View Full Version : Hot Off The Press! The Latest Television News and Info
TV Notebook
Bummer of a TV summer on network and cable channels?
By Robert Bianco USA Today
Here's hoping you had a better summer than the networks.
However you look at it — by ratings, quality or excitement — this was a dismal summer for your TV set. Hot-weather hits were few, and even shows that could be classified as hits didn't exactly set summer on fire.
Compare this with last summer, which wasn't a world-beater itself, and you'll see why the networks are eager to see fall arrive. Last summer's biggest hit, Dancing with the Stars, drew 20 million viewers for its finale. This summer's two biggest hits, NBC's newcomer America's Got Talent and Fox's sophomore So You Think You Can Dance, drew little more than half that.
And if you're looking for a new scripted show on a broadcast network (an endangered summer species if ever there was one), you have to look all the way down to NBC's Windfall and its 5 million or so viewers. CBS didn't do any better with Tuesday Night Book Club, and it pulled that disaster after two weeks.
What went wrong? For one thing, as ABC learned to its ratings horror with The One, it's never a good idea to come late to a trend, particularly when that trend has produced America's most popular show. Viewers clearly weren't ready after Idol to jump back into a hunt for the next rock star, or comic or whatever it was America's Got Talent was supposed to find.
Nor does it help that reality shows of all stripes are now more strictly formulized and ritualized than your average religious ceremony. Does anyone need to be told what the "auditions" for NBC's Star Tomorrow looked like? Would you be shocked to hear they featured a parade of the pathetic and talentless, lined up simply to be shot down by a rude-for-the-sake-of-it judge? (In this case it was David Foster, who is about to get another shot at the role in Fox's Celebrity Duets.) There are scripted shows that are less carefully scripted.
On a happier note, the summer returns may indicate that TV has exhausted our interest in watching "real people" misbehave without some competitive hook. Imagine if you were among those who humiliated themselves on Book Club and ABC's equally short-lived One Ocean View. You go to all that trouble to cavort on camera and nobody cares — other than the people who already knew you and may now think less of you.
You'd think the networks' weakness would have opened the door for cable. And, as a group, it has. But while an overall increase in cable viewership may convey collective bragging rights, it doesn't provide much help to individual cable networks. After all, it's not like they pool all their ad money and share all their production costs.
When you break the picture down, cable didn't do us many favors this summer either, particularly when it comes to premieres. The best and most successful shows were returnees: TNT's The Closer, the only show the networks should be sorry they don't have, and FX's Rescue Me, a fabulous show no network could possibly air.
On the fresh front, though, the picture was not much brighter than it was on broadcast. The good news consists mainly of two cute but not commanding series, USA's Psych and Sci Fi's Eureka. By cable standards they're hits, but neither inspires passion.
As for the worst news, look to HBO, which has lost ground creatively and competitively. Indeed, one more show like Lucky Louie and subscribers may start demanding refunds.
We have standards, even in summer.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-08-23-bianco-summer-tv_x.htm
TV Notebook
‘Survivor’ to Divide Teams Along Racial Lines
By Bill Carter The New York Times August 24, 2006
For the first time since it went on the air in 2000, the hit CBS reality television program “Survivor” will divide its teams — or tribes, as they are known on the show — along racial lines.
For the first half of the series this fall, four teams of five members will be made up of blacks, Asian-Americans, Hispanics and whites. They will compete in weekly challenges against each other, and the losing group will have to vote out a member of its own team.
Mark Burnett, the series producer, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the decision to organize the teams by race was made in group discussions with CBS executives and was in no way intended to promote racial divisiveness.
“In America today,” Mr. Burnett said, “I really don’t believe there are many people who hate each other because of their race. But even though people may work together, they do tend in their private lives to divide along social and ethnic lines.”
Mr. Burnett noted that in many cities, members of ethnic groups tended to cluster in neighborhoods. “In New York you will find areas like Little Afghanistan,” he said. “Maybe in the year 3010, when we’re all coffee-colored, it really will make no difference. But right now, it is what it is.”
Mr. Burnett said that “Survivor” and other shows had often been criticized for a lack of ethnic diversity. “We’re always hearing about how we only have two token blacks on the show,” he said. And the predominance of whites has been reflected in the show’s applicants, with more than 80 percent of them white, he said.
For the new contest, Mr. Burnett said, the show reached out to social and church groups to bring in more applicants of different backgrounds. He said the results had been gratifying. “We got so many good people we expanded the number of contestants to 20 instead of the usual 16,” he said.
Both CBS and Mr. Burnett acknowledged that the new format could be criticized. “I know it’s going to be controversial,” he said. “I’m not an idiot.”
In a statement, CBS said it “fully recognizes the controversial nature” of the format change. But it expressed confidence in the program’s ability to handle the situation sensitively.
The change leaves CBS open to charges that it was done to increase the ratings for “Survivor,” which, while still a hit, has had a diminished audience in recent years. In addition, in the new television season, CBS is facing a serious new challenge on Thursdays, the “Survivor” broadcast night. ABC has moved its strongest drama, “Grey’s Anatomy,” to Thursday nights at 9 to oppose CBS’s top show, “CSI.” ABC has also placed its most promising new series, “Ugly Betty,” on Thursday at 8 to compete with “Survivor.”
But Mr. Burnett said he was not making the change as a ratings strategy. “We have hardly been hurting in the ratings,” he said, noting that “Survivor” still attracted about 17 million viewers a week last season.
Instead, he called the move “an interesting social experiment.”
“I don’t think it would be valid in the regular modern world,” Mr. Burnett said. “But this is suddenly a very different playing field. People here are playing for a million dollars. They’re going to want to know if you’re going to vote them out. Or if they’re hungry, they’ll want to know if you know how to catch a fish. They’re not going to care if you’re green or Martian.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/business/media/24survivor.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=television&pagewanted=print
TV Notebook
Winners and Losers
Beam Them Up: A Good Week for Shatner, Barrino
Washington Post Wednesday, August 23, 2006; C07
Reruns and reality competition drove desperate viewers to Fantasia Barrino and William Shatner specials on cable during the last week before broadcasters start to trot out their new fall lineups. Here's a look at the week's highs and lows:
WINNERS
• "The Fantasia Barrino Story." Hollywood's treatment of the "American Idol" winner's rags-to-riches story clocked nearly 7 million viewers Sunday -- Lifetime network's second-most-watched movie in its 22-year history. Record holder remains 1995's "Almost Golden," starring Sela Ward as journalist Jessica Savitch; it logged more than 7 million viewers.
• William Shatner. When nearly 4 million viewers tuned in to Comedy Central's Shatner roast on Sunday, it became the cable network's most-watched original telecast this calendar year. That said, Shatner is certainly no Pamela Anderson; "The Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson" copped more than 4 million viewers last year.
• "America's Got Talent." The final two episodes of Simon Cowell's NBC competition series were last week's two most-watched shows, copping 11.7 million viewers Wednesday, growing to 12 million the next night. But the finale did not match the 12.4 million who'd checked out the show's two-hour premiere.
LOSERS
Tony Kornheiser's "Monday Night Football" debut. At the risk of sounding like just another two-bit weasel slug, Kornheiser's debut on "MNF" last week clocked the franchise's smallest audience ever -- an average of 5.4 million viewers. A large portion of that decline is of course because, on the same night, "Monday Night Football" migrated from the monster broadcast audience ABC commands to the niche audience of cabler ESPN. On the other hand (she added, weasel sluggily) Kornheiser's debut did not seem to move the needle at ESPN if you compare his first outing to the average 5.2 million who watched ESPN's preseason game the same night one year ago.
Teen Choice Awards. Teenagers are so over the Teen Choice Awards, which last week suffered its smallest audience: 4.8 million viewers.
Miss Teen USA Pageant. Teenagers are even more over the Miss Teen USA Pageant, which logged 5.7 million viewers overall -- the franchise's second-smallest audience since at least 1992 -- but an even smaller teen rating than the Teen Choice Awards.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/22/AR2006082201372_pf.html
TV Sports
ESPN Gains Yardage on MNF's 2nd Down
By Anthony Crupi mediaweek.com
ESPN’s second crack at hosting Monday Night Football drew the sports network’s largest preseason National Football League audience, delivering 6.58 million viewers in prime time Monday, a 22 percent increase over its inaugural MNF telecast, which drew 5.38 million viewers on Aug. 14.
The scrimmage between the Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints earned a 5.5 rating for ESPN, which in April took the MNF reins from sibling ABC in an eight-year pact with the NFL worth $1.1 billion a year.
With two preseason games left in the hopper, ESPN has yet to reach the kind of audience that ABC delivered last year with its summer scrimmages. The comparable ABC broadcast, an exhibition between the Dallas Cowboys and the future NFC champion Seattle Seahawks that took place Aug. 21, 2005, served up 8.75 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/cabletv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003052290
TV Sports
Football Lifts All Ad-Sales Boats For ESPN/ABC
By John Consoli MediaWeek.com
ESPN is virtually sold out of its NFL Monday Night Football commercial inventory and its Saturday night ABC college football ad units for the upcoming season, and the Sept. 11 NFL preview issue of ESPN, The Magazine will be its largest ad revenue-producing issue ever with 110 pages of advertising that will bring in more than $10 million.
"Prime-time Monday Night Football on ESPN and Saturday night college football on ABC has resonated with advertisers," said Ed Erhardt, president of ESPN ABC Sports Customer Marketing and Sales, who oversees sports programming sales for both ESPN and ABC. "And the heavy demand has allowed us to price it very aggressively at top of the market cost-per-thousand increases across all of our platforms."
While Erhardt would offer no CPM specifics and would not mention any new advertisers that have jumped on the football bandwagon this season, he said the hottest new category has been the consumer electronics category, specifically high-definition TV products. Among advertisers in that category are expected to be Best Buy and Circuit City, although Erhardt would not confirm that.
Erhardt also said the financial/insurance category was also hotter than usual, and traditionally strong categories like auto, beer and wireless also sold well. "We also have some of our main sponsors back like Home Depot, CitiBank, Capital One and Miller beer," Erhardt said. And he said General Motors has taken out an eight-page spread in the Sept. 11 issue of ESPN, The Magazine.
Erhardt credits his sales staff using its Monday Night Football "surround" strategy for being able to draw more advertisers in earlier than usual. Those are packages that include not only in-game units, but also advertising on every ESPN platform in the 24 hours following the game each week.
While Erhardt would not discuss specifics of the Sept. 11 ESPN, The Magazine ad sales, it has been reported that ESPN charges a rate card amount of $114,000 per black & white ad page, so just taking that number and multiplying it by 110 ad pages would bring in more than $14 million. Of course, there would be some discounting involved within packages, but the magazine could take it close to $10 million for the one issue.
Unlike last year when ESPN carried Sunday Night NFL Football and was able to sell 63 in-game ad units per game, this year it can only sell 43 in-game units for each Monday Night Football game, a number mandated by the NFL. Erhardt said 60 in-game ad units are available for each Saturday night college game on ABC. But Erhardt said all the games are "virtually sold out."
"We have a few units here and there and are trying different ways to package them to try to accommodate as many advertisers as we still can," he said. "There is definitely more demand than available inventory."
Erhardt said at this time last year, Sunday Night Football, albeit with more units available to sell, was about 90 percent sold out for the season.
Media buyers, none of who wanted to speak for attribution, said the reason Monday Night Football and the Saturday college games are nearly sold out is because they are exclusive games on those nights, while sales of football on Sunday has been slower paced because CBS, Fox and NBC all air games on that day and night.
Coors announced a sponsorship deal with NBC yesterday and Toyota/Lexus previously was announced as a major sponsor of NBC's Sunday Night Football. Toyota/Lexus also has a major ad sponsorship with ESPN.
None of the other networks has been particularly forthright is discussing NFL telecast sellout levels, even with the season opening games just three weeks away. But one media buyer said, "The other broadcast networks will eventually sell their inventory. It's just that many of us are not in a rush to jump in yet."
The buyer also indicated that some advertisers and their media agencies who are not yet in are probably trying to play one Sunday telecast venue against the other to try to get better pricing, and that is what is holding up the finalization of deals.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003052513
TV Notebook
Shatner, Nimoy are beaming as `Star Trek' turns 40
By Luaine Lee McClatchy/Tribune newpapers
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Maybe it's been operating in a parallel universe, but "Star Trek" will be 40 years old Sept. 8. For those of us who were raised with Mr. Spock and Capt. James T. Kirk on the Starship Enterprise, it seems we've been caught in a time warp.
