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Critic’s Notebook
Fall TV Sneak Preview: ABC (Part 1)
By Kevin D. Thompson Palm Beach Post Television Writer in his blog
June 26, 2006
'Sup, fellow bloggers. It was a busy weekend for me. Which means I only found enough time to watch two of ABC's new shows. Although I'm on vacation this week, I'll get to the rest later today or tonight. I promise.
Betty the Ugly: More like Betty the Unfunny. You know a show's in trouble when the person who's watching it asks, "Is this supposed to be a comedy?" America Ferrera (The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants) stars as Betty, a slightly overweight, Plain Jane, braces-wearing woman with a hideous fashion sense. How hideous? I'm talking garish ponchos and black -- black! -- stockings! Now, none of that would be a problem for Betty, but since she's a lowly editorial assistant at a Glamour-like fashion mag where everyone's ridiculously gorgeous and a size minus three, well, our plucky heroine becomes a source of ridicule. While Ferrera is a winningly appealing lead -- you can't help but root for her -- her show rarely makes you laugh -- or chuckle. And that last time I checked, that's what a comedy is supposed to do.
Let's Rob...: The perfect title since ABC is blatantly robbing from NBC's wonderfully kooky My Name Is Earl. A long-time janitor (Grounded for Life's Donal Logue) is tired of his dead end job. So, he does what most frustrated employees do: he recruits a band of affable misfits to rob Mick Jagger so he can finance his dream of opening a bar. They even wear T-shirts and call themselves "The Knights of Prosperity." Let's Rob...isn't as funny or charming as Earl. No show could duplicate Earl's loopy craziness. But Let's Rob...gives it a good shot and is worth a look.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/thompson/entries/2006/06/fall_tv_sneak_p_1.html
TV Notebook
U.S. Olympic channel may be coming soon
By David Barron Houston Chronicle
LA JOLLA, CALIF. - In a world where even the NFL Network has to claw and scratch for carriage, is there room in your heart — and, more importantly, in your monthly cable bill — for a U.S. Olympic Committee channel?
USOC president Jim Scherr, at the USOC's Olympic Assembly this weekend, said the group is developing plans for a 24-hour service that he hopes will be on the air before the 2008 Olympics.
"It's essential to provide (the channel) as an opportunity for exposure for our sports and to build interest in our Olympic sports, but also as a potential revenue vehicle," Scherr said.
Scherr said the USOC cable channel would carry event programming, coaching, health and lifestyle shows, and, most attractively for Olympic junkies, have the domestic rights to the Olympic Television Archive Bureau, which means it could reshow NBC and ABC programming from past Olympic Games.
"We would love to have it in place well before 2008. It's realistic that we could launch before 2008," Scherr said. "How many homes we could aggregate through distribution is questionable, but we're pretty far down the road fleshing out our business plan and timeline to build the kind of homes and revenues we need to make it viable."
Cable start-ups don't come cheap. NFL Network, for example, required $100 million in start-up costs and benefited from tens of millions in free advertising on Sunday NFL games. Even with a boost from an expanded agreement with Dish Network that will be announced today, taking the number of potential viewers to 40 million households, the NFL doesn't expect to turn a profit on its channel until 2008.
Most cable carriers, if they agreed to carry the USOC signal at all, likely would relegate it to a sports-only tier (Time Warner's package is $3 per month for eight channels), and it's hard to imagine the USOC getting, say, 25 cents per subscriber per month from even that limited base.
Video on demand could be a potential profit center, and so could the Web site the USOC plans as a major element of its future as a content provider. But the USOC will need partners — ideally, Scherr said, NBC.
"We don't have the ability to operate (a channel) ourselves," he said. "We would seek an equity partner to assist us. Our role would be to gather and build content. We have had initial discussions (with NBC), and we would love to have them be a leader and a partner with us on this project."
The USOC also hopes to aggregate broadcast rights for all its national sports governing bodies under one umbrella "on an economic basis that works for them and us," Scherr said.
That model, clearly, would have to make room for gymnastics, figure skating, track and field and swimming to retain a presence on over-the-air and established cable outlets such as NBC, ABC and ESPN. So there are plenty of questions to be answered before you see a USOC Channel on your cable box.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/sports/4001293
Cable TV Notebook
Blade’, Spike and the pursuit of men
By Ruth Marcus in MediaLifeMagazine.com Jun 26, 2006, 03:28
Several years ago, all the TV talk was of the Lost Boys, the young men who were suddenly not watching television anymore. The challenge: how to draw them back to their TV sets from video games and wherever else they'd headed off to.
The former TNN, freshly renamed Spike, thought it had it all figured out: manly programming. It was an intriguing idea, ambitious too, and timely, at a time when other general-interest networks were rebranding around themes. Why not?
It's been a struggle for Spike, a huge one, and so far it hasn't really worked. A good part of the problem has been in finding that signature program that would define Spike as a men's network in all of its intended nuances, something it could build around, not just another tagline.
Three years later, Spike may have that series: "Blade: The Series," whose two-hour premiere airs on Wednesday night at 10.
The program draws on the trilogy of "Blade" films which, in turn, were inspired by the cult Marvel comic book character. The series, starring Wesley Snipes, did well at the box office, grossing more than $200 million, though the third installment, "Blade: Trinity," released in 2004, began to fade, grossing the least, $52 million.
The TV series picks up where "Blade: Trinity" left off. The show follows the exploits of Blade, a half-man, half-vampire warrior who has made it his life’s mission to destroy the vampires who threaten Detroit. He teams up with Krista, a woman hell-bent on avenging her twin brother's death at the hands of a vampire. Rapper-actor Kirk "Sticky Fingaz" plays the gravely voiced hero. Jill Wagner plays Krista.
"Blade" has several things working for it. It's already a franchise, bringing with it a built-in audience. In addition to films and comics, the character has spawned two video games, and a third is on the way. And as Spike likes to think, it's a series guys can identify with, having lots of action, a certain sex appeal, high-tech weaponry and the edginess that often defines original cable programming.
It also has continuity. The pilot was written by David Goyer and Geoff Johns, both respected comic book writers. Goyer wrote the three "Blade" movies and directed the third. He will also executive produce the series.
The challenge for Spike, and Goyer, will be to build on the franchise, and doing it in a way that brings in new male viewers. Reviews so far have been mixed. That will mean taking chances.
In any case, after three years, Spike has surely learned from its blunders. It relaunched as Spike with the cartoon series "Stripperella," clumsily voiced by Pamela Anderson. A stripper went public with claims that she created the series. "Stripperella" drew 2 million viewers to its premier, according to Spike, but didn’t last beyond a season.
The WWE, its other great male attraction, later moved to USA, leaving Spike as little more than a platform for network reruns like "CSI," which was notable for drawing lots of women to the network.
Indeed, Spike has never really made a serious dent among men, ranking eighth among basic cable networks for males 18-34, behind ESPN, USA, TNT, Comedy Central, FX and TBS, during first quarter, according to Nielsen data crunched by MTV Networks.
Primetime viewership among 18-34 males is down 13 percent this year, to 174,000 from 203,000 in 2005, though "WWE's" exit accounts for much of that. Women in that demo are down as well, by 17 percent, to 124,000 from 157,000.
That leaves a lot riding on "Blade."
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_5609.asp
TV Notebook
For TV news, buzz becoming gold standard
By Phil Rosenthal Chicago Tribune Media Columnist June 25, 2006
As might be expected for all the exposure he got last week, the greatest TV interview moment of recent days did involve Anderson Cooper, CNN's celebrity correspondent.
But it wasn't in his sitdown with Angelina Jolie on aid to refugees. (Cooper: "You're not just talking the talk. You're walking the walk. I have read that you give a third of your income to refugees and other causes. Is that true?" Jolie: "Yes." Cooper: "That's incredible.")
It wasn't in his chat with Cher on helping better equip U.S. Marines in Iraq. (Cher: "My sister sent a clipping out of a newspaper and she just said, `Dear stupid, do something.'" Cooper: "She calls you stupid?" Cher: "Yes." Cooper: "OK.")
The moment that stood out was in Cooper's guest appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." Stewart--the comedian who torched the late, unlamented "Crossfire" while visiting two years ago, telling the hosts they had "a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably. ... [and] it's hurting America"--again took aim across CNN's bow. "CNN is a nice place to work," Cooper said. "There's a real sense of mission and a sense of, you know, people being interested in the news."
"When's it going to show on air?" Stewart shot back, later adding, "Because, I watch CNN a lot."
Cooper, the one-time ABC reality-show host officially cast as anchor/reporter but seeming to be gunning of late to replace Larry King, is being promoted as a personality at a network founded on the quaint premise that news--not newscasters and not glitterati--should be the draw.
If you're CNN, perhaps you're apt to try anything, having trailed Fox News Channel for so long. But having just about every show last Tuesday--Lou Dobbs' program was a notable exception--talk up Cooper's Jolie interview that night or the World Refugee Day cause Jolie wanted to promote probably isn't the long-term way to do it.
The interlaced campaigns to sell Cooper and his best-selling memoir pay off only if he delivers the goods. You would think a man whose mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, is a brand name herself would caution him, if not his bosses, about what happens when branding goes bad.
Does CNN really want to be known as the Celebrity News Network?
It can be tricky, to be sure. Dan Rather, whose CBS News hitch of 44 years petered out last week, was surely a personality, embraced by some and reviled by others. Yet he always sold himself as a newsman first, as did his network.
His body of work--the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, the Nixon White House, Afghanistan--drove his career. The oddball antics and missteps, as in "What's the frequency, Kenneth," storming off the set in Miami, the singing on Letterman, spinning contrived election-night folkisms and ultimately his staunch defense of indefensible reporting lapses, were more like brakes.
