Hot Off The Press! The Latest Television News and Info [Text View] - Page 57

fredfa

07-28-06, 07:25 PM

TV Notebook
Big guys can't relax yet
Challenged by pay-TV rivals such as HBO, networks are reclaiming viewers. But now they face a new threat: basic cable
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer in the Channel Island TV Industry blog

It seems like it was just yesterday that the Emmy Awards were the primary battleground between the broadcast networks and a then-surging HBO.

The broadcasters felt threatened by the pay cable network's rising market share and increasing critical acclaim for hits such as "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under" and "Sex and the City." HBO dominated the Emmy nominations in 2002, and executives worried they couldn't compete with the creative freedom on pay cable, which depends on subscriber income rather than advertising.

So when Emmy organizers threatened to take that year's annual awards telecast to HBO, the networks went apoplectic. The broadcasters vowed a nasty boycott of the ceremony that could have ended up dividing the TV business. Only a flurry of last-minute deal-making kept the Emmys on free TV, rotating annually among ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

This year, HBO still leads the overall field, with 95 total nominations. But the premium cable network's individual offerings are casting a much shorter shadow this time around. Instead, the traditional broadcasters — and basic cable — are holding sway. The most nominated series is Fox's spy drama "24," with 12. And the most nominated program overall is TNT's old-fashioned western miniseries "Into the West," with 16.

Many critics are bitterly complaining that the academy once again squandered the opportunity to recognize innovative work, such as HBO's "Big Love." New rules that enable a panel of Emmy voters to pick nominees from a prepared list of contenders have come in for especially heavy attack.

Changes in the way the academy conducts business may well have played a role in this year's nomination surprises. But far more relevant changes are transforming the TV industry itself — changes the Emmys only reflect.

In maybe the most noteworthy development, HBO's once-enviable stock seems to be diminishing by the day. Partly that's a simple matter of the programming attrition that affects every network sooner or later.

"Sex and the City" is long gone. "Six Feet Under" picked up nine Emmy nods — all for the show's final season. "The Sopranos" got seven, but it'll wrap its run next year. Another soon-to-end series, "Deadwood," wasn't even in the running.

HBO series stumble

HBO's newer series aren't picking up nearly the same kind of buzz, either in Emmy nods or in ratings.

"Entourage" got five nominations but wasn't among the contenders in the comedy series category. The costly "Rome" received eight nominations, but had to do without the outstanding drama nod that HBO could have used to promote season two. Similarly, "Big Love's" three nominations came in categories networks don't typically brag about: directing, casting and main title design.

Meanwhile, broadcasters have learned a great deal about reconnecting with their audiences, beyond just following the latest trends in reality programming. Their greatest strides have come in the one-hour dramatic format. "24" has struggled for years to break through as a hit, finally coming into its own during the 2005-06 season. But some of the most nominated series this year were immensely popular nearly as soon as they debuted, including ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" (11 nominations) and "Lost" (nine).

Then, of course, there's Fox's redoubtable talent competition, "American Idol," which picked up eight nods, more than any other unscripted show has ever received.

But this turn of events hardly means the broadcasters can relax. Indeed, there's now a cloud on the horizon that threatens more trouble than HBO ever did, both in terms of Emmy symbolism and in the cold, hard reality of Nielsens.

In the last three or four years, basic-cable networks have aggressively ramped up their production of original series. FX currently has three series with nearly as much buzz as any on HBO: "Nip/Tuck," "Rescue Me" and "The Shield."

The rise of basic cable

Two original basic-cable series, TNT's "The Closer" and USA's "Psych," have set ratings records this summer. So did AMC's original miniseries "Broken Trail," a western starring Robert Duvall that's in the "Into the West" tradition and may end up netting a few Emmy nominations next year.

Although no basic-cable series has yet dominated the Emmys the way that, say, "The West Wing" and "Desperate Housewives" have done in recent years — for example, "Rescue Me" merited only one nod this year, for lead Denis Leary — such an outcome looks inevitable as networks pour more money into production. It's already happening in the long-form category, as evidenced by "Into the West."

As for the awards telecast itself, though, don't look for it to make its way onto basic cable any time soon. The broadcasters have the Emmy Awards locked up through at least 2010.

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/awards/emmys/cl-wb-channelisland25jul25,0,665034,print.story?coll=env-home-subfeaturebar

dg28

07-28-06, 07:29 PM

I guess next year with the O's and Nationals MASN will no longer be a part time network! CSN will be left with the Wizards and (gasp!) Caps. Will that make them part time since they will have little if any live summer sports programming?

Actually, I believe MASN is going full time this season, possibly in the next few weeks.

Marcus Carr

07-28-06, 07:31 PM

I guess next year with the O's and Nationals MASN will no longer be a part time network! CSN will be left with the Wizards and (gasp!) Caps. Will that make them part time since they will have little if any live summer sports programming?

They have DC United, Mystics, and Redskins preseason games. (Home games are in HD.)

flint350

07-28-06, 07:40 PM

I agree, I thought it had promise.

I also thought the show had a chance when it began. Don Johnson was playing his role very well (better than the kid) and I thought it might just catch on. I was really surprised that it simply disappeared after those 3 episodes, just as it was building a nice story arc.

keenan

07-28-06, 09:05 PM

I also thought the show had a chance when it began. Don Johnson was playing his role very well (better than the kid) and I thought it might just catch on. I was really surprised that it simply disappeared after those 3 episodes, just as it was building a nice story arc.
I did too, I thought the role was well suited for Johnson instead of him trying to play the young stud cop or whatever that made him famous. It was a mature role for him, too bad it was yanked.

fredfa

07-29-06, 04:13 AM

TV Notebook
A 'Dance' across demos
Sex, race, soapy drama, joy, real pain. A tricky backbeat underlies Fox's "Dance" hit.

By David A. Keeps Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 30, 2006

As Ja Rule spits out the rhymes to "Clap Back," two teenagers, a white dude with an elaborately carved mohawk and his beauty-pageant-pretty African American partner throw down South-Central style in the aggressive form of hip-hop choreography known as "krumping." Another couple does the cha-cha to Los Amigos Invisibales' "Cuchi Cuchi." A third pair staggers like clockwork toys to the emo-rock sound of "Dance, Dance" by Fall Out Boy.

So you think you're watching BET? Telemundo? MTV 2? Think again. This is Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance," a prime-time network talent contest that is proving that unfamiliar music and obscure dance steps aren't necessarily a television turn-off. The two-hour July 19 broadcast of "So You Think You Can Dance" topped four other star-search series — ABC's "The One," CBS' "Rock Star: Supernova," NBC's "America's Got Talent" and UPN's "America's Next Top Model" — winning the 18-to-49 demographic that is most prized by advertisers.

The show debuted last summer after the surprising success of ABC's ballroom pro-am matchup "Dancing With the Stars." "So You Think" found its niche by emphasizing a young, culturally diverse group of contestants and embracing dozens of genres choreographed by experts in their disciplines. The show averages between 9 million and 10 million viewers per episode, up almost 20% from last year, making it a regular Top 10 program this summer. The season ends Aug. 16 with viewers deciding who will be America's Favorite Dancer.

The show can also be viewed as a successful marker in social evolution. In "Hairspray," the film and Broadway show now being made into a movie musical, racial integration on an "American Bandstand"-style TV dance show was a big taboo. "Dance is the G-rated version of having sex," said "Hairspray" director Adam Shankman. "And it's not always G-rated."

In 2001, the film "Save the Last Dance" featured a love affair between a white ballerina and a black hip-hopper and raised a few eyebrows. On both "Dancing With the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance," it's not even an issue." Generating sexual heat between performers of various ethnicities in flashy numbers that treat modern dance and contemporary hip-hop as equally legitimate, the show helps to erase divisive racial and cultural lines.

"It definitely ruffles some people's feathers, seeing an African American guy dancing sensually with a white girl," said Anne O'Meara, a choreographer for the likes of Paula Abdul, Elvis Costello and "Hannah Montana" star Miley Cyrus. "But no matter what your beliefs, when two people dance well together, people realize it is an art form and you can't help but sit back and smile."

For Denise Piane, a featured dancer and assistant to the director Anne Fletcher (who's making a new hip-hop/ballet flick, "Step Up"), the show provides a "forum for issues that people aren't necessarily comfortable with, like race, gender and sexual preference. A lot of people are living vicariously through these kids."

"It's a dancer's soap opera," said Studio City contestant Donyelle Jones, 26, after a recent show.

"You have sex, you have jokes, you have drama, crying, pain," added 18-year-old Aliso Viejo resident and Top 10 finalist Ivan Koumaev. "And then you have dance, which is huge right now in videos, commercials and movies. America enjoys watching people struggle through it."

Baby steps

AMERICA is also struggling with a steep learning curve of dance terminology and technique. In addition to recognizable salsa, disco, Broadway and music video choreography, "So You Think You Can Dance" presents the abstract movements of contemporary (also known as lyrical, jazz, modern, or anything performed to the music of Enya), the romantic grace of 1920s foxtrots, the acrobatics of midcentury swing and the street swagger of today's hip-hop.

"You can't really teach that much on television. We're here to entertain as much of the family as is humanly possible, from grandmas to grandkids," executive producer Nigel Lythgoe said. "The mandate is to challenge the dancers."

There also seems to be an unspoken mandate to challenge many of the assumptions made about the role of dance and dancers in popular culture. "This show is making it cool for guys to dance," said studio owner Denise Wall, the mother of five dancing sons, including current contestant Travis.

"It is reteaching America what Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers did back in the day," said 22-year-old Redlands contestant Benji Schwimmer, a West Coast swing specialist considered to have a serious shot at this year's title. "Dance is so vulnerable, so human and it's one of the most underappreciated arts. We work the hardest, get paid the least and have one of the most short-lived careers you can have."

Brian Friedman, a contemporary choreographer and frequent guest judge on the program, says the show is educating the public "not just about the many varieties of dance, but the fact that it is an athletic sport you really have to train for." It is an equal-opportunity field, says Cicely Bradley of the hip-hop choreography duo Nu Stylz, one in which race, height, weight, and beauty are largely irrelevant. "Whether you're black, white, Spanish, blue, yellow or red," she said, "the soul, the style, the technique and the ability to learn has to be there or you will get the boot."

Lythgoe makes no bones about how the dancers are paired. "We chose them by their personalities and strengths and what they can learn from each other. It would be too easy to put white couples and black couples together, and whichever way you go, someone is going to say something, so I don't even think about race."

Although the show dishes out plenty of camp for gay audiences, choreographers and judges have not been shy about pushing male contestants to "butch it up."

"Dancers are actors that don't get to speak," said Friedman. "What needs to happen if it's a love story is that the man needs to be strong." Friedman believes that the "roller-coaster tension that makes competition shows so compelling" is intensified by "Dance's" rigorous physical and emotional challenges.

"To do what they do, I would have an ulcer," said ballroom judge Mary Murphy, who says that in the wake of the program, enrollment is up at dance schools and competitions around the country. "Thank God, they're young and don't know any better, because they really go for it, 100%."

From singing to dancing

MUCH of the show's success, of course, can be attributed to genetics. "So You Think You Can Dance" is the offspring of the ratings juggernaut "American Idol" and shares many of the familiar features of the singing competition created by Simon Fuller, the British talent manager who put the Spice Girls together, and Lythgoe, a boy-wonder choreographer for the BBC in the swinging '60s. In addition to the usual cringe-worthy search and audition footage, the show presents dancers as a highly emotional lot, given to crying, collapsing, vomiting and smiling gamely while being strapped to gurneys.

"On a bad day, an 'American Idol' gets a sore throat," Schwimmer said. "We go to the hospital."

Lythgoe presides over the panel of judges, playing the role of taskmaster that "Idol" judge Simon Cowell has spun into a lucrative career. Murphy is the ebullient big-fan figure reminiscent of Abdul. A rotating guest roster of choreographer judges fulfill Randy Jackson's obligation of "keeping it real."

"Dance," however, is far more in tune with the realities of its industry. "Idols" win lucrative recording contracts; the winner of "Dance" gets a year in the chorus of Celine Dion's Las Vegas show. "Idol" props up the careers of music's éminences grises — Barry Manilow, Rod Stewart, Queen — and lets the contestants choose their own songs. On "Dance," the guest performers on results shows are of-the-moment members of the dance-music community, from Euro chanteuse Natasha Bedingfield to hip-hop smoothie Ne-Yo, while the choreographers select the tunes for the dancers.

As a result, the show features reliable oldies, including Irene Cara's "Flashdance … What A Feeling" and Bryan Adams' "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" as well as contemporary hits by Black Eyed Peas but just as often mixes in "She's Freaky" from the Miami rapper Pitbull, a Liza Minnelli rendition of "Bye Bye Blackbird" and Soundmaster T's "2 Much Booty (In Da Pants)."

"We're bringing these artists to a more Middle-American audience," said Friedman, "and, hopefully, broadening people's taste in music."

The show keeps an eye on dance trends of the past, present and future. "I don't like the classically trained kids saying hip-hop isn't a proper form of dance, because it is," Lythgoe said.

"Dancers can be snobs," O'Meara said. "I would love to believe that this show is changing the perception of hip-hop."

Having rap fans and break-dancing enthusiasts as a devoted audience, "Dance" validates hip-hop as part of the vocabulary of dance. "To be a marketable dancer, to get into movies and TV, you've got to be ready to jump into any style of dance," said Murphy.

Jones, a hip-hop dancer who has excelled in ballroom sequences, is more than ready. "Dancers are always put in the background to create a picture," she said. "This is our opportunity to put ourselves out front and see who we are and what we can become."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ca-youcandance30jul30,0,3372310,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

fredfa

07-29-06, 11:15 AM

Sports On TV
NFL Tackles Cable

By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 7/31/2006

The NFL Network is going on the offensive against cable operators with an acid-tongued consumer-marketing push. It aims to parlay its new package of NFL regular-season games into improved carriage across the country.

The 33-month-old network, still without a slot on such systems as Time Warner, Cablevision and Charter, says it could spend as much as $100 million, depending on how long its current disputes with cablers carry on.

NFL owners, who passed up an estimated $400 million in rights fees to use the games to grow the network, are eager to get NFL Network in as many homes as possible. Currently in about 41 million homes, it hopes to boost that number by more than 50% this year and eventually top 90 million.

The NFL says talks are not progressing as the season nears—its 52-game package of preseason games kicks off Aug. 11—so it is executing an aggressive campaign to get rabid fans to demand their football fix. The campaign will span television, print and radio as well as NFL resources including in-stadium giant screens, and team assets such as Websites and coach shows. The ads will attempt to drive consumers to a telephone number that will route calls to the local cable carrier by area code.

“The full weight of the NFL marketing machine will be used,” says NFL Network spokesman Seth Palansky.

The consumer push will use taglines “Don’t let Time Warner ruin your football season” and “Don’t let Charter shut you out.”

Beginning this week, the NFL will blitz targeted markets like football-crazed Green Bay (a Time Warner market), Tampa Bay (Bright House) and St. Louis (Charter).

Another battleground is the New York market, where Time Warner has 4.5 million customers but only 18,000 subscribe to the digital sports tier, home to the NFL Network.

The NFL is also preparing for a battle when Time Warner takes over the Adelphia systems July 31. Time Warner is expected to drop it from basic cable in such markets as Cleveland and Buffalo.

The package of regular-season games that begins Nov. 23, as well as other recently acquired properties, including college post-season games, has spurred growth for the network. Recently, NFL negotiated upgraded packages on both Dish Network and Verizon’s FiOS television service, as well as a new carriage deal with AT&T’s U-Verse service.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6357489

fredfa

07-29-06, 11:53 AM

The Business of TV
After Adelphia: Clusters Everywhere
By George Winslow Multichannel News 7/31/2006 (Mike Farrell contributed to this report. )

Comcast and Adelphia service trucks zoom into an automatic car wash. Seconds later, they emerge spotlessly clean, festooned with Time Warner Cable logos.

That scene is from rebranding spots Time Warner will begin airing in Los Angeles in August to explain the impact of the $17 billion Adelphia Communications Corp. deal to local customers.

The deal is set to close today, July 31. If it does, Time Warner’s subscribers in the area will grow from about 355,000 to over 1.9 million. The employee count will jump from 1,000 to 5,600. Time Warner systems will cover about 75% of the L.A. market, up from 15%.

“In Los Angeles, we’ll be growing by a factor of five,” said Roger Keating, the executive vice president of Time Warner’s Los Angeles region.

Overall, Time Warner will boost its subscriber base by about 3.5 million, to 14.5 million customers. Comcast Corp., which will get about 1.7 million customers through the deal, will expand to 23.3 million cable homes.

That will give the two cable companies control of roughly 58% of total U.S. television households. More importantly, both companies will control a combined 17 of the 20 largest markets in the United States.

“It’s a parallel evolution to what’s happening on the phone side — Bell Atlantic has gone away, BellSouth is going away,” said Janco Partners cable analyst Matt Harrigan. “It makes sense, especially when you look at the complexity of the product bouquet.”

Fragrance aside, increased scale will allow both Time Warner and Comcast to deliver advanced services more efficiently. But Harrigan said he doesn’t expect to see a new wave of consolidation in the industry for one simple reason — a scarcity of available properties.

“There aren’t a lot of elephants left on the savannah,” Harrigan said.

Instead, there may be more system swaps, particularly among smaller players. Miller Tabak & Co. media analyst David Joyce said. Mediacom Communications Corp. could pare down some non-core systems, and relatively new cable companies such as Suddenlink Communications, Bright House Networks and Bresnan Communications all could be involved in swaps to better cluster their operations.

“They [Suddenlink, Bright House and Bresnan] are all entrepreneurs looking to expand again,” Joyce said.

Creating large concentrations of customers in major markets is a fundamental strategy for cable operators such as Time Warner or Comcast. The ability to serve the vast majority of households in a given region allows them to more effectively market advanced services, as well as compete against satellite operators, who can reach every home, and telcos, which have lines into almost every one.

As part of the Adelphia aftermath, Comcast and Time Warner Cable will not only divvy up Adelphia subscribers, but also swap some systems. That will strengthen Comcast clusters in such markets as Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh while adding to Time Warner’s footprint in Southern California, New York and other states. (U.S. Cable Map, pages 10 and 11, shows who will own what in the 20 largest metropolitan areas.)

The deal concentrates Time Warner’s systems in five key markets: Southern California, Texas, Ohio, the Carolinas and New York.

HITTING THE GROUND

In a conference call with analysts last week, Comcast chief operating officer Steve Burke estimated the Adelphia transaction will generate about $600 million in additional operating cash flow and add between $300 million and $350 million to Comcast’s capital spending in 2006.

And there’s room for more revenue and cash flow.

Adelphia has yet to deploy phone services, which have been driving not just new monthly “units” of revenue — but in Time Warner’s case, signups for basic television services, as well.

In Adelphia systems, average revenue per basic subscriber stood at $77.79 at the end of the first quarter of 2006. That compares to $91.33 at Time Warner and $86.75 at Comcast.

Adelphia’s digital-cable penetration is about 41% of households, which also trails Comcast (49%) and Time Warner (51%). Adelphia’s 17% high-speed data penetration rate compares to 22% at Comcast and 26% at Time Warner.

Despite a decade of consolidation, the L.A. cable market still was split between six operators: Comcast, Adelphia, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications Inc., Charter Communications Inc. and Mediacom Communications Corp.

So divided, L.A. has one of the nation’s highest customer-penetration rates for satellite-TV service. Nearly 30% of households subscribe to either DirecTV (which is based in El Segundo, just south of LAX) or Dish Network. And about 30% of potential customers use telephone companies’ digital subscriber lines to hook in to the Internet. Cable? Only 20%.

“Before the transaction, it was a very fragmented market, making it difficult to effectively market new services,” Keating said.

The deal will give Time Warner a major foothold in the top two media markets, New York and Los Angeles, Keating notes.

The cable operator hopes that will make it easier to get advertisers and entertainment executives on both coasts involved in creating new types of content or products, such as the “Start Over” network digital-recording feature, which allows viewers to restart a program in the middle of the telecast.

“It is one thing to go into a conference room and show people a feature like Start Over or some of the interactive applications,” Keating said. “It’s much better if a producer can go home and see the possibilities every time they turn on their television set.”

TOUGH CIRCUMSTANCES

Time Warner executives said Adelphia has maintained its systems well, even as the Denver-based operator has moved through bankruptcy and breakup.

“The Adelphia employees have done a marvelous job under the tough circumstances of bankruptcy to upgrade the plant,” Keating said, adding that most of the plant has two-way communications and bandwidth of 750 MHz or better. “We won’t be out there ripping up streets doing a lot of wholesale upgrade.”

In fact, Adelphia had installed two all-digital headends in Los Angeles. That will allow its successor to accelerate the rollout of digital simulcast, a process Keating hopes to complete by the end of the year.

Digital simulcast will help Time Warner standardize digital channel lineups. The company will also increase its highest Internet-access speed from 4 Megabits per second to 6 Mbps and get ready to roll out Internet Protocol telephone service. Some Adelphia areas will begin to see phone service by the end of the year.

About 32% of all TV households in the market are Hispanic, making Los Angeles the nation’s largest Spanish-speaking market.

Time Warner will beef up Hispanic programming throughout the system and better market additional services to the Hispanic community, Keating said. He also expects Hispanic advertising dollars will provide a needed boost to local cable ad sales.

ELSEWHERE

Changes in the Northeast are less dramatic. But similar opportunities for marketing efficiencies and advanced-services rollouts open up, said Time Warner Cable executive vice president of Northeast/New York Barry Rosenblum.

Time Warner will add about half a million subscribers in New York and Maine, where it will serve most of the state.

The first priority will be to convert customers to Time Warner’s billing system, a process Rosenblum expects to take about four to six months.

“Once we do that, then we can really start to launch our own digital packages and digital phones,” Rosenblum said.

Time Warner has already rolled out interactive TV services in upstate New York and is expanding them in New York City. By the end of the summer, the Start Over feature will debut in Rochester, New York, with other upstate systems to follow.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6357493

HDTVChallenged

07-29-06, 12:12 PM

The Business of TV
After Adelphia: Clusters Everywhere
By George Winslow Multichannel News 7/31/2006 (Mike Farrell contributed to this report.) ...

As part of the Adelphia aftermath, Comcast and Time Warner Cable will not only divvy up Adelphia subscribers, but also swap some systems.

Has anyone seen a list of who's getting what Adelphia systems *outside* of these "major markets" yet? Or should I just wait until I see the logos change on on the local trucks. :D

fredfa

07-29-06, 12:43 PM

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

fredfa

07-29-06, 12:44 PM

Has anyone seen a list of who's getting what Adelphia systems *outside* of these "major markets" yet? Or should I just wait until I see the logos change on on the local trucks. :D

There have been a number of stories breaking down the specifics, HDTVC. What area are you interested in?

fredfa

07-29-06, 01:25 PM

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
Homeward bound
By Brad Oswald Winnipeg Free Press

It’s over.

Press tour has packed up and gone home, to about 200 different homes scattered across North America. As I write this, the Ritz Carlton Huntington Hotel feels so weirdly deserted that I’m starting to understand why Jack Nicholson got all crazy in The Shining.

It’s amazing, actually, how little time it takes for the tech crew that keeps this crazy TV-watching circus going for nearly three weeks to make it all disappear after the last press conference ends. Everything about this place screamed TELEVISION for the past 19 days; this morning, there’s almost no evidence left that the TCA, the networks and their BPHPs were ever even here.

Gotta get out, before I get all Jack-ish-ly crazy.

A few parting thoughts before I go:

Blogging, while nearly impossible for the last couple of days because of a massive breakdown of Internet service within the hotel, has added a different flavour to press tour. And it certainly turned out to be the flavour du jour, because everybody and his dog was blogging from TCA sessions this time around. Standing at the back of the conference room in any given interview session, the darkened press-conference theatre would take on a weird, mission-control-ish feel as dozens of critics started up their laptops and started blogging live from the session. The good thing, I suppose, is that it made what was happening in the room available to the blogosphere instantly. The bad thing, without question, is that the proliferation of in-session bloggers changed the atmosphere in the room because those folks could never really be more than halfway paying attention to what the actors and producers onstage were saying because they were busy tapping away at their blog-feeding keyboards. I tried blogging live from a few sessions, but kinda gave it up after I realized how much I was missing by having my nose pressed to the screen. And besides, is there really anybody out there waiting breathlessly for a LIVE blog update? I think not.

Fox’s BPHP was a good one — Fox always throws a pretty cool party — with the back lawn of the hotel (the aforeblogged Horseshoe Garden) transformed into a tent village with dozens of fans, shaded areas and at-the-ready aerosol Evian spritzers (how California is THAT?) in place to help beat the stifling SoCal heat. As nice as it was, it was also a bit unnecessary because Tuesday (Fox BPHP night) was when the worst of the heat wave finally broke. It was a pleasant, breezy Pasadena evening, but I think all in attendance appreciated the Foxfolks’ efforts anyway.

The star quotient at Fox’s BPHP was pretty impressive, thanks to a corporate-convergence strategy that brought cast members from FX and Fox Reality nets to the clambake to join in with the main network’s stars. And that meant folks like Survivor sweethearts Rob and Amber (who are launching yet another reality show next year) and the casts of FX’s Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia were rubbing elbows with the stars from the Fox mothership. Also in attendance were Larry Hagman, who has a guest-star run in the new season of Nip/Tuck, and ex-Friend Courteney Cox Arquette, who also has a new show coming up on FX.

When Fox packed up its tents, dozens of the critickal types here for press tour headed for the exits, too. PBS’s two-day presentation was decidedly less populated than the rest of the tour, despite sessions that included appearances by William H. Macy (he’s the narrator of the U.S. public broadcaster’s new Curious George series) and Mariska Hargitay (who lends her voice to an upcoming documentary about rebuilding after the 9/11 attack on New York).

PBS’s first day ended with a live (with taped-music accompaniment) performance by a rising opera star named Vittorio Grigolo, who’s part of the upcoming season of Great Performances. It was pretty impressive, even if opera’s not your thing (and it surely isn’t mine). PBS has always been good about including a live-performance event in its schedule, and the roster of talent over the years has been diverse and fun, ranging from Lyle Lovett and Roseanne Cash to Celia Cruz, Big Bill Broonzy, the Sun Records session players and even Donny Osmond.

Yesterday was a light schedule of sparsely attended press conferences followed by one last spin through the cocktails-and-finger-food cycle.

So, like, enough already. I’m tired; I’m cranky; I’m not even remotely hungry or thirsty.

I’m goin’ home. If I can remember where home is.

http://www.winnipegfreepress2.com/blogs/oswald/index.php

fredfa

07-29-06, 01:29 PM

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
Goodbye to Hollywood and the Digital Scale of Doom
By Dave Walker New Orleans Times-Picayune TV writer

HOLLYWOOD – All’s well that ends wider, even a little.

The 2006 Television Critics Association summer press tour, as chronicled here in my Blog of Bloat, has concluded after nearly three weeks of interview sessions, star parties and “Could that really be (name of aging TV star here)?”

Also lots of big meals.

The thread all along has been my buffet-borne weight. The Digital Scale of Doom in my hotel room weighs to the tenth of a pound. It’s been a drama in three acts.

Act one: Sudden gain. Basically upon arrival at LAX, I fed as if I had hours to live. It was all reflected in my daily total.

Act two: Diet doldrums. A plateau and even a little inexplicable loss. A feel-good turn of events, but a potential arc-wrecker.

Act three: 182.7, the result of my final weigh-in Friday morning.

That’s up 1.1 pounds since weigh-in on day one, and about 9.9 less than I expected.

Can’t say I’m unhappy. I promised gain and the accompanying opera of guilt, sorrow and tightening pants.

I delivered gain, but not so much I won’t be able to sweat it off during the walk down the jetway at Armstrong.

Thanks for reading.

Both of you.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpliving/

fredfa

07-29-06, 02:28 PM

TV Q&A
Ask Matt

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

Question: What's your opinion of the Friday-night slot awarded to Ugly Betty? I keep hearing glowing reviews from most of the critics who have seen the pilot, so I cannot understand why ABC would try to kill this show before it even takes off. Don't you think Sunday night's slot following Desperate Housewives would be a much better fit? This sounds like a show that would have a similar audience. — Luis

Matt Roush: This conversation came up a lot during the critics' press tour, and quite a few of us agree with you, with the caveat that none of us have seen the still-being-revised pilot of ABC's Brothers & Sisters, which will occupy the post-Housewives slot in the fall. The reason Ugly Betty would be such a good fit is because it shares many of the attributes of Housewives at its best: namely, a stylized blend of high comedy and soap-opera intrigue. Because ABC's entertainment chief feels Betty is better suited for an earlier time period, it's airing Fridays at 8 pm/ET, which you rightfully describe as a death slot (unless you're CBS, which scores that night with more mainstream fare).

If Brothers fails to hold onto enough of Housewives' lead-in, and if Betty sinks on Fridays (which seems probable), and more important, if Betty lives up to the promise of its very entertaining pilot, then we'll argue loud and often that ABC do right by Betty. If not, things are likely to turn ugly.

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Question: I think it's really interesting how Psych became such a hit on USA. The same with Saved's success on TNT (although I find the show a dull Rescue Me knockoff). Some channels (both cable and network) have found certain formulas that really work, and then stick with that brand. Psych, for instance, fits seamlessly into the USA brand by being a cross between The Dead Zone and Monk. In fact, I want to further compliment USA on the best ad campaign I have seen in years. I actually stop fast-forwarding on my DVR to watch those hilarious USA ads featuring their wonderful array of characters. My wife and I love them!

But my question goes back to the failure earlier this year of Love Monkey (also a wonderful show) on the stodgy, serious CBS network. CBS puts on this wonderful, sweet and quirky show and it fails; so they go back to their dull formula with the ridiculous The Unit, and it's a ratings smash. Do you feel that networks and cable channels (after a scenario like this for CBS) are increasingly going to stick to what people associate them with? I personally only watch one CBS show, How I Met Your Mother, because I find other CBS shows so dull, and when the network does break out of the box with something like Love Monkey, the typical CBS viewer ignores it, and people who prefer other channels may not even realize that CBS actually had an interesting show for the first time in ages. — David

Matt Roush: This is an interesting take on how networks brand themselves, a necessity especially for cable networks, which only need a few signature shows to create an identity in this crowded marketplace. USA is on a roll lately, with Bravo (with Queer Eye and Project Runway) and Sci Fi (with its variety of niche programming) close behind. The Closer has done wonders for TNT (though I'm not sure I'd classify Saved as an instant success just yet; haven't been keeping track of how that's holding Closer's audience, and creatively, it's problematic).

With broadcast networks, it's a different situation. CBS is the most traditionally mass-appeal of the Big Four, and their formula is working for them very well, even if what they're selling isn't what you're buying. Love Monkey was a calculated risk to try something different and go way younger. I was dismayed at the scheduling of the show, which, if memory serves, premiered around the time that American Idol was starting, so it was upstaged in the media. It came on between cycles of The Amazing Race (CBS' youngest-skewing show) and wasn't able to use that as a lead-in. And CBS was nervous about Monkey to begin with, so when it didn't prove itself right out of the gate, it was pretty much doomed. It will be interesting to see how CBS treats its new fall "off-brand" shows, such as the apocalyptic Jericho and the dark criminal caper Smith. (I'm not crazy about either of them just yet, but I respect the effort.) CBS is in a position of strength across the board, which should encourage them to take risks. Usually, it's the struggling networks (like ABC a few years ago and NBC right now) that end up taking us to unexpected places. I'm not sure which network Love Monkey would have flourished on, but CBS was probably the least compatible fit.

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Question: Are you at all surprised that John Spencer didn't receive a posthumous Emmy nomination for his work on The West Wing? I thought his death would earn him a nod at least in an honorary sense. But given the condition of the current system, I cannot say that I am completely surprised. — John

Matt Roush: It is surprising, but really, with this year's nominations, where do you start and where do you end? Truthfully, and with all sincere respect to the terrific and much-lamented John Spencer, this was not Leo's greatest season on the show, and I think the nomination in that category for Alan Alda was more appropriate. A sentimental nomination for an actor taken from us too soon is without doubt the sort of thing you'd expect from a conservative group like the Emmy voters, so it is kind of jarring. But overall, this is one of the more interesting, eclectic categories this year, and just having Gregory Itzin (24's President Logan) in the running is very satisfying. (He's my pick over Alda, Oliver Platt, Michael Imperioli and William Shatner). At the very least, I'm sure he'll be remembered during the Emmy ceremony.

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Question: Carmen's question — "Why do people care so much about TV?" — reminds me of my Farscape campaigning days when people said, "It's just a TV show." They forgot the last part of that sentence: "It's a TV show that brings a little enjoyment into your life each week." TV shows give you something to enjoy, to discuss with your friends and family, and to use as an escape from your own (sometimes tiring) life. Asking someone why he cares so much about a TV show is like asking him why he cares so much about his weekend; it's just a thing that makes him happy. — David G.

Matt Roush: I got plenty of mail on this topic from viewers eloquently defending their right to enjoy and care about TV. I figured that would strike a nerve. But David put it most simply and effectively: It's fun to get passionate about TV, and there's no shame in taking enjoyment from it. Never has been.

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Question: I know it's still summer, but have the networks announced tentative dates for their season premieres? — Donna

Matt Roush: As of now, the only network not to announce premiere dates is CBS, which will likely launch most of its new and returning shows the weeks of Sept. 17 and 24.

Here's how the others shape up: The season kicks off early on Fox, with Prison Break and Vanished on Aug. 21; then the limited reality series Duets on Aug. 29; Justice and Bones on Aug. 30; House and Standoff on Sept. 5; the comedies 'Til Death and Happy Hour on Sept 7; Nanny 911 on Sept. 8; Cops and America's Most Wanted on Sept. 9; Fox's animated comedy lineup plus The War at Home on Sept. 10; and MADtv Sept. 16. (The O.C. won't return until after postseason baseball on Nov. 2.)

On ABC, 20/20 officially kicks off Sept. 8; Dancing with the Stars returns Sept. 12 and 13; Wife Swap premieres Sept. 18; Grey's Anatomy and Six Degrees on Sept. 21; Ugly Betty and Men in Trees on Sept. 22; Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters Sept. 24; Help Me Help You and Boston Legal on Sept. 26; The Bachelor: Rome on Oct. 2; Lost and The Nine on Oct. 4; Big Day and Notes from the Underbelly on Oct. 5; What About Brian on Oct. 9; and The Knights of Prosperity Oct. 17. (Day Break is expected to take over for Lost on Nov. 15 for 13 weeks.)

NBC gets rolling during the traditional premiere week, with a two-hour Deal or No Deal leading in to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on Sept. 18; Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on Sept. 19; The Biggest Loser and Kidnapped on Sept. 20; My Name Is Earl, The Office and ER on Sept. 21; Law & Order on Sept. 22; Heroes on Sept. 25; Friday Night Lights on Oct. 3; Twenty Good Years on Oct. 4; 30 Rock on Oct. 11; and Crossing Jordan and Las Vegas on Oct. 20.

The new CW officially launches Sept. 20 with a two-hour America's Next Top Model; then Smackdown on Sept. 22; 7th Heaven and Runaway on Sept. 25; Gilmore Girls on Sept. 26; One Tree Hill on Sept. 27; Smallville and Supernatural on Sept. 28; Everybody Hates Chris, All of Us, Girlfriends and The Game on Oct. 1; and Veronica Mars on Oct. 2.

Is this going to be a busy season or what?

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Question: I thought some of the best performances this past season occurred on Numbers, CSI, CSI: NY, Cold Case and NCIS, but those shows don't get recognized anymore. Do you think the procedurals will come back around and be recognized by the industry for their quality work, or has that ship sailed for "mainstream" dramatic TV? — Heidi

Matt Roush: It's very rare for these kinds of shows to get noticed at awards time, and that's nothing new. Their formulaic nature tends to cause the performances to be taken for granted, especially during a period when there are so many rich and innovative drama series airing on networks other than CBS. There is one procedural that escaped the jinx this season: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which earned nominations for Mariska Hargitay and first-timer Christopher Meloni.

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Question: Is The Biggest Loser going to return? I thought I read a while ago that it was, but I haven't seen it advertised or read anything about it lately. Just curious. — Janet

Matt Roush: NBC has been resting it for the summer, but it's on the fall schedule. It will air Wednesdays at 9 pm/ET (opposite Lost, among others), and will be the sole reality occupant of that time period, sandwiched between the comedy block of Twenty Good Years and 30 Rock and the new serialized thriller Kidnapped.

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Question: I saw the premiere of Eureka on Sci Fi Tuesday night, and I am in love. I think it is a great show, with fresh ideas, great characters and a great conspiracy story. What do you think of its chances for more than one season? — Jacki W.

Matt Roush: Given how well it opened, if the ratings hold up at all, I would think a renewal is a sure bet. For my own review, click here. I know I'm curious to see how this quirky show develops.

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Question: If CBS' The Class breaks all of the sitcom rules, why is the cast entirely Caucasian? FYI to CBS and David Crane, non-Caucasians also can be lecherous, kooky, neurotic, etc. And while I'm on the topic of race, how interesting would Psych be if Dulé Hill played the psychic and James Roday played the uptight best friend? — KC

Matt Roush: David Crane was challenged on this very subject during his Q&A at the critics' press tour, and he apologized for the oversight. Honestly, though, if I were doing a show about my own third-grade class, it would also be monochrome, with no minority representation. I'm not proud of it, but that's the truth. Maybe Jason Ritter's character just happened to go to an elementary school like mine. But of course you're right. It is a blind spot on many network shows. As for Psych, the role reversal might have been refreshing, especially if nothing were made of the ethnicity of the lead. But given how well Psych turned out, and how much chemistry there is between James Roday and Dulé Hill, I can't honestly say I wish they'd done it differently.

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Question: How is the Emmy chosen for best actress in a miniseries? Does the actress submit a certain block of time? Or do the voters watch the entire miniseries? I am hoping Gillian Anderson wins. — Monique M.

Matt Roush: I'm assuming that those who volunteer to judge this category are sent the entire movie or miniseries and are expected to watch the entire performance. Anything less would be unfair. But since you asked, I hope that the length of Bleak House (considerably longer than any of the other nominated movies and minis) doesn't work against Gillian Anderson. Right now, this category seems a toss-up to me between her and Elizabeth I's Helen Mirren. (If I were voting, I'd go your way. Mirren was magnificent, as always, but Anderson was a revelation, and that performance still haunts me eight months after I saw it.)

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

fredfa

07-29-06, 02:39 PM

Has anyone seen a list of who's getting what Adelphia systems *outside* of these "major markets" yet? Or should I just wait until I see the logos change on on the local trucks. :D

Here are a couple of stories that might give you the info you need:

"...Details of the Transaction

Comcast and Time Warner, the first and second largest U.S. cable operators respectively, agreed to acquire Adelphia for $17 billion. Adelphia, with 5 million subscribers, is in bankruptcy. It is the 5th largest cable company.

Time Warner and Comcast agreed to "swap" various cable systems to increase their "clustering," or concentration, in specific markets. After these swaps, Time Warner would control Los Angeles, Dallas, Cleveland, and western New York; Comcast would control even larger areas than it currently holds in Philadelphia, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Minneapolis, and other regions.

When the transaction is complete, Comcast would have 26 million subscribers, and Time Warner, 16 million. Together, they would have 42 million subscribers, representing 57 percent of the nation's 74 million cable subscribers. When looking at the entire pay-TV market, including satellite, the companies would control access to 47 percent of the nation's 93 million pay-TV subscribers. The deal must be reviewed and approved by the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Bankruptcy Court overseeing Adelphia, and local cable franchise authorities across the country...."

http://www.cwacable.org/news/page.jsp?itemID=27340452

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“…Terms also call for Time Warner and Comcast to swap some cable systems. Comcast will receive Time Warner subscribers in West Palm Beach, Fla., suburban Washington D.C. and Colorado Springs, Colo., among other markets.

Time Warner will receive from Comcast systems in Los Angeles, Dallas and Cleveland.
Comcast will also pick up Adelphia subscribers in Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Florida, and Massachusetts that complement its own systems.

Combined with the swaps with Time Warner, it will add a total of 2.1 million subscribers, along with another 750,000 Time Warner customers through the redemption of its stakes in Time Warner Cable and Time Warner Entertainment.

Time Warner cable will add about 3 million Adelphia subscribers, and more than 1 million Comcast customers.

When the transactions are completed, Comcast will have a total of 23.3 million cable subscribers, while Time Warner will have about 14.4 million.

Though it will remain the No. 2 cable operator behind Comcast, Time Warner will become the largest cable operator in both New York and Los Angeles, the nation's two largest markets.

Some 56% of Comcast's homes passed will now be located in the Midwest region of Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis and a Northeastern stretch between Washington, D.C., and Boston, points out Matthew Harrigan, cable and satellite analyst at Janco Partners.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BEB0D567B-18E2-49D8-ADC1-97DDBEB83819%7D&siteid=mktw

harley1

07-29-06, 03:39 PM

Actually, I believe MASN is going full time this season, possibly in the next few weeks.

According to this article, they go full time July 31

http://washingtontimes.com/sports/20060714-121723-3658r.htm

keenan

07-29-06, 03:50 PM

Sports On TV
NFL Tackles Cable

The NFL is also preparing for a battle when Time Warner takes over the Adelphia systems July 31. Time Warner is expected to drop it from basic cable in such markets as Cleveland and Buffalo.

This must be one of those "for the good of the consumer" reasons why the FCC ok'ed the Time Warner/Comcast/Adelphia deal..??? :rolleyes:

Looks like Adelphia subs better hold onto their wallets.

fredfa

07-29-06, 06:04 PM

I believe under the Comcast/TWC-Adelphia FCC agreement, the NFL Network (or any independent network, can demand mandatory arbitration if it continues to be rebuffed by TWC.

fredfa

07-29-06, 06:21 PM

Just cleaning out the files of the last few blogs from the TCA Summer Press Tour......

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
Fond and not so fond memories

By Tom Jicha Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinal TV and Radio Writer
Memories and reflections from the summer press tour:

High point: CBS’s star party at the Rose Bowl. OK, it’s a guy thing but the loose atmosphere also made the stars much more chatty than usual.

Low point: Comedy Central’s bait-and-switch with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Their interview was listed for 9 a.m. They didn’t show up—or weren’t allowed to show up—until 2 ½ hours later. In the meantime, critics were frozen in place having to put up with spiels from the likes of The Naked Trucker and T- Bones. You couldn’t leave because you never knew if Parker and Stone would appear at any minute, which was exactly Comedy Central’s game plan.

Good Guy Award I: Rachel Ray, Gordon Ramsay and Jimmy Kimmel were all listed as making lunch for the critics. The delightful Ray just flitted about the room. Ramsay wasn’t even present. But Kimmel stood over a searing barbecue pit in 100-degrees plus weather for more than an hour cooking while his posse—Uncle Frank, Cousin Sal, Guillermo and Cleto—dished out burgers. It was a stunt but Kimmel really is that kind of guy.

Good Guy II: Kiefer Sutherland, whose star is sufficiently ascended to give him the juice to skip star parties with the critics, showed up as always and never got near the food and drink. He stood and answered the same questions over and over from small knots of TV writers for a couple of hours. Sutherland said he does it as a token of appreciation for the writers support of 24, which was instrumental in keeping the show alive during the ratings-troubled first season..
Shut up, already: There are two similarly themed new dramas this fall, NBC’s Kidnapped and Fox’s Vanished. Going into the press tour, critical opinion was divided on which was better. This changed after the Vanished session as the producers revealed they are going to further complicate the already complex with centuries old grudges and nefarious body markings. Vanished would be a lot better off if there had never been a session.
Farewll, not: Gene Simmons of KISS is surprised people take “farewell tour” billings seriously. “The truth is every bad that goes out is a farewell tour. Unless you succeed, that’s the last tour you’ll ever do. If the audience really loves you and an entity puts up a hundred million dollars in advance, you’re going back out on tour.”

Critics embarrassing critics, I: A writer, who fancies himself an investigative reporter, posed the following to Vanessa Williams: “When this room met with UPN in January, there was a scheduled South Beach session (in which Williams had a starring role). But we were told that there would be no press conference because of the unfortunate news of a death in your family. Were you aware that South Beach canceled its press conference because of this news?”
As icily as she should have, Williams retorted, “I knew nothing. But thank you for mentioning my father.”

Critics embarrassing critics, II: CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler was asked (obviously by a female critic), “I’m wondering if you guys are going to be able to up the budget on Rock Star at all, so that you can buy Brooke Burke a bra?”
“That would really put a dent in the budget,” Tassler retorted.

Critics embarrassing critics, III: David Rosenthal, the new show runner of Gilmore Girls, had his past pointlessly dredged up by a writer who must work for a scandal sheet. “It was widely reported about six years ago that you left your family because you were obsessed with Heidi Klum. How do you look back on that? How does that make you the right guy to lead Gilmore Girls?”
Rosenthal showed more class than the inquiring mind. “My personal life is not an issue here. I’m here to talk about the show.”

Double jeopardy: The husband-wife creative team of Josh Goldsmith and CathyYuspa has a good news/bad news situation, which would never confront producers with more clout. They have two new comedies on the fall schedule, ‘Til Death for Fox and Big Day on ABC. They are on at exactly the same time, the killer slot on Thursdays at 8 p.m.
“We’re hoping there’s enough people in America to push both shows over the top,” Yuspa said.
And I’m hoping to grow hair.

What’s wrong with football, I: John Madden explained why arrests and other anti-social behavior are irrelevant to coaches. “In pro sports, if you can still play, someone is going to give you a job. You are going to play no matter what you’ve done.”

What’s wrong with football, II: Kyle Chandler, who plays a high school coach in a football obsessed town in NBC’s Friday Night Lights, learned something about misplaced priorities while doing his research. Chandler said he asked a coach, “What’s the most important factor here? Is it winning or is it the welfare of the kids?”
There was a long pause, Chandler said. “That’s when I realized, if these guys win, great. If they lose, you don’t want to be around town.”

It’ll take more than booze: In the spirit of a new sitcom whose title says it all, Happy Hour, Fox had cocktail waitresses pass out bloody marys and mimosas just before the press conference—at 9:30 in the morning! All but problem drinkers and free-loaders passed. But whether you partook or not, the opinion afterward was the same: Happy Hour is the undisputed, unchallenged worst show of the season.

The truth hurts: NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly pointed out that many people have better TVs than homes.

Now that I’ve conquered the press tour, I’m going to Adult Disneyland.

http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/tv/

fredfa

07-29-06, 06:34 PM

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
Memories on rerun in my head
By ED BARK The Dallas Morning News television writer

PASADENA, Calif. – Leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again ...

Sorry for that little indulgence, but the end at last is nigh for Summer Press Tour 2006. Your tired bag of bones, unable to muster another question or absorb another answer, will be vacating the gilded cage today after 18 consecutive days of show and tell.

It all began with a Disney Channel session way back in prehistoric times (July 10). Then the end came Thursday evening with a PBS buffet dinner. So many memories, most of them still barely treading water in a shallow, slowly draining brain pan. But in the company of a rubber, bullet-holed Jason mask – my desk companion since day one – here are a few thoughts that still haven't escaped me.

About that rubber, bullet-holed Jason mask: It was distributed on day one during a Starz network panel on Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film. That's when director Wes Craven basically laid the groundwork for the marrow-sucking days ahead by telling critics this: "I don't think you can do a good horror film without being at the visceral level. It's no accident that they're about blood and guts. ... It's about viscera and the human body's frailty and the fact it can be so easily opened up and have its life flow out."

He missed his calling as a Hallmark card writer.

Party central: All right, it's true. There's a network-sponsored party almost every night. It's a chance to re-meet and greet many of the executives and new-series casts that you've already encountered during the day. Usually, though, there's also a smattering of established stars from returning shows. None is more accessible and cooperative than 24 's Kiefer Sutherland, who annually submits himself to a forest of tape recorders. Dennis Franz of NYPD Blue used to do that, too. It's appreciated.

CBS had the best party, at least in an official capacity. It was held in the super-historic Rose Bowl, giving reasonably dexterous critics a chance to catch passes from each other in the end zone and then spike the ball on the CBS eye logo. Phil Keoghan, host of The Amazing Race , turned out to be a primo celebrity kicker, nailing a field goal from 40 yards out.

Still, the hands-down top party of the tour originated from the Hollywood Hills mansion housing the contestants of CBS' Rock Star: Supernova. Not officially sanctioned by CBS for fear of too much uninhibited behavior, it began in earnest after a Sunday night taping of the show. Sight of the night: drummer Tommy Lee opening his fly to now ex-competitor Phil Ritchie, who enthusiastically poured a beer down that hatch. Only a relative handful of hearty critics attended, many of them from the great nation of Canada. Pierced, tattooed Houstonian Dilana Robichaux filled the most notebooks with streams of candid quotes.

First impressions count: New PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger met with critics for the first time and proved up to the task. She flashed a winning sense of humor and also a welcome disdain for ever-changing, oft-confusing Federal Communications Commission rules on program content.

Ms. Kerger said she had met with each FCC commissioner and wasn't terrifically impressed.

"We are not talking about doing sensationalist work, we are not talking about doing salacious work," she said of PBS programming. "But we need to do a better job in letting the American people know that this is not just about Janet Jackson. This is about filmmakers that have powerful stories and now are not being allowed to tell those stories on public or broadcast television."

She worries that Ken Burns' The War will become embattled. Due in fall 2007, the World War II opus "has some language issues in it," she said. But broadcasting it after the "safe harbor" hour of 10 p.m. will cut into the potential audience for "one of the seminal pieces of work of his career." In other words, she's ready to fight. Good for her.

On a much lower plane, the cast of Fox's lightly regarded new sitcom, Happy Hour, may have generated at least a little good will for their show with a lively interview session.

Performance always counts out here, particularly when your brain is fried and your mood is darkened by hangovers, deadlines, blogging, bland answers and way too much caffeine.

Then again, who's complaining? So let's close with some uplifting wisdom from Mr. T, who's now a self-help expert on his new TV Land show, I Pity the Fool:

"See, I don't teach hockey. I don't know hockey. I don't do tennis. I don't know tennis. I know there's a lot of love going on in tennis, 30-love and all that. But I talk about what I know.

"That's why people relate to me. Because Mr. T is a straight-shooting guy. I pull no punches."

Thanks, Mr. T. Can't think of a better epitaph for anybody. Over and out.

http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/columnists/ebark/stories/DN-presstour_0728gl.ART0.State.Edition2.1c7a8b2.html

HDTVChallenged

07-29-06, 07:12 PM

There have been a number of stories breaking down the specifics, HDTVC. What area are you interested in?

Central Ky. I've seen plenty of reports about DC, OH, LA, NY, NE etc, etc but nothing about us lowly "flyover pukes." ;) Google wasn't much help the last time I tried it.

fredfa

07-29-06, 07:48 PM

I saw a complete list someplace in the last few weeks of all the switched markets. I am not sure I can find it, but I'll try.

fredfa

07-29-06, 07:49 PM

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
Kibbles 'n glitz from TV's big pack
It's a dog-eat-dog world for celebrities. But here it's not about the bark, it's about the word bite.
Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic July 29, 2006

PASADENA, Calif. -- You learn a lot about a celebrity in the flash of a quote. Here are some of the most revealing comments from the television critics' summer tour:

Friends star Matthew Perry on his return to series television in NBC's Studio 60 on Sunset Strip: "I'm here mostly because of how good the script is and how bad The Whole Ten Yards was."

Executive producer Salma Hayek on the title of Ugly Betty, her comedy for ABC: "I think it's sarcastic. I don't think Betty is really ugly, but what do we call ugly now? I mean anybody that is not superskinny and really tall, some people -- not everybody -- think they're ugly. I personally have seen a lot of really skinny tall models that, maybe, I think they're ugly. And they need to eat a little to look healthy."

Chris Rock said he hated three of 22 episodes in the first season of Everybody Hates Chris, but he wouldn't name them: "Hey, I got three uncles I hate, too, but I won't tell them."

James Woods, in fiery humor, responding to a question about how often his prosecutor character will lose in the new CBS drama Shark: "Are you dropping acid first thing in the morning? What are you doing? Lose! I'm the hero. Didn't you watch this thing?"

Damon Wayans on his wardrobe of pink cap, pink shirt and black vest: "Who am I wearing? This is the Pepto-Bismol street thug. No, I just felt like I looked pretty in pink."

Morgan Fairchild on her physical bouts with Bo Derek in MyNetworkTV's Fashion House: "I guess there is a certain audience just for cat fights and women rolling around and slapping each other. Yes, gentlemen. But we're trying to make it funny, too, and I'm sure they'll put us in the mud next. There is a big audience for that."

Conan O'Brien on the comedy he's planning as Emmy host: "I think most people here know my sense of humor. It's fairly silly. It's, for the most part, a waste of time. It will be in that vein."

Law & Order creator Dick Wolf on his work inspiring a sketch, "Law & Order: Special Letters Unit," with Muppets on Sesame Street: "This is actually the ultimate cultural accolade, I think, in the United States. . . . I feel like a tobacco-company executive, because hopefully we will hook 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds on the brand now."

Taye Diggs on appearing in the ABC thriller Day Break, which has a Groundhog Day-style plot that repeats scenes: "The dog isn't going to have the shoe in his mouth every single time. That would be bad TV. We're not dumb. I'm Taye Diggs. I wouldn't sign on for that."

John Lithgow on his over-the-top acting in 3rd Rock From the Sun and NBC's new Twenty Good Years: "I just can't restrain myself. That's my problem. They write nice, subtle stuff for me, and before you know it, [he started yelling] I'm all over the map."

Lauren Graham on her displeasure at working with the dog that plays her pet on Gilmore Girls: "I am not a fan of dog comedy. But it's nothing against him. I am a fan of dogs. I have a dog. I like dogs."

Rachel Griffiths on appearing in ABC's Brothers & Sisters -- and in response to a critic's comment that she was "coming back after being in the baby business": "Well, after I sold my babies." She paused. "Whoa, did I do well. I mean, [the] TV deal is nothing. My babies go for millions."

Anne Heche on portraying a life coach in the new ABC series Men in Trees: "Clearly, I have never had a life coach. What would I like coaching on? I've stumbled through and made so many mistakes, I'm pretty good with where I am."

Fantasia Barrino on her victory on American Idol: "I didn't even think I was going to make it to the top two. When you hear the word idol, people think that you have to be a certain way. You have to be a perfect person. Your slate has to be clean. You have to be a role model in people's eyes. . . . I was the only one that had dropped out of school, I had a child at a young age, and I wasn't the perfect person they thought the idol should be."

Cracker star Robbie Coltrane on his decision to avoid starring in an American TV series because his family prefers to live in Scotland: "You think of all those people who hitchhike to Los Angeles in the hope of having a small part in something. 'Oh, so Mr. Big Guy from Scotland can't be bothered.' I'm sorry if it sounds ungrateful. But I have this terrifying vision of my children with a platinum card going, 'You tell the maitre d' that I want . . . ' "

America's Got Talent judge David Hasselhoff on his greater popularity outside the United States: "I love Europe. I love the world. It's fun. I'm more interested right now in developing my own musical, David Hasselhoff, the Musical. That kind of puts it all together, in perspective."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv/orl-liv29tvtour06jul29,0,3712999,print.story?coll=orl-caltvtop

fredfa

07-29-06, 08:54 PM

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
The best lines from the TV critics 19-day press tour

By Bill Brioux Toronto Sun July 29, 2006

PASADENA, Calif. -- Some TV stars and network executives love coming to press tour. Then there's Roger Ailes.

The former Nixon strategist is head of Fox News, the aggressively "fair and balanced" cable news network which celebrates 10 years on the air this fall. He hates all us Pinko, commie TV critics but, at least, he tries to be funny about it.

"Good afternoon," he addressed us this week. "I understand you've been locked in here for three weeks, so I'm going to try to get you through this as quickly as I can. I got an e-mail from a guy in Guantanamo and he said, 'We got to get those prisoners out of there,' so we'll do our best."

There were moments when the press tour seemed like a detention centre or, as one press wag put it, "a death march with scrambled eggs." Then there were these moments:

"I do think that television is a terribly influential part of this country and that when things that are very mean-spirited and voyeuristic go on TV, I think it's bad crack in the school yard."

-- Recovering drug abuser Aaron Sorkin, now showrunner of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.

"Why did I use that word?"

-- Sorkin again, three seconds later.

"I think that it's most likely like bad Vicodin in the schoolyard."

-- Sorkin's Studio 60 star Matthew Perry, taking a bullet for his boss.

"I just like the clothes."

-- Kidnapped's Dana Delany, who was asked why this was her fourth rich-b---h role in a row.

"You're kidding, right? I have actually gone to Charlie Gibson's stylist."

-- New CBS news anchor Katie Couric, who was asked about her wardrobe.

"I have four ties and five suits and whichever one is on the right in the closet that's the one I put on."

-- ABC news anchor Charlie Gibson, who wasn't sure if Couric was kidding.

"I've said for years, if you go to the theatre and somebody does not have a Law & Order credit they've either just gotten off the bus or they're really bad."

-- Law & Order creator Dick Wolf.

"I can't shake hands. I'm not going to shake people."

-- Germaphobe Howie Mandel when asked why he just doesn't shake Deal Or No Deal contestants who don't know when to stop.

"I have a very weird film career. I'm very picky and not in demand."

-- Everybody Loves Raymond's Brad Garrett explaining why he is doing Fox's 'Til Death.

"Comedy, she's a fickle lady."

-- 58th annual Emmy Awards host Conan O'Brien

"What's wrong with me, Mr. T? You a fool, that's what's wrong with you!"

-- Mr. T explaining the concept of his new self-help show I Pity The Fool

"If those things were true he'd be missing a limb."

-- Shannon Tweed asked if long-time partner and KISS frontman Gene Simmons really slept with 2,000 women

"Ridiculous. You can't compare them. I'm much better."

-- Neil Simon, this year's recipient of the Mark Twain Prize For America's Humor (airing in November on PBS), on being compared to Shakespeare

"I kind of like it when he hits my buzzer because I haven't had my buzzer hit lately, especially by a man."

-- David Hasselhoff on the British judge on America's Got Talent.

"I wish I had a buzzer."

-- America's Got Talent host Regis Philbin

"All I could do was pray for Britney's stomach to grow, Angelina to adopt another child or something else to happen."

-- Two And A Half Men star Charlie Sheen on all the bad press he got when he split with wife Denise Richards

"If everything had gone the way the fans wanted it to go the show would be over. I would just be calling Rory going, 'What are you doing tonight?' "

-- Lauren Graham on the fans' reactions to last season's Gilmore Girls cliffhanger

"No, but by God, I've been divorced. I've had all the lawyer experience you need."

-- Jeri Ryan asked if she spoke to any lawyers to prepare for her role on the new CBS legal drama Shark

"I'm mostly here because of how good the script was and how bad The Whole Ten Yards was."

-- Matthew Perry back on TV in Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip

"I love, 'Bad boys, bad boys. What you gonna do when they come for you?' What's it called? Cops. I love Cops."

-- Dame Helen Mirren (back on Prime Suspect this fall) on her favourite American TV show

"It's like a whole field of flowers to run in for comedians."

-- South Park creator Matt Stone on one of his favourite targets: Scientology

http://www.torontosun.com/Entertainment/Columnists/Brioux_Bill/2006/07/29/pf-1708403.html

HDTVChallenged

07-30-06, 01:11 AM

I saw a complete list someplace in the last few weeks of all the switched markets. I am not sure I can find it, but I'll try.

Well after quite a bit of hunting and pecking over at fcc.gov, I think I found the answer. ( I'm not sure I could find it again. :D )

Anyway, it looks like Comcast will probably get the local system here, unless something really odd happens.

Thanks for your efforts ...

fredfa

07-30-06, 01:20 AM

Sorry I couldn't come up with anything more definitive for you, HDTVC.

fredfa

07-30-06, 01:21 AM

On overview on the state of HDTV

The Business of TV
HDTV Delivers — Gradually

By Craig Kuhl Multichannel News 7/31/2006

High-definition television’s promise — to deliver high-resolution pictures accompanied by near theater- quality sound — is being kept, albeit gradually and with some trepidation and confusion among HDTV service and content providers and, most importantly, consumers.

The quality of high-definition technology has never been questioned. It provides up to 1,920 active horizontal pixels by 1,080 active scanning lines, represents an image resolution of more than 2 million pixels and renders a widescreen format. Translation: By any standard, it’s far superior to standard-definition television.

