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fredfa

10-20-06, 09:15 AM

The TV Column
Downsizing NBC Plots An Unscripted Future
By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, October 20, 2006; C01

BEVERLY HILLS, Oct. 19 On the day NBC announced it would slash about 700 jobs and no longer develop scripted series for the 8 p.m. hour, the network's programming chief had to appear before a packed room of producers, agents and staffers at the TV industry's annual grill-the-programming-chiefs lunch.

"First and foremost, Jack and I will have the same amount of programming on our networks," Kevin Reilly joked when asked about NBC Universal's new slash-and-burn policy, which the network has dubbed NBCU 2.0.

Reilly was referring to Jack Abernethy, CEO of Fox Television Stations Inc., who was onstage with Reilly and his counterparts at the other nets. Abernethy represented "Fashion House" and "Desire," the steamy prime-time soaps of Fox parent News Corp. now airing under the cheeky name MyNetworkTV on many stations that got dumped in the UPN/WB merger -- including Washington's former UPN station, WDCA.

Reilly's self-effacing NBCU 2.0 crack played really well in the room, which had been nervously buzzing about the announcement while the programming chiefs were holed up in a VIP room upstairs at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Downstairs the consensus was "NBCU 2.0" stood for NBC's Ratings Next Year.

They were understandably cranky, having read comments by Reilly's boss, NBC Universal television group CEO Jeff Zucker, that NBC will focus on lower-cost programming at 8 p.m. because, as he told the Wall Street Journal, advertiser interest isn't high enough to justify spending on scripted shows. Zucker doesn't like Hollywood; the feeling is mutual.

But they do like Reilly, who was onstage along with ABC's Stephen McPherson, CBS's Nina Tassler, CW's Dawn Ostroff and Fox's Peter Liguori -- all looking relaxed as only TV industry execs whose bosses have not just announced they were going to whack 700 people and no longer develop scripted series for 8-9 p.m. to save money can.

Reilly didn't look quite as relaxed and, after opening with his joke that went over big, got that glassy look that executives always have when they are about to bore you as you've never been bored before with carefully rehearsed corporate-speak.

He talked of a company at a digital crossroads, about how nobody has the answers, how challenges give you the most clarity, how companies on the upswing perhaps put off hard decisions (take that, CBS and ABC), how today's announcement "drew a line" around many practices already in place at NBC and how NBCU 2.0 had galvanized resolve to make the hard decisions -- if not today, or tomorrow, certainly within the next couple of years.

And, in conclusion, he said, "What it means immediately, frankly, is not much to the naked eye."

Reilly noted NBC already runs the heck out of game show "Deal or No Deal" across the week, hinting that the new reality series "1 vs. 100" may become another 8 p.m. utility player.

Additionally, he assured the audience, it does not make sense for NBC to "go into the jaws" of existing reality hits on the other networks -- ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," CBS's "Survivor," etc. -- with reality product.

"So this is not an absolute," Reilly said.

That inspired CBS Entertainment chief Nina Tassler to suggest they were "addressing NBC Universal's corporate ills as an industry case." That's a nice way of saying the problem isn't the industry and lack of advertiser interest, it's the scripted shows that fourth-place NBC has come up with for 8 p.m.

Q&A moderator Andrew Wallenstein, who is the TV features editor at a trade paper and also co-hosts a TV Guide Channel show about the biz called "Square Off," noted that 8 p.m. has produced two of this season's three most promising scripted shows, "Jericho" and "Ugly Betty" (the third is NBC's "Heroes," which airs at 9).

He suggested NBC was, with its no-scripted-at-8 goal, the "canary entering the coal mine." It was the last amusing thing he -- or pretty much anybody else -- said.

Honestly, for a bunch of people who purport to be in the business of entertainment, they certainly do know how to put a crowd to sleep.

Talk was digital platforms this, staggered rollouts that, audience fragmentation here, blah blah there. And to think it wasn't so long ago Michael Moore had the entire room singing the theme song to "The Patty Duke Show."

Sensing the pall, ABC Entertainment chief McPherson -- whose nuts-to-you attitude we admire so much -- asked to see the wine list, suggesting, correctly, that alcohol would do a lot for this event.

Biggest question of the lunchtime Q&A session: What the heck was Jack Abernethy doing up onstage with the networks' entertainment division chiefs?

Grievously, Wallenstein did not ask the question.

In return, the Hollywood Radio & TV Society, the organization throwing the event, aired an ad for "Square Off" at the start of the session.

But not too many people were watching; if you want to get noticed before the actual question-and-answer portion of the festivities begins at the annual grill-the-programming-chiefs luncheon, you need to be grilled steak on skewers surrounded by radicchio and watercress.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Speaking of NBC, the network has decided not to show Madonna standing on a mirrored cross wearing a crown of thorns when it broadcasts her concert special during the November ratings sweeps.

"The 'Live to Tell' song has been revised for NBC's broadcast special," the network said in a crisp NBCU 2.0 statement Thursday. Technically, that's not the case; the song hasn't been revised, NBC is just not going to show her on the cross. Instead they'll show one of the 14 other camera angles captured during that part of the song in which she's on-cross. When she dismounts, they'll revert back to the Material Girl.

Madonna has said in interviews that the bit where she stands on the cross was meant to illustrate a theme of confession.

Yeah, and I'm the Queen of Freedonia.

Several religious groups told NBC they would boycott one of the concert's advertisers if the cross scene appeared, the Associated Press reported.

An NBC spokeswoman told the AP the network doesn't discuss how its editorial decisions are made, and Andrew Wallenstein, the moderator of the industry Q&A panel with NBC Entertainment chief Kevin Reilly and his counterparts at the other networks, was too busy asking about digital media to put the question to Reilly.

But last summer, Reilly told TVGuide.com that the crucifixion scene probably would be in the special because Madonna, who is one of the TV special's executive producers, "felt strongly about it."

"We viewed it and, although Madonna is known for being provocative, we didn't see it as being ultimately inappropriate," Reilly said back in those carefree pre-NBCU 2.0 days.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901824_pf.html

archiguy

10-20-06, 09:32 AM

Crusade terrible? Are you kidding? After the blah Babylon 5 fifth season, and the awfulness that was Voyager at the time, Crusade actually had some interesting ideas and a direction. Sure, it had flaws and TNT kept meddling with it, but I thought it was pretty good. To each its own, I guess...

I would agree with you that S-5 of B5 was, by far, the weakest, and the reasons for that are pretty well established. But Crusade was a disaster, IMO, and I really wanted to like it since, by and large, B5 was just so darn entertaining and I wanted to see JMS successful in another venture. For one thing, Gary Cole was horribly miscast as the lead; and it went downhill from there. YMMV.

fredfa

10-20-06, 09:32 AM

TV Notebook: Younger viewers
Teens rah-rah for 'Friday Night Lights'
Ratings among adults may be life-threatening
By Toni Fitzgerald medialifemagazine Oct 20, 2006

After a terrible debut and an alarming decline in its second outing, NBC’s highly touted new drama “Friday Night Lights” has actually seen some encouraging signs over the past week.

Its ratings were back up in week three, and NBC ordered six more scripts of the low-rated show Wednesday.

But perhaps most impressive, and what could help the show stick around, is the way that it’s connecting with teens. The show, which is much less soap opera-like than most high-school focused programs, actually grew 18 percent in that demo after a decent premiere and now ranks as the No. 3 new show among teens this season, behind NBC’s “Heroes” and ABC’s “Ugly Betty.”

“Lights” averaged a 2.0 among viewers 12-17 last week, the week ended Oct. 15, in its second outing, the most recent numbers available. That was up from the 1.7 earned by the premiere.

In its 8 p.m. Tuesday timeslot, “Lights” outdrew Fox’s Major League Baseball coverage and Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella,” a popular show among teens, while finishing just 0.3 behind ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

The show, about a high school football coach trying to lead his team to the Texas state title, tied for fourth among all NBC shows in the demographic last week.

Why has the show been more of a success among teens than adults 18-49, where it ranks in the bottom half of 25 new shows? There are several reasons.

First, while NBC does not generally program to teens, it did target them for a “Lights” promotion, for which it invited high school students in 50 cities to special local screenings of the show’s pilot two weeks before its premiere.

Second, teens seem to find the depiction of “Lights’” high school more realistic than many other teen-focused shows on broadcast. Picky teens won’t watch just any show about kids their age.

A cheerleader and a high school football player asked by Sports Illustrated to rate the show gave it strong reviews, saying it portrayed both their sports and high school in general accurately.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8018.asp

fredfa

10-20-06, 09:37 AM

The Business of TV
NBC Tries a New Tack for 8 P.M.
By Bill Carter The New York Times October 20, 2006
(Stuart Elliott contributed reporting from New York and Edward Wyatt from Los Angeles.)

As part of an extensive cost-cutting program it announced yesterday, NBC intends to drastically alter its prime-time programming, starting in the fall of 2007, filling the 8 p.m. hour each weeknight with lower-cost, unscripted programs and saving its more expensive comedies and dramas for the 9-to-11 p.m. block.

That will be probably the most noticeable change NBC will put into effect as a result of a cost-reduction plan it is labeling TV 2.0, in deference to its focus on the changes being wrought by the expansion of digital media. NBC Universal will cut about 700 jobs companywide, or about 5 percent of its work force. It expects to save about $750 million under the plan, and intends to make those cuts by the end of 2007.

Some of the savings are expected to come in reduced costs for the 8 p.m. hour, Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of the NBC Universal Television Group, said. One major impetus for the move, Mr. Zucker said, is the upheaval TV networks face because of ever-increasing incursions from digital media like Internet sites.

But some of NBC’s competitors argued that NBC was simply reacting to its own consistent failure to find scripted programs that worked at 8 p.m. The network has struggled to find hit shows for that first hour of prime time; that weakness contributed significantly to NBC’s free fall from first place to last in the ratings three seasons ago.

Now, Mr. Zucker said, NBC would try less expensive reality and game shows at that hour, like “Deal or No Deal,” which has been a success for the network on Mondays at 8.

Mr. Zucker contended, though, that the decision had less to do with penny-pinching than pragmatism. “It was what the audience was asking for,” he said. “Look at ‘Survivor’ on CBS and ‘Extreme Home Makeover’ on ABC and ‘American Idol’ on Fox.” All those unscripted shows have been hits at 8 p.m. while most of NBC’s efforts to find hits at that hour with scripted shows have languished.

Bob Wright, the NBC chairman, said, “Nobody has tried harder than we have to put on quality shows at 8. This year we tried ‘30 Rock,’ which is about the funniest show on television right now, but the audience just hasn’t gravitated to it.”

Some scripted shows on other networks have worked at 8, though. CBS has a continuing success in “NCIS”; ABC has a growing hit in “Ugly Betty”; Fox has a steady performer in “Prison Break.” This fall Fox moved one of its biggest hits, “House,” to 8 on Tuesday and it has soared in the ratings.

Both Mr. Zucker and Mr. Wright argued that the overwhelming evidence is that audiences prefer lighter, unscripted — and thus less expensive — fare at 8. “ABC is doing it everywhere,” Mr. Wright noted, citing that network’s addition of college football on Saturday night this season to unscripted shows like “Dancing With the Stars” and “Wife Swap.”

NBC experienced an enormous falloff in revenues after its ratings slide, and the move to limit the kinds of shows it will spend money on raises questions about how much of the plan came down to financial pressures exerted by its parent company, General Electric.

Mr. Zucker said, “I would hope we would be doing this whether we were in first place or last place in prime time.”

About the business model that bases almost all of a network’s revenues on income from its advertising clients, Mr. Zucker said, “I don’t know if it is irreparably broken, but the economic model is under a tremendous amount of pressure.”

The risk in sending such a message, Mr. Wright conceded, is that supporters of that model could begin to lose faith in it. “We have to try to preserve as much of those revenues as we can while trying to generate additional digital revenues,” he said.

One advertising industry executive, Steven J. Farella, president of TargetCast TCM, said of NBC’s plan to reshape the 8 p.m. hour, “The role of network TV is to retain and grow audiences.” To Mr. Farella, NBC’s plan looked as if the network wanted to “maximize profit at the expense of audience growth.”

Mr. Farella added, “We want them to swing a big hammer for clients who need to move products quickly.”

Another ad executive, Peter Gardiner, chief media officer at Deutsch in New York, defended NBC’s strategy. “It’s what a lot of mature businesses are doing in the media industry,” he said. “They’ve got to change their operations.”

The decision underlines how big an issue “the cost of content relative to revenue” is becoming for media giants, Mr. Gardiner said.

Other network executives challenged NBC’s rationale, saying it was less about a sweeping trend and more about one network’s problems.

“Broadcast television is in very good shape,” said Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment.

“Our revenues are up. Broadcast television is still the epicenter of content,” she added, and “part of what we endeavor to do is manage and contain those costs.”

Peter Liguori, president of entertainment for the Fox network, said that cutting back content creation was not the way to go. “We’d rather spend money on content, which eventually can feed all these additional digital channels,” he said.

Still, Stephen McPherson, president of entertainment for ABC, agreed that rising program costs were forcing changes in the business.

“We pour amazing amounts of money into the incredible high-quality shows,” he said. “We have to figure out ways to produce stuff of a real quality level at a lower cost.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/business/media/20drama.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

fredfa

10-20-06, 09:45 AM

The Business of TV
Prime-time cutbacks will only hurt NBC
Phil Rosenthal Chicago Tribune Media Columnist October 20, 2006

Bill Veeck, the late sage who used to own the Chicago White Sox, always liked to say that it wasn't really baseball's stars that were expensive. "It's the cost of mediocrity that murders you," he said.

It's failure that's costly.

NBC Universal Television Group Chief Executive Jeff Zucker is talking about trying to deploy lower-cost programming rather than traditional dramas and comedies in the 7 p.m. prime-time leadoff slot.

Advertiser interest just doesn't justify the expense, Zucker has said, especially when General Electric's media unit is trying to slash $750 million in annual administrative and operating expenses by the end of 2008, an initiative called NBC Universal 2.0 that was announced Thursday.

What NBC is going through is increasingly common in the media business these days. It reported a nearly 15 percent profit margin on $3.6 billion in revenue for the third quarter, but because the $542 million profit was off 10 percent, it was cast as a drag on General Electric.

"Success in this business means quickly adjusting to and anticipating change," NBC Universal Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Wright said in a statement. "This initiative is designed to help us exploit technology and focus our resources as we continue our transformation into a digital media company for the 21st Century."

That's a nice way of stating that while NBC Universal spends money to build up the digital platforms it hopes will produce more than $1 billion in revenue by 2009, it plans to take a hacksaw to costs. This means consolidating some operations and eliminating approximately 700 jobs, or about 5 percent of its global workforce, as well as spending less money in the first hour of prime time.

Of course, when NBC shelled out for "Friends" or "The Cosby Show" or "Golden Girls"--you know, programs people actually watched--scripted shows weren't expensive no matter how many zeroes were on the checks.

It's when you're spending $2.6 million per hour of "Friday Night Lights," a quality drama that's nonetheless averaging only around 6.5 million viewers, to open NBC's Tuesday lineup this fall, that the $1.1 million "Deal or No Deal" looks so good.

The more than 15 million viewers "Deal or No Deal" averages on Mondays looks pretty good, too.

Back when Zucker, then merely head of NBC Entertainment, was upping the renewal fee each year for "Friends" to keep the top-rated comedy on Thursday nights, he justified it by not only the ad revenue it generated. It also kept NBC No. 1 in the ratings and helped the network promote its other programs.

The price eventually extended beyond $9 million per half-hour. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money.

You want expensive? How about when NBC paid Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt each $1 million per week to star in "Mad About You" when the fading sitcom was routinely getting pounded by "JAG," a show NBC had discarded?

It's never what you pay. It's what you get for your money, and no matter what Zucker thinks of what advertisers will support at 7 p.m., the 8 p.m. shows are bound to be affected. What's that worth?

Just last year, Zucker himself said the first hour of prime time was crucial because "the ability to launch things [in the second hour and] having them self-start is nearly impossible."

So now he's saying he wants to rein in costs?

"NBC is rebounding and we think it is well-positioned in the fourth quarter of 2006 into 2007," General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt said last week, noting that NBC's ratings were up 15 percent.

But a lot of that is because the network has this fall added National Football League telecasts on Sunday nights, which is costing NBC $3.6 billion, $600 million per year for the next six years.

It's a lot of cash, to be sure. It's not necessarily expensive.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0610200194oct20,0,1862614.column

fredfa

10-20-06, 09:53 AM

The Business of TV
Fox, now in its early 40s, all grown up
A quiet transformation, from cheek to chic
By Kevin Downey medialifemagazine staff writer Oct 20, 2006

Can America ever forget "When Animals Attack," that classic cheeky-trashy special so archetypically Fox? Or for that matter, "Married with Children," the whoopie cushion of a sitcom that became its earliest signature hit?

Yes, quite easily, it turns out. That Fox doesn't exist anymore.

The Fox of today is an entirely different television network from just several years ago. It's been largely a quiet transformation, or quiet for Fox at least.

The schlock is largely gone. The tasteless sitcoms are fewer, replaced by serious dramas like "House." Fox is no longer the lagging fourth wannabe network targeting a younger 18-34 audience. It aims squarely at the adult 18-49 demographic of the other big networks.

Fox is more mature in other ways. Four weeks into the new season, the network has joined ABC, CBS and NBC in the over-40 crowd. The median age of its viewers is now nearly 43 years old, according to an analysis of Nielsen Media Research ratings released by Magna Global. Last season, Fox’s median age was 39 years old, up from 35 just three years earlier.

Fox will not get much younger when "American Idol" and "24" return in January. "24" is its oldest show, at 45. "Idol" isn’t far behind at just under 40, and that show is creeping up in years.

Fox's aging is all by design, part of its strategy, in place for several years, to become a broader, more encompassing network.

"The difference now is that we have fewer comedies on the air, which is first and foremost, and our young-skewing drama ‘The O.C.’ is not on the air until November," says Melva Benoit, senior vice president of research at Fox. "And we basically decided to put four new, broad dramas on the air that have median ages in the early- to mid-40s. It’s a function of us broadening out."

A lot of this change is the direct result of "American Idol," as the network moved to adapt to the slew of new viewers it brought in. With the show chewing up so much of Fox’s primetime lineup, it became the network’s biggest promotional platform. It simply made less and less sense to be promoting young-skewing shows when a broad 18-49 audience was watching.

As promising new shows came along, like "House," Fox moved them to lead out of the variety show, giving them great exposure. "House," only a middling show when it debuted, became a hit when it was moved behind "Idol." It has a median age of 42.

That broader strategy fell into place under former entertainment president Gail Berman, who put "Idol" on the air, and continues under former FX president Peter Liguori. It's been responsible for pushing the network to No. 1 the past two seasons, something that would never have happened with its previous 18-34-heavy primetime lineup.

"They couldn’t have done this unless ‘American Idol’ was aging a bit. And without ‘American Idol’ they wouldn’t be competing in 18-49," says Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of audience analysis at Magna Global. "When your median age is 34, it’s hard to compete in 18-49 with networks that have median ages in the 40s."

Fox has also seen its ad revenue rise with its programming increasingly geared to the 18-49 demographic that many advertisers favor. The network generated $1.8 billion in this past summer’s upfront, only $100 million shy of NBC, despite having fewer weekly primetime hours.

And even so Fox remains relatively young, its median age five years younger than ABC’s and NBC’s and a full 10 years younger than CBS’s audience. The CW has a median age of 32.

"Fox is 20 years old now, so we are a more mature brand," says Benoit. "Every niche cable network, every niche brand, eventually realizes that to sustain success you have to go broad. That’s the only way to get more people."

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_8020.asp

fredfa

10-20-06, 10:38 AM

TV Sports
Ohio State Meets ESPNU
By Michael Hiestand USA Today Oct. 20, 2006

Saturday, Ohio State, atop college football's rankings, hosts 4-3 Indiana, a team coming off a big win against Iowa.

