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fredfa

08-28-06, 11:28 PM

TV Notebook
Tax this! Celebrities swoop in for the swag
By William Keck USA TODAY

Neither the IRS nor an episode from last season's Sopranos could deter some stars from collecting major swag at pre-Emmy gifting suites over the weekend.

Recalling the Sopranos episode on HBO when Christopher (Michael Imperioli ) mugged guest star Lauren Bacall for her goodie bag outside a celebrity gift suite, serious swag shopper Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Meadow Soprano) said, "I wouldn't blame us! It goes way beyond that. It's kind of weird to tax people on what's being called a gift bag."

Her co-star Joseph R. Gannascoli (gay mobster Vito) agreed: "I feel like it's our duties as Americans to get away with what we can."

Participating vendors don't seem to mind celebrities loading up on freebies; they hope the stars will provide publicity when they appear with their wares.

But Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon acknowledges vendors' worst fears: that their swag often ends up in the hands of the not-so-famous. "I usually go through it with friends, and everybody gets to pick out what they want," Beauvais-Nilon says. "Usually, most of the stuff (like the trips) you don't end up using, (because) by the time you get to them, they're expired."

Here's a sampling of what freebies stars collected:

• At the HBO Luxury Lounge, Helen Mirren, Debra Messing, Lisa Kudrow and Aida Turturro walked away with selections of Korite International Ammolite jewelry valued at $2,000 to $5,000 apiece.

• At the Kari Feinstein Style Lounge, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Osbourne and Elijah Wood took Melrose Mac laptops valued at $1,500 and Ultimatebet.com poker sets worth $200. Cheryl Hines, Maggie Grace, Ellen Pompeo and Sigler picked up $3,500 diamond initial pendants by Tacori, and Jeri Ryan selected a $400 calfskin leather purse by Boulevard Bags with her pendant.

• At Showtime's Gift House, Marcia Cross ordered a gratis custom-engraved Delicate Raymond charm necklace (retail $150-$300). Blythe Danner and Lorraine Bracco accepted Oona Erlich handbags ($250-$550). And Neil Patrick Harris picked up a pair of Linda Farrow sunglasses valued at more than $300.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/televisionawards/emmys/2006-08-28-emmys-tax-this_x.htm

fredfa

08-28-06, 11:29 PM

Some day, Russ, I'll have to get you to help me post easier-to-read items in the thread.

Meanwhile, enjoy the senior year -- it can be a magical time!

DoubleDAZ

08-28-06, 11:35 PM

RussTC3

08-28-06, 11:37 PM

Fred,

I don't know what you mean by "easier to read", but I've looked at your source material and you do a great job pulling this stuff out and presenting it in a standard, concise format. I can only imagine what your typical day is like. :)
I agree.

You're editing is great Fred, everything is easy to read because of the extensive formating you do to the source. And thanks.

Marcus Carr

08-29-06, 12:01 AM

But what's really head-scratching is the criticism of Conan O'Brien and NBC for not having bagged a "Lost" plane crash spoof at the top of his Emmycast-opening bit. Some believe that heads at NBC ought to roll over this one, arguing that the plane crash in Kentucky on Sunday morning that took the lives of 49 people should have signaled the bagging of the piece out of respect to the victims. I well understand that sentiment, of course, but I still find it odd.

Everyone acknowledges that the bit was taped in advance and actually had nothing to do with an actual plane crash but the event that launched the storyline in "Lost." It was likely too late to replace the skit with something else, and I buy the argument that fiddling with it would have probably required the producers to deep-six most or all of the multi-pronged opening segment entirely for reasons of flow. It's tough to start cutting and pasting on telecast day.

Should they have just unloaded it anyway, the consequences be damned? I don't think so. Plane crashes happen -- certainly more frequently than we'd like. Was this unfortunate timing? Of course. But I wasn't sitting there cringing while watching it despite the day's events. Am I unusual in that regard? This is an entertainment event, something that never should be mistaken for a news event. We didn't see the plane go down in the sketch, just chaos onboard and then Conan stumbling, dazed, onto a beach.

To me, this is a far cry from depicting a plane slamming into a building in the wake of 9/11, for instance. If you have enough advance notice of an event, of course you change the sketch. But I don't believe the decision not to bag it is something for which NBC and O'Brien should be flogged.

What it perhaps comes down to is simply this: political correctitude continues to run roughshod over America.

http://www.pastdeadline.com/

Agreed.

Inundated

08-29-06, 12:02 AM

Another part of Northeast Ohio checking in here...

I didn't have much to say because we'd already confirmed Rich Heldenfels' job status, and I've drooled enough over the lovely Ms. Wiig.

:D

But I love your stuff, Fred! This thread is a "don't miss" for me on AVS Forum.

kb7oeb

08-29-06, 12:18 AM

They could have skipped it, I didn't tune in until he washed up on shore, I caught the opening online and it really didn't add much of anything.

HDTVChallenged

08-29-06, 12:35 AM

Emmy Notebook
There's Got To Be a Morning After
By Ray Richmond The Hollywood Reporter in his blog “Past Deadline”

To me, this is a far cry from depicting a plane slamming into a building in the wake of 9/11, for instance. If you have enough advance notice of an event, of course you change the sketch. But I don't believe the decision not to bag it is something for which NBC and O'Brien should be flogged.

Likewise, if a local affiliate were given sufficient warning of the content of a particular "entertainment" program, the affiliate just might be able to preempt any potentially troubling images. Clearly the skit was written and taped well in advance of the live 8pm EST start time ... ample time to warn affiliates, especially those that were no doubt feeding the a significant portion of the NBC news programming on Sunday.

PS, In the interest of full disclosure: At least 3 of the people on 5191 had direct ties to my rather smallish "flyoverland" home town. And I worked at KLEX (the airport) for 2.5 years in the previous century.

fredfa

08-29-06, 12:55 AM

As I emailed to Ray, does he really think that if on Sunday morning a plane landing at Santa Monica Airport carrying Jerry Bruckheimer, Jeff Zucker, Les Moonves or the cast of "Desperate Housewives" had crashed killing those on board the skit would have run?

It is not, in my mind, a question of ultra sensitivity or PC or anything else. It is simply a matter of caring about others.

Had the victims been important to the TV community the skit would undoubtedly have been heavily edited -- or pulled altogether.

An example: It could have easily been edited -- to rid itself of the plane crash imagery -- to have Conan "dreaming"..and then coming ashore....and keeping the rest of the bit.

It would have just taken a little time, common sense and thought.

fredfa

08-29-06, 09:28 AM

The 2006-2007 Season
A new CW, but with some old baggage
By Kevin Downey MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer

The upcoming CW has been positioned as the best of the WB and UPN ever since the two networks merged earlier this year. Yet that melding of the two networks is looking a bit wobbly going into its first fall season, which opens with a two-hour “America’s Next Top Model” on Sept. 20, two days after the official broadcast season begins.

Media buyers are saying that while CW has inherited the best of the WB---programs such as “Seventh Heaven”-–it has also brought over what they long saw as the worst of UPN, a lineup that flip flops all over the demographic map.

Since the networks merged, CW executives have worked to knit together a schedule, along with a rationale to go with it, led by Dawn Ostroff, president of entertainment at the CW and former UPN president. Ostroff tells Media Life the CW’s mix-and-match lineup reflects the network’s goal of appealing to everyone in the 18-34 demographic.

“We need to be broad in that 18-34-year-old demo,” she says. “What we really are is an umbrella. Under that umbrella we have a lot of different nights that will appeal to different 18-34-year-olds. We can’t have the same exact programming every night. No network can.”

From Monday through Thursday, the CW will essentially be a newer version of the young female-skewing WB, with four nights of dramas, including one new series, Monday’s “Runaway,” about a family hiding from the law, and the reality show “Model” leading into “One Tree Hill” on Wednesdays.

But as UPN’s schedule used to, the CW lineup takes an about face on Fridays with wrestling, “WWE Smackdown,” and then flips again on Sunday to an African-American focus with returning UPN comedies, the new “The Game,” a sitcom about women dating football players, and a “Model” repeat.

Media buyers think the CW may suffer from its scheduling strategy as UPN did by confusing viewers and muddying its brand identity.

“The WB had a distinct identity but now the CW has inherited the issues that came with UPN, having multiple identities,” says Chris Neel, vice president and associate director of national broadcast at Initiative. “UPN was always three different networks for three different [groups of] people.”

The CW will also suffer a bit from tough competition, notably on Sundays where former UPN sitcoms "Everybody Hates Chris," "All of Us" and "Girlfriends" are slotted. This lineup will compete with established Fox comedies like the “Simpsons,” NBC’s NFL football and, early in the night, ABC’s young-skewing “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

The network will also struggle most weeknights at 9 p.m., where shows like the former UPN drama “Veronica Mars” will go head to head with hits such as Fox’s “House."

But while the CW will have a tough time establishing itself, it is ultimately expected to generate respectable ratings for the season, running through next May.

Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of audience analysis at Magna Global, is projecting that the CW will average a 2.1 rating among women 18-34 through first quarter next year. That is about 0.25 points ahead of what the WB and UPN averaged last season. And Sternberg is projecting a 1.2 rating among young men, about what the WB and UPN each pulled.

Most media buyers think the CW will do relatively well on the strength of former WB hit dramas such as “Seventh” and “Gilmore Girls” and what had been UPN’s highest-rated show, “Model.”

The CW’s Ostroff thinks so too. She's predicting the network will end the season slightly ahead of its predecessors. But she also notes that it will take the CW a few months to find its footing.

“We don’t have high expectations in the beginning,” she says. “We are aware of what we need to do to bring people to the network, which is a big challenge. We think we will see growth over the season and end the season probably higher than either UPN or the WB. But we’re not making big predictions.”

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_6949.asp

fredfa

08-29-06, 09:32 AM

The TV Column
At Emmy Parties, You Win Some . . .
By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 29, 2006; C01

LOS ANGELES Post-Emmy parties fall into two very distinct categories.

There are the parties thrown by production houses and networks with shows in the competition -- the HBO party, the Fox party, etc. These rise and fall according to the fortunes of the shows during the prior three hours of trophy dispensing. They can be celebrations -- or wakes.

Then there are the parties thrown by companies that don't have any dogs in the fight -- the TV Guide party and the "Entertainment Tonight"/People magazine party. These will never experience the lows of a party thrown by a network that got iced at the Emmys. But neither will they rise to the heights of, say, the 1999 HBO party after Edie Falco won for best lead actress in a drama series -- the first time a cable program had won a major series derby -- and HBO overall racked up more Emmy wins than any of the broadcast networks for the very first time.

These companies must pull out all the stops, scoring big-name talent to perform at their parties. Names like Pink -- and Prince. Then they must invite as many beautiful young people as they can dredge up and offer them a chance to see a Prince concert free. And, if all goes well, the invitees will show up in droves and the fire marshal will shut down the party, which the media will report the next day, increasing the host company's hip quotient by exactly 25 percent -- especially if the reports are accompanied by photos or video of those beautiful young people all mashed together, and at least one A-list celebrity is in the shot.

This year's TV Guide party on Sunday night, held at a too-trendy-to-live club in Hollywood, promised the pretty people Pink. She did finally show up, long after we had ceased to care. But, happily for TV Guide, the back room where Pink was to perform had much earlier become so jammed with pretty young people it was being "fire marshaled" -- nobody else could get in until a corresponding number of people walked out. Even the cast of "Scrubs" had to wait in line. Yes, even Zach Braff -- 2005's Steve Carell. It's empowering to be in a room Braff can't enter until you leave. We confess we stood there at the threshold basking in the moment, before leaving the Pink Performance Room, and we almost immediately felt pangs of regret. But there were other parties to cover and the valet parking lines were hell.

During our sojourn in the Pink Performance Room, we observed masses of female predators and the occasional greasy-haired man writhing to disco music while waiters with trays of Nicole Richie food portions navigated around them.

And we were just settling in to listen to a guy nearby telling his pals about his friend freshly out of rehab going to his first Hollywood party when everything was interrupted by someone we're sure we were supposed to recognize but didn't, screaming at the crowd that this was the only after-Emmy party that matters.

He also claimed this party had the most sanitary portable toilets in the history of TV -- or maybe he said the history of the magazine, or perhaps it was "Hollywood." Anyway, it was the clean point he was emphasizing and we decided to take his word for it and not investigate because we were already having concerns about the club itself -- one of those places your mother warned you not to touch the walls.

The guy also gave a shout-out to TV Guide Channel, which, he explained, is a channel for people who like to watch people on TV talking about other people on TV. It sounded like he was dissing the channel, but you couldn't be sure. Feeling an urgent need to clear the brain, we decided to put "wait for Pink to perform" into our Life's Too Short category and began pushing and shoving our way to the exit -- where we discovered the Waiting Line.

Leaving the club, we spotted Matthew Perry heading toward the building. That was a shame; would have liked to have asked him about playing Aaron Sorkin on Aaron Sorkin's new show for NBC.

We hadn't seen a lot of Emmy winners at the TV Guide party, but it wasn't even midnight yet, and we were leaving early. We'd seen James Denton and while we'd have liked to have said hello, he was being interviewed by TV Guide Channel's Kim Caldwell, and after more than three hours in the backstage pressroom at the Emmys ceremony, we didn't have the stomach to listen to any more stupid questions being put to TV actors.

Hugh Laurie, who wasn't nominated this year for his love-to-hate "House" role, was seen shuffling about near one of the bars. We don't know if he counts.

We did spot Jerry Bruckheimer milling about and asked if he was surprised his "Amazing Race" had won the trophy for best reality competition series for a fourth time in a row. He said he was and we like to think he was acknowledging this past season wasn't up to snuff.

Waiting in the valet parking line, we heard the "Entertainment Tonight"/People magazine party at the Mondrian Hotel, featuring Prince, had already been shut down by the fire marshal. We headed straight for the HBO party.

HBO's party, at the roomy Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, didn't need Pink -- or Prince. HBO had the most Emmy wins -- again.

Its party was much more civilized, in that you could have a conversation over the music, and there was enough elbow room for a reporter doing serious research to make a sudden turn without accidentally puncturing someone's saline implants with her pen.

It's true, some of the HBO Emmy winners didn't want to chat with a reporter doing serious research. Like Jeremy Piven, who finally got the Emmy he so richly deserved for playing to perfection a Hollywood agent in "Entourage."

Backstage at the Emmys, Piven had talked about what a stretch the character is for him, but in truth he's practically typecast. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and if we weren't a fan already, we were smitten when, during "Access Hollywood's" pre-Emmy Celebrity Suck-Up Show, he told Billy Bush that the host showed potential as a human being and had he ever considered another line of work.

Grievously, Piven, who used to live for one look from a member of the media, now talked only to the starlets clustered around him at the HBO party, and to his mother, who was his date at the Emmy ceremony. One of his entourage -- at the party, not the show -- shoved a digital camera in our hand and asked us to take their picture.

Paula Abdul was there, too, in a gorgeous dress that she unfortunately skanked up with pounds of what looks like Home Shopping Network jewelry. She looked as dazed as she had during the pre-Emmy CS-U Shows.

"Elizabeth I" star Helen Mirren had taken off the stripper shoes of which she spoke onstage and backstage at the Emmys, and put on something more comfortable. Fortunately she kept the stripper shoes with her and showed them to us on request. They looked more like hooker heels -- enormous clear plastic platform numbers that added considerably to her height, which, she said, was the point. She got them in Hollywood for under 50 bucks, she said. They looked it.

Another "Elizabeth I" Emmy winner, Jeremy Irons, stopped to explain to us that the caliber of questions was only slightly less depressing backstage at the Oscars than it had been earlier in the evening at the Emmys. Reporters seem to want to know only the most inane things, he said, though you can steer the conversation if you have time.

We, of course, knew he would not have been given more time backstage at the Emmys, having learned during the official Shrine Auditorium media walk-through earlier in the week that winners who were herded through the press tent in the back parking lot would be clocked at every stop and cut off at five minutes.

We didn't have the heart to tell him. He shook our hand politely, wished us a good night, and left.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801466_pf.html

fredfa

08-29-06, 09:37 AM

TV Notebook
Koppel, on new show, still can't score Rumsfeld interview
By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist August 29, 2007

Rummy won't play with Ted. Even in Ted's new sandbox.

Ted Koppel has struck out with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for an interview on his forthcoming Discovery Channel special, just as he did for more than five years at ABC's Nightline, Koppel says.

"He could have contributed enormously to this broadcast. I can't get to him. I don't know what I've done to him, or why he feels that being interviewed by me is something he doesn't want to do."

Koppel on Discovery: The Price of Security, Koppel's first special for the cable network, debuts Sept. 10 from 8 to 9:30 p.m. It will be followed by a live 90-minute town meeting at the National War College in Washington with 9/11 family members, civil libertarians, administration officials, and members of Congress.

As for Rummy, "I can imagine he's confronted more serious threats than an interview with me," says the ever-puckish newsman. "The only thing I can assume, for some reason or another, is that he feels he and I don't see things the same way.

"He might be surprised to discover there aren't as many differences between our points of view as he may think."

Koppel worries that "several people" in the current administration - namely President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Rumsfeld - "only want to be interviewed by people who share exactly their point of view."

Koppel, 66, joined Discovery Channel in January as managing editor after 42 years at ABC. He's still getting used to his new digs.

"Like anything else, it's like going from a car with a top speed of 100 miles per hour to a car with a top speed of 200 miles per hour. You have to relearn how to drive."

Driving is not a problem for Koppel these days.

Blessed with a supportive boss and the luxury of time - both in preparation and broadcast - Koppel is feeling reenergized. He leaves Sept. 12 for 10 days in Iran for his next special, in the fall.

All that time can be a mixed blessing, however. "In a sense, it's a bit of a frustration," Koppel says. "It's like that old cliche about how the job expands to fill the available time.

"When you know you have several months to get the first broadcast on the air, and you know you have 90 minutes for the documentary and 90 minutes for the town meeting, you tend to do much more than you can possibly use."

Koppel, who helped launch Nightline in 1980, says he watches the revamped multi-topic broadcast "every once in a while," mostly because he hits the rack earlier. (One word, Ted: TiVo.)

"I don't think it will come as a shock to anyone that I wouldn't be doing Nightline the way it's being done today. I really think there is room for a broadcast that focuses on one subject per night."

That said, "it's their [ABC] decision, frankly. It seems to have been borne out. They have more of a younger demographic watching now. Clearly, those are the viewers they were after."

Emmys a bust. The 58th annual Emmy Awards, admirably hosted by Conan O'Brien, were a box-office bust for NBC Sunday.

The Emmycast averaged 16.1 million total viewers from 8 to 11 p.m. - down 14 percent from last year's event, according to "fast nationals" provided by Nielsen Media Research.

As NBC was quick to point out, the '05 Emmys were held in September, when more folks are home and glued to the tube. (For that matter, the '04 Emmys were also in September, and Sunday's numbers were up 17 percent from then. Go figure.)

Also, the show faced unusually strong competition - the network premiere of Johnny Depp's '03 hit Pirates of the Caribbean on ABC, and a new episode of CBS's Big Brother: All Stars.

Typecasting. Mr. Britney Spears, a.k.a. "rapper" Kevin Federline, will show up on an episode of CBS's CSI as "an arrogant teenager" who harasses the CSI team as it works a crime scene. No air date yet.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//15384694.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

08-29-06, 09:48 AM

TV Notebook
Joan Rivers Marks A Milestone
By P.J. Bednarski in the Broadcasting & Cable blog “BCBeat”

The TV Guide Channel excitedly announced Monday that while doing the live pre-Emmy show the other night, Joan and Melissa Rivers completed their 1,000th red carpet interview. I think there is supposed to be an exclamation point there.

It would seem, really, that 1,000 red-carpet interviews (either giving them or conducting them) should be the legal limit. But chops to the Rivers for some of the most excruciating/illuminating/funny/time-consuming moments in television red-carpet interview history.

For the record, Joan talked to Will and Grace star Debra Messing for lucky number 1,000. . Later, upon finding out she was the 1,000th red-carpet interview, Messing said, " It is such an honor to be part of such a big milestone for Joan and Melissa. The red carpet came alive with Joan's first interview, and it's never been the same."

It's true. It seems sometimes that red carpets are alive, don't you think?

Do you think Debra Messing really said that? A publicist for TV Guide Channel says she did.

The news in all this: "Who are you wearing?" the utterly clever question Joan ( I call her Joan) asks most of the 1,000 people she has talked to on the red carpet is actually trademarked. Like, if you ever said that to anybody you probably owe Joan money.

No use tempting fate. I have gotten around this by asking starlets, "Who designed your dress?" This drives Joan crazy, I have heard. I'm trying for a trademark. I've also put in for "Taxi!" and "Hold that elevator!"

We'll see.

http://broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138.html

fredfa

08-29-06, 10:06 AM

The Digital Revolution
Fears over TiVo on pause
Digital video recorders may be able to help network TV by giving viewers choices and advertisers novel ways to reach consumers
By Frank Ahrens Washington Post August 29, 2006

Prime-time television and its mighty 30-second commercial were supposed to be in trouble when a cutting-edge technology arrived on the scene several years ago, giving viewers a tool to zip past the traditional on-screen ads.

Digital video recorders were like VCRs with super powers: able to pause live television, effortlessly record a season's worth of shows and even pick programs they think you will like. By shifting television's time schedule and watching recorded programs at their convenience, viewers could skip those annoying ads with the click of the remote.

Today, as the DVR becomes more accessible to the mainstream — notably because cable and satellite companies are starting to incorporate the technology into the set-top boxes already in millions of living rooms — the technology is having a different effect.

Most viewers have not radically rearranged their television schedules. People are watching more, not less, television. And, most interesting, DVRs may end up preserving mass-audience network television by offering viewers more choices and giving advertisers novel solutions to reach potential customers.

TiVo Inc., which pioneered the DVR, owns about one-third of the market and has entered the lexicon as a replacement for the phrase "to tape a show." But with the cable and satellite companies on board, industry researchers say 12 million to 15 million homes are likely to have a DVR by the end of the year. By 2010, that number could be as high as 65 million.

Now, TiVo and television advertisers are working hand in hand to revolutionize the decades-old model of supporting network television. The Silicon Valley company announced in July that it would start selling customer commercial-viewing data to networks and advertisers. And this fall, viewers will be introduced to prime-time commercials made expressly for DVR users: ads that include extra content seen only when viewers go frame by frame through the commercials, creating a deterrent against using the fast-forward button.

Watching more

"When the DVR came on the scene, there were all these apocalyptic predictions as to how it was going to destroy the mass market and mass-market TV," said David Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS Corp. and president of CBS Vision, the company's research shop. "People became infatuated with the technology and the idea that people were going to take total control of their TV viewing."

Poltrack is one of the industry's experts on researching viewing habits and telling programmers and executives what the data mean.

At presentations, he likes to flout a photograph of a 2000 New York Times Magazine cover story that predicts "The End of the Mass Market" because of DVRs.

What the doomsayers missed, Poltrack said, "was the logical conclusion that the amount of TV that people watched was limited by the fact that these programs ran against each other."

That limit disappears with the DVR, which can record one show while you watch another.

True, a videocassette recorder can do the same thing. But programming a VCR and taping a show can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Seven of 10 owners use VCRs to play recorded tapes (such as rented movies) rather than to record television programs to watch later, according to the Consumer Electronics Assn. The joke of the "blinking 12:00" — a sign that viewers never learned how to program their VCRs — turned out to be true.

But with DVRs, viewers can, at the touch of a few buttons, record all of their favorite shows for an entire season, all of which are stored neatly on a hard drive inside the recorder.

Given the opportunity to easily record shows, people wind up watching more of the most popular television programs. Overall television viewing in households that own DVRs increases after their purchase, according to a number of surveys. That means those viewers are exposed to more advertising.

This fall, ABC is moving one of its most popular shows, "Grey's Anatomy," to Thursday nights, opposite CBS' most popular show, "CSI." Poltrack expects viewers with DVRs to watch both shows instead of having to choose between the two.

Doubt over a statistic

It also turns out that DVRs are not killing live viewing or shuffling the weekly prime-time schedule, at least not yet. From Sunday to Friday, 84% of all prime-time television viewing in DVR households is live, according to Nielsen Media Research. According to the same data, 61% of all prime-time programming recorded by DVRs is watched on the same day it airs.

And even though there are only six major broadcast networks compared with hundreds of cable channels, 77% of the shows recorded by DVRs air on a major network such as ABC or Fox rather than a cable channel such as ESPN or TNT, Nielsen reported.

The networks think they can make more advertising money if they can figure out how to get past one other statistic, and it's a troubling one: 90% of DVR owners say they fast-forward past some or all commercials, CBS data show.

But new information about how DVR users interact with commercials raises questions about that statistic. A March survey by Millward Brown marketing researchers found that 42% of non-DVR owners recalled specific brands in commercials they had seen, such as Ford or Taco Bell. For DVR owners, the number was 43%.

More DVR-inspired creativity is at work.

In May, General Electric Co. began showing commercials touting the environmental benefits of some of its heavy industrial products, such as jet engines and diesel locomotives. One 30-second spot featured an elephant dancing in a jungle to "Singin' in the Rain" as other animals looked on.

Viewers with DVRs were shown how to pause the commercial at certain moments. When they did, up popped whimsical, fictional biographical information about the animals. Gamers call such hidden content "Easter eggs." GE calls the project "One-Second Theater," and it is designed to nudge DVR owners to spend more, rather than less, time with commercials.

It worked, according to GE's research. Viewers spent a little more than two minutes watching and reading the 30-second spots, said Jonathan Klein, GE's marketing communications leader.

So instead of DVR users' never seeing the GE spot, as advertisers and networks had feared, "viewers ended up spending over two minutes with the GE brand in front of them," Klein said.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-tivo29aug29,0,2710982,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

Rakesh.S

08-29-06, 10:30 AM

fredfa

08-29-06, 10:36 AM

You mean no one has filed a lawsuit yet? :p

fredfa

08-29-06, 10:41 AM

TV Sports
Fox's Sunday NFL Telecasts Outpacing Last Year's Sales
By John Consoli MediaWeek.com AUGUST 29, 2006 -

Fox has sold about 85 percent of its Sunday afternoon National Football League telecasts, getting price hikes in the high single-digit range, according to sources familiar with the situation. That percentage of sell-out would be ahead of last year at this point.

Fox has also sold about 80 percent of the three college Bowl Championship Series games it will air in January for the first time--the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1, the Allstate Sugar Bowl on Jan. 2, and the FedEx Orange Bowl on Jan. 3--along with the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game on Jan. 8. Fox won the TV rights to the BCS games in a new multi-year deal earlier this year. The three bowl games were previously televised on ABC. The BCS Championship Game is new.

Ad categories showing growth over last season in Fox's NFL telecasts are wireless/telecommunications, retail/apparel, comptuers/technology, delivery services, and fast food.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003054442

archiguy

08-29-06, 10:52 AM

[
Ted Koppel has struck out with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for an interview on his forthcoming Discovery Channel special, just as he did for more than five years at ABC's Nightline, Koppel says.

"He could have contributed enormously to this broadcast. I can't get to him. I don't know what I've done to him, or why he feels that being interviewed by me is something he doesn't want to do."

Koppel worries that "several people" in the current administration - namely President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Rumsfeld - "only want to be interviewed by people who share exactly their point of view."

I suspect that Ted would have more success at securing Rummie's cooperation for an interview if he had made FOX News his new home instead of Discovery and NPR. The three "leaders" mentioned hardly ever appear on any other network when they do decide to make a televised appearance (typically when they have a policy or position to promote). :rolleyes:

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:03 AM

Bush is appearing at the beginning of Katie's reign on the CBS Evening News.

He also is giving Brian Williams an exclusive interview for tonight.

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:11 AM

Prime-time ratings for Monday – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

HDTVChallenged

08-29-06, 11:15 AM

Regarding Conan and the emmys --

Conan is a comedic genius - imo, no one on tv right now comes close to what he can do.

I wouldn't have pulled the opening skit EVEN IF it were being shot the same day it was being aired. Sensitivity and all, like fred said, **** happens.

I might not have pulled it either ... but hopefully I (as the producers/network handlers) wouldn't have been so self-centered and isolated in LaLaLand that I would have ignored the national news all day and then neglected to give some local affiliates a "heads-up." The crash happened long before the first lattes of the day were being sipped in LA. It's crap and attitudes like this that give 'Hollywierd' a bad rep in "flyoverland."

PS: It's funny how "Letterman" consistantly out performs "Leno" in our local DMAs - perhaps there's a reason for that. ;)

PPS: It's funny how some people just can't admit an error in judgement. Fortunately, NBC did issue an appology - the least the rest of you could do is just shut up when you feel the need to "defend" Conan, the Emmy's or NBC.

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:16 AM

TV Notebook
Serial Killers
By Marc Berman MediaWeek Magazine

Most of the sessions at the recently concluded television critics Association Summer Press Tour dealt with what viewers will be seeing this fall. But in the executive sessions, there was an ongoing conversation about what is happening now, with scripted and nonscripted serialized shows that are canceled midstream.

ABC recently gave the heave-ho—without any warning—to The One: Making of a Music Star, which was pulled after just two weeks. The show had about 2.8 million viewers. ABC also canceled One Ocean View, a nonscripted docu-drama that scored similarly lackluster results. CBS swung the ax this summer after just two episodes of The Tuesday Night Book Club, a reality hour that was patterned after ABC's Desperate Housewives.

You can't blame a network for canceling a series that is struggling in the ratings. But in the case of The One: Making of a Music Star, a musical competition, you have to ask: Is it fair to leave the almost 3 million viewers who tuned in hanging, wondering how their favorite contestants would fare? I don't think it is.

And it's not just reality shows. This is a common occurrence among scripted serialized series as well. Five scripted freshman dramas this season—ABC's Invasion; CBS' Threshold; Fox's Reunion and UPN's Sex, Love & Secrets and South Beach—were unceremoniously pulled, leaving viewers with a slew of questions about what happened to their favorite characters.

You might ask, what's the big deal? There was a time when networks rarely offered conclusions to any series, hit or miss. Aside from The Fugitive, which in 1967 pitted Richard Kimble (David Janssen) against the one-armed man who framed him, shows didn't really start tying up loose ends until the 1970s.

One scripted show, 1987 ABC sitcom I Married Dora, officially ended when the lead actor (Daniel Hugh-Kelly) actually told his co-star (Elizabeth Peña) the show was canceled. Then the camera pulled back to reveal the crew waving goodbye to the audience. A bit strange, maybe, but it accomplished something incredibly important: It acknowledged the viewers. Viewers are valuable no matter how big or small the audience—and that is a lesson most network executives need to learn. In today's environment of multiple tuning options, it certainly does not pay to anger a viewer.

As a fan of television who has invested time in dozens (OK, hundreds!) of series, I am still angry that I never found out what happened to the characters in 2001 Fox soap Pasadena, the couple on the run in 1984 NBC drama Hot Pursuit, or young lovers Jeff and Anita on 1974 CBS soap Sons and Daughters. This season alone I invested time in the aforementioned Threshold and Sex, Love & Secrets, and was left dangling when they hit the chopping block.

If a network is going to offer a serial drama or a reality competition, the viewer is entitled to some kind of resolution when that show ends prematurely. And I think it is time for the networks to make contingency plans if the ratings warrant cancellation. So, here are a few suggestions to the networks on how a low-rated serialized or reality/competition could end with some dignity while satisfying viewers:

1. Never pull a show—any show—without airing all the episodes. If you ordered 13, run the 13, and keep in mind that it sometimes takes an audience time to find a series. Canceling any series after only a handful of episodes makes you look desperate.

2. Have a final script ready to shoot. It may be costly, but it sends the message that you care about the viewer. That's critical.

3. If you start a competition, like ABC did with The One: Making of a Music Star, you must see it through. In this case, ABC could have found a way to decrease the number of telecasts per week from three to one, which would have cut costs and kept whoever was watching in the loop.

4. Utilize the Web. If you don't want to invest the time, or money, to film a final episode, at least put something on your Web site explaining how the series will end or who was chosen as the winner.

If the networks want viewers to make commitments to their series, they need to learn to respect the audience. And that's the most valuable lesson anyone can learn.

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:24 AM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Viewers take a pass on NBC's 'Katrina'
'Road Back' retrospective pulls a 1.8 in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Aug 29, 2006

Broadcast and cable news organizations have descended upon New Orleans to mark today’s one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the nation’s worst ever natural disaster.

But the reality may be that marking the anniversary is something the media is more interested in than viewers, many of whom either don’t want to be reminded of how the government botched its response or have other ways to commemorate Katrina in mind.

For sure, many already are avoiding the TV news specials.

Last night’s NBC News special “Katrina: The Long Road Back” averaged just a 1.8 adults 18-49 rating against relatively light competition at 8 p.m. It finished fourth in its timeslot, behind reruns on ABC and CBS and a new “Prison Break” on Fox.

Of course younger adults are notoriously news-averse, so a big rating may not have been a realistic expectation. Yet among total viewers the special tanked as well, averaging 5.8 million total viewers, fourth in the timeslot and 1 million behind a “Wife Swap” rerun on ABC.

Part of it too may be that New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region have stayed in the public eye for the 12 months after the hurricane. Far from forgetting about Katrina’s survivors, the national news has featured them consistently and updated their progress. Viewers may have thus felt the NBC special offered nothing new.

Also last night, Fox’s new show “Vanished” aired its second episode, and it did slightly better than last week, up 3 percent to a 3.1 in adults 18-49. It got a bump from lead-in “Prison Break,” which also improved over last week’s premiere, rising 8 percent from a 3.7 to a 4.0.

That helped Fox to No.1 for the night among 18-49s with a 3.5 rating and 10 share, ahead of CBS at 2.9/8, ABC at 2.8/7, NBC at 2.0/5, Univision at 1.7/4, UPN at 0.9/2 and WB at 0.6/2.

At 8 p.m., Fox was No. 1 at a 4.0 for "Prison Break," followed by CBS at 2.6 for repeats of "Two and a Half Men" and "How I Met Your Mother," ABC at 2.4 for a "Wife Swap" rerun, Univision at 2.0 for "La Fea Mas Bella," NBC at 1.8 for "Katrina," UPN at 0.9 for reruns of "One on One" and "All of Us," and the WB at 0.7 for a "7th Heaven" repeat.

At 9 p.m., Fox and ABC shared the lead at 3.1 each for "Vanished" and another "Wife Swap" rerun, ahead of CBS at 2.9 for reruns of "Men" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine," NBC at 2.4 for "Dateline," Univision at 1.8 for "Barrera de Amor," UPN at 0.8 for repeats of "Girlfriends" and "Half & Half," and WB at 0.6 for a "Heaven" rerun.

At 10 p.m., CBS was No. 1 for a "CSI: Miami" repeat at 3.1, followed by ABC's "Supernanny" rerun at 2.8, NBC's "Medium" rerun at 1.8 and Univision's "Cristina" at 1.3.

Among households, CBS led for the night with a 6.2 rating and 10 share, ahead of Fox at 5.5/9, ABC at 4.8/8, NBC at 4.3/7, Univision at 2.3/4, WB at 1.3/2 and UPN at 1.2/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6975.asp

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:33 AM

TV Notebook
K-Fed Is 'CSI's' Cousin Oliver
From Channel Island: The TV Industry Blog by Scott Collins in the Los Angeles Times

OK, this is it. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" has officially jumped the shark.

CBS announced Monday it has hired Kevin Federline — aka K-Fed, aka Mr. Britney Spears, aka the newbie rapper who stunk up the Teen Choice Awards — as a "guest star" on the crime drama.

Remember when Cousin Oliver (Robbie Rist) was dispatched to torpedo the last six episodes of "The Brady Bunch?" The noble tradition now passes to our beloved K-Fed.

K-Fed will play a would-be rap star who's killed by real rappers offended by his white-boy posturing; they dump his mutilated corpse on the Vegas strip, where ....

Ha! I'm just kidding. Here's the official (curiously repetitive) explanation from CBS' release:

Federline will portray an arrogant teenager who harasses the CSI team as they investigate a series of brutal tourist beatings that are taking place throughout the Las Vegas area. Nick and Warrick are confronted by Cole Tritt, (Federline), an arrogant teen who hassles them while they work a crime scene.

Synchronize your watches and start the "CSI" doomsday clock now.

http://hollywoodhotline.typepad.com/watcher/

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:38 AM

TV Notebook
“Jump The Shark”

Often a term gets used in this thread (and in writing about TV in general) which you might not be familiar with. “Jumping the shark”, it occurred to me after the previous post, just might be such a term.

So here, from Wikipedia, is an explanation:

Jumping the shark is a metaphor that has been used by US TV critics and fans to denote the tipping point at which a TV series is deemed to have passed its peak. Once a show has "jumped the shark," fans sense a noticeable decline in quality or feel the show has undergone too many changes to retain its original charm.

The phrase specifically arises from a scene in the hit TV comedy series Happy Days in which one of the central characters, Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli, on water skis, literally jumps over a shark. The scene was written into the show at a point when the viewing ratings were beginning to drop, and it is generally regarded as the creative low-point at which the show finally lost all credibility. A show may continue well after the point when fans feel it has "jumped the shark" but will likely decline in popularity
.
Jump-the-shark moments may be scenes like the one described above that finally convince viewers that the show has fundamentally and permanently strayed from its original premise. In those cases, they are viewed as a desperate and futile attempt to keep a series fresh in the face of a decline in ratings. In other cases, the departure or replacement of a main cast member or character or a significant change in setting changes a critical dynamic of the show.

The term has also evolved to describe other areas of pop culture, including movie series, music, or acting celebrities or authors for whom a drastic change was seen as the beginning of the end. These changes are often attempts to attract their fans' waning attention with over-the-top statements or increasingly overt appeals to sex or violence. Some have broadened its use to simply describe any decline in viewer appeal for the TV series in question, without requiring a significant "jump the shark" moment as justification.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

dr_mal

08-29-06, 11:40 AM

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:40 AM

TV Notebook
“Jump The Shark” II

If you are interested in whether some shows you like may have “jumped the shark” you can always check out the interesting and opinionated website
http://www.jumptheshark.com/

Ou8thisSN

08-29-06, 11:57 AM

Fred, I've never posted in this thread but I read it religiously everyday... sometimes more than once to check for your updates. thanks for everything.

fredfa

08-29-06, 12:00 PM

I appreciate the kind words, Ou8thisSN.

And please feel free to post a comment whenever the spirit moves you.

I really don't care if you agree with my own thoughts or not, a good civil discussion about TV is what I hope to foster here.

fredfa

08-29-06, 12:06 PM

Cable TV Notebook
History Channel Breaks August Records

Multichannel News 8/29/2006

The History Channel said it drew 1.1 million total viewers in August, its best August in the network's history.

The network, which also surpassed the 90 million household mark, said it also posted record adults 25-54 impressions (529,000, up 9% from 2005) and 18-49 impressions (446,000, up 5%).

The networks biggest draws in August were The Exodus Decoded (2.3 million viewers); Lost Worlds: Secret Cities of the A-Bomb (1.6 million); Band of Brothers: Replacements (1.6 million); Violent Earth: New England's Killer Hurricane (1.5 million); and Countdown to Ground Zero (1.4 million).

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6366556

fredfa

08-29-06, 12:22 PM

TV Notebook
Dan Rather Biographer Takes Shots at Hewitt, Moonves, Couric
By Dave Shiflett Bloomber.com Aug. 29, 2006

Dan Rather refused to be interviewed for ``Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather,'' telling author Alan Weisman that ``there's nothing in this for me.''

Not so. This short, pugnacious and highly entertaining biography thumps many of Rather's enemies, of which there is no shortage.

Weisman, a retired CBS News writer and producer, takes a brief look at Rather's rise from humble Texas stock. Rather grew up sickly but tough in the same Houston-area neighborhood that produced racing legend A.J. Foyt. His struggle with rheumatic fever led to one of his lifelong mottos: ``Never stay down.''

Rather had a wolverine's tenacity from the start and sometimes got more credit than due, as when Walter Cronkite hailed him for first reporting JFK's death from Parkland Hospital when in fact Robert Pierpoint was the man on the scene. Cronkite was not destined to remain a Rather fan.

Cronkite, by Weisman's acerbic telling, is an arrogant blowhard ``who still believes that the anchor chair should have been retired with him in 1981.'' According to Weisman, Cronkite piled on Rather during the ``Memogate'' scandal, which in Weisman's reading was a fairly minor error that sparked a gross overreaction.

Weisman spends lots of ink thumping journalistic deities who, in the words of Bill O'Reilly, ``slimed'' Rather.

Off to Alcatraz

Former ``60 Minutes'' boss Don Hewitt is scorned for calling Rather a ``coward'' for not resigning following his disputed report on President George W. Bush's military service.

Weisman also notes that as the ``Memogate'' storm began brewing, Andrew Heyward railed that any guilty parties would be ``phoning in from Alcatraz.'' ``This,'' writes Weisman, ``from the president of the News Division who had approved the story prior to air.''

CBS chief Les Moonves is another target. ``Memogate,'' Weisman says, provided Moonves ``with a convenient excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway: go younger.'' Rather was 73 at his departure and, according to Weisman, Moonves wanted more young, smiley faces on the air.

The author doesn't give Rather a free pass, though.

This, after all, is the fellow of ``Kenneth, what is the frequency?'' fame who was also known for antic on-air observations such as, ``This race is as hot and tight as a too- small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach.''

No wonder radio wiseguy Don Imus once said, ``I want to be watching when he cracks.''

Disappearing Act

Rather also stoked his own legend by vanishing for almost six minutes during the start of his Sept. 11, 1987, newscast. Weisman wonders if he ``left the set to make a point to his superiors'' -- that he was upset with the diminishing stature of the news division.

Even Rather's critics may sympathize with poor Dan, who was increasingly enveloped by a rising tide of fluff. That trend included the indignity of being paired as co-anchor with Connie Chung, who was better known for celebrity interviews than news gathering.

That relationship is wonderfully reflected in a Rather quip quoted by Weisman: ``I did on several occasions encourage her, not in a patronizing way, that to be really connected to the news you have to read more.''

Weisman's final chapter, titled ``Edward R. Murrow is Dead,'' is a whack at an era in which blow-dried news personalities report from their teleprompters. Former foreign correspondent Bert Quint notes that ``there's no reason to believe that the person telling you the foreign story has been within 3,000 miles of where the story happened.''

Next up as CBS News anchor is Katie Couric. Former congressional correspondent Phil Jones tells Weisman that Couric is ``a liberal Democrat who is so in love with Hillary Clinton'' that it could pose a problem if Clinton runs for president.

We're left believing that Rather's critics will soon be pining for the good old days when straight-shooting Dan ruled the CBS roost.

``Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather'' is published by John Wiley & Sons (288 pages, $25.95).

(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=awjAsiWH2rhg&refer=muse#

fredfa

08-29-06, 12:27 PM

TV Notebook
New Orleans District Attorney Bristles at Criticism, Walks Out of “Nightline” Interview
Vic Walter Reports from ABC News.com:

New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan bristled at criticism and walked out of an ABC News Nightline interview when told that law enforcement officials were critical of Jordan's handling of his office.

ABC News' Brian Ross interviewed Jordan earlier today as part of a report examining the state of the New Orleans justice system one year after Katrina, to be broadcast on Nightline later tonight.

Since last year's hurricane, there has been growing criticism of Jordan's office by senior people in law enforcement who say, even with the acknowledged problems caused by Katrina, the District Attorney has not efficiently dealt with a huge backlog of cases, estimated at more than 3,000.

Jordan told Ross his questions were "stupid," when Ross asked Jordan to respond to a comment made by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in an ABC News interview earlier this week. "You need to have an effective police department, you need to have the courts operating effectively, you need to have a local prosecutor who is doing his job," he said.

Brian Ross: Do you think he's talking about you?

Eddie Jordan: No, because we're doing our job and I have the evidence to support it.

Brian Ross: You don't take this then as a criticism from Washington?

Eddie Jordan: I don't take this as a criticism from Washington because, as I've said before, we are taking care of our responsibility. This is ignorance and stupidity on the part of people who don't know how our system works.

At that point, Jordan's aide stepped in front of the cameras and announced she was ending the interview.

At that point, Jordon protested that Ross' questions were "stupid."

Brian Ross: They are honest questions, sir.

Eddie Jordan: They're stupid; they're not honest questions.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/08/new_orleans_dis.html

Posty-McPost

08-29-06, 02:16 PM

PPS: It's funny how some people just can't admit an error in judgement. Fortunately, NBC did issue an appology - the least the rest of you could do is just shut up when you feel the need to "defend" Conan, the Emmy's or NBC.

I'll defend Conan. I was at a taping of his show in 1998 or so and one of the bits involved an animated plane crash. That day there was a plan crash. By the time the show aired the joke had been edited to be a car accident.

JMCecil

08-29-06, 02:48 PM

I'll defend Conan. I was at a taping of his show in 1998 or so and one of the bits involved an animated plane crash. That day there was a plan crash. By the time the show aired the joke had been edited to be a car accident.
Did he check to make sure there were no car crashes that day?

Jediphish

08-29-06, 03:42 PM

Did he check to make sure there were no car crashes that day?