COMPETITIVE TOOL

And there’s no denying HDTV’s value as a competitive tool in the intensifying video and data delivery business, led by cable, satellite and a growing presence from telephone companies.

Still, some issues remain. The Federal Communications Commission is affecting the delivery of HDTV, through its mandate that all television sets must have digital tuners by July, 2007 — and its requirement that all broadcast-television stations switch to digital from analog transmission (though not necessarily HDTV) by Feb. 17, 2009.

And there is still confusion among consumers about exactly what high-definition is and how it works, with more than half of viewers believing they’re watching HD when they’re not.

Then there is the bandwidth issue. Cable operators are cautiously pushing ahead with bandwidth expansion and management plans to accommodate HDTV’s voracious appetite, but only on an as-needed basis.

Despite these pressing issues — which have stunted the spectacular growth many predicted for HDTV early on — 34 million homes are expected to be able to view the high-resolution format by 2007, according to a Kagan Research study.

With the FCC mandate, the improved picture quality and the competitive value of HD, it’s no wonder service providers, manufacturers and content providers are now getting clarity about high-definition’s expanding role in the communications space.

“HD is definitely one of the top three priorities, along with [digital video recorders] and [video on demand], as a tool for cable operators to compete against satellite. Cable is responding to satellite’s early move with HD to gain market share, and leveraging their local HD programming early on in the game,” said Michael Cai, director of broadband and gaming for Parks Associates, a media-research firm.

Leveraging indeed. Comcast Corp. has stepped up its HD service with a reported 10 million digital customers, a 47% penetration rate — 28% of whom currently subscribe to a DVR or HD service. The company has also announced it will increase its high-definition offerings later this year.

Insight Communications Co. is also expanding its HD service to include a five-channel package of high-definition content for $7.95 per month and free local programming.

Most of the top MSOs are expected to add HD programming in the next year.

DISHING IT OUT

On the satellite side, EchoStar Communications Corp.’s Dish Network is providing 29 HD channels in 31 markets, significantly more than its cable competitors. And it is addressing the bandwidth issue by including MPEG-4 technology in its high-def receivers, which will allow a significant increase in the compression rates of the current MPEG-2 technology.

“HD has been notoriously slow to take off. But the FCC has kick-started HD and is pressuring cable and content providers to launch HDTV, which they have,” said Seth Kenvin, vice president of strategic marketing at BigBand Networks. “But with VOD, broadband speeds increasing and now the bandwidth needs for HD, operators are getting strapped for bandwidth, which is at a premium, especially with forecasts of 30-50 HD channels in the next few years.”

Kenvin believes a number of combined techniques will at least temporarily solve the bandwidth issue. “Rate-shaping, switched broadcast, upgrading plant to 1 GHz, node splitting, and eliminating the analog tier altogether are the best ways to gain bandwidth efficiencies,” he said. “Another answer is moving from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4, but currently there aren’t any devices in the home that can receive it. There’s no single answer.”

For consumers, the question is just what is HD? “There’s confusion among consumers. Many don’t realize they need to subscribe to the service that provides programming in HD. There’s a definite disconnect there,” maintained Michelle Abraham, principal analyst for research and analysis group In-Stat, a sister company to Multichannel News.

Price is also a factor. “Most consumers couldn’t afford a four-thousand dollar HDTV set,” Abraham added. “But prices have fallen to the mid-range, and that has helped the market.”

Additional help is on the way via the Consumer Electronics Association and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. The trade groups announced a joint effort to “broaden educational outreach to consumers about the transition to digital and HDTV” through public-service announcements, enhanced retail sales force education and other awareness efforts.

And with HDTV, awareness counts. “The move to HD has been frustrating, with few programs available, and not much penetration. But that is gradually changing,” said Mukul Krishna, industry manager for digital media research and consulting group Frost & Sullivan. “The retail stores say HD sets are flying off the shelves, but our vendor feedback says that’s not true, and that consumers are relatively clueless about the FCC deadline and what HD is.”

Nevertheless, Krishna and others see HDTV as a viable competitive tool, particularly when mixed with cable’s interactive services, which its satellite competition can’t provide.

WHAT'S TO WATCH?

“The ability to watch HD is there, but there is currently little compulsion from the end-user market because of the few channels in HD available. That’s what people are struggling with,” maintained Krishna. “What will help cable the most is its ability to provide two-way, on-demand services and targeted advertising. Operators can provide targeted ads for each TV in a household, and with HD. Satellite can’t do that.”

Though not necessarily a struggle, high-definition set-top box manufacturers are being challenged to make the transition to HD boxes, which must include new chips, more memory, an advanced process to get technology “to the edge” and, invariably, more cost, said Scientific Atlanta chief technical officer Dave Clark.

“We’re aware that many people don’t know what HD is. Just because there’s a watermark in the corner doesn’t mean you’re watching HD,” Clark said. “That is a challenge to us: retail, programmers and operators. And how do we effectively service the people when the FCC says, 'Turn off the analog spectrum?’ ”

Good question: and one not likely to be answered until close to the FCC’s 2009 deadline for the transition to digital broadcasting, admitted Krishna.

“When all of the issues are combined, the U.S. market for HDTV will continue to move gradually,” he said.

“Once people have gone to digital, they’ll go to HD,” he explained. “And in 2009, the FCC will fine people for not switching off analog, with 2012 the final deadline.”

The deadline for mass consumption of HD sets is less clear. Most experts agree that awareness, bandwidth and cost issues must be solved first.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6357352

fredfa

07-30-06, 02:49 AM

There wasn’t much coverage of the My Network TV press briefing the other day. I overflooked this from the highly respected Phil Rosenthal:

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
My Network offers offbeat, low-budget TV

By Phil Rosenthal Chicago Tribune Media Columnist

PASADENA, Calif. -- The stated ambition of My Network TV, like the production budgets of its shows, is decidedly modest.

Let the folks at the CW--the joint venture CBS Corp. and Warner Bros. are launching this fall after cutting their losses on UPN and the WB, respectively--talk about thriving because they no longer have a sixth network to compete against.

"We really have no specific expectations," said Jack Abernethy, chief executive of News Corp.'s Fox-owned TV stations, which quickly established My Network to fill the prime-time void on its UPN affiliates and other stations abruptly orphaned by the demise of the two mini-networks.

"Frankly, we were starting to not make any money on UPN," said Roger Ailes, the Fox News boss who oversees My Network in his role as chairman of the Fox-owned stations. "We think we can, with the telenovelas, do enough of a rating to make more money than we did with UPN. . . . I think we have a reasonable shot."

My Network TV is not mine or yours--it is theirs--and it's not a traditional network.

It is TV, but different enough from what most Americans are used to watching that those in charge of would-be rival CW, which will launch mostly with established UPN and WB shows, shrug it off. They cite My Network's business model, its all-melodrama lineup and bargain budgets said to be about $200,000 per hour episode.

Just as a point of reference, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," NBC's new hour-long drama from "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin starring Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford, reportedly is budgeted at $2.5 million to $3 million per episode.

The known stars of My Network TV are Bo Derek, Morgan Fairchild, Tatum O'Neal and Maria Conchita Alonso--all big names . . . a generation ago. Its shows don't have writers, per se, but rather adapters, who take already successful Spanish-language telenovela scripts and translate them for U.S. consumption. Even the network's front office operations are streamlined.

"We were laughing at lunch about actually how many dedicated [My Network staffers] we have, and we weren't sure if it was one or two," Abernethy said. "We're being very unorthodox."

What will debut in September on Chicago's WPWR-Ch. 50 and other My Network stations is as much about economics as it is about storytelling. A nightly lineup of two soap operas will have original episodes five nights a week, 52 weeks a year. Each pair of stories will be told in 13-week cycles.

News Corp.'s syndication wing already was planning to distribute the telenovela package when Ailes and company learned UPN was going away, forcing them to redeploy. It was as much about keeping the lights on at stations as competing with cable or anything else, including the CW, for which Tribune Co., owner of this paper, owns 15 affiliates.

Industry analysts think My Network programs might make inroads with female viewers. Some suggest the shows could have camp value. Others point out these romance tales have been successful elsewhere, so it would be a mistake to write them off too soon.

What makes them appealing to stations is that My Network not only fills two hours of prime time Monday through Saturday, when a weekly recap show for each soap airs, but offers affiliates a more generous split of ad time than is customary.

"I've always thought the relationship between stations and networks was somewhat out of whack," Ailes said. "We made this a little more comfortable for stations because we could."

It's their network and their gamble, but not necessarily a costly one.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0607260230jul26,0,547307.column

DoubleDAZ

07-30-06, 10:24 AM

Sorry I couldn't come up with anything more definitive for you, HDTVC.A call to the cableco won't answer the question???

HDTVChallenged

07-30-06, 11:28 AM

Sorry I couldn't come up with anything more definitive for you, HDTVC.

Ok ... this morning I managed to find the info again (after three tries :) )

Here's the link to the appropriate document at the FCC: Link (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-1591A1.pdf)

It's a bit annoying that the major trade magazines can't be bothered to print the entire breakdown listed in the above document. I guess if you're not in the "top ten" markets, you're off the radar screen. ;)

Further investigation at comcast.com revealed that many systems will not see very many changes until mid-2007 ...

fredfa

07-30-06, 11:51 AM

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
All Football All The Time
By Mark McGuire Albany Times Union staff writer

PASADENA, Calif. -- America, or at least my wife, better be seriously ready for some football this fall.

College football. Pro football. High school football. Fake football.

Primetime television will regularly feature football, college or pro, at least four nights a week (Saturdays through Mondays, and Thursdays). Over the course of the season there will be a college or pro game all seven days of the week.

And if you aren't in the mood for a game, you can catch a pair of scripted shows centered around the gridiron: the drama "Friday Night Lights" (8 p.m. Tuesdays, NBC), which focuses on the culture of Texas high school football, and The CW comedy "The Game" (8:30 p.m. Sundays), which highlight the off-the-field lives of players and their significant others.

"Hardcore fans are going to want to see all sides of it," said Coby Bell ("Third Watch"), who co-stars in "The Game."

But maybe instead they will be watching, I don't know, football.

"But there is no football on Sunday nights, right?" Bell asked.

Um, Coby, check the schedule.

There is football on. There is always football on.

NBC is jumping back into football with its Sunday night package. With the former "Monday Night Football" tandem of Al Michaels and John Madden sliding over to NBC -- the Monday night game has moved after 36 years from ABC to ESPN -- and a 7 p.m. studio show, "Football Night in America," helmed by Bob Costas, Sunday nights could provide the marquee matchup of the week.

Unless it's still the Monday game. Or the Thursday game. (NBC kicks off the season on Thursday, Sept. 7, with the Miami Dolphins at the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers.) Or the Sunday day slate that bleeds into primetime at night.

Of course there's college football, including the Saturday night primetime game that will air on ABC, the 200-plus college games on all the permutations of ESPN, and on CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox Sports, CSTV and other regional outlets. There's even high school and college football on Time Warner Cable. Am I leaving anybody out? Probably.

In addition to NBC, another new player is the NFL Network, which will air Thursday night games starting on Thanksgiving -- part of a triple-header binge-fest that is sure to cause holiday angst around several homes. (Note to Time Warner Cable: Your deadline to get the NFL Network on the Albany system is drawing close. More and more I see a dish in my future.)

The improbable question arises: Could there be a glut of football? Could fans actually get sick of the game?

"There is always that potential," Costas said in a recent interview. "But there is no indication we've come close to it. It seems to be the one sport, especially the NFL, that is more or less immune to all the changes in television."

Nah, for us sports geeks, the glut question is ridiculous. Fresno State vs. Wyoming is better than yet another installment of "Law & Order."

"Football is the single best, not just sports property, but entertainment property in America," CBS Sports President Sean McManus said. "Nothing consistently gets the ratings that it does year in and year out."

And that should concern the networks, or at least its dramas, comedies and pre-fab reality shows. Not to mention my wife.

If we're watching football, we're not watching the scripted and reality shows incessantly promoted during -- wait for it -- football games. Shows about almost anything, even football, are not the same as football. Some across the weekly schedule could take a hit.

"We are going to find out," NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol said. "The strength of the NFL brand is as strong as anything there is on television."

Now consider that NBC will be able to pick the games it shows toward the end of the season -- something ABC pined for when it would get stuck with dog games in December -- and interest only grows. I'll get around to watching "Desperate Housewives" tomorrow. Or next week. Or in the spring. Even with TiVo and DVRs, there is only so much time in the week, and it's only minutes until the next kickoff.

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/storyprint.asp?StoryID=502426

fredfa

07-30-06, 01:24 PM

TV Notebook
Original programming emerging in basic cable networks
By David Kronke Los Angeles Daily News Television Writer

Go to the supermarket and throw a can of Campbell's tomato soup or a Sara Lee pound cake into your basket, and you pretty much know what you're getting.

Basic cable networks — like USA, with its "Characters Welcome" slogan, or TNT, where "We Know Drama" is the mantra — are hoping for the same familiarity and loyalty from viewers.

Once cable channels were a hodgepodge of programming (some still are), but now a number of the major basic cable networks are increasing the amount of their original scripted shows and focusing on developing a tonal consistency that helps brand them.

So, even though series come from different creators and have widely disparate themes, they almost look as though they could have been crafted in a cloning laboratory, meaning viewers have a better chance of enjoying all of their offerings.

"I'm big on brands," says Bonnie Hammer, president of both USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel. "It's very important for anyone to differentiate themselves and come up with a brand that's organic to what they do. Especially now, with all this cross-platform product that has to be developed (online), if in fact there is no brand, there's no way to carry it over."

Steve Koonin, executive vice president of TNT, adds, "With most cable networks, it's the pursuit of the hit rather than the pursuit of the network; we're just trying to build the network stronger and stronger. To have a brand, you have to have that thread of consistency. We're very conscious of that."

Few networks manage to maintain a consistent sensibility in their scripted programming: In the beginning, before it imploded, The WB managed it with slick shows aimed at young audiences. Cable has learned from that model.

TNT's focus is apparent in its motto: "We Know Drama." Its series "The Closer," starring Emmy nominee Kyra Sedgwick, is the highest-rated original program on basic cable. Its miniseries productions, such as the current "Nightmares & Dreamscapes," are touted as summer events. "Into the West," its previous miniseries, recently led all programs with 16 Emmy nominations.

USA, on the other hand, lures viewers with its tag line, "Characters Welcome." Its Friday lineup of the quirky crime dramedies "Monk" (which has won star Tony Shalhoub two Emmys) and "Psych" is a huge draw, and on Sundays it presents the distinctive paranormal dramas "The 4400" and "The Dead Zone." The Sci Fi Channel's focus is fairly self-explanatory.

ABC Family is aimed at teens and their parents: "Kyle XY," about a curious teenager of mysterious origins, this summer won the network its best ratings. Next week, it will introduce a lighthearted drama, "Three Moons Over Milford," about a small town coping with the potential end of the world.

By contrast, FX targets mature viewers with such stylishly gritty series as the corrupt-cop action show "The Shield" (star Michael Chiklis has won an Emmy), the corrosively sardonic firefighter series "Rescue Me" (Denis Leary, its star and co-creator, recently received his second Emmy nomination) and "Nip/Tuck," a show about Miami plastic surgeons offering mediations on self-images and what constitutes beauty.

"One of the things I'm proud of is that ëNip/Tuck' and ëShield' are about as different from one another as possible, and yet they share a similar sensibility," says Jon Landgraf, president of FX entertainment. "That sensibility is a trueness to the vision of the creators.

"We live in a culture that is about manufactured product, of product that is focus-grouped and designed to be user-

friendly, whether it's a hamburger or a car," Landgraf continues. "But the stuff that tends to mean the most to people are things that are made by hand, that are made by someone with a point of view and a distinctive sensibility, and then they happen to resonate with a lot of people." We want to make shows that are as popular as possible, but for me, when you try to reverse-engineer, which is mostly what TV and movies do anymore, you end up with middling work."

By contrast, TNT ensures that its original productions are tooled specifically for its audiences.

Michael Wright, senior vice president of original programming for TNT, says, "Our approach is very specific. We meet with writers and show-creators and spend the bulk of our time explaining to them what the network is, who's watching and why we think they're watching. So they're crafting a show to a very specific audience. ... If you give talented people that very specific sense of who's watching you, they're expert at hitting the target.

"It's a very populist network," he continues. "These are shows that are very relatable, very accessible. They're very commercial shows, but they're also smart. We're not trying to be elitist, but by no means is the network trying to aim at the lowest common denominator."

ABC Family's mission is inherent in its name, says network president Paul Lee. "We can do family drama, but in a relevant way," he says. "We can deal with real issues. So, as you see us rolling out a number of shows, you see a tremendous amount of faith for us in family drama. What you see us doing is saying, ëLook, let's take something else. Let's take a cop show. Let's take a sci-fi show. Maybe, let's take a mythology show and we'll meld that together with family drama.' " We think that's the right thing to do for our audience."

While Hammer oversees two very different networks, what unites USA and Sci Fi is their branding approach, which she concedes is a tricky thing to pull off.

"Even Sci Fi is complicated," she says. "If you create a brand that's just the old definition of pure science fiction — of space operas — it's very narrow. You'll have a very loyal fan base, but it's very difficult to grow. So you have to figure out a way to broaden it enough in terms of speculative fiction, so that you can grow your audience."

Figuring out USA's character-based identity, Hammer says, "was trickier. We had to do a lot of soul-

searching in terms of what can we do that will differentiate ourselves from any other general entertainment channel. We realized that everything we do is based in character development.

"So we had to figure out — what does USA mean? To some, it can mean a place. But the way we went was, USA is about the people who live in America."

That revelation opened the door to USA's current success.

"We're so clear about what our brand is now," Hammer says. "A few years ago, it was a little harder: What do you mean, characters? We do have to have strong, definable, differentiated characters. We absolutely have to see them — as opposed to massive ensembles, where you can't define each character. Our protagonists are all slightly flawed in some way, but not negatively, not dysfunctionally."

Cable networks are also challenged by their more limited budgets when it comes to developing scripted series. Many cable networks must air one scripted series for every two pilots it develops. By contrast, broadcast networks may have a development batting average of one in five, or even worse.

"We have to be incredibly keen in terms of what we develop," Hammer admits. "So we're very careful as to what we greenlight, and of those scripts, how they're cast, how we execute. Cablers have become very smart as to how they make their decisions, knowing they have to be the right decisions."

But given the successes of these cable networks — many of them are winning higher ratings this summer than their broadcast counterparts — the industry might learn a thing or two from cable's lean, mean development system.

"All the broadcast networks have to take a look at the cable industry," Hammer says. "It's all changing. We all have to take a new look as to how we do business and at what works in our varying playing fields."

http://www.dailynews.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=4112164

fredfa

07-30-06, 02:09 PM

Ok ... this morning I managed to find the info again (after three tries :) )

Here's the link to the appropriate document at the FCC: Link (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-1591A1.pdf)

It's a bit annoying that the major trade magazines can't be bothered to print the entire breakdown listed in the above document. I guess if you're not in the "top ten" markets, you're off the radar screen. ;)

Further investigation at comcast.com revealed that many systems will not see very many changes until mid-2007 ...

I am glad you could understand that FCC document, HDTVC!

fredfa

07-30-06, 07:07 PM

So you thought you had read the last dispatch from the TCA Summer Tour? Oh ye of little faith!

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
Poor PBS can't even get a break from power grid
By Peter Ames Carlin The (Portland) Oregonian Sunday, July 30, 2006

PASADENA, Calif. T he Ritz-Carlton's Internet system crashed late Wednesday night, and that was basically it for the summer Television Critics Association press tour. Halfway through PBS' two days of presentations, all research, writing and (oh, my goodness) filing stories came to a standstill.

Web browsers remained dark Thursday morning. And even as I write this (midday Thursday) the world beyond these walls remains maddeningly out of reach.

It was just the latest sign of the onset of press tour entropy. Earlier, a Wednesday night event in the hotel's Viennese Room featured a performance by 28-year-old opera singer Vittorio Grigolo, coming soon to "Great Performances." But he didn't come with any living musicians, and the taped music was so rich with strings, piano glissandos and swooping harps that just a few moments could give you a stomachache.

But for us, at least, escape was easy. The PBS folks had to stick it out all night, smiling wanly and shaking hands and not even dreaming that within a few hours the journalists they were attempting to entertain would be cut off from their publications, thereby reducing coverage of the event to a tiny trickle.

It was just the latest stomachache for the nation's public television network. After years of growing competition from cable and diminishing support from the government and private sources, PBS now must also contend with a Federal Communications Commission that has grown so censorious that even a single swear word -- including the cries of alarm heard in news coverage of the collapsing World Trade Center on 9/11 -- could spur fines steep enough to bankrupt stations from coast to coast.

Or would they?

"It's hard to figure out how to navigate through these decisions because there's no clear guidance," PBS chief executive Paula Kerger told critics Wednesday. Kerger, only a few months into the job, is a plainspoken woman who made clear that she has no intention of surrendering the system's creative freedom. Particularly when it comes to high-impact projects such as Ken Burns' new World War II documentary, "The War." The film won't air for another year, but Kerger -- who has seen enough to know that some of the veterans use profanity when describing particularly heinous events -- has no intention of censoring their recollections.

"I hope we, as an industry, will stand up and be bold and sort of bring it on," she said.

Kerger's spunky attitude is certainly welcome at PBS, given the usual array of hurdles that stand between the network -- actually a loosely affiliated group of independent local stations -- and long-term financial security.

Shockingly, "Masterpiece Theater" has yet to nail down a primary funder for its new season.

"We do have a team in place looking for a funder," executive producer Rebecca Eaton noted, sounding a little more sad than she had intended.

Still, "Masterpiece" has some compelling shows coming up this year -- including a seventh and final installment of Helen Mirren's "Prime Suspect" series, in which Jane Tennison confronts the end of her career. And "American Masters" will present documentaries on the lives of Andy Warhol and photographer Annie Liebovitz (the latter directed by the subject's sister, Barbara Liebovitz).

Meanwhile, PBS' kids gang has a new series of "Curious George" cartoons, with celebrated indie actor William H. Macy. Grown-up people can look forward to documentaries about the redevelopment of New York City's ground zero, the role money plays in American politics, the plight of the working class, and the presentation of the Mark Twain Prize for American humor to playwright Neil Simon.

You can always depend on PBS for solid, highbrow entertainment. Trouble is, some factions in America, now including a significant percentage of our elected officials, don't necessarily see that sort of programming as being something the government should support. Particularly when it veers toward more challenging, less family-friendly terrain.

That the action in the most popular shows on TV (from "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" to "Grey's Anatomy" to "Desperate Housewives") stem entirely from acts of sex and violence doesn't seem to matter. As of now the government is intent on stamping out "indecency" wherever it, or at least one disgruntled viewer, seems to see it. Whether it will come in a naughty word uttered by a man recalling the hideous violence of wartime, or in Georgia O'Keeffe's wildly sensuous paintings of flowers is anyone's guess.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle facing PBS is this nation's longstanding suspicion/resentment of intellectualism.

The factions in the government that ridicule public broadcasting for being elitist either don't understand or care that the system is supposed to focus on elite culture. As once-artsy cable channels such as A&E Network and Bravo turn their attention to reality shows and other mainstream fare, PBS' mission grows more important: If they don't make opera, theater, serious music and documentaries available to the general public, who will? The fact that the local PBS station is, in many communities, the last locally owned TV or radio outlet in town only raises the stakes.

Say what you will about the endless pledge breaks, the prevalence of British costume dramas and the quasi-educational reality shows that contain all of the indulgences of network reality shows with only a fraction of the entertainment value, PBS is still an important cultural asset in this country. The FCC's crusade to censor its programs -- an extension of a longstanding campaign to cripple public broadcasting in this country -- is foolish and wrong.

And you don't need an Internet connection to figure that out.

http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/living/1154116557198810.xml&coll=7

HDTVChallenged

07-30-06, 07:22 PM

I am glad you could understand that FCC document, HDTVC!

LOL ... It *does* seem to be much more difficult to find (and parse) this information than it needs to be. :) ... Not to mention that one would think that Comcast and TWC would have a breakdown on their websites. Perhaps they are waiting until the ink is dry before they publicize the info.

fredfa

07-31-06, 01:40 AM

TV Notebook
Does a DVR Boost Viewing Hours or Not?

By Alex Mindlin The New York Times July 31, 2006

It seems that adults in households that have digital video recorders watch less TV than adults in the general population, according to a recent analysis by Mediamark Research, an audience-measurement firm.

That finding, which comes from in-home interviews conducted by Mediamark with 26,000 adults between March 2005 and May 2006, seems to conflict with the contentions of the major broadcast networks.

Researchers for the networks told advertisers in November that people in households with a DVR watched 12 percent more hours of TV a day than those without. Those researchers had argued that that tendency counterbalanced the possibility that DVR users would skip past ads.

David F. Poltrack, chief research officer for CBS, said the Mediamark numbers were unreliable, because they were derived from people’s often-low reports of their own TV watching. The figures suggesting that adults who use a DVR watch more television come from Arbitron’s 2,000-person machine-recorded survey in the spring of 2005, but it covered only the Houston market.

Mr. Poltrack added that, according to CBS’s proprietary research, people with DVR’s, whatever their level of TV viewing, tended to watch more television after getting the devices than they did before.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/technology/31drill.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=television&pagewanted=print

bgooch

07-31-06, 02:18 AM

Adelphia Deal May Cut Time Warner’s Programming Costs, but Not Customers’ Bills
July 31, 2006
By KEN BELSON, The New York Times

In the four years since Comcast bought AT&T Broadband to become the nation’s largest cable provider by a factor of two, company executives have liked to boast about how their extra heft has helped them negotiate more favorable rates from ESPN, TBS and other programmers.

Time Warner Cable, which is about half of Comcast’s size, may be able to make similar claims soon.

As early as tomorrow, the companies’ pending purchase of Adelphia Communications — worth about $17 billion — could be completed, giving Time Warner Cable 3.5 million new cable customers and Comcast an extra 1.7 million subscribers. As part of the deal, the cable giants will also swap customers in Florida, Texas and elsewhere.

With 21.7 million basic cable customers already, Comcast is unlikely to gain much more leverage over programmers since the extra subscribers will boost its total number by only 8 percent.

But for Time Warner Cable, the extra customers represent a 29 percent increase and give it 14.5 million cable subscribers. The company, which already has a big position in New York, will also become the dominant cable provider in Los Angeles. Since key decision makers in the advertising and media worlds are concentrated in these cities, Time Warner Cable will become even more of a destination for programmers.

“You will reach the mind-share folks” if your network is carried on Time Warner Cable, said Lowell Singer, an analyst at Cowen & Company. “If you’re a programmer, you have to be on there.”

Precisely how much of an advantage Time Warner Cable can gain in negotiations is unclear since contract details are rarely disclosed and each programming contract is different. But Comcast, which operates in 22 of the 25 largest television markets, has used its size to slow the growth rate in programming costs from the low teens a few years ago to the mid-single digits now.

Time Warner expects programming costs to rise by around 12 percent for the remainder of the year. Longer term, it may not receive the same windfall as Comcast has seen since it will get moderately larger, whereas Comcast’s purchase of AT&T Broadband more than doubled the company. And since programming deals are often multiyear affairs, Time Warner will have to wait years for its existing contracts to expire before renegotiating them.

Still, when Adelphia is sold, its programming contracts will lapse and Time Warner’s agreements will be applied, to the dismay of many programmers who stand to earn less money, network executives say. Time Warner’s rates are roughly 10 percent lower than Adelphia’s, said Derek Baine, senior analyst at Kagan Research.

Time Warner may win larger discounts from networks that were only on Adelphia’s systems, since Time Warner would be under no obligation to carry them and could therefore drive a better bargain.

Not all networks are created equal, though. Companies like Disney and Viacom that control many leading networks can better resist pressure from cable providers. By contrast, smaller networks may feel the need to make concessions because they do not want to risk losing access to Time Warner or Comcast’s customers.

“Let’s face it, Comcast can make or break a cable network,” said Robert Routh, an analyst at Jefferies & Company. “They can drop a cable network and if it’s not one of the bigger ones, they can put them out of the business.”

Whatever Time Warner saves on programming is unlikely to make its way into the pockets of consumers, at least not directly. The company is likely to use the money to offer new services that produce revenue, like digital phones and video-on-demand. Consumers get discounts for buying bundles of services, but they also spend more money.

“Consumers will look at it and say, ‘Gee, you save money on programming, why don’t I get it?,’ ” said Glenn A. Britt, the chief executive of Time Warner Cable. But he said the company is going to use the savings to upgrade networks and introduce new products.

Down the road, prices for cable television are bound to rise if cable companies continue to pass along some of the increases in programming costs.

Since 2000, spending on cable television has risen 43 percent, according to TNS Telecoms. The popularity of more expensive digital cable services is behind part of that increase. But programming costs have risen nearly twice as fast. In 2006 alone, sports channels are expected to win 18 percent increases in affiliate fees, according to Kagan Research.

Though cable companies are not passing along all of the higher programming fees, the steady rise in cable television prices has led advocates to question executives who claim that their mergers save money for consumers.

“What mergers demonstrate is that there is not competitive pressure to pass along savings to customers even with the Bells getting into the television market,” said Gene Kimmelman, director of the Consumers Union. “If people think the transaction will lead to lower prices, there’s no data to support it.”

Still, trying to reduce programming costs is only one of several justifications Time Warner Cable and Comcast have given for buying Adelphia. They also expect to use their larger sizes to win bigger discounts from equipment vendors and introduce new products more quickly.

And with denser concentrations of customers in places like Ohio, South Florida and New England, the companies hope to lower their marketing costs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/technology/31adelphia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=print

archiguy

07-31-06, 07:51 AM

It seems that adults in households that have digital video recorders watch less TV than adults in the general population, according to a recent analysis by Mediamark Research, an audience-measurement firm.

Mr. Poltrack added that, according to CBS’s proprietary research, people with DVR’s, whatever their level of TV viewing, tended to watch more television after getting the devices than they did before.

Well, that's just clear as mud. :rolleyes: This might provide an explanation:

In my HD-DVR equipped household, we watch more "appointment" TV, i.e. we watch more TV shows on a regular basis and no longer have to worry about missing eps. That means, for us, more serialized shows since that's what we like. But because of the ever-increasing glut of interesting programming, we're getting more picky about which shows "make the cut" to compete for our limited TV time. There's simply not enough time for anything less than "outstanding!" anymore.

But, the TV is probably on less than it was before the DVR arrived and we hardly ever just sit there and let whatever's on wash over us anymore, clicker at the ready. And we have no interest in the programming blocks and tricks (like starting and ending shows a minute or two off the hour mark) that the networks so carefully prepare to keep viewers locked in all night.

So, in essence, we see less TV than before but we watch more. And commericals only get watched on "live" sports telecasts as a general rule, although we occasionally stop FF and watch if they look interesting. And we're not alone, I'm sure. This trend is what will make sports event ads worth more and more relative to other programming as DVR penetration increases.

vonzoog

07-31-06, 08:20 AM

I have to agree with archiguy.

We have two D* TiVo's with 2 tuner each. That allow us to record up to 4 programs at a time. It is very, very rare that we watch any TV that is live with the exception of sports. (We have learn to start watching college basketball, that we are recording, at the beginning of the second half so that we can skip through the commercials and finish the games right on time).

We too have become more and more "selective" on what we watch because of the limited time factor. Going by what I read in this forum, we are surely missing some very good programing. We just don't have time to watch them all. The time factor has even cut into our DVD viewing time.

A lot of good programs out there, just impossible to watch them all.

Marcus Carr

07-31-06, 10:04 AM

Sky HD orders break the 90,000 barrier

High-definition popularity surpasses expectations

Jane Hoskyn, vnunet.com 31 Jul 2006

Sky claims to have taken 90,000 orders for its high-definition Sky HD TV service.

Some 38,00 UK homes had been kitted out with Sky HD by the end of June, and the company hopes to install all 90,000 orders by September.

Sales of HD-ready televisions are also buoyant. According to market research firm GFK, 2.7 million HD-ready sets are expected to be sold by the end of 2006, up from an initial forecast of 1.4 million.

Sky HD began its first installations in the UK and Ireland on 22 May. Viewers benefit from a cinema-like experience, with four times the picture detail of standard definition.

The digital satellite broadcaster now offers 10 dedicated high-definition channels in the UK, including Sky One HD, Sky Sports HD, and two Sky Movies HD channels. The BBC also runs a free-to-air channel, BBC HD, on Sky channel 145.

"We are really pleased with the take up of Sky HD which has exceeded expectations," said Hilary Perchard, head of product marketing at Sky HD.

"We are looking forward to an exciting year ahead with lots of great HD content in the pipeline including the exclusive Robbie Williams concert, a Star Wars HD marathon and Sky Sports HD's amazing summer of sports."

Sky recently announced its first high-definition live music broadcast in the UK, with Sky One and Sky One HD set to air a Robbie Williams concert on 9 September.

Sky Sports HD plans to screen live coverage of events including the 2006 Ryder Cup, Guinness Premiership Rugby and Barclays Premiership football.

http://www.pcw.co.uk/vnunet/news/2161305/sky-hd-orders-break-90-barrier

fredfa

07-31-06, 10:39 AM

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
TV's press tour de force
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn”

The air conditioning broke in the middle of a heat wave. The Internet went down on the last day of tour. And yet, it seemed nothing could stop the relentlessly upbeat vibe as the nation's TV critics wrapped up their 18-day network previews.

And why was that? Because we know we've got plenty to write about between now and Christmas.

In years when the crop of new shows is mediocre, critics tend to drift out of press conferences and spend too many column inches writing about the quality of network parties and hotel food. But the ballrooms of the Pasadena Ritz-Carlton were packed all month long. Journalists busily blogged from their tables and trudged through parties filling their voice recorders with quotes from the stars and creators of the shows that produced, many critics agreed, the best development season TV has had in 12 years.

If anyone had a right to complain, about the lack of substance on TV, it's it was the scribe who gained perspective when his market was wiped off the map. But even Dave Walker, critic of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, agreed that there's a lot of worthwhile TV coming our way this fall. And, as he noted, "Better shows make for better parties at press tour."

So a word to the wise: If you have been putting off that special purchase, whether a high-def television temple for the living room or a video recorder to capture two shows at the same time, this would be the time to take the plunge.

Development -- the process of approving ideas for new shows and then shepherding them through the writing and filming of first episodes, or pilots -- is a notoriously chancy thing. But with each passing year, it seems, intense competition has improved what comes out the pipeline.

Consider Monday night at 9 CT, when "CSI: Miami" on CBS will go up against the brightest new drama of the fall season, NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," an exhilarating romp through the backstage of big-time network TV from "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin.

Or how about 8 p.m. CT Tuesday nights. This typically brutal time slot will be simply unmanageable without a TiVo, as the two best new comedies of the season, both on ABC -- robbery-high-jinks hijinks caper "The Knights of Prosperity" and self-help spoof "Help Me Help You" -- charge into the teeth of CBS's "The Unit," NBC's time-shifted "Criminal Intent" and Fox's oddly romantic hostage drama, "Standoff." (Heaven help CW's beloved "Veronica Mars": She's also on Tuesdays at 8 CT.)

Of course, being able to save these shows on a machine doesn't mean you'll be able to save these shows from the axe. But take heart: Even if your love for, say, the sweetly sophisticated comedy "Ugly Betty" is unrequited (it's up against "Ghost Whisperer" and "Crossing Jordan" Fridays at 7 CT), chances are good you'll get to see at least the first 13 episodes, if not on ABC, then on ABC Family, ABC.com or on DVD.

NBC, in particular, is serving up a host of terrific new programs, well-written and engagingly made. I could see myself getting hooked by two NBC shows that are clearly aimed at people half my age: "Heroes," about young people just discovering their superpowers; and "Friday Night Lights," where small-town dramas are amplified by big-time high-school football.

Even prime-time football is going to be better this season. NBC will not only get to pick the contests that will air at the end of the season - in previous years ABC's games were scheduled well in advance, and often wound up pitting two teams with losing records -- but the telecast is moving to Sunday nights, where, as NBC's Dick Ebersol noted the other day, games can start earlier.

Speaking of early starts, Fox will kick off the season Aug. 20, about three weeks from now, with "Justice," a dazzling new crime show that challenges the fundamental tenet of "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf, who has assured TV critics on numerous occasions that most if not all defendants are guilty. Victor Garber (late of "Alias") and his all-star defense team will see about that.

Cable channels, meanwhile, began unspooling some of their most promising shows as soon as they left Pasadena: BBC America is airing "Life on Mars" (9 p.m. CT Mondays), a detective period piece set in 1973. TLC's "The Messengers" (9 p.m. CT Sundays), a search for the best new inspirational speaker, is getting amens. Bravo's "Tabloid Wars" (8 p.m. CT Mondays) features hard-working, dedicated newspaper folk. What's not to like there?

Coming very soon, the much-anticipated meditation from director Spike Lee on Hurricane Katrina, "When the Levees Broke," Aug. 21-22 on HBO.

The critics' tour ended late last week on an unusually positive note from television's most beleaguered channel, PBS. Despite renewed government pressure - a dithering FCC that can't decide what is indecent and an administration that wants to choke off its cash supply - PBS is forging ahead under new president Paula Kerger, a plainspoken veteran of public TV. The PBS schedule won't look much different this fall, but Kerger outlined ambitious plans to make pledge drives less painful, reverse the decline in revenue, keep "Masterpiece Theatre" going and get a new generation interested in its most essential programs.

Already, she noted, the "NewsHour" ranks among the top 100 downloads on Apple's iTunes service.

"Jim Lehrer, iPod superstar: Who would have guessed it?" Kerger said.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2006/07/tvs_press_tour_.html#more

mmace

07-31-06, 10:41 AM

Sky HD orders break the 90,000 barriermay not sound a lot to you lot, but think of the size and population of our country, it's not too bad, especially since there's been virtually no advertising lately because of the shortage of boxes

fredfa

07-31-06, 10:49 AM

TV Critics Summer Press Tour
Death March With Cocktails
So, what was the buzz?
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog “The Bastard Machine”

With the Television Critics Association summer press tour in the books, it's stange to think that the one thing almost always mentioned each July - buzz - was missing.

Clearly the big issue was serial dramas - open-ended series that will tax viewers' time and patience come September by their sheer volume and demanding nature.

But the fall season seems buzzless - for all the wrong reasons. It's not that there isn't a great show among the nearly 40 you'll see. There might end up being four or five of them. Continuing on a nearly five year trend, televised dramas are as good as they've ever been. More than once we heard the term "golden age of dramas." I know I've used that term several times in the last few seasons. Once again, there is a fine crop on network television. But a lone buzz show? Nope. Collectively, this is a batch of shows with enormous potential. But right now only two could even be considered as buzz shows, since other critics and an array of industry insiders are all split on what they like (or, conversely, believe will be successful). Opinions fluctuate wildly. Even among supposedly bad shows. I was all but certain one series was despised by the majority (since every critic I hang around with never missed a chance to dump on it), only to find in the last week of the tour that another critic said everyone HE talked with really liked the show. More than one, I asked, stunned. Seven or eight at least, he said.

He (and they) are wrong, of course, and it proves once again that not only is there no accounting for taste, but there's no such thing as critical "group think." Not once did I find a critic who's Top 5 perfectly aligned with mine. Not once.

There were, however, those two shows. They surfaced the most in coversations about what's the best, what's the buzz and what might work (not always related). ABC's "The Nine," about a group of people held hostage in a bank for 52 hours and what that does to them is getting talked about quite a bit. So is Aaron Sorkin's insider look a the TV industry in general and a "Saturday Night Live"-like sketch show in particular - "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

I like both of them. I'll be carving out a TiVo slot for each. And yet, the deciding factor that separates mere potential from actual greatness is time. Unlike cable channels, the broadcast networks generally send out only one episode for review. A fantastic pilot is more likely to turn into a fantastic series than not, but there have been more than a few instances when one superb hour was not reflective of the dreck to come in the other 21.

And because of this fall's over-reliance on serials, who knows how many of these new shows will pan out? If a story can't be sustained - with the drama, the writing, the characters - then all the magic of the first 60 minutes is lost. Conversely, a more complicated and perhaps plodding pilot may blossom in subsequent episodes and become more than anyone expected. We'll have to see. As it stands now, this looks to be one of the better fall seasons in some time.

I might not believe that sentence at the end of October, however.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=24&entry_id=7558

fredfa

07-31-06, 10:55 AM

TV Notebook
How to Fix Emmy Voting
Three little changes could made a huge, happy difference next year
By Tom O’Neil Los Angeles Times Staff Writer In “The Envelope” Award blog

Oh, just ignore the nasty uproar surrounding the new voting system used to determine Emmy nominees. Fixing what's wrong is really as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Below are several simple ways to add luster to TV's Golden Girl again. As the author of the definitive book on TV's top kudos -- "The Emmys" (Penguin Putnam) -- please permit me to volunteer my advice.

Specifically, these three changes to be made next year:

1.) Emmy chiefs should have run-offs again after conducting a popular vote, but the finalist lists should be extended to 20 programs and actors, not 10 and 15. Everybody in the galaxy knows that "Battlestar Gallactica" did not make the top 10 list of dramas and it deserves its day in Emmy court.

2.) Have finalists submit more than just one sample episode from the past TV season. Two, even three, would be better -- thereby providing voters with a better sampling of the contenders' body of work. If finalists like "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" screw up again like they did this year by submitting poor samples of their best work, they'll have a fallback submission -- or two or more.

In addition, rotate the episodes randomly among voters, having them score each using grades of A, B, C, D and F. Plus and minus marks can be added to the letter scorekeeping, of course. Just don't use a numerical scoring of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 because there will be inevitable confusion over whether 1 or 10 is the highest or lowest score in the ranking. And voters will wonder if they're supposed to rank the episodes against each other using numbers. No. Just have them grade the episodes like school tests. No confusion.

Expanding the number of episodes is important for another reason. The voting can too easily be manipulated by a contender having just one strong episode. That's how Helen Hunt kept winning every year -- she always seemed to have a big, one-hour "Mad About You" special to submit.

One of America's most famous TV critics told me the other day, "I wouldn't be upset about Christopher Meloni's nomination if he had to submit three episodes to Emmy judges. If that was the rule, he never would've gotten nominated over Hugh Laurie and James Gandolfini. But he had one biggie. I'm not saying that Meloni isn't a fine actor. He's very good. But on a consistent basis, show to show, Hugh Laurie gives a better performance and everybody knows it. Submitting just one episode isn't fair."

Allison Janney only had one big episode of "West Wing" this TV season. It's questionable if she would've been nominated if she had to give Emmy judges three.

3.) Only use at-home voting. Ditch the judging panels.

It pains me deeply to suggest this. I love those judging panels because I think they give underdogs the best chance, but they're biased in favor of sentimental programs over the kind of cynical, gritty stuff that Hollywooders prefer as Emmy champs.

Two examples: "NYPD Blue" and "The Sopranos" were the hottest things on TV when they entered the Emmy races in 1994 and 1999. Those were the last, waning days of the judging panels, which ended up snubbing those shows in favor of programs by David E. Kelley, a master of heart-tugging story-telling. Of course, Kelley's "Picket Fences" and "The Practice" were brilliant TV series that now reign admirably in Emmy's pantheon of winners, looking back, but their victories confused and infuriated Emmywatchers who denounced TV academy members as idiots for failing to acknowledge the TV zeitgeist.

"Picket Fences" and "The Practice" won because they featured sympathetic characters in marvelously sentimental plots penned by a TV master. Those profanity-spewing alcoholic cops and Prozac-gulping mobsters who competed against them in bloody tragedies without heroes didn't have an Emmy prayer. Although "NYPD Blue" ended up prevailing at last in 1995, "The Sopranos" and its star James Gandolfini didn't win Emmys until after at-home voting replaced judging panels in 2000. I monitored the changeover closely and observed that, for the most part, the strongest episode entries still won, which meant that voters really watched the videos unsupervised. For example, in the race for best drama actress that year, Sela Ward ("Once and Again") won with the best submission even though she wasn't the "coolest" or most popular nominee.

What at-home viewing does well is create important time for reflection and musing in between voters viewing the episodes and marking their ballots. Voters don't have to make decisions immediately, so there's time for them to take outside factors into account like, for example, the industry megabuzz surrounding "Lost." Serialized, plot-fragmented series like "Lost" are disadvantaged in a voting system requiring close examination of a piecemeal sample or two. But "Lost" still won best drama series last year when at-home voting was used. It got snubbed completely when seen by judging panels determining this year's nominees. Part of the reason for the recent slight was probably that producers chose a poor episode sample, but I suspect that "Lost" would've been nominated anyway if that same episode had been submitted to jurors making decisions at home.

If the TV academy institutes these changes, they'll still get what they seek -- a voting system that requires close scrutiny to determine nominees -- while delivering a result more acceptable to TV critics, industry honchos and regular Emmywatchers.

Meantime, let's all wish Emmy chiefs luck and let's praise them for their guts and brio so far. Although the results of this year's experiment sparked frustration and worse, the change was admirable and a giant step in the right direction.

Now if that little Golden Girl Emmy just takes several more baby steps in the right direction next year, she'll be home free, and happily so, methinks.

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/awards/emmys/env-emmyvoting28jul28,0,6281548,print.story?coll=env-home-headlines

fredfa

07-31-06, 11:09 AM

TV Notebook
An evening with the actor Hugh Laurie
The star of 'House' talks with James Lipton Monday night

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer July 31, 2006

For the second year in a row, Hugh Laurie will not win an Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama. This year the suspense was over early for him. The star of Fox’s hit “House” wasn’t even nominated.

That was a huge disappointment to media people, who tabbed his failure to win last year among the biggest blunders of the Emmy process in a poll conducted by Media Life last month. But tonight there’s a chance to learn far more about Laurie than a two-minute acceptance speech could ever deliver, as he makes his first appearance on Bravo’s “Inside the Actor’s Studio.”

He chats with host James Lipton tonight at (Bravo, 8 PM ET), where the program moved earlier this month after years on Sunday night.

The British actor, who won a Television Critics Association award for outstanding achievement in drama last week, was best known to American audiences prior to “House” as the father in the “Stuart Little” films.

But he got his start 31 years ago in comedy, in the film “Who Sold You This, Then,” which was written by Monty Python’s John Cleese. He also played a mourning father in the 1992 Kenneth Branaugh film “Peter’s Friends.” He showed the roots of his later House character in a brief guest spot on “Friends,” when he played Rachel’s irritable seatmate when she flew to London to stop Ross’s wedding.

What he’s perhaps best known for in Britain is his long partnership with fellow comedian Stephen Fry. The two Cambridge schoolmates collaborated on the TV series “A Bit of Fry & Laurie” and appeared on more than a dozen other shows together. No doubt part of tonight’s conversation will focus on Fry.

“Studio” averaged a 0.3 household rating last week in the new timeslot, up 30 percent over last season’s 0.23 average, though that included reruns.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6307.asp

archiguy

07-31-06, 11:14 AM

By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer July 31, 2006

For the second year in a row, Hugh Laurie will not win an Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama. This year the suspense was over early for him. The star of Fox’s hit “House” wasn’t even nominated.

And next year will make it three in a row, although he should get a nomination. Ian McShane will win for Deadwood (it wasn't eligible this year). Anyone who watches that show knows this if they know nothing else. The following year, however, should be open for Mr. Laurie to compete for the best dramatic actor Emmy.

fredfa

07-31-06, 12:40 PM

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.

fredfa

07-31-06, 12:42 PM

(From Marc Berman’s Monday, July 31, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
The Freshman Class of Fall 2006: Odds of Survival

Now that the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour is a wrap, here is a recap of the odds of survival courtesy of The Programming Insider for all new fall network series ranging from even odds (1-1, a sure thing) to a long-shot of 10-1. Odds, which are presented from best to worst, are determined by the competition, the lead-in (when applicable), the current viewing climate and, of course, the show itself.

Although I initially gave 9-1 odds to new NBC drama Heroes, I would like to rethink that and change it to a more optimistic 6-1. Out of Deal or No Deal, and against CBS’ Two and a Half Men (which is no Everybody Loves Raymond), ABC’s fading The Bachelor: Rome, and unproven dramas Vanished (Fox) and Runaway (CW), the early buzz could potentially pay off. I am also changing the odds of Fox sitcom ‘Til Death from 2-1 to 3-1 due to the heavy competition (CBS’ Survivor: Cook Islands and NBC’s My Name Is Earl), but I am still convinced that the Brad Garrett sitcom will find an audience.

Here are the odds:

Shark (CBS) – Thurs. 10 p.m.: 1-1
The Class (CBS) – Mon. 8 p.m.: 2-1
‘Til Death (Fox) – Thurs. 8 p.m.: 3-1
Brothers & Sisters (ABC) – Sun. 10 p.m.: 4-1
The Nine (ABC) – Wed. 10 p.m.: 4-1
Vanished (Fox) – Mon. 9 p.m.: 4-1
Day Break (ABC) – Wed. 10 p.m. (filling in for Lost beginning on Nov. 15):
5-1
Six Degrees (ABC) – Thurs. 10 p.m.: 5-1
Smith (CBS) – Wed. 10 p.m.: 5-1
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC) – Mon. 10 p.m.: 5-1
Heroes (NBC) – Mon. 9 p.m.: 6-1
The Game (CW) – Sun. 8:30 p.m.: 7-1
The Knights of Prosperity (ABC) – Tues. 9 p.m.: 7-1
30 Rock (NBC) – Wed. 8:30 p.m.: 7-1
Stand-off (Fox) – Tues. 8 p.m.: 7-1
Twenty Good Years (NBC) – Wed. 8 p.m.: 7-1
Friday Night Lights (NBC) – Tues. 8 p.m.: 8-1
Happy Hour (Fox) – Thurs. 8:30 p.m.: 8-1
Help Me Help You (ABC) – Tues. 9:30 p.m.: 8-1
Justice (Fox) – Wed. 9 p.m.: 8-1
Kidnapped (NBC) – Wed. 10 p.m.: 8-1
Runaway (CW) – Mon. 9 p.m.: 8-1
Men In Trees (ABC) – Fri. 9 p.m.: 9-1
Ugly Betty (ABC) – Fri. 8 p.m.: 9-1
Big Day (ABC) – Thurs. 8 p.m.: 10-1
Jericho (CBS) – Wed. 8 p.m.: 10-1
Notes From the Underbelly (ABC) – Thurs. 8 p.m.: 10-1

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

fredfa

07-31-06, 01:51 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Sweet summer note: 'Grey's Anatomy'
ABC medical rerun up 39 percent from last year
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer July 31, 2006

“Grey’s Anatomy” was one of TV’s hottest shows when the season ended last spring on ABC, prompting the network to move the Sunday staple to Thursdays this fall to face CBS juggernaut “CSI.”

While we’re still weeks away from finding out who wins that matchup, “Grey’s” has continued to provide some positive news for ABC this summer. It seems new fans are continuing to find the show.

On an extremely slow Sunday, “Grey’s” was the top-rated drama last night, averaging a 2.5 overnight rating among adults 18-49 in the 10 p.m. timeslot. That was up 39 percent over a 1.8 the show averaged on the same night last summer.

It was one of the only shows to demonstrate an increase over last year, with, for example, repeats of Fox’s “The Simpsons” and NBC’s “Crossing Jordan” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” way down.

ABC saw a similar pattern with “Lost” last summer, which picked up some new fans after its much-buzzed-about first season reran during the slow summer months. Yet it’s also silly to put too much emphasis on the performance of summer repeats.

“Grey’s” 2.5 average was barely a quarter of what the show averaged over the second half of the season, and it does not necessarily mean that the show will knock off “CSI” come fall. It simply confirms that it will be a formidable competitor, perhaps the most formidable “CSI” has seen.

Meanwhile, for the evening, Fox took the lead with a 2.0 rating and 6 share among 18-49s, followed by ABC and CBS each at 1.9/6, NBC at 1.7/5, Univision at 1.1/3 and WB at 0.7/2.

At 7 p.m., ABC's "America's Funniest Home Videos" rerun and NBC's "Dateline" shared the No. 1 spot at 1.6 each, followed by CBS's "60 Minutes" at 1.4,

Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle" and "King of the Hill" repeats at 1.2, Univision's "Hora Pico" at 0.9 and WB's pair of "Reba" repeats at 0.8.

At 8 p.m., CBS's "Big Brother 7: All-Stars" and Fox's reruns of "The Simpsons" and "American Dad" shared the lead at 2.3, followed by ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" repeat at 2.1, NBC's 1.9 for the second hour of "Dateline," Univision's 1.0 for the first hour of "Cantando por un Sueño" and WB's 0.7 for a "Charmed" rerun.

At 9 p.m., Fox took No. 1 at 2.4 for reruns of "Family Guy" and "War at Home," ahead of CBS's "Cold Case" repeat at 2.0 and a 1.6 each for ABC's "Desperate Housewives" rerun and NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." Univision's "Cantando" averaged a 1.3, ahead of WB's "Charmed" rerun at 0.6.

At 10 p.m., ABC's "Grey's" rerun was No. 1 at 2.5, ahead of CBS's 1.8 for a "Without a Trace" repeat, NBC's 1.5 for a "Crossing Jordan" repeat and Univision's final hour of "Cantando" at 1.3.

Among households, CBS led for the night at a 5.0 rating and 9 share, followed by NBC at 4.6/8, ABC at 3.8/7, Fox at 2.5/5, Univision at 1.4/3 and WB at 1.2/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6334.asp

fredfa

07-31-06, 04:08 PM

TV Notebook
Morning Snooze
By J. Max Robins Broadcasting & Cable 7/31/2006

Never before has there been such upheaval in morning television. With two of the three players in the throes of major change, the high-stakes game of network morning shows is as close to a free-for-all as it has ever been. Why, then, are ABC and CBS sleeping through this long-awaited opportunity to unseat morning leader NBC?

At stake is well north of $1 billion in advertising revenue. According to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, NBC’s Today booked half of that, some $554 million, last year. But suddenly, that morning cash is up for grabs. The Katie Couric era on Today is over, and Meredith Vieira has yet to arrive.

At second-place ABC, Charles Gibson has departed Good Morning America to anchor the evening newscast. Meanwhile, at CBS’ Early Show, longtime veteran of the genre Steve Friedman returned last March in hopes of jolting the perennial also-ran out of last place.

With so much in flux, you would think that everyone would be jockeying furiously for position. But the competition looks surprisingly flat-footed and ill-prepared for the promotional onslaught that NBC is planning for its morning money machine come fall.

Most alarming has been ABC’s seemingly lackadaisical approach to GMA. A scant year ago, the show was fast on the heels of Today. After years of chipping away at NBC’s lead, it looked primed to slip into the No. 1 slot. But then the place seemed to run out of steam. Executive producer Ben Sherwood announced his departure only two months ago, but insiders say he had mentally left the building long before that.

It wasn’t until last week that ABC got around to putting its new management team—senior executive producer Jim Murphy and his No. 2 Tom Cibrowski—into place. Good choices but ones that should have been made weeks ago, giving them a chance to settle in and prepare for game time in September.

Even worse, no one has been selected to replace Gibson, who has already given a boost to the ratings at World News since he was named anchor in May. World News’ gain is definitely GMA’s loss. Gibson is to GMA what the late Jerry Orbach was to NBC’s Law & Order: His work is so understated and adroit that you don’t realize how crucial he is to a franchise’s success until he’s gone.

True, GMA co-host Diane Sawyer is undeniably a news superstar, but she and co-host Robin Roberts are sure to be eclipsed by the easy compatibility of Vieira and Matt Lauer unless they get someone else in there to complete the picture. And quite frankly, none of the candidates GMA has been trying out – Chris Cuomo, Bill Ritter and Bill Weir—seem like much of a wake-up draw.

The hapless Early Show—saddled with a cumbersome four-host format and outmoded relationships with affiliates that allow too much of the broadcast to be dumped for local news—is in even more dire straits.

Unfortunately for Friedman and his able No. 2, Michael Bass, CBS News has the resources to relaunch only one show this fall, CBS Evening With Katie Couric. Word in the industry is that CBS Corp. is spending $13 million above and beyond its network’s own broadcast venues and billboard properties to promote the Couric newscast.

With rivals like these, NBC just might end up with an even more gargantuan piece of the billion-dollar morning pie than it already enjoys.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6357528

fredfa

07-31-06, 07:31 PM

TV Notebook
FCC Ready To Refer MASN Complaint
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 7/31/2006

The FCC commissioners have approved an order, circulated by Chairman Kevin Martin, that will send a program access complaint by Mid Atlantic Sports Network parent TCR Sports Broadcasting Holding, L.L.P to one of its administrative law judges (ALJ) for resolution and recommendation if MASN says the word.

The FCC has been under pressure from congress to get the hometown Washington Nationals games
wider distribution among hometown cable fans, including a number of the congressmen and their constituents..

The order found that TCR "provided sufficient evidence to make a prima facie showing that Comcast indirectly and improperly demanded a financial interest in MASN in exchange for carriage," in violation of FCC rules.

Comcast stuck with a statement that it released last week, when Martin circulated the order for vote: "Our decision with respect to carriage of MASN – a part time, overpriced network – is based on the best interest of our customers and not on the ownership interest of MASN. The truth is that the vast majority of our programming, including the vast majority of our sports programming is unaffiliated, so the MASN complaint is demonstrably false. We believe that any program carriage proceeding on this matter – no matter who is reviewing the facts -- will conclude that the MASN complaint is wholly without merit."

"Part time" and "overpriced" are key words in that statment, since Comcasts legal argument is that the reason it hasn't done a deal to carry MASN is not because it can't get a piece of the regional sports network, but becuase the price is too high.

MASN spokesman Todd Webster said: "For 16 months, Comcast has broken the hearts of sports fans by blacking out the nationals games. Today, the FCC ruled that MASN has made the case that Comcast has broken the law."

In its finding of "sufficient evidence," the FCC cited in part TCR's claim that a representative of investment banker Allen & Co. who pushed for a financial interest in Comcast as part of a deal for Nationals carriage was not representing Major League Baseball, as advertised, but Comcast. However, Allen & Company vouched in a letter to the FCC that that was not the case.

The FCC order paves the way for a more expeditious resolution of a long-standing impasse, but it is stayed for 10 days while TCR decides whether it wants to go the FCC judge route, or instead submit the complaint to arbitration under a condition imposed on the purchase of Adelphia by Comcast and Time Warner.

The order also appears to preserve some arbitration rights for Comcast, though it is not clear how they would be exercised.

"We're reviewing the options," said Webster, "and will determine how to best get the games to the fans as quickly as possible."

If MASN decides to go the ALJ route, the judge has 45 days to rule on the dispute, and then the FCC has another 60 days to act. The arbitration route would take about the same time.

MASN has the rights to the Nationals, but Comcast does not carry the games on its D.C. area cable systems serving hundreds of thousands of households. The two have been in a protected dispute, including lpast legal action, over Baltimore Orioles games that Comcast has carried but Orioles owner Peter Angelos wants to put on MASN at the end of a 10-year deal with Comcast. Comcast has argued it had a right of first refusal on a new deal for the games, while TCR says it has not put the games on a new entity, but is instead keeping the rights inhouse.

Angelos has rights to the Nationals as part of the deal that allowed the Washington team to move into the market that had been the Orioles' alone.

New FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell criticized FCC inaction on the MASN complaint in no uncertain terms during the public meeting approving the Adelphia deal earlier this month, asking the FCC to speed the process.

He said of the Monday vote: "Today’s order will provide the parties in this case with an expeditious path here at the Commission for resolution of their differences...One way or the other, a decision will be made."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6358004

fredfa

07-31-06, 07:38 PM

TV Notebook
The dregs of summer TV … sigh
By Diane Holloway Austin American-Statesman in her TV blog Monday, July 31, 2006

I may have confessed previously that I’ve been surprised by how many of the new fall shows I actually liked this year as I waded through two dozen previews.

Now I’m wondering if the pilots really were that good or if I’m just appalled by what passes for prime-time entertainment on the networks this summer. I’ve found plenty to like on cable and PBS (tonight’s new “Mystery” is “Inspector Lewis,” which sounds like a winner). But the networks just keep heaping really bad reality shows onto their schedule.

Take tonight, for example. If you aren’t a fan of TNT’s “The Closer” and “Saved,” here’s what you have to look forward to: back-to-back episodes of “Hell’s Kitchen” on Fox; an ABC lineup that includes “Wife Swap,” “Supernanny” and the debut of “One Ocean View”; “Treasure Hunters” and the new “Star Tomorrow” on NBC; and a load of regular series reruns on CBS.

