(From Marc Berman’s Thursday, June 22, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
TV Tidbits: Notes of Interest

Get Well, Mr. Spelling:
Producer extraordinaire Aaron Spelling, the most successful series creator in the history of television, is recovering at home following a stroke last weekend. Spelling, who began his career has a supporting actor (remember him on the classic episode of I Love Lucy when Lucy and the gang stop off in Tennessee en route to Hollywood?), has managed to have a hit series on the air for five consecutive decades. And this includes…take a deep breath…The Mod Squad, The Rookies, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Family, Hart To Hart, Dynasty, Vegas, Hotel, T.J. Hooker, Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place, Charmed and, of course, 7th Heaven.

Ray Romano in Conversations to Go to HBO:
Former Everybody Loves Raymond star Ray Romano is in conversations with 24 creators Joel Surnow and Bob Cochran to star in a limited 10-episode single-camera comedy for HBO. The premise revolves around a fortysomething billionaire who finds out he only has six months to live. Dennis Klein, the co-creator of former HBO hit The Larry Sanders Show, has signed on to write the series.

-Gemstar-TV Guide Acquires Jump the Shark:
Gemstar-TV Guide International, a media, entertainment and technology company, has acquired website www.jumptheshark.com, the must-see online destination for fan postings on shows that have lost their momentum. The phrase “jump the shark,” of course, comes from the classic (or not-so-classic) episode of sitcom Happy Days when Henry “the Fonz” Winkler jumps over a shark in a water-skiing scene with his leather jacket on. Gemstar-TV Guide will develop and promote Jump the Shark across its multiple media platforms with website founder Jon Hein.

Remember The Coreys?:
Corey Feldman and Corey Haim, once the young toast of Hollywood, are hoping to reunite for The Coreys, an improvisational comedy based on their current lives. The Coreys will contrast the married life of Feldman, whose nuptials were featured on VH1's The Surreal Life, and the bachelor world of Haim. The half-hour non-scripted series is being shopped to broadcast and cable networks.

The Deadwood Clothing Collection:
Western wear retailer Billy Martin’s USA, Inc. and HBO have announced a licensing deal for the development of apparel and accessories inspired by HBO western Deadwood. The Deadwood Collection by Billy Martins, targeted to both men and women, promises to fit into any 21st century wardrobe and have the flavor and flair that brings to mind the Old West. It goes on sale in August.

Big Brother 7 All-Stars – And the Nominees Are:
For the fans of summer favorite Big Brother wondering who will compete in the upcoming All-Star edition, here are the 20 choices to choose from by voting at www.cbs.com. 12 will be chosen.

• Season 1: “Chicken” George
• Season 2: Mike “Boogie,” Bunky, Monica, Will
• Season 3: Danielle, Lisa, Marcellas
• Season 4: Alison, Dana, Erika
• Season 5: Diane, Jase, “Cowboy” Michael,” Nakomis
• Season 6: Howie, Ivette, Kaysar, James, Janelle

While I can understand they needed someone from the unforgettable season one, and favorites like Bunky, Will, Marcellas, Cowboy, Howie, Kaysar and Janelle were shoo-ins to be in contention, please…and I am begging…do not make this perennial viewer suffer through another season of earache inducing Dana and Ivette. As for my personal favorites – go Howie, Janelle and Will! Oh, and let’s not forget tough tawkin’ Monica. You go girl!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7877639#post7877639

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Heck of a debut for NBC’s ‘Talent’

By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jun 22, 2006, 12:08

America may or may not have talent, depending on your assessment of the contestants on last night’s new NBC reality show. But it looks like the network may indeed have a hit.

“America’s Got Talent” became the year’s highest-rated summer debut last night, averaging a 4.6 adults 18-49 overnight rating from 9 to 11 p.m. More promising, it grew from start to finish, something most new reality debuts have struggled to do this summer.

“Talent” achieved NBC’s highest non-Olympic numbers in that timeslot since April 2005 and even finished ahead of Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance,” the summer’s previous top show, when they aired opposite each other at 9 p.m.

During that hour, “Talent” averaged a 4.4 and “Dance” averaged a 4.0. “Talent” jumped to a 4.8 at 10 p.m., a 10 percent rise.

The show even improved NBC’s average in the timeslot from the regular season, when the network averaged a 3.2 over those two hours. Last night’s 18-49 rating bettered that by 44 percent.

“Talent” is produced by Simon Cowell and hosted by Regis Philbin. It uses the “American Idol” format and but subs in rapping grandmas and contortionists and tap-dancing kids for crooners.

“Talent” lifted NBC to No. 1 for the night with a 3.8 rating and 12 share in adults 18-49, with Fox behind at 3.5/11, trailed by CBS's 2.3/7, Univision's 1.7/5, ABC's 1.3/4, WB's 0.6/2 and UPN's 0.3/1.

For the 8 p.m. hour, Fox held No. 1 with a 3.1 for the first hour of "Dance." Tied at No. 2 with a 2.2 were CBS's "Big Brother All-Stars: America's Choice" and NBC's "Dateline" repeat, followed by Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" at 1.9, ABC's "George Lopez" and "Freddie" repeats at 1.6, WB's "Blue Collar TV" at 0.8 and UPN's airing of the 2004 documentary "My Date With Drew" at a staggeringly low 0.3.

At 9 p.m., it was NBC at No. 1 for the first hour of "Talent," followed by Fox's 4.0 for the original "Dance," CBS's 2.0 for a "Criminal Minds" repeat, Univision's 1.6 for "Barrera de Amor," ABC's 1.1 for a "Lost" repeat, WB's 0.5 for a "One Tree Hill" repeat and UPN's 0.3 for the rest of "Date."

At 10 p.m., NBC held onto No. 1 with a 4.8 for the second hour of "Talent," followed by CBS’s "CSI: NY" repeat at 2.6, Univision's 1.5 for "Don Francisco Presenta" and ABC's 1.2 for a second "Lost" rerun.

Among households, NBC won the night with a 6.6 rating and 12 share, followed by Fox at 5.8/10, CBS at 5.4/9, ABC at 2.5/4, Univision at 2.0/3, WB at 1.1/2 and UPN at 0.5/1.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_5560.asp

Jim: If almost everyone seems to be mis-interpreting something, I would offer that perhaps the people who worte/acted/produced it might have made a miscalculation.
Or just done their jobs sloppily.
Or, perhaps, shouldn't have used such a sensitive topic as fodder for popular entertainment in the first place. But then, to the males in charge of "Rescue Me" maybe the topic just didn't seem all that sensitive.
After all, this is not a show -- or a network -- geared to women. Perhaps the testosterone levels just got a little out of whack
I'll admit that when the scene first played out I was taken aback by what seemed to be happening, and I was a bit shocked that Tommy was going to add that trait his character, but as it progressed the whole dynamic changed somewhat to something less than what it first appeared to be, especially on Janet's part.

But yeah, given the male bent to FX, the writers may have mis-judged the impact of that scene, or at least did not write it well enough so that the audience could have understood the scene a little better. IOW, the audience saw a rape scene, personally, I think there was a lot more going on than that but the way it was written and acted didn't give the audience much to go on to interpret it any other way. Clues were there, just not enough of them, or defined well enough.

So anyways, the previews for The Shield sure look good... :D

Nevermind. Question answered above.

-Reagan

TV Notebook
What it will take for Couric to be No. 1

By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jun 22, 2006,

It would seem improbable that, after years in the basement, the “CBS Evening News” might become the No. 1 nightly newscast.

Yet it's clearly the hope of CBS News executives come fall, when Katie Couric becomes the show’s anchor. This week, signifying their great hope, network news bosses cleared out the last of the old "Evening News,” rather unceremoniously, Dan Rather.

But just what would it take for the show to ease past ABC's "World News Tonight" with Charles Gibson and NBC's “Nightly News” with Brian Williams? That show is some 1 million viewers ahead.

Several things. First, Couric must attract new evening news viewers, people who don’t regularly watch any of the three networks. It won't be enough simply to steal viewers from the other two newscasts.

“Two questions have to be asked: One, whether she will be a positive or negative, whether she will drive away more Bob Schieffer fans than she attracts people who are her fans,” says Andrew Tyndall, publisher of The Tyndall Report, which covers TV news. “The second question is whether her presence actually increases the size of the nightly news audience in general.”

For Couric to rise, she will have to attract those who currently get their evening news elsewhere, such as online or cable.

How many are there who are also Couric fans? It would seem quite a few. In her “Today” farewell broadcast three weeks ago, the show averaged 8.4 million viewers. That's more than 2 million over the show's average, and nearly 2 million above what Bob Schieffer's evening newscast draws. Last week it averaged 6.49 million.

Second, viewership for the other two nightly news programs must continue to decline. Compared with last year’s May sweeps, “Nightly News” fell 4 percent last month, from 8.59 million viewers to 8.22 million. ABC was down 10 percent, from 8.27 million to 7.44 million.

Finally, CBS must continue to invest in its news division, and not just in the evening newscast. Couric is a big name, and she may prove to be a very capable anchor, but successful newscasts are built on a lot more: whole cadres of talented people working in support of that anchor.

As Tyndall points out, CBS’s primetime and daytime lineups lead among households, but their morning and evening newscasts languish in last place, and he says it comes from a decade of under-investment.

“Over the years, CBS News has been a laggard at that network,” Tyndall says. “That’s the long-term task management has to address, why the newscasts are less successful than entertainment.”

Early on, when Couric takes over in September, she could shoot up to No. 1, as viewers sample, but most likely she'll then slip back, and where she goes from there won't likely be known for many more months. Tyndall says it takes nine months in the anchor seat for ratings to settle into normal levels, a pattern already seen for NBC’s Williams and CBS’s Schieffer.

Meanwhile, in newscast ratings for the week ended June 18, ABC’s “World News Tonight” bounced back up by 130,000 viewers over last week’s record low to 7.18 million, placing second. “Nightly News” dipped by 240,000, to 7.58 million, while “Evening News” dipped to 6.49 million from 6.73 million. NBC was hurt by delayed starts because of sports programming including the U.S. Open.

In other daypart ratings for the week ended June 11:

In syndication, “Wheel of Fortune” remained the No. 1 show with a 7.1 household rating, followed by “Jeopardy” at No. 2 at 5.8. “Oprah Winfrey Show” was third, though it slipped half a point week to week to a 5.4 average.

ABC once again led among women 18-49 in daytime dramas with an average 1.8 rating, flat to the prior week. CBS and NBC were both down 6 percent, to a 1.5. In full daytime, ABC led with a 1.6, just ahead of NBC and CBS at 1.5.

In late night, “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on NBC had its biggest margin of victory over CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” in six months, averaging a 1.8 rating in 18-49s to the latter’s 1.2. “Nightline” averaged a 1.0 on ABC.

The Katie Couric-less “Today” show on NBC showed no ill effects from the co-host’s departure. It averaged 5.6 million total viewers, 1.1 million more than ABC’s No. 2 “Good Morning America.”

In fact, “Today’s” 1.13 million-viewer lead was the show’s biggest advantage outside of the Olympics and Couric’s farewell in nearly two years. CBS’s “Early Show” remained in third place with an average 2.4 million viewers.

(Note: For last week’s daypart and syndication ratings, check out the link below)

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_5532.asp

as bad as the rape scene was in rescue me i was just as disgusted in the scene where the male roomate perfomed oral sex on the male firefighter,why does hollywood literally want to shove it down our throat that having gay sex is o.k. . I really wish this show was more about firefighting than sex.

as bad as the rape scene was in rescue me i was just as disgusted in the scene where the male roomate perfomed oral sex on the male firefighter,why does hollywood literally want to shove it down our throat that having gay sex is o.k. . I really wish this show was more about firefighting than sex.
Rescue Me is really not about the firefighting in the same way Battlestar Galactica is really not about space battles, it's about the characters themselves.

TV Notebook
Gandolfini puts muscle on pals

By Nellie Andreeva The Hollywood Reporter June 22, 2006

James Gandolfini will be hosting a sit-down with fellow "Sopranos" cast members Steven Van Zandt and Tony Sirico this weekend, sources said.

The star of HBO's Emmy-winning mob drama is said to be looking to intervene in the standoff between the network and Van Zandt and Sirico in their ongoing salary dispute.

With less than two weeks until the scheduled production start of the show's last eight episodes, only a handful of "Sopranos" actors -- including Emmy winners Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli and Vincent Curatola -- have closed deals to appear in the final installments of the HBO drama.

Following the network's decision in the summer to extend the sixth season of "Sopranos" from 13 to 20 episodes -- 12 to air this year and eight in 2007 -- the cast of the Emmy-winning series began negotiations for substantial salary increases for the final batch of episodes.

With the first table read scheduled for July 5, several key cast members, including Lorraine Bracco, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Steven Schirripa and John Ventimiglia, have not signed on the dotted line to continue.

But it has been Sirico and Van Zandt, who play iconic characters Paulie Walnuts and Silvio Dante, respectively, who have had the toughest and most publicized renegotiations.

With each of the two actors and HBO still more than $500,000 apart on the money, and Sirico and Van Zandt not budging on their $200,000-an-episode asking price -- more than double their most recent fee -- a conclusion of the groundbreaking series without Paulie and Silvio looms as a real possibility.

Talks between the actors and HBO are still ongoing.

"HBO has made generous offers to the cast, and, as always, we're confident that we will resolve all of these matters amicably," an HBO spokesperson said.

Bob McGowan of McGowan Management, who manages Sirico and Van Zandt, declined comment Wednesday.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/the_vine_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002726434

TV Notebook
Cable Provides The Most Interesting News -- Not Always The Most Important

(from Brian Stelter’s TVNewser at mediabistro.com)

Dan Abrams has a message for you: "If you're a news purist, and you are looking for strictly international news and news that is simply important and not interesting, then you are going to be disappointed" by cable news.

The new general manager of MSNBC made the comments more than a year ago on a (St. Louis) radio show. The host, Graham Bensinger, mentioned cable's tendency to cover salacious stories, and asked Abrams if he thought that it was a legitimate concern. Here's what Abrams said at the time:

"It's a legitimate concern if you're viewing cable news as purely information. I would say, you know, if people want to get their news, there are plenty of places they can get it. I heard you say you're going to be interviewing Brian Williams later in the show. There's no better network newscast than Brian Williams' newscast. And if you want to know, in a half an hour, what's going on in the world and this country, you should watch the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.

You shouldn't be watching-- you're not going to get from my show, or from many of these cable shows, necessarily the most important news stories of the day. You are going to get the most interesting and the most compelling and sometimes the most important. But I just think that to say cable news is a disappointment if it's not doing the same thing as newspapers or the evening newscasts, I just don't agree with that. I think cable news is something a little bit different, and you know, I think there's still plenty of venues for people to get the most important news of the day."

http://mediabistro.com/tvnewser/

This will be spectacular (some day) in HD!

TV Notebook
Happy 'Trail' West, thanks only to cable

BROKEN TRAIL Sunday & Monday night at 8 PM ET, AMC.

By David Bianculli New York Daily News TV Critic
***1/2 (out of four)

Two senses of wonder are evoked by "Broken Trail," the new AMC Western miniseries starring Robert Duvall of "Lonesome Dove."

There's the wonder of the rugged, breathtaking Western scenery - and the wonder that it has been left to cable, not the broadcast networks, to make a cowboy drama this good.

Think about it. When Duvall starred opposite Tommy Lee Jones in "Lonesome Dove" in 1989, that CBS miniseries was an example of television at its most superb. It told a novel-length story that featured prickly, unpredictable characters, and its serene beauty was as effective as its suddenly erupting violence.

Almost two decades later, and what's happened? When Duvall comes up with the idea for a new Western miniseries, it isn't produced or presented by CBS or another major broadcast network. "Broken Trail" (Sunday and Monday night at 8) premieres, instead, on American Movie Classics. It's the cable channel's first original movie and miniseries.

Network TV's loss is cable's gain: Any fan of Westerns, or of Duvall, will not be disappointed if this "Trail" is followed.

Veteran director Walter Hill and cinematographer Lloyd Ahern, who worked together on the pilot of HBO's "Deadwood," have collaborated in creating another evocative, convincing Western world.

Writer Alan Geoffrion, incorporating suggestions by Duvall (one of the miniseries' executive producers), has taken a fact-based story, married it with his own imaginative but historically believable ideas, and come up with a shiny little TV jewel.

In "Broken Trail," set at the tail end of the Western era in 1897, Duvall plays Print Ritter, a cowboy we first meet as he descends upon his long-estranged nephew Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church from "Sideways") to deliver some bad and worse news. The bad news is that Harte's mother - Ritter's sister - is dead. The worse news is that she willed her ranch not to her son, but to her brother.

Yet Ritter has an idea. He wants to leverage the ranch as collateral against a big herd of horses - 500 of them. With his nephew's help, he plans to drive the herd from Oregon to Wyoming, where horses fetch a much higher price.

So they take off, picking up strays, adventures and enemies along the way.

The strays include Heck Gilpin (Scott Cooper), a fiddle-playing cowboy; Nola (Greta Scacchi), a weather-worn but still luminous prostitute; and five young Chinese girls, purchased and transported as prostitutes when Harte and Ritter come upon them.

The enemies, who are as colorful as they are ruthless, include Chris Mulkey of "Twin Peaks" as recent ex-convict Big Ears Bywaters, and Rusty Schwimmer as his vengeful employer, a hefty frontier madam named Big Rump Kate.

The Chinese girls, who speak only Mandarin, don't know what to make of Harte and Ritter. When the girls are alone, their dialogue is subtitled, which does help us know what to make of them, at least. The same trick was used to underscore the differences between Eastern and Western cultures, and heighten both drama and humor, in "Shogun," and it works just as well here.

The eldest girl, whom Ritter calls "Number Three," should be familiar: She's played by Gwendoline Yeo, who portrays Gabrielle's Chinese maid on "Desperate Housewives."

Hill captures the performances beautifully, especially Duvall's playfulness and Church's simmering rage. He also captures other things beautifully: Sunsets that will make you gasp, scenery that will make you want to move there (in and around the Canadian Rockies, where "Dove" was filmed), and enough scenes of galloping horses - lots of horses - to make you accept "Broken Trail" as the real deal.

Hey, partner: They do make them like this anymore.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/col/dbianculli/

TV Notebook
Captain's flog

Shatner roast on comedy net
By Richard Huff New York Daily News TV Editor

Last year, Comedy Central's roast of Pamela Anderson was so hot - and so-not-ready-for-prime time - it drew good critical notices and spawned a bawdy, unrated DVD release.

So who best to roast after the buxom blond?

William Shatner.

Comedy Central will roast the popular actor in August in Los Angeles, with the presumably cleaned-up version hitting the all-yuks network Aug. 20 at 10 p.m.

"It takes a real man to follow Pamela Anderson into the roast pit, and William Shatner is truly a hero among men," Elizabeth Porter, Comedy Central's senior vice president of specials and talent, said in a statement. "By the end of this year's roast, Shatner may wish he was in a galaxy far, far away."

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/428703p-361528c.html

some info please. don't laugh , but i read these ratings posts all the time and have never understood what the numbers mean. "averaged a 4.6"? what does that mean? 4.6 million people? i think i like it better when it just says something like "Lost averages 13 million viewers a week." seems easier that way. :D

All kinds of numvers are used.
The rating is simply a percentage of all the nation's TV homes. Thus a 4.6 means 4.6 pwer cent of all homes watched a given show.
When speaking of a demographic unit (18-49 for example) the rating again is simply the percentage of all those in the demographic.
A share on the other hand, is the percentage of folks watching TV who are tuned to that show.
Like you, I prefer total viewers. It is simpler to understand.
So I try to post the weekly numbers using viewer numbers, not ratings.

Obituary
Richard Stahl, 74

Actor Known for Sitcom Roles
(From the Los Angeles Times)

via the Associated Press June 22, 2006

Richard Stahl, an actor whose more than 40-year career stretched from New York theater to film but who was perhaps best known for his roles in television comedies such as "Laverne and Shirley," has died.

He was 74.

Stahl died Sunday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund's health center in Woodland Hills after a 10-year battle with Parkinson's disease, his wife, actress Kathryn Ish, said Wednesday.

"He had been declining for some time now," she said.

Born in Detroit, Stahl did magic tricks as a boy and moved to California as a performer at age 15, Ish said.

He served in the Army during the Korean War, later graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

Ish and Stahl were off-Broadway actors when they met in 1959. They married later that year.

In the 1960s, the couple moved to San Francisco and joined the Committee, an improv comedy group, Ish said.

They settled in Santa Barbara in 1975.

Stahl's film credits include 1970's "Five Easy Pieces," Mel Brooks' 1977 spoof "High Anxiety," 1980's "Nine to Five" and 1996's "Ghosts of Mississippi."

He appeared on such TV shows as "Laverne and Shirley," "The Odd Couple" and "Barney Miller," and had a regular stint on the 1980s sitcom "It's a Living."

Stahl is survived by Ish; their daughter, Allegra; and a son, Oliver.

Services are pending.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-stahl22jun22,1,5378732.story?coll=la-news-obituaries

TV Notebook
Comedy Central Revives 'Futurama'

Latest Fox Project to Reappear on Cable
By James Hibberd TVWeek.com June 22, 2006

Three years after Fox canceled the show, Matt Groening's "Futurama" will resume production for a 13-episode run on Comedy Central.

The new episodes will be added to the network's library of 72 "Futurama" episodes previously licensed from 20th Century Fox Television. Voice talent Billy West, Katey Sagal and John DiMaggio will return for the new episodes, which will debut in 2008.

"There is a deep and passionate fan base for this intelligent and very funny show that matches perfectly with our audience and it is great that we can offer them not just the existing library, but something they've never seen as well," said David Bernath, senior VP, programming, Comedy Central.

"Futurama" marks the third Fox project revived by basic cable in recent years. New episodes of "Greg the Bunny" are being ordered by IFC, and Fox resurrected "Family Guy" after the series found success on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10248

Great news about Futurama. I wonder if it means the dvd movies are off the table.

I'll see if I can find out, George.

TV Notebook
“Tuesday Night Book Club” Yanked

CBS has pulled The Tuesday Night Book Club from its schedule for the next two weeks.

At least.

There is no word on whether it will ever reappear.

Its ratings were almost as awful as the critical reviews it received.

Critic’s Notebook
In Which My New TV Threatens My Livelihood

By James Poniewozik Time Magazine television critic Wednesday, Jun. 21, 2006

.....Well, I've lost my bragging rights: I recently broke my home-electronics piggybank and became the owner of my first almost-big-screen plasma TV.

The problem: everything looks great on it. Everything. (Sorry--if that sounds like boasting, it's because, well, I guess because it is. Hey, I've been watching a cereal-box toy for the past decade--cut me some slack.) Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, a movie notable mainly for being slightly less crappy than the other crappy Star Wars prequels, practically made me weep. Closer, a movie that probably would have seemed sterile and precious to me a week ago, was luminescent and gorgeous. I want to watch sports all the time, and I do not like sports. The CNBC ticker is like a glowing river of liquid money.

The upshot is, my critical faculties are screwed up. Even bad TV looks good to me now--not just good, but spectacular and mind-controllingly, propagandistically persuasive. ........ Until I adjust, I am going to assume that any new TV show I watch is actually 33% worse than I think it is.

This article cracks me up. Here this guy, a respected TV critic, raving about how great the picture is on his new plasma, and then he goes on to say this:

And mind you, I have not even watched anything in high-definition yet, because getting an HDTV cable box will involve lengthy negotiations with the lethargic despots of Time Warner Cable's Ministry of Technology, Set-Top Box Division, Digital-Cable Subdepartment.

:D Somebody better notify the paramedics when he finally gets his HD STB hooked up. He may not survive the experience.

I agree, archi.

And I posted it to remind us all how little most people -- even those who write about TV -- know about HD (and its wonders!)

I have a suspicion he is going to be a great advocate when he finally gets his HD hooked up.

...I was offended that it wasn't in HD, but I'm a barbarian.

Actually I was shocked at first, then I wondered if they weren't just playing out some old game of theirs...and he smirked because he knew he was back "in" while his brother was too late and probably soon to be out.

that's exactly how I saw the smirk, so I don't think the writer was paying much attention. It was more about competition with his brother than domination of Janet. Especially after his brother's comments about the first time he saw Janet just prior to that scene.

As for the couch scene. I thought that was hilarious, that whole storyline is a very funny examination of the views of male sexuality.

Rescue Me is not TV-MA for nothing. As anyone who has watched it for two seasons should realise.

TV Notebook
“Tuesday Night Book Club” Yanked

CBS has pulled The Tuesday Night Book Club from its schedule for the next two weeks.

At least.

There is no word on whether it will ever reappear.

Its ratings were almost as awful as the critical reviews it received.

You know, I'm a bit surprised by this. While the ratings have been awful, it doesn't hurt CBS to just burn the episodes off seeing as though we're in the summer period of television. I think the problem for this reality show and 'How to get the Guy' on ABC is the pacing. These shows don't move fast enough for a summer audience, especially in a documentary type of format.

If you're going go at a slow pace during the summer for a reality show, you better throw in some drama and I mean lots of its.

The Business of TV
Fox Wraps $1.8 Billion of Upfront Business

By John Consoli MediaWeek.com JUNE 22, 2006 -

Fox is the first network to complete its prime-time upfront sales for next season, selling $1.8 billion worth of ad inventory, $200 million more than last year, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

Sources said Fox, in addition to selling at cost-per-thousand increases of 2-3 percent, also sold about 2-3 percent more inventory than it did in last year's upfront. Fox sales president Jon Nesvig was not available for comment.

Meanwhile, several other networks are close to being completed, but not yet done with their prime-time sales. Some of that is being delayed by talks that are going on simultaneously for other dayparts. Fox, which will begin airing a late night talk show this fall, does not have other dayparts to sell, enabling it to complete its upfront quicke

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002726834

The 2006-2007 Season
CBS Announces its HD Plans

CBS TO ONCE AGAIN DELIVER ALL PRIMETIME SCRIPTED ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMMING IN HDTV
(CBS Press Release) June 22, 2006

"Late Show with David Letterman," "The Young and the Restless," and CBS Sports Programming Also Included in the HDTV Line-Up

For the eighth consecutive year, CBS will present primetime entertainment programming in HDTV, the network announced today.

In addition, the majority of that line-up will be presented in 5.1 surround sound, the most advanced sound system available on digital television.

CBS, the leader among the broadcast networks in HDTV, will present all 18 hours of its scripted primetime entertainment programming in high definition, as well as the LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN and daytime televisions Number One dramatic serial, THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS.

CBS Sports will also present its industry leading lineup in HDTV, including the PGA Championship, U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, three leading NFL games each week of the 2006 season leading to the CBS presentation of Super Bowl XL, along with SEC College Football, and NCAA basketball, including March Madness.

New and returning series this fall on CBS that are being presented in HDTV are: (all times ET/PT)

COLD CASE Sunday (9:00-10:00 PM)
WITHOUT A TRACE Sunday (10:00-11:00 PM)

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER Monday (8:00-8:30 PM)
THE CLASS Monday (8:30-9:00 PM)
TWO AND A HALF MEN Monday (9:00-9:30 PM)
THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE Monday (9:30-10:00 PM)
CSI: MIAMI Monday (10:00-11:00 PM)

NCIS Tuesday (8:00-9:00 PM)
THE UNIT Tuesday (9:00-10:00 PM)
SMITH Tuesday (10:00-11:00PM)

JERICHO Wednesday (8:00-9:00 PM)
CRIMINAL MINDS Wednesday (9:00-10:00 PM)
CSI: NY Wednesday (10:00-11:00 PM)

CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION Thursday (9:00-10:00 PM)
SHARK Thursday (10:00-11:00 PM)

GHOST WHISPERER Friday (8:00-9:00 PM)
CLOSE TO HOME Friday (9:00-10:00 PM)
NUMB3RS Friday (10:00-11:00 PM)

CRIMETIME SATURDAY Saturday (8:00-10:00 PM)

TV FEATURE

Cable's 500 outlets could be thousands more when online

By ELY PORTILLO
Knight Ridder Newspapers
June 21, 2006, 6:16PM

WASHINGTON - We're on the eve of a television revolution that proponents say could change how you watch your favorite shows — and who produces them. And if 500 channels overwhelmed you, brace yourself.

Media experts say television broadcast over the Internet promises a huge variety of small-audience programming that might include high school athletic contests, personalized business news and very low-budget independent films. What's more, it'll all be viewable on demand on TVs, PCs, iPods or cell phones.

"The opportunities are really endless. The ways of production, the type of content, are really all new," said Allan Hepner, a proponent of what's called Internet protocol television. Hepner is the executive director of a research center, the New Millennium Research Council, that predicts that IPTV soon will be a major competitor to broadcast and cable TV.

An estimated 49 million Americans already have the gear and broadband connections needed to receive IPTV. And 5 percent of U.S. Internet users already watch videos online daily, according to a recent survey by the trade group Online Publishers Association.

Dr. Joseph Fergus, the chief executive officer of an IPTV provider called Communication Technologies, said the transition to IPTV was already under way.

"What you have in the industry is the first stages of IPTV deployment: regurgitation of content" that already exists, he said, such as network television shows streamed online.

Apple, for example, offers hit shows such as Desperate Housewives for download through its iTunes software for $1.99 per episode.

Another growing commercial IPTV service is MLB.com. It offers live Internet broadcasts of all Major League Baseball games for $69.95 a season, and includes a "mosaic" feature enabling viewers to watch six games of their choice simultaneously.

Companies, government agencies and individuals all could buy channels or IPTV broadcast time to air their messages, Fergus said. The House of Representatives passed a measure June 8 to allow telecom giants such as AT&T to offer television service over their Internet networks in all local markets. The Senate is considering a similar bill.

"Why would they go to Time Warner and ask for a channel?" asked Fergus, when IPTV could air material produced by anyone with a digital camcorder and video-editing software for far less. "We're talking about thousands of dollars versus millions of dollars," Fergus said.

He estimates that a programming entrepreneur could set up and air an IPTV channel for $25,000. A single hour of conventional commercial-reality television, which is relatively cheap to produce, costs $1 million or more.

Microsoft and Intel are working on software to ease the Web-to-TV interface.

AT&T plans to air Internet videos as well as movies over its new TV service. Its revenue would come mainly from view-on-demand offerings of major motion pictures, which competitors rent in downloadable form for $2.99 to $4.99. Most of the Internet's streaming video currently isn't of high enough quality to rent at those rates, however, and how its producers will make money is one of the TV revolution's uncertainties.

One model for the new technology is MariposaHD, a travel and fashion show that American expatriates produce in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's available free online in high definition from their Web site, MariposaHD.tv.

"For the future of TV we see we are no longer limited to Fox, ABC, NBC and whatever your 60 cable channels are," said Jeff Newman, one of MariposaHD's creators. The first three half-hour episodes — produced on gear available at home electronics stores — have been downloaded more than 25,000 times from his servers and shared among users many times more.

"My train ride to work used to be spent reading the Wall Street Journal. Now I envision something where I can download a 30-minute summary of the markets and watch it on my iPod," Newman said. "The future is the ability to watch what you want, when you want to watch it."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/tv/3991054.html

TV Review
'Broken Trail' brand: unrevisionist western

Its old-fashioned virtues are refreshing in a tale of good guys versus bad that hits few false notes
By Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 23, 2006

"Broken Trail," a new western miniseries airing (8 PM ET/PT) Sunday and Monday nights, is the "first ever original movie event" from AMC, and it's an auspicious beginning on most every level. Even were there nothing in it to recommend but the quiet, lyrical performances of Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church as an uncle and nephew driving a herd of 500 mustangs from Oregon to Wyoming just before the turn of the century, it would be worth a look. The film strikes remarkably few false notes (a few too-convenient situations; a mathematically expendable character who is duly expended; unfortunate what-happened-afterward titles at the end), but those it does are soon over and gone with the wind. In any case, they don't spoil the music.

Walter Hill, who has made more westerns than most directors, including the revered "The Long Riders" and the pilot episode of "Deadwood," directs from a script by first-time screenwriter Alan Geoffrion, an old friend of Duvall's. (The actor helped develop the project.) Cinematographer Lloyd Ahern, a frequent Hill collaborator, has framed his images in such a way as to make the action feel immediately present; there is very little wasted space on the screen. It's a little movie that feels big, without being self-consciously cinematic.

"Brokeback Mountain" notwithstanding, westerns are rarely seen on the big screen nowadays, but they appear on the small with some regularity. (Hallmark Channel is airing three original westerns in July, and they were a staple of TBS under Ted Turner.) There is something still reliable about the genre, something written almost genetically into the culture, while the sweeping scenery and endless skies and galloping horses and galumphing cattle deliver sure-fire big effects at a relatively reasonable price. (It's easier to stage a convincing western than it is, say, a convincing 1930s gangster flick.)

At the same time, the Big Western Themes have been mined until they're nearly dry. ("Deadwood" succeeds by being less a tale of the Old West than of New Capital.) What makes "Broken Trail" feel fresh — perhaps "refreshing" is the better word — is that it isn't out to tell you anything definitive or deep about America or Americans, or refract the present metaphorically through the past, but just to tell a story and to afford you time with some well-rounded, recognizably human characters who are exceptional only in unexceptional ways. None of them are wholly original — their close cousins have inhabited myriad westerns that have come before — but for the most part they're played as if they are.

The story finds our ordinary heroes with the unexpected custody of five Chinese women who were to have been sold into prostitution and whom they will ultimately have to defend from the people who bought them. This is an old gambit, the mismatched traveling companions — their charges speak only Mandarin, which is sometimes subtitled and sometimes not — but it doesn't feel contrived. Much of the drama derives from attempts and failures to communicate, and from the women's inability to comprehend what's going on around them.

It's an old-fashioned western in that it's strictly a case of good guys versus very bad — the modern exploration of the gray area is given a miss here — although the good guys do some things we might think of us as bad now, here in the paved New West. (Frontier justice, I think it's called.) Still, they are all large of spirit: Duvall and Church are taciturn in the Gary Cooper mold, men who take each person at his or her measure, regardless of color, creed or previous employment. There is little in the way of character development; these characters know who they are, and they affect each other's fate without becoming implausibly different themselves.

The film has bursts of violence, but it's less concerned with violence than with the big open spaces in which it occurs, and the small spaces between the players. Its best moments are its quietest — conversations on what sort of stitch to use to sew up a man's head, or old family business, or the moon, and there are lots of interesting bits about life a century back deftly masked in the unusually musical dialogue. (Reportedly, the network pushed for more typical gunslinging melodrama, and Duvall threatened to walk out over it.) Spread over two nights, "Broken Trail" is long and relatively slow, like a Neil Young song, and it's a shame that its mostly laconic mood will be repeatedly shattered by commercial breaks. But perhaps you can TiVo through them or wait for the DVD. At least shut the sound off during the ads.

Gwendoline Yeo, Olivia Cheng, Valerie Tian, Jadyn Wong and Caroline Chan are the Chinese girls; Greta Scacchi is the good bad girl, like Claire Trevor in "Stagecoach"; Chris Mulkey plays the heavy; Scott Cooper is a musical traveling companion. The music is by Van Dyke Parks and David Mansfield (the roller-skating fiddler in "Heaven's Gate"). All do excellent work.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-broken23jun23,0,7348864.story?coll=cl-tvent

TV Notebook
Robert Duvall talks about pizza, 'Sopranos,' Bush

By Peter Johnson USA Today

NEW YORK — Robert Duvall is a big fan of HBO's The Sopranos, but he has no love for Deadwood, HBO's gritty Western set in the 1890s, which producers say is based on reality.

"None of the cowboys and ranchers I know think much of it at all," says Duvall, who summered in Montana as a child. Ranch hands there, he says, used a fraction of Deadwood's profanity. "I get the feeling that it's a provincial New Yorker's concept of what the West was like."

But The Sopranos is a different story, says Duvall, who famously played lawyer Tom Hagen in The Godfather and Godfather II. Actors in the HBO Mob drama "were born to play those parts. The show is stunning in its authenticity."

He ranks The Godfather movies and CBS' Lonesome Dove miniseries among his best works. The Godfather "was brilliantly directed and conceived," he says. Lonesome Dove was special because "there were so many hours to develop Gus. He had so many contradictions."

Duvall was in New York recently, promoting Broken Trail and taking in restaurants. He loves pizza — and asks for recommendations — and says Argentina, where he and his wife, Luciana, own a small hotel, has some of the best.

The Duvalls and friends spent an evening at the White House recently, invited by President and Laura Bush for a screening of Broken Trail. Bush, he says, is "much less intellectual" than President Clinton, with whom he once spent two hours at a dinner, but "a very bright guy, very focused — and he'll excuse himself and go to bed at 9 o'clock."

And there's something special about a visit to the White House, no matter who the occupant is, Duvall says. "For all our perceived or real faults, we're OK as far as I'm concerned. We're not as bad as a lot of people think. Why would 5,000 people want to come over the wall a day to get here if it was that bad? That's the way I look at it."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-06-22-duvall-main_x.htm

TV Q&A
Ask Matt

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

By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic

Question: You say in your review that Broken Trail "ranks among the best [TV-movies] I've seen in years." Another rave review by Mike Flaherty was in the same issue. Who wrote this incredible script? Why are writers not included in your praise? Thank you from the wife of a retired TV/film writer (of many Westerns). — Laurie

Matt Roush: Thank you. And mea culpa. Space in the magazine precluded me from mentioning more credits beyond the stars and the director, Walter Hill, but your comment reminded me of William Holden's great line from the classic movie Sunset Blvd.: "Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along." To give credit where it's due, the teleplay was written by Alan Geoffrion, who also wrote the novel. (He developed the story with his friend Robert Duvall, who gives an Emmy-worthy performance as Print Ritter.) Let me use this as an excuse to plug the movie again. Broken Trail airs Sunday and Monday on AMC. If you love old-fashioned, satisfying Westerns, you won't want to miss it.

________________________________________

Question: Will TNT be bringing back a second season of Into the West, or was it just a one-time miniseries? It was one of the most profound shows I ever watched and made me so ashamed of our ancestors who preyed on the Lakota. It made me think and read more about the atrocious acts against them, and I feel it should be shown to history students in school. — Carol

Matt Roush: Then it sounds to me like this miniseries accomplished its mission. I actually preferred Broken Trail, because it didn't feel as preachy, but I appreciated the scope of Into the West, and it did pretty well for TNT last summer. It was a one-shot miniseries, and I haven't heard any talk of a sequel. It's available on DVD, if that helps.

________________________________________

Question: I didn't want to be the one to start it, but since Jennifer opened it with the Lauren Graham question, let's talk Emmys. What do you think will be the five nominees for the outstanding-drama-series category? Judging by quality, ratings, buzz and past nominations/wins, 24, Lost and The Sopranos are definitely going to be nominated. Six Feet Under is thankfully out of the fray, and The West Wing faded this season, which opens up two spots. Since it's the Emmys, I have no doubt in my mind that they'll jump on the latest trend and nominate Grey's Anatomy. Do you think House will be able to snag the fifth spot? Considering its ratings prowess and the big push I hear Fox is giving it, I think it has a chance. To me, the show is the second best on TV, next to 24. But I have this sneaking feeling that The West Wing is going to somehow swindle a nomination from at least one deserving show. — David

Matt Roush: Can I just say how much I'm dreading the morning of July 6, when the nominations are announced and the war cry will begin on behalf of all the slighted shows, especially in the drama categories, which are overstuffed to put it mildly. Like David, I'm pretty sure that 24, Lost and The Sopranos are shoo-ins. And given The West Wing's track record, even in its spottiest seasons, combined with its creative resurgence in the final home stretch, it has to be considered a lock as well. Which leaves one slot open this year, and I'll be amazed if it doesn't go to Grey's Anatomy, although House is just as deserving. As are The Shield, Rescue Me and Battlestar Galactica, to name a few more. My personal top five: 24, Lost, The Sopranos, Grey's Anatomy and Battlestar Galactica. I can't believe I didn't put an FX series on that list. The category's just so tight.

________________________________________

Question: Many viewers are upset that Mark Harmon seems to be leaving NCIS. Apparently these people did not watch JAG. The same man (Donald P. Bellasario) created both shows, and he had Harm leave JAG, but not the show. To me, it is obvious he is doing the same thing again. Do you agree? — Foster B.

Matt Roush: Yes. Sometimes I think people have never watched TV before.

________________________________________

Question: Recently I was looking at a picture of Chandra Wilson in a magazine, and I was struck by how beautiful she is, while on Grey's Anatomy, she isn't that attractive. I find it interesting that most of the actors on Grey's Anatomy are made to look much worse — much more real — than they do on most TV shows. (With the exception of Alex, he's just plain cute no matter what.) It's interesting that it's still a huge show, despite the lack of an outstandingly pretty male or female... and I think it was a smart artistic move. Maybe there is hope of our culture not becoming completely superficial? — Blair

Matt Roush: I might take exception to the fact that there are no outstandingly pretty people on this show (Izzy? McDreamy? Meredith? Burke?), but one of the many things I love about Grey's Anatomy is how it allows even its most glamorous actors to look harried, unkempt and not at their best. I would never accuse the show of aiming for realism in most other regards, but I'll give them credit for avoiding the vanity trap (well, mostly). And thanks for acknowledging the beauty of a character actor like Chandra Wilson, who is a doll in person. (And if you saw the Tonys, how charming was T.R. Knight and his blue hair?)

________________________________________

Question: Hope you had some quality time off! I've been enjoying It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia during Fox's airing of reruns on Sunday nights. I like that the network is exposing it to a wider audience. (I'd heard about it, but not seen it.) What a hoot! Great characters and great writing. How's it doing in the time slot? Might we see more of it? Many times funnier than The War at Home. — Cliff E.

Matt Roush: First, I did enjoy a little break, going to Indiana by way of Kentucky for a family reunion. And we're agreed on the last point regarding Philly vs. Home, but from what I gather, Philly hasn't attracted much business on Sundays, where it's stunting in advance of the second-season premiere on June 29. (I've seen the first few episodes of the new season, now featuring Danny DeVito, which could help boost the show's numbers. Pretty funny and very politically incorrect stuff.) I wouldn't worry about its performance on Fox affecting its future on FX. This is an unassuming, low-concept comedy of bad behavior that isn't meant to be to everyone's taste. I do hope more people find it in its second season, though.

________________________________________

Question: When does Monk return from spring hiatus? — John

Matt Roush: New episodes begin on July 7 on USA Network. The even better news is that this summer Monk will be paired on Friday night with the equally delightful (possibly better) comedy-mystery Psych, about a young guy with remarkable powers of observation who helps the police by pretending to be a psychic, leading to all kinds of fun complications.