LOL.

trbarry

08-29-06, 04:31 PM

Did he check to make sure there were no car crashes that day?

I think over 100 people die in auto crashes in the USA every day on average. So by that logic I guess it is never acceptable to joke about auto accidents. But humor is one of our ways of dealing with things that scare us. So where would we be without it?

- Tom

harley1

08-29-06, 04:36 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Viewers take a pass on NBC's 'Katrina'

Last night’s NBC News special “Katrina: The Long Road Back” averaged just a 1.8 adults 18-49 rating against relatively light competition at 8 p.m. It finished fourth in its timeslot, behind reruns on ABC and CBS and a new “Prison Break” on Fox.

Of course younger adults are notoriously news-averse, so a big rating may not have been a realistic expectation. Yet among total viewers the special tanked as well, averaging 5.8 million total viewers, fourth in the timeslot and 1 million behind a “Wife Swap” rerun on ABC.

Maybe they watched the Spike Lee Documentary rebroadcast last night on HBO.

After I watched it last week,I had no desire to watch another show about it.

fredfa

08-29-06, 04:39 PM

Cable TV Notebook
New WWE, Monk Carry USA to Victory
By Anne Becker Broadcasting & Cable, 8/29/2006

Reliably solid showings of WWE wrestling and Monk helped USA draw the most viewers of any ad-supported cable network during prime in August with 2.92 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. The network was followed by TNT with 2.68 million, Lifetime with 1.84 million and ESPN with 1.82 million.

With its record breaking premiere of The Cheetah Girls 2 on Aug. 25, non-ad-supported Disney Channel had the most-viewed program of the month and just about tied USA for the most total viewers of the month. The movie pulled in 7.82 million total viewers and Disney averaged 2.91 million for the month in prime.

TNT scored the top three ad-supported programs for the month. Its Aug. 13 original movie The Ron Clark Story (6.95 million viewers) was sandwiched between the July 31 and Aug. 7 episodes of The Closer (7.22 and 6.71 million viewers, respectively).

Lifetime ranked in the month's top 10 programs with its original biopic about American Idol's Fantasia Barrino, which averaged 6.65 million viewers Aug. 19, as did ESPN with it's Aug. 21 Cowboys/Saints game pulling in 6.58 million viewers.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6366787

fredfa

08-29-06, 04:41 PM

Last week’s complete network average prime-time results (with demographic averages) are now at the bottom of RATINGS NEWS the first post in this thread.

fredfa

08-29-06, 04:48 PM

Last week’s updated top 10 prime-time program ratings are now toward the bottom of RATINGS NEWS -- the first post in this thread.

fredfa

08-29-06, 04:53 PM

TV Sports
ESPN, Big East Conference Sign Six-Year Deal
John Consoli MediaWeek.com AUGUST 29, 2006 -

ESPN and the Big East Conference have reached a new six-year basketball TV rights deal running from the 2007-08 season through the 2012-13 season, and a new six-year football righs deal that will run from 2007-2013. The basketball deal includes both men's and women's games from the conference, and the football deal includes both national and regional games, and both deals include pay-per-view components and rights on other ESPN platforms.

ESPN has had a telecast relationship with the Big East since 1979 when both ESPN and the Big East Conference were launched.

The basketball rights deal will enable ESPN to cover every Big East game on every ESPN entity, except for select games on CBS Sports. ESPN will televise games on Monday nights as it has, and will also add a Thursday night Big East telecast on either ESPN or ESPN2. Games will also televise on ESPN broadcast sibling ABC. Under the deal, ESPN and ESPN2 will combine to televise about 40 Big East games each season, whle ESPN360 and ESPNU will offer about 34 games. ESPN Regional Television will syndicate about 65 games each season. The entire Big East Conference Tournament at the end of the season will also continue to be televised exclusively on ESPN and ESPN2.

The agreement also includes pay-per-view rights as part of ESPN Full Court package, as well as archived Big East games through ESPN's video-on-demand.

ESPN and ESPN2 also will televise about 11 regular season Big East women's games, plus the Conference Championship. ESPNU will carry 15 Big East teams and several rounds of the Conference Championship Tournament. There are also ESPN Mobile and ESPN.com components.

Under the football deal, ESPN or ESPN2 will televise a minimum of14 Big East games during each season, with games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, along with Saturday afternoons, a game on Labor Day and on Thanksgiving weekend. ABC will also air three Big East games annually. ESPN Regional TV will also syndicate games. The football deal also includes pay-per-view components as part of ESPN GamePlan package, and archived game telecasts via ESPN's video-on-demand services.

Similar to basketball, Big East football content will also be featured across other ESPN platforms like ESPN Mobile and ESPN.com.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003054552

fredfa

08-29-06, 04:55 PM

Weekly N ielsens
Emmycast Top-Rated Program for the Week
By Christopher Lisotta TV Week August 29, 2006

NBC's telecast of the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards was easily the highest-rated program among adults 18 to 49 for the week ended Aug. 27, but that wasn't enough to prevent CBS from winning the week in the demo.

According to Nielsen Media Research, The Emmys scored a 5.2 in adults 18 to 49, a number that includes live viewing plus same-day viewing via DVRs. ABC's Sunday telecast of the feature film "Pirates of the Caribbean" and Monday's season premiere of Fox's "Prison Break" were tied for second place in the demo with a 3.7, followed by a "CSI" repeat on Thursday (3.4) and Tuesday's edition of CBS summer reality series "Big Brother: All Stars," which tied a repeat of Monday's "CSI: Miami" (3.2).

CBS won the week with a 2.3 in adults 18 to 49, followed by NBC and ABC (both 2.2), Fox (2.1), Univision (1.6), UPN and The WB (both 0.7) and Telemundo (0.4).

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10638

fredfa

08-29-06, 05:39 PM

TV Notebook
CBS Puts Couric on Photoshop Diet
By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable 8/29/2006

CBS blames the "editorial staff" of a promotional magazine for doctoring a photo to dramatically slim Katie Couric down, but those editors are in fact the network’s PR staff.

Website TVNewser caught CBS putting Couric on a diet in its Watch magazine by altering a photo of her from the network’s upfront presentation that substantially thins her waist and face. The Website showed the magazine’s version next to the version originally taken at the network’s ad presentation in Carnegie Hall last May.

Magazine photos are altered all the time. However, this alteration comes as the network is struggling to portray longtime NBC Today Show co-host Couric as a news anchor with the gravitas to convey serious news.

A CBS spokesman says only that "the editorial staff of Watch magazine retouched the photo without the knowledge of Katie Couric or CBS news management" and would not elaborate further.

However, the alteration is completely an inside job. Much of the production and ad sales of the quarterly magazine are handled by an outside custom publisher, but the editorial content is all prepared by CBS’ own communications department. The magazine’s masthead says that Executive VP, Communications, Gil Schwartz is editor in chief and Director of Communications Jeremy Murphy is editor.

Murphy— who actually puts out the magazine—would not comment Tuesday, but in an interview in PR Week when the magazine was announced last year, Murphy said, "It really is a journalistic enterprise. We're putting together a magazine that will be useful."

Tongue in cheek, Schwartz says that "nothing in Watch magazine has done anything to diminish Katie's true stature."

Through a spokesman, Couric says that she prefers the original photo "because there's more of me to love."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6366843

*Photo credit: TVNewser.com and CBS (The doctored photo is, of course, on the right)

GeorgeLV

08-29-06, 05:55 PM

^^ Just wait until they can do it dynamically. TV personalities would fall over for a camera that takes of 10 pounds.

fredfa

08-29-06, 06:35 PM

It looks like Photoshop did a little better than 10 pounds!

JMCecil

08-29-06, 06:35 PM

I think over 100 people die in auto crashes in the USA every day on average. So by that logic I guess it is never acceptable to joke about auto accidents. But humor is one of our ways of dealing with things that scare us. So where would we be without it?- Tom
heh, I agree 100%. My comment was both meant to be ironic and humorous. It kind of reminds me of the old Carlin bit about saving the Dolphins from the Tuna nets. It's all well and good unless you're a Tuna. "Where are the Tuna safe nets?" Perspective is everything.

fredfa

08-29-06, 10:26 PM

Emmy Notebook
$150,000 Doesn't Go Quite As Far As It Used To
By Ray Richmond The Hollywood Reporter in his blog “Past Deadline” August 29, 2006

Marty Ingels was still mad as hell on Monday over the treatment he received from the TV Academy at the Emmys, and it stems mostly from the fact that a 5-foot-5 poster of Shirley Jones is a terrible thing to waste.

Perhaps a little explanation is in order. Ingels, longtime husband of Jones and a veteran actor-comedian in his own right who starred in the short-lived early 1960s primetime comedy "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster," decided that his missus deserved an Emmy nomination for her role in the Hallmark Channel flick "Hidden Places." Since he realized that her chances of achieving this were none and none -- given the fact Hallmark wasn't much promoting Jones for consideration, since it lacks the scratch to fund awards shout-outs -- the irrepressible Martmeister decided to take matters into his own hands.

Ingels took out multiple ads in the trades and sent DVD screeners of his wife's performance to voters galore. "I plunked down $150,000 of my own money," he offers, "and it was worth every penny." Indeed, the campaign worked. Jones got her nomination for supporting actress in a miniseries/movie, the same category in which Ellen Burstyn also landed a nomination (for a 14-second performance) while spending approximately $150,000 less to achieve it. Nonetheless, Ingels felt it was 150K well pissed away and he was all set to proudly attend the Emmy ceremony and watch Shirley take home her rightful statuette.

Then Jones got hired as a regular in the new Lifetime series "Bianca" that's currently filming in Brisbane, Australia. No problem. Ingels would attend alone and accept the trophy in his wife's stead, he decided. That's when the trouble began. Apparently, Ingels' famously flamboyant persona wasn't exactly what the TV Academy had in mind for its annual showcase.

"They told me that Shirley had to be dead or infirm for me to be able to accept for her," Ingels recalls. Since his wife was neither -- merely geographically-challenged -- that was pretty much that. However, you don't tell Marty Ingels that he can't do something for his wife of 29 years. "And after the campaign I'd launched, I felt it was insulting to exclude me," he added.

So Ingels hatched a plan to tote along a life-size poster of Shirley to the ceremony that he'd carry to the stage in the event of a Jones victory. Now the academy was more adamant, he notes. Not only couldn't he accept for her, his poster (word got around evidently) was also being barred from admission to the Shrine Auditorium. Oh, and one more thing: Shirley's tickets to the show weren't transferable, Ingels was told. The tix may have been "Shirley Jones plus one," but they weren't "Marty Ingels plus one life-size cutout."

"Now I was really incensed," Ingels admits. "They're telling me I can spend $150,000 on a campaign and then can't even attend? What kind of bullshit is that?" Ingels says he managed to procure two tickets in the nosebleed seats of the third balcony for $1,100, so now he was up to $151,100. He had a limo pick him up and take him to the show w/banned poster, which was indeed denied entry by Emmy security as promised. "But I had an 11 X 14 shot of Shirley tucked into my pants that I'd have taken out in case she won," he notes.

Alas, Jones didn't win. Kelly Macdonald of HBO's "The Girl in the Cafe" did. And there was one last indignity awaiting Ingels.

"They wouldn't even give me Shirley's Emmy bag!" he fumes. "It was the crowning insult as far as I'm concerned."

As for the academy response, its senior VP of awards John Leverence assures that Ingels was not being singled out for exclusion and that the rules are the rules. "It wasn't a situation of something being denied Marty so much as standard academy policy," he says. "But we were happy to have him here to root on Shirley and glad she's got a great gig in Australia."

http://www.pastdeadline.com/

fredfa

08-29-06, 10:34 PM

Cable News Notebook
August program rankings

If you are interested in seeing how all of the cable news programs did in the August ratings (which officially ended August 25th—don’t ask) download this pdf courtesy of Brian Stelter at mediabistro.com.

A hint: 12 of the top 13 shows were on Fox News Channel. Larry King, at #8, broke the FNC winning streak -- although he was clobbered by Bill O'Reilly.

fredfa

08-29-06, 10:39 PM

Weekly Nielsen Notebook
Premieres, finales falter
By Gary Levin USA Today 8/29/2006

•No breakout. Fox's Prison Break, the first premiere of the fall season, averaged 9.4 million viewers Monday, down from 10.5 million for last August's opener, though the decline was steeper among young-adult viewers. The premiere of Vanished, which followed, averaged 8.6 million, declining from its lead-in among young viewers but increasing sharply among viewers ages 55 and older.

•Emmys down. TV's awards show averaged 16.2 million viewers, down 13% from last year's 18.7 million, a result of an early airdate and ABC's rerun of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (10 million), which improved over its November premiere. Still, the Emmys topped the weekly chart.

•Cheetah climbs. Friday's premiere of Disney Channel movie sequel Cheetah Girls 2 averaged 7.8 million viewers, slightly beating High School Musical to score as the network's top-rated movie. It was the night's top show, and 60% of girls ages 6 to 14 watching TV were tuned in.

•Treasure found. The finale of NBC's Treasure Hunters, one of several disappointing summer reality series, averaged a modest 6 million viewers Monday but marked the series' biggest audience since its premiere in June.

•HBOver. Sunday's Entourage finale (2.5 million) capped the Hollywood comedy's top-rated season, while Lucky Louie closed its freshman year with a low 1.3 million, both nearly matching season-long averages. The finale of Deadwood (2 million) ended the Western's lowest-rated cycle (2.4 million); a two-part movie is due next year.

•USA sendoff. Friday's season finales of Monk (5.6 million) and Psych (4.6 million) ended on high notes. Monk was up 6% this year. The Dead Zone, signing off Sunday with 2.2 million, was off 19% with a fifth-season average of 2.8 million.

•Extras. Tuesday's premiere of Oxygen's Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty averaged 340,000 viewers. CBS special JC Penney Jam drew a low 5.5 million Tuesday. The season finale of Bravo's Workout sweated 985,000, and Comedy Central's Reno 911 hit 966,000.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-08-29-nielsen-analysis_x.htm

fredfa

08-29-06, 10:55 PM

Weekly Nielsen Notebook
The Bottom 25

You always read about the top-10 programs in the weekly Nieslen ratings, but here are the bottom 25 English-language prime-time network shows for last week, August 21-27. They are ranked on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Viewership is listed in millions.:

109 Gilmore Girls (9 p.m.) WB 1.96
110 Living With Fran WB 1.95
111 Gilmore Girls (8 p.m.) WB 1.87
112 7th Heaven (8 p.m.) WB 1.85
113 7th Heaven (9 p.m.) WB 1.80
114 What I Like About You WB 1.73
115 Girlfriends UPN 1.68
116 Twins WB 1.64
117 America's Next Top Model 6 UPN 1.63
118t Blue Collar TV (8 p.m.) WB 1.59
118t Blue Collar TV (8:30 p.m.) WB 1.59
118t Half and Half (Mon.) UPN 1.59
121 Love Inc. UPN 1.56
122 Eve UPN 1.55
123 All of Us (Mon.) UPN 1.50
124 All of Us (Wed.) UPN 1.39
125 One on One UPN 1.37
126t Cuts UPN 1.34
128 Charmed (8 p.m.) WB 1.33
129 Half and Half (Wed.) UPN 1.28
130 Charmed (9 p.m.) WB 1.20
131 One Tree Hill WB 1.15
132 Just Legal WB 1.12
133 Veronica Mars (9 p.m.) UPN 1.05
142 Veronica Mars (8 p.m.) UPN 0.89

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:01 PM

Weekly Nielsen Notebook
Worst of the Big 4 Network Shows

Here are the rankings for national least-viewed Big Four prime-time network television shows last week (Aug. 21-27) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Viewership is listed in millions.

73 "NFL Preseason Football" CBS 4.27
91 Cops (8 p.m.) FOX 3.28
92 Dateline: NBC (Sat.) NBC 3.20
93 Kyle XY ABC 3.16

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

RussTC3

08-29-06, 11:04 PM

Ouch for Veronica. I hope that doesn't translate over to the 3rd season.

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:08 PM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
Offering Truth and Illusion and Nothing but the Two
By Alessandra Stanley The New York Times August 30, 2006

Celebrity trial lawyers are supposed to be flamboyant and theatrical. Yet the high-priced defense attorneys in Jerry Bruckheimer’s new courtroom drama on Fox, “Justice,” are not at all like F. Lee Bailey or Johnnie Cochran. They are as grimly focused and humorless as the crime lab detectives of “CSI.”

It’s the pretrial work that is the showy centerpiece of this series. Media spin, jury consultants and focus groups are the DNA swabs and bloodstain-pattern analysis reports of “Justice.” And that makes it kind of fun: it is as if someone at Fox had ordered up a “Trading Spaces” for television writers. Imagine what “Boston Legal” would look like if Jerry Bruckheimer were in charge instead of David E. Kelley.

This series looks sleek but solemn. The camera zips and zooms jaggedly from character to character, while time-lapse photography punches up dramatic moments. These versions of the lawyers Denny Crane and Alan Shore from “Boston Legal” do not drink and smoke cigars in the workplace, and paralegals button their blouses as well as their lips.

Most of all, the partners speak in brusque, taut sentences pregnant with barely contained righteous indignation. There are no dress-down Fridays at the law firm of Trott, Nicholson, Tuller & Graves. Chatty banter is as natural in a Bruckheimer production as a shark attack is in a Busby Berkeley musical.

Yet for all the stylish camera work and high-tech trial prep, “Justice” is a fairly traditional courtroom drama. Its main distinction is that it is set in a post-O. J. Simpson/Scott Peterson era when the media are frontline components of any high-profile case. The howling press pack serves as background noise on “Law & Order” or “Boston Legal,” but on “Justice” it is a vital part of the judicial process. And that point is not made subtly. “Right now, your guilt or innocence is determined by a 60-second sound bite on CNN,” the top lawyer, Ron Trott (Victor Garber, “Alias”), tells his client.

The premiere episode of “Justice” opens, quite elegantly, with a bloodied woman in a white gown floating face down in a swimming pool. Elegiac music is quickly drowned out by the noise of hovering TV news helicopters. On a television screen, “American Crime” — a cable show whose host is a Rita Cosby/Nancy Grace lookalike named, with Dickensian flourish, Suzanne Fulcrum (Katherine La Nasa) — transmits live images of police cars and news vans swarming Malibu to arrest the victim’s husband.

As the husband waits, head in hands, in his living room, Trott talks back to the television. “That’s right, sweetheart, keep it up, the meter’s running,” he snarls. “We are suing you for defamation.” It is not clear that he has much of a case, however, since the police are on their way to arrest his client.

In the first of many feints to outwit the media and two-faced district attorneys, Trott and his three partners sneak their client out the back to surrender quietly to a nearby police station out of camera range. “Does Malibu have a substation?” a partner asks. “Yes, a nice one,” Trott replies tersely. “ I handled one of Downey’s re-arrests there.”

The script is dotted with allusions to real-life celebrities and their infamous cases, including a nod to Vanity Fair’s high-society crime reporter, Dominick Dunne, whom Trott describes as an enemy. “He writes a lot of terrible things about me,” he reminds another partner. “And those things get us a lot of work, not to mention our own table at the Ivy.”

Trott’s manner is so abrasive that he rarely speaks up in the courtroom; he defines his role as “spinning” on talk shows and news conferences on the courthouse steps. Juries are left to his handsome young partner Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith, “Charmed”), a sincere Nebraskan who is described by Fulcrum as “the all-American face of ‘Not Guilty.’ ” Actually, Mr. Smith’s slick, sculptured features make him look more like the Eurotrash face of “Charge it to her room,” but her description is close enough.

That good shyster/bad shyster act is bolstered by Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker of “Oz”), a politically well-connected charmer who schmoozes with the district attorney’s office while snooping around the prosecution’s case. Alden Tuller (Rebecca Mader, “The Devil Wears Prada”) is the beautiful, coolly analytic partner who finds and coaches expert witnesses.

Each episode ends with a twist: after the jury has delivered its verdict, the crime is shown as it actually took place, allowing viewers to see whether T N T & G’s defense was based on the truth or on clever courtroom tricks. On “Justice,” even the truth gets the benefit of a high-priced makeover.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/arts/television/30stan.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1156910715-IrnF6eepU2lphKAiFGahCw&pagewanted=print

DoubleDAZ

08-29-06, 11:09 PM

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:10 PM

Ouch for Veronica. I hope that doesn't translate over to the 3rd season.

I do too, Russ, but the numbers have been consistently dismal this summer for VM.

On the other hand, there has been literally no promotional effort for UPN (or The WB) shows this summer, and many affiliates have been pre-empting shows for sports and anything else they can find.

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:14 PM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
Can 'Bones' do justice as a lead-in for new Fox legal drama?
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic

Calling a show distinctly Fox was, for a long time, a backhanded compliment at best.

The description connoted a certain fly-by-night ineptitude and, more often than not, a certain level of disposability. That was before "24," "American Idol" and "House," but even those successes came with qualifications.

"American Idol" and "24" don't begin their seasons until January, and Fox learned the hard way that "24" repeats terribly. "House," on the other hand, brings viewers back for fresh episodes and reruns, demonstrating the benefit of close-ended hours over serials.

What the network needs now are more blocks to build upon in the spirit of "House."

What the suits really want is their own "CSI" to play with.

Doesn't it have that in "Bones"? (Which begins its seond season Wednesday at 8 PM ET/PT preceding "Justice".)

Not quite.

Though "Bones" grew out of its awkward beginnings last fall into a different, better drama, we know too much about Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and the object of her desires, Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz), at this point to jam them into a "CSI" mold.

Besides, "Bones" has far too much personality going for it to change much beyond this season's addition of a new boss (and romantic competition for Temperance) in Dr. Camille Saroyan (Tamara Taylor).

Why not simply bring in "CSI" super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer?

Fox did exactly that, and now it's giving us "Justice," a legal thriller that probably belongs on CBS with the rest of Bruckheimer's family.

The one-word title does suggest a certain Fox sensibility, though. The series plays with the idea that in the American court system, justice is more a matter of client resources and a litigator's ability than a matter of right and wrong, or what is the truth and what isn't. In other words, a verdict that works in the defendant's favor can be bought if you can afford it. And in the expensive offices of the high-powered firm TNT&G -- formidable acronym, no? -- the truth can be molded to suit any perspective if you have adequate information, technology and ability to take creative license with it.

Headed by the calculating Ron Trott ("Alias's" Victor Garber, not stretching much here), TNT&G is propelled by an assassin's methodical drive. These lawyers like to win, even when the client is guilty, and will do so by any (mostly) legal means necessary.

From Trott's point of view, the media holds the greatest potential for victory or defeat. Trott hates the way television journalism drives the court of public opinion. But he knows how to feed the beast and how to lead it down the paths he wants it to go. Any publicity is good for TNT&G in Trott's eyes, and he uses cameras and talk shows like "American Crime" (hosted by a Nancy Grace clone) to his advantage.

Adept as Trott is at pulling the strings, he pays the price in front of juries. They can detect the scent of the man's ruthless gamesmanship on his expensive suits. So, while he works the TV circuit, his clean-cut partner, Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith), takes the lead in the courtroom, tagging in the lovely Alden Tuller (Rebecca Mader) whenever they need to drop some science on the jurors. Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker) rounds out the lineup, spurring the team with his smoldering drive.

You have to appreciate how easily "CSI's" glossy production values translate to the arena of legal forensics, a topic that otherwise would be a snore. "Justice" applies the same kinetic editing and zooming graphics and one-shot story lines that propel other Bruckheimer series and, as with those shows, there's an appeal to the brainy side. Here, we're invited to dissect the contentious relationship between the legal system and the media, and the ways in which one manipulates the other. The emotional side of these stories barely exists, since the case is the main event; we're told very little about TNT&G partners' personal lives, and we're guessing it'll stay that way.

We even get to find out whether the defendant actually committed the crime -- a bloody payoff at the end of an otherwise rudimentary procedural.

With the unvarnished truth dangling like a carrot before a carthorse, there's ample reason for crime-show junkies to cling to "Justice," although some mysteries will be more worth seeing through to the end than others.

A case like Wednesday night's, in which a husband is accused of bludgeoning his wife to death with a golf club -- the murder weapon of choice for the hyper-rich -- should seem more compelling than it comes off. Many of the sins in the "Justice" premiere are matters of chunky exposition; throughout the hour, characters are forced to make explanations of legal jargon seem natural in the course of conversation.

They end up sounding stiff and earnest, even as "CSI's" stylistic tricks make the high-stakes business of insurance sales look desperately appealing. (Never has digging through court documents looked so sexy, high-tech and dangerous.)

More troublesome is how passionless and cold "Justice" feels, where a real-life celebrity trial grips viewers with heat and hype over the silliest details. If this series can't seize the opportunity to lock down a loyal audience with its early premiere, it may be crushed when "Lost" and "Criminal Minds" return to the air.

But another thing useful to remember about Fox is that if something is halfway decent, it'll probably get time to develop. The lead-in for "Justice" should be a lighthouse of hope in that regard. You have to wonder, though, if the liveliness of "Bones" will be a good partner for "Justice" or if it will make this new drama pale in comparison.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/282852_tv29.html

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:20 PM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
Any objection to another legal drama?
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”

With “Justice” you’re getting a straightforward legal drama in which you’ll hear a lawyer exclaim, “Your honor, objection! Argumentative! Move to strike!”

Despite its jittery camerawork and souped-up graphics, “Justice” is just a reasonably well-made, meat-and-potatoes lawyer show. It doesn’t stray into preaching or perversion like the more daring “Boston Legal,” and it’s not a straight-up star vehicle like “Shark,” CBS’ upcoming James Woods-as-prosecutor show.

There is a glimmer of a gimmick on “Justice,” though; at the end of each episode, viewers will get to see how the crime that the high-powered law firm of TNT & G defended played out in reality.

Did the man at the center of the show’s premiere really kill his wife? The coda lets viewers know (and, by the way, the plot of the pilot has many eerie resemblances to the real-world murder case depicted in the outstanding Sundance Channel documentary “The Staircase”).

Victor Garber is in fine form as an aggressive attorney who loves the spotlight of cable-TV legal shows and who makes his defendant, his courtroom experts and even his own partners tremble at times. The rest of the cast is quietly competent, even if some of them have to utter lines such as, “If you miss anything, it could cost our client everything.” Thud.

Still, the more obvious twists and turns are glitzed up with swoopy, staccato camerawork and an admirably energetic pace.

In any case, your appetite for “Justice” will entirely depend on your desire to see more legal wrangling and criminal capers on TV. You may be eager to see one more show largely set in law offices and courtrooms, or you may shout, “Objection!”

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

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:25 PM

Note: this is very tongue in cheek. I found it amusing and thought you might, too. But please remember that it is fabricated, not real
Here is a comment from Aaron Barnhart from the Kansas City Star: “I think the Onion style has been done to death (by the Onion, for starters) ... and for that reason I almost didn't click on this. By the sixth or seventh graf, when they're really piling it on, I laughed. Loudly.”

Emmy Notebook
NBC SORRY THAT CONAN WAS FUNNY AT EMMYS
Dateline Hollywood

Hollywood - NBC has apologized for Conan O’Brien’s behavior as host of the Emmy Awards on Sunday night, in which he shocked the sensibilities of many Americans by actually being funny. “Conan was completely out of line being actually funny, thereby highlighting how boring the rest of the show was,” said Emmys executive producer Ken Ehrlich.

Many critics, bloggers, and local stations said they found several of O’Brien’s comedy routines, especially a pre-taped bit in which he pretended to be on a crashing plane like the cast of “Lost,” offensive because they were funny.

“People tuned into the Emmys expecting to see celebrities honor programs like ‘Two and a Half Men,’ ‘Will & Grace,’ and ‘The New Adventures of Old Christine,’” said Mark Armstrong, general manager of Lexington, Kentucky affiliate WLEX. “Comedy has no place at such an event.”

Those in attendance said they weren’t sure how to respond to O’Brien’s bizarre behavior.

“This really weird thing happened when Conan was on stage,’ said nominee Bryan Cranston of “Malcolm in the Middle.” “I laughed out loud because somebody said something funny. Usually I just make a short, laugh-like sound because there’s an awkward pause after presenters’ awkward patter and before they start listing the nominees.”

Many of Sunday night’s winners said they thought O’Brien’s comedic hosting distracted from the rest of the night’s excitement.

“I went online this morning expecting see the whole Internet buzzing about my second consecutive best supporting actress in a drama win for my role as ‘Izzy’ on ‘Huff,’ but everyone was distracted by how funny Conan was,” said Blythe Danner. “I think it was quite rude of him.”

Emmy producers say they are outraged that O’Brien threw off the tone they have always set for the show and promised changes next year. In addition to replacing him with a more tasteful host who will stick to lines written by returning head writer Bruce Vilanch, whom O’Brien refused to work with, the live show will have a slight delay so censors can bleep out any jokes that make the audience laugh for more than two seconds.

“I know there’s a niche audience for Conan’s brand of so-called ‘funny comedy,” Ehrlich said. “But the Emmys are no place for laugh-out loud jokes from a television personality, especially when they’re on NBC.”

http://datelinehollywood.com/archives/2006/08/29/nbc-sorry-that-conan-was-funny-at-emmys/

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:29 PM

TV Preview
“Bones” Fox, 8 PM ET/PT Wednesday
Digging up 'Bones'
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor in his blog “Tuned In” Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006

Fox's "Bones" returns for a second season tonight and though the banter between Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz, "Angel") is wittier and sharper, the plots remain ho-hum affairs.

Supporting characters have better definition this year (usually the case when a series gets a full season under its belt), although Pittsburgh native Jonathan Adams, who played the top dog at the Jeffersonian Institute, is no longer on the show (producers had a hard time fitting his character into stories).

Brennan butts heads with her new boss, Dr. Camille Saroyan (Tamara Taylor), who at first seems like a typically bothersome bureaucrat, but eventually reveals herself to be different that her initial impression suggests. And she does get the best line of the hour: "I am a diuretic seagull, people. Everything goes through me."

A little gross, perhaps, but pretty amusing, too.

http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/tunedin/

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:32 PM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
'Justice' fills the bill until 'Idol' returns
By Alan Sepinwall Newark Star-Ledger

POP QUIZ: There's a new procedural drama this season set in the world of criminal law featuring all the fancy visual effects, brisk storytelling and minimal characterization you associate with its producer, Jerry Bruckheimer. What network are you watching it on?

If you guessed CBS, close but wrong. CBS has its own slick (albeit free of both Bruckheimer and his computer effects) criminal law show, "Shark," but the show in question is "Justice," the latest entry in Fox's unlikely campaign to turn itself into CBS' slightly cooler little brother.

First there was "House," which was essentially "CSI" in a hospital (albeit with Hugh Laurie and better jokes). Then we got "Bones," which took the "House" formula and moved it right back into a law-enforcement setting. And now there's "Justice," which debuts tomorrow night at 9 after the "Bones" season premiere -- not to mention the already-premiered "Vanished," a sort of serialized "Without a Trace," and the upcoming "Standoff," about a pair of hostage negotiators.

Every network has its own brand, and they usually run into trouble when they try to copy someone else's house style. In the late '90s, someone at ABC made the very foolish decision that all of their sitcoms should look like NBC's (see "Two Girls, a Guy, a Pizza Place and a Turkish Bath"). In the mid-'90s, the then-head of CBS set his firing in motion by trying to acquire the Fox audience overnight with copies of "Melrose Place" ("Central Park West") and "The X-Files" ("American Gothic").

And yet, 10 years later, Fox has been slowly trying to return the favor. Why? Two words: "American Idol."

The January-May scheduling of "Idol" -- not to mention Fox's annual playoff baseball commitment -- makes a hash of anything the network tries to do in the fall. The goal in the early months is to just stay afloat, or even slightly submerged, in the knowledge that "Idol" will swoop in to save the day post-New Year's. Episodic procedurals are easier to move around the schedule (and to be pre-empted by baseball, since there are no major story arcs to disrupt).

"Idol" has also changed the kind of viewer that watches Fox. It's the most demographically broad show on television, drawing enthusiastic viewers of every age, gender, race and creed. In other words, it's the sort of broad-based show that only one network has consistently tried to program over the past 15 years: CBS. Before "Idol," Fox had to grab viewers by presenting the kind of cult-ready, outside the box shows that no other network had. Now, it's more a case of trying to please the mass audience that's already there.

If it feels like I'm taking the scenic route towards actually discussing the merits of "Justice," it's because there's not a lot to say about it. Like all the Bruckheimer procedurals (as opposed to Jerry's occasional doomed attempts to branch out, like "Skin" and "E-Ring"), you know what you're getting from the jump: solid but unspectacular acting and storytelling that will leave you satisfied without rocking your world.

Victor Garber ("Alias"), Kerr Smith ("Dawson's Creek"), Eamonn Walker ("Oz") and Rebecca Mader play the four glamorous, fast-talking partners in an LA criminal defense firm that specializes in the sorts of cases that cable news eats up. There's even a show-within-the-show called "American Crime," with Katherine LaNasa as a Nancy Grace-ish harpy who performs running commentary on the firm's cases and occasionally spars with Garber's bullying, Grecian Forumla'ed Ron Trott. Basically, imagine a slightly cuddlier version of the O.J. defense team, and you've got the fictional firm of T,N,T & G.

Written by Jonathan Shapiro, a veteran of "The Practice" and a former prosecutor himself, "Justice" distinguishes itself not with the inevitable editing tricks, but the way it shows how the lawyers try to manage every minute detail of their case, from buying the client an off-the-rack suit ("Don't want them thinking you're rich") to asking him to help them kick their table a few inches forward when they rise for the judge so they'll have a better sightline with the jury ("Hey, every little bit helps").

The actors are solid, with Garber having fun as Trott and Smith just complicated enough as the nice guy -- or, as the "American Justice" host calls him, "the all-American face of 'not guilty.'"

If you enjoy the Bruckheimer brand, you'll like this -- provided, that is, that your enjoyment of his other shows doesn't just stem from wanting to see the good guys catch the bad guys. Because Shapiro has promised that not all of the firm's clients will be innocent. (Explaining, perhaps, why this show is on Fox instead of CBS; the imitation thing only goes so far.)

"The Practice" was able to get viewers to care about lawyers who routinely helped the guilty go free by making the lawyers into colorful characters and telling soap-y ongoing stories about them. Bruckheimer generally doesn't play that way, but if "Justice" falters in its pre-baseball run, which is more likely to happen: more personal subplots, or fewer guilty clients?

http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/alltv/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1156827357271420.xml&coll=1

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:41 PM

Technology
We are not unmentionable, we are TiVo
By John Eggerton in Broadcasting & Cable’s blog BCBeat

With the help of PR pros Rogers & Cowan, TiVo was looking to make some hay out of its showing at the Emmy awards this week. And with some reason.

It may have been a watershed moment for the iconic DVR.

While NBC apologized to stations and viewers for its "plane crash" Emmy opening, TiVo, in a press release that caught my attention for the mention in the headline of a transcendalist poet, apologized to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Why? Conan O'Brien's schtick on the show included a riff on TiVo in which he pretended to read from the works of the great if sometimes "abstract and difficult" writer Emerson, while on-screen, the viewer appeared to be fast-forwarding through the speech.

I could have called Emerson "abstract and difficult" myself, by the way, having had to read him in a former life. But I hate to become a member of the "dissing dead poet's society," so I grabbed a couple of adjectives online and, for my part as a former "you want fries with that" English major, let's just say he was definitely fast-forwardable at times.

TiVo, which the ad-supported TV industry has had some legitimate fear of, appeared to have been welcomed into the family on the Emmy telecast, or at least acknowledged as an undeniable force in the hands of newly empowered TV viewers.

But there was more than victory via cultural reference for TiVo. It also won a statue itself in the Creative Arts Emmys the week before for "outstanding achievement in enhanced television programming."

http://broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138.html

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:45 PM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
`Justice' Debuts With Bruckheimer Baggage; `Bones' Begins New Season
By Roger Catlin Hartford Courant TV Critic TV EYE August 30 2006

"Justice" is the first of two new courtroom sagas on the fall schedule. Victor Garber, with barely a rest from the finale of "Alias," is back as the head of a high-profile Los Angeles defense team that basks in the media limelight.

Unfortunately, because the series is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, there's something overly familiar about the proceedings, including the superfluous special effects that show, at one point, electricity coursing through the wires in a room of test jurors.

It's also not a good sign that the first case tonight is so obviously based on the one so brilliantly captured in Jean-Xavier de Lestrade's documentary series "The Staircase," which was subsequently chopped into "20/20" episodes.

The lapses of "Justice" are a shame, because it follows the welcome return of one of the smartest crime series on TV, "Bones" (Fox, 8 p.m.).

Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz continue their flinty partnership among the grisly cases, which play out weekly while a bigger one - the death of her mother - will unfurl slowly over a longer term. And new in the office is a boss, played by Tamara Taylor, who shares a romantic past with Boreanaz's character.

http://www.ctnow.com/tv/hce-tveye0830.artaug30,0,4102348,print.column?coll=hce-utility-tv

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:53 PM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
Far from blind, 'Justice' offers insight into legal system
Jerry Bruckheimer's latest work shows how defense attorneys often struggle to free their clients.
By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic

Executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer could be accused of filling prime time with crime stories, from CSI and Without a Trace to Cold Case and Close to Home. But do viewers revile him? Hardly. They keep rewarding him because he's an expert packager.

More scintillating evidence of his technique can be found in Justice, debuting at 9 p.m. Wednesday on Fox.

Just the idea of another courtroom drama might make you yawn. How do you top Perry Mason or L.A. Law? But Bruckheimer and his colleagues add to the legal tradition with a stylish, witty hour.

They take familiar TV actors, led by Victor Garber of Alias, and cast them as defense attorneys. This flashy thriller gives these high-priced lawyers some valuable assets: snappy pacing, eye-popping graphics and glossy production values.

Best of all, Justice each week adds a concluding flashback that explains whether the defendant committed the crime. In the opener, the Los Angeles firm represents a husband accused of killing his wife. Did he bash her head with a golf club, or did she fall and smack her head? Justice supplies the definitive answer.

Ron Trott (Garber) leads the defense attorneys with cold, relentless ambition. "Why does he have to be such a jerk?" a defendant whines. It's a perfectly logical question, because the role forces Garber to snarl too often.

Juries don't like Ron -- big surprise -- so Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith of Dawson's Creek) takes the lead role in the courtroom. Tom is young, handsome and sympathetic, which should endear him to viewers in the desired 18-to-49 age group. This division of labor is more evidence of Bruckheimer's shrewd packaging.

In the case of Justice, however, there is substance under the bright wrapping. The show gives juicy glimpses of how defense attorneys work with jury consultants, shadow juries and expert witnesses.

The lawyers also engage in frank discussions about strategy. The firm's other heavyweights are Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker of Oz), who draws on his political connections, and Alden Tuller (Rebecca Mader), who preps the expert witnesses.

When Justice moves into the courtroom, the show can shift into melodramatic overdrive.

The premiere features two over-the-top demonstrations for the jury. One recalls the cornball theatrics of A Place in the Sun, the Elizabeth Taylor film from 1951.

The series is on more solid, original ground when it sends up television's coverage of high-profile cases. Ron, a master of spin, appears on "American Crime," a show within the show, to tangle with a know-it-all host who seems a lot like Nancy Grace.

Upcoming cases will draw inspiration from famous L.A. murders, a roller-coaster accident and former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, says executive producer Jonathan Shapiro. But, he adds, Justice won't be doing ripped-from-the-headlines stories.

The real-life connections could bring the show more attention in a rough time slot, where it will face CBS' Criminal Minds and ABC's Lost. But unlike many new dramas, Justice will finish its story each week and not tell a saga that drags on for months.

The premiere suggests that Bruckheimer has added to his lustrous record in crime: He's guilty of being outrageously entertaining again.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv/orl-haltv082706aug27,0,1724973,print.story?coll=orl-ent-promos-tv

GeorgeLV

08-29-06, 11:58 PM

Hopefully getting a stable primetime slot will help VM and The CW will give it a chance to rebuild an audience and capture new viewers. A lot will depend on promotion and how many viewers The CW will consider a success in it's first year.

I'd like to rationalise that the summer ratings are just a reflection that serial dramas don't repeat well. However, in the event that it just doesn't find an audience, I hope the CW doesn't give it the Arrested Development treatmeant and burn off the final episodes randomly.

fredfa

08-29-06, 11:59 PM

Technology
Can Blu-ray Heat Up Hollywood Again?
Studios hope Blu-ray or high-definition DVDs will boost sales in a sagging market
By Rachel Abramowitz Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

On a recent muggy afternoon, Best Buy sales specialist Sheikh Ullah lugs out the last Blu-ray player in stock in the cavernous West L.A. store. It's a fluke that the machine is even here, explains Ulla. The store got 10 of the $1,000 Samsung machines last week. This is the only one left, because its intended buyer — who ordered and paid for the machine that plays the new high-definition DVDs — got impatient and ordered another Blu-ray player online that arrived first.

"It's a really hot product," says the salesman, looking for an appropriate way to describe the joy that overcomes a gadgethead when he or she scores one of these players. "It's like they have a piece of the moon in their hands," he says.

This is poetry to Hollywood's ears. All over the movie business, people are hoping that the new high-definition DVDs — either in its Blu-ray form or its rival HD-DVD — will take off and mitigate the reality that hangs over the home entertainment business. The DVD go-go years are over.

For many in Hollywood, it's as if they just discovered Santa isn't real. No matter how bad the movies, the box office, the marketing costs, the bloated star salaries, there was always salvation in the shiny little disc. The studios could make and market one for $5 and then sell it to consumers for more than $17, a tidy profit of at least $12 bucks per disc. The disc generated rivers of cash. "Finding Nemo" is the all-time bestseller on DVD; it made $340 million at the U.S. box office and $537 million in home video.

The new high-def DVDs allow viewers to see the pores of Robin Williams or Brad Pitt in all their glory. One only has to look at the DVD section at Best Buy to understand the real place that the new high-def DVD holds in the home entertainment firmament. The retail chain features two tiny stand-alone displays of a dozen Blu-ray titles, largely from Sony, and a dozen HD-DVD titles, primarily from Warner Bros. A customer in painter's pants and baseball cap walks over to check out the "Terminator 2" title but quickly leaves when he realizes that he can't play this format in his regular DVD machine.

Best Buy features seven aisles of regular DVDs with hundreds of titles of movies and TV shows, and a handful of consumers are browsing the merchandise.

The DVD business is still growing — it's just no longer giddy.

American homes are now officially crammed with DVD players and copies of everything, including Season 3 of "The Golden Girls," "Fitzcarraldo" and various special editions of "The Terminator." According to the Digital Entertainment Network, 80% of all households own DVD players. The most enthusiastic DVD buyers have generally been new DVD owners looking to build their collections. Many people have rafts of the shiny jewel cases they've never even opened.

"I don't know when you're supposed to watch them all," sighs one marketing honcho surveying her DVD closet. "I could only hope for a long incapacitation."

According to Jan Saxton, an analyst at Adams Media, a consulting firm that specializes in home video, business in the retail-sales DVD market is expected to be up just 3.2% this year, a far cry from 2000-2004, when the retail market was experiencing explosive double-digit growth, at some points almost 25% a year. The entire home video market (which includes VHS) will be up only 0.6%; it was down 2.6% last year. Total consumer spending on DVDs and high-def is projected to be $24.6 billion this year.

Part of the perceptual problem is the fact that the DVD was the fastest growing consumer electronic product in history.

Explains Saxton: "The growth curve was steeper than most past technologies, and a steeper growth curve hits its peak sooner. The market started the slowdown earlier than most people anticipated, including us. Now that the market has matured, everyone has to adjust to that reality."

"There's a real sense of unease and uncertainty of where the future is," says Oscar-winning producer Mark Johnson ("The Chronicles of Narnia"). "The old reliable standard has been, 'Of course, we're going to be making all this money in home video,' and now home video is settling down. It can't help but be alarming for everybody. It's not a good omen."

"It's an issue for Hollywood," says Hollywood analyst Lowell Singer, of the A.C. Cowen investment firm. "It's one of the reason's Wall Street is taking a much more cautious view of the film business. There's always been this catchall of the DVD-home video market, and it's slowing down dramatically."

DVD sales constitute 50% to 60% of the revenue on any given picture. Plus, the studios had deemed for themselves the right to be piggy with the booty. Generally, the writers, stars and directors earn royalties that are based on just 20% of a DVD's net income, with the other 80% pouring right into the studio's bottom line.

"I think there was a feeling in town that because the DVD was growing, it would cover for sins," notes Ben Feingold, head of home entertainment for Sony.

The DVD revolution did not just boost the studio coffers and fuel the boom in elaborate home entertainment setups, it changed moviegoing habits.

"Millions of movie-literate consumers were created in the early DVD days," says Mike Dunn, president of 20th Century Fox home entertainment. "You see it playing out in many avenues, like the current explosion in specialized theatrical."

Dunn says that his studio first recognized the change in consumer taste with the release of the DVD of "Fight Club," the controversial David Fincher film starring Brad Pitt and Ed Norton as hopeless young men who vent their aggression through underground fight clubs. The 1999 film grossed only $44 million at the box office, but the DVD, complete with interpretation from Fincher, sold a 1 million copies.