Just so you know the depths to which we have sunk, let me describe the two new reality shows for you.

“One Ocean View” (9 tonight on ABC) plucks 11 attractive young folks from New York City deposits them in a handsome summer house on Fire Island. Add a few tropical drinks and some tanned flesh and this is what ABC calls summer entertainment.

Housemate Miki explains in the opener that these young professionals are searching for “fun, romance, maybe even falling in love.” There’s an exotic dancer, business owners, a Wall Street lawyer and a couple that has recently broken up.

The result is supposed to be a sexy, real-life melodrama, but these folks are just shallow and exceedingly dull.

NBC’s new “StarTomorrow” (7 p.m.), dubbed an interactive music competition in publicity, is the umpteenth singer/band search competition. You’d think, given the clunker ABC entered in this genre (“The One,” which distinguished itself by coming in eighth in its time period on opening night, behind all mini-networks and several cable networks), the genre would get a rest. You’d be wrong.

At least NBC’s newcomer will take place mostly online.

Even sports options are pretty limited in this pre-football, post-basketball season. There’s baseball, more baseball and a bit of tennis and golf. But when ESPN tries to pass off darts and poker as sports, well, you know it’s time to shut down the set and read a book.

http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/tvblog/

fredfa

07-31-06, 07:42 PM

TV Notebook
Study: TV still tops for those seeking news

By Paul J. Gough The Hollywood Reporter

NEW YORK -- A new study of Americans' media consumption found that nearly half spend at least 30 minutes a day getting their news from TV.

That's some of the good news for the so-called mainstream media in a biennial study released Monday by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press.

Meanwhile, only 9% of the 3,204 adults surveyed in April spent at least 30 minutes getting their news on the Web. The study said that one-third of U.S. residents get their news online, while only 1 in 50 did a decade ago.
But the audience has grown more slowly since 2000 and is skewing older. The study said that youths are less likely than fortysomethings to turn to online news sources.

"Online news has evolved as a supplemental source that is used along with traditional news media outlets," the Pew study said. "It is valued more for headlines and convenience, not detailed, in-depth reporting."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002915418

fredfa

07-31-06, 07:46 PM

Some more details:

TV Notebook
Regular News Audiences: TV

Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press

The number of Americans who say they regularly watch nightly network news, cable TV news, and local news has fallen over the past two years. Currently 28% say they regularly watch the nightly network news on CBS, ABC or NBC, compared with 34% in 2004. In 1993, fully 60% said they regularly watched one of these broadcasts.

The regular cable news audience also has declined, from 38% to 34%, since 2004. And local TV news also has lost ground ¬ from 59% to 54%. However, as is the case with nightly network news, the audience for local TV news is about the same size as it was in 2000 (56%).

As in past news consumption surveys, there is a sizable generation gap in TV news viewership, with the biggest divide in nightly network news. Notably, both young people (those under age 30) as well as those ages 65 and older are tuning into network news in smaller numbers than in the past.

Only about one-in-ten Americans (9%) under age 30 say they regularly tune into the nightly network news on CBS, ABC, or NBC; that is about half the number saying that in 2004 and 2002. Yet network news also is losing older viewers, who have long been the mainstay of its audience.

Roughly four-in-ten of those ages 65 and older say they regularly watch one of the nightly network broadcasts (43%). In 2004 and 2002 (and in previous Pew surveys dating to 1993), solid majorities of seniors tuned into an evening news program. A decade ago, fully 64% of respondents ages 65 and older said they watched one of these programs.

The age differences in viewership of local news and cable news are smaller than for network news. And for cable news, in particular, the gap has narrowed. Roughly four-in-ten seniors (38%) say they regularly watch cable news channels like Fox, CNN or MSNBC; that is down a bit from 2004 but the same percentage as in 2002. That compares with 30% of people ages 30 and younger. The percentage of young people tuning into the cable news outlets has increased since 2002 (from 23%).

Specific TV News Outlets

There has been little change in the regular audiences for most individual TV news outlets over the past two years. This includes Fox News Channel, whose regular audience increased impressively

¬ from 17% to 25% of the general public ¬ between 2000 and 2004. This year, 23% say they regularly watch Fox News, virtually no change from two years ago.

Currently, 22% say they regularly tune into CNN, which is unchanged since 2004 but roughly a third below CNN's audience in the early 1990s (35% in 1993). About one-in-ten Americans continue to say they regularly watch MSNBC (11%) and CNBC (11%).

Nearly identical percentages of Americans say they watch the nightly network news on NBC (15%), ABC (14%) and CBS (13%); those numbers are down slightly from 2004. And 5% say they regularly watch the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, largely unchanged from recent news consumption surveys.

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=1065

fredfa

07-31-06, 08:04 PM

TV Notebook
My Favorite 'Housewife'

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

Among the items I forgot to mention earlier was a short interview that emerged at the ABC party, where, as the darkness began to settle in the search became more frantic for Eva Longoria, the “Desperate Housewife” of choice that night.

But I was happy to talk to my favorite member of the cast – who is also the one hardly ever seen.

Since the show’s inception, Brenda Strong has played Mary Alice Young, the woman whose death was the central story of the show, at least for the first season.

The storyline was pretty much solved in season one, yet she returned to narrate season two as well.

But whether there is a future for Mary Alice, Strong says “more importantly, is there a past?”

Flashback was the method to get Mary Alice in the picture for last season’s finale, which gave glimpses of every housewife’s original entry to Wisteria Lane.

Only a flashback will allow her to return, though Strong says “the story could twist and turn.”

She already survived a second season whereas it may have seemed logical to many to stop narrating once the first season mystery was solved.

“There was a turning point where Marc Cherry contemplated using someone else,” she says. The suggested new narrator for season two: Steven Culp who played Rex Van De Kamp, a murder victim in his own right.

But there was an outpouring for Strong in the role. “SO many people come up and say they’re glad I’m there; that I’m a safe and ‘I feel like home when I hear your voice.’”

“Some people say I’m a moral connective tissue,” she says.

http://blogs.courant.com/roger_catlin_tv_eye/2006/07/my_favorite_hou.html#more

fredfa

07-31-06, 08:06 PM

TV Notebook
CBS Set for Sept. 11 Anniversary Coverage
By Allison Romano Broadcasting & Cable 7/31/2006

Katie Couric will anchor her first primetime special on CBS Sept. 6 as part of the network's coverage of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Couric, the new anchor of The CBS Evening News, will host Five Years Later: How Safe Are We? at 10 p.m. on Sept. 6. It will feature reports from CBS News correspondents Lara Logan, Byron Pitts, David Martin and Jim Stewart.

On the same day, the CBS Early Show and Evening News will begin 9/11-related coverage. On Sept. 11, Couric will anchor Evening News from the World Trade Center site in New York City and feature stories by investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian, Pitts and Logan, who will be stationed in Afghanistan. In addition, The Early Show's Harry Smith will anchor that day from Ground Zero and reporter Tracy Smith will interview reporters and update rebuilding efforts. The newscast will include memorial ceremonies.

On its Website, CBSNews.com, the network will stream all of its Sept. 11 coverage and provide a special section.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6358021.html?display=Breaking+News

fredfa

07-31-06, 08:15 PM

Sports On TV
Madden on Hall of Fame Induction:
"It means everything to me; it is the ultimate."
MADDEN INDUCTED INTO HALL OF FAME SATURDAY;
"NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL" DEBUTS SUNDAY
NBC News Release July 31, 2006

NEW YORK – July 31, 2006 – NBC Sports today conducted a media conference call to preview Sunday's debut of "NBC Sunday Night Football" and John Madden's induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Participating on the call were Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Universal Sports & Olympics and executive producer, "NBC Sunday Night Football"; Madden, the most honored sports analyst in history with 15 Emmy Awards; and Al Michaels, the commentator called "TV's best play-by-play announcer" by the Associated Press, who will call play-by-play alongside Madden. For a replay of today's call, dial 719-457-0820 and enter passcode 3399949.

Madden will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this Saturday along with Troy Aikman, Harry Carson, Warren Moon, Reggie White and Rayfield Wright. The Oakland Raiders will meet the Philadelphia Eagles in the Hall of Fame Game from Canton, Ohio, Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.

Below are highlights of today's call:

MADDEN ON HIS INDUCTION:

"It was one of those things that you cannot control so you try not to worry about it, but to say you don't think about it would be a bunch of baloney. Twenty-seven years ago I was a finalist and one of the reasons they said I didn't make it was because they said they were afraid that I was going to go back into coaching and not stay retired, so they wanted to make sure. It took 27 years for the next opportunity to be a finalist and eventually get it. It means everything to me and obviously it is the ultimate. It lasts forever and is something that humbles you and at the same time excites you more than you have ever been excited.

"It means everything to me that I am being honored as a coach. I was a finalist 27 years ago and then somehow something got lost in translation because at some point you have to say 'well he's not going back to coaching.' But a lot of good things have happened in the past 27 years and there is nothing that I am bitter about. I really think that because sometimes you have to wait, you appreciate it more. I have heard it said before that the longer you wait the more you appreciate it and believe me it's true. Because I have had to wait so long, this thing could not be appreciated anymore than I appreciate it."

EBERSOL ON MADDEN:

"One of the great personalities in my mind, certainly in sports television, but more importantly a great guy, a football legend, an American icon."

MICHAELS ON MADDEN'S INDUCTION:

"He is as important a figure as anyone in the recent history of the NFL and I am thrilled for John to be finally getting into the Hall of Fame. He had a phenomenal 10-year run. I've likened John's coaching career to Sandy Koufax's pitching career. It may not have been that long but it was phenomenal. That is how I look at John, and combined with what he has done for the last 25 years as a broadcaster, I think he has made the game more interesting to millions more than anyone in the NFL. As great as the game is, John Madden has made it ever greater."

MICHAELS ON MADDEN AND "NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL":

"I know we are on the brink of something very special because we've put together an eclectic group with experience and talent both in front of the camera and behind it. I think that we all felt that we were a part of something that is going to be extraordinary. It just feels right, and to get the weekend started in Canton with John getting inducted into the Hall of the Fame, is the absolutely perfect scenario. When you look at the early season schedule, flex scheduling in the second half of the season, the people in the studio for "Football Night in America," the experience and the talent of the production crew and Dick Ebersol's vision, it's a can't miss, can't wait."

MADDEN ON EBERSOL:

"I think that Dick [Ebersol] is one of those guys that is first of all very bright and he is one of those guys that is in the trenches with you. There are not a lot of levels at NBC Sports. There is one level and that is Dick Ebersol. I know that when I coached I thought that that was the best job you can have. There is one guy and that guy was Al Davis. There was no one in between. There weren't levels of this guy and that guy and this committee and that committee, and to me that's big. I think NBC Sports is Dick Ebersol and if you want something, want to know something, or need something there is one call that you need to make, and as busy as he is, he is always available."

MICHAELS ON JOINING NBC:

"I think one of the differences too might be the Sunday Night game. With all the games being played before ours, this will be the first time that we are in a situation where we can fold in a lot of what has happened during the day. Obviously with the group we've put together in the studio, we have the best of the best. Being able to take not only our game but the others and weave them together, will be something special and different for all of us."

EBERSOL ON MADDEN AND MICHAELS:

"When you have John and Al, you have the absolute best and I think that people respond to that. Every network has a terrific lead team but these two guys define what the best is. Nobody has ever had the run that John Madden has had over these last three decades. It has been unbelievable. And I don't know of any play-by-play announcer on any sport that covers it with the precision and excitement that Al does for football."

MORE MICHAELS ON MADDEN:

"Working with John couldn't be any more perfect for me. We started together in 2002 at the Hall of Fame game in Canton and we got to about the second commercial break and I sat back and thought, I feel like I've been working with John for 20 years not 20 minutes. It was that simple and that easy. It's about respecting the game, each other, and what we do for a living. I think that we both feel that we are lucky to be a part of something like this. We have the greatest jobs in the world and it just flows. If I thought too deeply about how it works, I'd get confused, but it just is one of those things where you get together with someone and you know it's there and it's been there from the first moment. It's been there for four years now and it will continue for a number more."

MADDEN ON PREPARING FOR THE GAME AND INDUCTION:

"I am going to have plenty of time before the telecast to prepare. I went to the Raiders training camp last week to watch them practice. I'm going to talk to the Eagles later this week and get ready for the game as much as I can with what I am going through before the game. But that is where you have to have a great partner and we all know I have a great partner in Al Michaels. He has always been a clean-up guy and I will probably need a clean-up Sunday more than I ever have."

MICHAELS ON HALL OF FAME GAME:

"John is going to be running on a lot of adrenalin on Sunday and even if he did zero preparation, he could still go into the booth and be the best analyst that ever lived. With his wealth of knowledge, it is going to be a phenomenal weekend. It is great to be a part of it and I think that to have John in that situation is going to be great. There is going to be a glow that surrounds this whole weekend; it's our opening game telecast, and all the NFL is going to be at the Hall of Fame. This is going to be a preseason game that is going to be different from all the other games."

EBERSOL ON "NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL":

"For starters we went out and hired the very best. Will we have a few tricks up our sleeve? Yes we will. We have put together a team we hope people can recognize immediately at the game site with John and Al and also with Andrea Kremer, who I think is one of the two best reporters in all of football, reporting and doing the sideline work. I think the greatest advantage we have is that we have a team with this level of excellence. Behind the camera we have Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff, who are the top producer and director team in the business, so quality is where we hope to start with no rookie errors.

"I think people look at football on two levels as a television event. First of all you have to have really good games; we have a terrific schedule and flex scheduling and then you add to it the quality of this team we put together. It doesn't take any getting used to these guys, they were simply the best and will continue to be the best. This becomes the centerpiece of Sunday Night television in the United States from September through the end of December."

MADDEN COMPARING HIS RAIDERS TEAMS TO CURRENT TEAMS:

"With the Hall of Fame induction, I have been looking at highlight films of the 1976-1977 season and I have been caught up in that thing where the players today are bigger, stronger, and faster. When I watch those games we played in the 1970's, I think they're not [better]. We were better then. And I don't like that old fogie thing that 'we were better in the old days.' I'm not saying that. That was a great era, teams were great, and players could stay together."

MADDEN ON THE VIDEO GAME:

"None of it was planned. I went from a player to a coach to a broadcaster and along the way the video game thing happened. We started the video game thing before they even had video games. It was going to be a computer game and more like a teaching tool but then all the hardware for video games broke out and we already had the software. The people that were around when I was coaching have known me as a coach. I'm known as a broadcaster from people who have been watching television, and I'm known as 'Madden' [to the gamers]. That's how I am always able to know the difference. Some call me 'coach,' and there is a group that says, 'Hey Madden.' When I get the 'Hey Madden,' it's the group that plays the video games."

EBERSOL ON WHAT MAKES A GOOD BROADCASTER:

"I think good broadcasting starts with how quickly, if ever, they realize that their first allegiance is to the viewer where it once was to their teams and teammates. It is absolutely crucial to make it as a broadcaster that your first allegiance is to that audience at home so they feel you are speaking a truth to them. All the great ones whether it be John or Johnny Miller, Joe Morgan, John McEnroe, they all seem to have the initials J.M., but all of these guys you can tell right away, are doing their thing for the guy at home and not for their old friends or teammates. You don't need to be a killer to do it. I don't know of anyone who has judged John as being unmerciful on anybody. You just knew he was telling the truth and the biggest common mistake that young people or sometimes not so young people make, is to come into this gig the first time around as an analyst of any major sport and worry about what their old buddies are going to say."

fredfa

07-31-06, 09:43 PM

MTV Notebook
VH1 helps, if you want your 25-year-old MTV
By Richard Huff New York Daily News TV Editor

Wanna catch a glimpse of Pat Benatar or Rod Stewart from the first day of MTV, 25 years ago?

Well, you better have digital cable if you want to be part of the party. As previously noted, MTV isn't reminding its viewers that the network launched 25 years ago on Aug. 1, but cable network VH1 Classic will.

That's right, the channel for really old folks (you know, those over 19) will air the entire first day of MTV programming starting at midnight Aug.1 (9 PM PT, July 31) , and again at 9 AM ET on Aug. 5, for old folks who can't stay up late.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/439341p-370154c.html

mp3trojan

08-01-06, 12:00 AM

Fred,

Pertaining to "Scrubs" on NBC this fall, I do not see it listed in the fall schedule or the "Dearly Departed" list.

On hiatus??

Thanks

GeorgeLV

08-01-06, 12:10 AM

Fred,

Pertaining to "Scrubs" on NBC this fall, I do not see it listed in the fall schedule or the "Dearly Departed" list.

On hiatus??

Thanks

Scrubs was renewed and will return mid-season, IIRC.

dad1153

08-01-06, 12:11 AM

I remember reading 'Scrubs' is scheduled to run in the second half of the season (January to May 2007). NBC might bring it back on the air sooner (like it did 'Crossing Jordan') if there are early casualties in the new Fall season and the network needs to patch a half-hour hole somewhere in the schedule.

fredfa

08-01-06, 12:12 AM

"Scrubs" along with "The Medium" and "Apprentice" will, as NBC chief Kevin Reilly said at the recent TCA tour, be "coming off the bench" this season.
That means you probably will see new episodes after the first of the year.
But if the NBC schedule tanks.....

dad1153

08-01-06, 12:14 AM

But if the NBC schedule tanks.....

...and we know it will... ;)

fredfa

08-01-06, 12:21 AM

TV Sports
Flexible N.F.L. Schedule Will Suit NBC Just Fine

By Richard Sandomir The New York Times August 1, 2006

You cannot examine NBC’s Sunday night National Football League schedule without sensing that after being away from the sport since the 1998 Super Bowl (you can’t really count the XFL and the arena league), it sought special aid to acquire the best slate of prime-time games in years.

Anyone who has watched Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports, maneuver through the Olympic, baseball, football and basketball rights landscape for the past 17 years would not be surprised if he had learned a spell or two from watching reruns of the witches on “Charmed.”

NBC’s schedule is unlike any other ever given to a network, because from Weeks 10 to 15, and on Week 17, NBC will be able to swap the game perched tentatively on its schedule for one now on CBS’s or Fox’s menus. The league will make the final choice 12 days before any game switch.

The flexibility was part of what NBC acquired when the league moved what had been ABC’s “Monday Night Football” package to Sundays, and let ESPN take its cable games from Sunday nights to Mondays in prime time.

• The league, by one kind of analysis, gave NBC the welcoming gift of a schedule that is considerably better than what it provided ABC the past three seasons. Let’s analyze each season’s Thursday night opener through the ninth week, by looking at the previous season’s combined won-loss record of the teams playing in those games.

Using that methodology, the teams playing for NBC through Week 9 had a 192-96 record last year. The teams on ABC’s 2004 and 2005 schedules posted identical 181-107 records in the preceding seasons.

ABC’s 2003 schedule featured teams that were 159-128-1 in 2002.

“We want to see NBC get off to a strong start, and we believe this schedule has accomplished that without jeopardizing the success of our Sunday afternoon partners,” said Howard Katz, the league’s senior vice president for media operations and the scheduling chieftain.

Ever since acquiring “Monday Night Football” rights for a stratospheric $1.1 billion a season, ESPN has insisted that “Monday Night,” even on cable, remains “Monday Night,” although it is evident that it is really a reconstituted Sunday night.

Adopting ESPN’s view allows further contemplation of NBC’s scheduling advantage. The 10 games ESPN will carry through Week 9 feature teams with a combined record of 167-153 last season.

ESPN’s schedule over the first nine weeks includes six games with one team that had a losing record last season. NBC has only one, when Oakland plays Denver in Week 7. Still, ESPN has a better overall schedule than it did last year, when it didn’t carry one game in which both teams playing had made the postseason the previous season. This year it will have four such matchups.

NBC plunged into Sunday nights certain that Sunday is what Monday used to be, and that its pregame program, with its hockey-influenced name, “Football Night in America,” will benefit from audiences spilling over from CBS and Fox. Those networks may stay on the air through the conclusion of their games and their studio wrap-up shows until as late as 8 p.m. Eastern; NBC’s pregame show begins at 7.

To no one’s surprise, Ebersol does not believe that NBC will suffer from viewer fatigue as the third game of the day. “More weeks than not, in fact, almost every week, it’s the game of the day, or at least it appears to be at this point,” he said during a conference call yesterday.

But it invariably happens that injuries and other factors wreck what looks like a great schedule; how much help the new flexibility imparts will become a parlor game of sorts. NBC should be planning a weekly “Flexible Schedule Selection Show” with a panel guessing at the possibilities faced by NBC and the implications to NBC, Fox or CBS of each potential replacement.

• NBC is starting its N.F.L. schedule Sunday night, with the Eagles-Raiders game from Canton, Ohio, one day after the Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement of the network’s newest star, John Madden. It is a gift of scheduling, much like the Sept. 10 matchup of Peyton and Eli Manning when the Colts play the Giants.

NBC is busily hyping its game voices (Madden and Al Michaels) and studio team (Bob Costas, Cris Collinsworth, Jerome Bettis and Sterling Sharpe) on the type of Web site it uses to promote new dramas, comedies and reality programs. In a new advertising campaign, Costas and Collinsworth praise Madden, while Madden gushes that even when he doesn’t make much sense, Michaels always does.

For those in need of an old lineup, Dick Enberg, Phil Simms and Paul Maguire were NBC’s lead team when it last carried the N.F.L. In the studio were Greg Gumbel, Ahmad Rashad, Joe Gibbs, Sam Wyche and Collinsworth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/sports/football/01sandomir.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

fredfa

08-01-06, 12:29 AM

...and we know it will... ;)

I think you are probably right, dad, but the critics in town last week seemed pretty upbeat about NBC's chances. (Could it be that NBC threw the best party?)

It is hard to fathom how the Peacock will be led out of the doldrums by two shows about, in effect, an SNL type program, and another about a high school football team.

"Inside TV" shows have rarely worked (Mary Tyler Moore being one notable exception) and I can't offhand think of an exception to the rule that sports-themed shows just don't get audiences.

On the other hand, Kevin Reilly will get the ship turned around, I believe. That is if Jeff Zucker leaves him alone.

But perhaps he is better suited for a channel like FX where he doesn't have to take everything to a committee for approval. There he could go with his gut -- and it proved formidable.

Or maybe, just maybe, GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt might give all the programming power the Reilly. It is hard to come up with anything positive Zucker has done since leaving "Today".

keenan

08-01-06, 01:00 AM

Or maybe, just maybe, GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt might give all the programming power the Reilly.
Or maybe just dump NBC altogether.

fredfa

08-01-06, 01:02 AM

Cable TV News
Middle East Conflict:
By Richard Huff New York Daily News TV Editor
Fox News Has Top 55 Telecasts On Cable News Since July 12
(from Brian Stelter’s TVNewser at mediabistro.com)

Fox News Channel had the 55 highest-rated telecasts on cable news during coverage of the Middle East conflict. Here's an Excel spreadsheet of the top shows. The top telecasts all belong to The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes, and On The Record. CNN doesn't appear until #56, with an edition of Larry King Live. (#57 was the HLN car chase.)

When the numbers are crunched, July will be FNC's highest rated month in 2006. Final July ratings come out on Tuesday...

http://mediabistro.com/tvnewser/

(See the Excel file at mediabistro.com)

bgooch

08-01-06, 01:04 AM

NFL Network Sues Time Warner To Stay On Systems
Monday, July 31, 2006 02:12 PM - WBEN Newsroom

Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - When the clock strikes midnight, the NFL Network will be off local cable systems. Time Warner will take over the Adelphia systems at that time. The NFL Network now is suing to keep the network on Time Warner.

NFL Network spokesman Seth Polansky says the lawsuit is a last ditch effort, because Time Warner will not even answer calls from the network trying to plead its case.

http://www.wben.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=05474

bgooch

08-01-06, 01:06 AM

NFL Network has Hall of Fame covered

(July 31, 2006) -- NFL Network kicks off the most comprehensive coverage of enshrinement weekend in the 43-year history of the Pro Football Hall of Fame with more than 14 hours of programming beginning Thursday, Aug. 3.

On Saturday, Aug. 5, NFL Network airs eight hours of live coverage from Canton including the entire enshrinement ceremony, a two-hour NFL Total Access pre-ceremony show beginning at 11 a.m. ET, as well as a one-hour post-ceremony show.

NFL Total Access' Hall of Fame coverage is anchored by host Rich Eisen along with analyst Steve Mariucci and reporter Adam Schefter.

On Sunday at 6 p.m. ET, NFL Total Access airs a two-hour pregame show live from Fawcett Stadium in Canton, offering features and analysis to get fans ready for the Hall of Fame Game between the Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles. NFLTA also has a one-hour post-game show with highlights and interviews immediately following the game.

Below is a day-by-day look at NFL Network's 14 hours of 2006 Hall of Fame weekend coverage.

Thursday, Aug. 3
•7 p.m. ET - 8 p.m. ET: NFL Total Access sets the scene in Canton for Hall of Fame weekend

Friday, Aug. 4
•3:30 p.m. ET - 4:30 p.m. ET: 2006 Hall of Fame inductee press conferences
•7 p.m. ET - 8 p.m. ET: NFL Total Access featuring coverage of the 2006 Hall of Fame dinner

Saturday, Aug. 5
•11 a.m. ET - 1 p.m. ET: NFL Total Access Pre-ceremony show
•1 p.m. ET - 5 p.m. ET: 2006 Hall of Fame induction ceremony
•5 p.m. ET - 6 p.m. ET: NFL Total Access Post-ceremony show
•7 p.m. ET - 8 p.m. ET: NFL Total Access recaps Hall of Fame ceremony

Sunday, Aug. 6
•10 a.m. ET - 12:30 p.m. ET: 2006 Hall of Fame induction ceremony (REPEAT)
•1:30 p.m. ET - 4 p.m. ET: 2006 Hall of Fame induction ceremony (REPEAT)
•6 p.m. ET - 8 p.m. ET: NFL Total Access Hall of Fame game pregame show
•11 p.m. ET - 12 a.m. ET: NFL Total Access Hall of Fame Game post-show

Beginning tonight at 7 p.m. ET, NFL Total Access features interviews with each of the 2006 inductees: Warren Moon (tonight), Rayfield Wright (Tues), Harry Carson (Wed.), Troy Aikman (Thurs.), John Madden (Fri.) and a Reggie White career retrospective (Sat.).

In addition, NFL Network will air four one-hour shows during Hall of Fame week highlighting the 2006 inductees. Each show is detailed below.

NFL Films Presents: "Class of 2006" (Monday, July 31 at 9 p.m. ET)
NFL Films profiles 2006 inductees Troy Aikman, Reggie White and Harry Carson.

In Their Own Words: "Class of 2006" (Tuesday, Aug. 1, at 9 p.m. ET)
NFL Network provides a revealing look at each member of the Hall of Fame class of 2006 featuring classic footage and interviews.

NFL Total Access: Hall of Fame Roundtable (Wednesday, Aug. 2, at 9 p.m. ET)
Hall of Fame players and coaches including Jim Brown, Dick Butkus, Bill Walsh and Roger Staubach discuss the career accomplishments of all six members of this year's Hall of Fame class.

John Madden: My Road to Canton (Thursday, Aug. 3, at 9 p.m. ET)
From his years on the Raiders sidelines to a legendary career in the broadcast booth, NFL Network profiles John Madden's long journey to the Hall of Fame.

In 2006, NFL Network will air 169 football games, including eight regular season NFL games, 52 preseason games, 75 game re-airs, 31 NFL Europe League contests, the Insight Bowl, the Senior Bowl and Houston's bowl game.

NFL Network airs seven days a week, 24 hours a day on a year-round basis and is the first television network fully dedicated to the NFL and the sport of football.

http://www.nfl.com/nflnetwork/story/9579494

fredfa

08-01-06, 01:12 AM

Cable TV News
Middle East Conflict:
Fox News Has Top 55 Telecasts On Cable News Since July 12
(from Brian Stelter’s TVNewser at mediabistro.com)
Rank Net Period Program Time Days Viewers 2+
1 FOXN July 13 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P ___T___ 2741
2 FOXN July 24 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P M______ 2685
3 FOXN July 20 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P ___T___ 2676
4 FOXN July 17 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P M______ 2585
5 FOXN July 18 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P _T_____ 2502
6 FOXN July 19 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P __W____ 2449
7 FOXN July 25 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P _T_____ 2442
8 FOXN July 27 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P ___T___ 2389
9 FOXN July 12 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P __W____ 2328
10 FOXN July 26 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P __W____ 2318
11 FOXN July 17 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P M______ 2303
12 FOXN July 26 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P __W____ 2189
13 FOXN July 20 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P ___T___ 2154
14 FOXN July 13 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P ___T___ 2114
15 FOXN July 19 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P __W____ 2079
16 FOXN July 20 ON THE RECORD W/GRETA 10 P -11 P ___T___ 2053
17 FOXN July 19 ON THE RECORD W/GRETA 10 P -11 P __W____ 2049
18 FOXN July 16 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P ______S 2009
19 FOXN July 18 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P _T_____ 1975
20 FOXN July 17 SPECIAL REPORTW/BRIT HUME 6 P -7 P M______ 1944
21 FOXN July 26 ON THE RECORD W/GRETA 10 P -11 P __W____ 1926
22 FOXN July 16 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P ______S 1847
23 FOXN July 17 ON THE RECORD W/GRETA 10 P -11 P M______ 1832
24 FOXN July 18 SPECIAL REPORTW/BRIT HUME 6 P -7 P _T_____ 1802
25 FOXN July 13 THE FOX REPORT W/S.SMITH 7 P -8P ___T___ 1793
26 FOXN July 17 THE FOX REPORT W/S.SMITH 7 P -8P M______ 1785
27 FOXN July 18 THE FOX REPORT W/S.SMITH 7 P -8P _T_____ 1784
28 FOXN July 24 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P M______ 1782
29 FOXN July 27 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P ___T___ 1770
30 FOXN July 12 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P __W____ 1759
31 FOXN July 14 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P ____F__ 1743
32 FOXN July 17 FOX NEWS LIVE 09:18A -10 A M______ 1737
33 FOXN July 14 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P ____F__ 1704
34 FOXN July 17 STUDIO B W/S.SMITH 03 P -04 P M______ 1693
35 FOXN July 17 THE BIG STORY W/J GIBSON 05 P -6 P M______ 1684
36 FOXN July 17 FOX NEWS LIVE 10 A -11 A M______ 1682
37 FOXN July 21 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P ____F__ 1674
38 FOXN July 21 ON THE RECORD W/GRETA 10 P -11 P ____F__ 1670
39 FOXN July 17 SR/SHUTTLE DISCVRY LANDNG 8:35A -9:18A M______ 1665
40 FOXN July 28 THE OREILLY FACTOR 8P -9P ____F__ 1664
41 FOXN July 17 THE OREILLY FACTOR 11 P -12 A M______ 1660
42 FOXN July 20 THE FOX REPORT W/S.SMITH 7 P -8P ___T___ 1640
43 FOXN July 25 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P _T_____ 1637
44 FOXN July 18 ON THE RECORD W/GRETA 10 P -11 P _T_____ 1635
45 FOXN July 19 SPECIAL REPORTW/BRIT HUME 6 P -7 P __W____ 1632
46 FOXN July 17 YOUR WORLD W/NEIL CAVUTO 04 P -05 P M______ 1631
47 FOXN -July 24 SPECIAL REPORTW/BRIT HUME 6 P -7 P M______ 1628
48 FOXN July 19 THE FOX REPORT W/S.SMITH 7 P -8P __W____ 1602
49 FOXN July 21 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P ____F__ 1595
50 FOXN July 13 ON THE RECORD W/GRETA 10 P -11 P ___T___ 1560
51 FOXN July 28 HANNITY & COLMES 9 P -10 P ____F__ 1557
52 FOXN July 24 THE FOX REPORT W/S.SMITH 7 P -8P M______ 1554
53 FOXN July 25 THE FOX REPORT W/S.SMITH 7 P -8P _T_____ 1534
54 FOXN July 27 THE FOX REPORT W/S.SMITH 7 P -8P ___T___ 1530
55 FOXN July 20 SPECIAL REPORTW/BRIT HUME 6 P -7 P ___T___ 1529
56 CNN July 18 LARRY KING LIVE 9 P -10 P _T_____ 1526
57 HLN July 21 CNN HEADLINE NEWS 5:30P -6 P ____F__ 1521
Source: Nielsen Media Research

AAF

08-01-06, 01:19 AM

NFL Network has Hall of Fame covered

(July 31, 2006) -- NFL Network kicks off the most comprehensive coverage of enshrinement weekend in the 43-year history of the Pro Football Hall of Fame with more than 14 hours of programming beginning Thursday, Aug. 3.

Oh how I love this time of year....football is BACK! Now if DTV will just get NFL HD squared away.

keenan

08-01-06, 01:22 AM

Cable TV News
Middle East Conflict:
Fox News Has Top 55 Telecasts On Cable News Since July 12
(from Brian Stelter’s TVNewser at mediabistro.com)

And one of the best, IMO, "Mosaic" on LinkTV is not even listed.

http://linktv.org/programming/programDescription.php4?code=mosaic
Link TV - Programming - Program Details

RussB

08-01-06, 06:40 AM

Are viewers better served by set-top boxes or dumbed-down terminals? TV providers look into it.

By Marguerite Reardon
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: July 31, 2006, 4:00 AM PDT

reporter's notebook I love my DVR, but only when it works.

After a long week of interviews and writing stories, I was excited to hunker down in my living room one Friday night to see who had gotten booted off that week's "Project Runway." I flipped through the list of recorded programs on my digital video recorder and there was nothing.

How could this be? I knew for certain I had clicked on the "record the series" button.

I scrolled further and realized that it wasn't just "Project Runway" that was missing. That week's entire lineup of "The Daily Show," as well as the latest episode of "Entourage," were nowhere to be found.

I was upset, to say the least. This was the second DVR I had gotten from Time Warner since I signed up for the service in January. The previous box kept freezing and rebooting itself.

I looked online and discovered blogs full of complaints regarding the Scientific Atlanta 8000, the box Time Warner had given me not once, but twice. The whole debacle got me thinking about how complicated even the most basic things like watching television have gotten.

While I love how the DVR changed my life--letting me watch my favorite shows whenever I want and fast-forward through commercials--I was in love with it only when it worked. Because when it didn't work, I wanted to throw the whole thing out my window.

In a rush to give consumers more features, cable operators, satellite providers and phone companies are asking device makers to pack more complex capabilities into each box. Today, set-top boxes resemble a home PC more than they do a simple channel-changing cable box designed to do only three things: turn on, turn off, tune channels. Inevitably, these increasingly complicated devices are less reliable and harder to use than their predecessors.

"I would agree that things have gotten too complicated," said Kip Compton, director of business development for Cisco Systems, which now owns Scientific-Atlanta (in fairness, my DVR was made before Cisco bought the company). "Competition is driving operators to offer more features more quickly, and often that comes at the expense of increasing complexity. But it's a balancing act that the industry is trying to manage to keep up with the demand for more features while at the same time building simpler interfaces and reliable products."

Making networks intelligent

Some people in the industry suggest that instead of building more features into consumer devices, service providers and device makers should push more of the complexity into the network, so consumers are shielded from it.

The traditional telephone network is a good example of such a network. Circuit-switched telephony is by no means simple, but to the end user, picking up a phone and getting a dial tone is as simple as simple gets. And it's extremely reliable. Phone networks are designed to guarantee the network will be down no more than five minutes per year.

Some television providers have already begun exploring this concept. In March, Cablevision announced plans to test a new digital video recording service that allowed users to record and manage content through their existing set-top boxes, which would access a network-based DVR housed miles away in a Cablevision office.

The network-based DVR could save Cablevision tons of money, because company won't have to deploy and manage sophisticated devices in every subscriber's home. And subscribers wouldn't have to deal with the headache of boxes that reboot or fail altogether. But content owners quickly responded with threats of legal action, citing concerns over protecting copyright material. As a result, Cablevision put its test on hold until the digital rights management issues can be worked out, the company said.

In stark contrast to Cablevision's approach, Microsoft is selling its Media Center software that turns PCs into central repositories for all digital photos, music and video. Once hooked up to a TV, the software allows users to use their PC as a DVR to record, store and search content on their hard drives.

Because Media Center runs on a PC, it leverages gigabytes worth of data storage, super-fast processors and high-end graphics cards to deliver a rich experience for consumers. For example, the Media Center's program guide that accompanies the digital recording function can render 3D movie posters that consumers browse through and click on when they select a film.

"It's just a much richer user experience than you can get with a set-top box, which pretty much just gives you a text guide on a blue background," said Arvind Mishra, senior product manager for Microsoft's Windows Vista.

Vista as savior?

Microsoft claims it has already sold more than 10 million Media Center PCs, at a rate of about 1 million per month. And its next operating system, Vista, expected to be released next year, will have Media Center built into it. With that shift, the company expects more people to use their PCs to store, manage and navigate through their home entertainment content.

But critics say Microsoft's software has a poor track record in terms of reliability, which could hurt its chances of becoming the hub for home entertainment for the masses. Mischra said concerns over reliability will be a nonissue once Vista is released.

"There is this notion that PCs aren't reliable," Mischra said. "But we are marching to a day when Microsoft's operating systems will be as reliable as the old telephone network. And Vista will get us there."

Execs at companies such as Cisco believe the digital home of the future will offer a mix of networked services leveraging a simpler device, or thin client, and services relying on sophisticated devices.

"We are a networking vendor, so by definition our function is to make sure that all of this stuff that's going to end up in people's living rooms or in the carrier network can be connected together," Compton said. "Eventually, I think we will definitely see more content stored in the network, but there will also be a role for local storage in the home."

Verizon Communications, which is spending more than $20 billion over the next several years to build a fiber-to-the-home network to deliver TV service, agrees. Today, Verizon offers a set-top box for its television service that provides video on demand and digital video recording. But in the future the company may consider putting some of the functionality into the network, said Brian Whitton, executive director of technology for Verizon.

He likened the situation to the voice mail service that Verizon offers for voice customers. Voice mail is a hosted application that doesn't require users to buy and install a separate box next to their phones. While some customers choose to subscribe to voice mail, others don't and they buy a separate device.

Much more important than deploying simpler devices in people's homes, Whitton said, is providing enough intelligence in the network to allow service providers to troubleshoot devices remotely. Verizon is testing a technology on its Fios fiber-to-the-home network and on its traditional DSL network that will allow it to monitor and troubleshoot home routers, set-top boxes and home computers to make sure they are performing as they should.

"What stands between our customer and the $20 billion fiber network we're building is a $50 home router," he said. "So it makes sense for us to have some visibility into the home network to make sure the user experience is a good one."

As for me and my love/hate relationship with my DVR, Time Warner has assured me that my experience is uncommon, and representatives from the company are helping me resolve the problem. Still, I'm considering ditching cable altogether. If I really miss my favorite TV shows, I can always order the whole season from Netflix.

http://news.com.com/Why+my+cable+DVR+stinks/2100-1033_3-6100047.html?tag=st.num

Marcus Carr

08-01-06, 08:40 AM

Press Release

Time Warner and Comcast Complete Adelphia Communications Transactions

Comcast's Interests in Time Warner Cable Redeemed

NEW YORK and PHILADELPHIA, July 31, 2006 - Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) and Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq:CMCSA, CMCSK) today announced that they completed the acquisition of substantially all of Adelphia Communications Corporation's assets.

With this acquisition as well as the swaps of cable systems between them, Comcast and Time Warner Cable have expanded their cable footprints and improved the geographic clusters of their subscribers. In addition, Comcast's historical ownership interests in Time Warner Cable and Time Warner Entertainment Company L.P. (TWE) have been redeemed, with the result that Time Warner Cable is now owned approximately 84% by Time Warner and 16% by Adelphia. Both companies are now focused on integrating their new cable properties and laying the groundwork to accelerate the deployment in the coming months of enhanced video, high-speed data, digital voice and other advanced services to consumers formerly served by Adelphia.

Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dick Parsons said: "With Time Warner Cable delivering stellar growth, we are very pleased to continue to build value by significantly enhancing our scale, subscriber clusters, and operating efficiencies, all at an attractive price. Glenn Britt and his team, with their technological leadership and operating expertise, are ready to integrate these new cable systems seamlessly, enabling the rollout of our highly popular 'triple play' to a whole new universe of subscribers. We're confident that Time Warner Cable will continue to be an engine of growth for our Company, while delivering the best possible cable experience to all of our customers. Let me thank Brian Roberts and his impressive Comcast team, Bill Schleyer and his colleagues at Adelphia, as well as all of the Time Warner Cable and Time Warner people, for all of their great work in this long process."

Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Comcast, said: "The first half of 2006 has been terrific for Comcast with great consumer response to our new advanced products and triple play offer. Comcast is in the strongest position in our history and the acquisition of these contiguous and complementary systems could not come at a better time. Steve Burke, Dave Watson and the cable team have extensive experience integrating cable systems and we look forward to delivering to our new customers the products and services that are already so popular with Comcast's subscribers. Significantly, today's transactions also complete the redemption of our stakes in Time Warner Cable and Time Warner Entertainment, which is an important strategic milestone for our Company. We are grateful to Dick Parsons and his colleagues at Time Warner and the team at Adelphia who worked so hard to facilitate and close these transactions. We'd also like to welcome our new Adelphia and Time Warner employees and customers into the family. Now it's time to get to work delivering on the promise of these transactions."

Glenn Britt, President and Chief Executive Officer of Time Warner Cable, said: "After spending more than a year preparing for the closing of these transactions, we now can enthusiastically begin our full-scale integration and upgrade efforts. In the coming months, we'll stay focused on laying the critical groundwork to allow us to offer our very successful triple-play package of enhanced video, high-speed online and Digital Phone services aggressively to the nearly 7.6 million new homes passed in our expanded service area. We hope to strengthen customer relationships by ensuring the best possible offerings and quality customer care. We will strive to make this changeover as seamless as possible for our customers and for the 12,000 new employees we'll be welcoming to our Company."

Time Warner Cable has gained cable systems passing approximately 7.6 million homes, with approximately 3.3 million basic subscribers. Time Warner Cable now manages a total of approximately 14.4 million well-clustered basic subscribers with 27.6 million homes passed.

Comcast has added about 1.7 million additional basic subscribers for a total of approximately 23.3 million owned and operated customers, with about 3.5 million additional subscribers held in various partnerships attributed to it.

As previously announced, the combined purchase price for the assets acquired by Time Warner Cable and Comcast consisted of $12.5 billion in cash and Time Warner Cable common stock representing approximately 16% of Time Warner Cable's total common equity. The remaining 84% of Time Warner Cable common stock will be held by Time Warner Inc. In addition, Time Warner Inc. will own a direct non-voting common equity interest of approximately 12% in a subsidiary of the cable company. Under agreements entered into in connection with the acquisition, Adelphia is required to sell at least one-third of the Time Warner Cable common stock it received in the transaction in an underwritten public offering within three months of the registration statement for such offering becoming effective, unless, prior to that, the shares are distributed to creditors of Adelphia pursuant to a confirmed plan of reorganization. Time Warner Cable expects that any shares distributed to Adelphia creditors pursuant to a plan of reorganization would be freely transferable.

In addition, Time Warner Cable has redeemed Comcast's 17.9% interest in Time Warner Cable Inc. and Time Warner Entertainment has redeemed Comcast's 4.7% in TWE, which together represented an effective 21% economic interest in Time Warner Cable.

Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers acted as financial advisors to Time Warner. The Blackstone Group acted as financial advisor to Comcast on the Adelphia transaction and assisted on the Time Warner Cable and Time Warner Entertainment redemptions. Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Comcast on the Time Warner redemptions and assisted on Adelphia. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is legal advisor to Time Warner. Davis Polk & Wardwell is legal advisor to Comcast. Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP advised Comcast on bankruptcy-related issues.

This release does not constitute an offer of any security for sale.

Subscriber Information

The subscriber information contained herein with regard to reporting basic video subscribers has been approximated because each company uses somewhat different methodologies with respect to reporting subscriber counts of multiple-dwelling units.

http://www.cmcsk.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147565&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=889918&highlight=

fredfa

08-01-06, 10:38 AM

TV Notebook
Please Don't Feed the Hyenas
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn”

So, Parents TV Council chief/Satan lookalike Brent Bozell thinks the Television Critics Association owes Roger Ailes an apology for supposedly fleeing his session at TCA Press Tour last week en masse.

You would think that if anyone knew when an apology needed to be issued, it would be Bozell, the man who, four years ago this month, had to shell out $3.5 million and issue a public mea culpa to World Wrestling impresario Vince McMahon, of all people, for accusing McMahon of encouraging children to kill.

But it turns out, to no one's surprise reading this, that Bozell and the rest of the blogosphere couldn't have been more wrong about what went down in Pasadena.

First, a word of explanation about my group TCA (on whose board I sit) and what it does. Mainly it exists to help TV critics, especially those who don't work in major markets, to get access to executives, producers and stars of prime-time entertainment programs. We sit through press conferences, then a subset of those in the room descend on the panelists for follow-up questions or one-on-ones (this part, whose name would be self-explanatory if you saw it, is called the scrum).

You're used to seeing miles of copy, and now zillions of blog pages, coming out of TCA. What you may not notice are the countless quotes that the critics squirrel away until the show premieres. For instance, this story about the SciFi series "Eureka" features quotage from star Debrah Farentino that I acquired at the TCA press tour panel for "Eureka" held six months earlier in January.

The TCA encourages networks to present their executives regularly as well. After all, we're generating miles of copy, much of it favorable, about their new shows; the least they can do is provide us an opportunity to interrogate the people who put them on the air. Leslie Moonves has risen so high up the CBS organization that most mere mortals can barely spot him way up there. And yet, he attended both the CBS and CW network parties and held court with any and every reporter wanting to ask him about any and everything. (I'm not sure my raw tape is that interesting, but here it is, in MP3 format.)

I was glad, therefore, to see that Fox had flown in Roger Ailes from New York. It's been a long time, and he's added the head of the Fox TV Stations Group and My Network TV to his list of titles since his last visit. I have no agenda with Ailes; as Fox News people will tell you, I predicted early on that Fox would overtake CNN in the ratings, and deserved to. I still feel that way. Fox is exciting, riveting, and knows what it wants to do. CNN is exciting during breaking news, riveting only when Jon Stewart shows up, and has no idea what it wants to do. That doesn't mean, however, I'll ever give up "NewsHour" for Brit Hume.

So imagine my surprise when the Miami Herald's Glenn Garvin insinuated that I had an agenda with Ailes. From the transcript:

ME: You came out here ten years ago to introduce us to FOX News. And I recall that session being notable for how little was sort of communicated to critics about what the FOX News Channel would be. And I recently looked at some of the tapes of "The O'Reilly Report," as it was called back then, and things that I had stowed away. And it did feel to me like you didn't quite know what to do with the network right way. Were you just being cagey with us, or were you getting all of your ducks in a row, or did you in fact discover that this -- over time that this attitude was really resonating with viewers?

ROGER AILES: Probably a little bit of all three, but mostly I was getting my ducks in a row. ...

ME: Okay, understood. Now, with regard to the local news operations that you've recently taken control of, is this -- I'll give you an opportunity here to say that you're not going -- that you're not in that same mode with them; that is, you start to introduce morning news and revamping the local news that these guys do, that you're not planning to inject it with that same FOX attitude.

ROGER AILES: What are you worried about? That we're going to do fair and balanced reporting at the local stations, or what is your exact question?

ME: Well, a lot of FOX stations have focused on local news reporting without -- I mean, something closer maybe to the Sinclair News Channel experiment that --

ROGER AILES: That -- we have nothing do with that. I mean, I have no problem with fair and balanced reporting anywhere it's done.

Fair points, and a better answer than my question. Those of you who know my earlier reporting on Sinclair know why I used its NewsCentral as a reference point. And why it would be fair to ask if Ailes was interested in Fox News-styled local news.

Anyway, here's how Garvin wrote it up:

When a critic asked him to promise ''that you're not planning to inject it with that same Fox attitude,'' Ailes jeered.

''What are you worried about? That we're going to do fair and balanced reporting at the local stations?'' Ailes retorted, invoking the national Fox News Channel slogan. ``I have no problem with fair and balanced reporting anywhere it's done.''

Well, that's why Garvin is the critic, not the reporter, right? He's entitled to put his spin on it, whether the facts warrant it or not.

(This reminds me of the critic who, a few days earlier, asserted that the CBS drama "Jericho" was "bizarre" because Skeet Ulrich's character drove a car that "only had an AM radio" and that there was no way you could see a mushroom cloud over Denver from "central Kansas." I'm not telling who that critic was, but it's obvious he'd never been to western Kansas -- Jericho's 347 miles from Kansas City in the pilot -- where the land is flat and the FM radio is scarce.)

So I offer my own case above as an example of why perhaps Garvin should be taken at a little less than face value when he writes:

About two-thirds of the 150 critics left the room before Ailes took the stage, several of them openly voicing their scorn for what they say is Fox News' conservative spin.

This is the line the blogosphere went nuts over. Except that it didn't happen. A lot of people left the room -- and subsequently ambled back in, as happens during a long day of nonstop press conferences -- but nothing close to 100 critics stayed away from the Fox News session. Sorry, Glenn.

More importantly, as I scanned the room, I saw AP, the LA Times and numerous writers who feed into the McClatchy, Scripps, NY Times and other wire services. The LA Times flew in Matea Gold from New York to cover the various news sessions, including Fox's. It's obvious a lot of organizations paid Ailes the respect he deserved and covered his Q-and-A.

As for our attitude, judge for yourself. Download my raw tape (MP3) http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/files/RogerAilesWS_10069.mp3 of the scrum with Ailes, where you'll hear Gold, Stephen Battaglio of TV Guide and -- trying his darndest to get his second question asked -- me. The questions are persistent, but hostile? "Scornful"? C'mon.

So, you ask, where's my story about Roger Ailes? It's coming. Remember, TCA is not just for of-the-moment stories. Fox News was there to promote its 10th anniversary. That's in October, and as it nears I'll write my piece and use quotes from our press session and scrum.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2006/07/please_dont_fee.html#more

fredfa

08-01-06, 10:55 AM

TV Sports
Visser blazes NFL trail to honors
By Neil Best Newsday Staff Writer August 1, 2006

Her first media credentials spelled out the challenge in black and white: "No women or children in the press box."

It was 1974, and Lesley Visser was a kid straight out of Boston College. She did get a seat, because she worked for The Boston Globe. But the press boxes of the era weren't quite ready for her.

"No ladies' rooms," she said. "So I had to time it when I thought I could get to the public elevator and to a ladies' room ... I'd think, 'First-and-10 at the 20. I can get down and back.' "

At least they allowed her in the press box. The locker room remained off limits.

"I'd have to bundle up," she said. "I'd have to figure out which clothes I was going to wear because I'd have to stand outside in December in Three Rivers and wait [to interview] the Steelers."

All of that will seem very long ago Friday night. Visser will be honored at a dinner with this year's Pro Football Hall of Fame induction class, becoming the first woman officially recognized by the Hall.

Visser will receive the "Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award" for "long-time exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football." Previous winners include Roone Arledge, Frank Gifford, Curt Gowdy and Pat Summerall.

"Overwhelming," Visser, 52, said of the honor, which she will receive five days after Effa Manley became the first woman inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame.

Visser said that before she learned of her award, John Madden and Troy Aikman, who are to be inducted this weekend, invited her to be their guest. "Now I'm going in the Hall of Fame with them," she said.

She fears her speech will sound like a thank-you list, but she is sure to touch on her role as a trailblazer. "I understand the power of it," she said.

Visser began as a print reporter, including a decade covering the Patriots, becoming the first female beat reporter in the NFL. She moved to TV fulltime in 1987 and has worked for CBS, then ABC / ESPN, and since 2000 for CBS again, covering news and producing features.

She has worked 28 Final Fours, was the first woman to preside over a Super Bowl trophy presentation and was the first female regular on "Monday Night Football."

Like other women who came of age in the 1970s, she marvels at the changes she has witnessed. "When I grew up, the job did not exist for women," she said. "I love the fact girls now can say, 'I want to serve on the Supreme Court' or 'I want to cover a Super Bowl.' That's tremendously satisfying."

[b]Frankly frustrated

Today marks the first anniversary of the ballyhooed debut of ESPN2's "Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith."

How's it going? Quite frankly, it's still a work in progress, with weak ratings and a host who last month expressed frustration in the Chicago Tribune about a lack of promotion for the show and the fact that live events often alter its 11 p.m. starting time. (It was moved Jan. 30 from 6:30 p.m. in an effort to boost its audience.)

"I'm not happy," Smith told the Tribune. Yesterday, he said, "I got quoted in an emotional moment. I reacted inappropriately."

Smith said changes are coming that will improve the show.

"When you're new and different from what people customarily see, that takes time," he said. "I'm not frustrated right now. I'll go back to my regular mentality: I expect to win at every single thing I do."

Coughlin, unplugged!

The NFL Network is determined to pressure cable titans such as Cablevision and Time Warner to carry it, and it plans an extensive ad campaign to enlist subscribers in that cause.

What are viewers missing? The network this week is featuring a tour of camps, which tonight will take it to Albany for an 8 p.m. show focused on the Giants.

The hook: coach Tom Coughlin wired for sound, facing a team of hot, tired, cranky players.

Hide the children!

http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/ny-spbest014836666aug01,0,3372455,print.column?coll=ny-sports-columnists

fredfa

08-01-06, 11:35 AM

The 2006-2007 Season
In blogland 'Studio 60's' all the chatter
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Aug 1, 2006

Is it possible for a new show to jump the shark before it even premieres? In this age of bloggers, one might well think so.

How times have changed. It used to be that going into the fall the networks had everything to say about their new shows. Viewers simply waited.

Now bloggers are ripping the fall schedule, sight unseen, and the No. 1 rippee is NBC’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” the new drama from "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin and featuring former "Friends" star Matthew Perry.

Each year during the upfront, when the networks preview their fall schedules, media buyers seem to focus on one show as the coming season's big hit, and “Studio 60" was that one show at this spring's upfront.

Two months ago, “Studio 60" was also the hot show among bloggers. Then it suddenly fell from grace, becoming the show fated to be the new season's biggest disappointment.

Now it seems a backlash is building to the backlash, and the show seems headed back to hitdom. This is with six weeks still to go before the show debuts.

These tides of opinion, moreover, appear to be based on little or no evidence. NBC has released only partial clips of the pilot on the internet. Rather it appears to be based on the pedigree and reputation of its principles.

And of course, it’s still anyone’s guess how “Studio” will perform when it debuts on Sept. 18, the buzz, positive or negative, not withstanding. Last summer, the buzz was all positive for “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart” and it flopped. Last week, “Studio” creator Sorkin even joked that the show had seen a backlash against the backlash, saying there is pressure on “Studio” to deliver.

Yet there's always that lingering fear that the buzz could in fact do damage.

“I do think that it’s a double-edged sword to have this much advance publicity,” says Karen McCallum, media director at Esparza Advertising in Albuquerque. “For viewers and buyers, expectations are higher than they might have been. But I do think it’s possible that it can live up to it.”

Indeed, as soon as NBC picked up “Studio,” the hype began, and when clips of it hit the internet last month, the chatter turned negative.

“I have my doubts about Aaron Sorkin's new show. I know, I know, I should wash my mouth out with soap. I really want to like it,” writes the blogger going as rosaluna on a LiveJournal blog. “The problem is that I have this sneaking suspicion that Aaron Sorkin only has one show, and he has now written it three times.”

“Every second of the ‘Studio 60’ sounds like Sorkin and looks like [executive producer Thomas] Schlamme and thus it's all familiar and reassuring and intelligent and nowhere near as smart-seeming as it was back when 'The West Wing' premiered,” wrote Dan Fienberg of the TV-centric blog fienprint.blogspot.com.

It’s not just bloggers who have dissed the show, either. Backlash also has built among chatboard posters, such as this respondent to a story about “Studio” on London’s MediaGuardian site.

“For such an expensive show, it didn't go down that well with the ad guys at the upfronts, so they've been putting a huge number of clips and trails on the website and, I would guess, leaking pilot scripts out to Sorkin fansites,” the writer speculates.

Now favor seems to be flowing back to “Studio.” Brandimensions, the research firm, reports that the show is already the new season’s most e-buzzed about show. (But then so was Stewart’s spinoff.)

“Aaron Sorkin's writing a new show. It'll be good,” writes a poster on snarky TV site Television Without Pity, which already has several thousand “Studio” posts. “You know how I know it'll be good? Because Aaron Sorkin's writing it. And everything else is crap.”

Of course, with six weeks still to go, there could still be a backlash to the backlash to the backlash. There's time yet.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_6341.asp

fredfa

08-01-06, 11:38 AM

The Business of TV
Adelphia in the books but deal talk just beginning

By Georg Szalai The Hollywood Reporter Aug. 01, 2006

NEW YORK -- The sale of bankrupt cable firm Adelphia Communications may finally be completed, but the deal talk is likely to continue.

Amid increasing video service competition between cable, satellite TV and telecommunications firms, some on Wall Street say there is continued deal pressure on content distribution companies, even though most believe that for the moment there is more talk than actual news of impending deals.

In recent weeks, Wall Street has mainly focused on a potential DirecTV-EchoStar deal after some reports suggested Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. may be preparing a play for EchoStar, the smallerof the two satellite TV competitors.

However, sources have said there hasn't been any real movement on that front for now, even though the subject of a potential deal has kept coming up as a question in earnings conference calls in recent quarters.

Many analysts also believe that the previously failed attempt to merge DirecTV and EchoStar would still not get regulatory approval.

Standard & Poor's Equity Research analyst Tuna Amobi on Monday reiterated his "strong sell" opinion on shares of EchoStar, which have risen as of late on the deal talk.

"Despite landscape changes in four years since a prior merger try was blocked, it is not clear that a renewed proposal would pass regulatory muster," he argued.

Similarly, Bear Stearns analyst Spencer Wang recently said competition in the TV space hasn't changed "substantially enough" for a merger to go through.

An EchoStar spokeswoman declined comment. A DirecTV spokesman said his company doesn't comment on rumor and speculation.

However, while talk has focused on the satellite TV players, cable swaps and system sales could well be on the plate in the future.

"The Adelphia deal should spark some additional swap and/or sale opportunities within the cable sector in the U.S., giving the opportunity to better align certain geographic regions," UBS analyst Aryeh Bourkoff said Monday.

Cablevision Systems' cable assets in New York and surrounding areas, as well as those of Comcast, have long been considered a potential takeover target for the newly public TWC. But industry observers expect any deal moves to come only when the integration of the Adelphia properties is in advanced stages.

Comcast and Cablevision officials declined comment on potential future deals Monday. "We will focus on integrating the acquired systems," a TWC spokesman said. "We'll also continue to look at opportunities that can enhance our existing businesses and improve returns."

To avoid potential tax complications, any Cablevision deal could be put off a while, Miller Tabak and Co. analyst David Joyce said. "But a year from now, after TWC is public and they are generating positive operational improvements from the Adelphia acquisition, an acquisition of Cablevision's systems would still be logical."

The Paul Allen-controlled Charter Communications also has long been in need of a fix, but Wall Street sources said new CEO Neil Smit likely will get a chance to take the time to rebuild the company.

Still, Joyce suggested that "continued dealmaking would involve potential Charter system sales" as the company has been selling some operations in recent years to reduce a high debt load.

Bourkoff could even see a sale down the line of Charter's big Los Angeles holdings with about 500,000 subscribers.

RCN Corp. also is believed to be in the process of selling its Los Angeles systems to focus on the East Coast markets, Joyce said. "As they are overbuilders, their likely acquirers would be private equity investors," he added.

Indeed, some have wondered if Adelphia chairman and CEO William Schleyer and chief operating officer Ron Cooper could join some private equity firms, which have been active in media and entertainment industry deals.

"They could end up being frontmen for any other private equity consortia interested in rolling up systems a la Suddenlink and Bresnan (Communications)," Joyce said.

Suddenlink Communications is the former Cebridge Connections, run by former Charter CEO Jerry Kent. After giving effect to recent deals with Charter and Cox Communications, it boasts 1.4 million customers.

Bresnan, led by cable pioneer and CEO William Bresnan, operates more than 300,000 cable subscribers.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/business/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002915507

fredfa

08-01-06, 11:46 AM

The Digital Revolution
Study: Women like tech toys more than shoes
Forget the little black dress: Women would rather have a little white iPod
By Edward C. Baig USA Today

NEW YORK — Is a plasma TV a girl's new best friend?