________________________________________

Question: I saw your comments last week about Gameshow Marathon, which seems to appall you. As a big fan of the classic '70s and '80s game shows, I have actually found Gameshow Marathon to be a guilty pleasure. It does have a couple of major flaws, but if tweaked a little, it could be very enjoyable summer fare. As for its faults, I think having C-list celebrities playing for charity takes any element of suspense out of it. Also, Ricki Lake is just not a good fit as the host of the games — she obviously knows her stuff, but her voice and style are just soooo annoying. But on the plus side, the faithful re-creations of the classic game-show sets are satisfying in a surreal kind of way. And I really like the concept of the tournament. This could be a fun summer show if it were played with real people (not celebrities) for their own cash and prizes, and if the games themselves had hosts who were more in the traditional host mold. Of course, most of the original hosts are no longer with us, but people like Todd Newton (already associated with the show), Ross Shafer or John O'Hurley would make the games themselves so much more enjoyable. Heck, they could even dust off folks like Bob Eubanks and Richard Dawson, who are still with us and would probably love the work, even if just for the camp factor. With some improvements like this, would it be more likely to pass Matt muster? — Leonard

Matt Roush: Absolutely. I liked this idea when I first heard of it. It was the execution that turned me off. I was also hoping to see more shows like Password or Concentration in the mix. This was all just too cheesy for me to bother with during a very busy TV summer.

________________________________________

Question: I have a comment on a topic that I've never seen you address, and I could be the only one who feels this way. With so many new shows in the fall, it's really hard sometimes to keep them all straight, and the names of the shows often make this more difficult. They're not very distinctive! Last season, there were three sci-fi shows premiering, and they all had one-word names: Invasion, Threshold and Surface. I could never keep straight which one was on which network, and even though I had read your reviews and knew that you endorsed one especially, I could never remember which one. For this coming fall I've counted eight new series with one-word titles, and none of them are very distinguishable (Vanished, Standoff, Justice, Smith, Jericho, Shark, Traveler, Kidnapped). Just a note to the networks: If I need a visual aid to remember which shows I want to check out, I'm not likely to watch — unless they become hits and the name is repeated enough to remind me. Not a very good strategy for any of those shows. For as much as its title was ridiculed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer never had this particular problem! Thanks for letting me vent. — Melissa

Matt Roush: It's an excellent point, although as you point out, if any of these shows connect with the public, what now seems like a generic title will enter the vernacular in such a way that we won't see it like that any longer. A simple title can look genius in retrospect: 24. ER. House. Survivor. Friends. Seinfeld. Best not to judge a show by its title, but you're absolutely right that it looked like the networks hardly even tried to come up with catchy ones this year. (I've seen the pilot, and I'm still trying to figure out why CBS called its show about thieves Smith.)

________________________________________

Question: Can you tell us exactly when WB and UPN are switching to CW, and how we can find out what our local channel will be for it? — Katie

Matt Roush: The official launch of CW appears to be Sept. 18. I don't have a complete list of market-by-market affiliates, but in most cases, either the WB or UPN affiliate in your market will become the CW channel, and the other station will either go independent or become part of the MyNetworkTV system (which launches Sept. 5). I would go to the websites of your local channels, and I imagine it will become apparent if either is now beginning to market itself as a CW or MyNetwork affiliate.

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

TV Q&A
Ask Matt

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

By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic

Question: Can you tell us exactly when WB and UPN are switching to CW, and how we can find out what our local channel will be for it? — Katie

Matt Roush: The official launch of CW appears to be Sept. 18. I don't have a complete list of market-by-market affiliates, but in most cases, either the WB or UPN affiliate in your market will become the CW channel, and the other station will either go independent or become part of the MyNetworkTV system (which launches Sept. 5). I would go to the websites of your local channels, and I imagine it will become apparent if either is now beginning to market itself as a CW or MyNetwork affiliate.

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

Watch for call letter changes with the transition. (Particulary stations following the the W/K_WB formula.)

In Las Vegas:
Channel 21 (WB-->MY) has changed their call letters from KVWB to KVMY.
CHannel 33 (Ind-->CW) has changed their call letters from KFBT to KVCW.

Sports On TV
These voices don't mince words

By John Maffei (San Diego) North County Times Staff Writer
(Note: All times are Pacific)

Mary Carillo isn't afraid to speak her mind.

That's what separates her from the norm and makes her one of the top analysts in sports.
Carillo and the ESPN2 tennis crew of Dick Enberg, Cliff Drysdale, Tim Ryan, Patrick McEnroe, Mary Joe Fernandez, Brad Gilbert and Pam Shriver will take center court starting Monday for more than 119 hours of coverage from Wimbledon.

Carillo listened with interest last Sunday as NBC's Johnny Miller ripped Phil Mickelson during Mickelson's meltdown on the 18th hole of golf's U.S. Open.

Miller's frank and honest commentary of Mickelson's collapse was the highlight of the network's coverage.

But announcers like Miller and Carillo, announcers who are loved by TV critics, often draw the wrath of the players, who mistake honest, open and professional commentary for personal attacks.

"I've been in more penalty boxes than anyone," Carillo said. "As thoughts leave my mouth, I often realize, 'That will cost me a year with that person.'"

Carillo said Andre Agassi doesn't talk to her. She has gone years without speaking to Venus Williams. Serena Williams isn't happy with her. And Maria Sharapova also isn't pleased with Carillo because of things said at the Nasdaq-100.

"I just wish players looked over the body of work, rather than one or two comments," Carillo said. "My job is to take the information I have and back it up with opinions. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. Criticism from players and coaches is just part of the business."

As captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team, McEnroe finds himself in a unique position.

"There are times where what I say (hacks off) my guys," McEnroe said. "I think they respect my honesty on the air. And if they have a problem, we'll sit down and talk. I don't comment on what happens off the court, but what happens on the court. I'll tell the viewers if I think a player is using the right strategy."

While McEnroe admires Miller's work, he said tennis commentary is different from golf.

"In golf, one shot, one bad decision, one bad club choice can make all the difference," McEnroe said. "And the commentator has some time to think and talk about it.

"In tennis, unless someone tries a shot between his legs, you concentrate a player's strategy. I try and focus on strategy because that's what the viewers want."

What the viewer really wants is good, honest commentary. In Carillo and Miller, they get it.

More tennis

• ESPN2's coverage from Wimbledon will start at 5 a.m. most days and run until about 2 p.m. A "Wake Up to Wimbledon" pre-match show starts at 4 a.m. ESPN2 has coverage through the July 6-7 women's and men's semifinals. NBC has the finals.

• ESPN2 has become the home of professional tennis. Len DeLuca, senior vice president of programming and acquisitions for ESPN, said all tennis has moved to ESPN2 because the network doesn't have to program around "SportsCenter." Plus, with ESPN2 there is flexibility to stay on the air past a cutoff point if a match merits.

• With Wimbledon, World Cup soccer, Major League Baseball, and the College World Series playing and with the NBA Finals recently completed, there was some fear ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC were spread too thin. But Jed Drake, senior vice president and executive producer of remote production, said each event has its own crew and equipment.

"With all these events, plus the French Open and the Belmont Stakes just completed, and the All-Star Home Run Derby coming up, we're in an alignment of the planets never seen before in television history," Drake said. "And we put tennis right at the top of what we do."

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/06/23/sports/maffei/22_00_516_22_06.prt

The CBS announcement about their HDTV plans could have been entitled "Nothing new in our HDTV this year".

Still only 3 NFL games in HD.

Sports On TV
Pac-10 Isn't Planning to Launch a Network

By Larry Stewart Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 23, 2006

For years, there has been talk about the saturation of sports on television. But there doesn't appear to be a cutoff point in sight.

The Big Ten Conference this week announced that it will launch a network, the Big Ten Channel, in August 2007.

There's already league-owned NBA TV and NFL Network, and the Big Ten Channel will become the first national network owned by a college conference. The Mountain West Conference, in conjunction with CSTV, will launch a network in September, but it is a regional network.

The Big Ten Channel is a joint venture between the conference and Fox's cable networks. The conference will own 51%, Fox 49%. The conference will supply the content, Fox will operate the network and the two entities will share the costs.

The Big Ten Channel will be televised nationally by DirecTV, which is owned by News Corp., Fox's parent company. It figures to also be available on most cable systems in the Big Ten area, but probably not on the West Coast.

The question now is, will other major conferences start networks?

Some might, but not the Pacific 10, at least not in the foreseeable future.

"We are pretty firm on our new agreements," Pac-10 associate commissioner Duane Lindberg said Thursday.

The Pac-10 has a football deal with ABC/ESPN that runs through the 2011 season and is in the final negotiations on a separate football deal with FSN. Also, FSN has a basketball deal in place with the Pac-10 that runs through the 2011-12 season.

The Big Ten Channel will carry at least 35 football games, 105 men's basketball games, 55 women's basketball games and 170 Olympic events a year.

ABC and the ESPN networks, under a 10-year agreement also announced this week, will continue to televise the Big Ten's major football and basketball games.

According to Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, that 10-year deal is worth between $90 million and $100 million a year, up from the $60-million annual value of the current contract that runs through the 2006-07 school year.

The new contract, which will run through 2016-17, calls for up to 41 live football telecasts a year and 59 basketball games.

CBS, under an agreement also announced this week, will televise about 25 Big Ten basketball games per season.

When the Big Ten Channel is up and running, ESPN will no longer be able to offer Big Ten telecasts carried by the new channel as part of its GamePlan pay package.

Bernstein to Resurface

Sideline reporter Bonnie Bernstein, formerly of CBS, is close to signing with ABC/ESPN, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

Calls to Bernstein and her agent, Babette Perry, were not returned, but the source said Bernstein could be working Sunday night baseball games on ESPN as soon as July 2. She would also work college football games this fall.

An opening was created by the departure of Sam Ryan, who left to sign with New York's Channel 2 and CBS Sports.

Bernstein, 35, left CBS this year, saying she wanted to pursue other interests.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-sp-tvcol23jun23,0,1599230,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

The TV Column
Surfing Shark Swallowed by Big Fish Gemstarrs

By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 22, 2006; C01

Jump the Shark has jumped the shark.

TV Guide parent Gemstar -- 41 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. -- has purchased the Web site Jumptheshark.com and related assets from Jump the Shark Inc.

For the uninitiated, the expression "jump the shark" comes from the episode of the '70s sitcom "Happy Days" in which Fonzie, on water skis, actually jumped over a shark. Fans believe the episode signaled creative bankruptcy on the part of the writers as well as the beginning of the end for the show.

On the Web site, TV fans debate whether various shows have "jumped the shark" and, if so, when.

For instance, the majority of participants believe the long-running prime-time soap "Dallas" jumped the shark when Bobby Ewing showed up in Pam's shower, meaning that his death -- and the entire 1985-86 season -- had been Pam's dream. You can see their point.

The majority of site fans also believe the 1980s ABC comedy "Moonlighting" jumped the shark when Maddie and David -- Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis -- had sex for the first time. Again, hard to argue.

More recently, there has been a raging debate as to whether "24" has jumped the shark and, among those who say yes, whether it happened at 3 p.m. on the First Day, when Teri got amnesia, or at 6 p.m. on the Second Day, when Kim encountered the Sherman Oaks mountain lion.

As part of the Gemstar deal, Jon Hein, founder of Jump the Shark Inc., will show up on TVGuide.com, TV Guide magazine and the TV Guide Channel.

"We believe Jump the Shark will be a valuable addition to our repertoire of entertainment content," Gemstar-TV Guide Senior VP Sanjay Reddy said in a statement. Hein did him one better with: "Gemstar-TV Guide was a natural fit for Jump the Shark and I'm excited to expand and enhance the brand with the leader on all things television."

Yup. Totally jumped the shark.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Anderson Cooper is the new Larry King.

A.C.'s "360°" program snagged 1.3 million viewers Tuesday night thanks to his celebrity-with-a-cause interview with Angelina Jolie.

It was Cooper's contribution to World Refugee Day at CNN; day-long programming on CNN and CNN International featured the global refugee crisis.

"It may seem strange that a glamorous actress like Angelina Jolie would devote so much of her time and money to help these displaced people," Cooper said at the top of his show about Jolie's role as goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Refugee Agency, which helps nearly 15 million displaced people around the world.

"But I think, in the next two hours, you will come to understand why she does it and how her mission and motherhood has changed her life."

The Jolie interview was considered quite the "get" for celebrity journalist Cooper. She and Brad Pitt had only recently returned from Namibia, where she had given birth to their baby girl, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt.

Cooper's interview with Jolie, padded with other material to fill out the 10-to-midnight time slot, doubled his calendar-year average and beat all cable news competition in its two hours, including Fox News Channel's combination of Greta Van Susteren's "On the Record" and a repeat of "The O'Reilly Factor." (In its first play, at 8 p.m., "The O'Reilly Factor" had averaged about 2 million viewers.)

"360°" was CNN's most watched show Tuesday night; "Larry King Live" logged 973,000 viewers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062102142_pf.html

Hey fredfa,

I just wanted to let you know that you posted the article about the Jump the Shark purchase and AC yesterday in this thread. I also wanted to tell you that I check this thread everyday and really appreciate all of the work that you and others do contributing to it. :)

The 2006-2007 Season
CBS Announces its HD Plans

CBS TO ONCE AGAIN DELIVER ALL PRIMETIME SCRIPTED ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMMING IN HDTV
(CBS Press Release) June 22, 2006


CBS Sports will also present its industry leading lineup in HDTV, including the PGA Championship, U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, three leading NFL games each week of the 2006 season leading to the CBS presentation of Super Bowl XL, along with SEC College Football, and NCAA basketball, including March Madness.



Ahh, finally the NFL has seen the light about the sham job of the officiating, so they're going to simply forget the XL was last year, and say it was this year. I guess they figure in 20 years or so, everyone will forget.....Those sneaky NFL people.... :)

Hey fredfa,

I just wanted to let you know that you posted the article about the Jump the Shark purchase and AC yesterday in this thread. I also wanted to tell you that I check this thread everyday and really appreciate all of the work that you and others do contributing to it. :)


Thanks for joining us, Rico -- - and many thanks for the kind words.

I often post several items on the same story to give people various views of what is going on in TV. I have found that one version of a story is often incomplete.

Whenever possible I try to post Lisa de Moraes from the Washington Post because she is fun to read and often has a different take on TV news -- even though the specific stories she writes about often were posted on the thread earlier.

Thanks for joining us, Rico -- - and many thanks for the kind words.

I often post several items on the same story to give people various views of what is going on in TV. I have found that one version of a story is often incomplete.

Whenever possible I try to post Lisa de Moraes from the Washington Post because she is fun to read and often has a different take on TV news -- even though the specific stories she writes about often were posted on the thread earlier.

Just so you know, it was the exact same story from Lisa de Moraes that was posted yesterday. :) No big deal though, I am surprised articles aren't posted twice on more occasions. You post so many articles everyday, I know that I would lose track of what I have and have not posted. Keep up the awesome work though. I know I would never see most of the information that you post if you weren't here to provide it for us in one place. :D

You are right!

(And I do, as you note, sometimes lose track.)

Thanks for pointing it out!

Sports On TV
ESPN jumping into busy season

By Susan BickelhauptBoston Globe June 23, 2006

This is perhaps the busiest time of year for all of the ESPN stations, including ABC.

``The schedule right now is an alignment of planets that has never before been seen on sports television, and that is not an exaggeration," said Jed Drake, ESPN senior vice president.

``Having just completed the NBA Finals, and being in the midst of a great baseball season, we're also doing the College World Series, and we're in the middle of doing the World Cup. Wimbledon starts on Monday, the Home Run Derby is about three weeks away. Oh, and by the way, we just came off of doing the French Open."

Still, Drake just laughed when asked if that wasn't too much.

``Are we spread too thin? The answer is no, because we have groups that are assigned to each major sports category," he said. ``The good news is, we've got an incredible portfolio of events, and the better news is that I've got a cast of people that are totally equipped to handle all these projects simultaneously."

ESPN2, which will air 119 hours from Wimbledon, begins its coverage Monday. Each weekday, ESPN's coverage begins at 7 a.m., with ``Wake Up to Wimbledon," a one-hour show of discussion, features, and coverage of the day's early action.

Announcer Dick Enberg, working his 23d Wimbledon, will be joined by Cliff Drysdale and Tim Ryan. Analysts include Mary Carillo, Patrick McEnroe, Mary Joe Fernandez, Brad Gilbert, and Pam Shriver.

NBC will begin its coverage with third-round action July 1, and culminate the next weekend with the women's and men's finals and ``Breakfast at Wimbledon." The network, in its 38th consecutive year of coverage, will air 38 hours. Play-by-play announcer Ted Robinson will be joined by Carillo and John McEnroe, as well as reporter Bud Collins and essayist Jimmy Roberts.

Even though Robinson has not been with NBC for all the years of its Wimbledon coverage, he still appreciates its tradition.

``That's what makes it so special, it doesn't change. Predominantly white clothing is still required of the players, they're called gentlemen and ladies, and there's been virtually no advertisements visible in center court," he said.

``Once a year, everyone in tennis steps back in time," Robinson said. ``And for two weeks, it's OK to revere the tradition and history."

Dream chaser

College Sports Television (CSTV) will air a half-hour documentary, ``Chasing the Dream," Sunday at 8 PM ET. The show follows the journey of former collegiate All-American Brett Elliott as he tries for a spot on the San Diego Chargers. Elliott, a highly recruited quarterback from Lake Oswego, Ore., attended the University of Utah. But after starting eight games for the Utes, he injured his wrist his sophomore year and lost the starting job to Alex Smith, the No. 1 pick in the 2005 NFL draft (San Francisco). Thus began Elliott's emotional roller coaster ride when he transferred to Linwood, a Division 3 college. The documentary follows Elliott up to draft day.

The Flying Tomato is back in the spotlight, this time on a skateboard instead of a snowboard. Olympic gold-medalist Shaun White is among 150 athletes who will compete in the second annual Dew Action Sports Tour that kicks off this weekend on NBC and USA. The two networks will air 32 hours of coverage over five consecutive months beginning tonight through Sunday.

Ratings for ABC's coverage of Miami's victory over Dallas in the NBA Finals were up 12 percent over last year's, averaging an 8.5 rating. Last year's San Antonio-Detroit series drew a 7.6.

http://www.boston.com/sports/other_sports/tennis/articles/2006/06/23/espn_jumping_into_busy_season?mode=PF

Sports On TV
NBA FINALS AVERAGE NIELSEN RATINGS

YR NET GAMES RATING
'06 ABC 6 8.5
'05 ABC 7 8.2
'04 ABC 5 11.5
'03 ABC 6 6.5
'02 NBC 4 10.2
'01 NBC 5 12.1
'00 NBC 6 11.6

Source: Sports Business Daily

Thursday’s network prime-time ratings are now at the top of RATINGS NEWS (the first post in this thread).

The Business of TV
ABC Upfront Topping $2 Billion

By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable 6/23/2006

ABC is expected to wrap up it’s upfront advertising negotiations Friday afternoon.
The network is averaging increases of 3%-4% and is expected to secure orders worth $2.2 billion.

ABC got a late start after a tussle with ad buyers over whether or not to count audiences watching shows on digital video recorders after they air. The advertisers won and all networks are pricing ads only on "live" ratings.

Even rival networks predicted that ABC would fare relatively well in the upfront because it's the only network to post an increase in audience this season, thanks to shows like now-veteran hits Lost and Desperate Housewives, and more recently the break-out Grey's Anatomy.

For all their other strengths, CBS, which is traditionally strong in households, fell 5% in 18-49s and Fox was flat, with its strong entertainment slate, including 24, House and, or course, powerhouse American Idol, 24, dragged down by weak sports ratings last fall.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346582

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.

Yet another year of no Wimbledon in HD, really a shame since the host broadcaster is creating a HD feed.

(From Marc Berman’s Friday, June 23, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
Ratings Box: What’s Hot/What’s Not

Jimmy Kimmel Live Picks Up Steam on ABC:
Based on ratings for the week of June 12, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live drew its largest audience (1.65 million) and best rating among adults 18-49 (0.7/ 4) in four weeks. With The NBA Finals at the helm in primetime, Kimmel scored its largest ratings among men 18-34 (0.6/ 3) and men 18-49 (0.7/ 4) since the week of Jan. 2, 2006.

CBS Sunday Morning Dominates:
Based on ratings for June 18, CBS’ veteran Sunday Morning was the top-rated Sunday morning news program in households (3.3/11), total viewers (4.60 million), and adults 25-54 (1.4/ 8). Comparatively, that was an increase over the year-ago telecast of three percent in households and 310,000 viewers.

A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story Scores on Lifetime:
The Monday debut of original Lifetime made-for, A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story became the cable net’s most watched movie of the year with an average of 5.1 million viewers on June 19 from 9-11 p.m. Comparatively, that was second behind only A&E’s Flight 93 (5.9 million) among all original movies on ad-supported cable this year. A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story ranked No. 1 in its time period among all basic cable in households, women 18-49 and women 25-54. Leading out of the movie, week three of new original comedy Lovespring International perked up to a record 1.5 million viewers at 11 p.m.

TV Tidbits: Notes of Interest

CBS Axes The Tuesday Night Book Club:
CBS has put low-rated The Tuesday Night Book Club out of its misery after just two telecasts. 48 Hours Mystery will fill the Tuesday 10 p.m. time period next week.

Tribune Broadcasting Puts Two and a Half Men to Work in Off-Net Syndication:
Tribune Broadcasting has licensed the off-network rights to sitcom Two and a Half Men from Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution for a fall 2007 launch. In addition to the off-network airings, which were licensed to the stations on a cash-plus-barter basis, stations will have the opportunity to stream five episodes of the series each week on their own websites free to viewers, with the distributor and the individual stations splitting the barter time.

Danny Bonaduce Hosts Starface for GSN:
Production has begun on Starface, a new photo pop culture game show on GSN hosted by Breaking Bonaduce’s troubled Danny Bonaduce. Starface, which premieres on Tuesday, Aug. 1 at 9:30 p.m., will poke fun at the tabloid world by pitting three contestants against one another to demonstrate their knowledge of the famous by donning a mask of that day’s chosen celebrity and answering questions as if they were actually that person. (No – I don’t make this stuff up!).

More Futurama on Comedy Central:
Comedy Central will resurrect former Fox animated sitcom Futurama from the dead, with an order for at least 13 new episodes -- the first new batch in five years -- to debut in 2008. The cable net and Twentieth Television had previously agreed to a multi-year deal to air all 72 existing episodes of Futurama.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/newsletters/proginsider/index.jsp

Yet another year of no Wimbledon in HD, really a shame since the host broadcaster is creating a HD feed.

Agreed, Jim.

But the glass-half-full way of looking at it is that we are rapidly ending the time when any major sports event is not in HD.

For just one example, the Big Ten Channel announcement the other day seems to me to mean that starting min 2007, virtually every Big Ten football and basketball game will be available somewhere in HD.

It isn't soon enough, of course, but is is coming.

All kinds of numvers are used.
The rating is simply a percentage of all the nation's TV homes. Thus a 4.6 means 4.6 pwer cent of all homes watched a given show.
When speaking of a demographic unit (18-49 for example) the rating again is simply the percentage of all those in the demographic.
A share on the other hand, is the percentage of folks watching TV who are tuned to that show.
Like you, I prefer total viewers. It is simpler to understand.
So I try to post the weekly numbers using viewer numbers, not ratings.
thanks for the info. i appreciate it. it makes sense to me now. cheers.

Sports On TV
Pac-10 Isn't Planning to Launch a Network

By Larry Stewart Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 23, 2006

Bernstein to Resurface

Sideline reporter Bonnie Bernstein, formerly of CBS, is close to signing with ABC/ESPN, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

Calls to Bernstein and her agent, Babette Perry, were not returned, but the source said Bernstein could be working Sunday night baseball games on ESPN as soon as July 2. She would also work college football games this fall.

An opening was created by the departure of Sam Ryan, who left to sign with New York's Channel 2 and CBS Sports.

Bernstein, 35, left CBS this year, saying she wanted to pursue other interests.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-sp-tvcol23jun23,0,1599230,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

Oh boy, I can't wait to see Bonnie back on television. I like her sideline reporting and she's not too bad on the eyes. Sam Ryan wasn't bad either, but I guess she wanted to remain closer to her home base of NYC b/c she traveled alot for ABC CFB.

Agreed, Jim.

But the glass-half-full way of looking at it is that we are rapidly ending the time when any major sports event is not in HD.

For just one example, the Big Ten Channel announcement the other day seems to me to mean that starting min 2007, virtually every Big Ten football and basketball game will be available somewhere in HD.

It isn't soon enough, of course, but is is coming.

Hopefully, ESPN wil decide to present the major conference games in HD on ESPN Gameplan. That would make day.

thanks for the info. i appreciate it. it makes sense to me now. cheers.


I am glad you could read through all my typos to make sense of it!

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Miss for ABC's 'Master of Champions'

By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jun 23, 2006, 11:51

The summer has not been kind to new reality series. Between the two of them, ABC and CBS have struggled, with yet another show premiering to lackluster ratings last night.

“Master of Champions,” ABC’s new program showcasing strange stunts performed by oddly talented people, averaged just a 2.0 rating in adults 18-49 last night, tying Univision’s “La Bella Mas Fea” for second in the timeslot behind CBS’s equally limp “Gameshow Marathon” at a 2.1.

While “Master” did rise 16 percent from its first half hour to its second, it peaked at just a 2.2. Considering how much promotion the show got on ABC’s NBA finals, as well as during World Cup programming on sister network ESPN, the network may have hoped for better results. The show was about 5 percent off what ABC averaged in the timeslot last summer.

“Master” averaged less than half the premiere of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” the previous night, and equaled the rating for two hours of “My Name is Earl” and “The Office” reruns on the network last night.

What’s more, it was the second ABC show this summer to debut poorly. “How to Get the Guy” premiered with a 1.8 average last week, the second-worst new debut of the season.

CBS has also had trouble launching new shows. “Gameshow” has been stuck in the low 2.0s, and the network yanked “Tuesday Night Book Club” after just two outings.

Meanwhile, Fox took the lead for the night among adults 18-49 with a 2.6 rating and 9 share, while CBS was a close second with a 2.6/8. Following were ABC and NBC each at 2.1/7, Univision at 1.6/5, UPN at 0.9/3 and WB at 0.8/3.

At 8 p.m., CBS was at No. 1 with a 2.1 for "Gameshow Marathon," followed by ABC's "Master" premiere and Univision's "Fea" both at 2.0, NBC's reruns of "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" at 1.9, Fox's "That '70s Show" repeats at 1.7, UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris" and "Love, Inc." repeats at 1.0, and WB's "Smallville" rerun at 0.9.

At 9 p.m., it was Fox at No. 1 with a 3.6 for a new "So You Think You Can Dance," followed by CBS's 3.1 for a "CSI" repeat, NBC's 2.1 for another round of "Earl" and "Office" reruns, ABC's 1.8 for "20/20," Univision's 1.5 for "Barrera de Amor," WB's 0.8 for a "Supernatural" repeat and UPN's 0.7 for reruns of "Eve" and "Cuts."

At 10 p.m., CBS led with a 2.7 for a repeat "Without a Trace," followed by ABC's "Primetime" at 2.4, a series-low 2.3 for NBC’s "Windfall" and Univision's 1.2 for "Aqui y Ahora."

Among households, CBS was No. 1 for the night with a 6.8 rating and 12 share, followed by ABC and Fox both at 4.1/7, NBC at 3.4/6, Univision at 1.9/3, UPN at 1.4/2 and WB at 1.3/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_5605.asp

Sports On TV
World Cup Ratings Stay Strong

Multichannel.com 6/23/2006

With the tournament about to move into the knockout round, Univision and networks owned by Disney continue to ring up big ratings numbers with the 2006 FIFA World Cup from Germany.

Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, through June 20 and the first 34 matches (two others were on sister service TeleFutura), averaged 1.37 million households and 2.03 million viewers two-plus, according to Nielsen Television Index data.

Those totals -- buoyed in good measure by the June 16 draw between Mexico and Angola, which pulled 2.38 million households and 4.06 million viewers -- represented gains of 132% and 150%, respectively, through the similar stage in the 2002 World Cup held in Korea and Japan.

Gauged against a similar time zone (six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the United States) in 1998, when the tourney was held in France, Univision scored a 79% gain in households (766,000) and an 86% rise in viewers (1.09 million).

Among men 18-49, Univision's coverage of the current tournament has attracted 1.28 million of those viewers, 145% more than in 2002 (521,000) and 95% more than in 1998 (657,000).

As for the Anglo networks, ESPN2 scored a 1.2 household rating and 1.04 million homes for its coverage of 24 matches through June 20, up 100% and 94%, respectively, over the same number of games in Korea/Japan, according to Nielsen Media Research data.

Over four matches on ESPN, World Cup coverage netted a 1.3 average and 1.18 million homes, respective advances of 117% and 127%.

ABC -- bolstered by the June 17 Italy-U.S. draw that pulled a 4.4 rating and 4.82 million households, the highest-rated and most-viewed World Cup match on the network since the 1998 final -- averaged a 2.5 rating and 2.79 million homes through eight games.

Those numbers marked amelioration of 89% and 97%, respectively, versus the three games it aired during the first two weeks of the tournament in 2002, according to network officials.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6346857

TV Notebook
Showtime snuffs 'Huff'

Pay net ends Azaria starrer after two seasons
By Denise Martin Variety.com

"Huff" has taken its last breath on Showtime.

The pay network has quietly pulled the plug on the Sony Pictures TV-produced drama. The most heralded skein in Showtime history, it scored a record seven series Emmy noms for its frosh season.

The cabler notified the cast this week of its decision to end the series after two seasons.

Hank Azaria starrer revolved around a troubled psychiatrist and his dysfunctional family.

Showtime entertainment topper Robert Greenblatt was so impressed by the first few episodes of "Huff" in 2004 that he gave the second season a greenlight before the show had even premiered.

But "Huff" has had a tough time of it. After a low-rated first season, Showtime made a big push for attention with an aggressive Emmy campaign, in which DVDs of the entire season were mailed out to some 12,000 TV Academy members.

Move helped "Huff" co-star Blythe Danner clinch the award for supporting actress. Azaria and Oliver Platt were recognized with lead and supporting noms, respectively.

But even the accolades and press attention weren't enough to jolt ratings; numbers for the second season remain on par with the first.

Series finale airs Sunday.

Showtime will not be short on one-hours despite the loss of "Huff." Fresh seasons of "The L Word" and "Sleeper Cell" are slated, and new dramas "Brotherhood," "Dexter" and "The Tudors" are on tap. Half-hour comedy "Weeds" also was renewed for a second season.

Too bad about Huff, some great acting and that was enough to get me to watch, but it's one of the most depressing, darkest hours on TV, I could see why folks didn't tune in.

fredfa-

Thanks for sports tv ratings.

My pleasure, harley.
I am trying to ppst a few more columns and writers who deal with sports on TV.
One problem, though, is that thervast majority of them write columns geared only to their own areas.

TV Notebook
How To Fix "The Sopranos" Problem. Now.

By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog “The Bastard Machine”

You may have heard by now that some of the cast members on "The Sopranos" are holding out for more cash. A LOT more cash. This has been going on quietly for awhile, but now has taken on an urgency because the "table read" for the first episode of the EXTENDED season begins July 5 and filming starts shortly. Translation: Everybody's ready to go forward...except Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico), Sil (Steven Van Zandt), Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), A.J. (Robert Iler), Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) and Bacala (Steven Schirripa).

That's a lot of people. The Hollywood Reporter has said that James Gandolfini has offered to step in and, uh, have a sit down with Sirico and Van Zandt, perhaps others. He wants to help out.

And yet, there's a pretty easy fix here. The actors are upset because HBO has insisted on calling these last eight episodes an "extended season" because there's eight instead of 12. So that means that this "final" season will be 20 episodes. The actors, not surprisingly, have said that this robs them of potential pay increases, since they'll be working under their old contracts. Sirico and Van Zandt reportedly want significant increases and are negotiating together. The others also want some sweet bumps, and despite making way more money than normal people, you can understand why they want a raise. This happens all the time in the TV business.

Now, creator David Chase is reportedly working (and writing) under the assumption that everyone will be there. Because if not, well, you can imagine the amount of rewriting that would need to take place. Creatively, it's just not an option. It would kill the series and I have absolutely no faith that any of the assembled "Sopranos" writers could wrap up the series without the participation of those actors.

But the interesting thing about this story is that it suggests that while Chase may have an idea of where it all ends - he's mapped out the final eight - he and his staff haven't actually written all of them.

No problem. Write four more. If Chase commits to another four, HBO could call this next batch "the final season" despite everything that's been written. Hey, the fans will forgive you for giving them episodes they never expected to see. And in turn, maybe that'll take some heat off of Chase to wrap this thing up as neatly as possible. By officially adding a full season, HBO could then renegotiate with the unsigned actors and possibly reduce what they're asking for by amortizing the costs over a full season. Hey, maybe even a full season DVD would sell better.

Except for burdening Chase with four additional episodes (again, who knows if his deep secret is that eight just wasn't enough), this could be a win-win for HBO, the series and the audience.

The key here is for HBO not to get stingy. This is the flagship series. It would be disastrous to ruin the legacy of "The Sopranos" by getting into a pissing match over money, resulting in a whole bunch of familiar characters having their stories ended in some premature or lame way just because negotiations broke down.

Forget the extended season. Give us a real season. Problem solved.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/indexn?blogid=24

TV Review
Western assumes near mythic quality

Broken Trail Epic western miniseries starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church, directed by Walter Hill. Airs Sunday and Monday at 8 PM ET/PT on AMC.
By Matt Zoller Seitz Newark Star-Ledger Friday, June 23, 2006

On paper, director Walter Hill's latest movie, the drama "Broken Trail," sounds like a return to familiar territory: a leisurely, two-part movie about a couple of cowpokes (Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church) escorting a wagonload of Chinese prostitutes across immense and often forbidding vistas, driving horses and surviving gunfights while getting to know, trust and help one another.

But in the hands of Hill, writer and co-producer Alan Geffrion, and the formidable Duvall (who's credited as an executive producer), this variation on an oft-told tale acquires a sneaky mythic heft. It's so relaxed, almost meditative -- with so much attention paid to the rituals of trail life and the color and texture of the land and sky -- that you don't so much watch it as get lost inside it.

Western fans will be reminded of other classic tales, from "Red River" through "Lonesome Dove" (which also starred Duvall). But in the end, "Broken Trail" has more in common with "The Canterbury Tales" or "The Odyssey" -- tales that were ultimately not about a specific time or place, but the fundamental questions humans have confronted (or evaded) throughout history. What is good and what is evil? And does the desire to survive, or simply to succeed, ever give us license to ignore the degradation of others?

The questions aren't posed in dialogue; they're encoded in situations and shots that play off each other like metaphoric images in a poem or song.

Sunday's episode, for instance, begins with a scene where five young, virginal Chinese women -- played by Gwendolyn Yeo, Caroline Chan, Jadyn Wong, Olivia Cheng and Valerie Tian -- are sold by their Chinese captors to a white entrepreneur named Fender (James Russo). He plans to deliver them to a brothel in Caribou, Idaho, where they'll spend the rest of their lives in sexual servitude.

Fender inspects the women roughly, like livestock. Despite their nudity and the constant threat of violation, there is nothing exploitive about this scene because our sympathies lie with the women, who have been downgraded from human beings to merchandise.

The next sequence shows cowpoke Print Ritter (Duvall) tracking down his nephew, Tom Harte (Church), to tell him that Tom's estranged mother died and left her estate to Print. Print lays out his crazy plan in detail -- mortgage the property, buy a couple of hundred horses and drive them across the country, and sell them to a horse dealer with ties to the English military -- and invites Harte to come along.

But what's critical in this scene isn't the exposition, but the images of animals being branded, the hot iron hissing against their flesh. These images define Hill's storytelling purpose: "Broken Trail" is about what it means to be free -- indeed, what it means to be human.

And, unfortunately for the women, in the economy of the old West, with its clearly defined racial and economic caste system, they are just a different kind of livestock.

In their first scene together, Print reads Tom a newspaper ad: "Wanted, hot or cold blooded horses, sound and disease free, 3 to 8 years of age, purchase price commensurate with quality of stock," and this language is echoed throughout the miniseries, every time the women come into contact with strangers who see them as commodities rather than people.

One of Part One's most moving scenes finds Print trying to communicate with the women by assigning them the numbers one through five -- another dehumanizing touch that's compounded when he jokes that if the women don't memorize their numbers, he'll tattoo them on their backs.

As the cowpokes herd their horses and protect their new companions, they keep meeting new strangers (some decent, some vile), visiting new territories and towns, and growing closer to each other and to the women.

But this is no he-man rescue fantasy where the women are just prizes with names. The women become increasingly self-reliant, taking part in rituals of trail life, learning broken English and the basics of riding a horse and driving a wagon. And over time, their personalities become as sharply defined as the men's -- particularly Cheng's character, Ye Fung, who survives an unspeakable ordeal and the nightmares that follow, then emerges a tougher person, a potential leader in the making.

Throughout, Hill and Geffrion ensure that every action, every exchange, comments on the morality or immorality of the characters. Their conscientiousness reminds us that in good westerns, the land isn't just a backdrop for tough talk and gunplay, it's an arena where values are tested and affirmed.

"Everything has a price," a tough madam at a brothel warns Tom's fellow cowpoke, Heck Gilipin (Scott Cooper).

"Not everything," he replies.

This richness makes "Broken Trail" the finest classically styled western to come down the pike since "Unforgiven" or perhaps Hill's own "The Long Riders," and an intriguing counterpart to HBO's more innovative, theatrical, intellectual "Deadwood" (which has devoted several episodes to the slave trade in the old West).

It's also Hill's most expansive, meditative, emotionally wrenching movie -- a work whose casual brutality and period-accurate stoicism are eclipsed, in the end, by its startling vulnerability. These frontier men and women don't talk much about their feelings, but their emotions are written on their faces, and their suffering is as wrenching as their triumphs are sweet. Their humanity is a sight to see.

http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/zollerseitz/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1151036774214350.xml&coll=1&thispage=1

The 2006-2007 Season
Fall TV Sneak Preview: CBS

By Kevin D. Thompson Palm Beach Post Television Writer

OK, I watched three of CBS new shows this morning. Here's my quick report

The Class: It's funny how a show can go from bad to so-so to pretty good in the span of 18 minutes. I was ready to skip Class, a comedy about a group of twentysomethings who have known each other since being in the same third grade class, minutes after turning it on. Why? Well, when you're not laughing much, that's normally not good. At first blush Class looked like another one-note comedy that featured a bunch of half-baked jokes. Wisely, however, it appears as if the writers are more interested in creating a character-based comedy that's willing to tackle such real-life issues as depression while still making us laugh -- and care.

Shark: Just like I thought -- James Woods doesn't disappoint as Sebastian Stark, a snarling, cutthroat attorney who'd send his own mom to The Big House if it meant keeping his perfect record in tact. Woods doesn't simply chew the scenery, he devours it while yelling such lines like, "Your job is to win! Justice is God's problem." How dedicated is Stark to his profession? Dig this...he has a mock courtroom -- in his own house! Believe me, you won't be able to take your eyes off Woods. You can almost see the veteran big screen actor rehearsing his Emmy speech (it would be his third) inside his head while he's barking his lines.

Jericho: What hath Lost wrought? Jericho, that's what, a snoozer drama about a small Kansas town that's plunged into chaos after a mysterious nuclear mushroom cloud appears. Are the residents of the itty bitty town the last people left on earth? Will they continue to fight over gas like we do in Florida when the power has been out for a few days? Will viewers really care? Invasion, ABC's alien invasion drama, didn't exactly set any ratings records last fall. That's not good news for the producers of this series. While CBS is clearly trying to piggyback on the success of that plane survivors trapped on a weird island drama, Jericho doesn't get off to such a hot start.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/thompson/entries/2006/06/fall_tv_sneak_p.html

TV Notebook
Meadow Back In Mafia Family

By Michael Starr The New York Post June 23, 2006

Jamie Lynn Sigler, who plays Tony's daughter, Meadow, on "The Sopranos," is "close" to signing a deal to return to the show, sources say.

Sigler is one of several "Sopranos" co-stars, including Tony Sirico, Steven Schirripa, Steven Van Zandt, Robert Iler and Lorraine Bracco, who've yet to sign up for the show's seventh and final season.

On the show, Sigler's character, Meadow, moved to California to be with her boyfriend, and wasn't seen on last season's finale. In one scene, Tony (James Gandolfini) spoke to Meadow on the phone.

Sigler, who earned $85,000 per episode last season, is said to be asking for less of a raise than Van Zandt and Sirico, who are seeking $200,000 per episode.

Sigler's agent declined to comment yesterday.

Meanwhile, Gandolfini is reaching out to several of the holdout actors, trying to get them to resolve their contract differences with HBO, according to trade reports.

As of late yesterday, no meetings were scheduled, but Gandolfini has phoned several of the cast members with the idea of meeting with them, insiders say.

The "Sopranos" cast is scheduled to gather for the season's first script reading July 5, and the show is scheduled to begin filming the next week.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/meadow_back_in_mafia_family_entertainment_michael_starr.htm

TV Notebook
David and Joan in 'Morning'

By Michael Starr The New York Post June 23, 2006

Former "Good Morning America" co-hosts Joan Lunden and David Hartman will return to their old stomping grounds next week when the show says buh-bye to Charlie Gibson, who's now anchoring ABC's "World News Tonight" and is leaving "GMA" after 19 years.

Gibson will be feted with a "Times Square Block Party" on Wednesday, including a live audience, outside the show's studios. Former "GMA" weathermen Spencer Christian, who now plies his trade at KGO in San Francisco, and Tony Perkins, who's down in D.C., will also be there (Christian via remote), along with co-anchors Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts.

Gibson's departure from "GMA" is one of several changes the show will experience over the next few months; executive producer Ben Sherwood leaves in October

http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/starr_report_entertainment_michael_starr.htm

The Business of TV
CW completes upfront sales; tops WB's '05

By Paul J. Gough The Hollywood Reporter June 24, 2006

NEW YORK -- The 2006-07 broadcast upfront lurched to a conclusion Friday, with two networks substantially completing business and the three others well on their way.

Sources said the CW, the network that will rise from the closings of WB Network and UPN in September, has for the most part completed its business. Volume was pegged by various sources at $600 million-$650 million, slightly more than WB took in on its own during the last upfront. Average CPM increases also were up about 1%.

Fox completed its $1.7 billion upfront late in the week. While nothing in this year's upfront negotiations could be considered quick, Fox's was lightning-fast compared to the other broadcasters.

Two weeks ago, News Corp. chief operating officer Peter Chernin said the network had sold about 70% of the inventory it had set aside, and it didn't take long for the network to substantially conclude business.