Although many have complained that Hollywood caters to young men, the initial DVD revolution showed why that made sense. "The movies that tended to perform miraculously — from an industry perspective — were targeted often to young males," says Feingold. "In the first five to seven years of the format, young males tended to buy a disproportionate number of the DVDs."

The DVD drop-off is part of the climate that has sent the industry on a cost-cutting binge.

"If revenues don't continue to increase, then costs can't increase along with it. One thing the expansion of the DVD market enabled studios to do is to make more expensive movies," says producer Tom Pollock, who ran Universal for many years. "When revenue is slowing down, costs have to slow down. It means you're going to see fewer really expensive movies made and more less-expensive movies made."

While Hollywood experiments with making films available for downloads, the studios are definitely looking at the new high-def disc to boost business. Sony, for instance, is banking on the new Sony PlayStation that debuts in November to drive sales of the Sony Blu-ray discs, which will be able to play on the new consoles.

The future of the new format is hazy, given the fact that studios and consumers are bracing for the coming format war between Blu-ray, which is backed by Sony, Disney, and Dell, and HD-DVD, which is the horse of Toshiba, Microsoft and Universal. Adams Media projects that sales of traditional DVDs will fall by 20% by 2010, as the new technologies take hold. For many, the battle is reminiscent of the war between VHS and Betamax, in which the owners of Betamax were left with a useless technology.

"DVD sales will go down this year because consumers know about high definition but they don't know which format to buy," says Reed Hastings, chairman of Netflix, the online DVD rental powerhouse that has been growing at the expense of traditional video stores. "The problem with picking sides is that creates consumer anxiety, and so they'll just stop buying, period, or slow down their buying. The solution to getting the business growing is to have the studios support both formats. In video games, the two main formats are Xbox and PlayStation, and the market does well with two formats."

At $1,000, the Blu-ray players cost about $500 more than the HD-DVD players, which in turn cost about $450 more than a regular DVD player. Although the new technology provides richer, more detailed imagery, some critics wonder whether consumers will really be able to see the difference if they don't possess gigantic 65-inch plasma TV screens.

Yet hope springs eternal in Hollywood.

"Next Christmas, I would expect you'll be at 10 to 20% household penetration" for the new technology, Fox executive Dunn says. His studio is backing Blu-ray. "Four years from now, you'll have 50% penetration of the new technology."

"Those flat panel high-def TVs, they're selling at unprecedented rates."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-dvds29aug29,0,1606055,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

fredfa

08-30-06, 12:05 AM

Inside News
Congratulations

To Alan Gouger and David Bott.

AVS Forum yesterday registered member # 275,000.

(Member # 300,000 should sign on some time just after Thanksgiving.)

HDTVChallenged

08-30-06, 12:21 AM

Note: this is very tongue in cheek. I found it amusing and thought you might, too.

Nope ... doesn't even register a quarter smile ... I would suggest that we just let the subject lay sleeping, else I might start hurling obscenities in no particular direction.

NBC had the class to actually appologize, third parties would do well to follow NBC's lead here. What do some of you people not get about this? :confused:

fredfa

08-30-06, 12:42 AM

You're probably right, HDTVC.

fredfa

08-30-06, 12:45 AM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
McCollum: Lawyers of `Justice' may not be likable enough
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News

A courtroom drama set firmly in America's post-O.J. legal system, Fox's new ``Justice'' is slick, fast-paced and stylish, with enough twists to separate it from the glut of shows in its genre.

But it's also one of the most extraordinarily cynical shows to come along in some time. If the premiere (9 p.m. Wednesday, Chs. 2, 35) is any indication, the creators have their work cut out for them if we're going to warm up to their chilly, ambitious, borderline-amoral lead characters.

Trott, Nicholson, Tuller & Graves is one of those ``dream teams'' that specializes in high-profile criminal cases (which on TV seem to exist only in Los Angeles). Ron Trott (played with great relish by Victor Garber of ``Alias'') is so egotistical that juries can't stand him, but he's a wiz at manipulating the media. Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith of ``Dawson's Creek'') is the boyish face of truth, justice and the American way who handles the courtroom stuff.

Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker of ``Duma'') is a former prosecutor who specializes in framing the defense case and tearing apart the other side's. Alden Tuller (Rebecca Mader of ``The Devil Wears Prada'') is the forensics expert who can make any evidence lie.

Acting as a Greek chorus is a faux news show, ``American Crime,'' with Katherine La Nasa (``Love Monkey'') doing a wicked sendup of Nancy Grace, cable's Lord High Executioner.

``Justice'' has some very good things going for it. The cast, particularly Garber and Walker, is very good and exudes a measure of charm that otherwise might not be part of the opening episode. And there's a nice twist at the end of each episode as viewers get to see what really happened during the crime.

In the long run, the show's most important asset may be executive producer-writer Jonathan Shapiro, a former federal prosecutor and legal journalist who knows his way around a courtroom. He's done some excellent work on ``Just Legal,'' a WB show that didn't deserve to be canceled after just three episodes, and on ``The Practice.''

Still, Shapiro and the other writers need to figure out some way to help us care about the lawyers at TNT&G. True, this year's flavor-of-the-season are lead characters who are irascible in the style of Gregory House. But despite all his acerbic disregard for people, House saves lives. On a scale of humanity, House is a soaring symphony while Ron Trott and his team are still playing a couple of tentative notes.

It will take a bit more than that for me to commit a hour each week to ``Justice.''

Remote controls

• What to make of ``Rescue Me,'' which had its season finale (last) night. Much of the time, the darkly hilarious show about New York firefighters post-Sept. 11 has been as good as ever.

But there has been an underlying misogyny to this season -- it goes way beyond the controversial ``rape'' episode of several weeks back -- that left me and other fans of the show wondering if we should still care about Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary).

For now, I'm sticking with it, but its hold is getting rather tenuous.

• ``Bones,'' an entertaining crime procedural with a nice sense of humor, wasn't the big hit in its first season that Fox hoped it would be.

But it did well enough that it's back Wednesday for Season 2.

The mysteries on ``Bones'' really are secondary to the characters' relationships, particularly the engaging one involving forensic scientist Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz).

Both actors are in fine form in the season opener and get some nice help from newcomer Tamara Taylor (``Lost,'' ``Serenity'') as Brennan's new boss who had a thing going with Booth.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/columnists/charlie_mccollum/15387211.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

08-30-06, 02:34 AM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
Trial show does reality an injustice
By Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 30, 2006

"Justice," which premieres tonight on Fox, is the latest hour of prime-time real estate to be handed over to Jerry Bruckheimer, who will one day produce every show on television. (And you thought it was going to be David E. Kelley, didn't you?) It's a "legal procedural" that aims to show how the system is manipulated and mediated nowadays, up where the trials and defendants are "high-profile." It is so resolute in sharing the dirty secrets of modern jurisprudence — of which it does not apparently disapprove — that it could almost be called pedantic if there weren't so much yelling going on.

The title is perhaps ironic given that the show implies, not unreasonably, that law, like medicine, works better for the rich than for the poor (and for the guilty rich better than for the innocent poor), and that unless you have someone picking out your tie, using fancy software to vet your jury and coaching your every public utterance, you do not stand a chance in court.

The overall thrust of "Justice" and many specific details of tonight's pilot are — what's a neutral way to put this? — eerily similar to those seen in "The Staircase," Jean-Xavier de Lestrade's 2004 documentary about a murder trial and how it plays out as a contest of conflicting narratives. These include a fall down some stairs and a theory of how the wounds of the deceased could come to resemble those from a brutal beating; a defense forensic expert who has difficulty making himself understood; and a missing blunt instrument that pops up at the 11th hour (or, in "Justice," merely appears to).

The show is a bit of a blunt instrument itself, relentlessly aggressive in tone and speed, amped at times to the point of absurdity by morphing effects and digital traveling shots that take you into the guts of things. Not 45 seconds into the show we are flying through the roof of a house (we get a glimpse of insulation along the way) to join our legal eagles and their client.

"Justice" also bears a resemblance to fellow Fox series "House," which likewise features an abrasive genius abetted by a team of bright younger colleagues — with a similar gender/ethnic breakdown, in fact — who come together to anatomize difficult cases and split up to attack them. Victor Garber, from "Alias," is the Robert Shapiro/Johnny Cochran/F. Lee Bailey/Melvin Belli of the group, its public face and silky, if sometimes raised voice — "the master of media spin." Garber has a background in musical theater, and there's a light-operatic flow to his delivery, pitched to the last row in the house whether he's speaking to a crowd or at close quarters with one other person. Although it barely resembles the way that real people talk, it absolutely suits the tone of the show.

Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith) is "the All-American Face of Not Guilty," as he is called by fancifully named Suzanne Fulcrum (Katherine La Nasa), the host of a tabloid legal show that appears as a sort of Greek chorus. Nicholson is from Nebraska, which makes him a more down-to-earth character than if he were, say, from Encino, and prefers to defend the actually innocent. Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker of "Oz") and Alden Tuller (Rebecca Mader) round out the team.

Crucially, they are not afraid to ignore the advice of their own high-priced experts, which shows us that they are somehow better than the system they spend much of their time trying to work. Because these are our heroes, their opponents, by the cheap logic of melodrama, must be seen as less pretty and righteous, and cops and prosecutors who on other shows get to be the good guys are here represented as morally suspect. (It is almost sad the way that the district attorney is made to glare and stew like the villain in some old silent serial as Nicholson builds his case.) For all its apparent technical accuracy and some real-world name-dropping, "Justice" feels no more lifelike than "Perry Mason." But there is a market for that sort of thing.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-justice30aug30,0,4641556,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

foxeng

08-30-06, 06:03 AM

Hopefully getting a stable primetime slot will help VM and The CW will give it a chance to rebuild an audience and capture new viewers. A lot will depend on promotion and how many viewers The CW will consider a success in it's first year.

Promotion? Don't bet on it. After talking to a friend of mine at the local "to be" CW affiliate, according to him, the network doesn't have the money to spend on a launch promo blitz.

Marcus Carr

08-30-06, 09:03 AM

eMarketer Report: IPTV a Disruption

A new report from eMarketer found that IPTV “has the potential to disrupt cable and Internet business models in the United States, as well as the preferences of the consumers who use them.”

According to “Internet Protocol TV: Global Trends – 2006,” there will be 8.7 million IPTV households in the United States alone in 2010, up from 300,000 in 2005.

“The revenue potential for IPTV as a stand-alone product is limited, at best,” said Ben Macklin, senior analyst at eMarketer, who authored the report. "However, as part of a bundle of services, which includes broadband and fixed and mobile voice, the value of IPTV will be in its ability to reduce churn and to perhaps recoup some revenue lost to cable companies offering voice services."

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=nocclamp&articleid=CA6366069#6366075

ScottA

08-30-06, 09:12 AM

Ouch for Veronica. I hope that doesn't translate over to the 3rd season.

I don't know about the rest of the nation but Cincinnati's UPN affiliate dropped their programming at the end of the season (they are now independent). UPN already had less coverage then the other networks and if other stations dropped them over the summer, their ratings may be skewed lower.

// Scott A

Marcus Carr

08-30-06, 09:28 AM

Paramount to Boldly Take 'Star Trek' into the Next Generation of High-Def?

Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 03:30 AM ET

The online rumor mill has begun to churn in a big way for 'Star Trek' fans, with Paramount allegedly in the early stages of a major high-def restoration of the entire franchise.

At least that's according to The Digital Bits, which recently posted an update to their popular Rumor Mill column, indicating that Paramount has covertly begun a massive retooling of the complete 'Trek' motion picture and television canon, with an eye towards an eventual release on HD DVD and Blu-ray.

Seems the Bits' editor Bill Hunt recently attended a panel discussion at the World-Con in Anaheim that focused on the future of the Star Trek franchise, and one of the topics that came up was plans for the eventual release of all 'Trek' titles in high-definition.

In addition to the expected release of all nine big-screen 'Trek' films on both next-gen formats (plans for which Paramount has publicly confirmed through various press releases and an announcement at last January's CES), panel members indicated that sources within the studio have confirmed remastered versions of all six 'Trek' television adventures -- 'The Original Series,' 'The Animated Series,' 'The Next Generation,' 'Voyager,' 'Deep Space Nine' and the recently-cancelled 'Enterprise' -- are already in production.

Though 'Enterprise' has been broadcast in full high-definition since its 2002-2003 debut season, the other five TV properties have so far only been seen in their original 4:3 aspect ratios. However, all were shot on film, which means that Paramount could, in theory, go back to the original film elements and re-transfer them all in high-definition.

What's more, according to the Bits, work has already started on further retooling the special effects for 'The Original Series' with the high-def in mind. Meaning many shots will be given a new "CGI face-lift," specifically all of the series' trademark "spaceship shots."

Paramount has, predictably, refused to confirm nor deny the story to High Def Digest. But needless to say, this is potentially exciting news for 'Star Trek' fans -- though equally as troubling for purists, at least if Paramount pulls a George Lucas and does not include the original, untouched versions on any potential HD DVD or Blu-ray release.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Paramount/Star_Trek/Paramount_to_Boldly_Take_Star_Trek_into_the_Next_Generation_ of_High-Def/203

fredfa

08-30-06, 10:09 AM

Promotion? Don't bet on it. After talking to a friend of mine at the local "to be" CW affiliate, according to him, the network doesn't have the money to spend on a launch promo blitz.

I think it has some money, foxeng. But it is being spent in the big markets, where the CW figures it will get a double hit: local and national promotion.

There are green billboards all over LA, for example with that silly "free to be" slogan. And there have been numerous stories in the past two months of promotional efforts in other cities.

But it seems to me that promotional push is very difficult because basically the CW is trying to get people to watch shows they already, in the main, have decided they don't care to see.

And that "free to be" campaign seems so weird, but maybe its me. I certainly am not in the CW's demographic.

fredfa

08-30-06, 10:13 AM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
star wattage in the courtroom
By Andrew Lyons for MediaLifeMagazine.com Aug 30, 2006

It was almost 11 years ago that the legal dream team got O.J. Simpson acquitted of murder, and through the trial the plus-size personalities of those lawyers, the jury-friendly Johnny Cochran, the pugnacious F. Lee Bailey, and the so-smooth Robert Shapiro, threatened to outshine the star wattage of the defendant himself.

The media wrangling, courtroom theatrics and rumored infighting were worthy of a primetime drama, and tonight at 9 Fox is betting it's assembled a television legal dream team with that same mix of juice in “Justice.”

It looks to be a smart bet. “Justice” is as slick as the attorneys it focuses on, and also an engaging procedural.

No one will ever accuse “Justice” of breaking television boundaries. We see in it bits of “Law & Order” and “House” and “CSI,” and certainly the procedural formula has been worked to death.

But "Justice” is redeemed by strong characters and a visually arresting style. It works well within its boundaries. It's a Bruckheimer production, firmly in the mold, but it's good Bruckheimer, not tired Bruckheimer. It's fun.

The show follows TNT&G, a glossy L.A. law firm that specializes in representing the rich and whenever possible, the famous. They spare no expense, using all the high-tech tools and lauded experts. The firm's jury consultant turns to focus groups to help the defense team hone their arguments mid-trial. Their forensic expert provides alternate crime theories. An army of associates pore over legal documents.

All this takes place in sleek, modern offices, using technology right out of the futuristic thriller "Minority Report." Propulsive, tension-building music plays in the background.

The four partners are distinct personalities: Ron Trott (Victor Garber) is a media-savvy shark, an expert at shaping public opinion. Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith) is the courtroom litigator, a master at connecting with juries. Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker) is the former prosecutor who excels at puzzling out the thinking of the D.A. And Alden Tuller (Rebecca Mader) excels at making complicated scientific evidence understandable.

While the character types aren’t especially original, “Justice” reinvigorates them.

The show is an ensemble but Garber, formerly of “Alias,” is the clear standout, his Ron Trott the legal version of Hugh Laurie’s doctor in “House.”

Blunt to the point of being abrasive, bitingly sarcastic and impatient, he’s also a master media manipulator, working each cable news cycle to his advantage. He sneaks a client out of his own house to turn himself in rather than allowing him to be arrested on TV. To deny prosecutors a public relations advantage in another case, he goes on a legal show to reveal that the man, suspected of brutally beating his wife to death, knew of an affair she was having.

In fact, some of the best scenes in “Justice” are between Trott and the wonderfully named Suzanne Fulcrum (Katherine La Nasa), host of a legal show called “American Crime.” They engage in on-air verbal combat as Trott tries to bolster his client’s image while Fulcrum tears him apart. La Nasa is especially engaging. She’s a patrician Nancy Grace, a Katharine Hepburn of tawdry legal news anchors.

As a character, Trott works because he’s aware of his social deficiencies. Garber imbues him with a knowing wit.
Also, it helps to have Kerr Smith’s fresh-faced Tom Nicholson as a counterweight. He’s everything Trott isn’t: sincere, likable, more interested in his clients' freedom than publicity. And Smith, best known as a gay teenager on “Dawson’s Creek,” turns out to be a surprisingly strong actor. He's empathetic, the much-needed heart to Trott's piercing wit.

There are weaknesses in “Justice.” Walker, so commanding as a Muslim inmate on HBO’s “Oz,” is under-employed in the pilot, and Mader has yet to make much of an impression.

Also, “Justice” over-explains itself, the characters digressing to go over things that anyone who’s watched television procedurals already knows. Also, for a huge law firm, we only meet the principals of TNT&G. So far at least, the rest of the firm is a faceless mass.

Clearly, “Justice” is a work unfinished. But when the bugs are fixed, Fox stands to have a legal procedural to put up beside its medical puzzler, "House."

(Andrew Lyons is a Los Angeles writer and critic.)

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_6986.asp

keenan

08-30-06, 10:15 AM

Promotion? Don't bet on it. After talking to a friend of mine at the local "to be" CW affiliate, according to him, the network doesn't have the money to spend on a launch promo blitz.
About the only promotion I've ever seen for VM is in shopping malls(a target demographic no doubt), just saw one yesterday, in fact that's how I first heard about the show years ago. They may be doing on-air promotion but I wouldn't know as I don't watch the channel other than for that particular show.

fredfa

08-30-06, 10:15 AM

TV Sports
No NFL Net Deal As TW Deadline Looms
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 8/30/2006

With Time Warner planning to start pulling the NFL Network off newly acquired systems soon after its 30-day notification window is up this weekend, the two are still talking, but nothing conclusive has come of the talks, according to Time Warner spokesman Mark Harrad.

Time Warner does not carry the NFL Network on its systems, so it took the network off the systems of Comcast and Adelphia when it acquired them in early August.

But the FCC, which the month before had paved the way with its approval of the Adelphia break-up, made Time Warner put the network back on almost immediately, saying that the cable operator did not give the requisite 30-day notice before pulling the games and concluding the NFL Network would suffer more from not reaching sports fans whose viewing patterns are set during preseason than Time Warner would from keeping on a network it wanted on its systems anyway, under the right terms.

The NFL Network carries every preseason game, but does not have a regular season game until Thanksgiving (Nov. 23, Denver vs. Kansas City), so, while the FCC acted quickly to restore the preseason games in August and try to nudge a market solution, after the regular season starts Sept. 7, there would arguably be less government impetus to push the parties until November, and Time Warner is free to pull it.

Time Warner put the network back on Aug. 3--it had pulled it Aug. 1--and still intends to stop carrying the network if no agreement has been reached by this weekend, though it will not necessarily pull them all at once on Sept. 3, says Harrad, providing a buffer in case some systems did not start notifying customers exactly on the Aug. 3 date. It could be a rolling process, or all at once, as was the case when it pulled the network, says Harrad.

Time Warner wants the flexibility to put the NFL Network in a sports tier, while the NFL wants it in the expanded basic tier. There is also the issue of price. The NFL reportedly is asking in the dollar-per-sub range, higher than many top-10 cable nets now command.

Harrad points out that in the Comcast and Adelphia systems it acquired, the network had been running in a variety of tiers including sports tiers, digital tiers, digital-plus tiers and expanded basic.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6367001

Xesdeeni

08-30-06, 10:24 AM

I think it has some money, foxeng. But it is being spent in the big markets, where the CW figures it will get a double hit: local and national promotion.

There are green billboards all over LA, for example with that silly "free to be" slogan. And there have been numerous stories in the past two months of promotional efforts in other cities.

But it seems to me that promotional push is very difficult because basically the CW is trying to get people to watch shows they already, in the main, have decided they don't care to see.

And that "free to be" campaign seems so weird, but maybe its me. I certainly am not in the CW's demographic.I see signs on the DART buses here in Dallas as well.

BTW, I don't have a Marketing degree, but IMHO:

Strike one: the CW name
Strike two: the annoying green color scheme
Strike three: the "Free to be..." slogan

Xesdeeni

archiguy

08-30-06, 10:27 AM

About the only promotion I've ever seen for VM is in shopping malls(a target demographic no doubt), just saw one yesterday, in fact that's how I first heard about the show years ago. They may be doing on-air promotion but I wouldn't know as I don't watch the channel other than for that particular show.

At this point, it's going to be hard to bring new viewers into Veronica's tent, especially with the upheaval that comes from the growing pains of the new network. What's likely is that the audience who has already found the show will faithfully return, but we can't expect a ratings revival at this point - especially considering the brutal time slot.

The survival of the show will depend on whether the CW is going to be willing to keep its only buzz-worthy and critically praised show on the air as sort of a "loss leader". At this point, I'm just hoping they extend the order out to a full 22 episodes and don't let it simply expire after the 13 to which they've already committed. Any follow-on seasons would be gravy.

fredfa

08-30-06, 10:51 AM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
On Fox, 'Justice' Is Served Swiftly

By Tom Shales Washington Post TV Critic Wednesday, August 30, 2006; C01

Fox lights a rocket and sends it screeching into the sky with tonight's premiere of "Justice," a dazzling and gripping crime drama from executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the astute showman who brought "CSI" to CBS.

Whether "Justice" will be the foundation for a dynasty, as "CSI" has been, is doubtful -- but also irrelevant. Once "Justice" has been meted out, you're definitely under the impression you've seen something -- or maybe seen something go by, like a high-speed train whose individual cars become a blur. But they sure did look pretty.

"Justice" is one of those rare shows that might move faster than the commercials that interrupt it. It's edited as tightly as a fist and hits with that kind of impact; there's a snap for every crackle and pop.

In the premiere, the suspense derives more from style than from content. The drama about the exploits of a high-powered, and apparently high-priced, Los Angeles legal team is full of gimmicks, kinetic trickery and whiplash transitions.

This show and others like it -- the crash-bang-boom school of breakneck storytelling -- makes the old bromide "It's all done with mirrors" obsolete. Now it's all done with computers, and from the Bruckheimer factory, it's usually done well.

Even in the digital age, though, one likes to think that viewers care about something other than speed and fireworks. "Justice" does not promote deep involvement, which is not to say it is not affecting, in its Cirque du Soleil way.

The show even has a point of view: that the justice system is under assault from the demands of insatiable mass media, and that big-time crimes routinely are being turned into entertainment by TV exploitation. And how better to address the issue than by turning make-believe big-time crimes into entertainment? It's explicit entertainment, too. When we hear the victim had five gashes in her head, we know we'll see all five of them (probably more than once each).

After a grabber opening sequence that shows a body bobbing in a bloody-watered swimming pool, we meet the dynamic foursome that make up Trott, Nicholson, Tuller & Graves, a law firm that would seem affordable only by the richest of the really rich. Fortunately for the storytellers, Southern California has plenty of those.

Trott is Ron Trott, played by series star Victor Garber, a versatile actor who once portrayed Liberace in a TV movie but here is a thundering, demanding taskmaster, the biggest brain in the outfit who might also be called the biggest boor.

Trott doesn't actually try the cases in court because, says a colleague, "a little of Ron goes a long way." Garber has to manage the neat trick of playing an obnoxious mastermind who's not so obnoxious that he abuses viewers. Sometimes Garber goes so far over the top that you can't even see the top anymore, but nobody in the cast is exactly playing it for subtlety. He makes a striking figure, too, striding out of the courthouse -- and heading straight for the gang of cameras, microphones and reporters waiting there.

Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith) charms juries with his clean-cut good looks. Alden Tuller (beautifully blue-eyed Rebecca Mader) works largely behind the scenes to calculate odds and psychoanalyze juries, witnesses and anybody else involved. Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker) is a tough but sensitive pro who crossed over years earlier from the prosecution side to the ranks of the defenders.

The prosecutors, as portrayed in the pilot, are a ruthless lot, hiding evidence and attempting -- as blatantly as the law firm does -- to manipulate the media and try the case in public before it gets to the jury. These are not the blunderers of the O.J. Simpson case but more the seemingly vindictive zealots of the Michael Jackson case. Either way, it's hard to imagine this fictitious television program giving L.A. law enforcement a more negative image than it already has.

When the man suspected of killing his wife with a golf club tells Trott that those in the district attorney's office gave him certain assurances if he turns himself in, Trott says: "He lied, Kevin. They do that."

Representing the media at their worst is Katherine La Nasa as Suzanne Fulcrum, host of a nightly law-and-order show. She's clearly patterned after that fire-breathing dragon, the ironically surnamed Nancy Grace. Trott pastes on his happy face and makes himself conspicuously available to her, and to her viewers. (She's one heaping helping of snakes-on-a-plane all by herself, she is.)

Is Fulcrum on the level? Why, we wouldn't dream of asking.

"Justice" has one more built-in gimmick. At the end of each show, we return to the scene of the crime and see, as Fox puts it, "what no lawyer can ever see: what really happened." It is conceivable that -- even on tonight's premiere -- the law firm could have channeled all its considerable resources into defending a guilty party.

The revelation scene in tonight's episode seems a bit too glib, although it comes as a relief considering where a viewer's sympathies are likely to lie. And as stylishly modern as "Justice" might be, it includes a courtroom scene of a prosecutor slamming a golf club down on an imaginary victim's head that loudly echoes Raymond Burr using an oar for the same purpose in the 1951 movie "A Place in the Sun."

Some crime-drama traditions, it appears, must be upheld, even when all the trappings have been digitized and modernized. "Justice," to put it in culinary terms, is a banquet of gourmet fast food, all of it delicious and addictive -- even if it could probably never pass for actual nourishment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082901503_pf.html

fredfa

08-30-06, 10:54 AM

Cable TV Nielsens
USA Wins Summer Ratings Battle
Multichannel News 8/30/2006

USA Network is cable’s primetime ratings champ this summer, according to Nielsen Media Research data. USA was No. 1 with a 2.4 rating, up 20% from last summer, according to a Disney ABC Cable Networks analysis of Nielsen data. Disney Channel came in second, with a 2.3 rating, a 15% increase from last year.

Turner Network Television was in third place, with a 2.1 rating, slipping 13% from last summer. TBS and Cartoon Network each posted a 1.4 rating. Both networks were flat compared with last year.

ESPN, Fox News Channel, Nick at Nite and Hallmark Channel all tied with a 1.3 rating.

ESPN and Hallmark were each up 18% versus last summer, while Fox News and Nick at Nite were both down 24%.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6367006

taz291819

08-30-06, 10:55 AM

fredfa

08-30-06, 11:02 AM

The Digital Revolution
Circuit City Survey Reveals 'Reality Fatigue
(Circuit City News Release)

RICHMOND, VA-- A new national survey commissioned by electronics retailer Circuit City shows strong consumer desire for advanced technology TVs, but high levels of "reality fatigue" in the American viewing audience.

Programming Complaints:

More than 2,300 moms and dads nationwide responded to the survey August 9- 13. With a new TV season about to begin, Americans sounded off on prime time offerings:

• Regarding "reality" shows, 52 percent said "enough already give me a break!"
• 49 percent had the same negative reaction to prime time talent contests
• 51 percent said they want to see more family-friendly programming in

prime time

• 45 percent said they want to see more shows broadcast in high definition
• 37 percent of dads said they'd like to see more football and sports in prime time, compared to 10 percent of women who shared that preference

Americans Watch:

When asked how many hours of TV per week their household watches:

• 38 percent of respondents said 10 to 20 hours per week
• 31 percent said 21 to 30 hours per week
• 23 percent said more than 30 hours per week
• 8 percent said fewer than 10 hours per week

No More Conventional Tube TVs:

Thirty-four percent of respondents said they plan to shop for a new TV within the next year. Among that segment, all respondents agreed they would not buy another conventional tube TV; all said they're looking for an advanced technology TV, such as a high definition or a flat panel set, which is thin enough to hang on a wall.

Shopping Priorities:

Price remains the dominant factor in shopping for a new TV. Seventy-seven percent of respondents said falling TV prices have made them more inclined to buy a new advanced technology TV. (In the past year, TV prices fell an average of 25-30 percent for advanced technology TVs.)

Apart from price, picture quality tops the list of factors in choosing a new TV:

• 48 percent ranked high definition picture quality as their top priority
• 21 percent said screen size is their most important consideration
• 17 percent said choosing a flat panel set is most important
• 12 percent said they are guided most by brand

The survey was commissioned by Circuit City Stores, Inc. and conducted on the Internet by Decision Analyst, Inc. of Arlington, Texas. The margin of error is plus-or-minus 2%.

http://investor.circuitcity.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=209071&pf=on

keenan

08-30-06, 11:08 AM

At this point, it's going to be hard to bring new viewers into Veronica's tent, especially with the upheaval that comes from the growing pains of the new network. What's likely is that the audience who has already found the show will faithfully return, but we can't expect a ratings revival at this point - especially considering the brutal time slot.

The survival of the show will depend on whether the CW is going to be willing to keep its only buzz-worthy and critically praised show on the air as sort of a "loss leader". At this point, I'm just hoping they extend the order out to a full 22 episodes and don't let it simply expire after the 13 to which they've already committed. Any follow-on seasons would be gravy.
I hope they do too, but I'm not holding my breath, as I noted elsewhere here, the American TV viewing public just is not interested in quality, intelligent programming, they'd rather watch reality shows and talking heads blabber at each other.

fredfa

08-30-06, 11:10 AM

Prime-time ratings for Tuesday – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

fredfa

08-30-06, 11:14 AM

I see signs on the DART buses here in Dallas as well.

BTW, I don't have a Marketing degree, but IMHO:

Strike one: the CW name
Strike two: the annoying green color scheme
Strike three: the "Free to be..." slogan

Xesdeeni

Agreed.

(And strike four: the generally uninspired programming.)

Given the money involved, I would have tried to strike a deal to get "The Closer" and "Monk" to give myself two quality shows which the critics love to anchor at least one night.

It would have been really expensive, but money always talks.

Personally, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see MyNetworkTV get higher ratingts by season's end than The CW.

fredfa

08-30-06, 11:18 AM

TV Notebook
Brighter outlook for new MyNetworkTV
By Kevin Downey MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Aug 30, 2006

When MyNetworkTV was first announced, in the wake of the creation of the CW from UPN and the WB, the Fox-Twentieth Television joint venture was largely dismissed, and not a few media folks laughed at the idea.

Why, the very idea of building a network on English-language telenovelas and dragging faded stars like Bo Derek out of obscurity to launch it.

There's less laughing now. The new network debuts Sept. 5, and the sense is that it has a better-than-expected chance to become a modest success, airing two Monday-through-Friday dramas and a Saturday night recap. “Fashion House” stars Derek and Morgan Fairchild; the other show is "Desire."

Media buyers who’ve seen clips of the two novelas say they are beautifully shot and well made, and far better than they had expected.

Chris Neel, vice president and associate director of national broadcast at Initiative, says MyNetworkTV will likely find an audience among fans of serialized dramas and bilingual Hispanics accustomed to watching Spanish-language novelas on Univision and Telemundo.

“There are a lot of serialized shows doing well, so there’s something to be said about the format,” he says. “The look of the network surprised everybody. With novelas, you expect poorly produced programs. It’s better than people thought. It’s a niche novela format, which isn’t a bad idea.”

Even so, ratings are not expected to come close to rivaling those of the Big Four networks or the new CW.

MyNetworkTV was hurriedly patched together from Fox-owned UPN affiliates that were left out of the new CW, and since then many other local stations have signed on. MNT was helped by the fact that both novelas were already in development by Twentieth, intended for syndication. Nielsen Media Research will measure MNT as a broadcast network, although many media buyers still think of the two novelas as syndicated properties.

The big issue early on was whether Americans were quite ready for novelas. The format is enormously popular on networks like Univision, which last season regularly attracted more viewers than UPN and the WB, and they're popular elsewhere around the world. But previous attempts with novelas targeted to English-speaking Americans were short lived.

Media buyers say the success of shows like Fox’s “24” and other dramas with continuing storylines suggests viewers may be ready for these programs.

“Desire” and “Fashion House” premiere on Sept. 5. Both series will run every weeknight for 13 weeks, with about 65 unrepeated episodes. And new versions of the series will debut in first quarter and each 13-week cycle after that.

Shari Anne Brill, vice president and director of programming at Carat, thinks MNT will succeed on a small scale. “It will probably find a small, devoted audience.”

But she cautions that ratings will be held down because of the commitment required to watch a daily program.

“Monday-through-Friday storylines do well in daytime television, but daytime television has a very small audience,” she says. “Viewers may feel they can’t make the commitment.”

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_7010.asp

fredfa

08-30-06, 11:20 AM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
A lukewarm debut for 'Celebrity Duets'
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Aug 30, 2006,

The debut of Fox’s new reality series “Celebrity Duets” was hardly off-key. But it wasn’t solid gold, either.

“Duets” averaged a decent 3.0 adults 18-49 rating during its two-hour debut last night, according to Nielsen overnights. It rose from a 2.7 in its first half hour to a 3.1 in its last, a jump of 15 percent.

But it was behind CBS’s recently improving “Big Brother 7: All-Stars” and “Rock Star: Supernova” during the 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. hours. And “Duets” was basically on par with what repeats of “House” have averaged Tuesdays on Fox.

“Duets” did help Fox to No. 1 for the evening in total viewers, averaging 8.13 million and rising about 1 million in its second hour.

Whether “Duets” has promise as more than a solid performer will become more apparent tomorrow night, when Fox airs the second episode of the show at 8 p.m. “Duets” will air twice weekly with a performance and results show, the latter on Fridays, starting next week.

Fox led for the night among adults 18-49 at a 3.0 rating and 9 share, followed by CBS at 2.7/8, NBC at 2.2/6, ABC at 2.1/6, Univision at 1.7/4, WB at 0.9/2 and UPN at 0.4/1.

At 8 p.m., CBS was No. 1 at a 3.1 for "Brother," ahead of Fox's "Duets" at 2.9, Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" at 2.0, NBC's "Fear Factor" at 1.8, ABC's pair of "According to Jim" repeats at 1.7, WB's "Gilmore Girls" rerun at 0.8 and UPN's "Veronica Mars" repeat at 0.4.

At 9 p.m., CBS led again at 3.2 for "Supernova," followed by Fox at 3.1 for "Duets," ABC at 2.1 for "Jim" reruns, NBC at 2.0 for a repeat of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," Univision at 1.8 for "Barrera de Amor," WB at 0.9 for a "Girls" rerun and UPN at 0.5 for a "Mars" rerun.

At 10 p.m., NBC was No. 1 at 2.9 for a repeat "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," trailed by ABC's "Primetime: The Outsiders" at 2.6, CBS's "48 Hours Mystery" at 1.9 and Univision's "Noticias Univision Presenta" at 1.3.

Among households, Fox was No. 1 for the night at a 5.3 rating and 9 share, edging NBC at 5.2/8, CBS at 4.8/8, ABC at 4.3/7, Univision at 2.1/3, WB at 1.6/3 and UPN at 0.9/1.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_7014.asp

ElGuapo23

08-30-06, 11:27 AM

The movie studios simply dont get it, they relied way too heavily on using DVD sales as a crutch and rationalized sub-par movies and sub-par box office receipts with the revenue from dvd sales. Instead of putting out quality stuff they churned out crappy movies in large numbers and hoped that dvd sales would save them.

Now dont get me wrong, there have been lots of great movies out the last couple of years, and they have done well in the box office as well as dvd sales. It just irks me when I hear the studios complain that a sub-par movie they put out didnt get bailed out by its dvd sales.

Xesdeeni

08-30-06, 11:32 AM

Agreed.

(And strike four: the generally uninspired programming.)

Given the money involved, I would have tried to strike a deal to get "The Closer" and "Monk" to give myself two quality shows which the critics love to anchor at least one night.

It would have been really expensive, but money always talks.Hey, that's a good idea. And if they couldn't get those, they could try for The 4400 or Psych. Hell, if they started showing the old episodes of The 4400 (in HD), it'd probably be new to many, and gain as many viewers as much of their crap.Personally, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see MyNetworkTV get higher ratingts by season's end than The CW.Ouch!

Xesdeeni

fredfa

08-30-06, 12:54 PM

TV Preview
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
"Justice" tonight on Fox
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn”Wednesday, August 30, 2006

On most TV shows the job is to solve the crime. On “Justice” the job is to spring the person accused of the crime.

This simple but fundamental shift across the courtroom aisle makes for a very different kind of drama, though in “Justice’s” case, it will be a tough sell to the Nielsen jury.

The defense attorney is often portrayed as some kind of hopelessly compromised legal prostitute, or else as an overworked, none-too-bright court-appointed stooge. On “Justice,” however, he is the high-powered, super-competent Ron Trott (Victor Garber, pictured, who played Jennifer Garner’s titanium-tough dad on “Alias”), a black belt at spinning the media and an expert strategist who doesn’t let subtleties like guilt get in the way of a favorable verdict for his clients.

The idea of setting the falsely accused free is innately interesting. Tonight’s slickly produced premiere, in which Trott defends a rich husband of a dead woman, makes defense work look as sexy as anything on the high-tech “CSI.”

But “Justice” makes clear that Trott’s agenda is about winning, not justice. One of the show’s producers recently invoked the name of Atticus Finch. Excuse me, but Atticus didn’t work for a high-powered law firm, his clients didn’t have deep pockets and, oh yeah, he lost his big case.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/

archiguy

08-30-06, 01:34 PM

RICHMOND, VA-- A new national survey commissioned by electronics retailer Circuit City shows strong consumer desire for advanced technology TVs, but high levels of "reality fatigue" in the American viewing audience.

No More Conventional Tube TVs:

Thirty-four percent of respondents said they plan to shop for a new TV within the next year. Among that segment, all respondents agreed they would not buy another conventional tube TV; all said they're looking for an advanced technology TV, such as a high definition or a flat panel set, which is thin enough to hang on a wall.

Shopping Priorities:

Price remains the dominant factor in shopping for a new TV. Seventy-seven percent of respondents said falling TV prices have made them more inclined to buy a new advanced technology TV.

Apart from price, picture quality tops the list of factors in choosing a new TV:

...48 percent ranked high definition picture quality as their top priority...

Anyone else see any schizophrenia in those results? Survey respondents say they're done with conventional CRT televisions, then turn around and say they're primarily interested in price and picture quality, the two areas where conventional CRT sets blow away their newer, slimmer competition. :D

goldrich

08-30-06, 01:40 PM

CNN continues to "flush away" its audience and credibility..............

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyid=2006-08-30T013336Z_01_N297462_RTRIDST_0_INDUSTRY-CNN-DC.XML&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-R1-MostViewed-1

Steve

rcodey

08-30-06, 01:51 PM

It is funny.It is not significant or important, and has nothing to do with credibility.

fredfa

08-30-06, 01:56 PM

TV Notebook
Dialogue: Schieffer ponders life after the anchor desk
By Paul J. Gough The Hollywood Reporter Aug. 30, 2006

NEW YORK -- CBS News veteran Bob Schieffer wraps his 15-month run in the "CBS Evening News" anchor chair on Thursday, paving the way for Katie Couric's debut Tuesday.

Schieffer recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter TV reporter Paul J. Gough about how he thinks Couric will do in her new job, his decision to postpone his retirement for another year and his budding career as a songwriter.

The Hollywood Reporter: How do you think Katie's going to do when she takes over the anchor chair next week?

Bob Schieffer: Katie's got all the tools. I think she's going to do a terrific job. She clearly has an enormous following. She's going to bring some people into the tent just because she's Katie, and that's all to the good. It'll be interesting to see what happens. ... I think Katie has a good chance to make this news program No. 1. Maybe not next week, but in time.

THR: Have you given her any advice?

Bob Schieffer: I really haven't. I mean, we've chatted and all of that. But it's like when your kids get to be a certain age. You have to be there, but you have to be careful not to always be giving them advice. Katie's smart, and the people around her are smart. I want to help in every way possible.

THR: You've told CBS News and Sports president Sean McManus that you won't retire on your 70th birthday, Feb. 25, like you previously planned. What made you change your mind?

Bob Schieffer: Sean McManus asked me to stay until 2008, to the (presidential) election of 2008. That's my plan, but when we worked this out, I told Sean, "If you want me to stay, I want to stay," and that's what I want to do, but on my 70th birthday, I want to just review the bidding, and he said fine. So we'll revisit that. But right now, my plans and Sean McManus' plans are for me to be there until 2008.

THR: Are you going to miss the job on "Evening News"?

Bob Schieffer: Yes, I am. It's been this great adventure. I've done a lot of things and been a lot of places in my life and in my career, but this may be the No. 1 most unexpected thing that has ever happened to me and, in some ways, the greatest adventure I've ever been on.

THR: What are you most proud of?

Bob Schieffer: Some days we figured out a better way to do things, and some days we didn't, but what I am proudest of are these correspondents we've developed and gave a chance and made a place on the broadcasts: Lara Logan, Lee Cowan, Trish Regan, Sharon Alfonsi, Byron Pitts. These are the people you're going to hear about around here for the next 10 years or so. I feel very proud of that.

THR: Any regrets?

Bob Schieffer: I really wanted to go to the Middle East for this war. Basically, because of some misunderstandings, I didn't get to go. ... It was a chance to showcase Lara and Sharon, and I was certainly happy about that, but from a personal standpoint, I would have liked to have gone -- one more thing to see. But beyond that, everything about this has been fun.

THR: So you've come to like New York after so many years in Washington?

Bob Schieffer: It's a great city; it's one of the great cities of the world, and the people here I find to be friendly. I exercise a lot. I get up at 6 and go for a walk every morning, and I go through (Central Park), and you come to see the same people, people out with their dogs. ... People say New Yorkers are unfriendly, but I'm not sure I believe that anymore. They were very welcoming to me. It's the last city of distinctive neighborhoods. If you hang out in the neighborhoods, they get to know you. ... I'll always love Washington because that's where my kids grew up, but I came to enjoy New York.

THR: What will you do for CBS after you go back to Washington and anchoring "Face the Nation"? Will you write a book?

Bob Schieffer: I may or may not, probably not if I stay in this role (on "Face the Nation" and doing commentaries for "CBS Evening News"). I've done work on that book, but I just don't think I can do it and write two commentaries a week and do "Face the Nation" and do analysis for the evening news. I write one commentary for "Face the Nation" on Sundays, and we're going to add another one Wednesdays for the "Evening News."

THR: And your musical career? I'm told that CBS News writer Jean Bratman has turned a handful of your songs into a demo tape that is being shopped around in Nashville right now.

Bob Schieffer: I'm really serious about writing songs. They're love songs, with a country-bluesy kind of feel. It's something I do for fun, like some people like to drive race cars or play golf. It's the same way if you play golf, they always say that golf is like a love affair: It's no fun if you take it seriously, and if you take it seriously, it'll break your heart. It's the same way with this. I'm serious about it. It's fun. We'll see what happens, but I'm trying to get someone to record them.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003054857

fredfa

08-30-06, 01:59 PM

TV Preview
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
Lawyers defending amoral clients -- We've seen it before
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday, August 30, 2006

There's little question that once Fox smelled the ratings success of "House," one of its earliest shows to look and feel as if it were made for another network, it wanted more. With the dull nubs of what used to be called the cutting edge providing almost no Nielsens glory, who could blame Fox for wanting to be more mainstream?

But this season -- and specifically with the legal series "Justice," which premieres tonight at 9 -- Fox has fully assumed its new identity as CBS Lite. "Justice" is a Jerry Bruckheimer drama, and although that screams formula, it also means a better than average shot at a hit.

Now the big questions: Does television really need another lawyer show? And should that show really be on Fox if it's not "Ally McBeal" different?

To the first query: No. To the second: It's impolite to question those in the throes of a transgender crises. But Fox should probably look in the mirror and ask itself if playing CBS' game is the smartest thing to do. After all, CBS has its own brand new, needless lawyer drama -- "Shark," starring James Woods -- and that one is a whole lot more compelling than "Justice," if, for some reason, the legal genre still appeals to you at all.

The biggest problem going against "Justice" is that the series wants it both ways. The premise suggests that four "brilliant" and high-powered (and clearly expensive) attorneys can get you off no matter what you've done. The allure is in the Mark Geragos' styled, high-profile, media-obsessed cases that captivate an audience sitting safely at home while watching Nancy Grace prosecute the alleged killers before the case has even started.

You don't need a TV show for that. You've already got Geragos and Grace.