An Oxygen Network survey released Tuesday found that more than three out of four women said they'd choose the TV over a diamond solitaire necklace. Women preferred a top-of-the-line cellphone to designer shoes by a similar margin. And a little white iPod narrowly trumped a little black dress.

These are among the results of the Girls Gone Wired survey by market researcher TRU for Oxygen. TRU surveyed 1,400 women and 700 men 15 to 49 years old to compare tech attitudes among the sexes.

The findings suggest advertisers need to address a broad audience and not talk down to women. Advertisers are best served communicating lifestyle benefits of tech products by showing what's useful about them, rather than focusing on specifications, Oxygen says.

"There have been some missed opportunities to market consumer electronics to women," says Steve Koenig, senior manager of industry analysis for the Consumer Electronics Association, whose research reveals only subtle differences between the sexes in their attitudes toward technology.

In the Oxygen survey, 59% of women agreed with the statement "Women are much more tech savvy than they give themselves credit for." Among the men, just 38% agreed.

"Men and women are equally competent in the technology arena," says Oxygen CEO Geraldine Laybourne.

Katie Richardson, 25, a project manager for an elevator company in Chicago, says family members come to her for help setting up iTunes or fixing a digital camera. "I love figuring out all the different functions," she says.

Still, just 35% of women agreed that "most of the time people rely on me for technology help," vs. 54% of men.

However tech-savvy they are, women are typically the decision makers when it comes to buying.

"From every piece of data we've seen, by and large, household budgets are controlled by women," says Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a prominent venture-capital investment firm. But they are "far more oriented toward solutions rather than tools."

Kristen McDonnell, CEO of LimeLife, a producer of mobile content for women 15 to 35, agrees. "Women are power users of the Internet now in terms of MySpace pages, e-commerce and photo sharing."

New York City College of Technology radiology student Shavonn Tatum, 26, is passionate about gadgets. "I love technology and can't wait to graduate so I can buy things I really want," she says.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-07-31-women-tech_x.htm?csp=34

fredfa

08-01-06, 11:59 AM

TV Notebook
Pew Research: Most Viewers Believe TV News Lacks Credibility

By Anthony Crupi MediaWeek.com August 1, 2006

While American news audiences remain polarized by ideology, a new study finds that regardless of their individual political leanings, Americans are unilateral in their increasing skepticism about the credibility of all major TV news outlets.

According to the latest study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, fewer than a quarter of the 3,204 adults surveyed believe all or most of what they see on NBC News (23 percent), ABC News (22 percent) or CBS News (22 percent), continuing a downward trend in credibility that stretches back to the mid-1980s. For the sake of comparison, the Pew study conducted in 1998 found NBC and ABC tied as the most trusted broadcast news organizations, with 30 percent of those surveyed saying that believed what was reported on both networks. CBS News had a 28 percent approval rate eight years ago.

Cable has fared no better. Back in 1998, CNN boasted a stellar 42 percent approval rate, only to drop to 28 percent this year. Rival Fox News Channel has remained steady since it was first added to the Pew study in 2000; that year, 26 percent of respondents said they trusted FNC, a figure that is more or less consistent with the 25 percent approval rate in 2006.

Predictably enough, partisan politics plays a significant role as far as perceived credibility is concerned. At 32 percent, FNC gets the nod for the highest credibility rating among Republicans and the lowest among Democrats (22 percent). Only the print publication Newsweek is met with more skepticism by Democrats (21 percent). Those numbers neatly reverse themselves when CNN comes into play, as 32 percent of Democrats surveyed said they believed all or most of what they saw on the news net, while only 22 percent of Republicans reported the same.

CNN is by no means the least trusted news net among GOP respondents, as every outlet from C-SPAN (21 percent) to MSNBC (18 percent) scored lower on the credibility scale. NBC News (19 percent), ABC News (18 percent) and CBS News (15 percent) also were met with a great deal of cynicism from Republicans, who expressed less confidence than Democrats in the credibility of nearly every major news outlet, with the exception of FNC and the Wall Street Journal.

Although they remain divided by politics, both parties seem to agree that they’ve had their fill of news from overseas. Whether its a question of war fatigue or if Americans are becoming increasingly insular, both GOP and Democrats have decreased their intake of foreign news since 2004. Two years ago, 52 percent of the public followed events as they unfolded overseas; today, only 39 percent say they are keeping abreast of what’s happening outside of the U.S. Among Republicans, 36 percent said they kept tabs on foreign news, down from 56 percent in 2002. Democrats showed less of a precipitous drop, as 42 percent said they still kept up with overseas events, down from 52 percent two years ago.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002915663

fredfa

08-01-06, 12:02 PM

The Business of TV
FiOS Gains Steam for Verizon

By Steve Donohue Multichannel News 8/1/2006

While Verizon Communications saw second-quarter earnings drop 24% to $1.61 billion, the telco said Tuesday that it’s seeing big growth with sales of its FiOS Internet and FiOS TV products.

The company added 1.6 million net new digital-subscriber-line and FiOS customers during the last three quarters, including 111,000 FiOS Internet customers, during the quarter.

Verizon didn’t break out FiOS TV’s total subscriber count, , but the company said that in markets where it’s been selling FiOS TV for at least six months, its penetration levels have hit an average of 10%.

The regional Bell operating company said more than 80% of FiOS TV customers buy its triple-play of video, high-speed Internet and phone, and 60% of FiOS customers have a digital-video recorder, HD set-top, or both.

The company picked up 440,000 net broadband connections, including DSL and FiOS Internet subs, during the second quarter, and Verizon said it ended the period with 485,000 customers that take its DirecTV direct-broadcast satellite bundle.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6358069

fredfa

08-01-06, 12:12 PM

The Monday 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.

fredfa

08-01-06, 12:12 PM

(From Marc Berman’s Tuesday, August 1, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
Ratings Box: What’s Hot/What’s Not

Strong Season Premiere for The Girls Next Door on E!:

E!’s The Girls Next Door opened season two on Sunday, July 30 with a healthy 1.80 metered market household rating from 9-10 p.m., peaking in the final quarter hour with a 2.16. Comparably, that was an increase of 70 percent over last year’s series debut (1.06), and an increase of 153 percent over lead-in Hilary Duff: Revealed (.71). The Girls Next Door also delivered at 12 a.m., with the encore telecast at a 1.02 in the overnight markets.

That’s So Suite Life of Hannah Montana Scores on Disney Channel:

Disney Channel programming event, That’s So Suite Life of Hannah Montana, featuring cross-over episodes of That’s So Raven, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and Hannah Montana on Friday, July 28 resulted in a first-place finish among all basic cable networks in primetime in kids 2-11 (2.33 million), girls 6-11 (1.51 million), boys 6-11 (812,000), tweens 9-14 (2.17 million), girls 9-14 (1.45 million) and boys 9-14 (714,000). Disney Channel was also the most-watched with 5.28 million viewers.

TV Tidbits: Notes of Interest

Reba, Still Standing and Desperate Housewives Head to Lifetime:

Sitcoms Reba and Still Standing will make their debuts on Lifetime effective Monday, Aug. 7. Still Standing, which ran on CBS for three seasons, will air weekdays from 12-1 p.m. and 5-6 p.m. Reba, which returns on the CW in midseason, will follow from 1-2 p.m. and 6-7 p.m. ABC’s Desperate Housewives, meanwhile, will premiere on Lifetime this Saturday, Aug. 5 at 11 p.m. ET.

MTV Green Lights The Hills:

MTV has renewed Laguna Beach spin-off The Hills for a second season. The Hills follows Lauren Conrad of Laguna Beach as she moves to Los Angeles and attempts to move on with her life.

CBS Remembers 9/11:

Upcoming CBS News anchor Katie Couric will anchor Eye net primetime special, Five Years Later: How Safe Are We?, on Wed., Sept. 6 at 10 p.m. in memory of the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Couric kicks off her tenure as anchor of The CBS Evening News on Sept. 5.

More Cast Changes on Law & Order: Criminal Intent:

Nona Gaye, who was recently cast on NBC’s Law & Order: Criminal Intent as a new assistant district attorney, has exited the series after only a few weeks into production. Theresa Randle of Bad Boys II fame will replace her. Also joining the cast of Criminal Intent this season are Julianne Nicholson as Chris Noth’s new partner, and Eric Bogosian as the police captain.

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

fredfa

08-01-06, 12:28 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
A beach bum: ABC's 'One Ocean View'
Trashed by critics, debut pulls a 1.5 in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Aug 1, 2006

This has just not been ABC’s summer. The network is now zero-for-four with new reality shows with the disappointing debut of “One Ocean View” last night, which became the summer’s second-lowest-rated new reality show debut on the Big Four networks.

“Ocean” averaged a 1.5 adults 18-49 overnight rating in the 10 p.m. timeslot, down 17 percent from “How to Get the Guy’s” debut in that same slot earlier this summer.

At the time, “Guy’s” 1.8 average was the worst of the summer. It was yanked off the air a few weeks later when ratings continued to dip.

The show averaged just 3.6 million total viewers, and its audience dipped by 300,000 in the second half of the show.

Like “Guy,” “Ocean” is about singles looking for love, these young New York City professionals who head to Fire Island on the weekend to party and carouse. The show was savaged by critics leading up to its premiere.

“The gimmick or the problem here is that the young strangers come off as such familiar cliches that it's hard to believe they haven't been fabricated, at least in part, by a professional writer or two,” writes Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales.

“According to the first paragraph of the press release from ABC, it's ‘the first network summer reality series to be set on Fire Island.’ And, I assure you, that is the only thing distinctive about it,” writes United Features Syndicate reviewer Kevin McDonough.

ABC, whose nightly average has dipped 0.3 rating points to a 1.9 average this summer compared with last, will add “Ocean” to a stack of stinkers this summer. “Master of Champions” averaged under a 2.0 for the network on Tuesdays, and “The One: Making a Music Star” was canned last week after the first four episodes averaged just a 1.0.

Meanwhile, CBS led for the night at a 3.0 rating and 9 share in 18-49s, ahead of Fox at 2.7/8, ABC at 2.0/6, NBC and Univision each at 1.6/5, UPN at 0.9/3 and WB at 0.6/2.

At 8 p.m., CBS took the lead at 2.4 for "King of Queens" and "How I Met Your Mother" repeats, ahead of ABC's "Wife Swap" rerun at 2.2, Fox's "Hell's Kitchen" rerun and Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" each at 1.8, NBC's "StarTomorrow" at 1.3, UPN's reruns of "One on One" and "All of Us" at 0.9 and WB's "7th Heaven" repeat at 0.6.

At 9 p.m., Fox's "Kitchen" took the top spot at a 3.7, ahead of CBS's "Two and a Half Men" and "Mother" repeats at 3.0, ABC's "Supernanny" rerun at 2.3, NBC's "Treasure Hunters" at 2.0, Univision's "Barrera de Amor" at 1.6, UPN's reruns of "Girlfriends" and "Half & Half" at 1.0, and WB's "Heaven" rerun at 0.6.

At 10 p.m., CBS was No. 1 at 3.6 for a "CSI: Miami" repeat, followed by NBC's "Medium" rerun at 1.6, ABC's "Ocean" premiere at 1.5 and Univision's "Cristina" at 1.4.

Among households, CBS was No. 1 again at a 6.1 rating and 10 share, ahead of Fox at 3.8/6, ABC at 3.6/6, NBC at 2.9/5, Univision at 2.0/3, UPN at 1.4/2 and WB at 1.2/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6367.asp

dg28

08-01-06, 12:31 PM

Follow-up from earlier posts:

MASN expanded its programming on July 31, marking the beginning of a new era in regional sports programming for the Mid-Atlantic region. An impressive mix of live professional and collegiate games, original programming, simulcasted sports-talk radio and syndicated sports programming make up MASN's 24-hour broadcast schedule.

http://www.masn.tv/programming/

Marcus Carr

08-01-06, 12:41 PM

No Floor Vote Scheduled for Franchise Bill

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/1/2006 10:58:00 AM

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has not scheduled a floor vote this week for the video franchise bill, and is "highly unlikely to" given the already crowded schedule, according to a source close to the Leader's office.

That likely means a September vote at the earliest, depending on whether bill backers can get the votes.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens is still lining up the 60 he needs to defeat a threatened filibuster of the bill over its absence of strong network neutrality provisions. Frist has made it clear that he won't schedule a vote until he can be assured it won't take up floor time only to be mooted by a filibuster.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), for one, has pledged to block the bill.

A franchise reform bill without mandated network neutrality provision passed the House, and the Senate Commerce Committee--though a network neutrality amendment was narrowly defeated in the latter--but faces an uphill battle against time and Democratic senators. Some of them are convinced that the Internet will be turned into an innovation-curbing toll road unless telco and cable companies are prevented by law from using their power over the pipes to favor content that makes them more money or speech they prefer.

The companies argue that there is no evidence they are doing that, don't plan to do that, and have FCC guidelines in place telling them not to do that, or else. But they also say they must be free to manage their networks to keep the growing information and entertainment demands from clogging the pipes and free to provide the extra security and capacity necessary for high-bandwidth services like streaming video.

http://broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6358139.html?display=Breaking+News

fredfa

08-01-06, 05:23 PM

TV Notebook
NFL Asks FCC To Reinstate TW Carriage
By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 8/1/2006
(John Eggerton contributed to this report)

The National Football League called the next play in its ongoing battle with Time Warner Cable, filing a petition with the FCC to direct Time Warner to restore the NFL Network to the basic cable package on the Adelphia systems that Time Warner took over as of today (Aug. 1).

The petition claims that Time Warner violated Section 76.1603(b) "of the Commission’s rules requiring adequate notice to subscribers before dropping a cable channel from cable systems Time Warner recently acquired from Adelphia Communications and Comcast Corporation." That period of adequate notice is 30 days, according to the Commission’s rules.

"As a result of Time Warner quietly and suddenly pulling our NFL Network channel off cable systems around the country last night at midnight, we were left with no alternative under FCC rules but to file this injunction," said the league in a statement.

"NFL fans who called us today said they were not given a fair chance on the eve of the NFL season to have their voice heard on this decision by Time Warner. We owe it to our fans to help them fight for their rights. Those rights were abruptly and unfairly taken from them late last night."

An NFL spokesperson says the two sides are currently not in negotiations, and no talks are planned.

Systems that lost the NFL Network as of today included football hotbeds such as Kansas City, Cleveland and Dallas.

Calling the filing "frivolous," "Time Warner Cable spokesman Mark Harrad said: "We think we are in full compliance with the FCC's notification rules. The rule is 30 days notice unless the change is beyond your control," Harrad said. "The NFL Network made it apparent to us that they would not allow TWC to carry their network in a manner that was in the best interests of our customers and our business," which he said only became apparent last week. "We notified customers as soon as the possiblity of that impasse became apparent," running ads to that effect in different markets last week, he said.

The two sides are at odds as the NFL Network looks to keep itself off of the digital sports tier on which Time Warner wants to place the network. The NFL says that monthly fees are not at issue, the differences are over where the network would be carried.

Having similar troubles with Cablevision and Charter, the network this week launched an acid-tongued consumer-marketing push using tagline such as "Don’t let Time Warner ruin your football season" and "Don’t let Charter shut you out." The wide-ranging campaign spans TV, radio and print, as well as NFL assets, and pushes consumers to switch to DirecTV or Dish Network, both of which carry the network on basic packages.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6358476

fredfa

08-01-06, 07:28 PM

Last week’s updated top 10 prime-time program ratings are now toward the bottom of RATINGS NEWS -- the first post in this thread.

fredfa

08-01-06, 07:34 PM

TV on DVD Notebook
DVD: Playboy Fare, Bruce Campbell, JAG

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog August 1 2006

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been catching up on DVDs, including some packages that would make apt double features.

• In stores today is ''The Girls Next Door: Season One,'' the E! series starring three of Hugh Hefner's current girlfriends -- Holly, Bridget and Kendra. You can tandem it with the already-released ''Playboy After Dark,'' a DVD sampler of episodes from syndicated shows Hefner hosted in the late '50s and '60s.

I happened to see the Girls Next Door during my recent trip to Hollywood, and I find them much more appealing on TV; their real-life looks seemed artificial and overly elaborate. In the TV series, their personalities are intermittently pleasant, although the show itself is slight. For people who don't care about personalities, the DVD extras include uncensored video and audio of the Girls.

''Girls'' also included appearances by Barbi Benton, Hefner's former flame, who is also at his side in the '60s selections on ''Playboy After Dark.'' And one of the interesting cultural comparisons between the two DVD sets is to see how Hefner's preferences in women haven't really changed; Benton's slightly ditzy persona on ''PAD'' is a close companion to the Girls. (And, in spite of the passage of decades, the ''Girls Next Door'' fit linguistically with the references to ''girls'' on ''PAD.'')

But I was far more fascinated by the '60s ''PAD'' than I expected. I remember watching bits of the show when it first aired, and it seemed boring -- Hefner a sometimes awkward host in formal wear, seemingly more comfortable with jazzy crooners than the rock acts I might wait up to see. (He seems far more at ease in the '50s show, where the counterculture consists of a clean-shaven, necktie-wearing Lenny Bruce.)

The episodes included here can still be dull, even bizarre. (Hef and the crowd play ''Simon Says'' in one segment. Really.) But they're still of interest for the way they reflect the clash of the Playboy Philosophy with a younger generation -- Billy Eckstine singing with Linda Ronstadt, for example, or the ultra-tidy Hef introducing Joe Cocker at his most slovenly.

Then there are the little things: Bill Cosby messing with an upright bass behind Cher (with Sonny on cowbell), or a chatting crowd including Vic Damone, Sonny, a bored Cher, Dick Shawn, Bob Hite of Canned Heat and -- next to Hite -- a little-known Lindsay Wagner. As artifacts go, it's pretty good.

• I've long been a fan of Bruce ''If Chins Could Kill'' Campbell, for his screen work and his clear-eyed attitude toward his career. Also for his doing a stunt back-flip during a press conference in 1993 to promote ''The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.,'' his single-season Fox series. A ''Complete Series'' package is now on DVD, along with ''Jack of All Trades: The Complete Series,'' the syndicated adventure comedy that starred Campbell.

The ''Brisco'' set is loaded with extras, but I haven't gotten around them because I have a hard time just sitting through the show. Even though I like Campbell, the show tried to do too many things at once -- western, scifi fantasy, comedy -- and ended up not doing any one thing very well. (That said, I should note that others, including my stepdaughter Target Demo, have a great fondness for the show, to the point of her naming a dog after Campbell's character.) ''Lost'' fans, though, may want to take note because of the involvement of producer Carlton Cuse, now on the ABC series; you can even spot him in a small role in the ''Brisco'' premiere.

''Jack of All Trades'' -- with Campbell as an anachronism-laden spy working for Thomas Jefferson on a tiny, French-run island during the Napoleonic era -- did not delight me either when it premiered in 2000; I think the word ''stupid'' appears more than once in my review of its premiere. But in his autobiography Campbell says he will ''defend (the show) to the end.'' And I might have said that it's endearingly stupid. I still grin at lines like ''I would have knocked but my fist had other plans'' and this dialogue:

Jefferson: ''You wouldn't want to be speaking French for the rest of your life, now would you, Jack?''

Jack: ''Oh, all those silent X's. ... My throat hurts just thinking about it, sir.''

• Then there's ''JAG: The Complete First Season,'' a collection of an odd chapter in the show's history.

Fans of the show will recall that it began on NBC in 1995; the network dropped the show after a single season, but CBS promptly picked it up and it enjoyed a long run on that network. In the DVD extras, Bellisario is more mellow about this season than he was when I interviewed him late in 1996, as the CBS run was about to begin. But it was a challenging year, as this DVD of the NBC episodes shows.

The NBC season had some building blocks in place, including David James Elliott as Harmon Rabb, but in so many other ways it's a work in progress. These are episodes before the arrival of Catherine Bell as Mac, for starters. Andrea Parker was Harm's partner in the feature-length pilot, but NBC insisted she be replaced for the series, so Tracey Needham came aboard. NBC wanted more of an action show than Bellisario had envisioned. Kevin Dunn plays the JAG boss in the pilot, as well.

Then there's ''Skeleton Crew,'' rightly referred to as a ''rarely seen'' episode of the series. It was meant to be the first-season finale, with a cliffhanger involving Harm charged with murder -- and the victim was played by Catherine Bell. According to several ''JAG'' references, NBC decided not to air the episode because it had canceled the series before its scheduled telecast; footage from it was later edited into a CBS episode.' Here you can see the telecast in its original form, as well as some decent DVD extras.

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

fredfa

08-01-06, 10:08 PM

Last week’s complete network average prime-time results (with demographic averages) are now at the bottom of RATINGS NEWS the first post in this thread.

fredfa

08-01-06, 10:19 PM

TV Notebook
Talking with: Lisa Kudrow
Kudrow's short-lived HBO gem makes an Emmy "comeback"
By Susan King Los Angeles Times Staff Writer in “The Envelope” Awards blog August 1, 2006

The HBO comedy series "The Comeback" made quite a comeback when the Emmy nominations were announced last month.

The 13-part series followed a former B-list sitcom star Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow) who agrees to be the subject of a reality show as she attempts a comeback as "Aunt Sassy" on a new sitcom.

Created by Kudrow and Michael Patrick King of "Sex and the City" fame, the clever, cutting edge comedy series received nominations for Kudrow for best actress in a comedy series, for casting and for King's direction.

The two-disc DVD set of "The Comeback" also arrives on Aug. 1 complete with hilarious commentary from Valerie, as well as a new interview with the relentlessly perky actress and an interview with Valerie backstage at 'Dancing With the Stars."

Kudrow, 43, is no stranger to the Emmys. She was nominated seven times - winning once - for her endearing turn as the wacky Phoebe on 'Friends"

Susan King: Were you surprised about the nomination for best actress since "The Comeback" aired a year ago?

Lisa Kudrow: I thought everyone would have completely just since it had been so long, so that was a really nice surprise and the no get three nominations for the show.

Susan King: Valerie is just so relentless cheery.

Lisa Kudrow: I know. You're the first person who ever said. To me it's so obvious and most people feel, [her character is] so painful. It's so tragic. I don't know if you saw the episode when she's in Palm Springs but people came up to her She's not totally on the bottom.

Susan King: Why don't you think the series was picked up for a second by HBO?

Lisa Kudrow: The truth is it started to catch on. I think the expectations here higher for it with me coming off 'Friends' and Michael coming off of 'Sex and the City.' The truth is when we looked over our ratings, they were just as good if not better than any of the other half hour shows that HBO had in its first season and those shows were on at 9 p.m on Sunday. We were on at 10:30 and sometimes 10:45 p.m. Our ratings were just as good, but the whole business is changing.

We were on a two-season plan before we took off in our minds. [HBO] doesn't do that any more. They needed it to work faster. That is what they said and I have no reason not to believe it. But we thought we had a couple of seasons

Susan King: Where did you come up with Valerie's distinct, clipped voice. Did you hear her voice when you and Michael were creating the character?

Lisa Kudrow: Oh yes. When I was in the Groundlings [comedy troupe], I did a character monologue called 'Your Favorite Actress on a Talk Show.' It was a composite of actresses and actors I had seen on talk shows and they were so phony. I don't know who they thought they were kidding - pretending to care about certain causes where they were really trying to get their face on TV and trying to control how they come off. That is where I developed that character initially and then with Michael, we fleshed her out a lot more.

Susan King: How did you team up with Michael?

Lisa Kudrow: I have known him sincethe Groundlings. We have the same agents and our agents said you to should have lunch. My agent knew I had an idea that is kind of all they need to know. I didn't plan on every doing anything about it because I thought it was too soon after 'Friends.' But we had lunch and we were both looking at each other saying 'Do you want to do some- thing?' The answer [from me] was 'No, because it's too soon. And the only thing I ever considered doing is this.' Then I started explaining the germ of the idea and doing the character. Michael started improvising with me. Then three hours later, he said this is a phenomenal show. I said 'it is?' Good.' Another three hour session, he said 'we've outlined the pilot and we know what the first season is going to be. It happened very fast.

Susan King: Did you have any comedic influences when you were growing up?

Lisa Kudrow: A Judy Holliday. Lucille Ball, of course. I watched every "I Love Lucy" growing up. And Rosalind Russell and Katharine Hepburn - I thought she was hilarious. They were smart funny. It wasn't like hilarious joke lines. It was just who they were and how they said things. It was glorious.

Susan King: It is true there will be a "Friends" reunion this fall?

Lisa Kudrow: I have never been contacted about it.

Susan King: What have you done since "The Comeback?"

Lisa Kudrow: After "The Comeback' was done I took a break and I did an independent film in June called "Kabluey," written, directed and starring Scott Prendergast, who had a short at Sundance that got a lot of attention.

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/columnists/contenderqa/env-contenderqa-kudrow,0,1336695,print.column?coll=env-home-headlines

fredfa

08-01-06, 10:30 PM

Cable TV Notebook
Disney Pulls In Most Cable Viewers for 2nd Straight Week
By Anthony Crupi MediaWeek.com August 1, 2006

Disney Channel put together its second consecutive ratings win, delivering an average 2.93 million total viewers and a 2.3 household rating in prime time for the week ending July 30, thanks to a programming stunt aimed at the network's 'tween demo.

On Friday night between 8:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Disney scored three of basic cable’s top five programs for the week, as new episodes of Hannah Montana (7.05 million), The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (6.99 million) and That’s So Raven (5.74 million) made short work of the cable competition.

Disney finished the month as the second most-watched cable net in prime, averaging 2.74 million total viewers and beating its own record for delivery of kids 6-11 (1.17 million, a 24 percent increase from July 2005). The Mouse net also closed out July at the top of the prime time heap among kids 2-11 (1.55 million), kids 6-14 (1.52 million) and ‘tweens 9-14 (978,000).

Among ad-supported cable nets, USA Network was top banana last week, averaging 2.91 million total viewers and a 2.3 household rating through July 30, according to Nielsen Media Research. The usual suspects helped USA to its ratings win, as WWE Raw averaged 5.03 million total viewers between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. Monday night and the old standby Monk served up an audience of 5.23 viewers. The network also boasted the week’s ninth most-watched show in episode four of its new original series, Psych, which drew 4.35 million viewers Friday night at 10:00 p.m.

USA also held bragging rights to the month of July, ranking number one in basic cable prime with just over 3 million total viewers, while also leading the pack among other key demos, including adults 18-49 (1.34 million, a 31 percent increase over July 2005), and adults 25-54 (1.4 million, also a 31 percent jump).

TNT followed USA in both weekly and monthly ratings, averaging 2.36 million total viewers and a 2.0 HH rating through July 30 and 2.42 million viewers and a 2.0 HH rating for the entire month. The Turner net’s powerhouse detective series, The Closer, continued to steam through the summer, nabbing 6.63 million total viewers and 2.72 million adults 25-54 Monday night and closing out the month tops among all original cable series among total viewers (6.05 million) and women 25-54 (1.6 million).

TBS placed third among ad-supported cable nets in prime, averaging 1.84 million viewers/1.6 HH. The network also came in third on the month, with 1.72 million total viewers and a 1.4 HH rating. Fox News Channel continued to lure big numbers with its coverage of the ongoing crisis in Lebanon, drawing 1.63 million total viewers last week and a 1.4 HH rating, enough to edge out Lifetime (1.61 million/1.5 HH). The news channel and the women’s network switched positions in the monthly prime ratings, with Lifetime taking fourth (1.56 million/1.4 HH), beating FNC by a whisker (1.55 million/1.4HH).

As the battle in the Middle East raged on in the latter part of the month, the cable news nets continued to land large audiences in prime. CNN trailed FNC with an average viewership of 867,000 in July, followed by MSNBC (345,000) and Headline News (295,000). CNN enjoyed the biggest ratings boost year-over-year, upping its total viewership by 21 percent in July, while FNC was actually down 20 percent when compared to the 1.91 million viewers it averaged in prime in July 2005. The same held true for the core news demo, as CNN was up 32 percent in prime among adults 25-54, while FNC slipped 18 percent year-over-year. That said, FNC remained the leader in the demo, averaging 404,000 to CNN’s 278,000.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002916192

fredfa

08-01-06, 11:01 PM

The Business of TV
Chief of joint venture talks about taking on telco giants

By Andrew Wallenstein The Hollywood Reporter

First announced in November, the partnership between wireless company Sprint Nextel and four cable companies including Comcast and Time Warner Cable will bundle phone, cellular, Internet and TV services in several test markets this year. John Garcia, president of the joint venture, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter television features editor Andrew Wallenstein about taking on the telco giants and video's future on the wireless platform.

The Hollywood Reporter: What can you say at this point about what this new quadruple play service will look like?

John Garcia: Pilot markets we will launch later this year in Boston, Raleigh, Portland, Ore. Several others as well. We are building foundational elements to the service of the future. The very first thing we want to do is build some reliability on our system. Hooking up all these computers and building systems is quite a task. In our first markets, we want to move content and bills and customer information around. We'll begin testing a few features that will give us a sense of how customers feel about these services. High-speed Internet will come with e-mail, like Roadrunner from Time Warner, for example. You can see that e-mail service on your phone and take it with you. The portal service from your cable company will look similar on the phone, too. And there's a single voice mailbox for (both) the landline provided from cable company and (the cell phone) from Sprint wireless.

THR: What do the cable operators bring to the table in this joint venture?

Garcia: The cable companies have contracts for certain things that can be done. They don't have wireless licensing rights yet. You'll see them add wireless licensing to their agreements so that what you can buy from your cable company will be available on phones. Many of the cable companies already own local content. You'll see some of that on new phones.
You'll see a new level of content on phones. We're just in the early stages of that. We're learning how to move video around, how to transcode it for a small screen. There's lots of technology there, so we'll be learning and solidifying ways to do that, testing what customers appreciate, what they can use. There will also be some price-type of initiatives that make sense for the customer.

THR: Will content applications be constrained by the content companies?

Garcia: Another high priority for us is how we can protect the content owners' rights as we do this. There's a lot of things that have challenged fair use of content.
There's a lot of challenges with content owners and how far those rights extend. We think creating a closed system with the wireless system and cable system, we can do a better job than most at protecting artists' rights and content rights.

THR: What options do you have in terms of the different ways subscribers can get wireless content?

Garcia: You'll see us very focused on understanding consumer behavior, a lot of types of experimentation. Building ways to protect licensing rights and to find ways to make it more consumable for customers, like user interfaces, which are a big deal. If you've watched video today on cell phones, it's a user-interface nightmare. To get consumers to do something, we make customers work too hard at it.
There's thoughts that phones could have music sideloaded onto them from the computer or over the air or with movies if you had rights to that. If you paid for something on your DVR, you can put it on your phone. These are all possibilities.

THR: What sense do you have of consumer preferences in terms of video over wireless?

Garcia: What do customers want to do away from home with their entertainment? Do they want to see things live as they happen? For some, maybe. For more people, it depends on the content, if it's news, if it's sports. But we think VOD plays a much larger role. We think summarized content plays a larger role. So within the joint venture, one of the biggest priorities is to do some experimentation and learn very quickly with this new capability. We've taken the entire concept of controlling entertainment a bit further.

THR: What kind of pricing structure are you thinking about for video content?

Garcia: There's a lot of different ways people are talking about having video consumed by customers, whether by Internet or iPod or on wireless systems. It has to do with charging an incremental amount of money, transactional revenue. All of those business cases make sense on their own. But when the consumer adds it up, you can spend $25 to watch 'The Sopranos' on all the different ways they can view it. We're not sure the consumer wants to watch it that way. If they're paying the cable company customer for a piece of content and being able to view that in a variety of mediums, that may make more sense for the customer. We hope to work with content owners and artists to find a way that makes sense to protect those licensing rights with a way they can also measure usage so we can know what's going on.

THR: Who has the edge in this competition with the telcos?

Garcia: I think there are advantages on both sides. They've done the research we've done. It all says customers want something like this. They want their entertainment and communication services to make more sense of them. The cable companies have a big pipe to your house already, and they know the entertainment industry already. What the telephone companies will have is, when they have their higher-speed fiber network and once they learn the programming industry, they can do this all as one company. The challenge for us is to do this as separate companies in a joint venture.

THR: How has Sprint's relationship been with its cable partners?

Garcia: Cable companies are learning about wireless; Sprint is learning about the cable industry. Coming from the wireless industry myself for the past 20 years, I underestimated how complex the entertainment industry is, how complex licensing rights are, the complexity of the technology to do a lot of these things. The cable companies have been pleasantly surprised by the capabilities of wireless technology to date from a full-motion video standpoint, from a video compression standpoint. We've had the opportunity to learn from each other, to build competence and trust.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002915513

RussB

08-02-06, 12:07 AM

By Jeff Ehling

(8/01/06 - KTRK/HOUSTON) - There's a big change coming to nearly every cable customer in Houston. Time-Warner Cable is leaving the market and Comcast is taking its place.

It was an internal Time-Warner email that alerted us to the coming change. Time-Warner is leaving the Houston market and Comcast Cable is replacing it. According to the division president of Time-Warner Cable, the company is giving control of the Houston market to Comcast under an agreement reached back in 1985.

The two companies have been swapping markets recently after closing a deal to buy up bankrupt Adelphia Cable. The Houston cable swap will not take place until January 1, 2007 at the earliest.

So what does this mean for you? According to the email, Time-Warner will "continue conducting business as usual, providing excellent products and services to our customers."

As for rates, services, and channel lineups, we will know more about that Wednesday. we've been told to expect a formal announcement from Time-Warner Wednesday morning.

According to the Time-Warner email, the Comcast change must first be approved by federal regulators. We will have much more on this story Wednesday on Eyewitness News.

(Copyright © 2006, KTRK-TV)

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&id=4423119

fredfa

08-02-06, 10:59 AM

Neilsen Notebook
Top cable shows
Week of July 24-30

Rank Show title Network Viewers in millions
1. Hannah Montana Disney 7.0
1. The Suite Life of Zach and Cody (Fri, 8:30 p.m.) Disney 7.0
3. The Closer TNT 6.6
4. That's So Raven (Friday, 8 p.m.) Disney 5.7
5. WWE Raw (Monday, 10 p.m.) Disney 5.3
6. Monk USA 5.2
7. WWE Raw (Monday, 9 p.m.) USA 4.8
8. Sneak Peek Disney 4.4
8. Psych USA 4.4
10. The Suite Life of Zach and Cody (Fri, 10:30 p.m.) Disney 4.2
11. That's So Raven (Friday, 10 p.m.) Disney 3.5
12. 101 Dalmatians Disney 3.5
13. Secondhand Lions TBS 3.4
13. Bad Boys II USA 3.4
15. SpongeBob Squarepants Nick 3.4
Note: Only first airings of movies shown
• Source: USA Today Nielsen Media Research data

fredfa

08-02-06, 11:02 AM

Neilsen Notebook
Top cable shows
Week of July 24-30

Rank Show title Network Viewers in millions
Rank Show title Network Viewers in millions
1. So You Think You Can Dance (Wednesday) Fox 4.9
2. Hell's Kitchen Fox 4.6
3. So You Think You Can Dance (Thursday) Fox 4.4
4. House (9 PM) Fox 4.3
5. Last Comic Standing NBC 4.2
6. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation CBS 4.0
6. CSI: Miami CBS 4.0
8. Without a Trace CBS 3.7
8. America's Got Talent (Wed) NBC 3.7
8. Big Brother 7 (Tuesday) CBS 3.7
8. Rock Star CBS 3.7
8. Law & Order: SVU NBC 3.7
13. Family Guy Fox 3.6
13. Two and a Half Men CBS 3.6
15. Grey's Anatomy ABC 3.3
16. Big Brother 7 (Thursday) CBS 3.2
16. Primetime Live ABC 3.2
16. The Simpsons Fox 3.2
16. CSI: NY CBS 3.2
16. House (8 PM) Fox 3.2
• Source: USA Today Nielsen Media Research data

fredfa

08-02-06, 11:21 AM

Weekly Neilsen Notes
And a nod to summer stinkers
This year's bad performer is ABC's 'The One'
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer August2, 2006

There are TV shows that sound like good ideas but fail from poor execution. Think NBC’s remake of the hit British show “Coupling.” Other series sound like bad ideas but succeed through clever execution. Think ABC’s “Desperate Housewives.”

Then there are shows that sound just plain awful and are plain awful. One can only wonder how TV executives, not a stupid bunch, could ever have greenlighted them.

The latest of that ilk is ABC’s “The One: Making a Music Star,” which was yanked last week after averaging an anemic 1.0 rating among adults 18-49 through four outings. The “American Idol” wannabe, which followed competitors around after they went offstage, will go down as one of ABC’s lowest-rated programs ever, having the network’s worst debut in history in that demographic.

The lesson: Nobody likes a copycat, and nobody cares how talent show competitors act at home.

Yet ABC is hardly alone in its pain. The past few summers, there have been some real stinkers. The only thing these shows seem to share, besides being almost painful to watch, is the ability to make viewers wonder just what exactly programmers were thinking when they agreed to air them.

Thankfully, none of them lasted very long. Here’s a look at five particularly troubled summer bombs and what they taught us about TV:

CBS’s “Charlie Lawrence,” 2003
CBS pushed back this Nathan Lane turkey for months, and with good reason. Its June 15, 2003, debut was the lowest-rated in the history of the Big Three networks, averaging just a 0.9 in 18-49s.
It lasted only two episodes before getting yanked, proving that a big name (Lane was coming off of a hugely successful run on “The Producers”) rarely produces big ratings.

UPN’s “The Bad Girl's Guide,” 2005
Another shelved midseason show with a somewhat big name, Jenny McCarthy, “Girl's” was based on Cameron Tuttle’s bestselling book. But it lacked focus, good acting and lead-in support, and by its final episode was averaging just a 0.5 rating.

The network never should have aired a show it clearly had no confidence in, even in the summer.

NBC’s “Next Action Star,” 2004
Or “Who Wants to Be Arnold Schwarzenegger?” The show’s concept seemed too over-the-top from the beginning, as NBC didn’t invest enough money in the show to make the stunts spectacular enough to tune in.
After bouncing from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday night, the show dipped below a 2.0 in its final weeks as even fans complained that there was no logic to how producers pasted together footage from the show.

CBS’s “Tuesday Night Book Club,” 2006
CBS looked to capitalize on the “Desperate Housewives” craze with a reality series about some Arizona homemakers. But the characters were utterly ridiculous, and the show was yanked after just two outings after debuting to a 1.7 rating.

CBS learned the same lesson as ABC: Copycats rarely work, especially in a genre as narrow as reality.

WB’s “Pepsi Smash,” 2004
The WB would have done just as well airing an hourlong infomercial, which is essentially what this was. The show was meant to be a showcase for bands, but it looked like a soda ad on MTV. It averaged just a 0.6, proving that kids prefer their music in videos or on the radio.
Meanwhile, in English-language broadcast ratings for the week ended July 30:

Among adults 18-49,
Fox finished No. 1 with a 2.2 average rating and 7 share, followed by CBS at 2.1/7, NBC at 1.9/6, ABC at 1.5/5, and UPN and the WB at 0.7/2.

Among adults 18-34,
Fox led with a 2.3/9, followed by NBC and CBS at 1.5/5, ABC at 1.3/5, the WB at 0.7/3, and UPN at 0.7/2.

Among adults 25-54,
CBS finished first at 2.7/8, followed by NBC at 2.4/7, Fox at 2.3/7, ABC at 2.0/6, and UPN and the WB at 0.7/2.

Top five (18-49s):
1. Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance-Wed." 3.8; 2. Fox's "Hell's Kitchen" 3.5; 3. Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance-Thu." 3.4; 4. Fox's "House" 3.3; 5. NBC's "Last Comic Standing" 3.2.

Top five (total viewers):
1. CBS's "Without a Trace" 10.51 million; 2. CBS' "CSI" 10.42 million; 3. Fox's "House" 10.35 million; 4. NBC's "America's Got Talent" 10.19 million; 5. CBS' "CSI: Miami" 10.03 million.

Bottom five (18-49s):
Tie-110. WB's "Twins," UPN's "Half and Half," UPN's "Love, Inc.," UPN's "Eve," UPN's "Cuts" 0.5; Tie-115. UPN's "Veronica Mars," WB's "One Tree Hill" 0.4; 117. UPN's "Veronica Mars-8 p.m." 0.3.

Bottom five (total viewers):
113. UPN's "Half and Half" 1.3 million; 114. UPN's "Eve" 1.2 million; 115. UPN's "Veronica Mars" 1.1 million; 116. UPN's "Veronica Mars-8 p.m." 1.0 million; 117. WB's "One Tree Hill" 0.98 million.

Show on the rise:
"Hell's Kitchen," Fox, 9 p.m. Monday. "Kitchen" jumped over last week to finish No. 2, its best position this season, among 18-49s.

Show on the decline:
"One Tree Hill," WB, 9 p.m. Wednesday. Placed dead last among total viewers with fewer than 1 million. Sure it's only summer, but why did the CW renew this show

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6369.asp

fredfa

08-02-06, 11:28 AM

The Tuesday 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.

fredfa

08-02-06, 11:37 AM

(From Marc Berman’s Tuesday, August21, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
National Ratings in Primetime

Week of July 24-30, 2006

With reality running rampant this summer, here is how your favorite (and obviously not so favorite) non-scripted shows fared this week.

America’s Got Talent (NBC): Wed. 8-10 p.m.
Viewers: 10.35 million (#3 overall), A18-49: 2.9/ 9 (tied for #8)

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox): Wed. 9 p.m.
Viewers: 9.17 million (#6), A18-49: 3.8/11 (#1)

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox): Thurs. 9 p.m. (results show)
Viewers: 8.44 million (#11), A18-49: 3.4/10 (#3)

America’s Got Talent (NBC): Thurs. 9 p.m. (results show)
Viewers: 7.55 million (#16), A18-49: 2.4/ 7 (tied for #21)

Hell’s Kitchen (Fox): Mon. 9 p.m.
Viewers: 7.45 million (#18), A18-49: 3.5/10 (#2)

Last Comic Standing 4 (NBC): Tues. 9 p.m.
Viewers: 7.45 million (#19), A18-49: 3.2/ 9 (#5)

Big Brother 7: All-Stars (CBS): Tues. 8 p.m.
Viewers: 7.27 million (#20), A18-49: 2.9/ 9 (tied for #8)

Big Brother 7: All-Stars (CBS): Thurs. 8 p.m.
Viewers: 7.01 million (#24), A18-49: 2.5/ 9 (tied for #15)

Big Brother 7: All-Stars (CBS): Sun. 8 p.m.
Viewers: 6.27 million (#32), A18-49: 2.3/ 7 (tied for #24)

Rock Star: Supernova (CBS): Tues. 9 p.m.
Viewers: 6.19 million (#34), A18-49: 2.8/ 8 (tied for #11)

Primetime Medical Mysteries (ABC): Wed. 10 p.m.
Viewers: 5.85 million (#41), A18-49: 2.1/ 6 (tied for #32)

Rock Star: Supernova (CBS) – Wed. 8 p.m.
Viewers: 5.47 million (#44), A18-49: 2.3/ 8 (tied for #24)

Treasure Hunters (NBC) – Mon. 9 p.m.
Viewers: 4.46 million (#66), A18-49: 1.7/ 5 (tied for #48)

The One: Making of a Music Star (ABC) – Wed. 8 p.m. (results show)
Viewers: 2.98 million (#80), A18-49: 1.0/ 3 (tied for #82)

The One: Making of a Music Star (ABC) – Mon. 9-11 p.m.
Viewers: 2.60 million (#83), A18-49: 0.9/ 3 (tied for #86)

As a precursor to next season, meanwhile, take a look at the repeat battles of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy vs. CBS’ CSI on Thursday, and NBC’s Law & Order vs. CBS’ Numb3rs on Friday. Someone needs to tell CBS that CSI is not the underdog!

Thursday 9 p.m.
CSI R (CBS)
Viewers: 10.42 million (#2)
A18-49: 3.1/ 9 (#6)

Grey’s Anatomy R (ABC)
Viewers: 6.03 million (#38)
A18-49: 2.2/ 7 (#31)

Friday 10 p.m.
Numb3rs R (CBS)
Viewers: 6.21 million (#33)
A18-49: 1.6/ 5 (tied for #52)

Law & Order R (NBC)
Viewers: 5.92 million (#39)
A18-49: 1.5/ 5 (tied for #64)

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

fredfa

08-02-06, 11:53 AM

Weekly Cable Neilsen Notes
What's good about HBO's 'Entourage'
It's the perception of the show being a hit
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer August2 , 2006

HBO’s “Entourage” seems to have everything going for it: good-looking actors, critical cachet and major buzz, with the media dubbing it this summer’s breakout hit.

The only thing the show does not have, oddly enough, is numbers. While "Entourage” is up 29 percent over last season, it still only averages 2.4 million viewers.

That’s compared to the 8.9 million that HBO’s “Sopranos” averaged in its most recent season, and that's down from the previous year. It’s not even half the more than 6 million that “Sex and the City” averaged in its final season two years ago. In fact, it’s far less than the 3.8 million the network’s “Rome” drew in its debut a year ago, and that show has been canceled following the upcoming second season.

Those 2.4 million viewers are hardly enough to justify the huge amounts of attention “Entourage” receives in the press. But that certainly is not an issue for HBO, and in some ways the show almost defines an HBO hit: cachet, cachet, cachet. Never mind the numbers.

HBO is in the business of attracting new, paying subscribers while holding onto existing subs, and that is driven by cachet. How many people are actually watching “Entourage,” or any other HBO show for that matter, lends nothing to that effort. Since the network carries no advertising, audience size in itself matters little.

What does matter is the perception of hipness.

“Entourage” is currently the one HBO show advancing that perception, but it's doing it in a big way. Already this summer, the “Entourage” boys have appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and received writeups in TV Guide and Time, which referred to the show as a boutique hit.

Other media are less restrained. There are some 700 articles about “Entourage” available via Google News, and nearly a quarter refer to the show as a hit.

This is all helping HBO enormously, despite the flops of “Lucky Louie,” “Carnivale” and “K Street” over the past four years. Its subscriber base rose 2.6 percent during first-quarter 2006, to 28.2 million subscribers, according to Kagan Research.

And while HBO, a unit of Time Warner, does not give out money figures, some estimate that the network has seen profits of $1 billion over the past year. That's through subscriptions, which average $10 to $15 per month, but also DVD sales of “Sopranos,” “SATC” and other shows.

"Entourage" follows a rising Hollywood superstar and his three best friends from back home as they navigate the absurdities of the movie industry and encounter lots of celebrities along the way. It's executive produced by Mark Wahlberg.

Meanwhile, in other cable ratings for the week ended July 30:

Top five networks in primetime (18-49s):
USA, TBS, TNT, FX, Discovery

Top five networks in primetime (total viewers):
USA, TNT, TBS, Fox News, Lifetime

Top movie (18-49s):
USA's "Bad Boys II" (Sunday, 6 p.m.) 2.07 million

Top sporting event (total viewers):
ESPN's "Angels v. Red Sox" (Sunday, 8 p.m.) 2.96 million

Shows making the top 10 among 18-34s, 18-49s and 25-54s:
USA's "WWE Entertainment" (Monday, 9 p.m.); USA's "WWE Entertainment" (Monday, 10 p.m.); FX's "Rescue Me" (Tuesday, 10 p.m .), USA's "Bad Boys II" (Sunday, 6 p.m.)

Show on the rise:
Friday block, 8 p.m., Disney Channel. Three-way crossover episodes between “That’s So Raven,” “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody” and “Hannah Montana” averaged 5.28 million viewers, ranking No. 1 on basic cable for the night for total viewers. Disney also did well among kids 6-11 (2.33 million) and tweens 9-14 (2.17 million), ranking No. 1 for the night in those demos as well.

Show on the decline:
“Road Rules/Real World: Fresh Meat,” 10 p.m. Monday, MTV. Last week’s No. 1 show among adults 18-34 dipped 18 percent week to week, from 1.7 million viewers to 1.4 million, slipping behind timeslot competitor “WWE Entertainment” on USA for No. 2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6370.asp

fredfa

08-02-06, 12:00 PM

(From Marc Berman’s Tuesday, August 2, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
Ratings Box: What’s Hot/What’s Not

Comedy Central Scores in July:
Comedy Central finished July 2006 with a 0.9 rating in households and a 0.6 among adults 18-49 -- it’s best ever for the month. Comparatively, that was an increase of 13 percent in households and 20 percent in the demo from one year earlier.

Hallmark Channel Also Reaches a New Zenith:
Hallmark Channel rose to its highest rated July to-date, with a 1.4 in households in primetime, and its 60th consecutive month of year-to-year growth. For the month, Hallmark Channel in total day cracked the top 10 among all basic cable networks in households (#10), adults 25-54 (#9) and persons 2+ ratings (#7), and in primetime in persons 2+ rating (#4).

Also in July:
TNT was ad-supported cable’s top-rated network in total day among adults 18-49 (654,000) and adults 25-54 (676,000). And TNT’s The Closer was the top-rated series in households (4.49 million), total viewers (6.05 million) and women 25-54 (1.60 million). Court TV was up by 12 percent year-to-year in total viewers with 890,000 -- also a record in July, while Adult Swim was No. 1 in total day delivery of adults 18-34 and adults 18-24.

TNT’s The Closer Remains on a Roll:
TNT blockbuster The Closer delivered its second highest ratings on Monday in total viewers (6.92 million) and adults 18-49 (2.27 million), ranking first in all of cable in households (5.02 million) and adults 25-54 (2.83 million).

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

TV Tidbits: Notes of Interest

Upcoming on The Weather Channel:
Meteorologists Stephanie Abrams and Mike Bettes will anchor a new show on The Weather Channel called Abrams and Bettes Beyond the Forecast, which will cover the latest weather stories live and on-location. It premieres on Monday, Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. ET. The Climate Code with Dr. Heidi Cullen, the first weekly series to examine the most pressing climate and environmental issues, will debut on Sunday, Oct. 1 at 5 p.m. ET.

The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll on CW:
The CW has given an eight-episode order for a reality series featuring the Pussycat dolls tentatively titled The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll for next season.

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

fredfa

08-02-06, 12:06 PM

The 2006-2007 Season
CBS Premiere Dates

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 8/2/2006

CBS will premiere all but a handful of its 22 prime time series the week of Sept. 18, with two reality series, the latest Survivor and Amazing Race getting early premieres on Sept. 14 and Sept. 17, respectively.

Following are the shows and premiere dates:
Thursday, Sept. 14
8:00-9:00 PM SURVIVOR: COOK ISLANDS (Premiere)

Sunday, Sept. 17
8:30-10:00 PM THE AMAZING RACE 10 (Premiere)

Monday, Sept. 18
8:00-8:30 PM THE CLASS (Series Premiere)
8:30-9:00 PM HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (2nd Season Premiere)
9:00-9:30 PM TWO AND A HALF MEN (4th Season Premiere)
9:30-10:00 PM THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE (2nd Season Premiere)
10:00-11:00 PM CSI: MIAMI (5th Season Premiere)

Tuesday, Sept. 19
8:00-9:00 PM NCIS (4th Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM THE UNIT (2nd Season Premiere)
10:00-11:00 PM SMITH (Series Premiere)

Wednesday, Sept. 20
8:00-9:00 PM JERICHO (Series Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM CRIMINAL MINDS (2nd Season Premiere)
10:00-11:00 PM CSI: NY (3rd Season Premiere)

Thursday, Sept. 21
9:00-10:00 PM CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION (7th Season Premiere)
10:00-11:00 PM SHARK (Series Premiere)

Friday, Sept. 22
8:00-9:00 PM GHOST WHISPERER (2nd Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM CLOSE TO HOME (2nd Season Premiere)
10:00-11:00 PM NUMB3RS (3rd Season Premiere)

Saturday, Sept. 23
8:00-9:00 PM CRIMETIME SATURDAY
9:00-10:00 PM CRIMETIME SATURDAY
10:00-11:00 PM 48 HOURS MYSTERY (Season Premiere)

Sunday, Sept. 24
7:00-8:00 PM 60 MINUTES (39th Season Premiere)
8:00-9:00 PM THE AMAZING RACE 10 (Time Period Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM COLD CASE (4th Season Premiere)
10:00-11:00 PM WITHOUT A TRACE (5th Season Premiere)
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6358530.html?display=Breaking+News

fredfa

08-02-06, 01:45 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Summer snores: Slight bump for 'SVU'
Rerun of NBC copper wins timeslot with a 3.0
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer August2, 2006

Just how slow are Tuesday nights in August? The only show making much noise last night was a rerun, NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

“SVU” averaged a 3.0 adults 18-49 overnight rating, the No. 2 show of the night behind the network’s “Last Comic Standing.” That was its best performance in the past six weeks and easily won its timeslot.

It was up 43 percent over a 2.1 for the same night last year, for an episode that featured the “SVU” cops trying to figure out how a baby ended up in a garbage can.

Tuesdays have become somewhat dull over the past few weeks, with reruns increasingly dotting the night now that ABC’s “The One” has been yanked.

The night’s originals—CBS’s “Big Brother: All Stars” and “Rock Star: Supernova” and “Comic”—were about even to the previous week, making “SVU’s” 7 percent week-to-week jump among the strongest of the night.

“SVU” helped NBC tie CBS for No. 1 on the night, each at a 2.8 rating and 8 share among 18-49s. Fox was No. 3 at 2.3/7, followed by ABC at 1.7/5, Univision at 1.4/4, WB at 0.8/2 and UPN at 0.5/2.

At 8 p.m., CBS's "Big Brother" was No. 1 at 2.8, ahead of Fox's "House" repeat at 2.6, NBC's "Fear Factor" at 2.1, ABC's pair of "According to Jim" reruns and Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" each at 1.8, WB's "Gilmore Girls" repeat at 0.7 and UPN's "Veronica Mars" rerun at 0.6.

At 9 p.m., NBC took the lead at 3.2 for "Last Comic Standing," ahead of CBS's 2.9 for "Rock Star," Fox's 2.1 for a "Bones" rerun, ABC's 1.9 for "Jim" repeats, Univision's 1.5 for "Barrera de Amor," WB's 0.8 for a "Girls" rerun and UPN's 0.5 for a "Mars" repeat.

At 10 p.m., NBC was No. 1 again at 3.0 for "SVU," followed by CBS's "48 Hours Mystery" at 2.6, ABC's "Boston Legal" repeat at 1.2 and Univision's "Que Madre Tan Padre" and "Vecinos" at 1.0.

Among households, Fox was No. 1 for the night at a 4.7 rating and 8 share, ahead of NBC and CBS each at 4.6/8, ABC at 3.3/6, Univision at 1.8/3, WB at 1.3/2 and UPN at 0.8/1.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6397.asp

slocko

08-02-06, 01:57 PM

Anyone else find Fox's dance show very entertaining and you actually learn something. Now I know what contemporary dance is all about.

Thank goodness Fox doesn't air this in the same season as AI. I don't know if I could watch an entire week of AI and Dance together.

fredfa

08-02-06, 02:35 PM

The Business of TV
Cable Drives Time Warner’s 2Q
By Mike Farrell Multichannel News 8/2/2006

Time Warner Inc. reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter results, posting a $1 billion profit driven by strong gains at its cable unit.

The company reported net income of $1 billion (20 cents per share) on revenue of $10.7 billion (up 1%). Adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (AOIBDA, a measure of cash flow) was up 7% to $2.7 billion.

Driving those results was strong performance at its Time Warner Cable operations, which completed its $16.9 billion joint acquisition of Adelphia Communications with Comcast July 31. While the second-quarter results did not include Adelphia, in a prepared statement, Time Warner chairman and CEO Richard Parsons said the acquisition will serve to make a strong division even stronger.

“With the closing of the Adelphia-Comcast transaction, Time Warner Cable is now focused on integrating and upgrading the acquired systems and setting the stage for an aggressive deployment of Time Warner Cable's advanced digital-video, high-speed-data and digital-phone services in the coming months,” Parsons added.

Revenue at the cable operations rose 15% to $2.7 billion and AOIBDA increased 16% to $1 billion. Basic-cable subscribers rose by 18,000 during the period (its fourth consecutive quarter of basic-customer growth), digital-cable subscribers rose by 117,000 (its largest second-quarter increase since 2002), high-speed-Internet customers by 230,000 and digital-phone subscribers by 234,000.

In addition to the Adelphia transaction, Time Warner said it was notified by Comcast of its desire to dissolve its 50-50 partnerships in Kansas City and Texas. As a result, as of Aug. 1, Time Warner assumed full control of systems in Kansas City, southwest Texas and New Mexico, while Comcast assumed control of systems in Houston. Time Warner will also receive $600 million in cash.

According to the partnership agreement, each party had the option of triggering a dissolution, with the remaining party given the right to choose from the two pools of subscribers -- the Kansas City pool, with 789,000 subscribers, and the Houston pool, with 790,000.

On a conference call with analysts discussing second-quarter results, Parsons said the main factor in picking the Kansas City systems was Comcast’s offer to assume all of the debt -- about $2 billion, according to the 10-Q -- of both partnerships.

“As we looked at it, with the transfer of virtually all of the debt to the Houston pool -- we liked the systems in both pools -- we simply concluded that the greater value from our shareholders’ point of view was to take the Kansas City, southwest Texas and New Mexico pool,” Parsons said on the call. “Had they made a different allocation, we might have made a different judgment.”

At its cable networks -- which includes HBO, Turner Broadcasting System and Court TV -- revenue increased 9% to $2.7 billion and AOIBDA increased 9% to $696 million.

Time Warner said it was still pursuing a two-track strategy for the proposed spin of its Time Warner Cable unit into a publicly traded entity.

The first would require Time Warner to file a registration statement for an initial public offering of Time Warner Cable stock by Jan. 31. In that scenario, Adelphia -- which would receive 16% of Time Warner Cable shares (Time Warner would own 84%) -- would be required to sell one-third of that stake to the public within three months of the IPO.

The second option is waiting until Adelphia completes its reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, which would essentially make Time Warner Cable a successor to Adelphia. Adelphia said late last month that it had reached agreement with some of its bondholders regarding a reorganization plan, and it hoped to close the books on the bankruptcy by the fourth quarter.

On the call, Parsons said Time Warner hasn’t made a decision yet, adding, “We’ve been focused on getting Adelphia closed.”

Time Warner shares were up 36 cents each to $16.61 per share in early trading Wednesday.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6358551.html?display=Breaking+News

PJO1966

08-02-06, 02:37 PM

fredfa

08-02-06, 03:36 PM

The New TV Season
CBS releases fall premiere dates

By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News in his blog August 02, 2006
As usual, CBS has taken a very traditional approach to the rollout of its new fall schedule, details of which were released this morning.

Only two series will start outside the week of Sept. 18 (the first official week of the networks' TV season): "Survivor: Cook Island,'' which returns Thursday, Sept. 14, and "The Amazing Race'' which starts its 10th cycle on Sunday, Sept. 17 with a 90-minute episode.

The remaining 20 shows on the CBS schedule all return the following week, which means you can mark down Thursday, Sept. 21 as the big rating showdown between CBS's "CSI'' and ABC's "Grey's Anatomy.'' That should be fun

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/charlie_mccollum/index.html

fredfa

08-02-06, 03:45 PM

TV Notebook
Sci Fi Is in the Zone

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 8/2/2006

There's a signpost up ahead. Twilight Zone's next stop is still...The Sci Fi Channel.

The channel is keeping that classic series, plus adding a big influx of other programming, including Star Trek: Enterprise, in a deal with CBS Paramount Domestic TV.

The channel, owned by NBC Universal, has also picked up cable rights to other series including The Tales From the Darkside and CBS' swiftly-benched sci fi drama from last season, Threshold, as well as two Stephen King miniseries, and five made-for-TV movies.

Sci Fi says Enterprise, which ran four years on CBS's co-owned UPN net, will debut in early fall, with Tales showing its dark side later in the year.

Also on tap for fall are the Stephen King miniseries, The Langoliers and The Stand, as well as Invaders, featuring Enterprise star Scott Bakula.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6358712

fredfa

08-02-06, 03:49 PM

Sports On TV
NFL Net Picks Up its 4th Bowl Game this Year

By John Consoli MediaWeek.com August 2, 2006

The NFL Network has acquired multi-year broadcast rights to the All-American Classic, a post-season college All-Star game. The sixth annual All-American Classic game will be played on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday, January 15 at 4 p.m. at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas.