Fox's average CPM increases were in the range of 2%-4% thanks to the success of "American Idol," "House," "24" and "Prison Break."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002727617

What is the latest news on "The View" and "General Hospital" being in HD? I could have sworn I read somewhere that both of those shows were suppose to be in HD by now. Also any news on the following talk shows being offered in HD anytime soon:

Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (CBS)
Last Call with Carson Daly (NBC)
Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)
The Ellen DeGeneres Show (NBC)
Live with Regis and Kelly (ABC)

The only one I watch on a regular basis is Craig Ferguson but every now and then I tune into the others if they have a guest I really like.

What is the latest news on "The View" and "General Hospital" being in HD? I could have sworn I read somewhere that both of those shows were suppose to be in HD by now. Also any news on the following talk shows being offered in HD anytime soon:

Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (CBS)
Last Call with Carson Daly (NBC)
Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)
The Ellen DeGeneres Show (NBC)
Live with Regis and Kelly (ABC)

The only one I watch on a regular basis is Craig Ferguson but every now and then I tune into the others if they have a guest I really like.

Back on January 24th, Meredith Viera said The View would be going to HD in March. But it didn’t (she’s gone, of course) and I haven’t heard anything since then.

I don’t remember anything about GH – but certainly could have missed it.

Live and Ellen are both syndicated programs. I have heard no word on HD for either of them.

Nor do I have any recent news to report on the late night shows you mentioned.

Pretty helpful, huh? Sorry.

Maybe some reader has more and better info.

Obituary
Aaron Spelling, 83

Prolific TV producer Aaron Spelling died Friday at his Los Angeles home, according to the Associated Press. He was 83. Spelling’s publicist, Kevin Sasaki, announced the news.

Spelling had suffered a stroke on June 18.

His TV series included: 'Charlie's Angels'', ''Dynasty'', ''Beverly Hills 90210'', ''Melrose Place,'' ''Love Boat,'' ''Fantasy Island,'' ''Burke's Law,'' ''The Mod Squad,'' ''Starsky and Hutch,'' ''T.J. Hooker,'' ''Matt Houston,'' ''Hart to Hart'' and ''Hotel.'' He kept his hand in 21st-century TV with series including ''7th Heaven'' and ''Summerland.''

More on Aaron Spelling:
According to the Associated Press: (Spelling) also produced more than 140 television movies. Among the most notable: "Death Sentence" (1974), Nick Nolte's first starring role; "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" (1976), John Travolta's first dramatic role, as a boy born without immunities whose life is spent in isolation; "The Best Little Girl in the World" (1981), which starred Jennifer Jason Leigh as a teenage anorexic.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Spelling provided series and movies exclusively for ABC and is credited for the network's rise to major status. Jokesters referred to it as "The Aaron Broadcasting Company."

Obituary
Aaron Spelling Dies at 83

By Stephen M. Silverman and Frank Swertlow People.com

TV mogul Aaron Spelling, whose unparalleled string of hits ran from The Mod Squad in the '60s to today's 7th Heaven, died in his mansion near Beverly Hills on Friday, his publicist said. He was 83.

Spelling passed away at 6:25 p.m., his rep, Kevin Sasaki, tells PEOPLE. The cause of death was complications from the stroke he'd suffered on June 18.

Spelling's wife, Candy, and son, Randy, 27, were by his side. It was not known whether his actress daughter Tori, 33, was present.

On Wednesday, Tori Spelling told PEOPLE she and her new husband, Dean McDermott, planned to fly home from Canada to be with her father. "Dean and I will be traveling back to Los Angeles to be by my dad's side," she said.

For the past few years Spelling had been noticeably absent from the Hollywood social scene that he once ruled like a character straight out of Dynasty, one his signature shows.

Taking another page from one of his potboiler scripts, Spelling was said to have had a strained relationship recently with his actress daughter Tori, although this month she paid a visit to the bedside of her gravely ill father, a source close to the family tells PEOPLE.

"It was good that she came," says the source.

In all, Spelling produced some 200 shows, including Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, Vegas, Hart to Hart, Dynasty, T.J. Hooker, Fantasy Island, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and Charmed.

Asked by Time in 2001 if 7th Heaven were his last-ditch bid to avoid going to hell, Spelling replied, "When the concept came up, I had the same question: Why's a Jewish kid from Texas doing a series about a minister?"

After graduating from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Spelling went to New York to become an actor, and met – and married, in 1953 – actress Carolyn Jones, later famous as Morticia Addams on TV's The Addams Family.

The couple settled in California and, by the time they divorced in 1964, Spelling had made a name for himself as a TV writer. Among his first business partners was TV star Danny Thomas, and together they launched Spelling's first hit, The Mod Squad, in 1968.

While most of Spelling's shows were wildly popular, few could match the frenzy sparked by Charlie's Angels, which debuted in 1976, popularized the word "jiggle," made a star of Farrah Fawcett and eventually was aired in some 90 countries, from Sri Lanka to Bangladesh.

"I can't say this of every show I ever produced, but I loved Charlie's Angels," Spelling told PEOPLE in 1988. "It put us over the top and made our company financially secure and incredibly desirable."
But his imprint on the TV landscape was not his only landmark. In 1983, at cost of $45 million, Spelling built what is still said to be the largest single-family dwelling in California: a 56,000-sq.-ft. house called the Manor, located in Holmby Hills, just down the block from Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion – and the scene of Christmas parties so lavish that Spelling once had the prop department from Dynasty blanket the grounds with genuine snow.

The six-acre estate houses four bars, three kitchens, a theater, a gym, an Olympic-size swimming pool, a doll museum, a separate servants' wing, a 6,000-sq.-ft. guest house, eight double-car garages, tennis courts, a gazebo, a greenhouse, 12 fountains, six formal gardens and a room just for gift wrapping.

That room is said to be a favorite of Spelling's second wife, Candy, 60, whom he married in 1968. The couple have two children, both of whom acted in their father's series: Victoria Davey Spelling (better known as Tori, 33, a star of 90210) and Randall Gene Spelling (Randy, 27, Sunset Beach).

Growing up in such a lavish environment, Tori told PEOPLE in 1992, made her once declare that "I never wanted anything handed to me."

"But I didn't realize, as I do now, how proud of my dad and his wealth I should be," she continued.

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

http://people.aol.com/people/articles/0,19736,1204650,00.html

Obituary
Iconic Television Producer Aaron Spelling, 83, Dies

By Brian Lowry Special to the Los Angeles Times June 23, 2006

Aaron Spelling, whose knack for tapping into the public's taste for light entertainment made him both the most prolific and one of the wealthiest producers in television history, died Friday evening. He was 83.

Spelling died at his mansion in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles of complications from a stroke he suffered Sunday, according to his publicist, Kevin Sasaki. His wife, Candy, and son, Randy, were at his bedside.

Although seldom a darling of critics, Spelling was associated with a dizzying roster of commercial successes, including such long-running series as "Dynasty," "The Love Boat," "Fantasy Island," "Charlie's Angels," "Melrose Place," "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "7th Heaven."

With over 5,000 hours of TV and more than 70 series bearing his name, as well as dozens of made-for-TV movies and a smattering of feature films, Spelling was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific TV producer of all time. A decade ago, he received a special People's Choice Award citing his "innate sense of the public taste."

In a sense, Spelling represented one of the final ties to a time when independent producers could amass enormous riches by developing popular hits, during an era when the major networks were prevented from supplying their own programming--federal rules that have since been rescinded. And while Spelling remained active as a producer until his death -- including most recently the series "Charmed" -- his company, which he took public in 1986, was sold and became a unit of Viacom, functioning the last few years as a small division of a vast media conglomerate.

A soft-spoken Texan who started his Hollywood career as an actor and became increasingly eccentric later in life, Spelling was such a major supplier of programs to ABC in the 1970s that the network was only half-jokingly nicknamed "Aaron's Broadcasting Company."

Spelling's roster of hits also made him one of Hollywood's richest denizens, with a fortune estimated in the mid-1990s at more than $300 million. His wealth was underscored by the 56,000-square-foot, 123-room mansion -- complete with a bowling alley and indoor skating rink -- that he built on Bing Crosby's former estate and dubbed "The Manor."

Despite his reputation as a purveyor of fluff and what the producer himself called "mind candy," Spelling's career also included several tonier projects. They included the Emmy-winning TV movies "Day One" (about the first atom bomb) and "And the Band Played On" (dealing with the AIDS epidemic) in 1989 and 1993, respectively, as well as the Emmy-nominated dramatic series "Family" in the late 1970s.

Still, he will always be most closely associated with opulent prime-time soap operas and light dramas rife with action and beautiful women, which in the days of "Charlie's Angels" spawned the term "jiggle TV."

Director Joel Schumacher, a close friend of Spelling's who worked with him on the short-lived CBS series "2000 Malibu Road," once said simply, "I would hate to have lived through this era of Hollywood without knowing Aaron Spelling." As for the producer's success, he added, "Aaron knows we like to watch rich people fight with each other."

Spelling conceded that he would never please his critics but took exception to descriptions of his programs as "schlock," which he saw as an elitist attitude. He took pride from relating that he traveled by train (refusing to fly), often speaking to "normal people" -- including those who passed his home in tour buses -- who repeatedly told him, "I want to come home after a hard day's work and enjoy myself watching television."

"What they were saying was, they like to be entertained, and I think our shows are entertaining," Spelling said in an interview some years ago.

Notably, Spelling did not create the shows, working with several different writers and producers who often took pains, once they left the fold, to point out that fact. Collaborators such as Darren Star ("Melrose Place," "90210") and Richard and Esther Shapiro ("Dynasty") accused him of hogging credit for their creations.

Yet Spelling's genius, many said, stemmed from his ability to spot talent and bring what amounted to quality control to his productions -- from keeping story lines on track with small suggestions to overseeing minute details, such as hairstyles and costumes.

By the late 1980s, Spelling's brand of fanciful, escapist entertainment appeared to have been replaced by grittier, more realistic dramas such as "Hill Street Blues" and "thirtysomething." When "Dynasty" -- a lavish serial that some characterized as television's embodiment of national excess during the Reagan years -- was canceled in 1989, he was left without a show on ABC for the first time in nearly two decades, causing many to wonder if the business had passed him by.

Those years also yielded some of Spelling's more spectacular flops, among them "Nightingales," an NBC series about nurses which was derided by critics and attacked by real nurses for its emphasis on changing-room scenes.

Spelling quickly renewed himself, however, with "Beverly Hills, 90210," which premiered on the then-fledgling Fox network in 1990 and gradually blossomed into a breakthrough hit among younger viewers.

That was followed two years later by "Melrose Place," which brought the affairs, wild cliffhangers and intrigue that characterized much of Spelling's earlier work to a new level of camp while simultaneously enthralling a new generation of viewers.

In a business known for its ageism and short memory, Spelling was reborn, producing programs for fledgling networks catering to ever-younger audiences, among them "7th Heaven," which ran for ten seasons and became one of TV's most popular family shows.

The son of a tailor who worked for Sears, Spelling was raised in Dallas, Tex. Spelling was fond of telling interviewers how he grew up poor, living with his parents, sister and two brothers in a house that that cost $6,000 and had one bathroom. The family took in a boarder to make ends meet.

Spelling enlisted in the Army Air Forces after high school and served as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes newspaper during World War II. He was wounded by a sniper in the left hand and knee, receiving a Purple Heart. He would also receive the Bronze Star.

After the war, Spelling attending the Sorbonne is Paris for a year and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he majored in journalism.

Spelling wrote and directed theater (including "Thorns in the Road," which dealt with his World War II experiences) before coming to Hollywood with only a few hundred dollars to his name, acting in his first movie, "Vicki," in 1953, followed by small roles in Westerns such as "Gunsmoke."

He freely acknowledged that he was never much of an actor, which led him behind the camera. Spelling sold his first script to Dick Powell's "Zane Grey Theater" in 1956, becoming a producer the next year at Four Star Television. He created his first TV series, "Johnny Ringo," in 1959, subsequently producing "The Dick Powell Show" -- including an episode that introduced the character of debonair detective Amos Burke, played by Gene Barry, which gave rise to what was to become the producer's first series hit, "Burke's Law," in 1963.

In 1969, he formed Thomas-Spelling Productions with Danny Thomas, producing "The Danny Thomas Hour," "The Guns of Will Sonnett" and "The Mod Squad," which became a significant hit for ABC. The network subsequently signed Spelling to an exclusive contract.

Spelling partnered with producer Leonard Goldberg in the 1970s, giving rise to a series of hits, including "Starsky and Hutch," "The Rookies" and "Charlie's Angels," before launching his own production company in 1977.

Spelling's personal quirks were almost as legendary as his career. A frail man, he refused to fly, got around in a chauffeur-driven limousine or by train and held court in his massive mid-Wilshire office, where a butler would serve his lunch.

Married to actress Carolyn Jones in the 1950s (the two divorced in 1964), Spelling married his second wife, Candy, a hand model and interior decorator, in 1968. In addition to his wife of 38 years, his son and his daughter, Tori, Spelling is survived by a brother, Daniel.

Although awards generally eluded him, Spelling was frequently recognized by industry groups and philanthropic organizations. Among his myriad honors, he was honored four times by the NAACP for his commitment to diversity.

Spelling was fond of self-effacing humor, in a 1994 interview joking about his own legacy. "My epitaph will be: 'Tori Spelling's father, did "90210" and "Melrose Place," lived in a big house.' That's going to be it."

Note: Lowry, now a columnist for the trade publication Variety, wrote this obituary while a member of the Times staff. It was updated by Times staff writer Jon Thurber.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-spelling24jun24,0,568231.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The New York Times Obituary
Aaron Spelling, Prolific Television Producer, Dies at 83

By Bill Carter The New York Times June 24, 2006

Aaron Spelling, the most prolific producer in American television, whose company generated hit shows over five decades, including "The Mod Squad," "Charlie's Angels," "The Love Boat," "Dynasty," "Beverly Hills, 90210," and "7th Heaven," died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 83.

The cause was complications from a stroke Mr. Spelling suffered last Sunday, his publicist, Kevin Sasaki, said.

Known as much for the wealth he accumulated in grinding out more than 200 television series and movies in his career, Mr. Spelling became a legendary figure in show business, a onetime bit actor who built one of the most successful production companies ever created, as well one of the most famously enormous mansions in Hollywood.

Mr. Spelling's career was defined by size and volume. He carved a place for himself in the Guinness Book of Records for the most hours of television produced: more than 3,000. At one time, in the 1970's and early 1980's, Mr. Spelling produced seven hours of programming a week on ABC, a third of that network's total prime-time schedule.

Mr. Spelling found success in almost every genre, including Westerns (his first series, in 1959, was "Johnny Ringo,") police shows ("Starsky and Hutch," "SWAT," "T. J. Hooker"), family drama ("Family," a rare critical success for Mr. Spelling), escapist anthology ("Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island"), glossy adult soap opera ("Dynasty") and youth-oriented soaps ("90210" and "Melrose Place").

For the most part his shows were as despised and denigrated by critics as they were loved by audiences. The New Yorker once labeled him a "schlock merchant." Mr. Spelling himself memorably described his oeuvre as "mind candy."

Nevertheless, he chafed under the critical onslaught, saying on several occasions, "It hurts." And in interviews he would often single out as his favored achievements the few programs and movies that brought him critical praise. He frequently mentioned his production role in the Emmy-winning HBO film on the AIDS crisis in America, "And the Band Played On."

But Mr. Spelling was not a producer who chased artistic success. He was able to amass a fortune mainly thanks to an ability to tap into mass taste. "Aaron has a legendary instinct for what the public wants to see," his onetime producing partner, Douglas Cramer, told The Los Angeles Times in 1996.

In the main, that instinct ran to campy or populist storytelling, most often featuring characters dripping with wealth. The trend began in Mr. Spelling's first success, "Burke's Law," in 1963, which starred Gene Barry as a detective who chased women and solved crimes while tooling around in his Rolls-Royce.

It reached its apogee in "Dynasty," a series about a billionaire oil family and their nasty, if well-coiffed, feuds. That series, which starred Joan Collins and Linda Evans, who created a much-talked-about television moment with a cat fight that wound up in a swimming pool, became widely mentioned as a metaphor for the "greed is good" years of America in the 1980's.

Mr. Spelling himself, though a self-effacing and extremely shy man in private, put his own vast wealth on display in the late 1980's when he and his wife, Candy, supervised the construction of their home in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. The structure, which like his shows drew mostly scathing reviews, eventually contained 123 rooms over about 56,000 square feet. It was said to include a bowling alley, an ice rink and an entire wing devoted to his wife's wardrobe.

Mr. Spelling, who was often attended by a uniformed butler, also once owned a private railroad car and was known for trucking snow to Los Angeles in December to provide his two children with a white Christmas.

He defended the ostentation by saying he had worked hard for his success and had risen from truly dire conditions. Mr. Spelling was born in Dallas in 1923. His father was a Russian-immigrant tailor, who was good enough to have Hollywood stars like Eddie Cantor occasionally visit to pick up a suit (or so Mr. Spelling told it).

The family struggled with prejudice as a Jewish family in the South of that era. Mr. Spelling, a frail child, was so traumatized by bullying that at age 8 he psychosomatically lost the use of his legs for a year and was confined to bed. But that turned him into an avid reader (Twain was a favorite) and would-be writer.

He served in the Army Air Corps in World War II, entertaining on a troop ship and eventually writing for Stars and Stripes. A wound from a sniper left lasting damage to one hand. While recovering, he toured in the play "Old Mistress Mind," with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine.

Enrolling in Southern Methodist University on the G.I. Bill, Mr. Spelling took up performing comedy, and also wrote and directed plays. He tried New York for a few months but eventually headed west. A brief marriage to Janice Carruth ended in divorce.

In his early days in Hollywood, Mr. Spelling found work mainly as an actor. His credits included guest roles in "I Love Lucy" and "Dragnet." Mr. Spelling often said that because he was so small, thin and bug-eyed, he was usually cast as a pervert or drunk or some other kind of squirrelly character. Typical was his part as Weed Pindle in a 1956 episode of "Gunsmoke," written by Sam Peckinpah, later to gain fame as a film director.

He also appeared as a beggar in the film version of "Kismet." By then Mr. Spelling was married to his second wife, the actress Carolyn Jones. The "Kismet" experience finally soured him on acting, and he devoted himself to work behind the camera. The actor Dick Powell became a mentor, hiring Mr. Spelling as a writer and eventually a producer on his television anthology show "Zane Grey Theater."

That led to his first series, "Johnny Ringo" in 1959, followed by, among other series, "Burke's Law" in 1963, "Honey West" in 1966, "The Guns of Will Sonnet" in 1967 and his breakthrough, "The Mod Squad," in 1968.

Mr. Spelling, who had divorced Ms. Jones in 1964, married Candy Marer, a sometime model, in 1968. They had two children, Tori and Randy, both of whom went into acting, mainly on their father's shows. Tori became a teenage tabloid figure after she became a regular on "Beverly Hills, 90210."

In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Spelling is survived by a brother, Randy, of Los Angeles.

In 1989, Mr. Spelling's long run of control over the bulk of ABC's schedule finally came to a close. His career hit a nadir when the new executive in charge of programming at ABC, Brandon Stoddard, declared publicly that the network would no longer be "Aaron's Broadcasting Company."

Mr. Spelling, aghast at seeing a headline in the show business trade paper Variety saying "Spelling Dynasty Dead," found himself sinking into depression at the prospect of becoming one of the forgotten men of Hollywood after ruling so long as the king of prime time. "I can honestly say that I don't know what the networks want anymore," Mr. Spelling said at the time.

Indeed, the next television season not a single show in prime time bore the Spelling production logo. Then the Fox network called and asked if he would be interested in an idea they had about a soap opera set in high school. "Beverly Hills, 90210" appeared in 1990.

From that moment until his death, Mr. Spelling had at least two programs on network schedules. At the same time, his earlier series were playing in repeats almost endlessly and in almost every part of the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/24/arts/television/24spelling.html?ei=5094&en=3280b62ef5676e10&hp=&ex=1151208000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

Obituary
Aaron Spelling dies at age 83; built TV dynasty

By Duane Byrge The Hollywood Reporter June 24, 2006

Aaron Spelling, one of the most prolific and successful producers in TV history, died Friday, his publicist said. He was 83.

Spelling died at his mansion in Los Angeles after suffering a stroke on June 18, according to publicist Kevin Sasaki.

In the 1980s, Spelling reigned as one of the kings of television, In 1984, his seven series on ABC accounted for one-third of the network's prime time schedule, causing some to refer to ABC as Aaron's Broadcasting Company.

While he won two Emmy Awards -- one for outstanding drama in 1989 for "Day One," a TV movie about the Manhattan Project, and one for outstanding TV movie in 1993 for "And the Band Played On," an account of the early years of the AIDS epidemic -- Spelling was best known for his glossy, escapist TV series which ranged from "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island" to "Dynasty" and "Melrose Place" with occasional forays into more reality-based shows like "Family."

The Spelling touch was also seen in such popular series as "Charlies Angels," which featured three, sexy female detectives, propelling Farrah Fawcett Majors to stardom; "Starsky and Hutch," which paired Paul Michael Glazer and David Soul as two streetwise cops; "Hart to Hart," which focused on a glamorous married couple played by Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers, who also solved mysteries; and "Beverly Hills 90210," which famously featured his daughter Tori as one of a group of privileged high school students.

He also produced more than 140 TV movies, including 1974's "Death Sentence," starring Nick Nolte, and 1976's "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble," starring John Tavolta.

Spelling also had a hand in producing a number of feature films, including "California Split," "Mr. Mom," "'Night, Mother," and "Soapdish." Most recently, he served as exec producer of the WB's family drama "7th Heaven" and "Charmed," the series about three witches that has been running since 1998.

The son of Jewish immigrants, Spelling, one of five children, was born on April 22, 1923 in Dallas. He attended Southern Methodist University, where he studied journalism and won the Harvard Award for the best original one-act play. During World WAr II, he served in the Air Force, serving as a war correspondent for Stars and Stripes. Wounded by a sniper's bullet, he was decorated with a Bronze Star Medal and a Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster.

After his discharge, Spelling spent a few years directing plays in the Dallas area and New York before moving to Hollywood in 1953. He found his first jobs as a bit actor, appearing in everything from "Dragnet" to "I Love Lucy." But he was soon selling scripts for such series as the "Jane Wyaman Presents the Firesign Theatre," "Wagon Train," "Playhouse 90" and "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre."

Moving on to become a producer at Four Star Television, he earned his producing stripes on such series as "Zane Grey" and "Johnny Ringo," the first series he created. At Four Star, went on to produce "The Dick Powell Show," "Burke's Law" and "The Lloyd Bridges Show" (1962-63), "Burke's Law" and "Honey West."

Joining forces with comedian-turned-producer Danny Thomas, Spelling formed Thomas/Spelling Prods., which produced the 1967 Western series "The Guns of Will Sonnet" and "The Mod Squad," starring Michael Cole, Peggy Lipton and Clancy Williams III. During its five year run, "The Mod Squad" earned six Emmy nominations, including one for outstanding dramatic series of the 1969-70 season.

In 1971, Spelling formed a partnership with Leonard Goldberg, and together they entered a phenomenally proflific period, producing many top-rated TV series, including "Charlie's Angels," "Starsky and Hutch," "Fantasy Island," "Hart to Hart" and "Family." During the late 80's, Spelling's company also moved into theatrical films, producing such diverse fare as "Mr. Mom," starring Michael Keaton as a harried househusband, as well as the drama "'night Mother," which starred Sissy Spacek and Anne Bancroft. The company also produced the satirical send-up of the soaps, "Soapdish."

After ABC canceled "Dynasty" in 1989 and his contract with the network had ended, Spelling found himself without a show on the air for the first time since 1960.

"I was so depressed, I would have quit, but I like TV too much," Spelling wrote in his memoir. Besides, his company had started issuing stock in 1986, and he had an obligation to his investors.

Spelling continued to remain a force in television with produced such shows as "Beverly Hills 90210," as well as "Melrose Place," "7th Heaven," "Pacific Palisades," "Sunset Beach," "Titans" and "Charmed."

Spelling was honored by the Producers Guild of America in 2000 with its Golden Laurel Award for Lifetime Achievement in Television. During the course of his career, he was recognized with six NAACP Image Awards. He was named Man of the Year by the Publicists Guild of America, 1971. Among his many other honors, he was named Man of the Year by Beverly Hills chapter of B'Nai B'rith, 1972. In 1985, B'Nai B'rith named Spelling Humanitarian of the Year. In 1983, Spelling was named Man of the Year by the Scopus organization.

Spelling's first wife was the actress Carolyn Jones, best known as Morticia on "The Addams Family," whom he married in 1953 and divorced in 1965.

In 1965, he married his present wife Candy, with whom he had two children, his daughter Tori and his son Randy, who also appeared as an actor in several of his shows.

Their home in Bel-Air, known as "The Manor," became known as a legendary Southern California residence. The Spellings bought the six-acre property, which included a house that had belonged to Big Crosby, in 1983, and in its place erected a mansion with 123 rooms, a bowling alley, swimming pool, gymansium, tennis court, screening room and four two-car garages that was said to be the largest single family home in California.

Memorial services were pending.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002727724

Obituary
Aaron Spelling, 83; Prolific TV Hitmaker

By Adam Bernstein Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, June 24, 2006; B06

Aaron Spelling, 83, who produced a staggering number of commercial television hits over four decades and whose hallmarks were glamour, violence and sexy escapism, died Friday in Los Angeles.

He died at home after suffering a stroke June 18, his publicist said.

Mr. Spelling produced so many popular shows for ABC from the 1960s to the 1980s that it was often joked that the network's initials stood for "Aaron's Broadcasting Company." Shows he produced that ran for years on ABC included "Burke's Law," "The Mod Squad," "The Rookies," "Starsky and Hutch," "Charlie's Angels," "Hart to Hart," "Family," "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island," "Matt Houston," "Hotel" and "Dynasty."

The last, at its peak in the mid-1980s, reached 40 million viewers and commanded some of the highest advertising prices. Twenty years ago, Mr. Spelling's fortune was estimated at more than $100 million.

In the 1990s, he produced several series for other networks, including "Melrose Place," "7th Heaven," "Charmed," "Moesha" and "Beverly Hills 90210," which starred his daughter, Tori.

He far outpaced his rivals commercially but never won the critical respect of peers such as Norman Lear, producer of "All in the Family," "Maude" and "Sanford and Son."

"There is good and there is bad Spelling," a Washington Post television critic said in a 1996 Los Angeles Times Magazine article, "but there is never great Spelling, only degrees of terribleness."

Mr. Spelling's first major success was "Burke's Law," which ran on ABC from 1963 to 1966. The show starred Gene Barry as a millionaire Los Angeles chief of detectives fond of showing up at crime scenes in his chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce.

"It's a pretty show, well-shined, its pants pressed and shoes shined, a revolt against all the dusty cowboys of the westerns," Mr. Spelling said at the time. "And it's flip and casual, irreverent, which perhaps is a revolt against the 'dark problems' shows."

The emphasis was on glamorous locales and debonair people, and it had plenty of guest stars. It was an idea he helped create with Dick Powell.

"I think there is a need to escape," Mr. Spelling once said. "I think it is a release valve that keeps people from blowing their brains out or having nervous breakdowns. We find that the majority of our audience is worried, really worried, about the cost of food, how much it costs to send your kid to school, the cost of clothes.

"Unfortunately, we often have to make the choice between 150 critics and 150 million Americans out there, and I have always felt that my job was to please [the viewers]. To entertain them."

Mr. Spelling was born in Dallas on April 22, 1923, according to one authoritative account, although other dates have been given, and was the youngest of five children of a Russian Jewish immigrant tailor. Classmates often made anti-Semitic taunts, he later said, and his shyness and slight build made it hard to fight back.

While recuperating from what he called a "nervous breakdown" at age 8, he spent the year reading books and was especially drawn to O. Henry. He said most of his plotlines drew inspiration from O. Henry's ironic plotlines.

He began to put on shows during World War II while serving in the Army Air Forces in Europe. He continued his involvement in theater while attending Southern Methodist University on the G.I. Bill and also was reportedly the school's first Jewish cheerleader. Before graduating in 1950, he received several awards for his one-act plays, and this led to stage directing jobs in the Dallas area.

Hoping to write for television, he settled in Los Angeles and worked as an airline reservations clerk, talent scout for an all-girl orchestra and dinner theater director. He won movie bit parts in forgettable cowboy and crime films and acted on "Dragnet" and other television shows. Gradually, he managed to sell scripts to Dick Powell and Jane Wyman, both former actors who became producers.

He was so prolific contributing scripts for "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre," the CBS western anthology program, that he became a producer of the show in 1960. Two years later, he produced his first series, "The Lloyd Bridges Show," a CBS dramatic anthology with Bridges playing an investigative freelance journalist.

He went on to produce "The Smothers Brothers Show," a sitcom; "The Guns of Will Sonnett," a western with Walter Brennan; "The Danny Thomas Hour," a musical-variety show starring the entertainer who became Mr. Spelling's business partner.

Thomas and Mr. Spelling produced the long-running drama "The Mod Squad," about counterculture youths -- one white (a drifter), one black (a Watts rioter), one woman (a prostitute's daughter) -- recruited to the police force to ferret out adult criminals targeting the young.

The show's contemporary dialogue and emphasis on violence was Mr. Spelling's attempt to win back younger viewers. It ran so long and was so commercially successful that Mr. Spelling was signed to an exclusive production contract with ABC. With Leonard Goldberg, a former ABC vice president of programming, he produced "The Rookies," about young cops who clash with hard-line commanding officer. He followed with "S.W.A.T.," with Steve Forrest and Robert Urich, and "Starsky and Hutch" with David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser.

Mr. Spelling and Goldberg teamed with Mike Nichols in 1976 to make the domestic drama "Family," one of Spelling's rare critical successes. The show won four Emmy Awards, all for acting, and became a point of pride for Mr. Spelling. He said he was "decimated" by its cancellation in 1980, later telling the New York Times that making that show "was the happiest creative time of my life."

Meanwhile, he was busy with "Charlie's Angels," an undisputed hit despite horrendous reviews. The detective show, which ran from 1976 to 1981, featured three gorgeous sleuths who use their street smarts and athleticism to stop crime. Among the rotating cast were Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith, Farrah Fawcett-Majors and Cheryl Ladd.

Fawcett-Majors, in particular, became a major pin-up star and tried to leave the show to focus on making movies.

He returned to the guest star format with "The Love Boat" (1977 to 1986) and "Fantasy Island" (1978 to 1984), with Ricardo Montalban as a wealthy host on an island who promises to fulfill all wishes. "The Love Boat" also was the first show from his new company, Aaron Spelling Productions.

The Spelling-Goldberg team also made "T.J. Hooker," with William Shatner. The series started on ABC in 1982 and switched to CBS in 1985, airing another two years.

His "Matt Houston" with Lee Horsley as a millionaire private investigator ran on ABC from 1982 to 1985.

There were flops, but they were followed by "Dynasty" (1981 to 1989) about the intrigues and internal disputes of a Denver oil family, starring John Forsythe, Joan Collins and Linda Evans.

Mr. Spelling was also credited with more than 200 made-for-television movies, numerous miniseries and several films for general theatrical release, including "Mr. Mom," with Michael Keaton.

Interspersed with these were critically acclaimed television series such as "Day One" and "And the Band Played On."

Of all his made-for-television movies, which included many by Jackie Collins and Danielle Steel, Spelling was said to be proudest of "The Best Little Girl in the World," a frank and realistic drama about a young woman suffering from anorexia nervosa that was broadcast by ABC in 1981.

But he said, for every one like that, "I did five 'Satan's School for Girls' or 'Hollywood Wives.' "

He helped finance the L.A. production of "Nicholas Nickleby" and " 'night Mother," Marsha Norman's play about suicide. Of "Cracked Up," an ABC drama involving addiction, he said he felt some twinge of responsibility for "Mod Squad" showing drug use as "kind of a fun thing."

When his ABC contract was to expire in 1988 he expressed happiness that he could shop his projects around.

He was described as an obsessive worker, intimately involved in his productions. He lived on an opulent estate once owned by Bing Crosby. He also maintained a stable of thoroughbred horses.

He gave generously to Jewish causes.

His memoir, "Aaron Spelling: A Prime Time Life," was not received kindly by book critics.

One Publishers Weekly reviewer said, "If Spelling's writing works on the tube, it doesn't fly on the printed page. This tame memoir offers little in the way of character shading or social insight."

His marriage to actress Carolyn Jones ended in divorce.

Survivors include his second wife, Carole Marer "Candy" Spelling, whom he married in 1968, and two children from his second marriage, Victoria and Randall.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/23/AR2006062301826_pf.html

Too bad about Huff, some great acting and that was enough to get me to watch, but it's one of the most depressing, darkest hours on TV, I could see why folks didn't tune in.
Yeah. Thankfully at least Showtime was excited with the show that they gave it 2 years off the bat instead of one.

And I agree about the darkness of the show. The last two episodes endings have been amazingly dark and depressing at the same time, yet they were extremely enjoying hours of television.

The cast has really come into their own. It's a shame we won't see more, but it was good while it lasted. It'll be interesting to see how the final episode leaves us.

Yeah. Thankfully at least Showtime was excited with the show that they gave it 2 years off the bat instead of one.

And I agree about the darkness of the show. The last two episodes endings have been amazingly dark and depressing at the same time, yet they were extremely enjoying hours of television.

The cast has really come into their own. It's a shame we won't see more, but it was good while it lasted. It'll be interesting to see how the final episode leaves us.
There's almost no doubt it will leave us hanging as this season had already been completed before the cancel notice came out.

And, as you, I will also miss some of the outstanding acting in this series, almost every character was fully fleshed out and interesting, hopefully we'll see many of them in other roles that will allow for their talent to be seen.

On another note, having been reading about the HBO/Sopranos contract problems, I have to say that both HBO and Showtime have become more and more disappointing in the last couple of years as a destination for the best that TV can offer. Their $15-20 a month sub fee is becoming less and less worth the money compared to what can be had on some of the other networks for next to nothing.

I can't even believe how petty HBO has become, how can the even suggest that the last 8 eps of The Sopranos is part of the current season when every other season has been 13 eps long when this one is 12...? Honestly, they are actually going to futz around with paying these actors on a show that is arguably the premier TV show of the last decade, and after having spent $100 million on something like Rome...? Something is wrong at HBO.

I may have to go get "Huff" on DVD. You two are pretty persuasive.

Critic’s Notebook
Aaron Spelling

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

I crossed paths with Aaron Spelling, who died Friday, more than once over the years. How could you not?

As he recalls in his 1996 autobiography ''Aaron Spelling: A Prime-Time Life,'' as a producer he had a show on the air every season from 1960 to 1989. It was a great, dominating run, one so big that ABC, home to many Spelling shows, was at one point nicknamed ''Aaron's Broadcasting Company.''

When I was a semi-young TV critic on one of my first trips to Hollywood, ABC held a party showcasing only the stars of Spelling's shows. And it was a big party. That was around the time Spelling's company had, simultaneously on the air, ''Dynasty,'' ''T.J. Hooker,'' ''Matt Houston,'' ''Hotel,'' ''Glitter,'' ''The Love Boat,'' ''Finder of Lost Loves'' -- roughly one-third of ABC's prime time lineup. Some of them did not last long but, as Sam Spade would say, look at the number of them.

About five years later, it looked as if that empire was gone. Spelling did not have a show on the air. Still, he was in his sixties, extremely rich, someone who had dominated his industry and even picked up some good reviews along the way. (Although he accepted the sometimes grudging regard that came with Nielsen success, Spelling also wanted people to know that critics occasionally treated him well. He often brought up the ABC drama ''Family'' because it was critically acclaimed and made the Emmy lists.) He could have packed it in then.

''I would have quit,'' he said in his autobiography, ''but I like TV too much. .. People wrote me off, but I was dormant, not dead.''

And he came back, with ''Beverly Hills, 90210,'' and ''Melrose Place.'' More recent successes have included ''Charmed'' and the still-going ''7th Heaven.'' A lover of the ways of Old Hollywood -- which he paid tribute to by hiring former stars for his TV shows -- he managed never to seem like some fossilized representative of Old Television, because he always seemed capable of having another hit.

Not that he had forgotten Old Hollywood lessons. I have no doubt he was as tough as any ancient mogul when it came to cutting deals and keeping shows afloat. Actors who became difficult -- Shannen Doherty, Herve Villechaize, Lauren Tewes -- could find themselves without jobs on Spelling shows (although forgiveness was also possible).

But he also remembered the way the stars he loved would work the media, showing up and giving quotes. Spelling was not only formidably accessible, at press conferences and in less formal settings with critics, he actually seemed to enjoy talking. (I say ''seemed'' because one should never forget that Spelling had been an actor early in his career.) While my feelings about Spelling's shows have rarely been positive, I retain a fondness for him because of the way he would talk, including in one chat we had sometime in the early '90s.

Over the years I have off-and-on collected material for a biography of Jack Webb. I was in an ''on'' period when I attended a press meet-and-greet where Spelling was plugging a new show or two or three. Things were winding down, but Spelling was still talking; knowing his long history in TV, I asked if he had known Webb.

The eyes brightened. Spelling stepped into the Wayback Machine and began telling a story about being young in Hollywood, working as a writer and director, and being discovered by Preston Sturges. That great director backed a production Spelling was directing. Carolyn Jones -- yes, Morticia Addams -- was in the cast, and would later marry Spelling. (They divorced after about 10 years of marriage.) One night, Webb came to the show and offered Spelling a job -- but as an actor, not a director.

Spelling went on to do several ''Dragnets'' as well as some other acting. He tells the story in his autobiography, too, but it's not the same as it was to hear it from Spelling himself, realizing all the different names he's weaving together, and seeing the fun he's having in telling a great little story. He didn't have to do it -- another producer who had known Webb wouldn't even talk to me about his experience -- but it had a couple of show-biz legends, a twist, a longer tale to follow and a happy ending. It was a Spelling show in microcosm.

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

Popular music and its inclusion in TV shows has always been a sticky issue.
The Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan took an indepth look at the topic the other day.
I thought I’d wait until the weekend to post it. It is fascinating reading.

Critic’s Notebook
The selling of Nirvana and TV's power over the biggest bands

From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”

A few weeks ago, television critics were mailed copies of a new TNT show called "Saved." The opening notes that greeted a viewer who loaded the show into a DVD player were the somber chords of "Come As You Are," a classic Nirvana track.

The surprising thing about the soundtrack for “Saved,” the story of a troubled emergency rescue worker (starring Omari Hardwick and Tom Everett Scott, left), was not that the drama’s music supervisor chose such an iconic song -- but that the move almost worked.

Representatives for the Nirvana catalog, it turns out, would have been happy for “Saved” to have used one of the band’s tunes -- just not that one.

“It wasn’t a monetary issue, we just felt that maybe a different song would be more appropriate,” said Larry Mestel, head of Primary Wave Music Publishing, a firm that recently purchased a stake in Nirvana’s publishing and has begun a concerted campaign to license the band’s music in a host of new ways, including possible use in films, television shows and commercials.

As it turned out, “Saved” didn’t end up using a Nirvana track, but the final version of the pilot for the show, which aired June 12, did feature, among other songs, a remix of the Doors’ “Break on Through,” the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” and two Jimi Hendrix tracks.

Television’s role in helping new bands get noticed has been widely discussed in the last few years, and its influence in that arena continues to grow. When the song “Chasing Cars,” by the UK band Snow Patrol was featured in the closing moments of the “Grey’s Anatomy” finale in May, the song rocketed to the top of the iTunes singles chart within days, and the band’s label began going after radio airplay with renewed vigor.

“Just from that one usage, it’s amazing what’s gone on,” said Tony Seyler, vice president of film and television marketing for Interscope/Geffen/A&M/Dreamworks, the band’s American label.

But in the last year, musicians of all stripes -- especially older artists and established bands who want their music to be relevant to new generations -- have sought out television opportunities as never before. Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin and the Dixie Chicks are just a few of the artists who have actively embraced television’s prominent use of their music in recent months.

No longer out of bounds

And Nirvana, long seen as off limits for film, television and commercial licensing, is no longer a rare exception to that trend.

Though a couple of compilations and one boxed set of the band’s music have been released in the last few years, during the last decade, Nirvana’s music has been largely absent from the pop-culture scene, especially in films and on television. As Charles R. Cross, author of the Cobain biography “Heavier Than Heaven” as well as books on Hendrix, Springsteen and Led Zeppelin, points out, Kurt Cobain (left) may just be a name to someone who was a toddler -- or not yet born -- when the Nirvana singer died in 1994.

“Rock is not as important as it once was,” Cross said. “Nirvana’s reputation was helped by the fact that there wasn’t a lot of marketing of the band [after Cobain’s death]. But now it’s been so long and there has been so little marketing that there is a chance that there will be a younger generation that doesn’t know Nirvana.”

Still, the band’s custodians “need to be very careful with this legacy,” Cross said. “They could damage it. This music -- the album 'Nevermind' -- it’s more than a record. It stands as part of our cultural history.”

Licensing of the Nirvana legacy began in a small way a year ago, when “Six Feet Under” used a Nirvana track, “All Apologies,” in a flashback scene in which Nate Fisher talked about Cobain’s death. And “Jarhead,” a 2005 film directed by Sam Mendes, was allowed to use “Something in the Way.” (Mendes wanted “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” too, but was turned down).

Though Cobain’s former bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl declined, through representatives, to comment for this story, several sources confirmed that both musicians have to agree to any use of a Nirvana recording made by the original band, even though Courtney Love controls the majority of the band’s publishing rights. But until recently, the rocky relationship between Love and her late husband’s bandmates, not to mention Love’s own well-publicized legal and personal troubles, precluded any organized effort to market Nirvana’s legacy.

“There was a general feeling of, 'Let’s just say no, it’s safer and easier,’” said Peter Asher, who began managing Love’s music career and the Cobain estate about two years ago. “There’s no question the whole climate has changed.”

Not a 'fire sale'

The most recent change is Love’s deal with Primary Wave, which was completed two months ago.

Asher said that a desire to raise cash was part of the reason that Love made the deal, worth a reported $50 million, but he said the sale wasn’t the “desperate fire sale” that some have painted it to be, nor would money considerations necessarily prevail during licensing negotiations.

“The decisions we make [regarding licensing] have nothing to do with money one way or the other,” Asher said. “It’s a matter of, is this a cool show, is this a movie we’d like to be a part of? If it’s a tiny independent movie but it makes sense, we might let them use [a song] for almost nothing.”

Still, music professionals expect the major songs in the Nirvana catalog -- classics such as “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Come As You Are” from "Nevermind" (above) and “Heart-Shaped Box” from "In Utero" -- to fetch extraordinary prices, in the range of six or seven figures.

“No question, it would be expensive, especially due to the fact that there hasn’t been much licensing of Nirvana to this point,” said P.J. Bloom, a veteran music supervisor who works on feature films and TV shows such as “CSI: Miami” and “Nip/Tuck.”