But what "Justice" apparently hopes to do is play both sides by having these lawyers actually free innocent people. In "Shark," at least Woods' character is a greedy, devilish bastard who beats the district attorney at every turn. Only when one of his unsavory clients gets off and then murders does Woods' character have a change of heart and go work for the prosecution. Trite, sure, but more believable than what "Justice" will apparently try to pull off: the notion that despite a roster of Enron-esque executives, wealthy, famous and otherwise amoral clients (exactly the kind of people most average Americans believe subvert the justice system regularly), some of them actually didn't do it and deserve our pity and/or sympathy.

That's a tough sell, even in fantasyland. Americans may like to salaciously slurp up every tiny detail of missing white women or grisly suburban murders in their real-life news, but when it comes to escapism, they want their heroes and villains easily defined, unless they pay HBO for the pleasure of muddying up the waters on the character issue.

That's why "Shark," which is fueled mostly by Woods' magnetic ego and scenery chewing, is more likely to work. He was a bad guy who saw the light. On "Justice," it might have been dramatically more interesting -- and even Foxlike, if we can dabble momentarily in nostalgia -- to have the law firm at the center of the series only take on dishonorable, horrible, mean people with money, good looks and/or fame. At least then it would seem rooted in real life defense law.

You got the money? We'll get you off.

But it's a tad disingenuous to give us a character such as Ron Trott (Victor Garber from "Alias"), who is described as "the face seen on every media talk show in the country" with his cocky demeanor and fancy suits. "Juries hate him," the description says. And so his young team of hotshot lawyers does all the work, and the cleanest cut of them all, Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith) -- described as "the All-American face of not guilty" -- works the trial. Trott spends his time in the limelight, notably sparring with a Gracelike host of a cable news series called "American Crime."

You can see what Bruckheimer wanted to do here. Set in Los Angeles, where celebrities kill people or need desperate legal assistance almost weekly, "Justice" seeks to tap into the complexities of both sides: the tawdry elements that keep people watching trials and cable news round tables with Geragos and company.

But it's a cheat. Garber, an otherwise likable actor, is not likable as Trott. And his minions, including female forensic expert Alden Tuller (Rebecca Mader) and African American political climber Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker), are not very likable either. So where does that leave Bruckheimer? With the need to prove that, for the most part, these guys prevent injustice.

Hmm.

Despite the contention among producers that, hey, sometimes the "Justice" team gets off bad people and you won't really know until you watch the show's true hook -- a re-enactment at the end that tells you exactly what happened -- that's a huge risk. Did most viewers want Scott Peterson to go free? No, just as they didn't want Ken Lay to die of heart disease; they wanted him to rot in jail. It's who we are. "Justice" may not be trying to stretch Middle America's acceptance to a level where fictional characters of roughly the same moral fiber are eventually found to be innocent (imagine that), but there's already trouble in asking people to believe that the high-powered Los Angeles defense attorneys fronted by a slick face who cable news hops for fame and clients are actually a ragtag bunch of lovable heroes.

Ain't buying it. Even if Bruckheimer is selling it.

And here's the more damning part: It's not even that "Justice" might be more keenly acceptable if it played out its moral gray areas and antihero jones on HBO. No, this isn't entirely about location on the dial, even if it's sad in some way that Fox wants so badly to be CBS these days. No, the real problem with "Justice" is that the series is very average. Even the re-creation angle at the end is unoriginal. What's left is a lawyer show. If you want old-school formula well told, wait for "Shark." If you want new-school quirk, stick with "The Practice."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/30/DDG9AKQS291.DTL&type=printable

fredfa

08-30-06, 02:09 PM

Cable TV Notebook
Weeds: Sophomore Slump and Theme Songs
By Rebecca Stropoli in the Broadcasting & Cable blog BCBeat

Here's a theory for you: The second-season downslide of Showtime's Weeds all began with the theme song.
In season one, Malvina Reynolds' folksy "Little Boxes" (1963), the ideal ditty to illustrate suburban monotony, opened up each show. Reynolds' unique twang and the song's undeniable hook went along well with a show that gave viewers a fresh look at soccer-mom culture, following the misadventures of Nancy Botwin, middle class widow/pot dealer.

And the first season was an appealing mix of comedy and drama; Nancy, played very well by Mary-Louise Parker, was a character who made questionable decisions, but, underneath the sometimes hapless exterior, she exhibited a real humanity. Here was a woman who obviously loved her two sons, even though they often drove her crazy, and grieved for her husband, usually in private. One scene, in which Nancy cried while watching an intimate video of her and her husband, comes to mind; it was the kind of scene that made you care about her character.

Cut to season two. The premiere again opened with the song "Little Boxes"--this time sung by Elvis Costello.
Oh, Costello--cool, right?

No. Costello's remake lacked the charm of Reynolds' rendering, and right away the words "sophomore slump" entered my mind. And the first episode backed up my suspicions. Nancy Botwin, here, was suddenly an extremely unlikable character--all ditz, no substance. And while her mothering skills in season one would certainly not win her any Good Housekeeping awards, in this first episode, she honestly seemed to hate the two little buggers. Oh, where was the humanity??

The second episode opened with a Death Cab for Cutie version of "Little Boxes." OK, and I thought the Costello version was bad. Would Death Cab for Cutie mean death for Weeds? Well, the second episode certainly seemed to signify this. I waited hopefully for Nancy to display some of her old charm, but she remained charmless, a complaining, tired, uninteresting suburban pot mommy.

Episode three--Engelbert Humperdinck. Need I even go on? This episode was the worst of the lot, veering into a screwball-comedy area that seems to bode very poorly for the season's remaining episodes.

Now, I acknowledge that some critics are praising this second season and calling it superior to the first; I find that baffling, but an opinion is just an opinion, after all.

But for me, between Showtime's cancellation of the superior Huff (thank you, Blythe Danner, for putting the network in its place for that on Emmy night) and this lower-rent version of Weeds, the network is doubling up on disappointments.

http://broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138.html

fredfa

08-30-06, 02:14 PM

It is funny.It is not significant or important, and has nothing to do with credibility.

Having spent most of a lifetime in control rooms where things like this matter, I can assure you that leaving an anchor's (or reporter's) mike open like that is totally inexcusable and unprofessional.

We are talking minutes here, not a second or two. A brief open mike is human error. This goes far beyond that.

So no one was listening to the product being sent out for close to two minutes? For shame.

It seems to me it certainly could reflect on CNN's credibility.

One might ask if CNN can't get even little, simple, technical things right, how can it be trusted to sift through the facts of a complicated issue?

RussTC3

08-30-06, 02:15 PM

I must say I'm somewhat surprised by the lack of promotion of The CW. I've probably seen more promotion of MyNetworkTV than I have The CW.

I'm not sure what the think of that, but I don't believe MYNTV (or however they choose to abreviate it) will do better than The CW.

I still think people are underestimating some of programming of The CW. It has a strong core, and I think it'll be enough to carry the network to new heights.

We'll find out soon enough.

fredfa

08-30-06, 02:19 PM

You could well be right, Russ, though we certainly disagree.

I believe the core of programming for the CW was unspectacular in the main and clearly trending downwards on two failing nets.

Without doing something spectacular or daring (or both) I fail to see the reason for the CW.

And I contuinue to contend that by the end of the season, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see MNTV have more viewers than the CW.

But we shall see.

RussTC3

08-30-06, 02:20 PM

One might ask if CNN can't get even little, simple, technical things right, how can it be trusted to sift through the facts of a complicated issue?
Surely you jest, Fred. Since when has any cable news channel been trusted to 'sift through the facts of a complicated issue'? ;)

fredfa

08-30-06, 02:22 PM

:) Point well taken, Russ.

And yet another reason why the cable news nets need to make sure they do the little things right. Because we need to believe them (or whichever one we tend to favor) in times of crisis.

Joe3

08-30-06, 02:33 PM

RussTC3

08-30-06, 02:34 PM

Some quick thoughts on the Emmy's.

First off, the whole Airplane Crash thing. They could have pulled it, but I think the apology makes up for that. It's a hard situation to be in, pull an otherwise very funny skit, or leave it in and hope people understand the intent.

Secondly, I thought Conan did an absolutely amazing job. He was well-spoken, smart, and didn't go overboard on any of his jokes really. The opening sequence, and his sing/dance number were very enjoyable. I actually wouldn't have minded seeing more of him, and less of the categories no one really cares about. It seems harsh, but I think it would make for a more enjoyable broadcast. Why not just have a clip of 2-3 minutes of the other categories, given out at a earlier ceremony?

I would have liked to see Grey's at least get an Emmy for something. Though I'm pretty much content though with the winners. I was happy to see the Office win, and it was nice to see Kiefer finally get an Emmy.

So overall, a pretty good awards show.

Sorry for being late, just sharing my thoughts.

archiguy

08-30-06, 03:22 PM

Weeds: Sophomore Slump and Theme Songs By Rebecca Stropoli in the Broadcasting & Cable blog

Here's a theory for you: The second-season downslide of Showtime's Weeds all began with the theme song.

But for me, between Showtime's cancellation of the superior Huff (thank you, Blythe Danner, for putting the network in its place for that on Emmy night) and this lower-rent version of Weeds, the network is doubling up on disappointments.

http://broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138.html

While I agree with the columnist that the original theme song did not need "updating" by an eclectic group of artists (the original was superior to any of the new renditions I've heard this year - a classic case of a dubious solution in search of a non-existent problem), I disagree that the show has slipped creatively. If anything, it's even more clever than last year. No disappointment here.

rcodey

08-30-06, 03:38 PM

Surely you jest, Fred. Since when has any cable news channel been trusted to 'sift through the facts of a complicated issue'? ;)

You're correct Russ.Complicated issues and their explaining are left on the cutting room floor-it's sound bites and move on to the next story for all networks.

fredfa

08-30-06, 04:23 PM

Ok, How about this for a poor network marketing device.

The CW premieres their programs as early as Fox. Then instead of seeing countless articles written just about Fox's new fall programing when they premiere it could be broken up a bit with CW fall programing artilce as they premiere.

At least they would generate more buzz.

Too simple?

Good idea. (Though with the lineup the CW has, I am not sure how much buzz it would actually get, even if it were opening unopposed).

But opening against just one other network instead of viewers waiting for the ABC, NBC and CBS premieres, would have been smart, IMO.

fredfa

08-30-06, 04:25 PM

TV Notebook
Kidnappers Suspected Centanni Was a Spy, Threatened to Kill Him
By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable 8/30/2006

The kidnappers who held two Fox News journalists hostage for two weeks suspected that correspondent Steve Centanni was a spy and at one point threatened to kill him.

In an hour-long appearance on Fox News’s On The Record Greta Van Sutsernen, Centanni’s fellow hostage Olaf Wiig said that after five days of captivity the kidnappers began asking about Centanni’s background. Wiig was being questioned alone and he and one interrogator discussed asked him what he knew about Islam. Not much, Wiig replied, saying "It's probably remiss of me to have spent so much time working in the Middle East and know so little about it. Can you teach me a little about it?"

There then followed "a discussion about how the problems of the Muslim world and the West could be solved if the West converted to Islam."

The conversation suddenly darkened. The kidnappers were suspicious that Centanni was the first journalist on the scene when the U.S. military in Iraq killed Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay (a fact listed openly on Centanni’s bio on Fox News Website.)

"They told me that they believed he was CIA, FBI, an informer for the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force, that he was there as a spy…that it was him that had informed the American military on Uday and Qusay."

Wiig was told that as a New Zealander, he was at little risk, but "Unfortunately for you, you're with an American and a very, very dangerous American, and we're going to kill him."

Wiig tried to explain that Centanni was just a journalist doing his job and trying to tell the story of the Palestinian people.

After Wiig hustled out of the room, Centanni asked what the kidnappers discussed. . Centanni says Wiig didn’t want to scare him and said "`Oh, it was basically just a big pep talk on Islam, actually.’ he didn't really tell me anything about that they were determined to kill me.’"

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6367250

fredfa

08-30-06, 04:36 PM

TV Review
“Justice” Fox, 9 PM ET/PT Wednesday
It's not quite poetic, but Garber's acting is lyrical

By Robert Bianco USA Today

Trust those Bruckheimer folks to teach an old format yet another new trick.

Currently TV's hottest production house, Jerry Bruckheimer's team uses high-gloss sheen and technological shimmer to reinvent the old-style mystery procedural, reinvigorating TV in the process.

The results are on display in Without a Trace, Cold Case, Close to Home and the CSI trilogy — all extremely well-cast, impeccably produced, crisply written and wildly successful.

True, outside of The Amazing Race, the team's efforts to expand beyond the criminal law format have largely come a cropper, as witnessed by the fast demise of last season's Just Legal, E-Ring and Modern Men. But no one is better at what Bruckheimer does best, which is why you should stick with Justice —even through those moments when you're trying to put your finger on just when or where you've seen it all before.

Though standard-issue in most respects, this case-of-the-week drama about a high-power L.A. defense firm does have three distinguishing traits. The first is a promised postscript that will show us whether justice was indeed served at trial. The second is a media focus that turns an imaginary cable news show, American Crime, into its own character.

The third, and most crucial to the show's entertainment value, is Victor Garber, pulling out all the stops as Ron Trott, the legal master of media spin (and the emotional polar opposite of Alias' locked-down Jack Bristow). As the wildly egotistical, humorously volatile Trott, Garber is clearly the show's best asset — and the producers just as clearly realize that the asset is best used in limited doses.

Trott is the public face of the firm, but he doesn't actually try the cases; juries hate him. ("A little bit of Ron goes a long way.") Instead, the firm's lead litigator is Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith), "the All-American face of not guilty." In support are Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker), who's in charge of research, and Alden Tuller (Rebecca Mader), who handles the expert testimony.

For his opening case, Trott's team comes to the aid of a man accused of clubbing his wife to death. The fast-paced pilot rockets through the case, starting at the crime scene and then jumping from office to Crime set to courtroom, before landing back at the scene of the crime for the truth-telling finale.

In its attempt to make us think we're lingering behind the scenes, the show relies heavily on procedural revelations, from lessons on how to meet the press to tips on adjusting your courtroom desk. (Inch it toward the jury.)

The show is also awash in Bruckheimer's trademark visual flourishes, though some of them are beginning to suffer from overexposure. Changing Luther's outfits in mid-stride to indicate the passing of time is a fun touch, but too much of the swooping camera work (like, say, the shot from underneath the elevator) comes off as wasted filler.

Still, the larger problem with Justice it that allows the plot to bury the characters. The prosecutors barely exist as individuals, and with the exception of Trott, the defense attorneys fare little better. Smith, in particular, had better step up his game before the "All-American Face" gets dismissed as little more than a pretty face. Those, however, are problems for another day. For now, you get Garber, a tricky case, and that Bruckheimer glow.

And for now, that will do Justice just fine.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/reviews/2006-08-29-justice-review_x.htm

RussTC3

08-30-06, 04:47 PM

You can watch the video/audio of the CNN gaffe here (http://youtube.com/watch?v=GF6n5alsG8M) at YouTube.

My take is someone let it go on for that long on purpose. Come on, there is NO way someone didn't notice that.

fredfa

08-30-06, 05:47 PM

Blaming the audio person is totally BS.

Whoever was the producer in charge should have been listening to the programming output. If not, an associate producer should have been.

A couple of seconds in an audio error. That length of time is definitely the fault of the producer.

And any producer who would allow that egregious error to happen should be replaced.

RussTC3

08-30-06, 06:05 PM

It just seems like this was done on purpose. How could they not have noticed it?

A few seconds, okay, but 1:30 minutes?

TommyK

08-30-06, 06:59 PM

Having spent most of a lifetime in control rooms where things like this matter, I can assure you that leaving an anchor's (or reporter's) mike open like that is totally inexcusable and unprofessional.

We are talking minutes here, not a second or two. A brief open mike is human error. This goes far beyond that.

So no one was listening to the product being sent out for close to two minutes? For shame.

It seems to me it certainly could reflect on CNN's credibility.

One might ask if CNN can't get even little, simple, technical things right, how can it be trusted to sift through the facts of a complicated issue?
Hear, hear! As a long time television control room dude myself, I couldn't agree with you more.

dad1153

08-30-06, 11:58 PM

Somewhere in La-La land David & Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Leslie Nielsen are laughing their collective asses off at this whole CNN open mike fiasco. They were ahead of the curve all the way back to 1987! :D

fredfa

08-31-06, 12:12 AM

TV Notebook
Schieffer Ends Anchor Stint
The newsman fulfilled his dream at "CBS Evening News" and has one more in sight.
By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 31, 2006

NEW YORK -- He was only supposed to fill in for six weeks.

A year and a half later, Bob Schieffer finally wraps up his gig as the interim anchor of "CBS Evening News" this evening when he helms his last broadcast.

For Schieffer, who is passing the baton to incoming anchor Katie Couric, the last 18 months have come as an unexpected yet pleasurable stint, one in which he managed to leave his mark, despite the temporary nature of his appointment.

Under his watch, ratings at the third-place broadcast climbed upward — the only network newscast that can make such a claim this season — and the internal angst caused by former anchor Dan Rather's controversial report on President Bush's military service finally dissipated.

"I'm really proud of what we've accomplished," Schieffer said in an interview last week. "We were in a very hard place, and I do believe that we've got the train back up on the tracks and running in the right direction."

He has endorsed the selection of his successor, whom he hopes to have on the broadcast this evening for a symbolic passing of the baton.

Couric "has attracted this enormous amount of attention, which I think in the end may raise the ratings of all the newscasts," Schieffer said. "I think we have a chance now to be No. 1. We're already a first-rate news organization."

The veteran Washington correspondent had secretly hoped to get tapped for the anchor job in 1981, when Walter Cronkite retired. When it went to Rather, he put it out of his mind, he said. "I never thought I would ever have this job," the 69-year-old said.

One of the first things Schieffer did when he took over the anchor desk was to introduce more back-and-forth with the correspondents, quizzing them in his trademark folksy style.

"Before him, there was this air of omniscience in the way the program was produced," said former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. "Bob kind of clambered down off the pedestal."

Schieffer, who has continued moderating the Sunday program "Face the Nation," said he would miss the anchor desk, but said he's content that it was a short-term assignment.

"If this had happened 10 years ago, I would have liked to have had the job," he admitted. "But at this point in my life, I wouldn't have done it for an extended period of time. You don't build something that you want to last another 10 or 15 years around someone my age."

One thing he won't miss is the schedule. Every Friday night, he flew back home to Washington, where he spent Saturdays preparing for Sunday's "Face the Nation." He returned to New York every Monday on the 7:30 a.m. shuttle.

This week, he goes back to Washington for good, where he will reassume his duties as chief Washington correspondent. Schieffer will continue moderating "Face the Nation" and expects to appear on the evening news at least once a week doing commentary and news analysis. And he's getting a new office: the one formerly occupied by legendary CBS broadcaster Eric Sevareid.

"This is going to be for me, at this stage of my life, the perfect assignment," Schieffer said.

Though he has contemplated retiring in February on his 70th birthday, CBS News President Sean McManus asked Schieffer to stay on through the 2008 election — something he's leaning toward, for now.

In the meantime, he has a new career he's pursuing on the side: songwriting.

A longtime writer of romantic poems, Schieffer recently partnered with a composer to set a few of them to music. The results were so promising that he's met with a music industry executive about getting them recorded in Nashville.

"I'm very serious about this," the anchor said, reciting lyrics of one of his songs titled "There to Here":

Don't let this moment pass
we may not come this way again
don't know how we got from there to here
but here we are
let's make it last.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-wk-schieffer31aug31,0,3925343,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

fredfa

08-31-06, 12:31 AM

TV Notebook
G.M. Drops ‘Survivor’ but Says Racial Format Isn’t the Reason
By Edward Wyatt and Stuart Elliott [b]The Newe York Times August 31, 2006
(Julie Bosman contributed reporting for this article.)

General Motors, which has accounted for roughly one-fifth of the advertising revenue on the CBS reality show “Survivor” this year, has decided not to advertise on the show’s coming season, one that has attracted criticism because the makeup of the competing teams will be based on race.

Both General Motors and CBS said yesterday that G.M.’s decision to stop advertising on “Survivor” was made three months ago and was unrelated to the show’s race-based format.

Several other advertisers from previous seasons of “Survivor” also said they would not return for the next season, and said their decision was also unrelated to the new format. Among them are the Coca-Cola, Home Depot, United Parcel Service and Campbell Soup.

“It is my understanding that we did not know what the new format was when the decision was made,” Ryndee Carney, a manager of advertising and marketing communications for General Motors, said in an interview yesterday.

Chris Ender, a spokesman for CBS, said yesterday that G.M. told the network of the decision “several months ago.”

“They had no knowledge of the planned format, so the decision was not related to the controversy surrounding the upcoming edition,” he said.

Yet on May 12, CBS and G.M. announced an expansion, rather than a contraction, of G.M.’s advertising relationship with the show. The two companies and Comcast, the cable television provider, announced a deal to provide free, on-demand viewing of the “Survivor” finale and reunion shows to Comcast customers in certain markets.

Whatever the reason, the withdrawal of General Motors is significant for “Survivor.” The company accounted for $14.7 million, or 18 percent, of the $80.7 million spent by the show’s top 50 advertisers in 2006, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

“Survivor” advertising rates are among the highest on television because the show is a huge hit. The trade magazine Advertising Age reported last fall that the price of a 30-second commercial during “Survivor: Guatemala” was an estimated $351,000. And advertisers whose products are integrated into the shows usually pay more on top of that.

The two most recent versions of the show — “Survivor: Guatemala” and “Survivor: Panama” — were ranked fifth and seventh, respectively, in total viewers in the television season that began last September. The two installments attracted 18.3 million and 16.8 million viewers each, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Since the debut of “Survivor” in July 2000, elements of the G.M. sponsorship have included giving a car to a season’s winner and placing its products within the show. In one season, for example, a “Survivor” cast member camped out in the back of a Pontiac Aztek, Ms. Carney said.

“But we decided that the format of the show — people stranded on a desert island — didn’t enable us to achieve what we were trying to do,” she said. “We like to integrate the product more into the storyline and become more of a character in the storyline.”

Campbell Soup, which will not advertise on the series in the fall, ranked 43rd on a list of the top 50 advertisers on “Survivor” in 2006, spending $920,000, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Beth Jolly, a spokeswoman for Campbell Soup, which is based in Camden, N.J., said the decision was made “before we even knew the content” and “doesn’t have anything to do with the controversy” surrounding the racially divided tribes.

Mr. Ender of CBS said the show has attracted plenty of other advertisers for the new season but declined to name them.

In the early seasons of “Survivor,” CBS issued news releases with the names of companies that would be sponsoring the new season.

The new season, set in the Cook Islands, will be the 13th installment of the series, which typically stages two competitions a year.

This season’s format is different, however. Not only does it feature, according to CBS, “the series’ most ethnically diverse cast to date,” but the castaways “will initially be organized into four tribes divided along ethnic lines (African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic and white) before merging in a later episode.”

That move has drawn criticism as insensitive and going against the idea of promoting diversity — a goal the show’s producers said they were trying to achieve.

In a statement issued last week after the new team format was announced, CBS said it “recognizes the controversial nature of this format, but has full confidence in the producers and their ability to produce the program in a responsible manner.”

“ ‘Survivor’ is a program that is no stranger to controversy and has always answered its critics on the screen.”

The three-month time frame cited by CBS and G.M. for the decision would have put it in late May, about the time national advertisers convened in New York for the television networks’ annual presentations of their fall lineups.

It was just before that that G.M. and CBS announced they were expanding their “Survivor” relationship to the Comcast on-demand service.

The three companies said it was “the first time an advertiser has fully sponsored prime-time broadcast on-demand programming.” The experiment is scheduled to run through today.

Ms. Carney of G.M. said the on-demand sponsorship was “not related to the decision to pull off of the main show.” That decision was first reported yesterday on the Internet site of Television Week, a trade publication.

“We believe it’s good to have multiple platforms we can participate in,” Ms. Carney said, “and we are very involved with video-on-demand.”

Advertisers, particularly those that sell mainstream products in the mass market, have traditionally been sensitive about where they appear. They generally seek to avoid controversial content that might alienate large numbers of potential customers. Many big advertisers insist on language in contracts that permits them to withdraw from contentious content.

G.M. has long been concerned about where its ads appear. Near the start of the Iraq war, G.M., like many consumer companies, decided not to run ads during shows devoted entirely to war coverage.

The new “Survivor” format has attracted criticism from politicians and community leaders in New York, where CBS is based. On Tuesday, the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, the senior pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, was joined by at least three City Council members at a demonstration outside CBS headquarters.

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Butts said he welcomed the news that G.M. was withdrawing from advertising on “Survivor.” He said he was not calling for a boycott of the show, “but I hope there are other advertisers that will do the same thing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/business/media/31adco.html?ref=media&pagewanted=print

fredfa

08-31-06, 01:03 AM

MyNetwork TV
With Sexy Story Lines, Low Budgets, News Corp. Will Launch MyNetworkTV
By Brooks Barnes The Wall Street Journal August 31, 2006; Page B1

Every time News Corp. launches a new television business, it turns to programming that entrenched players decry as schlocky and culturally debasing. Then, in many cases, the company starts printing money.

On Tuesday, Roger Ailes, chairman of News Corp.'s Fox Television Stations, will flip the switch on MyNetworkTV, a new broadcast network that will feature a novel format for mainstream U.S. television: Super-sexy -- and super-cheap -- prime-time soap operas that air six nights a week for limited runs.

It's an over-the-top format borrowed from Spanish-language broadcasters. While story lines on American soaps can drag on for years, Spanish soaps, or telenovelas, deliver immediate gratification. They wrap everything up after 13 weeks, offer a cliffhanger in each episode and culminate with shocking finales that can rack up Super Bowl-size ratings -- just the formula that MyNetwork hopes to duplicate.

U.S. viewers may be jolted by the style and content of the two shows MyNetwork is rolling out next week -- "Desire" and "Fashion House." But "Fox has a way of turning unsophisticated, simplistic programming into a success," says Laura Caraccioli-Davis, an executive vice president at ad-buying firm Starcom Entertainment. She adds: "And this is definitely unsophisticated."

The hour-long episodes on MyNetwork are taped on a shoestring budget of $200,000 to $500,000 each, and it shows. While far from bare-bones, the sets aren't as lavishly decorated as those seen in traditional network dramas, which cost $2 million to $3 million an episode. Details can slip through the cracks: A character might start a scene in one outfit and finish it in another.

MyNetwork has largely hired actors with limited experience. And in another bid to save money, it is buying telenovela scripts from Mexico, Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries and translating them into English. It employs a staff of writers to smooth out the story lines and winnow the shows down to 65 episodes from 120, but taping is done on nonunion soundstages well outside the Hollywood infrastructure in San Diego.

The plot points are rapid-fire. "Desire" is the tale of two brothers who are on the run from the Mafia and happen to be in love with the same woman; one brother sleeps with two different women, dodges a spray of bullets and escapes from an exploding building -- and that's just in the opening 10 minutes of the first episode.

"Fashion House" stars Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild as executives who run rival clothing labels. The show is replete with fang baring, scenery chewing and face slapping: In one scene, Ms. Fairchild, known for saucy roles on 1980s soaps such as "Falcon Crest," tries to stab Ms. Derek with a syringe in a hospital room. "I'm sure they'll put us in the mud next," Ms. Fairchild says.

MyNetwork executives offer no apologies: At a time when production costs at the traditional networks are spiraling out of control due to an increase in everything from license fees to cast sizes, they think their way represents the future.

Jack Abernethy, chief executive of Fox Television Stations, says it no longer makes financial sense for fledgling networks to put together patchwork schedules of sitcoms and dramas. "It costs too much to market dozens of different time periods and shows," he says.

Bob Cook, president of Twentieth Television, the News Corp. unit that is churning out the English-language telenovelas, thinks rivals will be forced to try similar productions.

"We're scaring our competitors to death because we're producing quality programming at a fraction of what they're paying," says Mr. Cook. "You can't help but be impressed when you see our programming."

Advertisers have seen it, and if they're impressed, it isn't yet showing in MyNetwork's advance ad sales. Media-buying firms estimate that the network has secured under $50 million in advertising commitments for the fall season. In comparison, My Network's closest competitor, the new CW network, lined up about $640 million in advance ad business.

Mr. Abernethy concedes that "we can't run the network for $50 million a year," but he says advertisers will come on board after the initial ratings come out.

Ad buyers admit some skittishness. "It will take some time to get advertisers acclimated to the content, but you really can't bet against Fox -- or the appetite of the American consumer for guilty-pleasure viewing," says Ms. Caraccioli-Davis of Starcom, which buys ads for clients such as Procter & Gamble.

Wall Street Jorunal subscribers can read the entire story here:

http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB115698811194650185.html

archiguy

08-31-06, 07:06 AM

[

Bob Cook, president of Twentieth Television, the News Corp. unit that is churning out the English-language telenovelas, thinks rivals will be forced to try similar productions.

"We're scaring our competitors to death because we're producing quality programming at a fraction of what they're paying," says Mr. Cook. "You can't help but be impressed when you see our programming."

Oh my. Proof that at News Corp, spin and denial span all divisions. It's their complete motus operandi; must be written into the corporate charter. :p

That being said, who can doubt they'll have no problem at all finding enough viewers to make this thing insanely profitable. And the pursuit of the lowest common denominator rolls on. :rolleyes:

jim tressler

08-31-06, 07:17 AM

People make way to big a deal on race in this country.. I for one think this will be a great season of survivor

TV Notebook
G.M. Drops ‘Survivor’ but Says Racial Format Isn’t the Reason
By Edward Wyatt and Stuart Elliott [b]The Newe York Times August 31, 2006
(Julie Bosman contributed reporting for this article.)

This season’s format is different, however. Not only does it feature, according to CBS, “the series’ most ethnically diverse cast to date,” but the castaways “will initially be organized into four tribes divided along ethnic lines (African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic and white) before merging in a later episode.”

That move has drawn criticism as insensitive and going against the idea of promoting diversity — a goal the show’s producers said they were trying to achieve.

In a statement issued last week after the new team format was announced, CBS said it “recognizes the controversial nature of this format, but has full confidence in the producers and their ability to produce the program in a responsible manner.”

“ ‘Survivor’ is a program that is no stranger to controversy and has always answered its critics on the screen.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/business/media/31adco.html?ref=media&pagewanted=print

Marcus Carr

08-31-06, 09:25 AM

One year to digital TV switchover in Finland

31.8.2006 at 12:32

Television viewers in Finland have exactly one year left to get their digiboxes as all TV broadcasts are to become digitalised on 31 August 2007.

The European Union has recommended all member states to complete the switchover to digital networks by 2011. Digital broadcasting enables better quality transmission.

The first digital TV broadcasts were started in Finland five years ago. By June 2006 roughly half of all households with televisions had acquired a digital adapter or digital television set.

http://virtual.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=13579&group=General

Marcus Carr

08-31-06, 09:36 AM

Trump tells Carolyn: 'You're fired!'

Kepcher, blonde assistant of 'The Apprentice,' loses job after Trump tires of her.

August 31 2006: 10:23 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Carolyn Kepcher, the blonde co-star of Donald Trump's 'The Apprentice,' has been fired.

The 36-year old sidekick, who in addition to her role on the show ran the Trump National Golf Club in posh Westchester County north of New York City, was fired earlier this week.

Rhona Graff of the Trump Organization confirmed to CNNMoney.com that Kepcher no longer works at the company.

Trump's daughter Ivanka has replaced Kepcher in the role, while Trump's son Don Jr. is the successor to the 78-year old real estate lawyer George Ross on the show.

The show's Web site states Ivanka and Don Jr. will "fill in for" Kepcher and Ross "during multiple episodes of 'The Apprentice'" in the fifth season.

Ross is still "very much a part of the company," Graff said, but because the show is taped in Los Angeles, his appearances on it will be limited this season.

Graff said Trump wishes Kepcher well but had no other comment on the matter.

An article citing unnamed sources in Thursday's New York Post, which first reported the story, indicated Kepcher's lack of focus as a reason for the firing.

Kepcher had agents at ICM handling book and TV offers, while Westport Entertainment managed her speaking engagements and product endorsements, the newspaper reported.

Trump had had trouble reaching her recently as she had been away on a trip to give a speech, the sources told the newspaper.

A source knowledgeable in the matter told the Post that Trump advised Kepcher to "take some time off and spend it with her family, and then get another job."

Kepcher is married and has a son, Connor, 6, and a daughter Cassidy, 4.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/31/news/newsmakers/trump_kepcher/

Rakesh.S

08-31-06, 10:08 AM

I think the reality is, that Survivor took a hit in the ratings last year and all networks not named CBS are putting their big guns on thursday, to try and end CBS' dominance.

Now, CBS had to stir up controversy just to get people to watch. The public "outcry" is exactly what CBS wanted -- it's free publicity.

fredfa

08-31-06, 10:29 AM

If you are in Northern California – or can get there next Thursday – here is the place to be:
TV Notebook
Tim Goodman Meets The Viewers
Beer. TV. Pizza. Couches. Free. It's Tim's TV Hootenanny!
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog “The Bastard Machine”

Yes, that headline was in the third person.

Anyway, it's that time again. The KFOG TV Party, held at the legendary Parkway Speakeasy Theater, Thursday, Sept. 7, 6 p.m. until we're kicked out or, as sometimes happens, people walk out after yet another marathon airing of lost "TV Funhouse" episodes.

This is (at least) The Sixth Annual TV Party. We may have to redub it "The Dumbassification of Oakland." But in fairness, we did do it in San Francisco twice. For those of you who have been, expect more of the same - beer, pizza, fall TV previews from your friendly neighborhood TV critic, a bunch of free DVDs thrown dangerously into a darkened theater, the KFOG Morning Show all-star heroes (all hail!), gratuitous other free swag that I'll give you for shouting the loudest or having driven the farthest. That sort of thing.

If you've never been, well hell, come on down. Here's the story: The unbelievably hip Parkway Speakeasy folks (thanks Kyle, Will, etc.) open their doors to the "KFOG Morning Show" and YOUR San Francisco Chronicle Television Critic. It's free. Seats are very limited. We start early. Traffic is sometimes bad. Parking is not exactly easy. We are loose. And unprofessional. I often swear. We pretend that you're being invited into my living room to watch TV. I select some of the gems from the upcoming fall season. I also bring stuff from my vault. They pour beer out front and serve pizzas and stuff. There are couches to sit on. Several times we've had music. (Not this time, because we're getting less and less prepared, or more and more confidently casual). I bring swag. KFOG brings swag. We give it out randomly (often by tossing it at people who can't see it coming, which is neat when you're chucking big DVD box sets).

After each show, I get your feedback. I find that very helpful.

There is, at some point, a Q&A session. I hope you find that helpful. Then we all vow to do this more often and we all drive home safely. We've been signing up people on KFOG and will continue to do so, but this year, now that The Bastard Machine has been built, there's the Blog Plus One Option (TM). We'll take the first 30 people, plus one guest. Patched with the KFOG list, that should freak out Kyle and Will but, hey, some people commit and have a change of heart and we haven't had to turn anyone away before (but note: that's possible).

So, if you're free next Thursday and want to watch some TV, sign up in the comment section. Like this: 1. Your Name. Plus one. Next person: 2. Their name. Plus one. (If you're not bringing someone, that's fine, too). Your name will magically appear on the guest list at the door. In theory, at least.

See you there.

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

AAF

08-31-06, 10:32 AM

Actress Upset with High Definition

Blythe Danner didn’t give much thought to her wrinkles — until she saw herself on high definition film. “I am 63 — I don’t care. The thing is, I wasn’t terribly conscious of it until we did ‘Huff’ and they used this [I]dreadful high-definition which makes anybody over fifty look as if they are eighty,” Gwyneth Paltrow’s mother told DarkHorizons. “So, I got very self-conscious about that. Yes — we all get a little help, a little bit of this or that ... not tremendous amounts, and I hate the idea of doing real invasive stuff, and I am not trying to look 40, because there were some shots on ‘Huff’ I was just appalled — I don’t think I am terribly narcissistic, but you don’t want to look your worst.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14485292/ (bottom bit)

fredfa

08-31-06, 10:42 AM

The Digital Revolution
Pay-TV Bill OKd by State Senate
Gov. Schwarzenegger is expected to sign soon
By James S. Granelli Los Angeles Times Staff WriterAugust 31, 2006

Shrugging off objections from cities and counties, the California state Senate late Wednesday voted 33 to 4 to approve a measure that takes oversight of pay television away from local governments and consolidates control with California regulators.

The bill, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign as early as today, is intended to make it easier for big phone companies to compete against big cable companies to provide TV services.

Backed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles), the bill is supported by phone and cable companies that have had to secure approval from each municipality in which they offer programming. They complain that local officials make unreasonable demands and take too long to approve agreements.

If more than 300 changes to the bill pass muster with the Assembly, the legislation would make California the eighth state to streamline its franchising rules. California would invest the Public Utilities Commission with the authority to grant pay-TV franchises statewide, beginning no later than April 1.

Cities and counties would retain the power to enforce service agreements and would continue to get a 5% cut of cable revenue. Some local workers could lose their jobs as franchising authority moves to the state. The utilities commission, meanwhile, probably would hire as many as 200 new employees at a cost of as much as $3 million a year, paid by the companies regulated.

AT&T Inc., California's dominant phone company, would be the biggest beneficiary of the legislation. California is the largest TV market in the nation — and home to one-third of all the residential phone lines in AT&T's 13-state territory.

"Today is a great day for California consumers, who are now one step closer to having a real choice for their TV/video service," said Kenneth P. McNeely, Western region president for San Antonio-based AT&T. "Today's Senate vote reaffirms that both Democrats and Republicans alike support the benefits of video competition — consumer cost savings, private investment in the state's broadband infrastructure and thousands of new jobs for California."

The bill would "ensure Californians get the best deal possible for video service," said Timothy J. McCallion, Western region president for New York-based Verizon Communications Inc., the state's second-largest carrier. It also would accelerate Verizon's efforts to build a high-capacity fiber optic network in California to deliver TV programming, he said.

Cities and counties say the measure, although strengthened with numerous safeguards, remains weak on requirements to build fiber optic networks throughout communities and to ensure that phone companies don't bypass poor areas.

"This is a very complicated bill, and it's outrageous that all these amendments were made in the last days and we never were allowed to see them," said Megan Taylor, spokeswoman for the League of California Cities.

The bill would keep intact a 5% fee that municipalities get from cable TV revenue for using public rights of way. But local officials worry that it would allow the state in a financial crisis to take away that revenue, estimated at $300 million statewide.

Pasadena spokeswoman Ann Erdman said that because the bill would leave the city's enforcement structure in place, no layoffs among its more than 100 information technology workers were expected.

In Los Angeles, workers in the cable television franchise administration were concerned about the bill's ramifications, said Stacy Burnette, a supervisor. But she and city spokeswoman Janelle Erickson would not comment further on possible effects.

Opposition from cable TV companies evaporated two months ago when a Senate subcommittee amended the bill to allow them to escape key local contract provisions and opt into the state system once phone company competition arrives.

AT&T and Verizon lobbied heavily for the measure, AB 2987. AT&T spent nearly $18 million in lobbying efforts and donated $500,000 to political campaigns, according to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.

The carriers controlled the process so thoroughly, Taylor said, that "on amendments we would send over to the Legislature, we'd hear back, 'Sorry, but AT&T said no.' "

The phone companies, meanwhile, are pushing other states for similar legislation and lobbying Congress for a federal franchising law.

To provide television programming, phone companies are upgrading their networks with high-capacity fiber lines. AT&T is using existing copper wire as well as fiber to roll out service faster; Verizon is taking fiber to the home, a slower and more expensive process but one that will make it better able to compete with cable.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-fi-cable31aug31,0,2632794,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

RemyM

08-31-06, 10:57 AM

dreadful high-definition which makes anybody over fifty look as if they are eighty,”

She thinks that HD makes people look worse then they do in person? Look in the mirror, maybe you really do look that bad.

fredfa

08-31-06, 11:33 AM

Prime-time ratings for Wednesday – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

fredfa

08-31-06, 11:43 AM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Jury's out on new Fox 'Justice' drama
Averages 2.9 in 18-49s, building on 'Bones'
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Aug 31, 2006

It looks like a familiar story for another Fox debut. “Justice,” the new Jerry Bruckheimer drama, certainly had a respectable debut last night, winning its timeslot and building on its lead-in.

But its rating was far from exceptional, and the network still doesn’t seem to be building the advantage it would have hoped for by premiering its new fall shows before the other Big Four networks.

“Justice” averaged a 2.9 adults 18-49 rating last night at 9 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights. It did win its timeslot, and it built 12 percent on the not-so-hot 2.6 posted by the premiere of lead-in “Bones” at 8 p.m.

Yet “Justice” faced only one other new show in the timeslot, ABC’s “20/20: Last Days on Earth” special, which averaged a 2.6. It was only 0.4 ahead of a repeat of CBS’s “Criminal Minds,” and among adults 18-34, “Justice” averaged just a 2.5, though that was also first in the timeslot.

“Justice” averaged 8.9 million total viewers, dipping by nearly 500,000 from its first half hour to its second.

It was the third lukewarm premiere in a row for Fox, which got similar numbers for last week’s debut of “Vanished” and Tuesday’s “Celebrity Duets” bow. While none of them look like immediate duds, they also don’t look like immediate hits, either.

It’s probably going to take a few more outings for all three shows to exhibit a tendency one way or the other, as they could certainly build or decline depending on how shows on the other networks do when they begin premiering over the next few weeks. In its second outing, “Vanished” was up slightly.

With light competition on the other networks heading into the long weekend, Fox led for the third night in a row among 18-49s with a 2.8 rating and 8 share, edging CBS at 2.6/8, ABC at 2.5/7, NBC at 1.9/6, Univision at 1.5/4, and WB and UPN each at 0.7/2.

At 8 p.m., CBS was No. 1 at 2.7 for "Rock Star: Supernova," ahead of Fox's season premiere of "Bones" at 2.6, NBC's pair of "Most Outrageous Moments" repeats at 1.9, Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" and ABC's pair of "George Lopez" reruns both at 1.8, the WB at 0.8 for two "Blue Collar TV" repeats, and UPN at 0.7 for reruns of "Everybody Hates Chris" and "All of Us."

At 9 p.m., Fox led at 2.9 for the premiere of "Justice," followed by ABC at 2.6 for "20/20," CBS at 2.5 for a "Criminal Minds" repeat, NBC at 1.9 for two "Scrubs" reruns, Univision at 1.7 for "Barrera de Amor," UPN at 0.8 for repeats of "Girlfriends" and "Half & Half," and WB at 0.6 for a "One Tree Hill" rerun.

At 10 p.m., ABC's "20/20" led at 3.0, followed by CBS's "CSI: NY" rerun at 2.6, NBC's "Law & Order" repeat at 1.9 and Univision's "Don Francisco Presenta" at 1.2.

Among households, Fox led for the night with a 5.7 rating and 9 share, followed by CBS at 5.4/9, ABC at 4.8/8, NBC at 3.9/6, Univision at 2.2/4 and UPN and WB each at 1.2/2.

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7043.asp

RussTC3

08-31-06, 12:00 PM

I'm not sure what to make of "Justice". I thought the way the show ended (seems like that will be the style throughout the season) was very clever, but there were certain aspects that turned me off. Most specifically the high and mighty attitude of the characters.

Bones is a fun show, with good characters, so I'm a little concerned at the weak opening.

I'm not so sure the early premieres were a good idea for FOX. Their advertsing should have been much stronger since most viewers really don't look at the beginning of Fall TV season until September/October.

Are FOX and MyNetworkTV run by the same company (News Corp.)? Could it be that they've been too focused on launching their new network, cause I know I've seen lots of advertising and gossip about MyNet, but not much about the new FOX season.

keenan

08-31-06, 12:18 PM

I'm not sure what to make of "Justice". I thought the way the show ended (seems like that will be the style throughout the season) was very clever, but there were certain aspects that turned me off. Most specifically the high and mighty attitude of the characters.

"Justice" is definitely going to need some fine-tuning, it's too cold and appears to be emulating an updated "LA Law". Garber's character is a bit much and the "good guy" lawyer is just too saccharine to be believable. It's nice to Eamon Walker in something though..and from a purely male perspective, the female character isn't all that much to look at. I liked ABC's "In Justice" much better, it was more organic and warm, we'll have to see how this one develops.

I love "Bones", I just hope the character shakeup doesn't unbalance the great interaction between the team we had last year.

fredfa

08-31-06, 12:57 PM

TV Sports
New setup might take some time to get used to
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News August 31, 2006

It's been a very busy off-season for the National . . . Football . . . League on TV. Some thoughts as the real deal begins:

• What was ESPN thinking . . . when it agreed to pay $1.1 billion annually for the rights to ``Monday Night Football''? The cable channel gets no Super Bowls and no flexibility in scheduling, which all but insures some real stinkers toward the end of the season. And then the top guns on ``MNF'' bolt for NBC's ``Sunday Night Football.'' Well, at least, they got to keep Hank Williams Jr.'s ``MNF'' theme song. I guess that counts for something.

• Aren't fans really going to miss . . . the old ``NFL Primetime'' on ESPN? The Sunday-night highlights show with Chris Berman and Tom Jackson goes missing this season after nearly two decades on the air because of NBC's new contract with the NFL. Sure, Berman could be a bit much, but the show was a classy way to catch up with the day's games.