This is the fourth bowl game NFL Network has acquired this year, including the Insight Bowl, Houston bowl game (yet unnamed) and the Senior Bowl. “The All-American Classic is integral to our continuing coverage of college football,” said Katie Boes, NFL Network’s senior director of programming. “NFL Network now serves college football fans from kickoff to Combine with regular-season college football programming, followed by four bowl games and exclusive coverage of the annual Scouting Combine in February.”

The All-American Classic features more than 100 college all-stars competing in an East vs. West format. This summer’s NFL training camp rosters have 78 players from the 2006 Classic. With the addition of this bowl game, NFL Network is now the national home of 170 football games each year, including eight regular-season and 52 preseason NFL games, 75 re-airs of NFL regular-season games, 31 NFL Europe League contests, the Insight Bowl, the Houston bowl game, and the Senior Bowl.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/cabletv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002949365

fredfa

08-02-06, 05:55 PM

The New Season
Premiere Week!
By John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable at bcbeat.com Aug 2 2006

The news that CBS was going to debut almost all its shows in a traditional premiere week starting Sept. 18 transported me back to the days when I and other kids I knew waited eagerly for the blitz of new programs to hit the black & whitebread, cap pistol-packing mid-sixties airwaves.

Nowadays there is so much stunting and schedule shape-shifting and midseason launching, and early season-canceling that there is no longer that Christmas-morning anticipation of a new crop of shows to be hooted with or marveled at, or hooted at and marveled with,

Of course, when I was doing the anticipating the new programs were shows like Hank, McHales Navy and Please Don't Eat the Daisies.

But anticipation would build as the networks teased the shows in August. Once the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon hit, I knew it was only a few more days until the shows started launching and I might be forced to make some tough choices.

There was always the slight twinge, unknown in these days of VCR's and DVD burners and TiVos, of two new shows opposite one another, each an unknown quantity, but hyped as the second coming of Lucy or Ben Cartwright by their respective networks. Green Acres or Big Valley, for instance, at 9 p.m. on Wednesday nights. Linda Evans or Arnold Ziffel. Tough, tough choices.

It was 1965, a booming boomer TV year to rival 1939 in the movies. Here is just a partial list of the new shows for fall of 1965: Big Valley, F Troop, Hogan's Heroes, The Wild, Wild West, Green Acres, I Dream of Jeannie, I Spy, Gidget, Lost In Space, The Smothers Brothers.

Am I the only one for whom the heavy step back to class after summer break was lightened by the prospects of a bunch of new TV shows to check out?

http://broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138.html

fredfa

08-02-06, 05:58 PM

Sorry to be so late in responding, but as I understand it, Russ, Comcast gets Houston and TWC gets Kansas City and half a billion dollars.

By Jeff Ehling

(8/01/06 - KTRK/HOUSTON) - There's a big change coming to nearly every cable customer in Houston. Time-Warner Cable is leaving the market and Comcast is taking its place.

It was an internal Time-Warner email that alerted us to the coming change. Time-Warner is leaving the Houston market and Comcast Cable is replacing it. According to the division president of Time-Warner Cable, the company is giving control of the Houston market to Comcast under an agreement reached back in 1985.

The two companies have been swapping markets recently after closing a deal to buy up bankrupt Adelphia Cable. The Houston cable swap will not take place until January 1, 2007 at the earliest.

So what does this mean for you? According to the email, Time-Warner will "continue conducting business as usual, providing excellent products and services to our customers."

As for rates, services, and channel lineups, we will know more about that Wednesday. we've been told to expect a formal announcement from Time-Warner Wednesday morning.

According to the Time-Warner email, the Comcast change must first be approved by federal regulators. We will have much more on this story Wednesday on Eyewitness News.

(Copyright © 2006, KTRK-TV)

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&id=4423119

fredfa

08-02-06, 06:01 PM

Here is part of how MultiChannel News reported the deal:

“…In addition to the Adelphia transaction, Time Warner said it was notified by Comcast of its desire to dissolve its 50-50 partnerships in Kansas City and Texas. As a result, as of Aug. 1, Time Warner assumed full control of systems in Kansas City, southwest Texas and New Mexico, while Comcast assumed control of systems in Houston. Time Warner will also receive $600 million in cash….”

fredfa

08-02-06, 08:24 PM

Sports On TV
Los Angeles NFL Fans Lose Network in Fee Dispute
Newly converted Time Warner Cable customers are upset. League-owned channel files complaint
By Larry Stewart Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 2, 2006

Time Warner Cable pulled the NFL Network out of its lineup without warning Tuesday because of a fee dispute, taking the network away from at least 1.6 million households in the Los Angeles area.

In turn, NFL Network on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, asking that Time Warner be required to restore a carriage agreement for 30 days. The network contends that when Time Warner abruptly dropped it from its programming, federal rules were violated.

The move against the league-owned network comes one day after Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp. completed the purchase of Adelphia Communications Corp., which had filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002.

With the purchase, Time Warner now controls Adelphia's 1.1 million cable households in the L.A. region and, in an asset swap, Comcast's 500,000 households here.

A number of these subscribers were unhappy about losing NFL Network, which this season will offer 52 preseason games and eight regular-season games.

Richard Medina of Buena Park, previously an Adelphia subscriber, was one of them.

"We get a channel that shows us how to hang wallpaper, but we can't get a channel that televises preseason NFL games," Medina said, adding that he had been looking forward to seeing former USC stars Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart with their NFL teams.

Time Warner Cable, which had been servicing 360,000 homes in the L.A. market, has been unable to come to terms on a carriage agreement, contending NFL Network is asking for a 350% fee hike, mostly for the new eight-game package that kicks in Thanksgiving Day.

NFL Network denies the fee hike is that high, although spokesman Seth Palansky declined to discuss numbers.

He said the crux of the dispute, instead, is Time Warner's desire to put NFL Network on a digital pay tier. The network is demanding it be allowed to remain part of the basic cable package to reach as many households as possible.

A wider distribution enables NFL Network to charge more for advertising.

With Monday's merger, Time Warner, Charter and Cox now control the majority of the L.A. cable market — 52% of 5.3 million households. DirectTV and Dish Network control the satellite market, which represents 28%. NFL Network also does not have a carriage deal with Charter, but does with the other three.

Nationally, the 2 1/2 -year-old network has been able to reach agreements with cable and satellite companies that reach 65 million of the 91 million pay-television households. There are 26 million U.S. homes serviced by cable companies that don't have a deal with NFL Network, and 15 million are Time Warner homes.

Patti Rockenwagner, a spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable in L.A., said her company would like to reach a deal.

"We have offered to carry NFL Network on our sports tier, similar to the way the network has been offered to many Comcast and Adelphia customers in the past," she said. "What NFL Network is asking for is a 350% increase in rates for [essentially] eight games. That's not a reasonable value for our customers.

"Our customers will still be able to watch more than 100 regular-season games on CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN — all available in high definition," she said. "Of the preseason games NFL Network is offering, 87% are on tape delay."

Indeed, of the 52 preseason games — the first of which airs Aug. 11 — only six will be carried live, but only because the network cannot show more than one game at a time. Nineteen will be in high definition. There also will be midweek replays of four games — two on Tuesdays and two on Wednesdays — plus its usual round-the-clock NFL-related programming.

Said Palansky of Time Warner, "This is a company that is desperate to divert the issue of removing a channel you subscribed to without any advance notice."

Neither Palansky nor Rockenwagner would discuss the subscriber fees NFL Network is asking, but the Sports Business Journal said the fees have gone from 25 to 35 cents per subscriber per month to 85 to 95 cents, and that there is a $2 surcharge for cable companies such as Time Warner that want to put the network on a digital pay tier.

Palansky said the network's West Coast headquarters in Culver City was swamped with complaints. The Times also received a number of complaint calls.

Medina, the former Adelphia subscriber, said he got a message on Channel 178, which previously carried NFL Network, that in part read: "Nice to meet you. Hello, my name is Time Warner Cable." And there was a scroll that told viewers the NFL Network was "asking you to pay a premium for eight out-of-market games you got free last year. We are negotiating a deal for you."

Les Haan of Bellflower, previously a Comcast subscriber, said Channel 244 on his system began running a warning from NFL Network on Saturday.

Haan said he called Time Warner on Tuesday to complain, but got no satisfaction.

"DirecTV is coming to install a new system on Saturday," he said. "Time Warner just lost a customer."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-nfltv2aug02,1,5407431,print.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

fredfa

08-02-06, 08:38 PM

TV Notebook
Plenty of headlines for network news shows

By Paul J. Gough [B]The Hollywood Reporter[/B

NEW YORK -- With last week's hiring of Jim Murphy and Tom Cibrowski to lead ABC's "Good Morning America," the final moves have been made in what has turned out to be anything but the dog days of summer for the news biz.

The latest round of the seismic shifts in TV news began in April, when Katie Couric announced she would leave NBC's "Today" to make history as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." It's a decision that has sent shock waves throughout both the evening and morning news scenes, with a profound impact on the evening newscasts. But the stakes could be even higher in the morning, where the departures of Couric and ABC's Charles Gibson to the evening have thrown the incredibly competitive daypart into intense change.

NBC has dominated morning and evening news for years. That could change in the evening, where insiders expect the race will narrow to the first true three-way race in decades. But many don't expect things to change much in the morning. The smart money is on "Today" remaining on top a year from now.

"Today" withstood a strong challenge from "GMA" in spring 2005 when Diane Sawyer, Gibson and executive producer Ben Sherwood led a charge that got "GMA" within 40,000 viewers of "Today" in one particular week. But "Today" has reasserted its dominance since, reinvigorated by executive producer Jim Bell and his boss Phil Griffin as well as Couric, Matt Lauer and cohorts Ann Curry and Al Roker.

Even without Couric since late May, "Today" has been beating "GMA." During the week of July 17, with the growing Middle East crisis, "Today" averaged 5.2 million viewers, about a million more than "GMA," while CBS' "The Early Show" drew 2.1 million. And that is without Meredith Vieira, who will join "Today" in mid-September. NBC grabbed victory from potential defeat with a classy goodbye to Couric and an embrace of Vieira.

"We feel really good that we do have a plan," Bell says. "We have the continuity of the team with Matt and Ann and Al, and we have the added face in Meredith, which we're thrilled about."

Says Steve Friedman, a "Today" veteran who heads morning news for CBS: "Will Meredith do well at NBC? I think she will -- but it's a different kind of well." In a recent interview, he said that "Today" will play to her strengths but that no one should expect it to be the same show as when Couric was aboard.

Friedman also thinks the Couric factor will spill over into the morning for CBS, boosting the fortunes of "The Early Show."

"If Katie does as well as we think she's going to do, it's going to help us," Friedman says.

For his part, Murphy thinks "GMA" is going to prevail with Sawyer and co-anchor Robin Roberts. While some have suggested that Gibson should be replaced by another man, Murphy and Cibrowski say they're committed to the current anchor team.

"The biggest strength of the show is Diane and Robin," Murphy says. "They are loved by the public, they are great at their jobs, they are great journalists."

But as a veteran of the evening news battles that has seen CBS on the losing end during the past decade, Murphy has no illusions about "Today."

"It's a hard team to beat over there," he says. "We know that."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/tv_reporter_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002914680

fredfa

08-02-06, 08:41 PM

Sports On TV
TNT to Run 52 Regular Season NBA Games

John Consoli MediaWeek.com AUGUST 02, 2006 -

TNT will televise 52 regular-season, prime-time National Basketball Association games for the 2006-07 season, the same number it ran last season.

Out of the 52, 44 will be part of its Thursday night exclusive doubleheaders. The first doubleheader will air on the opening night of the NBA season on Halloween, Tuesday, Oct. 31. The first game will feature the Chicago Bulls vs. the Miami Heat. The second game will feature the Phoenix Suns vs. the Los Angeles Lakers.

A second doubleheader that week, on Thursday, Nov. 2, will feature the San Antonio Spurs vs. the Dallas Mavericks and the Denver Nuggets vs. the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat and Phoenix Suns will all make the maximum nine appearances permissible under the TV rights deal. All regular season and postseason telecasts, as well as the pregame and post game shows will be presented in high definition.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/cabletv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002949569

fredfa

08-02-06, 09:54 PM

There has been a bit of a tempest over whether TV critics left in protest before Fox News CEO Roger Ailes spoke last week at the Television Critics Association Summer tour.
If you are a faithful reader here, you were able, if you wished, to read a transcript of the comments Ailes made. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8094495&&#post8094495
If you have been following the “controversy” here is a report from Hal Boedeker:

TV Notebook
What scorn for Fox News?
By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic his TV Guy blog

When anyone says "the critics agree," don't buy it. Critics usually disagree on the best drama and the worst comedy. Critics don't even agree on what they saw on their recently concluded press tour in Pasadena, Calif.

Glenn Garvin of The Miami Herald set this scene for an appearance by Roger Ailes (left) of Fox News Channel: "About two-thirds of the 150 critics left the room before Ailes took the stage, several of them openly voicing their scorn for what they say is Fox News' conservative spin."

Glenn was on one side of the room, so I can't confirm what people near him were saying. But the critics near me wanted to hear Ailes because he makes infrequent appearances at the gathering and because Fox News is thriving.

As for Glenn's count on attendance, I'm sure quite a few critics left after the previous session for "Vanished," a new Fox drama. Most didn't depart for political reasons.

They cover entertainment, not news. Fox News isn't a priority for them. Rather than being liberal, they're apolitical.

On top of that, Ailes was appearing at the day's end. (He came on at 4:30 p.m.) A lot of critics were simply bushed. A few critics, under budget restraints, had left the conference.

Keep in mind: The tour last 18 days, and the sessions go from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. most days, followed by parties in the evening. Parties, however, is a misnomer: Critics work those events, talking to the likes of Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Laurie and Brad Garrett.

The critics write stories in any free time they can find. Or they blog -- they blog all the time, a development that has changed the tour. There is never a down moment.

Back to Ailes: He appeared on day 15. I would estimate that 75 critics were in the room for him, and they were engaged by what he was saying. They competed for his attention. There wasn't a dull moment in that news conference -- unlike sessions for stinker shows.

The critics asked pointed questions of Ailes. They asked pointed questions of nearly everyone: Katie Couric, Mr. T, James Woods, network executives.

Couric had an advantage over Ailes. She appeared first thing on a Sunday morning. CBS set the schedule for its day and wanted to generate as much attention for her as possible.

Fox Broadcasting Co., which was most interested in promoting its new series, set the schedule on the day that Ailes appeared. Fox Broadcasting allocates leftover time to sister entities.

Ailes, not being on Fox Broadcasting, was slotted at day's end. A session for FX's "Nip/Tuck" was at the end of the next day.

Ailes complained about critics' dismissive view of Fox News Channel 10 years ago. (Flush with success, he could do the I-told-you-so routine.)

He complained that many critics weren't attending the session ... but actually he drew a pretty good audience under the circumstances.

He also complained that Fox News is underrated for its journalism. He listed work by Shepard Smith, Steve Harrigan, Doug Kennedy and Eric Shawn. I agree with Ailes. But when you hear about Fox News, the focus usually falls on Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity.

So I asked Ailes if he has plans to promote the journalism and wondered if the problem is that the prime-time stars grab most of the attention.

"Prime time has generally higher ratings, so they tend to get written about more," he said. "We try to do as much promotion as we possibly can."

Then Ailes took a swipe at the competition. "We haven't spent $20 million marketing a single star," he said, a reference to CNN's promotion of Anderson Cooper.

Why promote the journalism when you can make more headlines with a feud? Ailes gives good quotes to keep the feud going.

The Washington Times reports that the Media Research Center -- www.mrc.org -- seized on The Miami Herald's commentary.

The Media Research Center wrote: "Can you imagine 100 TV critics, upset by CBS's liberal bias, walking out on CBS chief Les Moonves or CBS News President Sean McManus? Or even a dozen critics turning their backs on the scandal-scarred Dan Rather? Such open disdain for Fox News Channel's uniquely non-liberal approach speaks volumes about the media elite's arrogant belief that it's journalistic malpractice to give a fair shake to conservatives."

To which I say: Ailes did get a fair shake from dozens of reporters who were riveted by his comments. After his speech, a dozen surrounded him to gain more insights.

The size of his turnout, ultimately, wasn't about his politics. It was about scheduling, critics' interest in entertainment and their exhaustion after two weeks at the conference.

Dear Media Research Center: Those critics weren't showing their elitism. They were showing they were pooped.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2006/08/what_scorn_for_.html

RussB

08-03-06, 04:14 AM

RussB

08-03-06, 06:55 AM

Comcast Corp. taking over for Time Warner, but much will be same until early 2007

By SHANNON BUGGS and PURVA PATEL
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 3, 2006, 12:30AM

Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable system operator, has been making money in Houston for years but few of its customers knew it.

As co-owner with Time Warner of the Houston-area cable franchise, Comcast sat in the background collecting half the profits while Time Warner operated the system.

Now Comcast will be the company sending you a cable bill.

Early next year, Philadelphia-based Comcast will become the sole owner and operator of the Houston franchise, the company said Wednesday.

"We're thrilled that we will add Houston, a Top 10 market and one of the fastest growth regions in the U.S., to our footprint," said Vibha Agrawal, a Comcast spokeswoman in Philadelphia.

When Comcast takes over from Time Warner next year, the cable box on your TV will continue to work, your Road Runner e-mail address will still accept mail and your usual cable guy will fix or upgrade the wires in your home and neighborhood, at least for a while.

Typically when Comcast enters a market, it leaves much of what is there in place in order to minimize disruption to customers.

It assumes ownership of the cable boxes along with the rest of the cable system's assets, so there's no need to change out the technology. A mail migration system allows the company to automatically forward e-mail to new Comcast addresses for about a year. And many employees stay on the job.

New York-based Time Warner has about 2,000 employees in its Houston division, but neither company could say how many will be retained after the exchange.

"It's really early to say in this process what will happen once the transaction closes," Agrawal said.

Might offer new channels

Comcast anticipates a seamless transition for the Houston takeover, but there are sure to be noticeable changes.

It's likely subscribers will have to learn new numbers for their most-watched channels.

And they may get to add to their pre-programmed list of favorites new niche channels such as The NFL Network and Logo, which are not offered by Time Warner.

Comcast is known as a leader in video-on-demand programming because it offers many movies for free through this service to basic cable customers. It also has a deal to provide TiVo digital video recorder service in homes that pay a premium price for it.

"What I really want to see out of all this is the rates coming down," said Ronnie Casas, a Time Warner customer in Pearland. "It seems like every six months or so, my bill goes up."

Comcast may lower rates if Houston or state officials threaten to slow down the ownership transfer unless the company agrees to moderate rate hikes for a certain period of time, said Robert Routh, an analyst at Jeffries & Company.

"Or Comcast could want to win more subscribers from satellite companies by increasing their marketing and decreasing their rates," he said.

Building market share in Houston is likely to be a high priority for Comcast since Time Warner took over its systems in Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth on Tuesday.

On Monday, Time Warner and Comcast completed a joint purchase of Adelphia Communications Corp., which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002.

To make that deal work, the companies swapped systems in some markets, which led to Comcast vacating Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth.

Time Warner paid Comcast approximately $67 million as an adjustment to the cable swaps, and Comcast relinquished a 21 percent ownership stake it held in two Time Warner subsidiaries, according to a Time Warner filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"Most cable companies don't really compete against each other," said Todd Chanko, an analyst with Jupiter Research in New York. "Time Warner and Comcast more often than not have been partners."

Joint venture dissolved

In 2004, the two cable giants restructured 50-50 joint ventures in Houston; Kansas City, Mo.; Southwest Texas and New Mexico into one partnership agreement. Each got half the profits and expenses while Time Warner operated all of the systems.

The agreement allowed for the partnership to be dissolved any time after June 1 of this year. Comcast notified Time Warner on July 3 that it wanted out of the joint venture.

As previously agreed, a divorce declaration split the cable systems into two pools of assets — the entire Houston system with about 790,000 subscribers in one pool and the rest of the cable systems with a total of about 789,000 subscribers in the other known as the Kansas City pool.

Also, the party triggering the dissolution got to divide up any outstanding debts of the partnership between the asset pools however it wanted. So Comcast saddled the Houston cable system with the total $2 billion debt load, most of which was owed to the two partners.

The party that did not ask for the separation got to pick first and take full ownership of the pool it wanted. Time Warner on Tuesday told Comcast it would take the Kansas City pool, which includes the cable systems in El Paso, Laredo, Corpus Christi and Beaumont-Port Arthur.

"It is expected that once the dissolution of the partnership is concluded, Time Warner Cable will still manage 1.9 million customers in Texas and remain the primary cable provider in the state," the company said in a statement released Wednesday.

In addition to those systems and Dallas-Fort Worth, Time Warner also owns and operates the cable franchises in Austin, San Antonio and Waco.

Most cable companies don't compete with each other because of the high costs associated with digging up streets and laying down cables, but some do overlap service areas.

Houston has four other local cable operators, including TVMAX, which services about 35,000 subscribers mostly living in apartment complexes and condominiums.

"For us, there's not an immediate impact," said Dave Curtin, chief operating officer of TVMAX. "But the natural assumption is (Comcast will) be an aggressive competitor."

For now, nothing different

In most markets, satellite providers compete the most with the dominant cable company. In the Houston market, Time Warner goes head-to-head with Dish Network and DirecTV.

Confusion created by the ownership change may help competitors change perceptions about their products and build their market share.

Houston-based Optical Entertainment Network expects to launch Internet Protocol TV this year, though its plans to offer 400 channels, phone and Internet services on a fiber optic network are still in the pilot stage.

For now, nothing changes. Time Warner remains the dominant cable provider in Houston for the remainder of the year. Comcast will spend the next few months restructuring the partnership debt not owed to itself — about $1.4 billion — and mapping out a strategy for entering the Houston market.

Chronicle reporter Mike McDaniel contributed to this report.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4091036.html

keenan

08-03-06, 11:41 AM

From Multichannel News,

FCC Orders NFL Back on Time Warner
8/3/2006 8:24:00 AM

Washington – The Federal Communications Commission has ordered Time Warner Cable to reinstate the NFL Network on systems Time Warner acquired this week from Adelphia Communications Corp.

The National Football League, which owns the network, had claimed FCC rules require cable operators to provide consumers a 30-day notice before dropping a channel if carriage of the channel “is within the control of the cable operator.”
NFLN said it gave Time Warner permission to carry the network for 30 days. Dropping the channel immediately violated FCC rules, NFL said, because whether to carry the channel on a short-term basis was within Time Warner’s control. The network asked the FCC to order Time Warner to restore carriage for the required 30-day period.

Time Warner Cable had said in response the company was “in full compliance with the FCC’s notification rules.”

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6359114.html
FCC Orders NFL Back on Time Warner - 8/3/2006 8:24:00 AM - Multichannel News - CA6359114

fredfa

08-03-06, 11:51 AM

Sports On TV
FCC Orders TW To Carry Ball for Now

By John Eggerton & Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 8/3/2006

The FCC has ordered Time Warner to reinstate the NFL Network on the systems it has newly acquired from Adelphia and Comcast until the FCC can act on an NFL petition for an emergency ruling on their carriage dispute.

"Based on the current state of the record," the FCC said Thursday, "we conclude that the NFL is entitled to appropriate interim relief. The FCC cited the public's interest in access to the network, saying it ouweighed any potential harm to Time Warner.

By contrast, the FCC said the NFL could suffer "irreparable harm" if viewers are denied the preseason games that begin in August and help establish viewing patterns for the rest of the season.

"Specifically, we direct that Time Warner reinstate carriage of the NFL Network on all of its newly acquired systems on the same terms under which it was carried prior to August 1, 2006, until we are able to resolve the NFL’s Petition on the merits," the FCC said. "In addition, due to the time-sensitive nature of the NFL’s request, we direct Time Warner to file its response to the NFL’s Petition on or before August 15, 2006."

While not prejudging the outcome, the FCC said the NFL had a sufficient likelihood of prevailing to warrant the temporary restoration of the network.

Although the FCC's Thursday order ended with the curious declaration that "Time Warner has established a sufficient prospect of success on the merits to justify this relief," that turned out to be a typo.

The NFL petition filed earlier this week, claims that Time Warner violated Section 76.1603(b) "of the Commission’s rules requiring adequate notice to subscribers before dropping a cable channel from cable systems Time Warner recently acquired from Adelphia Communications and Comcast Corporation." That period of adequate notice is 30 days, according to the Commission’s rules.

"As a result of Time Warner quietly and suddenly pulling our NFL Network channel off cable systems around the country last night at midnight, we were left with no alternative under FCC rules but to file this injunction," said the league in a statement. "NFL fans who called us today said they were not given a fair chance on the eve of the NFL season to have their voice heard on this decision by Time Warner. We owe it to our fans to help them fight for their rights. Those rights were abruptly and unfairly taken from them late last night."

Systems that lost the NFL Network as of Aug. 1 included football hotbeds such as Kansas City, Cleveland and Dallas.

Calling the filing "frivolous," "Time Warner Cable spokesman Mark Harrad said earlier this week: "We think we are in full compliance with the FCC's notification rules. The rule is 30 days notice unless the change is beyond your control," Harrad said. "The NFL Network made it apparent to us that they would not allow TWC to carry their network in a manner that was in the best interests of our customers and our business," which he said only became apparent last week. "We notified customers as soon as the possiblity of that impasse became apparent," running ads to that effect in different markets last week, he said.

But the FCC said Thursday that: "Given the current state of the record, it appears that Time Warner discontinued carriage of the NFL Network without providing customers with the requisite 30-days notice.... Moreover, it appears that the decision made by Time Warner was “within the control of the cable operator”...since the termination of the NFL Network did not result from any uncontrollable external event, such as a natural disaster.

"Moreover, we find that the NFL has a reasonable prospect of showing that Time Warner’s actions, which affected millions of customers across the nation residing within numerous franchising authorities’ jurisdiction, constitute systemic abuses that undermine the statutory objectives. "

The two sides are at odds as the NFL Network looks to keep itself off of the digital sports tier on which Time Warner wants to place the network. The NFL says that monthly fees are not at issue, the differences are over where the network would be carried. The NFL is said to be asking $100 million for the package, or in the neighborhood of 90 cents per sub per month. If so, that is high by cable network standards. At the high end, ESPN gets three dollars a sub, but the bulk of top tier cable nets are in the 20 cent-50 cent range.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6359098

fredfa

08-03-06, 11:58 AM

Sports On TV
FCC Orders TW to Reinstate NFL Net Carriage
By John Consoli MediaWeek.com August 3, 2006

The Federal Communications Commission has ordered Time Warner Cable to reinstate carriage of the NFL Network on all its newly acquired Adelphia cable systems until the FCC is able to examine and render a decision on a motion filed by the NFL Network seeking permanent reinstatement.

Upon closing its deal to acquire the Adelphia systems, Time Warner, on Tuesday, Aug. 1, pulled the NFL Network from all the Adelphia systems. Time Warner does not carry the NFL Network on its Time Warner systems and has been negotiating with the network to come up with a carriage deal.

The NFL Network on Tuesday filed a petition with the FCC and Time Warner has yet to officially respond, but the FCC ordered Time Warner to file a response no later than August 15. NFL Network would then have an opportunity to respond to the Time Warner response by August 20.

The FCC said, "This expedited pleading cycle will afford the Commission to promptly resolve this dispute."

In reinstating the NFL Network to the former Adelpha systems until it can rule on the case, the FCC said it was being done in the public's interest. It said that Time Warner must follow the rule that cable operators must give subscribers 30 days notice before dropping a channel. The governing body said in this case, "it appears that Time Warner (discontinued ) the NFL Network with essentially no warning to customers."

Among the markets where the network was pulled was in Cleveland, Buffalo and Dallas, where there are NFL teams. "Such asction by Time Warner was particularly harmful to customers given the time of year," the FCC said. "With NFL training camps now underway and the NFL's pre-season schedule commencing on Aug. 11, now is a time when many football fans have a particular desire to view the NFL Network's programming. Therefore, each day the Time Warner customers go without the NFL Network significantly and irreparably harms many of them."

The FCC said while it is not making a final decision on the merits of the NFL's petition, a temporary reinstatement until the merits can be weighed, is in the public's interest.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002950066

fredfa

08-03-06, 12:06 PM

Sports On TV
FCC Order

Here is the complete FCC statement on the NFL Net-Time Warner matter:

fredfa

08-03-06, 12:11 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
ABC summer cure: 'Medical Mysteries'
The 'Primetime' spinoff sees a ratings bump
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer August 3, 2006

There’s nothing like a good mystery in these hot days of summer to keep viewers tuned in.

Last night ABC’s new “Primetime: Medical Mysteries” offered a dandy, examining folks who suffer from a condition that includes similarities to traits often attributed to werewolves.
The show, a spinoff of ABC's newsmagazine "Primetime," pulled a 2.5 adults 18-49 overnight rating, 19 percent better than the 2.1 “Medical Mysteries” earned in its debut last week. What’s more, it won the 10 p.m. timeslot after finishing third last week behind CBS and NBC.

That helped ABC boost its overall nightly average significantly over the previous week, going from a 1.4 to a 1.9. Of course the absence of the summer’s biggest bomb, “The One: Making a Music Star,” at 8 p.m. also helped. ABC pulled it off the schedule this week.

So why the bump for “Medical Mysteries?” It may have simply been the draw of the case. Werewolves are certainly popular in science fiction, and the chance to hear about similar cases in real life may have been enough to pull in viewers.

Meanwhile, Fox led for the night at a 3.0 rating and 9 share in 18-49s, followed by NBC at 2.9/9, CBS at 2.3/7, ABC at 1.9/6, Univision at 1.8/6, WB at 0.7/2 and UPN at 0.6/2.

At 8 p.m., NBC was No. 1 at a 2.9 for "America's Got Talent," up slightly over last week, followed by CBS's "Rock Star: Supernova" at 2.5, Fox's "House" repeat at 2.3, Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" at 2.1 (also up over last week’s 2.0), ABC's 1.5 for two "George Lopez" reruns, WB's pair of "Blue Collar TV" repeats at 0.9 and UPN's "America's Next Top Model" rerun at 0.7

At 9 p.m., Fox took the lead at a 3.7 for "So You Think You Can Dance," even to last week, followed by NBC's 3.4 for "Talent," CBS at 2.2 for a "Criminal Minds" rerun, ABC at 1.7 for two more "George" repeats, Univision at 1.6 for "Barrera de Amor," UPN at 0.6 for "All of Us" and "Half & Half" repeats, and WB at 0.4 for a "One Tree Hill" rerun.

At 10 p.m., ABC's "Primetime: Medical Mysteries" was No. 1 at a 2.5, ahead of NBC's "Law & Order" repeat at 2.4, CBS's "CSI: NY" rerun at 2.3 and Univision's "Don Francisco Presenta" at 1.6.

Among households, NBC lead for the night at a 6.1 rating and 10 share, followed by Fox at a 5.1/9, CBS at a 4.9/8, ABC at a 3.6/6, Unvision at 2.1/4, WB at 1.2/2 and UPN at 0.9/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6426.asp

fredfa

08-03-06, 12:18 PM

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

GeorgeLV

08-03-06, 12:26 PM

fredfa, speaking of ratings, do you know when the Nielsen folks will be releasing the new DMA rankings for the upcoming season?

fredfa

08-03-06, 12:30 PM

Weekly Daypart Ratings
Wee hour white whiskers on Letterman
As Dave ages so has his late night audience
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer August 3, 2006

In the slow-to-change world of late-night TV, there are certain enduring perceptions. Hip, younger viewers watch David Letterman, older, former Johnny Carson fans favor Jay Leno, and the geezers who actually care about news tune in to “Nightline.”

That may have once been true. It’s not the case anymore.

There's been a big shift in the median age of late-night viewers on the Big Three networks over the past five seasons, so much so that ABC’s “Nightline,” not CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman,” is now the youngest of the bunch. So reports a new Magna Global U.S. study.

No less surprising, “Letterman” is now just 0.1 year younger than NBC’s “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” with an average age of 51.0 to the latter’s 51.1. “Nightline’s” is 50.9.

That’s a mighty tight grouping, but what’s more telling is the trends behind the numbers.

Take “Nightline." That show's median age has fallen 0.7 years since last year, after ABC began courting a younger demographic with the departure of longtime anchor Ted Koppel. Its ratings among adults 18-49 have risen in that time as well.

The show is now 1.1 years younger than it was in 2001-2002, and at its second-youngest over the five-year period, behind a 49.8 during 2002-2003, when median ages for all news shows dipped slightly as people tuned in for updates about the new war in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Letterman has aged at a faster pace than any other show.

His median age has shot up from 46.5 in 2001-2002 to the current 51.0, a 10 percent increase. By comparison, “Nightline” is down 2 percent and “Tonight Show” up 6 percent in the same span. Leno jumped from a 48.0 to a 51.1 this year, its oldest median age in that span.

Why is Letterman rising faster than Leno? Both are seeing the natural aging of their audiences, as the baby boomers reach 60 and beyond.

But Letterman is also losing the hipness factor. He’s now nearly 60 himself, and it’s difficult to play the anti-establishment crank after two full decades, especially when in those same years you've become an establishment pillar, and a well-heeled one at that.

Letterman simply can’t identify with young people anymore, which becomes even more obvious when he’s compared with late-night cable shows like Comedy Central’s “Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and Adult Swim’s “Family Guy” that do it so well.

At its present pace, Letterman’s median age could outpace Leno’s by this time next year.

Other median ages for late-night broadcast network shows: NBC’s “Last Call with Carson Daly,” 40.9; NBC’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” 42.6; ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” 46.3; and CBS’s “Late Late Show with Colin Ferguson,” 48.8.

Meanwhile, in other daypart ratings for the week ended July 23:

NBC’s “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” placed first among total viewers, with 5.2 million to “Late Show with David Letterman’s” 3.7 million on CBS. ABC’s “Nightline” trailed Letterman by 500,000 viewers.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” remained No. 1 among the Sunday morning shows, edging CBS’s “Face the Nation” by 0.1 in the key adults 25-54 demographic with a 1.0. “Fox News Sunday” trailed far behind at 0.4. ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” did not air because of British Open coverage.

Among the morning shows, “Today” rose week-to-week as viewers tuned in for the latest on the Israel-Lebanon conflict. “Today” averaged 5.2 million total viewers, 1 million more than second-place “Good Morning America” on ABC and more than double CBS’s 2.1 million for the “Early Show.”

In daytime ratings, NBC kept its edge among women 18-49 for full-day and daytime dramas, averaging a 1.6 to ABC’s 1.5. CBS, however, was tops in total viewers, averaging 3.89 million in daytime dramas and 4.17 million in total day.

In syndication, “Wheel of Fortune” was the top show at a 7.0 household rating, followed by “Jeopardy” at 5.7. “Oprah Winfrey Show” was the top talk program at 5.3, and “Everybody Loves Raymond” led the syndicated sitcoms with a 5.0.

For the week ended July 30, NBC’s “Nightly News” pulled firmly ahead of ABC’s “World News” among adults 25-54, averaging a 2.2 to the latter’s 2.0. CBS’s “Evening News” was third at 1.8. NBC also led ABC by about 510,000 total viewers, with an average 7.97 million, while CBS averaged 6.87 million.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6398.asp

fredfa

08-03-06, 03:45 PM

TV Notebook
CBS' Dozier Walking On Her Own

By Caroline Palmer Broadcasting & Cable 8/3/2006

Statement from CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier:

“Folks, I’m leaving hospitals behind, ahead of the deadline, or at least ahead of schedule. I’ve had a couple setbacks, and I still face a couple minor surgeries, but overall, the prognosis is far better than the docs had hoped just after I’d reached Germany. The teams at Balad, Landstuhl, and the NationalNavalMedicalCenter in Bethesda, Md. worked overtime – something like a dozen surgeries at least, including one that lasted 11 hours.

“Just a few weeks later, I’m up on crutches and can even manage with a cane. It’s not pretty, but I’m walking on my own – and that, I also owe, to some hard-driving therapists at KernanHospital in Maryland, who kept saying, ‘Now try this…’

“The next step: continued outpatient rehab to get my body used to being in motion full-time.

“Thanks to CBS, my family and friends have been close by throughout. That, together with all the amazing cards and e-mails from across the country, has really pulled me through. I’ve told friends it’s been like having 10,000 guardian angels on my shoulders.

“I’ve learned slowly how close I came to joining my friends, cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan, both killed by the blast. I owe my life to the quick actions of the 4th Infantry Division’s Sgt. Mootoosamy -- who took charge of the scene, with his commander down and many of his men injured – and medic Spc. Flores, who patched me up. Even with a car bomb cooking off, sending shrapnel through the air just a couple dozen feet from us, Spc. Flores just kept calmly speaking to me and working on my legs -- no wavering, no pause.

“Not a day goes by without thinking of Paul and James -- two of the most remarkable characters I’ve ever known. My heart goes out to their families, and I know no words to stop their grief. The last I saw Paul and James, they were rushing from their humvee to ‘get the shot’ of a young U.S. Army Captain, James Funkhouser, Jr., greeting Iraqi locals at a streetside tea stand. The bomb hit all three of them, together with an Iraqi liaison officer, and took all four lives.

“I choose to remember them from the instant before the blast – each one of them consummate pros doing a job they loved to support the families back home they loved even more.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6359229

fredfa

08-03-06, 04:57 PM

Sports On TV
Time Warner Mulls FCC’s NFL Order

By Ted Hearn Multichannel News 8/3/2006

Washington – Time Warner Cable needs to carry the NFL Networkfor at least another 30 days on systems recently acquired from Adelphia Communications and Comcast under terms of a reinstatement order issued by the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday.

But Time Warner issued a statement after release of the FCC decision that suggested it had no plans to restore immediately the NFL Network to about 1 million subscribers that had access to the channel just a few days ago.

“Time Warner Cable is currently reviewing the FCC’s order regarding the NFL Network.This order was issued without offering us the opportunity to respond to the NFL Network’s allegations.We believe the FCC’s decision is wrong and we are considering our options,” said Time Warner Cable spokesman Mark Harrad.

The FCC ruling -- released just two days after the agency received the NFL Network’s complaint -- said restoration of carriage on an interim basis was appropriate because Time Warner Cable dropped the network without giving subscribers 30 days notice as required by FCC rules.

“We appreciate the FCC’s speedy action in response to our petition, and are gratified that the [FCC] has acted to protect the interests of cable consumers -- and NFL fans -- throughout the country,” the NFL said in a statement.

The FCC said it ruled against Time Warner because the NFL demonstrated that it would likely prevail when the agency takes a deeper look at the league’s complaint over the next few weeks.

“We find that the NFL has a reasonable prospect of showing that Time Warner’s actions, which affected millions of customers across the nation residing within numerous franchise authorities’ jurisdiction, constitute systemic abuses that undermine the statutory objectives,” FCC Media Bureau chief Donna Gregg wrote in a four-page order.

The FCC said Time Warner’s abrupt cutoff inflicted injury because it denied consumers sufficient time to find another pay-TV provider that carried the NFL Network and because it hurt the NFL Network on the eve the pre-season game schedule when “viewership patterns for the coming season (where to watch pre-game and post-game shows) are established ...”

Time Warner has said it did not have a legal right to carry the NFL Network on the acquired cable systems, but the NFL told the FCC that it had given the cable company permission to carry the channel for 30 days. About one-third of the 3.3 million subscribers that Time Warner acquired in the Adelphia merger had access to the NFL Network.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6359223

fredfa

08-03-06, 05:06 PM

Sports On TV
FCC Orders Time Warner Cable to Restore NFL Network
Cable Operator Pulled the Network After Adelphia Deal Closed

By Ira Teinowitz TVWeek.com August 3, 2006

The Federal Communications Commission threw a penalty flag Thursday at Time Warner Cable, ordering the company to immediately put the NFL Network back on the Adelphia Communications and Comcast cable systems Time Warner got in its deal for much of bankrupt Adelphia's system.

How long the channel will stay on the systems remains uncertain. The immediate penalty appears to be short-term, and even a big penalty is unlikely to keep the network on Time Warner's system through the NFL season.

The FCC responded unusually swiftly to a complaint that NFL Enterprises filed earlier this week claiming customers of the affected systems got insufficient advance notice that the network was being discontinued when Time Warner Monday night closed its $12.5 billion deal for Adelphia. The NFL contends a 30-day notice is required.

Under the deal, Time Warner and Comcast each got chunks of Adelphia and then swapped some cable systems to give each company stronger market concentrations in particular areas.

While Comcast and Adelphia carried the NFL Network, Time Warner doesn't, and, at least according to the NFL, talks with the NFL have been stymied by an argument about whether the network should be available to all viewers (the NFL's desire) or on a sports tier for which consumers pay more (Time Warner's position).

Because Time Warner has no contract with the NFL, it shut off the network to about 1 million homes when it took over the systems Tuesday morning. The NFL said the number of homes affected could top 3.7 million, but Time Warner said it picked up 3.3 million subscribers in the Adelphia deal and at most 1.3 million of them had the NFL Network.

The NFL said in its FCC complaint that it offered Time Warner a 30-day grace period to carry the network after the switchover but that the offer was rejected by Time Warner on July 27, the same day the company began running newspaper ads in some of the affected markets saying that the network would be dropped Aug. 1.

In today's order the FCC didn't take sides on the complaint, but ordered the NFL Network be put back in the lineups until it can resolve the complaint. It also ordered quick schedules for responses from both sides.

"We will act expeditiously," FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin promised.

In a statement, the NFL praised the FCC.

"We appreciate the FCC's speedy action in response to our petition, and are gratified that the commission has acted to protect the interests of cable consumers-and NFL fans-throughout the country," the NFL said. "We look forward to continuing discussions with Time Warner regarding long-term carriage of the NFL Network and are happy that in the interim our fans will have access to our 'insider' coverage of NFL training camps and the preseason as a result of this ruling."

Time Warner Cable said it is reviewing the FCC's order.

"This order was issued without offering us the opportunity to respond to the NFL Network's allegations. We believe the FCC's decision is wrong and we are considering our options," the statement said.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10472

fredfa

08-03-06, 05:11 PM

HDTV Notebook
'Firefly' Gets Hi-Def Makeover
UHD to Premiere Cult Hit in HD
(TV Week HDTV Newsletter) August 3, 2006

The fan base for Joss Whedon's space-Western TV series "Firefly" has grown exponentially since its short-lived 2002 run on Fox. Canceled after 11 episodes due to low ratings, published reports said the series went on to sell more than 300,000 copies when released on DVD the next year.

The sales impressed Universal, which greenlighted Mr. Whedon's feature film spinoff "Serenity." The film was released in 2005 and garnered rave reviews from critics and fans, but only managed to break even at the box office. Even after three years on store shelves, "Firefly" earlier this week ranked 36th in DVD sales on Amazon. The more recently released "Serenity" ranked 64th.

Now the series is being made available in HD. Universal has remastered the show's 35mm print to 1080i high definition for a Sept. 24 debut on UHD, a network spokesperson confirmed.

The unveiling of a widescreen HD version format of a short-lived 2002 series is as unusual as the program's resurrection as a cult hit and theatrical movie. Typically a series is either shot in widescreen high definition and broadcast that way, or shot on video or film in standard 4:3 aspect ratio.

But "Firefly" was shot on film (which can be converted to HD) and in widescreen, two years before Fox started broadcasting HD programming.

According to the "Firefly" DVD commentary, Mr. Whedon (best known as the showrunner for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel") battled with Fox over the widescreen issue. He said he filmed the show's actors on the extreme sides of the frame so Fox would have no choice but to air the show in his preferred format.

It was one of several battles between Mr. Whedon and the network, which aired episodes of the serialized drama out of order and pre-empted the show with sports. But Mr. Whedon's seemingly impractical decision to shoot "Firefly" in widescreen aided the show's DVD sales (collectors prefer that format) which in turn spawned the movie, and now enables a proper HD presentation.

http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=212

fredfa

08-03-06, 05:12 PM

fredfa, speaking of ratings, do you know when the Nielsen folks will be releasing the new DMA rankings for the upcoming season?

George usually that comes in late August or early September.

It should be available in a few weeks.

I'll post the 2006-2007 DMA list when I see it from Nielsen.

keenan

08-03-06, 05:41 PM

Sports On TV
'Firefly' Gets Hi-Def Makeover
UHD to Premiere Cult Hit in HD
(TV Week HDTV Newsletter) August 3, 2006

The fan base for Joss Whedon's space-Western TV series "Firefly" has grown exponentially since its short-lived 2002 run on Fox. Canceled after 11 episodes due to low ratings, published reports said the series went on to sell more than 300,000 copies when released on DVD the next year.

The sales impressed Universal, which greenlighted Mr. Whedon's feature film spinoff "Serenity." The film was released in 2005 and garnered rave reviews from critics and fans, but only managed to break even at the box office. Even after three years on store shelves, "Firefly" earlier this week ranked 36th in DVD sales on Amazon. The more recently released "Serenity" ranked 64th.

Now the series is being made available in HD. Universal has remastered the show's 35mm print to 1080i high definition for a Sept. 24 debut on UHD, a network spokesperson confirmed.

The unveiling of a widescreen HD version format of a short-lived 2002 series is as unusual as the program's resurrection as a cult hit and theatrical movie. Typically a series is either shot in widescreen high definition and broadcast that way, or shot on video or film in standard 4:3 aspect ratio.

But "Firefly" was shot on film (which can be converted to HD) and in widescreen, two years before Fox started broadcasting HD programming.

According to the "Firefly" DVD commentary, Mr. Whedon (best known as the showrunner for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel") battled with Fox over the widescreen issue. He said he filmed the show's actors on the extreme sides of the frame so Fox would have no choice but to air the show in his preferred format.

It was one of several battles between Mr. Whedon and the network, which aired episodes of the serialized drama out of order and pre-empted the show with sports. But Mr. Whedon's seemingly impractical decision to shoot "Firefly" in widescreen aided the show's DVD sales (collectors prefer that format) which in turn spawned the movie, and now enables a proper HD presentation.

http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=212

Kudos to Mr. Whedon for "helping" bring FOX into the 21st century.

afiggatt

08-03-06, 06:28 PM

'Firefly' Gets Hi-Def Makeover
UHD to Premiere Cult Hit in HD

This should be posted in the Firefly on UHD thread. Ok, so they have remastered the 35mm film parts. But I have read that all the CGI was done at SD and presumably there are mixed (or whatever the technical term is) shots with cast members looking out a window at CGI stuff and the like. Are these parts going to be upconverted?? Oh well, I hope my Adelphia system, now owned by Comcast, adds UHD by then, so I can participate in what I expect will be VERY long threads on "is this really HD or not?". :D

keenan

08-03-06, 06:47 PM

'Firefly' Gets Hi-Def Makeover
UHD to Premiere Cult Hit in HD

This should be posted in the Firefly on UHD thread.
Done.

PaulGo

08-03-06, 07:09 PM

Verizon pulls plug on N.H. cable plan
By Gordon Fraser
Eagle-Tribune

Before it even got in, Verizon Communications is pulling out of the New Hampshire cable television business, at least for now, a company spokeswoman said yesterday.

Since 2004, the telecommunications giant has spent billions of dollars across the country, laying fiber optic cable, creating a platform to offer telephone, Internet and cable television service. Many local government officials eagerly awaited Verizon's arrival, which they said would bring competition and lower prices to a market dominated by a single cable provider in each community.

Instead, Verizon spokeswoman Jill Wurm said the company has sent equipment and franchise negotiators intended for New Hampshire to New Jersey, where a single franchise agreement can be negotiated at the state level.

In the Granite State, Verizon would have to negotiate with each of the 23 communities in which it has installed fiber optic cable.

"So, since that's the mode of operation in New Hampshire, everything ... got reallocated," Wurm said.

She said Verizon could reinvest in New Hampshire as soon as six months from now, but said she couldn't guarantee any timeline.

"We're disappointed," said lawyer Robert Ciandella, who had been negotiating with Verizon on Salem's behalf. "We were trying to ... conduct a very effective franchise negotiation."

Ciandella's firm, Donahue, Tucker and Ciandella of Exeter, was negotiating on behalf of five other New Hampshire towns, as well, Ciandella said.

Like many towns, Salem had an "ascertainment" hearing last spring, he said. The hearing gave public officials and residents an opportunity to discuss the town's needs and goals for cable access. After that, Verizon had 30 days to submit a proposal and begin negotiations.

It never did.

Within the last few weeks, Ciandella said, the company contacted him to say it was not pursuing negotiations in New Hampshire.

Ciandella said the company does have a track record of seeking legislative solutions to the problem of negotiating town by town. "Verizon is exploring whether there's a political strategy that would allow it to avoid (local negotiations)," he said.

Wurm acknowledged Verizon has made efforts across the country to change laws requiring them to negotiate franchise agreements locally.

But, Wurm said, the company hasn't yet called for legislation in New Hampshire to change franchise procedure.

"We have not filed any legislation specific to that in New Hampshire just yet," she said.

The company could propose legislation as late as this fall to introduce a bill for the legislative session in January.

If such legislation were to go forward, it could affect a funding source for local governments. Companies pay a franchise fee to use local infrastructure.

In an earlier interview, Atkinson Town Administrator Russell McAllister said his town makes about $80,000 per year from its franchise agreement with Comcast.

But because money from the franchise agreement is based on the total number of customers, towns would not likely earn more money with the introduction of a new company. As cable companies split customers, so, too, would they split the cost of operating a franchise, Ciandella said.

Salem Town Administrator Henry LaBranche yesterday criticized Verizon's decision.

"I find their strategy rather bewildering," he said. "If, indeed, they've pulled out of the process, it's a rather premature reaction on their part."

http://www.eagletribune.com/siteSearch/apstorysection/local_story_214155904?page=0

fredfa

08-03-06, 08:27 PM

Thanks for the update Paul

fredfa

08-03-06, 08:31 PM

Sports On TV
NFL Net Still Benched on Time Warner
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 8/3/2006

At almost 6 p.m. Thursday, Time Warner had not yet restored the NFL Network to its newly acquired Adelphia and Comcast systems as it sought some avenue of appeal.

At about 10:30 a.m., the FCC let the press know it had ordered Time Warner to restore the network to those systems "immediately," An FCC spokeswoman was trying to determine at press time what "immediate" meant precisely, what appeal process Time Warner might have, and what the FCC's recourse for noncompliance might be.

The FCC said the NFL had made a case that the Time Warner move could do the network "irreparable harm," while keeping it on would not pose a similar hardship on Time Warner, since the carriage fight between NFL Network and the cable operator was not that Time Warner didn't want the channel, but that it didn't want it at NFL's price or terms.

The NFL "is not on at this moment," said Time Warner spokesman Mark Harrad. "We're reviewing the order to see what avenues of appeal are available to us. Whatever action we take will be dependent on that." It was not clear whether that would be an FCC appeal or a court challenge.

The FCC has not ruled on an NFL Network program carriage complaint filed earlier this week against Time Warner, but it has concluded that it is in the public's interest to keep the network on Time Warner while it tries to resolve it.

In that complaint, the NFL argued that Time Warner did not give the requisite 30-day notice before it pulled the network Aug. 1. Time Warner says it did. The FCC Thursday said the NFL Network had made a sufficient case for insufficient notice to warrant restoring the network while it judged the complaint.

Time Warner wants the NFL network to anchor a digital sports tier, while NFL wants to be in the most popular basic package.

The NFL is said to be asking $100 million for the package, or in the neighborhood of 90 cents per sub per month. If so, that is high by cable network standards. At the high end, ESPN gets three dollars a sub, but the bulk of top-tier cable nets are in the 20 cent-50 cent range.

The NFL Network has acquired some negotiating muscle since getting a package of regular-season games, the first in its history.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6359427

VisionOn

08-03-06, 08:55 PM

The NFL "is not on at this moment," said Time Warner spokesman Mark Harrad. "We're reviewing the order to see what avenues of appeal are available to us. Whatever action we take will be dependent on that." It was not clear whether that would be an FCC appeal or a court challenge.

so even when TWC are ordered to put it back on by the FCC, and NFL Network say they have given them a free 30 day pass to carry it to the consumer, they still won't.

TWC are really showing their true colors here.

fredfa

08-03-06, 09:11 PM

I would guess there is behind the scenes negotiating going on here -- even though, at last report, the NFL said there were no talks ongoing.

The 30-day reinstatement really outs TWC's back to the wall -- it runs out just as the season begins.

By the way, are the TWC (or any providers' to be fair) true colors a surprise? :)

VisionOn

08-03-06, 09:20 PM

By the way, are the TWC (or any providers' to be fair) true colors a surprise? :)

in public, yes. They should be screwing the customer with private deals that we are not aware of, like all businesses do. When you get backed into a corner in public at least make some effort to pretend you care! :rolleyes:

fredfa

08-03-06, 09:31 PM

Sports On TV
ABC bets on a big win
Will fall season leave ABC out on a limb?
By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic August 3, 2006

PASADENA, Calif. -- -The big story of the coming television season, and the one with the most local implications, will be ABC's health.

Katie Couric might generate more headlines for her Sept. 5 debut on the CBS Evening News, but ABC's risk-taking will have a greater influence on the season. The many Disney employees in Central Florida will have reason to watch closely how Disney-owned ABC performs.

The television critics' summer press tour, which ended last week after 18 days, provided these snapshots: CBS and Fox look mighty sturdy. NBC seems ready to rebound, thanks to stronger new series and the addition of Sunday-night football.

But ABC remains a puzzle. That network will offer the strongest new series: Ugly Betty, a delightful comedy with America Ferrera, elicited more positive buzz than any new series. ABC has another strong contender in The Nine, a haunting drama about hostage survivors with Scott Wolf, Chi McBride and Tim Daly.

ABC gave encouraging previews of more new series. Men in Trees, a romantic drama, follows a relationship coach (Anne Heche) who relocates to an Alaska town where men outnumber women 10 to 1. Series creator Jenny Bicks, who wrote for Sex and the City, made a forceful pitch for her new show.

U.S. critics haven't seen Brothers & Sisters, a drama with Calista Flockhart of Ally McBeal, Rachel Griffiths of Six Feet Under and Patricia Wettig of thirtysomething. ABC didn't screen the show, which will follow Desperate Housewives on Sundays, because of casting and script changes. The biggest switch: Oscar-winner Sally Field is coming aboard as the mother, replacing Broadway star Betty Buckley. But Canadian critics had seen the earlier version and raved about it.

One critic noted that ABC's decision to debut 10 series in the fall probably ensures that the network will have a rough season. Scheduling so many new series has never worked.

"Does that mean I don't have to do the press tour next year?" Steve McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, shot back.

His gallows humor underscored the many risks that ABC faces. It will start Mondays without football.

It needs Desperate Housewives to rebound from a spotty second season. If it doesn't, viewers will have a strong alternative in CBS' Cold Case.

ABC hopes viewers will follow Grey's Anatomy to Thursdays, where it will face CSI.

The network has to keep viewers hooked with the unusual, repeat-free scheduling of Lost: six or seven new episodes in the fall, with the balance airing next year. When Lost is off the schedule, ABC will start Day Break, a 13-week thriller with Taye Diggs.

"We know it's an aggressive schedule," McPherson says. "We're rebuilding. We've got a lot of work to do."

No new ABC series from last fall -- a crop that included Commander in Chief and Invasion -- survived to a second season. With so many new series this season, ABC is almost certain to have more failures than its competition. Its new comedies seem the most vulnerable.

But by swinging for the fences, ABC also gives viewers the most reasons to hope. ABC took major chances two seasons ago, when Lost and Desperate Housewives debuted in the fall (and Grey's Anatomy followed in the spring). ABC needs a repeat of that success story.

The situation is certainly looking up at NBC, which has a roster of promising series. Chief among them are Friday Night Lights, a drama about a high-school football team in Texas, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a backstage drama about a troubled TV show. The latter comes from West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin.

"Our ratings will definitely be better," Kevin Reilly, president of NBC Entertainment, promises. "I believe we have new series that will emerge as amongst the best on television."

The fall will probably bring more good news to ratings leaders CBS and Fox. CBS has the show that seems the surest bet to be a big hit: Shark, a drama with James Woods as a prosecutor, inherits the post-CSI slot.

Fox is offering Justice, a glossy drama about big-time defense attorneys. Justice will end each week by giving viewers a flashback containing the definitive answer as to whether the defendant committed the crime -- a nifty twist on legal programs.

The new season brings two new networks that, at closer look, don't seem so new. MyNetworkTV tries to convert telenovelas into a prime-time, English-language habit. The plots, however, will remind viewers of Aaron Spelling's Dynasty, and the actors include such familiar faces as Morgan Fairchild and Bo Derek.

The CW, created by the consolidation of the WB and UPN, doesn't inspire a lot of hope because the new network didn't take many chances.

Keith Marder, a former WB spokesman, kicked off the CW's session by joking that the new network's marketing slogan was "two wrongs don't make a right." Unfortunately, he could be right.

Keep your eyes on ABC, though, because that's where the juiciest story about the new season will be.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv/orl-tvtour06aug03,0,5761881,print.story?coll=orl-caltvtop

fredfa

08-03-06, 11:27 PM

TV Notebook
CNN's Daryn Kagan departing to start 'inspirational' website

By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 4, 2006

NEW YORK -- CNN anchor Daryn Kagan announced Thursday that she is leaving the cable news network to start a new Web venture she aims to make "an inspirational online community."

Kagan, who will continue to anchor the morning news block "CNN Live Today" until Sept. 1, has been with CNN since 1994, when she was hired out of a local Phoenix station to be a CNN Sports anchor. She began anchoring news coverage in 1998.

In an interview, Kagan called her 12 years at CNN "amazing" but said, "It's just time for the next chapter."

CNN/U.S. President Jonathan Klein said he was sad to see her leave, adding: "Not only is Daryn one of the nicest people I have ever met, but one of the classiest."

Her replacement has not yet been announced.

In November, Kagan is launching her own website, , "based on the radical idea that the world is a good place," she said.

The site, which will be supported by advertising, will feature print, audio and video stories about inspirational topics, along with information about ways to affect change in the world.

"My real vision is that it's going to be a community," she said, adding that she hopes people will contribute their own pieces to the site. "I think there is a hunger for people to belong to something like this."

Kagan said the idea for the site came out of her passion for uplifting stories she's done for CNN, including a recent piece about a quadriplegic radio host who wrote a book of letters for his newborn grandson.

"For me, it's not turning my back on news," she said. "It's just an evolution of what I've been doing."

For now, Kagan said, she's launching the site on her own.

"I'm treating it like the Field of Dreams," she said. "If I build it, they will come."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-kagan4aug04,0,417224,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

fredfa

08-03-06, 11:49 PM

TV Notebook
ABC.com Plans Fall Relaunch; Hit Shows to Be Streamed
By Mike Shields MediaWeek.com AUGUST 03, 2006 -

ABC said it plans to stream more of its prime-time series this fall on a soon-to-be-relaunched ABC.com, following a successful trial run last spring when it offered free, ad-supported episodes of four of its top shows on the Web.

Back in May and June, ABC.com streamed 5.7 million individual episodes of its shows Lost, Desperate Housewives, Alias and Commander in Chief in what the network is touting as a successful experiment in broadband video. According to comScore Media Metrix, roughly 872,000 unique viewers logged on to try out the site's video offerings. "The launch of ABC.com's broadband player was a huge step forward for us as we strategically reposition our Web sites from marketing tools to rich entertainment platforms," said Anne Sweeney, president, Disney-ABC Television Group.

The majority of viewers who streamed episodes of ABC's prime-time hits this past May and June did so within 24 hours of these shows' appearances on air, and most did so because they had missed these shows on TV, according to a research survey conducted for ABC by Frank N. Magid Associates. Roughly two-thirds of those surveyed watched complete episodes, with "missed the episode on TV" cited by respondents as the number one reason for why they watched the shows on the Web.

According to the research, 79 percent of those surveyed claimed to have a positive experience with the site, and 87 percent said they would recommend the site to others, says the research. The program's 10 national advertisers received solid feedback as well, as 87 percent of those surveyed said they were able to recall specific sponsors of the Web shows.

As a result of the positive viewer response, ABC says it will relaunch ABC.com this fall with an enhanced broadband player. "We have been extremely pleased with the consumer feedback from the trial, and are busy working on some minor adjustments to the broadband player in order to again make full episodes available to our consumers this fall," said Albert Cheng, executive vp, digital media, Disney-ABC Television Group.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002950193

fredfa

08-04-06, 01:15 AM

Sports On TV
Are you ready for some football?
(Because you're about to get a truckload of it)
By Michael Hiestand USA Today August 4, 2006

America's most popular TV programming is getting a makeover. The National Football League, in new TV deals kicking off Sunday night when NBC returns to airing NFL action for the first time since 1998, will offer viewers more new wrinkles than they've ever seen in a season.