Katie Couric has done some solid work at NBC's "Today," but in the mind's eye for many the next anchor of "The CBS Evening News" is either dressed up for Halloween or getting tested for colon cancer. It will be interesting to see how that changes as she assumes her new role. Bob Schieffer, the interim anchor she replaces, already is endorsing her in promos.
Couric is being dispatched on the road to a few cities this summer for town hall-type meetings where she can at least give the appearance of trying to find out what people want from her and from CBS News, although it also seems like a clever way to sell her newscast in key precincts such as San Diego, San Francisco and Denver.
Rather's erstwhile CBS co-anchor, Connie Chung, meanwhile, bid adieu to the canceled MSNBC weekend series she co-hosted with husband Maury Povich the other day, writhing about in a gown and an off-key parody of "Thanks for the Memories."
Dignified? No. Irresistible, like roadside wreckage? No question.
The clip has bounced around the Internet, where its audience appears to dwarf the one that watched her on MSNBC. In fact, it earned her a first booking on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" for this Tuesday.
Once upon a time--the sheer awfulness of her swan song performance, coupled with having been in and out the door at MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS--her career would be over.
But people are talking about her again and, judging from the celebration of all things Anderson at CNN these days, that matters at least as much as what's being said.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0606250272jun25,1,1504731.column?coll=chi-business-hed
Cable TV Notebook
Two cable channels boldly go into original sci-fi
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News Mon, Jun. 26, 2006
Putting aside the popularity of ABC's ``Lost,'' the major networks still haven't come up with a way to consistently sell the sci-fi/fantasy genre to a mass TV audience.
Last season, ABC tried with ``Invasion'' (very good), CBS heavily promoted ``Threshold'' (promising), and NBC took a spin with ``Surface'' (two out of three ain't bad). None made it to a second season.
But the bad batting average for the genre on broadcast television hasn't stopped the cable channels from making sci-fi a big part of their programming. Now, Spike TV, which has never produced an original scripted series before, and ABC Family, which has seen its viewership soar as it replaces repeats of old network shows with fresh series, are sticking their toes in the sci-fi waters.
Spike's ``Blade: The Series'' (10 p.m. Wednesday) tries to emulate the success of a Marvel comic and the three films based on it, but comes up more than a bit short. ABC Family's ``Kyle XY'' (8 tonight) initially seems derivative of both ``Starman,'' director John Carpenter's lovely 1984 film, and TV's ``John Doe,'' a 2002 series that lasted less than a season on Fox. Yet, toward the end, it finds something of its own rhythm and holds out the possibility it could be a keeper.
In the world of comics, Blade occupies a place even darker than the one inhabited by Batman. Half-man, half-vampire, Blade wages a bloody and never-ending battle against the creatures of the night. As played by Wesley Snipes on film, he was all edge and cool with a hard-boiled bit of wit for every occasion.
The idea of transferring the character to television certainly has its merits. The show was co-created by David Goyer, a writer with serious fantasy cred including the ``Blade'' films, ``Batman Begins'' and ``Threshold.'' But somewhere along the line, something got lost, and while parts of Wednesday's two-hour opener work well, it is also seriously flawed.
The biggest problem is that hip-hop-artist-turned-actor Kirk ``Sticky'' Jones -- who was very good in last summer's ``Over There'' series on FX -- is relentlessly grim as Blade. It appears someone told him to play the character in a dead monotone, which drains Blade of his human side. Of course, it would help if Jones were given some lines to work with, but the writing is horribly flat and uninvolving.
Next issue: The series is supposedly set in Detroit, with Vancouver standing in for the Midwestern industrial city. But the Detroit of ``Blade'' looks nothing like the real-life one (which may actually be scarier) and, even more noticeably, a city with a large African-American population seems to be inhabited almost entirely by white folks.
Where ``Blade'' does have some bite (I promise, no more vampire puns) is on the fringes of the story, where it gets some decent performances from Jill Wagner as an Army sergeant who becomes Blade's sidekick, Nelson Lee as his tech expert and Neil Jackson as Marcus Van Sciver, the suave head honcho of the bloodsuckers. But it's not enough for me to make a second visit to this underworld.
On the other hand, I might be back for Episode 2 of the much-less-heralded ``Kyle XY,'' even though its first few minutes are such a blatant rip-off of ``John Doe'' that the creators of the earlier show might want to consider their legal options. Then it starts to ooze the feel of Carpenter's film, in which a guileless alien learns to live and love like a human.
It was almost enough for me to reach for the remote. But I didn't, and the last 30 minutes of the opening episode started to develop a charm and appeal that wasn't a bland copy of better work.
It's still unclear at the end of the episode whether ``Kyle'' is an alien who has dropped out of the sky or the product of some shadowy government experiment gone wrong. (I'm voting for the latter since the ever-creepy Nicholas Lea from ``The X-Files'' is lurking on the edges of the story.)
But advancing that part of the story line isn't as important as the way the show begins to establish the relationship between the teenage rain man (initially, he can't talk but he sure is a whiz with computers) and a family that takes him in. There's a warmth to the way the family's teenage kids, who first view Kyle as a freak spoiling their fun, establish a bond with him -- which could bode well for the series in the long run.
By the way, if you don't get ABC Family, ABC itself will be repeating at least the first four episodes on Fridays starting this week (9 p.m., Ch. 7). Given the options -- repeats of ``Hope & Faith'' -- it might prove to be a smart move.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/14903781.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Critic’s Notebook
Just a coupla white guys talkin'
Good read, the dynamics of the Janet/Tommy relationship as they explained them are pretty much how I interpreted it as well.
The Saturday and Sunday 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.
Perhaps when the NAB continually tells us about the importance of localism, someone should ask about this:
The Business of TV
Taxes Drive Malone's Fox Stations Talks
By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cabl, 6/26/2006
Liberty Media’s discussions to take control of some of Fox’s TV stations have nothing to do with Chairman John Malone’s new love for broadcasting. It’s all about his long-held loathing of taxes.
Malone—the onetime "godfather" of cable—is moving closer to a deal to unwind Liberty’s $10 billion stake in News Corp. in a deal that may give it Fox’s TV stations in small markets.
As first disclosed by B&C last September, News Corp. is offering Malone stations generally outside the top 25 markets to dissipate the threat of having an outsider control so much stock.
Liberty has amassed 16% of News Corp. equity and 17% of its shareholder votes, making Chairman
Rupert Murdoch uncomfortable about Malone’s motives.
Malone’s primary goal is to have News Corp. buy him out. What catches his eye is the stations’ usefulness in limiting his tax bill. Federal tax codes ordinarily call for a seller to pay taxes on the profits of a stock sale. However, Malone wants News Corp. to structure a deal as a "cash-rich spinoff," which would require News Corp. to tuck some operating assets in with cash or News Corp. debt.
Liberty would have to hold the stations (which are worth around $800 million), along with any cash and securities, in a subsidiary for several years. But Malone could get immediate, tax-
deferred access to the cash by selling investors a derivative security created around the new subsidiary.
News Corp. and Liberty wouldn’t comment. But in a report to clients on June 20, UBS Securities’ Aryeh Bourkoff recounted a meeting with Roger Ailes, chairman of both Fox Stations and Fox News Channel. Ailes wouldn’t directly address the Liberty discussions but acknowledged that he considered only 25 of his 35 stations to be "core assets."
The stations under discussion include Kansas City, Mo. (the 31st-largest TV market), Milwaukee (No. 32) and Salt Lake City (36). One market is tiny: Gainesville, Fla., No. 162.
Selling these smaller stations would shrink the Fox stations group’s reach from 45 million homes to fewer than 40 million.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6346903
(From Marc Berman’s Monday, June 26, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
Ratings Box: What’s Hot/What’s Not
MTV and Company in Second Quarter 2006:
MTV will close second quarter 2006 as the top-rated basic cable network among persons 12-34 for the 37th consecutive quarter, with six of the top 10 shows -- Real World XVII, The Hills, Real World/Road Rules Fresh Meat, Nick Cannon’s Wild N Out, 8th & Ocean and My Super Sweet Sixteen -- in the demo.
Broadband network MTV Overdrive generated over 1 million streams per day, building by a significant 35 percent year-to-year. MTV Mobile, meanwhile, rounded off the quarter with gains of seven percent from first quarter 2005. And part of that growth can be attributed to Sway’s Hip Hop Owners Manual, which was the most watched MTV wireless content in second quarter.
Remembering Aaron Spelling
Although I have accumulated many good memories over the years at Mediaweek, one of my favorite thoughts happened shortly after I joined the company, and it involved legendary producer Aaron Spelling, who died in his Holmby Hills, California home of complications from a stroke he suffered on June 18. He was 83.
Mr. Spelling, of course, who began his career as a bit Hollywood player, created more hit shows than anyone else in the history of television. And those series included The Mod Squad, The Rookies, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Family, Hart To Hart, Dynasty, Vegas, Matt Houston, T.J. Hooker, Hotel, Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place, Charmed and the still popular 7th Heaven. For five consecutive decades, in fact, Aaron Spelling was never without a hit series in primetime. And he produced more than 140 television movies, including Death Sentence, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, And the Band Played On, and Day One.
When I was asked to write a feature story that involved interviewing a TV producer in my early days at Mediaweek, I remembered that Candy Spelling, Aaron’s wife, was getting my column, The Programming Insider, so I decided to shoot for the moon and emailed Candy. “Mrs. Spelling,” I asked, “would it be possible if I speak to your husband for a few minutes?”
To my amazement, I received a call that night from…you guessed it…Aaron Spelling, and we spent over one hour reminiscing about Alexis and Krystle fighting in the mud on Dynasty, Charlie’s Angels fever, guest stars popping up on The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, little Buddy on Family, and the gang from 90210. And it was the beginning of a working relationship that lasted for several years.
“I never expected this kind of success,” Mr. Spelling told me. “What can I say – I am really the luckiest man in the world. And I just love working with actors. I understand their sensibilities because I was one. And I try to put the type of programs on the air that I myself would want to watch. That’s the most important ingredient when you create a TV series. It’s all about tapping into the tastes of the viewing public.”