TV Land network will celebrate that noble passage on "Star Trek's" anniversary, with four of the show's most popular episodes airing from 7 to 11 p.m.
Then the fabled series (which lasted only three years on network television) will join TV Land's regular lineup Nov. 17. Time hasn't stood still -- though to talk with William Shatner, who played Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy, who was the stoic Mr. Spock -- you'd think it has.
It took Nimoy 15 years to find Spock. He worked in serials and small films while he was studying acting, then did a stint in the Army. When he returned, he landed parts on "Wagon Train," "Man from U.N.C.L.E." and "Perry Mason."
Cast in pilot
In 1965, he was cast in the pilot for a new science-fiction show written by visionary Gene Roddenberry. It was an odd character that he agreed to do.
"I remember what Gene told me when I met with him. He said the character is going to be a character with an internal conflict because he is half-Vulcan, half-human. He wants to live as a Vulcan. His human side is something he has to contend with constantly. And I was excited about that because I thought it would give the character an inner life, something to work with," says Nimoy, seated next to Shatner in a hotel room here.
Shatner, who was born in Canada, started his career on the Canadian Broadcasting Co. as a kid. After he moved to New York, he co-starred on programs such as "Playhouse 90," "Studio One" and "The Twilight Zone."
He was 34 when he read the role of Capt. Kirk. The pilot had been screened a year earlier with another actor playing the captain but didn't sell. A second pilot, with Shatner as the resolute captain and Nimoy as his second-in-command, was created. Shatner doesn't remember exactly how Kirk was described in the script but says, "He was the typical leading man. And the books `Capt. Horatio Hornblower' by C. S. Forester were the basis of the hero. So I read several of those."
Their tours of duty turned out to be supercharged. When the show was canceled, legions of die-hard fans rose up in protest. Nimoy remembers: "I thought we would see a couple years of reruns and then fade away. I really did. Then after two or three years, when the series went into syndication and stations around the country would schedule according to their own local audience and find out where this show might work, they began to discover there was a very interested audience waiting for the show.
"Then suddenly it became a news story, and `Star Trek' was being run every night at 6 o'clock, and the family dinner hour was being disrupted. When we were stopped at the airport, people would say, `My family won't sit down to dinner because `Star Trek' is on."
Every conceivable spinoff followed, from toys to multimillion-dollar feature films.
After the glare of the limelight faded, both men had to continue working. "The '70s were difficult because there was a tremendous hunger for `Star Trek' but there was no `Star Trek' being produced," says Nimoy.
Played van Gogh
"That was frustrating. I was working as an actor; I was busy. I was doing a one-man show called `Vincent' about Vincent van Gogh. I went to 35 cities and had a wonderful time. I toured in the national tour of `Sherlock Holmes,' a Royal Shakespeare production. I was on Broadway a couple of times. I was having a wonderful time as an actor. But there was a lot of interest in `Star Trek.'"
"I was doing the same thing," says Shatner. "I was doing a stage show, and I was earning a living, but not with the same elan that the series had. And, as happens to me and series actors, they go through a phase where they don't work on television. So Leonard filled his career with these wonderful moves and I did the same thing, but it wasn't national television."
"The fact is, that from the moment that `Star Trek' went on the air in September 1966 to this very day, I've never had to worry about where my next job is coming from," says Nimoy. "So since September '66, I've had no problem. So for me to complain about the impact that Spock has had on my life would be insane."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0608220179aug22,1,5844142.story?coll=chi-ent_tv-photo&ctrack=1&cset=true
TV Notebook
Peter Jennings’ Final Report
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn”
Peter Jennings had begun work last year on “Out of Control: AIDS in Black America,” airing at 10 PM ET/PT on ABC. Then illness overcame him. But lest you think that is the reason for the delay of this report, Terry Moran, who completed it, says the real reason is that “we” — meaning not just ABC but the news media on the whole — “missed the story.”
Namely, that in recent years African-Americans, who make up 13 percent of the population, have accounted for half the new AIDS cases reported in the U.S. Black women are getting AIDS at 22 times the levels of white Americans.
These, Moran correctly notes, are “stunning and disproportionate numbers.” This special investigates the reasons, both obvious and not, why it happened. Too bad ABC didn’t do its late anchorman the honor of featuring this program on a competitive night during the regular season, the way PBS did with its two-parter on AIDS in May.
http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2006/08/what_to_watch_t.html
The Business of TV
TiVo Locks Up Cox
Multichannel News 8/24/2006
TiVo will be the leading digital-video-recorder and interactive-advertising service available to select Cox Communications subscribers under terms of an agreement announced Thursday.
The DVR vendor will customize its cable software for deployment on compatible Cox DVR set-top-boxes, the two companies said. Its downloadable software will allow Cox to deliver TiVo’s service without replacing existing DVR boxes and without install appointments.
Cox will also distribute TiVo's interactive-advertising platform, “which enables an industry-proven advertising solution that is seamlessly integrated with the award-winning TiVo subscriber experience,” TiVo said.
“The new advertising relationship extends Cox Media's leadership in the advanced advertising arena and further expands TiVo's national advertising footprint,” Cox added. Cox Media is Cox’s advertising-sales arm.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6365434
TV Notebook
Next 'Survivor': Crossing the race line
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Aug 24, 2006
When a once-dominant reality show starts declining in ratings, it’s usually time to throw together an all-star edition. CBS’s “Survivor,” having already gone the all-star route, is doing a lot more radical and a lot riskier: It’s playing the race card.
The network said yesterday that the 13th season of the former No. 1 reality show will divide the 20 contestants into four tribes: one white, one black, one Hispanic and one Asian.
CBS insists that the change comes after years of complaints that “Survivor’s” cast was too homogenous, and indeed, this will be the most diverse cast of any reality show ever to run on the broadcast networks, with 15 minorities.
But the real reason behind the move, much as the network and producer Mark Burnett have already denied it, is undoubtedly ratings. “Survivor’s” have been dipping steadily over the past two years, ever since the 2004 all-star edition.
In the past, the show rose and fell on the personalities of the contestants. Controversial winners like Richard Hatch (Borneo) and Tina Wesson (Australian Outback) kept ratings pumping while dull ones like Chris Daugherty (Vanuatu) led to declines.
Yet over the past two years no amount of scheming or duplicitous behavior on the part of contestants could stop the ratings slump. The spring 2004 all-star edition averaged an 8.1 in adults 18-49. The most recent edition, in spring 2006, averaged a 6.0, a decline of 26 percent. Its total viewers average, just under 17 million, was the program’s worst ever.
What’s more, that decline came against relatively weak competition in “Survivor’s” longtime Thursday 8 p.m. timeslot. With the exit of “Friends,” NBC averaged barely half CBS’s rating in the hour.
When ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” a summer hit but a Thursday long shot, invaded the 8 p.m. hour at midseason, media people were shocked to see “Stars” better “Survivor” among total viewers. Only megahit “Friends” had managed that feat in the past.
Clearly CBS is treading dangerous territory with the race ploy. Yesterday, when “Survivor” host Jeff Probst appeared on CBS’s “Early Show” to discuss the change, anchor Harry Smith called the move distasteful and said many people he’d discussed it with were dismayed.
But Probst insisted that it is a social experiment rather than a ratings stunt, as in past shows, when tribes have been divided along gender lines.
“Survivor’s” challenge will be in execution. If the contestants are interesting, and producers use the racial divisions as a background rather than a main focus, “Survivor” could regain its buzz as a must-see show.
Most important, CBS does not want to scare off advertisers, and any hint of controversy will do just that. No doubt the network consulted groups like the NAACP beforehand, hoping to avoid the sort of controversy that submarined its proposed reality show “The Real Beverly Hillbillies” several years ago after rural groups objected loudly. Race on television, before the camera and behind it, was already a long-smoldering issue before that.
Yet if CBS and Burnett play it too cautious, such that the racial lines blur before viewers, the whole effect of the race-based tribes will be lost. Left to the personalities of the contestants as people, the show would then face the risk of another slip in ratings.
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_6856.asp
bphisig
08-24-06, 10:54 AM
As for the worst news, look to HBO, which has lost ground creatively and competitively. Indeed, one more show like Lucky Louie and subscribers may start demanding refunds.
We have standards, even in summer.
I actually like Lucky Louie. Am I in the minority on this? It's crude, so it's definitely not for everyone, but I definitely hope it comes back for another season.
VisionOn
08-24-06, 11:31 AM
I actually like Lucky Louie. Am I in the minority on this? It's crude, so it's definitely not for everyone, but I definitely hope it comes back for another season.
well it's not at the top of my must see list, but it offers a laugh now and again. I'm just amazed that the woman who plays is wife is actually Bobby on King of the Hill.
In any regard with Deadwood er, dead for the present time, I agree that the HBO roster of quality series is getting very slim.
I actually like Lucky Louie. Am I in the minority on this? It's crude, so it's definitely not for everyone, but I definitely hope it comes back for another season.
TV should be about is what you enjoy. Who cares what others think? (Except, of course, if they are Nielsen families and they don't like your favorites.)
But in this particular case, it looks like you are in the minority. Lucky Louie's numbers have been very low and the critics have savaged it. Anything is possible, of course, but I wouldn't expect it to be back for another season.
Wednesday’s network prime-time ratings are now at the top of RATINGS NEWS (the first post in this thread).
Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
CBS's 'Rock Star' reclaims lost viewers
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Aug 24
Facing the season finale of the summer’s most-watched show is bound to hurt a competing program’s ratings. The test is whether it can bounce back the following week.
CBS’s “Rock Star: Supernova” managed just that last night, averaging a 2.7 adults 18-49 overnight rating. That was 17 percent better than its 2.3 average last week in the same 8 p.m. timeslot, when it aired opposite the first hour of the season finale of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.” "Talent" averaged a 2.9.
The 2.7 was also up slightly over “Supernova’s” 2.6 season-to-date average. The show, which chronicles the Tommy Lee-led band Supernova’s search for a lead singer, airs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and the latter is when the performers get the boot.
Still, while “Supernova” has been on the rise of late, it remains behind last year’s average of 2.7 for the show’s first edition, in which INXS picked a new lead singer.
And though 17 percent is a nice week-to-week bump, there was little competition to speak of last night. The six English-language broadcast networks had just one other new show between them, ABC’s 10 p.m. “Primetime: Medical Mysteries.”
The 9 p.m. hour was all repeats what with “Talent” and Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” now off the schedule.
“Supernova” has three more weeks left. Its finale airs Sept. 13 at 8 p.m.
Meanwhile, CBS led every hour and was No.1 for the night at a 2.5 rating and 8 share in 18-49s, ahead of NBC at 2.1/6, ABC at 2.0/6, Fox and Univision each at 1.8/6, and UPN and the WB each at 0.6/2.
At 8 p.m., CBS's "Supernova" was No. 1 at 2.7, ahead of NBC at 2.2 for a "Most Outrageous Moments" repeat, Univision at 2.0 for "La Fea Más Bella," Fox at 1.7 for a "Bones" rerun, ABC at 1.5 for two "George Lopez" reruns, UPN at 0.7 for an "America's Next Top Model" rerun and the WB at 0.6 for two "Blue Collar TV" repeats.
At 9 p.m., CBS was No. 1 at 2.3 for a "Criminal Minds" repeat, ahead of NBC at 2.0 for two "Scrubs" reruns, and Fox and ABC each at 1.9 for "Prison Break" and a pair of "George" reruns. Univision’s "Barrera de Amor" averaged a 1.8, ahead of UPN and WB each at 0.6 for "All of Us" and "Half & Half" repeats and a "One Tree Hill" rerun.
At 10 p.m., CBS led again with "CSI: NY" at 2.6, followed by ABC's "Primetime: Medical Mysteries" at 2.5, NBC's "Law & Order" repeat at 2.2 and Univision’s "Don Francisco Presenta" at 1.7.
Among households, CBS led once again with a 5.3 rating and 9 share for the night, ahead of ABC and NBC each at 3.8/7, Fox at 3.5/6, Univision at 2.2/4, and the WB and UPN each at 1.1/2.
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_6881.asp
Obviously, Aaron Taylor was not just another talking head. I am going to miss his work. I thought he was outstanding. But what he is now doing is so much more important, so Godspeed to him.
TV Notebook
Giving back to others
Aaron Taylor gives up TV job for joys of philanthropy
By Jonathan Okanes Contra Costa Times Aug. 24, 2006
Aaron Taylor was faced with an easy choice: Continue the career that affords him fame and fortune, or step out of the spotlight and be lighter in the wallet.