And the league that each week racks up total TV ratings equivalent to about five nights of the 2006 Winter Olympics or four American Idol episodes — and then gets really big ratings for its playoffs — will pose this question more pointedly than it's ever been put before: Can there ever be too much NFL TV?

"If there's a theme to our TV now, it's to make it better and, especially, to let fans see more," says Howard Katz, an NFL senior vice president who oversees the league's media. "There seems to be an insatiable appetite."

That might seem impossible. But David Carter, a sports business consultant, doesn't see any limits yet: "Just when you'd guess fans are at wit's end and have no more disposable time for the NFL, they find another reason not to take the dog for a walk or clean the yard."

This season there'll be lots of new ways to feed their appetite. Monday Night Football, moving to ESPN, makes its debut Sept. 11 with a first-ever MNF doubleheader — and, on ESPN Deportes, the first MNF games on Spanish-language TV.

The NFL will unveil a Thanksgiving tripleheader and have one Sunday — New Year's Eve — when both of the networks carrying afternoon games, Fox and CBS, will be allowed to air national doubleheaders.

Viewers who still haven't had enough will be able to get replays of entire games — albeit in condensed versions — Tuesday and Wednesday nights on the NFL Network, the league's own cable channel. The NFL Network will air regular-season games for the first time via the league's first package of Thursday and Saturday prime-time games.

Excess will be redefined by the NFL Network: Aug. 31, it will whip around viewers for live look-ins on 12 exhibition games being played simultaneously. (The exhibition season begins Sunday night with the Hall of Fame Game between the Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles in Canton, Ohio, 8 ET.)

The NFL TV basics — gather enormous Sunday afternoon audiences and top them off with Sunday and Monday prime-time games — largely remain the same. But by the standards of the USA's biggest TV draw, suggests the NFL's Katz, "There's enormous change this year."

Changing channels

NFL television coverage was bound to change this season, if only because the league's previous TV rights contracts expired at the end of last season.

NFL network contracts and each network's contracts for its announcers and production staffers usually run concurrently.

That way the league gets one big chance to see how much more money it can make. It counts on the networks to spend lavishly to buy their way into the NFL's TV picture or on incumbent networks to raise the ante to stay in the game.

That jockeying inevitably pays off. In new contracts starting this season, the league will get a total annual average of $3.75 billion — a cumulative 53% jump in NFL TV revenue. And the jockeying usually leads to NFL action changing channels — and new faces.

Monday Night Football, one of the most successful shows in TV history since it premiered on ABC in 1970, moves to cable. ABC's MNF ratings declined for years, and last season the show drew record-low average game ratings — 10.8% of U.S. households. But it remained among the 10 highest-rated shows on TV for the 15th consecutive year.

That was good enough for ESPN, which also is owned by the Disney Co. and has been showing Sunday night NFL games for two decades. ESPN, which looks to marquee action to help justify the industry-high fees it charges cable operators, paid a whopping $1.1 billion annually to get Monday night games, even without getting the NFL to throw in rights to any Super Bowls.

(To illustrate the NFL's TV success, consider that when Fox bought its way into showing NFL games in 1994 by taking games away from CBS in what was then considered an extravagant bid, it paid $400 million annually.)

MNF might see its total viewership decline, given that ESPN reaches about 91 million households, compared with the 111 million that get broadcast TV.

But ESPN will lavish unprecedented hype on MNF, whose famous Hank Williams Jr. theme song has been updated to include Little Richard and Cheap Trick. Each week, ESPN will devote a Super Bowl-like pregame show to its Monday night games that will begin at 3 p.m. ET and include 30 on-air commentators.

Says ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys, "There's not a bigger sports franchise than Monday Night Football."

Dueling showcases

NBC, establishing the NFL's first broadcast network beachhead on TV's most watched night, begs to differ. Its Sunday night broadcasts late in the season will enjoy flexible scheduling meant to give the league the freedom to switch games so NBC won't end up with weak prime-time matchups that plagued ABC's MNF.

NBC will call its series Sunday Night Football and use the game announcers — John Madden and Al Michaels — and key production staffers who worked on ABC's MNF. NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol suggests there wasn't a need to reinvent the wheel: "There won't be any need to get used to these guys. They've simply been the best; (they) define what the best is."

Madden this season becomes the first announcer to call NFL games on all four major broadcast networks, having gone from CBS to Fox to ABC and, now, NBC. And he gets a grand lead-in to his NBC debut: Saturday, he'll be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He is being inducted for coaching the Raiders to a 103-32-7 record between 1969 and 1978.

Madden, noting he was a Hall finalist 27 years ago, says, "Because I've had to wait so long, this could not be appreciated any more than I appreciate it. ... To say I'm excited about this weekend and this season would be the biggest understatement of the world ever."

Expect plenty of back and forth between ESPN and NBC about which has the biggest NFL night. ESPN plans a little guerilla tactic: This fall it will begin showing Sunday night college football games.

Fewer extras

Not everything about NFL TV is getting bigger. Sideline reporting during games, which is so restricted by the league that reporters can't get at much news, will shrink: CBS and the NFL Network won't use sideline reporters.

And networks, at least so far, haven't announced any razzle-dazzle production technology. That's partly because the league, despite its insatiable appetite for TV money, is conservative about on-screen commercialism during games. It won't allow networks to sponsor any "in-game enhancements" — meaning networks can't get sponsors to pick up the tab for fancy new on-screen gimmicks.

Fox, known as the NFL's most flamboyant carrier, is even cutting back on its glitz.

The network surveyed viewers, Fox senior vice president Gary Hartley says, and found that Fox's many sound effects, blinking lights and animated graphics were seen as "pointless and annoying."

So they'll be reduced. However, he says, Fox is bringing back the on-screen robots that pop up on its coverage: "We found we've lost some of the attitude we've projected in the past. Robots are sacred ground for that."

Fox also will test the idea of letting consumers send in uploaded digital photos of their tailgate parties — with some of those photos going on TV.

Says Hartley, "It's an effort to say we're talking to you, not at you."

And the NFL's Katz hints at a test that might really break new ground. In the preseason, he says, ESPN will be allowed to have a camera operator run onto the field for close-ups, but only with plenty of restrictions to keep from interfering with play. If the league deems the test acceptable, other networks will be allowed to bring their cameras on-field this season.

Fans probably will love it. But could the NFL's expanded TV buffet, and the unprecedented hype expected from NFL TV carriers, finally be too much?

"The NFL is the consummate promoter," consultant Carter says. "But that doesn't mean that fans might not find all this over-the-top at a time when they're inundated by sports generally. But I wouldn't bet on it."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2006-08-03-nfl-tv-cover_x.htm

fredfa

08-04-06, 01:17 AM

Sports On TV
NFL on TV: Flexibility=Fewer Duds
By Michael Hiestand USA Today August 4, 2006

TV networks carrying Sunday afternoon NFL games can make situational substitutions. CBS and Fox, carrying games being played simultaneously, can adjust to what's happening in the league by assigning top games involving hot teams to lots of TV markets - and keep dud matchups in fewer households.

But what if you're carrying just one NFL game nationally?

That often was the case with ABC's Monday Night Football. The NFL tried to assign marquee matchups to its primetime showcase, but its on-field parity, which helps make it such a TV draw, played havoc with MNF. In the last four games of MNF's last three seasons - 12 games when playoff races were hottest - MNF got just one game involving two teams with winning records.

ABC lobbied for a way to help it avoid games with losers - but never got one.

This season, Sundays will be different. NBC's Sunday Night Football, for Weeks 10-15 and Week 17, will get the league's first-ever flexible scheduling as games in afternoon time slots are moved to primetime - in what's seen as an acceptable inconvenience to teams and fans.

For now, NBC's matchups in those flex weeks are listed as "to be determined" - although the league has made tentative game assignments. NBC's primetime matchups will be announced 12 days in advance - six days in advance in Week 17 - as the NFL chooses which games move to primetime.

The league won't have complete freedom of choice. Fox and CBS can each protect five of its afternoon games from being moved - although only one per weekend - during the seven weeks of flexible scheduling. NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol acknowledges limits to how much flex scheduling can help the network on what is usually TV's most competitive night: "Will flex scheduling bring us the absolute premier game every week? Probably not. But it will eliminate altogether the weak (games) in the past."

TV consultant Neal Pilson says flexing might only end up raising NBC's average game ratings by 0.2% of U.S. households, "but it's a great promotional tool."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2006-08-03-nfl-tv-cover_x.htm

fredfa

08-04-06, 01:24 AM

I don't usually post a lot of development stories, but I know there are a lot of Sci Fi fans in the forum, so....

TV Notebook
Fox pickups supernatural
Adds 2 sci-fi pilots to drama slate

By Nellie Andreeva The Hollywood Reporter

Fox is adding a sci-fi flavor to its drama development slate with put pilot commitments to "Amy After Dark," from writer John Scott Shepherd and Emmy-winning director Todd Holland, and an untitled drama from writer Christian Taylor.

"Dark," from 20th Century Fox TV, centers on a young female attorney in New York who joins the undead after she is bitten by a vampire.

Shepherd will write the script, and 20th TV-based Holland is set to direct the pilot. Both are executive producing.

Shepherd, who created the ABC series "The Days," also penned the features "Joe Somebody" and "Life or Something Like It."

Holland, a three-time Emmy winner for his directing work on Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle" and HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show," most recently directed the feature "Firehouse Dog" for 20th Century Fox.

The untitled Taylor project, which is yet to be set up at a studio, centers on an energetic young police detective with a secret: Behind his youthful appearance, he actually is centuries old.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002949785

slocko

08-04-06, 08:36 AM

I never thought I would be in this predicament. I am moving to Italy for about a year and my Tivos can't possibly record everything I want to watch.

24 and probably AI, will be at the top of my list. Not sure what else to protect yet.

What's worse is that I am leaving on the 14th and I don't think a lot of the new shows will be listed in the Tivo Guide for me to try out.

If it wasn't for the dumb 2 year activation commitmment, I would buy another high capacity HD-Tivo just to record that much more HD.

fredfa

08-04-06, 11:40 AM

Have you looked into weakknees...they'll add a massive hard drive for your HD TiVos....
or how about Slingbox, which allows you to watch what you want where you want as long as you have the account set up back in NJ? (You could watch in Italy from your DirecTV setup iback home.)

fredfa

08-04-06, 11:53 AM

TV Notebook
Time Warner Reinstates NFL Net
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/4/2006 8:42:00 AM

As of midnight,Time Warner complied with the FCC's order to put the NFL Network back on in systems it has just acquired from Comcast and Adelphia, but it has appealed the order to the full commission and has begun running a crawl on the channel warning viewers it may take it off again.

The FCC had issued its order Thursday morning, but Time Warner held off complying while it considered its options for appeal.

Time Warner had pulled the network from the new systems Aug. 1, with the NFL Network immediately asking the FCC for relief,saying the move could cause irreparable harm and saying Time Warner had not given the requisite 30-day notification.

The FCC's Media Bureau concluded that the NFL had made a sufficiently strong case to justify the order and that it was in the public's interest to see the games, particularly as the pre-season begins and viewing patterns are set.

The two sides have been in a battle over terms of carriage of the network, including the price and where the network would be carried, in a sports tier, as Time Warner wants, or on the basic package, where the NFL Network wants to be.

Time Warner released a statement Friday:

"At midnight last night, Time Warner Cable reinstated the NFL Network on those systems it earlier this week acquired from Adelphia and Comcast, where the network had been available.

"The channel appears in the same position and tier as it did before it was removed three days earlier. Time Warner Cable still does not have a license agreement to carry the network, but has put the channel back on its systems in order to comply with the FCC's Order issued by its Media Bureau Thursday.

"Because we still do not have a contract with the NFL Network, we have also begun the official 30 day-notification period with an on-screen crawl that began running last night at midnight alerting our customers that the network may be withdrawn again should we not be able to conclude an agreement with the NFL Network.

"Time Warner Cable believes that the Media Bureau's Order is wrong as a matter of law. Accordingly, last night we filed papers with the FCC appealing the Order to the full Commission.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6359461

fredfa

08-04-06, 12:15 PM

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

fredfa

08-04-06, 12:17 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
NBC's 'Windfall' is proving otherwise
Summer burnoff falls to half its debut audience
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer August 4, 2006

NBC was wise to save “Windfall” for a summer burnoff. After a somewhat promising debut two months ago, the drama about a group of lottery winners has fallen hard.

Last night “Windfall” hit a series low with a 1.6 overnight rating among adults 18-49, down 52 percent from the 3.3 it averaged in its June 8 premiere.

The show was also nearly one-third off its season-to-date average of 2.3 and down 0.2 from the previous week’s 1.8 average.

NBC originally planned to premiere “Windfall” last spring but decided to delay it until summer at midseason. Though the Luke Perry program received decent reviews when it debuted, it simply couldn’t hold that audience.

It’s one in a long series of summer broadcast dramas, most recently including Fox’s “The Jury” and “The Inside,” that have struggled. Though dramas tend to do well on cable during the hot months, new ones rarely do well on broadcast, where viewers are used to seeing repeats and reality shows.

Meanwhile, using just that, CBS led for the night at a 2.7 rating and 8 share in 18-49s, followed by Fox at 2.5/8, ABC at 2.1/6, NBC at 1.9/6, Univision at 1.8/5, WB at 0.8/2 and UPN at 0.7/2.

At 8 p.m., CBS was No. 1 at 2.6 for "Big Brother 7: All-Stars," ahead of Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" at 2.2, NBC's reruns of "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" at 1.9, Fox's pair of "That '70s Show" repeats at 1.7, ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" rerun at 1.6, WB's "Smallville" rerun at 0.9 and UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris" and "Love, Inc." reruns at 0.8.

At 9 p.m., Fox led at 3.2 for "So You Think You Can Dance," followed by CBS at 2.8 for a "CSI" repeat, NBC at 2.3 for "America's Got Talent," ABC at 2.1 for another "Grey's" repeat, Univision at 1.7 for "Barrera de Amor," WB at 0.6 for a "Supernatural" repeat and UPN at 0.5 for "Eve" and "Cuts" reruns.

At 10 p.m., CBS's "Without a Trace" repeat led at 2.8, followed by ABC's "Primetime" at 2.5, NBC's "Windfall" at 1.6 and Univision's "Aqui y Ahora" at 1.5.

Among households, CBS won the night at a 6.2 rating and 11 share, ahead of ABC at 4.5/8, Fox at 3.9/7, NBC at 3.7/7, Univision at 2.2/4, WB at 1.4/2 and UPN at 1.0/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6467.asp

jim tressler

08-04-06, 12:33 PM

Lots of great things will hapen this year with the NFL.. But-- still only 3 games a week from CBS in HD :(

Sports On TV
Are you ready for some football?
(Because you're about to get a truckload of it)
By Michael Hiestand USA Today August 4, 2006

America's most popular TV programming is getting a makeover. The National Football League, in new TV deals kicking off Sunday night when NBC returns to airing NFL action for the first time since 1998, will offer viewers more new wrinkles than they've ever seen in a season.

And the league that each week racks up total TV ratings equivalent to about five nights of the 2006 Winter Olympics or four American Idol episodes — and then gets really big ratings for its playoffs — will pose this question more pointedly than it's ever been put before: Can there ever be too much NFL TV?

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2006-08-03-nfl-tv-cover_x.htm

fredfa

08-04-06, 12:41 PM

Try to look at the glass half full, jim.
There will be NBC, ESPN and (6) Fox games a week. The CBS SD games will, normally, be the ones with the least impact on the standings.
In addition CBS continues its SEC games, and ABC adds a national Saturday night NCAA game.
I know it is hard to wait, but the HD football landscape is so much better than it was a few short years ago.

pwrmetal

08-04-06, 02:17 PM

Fredfa, do we know if ABC will air its national saturday night games in HD? I was apalled when OSU vs Texas wasn't in HD last year.

fredfa

08-04-06, 02:59 PM

Yes, they will be national games and in HD.

fredfa

08-04-06, 03:07 PM

More on ABC College Football:

Sports On TV
ABC will tackle prime-time college football next season.
Season kicks off with Notre Dame at Georgia Tech

ESPN.com May 17, 2006

ABC Saturday Night College Football will feature showdowns between top football programs at 8 p.m. ET.

Notre Dame kicks off the 12-week season Sept. 2 at Georgia Tech followed by Ohio State at defending national champion Texas the next week.

Commentator Brent Musburger will be the play-by-play voice with Bob Davie as the analyst. They will be joined by ESPN College GameDay and ESPN College Football Thursday prime-time analyst Kirk Herbstreit on certain weeks. Lisa Salters, an NBA sideline reporter and general assignment correspondent for multiple ESPN news outlets, will report from the sidelines.

"This prime-time series will be terrific for fans as more top-quality sports product comes to the ABC Television Network," said George Bodenheimer, president, ESPN, Inc. and ABC Sports. "These games join a strong lineup of sports on ABC, including the NBA Finals, NASCAR's playoffs -- Chase for the Nextel Cup -- in 2007, Belmont Stakes and Indianapolis 500."

It's the first college football series in prime time on broadcast television and will also be available in high definition.

The schedule does not include games on Oct. 21 and 28.

College GameDay will kick off its 20th season by originating from the site of the first two ABC prime-time telecasts: Georgia Tech Sept. 2 and Texas Sept. 9.

"The combined resources of ABC and ESPN offer unparalleled coverage of the sporting world and we're thrilled to have the opportunity to add unprecedented coverage of college football to our prime-time schedule," said Stephen McPherson, President of ABC Entertainment. "College football has extremely devoted fans and we look forward to bringing the excitement of the game to them on Saturday nights this fall."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2446647&type=story

fredfa

08-04-06, 03:08 PM

Sports On TV
2006 ABC Saturday Night College Football schedule

• Sept. 2, 8 p.m. ET: Notre Dame at Georgia Tech
• Sept. 9, 8 p.m. ET: Ohio State at Texas
• Sept. 16, 8 p.m. ET: Nebraska at USC
• Sept. 23, 8 p.m. ET: Notre Dame at Michigan State; USC at Arizona
• Sept. 30, 8 p.m. ET: Ohio State at Iowa or Michigan at Minnesota*
• Oct. 7, 8 p.m. ET: Oregon at California; ACC, Big 12 or BIG EAST (12-day selection)
• Oct. 14, 8 p.m. ET: Michigan at Penn State; Arizona State at USC
• Nov. 4, 8 p.m. ET: UCLA at California; ACC, Big 12 or BIG EAST (12-day selection)
• Nov. 11, 8 p.m. ET: ACC, Big 12 or BIG EAST (12-day selection)
• Nov. 18, 8 p.m. ET: California at USC; ACC, Big 12 or BIG EAST (12-day selection)
• Nov. 25, 8 p.m. ET: Notre Dame at USC
• Dec. 2, 8 p.m. ET: Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship Game

* One game will be on ABC and the other in primetime on ESPN or ESPN2.

fredfa

08-04-06, 03:30 PM

TV Review
'Three Moons' shines.
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor in his blog “Tuned In”

PASADENA, Calif. -- "Three Moons Over Milford," summer's most enjoyable new series, debuts Sunday at 8 PM ET on ABC Family. It's a much better small-town show than Sci Fi Channel's "Eureka" even as it has a sci-fi theme of its own.

The moon has exploded and the possibility of death hangs over the denizens of Milford as they try to get used to seeing three moon chunks in the sky, wondering if one will crash to earth, ending human life.

Elizabeth McGovern stars as the wife of the wealthy town entrepreneur, who takes a hike, leaving her to raise two children on her own, including a teenage son and accidental pyromaniac daughter. Never thought there would be an engaging, decently written drama on ABC Family, and this summer there were two ("Kyle XY" was the other, but "Milford" is much better).

Co-executive producer Howard Chesley said "Milford" won't concentrate on the pending disaster but on the reaction of people to it.

"We're interested in the people and their reactions to the fact that life might be over in a matter of days," Chesley said at a press conference last month. "Once in a while, something happens, a piece of meteor lands, something that reminds everyone of how immediate it all is. But we're trying to really focus it on the humanity of the people and what makes their eccentric behavior justified."

Job well done in the pilot. We'll see what future episodes bring.

http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/tunedin/

fredfa

08-04-06, 04:37 PM

Sports On TV
FCC Tackles Sports
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable at bcbeat

A couple of decades ago, sports siphoning was a big issue. The possibility that baseball or football games would move to cable, and that free, over-the-air TV viewers would be shut out of the TV ballpark had politicians railing.

Since then, the move of sports to cable has been steady and inexorable anyway, and the politicians have been relatively silent, probably because most of them have cable. But a new sports issue has popped up that threatens to be an equally hot button.

In its decision to condition the Adelphia sale on program access protections for sports nets, the FCC declared regional sports networks "must have" programming, showing itself ready to intervene in carriage disputes to make sure that the home team games get to the home team's homes.

Add to that its lightning speed this week in reacting to an NFL Network complaint and telling Time Warner to restore that network to customers, and it is clear that media companies engage in protracted sports negotiations at the risk of angering the feds.

I'm not sure the government needs to be so proactive in private negotations, but from the noises out of Congress and the FCC, it looks like it plans to be.

So, when cable companies are required to add sports nets to basic cable packages, which then boost's their price to customers, be ready to remind Cable rate critic Senator John McCain that the government itself is responsible for some of that price increase.

http://broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138.html

fredfa

08-04-06, 04:38 PM

TV Notebook
Masters of News

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable at bcbeat Aug 4 2006

Here's a novel idea. Since shows like The One and Master of Champions can't raise much of a pulse this summer, how about putting on something that actually matters.

Rather than filling out time periods with reruns--which are doing pretty poorly, generally, too--or shows about astounding medical maladies, instead whip up an hour town meeting, the kind ABC has been so good at in the past, about the fact that the world seems to be imploding. Or maybe a cogent analysis of our preemptive strike foreign policy.

I know, cable news is wall to wall explosions and implosions and the Daily Show is a seriously funny take on it all, which would seem impossible except Stewart manages to do it--but for the 20 million or so households that don't get cable, and even for those that do, some more network, prime time, attention to the world at war would be useful.

At times like these, programmers probably assume, the masses want to be diverted by watching race cars with knives attached cutting into cakes while their drivers do doughnuts, or skinny gymnasts playing William Tell with their tootsies. (I'm not picking on ABC, NBC had its balloon guy and doll dancer).

But the networks still have news departments that can do great journalism and need to do it, and do it more prominently in prime time, our tastes for inane diversion notwithstanding. Though given the ratings, maybe our tastes for the inane aren't as strong as network programers presume

Just a thought.

http://broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138.html

TheRock

08-04-06, 04:47 PM

Titantv lists Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson as HD. I could have sworn I saw a recent thread that spoke about the possibility of them finally going HD. Hopefully this isnt just another one of titantv's mistakes. For some reason I couldnt find the thread in question though.

fredfa

08-04-06, 04:59 PM

I have to be honest, I don't remember any announcement that Craig has gone HD.

I do know he has a new set which seems obviously a step on the road, but as far as I know CF is not yet in HD.

Sorry.

fredfa

08-04-06, 05:03 PM

GeorgeLV

08-04-06, 06:22 PM

TheRatPatrol

08-04-06, 09:44 PM

mbarloewen

08-04-06, 09:45 PM

Perhaps Mark Cuban or Karl Meisenbach can tell us if this precludes future HDNet MLS coverage. (I hope not, but ESPN usually grabs all the right.)

Sports On TV
ESPN Buys Major League Soccer Rights

Multichannel News 8/4/2006

ESPN said it cut a deal Soccer with United Marketing for rights to Major League Soccer games through 2014.
The sports programmer said ESPN2 will carry 26 regular-season and three playoff matches a year in primetime. Disney sister ABC Sports will air the league’s three biggest events – the season-opening match, the annual All-Star game and the MLS Cup.

The eight-year rights deal also includes content that ESPN can run on Mobile ESPN, ESPN Deportes, ESPN360 and other platforms.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6359770.html?display=Breaking+News

HDNET has a seperate contract that will continue into the future. Today's announement by MLS left open the possibility of HD broadcasts on ESPN2, it did not promise them.

MLS has the following national TV contracts slated for next season

Thur night -ESPN2
Saturday night -HDNET
Saturday night -Fox soccer channel
Sunday afternoon -Univision

All together MLS should receive 15-20 million a year total in TV revenue per year. Not bad when you consider that for the 11 years of its existence to this point it has always had to pay to get on TV

The league is completely out of the "risk" category of going out of business and I, for one, couldn't be happier.

I mean, seriosuly, raise you hand if you thought an American professional soccer league would be in its 11th season and would be receiving money for its TV rights.

mbarloewen

08-04-06, 09:48 PM

MLS is like AA soccer so it's not really a loss. I'd much rather see HDNet get the rights to English Premier League or Champions League play.

It's more like AAA then AA but it is still a quality product where you can see future starts of the US men's national team develop. It is also the best league in the world that consists primarily of American players and to me that is far more interesting than watching the big boys in Europe.

That said, I'd love to see some more soccer in HD after watching the wonderful picture quality of the World Cup this past summer.

PaulGo

08-04-06, 09:56 PM

Comcast to Carry Nats Games Starting Sept. 1
Cable Company, MASN Settle Long-Standing Dispute

By Arshad Mohammed and Thomas Heath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 5, 2006; Page A01

Nationals fans in the Washington region will be able to watch the team's games on Comcast starting Sept. 1 after the cable company and the sports network that carries most of the games settled a dispute that had lasted for more than a year, a Comcast executive said today.

Under the deal, 1.6 million Comcast subscribers in the Baltimore-Washington corridor will be able to view the games starting Sept. 1 while a further 600,000 people in more distant areas will have access to them over the next two years.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed by Comcast Corp., whose more than 1 million subscribers in the Washington region have been unable to see most of the games on its cable system. Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which owns the TV rights to the games, had no immediate comment.

"I literally have just signed the agreement," Comcast Corp. Executive Vice President David Cohen said in an interview, adding that the cable company would start airing the sports network "basically in the Washington and Baltimore markets on Sept. 1."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006080401270.html

keenan

08-04-06, 09:59 PM

Comcast to Carry Nats Games Starting Sept. 1
Cable Company, MASN Settle Long-Standing Dispute

Terms of the deal were not disclosed by Comcast Corp.,
Ah, come on, we want the dirty, nasty details..... :p

fredfa

08-04-06, 10:15 PM

HDNET has a seperate contract that will continue into the future. Today's announement by MLS left open the possibility of HD broadcasts on ESPN2, it did not promise them.

MLS has the following national TV contracts slated for next season

Thur night -ESPN2
Saturday night -HDNET
Saturday night -FSW
Sunday afternoon -Univision

All together MLS should receive 15-20 million a year total in TV revenue per year. Not bad when you consider that for the 11 years of its existence to this point it has always had to pay to get on TV

The league is completely out of the "risk" category of going out of business and I, for one, couldn't be happier.

I mean, seriosuly, raise you hand if you thought an American professional soccer league would be in its 11th season and would be receiving money for its TV rights.

Thanks for the detailed information, mbarloewen.

I am glad HDNet is able to keep some of the MLS games.

Do you know if it will continue to have a package of college footabl this year, too?

mbarloewen

08-04-06, 10:18 PM

Thanks for the detailed information, mbarloewen.

I am glad HDNet is able to keep some of the MLS games.

Do you know if it will continue to have a package of college footabl this year, too?

I'm afraid I don't know, I'm simply a one trick pony when it comes to soccer information.

Bit of an obsession really.

Let me take this opportunity, as a long time lurker, to thank you very much for this thread which I make a point of visiting on a daily basis.

jim tressler

08-04-06, 10:24 PM

thanks for the pick me up fred :) - but unfortunatly, being a Browns fan - doesnt help.. the Browns are usually the last on HD for CBS :( - although there is hope when we play the bengals or the steelers :)

Try to look at the glass half full, jim.
There will be NBC, ESPN and (6) Fox games a week. The CBS SD games will, normally, be the ones with the least impact on the standings.
In addition CBS continues its SEC games, and ABC adds a national Saturday night NCAA game.
I know it is hard to wait, but the HD football landscape is so much better than it was a few short years ago.

fredfa

08-04-06, 10:34 PM

I feel your pain, jim!

fredfa

08-04-06, 10:36 PM

The Digital Revolution
Verizon Hits Accelerator in Jersey
By Steve Donohue Multichannel News 8/4/2006

Verizon Communications said Friday that it plans to spend $1.5 billion in New Jersey over the next three years on the construction of a fiber network that will power its FiOS TV and FiOS Internet products.

The move, which came as New Jersey Gov. John Corzine signed a franchise law that will speed the telco’s video rollout in the state, spells more competition for New Jersey incumbent operators such as Comcast, Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable.

Verizon said it is building a “major” video hub office in Freehold, N.J., which will transmit FiOS TV throughout the state. The company also said it has more than 1,000 technicians working on building its fiber network in the state.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6359908

fredfa

08-04-06, 11:03 PM

TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic

Question: How could Fox move House to Tuesdays at 8 pm/ET? It is so established at 9, yet once again, Fox feels the need to alienate some more viewers. Do you think ratings will drop? The ratings for the repeats show the 9 pm airing gets considerably more viewers than the 8 pm one. Obviously Fox dooesn't have much confidence in Standoff if it feels the need to make House a lead-in. Will House go back to 9 pm once Idol starts again? — Alana

Matt Roush: Actually, House will go back to its regular time period (9 pm/ET) when it returns from the postseason baseball hiatus on Oct. 31. Fox will air House an hour earlier only for the first month of new episodes, starting Sept. 5. I wrote a Dispatch bitching about this very thing, and I agree it's an unnecessary, confusing aggravation. I doubt it will harm House that much, though. (I can't think of a bigger waste of time than looking at summer repeat ratings, but they do show that House scores better later at night because more people are inside watching TV at that point.) Fans are going to follow this show just about anywhere, and as you noted, Fox is only doing this to give a lead-in boost to one of its more problematic new dramas. Honestly, the last thing we need in the fall is for the networks to make finding our shows any more difficult.

________________________________________

Question: Everyone keeps saying Scrubs is a mistreated show. Doesn't NBC deserve a little credit for keeping it on the air for a sixth year? Scrubs couldn't hold much of the audience when it got a shot after Friends, but NBC has stuck with it anyway and has given the writers a good amount of freedom. I love the show and am thrilled to see it live on, but I'm a little sick of TV critics saying how mistreated it is when it's gotten well over 100 episodes, and when other networks would have given up on it by now. Poor little Scrubs. If that is being mistreated, what do you call the treatment given to shows canceled after one season, or worse, a handful of episodes? How about giving some credit where it is due? — Ed

Matt Roush: All valid points, but still, for NBC to bench Scrubs for half a season two years in a row seems like killing it with kindness. Especially at a time when the show has finally crossed the Emmy threshold with nominations for best comedy series, and this fall it would pair up so nicely with Tina Fey's 30 Rock. (Much better, in fact, than the overly broad John Lithgow-Jeffrey Tambor buddy comedy Twenty Good Years, which will be lucky to make it past 20 bad episodes.)

So pardon us while we lament the months and months without new Scrubs episodes, while hoping that NBC decides against airing them back-to-back again in the mid-season. That isn't healthy for any show, no matter how good it is. It is true, though, that it's something of a miracle for it to have run this long, given the way things are going for underrated gems of this caliber.

________________________________________

Question: It seems like most of the outrage over the Emmys has focused on the absences of some important actors in the major categories, but I stumbled across a nomination hardly ever spoken of. What's your take on Ellen Burstyn's nomination for supporting actress in a TV film, for her work in Mrs. Harris. Apparently, she only has two lines, appears in the film only once, and is listed in the credits as "Ex-Lover No. 3." Now, as mad as the snubs of Hugh Laurie, James Gandolfini, Lauren Graham, Jason Lee, etc, make me, I can still see some dignity in these awards. But how can an Emmy be worth anything if showing up for 20 seconds gets you a nomination just because your name is familiar to voters? Seriously, will she even show up? Her entire performance could be shown as a clip at the show! — Sam

Matt Roush: Even by the Emmys' low standards of credibility, this is laughable, preposterous and embarrassing. There's no question the reason she got a nomination for this heightened cameo is because people recognize Burstyn's name. Ironically, she actually deserved the nomination she got in 1981 when she played the title role in a movie on the very same subject, The People vs. Jean Harris. I like to think of this as the “Stockard Channing” effect (not so much for her Out of Practice nomination this year, but for some of her West Wing nominations when she appeared in a smattering of scenes at most).

________________________________________

Question: Now that Arrested Development is gone, does Fox have any promising new comedies set for its fall lineup? I read that they have a Brad Garrett show, but that doesn't really feel like the kind of cutting-edge comedy they have attempted for so many years now. Have they finally given up after canceling most of their best comedies too soon, or have the cutting-edge comedies gotten tired of being jerked around by Fox? — Sarah M.

Matt Roush: It's true that this season Fox is going more mainstream in its comedy choices. Fox Entertainment chief Peter Liguori says the network did develop a few single-camera (read: cutting-edge) pilots that didn't work out. I think it's a mistake, though, to assume that just because a comedy is done the old-fashioned way (with multiple cameras on a soundstage before a studio audience) it's automatically not as worthy or as funny as a more stylized, filmed piece (à la Arrested Development, Scrubs or My Name Is Earl). Some terrific work can still be done in this format.

Sadly, that work isn't showing up on Fox this fall. Brad Garrett's 'Til Death is passable, thanks to him and Joely Fisher as an irascibly long-married couple, but it's also kind of forgettable. Which is still miles above its pathetically uninspired companion piece on Thursdays, the unhappy Happy Hour. (At least Fox still has its animated comedies on Sundays, setting it apart from its competitors.)

________________________________________

Question: Is it really a good idea to have that many stars appearing on Nip/Tuck? I am looking forward to the new season, although I was greatly disappointed in how the Carver story line ended. I'm hoping that the show will be able to flow more smoothly, but I wonder if that will be a problem with so many celebrities. — Z. Green

Matt Roush: True, celebrity cameos can be a distraction and a crutch (hello, Will & Grace), but given the fantastic, over-the-top nature of Nip/Tuck, it's not exactly as if the show's realism (such as it is) is in any danger of being violated. I've only seen the premiere episode of the new season (which returns Sept. 5), and the special guest stars are all so well chosen — from Larry Hagman to Kathleen Turner (seeking a voice lift!) to Brooke Shields as Christian's shrink — that I rolled with it. That's once I recovered from the opening scenes, which may be the filthiest minutes of TV I've ever watched. Sometimes I feel I'm not old enough, or maybe too old, to watch this show. Or maybe it should just have its mouth washed out.

________________________________________
Question: I must say that I was shocked to read the TCA Awards results. It seems incredibly unjust that critically acclaimed series on UPN and WB such as Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, Everybody Hates Chris and Everwood get left out while shows like Lost, Grey's Anatomy, My Name Is Earl and The Office get all the prizes. I mean, critics often complain about how the Emmys always go for the same-old-same-old, but didn't they do the same? — Samuel

Matt Roush: Oh, climb down off your high horse. At least Lauren Graham was nominated, and for a subpar season. (And in the past, Gilmore Girls was honored by the TCA, something the Emmys has never done.) I was personally disappointed that Battlestar Galactica didn't make the drama cut (though I would never have expected it to win), and that Kristen Bell was not among the drama-performer nominees. But these are not the cult-TV awards, much as I love some of those shows (and honestly, Veronica Mars' sophomore year wasn't as solid as its first, though I'm hopeful about this season).

Also, the TCA Awards are limited by the fact that in drama and comedy performance, there's a single category lumping both male and female performers together. I actually felt that this year the TCA Awards were a refreshing corrective to the Emmys, which didn't even nominate some of our winners (including Lost, My Name Is Earl and Hugh Laurie). Some of the winners may be popular, including Grey's Anatomy as (unquestionably) the program of the year, but to hold that against them when judging their quality would be the most hypocritical thing critics could ever do.

________________________________________

Question: I've always been curious as to why networks never air traditional 30-minute sitcoms (Friends, Will & Grace, Two and a Half Men, etc) between the hours of 10 and 11 pm? — Steve L.

Matt Roush: The networks don't do anything without a ton of research, and I'm sure experience and testing (and a few failed experiments in continuing comedy blocks into the last hour of prime time) have shown that comedy works better in the earlier hours, and given the state of TV comedy nowadays, there are diminishing returns the more you air and the later you go. The networks also tend to get darker, more serious and more adult as the night goes on, which also works against comedy. In some time periods where there's a dominant drama, it would be interesting to see one of the Big Three (Fox and CW don't program in that hour) step up with some comedic counterprogramming, if not an actual sitcom. Northern Exposure, for instance, did quite well in that hour for several seasons. (That's why I'm curious about ABC's resistance to trying Ugly Betty later at night, say, after Desperate Housewives.)

________________________________________

Question: I just started watching Windfall, which I DVR'd for the past two months. I'm up to Episode 5, and I must say that I really like it. It's not the best show I've ever seen, but it's interesting and character-driven. I know it did not get renewed for a second season, so my question is, what have been its average ratings? Could NBC even expect such great ratings for a summer show, when there aren't as many television watchers? I know for a fact that most of my friends who watch a lot of TV during the year had never even heard of Windfall. Do you think NBC should have given it another chance? — Jenny

Matt Roush: No. This was its one shot, and because I'm not as fond of the show as you are, I think NBC might have been better off just benching it altogether. The network had no confidence in Windfall, or it would have been given a mid-season tryout. NBC did launch it with a fair amount of early-summer promotion and with airings in multiple time periods, and the opening numbers were promising. But as expected, the numbers fell week by week as viewers moved on, tuned out and forgot about it.

________________________________________

Question: The question about Ugly Betty being sentenced to death on Fridays made me think of the Law & Order time switch. When it was on the same night but one hour earlier, its ratings dropped. Will moving it to the "death slot" kill it, or do you think senior citizen L&O will be able to survive? If/when one of the lesser-quality new shows gets canceled, would NBC move L&O back to the Wednesday time slot, like they did after pulling Heist? — Mallory

Matt Roush: Law & Order will survive, if not thrive, on Fridays, but its numbers will drop there as it faces formidable competition in CBS' Numb3rs. (Pun not intended.) For NBC, having a proven veteran like Law & Order anchoring its Friday schedule (alongside other proven franchises like Crossing Jordan and Las Vegas) will keep the network in business on the night. But if Kidnapped does turn out to be an instant dud like Heist (it deserves a far better fate), NBC won't think twice before moving Law & Order back to its old home against the equally tired CSI: NY.

________________________________________

Question: Now that iTunes has been selling the unaired pilot of Aquaman and viewers are raving about it, what are the chances that it will be picked up as a mid-season replacement? — Jessica

Matt Roush: Zero. The chances might be better if WB were still in existence, but I don't see CW changing course. Still, stranger things have happened (for instance, when NBC chose to develop the shelved WB sitcom pilot Nobody's Watching after it gained a following on YouTube). But I wouldn't get my hopes up. Frankly, I'd have been shocked if Aquaman hadn't popped on iTunes, which is a far different barometer of success than finding a niche in network prime time.

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

fredfa

08-04-06, 11:15 PM

TV Q&A
Lisa De Moraes of the Washington Post

Lisa De Moraes has written "The TV Column" for The Washington Post since 1998. She served as the TV editor for the entertainment industry trade publication the "Hollywood Reporter" for almost a decade. Today she chatted online with readers about the current state of TV. Here is the transcript:
____________________

Alexandria, Va.: Let me just tell you that you make me laugh out loud when I read your stuff, thank you very much.

I hate to admit it, but I'm loving Last Comic Standing AND Hell's Kitchen. Two of the most opposite reality TV shows out there. As much as people want to trash reality shows and say they're finished -- do you actually believe that and do you think summer is the perfect reality TV season and that's why the shows on now are seeing some type of success?

Lisa de Moraes: Hi. In fact, none of this season's reality series has broken away from the clutter and become a summer sensation as did Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Survivor, American Idol. Probably because there are too many on this summer and most of them are way too derivative. But reality TV is hardly finished. Let's not forget that the Nos. 1 and 2 shows last season were "American Idol" Tuesday and Wednesday...
_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Did you watch any of Shark Week? Were you spooked? Have you ever been swimming with sharks in one of those cages?

Lisa de Moraes: No pookie, even I have limits as to what I will do to get just that perfect touch of verisimilitude for the TV Column. Swimming with Sharks falls into my Too Dumb to Live category. And no, I did not watch Shark Week. I don't particularly like watching "nature" shows which are really all about scaring the pants off viewers for ratings and not about teaching viewers anything new about the animal, or the region. That includes Nat Geo specials as well, not just Discovery's Shark Week. I'm more of a Puppy Bowl gal.
_______________________

Press Tours: So, after a press tour, do you need to :
1 Have a drink
2 Have many drinks
3 Have an intelligent conversation
or
4 Take a shower?

Lisa de Moraes: I try to have as few intelligent conversations as possible, but yes, after the press tour I do all of the above, under doctor's orders. Except "take a shower" should be amended to read "bathe in lye."
_______________________

San Diego, Calif.: Am I the only one watching SciFi's Who Wants to be a SuperHero??

Last night, they got a couple of dogs to maul the contestants. One of them (Monkey Woman!!!!) was bitten and dragged around for ten minutes before she completed the task. These contestants are taking themselves so seriously that it's impossible not to laugh at them.

I love this show. Is it mean of me to laugh at the morons?

Lisa de Moraes: The contestants also took themselves VERY seriously at Summer TV Press Tour 2006, in an "Shrink needed -- STAT" way. And didn't "Fear Factor" already do the dog-maul challenge ages ago? Shouldn't these people be expected to do something a little more, I don't know, superhero-ish? Like fly, maybe?
_______________________

Westminster, Calif.: Do you agree that most Reality shows on television today are click-offable? And those that have found permanent homes into our living rooms, are hurting the legitimate actors, directors and producers in the entertainment business?

Lisa de Moraes: No, no and no. Or is that just no and no...too many questions. Anyway, I do not think reality series are hurting "legitimate actors" -- can you call the cast of "Las Vegas" "legitimate"? -- directors and producers. There are soooo many more networks getting into original programming. It's just that the business model is changing and some people are change phobic. Remember, children, change is good....
_______________________

Herndon, Va.: Hey Lisa: All I've had to look forward to this summer was Project Runway and Shark Week. Now that Shark Week is ending, and the evil/arrogant guy was kicked off of PR, can you give me something else to look forward to? Or do I actually have to leave my house in the evenings and not watch TV til the Fall?

Lisa de Moraes: I too was flattened when Arrogant Man was booted off Project Runway, but the fine people at Project Runway had not choice if they wanted to preserve the integrity of their make-a-dress-of-bananas series.
_______________________

The View Drama: What happened between Barbara and Elizabeth - did Barbara really put the smack down on Elizabeth and make her cry on camera!? What's the fall out for Elizabeth?

Lisa de Moraes: Oooh goodie! I missed this TV drama -- I've been TV less for a week and, technically, am still on vacation though I decided I badly needed a chat fix. What happened? And don't omit any details...
_______________________

Fairfax, Va.: So Keith is history for sneaking in fashion how-to books and going online. But have you been following the bigger scandal tied to him and Project Runway? Apparently some of the sketches he handed in as part of his application process turned out to doctored photographs of other designers runway shows (the wonders of photoshop). All of the details are on the televisionwithoutpity.forums, where the story broke. So much for Bravo's vetting process.

Lisa de Moraes: Or, maybe they cast him deliberately just so they could boot him a few episodes in, and ratchet up the buzz factor. Let's not forget this network is owned by NBC.. Just sayin'.....
_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Were you one of the critics who heckled/walked out on Roger Ailes?

Lisa de Moraes: No. I was there for his entire session and Ailes was not heckled and I did not see anyone walk out on him....I heard that there was one critic who said he was declining to attend, but that's it...But you know critics -- vivid imaginations...
_______________________

Rockville, Md.: Okay, some cable channels go overboard with a program. TLC became the Trading Spaces channel, TNT is the Law and Order rerun channel, etc.

So how did the History Channel become the UFO conspiracy channel?

Lisa de Moraes: That's easy: they must be trying to 'young up' their audience with UFO programming, replacing all the World War II programming...
_______________________

Herndon, Va.: I have to admit, I, an aging WASP heterosexual male, enjoyed Kathy Griffin's "Life on the D List." Will Bravo renew this, now that Ms. G has divorced and probably reached "C" status at least?

Lisa de Moraes: She got at least one Emmy nom. I'd bet it's a go for another season...
_______________________

In Defense of Shark Week:: Hey!! I've learned a lot from shark week: that Hong Kong has 7 million people; sharks have two penises; overdevelopment of tropical islands can lead to erosion which can murk the surrounding island waters thereby creating better conditions for an attack by a bull shark; the shark liver accounts for approximately 40% of it's body weight; that mercury bioaccumulates in shark tissue so you shouldn't eat it; mercury can cause infertility in men; and there's a place on earth called the "Ring of Death." It's good stuff! Keep your snark off the shark, pookie!

Lisa de Moraes: ah, but you see, I learned all that stuff in elementary school....
_______________________

Baltimore, Md.: Are you going to watch the short original podcast episodes of The Office (& maybe other shows)-- do these fall within your job description?

Thanks.

Lisa de Moraes: No idea, in re job description but I can't wait to see them all...
_______________________

Bethesda, Md.: What's the over/under bet on how long the Brad Garrett sitcom 'Til Death lasts on FOX this fall? With all the promos hyping this unfunny show I bet it's cancelled by the end of October if not sooner. Or am I not giving the American television viewing audience enough credit for being dumb enough to support such garbage?

Lisa de Moraes: This show is worth watching just to see Brad Garrett who is such a pro; he can steal a scene just raising one eyebrow. His work is particular impressive given the cast he's burdened with -- especially whatshisname who plays the neighbor guy. Gak!
_______________________

Providence, R.I.: The question about reality shows hurting "legitimate actors" got me thinking . . . . don't you think most of the contestants on reality shows want to be actors anyway, and see being on a reality show as a way to get there? I love reality shows, and every contestant on Fear Factor strikes me as someone who wants to be noticed by Hollywood.

Lisa de Moraes: Of course, the concentration of wannabe actors on these shows is very very high...
_______________________

Shark week: I also learned that it is better to go swimming with a buddy - that cuts your chances of getting attacked in half.

Lisa de Moraes: okay, learned that in kindergarten at Ocean City....
_______________________

Project Runway: Yes, did you notice how much they pushed Keith's "tricks up my sleeve" eyyvil comments snippets? As for the doctored sketches - what really is new any more so how do you tell? I think once they're on the show the process vets them fairly well for who is really talented. (I.E. why no pattern books. Or wire hangers.)

Though Angela? Rosette Queen has got to go.

Lisa de Moraes: Hey -- I love rosettes. They remind me of my grandmother..
_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Lisa: So what was the official summer drink of the 2006 summer critic's press tour? Mojitos? Black eye venti drip coffee, no cream? Watermelon daiquiris? Does the local bartender know all of your names by the end of the tour?

Lisa de Moraes: Actually I learned that I can get by on 3-4 hours sleep a night for a month so long as I increase my caffeine intake to four short- skim -180-degree- extra- hot- cappuccinos a day...and I'm very sad to report that the critics seemed to be heavy beer drinkers. There's no accounting for taste...
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Washington, D.C.: Hi Lisa

Welcome back! Friday has been a little dull without your touch of humor. There are some interesting shows previewing during station breaks lately, such as Heroes. What do you think will be the best shows to watch in the upcoming new season? Is Heroes one to watch?

Lisa de Moraes: Ugly Betty! The pilot is wonderful but those chickens at ABC have given it a deadly timeslot because, I'm told, some of their testing results were kinda funky... It is the ONLY show that had ANY buzz at Summer TV Press Tour 2006 and there was tons of buzz about that show...press tour is good for that...
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Chicago, Ill.: No cool new reality shows, I don't watch to the reruns of the serialized drama, the only thing I watch at all anymore are reruns of Earl and The Office. Is there anything decent to watch this summer?

Lisa de Moraes: Turner Classic Movies.. my fallback network.
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Washington, D.C.: In case no one's told you this yet, the high quality and sheer volume of text you produced during the new-season-conference-that-wouldn't-end was really impressive. Nice job!

--Not from your mom

Lisa de Moraes: Thanks, not-from-mom...This tour was pots of fun, for all the wrong reasons. And who knew that PBS's party was going to be the liveliest of the tour -- that never happens. Critics are all clamoring -- especially the female ones -- to bring back Vittorio for an encore Press Tour appearance...
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Castle Shannon, Pa.: Lisa, what's the inside word on the new "sixth network?" I forget what it's even called. It's the new old UPN. I would think they'd do fairly decent numbers during the summer time, but I'm not sure what kind of numbers they are looking for throughout the rest of the year.

We love you here in Pittsburgh, Pookie!

Lisa de Moraes: Hi Pittsburgh. It's called The CW network -- as in, marriage from hell of CBS and Warner Bros...CW will do better than UPN or WB if only because right off the bat they have better distribution (stations) than either UPN or WB was ever able to achieve...
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Chicago, Ill.: This has got to be one of the worst TV summers in the last five years.

Lisa de Moraes: ...and yet, probably more original programming than any other summer in the last five years...go figure.
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Best Summer Ever!: I'm so enjoying this summer season - a lot of really great programming on BBC America, Eureka on SciFi, Project Runway. Double reruns of House on Fox & USA. And Hugh's delightful turn with LiptonBot3000 on Inside the Actor's Studio.

I may not have to go outside this summer at all!

Lisa de Moraes: Yeah, and if I wasn't still on vacation and had turned my brain back on, I might have come up with this searing response to you summer-season haters...
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Olympia, Wash.: You can view the Barbara Walters/Elisabeth smackdown on YouTube.com.

Lisa de Moraes: I'll do that little thing as soon as this chat is over. thanks!
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Cooper-ed out: Your Royal Pookiness:

Can you make Anderson Cooper go away, please? Way too self-absorbed in his "I'm a journalist, look at me show how much I care" mode. He admitted last night CNN has a still photographer following him around last night as he reports from Lebanon, just so we can Anderson look pensive, Anderson look world-weary, etc. He needs to go bye-bye back to the Park Avenue penthouse, please. Thank you.

Lisa de Moraes: ah, but Anderson Cooper serves a purpose. Without Anderson Cooper we would not fully appreciate the work of, say, reporter Nic Robertson, or show anchor Brian Williams, for example. It helps to have that that point of comparison...that and he's so darned cute...
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Psych!: What do you think of this new show on USA? I find it to be very amusing. The lead actor is laugh-out-loud funny, and the show has an interesting twist from the typical crime-drama formula.

Lisa de Moraes: Okay, you must be new-ish to the chat and therefore you don't know the rules. If you are going to send in such a glutinous message you must first post a disclaimer swearing that you are not a publicist for the show or the network ....we'll let it go this time but next time -- disclaimer a must.
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Washington, D.C.: What do you think of Stephen King's "Nightmares and Dreamscapes"? I think it can be hit or miss, but the episode starring Ron Livingston and Henry Thomas was amazingly well acted. It was better than most movies I've seen in the past year.

Lisa de Moraes: I just met Ron Livingston at Summer TV Press Tour 2006. I will now watch anything that has Ron Livingston in it. Including commercials...
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Philadelphia, Pa.: What is "Ugly Betty", and might it do better if they gave a more appealing title, like "Comfortable with Her Appearance Betty"?

Lisa de Moraes: It's an adaptation of a telenovela of same name, only in Spanish, of course. And no, the name is perfect.. watch it and you will agree...
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Memphis, Tenn.: When will people with more than an average IQ be able to watch network TV again, or are those days likely gone for good?

Lisa de Moraes: Hey -- I am an extremely bright woman -- comment about not liking to have intelligent conversations notwithstanding -- and I take issue with your comment. I hope you notice that in the course of this chat I have used several polysyllabic words. I may have even spelled "polysyllabic" correctly...
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Westminster, Md.: Lisa, speaking of smackdowns--did you see D.C. Rep Elenor Holmes-Norton on the Colbert Report--that was a sight to behold!

Lisa de Moraes: Okay, you guys need to know that I have watched absolutely no television in a month. During press tour I was too busy partying and blogging, and since then I have been on TV-less vacation. Think of me as Rip Van Winkle only prettier and beardless, who has just woken up from a deep sleep.
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Anonymous: Lisa,

Is NBC ever going to burn off the remaining episodes of Joey or are they forever lost in a vault somewhere?

Lisa de Moraes: Maybe they'll put them out on DVD for the 4 people who were watching....
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Thanks a lot!: I work from home and when you mentioned TCM is your fallback channel, I switched it on. Now I'm watching the dramatic conclusion of "To Kill A Mockingbird."

Lisa de Moraes: ...see what I mean?
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Ballston, Va.: I heart Ron Livingston. What was he like when you met him?

Lisa de Moraes: dreamy...
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Austin, Tex.: What do you think about NBC's plan to release full pilot episodes of new shows through NetFlix, iTunes, and other online providers? It sounds like a great plan for a network whose new shows have me hearing buzz about people getting hooked on the shows...if they bother to watch the first episodes.

Lisa de Moraes: There comes a time in the life of a network when it's ratings are so bad that its own on-air promotion time becomes far less valuable for promoting the fall season .Then, you will see that sucking network look around for other ways to attract viewers to its new fall lineup. ABC went in for wild posting when it was in the ratings toilet. And, also during its cellar-dweller years, ABC was the first network to run promos for fall series in movie theaters before they started the feature -- I can still hear the screaming and wailing from the Reporters Who Cover film at the trade paper I worked for when I wrote that story. NBC is trying to drum up viewers when its own on-air is of diminished value because it's ratings are not good ...it's a very smart strategy....
_______________________

Queer as Folk, U.S.: Pookie, when you mentioned Vanished in your chat last week, you made a comment about Gale Harold that makes me think you don't like him. Please tell me you're not hating on the eye candy I am most looking forward to this season!

Lisa de Moraes: He's very pretty, just not well cast in the role, I'm sorry to report because I love eye candy as much as the next person....
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Baltimore, Md.: I'm a new fan of HBO's "Entourage"...having just finished the 1st season on DVD. (I don't have cable--gasp!) I know I'm late to the game, but just wondered what the general consensus is! Thanks!

Lisa de Moraes: HBO's best hope for "hit" successor to "Sex and the City" and "Sopranos." Okay, HBO's only hope at this point for "hit" successor to "Sex" and "Sopranos."
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McLean, Va.: What I find interesting about "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" (so far) is that the stories themselves are, when you get down to it, over-simplistic/derivative/just not that great, but the production of each episode is so well done that each episode as a whole is great viewing.

The acting, in particular, is especially fantastic. I totally agree about Ron Livingston's performance, and also think we've been given brilliant and enjoyable performances in this series by William H. Macy, Tom Berenger, William Hurt, and Henry Thomas, as well as a bunch of other actors who -- to be honest -- I have never seen before.

Lisa de Moraes: ..did we actually discuss Ron Livingston's performance? I must have missed that; I was too busy thinking about how dreamy he is...sorry.
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Miami Vice: I've been watching the reruns on the Sleuth Channel (which I can't believe I get). What did you think of the show...groundbreaking pop drama or overrated rubbish?

Lisa de Moraes: Pookie, you think this is an either/or question and I'm here to explain to you that "groundbreaking pop drama" and "overrated rubbish" are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they're almost always the same thing...Here at the TV Column we call it 'craptastic'...I love "Miami Vice."
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Baltimore, Md.: Someone also put the pilot of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" up on YouTube. NBC obviously wants this kind of exposure, otherwise they would have ordered it removed. I watched it (it's in five installments), and thought it was pretty entertaining, although it could be called "Studio 60 in the West Wing." Aaron Sorking and Tommy Schlamme clearly only have one way of writing and directing.

Lisa de Moraes: No, NBC made a deal with YouTube. YouTube is now deeply in bed with NBC...sigh....
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Alexandria, Va.: Speaking of the History Channel, my all-time favorite Onion headline is "History Channel Moves To All-Hitler Format."

Lisa de Moraes: ...too funny....
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Westminster, Md.: Understood, Ms Van Winkle. While on youtube watching Ms. Walters you should also seek out the Colbert/Holmes-Norton exchange. Priceless. And I vow that I do not work for Comedy Central or Youtube.

Lisa de Moraes: I know -- clearly much has been happening in my absence.. I will have a lot of catching up to do over the weekend.

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Los Angeles, Calif.: Gene Weingarten linked readers to a foreign television show where unsuspecting portable john users were suddenly exposed, including one john that turned into a jet ski type of thing. It was asked when this would be on American television, as much like "Fear Factor", this type of show began overseas first and then moved here. Someone pointed out the legal liabilities of having such a show. My question: when have legal liabilities ever stopped television programmers?

Lisa de Moraes: Actually it's not a problem. When you see people being made to look like idiots on hidden-camera shows, they have signed waivers to let the network broadcast their moment of hideous embarrassment...Do not underestimate what people are willing to do and the degree to which they are willing to be humiliated in order to have their 15 seconds of fame on national TV....
_______________________

Freezing Over, N.J.: Wait, you're saying that Kathy Griffin, that Strong Black Woman, got one Emmy nomination and acting god Hugh Laurie got none? Ice cubes are being chipped out of the River Styx as we speak!

Lisa de Moraes: ... I'm with you....smells conspiratorial to me -- another polysyllabic word, you'll notice...
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Serialized dramas....: I agree with you critics: It grates when you can't find out the ending to a serialized show because it's been pulled. Have any recently yanked shows put their big reveals online?

Lisa de Moraes: no, but several network suits promised they'd do it this season and I'm here to make sure they do....
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Washington, D.C.: I found the Rebecca Romijn show "Pepper Dennis" very sweet and funny. And it gets taken away from me after one measly season! Same thing happened with that cute Alicia Silverstone show a few years ago. I feel like I should just stop investing my time in new shows because chances are they'll just get cancelled. How do I develop a better sense of which shows are worth getting invested in?

Lisa de Moraes: that's easy, read my ratings chart. Every Wednesday. Ratings high -- keep watching. Ratings low -- bye, bye...
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New shows: Any heads up on NBC's new shows with the West Wing team or Jeffrey Tambor?

Lisa de Moraes: I like Aaron Sorkin's new series "Studio 60" which features some of the West Wing cast and, most notably, Matthew Perry. It's far from a perfect pilot but it's one of those pilots that makes you happy to cover television. Jeffrey Tambor's new show with Jon Lithgow is an exercise in competitive scenery chewing. That said, I like it. But I love scenery chewing, especially when it's done by two such talented men...

I'm out of time. Bye.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/07/28/DI2006072801269.html

fredfa

08-04-06, 11:23 PM

Cable TV Notebook
ABC Family high on 'Kyle'
Net okays second season for sci-fier
By Denise Martin Variety.com

ABC Family has given an early thumbs up to a second season of "Kyle XY."

Cabler has renewed the series, greenlighting at least 13 episodes from Touchstone Television and Benderspink. One-hour stars Matt Dallas as a mysterious teen who is naive to the world around him.

"Kyle" has overachieved for both ABC Family and ABC. Latter had initially agreed to a promotional four-episode run and later opted to run the entire 10-episode season (Daily Variety, Aug. 1). Agreement marks one of the only times a broadcaster has repurposed an entire season of a cable show; ABC signed up for a second window to USA Network's "Monk" in 2002.

Six episodes into the first season, "Kyle" ranks as ABC Family's most-watched original series among overall viewers (2.1 million), adults 18-34 (336,000) and adults 18-49 (793,000).

Meanwhile on ABC, drama has been finishing first in its time period in the key 18-49 demo. Alphabet's Friday repeats have drawn an average of 4.6 million overall viewers (1.8 million in 18-49), up 17% from the time period average a year ago. A rep for ABC Family said there has been no decision regarding continued repurposing on ABC for "Kyle's" second season.

Eric Bress and J. Mackeye Gruber wrote the original pilot and exec produce alongside Chris Bender, J.C. Spink and David Himmelfarb. Marguerite McIntyre, Bruce Thomas, April Matson and Jean-Luc Bilodeau also star.

"Kyle" is the third drama to make it to a second cycle on ABC Family. Lionsgate TV's teen drama "Wildfire" will enter season three next year, and Sony Pictures TV's mother-daughter show "Beautiful People" ran for two seasons before production shuttered.

fredfa

08-04-06, 11:26 PM

TV Notebook
Boston Legal Premiere Change

ABC announced Friday that Boston Legal will have its season premiere on September 19.