Disney owns Big Ten TV rights. But don't look for the Buckeyes on Disney's ABC, ESPN or ESPN2 -- all showing Big Ten games Saturday. Instead, Ohio State will be on ESPNU, which reaches about 8 million households.

"The press says we're blacking it out," ESPNU vice president Burke Magnus says. "But it will be widely available. Just not the way people are accustomed to."

Well, yes. And if you don't like it, ESPN wouldn't have a problem with you complaining to your cable operator.

Getting on cable systems is the Holy Grail for channels.

In 1994, ESPN put a game between the USA's two top-ranked basketball teams -- Duke and North Carolina -- on ESPN2 in hopes that fans might call cable operators to complain about not getting a channel then just a few months old.

"But this isn't Duke-Carolina," Magnus says. "Everybody says look what we're doing to make the phones ring at (cable operator) Time Warner in Columbus. But that's not the be-all and end-all. We want people to call and request ESPNU. But there's no hidden agenda where we're aiming at any one market."

ESPNU is aiming at lots of markets. Magnus notes that a dozen nationally ranked teams have played on ESPNU this season and anticipates that at least a dozen nationally ranked basketball teams -- including Duke, North Carolina and Kansas -- will be on multiple times this season.

And if you can't get them, ESPN would like you to remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2006-10-19-weekend_x.htm

ScottA

10-20-06, 11:02 AM

Best. Show. Ever. And the best part is that the new B5 eps are being shot in HD :D

What new shows?!? :eek: I was hoping that B5 would show up on HDNet (like Enterprise). Even upverted shows of B5 would be acceptable to me!

// Scott A

fredfa

10-20-06, 11:03 AM

The Business of TV
Zucker punch:
KOs scripted series at 8
By Heidi Dawley MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct 20, 2006

The television sitcom is ailing, and for NBC it looks to be dead, at least in the first hour of primetime, under a directive from network chief Jeff Zucker.

Disappointed with the rising costs of scripted fare and sinking ratings, NBC has announced that next season it will fill the first hour of primetime with cheaper reality and game shows, saving the more expensive scripted drama and comedy series for the 9-to-11 p.m. block. The 8 p.m. hour was long given over to sitcoms on NBC.

NBC's thinking appears to be that 8 p.m. is too early to attract sizable audiences in a nation that seems to come home from work later and spends so much more time on the internet.

Zucker is obviously inspired by the success of “Deal or No Deal,” the hit game show at airs at 8 on Mondays and has done well on other nights in that same hour. Syndicated game shows such as "Jeopardy" have long done well in the transitional timeslot leading into primetime. And typically reality shows air earlier in the evening, often at 8.

NBC's announcement comes as part of a dramatic cost-cutting initiative, called TV 2.0, that will trim 700 jobs across NBC Universal and $750 million in cost savings as it shifts emphasis more toward the internet and other new media. The cheaper 8 p.m. shows would contribute to reducing costs.

NBC and Zucker are not positioning the 8 p.m. directive as based solely on saving money but rather about changing the model of broadcast primetime.

A number of media buyers declined to comment on the NBC announcement, and those who did speak on the record were mixed in their opinions. Jordan Breslow, manager of national broadcast research at MediaCom, thinks it's a smart idea

"It's good economics," he says, "concentrate the high-cost shows at 10 p.m. and the inexpensive game and reality shows at 8 p.m., and you won't need to air as many expensive shows."

Breslow notes, as do others, the increasing number of unscripted shows early in the evening. "There is a proliferation of game shows coming on the air, and I imagine that the trend will continue. 'Deal or No Deal' and '1 vs. 100' are both big hits," he says, referring to the new NBC game show that debuted last Friday to very strong numbers.

But some buyers, as well as competitors, find NBC's move a curious one.

They point out that NBC's problem is not the 8 p.m. hour but rather NBC's failure to have a successful show in that timeslot. Other networks have had 8 p.m. hits this season, including ABC's "Ugly Betty," a new comedy that airs on Thursdays, and CBS's "Jericho," a drama that airs on Wednesdays.

The other curious factor is why NBC and Zucker would announce such a decision, rather than simply implement it going forward as part of a broader programming strategy. Declaring 8 p.m. as the hour for game and reality shows limits its options.

"All the networks should focus on being broadcasters. Historically speaking, that means that they cater to multiple genres and sometimes even multiple subgenres," says John Rash, director of broadcast negotiations at Campbell-Mithun.

"If the message is sent that NBC is only going to run unscripted shows at 8 p.m., viewers looking for other fare such as comedy or drama will immediately turn elsewhere and probably stay there."

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_8047.asp

fredfa

10-20-06, 11:24 AM

Thursday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

fredfa

10-20-06, 11:27 AM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
'CSI' tumbles against 'Grey's Anatomy'
CBS's top copper down 30 percent in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct 20, 2006

The gap between CBS’s “CSI” and ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” is growing as ratings for “CSI” are shrinking.

Last night, against a strong National League Championship Series on Fox and TV’s No. 1 show in “Grey’s,” “CSI” fell to its second-lowest rating in the past five years. It averaged a 6.8 in the 9 p.m. timeslot, according to Nielsen overnights, down 30 percent from the 9.7 it averaged the same night last year.

Of course last year “Grey’s” aired on Sundays and not Thursday, where the show has finished ahead of “CSI” every week in the demo and all but one night in total viewers. Last night “Grey’s” averaged a 9.5 in 18-49s and 21.9 million total viewers to “CSI’s” 20.2 million total viewers.

The last time “CSI” dipped under a 7.0 in 18-49s was in May 2004, opposite the highly rated “Friends” series finale on NBC. It averaged a 6.5 that night.

Certainly some of “CSI’s” decline was due to Game 7 of the NLCS on Fox, which pulled the best-yet ratings of this baseball postseason and averaged a 4.1 at 9 p.m. Fox is usually a nonfactor that hour.

And “Grey’s” is certainly hurting “CSI,” which has dipped nearly every week since its premiere and is down 9 percent since then.

But too there are some rumors of fan backlash on the internet because of the romance between Gil and Sara, which angered some fans when it was revealed in last spring’s season finale.

Yet even a weakening “CSI” remains a top 10 show, even if it’s no longer the No. 1 drama.

ABC won the night, the fifth time in five weeks it has finished first among adults 18-49. It averaged a 5.8 rating and 15 share, compared with CBS’s 5.4/14. Fox was third at 4.5/11, NBC fourth at 4.1/11, CW fifth at 1.7/4, and Univision sixth at 1.4/3.

As a reminder, ratings for live sporting events like the NLCS are approximate as fast nationals measure timeslot and not program data. Fox’s performance will be clearer when final ratings are issued later today.

CBS’s “Survivor” led at 8 p.m. with a 5.3, a point ahead of ABC’s “Ugly Betty,” which was up 0.1 from last week. The shows tied with an 8.9 in households. NBC’s “My Name is Earl” (3.5) and “The Office” (4.0) were third at 3.8, followed by Fox’s NLCS at 3.6, CW’s “Smallville” at 2.0 and Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella” at 1.8.

At 9 p.m., “Grey’s” led with a 9.5, followed by “CSI” at 6.8, Fox’s NLCS at 4.1, NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” at 3.0, CW’s “Supernatural” at 1.5 and Univision’s “Mundo de Fieras” at 1.4.

At 10 p.m., Fox took the lead with a 5.8 for baseball, followed by a 5.5 for NBC’s “ER.” With a 4.2, CBS’s “Shark” was up a bit from last week’s 4.0 while ABC’s “Six Degrees” held steady for the first time week to week with a 3.7. Univision was last with a 1.1 for “Aqui y Ahora.”

Among households CBS led with a 10.6/17, followed by ABC with a 10.1/16, NBC with a 7.1/11, Fox with a 5.5/9, the CW with a 2.3/4 and Univision with a 1.9/3.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_8048.asp

fredfa

10-20-06, 11:54 AM

(From Marc Berman’s Friday, October 20, 2006, Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
Ratings Box: What’s Hot/What’s Not

Project Runway Breaks the Record Books:
The third-season finale of Bravo’s Project Runway on Wednesday at 10 p.m. was the top-rated telecast on cable for the evening with a record 5.4 million. Comparatively, that was the biggest audience for any show in Bravo’s history. The second-season premiere of lead-out Top Chef, meanwhile, benefited at 11 p.m. with an above average 1.9 million viewers – an increase of 46 percent from the show’s season one opener in March.

Crime Watch From Program Partners Picks Up Steam:
Freshman syndicated block Crime Watch, featuring Canadian dramas Cold Squad and Stone Undercover, perked up to a 1.4 AA (average audience) rating for the week of Oct. 9. Comparatively, the Program Partners weekend offering was up by 40 percent week-to-week, with its best performance in four weeks. Based on the metered markets, Cold Squad ranked No. 1 in its time period in Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Norfolk, Louisville, Richmond, and Ft. Myers; while Stone Undercover was first in Atlanta, Phoenix, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Nashville, Cincinnati, Louisville, Richmond and Ft. Myers.

A Fuller View:
Based on ratings for the week of October 9, ABC’s The View grew year-to-year by 14 percent in total viewers (3.1 million) and 16 percent among key women 18-49 (955,000).

Also in Daytime:
ABC and CBS continue to share leadership in the daypart, with CBS first in total viewers and ABC No. 1 among key women 18-49 for the week of Oct. 9 in both full daytime and among daytime dramas. Take a look:

Full Daytime
-Total Viewers:
CBS: 3.89 million
ABC: 2.94
NBC: 2.59

-Women 18-49:
ABC: 1.6 rating/10 share
NBC: 1.5/10
CBS: 1.4/ 9

Daytime Dramas
-Total Viewers:
CBS: 4.09 million
ABC: 2.98
NBC: 2.59

-Women 18-49:
ABC: 1.6 rating/10 share
NBC: 1.5/10
CBS: 1.3/ 9

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

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

Kracko

10-20-06, 12:20 PM

Fredfa,

I just saw this in today's Cynopsis newsletter:

Live + Same Day Ratings: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 - time period averages. Source: Nielsen Media Research

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABC 9.4/15 Dancing with the Stars Results Show 12.5/20, Lost 9.9/15, The Nine 5.8/9

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBS 9.2/14 Jericho 6.8/11, Criminal Minds 10.6/16, CSI: NY 10.3/17

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOX 7.2/11 MLB: NLCS Game #6: Cardinals vs. Mets 7.2/11

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NBC 4.6/7 30 Rock 3.9/6, Twenty Good Years 3.5/5, The Biggest Loser 4.9/7, Dateline 5.2/8

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CW 2.7/4 America's Next Top Model 3.4/5, One Tree Hill 2.0/3

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UNIV 1.9/3 La Fea Más Bella 2.2/3, Mundo de Fieras 2.0/3, Don Francisco Presenta 1.6/3

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TELE 0.6/1 Tierra de Pasiones 0.7/1, Marina 0.7/1, Amores 0.6/1, Decisiones 0.6/1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A18-49: ABC 4.9/13, CBS 4.2/11, FOX 3.2/8, NBC 2.6/7, CW 1.9/5, UNIV 1.6/4, TELE 0.5/1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your ratings for wednesday put Lost at #1 for the 9PM hour. Am I misreading your charts or did Cynthia get it wrong?

fredfa

10-20-06, 12:30 PM

The New Season
The Back Nine:
Any Other Keepers?
By Matt Roush TV Guide

ABC's Brothers & Sisters has joined the charmed, and so far rather tiny, circle of new fall series rewarded with what is known as "the back nine," as in a full-series renewal taking the original order of 13 episodes to 22 (sometimes expanded further for true breakthrough shows). At the moment, only three other shows have this honor: ABC's delightful Ugly Betty and two speculative fantasies that defied the odds to capture an early following: NBC's intriguing Heroes and, to the surprise of many skeptics (including this one), CBS's dark-hued Jericho.

Over the next few weeks, we'll find out which other newbies will get the full-season order and which will bite the dust in 13, if they even get that far. Here's my educated guess, by network.

CBS

The network with the most solid and consistent schedule was the first to cancel a show (Smith), and has only two other new series to decide upon.

While Shark on Thursdays has been a bit of a disappointment, relative to its CSI lead-in by being upstaged by the resurgent ER (now no longer taking a midseason hiatus, thankfully), I'm betting CBS will give it a full year to grow, and James Woods more time to grow on you.

I'm less certain about The Class, the overpopulated Monday sitcom that appears to have dipped this week in the hammock between How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men. (Last week, when it first flipped with Mother, it grew a bit.) I still think there's promise in many of The Class's characters and actors, nothing a little tinkering couldn't fix. But CBS is doing so well these days, it may not feel the need to show such patience. Besides, judging from the mail I get, if CBS were to return The King of Queens to the night, that would give the lineup another boost.

ABC

The first network to give two shows a vote of confidence, in Betty and Brothers, ABC is probably going to give the nod to Anne Heche's Men in Trees, which has been holding up reasonably well in an impossible Friday time period. Moving it to Mondays or even to Thursdays after Grey's Anatomy to try to boost this romantic comedy's profile is not out of the question.

The one show that looks like a sure-fire loser is Six Degrees on Thursday, squandering its Grey's lead-in and attracting no critical or fan buzz that I've noticed. Despite some strong New York-based performers in the cast, the show's pretentious premise and so-far-ludicrous execution makes it look like the wrong show on the wrong night.

Question marks: The middling Ted Danson comedy Help Me Help You, which looks like it will stick around at least long enough to see how it plays alongside another comedy: the similarly single-camera Big Day, scheduled to premiere Nov. 28. The future's also cloudy for The Nine, whose brilliant pilot opened to disappointing numbers after Lost. Despite outstanding production values and casting, with sharply drawn characters reeling from a trauma whose details will only slowly (perhaps too slowly) come into focus, this tricky set-up may just be too much for many viewers. Though it's still very early days for this acclaimed series, not enough of the Lost audience appears willing to sit still for a second dense hour of character-driven intrigue. And that's a shame. But maybe ABC will stick it out, as it did for a full season with Invasion. Or maybe not.

NBC

Kidnapped already has been shuttled to Saturdays, starting this weekend, to burn off the remainder of its original 13-episode order, giving closure to the fans of this slickly produced mystery. That's NBC's first official casualty, and it's too early yet to say if or when the critically reviled comedy Twenty Good Years, which lost audience from the so-so launch of 30 Rock, will join it. (I imagine 30 Rock will be a keeper for a while; NBC should at least give it a chance to play alongside Scrubs, whenever it returns, before ditching Tina Fey's sharp-witted but uneven work in progress.)

The real heartbreaker here is the non-performance of the superb Friday Night Lights, which has ascended in its first three weeks to the status of my favorite new drama of the season. I know the network believes in it, but it will be a real leap of faith if NBC even allows the show to stay on the schedule through November sweeps. (A vanishing act during that crucial ratings period is almost always a sign of lost confidence.)

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is a trickier animal: launched amid great hype because of its starry cast and creator (The West Wing's Aaron Sorkin), the show has lost audience by the week, even as the show itself has ramped up its sense of self-importance to a level that even a fan (I'm speaking of me) can't help but cringe.

This week's episode of Studio 60, though still dazzling in many respects (the acting, mainly), was especially tough to swallow. Sorkin's gratuitous swipe at reality TV (reprising the "bad crack in the schoolyard" line he used during a TCA press conference this summer) fell flat, because the mock Mark Burnett pitch was of a despicable sort of reality programming that even Fox has mostly turned away from. Temptation Island was so '90s. This diatribe felt outdated and out of touch, not to mention annoyingly self-righteous. And then there was the young playwright selling a show about the U.N. (shades of Sorkin and The West Wing?), who was prompted by Danny (just where did he get his "street cred?") to choose NBS (read NBC) over HBO. We won't even get into how this show is looking ever more like therapy for a writer who appears to be reliving his past relationships with figures like Jamie Tarses (Jordan McDeere), Kristin Chenoweth (Harriet Hayes) and Maureen Dowd (Christine Lahti's Martha O'Dell, the rare reporter who uses neither pen nor tape recorder). In so many ways, you can't help thinking: Get over yourself, Aaron.

Mind you, I'm not giving up on the show. But I'm becoming more aware of why it's a turnoff for so many. Which makes me rethink my former belief that NBC would never jettison such a prestige project this early in its run. I still think it will get the full season, if only to save face and to send a signal that NBC is committed to quality (even when flawed) TV. But if it doesn't make it to May for whatever reason, I won't exactly be shocked.

Fox

A real mixed bag here. No cancellations yet, but the clock is certainly ticking on Thursday's mirthless Happy Hour and on Friday's transplanted fiasco Vanished.

The first few weeks post-World Series will be make or break for Justice (moved to Mondays after Prison Break) and Standoff, which will have to survive against Dancing With the Stars and NCIS in the killer Tuesday time period that torpedoed Friday Night Lights. Both shows have been given additional script orders, but whether that will translate to a full season run remains to be seen. I'd try to wager some odds here, but I find it hard to care about either.

The Brad Garrett comedy 'Til Death hasn't had much of a chance on Thursdays. And while it may not deserve one, couldn't Fox give it a try in place of the truly unwatchable The War at Home and see if it couldn't find a home on Sundays? Regardless, I'm thinking this star vehicle may be given the benefit of the doubt in hopes of finding a niche during American Idol season.

CW

Last and definitely least, this fledgling hybrid network of WB/UPN titles has made no impression with its new series. Runaway was DOA on Mondays and Sundays, and The Game will make it only by riding Girlfriends' coattails. Whatever happens, we have to hope CW has something brewing for midseason or its first year will have been a wash.

http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=700009260

enoree

10-20-06, 12:35 PM

NBC does not keep good programs on, just think American Dreams

fredfa

10-20-06, 12:36 PM

Fredfa,

I just saw this in today's Cynopsis newsletter:

Your ratings for wednesday put Lost at #1 for the 9PM hour. Am I misreading your charts or did Cynthia get it wrong?

Those are household ratings, not viewers. I prefer, whenevr possible, to compare viewer totals -- becasuse that is, after all, what is most important (of course advertisers prefer total 18-49 viewers, but that is a different story).

So, when the initial total viewers came out yesterday they showed "Criminal Minds" beating "Lost" (barely) for the first time. But when the full results were released later yesterday, "Lost" managed to squeak by for the total viewers win.

(I noted that change late yesterday here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8697938&&#post8697938 )

"Lost" also wins handily (although the margin is eroding week-by-week) over "Criminal Minds" in the 18-49 demo.

fredfa

10-20-06, 12:46 PM

Why count DVR users in advertising rates if they typically do not watch commercials?

(Sorry I missed this question yesterday, CP95!)

Because the networks (led by legendary CBS ratings guru David Poltrack) stubbornly insist that people actually DO watch commercials even when they TiVo or DVR a program. (Of course, what else are they supposed to say?)

Early in December that all may become moot when Nielsen unveils its commercial rankings. I have no idea how they are going to handle DVR/TiVo viewing, but these new ratings are supposed to show how many people actually watched the commercials.

I suspect the nets are terrified.

CPanther95

10-20-06, 12:49 PM

It was more of a rhetorical question in response to the previous poster.

fredfa

10-20-06, 12:50 PM

Sorry, sometimes I have tunnel vision.

I should figure out some way to spend more time reading the thread slowly, I guess.

fredfa

10-20-06, 12:59 PM

Obituary
Herbert Leonard, 84
Produced TV Classics
By Dennis McLellan Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 20, 2006

Herbert B. Leonard, a film and television producer who brought "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin" and the classic TV dramatic series "Naked City" and "Route 66" to television in the 1950s and '60s, has died. He was 84.

Leonard died of cancer Saturday at his home in the Hollywood Hills, said his daughter Gina Leonard.

A former unit production manager at Columbia Pictures, Leonard launched his career as a producer in the 1950s, developing adventure TV series for Screen Gems, Columbia's television subsidiary.

Leonard created and was executive producer of "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin," the 1954-59 western series set on a cavalry post and featuring a heroic German shepherd and his boy companion, Rusty (played by Lee Aaker).

Then came "Naked City," the gritty police detective drama that ran on ABC from 1958 to 1963 and initially starred John McIntire and James Franciscus.