Apparently, the rewards of breaking down blocking schemes don't quite measure up to the gratification of philanthropy.
Taylor, the De La Salle High School graduate who went on to become an All-America offensive lineman at Notre Dame and then played six years in the NFL, left his high-profile role as studio analyst for ABC's college football coverage to focus on making meaningful contributions to society.
Instead of providing halftime analysis on Saturdays this fall, Taylor will stay home in San Diego and serve on the board of a mentoring organization called "Boys to Men," help do fundraising for the YMCA, and provide assistance in other ways for children and education.
"To do something that is self-centered and about myself and having fun or doing something that was in the better interest of other people that was a little more meaningful -- that, in the end, was the decision I made," Taylor said. "The decision to leave television was about following my heart. It wasn't about saying no to television. It was about reciprocating the many blessings that I have been given."
Taylor spent two seasons at ABC but never felt completely at peace. He almost didn't take the job in the first place because he wanted to become an elementary school teacher.
"I made the decision that 30 years from now, if the most I can say about myself is I was a really successful television analyst, then I had missed the boat by a mile," Taylor said. "When I looked at television and those sorts of things, when I was honest with myself, I felt like I'd be betraying myself if I chose to continue to go down that route."
Taylor is the president of the San Diego chapter of the NFL Players Association for retired players, but he's most passionate about a project he's heading that helps athletes make the transition out of their sport. Taylor endured a struggle to adapt to a lifestyle without football after he retired in 1999 that included a bout with alcoholism, and he's determined to help others avoid making the same mistakes.
He is helping plan a retreat in February for athletes from any sport to learn about the issues affecting their assimilation back into society.
"(Athletes) all have the skill-sets to be successful out in the real world -- hard work, dedication, willingness to work as a team, leadership," Taylor said. "Yet when we get out there, we struggle. Never say die, never ask for help, never admit defeat -- all those things that helped us be good athletes ironically end up slicing our throats in the real world and inhibit our progress."
Taylor isn't really giving up a lot of money by leaving his television job. Yes, he was paid handsomely, but he didn't keep a penny. Since Taylor was never convinced he should have taken the job in the first place, he reconciled the inner conflict by establishing the "Aaron Taylor Impact Fund" and donating his entire salary to it, a charity that benefits nonprofit organizations for children and education.
Taylor wouldn't say how much he donated to the fund but said it was "more than a car and less than a house."
"There was an element of my life that was missing, and that was the philanthropic aspect of it," he said. "I found a happy medium. It alleviated all the guilt I had of doing this really cool, fun job that paid well but I wasn't doing anything with."
Taylor said he isn't ruling out returning to television someday -- it's just not for him at this juncture of his life.
Studio producer Tim Weinkauf, Taylor's boss at ABC, believed Taylor had a bright future in broadcasting.
"We were building something, and we're definitely going to miss him," Weinkauf said. "It wouldn't surprise me if he got back into it at some point. The few times we'd go out to a stadium, he would get a tremendous response."
De La Salle coach Bob Ladouceur, who has remained close with Taylor since he graduated in 1990, isn't surprised his former player left the high life behind to pursue the common good. Ladouceur encouraged Taylor to take the ABC job, partly because it was the chance of a lifetime and partly because he could build contacts to do philanthropic work later.
"Most guys would think he's got it made, but he never really knew if it was right for him," Ladouceur said. "He's an outstanding example of what the world needs -- more guys like him. The guy should be given an award. He's doing all the right things. He wants to leave this place better than he found it."
Taylor said he enjoyed his job at ABC -- "It was cool being a TV star working for a major network" -- because of the people he worked alongside. He was on the sideline for last season's BCS title game at the Rose Bowl. But even though he made a compromise with himself by donating his salary, it wasn't enough to keep him in front of the camera.
"I want to make this point: I'm not a martyr," Taylor said. "This isn't about me doing these things for the sole purpose of just trying to help people. I feel good when I do this. It's not that I do this unselfishly and there's nothing in it for me, and I'm a total goody-goody. There is a huge payoff when I do these sort of things."
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/sports/15348870.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
TV Notebook
Laughing matters
New sitcoms on both sides of the laugh track divide
By Alan Sepinwall Newark Star-Ledger
Laugh tracks: threat, menace or godsend?
In the beginning, there was "The Hank McCune Show," an NBC sitcom that lasted all of three months in the fall of 1950. McCune is long forgotten, but his show's chief innovation -- canned laughter designed to cue viewers at home to feel amused -- has been burned onto the DVD-R of our collective pop culture consciousness. With the success the next fall of "I Love Lucy" and its live studio audience, laughter has become an indelible part of TV's soundtrack, whether produced by actual humans or by machines.
And for nearly 50 years, the price of doing business in TV comedy was having to feed the laugh track monster, writing jokes designed to produce laughs every 10 or 15 seconds, if not faster. Occasionally, networks tried laugh-track-free comedies like "Hooperman" and "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd," but their failure only reinforced the belief that TV audiences wanted to be told when to laugh.
Then came January of 2000 and the premiere of Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle," which became a mega-hit while violating that cardinal sitcom rule. It was shot in what's called single-camera style (on film, no audience laughter, lots of location shooting), as opposed to the traditional three-camera sitcom format (on video in front of a studio audience), but it was so funny that viewers didn't need to be told it was.
The success of "Malcolm" opened the doors for shows like "Scrubs," "The Bernie Mac Show," "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office," none of which would have gotten the time of day at a network a year or two earlier -- at least, not without radical format changes that would have robbed them of everything that made them unique.
"Malcolm" went off the air in May, and the fall season features an odd schism between the big four networks: All of ABC's comedies and most of NBC's are single-camera, while CBS and Fox are only airing traditional multi-camera laugh track sitcoms.
"We didn't make a decision on style," insists ABC president Steve McPherson, even though his network used to rely on laugh tracks exclusively. "We didn't say we don't want to do comedies with laugh tracks, we don't want to do multi-cameras. We certainly went out there and said we want to break the mold. We feel like the same old/same old is not working, so the traditional three-camera, couch-in-the-middle sitcom just didn't seem to be breaking out at all."
CBS' reliance on the familiar form isn't a surprise, since it's worked for them for so long. In the past decade, the network has tried a handful of single-camera sitcoms ("Grapevine," "Danny," both short-lived), but its big successes have been Nick at Nite-ready shows like "Everybody Loves Raymond."
"Success breed success in a way," says Wendi Trilling, CBS' executive vice president of comedy development. "We're the ones who are succeeding with multi-camera comedies, so people who have multi-camera comedies to pitch tend to come to us... Every time one (of the multi-camera shows) doesn't succeed, it makes it harder for us to get pitches for them."
What's unusual is to see Fox -- which, after "Malcolm," went gung-ho into the single-camera business -- airing so many multi-camera shows, one of them, " 'Til Death," starring "Raymond" Emmy winner Brad Garrett.
"I love the medium of the sitcom," says Garrett. "To me there's nothing like theater. And if a sitcom is done right, it's really a different play every week. And I love a studio audience. I feed off of that. It gives us an immediate way to get an idea of the scene we're in. Many times we'll have a second take or a third take, which will be judged right then and there by how the audience just reacted to the last scene."
"Even though a studio audience is fairly amped up by the warm-up man and they are under obligation to laugh hysterically, you won't believe their laughter unless it's funny," says John Lithgow, star of "20 Good Years," NBC's lone multi-camera comedy. In one scene in the pilot, he removes his coat to reveal a pasty middle-aged body covered in nothing but a Speedo, and "when I take off that trench coat, that squeal of laughter was completely authentic."
On the flip side, "The beauty of single-camera is you can find some more subtleties," according to Wendie Malick, co-star of ABC's single-camera rookie "Big Day" and a veteran of comedies in both formats ("Just Shoot Me," "Dream On"). "It gives you a little more room to breathe a few more subtle moments into it. Obviously, the great thing about having an audience is they just raise the whole energy level and you're kind of doing that hybrid of theater and film, which was great fun. But this one -- this gives you a chance to kind of also land and have some moments that are much trickier to do in front of an audience. It's a lot more intimate."
Sometimes, Lithgow argues, single-camera shows can get too subtle.
"My sense is a couple of extremely innovative shows came along, single-camera with no laugh track. People thought, 'This is sensational.' (And now) it's not new. It gradually became the norm. And to my mind, the only danger of that is that there's less and less absolute obligation to be funny. Before you know it, you don't have the rigor of three-camera studio audience comedy."
Jennifer Konner, co-creator of ABC's single-camera "Help Me Help You," tries to fight that mentality, noting the words of her mentor, Judd Apatow: "He used to always say in single-camera, if a joke doesn't work, then it's the dramatic moment."
Still, the kinds of jokes are different. With single-camera you can do more visual humor, more physical humor, humor that doesn't rely on punchlines at all. As Peter Tolan, co-creator of ABC's short-lived single-camera comedy "The Job" (and now co-creator of "Rescue Me") puts it on that show's DVD set, traditional three-camera shows feel "like they're written in a foreign language, which now everybody knows. And they're bored, because they've heard the joke setups. Anybody can identify a joke setup now based on what they've heard in sitcoms."
On a more specific level, "You're limited by sets when do you three-camera," says Ted Danson, a three-camera legend from "Cheers" who's now playing a shrink in ABC's "Help Me Help You." "You end up talking a lot about that funny thing that happened to you on your way to the office, whereas now, you get to see it. And that -- to me, that's much more fun to see the funny thing happening instead of hearing about it."
While there have been single-camera successes like "Malcolm" and "Earl" in the past few years, there have been more failures ("Arrested Development," in spite of awards and critical raves, was on ratings life support its entire run). Given that, is someone like McPherson worried about putting all his eggs in the single-camera basket?
"The traditional laugh track comedies have not been popular (lately) either, so I think comedy is risky in general right now because it's kind of broken, and I think that's a great thing," McPherson says. "You know, five years ago people said drama was dead, and now I think it's the golden age of drama in broadcast television, and cable, too. So I think it's a risky time, but that's a good time. People are taking chances, you know, just like when we were kind of down and out and took chances with serialized shows. I think it's a time where you need to take chances to hopefully find the next thing that breaks out."
But for someone like CBS' Trilling, format is almost besides the point.
"I think it just has to be funny," she says. "I don't think people come to shows and say, 'I want to watch something that was shot outside and doesn't have a laugh track.' They want to be entertained."
http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/sepinwall/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1156310047169680.xml&coll=1
bphisig
08-24-06, 01:09 PM
TV should be about is what you enjoy. Who cares what others think? (Except, of course, if they are Nielsen families and they don't like your favorites.)
But in this particular case, it looks like you are in the minority. Lucky Louie's numbers have been very low and the critics have savaged it. Anything is possible, of course, but I wouldn't expect it to be back for another season.
The only reason I hope other people watch shows I like are for this exact reason. In this case, I guess we've seen the last of Lucky Louie. Finale airs Sunday!
ChrisHman
08-24-06, 02:31 PM
Laughing matters New sitcoms on both sides of the laugh track divide
By Alan Sepinwall Newark Star-Ledger
....Then came January of 2000 and the premiere of Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle," which became a mega-hit while violating that cardinal sitcom rule. It was shot in what's called single-camera style (on film, no audience laughter, lots of location shooting), as opposed to the traditional three-camera sitcom format (on video in front of a studio audience), but it was so funny that viewers didn't need to be told it was.
I always was impressed with how Sports Night, in 1998, started off w/ the laugh track and slowly started using it less as season 1 went on. By the time season 2 came about it was gone completely. Perhaps not the first to try such a stunt but one that really comes across clearly when watching the series on DVD.
I agree, ChrisHman.
(And welcome to the thread -- post often!)
TV Notebook
EchoStar, Warner Bros. Ink VOD Pact
Multichannel News 8/24/2006
EchoStar Communications’ Dish Network direct-broadcast satellite service will carry Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group’s current and catalog titles via video-on-demand and pay-per-view, including in HD, under terms of an agreement announced Thursday.
“Warner Bros. is a great addition to both Dish On Demand and pay-per-view," EchoStar vice president of programming Susan Arnold said in a prepared statement. "Hit movies such as V for Vendetta greatly enhance the variety of movie titles available to our customers."
http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6365620
TV Notebook
Nightline, up from the ashes
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn” Thursday, August 24, 2006
"ABC News Nightline," the show many crix gave up for dead after Ted Koppel's departure, has beaten "Late Show With David Letterman" three weeks in a row -- most impressively this past week, when Dave was not in reruns.