When I asked him if he ever felt snubbed by the sometimes lack of critical acclaim, he said:
“I can’t say that I have not been somewhat disappointed over the years, but it is the fans that matter. A fan of 7th Heaven, in fact, recently stopped me and starting screeching how much she loved the show. So to me, that’s like winning the Emmy. There is no bigger honor than when a fan stops to acknowledge your work.”
With over a record of 3,000 hours of regularly series programming under his belt, Aaron Spelling will be fondly remembered as the most prolific TV producer in the history of television. And, as I can personally vouch for, he will be remembered as one of the most beloved as well. Funeral services will be private, and a memorial service is being planned for next month. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, 3200 Motor Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90034.
TV Notebook
Summer's a good time for TV 101
By Rick Kushman Sacramento Bee TV Columnist Monday, June 26, 2006
These dog days of dull TV lineups seem like a good time for a little TV 101. So today, we have a reminder that technology is changing television like it's, um, new technology. Also, that TV is strange.
It starts with Nielsen Media Research -- the people who give us TV ratings -- and word that they're going to count how many people watch commercials.
OK, considering that it's advertisers who pay for just about everything in television by buying commercial time, you'd think that's the kind of info people might have wanted, oh, I dunno, 30 or 40 years ago.
But, nope, they just had one broad measurement for both a show and its ads. Soon, however, TV viewing will be broken down piece by piece. Will it matter?
For that, we first need two bits of background.
First bit: No one in TV, and I mean no one, believes Nielsen's measurements are dead on. Put simply, Nielsen Media has some holes.
For instance, its equipment can tell what channel a TV is on, but not how many people are in the room. (People in Nielsen homes are asked to push a button to sign in and out of the TV room, but, c'mon, like anyone does that every single time.)
Also, Nielsen has not measured viewing outside homes, in places such as bars or dorms, so you have to think the real viewership of sports or late-night TV, to name a few kinds of programming, is way higher than the Nielsen ratings show.
For what it's worth, Nielsen Media said recently it will soon start measuring some of those public places, but not how it plans to get accurate head counts from, say, a crowded sports bar. It also will measure TV viewing on devices such as computers, iPods and cell phones.
The point to all of that: There is still some TV viewing that doesn't get counted.
Second bit: DVRs.
Digital video recorders -- those seemingly magic units from TiVo or cable companies -- are changing TV viewing habits big time with their ease of recording and skipping merrily backward and forward. (Some DVR owners will tell you, at enormous length and in excruciating detail, how it's enriched their lives. That may be true, but if you see one of those people, run. Run away fast.)
The good news about DVRs: Getting ratings from them is a snap. The bad news? It's more complicated measuring exactly when people fast-forward through the ads.
Which brings us back to Nielsen. Since December, it has supplied the networks with three sets of ratings on a show. One is people who watch it live, another is people who record it and watch it within a day, the third -- and the most contentious -- is people who watch it within a week.
After the networks announced their fall lineups in May and then started to sell commercial time for the new season, the nets and the advertising industry got into a war over these ratings.
(Remember, networks want ratings to reflect a large pool of viewership, so they can charge more for ad time. Advertisers, naturally, want the base rating as small as possible.)
The war, in a nutshell: The networks said that with so many people using DVRs, ad rates should be based on all viewing through a week (they call it live-plus-seven). Advertisers only wanted to pay for real-time viewing.
The ad industry argued that many ads, like trailers for movie openings, are almost useless if they're watched a week later. Plus, DVR users skip through commercials. Networks said the rate of commercial avoidance -- their term -- has stayed about the same over the years despite new technology. Much of that, of course, was conjecture.
Advertisers basically won the war for the 2006-07 season, and most networks will charge a rate based only on live viewing. But enter Nielsen.
The networks asked the company to start measuring actual viewing numbers on commercials, and last week Nielsen said it will do that. It also has technology that can monitor the audio codes in shows -- and ads -- to see if the show or ad was skipped or actually watched.
Those commercial ratings won't be used for ad rates until the 2007-08 season, but they'll start to let everyone know how many -- and which -- ads get skipped.
And what does that mean for viewers? Possibly, better commercials. That's the glass-is-half-full view, but as advertisers struggle in this multimedia era to get their messages heard, this could be another push in the direction of commercials that are full-on entertainment. (Of course, lots of actual TV shows are supposed to be entertaining, too, and we've seen how well that works out sometimes.)
So one result might be lots more ads good enough to stop viewers in their fast-forwarding tracks (Examples: the Geico gecko or that little elephant that sings and dances in the rain).
Another possibility: The nets, the advertisers, and the cable and satellite companies could use their evolving technical tricks to embed commercials into shows in a way that viewers can't skip through them.
Or, the result might be something entirely surprising, because this seems like a situation very ripe for the law of unintended consequences. Just like almost everything going on around the TV industry at the moment.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/columns/kushman/v-print/story/14271729p-15082270c.html
Can someone help me to setup a link so I come back to the last post I read in the thread, please? TIA.
henry296
06-26-06, 01:12 PM
Can someone help me to setup a link so I come back to the last post I read in the thread, please? TIA.
Just click on the down arrow before the thread name and it will take you to the first new post since you last visited AVS.
Thanks Henry...I didn't know that! :)
Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Fox roars on ahead on a slow Sunday
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer June 26, 2006
With the NBA finals over and months yet before the fall season begins, Sunday nights have become a dead zone on broadcast. Last night Fox revved up its ratings with NASCAR and easily finished No. 1, as almost all of the Big Five were in repeats.
Fox averaged a 2.7 adults 18-49 overnight rating and 8 share on the night, up 29 percent over last week’s 2.1, which came against ABC’s NBA finals.
Fox was well ahead of the night’s second-place finisher, CBS, at 2.0/6. No other network broke 2.0.
NASCAR runover from the Dodge/SaveMart 350 at 7 p.m. was the night’s highest-rated show on any network, averaging a 3.4 in 18-49s. Fox won or tied for first place in every half hour on the night, including 9:30 p.m., when the FX show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” aired.
“Philadelphia” improved last week’s 1.8 average by 11 percent, to a 2.0, though the fact that it tied for No. 1 in the hour probably says more about the lack of broadcast competition than anything.
Fox has been airing season one repeats of “Philadelphia” on Sundays hoping to build interest for the second-season premiere Thursday.
“Family Guy” was the night’s second-highest-rated show, averaging a 3.2 at 9 p.m.
Finishing behind Fox and CBS on the night were ABC at 1.8/5, NBC at 1.6/5, Univision at 1.2/4 and the WB at 0.7/2.
At 7 p.m., Fox led with NASCAR overrun at 3.4 and “King of the Hill” at 7:30 at 1.9. CBS’s “60 Minutes” was second at 1.7, followed by “Dateline” at 1.3, ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” at 1.2, Univision’s “Hora Pico” at 0.9, and WB’s “Reba” reruns at 0.8.
At 8 p.m., Fox’s “Simpsons” repeats averaged a 2.9, followed by “Home Edition” at 2.1, CBS’s “Cold Case” and NBC’s “Dateline” at 1.7, Univision “Cantando por un Sueno” at 1.1, and the WB’s “Charmed” at 0.7.
At 9 p.m., “Family Guy” and “Sunny” averaged a 2.6, followed by CBS’s movie “Enough” at 2.0, NBC’s “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” rerun at 1.9, ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” rerun at 1.6, “Cantando” on Univision at 1.3, and WB’s “Charmed” rerun at 0.7.
At 10 p.m., CBS’s “Enough” led at 2.6, followed by ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” rerun at 2.3, NBC’s “Crossing Jordan” rerun at 1.7, and “Cantando” at 1.4 on Univision.
Among households, CBS led the night at 5.5/10, followed by NBC at 4.5/8, Fox at 3.6/6, ABC at 3.5/6, Univision at 1.4/2, and the WB at 1.2/2.
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_5634.asp
Just click on the down arrow before the thread name and it will take you to the first new post since you last visited AVS.
Oops.
There doesn't seem to be a down arrow on stickies.
Use the thread tools to subscribe to the thread. Once logged in click User CP and it will be bold if there are new posts and you will have a down arrow to click.
CPanther95
06-26-06, 02:02 PM
Oops.
There doesn't seem to be a down arrow on stickies.
or you can click on the "last post" option at the end of the page count.
Ex.: (1 2 3 4 ...Last Post)
That is the one I usually use.
But there often are a couple dozen items on a page and for those who check in once a day (or even less frequently), that can be a little unwieldy.
Critic’s Notebook
Was it a rape fantasy or a scene 'informed' by 'Rescue Me' characters
By Alan Sepinwall Newark Star-Ledger Monday, June 26, 2006
In two-plus seasons, the "Rescue Me" writers have had their characters abuse drugs, commit vigilante justice and hallucinate visits from Jesus Christ, among other controversial activities. But a scene at the end of last week's episode suggests that sometimes, when you push the outer edge of the envelope, all you wind up with is a ripped envelope.
Denis Leary's fireman anti-hero Tommy Gavin was discussing terms of his impending divorce with wife Janet (Andrea Roth), when an innocuous suggestion about division of property sent him into a rage. He hurled her onto the couch, pinned her down, tore her clothes off and -- even as she protested verbally, punched him in the face and tried to break free -- had sex with her. And, as he continued to do so, Janet clearly began to find pleasure in it, moaning "Oh, God" at one point. After Tommy's triumphant exit, a smiling Janet greeted her boyfriend Johnny -- a k a Tommy's brother, and the latest cause of strife in their relationship -- acted like nothing unusual had happened.
To some viewers -- including this one -- the scene played like a horrible rape fantasy, the one where the woman secretly wants to be violated, if only the guy could read the signals. To other viewers, and to Leary and producer Peter Tolan, who co-wrote the episode with him, it was something less criminal.