Bloom, who said that song-licensing prices have “skyrocketed” in recent years as foundering record companies have attempted to wring profits from their artists in new ways, estimates that if a “major studio came calling and wanted a song for a summer tentpole film,” the price tag for a Nirvana song could be up to $500,000, or even more.

When it comes to the top tier of artists, “for $2 million, nobody’s going to turn down [having] the lead track of `Spiderman 3,’” Bloom said.

Mestel and Asher won’t say where the next Nirvana song will turn up, but they’re conscious that all eyes will be on them when those songs do begin to appear in soundtracks and other arenas.

“It would have to be something that everybody involved would be proud of,” Mestel said. “It would have to be tasteful and, frankly, it’s got to make financial sense as well. It’s not going to be an insignificant amount of money.”

“We wouldn’t want it to be an incidental use,” he added. “An example would be how `Twist and Shout’ was used in `Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.’ [The use of the song] needs to be one of the jewels of the film.”

Asher and Mestel don’t necessarily rule out allowing Nirvana’s music to be used in a commercial, especially if it were for a hybrid car or for something else that’s environmentally friendly or socially redeeming.

“It would have to be an amazing use,” Mestel said.

But even the most creative commercial can be zipped through with a DVR, and those watching shows via iTunes or on DVDs don’t see ads at all.

[b]A new generation

And despite being open to commercial placements, Nirvana’s representatives sound as though they’re looking harder at other licensing opportunities, with the focus of their campaign on exposing a new generation of listeners to the band.

“We’re looking at every single opportunity and seeing whether it makes sense for the songs,” Mestel said. “We want a new youth culture to embrace Kurt Cobain’s music.”

Though television soundtracks don’t offer the massive payouts that top bands can get from ad campaigns, TV shows don’t carry the “sellout” baggage that ads sometimes do. More importantly, the best programs offer the kind of emotional engagement rarely found in summer blockbusters or car ads. And when the right song is used in an emotionally evocative scene, the pairing can make a good song even more memorable.

“TV offers opportunities not being found at radio and not being found through other avenues,” Cross said. “In some ways, it’s perceived as preferable, because it can be a classier context if you’re in a good, hip show.”

Making a connection

“Where else are so many people going to be emotionally attached and focused?” Seyler said. “It gives us a setup that is tough to find anywhere else.”

It’s that promise of a direct connection with attentive fans -- many of whom zoom on to the Internet to find out what songs just played on their favorite show -- that has drawn some of the biggest names in the business to the small screen.

In November, Madonna used a “CSI: Miami”/“CSI: NY” crossover to promote her new single, “Hung Up”; Led Zeppelin, which rarely licenses music for TV, allowed “One Tree Hill” to use “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” in the show’s May season finale; and a January episode of “Cold Case” was built around the music of Springsteen (left).

“We’ve definitely been approached by artists who wanted us to use one of their singles or even do an all-inclusive episode,” “Cold Case” co-producer Erin Mitchell told Watch!, a magazine produced by CBS.

For the Dixie Chicks, smart use of television exposure was one way to get around the cold shoulder that country-music radio gave the band’s new album, “Taking the Long Way.” One of the Chicks’ new songs, “Lullaby,” was featured extensively in the emotionally powerful season finale of the NBC show “Medium,” in which psychic investigator Allison Dubois imagined how her life would have turned out without a loving husband or kids.

Cross makes the case that the top music supervisors have become some of the most powerful forces shaping the record business.

“Those are the new power barons in the music industry,” Cross said. “In the last 10 years, they’ve become what radio consultants were 10 years ago.”

The difference between radio consultants, however, and the best music supervisors is that the latter are usually incredibly knowledgeable, passionate fans of music -- not just business-minded middlemen often paid through what has been called “legal payola” to get major-label recording artists on the radio.

Not that record labels don’t pressure certain shows to use songs by particular artists -- they do -- but even a middlebrow soap such as “One Tree Hill” has a far more varied playlist than the vast majority of FM radio stations.

“TV is now driving radio,” Cross added, citing “American Idol,” which recently kickstarted sales of Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” and “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” by K.T. Tunstall, as another important hitmaker.

For established artists or “heritage bands” such as the Doors, who may not be getting any airplay, even on the shrinking number of classic rock stations, getting a song on a hot show can be an important source of revenue and renewed attention. Last summer, in the weeks after “Laguna Beach” showcased Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” in a key scene, sales of the band’s greatest-hits collection jumped 40 percent.

It’s no wonder there’s a new willingness on the part of top bands to embrace the possibilities of TV.

From iPod ads to 'Entourage'

“It’s absolutely changed. For a long time a lot of people were not willing to have their music licensed at all,” said Dan Lieberstein, music supervisor for feature films and the former HBO show “Sex and the City.” “The music industry has awakened, sort of like a slow dinosaur, and realized that they are making as much or more money from licensing as they are from other sources … it’s growing by leaps and bounds.”

Three years ago, even though “Sex and the City” was at the height of its fame, Lieberstein felt a little bashful about asking to use a U2 track in the show’s sixth-season premiere.

“I called and said, `Do you think I have any shot at all?’ and [their representative’s] response was, ‘It’s a whole new world, I think everybody’s changed their tune,’” regarding licensing.

A year after the band’s music was heard on “Sex and the City,” U2 took music placement to a whole new level by appearing in an iPod ad, which featured the band’s single “Vertigo.” Since then, U2 has also made a cameo appearance on the hip HBO show “Entourage.”

“We thought, how are we going to get our single off in the days when rock music is niche? When it’s unlikely to get a three-minute punk-rock song on top of the radio?” U2’s Bono (left) told the Tribune’s Greg Kot in 2005 of the “Vertigo” iPod ad. “So we piggybacked this phenomenon to get ourselves to a new, younger audience, and we succeeded.”

Relevance to younger fans is often what established bands are searching for when it comes to television exposure. The Doors (actually, John Densmore of the Doors, much to his bandmates’ chagrin) turned down a $15 million offer from Cadillac, but the band has allowed “The End” to be used on “Without a Trace” and a remix of “Break on Through” (the song Cadillac wanted) on “Saved.”

Led Zeppelin did license one of their songs -- “Rock and Roll” -- to Cadillac, but band members surely received far less cash for the use of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” on “One Tree Hill.” After all, artists are rarely paid more than the low- to mid-five figures for use of a song on a TV show.

Still, the exposure of millions of young “One Tree Hill” fans to a classic Zeppelin track was invaluable.

“Artists are seeking this out,” said Alexandra Patsavas, music supervisor for “The O.C.,” “Without a Trace,” “Supernatural” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” “Ten years ago, it was looked at as something cheesy -- using your music for TV, as opposed to features. But now artists are looking for an opportunity to reach people who might be outside their normal fan base.”

‘Peer pressure’

“A lot of times in the past, there was that feeling of peer pressure - you didn’t want to look like a sellout,” said Randall Wixen, whose publishing firm, according to the ASCAP Web site, represents the catalogs of artists such as Neil Young, the Doors and Tom Petty. “Now everyone is a sellout, so you don’t stand out.”

But knowing when not to license a track is just as important as knowing when to take the plunge.

“Sometimes artists swing and miss,” said Beth Urdang, whose music supervision firm, Agoraphone, placed The Kinks’ “Picture Book” in an effective ad for HP printers (left). “It’s a bummer when [a band that had held out] starts licensing for the wrong things, for things that don’t make any sense.”

Overexposure is another danger. “I love the Who, but you can’t go anywhere without hearing them,” Urdang said of the band whose catalog has supplied many commercial soundtracks as well as the theme songs of “CSI” and “CSI: NY.”

Still, when the right band is paired with the right project - and the use of Nirvana’s “All Apologies” in “Six Feet Under” is a good example of that - both the show and the artist can benefit. And the television scene of a dozen years ago, when most top artists would not have dreamed of licensing their tunes, is far different from the TV of today.

After all, when Nirvana erupted into the cultural mainstream in 1991, television was dominated by mild programs such as “Major Dad,” “Murder, She Wrote” and “Home Improvement.” “Seinfeld” had yet to become a cultural touchstone and “Northern Exposure” often skirted the lower reaches of the Nielsen Top 20.

Though Cobain had a tortured relationship with all things commercial, he loved television, according to Cross, who says the Nirvana singer “spent half his life watching TV.”

Cobain allowed “Beavis and Butt-head” to use “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and Cross has watched hours of videotapes of various things the singer recorded off television, which include everything from Ron Popeil pitches to snippets of TV shows to ads for Lee’s Press On Nails.

There’s no way to know what Cobain would have made of the risk-taking, complicated, emotionally involving fare of today, programs such as “Deadwood,” “The Shield,” “Veronica Mars” and “Lost.” But Cross hazards a guess:

“If he were alive today … I think Kurt Cobain would have been the one negotiating to get a song on `Grey’s Anatomy.’”

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2006/06/the_selling_of_.html#more

Critic’s Notebook
The remarkable Mr. Spelling

By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic in the Sentinel’s TV Guy blog

Aaron Spelling used to tell the story of how missing a flight saved his life. He was then an 18-year-old in the Army and too sick to travel. The plane crashed, killing everyone aboard. When Spelling returned home, he stunned his mother. She had been told he was dead.

"I promised her I would not fly again, and I haven't flown again," Spelling said in 1994.

The prolific producer died Friday at his Los Angeles mansion. He was 83. He had suffered a stroke June 18.

Remaining earthbound bolstered the showman responsible for "Dynasty," "Charlie's Angels," "The Love Boat," "Fantasy Island," "Melrose Place" and "Beverly Hills 90210."

"It's hard to recognize the American public at 10,000 feet," he said.

Spelling's "7th Heaven" ran 10 years on the WB and was that network's biggest hit. The family drama will continue this fall on the CW, a new network.

His other hits included "Charmed," "The Mod Squad," "T.J. Hooker," "Hart to Hart," "Starsky and Hutch," "The Rookies" and "Hotel."

The producer said he learned by talking to viewers. "I'm so corny," he said. "I go out and talk to the tour buses that stop at our house. They built that house."

Spelling was a wafer-thin, diminutive and deeply tanned man who spoke with a Texas drawl. In conversations, he would roll his eyes and slap his head in incredulity. He remained an awestruck kid from Dallas -- even after all his years in Hollywood.

His series usually were more popular with the public than with critics. Yet he produced his share of highly regarded works. "Family," with Sada Thompson, was a quality drama that ran from 1976 to 1980 on ABC.

Spelling won Emmys for two television movies: "Day One," about the making of the first atomic bomb, and "And the Band Played On," based on Randy Shilts' epic look at the AIDS crisis.

Producing the latter movie, Spelling said, was "the biggest thrill I've ever had in my life. ... It was the experience of a lifetime."

Spelling could me hard on himself. He regretted producing the violent police series "S.W.A.T.," calling it "a stupid show."

He minced no words in discussing the TV industry. He hated reality television. "The reality trend makes me puke," he said in 2003. "We have been approached many times about doing it. We're not going to do it, at least not as long as I'm alive."

Spelling disliked the way Hollywood treated older women. He learned about that trend from screen legend Barbara Stanwyck, who was godmother to Spelling's daughter, Tori.

Stanwyck "made me have a deep anger about what Hollywood does with women over 40," he said in 1994. "What is this jazz: 'A woman can't carry a show?' It boggles my mind. Do you think 'Dynasty' would have worked without Joan Collins and Linda Evans?"

Spelling credited his second wife, Candy, with giving him the support to start his own company. And he said Tori inspired him to do "Beverly Hills 90210" after overhearing a conversation among her friends.

"I thank Tori for resurrecting my career," he said.

Jaclyn Smith, star of "Charlie's Angels," praised her former boss in a statement Friday. "Aaron's contributions in television are unequaled," she said. "To me, he was a dear freind and a truly genuine human being."

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2006/06/the_remarkable_.html

Sports On TV
SEC-TV likely to become a reality

By Chip Towers The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 06/24/06

Attention, channel surfers: There's a new wave on the horizon.

By the end of this decade, most major college athletics conferences could have their own television networks. The Mountain West unveils its own channel this fall, the Big Ten comes out with one in 2007, and — never to be outdone — the SEC is considering the prospect after its current TV contract expires in 2009.

So in the not-too-distant future, rather than wondering which channel to catch your favorite conference's games on, viewers might simply tune in to SEC-TV. Or ACC-TV.

"We have been exploring the possibility of an SEC channel for several years now," SEC commissioner Mike Slive said Friday. "We always try to keep up with trends, and it's something we're definitely interested in. But if and when you do it has more to do with when your contracts come up for discussion."

The SEC's television contract with CBS, ESPN and Lincoln Financial (formerly Jefferson Pilot) expires at the end of the 2008-09 academic year. Another deal with Fox Sports South — which includes regional football and basketball coverage and multiple non-revenue sports — expires in June 2008.

The Big Ten announced the advent of its channel this week as part of a new 10-year agreement with ABC and ESPN. The Big Ten Channel will be available in August 2007 and will be distributed by Fox Cable Networks via satellite and cable networks. Its broadcasts also would be available via the Internet, iPods and cellphones.

In addition to providing exposure for non-revenue sports, these new 24-hour channels will show football and basketball games that aren't picked up by the major networks. The stations also will air "classic" games from the conferences' archives and provide venues for some academic programming.

"One of the things that is attractive about it is the potential for showing off so many of the other attributes of our institutions," Slive said.

"Symphonies, convocations, major speeches — not just athletic events — could be shown to our fans."

Slive estimated it would be at least 18 months before the league enters serious discussions regarding its network.

"The way technology continues to evolve, the landscape could be totally different by then," he said. "But we have been thinking about it, we have been exploring it, and we will continue to evaluate it."

Slive was asked if he felt the SEC starting its own channel was necessary to keep up with the Joneses.

"We are the Jones," he replied.

The SEC already features more nationally televised football games — 30 to 35 per year — than any other conference, distributing them via CBS, ESPN and ESPN2. There is plenty of regional coverage on top of that.

"Any time you can get more exposure for our schools and all our programs, it's good," Georgia athletics director Damon Evans said. "If it means more exposure, we like it."

If it's SEC-TV tomorrow, could Bulldogs-TV be far away?

"We've been approached about that for a number of years," Evans said with a laugh. "That's been discussed. It depends on whether the marketplace would support it, certainly.

"But never say never."

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/uga/stories/0624collegetv.html

TV Notebook
New Rules May Mean New Faces at Emmy Awards This Year

By Edward Wyatt The New York Times June 24, 2006

LOS ANGELES, June 22 — In a town where self-recognition is an art form, Hollywood is afraid that some of its stars are not receiving enough attention.

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the overseer of the annual Emmy Awards for prime-time television, has revamped its procedures in an attempt to spread the wealth of Emmy nominations — if not the actual awards — to a broader array of actors, actresses and shows.

That could result in some overlooked and new titles — like "Gilmore Girls" or "Battlestar Galactica" — making the list of nominees in the top Emmy categories for the first time when this year's nominations are announced on July 6.

The nature of prime-time television is that successful shows run for several years with largely the same casts. That dictates that the Emmys, unlike the Oscars, Tonys and Grammys, do not field a unique group of candidates each year.

As a result, each year's list of nominees "tends to be a same-old, same-old situation," said John Leverence, senior vice president for awards at the academy. "You might well get a 60 percent to 80 percent repetition of the prior year's nominees."

The rule changes, however, should result in "a quantitative and a qualitative freshening of the pool," Mr. Leverence said.

The changes have Hollywood buzzing.

"It has been a big topic of conversation," said Michael Jelline, a talent agent at International Creative Management. "The television landscape and the types of programs being done has grown exponentially" with the addition in recent years of original series on cable networks like FX, TNT and Showtime, Mr. Jelline said. "That has brought a different realm of shows into the conversation. But the system by which shows are voted on has not changed."

Until now. In past years, the whittling of the 4,500 entries to 5 nominees in each category was a two-step process. The members of each academy peer group — performers, directors, makeup artists and the like — voted on the eligible shows, with the top five vote-getters in each category being named as nominees. The winner was then chosen by smaller panels of peer-group members.

This year an interim step has been added. The first vote narrows the eligible shows to a list of 10 or 15 potential nominees, and a specially chosen committee then screens and rates an episode of each of those shows, with the ratings used to narrow the list to five nominees. Then a larger panel of peer-group members, numbering from a dozen to several hundred depending on the category, votes to determine the winner.

Because of the academy's adding both a screening and a committee vote to the nomination process, performers and shows that might not have placed high enough in a popular vote get another chance to impress their peers.

The academy has also expanded the peer group that chooses the nominees for best actor and actress, making directors and casting executives, in addition to performers, eligible to vote. That expands by about a third the number of people voting on nominations in the acting categories, Mr. Leverence said.

"The academy's board wanted a way to open up the competition to fresh faces, to have tight races that featured some different people," Mr. Leverence said. "Because the fun thing about any awards show is the rooting factor."

One group that will be rooting hard, at least in the nominating process, consists of fans of Lauren Graham, who plays a single mother on "Gilmore Girls." Though the show has been on the air for six years, and Ms. Graham's performance has been much praised by critics, "Gilmore Girls" has not received a nomination in any major Emmy category. (In 2004 the show won an Emmy for outstanding nonprosthetic makeup for a television series.)

Disappointed viewers ascribe that slight to the fact that "Gilmore Girls" is shown on the smaller WB, rather than on one of the four major networks. Following its merger with UPN, another small broadcaster, WB will be named the CW network.

That argument appears valid, given that other shows that have won devoted followings on less-visible networks, like "Veronica Mars" on UPN, "Rescue Me" on FX and "Battlestar Galactica" on the Sci Fi Channel, have also been largely overlooked by Emmy voters.

In contrast, some shows seem to be able to book their reservations for a limo on Emmy night years in advance. "Everybody Loves Raymond," the CBS hit, was nominated for best comedy series in each of the last seven years, winning twice. From 2000 through 2004, the 25 potential spots for nominees for best actress in a comedy series were filled by only 8 different actresses.

Other quirks of the new system might also favor less mainstream candidates. Because the list of 15 performers will be whittled to 5 nominees based on the screening of a single episode of the show, some strong performances on unpopular shows could make the cut. Among them is that of Lisa Kudrow, whose turn as a scenery-chewing has-been actress on HBO's "Comeback" won plaudits but not viewers. The show was canceled after one season.

Another unusual aspect of this year's Emmy ceremony involves its scheduling. The show will be broadcast live from the Shrine Auditorium here on Sunday, Aug. 27, a week before Labor Day weekend, when much of the country is on vacation, and the number of households watching television is down about 15 percent from prime viewing months.

The Emmy ceremony has traditionally been scheduled for the second or third Sunday in September, when it served as a sort of kickoff for the new season. But because NBC, whose turn it is to televise this year's awards, has a contract to broadcast National Football League games on Sunday nights, the Emmys had to be moved to late August.

Mr. Leverence shrugged off the scheduling change, saying that this year's rule revisions could help to make up for what otherwise might be lower viewership.

"The important thing is not the night it is on, but do you have competitions that people are interested in seeing," he said. "If you have a field of nominees with tight, interesting races, people will want to see it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/24/arts/television/24emmy.html?pagewanted=print

The Business of TV
Multicast Madness

By Steve Donohue multichannelnews.com 6/26/2006

When television stations owned by NBC, CBS and other broadcasters first began transmitting digital-TV signals in 1998, the concept of “multicasting” — squeezing up to four networks into space previously occupied by a single analog channel — seemed like it could revolutionize the TV business.

Some stations quickly jumped on multicasting to offer viewers local news and weather channels — or even broadcast up to four “March Madness” college basketball games simultaneously. Now, the Big Four TV networks and stations have instead chosen to distribute programming directly to viewers via the Internet.

Rather than repeats of 24 or Desperate Housewives showing up on multicast channels, ABC, Fox, NBC and CBS have turned to platforms such as Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store and their own Web sites in fresher bids to drive new subscription ($1.99 downloads) and ad revenue.

All the major networks have deals with iTunes, and are looking to boost ad revenue through the Web. ABC is streaming Lost and other hits on ABC.com with a single sponsor for each show; Fox is making 24 and other shows available on News Corp. sister MySpace.com for $1.99 apiece; and CBS recently began distributing original entertainment videos on an “innertube” broadband channel on CBS.com.

Why funnel programming through the Internet, instead of targeting viewers watching TV in their living rooms?

About 70% of Americans rely on basic-cable subscription packages to watch broadcast networks. The only way for viewers to get HDTV and multicast networks over the air from broadcast towers is with a rooftop antenna and a digital-broadcast receiver, the latter can cost up to $500.

“I think people were very hesitant about going back to the days of antennas,” said John Harris, director of programming at Raleigh, N.C., CBS affiliate WRAL-TV, owned by Capitol Broadcasting Corp.

PREEMPTIVE OUTLETS

WRAL-TV is a multicasting pioneer. It’s distributed up to four National Collegiate Athletics Association men’s basketball tournament games simultaneously on multicast channels carried by Time Warner Cable’s Raleigh, N.C., division since 2000, and it also distributes 24-hour news and weather channels.

But Harris says the multicast channels haven’t generated significant ad revenue for the station. WRAL relies more on its multicast channels as an outlet for programming it can’t fit on its analog channel. When a major storm hit Raleigh last month, the station preempted its analog channel and moved As the World Turns and other CBS soap operas to a multicast channel.

But the Big Four networks and stations for the most part are holding their best content for Web distribution, with some executives saying they believe they can reach more viewers nationwide on the Internet than they can through the TV, since most cable operators only carry a station’s primary signal.

“If people are going to put time and energy into creating a channel, at the moment, why not create it for the Internet instead of waiting for multicast?” said a senior executive at a Big Four network who asked not to be identified.

STILL SEEKING MANDATE

NBC and CBS executives have argued that cable operators should be forced to carry every digital signal from local stations, which is the key point of the “multicast must-carry” debate. The Federal Communications Commission was expected to pass a digital must-carry mandate last week, but chairman Kevin Martin pulled the scheduled vote after failing to gather support from the majority of commissioners.

Cable operators have argued that a mandate to carry dozens of digital multicast channels from broadcasters would clog channel capacity, and threaten existing networks on their lineups.

And cable programmers facing the prospect of competition from multicast channels have also balked at calls for digital must-carry.

Multicast must-carry “is infuriating because broadcast programmers don’t have to prove the worth of their new channels to pay TV distributors,” Oxygen Media CEO Geraldine Laybourne said at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Cable-Tec Expo in Denver last week, arguing that must-carry would give broadcasters “an extra advantage.”

NBC has attempted more with multicasting than rival broadcasters, launching local NBC Weather Plus channels produced by NBC stations and affiliates in 85 markets. And through retransmission-consent deals struck with Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems Corp. and other cable operators and telcos, NBC Weather Plus counts about 20 million subscribers.

It’s not clear how much ad revenue NBC Weather Plus generates. Officials at NBC declined to comment.

Other major broadcasters say the lack of distribution of multicast networks on cable systems makes the Internet a more attractive platform to distribute programming.

“There’s a bit of a creative chicken and an egg problem … If there were more avenues for multicast carriage on cable, I think you would see many more [network] ideas spring forward,” a senior network executive added.

HANDFUL OF HOPEFULS

But even without a so-called “multicast must-carry” mandate, a handful of programmers are developing new networks, including weather, lifestyle and music channels.

Since its debut in May 2005, AgU Entertainment’s The Tube Music Network has cut deals with station group owners Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., Raycom Media Inc. and Tribune Broadcasting, which allow it to reach 74% of TV homes via broadcast signals, AgU vice president of distribution Mike Ruggiero said.

Rather than pitch their music network for distribution to cable and direct-broadcast satellite providers, The Tube opted to partner with broadcast station groups, counting on retransmission consent deals those stations can cut with local operators to secure a spot for the multicast network on cable systems.

The Tube is now available in about 4 million cable homes through multicast carriage deals broadcast affiliates have cut with cable operators, including Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications Inc. and Charter Communications Inc..

Ruggiero said The Tube shares ad revenue from its network with its broadcast affiliates. Cable affiliates don’t pay license fees for the channel, and operators benefit from promotions local broadcast stations run for The Tube which direct viewers to watch the network on digital cable.

“It gives cable operators access to [a station’s] high-definition service, and it gives the cable operators access to free programming. In addition, that local broadcaster is going to promote the heck out of it [The Tube’s availability on digital cable] in every one of their spots,” Ruggiero added.

The Tube’s largest broadcast launch came earlier this month, when Tribune’s WPIX-TV station in New York rolled it onto channel 11.2. The Tube hasn’t yet cut a deal to distribute the channel on Time Warner Cable’s New York system, but Ruggiero said he’s “very confident” that the 1.2-million-subscriber system will carry it out later this year.

One top executive at a major broadcast network said he believes Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other operators are resisting reaching multicast programming deals with stations since they are concerned about the services competing with their own networks, such as Comcast regional news channel CN8 and Time Warner Cable’s New York 1.

Officials at Time Warner Cable and Comcast declined to comment last week.

WEATHERING THE FUTURE

Most early multicast programming efforts have focused on news and weather programming. In addition to NBC Weather Plus, there’s AccuWeather Inc.’s Local AccuWeather Channel, a multicast channel distributed by ABC owned-and-operated stations.

AccuWeather executive director of media sales Brian Kisslak said the company expects to announce “market tests with other major [station] groups” within the next 120 days, but AccuWeather and ABC haven’t yet reached deals to distribute the weather service on any digital-cable systems.

In the long run, AccuWeather, which also supplies weather information to newspapers, mobile phones, TV programmers and Web sites, may generate the bulk of its revenue from new media platforms.

“There are so many emerging platforms right now … I think the best thing about AccuWeather is our portfolio is in every one of these markets. If they all converge, we all succeed. If some stay and some go away, we succeed,” Kisslak said.

None of the Big Four broadcast networks have developed entertainment programming for multicast distribution, but CBS executives disclosed last year that the company was considering distributing entertainment programming, such as outtakes from series such as Survivor, through a multicast channel called CBS.2.

No launch date has been set for the multicast channel, and since the CBS.2 announcement, CBS has cut deals with Apple to sell CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and other hit shows on iTunes. The broadcaster also plans to distribute original videos on CBS.com.

GETTING MULTI-PAID

Unlike the case with The Tube, if CBS moves forward with CBS.2, it could demand license fees for the channel from cable operators by trying to package the network in retransmission-consent deals.

“When you add a CBS 2, 3 and 4, aren’t you going to get paid for it? We are. Advertising — new forms of advertising. This includes product placement, program integration, and micro-programs, and finally, video on demand. Within the next few years, if not sooner, you are going to see us getting paid on VOD for our top-quality, premiere shows,” CBS president Les Moonves said at a Merrill Lynch conference.

Under current rules, broadcasters that elect must-carry over retransmission-consent are entitled to distribution on a cable system, but can’t demand fees for the content.

Top executives at CBS and NBC have said publicly several times that they want cable operators to pay them cash in exchange for rights to carry their networks, just as operators pay license fees to carry cable networks such as ESPN or MTV: Music Television.

The Tube’s Ruggiero, a former Cox executive who also negotiates retransmission-consent deals between broadcasters and cable operators through a privately held consulting firm, said he believes video on demand could help resolve disputes involving multicast network distribution.

With most current retransmission-consent agreements between major operators and Big Four station groups set to expire beginning in 2008, Ruggiero said finding a way for operators to run on-demand programming from broadcast networks, and share the ad revenue from the shows with stations, could help operators add multicast networks and VOD broadcast shows to their lineups.

“Everyone [broadcasters] would love to have license fees, no doubt. But all a license fee is is incremental revenue. If I can bring in other incremental revenue schemes or plans that bring incremental revenue to broadcasters, I’m serving the same purpose that I would for asking for cash,” Ruggiero said.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6346618

Popular music and its inclusion in TV shows has always been a sticky issue.
The Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan took an indepth look at the topic the other day.
I thought I’d wait until the weekend to post it. It is fascinating reading.

Critic’s Notebook
The selling of Nirvana and TV's power over the biggest bands
That's the first thing that struck me about "Saved", was some of the music they used, if the show had completely stunk, I still would have stuck around just to hear what else they might play.



It’s that promise of a direct connection with attentive fans -- many of whom zoom on to the Internet to find out what songs just played on their favorite show -- that has drawn some of the biggest names in the business to the small screen.


I've learned of a lot new music from TV soundtracks, "Rescue Me" has introduced me to a lot of new music, the problem is trying to find out exactly what it is though. I had to search for about 3 days to figure out a tune from Season 2. It's too bad they don't list the tunes in the credits as a matter of course, and if they do it's usually screened at light speed so a DVR pause is needed. Some shows do prominently display what the tunes were like "Veronica Mars" and I think "Joan of Arcadia" did the same thing.

Friday’s network prime-time ratings are now at the top of RATINGS NEWS (the first post in this thread).

Remembrance
The Day I Sucker-Punched Aaron Spelling

By Nikki Finke LA Weekly in her deadlinehollywooddaily blog

It’s the end of Aaron Spelling, and the end of a TV era.

To understand his once-upon-a-time utter dominance in the medium, you have to put together both Jerry Bruckheimer’s and Dick Wolf’s TV empires on one network, and then you’ll understand.

So I’m sharing with you this sit-down interview I did with him in 1989 way back when I was a Calendar writer for the Los Angeles Times covering the TV biz.

Let me set the scene: he had this gargantuan office on what was then the Warner’s Hollywood lot, and on his payroll a black guy in a white uniform (a porter? a waiter? heck, there’s no PC term for that) serving us drinks.

I let Aaron do his tapdance routine for me for about half an hour. Then I asked him, “Gee, if things are going so great for you, then why is this the first time in a generation of TV viewers you won’t have any shows on ABC?”

He looked like I had sucker-punched him. But then he got really, really angry. Not at me, but at the TV industry and network suits.

It turned into a very revealing interview, one of those rare times in Hollywood when candor actually occurs between a mogul and a journalist. (But Aaron hated this article and regretted being so truthful. He gave his PR guy Warren Cowan many Maalox moments because of it.)

After this humiliating TV dry spell, Spelling recouped and reinvented himself and his production company with Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Charmed, and so many other crappy shows that nevertheless we all craved. (Exception: Seventh Heaven, a cut above content-wise.)

We won’t see his ilk again, and TV is both worse and better off for it:

CAN SPELLING CAST HIS SPELL AGAIN?
VETERAN PRODUCER IS SEARCHING FOR THE MAGIC TOUCH IN A NEW ERA

Two years ago, Aaron Spelling had an idea for a dramatic and, he thought, different television series about a divorced family as told through the eyes of a little boy. Besides voiceovers (later used by The Wonder Years), its main innovation was its format — two back-to-back half-hour shows, one about the boy’s weekdays with his mother, the other about his weekends with his father. “I got to tell you,” Spelling confided, “I was convinced we were going to sell it.” But ABC’s programming bosses didn’t want it.”I could tell they thought I had come in with a very unique idea. But they didn’t think I could pull it off,” he recalls. “I knew they were saying, ‘If only we could do it with (TV producers) a Bochco or a Zwick and Herskovitz.’ ”

Not so long ago, ABC would have been happy to do anything with Spelling, who had been cranking out hits for the network since Burke’s Law in 1963 — most of that time under an exclusive contract. But then Capital Cities bought the network in 1985 and upset the status quo. Suddenly TV’s king of trash and flash, who once programmed one-third of ABC’s prime-time lineup with the likes of Starsky & Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat and Dynasty, found himself unable to sell any new hour-long series for fall ‘86. And a half-hour sitcom with Lucille Ball bellyflopped so badly that ABC aired just eight shows. But the worst was still to come that year when Brandon Stoddard, then ABC’s new entertainment division president, publicly promised that the network would no longer be “Aaron’s Broadcasting Company.” The implication, which wasn’t lost on either Spelling or his competitors, was that Spelling not only couldn’t deliver the sort of quality shows that Stoddard wanted, but also even bore some responsibility for ABC’s nosedive in the ratings in the mid-1980s. “Sure, that hurt,” Spelling admits in a recent interview at his gargantuan office on the Warner Hollywood lot. “I’ve become a little whipping boy for the network. But something has happened to me now that I never used to feel. I get really hurt when they say nasty things.”

Today, three decades after he got his start in Hollywood and nearly one year after the expiration of his 18-year pact with ABC, Spelling is in a not-so-enviable position — at age 65, the once-powerful insider is an outsider. The man who many thought was immune to the up-and-down fortunes of the TV industry is now just another producer trying to sell his programming — albeit a super-rich one who’s building a 56,500-square-foot home in Holmby Hills. “It’s a more difficult time for Aaron than ever before,” says Lynn Loring, a one-time Spelling protegee who now is vice president for development at MGM-UA Television. “When he was at the top of the game with truly no competitors, Aaron Spelling was God. That’s not true anymore.”

The good news, as Spelling sees it, is that he now can take his ideas to NBC, CBS, Fox, syndication and cable, instead of having to rely only on ABC’s wants and whims. The bad news is that many within the industry consider his unique brand of escapist fantasy and action-adventure shows to be out-of-step with today’s emphasis on half-hour comedies and more realistic dramas such as L.A. Law and thirtysomething. Spelling, however, believes the programming pendulum is swinging back in his direction. “I think there’s a terrible lack of entertainment on TV these days,” he contends. “The one insatiable appetite that people watching television share is to escape. And if you have 9 or 10 ‘thirtysomethings’ on the air, you will drive this audience away farther than we’ve contributed to driving this audience away already.”

As proof of this, he points to the surprise success of his new NBC series about scantily clad nurses, Nightingales. Though reviled by the critics, it nevertheless has been winning its time period at 10 p.m. Wednesday nights, prompting top executives at CBS to call Aaron Spelling Productions and ask, ‘Can you do that for us?’ ” On the other hand, Spelling’s Dynasty and HeartBeat are dying on ABC against NBC’s invincible Thursday night lineup, and a much-publicized sequel to Charlie’s Angels for Fox Broadcasting has become mired in legal wrangling and has been scrapped as a series idea, though TV movies haven’t been ruled out.

While Spelling maintains that he would like to do more quality programs on the order of his recent CBS-TV movie Day One, about the development of the atom bomb, he complains that network executives don’t often trust him to make them. Forgotten, he says, are his series Mod Squad and Family which were hailed as breakthrough programs in their time, and his TV movie about anorexia nervosa, Best Little Girl in the World, which won critical acclaim in 1981. “I’m in a ‘Catch 22′ situation. It’s where they pigeonhole an Aaron Spelling and say, ‘He can only do this,’ and ‘He can’t do that.’ It’s about to drive me crazy.”

MGM-UA’s Loring, who used to work in Spelling’s development department, says he only has himself to blame for his current dilemma. “I think what happened is he put himself into a bind where he continued to turn out what ABC was asking him to turn out — The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and that rash of shows that made not only the network successful but also Aaron Spelling successful as well. But one has to wonder why he didn’t use the power that he had at ABC to do more quality shows. So Aaron says ABC wouldn’t accept them from him. Well, he’s now able to work with two other networks at least. Where’s his new Family? Where’s his new Best Little Girl? Instead he gives us Nightingales. And speaking now not as an executive but as a woman, I find that show offensive.”

But Spelling defends shows like Nightingales, which he boasts was his idea. “Just take a week and see what the top 10 or 15 shows were and how many were entertainment, and how many were thought-provoking,” he says. “I think you’d be surprised.” Talking to Spelling, who alternates between sounding incredibly cynical about Hollywood (”As Shakespeare said, there’s are only seven plots anyway”) and as wide-eyed as the first day he arrived from Texas, it’s clear he likes his TV the old-fashioned way. And, just as his personal style hasn’t changed over the years — he still wears sweaters and sneakers to the office — neither have his ideas about TV. He truly likes plots as simple as boy meets girl, characterization that’s not too multi-dimensional, and lots and lots of happy endings. As he himself says, “I make shows I want to watch.”

Nevertheless, over the past three years, he has revamped the TV side of his production company to bring in younger people. For instance, his vice president for creative affairs now is 31-year-old Ilene Chaiken. “If the company is going to change and start doing fresher things,” he notes, “it starts with its development people.” Under this new team, his company has pilot orders from all three networks for fall, though no commitments yet. Spelling maintains he’s trying to give them that “something different” in programming they all seem to want. “But I wish someone would explain to me what they mean by doing it differently,” he laments, throwing up his arms in disgust. “I can honestly say that I don’t know what the networks want anymore.”

For CBS, Spelling is making Curse of the Corn People, set in a small farming town in Kansas, about a group of high school graduates whose one ambition is to make a low-budget horror movie on the order of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Even his development director recognizes it’s an “unusual notion” for a series. But Spelling sees it as an “almost twentysomething. ” Also in development for CBS is a more conventional murder-mystery show about a chess master and his manager, who crisscross the globe playing matches and solving crimes. Meanwhile, for NBC, “we’re getting into comedy in a big way,” Spelling maintains. His company is developing a half-hour situation comedy based on Robin Schiff’s play “Ladies Room,” which is set in a women’s restroom. Titled Temporarily Yours, the pilot has been written by Schiff, who pursues the same women-talking-about-men themes as in her play. Spelling seems to be NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff’s newest best friend. In 1986, when he first went to talk to the programming chief, Tartikoff met him at the elevator with a band playing “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” And, just recently, as Spelling and CBS President Laurence Tisch were dining at Chasen’s, Tartikoff arranged to be their waiter. “It’s so nice to be cared about,” Spelling says. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been treated that way.”

When discussing what he calls his “love-hate” relationship with ABC’s Stoddard, Spelling sounds bitter about the way he has been treated him. Presently, Spelling has only one pilot in the works for ABC — Sam Berdoo, a series about a “hard-boiled” private eye who’s raising his dead buddy’s teen-age daughter — but not for lack of trying. “For instance,” he adds, “we did a whole presentation for a show about people who threw reunions. And, low and behold, the things that they objected mostly to were the reunions that dealt with serious subjects. And, yet, if we had submitted those flash-and-dash Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Finder of Lost Love story lines again, I thought they’d say, ‘That’s exactly what we don’t want to do. Aren’t you ever going to grow up, Aaron?’ “

Still, if Dynasty and HeartBeat are cancelled, and Sam Berdoo not picked up, that would mean a Spelling-less ABC — a first for a generation of TV viewers. While Stoddard, who resigned last week, wouldn’t comment for this article, his right-hand man, Ted Harbert, ABC’s senior vice president for programming, did. “I think even Aaron will admit that a network’s over-reliance on any one producer is a mistake,” Harbert says of the decision not to renew Spelling’s exclusivity contract last April. “And that’s not to say anything derogatory about Aaron. It’s just that we were depending on one guy to give us all our good shows. So we had to increase our odds by opening the doors.” Harbert also acknowledges that other producers felt they wouldn’t get a fair shake at the network — or much less a good time period — unless their initials were A.S. “Some of it was true, some of it was not true. But if the perception was there,” he explains, “that caused a big problem for us. So we really did have to create a new perception.”

“I guess I should apologize to ABC that Love Boat was on 10 years, and Dynasty 9 and Hotel 5 and Vega$ 4 and Matt Houston 3. I guess that was my fault the shows were successful,” Spelling bristles. “Frankly, I think Stoddard had to do something when he took over. And the thirtysomethings and the China Beaches is the direction he chose to go. But tell me,” he adds, “what shows in this new genre are really successful?”

Dave Lane, head of ABC’s affiliates and general manager of WFAA-TV in Dallas, is one of those Spelling critics who applaud the network’s decision to reduce the producer’s influence. “When Brandon came in, he said that over time he needed to evolve his own relationships with the producers he felt comfortable working with. And, quite honestly, his philosophy didn’t square with what Aaron Spelling was producing at the time.”

Spelling has little good to say about the new generation of TV makers that Stoddard brought in to replace him. Noting the current hype surrounding Steven Bochco, the writer-producer who co-created Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and Hooperman, and who has been given a long-term exclusive deal to create more series for ABC, Spelling asks cattily: “Where’s the screaming about the Bochco contract? I don’t hear anybody saying, ‘My God, with all these series he’s doing for ABC, how are we ever going to get a show on? Look,” Spelling adds, “I think Steve Bochco is brilliant and L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues were great. But then let’s see his track record. You think Hooperman is a big-rated show? And was Bay City Blues a big smash?”

Picking up the two-for-four metaphor, Bochco responds: “If I were in the major leagues and I was hitting .500, George Steinbrenner would probably make me a wealthy guy.”

As for thirtysomething, which won the Emmy Award last season as television’s best dramatic series, Spelling says it’s “not a show I can watch every week. It has a little too much angst and whining for me. If it weren’t for the critics, ‘thirtysomething’ would never have made it. There’s no doubt about it.” MGM’s Loring, whose studio produces the show, replies: “Too much angst? Unlike Dynasty? If you want to talk about angst and depression and insanity and any kind of human emotion on a scale of one to 10, then Dynasty has hit the highest number on the Richter scale.”

Well, then, how about ABC’s Vietnam series China Beach? “I liked the pilot,” Spelling says. “But I just don’t know if I want to see the gore of everything that happens there.” On the other hand, Spelling thinks Stephen J. Cannell’s Wiseguy on CBS is “terrific. I get a pang every time I see a successful show, to be very honest with you. I go, ‘Dammit, why didn’t we think of that?’ I wished I had recognized the immense talent of that star (Ken Wahl).”

If Spelling is finding himself hamstrung in the TV business, he claims his freedom may lie in feature films, even though his record of success there is spotty at best. “Lately, it’s been easier to sell theatrical movies than TV shows. In movies, there is no stigma for me.” After the box-office hit Mr. Mom,” Spelling’s most recent movies — including the adaptation of the play ” ‘night, Mother,” and fluffier efforts “Surrender” starring Sally Fields and Satisfaction with Justice Bateman — have fallen flat with audiences. This year, Tri-Star will be releasing his company’s latest production, The Von Metz Incident, starring Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd.

No matter how his fortunes fare in TV into the 1990s, Spelling in the end is content to be judged “on my staying power in the business.” That was the main theme that emerged last September when he was honored by the Museum of Broadcasting at a star-studded lovefest. And that also appears to be the main theme of an as-yet-untitled book of memoirs he’s currently writing for Little, Brown about his experiences. “It will say that if you think hard enough and work long enough, a lot of your dreams can come true in the TV business,” he says. “But the problems of TV now are immense. We can’t treat this anymore like a candy story where, no matter what you put on the air, every producer and every network gets rich. We are in a hard-crunch business now and I hate it.”

So why doesn’t he just forget the whole thing? “If you want to know the honest-to-goodness truth,” he confides, “I just love it, including the aggravation.”

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/

"Joan of Arcadia" did the same thing.
Joan would typically prominantly announce one or two song/artist titles at the end of the show, but the producers maintained a website that would list full song credits for the curious.