• Didn't NBC pull off the trade of the year . . . when it swapped the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney's first cartoon character, to ESPN-ABC for play-by-play guy Al Michaels? Michaels was going to stay with ``MNF,'' then had buyer's remorse when partner John Madden and much of ``MNF'' crew jumped to NBC. The Michaels pickup confirmed that ``Sunday Night Football'' is the real heir to the ``MNF'' legacy as the week's premiere TV game.

• I suppose it could work . . . but the NFL Network has a long way to go before it is more than a blip on cable TV's radar screen -- even with a slate of regular-season Thursday games later in the season. On most cable systems, including Comcast, the channel is buried so deep on the digital side that few people will get it.

• And two reasons I'll be watching ``MNF'' on ESPN only if I'm tied to a chair in front of the tube . . . Joe Theismann, Mr. Motormouth who says little with many words, and Tony Kornheiser, who has been waaaay out of his element as the third guy in the booth. In addition, Kornheiser -- who criticizes people for a living as a columnist for the Washington Post and on ESPN's ``Pardon The Interruption'' -- didn't win any points when he went all attack-dog on a Post critic who dared to criticize his performance on a pre-season game. Touchy, Tony, touchy.

And with that . . . let's get ready for some football.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/columnists/charlie_mccollum/15405226.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

08-31-06, 01:03 PM

TV Notebook
Katie Couric: Sneak Preview Thursday Night
By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist Thu, Aug. 31, 2006

In with the new, out with the old.

She doesn't start officially until Tuesday, but new CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric will pop up tonight on Bob Schieffer's last broadcast as "interim" anchor.

Couric will appear in the last segment on the as-yet unseen spiffy new newsroom and will do a tribute piece on Schieffer.

Will Schieffer pass a baton to his successor? "I don't have a baton," he says, "but I'm sure we'll exchange pleasantries."

• • • • • • • • • • •

ABC's Cynthia McFadden does a great Katharine Hepburn impression.

"I try not to do it, but sometimes it's irresistible... ," McFadden says, sounding a lot like the great lady herself. "She thought it was just horrible when I would slip into it."

Hepburn's friend and surrogate daughter for more than 30 years, McFadden will serve as mistress of ceremonies Sept. 9 at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts gala for the new Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center at Bryn Mawr College. (Whew.)

McFadden, 50, coanchor of Nightline and Primetime and ABC's senior legal correspondent, met the legendary actress on the beach in Fenwick, Conn., while visiting her Bowdoin College freshman roommate. Hepburn lived one house away, by the water.

At the time, McFadden was about 19, Hepburn in her late 60s. McFadden was rigging a sailboat with her roomie's brother when the actress came upon them.

"We started a conversation that went on for the next 30 years," McFadden says. "Why she fascinated me was easy to understand. What she possibly saw in this kid on the beach was a mystery to me."

McFadden's theory is that Hepburn, who was childless, "was at a point in her life where she wanted to tell somebody the way she thought a good life should be lived. I was in the right place at the right time."

Over the years, the two women bonded. Hepburn took McFadden on trips to California and Florida, among other places. McFadden brought Hepburn home to Auburn, Maine, for Christmas.

McFadden was married at Hepburn's Connecticut summer home. (Hepburn helped with the tab.) She named her own son Spencer, after Hepburn's longtime paramour, Spencer Tracy.

McFadden was in the room when Hepburn died in June '03 at 96. Three years earlier, Hepburn had named McFadden, a lawyer, executor of her estate.

"I always joke that I thought she liked me. Now I'm not so sure," McFadden says. "Being executor is a lot of work."

Given Hepburn's vast collection of paintings, furniture, theater and movie memorabilia and personal correspondence, the settlement "is a work in progress," McFadden says. "It won't be over for years."

For McFadden, traveling in "Aunt Kat's" charmed inner circle "was like a junior Olympics for life."

The notoriously prickly thespian "was tough, a real taskmaster. She was very critical, but very supportive. Something about that appealed to me. She was a wonderful inspiration."

Hepburn "was without fear. She was a woman who had a sense of what was right and wrong, and tried to live by that code. She didn't put her finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing."

An extremely private person, Hepburn "always talked about 'putting on the creature,' the public version of herself," McFadden remembers.

"All that fierce independence was real."

When Cate Blanchett was up for an Oscar for her portrayal of Hepburn in 2004's The Aviator, McFadden gave her the pair of gloves Hepburn had given her at her wedding.

Blanchett put the gloves in her purse for good luck at the ceremonies. She won.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/15401727.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Marcus Carr

08-31-06, 03:16 PM

NBC To Flip Two Fall Comedies

By Ben Grossman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/31/2006 3:49:00 PM

NBC is flipping time periods for its two new fall comedies, with Tina Fey comedy 30 Rock now scheduled to air at 8 p.m. on Wednesdays, followed by the John Lithgow-Jeffrey Tambor sitcom, Twenty Good Years.

Both shows are scheduled to debut on Wednesday, October 11.

"We ultimately felt that this change creates better audience flow throughout the night, with Twenty Good Years a more compatible lead-in to The Biggest Loser at 9 p.m.,” NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said in a press release announcing the move.

But the move may be a reflection of the strong buzz surrounding 30 Rock and the tepid reception for Twenty Good Years.If Twenty Good Years gets off to a rough start, serving as a lead-in could have hurt 30 Rock, thought by many to be one of NBC’s prominent assets in a strong new fall lineup.

30 Rock features Fey as the head of a late-night variety show and also stars Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan.

Twenty Good Years features Lithgow and Tambor as a pair of older men who want to get the most out of the later years of their lives

http://broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6367836.html

fredfa

08-31-06, 03:27 PM

TV Notebook
FSN Set to Start National HD Telecasts
15 Football Games on Tap as Sports Net Bolsters Offerings
TV Week’s HDFTV Newsletter

Beginning this month, Fox Sports Net will offer college football games in high definition nationwide.

FSN has televised national feeds of select games for years. But until this month, FSN ran games in hi-def only locally, a practice that is a couple years old. The channel had 475 HD local telecasts last year containing more than 1,425 hours.

Of the 23 national telecasts of Big 12 and Pac-10 college football conference games this season, 15 of them will be in HD on the Fox-owned regional sports networks.

This new initiative marks the first time FSN has offered national HD telecasts as part of its programming.

"Certainly, as the public starts to taste HD there's a clamoring for it and from the cable and [satellite] companies looking to offer more HD, and we're sitting there with the HD at the events," said Doug Sellars, senior VP of production for FSN. "We just need to get it out there."

FSN HD is carried nationally by DirecTV and a handful of regional operators. The first HD national telecast will be Sept. 2, the Pac-10 matchup Utah at UCLA.

Like all networks, FSN's HD production growth has been gradual due to the additional cost of production. Though Mr. Sellars declined to say how much extra it costs to show a game in hi-def, he noted that FSN's HD cameras cost $85,000 more than their standard-definition counterparts.

"Everybody thinks you just throw this HD signal up there," he said. "Any sports broadcast would love to put it all in HD. But I've learned enough about what it takes [to produce in HD] that it's more than a little mind-numbing."

http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=275

RemyM

08-31-06, 03:40 PM

[/B] Didn't NBC pull off the trade of the year . . . when it swapped the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney's first cartoon character, to ESPN-ABC for play-by-play guy Al Michaels? Michaels was going to stay with ``MNF,'' then had buyer's remorse when partner John Madden and much of ``MNF'' crew jumped to NBC. The Michaels pickup confirmed that ``Sunday Night Football'' is the real heir to the ``MNF'' legacy as the week's premiere TV game.

ESPN got more then Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in that deal. They also got the TV rights to the first day of the Ryder Cup starting in 2008. This year it's on NBC owned USA/UHD.

Inundated

08-31-06, 03:52 PM

Promotion? Don't bet on it. After talking to a friend of mine at the local "to be" CW affiliate, according to him, the network doesn't have the money to spend on a launch promo blitz.

They probably do, just not in low-top-50 markets. They seem to be concentrating their promotion efforts on the top 10 markets...

fredfa

08-31-06, 04:26 PM

That is the plan, Inundated.

Retail promotion, which seems to be a lot of what the CW is doing, gets far less expensive when it is done in large markets.

And sinced about 30% of the nation lives in the top 10 DMAs (and the vast majority if influential press is there, too) the CW is concentrating its promotion budgets in those markets.

Oh yeah -- Warner Brothers and/or CBS has O&Os carrying the CW is those markets, too. For O&Os, I am sure the promotion budget stretches farther than just the top- 10 markets. The independents are probably more or less on thjeir own.

bphisig

08-31-06, 04:53 PM

Fred

Is there any chance of INHD or HDNET picking up some of those Fox Sports HD games? I don't have DirecTV, so that's my only hope.

fredfa

08-31-06, 05:00 PM

TV Notebook
Original Trek Gets Digital Facelift

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 8/31/2006

Risking the potential wrath of Star Trek purists, Paramount is giving the U.S.S. Enterprise, some planets, and even the iconic matte paintings, a makeover in their latest syndication outing.

To mark the series' 40th anniversary--it launched September 1966 on NBC--Paramount Domestic Television is re-releasing it in broadcast syndication for weekend runs on over 200 stations, but it is giving the remastered classic series a digital facelift, including conversion to an HD format, in hopes of snagging the next generation of viewers.

The theme has been rerecorded with a 29-piece orchestra, says spokesman David Sperber, and the plate backdrops have been enhanced for more realism, as have been the planets the ship sails by on its five-year mission. ""Go to a different planet, and all the backdrops have been redone he says, taken from the original art to look "look more realistic."

The series will launched with new and improved versions of Balance of Terror and Miri (the weekend of Sept. 16). Others scheduled for early play include The Devil in the Dark, The Naked Time, and Menagerie I and II.

Among the digital retouches--no the ship is not losing 20 pounds a la Katie Couric--that Paramount is advertising include:

• Space ship exteriors will be replaced by CGI-created ships based on the original model, now rests in the Smithsonian.

• The Enterprise and planets seen in the main title sequence will be given "depth and dimension," and WIlliam Shatner's iconic split-infinitive opening will be digitally remastered as well.

• Space, the final frontier, as seen whooshing by or in panoramic stillness from windows and the bridge will be redone.

• Battle scenes, planets and ships, including the beak-nosed, bird-like Romulan ship and Klingon battle cruisers, will be updated.

• Some of the matte paintings of backddrops for new life and new civilizations get new CGI-created "atmosphere" and lighting.

In a release announcing the updates, Paramount Domestic TV President John Nogawski said: ""By giving the series a digital upgrade using the best technology available today, it will continue to be a leader in cutting-edge television programming as we introduce the series to a new generation of viewers."

A Paramount spokesman had not returned a call at press time about whether they anticipated any push-back from Trek fans protective of the series' sometimes campy special effects.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6367797

Marcus Carr

08-31-06, 05:00 PM

Anger over Language at Emmys

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/31/2006 4:22:00 PM

The Parents Television Council Thursday filed a complaint with the FCC over NBC's Emmy broadcast.

In that broadcast, Actress Helen Mirren used a descriptive Britishism for taking a tumble. Calista Flockhart, who came on after Mirren, echoed the phrase in banter with her co-presenter.

NBC delays live awards shows, but chose not to bleep the language.

"During the 9:30 pm CT/MT hour on August 27, 2006, the phrase “t*ts over a*s” was spoken by both Ms. Mirren and Ms. Flockhart and both times aired unedited during the NBC Network broadcast of the Emmys" said PTC. “It is utterly irresponsible and atrocious for NBC to air this vulgar language during the safe harbor time when millions of children were in the viewing audience," said PTC President Brent Bozell.

Elsewhere on the busy indecency front, according to Dow Jones Newswire, the FCC has also received a complaint over President Bush's errant s-word during an "open mike" moment at the G8 summit in July.

The FCC is currently trying to take another look at the profanity rulings in March that, among other things, held the s-word indecent.

http://broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6367890.html?display=Breaking+News

Inundated

08-31-06, 05:02 PM

That is the plan, Inundated.

Retail promotion, which seems to be a lot of what the CW is doing, gets far less expensive when it is done in large markets.

That's what I noticed, that their invasion of various shopping malls featured visits from CW show stars...but only in the very largest of markets.

We're still hanging in there in the top 20 (DMA 17), and we got nothing other than the displays.

The good news for The CW here is that local affiliate WBNX/55 is very aggressive about promotions in this area. They'll probably spend on it more than some slightly larger markets.

Meanwhile, My affiliate owner Raycom (WUAB/43) is not nearly as aggressive, and treats 43 as a stepchild to CBS affiliate WOIO/19...

fredfa

08-31-06, 05:03 PM

Fred

Is there any chance of INHD or HDNET picking up some of those Fox Sports HD games? I don't have DirecTV, so that's my only hope.

I would doubt it, bphisig.

If your local system offers your (Fox) RSN in HD, you should get it.

I'd think that given the lengths Comcast, TWC and Cox have gone to keep satellite from getting InHD, NewsCorp wouldn't bend over backward to make the games available.

On the other hand, money talks, and perhaps FSN would like the added distribution.

I suspect we are still a year away from massive amounts of sports programming available locally and regionally opn all (or most) platforms.

It will be the rare game NOT available in HD next season, I believe.

Inundated

08-31-06, 05:05 PM

I would doubt it, bphisig.

If your local system offers your (Fox) RSN in HD, you should get it.

We get FSN Ohio's HD games of the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers via a local "occasional" HD sports channel, the same channel which carries SportsTime Ohio's Cleveland Indians games in HD.

I wonder if they'll light this up at all for FSN's HD CFB coverage? The channel is not dedicated to FSN Ohio, and only goes up when there is HD content from the local teams.

fredfa

08-31-06, 05:08 PM

TV Notebook
Murdoch Seeks EchoStar Injunction
By Ted Hearn Multichannel News 8/31/2006

Washington – Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Broadcasting on Thursday asked a federal judge in Florida to block EchoStar from offering ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox programming to hundreds of thousands of viewers around the country.

If Fox’s legal move pays off, EchoStar subscribers that lose access might decide to turn to DirecTV for their network programming. Murdoch’s News Corp. owns a controlling stake in DirecTV.

At issue is the delivery of “distant network” programming. Satellite carriers are allowed to beam the Big Four signals from New York and sell them to customers around the country, but those consumers are ineligible if they can pick up their local affiliates with an antenna.

A federal appeals court found that EchoStar sold the programming to hundreds of thousands of ineligible subscribers, ordering a lower court to issue an injunction that would ban EchoStar from providing distant network signals to anyone, even legally eligible customers.

On Monday, EchoStar announced a settlement with the independent affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, hoping to moot issuance of the injunction. But Fox Network and Fox local stations, both controlled by News Corp., refused to go along with the effort to bring the eight-year-old case to a close.

Fox’s filing Thursday sets up a key ruling by U.S. Judge William Dimitrouleas, who sits in Ft. Lauderdale. In the view of some, the judge can issue an injunction with regard only to Fox programming, allowing consumers to continue to receive ABC, CBS, and NBC programming from EchoStar.

In its motion, Fox claimed that Dimitrouleas had only one legal option: the “issuance of a nationwide permanent injunction ...” that would stop EchoStar from providing distant network service involving any of the Big Four networks. Fox’s filing said the settlement can’t trump Dimitrouleas’s obligation to issue the blanket injunction as required by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

The case is not about EchoStar’s ability to provide local TV stations within their home markets. As part of the settlement, EchoStar agreed to expand local service from 165 market to 175 by Dec. 31 and pay $100 million to the stations.

EchoStar, which has 12 million subscribers, said that less than a million purchase distant network signals. Subscribers that lose distant network service in many case could rely on EchoStar’s local signal package. By offering local signals in 175 markets, 95% of U.S. households can view their local TV stations via EchoStar’s satellites.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6367824

fredfa

08-31-06, 05:25 PM

TV Notebook
Ready for a 103-inch Plasma?

Reuters is reporting from Berlin that Panasonic has now readied its biggest plasma for sale.

A spokesman says the price, however doesn’t include installation.

But that shouldn’t matter much to anyone who can come up with the $80,000 sales price.

I doubt it will appear on any internet sale sites – at least for a few months.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2006-08-31T162530Z_01_L31125004_RTRUKOC_0_US-PANASONIC-PLASMA.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

fredfa

08-31-06, 05:26 PM

We get FSN Ohio's HD games of the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers via a local "occasional" HD sports channel, the same channel which carries SportsTime Ohio's Cleveland Indians games in HD.

I wonder if they'll light this up at all for FSN's HD CFB coverage? The channel is not dedicated to FSN Ohio, and only goes up when there is HD content from the local teams.

Give your local system a call and let us know!

fredfa

08-31-06, 05:35 PM

TV Notebook
Katie Couric’s first CBS appearance

Katie Couric has just appeared for the first time on The CBS Evening News with Bob Schieffer. (Its name changes Tuesday when Katie takes over.)

In a promo at the top of tonight’s CBS Evening News, Couric said: “And it’s Bob’s last night in the anchor chair. For my first story at CBS, I’ll take a look back at his remarkable career.”

That story should appear in about 18 minutes or so.

And now, should anyone ever ask, you know what Katie said in her very first appearance on the CBS Evening News.

archiguy

08-31-06, 07:22 PM

fredfa

08-31-06, 08:07 PM

I think the over/under would be Thanksgiving.

fredfa

09-01-06, 12:01 AM

TV Notebook
Kyra Phillips' glitch list
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” August 31, 2006

Kyra Phillips, the CNN anchor who had a microphone malfunction during President Bush's speech on Tuesday, will read this Top 10 list of excuses for the glitch on "The Late Show With David Letterman" on Thursday (the list came via a press release from CBS after taping of the Letterman show ended on Thursday evening):

10. Still haven't mastered complicated on/off switch.
9. Larry King told me he does this all the time.
8. How was I supposed to know we had a reporter embedded in the bathroom.
7. I honestly never knew this sort of thing was frowned upon.
6. I couldn't resist a chance to win $10,000 on "America's Funniest Home Videos."
5. I was set up by those [expletive] at Fox News.
4. Like you've never gone to the bathroom and had it broadcast on national television.
3. I just wanted that hunky Lou Dobbs to notice me.
2. Okay, so I was drunk and I couldn't think straight.
1. You have to admit, it made the speech a lot more interesting.

Good list, but personally, I thought one of the excuses would be "wanted to make family gatherings a whole lot more interesting."

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

Ou8thisSN

09-01-06, 12:06 AM

oh god!! i was watching the late show tonight too, and i turned it right off during the top ten list!! when was this supposed to air? tonight? my stupid comcast guide told me it was a repeat! i hope someone posts this on youtube

nevermind, just saw it on cbs.com

she's cute.

fredfa

09-01-06, 12:11 AM

TV Notebook
The new TV series, night by night
By Robert Bianco USA Today

Fall's new shows have everything from murderous gangsters to grumpy old men. Find out what to watch and what to skip.

Monday

Heroes NBC, 9 p.m., Sept. 25
If you have an affection for comicbooks that take themselves incrediblyseriously and a high tolerancefor the pretentious/portentousschool of sci-fi, you?re just the audiencefor Heroes, NBC?s attempt tolaunch a deeper version of Surface.If, however, you like a little fun withyour superheroes, look elsewhere.
This time the gathering crowd isdrawn together by newly discovered,vaguely defined super powers.The purposely dense pilot hasits intriguing moments, but I fearsome of the confusion surroundingthe characters is unintentional.Worse, I doubt whether the cast orproducers are capable of carryingoff this very complicated premise.

Runaway CW, 9 p.m., Sept. 25
The question is, which way willRunaway run? The reasonablywell-done pilot is built around afamily of fugitives, led by DonnieWahlberg as a man unjustly accusedof murder and Leslie Hope ashis loyal wife. If the show balancesits focus between the adults andtheir three kids, all may be fine. Butif the focus shifts to the teenagersand their new-school angst, I?ll berunning in the other direction.

Vanished Fox, 9 p.m.
Oh, my. Only two weeks in, andthis serialized drama about theFBI?s efforts to crack the all-powerfulconspiracy that?s behind the disappearanceof a senator?s wife is alreadygoing off the rails. Maybe thatPrison Break lead-in is contagious.

Tuesday

Standoff Fox, 9 p.m., Sept. 5
Ron Livingston, Rosemarie DeWitt, Michael Cudlitz and Gina Torres star in this well-cast but not particularly well-written drama about hostage negotiators who are partners on and off the job.
The goal, it seems, is to recapture the mystery/comedy magic of Moonlighting, and Livingston and DeWitt have the charm and chemistry to carry that off. But the pilot's crisis — a young boy who claims to be a suicide bomber — is far too serious and timely to support lighthearted romantic banter.
Still, the cast is strong and Livingston in particular has long deserved his own vehicle. But for this show to prosper, the writers are going to have to give him and his co-stars considerably more support.

Smith CBS, 10 p.m., Sept. 19
There are more inept shows this season (led by anything on MyNetworkTV), but if you're looking for fall's most off-putting and misguided new series, look no further than Smith. Then look away.
Ray Liotta stars in this overly ambitious series as the leader of a gang of murderous thieves who, for openers, kill a guard while robbing an art museum. Odds are you're asking yourself why you should care about people like that — a question Smith is unable to answer.
True, we are fascinated by similarly awful people in The Sopranos, but that classic achieves a level of writing and acting Smith doesn't even begin to approach. In the end, the real problem here isn't that Smith's crooks are unlikable, it's that they're uninteresting. There's no greater TV crime than that.

Wednesday

Jericho CBS, 8 p.m., Sept. 20
This CBS take on Lost has one of the year's best concepts: The residents of a small Kansas town are cut off from the outside world by an apparent nuclear holocaust. But somewhere between conception and execution, CBS lost track of the main Lost lesson: It's not the island that matters, it's the people stranded there.
Unfortunately, too many of the folks on this bomb-enforced island are less than compelling, led by the show's central family dynamic: Skeet Ulrich as the returning prodigal son of the town's mayor (Gerald McRaney). One episode in, and you want to know less about these characters rather than more.
Yet there is that fascinating premise — and that great, heavily promoted shot of a kid on a roof watching a mushroom cloud form in the distance. Any show that can capture your attention that quickly and that cleverly is not a show to write off, at least not yet.

Twenty Good Years NBC, 8:30 p.m., Oct. 11
In the mood for a big, broad comedy along the lines of 3rd Rock from the Sun? Then Twenty Good Years could be the show for you. Just don't go looking for subtlety.
John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor are the stars, playing mismatched middle-aged friends determined to get the most of their remaining years. Apparently, Lithgow is also determined to convince us he has been holding out on us: His performance here makes his over-the-top turn on 3rd Rock seem restrained.
These are, to be sure, two terribly talented men — and there should be a place on TV for unrestrained, uninhibited goofiness. Whether that place can comfortably contain the image of Lithgow in a Speedo is a question viewers will have to answer for themselves.

Day Break ABC, 9 p.m., Nov. 15
What will you do come November when Lost goes on its three-month hiatus? ABC hopes you'll spend the break with Day Break.
This 13-week crime-show twist on Groundhog Day stars Taye Diggs as a detective who keeps living the same day over and over. To make matters worse, it's a particularly bad day: He's accused of murder.
The question is whether that Groundhog idea can support a series. If it can't, it's likely to be a very bad day for ABC.

Kidnapped NBC, 10 p.m., Sept. 20
Take Vanished, simplify the premise, strengthen the cast, and you get Kidnapped. And while you also get a less interesting pilot than Vanished produced, you may ultimately get a better series.
Jeremy Sisto stars as a private investigator searching for the kidnapped son of a wealthy couple, played by Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany. The cast also includes Delroy Lindo as an FBI agent and Mykelti Williamson as the boy's bodyguard.
Despite its fine actors and lightning pace, the pilot won't quite convince you that you want to devote 22 hours to discovering who kidnapped this kid (a problem shared with many of the year's new serials). Still, it should persuade you to come back for two or three hours, and that's a start.

Thursday

'Til Death Fox, 8 p.m., Sept. 7
For all its progress in drama and animation, when it comes to sitcoms, Fox just can't move past Married ... with Children.
This latest return to the structure and tone of Married also marks the TV return of Raymond's Brad Garrett. For his first starring role, he's half of a miserably married couple (with Joely Fisher the other half) who live next door to newlyweds. Like Married, Death is supposed to present a comic contrast between a cynical older couple and a blissful younger one. But it's hard to believe the older couple was ever happy, and the younger couple never registers as anything but dull. The combination is nothing but deadly.

Happy Hour Fox, 8:30 p.m., Sept. 7
Miserable couple? Smutty tone? Must be another Fox comedy.
The focus here is on young Henry (John Sloan), who moves in with a happy-hour-crazed stranger (Lex Medlin) when the guy's roommate gets engaged to a shrew. Henry needs a new job, which he gets from randy Amanda — played by Beth Lacke, who is miles and away the best thing about the show.
Most of the jokes are forced, and none of the characters is believable. I wouldn't say I'd be happy if the show only lasted an hour, but I wouldn't be surprised, either.

Six Degrees ABC, 10 p.m., Sept. 21
Someone needs to teach the folks at Six Degrees the difference between strange fate and unlikely coincidence, and fast.
Produced (but not written or created) by J.J. Abrams, this convoluted serial comes across as a kind of "what if" party game: What if everyone you met knew someone else you knew, and you all ended up in each other's lives? It would sure be unusual. The question is whether it would be entertaining.
Silly instead of insightful, Six Degrees is a true head-scratcher of a series. I have almost unlimited faith in Abrams' ability to fix a troubled show — but if he's planning to do so, he'd better do it quickly.

Friday

Men in Trees ABC, Friday, 9 p.m., Sept. 12
Is better than expected good enough?
Expectations are not exactly redwood-high for Men in Trees. The promos are awful, and after a Tuesday preview, the show's being dumped onto Friday. Plus, star Anne Heche comes with a considerable amount of bad PR baggage.
Here's the unexpected part: While it may not be the year's strongest show out of the box, Trees does have its own laid-back Northern Exposure-type appeal. And while Heche isn't an initially comfortable fit as a relationship coach who flees north to Alaska when her own relationship goes south, she and Trees get better the more she interacts with the Alaskan townsfolk. Now if they can just soften her a bit, Trees could be a true sleeper surprise. Wouldn't that be good.

Sunday

The Game CW, 8:30 p.m., Oct. 1
This football-wives-themed Girlfriends spinoff stars Tia Mowry as the girlfriend of a rookie. Two main roles have been recast and no new pilot was available, but the spinoff episode was better than the old UPN norm.

Brothers & Sisters ABC, 10 p.m., Sept. 24
Every year, some new series gets labeled as "troubled." This year the title goes to Brothers & Sisters. Producers were fired, cast members were dumped, and a preview tape was long delayed.
But now it's here, and while the pilot is over-packed and a bit overheated, Sisters still has the makings of a fine family drama, something TV really needs. It's certainly attracted an amazing array of talents including Sally Field, Calista Flockhart, Ron Rifkin, Rachel Griffiths, Patricia Wettig, Balthazar Getty and, behind the scenes, Ken Olin. Every show should have trouble like that.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-08-31-fall-shows-nightly_x.htm

fredfa

09-01-06, 12:21 AM

TV Weekend
Life in the Suburbs, Where the Grass Is a Little Greener
By Alessandra Stanley The New York Times September 1, 2006

When “Weeds” began on Showtime it was a “Queer as Folk” for the illegal drug trade, a dark comedy that depicted suburban marijuana use as boldly and matter-of-factly as the previous series did the sexual practices of gay men.

Crime is never as illicit as sex on American television, so there was not nearly as much outrage over the mischievous portrait of a suburban soccer mom who deals pot to make ends meet. But it was nevertheless a remarkable feat: no other series, not even on HBO, has been quite so nonchalant about the discreet charm of the pot-smoking bourgeoisie.

“Weeds” turned out to be an irreverent and absorbing nighttime soap opera, a “Desperate Housewives” for smart people.

It still is. Yet the second season is trying harder for what Showtime’s advertising campaign coyly calls “buzz.” When it began, “Weeds” was careful not to laugh out loud at its own jokes; three episodes into the second season, the series is straining for shock value and guffaws. The two female leads, played with delicious subtlety by Mary-Louise Parker and Elizabeth Perkins, are in danger of becoming caricatures, while some of the supporting characters are being pushed into the realm of Cheech and Chong.

Sentiment and satire are hard to mix, which is why similar shows like “Nip/Tuck” or even “Desperate Housewives” wilt or labor in their second and third seasons. Drama is much easier. A procedural crime show like “Law & Order” is like paddle tennis — as long as the ball is hit in a steady, predictable pattern, the rally can last indefinitely. Series that blend farce and drama (television executives call them “dramedies”) are harder to pull off. They are like those old-fashioned puzzles where the player has to tilt the tiny steel balls just right to make them slip into all the holes at once.

The appeal of Nancy (Ms. Parker), who turns to dealing to maintain her family’s affluent lifestyle in a sterile suburban development called Agrestic, is that she has to balance illegal activities with an Erma Bombeck existence: PTA meetings, housekeepers and nosy neighbors. Her motive for turning to crime to stay in a soulless community where neither she nor her children were happy was always hazy, but that was blunted by the charm of Ms. Parker’s performance. As Nancy sinks deeper and deeper into the drug business, she becomes harder to follow. The pathology of a mother who would put her children at so much risk overshadows her spacey, low-key charisma.

Nancy’s brittle best friend, Celia, is to “Weeds” what Ari Gold is to “Entourage,” an outré secondary character who steals every scene. Ms. Perkins layered Celia’s tartness and self-absorption with a knowing sadness, and it made her irresistible. This season, she is reduced to deadpan cracks about her daughter’s weight and her husband’s weakness; the lines are funny but increasingly predictable. Her daughter refuses to put on a pretty dress for a campaign poster, saying, “Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter who is gay.” Celia retorts, “Yeah, and she’s not in any of the pictures, either.” She adds, overworking the joke, “And I didn’t shoot anyone in the face, so stop making comparisons.”

The series’ sendup of suburbia is quietly caustic: the housewives attend stripper fitness class, Celia’s daughter is recruited to model for a children’s clothing line called “Huskaroos,” and a western theme restaurant sends customers home with tinfoil doggy bags in the shape of a cactus.

Nancy’s hapless business partners form an amusing ensemble, led by Kevin Nealon as Doug, the pothead C.P.A. and City Council member. Nancy’s brother-in-law, Andy (Justin Kirk), a charming ne’er-do-well and parasite, is desperate to get into rabbinical school to avoid Army Reserve duty in Iraq. Struggling to compose an essay on what Judaism means to him, Andy complains, “So far I’ve written that being a Jew means I have no foreskin and I may be a Tay-Sachs carrier.”

Some jokes are tapped too many times, particularly the awkward tension between white suburbia and the urban black community. “Weeds” didn’t shrink from casting the series’ only African-American characters as drug dealers, and it moved quickly and confidently beyond stereotypes, particularly in the case of Conrad (Romany Malco), Nancy’s partner in crime and the nephew of the sharp-tongued black matriarch, Heylia (Tonye Patano). But one of the recurring themes — the contempt Heylia holds for middle-class meekness — has been spread to too many other characters.

Heylia acquires a suitor who is a strict follower of the Nation of Islam and who nonetheless reins in his militancy in front of his white customers at the airport lost-luggage desk. Conrad seeks a bank loan from a friend from the old neighborhood who also turns mealy-mouthed around his white co-workers. Even Nancy’s brief tussle with a black employee at the power company has a similar dynamic to her relationship with Heylia; the clerk is harsh and dismissive until Nancy stops apologizing and sasses her right back.

“Weeds” is still an outstanding show, but it would be better if it didn’t push so hard to stand out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/arts/television/01weed.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=television&pagewanted=print

fredfa

09-01-06, 12:27 AM

Critic’s Notebook
'Strokes' movie stokes old battles
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor in his blog “Tuned In”

What can you say about a TV movie about a TV show that begins with Gary Coleman sporting smart guy glasses, morphs into a tell-all with actors playing Coleman and the rest of the "Diff'rent Strokes" cast and then ends with the real Coleman and co-star Todd Bridges standing over co-star Dana Plato's grave? It's pretty much as cheestastic as that description would lead one to believe; NBC's decision to schedule the long-in-the-can TV movie for Labor Day night shows the network's embarrassment about it, too.

Focusing primarily on Coleman (played by several actors, including Bobb'e J. Thompson), this latest "Behind the Camera" film (8 p.m. Monday) shows the ups (and mostly downs) of the cast of "Diff'rent Strokes," the sitcom that made Coleman and his catchphrase ("Watchu talking 'bout, Willis?") stars.

It depicts Coleman's struggles with his parents over money (they're less evil and more negligent than one might expect), Bridges' run-ins with the cops that began as racial harassment and escalated to weapons and attempted murder charges and Plato's absentee mother who's depicted as the root cause of Plato's own criminal behavior.

Behind the scenes at NBC, Fred Silverman (Saul Rubinek) runs the show with assistance from two lieutenants, one an idiot, the other a brilliant saint, the much-liked, late Brandon Tartikioff (Adam Reid).

Best line of the movie is from a clerk: "I work at the Lakes Video store, we were just robbed by the girl from 'Diff'rent Strokes! She was a member at the store."

"Behind the Camera" offers few revelations, though I'm not sure I ever knew Bridges and Plato once had a sexual relationship. It's Marcia and Greg Brady all over again. Also, Wayne Newton bailed Plato out of jail after her video store robbery.

Throughout, the real Coleman and Bridges pop up to pontificate about their experiences and the effect the hit show had on their lives.

"I'm not dead," Coleman says. "It didn't ground me up, but, man, I am well-chewed."

http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/tunedin/

fredfa

09-01-06, 12:34 AM

"Goodnight Everyone. I'll See You Next Time From Washington"

(from Brian Stelter’s TVNewser at mediabistro.com)

Bob Schieffer's CBS Evening News goodbye:

"As I mentioned earlier, tonight brings to an end my year and a half here in New York. Next week, I will be back on my old beat in Washington. We are ending just the way i like, with a scoop, the first look at our new state-of-the-art newsroom. I can't give you a tour because it's not quite finished yet but here is someone who will be a permanent fixture, my friend, Katie Couric."

Couric introduced a video tribute of Schieffer. Then he concluded:

"Thank you very much. Most people don't get to hear things like that said about them until their funeral. I'm really glad I got to hear that one. And may I say a word to each of you out there. This was a totally unexpected adventure for me but I've loved every minute of it. Spending this last year and a half helping to shape and sometimes guide this great news organization has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. In March of last year, you invited me into your homes, but what made me feel good was is you were kind enough to invite me back. I will always remember that. Russ Mitchell will be here tomorrow and Monday, and then it will be the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. Goodnight everyone. I'll see you next time from Washington."

The final Schieffer CBS Evening News moments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtQgFoU9aPA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmediabistro%2Ecom%2Ftvnewser%2F

http://mediabistro.com/tvnewser/

keenan

09-01-06, 02:14 AM

For fans of HBO's "The Wire", and for the uninitiated who haven't see "The Wire" but would like to know what it's all about, HBO has been playing "The Wire:Connected" followed by "The Wire:The Game", two shows, about an hour in length total that really get you inside David Simon and Ed Burns' heads about the program. Highly recommended.

http://www.hbo.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleServlet?CHANNEL=All+Channels&ACTION_SEARCH=SEARCH&KEY=TITLE&VALUE=the+wire
HBO Schedule: Search Results: the wire

I'd also like to say it's nice to see HBO promoting the show and consequently the press it's been getting lately, things that should have happened since the first season, although I wonder if some of the press really "get it".

fredfa

09-01-06, 02:21 AM

I agree. "The Wire" seems to be on the bubble this year and it is good to see HBO muster whatever muscle it can to try to hype it.

fredfa

09-01-06, 02:29 AM

TV Sports
NCAA Pigskins 2006
TV Schedules Offer Something for Everyone

By Larry Stewart Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 1, 2006
Note: All times are Pacific

Here's a rundown of where to watch college games this season:

ABC

What's new this season is a weekly 5 p.m. series. It's being billed as "Saturday Night Football" because it is on in prime time in the East. The opening game features Notre Dame at Georgia Tech. The second game Sept. 9 will be No. 1-ranked Ohio State at defending national champion Texas.

Five USC games are part of the series: against Nebraska in a national telecast Sept. 16; at Arizona in a regional telecast Sept. 23; against Arizona State in a regional telecast Oct. 14; against California in a regional telecast Nov. 18 and against Notre Dame in a national telecast Nov. 25.

UCLA's game at California on Nov. 4 is a regional telecast.

The announcers for the series will be Brent Musburger, Bob Davie and Kirk Herbstreit. Lisa Salters will be the sideline reporter.

ABC will continue to televise Pacific 10, Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East games, generally on a regional basis, at 12:30 p.m. each Saturday. ABC also has the Capital One Bowl and the Rose Bowl.

ESPN Networks

Each Saturday, ESPN will have games generally at 9:45 a.m. and 4:45 p.m., although USC's opener at Arkansas on Saturday on ESPN is scheduled for 5:45 p.m.

ESPN2 will have Saturday games, usually at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

ESPN will have Thursday games at 4:30 p.m., beginning with Auburn at South Carolina on Sept. 28. ESPN and ESPN2 will also offer regular Friday night telecasts, plus games on selected Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays.

ESPNU, for the second season, will have four games each Saturday, generally at 9 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.

ESPN's pregame show, "College GameDay," has been expanded 30 minutes to two hours and will generally begin at 7 a.m.

ESPN will offer what it calls "Full Circle" coverage of the Florida State-Miami game Monday night at 5. There will be traditional coverage on ESPN and ESPN HD, with Mike Patrick and Todd Blackledge announcing. ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD will offer multi-camera, mosaic-style coverage. ESPNU and broadband ESPN360 will offer SkyCam angles and commentary and statistics. ESPN Deportes and ESPN International will have Spanish-language and worldwide coverage.

ESPN360 will have at least two streamlined games each Saturday, ESPN Classic will have a limited schedule that includes select Army home games and the Southwestern Conference championship game Dec. 16.

The ESPN GamePlan pay package offers out-of-market ABC regional telecasts. The cost, beginning today, is $129 for the season or $21.95 per weekend. There is also on online package that offers live streamlined telecasts of all ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN regional offerings. Information can be obtained on ESPN.com by searching "GamePlan."

Fox Cable

FSN, Fox's cable network, will offer Pac-10 and Big 12 games not televised by ABC or an ESPN network. The Big 12 games will generally begin at 9 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. and the Pacific 10 games at 12:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m. or 4 p.m.

FSN's first Big 12 telecast, Saturday at 9 a.m., will be North Texas at Texas. The Pac-10 opener, with Barry Tompkins and Petros Papadakis announcing, will be Utah at UCLA at 4 p.m.

FSN Prime Ticket will have at least two UCLA games — Sept. 9 against Rice and Nov. 18 at Arizona State. And the local network will have USC's homecoming game, Nov. 11 against Oregon.

Fox College Sports, a three-channel service available on some cable sports pay tiers, has 96 out-of-market games scheduled for this season.

CBS

The network will televise Southeastern Conference games, beginning with a doubleheader Sept. 16: Louisiana State at Auburn at 12:30 p.m. and Florida at Tennessee at 5 p.m. The announcers will be CBS veteran Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson, who moved over from ABC this year.

CBS will also carry the Army-Navy game and the SEC championship game Dec. 2, and two bowl games, the Sun and Gator.

TBS

The Turner Broadcasting network will televise 11 games over nine weeks involving teams from the Pac-10 and Big 12. Saturday, TBS has a doubleheader — Alabama Birmingham at Oklahoma at 4 p.m. with Ron Thulin and Charles Davis announcing, followed by Brigham Young at Arizona at 7:15 p.m., with Chip Caray and Tom Ramsey announcing.

CSTV

This 4-year-old college sports channel, now owned by Viacom, CBS' parent company, will offer more than 45 games involving Navy and teams from the Mountain West Conference, Conference USA and Division I-AA. CSTV televised the Texas El Paso-San Diego State game Thursday night. Upcoming telecasts include Colorado at Colorado State and Texas Tech at Texas El Paso on Sept. 9, Oklahoma State at Houston on Sept. 23, Rutgers at Navy on Oct. 14, and Notre Dame at Air Force on Nov. 11.

NBC

The Notre Dame network will televise seven home games this season, including Penn State on Sept. 9, Michigan on Sept. 16 and UCLA on Oct. 21. The announcers are Tom Hammond and Pat Haden.

OLN/Versus

OLN, which will change its name to Versus on Sept. 25, will televise eight Mountain West games, beginning with Texas Tech at Texas Christian Sept. 16 at 2:30 p.m. Announcers will be Gary Bender and Glenn Parker.

Fox Sports

The big Fox network that televises the NFL and World Series has picked up the Bowl Championship Series title games to be played in January 2007, 2008 and 2009. This season's championship game will be played Jan. 8 at Glendale, Ariz.

Through a four-year, $330-million deal with the BCS announced in November 2004, Fox got the three title games and the Orange, Fiesta and Sugar Bowls through January 2010. ABC still has the Rose Bowl game, and in 2010 it will televise that game and the BCS title game, to be played at the Rose Bowl a week later.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-sp-colfbtv1sep01,0,6839892,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

fredfa

09-01-06, 09:49 AM

TV Notebook
A riveting education on 'The Wire'
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” September 01, 2006

With a few exceptions, the work of young actors on television is tolerable, at best. Most ’tween shows from Disney Channel and The N are so gratingly performed that they should come with a warning for those who are allergic to overacting.

To call the performers on this season of “The Wire” an exception to that rule does not begin to do their subtle work justice. This year, the gripping HBO show, which returns with its fourth season Sept. 10, continues to follow several cops in the Baltimore Police Department.

But the don’t-miss drama also weaves in compelling stories about the politicians who run the city, the dealers who control the flow of narcotics and, last but not least, the boys who try to avoid the drug trade in a rough neighborhood with few other options.

Chicago actor Maestro Harrell, who just turned 15, plays Randy Wagstaff, one of four boys featured in the new season of “The Wire.” A born charmer with an entrepreneurial gift, each day Randy fills his backpack with candy and snacks to sell to his classmates and dreams of opening his own store some day.

“The more money he makes, the more he thinks he can get himself out of his position,” says Harrell, a Morgan Park Academy sophomore who spent most of the last school year filming on location in Baltimore. “He does it so he doesn’t have to be in the streets, so he can have a better life.”

As a former resident of group homes for kids in the child-welfare system, Randy is determined to stay in a better place, with his strict-but-stable foster mother. “He hated the group homes; it was a terrible experience,” Harrell notes. “His whole existence is devoted to not going back.”

One link between the schoolboys and the Baltimore police is Roland “Prez” Pryzbylewski (played by Steppenwolf ensemble member Jim True-Frost), who quit the force to teach 8th grade, an experience that is modeled on that of “Wire” writer/producer Ed Burns, a police detective turned teacher.

“The only thing I can say about it is, when you step into that classroom after being 20 years in the street, you think you are pretty tough; and you find out real quickly that you are not. It’s a very stunning change of who you are. And it tests things that nothing else in my life tested,” Burns said at a July press event for “The Wire.” “But it’s also the greatest thing in the world to teach.”

For Harrell and his parents, who joined him at a recent lunch at a Michigan Avenue restaurant, the strong language in the “Wire” scripts wasn’t an issue, because the writing was of such high quality (and besides, as Harrell notes, Randy never curses).

“The way it’s written, it’s not really a cop show,” notes Harrell, who played Young Simba in the Chicago production of “The Lion King” and who’s working on an R&B album for Virgin Records. “Most [cop] shows are like, ‘He’s the murderer, we’re the good guys, we’re going to bring him down.”

Everything is more complex on “The Wire,” and, having seen the entire fourth season, I can say that the education of Randy and his friends will be one most resonant, emotionally involving television stories of the year.

“It’s not about education as you’re thinking about education,” Burns says in an interview on the HBO Web site. “Everybody is going to get educated. It’s just a question of where. Some people get educated in the classroom, some people get educated in a boxing gym, some people get educated on a corner.”

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

fredfa

09-01-06, 09:54 AM

TV Notebook
Schwarzenegger Gets Franchise Bill
By Linda Haugsted MultichannelNews 9/1/2006

The California legislature approved a bill enabling state franchising of video providers, sending the measure to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is a supporter of competition and wider broadband deployment.

The bill assigns authority over cable franchising to the state’s Public Utilities Commission. That agency will be able to charge a fee to cover the cost of regulation. New market entrants such as Verizon and AT&T will have to notify local governments 10 days before they launch service. When they make that notification, the incumbent operator may apply to operate under state franchise, too.

To prevent cross-subsidy, the bill bans increases in basic telephone rates by the new video entrants until after Jan. 1, 2009.

If a new provider is deploying fiber to deliver video – as Verizon is -- it would be required to reach 25% of all customers within two years. Of that 25%, a quarter of the customers must be low income, defined in the bill as households with $35,000 annual income or less. Forty percent of the subscriber base must have video access after five years.

A provider which is not deploying infrastructure must reach 35% of the market in three years; and 50% in five.

However, the bill has an escape clause to the build-out requirements. If the competitor has not reached 30% penetration, it can ask for hearings to determine if its growth is hampered by lack of building access or other factors.