Tolan says the act was in line with what we know of Tommy and Janet's relationship, which has always been shown as dysfunctional and violent. (They smashed all the mirrors in their bathroom in a sex scene last year.)
"We definitely knew that this was a dangerous scene," Tolan said in a joint phone interview with Leary, "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."
"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," said Leary, who, when asked if he thought Tommy had raped Janet, said, "No, not at all."
Minutes after the episode ended, Internet message boards filled up with debate between fans who were too offended to watch anymore ("'Rescue Me' not only jumped the shark but then went back and raped it," wrote one TelevisionWithoutPity.com poster) and fans who felt this was "hate (sex)" that perfectly fit the relationship as depicted.
"We knew that some people were going to react the wrong way, in our opinion," said Leary, "but either way that people reacted, (we knew) that they would get their answers as they continued to watch, because that relationship ... is so complicated, and complicated even further now by what occurred."
Now, I've watched the scene a half-dozen times since last Tuesday, and I keep reacting the wrong way, in Leary's opinion. As shot and edited, Janet is violently protesting until well after the act has begun, and whether or not she embraces the horrible old cliché about lying back and enjoying it, she doesn't give any consent until it's too late.
And what makes it harder to take Leary and Tolan's side on this is the show's poor track record with women overall. Where the male characters like Tommy and Lou and Franco are shown to be selfish, infantile, racist, misogynstic, etc., they're also allowed to display positive qualities. Tommy's good at his job and cares about his friends. Franco loves his daughter. Lou is a philosopher.
The show's attitude towards the female characters, on the other hand, can be summed up with a sequence from earlier in the episode, which Tommy refers to as "Crazy Chick Calling Day," where he simultaneously has to field phone calls from the women in his life: Janet the nag, who once kidnapped their kids and is now sleeping with his brother; Sheila, the doormat widow of Tommy's best friend, who still pines for Tommy; Mrs. Turbody, a sexual predator who sleeps with her high school students, and Maggie, Tommy's trampy, alcoholic sister.
Where we get to see the good and bad in all the men, the women are almost universally there to make life hell for the guys. Tommy Gavin no doubt believes that, but his show seems to believe it, too.
"In terms of what those women do," said Tolan, "we're obviously only showing parts of their lives, because our main story is the guys. We're not showing the full story. 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 ... We see Sheila and that as a positive."
The writers had an opportunity to incorporate a more well-rounded woman into the guys' world with Laura, the female firefighter played by Diane Farr for parts of the first two seasons. Initially, Farr seemed there to fill the same role she played on Leary and Tolan's short-lived ABC cop comedy "The Job," as the tough woman who calls the guys on all their macho idiocy. Instead, Laura was thrown into an affair with Franco (a decision Tolan later regretted) and was proven to be incompetent at the work.
That was the whole point of that character, according to Leary, who railed at length against the real FDNY's relaxed physical standards for female and minority applicants -- "She shouldn't have been there," he said of Laura. "She wasn't capable of doing it." -- before acknowledging that "I've met female firefighters from other parts of the country who are supremely physically able to do the job."
In fact, Leary and Tolan are considering adding a new female firefighter next season, who Tolan said might 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."
But right now, these are the female characters we have, and this is the scene we got, including Tommy's "I came, I saw, I conquered" expression as he walked out of the apartment -- which, to those who viewed the incident as rape, played as the show's endorsement of it.
"There's a lot of conjecture as to what that look means and what the whole act is actually about," said Tolan. "And this is what I think it's about, and this shows you how deeply disturbed these characters are. Yeah, you could say 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. ... A lot of people see that scene and say (it means), 'I got her back' (meaning revenge), but I see it as 'I got her back. My wife's back!'"
The incident is only briefly alluded to in tomorrow's episode, but Leary said it would be a more significant part of the rest of the season. But what do they say to the people who were too turned off by the storyline to wait and see where it's going?
"It's hard to tell somebody who's giving up on a show," said Leary. "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 Soprano 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."
(The difference, from my viewpoint, is that "The Sopranos" shows despicable acts without condoning them, a trick "Rescue Me" doesn't always pull off.)
"We would not write a scene to be provocative," insisted Tolan. "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 provocateurs, 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."
"That's true," Leary concurred. "If they didn't give a (bleep)..."
"... then," said Tolan, "we've failed all the way around."
http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/sepinwall/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1151327712165220.xml&coll=1
Inundated
06-26-06, 02:28 PM
Oops.
There doesn't seem to be a down arrow on stickies.
There has always been one for me...including on this thread...
CPanther95
06-26-06, 02:48 PM
That is the one I usually use.
But there often are a couple dozen items on a page and for those who check in once a day (or even less frequently), that can be a little unwieldy.
Note that that is Last Post not Last Page.
I think theoretically, it is supposed to be last viewed post. But it doesn't always work that way.
chris_h2
06-26-06, 02:53 PM
Can someone help me to setup a link so I come back to the last post I read in the thread, please? TIA.
Chage the properties of your bookmark to make the URL:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=440744&perpage=60&goto=newpost
The "newpost" is the trick.
Obviously, if you don't like my perpage of 60, pick your own.
harley1
06-26-06, 03:01 PM
The 40-Year-Old Virgin Executive
By BILL CARTER
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?hp&ex=1151294400&en=bb5a7429eb4bd81b&ei=5094&partner=homepage (http://)
Thanks harley. But I posted that last night here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7897831&&#post7897831
Washington Notebook
FCC Might Impose Restrictions on Sale of Adelphia
Opening of Sports Programming to Be Mandated?
By Paul Davidson USA Today June 26, 2006
Regulators appear set to impose conditions on the proposed sale of Adelphia Communications to Comcast and Time Warner to ensure that the cable operators provide their sports programming to satellite TV rivals at reasonable prices, say two Federal Communications Commission officials.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's proposal to clear the $17.6 billion sale of the troubled cable operator with conditions was delivered to the agency's four commissioners late last week, say the officials, who requested anonymity because the FCC hasn't voted on the deal. A vote is expected in mid-July.
Martin's proposal could restrain Comcast's and Time Warner's power to dominate new markets after they carve up Adelphia, and it could force them to cut their charges to satellite companies for sports programming. The cable operators propose to split Adelphia's 5.2 million subscribers and swap some systems to consolidate markets.
Martin's proposal would force the two cable giants to enter binding arbitration if they could not agree with pay-TV operators on the prices for showing big-league sports to audiences in the teams' home regions. In Chicago, DirecTV has said it pays Comcast's sports network exorbitant fees to carry the games of the Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks, Cubs and White Sox.
Martin, a Republican, also is recommending the companies be barred from withholding their regional sports networks from other pay-TV distributors, officials say.
But nothing would change in the only place Comcast now does that — Philadelphia. Comcast owns the sports network that shows the Phillies, Flyers and 76ers games, but it has refused to license broadcast rights to DirecTV and EchoStar. It could continue doing so under Martin's proposal.
A loophole in the FCC's program-access rules allows Comcast to withhold the games because it receives them via fiber-optic cable rather than satellite.
But neither Comcast nor Time Warner could use that loophole in the future. DirecTV has said it fears the companies will seek to buy regional sports networks and deny access to rivals as the Adelphia deal boosts their subscribers in pivotal cities. FCC approval is the final regulatory hurdle for the sale of Adelphia. The Federal Trade Commission cleared the takeover in January without conditions. A judge must still approve Adelphia's bankruptcy reorganization plan. The companies have said they expect the deal to close by July 31.
The FCC's two Democrats could push for conditions beyond Martin's proposal. They might want to bar the companies from blocking broadband subscribers' access to rival websites, a condition placed on recent telecom mergers.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2006-06-26-adelphia-usat_x.htm
Obituary
Arthur Malvin, 83
Lyricist, Composer Won Two Emmys
By Valerie J. Nelson Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 26, 2006
Arthur Malvin, a composer and lyricist whose work with Carol Burnett and Frank Sinatra earned him two Emmy Awards, and who received a Tony nomination for helping create the musical "Sugar Babies," has died. He was 83.
Malvin died in his sleep at his Century City home June 16 after a long illness, said his daughter, Janet Malvin.
In 1978, Malvin shared an Emmy with Stan Freeman for the mini-musical "Hi-Hat," a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers parody the pair wrote for "The Carol Burnett Show." He spent 11 years working on the CBS variety program.
He also received an Emmy in 1968 for writing musical material for a Frank Sinatra television special, "A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim," which featured Ella Fitzgerald and Brazilian bossa nova singer Antonio Carlos Jobim.
"Sinatra was historically known as being difficult to work with, but my father had a fabulous experience," said David Malvin, one of Malvin's two sons.
"It was a highlight of his career."
Another pinnacle was writing material for "Sugar Babies," a pastiche of old-time burlesque material that starred Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller. His nomination for original score was one of eight Tony nominations the musical received in 1980.
"Putting together a Broadway show is usually a long, protracted process," said David Malvin, a former stage manager.
"He came out of 'The Carol Burnett Show,' where they were doing a Broadway show every week. When he showed up for the first rehearsal with everything written, everyone asked, 'What do we do for the rest of the rehearsals?' "
Malvin was born July 7, 1922, in New York City, the youngest of five children of Bernard and Sophie Malvin, Jewish immigrants who had left czarist Russia. His father ran a small hand laundry.
After securing his first singing gig at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, a teenage Malvin got through his first performance by hiding in his hand a 5-cent song sheet with lyrics to the popular songs of the day.
In 1942, he joined the Claude Thornhill Orchestra, a big band known for its innovative arrangements. Later that year, Malvin organized a vocal group called the Crew Chiefs that sang with Maj. Glenn Miller's Army Air Forces Orchestra.
When Malvin was asked, " 'Daddy, what did you do in the war?' he was particularly fond of saying, 'I made doo-wah against the Germans,' " his son said.