Remembrance
Dear Mr. Fantasy: Aaron Spelling Dies at 83

By James Poniewozik Time Magazine television critic in Time’s Tuned In blog

TV producer Aaron Spelling, who died Friday at age 83 of complications from a stroke, spent his adult life reaping the rewards of, and the punishments for, knowing exactly what people want.

He produced more than 3,000 hours of TV—a world record—only a handful of which, to be honest, were critically praised. The rest were just watched, voraciously: The Love Boat, Dynasty, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Beverly Hills 90210.

He famously called his shows "mind candy," and they were, but they were also like mind missiles: laser-guided delivery systems targeted precisely at that part of the reptilian brain that wants to see bikini-wearing detectives, high school kids agonizing over their virginity, rich ladies wrestling in a lily pond.

Spelling had hits in many genres of TV--soaps, cop shows, family dramas and anthologies. But if there was an overarching theme to his career, it was that he understood that for the small box in your living room to command your attention, everything he put on it had to be big: his characters were richer, sexier, tougher, even, on 7th Heaven, more virtuous than you could ever hope to be.

Spelling understood that TV was aspirational--that, as a medium supported by commercials, it was a desire-producing machine.

To get viewers, it needed to tantalyze and stoke their fantasies without making them feel bad for not having realized them. He reached the apex of his producing power, in the 70s and 80s, by making shows like Fantasy Island and Dynasty, where characters lived out the audience's dreams of sex and riches—and were surely punished for them.

It's always tempting in an obituary to try to elevate the legacy of the deceased, to show that he had an artistic greatness the rest of us didn't realize. I won't do that for Spelling: he was an entertainer, and good for him.

But his shows did give later, more ambitious producers the stuff to build on.

It was his appreciation of the power of camp and fantasy that allowed his protege, Darren Star, to give us Sex and the City; his success with primetime soaps helped prove that mass audiences would follow serial stories, which down the road made shows like Lost possible.

Aaron Spelling didn't make TV smarter, greater or more artistic. But he did, for 3,000-plus hours, make it more: more grand, more showy, more fantastic.

TV was his island, which he built, one campy show at a time, and he left it sprawling and capacious enough for decades of fantasies to come.

http://time.blogs.com/tuned_in/

TV Review
Duvall comes full circle with 'Broken Trail'

By Susan Young Oakland Tribune
"Broken Trail" 8 PM ET/PT Sunday, concluding 8 PM ET/PT Monday AMC

We don’t want to step on Superman's cape, but if the Man of Steel ever messed with Robert Duvall, our money would be on Duvall.

With a twinkle in his eye and a snap in his banter, he'd charm the tights off the superhero. While most of us hope when we're 75 we can still get in the car and go to the grocery store, Duvall's out riding the range and getting the better of the bad guys.

No one sits on a horse like Duvall. And no one embodies a Western hero like Duvall.

"Maybe I'd have been a rancher," says Duvall, "if I hadn't been an actor."

Good news for us all that he decided on the latter.

Duvall's at the top of his game in AMC's first foray into original movies. The four-hour miniseries has Duvall portraying aging cowboy Print Ritter, who is out to set a few family wrongs right.

As much a part of the story as the actors is the magnificent Canadian scenery shot outside Calgary — the same location for films including "Brokeback Mountain" and "Legends of the Fall." And the director is noted filmmaker Walter Hill, who did the pilot episode of "Deadwood."

The production team boasts Emmy and Oscar winners, and the end product shows the polish, although it starts off a bit shaky.

The movie opens not with cowboys, but with frightened young Chinese immigrant girls who have been sold into service by their poor families, believing they would become maids. But it was prostitution that awaited most young women arriving in San Francisco's Chinatown in the late 1800s.

So Sun Foy (Gwendoline Yeo), Mai Ling (Caroline Chan), Ghee Moon (Jadyn Wong), Ging Wa (Valerie Tian) and Ye Fung (Olivia Cheng) are picked up by a ruthless man, Fender (James Russo), to begin their lives as prostitutes for a madam named Big Rump Kate (Rusty Schwimmer).

Meanwhile, Print catches up with his estranged nephew Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church) and the movie really starts to percolate. Print delivers the news that Tom's mother has passed away and left the family ranch to Print. Print wants to set things right by using the ranch as collateral to buy a herd of horses to sell, and he'll share the profits with Tom.

You're probably wondering how a city dude like Church, best known as the drifty guy on "Wings" or the aimless guy in "Sideways," fares as a cowboy.

Pretty good.

Church actually has a ranch in Texas and his first job, at 13, was working cattle. He settles right in as the laconic Tom who wants to prove he's a good man — despite his talent for killing people.

Print and Tom are quickly joined by fiddle-playing gentleman Heck (Scott Cooper), and the three cross paths with Fender. Print inherits the girls and is determined to keep them safe. Along the way, he also picks up battered prostitute Nola (Greta Scacchi), who began life in the West as a married lady and did what she had to do to survive after her husband died.

Every character in this film is carefully etched, remaining true to the spirit of the West while staying grounded in truth.

Screenwriter Alan Geoffrion says the inspiration for the story came from visiting a ranch in Nebraska — a suggestion from his longtime friend Duvall. Ranch owner Waldo Haythorne described how his grandfather Walter took 700 horses from Oregon to South Dakota.

Geoffrion coupled this story with his fascination with the history of women and minorities in the Old West, and the result is the intriguing story of "Broken Trail."

"I always say that the English have Shakespeare, the French have Moliere and the Russians have Chekhov, but the Western is ours. It is America's Shakespeare," Duvall says. "I look at this movie as the end of a kind of trilogy for me, starting with 'Lonesome Dove' and 'Open Range.'"

http://www.insidebayarea.com/tv/ci_3966558

The Digital Revolution
MPEG-4 Gives DBS Room

By Russell Shaw Broadcasting & Cable, 6/26/2006

In order to provide a comprehensive offering of stations' high-definition signals in most markets, both DirecTV and EchoStar are upgrading their infrastructure from MPEG-2 compression to MPEG-4 to gain maximum efficiency from satellite capacity.

“When we started looking at the transmissions that support HDTV, we decided that none of the old boxes would be able to process them,” says Romulo Pontual, executive VP/chief technology officer, DirecTV Inc. “MPEG-4 offers a much better compression rate that can be used to improve quality.”

DirecTV is broadcasting local HD content using the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec while employing a newer transmission protocol (DVB-S2) over its new Spaceway-1 and Spaceway-2 satellites. This allows DirecTV to squeeze much more HD programming over its satellite signal than would be possible with the older MPEG-2 compression and DSS protocol it has been using.

Most HD channels today are compressed at a bitrate of 12 to 18 megabits per second (Mbps) using MPEG-2 technology. Compression manufacturers say the newer MPEG-4 codecs can slice that bitrate in half.

“The biggest technology challenge is the sheer amount of bandwidth necessary to carry up to 1,700 local-broadcast signals,” says Lisa Hobbs, senior director of business development for satellite & broadcast with Tandberg Television. “MPEG-4 is twice as efficient,” she adds, noting that it is capable of a 6- to 8-Mbps bitrate for HD.

“The need is being driven by the explosion of new content,” says Jimmy Schaeffler, chairman and senior analyst, Carmel Group. “More bandwidth enables more content down the same pipe.”

Of the two main DBS providers, DirecTV has been the more vocal about its plans. According to Pontual, some 36 markets covering approximately 68% of U.S. households will have been enabled for MPEG-4 by the end of this month, with a target of 50 markets and more than 65% of U.S. household penetration by the end of 2006.

EchoStar's Dish Network is also proceeding rapidly toward widespread MPEG-4 delivery of local broadcast high-def. The service started Feb. 1 with New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston among the first to get the signals of the local ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliates. EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen has said that 50% of U.S. TV households will be covered with MPEG-4 by the end of 2006.

For both DirecTV and Dish, nationwide deployment of MPEG-4 will require a substantial outlay of capital, widely believed to be, collectively, well into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The main challenge is the cost of the encoders and the cost to change out set-top boxes,” says Schaeffler. “The satellites and multiplexers all stay the same.”

DirecTV customers can receive local HD channels by purchasing the company's new H20 HD receiver and a satellite dish able to receive programming from five orbital locations. DirecTV is offering a $100 mail-in rebate to new customers who purchase a DirecTV HD receiver.

Receiving equipment is available at major consumer-electronics retailers, such as Best Buy and Circuit City, as well as through DirecTV. Existing customers are eligible for a $99 upgrade to the new H20 receiver and dish, plus $99 for each additional HD receiver.

NEED MORE BIRDS

Bob Wilson, CEO of MPEG-4 compression supplier Modulus Video, notes that both EchoStar and DirecTV are starting to make the investment—one he believes will be complete within two years. “The good news is that all of the other equipment—the satellites, the transponders—is going to stay the same.”

Well, when it comes to satellites, not everything will stay the same. While the satellites currently in orbit will be able to handle MPEG-4, the sheer demand of all these extra national and local HD channels drives the need for more birds.

“We cannot [fully] convert to MPEG until we launch two other satellites in the first quarter of next year,” says DirecTV's Pontual. He believes that, with these new birds up, the total of four satellites (the two existing Spaceways plus DirecTV 10 and DirecTV 11) in 2007 should enable more or less full conversion to MPEG-4 within about a year.

VIEWERS WILL NOTICE

Modulus' Wilson believes that, when this conversion happens en masse, viewers will notice.

“MPEG-4 is about 10 times more computation-intensive, with more algorithms and tools,” he says. “As a result,” he adds, “the picture looks great or better than MPEG-2 but with a lot less noticeable blocks showing up in fast-motion images.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346828

The Digital Revolution
MPEG-4 Gives DBS Room



VIEWERS WILL NOTICE

Modulus' Wilson believes that, when this conversion happens en masse, viewers will notice.

“MPEG-4 is about 10 times more computation-intensive, with more algorithms and tools,” he says. “As a result,” he adds, “the picture looks great or better than MPEG-2 but with a lot less noticeable blocks showing up in fast-motion images.”

Well, this viewer has certainly noticed, Dish's 1080i HD channels using the above tech look like crap, the regular MPEG2 HD channels look much better. I haven't seen DirecTV's local HD but Dish definitely has a ways to go before they can say “the picture looks great or better than MPEG-2 ".

Washington Notebook
Reg Review Finally Revs Up

By John Eggerson Broadcasting & Cable 6/26/2006

New FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell opened his first public meeting last week by pointing out that it was being held on the summer solstice, “the longest day of the year ... at least so far,” he said.

The laughter that greeted that remark was in recognition of the launch of a contentious process signaled by the FCC’s vote to finally start reviewing rule changes that would allow ownership of newspapers and TV stations in the same market.

With a Republican majority, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin will now likely have the votes to give media companies the freedom to own more stations or newspapers and stations in a market, though not before months of public comment and market studies. The FCC must still convince a federal court that this is the right way to go and could even then face more court challenges.

The rules were adopted by a party-line vote in 2003 but were stayed three years ago and remanded for changes two years ago by a federal appeals court in Philadelphia.

The FCC agenda last week did not include a vote on granting broadcasters cable carriage of their digital multicast signals. In a surprise move, Martin pulled the item on the night of June 18 after failing to muster his newly minted Republican majority.

The move to table multicast must-carry was a big victory for cable, which opposes it, and a setback for broadcasters, who see that carriage as critical to their success—if not their survival—in a multichannel world.

But the absence of multicast left more room for speeches on ownership. The Democrats’ same impassioned rhetoric that accompanied the first rules’ passage in 2003 was in evidence last week.

Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein voted with the majority to launch the review but registered their dissent as well, saying that, as proposed, the rule review fails to address key issues of localism and diversity.

Adelstein likened Martin’s take on the rule review to turning in a high school paper for a Ph.D. thesis.

His and Copps’ major problems with Martin’s review plan were threefold: The FCC has yet to finish a proceeding, launched in 2003, on the effects of consolidation on localism; the review does not ensure that the public will be able to comment on the issues “reshaping the media before forcing a vote,” as Copps put it; and it does not take into account how one rule change might affect the advisability of another—for example, the result of allowing newspapers and TV-station ownership in a market and allowing more stations to be owned by one owner in that same market.

For his part, Martin countered that his colleagues were prejudging the item based on past commissions and chairmen. Borrowing Adelstein’s schoolroom analogy, he said it was like giving him an F on the first day of school before he had turned in any work.

Martin pledged an open, neutral process, saying the FCC will hold at least a half dozen public hearings and fund studies of the effects of consolidation on kids programming, family-friendly programming, news, localism, independent programming and more, budget willing. As to the unfinished localism proceeding, Martin said the FCC would incorporate an interim status report on it in the rule review, calling it an important element.

The FCC will also hold an extended, 120-day comment period to provide the public ample opportunity to weigh in, said Martin.

The FCC approved its 2003 deregulatory rule rewrite on a straight 3-2 party-line vote, with Martin voting for it while still a commissioner under Chairman Michael Powell, and Copps and Adelstein voting against.

Among other changes, those rules would have replaced the newspaper/broadcast crossownership ban and radio/TV crossownership rules with a “single set of media limits.”

The FCC must now look at the remand of those specific rules as well as all its rules according to a congressionally mandated quadrennial review. It was that review, biennial at the time, that prompted the first rule rewrite.

Broadcasters shouldn’t look for any new rules as a Christmas present, although there will be pressure from some media companies to move on newspaper/broadcast crossownership. Tribune, for example, has been pushing hard for lifting the ban.

Early 2007 appears to be the earliest date for a change in the status quo. Even then, there is no guarantee the Philadelphia court will accept the likely deregulatory changes and lift the stay.

Even if it does, the rules could wind up back before the same court, which maintains jurisdiction. “We think the case for maintaining broadcast-ownership rules has gotten stronger over the last few years,” says Andrew Schwartzman, of Media Access Project, which helped get the initial rules stayed and remanded, “so any move in the other direction is something we would certainly challenge in court.”

PUBCASTERS SEEK DIGITAL DOUGH

Public broadcasters may have a system-wide multicast DTV-carriage deal with cable and now with Verizon, but they’re trying to hold on to as many over-the-air customers as they can.

The National Association of Broadcasters and the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) have had talks about teaming up to get as much government money as possible for a DTV public-awareness campaign, according to an executive familiar with the matter. The money will go, partly, to keep over-the-air viewers from becoming cable and satellite subscribers.

According to APTS President John Lawson, the association has “begun a dialogue” with its commercial counterparts at NAB about getting the $5 million earmarked by Congress for consumer education to help teach their viewers about the switch to digital, currently targeted for February 2009.

APTS wants to keep the 20% of viewers that rely on over-the-air broadcasting from migrating to cable or satellite. That strategy comes despite the deal the cable industry struck with APTS last year to carry digital multicast channels, an agreement cable has not struck with commercial stations. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association had no comment on APTS’ DTV consumer-awareness strategy.

RETAIN OVER-THE-AIR VIEWERS

“Public-television stations will be ready [for the transition],” Lawson says, but, he adds, “we have to maintain that 20% of households that rely exclusively on over-the-air television. These are our people. If there’s confusion about the hard date, if they don’t understand that they can upgrade their analog sets, then they will go to cable and satellite.” NCTA declined to comment.

“I’m pretty sure the current leadership at NAB understands this dynamic both for political reasons and for reasons of valuation by Wall Street,” Lawson says. “So we have $5 million in the DTV bill that we’re building a coalition to make sure comes our way.

“It’s trivial in terms of advertising,” he continues, “but in terms of outreach, it would fund the largest outreach campaign in public-television history, and we plan to use that to keep our over-the-air base and perhaps even expand it.”

NAB, APTS and 15 other groups sent a letter to the National Telecommunications & Information Association last month. NTIA is coordinating the DTV-converter-box voucher program and the $5 million consumer-education campaign. APTS and company called for a coordinated approach and said they were ready to work with NTIA on the planning and implementation.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346823

HDTV Notebook
The Wide, Wider (HDTV) World

By Ken Kerschbaumer Broadcasting & Cable 6/26/2006

In television circles, the 2006 World Cup will be remembered as the broadcast event that turned HDTV into a global reality.

“We’re not putting a toe in the water. We’re putting our whole foot in,” says Paul Cheesbrough, head of technology for production and technology direction, BBC. “We want to get a lot of consumer feedback on HD uptake in the UK so we can figure out whether we move ahead quickly or slowly.”

The BBC has been producing all of its top programming in high-definition since 2003 for optimum image quality (and shelf life), but it was BSkyB’s decision last fall to go HD that pushed both the BBC and UK pay-TV provider NTL to broadcast HDTV.

And Britain isn’t alone. French, German and Italian networks in Europe are going HD for the World Cup, and Brazil and Guatemala in Central and South America are also making the move, in part because the massive popularity of soccer could lead to a quick uptake in HDTV.

That’s good for the world’s viewers and also for U.S. media outlets, which probably will see prices for HD equipment drop as the market for the gear expands around the world.

Bryan Burns, ESPN VP, strategic business planning and development, has spent much of the past three years advocating the benefits of HD at industry trade shows and events. “International growth,” he says, “will contribute to additional efficiencies for equipment production, set manufacturing and syndication opportunities.”

To date, much of the potential customer base has been focused in the U.S. and Japan, the two leading broadcasters of HD content. With Europe and now Central and South America moving to high-def, “more customers mean a faster return [on engineering investments] and more cash to invest in new-product development,” says Grass Valley Chief Technology Officer Ray Baldock. “Faster product development is often made possible by repurposing and repackaging core technologies. It is more attractive to do this in a market where there is growing demand.”

And there is also demand for new products. For example, the World Cup matches are being produced by Host Broadcast Services (the Swiss company that won the contract to build, staff and produce the core multilateral feed sent to 300 broadcasters around the globe) in 1080i, a resolution familiar to the U.S. But the Europeans broadcast at 50 frames per second, while the U.S. broadcasts at 60 frames per second. The result? ESPN and ABC Sports had to find a converter box that would add those 10 additional frames without affecting the viewer’s experience. Even more converter devices are likely to be built to help U.S. and European broadcasters share HD content more easily.

“There’s a very marked jump in interest in HD throughout Europe, especially in the past six months,” says Bill Lovell, head of the digital department for UK-based equipment-rental house ARRI Media.

Like many rental and production houses in the UK, ARRI Media is expanding its product line thanks to high-def. The company is providing HD high-speed cameras that are shooting 20 World Cup games at up to 300 progressive frames per second for slow-motion playback. When it is played back at regular broadcast-frame rates, viewers get a slow-motion view of the action.

“It looks like a regular camera but records the frames on a hard drive in the camera that can hold 11 seconds of video,” says Lovell. “An operator in the production truck then controls it with a VTR [videotape recorder]-like jog shuttle.”

Gearhouse Broadcast, a key provider of technology services for the World Cup, is building two high-def remote production trucks. Says Technical Director Kevin Moorhouse, “About 60% of our work is still standard-definition. While I don’t think HD will explode into Europe, once viewers start seeing HD, they’ll want to get it, and that will drive demand.”

Not surprisingly, those nations just jumping into HD should expect some of the growing pains experienced in the U.S. In Europe, HD is an option, not a requirement of the digital-TV transition (in fact, the reason for the move to DTV in Europe and elsewhere is mainly for multicasting, not HD). That means consumers will need to be motivated to buy HD sets for picture-quality reasons.

“There is confusion in the marketplace already about issues like buying an HD set alone doesn’t give you an HD picture,” says Cheesbrough, echoing marketing challenges that have existed stateside for nearly a decade. “Also, UK broadcasters have been delivering widescreen to consumers for 10 years, so there is less of a visible need to change.”

That could leave it up to TV sports to provide the impetus for high-def. “Sports is the most compelling content to showcase the advantages of HD,” says Baldock. “The ability to cover a wider field of view but with good clarity and resolution has been a key factor in moving the consumer market to HD.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346829

HDTV Notebook
DirecTV’s $7,500 Plan

By Linda Moss Multichannel.com 6/26/2006

Despite the skeptics, DirecTV Inc. sees a group of upscale consumers clamoring to fork over $7,500-a-year for its new elite Titanium program package. Just days after unveiling the all-inclusive service, the satellite provider said it’s received roughly 1,000 inquiries about it.

“It’s been so huge with us doing virtually one press release,” said David Hill, president of DirecTV Entertainment.

Not for penny-pinchers, DirecTV Titanium is aimed at the affluent TV junkie who wants absolutely all the programming the satellite provider has to offer — and is willing to shell out the non-refundable, four-digit annual subscription fee upfront.

That fee comes with its privileges. It provides for luxury service, including a dedicated 24-hour concierge, “like a concierge at a hotel, so if you want something, they go and fix it for you,” Hill said.

Apart from that pampering, the Titanium package will include: unlimited access to every channel DirecTV carries; unlimited access to all pay-per-view movies, events and sports packages; adult services; HDTV channels; up to 10 receivers, including high-definition digital video recorders; priority “white glove” service and immediate VIP installation.

“They all sit there with white gloves on, and I’m trying to get them tuxedos and ball gowns but they refuse to do that,” Hill joked about Titanium’s elite corp of customer reps.

DirecTV is tying the debut to the official release of Superman Returns June 28. Last week, it previewed Titanium at the Superman Returns world premiere at the Mann Village Theater in Westwood, Calif., where “Liquid Titanium” drinks were served.

Compared to DirecTV Titanium, the priciest programming packages offered by Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable and EchoStar Communications Corp.’s Dish Network cost chump change. Their top-end packages range from $100 to roughly $105 a month, or about $1,200 annually, a fraction of Titanium’s $7,500.

There was some skepticism last week about how serious DirecTV is about Titanium.

“It’s a cute PR stunt: nothing more and nothing less,” said Bruce Leichtman, president of Leichtman Research Inc. “That’s a ludicrous price.”

But Hill brushed off that talk, citing the interest already. “This is something, obviously that there is a market for,” he said.

Hill said he got the idea in December at a dinner for News Corp. chief operating officer Peter Chernin in Hollywood also attended by high-powered agents, actors and managers. People kept coming up to tell Hill they loved DirecTV, but were tired of having to place separate orders for pay-per-view movies and the various sports tiers.

“Why can’t I just get one package?” Hill recalled being asked.

He heard similar comments while having drinks with several NASCAR team owners.

DirecTV will initially cap its Titanium subscribers at 750 “to make sure our customer service is 200%,” Hill said. It will slowly ramp up to 1,000 customers, and then 1,500. Would-be Titanium subscribers can ask about the service on DirecTV’s Web site.

Cable has seen some luxury demand. Digital Cable Extreme, a new deluxe program package from Time Warner, is starting with a Los Angeles debut in late summer or early fall, spokesman Keith Cocozza said. It will price out at about $105 a month for all tiers, four pay channels, an HD DVR and service-protection plan.

Add in nine more HD DVRs, to make it comparable to Titanium, and high-speed data and phone service — and on-demand services DirecTV doesn’t have — and the lineup prices at $2,916 a year, Cocozza said.

“For less than half of what DirecTV’s charging for just video service, you can get the full triple play and most complete package for under $3,000 a year,” he said.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6346930

Washington Notebook
Martin Sounds Retreat on Must-Carry

By Ted Hearn Multichannel.com 6/26/2006

Washington— Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin last week jettisoned a scheduled vote that could have mandated that cable operators carry new digital-TV stations from broadcasters on their systems. The mandate would have handed a lobbying victory to the National Association of Broadcasters.

In a political setback, Martin pulled the must-carry vote from the agency’s June 21 agenda on Sunday, June 18, without commenting. He left it to FCC spokeswoman Tamara Lipper to explain his reasons for sounding the retreat.

“There did not appear to be consensus for moving forward at this time,” Lipper said.

SIX SIGNALS

Martin’s rules would have forced cable operators to carry every free digital-TV programming service from broadcasters, a burden that could have meant six or more services per station. Current FCC rules require carriage of one programming service per station that demands cable carriage.

Adoption of the rules would have likely triggered a cable-led court challenge on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. When cable fought its losing battle against analog must-carry, the case ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court twice in 1990s.

With Robert McDowell’s June 1 arrival, Martin, a Republican appointee of President Bush, had his first GOP majority at the agency since taking the helm in March 2005.

Martin already had support on multicast must-carry from Republican FCC member Deborah Taylor Tate. McDowell’s support would have cemented victory. But where McDowell stood in the days leading up to the vote was unclear.

Two weeks ago, McDowell told some lobbyists he was undecided. But a broadcast lobbyist said that Martin scheduled the June 21 multicast must-carry vote confident that McDowell would back him. The agency’s two Democrats, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, oppose multicast must-carry in the absence of new, specific public-interest obligations on DTV stations.

“[Martin] told us [on June 15] he had the votes,” one broadcast lobbyist said last Tuesday. A Martin aide denied Martin made such a statement. Two days later, McDowell apparently informed Martin he couldn’t support multicast must-carry.

“McDowell called Martin on Saturday [June 17] and said, 'I’m not with you,’ ” the broadcast source said, adding McDowell raised statutory and constitutional concerns about increasing carriage demands on cable. A day later, Martin pulled the plug.

McDowell’s opposition is firm, meaning Martin is not expected to revive the issue at the FCC’s July public meeting. “It’s dead,” the broadcast lobbyist said.

Immediately after the FCC’s public meeting last Wednesday, a reporter asked McDowell why he wouldn’t support Martin.

“I’m not taking any questions today, but thank you for your interest,” McDowell said.

Communications lobbyists, who asked not to be identified, asserted that Senate Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) or his staff intervened at the FCC, urging McDowell not to endorse must-carry, while Stevens was attempting to address the issue in his pending telecommunications bill (S. 2686).

“That’s not true,” Stevens told reporters last Thursday, adding that his only comments on the subject came two weeks ago when he made it clear that he would support FCC adoption of the new cable-carriage rules.

“Other than that, I have not said anything about it,” he added. “I did see Martin personally and said, 'I hope he saw my public statement.’ He said he had.”

Stevens said he hadn’t ruled out addressing the must-carry issue in his telecommunications bill, adding, “It may come up.”

Under current law, cable operators are required to carry the “primary video” of each must-carry TV station. The FCC has interpreted “primary” to mean one programming service per station, ruling out multicast.

In the Stevens bill, the must-carry requirement has been changed from “primary video” to “video signal,” which some cable lobbyists believe could pave the way for the FCC to interpret the new language to mean multiple programming services.

DEMINT AMENDMENT

Last Thursday, the Senate Commerce Committee adopted an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that changed “video signal” to “primary video” for direct-broadcast satellite providers DirecTV Inc. and EchoStar Communications Corp., but not for cable operators. DeMint is negotiating with Stevens’ staff on making the same change for cable.

“This is new language,” a DeMint aide said, referring to video signal. “There is no need for new language.”

The FCC refused to impose multicast must-carry in 2001 and 2005, with Martin dissenting in 2005. But Martin wanted to reverse that policy and tried to do so at his first opportunity over cable’s stiff opposition. But his plan backfired, so much so that FCC officials later acknowledged that the decision to seek McDowell’s support so soon after his arrival probably was bad timing.Martin wasn’t specific about plans to revive multicast must-carry.

“I think the carriage of the full digital broadcast signals is the right policy,” he said. “If the commission were supportive of that, that’s what I would end up going forward doing.”

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

Multicast Must-Carry Timeline
May 25: FCC chairman Kevin Martin circulates must-carry order.
May 26: Robert McDowell confirmed as fifth FCC commissioner.
June 1: McDowell sworn in.
June 7: Martin postpones June 15 meeting to June 21 to give McDowell time to study carriage issue.
June 14: FCC’s June 21 meeting agenda released with multicast must-carry as item No. 1.
June 15: Martin tells broadcast lobbyists he has a must-carry majority.
June 18: Martin pulls must-carry from agenda.
Source: Multichannel News research

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6346927

Critic’s Notebook
“Nobody’s Watching": -- but you should be

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

Hurry to www.youtube.com and watch all of ''Nobody's Watching,'' the best new sitcom you will see this summer -- and probably this fall as well. I'll have more about it later, but for now, go watch.

Here's the backstory, for Roger and the rest of you: The show -- about two guys from Ohio who go to Hollywood to make a sitcom and end up reality-show stars -- was made for The WB a year ago, but the network decided not to pick it up. (Bill Lawrence of ''Scrubs,'' one of the three writers on ''Nobody's Watching,'' said they literally flew to New York for The WB's upfront announcements, only to be told when they got there that the network wasn't picking up the show after all.)

Someone posted the pilot on YouTube. It has had more than 125,000 hits on the site, generated a bunch of comments and -- best news yet -- is getting enough buzz that Lawrence is hoping to pitch the show again.

Of course, it won't be on The WB, which will cease to exist soon, but Lawrence is looking at NBC's recent risk-taking -- ''The Office,'' ''My Name Is Earl'' -- and sensing an opportunity. Once it landed on YouTube, Lawrence admitted that he began working hard to get people to watch.

Our telephone chat today came after an e-mail from a publicist touting ''Nobody's Watching,'' and after a couple of other news reports about it. In fact, one of my colleagues this morning asked me if I had seen ''Nobody's Watching'' yet. The YouTube connection could be a new way to get shows seen, and to gauge viewer interest.

Beyond the industry implications, it's a good show. It plays constantly with the conventions of television, both the sitcom and reality TV. (Lawrence said the suits at The WB worried that it was too complicated for viewers, while the YouTube audience is settling right in.) I laughed a lot. You should, too.

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

Critic’s Notebook
The Best Shows on TV

Compiled by Scott Clifford, Ben Grossman and Joel Topcik Broadcasting & Cable 6/26/2006

We love TV critics.

We love them because they're a passionate, opinionated and irascible lot. We love them because they love TV as much as we do. And we love them because they were good enough to share those qualities with us for our second annual B&C Critics Poll.

For this year's survey of the best and worst from the 2005-06 season, B&C received responses from 111 television critics and writers (for our purposes, everyone's a critic!)—eight more than last year. They told us what thrilled, tickled and disappointed them most about the last season. And though it may be a truism that critics instinctively swim against the current of the mainstream, our sample ratified popular taste more often than not.

Judging from the results, last season was a big one not only for dramas, which dominated the Best Show category, but also for serialized dramas that leave viewers dangling after each installment. NBC shows swept in the Best Comedy category (if not in ratings). And while critics finally gave in to the mass appeal of Fox's American Idol, they otherwise rejected—with near “unan1mity”—the network's occasional penchant for depravity.

We added two categories this year—Cable Network More People Should Watch and Most Memorable TV Moment—and the responses from critics were predictably lively and thoughtful. B&C would like to thank the 111 critics and writers who gave their time and effort to make our poll a smart, entertaining reflection on the past season. Herewith, the results, compiled by Scott Clifford, Ben Grossman and Joel Topcik.

Best Show

Lost (ABC)

Silver: 24 (Fox)

Bronze: The Sopranos (HBO)

Intricate, improbable and frustrating—these are the hallmarks of great shows, according to our critics.

Lost, last year's winner for Best Drama, continues to defy early doubters who predicted its stuck-on-an-island premise would get stuck in the mud. “Its intricacies dazzle me,” says Houston Chronicle's Mike McDaniel. “It's the one and only can't-miss show.” Alan Pergament of Buffalo (N.Y.) News goes even further, calling Lost “the one must-see family show on television.” The Denver Post's Joanne Ostrow isn't alone in calling attention to the interactive pleasures of the Lost Experience, an extension of the show's universe online (and off) in which “searching for clues and chatting with fellow fans is almost as much fun as watching the broadcast.”

“If I judge this category based on which show I can't miss each week,” says Jay Handelman of the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, “then 24 is a clear winner.” Although Jack Bauer's (Kiefer Sutherland) capacity for surviving very difficult days—serialized hour by hour over the course of five seasons—has reached mythical proportions, even inspiring cheeky Web testimonials to his Paul Bunyanesque toughness, that doesn't bother Mark McGuire of the Albany, N.Y., Times Union: “What it's missing in plausibility is made up for by the sheer rush of it all.” Says Charlie McCollum of the San Jose, Calif., Mercury News, “For sheer entertainment, there is nothing quite so addictive.”

The appearance of The Sopranos this year has more than a little to do with the irregularity of cable seasons—and it may have even more to do with the fact that the exasperating wait for a not-quite-perennial favorite was finally over. Some critics were resigned in their votes: “Not on its game,” says the Colorado Springs (Colo.) Gazette's Andy Wineke, “but still better than the other choices.”

But others like The Arizona Republic's Bill Goodykoontz stand by the show: “I think, sometimes, critics and viewers tire of sustained excellence and take it for granted. But from the minute you hear the opening song, there's no show as exciting as The Sopranos, no show as edge-of-your-seat tense, no show as good.”

And how the mighty—rather, the desperate—have fallen. We feel compelled to note that last year's Best Show, Desperate Housewives, fared poorly with critics in its sophomore season. Only one submitted it for the category this year. Indeed, TV Guide's Michael Ausiello banished it to the “Worst” column: “OK, maybe it isn't the worst show, but it's certainly the worst in terms of living up to its potential.”

Best Drama

Lost

Silver: 24

Bronze: The Sopranos

Our critics made a bold statement with their picks for Best Drama this year. Not only did they put the same shows in the Best overall category, in the same order of preference, they voted overwhelmingly for serial programming. While the industry has long believed that heavily serialized shows ask too much of casual viewers and have limited value in syndication, critics and viewers agree that shows like Lost, 24 and The Sopranos are just too good to miss.

With DVDs, online plays and digital video recorders (on track to be in 37% of homes by 2010, according to Forrester Research) that allow viewers to catch up, networks can bet that the Albany Times Union's McGuire isn't the only one who believes that serialized shows like 24 are “best consumed by recording several episodes and watching in one sitting.”

Best Comedy

The Office (NBC)

Silver: My Name Is Earl (NBC)

Bronze: Scrubs (NBC)

To hear our critics tell it, NBC is the place for comedy.

Gail Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch calls gold-medal winner The Office “just about the only thing on TV that makes me laugh so hard I cry—and sometimes is so poignant I almost really do cry.” The adaptation of British comic Ricky Gervais' wince-inducing study in the daily indignities of work life prompted Denver Post's Ostrow to muse, “Who knew NBC would nurture a comedy that shows so much respect for the audience's intelligence?” And The Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond takes that sentiment further: “How this thing managed to slip through the cracks and not get cancelled is fairly astonishing—and [NBC Entertainment President] Kevin Reilly's gift to mankind.”

Maybe so. There's no doubt that critics—and some 6 million iTuners—love The Office, My Name Is Earl and Scrubs. But such adoration has yet to translate into true breakout status: None of the shows even crack the top 20 when it comes to ratings. In praising the ensemble on hospital romp Scrubs, TV Guide's Ausiello invoked another NBC comedy from the glory days of Must-See TV: “Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison and Judy Reyes tickle my insides like no TV quartet since Seinfeld.” No doubt, NBC hopes next season's ratings will make good on that comparison.

Best Reality

American Idol (Fox)

Silver: Amazing Race (CBS)

Bronze: Project Runway (Bravo)

“Ignore American Idol at your own peril,” cautions Hartford (Conn.) Courant's Roger Catlin, expressing the general conclusion among critics that, when it comes to Fox's glorified talent show, resistance is futile. “In a mass society with splintered interests,” he adds, “[Idol] alone may define contemporary pop culture. The process is fascinating and more fun than ever.” Many are grudging in their acquiescence: “For all its annoyances, the fact [that] Idol still sustains interest is a testament to its quality,” says Albany Times Union's McGuire. “Say what you will,” says Denver Post's Ostrow, “It's a wonderfully simple premise [that is] well executed.” But others find true enjoyment in the spectacle, if not the talent, on display: Sweet 16's Vicki Arkoff finds “entertainment value” in watching judges Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson “slowly go insane on 'live' TV.”

Many critics stood by last year's winner, Amazing Race, “because it's amazingly fair,” says Alameda Newspaper Group's Susan Young. “You don't have undeserving people brought to the final two, like in Survivor, just so the strongest person has an easy person to beat for the million.”

Although Project Runway snagged only the bronze, the fashion competition has a number of devotees who even voted it Best Show. At the least, says freelance writer Bridget Byrne, “no one is asked to sing!”

Best New Show

My Name Is Earl

Silver: Prison Break (Fox)

Bronze: Big Love (HBO)

Last year, we asked our critics to pick the Best Upcoming New Show from among the crop of pilots in circulation. The winner, Everybody Hates Chris (UPN), lost its luster with our voters, though: It didn't even place among the picks for this season's Best New Show.

But Earl, last year's runner-up, charmed almost everyone this year with the comic exploits of a reformed miscreant looking to kick-start his karma. “The gimmick draws you in,” says Houston Chronicle's McDaniel. “And how can you not like these characters?” Denver Post's Ostrow calls it “a distinctive, wonderfully outrageous show” that “is forever true to its point of view and, in that way, scary for what it says about a certain realm of American life.”

Los Angeles Daily News' David Kronke calls Prison Break “the most inventive and exciting show, with breakneck pacing and plotting, and a group of pretty fascinating characters. And it all fits together a lot more sensibly than 24.”

And critics have much love for HBO's new polygamy drama, Big Love, “which transforms that iffy premise into a stunning show,” says Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel's Hal Boedeker. Says Slate's Troy Patterson, “Big Love works as well as it does, which is fairly well, because it's thoughtful and playful and it approaches its sensational subject with restraint.”

Worst Show

Unan1mous

Silver: The War at Home (Fox)

Bronze: The Apprentice (NBC)

Although critics couldn't resist the gravitational pull of Fox's Idol, they found the network's Unan1mous all too resistible. And nothing inspires literary glee like the chance to swing the critical hatchet on a show like this, where nine “greedy, back¬stabbing liars” (per Houston Chronicle's McDaniel) locked in an underground bunker watched $1.5 million in prize money dwindle away the longer they failed to agree on who should win it.

“Leave it to Fox to come up with a low-budget version of Survivor—one without a beach,” wrote Maureen Ryan in her Chicago Tribune review. “It makes Big Brother look respectable,” wrote Orlando Sentinel's Boedeker.

Wineke, of the Colorado Springs Gazette, proposes a new slogan for Fox's The War at Home: “Must-cancel TV.” Says San Jose Mercury News' McCollum: “There were several others at least as bad, but War gets the nod because Fox is actually bringing it back.”

Critics were surprisingly restrained in voting The Apprentice the Worst Show, perhaps assuming that its ratings crash spoke for itself. Extra Extra's Wayne Karrfalt dismissed franchisee Martha Stewart with her own catch-phrase: “'You just don't fit in,' indeed.”

And Production Update's Margie Barron summed up the general distaste for The Donald: “Our little 36-inch screen isn't big enough for his ego.”

Cable Network More People Should Watch

BBC America

Silver: FX

Bronze: The N

For this new category, we asked critics to survey the multichannel universe, and it's clear that there's a network for everyone. Military Channel, Animal Planet and OLN all got votes, but BBC America, critics say, rises above niche status. “Good programming, a clear idea of what it is, and no apparent need to be 'mainstream,'” says Zap2it's Rick Porter. “Can't ask much more of a cable network.”

The Arizona Republic's Goodykoontz says, “It's where the original version of The Office first appeared, so it's basically grandfathered in as the coolest little-seen cable network out there.” McCollum at the Mercury News laments, “Most homes don't even get it.”

He's right. BBC America is available only in some 49 million homes. The same for bronze-winner The N, the tween-targeted haven for Degrassi devotees. Average prime¬time viewership for both in May was less than 250,000 combined.

FX is in 88.5 million homes and averaged 1.51 million primetime viewers in May. Not exactly underappreciated.

Given that critics have long championed FX shows like The Shield, we can only assume they have a particular sampling of viewers in mind. “Clearly,” L.A. Daily News' Kronke says, “not enough TV Academy members watch it, or it'd get more appreciation come Emmy time.”

Most Memorable TV Moment

Coverage of Hurricane Katrina

Silver: Uncle Junior shoots Tony on The Sopranos

Bronze: Michael shoots Ana-Lucia and Libby on Lost

Truth proved stronger than fiction last season. While critics applauded the journalistic achievement of the Katrina coverage, they counted the images of devastation and moments of confrontation among the most dramatic stuff they saw on TV in the past year.

Chicago Sun-Times' Doug Elfman marveled that President Bush was MIA “while an American city perished in front of our eyes, if not his.” Zap2it's Daniel Feinberg joined many in citing CNN anchor Anderson Cooper's “smackdown” of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.): “Cooper cut through spin and politics, demanding answers and accountability. His rage—journalistic objectivity be damned—was ours.”

The Sopranos moment, says Goodykoontz, was “the gut shot—pun intended—that the show needed.” And Tribune Media Services' Kate O'Hare spoke for many when she said, “OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED ANA-LUCIA AND LIBBY!”

A final thanks to all the critics for a memorable poll indeed.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346942

The selling of Nirvana and TV's power over the biggest bands
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”


Not TV related but this reminds me of the book turned movie "About a Boy". The book took place in mid 1990s and had a lot of refrences to Nirvana, the song nevermind. Also the last half of the book a character finds about the suicide of the lead. This is after just discovering about the band after his mothers suicide attempt. Because of rights issues they had to rewrite the entire last half of the movie. It turned into a movie that took place in current times as there were refrences to past pop actors and music. Thou stilll a good movie would have been interesting to see the movie more like the book if it were not for the licencing issues.

Even a relatively low-budget documentary can face stiff music licensing fees.

The fun "Wordplay" about crossword puzzle fanatics, paid out about $100,000 in music rights fees. (The movie is great fun and opens this weekend in some cities -- go see it!)

Had "Wordplay" been a normal studio production, the rights fees would have likely been ten times that.

Critic’s Notebook
Tunes on TV in the post-Moby era

Some notes from Maureen Ryan of the ChicagoTtribune to accompany her story on music and TV shows.

A few notable recent musical moments on TV:

• June 1, 1999: Moby releases “Play,” which ends up being licensed for dozens of TV commercials, film soundtracks and TV shows, including “The Sopranos” and “The X-Files.”

• Oct. 6, 2000: “CSI” debuts with the Who’s “Who Are You” as the theme song. When "CSI: Miami" arrives two years later, its theme is the band’s "Won’t Get Fooled Again." The theme of “CSI: NY,” which arrives in 2004, is “Baba O’Riley."

• June 11, 2002: “American Idol,” which launches the careers of Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, Carrie Underwood and Fantasia Barrino, arrives on the TV scene. It also sends many new and old songs up the pop charts, including (most recently) “Bad Day” and “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.”

• Sept. 16, 2003: First use of a Death Cab for Cutie track on “The O.C.,” the show that launched, or at least greatly assisted, the careers of many emerging musicians, including Death Cab.

• February, 2004: A tour is launched of artists heard (and seen) on “One Tree Hill,” including Gavin DeGraw, cast member and musician Tyler Hill and Michelle Branch’s new band, The Wreckers.

• Oct. 24, 2004: “Cold Case” airs an excellent episode built entirely around the music of Johnny Cash. Later, the show gives the same treatment to the song catalogs of John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen.