Not only that, it beat Letterman by a hair in the demo as well. Also on the jump, (go to the link listed at the bottom) I've attached season-to-date averages for all the late nights and selected cable, courtesy of NBC.
(ABC Press Release)
“NIGHTLINE” BEATS CBS’ “LETTERMAN” FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE WEEK
FIRST TIME “NIGHTLINE” BEATS “LETTERMAN” FOR THREE STRAIGHT WEEKS SINCE MAY 2003
“NIGHTLINE” INCREASES 17% IN TOTAL VIEWERS COMPARED TO SAME WEEK A YEAR AGO
According to Nielsen Media Research for the week of August 14, 2006, ABC News “Nightline” outperformed CBS “Late Night with David Letterman” in both Total Viewers and the key Adults 25-54 demographic for the third consecutive week. The last time “Nightline” beat “Letterman” three weeks in a row was May 2003. This is also the fifth time this season “Nightline” outperformed “Letterman.” “Letterman" aired original programming last week.
In Total Viewers, “Nightline” posted 3.71 million viewers, the program’s highest delivery since April 10, 2006 and a significant 17% growth compared to the same week a year ago. In comparison, CBS’s “Letterman” posted 3.56 million viewers while “NBC’s “The Tonight Show” posted 4.52 million viewers.
Among Adults 25-54, “Nightline” again outperformed “Letterman,” posting 1.75 million viewers (1.4 demo rating). This is “Nightline’s” highest delivery in the key demo since June 19, 2006 and a 7% growth compared to the same week last year. “Letterman” posted 1.70 million viewers (1.4 demo rating) while NBC’s “The Tonight Show” posted 2.13 million viewers (1.7 demo rating).
ABC News “Nightline” is anchored by Cynthia McFadden, Terry Moran, and Martin Bashir. James Goldston is the executive producer.
(Week of August 14, 2006)
TOTAL VIEWERS A25-54 (000)/ Rtg
ABC “Nightline” 3,710,000 1,750,000/ 1.4
CBS “Late Show” 3,560,000 1,700,000/ 1.4
NBC “Tonight” 4,520,000 2,130,000/ 1.7
Source: NTI and NSI
http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2006/08/nightline_up_fr.html#more
TV Notebook
HD Theater Boosts Slate
Nine Discovery Networks Programs Receiving Upgrade
By James Hibberd in TV Week’s HD Newsletter Thursday, August 24, 2006
Discovery HD Theater is about to get a major programming boost with several popular series from across the Discovery Networks spectrum being upgraded to high definition.
Discovery has tapped nine programs, including Animal Planet's breakout hit "Meerkat Manor" and Travel Channel's "No Reservations With Anthony Bourdain," to receive HD upgrades and premiere on HD Theater next year.
Contracts are still being negotiated with producers and the list could change, but the slate would go a long way toward giving fans of the 4-year-old hi-def network a greater selection of programming. Aside from "American Chopper," most HD Theater content tends toward documentary specials rather than ongoing series.
The other upgraded shows are Travel Channel's "1000 Places to See Before You Die," "Bizarre Foods" and "Tribal Life"; and Discovery Channel's "I Shouldn't Be Alive" and "Extreme Engineering." In addition, a pair of Travel Channel miniseries, "Into Alaska" and "Into the Kombai Tribe," are slated to be shot in HD.
Discovery HD plans to televise the new shows as near-simulcast, running within 24 to 48 hours of their standard-definition premiere. Occasionally the network will also run a true simulcast—the channel's upcoming 30 globetrotting two-hour "Atlas" specials, for example.
• • • • • • • • • • •
To read the entire story (plus see Hibberd’s chart of information supplied by me regarding this season’s HD production by each network), sign up for weekly email delivery of the HD Newsletter at:
http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=117
or see the chart here:
http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=253
harley1
08-24-06, 03:24 PM
fredfa
Any ratings numbers for the Spike Lee/ Katrina Documentary on HBO ?
taz291819
08-24-06, 03:34 PM
Damn, MythBusters wasn't one of them.
fredfa
Any ratings numbers for the Spike Lee/ Katrina Documentary on HBO ?
I haven't seen anything yet, harley1.
I am keeping my eyes open, but premium numbers usually taker a little longer to get.
TV Notebook
The CW Stations
As of August 24
Market Call Letters/ Owner Last
Rank Market CW Updated
164 Abilene-Sweetwater, TX KTXS-DT/Bluestone 4/25/2006
147 Albany, GA 3/31/2006
55 Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY WEWB/ Tribune 3/10/2006
46 Albuquerque-Santa Fe, NM KWBQ/ Acme 3/15/2006
176 Alexandria, LA KBCA/Dimension 3/17/2006
131 Amarillo, TX KVII-DT/Barrington 3/31/2006
155 Anchorage, AK KIMO-DT/Smith Media 5/2/2006
9 Atlanta, GA WUPA/ CBS 5/16/2006
115 Augusta, GA WAGT-DT/Schurz 3/31/2006
53 Austin, TX KNVA/LIN 4/27/2006
128 Bakersfield, CA 6/15/2006
24 Baltimore, MD WNUV/Sinclair 5/2/2006
151 Bangor, ME WABI/Diversified 5/19/2006
96 Baton Rouge, LA 2/28/2006
96 Baton Rouge, LA WBRL/ Communications Corp. 3/9/2006
140 Beaumont-Port Arthur KFDM-TV/Freedom 6/15/2006
196 Bend, OR KTVZ-DT/News-Press & Gazette 3/17/2006
171 Billings KTVQ-DT/Cordillera 4/25/2006
156 Binghamton, NY WBNG-DT/Television Station Group 5/2/2006
40 Birmingham (Anniston and Tuscaloosa), AL WTTO & WDBB/Sinclair 5/2/2006
149 Bluefield-Beckley-Oak Hill WVVA-DT/Quincy Newspapers 3/29/2006
119 Boise, ID KNIN/Banks 3/29/2006
5 Boston, MA (Manchester, NH) WLVI/ Tribune 7/24/2006
183 Bowling Green WBKO-DT/Gray 3/29/2006
49 Buffalo, NY WNLO/LIN 4/18/2006
90 Burlington, VT-Plattsburgh, NY 5/19/2006
193 Butte-Bozeman, MT KXLF-DT/Cordillera 8/24/2006
198 Casper-Riverton, WY 2/28/2006
198 Casper-Riverton, WY KWYF/Wyomedia 4/11/2006
88 Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City & Dubuque, IA KWKB/KM Communications 5/2/2006
82 Champaign & Springfield-Decatur, IL WBUI/ Acme 3/31/2006
101 Charleston, SC WCBD-DT/Media General 3/29/2006
64 Charleston-Huntington, WV WHCP/ Commonwealth 3/31/2006
27 Charlotte, NC WJZY/ Capitol 3/8/2006
186 Charlottesville WVIR/Waterman 5/19/2006
86 Chattanooga, TN WFLI/ Meredith 5/2/2006
195 Cheyenne, WY-Scottsbluff, NE 2/28/2006
3 Chicago, IL WGN/ Tribune 2/28/2006
130 Chico-Redding, CA KHSL-DT/Catamount 3/31/2006
34 Cincinnati, OH WKRC-DT/Clear Channel 4/19/2006
16 Cleveland-Akron (Canton), OH WBNX/ Winston 3/8/2006
93 Colorado Springs-Pueblo, CO KXTU/Raycom 6/15/2006
83 Columbia, SC 2/28/2006
83 Columbia, SC WZRB/Roberts 3/31/2006
138 Columbia-Jefferson City, MO KOMU-DT/Missouri U. 4/18/2006
127 Columbus, GA WLGA/Pappas 3/17/2006
32 Columbus, OH WWHO/LIN 7/13/2006
132 Columbus-Tupelo-West Point 3/22/2006
129 Corpus Christi, TX KRIS-DT/Cordillera 4/25/2006
7 Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX KDAF/ Tribune 2/28/2006
95 Davenport, IA-Rock Island-Moline, IL KGWB/Grant 3/29/2006
59 Dayton, OH WBDT/ Acme 8/24/2006
18 Denver, CO KWGN/ Tribune 7/13/2006
73 Des Moines-Ames, IA KPWB/Pappas 4/18/2006
11 Detroit, MI WKBD/ CBS 3/22/2006
172 Dothan, AL WTVY-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
137 Duluth-Superior KDLH-DT/ Malara 4/11/2006
99 El Paso, TX KVIA-DT/ News-Press & Gazette 4/18/2006
173 Elmira, NY WENY/Lilly 5/19/2006
142 Erie WSEE/Lilly 5/19/2006
121 Eugene, OR KMTR/Clear Channel 5/19/2006
194 Eureka KVIQ-DT/ Sainte Partners 4/11/2006
100 Evansville, IN 2/28/2006
100 Evansville, IN WAZE/South Central 3/17/2006
203 Fairbanks KATN/Smih Media 5/19/2006
. Fargo-Valley City 5/19/2006
65 Flint-Saginaw-Bay City WBSF/Barrington 5/5/2006
56 Fresno-Visalia, CA KFRE/Pappas 3/31/2006
66 Ft. Myers-Naples, Fl 6/15/2006
66 Ft. Myers-Naples, Fl WTVK/ Acme 3/9/2006
104 Ft. Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR 3/31/2006
106 Ft. Wayne WISE/Granite 4/11/2006
162 Gainesville WCJB-DT/Diversified 5/2/2006
210 Glendive, MT 2/28/2006
187 Grand Junction-Montrose KKCO-DT/Gray 4/18/2006
39 Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, MI WWMT-DT/Freedom 4/27/2006
189 Great Falls KRTV-DT/Cordillera 8/24/2006
69 Green Bay-Appleton, WI WIWB/ Acme 3/22/2006
47 Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem, NC WCWG/Pappas 3/17/2006
105 Greenville-N.Bern-Washngtn WNCT-DT/Media General 4/18/2006
35 Greenville-Spartanburg, SC-Asheville, NC-Anderson,SC WASV/Media General 3/29/2006
92 Harlingen-Weslaco-Brownsville-McAllen, TX 6/15/2006
41 Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, PA WLYH/Clear Channel 7/13/2006
181 Harrisonburg WVIR/Waterman 4/11/2006
28 Hartford & New Haven, CT WTXX/ Tribune 4/27/2006
206 Helena KMTF/Rocky Mountain 3/29/2006
72 Honolulu, HI 3/8/2006
10 Houston, TX KHWB/ Tribune 2/28/2006
84 Huntsville-Decatur (Florence), AL 2/28/2006
84 Huntsville-Decatur (Florence), AL WHDF/Lockwood 4/18/2006
163 Idaho Falls-Pocatello KPIF/KM Communications 3/29/2006
25 Indianapolis, IN WTTK & WTTV/ Tribune 4/27/2006
89 Jackson, MS 2/28/2006
89 Jackson, MS WRBJ/Roberts 3/21/2006
52 Jacksonville, FL WJWB/Media General 7/13/2006
207 Juneau, AK KJUD-DT/Smith Media 5/2/2006
31 Kansas City, MO KCWE/ KCWE Inc. 3/10/2006
58 Knoxville, TN WBXX/ Acme 3/31/2006
123 LaCrosse-Eau Claire, WI WXOW-DT & WQOW-DT/Quincy Newspapers 3/29/2006
124 Lafayette, LA KLWB/Dimension 3/17/2006
110 Lansing, MI WLAJ-DT/Freedom 4/5/2006
48 Las Vegas, NV KFBT/Sinclair 5/2/2006
63 Lexington (& Hazard), KY WKYT-DT & WYMT-DT/ Gray 3/31/2006
185 Lima, OH WLIO-DT/Block 5/19/2006
103 Lincoln & Hastings-Kearney, NE KWBL/Pappas (cable) 5/19/2006
57 Little Rock-Pine Bluff, AR KASN/Clear Channel 4/19/2006
2 Los Angeles, CA KTLA/ Tribune 2/28/2006
50 Louisville, KY WBKI/ Cascade 3/15/2006
146 Lubbock, TX KWBZ/Woods 5/19/2006
120 Macon, GA WBMN/Cox 5/19/2006
85 Madison, WI WBUW/ Acme 3/10/2006
180 Marquette, MI 3/31/2006
141 Medford-Klamath Falls KTVL-DT/Freedom 4/5/2006