"There are 8 million stories in the Naked City …" the announcer intoned each week on the series, which executive producer Leonard insisted be shot on location in New York.

But for many, Leonard's most memorable series is "Route 66," which ran on CBS from 1960 to 1964.

The show starred Martin Milner as the Yale-educated Tod Stiles and George Maharis as streetwise Buz Murdock: two young men meandering across America in an iconic Corvette. (Maharis was replaced by Glenn Corbett as Linc Case in the final season.)

Like "Naked City," "Route 66" was shot on location — in about 40 states — and frequently featured the writing of co-creator Stirling Silliphant.

"Herbert B. Leonard was a key producer, creating unique entertainment on film starting in the late '50s," said Ron Simon, curator of television and radio at the Museum of Television & Radio in New York. "Unlike other producers, he worked to explore contemporary America.

"His 'Naked City' reflected the grittiness and realism of 1960s New York. And 'Route 66' in many ways brought the spirit of Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road' to a television audience."

Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, said Leonard's "greatest legacy was to extend the golden age of television into the 1960s through 'Naked City' and 'Route 66,' which carried the idea of the anthology drama into the era of the modern television series."

Speaking of "Route 66," Leonard told The Times in 1993: "The stories were about something. They had a theme. They had a point. They had a human spirit. The guys were really testing their values against the people they met on the road."

Chris Canaan, a screenwriter who worked with Leonard on several TV projects, called him a "visionary."

"He was a man who, when he had a vision, he would do anything to make that vision happen, including putting up his own money, which he did on 'Naked City' and 'Route 66,' " Canaan said.

Leonard, he added, "had a gift for collaboration like no producer I've ever worked with in this business. He … was there to facilitate and work with the writer on a collective vision."

Leonard was born in New York City on Oct. 8, 1922. He attended New York University, where he played football, before becoming a Navy pilot and instructor during World War II.

Among Leonard's movie credits as a producer are "Popi," a 1969 comedy-drama directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Alan Arkin. Leonard also produced and co-directed "The Perils of Pauline," a 1967 comedy starring Pat Boone; and he produced and directed "Going Home," a 1971 drama starring Robert Mitchum.

In addition to his daughter Gina, Leonard is survived by daughters Michelle, Swan, Victoria, Sophie and Annie, and three grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 10:15 a.m. today at the Old North Church, Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-leonard20oct20,1,3999074.story?coll=la-news-obituaries

Kracko

10-20-06, 01:10 PM

Those are household ratings, not viewers. I prefer, whenevr possible, to compare viewer totals -- becasuse that is, after all, what is most important (of course advertisers prefer total 18-49 viewers, but that is a different story).

So, when the initial total viewers came out yesterday they showed "Criminal Minds" beating "Lost" (barely) for the first time. But when the full results were released later yesterday, "Lost" managed to squeak by for the total viewers win.

(I noted that change late yesterday here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8697938&&#post8697938 )

"Lost" also wins handily (although the margin is eroding week-by-week) over "Criminal Minds" in the 18-49 demo.

Thanks for the explanation, Fredfa

archiguy

10-20-06, 01:52 PM

Because the networks (led by legendary CBS ratings guru David Poltrack) stubbornly insist that people actually DO watch commercials even when they TiVo or DVR a program. (Of course, what else are they supposed to say?)

Early in December that all may become moot when Nielsen unveils its commercial rankings. I have no idea how they are going to handle DVR/TiVo viewing, but these new ratings are supposed to show how many people actually watched the commercials.

This reminds me of a question I've been wondering about for a few weeks now. Since this is the autumn of an even-numbered year, extraordinary amounts of money are being lavished on the TV networks for political campaign ads. I wonder what, if any, adjustments to the fees being charged the candidates are being made because of DVR's? After all, if people use these devices to zap commercials, they surely will use them to zap political ads as well.

I mention this because it's only 2 1/2 weeks before the election and I noticed, with some surprise, that I haven't seen or heard a single political ad this season, thanks to my DVR (for TV) and the fact that I'm pretty much an exclusive NPR listener on the radio. It's not a big deal for me, as I'm kind of a political junkie and I seek out information on the candidates from a variety of sources. But for most Americans, the only information they get on candidates is the relentless negative ads on TV. We always hear how important money is to political campaigns, and most of that money, of course, goes to buy TV ads.

Fred, have you heard anything about the effect of DVR's on political advertising?

fredfa

10-20-06, 01:57 PM

TV Notebook
Look at Who's Heating Up TV Guide's Hot List!

The weather’s getting cooler, but TV’s catching fire! Here are this season’s steamiest sensations.

HOT DOC
Eric Dane, Grey's Anatomy
Why him? Look no further than this season’s second episode, in which Dane — aka Dr. Mark “McSteamy” Sloan — emerges from Addison’s hotel bathroom in a cloud of steam, and not much else. “I had a towel on,” says the real-life hubby of Vanished star Rebecca Gayheart. “We also had to use double-stick tape.” Ouch.

HOT GEEK
Masi Oka, Heroes
Why him? As Heroes’ Japanese salesman Hiro Nakamura, Oka steals the show with his hilarious one-liners and hit-and-miss attempts at honing his superpowers. When he’s not bending the space-time continuum as Hiro, Oka is a part-time programming consultant for George Lucas’ visual-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic, where he worked on the Pirates of the Caribbean series and Star Wars prequels. “I love being constantly occupied,” he says.

HOT FEET
Mario Lopez, Dancing with the Stars
Why him? Whether he’s playing fast and loose with the ballroom-dancing rule book or keeping viewers guessing about his real relationship with his sultry partner, Karina Smirnoff, Lopez has become a lightning rod for controversy on DWTS. "We’re not trying to be [rebellious], at all," he says. "It’s just that I love to put in my little steps, make it more entertaining for the audience."

HOT AND BOTHERED
Hugh Laurie, House
Why him? Whether he’s calling Chase “Dr. Idiot” or informing Cuddy that she’s “ugly when she’s jealous,” House has been TV’s biggest pill for three seasons. We’re still addicted to his scalpel-sharp remarks.

HOT BODY
Roselyn Sanchez, Without a Trace
Why her? As FBI agent Elena Delgado, Sanchez worked a stripper pole like a pro — for an undercover job, of course. “Roselyn has added a lot of heat,” says costar Poppy Montgomery. “Not only do the boys want to kiss her, so does one of the girls.” That’s hot!

HOT LOOK
Amanda Peet, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Why her? Besides the obvious, you mean? Sleek but still sexy, Peet’s NBS honcho Jordan McDeere is no stuffed suit. “She’s playing a studio head, but one with a lot of style,” praises TV Guide Channel’s Fashion Team guru David Evangelista. If only all network execs knew how to put together such winning ensembles — on and off screen.

HOT COACH
Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
Why him? As Eric Taylor, coach of the mighty Dillon Panthers in a Texas town obsessed with football, Chandler is as tough as he is graceful — and even manages to look dapper in a cheap nylon windbreaker.

HOT TRIANGLE
Jim, Pam and Roy, The Office
Why them? You didn’t expect Pam (Jenna Fischer) to just ditch fiancé Roy (David Denman) and live happily ever after with Jim (John Krasinski), did you? After all, the NBC comedy is only in its second full season. “Jim needed to figure out who he is, and Pam needed to do the same,” Fischer says. While Jim’s transferred to Dunder-Mifflin’s Stamford office, Roy is fighting to win back Pam. He’s dropped weight and looks great. What’s his secret? Must be those frozen chicken-or-fish wedding meals he eats for lunch every day.

HOT SET
The secret court on Shark
Why this? If you’re Michael Jordan, you have a regulation-size at-home basketball court. If you’re Sebastian Stark (James Woods), the lawyer who puts the teeth in Shark, you have your own personal courtroom to practice your cunning maneuvers. “I read about two or three high-profile law firms in Washington, D.C., that had [fake] courtrooms in their offices,” says Shark creator Ian Biederman. “But Sebastian is a guy who has tremendous resources, so I took the liberty of putting the courtroom in his house.”

HOT ON THE TRAIL
William Fichtner, Prison Break
Why him? "He is going to find these guys," Fichtner says of his Fox River 8-tracking Fed, Alexander Mahone. "But some of the things that Mahone has in the back of his closet — and in the back of his mind, the voices he is hearing about his own life — get in the way. When we come back from hiatus, somebody starts to look at Mahone and wonder a bit about him. The pieces start to come together, with a little bit of a backstory."

HOT NEW FACE
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Why her? How could you not love her? The swan behind Ugly Betty is the season’s biggest sweetheart, bringing a refreshing normality to a medium that’s overcrowded with the extra-petite set. “It’s not about her trying to conform,” says Ferrera, who hopes that her heroine will never be chic. “It’s more about her exploring what she likes about herself."

HOT KIDS
Dukie, Randy, Michael and Namond, The Wire
Why them? In their portrayal of middle-school teens caught in the sights of the Baltimore drug trade, the scarily talented Jermaine Crawford, Maestro Harrell, Tristan Wilds and Julito McCullum have viewers and critics raving. “Stunning” is producer Ed Burns’ take on the foursome’s professionalism. “I’d trade them for many an [adult] actor,” he says. Apparently HBO is pretty psyched, too, as it’s just ordered a fifth season.

HOT LOVER
Claire Forlani, CSI: NY
Why her? She seduced Death (aka Brad Pitt) in Meet Joe Black. But that's kid stuff compared to her latest achievement: Forlani has actually given Gary Sinise’s scowling Mac a reason to flash his pearly whites. Since her heart-stopping medical examiner Dr. Peyton Driscoll hit CSI: NY earlier this season, she and Mac have been keeping their love undercover, quietly charming fans who’d given up on seeing Mac happy.

HOT ROCKER
Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock
Why him? His riotous alter ego, Tracy Jordan, is a bigger star than Morgan ever was on SNL. But 30 Rock could change all that. “Tracy Morgan is my muse,” says star Tina Fey. “I transcribe whatever he says and it comes out in our scripts: ‘Dress every day like you’re gonna get murdered in those clothes.’ You can’t beat that.”

HOT RELATION
Josh Henderson, Desperate Housewives
Why him? As Austin, the ne’er-do-well nephew of Nicollette Sheridan’s Edie, Henderson is setting off sparks with Julie (Andrea Bowen), the daughter of his aunt’s sworn enemy. With his face and bod, we’re surprised it wasn’t Eva Longoria’s Gaby who snatched him up first.

STILL HOT
Jeri Ryan, Shark; Tim Daly, The Nine
Why them? Ever since she Borg'ed out as Voyager’s Seven of Nine, we’ve been over the moon for the vivacious Ryan. Her stint as Boston Public’s smokin’ teacher and her current gig as James Woods’ DA boss have proven she can heat up any line of work. And as for Daly, who wouldn’t want to join the mile-high club with the former Wings man? On The Nine, he’s a perfect 10.

HOT ZONE
Jericho
Why there? The pilot’s gut-punching nuclear blast blew away viewers, who have been visiting the isolated town in droves. And the fallout is shaping up to be a crafty headscratcher of Lost proportions. How come an ex-cop knows so much about nukes? Were those other cities really blasted off the map? And who is Hawkins, anyway.

http://tvguide.com/News-Views/Interviews-Features/Article/default.aspx?posting={2C9B0416-BF43-403A-9F3C-8C8678D56FB1}

fredfa

10-20-06, 02:01 PM

....Fred, have you heard anything about the effect of DVR's on political advertising?

Nothing new, Archie. Except that broadcasters are counting on a heavy, heavy influx of political ad money again this year.

And from all reports I see, they are getting it.

Here in California the ads seem even more ubiquitous than ever. I read somewhere (and I don't remember the source, but believe it to be reliable) that there will be in excess of $1 billion spent on televised political advertising this year.

But there are the beginnings of an advertsiing migration to the net. I am sure we will see far more of that by 2008.

riker

10-20-06, 02:03 PM

What new shows?!? :eek: I was hoping that B5 would show up on HDNet (like Enterprise). Even upverted shows of B5 would be acceptable to me!
// Scott A

You mean you don't know?? Hope you are sitting down ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_The_Lost_Tales

fredfa

10-20-06, 02:05 PM

The New Season
The Game and 7th Heaven on The CW
By Jim Benson Broadcasting & Cable 10/20/2006

The CW Network has picked up the back nine episodes of two series from CBS Paramount Network Television, the freshman comedy The Game, making it the first new sitcom on any network to get a full-season order this season, and returning drama 7th Heaven.

Earlier in the week, The CW pulled the plug on the low-rated drama Runaway.

The Game, which counts actor Kelsey Grammer among the executive producers, has retained 95% of its Girlfriends lead-in among women 18-34 and The CW has been pleased with its creative direction.

7th Heaven, which had been destined to end its long run last season only to be revived for the new netlet, began the season in its usual Monday night slot before moving to 8 p.m. Sundays when The CW flipped its comedies and dramas on the two nights.

Its numbers have been so-so, but a CW spokesman says the netlet expects loyal viewers to follow the longest-running family drama to Sundays.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6383556

fredfa

10-20-06, 03:09 PM

TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic Friday, October 20, 2006

Question: I've noticed that some of the more popular shows on TV right now are quite racially diverse, e.g. Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Ugly Betty, Heroes. Maybe this is more than just a coincidence. In other words, is it that the best show creators just happen to be more open to racial diversity, or do you think having a multiracial cast actually allows the show to reach a larger audience of more than just one demographic?— Caroline

Matt Roush: While stopping short of predicting that Grey's Anatomy can cure prejudice, I will say (as I've said before) that one of its greatest attributes is its ethnically blended cast, which almost never calls attention to itself. Lost also broke barriers in presenting an Asian couple whose back stories were often told with subtitles, something Heroes has adopted with its most appealing character, Hiro. (And here's where I should stop and tip the cap to ER, which got there first and is still doing an admirable job.) All of this is a step in the right direction. I'm not sure these shows' popularity is due entirely to the diverse casting, but it's refreshing to see networks rewarded for reflecting a more accurate picture of today's melting-pot culture. Ugly Betty takes it a step further by grounding its title heroine in a specific culture, reflecting the origins of this particular show. Bravo.

Question: I just read that NBC pulled its planned three-episode encore of Friday Night Lights this Sunday in favor of Heroes. Does this mean cancellation is basically inevitable? If so, what a loss. I felt that this was a show that could truly bring together red and blue America. It dealt with issues of community, family and religion respectfully and truthfully. It was also smart, well produced and extremely well acted. Isn't this exactly the kind of show the family values crowd has been clamoring for? Why aren't they watching? Is Dancing with the Stars really that much more appealing? With Friday Night Lights likely on its way out and Studio 60 in a similar boat, it looks like viewers are really not interested in straightforward quality TV these days. They seem much more drawn to procedurals, reality shows and bizarre concept serials like Lost, Heroes and Jericho. What do you think this means for the future of what used to be mainstream drama in prime time? Also, was any quality show on NBC set up for failure simply because none would have a decent lead-in? Is there any way to save Friday Night Lights?— Dan

Matt Roush: I have a feeling we'll learn more about Friday's fate soon. By the end of the month, I bet. (If NBC lets the show air into the November sweeps, that will be a true show of support, and so far, it's still on the calendar.) I'm worried about it, too. I was worried before it premiered. Look, NBC was always going to have a tough time launching some of its series this fall because 1) it entered the season playing catch-up, with few returning hits; and 2) several of its better shows were not the sort of franchises (self-contained crime, legal or medical dramas) that seem to catch on faster. NBC took some risks. Heroes, at least, paid off. You bring up a good point about the so-called "family" audience. In this case, that audience appears to be focused instead on Dancing with the Stars and, to a lesser degree, Gilmore Girls, both of which are more purely "entertaining" than this wrenching drama about a Texas town and its high-school football team. I wouldn't generalize too much about the future of "mainstream" drama, although it's true that it seems harder to sell a story about everyday people unless there's some kind of high concept or franchise attached. The moderate success of ABC's Brothers & Sisters is a positive sign, though I wish that show interested me more.

And because I'm all about equal time (well, within reason), here's a provocative opposing view regarding Friday Night Lights, from Tom:

"OK, I'm going to get crucified on this one. I cannot stand watching Friday Night Lights because I find it ideologically reprehensible. Let me say upfront that I have no interest in sports, so I know I lose credibility with sports nuts right there. While I understand that people can enjoy sports and find some level of collective pride in them, I believe that our culture has gone way overboard with its obsession. When my local newspaper devotes one page to international news and at least eight to sports, something is awry. I watched the premiere of FNL because of the critical hype and my interest in small-town stories. I understand that it is based on a real town in Texas and certainly is representative of much of everyday America. But the extent to which the townspeople put their pride in a game is pathetic. And what I find most reprehensible is that these sick parents and community members place so much of their misplaced ego and pride on the backs of their kids! When the quarterback was injured in the premiere, I certainly felt bad for the character and his family. But the tears I shed were tears of grief over a twisted culture that would risk the life and limb of their children for meaningless entertainment. I'm tuning out because the show is simply sick."

Hmmm, were you channeling Veronica Mars this week? Veronica, who described football as "the systematic violation of the Geneva Convention made into a sport." If I thought Friday Night Lights glorified any of these things, I might agree. But the fact that it had this impact on you leads me to believe it did its job very well. The show empathizes with these people, for sure, but it also dramatizes the downside of this obsession with sports and the dehumanizing pressure on these young people and their coach. Put all of that together, and you've got one hell of a drama. Too bad so few are watching.

Question: As I enjoy The Wire and Weeds, I have noticed that dramas on cable have overtaken dramas on network TV in terms of quality. Sure, there are shows like 24, Lost and Grey's Anatomy, but in my opinion they pale in comparison to Weeds, The Wire, The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica, Rescue Me, The Shield, Deadwood, etc. Maybe it's because cable offers greater freedom to the writers, but I think it's because of the 13 episodes per season in a cable drama compared to 22 (or more) episodes for a show on network TV. The long season is probably too much pressure on writers, leading to a lot of "filler" episodes. Lost's Season 2 was so slow that I gave it up by the end of the season. I think shows like that would greatly benefit if the number of episodes were reduced to 13. What do you think?— Shayan

Matt Roush: This is a great topic, because while it's absolutely true that in many cases, less would be more, I hear all the time from greedy fans who can't understand why more episodes per season can't be made by many of these complicated productions. Networks are hungry beasts. They devour product. If a show is successful, a network is always going to demand more, not less. While I will always disagree with the Lost contingent that thinks the show doesn't move fast enough — the way it tells stories still seems revolutionary and fascinating to me — you're probably right that if the producers had to churn out fewer episodes, each individual story could pack more punch.

I've had a similar discussion lately with colleagues about The Office, which I think improved quite a bit last season but still seems to be uneven week to week. Here's a show that I wish could find a happy medium between the British model (12 episodes total, plus a Christmas special) versus the American system of cranking out at least 22 a season. The NBC version has already produced nearly three times as many episodes as the original, and a show that strikes such a delicate balance of realism and comedy isn't always going to be able to hit a home run. (Dwight's attempted coup was a particular low point lately, though I felt the "Grief Counseling" episode was a pale imitation of last season's classic "Conflict Resolution," with the exception of Pam's genius gag of making up family deaths from movies they've seen.) If it could be more selective in its output, imagine how great it could be.

Question: Here's a Lost theory that has nothing to do with the island's mystery, but rather its slightly slipping ratings. I believe the success of Jericho is causing viewers to avoid watching Lost directly after (too much mystery-adventure in one sitting) and instead to gravitate toward something more mindless, such as Criminal Minds. I think this opens up many possibilities for network scheduling. Grey's Anatomy has seemed to get its viewers craving more medical drama, sending them to another network for ER at 10 pm/ET. Could a network be crafty enough to schedule a show around another network's hit?— T. Paul

Matt Roush: You seem to be contradicting yourself here. You don't think CBS purposely scheduled Jericho in Lost's original time period (back in the first season) in hopes of drawing that audience in an hour early? I imagine there's plenty of overlap between the shows — and for the record, at least for now, Lost is still outdrawing Jericho, even if Lost's numbers aren't what they used to be (though hardly disastrous, especially in the demos). It does seem like Grey's Anatomy fans may be drifting over to ER (which now conveniently begins a minute into the hour, to take advantage of Grey's fans whose story doesn't end until a minute past the hour). Lost's slippage probably has more to do with some frustration over the continuing denseness of the storytelling, which leaves many characters unattended for weeks (months?). It doesn't surprise me a bit that Criminal Minds (the absolute worst of CBS' procedural hours) attracts an audience that wouldn't dream of stepping foot on that mysterious island. That's a classic example of counterprogramming.