• Aug. 7. 2005: Two versions of Nirvana’s “All Apologies” are heard on the “Six Feet Under” episode “All Alone”; the “In Utero” version is heard in a scene in which Nate Fisher cries about Kurt Cobain’s death; the “MTV Unplugged” version, over the show’s end credits. It’s the first major use of a Nirvana song on a TV show since “Beavis and Butt-head” positively commented on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in 1993.

• July 31, 2005: “Entourage,” which uses a hip mixture of hip-hop, pop and rock tunes (everything from T.I. to Kings of Leon to the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”), integrates a U2 concert into an episode, in which Bono wishes Johnny Drama a happy birthday from the stage of one of the band’s L.A. concerts.

• Aug. 21, 2005: An extended version of Sia’s “Breathe Me” is used over the final scenes of “Six Feet Under,” thus launching the singer’s career overnight. Too bad the song was only available as part of a “Six Feet Under” full-length album for months after it was heard on the show.

• June 4, 2006: Leonard Cohen’s great song “Hallelujah” is heard on the soundtrack for, of all things, “Falcon Beach,” a witless new ABC Family summer show. “Hallelujah” - most often the Jeff Buckley cover of the tune - thus officially becomes the most overplayed TV soundtrack song of the last decade.

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

Not necessarily licencing fees, as it would not be licenced or so I hear. It was pretty much part of the marcus and elle characters in the book not just background music, or a couple of pieces of dialogue. It was essential to the reactions of the characters and their mindset when interacting with others in the story. Without it the character was just not as good.

btw I've seen "wordplay" already. enjoyable none of the less in this mediocre movie year.

TV Review
'Broken Trail,' a Tale of Roping in Cattle and Rounding Up Girls

By Alessandra Stanley The New York Times

"BROKEN TRAIL" is a western that begins in the Far East.

In a dark, dank and crowded cellar, young Chinese women are rounded up and sold to an American intent on transporting them to the frontier to serve as prostitutes — a 19th-century chattel drive.

Somewhere near the point where East meets West, five of them end up in the custody of two flinty cowboys who are taking a herd of wild horses across the wilderness to Wyoming. It's a majestic, lawless landscape that sets men free and immures women, and that clash is the crux of the two-part movie on AMC starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church that begins on Sunday.

Railroads forever changed the Wild West, and "Lonesome Dove," the 1989 mini-series based on Larry McMurtry's best-selling novel and that starred Mr. Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, forever changed the television western; every cowboy drama since has been held up against "Lonesome Dove" and fallen a little short. Only "Deadwood," on HBO, has set its own standard as an anti-western where almost all the conventions of the genre are turned upside down.

"Broken Trail," which has Mr. Duvall once again in the role of a crusty, worn-out cowboy, here called Print Ritter, is much more in the debt of "Lonesome Dove," probably a little too much, since it too cannot live up to that legendary epic. But this AMC film — which was directed by Walter Hill, whose work includes "The Long Riders," "Geronimo: An American Legend" and the pilot of "Deadwood" — has a subtle charm of its own.

The heart of the story is the renewed bond — forged in death, dirt and an unspoken code of honor — between Uncle Print and his estranged nephew, Tom Harte (Mr. Church), who reunite to transport and sell the horses. Greta Scacchi, who plays Nola, a battered prostitute on the run, forms an attachment to Print, but the film's real love story is the one between Print and the Chinese girls he grudgingly takes in, and feels bound to protect. "We didn't go looking to save no Orientals and a broken-nosed whore," Print says to Tom. "But sometimes you got to roll with what's thrown at you."

The people who imported the girls and want a return on their investment are not as fatalistic. As inevitable as sunrise, whiskey and horseflies, there comes a showdown between decent, chivalrous men and the bad and brutal.

Mr. Duvall has played this kind of character before, most recently in Kevin Costner's 2003 movie "Open Range." But with barks, squints and shakings of his head, he always squeezes a few new tics into the role. "Broken Trail" is not as well written or compelling as "Lonesome Dove," but Mr. Duvall brings an earthy believability to even the most plodding lines ("Never use money to measure wealth, son," he says to Tom).

Mr. Church ("Sideways") seems at first an odd choice for the role of the strong, silent cowhand; there is something comical about his jutting ears and the goofy planes of his face. But the actor quickly takes on the aspect of a simple, somewhat passive man who can be roused to icily efficient vengeance — with a rope, his fists or a rifle — when wronged.

The camera lingers on the horses galloping unharnessed through rivers and beneath snow-topped mountain ranges. (The film was shot in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada, the same location as "Brokeback Mountain" and "Unforgiven.") The film contrasts their easy freedom with the Chinese girls' fearful confinement in a mangy, horse-drawn wagon. They are virgins selected because deflowerment fetches a higher price. They speak no English, and have no idea why they were sold by their families. The youngest one has bound feet and can barely walk. The eldest tells the others they were sold to be servants. Instead, they discover that rape is a far more likely chore.

Rescue arrives when their captor, a drunken horse thief hired to bring the women to the mining town of Cariboo, Idaho, tries to rob Print and Tom and ends up dead, leaving his cargo unclaimed and terrified. The men have no choice but to bring the women along, shadowed by the evil men who want revenge and a crack at them.

A generation ago, back in the days of "Rawhide" and "The High Chaparral," westerns were so plentiful on television that it was easy to be picky. These days they are more like Yiddish theater, a fading tradition that relies on good will and preservationists to survive. AMC, like TNT, the cable network that put "Monte Walsh" on the air in 2003, is doing its part to keep the western alive. "Broken Trail" may not be great, but it's good enough.

Broken Trail
AMC, Sunday and Monday at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/arts/television/23trai.html?pagewanted=print

TV Notebook
David Krumholtz in 'Numbers':

He Talks the Talk So Viewers Think He Figures the Figures
By Sean Mitchell The New York Times June 25, 2006

LOS ANGELES--As one indication of how thoroughly he has mastered the part of a mathematics professor on the Friday night CBS drama "Numbers," David Krumholtz was invited to attend the commencement ceremony earlier this month at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning president of Caltech, even saluted Mr. Krumholtz and the show during his remarks to the graduating class.

Not bad for Mr. Krumholtz, who never went to college, never mind a powerhouse like Caltech.

Mr. Krumholtz, who grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, and appeared on Broadway at 13 with Judd Hirsch in "Conversations With My Father," has won that kind of respect because as Charlie Eppes he has helped make math look cool. In "Numbers," now in reruns after completing its second season, Mr. Krumholtz's character regularly helps his older brother, an F.B.I. agent played by Rob Morrow, solve crimes by using his advanced knowledge of equations, numbers theory, algorithms and other mathematical tools.

His role has been described by one reviewer as "Sherlock Holmes for the slide-rule set," though the show's weekly audience of more than 12 million last season — making it top rated in its time slot — suggests an appeal well beyond the student bodies of Caltech and M.I.T.

Mr. Krumholtz's uncanny facility with the language of math — uncanny for someone who readily admits he showed no aptitude for it in high school — won him the part over about 100 other actors who had auditioned for the role of a prodigy who teaches at a California university resembling Caltech.

"We had some monologues with a lot of math language, and it's very difficult to sound like you say these words every day," said the show's co-executive producer, Cheryl Heuton. "We began to think we had written an uncastable part until David came in one morning."

"I'm no mathematician," Mr. Krumholtz said recently over lunch at an Italian cafe near the new home he has purchased in the Larchmont Village neighborhood here. "I think it's more important that I learn who a mathematician is and how he sees the world than it is to actually learn the math."

"The mathematics community has embraced us because the character is a great representation of their passion," he continued. Mathematicians are typically portrayed on screen "as mad or emotionally unstable or socially retarded," he said, "and that's not something we wanted to do at all."

As a result Mr. Krumholtz has been invited to three math conventions this year. And Texas Instruments, in association with the National Council for the Teachers of Mathematics and CBS, has developed a program of math education activities for teachers geared to the crime-solving techniques used on the show.

In "Numbers" Mr. Krumholtz has been reunited with Mr. Hirsch, who plays his father (again), and with his friend Peter MacNichol, who plays the meddling colleague Fleinhardt.

"Most procedural shows don't go into the characters that much," Mr. Hirsch said, suggesting that Charlie and his family have been an exception to the rule among crime investigation series. When Charlie's mother died, for example, Mr. Krumholtz's character buried himself in a famously unsolvable math problem known as "P versus NP."

It is a matter of pride to Mr. Krumholtz, 28, that he has won acceptance for his role in "Numbers" after being stuck for years in a Hollywood niche he found frustrating. "I was doing the whole New York neurotic schlub thing for a really long time," he said. "That or the nerd."

While he earned praise for small roles in films like "The Slums of Beverly Hills," "The Santa Clause" and "Liberty Heights," he was worried that he was becoming a "show killer" in television after acting in five series (including "The Trouble With Normal") that failed in their first seasons, as well as in five more pilots that never made it to the air. "That was very upsetting," he said.

When he was rejected for a comedy series three years ago, he began to take stock. "The comedy thing wasn't working out," he said, even though he said people have found him funny since grade school in Queens. (His father, a postal worker, and his mother, a dental assistant, divorced when he was 2.)

A turning point came in 2002, when he was cast in a guest role on "ER" as a deranged patient who stabbed two doctors. "Even that guy was a schlub," Mr. Krumholtz said, "but it was the first dramatic thing I'd done since the first play I did on Broadway. It opened up a whole new thing for me. People realized that I could do drama, that I could scream and be pretty serious and frightening."

But a stint on the ill-fated NBC legal drama "Lyon's Den" brought more disappointment. "It was an ensemble drama that didn't become an ensemble," Mr. Krumholtz said. One night, driving home from the set, he glanced at the next day's script and saw that his two scenes in the episode had been cut to one. He hurled the script out the window.

"I'm a nice guy," he said, as if to suggest he would not normally do such a thing.

"Numbers" has proved to be an altogether different experience. "I knew after the pilot that if this thing went it would be the best thing I'd ever done," he said. "And that it had the chance to influence people."

Mr. Krumholtz has never studied acting, although he said that working alongside Mr. Hirsch on Broadway at a young age taught him a lot. "Here I was, assisting this brilliant Tony Award-winning performance every night with this guy who I just loved as a man."

Mr. Hirsch, who earned a degree in physics at the City College of New York before becoming an actor, said there were two reasons he was eager to join the "Numbers" cast: "I knew it was about math and that David was in it."

Mr. Krumholtz described Mr. Hirsch as his "acting father," a term of endearment that lends some subtext to their relationship in the show. "It's hard to do scenes with him now only because it's so real you don't want it to be a scene, you want it to be real," he said.

"He gave me my career," Mr. Krumholtz said. "He gave me my life, along with Herb Gardner and Daniel Sullivan," the writer and director of "Conversations With My Father."

"I'm not too confident about how I would have turned out otherwise, to be honest," he added.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/arts/television/25mitc.html?pagewanted=print

Emmy Notebook
Cablers' eyes are behind the prize

In their Emmy campaigns, niche webs have a goal beyond winning: recognition
By Denise Martin Variety.com Sun., Jun. 25, 2006

Bonnie Hammer knows that "Battlestar Galactica" is alien to most Emmy voters.

The critically acclaimed skein isn't one that fits in the kudofest's universe: It's set in space. On the Sci Fi Channel. With a largely unknown cast.

Three strikes? Not according to the president of USA Network and Sci Fi, who believes the show deserves an Emmy nom for drama so much that she's putting her money where her mouth is. Hammer's team is spending what insiders peg to be more than $1 million on the Emmy campaign behind "Galactica" -- hefty coin for a basic-cable net.

She's not alone, either.

"Battlestar" is just one of several players from basic cable joining the race for TV's top series kudos. Waging equally pricey drama campaigns are TNT for "The Closer," FX for "The Shield" and four other one-hours, and USA for "Monk" and "The 4400."

Emmy recognition, however, is hardly the endgame.

Unlike winning an Oscar, taking home an Emmy doesn't necessarily translate to ratings boosts: Viewership for Fox's "Arrested Development" actually shrank soon after that show won for comedy series.

Rather, the act of awards campaigning itself has become a proficient way to lift the rep of TV's niche networks.

After the TV Academy feted Michael Chiklis of "The Shield" with a lead actor win and short-lived FX comedy "Lucky" with basic cable's first comedy writing nom, FX soon became known as the HBO of the ad-supported world -- upheld not by noms but by smart marketing of all the channel's adult dramas.

And the spending in recent years has often paid off with actual nominations.

Ratings-challenged Showtime drama "Huff" scored seven noms, including one for lead Hank Azaria last season.

Most cablers can't splurge for Emmys the way the Big Four or the pay nets do, but execs are willing to take on the campaign costs to gain the halo effect a few flashy ads can have on a network.

Actual payoff, Showtime exec VP Rich Licata says, is the prestige and industry interest a campaign creates in a network. Cable operators, for example, are more willing to market a show that's buzzworthy within the industry.

"It's more likely for the affiliates to put more of their own marketing dollars behind an Emmy-nominated program when they're making a push for new subscribers," he says. "That kind of added value is why the campaign itself can be worth the cost."

For Sci Fi, which won an Emmy for the Steven Spielberg-produced mini "Taken" in 2001, the campaign has become a way to "help the genre break through barriers. It's now a necessary step in changing the perception of what we do," Hammer says.

The "Battlestar" promos downplay both the title and its home on Sci Fi, using only critics' quotes against a black backdrop.

"A lot of people won't watch something if they hear the words 'sci-fi,' and, of course, we want our fair shot at an Emmy," Hammer continues. "But it's also being able to applaud work we're proud of. It makes the creative community want to work with us because they see that programs we do will be recognized and commended."

Talent relations is a big part of why Turner is getting behind "The Closer" and Spielberg's Western "Into the West," says senior VP of programming for TNT and TBS Michael Wright.

"When outside talent sees our commitment to quality -- quality that we believe is Emmy-worthy -- they feel more comfortable coming to cable," he says. "We wouldn't be working with Stephen King or Ridley Scott if they didn't believe we could produce programming of award-winning caliber."

FX president-general manager John Landgraf points out that accumulating crix' quotes in Emmy ads is one of the best branding tools in his arsenal.

"It's helped herald FX's arrival as a place for quality television," he says. "Unless I aggregate those reviews into two-page spreads, I don't think most people in the industry know what the critics are saying, and frankly, I think they're ahead of the Emmys in terms of praising deserving shows."

And though cable heads are hardly placing bets on their lesser-seen shows, the re-introduction of blue-ribbon panel judging is cause for hope.

Voters chose 10-15 finalists in the main acting and series categories, which were evaluated over the June 24-25 weekend by volunteer Acad members who gathered in org's North Hollywood HQ to screen episodes and judge based on those merits alone. Noms are announced July 6.

John Leverence, senior VP of awards for the TV Academy, says the process "levels the playing field 100% because every single program will be considered on its own terms" and not by its reputation.

Members will view the 15 highest vote-getters in the lead acting categories, which may include thesps from less-watched basic-cable shows like Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos in "Battlestar," Kyra Sedgwick in "The Closer" or Denis Leary in "Rescue Me."

Seeing some of those perfs recognized and supported with Emmy campaigns -- let alone with noms -- would surely add incentive for a thesp considering work on basic cable.

"Ratings are not the main incentive anymore," Licata says.

"The landscape is so crowded that to program your network competitively, you've got to launch an Emmy campaign to let agents and managers know you're serious about working at a quality level."

Emmy Notebook
Tales Of The West: He Knows The Territory

In `Broken Trail,' Robert Duvall embraces themes he finds familiar on screen and off: rambling, risk and, finally, redemption.
By Paul Lieberman Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 25, 2006

Shortly after his 75th birthday this past winter, Robert Duvall found himself on the West Coast, so he told his companion of recent years, Luciana Pedraza, "Let's go find my old house." The place is outside San Diego, where his Navy admiral father was stationed for two years before WWII. Duvall, who was 10 and 11 then, remembered his mother falling over him while he was roller-skating and his parents taking him to dime movies at the Marine base, where he became a fan of Mickey Rooney romps, "Gunga Din" and a dog story, "The Biscuit Eater." Finding the house was no problem — he still remembered the address — but it looked different than he recalled. New owners had changed it, he said, "not for the better."

Duvall earlier had taken Luciana to see another of his childhood homes, in Annapolis, Md., near the U.S. Naval Academy, and he did not feel much emotional pull there either. Although many people emerge from their early years with some strong sense of place, Duvall is not one of them, the result of the transient military life, he is convinced. He is not even certain whether he is a city kid at heart or a small-town kid, though he leans toward the latter.

"I don't know what I am, yeah," he says, that being a favorite word of his, muttered in next to a whisper. "Yeah … we moved so many times … here, there and everything."

But Duvall does have glowing memories of one place, an uncle's ranch in Montana, where he spent two summers. No one thrust violin or piano lessons on him there. They gave him a horse and took him on roundups in the Sweet Grass Hills near the Bear Paw Mountains, where the white men captured the great Nez Percé leader, Chief Joseph, and where "my uncle would tell stories and play the harmonica."

Duvall was 13 and 14 those summers, and how could it not make a lasting impression, hearing how his uncle's father had emigrated from England to Denver and sold tombstones to supplant wooden crosses and thus made enough money to buy the Montana land. Or how his uncle, H.B. Prescott, spent his own boyhood summers going on horseback to a pristine Yellowstone National Park to camp, hunt and fish. His uncle was a marvel in the wild, able to rope a baby coyote from his horse or drop to his belly and shoot an antelope at 300 yards, "Boom, just get it."

Duvall recalls riding a gray steed in a lightning storm and staying on while draft horses ran loose around him. The second summer, his youngest brother — Duvall was the middle of three — came to Montana too, so they teased him, "You'll have to clean the chicken house." Except their uncle said, "Jack, you come with me," and guess who got that chore?

"I remember quite a few things, yeah," says Duvall, who has made nearly 100 films and played military types and weary cops and sin-confessing men of the cloth — and a mob consigliere — but keeps coming back, when he can, to the oldest of American film genres, the western, his latest, "Broken Trail," to be shown in two parts, at 8 PM ET/PT Sunday and Monday, on the AMC cable network.

Embracing his Eastern roots

THOUGH moving around is hard on a life — hard on maintaining friendships, for instance — Duvall sees its benefits for a craft that takes you from location to location, and from character to character, something he has done as well as anyone of his acting generation. "That sense of a transient kind of fits what I do now as an actor," he says.

He was speaking at his 362-acre Byrnley Farm here in Virginia horse country, an area more like England's foxhunting regions than the wild West. He and Luciana spend most of their time here, with their dogs, when he's not off filming, except around Christmas when they visit her relatives in Argentina, where they have a small inn at the foot of the Andes. Duvall no longer keeps a home in New York — his last was opera legend Enrico Caruso's former apartment on Broadway — but he still has one in L.A., a bungalow with a lap pool in the flats of West Hollywood.

To the degree he has an ancestral home, however, Virginia is it. His dad's people worked a tobacco farm behind Confederate lines while siding with the Union and naming his granddad Abraham Lincoln Duvall. There's also Civil War history to the tiny town (pop. 284) that includes Duvall's property, the Plains being where a federal spy was hung during the Battle of Manassas. But his spread goes back further, featuring a 1744 hilltop manor house that George Washington may have visited. White fences and stone walls run past the ponds and pastures of the gentleman's farm Duvall bought a decade ago.

He has converted one of two barns into an enormous party space complete with Western saloon bar (with matching spittoons) and a dance floor suitable for the tango. The other barn is not quite as pristine as the one Duvall visits in "The Godfather" to persuade the film producer to give a part to singer Johnny Fontane — and which houses the horse that becomes a bloody head in the man's bed — but it's close. It's where Duvall keeps an 1884 saddle inscribed with the name of Augustus "Gus" McCrae, his Texas ranger character in "Lonesome Dove," the TV miniseries he counts, with his two "Godfather" films, among the most accomplished projects of his career.

Duvall's horses romp in corrals nearby. One is a still-nippy colt Luciana gave him as a surprise gift; the other, Red Man, a saddle horse he bought two summers ago in case he got a green light for "Broken Trail," in which he was not only going to costar, with Thomas Haden Church, but serve as producer. Duvall stopped riding for fun after he busted a few ribs preparing for Kevin Costner's 2003 "Open Range" and was worried that he would be only barely competent in the saddle. "Though we didn't have any financing, I figured we were going to do it sometime," he says, so he got Red Man to get back his form.

Duvall had the same approach a half-century ago, when he was a New York stage actor poised to be "discovered." While he was earning credits in such plays as "Wait Until Dark" and episodes of TV shows such as "Naked City," he kept up his riding at a low-rent stable in Queens, because when he'd watch westerns such as "Gunsmoke" — still mainstays of prime time — he found too many actors unconvincing. "All these guys could draw guns" — that, they practiced — "but they couldn't sit a horse." He was resolved that, if given the chance, he would not look like some tinhorn whose only experience was as a 4-year-old playing cowboys and Indians with miniature chaps and a stick horse.

True to character

IF transience is one theme of Duvall's life, another is authenticity — his drive, from Day One, to look real, and sound real, in his roles.

Writer Horton Foote, who helped get him his first film job, at 31 — as the mute Boo Radley in 1962's "To Kill a Mockingbird" — recalls first seeing Duvall when he was right out of the Army renting a $7 room and taking classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse, whose natural-style guru, Sanford Meisner, said, "'Get down here to see this boy." Foote goes on, "He played a total alcoholic…. And the interesting thing is he never smokes or drinks. I said, 'How did he do that?' 'He went down to the Bowery and watched people,' " spent days with the derelicts.

Years later, when Duvall was creating "The Apostle" — which he wrote, directed and starred in — he'd call Foote while checking out churches around the South. "I could always tell when he'd been with a different preacher," Foote says, "because he'd try out these different voices." Duvall hit the road in Texas to become the itinerant country singer in the Foote-penned "Tender Mercies," which won each an Academy Award.

But Duvall did not have to learn strange skills when, nearing 40, he finally got a marquee western, 1969's "True Grit." He was able to do his own horse work even in the climactic scene in which he and fellow bad guys face off across a field against John Wayne, who won his only Oscar for his portrayal of eye-patched Rooster Cogburn. True, the Duke had to be shot on some close-ups with his saddle on a 2-by-4, in the back of a pickup, and some suggested the award was a gift for past work, but Duvall saw grace in the USC football player who'd become the iconic western hero. "Well, he did OK," Duvall says, "and he rode in other scenes. He was smart enough to know to use a double when it's a little bit touchy, you know?"

Duvall was still relatively unknown — "MASH" came the next year, "The Godfather" two later — but was not shy about reaching a different opinion to that of the film's 71-year-old director who had worked on a silent western in 1925, when they were black and white in more ways than one.

"He said to one actor, 'When I say "action," tense up, goddamn it!' I mean, can you imagine saying that to Joe Montana in the Super Bowl? 'Tense up'? "

Duvall's acting credo has always been "Simple reality," to wit: "Just talking and listening. Not going for results…. Even in life in emotional situations … be offhand. Nothing's precious. Just let it sit there and find its own way."

His critique could apply to other films, of course, but he finds westerns particularly prone to scenery chewing, actors "acting up a storm."

Many people consider John Ford's "The Searchers" one of the greatest westerns, but Duvall got through only 10 minutes the first time he saw it, finding it too stagy and Ford's frontier men unrealistically "up, up, up" and with a superimposed energy, not their own.

To him, a good director says, "Just do nothing. See what happens. Instead of 'Action!' "

He couldn't watch HBO's "Deadwood" either, because of its cursing, which suggests that viewers are finally hearing how cowboys really talked. Duvall suspects that that reality was dreamed up by writers in the Bronx for whom the West means "20 miles west of Buffalo." That wasn't how it was on his uncle's ranch, where the head wrangler was a Scottish fellow known to "profess love for my aunt" when they all drank too much, and his uncle would say, "Now Jimmy, back off," but they rarely swore — and most often at stubborn cows.

His critic's eye doesn't spare even the Oscar-winning "Unforgiven," in which Clint Eastwood's aging gunman is in no way "up, up, up." It may well be the best of the gritty films that try to demythologize the West, and the western, but Duvall was bothered by a scene in which Eastwood's William Munny shows how out of shape he is. "I didn't buy the fact that he couldn't get on a horse anymore," says the onetime teenage summer cowboy who can still do that himself, after all, at 75.

Tackling the all-American genre

"I keep saying that the English have Shakespeare, Molière with the French, Chekhov with the Russians. And the western is ours."

Dressed in bad man's black, Duvall is seated on an easy chair in his den, his right arm on a flowered cushion, his "Tender Mercies" Oscar standing watch from a fireplace mantle.

He came up with the idea for his western with a neighbor here, Alan Geoffrion, who published a regional magazine and whose wife runs a stable. Also a history buff, Duvall brought him into the filming of Costner's movie in Western Canada, then suggested he visit a Nebraska rancher whose grandfather had once taken 700 horses from Oregon to the Rosebud Sioux reservation in South Dakota. That became raw material for a script, melded with other historical nuggets: how two Wyoming families became agents for the British Army, which wanted to export horses to South Africa's Boer War; how poor Chinese girls were sold into service in America, which meant prostitution at mining camps; and one from Duvall's uncle, naturally, about white men who traded blankets infected with smallpox to the Blackfeet. Yes, and the invention of therapeutic papers. "This may be the first western that addresses the question," Geoffrion says, "of 'What did they use for toilet paper?' "

He did the writing and Duvall consulted ("from an actor's point of view … try this") until they came up with the scenario of an uncle and nephew leading a horse drive out of Oregon in 1897 and being joined by a wagon with five Chinese girls entering lives as "daughters of joy." En route they meet other characters of the West, some of whom — like "Smallpox Bob" — need killing. As with any western's drive, the most basic issue is whether they'll make it to the end. But here there's the issue too of whether the wandering cowboys can ever settle down: Duvall's Print Ritter, with his Wilford Brimley mustache ("That was mine!" he says), is wooed by a fleeing prostitute, played by Greta Scacchi; Church's Tom Harte feels stirrings for the oldest Chinese woman.

Duval considered marketing the story as a feature or one-day network TV movie before landing at AMC, which has never bought the notion that the western is dead, having stopped speaking to audiences more inclined to watch antiheroes than heroes and who find their escapist clashes between civilization and a lawless frontier in sci-fi tales set in space. Or maybe it was simply counterprogramming that led AMC to embrace westerns and John Wayne, licensing 32 of his films. In any case, the network was eager to back its first original project.

"We were looking for a big event that would be our first big event," says AMC President Ed Carroll, who gave the go-ahead for shooting the two-part "Broken Trail" last summer in Alberta, Canada, with the confidence that Duvall would "lend immediate credibility" to the debut effort but also understanding that AMC was getting "a perfectionist … who has a strong point of view."

Translation: This star-producer would not sit quietly by if a network suit decided that TV required a happier ending, say, than he believed appropriate.

Duvall is not generally a believer in those. The 90-year-old Foote recalls the one line in "Tender Mercies" for which the actor, in character, allowed himself tears. It goes, "I don't trust happiness. Never did. Never will."

So that was one issue, how much happily-ever-after. Also how much gunplay. "You gotta have a shootout in a western, I suppose," Duvall says, but "you can't overdo that. They weren't such deadeye shots, those guys."

In late afternoon, he's joined by Geoffrion, just off his tractor "moving a manure pile," and they recall how there came to be "three camps" on the project: theirs, which favored character scenes around the campfire; the director's (Walter Hill, who won an Emmy for "Deadwood"), who wanted more action; and the network's, in between.

That reminds Duvall of his old pal Gene Hackman, who once offered him his last $300 during their struggling days in New York, when their crowd included Dustin Hoffman and Jimmy Caan, "all these guys I never see anymore," Duvall says, years and success leaving them thousands of miles apart.

Hackman too grew into a character actor known to speak his mind, and Duvall mentions his storming off the set on "Behind Enemy Lines." Duvall says, "Yeah … old Gene, he doesn't want to take any direction unless you know what you're talking about." Then Duvall asks, "I'm not that bad, am I?"

Geoffrion tells him he's not, that he saved the project, in fact, after they got the director's cut last winter. Duvall, who was in Argentina, returned, hired his own editor and camped out in a back room at the old Warner Bros. lot in L.A. and "in 16 days, we turned it," he says, restoring "our vision."

Even Luciana, the rail-thin 34-year-old Argentine who has been with Duvall for a decade, lent a hand. She spotted film in which Duvall and Scacchi were sitting with their feet in a river, speaking as actors, not characters, and Duvall asked, "What was that?" It seems he sometimes has trouble hearing from his left ear — so why not stick that in as something that might afflict an aging cowboy? Duvall calls it "real behavior in real time that serves movie time."

He sent in their cut and the network people liked it, though they maintained final say. "We still don't know how it really, really ends," Duvall says just weeks before the premiere.

"There was a lot of pressure to … have little bows on everything," Geoffrion adds. "Life isn't like that. People drift into your life and people drift out."

"Passing ships," says Duvall.

What lies ahead

DUVALL went out once on one of his dad's boats before the admiral retired at 50. He says his father never found anything as fulfilling as the Navy, trying real estate and selling silver, but mostly his folks "sat around."

His plan is to never retire, "not till they wipe the drool."

After that, "Maybe half of my ashes here and half in Argentina. Yeah … I guess since I'm still a transient, all over. I leave it up to my wife."

He calls Luciana that at times while speaking with typical candor about his three failed marriages, how one wife made time with the pool man, and how he was caught talking too gleefully on a pay phone to someone not his spouse. He helped raise a couple of stepdaughters early on, but has no children of his own. And while he's read of a 100-year-old Russian who procreated with 20-year-old girls, Luciana will have to make do with "the wonderful nephews and nieces in Argentina."

The week before last, they made their way to New York for the premiere of "Broken Trail," Duvall again in black. He had already screened it for an audience — at the White House — and, one hopes, that went more smoothly. At the theater near Lincoln Center, the dialogue goes silent after an opening snippet, when Duvall rides onto the range to find his nephew, played by Church, who says, "What brings you out this far? Thought maybe you'd gone under." Duvall replies, "I ain't gone under yet. No, sir."

They finally fix the problem, and after Part 1 is finished, the cast and guests move to a party at a Chinese restaurant. Duvall holds court from a central table, teasing well wishers that they should be at the theater, watching Part 2.

"We missed our Uncle Bobby!" says Valerie Tian, 17, one of the Chinese Canadians who played the enslaved prostitutes-to-be. Wearing a terrorized look in the movie, the tiny teenager now flits gleefully about the party on new white platform shoes, the price tag still on them. She gives Duvall one last hug and reports, "I saw 'Apocalypse Now.' 'I love the smell of napalm in the morning!' But I have not yet seen 'The Godfather.' "

Duvall has a couple of other films coming out: the animated "Bee Movie," in which he's the voice of a crusty lawyer amid a horde of bees led by Jerry Seinfeld; and a Russian Mafia story, "We Own the Night," by young auteur James Gray, which he filmed this past spring as a last minute fill-in, in a supporting role.

Other than that he has no projects inked, he says, "None, none."

He has optioned a story by Alabama writer Michael Knight about racial conflict in a tiny Southern town, which, if he gets funding, would be an apt bookend to his first film, "To Kill a Mockingbird."

But he also has his eye on an Eric Roth script about the bloody Hatfields and McCoys feud, a project being nurtured by Brad Pitt's production company. Duvall hopes to play "Devil" Anse Hatfield, one of the clan's patriarchs. "He's like a devil, but he did good things. He had a sense of humor," Duvall says. "I think I know how to play that guy."

While in Canada, he got to lobby Pitt, who was there for a western too, one about Jesse James. Duvall said his approach would be to find pockets of West Virginia where people talk like they did a century ago, with a nasal twang. But "who knows who the director's going to envision?"

Robert Duvall ponders whether they might think another actor could better play Devil Anse.

"I'd like to think," he says, "there's none."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ca-duvall25jun25,0,7339983,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

Perhaps providing Spike in HD might appeal to guys even more? (Just a thought.)

Cable TV Notebook
Spike Goes to the Mat for the Guys

The "first network for men" hopes to consolidate its target audience with an action-heavy slate of shows.
By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 25, 2006

Where have the guys gone?

It's a question that has had television executives scratching their heads in recent years as young male viewers — always elusive — have become even scarcer, lured away by Xboxes, iPods and an array of other tech gadgets and online entertainment, some of which they probably don't want their mothers to know about.

Now Spike TV is hoping to bring some of them back by cultivating a more manly image — call it the cable network for the anti-metrosexual.

To put it even more plainly: "The Rock is Spike," explained Spike President Doug Herzog. "Jude Law is not Spike."

Three years after executives proclaimed it the "first network for men," Spike has adopted a new slogan ("Get more action"), replaced its bubble-letter logo with hefty block print and scheduled a slew of action-oriented programs including "The Ultimate Fighter" and "Blade," which premieres Wednesday — all part of an effort to sharpen the channel's identity.

"I think everybody understood the notion that it's a network for men, but what did that mean?" said Herzog, who also heads Spike's sister networks Comedy Central and TV Land (Spike being the rowdy brother). "We weren't going to do the pornography network, which was probably the best idea if you're looking for these viewers. We kind of landed on our notion of what it is: an unapologetic, action-oriented, home base for guys.

"Action means car chases and dust-ups and fistfights and Bruce Willis movies but also means the action of the card table, the action of Vegas and beautiful women," he said. "If it's testosterone-driven, bold and unpretentious, we think there's room for it."

Spike is not alone in making a pound-on-your-chest appeal to men. Lately, there seems to be a resurgence in macho-themed marketing: Burger King is running a new "Eat like a man" campaign for its Texas Double Whopper — cholesterol and weight gain be damned! — and Miller Lite ads feature celebrities debating "Man Laws," including how soon you can make a play for a woman who dumped your best friend. (It depends on how hot she is.)

Some of these advertisers apparently already view Spike as a good place to find a captive audience of young men; spots for Burger King, Toyota and Coors dominate the network's commercials.

Still, it remains to be seen if Spike's pumped-up image will be enough to draw a substantial share of guys back to the television screen when they have so many other pursuits vying for their attention. In 2000, 18- to 34-year-old males made up just 9.5% of the American television viewing audience; so far this year, their share has dropped to 9%, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Keith Richman, chief executive officer of Break.com, a user-generated entertainment website aimed at young men that attracts around 900,000 unique users a day, said Spike's new strategy makes sense.

"There's no channel that really talks to guys on their level like their guys and says, 'We know you're not pretty, but we embrace you,' " he said. "Whether you'll be able to get the guys off the Internet back to watching TV is another matter. They're competing with being outdoors and the new gadget that just came out and 'Nacho Libre' at the box office and guys' desire to go out and meet girls. Lay on top of that our natural proclivity to be fickle."

Those distractions haven't hurt only the television industry, of course. Movies and music sales have also slumped in recent years, in part because young men — once the driving force of popular culture — have so many entertainment options.

Spike's attempt to recast itself as rough-hewn is the latest incarnation of the channel, which premiered as the Nashville Network in the 1980s, then was renamed TNN in 2000 and switched to a pop entertainment format. Three years later, the Viacom-owned network was relaunched as Spike TV, setting out to capture young male viewers.

But with a grab bag of programming that included sexpot cartoon "Stripperella" and episodes of "Star Trek," the network's original mandate proved too broad, and its effort to grow largely stalled. So far this year, Spike has averaged 1.27 million viewers in prime time — around the same number it drew in 2004 — 15% of them (about 192,000) men ages 18 to 34. (More than a fifth of the prime-time audience is actually women 18 to 49.) That means the network draws fewer young men, on average, than Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, TNT, ESPN, USA or Comedy Central during prime time, according to Nielsen Media Research.

In many ways, Spike has had to contend with the challenge inherent in any cable channel narrowly tailored to one demographic: Be nimble and relevant, or risk losing an audience with a short attention span. Female-oriented networks Lifetime and Oxygen have been undergoing their own evolutions, creating new programming and trying to find the right mix to keep women watching.

Shows in development

Spike executives hope the network's beefed-up approach will help propel it past its competitors. Key to the network's rebranding is a new slate of action programs in development, including "Amped," a drama about a mysterious outbreak in Los Angeles, and "The Kill Pit," which follows a bank robbery gone awry. Also in the works: "Afro Samurai," an animated series about a black samurai produced and voiced by Samuel L. Jackson and scheduled to premiere in November.

"We think we will consistently have something that will interest the audience that nobody else does," said Pancho Mansfield, executive vice president of original programming. "Fun is a big part of it. We're not out to be provocative to the critics necessarily."

The network is hoping to make a big splash this week when it airs the two-hour premiere of its first original scripted series, "Blade." Based on the popular Marvel superhero, the drama features Kirk "Sticky" Jones as an immortal warrior engaged in a battle with a vampire underworld seeking to destroy the human race. The series is being produced by David S. Goyer, who wrote the screenplays for the successful "Blade" movie trilogy that starred Wesley Snipes.

"It's a great franchise — it has its own brand, its own following," Mansfield said. "There isn't anything like 'Blade' on. This is a bit grittier and darker than most things on television."

Jim Rosenthal, president of New Line Television, said production turned out to be more substantial than originally planned, as producers sought to replicate the high-end action scenes of the films.

Young men "are so fickle and choosy," Rosenthal said. "You've got to get it right or they might not give you a second chance."

Spike is trying to build a buzz for series through a major online marketing effort that includes trailers posted on websites such as YouTube.com.

"We have to go where the guys are," Herzog said.

Another tent pole of the network's new strategy is its partnership with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the top producer of the increasing popular mixed martial arts fights.

Spike recently renewed its deal with UFC through 2008, and no wonder: The third season of "The Ultimate Fighter" — a reality competition among 16 mixed martial arts fighters around the world that was scheduled to end Saturday night with a live finale — drew an average audience of 2.2 million viewers and in its Thursday night time slot enjoyed an audience jump of 410% among males 18 to 34.

"It is to boxing what snowboarding is to skiing: faster and more extreme and more dangerous," Herzog said.

"And most importantly, your father hates it."

That said, the Spike TV president said he didn't want to leave the impression that network is now only for men interested in bare-knuckle combat or bloody vampire slayings.

"This is a big, wide-open category, and we want to appeal to a lot of different guys," he said. "It's not about being the toughest guy — it's about not being afraid to be a guy."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ca-spike25jun25,0,1036973,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

An Appreciation
Aaron Spelling's Zippy Code

The '90210' Producer Led The Great American Escape
By Tom Shales Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 25, 2006; D01

Not every television show produced by Aaron Spelling was silly or sleazy, but those that weren't seemed to have sneaked in over the transom or slipped in under the door. Spelling was one of Hollywood's wealthiest and most prolific producers, and he didn't get that way, as the old saying goes, by overestimating the intelligence of the American people.

But millions of those American people liked what they saw in shows like "Dynasty," "Charlie's Angels" and "Beverly Hills, 90210," and Spelling, usually with his partner Leonard Goldberg, was more than willing to crank them out, like gooey, chewy confections on a candy factory's conveyor belt. Candy, in fact, is the name of his widow, his second wife.

Spelling died Friday, about a week after suffering a stroke, at the age of 83. If critics -- this one included -- were unkind to him during his long career in producing escapist television, even they would have to admit that Spelling had that proverbial "finger on the pulse of the American public"; with the other nine, he could count the millions that poured into his empire, a reward for assessing the audience's appetite and satiating it.

He was America's Trashmaster Flash, the man who specialized in dangling images of wealth, power and glamour in viewers' faces so they could pant and gasp over them -- and yet still go to bed comforted by the notion that the rich really are miserable under the tuxedos and designer gowns. In his heyday at ABC -- during which he virtually saved the network from oblivion -- Spelling was unquestionably a trendsetter, a man whose shows established genres that other producers, at other networks, strove to imitate.

With its debut in 1981, "Dynasty" -- in the footsteps of CBS's hit "Dallas" -- helped bring the soap opera back to prime-time network television and proved it could still work. It was also one of the first episodic dramas to feature a gay character -- a rich patriarch's post-adolescent son -- as part of the regular cast. Veteran TV columnist John Carmody dubbed the boy "Sensitive Steve."

When "Dynasty," dominated by graying magnates and middle-aged minxes, had run its course, Spelling reinvented it with younger characters for a younger audience at a younger network: His vapid, but addictive "Beverly Hills, 90210" helped put Fox on the map. The network's current hit "The O.C.," though not produced by Spelling, clearly continues in traditions he established, and even bears a certain resemblance to "Malibu Shores," a series Spelling sold to NBC in 1996. That show, however, proved to be one of his infrequent flops.

He did the occasional "quality" series, notably ABC's "Family" (1976-80), a thoughtful domestic drama about a middle-class family and its everyday problems. But "Family" didn't attract audiences as large, nor is it likely to be remembered as long, as "Melrose Place," another prime-time soap full of sex and secrets.

"Dynasty" reflected and epitomized the glitz and greed of the '80s, but the show still plays in reruns on cable. In fact, no matter how the cognoscenti may try to dismiss them, Spelling's shows have a way of hanging around or returning in new incarnations. Movies based on "Charlie's Angels" mopped up at the box office in recent years, albeit with production values and randy antics that wouldn't have been possible at ABC; the series was the subject of a TV movie, "Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of 'Charlie's Angels,' " that was a ratings hit for NBC.

"Angels" epitomized yet another arguably mindless genre: "jiggle TV." The reigning philosophy at the show was to get the three girls into their bikinis as often as possible, and to get the bikinis wet, whenever the scripts, as flimsy as the bathing suits, would allow.

Perhaps Spelling's life will be a movie itself someday, since he definitely lived the proverbial American dream. Born into poverty in Dallas and subjected to anti-Semitic taunts as a child, he suffered what he later called a nervous breakdown at the tender age of 8. All the hardships made him that much more determined to succeed and made it that much more inevitable he would end up in Hollywood, where determination and tastelessness can take you a long way.

He originally tried his hand at acting, and can be seen playing a hayseed pumping gas in an episode of "I Love Lucy," a performance he praised in his autobiography, published in 1996. Ironically or not, Spelling would much later team up with Lucille Ball for "Life with Lucy," an attempted comeback by the 75-year-old star that had a brief and unhappy run on ABC in 1986.

Spelling recalled that when he pitched the show to ABC executives, he got "the easiest 'yes' I've ever gotten in my life," according to "Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz." Prior to the premiere, Spelling said he was letting Ball call the shots: "I'd be an idiot not to trust Lucy with how to do Lucy," he said. He was hardly being an idiot, but the woman who had been television's comedy queen was no longer up to the broad and physical humor called for in the series' old-fashioned scripts.

Spelling's first hit as a producer was the classy mystery-comedy "Burke's Law," with Gene Barry as a very rich detective solving crimes that always involved big-time guest stars. Although he'd continued to do acting jobs in the '50s (he has one line, as a beggar, in the MGM musical "Kismet") and wrote scripts for "Desilu Playhouse" and other drama anthologies, Spelling realized that his talents were best suited to the job of producer.