44 Memphis, TN WLMT/Clear Channel 6/22/2006
184 Meridian WTOK-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
17 Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL WBZL/ Tribune 7/13/2006
33 Milwaukee, WI WVTV/Sinclair 5/2/2006
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN KMWB/Sinclair 5/2/2006
168 Missoula, MT KPAX-DT/Cordillera 8/24/2006
62 Mobile, AL-Pensacola (Ft. Walton Beach), FL WBPG/LIN 4/18/2006
116 Montgomery-Selma, AL 3/31/2006
135 Monroe-El Dorado 5/2/2006
125 Monterey-Salinas 6/15/2006
107 Myrtle Beach-Florence, SC WWMB/Sagamore Hill 5/19/2006
30 Nashville, TN WNAB/Sinclair 5/2/2006
43 New Orleans, LA WNOL/ Tribune 7/13/2006
1 New York, NY WPIX/ Tribune 2/28/2006
42 Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA WGNT/ CBS 3/3/2006
209 North Platte, NE KWPL/Pappas (cable) 3/17/2006
159 Odessa-Midland, TX KWWT/Camino 3/29/2006
45 Oklahoma City, OK KOCB/Sinclair 8/24/2006
75 Omaha, NE KXVO/Pappas 5/17/2006
20 Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, FL WKCF/ Emmis 3/2/2006
80 Paducah, KY-Cape Girardeau, MO-Harrisburg, IL WQWQ/Raycom 4/11/2006
153 Palm Springs, CA KESQ-DT/News-Press & Gazette 3/17/2006
157 Panama City WJHG-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
190 Parkersburg 3/31/2006
117 Peoria-Bloomington, IL WHOI-DT/Barrington 3/29/2006
4 Philadelphia, PA WPSG/ CBS 5/16/2006
14 Phoenix, AZ KASW/ Belo 3/9/2006
22 Pittsburgh, PA WNPA/ CBS 3/3/2006
23 Portland, OR KWBP/ Tribune 3/10/2006
74 Portland-Auburn, ME WPXT/ Pegasus 5/2/2006
51 Providence, RI-New Bedford, MA WLWC/ CBS 8/24/2006
999 Puerto Rico 2/28/2006
169 Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk WGEM-DT/Quincy Newspapers 3/29/2006
29 Raleigh-Durham (Fayetteville), NC WLFL/Sinclair 5/2/2006
177 Rapid City, SD KWBH/Rapid 3/22/2006
112 Reno, NV KREN/Pappas 3/22/2006
60 Richmond-Petersburg, VA WUPV/Lockwood 5/19/2006
68 Roanoke-Lynchburg, VA WBVA/Grant 5/2/2006
152 Rochester, MN-Mason City, IA-Austin, MN KTTC-DT/Quincy Newspapers 3/29/2006
79 Rochester, NY WRWB/ Rochester Television 3/22/2006
133 Rockford, IL WREX-DT/Quincy Newspapers 3/31/2006
19 Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, CA KMAX/ CBS 6/29/2006
148 Salisbury, MD WMDT-DT/Delmarva 3/29/2006
36 Salt Lake City, UT KUWB/Clear Channel 5/5/2006
37 San Antonio, TX KBEJ/Corridor 3/29/2006
26 San Diego, CA KSWB/ Tribune 3/22/2006
6 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA KBCW/ CBS 3/16/2006
San Juan, Puerto Rico WSJP/Storefront 3/17/2006
122 SantaBarbra-SanMar-SanLuOb KSBY-DT/Cordillera 6/15/2006
97 Savannah, GA WGSA/WGSA Inc. 5/2/2006
13 Seattle-Tacoma, WA KSTW/ CBS 5/16/2006
161 Sherman, TX-Ada, OK KTEN-DT/Lockwood 4/5/2006
81 Shreveport, LA 2/28/2006
81 Shreveport, LA KPXJ/ Minden Television 3/15/2006
143 Sioux City KTIV-DT/Quincy Newspapers 4/18/2006
114 Sioux Falls (Mitchell), SD KWSD (& KWSD-DT)/ Rapid 3/28/2006
87 South Bend-Elkhart, IN WMWB/ Weigel 3/15/2006
78 Spokane, WA 5/5/2006
78 Spokane, WA KSKN/Belo 4/11/2006
77 Springfield, MO KCZ /Schurz 5/19/2006
201 St. Joseph, MO WBJO/News-Press & Gazette (Cablevision) 3/17/2006
21 St. Louis, MO KPLR/ Tribune 3/10/2006
76 Syracuse, NY WSTQ/Raycom 3/29/2006
109 Tallahassee, FL-Thomasville, GA WTLH-DT/Pegasus 4/25/2006
12 Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota), FL WTOG/ CBS 3/3/2006
150 Terre Haute, IN 2/28/2006
70 Toledo, OH WTO5 (Cable)/Block 8/24/2006
136 Topeka KSNT/Montecieto 4/11/2006
113 Traverse City-Cadillac, MI 2/28/2006
91 Tri-Cities, TN-VA WB4 (Cable + DT)/BlueStone 3/31/2006
71 Tucson (Sierra Vista), AZ KWBA/Cascade 3/27/2006
61 Tulsa, OK KWBT/Griffin 6/15/2006
192 Twin Falls, ID 2/28/2006
111 Tyler-Longview(Lufkin & Nacogdoches), TX KCEB/Dimension 3/17/2006
166 Utica WKTV-DT/Smith Media 4/25/2006
205 Victoria, TX 5/2/2006
94 Waco-Temple-Bryan, TX KWTX-DT & KBTX-DT/Gray 3/21/2006
8 Washington, DC (Hagerstown, MD) WBDC/ Tribune 2/28/2006
178 Watertown, NY WWTI /Clear Channel 5/19/2006
134 Wausau-Rhinelander WAOW-DT & WYOW-DT/Quincy Newspapers 3/31/2006
38 West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL WTVX/ CBS 7/13/2006
144 Wichita Falls, TX-Lawton, OK KAUZ-DT/ Hoak 4/11/2006
67 Wichita-Hutchinson, KS Plus 6/15/2006
67 Wichita-Hutchinson, KS Plus KWCV/Banks 3/17/2006
54 Wilkes Barre-Scranton, PA WSWB-DT/KB Prime 5/2/2006
139 Wilmington 5/5/2006
126 Yakima-Pasco-Rchlnd-Knnwck KAZW-DT/Pappas 5/19/2006
102 Youngstown, OH WBCB-TV/ Vindicator 6/15/2006
170 Yuma-El Centro, AZ KWUB/Pappas (cable) 3/17/2006
MyNetworkTV Stations
As of August 24
Market MyNetworkTV Call Letters/ Owner Last
Rank Market My Network TV Updated
164 Abilene-Sweetwater, TX KIDZ/Sage 4/25/2006
147 Albany, GA WSWG-WSWG-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
55 Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY WNYA/ Venture Technologies 3/10/2006
46 Albuquerque-Santa Fe, NM KASY/Acme 3/15/2006
176 Alexandria, LA WNTZ/White Knight 3/17/2006
131 Amarillo, TX KCPN/Mission 3/31/2006
155 Anchorage, AK KYES/Fireweed 5/2/2006
9 Atlanta, GA WATL/Tribune 5/16/2006
115 Augusta, GA WRDW-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
53 Austin, TX KNVA/LIN 4/27/2006
128 Bakersfield, CA KUVI/KUVI License Partnership 6/15/2006
24 Baltimore, MD WUTB/ Fox 5/2/2006
151 Bangor, ME 5/19/2006
96 Baton Rouge, LA 2/28/2006
96 Baton Rouge, LA WBXH-LP/ Raycom 3/9/2006
140 Beaumont-Port Arthur KEBQ/MBC 1 6/15/2006
196 Bend, OR 3/17/2006
171 Billings 4/25/2006
156 Binghamton, NY WBPN/Stainless 5/2/2006
40 Birmingham (Anniston and Tuscaloosa), AL WABM/ Sinclair 5/2/2006
149 Bluefield-Beckley-Oak Hill 3/29/2006
119 Boise, ID 3/29/2006
5 Boston, MA (Manchester, NH) WZMY/Shooting Star 7/24/2006
183 Bowling Green 3/29/2006
49 Buffalo, NY WNYO/ Sinclair 4/18/2006
90 Burlington, VT-Plattsburgh, NY WGMU-CA/Newmont 5/19/2006
193 Butte-Bozeman, MT KBTZ/Montana Broadcast 8/24/2006
198 Casper-Riverton, WY 2/28/2006
198 Casper-Riverton, WY 4/11/2006
88 Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City & Dubuque, IA KWKB/KM Television 5/2/2006
82 Champaign & Springfield-Decatur, IL WCFN/Nexstar 3/31/2006
101 Charleston, SC WMMP/ Sinclair 3/29/2006
64 Charleston-Huntington, WV WSAZ-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
27 Charlotte, NC WWWB/ Capitol 3/8/2006
186 Charlottesville WAHU-DT/Gray 5/19/2006
86 Chattanooga, TN WDSI-DT2/Pegasus 5/2/2006
195 Cheyenne, WY-Scottsbluff, NE 2/28/2006
3 Chicago, IL WPWR/ Fox 2/28/2006
130 Chico-Redding, CA KRVU/St. Partners II 3/31/2006
34 Cincinnati, OH WSTR/ Sinclair 4/19/2006
16 Cleveland-Akron (Canton), OH WUAB/ Raycom Media 3/8/2006
93 Colorado Springs-Pueblo, CO KKTV-DT/Gray 6/15/2006
83 Columbia, SC 2/28/2006
83 Columbia, SC WBHQ/WBHQ Inc 3/31/2006
138 Columbia-Jefferson City, MO KZOU/JW Broadcasting 4/18/2006
127 Columbus, GA 3/17/2006
32 Columbus, OH WSYX-DT/Sinclair 7/13/2006
132 Columbus-Tupelo-West Point WCBI-DT/Columbus TV 3/22/2006
129 Corpus Christi, TX KTOV/GH Broadcasting 4/25/2006
7 Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX KDFI/ Fox 2/28/2006
95 Davenport, IA-Rock Island-Moline, IL WBQD/Four Seasons 3/29/2006
59 Dayton, OH WRGT-DT2/Sinclair 8/24/2006
18 Denver, CO KTVD/Multimedia 7/13/2006
73 Des Moines-Ames, IA KDMI-DT/Pappas 4/18/2006
11 Detroit, MI WDWB/Granite 3/22/2006
172 Dothan, AL WTVY-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
137 Duluth-Superior KBJR-DT/Granite 4/11/2006
99 El Paso, TX KDBC-DT/Pappas 4/18/2006
173 Elmira, NY WJKP/Vision 5/19/2006
142 Erie 5/19/2006
121 Eugene, OR KEVU/California Oregon Broadcasting 5/19/2006
194 Eureka KUVU/St. Partners II 4/11/2006
100 Evansville, IN 2/28/2006
100 Evansville, IN WTSN-WEVV/Communications Corp. 3/17/2006
203 Fairbanks 5/19/2006
. Fargo-Valley City KCPM/G.I.G. of ND 5/19/2006
65 Flint-Saginaw-Bay City WNEM-DT/Meredith 5/5/2006
56 Fresno-Visalia, CA KAIL/Trans-America 3/31/2006
66 Ft. Myers-Naples, Fl WNFM/Comcast 6/15/2006
66 Ft. Myers-Naples, Fl 3/9/2006
104 Ft. Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR KFDF/Equity 3/31/2006
106 Ft. Wayne WISE-DT/Granite 4/11/2006
162 Gainesville WGFL-DT2/WLCF/Pegasus 5/2/2006
210 Glendive, MT 2/28/2006
187 Grand Junction-Montrose KGJT/Hoak 4/18/2006
39 Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, MI WXSP/LIN 4/27/2006
189 Great Falls KLMN/Montana Broadcast 8/24/2006
69 Green Bay-Appleton, WI WACY/Journal 3/22/2006
47 Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem, NC WMYV/ Sinclair 3/17/2006
105 Greenville-N.Bern-Washngtn WFXI/Piedmont 4/18/2006
35 Greenville-Spartanburg, SC-Asheville, NC-Anderson,SC WBSC/ Sinclair 3/29/2006
92 Harlingen-Weslaco-Brownsville-McAllen, TX XHRIO/Entravision 6/15/2006
41 Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, PA WHP-DT/Clear Channel 7/13/2006
181 Harrisonburg WHSV-DT/Gray 4/11/2006
28 Hartford & New Haven, CT WCTX/LIN 4/27/2006
206 Helena 3/29/2006
72 Honolulu, HI KFVE/ Raycom Media 3/8/2006
10 Houston, TX KTXH/ Fox 2/28/2006
84 Huntsville-Decatur (Florence), AL 2/28/2006
84 Huntsville-Decatur (Florence), AL WZDX/Huntsville TV Corp. 4/18/2006
163 Idaho Falls-Pocatello 3/29/2006
25 Indianapolis, IN WNDY/LIN 4/27/2006
89 Jackson, MS 2/28/2006
89 Jackson, MS WUFX/Mississippi TV 3/21/2006
52 Jacksonville, FL WAWS-DT/Clear Channel 7/13/2006
207 Juneau, AK K17HC/Fireweed 5/2/2006
31 Kansas City, MO KSMO/ Meredith 3/10/2006
58 Knoxville, TN WVLT-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
123 LaCrosse-Eau Claire, WI WKBT/ QueenB 3/29/2006
124 Lafayette, LA KLAF-KADN/Communications Corp. 3/17/2006
110 Lansing, MI WHTV/Spartan 4/5/2006
48 Las Vegas, NV KVWB/ Sinclair 5/2/2006
63 Lexington (& Hazard), KY WBLU/Powley 3/31/2006
185 Lima, OH WOHL/TV67 Inc. 5/19/2006
103 Lincoln & Hastings-Kearney, NE KOLN-DT/KGIN-DT/Gray 5/19/2006