Here's another Lost question, from Jeff:

"I'm one of those obsessive Lost fans who jump on the Internet immediately after the show finishes and begin analyzing every little movement and posting new theories. What amazes me when I do this is the number of people who say that great episodes of Lost are terrible. I constantly see a minority of people complaining that 'They never answer any mysteries.' I found a similar reaction to the premiere of The Nine. People wanted everything shown to them in the first episode. I don't understand. What makes shows like Lost so great is the suspense and anticipation. If we had found out all about Dharma in the pilot, then why bother watching?"

To me, the reality of the situation is that Lost was never meant to be this popular in the first place. There's a reason it doesn't draw the mass audience of CSI and its offshoots, which despite its occasional gruesomeness is a much easier and more comforting show to sit through. Lost intends to provoke and disturb as it expands its world of characters and settings, and I get why some fans wish it could go back to the relative simplicity and tighter focus of its earlier days. But to whine that nothing happens, it's too slow, nothing's ever explained, I will never get. I agree with you totally. It's about the mystery, the ride and, most important, the human drama.

And finally, because every so often I just like to share someone's joy, here's this shout-out to the glories of Lost, from Robert R.:

"Praises to J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof for such a magnificent relaunch of the third season of Lost. I am stunned beyond belief by the naysayers who must struggle mightily to find anything to complain about. What other show is so rich with complex, beautifully portrayed characters that it can keep over one-half of its cast off screen during the first two hours of the season, and still deliver such magnificent television? This show has so much life in it. It has not even neared its peak yet. And there are plenty of answers being fed to us while new questions are created. This is the best of cliff-hanger television with a gifted, electric cast and production qualities that are unparalleled. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, folks."

My sentiments exactly.

Question: Thanks for your updates on MI-5. Do you have any idea why A&E would seemingly and purposely not advertise the show's return, air just two episodes, then pull the plug without so much as a warning to viewers who have fervently but patiently waited for its return? This is a crime, and shame on A&E. I used to think "quality" whenever I heard A&E. Now, it's gone so downhill, I don't know what to think.— NT

Matt Roush: You know how I often say that it's silly to think that networks purposely try to kill shows? Well, in this case, it's true. A&E did everything in its power to keep MI-5's return a secret after an unconscionably lengthy hiatus, and when no one came to the party when the show was annexed to Fridays at 11 pm/ET, it was yanked off the schedule. I bring this up to remind the show's fans that a marathon of the remainder of the current season will be airing this Saturday, 11 am to 7 pm/ET. But it wouldn't surprise me if the network canceled the marathon midway through, it has such seeming contempt for anything that isn't cheesy reality. The network argues that its new programming mandate has made its median viewer age younger. At what cost to brand credibility?

Question: I have watched all the episodes of Ugly Betty so far, and I really enjoy the show on many levels. I love (and hate) that "poor Betty" moment that seems to occur at least once per episode (you know, when some wafer-thin coworker attempts to humiliate her at a staff meeting or some such). The only problem I have with the show, honestly, is that as believable as Betty is in terms of her disposition and courage, she is utterly unbelievable to me in terms of her looks. A woman (whether she's raised in Queens, the rural Midwest or Seattle) who wants to work at the most successful fashion magazine in America would presumably have some minor interest in fashion and/or personal beauty. I just have a hard time buying the idea that Betty, who is by no means ugly, would have no interest in or ability to present herself with a certain amount of style and grace. If she has no interest in fashion, why is she working at such a prestigious publication? And if she does have an interest in fashion, how can such a bright, resourceful, competent and professional young woman have absolutely no clue that she's presenting the most unfashionable image possible? Thanks for your thoughts. I do love the show and hope it lasts many, many years.— Andrew T.

Matt Roush: So do I. First off, keep in mind that in many ways, Ugly Betty is a cartoon, a garish comedy that is meant to be extreme in its looks and style, including Betty's lack thereof. Addressing a key plot point, though: Betty had no intention of working at Mode. She wanted to work for one of Meade Publications' more serious mags (think Vanity Fair), not this glossy fashion rag. She is a complete novice to this world. And while it's true that someone with Betty's gumption and brains would probably be able to do enough homework to put together a look that's a little less goofy, Betty is also representing a less inhibited culture that isn't afraid of a little color or a few curves. Do I believe someone like Betty would actually go to work looking like she does? No. But the show's called Ugly Betty, not Extreme Makeover (although her recent makeover was hilarious). I will say, though, that I hope the show doesn't bring Betty to the brink of quitting every week. That's getting old fast.

Question: After seeing the first two episodes of The Nine, it seems obvious that the concept just doesn't work. Episode 2 only showed five minutes of the bank robbery. If the robbery lasts 48 hours and they only show five minutes each episode, it will take 576 episodes in order to show the entire robbery. Now, I'm a fan of shows like Lost that gradually reveal details about the plot over the course of the season, but this just seems gratuitous. And while I enjoy seeing the pieces of the robbery, the rest of the show is rather dull. It's like going to work after you missed an episode of your favorite show and having to hear everyone talking about how great the episode was. Everyone's talking about the robbery, and it sounds really interesting, but all the talk about it just makes it frustrating that you can't see the robbery for yourself. Well, unless this show actually makes it 576 episodes, but you probably have a greater chance of becoming a hostage in a bank robbery yourself.— Andrew R

Matt Roush: Very funny. And I assume you're being facetious. The Nine may only offer several minutes of bank-robbery flashback per week, but I would assume they're always going to be pivotal, character-revealing minutes, which certainly wouldn't be the case if we had to live through the entire ordeal in real time. I loved The Nine's pilot episode, and am still intrigued, though after the second hour, I'm also struck by just how tricky it's going to be to maintain a balance between the riveting nature of the robbery/hostage crisis flashbacks and the more mundane subplots of life in the aftermath. Although calling them "dull" this early in the game seems awfully harsh, especially when one of the story lines in the second week ended in a character committing murder.

Here's another take on the show, from Rick C.:

"The Nine is a well-made show, and I'm enjoying its execution, but I've got to wonder how far the premise can take it. It seems completely tied to what happened in the bank, and they either spread that reveal out forever (hello, X-Files), or they just peter out. The show either ends with a bang after a short run, or it ends in a whimper. What are your thoughts on this?"

Rich isn't the only person to wonder about The Nine's long-term potential. Which could be a moot point if the numbers don't pick up. Like so many series this season, The Nine has the feel of a great story that could have made a brilliant miniseries, or even a 13-episode "limited series" on cable or some network that could support such a thing. Not knowing what twists the writers have in store for these characters, as more is made clear about just what happened in the bank, I can't speculate on how the show could carry on in a second season, perhaps reinventing itself the way Prison Break did this fall. It's a hurdle I imagine the show's creators would probably love to face.

Question: I don't understand why Studio 60's ratings aren't better, considering how celebrity-obsessed our society is these days. Entire magazines are dedicated to describing in great detail what stars are wearing, dating, eating, etc. I really love TV, and I enjoy knowing about the behind-the-scenes workings of my favorite shows. It seems like there are a lot of people who feel the same way. So why can't a show about a show find an audience?— Cherlene N.

Matt Roush: Gossip is popular, true, but Studio 60 takes the world of entertainment all a bit more seriously. Maybe too much so, as it addresses aspects of the culture wars and the corporate entertainment world with a growing sense of self-importance and at times (especially this week) with a self-righteousness that muddies what could be a very enjoyable workplace-relationship show. Aaron Sorkin never writes ordinary TV, which is great. And there's much about Studio 60 that still dazzles me. But Tyler's comments below may help shed more light on Cherlene's question:

"I have a response to those who think that the people tuning out of Studio 60 'just don't get it.' I get it. I loved Sports Night more than I can say. The early seasons of The West Wing induced tears and chills on a weekly basis. But Studio 60 leaves a strong 'been there, done that' sensation. I loved the pilot. I like the actors and characters. (I don't even care that Amanda Peet's Jordan is an imaginary creation.) But it's hard to swallow the show's self-importance. I love TV, but these characters are approaching the show-within-a-show in the same way the gang in the White House approached foreign policy. I just can't reconcile those two things, to say nothing of the fact that the show they are producing just isn't that funny."

Question: This fall season, more than any other in recent memory, the viewing public has disappointed me in the shows it is choosing to watch, or rather not watch. NBC in particular has seen most of its fall slate go practically unnoticed. Friday Night Lights, Kidnapped and Studio 60 are arguably the three best new shows of this year, and yet no one is watching. I keep reading about Studio 60's "quality" of audience (yupsters who buy things), but at what point does quantity begin to matter? And while I appreciate that NBC will at least let Kidnapped finish its story arc (which can't be said for CBS' underrated Smith), why is the network so quick to cut the cord on this promising show? 24 wasn't a blockbuster initially, but has grown with time. Viewers were initially afraid of the serial quality of the show, but that has become less of a problem, and just now, in its fifth (and best) year it won an Emmy. I think Kidnapped would follow a similar trajectory, given the chance. This may be a pipe dream, but I would like to see NBC try another Kidnapped arc over the summer or next fall. It could be a limited series, six episodes, maybe 10. Knowing that the story is limited, more people might tune in. I also think a network would be able to attract top-tier talent (not to slight their fantastic cast) for such limited runs. What stops networks from having such miniseries or even serial movies, like the BBC? Is TV reaching a point where shows cost so much to produce that the only ones that make the cut are the immediate blockbusters?— Phil G.

Matt Roush: I feel your pain. And I also wonder if we aren't in a transitional stage right now where some of these serialized failures might be an evolutionary step toward a new form of limited-run hybrid closer to the cable model, in which shows aren't quite season-long series but aren't quite miniseries (they air in weekly installments but only for a limited time in each cycle). The networks clearly want to tap into this vibe, but the learning curve has been pretty brutal so far this fall.

http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Columnists/Ask-Matt/default.aspx

rebkell

10-20-06, 03:36 PM

Man! I didn't know that either. Hope its good.

I wasn't aware of it either, some new B5 material, that is awesome news.

fredfa

10-20-06, 04:27 PM

The New Season
“Shark” To Stay on CBS
By Jim Benson Broadcasting & Cable 10/20/2006

CBS has given a full-season order to its freshman Thursday night legal drama Shark after it showed week to week growth Thursday despite tough competition from game seven of the Mets-Cardinals National League Championship series.

The back-nine episode order came after last night's episode of the James Woods series averaged season-high ratings in adults 18-34, women 18-34 and women 18-49, while matching its best adults 18-49 performance.

After four episodes, Shark this season has been averaging 14.36 million viewers and a 4.1 rating/11 share in adults 18-49 in its 10 p.m. time period against a resurgent ER on NBC.

Of its four new series, CBS has now given full-season orders to two (including Jericho) and cancelled a third (Smith). The jury is still out on the Monday night comedy, The Class.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6383645

rebkell

10-20-06, 04:52 PM

The New Season
“Shark” To Stay on CBS
By Jim Benson Broadcasting & Cable 10/20/2006

After four episodes, Shark this season has been averaging 14.36 million viewers and a 4.1 rating/11 share in adults 18-49 in its 10 p.m. time period against a resurgent ER on NBC.

Of its four new series, CBS has now given full-season orders to two (including Jericho) and cancelled a third (Smith). The jury is still out on the Monday night comedy, The Class.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6383645

Not that it really matters, but I'm pretty sure there have been 5 episodes of Shark. I like James Woods and he seems totally in his element for this show.

123HDTV

10-20-06, 05:02 PM

I think Shark works very well. It's one of the few shows I watch when it airs each week.

fredfa

10-20-06, 05:30 PM

I agree with both of you. I think there have been five episodes, and it has grown on me to where I look forward to seeing it.

fredfa

10-20-06, 05:47 PM

The New Season
Some Lessons from the fall roster
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”

…( NBC) just announced that it’s going to more or less give up on presenting scripted fare in the 7 p.m. (CT) hour; game shows and reality fare will, in future, take that spot on the NBC schedule. However, network head Kevin Reilly said Thursday that NBC would not necessarily move “My Name Is Earl” or “The Office” out of that spot.

Still, it’s depressing news, especially since NBC fielded such a strong slate of new shows for the fall season. “Kidnapped,” “Friday Night Lights” and “Studio 60” were some of the most well-reviewed, ambitious programs on any network slate this fall.

It’s a drag that not only will we be less likely to see NBC swing for the fences next year, but we’ll be more likely to see mindless fare such as “1 vs. 100” and “Deal or No Deal.” We’ve come from “Friends” to this? See how the mighty have fallen.

Frankly, I’d rather see in the 7 p.m. hour an intelligent failure such as “30 Rock” rather than yet another game show or another season of “The Biggest Loser.” But network executives care about one thing: Money. It’s hard to see how NBC will make more dough by catering to the lowest common denominator, but their only ambition, it appears at this point, is to stop the bleeding.

It’s thinking like that that’s sending viewers in their millions to cable television, where ratings expectations are lower and the level of ambition, in some cases, is higher.

Speaking more generally, I hope that the networks don’t take the wrong lessons from the failure of several expensive new shows this fall. I have a palpable fear that the three lessons executives are taking away are these:

Lesson No. 1: Audience don’t want high quality shows -- they don’t need big expensive stars and fancy sets and snazzy cinematography.

Lesson No. 2: Audiences don’t want serialized dramas. A pox on the house of anyone who says they do.

Lesson No. 3: Audiences don’t want new half-hour comedies.

I don’t think those are really the right lessons to take away from this fall season.

Regarding Lesson No. 1: Nobody minds expensive stars and fancy sets and all the trimmings – if they’re part of a show with depth, heart and good writing. “Smith” failed because its characters weren’t all that compelling, not because the actors or directors were incompetent.

As for ambitious show such as “The Nine” and “Friday Night Lights” not doing better, frankly I have no idea why they’re struggling. They’re excellent shows and possibly their time slots are to blame.

And “Studio 60’s” slide can quite credibly be laid at the feet of Aaron Sorkin, who started out writing a snappy, compelling drama about interesting people but failed to realize that he can’t write a comedy sketch to save his life. And viewers aren’t stupid. They get that.

Regarding Lesson No. 2: When Fox’s “24” returns in January, just try to tell that show’s millions of fans that serialized dramas don’t work. But the difference there is that Fox gave that show time to grow. “24” didn’t really become a monster until two or three years had passed, and the writing, direction and the viewers’ involvement in the characters grew each season.

Serialization can work just fine as long as expectations for the show are reasonable (see “Jericho”) and as long as the shows are executed with flair, depth and talent (as “Vanished” and “Runaway” weren’t). And it's not as if "Heroes" has suffered from its serialized format -- in fact, that's one aspect of the show that's made it a success.

Regarding Lesson No. 3: Audiences can smell bad comedy from 50 paces. Networks should stop making cliché-filled comedies that reek of too many executive "notes" and a whiff of desperation. Enough already.

Here’s the real lesson from fall’s successes: Audiences want diversity. Not just diversity of casts, but a wide range of stories, characters and creative impulses.

Look at the shows that have gotten full season pickups: “Heroes,” “Brothers and Sisters,” “Jericho,” “Ugly Betty.”

Look, Ma, no procedurals! There’s not a corpse, a cop or a lawyer in the bunch.

You know what these shows have in common? Nothing. And that’s terrific. None of these programs is like anything else on TV, nor are they carbon copies of each other. A Latina trying to make it in Manhattan, Midwesterners dealing with disaster, a family soap and a drama about ordinary folks with super powers.

These are all left-field ideas. Let’s hope we see more of them next fall.

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

fredfa

10-20-06, 06:29 PM

TV Notebook
NBC: Nothing But Clueless:
Knee-jerk fear at the Peacock
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog “The Bastard Machine” Oct. 20, 2006

Thursday's announcement that NBC Universal was running around with a corporate machete in some psychotic act of cost-slashing, upper-management panic-attack nonsense, had the distinct look of self-mutilation.

Having said many times that the TV industry is run on fear and cluelessness, it's always nice to have NBC confirm this over and over again. Thursday was no exception. Never mind the 700 - or was it 7,000? - layoffs that are planned. That's a business story. Never mind, even, the NBC News/MSNBC/CNBC mash-up that may soon take place, above and beyond office space consolidation. You can take all your doomsday junkies who talk about the end of journalism and how bad that is for the world and put them in a sealed room. The point is not that NBC wants to kill the nightly news or even all televised news as we know it. NBC and parent company GE want to make money, period. If they think they can make a dollar by having Keith Olbermann sit on Brian Williams' shoulders and do a post-Brokaw dog-and-pony deconstruction of the day's news, they'll do it.

And by the way - NBC is not alone in wanting news to make more profit. Every network does. NBC just wrapped it up in a bunch of Web. 2.0 nonsense it knows nothing about. (Maybe it will start hyping Williams' blog as a download on iTunes?)

No, the thing to take away from Thursday's unbelievably public display of cluelessness and paranoia is that GE wants more money for its shareholders - and it wants the money now. That's a dog-bites-man story if there ever was one. But the fascinating little addendum to it was that NBC was going to dump scripted fare - comedies and dramas - from the 8 to 9 p.m. timeslot, and use reality and game shows exclusively. This appears to be the idea of former NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker, who nearly drove the network into the ground when he was at the helm, though it also has the stamp of his boss, Bob Wright, who is nearly unrivaled in his inablity to discern quality fare from, say, a cinder block.

This revolution of the 8 to 9 p.m. timeslot is laughably wrong-headed and caused Kevin Reilly, who has Zucker's old job of entertainment president, to say the edict was not absolute. Reilly was at a Hollywood Radio and TV Society luncheon on Thursday and was quoted in Variety saying this: "You can't be exclusive with reality at 8. You have to be in the scripted business. It's not an absolute." Translation: "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" won't move from Thursday's line-up. (The irony there, of course, is that Zucker should be starring in "The Office," not Steve Carell).

Reilly's remark should prompt a nice little closed-door discussion, one would think. (Reilly, who's done a far better job as entertainment president than Zucker - once he got out of the mess Zucker left him with - is a well-respected programmer and should look immediately to free himself from the bad marriage he now finds himself in with NBC. Unless NBC fires Zucker, which seems unlikely because all people who fail upward tend to have an angel of mercy near them, then Reilly ought to keep his head on a swivel.)

This notion of a reality/game show hour from 8 to 9 p.m. truly shows Zucker's lack of vision and programming acumen. Why blindly limit that hour to non-scripted fare? Sure, reality shows and game shows are cheaper to produce and cost GE less money. Hmmmm. But anyway, has anyone ever tried this in the history of network television? Has there ever been success with this formula? Why does every other network have a scripted hit in the 8 p.m. time slot? Do these questions even need to be asked?

Look, ABC is currently doing something similar to what Zucker is suggesting. It has "Wife Swap" (Mondays - not a hit), "Dancing with the Stars" (Tuesday and Wednesday - hits), "America's Funniest Home Videos" (Fridays - oh, please) and "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" (Sundays - hit) all in the 8 p.m. hour. Results? Mixed. But it also has "Ugly Betty" on Thursdays at 8 p.m., which has turned out to be one the biggest freshman hits of the season and was renewed for a full 22 episodes. If ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson was hamstrung by The Zucker Rules, he'd be out of luck. And you can bet that if McPherson wants to try another scripted series at 8 p.m., he'll do it - without worrying about parent company Disney's bottom line first.