And while few of his future shows had the wit or class of "Burke's Law," Spelling unquestionably became one of the most successful and imitated producers in television history, with a record 3,000 series episodes to his credits. And he did do the occasional good deed -- among them "Day One" (1989), a docudrama on the creation of the atomic bomb, and "And the Band Played On" (1992), a dramatization of Randy Shilts's acclaimed book about the beginnings of the AIDS crisis.

Spelling's son Randy played a role in "Malibu Shores," but it was his daughter Tori who made the bigger splash as an actor, though hardly without a chorus of jeers from the sidelines. She was ridiculed for her less-than-flawless facial features and a kind of klutziness that afflicted her performances on "Beverly Hills, 90210" and others of Daddy's productions. But for her work in a low-budget independent movie called "Trick" she earned respect and critical acclaim, and she's anything but the first person to take advantage of nepotism in Hollywood, where it has practically become an art form.

A tiny man who lived in a very big house, Spelling liked to be photographed holding a pipe, perhaps an attempt to lend him a note of class and distinction. The big house was, in fact, another Spelling production that earned vociferous criticism, especially from neighbors in ritzy Holmby Hills, where it utterly engulfs an entire block. After the house's completion, there were rampant rumors, which Spelling denied, that he convinced a department store on Wilshire Boulevard to move its neon sign, after decades spent in the same location, to a spot where it wouldn't mar the Spellings' view.

The little kid in Dallas who said he had grown up thinking "Jew boy" was one word -- having heard it so many times directed at him -- had the last laugh on all his detractors, including the critics whose derisive diatribes seemed only mildly to irk him. His era as well as his life are over now, with the TV audience favoring "reality" shows and gritty crime dramas. No single producer had greater influence -- nor as much fun wielding it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/24/AR2006062401045_pf.html

The Business of TV
(Commercial) Load Limit

By J. Max Robins Broadcasting & Cable 6/26/2006

CBS Corp. chief Leslie Moonves’ typically adroit salesmanship was on display last Wednesday at the PricewaterhouseCoopers annual media outlook conference. Asked about his company’s recent forays into online distribution, like putting the NCAA Basketball finals on the Web for free, Moonves said they demonstrated the advantages of an advertiser-supported model over a subscription-based one: “People would rather sit through commercials than pay 99¢ or $1.99.”

I agree. What Moonves didn’t note, however, was that the commercial load on the ad-supported programming that CBS, ABC and others have put on the Web is decidedly limited. You may not be able to skip through commercials while watching Lost and Desperate Housewives on ABC.com, for example, but the spots are far fewer and mercifully briefer than the broadcast norm on network primetime.

With the upfronts drawing to a close, what networks should take away from this is that limiting the commercial and promotional load in their broadcast programming not only makes viewers happy; it makes sound business sense.

Indeed, one of the factors driving the audience away from primetime is the frightening uptick in ad clutter on broadcast and cable networks alike for the past decade. Between all the commercials and promos that are continually crammed into shows, especially hits, almost a third of primetime is non-programming—and that doesn’t include the product-placement deals that have proliferated.

Savvy advertisers and network executives must realize it has all gone too far. Back in the early 1990s, when commercial minutes began to tick past 12, producers like thirtysomething co-creator Marshall Herskovitz warned that it would be hard to sustain any real dramatic or comic tension and that audiences would drift away if the clutter increased.

Well, the ads kept coming, forcing viewers to resort to myriad options to avoid them, from premium cable, digital video recorders and video-on-demand to online viewing and DVDs.

Meanwhile, everyone’s stuck at the negotiating table. Networks pledge to cut the clutter, but they’re unwilling to gamble that ratings would go up and allow them to demand more cash for fewer ads. For the most part, advertisers don’t want to pay the extra buck.

True, major advertisers have paid premiums to be single sponsors of interruption-free telecasts of season premieres and other special events. But while such deals have helped drive ratings and left the advertisers walking away happy, they are relatively rare. The norm still is to sell as many spots as possible, leaving hit shows like House and Grey’s Anatomy to be carved up into six acts.

Media agency OMD just completed a study that examined levels of audience “engagement” with TV and other media platforms, old and new. Among the conclusions was that viewers are more responsive to commercials if they air during their favorite shows. No doubt advertisers and networks will use the study to justify clutter in the big hits with rabid fan bases.

“It may be, the engagement level can be so high the audience will stick around because they don’t want to miss anything,” says OMD Research Director Sandy Eubanks, who headed the survey. “But we do hear more and more complaints from consumers about clutter,” Eubanks adds. “And that translates into more avoidance behavior.”

No kidding. Let’s hope networks and advertisers agree to at least a token reduction in clutter. A little really would go a long way.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346943

The Digital Revolution
Fox Makes Blu-Ray Push

By Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/26/2006

Twentieth Century Fox executives are showing off HD movies that Fox will be releasing this year on the new Blu-Ray optical-disc format.

Blu-Ray, which will deliver video in 1080-line progressive-scan high-definition and provide up to five times the storage of regular DVDs, is in competition with the HD-DVD format. Sony, Dell, a host of consumer-electronics manufacturers, and all the major movie studios except Universal support Blu-Ray.

PLAYERS DELAYED

The technology’s expansion has been hurt, however, by several delays in the introduction of players from Sony, Samsung and Pioneer. Samsung’s first Blu-Ray player, which will sell for around $1,000, is now hitting stores.

Sony Pictures has released its first seven titles. Among them are the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic The Terminator and Vin Diesel-vehicle XXX.

Meanwhile, the competing HD-DVD format is already on the market, backed by technology companies including Microsoft and Toshiba, as well as by the Universal, Warner Bros. and Paramount studios. Toshiba players priced at $500-$800 hit stores in April, although, with limited distribution, units are hard to find.

MOVIES TRICKLE OUT

HD-DVD content continues to trickle out from the studios. Warner Bros. announced June releases of HD-DVD titles, such as Syriana, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Lethal Weapon. But until the Blu-Ray battle with HD-DVD is resolved, many consumers are likely to be sitting on the sidelines.

To show off Blu-Ray earlier this month, Fox created a living-room environment at a Manhattan hotel, complete with a 65-inch Panasonic plasma 1080p display, to demonstrate several movies using prototype technology. Relying on a combination of a Pioneer Blu-Ray player and InterVideo WinDVD software, which provided the graphical user interface, Fox showed high-def clips from such movies as Independence Day and Master & Commander in stunning detail and clarity.

The demos only hinted at the full power of the 7.1-channel DTS-HD audio that is part of the Blu-Ray format, however, because DTS-HD–compatible consumer audio equipment is not yet available.

Another demonstration, which used a prototype Panasonic Blu-Ray player to show a clip from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, had no sound at all (the player is still under development, Fox explained).

Instead, this demo focused on the interactive features made possible by Blu-Ray’s use of the Java programming language. Among them: the ability for viewers to get a pop-up menu while watching the movie, launch graphic windows that give more information on individual actors, and save bookmarks of favorite scenes and store them on the flash memory of the Blu-Ray player itself. The next time the movie is cued up, the bookmarks immediately appear.

“The idea is to make it as consumer-friendly as possible,” explains Jacqueline Reed, executive director of DVD development for Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Blu-Ray players will also have the ability to connect to the Internet. A Java-based feature called BD Live will provide instant interactivity while a Blu-Ray disc is played, allowing a viewer to launch a streaming discussion with a movie’s director, says Clayton Biele, IT operations manager for Fox Domestic Home Entertainment.

UPDATE DISCS

Through BD Live, the content on Blu-Ray discs also can be securely updated, says Biele, letting users download supplemental language tracks as they become available.

Fox is planning to launch roughly 20 HD titles on Blu-Ray in the fourth quarter, including such blockbuster titles as Ice Age 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, Omen 666 and Garfield 2, along with catalog fare.

Individual titles will probably have a list price of under $40 but sell for under $30 in stores, says Steve Feldstein, senior VP of corporate and marketing communications, Fox Filmed Entertainment.

A Blu-Ray release this year of a Fox television property, such as 24, is also a possibility, Feldstein says, but he cautions that no firm plans are in place.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346827

Critic’s Notebook
“Nobody’s Watching": -- but you should be

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

Hurry to www.youtube.com and watch all of ''Nobody's Watching,'' the best new sitcom you will see this summer -- and probably this fall as well. I'll have more about it later, but for now, go watch.

Here's the backstory, for Roger and the rest of you: The show -- about two guys from Ohio who go to Hollywood to make a sitcom and end up reality-show stars -- was made for The WB a year ago, but the network decided not to pick it up. (Bill Lawrence of ''Scrubs,'' one of the three writers on ''Nobody's Watching,'' said they literally flew to New York for The WB's upfront announcements, only to be told when they got there that the network wasn't picking up the show after all.)

Someone posted the pilot on YouTube. It has had more than 125,000 hits on the site, generated a bunch of comments and -- best news yet -- is getting enough buzz that Lawrence is hoping to pitch the show again.

Of course, it won't be on The WB, which will cease to exist soon, but Lawrence is looking at NBC's recent risk-taking -- ''The Office,'' ''My Name Is Earl'' -- and sensing an opportunity. Once it landed on YouTube, Lawrence admitted that he began working hard to get people to watch.

Our telephone chat today came after an e-mail from a publicist touting ''Nobody's Watching,'' and after a couple of other news reports about it. In fact, one of my colleagues this morning asked me if I had seen ''Nobody's Watching'' yet. The YouTube connection could be a new way to get shows seen, and to gauge viewer interest.

Beyond the industry implications, it's a good show. It plays constantly with the conventions of television, both the sitcom and reality TV. (Lawrence said the suits at The WB worried that it was too complicated for viewers, while the YouTube audience is settling right in.) I laughed a lot. You should, too.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/
I seen this a few days ago. Hilarious. :D

I really hope this show is somehow picked up.

Rich posted his item a few days ago, Russ -- I was tardy in reposting it.

I agree, it is a funny show!

Cable TV Notebook
MSNBC Changes?

Matt Drudge at drudgereport.com is somewhat cryptically reporting that “MSNBC will be dropping some of its talk-show lineup in favor of more taped reports.. Developing...”

I’ll keep an eye on those “developments” (in case one of you is the MSNBC viewer we hear so much about.)

Sorry for the sarcasm, but rarely has one network got as much publicity -- consistently -- for as few viewers.

Cable TV Notebook
Last Rites for 'Huff'

By Rebecca Stropoli bcbeat.com Sunday, June 25, 2006

Tonight on Showtime, the superior series Huff takes its final curtain call. What was supposed to be the season-two finale is, sadly, turning out to be the series finale; the dark, over-the-top and never dull show, which has garnered critical accolades and Emmy wins (the Best Actress win for the wonderful Blythe Danner was fully deserved), was cancelled by the network last week due to consistently low ratings.

In the May 29 issue of B&C, we reported that CBS chief Leslie Moonves, whose company acquired Showtime after the split from Viacom, panned the network's approach to high-brow, critic's-darling programming, saying, “Showtime was a bit too much of an off-off-Broadway play. They were interested in critics more than audiences. Anybody who knows me knows audiences are the thing. I am a populist, and you can take your reviews and stick them. Just give me big audiences.”

Huff, it appears, is a victim of being too high-brow, not appealing enough to the unwashed masses. And that's quite a shame, because, after only two seasons, Huff was really just getting started. Here's hoping that tonight's finale, at 10 p.m. ET, isn't too much of a cliffhanger, although, judging from last week's high-drama episode, that is unlikely. I'll be sorry to see it go. Here's hoping the second season of Weeds (another great Showtime offering) gets better numbers.

http://broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138.html

Sports On TV
Time For ESPN To Bench Dave O’Brien
By Ben Grossman bcbeat.com Sunday, June 25, 2006

I guess I understand why ESPN execs tapped rookie soccer announcer Dave O’Brien for the World Cup – they wanted someone they thought could appeal to the masses. While soccer fans surely would not approve, ESPN knew that if it just catered to the small but passionate soccer fan base, the potential for big ratings would suffer.

But it is viewers who now are suffering as the event hits the later rounds. O’Brien is clearly not up to the task and ESPN should replace him.His lack of an understanding of what is taking place in front of him, especially in crucial and fast-moving situations, is completely below ESPN’s standards.

There is no better example than O’Brien’s inability to realize a David Beckham freekick on Sunday went into the goal. His excruciating delay in realizing the ball was in would be like an announcer in the World Series waiting way too many seconds before realizing a home run cleared the fence, when every baseball fan watching knew it was gone.O’Brien’s delay actually made me second-guess my eyes after I knew the ball was in immediately and took away from my enjoyment of a wonderful sporting moment.

But that play doesn’t stand alone, as O’Brien continues to misinterpret plays, often blaming forwards for missing when in reality their shots have been blocked by a defender or a goalkeeper.It seems the game is moving too fast for him, and this is the world’s biggest stage, no place for on-the-job training.

O’Brien has been (justifiably) brutalized in the media and by soccer fans, so much so that he lashed out in a newspaper interview already. But it was ESPN who put O’Brien in this spot in the first place, and it should be ESPN who saves him from further damaging his reputation.

http://broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138.html

Cable TV Notebook
TV aimed at teens touches on serious topics

By David Hiltbrand Knight Ridder

The teen years are notoriously turbulent, rife with stresses, real and imagined. But at least you get more interesting television than your younger siblings do, as two new cable series demonstrate.

``Falcon Beach'' (Mondays at 9 p.m. on ABC Family) features a bevy of young adults at a summer resort in New England who are dealing with romance, jealousy, beach parties, wigged-out parents, local cops -- the whole soapy broth.

``Beyond the Break'' (Fridays at 8 p.m. on the N channel) focuses on four young women, aspiring pro surfers who live in a communal house in Oahu, Hawaii, with a salty surfing vet (David Chokachi of Baywatch). The June 2 debut of the show, which is like the film ``Blue Crush'' with a sly streak of humor, drew more female teens than any other program on broadcast or basic cable.

What these series have in common, besides attractive casts usually decked out in bathing suits, is an inclination to deal with gritty issues like violence, drugs and bitter family dynamics.

That frankness is the primary difference between shows designed for teens (12 to 18) and those for ``tweens'' (8 to 12).

``We can do more with the older end of that demographic as long as the stories are told responsibly,'' says Tom Zappala, senior vice president of scheduling and acquisitions for ABC Family. ``It gives us the opportunity to tell more sophisticated stories and more intricately detailed stories.''

Tween programming, like the Disney Channel's ``Hannah Montana'' and Nickelodeon's ``Zoey 101,'' dwells in an adolescent utopia. The tone is usually lightly comedic and the worst problems you may encounter will result only in minor embarrassment. Teens hang in a tougher neighborhood.

Sean McNamara and David Brookwell, creators and executive producers of ``Beyond the Break,'' spent several years working on tween shows like ``Even Stevens'' and ``That's So Raven.'' They're glad their surf saga has taken them into deeper waters.

``It's an extremely liberating experience,'' McNamara says. ``When you're dealing with tweens, you can tell cool stories, but you have to be inventive. You can't touch certain subject matters.

``But with the age group watching the N, they've started hitting some hard subjects like alcoholism and teen sex,'' he continues. ``And the reality is that high school kids drink and high school kids do crazy things.''

Both age brackets are fascinated with what the next stage of their lives looks like. So that's what television serves them.

It certainly makes it easy to spot a tween show. From ``Saved by the Bell'' to ``Boy Meets World'' to ``That's So Raven,'' one of their primary sets is always a bank of school lockers. This allows preteens to dream about what high school will be like.

``When the N launched (in 2002), we were originally a tween brand and we upped that to a teen brand,'' says Sarah Tomassi Lindman, a vice president of programming and production for the channel. ``That liberated us from all the hallway locker scenes.

``When you're programming for the tween audience, their aspiration is always high school,'' Lindman adds. ``Teens are thinking about life after school. And when you get out of high school, the world gets really big.''

Teenagers are the more lucrative market, spending more than $150 billion a year, according to a research study by Packaged Facts. But they're a more fragmented and independent group. Tweens spend a fraction of that amount ($18 billion), but they influence an additional $145 billion in family expenditures. And they're a more homogenous and loyal audience.

``Tweens are quite childish and innocent,'' writes Irma Zandl, the principal of a New York teen marketing and research group, via e-mail. ``They are less cliquish. Their favorite TV shows, which include `That's So Raven,' `The Suite Life of Zack and Cody' and `Full House' reruns, are sweeter with a family orientation. ... Each episode teaches a life lesson in a relatively stress-free way.''

``Teens are more worldly, rebellious, sometimes bratty and mean,'' Zandl continues, stressing that her observations are more applicable to girls.

``They are more likely to define themselves through subcultures, e.g., 'the plastics', goth, punk, prep, jock, art/drama, which brings up the difficulty of fitting in and being ostracized. They are into boys -- which causes a lot of drama! Teens' favorite TV shows include `One Tree Hill,' `Degrassi' and MTV reality shows like `Laguna Beach.' They also watch lots of adult-oriented shows like `Grey's Anatomy,' `Law & Order,' `Desperate Housewives' and `Lost.' Their TV tastes are much more edgy and progressive than what tweens watch.''

The most intense teen show -- indeed, one of the boldest programs for any age group on the tube -- is the N's ``Degrassi: The Next Generation.'' Over the last five seasons, this drama has dealt with cutting, date rape, school shootings, sexually transmitted diseases and a raft of other hard-hitting problems.

``When we tackle heavy issues, we bring in experts to take a look at how we are handling things,'' Lindman says. ``We do have the goal of being the authentic voice of teens, so we have to show things we know kids are dealing with in their lives.''

Whether we like it or not, today's teens are more mature than previous generations. ``Today's teenagers are on the Internet and the world is more transparent to them than it ever was before in terms of information and overall connectedness,'' says Kenny Miller, another vice president of production and programming at the N. ``We think the difference between ages 12 and 13 and the ages 15 and 16 is light-years apart. You go from a place where you're really a child to a place where you are beginning adulthood.''

Like ``Degrassi,'' ``Falcon Beach'' is produced in Canada. That presents special challenges when you're shooting a summer series.

``You don't get much bright, beautiful summer weather in Manitoba,'' says the series' executive producer, Kim Todd. ``Not as much as you need to shoot 14 one-hour shows.''

And despite the concerted effort to mirror contemporary social issues, we are talking about television. That means certain superficial details will always be paramount.

``The way we cast this show,'' Todd says, ``is we held this dynamic audition and then started asking, 'What do they look like in a bathing suit?'``

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/14888789.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Critic’s Notebook
Aaron Spelling's TV Dynasty

By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic

He made the shows that you loved to hate. Or, on occasion, that you hated to love. And sometimes you just couldn't help loving his shows. (I can tell you that he loved it when you did.)

Aaron Spelling, who died Friday at 83, was one of those rare creatures who lived for TV, and it's impossible to imagine the business without him. He was responsible for some of the most iconic megahits of our modern age, a master of the guilty pleasure, as anyone can unashamedly attest who ever attended a Dynasty viewing party or stayed home on a Saturday night in the late 70s/early 80s, curled up with The Love Boat and Fantasy Island for company.

He helped come up with ludicrously simple, uncannily apt high concepts that defined a moment in TV time, from his 60s-era breakthrough The Mod Squad to the campy jiggle of Charlie's Angels to his career apotheosis in the world of prime-time soaps: most fabulously with the cat-fighting conspicuous-consumption orgies on Dynasty, then catering to a new younger generation on the upstart Fox network with Beverly Hills 90210 (starring his daughter Tori, of whose career he was for the longest time a ferocious defender) and, later, 90210's deranged offshoot Melrose Place.

Even now, his name is attached to a show that defied the odds by providing wholesome, corny family drama (albeit with an undercurrent of pasteurized raciness) in a cynical, edgy time, with WB's most popular series 7th Heaven, which survived cancellation and will help launch the new CW network in the fall. (He called personally to thank me when TV Guide named 7th Heaven "the best show you're not watching" back in its early days-as if it had been my choice, which it wasn't. But he was so grateful for any sign of respect, how could you deny him?)

Spelling knew the allure of a great escape and of TV's capacity for providing them. He defended even his silliest shows as good stories, mind candy for a hungry audience. It was hard not to admire his earnest belief in shameless fun.

I'll never forget his shocked and dismayed look at an L.A. press event for his 2000 NBC dud Titans (a failed Dynasty-style saga) , when critics hooted with merciless laughter as clips were shown as he sat on stage, alongside a glam cast that included Victoria Principal, Yasmine Bleeth and Casper Van Dien. He actually looked hurt, as if he were anticipating the savage reviews yet to come. But he'd been there before, and it's not like TV hadn't been very, very good to him.

Almost ridiculously prolific, to the point where he entered the Guinness Book of World Records as having produced the most hours of entertainment television (more than 3,800), he took great pride in his occasional detour into prestige, quality TV: most notably the acclaimed 1976-80 drama Family, and two Emmy-winning docudramas: Day One, about developing the atomic bomb, and HBO's landmark And the Band Played On, about the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

He was known to place a thank-you call to critics when he got that rare good review, and I even heard from him a few times when I appropriately appreciated in print the wacky madness of Dynasty and Melrose Place at their lowbrow highs. (I also heard indirectly from him, through intermediaries, if he felt I'd written something especially hurtful, about his shows or sometimes involving Tori, whom I once described as being so shallow an actress she was incapable of taking a deep breath. He was really not pleased about that.)

Whether you loved or hated his work, and often it was a mixed bag of both, the one constant in Aaron Spelling's career was his abiding love for television. He presided over a production dynasty that adapted with the times. He leaves a legacy of hits that may not exactly be timeless but which serve to remind us of the good times we've had watching TV over the decades.

Anyone who truly loves TV had better hope there's another Aaron Spelling out there, waiting in the wings to take us away, whether it's good for us or not. Even at his worst, was Aaron Spelling good for TV? No doubt about it.

http://community.tvguide.com/forum.jspa?forumID=700000048

TV Notebook
Please make me laugh, Fox chief Liguori asks

By Cynthia Littleton The Hollywood Reporter June 26, 2006

Peter Liguori has a message for the town's comedy writers: Think January.

Liguori, Fox entertainment president, and his development staff are in the thick of an unusually aggressive summer hunt for new comedy projects that can be whipped up in time to take advantage of the golden launch platform offered when "American Idol" returns for a sixth edition in January. The network has 10 blind script deals in place and has been actively seeking pitches for new projects, Liguori says.

"We have the best time slot on television to launch a show," he says. "If you're a comedy writer with a great idea, Fox is the place to come."

The network also has been beating the bushes for new animation projects to fortify its Sunday toon stronghold anchored by "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy." Liguori acknowledges that the night's lone live-action comedy, "The War at Home," feels a little out of place in the 9:30 p.m. berth behind "Family Guy." If he finds the right stuff, Liguori aims to eventually move "War" to another night in the hopes of spreading more laughs around the schedule.

"We're out there talking to the community and saying very simply: 'We have two straight hours of animation on Sunday. We'd like to make it two and a half,'" Liguori says.

The off-season push by Liguori and his newly reconfigured comedy development team headed by Susan Levison (who succeeded Jeremy Gold as senior vp comedy this month) comes in large part from a hunch that Fox's programming chief has been nursing for some time.

"I think that something big is going to break out of the comedy genre very soon because we've been in a down cycle in comedy for so long," Liguori says. "And I think there's a feeling that politically and socially things are starting to get stirred up a bit" after a long period of post-Sept. 11 uncertainty.

"We are encouraging the creative community to specifically, passionately and fervently express their points of view," he says. "We want them to play out in a comedy forum some of these new wrinkles we're seeing in our culture."

Liguori also noted a trend about the upcoming season that did not go unnoticed by industry insiders at the end of upfronts week in May. Fox, the network that spurred the single-camera boom with "Malcolm in the Middle," "Bernie Mac" and "Arrested Development," wound up picking up two new traditional multicamera sitcoms, while ABC and NBC in particular went for a number of single-camera projects.

Fox earned Emmys and other kudos but still had an impossible time drawing large crowds with "Arrested Development." Liguori is curious -- on an intellectual level apart from his involuntary executive competitive reflex -- to see how other Big Four nets do in dabbling with different kinds of comedy storytelling techniques. (NBC has done pretty well so far with "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office.")

There was much industry chatter post-upfronts that Fox's decision to give sophomore-season renewals to "War at Home" and the midseason entry "The Loop" were signs of a weak overall comedy development crop. Not true, says Liguori. Both shows earned their pickups the hard way: by improving. In the case of "Loop," the show had a quick growth curve over six episodes with very little promotion. "War" had a wobbly start creatively but "found itself in the back half of the year," plus it performed better behind "Simpsons" than any other show in recent years, Liguori says.

"When you invest so much in these shows, you don't want to just get rid of them so quickly," Liguori says. "Networks should be shouldering some of the responsibility for the lack of comedy on the air right now. We have to do a better job too."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/tv_reporter_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002727602

TV Notebook
Marcia Cross Gets Married

By Ulrica Wihlborg people.com

Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross and stockbroker Tom Mahoney were married on Saturday, PEOPLE has confirmed exclusively.

"It was a beautiful ceremony," a rep for Cross tells PEOPLE. "They're very happy."

The bride wore a gown by Reem Acra at the ceremony, which took place before about 200 guests at the Church of Our Savior Episcopal Parish in San Gabriel, Calif.

In lieu of bridesmaids, Cross had seven flower girls, ranging in age from 3 to 12 – the children of some of her closest friends.

This is the first marriage for both. Cross, 44, and Mahoney, 48, were first spotted together in March 2005, when they took a weekend ski trip to Deer Valley, Utah.

They became engaged that August. "She's over the moon," Cross's Housewives costar Eva Longoria told PEOPLE at the time. "I'm so excited for her. It's so beautiful to see her this happy and so in love."

Cross told PEOPLE later that month that she knew Mahoney was "a keeper" when he played word games with her in bed the night before the Emmy nominations were announced in July (she snagged her first nod).

"He told me the next day he was doing it so I wouldn't be nervous," she said. "It was very sweet."

She even credited Mahoney with her radiant looks. "My favorite beauty product is my fiancé, Tom," she told PEOPLE in April. "It's true. I think that beauty comes from being happy and connected to the people we love, and his love makes me feel beautiful."

So will Cross – who plays Bree Van De Kamp on Housewives – be anything like her perfectionist character? Don't count on it.

"I don't cook," she told PEOPLE. "I'm oh-so messy, it's awful."

http://people.aol.com/people/articles/0,19736,1207403,00.html


Picture below is of Mahoney and Cross
CREDIT: LISA O'CONNOR / ZUMA

Cable TV Notebook
The 40-Year-Old Virgin Executive

By Bill Carter The New York Times June 26, 2006

If NBC's selection of Dan Abrams, an on-air anchor, as the new day-to-day boss of MSNBC left employees of that all-news cable channel gasping in shock — and it did — the next steps in the reshaping of the long-struggling network are likely to generate at least a few low whistles of surprise.

Mr. Abrams, in an interview at the MSNBC headquarters in Secaucus, N.J., acknowledged that he was still in the learning stages of his new job. At the age of 40, he's taking his first management post in television, where he has worked as a legal analyst and news anchor. While steering away from suggestions that a widespread overhaul of MSNBC is imminent, he did suggest that he would push right away for more breaking news coverage during the channel's daytime hours.

But there are bigger changes coming to MSNBC, especially in prime time, where the network will apparently be dropping some of its talk-show lineup in favor of more taped reports. That change is likely to take place as soon as the next couple of months. "I think we're going to have some program changes this summer," Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said in a telephone interview. "Prime time is the focus. That's where the money is."

Mr. Capus said he would like the channel to change its identity in ways that would distinguish it from its two chief competitors, the Fox News Channel and CNN.

"All three channels are doing a variation of headline news all day and talk shows at night," Mr. Capus said. "We need to get away from that."

Mr. Capus emphasized that NBC still strongly supported MSNBC, and was not looking for sharp reductions in budgets or staffing. "We think the channel has momentum now. We want to accelerate that."

Still, Mr. Capus made it clear that NBC was looking for ways to draw its network news division, NBC News, closer to the news operation at MSNBC. One indication of that is the leadership team he installed at the cable channel. NBC's new plan is for Mr. Abrams to run the channel on site from Secaucus, but the executive in overall charge will be Phil Griffin, 49, who has the same title at NBC's "Today" show — which is based in NBC's headquarters in New York.

The divided geographical structure of the new leadership has led to some rumors that NBC is considering shutting down the MSNBC site in Secaucus and housing MSNBC in Manhattan as well. "Closing Secaucus, if we get to that point, is a long way down the road," Mr. Capus said.

The shift in prime time will come far more quickly. For one aspect of the coming changes, Mr. Capus cited the staff of producers who work on the NBC newsmagazine program "Dateline." That program once provided three nights' worth of prime-time reports for NBC. In the fall it will be down to one night. Mr. Capus said of the "Dateline" staff members, who work just a floor above him in Manhattan, "You are going to see more of their work showing up in MSNBC."

The channel has already moved two hours of what is known in television as long-form reports onto its Friday night lineup, displacing its lineup of talk shows from 9 to 11 p.m. on that night. That model is doing well enough to be considered as a wider plan for MSNBC going forward.

One senior NBC executive said, "There will probably be one to two hours of long-form taped shows every night in prime time." The executive spoke on condition of anonymity because the decisions were not final and would affect some of the prime-time hosts, like Rita Cosby, Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough, now working on the channel.

Two of the channel's hosts, Chris Matthews of "Hardball" and Keith Olbermann of "Countdown," clearly will not be affected, because MSNBC's managers consistently cite those programs as long-sought breakthroughs.

"We've just got to build on those two shows," Mr. Griffin said, sitting beside Mr. Abrams in the conference room at MSNBC. "It's critical. We have to capitalize on their success."

That success has been relative, rather than sweeping. But MSNBC, which has lagged badly behind its rivals since its creation a decade ago, is clearly encouraged by some growth in ratings for the two programs. Mr. Matthews has been the channel's leading figure for years, but "Hardball" has ticked up in the ratings over the past year, especially among viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 — the group that is the chief sales basis for news programming.

Mr. Olbermann, meanwhile, has picked up both viewers and some strong word-of-mouth for his irreverent style. His show is up 36 percent since January in that 25-54 group. MSNBC points out that during the same period, CNN and Fox have been down that those hours.

Of course, a little bump goes a long way at MSNBC, where ratings have been mainly dwarfish over the years, especially next to Fox News. Even with Mr. Olbermann's surge, for example, he draws well less than half of what Bill O'Reilly of Fox does in that age group — and only a fifth of Mr. O'Reilly's total viewer number.

But Mr. Griffin noted that MSNBC's two big shows were going in the right direction now, gaining viewers, while most of those on Fox and CNN were showing declines. CNN especially is a target of opportunity for MSNBC, Mr. Griffin said, because Mr. Olbermann has beaten that network on many nights recently.

"CNN has watered down its brand," Mr. Griffin said. "We're chipping away at it."

CNN pronounces itself unworried about any charge from MSNBC, citing recent growth on many nights for its own shows headed by Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper. Christa Robinson, a spokeswoman for CNN, said, "MSNBC's closest competitor is Headline News, not CNN."

Indeed for the most part, MSNBC's ratings track closest to that smaller sister channel of CNN. And in recent weeks, Ms. Robinson noted, Mr. Matthews's success has tailed off, making it possible that the bounce MSNBC received may have been driven by carry-over from the better numbers it received during its coverage of the Winter Olympics in February.

Nevertheless, NBC's executives cited signs of momentum as the chief reason for the decision on June 12 to remove Rick Kaplan as president of MSNBC and replace him with the team of Mr. Griffin and Mr. Abrams.

The selection of Mr. Griffin surprised no one, because he had been a top executive at MSNBC before NBC News moved him over to become the executive in charge of the "Today" show last year. That program has since righted itself and has regained a dominant position in morning television.

"Phil Griffin would have been a natural to run MSNBC, but his responsibilities at 'Today' are not done," said Mr. Capus.

Instead, NBC turned to Mr. Abrams, who had anchored his own daily show on MSNBC, "The Abrams Report." Mr. Griffin described the reaction at MSNBC to Mr. Abrams's appointment as "shock and awe — when the announcement went out there — and an audible gasp. People were just stunned."

Mr. Abrams, who is the son of Floyd Abrams, the prominent lawyer, said he had never lobbied for the job, but had consistently expressed his opinions about the direction of MSNBC, and what it could do better, in memos to Mr. Capus and social dinners with Mr. Griffin. He acknowledged that he lacked any real management experience, but he said his familiarity with the channel, its producers and on-air performers, would ease the transition.

Other than trying to make the daytime reports more "live and urgent, less newscasty," as he put it, Mr. Abrams did not offer many specifics about what his plan might be for taking advantage of the momentum that he, too, attributed to Mr. Matthews and Mr. Olbermann.

"We're close to figuring out what we want to do and how we want to do it," Mr. Abrams said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/business/media/26msnbc.html?ei=5094&en=bb5a7429eb4bd81b&hp=&ex=1151294400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

TV Notebook
'Good Morning America' ready for a new day

By Peter Johnson USA Today

NEW YORK — Can a network morning show click with two female anchors?

That's what ABC News will test starting Thursday, after it says goodbye Wednesday to longtime Good Morning America anchor Charles Gibson. Left at the helm of the No. 2-rated morning show will be co-anchors Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts.

The decision by ABC News president David Westin to go with two women comes as Meredith Vieira, former host of ABC's The View, is set to join Matt Lauer on top-rated NBC's Today in September.

Not having a male anchor to GMA will be a first for morning television, where a male-female team was the norm for decades until CBS' The Early Show ushered in a four-person team in 2002.

"The thing that is more important than gender is who the people are and what their abilities are and what their experience is," Westin said Friday.

Sawyer, a longtime Primetime Live anchor, and Roberts, a former ESPN reporter, "have extraordinary abilities and depth of experience. But they also complement each other and come from different backgrounds. That's much more important than gender," Westin says.

Gibson, a fixture on the morning show scene for almost two decades, will be feted on Wednesday's program with a block party at ABC's Times Square studios. Joining in the festivities will be former co-anchor Joan Lunden, past and present contributors and his family.

"I'm sort of in denial about leaving GMA," Gibson says. "I've been here for 19 years."

He is leaving to replace the two-anchor team of Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas on World News Tonight, a teaming that fell apart when Woodruff was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq in January. Then Vargas' pregnancy required time away from the job, and Gibson was tapped to take over.

As for GMA, Westin plans to announce a newsreader and a weather announcer "to reinforce Diane and Robin" this summer, "but at the core I think we are in very strong shape going into the fall."

This, despite a widening viewership gap: 800,000 viewers for the season ending in May between GMA and top-rated NBC's Today, up from 40,000 viewers a year ago.

Westin said the Winter Olympics in Torino and the recent long goodbye to Today anchor Katie Couric, who begins anchoring The CBS Evening News in September, drew viewers to Today.

"They put on a very strong program," Westin said. "But we can and will be No. 1. It's just a matter of how long it'll take."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-06-25-gma-gibson_x.htm

TV Q&A
Betty White's long tenure; sobbing over Everwood

by Tom Jicha South Florida Sun-Sentinel June 25 2006

Q. Does Betty White have the longest running, though not necessarily continuous, career in TV? I remember seeing her in the 1950s and most recently on Boston Legal. Has anybody else had a career spanning so many years? -- C.C., Orlando

A. Your question is a great conversation starter at a party or barbecue. I will respond knowing that I'll be getting letters that begin, "You idiot, how could you forget ...?" The first mention for White, 84, in a TV show was on something called Hollywood on TV in 1949. Her first series was Date With the Angels in 1957. Two challengers who come to mind are Harry Morgan and Tom Poston. Morgan, who early in his career went by Henry Morgan, was in Dragnet in 1951, then December Bride three years later, which led to Pete & Gladys, one of TV's first spinoffs. But Morgan, 91, hasn't done much in recent years. Poston's first credit is Tom Corbett, Space Cadet in 1950. Now 84, he also was a regular on the great drama anthologies of the '50s -- Studio One, Goodyear Playhouse, etc. As recently as a year ago, he was featured in the NBC sitcom Committed. The floor is open for other candidates.

Q. I wonder if you could get some sort of explanation from the broadcasters of Marlins telecasts as to why they very seldom give other game scores. Viewing other baseball games -- the Braves come to mind -- or ESPN, there is a continuous stream of scores. Not so with the Marlins. The announcers just keep talking about the rather dubious talents of these bush leaguers, who are laughingly called major leaguers. I have to turn to ESPN to find out how my favorite team is doing. -- A.R., Pembroke Pines

A. Just a guess but you sound like your favorite team is the Yankees. As a baseball fan, as well as having a hobby that calls for rapt monitoring of out-of-town games, I mildly disagree. Last year, when some of the games were on Pax, you would have had a case. There never was an out-of-town score. That is not true now that all the games are on Fox Sports Florida or Sunshine. The telecasts have updates at the bottom of the screen every 10-15 minutes, which is plenty. The constant scroll on the TBS telecasts of the Braves or ESPN 2 can be as distracting as the crawls that have come into vogue on news networks. We are in synch on the announcers' shilling, but that's a constant throughout baseball.

Q. Is there any way to save Everwood? The executives who made this decision have made a huge mistake. I watch television (mostly CNN and Fox News) but got hooked on Everwood about two or three years ago. It's heartwarming, compassionate and one of the only shows that is truly believable. I would attribute this to the superb writing and the quality of the acting. I have cried on many occasions and would like to continue doing so! -- E.F., e-mail

A. Prepare yourself for a good cry. At this point, the only way to save Everwood, which was a good show, is to buy a network and put it on your schedule. Even that might not work since the cast is in the process of lining up new jobs.

http://www.southflorida.com/movies/sfl-tvj25tjqajun25,0,7618484,print.story?coll=sfe-movies-promos

The Business of TV
Best Buy CEO Discusses Format Battle, Flat-Screen Market

By Steve Smith TWICE
Southampton, Bermuda – Brad Anderson, vice-chairman/CEO of Best Buy, discussed his concerns about the Blu-ray/HD DVD format battle, overwhelming consumer demand for HDTV and other industry issues at the CEA CEO Summit, here, this morning.

In a one-on-one interview with CEA president/CEO Gary Shapiro, Anderson commented that the format battle between the competing HD disc formats is a “challenge” that reminds him of the competition between DVD formats and the introduction of DVD Audio. “It makes it impossible to get behind one format and introduces so many problems. In DVD consumers found their way through it. With DVD Audio, the format battle [with Super Audio CD] dramatically slowed down the effectiveness.”

He said that whichever HD format wins it must be successful or else it will be a “disaster for the industry. We must get an affordable [HD disc] software format. It is vital for the movie industry too, to sell their library of titles again.” As to which format will win, Anderson said plainly, “I don’t know.”

Shapiro asked if there is a format battle in HDTV between LCD, DLP and plasma. Anderson commented, “That’s a contest of advantages for customers, not a format war. There is no inconvenience for the customer.” In this case the Best Buy CEO did volunteer a winner in the competition. “I think LCD will become dominant. That’s the conventional wisdom and I agree with conventional wisdom.”

He noted that the industry’s rollout of HDTV, both in sales and in consumer understanding of the technology “has been great so far. The consumer appetite in flat panel, has been great. We expect explosive growth in the next few years. With the form factor, flat panel will appear in more places in the home in years to come.”

Shapiro asked if there is any concern on Best Buy’s part on the 2009 analog cutoff date. Anderson said, “Our biggest concern is that it may induce too much activity, not that we are complaining. The theory is that there will be explosive sales in 2008 in North America.” And he doesn’t think that many Best Buy customers will take the U.S. government funding of $40 coupons to continue to use their old analog sets. “Only those people that are technology averse will. It is important to have a path — a graceful path — to get everyone there. Politically it had to be done. But few of our customers will take advantage of the coupon program.”

In-store pick up of items bought on the Web, especially in the case of Circuit City’s program,

has been seen by many as a key growth area for retailers. Anderson agreed and tipped his cap to his competitor and former employee, Circuit City president Phil Schoonover. “That’s one of the things we admire about Circuit and its program. They are ahead of us there. We know that 60 percent of our customers visit the Web before they come to our stores. In-store pickup is a smart thing to do. We have the capacity to do it and have to catch up. It is a vital growth area.”

When asked if Best Buy’s Web and store strategies are different or the same, Anderson said, “They mirror each other. There is a natural integration of use of the Web and the stores. Use of the Web site to purchase” is one area, but the Web also “drastically can increase the functionality of our staff” in the near future to provide “training, just-in-time information and to illustrate product features and advantages that you can’t do verbally.”

Anderson said that the next few years will be “much more complex” for the industry and that this year’s International CES was “the most interesting show I’ve ever been to” because of the trend toward interactivity of devices.

“So many of the products we will sell in the near future depends on a connection to something else. The Geek Squad and home installation are more important because it gives us the ability” to provide consumers with solutions. “But it makes our business more complex. We have to build skill sets into the stores and become more sophisticated.”

About the Geek Squad’s test in Office Depot, Shapiro asked if the operation will now appear in more competing retail chains. Anderson quipped, “Well, the test just started and [Circuit City’s] Phil [Schoonover] hasn’t called yet. He’s doing his own. As the industry becomes more complex we will align with partners to acquire skills to make life easier for our customers. If the Geek Squad can help Office Depot, the Geek Squad should not be restrained” from being used by other retailers “just because it is part of Best Buy.”

When asked if there have been any surprises in the industry so far this year Anderson noted, “Not really. Xbox has sold very well and flat panel has gone great.”

http://www.twice.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346579

Sports On TV
NFL Network's highlights show heads to overtime

By Michael Hiestand USA Today 6/26/2006

The NFL Network Monday announces another way in which a league's own channel can rewrite its TV rules.

The channel this season will premiere its own 90-minute highlight show — called NFL Gameday— at 11:30 p.m. each Sunday during the season. The difference between this highlight shows and others, network spokesman Seth Palansky says: Normally, regularly scheduled Sunday shows "can air six minutes of highlights from that day's games — this will have unlimited highlights."

The show, which will be replayed Monday mornings, is meant to compete with ESPN's Sunday night SportsCenter at 11. The NFL GameDay name might be familiar: ESPN used to use it for its NFL shows until the NFL asserted rights to it.

ESPN, paying $1.1 billion annually for Monday night games, isn't likely to criticize the folks who schedule those Monday night games. But it might get testy. The NFL Network aired a pregame show on last season's Super Bowl — opposite ones on ABC and ESPN — then showed up alongside ESPN to offer alternative coverage of the NFL draft.

But ESPN will counter by moving Chris Berman and Tom Jackson, who've handled ESPN NFL highlights for two decades, to the SportsCenter opposite the new NFL show. Says ESPN's Mike Soltys, "NFL fans will continue to watch their favorite highlight shows — like SportsCenter— and announcers on ESPN."