State franchises will run for 10 years. To prevent a rush of incumbents with expired franchises running to the PUC, the bill extends those expired franchises to Jan 2, 2008.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6367994

fredfa

09-01-06, 10:46 AM

Its time again for my periodic reminder of something I think you will really find interesting:
Check It Out!
AVS Fall TV Preview

If you haven’t yet heard AVS Radio, which offers two new shows a week, what are you waiting for?

It is produced by The HTGuys for AVS Forum and offers news, interviews, and HT topics that are sure to make you a weekly listener.

This week’s edition features a preview of the fall TV season.

Click here::

http://media24a.libsyn.com/aneaeMl2cHzHdmd3bHdppGylkXec/podcasts/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-09-01.mp3

Happy Listening!

fredfa

09-01-06, 10:53 AM

TV Notebook
The Long Holiday Weekend

Barbeques, football and family gatherings will take precedence this last long holiday weekend of the summer.

But weekends like this are also when network often try to slide some news past us.

So I’ll be watching for you and posting developments all weekend long. Please take a few moments to check in here during the weekend periodically. The latest TV news makes for great conversations at family gatherings.

And those page views will make my long weekend much happier.

Thanks!

kjpjr

09-01-06, 10:54 AM

An interesting article -- the highlight is mine

Cable Industry Exec Addresses HD Fears
McSlarrow: Cable Channels Won't Disappear in Switchover

The cable industry's top executive in Washington, Kyle McSlarrow, is downplaying fears that the companies he represents will face problems as broadcasters expand their high-definition offerings.

Mr. McSlarrow, who took over as president and CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association in March 2005, said that because high-definition signals use less bandwidth than analog signals, cable operators will be able to give viewers the channels they most want.

Other entities involved in the transition to HD say no signals should be sacrificed during the transition.

"It's a nonissue," Mr. McSlarrow said, predicting that cable systems will carry all the major broadcast stations in HD. "We are going to save space. We aren't becoming more constrained. We are becoming less constrained."

Mr. McSlarrow's comments followed a front-page Wall Street Journal report that said the cable industry will have to make another round of multibillion-dollar upgrades to their systems to keep pace with competitors including telephone companies. That report was based on a Cable Labs study that has angered cable executives who say the industry can readily meet the increasing technological demands of high-definition television and high-speed Internet access.

Bruce Leichtman of Leichtman Research Group said the switch to HD may in fact force some cable providers to sacrifice channels that certain viewers value. Placing those decisions in the hands of cable providers troubles Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters.

"Who decided that the cable industry is the arbiter of what Americans want to watch?" Mr. Wharton asked. "It's a little arrogant. Let's let the people see what they want."

He said broadcasters fear that the cable industry, left to its own devices, will favor programming in which it has a financial stake over broadcasters' fare.

Fears about the cable industry's ability to handle the new HD signals are an outgrowth of the digital transition. Until 2009, cable systems must carry broadcasters' existing analog signals plus their new digital signals over cable systems. Amid some worries that the cable industry won't have enough bandwidth and will have to cut out some of the new digital signals, there have been calls to impose multicasting "must-carry" requirements on the cable systems.

NCTA spokesman Rob Stoddard said the cable organization continues to oppose any requirement on cable operators to carry all multicast signals from broadcasters. The cable industry has asked Congress for a five-year grace period before it is forced to carry smaller "must carry" stations' signals in HD. Mr. McSlarrow contended the practical effect of the delay will be minor.

"I have yet to discover any must-carry [station] that intends to do HD, because of the difficulty and the cost on their end," Mr. McSlarrow said. "All the stuff people are actually talking about, we are going to carry."
The NCTA has overcome potential worries about the bandwidth demands that high-definition offerings will create and is talking with electronics companies about promoting the format, Mr. McSlarrow said.

Mr. McSlarrow also predicted that the sharp lines now defining phone companies, satellite companies and cable companies will blur as each breed of company offers services already provided by the others.

"I assume at some point all of us will be able to offer the complete bundle in one fashion or another," he said. "I am focused at making sure that the regulatory regime is fair and our companies can go out and compete and do what is necessary to win."

By Ira Teinowitz. James Hibberd contributed to this report.

fredfa

09-01-06, 11:00 AM

Prime-time ratings for Thursday – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted at the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

fredfa

09-01-06, 11:15 AM

TV Notebook
TV smartens up for fall season
From USA Today

Clearly, somebody in TV thinks we're getting smarter.

At the very least, producers and network executives are giving us a lot more credit than they used to for being able to follow complex thoughts and plots. Large ensembles, serialized stories, complicated twists: Never has a season offered more shows requiring closer, more consistent viewing.

Don't get me wrong: You won't be seeing Gravity's Rainbow: The Series on commercial TV anytime soon. Producers realize that our attention spans and loyalty have limits.

Still, it does mean we're a far sight away from the days of see-through plots and ramshackle sets. Such shows as 24 and Lost not only brought a new visual flair to television; they also encouraged networks to take more chances with their storytelling techniques.

The 24 influence is most obvious at Fox's Vanished and NBC's Kidnapped, both on a season-long search for a missing person. They hope you're willing to follow the search each week and able to keep up with the feints and dodges the writers throw in to stop you from getting to the story's end before they do.

ABC's The Nine, on the other hand, owes more to Lost in its story structure and focus on relationships. The show grabs our attention with a hostage crisis — and then jumps ahead to the crisis's conclusion, leaving us to discover what happened over the course of the series.

The crisis on Nine may be a mystery, but no show is more mysterious overall than NBC's Heroes. Even the title is ambiguous: We know these people have superpowers, but we don't know what the powers are or whether that makes them heroic. Most viewers won't even know what one hero is saying unless they read the subtitles: A main character speaks only Japanese.

A few shows have premises so complicated, they almost defy description. Playing off the we're-all-connected theory of "six degrees of separation," ABC's Six Degrees strings so many threads among its characters, you may need a program to untangle them. Then there's ABC's Day Break, which has Taye Diggs reliving a single day as he tries to figure out who framed him for murder.

Even shows that are more straightforward in structure can contain thematic twists. ABC's star-packed Brothers & Sisters promises to delve deep into the intricacies of family ties, as NBC's Studio 60 does into TV. Think you get a thinking break from the comedies? Think again. Like 24 done for laughs, ABC's The Knights of Prosperity devotes its year to one complex caper. Meanwhile, CBS' The Class offers one of the biggest ensembles ever to grace a conventional sitcom.

How smart is all that? Ask again in May, when the renewal notices go out.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/reviews/2006-08-31-fall-tv-main_x.htm

fredfa

09-01-06, 11:36 AM

TV Sports
So far, no leash for the NFL Network
By Marc Narducci Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer Fri, Sep. 01, 2006

In its third season, the NFL Network continues to grow. This year, its Sunday offerings include a highlights show at 4 p.m. and a 90-minute program that wraps up the day at 11:30 p.m.

Four games, condensed in 90-minute shows, will be replayed during the week.

Of course, this is the first season the network is televising games. The eight-game package that will run on Thursday and Saturday evenings begins on Thanksgiving.

The network is available in more than 40 million homes, so the progress has been stunning. Still, it must fight the perception that it is the public-relations arm of the league. And since the network is owned by the league owners, that's a tough one to shake.

It's a perception that seems to concern the media more than the fans. As long as fans are seeing games and shows in which the network gets special access, they likely don't care who owns it.

The media aren't happy because they have to sit on the sidelines while the network gains special access to coaches and players.

Do the media have a legitimate gripe? Is the network truly an unbiased outlet or a mouthpiece for the league owners, who are paying the bills?

It's a topic that gets Charles Coplin's blood boiling.

"That perception lingers, but I don't see how people can say we're not addressing what is happening positively or negatively," Coplin, vice president of programming for the NFL and NFL Network, said this week in a telephone interview.

"In three years, whether it's been Maurice Clarett, Randy Moss, T.O., revenue sharing, the search for a commissioner, there has never been a story we have been accused of ignoring," he said.

Yet the perception lingers.

"The reason the perception doesn't bother us is twofold," Coplin said. "One, it isn't true. The most hardened, most grizzled NFL football fans - and that includes NFL coaches, owners, fantasy owners - watch the network and don't have a complaint about credibility."

The NFL hasn't exactly hired yes men for the network. Among the outspoken announcers who will be working are Deion Sanders and Bryant Gumbel, who has been at the center of a well-documented controversy.

On his HBO Real Sports show on Aug. 15, Gumbel offered this advice to incoming NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who will replace Paul Tagliabue:

"Before he cleans out his office, have Paul Tagliabue show you where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash. By making the docile head of the players' union his personal pet, your predecessor kept the peace without giving players the kind of guarantees other pros take for granted... . Try to make sure no one competent ever replaces Upshaw on your watch."

After those comments, Tagliabue suggested that Gumbel's employment with the network should be reviewed.

When it was suggested to Coplin that if Gumbel isn't disciplined for those comments, the network would show that it exercises freedom of football speech, he replied: "It's a fair thing to say. To my knowledge, it's not an issue. We're continuing with the plans in place."

If those plans don't change, even the most ardent critic would have to concede that the NFL Network isn't what some perceive it to be.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/15411760.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

RussTC3

09-01-06, 12:35 PM

Not surprisingly, I found myself pretty much disagreeing with everything Mr. Bianco had to say.

fredfa

09-01-06, 01:01 PM

good post, kjpjr.

I find it interesting that Wharton, the NAB guy, says he wants people to have choice in what they watch.

Yet the NAB has been in the forefront of the fight for mandatory must carry of digital side channels. Chocie?

And McSlarrow, in effect cable's chief lobbyist , has all kinds of problems when it comes to flip-flopping.

I love the hypocrisy.

But as I have said, it always comes down to money: wherever these guys think the biggest pot of gold is located is the direction they will be headed. All the high-spunding discussion about what viewers want or free speech or whatever is just talk as they try to find the fastest route to that pot of gold.

fredfa

09-01-06, 01:03 PM

Not surprisingly, I found myself pretty much disagreeing with everything Mr. Bianco had to say.

Me too.

fredfa

09-01-06, 02:29 PM

TV Sports
Clock is Ticking for NFL Network
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/1/2006

Time Warner has set Sept. 15 as the cut-off date for the NFL Network on the systems it recently acquired from Comcast and Adelphia.

It does not carry the network--the two are in a carriage battle--and had pulled it off those systems when it took them over Aug. 1. The NFL Net complained to the FCC, which made Time Warner put the network back on, saying it had not provided the requisite 30-days notice and that not having them on would hurt the NFL Net more that putting them back on would hurt Time Warner.

Time Warner soon after began providing notification to subs that it would pull the net. By midweek, Time Warner had not decided whether or how it would pull the systems--all at once or staggering them according to when they had first started informing subs and thus triggered the 30-day clock.

It has now decided to pull them on Sept. 15 if there is still no deal.

NFL Net spokesman Seth Palansky told B&C that the network has reached out to Time Warner about leaving the network on those systems while they try to hammer out a carriage deal, and said that Time Warner has provided "positive" feedback.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6368257

fredfa

09-01-06, 02:37 PM

Critic’s Notebook
''Star Trek" Revamped:
I Blame George Lucas
By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

This announcement came from Paramount yesterday:

STAR TREK is getting a 21st century makeover. CBS Paramount Domestic Television is releasing digitally remastered episodes of the iconic 1960s sci-fi series, with all new special effects and music, to celebrate the groundbreaking series' 40th anniversary, it was announced today by John Nogawski, president of CBS Paramount Domestic Television.

The new episodes also mark the first time in 16 years that the original STAR TREK series can be seen in broadcast syndication. The episodes will begin airing on the more than 200 stations that own the rights to the weekend broadcast syndication window starting Sept. 16 (check local listings for station and dates). All 79 episodes of the original STAR TREK series will eventually be remastered, with the first batch of episodes chosen from a list of STAR TREK fans' favorite shows.

"STAR TREK redefined science-fiction and constantly pushed the envelope with concepts that were ahead of their time," Nogawski said. "By giving the series a digital upgrade using the best technology available today, it will continue to be a leader in cutting-edge television programming as we introduce the series to a new generation of viewers."

The most noticeable change will be redoing many of the special effects, created with 1960s technology, with 21st century computer-generated imagery (CGI). That includes:

• Space ship exteriors -- The space ship Enterprise, as well as other Starships, will be replaced with state of the art CGI-created ships. The new computer-generated Enterprise is based on the exact measurements of the original model, which now rests in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

• Show opening -- The Enterprise and planets seen in the main title sequence will be redone, giving them depth and dimension for the first time.

• Galaxy shots -- All the graphics of the galaxy, so frequently seen through the window on the Enterprise's bridge, will be redone.

• Exteriors -- The battle scenes, planets and ships from other cultures (notably the Romulan Bird of Prey and Klingon Battle Cruisers) will be updated.

• Background scenes -- Some of the iconic, yet flat, matte paintings used as backdrops for the strange, new worlds explored by the Enterprise crew will get a CGI face-lift, adding atmosphere and lighting.

The refurbished episodes also feature higher quality sound for the famous opening theme. The original score by Emmy Award-winning composer Alexander Courage has been re-recorded in state-of-the-art digital stereo audio with an orchestra and a female singer belting out the famous vocals. A digitally remastered version of William Shatner's classic original recording of the 38-word "Space, the final frontier…" monologue continues to open each episode.

The remastered episodes have been converted from the original film into a High-Definition format, which gives viewers a clearer, crisper, more vibrant picture than before, even when viewed in standard definition. Once stations upgrade and start broadcasting HD signals, the episodes will be all ready for viewers to enjoy in HD. (end announcement)

The more I think about this, the queasier I get. It's on a par with colorizing black-and-white movies, or George Lucas's seemingly endless tinkering with the ''Star Wars'' movies. Lucas's ability to get away with that is obviously one of the reasons Paramount is retooling ''Star Trek.'' That and greed. Because "Star Trek" fans rank up with Elvis fans in their willingness to buy the same old stuff as long as the packaging is new, Paramount figures to make a bunch of money by putting selling these reconfigured "Treks" on home video down the road.

But if you change some things, then where do you stop? Improved technology in one area is going to make other areas look that much cheesier. If you spruce up the background, shouldn't you do something about the uniforms? What about Shatner's '60s haircut? For that matter, what about Shatner's girdle-sheathed midsection in the later episodes? Should that be changed? And if you're messing with the music, shouldn't you replace those cheeseball attempts at futuristic sounds?

A piece of art should be kept in its original form, as an example of the art from its time. Sure, you can clean it up -- getting the color, for example, back to its original brightness. But when you start making improvements, you're destroying the old art and creating new. Lucas can at least argue that he's changing his own work. With ''Star Trek,'' unless they're bringing Gene Roddenberry back from the dead to supervise the changes, better to leave it alone.

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

fredfa

09-01-06, 03:07 PM

TV Sports
Fox Could Pair Long, Bradshaw for BCS Bowl
By Larry Stewart Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 1, 2006

Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw could end up working as game commentators in the same booth at one of the BCS bowl games in January. Such a possibility is under consideration, according to a source familiar with the discussions. And that's just a hint at what will be a different college football season.

ABC and its sister ESPN networks will televise almost 300 regular-season and postseason games. But then Fox will step in to televise three of the four BCS bowl games to be played Jan. 1-3, plus the BCS championship game to be played at the new Cardinals Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Jan. 8.

It's a strange deal, sort of what it would be like if CBS, NBC, Fox and ESPN televised the NFL all season, and then another network televised the conference championship games and the Super Bowl.

Fox in November 2004 acquired the rights to the Orange, Fiesta and Sugar bowls and the BCS championship game when it is played at one of those sites.

Fox has already started putting together its announcing teams for its four BCS bowl games this season. The network announced this week that former Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez and TBS' Charles Davis would be game commentators for the title game, joining play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman. This team will also work the Fiesta Bowl at Cardinals Stadium on Jan. 1.

Fox still has to come up with two other announcing teams for the other BCS bowls it will televise — the Orange (Jan. 2) and the Sugar (Jan. 3).

One team might be Long and Bradshaw and a play-by-play announcer to be named later. Pat Haden, who is NBC's color analyst for Notre Dame football, would be a logical choice to work as a commentator on one of the games. And Matt Vasgersian and Terry Donahue, who make up a new NFL announcing team for Fox, might also be in the BCS mix.

Recommended Viewing

What's this, a heavyweight fight on television worth watching? The featured bout on Saturday night's Staples Center card, James Toney vs. Samuel Peter, could be.

"It's a pay-per-view fight that's not on pay-per-view," promoter Dan Goossen said.

The only problem is the Showtime telecast is on at 10 p.m., a delay of three hours for the West Coast.

NBC, after a two-week hiatus, returns to televising NASCAR Sunday when it shows the Sony HD 500 at 8 PM/5 PM PT ET p.m. from California Speedway. Bill Weber and Wally Dallenbach will call the race. Commentator Benny Parsons, who is undergoing treatment for lung cancer, will miss the race but is expected to be in the TNT booth at Richmond, Va., the following weekend.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-sp-tvcol1sep01,0,5632551,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

keenan

09-01-06, 03:08 PM

Looks like Showtime will become the network of choice for those with addictions. :D

September 1, 2006

Showtime Orders Three Pilots

By James Hibberd

The Showtime cable network has ordered a trio of scripted comedy pilots, including a new project from "Sex and the City" creator Darren Star, sources said.

The half-hour projects include "Manchild" from Mr. Star, based on a BBC series about a quartet of fun-loving forty-something men in midst of mid-life crises.

Showtime also purchased a pilot for "Insatiable," described as a "Twin Peaks"-style small town ensemble comedy where everybody has some kind of addiction.

"Californication," another addiction comedy, also was selected. It features a sex- and drug-loving novelist trying to raise his children on his own.

Currently Showtime has one half-hour scripted comedy, "Weeds," which has been a relative success for the network. The previous comedy to join the network's schedule was the short-lived series "Fat Actress."

A Showtime representative could not be reached for comment on Friday.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10665
TV Week

fredfa

09-01-06, 03:13 PM

TV Sports
Multimedia pitfalls await; LSU's feel-good story
By Michael McCarthy USA Today Sept. 1, 2006

The flap over Tony Kornheiser's gig with ESPN's Monday Night Football illustrates the perils of multimedia stardom for star columnists — and their newspapers.

Kornheiser, the Washington Post columnist and co-host of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, overreacted after Paul Farhi of the Post's Style section panned his MNF performance. Journalism experts denounced Kornheiser's contention he should get more respect from his own paper. Other columnists piled on, saying Kornheiser can't take criticism.

Michael Wilbon, his PTI co-host, had his own take during an online chat with readers this week: "There are always jerks in features and news sections insulting sportswriters and I, for one, come out swinging. Way too many of them think they're superior in talent when they're not." These jealous colleagues, he added, "make far, far, far less money in a lot of cases and hate that."

Personalities like Kornheiser wear lots of hats, notes Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. When their paid newspaper and TV gigs conflict, as they do, their papers have to decide how many platforms are too many.

The Post has dealt with it before, notes Rosenstiel, with Bob Woodward of Watergate fame juggling editor duties with book leaves. "As organizations try to become multimedia, the more time you put into one thing, the less you have for another," he warns.

LSU and the season Katrina couldn't wash away

The university's basketball arena was turned into an emergency triage unit. Its outdoor track served as an emergency helipad to ship victims to hospitals. Somehow, Louisiana State University emerged from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005. Against the odds, the LSU Tigers football team became the feel-good story of college football last season.

FSN tells LSU's inspirational story in Eye of the Storm, a one-hour documentary premiering Sunday (9 p.m. ET). Narrated by actor John Goodman, the special goes behind the scenes with the Tigers during their chaotic but ultimately successful 2005 season.

With the university, and millions of Gulf Coast residents, reeling from Katrina, LSU was forced to open its 2005 season on the road against Arizona State University Sept. 10.

The Tigers went on to post an 11-2 record, capture the SEC West title, beat Miami in the Peach Bowl and finish fifth in national rankings.

Bob Thompson, president of Fox Sports Networks, says the Tigers' remarkable season brought hope to the community. James Carville, the LSU graduate and Democratic political consultant, says it reinforced the special bond between the school and Louisiana natives.

"What Katrina proved is that LSU is the most indispensable university to its state anywhere in the union," says Carville in the special. "No other state is as dependant on its flagship university as we are."

O'Brien circles back to sports

Pat O'Brien can sympathize with athletes who nearly destroy their careers and themselves. The 58-year old anchor of The Insider looked into the abyss after an alcohol, drug and phone sex scandal drove him into rehab for 40 days last year.

Now, O'Brien has returned to sportscasting for the first time in a decade, hosting the U.S. Open Late Night Show for CBS after the Late Show With David Letterman.

Working the tennis tournament is "like riding a bicycle," says O'Brien, who might look for other sports gigs besides his syndicated show, now entering its third season. He's proud to have covered Andre Agassi's first and last U.S. Opens. "Andre is the Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan of tennis."

O'Brien's face was synonymous with CBS Sports in the 1980s, hosting U.S. Open tennis coverage and calling the NFL, NBA and Final Four. "People still think I do the NBA," he jokes.

Sportscasting seems like a dream job. But announcers, including O'Brien, Pat Summerall and Marv Albert, have struggled with issues off-camera. "It's not all sunglasses and limos," says O'Brien, who says he's been clean and sober since rehab.

O'Brien has been heartened by the support of CBS News and Sports President Sean McManus and e-mails from fans, who said his experience inspired them to get treatment for addictions.

O'Brien says he was so far gone on a drunken binge that he doesn't remember leaving the phone-sex messages. "I understand the fascination with the voice mails," he says. "They were pretty out there."

Quiet, please. And that goes for you, too, T.O.

A week ago, I suggested five ways to improve NFL TV coverage. This week we culled the opinion of top TV talkers to see what they'd like to see more of in sports coverage. And their pet peeves.

Among them:

• Michael Irvin, ESPN: "I want to see more of anybody — and less T.O. (Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens). Period."

• Deion Sanders, NFL Network: "I'd like to see more of the truth being told. I'd like to see less of us having a buddy system. You take care of your buddy, I take care of my buddy. I don't get off on that. I really want to give the fans what they deserve and want, and that's the truth and insight that they wouldn't normally get.

• Chris Berman, ESPN: "Let the games take care of themselves sometimes."

• Mary Carillo, CBS: "I want everyone to be quiet. I know what I'm watching."

• Armen Keteyian, CBS: "How about more game-day access for broadcast business partners and thoughtful reporting. And less attempts by commentators to one-up each other with outraged opinion."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/mccarthy/2006-08-31-mccarthy-sportsontv_x.htm

fredfa

09-01-06, 03:16 PM

fredfa

09-01-06, 04:02 PM

Cable News Notebook
Daryn Kagan Signs Off CNN
(from Brian Stelter’s TVNewser at mediabistro.com)

"Extraordinarily gracious farewell both to and by Daryn Kagan just now on CNN," an e-mailer says. "She glancingly acknowledged her departure was not voluntary and plugged her new Webcast venture energetically, but also urged viewers to continue to rely on CNN for news. There were lots of little clips of farewells by various CNN people, all of which seemed sincere and genuinely affectionate, but there was none of the manufactured maudlin tributes that mar so many on-air good-byes. It was brisk but warm, and Kagan held onto her composure and poise. This was really a model of the way to handle these things." Here's her closing message:

So I counted up 12 years and 21 days, and now it's time for us to say farewell, and there really are no words to say thank you to this incredible place. Whether it was 3 1/2 years of doing sports or almost nine years of doing news, the experiences have gone away beyond my wildest dreams. I've had the best TV husbands with my co-anchors Bill Hemmer and Leon Harris, and the short time that Rick Sanchez stopped by, well, that was a gas, too.

But what I really wish is that you at home could all meet these incredible people who work behind the scenes here. They are truly what makes it such a kick each morning, to come to work, even though that means getting to work before the sun does.

And then there are you, the viewers. I have been so overwhelmed by the amazing e-mail and notes that I've received from you in recent weeks. And yes, we really did have some amazing mornings here together, didn't we?

And I, too, will miss the breakfast and coffee and watching the world unfold before our eyes, and not doing that with you, as well. I tell people that this time slot on CNN is kind of like being an emergency room doctor -- you show up with a set of skills, and you have no idea what will roll through the door each day.

So now it's time for my, what is next. My people who know me well know that I love not just watch(ing) what happens, but looking for life's lessons, as well. And I've learned that if you keep your eyes and heart open, that life will deliver the most wonderful gifts and some pretty surprising packages. This year's gift was a nudge and an opportunity, an opportunity to ask myself, that if I could do anything that I really wanted to do, what would it be? So from that came an idea born of my heart. I'm creating my own online inspirational community. It is based on the radical idea that the world really is a good place. Beginning November 13th, I hope that you'll visit my daily Web cast, featuring stories that fit that theme and inspire by showing what is possible.

I'm calling it darynkagan.com so that it will be easy for you to remember, and I just want to share I man that I worked with back in Phoenix at KTVK, Jack Penlin, he used to say that beginnings represent hope for all that is possible. So here is what I hope -- I hope that with this new beginning, you'll stick with CNN, because it is so important to be informed. I hope that you'll stop by and see me at darynkagan.com and contribute your own stories as well.

And finally, I hope it has been such an honor to represent the most trusted name in news and to spend more than 12 years there with you at home. Thank you so much.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/daryn_kagan_signs_off_cnn_43095.asp#more

RussTC3

09-01-06, 06:51 PM

I take it this means Star Trek will be replacing Enterprise in weekend syndication?

It's really quite amazing just how much Trek they got out there. I mean, they have TNG, DS9 and (supposably this fall) VOY on Spike TV. TNG and TOS on G4, Enterprise on Sci Fi and HDNet, TOS on TV Land and Enterprise and TOS in weekend syndication (or only TOS).
Critic’s Notebook
''Star Trek" Revamped:
I Blame George Lucas
By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

This announcement came from Paramount yesterday:

STAR TREK is getting a 21st century makeover. CBS Paramount Domestic Television is releasing digitally remastered episodes of the iconic 1960s sci-fi series, with all new special effects and music, to celebrate the groundbreaking series' 40th anniversary, it was announced today by John Nogawski, president of CBS Paramount Domestic Television.

The new episodes also mark the first time in 16 years that the original STAR TREK series can be seen in broadcast syndication. The episodes will begin airing on the more than 200 stations that own the rights to the weekend broadcast syndication window starting Sept. 16 (check local listings for station and dates). All 79 episodes of the original STAR TREK series will eventually be remastered, with the first batch of episodes chosen from a list of STAR TREK fans' favorite shows.

fredfa

09-01-06, 10:44 PM

Cable Ratings Notebook
VMA's Suffer Big Hit in Ratings
By Anne Becker Broadcasting & Cable 9/1/2006

The downward spiral of the MTV Video Music Awards' TV performance continued Thursday night as the ceremony's audience plunged from last year and VMA fans headed online.

The show, once a ratings juggernaut for MTV, pulled in an average of just 5.77 million total viewers over its three hour telecast starting at 8 p.m., down 28% from the 8 million viewers it averaged last year, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research. Just two years ago, the show brought in nearly double last night's audience-10.3 million viewers.

While still about five times what MTV has averaged in primetime this summer, the show's TV audience last night is a shadow of the 12 million viewers it once earned. The numbers have to be frustrating for MTV executives who moved the show back to its former home, New York City, after last year's poor showing in Miami.

With digital media, including video-heavy Internet sites, competing for its core young audience, MTV has struggled to maintain its status as the coolest place for youth. Last night's show was widely criticized for being dull and lacking the sort of buzz-worthy moments of VMAs past.

The show averaged a 5.21 share with MTV's target audience of viewers 12-34, the network says. Illustrating that that audience is preferring to spend time online these days, MTV's broadband video site Overdrive saw its highest day of traffic ever yesterday with 3.9 million streams, up more than 200% over last year. MTV programmed the site, as well as its digital cable channels and other multimedia platforms, with more VMA extras than ever this year.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6368436

Ou8thisSN

09-01-06, 11:57 PM

good, then i'm not the only one who thought that show sucked. I'm also glad that our 'youth' are still salvagable as at least they can tell good entertainment from bad.... kind of.

fredfa

09-02-06, 12:38 AM

TV Notebook
Jerry Lewis To Bring A Galaxy Of Stars To Muscular Dystrophy Telethon
By Roger Catlin Hartford Courant TV Critic `September 2 2006

Besides the $1 billion it has raised for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, we love the annual Jerry Lewis Telethon (Sunday, 9 PM ET check local listings) for its pure cornball entertainment value.

With Lewis at the helm, he harks back to the era when vaudeville begat variety shows. And yet there are occasional performances that will floor you when they come on at 3 a.m. or 6 a.m. or just before the final, breathless, tearful final totals - coming Monday about 6:30 p.m.

Scheduled to play the 41st edition of the event is everyone from Paul Anka to the Dave Matthews Band, along with the Goo Goo Dolls, Lee Greenwood, Celine Dion, Patti LaBelle, Julie Roberts, Bebe Winans, Brian McKnight, Branford Marsalis and George Clinton.

Visits are also expected from William Shatner, Ray Romano, Neil Patrick Harris, Lance Burton and Clint Holmes, as well as performances from the casts of "Phantom of the Opera," "Shout," "The Color Purple," "The Wedding Singer" and "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee."

Another throwback, Ed McMahon, will anchor the event from the new South Coast Hotel in Las Vegas, where the telethon is returning after 12 years in Hollywood.

Last year's total was down a bit, owing perhaps to contributions to Hurricane Katrina relief funds. But $54.9 million was raised, with another $1 million raised for the Salvation Army's hurricane relief program.

http://www.ctnow.com/tv/hce-tveye0902.artsep02,0,2524893,print.column?coll=hce-utility-tv

fredfa

09-02-06, 10:07 AM

TV Notebook
“House” Returns Tuesday
Making the Rounds With Lisa Edelstein
By Kathy Blumenstock Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 3, 2006; Y03

Returning for its third season, "House" stars Hugh Laurie as Gregory House, an antisocial but gifted surgeon who specializes in solving baffling medical mysteries.

Among his foils: hospital administrator Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), who clashes with House over his medical duties even as she acknowledges his results. Edelstein recently talked to TV Week about her role and the new season:

In what ways has your character changed since the show began?

She's a more complete human being than when we started. Cuddy has been at her job long enough that now she's trying to look at the rest of her life, trying to have a child, and it will change her even more.

How would you describe the relationship between Cuddy and House?

They are naturally at odds with each other, but I don't think he drives her crazy any more than she expects or wants to be driven. He is a pain in the [rear] to deal with but he is usually right, and that doesn't go past her. I don't know where their relationship is going. I love the chemistry between them, but I think it would be more interesting if it didn't work out. I don't have a vision for how they would knock down those walls that exist between them and the outside world. They have very different tasks. His is to solve all the cases, and hers is to see that he solves all the cases without bringing the hospital down.

Do you get caught up in the hospital's life-or-death situations?

Well, we're not doing "Marcus Welby." It's not about the good doctor who's so warm and so caring. This guy House knows what he's doing. He cares deeply and is committed to what he's doing, but does he care because there's a human being he's helping, or because it's a puzzle? I think House would say it's about the puzzle, but I'm not sure that is the truth.

What's the most fun for you about playing Cuddy?

Working with Hugh Laurie, who's an incredible actor. And I like being on a show that is smart and funny and that I am not embarrassed at being on. It's fun to have the same job for a few years, to develop a character. I enjoy my outfits, although my shoes aren't the most pleasant thing to experience.

What can viewers expect in the new season?

There will be some new situations and turns, some good characters and a chance to dig deeper into the people you see every week.

Lisa Edelstein Fast Facts

Born : May 21, 1967, in Boston

TV : "House," "The West Wing," "Ally McBeal," "The Practice," "Seinfeld," "Wings"

Theater : "Positive Me," an AIDS-related musical

Pets : Three dogs (Wolf-E, Sandwich, Bumpa); one cat, Bug. "They get along great, because my cat's got such a sense of entitlement,"Edelstein said. "The dogs are just objects in her way."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082900969_pf.html

fredfa

09-02-06, 10:16 AM

Critic’s Notebook
The Best Show on TV
By J. Max Robins Broadcasting & Cable 9/4/2006

“The Wire”, perhaps the only police drama that truly deserves to be called “gritty,” begins its fourth season on HBO next Sunday. Let me be the first to begin the campaign for a fifth. A nuanced portrait of urban Baltimore, with its internecine battles among cops, politicos and drug dealers, The Wire demands a far greater level of commitment and attention from its audience than your standard escapist police procedural.

After screening all 13 episodes of the coming season, I'm left with the kind of melancholy that sets in when you finish a great novel. This is muckraking TV, in so many ways more powerful than anything a network news division can produce.

When The Wire's creator, David Simon, told me a couple of years back that if the show was renewed for a fourth season he was going to focus on Baltimore's inner-city schools, I wasn't sure he could pull it off.

Well, he has, with wisdom and authenticity that will resonate with anyone who has done time as either teacher or student in those environs. No doubt producer Ed Burns drew on his tours of duty as a Baltimore Police detective and, later, a middle school teacher.

“Our model has always been Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” Simon told me when I spoke with him again last week.

Like that classic 1939 book by James Agee and Walker Evans, which chronicled the lives of Southern sharecroppers in stark words and pictures, “The Wire is designed to be a political provocation,” he said. “TV is normally not designed to provoke people.”

True that, as one of the corner boys on The Wire would say. Still, such statements make The Wire sound a little too much like work. It does cover tough turf, but the show manages to find grand entertainment in all the pathos.

All of which hasn't meant carte blanche for Simon and crew. From the beginning, the series has been a touch-and-go proposition.

In spite of—or perhaps, because of—an Emmy-winning body of work that includes NBC's Homicide and the HBO miniseries The Corner, Simon has had to push hard to make it happen, from getting the initial pilot pick-up to each successive season's renewal.

Forget that he's got such titans of gritty fiction as Richard Price (Clockers), George Pelecanos (The Night Gardner) and Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) writing for him. Simon likely will be begging the HBO brass to give him the go-ahead to keep the dream team together for season five.

The sad truth is that The Wire has always been ratings-challenged—3 million cumulative might tune in for an episode's various runs during a week whereas several times that routinely tune into HBO's The Sopranos.

Perhaps television audiences prefer the glamorous Southern California locales of HBO's Entourage—“where network executives live,” as Simon puts it—to the mean streets of Baltimore.

Maybe they're put off by the racial composition of the cast, which is one of the finest ensembles on television.

“I knew the risks when I made the cast almost all black,” says Simon.

So here's hoping HBO continues to believe that The Wire is worth those risks.

I promised Simon that I wouldn't include any spoilers in this column, but I will say that season four's finale opens up all sorts of possibilities for a fifth season.

More than even The Sopranos or Deadwood, two other personal favorites, The Wire delivers on HBO's “It's not TV” slogan. It's everything that TV should—and can—be.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6368428

fredfa

09-02-06, 11:31 AM

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

fredfa

09-02-06, 11:46 AM

TV Sports
FSN Bulks Up on Bowls
By Christian Lewis MultiChannel News 9/4/2006

College football comes first for Fox Sports Net as it rolls out new fall programming, with poker and martial arts also playing key roles.

To begin, the network, which said it supplies programming to 22 regional sports networks reaching 85 million homes (including a new deal with Comcast SportsNet in Chicago), has marked the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with Eye of the Storm, an hour-long documentary about the Louisiana State University Tigers and their inspirational 9-2 season in the aftermath of the storm. The show debuted Sunday (Sept. 3) and will air again Thursday, Sept. 14.

'BREAKDOWN' COMING

In October, FSN ramps up coverage of the Bowl Championship Series with two new shows. The first, The BCS Breakdown Show, is a 30-minute preview of the upcoming weekend's top college-football games, including analysis of rankings scenarios. It's slotted for Friday nights, beginning Oct. 6.

The second show, debuting Oct. 15 and airing Sunday nights, is called The Official BCS Ratings Show. The 30-minute live announcement will offer Bowl Championship Series standings, a breakdown of game results, and the rankings that determine which teams reach the four BCS-member games — the Sugar, Rose, Orange and Fiesta bowls — and BCS National Championship Game in January. The Fox broadcast network, FSN's sibling, takes over TV rights to the BCS games this year.

On the pro-gridiron front, FSN will make only slight alterations. The network is bringing back its first National Football League preview show, FSN Pro Football Preview, but now “NFL Insider” and former analyst Jay Glazer will host. Returning analysts Tim Brown and Jason Sehorn will also be joined by newcomer Eddie George. The show runs Friday nights, Saturday afternoons, and Sunday mornings, beginning Sept. 8.

As for the network's staples, The Best Damn Sports Show Period will soldier on with all-new episodes, including a week-long trip to New Orleans to parallel Eye of the Storm this September. Also continuing through fall with all new episodes is the Emmy-winning profile show The Chris Myers Interview, and profile series Beyond the Glory, which features new footage in episodes with Deion Sanders, Reggie White, Kobe Bryant, Alonzo Mourning, Reggie Miller and Jerome Bettis, among others.

As for the future, FSN is delving into reality programming. Still in production is a new series hosted by Michael Strahan, in which fans will be paired up with their favorite pros. “We might find out who the biggest Gary Payton fan is in Miami, then have them spend four to six hours with him doing whatever they want,” said FSN executive vice president of programming and production George Greenberg. “We've also shot episodes with Jerry Rice and Chad Johnson.”

Asked whether this signaled a shift toward more reality programming for the network, Greenberg said it did not, stressing that FSN would remain true to its core audience.

Said Greenberg: “The question is, how far can you go with reality programming to keep it relevant and entertaining? It's OK to use it as a spice rather than a staple.”

The network will dip into two other key areas where ratings have jumped. “The first one's poker — they blow your doors off,” said Greenberg.

While the typical demographic split for FSN's sports programming is 70% male to 30% female, poker's demographic split is about 50-50, he said. “That has been very interesting as far as a demographic pop.”

Last May, FSN rolled out its fifth poker show, Mansion Poker.net's Pokerdome Challenge, a 43-week series boasting its own venue in Las Vegas, computer chips in the playing cards and a $60 million winner-take-all purse. Purses for the 2007 and 2008 seasons are $75 million and 100$ million, respectively.

A live show will also air on Thanksgiving this November.

MARTIAL ARTS 'POP'

“The other demographic pop has been with mixed martial arts — 18-to-34-year-olds,” Greenberg said. While the older sports demographic might be entrenched in boxing, mixed-martial arts competition has exploded in popularity with the younger crowd. Besides its new focus on the International Fight League, FSN also just premiered in August Pride Fighting's Bushido Survival, a 16-man tournament.

Every time slot given to mixed martial arts has done better — “sometimes 30 to 50%,” according to Greenberg.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6368398

fredfa

09-02-06, 12:06 PM

TV Commentary
High 'Wire' Act
Acclaimed HBO series ushers in a promising fall TV season
Los Angeles Times September 2, 2006

WHEN "THE WIRE" ENDED ITS third season on HBO in 2004, its fans felt that familiar panic that comes from loving a show with more critical acclaim than viewers. Would the program be back? Or would it vanish while people complain, as they always do, that there is nothing good on TV?

The complaint's not necessarily wrong — with hundreds of channels, there's always nothing good on somewhere — but it's not exactly well-informed, either. As the networks roll out their fall season lineups, the TV schedule is more promising at this time of year than at any other.

"The Wire" is one of those programs that delivers on that promise. Its fourth season is scheduled to begin Sept. 10 (or on Monday for those who subscribe to HBO on Demand), and for its fans, relief at its return has given way to evangelism for its excellence. Why proselyting is needed for a show that its more dramatic devotees call "Shakespearean" is a mystery.

Or maybe it's the explanation. "The Wire" is not a veg-out hour. It requires, and rewards, careful attention. At its most basic, the series is about police and drug dealers in Baltimore's inner city. Creator David Simon, a former crime reporter, gave us the late, great TV series "Homicide: Life in the Streets" and the HBO miniseries "The Corner." The first unfolded through the eyes of detectives, the latter through the eyes of addicts and dealers. "The Wire" (the title refers to wiretapping) shows how the two worlds eerily mirror each other.

That's because, as Simon puts it, the series is really about how institutions — whether police departments, drug rings, a union-run wharf, City Hall or, in this season's story line, schools — swallow individuals and block reform.

It's a long way from "Dragnet" or even the latest flavor of "CSI." Those shows have their fans too, of course. And "The Wire" is hardly the first program to inspire a fervent following (fans of "Veronica Mars" actually rented a small airplane that towed a "Renew Veronica Mars" banner over the studio in a campaign to save it). But even in what is generally acknowledged to be a something of a golden era for thoughtful and entertaining dramas — both on cable channels and on network TV — "The Wire" stands out.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ed-wire02sep02,0,3581320,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

goldrich

09-02-06, 12:09 PM

fredfa

09-02-06, 12:43 PM

Good question, Steve.

CBS has "won" the past several TV seasons, by a large margin, in total viewers.

Yet advertisers pretty much ignore that and consider Fox the season winner because it has better 18-49 ratings.

As the numbers of Baby Boomers continue to swell, maybe somebody will figure out that older viewers have several advantages: They tend to be more loyal to their favorite programs, and -- especially once the kids are out of the nest -- they have lots of disposable income. Yet with most ad people far younger than the Boomers things may not change.

fredfa

09-02-06, 12:54 PM

TV Notebook
Nielsen Demographic Numbers
Nielsen Media Research Reports Local TV Household Estimates for 2006-2007 Television Season

(Nielsen Media Research news release)

New York, NY - Nielsen Media Research (has) released updated television household estimates — called universe estimates — for Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American TV households in its 210 local television markets, also called Designated Market Areas (DMAs). Nielsen's updated estimates reflect the rapid growth of ethnic populations in numerous local markets, and will be used for commercial advertising purposes for the 2006-2007 television season. (Editor's note: These are not demographic population estimates. These data are ethnic TV household rankings.)

Within the African-American household estimates, there was no change within the top ten DMAs. New Orleans experienced a drop in African-American television households, declining from 16th to 23rd place. This enabled Charlotte, San Francisco, Birmingham, Orlando and Richmond to elevate their DMA levels within the top 25 television markets. Reno experienced the largest increase in ranking, jumping 11 places.
In the Hispanic household estimates, the top ten DMAs remained the same as last year, although most of the top markets grew in the number of TV households. Atlanta increased 3 ranks from 24 to 21. El Paso and Tucson experienced a modest decrease in television households, though the markets remain in the top 25.
Houston entered the top 10 DMA ranking among Asian-American households, overtaking Boston which dropped to number eleven. Most of the top Asian markets grew in the number of households, and Reno jumped 16 spaces on the list of top local Asian markets.

Nielsen Media Research annually reports television household estimates each September based on information from a variety of sources, including Claritas (a leading provider of demographic data), the United States Census Bureau, and Nielsen's own television samples.

The following three tables identify the top ten DMAs among African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American TV households.

Top Ten Markets Ranked by African-American Homes
Rank / DMA / 2006 African American TV Homes / 2007 African American TV Homes
1. New York / 1,292,420 / 1,259,540
2. Chicago / 591,200 / 598,370
3. Atlanta / 534,190 / 597,070
4. Washington, DC (Hagrstwn) / 528,150 / 546,800
5. Philadelphia / 511,900/ 524,770
6. Los Angeles / 485,720 / 487,000
7. Detroit / 390,670 / 392,620
8. Houston / 326,730/ 337,550
9. Dallas-Ft. Worth / 318,110 / 331,330
10. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale / 297,630 / 295,100

Top Ten Markets Ranked by Hispanic Homes
Rank / DMA / 2006 Hispanic TV Homes / 2007 Hispanic TV Homes
1. Los Angeles / 1,741,860 / 1,775,100
2. New York / 1,218,940 / 1,190,410
3. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale / 623,310 / 625,280
4. Houston / 472,690 / 492,360
5. Chicago / 438,490 / 454,050
6. Dallas-Ft. Worth / 413,030 / 431,560
7. San Antonio / 352,910 / 356,930
8. San Francisco-Oak-San Jose / 332,460 / 340,200
9. Phoenix (Prescott) / 317,480 / 332,510
10. Harlingen-Wslco-Brnsvl-McA / 262,970 / 268,650

Top Ten Markets Ranked by Asian-American Homes
Rank / DMA / 2006 Asian TV Homes / 2007 Asian TV Homes
1. Los Angeles / 633,810/ 669,390
2. New York / 555,960/ 564,370
3. San Francisco-Oak-San Jose / 460,600 / 482,320
4. Honolulu / 220,460 / 220,330
5. Chicago / 166,460 / 166,080
6. Washington, DC (Hagrstwn) / 145,880 / 152,880
7. Seattle-Tacoma / 124,570 / 131,230
8. Sacramnto-Stkton-Modesto / 112,900 / 122,350
9. Philadelphia / 101,180 / 105,130
10. Houston / 98,660 / 103,790

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

fredfa

09-02-06, 01:18 PM

.....

So now we have been told that viewers 12-34 prefer to spend time online. At the same time, some previous TV reviews have made it clear that programming and advertising executives don't care for viewers 50+. So, exactly what demo do these TV gurus want to reach?

Steve

Steve:

Here are so research tools -- the season-to-date cable network ratings for the top 20 cable channels.