It's hard to imagine that even Zucker believes a genre-specific block from 8 to 9 p.m. is a good idea. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe this is a world-class ass covering because Wright, his boss and the CEO of NBC Universal, thinks the reality and game show idea is brilliant. Wright has proven his lack of programming knowledge relentlessly in the past, and told this to USA Today on Thursday: "Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we're running the best-scripted programming on television, but the audience just isn't there for it"

Boy, that is rich. On Tuesday, NBC has the highly-acclaimed but dead-on-arrival drama "Friday Night Lights" on at 8 p.m. The series has gone up against "House" on Fox, "NCIS" on CBS and "Dancing with the Stars" on ABC - each of them bonafide hits. Perhaps that has something to do with it? You're right, Bob - the audience isn't there because they're watching those other shows, two of which are scripted. On Wednesday, Wright is simply out of his mind, because "30 Rock" and "Twenty Good Years" are both unfunny sitocms - the latter being exceptionally and obviously not funny. Both of those series are being aggessively ignored by viewers, not because they're scripted, but because they're bad. In fact, CBS is running a freshman drama, "Jericho," opposite them and it was just picked up for a full season.

Maybe the problem at NBC isn't bad programming, it's bad management? Nah, couldn't be. At the very least, the network has had bad luck. "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" got a lot of hype but failed to launch. "Kidnapped" was one of the better serial dramas but got lost in the fall crush. You know what? That happens. Both of those series are/were exceptional. But in the end, the audience always decides. And the audience is fickle. It can not be fully understood. Many network programmers will tell you (in confidence, of course) that they don't know what will or won't work. Television is an inexact science, which is precisely why it's fear based and overrun with paranoia.

Nina Tassler, who's the entertainment president at currently robust CBS, told USA Today that NBC's ideas about the state of television are off base: "They're addressing corporate ills as industry trends, and that's just not the case."

So good luck to NBC in further beating "Deal or No Deal" to death. The only way this new philosophy for the 8 to 9 p.m. block is going to work is if the network gets four more reality or game show hits - and fast. Of course, if developing hits and putting them in the right spot was so easy to do, Zucker would probably still be entertainment president.

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

fredfa

10-20-06, 06:35 PM

fredfa

10-20-06, 06:40 PM

TV Notebook
It's a Tough Universe
For Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, there are no real heroes on their show, "Battlestar Galactica" — only complex characters.
By Kate Aurthur Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 22, 2006

The critically lauded "Battlestar Galactica," Sci Fi Channel's remake of the fluffy 1978 television series, was politically minded from the outset. The 2003 miniseries began with the genocide of billions of people in a Sept. 11-like attack by the Cylons, a mysterious race of robots.

The show, now in its third season, has mostly been set in space, as the survivors on the Battlestar fleet have tried to evade the Cylons. In their struggles to rebuild a civilization, the characters on "Battlestar Galactica" have faced dilemmas about the legality of abortion, torture in military prisons, and the separation between religion and politics, all while asking, "Why do they hate us?"

The beginning of this season, though, put the action on the ground: The humans' attempt to colonize a planet failed when the Cylons found them and occupied the planet. Now, having been rescued after a fierce insurgency developed, the humans must attempt to restore order to their even more diminished and demoralized population.

In Friday's episode — "Collaborators" — a small tribunal of humans seeks to root out those who betrayed their race and worked for the Cylons during the violent and poorly planned occupation. Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, the executive producers of "Battlestar Galactica," talk about the show's political allegories.

Why is punishing the collaborators the first priority after the humans are rescued from the planet New Caprica?

Moore: The first episode back, it felt like, no matter what it was, they had to deal with the aftermath of what they had just gone through. What do they do with the people who collaborated with the Cylons?

Eick: What's interesting is what we didn't talk about. We never really got into the morality of whether or not our quote-unquote heroes would be embarking on this immoral or somehow judgmental journey to punish the collaborators.

*

And the heroes are, in fact, the ones doing the punishing.

Moore: The episode itself is all about breaking a lot of comfort zones in television. TV, generally, is really frightened about protecting your characters. Don't let the audience lose sympathy for them, they have to be heroic, they have to always do the right thing. We don't worry about protecting our characters to that extent. We think, "Well, what would they do in those circumstances?"

Eick: These decisions aren't made for shock value. Without this, the injustice that had taken place would metastasize and cripple the fleet.

*

In the most recent episode, one of the main characters, Col. Tigh, had to kill his own wife for giving the Cylons information, even though she had done it to save him. What did that say about him?

Moore: In the occupation, it's like, here's why you keep Col. Tigh around: because when the chips are way down, this is the guy that's going to find a way to win. It's us vs. them, you collaborate, you die: That's the way the resistance has to function. Nobody gets a pass. And then it's his wife. That Tigh would still do it, and it breaks his heart — he has trouble recovering from it, and it affects him for the rest of the season.

*

On the planet, President Baltar let the Cylons run their government through him in a Vichy France-like setup. How responsible is he for how badly the occupation went?

Eick: Most of those Nazi trials are so interesting to me because so many of the convictions are not of mustache-twirling, bloodthirsty Nazis. They were people who were pushing papers, setting train schedules and collaborating, and — what's the phrase? — "following orders." I think likewise in this case, Baltar's hands were tied.

*

The human insurgency — which included suicide bombings — was also led by main characters that viewers probably identify with and like. How much was that storyline meant to reflect current events?

Eick: We don't — like the folks over at the Dick Wolf shows — sit in the story room … trying to do an adaptation of what's on the 11 o'clock news. It really is about just pulling the story out and being honest about who the characters are. Of course, what would an occupied people do if they found themselves under the heel of some horrible presence? They would start to rile up, and an insurgency would begin.

*

On the show, there were conversations among the Cylons about not enough resources, not enough soldiers on the ground — the kinds of conversations people might imagine are going on in Washington and Baghdad.

Moore: We just wanted New Caprica to be a bad situation for everybody. If there is a parallel to Iraq, it's that: It's a bad situation without an easy answer for everybody.

Eick: It does sound familiar. And you do find yourself relating to their plight. It's very frustrating; it wasn't what they thought. And part of you should be thinking to yourself, "Good, I'm glad to see them miserable, because they're the bad guys and I'm rooting against them." But in almost equal measure, you're thinking, "Geez, if only the humans would just pipe down and relax, maybe everything would be OK."

*

But that piping down doesn't seem to happen in the real world, and it doesn't happen on the show. What are you saying about occupation?

Moore: I think it's generally an impossible thing. But it's all kind of history-specific. The occupation of Japan was a remarkable success, but that had a lot to do with context and the Japanese culture. But there are so many other examples where it doesn't work that way, from Algeria to Vietnam to Iraq. Native populations generally don't like whoever is on the other side of that boot.

*

How much has the show changed because of the evolution of the war in Iraq?

Eick: We talk a lot about World War II, we talk about Vietnam. The inspiration from contemporary events is very loose. I think we view it more on a treatise on war and on the nature of conflict and the severity of it.

Moore: But it did happen in the context of Iraq, and it was informed by all of the things happening around us.

*

There's a darkness to "Battlestar Galactica" that's rare for TV. Does it ever get too dark, even for you?

Moore: The premise of the show is a dark premise. On some level, we have to be true to the world the show created: These are the people who survived an apocalypse. They are running away from their enemies in the night forever. And it's just such a dark idea, that you can't get outside of that bubble too much, or it just doesn't feel real. Which is what happened with the original series. Same premise: an apocalyptic attack, the genocide of billions. We're in our ship, now let's go to the casino planet! It's escapist fun about an apocalyptic genocide. You could never really buy into it.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ca-brief22oct22,0,4004464,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

JMCecil

10-20-06, 06:47 PM

Critic’s Notebook
A Hail Mary pass for 'Friday Night Lights'
Can "Heroes" save "Friday Night Lights"?
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”October 20, 2006

Let’s hope so. “Lights,” an ambitious and creatively engaging series about a Texas football team, has had a tough time of it in the ratings. In a bid to get more folks to check out this well-acted drama, which has been airing 7 p.m. (CT) Tuesdays, NBC will air “Lights” after “Heroes” on Oct. 30.

Regular readers of this column will know that I was not exactly a huge fan of “Heroes,” but the superhero-flavored drama has been one of the fall season’s few certifiable hits. And I sincerely hope that “Heroes” viewers stick around a week from Monday to check out “Lights.” The show’s in real need of a Hail Mary pass, and let’s hope this one connects.

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

Interesting comment. Hereoes is at least interesting even if it is a bit of X-men without costumes. Unless you count cheerleader uniforms that is. But the story line is good, we have a solid timeline established, mysterious bad guy(s) and an annoying doctor son of a doctor with the unfortunate cliche role of the person determined to NOT get involved while staying totally involved. Good fun.

FNLs is a retread of a retread of a retread. It's not even partially interesting. It's the same EXACT story. I admit I only watched 3/4ths of the first episode, but during that time I saw none of the "well acted" part of this supposed drama. In fact I found it cheezy, forced and .... unnecessary.

Just my 2p

VisionOn

10-20-06, 06:48 PM

The New Season
“Shark” To Stay on CBS
By Jim Benson Broadcasting & Cable 10/20/2006

CBS has given a full-season order to its freshman Thursday night legal drama Shark after it showed week to week growth Thursday despite tough competition from game seven of the Mets-Cardinals National League Championship series.

I liked the first two, and then the lack of Woods, court room parading and bite in the script started to lose me. But I thought last night was good once again, so I'm glad it's sticking around. I hope the planned changes for the youth market doesn't stick Woods on the back burner again.

"During all those years when I was being a lousy, irresponsible father I somehow became this bitchin' lawyer." last night, gave me a good laugh.

fredfa

10-20-06, 07:02 PM

...FNLs is a retread of a retread of a retread. It's not even partially interesting. It's the same EXACT story. I admit I only watched 3/4ths of the first episode, but during that time I saw none of the "well acted" part of this supposed drama. In fact I found it cheezy, forced and .... unnecessary.

Just my 2p

I probably would have more or less agreed until I saw this week's (third) episode. I thought it was exceptional.

But, different strokes....

dad1153

10-20-06, 10:20 PM

TV Notebook
NBC: Nothing But Clueless:
Knee-jerk fear at the Peacock
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog “The Bastard Machine” Oct. 20, 2006

No, the thing to take away from Thursday's unbelievably public display of cluelessness and paranoia is that GE wants more money for its shareholders - and it wants the money now. That's a dog-bites-man story if there ever was one. But the fascinating little addendum to it was that NBC was going to dump scripted fare - comedies and dramas - from the 8 to 9 p.m. timeslot, and use reality and game shows exclusively. This appears to be the idea of former NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker, who nearly drove the network into the ground when he was at the helm, though it also has the stamp of his boss, Bob Wright, who is nearly unrivaled in his inablity to discern quality fare from, say, a cinder block.

This revolution of the 8 to 9 p.m. timeslot is laughably wrong-headed and caused Kevin Reilly, who has Zucker's old job of entertainment president, to say the edict was not absolute. Reilly was at a Hollywood Radio and TV Society luncheon on Thursday and was quoted in Variety saying this: "You can't be exclusive with reality at 8. You have to be in the scripted business. It's not an absolute." Translation: "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" won't move from Thursday's line-up. (The irony there, of course, is that Zucker should be starring in "The Office," not Steve Carell).

I literally spit the food I was eating into my laptop from laughing so hard when I read that last line. Good summation of pretty much what I'm thinking of right now.

BTW, Zucker's 8PM strategy sounds similar to one the man in charge of the Game Show Network (Rich Cronin, who also retooled TV Land to attract young viewers at the expense of classic programming) tried in 2004. Faced with the oldest median age in cable TV (older even than Fox News') Cronin and programming VP Ian Valentine were brought on board to make the network's demos skew younger. Game Show Network's name was changed to GSN: The Network for Games during on-air promos (even though the corporate and copyright names of the business are still Game Show Network LLC) and its primetime/overnight hours stripped of any classic or "old" gameshow. They were replaced with cheap original reality shows ('Fake-A-Date,' 'Vegas Weddings,' 'Chuck Woolery's Naturally Stoned,' etc.), cheap imports (Canadian geek show 'Kenny vs. Spenny,' Australian man-on-the-street shows, etc.), repeats of short-lived reality shows ('The Mole,' 'Average Joe,' 'Spy TV,' 'Dog Eat Dog,' etc.) and gambling shows ('World Series of Blackjack,' etc.). Needless to say the gameshow faithful that watched the network for its classic shows were outraged, and rather than embrace the new reality/gambling shows we all banded together and ignored the crap GSN was putting in primetime and overnight hours. The only good to come out of this is that GSN continues to show the 'Millionaire' shows with Regis Philbin, which have been the #1 show on the network (more so than any reality show GSN tried to put on the air).

This GSN transition culminated with two disastrous programming decisions in 2005: a 13-episode original reality show named 'American Dream Derby' (imagine 'Survivor' in a horse racing track, with the winner getting a chance to own and train his/her own racing horse for a year) and the acquisition of repeats of 'The Amazing Race' from 2005-2009 for $6 million. 'Derby's' ratings were the same that old repeats of '$100,000 Pyramid' and 'Family Feud' were getting in the timeslot (around a 0.3 within GSN's 55-60 million household universe); with each episode costing several hundred thousand dollars (a huge chunk of the budget for such a small network) 'Derby' was so expensive that a new season of 'Lingo' (a GSN original series) had to be sacrificed in order to make room for 'Derby.' 'Derby' was the brainchild of producer Ian Valentine (also GSN's VP or programming), so this show's humilliating demise was particularly sweet for classic gameshow lovers irked at the new GSN. As for 'Amazing Race,' the 7-days-a-week stripping :eek: of the show gathered a meager 0.3 rating during their initial airing, and started dipping as GSN kept repeating the same episodes over and over again. Though GSN touted the demos of the show lowering GSN's median age dramatically (which they did) the ratings were so low that Rich Cronin (a) fired or pushed Ian Valentine out from his VP position and (b) vanished 'TAR' repeats to 3AM, where they'll end filling up time and flushing GSN's $6 million investment down the toilet.

But guess what? Reluctantly GSN put classic gameshows back in force during daytime hours (primetime and overnight continue to be off-limits to classics except for an 11PM repeat of 'Match Game' :mad: ) and the ratings jumped dramatically. GSN renewed 'Lingo' for a 4th season (after Season 3's 65 episodes were repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for two years straight) and the 7-8PM time slot ratings' jumped, so much so that seasons 5 and 6 were greenlit simultaneously. Now GSN is back to doing original gameshows or revivals of classic gameshows: 'I've Got A Secret' (with an all gay panel) at 11:30PM, 'Chain Reaction' (remake of the short-lived Bill Cullen/Bob Stewart show from the 1980's) and 'Starface' with Danny Bonaduce from 9 to 10PM, 'That's The Question' at 6PM with Bob Goen, etc. Mixed results in the ratings for these new gameshows, but at least GSN is back in the gameshow business. And guess what? Through all this tumultous transitions and love affairs with reality and what not, GSN's repeats of 'Match Game' and 'Family Feud' (30+ year old gameshows) continue to consistently draw the network's highest numbers despite zero-to-minimal on-air promotion for anything that would be deemed too old by GSN management.

Morale of the ramblings of this insage AVS poster? GSN wanted to get young viewers on the cheap, and ended up doing an expensive two-year 360 turnaround to wind up exactly where it was before: gameshows. Zucker runs a broadcast network though, and a network cannot be held to as narrow a programming pool as a boutique or small cable network. He (or hopefully his succesor) will put expensive scripted shows on 8PM when the reality and gameshows that are hot right now begin to falter, as they inevitable will, from old age and overexposure. Just ask the ABC suits that were all too complacent in letting 'Millionaire' carry them for a couple of years before its natural death from overexposure took the network down with it. Hopefully somebody at NBC will realize (as do most people not trying to climb GE's executive ladder) that its not the time slot that's the problem, but the bald-headed executive making the decisions about what goes into those time slots. :mad:

fredfa

10-21-06, 12:02 AM

Great post, dad...thanks!

fredfa

10-21-06, 09:58 AM

The Business of TV
Murdoch on Liberty:
No Hurry
By Mike Farrell MultiChannel News

New York -- News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch appeared to thumb his nose at reports that the media giant was close to a deal to buy back the 19% voting stake in the company from Liberty Media, adding that with its new “poison pill” in hand, it is in no hurry to do a Liberty deal.

Earlier this month, Liberty CEO Greg Maffei said at an industry conference that a News Corp. deal was close and that Liberty was working toward a deal that would exchange its 19% voting stake (valued at about $10 billion) and cash for News Corp.’s 34% controlling interest in direct-broadcast satellite giant DirecTV Group.

But Murdoch, speaking at News Corp.’s annual shareholders meeting here Friday, seemed to downplay the urgency of a deal.

“If you can believe Liberty, we’re very close to closing a deal,” Murdoch told reporters after the annual meeting. “Time will tell. We’re not in any rush and hurry at all. We just got the poison pill for three more years. We’re quite relaxed.”

Murdoch also appeared to throw a dig at Liberty and its chairman, John Malone, which acquired the stake in December 2004. Liberty’s 19% voting stake is second only to Murdoch’s 30% voting interest.

But according to reports at the time, Murdoch was apparently upset that Malone -- a longtime friend -- had not informed the News Corp. chairman of the transaction until the day it closed.

“If somebody wants to buy an asset from us or buy the whole company, we expect them to come in the front door and make an offer and negotiate with the board and do it properly,” Murdoch said. “This was to stop a back-door cheap entrance.”

Liberty’s 2004 move prompted News Corp. to initiate a shareholder’s-rights plan -- also called a poison pill -- that would make it prohibitively expensive for an individual person or company to amass more than a 15% voting stake in News Corp.

That first poison pill was renewed last year, but News Corp. agreed to put it to a vote after a group of shareholders sued.

The poison pill was approved at the Friday annual meeting, with more than 57% of the eligible votes cast supporting the plan. Liberty voted against the poison pill.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6383582

fredfa

10-21-06, 11:08 AM

The Business of TV
Cloudy Crystal Ball for TV
Six entertainment presidents of broadcast networks peer into the future
By Martin Miller Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 21, 2006

Television's so-called network chiefs did lunch in Beverly Hills, and perhaps like so many other afternoon meals in this town much was said, but much more was left unsaid.

The Thursday lunch held at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel followed the bad news over that morning's breakfast, which reported that NBC Universal was cutting roughly 5% of its work force and will largely turn over its 8 p.m. time slot to reality programming and game shows.

So when the entertainment presidents representing six television networks took the stage, the spotlight immediately fell on NBC's Kevin Reilly to explain what exactly was going on at his workplace.

Speaking to a theme that animated much of the afternoon's discussion, Reilly said the rise of digital media is "drastically impacting" their business and will certainly continue to do so over the next couple of years.

Like other traditional media such as newspapers and radio, television's once-huge audience has been gradually eroded by a river of competitors that include cable television, video games, iPods and the Internet. And as Reilly sat beside his counterparts — Stephen McPherson of ABC, Nina Tassler of CBS, Peter Liguori of Fox, Dawn Ostroff of the CW and Jack Abernethy of My Network — the president of NBC Entertainment clearly suggested corporate reductions wouldn't be confined to his network.

"Right now, if you're in a company that's in an upswing or having particularly good returns in certain divisions, you may be a little bit insulated at this moment in time perhaps putting off some of the hard decisions," said Reilly, speaking at the luncheon sponsored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Hollywood Radio & Television Society. "There's more coming."

But in case anybody in the crowded ballroom of several hundred was getting the wrong idea, Tassler of CBS set them straight. "Broadcast television is in very good shape," she said. It's "still the epicenter of content."

From there, in a question-and-answer session adroitly moderated by Andrew Wallenstein of the Hollywood Reporter, the chiefs briefly touched on a wide range of issues facing the networks. Despite the day's earlier grim news, the roughly hourlong event remained friendly among the competitors.

When Wallenstein asked the panel why this fall season produced no new breakaway hit with the possible exception of NBC's "Heroes," the chiefs blamed a plethora of entertainment choices and a rush to judgment.

"You're a month into the season and we're already declaring hits and misses," said Liguori of Fox. "The bulk of these shows are grown over time…. We have to distance ourselves from the critics, the trades and the papers."

The entertainment presidents seemed to agree that whatever their problems were with the digital media, they can't be overcome solely by answering with digital wizardry of their own.