57 Little Rock-Pine Bluff, AR KWBF/Equity 4/19/2006
2 Los Angeles, CA KCOP/ Fox 2/28/2006
50 Louisville, KY WFTE/Independence 3/15/2006
146 Lubbock, TX KUPT/Ramar 5/19/2006
120 Macon, GA WGXA-DT/Piedmont 5/19/2006
85 Madison, WI WISC/ Madison 3/10/2006
180 Marquette, MI WMQF/Equity 3/31/2006
141 Medford-Klamath Falls KFBI/St. Partners II 4/5/2006
44 Memphis, TN WPXX/Ion 6/22/2006
184 Meridian WTOK-WTOK-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
17 Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL WBFS/CBS 7/13/2006
33 Milwaukee, WI WCGV/ Sinclair 5/2/2006
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN WFTC/ Fox 5/2/2006
168 Missoula, MT KMMF/Montana Broadcast 8/24/2006
62 Mobile, AL-Pensacola (Ft. Walton Beach), FL WFGX/ Sinclair 4/18/2006
116 Montgomery-Selma, AL WRJM/Josie Park 3/31/2006
135 Monroe-El Dorado KEJB/KM Television 5/2/2006
125 Monterey-Salinas KOTR/Mirage 6/15/2006
107 Myrtle Beach-Florence, SC WBTW-DT/Media General 5/19/2006
30 Nashville, TN WUXP/ Sinclair 5/2/2006
43 New Orleans, LA WUPL/CBS 7/13/2006
1 New York, NY WWOR/ Fox 2/28/2006
42 Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA WTVZ/ Sinclair 3/3/2006
209 North Platte, NE 3/17/2006
159 Odessa-Midland, TX NOSA-DT/ICA Broadcasting 3/29/2006
45 Oklahoma City, OK KAUT & KAUT-DT/NY Times Co. 8/24/2006
75 Omaha, NE KKAZ-KPTM-DT/Pappas 5/17/2006
20 Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, FL WRBW/ Fox 3/2/2006
80 Paducah, KY-Cape Girardeau, MO-Harrisburg, IL WDKA/ Sinclair 4/11/2006
153 Palm Springs, CA KPSE/ Mirage Media 3/17/2006
157 Panama City WJHG-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
190 Parkersburg WTAP-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
117 Peoria-Bloomington, IL WAOE/Four Seasons 3/29/2006
4 Philadelphia, PA WPHL/Tribune 5/16/2006
14 Phoenix, AZ KUTP/ Fox 3/9/2006
22 Pittsburgh, PA WCWB/ Sinclair 3/3/2006
23 Portland, OR KPDX/ Meredith 3/10/2006
74 Portland-Auburn, ME WPME/Pegasus 5/2/2006
51 Providence, RI-New Bedford, MA WNAC/LIN 8/24/2006
999 Puerto Rico 2/28/2006
169 Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk 3/29/2006
29 Raleigh-Durham (Fayetteville), NC WRDC/ Sinclair 5/2/2006
177 Rapid City, SD KKRA/Rapid 3/22/2006
112 Reno, NV KAME/Cox & Broadcast Development 3/22/2006
60 Richmond-Petersburg, VA WRLM/Sinclair 5/19/2006
68 Roanoke-Lynchburg, VA WDJB-DT/WDJB Inc 5/2/2006
152 Rochester, MN-Mason City, IA-Austin, MN 3/29/2006
79 Rochester, NY WBGT/WBGT Inc. 3/22/2006
133 Rockford, IL WTVO-DT/Mission 3/31/2006
19 Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, CA KQCA/Hearst-Argyle 6/29/2006
148 Salisbury, MD 3/29/2006
36 Salt Lake City, UT KJZZ/Miller Communications 5/5/2006
37 San Antonio, TX KRRT/ Sinclair 3/29/2006
26 San Diego, CA XUPN/Bay City 3/22/2006
6 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA KRON/Young 3/16/2006
San Juan, Puerto Rico 3/17/2006
122 SantaBarbra-SanMar-SanLuOb KEYT-DT/Smith Media 6/15/2006
97 Savannah, GA WSAV-DT/Media General 5/2/2006
13 Seattle-Tacoma, WA KTWB/Tribune 5/16/2006
161 Sherman, TX-Ada, OK KXII-DT/Gray 4/5/2006
81 Shreveport, LA 2/28/2006
81 Shreveport, LA KSHV/White Knight 3/15/2006
143 Sioux City KPTH-DT/Pappas 4/18/2006
114 Sioux Falls (Mitchell), SD KELO-DT/Young 3/28/2006
87 South Bend-Elkhart, IN WMYT/Weigel 3/15/2006
78 Spokane, WA KXLY4-2/Spokane TV 5/5/2006
78 Spokane, WA 4/11/2006
77 Springfield, MO KWBM/Equity 5/19/2006
201 St. Joseph, MO 3/17/2006
21 St. Louis, MO WRBU/ Roberts Broadcasting 3/10/2006
76 Syracuse, NY WNYS/ Sinclair 3/29/2006
109 Tallahassee, FL-Thomasville, GA WCTV-DT/Gray 4/25/2006
12 Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota), FL WTTA/ Sinclair 3/3/2006
150 Terre Haute, IN 2/28/2006
70 Toledo, OH WNGT/Matrix 8/24/2006
136 Topeka WIBW-DT/Gray 4/11/2006
113 Traverse City-Cadillac, MI 2/28/2006
91 Tri-Cities, TN-VA WAPK/Holston Valley 3/31/2006
71 Tucson (Sierra Vista), AZ KTTU/Belo 3/27/2006
61 Tulsa, OK KTFO/Clear Channel 6/15/2006
192 Twin Falls, ID 2/28/2006
111 Tyler-Longview(Lufkin & Nacogdoches), TX KLPN-KFXK/Warwick 3/17/2006
166 Utica WPNY/Nexstar 4/25/2006
205 Victoria, TX KXTS/Saga 5/2/2006
94 Waco-Temple-Bryan, TX KWKT/Communications Corp. 3/21/2006
8 Washington, DC (Hagerstown, MD) WDCA/ Fox 2/28/2006
178 Watertown, NY 5/19/2006
134 Wausau-Rhinelander WSAW-DT/Gray 3/31/2006
38 West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL WTCN-CA/CBS 7/13/2006
144 Wichita Falls, TX-Lawton, OK KJBO/Mission 4/11/2006
67 Wichita-Hutchinson, KS Plus KSCC/Mercury 6/15/2006
67 Wichita-Hutchinson, KS Plus 3/17/2006
54 Wilkes Barre-Scranton, PA WILF/Pegasus 5/2/2006
139 Wilmington WMYW/WBHQ Columbia, LLC 5/5/2006
126 Yakima-Pasco-Rchlnd-Knnwck KAPP-DT-KVEW-DT/Apple Valley 5/19/2006
102 Youngstown, OH WYTV-DT/Chelsey 6/15/2006
170 Yuma-El Centro, AZ 3/17/2006
CW national coverage at 90%, My Network TV at 96%
Source: TVB
TV Notebook
Cox and EchoStar Announce DVR Enhancements
New sitcoms on both sides of the laugh track divide
By Glen Dickson –Broadcasting & Cable8/24/2006
Cable operator Cox Communications and satellite operator EchoStar both announced Thursday significant news regarding their digital-video-recorder (DVR)-equipped set-tops.
Cox unveiled a deal with DVR supplier TiVo to integrate TiVo's software and interactive advertising service into existing DVR set-tops. Under the agreement, similar to one Comcast reached with TiVo last year, TiVo will customize its software so it can be downloaded by Cox subscribers without having to replace their existing DVRs or schedule a technician's visit. The software download will allow Cox subs to use the TiVo interface, accessing features such as Season Pass recording or WishList searches, and also receive interactive ads. The service is expected to launch in select Cox markets in the first half of 2007.
Signing such licensing deals with cable operators was widely predicted by analysts in the wake of a favorable outcome for TiVo in a patent suit against EchoStar. That April judgement resulted in an injunction being issued this month against some three million EchoStar DVR set-tops. EchoStar appealed the decision and won a temporary block against the injunction, which may give the companies time to negotiate an agreement.
For its part, EchoStar is improving the programming currently available on its DVRs through an agreement with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group to carry the studio’s current and catalog titles on its DISH On Demand service, which downloads movies in advance to select EchoStar DVRs in order to provide a video-on-demand-like experience. Customers have immediate access to the newest VOD movies on DISH On Demand and can use DVR features such as pause, fast forward and rewind.
EchoStar says it will also include Warner Bros. titles among its pay-per-view and high-definition offerings.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6365662
TV Notebook
The CW Stations
As of August 24
6 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA KBHK/ CBS 3/16/2006
The above line should read KBCW, KBHK is the old call letters, they changed about a month and half ago.
TV Notebook
'SNL' sans Sanz?
Not this fall, actor says
By Darel Jevens Chicago Sun-Times staff reporter August 24, 2006
If Horatio Sanz is on his way out at "Saturday Night Live," it's news to him.
Reports flared up this week that the former Chicago comedian is getting the ax as part of cost-cutting at NBC's live-from-New-York perennial. "SNL" executive producer Lorne Michaels has warned that the 16-member cast will be smaller when the show returns Sept. 30.
"Maybe I should be looking for apartment space in L.A.," Sanz said Wednesday.
But he's not expecting to go. "I haven't been approached with anything that's led me to believe I won't be back," he said.
The Los Angeles Times quoted a source saying Sanz, Chris Parnell and Kenan Thompson are history; on the tmz.com gossip site, it was Sanz and Will Forte.
"I don't know what the hell is going on," Sanz said. "I think some executives leaked a bunch of bull----."
An NBC spokesman declined to comment. "I think everything that was strong last season is back," Michaels told the New York Post.
"I definitely enjoy the job and would like to stick with it," Sanz said. "It's fun, and there will be a lot of change, which could be a little exciting."
With Tina Fey departing to star in the NBC sitcom "30 Rock," producers are about to begin auditions for her seat on "Weekend Update." Sanz, who filled in for Fey there during her maternity leave last fall, said his future at "SNL" may depend on whether he's put on the news desk for good.
Another Chicago transplant, Jason Sudeikis, is being mentioned as a likely Fey replacement. "Update" co-anchor Amy Poehler is not expected to leave "SNL."
Sanz, a native of Chile, was the show's first Latino cast member. During the last season -- his eighth -- he made well-received appearances as Carol, a grotesque floozy who somehow dazzles single men.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainment/cst-ftr-snl24.html#
fredfa,
On the CW stations and the MyTVNetwork stations, in the Greensboro market, the calls have changed. WTWB is now WCWG and WUPN is now WMYV.
Thanks, foxeng, corrections made.
(I am sure there are a lot of others, too.)
I just saw this list at the TVB website and thought some folks would be interested.
grittree
08-24-06, 05:58 PM
RE: Cox and EchoStar Announce DVR Enhancements
Could somebody explain where and when these ads appear? And if they appear other than in the "listings" area, can they be disabled?
The above line should read KBCW, KBHK is the old call letters, they changed about a month and half ago.