It had been scheduled to debut a week later on September 26

foxeng

08-05-06, 07:39 AM

I did a search and can't find the answer to this, but will we ever see Antiques Roadshow or This Old House in HD?

I was watching AR the other night and thought how good it would look if it was in HD.

Thanks.

The Bob Vilia and Steve Thomas days of TOH were shoot and edited on SD video tape so no, they can't be. I would also say that it is a 99% chance that ARS can't either for that same reason. I haven't heard if WGBH has started shooting in HD and if so which shows. I assume some are.

fredfa

08-05-06, 11:03 AM

TV Notebook
They Never Won an Emmy
Angela Lansbury, Andy Griffith and other big stars have never won TV's biggest prize
By Tom O'Neil, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer in “The Envelope” Awards blog

Here's a mystery even supersleuth Jessica Fletcher couldn't solve: why is one of TV's most popular stars -- Angela Lansbury -- the biggest loser in the history of TV's highest honor? Lansbury has lost as many Emmy Award nominations in primetime as Susan Lucci did in daytime (18), but has reason for hope: Lucci finally won on her 19th bid.

Historically speaking, other surprising Emmy snubbees include TV's self-proclaimed "Great One" -- Jackie Gleason -- plus such other hailed tube talent as Buddy Ebsen, Gracie Allen and Martin Landau. The list of the Emmy Unanointed is not only shocking to read -- it's long.

But Emmy's oversights aren't really so outrageous when compared to the slights made by the Oscars, Grammys and Tonys. Sure, Greta Garbo famously said that she wanted to be left alone, but Oscar voters took her seriously. Screen kings of film drama and comedy, Richard Burton and Cary Grant, went to their graves without chunks of film-academy gold, too -- Burton is tied with Peter O'Toole as Oscar's biggest loser (7 defeats).

At least Garbo, Burton, Grant and O'Toole got nominated. Not so, John Barrymore and Tallulah Bankhead, who may have been slighted because of their, ahem, social excesses around Hollywood. Barryone once crowed, "Academy members are afraid I'm going to show up at the ceremony drunk -- and they're right!"

The Supremes and the Beach Boys never won Grammys. Julie Andrews and Barbra Streisand didn't win Tonys. (Memo to Streisand fans: honorary awards don't count.) The biggest winner of Golden Globes among women, Rosalind Russell, never reaped an Oscar, while Ocar's biggest female champ, Katharine Hepburn, never won a Globe.

Oversights are one of the most fascinating -- and revealing -- things about showbiz awards. The top four kudos (Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, Tony) are all peer-group prizes, so their decisions often tattle on what industry insiders think of each other.

Desi Arnaz was never nominated for an Emmy even though his costar and wife, Lucille Ball won several and "I Love Lucy" was hailed as Best Comedy Series twice. Arnaz, frankly, wasn't considered a serious actor by the professional thespians voting in the TV academy and that was just fine by the cavalier Cuban bandleader. "It's OK," he once said. "When the Emmys have a category for best bongo player and I'm not nominated, then I'll get mad!"

But some stars do take the rejection to heart, especially if they're singled out for the snub amongst lots of costars and colleagues who win. It hasn't mattered that Martin Sheen pulls rank on "The West Wing" as commander-in-chief, he still hasn't been saluted by voters as TV's President Bartlett, only for an old guest role on "Murphy Brown" back in 1994. However, "The West Wing" has won 29 Emmys, including 4 for best drama series.

"It's so personal because everybody is pulling for you, particularly your family," Sheen told TV Guide. "You want so much to please everyone, but you can't count on it."

Sometimes it's painful! "Everybody puts on a good face[at the Emmys, but it's hard," Sheen added. However, the lead star of "Married ... with Children" didn't bother to put a good face on it even though his coworkers were continually snubbed, too. In fact, "Married" was one of the longest-running series (11 years) never to win an Emmy. It did reap a few losing nominations, but only in crafts categories for costumes and editing. However, "Married" was in good company among other notable, long-suffering snubbees including "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" (14 years with no Emmy) and "My Three Sons" (12). At least "Married" reaped a few nominations. All of the following hit series never scored a single Emmy bid: "The Adventures of Superman," "Baywatch," "The Brady Bunch," "Dennis the Menace," "Drew Carey," "Gilligan's Island," "Gomer Pyle," "Green Acres," "The Munsters" and "My Favorite Martian."

Ed O'Neill, who portrayed Al Bundy, blamed "Married … with Children's" bad Emmy luck on not being "hip enough," and voters failing to see the distinction between the repugnantly dumb Bundy clan and the shrewd pros who created one of TV's most successful comedy series. Comparing himself to other TV comedy stars who did get nominated, O'Neill once fumed, "Like those guys are funnier than me? I'm not playing myself. I'm doing a f---ing character! It's called ACTING!"

But sometimes award oversights aren't intentional -- they're just the result of plain bad luck. Like Angela Lansbury. Her tragic Emmy fate isn't mirrored at other kudos. In fact, Lansbury holds the record for winning the second-most Tony Awards (after Julie Harris, who has her beat by a score of 5 to 4). How is it possible that the Emmys have overlooked her so far? The culprits were probably the writers of "Murder, She Wrote," who were far more concerned with spinning suspenseful plots than with giving its star hefty dramatic scenes that could give her the chance to out-act Tyne Daly ("Cagney & Lacey") or Kathy Baker ("Picket Fences") when voters weighed videotapes during judging panels.

Lansbury lost12 times for "Murder, She Wrote." Among her other 6 bids, the best shot she had at striking gold was probably in 1986 for the PBS Great Performances production of Broadway's Sweeney Todd. Lansbury had earned one of her 4 Tonys for portraying the insane baker of meat pies on Old Fleet Street. Her costar, Len Cariou, won a Tony, too. At the Emmys, Lansbury and a new Sweeney, George Hearn, were forced to compete against each other when the categories for male and female actors were combined into one race for best performance in a variety or music program. Hearn, as the bloodthirsty demon barber, devoured her.

Bad luck is probably also largely to blame for the fact that Jackie Gleason never won an Emmy. He deserved the gold, and probably would have nabbed it, for starring in The Life of Riley, which featured him for 26 weeks in the 1949 TV series and in the longform version that won the Emmy for best TV film that year, but awards for best actor and actress weren't introduced until two years later. Gleason finally got his own show in 1952, but it lost the race for Best Variety Series to a far more serious program, "Omnibus," in its first season, then to "Your Show of Shows," then to "Disneyland" (which would become "The Wonderful World of Disney") in a major upset. In 1955, the Honeymooners segment of his program was spun off as its own half-hour sitcom, but it failed to be nominated for Best Comedy Series.

Gleason scored periodic bids for acting along the way, but he was trounced by Donald O'Connor, Danny Thomas and Phil Silvers. At that late point in his career, he was plagued by more than just bad Emmy karma. It's probably safe to say that the tales of his bullying behavior on the set of the TV show and, like John Barrymore and Richard Burton, wild antics after hours in saloons and nightclubs caught up to him.

The sad Emmy fate of the great TV comedian was no laughing matter -- it was all the more humiliating to him because his costar, Art Carney, won five statuettes for his work with Gleason. Carney knew well what a sore spot the irony was to his colleague. Whenever Gleason was scheduled to drop by Carney's home for a social visit, Carney hid his Emmys in a closet.

"The fact that Jackie never won an Emmy was the biggest disappointment of his career," Gleason's widow Marilyn said soon after his death. "You could never mention it to him. He'd get furious."

Curiously, Andy Griffith has suffered a similar indignity at the TV awards so far. Despite a TV career spanning more than four decades, Griffith still hasn't won an Emmy, but -- ironically -- his costar on The Andy Griffith Show, Don Knotts won five -- just like Art Carney -- for playing a goofy second banana.

Failure to submit the right sample episodes to Emmy judges is what's most often blamed for most Emmy losses. Guessing what the judges want to see isn't easy -- especially in the primetime comedy categories. Nominees must decide between two risky strategies: should they pick big comedy performances or more serious takes? Roseanne tried both approaches. She won in 1993 for a teary-eyed episode, but then lost the next year when she tried the same tactic again. Her costar John Goodman always opted for knee-slappers and got slapped by voters 7 times in the race for best comedy actor before he finally quit the race. Shelly Long won best actress for a highly comedic turn on Cheers, but lost when she submitted serious segments.

Sometimes the blame probably lies in the character portrayed by the actor. Jason Alexander was cheered by TV critics and Seinfeld fans for his shamelessly brash portrayal of the oft-dispicable George Costanza, but Emmy voters failed to embrace him seven times.

The characters portrayed by Gracie Allen and David Janssen weren't dastardly, though. Why didn't they ever win Emmys? The answer can probably due to the fact that they all lost to stars who performed more emotionally complex roles.

At least Allen and Janssen made the cut. Buddy Ebsen was never nominated even though his TV career stretched back to the early 1950s when he starred in Disneyland, the program that stopped The Jackie Gleason Show from winning best variety series. A decade and a half later Ebsen was back on the tube in the most popular show in America -- the Beverly Hillbillies -- but it didn't matter. The voters who live under California palms never appreciated the program's backwoods humor -- especially since many of them, who live in Beverly Hills, were the target.

STARS WHO NEVER WON AN EMMY

Jason Alexander
Gracie Allen
Steve Allen
William Bendix
Paddy Chayefsky
George Clooney
Tony Danza
David Duchovny
Calista Flockhart
Judy Garland
Dave Garroway
Jackie Gleason
Arthur Godfrey
John Goodman
Andy Griffith
David Janssen
Angela Lansbury
Martin Landau
Elizabeth Montgomery
Ozzie Nelson
Jack Paar
Phylicia Rashad
Cybill Shepherd
Nancy Walker
Noah Wyle
http://theenvelope.latimes.com/env-neverwonemmy-oneill,0,2181308,print.story?coll=env-home-subfeaturebar

fredfa

08-05-06, 11:16 AM

Sports On TV
Comcast says it will carry Orioles-owned MASN network
By Childs Walker Baltimore Sun reporter August 5, 2006

Comcast Cable has agreed to carry the Orioles-owned Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, ending a 16-month standoff that kept Washington Nationals games unavailable to 1.6 million cable customers in Maryland, Washington and Virginia.

MASN, which will also carry Orioles games next year, is expected to be available to those customers at the beginning of September. Over the next two years, Comcast will offer MASN to an additional 600,000 customers in areas farther from the Baltimore-Washington region. Terms of the deal, reached yesterday, were not disclosed.

"This is great news for sports fans throughout the Mid-Atlantic region," said Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos in a statement. "We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Comcast, which will allow both the Nationals and the Orioles to maximize their exposure throughout the territory. We are grateful for the support we have received from public officials from Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, whose support was critical to getting the games on television."

Angelos could not be reached last night for further comment. But he has said that MASN will be a vital source of revenue for the Orioles as they strive to compete with financial heavyweights such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The value of the network would have remained depressed as long as Comcast, the region's dominant cable provider, refused to carry it.

"It secured the future of this franchise," said Orioles counsel Alan M. Rifkin, who worked on the MASN-Comcast negotiations from the start. "It means that the franchise will be on solid financial footing now and for the future."

Rifkin said that without MASN, the future of the Orioles would have been "very bleak."

Asked when the benefits will become apparent, he said, "You're going to see it immediately."

Comcast officials said they were happy to finally bring Nationals games to the area.

"Comcast is pleased to have reached an agreement with MASN," said Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen in a statement. "We've always wanted to bring the Nationals to Comcast customers and want to thank everyone on Comcast and MASN's team who have worked to bring baseball to our D.C. area customers."

A Comcast spokeswoman referred to the statement when asked further questions about the agreement. The cable company also dropped pending legal complaints against MASN and the Orioles as part of the deal.

The Federal Communications Commission had ordered the sides to go to arbitration to reach a deal, and MASN faced a filing deadline in that process yesterday afternoon. The deadline hastened negotiations that had been stalled for more than a year, said a source with knowledge of the deal.

"If we were to go forward with the FCC complaint, then many of the issues around Comcast would be brought to the public attention, and I don't know that they really wanted that," Rifkin said.

Comcast officials had intimated they might raise subscription prices for their customers if they agreed to carry MASN. But a spokeswoman had no comment when asked about potential rate increases yesterday.

The dispute was rooted in the compensation Angelos negotiated from Major League Baseball when the Expos moved from Montreal to Washington last year. Baseball officials gave the Orioles 90 percent control of a regional cable network that would broadcast both teams' games. Angelos must pay annual rights fees to the Nationals ($20 million this year), and the Washington franchise will eventually own 33 percent of the network.

Many regarded the new cable network as the biggest plum in the package that Angelos negotiated. Similar cable deals greatly increased annual revenues and franchise values for the Yankees and Red Sox. The Yankees-owned YES Network is valued at more than $1 billion. In an interview this year, Angelos said revenues from MASN would be key to his club's chances of competing in the American League East.

"The reason the Red Sox and Yankees have had so much money to spend on player salaries is because they have team-owned regional sports networks," said David Frederick, an attorney who helped the Orioles with their FCC complaint against Comcast. "Those networks have created financial opportunities that have enabled the Red Sox and Yankees to sign great players. And the Orioles are going to be in that position now."

Comcast SportsNet sued the Orioles last year, claiming the creation of MASN violated the network's contract to broadcast the team's games. A Montgomery County Circuit judge dismissed that case, but Comcast continued refusing to carry the new network.

The cable giant said Angelos was asking an unreasonable price for a network that didn't even offer 24-hour programming. Angelos and MASN officials said Comcast was trying to squash a competitor of its own regional network, Comcast SportsNet.

As Nationals fans grew more irritated at not being able to watch their team, congressmen from the region began pressuring the sides to reach an agreement.

In April, Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, called Angelos, Cohen and others before his House Committee on Government Reform. At that hearing, a parade of elected officials urged the sides to reach a rapid agreement for the sake of Nationals fans. But neither side showed much sign of budging.

Davis and other Congress members continued to urge an agreement in the ensuing months and also asked the FCC to press for an agreement.

The FCC stepped in last month and ordered the sides to seek binding arbitration. That action was made as part of the agency's approval of the sale to Comcast and Time Warner of the assets of bankrupt Adelphia Communications Corp. As a condition of the sale, the FCC said it wanted to protect the rights of regional sports networks not affiliated with large cable providers.

MASN, meanwhile, launched its 24-hour programming schedule this week.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bal-te.sp.masn05aug05,1,3444882,print.story?coll=bal-sports-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

fredfa

08-05-06, 12:35 PM

The 2006-2007 TV Season
New fall shows are the most promising in years
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News

PASADENA - For the past three weeks, I've been on a sometimes-magical-sometimes-not mystery tour through the world of American television.

As road trips go, it wasn't perfect -- the TV landscape is too vast to be fully seen and appreciated in just a few days, for one thing. But when I finally left the Television Critics Association's summer press tour at the end of last week, I was feeling pretty good about the state of the medium and what lies ahead for viewers when the new season starts to unfold later this month.

To provide some context: Not every press tour -- one in July and a shorter one in January -- is filled with good vibrations. More often than not, I've come home from the press sessions, interviews and previews feeling as if I've spent days marching through that ``vast wasteland'' of network television described by former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow back in 1961.

But cynical facades aside, television writers are actually an optimistic lot, and if there's a reason to be upbeat about a season's new shows, we tend to cling to it the way survivors of a shipwreck clutch a life raft.

This year, though, there was no desperate search for reasons to be cheery. For once, the top network executives all seem to know what they're doing. There are a lot fewer new shows that reek of television-by-committee. Just one reality series -- Fox's "Duets'' -- made the cut for the fall.

While there is no single new network series that makes you say ``wow!'' the way "Lost'' did two seasons ago, this is the best and deepest set of freshman shows that I've seen since the fall of 1999, when a fistful of high-quality programs such as ``The West Wing'' made their debuts. Writers with longer stints on the TV beat think it's the strongest overall since the mid-1990s.

That meant the writers on the press tour spent most of their time arguing over which of the shows were the best -- not griping about the food or problems with the hotel. Trust me, that is a good sign.

Among the dramas, three newcomers have emerged as the class acts: "Friday Night Lights,'' the NBC high school football series based on the bestselling book and popular film; NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,'' Aaron Sorkin's behind-the-scenes comedy-drama about the inner workings of a TV show; and ABC's "The Nine,'' tracing the lives of people taken hostage during a bank robbery.

But right below those three is an array of other freshman shows that could emerge as populist hits, high-quality drama or both.

Two legal dramas -- Fox's dazzling "Justice'' and CBS's "Shark'' -- think "House'' set in a courtroom -- have the feel of ratings success. NBC's "Heroes,'' a sci-fi thriller, and ABC's "Men in Trees'' -- Carrie Bradshaw visits the town in "Northern Exposure'' -- were big surprises, better than anyone expected based on their premises. The CW's "Runaway,'' about a family on the run after the father is wrongly accused of murder, is promising, as is NBC's "Kidnapped,'' which has a terrific cast headed by Delroy Lindo and Timothy Hutton.

And the best of the batch in the long run may be ABC's "Ugly Betty,'' based on the wildly successful Colombian telenovela and starring the utterly charming America Ferrera as a young woman trying to make it at a fashion magazine. It may need to move from its 8 p.m. Friday time period to reach a big audience, but the potential is there.

Sure, there are some clunkers in the mix -- and that's particularly true of the comedies.

The genre had something of a rebirth last season thanks to "My Name Is Earl,'' "Everybody Hates Chris'' and "How I Met Your Mother,'' but there's nothing this season that even comes close to those fall 2005 entries. A few of the sitcoms -- ABC's "Help Me Help You,'' with Ted Danson, and Fox's "Happy Hour,'' whose pilot generated more cringes than laughs -- helped themselves with funny press conferences, but that doesn't necessarily translate to success.

And as for other series, I still have no idea how they'll develop over the long run. The pilot of Fox's "Vanished,'' for example, was highly regarded as a solid crime drama -- until the creators started talking about ``centuries-old conspiracies and mysteries.'' There's no clue in the pilot that the show is headed toward ``Da Vinci Code'' territory.

There is a one big caveat, of course.

Reaction to these new shows is based on a single pilot episode and press conferences where the creators and cast talked about where their series were going and how they'd get there. It is, shall we say, an imperfect system, as witness all the advance praise lavished on such shows as "Kevin Hill'' and "Commander in Chief,'' series that went south very quickly.

So you can expect some of these shows to sink without a trace, but that doesn't alter the impression that the fall 2006 season is one you'll want to pay attention to.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/15187428.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

08-05-06, 02:26 PM

The Digital Revolution
Battle Over Freebies
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 8/7/2006

The federal government wants to make sure a wide swath of TV viewers aren't left without reception when the plug is pulled on analog transmission in February 2009. But broadcasters are concerned the government's plan could potentially disenfranchise some viewers and delay the transition to digital.

The National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) will distribute $1.5 billion to consumers in the form of $40 coupons—up to two per household—while supplies last. Viewers can use the money to buy a digital converter for their analog sets.

But what bothers some broadcasters is that, two weeks ago, the NTIA proposed that it provide the coupons only to households that don't subscribe to cable or satellite services. That's a small handful: The National Association of Broadcasters says only 19.6 million out of 110.2 million TV households get their TV reception over-the-air; that's about 18%.

Most viewers would get the digital signal downloaded to their primary set from the set-top box provided by their cable or DBS suppliers. But, without the government's coupon, that spare TV set in a bedroom or workshop would become an unwatchable antique.

NTIA says there are 74 million analog sets out there and it can give only enough coupons to convert about 20 million sets before exhausting the fund.

But that will leave a lot of TV sets dormant, says David Donovan, president of the Association of Maximum Service Television (MSTV), who charges that the NTIA has “changed the nature of the program. We don't believe the statute was ever intended to be so limited.” The cable industry hasn't reached consensus about how to respond to the NTIA because it would like approval to convert digital signals to analog at its headend, which would eliminate the problem for the cable industry altogether.

Donovan, whose group essentially is the broadcast industry's spectrum watchdog, says the giveaway plan is to make sure that viewers don't suddenly lose TV service. “It said the boxes would be supplied to TVs not connected to cable or satellite,” he argues, “but did not differentiate between whether they were in cable or satellite households or not.”

Also, NTIA says it plans to make the coupons available on a first-come, first-served basis to viewers who certify that they are in analog-only households. Viewers will get only one coupon per set and will have to swear they actually have another analog set to get the second coupon. NTIA is trying to discourage a black market in fraudulently obtained coupons.

Actually, the agency may not be doing the heavy lifting at all. Last week, it suggested that it might outsource the program, asking for information from the private sector from companies with the experience and qualifications to administer it.

Flying into Trouble

MSTV has other concerns about the government's role in the DTV conversion.

Donovan says his organization is “very worried” about a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposal that would require broadcasters to make almost any TV-license application subject to FAA clearance. The FAA essentially wants more say-so over tower construction and potential interference to navigation from radio and TV signals. But it is flexing its muscle just as 1,600 TV stations are in the midst of making various modifications in the switch to digital.

Michael Marcus, director of consulting firm Marcus Spectrum Solutions and former FCC technology expert, says the FAA's bid to expand its authority over spectrum issues stems in part from a historical rift between the two agencies. “FAA spectrum staffers see the FCC as a handmaiden of its industries with little interest in safety,” he says.

“This is clearly an exaggeration,” he adds, “but sometimes, insensitive FCC staffers have acted in ways that reinforce this bias.”

Beyond the turf fight, Marcus is concerned about a process that gives the FAA broad and not clearly defined review power over tower construction and interference issues. MSTV plans to fight the proposal.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6359919

fredfa

08-05-06, 03:20 PM

TV Notebook
Neilsen delay

Friday’s Neilsen overnights are unavailable.

I will post them Monday morning when they are ready.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

fredfa

08-05-06, 04:32 PM

TV Notebook
New boss predicts 'GMA' can beat 'Today' in ratings
By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer TV Columnist

On the job for less than a week, new Good Morning America boss Jim Murphy has come out swinging.

Though many before him have tried and failed, Murphy boldly predicts that perennial bridesmaid GMA can beat NBC's Today, morning champion for a staggering 555 consecutive weeks.

''I think we have a very good chance, at some point,'' says Murphy, formerly executive producer of CBS Evening News. ``The people on the air here have an excellent chance of being competitive.''

It may take a while.

Since Katie Couric's last broadcast (May 31), Today has actually increased its advantage over ABC's GMA, to 20 percent from 17 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research.

With Matt Lauer and a rotating cast of brunettes, Today has averaged 5.335 million total viewers to 4.451 million for GMA, now coanchored by Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts.

In the season-to-date numbers, Today averages 5.901 million viewers to GMA's 5.029 million.

Still, compared to his last morning gig, at CBS from 1993 to '97, GMA is a ratings paradise. CBS morning shows have been in the Nielsen basement so long, they have their own zip code.

''GMA has a long tradition of success,'' says Murphy, 45, who left the network at the completion of his contract in December. ``It's a great franchise, done very well. At CBS, it's been decades and decades of rough riding.

``Some of it is bad luck, some of it is bad timing, some of it is bad business. I'm not sure if it's that easy to build a really good franchise.''

As for persistent buzz that Sawyer wants out because former co-anchor Charlie Gibson grabbed the brass ring at World News, Murphy doesn't buy it.

``Diane is totally into this show and totally into producing this show. I'm hoping she stays here for a very long time.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/television/15186530.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

08-06-06, 05:38 AM

TV Notebook
Old-Fashioned Revival
The Return of '7th Heaven' Proves Corny Is Chic
By Robert J. Thompson Special to The Washington Post Sunday, August 6, 2006; Y05

Brenda Hampton is responsible for what is arguably the sappiest, squarest show on any of the broadcast networks.

She created "7th Heaven" and for 10 years has served as executive producer of the show and a frequent episode writer. As such, Hampton is a revolutionary. By resisting the hip, embracing the sweet and defying the television formulas of the 21st century, she delivered what might be the most avant-garde series on TV today.

In a culture sodden with irony, Hampton tried taking an old-fashioned approach to the television family. Astonishingly, it worked, and "7th Heaven" became the WB's biggest hit. The show was canceled in November, but in May -- after the finale had played, the cast and crew had scattered and the producer had turned off her cellphone -- the decision was made that the show would rise again in the fall with 13 fresh episodes on the new CW network. The last of a species that once dominated Planet Television was snatched from the jaws of extinction.

Once upon a time, the TV schedule was filled with utopian visions of happy families. Parents ruled with gentle but firm authority; hijinks and drama were leavened with heaping helpings of love and understanding. The 1950s through the '70s gave us the Andersons, the Cleavers, the Nelsons, the Waltons and the Ingallses. Even into the 1980s, the Huxtables, Seavers and Keatons continued the tradition of corny but comforting clans.

The appearance of "All in the Family" in 1971 mounted an early challenge to this dominant vision, but it wasn't until the late 1980s that a toxic trio of comedies -- "Married . . . With Children," "Roseanne" and "The Simpsons" -- changed the rules of engagement.

As seasons passed, the warm and fuzzy approach to families on television was all but annihilated. What seemed so radical in the '80s and '90s became commonplace, and now the dysfunctional family is a familiar formula. Most shows about families are awash in hipness, up-to-the-minute pop culture references and a sense of knowing cynicism.

Yet family life is, after all, often sweet and sad, teary and overwrought. "Leave It to Beaver" and "My Three Sons," both wonderful shows, included trenchant -- and still-relevant -- observations about middle-class family life in the second half of the 20th century.

Hampton, who grew up with these shows, seems to know this.

"'7th Heaven' is a family show done in the same style as the shows from early on," she said. "Gadgets have changed. Fashions have changed. But families haven't changed that much."

Not many viewers want to return to the days of "Father Knows Best," but perhaps some stories about family are best told in the key of cheese.

What's so astonishing about "7th Heaven" is the shameless, almost aggressive way it resists being hip. Right from the start, the theme song lyrics defiantly declare the style of another place and time: "When I see their happy faces smiling back at me / I know there's no greater feeling than the love of family."

Sure, it's corny -- but it's appealing, especially with corn in such short supply these days. (And before viewers get the idea that Hampton is hopelessly out of touch, they should remember that she's the same person who made, in partnership with Kirstie Alley, the Showtime series "Fat Actress," a show about as hip and snotty as they come.)

While the idiom "seventh heaven" comes from an idea in Islamic tradition, "7th Heaven" follows the lives of seven Protestants -- a minister, his wife and their five children. (A set of twins born in a subsequent season brought the number of children up to the magic seven.)

The show may have the heart of a 1950s series, but its soul is much more contemporary. The 1996 pilot episode included a story about a boy who wants to get a dog, and another about a girl who wants to get her first period.

This blending of the old (a family pet) with the new (tampons) established from the first episode the tone that would characterize the series. Old-fashioned "family values" were played out in many episodes that focused on contemporary issues that could never have been broached by Ozzie or Harriet, including hate crimes, drug use, teenage pregnancy and the Holocaust.

In an era when "very special episodes" are the targets of late-night comedians and snarky bloggers, "7th Heaven" just keeps them coming. When most TV shows have retreated from the sappy "awww" moments, "7th Heaven" stacks them up like Russian nesting dolls. It's not just old school; it's militantly old school.

As it begins its 11th season Sept. 25, it's likely that "7th Heaven" will continue to break new ground by holding fast to the old.

(Robert J. Thompson is a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006080100723_pf.html

fredfa

08-06-06, 12:18 PM

The 2006-2007 Season
Nets shuffle the deck for fall
New skeds rife with change
By Michael Schneider, Josef Adalian Variety.com Sun., Aug. 6, 2006

Fall launches are always bumper-to-bumper affairs, but the upcoming TV season comes with a staggering number of changes across the board.

"It's going to be noisy," says Mike Benson, ABC's senior VP of marketing, advertising and promotion. "The thing I'm worried about right now is the confusion. There's a lot of new product out there, as well as product moving all over the place."

At the same time, the pressure's never been greater for new skeins to break out of the box right away. The opening-weekend mentality that plagues the movie biz has spread to TV, which means if auds don't get hooked on a new show within the first few episodes, odds are they'll never give it a shot.

Among the changes viewers will have to comprehend next month:

• Two networks (UPN and the WB) will sign-off, replaced by a new outlet (the CW) made up almost entirely of shows from its ancestors. Viewers who once watched "America's Next Top Model" or "Gilmore Girls" on one channel will have to hunting around the dial to find their favorites.

At the same time, Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch will launch something called MyNetwork TV, which isn't really a network but will be marketing itself as such anyway. It'll also have unconventional content: American telenovelas featuring no-name newcomers and starlets who haven't worked since the 1980s.

• Elsewhere in primetime, big tentpole dramas are on the move at ABC ("Grey's Anatomy"), CBS ("Without a Trace") and NBC ("Law & Order"). TV's second longest-running primetime show, "Monday Night Football," is moving from ABC to ESPN, while NBC is calling its Sunday football franchise the new "MNF."

"I think on top of that, there's change in a move toward more serialization of comedies and dramas, and that could be a factor this season," says Preston Beckman, exec VP strategic program planning at Fox.

• There are also big changes going on in network news. Katie Couric's taking over the "CBS Evening News," Charles Gibson has shaken up the newly named "World News" and Meredith Viera is taking over on "Today." Even daytime's getting in on the act, with Rosie O'Donnell returning to TV on "The View" and the kidvid services at CBS and Fox getting extreme makeovers.

CW marketing chief Rick Haskins admits that he's got his hands full trying to launch a new network amid other major small-screen changes.

"Welcome to my world," he laughs, conceding that this autumn "is going to be more challenging than other falls.

"It used to be a rule of thumb that the typical consumer was bombarded by about 3,000 messages a week. Now they get about 10,000 messages every single week. Your message needs to stand out more than the other 9,999 to make an impact."

That's why the networks -- with the exception of CBS -- are employing a staggered fall launch. Rather than attempt to debut all of their shows within the traditional "premiere week," most of the webs are stretching their bows from as early as August to as late as November.

"It's spreading things out so that we're not taxing our promo resources," explains Mitch Metcalf, NBC's exec VP, program planning and scheduling.

Fox has been forced to navigate a tricky fall for years due to the net's October focus on baseball playoffs and the World Series. Because staggered launches and delayed starts are nothing new there, Fox enters fall as one of the more steady nets.

"We go into the new season being less of an agent of change than anyone," Beckman says. "This is probably a good time for us to be stable."

With new shows popping up all over the place -- on new nets, in new time slots and all sorts of new digital platforms -- marketers are working overtime this year to make more waves. For CBS, that meant grabbing headlines for a campaign to print promo messages on thousands of store-bought eggs.

ABC's Benson says the Alphabet is creating a more subtle approach with viral campaigns on the 'Net and "places people wouldn't expect."

And because there will be so many changes taking place this fall, nets will also have to focus their marketing muscle on specific niches.

NBC, for example, is making the pilots for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Kidnapped" available via Netflix.com as a bid for the cinephile aud, rather than simply posting them on NBC.com.

Likewise, Haskins says he only cares about reaching potential viewers in the CW's target demo of 18-34.

"We're trying to dominate places where they live," he says.

That means targeting shopping malls rather than mainstream pubs like People or Reader's Digest.

But the most potent marketing tool nets have in their arsenals is their own air space. One webhead argues that all the billboards in the world don't have the same reach as a 30-second spot on his network.

CBS, Fox and NBC are all having decent summers ratings-wise, which means their messages are getting out to viewers. ABC, by contrast, has been dead to auds since May, which means the net may have to pump up its off-net marketing in order to hype the whopping 10 shows it'll debut before Thanksgiving.

On the other hand, the Alphabet has some of the biggest tentpoles in TV in "Grey's Anatomy," "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost." As long as auds come back to those shows, it should be fine.

Ultimately, it's up to viewers to find shows -- and net execs are optimistic they will.

"It never ceases to amaze me that viewers are able to navigate through complicated lives," Metcalf says. "They'll still find shows they want to watch and avoid shows they don't want to watch."

Haskins predicts that after a few weeks of "transition" -- read: chaos -- auds will figure things out. "Once people have found their shows, it's going to go back to the status quo."

fredfa

08-06-06, 12:26 PM

TV Notebook
No giant leap but 2 small steps (backward) for fans
ABC Family's moon mission sputters;
Gene Simmons' reality show lands in a familiar orbit.
By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic August 6, 2006

From the Simpsons to the Sopranos, television accommodates a wide range of families. Joining the prime-time neighborhood, however, isn't easy. New clans can be evicted for trying too hard or copying their predecessors too closely.

Two new entries this week stumble on both counts. Three Moons Over Milford, a comedy-drama, strives for Gilmore Girls giddiness. Gene Simmons Family Jewels, a reality show, hopes to boost another rock family to the celebrity that Ozzy Osbourne's clan attained.

Both new series strain for whimsy, and the effort dooms them.

Three Moons Over Milford, which debuts at 8 tonight on ABC Family, is an apocalyptic comedy. Laughs don't come easily in this odd setup.

A meteor has hit the moon, splitting it into three giant pieces that could tumble to Earth and wipe out life. The citizens of Milford, a microcosm of humanity, respond by either muddling through or flipping out.

Befuddled mom Laura Davis (Elizabeth McGovern) struggles to maintain her family's equilibrium. The producers say they like the idea that every family conflict becomes a life-and-death issue. But Three Moons Over Milford swamps Laura with problems unlikely to amuse parents or bolster family programming.

Laura's husband, Carl (Henry Czerny), a computer titan in the Bill Gates mold, moves out, then flees town. Their barely 16-year-old son, Alex (Sam Murphy), becomes infatuated with a career woman. Their daughter, Lydia (Teresa Celentano), incinerates the school accidentally while trying to cast a spell.

The daughter's dabbling in witchcraft stuns Laura, who exclaims, "We are Methodists!"

Three Moons Over Milford aims for screwball zaniness and misses with excruciating results. The show mires likable McGovern in painfully awkward situations.

The series hints at romance for Laura and Mack McIntyre (Rob Boltin), a sensible lawyer. What this dull world needs is love, sweet love, but waiting for it becomes interminable. It's the apocalyptic show that won't end.

"We have to live our lives the best way we can," Laura says. A no-nonsense judge is more insightful: "The world is ending, and we don't have time for chitchat."

A show about him has possibilities. Three Moons Over Milford won't send you over its fragmented moon.

Gene Simmons Family Jewels, premiering at 10 p.m. Monday on A&E, offers a supposedly inside look at the Kiss rocker's family. He says he has been "happily unmarried" for almost 23 years to Shannon Tweed, a former Playboy Playmate of the Year.

Their children, 17-year-old Nicholas and 14-year-old Sophie, are charming and natural. The show is something else, a series of situations that are contrived, pointless and silly.

In the premiere, Shannon hopes to stage an ambush wedding and land Gene. Later episodes find Gene trying to boost his son's band and slogging through a miserable stay at a spa. You want blah voyeurism? This show is for you.

Shannon comes across as level-headed and loving. Gene swaggers through the show, convinced of his sex appeal. The Osbournes covered the same turf with more pizazz and humor.

Still, the two Simmons children are jewels. They just deserve a better setting.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv/orl-haltv080606aug06,0,5727264,print.story?coll=orl-caltvtop

fredfa

08-06-06, 12:29 PM

TV Notebook
NBC plays nice on Net

By Joanne Ostrow Denver Post TV Critic

The TV networks are discovering how tricky and perhaps even pointless it is to try to tame the wild frontier of the Internet.

All of the broadcast networks are using online sites to create buzz for their fall shows. But one network learned again last week that the Net plays by its own rules.

The old media company's first instinct was to circle the wagons - NBC came down hard on YouTube early this year when that popular video- sharing site ran the "Lazy Sunday" video from "Saturday Night Live." Then, after noticing that the site draws 15 million mostly young (i.e. desirable) visitors a day, NBC decided to get in bed with YouTube.

They struck a deal that gives NBC front-page prominence on the site for promos, includes traditional ads and steers visitors to an NBC-branded page.

This week, the entire pilot for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," the NBC drama by Aaron Sorkin ("The West Wing") was posted on YouTube. Not just a clip as NBC had planned. There was the complete pilot of NBC's hope for a hit, free and commercial-free, in 10-minute chunks, on the web, submitted anonymously.

Surprised NBC executives admitted it was "both good buzz and a copyright problem."

The pilot of NBC's "Heroes" similarly made its way to science-fiction fan sites. The pilot for "Friday Night Lights" turned up on **********.

John Miller, head of marketing for NBC Universal Television Group, said, "either our security is really weak or these shows are really hot."

Technology has made the idea of "premiere week" particularly quaint.

Network executives are debating how much is good promotion and how much is a case of stolen intellectual property? (The Warner Bros. lawyers are on the case regarding "Studio 60." NBC says, diplomatically or wishfully, that the folks at YouTube "continue to be cooperative when it comes to enforcing the protection of our copyrighted material.")

NBC has other avenues for gaining advance buzz: Soon "Heroes" is slated to appear on Yahoo for a week. "Kidnapped" and "Studio 60" will be available via NetFlix. "Friday Night Lights" and "30 Rock" will be on NBC's firstlook.com later this month. And "20 Good Years" is slated for MSN.

The current "make your own 'Office' promo" contest is another instance of a network dipping a toe in the new user-generated content business. Miller is happy to report "hundreds of entries." If you thought reality TV was low-cost, wait until you see how cheap do-it-yourself content creation is.

When television was young, flogging a new show meant magazine ads, bus and subway placards and on-air promotion. Now it's a matter of viral video, stealth marketing, online leaks and digital interactivity.

"We do want sampling on these things, but it's gotten to be so large and so unprotected, if somebody gets it on YouTube, it can be spread around," said NBC's Miller.

NBC's deal with YouTube only runs through the fall series launches. Presumably there will be serious discussions to assess how it went before moving forward. Assume that, if cliffhanger episodes pop up online during the November sweeps, they weren't approved by NBC.

"We are trying to embrace the technology. This space can be a little like the Wild West," Miller said. "You can put something out there and not get it back."

In the grand scheme, the number of people accessing these shows via computer or NetFlix is still relatively small. The bulk of the TV-watching public still gathers on the couch during the second week in September to see what's new. But this is a time of experimentation for all media, and business models are being shaped by these initial efforts. As traditional networks find their way in the new digital world, the pros and cons of "interactive" stunts, contests and hijinks are being weighed.

They have to go where the buzz is. But how to avoid getting burned?

"We like the idea that (YouTube) is a viral organization. We like that they have 100 million streams a day, we like that they have 15 million unique visitors a day. We have to manage how we work with them," Miller said.

"I'd much rather be working with them than against them."

http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=4133164

fredfa

08-06-06, 04:30 PM

TV Notebook
Working both sides of the 'Strip'

By Maria Elena Fernandez Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 6, 2006

In Hollywood, there used to be a period of time called the "bubble," which described the quiet months between the making of a television pilot and the launching of it as a new series.

That bubble has burst. And no one is feeling the ramifications more than Aaron Sorkin with his new NBC series, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Set designers are still at work building a massive theater inside a soundstage for his drama about a troubled sketch comedy series set in an old vaudeville house. Production on the show began in mid-July.

And yet, six weeks before its Sept. 18 premiere, vocal segments of its not-yet-existent audience are divided: Chatter on the Web has declared alternately that "Studio 60" is the fourth-place network's savior and that Sorkin's return to TV is dead on arrival. To Internet bloggers, it is both "the biggest hit of next season" and "an underwhelming disappointment."

For Sorkin, 45, who has been away from television since he left "The West Wing" in 2002, the experience has served as an education in the new, bumpy world of promoting a show.

"It's unusual for backlash to begin before the show starts," Sorkin said, sitting in his office with his longtime producing and directing partner, Thomas Schlamme. "But I'm hoping now that the timing will work out that there will be a backlash against the backlash by the time we open."

What's with all the analysis?

"Studio 60" is not alone in such scrutiny. TV is being filtered, analyzed and debated on the Internet like never before, resulting in savvier viewers who feel fully invested in even the smallest of programming decisions. Already there are dedicated fan sites for another upcoming NBC drama, "Heroes," created by viewers who are hailing it as "the next 'Lost.'"

In an attempt to keep up, networks and studios are developing new levels of fan interaction using a variety of digital platforms.

"The Internet has created something that didn't exist five or 10 years ago, a direct dialogue with the creators or actors of a show," said "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof. "For fans, they feel they have this access and they are empowered. When we do our podcasts, and we explain what we're doing, they disagree with us and they tell us, 'Well, it's my show, too.'"

It would seem to be a network's dream to have people identify so closely with a show, to hear them debating the finer points of a pilot episode around the watercooler. But in the case of "Studio 60," the premature analysis is making an already struggling network's job even harder.

Someone leaked early drafts of the script for the show's pilot to the Web before a single scene had been shot. Casting announcements were disseminated on the Web faster than you can say "Get me Matthew Perry." Things spun further out of the network's control when NBC decided to parade the cast to advertisers at a development session in March, then showed a six-minute trailer to advertisers and reporters at the television preview conferences in May. Those clips hit the blogosphere in nanoseconds, as did a rough cut of the pilot. Reviews popped up immediately.

Even in the age of the Internet, the focus on "Studio 60" seems unusually sharp, undoubtedly because of the involvement of Sorkin, its award-winning creator. "Studio 60" would be just one of dozens of television series launching in the fall if it weren't for the writer whose past is as colorful as the words he puts on paper.

A playwright and screenwriter ("A Few Good Men" and "The American President"), Sorkin, a recovering cocaine addict, has stayed away from television since he left "The West Wing" under a cloud of NBC complaints that he was delaying production by routinely turning in scripts late. So intense interest from the media, especially from television critics, was to be expected.

Still, he could not have envisioned that the script he wrote would generate this kind of fury from so many pajama-clad bloggers months before viewers get to even see his new show, which stars Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet and Steven Weber.

"I try not to look at it," Sorkin said, and then half-joked: "It scares me."

But, like it or not, this modern court of public opinion isn't going anywhere. As NBC president of entertainment Kevin Reilly warns, "We've only just begun on that front."

The early feedback was a virtual lovefest. One 35-year-old blogger at craigbe.com wrote after reading a draft of the script that "It's like 'Entourage' meets 'Larry Sanders' meets 'The West Wing' all wrapped up in 'Sports Night.' Good God, this is going to be amazing."

Clunky, not catchy

Then came the clip presentation for advertisers and a self-deprecating skit that Sorkin wrote for the actors designed to mock their own heady buzz, and the rumbling began.

The characters seemed as smart and as fast-talking as Sorkin usually draws his players, and Schlamme's 360-degree camera work, with its famous "walking-and-talking" sequences, were on hand, too. But advertisers and reporters didn't know what to make of the trailers: The clips were clunky, not catchy. There was Perry falling out of a chair, a stuffy-seeming rage against reality television and insider-y executive power talks. Was it a comedy or a drama? Bloggers jumped into the fray: "Every second of 'Studio 60' sounds like Sorkin and looks like Schlamme, and thus it's all familiar and reassuring and intelligent and nowhere near as smart-seeming as it was back when 'The West Wing' premiered," wrote Dan Fienberg of Los Angeles on his blog, fienprint.blogspot.com.

Reilly spent a lot of time at the NBC party after the trailer presentation - and in the weeks following - pleading with ad buyers and the media to wait until they saw the entire pilot. For his part, Sorkin is learning what a few in the industry already know about Internet fans: They may bark loudly, but there's not that many of them. Yet.

"One of the dangers of the Internet is any sort of work getting out prematurely or any sort of early judgment before anything is ready to be hatched," Reilly said. "When you have perfectionists like Aaron and Tommy, they want you to see their finished product."

Sorkin seems to be a quick study: "We can't let this affect us because if it does it will only affect it badly. So you have to believe in what you start out doing, believe in what you've got and keep going forward."

The characters of Matthew Albie (Perry) and Danny Tripp (Whitford) are best friends and partners, much like Sorkin and Schlamme, who, in addition to "The West Wing," previously collaborated on "Sports Night." Matthew is the offbeat genius writer, and Danny is the brilliant director-producer, but it's Danny's - not Matthew's - misstep that finds them running a 20-year-old sketch show that is lagging in the ratings.

Reilly wasn't dying to launch a series about show business when others set in the industry were failing or succeeding only marginally, but the Sorkin-Schlamme pedigree tempted him. When he read the script, Reilly said, he thought "Studio 60" would be a talent magnet that could help him revive NBC's fortunes.

And so, the bidding began. NBC and CBS both offered big bucks and promised huge promotional launches. The producers chose NBC because "it felt a little like home, and we felt it's still the place you'd expect to find a show like this," Sorkin said. The show's budget is big: NBC is reportedly spending between $2 million and $3 million on each episode.

While the pilot clearly takes aim at television's current lowbrow factor, Sorkin promises he is not raging against the medium that pays his bills. The characters of Matthew and Danny are all driven by the legacy they have inherited, the "medium of Sid Caesar and Jackie Gleason, Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, and it's ours now, and it matters what we do with it," Sorkin said.

The same could be said for Sorkin and Schlamme, who, as they begin toiling on their third series together, are surely mindful of the fact that none of those luminaries had to contend with the Internet.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-fftv4838395aug06,0,1478855,print.story?coll=ny-television-headlines

fredfa

08-07-06, 02:13 AM

Sports On TV
Vermeil plans spot duty as NFL Network analyst
By Michael Hiestand USA Today

Dick Vermeil is coming out of retirement again.

He retired three times from NFL coaching — from the Philadelphia Eagles, St. Louis Rams and, after last season, the Kansas City Chiefs. But Vermeil, who was an ABC college football analyst for 14 seasons after his first NFL retirement, isn't retired from TV: The NFL Network will announce today that it will use Vermeil as a game analyst.

This season the NFL's cable channel will air its first NFL regular-season games in a package of eight late-season prime-time games on Thursdays and Saturdays. Bryant Gumbel, who has never called an NFL game, will handle play-by-play with analyst Cris Collinsworth, who also is an analyst on NBC and HBO. But Vermeil will sub for Collinsworth, who has scheduling conflicts with NBC's Sunday night coverage for the Dallas Cowboys-Atlanta Falcons game Dec. 16 and the Kansas City Chiefs-Oakland Raiders matchup Dec. 23.

As the NFL Network tries to break into college coverage, Vermeil will be on its telecasts of the Insight Bowl on Dec. 29 and the Senior Bowl on Jan. 27.

Vermeil also would seem a logical candidate to pinch-hit for Fox, which doesn't carry college games but will need an instant on-air lineup for the Bowl Championship Series games it inherits from ABC this season. Vermeil, asked about Fox's BCS, is non-committal: "I'd hate to speculate. I just don't know."

Vermeil says he wasn't looking to "get into anything on a full-time basis" this fall. He doesn't worry that calling games on the league's channel will put any crimp in his candor. "It's no different from working on ABC, where you expect to represent ABC with total class," he says.

And he's confident he'll have something to say: "I'd like to believe I'll approach this with more depth and meaning because (football) is all I've done. ... Sometimes, people on-air who criticize the most know the least. Nobody holds you responsible for what you say on TV as being wrong."

Unlike coaches, who are second-guessed constantly. And when asked whether he'd coach again in the NFL, Vermeil isn't exactly definitive: "Who would want to hire a 70-year-old football coach? Although I do feel like I'm 50."

Spice rack:

The Allstate 400 at the Brickyard NASCAR race included a fun, live tit-for-tat between drivers in NBC's prerace show. Tony Stewart, while talking about who was at fault in a wreck he had two weeks ago that involved Carl Edwards, called Edwards "the Eddie Haskell of NASCAR." Edwards, responding, sounded more direct than Eddie Haskell: "Tony is just a moron." ...

After welterweight Vernon Forrest won a very questionable decision Saturday night against Ike Quartey on HBO, he went on-air with HBO's Larry Merchant to thank God, family and friends. Merchant noted an oversight: "You should thank the judges, too."

Winning one-liners:

Travis Pastrana, on ESPN's X Games, performed the first-ever double back flip in the Moto X motorcycle jumping Best Trick event. Blake Williams, also in the event, described it as "pretty much the stupidest I've ever seen." Pastrana's mother, Debby, said her son "thanked me for all my support over the years" before the jump — "and that's when I got really worried." ... NBC NASCAR analyst Benny Parsons sounded lively Sunday on his first race coverage since starting chemotherapy and daily radiation treatments for lung cancer. Said Parsons on-air, "I'm feeling fine, folks." And he sounded fine.

On tap:

Major League Soccer has a new deal with ESPN in which the cable network will pay a rights fee rather than MLS having to buy time on ESPN for its games to be shown. In return, ESPN will keep money from ad sales and get expanded rights, including having its weekly Thursday night games on ESPN2 being the only MLS games being played in the time slot. ESPN executive vice president John Skipper noted that MLS, despite being ratings-challenged, has long seemed promising: "I'm the latest knucklehead that thinks soccer is going to work in the U.S." ... ABC/ESPN will use Joe Morgan to replace recently fired analyst Harold Reynolds on ABC's final-weekend coverage of the Little League World Series. But with Reynolds having been scheduled for many of the 27 LLWS games on ESPN or ESPN2, there will need to be another sub. A likely candidate: ESPN baseball analyst Eric Karros.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2006-08-06-weekend_x.htm

PaulGo

08-07-06, 09:49 AM

Picture Tubes Are Fading Into the Past
By ERIC A. TAUB

The bulky, squarish, heavy picture tube, the standard television technology for more than 60 years, is heading for the dustbin of history much faster than anyone expected.

This year, the number of TV models in the United States that use glass cathode-ray tubes to produce an image has been reduced sharply. By next year, even fewer C.R.T. televisions will be made, and fewer retailers will sell them.

“After the holidays, the days of picture-tube TV’s are gone,” said Geoff Shavey, the TV buyer for Costco. “One year from now, we will not sell picture-tube TV’s.”

Costco, a discount warehouse chain, , has already cut its picture-tube offerings to three models this year, from 10 in 2005.

Instead, Costco and other retailers are selling growing numbers of wide-screen plasma and liquid-crystal display flat-panel TV’s, which are more expensive than traditional TV’s. But prices for both types continue to drop: 42-inch plasma TV’s can be bought for less than $2,000, and the smallest flat-panel sets will soon be fairly close in price to their tube counterparts.

Mr. Shavey said that a 32-inch wide-screen L.C.D. television was available for $700 at his stores, within striking distance of a tube set of similar size. But he added, “The demand for picture-tube TV’s is far off from what it was one year ago.”

One reason is that flat-panel TV’s make a strong design statement, prompting women to want to swap their old sets for sleeker ones, said Mike Vitelli, a senior vice president at Best Buy.

“For the first time in history, women care about the TV that comes in the house,” Mr. Vitelli said. “Men are not just getting permission to buy a flat-screen TV — they’re getting directed to do so.” Soon, he said, Best Buy will sell picture-tube TV’s only under its Insignia house label.

Consumer electronics companies also want out of the tube TV business, in part because profit margins have become so thin. The government has mandated that all TV’s eventually include a built-in digital tuner to receive over-the-air digital broadcasts, and while even picture-tube sets are being made compliant, manufacturers would rather switch to selling thin-panel TV’s, which can generate bigger profits.

“The end of picture-tube TV’s is accelerating faster than a lot of us expected,” said Randy Waynick, a senior vice president for Sony Electronics. The company, which offered 10 tube models two years ago, will pare that number to two next year, both of them wide screens. “Picture-tube TV sales reductions were far greater than forecast,” Mr. Waynick said.

Even if the profit margins were healthy, picture-tube TV’s would be ill-suited for a market that wants ever-larger screens. Picture-tube TV’s were once made as large as 40 inches corner to corner, but the units were the size of baby elephants, sometimes weighing hundreds of pounds and protruding several feet from the wall.

Panasonic is getting out of the picture-tube business altogether. A year ago, the company offered 30 picture-tube models in the United States; now it sells one, a 20-inch analog set. “This year will be the last year for Panasonic picture-tube TV’s,” said Andrew Nelkin, a Panasonic vice president.

Toshiba has cut its picture-tube models to 13 — from 35 last year — and expects the number in 2007 to be “significantly reduced,” said Scott Ramirez, a vice president of marketing. “Beyond 2007, the picture-tube business is very questionable for any company,” he said.

Picture-tube TV’s represented 78 percent of the market in 2004 but will account for only 54 percent this year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, a trade group. In the same period, sales of flat-panel units have jumped from 12 percent of all TV’s sold to an expected 37 percent this year. Front- and rear-projection TV’s will account for about 9 percent of sales in 2006, according to the group.

“C.R.T. as a technology is fading out of the market,” said Sean Wargo, director of industry analysis for the association.

The ascendance of flat-panel TV’s signals another sea change for the TV industry: the switch from somewhat square screens to wide rectangular ones. The vast majority of flat-panel TV’s are built in a wide-screen shape that allows movies to fill all or most of the screen. More television series are being produced for this format, and consumers are growing more accustomed to viewing programs this way, electronics executives say. “A wide screen gives a much more impressive picture,” Mr. Shavey said.

New technologies seldom replace their predecessors entirely, and picture-tube TV’s will still be available for those who prefer them. But they will increasingly be available only in discount stores, where they will be sold under house brand names and by less prominent manufacturers like Funai, which owns the Symphonic, Sylvania and Emerson brands.

“We think there is a continual business for us in C.R.T. TV’s,” said Greg Bosler, executive vice president of the TTE Corporation, which owns the RCA brand. Mr. Bosler, who counts Wal-Mart as a key customer for its TV’s, noted that a 27-inch L.C.D. TV was still priced around $800, while an RCA digital picture-tube set of the same size could be bought for $350; an analog version was $240.

Even so, the company expects to double its flat-panel offerings next year. It will reduce its tube models to about 15 in 2007, from 26 this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/technology/07tube.html?_r=1&ref=worldbusiness&oref=slogin

PaulGo

08-07-06, 10:01 AM

Law opens the door to Verizon, statewide franchises
Sunday, August 6, 2006

By SCOTT FALLON
STAFF WRITER

The four robotic cameras that bring Wayne residents every angle of a council, school board, planning and zoning meeting came courtesy of Cablevision.

So, too, did the PowerPoint projector, digital recording system and new graphics package, under an agreement that took years for the township and the cable giant to finally reach in 2001.

In cable industry lexicon, such gadgets are called "goodies" -- the bargaining chips cable companies have dangled for decades when they negotiate with a town to deliver programming.

But the days of communities receiving such goodies and having a direct say in how cable companies serve them may soon be over.

A controversial bill, signed into law Friday by Governor Corzine, will give consumers a choice of cable companies, but also will take a bite out of home rule by doing away with town-by-town negotiations.

The law will give Verizon access to the state's fertile cable market and its more than 2.5 million subscribers, ending the domination of a single cable company in most towns.

It also will permit the companies to establish statewide franchises, thus bypassing the lengthy negotiation process with towns.

Major companies, such as Cablevision and Comcast, are expected to seek those franchises, though neither would comment on it. If they do, then the municipal agreements can be voided.

The law has drawn applause for allowing competition, with the hope that rates will go down and programming quality and quantity will rise.

But many town officials are concerned that oversight will become more lax without local control, that customers will be paying more in franchise fees and that public-access channels will be all but forgotten by cable companies.

"Public access has made residents much more informed about what happens in local government," said Tim Collins, station manager for Wayne's public-access system. "These are things that cost cable companies to provide. What will happen to it now?"

The changes

The law calls for "equipment and training ... without charge," but several town officials say the wording is too vague and would be difficult for the state government to enforce. It also calls for cable companies to provide some services that many towns already have:

# Two public-access channels per town for government and school coverage. Additional channels can be added if a town demonstrates a need.

# One line of free basic cable service and Internet to all public schools, libraries, fire stations and municipal buildings.

# The ability for towns to cablecast live events.

The change most noticeable to customers may be the increase in franchise fees from 2 percent to 4 percent, which Verizon officials say will help fund local stations. The bulk of the franchise fee still will go to a customer's town.

"It may mean buying video equipment for the high school or flowers to spruce up downtown," said Rich Young, a Verizon spokesman. "They can use it for whatever they want."

If the Board of Public Utilities approves statewide franchising, Verizon could be hooking up consumers as early as November, Young said.

Bergen County will be the first county in the state to be completely wired, Young said.

Verizon said it will offer its FiOS TV -- a package of 190 channels -- for $40 a month. By comparison, Cablevision sells 99 channels for $47 a month. Subscribers will still pay extra for premium channels such as HBO and Movies on Demand.

With the bill pending, Verizon had begun negotiating with 92 towns in New Jersey for new contracts, but those talks are expected to break off now that Corzine has signed the legislation.

"While it looks optimistic, who knows what will happen between now and November," Young said. "Right now, the rules are we have to go town to town."

The BPU deals with complaints against cable companies. But under the current system, towns can put a great deal of pressure on the companies to address any problems, especially when the two sides are negotiating. That leverage will be all but gone now that the bill has become law.

For instance, Montvale officials are concerned whether Verizon will service about 20 percent of residents whose cable wiring is underground with the same attentiveness as the rest of the town.

Verizon has to run a new cable for television along its telephone poles before it can offer service. Montvale officials fear the more cumbersome task of laying it underground will delay getting service to those homes. Verizon said it will offer service everywhere in a municipality it serves.

Montvale Councilman Richard Voorhees, who has negotiated two agreements with Cablevision, said Montvale would have a lot more leverage to get underground wiring if it were at the negotiating table with Verizon.

"With the state, Verizon wouldn't have a sufficient incentive to move with haste to hook everybody up," he said.

The issue did not escape Corzine who also issued an executive order on Friday directing Public Advocate Ron Chen to make sure that all residents receive equal service.

If a cable company chooses not to serve apartment buildings or other multifamily homes, it must promptly provide written notice to Chen and the Board of Public Utilities, under the executive order.

Loss of local control

That's a concern shared by The New Jersey Cable & Telecommunications Association, which represents five cable companies, including Cablevision and Time Warner, that had vigorously fought the bill.

"The municipality can't enforce it," said Marc Nevins, a spokesman. "The state can't be as vigilant. They are not at the grass-roots level.

"Local officials and local cable committees are effectively excluded from this entire process. They are rendered useless by statewide franchising."

Verizon said it is required under the law to offer service wherever cable is currently offered.

"It's not in our interest to delay building this network," Young said. "You don't get there by ignoring certain areas. We are accustomed to going to areas that are tough to build, and we will."

In the past, agreements varied, mostly because differences in the size of the towns' subscriber bases.

Wayne was able to get about $120,000 in equipment from Cablevision in 2001, largely because it has one of the company's largest subscriber bases in North Jersey, between 17,000 and 20,000.

Saddle Brook, which has less than a quarter of the residents Wayne has, received $12,000 two years ago to upgrade its audio and video qualities.

"What makes local franchising so important is that each community runs their access stations differently," said Bob Duthaler, president of Jersey Access Group, which represents 65 stations in the state and opposes statewide franchising.

Duthaler manages Saddle Brook's station with the help of six regular volunteers. They cover parades, provide play-by-play for high school sports and are there for every municipal meeting.

"Lots of communities have the ability to cover parades live or high school sports live, but will they still be able to do that in the future?" he said. "Right now, it's the fear of the unknown."

Cable TV in New Jersey

What exists now:

# Four cable companies provide service in North Jersey -- Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner and US Cable of Paramus-Hillsdale. Paramus and Hillsdale are the only towns in New Jersey that have a choice of cable companies.

# Cable companies negotiate with towns every 10 years to renew service. The two sides usually strike deals involving public community channels, video equipment and service, but not rates.

# The state Board of Public Utilities regulates basic cable rates. Costs for other program packages are unregulated.

What will happen:

# The law paves the way for competition by allowing any cable company to apply for a statewide franchise. The companies will be able to bypass the often lengthy negotiation with municipalities.

# Municipal agreements will be voided if a company is granted a statewide franchise.

# It is unlikely that established companies, such as Cablevision and Comcast, will expand because of the enormous costs to build a network.

# Verizon will be able to reach more potential customers in New Jersey than cable companies because it has a phone network in place statewide. Verizon has announced plans to build its FiOS cable service in 147 towns, 66 of which are in North Jersey. The company anticipates it will be ready to sell the service in as many as 200 towns in the state by year's end.

The cable guys

Largest cable providers in New Jersey:

Comcast: 1.3 million

Cablevision: 963,576

Patriot Media: 80,004

Time Warner: 55,693

Service Electric: 47,026

US Cable: 4,559

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyOSZmZ2JlbDdmN3ZxZW VFRXl5Njk3MjIwMSZ5cmlyeTdmNzE3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTI=

fredfa

08-07-06, 11:17 AM

Good stuff, Paul.
I think the key sentence comes in the third paragraph of the Paul Taub story, where Costco says a year from now it will not be selling picture tube TVs.

fredfa

08-07-06, 11:44 AM

TV Notebook
He's not sitting idle
“American Idol” is big, but Simon Fuller's plans are bigger.
By Greg Braxton Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 7, 2006

The Mogul Who Swallowed Pop Culture is perched in his office high above bustling Sunset Boulevard, scheming. His groundbreaking project is the behemoth that has come to rule not only television, but also much of the entertainment landscape.