"This isn't about moving away from broadcast into these other platforms," said McPherson of ABC. "Technology can't be the leader, it's always got to be content."

But to attract an audience, they must first be interested. And perhaps, as Liguori said, the network gatekeepers may be preventing innovative shows from reaching the air, thus driving them elsewhere.

"The current system kind of pulls the reins on [creativity] too much," Liguori said. "For us to survive as a business and an industry we need to be a little more audacious with our choices and taking chances."

Added Reilly: "We're in the big-bet business. We're going to continue to make big bets with expensive shows, and some are going to pay off."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-chiefs21oct21,0,4220033,print.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews

fredfa

10-21-06, 11:29 AM

The New Season
Some second thoughts on the fall TV season
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor Saturday, October 21, 2006
(All times are Eastern)

People call all the time complaining that there's nothing decent to watch on TV, bemoaning the state of the medium, begging me to demand that the networks put on family programs. But there's hypocrisy to that sentiment when viewers refuse to watch a quality series like "Friday Night Lights" (8 p.m. Tuesday, NBC). It's just like what happened with "American Dreams," a family-friendly show viewers failed to support in large enough numbers to keep on the air.

When "Friday Night Lights" premiered three weeks ago, women, who are most likely to call me to complain about the "junk" on TV, didn't bother to watch "Lights," a character-driven drama that ought to appeal to them despite its football trappings. Instead, ratings showed the majority of women watching broadcast television were tuned to the disposable "Dancing with the Stars."

"Friday Night Lights," easily the best-reviewed show of the fall TV season, chronicles the lives of players, coaches and townsfolk in fictional Dillon, Texas, home to a stellar high school football program that may be even more revered than the Steelers are in Pittsburgh.

Like the movie and book of the same name that came before the TV series, "Friday Night Lights" is about characters -- not football -- and how those characters interact and the way one town revolves around its high school team. Kyle Chandler, always cast as a decent but determined gentleman, stars as the town's coach. He's under pressure for the team to perform, but he maintains his bearings, even after star quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter) is paralyzed in the series premiere.

So far, NBC is sticking with the show and at least sounds supportive.

"We had modest expectations in that time period," NBC entertainment president Kevin Reilly told the Associated Press last week. "We plan to stick with 'Friday Night Lights.' I know we're hitting a nerve with the viewers who have found it. I just hope they start telling their friends."

Just days after those comments, NBC pulled a "Friday Night Lights" marathon scheduled for tomorrow in the regular "Sunday Night Football" time slot and replaced it with a marathon of "Heroes" (9 p.m. Monday), another one of my fall favorites that's gaining ratings momentum. That could be a bad sign for "Lights," but NBC has ordered nine more scripts.

And after continued disappointing ratings for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (this week "Studio 60" fell to third behind ABC's "What About Brian" in household ratings and demos), NBC will air an original "Friday Night Lights" episode at 10 p.m. Monday on Oct. 30, a possible prelude to moving the show to that time slot.

"Studio 60" was a show I was excited about after seeing the pilot, but subsequent episodes left me cold, although probably for a different reason than viewers are tuning out. I find it preposterous that a network executive would quote ancient Athenian statesman Pericles, as Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet) did this week, not because network execs aren't smart people (contrary to conventional wisdom, many of them are highly intelligent), but because that's just not the parlance of the TV business.

"Studio 60" also hasn't put its two best assets -- Matt (Matthew Perry) and Danny (Bradley Whitford) -- together in enough scenes in recent weeks. And there's entirely too much blather about what a great writer Matt is but no evidence to support it from the lackluster snippets we see of the show's sketches. That's only magnified by the cast's performance: Sarah Paulson, as Harriet Hayes, did a Nancy Grace parody that paled compared to the one Amy Poehler did on "Saturday Night Live" a few weeks ago.

But I'm still watching "Studio 60," which is more than I can say for ABC's "The Nine" (10 p.m. Wednesday). The show just hasn't made me care about what happened to the hostages during that bank robbery.

The success of CBS's "Jericho" (8 p.m. Wednesday) baffles me, especially after a truly terrible second episode that played like a bad '70s drama, as heroic Jake (Skeet Ulrich) had to save the women-folk trapped on a farm from marauding escaped convicts/would-be rapists. More recent episodes have been better with more happening (A message from the outside world! Missiles soaring overhead!), which is at least a step in the right direction.

Among other freshmen series, the third and final episode of "Smith" is still waiting to be watched on my DVR, but odds are I won't waste my time because the show was canceled.

ABC's "Six Degrees" (10 p.m. Thursday) intrigues me a little more, but with its ratings hovering in the imminent-cancellation zone, a couple of its episodes are also sitting, unwatched, on my DVR's hard drive.

I'm less down on ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" (10 p.m. Sunday), a show with an excellent cast (Sally Field, Rachel Griffiths, Calista Flockhart) that's still finding its legs but showing signs of improvement as it goes along. Flockhart's conservative commentator is unrealistic, but that's what often happens when liberals try to write conservatives (although I'd argue that writer Aaron Sorkin has done a better job of it with Harriet Hayes on "Studio 60," even though Paulson seems miscast in that role).

It's disappointing more viewers haven't found CBS's "The Class" (8:30 p.m. Monday), a cute, funny character-driven comedy that's losing a huge chunk of the audience from its lead-in, "How I Met Your Mother."

But if there's one show that surprises me most in how it's wormed its way into my cold critic's heart, it has to be ABC's "Men in Trees" (9 p.m. Friday). It's still a lukewarm "Northern Exposure" wannabe, but darn if I don't care about the characters, from the town sheriff (guest star Cynthia Stevenson) to young lovebirds Patrick (Derek Richardson) and Annie (Emily Bergl).

Ratings for "Men in Trees" have been OK, not great, although they dipped last week opposite NBC's "1 Vs. 100." Here's hoping ABC sticks with it.

ABC has to be over-the-moon about the ratings for "Ugly Betty" (8 p.m. Thursday), which, with "Grey's Anatomy," has made the network a player on Thursday night. In this case, viewers are supporting a family-friendly series. Thursday's "Ugly Betty" was the best yet, helping to tamp down (but not eliminate) my concerns that the show's premise will limit the writers' ability to concoct original, nonrepetitive stories.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06294/731729-237.stm

HDTVChallenged

10-21-06, 12:06 PM

Some second thoughts on the fall TV season
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor Saturday, October 21, 2006
(All times are Eastern)

People call all the time complaining that there's nothing decent to watch on TV, bemoaning the state of the medium, begging me to demand that the networks put on family programs. But there's hypocrisy to that sentiment when viewers refuse to watch a quality series like "Friday Night Lights" (8 p.m. Tuesday, NBC). It's just like what happened with "American Dreams," a family-friendly show viewers failed to support in large enough numbers to keep on the air.

Of course the other possiblility is that the number of people interested in such "family-friendly, quality" programs is far, far less than their screaming, form e-mailing, boob-o-phobic noise machines would suggest. ;) .... Nah that couldn't be ... Could it? :D

fredfa

10-21-06, 12:08 PM

Friday’s prime-time ratings have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

cgh3rd

10-21-06, 02:18 PM

I wonder how many ratings points the Cards winning the pennant just cost Fox.

Probably none since it is a misperception that the "big" markets not being in the series impacts ratings negatively. Worst rated series ever was the Met/Yanks. Also the ratings for baseball seemed to be doomed this year no matter what happens.

Plus, I'm happy for my Cardinals! :p

fredfa

10-21-06, 02:55 PM

The Business of TV
In Sports Highlights, YouTube Is No. 1
The website offers quick access to video clips, but sports leagues worry about copyright
By Greg Johnson Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 21, 2006

Within hours of last Saturday's brawl between the University of Miami and Florida International University, dozens of football players were suspended and a TV analyst — Lamar Thomas, a former Miami player who seemed to condone the violence — lost his job.

Thomas had boasted to viewers that "you can't come over to our place talking noise like that [or] you'll get your butt beat." Comcast Sports SouthEast edited out his inflammatory remarks before rebroadcasting the game. But Thomas' trash talk continues online, courtesy of Rusty98UM, a Hurricanes fan who transferred his pay-per-view TV footage of the fight to YouTube, where 1.1 million users have watched the unedited video.

As the World Series begins in Detroit tonight, the episode underscores the struggle underway as professional, college and Olympic sports, along with their broadcast partners and advertisers, scramble to stay connected with young, tech-savvy sports fans whose attitude seems to be: Who needs "SportsCenter" when you can find a replay on YouTube, MySpace or hundreds of other websites with free video?

Sports leagues now risk being caught up in the same copyright concerns as Hollywood is with pirated films, TV shows and music. It also raises the question of the value of pay-per-view events if some fans can post copies of them online soon afterward.

Type "NASCAR crash" into YouTube's search engine and it produces nearly 700 videos. "NHL fight" rewards viewers with nearly 600 action-packed clips. And "NBA" produces more than 11,500 offerings, including a 16-year-old fan's slam-dunk highlight reel that has been watched 1.9 million times.

Some sports videos are grainy and have scratchy soundtracks, others are culled from fans' digital cameras or cell phones. But much of the material uploaded to YouTube and its rivals is game footage purloined from media companies that have paid billions in broadcast rights fees.

What's on YouTube? When it comes to sports, it's easier to ask what's not: Arizona Cardinals Coach Dennis Green's news conference meltdown on Monday night after losing to the Chicago Bears is online. So is network video of the first NFL touchdowns by former USC stars Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. Older events also are chronicled: Mike Tyson bites Evander Holyfield's ear. Tiger Woods sinks the chip shot at the 2005 Masters. Doug Flutie connects on his "Hail Mary" pass. Cassius Clay drops Sonny Liston. Cal beats Stanford with "The Play." Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.

"Technology is revolutionizing the fan experience," said Brian Bedol, president of CBS Inc.'s college sports division. "For a sports fan, it used to be impossible to figure out how to relive memories, see things you've heard about but never experienced. But now, you can actually call this stuff up on demand … now it's all sitting there in a digital warehouse and it's accessible."

The Miami-FIU football brawl occurred just days after Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, the two-year old Mountain View firm that uploads 65,000 new videos and screens 100 million video views each day. Sports leagues can't ignore those numbers because Google wants to capitalize on the millions of eyeballs that are glued to "the Mentos guy," Lonelygirl15 or Dennis Green losing it.

The swift migration of sports video to the Web has prompted a flurry of deals involving online powerhouses and old-line media. CBS agreed to provide YouTube with video clips from its news, network and sports shows in exchange for a share in future online advertising revenue.

"This is a mutually beneficial business relationship that allows us to take advantage of the enormous traffic at YouTube and, at the same time, be in a position to better protect our [copyrighted] content," said CBS' Bedol.

Still unclear is how the new online frontier will be policed and who will profit as websites sell ads.

Federal law requires copyright holders to ask that content be taken down — video by video — which is time-consuming and expensive.

"We know that we need to play by the rules within that media community," said Kevin Donahue, YouTube's vice president of content. "We know that we will need partnerships and alliances to succeed."

For years sports leagues have insisted that their footage appear only on their websites or on licensed broadcast partners. Now they are struggling to understand the role of online video where fans can watch their copyrighted video clips — on someone else's website.

The NBA regularly asks YouTube and other websites to take down footage that violates copyright agreements.

But the NHL, which needs to win back fans after a recent, year-long lockout, is leery of coming down too hard on hockey fans. The NHL has asked YouTube to pull lengthy action videos of Russian-born star Alex Ovechkin, who plays for the Washington Capitals; now the site mostly offers short highlight reels.

"We spend millions of dollars to stage the games, we created what's a very valuable intellectual property," said Doug Perlman, the NHL's senior vide president of television and media ventures. "We have a young, tech-savvy fan base. We know they're interacting with our sport very differently than in the past … which makes it very important for us to strike the right balance."

As for the NFL, spokesman Brian McCarthy said the league is taking "aggressive" steps to ensure its "long-standing policy" of protecting its content. The NFL uses an in-house legal counsel and an outside law firm to police Internet portals. But YouTube and other sites still have plenty of NFL game videos in their digital vaults.

Only Major League Baseball has made it clear that its footage shouldn't play anywhere other than MLB.com and its affiliated club websites. For two years, MLB's Advanced Media division has demanded that other websites eliminate protected material.

Each day a half dozen MLB employees scroll through hundreds of Internet sites and order website operators to remove "dozens and dozens" of copyrighted videos, said MLB Advanced Media President Bob Bowman.

MLB relies on human trackers because, "at this point, you can't simply run a [software] script and scroll through the Internet," said Mike Mellis, general counsel for MLB. "But it's a tough slog because you have to go at it hour after hour."

Even though YouTube's search engine identifies nearly 900 "MLB" videos, relatively few include footage from baseball's licensed broadcasts. "YouTube is a professionally run company and they are trying to accommodate us," Bowman said.

It's not just copyright law at stake; there also are questions of taste. Some videos, including one showing NBA players fighting, have rap soundtracks that reference rape, murder and mayhem, so YouTube cautions viewers that content may be "inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube's user community."

But there are also plenty of clips unlikely to send lawyers to court.

Type "Saint Ignatius and Balboa" into YouTube's search engine and up pops a home video by Bay Area resident Brendan Raher. The short film covers a memorable 1996 high school basketball playoff game between Balboa and St. Ignatius Prep.

Raher made the video as a 10-year anniversary present for his brother, Cassidy, who made nine three-point shots in a row during the win over favored Balboa. "I could only have sent that video to 10 or 20 people at most," Raher said. "But now it's been seen by 1,000 people, which speaks to the nature of having a site like YouTube, where you can share memories or pass them along."

And what about Rusty98UM, the football-fight chronicler?

"My only reason for throwing the video out there was to make sure that everyone had a chance to see what happened, to see who started the fight," said Dan Cruz, 32, an Orlando resident with season tickets to Miami home games. "It just might behoove the leagues to create their own YouTube sites."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-youtube21oct21,1,2003098,print.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

fredfa

10-21-06, 03:12 PM

The New Season
What's behind ratings plunge at 'Studio 60'?
By Kevin D. Thompson Palm Beach Post Television Writer

A few months ago, Aaron Sorkin was asked whether Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, his hyped new drama about the backstage happenings at a late-night sketch show, would be too inside baseball for, you know, regular TV viewing folks.

Sorkin, arguably television's most gifted writer, tersely dismissed the question as if it was asked by a dumb fourth-grader.

"I'm not concerned about that at all," Sorkin said pointedly. "Anything the audience needs to understand, they will."

(A) month after Studio 60 premiered to big expectations, it's not clear whether the audience doesn't understand Sorkin's show or whether they simply don't like it.

This much is clear: Despite being hailed by most TV critics (including this one) as, like, the greatest drama in television history (well, I didn't go that far), Studio 60 has turned out to be a major league ratings bust.

More than 13 million viewers watched the show's attention-grabbing premiere on Sept. 18, making it the 21st-most-watched program in the country. While that's not Lost or Desperate Housewives territory, the number is certainly respectable.

But since that encouraging debut, Studio 60's ratings have tanked.

Only 10.8 million people watched the second episode. More alarmingly, that number sank even further in week three when a mere 8.8 million viewers tuned in.

Meanwhile, CSI: Miami, Studio 60's main competition, continues to thrive with David Caruso standing triumphantly with his hands on his hips. More than 17 million viewers watched the show's fourth season opener, making it the nation's fifth-rated show the week of Sept. 18.

While NBC's programming suits aren't happy with Studio 60's disappointing showing so far, the network says it's not even close to killing the high-profile series.

"There is a core audience that loves it," NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly told The New York Times.

But there's more to the explanation than that. Money, as always, is the main reason why NBC is hesitant to squeeze the cancellation trigger.

Studio 60 attracts the educated and rich viewers (household incomes of $100,000 and up) that Madison Avenue craves. Advertisers love affluent viewers who are willing to empty their wallets after watching a bunch of commercials.

Also, NBC reportedly paid a $2 million license fee per episode, which is about one-third higher than an average network drama, and committed to at least 13 episodes.

If NBC axed Studio 60 now, it would be responsible for paying a hefty penalty to Warner Bros., the studio that produces the show.

And no network likes to pony up a considerable amount of change when it doesn't have to.

So NBC will keep its fingers — and toes — crossed that more viewers will eventually warm up to Sorkin's engaging drama.

For the time being, NBC should hold on to this thought: Not all great shows are monster hits right away.

Seinfeld, for instance, was one of NBC's most poorly tested pilots. The X-Files started off slowly until Fox moved it from Fridays to Sundays. Everybody Loves Raymond took a season or two to catch on and 24 didn't become a runaway hit until people watched Season One on DVD and got hooked.

That Studio 60 didn't become at least a modest hit is surprising since the series has so much going for it.

It boasts a dream cast including Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, Steven Weber and D.L. Hughley. It benefited from insane marketing — NBC was selling the pilot on DVD before the series even aired — and, of course, Sorkin, the same brilliant guy who created such memorable walk-and-talk shows as The West Wing and Sports Night, is running it.

So, what went wrong?

Well, for starters, NBC underestimated CSI: Miami's popularity. Like Law & Order in its heyday, CBS' CSI franchise remains a juggernaut. To many viewers, solving a grisly murder in the Everglades is way more interesting than watching two manic sketch writers desperately trying to fill a 90-second hole on a comedy show.

Although show biz folks are loath to admit it, only show biz folks find the TV industry interesting. Viewers could care less. Think about all the recent series that had show business as a backdrop that disappeared — Fox's Action, HBO's The Comeback, The WB's Grosse Pointe.

And only about eight people watch HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm or Entourage.

A Hollywood setting isn't as compelling because there are no life-or-death stakes. Network executives don't save lives in the operating room or catch serial killers by following high-tech DNA evidence.

Instead, they put on TV shows. Mostly bad TV shows.

No one knows this better than Sorkin. Which is why he is clearly trying to give Studio 60 a West Wing-like gravitas by using the same low-wattage dramatic lighting he did on his long-running White House drama.

That works, however, when world peace is at stake. It doesn't when, oh, only the fate of a low-rated comedy show hangs in the balance.

It's a shame more viewers aren't watching Studio 60. It remains the season's most intelligent and best-written new drama. Sorkin's writing and rapid-fire dialogue, though heavy-handed and preachy at times, has been on-point as usual while touching on such issues as free speech, religion and reality television.

But the clock is ticking. NBC won't wait forever. It doesn't matter how good Studio 60 is. Not enough people are watching. No show could overcome that kind of obstacle.

Not even one produced by Aaron Sorkin.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/tv/content/accent/epaper/2006/10/16/a1d_featv_kevin_col_1016.html

CPanther95

10-21-06, 03:28 PM

The New Season
What's behind ratings plunge at 'Studio 60'?
By Kevin D. Thompson Palm Beach Post Television Writer

......................While NBC's programming suits aren't happy with Studio 60's disappointing showing so far, the network says it's not even close to killing the high-profile series.

"There is a core audience that loves it," NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly told The New York Times.

That may be true, but until the ratings stabilize, they have no idea how large (or small) that core audience actually is.

fredfa

10-21-06, 04:07 PM

It does seem to be a pretty small core.

fredfa

10-21-06, 04:20 PM

TV Notebook
Still ‘Classic’ after all these years
Sure, TCM is adding horror to the late-night lineup, but you’ll still find obscure masterpieces — without commercials
By Diane Werts Newsday Staff Writer October 22, 2006

Tattooed rock musicians, exploitation flicks, '90s animation - what's next, commercials?

You'll have to forgive Turner Classic Movies junkies who fear for their beloved haven of uncut, uninterrupted, vintage Hollywood treasures. They saw what happened to AMC, cable's original home of classic movies. That onetime studio-era archive started getting hip, airing newer titles and finally adding commercials, transitioning to what many buffs dismissed as just another flick-showing channel.

TCM - which last month became widely available to Cablevision's Long Island subscribers - is 12 years old now. You'd expect it might be, um, "maturing," in the same scary ways other established channels have sought wider audiences by essentially deserting their initial devotees (MTV moving away from videos, The Nashville Network turning into Spike, etc).