Microscope:

To assume sports television needs people who actually move is so outdated. After having put the NFL draft under a microscope, ESPN now ups the ante on Wednesday's NBA draft in New York.

The new touches ESPN says will be TV firsts include miking a draftee — Connecticut's Rudy Gay — and using a remote-controlled Fly Cam to zoom over the inactivity at the Madison Square Garden draft site. ESPN will also run its continuous crawl graphic — as it does on the NFL draft — during ads.

And here's something ex-UCLA coach Steve Lavin never dreamed he'd do while he was growing up: Lavin will appear exclusively on NBA draft coverage for analysis that will be carried only on (ESPN) cellphones.

On tap:

In perhaps the best TV sports romance reporting since TNT's Doug Collins, during an NBA game, broke the news the San Antonio Spurs' Tony Parker was dating actress Eva Longoria, Fox NASCAR analyst Darrell Waltrip reported Sunday that star driver Jeff Gordon got engaged Saturday — although Waltrip didn't actually name model Ingrid Vanderbosch as the fiancée. Waltrip said he had a good source: "His Momma told me." ... Fox's Dan Bell said Sunday that the network, inheriting college football's Bowl Championship Series this season, is "considering" using Jimmy Johnson for a BCS studio role and ex-Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez as a game analyst.

Serious note:

On Fox's Philadelphia Phillies-Boston Red Sox baseball game Saturday, there was one mention of Phillies pitcher Brett Myers being charged Friday with assaulting his wife.

Fox's Joe Buck, as Myers was booed when entering the game, said if Myers is found legally guilty, then "in my opinion, he is in line for a severe penalty from Major League Baseball."

Hard to argue with that.

Spice rack:

The USA-Ghana game Thursday on ESPN drew 3.2% of cable TV households — equivalent to a good college football game rating — as the Americans were eliminated. But ABC/ESPN's lively analysts roll on. Alexi Lalas and Eric Wynalda joked Sunday after England's David Beckham was sick during his team's 1-0 win against Ecuador that lots of inebriated British fans were also throwing up, with Lalas saying "there's regurgitation going on all over England." ... HBO's Bryant Gumbel, on Real Sports, says he likes watching the World Cup even though "in soccer they score about as often as Ann Coulter makes sense."

Golf getaway:

ABC's coverage Sunday of the PGA Tour's Booz Allen Classic, which was rain-delayed, did not cover the event through its finish. At 6 p.m. ET, ABC cut to local affiliates — who showed local news or carried ABC's national news — except on the West Coast. Said ABC's Mark Mandel: "Given that we knew there was no chance that we could cover the finish, and given the overriding importance of what's going on in the world, we felt it was best to give the time to our news shows" and "it just wasn't possible" to continue live coverage on any other channel.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2006-06-25-nfl-network_x.htm

Analysis: Sports On TV
Why Stern's NBA Is on a Hot Streak

By John Consoli MediaWeek.com JUNE 26, 2006 -

National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern was all smiles last Tuesday on ABC’s telecast of the NBA Finals as he presented the championship trophy to the Miami Heat—which vanquished the Dallas Mavericks in six nail-biter games—and the MVP trophy to Heat star Dwyane Wade.

“The commish” has plenty of reasons to smile. Not only were ratings for the entire playoff series up on cable networks ESPN and TNT and ABC by 26 percent, 4 percent and 11 percent, respectively; so were ratings for the finals on ABC. All six Finals games on ABC were the highest-rated prime-time telecasts on those nights in viewers and all key demos. Total viewers rose 13 percent (13 million vs. 11.5 million for last year’s San Antonio Spurs win over the Detroit Pistons) and went up 13 percent in adults 18-49 (5.3 vs. 4.7). Game 6 on June 20 drew 15.7 million viewers and a 6.3 adults 18-49 rating, up 16 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

Interestingly, the playoff ratings were bolstered not only by more men watching, but also by more female viewers. During the playoffs, ratings among women 18-34 were up 32 percent on ESPN, 7 percent on TNT and 15 percent on ABC.

“It’s a positive sign,” Stern said about the influx of female viewers. “What we’re trying to do is increase our audience against all targets—all demos.” The commissioner believes the growth in popularity of women’s basketball at every level, along with the maturing of the WNBA, is starting to have a positive effect on NBA viewing. “We’re beginning to see a real stepladder effect,” Stern said. He also believes the bells and whistles on NBA.com are drawing more younger male fans. And the influx of foreign-born players, many of whom played major roles in the playoffs, brings another layer of new viewers to the telecasts.

The solid ratings hikes in the playoffs came after a season of flat cable ratings, with ABC down slightly on the broadcast side. They are still a positive development, given the current world of massive choice for viewers every night. The reality is that the early rounds of playoff coverage on cable—not necessarily the regular season games—are what drive viewers and momentum to the NBA Finals.

In addition to a sizable uptick in playoff ratings from winning the NBA Championship, the underdog Heat—led by Shaquille O’Neal, Wade and a number of other players who basked in the national limelight for the first time—clearly established themselves as one of the new “nation’s teams,” on par with the Los Angeles Lakers. That translates to much more exposure for the Heat next season, more-than-likely higher ratings for the network partners, and more viewers watching the NBA, which will give Stern reason to continue smiling. (The 2003-04 NBA Finals, featuring the Lakers and Detroit Pistons, drew an average of 17.9 million viewers per game compared to 13.0 million this year, although this year was the second most-watched Finals under the current TV rights contract.)

Stern always believed that adding a second cable partner (read: much more national coverage), moving the All-Star game to cable and giving TNT an exclusive Thursday game, would eventually be the right move for the league going forward. But many of the NBA monitors in the media were not so sure, and some sports media-buyers had their doubts. In the first year of the new TV rights deal four years ago, TNT was given 54 regular-season games, compared to the 48 that TNT and sister network TBS ran in the last year of the previous deal. TNT also got the NBA All-Star game, previously televised on broadcast. ESPN was brought in as the second cable partner and given 69 regular-season games. Both cable networks were given all of the respective Eastern and Western Conference finals, many of which previously aired on broadcast.

Now it’s hard to argue with the results of this just concluded post-season, which had one media buyer acknowledging that “the NBA did alright.”

Stern is in a solid position as he looks to begin negotiations for a new TV rights deal with his partners (Mediaweek, June 12). “We were always comfortable with [adding more games to cable and reducing the number of broadcast telecasts,]” he told Mediaweek, “and remain comfortable. There has been a huge change sweeping the media landscape, and we knew that it was coming early on. It says something when a showcase prime-time sports event like Monday Night Football is moved to cable.”

Stern says by partnering with Disney (owner of both ESPN and ABC) under the current rights deal, the league enjoyed more flexibility to move games back and forth. In the first year of the current deal, ABC aired 14 games, down from the 31 NBC aired under the previous rights deal. This season, ABC aired 20 games. Stern sees the ideal number being between 18 and 20, believing now that airing tripleheaders on NBC may have been too much basketball in one day for even the most avid fans.

Naturally, the NBA’s media partners are smiling over the ratings, too. Len DeLuca, ESPN senior vp of programming and acquisitions, described the playoffs as “the anointing of the new NBA megastar [Wade],” and added that under the current rights deal, ESPN/ABC have an option to put on an individual team 15 times during the season [10 max for ESPN and up to five for ABC]. “Expect the Heat and the Mavericks to join the Lakers for the maximum number of games next season, with some of them against each other,” he said.

Stern believes using all of the Disney platforms helped drive viewers. For example, all buses inside Disneyland and Disney World carried promotion of the playoff telecasts. And, for the first time this season, the NBA predraft camp was held at Disney World. Synergy like that is one reason why Stern would love to re-up with ESPN/ABC as a TV partner.

DeLuca said Stern pushed hard to get more cross-promotion among ESPN, TNT and ABC. “The NBA has encouraged this and we have all embraced it,” he said. “David is a partner in the true sense of the word. He is supportive and he will help you do business, But he is also constructively critical if he thinks there is a better way to do it.”

An area of business that has not been discussed is the potential airing of NBA games on
Saturday nights on ABC during the first quarter. ABC has already announced it will begin airing college football games on Saturday nights in fourth quarter 2006, but has not announced its plans for the nights when college football is wrapped.

Stern called the possibility “intriguing” and said it is “something we’d be willing to talk about,” but added that it “would require a lot of adjustments.” Games would have to be moved from ESPN, and a national game on ABC would compete with local NBA telecasts on the regional sports networks (the Sunday NBA game on ABC has an exclusive window). DeLuca agreed such a move would be a long shot, saying the goal right now is to keep beefing up ratings for the Sunday afternoon game on ABC. (The move would also need the blessing of ABC Entertainment.)

One idea Stern has discussed with TNT for next season is moving some of its exclusive Thursday night games to another night. With the NFL Network scheduled to air some Thursday regular-season NFL games this fall, Stern would like to avoid competing head-to-head.

All sides seem amenable to extending the current deal, which expires after the 2007-08 season, by the end of this calendar year. “We are in very comfortable relationships with all of our national partners,” Stern said, “and we would like to continue to grow those relationships. We all have an appetite to do it.”

Having said that, Stern, still smiling, added, “But we are also a profit-seeking business. If we can [extend early], fine, but if we can’t, that would be fine too.”

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002727590

Cable TV Notebook
Ailes Cracks Whip as Fox News Slips

By Staff Broadcasting & Cable

Slackers at Fox News Channel, you’re on notice! Your boss is not pleased. Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes is on the warpath following his network’s recent ratings slump, and he won’t hesitate to clean house to turn things around.

So far during the second quarter, the No. 1 cable news channel’s primetime schedule has dropped 22% in its core 25-54 demo and 8% in total viewers. The first quarter was even worse.

Chief rival CNN has also dipped in recent weeks, but less dramatically, off 18% in the demo and 2% in total viewers.

Insiders say that, even though Fox News remains No. 1, Ailes is fuming over the complacency he senses among staffers.

Production values are slipping, and bookers aren’t competitive enough, relying too heavily on the same pool of faces and settling for authors or actors after they’ve already been on CNN or … gasp … MSNBC.

A full-page "Now Hiring" ad that ran recently in a trade magazine asked, "Can you make the cut?" Says one Fox staffer, that question was not addressed to outside applicants: "That was aimed inside."

Commenting through a spokesman last week, Ailes left no doubt: "Anyone who displays launch-type intensity will continue to have a job at Fox News. Those who don’t will not. And that includes talent."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346894

Sports On TV
U.S. Cup Finale Boosts ESPN

By Mike Reynolds Multichannel.com

The U.S. side may have gone out of the 2006 World Cup in Germany with a whimper, but the team's 2-1 loss to Ghana June 22 gave ESPN a ratings bang.

The match netted a 3.2 household rating, 2.9 million homes and 3.82 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data. ESPN officials said the contest ranks as the fifth-highest-rated and second-most-viewed soccer match in the network's history, trailing only the U.S.-Germany quarterfinal match in the 2002 World Cup, which drew a 4.4 household rating and 3.77 million homes.

The U.S.-Ghana game was the highest-rated program in all key male demos on ad-supported cable June 22, according to ESPN officials.

Through eight games as of June 22, ESPN averaged a 1.5 household rating and 1.37 million homes, up 150% and 154%, respectively, compared with the same point during the 2002 World Cup (11 matches averaged a 0.6 and 540,000 homes).The network averaged 1.72 million viewers, up 149% from 690,000 four years ago.

ESPN, which had aired 28 matches through June 22, posted a 1.0 household rating, 938,000 homes and 1.17 million viewers, respective gains of 67%, 94% and 82% relative to the same stage in the 2002 tourney.

For its part, ABC averaged a 2.5 household rating, 2.79 million homes and 3.74 million viewers during its first eight games through June 18. Those levels were 89%, 97% and 103% above the 2002 competition, when ABC had only presented three matches to that stage.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6346857

TV Notebook
`Rescue Me' writer fans the inflamed

After FX's firefighter antihero crosses a line, one of its co-creators gets an earful online.
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 26, 2006

Here are a couple of things Peter Tolan, the co-creator of FX's "Rescue Me," learned the hard way last week:

1. If you have your lead character beat and rape his estranged wife, don't expect viewers everywhere to welcome the scene as the culmination of a complicated dramatic arc.

2. Trying to explain yourself on an Internet message board can be like attempting to lecture on Shakespeare in the middle of a rugby scrum.

Taking risks comes naturally to the creators of "Rescue Me"; the series, after all, is a delicately balanced comedy-drama that explores the screwed-up lives of a group of fictional New York firefighters, the same fraternity who were dubbed "America's Heroes" after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. But last week's episode, co-written by Tolan and star Denis Leary, went way too far for many fans and critics.

In the closing scene, after Tommy Gavin (Leary) and soon-to-be-ex-wife Janet (Andrea Roth) argued over custody of a chaise longue, he knocked her onto a sofa, ripped off her clothes and forced himself on her sexually. Then he apologized — not for the rape, but for tearing her shirt. ("It wasn't one of my favorites," Janet replied dazedly, a line that, in suggesting her lack of anger over the violation, did as much to incense some viewers as the act itself.)

Accept Tommy as a boozy, faithless, neurotic lout? Sure. He redeems himself by risking his hide to save people trapped in burning buildings.

But accept him as a rapist? No way, said many viewers. Not goin' there.

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan blogged that the rape scene "hit a sickening new low." Newark Star-Ledger critic Alan Sepinwall attacked "Rescue Me" for "a pattern of misogyny and pathetic characterizations of women" and said the scene "made me uncomfortable and unhappy in a way even the most extreme TV and film almost never does." Fans began heatedly deconstructing the scene on Web forums.

Enter Tolan, a veteran screenwriter ("Analyze This") who says he innocently believed he could expand the discussion by posting his thoughts on a popular website, Television Without Pity.

Perhaps it was the site's name that gave him pause. Before posting his first comment, "I sat there and thought, 'Should I do this? My gut is saying no,' " he said in a phone interview Friday. "I thought maybe I could explain some things.

"But all you do," he has since concluded, "is paint a target on your back."

Two media trends are fueling the fire over "Rescue Me." One has to do with the evolution of the series drama, the other with the growing role of the Internet in shaping and amplifying debate over TV programming.

Since HBO's "The Sopranos" premiered in 1999, over-the-top antiheroes have become a staple of "edgy" TV fare. Vic Mackey, the leader of the anti-gang unit on FX's "The Shield," killed one of his team members and routinely tortures suspects. On Fox's "24," heroin addiction was a bugbear for counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer.

Leary's Tommy Gavin fits into this antihero trend. Women and vodka bring him misery, but he can't leave either alone. Some fans, though, clearly don't want to contemplate Tommy as something darker than an essentially good-natured screw-up. Tolan agreed that that squeamishness may have much to do with Tommy's chosen profession.

"You're certainly not used to seeing an antihero who has been traditionally portrayed in media as a hero," Tolan said. "Especially in the days after 9/11, 'America's Heroes' and all that. We've always been turning that image on its head."

The Internet, meanwhile, continues to grow as an outlet for impassioned TV fans — and series creators like Tolan are, one way or another, learning to adjust. As the message boards burned with debate over "Rescue Me" last week, Gemstar-TV Guide announced that it would buy the popular TV site Jump the Shark, which the company hopes will give it improved access to die-hard viewers. In the forums at Television Without Pity — TWOP, to initiates — users analyze plot points and story arcs with a zealotry that would not be out of place in a debate over Mideast politics or abortion law.

TWOP started in 2001, but Tolan learned of it only last month, from an article in Entertainment Weekly. Surprised by the strong reaction viewers had to the rape scene, he thought he would use the TWOP arena to remind them of its context within the series.

He wrote: "I'll admit this is extremely dicey stuff. The idea of any woman 'enjoying' being raped is repellent, and caused all of us (and the network) a great deal of concern. But again, these are seriously damaged people who are unable to express their emotions — and so expression through brutality has become expected."

Many TWOP denizens were pleased that the executive producer of a series had bothered to join a discussion. But others were hardly star-struck, including one who suggested that Tolan was merely making fancy excuses for a poorly written script.

Tolan followed up with a protest that some of the discussion was "combative."

"The scene was not written to be provocative," he told me Friday. Asked if he believed what Tommy did to Janet constituted rape, he paused and replied: "Yeah, I guess I'd have to say that. That's the technical [term]. But we never called it that, because we were trying to hook more into the relationship."

Will the rumpus from fans affect the rest of this season's stories? Probably not. Tuesday's episode was the fourth of 13 episodes. Nos. 9 and 10 are being shot now; Tolan is currently rewriting the 11th. But Tolan made a point of noting that Tommy will get his "karmic payback" for the rape in a future episode: "There is a consequence, and it's an unexpected one."

Meanwhile, Tolan has gotten a bit of karmic payback himself. He clearly feels a little burned by his online adventure. But his experience may prove useful for future producers who find themselves squaring off against an empowered fan base. He also can't say he wasn't warned.

"I've actually talked to some friends, some of whom are actors who are very well known and other writers, and I've said, 'How do you find it to be dealing with your fans of your shows?' To a person, they said, 'You know, it's probably not a good idea to get involved.' "

So does that mean farewell to the message boards?

"I think I'll go back to say I won't be back," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-channel26jun26,1,5616941,print.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews

The “Mr. Television” Column
What I Like Now

Marc Berman mediaweek.com June 26, 2006

With the summer television critics association press tour just two weeks away, I am doing my homework by watching the new series pilots. And I have to be honest, getting through some of these shows is excruciating. For those of you who don't know what the TCA Press Tour is, it's a biannual gathering (summer and winter) hosted by the networks (broadcast and cable) for over 200 television critics across the country.

Each day normally opens with an executive Q&A session, followed by individual 45-minute panel discussions with the stars and behind-the-scenes talent of each new series. Since all the new shows are available on closed-circuit television in your hotel room, there is little to no chance of avoiding any of these potential gems or likely monstrosities.

I have been hearing positive buzz about The Class on CBS and 'Til Death on Fox. Though neither of these new comedies reeks of originality (The Class is a clone of NBC's Friends; Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher on 'Til Death are reminiscent of Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton on Garrett's Everybody Loves Raymond), both provide some good hearty laughs. And The Class fits like a glove out of the similar How I Met Your Mother on Mondays.

I was also pleasantly surprised by NBC sitcom 20 Good Years, with old pros Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow as a perfectly mismatched new odd couple. My only beef is the grating Lithgow, who needs to stop shouting his dialogue. This isn't the over-the-top 3rd Rock From the Sun, and he is not on a Broadway stage. I think it's fair to say that comedies are far from dead in prime time.

Of the three, The Class has the best chance of finding an audience because of how it is positioned. Because my background is in research, I always keep in mind what the competitive scenario is, what airs as the lead-in and what was running in the time period prior to this program. No matter how good—or bad—a new show is, the time period is often the most important ingredient.

However, comedy is not totally back on prime time. NBC's 30 Rock, which is paired with 20 Good Years, is nothing more than a shameful infomercial for the network, and it's too inside-the-biz to play well to mass audiences.

While you have to give ABC a thumbs-up for trying to be original (not a single one of its five new comedies is filmed in front of a studio audience), the closest thing it has to something that might stick is Ted Danson as a psychologist in the Bob Newhart-like Help Me Help You. But the problem with casting Jane Kaczmarek as his ex-wife is that every time she shows up, we expect to see Malcolm and his unruly siblings. After six-and-a-half seasons as Lois, harried Mom from hell, Kaczmarek might have benefited if she took some time off.

Kaczmarek's real-life husband, Bradley Whitford, late of The West Wing, is also attempting a character change. This time he's part of an ensemble cast that includes former Friends star Matthew Perry in Aaron Sorkin's dramedy Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Although I would give this look at life behind the scenes of a long-running sketch comedy series another try, the obstacle Studio 60 faces (like 30 Rock) is the potential inside-Hollywood storyline. Considering the track record of shows set within a show on the small screen (Can anyone remember the last time one succeeded?), why would NBC want two shows like this? It's mind-boggling!

Of the new dramas I have seen so far, my favorite is CW's Runaway, the story of a family on the run after the father (Donny Wahlberg) is falsely convicted of murder. But like the recent CBS remake of The Fugitive and the similar short-lived Hot Pursuit, which aired on NBC in the fall of 1984, Runaway's biggest obstacle is the questionable shelf-life. Can a family on the run really survive for more than one season? More importantly: Are the feel-good Camdens on 7th Heaven a compatible lead-in? I don't think so.

I also liked NBC's Kidnapped, but the network's feel-good Friday Night Lights, about the lives of a high school football team and their coach, is just plain boring.

Every season, there are one or two shows that have me scratching my head in amazement that they even got on the air. And this year's winner—or loser—is CBS' confusing Jericho, which has a small Kansas town up in arms over the fear of an apocalypse. Although I can't say enough about CBS' stellar prime-time line-up, scheduling Jericho in the Wednesday 8 p.m. hour could, and should, make it the first cancellation of the season. What were you thinking, CBS?

Commentary
An Agenda for News With Viewers

By David Carr in The New York Times June 26, 2006

"The news is the star."— Ted Turner, founder of CNN

After dumping the yelling heads of "Crossfire" at the beginning of last year, Jonathan Klein, president of CNN's domestic operations, said that the original cable news network was doubling down on straight reporting.

"We are not about fomenting an agenda," he said.

That seems to depend on who is doing the fomenting. At 6 p.m. every night on CNN, Lou Dobbs bangs the gong of anti-immigration until one's ears bleed. And last Tuesday, Anderson Cooper, that passionate, silver-haired empath, gave more than two hours of his program to Angelina Jolie for a two-hour infomercial fomenting an agenda — saving Africa — in a way that more closely resembled a late-night plea from Sally Struthers than a news program. (It even ended with a helpful point to a Web address for viewers who wanted to pitch in.)

Back when he was recommitting CNN to news and steering it away from personalities and agendas, Mr. Klein left a side door open: CNN would stay the course "unless the first batch of things we're trying to do don't turn out well."

Welcome to Plan B. Mr. Klein ran straight into a brutal competitive environment.

What sells on cable is "edge," not the events of the day. CNN, a longtime chronic presence on signal events, has now joined the pack in smudging the line between news and opinion, celebrity and anchors, journalism and ratings.

It is almost as if Mr. Klein, a serious journalist with a string of Peabodys and Emmys in his career at CBS, has lost faith in the core product of the network and is willing to hang on to the shirttail of anybody who seems to have momentum. That means that CNN will continue to be host of Larry King's nightly softball tournament, but more remarkably, it also means that Lou Dobbs — whose jeremiad against a porous border has brought in an average of 130,000 new viewers over this time last year — can say anything he wants to. And while Mr. Cooper has an authentic interest in news, when celebrities show up toting a Gucci bag of ratings, they can expect to be treated with kindred deference.

A NOTORIOUSLY upbeat executive and a deft defender of his organization, Mr. Klein said that the current approach at CNN is less Plan B than Plan A on steroids.

"Why would we go to plan B when Plan A is working so well?" he asks. He admits he is doing what he can to win, but he is trying to "win with substance."

"Sizzle is out — audiences expect substance, and we deliver that in a way no one else does," Mr. Klein said. "We are feeling very good about the momentum we have gained and the fact that we are showcasing our reporting. Our gimmick is news."

He said that "The Situation Room," a prime-time newscast thick with reporting, was on the rise and added that CNN had bureaus and experienced reporters while other cable outlets were content to ride on attitude. A noon program with a focus on global news has been added as well.

He pointed out that Ms. Jolie's visit was braced by a string of reports from Africa by experienced correspondents (and also kicked up huge numbers, 1.33 million viewers, including an increase of more than 200 percent in the coveted but cable-news-averse demographic of 25- to 54-year-olds).

And, Mr. Klein suggested, Mr. Dobbs is a reporter who has arrived at his opinions honestly through 30 years in the business.

Mr. Dobb is certainly not shy about sharing them. Last Thursday night, he introduced an immigration story thusly: "Corporate America's addiction to cheap foreign labor and our consumers' addiction to cheap foreign imports has emboldened many of this country's leading political elites to further erode America's security and its sovereignty." (The show carries a brief disclaimer at the top saying the program features "news, debate and opinion.") Mr. Dobbs's weave of sanctimony and indignation flattens guests with opposing viewpoints — he hasn't ventured to adopt Bill O'Reilly's trademark "shut up" yet — and his sense of outrage is growing to the point where it seems he may explode, leaving viewers staring at a cloud of red mist. He is known to tour other news programs when immigration heats up, taking up the cudgel of advocacy as it suits his cause.

"Anderson Cooper 360" has become a show with a reporter host who is also a celebrity who sometimes interviews celebrities who sound like reporters. In addition to his two hours with Ms. Jolie (in which he managed not to mention Jennifer Aniston) on Tuesday, on Wednesday, his guest was Cher, speaking on the quality of helmet technology of the United States military.

Viewers got to hear her views on the efficacy of padding — "I didn't understand why, like, the Army does it, but I didn't understand, like, how you could send someone to battle — and these are supposed to be our brightest and our best — and you don't care about their heads." Mr. Cooper called her lobbying efforts her "greatest achievement" (perhaps, in all the excitement, "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" slipped his mind).

After Mr. Cooper's chat with Cher ended, viewers could switch to "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, where Mr. Cooper the celebrity book author and Vanity Fair cover boy was interviewed by Jon Stewart about Hurricane Katrina, one of his other pet causes.

Mr. Cooper's notoriety has had its costs — he has become a persistent target of Gawker.com — but it has also paid significant dividends for CNN, adding an average of almost 160,000 viewers on average in the last year, for a total of 710,000.

"What Anderson and Lou share is not advocacy, it is a command of subject matter," said Mr. Klein. "With Angelina Jolie, we took a story that fell in our lap because of Anderson's history of reporting in Africa, and then we poured reporting into a very serious subject."

There's nothing wrong with celebrities being interested in something besides Pilates classes, and Ms. Jolie has clearly done her homework. But when the microphone gets handed over, it is important to remember that the credibility of a news organization is being conferred on entertainers whose obsessions tend to come and go.

Ms. Jolie proudly talked about having "Know Your Rights" as an alluring tattoo — an homage to the United Nations refugee effort — but that same medium has also served as a signpost for her ex-husband, old What's-His-Name.

And her own very public march toward forming a family, which Mr. Cooper called "building a global village under her own roof" sounded more like filling out a Beanie Baby collection. "Another boy, another girl, which country, which race would fit best with the kids," she said.

Neither Ms. Jolie's process of growing up nor Mr. Dobbs's decision to tilt the rink in a game he is supposed to be covering are intrinsically corrosive to television. But no one should pretend it is news.

"The Most Trusted Name in Entertainment" might have a nice ring to it, it is not a great way to brand a news channel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/business/media/26carr.html?pagewanted=print

Sports On TV
OLN To Add Boxing

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times

OLN will add live and classic boxing to its slate of sports next month under a two-year deal with Bob Arum's Top Rank organization.

The contract will also give OLN's parent, Comcast, the rights to carry classic fights for its video-on-demand offerings on its cable systems.

The first of 12 live fights during the first year of the deal will feature the middleweights Kelly Pavlik and Bronco McKart on July 27.

The matches will be called by Bob Papa and Wally Matthews.

The following Thursday will feature the first of 10 classics a year, chosen from a 6,000-hour library that includes bouts with Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Alexis Argüello.

Critic’s Notebook
Just a coupla white guys talkin'

By Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star-Ledger in his TV blog “What’s Alan Watching” Monday, June 26, 2006

Tolan! Leary! Leary and Tolan! Tolan and Leary! The morning after last week's "Rescue Me" -- specifically, after The Incident between Tommy and Janet at the end of the episode -- I called my friendly neighborhood FX publicist and asked to speak to Peter and Denis about their interpretation of the scene and some of the angry reactions to it.

As I said in a post on Friday, I don't agree with a lot of what the guys had to say, but I respect their willingness to talk about it in a fairly calm exchange....I didn't really bother to clean up the grammar on either end, so apologies if my questions are so evasively-phrased that I occasionally sound like a "Deadwood" character.

QUESTION: Peter, from seeing what you wrote on TV Without Pity, you're clearly aware of some of the negative reaction to what happened in the scene at the end of Tuesday's episode. First of all, can you describe what your intention was, what you were trying to convey with that scene?

PETER TOLAN: Well, we're talking about characters we've established who have great difficulty in terms of expressing themselves emotionally, and so at that point, it doesn't seem an option anymore for these people, especially as their actions become more unacceptable to each other, Janet sleeping with Tommy's brother, so forth and all that. We can only expect that the non-emotional reaction, that is, physical or vocal, are going to become more and more dangerous, or more and more intense. So in that way, it seemed right. I mean, we've never said that this is a functional relationship, it's highly dysfunctional. And so it seemed -- we definitely knew that this was a dangerous scene, and in some ways we tried to be very careful about it, but at the same time, those are the characters, this is the show, it's informed by everything that's come before it and it will inform everything that comes after it. If this was the season finale or the finale for the series, I wouldn't blame viewers for burning down FX. And by the way, I'll give the address to anyone who wants it.

DENIS LEARY: The other thing you have to remember with these two people, is the choice she made after Tommy -- discussing this thing amongst ourselves, in organically continuing the characters paths, before the season began and before we started writing it -- Tommy actually says it, I think, in the first episode, you know, 'There's blood on both our hands.' Because she got back into the relationship last year, with that great reading of that line 'Til Death do us part.'. She did it because of financial reasons and to put the family back together for the kids. And Tommy said, basically, if we hadn't gotten together again, Connor would still be alive because he wouldn't have been on that street at that time. It's backtracking, they're both trying to backtrack to explain why they lost that child. Anyways, she made a choice from there that is very difficult for Tommy to swallow. At the same time these two have had an animal attraction to each other going back to when they first met. That, in essence is what that scene [inaudible] of -- everything that antagonizes the both of them towards each other, and then this insane physical passion that they have never been without, really, in their relationship, you know?

QUESTION: So even though he's clearly manhandling her and in charge at the beginning of that scene, you guys would not in any way consider what took place there to be rape?

DENIS LEARY: No, not at all. As a matter of fact, in shooting that scene and in writing it, but especially in shooting it, you go back and you watch the scene and watch it from the beginning of that scene until the end, it's actually one of the -- Andrea Roth was fantastic in that scene, because she goes from fear and anger and punching him in the face and fighting him back, and back to the place where they began their relationship, where the spark occurred. Even her reaction afterwards is that horrible magnetic pull that these two people have for each other, which is ultimately going to be their destruction, because they can't get away from each other and they have to. One of the things I've always said about shooting this scene and knowing that people were going to be hanging on a Tuesday night waiting till the next week is, you know, 'If you want to see what that scene is about, keep on watching, and watch what happens with that relationship over the course of the season,' because, you know, it's about the intensity between them and the attraction -- they'll never get over that attraction, so they have to get away from it, they have to be separated, because it's always going to be there.

QUESTION: Now, I have actually seen next week's episode, because (FX publicity) sent out 4 and 5 together, and there's very little follow-up to that in the next episode, other than Tommy, I guess, being concerned that he might have given her chlamydia. You had to know -- as you said, you had to be careful in the writing and the shooting of the scene -- you had to know that some people were going to take it that way. Was there any thought to doing something in the following episode to clarify exactly what this was?

DENIS LEARY: No. We clarify it over the course [of the season]. It's in six, it's dealt with seven and again in eight. It affects her long-term, and, without giving away how it goes down, comes down right into the last three episodes of the season.

QUESTION: But you're obviously not surprised that some people did take it that way.

DENIS LEARY: No. Whenever you do something, you know, it's not the movie world where you can wrap everything up in the course of 90 minutes or two hours, so these relationships are very detailed and long-term. We knew that some people were going to react the wrong way, in our opinion, but either way that people reacted, that they would get their answers as they continued to watch, because that relationship in particular -- all of them obviously, because you hope you're creating interesting relationships across the board -- but that relationship is so complicated, and complicated even further now by what occurred. And it obviously has an affect on both of them, and on Tommy's brother Johnny, as well.

QUESTION: Other than, I guess, show 3, which ends with us finding out that Probie is having this relationship with his roommate, every episode this season so far has closed with Tommy sort of walking off triumphantly into the sunet or into his car or whatever, and there was definitely, as he leaves Janet's apartment, that look of "I've just accomplished something and I'm driving off because I came, I saw, I conquered." Was that what you were going for with that?

DENIS LEARY: The look on his face afterwards was more about his brother and reclaiming his wife without his brother knowing it. That's what that's about.

PETER TOLAN: There's a lot of conjecture as to what that look means and what the whole act is actually about. And this is what I think it's about, and this shows you how deeply distubed these characters are. Yeah, you could say, yes he has forced himself on Janet to get back at Johnny or to get back at her for her being with him and all that, but I think the truth of it is, in spite of all this stuff that's gone on, he still loves her. In an entirely misguided, crazy way, he's trying to recapture something with her from a million years ago that he'll never be able to recapture and so much water has gone under the bridge, the relationship is irreparably damaged, and they're just going to spin in this vortex for a while until one of them breaks away for good.

DENIS LEARY: I don't think there's any question in Tommy's mind, that's the way, certainly when I'm writing or working the scenes with her, that's the woman he wants. It's obviously a very screwed-up and complicated relationship, but if she said, 'Yeah, I'm coming back tomorrow,' he would take her right in.

PETER TOLAN: A lot of people see that scene, Alan, and say, 'I got her back' [meaning revenge], but I see it as 'I got her back! My wife's back!'

DENIS LEARY: Hopefully it's a long-term effect that, because of that passion, she may come to her senses and say, 'I want to be with you.' That's Tommy's dream come true. With all the water under the bridge fllowing, let's get back together. That's the woman he wants to see when he walks in the door at night.

PETER TOLAN: I think it's a little simplistic for people to look at that and say 'Well, he just did that to get back at Johnny.' He already got back at Johnny, he already beat the **** out of him in the street, I don't think he needs to go this far. I can see how people would make that interpretation, but that's not in our minds what it is.

QUESTION: Now, earlier in the episode there's the Crazy Chick-Calling Day sequence where Tommy's fielding these phone calls from all the women in his life and who are all nagging him, and one of the complaints I've heard about the show and, frankly, that I sometimes have, even though I love it overall, is that, while the men are allowed to be screwed-up and have problems and be reprehensible at times, they're also shown to have admirable qualities. Tommy's good at his job, he cares about Lou, he cares about the other guys, etc. Whereas the women, for the most part, we're only getting the male point of view of them, which is negative. They mainly seem to be there to mess with the guys. What would you say to that?

PETER TOLAN: Denis has always said that, when that complaint comes up, that somehow it's about men who hate women or have some issue with women. The reality is these are men whose actions are determined by the fact that they need these women, and either they love them or need them in some way. Ultimately it's the women in these things who have the power over them. Either they can't express themselves or they're incapable of that, but it's the women who are more powerful. In terms of what those women do, we're obviously only showing parts of their lives, because our main story is the guys. We're not showing the full story. Is Sheila -- yeah, some people say 'Sheila's crazy, 'Sheila's a whiner' -- but is she also a good mother? Because we've only seen her in certain situations where she's done everything she can to protect her son. 'You're not going to be a firefighter.' 'You're not going to be selling drugs.' 'I'm worried about this, I'm worried about that.' We see Sheila, that as a positive. Having said that, when people say 'Why can't there be a good relationship on Rescue Me, why can't we have a positive happy couple?,' I say, 'You know what? I'd love to show that. Do I want to write it? No.'

DENIS LEARY: Do you want to play it, as an actor?

PETER TOLAN: It would bore the **** out of me.

DENIS LEARY: It's not a great story to tell. But at a certain point, this is one of the things we've talked about for next year is how much fun, having had these screwed-up relationships, to have everybody settle back and all of a sudden everybody has paired off and is happy. And then, because it's the nature of life and the stories we're telling, that can only last for so long.

PETER TOLAN: At this point, we've established a format where, every now and then, we offer the prospect of happiness to a couple, or to a man and a woman, and at the last minute, of course, our better instinct comes through and we dash whatever hopes they had.

QUESTION: Well, I'm not even necessarily talking about whether people can have functioning relationships. I think back, you know, to the Diane Farr character, for instance, who when she was introduced, it seemed she was there in part to fill the same role she did on 'The Job,' which was to keep some of the guys' macho bullshit in check and show this is not necessarily the way you have to look at the world, and by the time she left, she had been reduced to this whiney, incompetent character.

DENIS LEARY: In the house that we're working out of, and within the reality of the show, which is based in the reality of firefighting in a big city, that is exactly how that relationship would occur. We've discussed it in the show, and I forget the monologue where we deal with it, but women have, for the most part, including Diane's character, been legislated into this job, because they don't have to take the same physical test that the men have to take, and the Mayor's office and other political aspects have come into it, and they demand a gender balance. And now they're demanding an ethnic balance. They're willing to forgive failure in the physical test because they want more black firefighters, more Chinese firefighters, they want an ethical, politically correct balance. The truth of the matter is that on the job guys are extremely resentful that they had to go through a physical exam that involved so many difficult things, including running up seven flights of stairs with 100 pounds of equipment strapped to you and picking up a 150-pound dummy and carrying it, running down seven flights of stairs with it. If you can't do that, you can't do the job, so when these women and other people are legislated into the job, it pisses these guys off to no end, because it puts their lives at risk, as well as the people they're saving. And that's an issue that will never go away, it's only going to get worse, actually, as the FDNY starts to deal with federal government investigations, 'Why aren't they more ethnically-balanced in the New York fire department?' The truth is, it's a job that you have to want to do and be able to do. I don't know about you, but if my kids are stuck in a burning building, I don't want the person who's legislated in, I want the guy who wants to go in and get them going after them. It's life or death, and that's what her storyline was about. We wouldn't introduce another female firefighter tomorrow unless we were going to make her -- and, by the way, I've met female firefighters from other parts of the country who are supremely physically able to do the job, that we would deal with -- that would be an interesting female character to have. That's why that issue was dealt with the way that it was. She shouldn't have been there. She wasn't capable of doing it.

QUESTION: I guess what I'm asking is, is there a way -- going back to what I said before, it's not like Tommy for the most part is a positive character, but he does have admirable qualities. Is there a way of changing what the show is to maybe alter the balance a little bit in terms of showing occasional good sides to the female characters?

PETER TOLAN: Alan, we have actually talked about this, and at a certain point, yeah, you want to try and balance things out. We've talked about next season, that Probie's going to be a full firefighter soon, and we're going to need to bring in another probie. Who is that? Why couldn't it be a woman? And why couldn't it be a capable woman? And why couldn't it be a lesbian or somebody who's extremely capable in the job and the guys have to deal with that. They'll do the same thing, they'll say she shouldn't be there, but she'll prove herself and they'll have to accept her. And then you'll be getting that woman's viewpoint from a woman they are forced to respect for her abilities. And then you can open the character up and open them up to in terms of having a woman they can talk to about women and get sort of an informed attitude. I think that's an interesting choice we could make.

DENIS LEARY: You start talking about conceivably, possibly, a gay firefighter. Well, I know a chief here in Manhattan who's not only out of the clsoet but was a fantastic firefighter and became a lieutenant and became a chief. And the guys had no problem with him whatsoever, because he was physically able to do the job. And that's what it all came down to. As much as they were probably upset about it at first, once they saw the guy in action, they were like, '**** this. He's good.' That what it's all about.

QUESTION: That brings me to the current Probie storyline. Peter, you were saying in the TV Without Pity message board that it had started out as something else and had morphed. Could you elaborate on what it originally was going to be and why it evolved into this?

PETER TOLAN: I had originally pitched that storyline, and in talking about it with Dennis, we constructed a different story for that, that was certainly dramatic, it certainly had highly dramatic elements to it. Part of that was the Probie actually was -- we'd set up a guy who was searching for love, was restless and lonely and all those things, he'd had the relationship with the overweight woman last season -- and he was just searching. So it made sense that this was the next step that it would be. But it was for the most part a dramatic storyline. In the course of talking about it, we realized maybe we were repeating some things, some storylines we'd done in earlier seasons. That was the main concern, so we started to back off that storyline, but we'd already put it into motion. So at this point we're playing it much more for humor than we did in the original pitch. Whether it's successful is another story, I don't know. A lot of people, from what I'm hearing, either think it's very funny and right on target for the character or really confused by it and not sure why we did it, and whatever. But that happens a lot on our show. We'll start out saying, 'Hey, we're going to do this,' and then either some flaw will come up and we'll move on to something else, or something else stronger will come along and we'll go with that.

QUESTION: Before we finish up, let's go back to the original scene with Tommy and Janet. Dennis, you talked about how it's not a feature, you can't wrap it up at the end of two hours, it's something you're going to deal with going forward. But I've certainly heard and read a lot of people saying that they're done with the show after having witnessed that. What would you tell them to make them maybe want to continue to see where this goes?

DENIS LEARY: It's hard to tell somebody who's giving up on a show... Me, my favorite show on television over the course of the last five or six years has been 'The Sopranos,' and it's always interesting to me that people can see Tony Sopranos kill somebody and chop up a body and get rid of it and not have an issue with it, but in this instance have a problem with Tommy Gavin and his wife in that scene. Maybe you're watching this show for the wrong reasons, and maybe you shouldn't be watching it, you know what I mean? The only time I have a problem with The Sopranos is when I think, 'Oh my god, this is a ridiculous storyline.' or 'Why are we watching this character when we could be watching the main characters?' So I have no answer for them, you know?

QUESTION: Peter, do you have one?

PETER TOLAN: First of all, I think that the number of people who are saying they're done with the show is probably a small number. I would certainly hope so. But the truth of it is, we must believe, and we would not write a scene to be provacative. That was never our intention, this is a storyline that is thought out and is supported by the previous actions of the characters in this relationship and will be answered in karmic ways in later episodes. We're not there to be provacateurs, but I would say to them somewhat the same what Denis said: 'Don't watch the show.' But I have a feeling that a great many of the people who said, 'I'm not going to watch' won't be able not to. Because if they care that passionately to make that statement, there's something that attracts them to the show.

DENIS LEARY: There's actually a woman who called my production office at Apostle and spoke to one of the guys who works for me. And she went into a diatribe about how much she loved the show and was so upset about what happened (last night) and eventually he cut her off and said, 'Why are you calling me?' And she said, 'I just want to file a complaint.' He said, 'Are you saying you're not going to watch the show anymore?' And she said, 'Well, I didn't say that.' That's just kind of interesting to me.

PETER TOLAN: A lot of people, yes, they hated that. They thought it was over the edge, too far. But just like you, Alan, just like what you wrote in your blog, there are other parts of the show that still have their attention that still have their heart, and they're not ready to give up on that. Look, the fact is, people are passionate about it, people are talking about it. In this business, that's always better than people who just don't give a ****.

DENIS LEARY: That's true. If they didn't give a ****...

PETER TOLAN: ... then we've failed all the way around.

http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2006/06/just-coupla-white-guys-talkin.html