After World War II, Malvin toured as a soloist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra that was led by Tex Beneke.
He also sang on children's records and recorded advertising jingles for Sominex, Blue Bonnet margarine, Tang drink mix and many others, Janet Malvin said.
"He wasn't a name, but he was a voice that everyone knew," his daughter said.
As rock music infiltrated advertising in the 1960s, pushing aside Malvin's baritone, he increasingly composed for television, his daughter said.
He worked with Pat Boone, Andy Williams, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and others.
In addition to his son David of Las Vegas and daughter Janet of Oakland, Malvin is survived by Irene, his wife of 56 years; another son, Daniel, of Los Angeles; and four grandchildren.
http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-me-malvin26jun26,0,5776005.story?coll=cl-tvent
DoubleDAZ
06-26-06, 03:25 PM
Note that that is Last Post not Last Page.
I think theoretically, it is supposed to be last viewed post. But it doesn't always work that way.I didn't know about the Down arrow, but I've tried all the rest. Some take you to the last viewed post, but I believe only if it's on the last page and that's why I gave up. It sure has been a pain to scrolling up or to a previous page to find the last read post though and I'd welcome help. I'm going to leave my posts/page setting alone until I see if the Down arrow will take me to the right page if that's where my last read post is. Thanks for the tips though.:)
(from Brian Stelter’s TVNewser at mediabistro.com)
Exclusive: Michael Rubin Becomes Longform VP At MSNBC
First on TVNewser:
Michael Rubin has returned to MSNBC as Vice President of Long-form Programming, the network confirmed this afternoon. Rubin, the former executive producer of MSNBC Investigates, "was just brought back last week," a tipster said.
Earlier today, another tipster called Rubin the "primetime tape czar." Today's NYT said viewers should expect one or two hours of longform in MSNBC's primetime, perhaps as early as this summer...
http://mediabistro.com/tvnewser/
Critic’s Notebook
''He Raped Her''
By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog
There's been an ongoing debate about last week's episode of ''Rescue Me,'' because of the scene where Tommy and his ex-wife Janet had a confrontation that looked like a textbook rape. Even worse, it fell back on a pulp-fiction cliche, with Janet becoming aroused during the assault, suggesting as too many things have that conflict with a woman can be settled in a direct physical way.
You can see where I stand on the incident. It bothered me when I watched it, and it seemed even weirder when the episode airing tomorrow night -- which FX had made available for preview -- acted for the most part as if the incident was just another dispute in the long history of Gavin marital disputes.
But the reaction to the scene has been sufficiently strong that the makers of ''Rescue Me'' have been trying to address viewer concerns.
You can find a detailed Alan Sepinwell interview with Peter Tolan and Denis Leary here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7899780&&#post7899780
So I wanted another set of eyes to see the scene.
I turned, therefore, to the bride. She is a ''Rescue Me'' fan, as am I, although I had reservations about this season from the beginning. In fact, ''Rescue Me'' is a show we usually watch together.
We didn't do that with last week's, and I had seen the scene before she did. I waited until she had watched it, and kept quiet about the controversy. And when she was done, I asked her what had happened in the scene.
''He raped her,'' she said. No elaboration. No equivocation. No considering what the producers or the writers or the directors or the cast might have had in mind. She knew what she had seen.
So when I read the defenses of the scene, I feel as if someone is repeating the old line about ''what are you going to believe -- your eyes or me?'' I'll believe my eyes, and my bride's. And I have to think the people on ''Rescue Me'' just didn't see what they were doing -- didn't see that Gavin is the guy that we saw beat his own brother bloody not long ago, that Leary is quite capable of conveying a frightening aggresiveness, and that this show for the most part is not kind to the women on it.
Yes, the men are messed up, too, but they're allowed at least to be good at their jobs; the women are allowed to be good at sex but not much else.
The only women I can think of who have been portrayed sympathetically are Theresa, the probie's plus-sized girlfriend (played by Ashlie Atkinson), and Alicia, the new character played by Susan Sarandon. Then I'm not sure what we're to make of the probie's dealing with women given the latest turn in his sex life. And Alicia's taking of Franco's daughter can cause some arguments. I really liked the scene where she explained her motives to Gavin, since she turned the firefighters' views of women back against them. But when I was talking about that scene with Alan, he kept saying, ''Yeah, but she stole Franco's kid.''
http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn”
One correction, and super-size it!
This item ran at the end of Tom Shales's column in TelevisionWeek this week:
"Apologies:
Last week's column included a reference to "Good Morning America" producer Ben Sherwood having allegedly been forced out of his job. Reliable sources at ABC insist that Sherwood resigned.
Also, a reference to Robin Roberts as seeming too "butch" on the air represented my own personal reaction to her style as a communicator and wasn't meant to imply anything whatsoever about her life outside 'GMA'."
http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/
The Business of TV
Fox Crosses Upfront Finish Line
By Allison Romano BroadcastingCable.com 6/26/2006 4:10:00 PM
Fox is the first network to finish its deals in the 2006 upfront, selling out about 80% of its inventory and writing $1.8 billion in upfront business. The network, whose American Idol has been a spectacular success, also secured 2%-3% increases on CPMs (cost per thousand viewers), according to executives familiar with the deals.
Overall, the broadcast upfront market is expected to be off from the 2005-06 season, when advertisers committed $9.1 billion. Early forecasts called for this year's tally to reach $9 billion, although some industry executives now say the haul could dip as low as $8.8 billion to $8.5 billion.
Also Monday, the other broadcast networks are moving closer to wrapping up their advance sales. NBC is nearly finished with its deals, taking in about $1.9 million, flat with last year, and CPMs down 5%. NBC sold more inventory to make up for the drop in prices, insiders said.
The CW, selling its first upfront before its Sept. 18 debut, is nearly finished writing business. The network's overall take is said to be about $625 million to $650 million, and CPMs are up low single digits from The WB's rates, according to executives. The CW is said to have signed more advertisers than its predecessors, The WB and UPN.
CBS and ABC were said to be very close to finishing their deals Monday. Analysts are projecting CBS will take in about $2.2 billion and flat CPMs, while ABC will take in $2.2 billion, up $100 million from last year, with 1% CPM increases.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6347287
Late Night Replays
SNL Classics
(From NBC)
NBC has announced a schedule for some classic Saturday Night Live episodes.
(Sunday, 1:00 a.m. – 2:30 a.m.)
July 1: Ron Howard / The Clash (OAD - 10/9/82)
July 8: Judge Reinhold / 10,000 Maniacs (OAD - 2/27/88)
July 15: Jason Alexander / Peter Gabriel (OAD - 4/10/93)
July 22: Tom Arnold / Tupac (OAD - 2/17/96)
"OAD" - "Original Air Date."
It'll be interesting to see how the final episode leaves us.
Showtime didn't even have the decency to remove the little epilogue by Blythe Danner about "the long wait until next season", I actually felt embarrassed for her.
Fantastic episode BTW, what a shame it's gone.
TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic
Question: OK, I have a serious problem with one of the best shows of recent years. Rescue Me is brilliantly acted, perfectly observed and has a wonderfully dark sense of humor. I nevertheless find it an absolute chore to watch because of its central character. I'm not terribly fond of any of the boys at Ladder 62 (they suffer from a severe collective case of testosterone poisoning), but Tommy Gavin is detestable, and I often find it well nigh impossible to have an interest in his redemption. And the show comes way too close to sharing his point of view.
The most risible example of this came during last week's episode, where he forcibly raped his ex-wife, and she apparently enjoyed the experience. Are we actually supposed to identify with his cocky swagger, or is this just a particularly grim joke on the part of Denis Leary, et al? Should the creators maybe take a step back and look at Tommy for what he truly is? — Ryan
Matt Roush: Oh, I think it's pretty clear everyone involved knows all too well what a mess Tommy is. He is currently the most extreme example of antiheroism on TV since the early days of Andy Sipowicz on NYPD Blue, and from what we've seen lately, Tommy's redemption (if it ever actually occurs) will be a lot longer in coming. It isn't pretty to watch.
But then, as I've often said, the best FX shows are not for those with queasy dispositions. To me, in this particular episode the key metaphor was Lou flirting with the third rail in his drunken despair. All of these men are on the edge, flirting with disaster and self-destruction as they strut their machismo at their own peril. Tommy's sexual assault on Janet was especially disturbing, I agree, and I was also surprised to see the smirk on his face as he drove off. The entire incident was ugly, dark, complicated and nasty, leaving both participants dazed. I'm not sure it's fair to say that Janet "enjoyed" what happened, but it didn't destroy her, either. She and Tommy are yoked, for good and for bad, and this explosion of rage and animal violence is just the latest awful incident.
Does Rescue Me glorify Tommy's actions? Probably, given all the women he's juggling who can't get enough of him: Janet, Sheila, the sexy schoolteacher. Leary has so much charisma that he keeps you (or at least me) glued to his story, alternately amused and appalled. If he were any less horrible, he and the show would probably be a lot less interesting. It is what it is, and I don't see it changing.
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Question: My question has to do with the new TNT show Saved. So far I like what I've seen. Wyatt Cole appears to be an interesting antihero. At first, the gambling and daddy issues seemed a bit obvious (not to mention the fact that they've been done to death), but when I thought about it further, I realized that they make perfect sense if you consider the privileged life he was able to lead because of his brilliant doctor father. It'll be fun to see where they take this character. I also liked the photomontage sequences that provided a small glimpse into each patient's life. I thought it was a fresh and interesting way to tell their stories. What do you think? — Amy
Matt Roush: I'm going to give this one a few more episodes before I make a final judgment, but I agree more with your initial impression. To me, it's a poor man's Rescue Me. Saved seems ponderous and pretentious, where Rescue Me is provocative and shockingly entertaining. I've always liked Tom Everett Scott, but I find the particulars of his callow character awfully familiar, and few of the people in his life are fascinating (or well-acted) enough to compel me to make this essential viewing. The patients' flashback-montage device is fresh at first, but also repetitive and gimmicky — again, not a strong enough hook to make the show truly stand out. In a summer so full of compelling options, I'm just not sure I can save room for Saved.