It is interesting to see how some of the more highly touted networks do -- or don't do -- in terms of viewers.

CABLE NETWORKS YEAR-TO-DATE NETWORK RANKINGS:
PRIMETIME (M-SUN 8PM-11PM)

RANK NET Viewers 12+ (000s)
1 USA 2,677
2 DSNY 2,515
3 TNT 2,465
4 TBSC 1,663
5 LIF 1,532
6 ESPN 1,631
7 NAN(1) 1,533
8 TOON(1) 1,528
9 FOXNC 1,460
10 SPIKE 1,272
11 FX 1,259
12 HALL 1,126
13 HIST 1,075
14 MTV 995
15 DISC 1145
16 HGTV 1004
17 SCIFI 1075
18 AMC 1034
19 CMDY 1044
20 AEN 1013

CABLE NETWORKS YEAR-TO-DATE NETWORK RANKINGS:
TOTAL DAY

RANK NET Viewers 12+ (000s)
1 NICK 2,179
2 NAN 1,431
3 DSNY 1,464
4 TNT 1,309
5 USA 1,233
6 TOON 1,205
7 ADSM 1,058
8 LIF 935
9 TBSC 966
10 FOXNC 845
11 ESPN 788
12 MTV 659
13 HALL 674
14 FX 681
15 DISC 676
16 TVL 623
17 FAM 654
18 HGTV 582
19 SPIKE 637
20 HIST 596

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

(The rankings are sometimes a bit out of order because the rank numbers were based on households, not viewers.)

fredfa

09-02-06, 01:39 PM

The 2006-2007 Season
Fall Harvest
By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 9/4/2006

Where last fall produced few hits, television critics say the broadcast networks this season have found the right combination of writers, characters and actors to produce one of the best batches of new shows in years.

NBC's lineup of Studio 60, Heroes, Friday Night Lights and 30 Rock has critics buzzing about the slumping network's finally righting the ship.

“By midseason,” says TV Guide's Michael Davis, “that net might get hotter than a GE toaster oven at a bagel brunch.”

ABC has the most aggressive schedule, with nine shows launching in early fall. Critics are highest on three: The Nine, Ugly Betty and Knights of Prosperity (formerly Let's Rob Mick Jagger).

CBS is rolling out only four shows, thanks to a strong returning schedule. But with Smith, Shark, Jericho and The Class, critics say, the network should have a hit or two on its hands. “Once again, CBS has reloaded with younger, sharper shows replacing its longest-in-the-tooth series,” says the Kansas City Star's Aaron Barnhart.

Critics also credit Fox for continuing to improve its fall lineup, adding strength prior to its powerhouse midseason with American Idol and new Emmy darling 24. Says the New York Post's Maxine Shen, “They've gone heavy with the always popular procedural-style dramas this year, adding shows like Standoff and Justice to a strong lineup.”

NBC's Studio 60 ran away with the Best Overall New Program category, earning 49% of the votes from critics. While many acknowledge the inherent risk in a show that goes behind the scenes of the entertainment industry, critics seem to be pulling for it to work.

TV Guide's Matt Roush picks Studio 60 as the best new show of the fall season thanks to its “blend of comedy and drama, delivered by an insanely glamorous and appealing cast. I think and hope we'll be in for a delightful ride.”

The Boston Globe's Matthew Gilbert says there is enough beyond the industry banter to rope in the mainstream viewer. “The script reaches beyond entertainment references into issues of censorship and culture. Couple that with comic Sorkin-esque banter, a large cast of screwed-up characters and workplace romanticism, and you've got great promise.”

But the Los Angeles Daily News' David Kronke worries that it probably will be “so smart it'll be dead in the water. But the killer cast and Aaron Sorkin's writing just might be enough of a lure.”

TV critics were among the droves who loved the pilot for ABC's Ugly Betty, and the network heard the message loud and clear. After first scheduling the show in Friday-night purgatory, ABC reconsidered and now has it leading off Thursday nights at 8, right before the relocated hit Grey's Anatomy.

Adapted from a Colombian telenovela, Betty stars America Ferrara as a style-challenged young woman who lands a job in the high-profile fashion industry. Dubbed a comedy despite its hour length, the show has quickly become a critical darling and one of the most-anticipated newcomers of the season.

“Its winningly quirky sensibility and the potential to make America Ferrara the season's breakout star bode well for it,” says Kronke.

In the Best New Comedy category, NBC's 30 Rock also scored well in critics' notebooks. For better or worse, the Tina Fey comedy gives NBC two behind-the-scenes shows, but the Saturday Night Live veteran's writing and her scene-stealing co-star may give the show legs. “Alec Baldwin is immediately the funniest guy on network TV,” says the Chicago Sun Times' Doug Elfman.

But Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan warns that the network's admiration for the single-camera comedy is a reason only eight new half-hours will launch at the beginning of the fall. “It's frankly a lousy season for new comedies, in the half-hour arena, anyway,” she says. “Why do the networks think nowadays that shooting comedies single-camera style automatically makes them funny?”

In a season where serialized dramas are everywhere, ABC's The Nine is the best of the new bunch according to critics.

ABC is marketing the mysterious angle of the show, which follows a group of citizens who got caught in a bank robbery, the way it did in launching Lost two years ago. A prominent outdoor campaign features billboards—which have no mention of the show or the network—with only the words “What Happened in There?” and a Website: www.onlytheyknow.com.

But critics are certain that viewers will want to get to the bottom of what could be the best mystery of the new season.

“If any of the new serialized dramas are going to hook viewers,” says the New York Daily News' Marisa Guthrie, “The Nine has the best odds.”

BEST OVERALL NEW PROGRAM*
STUDIO 60 (NBC) 49%
UGLY BETTY (ABC) 12%
THE NINE (ABC) 11%
HEROES (NBC) 8%
SHARK (CBS) 5%
*Based on responses of 66 critics

BEST NEW COMEDY*
UGLY BETTY (ABC) 29%
30 ROCK (NBC) 20%
THE CLASS (CBS) 16%
KNIGHTS OF PROSPERITY (ABC) 15%
'TIL DEATH (FOX) 4%
*Based on responses of 66 critics

BEST NEW DRAMA*
THE NINE (ABC) 27%
STUDIO 60 (NBC) 24%
SHARK (CBS) 8%
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (NBC) 7%
JERICHO (CBS) 7%
*Based on responses of 66 critics

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6368412

fredfa

09-02-06, 02:19 PM

Critic’s Notebook
The secret of Dane Cook's success
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”

Dane Cook doesn’t recite his jokes; he performs them.

In his new concert special, “Dane Cook Vicious Circle” (9 PM ET, Monday, HBO), the white-hot comic stalks the stage of a massive Boston venue, regularly stopping his restless pacing to embody various characters: a regular dude undone by a fierce crying jag, a ditzy girl deciding what treat to pick at the movie snack counter; a demented father wondering who keeps breaking down his front door.

Hollywood is putting Cook in feature films not just because he’s a hot commodity, especially with the post-frat crowd, but because he’s an able creator of recognizable characters and painfully real situations. When his jokes land with force, it’s because he has laid out a gut-bustingly honest scenario and embodied its participants to a T.

Despite his restless, rumpled stage persona, Cook still has a lot in common with observational comics such as Jerry Seinfeld, who knew that getting the tiniest details right was the key to a good laugh. Why is it, Cook wonders, that we insist on answering the phone when we’re crying - and then pretend we weren’t crying? Why is it that your mom always knows just what to say to make you cry harder (“They’re just jealous of you”), while your dad has no time for the drama (“I was in Korea. You could grow crops with my tears”).

Part of the reason Cook is so successful is that he completely avoids anything political or any topic that could be considered controversial. And though his routines occasionally get raunchy, when it comes to men and women, he’s really at his best observing relationship dynamics, and his perceptive assessments were greeted with hoots of recognition by his post-collegiate hometown crowd.

There’s that awkward chat after a one-night stand (“I like your stuffed animals”), the skanky hookup that one regrets immediately (“salves and creams are in my future”) and the way that a woman can end fights with a deceptively mild sentence that eventually explodes in the guy’s head like a time-delayed grenade.

Some of the material here may be familiar to viewers of the misbegotten HBO series “Dane Cook’s Tourgasm,” which showed far too little of the comedian in his natural habitat, the comedy stage. He’s really made for that environment; his dude persona, his spontaneous digressions and his ability to casually work the crowd all lull the viewer into thinking they’re not seeing a “comic” but hanging with the funniest guy at the kegger.

And even if Cook doesn’t make it in films, he’s certainly able to get a lot of mileage out of them; Cook’s uncanny observational talents are on display when he creates an effective 10-minute routine about not being able to find his girlfriend in the movie theater after the lights have gone down.

This 90-minute film may go on a bit long for casual Cook fans, but as the voice of the MySpace generation, the comic shines here.

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

HDTVChallenged

09-02-06, 11:05 PM

As the numbers of Baby Boomers continue to swell, maybe somebody will figure out that older viewers have several advantages: They tend to be more loyal to their favorite programs, and -- especially once the kids are out of the nest -- they have lots of disposable income. .

On the other hand, as I age I find I don't spend quite as frivolously as I once did in my "youth." In the old days, for instance, I rarely went more than a few months without "upgrading" something on my computer ... it has been 3 years since my last upgrade. I guess, I've decided to let Mr. Jones "win" the race. ;) :D

fredfa

09-03-06, 12:30 AM

Critic’s Notebook
My network TV will be awash in a new brand of soaps
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic

Secretly, you have always wanted to see Morgan Fairchild and Bo Derek slap the tan-in-a-can off each other.

You may not have known that's what you've always wanted, but trust us, you have.

Provided we're not watching a scene like this on an old Aaron Spelling rerun, most people only expect to see a pair of has-been actresses box if they're raising money for a good cause. Starting Tuesday, though, you can expect it and scenes like it about once a week on "Fashion House" and its companion series, "Desire."

Ladies and gentlemen -- mostly ladies, why kid ourselves here? -- meet MyNetworkTV, the network responsible for these fine programs. We should say, meet the gorgeous faces that'll be on it, if they're in your area.

"Desire" star (and Orcas Island native) Zack Silva, his co-star, Eliana Alexander, and Donna Feldman, who plays a busty, ruthless mistress on "Fashion House," are on a 30-city, 30-day tour, spreading the new network's gospel. They delivered their pep-talk to Seattle media last week.

Hard to say whether their efforts will make viewers snatch "Desire" and "Fashion House" to their bosoms, but the shows do get points for being the forerunners of the American telenovela trend.

Telenovelas frequently are compared to American soap operas, mostly because they mimic many of the same story lines -- Cinderella love affairs struggling against ridiculous odds, juicy scandal, ugly sniping and all the rest. The main difference is that where soap operas can run for decades, telenovelas last only a few weeks. They are, quite literally, television's version of romance novels, perfect for consumption in the company of girlfriends and bonbons.

A dominant genre in Spanish-speaking countries, telenovelas are catching on fast throughout Eastern Europe and Asia. Why not here?

That answer is yet to come. NBC and CBS announced plans to develop their own telenovelas for American audiences, but only ABC has one, "Ugly Betty," premiering this fall.

"All these networks already know that this genre of television is going to be successful," Silva said. "That's why they're all doing it. The fact that we get to come out of the gate first with it is a blessing."

Yeah, and remember, the other guys don't have Jenny Hanley of "10" beating up Constance Carlyle from "Flamingo Road."

"Fashion House," adapted from the Cuban series "Salir de Noche," casts Derek as fashion mogul Maria Gianni, and Fairchild as her rival, Sophia Blakely. Maria motivates employees by upending mannequins; her idea of keeping her son, Luke (Taylor Kinney), on the right path involves slipping him a roofie in an upcoming episode.

"Desire" is based on the Colombian hit, "Mesa Para Tres," and its central characters, Alex and Louis Thomas (Nate Haden and Silva), are brothers and restaurateurs in love with the same woman. It's all very steamy.

Together they promise torrid love scenes! Bitter tears! Backstabbing, high camp, high hair and heavy makeup! Overacting and writing so bad it's ...

OK, it could be better. A lot better. "Dynasty" plays like Tennessee Williams in comparison.

But these don't need to be masterpieces. They only need to hook ... somebody.

You see, "Desire" and "Fashion House" represent the entire body of MyNetworkTV's prime-time schedule for the next 13 weeks.

"We're not just launching our show," Silva said. "We're launching an entire network. How often does that happen?"

By the way, did we mention that each show has 65 episodes airing in succession five nights a week -- six if you count the Saturday night recaps? Additionally, once "Desire" and "Fashion House" are done, that's it. No repeats, no encores, ever. Next up are two more series, tentatively titled "Watch Over Me" and "The Art of Betrayal." Tatum O'Neal has signed on to the latter.

MyNetworkTV may be painted to look like Fox's next maverick idea, but it actually was born out of an emergency. Last January, when CBS Corp. and Warner Bros. Entertainment surprised the industry by merging UPN and The WB into one network called The CW, the shock wave left scores of stations across the country with no network affiliation. One of those was Seattle's KTWB/22, reborn as MyNetworkTV affiliate My Q2 (KMYQ/22).

Station vice president and general manager Pam Pearson remembers her exact reaction to the news: "I think it was, 'Oh, crap,' " she said with a laugh, calling it a grab-the-edge-of-your-dresser moment.

"Nature abhors a vacuum, but the television industry abhors one even worse," Pearson said. "And I knew ... it wasn't going to be long until something filled it. But we did go through the exercise of saying, 'You know what? It's only two hours!' "

Oh, but it was more of a problem than simply that. KTWB faced a quandary most WB affiliates did not: Tribune Broadcasting, The WB's major affiliate partner, almost immediately entered into a decadelong affiliate agreement with The CW -- and it owns what used to be KTWB. (Tribune stations in Atlanta and Philadelphia faced the same problem.)

Locally, The CW's affiliation went to KSTW/11, owned by CBS Corp. KTWB faced an empty prime-time schedule for fall. But only days after the announcement, MyNetworkTV came together.

From the outside looking in, MyNetworkTV was a risky experiment; in Pearson's mind, it was the best solution. Aside from the daily format, "Desire" and "Fashion House" initially were conceived as syndicated series, patchwork around evening blocks. However, Pearson explained, if anything was going to work in those two-hour weeknight blocks in prime time, these shows were it.

"They had to give us something fast, and in the can," she said. "I had bought these shows in syndication, so I was going to be using them anyway. I liked them, and I like the idea of being pioneers in this format."

And if the telenovelas don't work? My Q2 still has syndicated reruns of "Friends," "King of the Hill," "Scrubs," "Everybody Loves Raymond." Sundays this fall, cleaned-up episodes of FX's "The Shield" will air in prime time.

Plainly, the goal of MyNetworkTV is to target your guilty-pleasure cortex, although from what we've seen, you'll probably come to think of it as your secret shame. Telenovelas feel and sound different from the programs we're used to -- even the beloved bad TV shows. Do Americans have the attention span? Don't we have enough trash to sift through? Won't watching beautiful women clawing at each other get old?

Who knows? Young, hip viewers hungry for mindless TV candy might lay claim to it. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the parent of Fox, certainly is doing all it can to get them on board, including ads on MySpace.com, an online community hub for MyNetworkTV fans. Most content, such as broadband clips and cast commentary including, one cast member said, analysis from a therapist (!), will be available on MyNetworkTV.com.

"Once people see it, they're going to be so surprised," Feldman said. "It's not what they're expecting. When they hear 'telenovela,' and then they see what we've done, they're going to be amazed."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/283530_tv02.html

fredfa

09-03-06, 11:33 AM

TV Preview
"Standoff" - Fox Tuesday 9 PM ET/PT
Sparks of Passion, On and Off the Job
By Michelle Thomas The Washington Post

The tagline you'll never see: Negotiating a solid drama.

The basics: Matt Flannery and Emily Lehman (Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt, below) are top-ranked partners in the FBI's crisis negotiation unit. They're also sleeping together, but their team members (and their boss) don't know -- that is, until Matt unexpectedly spills the secret during a high-stakes hostage negotiation. The big question: Can Matt and Emily set their romance far enough aside so they can do their jobs? The answer lies in the show's major premise: In life -- and love -- "everything is a negotiation."

The lowdown: As one of the few non-serialized dramas premiering this fall, Fox breaks from the latest mold and fuses adrenaline-charged intensity (a la "24") with sexually charged banter (a la "Bones"). The show wins points with its leading pair -- Livingston's last television stint as Carrie Bradshaw's boyfriend Jack Berger on HBO's mega-hit "Sex in the City" gave him a top romantic pedigree, and his chemistry with DeWitt is palpable. Fox hopes to capitalize on an established fan base by airing "Standoff" after proven hit "House."

Reality check: The chemistry is realistic -- the crises are not. The show's emergencies are eye-rollingly exaggerated, and the opposites-attract formula (his follow-your-instinct persona vs. her by-the-book nature) feels a bit contrived. But the sharp dialogue and a new glimpse into the dynamics of a professional partner-personal lover relationship keep it interesting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082900968_pf.html

fredfa

09-03-06, 11:43 AM

Critic’s Notebook
'The Wire' aims higher
TV's finest hour is back
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn”

A television program about a city that has had its soul crushed by pervasive poverty, failing schools, feckless government and an unrelenting drug trade sounds like a news special you might watch once.

Yet this is the drama at the heart of “The Wire,” which, when all 13 episodes from the fourth season showed up in their mailboxes recently, made a hundred TV critics’ hearts leap.

HBO’s finest series returns Monday to its On Demand service and 9 PM ET next Sunday, Sept. 10, over the HBO channel. The star remains urban Baltimore, and the combatants remain the police on one side and the dealers on the other. The municipal bureaucracy stands somewhere in between, talking a good game but effectively ensuring that the war on drugs will not be won in this or any decade.

As it has done each of the last three years, “The Wire” has shuffled the deck between seasons. The main players have scattered. Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), the detective whose passion for the hunt made him a pain in the neck to every superior whose posterior he was supposed to be kissing, is now on humble patrol duty.

When his partner Bunk (Wendell Pierce) bumps into him, it’s at a Homeland Security briefing. McNulty is recycling the three-ring binders the cops toss on their way out the door of this waste-of-time lecture. His kids need school supplies.

School will serve as the motif for Season 4, just as politics did in Season 3 and the container ports of Baltimore did for Season 2: not merely for new subplots but as another symbol of how corruption and indifference eat away like rust at everything in America’s worst neighborhoods.

School is where Prez (Jim True-Frost) winds up. The Polish word-solving schmo who cracked the drug dealers’ code on the wiretaps (from which “The Wire” takes its name) is now teaching in a Baltimore middle school.

On the other side of the law, the scene is as Wild West as ever, yet eerily, not so. No bodies have been found in Baltimore for months, even as a new slinger in town, Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector), has consolidated his turf. It doesn’t add up.

“How do you hold that much real estate,” Bunk wonders out loud, “without making bodies?”

Meanwhile, a group of boys — some of whom will sit in Mr. Prez’s math class — are being initiated into the social circles of the drug trade. In the tug of war between education and gratification, it’s not even a contest.

And in the middle are the politicians and the pole-sitters. Carcetti (Aidan Gillen), the white councilman said to be modeled on Baltimore’s real-life mayor Martin O’Malley, is running for mayor against a black incumbent.

Something as depressing as “The Wire” can work only if it is loaded with unforgettable characters, intricate storylines and scenes that stick in the mind’s eye.

That is what show creator David Simon and his writers have done. To me, what allows “The Wire” to surpass “The Sopranos” in the pantheon of greatest American TV shows is its ambition and its anger. It has the ambition to tell the whole story of how second-tier cities like Baltimore (where “The Wire” is filmed and in whose urban bowels it unapologetically rests) are allowed to suffer and bleed while its leaders, their eyes firmly fixed on tonier, tourist-ready zones, declare the city is “back.”

It shows its anger that no one except its chroniclers seem to give a damn. Life is cheap on the streets that “The Wire” captures, but that doesn’t mean a lost life goes unmourned or made into a throwaway joke, the way it can be on “The Sopranos.”

Simon has a five-season story arc in mind. Given the modest ratings for “The Wire’s” first three seasons, HBO won’t come to him the way it did “Sopranos” creator David Chase, begging for a sixth.

But as he told critics in July, at least he will have been able “to depict an American city at the millennium … and ask why it is that the richest, most powerful country in the world can’t solve its fundamental problems when it comes to places like Baltimore. And there are a lot of places like Baltimore.”

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2006/09/the_wire_aims_h.html#more

fredfa

09-03-06, 12:27 PM

TV Notebook
New name, new chance for CBS News
By Phil Rosenthal Chicago Tribune Media Columnist September 3, 2006

When you're trying to overcome a scandal in which a document was said to be falsified, it's probably not a great idea for a publication put out by your media relations department to doctor a photo of your new anchor.

Good night and good luck, CBS News. Hello, Katie Couric.

Couric on Tuesday officially becomes the new face of CBS News, anchoring its newly rechristened "CBS Evening News With Katie Couric," with a new set, new graphics and new theme music. She's also set to contribute to CBS' "60 Minutes," CBS Radio and the network's digital offerings.

So CBS may put Couric on a diet photographically, but the brass clearly sees her as a heavyweight.

The former "Today" co-host is getting paid $15 million a year to not just get the House of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather out of the ratings basement. "We prefer to call it the ratings rec room," Couric jokes.

It's her job to take CBS News into a modern era in which it's tacitly acknowledged there are only so many people looking for headlines on TV in the early evening and there are likely to be even fewer in years to come.

"Couric has been hired to be the face of CBS News generically, not just `The CBS Evening News,'" said Andrew Tyndall, an analyst of network news. "We don't measure the success or failure of this move by the Nielsen ratings [for the nightly network newscasts] because they are in permanent and terminal decline overall.

"They're throwing all this money at Katie Couric because network news organizations have realized their future, looking 10, 15 years ahead, is going to be in multimedia [and] the type of news that gets broadcast on the half-hour newscast is what they do better than anyone else," Tyndall said. "It's what is going to keep their reputation as preeminent news gatherers ... [and what] we're going to see on our cell phones, on our iPods, on our computer screens" or whatever.

This isn't quite the reinvention of network news that CBS Corp. boss Leslie Moonves talked about when he was trying to find a salve for the wounds from Rather's botched report on President Bush's National Guard duty. This is a rebranding.

Bob Schieffer, as interim anchor between Rather and Couric, helped restore credibility to CBS News and added a few hundred thousand viewers to its evening news. Giving oversight of CBS News to CBS Sports head Sean McManus continued the makeover.

Couric is the new front person.

"Our goal is obviously on Sept. 5 that whether you're in your car, on your computer, commuting, listening on your cell phone or, God forbid, watching television like a lot of people do, that `The CBS Evening News' will be available to you," McManus said.

Couric benefits from having Schieffer as a buffer between her arrival and the departure of Rather, a polarizing figure. To link her to CBS News' past, however, there have been murmurs Cronkite himself has recorded Couric's on-air introduction.

Moonves says Couric already has paid for herself in added ad revenue. Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen predicted her "popularity, particularly with women, is likely to increase CBS' ratings even after the initial curiosity factor has disappeared" and that will boost the network overall.

Couric this summer toured key precincts around the country, soliciting viewer suggestions, and has made vague comments about making her program more accessible and solution-oriented, whatever that means.

After the London terrorist scare a few weeks ago, she said she watched and learned to "see what people are getting and what they're not getting." .

Still, it's not entirely clear what specific changes will come to the CBS nightly newscast on her watch. If the post-Tom Brokaw "NBC Nightly News" with Brian Williams and ABC's post-Peter Jennings "World News Tonight," now with Charles Gibson, are any indication, there won't be a dramatic shift.

NBC News President Steve Capus said he can't deny feeling "the hype machines" behind Couric's debut. ABC "World News Tonight" executive producer Jon Banner thinks "the renewed focus sort of makes all those questions about the vitality of the evening news disappear."

Said CBS' McManus, "In the end, all that attention could be completely wasted if we don't put on a show that the American people respect and like."

And, as they said in the good old days at CBS News, that's the way it is.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0609030321sep03,0,6253530.column

fredfa

09-03-06, 12:32 PM

TV Technology
Doing More With Less
By Glen Dickson Broadcasting & Cable 9/4/2006

Doing more with less” is a common refrain in business. But it's never been more of a necessity than it is now for telcos launching TV services and satellite operators wrestling with new HD programming, as both try to squeeze as many video streams as possible into as little bandwidth as necessary.

The IBC show in Amsterdam (Sept. 7-12) should bring some relief, as various manufacturers unveil new encoders using the MPEG-4 Advanced Video Compression (AVC/H.264) standard. MPEG-4 AVC encoders promise the same picture quality as MPEG-2 in less than half the bit rate. New models go even beyond that.

Tandberg Television is introducing its next generation of MPEG-4 AVC HD and SD encoders at IBC. Tandberg has deployed more than 1,000 high-def MPEG-4 AVC encoders, giving the company an estimated 95% share of the high-def AVC market, and some 4,000 MPEG-4 AVC encoders overall. Big customers include DirecTV, Swisscom and Premiere in Germany.

Big bandwidth improvements

Tandberg says its new encoders, the EN8030 for SD and the EN8090 for SD/HD operation, provide bandwidth improvements of up to 50% over its first-generation MPEG-4 AVC gear. While MPEG-2 encoders could compress high-def video down to the 16 to 18 megabit-per-second (Mb/s) range, early-generation AVC encoders could deliver the same quality in 10 Mb/s.

“Now we're looking at five to six megabits per second for high-motion sports at 1080i resolution, and maybe 4 megabits per second for 720p film material,” says Matthew Goldman, Tandberg's VP of technology, for compression systems.

That improvement means IPTV operators can fit two full-resolution HD channels over an ADSL2+ (advanced DSL) pipe, or that satellite broadcasters could fit up to 8 HD channels on a 36 megahertz (MHz) transponder.

Tandberg is also introducing MPEG-4 AVC encoding modules for its Plex brand encoders. Those are aimed squarely at telco IPTV customers and based on technology Tandberg gained when it acquired SkyStream last February.

Tandberg's MPEG-4 AVC's improved chip technology allows for “single-slice” video processing; the encoder is able to process an entire HD picture in a single slice instead of having to break it down into smaller slices. That frees up computational power for other functions.

The new Tandberg encoders can generate three channels from a single HDTV input: a full-resolution HD channel; a full-resolution SD channel, and a low-res “micro” channel for picture-in-picture applications. The high-density Plex systems can deliver up to 12 simultaneous channels from a one-rack-unit device: 4 HDs plus 4 SDs plus 4 low-res channels.

Harmonic has trailed Tandberg in the MPEG-4 market, delaying the release of its first high-def MPEG-4 AVC encoder until this year. But the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company is ramping up production, bringing new HD and SD MPEG-4 AVC products to IBC. After introducing the DiviCom Electra 7000 high-def MPEG-4 AVC unit in July, Harmonic's latest entry is the standard-def Electra 5400 multichannel model, which can deliver four simultaneous SD channels with corresponding low-res versions for picture-in-picture or mobile video applications. (The company already has orders for the Electra 7000 from five satellite and telco customers spread across North America and Europe.)

Harmonic claims the third-generation Electra 5400 can deliver the same quality at bit-rates 30% lower than encoders currently deployed in the market; Harmonic VP Nimrod Ben-Natan says the 5400 will deliver full-resolution SD quality at rates from 1.5 to 1.75 Mb/s. First customer shipments are scheduled to begin in September.

Like Tandberg, Harmonic is taking advantage of improved processing chips to perform single-slice encoding of HD pictures. And like Tandberg, it says it can deliver high-quality HD at bit rates as low as 6 or 7 Mb/s.

Struggling to deliver high-def

“Our customers are telling us this is really a breakthrough for them and is changing the business models in some cases,” says Ben-Natan. “Some of the telco providers have been struggling with the network bandwidth requirements to deliver high-def.”

Other compression vendors including Scientific-Atlanta and Modulus Video are bringing new and/or improved MPEG-4 AVC encoders to IBC. These products are primarily focused on telco and satellite operators distributing MPEG-4 to the home, where the pictures will be decoded by MPEG-4 set-tops.

But broadcasters are increasingly interested in using MPEG-4 AVC for newscasts. Network engineers say that MPEG-4 products for professional use aren't really available yet, a point which encoder vendors concede. But that is slowly changing.

At IBC, Tandberg will also be introducing new MPEG-4 AVC systems for digital satellite newsgathering (DSNG) and digital electronic newsgathering applications (DENG), including the EN5940, which combines MPEG-4 AVC compression with a DVB-S2 satellite modulator. That product can uplink HD video feeds in the same amount of bandwidth used for an MPEG-2 SD feed.

Another vendor showing DSNG solutions at IBC is San Francisco-based Envivio. The company has already sold a large quantity of MPEG-4 AVC compression gear to Mexican broadcaster Televisa, including 40 4Caster B3 standard-def encoders and 10 4View D1 professional decoders. Says William Aguirre, Televisa's director of satellite operations, “The performance is very good, and the quality of video is totally acceptable.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6368249

keenan

09-03-06, 12:40 PM

Critic’s Notebook
'The Wire' aims higher
TV's finest hour is back
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn”

That is what show creator David Simon and his writers have done. To me, what allows “The Wire” to surpass “The Sopranos” in the pantheon of greatest American TV shows is its ambition and its anger. It has the ambition to tell the whole story of how second-tier cities like Baltimore (where “The Wire” is filmed and in whose urban bowels it unapologetically rests) are allowed to suffer and bleed while its leaders, their eyes firmly fixed on tonier, tourist-ready zones, declare the city is “back.”

It shows its anger that no one except its chroniclers seem to give a damn. Life is cheap on the streets that “The Wire” captures, but that doesn’t mean a lost life goes unmourned or made into a throwaway joke, the way it can be on “The Sopranos.”

Well put, "The Sopranos" is just entertainment, great entertainment but just that. "The Wire", OTOH, is great entertainment, but it is also thoughtful, intelligently written sociopolitical commentary, and for me, that's what makes for compelling TV. It has value long after the show is over whereas something like "The Sopranos" is just over, it's done, you really haven't taken anything from it. "The Wire" makes you think, or should make you want to think. I realize most folks think of TV as purely entertainment, but for me, a show like "The Wire" is entertaining commentary on society at it's best. FX's "Over There" was another of similar style. I'm glad to see HBO is giving David Simon the chance to bring it to us.

As a side note, my mother was a teacher and finally a principal in the very type of schools depicted in this season's "The Wire" from the Rampart area to South Central and finally to the San Pedro area of Los Angeles and I'm really looking forward to her comments of the show.

fredfa

09-03-06, 01:17 PM

The 2006-2007 Season
My Network? Whatever it is, it's not for me
By Mark McGuire Albany Times Union staff writer

My Network TV debuts Tuesday. If you haven't heard, it's a brand-new network. Well, they say it's a network. Sort of.

It isn't -- it's a stopgap that's been slapped together at the 11th hour after The WB and UPN merged to become The CW. The convergence of two networks into one left a lot of WB and UPN affiliates without a network or programming.

Into the breach stepped the Fox-led My Network TV -- a confederation, perhaps, but that's it. A "network" doesn't air only two prime-time shows, both of them telenovelas, and air them six nights a week. And one of those nights features nothing but highlights from the other five.

Oh, and some advice for this netlet/mini-network/not-even-close-to- being-a-real-network: If you're only going to air two shows at a time (they will rotate out after 13 weeks), can you at least make one of them somewhat, I dunno, watchable?

I guess I shouldn't complain: In a fall television season featuring too few awful shows -- the kind critics feed on like flies around a beached bluefish -- My Network TV has come to the rescue. They've presented the worst slate of programming ever upchucked by a broadcast network. And they only have two of them.

Start with "Desire" (8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, on former UPN affiliate WNYA Ch. 15). Here's the short take: Bad writing, stiff acting and cinematography that could get you kicked out of USC -- as in the University of Schoharie County -- doesn't make for a signature series you are going to air six nights a week.

Two brothers open a restaurant with mom. One sleeps with a mob boss's daughter. Mob boss blows up their apartment. Two brothers and mom go on the run to California. After settling in, the brothers fall in love with the same woman. Mobster vows to hunt down the brother and his family.

You won't recognize any of the actors, so I won't bother naming them. I'm doing them a favor. I met some of them in Pasadena, Calif., at the Television Critics Association Press Tour. The best I could say is you gotta start somewhere, and hopefully someday this will be nothing but an empty space on their resumes.

Thirty-nine minutes into "Desire," I had no clue what in the name of Susan Lucci was going on. It's an endless loop of seemingly unrelated scenes, snippets of disembodied dialogue and performances that would take years of editing to raise to the standards of a daytime soap.

To be fair, it's not like My Network TV had years to develop content. The strategy is clear, and quasi-sound: Try to replicate the success of Latin American telenovelas, those popular soaps that air nightly. Clearly they are doing this all on the (very) cheap, akin to America daytime soaps. Still, if My Network TV is trying to replicate the quality of daytime broadcast fare, well, they've still got a long climb.

All this put me in the mood for screening select highlights of "Fashion House" (9 p.m. six nights a week). The network bills this soap as delving into "the glamorous, yet unscrupulous, world of the fashion industry and how greed, lust and blind ambition make or break careers, and hearts, in the business." (Note to the copy desk: The syntax and punctuation is all theirs.)

It gets better: It stars Bo Derek. You remember Bo, the star in the epically awful 1998 NBC drama "Wind on Water"? That short-lived series so ill-conceived that the award I give each year to the worst in TV bears its name. (She was also the babe in "10," but that was, like, decades ago.) Derek plays heartless fashion mogul Maria Gianni, who will stomp anyone who gets in her way, including -- say it with me now -- her own child.

If that's not enough, we also give you -- wait for it -- Morgan Fairchild.

As I write this, I'm watching Bo catfighting in a swimming pool, trading b-bombs and haymakers with some actress half her age. The only thing missing is Bo running in a wet blouse in slow motion.

I was initially convinced that "Fashion House" had the same writers as "Desire." I could picture them locked away in some basement in Van Nuys, Calif., subsisting on nothing but Oreos and Red Bull, toiling around the clock churning out the 130 scripts -- each worse than the last -- needed for the 13-week run.

I was wrong. The shows don't have writers, they have "adapters" -- that's what they're actually called -- who take Spanish-language telenovelas and rewrite them for American audiences.

Thirteen weeks. Then "Desire" will have faded and "Fashion House" will be shuttered forever. Only snarky TV critics will mourn them. But My Network TV, whatever it is, has just begun. They'll be back -- with more.

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/storyprint.asp?StoryID=513228

fredfa

09-03-06, 01:22 PM

TV Commentary
Rise of Couric, Vieira still gets sexist slant
Susan Reimer the Baltimore Sun September 3, 2006

The ascension of Katie Couric to the anchor desk at CBS on Tuesday and of Meredith Vieira to her place on the Today show gives us a prime-time look at the status of women in the workplace.

When it comes to women, it is still about looks, age and clothes. The Wall Street Journal picked over Couric's wardrobe as if it were hanging in a second-hand shop. And women's magazine writers keep making the point that Vieira looks great without makeup and doesn't care a fig about what she wears.

Television reporters asked Charlie Gibson about his anchor-chair clothing choices as a joke because they had asked Couric about hers. He bristled.

And when it comes to their work, it is still about whether women have what it takes to do the job - and still take care of things at home.

We are talking about what we consider to be one of the most senior leadership positions in the information age, and Couric has to explain herself by telling us she has "help" at home.

"It's not like I leave the dog door open and food in a bowl," she said to USA Today.

Did we ever know if Dan Rather had kids? I don't even know if Brian Williams is married. Did anyone ever ask Peter Jennings who cooked?

The central fact of Meredith Vieira's biography is that she walked away from her unyielding bosses at 60 Minutes to go home to take care of her kids.

Her $10-million-a-year spot on the couch on the Today show is seen as - what? An affirmation that women can stay home with the kids during their formative years and re-enter the work force at full strength at the age of 52?

What a joke.

Gibson got the anchor job at ABC after Bob Woodruff was struck down in Iraq and co- anchor Elizabeth Vargas - here's the rumor, anyway - played the maternity leave card to give herself a graceful out just as her bosses were trying to dump her.

Call me crazy, but when I started in this business, men didn't want to hire women because they would get pregnant and leave.

Now, getting pregnant and leaving is a career move.

One of the reasons Couric isn't considered serious enough for the anchor job is all the silly things she did during 15 years on morning television.

But nobody has suggested that Gibson's credibility has been damaged by his goofy stunts on Good Morning America. (Although everyone is calling him Charles now.)

Couric took a terrible beating when it was reported - out of context, it turns out - that she'd said she didn't want to travel to hot spots because she was the only parent her two daughters had left.

I can't think of anything more sensible, but Couric was forced to clarify that position by saying, of course she would travel to hot spots for the right interview and if the news warranted it.

Walter Cronkite's trip to Vietnam convinced him that the war could not be won, and it changed the way he reported on it. His conversion experience is considered a central moment in the tide-turning of American support for the war.

Clearly this kind of reporting can be important, but it became a machismo stunt in 1995 when Dan Rather lashed himself to a lamppost to report from the midst of a hurricane.

In any case, I don't recall anybody asking either of them to defend their recklessness to their families.

Did Cronkite have kids? I don't even know.

You can attribute the intrusiveness of the reporting on Couric and Vieira to the new cult of celebrity that surrounds our newsreaders. People magazine has taken care of that.

The headline from the autobiography of CNN's Anderson Cooper is that he is Gloria Vanderbilt's son and his brother committed suicide. So men are not immune.

But it is different for women.

When they talk about women newsreaders, they are still talking about her hair color, her pearls, her kids, her clothes and her marriage. (Or, in Couric's case, her date life.)

And, of course, the big question for women anchors: How does she do it all? Because it is still true that the guys just do one job.

NBC boss Jeff Zucker told The New York Times that he wanted to hire Vieira precisely because her family was her highest priority, and he knew viewers would glom onto that fact.

Imagine. A woman's work-life balance as a ratings ploy.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/bal-ml.reimer03sep03,1,4377479,print.column?coll=bal-artslife-tv&ctrack=1&cset=true

fredfa

09-03-06, 02:00 PM

Cable TV Nielsen Notebook
Summer Nielsens Twice as Nice for Cable
By Linda Moss Multichannel News 9/4/2006

This summer, cable networks hit a double, outpacing broadcast networks in primetime viewership by a 2-to-1 margin.

From late May through August, ad-supported cable networks snared a 62.1 share of primetime household viewing, compared to a 31.1 share for broadcast networks, according to a Turner Broadcasting System Inc. analysis of Nielsen Media Research data released last week.

This summer marked the first time cable enjoyed twice the primetime viewership of broadcast. Cable networks' share was at a record high; broadcast networks' summer viewership at a record low.

Last year, cable's share of primetime viewership beat broadcast, with a 61.1 versus a 32.0.

The medium's performance is expected to give it strong momentum going into the fall.

“Overall, it bodes very well for cable, because whenever you're coming off a strong summer, you normally narrow your lead over the broadcasters in the fall as well,” said Tim Brooks, Lifetime Television's executive vice president of research. “I would suspect, given this 2-to-1 summer, that cable again would have even a stronger September than it did last year.”

FINDING SHOWS

One of this summer's twists is that several returning cable shows — such as TNT's The Closer and USA Network's Monk — performed even better than in their prior seasons.

Season to date, The Closer is averaging a 5.5 rating, a full ratings point more than its 4.5 first-season average last year.

“We're finding it's becoming more usual [for shows to see ratings growth after their first season],” said Jack Wakshlag, Turner's chief research officer. “With more fragmentation than ever going on, it takes longer for shows to be found. So this show [The Closer] in its second season is being found.”

In fact, this season The Closer — in terms of households and overall viewers — is the most-watched original series in the history of ad-supported cable, according to Wakshlag. The procedural cop show has been averaging 6.6 million viewers.

USA's hit Monk averaged a 4.2 rating this summer. The ratings Monk and The Closer garnered this summer show how far cable has come, said Brooks, since it used to be that “the height for cable, kind of the ceiling, was a rating in the 2.5, 3.0 range.”

To its benefit, cable networks faced less competition from new broadcast shows this summer. The broadcasters debuted 11 new shows, while cable launched 56, according to Brooks. In previous summers, broadcast launched about 20 shows and cable about 50.

“I didn't realize that the broadcasters had cut back so much [this year],” Brooks said.

USA CHAMPION

The Fox broadcast network, for example, didn't debut any new summer shows.

“That's an interesting short-term strategy,” Wakshlag said. “I'm not sure that's a long-term strategy. It worked for them this summer. they have no new shows from this summer to use next year.”

USA was cable's primetime ratings champ this summer, according to a Disney ABC Cable Networks analysis of Nielsen data. USA was No. 1 with a 2.4 rating, up 20% from last summer. Disney Channel came in second, with a 2.3 rating, a 15% increase from last year.

TNT placed third with a 2.1 rating, slipping 13% from last summer, followed by Lifetime, with a 1.5, dipping 6%. TBS and Cartoon Network each posted a 1.4 rating. Both networks were flat compared with last year.

ESPN, Fox News Channel, Nick at Nite and Hallmark Channel all tied with a 1.3 rating. ESPN and Hallmark were each up 18% versus last summer, while Fox News and Nick at Nite were both down 24%.

USA is benefiting from the return of pro-wrestling perennial WWE Monday Night Raw to its lineup this year, as well as the strong performances of not only the veteran scripted program Monk but also the new series Psych, a breakout hit for cable this summer.

“They're comparing wrestling to a year without wrestling, of course. That has boosted USA, along with Monk,” Brooks said. “They've got several different poles to their success. It's not just wrestling or it's not just Monk, or their movie inventory. These things work together.”

USA has also built original-program blocks on three nights: On Fridays, Monk and Psych are scheduled; on Sunday, it's The Dead Zone and The 4400; and Monday features WWE Raw.

“What we love is Friday night, Sunday night and Monday night, we have solid, original, rating-getting programming,” said Bonnie Hammer, president of USA and Sci Fi Channel.

Monk provided a strong lead-in for Psych, helping to give it “legs,” Brooks said. Psych has averaged a 3.9 rating.

“We're happy campers, for a whole lot of reasons,” Hammer said. “To have the No. 1 new cable series — Psych is the best-rated new original cable series out there this year — and it pretty much did everything we wanted it to, in terms of a block with Monk.”

The successful addition of Psych to USA's lineup, paired with Monk, is part of the network's new strategy and branding campaign.

USA has moved to create shows that are “character-centric,” upbeat, fun and escapist, according to Hammer.

[b]'HUGE SLAUGHTER'

Original movies performed extremely well for basic cable this summer, for networks including AMC, Disney Channel, Lifetime and TNT. The two parts of AMC's first made-for-TV movie, the Western Broken Trail, ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the ratings for all cable programming this summer. The second part ranked first with a 7.9, while the first part was next with a 7.8.

Disney Channel's original movie The Cheetah Girls 2 earned a 5.8 rating. TNT's The Ron Clark Story posted a 5.5 rating, while Lifetime's The Fantasia Barrino Story did a 5.0.

Broadcast networks still debut most of their new shows in the fall, although a few cable channels have scheduled premieres then. TBS, for example, will be launching My Boys and 10 Items or Less.

“Fortunately for us in cable, the broadcasters continue to put all of their shows against each other,” Brooks said. “It's a huge slaughter; it's like all the lemmings going off the cliff. By early October, the corpses are being carried off the field, and the few that survive, survive.

“Cable, on the other hand, because it's producing shows from so many different networks, we never premiere all our stuff against each other.”

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6368420

fredfa

09-03-06, 02:57 PM

The 2006-2007 Season
For the first time in years The Peacock Is Strutting

By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 9/4/2006

We got trouble, right here at NBC, with a capital T and that rhymes with G, as in 'Gee, we're screwed!'”

Those words, set to a tune from the Broadway musical The Music Man, were belted out to the 16 million viewers of last week's Emmys in a song-and-dance number by host and NBC personality Conan O'Brien.

But while O'Brien's singing and dance moves were perfectly in step, NBC executives say the timing of his subject matter may have been a few beats behind. The network has a bounce in its step for the first time in years, thanks to the strong buzz surrounding its batch of new shows led by Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a runaway winner for best new show of the fall season in a new B&C poll of television critics.

After years of trying to lower expectations, NBC brass are exuding a new confidence they hope is the precursor to a desperately needed turnaround for the network, which plummeted from the golden era of “Must-See TV” after failing to replace established hits with new blood. NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly, though, humbled by so many defeats in the past, isn't shying away from the buzz around his new shows.

“Hype is always a double-edged sword,” he says. “Hype followed by delivery is okay. Hype followed by fumbling is not. I'd feel a lot more nervous if I didn't think Studio 60 is going to deliver.”

Seeding a turnaround

And NBC Universal hopes he's right. It's crucial for the network to kick off the new season that begins this month with one or two hits to seed a turnaround and restore its reputation with viewers, advertisers and the Hollywood community. In recent seasons, ABC has revitalized itself, CBS dominated in households, and Fox flourished. All the while, NBC has taken a beating in both ratings and advertising revenues.