And what should show up last weekend but "TCM Underground." Hosted by dreadlocked metal musician Rob Zombie - much-tattooed maker of such cinematic cut-'em-ups as "House of 1000 Corpses" - this 2 a.m. Saturday morning showcase debuted by screening notoriously awful director Ed Wood's 1950s cheapie "Plan 9 From Outer Space." The schedule for succeeding weeks listed the likes of Russ Meyer's 1960s sexploitationer "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" and George Romero's flesh-eating trendsetter "Night of the Living Dead."

No wonder TCM fans were ready to fear the worst. No more Glenn Ford tributes? No more days devoted to obscure directors like Richard Thorpe? And then - gasp! - commercial breaks?!

"We see it all the time," sighs TCM general manager Tom Karsch, who reads the message boards at his channel's Web site tcm.com. "If we show a slightly newer movie, like 'Philadelphia' or 'Saving Private Ryan,' they think that we've gone the way of the devil, and the next thing that's going to happen is that we're going to add commercials."

Other networks sell the ads

No way, no how, insists Karsch, who was in New York last week from Turner's Atlanta headquarters to trumpet the channel's upcoming plans. "We've got a management that has been very supportive, and believes that we have other networks that sell advertising , and they believe as we do that the uniqueness of the network is in its commercial-free nature. The regimes have changed over the [dozen] years , but I've never been even asked to look at it with commercials. We don't edit, we show films letterboxed - we'd never change that policy. We always want to show the stuff the way it's meant to be seen."

As for freshening up the lineup, TCM on-air host/historian Robert Osborne noted during a lunch interview alongside Karsch that he'd just been watching the channel in his midtown apartment. "We had Rudy Vallee this morning in 'The Vagabond Lover,'" said the movie historian, referring to a 1929 "talkie" from the early sound-film era - hardly so modern. For that matter, a five-film Glenn Ford tribute was slated for this weekend, on Saturday night, with a day of Thorpe-directed films due Wednesday, spanning from 1938's Robert Taylor drama "The Crowd Roars" to Elvis Presley's 1957 "Jailhouse Rock."

The archives go deep

Depth and breadth are the thing at TCM, which launched in 1994 on the strength of the old studio-era film libraries that cable titan Ted Turner had the vision to purchase back in the 1980s, before the big explosions in both cable TV and home video. Owning thousands of Hollywood titles from the "Gone With the Wind" period, Turner tested the waters with movie-laden TNT before spinning off TCM as a movies-only, ad-free service - just the thing to entice cable-resistant older viewers to pay that monthly bill. Now TCM is out to capture the other end of the market - younger viewers who may not be acquainted with the joys of black-and-white movies, silent films and the other delights that thrust Hollywood to international eminence.

Touting some revered John Garfield movie probably won't do it. Who knows if younger viewers have even heard of the mid-century matinee idol? But they do tend to be into cult stuff that twists the conventions of the entertainment mainstream. Thus, TCM Underground presents a crazy slate of influential indie horror (Brian DePalma's "Sisters," Nov. 3), cheesy exploitation (Arch Hall's "The Sadist," Nov. 24), and even way-back pre-code grotesquerie (Tod Browning's long-banned 1932 "Freaks," Nov. 17), which helped inspire the industry's Production Code to keep content "clean" from the '30s to the '60s.

Many would consider those to be Hollywood's "golden" years, and they do make up the largest holdings in TCM's library. But that renowned era is only one part of motion picture history that now stretches back a century. TCM's mission is to honor it all. That's clear in this month's Halloween-themed screenings. A night of zombie films this Friday begins with the 1932 Bela Lugosi chiller "White Zombie" (8p.m.) - which, not incidentally, inspired the names of both TCM Underground's host and his White Zombie rock band. Then the night ranges into '50s sci-fi ("Creature With the Atom Brain," 11:45 p.m.) and '70s indie horror (Romero's 1973 "The Crazies," 3:45 a.m.). When a different theme next Sunday salutes films that inspired Broadway musicals, the night spans seven decades to include the 1975 Maysles Brothers documentary "Grey Gardens" (8p.m.), John Waters' wacky 1988 musical "Hairspray" (10 p.m.) and Lon Chaney's 1925 silent epic "The Phantom of the Opera" (midnight).

Putting films into context

TCM excels at putting its myriad titles - now 6,000, both owned and licensed from other studios - into historical and cultural context. They've got enough stuff to really illustrate how a career progresses, how a genre develops, how a trend takes hold. November's Star of the Month tribute to the film career of TV queen Lucille Ball includes 45 titles, made from 1935 to 1968. An animation showcase Nov. 12 spans practically movies' entire history, and geography, to present a triple feature of 1999's "The Iron Giant," the 1988 Japanese anime "Grave of the Fireflies," and 1927's German silent pioneer "The Adventures of Prince Achmed." If the lure of more recent films helps introduce a new generation to the joys of vintage cinema, well, that's precisely what TCM has in mind.

"We are trying to create entry points for some younger people to come visit the network," Karsch says. "We hope that they come in and watch 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!' but they may see a promo for a stunt we're doing during the week and come back."

Besides having Rob Zombie to stop channel-flippers in their tracks, TCM welcomes a variety of guest programmers to present films one night a month (and every night during a monthlong event planned for late 2007). Penn & Teller have chosen their favorites, as have Bill Cosby, Isaac Mizrahi and Mario Cantone. Vibrant Japanese anime has been popping up in late-night hours, while kitschy Saturday morning serials arrive this week with Kirk Alyn's 1948 "Superman" cliffhangers (Oct. 28 at 10 a.m.). TCM acquired talk show host Dick Cavett's renowned '70s one-on-one hours with Hollywood giants like Groucho Marx, Alfred Hitchcock and Katharine Hepburn (six of these repeat all day Monday). Then TCM commissioned a new Cavett chat with Mel Brooks (repeating Monday at 5:30 p.m.).

TCM's just-announced 2007 plans for original documentaries - another channel mainstay - include portraits of the flashy Cannes Film Festival, the feisty Marlon Brando and creepmeister Val Lewton. That last one is directed by Martin Scorsese. And Steven Spielberg is contributing a first-person look at his own career. They help TCM edge into the future while still honoring the glorious cinema history that made the channel such a treasure in the first place.

"Even though we're using Rob Zombie," Karsch says, "we've also just done documentaries on

Greta Garbo and Merian C. Cooper. While we're doing Jane Fonda , we also did child stars ."

That balance keeps TCM relevant without disavowing its heritage. "I always have to remind people, when they think we're going off the deep end, that we're not going off the deep end if we're showing Dick Cavett interviewing Ingmar Bergman." That Nov. 2 airing is followed by three of the Swedish director's landmark films from the '50s to the '80s.

What's next? Ask not out of fear, but anticipation.

What TCM is all about

The heart of Turner Classic Movies:

The Essentials (Saturday at 8p.m., Sunday at 6 p.m.) - Must-see classics: "Ride the High Country" (Saturday), "The Thin Man" (Nov. 4), "Stalag 17" (Nov. 11), "Murder My Sweet" (Nov. 18), "Top Hat" (1935).

Silent Sunday Nights (Sunday at midnight) - Silent film treasures: Lon Chaney in "The Phantom of the Opera" (Oct. 29), King Vidor's "Wild Oranges" (Nov. 5), animated "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" (Nov.12).

The Imports (Monday at 2 a.m.) - Foreign films of all kinds: Japan's supernatural "Kwaidan" (night of Oct. 22), French thriller "Eyes Without a Face" (Oct. 29), Japanese actioner "Branded to Kill" (Nov. 5), Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" (Nov. 12).

The Underground (Saturday at 2 a.m.) - Cult faves hosted by Rob Zombie: "Night of the Living Dead" (night of Oct. 27), "Sisters" (Nov. 3), "Electra Glide in Blue" (Nov. 10), "Freaks" (Nov. 17).

Cartoon Alley (Saturday at 11:30 a.m.) - Three themed vintage shorts: Conrad Cat (Saturday), George and Junior (Nov. 4).

Star of the Month - All-night screenings: child stars (October Mondays), Lucille Ball (November Wednesdays), Gary Cooper (December Thursdays).

TCM Spotlight - Monthly themes: architecture in film (October Wednesdays), director John Ford (November Tuesdays), director Stanley Donen (December Wednesdays).

TCM Celebrates - Umbrella title covers screening events themed to holidays (Halloween zombie films, Friday), Broadway adaptations ("Grey Gardens" and "Hairspray" Oct. 29), leading men (Nov. 27-28), birthdays, more.

Guest Programmer (monthly) - Four films chosen and presented by celebrities: Augusten Burroughs (Oct. 24, including "Tootsie" and "Interiors"), actor Robert Wagner (Nov. 9, including "Bad Day at Black Rock"), Burt Reynolds (Dec. 12).

Private Screenings (periodic) - In-depth interviews with TCM's Robert Osborne several times yearly, including Stanley Donen (Dec. 6). Upcoming repeats: child stars (Oct. 30), Lauren Bacall (Nov. 4).

On Demand - Some digital cable systems offer TCM movies anytime for viewers to control VCR-style via remote control. Current titles include Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" and Norma Shearer's 1938 version of "Marie Antoinette."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-fftv4938684oct22,0,294615,print.story?coll=ny-television-headlines

fredfa

10-21-06, 06:07 PM

Next week's preliminary college football HD schedule has been posted at the top of the first post in this thread.

fredfa

10-21-06, 06:29 PM

TV Q & A
Yes, it's Bob; no, it isn't
By David Inman The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal

Question: Can you tell me if Bob Saget narrates "How I Met Your Mother"? And were "Yes, Dear" and "Still Standing" canceled?
Answer: Saget is the narrator on "How I Met Your Mother." And "Yes, Dear" and "Still Standing" have been canceled. Hey, the CBS schedule has room for only so much comic gold.
Question: When I was a little kid (I'm 19 now), there was this show on TV where a man and his kids were driving one day, and the earth opened up and they fell into the ground and ended up living with the dinosaurs. I thought the show had Bob Saget in it, but we Googled his name to figure out what it was called and can't find it. Can you tell us the title and if it's on video or DVD?
Answer: Bob Saget has appeared with comedians whose careers are now extinct, but not dinosaurs. That show was "Land of the Lost," which was so super-wonderful that there were two versions of it. The first aired Saturday mornings on NBC from 1974 until 1977. The second version aired on ABC on Saturday mornings from 1991 until 1993 and then jumped over to Nickelodeon. In the first version, the dad was played by Spencer Milligan. In the second version, the dad was Timothy Bottoms. Both versions are on DVD.
Question: I have a friend who thinks "Laguna Beach" is real. Can you tell her the truth?
Answer: Your friend is half right, and you're half right. The participants on the show are real people — or at least as real as you can be in Southern California — but the producers have confessed to Time magazine that some scenes and relationships are "enhanced" in the editing room.
Question: How old is Susan Lucci from "All My Children"? I always thought she must have an amazing plastic surgeon, but lately she's looking a little ragged (like me).
Answer: Lucci will be 60 on Dec. 23.
Question: I watched the first episode of "Runaway" on The CW, and I noticed a character named Brady. Who was he? Has he been in any other shows?
Answer: That's Andrew Lawrence, a member of the Lawrence acting dynasty, which includes older brothers Joey ("Blossom") and Matthew ("Boy Meets World" and "Gimme a Break"). Andrew appeared on the short-lived Fox series "Oliver Beene," and all three brothers appeared on the WB sitcom "Brotherly Love," which aired from 1995 until 1997.
Question: There was a TV movie with Sam Waterston as a journalist who was trapped in Nazi Germany with his pregnant wife. What was it and is it available?
Answer: That's "The Nightmare Years," a 1989 miniseries based on William Shirer's book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." Waterston plays Shirer, who was a journalist with CBS News, and Marthe Keller plays his wife. Oh, and Kurtwood Smith of "That '70s Show" plays Josef Goebbels. It's on video and DVD.
Question: Who was the actor playing the school principal on the Sept. 27 episode of "Criminal Minds"?
Answer: That was John Rubinstein, whom you might remember from the lighthearted cop show "Crazy Like a Fox" (CBS, 1984-86) or "Family" (ABC, 1976-80). He also played Linwood Murrow on "Angel" (WB, 1999-2004) and has appeared on episodes of "CSI," "Cold Case," "Without a Trace," "Friends," "House" and "Law & Order."
Question: As Halloween draws near, people argue about the best "Dracula" film. I never hear anyone mention my favorite, which was a three-hour (or more) version on PBS with Louis Jourdan as Dracula. Has this ever been shown again, and is it available on video or DVD?
Answer: That's a 1977 BBC version of "Dracula" that aired in America on the PBS series "Great Performances." It's on DVD, but only in England. The cast also included Judi Bowker and Frank Finlay.
Question: On the Sept. 22 episode of "CSI," they played a song with the lyric (possibly title) "Where Are You" sung by Frank Sinatra. What is this song called, and is it on CD?
Answer: The song is called "Where Are You," and it's from Sinatra's 1957 album of the same name. It's on CD.
Question: What is the name of the actor who played Fritz on the TNT series "The Closer"? Will the show return for another season? Y'all are so sweet for answering our questions!
Answer: Nothin' to it. Jon Tenney plays Fritz. He's been a regular on several other short-lived series, including "Kristin" (NBC, 2001), "Brooklyn South" (CBS, 1997) and "Good Company" (CBS, 1996). In guest roles, he played the brother of Will (Eric McCormack) on "Will & Grace" and the brother of Miles (Grant Shaud) on "Murphy Brown." He's also appeared on episodes of "CSI" and "Without a Trace," among many others. He was married to Teri Hatcher from 1994 until 2003. "The Closer" is scheduled to return for a third season next summer.
Question: Is that the voice of Richard Thomas, a k a John Boy Walton, on commercials for BB&T and Mercedes Benz? I don't know who else to ask!
Answer: Oh, so I'm your last resort, am I? It is he.
Question: Is "The 4400" over?
Answer: No. New episodes are scheduled to be produced beginning early next year for a return next summer.
Question: My brother and I seem to be the only people who remember this show from the 1970s. It was a cartoon that aired on Thursday evenings an hour or half-hour before "The Waltons," possibly on the same network. This cartoon show was about a family with a mom and dad and several kids and was called "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home." Do you remember this one?
Answer: "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" was Hanna-Barbera's lame attempt to make a "relevant" family sitcom along the line of "All in the Family." It was syndicated in 1972-73, which means it ran at different times on different stations in different cities. Tom Bosley supplied the voice of father Harry Boyle, who just couldn't figure out what was up with the kids these days, and Jack Burns supplied the voice of his right-wing neighbor. Folks such as Jonathan Winters and Don Knotts did guest roles.

http://www.desnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650200341,00.html

fredfa

10-21-06, 06:40 PM

TV Q & A
Lost plot lines wearing thin; O'Hurley a new Feud host
By Tom Jicha Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinal TV and Radio Writer October 22 2006

QUESTION: I have a question about Lost and other programs like it. I was intrigued by the mysterious nature of the show and tried to puzzle out what was going on, believing the show's creators would eventually reveal an ending that made sense of all the little mysteries along the way. Now I wonder if there is a predetermined end point or if the writers simply move the plot along year by year without having to work toward a specific, defined ending. Might clues from the first season basically become unimportant or even contradicted later if the writers decide to go in other directions based on the popularity of a character or the public's reaction to a particular story line? -- B.S., Coral Springs

ANSWER: Lost's producers have maintained since day one that they have an end game plan. However, with Internet geeks dissecting every frame for clues that probably are meaningless, they could hardly say, "Nah, we're just winging it." Watching the show lately leads to the suspicion that they are making it up as they go along. Instead of tossing fans a resolution of a minor plot point now and then, they just keep layering on new mysteries and twists to take the story in different directions. First, the ominous threats were polar bears and a smoking dinosaur. Then it was "the Tailies." Now it's "the Others." Your suggestion that plots are being crafted to reflect the popularity of certain characters gains credence by the prominence Jack, Kate and Sawyer have been given this season at the expense of the other permanent characters. Claire, Charlie and Hurley didn't even appear until the third episode. The patience of millions of viewers has apparently worn thin. Formerly a runaway winner of its time period (when American Idol isn't around), Lost is now neck-and-neck with Criminal Minds.

QUESTION: On Weeds, a young boy talked about getting [oral sex]. Other teens [on broadcast shows] are cursing their parents. No kid of mine would ever dream of cursing me. They wouldn't make it to the next day. -- Diahann, Pembroke Pines

ANSWER: TV doesn't lead society. It follows it. Unfortunately, the scenes you find objectionable reflect the realities of today. If more parents such as yourself took pre-emptive action, maybe this wouldn't be the case. As for Weeds, what did you expect from a series about a suburban parent who sells pot for a living?

QUESTION: I have been ill and haven't seen a lot of TV recently. Now I'm back and I don't see Dan Abrams. I thought he was popular. -- E.R., Fort Lauderdale

ANSWER: Abrams got kicked upstairs, which is a good thing for him. He's now the head of MSNBC, a demanding job that doesn't allow him time for a regular program.

QUESTION: What happened to Richard Karn? Did he voluntarily give up Family Feud or did the producers remove him? If he was removed, many of us think it was a big mistake. -- B.H., Pompano Beach

ANSWER: The producers of Family Feud apparently like to follow the Law & Order paradigm and freshen the show with a new star every few years. John O'Hurley, the latest to get the gig, follows Karn, Louie Anderson, Ray Combs and Richard Dawson (twice).

http://www.southflorida.com/movies/sfl-tvtjoct22qaoct22,0,5194868,print.story?coll=sfe-movies-promos

fredfa

10-21-06, 08:05 PM

TV Sports
For ratings, long series is the key
By Larry Stewart Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 21, 2006

If Fox television had its way, the Detroit Tigers would be playing the New York Mets in the World Series instead of the St. Louis Cardinals. That's because the New York TV market is the nation's largest. Detroit ranks 10th, and St. Louis 22nd.

But Ed Goren, Fox Sports president, says the teams and the sizes of their markets aren't the most important factors in getting good World Series ratings.

"It's about how many games you get," he said. "We're coming off back-to-back World Series sweeps."

The Boston Red Sox defeated the Cardinals in four games in 2004 and the Chicago White Sox beat the Houston Astros in four games last year.

Goren concedes that Fox's "ratings people" have told him a Mets-Tigers Series would probably out-rate a Cardinals-Tigers Series, but adds, "Having said that, it's more about volume than about the matchup.

"The World Series last year, despite being a four-game sweep, was the sixth highest-rated show in prime time for the fourth quarter. The World Series typically out-rates the prime-time average by 82%.

"In 1990, the spread was 69%, in the '80s, 58%, and in the '70s, 52%. In today's ratings world, the World Series is a ratings success…. It's just a matter of how good it can be."

And a dramatic, seven-game Series would generate the highest ratings.

Case in point: Thursday night's Game 7 of the National League Championship Series — a dramatic 3-1 victory for the Cardinals — earned an overnight Nielsen rating of 12.4 with a 19 share of the audience. For Game 6 the previous night, when the Mets won, 4-2, the overnight rating was a 9.2 with a 14.

The Game 7 rating enabled Fox to win the night Thursday, generally television's highest-rated night.

Local ratings for Game 7 included a 47.6 with a 61 share in St. Louis, a 27.4/41 in New York and a 10.9/19 in Los Angeles.