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Question: Just watched the series premiere of Treasure Hunters, and I enjoyed it (especially the interactive portion, hokey as it was) in spite of myself. Someone should turn the producers on to a little show called The Amazing Race, if you ask me. But anyway, my Question: Is host Laird Macintosh a robot? Really seems like it. Or is this one for Ask Ausiello? Thanks! — Brad
Matt Roush: With Ausiello currently on a well-earned summer break, I guess I'll field this. Laird Macintosh may not be an actual robot, but he plays one on TV. Are those cell-phone instructions not the cheesiest use of a host since, maybe, the disembodied head on the repulsive Unan1mous? While Treasure Hunters isn't a bottom-feeder like that Fox atrocity, I found the setup needlessly, even comically, confusing, and the rip-off factor (not just of The Amazing Race, but of The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure) more than a little off-putting.
I'm not wild about the teams-of-three setup: too many characters, not enough character distinction. And the opening gimmick of separating the 10 teams into groups of five was beyond pointless. On the plus side, the puzzle aspect involving national (and, I'm hoping, international) monuments is promising, and the location photography is good so far. All in all, I'll give it a C grade, which is pretty good considering how lousy most of this summer reality crud is. (My summer litmus test: Will I record Treasure Hunters next time I go away? Absolutely not.)
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Question: If Fox moves Bones to Friday, what will happen to Ghost Whisperer? I think the Friday-night lineup is perfect as is. If they move Bones to compete with Ghost Whisperer, Ghost Whisperer will win out at my house. Why not leave well enough alone? We stayed with Bones when it was moved once already. — Margaret
Matt Roush: As I've said before, worrying about this kind of mid-season move is premature. Fox is notorious for announcing mid-season schedules long before the actual season even begins, and not following through. Any number of circumstances could keep Bones snugly harbored on a weeknight where it belongs. (But being a self-contained procedural, it may do better than we imagine on Fridays, and even if it tanks there, I doubt the network will hold that against the show.) To address your specific question, Bones and Ghost Whisperer may sound like they reside in the same graveyard, but they're very different shows, and I imagine both could successfully coexist in the same time period. If you asked me to pick, it wouldn't even be close — Bones all the way.
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Question: Are there any plans to rerun this past season's episodes of The Sopranos and Big Love? — Arlene
Matt Roush: Not immediately, as far as I can tell. But if you've ever been an HBO subscriber, you know these episodes will turn up eventually, probably as a prelude to the next season's premiere. The complete seasons of both series are currently on HBO On Demand (which I love), and my system shows them as being available through early July.
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Question:I just watched the wonderful Live from Lincoln Center presentation of The Light in the Piazza. I was wondering if the program is eligible for Emmy nominations next year (especially Victoria Clark)? They definitely deserve them! — Jamie
Matt Roush: I would imagine the show and the Tony-winning Victoria Clark would be eligible. (Brian Dennehy was nominated for his performance in the Showtime presentation of his Tony-winning work in Death of a Salesman.) I've seen Piazza three times in person, and thought it translated quite well to TV. I'm glad to have a permanent recording of Clark's work in particular. One of the most romantic scores I've heard in ages. Glad you caught it.
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Question: I've noticed Lifetime is promoting a new show called Angela's Eyes, but they have not said anything about the new season of Missing. Does this mean that it won't be back on the air? The last episode was labeled a "season finale." — Kaycee
Matt Roush: When that finale aired, Lifetime may not have canceled the show yet. But it has now. Missing is, I guess you could say, missing for good.
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Question: The Oscar voters seem to go out of their way to nominate the "little guys." Felicity Huffman was nominated for Transamerica even if the movie made less than $3 million at the box office. Why can't it be the same for the Emmys? If the Oscar voters were anything like Emmy voters, then Crash or Brokeback Mountain wouldn't even be on the list of nominations.
I am especially nervous about the category for best actress in a comedy: I agree with you that Marcia Cross deserves to win. She makes the transition from a psychotic alcoholic to a caring mother look so freakin' easy! Unfortunately, I have a feeling that Teri Hatcher will also be nominated. She's a great actress, but there are actresses who are more deserving. Huffman is always great, but this season of Desperate Housewives belonged to Cross. Mary-Louise Parker will probably get nominated, too. Other nominees I'd like to see are Lisa Kudrow — sadly, I think the Emmy voters might pass on her, and though she was on HBO, her show was low-rated — and Lauren Graham. Graham's yearly absence from the list makes her the perfect poster child for everything that is wrong with the Emmy system. Do you think the new system for the Emmys will make a difference? By the way, are you an Emmy voter? — Jake
Matt Roush: Don't I wish I were an Emmy voter! It would be nice to think that someone who actually watches TV were involved in the process. (I'm not a member of the television academy, so I don't qualify.)
I hope this year's new system will allow for some underdogs to slip in, but I'm not counting on it. I imagine the nominations will continue to be dominated by longtime industry faves, a handful of newer breakthrough hits, a smattering of cult items (the showing of Arrested Development in the last few seasons gives me hope) and, maybe, an authentic surprise. Lauren Graham getting a nomination would certainly qualify. I'd guess that Marcia Cross, Felicity Huffman and Mary-Louise Parker are shoo-ins. A third Housewife (Teri Hatcher, most likely) is also possible. And I imagine Julia Louis-Dreyfus will make the cut for Old Christine. If only two Housewives are nominated, which would be the right way to go, that would leave an opening for Lisa Kudrow, who was brilliant in the less-than-brilliant The Comeback. It really all depends on how slavishly devoted the Emmys will be toward Housewives, which was wrongly denied the best comedy Emmy last year and doesn't deserve it for this season.
But to your larger point about the differences between the Oscars and the Emmys: It seems to me that the Oscars can't help but nominate low-budget, breakthrough independent films like Brokeback Mountain and Crash, because so many of the blockbuster movies are creatively bankrupt. Seriously, could you imagine that last Star Wars movie getting serious nominations? By comparison, most of the top-rated TV shows are actually quite excellent these days. (Which isn't to say the lower-rated gems aren't equally worthy of Emmy attention.) The real problem in the Emmy process is the crushing volume of TV product, which ensures there will always be quality shows that fly under the radar.
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Question: Perhaps your mailbag is full of naysayers' responses to CSI's finale because those of us who love the Grissom and Sara relationship have no need or reason to complain. Please don't use that as a radar to detect how the general public feels. I've found more closet Grissom-Sara fans among my closest friends after the finale than I thought was possible. You should know that people who are unhappy generally create the most noise. But I thought I'd just send in a little "Yay!" to help balance out your mailbag. — Ann
Matt Roush: Ah, the issue that refuses to die. I'm happy to note that I got a bunch of corrective responses like this from those who liked how the season ended. But I'm siding most closely with Brenda, who wrote in with this observation: "Do you think it occurs to any of these people bitching and moaning about the ending of CSI that maybe, just maybe, we won't see any romance between Grissom and Sara? Maybe it will be a little secret shared between the audience and those two characters." Indeed. Anyone who's confusing CSI for a soap opera is watching a different show than I am.
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Question: Do you think they should start a brand-new series of Charmed called "The Charmed Sons," featuring Piper's two boys, Wyatt and Chris? I know I would like it. I dearly miss Charmed, and I've been watching it since I was 8 years old. — Shantel
Matt Roush: Now that you've grown up, what better time than to face this reality of TV life: No TV show lasts forever. Let it go. (The more serious answer would be to note that part of the Charmed appeal was in its empowered female characters. A show built around two male offspring wouldn't have the same allure, I'm guessing. But since I wouldn't be watching regardless, I may not be the appropriate person to ask.)
http://tvguide.com/tv/roush/askmatt/
Cable TV Notebook
MSNBC's Familiar Longform Strategy
(from Brian Stelter’s TVNewser at mediabistro.com)
May 8, 2000, Washington Post: MSNBC president Erik Sorenson says he's trying to "broaden the mix" so that MSNBC, unlike its rivals, doesn't simply run "talk shows and headline interviews."
June 26, 2006, Nwe York Times: NBC News president Steve Capus says "all three channels are doing a variation of headline news all day and talk shows at night. We need to get away from that."
Michael Rubin's return and MSNBC's plans for taped programming in primetime could be considered a "back to the future" strategy for the cable news network. In slower news periods, the net has a tendency to place newsmagazines like MSNBC Investigates and Headliners & Legends in primetime slots. It's an instinct: "let's go to the tape." When the news picks up (election season, Sept. 11, the war in Iraq), the programs are shelved. But they usually re-appear before too long.
In 1999, Rubin left CBS (where he worked on Eye to Eye, Street Stories, and Public Eye) and joined MSNBC as the producer of Special Edition, a nightly 8pm newsmagazine hosted by Ann Curry. Around the same time, Headliners & Legends with Matt Lauer premiered at 10pm.
Then-president Erik Sorenson said he was stocking up on documentaries as an alternative to typical nightly talk shows.
In May 2000, (The Washington Post's)Howard Kurtz analyzed the 8pm content. In one week, Special Edition (and Monday's Crime Files) dealt with child sexual abuse, mountain lions and coyotes that attack, Mary Kay LeTourneau, and private eyes who catch cheating spouses.
A month later, in June 2000, Hardball was moved from 7 to 5pm, making way for a rotation of long-form programs. "I'm told that the cable station wants to move away from the unscripted, confrontational format that served it so well during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and for such stories as the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy Jr. and the saga of Elian Gonzalez -- at least during prime time," the NY Daily News said at the time.
Some of the newsmags were temporarily dropped in favor of Decision 2000 coverage and a second hour of political talk with Chris Matthews, but the tape came back. In June 2001, MSNBC moved The News with Brian Williams to 8pm and introduced "MSNBC Investigates" at 9pm.