Thanks, Jim. Got it.
TV Notebook
Katie Couric: Perky and Cute
(But Smart, Informed and Liberal, Too)
All Three Commercial Evening News Anchors Viewed Positively
Pew Research Center news release August 24, 2006
Though Katie Couric has yet to take her seat as the new CBS Evening News anchor, the former Today show co-host is already a more familiar personality than her NBC and ABC counterparts. Asked to give their general impressions of each of the three TV journalists in a single word, 66% could offer up an opinion of Couric, compared with fewer than half who could offer a response for Brian Williams or for Charles Gibson.
By wide margins, most Americans who know them have positive things to say about each of the new evening news anchors – good is by far the most mentioned word for all three. However, the more specific words used to describe Katie Couric have a decidedly different tone. Perky, cute, nice, energetic, bubbly, and fluffy were among the most frequently offered impressions of Couric, but they were offered along with knowledgeable, informed, smart and fair.
Specific accolades for the other two commercial broadcast news anchors were less about personality and style and more focused on their job performance. NBC's Brian Williams was often summed up in a word as fair, and also as informative, knowledgeable and professional. Trustworthy was frequently offered as positive descriptor of ABC's Charles Gibson along with informed, professional and competent.
While Katie Couric is more widely known, she also receives more negatively-toned responses than do Williams or Gibson. These include some who describe Couric as liberal or biased, and others who say she is bad, annoying, overrated or that they just don't like her.
Women, who are more avid viewers of the morning news, offer a one-word impression of Katie Couric more often than men, and when they do it is overwhelmingly positive. Nearly half of female respondents (47%) offered words that had a favorable tone to them, compared with just 31% of men.
For the full report go to:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=286
or see the pdf below
TV Notebook
Some finales
-- and final thoughts on 'Deadwood'
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” August 24, 2006
As the fall season looms -- and watch this space Friday for a multimedia presentation on the networks' new offerings -- here are a few thoughts on some weekend finales.
If you haven’t seen “Psych” yet, I recommend the show’s season finale (9 p.m. Friday on USA). The episode takes place at the annual Comic Con in California, and the adventures of fake psychic Shawn Spencer at the annual gathering of comic-book obsessives and sci-fi fans promises plenty of laughs.
Speaking of finales, “Deadwood’s” magnificent season draws to a close 8 p.m. Sunday on HBO (as does another wildly entertaining season of “Entourage” at 9 p.m.). With every passing week, it has become clearer that “Deadwood” more than deserves another full season. At this point, after Sunday’s finale airs, the plan is for HBO to air a pair of two-hour “Deadwood” films in 2007. And that will be that.
It’s heartbreaking to think about the elaborate “Deadwood” set being broken down for good once those films wrap. Think about Mrs. Ellsworth’s tremulous journey through the camp to her bank, after some of George Hearst’s goons shot at her, or the scene in which Deadwood’s schoolchildren wove their way through the streets to their new schoolhouse.
Thanks to the precisely detailed, fully inhabited world that the show’s set designers, actors and background performers have created, each step of those journeys felt absolutely real, as did the reactions of the town’s residents, all of whom have become only more fascinating as each season has progressed.
To destroy that town, to eradicate these endlessly complex and fascinating characters, to give us no more opportunities to see the magnificent performances of Gerald McRaney, Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant, Molly Parker, Powers Boothe and Paula Malcolmson (not to mention the fiery Robin Weigert, who has given the prickly Calamity Jane a heartbreaking tenderness) .... .
Surely, to borrow a phrase from E.B. Farnum, that is “a culminating indignity.”
http://tempo.typepad.com/entertainment_tv/
TV Notebook
Saturday Night Live not dead but wounded
By Bill Goodykoontz Arizona Republic TV Critic in his blog 08/24/2006
All sorts of rumor-slinging, hand-wringing stories out there about who is -- and who isn't -- leaving Saturday Night Live this season.
One thing is beyond question, because I was in the room when Lorne Michaels confirmed this to critics: there will be budget cuts at the show, which means some people will go. (Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch already left to work on Fey's new sitcom, 30 Rock, which debuts in September. Does that mean they'll be back in October? Sorry. Brutal. Uncalled for. But seriously, does it?)
But this question is still valid: Does anybody care anymore?
Look at the list of gone-or-not-gone suspects: maybe Chris Parnell, maybe Horatio Sanz, maybe Kenan Thompson.
Huh? I mean, I'm sorry for them and for their families and all that. No one wants to get dumped, ever. And each had his moments, I suppose. But this isn't exactly Belushi and Ackroyd leaving to do movies. It's not even Chevy Chase leaving to ... I guess it started out as doing movies and sort of morphed into hosting the worst talk show in human history.
And I'm including Pat Sajak's in that tally.
If Darrell Hammond leaves -- supposedly it's still up in the air -- that would be a loss, though the show hasn't seemed to know what to do with him lately. Maya Rudolph is reportedly thinking about leaving. Again, sorry to hear it, but it's not exactly going to bankrupt the franchise.
Some might say that's already happened. Saturday Night Live's most recent season, by most accounts, was pretty dismal. And it's true that, ever since that first bunch started breaking up, tales of the show's demise in quality have been spun every year. Sometimes they were more true than others.
But now, with political and social satire everywhere, including (especially) The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, does anyone still turn to SNL for cutting-edge humor? Its biggest watercooler moments lately have been online viral videos that originated as film shorts. Other than that, nothing anyone's talking about on Mondays.
The official cuts are supposed to be announced by Labor Day. Guess we'll just be on pins and needles till then.
http://www.azcentral.com/blogs/index.php?blog=5&blogtype=Entertainment
TV Notebook
Verizon, Cablevision skirmish as war nears
By David Lieberman USA Today 8/24/2006
NEW YORK — Nobody would mistake the lush, trimmed lawns of suburban New York City for the OK Corral. But you can almost hear the jingling spurs and blasting revolvers of a corporate gunfight erupting that could affect virtually all consumers.
About a year after telecom giant Verizon fired up its first state-of-the-art broadband network in Keller, Texas, it now is wiring some of the cable industry's most lucrative territories for a rival, cable-like bundle of TV, phone and Internet services it calls FiOS.
"We've got the fire in the belly," says Marilyn O'Connell, Verizon's senior vice president for video solutions. She says FiOS will be available to 6 million homes by year's end, 20 million in 2009. The company expects to eventually win 30% as customers. No. 1 phone provider AT&T (formerly SBC) has similar plans to take on cable TV.
The showdown here is with Long Island-based Cablevision Systems, which is firing back with innovative pricing packages and technologies — including some aimed at Verizon's core phone businesses.
"Cablevision's writing the playbook on how to compete," says Sanford C. Bernstein's Craig Moffett. "They've started playing offense while the rest of the cable industry is still playing defense."
Not for long if they see chunks of their valuable 62 million TV subscribers switching to packages from the formidable former Bells. Verizon generated revenue of $75 billion last year, more than all cable operators combined. Verizon won't say how many FiOS TV customers it has, but Bernstein Research estimates 47,000 homes by year's end, rising to 4 million in 2015.
Cable hoped to avoid a fight. Its investors are impatient to see big profits from the $70 billion the industry spent in the last decade to upgrade its networks to offer more TV channels and two-way services, including phone and Internet. The stocks collectively have appreciated just 4% since August 2003.
"It's very grim," for cable, says former AT&T Broadband CEO Leo Hindery. Serious competition on these fronts from the phone giants means that "in no case will any of (these new) businesses make the margins that were expected."
Few now doubt the phone industry's commitment to spend big on new networks and services. Its current copper phone lines can't handle today's demanding communications services. It's losing voice customers to Internet phone services such as Vonage and Skype, as well as to cable offerings.
Verizon's 47 million local lines as of June 30 are down 7.4% from that point last year. The trend has helped keep shares virtually flat for three years and led to its decision to go all out to build Cable 3.0: a network of fiber-optic lines to each home that analysts estimate could cost $20 billion over the next decade.
The new network "is a play to make sure they're not irrelevant," says Forrester Research analyst Maribel Lopez. "It's not just to offer video."
Verizon ups ante on bandwidth
FiOS has been designed with capacity to offer a lot more. By stringing fiber all the way to users' homes, Verizon has more bandwidth than cable, which typically runs fiber to a neighborhood and cheaper coaxial lines to the homes. As a virtually all-digital system, FiOS doesn't devote gobs of spectrum to analog TV channels as cable operators do (though it does mean customers need set-top boxes for their TVs).
Still, Verizon is adding only about 3 million homes a year to those able to get FiOS, at a cost of nearly $900 per home. When someone signs up, Verizon spends $715 more for the typical five-hour, two-person job to tie the home to the system.
In taking on Cablevision, the phone company faces one of the USA's most famously freewheeling, family-controlled companies, as well as one of cable's most highly regarded operators.
CEO Jim Dolan is best known for his feuds with his father, Chairman Charles Dolan, and with ex-New York Knicks coach Larry Brown (Cablevision owns the team), as well as being lead singer of blues band JD & the Straight Shot.
Cablevision, which generated $5.2 billion in revenue last year, is determined to hang on to its 3.1 million basic TV subscribers. About 80% of them are in Verizon's phone territories, and the overlaps include many of New York's wealthiest suburbs.
Verizon recently began to offer FiOS in Long Island towns including Hempstead, Oyster Bay and Cedarhurst. This month, it won a statewide franchise in New Jersey. At the pace Verizon is rolling out service, Bear Stearns estimates that Cablevision subscriber losses will be about 2.1% by 2010. In a mature industry lacking subscriber growth, that's worth a fight.
Verizon is deploying what it calls a "guerrilla marketing" campaign. It sends salespeople door-to-door, sets up product demonstrations at concerts and community events, and slaps messages on Chinese food containers, pizza boxes and take-out coffee cups.
The company says it has found people across all its markets itching for a choice, with about 10% of all households capable of getting FiOS subscribing in the first six months it's offered.
"I've been around a lot, and I haven't been associated with a product that had that kind of adoption that quickly," O'Connell says. "All of the early indicators are saying that we've got it right."
Many New Yorkers agree.
"We jumped at it," says Hiram Rosas, 32, a teacher in Roosevelt, N.Y., who has Verizon's video, phone and Internet package. "Whenever we had service issues (with Cablevision), it was, 'We'll get to you when we get to you.' "
Verizon's pointed ads pour salt on wounded feelings about cable service, with slogans such as: "All I want is to cut off cable;" "All I want is to get on board with a company I like;" and "All I want is a choice other than Cablevision."
Verizon took a more positive approach to score points with gamers: It sponsored a national video game tournament, flying eight finalists to a championship in Hermosa Beach, Calif., in July.
"They played over the (FiOS) fiber connection on the live Internet, which is unique in gaming tournaments. Usually, they're played over local servers," says Brian Angiolet, FiOS' director of marketing.
HDTV and advanced digital-video recorders also are a marketing draw. More than half of FiOS customers pay extra for a set-top box with a DVR that handles HDTV channels, while an additional 10% get a box that just provides HDTV. This month, Verizon introduced (for an additional $20 a month) a DVR that can transmit recorded shows through the lines to any TV set-top box in the house.
Verizon recently raised the stakes with a free feature called FiOS TV Widgets. Viewers can press a button on the remote to see text under their show that describes local weather and traffic. Coming soon: sports scores, news headlines and stock prices.
Next year, it plans more ethnic programming packages in addition to one it already has for Hispanic viewers. It also is working on HDTV-on-demand, teleconferencing and services that blend TV, Internet and phone, including wireless.
Cablevision says subscriber loss low
Cablevision says it's unfazed, with FiOS getting only 2% of potential customers in Cablevision markets where it has been offered for at least six months. "Verizon is not taking subscribers from us," COO Tom Rutledge told analysts this month. "I don't believe they're taking significant numbers from satellite, either."
Cablevision shrugs off Verizon's boasts about the power of its fiber-optic lines. Because most homes are internally wired with coaxial cable, "fiber-to-the-home translates into a hybrid system that's comparable to ours," says Patricia Gottesman, executive vice president for product management and marketing.
Still, Cablevision is fighting back — although it says that it's responding to competition from a variety of sources, including satellite, not just Verizon.
In late 2003, it became the first cable company to offer phone service to everyone in its territory. It now has more than a million home phone customers, or 22% of the potential market. Cablevision in May began offering a $20-per-month add-on of 500 minutes of call time anywhere in the world.