But if you thought Simon Fuller, the British creator of "American Idol," would be sitting back by now celebrating his success, think again.

"I'm hungry," he says, and he's not talking about his next meal.

Next item on his agenda: taking the unscripted talent show to, yes, even higher heights, this time with a songwriting competition that will be incorporated into the show and produce a song that will be sung by the next "American Idol."

After that, he plans to revolutionize the entertainment arena further through his production company, 19 Entertainment, and other partnerships. He wants to start using unique strategies that, in his view, will change the way talent is developed and exposed.

Even by the lofty standards of the unassuming, soft-spoken Fuller, 46, who first came to prominence as the marketing and creative force behind the Spice Girls, it has been a heady year for him and his production company.

Fox's "American Idol," already a cultural phenomenon, has seen its domino effect begin to be felt in theater ("American Idol" alumni are now regularly appearing on Broadway), summer concerts (the 2006 "American Idols Live" tour is the most successful edition in the show's history) and even politics (the "Idols" were invited last week to the White House to meet President Bush). The series finale scored a record 36.3 million viewers, and the show received eight Emmy nominations, the most for any unscripted series. Former "Idols" such as Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood have been transformed into bona-fide hit-makers. And Lifetime will soon air a movie based on "Idol" winner and single mom Fantasia Barrino.

Auditions for the sixth season start Tuesday — this year, there's one at the Rose Bowl — and predictions are for yet another massive crowd of wannabes.

Then there's "So You Think You Can Dance," which Fuller co-created with 19 executive Nigel Lythgoe. It is the top-rated summer show among the coveted 18-to-49 demographic, and Fox renewed the series for a third season weeks before the season finale, which airs Aug. 16. Tickets for a national tour of the top dancers from the show go on sale Saturday.

Nothing has dulled his infectious optimism — not the plethora of "Idol" knockoffs (many of them, like ABC's "The One," almost instant failures), not the good-natured competition with friend and "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell's summer hit, "America's Got Talent," not even the failure by Clarkson to include Fuller in her Grammy thank-yous.

Creative offshoots

Fuller is now looking toward the future, his days consumed by an arsenal of projects including TV, films and music. He is no longer knocking on studio and network doors — those executives are now knocking on his door. Among his plans is a fashion channel. He has project deals with HBO and NBC. And, in partnership with CKX Investors, he has embarked on new creative endeavors.

"We want to define a new approach to entertainment," Fuller said last month, sounding more like a neophyte bursting with ideas than a multimillionaire who counts singer Annie Lennox and soccer icon David Beckham among his clients and is on Bono's call list.

He says he wants to develop blossoming artists who might meet obstacles financially, stylistically or otherwise in trying to break through mainstream standards. Just as "Idol" does with novice singers, the goal is to empower all kinds of performers and "push the boundaries."

"What drives me is moving forward. That is what my brain is focused on," he said. "What really excites me is fulfilling my vision. I now have the resources to do everything I want to do."

But first things first. He's ecstatic over a new "American Idol" twist that not only will add an intriguing element to the series competition, but also help solve a problem that has plagued the competition since its 2002 debut.

In previous years, professional producers and songwriters have been commissioned to write an original song for each of the two finalists. But uncertainty over who those finalists would be, as well as their respective singing styles, has meant less-than-perfect matches.

"It's a thankless task," Fuller said.

But Fuller has devised a way to jump over that hurdle this season by having producers institute a songwriting contest that will run parallel to the singing competition. Anyone can compete to write a tune that will be sung by the two finalists, broadening the choices for possible finale songs and, by the way, bringing in a whole new competition for fans to follow. Some of the top songs may also be performed in a Fox special by former "Idols" and finalists.

The strategy fits in with Fuller's knack of taking deceptively simple ideas and turning them into valuable properties. "It's the simplicity that makes it powerful," he said.

As he talked, Fuller displayed none of the weariness that might be expected from someone who has just endured a punishing weekend jaunt. He had arrived in New York after a flight from London and gone straight to an "Idols Live" concert. The following day he flew to Boston to watch last year's "Idol" champ, Underwood, perform in concert with Kenny Chesney. He traveled the next day to Los Angeles for the taping of "So You Think You Can Dance."

The talk of TV titans

During his travels, TV critics from around the country had their annual gathering in Pasadena to discuss the new fall TV season, and talk of "American Idol" popped up regularly as network and studio heads acknowledged its undeniable effect on prime time. Controversies that would have put a cloud over most TV shows (alleged feuds, rumors surrounding judge Paula Abdul, legal skirmishes between Fuller and Cowell) only fueled the "American Idol" fire.

Fuller admitted that even he is blown away by the show's momentum: "It's all the things you hope — but dare not wish — for," he said.

He also is less than pleased with the "Idol" clones. "This year it's just become a joke," he said, referring to ABC's "The One" and similar shows. "It started being flattering. Now it's annoying." He adds with a wry smile: "No one comes close to us."

He perked up even more when explaining what sets "American Idol" apart from its imitators: "It's a combination of several different elements. But it all really comes down to the voting. When the viewer votes, it matters. Someone who is just ordinary one day can become the next superstar. Just look at what Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken did, what Carrie is doing. It's that empowering of America."

'The tidal wave'

Mike Darnell, executive vice president of alternative programming and specials for Fox, called Fuller "a genius" for coming up with a show that other networks call "the tsunami, the tidal wave. It just can't be stopped."

And Fuller is jubilant over the commercial prowess of Clarkson, the first "Idol" — despite a mini-controversy involving the singer, whose "Breakaway" album is still producing hit singles after selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. When Clarkson won two Grammys in February for female pop vocal performance and pop vocal album, she thanked nearly everyone she had ever come in contact with — with the notable exception of Fuller and "American Idol," sparking suspicion that she was trying to distance herself from the series. She also hired new managers.

But Fuller said he never felt slighted by Clarkson. "That was her huge moment. I didn't even notice that she didn't mention me — other people did. She wants to be recognized for her talents. And her win proved to me that America recognized her as a fantastic talent."

And though Clarkson is no longer managed by Fuller, she is still under contract to 19 Entertainment, which was involved heavily with "Breakaway." He still applauds her for seeking management "that she is happy with."

Besides, Fuller has too many other projects to keep focusing on the "Idol" past.

"There's not an hour of the day when I'm not thinking of things that I want to do," he said. "And everything seems possible now."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-simon7aug07,0,5445134,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

fredfa

08-07-06, 11:53 AM

TV Notebook
Cable Late-Night Growth Outpacing Prime
Competition From Other Platforms Creates Opportunity for Daypart

By James Hibberd TVWeek.com

Powered by popular programming such as Adult Swim and Nick at Nite fare, late-night on basic cable is not only growing but has outpaced prime time during the past five years.

The growth is apparent in both ratings and households using television, and is higher than late-night growth among the broadcast networks.

The increase proves that despite competition from the Internet, movies and video games, television use is still growing, and that late-night in particular is a market for expanding viewership.

"To have a long-term gain like this of any period is remarkable," said Tim Brooks, a television historian and Lifetime's senior VP of research. "Prime time gaining at all is remarkable given all the competition, and late night is taking off. A parallel thing happened to early morning levels back in the 1970s."

Several cable networks now are beginning to turn more attention to programming late-night to take advantage of the daypart's potential.

Among households using television, prime time for broadcast and cable has grown 2 percent in five years compared with 8 percent for late night.

The increase in average ratings is even higher. Late-night basic cable programs are up 33 percent since 2001, compared with a 6 percent decrease for broadcast networks (for prime, cable has also grown at broadcast's expense—cable is up 20 percent, broadcast down 15). "Prime time is an artifact that goes back to the earliest days of broadcast television that's increasingly irrelevant," Mr. Brooks said.

In the 1950s and '60s, networks didn't air commercials after midnight. In the 1970s, broadcast late-night became the domain of talk shows, with dramas and comedies running between 8 and 11 p.m., when networks charged prime-time advertising rates.

Then in 1985, MTV Networks saw an opportunity to counterprogram the talk-show glut. It launched the Nick at Nite programming block, consisting of reruns of classic TV shows, setting off a starter pistol for a race to program the daypart that continues today.

Just last month, Sci Fi Channel announced its first original late-night block. Sci Fi Channel President Bonnie Hammer said the expansion is a logical next step for networks that have reached a certain level of maturity and want to expand their schedule with inexpensive programming.

"We're at this point where we no longer have to put all our production dollars into prime time," she said. "Also, we can produce late night less expensively than prime."

Mr. Brooks, whose network launched its first original scripted comedy series, "Lovespring International," in late-night, said cable network advertising rates are another factor.

"It's a really rich daypart for advertising dollars," he said. "Virtually all cable networks charge prime time rates—not for 8 to 11, but for 6 to 12 or even 5 to 12. So if you can get the same premium dollars for a program that runs at 11 p.m. as you can for one in traditional prime and can get a better rating because the competition is less, why wouldn't you premiere it in late-night?"

Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer for Turner, said the trend is part of an overall dissolution of the traditional clustering of prime-time viewing.

"The differences in dayparts are getting smaller, the differences in seasons are getting smaller and people are watching TV everywhere," he said. "It's not that people are moving from prime to late-night. They're watching as much prime time as they can, and now watching more outside of prime as well."

Though broadcasters have lost ratings and HUT levels from the daypart compared with cable, talk shows continue to dominate their late-night schedule. In 1991 and 1992, CBS launched an experimental late-night block called Crimetime After Primetime, offering such shows as "Silk Stalkings" and "Forever Knight." The network dropped the block in 1993, when David Letterman brought "The Late Show" over from NBC.

"For whatever reasons, the broadcasters are not exploiting this period," Mr. Brooks said.

Catherine Lord, senior manager ratings publicity for Disney-ABC Television Group, said she doesn't think broadcasters are missing an opportunity.

"A lot of the growth has to do with the fact late-night is just now being programmed," she said. "I would love to see what a drama would do at that time of night on broadcast, but I don't think they'd do well. I don't think [broadcasters] are missing anything; they just have a different focus."

http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=30364

fredfa

08-07-06, 12:21 PM

The weekend 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.

fredfa

08-07-06, 12:24 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Solid kickoff for 'Sunday Night Football'
First NBC preseason game averages 9.97 million
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Aug 7, 2006

The NFL returned to NBC for the first time in eight years last night, and while it’s not wise to make long-ranging predictions based on a preseason game between two mediocre teams, the ratings looked somewhat promising.

The preseason Hall of Fame game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland Raiders on “Sunday Night Football” averaged 9.97 million viewers from 8 to 11 p.m., according to Nielsen fast national numbers. That was up 14 percent over the 8.73 million who tuned in for the comparable “Monday Night Football” game on ABC last year.

Fast nationals measure timeslot data and not actual program data; the game lasted past 11 p.m. More accurate numbers will be released early tomorrow, but early measures look as though the game was up slightly among adults 18-49 as well.

“SNF” averaged a 3.3 rating among adults 18-49, up 9 percent over last year’s 3.6 for the “MNF” opener.

“SNF” looks pretty similar to “MNF,” with John Madden and Al Michaels continuing to call the games. Beyond curiosity over what the NBC telecast would look like, the game may also have benefited from light competition. There was only one other original show, CBS’s “Big Brother,” that aired on broadcast over the three-hour period.

“SNF” will face steeper competition this fall, including ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” and CBS’s “Without a Trace.”

“SNF” boosted NBC to No. 1 for the night with a 3.4 rating and 10 share among 18-49s, followed by CBS at 2.2/7, ABC and Fox each at 2.0/6, Univision at 1.1/3 and the WB at 0.4/1.

At 7 p.m., NBC was No. 1 at a 2.6 for "Dateline," ahead of CBS's 1.7 for "60 Minutes," ABC's 1.6 for an "America's Funniest Home Videos" repeat, Fox's 1.3 for "Malcolm in the Middle" and "King of the Hill" repeats, Univision's 0.8 for "Hora Pico," and WB's 0.3 for a "Just Legal" repeat.

At 8 p.m., NBC led at 4.0 for the start of the "SNF" exhibition game, followed by a 2.4 each for CBS's "Big Brother 7: All-Stars" and Fox's "The Simpsons" and "American Dad" repeats. ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" repeat followed at 2.0, ahead of Univision's "Cantando por un Sueño" at 0.9 and WB's "Charmed" repeat at 0.5.

At 9 p.m., NBC's "SNF" led at 3.8, again ahead of CBS and Fox, each at 2.3 for a "Cold Case" repeat and reruns of "Family Guy" and "War at Home." ABC's "Desperate Housewives" rerun averaged a 1.9, followed by Univision's "Cantando" at 1.2 and WB's "Charmed" rerun at 0.6.

At 10 p.m., NBC was No. 1 again for "SNF" at 3.1, followed by a 2.5 each for ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" repeat and CBS's "Without a Trace" rerun. Univision's "Cantando" averaged a 1.3 for the hour.

Among households, NBC led for the night with a 6.2 rating and 11 share, followed by CBS at a 5.7/10, ABC at a 4.1/7, Fox at a 2.6/5, Univision at 1.4/3 and WB at 0.9/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6494.asp

fredfa

08-07-06, 12:33 PM

TV Notebook
ABC Suffers Summer Slump
Fox Taps Up Ratings

MediaWeek.com August 7, 2006

The Big Four broadcast networks cumulatively are drawing 24.9 million viewers per night during the first nine weeks of the summer season, only 100,000 viewers less than last summer, but Fox is averaging 800,000 more viewers and ABC 800,000 less. And ABC—the ratings leader at this point among viewers 18-49 with a 2.3 last summer—is down 13 percent with a 2.0, while Fox is up 5 percent to a 2.3, according to Nielsen Media Research live ratings.

While broadcast execs and media buyers tend to agree that summer has little bearing on the fall, there is a belief that ABC, because of its audience shortfall compared to last summer, is missing its opportunity to promote its nine new fall shows, while Fox has a chance to capitalize on its new influx of viewers.

ABC is averaging 5.6 million viewers per night, compared to 6.4 million last summer, with CBS (7.4 mil., down 100,000), NBC (flat at 6.1 mil.) and Fox (5.8 mil., up 800,000) all posting better numbers.

With the 18-49 demo, Fox has five of the Top 10 highest rated shows this summer, followed by CBS, which has three of the Top 10 and NBC, which has two of the Top 10. ABC has no shows among the Top 10. Its top-rated show in the 18-49 demo this summer is the regular season’s Grey’s Anatomy, with a 2.3, far behind summer 18-49 demo leader Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance (3.7 on Wednesdays and 3.6 on Tuesdays). ABC has put on five new shows this summer and four have already been pulled. A fifth, One Ocean View, produced an anemic 1.4 rating in the 18-49 demo in its premiere episode last week.

ABC’s other two hot shows this past season, Lost and Desperate Housewives, are averaging a 1.1 and a 1.6 in the 18-49 demo respectively this summer, down 52 percent and 27 percent, respectively, from last summer.

Jeff Bader, executive vp of scheduling at ABC, noted that ratings alone can be deceiving. He said while the network’s 18-49 rating is down, along with total viewers, the network has reached 51 million unique viewers this summer in the 18-49, more than any of the other networks. “We don’t worry about total viewers, we are more concerned with 18-49 viewers,” he said.

Lyle Schwartz, executive vp/director of broadcast research at Mediaedge:cia, said with ABC’s soft performance, there is a danger of the network falling into a make-good situation that might have to be paid back to advertisers in the fall. But Brad Adgate, senior vp, research, at Horizon Media, added if any network can overcome the loss of summer viewers it is ABC. “[ABC parent] Disney has so many ways to reach potential viewers beyond ABC,” he said, citing Disney’s theme parks, radio, cable nets, magazines and various online sites.

Contributing to ABC’s softer summer ratings was its decision to move last summer’s blockbuster, Dancing With the Stars (which averaged a 5.1 18-49 rating and 16.7 million viewers) to fall. Bader said ABC has no regrets about the move. “Dancing With the Stars will be a big asset for us during the regular season, which is more important [financially] than the summer,” he said. Bader added that Dancing With the Stars will premiere Sept. 12—a week before the official start of the fall season with a two-hour version—so it can still showcase some of ABC’s new shows.

While ABC has struggled, Fox has enjoyed a good summer, mainly because of its two nights of So You Think You Can Dance, Hell’s Kitchen and repeats of drama House, which is averaging a 3.2 18-49 rating and 9 million viewers, up a million viewers over last summer.

CBS’ procedural crime dramas are once again doing well in repeat, led by CSI: Miami, which is averaging a 3.2 in 18-49 and drawing 11.3 million viewers, up 1.4 million over last summer. Even NBC, which struggled through another ratings-challenged prime-time season, is having a solid summer, thanks to hits America’s Got Talent and Last Comic Standing.

Averaging nearly 11 million viewers per night, Talent is a perfect promo platform for fall. “This is the broadest audience we have, and it reaches everyone from kids to older adults,” said Mitch Metcalf, senior vp programming planning and scheduling at NBC.

Metcalf also said NBC has used the summer to shift its returning shows into their new fall time periods to get audiences acclimated. “I think we took the right number of shots with new shows this summer, and have used it to lay the groundwork for our fall schedule.”

Meanwhile, Kelly Kahl, executive vp, program planning/scheduling at CBS, believes his network played to its strength this summer, airing most of its procedurals in regular season pattern, returning its summer staples Big Brother and Rock Star, and trying out new shows [Game Show Marathon and Tuesday Night Book Club, which did not work]. “Our real strength over the past few years has been crime dramas which have continued to pay dividends,” he said.

While NBC is planning to move America’s Got Talent to the regular season in January, Fox seems content to leave So You Think You Can Dance on only in the summer. In fact Fox, known for putting on a number of new reality shows in the summer in past years, resisted that temptation this summer. “We decided that rather than putting on a whole bunch of new shows, we would run most of our shows in pattern and try to continue to establish audiences for them,” Beckman said.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002950834

fredfa

08-07-06, 04:31 PM

TV Notebook
FCC Rejects Time Warner’s NFL Appeal
By Ted Hearn Multichannel News 8/7/2006

The Federal Communications Commission Monday reaffirmed last Thursday’s ruling that Time Warner Cable had to carry NFL Network for 30 days on systems just acquired from Comcast and Adelphia Communications.

Last Friday, Time Warner threatened to take the FCC to court if the agency didn’t back down and allow it to drop NFL Network. Following the release of the FCC’s second decision, Time Warner did not commit to a court fight over the need to provide consumers a 30-day notice before deleting a channel.

"Time Warner Cable continues to believe that the FCC has misconstrued the notice rules and has ordered a remedy that is in clear violation of the First Amendment. The FCC's action has resulted in exacerbating, not avoiding, consumer confusion,” Time Warner spokesman Mark Harrad said. "We are reviewing the decision and considering our options."

Time Warner and NFL Network have never had a carriage agreement, but the network had deals with Comcast and Adelphia systems that Time Warner obtained July 31 when the $16.9 billion Adelphia transaction closed.

Time Warner dropped NFL Network on those systems Aug. 1. Claiming that it gave Time Warner the necessary 30 days to issue the proper consumer notices, NFL Network complained to the FCC within hours that it had been illegally removed by Time Warner.

The second FCC ruling was again issued by Media Bureau chief Donna Gregg, an appointee of FCC chairman Kevin Martin. Time Warner may ask the five FCC commissioners to overturn Gregg’s rulings as an alternative to an immediate court challenge, which Time Warner has said would involve important First Amendment issues.

Time Warner and the National Football League have been haggling over terms of carriage, with the network seeking an expanded-basic position but Time Warner hoping to start a sports tier with NFL Network as a key driver of mini-tier penetration.

“We plan to continue discussions with Time Warner about the long-term carriage of NFL Network. In the meantime, we are pleased that NFL fans will continue to have access to our 'insider' coverage of NFL training camps and the preseason as a result of this ruling,” the NFL said in a statement.

In her 15-page order, Gregg said Time Warner’s treatment of NFL Network was “disappointing” because FCC members and outside parties “had expressed serious concern about the impact that the Adelphia transactions would have on unaffiliated programmers.”

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6360259

fredfa

08-07-06, 11:02 PM

TV Notebook
Another Court Loss for EchoStar
By Ted Hearn Multichannel News 8/7/2006

EchoStar Communications suffered a court loss Monday regarding its ability to provide out-of-market feeds of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox programming to about 1.2 million customers around the country, an EchoStar official said Monday.

EchoStar asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to stay a key ruling while the case was on appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court refused the request Monday. The case returns to federal district court in south Florida Aug. 15, an EchoStar official said.

The 11th Circuit instructed the lower court to issue an injunction to stop EchoStar’s distant network service. The 11th Circuit found that EchoStar had been selling the programming to hundreds of thousands of customers who were legally ineligible to buy it.

Previously, EchoStar asked the lower court to postpone the injunction until Sept. 11, claiming that the time could be used to reach an out-of-court settlement with hundreds of network affiliates that accused EchoStar of copyright infringement. Broadcasters have agreed to the Sept. 11 postponement.

Satellite subscribers may buy distant network signals from EchoStar if poor antenna reception prevents seeing their local affiliates. Network affiliates demonstrated in court that EchoStar sold distant programming to hundreds of thousands of subscribers who had adequate antenna reception.

Under the 11th Circuit’s ruling, EchoStar would need to cut off an estimated 600,000 subscribers who have been receiving the network programming legally. Some on Capitol Hill are concerned that legally served consumers are going to swamp them in angry mail if they lose their distant network signals.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6360281

fredfa

08-07-06, 11:41 PM

TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic

Question: Is there a point to having Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Tina Fey's 30 Rock on the same network? Studio 60 looks more interesting, although the ad campaign seems to focus on the Network rip-off — I mean, homage — than on Sorkin. 30 Rock seems much more based on real life, with Tracy Morgan basically playing himself. However, it seems baffling that we have two shows about a fictional Saturday Night Live debuting at the same time. What are their long-term prospects? — Jeff

Matt Roush: These are excellent questions, and ones we've asked ourselves (and NBC during the press tour) repeatedly. The only way we're going to get a real answer is to see how the public responds. The dilemma facing both shows is that the track record isn't exactly great for TV shows set in the world of TV (not even Sorkin's brilliant Sports Night, whose pilot I enjoyed more than Studio 60).

To their credit, the shows don't feel remotely like each other. 30 Rock is a straight-out comedy/satire, taking very funny barbs at corporate NBC in the form of Alec Baldwin. (And to be fair, Tracy Morgan isn't playing himself as much as a spoof of out-of-control TV-turned-movie-stars like Martin Lawrence.) Studio 60 takes itself and the medium a bit too seriously at times, even as it fesses up to cribbing from Network in Judd Hirsch's opening meltdown. But what a cast — and as usual, with Sorkin writing, the words are great and the plot twists terrific. I'm hopeful for both shows, but just as stymied as anyone by whatever currents in the zeitgeist gave us both of these projects at the same time.

________________________________________

Question: A lot of people seem to complain about the sameness of CBS' dramas. I'm wondering if these people are forgetting about Numb3rs. Numb3rs is one of my all-time favorite shows, and although it is just yet another crime drama, I consider it very different from the rest of CBS' schedule. It has much more in-depth character development, an incredibly creative premise and amazing actors (who really should have been nominated for something by now). I don't think CBS has treated it well by shoving it into the Fridays-at-10 slot, where it supposedly dominates but is mostly forgotten. Do you agree? — Maddi

Matt Roush: I'm not as down on CBS' crime franchises as you appear to be, but I do think Numb3rs is distinctive (if not quite top-tier, must-see TV) and agree that it's being taken for granted because of its relatively invisible time period. I'll admit that most of the shows I record on Fridays go unwatched, despite my best efforts. I catch up with a Numb3rs episode on occasion, and if I hear one of the other CBS or NBC Friday-night shows did something notable, I'll check it out. But for most of the year, the only Friday shows I'm watching with anything close to loyalty are Battlestar Galactica, Psych and occasionally Monk. This fall things get more complicated on Fridays because of the arrival on ABC of Ugly Betty and Men in Trees, both of which I'll need or at least want to keep an eye on. Just because we don't talk or write much about Numb3rs isn't a reflection of its quality, just a fact of life and a result of limited time.

________________________________________

Question: I wholeheartedly agree with your responses to the Grissom-Sara pairing on CSI, especially your comment on 7/24, when you said it would be a part of the texture of the show from now on. It adds another dimension to reruns, as well. The finale's reveal has tweaked the past episodes, like discovering a color you never knew existed and suddenly seeing it everywhere you look. I think it was a great twist to add it so casually, as if the audience had been in on it all along. It dropped my jaw, even though I was totally expecting a hookup, and now it makes me want to watch more. Thanks for your intelligent discourse on all things TV. It's refreshing! — Gina

Matt Roush: Thanks. (Although people tend to find it less "refreshing" when we disagree. Ah, well.) My point all along has been that as long as elements like this don't take over the show, I'm OK with it.

________________________________________

Question: The Parents Television Council and FCC each place complaints and fines on stations that air material deemed inappropriate, correct? But why do they continue to watch these shows if they find them inappropriate? Don't they have a better use of their time than purposely watching shows like Rescue Me and Without a Trace in hopes of being able to lead a campaign of complaints? And if shows like that can be fined, why wouldn't evening newscasts like World News be fined for showing gruesome images of war and violence? Doesn't the government need taxpayers' dollars for more important causes? I would really like to know how you think this totalitarian organization, the FCC, will affect the future of television. — Michael K.

Matt Roush: I'm not sure about the future, but I'm more concerned about the present, when networks are pulling their dramatic punches in fear of offending any of these watchdog groups. For the record, the FCC doesn't generate complaints, it only acts upon them, making them the perfect tool for a noisy group like PTC, which can spur its lapdog members into action with alarmist reports of adult material or anything that smacks of controversy. As I reported during PBS' portion of the press tour, that high-minded network is even considering alterations to Ken Burns' upcoming World War II documentary project all because of a few profanities uttered by war veterans. (The other alternative is to air the show at 10 pm/ET or later, when it will be more protected from interference, though that would limit the audience for such an important work.) The problem with such arbitrary and punitive fines is that it could drive some of our more creative talents away from this industry, which is already facing challenges from less-regulated media. And that's not a good thing, even for those with ideological agendas and who wish everything looked like it belonged on Nick at Nite.

________________________________________

Question: I feel compelled to write to you in defense of Shannen Doherty. I understand that her new show, Oxygen's Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty, isn't exactly what you'd consider great TV, so I have no problem with you expressing your disdain for the premise. I can also see your point that if Shannen wants to change people's perception of her, then she should stop playing along with her public image by taking jobs like this. I guess I would have appreciated it if you made an effort to acknowledge that she has done good work in the past. I've been a fan of hers since Our House, and I watched 90210 faithfully until she left the show.

The same thing with Charmed — once Shannen left, so did I. Both shows lasted many years after she left, but they were never as much fun. She's also been in some decent TV-movies. I remember one with her and Kevin Dillon as a couple who were accused of killing their daughter. It was a great role for her, and completely unlike anything I'd seen her in before. At the very least, you have to respect a true Hollywood survivor like her. She has done so many things to destroy her career over the years and yet always seems to make a comeback and keep working. Give credit where it's due! — Stephen

Matt Roush: The reason Shannen keeps coming back to TV, despite the brickbats some of us may throw at her (especially when she sheds crocodile tears about how unfairly she's been treated), is precisely because she has fans as loyal as you. Yes, she's a survivor, and yes, she has had her memorable moments on TV (I would never accuse her of being famous for only being famous). But still, not even a significant pay hike could compel me to watch her latest reality aberration. I figure I'll see her again on her next comeback tour.

________________________________________

Question: This season I've watched Hell's Kitchen on and off, hoping it would improve as it went on, but that never happened. Now that the season is thankfully coming to an end, I have a few questions and gripes. There are some things that I just don't understand about this show and Gordon Ramsay. Why would Chef Ramsay risk his reputation and a lot of money by turning over such an expensive restaurant to be run by any of those inept people who are barely qualified to run a Taco Bell?

My second problem is with the chef himself: I realize that a lot of the insults are done for the sake of ratings, but if he acts like that toward his employees, don't you think he would have a few lawsuits by now? There are laws protecting employees from such verbal abuse in the U.S., and I assume that the U.K. must have similar regulations, although I have never heard of any charges filed against him. Last year's show had real talent, and while he was still obnoxious, he wasn't quite so over-the-top and slanderous as he is this year. It seems that the cooking has taken a back burner to childish antics. Not once have they mentioned last year's winner and how he is doing running his restaurant. Is he still working for Ramsay, or did he get enough of him? I would love to find out how this year's winner is doing about six months from now. One thing I know for sure: I won't be dining at that new restaurant the next time I'm in Vegas! — Valerie M.

Matt Roush: You and me both. I bailed on this season early on. But I'm in the minority, I guess. Hell's Kitchen is doing better this summer than the first season (which I also didn't follow to the end, so I haven't a clue about the past winner), and it's especially strong in the younger demographics, so it looks as if Ramsay's obnoxious shtick has found its bottom-feeding, train-wreck-seeking target. To address your larger issue, Ramsay is a celebrity, and those who choose to work with or for him, on TV or elsewhere, must know by now that they've signed a deal with a devil, or in this case, a self-promoting jerk.

________________________________________

Question: What happened to the Ally McBeal guy (I have no idea what his name is) who was in charge of the science lab in the pilot episode of Eureka? I have watched the second episode several times now, and they don't make any mention of him. Will he be back, or has he been permanently replaced by Allison's surprise hubby? — Stephanie

Matt Roush: That's Greg Germann you're referring to, and he is officially (or at least in retrospect) being referred to as a guest star in the opener. As the show developed beyond the pilot, his character was dropped and the Nathan Stark character was added. Germann will resurface later this season as part of the cast of ABC's mid-season comedy In Case of Emergency.

________________________________________

Question: Am I mistaken, or are Colin Ferguson (Jack Carter of Eureka), Joel Gretsch (Tom Baldwin of The 4400) and Mark Valley (Brad Chase of Boston Legal) the same person using different names? — Ceebee

Matt Roush: You're not the only one to write in about the resemblance between Ferguson and Gretsch, but since you added the similarly square-jawed Valley to the mix, let me just say that if they could bottle the water from that particular handsome-leading-man gene pool, someone could make a fortune. (And speaking of which, if only Mark Valley could find his way out of Legal and into an actual leading-man role again, like the wonderful Keen Eddie.)

________________________________________

Question: Will the third season of the brilliantly funny and smart Canadian series Slings & Arrows be aired on American TV? — Howard W.

Matt Roush: As with the first two seasons, Sundance Channel will be the home of the third go-round for this wonderfully theatrical comedy-drama. I don't have an airdate for this yet, but I just noticed the first season is out on DVD, with the second season being issued in October. (Both are six episodes each, not unlike British TV.) It's great fun, and I can't wait to see the third season myself. (One of the show's writers, Bob Martin, is the star of and one of the geniuses behind the Tony-winning hit musical The Drowsy Chaperone, which is just as enjoyable if even loopier than Slings & Arrows.)

________________________________________

Question: I enjoy your column very much. Can you tell me when the next installment of the Inspector Lynley Mysteries will be airing on PBS? I have searched and am unable to find any confirmation that they will be airing the episodes that have already been filmed. — Trina

Matt Roush: A new batch of four 90-minute Lynley Mysteries will turn up in September on Mystery! None are based on Elizabeth George's actual books (at least not judging by their titles: In Divine Proportion, In the Guise of Death, The Seed of Cunning and The Word of God). Given the shocking way George's last Lynley novel ended, I'm thinking these TV-movies will probably be happier experiences.

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

fredfa

08-08-06, 02:05 AM

TV Notebook
NBC may have scored in airing football game
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer in the Channel Island TV Industry blog August 8, 2006

NBC may have scrambled for a first down on Sunday.

Pro football returned to the network's prime time last weekend after an eight-year absence. While the results were hardly conclusive, the struggling fourth-ranked broadcaster may have gained a few yards in its bid to remake the Sunday schedule into a destination for NFL junkies. An average of 9.5 million total viewers tuned in to the preseason Hall of Fame game between the Oakland Raiders and the Philadelphia Eagles, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research. The final numbers, which won't be available until today, must be adjusted for time-zone differences because the games are broadcast live (the telecast started at 8 p.m. on the East Coast but at 5 p.m. in L.A., which is two hours before the start of prime time and therefore outside Nielsen's usual measurement system).

If those figures hold up, NBC will win the night in both total viewers and in the key ages 18-to-49 demographic, albeit against competition that consisted almost entirely of repeats. Perhaps more important, NBC's performance would be in line with what ABC did last year for a preseason match of "Monday Night Football." You don't have to be John Madden to understand that NFL telecasts are undergoing a massive shift this year, one that could upend prime-time viewing habits for some time.

Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC sent the 36-year-old "MNF" franchise to sister cable network ESPN, while NBC reversed a long-held policy against high-priced pro sports contracts and prayed that Sunday football would bolster the rest of its fading lineup. NBC even traded the rights it held to a cartoon rabbit named Oswald to obtain the services of Al Michaels for the "MNF" on-air teaming with Madden.

Is NBC in the position of squaring off against a basic-cable network for ratings bragging rights this fall? It's too early to tell whether the high-stakes bets will pay off for either network. NBC's first regular-season Sunday game won't be until Sept. 10 (Indianapolis Colts against the New York Giants). ESPN will weigh in the following night with a double-header (Minnesota Vikings versus Washington Redskins and San Diego Chargers against the Raiders).

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-channel8aug08,0,4433434,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

RussTC3

08-08-06, 02:13 AM

Good to see the ratings were strong for SNF.

I was at that game, pretty fun. :)

And those Jets overhead were unbelievable. I swear, it was like you could reach out and touch them. That's almost always my favorite part.

Amazing.

fredfa

08-08-06, 02:20 AM

My favorites are the Stealth bombers. They are awesome!

fredfa

08-08-06, 02:23 AM

TV Notebook
Will tomorrow yield more 'Today'?
Move would extend morning show until 11 a.m.
By Michael Learmonth Variety.com

NBC is considering adding a fourth hour to "Today," a move that would extend the morning show until 11 a.m. and reshape the syndication market.

Talk of a fourth hour has been more of a watercooler punchline than a serious proposal in the halls of 30 Rock ever since "Today" added a third hour in 2000.

But with "Today" well ahead of its ayem competition -- in the eight weeks since Katie Couric's departure, "Today" has kept a 20% ratings advantage over second-place "GMA," nearly double its advantage in the same period last year -- and all the nets looking to cut costs in daytime, the idea is being studied as a serious option.

"It has been serious for a while," said NBC News senior VP Phil Griffin, who oversees "Today." "They haven't pulled the trigger on it and I don't know if they ever will, but if they do, we're ready."

The success of "Today's" third hour has proved the show's producers can program for the female auds who dominate the timeslots after 8 a.m. A fourth hour would put "Today" in competition with a variety of syndicated programming and, in some markets, ABC's "The View."

NBC U's "Martha" runs in many of those time periods on the NBC-owned stations after "Today," to survivable ratings.

If NBC brass greenlights the fourth hour, "Today" soon will have the physical capacity to make it happen.

A renovation of the show's street-level studio is scheduled for completion Sept. 13, in time for the relaunch of the show with Meredith Vieira and conversion to high-definition.

"Today" also is adding space. A second, upstairs studio and a permanent kitchen are being built to give second- and third-hour segments more breathing room. The show has taken on additional adjacent space in 30 Rock for more dressing rooms and enough hair and makeup space to accommodate a marching band.

"We certainly have all we need to do three hours of compelling morning television and who knows, someday maybe more," said "Today" exec producer Jim Bell.

Launched by then-exec producer Jeff Zucker, the third hour, known as "Today II," has established itself as an alternative to "Live With Regis & Kelly" and a proving ground for bringing new personalities into the "Today" fold.

That function has assumed additional importance this year with the departure of Couric to CBS' "Evening News."

archiguy

08-08-06, 07:08 AM

My favorites are the Stealth bombers. They are awesome!

At $2 billion apiece, they'd better be. But they do execute their primary mission of sports event flyovers with panache. ;)

foxeng

08-08-06, 07:53 AM

TV Notebook
FCC Rejects Time Warner’s NFL Appeal
By Ted Hearn Multichannel News 8/7/2006

........

The second FCC ruling was again issued by Media Bureau chief Donna Gregg, an appointee of FCC chairman Kevin Martin. Time Warner may ask the five FCC commissioners to overturn Gregg’s rulings as an alternative to an immediate court challenge, which Time Warner has said would involve important First Amendment issues.

......

When cable wants something it is always for the "betterment of the their customers." When things don't go their way, they always shout "First Amendment" when this case clearly has NOTHING to do with First Amendment rights (wouldn't that mean they WANT to keep NFL Network and not get rid of it? Oh, I guess they mean their customers First Amendment right to NOT have NFL Network since no one wants THAT network :confused: . Oy Vay!!) but legal contracts and the law. If Time-Warner can't survive NFL Network for 30 days on a couple of systems, then maybe they need to close the doors, turn off the lights and go home.

Worst than spoiled children.

CPanther95

08-08-06, 08:07 AM

I was at that game, pretty fun. :)

And those Jets overhead were unbelievable. I swear, it was like you could reach out and touch them. That's almost always my favorite part.

Amazing.

Very true - real life has an almost 3-D feel to it. ;)

DoubleDAZ

08-08-06, 09:33 AM

At $2 billion apiece, they'd better be. But they do execute their primary mission of sports event flyovers with panache. ;)Pretty cheap shot. :)

jerryez

08-08-06, 10:22 AM

FALL 2006 TV GRID rev0525 - AVS Forum.zip (10.7 KB, 115 views)

Link does not work.

fredfa

08-08-06, 10:50 AM

When cable wants something it is always for the "betterment of the their customers." When things don't go their way, they always shout "First Amendment" when this case clearly has NOTHING to do with First Amendment rights (wouldn't that mean they WANT to keep NFL Network and not get rid of it? Oh, I guess they mean their customers First Amendment right to NOT have NFL Network since no one wants THAT network :confused: . Oy Vay!!) but legal contracts and the law. If Time-Warner can't survive NFL Network for 30 days on a couple of systems, then maybe they need to close the doors, turn off the lights and go home.

Worst than spoiled children.

Isn't it fun to watch how TWC can fight a la carte with such vigor and use almost the same arguments in reverse to justify its NFL Network stance?

fredfa

08-08-06, 10:55 AM

FALL 2006 TV GRID rev0525 - AVS Forum.zip (10.7 KB, 115 views)

Link does not work.

jerryez-- I just tried it and it seems to work. But then I am the least knowlegeable person when it comes to such things.
It's a downloadable zip file which convferts to an Exclel spreadsheet.
Anyone else have problems with it?
(It is at the bottom of the prime time schedules listing in the seciond post of the thread.)

fredfa

08-08-06, 10:59 AM

Pretty cheap shot. :)

In all fairness, Dave, a pretty expensive shot :)

I figure these days about half the cost is the fuel to get the Stealths from Missouri to the Rose Bowl. But this is getting way OT, and dangerously close to political quicksand, so let's let me have the last word and drop it.

slocko

08-08-06, 11:07 AM

How come Direct doesn't have this problem?

TV Notebook
Another Court Loss for EchoStar
By Ted Hearn Multichannel News 8/7/2006

EchoStar Communications suffered a court loss Monday regarding its ability to provide out-of-market feeds of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox programming to about 1.2 million customers around the country, an EchoStar official said Monday.

EchoStar asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to stay a key ruling while the case was on appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court refused the request Monday. The case returns to federal district court in south Florida Aug. 15, an EchoStar official said.

The 11th Circuit instructed the lower court to issue an injunction to stop EchoStar’s distant network service. The 11th Circuit found that EchoStar had been selling the programming to hundreds of thousands of customers who were legally ineligible to buy it.

Previously, EchoStar asked the lower court to postpone the injunction until Sept. 11, claiming that the time could be used to reach an out-of-court settlement with hundreds of network affiliates that accused EchoStar of copyright infringement. Broadcasters have agreed to the Sept. 11 postponement.

Satellite subscribers may buy distant network signals from EchoStar if poor antenna reception prevents seeing their local affiliates. Network affiliates demonstrated in court that EchoStar sold distant programming to hundreds of thousands of subscribers who had adequate antenna reception.

Under the 11th Circuit’s ruling, EchoStar would need to cut off an estimated 600,000 subscribers who have been receiving the network programming legally. Some on Capitol Hill are concerned that legally served consumers are going to swamp them in angry mail if they lose their distant network signals.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6360281

fredfa

08-08-06, 11:11 AM

The Business of TV
The DIRECTV Group Announces 2Q Results

(DirecTV News Release)

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 8, 2006--The DIRECTV Group, Inc U.S. Revenues Increase 12% to $3.3 Billion and Cash Flow before Interest and Taxes Nearly Triples to $450 Million

Results Bolstered by Lower Monthly Churn of 1.59% and Strong ARPU Growth of 5.6%

The DIRECTV Group, Inc. (NYSE:DTV) today reported that second quarter revenues increased 10% to $3.52 billion and operating profit before depreciation and amortization(1) nearly doubled to $977 million compared to last year's second quarter. The DIRECTV Group reported second quarter 2006 operating profit and net income both more than doubled to $741 million and $459 million, respectively, when compared to the same period last year. Earnings per share were $0.36 compared with $0.12 in the same period last year. These operating results include the effect of $253 million of equipment that DIRECTV U.S. capitalized during the quarter under its lease program, which was implemented March 1, 2006.

"Similar to recent quarters, DIRECTV U.S. generated excellent financial results highlighted by a 12% increase in revenues to $3.3 billion, a 93% increase in operating profit before depreciation and amortization to $977 million and a nearly tripling of cash flow before interest and taxes to $450 million," said Chase Carey, president and CEO of The DIRECTV Group, Inc.

Carey continued, "In many ways, the results in the quarter reflect our strategy to target higher quality subscribers. For example, although gross subscriber additions of 863,000 and net additions of 125,000 in the quarter were below expectations, it's important to note that we added 11% more higher quality gross subscribers in the quarter compared to last year. This trend -- which is driving both the top-line and bottom-line financial results -- is primarily due to the ongoing changes we're making to refine our credit policy and dealer network. These factors played an important role in reducing DIRECTV's monthly churn rate from 1.69% to 1.59% this quarter. In addition, customers are buying more premium services such as high definition programming and digital video recorders which is contributing to the strong ARPU growth of 5.6% in the quarter. The increase in operating profit -- excluding the accounting effect from the new lease program -- is also directly linked to the improved subscriber mix primarily due to the reduced acquisition costs associated with the significant reduction in lower quality customers attained and the related lower bad debt expense incurred. We are also pleased that our acquisition cost per subscriber, or SAC, declined both sequentially and compared to last year as our set-top box cost reductions offset the higher sales of advanced boxes."

Carey concluded, "With continued improvements in subscriber growth and the launch of several new products and services, we look forward to a strong second half of the year. For example, we are currently promoting our enhanced NFL SUNDAY TICKET(R) package that features new interactive services and more high definition games. In addition, we just launched 19 regional sports networks in high definition and we will continue to add new high definition local channel markets as we strive to reach approximately 75% of all U.S. television households by the end of the year. Finally, we're also very excited about the launch of our new HD-DVR which is scheduled to be introduced in Los Angeles later this month and nationwide in the following weeks."

Second Quarter Review

Lease Program. On March 1, 2006, DIRECTV U.S. introduced a set-top receiver lease program primarily to increase future profitability by providing DIRECTV U.S. with the opportunity to retrieve and reuse set-top receivers from deactivated customers. Under this new program, set-top receivers are capitalized and depreciated over their estimated useful lives of three years. Prior to March 1, 2006, set-top receivers provided to new and existing DIRECTV U.S. subscribers were immediately expensed upon activation as a subscriber acquisition or upgrade and retention cost. The lease program is expected to result in a reduction in subscriber acquisition, and upgrade and retention costs. The amount of set-top receivers capitalized during the period is now reported in the DIRECTV U.S. Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows under the captions "Cash paid for subscriber leased equipment - subscriber acquisitions" and "Cash paid for subscriber leased equipment - upgrade and retention." The amount of cash DIRECTV U.S. paid during the quarter ended June 30, 2006 for leased set-top receivers totaled $253 million -- $153 million for subscriber acquisitions and $100 million for upgrade and retention.

Operational Review

In the second quarter of 2006, The DIRECTV Group's revenues of $3.52 billion increased 10% over the same period in the prior year principally due to the larger subscriber bases at DIRECTV U.S. and DIRECTV Latin America, as well as strong growth in average revenue per subscriber (ARPU) at DIRECTV U.S. These changes were partially offset by the exclusion of Hughes Network Systems (HNS) results in 2006 due to its sale.

The higher operating profit before depreciation and amortization of $977 million and operating profit of $741 million were mostly related to DIRECTV U.S. operations due to the capitalization of customer equipment under the lease program for both new and existing subscribers, the increase in gross profit generated from the higher revenues, and reduced subscriber acquisition costs resulting primarily from lower gross subscriber additions. Also impacting the comparison was a non-cash gain of $28 million in the second quarter of 2005 related to the successful migration and retention of a portion of the DIRECTV Latin America subscribers in Mexico to the Sky Mexico platform.

Net income increased to $459 million in the second quarter of 2006 primarily due to the changes in operating profit discussed above and a second quarter 2005 charge of $65 million related to the premium paid for the redemption of senior notes and the write-off of a portion of deferred debt issuance costs resulting from debt refinancing (recorded in "Other, net" in the Consolidated Statements of Operations). Partially offsetting these improvements was higher income tax expense in the most recent quarter associated with the higher pre-tax income and a $31 million credit in the second quarter of 2005 (recorded in "Income from discontinued operations, net of taxes" in the Consolidated Statements of Operations) related to the favorable settlement of a U.S. federal income tax dispute associated with a previously divested business.

Year-To-Date Review

The DIRECTV Group's revenues of $6.91 billion in the first half of 2006 increased 9% compared to the same period of 2005 driven principally by subscriber growth at DIRECTV U.S. and DIRECTV Latin America, as well as continued solid ARPU growth at DIRECTV U.S. These changes were partially offset by the exclusion of Hughes Network Systems (HNS) results in 2006 due to its sale.

In the first six months of 2006, operating profit before depreciation and amortization more than doubled to $1.58 billion and operating profit more than quadrupled to $1.13 billion driven primarily by DIRECTV U.S. due to the capitalization of $339 million of customer equipment under the lease program for both new and existing subscribers, the increase in gross profit generated from higher revenues, and reduced subscriber acquisition costs resulting from lower gross subscriber additions, partially offset by higher retention and upgrade spending at DIRECTV U.S. Also impacting the comparison was a $57 million non-cash gain recorded in the first quarter of 2006 resulting from the completion of DIRECTV Latin America's Sky Mexico transactions, a non-cash gain of $28 million in the second quarter of 2005 related to the migration and retention of a portion of the DIRECTV Latin America subscribers in Mexico to the Sky Mexico platform, and a loss in the first quarter of 2005 at HNS primarily related to charges associated with its sale.

The increase in first half 2006 net income to $694 million was due to the higher operating profit discussed above, a second quarter 2005 charge of $65 million related to the premium paid for the redemption of senior notes and the write-off of a portion of deferred debt issuance costs from debt refinancing, and higher interest income in 2006 resulting primarily from higher average interest rates. Partially offsetting these improvements were higher 2006 income tax expense resulting from an increase in pre-tax income and a $31 million credit in the second quarter of 2005 related to the favorable settlement of a U.S. federal income tax dispute associated with a previously divested business.
For complete financial details go here:

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=127160&p=irol-newsArticle_print&ID=893498&highlight=

fredfa

08-08-06, 11:15 AM

The headlines will probably be the very low (some may call it shockingly low) number of net additions to DirecTV, not the soaring profit margins.

HD News of note:

In the past, DirecTV had always said it planned to have about 65% of the nation covered with HD LIL by the end of 2006. Now Carey says it is striving to have 75% covered, an extra 10 million homes, by the end of the year.

He also specifically mentioned that the new NDS HD DVR will be released, starting in Los Angeles, later this month.

And he quietly, almost in passing, mentioned the HD addition of 19 RSNs.

RussTC3

08-08-06, 11:29 AM

fredfa

08-08-06, 11:38 AM

TV Notebook
NBC: No Plans to Expand Today Show
( Broadcasting & Cable)

NBC News has no plans to expand its top-rated morning show Today to a fourth hour, according to a network spokesperson.

A report in Tuesday's Variety said NBC is considering adding a (10-)11 a.m. ET hour to the three-hour program, which runs from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. While such an expansion is something that is discussed, NBC News spokesperson Lauren Kapp says there are "no plans at this point."

NBC is currently overhauling Today's studio in preparation for new anchor Meredith Vieira's arrival in September and a conversion to high definition. The new studio and work space will be larger and could accommodate more production, should Today ever opt for an added hour.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6360414.html?display=Breaking+News

fredfa

08-08-06, 11:45 AM

Ok, I know the topic of out-of-market feeds has been discussed before, but could someone, quickly if possible, explain to me what the big deal is with Dish offering the networks?

If someone wants to pay extra money to pick up their locals thru Dish instead of with Cable or an antenna, what is the big deal?

Or am I completely missing the problem?

Simply put (not that I totally agree with it, by the way) is that Dish was selling beginning back in the late 1990s, DNS feeds to almost anyone who wanted them.
The problem is that those feeds belong to copyright holders.
Dish didn't have the right to sell Denver stations out of market. Or any other DNS feeds, either. Those feeds could impact the viewership of local stations in markets receiving the Dish DNS.
In addition to laws, there were also FCC regulations governing eligibility, and according to every court I know of, Dish either violated the rules or simply ignored them.

That being said, I believe the networks will soon figure out a way to deliver their programming, when we want it, to all of us -- for a fee, of course.

The problem is that Dish figured out how to do that almost a decade ago, and has been making money off DNS all that time. That money, according to law, the FCC, the stations, the networks and the courts doesn't rightly belong to Dish.

keenan

08-08-06, 11:58 AM

Simply put (not that I totally agree with it, by the way) is that Dish was selling beginning back in the late 1990s, DNS feeds to almost anyone who wanted them.
The problem is that those feeds belong to copyright holders.
Dish didn't have the right to sell Denver stations out of market. Or any other DNS feeds, either. Those feeds could impact the viewership of local stations in markets receiving the Dish DNS.
In addition to laws, there were also FCC regulations governing eligibility, and according to every court I know of, Dish either violated the rules or simply ignored them.

That being said, I believe the networks will soon figure out a way to deliver their programming, when we want it, to all of us -- for a fee, of course.

The problem is that Dish figured out how to do that almost a decade ago, and has been making money off DNS all that time. That money, according to law, the FCC, the stations, the networks and the courts doesn't rightly belong to Dish.

Additionally, Dish took issue with the FCC methods for determining eligibility as well. It's common knowledge that the FCC standards for determining coverage, the Grade A, Grade B etc, are woefully inadequate when it comes to real life, in the field, conditions. Many folks are deemed ineligible simply because they were on one side of an imaginary line or the other, with no regard for whether there was a mountain in their way or not.

This does not excuse Dish providing the feeds, as they were certainly in it for the money, what they should have done was lobby to have the ridiculous regs changed and then they could have made even more money, legally.

keenan

08-08-06, 12:00 PM

jerryez-- I just tried it and it seems to work. But then I am the least knowlegeable person when it comes to such things.
It's a downloadable zip file which convferts to an Exclel spreadsheet.
Anyone else have problems with it?
(It is at the bottom of the prime time schedules listing in the seciond post of the thread.)
Getting close to when that CP guy needs to have that sked updated. :p

fredfa

08-08-06, 12:01 PM

TV Sports
NFL Network Gains Ground in Cable Battle
( Broadcasting & Cable)
By Richard Sandomir The New York Times August 8, 2006

The NFL Network figured that it went big time earlier this year when it added eight regular-season games to its schedule, a sweet benefit of being owned by the league of all leagues. Carrying games made the network more expensive to carry, but this was the N.F.L.’s channel, and what cable or satellite operator would dare resist the allure of those games?

Time Warner, that’s who. It has, for nearly three years, refused the NFL Network’s demand that it be carried only as an expanded basic channel, where most channels reside, and insisted that it would place the network on its sports tier, along with channels like NBA TV, for $1.95 to $4.95 a month.

In that way, Time Warner said, only those who wanted it would pay for it, rather than forcing everyone, sports fan or not, to pay. It’s an argument Cablevision pursued but lost during its epic battle with the YES Network.

For those who have not seen the NFL Network, some explanation is required. It is football, ad infinitum, a channel packed with studio programs and NFL Films productions; news conferences and replays of old games; preseason and N.F.L. Europe games; a few college bowl games; and the new Thursday and Saturday slate of games, which start Nov. 23. Bryant Gumbel will call all eight games, with Cris Collinsworth as the analyst on six, and Dick Vermeil on the others.

Sounds good, but not good enough for Time Warner, or other cable operators not yet among the channel’s 41 million subscribers, 27 million of whom come from the satellite services DirecTV and Dish Network.

Time Warner, which has 14.5 million subscribers, contends that for the sake of eight games (pruned from CBS, Fox and ESPN’s schedules) the NFL Network is gouging fans and that the value of those games is diminished by their availability to the participating teams’ markets on local broadcast stations, a practice that has not reduced the value of N.F.L. games on ESPN.

Time Warner created a Web site, nflgetreal.com, to tell consumers why a sports tier is a better option than forcing all subscribers to pay 70 cents a month (up from about 20 cents).

“Now, the NFL Network adds a mere eight games out of a 267-game schedule and asks for a 350 percent rate increase!” the Web site said. “That’s like paying an unproven rookie an All-Pro salary.” (Actually, it is 250 percent.) “The price is too high,” it adds, “the value too low.”

Last Tuesday, Time Warner demonstrated the ardor of its position. Having failed to reach a deal to carry the network, Time Warner removed it from the homes of 1.3 million customers recently added through the acquisition (with Comcast) of the bankrupt Adelphia Communications.

Time Warner quickly received 7,843 consumer complaints and 88 requests to be disconnected. The N.F.L. fielded another 22,000 complaints. Team owners must view the response as a dandy plebiscite on their channel.

Last Thursday, the media bureau of the Federal Communications Commission told Time Warner to restore what it had taken away.

Time Warner then asked the bureau to reconsider the ruling, but in its response yesterday, the F.C.C. division provided the NFL Network with everything it wanted. The bureau rejected all of the cable operator’s arguments, including one that being forced to carry a network abridges its First Amendment rights, calling it “force speech, plain and simple.”

More to the point, the bureau chided Time Warner for stripping the NFL Network from the menus of those 1.3 million subscribers without providing 30-day notice of such a change as required by federal cable law.

“If Time Warner believed that carrying the NFL Network or any other programming service for 30 days placed too onerous a burden on its First Amendment rights, then it should have sought a waiver of the commission’s rules or provided subscribers with 30 days’ notice,” the bureau ruled.

The two sides retreated to their corners yesterday.

“We commend the F.C.C.’s latest swift and thorough action,” the network said in a statement, and it praised the agency’s efforts to protect its fans.

Time Warner, also in a statement, said it still believed the F.C.C. had “ordered a remedy that is in clear violation of the First Amendment.”

The cable operator is contemplating its next move.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/sports/football/08sandomir.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

fredfa

08-08-06, 12:14 PM

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

fredfa

08-08-06, 12:20 PM

TV Notebook: Commentary
It's Time For Ellen Burstyn To Step Up and Step Down
By Ray Richmond The Hollywood Reporter in his blog “Past Deadline” August 8, 2006

I open here with the caveat that I swear I have nothing at all personally against Ellen Burstyn. Loved her in "The Exorcist." She was amazing in "Requiem For a Dream." She's a six-time Oscar nominee, and the Film Academy doesn't just hand those things out like car wash discount coupons. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said lately for the TV Academy. It seems that I've been leading the parade in expressing shock and indignation at the fact Burstyn received a Primetime Emmy nomination for supporting actress in a movie/miniseries for her "role" in the HBO docudrama "Mrs. Harris" -- this, despite the fact she was in the film for all of 14 seconds. That's right: 14. Seconds. She uttered 38 words in a weird accent. Hello, Emmy nomination!

What has been perhaps equally perplexing is the reaction of the television community to this -- that is, pretty much no reaction at all. I feel essentially like a lone voice of sanity screaming into a barren abyss. Where is the outrage? Where is the fury over the fact this charade that makes a mockery of television's primary awards showcase has been allowed to stand? Where is the humiliation at the idea that Burstyn's nomination represents foolproof evidence that no one who voted for her inclusion on the ballot actually saw the film? Where, too, is the acrimony over a Hollywood icon's decision to allow this sham to go forward? Instead of speaking up, all appear to be burying their collective head in the sands of denial.

I reiterate that I do not have it in for Burstyn. I am not an enemy of the TV Academy. I have great respect for Burstyn. I love television. I understand that the academy does its best to be fair and inclusive and just. Yet as long as Burstyn is in the audience as one of the category nominees on Aug. 27, then as far as I'm concerned the Emmys are bereft of validity and significance. They're Star Jones to me.

What disappoints me most about this is Burstyn's lack of action. She could have made a noble, benevolent (and proper) gesture by immediately withdrawing her name from contention -- not only out of fairness to the event and to those potential nominees who deserved an honest shot at her spot but out of simple respect for the acting profession. Burstyn's going along with this (if she is indeed fully aware of it) tells me that she cares less about her craft than she does empty personal acclaim, as if a nomination honoring a mere cameo wannabe means squat.

Burstyn is better than this, or at least ought to be. But if we go back some 30 years, we see a few disturbing clues as to the actress's sometimes paradoxical mindset.

Consider that Burstyn didn't attend the 1974 Academy Awards ceremony at which she landed her lone win, as lead actress for "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." Her director, Martin Scorsese, accepted on her behalf. She later reportedly admitted she stayed home because she was certain she would win and couldn't handle the pressure and attention. Huh?

As if that weren't strange enough, the following year (1975) Burstyn took to TV to call for a voting boycott of that year's lead actress category to protest the lack of good roles for women. This did not sit terribly well with Louise Fletcher, who was up that year (and would go on to win) for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Fletcher took it as a personal slap in the face. Burstyn said she meant nothing against Fletcher. But it was also known that Burstyn had been forced to turn down the "Cuckoo's Nest" role that went to Fletcher due, it was said at the time, to her then-husband's illness.

As Fletcher told the New York Times, "(Burstyn) hadn't even seen 'Cuckoo's Nest' because she felt it would be too painful an experience. I told her on the phone that I thought it would have been nicer if she had said what she said in a year when she had been nominated." Touche'.

So if Burstyn acted back in 1975 with a certain jealousy and bitterness, which isn't so massively far-fetched, then it's probably also not such a stretch that she could demonstrate some selfishness/nonchalance now with regard to her meritless Emmy honor. Once again assuming this is anywhere on Burstyn's radar -- impossible to confirm since her publicist refuses to return multiple phone calls seeking comment -- it's the equivalent of spotting a wallet on the street filled with $500 in cash and picture ID and figuring, "Oh well, finder's keepers." The Emmy nomination found her, and she's keeping it, righteousness be damned.

Maybe Burstyn just hasn't bothered to give this any thought. To be sure, Burstyn, at 73, isn't having a lot of trouble finding work. This is not about an aging performer's need to cling tightly to faded glory. Her acting career is thriving. She has 20 credits just since the turn of the millennium, including five in 2006 alone (four of them features). Of those 20, the smallest by far is Burstyn's part in "Mrs. Harris," which again wasn't so much a role as a disappearing act.

I would expect more of an actress who was the first female president of The Actor's Equity (1982-85) and a co-president of The Actor's Studio. But then, maybe Burstyn sees this as a matter of having to hoard every under-ripe orange that drops from the tree, uncertain as to when it will stop bearing fruit. On her IMDB.com biography, this quote is attributed to her: "It's unfortunate, but our society is such that, for women in Hollywood, you get to a certain age and just fall of a cliff. But in my case, I refuse to die. I will hang on, by a little finger if necessary."

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be Burstyn's little finger that's in play here but her upraised middle one.

http://www.pastdeadline.com/