The channel was criticized for "pandering" to the 25-54 demo, but they worked: "They have helped give MSNBC the youngest of the news audiences, with a median age of about 51," the New York Times said on Aug. 5, 2001.
After Sept. 11, 2001, live shows by hosts like Ashleigh Banfield and Alan Keyes replaced some of the newsmag hours. But the programs faded quickly. When Banfield's On Location was cancelled in October 2002, episodes of MSNBC Investigates filled the timeslot. The network brought in Dateline EP Marc Rossensasser to oversee primetime. Before long, shows like "Countdown: Iraq" and "Scarborough Country" premiered, forming the basis of the primetime schedule you see now...
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/msnbc/msnbcs_familiar_longform_strategy_39147.asp#more
TV Notebook
Aaron Spelling Buried
The Associated Press reports that “…A private burial service was held for Aaron Spelling, who died last week at 83.
Sunday's family only graveside service at Hillside Memorial Park was attended by Spelling's widow, Candy, son Randy, daughter Tori and the producer's brother Danny Spelling, publicist Kevin Sasaki said Monday.
No other details were released. Sasaki said an entertainment industry memorial service was planned in about a month….”
The Business of TV
NBC Wraps Upfront
$1.9 Billion Haul Flat With Last Year
By John Consoli MediaWeek.com JUNE 26, 2006 -
NBC has completed its upfront selling, taking in $1.9 billion, the same total as last year, with most deals done at negative 5-6 percent cost-per-thousand and about 71 percent of its total inventory sold, sources familiar with the negotiations said. NBC sold about four percent more inventory in the upfront than last year, sources said, and the total upfront take includes sales for Sunday Night Football.
Sources said NBC sold an additional $50 million not included in the $1.9 billion total for straight digital sales, and about $200 million of the $1.9 billion total was dollars brought in because of digital tie-ins with TV programming.
The cable networks owned by NBC, news and entertainment combined, are between 30-40 percent sold in their upfront inventory, sources said, with some of those cable sales also being done with agencies while they were buying broadcast.
NBC-owned Telemundo is said to be about 60 percent done with its upfront selling, and the remainder of the inventory that network has to sell in the upfront could be sold by the end of this week.
Sources familiar with the negotiations said new sitcom 30 Rock and new dramas Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Kidnapped drew the most interest among media buyers, and returning sitcoms My Name is Earl and The Office also drew a lot of buyer spending.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002728323
TV Notebook
Patricia Arquette Marries
By Stephen M. Silverman and Pamela Warrick people.com Monday Jun 26, 2006
Emmy-winning Medium star Patricia Arquette tied the knot with her longtime boyfriend, actor Thomas Jane, this past weekend, the actress's rep tells PEOPLE.
"It was a small, intimate celebration with close family," says Arquette's spokesperson. They were wed at the Palazzo Contarini in Venice, Italy.
The couple first became engaged in 2002 and have a 3-year-old daughter, Harlow Olivia Calliope.
This is the second marriage for both. Jane, 37, was previously married to actress Aysha Hauer, the daughter of Rutger Hauer. The actor's credits include roles in The Punisher, Under Suspicion and Magnolia.
Arquette, 38, has a 17-year-old son, Enzo, born in 1989, from a relationship with musician Paul Rossi. She was also wed to Nicolas Cage, though nine months after their 1995 wedding they reportedly separated only to continue appearing in public together as a couple.
In 1996, two months after the split, lawyers drew up legal separation papers for the Cages, though the divorce was not finalized until 1998.
http://people.aol.com/people/articles/0,19736,1208107,00.html
PICTURE CREDIT: ALEX BERLINER / BERLINER STUDIO / BEIMAGES
TV Notebook
Frasier's Best Friend 'Eddie' Dies
By Pamela Warrick People.com Monday Jun 26, 2006
Moose, the feisty Jack Russell terrier who played Eddie for 10 years on TV's Frasier, has died, his trainer Mathilde Halberg tells PEOPLE.
"He was 16-and-a-half years old, and he just had an incredible charisma and was a such a free spirit," said Halberg. Moose, considered the Lassie of the '90s, died Thursday night of old age at Halberg's Los Angeles-area home.
Moose retired from showbiz when he was 10, and, although he also played a starring role in the 2000 Frankie Muniz-Kevin Bacon feature My Dog Skip (as the older Skip), he was best known for stealing scenes from Kelsey Grammer on the long-running Emmy-winning NBC sitcom.
"He was always trying to put Frasier in uncomfortable circumstances," said his trainer, who had rescued him in the early 1990s.
"I saved him from the pound. His owners called me as a last resort," Halberg recalled. "He was extremely mischievous, always escaping, chewing up things and running off. When he killed a neighbor's cat and chased some horses, that was it."
Not that anyone who owns a Jack Russell would find such behavior surprising. "But then," remembered his trainer, "he began his career, and he will never be forgotten."
http://people.aol.com/people/articles/0,19736,1208083,00.html
PICTURE CREDIT: EVERETT COLLECTION
Cable TV Notebook
TNT Could Overtake USA for Q2
Second-Quarter Ratings Show Squeaker Race
By James Hibberd TVWeek.com June 26, 2006
After two quarters in USA's submission hold, TNT is poised to reclaim the basic cable top spot among total prime-time viewers and adults 18 to 49 for the second quarter.
Final data won't be released until Tuesday, but according to Nielsen Media Research figures from March 27 through June 18, NBA playoffs and the original series "The Closer" have given TNT a hairline lead over wrestling-fueled USA. The tight race comes despite a 19 percent quarterly increase for the NBC Universal-owned USA.
As of June 19, TNT was ahead with 2.59 million total viewers to USA's 2.54 million. Among viewers 18 to 49, TNT led with 1.21 million viewers to USA's 1.15 million.
In the fourth quarter of 2005, USA's telecasts of World Wrestling Entertainment's "Raw" led to the channel's overtaking TNT for the first time in five years, a lead that continued through the first quarter of 2006. This season's NBA playoffs helped bump TNT to a narrow lead, and also boosted ESPN -- which enjoyed a 28 percent increase from the same quarter last year among adults 18 to 49. Pro sports also helped OLN, which increased about 141 percent from Q2 2005 among 18 to 49 due to its NHL coverage.
Other networks on the rise for the second quarter among adults 18 to 49 include Biography Channel, up 68 percent thanks to sister channel A&E Networks scheduling fewer "Biography" episodes; and Comedy Central, up about 12 percent due to increased viewership of "South Park."
Declining networks include Spike TV, which was down 18 percent among viewers 18 to 49, partly due to losing its wrestling programming. Lifetime was also down by 16 percent, blamed on waning viewership of original and theatrical movies. Sci Fi Channel was also down 16 percent due to underperforming theatrical titles.
Among original series, "The Closer" took the top spot among 18 to 49, followed by "South Park," USA's "The 4400," MTV's "Real World 17," FX's "Rescue Me" and Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch." Coming in at No. 7 was a new entry, TNT's "Saved," with MTV getting a debut entry at No. 10: "The Hills."
http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10269
Chage the properties of your bookmark to make the URL:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=440744&perpage=60&goto=newpost
The "newpost" is the trick.
Obviously, if you don't like my perpage of 60, pick your own.
That's the one I was looking for, thanks!
I rarely post development news. But the names involved in this project are just too good to ignore.
Cable TV Notebook
Fincher, Gelbart Team for FX Series
Pair's Project Takes Crack At Comedy on Basic Cable
By James Hibberd TVWeek.com June 26, 2006
"Fight Club" director David Fincher and "M*A*S*H" writer Larry Gelbart have a new comedy series in development at FX, sources said.
The untitled project is about a psychologist who becomes the flavor of the month among Hollywood celebrities due to his penchant for ruthless honesty. Mr. Fincher and Mr. Gelbart will executive produce.
If greenlighted, the project would be the first television series for Mr. Fincher, who scored critical and box office success with "Seven," "Fight Club" and "Panic Room." Mr. Fincher also has a small role portraying himself in the premiere episode of FX's upcoming drama "Dirt."
In addition to developing the movie "M*A*S*H" for television, Mr. Gelbart's credits include his Academy Award-nominated screenplay for "Tootsie." The proposed FX series would be his first television project since the 2003 HBO film "And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself."
In a June 19 interview with TelevisionWeek, FX President and General Manager John Landgraf expressed doubt about the viability of scripted comedy on basic cable.
Still, he added, that doesn't mean a network won't formulate a fresh take on the genre and prove the conventional wisdom wrong. With the renewal of FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and the development of the Fincher/Gelbart project, Mr. Landgraf aims for FX to be the first cable network to break the scripted comedy jinx.
An FX spokesman declined on behalf of the network, Mr. Fincher and Mr. Gelbart to comment on the project.
http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=30106
...and for the laugh out loud crazy twist, he'll be a scientologist!
It might be hard to get a lot of Hollywood actors to sign on for the show in that case :)
Sports On TV
Univision's Mexico v. Argentina Breaks Viewing Record
By John Consoli MediaWeek.com JUNE 26, 2006 -
Univision's broadcast of the Mexico v. Argentina World Cup soccer match on Saturday (June 24) drew 6.7 million viewers, including 4.3 million in the 18-49 demo, making it the largest single sports telecast among Hispanic viewers ever, including the Super Bowl.
The game, which aired in the late morning in the U.S., was also the fifth most watched broadcast of any type on Spanish-language television.
Through June 24th, Univision Network's World Cup coverage is averaging 2.1 million viewers, up 133 percent over the 2002 World Cup telecasts; and 1.3 million viewers 18-49, up 147 percent over the 2002 World Cup.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002728492
RussTC3
06-27-06, 12:03 AM
Showtime didn't even have the decency to remove the little epilogue by Blythe Danner about "the long wait until next season", I actually felt embarrassed for her.