Cablevision's pre-emptive strike
More broadly, the company is trying to bear-hug consumers with discounted video, phone, and Internet bundles, as well as a few technological innovations, before Verizon wires arrive.
In 2004, it began offering new customers a one-year deal on the video, Internet and phone "triple play" package for $90 a month. The price rises to nearly $117 after the first year, including a $20-a-month discount Cablevision introduced in February 2005.
More than half of all new customers take the "triple play," the company says.
"Initially, I had Verizon for my phone service, and the bill was in the high $80 to low $90 range," says Joseph Lawless, 41, a bond trader in Massapequa Park. Now, with Cablevision, "I get cable, Internet and phone for a little more than I paid for just my phone." Unless Verizon counters with a blockbuster price, "I have no reason to change."
In June, Cablevision completed its effort to keep heavy Web surfers happy by boosting download speeds on its most popular service from 10 megabits per second to 15, more than double the cable industry average, and introducing a higher-priced 30 mbps service. (Verizon offers three speeds: 5 mbps, 15 mbps, and 30 mbps.)
One planned sweetener has been put on hold, pending a court ruling. Cablevision planned to blitz the market with technology, letting any digital cable box function as a DVR by storing recorded programs on Cablevision's servers instead of on a hard drive in the box at each user's home. Hollywood studios sued, saying the service violates program owners' copyrights; Cablevision argues the service is no different than a conventional DVR.
Cablevision soon will introduce additional ethnic TV channels. It also will heavily market low-priced business communications services, a market that Verizon has dominated. "Our customers are conducting more and more business at home," Gottesman says.
Consumers may win features and price
For now, the rivals are touting their technologies and services, but many observers are certain they cannot avoid an old-fashioned price war.
"The products are shockingly similar to the average consumer," Hindery says. And Verizon "has to achieve penetration. When you have to achieve penetration against an incumbent with comparable technologies, then you tend to compete on price."
As long as Verizon doesn't quit, Lopez, says, "the consumer over the next year or two is going to get a good deal."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/2006-08-23-cable-cover-usat_x.htm
I am sure almost none of you ever knew Tony, or maybe never even heard of him. But he was a good TV executive who made the lives of a lot of people brighter, especially during his CBS days.
Obituary
Tony Malara Dies of Heart Attack
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable 8/24/2006
According to long-time New York broadcaster Bill O'Shaughnessy, former head of CBS affiliate relations and longtime TV and radio station executive Tony Malara died Thursday in a Syracuse, N.Y. hospital.
New York State Broadcasters Association President Joe Reilly, in a phone call with O'Shaughnessy earlier today, said that Malara's Son Toby reported that his father had suffered a heart attack at his vacation home on Wellesley Island in the Thousand Islands in upstate New York last week. He also had acute leukemia.
Malara was a graduate of Syracuse University and had worked in local broadcasting in Watertown, N.Y., a stone's throw from the St. Lawrence River and its Thousand Islands region. He rose through the radio and TV station ranks to run the CBS TV network (1982-88) and head up affiliate relations before exiting in January 1995 after 18 years at CBS.
Malara, 69, was also former president of the New York State Broadcasters Association. He had recently formed Malara Broadcasting, which owns TV's in Duluth, Minn., and Fort Wayne, Ind.
Funeral arrangements are expected to be announced Friday morning.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6365712.html?display=Breaking+News
GeorgeLV
08-24-06, 10:20 PM
Thanks, foxeng, corrections made.
(I am sure there are a lot of others, too.)
I just saw this list at the TVB website and thought some folks would be interested.
There's a whole lot of other wrong call signs and the DMA rankings are out of date too. How about just linking to the Wikis :)
Current list of My Network TV affialiates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MyNetworkTV_affiliates
Current list of CW affialiates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CW_affiliates
Good idea GeorgeLV.
I am really disappointed in the TVB...they really seem to have screwed the pooch on this one.
Sorry to have posted such inaccurate information.
FONT=ARIAL BLACK] TV Notebook [/FONT]
Free to Gain Traction for About $50 Million
By Stuart Elliott The New York Times August 25, 2006
What is green, fills 13 hours a week of television in prime time and hopes to bring viewers top models, superheroes, a glib mother-daughter pair, high school basketball players, girlfriends, smackdown wrestling and runaways?
The answer is CW, the broadcast network that takes its name from its parents, CBS and Time Warner, and which will be introduced on Sept. 20. CW is the successor to UPN and WB, two smaller networks — weblets, in the parlance of Variety — that will go dark in mid-September after losing tens of millions of dollars between them in more than a decade of operation.
To help the new network gain traction in the proverbial 500-channel universe, CBS and Time Warner are sponsoring an ambitious campaign to create an identity for CW and by extension its series, which include “America’s Next Top Model,” “Smallville,” “Gilmore Girls,” “One Tree Hill,” “Girlfriends,” “W.W.E. Friday Night Smackdown” and “Runaway.” The campaign, created internally and by an agency named Troika, is estimated at more than $50 million. That includes the value of the commercial time on the network and on the local stations that will be part of CW if the time were being sold to outside advertisers. By comparison, $50 million is about what national marketers like E*Trade, Hertz and La-Z-Boy each spent last year on advertising in major media, according to data compiled by TNS Media Intelligence.
The CW advertising is already running on television and radio, in print, online (cwtv.com) and on signs, transit posters and billboards. The campaign carries a theme, “Free to be,” intended to appeal to potential viewers for CW series, primarily viewers ages 18 to 34.
“We did a ton of research with the target audience when I got here; I didn’t poke my head out of a focus group for six weeks,” said Rick Haskins, who joined CW as executive vice president for marketing and brand strategy after serving as general manager for the Lifetime cable network.
“ ‘Free to be’ is about how we can fit into their world,” Mr. Haskins said, referring to youthful viewers, rather than “forcing our brand on somebody.”
“This audience doesn’t want to be advertised to, and doesn’t want to be told what to do,” he added. “ ‘Free to be’ says, ‘You can be anything you want to be and you’re welcome at the CW.’ ”
• It had long been the conventional wisdom in the television industry that viewers watch shows, not networks, and the money spent on network branding campaigns was as wasted as time spent watching “The Love Boat.”
But the success of branding ads for cable networks like the sports maven ESPN, Lifetime (“Television for women”) and TNT (“We know drama”) has encouraged their broadcast counterparts to undertake similar efforts.
“A network is like a shopping mall, and the shows are the stores,” said Jonah Disend, chief executive at Redscout, a brand strategy company in New York. “You just don’t go to the stores, you go to the mall.”
Branding a network is becoming increasingly important, Mr. Disend said, because of the growing ability of consumers to watch shows “in more than one place” — that is, not only on TV sets but also on the networks’ Web sites like abc.com, fox.com and InnerTube (cbs.com/innertube); on video iPods; and on Web sites like aol.com, tvguide.com, video.google.com, video.yahoo.com and youtube.com.
“As we’re speaking,” Mr. Disend said during a telephone interview yesterday, “I’m downloading last night’s ‘Project Runway’ on my computer.”
All the CW ads, along with the network’s logo, are being colored a bright green, just as during the 1990’s another broadcast network, ABC, cloaked a series of cheeky campaigns in an eye-catching shade of yellow evocative of the tint used for smiley faces.
ABC executives came in for a lot of kidding over the yellow ads, which they said were intended to convey qualities like fun and playfulness to potential audiences.
Do executives at CW and Troika expect a similar barrage of catty comments about their decision to adopt the color associated with grass, envy, frogs, menthol, chlorophyll and environmental consciousness?
“I understood some of the mocking” directed at ABC, said Dan Pappalardo, partner and executive creative director at Troika in Hollywood, Calif., who worked with ABC and the TBWA/Chiat/Day ad agency on the yellow campaign.
“The green is fresh, vital, alive, the color of spring,” Mr. Pappalardo said, and is meant to signal that CW is “something new, not your typical broadcast network.”
“I expect some people to react to it negatively,” he added, “but in focus groups, they loved it; they said, ‘This is something cool.’ ”
• The first commercials for CW use a version of the Temptations song “Get Ready” as reimagined by two contemporary singers, Fergie and Will.i.am of the group the Black Eyed Peas. The campaign pairs the “Free to be” theme with words and phrases that relate to the network’s prime-time series, which will have their premieres over a two-week period ending Oct. 3 with “Veronica Mars.”
For instance, ads for “Veronica Mars,” about a young female detective, carry the headline “Free to be fearless.” Ads for the reality series “America’s Next Top Model” depict the host, Tyra Banks, next to the headline “Free to be fierce.”
The talkative stars of “Gilmore Girls” appear in ads carrying the headlines “Free to be witty” and “Free to be girlie.” Ads for the sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris,” created by Chris Rock, carry the headline “Free to be funny.” And ads for “One Tree Hill” feature a cast member, Chad Michael Murray, and carry the headline “Free to be cool.”
“We had a challenge,” said Mr. Haskins, the CW marketing executive, “in that we had to put under one roof programming from UPN and WB and make it feel like one network.”
The solution, Mr. Haskins said, was to focus on what the predecessor networks had in common, which was their younger viewers, “and create an environment that was relatable to their lives.”
Someday, there will be an article about television in which no executive uses the word “relatable,” industry jargon for something with which viewers are supposed to identify or connect. Alas, this is not that article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/business/media/25adco.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=media&pagewanted=print
TV Notebook
An exclusive talk with the men behind fall's most anticipated drama
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” August 24, 2006
Each TV season, at least one show on the broadcast networks is designated the problem child.
Last season, it was “Commander in Chief,” which debuted to impressive ratings, but within months had shed not one but two high-profile executive producers. Amid much turmoil, it limped to the end of the season, a shadow of its former self, and was eventually axed by ABC.
This year, some TV insiders have decided that “Brothers and Sisters,” an ABC drama that premieres Sept. 24, is “troubled,” which is strange, considering that practically no one outside of the network has seen more than a few fleeting glimpses of the show.
Still, there’s been intense interest in “Brothers and Sisters” from media insiders, which is understandable, given its high-profile cast and the fact that it is taking over “Grey’s Anatomy’s” 9 p.m. Sunday slot, now that “Grey’s” has moved to Thursdays.
“There’s certain scrutiny here because of the talent involved,” executive producer Ken Olin said in an exclusive joint interview with Olin, “Brothers and Sisters” creator Jon Robin Baitz and Greg Berlanti (the creator of “Everwood”), who recently joined the production.
Olin’s remark is an understatement. The cast indeed is an acting dream team: Sally Field plays the matriarch of the sprawling Walker family, a complicated clan that’s is rocked early on in the season by a death. Calista Flockhart plays one of her daughters, a right-wing pundit, and Rachel Griffiths, Ron Rifkin and Patricia Wettig also have featured roles.
The members of the show’s creative team also have impressive pedigrees: Baitz is a playwright known for award-winning works such as “The Substance of Fire” and “Ten Unknowns,” and Olin, a veteran of “thirtysomething” and an executive producer of “Alias,” has become one of Hollywood’s most respected television producers and directors.
The impressive talent has drawn scrutiny, but shakeups behind the scenes at “Brothers and Sisters” have been another cause of pre-season chatter. After the pilot was filmed with Betty Buckley as the family’s matriarch, Buckley was let go and Field was tapped for the role and much of the pilot had to be re-shot. The part played by writer/actor Dan Futterman (“Capote”), who left the series after he got a role in the feature film about slain journalist Daniel Pearl, was also recast.
Then in August, executive producer Marti Noxon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) exited “Brothers and Sisters” amid rumors of clashes with Baitz, and Greg Berlanti, the creator of “Everwood” and “Jack and Bobby,” was brought on board.
So is the show troubled? Not really, the show’s producers say; all the changes were just part of growing pains that were to be expected, given that creator Baitz is a television novice. Production on the show was never shut down for retooling, the producers point out, which often happens at this time of year with new network shows.
Rumors of turmoil are “absolutely just utterly false,” says Berlanti. “There’s no connection between what’s happening on the sets and behind the scenes and what’s being perceived from outside.”
“There are always staff changes that happen this time of year,” he added. “People are told, ‘Oh, you guys will work great together,’ and it doesn’t work out that way.”
“If we would have shown the pilot that we shot, without Sally in it, and then said `We’re recasting the part,’ that seems to me to be an impossible situation,” Olin noted.
Indeed, the producers were in a double bind: By midsummer, usually television critics have seen all of the network pilots for fall. But thanks to the Internet, fall shows are being scrutinized like never before, and if a pilot that didn’t reflect the creators’ vision