“As ABC learned with Lost and Desperate Housewives, it doesn't take too much to change not only ratings but, more importantly, the momentum of the network,” says John Rash, senior VP for media- buying agency Campbell Mithun. “A couple hits will not only make NBC more competitive this year but better position them to get earlier looks at better projects and enable success going forward.”

NBC's new self-assurance is attributable in large part to Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 script, which goes behind the scenes of a Saturday Night Live-type comedy show. The pilot has been widely praised, thanks to snappy dialogue evoking the gravitas of The West Wing combined with a star-studded ensemble cast featuring Matthew Perry (Friends) and Bradley Whitford (West Wing).

One uncertainty with Studio 60 is whether a show set behind the scenes of the television industry will play in the flyover states. With estimated costs soaring up to $3.1 million per episode, it's a big gamble. But NBC's Reilly won't tell Sorkin to keep things mainstream-friendly.

“I made it very clear to him that this is the show we are going to let them do,” Reilly says. “I don't feel any need to try and encourage it in any different direction.”

While Studio 60 is clearly NBC's best hope for a new hit, the network also hopes to find at least one other player in its rookie lineup. The new crop includes Tina Fey's comedy 30 Rock, which also goes behind the scenes of a TV show; high school football drama Friday Night Lights, based on a book and movie of the same name; and Heroes, a mystical drama about regular people gaining superpowers.

All have been well-received both by critics and Madison Avenue. Shari Anne Brill, VP/director of programming, for the Carat USA media agency in New York, calls this the best development slate NBC has had in several years.

“These shows will definitely outperform the ones they've replaced,” she says. “You don't turn around completely in one season, but they will have a reversal of misfortune.”

Besides Studio 60 and a few rookie hopefuls, the network has a handful of returning hits: game show Deal or No Deal and the comedy block of My Name is Earl and Emmy-winner The Office. Moreover, NBC hopes to exploit the promotional muscle of Sunday Night Football, which this fall kicks off the network's $600-per-year NFL deal. The network hopes enough fans will stick around to watch the entertainment product to justify such a large investment, something ABC struggled with on Monday nights before giving up football this year.

Launching a new show will be particularly tough with so few established hits to provide a safe harbor. In fact, NBC was so cautious with its new lineup that, after first announcing one schedule in May at its upfront presentation, it later released a revision after seeing the other networks' plans.

Other networks set agenda

Reilly's only apprehension over the season is fueled in part by the fact that, going into this season, NBC had to schedule around the hits on other networks, instead of putting its shows where it thought they would work best. “My biggest concern is that, given our competitive situation, we were forced to go with a schedule that was less than ideal,” he says. “[The other networks] are setting the agenda, and we are trying to program the best we can around that.”

Still, he's confident that NBC has the goods this fall, no matter what Conan O'Brien says. “He should use that material while he can,” Reilly says of O'Brien's NBC-chiding routine. “Because, hopefully, it won't be available for too much longer.”

How sure is he? “There is a momentum thing, and this is the year it will turn. I'm sure it will.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6368413

fredfa

09-03-06, 03:16 PM

HDTV Schedule
Football
Sept 7-11
(All times are Eastern)

Thursday, Sept. 7
Oregon State at Boise State 7:30 PM ESPN HD
Miami at Pittsburgh NFL 8:30 PM NBC HD

Friday, Sept. 8
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati 8:00 PM ESPN2 HD

Saturday, Sept. 9
Virginia Tech at North Carolina 12 Noon ESPN HD
Illinois at Rutgers 12 Noon ESPN2 HD
Mississippi at Missouri 12:30 PM FSN HD
Penn State at Notre Dame 3:30 PM NBC HD
Arizona at LSU 6:30 PM ESPN2 HD
Georgia at South Carolina 7:45 PM HD
Ohio State at Texas 8 PM ABC HD
Oregon at Fresno State 10 PM ESPN2 HD

Sunday, Sept. 10
Buffalo at New England NFL 1 PM CBS HD
Cincinnati at Kansas City NFL 1 PM CBS HD
Denver at St. Louis NFL 1 PM CBS HD HD
Philadelphia at Houston NFL 1 PM FOX HD
Chicago at Green Bay NFL 4:15 PM FOX HD
Dallas at Jacksonville NFL 4:15 PM FOX HD
Indianapolis at N.Y. NFL 8:15 PM NBC HD

Monday, Sept. 11
Minnesota at Washington NFL 7 PM ESPN HD
San Diego at Oakland NFL 10:15 PM ESPN HD

dg28

09-03-06, 03:18 PM

Fred, you forgot opening night of the NFL - Thursday, 9/8 - Steelers vs. Dolphins.

fredfa

09-03-06, 03:23 PM

Got it, dg28, thanks!

fredfa

09-03-06, 04:54 PM

TV Preview
Tuesday TV-a-thon:
Plastic surgery, bickering cops, a silly soap and Katie's new gig
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” September 03, 2006

“Nip/Tuck” (10 PM ET/PT Tuesday, FX) is on its best behavior. Is that a good thing?

Of course, when talking of the flashy plastic-surgery drama, the phrase “best behavior” takes on a rather elastic meaning. After all, the sexual escapade that takes place in the opening minutes of the fourth season is best not described in a family newspaper.

Still, “Nip/Tuck” creator Ryan Murphy is obviously cringing from the critical drubbing his show took during its third season, when the plot about a serial killer called the Carver went from a perverse diversion to an irritating farce that nearly killed the show’s sense of zesty, sexy fun.

That sense of saucy transgression married to surprisingly effective character development -- the magic formula of the first two seasons -- is a bit wobbly this year, but “Nip/Tuck” is more or less back on track, and the Carver is thankfully nowhere in sight.

This season, Murphy returns to the tricky bond between surgeons Christian Troy and Sean McNamara; Troy (Julian McMahon) begins confronting the depth of his feelings for his partner in the plastic-body biz, while McNamara (Dylan Walsh), the more staid doctor of the pair, and his wife, Julia (Joely Richardson), prepare for the birth of a physically handicapped child.

Those darker themes are countered by a soapy (and rather predictable) story line involving a wealthy older man and his hot young wife, who not only want a surgical procedure for him but attempt to buy the practice as a bauble for her.

Sanaa Lathan is unfortunately a bit too wooden to do her role of the older man’s wife much justice, but never mind, there are guest cameos galore, some more effective than others. Brooke Shields, Larry Hagman, Kathleen Turner and Rosie O’Donnell, among others, are part of the calvacade of stars Murphy has brought in to jazz up the show, which is now often rather melancholy.

For the show to succeed, some of these characters must turn out to have the depth and pathos of previous McNamara-Troy associates and patients (Turner does, in her short appearance). And let’s hope none of them turns out to be a serial killer in disguise.

Speaking of couples with issues, “Standoff” (9 PM ET/PT Tuesday, Fox) is just the kind of workmanlike, blah cop show that you wish Ron Livingston hadn’t had the bad fortune to end up in.

Livingston plays one half of a FBI duo that excels at hostage negotiations; the other half is, not surprisingly, his ex. They bicker and fuss, and the good feeling one usually gets upon spotting Gina Torres (“Firefly”) is dispelled once it becomes clear that she’s playing a by-the-numbers tough police boss.

“Standoff” isn’t a terrible show, it’s just an unnecessary one, and in a season full of much more promising new offerings, it’s really just best to ignore these bickering “Bones”-inspired cops.

Tuesday is a historic day, sort of; a new network debuts. The Fox-owned MyNetwork TV, which begins operating Tuesday and is mostly made up of former UPN affiliates, debuts two new shows, “Desire” (8 PM ET/PT) a mob drama, and “Fashion House” (9 PM ET/PT a soapy fashion chronicle. Each show will air five nights per week, with a weekly wrap-up Saturdays.

For fans of camp creations, “Fashion House” ought to be worth at least a look. Bo Derek plays a diva in the rag trade, and Morgan Fairchild is her mysterious, filthy-rich enemy. Viewers are promised hair-pulling catfights as in the days of “Dynasty”-era soaps, but the silly fun ends in 13 weeks. Both “Desire” and “Fashion House” are limited-run series that will be replaced in a few months by new shows.

Also Tuesday, when “House” returns (8 PM ET/PT Fox), Dr. Greg House (Hugh Laurie) isn’t limping -- he’s actually running. It looks as though the treatment he received at the end of the last season for his gunshot wounds may have healed his leg injury. But this twisty, well-acted show being what it is, the behavior of House once again defies expectations, but the cranky medic is no less committed to figuring out what ails his mystifying patients, including a mute one who has been in a wheelchair for years.

Two final notes about Tuesday television: At 6:30 PM ET/PT on CBS 2, Katie Couric begins her stint as anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” and Rosie O’Donnell joins “The View” on Tuesday (10 AM ET/PT on ABC).

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

fredfa

09-03-06, 08:52 PM

TV Preview
Katie Couric’s Opening Week
BUSH, CLINTON, LIMBAUGH, CRONKITE TO LAUNCH COURIC

(drudgereport.com) **Exclusive**

Plans for the opening week of CBS EVENING NEWS WITH KATIE COURIC have surpassed network executives' wildest dream: Presidents Bush and Clinton, radio king Rush Limbaugh and broadcast legend Walter Cronkite have all agreed to appear, a CBS insider reveals!

A top network source says scheduling of "guest editorials" are still in flux.

But the addition of Rush Limbaugh to the CBS EVENING NEWS is bound to generate maximum commotion and tune-in hits.

"It was Katie's idea to bring Limbaugh in," a top CBS source said on Sunday. "She is very excited he has agreed to appear."

Rudy Giuliani and Bill Maher have also signed on for early editions of Couric.

CBS will issue a press release on Monday confirming details of the EVENING NEWS all-star line-up.

Developing...

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2kg.htm

RussTC3

09-03-06, 09:55 PM

Hmm, interesting. I certainly be tuning in to see Mr. Maher.

HDTVChallenged

09-03-06, 11:00 PM

TV Technology
Doing More With Less
By Glen Dickson Broadcasting & Cable 9/4/2006

... <snips> ...

Says William Aguirre, Televisa's director of satellite operations, “The performance is very good, and the quality of video is totally acceptable.”

Oh joy! More "totally acceptable" PQ in our future ... Be still my racing heart! :rolleyes:

fredfa

09-03-06, 11:20 PM

Yup, sad isn't it? Great PQ always seems to be pretty low on the list.

fredfa

09-03-06, 11:27 PM

The 2006-07 Season
Is fall TV talk all the rage?
Uh, no. But here's what's where, new and returning
By R.D. Heldenfels Akron Beacon Journal television writer Sun, Sep. 03, 2006

It's time for fall TV. Or late summer TV. Or maybe we should wait until October. Or just watch all the shows online.

In any case, in the next three weeks, you will start seeing the bulk of new broadcast-network series, as well as the return of many prime-time favorites.

Not all, of course. Last season ended with the usual pile of one-season wonders -- including all three new aliens-among-us series, Threshold, Invasion and Surface.

Some of you are far more excited by the return of cable's Nip/Tuck (Tuesday on FX) or Battlestar Galactica (Oct. 6 on Sci Fi) than by anything you'll see highlighted in these pages. Or, you think the only big news of the season is Katie Couric joining The CBS Evening News on Tuesday, or the new syndicated shows from Rachael Ray and Megan Mullally. And there are still more of you who aren't even turning on the set to watch TV.

You're addicted to streaming video, viral Web sites and other places where TV shows are being previewed and replayed -- or competing with amateur productions that can prove more habit-forming than some big network shows.

Coming up with enough prime-time hits is tough for any one network, let alone half a dozen.

The new CW and MyNetwork- TV won't even program seven nights a week; Fox still does an hour less of programming each night than ABC, CBS or NBC.

So the networks have groped for solutions, including quick-fix reality shows (although they've long since stopped being guaranteed audience-grabbers) and sports. ABC has turned Saturday nights over to college football, and NBC grabbed a prime-time NFL package for Sunday nights, while 36-year-old Monday Night Football moved to ESPN.

Of course, both those networks will need to make adjustments when football ends. And that just makes the TV world bigger and messier.

But here we have tried to tidy it up -- to give you at least a moment of clarity before you start trying to find these shows.

Consult the grid, read the program capsules, note the premiere dates (all subject to change). Then, when you're watching, keep in mind:

Schedule scrapping

Remember that nice chart of the fall lineup you saw here in May, after the networks announced their new shows? Time to take it off the refrigerator. It's long past no good.

Times have changed, titles have changed, shows have gone from the lineup to midseason status and vice versa. Even the shows that are still on the list have undergone revamps: ABC drama Brothers and Sisters dropped Betty Buckley in favor of Sally Field, and has undergone changes in the production team. NBC's 30 Rock kept Rachel Dratch but changed her role while bringing in Jane Krakowski in Dratch's old part.

Celebrity Duets is not officially part of Fox's fall lineup, but it's going to fill some prime-time hours for several coming weeks. Lost has already scheduled a midseason hiatus, when its time period will be filled by new series Day Break to spare Lost fans from rerun fatigue.

Networks will look different this year, too. By the end of September, there will be no more WB and UPN. A selection of their programs will be on a new network, The CW, airing in the area on WBNX (Channel 55). Meanwhile, WUAB (Channel 43) has signed with the new My-NetworkTV, which begins airing two prime-time soaps on Tuesday.

And every single thing is subject to change.

Serials shine

Returning serials from last season include Prison Break, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Smallville, Supernatural, The O.C., One Tree Hill and Desperate Housewives -- as well as reality competitions such as Survivor, The Amazing Race and Dancing With the Stars. To that you can add Vanished, Kidnapped, The Nine, Jericho, Ugly Betty and Smith, as well as MyNetwork-TV's purely soapy Fashion House and Desire.

Some shows that aren't purely serialized, like House, will still have ongoing story lines. (For example, when House returns Tuesday, we'll see the results of the surgery he had performed at the end of last season.)

Viewers have gravitated to some serials, notably American Idol and recent best-drama Emmy winner 24 (both returning in January). But they remain a mixed blessing for many, requiring a firm commitment week after week and a willingness to risk a show's ending without resolving all its stories.

Producers are now supposed to know where their tale is going so they can offer an ending -- even if it's an online synopsis. But viewers of Reunion, however, few they may have been, still ache at that show's lack of resolution before it was canceled.

And some shows have found that seasonlong story lines just don't work for them. This year, Veronica Mars will do three shorter serials instead of one gigantic one.

Stars matter

People who have been better known for their movie work will be in TV series this fall, notably Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen on Smith, Delroy Lindo on Kidnapped, Sally Field on Brothers and Sisters and Bo Derek on Fashion House. James Woods, who moves easily between TV and movies, is opting for TV for the moment, as the star of Shark.

And some big names in TV are taking another swing at the medium. Matthew Perry of Friends fame is back in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (as is Bradley Whitford of The West Wing), Ally McBeal's Calista Flockhart is in Brothers and Sisters, Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond has 'Til Death, and Alias' Victor Garber stars in Justice along with Oz's Eamonn Walker.

Behind the cameras, big-screen writer-director Peter Berg is trying TV with Friday Night Lights, a TV drama derived from his movie of the same name, based on H.G. Bissinger's book.

But why would stars who can get movies -- or who banked major cash from their previous work -- want to take on the grind of the series? Let Matthew Perry provide one answer.

``I think actors look for good material,'' he said. ``I'm here mostly because of how good the (Studio 60) script is and how bad The Whole 10 Yards was.''

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/television/15424862.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

09-03-06, 11:34 PM

The 2006-07 Season
These shows air if Plan A fails
By R.D. Heldenfels Akron Beacon Journal television writer Sun, Sep. 03, 2006

The networks have their benches loaded with backup shows, both new and returning. Here are some of the shows waiting for their turn in the schedule.

3 Lbs. (CBS). New drama about neurosurgeons.

24 (Fox).

According to Jim (ABC).

American Idol (Fox, January).

America's Got Talent (NBC).

Andy Barker, P.I. (NBC). New comedy about an accountant who becomes a private eye.

The Apprentice (NBC).

Big Day (ABC). New comedy about couple getting married.

The Black Donnellys (NBC). Drama about working-class brothers involved in crime.

Day Break (ABC, Nov. 15). Drama about a man repeatedly living the same awful day. With Taye Diggs. Will fill Lost's time slot while that show takes a break.

George Lopez (ABC).

King of Queens (CBS).

King of the Hill (Fox, after football ends).

Medium (NBC).

Nobody's Watching (NBC). The YouTube sensation about two guys trying to make it in television.

Notes From the Underbelly (ABC). New comedy about couple expecting their first child.

On the Lot (Fox). New reality competition among undiscovered filmmakers.

Raines (NBC). New drama about police detective who talks to the dead, with Jeff Goldblum.

Rules of Engagement (CBS). New relationship comedy with Patrick Warburton.

Scrubs (NBC).

The Singles Table (NBC). New comedy about people who meet at a wedding's ``singles table'' and become good friends.

Supernanny (ABC).

Traveler (ABC). New drama about twentysomethings caught in a weird conspiracy.

Waterfront (CBS). New drama with Joe Pantoliano as a big-city mayor.

The Wedding Album (Fox). New drama about a wedding photographer.

The Winner (Fox). New comedy with The Daily Show's Rob Corddry as a man who decides to grow up -- at 32.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/television/15424855.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

09-03-06, 11:48 PM

The 2006-07 Season
Top 10 list of debutantes
By R.D. Heldenfels Akron Beacon Journal television writer Sun, Sep. 03, 2006

Based on pilot episodes of new series, here are 10 that I will be watching more than once.

Doesn't mean they're all great. But each has something appealing, whether it's a moving moment, a great performance or the promise of better things to come.

Friday Night Lights (NBC). This drama about a small town and its high school football team was by far my favorite pilot of the new season. It boasts strong characters, solid acting and a sense of what a community is.

Knights of Prosperity (ABC). A very goofy comedy about a bunch of losers -- led by Donal Logue -- who decide to rob Mick Jagger's New York home. Jagger himself appears in the pilot and is hilarious.

Ugly Betty (ABC). America Ferrera is endearing as all get-out in this funny and sweet adaptation of a famous telenovela.

Jericho (CBS). Some good twists in its view of a small town dealing with isolation after what looks like a nuclear war. Also at least one trite one in the pilot. Terrific performance from Gerald McRaney.

'Til Death (Fox). Brad Garrett knows how to make people laugh. Garrett is in this show about two couples at different stages in marriage. Joely Fisher works well with Garrett. The flaw: They're only half the show.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC). I had problems with the pilot of this drama about the doings at a network comedy show. I also had problems with the pilot of The West Wing, which came from the same writing-directing team,and it turned out OK. And this has a stellar performance by Matthew Perry.

30 Rock (NBC). This is a really guarded recommendation, because this Tina Fey-written comedy about a network variety show has undergone some significant recasting since the pilot. Still, Fey -- who also stars -- is good, and Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan are hilarious.

Heroes (NBC). Yes, its ordinary-people-discover-special-powers notion is The Greatest American Hero multiplied. But I was still intrigued by the characters, and Masi Oka should be a breakout star.

The Nine (ABC). Tantalizing saga of what happens to people after they're involved in a bank robbery and hostage taking.

Fashion House (MyNetworkTV). This prime-time soap is bad. Oh, it is very bad. But we watch TV for different reasons, and one is to laugh at really bad, over-the-top television -- like this.

Not that I would watch it every night. And even the high-quality shows come with a problem. Can I -- or you -- squeeze them in with existing commitments to House, Veronica Mars, Grey's Anatomy and other returning shows?

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/television/

fredfa

09-04-06, 12:07 AM

The 2006-07 Season
Networks, take notes
Learn a lesson from last year: Dramas have got to hook us. Comedies need to stand out if you want to pass the test with viewers
By Diane Holloway Austin American-Statesman television writer

Listen up, class. Pay attention. I'm talking to you, network programmers, so stop checking your stock tickers and take a seat. Note: All times are Central.

Last season was a bit of a bust, wasn't it? Only a handful of the new shows earned passing grades and were invited back for a sophomore year. The sci-fi offerings disappeared into a parallel universe of their own.

The latest batch of offerings show noticeable improvement in the drama categories, but you're still pretty weak when it comes to comedy. Buckle down, folks, and focus. If you had paid attention to last season's funny hits, namely "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office," you might have learned something. We really don't need another round of twentysomething goofiness.

As for dramas, well, you've probably got way too many serials on the course schedule. No matter how many viewers fall in love with "Kidnapped," "Jericho" or "Runaway," there's just no way to keep track of so many continuing plot lines.

Skipped episodes will equal mass confusion and, ultimately, overload. The dropout rate for serials, I predict, will be substantial.

A bit more variety in your course offerings will serve you well next time, but for the sake of your audience, let's analyze what's coming up this fall.

BASIC DRAMA 202

Goal: To amuse, entertain and grab viewers otherwise unwilling to commit to the season's avalanche of weekly serials.

Let's review:

"Standoff" (8 p.m. Sept. 5; moves to 7 p.m. in October; Fox) — Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt play FBI crisis negotiators secretly sleeping together. Completely uninteresting despite cute cast. Grade: D

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (9 p.m. Sept. 18, NBC) — Everything from concept to execution of this darkly humorous drama smacks of excellence. Creator Aaron Sorkin brings us behind-the-scenes wit and turmoil at a late-night comedy show that looks a whole lot like "Saturday Night Live." Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford are superb as a writer-producer team. Grade: A

"Smith" (9 p.m. Sept. 19, CBS) — A weary concept (the secret lives of high-class thieves) but a fabulous cast. Ray Liotta is the chief thief; Virginia Madsen is his wife, who allegedly doesn't know how he earns all that money. Good chemistry and production values. Grade: C+

"Shark" (9 p.m. Sept. 21, CBS) — A one-note legal drama with James Woods as a hyperkinetic guy emitting the one, ear-splitting note. The young attorneys he bosses around aren't the slightest bit interesting, so we're left with the overbearing Woods as an egotistical defense attorney turned do-good prosecutor. Grade: C

"Men in Trees" (8 p.m. Fridays, debuts 9 p.m. Sept. 12, ABC) — Think "Northern Exposure" from a female perspective. Anne Heche is delightful in this romantic comedy-drama about an advice author who is dumped by her fiancé and winds up finding happiness in the wilds of Alaska. Grade: B+

"Brothers & Sisters" (9 p.m. Sept. 24, ABC) — No preview. Hard to imagine a family drama starring Calista Flockhart, Rachel Griffiths, Sally Field and Patricia Wettig could be anything but riveting. Keeping fingers crossed for this one, which casts the former Ally McBeal as a conservative radio talk-show host. Grade: Incomplete.

"Heroes” (8 p.m. Sept. 25, NBC) — Ordinary people discover they have extraordinary powers: a cheerleader whose body is indestructible, a drug-addled artist who paints the future, a politician who can fly, etc. There are way too many of these freaky folks to keep track of, and they're not doing anything particularly heroic. Grade: D

"Friday Night Lights” (7 p.m. Oct. 3, NBC) — Our very own Austin-based production is a terrific spin off the 2004 film of Buzz Bissinger's book. Updated to today and based on the Texas high-school football culture in fictional Dillon, the series boasts terrific football scenes but also characters, including players and a coach (well-played by Kyle Chandler), worth spending quality time with. Grade: A

"Justice” (8 p.m. Wednesday, Fox) — Victor Garber plays a dream-team lawyer who wades through media-hot, high-profile cases. Loud, over-played and desperately disappointing. Garber's considerable talents are wasted on this hokey melodrama. Grade: D

SERIAL DRAMA 424

Goal: To ride coattails of "24" and "Lost" and make appointment keepers out of hordes of sometime viewers.

Let's review:

"Vanished” (8 p.m. Mondays; premiered Aug. 21; Fox) — A poor relation to "24," with cartoonish characters and lousy acting. A Georgia senator's wife is abducted. That part is good. The senator, a grumpy FBI agent and a pushy TV reporter try to find her and unravel the mystery of who she really is. This part, which is the series, is not so good. Grade: C

"Jericho” (7 p.m. Sept. 20, CBS) — A mushroom cloud appears on the horizon and a tiny town in Kansas finds itself cut off from the world. What happened? And why? Gerald McRaney and Skeet Ulrich are good in this grimly intriguing yarn. Grade: B+

"Kidnapped” (9 p.m. Sept. 20, NBC) — The best in the whole bowl of new serials. Tim Hutton and Dana Delany are the wealthy parents of an abducted teenage boy. Delroy Lindo is the cop trying to help; Jeremy Sisto is the professional helper working outside the law. The cinematic quality of this show is exceptional, as is the storytelling. Grade: A

"Six Degrees” (9 p.m. Sept. 21, ABC) — A web of separate coincidences connects six pretty New Yorkers. You know, the old six-degrees-of-separation myth. The pilot is confusing but sometimes interesting. It comes from the producers of "Lost" and "Alias," so maybe it'll get better. Grade: C+

"Runaway” (8 p.m. Sept. 25, CW) — Dark and intriguing, this saga of a man on the lam looks more like an independent film than a TV show. Donnie Wahlberg plays the wrongly accused, who takes his family with him as he flees to prove his innocence. Grade: B+

"The Nine” (9 p.m. Oct. 4, ABC) — Flashbacks, flash-forwards and everything in between are signatures of this strange tale of nine people caught in a bank robbery and subsequent 52-hour hostage crisis. Enjoyable but possibly too many characters. Tim Daly, Kim Raver and Chi McBride headline an exceptional cast. Grade: B

"Day Break” (8 p.m. Nov. 15, ABC) — Taye Diggs is terrific as a detective framed for murder who finds himself caught in a time warp, living the same awful day over and over until he can figure out what happened. Will the "Groundhog Day" concept hold up over time? Maybe. Grade: B+

"Desire" and "Fashion House” (9 and 10 p.m., respectively, Sept. 5, MyNetworkTV) — If you're a fan of Spanish-language telenovelas and daytime soaps, you might enjoy these nightly serials. Beautiful people flirting and strutting but not flexing any performance muscles. Grade: D

COMEDY 202

Goal: To produce laughter, viable reruns and lucrative syndication.

Let's review:

" 'Til Death” (7 p.m. Sept. 7, Fox) — Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher are a grumpy married couple ("Marriage isn't about having fun," he muses. "It's about having someone to drive you to the hospital . . ."). Depressing, not funny and oh-so-boring. Grade: D

"Happy Hour” (7:30 p.m. Sept. 7, Fox) — No preview. A couple of twentysomething guys, one jaded and the other romantic, share an apartment in Chicago. Oy. Grade: Incomplete.

"The Class” (7 p.m. Sept. 18, CBS) — Pilot starts off with an interrupted suicide, which really is pretty funny, but it's mostly downhill from there. Jason Ritter heads a huge ensemble of twentysomethings who get together for a reunion of their third-grade class and reconnect in oh-so-hilarious ways. Grade: C

"Help Me Help You” (8:30 p.m. Sept. 26, ABC) — Ted Danson is funny again as a recently divorced group therapist and best-selling author. Actually, what lifts this sitcom from chuckle to guffaw is the supporting cast of misfits in his group. Grade: B

"Ugly Betty” (7 p.m. Sept. 28, ABC) — Based on the wildly popular Spanish-language series "Yo Soy Betty, la Fea," this hourlong comedy is warm-hearted, sweet and very funny. America Ferrera is destined for major stardom as the normal-sized Latina girl in the pencil-thin world of a high-fashion magazine. A superb, stylish-looking show with real meat on its bones. Grade: A

"The Game” (7:30 p.m. Oct. 1, CW) — Lots of wisecracks but not much else. A stereotypical look at cocky NFL players and their gum-popping trophy girlfriends and wives, including an interracial couple and a bug-eyed innocent. Grade: D

"Twenty Good Years” (7 p.m. Oct. 4, NBC) — Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow as middle-aged, over-the-top wackos who decide life is passing them by, so they do fun things like run around in their underwear and jump in the ocean. Considering the combined talent of these two guys, this show is simply tragic. Grade: D

"30 Rock” (7:30 p.m. Oct. 11, NBC) — Alec Baldwin as a pushy, bottom-line obsessed network exec is terrific, Tracy Morgan is brilliant as an unpredictable movie star recruited to TV, but somehow Tina Fey just doesn't pull this all together. She created the show and plays the live sketch comedy's head writer (as she was in real life on "Saturday Night Live"). Needs work. Grade: C

"The Knights of Prosperity” (8 p.m. Oct. 17, ABC) — Formerly known as "Let's Rob . . . " and still awaiting a permanent title, the offbeat premise and equally offbeat cast are just plain funny. Lumpy Donal Logue is a janitor who persuades his pals to embark on a big-dream plan to break into Mick Jagger's New York apartment and swipe his luxurious stuff. Mick is campy and fun in the pilot, but don't expect to see him in future episodes. Nevertheless, this show clicks on nearly all cylinders. Grade: B+

Intro to comparative 'SNL'

'30 Rock'

• Inspiration: 'Saturday Night Live'

• Genre: sitcom

• Creative force: Tina Fey ('Saturday Night Live')

• Stars: Fey, Rachel Dratch, Tracy Morgan, Alec Baldwin

• Concept: Behind-the-scenes hysteria at a live sketch-comedy show like 'Saturday Night Live.'

'Studio 60'

• Inspiration: 'Saturday Night Live'

• Genre: drama

• Creative force: Aaron Sorkin ('The West Wing')

• Stars: Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Steven Weber, Sarah Paulson, D.L. Hughley, Timothy Busfield

• Concept: Behind-the-scenes romance, politics and conflict at a popular late-night sketch comedy show like 'Saturday Night Live.'

Bottom line The two are nothing alike. One's a sitcom; the other a drama. More importantly, one is really good ('Studio 60') and one isn't ('30 Rock').

http://www.austin360.com/tv/content/tv/stories/2006/08/27falltv.html

fredfa

09-04-06, 12:16 AM

The 2006-07 Season
‘Brothers & Sisters’ to Make Its Debut on ABC
By Edward Wyatt The New York Times Sept. 3, 2006

BURBANK, Calif.—Every new television show goes through birth pangs. Scenes of the pilot are reshot before the first episode is broadcast. Characters who did not quite mesh are recast. Story arcs are altered. Temperamental stars have to be cajoled into promoting the show. A lead writer quits in a dispute with colleagues.

Just not all at once. And not on a show in which a network has clearly invested a load of its money, publicity machinery and prestige.

What does one make, then, of “Brothers & Sisters,” the new ABC drama that stars Calista Flockhart in her first series since “Ally McBeal,” along with Sally Field and Rachel Griffiths? A drama about adult siblings and their attempts to measure up to the perceived perfection of their role-model parents, “Brothers & Sisters” has been through all those setbacks and more in the three months since ABC said the show would take over the coveted Sunday night time slot following “Desperate Housewives.”

Just three weeks before its debut on Sept. 24, few people outside of ABC have seen the recast and reshot pilot, making “Brothers & Sisters” the biggest mystery of the coming season.

Ken Olin, an executive producer of the show, dismissed the mounting speculation. “In terms of the perception that this thing was more troubled or challenged than others, I don’t think that’s accurate,” he said recently in his office on the lot where “Brothers & Sisters” is being filmed.

“I think there were things that needed to be addressed,” he added. “You’re dealing with a show that at its center is about relationships, and it’s about emotional experience, so to find the right balance of humor and drama and story and all those things is a more difficult balance to achieve than probably just trying to do a procedural. But the show was never really in trouble.”

The changes began last May, just as ABC was introducing the show to potential advertisers in New York. Mr. Olin and Jon Robin Baitz, a New York playwright who is the show’s creator and also an executive producer, decided that the actress Betty Buckley was wrong for the role of the Walker family matriarch. They fired her and cast Ms. Field instead, while also making her character more central to the plot.

They also recast one of the brothers and moved the death of an important character from near the beginning of the first episode to the end, changes that necessitated refilming almost the entire pilot.

Just as the show seemed to be coming together last month, however, Marti Noxon quit as the “Brothers & Sisters” show runner, the executive responsible for putting together all the elements of a show and delivering it each week.

Ms. Noxon, who came to ABC’s Touchstone Television unit after a successful stint as an executive producer of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” had appeared with the “Brothers & Sisters” stars and other executives in July at the Television Critics Association annual fall preview meetings, where she too denied that the show was experiencing problems.

Ms. Noxon’s agent said she would not comment on her departure. Mr. Olin and Mr. Baitz both cited “creative differences” for her leaving the show.

“There were ways in which creatively and in terms of personal relations that it wasn’t working well with Marti,” Mr. Olin said. “It never reached a crisis point. It just reached a point where it wasn’t fun.”

Enter Greg Berlanti, who created and served as an executive producer on “Everwood,” a family drama on the WB network, and who was under contract with Touchstone to develop new series. Mr. Berlanti is acting as show runner for “Brothers & Sisters” while the details of a contract are hammered out.

His presence has changed nearly everything, Mr. Baitz said. “In the 14 days that he’s been here we’ve had three scripts written and approved by the system,” he said. “Before that we were in real trouble in terms of the dialogue between us and the studio. And that changed very, very much right away.”

Mr. Baitz said some of the show’s problems were due to his own inexperience in television. An acclaimed playwright, Mr. Baitz had television experience that was largely limited to writing single episodes of “The West Wing” and “Alias.” But in moving to television, he follows in the footsteps of acclaimed playwrights like Aaron Sorkin; Eric Overmyer of “Close to Home,”; and Warren Leight of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” “If we do succeed,” Mr. Baitz said, “it’s in part because I needed a huge education and a fast one, and Greg is in no small measure providing that.”

Mr. Berlanti acknowledged that he had heard bad things. “I thought I was coming onto the Titanic, the way it had been described,” he said. “But the show wasn’t shut down. I know a lot of worse horror stories.”

The challenge he said, was to take the voice of a playwright, someone who has “really valuable things to say about what’s happening in this country right now and what’s happening to families right now, to take that and help them fashion it into stories week after week that have a natural crescendo.”

“Brothers & Sisters” revolves around the Walker family business, the Ojai Food Company, run by the family patriarch, played by Tom Skerritt. Ms. Griffiths, as Sarah Walker, has recently returned to the family business from a high-powered corporate job, usurping some of the authority of her younger brother Thomas Walker, played by Balthazar Getty, who had been helping to manage the enterprise.

Their sister, Kitty, played by Ms. Flockhart, is a conservative radio commentator who in the first episode returns to California for a job interview with a studio that wants to put her talk show on television. And Ms. Fields, their mother, is a dedicated liberal who resentfully believes that her conservative daughter pushed another son, Justin, into the military after 9/11.

“It’s not a polemic, not in any way,” Ms. Fields said in an interview on the set. “It’s really a show about family. The family is political. They’re vocal about what’s going on in the world. And they’re into business, so it represents the very pro-business side of our country. But my character is also extremely liberal, and they’re at odds with each other.”

Whether viewers will embrace Ms. Flockhart as a conservative standard-bearer is but one of the questions hanging over the show. Ms. Flockhart opted not to speak to a reporter who visited the set. In a statement e-mailed by her publicist, she said, “Certain viewers may connect with some of her views and opinions, but she won’t necessarily represent all things conservative.” Following the Television Critics Association meeting in July, Ms. Flockhart was described by writers who attended as reticent to discuss her return to television.

Mr. Baitz said, however, that he never considered anyone else for the role of Kitty Walker, and that it had nothing to do with Ms. Flockhart’s turn in “Ally McBeal.”

“I’ve never seen a single episode of that show,” Mr. Baitz said, adding that it was their relationship from Ms. Flockhart’s theater days that drew him to her. “So it’s been very frustrating when people, including Calista, say, ‘Well, is that an Ally thing?’ Now I have the sense of what they mean — short skirts and dancing.”

That will not be Kitty, he said. “I’m fascinated by retiring actors, in all respects. And Calista seemed to be someone who had a lot of depth and juice and life just out of reach a little bit. And it was time to see if she wanted to come back and be funny and smart and to let other people see it.”

Mr. Berlanti said he recognizes that all the attention and pressure are a result of the show’s elements being larger than usual: not just the cast, he said, but Mr. Baitz and Mr. Olin, a respected director, an executive producer of “Alias” and a former star of “Thirtysomething.”

“So I’m sitting over there as the network president or the studio president,” Mr. Berlanti said, “and I’m thinking, ‘Wait a second, with all these things combined together, the output should be the equivalent.’ There’s a massive, massive hope that collectively they will really form some kind of great, great thing. And it happens so rarely in television.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/arts/television/03wyat.html?ref=television&pagewanted=print

JimsArcade

09-04-06, 12:21 AM

I can't imagine how 30 Rock would be anything but stupendous. (I'll judge for myself come October, though.) Given her highest grade for Friday Night Lights and it being filmed in Austin, I'll take her opinion with a grain of salt.

fredfa

09-04-06, 12:22 AM

The Business of TV
Comcast Plans a 'TV Guide' on the Web
Listings Service May Prompt Interest In On-Demand Fare
By Tom Steinert-Threlkeld Multichannel News 9/4/2006

Comcast Corp. as early as this week will announce a Web-based service that will act as an electronic guide and search engine for computer users trying to sort through thousands of scheduled television shows, on-demand videos and high-definition programs.

The service, to be called TV Planner, will be introduced at the same time Comcast launches its first “fall lineup” of video-on-demand programming. That will underscore the Web service's ability to sort through large amounts of on-demand programming quickly, according to the company.

Ultimately, viewers will be able to click on a listing shown on a Web browser and instruct a digital recording machine to store a copy of a chosen program. And an “Amazon-like” recommendation engine will also suggest what other programs might interest the viewer, the company said. But those features are not part of the initial service.

Nonetheless, TV Planner is an early example of the kind of Internet business that Comcast envisions delivering on a wide basis.

“Wouldn't it be great if there was a national site that was devoted to helping you figure out what to watch, where you want to watch it?'' said chief operating officer Steve Burke. “And in some instances provide it for you, but never provide it as a linear, cable-like channel?''

LIMITED AVAILABILITY

The TV Planner service launching this fall will be available only to Comcast customers. But those customers can reach the service whether they buy their Internet access from Comcast or not.

The 10 million Comcast High-Speed Internet customers will be able to reach the service through the company's Comcast.net portal, which provides a wide range of video and multimedia services.

Comcast's other 12 million or so customers can also search for scheduled shows and on-demand programs by going directly to a Web site set up for providing the guide services.

A test site for delivering these services has been operating in recent weeks at www.tvplanner.net. It is the foreshadowing of a service that would help consumers sort through all their choices of how to get video content, whether the programs are found on conventional television, in libraries of video clips, digital video recorders, the iTunes Music Store or other download services and other outlets, as they emerge.

The site allows a visitor to enter a ZIP code and — if the address is in a Comcast service area — find all occurrences of a show by tapping in its name in a search field on a Web page.

The results can be narrowed to shows found in high-definition resolution or in Comcast's repository of videos that can be ordered on demand.

In its present form, the site only shows where and when a particular show or movie can be found, on a Comcast system. In the future, the company said visitors will be able to use the site to instruct a digital recorder to save a chosen program for later viewing.

TEMPLATE FOR TV

The service is designed to appeal to TV viewers who do not want to interrupt other family members while they are watching programs already in progress; and workers who want to see what's on their cable system to view when — or before — they get home.

That could limit its appeal. “The vast majority of people make their choices” about what to watch “when they sit down on the couch,'' said Ian Olgeirson, a senior analyst at Kagan Research.

But what Comcast customers see on the Web may ultimately be found on their television sets, in future versions of electronic program guides. Olgeirson sees the TV Planner as a “template” for what's coming, if typing in search terms, for instance, can be made easy on home users' remote controls. Today's controls lack easy-to-use keyboards.

Nonetheless, the introduction of a Web-based guide by a cable system operator “is a significant first step” towards creating what a “consistent experience” across the television and the personal computer, said Andy Addis, executive vice president of marketing for Hillcrest Laboratories, a Rockville, Md., supplier of TV-navigation technology.

This first effort may look like a “tactical implementation” of a Web-based service, but it has larger implications, he said. A cable operator that provides an “unparalleled customer experience” will have a better shot at beating back telephone, satellite and Internet-based rivals.

“It's vital that they do that because everyone is taking aim at their business,” he said.

NATIONAL BUSINESS

The service is also a window into Comcast's intent to create video-related businesses that operate nationwide, through the Internet. Burke said it would “make sense” to have TV Planner operate outside the geographical areas where Comcast's cable systems are laid. Any business operating on the Internet “should be national,” he said.

But, he noted in an interview with Multichannel News, any national business that Comcast would build on the Net would “not in any way be competitive with traditional cable.” Cable operators historically have steered away from launching services that would stray across geographical boundaries and compete with those of other operators.

Right now, the Web-based programming guide can't be used to record programs. That function may not be delivered for another 18 months or two years, the company said.

For one thing, a viewer would have to be able to communicate directly from a personal computer to a set top box with a digital recorder in it, to accomplish the task.

From the beginning, though, the service will be unlike existing guides by being able to help viewers narrow down their choices of large libraries of programs stored at operators' headends.

That is designed to spur interest in on-demand programming, which distinguishes the cable operator from satellite-delivered video services such as DirecTV or Dish Network. Comcast's On Demand library now includes more than 7,500 titles. Customers have played back one of its on-demand titles nearly 3 billion times in the past two-and-a-half years.

Burke gave an indication of Comcast's ambitions at The Wall Street Journal's “D: All Things Digital” conference in June.

“We would like to be the Amazon of video on the Internet. We have some assets other companies don't have,” Burke said then.

The company in December created the Comcast Interactive Media division, headed by president Amy Banse. That division, Burke indicated, is charged with coming up with national businesses that Comcast can operate on the Internet.

“We think the PC can become a dashboard for the entertainment experience for our customers,” Banse told MCN in December.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6368422.html

vegggas

09-04-06, 01:22 AM

RIP - Steve Irwin - The Crocodile Hunter - Sept 4, 2006

Killed by a Stingray barb directly to the chest and heart.
He was 44.

fredfa

09-04-06, 01:39 AM

Good catch, vegggas, thanks.

fredfa

09-04-06, 01:39 AM

Obituary
Steve Irwin, 44
killed by stingray
David Williams Sydney Morning Herald September 4, 2006

Television personality and environmentalist Steve Irwin has died after being stung by a stingray while filming off north Queensland.

Known worldwide as the Crocodile Hunter, the 44-year-old was famous for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchcry "Crikey!''.

The Queensland Police Service issued a statement saying Mr Irwin collapsed after being stung at Batt Reef, Low Isles off Port Douglas about 11am. He had been filming a documentary.

"Steve was hit by a stingray in the chest,'' said local diving operator Steve Edmondson, whose Poseidon boats were out on the Great Barrier Reef when the accident occured.

"He probably died from a cardiac arrest from the injury,'' he said.

Police said after he stingray attack, Irwin's crew called for medical treatment at 11am and the Queensland Rescue Helicopter responded with a doctor and paramedic on board.

Puncture wound

Mr Irwin had a puncture wound to the left side of his chest and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said Mr Irwin's family has been advised and Irwin's body was being flown to Cairns.

It is believed his American-born wife Terri was trekking on Cradle Mountain in Tasmania when the incident happened.

Police in Tasmania say she has been informed of her husband's death.

The Irwins have two children, an eight-year-old a daughter, Bindi Sue, and a three-year-old son, Robert Clarence, usually known as Bob.

When asked if he had ever heard of anyone dying from a stingray barb Matthew Hurley, general manager of Quicksilver Group, whose company has taken tours to Low Isles for 26 years, said: "No, definitely not."

"We've never heard of or been involved with anything like that."

Ross Coleman, acting director at at University of Sydney Institute of Marine Science, told smh.com.au it was "quite rare" for someone to die from contact with a stingray and he couldn't recall hearing of another incident.

Stingrays were "dangerous if provoked", he said.

"As a recreational diving instructor you hear of people getting injured by standing on them ... but they rarely die."

Trouble over croc feeding with son

Irwin won a global following for his daredevil antics but also triggered outrage in 2004 by holding his then one-month-old baby while feeding a snapping crocodile at his Australian zoo.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who used a photograph of his family at Australia Zoo for his official Christmas card last year, hailed Mr Irwin for his work in promoting Australia.

Mr Irwin was heavily involved in last year's "G'Day LA'' campaign.

"The minister knew him, was fond of him and was very, very appreciative of all the work he'd done to promote Australia overseas,'' a spokesman said.

The Crocodile Hunter program was first broadcast in 1992 and has been shown around the world on cable network Discovery.

Irwin came 20th last year in BRW magazine's top 50 entertainers.

The magazine said the hugely popular Crocodile Hunter spent most of 2005 filming and launching his new television series, New Breed Vets, to appear on the pay-TV channel Animal Planet.

In February, Irwin received an award for his contribution to tourism from Tourism Australia.

Over the last 12 months, he has also expanded his Australia Zoo wildlife park on the Sunshine Coast.

Pop star Justin Timberlake last month recalled visiting the zoo on his Australian 2004 tour.

"I know he got a lot of flak, but there's something in that dude's blood, he's like one of those animals," Timberlake told the Courier Mail newspaper.

"We got in the cage and he said, 'I want to show you how the crocs hunt' . . . all of a sudden it pops out of the water, we jump back, it came up on the land and he saw how its temperament was and he told us to step back.

"He's like Dr Dolittle, for real. He knows what those crocodiles are thinking."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/steve-irwin-killed-by-stingray/2006/09/04/1157222051512.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1