Fantastic episode BTW, what a shame it's gone.
Sorry, keenan, I only just now noticed this post. Sometimes it gets hard to keep track of a constantly updated thread.
I agree with your first part.
And I most certainly agree with your second point. What an amazing episode! Satisfying on so many levels. It will be a shame this show will no longer be around, but when it ends like this (they must have realized this was going to be the last year) you can't help but feel satisfied. There is not a better way I could have imagined the show to end.
Plus they crammed so much into this episode, and the performances from the cast were just amazing. I mean, one example would be Bird. I had a hard time understanding and believing in Bird's sudden change of character in the second season, but he just absolutely NAILED that performance and made me believe.
And how about the closing and the music that was chosen?
Simply amazing...
Showtime didn't even have the decency to remove the little epilogue by Blythe Danner about "the long wait until next season", I actually felt embarrassed for her.
Fantastic episode BTW, what a shame it's gone.The reason Showtime kept it was that it was a commercial about the new Showtime series the "Brotherhood." The actual quote was "Ah, another great season comes to an end. Now the long wait." Sometimes DVRs come in handy to replay scenes. Then she said that "Brotherhood" was going to be shown in this time period and Showtime showed scenes from "Brotherhood".
There were several major threads left hanging. Would Beth and Huff get back together? What would happen to Russell who was arrested on drug charges? Would Russell's baby be ok since Russell had to deliver it? What would happen to Teddy after he attacked his girlfriend? And on and on.
It would be great if Showtime would make a movie to conclude it like HBO is doing for Deadwood, but I doubt if that happens.
Critc’s Notebook
'Rescue Me' takes a dark and troubling twist
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Sensitivity isn't exactly "Rescue Me's" calling card, and the final scenes of last week's episode left no doubts about that. It will go down as one of the year's darkest TV moments.
Instead of simply taking what happened at face value -- which, mind you, one can't be blamed for doing -- try looking at it another way. Creators Denis Leary and Peter Tolan may have been trying to change the way we look at New York firefighter Tommy Gavin: to stop us from liking this drunken, imploding selfish excuse for a man as much as we do.
Mission accomplished, guys. Not sure if we should thank you yet, though.
(Warning: If you haven't seen the episode, stop reading.)
What we're dancing around is a violation. Foremost, it violated the viewer's connection with Tommy, gloriously played by Leary.
We've embraced Tommy the hero, laughed with Tommy the comedian, giggled at Tommy the stud, pitied Tommy the drunk, the failed husband and father of a murdered kid.
We even understood when Tommy rearranged his brother Johnny's (Dean Winters) face upon finding out he was sleeping with his wife, Janet (Andrea Roth), before their dead marriage was even cold.
And we're at a loss for what to do with Tommy the rapist.
Now, Leary and Tolan insist that what happened last week was not rape. But what else would you call it when a man lashes out at his wife, throws her down on the couch, forces himself inside her and leaves with a smirk on his face? To read that description, the term seems pretty clear.
Except it wasn't. The definition changed with the expression on Leary and Roth's faces. Within that excruciating act, blind violence softened into emotional pain, passion and, then in the end, two estranged lovers in silent confusion. Roth's eyes weren't angry, they were saying, "How in the hell did we get here?"
I have to say, I resent that "Rescue Me" has put viewers into a position in which examining a pivotal point in this season requires the deconstruction of a sexual assault. The show already has a terrible reputation for its portrayal of women. Now this.
But I'm not quite ready to organize a Take Back the Night rally. Here's why: For two seasons, Leary and Tolan have gone to great lengths to depict how damaged Tommy is, probably beyond repair, and how unapologetic he is about his messy soul.
Damaged people happen to attract other damaged people, whether they be predators or prey. And if a band of screwed-up guys are hard to take, damaged women who put up with them -- Janet, Tommy's needy ex, Sheila (Callie Thorne), and his sister, Maggie (appallingly acted by Tatum O'Neal) are no less so.
This does not excuse the assault, or whatever you would call it. But we have to recognize all those shattered spirits. They're staring us in the face.
Not all the women are furies. Susan Sarandon has been allowed to maintain her poise four episodes in, a minor grace. That changes, but take solace in the way she is now.
Marisa Tomei looks like another welcome addition. She makes her debut in tonight's episode as Johnny's ex-wife.
Regardless of what they dish out, though, Tommy still will be the worst of them all. Our laughter tends to help us overlook Tommy the absentee father. When he treats the women in his life like Kleenex, objects to be sullied and tossed aside, he always justifies it to himself by hiding behind tragedies -- 9/11, his dangerous job, his son's death, his brother's betrayal.
But tonight's episode (10 p.m. on FX) gives that shock to the system a purpose, if you can call it that. It could serve the last in a long line of crimes that sets in motion his reckoning -- touched off, appropriately, by a woman's observation. Asking Tommy, who has two daughters, if he knew that the first man girls fall in love with are their dads, he sarcastically replies, "I'm aware of this theory, and it's a bunch of bull---t."
"So, you don't have anything in common with your wife's father?"
"No. Nothing. He was in real estate," Tommy responds. "... He got up every morning and thought about how to rip people off, OK? ... He was a selfish, self-centered, greedy ... lying ... cheating ... midget!"
With this, and a flock of other chickens coming home to roost, it looks like Tommy finally is going to take a hard look at his life.
We'll see if it sticks. From here on out, it's up to Tolan and Leary to persuade us to keep making those dangerous leaps with them.
A dull 'Blade'
Sticky the Vampire Slayer. Doesn't exactly crackle, does it?
But it suits the television adaptation of "Blade: The Series," Spike TV's first scripted series, which premieres at 10 p.m. tomorrow.
"Blade" is a spinoff of Wesley Snipes' three movie franchise, which went from OK to "Whoa, that's bad!" to an unintentional comedy.
So inspired, the television series is about as good as you would expect it to be. Which is to say, it's agonizing. Randy Quaid is in it. Need I say more?
The main star is Kirk "Sticky" Jones, who plays Marvel Comics' half-human, half-vampire hero. Blade has all the undead's strengths but can strut around in daylight, wearing a remarkably badass leather trench coat.
Alas, Blade is not invulnerable to creative impalement. Jones isn't exactly up to the challenge of martial-arts choreography or, for that matter, acting.
You'd be better served by the comic books.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/275400_tv27.html
Critc’s Notebook
Two NBC shows about another NBC series
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor in his blog “Tuned In” Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Continuing my previews of new fall series, I popped in NBC's two seemingly similar series "30 Rock" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." While both do go behind-the-scenes of a "Saturday Night Live"-type series, they're dissimilar enough to warrant spots on NBC's fall schedule.
I enjoyed both pilots (to varying degrees), but American viewers have shown a remarkable disinterest in inside Hollywood stories, tuning out just about every one that's come down the pike in the last decade ("Larry Sanders Show" and "Entourage" are the notable exceptions, and they were both on HBO, which cares less about ratings than NBC does).
I expect the spin at press tour next month, particularly in regards to the Aaron Sorkin-scripted "Studio 60," will be, "People said you couldn't do politics on television and then along came 'The West Wing.'"
And perhaps that will be true.
"West Wing" fans, in particular, should appreciate the smart writing and quick pace of "Studio 60." But will they care enough about the characters, many of whom are a good bit less-easy-to-love than the "West Wing" crew?
We'll find out this fall.
http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/tunedin/
TV Notebook
NBC to run TV promos on YouTube
By Andrew Wallenstein The Hollywood Reporter June 27, 2006
NBC and YouTube are going from foes to friends.
The network is announcing a deal today that will see select clips of NBC series embedded on the popular viral-video site beginning this week, sources said.
NBC and YouTube declined comment.
The deal is quite a reversal from the well-publicized conflict that broke out between the companies in February, when peacock parent company NBC Universal ordered YouTube to remove hundreds of copyright-violating clips. A skit from "Saturday Night Live" titled "Lazy Sunday" triggered millions of streams for YouTube, becoming its most popular clip for a time.
As part of the deal, NBC will furnish YouTube with promotional clips for a number of its new and returning series, as well as late-night programs like "Tonight Show With Jay Leno." The deal also includes a contest centered on the NBC series "The Office," inviting YouTube users to create their own shortform videos touting the series.
NBC is expected to plug the YouTube alliance on the air and buy advertising on the site. NBC Uni has been active in putting its programming on new-media platforms including NBC.com, Apple's iTunes and peer-to-peer service Wurld Media.
Although the pact represents the first such deal between a broadcaster and a viral-video outlet, YouTube has been striking numerous alliances with other sectors of the entertainment industry, including cable channels E! and MTV2; film companies the Weinstein Co. and Sony Pictures Classics; and record labels like Matador Records.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002728494
The Business of TV
In Late Twist, Univision Accepts Bid
By Andrew Ross Sorkin The New York Times June 27, 2006
The board of Univision Communications, the nation's largest Spanish-language broadcaster, agreed to sell the company (Monday) night for $11 billion to a private equity consortium, people involved in the negotiations said.
Univision's directors approved the sale at a meeting in Los Angeles, and both sides were scrambling to sign the agreement so that it could be announced this morning.
At $11.1 billion or $36.25 a share, the sale is less than the $40 a share that Univision had originally hoped to receive when it put itself up for auction in February.
The sale of Univision, known for its telenovelas, or soap operas, and its coverage of the World Cup soccer tournament, is a surprise twist in a long-running auction that only last week appeared on the verge of collapse.
The deal would put Univision in the hands of a group that includes the billionaire investor Haim Saban. The group also includes four private equity firms — Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners, the Texas Pacific Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners — with stakes in business like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Music.
With the agreement, the consortium seems to have topped a rival group led by Grupo Televisa, the Mexican broadcast giant, which had been expected to win the auction.
Univision is the ultimate media juggernaut in the rapidly growing Latino market in the United Sta