The Fox telecasts for first-round division series averaged only a 4.9 rating. The final national average for Fox's championship series telecasts was not available Friday.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-sp-seriestv21oct21,0,5407372,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

fredfa

10-21-06, 08:08 PM

TV Sports
World Series TV Ratings (and share) Since 1969

1968 NBC 22.8 57 Detroit over St. Louis 4-3
1969 NBC 22.4 58 New York Mets over Baltimore 4-1
1970 NBC 19.4 53 Baltimore over Cincinnati 4-1
1971 NBC 24.2 59 Pittsburgh over Baltimore 4-3
1972 NBC 27.5 58 Oakland over Cincinnati 4-3
1973 NBC 30.7 57 Oakland over New York Mets 4-3
1974 NBC 25.6 47 Oakland over Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1
1975 NBC 29.0 53 Cincinnati over Boston 4-3
1976 NBC 27.7 48 Cincinnati over New York Yankees 4-2
1977 ABC 29.9 52 New York Yankees over Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2
1978 NBC 32.7 56 New York Yankees over Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2
1979 ABC 28.0 51 Pittsburgh over Baltimore 4-3
1980 NBC 32.8 56 Philadelphia over Kansas City 4-2
1981 ABC 30.0 49 Los Angeles Dodgers over New York Yankees 4-2
1982 NBC 28.0 49 St. Louis over Milwaukee 4-3
1983 ABC 23.3 41 Baltimore over Philadelphia 4-1
1984 NBC 22.9 40 Detroit over San Diego 4-1
1985 ABC 25.3 39 Kansas City over St. Louis 4-3
1986 NBC 28.6 46 New York Mets over Boston 4-3
1987 ABC 24.0 41 Minnesota over St. Louis 4-3
1988 NBC 23.9 39 Los Angeles over Oakland 4-1
1989 ABC 16.4 30 Oakland over San Francisco 4-0
1990 CBS 20.8 36 Cincinnati over Oakland 4-0
1991 CBS 24.0 39 Minnesota over Atlanta 4-3
1992 CBS 20.2 34 Toronto over Atlanta 4-2
1993 CBS 17.3 30 Toronto over Philadelphia 4-2
1994 None Strike, No World Series
1995 ABC /NBC 19.5 33 Atlanta over Cleveland 4-2
1996 FOX 17.4 29 New York Yankees over Atlanta 4-2
1997 NBC 16.8 29 Florida over Cleveland 4-3
1998 FOX 14.1 24 New York Yankees over San Diego 4-0
1999 NBC 16.0 26 New York Yankees over Atlanta 4-0
2000 FOX 12.4 21 New York Yankees over New York Mets 4-1 18.1 million viewers
2001 FOX 15.7 25 Arizona over New York Yankees 4-3
2002 FOX 11.9 20 Anaheim over San Francisco 4-3
2003 FOX 13.9 25 Florida over New York Yankees 4-2
2004 FOX 15.8 25 Boston over St. Louis 4-0 25.4 million viewers
2005 FOX 11.1 19 Chicago White Sox over Houston 4-0 17.2 million viewers

(Source: Nielsen Media Services and baseballalmanac.com)

Note: The first number, the rating, is an average percentage of all households in the United States which watched the World Series.
The second number, the share, is the percentage of those watching TV who watched the World Series.

mike_somd

10-21-06, 08:24 PM

Davinleeds

10-21-06, 08:26 PM

Things seem to have changed after '94.

rebkell

10-21-06, 08:47 PM

Things seem to have changed after '94.

When did the Series go all prime time?

foxeng

10-21-06, 08:53 PM

Things seem to have changed after '94.

The strike ran a lot of us off and we haven't returned. We also haven't forgotten either and may never.

DoubleDAZ

10-21-06, 09:10 PM

The strike ran a lot of us off and we haven't returned. We also haven't forgotten either and may never.Amen to that!

cajieboy

10-21-06, 09:20 PM

The strike ran a lot of us off and we haven't returned. We also haven't forgotten either and may never.

Well, if you have not gotten over the strike by now, most likely you were not a real fan anyway. Other than the free baseball cards you got w/your bubble gum to clip on your bicycle spokes, just how much of your hard earned dollars did you contribute to the player's salaries? Answer: NADA, nothing, zip, zero...and you can still watch the world's best game for free.

fredfa

10-21-06, 09:25 PM

World Series Ratings

Comparing the 70's and early 80's to the 90's and 2000's is like comparing apples and oranges. Nowadays there are many, many more channels to watch than in the 70's. The viewer of today has more choices and each individual in a family has a choice of what to watch with multiple tv house holds. A good rating number in the 70's is completely different from a good rating today.

So true, Mike. And ESPN didn't run college football games against the majority of WS games in the past, either

But to clear -- I wasn't comparing anything. I was just listing the ratings. I am sure lots of other people will be comparing, but I wasn't.

fredfa

10-21-06, 09:26 PM

Amen to that!

Dave, with you living in the Phoenix area, I certainly hope you didn't miss the 2001 World Series!

CPanther95

10-21-06, 09:30 PM

Baseball has become completely irrelevant.

fredfa

10-21-06, 09:33 PM

Come on, CP95. You must be thinking of the NHL. :)

CPanther95

10-21-06, 09:36 PM

I said "has become" because they once weren't. That can't be said for the NHL. ;)

dad1153

10-21-06, 09:45 PM

Baseball has become completely irrelevant.

Come on, CP95. You must be thinking of the NHL.

I said "has become" because they once weren't. That can't be said for the NHL.

UHHHH, SNAP!!! :D

DoubleDAZ

10-21-06, 09:50 PM

Fredfa,

No, I didn't, thank you very much, and I've been a die-hard Braves fan since just before they moved to Milwaukee (Wisconsin bred).

Saying I'm not a true fan is BS. We all pay for the bloated salaries, everyone one of us, fan or not, and we have every right to criticize what's wrong. Being a fan of the game doesn't mean I have to watch the pros and be subjected to doping, poor performance, sky-high ticket prices, concession greed, and everything else about it that has gotten out of hand in the last 10 or so years.

I work d*mn hard for my paultry salary and these overpaid jocks spit in my eye every chance they get. I watch my grandsons play the game and lament the fact that so much of what's wrong in the big leagues has filtered down to the little leagues. I put up with it at their level because they are too young to see the shame that has been brought to America's game. And as soon as a favorite son (aka Dale Murphy and Luis Gonzalez) starts to falter a little, they ship him out. Loyalty and other virtues abound in the MLB, yeah right. :(

cajieboy

10-21-06, 09:53 PM

Baseball has become completely irrelevant.

Compared to who?? Japanese Baseball, South American Baseball teams/fans, or the 17 million viewers tuning into tonight's Game 1 of the World's Series...including me. Funny, I don't FEEL irrelevant.

fredfa

10-21-06, 10:01 PM

Now the Dodgers, Padres, Mets, A's, Twins and Yankees -- they feel irrelevant.

fredfa

10-21-06, 10:05 PM

Dave: in Dale Murphy and Luis Gonzalez you have a couple of true quality guys. I was very surprised the DBacks didn't figure out a way to bring him back in some capacity.

It was painful watching him trying to throw the past couple of years, so perhaps a year or two as a DH will do him good.

Yet nothing will ever erase the memories of that ninth-ining blooper off of Mariano Rivera.

DoubleDAZ

10-21-06, 10:20 PM

Fred,

Don't get me wrong, I understand the economics of both those decisions, but they still suck. Since you mention it, the DH is one of my major problems with the current game. In one respect, it takes too many decisions out of the game. In another, it allows for the kinds of decisions that relegate too many qualty players essentially to the bench. Sure, it gets them some more at bats, maybe some more statistical padding, but all that really does is skew the true numbers of the game and that's why today's stats simply will never measure up IMHO.

There is nothing wrong with liking the game as it is today. Many folks don't even remember how it used to be. But, there is also nothing wrong with criticizing today's game or holding a long-term grudge against multimillionaire prima donnas and the people who own them.

Davinleeds

10-21-06, 10:23 PM

When I think of a play, I can't get Arod hitting that ball out of Aroyyo's hand out of my head.

fredfa

10-21-06, 10:36 PM

We agree Dave. We also agree that Dale and Luis do not fit into that prima donna category.

Davinleeds

10-21-06, 10:44 PM

Definitely.

fredfa

10-21-06, 10:46 PM

The New Season
Building 'Betty'
How Did Silvio Horta Turn a Telenovela Into Fall's Highest-Rated New Series? One Detail at a Time.
By William Booth Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, October 22, 2006

LOS ANGELES--Chop chop. If you want to watch Silvio Horta, creator of the new hit television show "Ugly Betty," eat lunch, better be quick. He does it at his desk, while scrolling e-mail. Also? Watch your fingers. In comes the plastic tray of takeout sushi. Three minutes, four minutes, tops. Teka maki down the hatch. Lunch is over.

Horta is only 32 years old, with the most-watched new series of the fall season, which ABC just announced it is picking up for the full season. Outwardly, Horta does not appear to be suffering from the stress of creating 42 minutes and 30 seconds of quality television a week for 22 weeks. "I've only lost 10 pounds," he says. He wears leather loafers without socks and his briefcase is a backpack he's had since college. He looks a little Tom Cruisey. Sleeping? "Not much," he says. But Horta isn't complaining. These are exactly the kinds of problems you want in television.

Initially, his one-hour soapy "fish out of water" comedy -- about a zafty Latina from Queens with the furry eyebrows working at a snooty fashion magazine in Manhattan -- was going to air on Friday nights, a time slot of comfortably low expectations in the TV week, the second-least-watched night, after the graveyard that is Saturday evening.

"It was going to be this nice little Friday night show," Horta says. "The pressure wasn't going to be so heavy. People liked it. Okay. Fine. Then it showed at the TCA." Horrors. That's the semiannual gathering of the Television Critics Association, whose members (when they were not eating or drinking) were shown an early version of the pilot -- and they raved . The ABC executives smelled a hit and shoved "Ugly Betty" into the spotlight of Thursday nights at 8,opposite an obscure show called . . . "Survivor."

"It was hold on, here we go," Horta says. "It was like all your dreams come true." He realizes, perhaps, this bit of dialogue sounds corny and so he explains that when all your dreams come true they become your reality and then your reality isn't really the same as your dreams, is it?

And we think: This dude is under a lot of stress.

"You always have these moments of panic," he says. "It could become overwhelming. But you ask yourself, what are my priorities?" He doesn't mean family, health, God, love. He means: The script, the set, the cast, the director, the music, or the newspaper reporter following you around? "What is the most important thing I need to focus on right now, and then that is what you do."

And so now Horta has to go look at a wig.

* * *

To say that Horta is the creator of "Ugly Betty" is technically correct: He developed and wrote the pilot. He imagined the look and feel, what is known in TV talk as the show's "bible." But ABC's "Ugly Betty" is based on a wildly popular Colombian telenovela from 1999 called "Yo Soy Betty La Fea," which was a blockbuster in Latin America and has since been spun off into successful soap series in India, Germany, Russia, Greece, Spain and Israel (where it became "Ugly Esti").

The actress Salma Hayek and the producer Ben Silverman ("The Office") owned the rights in the United States and were struggling to develop a series when they approached Horta.

Initially, Horta says, he was, like, nah, not really interested. He had just finished working on another pilot for ABC called "Westside" about the crazy Los Angeles real estate market and its agents, done in a "Nip/Tuck" style. "It never aired," he explains, "and there is a saying in town that there is nothing deader than a dead pilot. I said I'm done. I went to Europe for two months." (TV pilot season is Darwinian. This season, for example, ABC bought 70 one-hour scripts, which they whittled down to 16 pilots to shoot. Only seven aired.)

Silverman and Hayek liked the way Horta handled the script for "Westside" -- what a TV person might call his "tonality," his use of humor with a lot of heart. Horta had a track record, too, having created two previous shows (now canceled): the sci-fi "Jake 2.0" for UPN and the horror comedy "The Chronicle" for Sci Fi.

"Their energy was infectious," Horta says of Hayek and Silverman. "And creatively we were all on the same page -- telling the story of Betty as a young woman straddling these two worlds, trying to make her way in the American world, the gringo world, as this first-generation Latina and this ugly duckling."

If you haven't been watching, the ugly duckling is America Ferrera (seen in films "Real Women Have Curves" and "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"), and TV critics essentially agree that she is the soul of the show. Her Betty Suarez is a plucky, plump, good-hearted recent community college grad from the outer boroughs with adult braces who is thrown into a viper pit crawling with fashion-crazed stick people. So to review: "Ugly Betty" is a reimagined Colombian soap opera starring a Honduran American actress who plays a Mexican American in a series created by Silvio Horta, a Cuban American.

* * *

Horta is brushing his hand through the dark tresses of America Ferrera's newly created wig as the mass of Big Hair is held aloft like a cornered raccoon by one of the show's stylists in the makeup trailer at Raleigh Studios. "Nice," says Horta. One of his fellow producers, Teri Weinberg, who works for Silverman, is nodding. "Very nice," she purrs.

You might think: Hmmm, what is Horta doing with the wig guy, but after chasing Horta around the studio for a few hours, you see that the job of creator-slash-executive producer is to view the smallest detail as part of the job. "Trust me," Horta says. "I've had many a hair conversation."

Understand that the wig is huge. In the show, details are paramount.

Horta tells a story about how he and his colleagues obsessed for days on the font of the cover lines of Mode, the ersatz fashion magazine in the series.

On television, unlike in the movies, the audience is infinitely distractible, and so a show has to keep sucking them in. Of course, a winning series has to have a good story, blah, blah, blah. But that's only the beginning. These people massage each little beat, each couplet of dialogue, from the teaser to the tag, and then they fill in "Ugly Betty" with layer upon layer of visual and aural candy. "We treat the clothes," Horta says, "as seriously as the characters." He approves the wig.

Before he heads back to the set, Horta runs back to his office for about seven minutes to sit in front of his Mac. Until you really deconstruct a show like "Ugly Betty," you may not realize how much music there is. There is no laugh track. Every scene begins, ends, transitions, rises, falls with little snips of music, a chorus of constant cues to reinforce emotion. Happy. Sad. Pathos. Sex. Giggles. Rumba! Horta's music supervisor, Frankie Pine, just e-mailed him some song samples they might use to heighten a few-second scene that was shot in a set dressed to look like a New York nightclub.

Horta clicks his mouse. He is a left-hander.

First song: "Too distracting."

Second song: "Euro trash." He adds: which might work.

Third: "Too five years ago."

Fourth: "That's not bad."

On the computer, with the help of Windows Media Player the song is actually playing along with a clip of the club scene, so Horta can hear how the music adds or subtracts. The song he picks is called "Voodoo Juju." He says he likes it because it's party music, but it has a now edge, "but it doesn't sound like a song you know." Of course, each song sample -- called a "needle drop" -- costs money. Some are free, others cost $25,000. "And there's never enough money," Horta says.

* * *

On his desk, there is a bottle of Advil and a lone cigarette. Horta has his assistant, Brian Tanen, hold on to the pack and dole out the butts very sparingly. Horta exits a long, open window and grabs a few quick puffs on the roof.

One of the other reasons why Hayek and Silverman wanted Horta for "Ugly Betty" is because he grew up in Betty's world. Not in a Mexican household in New York, but a Cuban one in Florida.

Horta's parents came from the island to Miami in 1969 and little Silvio was born in 1974. "My parents, my mom, barely speaks English," he says. His mother worked as a cashier in grocery stores in the super-Cuban enclave of Kendall (where just about everybody speaks Spanish). His father was a guitar player in house bands in local clubs and restaurants. His folks divorced when Silvio was 6.

Like many first-generation Latinos, Horta was both appalled and mesmerized by telenovelas, the TV novels his mother was addicted to. These are mostly Spanish-language imports, airing on stations such as Telemundo and Univision, that resemble our American daytime soap operas, but are more like melodramatic miniseries with a limited run.

They often air nightly in Latin America (vs. once a week) and the ur-narrative is a familiar one: A poor but beautiful girl falls for a rich and handsome man -- then all hell breaks out as their families and society do everything they can to keep them apart, until true love ultimately prevails, and they have twins.

"Me and my friends would laugh at the telenovelas," Horta says. "They were so stupid. But we watched them. You're hooked."

In "Ugly Betty," Horta borrows heavily from "Yo Soy Betty La Fea," but the ABC show is not technically a telenovela. It is instead a one-hour comedy with soapy telenovela notes (there is a visual gag in every episode that shows Hayek in an bodice-ripping telenovela role -- a kind of TV show within a TV show). Plus this: In addition to riffing on the telenovela, Horta wanted to touch on the experiences of first-generation Latinos, a quote from his own life. So in the pilot Betty is on the phone negotiating with her father's HMO, letting the viewer know that here is a woman who hears Spanish in one ear and English in the other. Horta is proud of this.

* * *

Down to the sets. "Would you look at the floors?" Horta is pointing at the floors in Betty's family rowhouse in Queens. The wood is brand-new but it has been scuffed and worn in the heavy traffic areas. Just as they would be in a real home in Queens. "It is amazing, huh?" Horta says. The pea-green walls. The macrame throw pillows. The verisimilitude of working-class immigrant life that a network budget can buy!

Next door is the set where they are shooting scenes of the Halloween episode. It is the Manhattan offices of Mode magazine, done in orange and white plastics, so absurdly chic, the place looks like an interior decorator's spaceship.

Horta slips into a canvas chair next to the episode's director, Ross Berryman, and watches them shoot the scene in which Betty is dressed as a butterfly.

It is often news to many TV viewers that unlike film, where the director rules, on TV the creators, writers and producers rule. Horta does not direct. Instead, the show brings in hired guns to shoot each episode. This is because TV is a cruel and unyielding assembly line that must produce a new show every eight days. Horta explains: As Director A is shooting an episode, Director B is preparing to film and Director C is in the editing room. "A train must leave the station once a week," he says.

The schedule is crazy. It's less Amtrak, more NASA. Many shuttles to launch. The team is outlining plots, writing scripts, casting actors, selecting music to film an episode, while simultaneously editing, reediting, adding music and credits to episodes already shot. Throughout the entire process, both the production company, Touchstone Television, and the network, ABC, are shown and are approving everything, offering a constant stream of "notes." "You have to use both sides of your brain," Horta explains. Or, if you don't? He thinks that's funny.

* * *

Ahh, the fabled Writers Room. "At the end of the day the most important thing is the scripts," Horta says. "You've got to have one a week and it's got to be great." He says this with a kind of sweet sincerity. Around a large table and splayed on a couch are 10 writers responsible for "Ugly Betty." They are a sneakers, T-shirt and bluejeans crowd, four women, six men, drinking Diet Cokes and Smart Waters. They don't look exactly fried, but it wouldn't be right to call them fresh.

On this day, they are "breaking" the Christmas season episode, meaning they are forming a rough outline for the six acts of the show (each act ends -- taa-daa! -- with a commercial). And each act contains a dozen "beats," which are written on index cards affixed to a bulletin board, and say things like "Betty finds out who her Secret Santa is."

Horta takes a center seat. The back-and-forth continues, but it is directed at Horta, like a pitch.

Since "Ugly Betty" is a soap with a mystery (and lots of potential amorous hookups), the reporter must pledge not to reveal secrets. It is an easy promise because it is impossible to know what they are talking about. Excerpts:

Writer: "It's a cute beat, but so what?"

Writer: "He's suffocating her."

Writer: "What if three people spike the punch?"

Horta: "That's funny."

Writer: "Walter is a more sympathetic character."

Writer: "Be careful we don't slap the puppy."

Horta: "Are we keeping track of the ratio of effeminate males to bitchy females?"

Horta spends an hour in the room, then he must go work on final sound ("At 18 minutes 14 seconds, the music steps on Betty's dialogue"), then select some cast members ("Hmm, he looks more Sears than Fifth Avenue"), and then and then. You get the picture.

"It's a million decisions a day. You know it's not always black and white," Horta says, getting almost philosophical. "It's a lot of decisions with a lot of gray."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102000260_pf.html

DoubleDAZ

10-21-06, 10:51 PM

That's for sure, Fred. When I was in Montgomery, Dale was always in the news for being the role model he is/was. They truly loved him in Atlanta. Now that I am in Phoenix, the same is true of Luis, though I'm quite sure he will be back in some capacity in the future.

I'm sure there are plenty of others who also fit the mold and I know the true prima donnas are in the minority, but they sure seem to over-shadow all the good the Dale's, Luis's, and others do. I've gone to some games here, but it's really tough to justify $100 or more for 3 hours of entertainment when I know how much better it was when I was sitting by 3rd base watching my all-time favorite #41, Eddie Matthews. :)

fredfa

10-22-06, 02:39 AM

Critic’s Notebook
What the new dramas think they know.

By Tad Friend The New Yorker

In television, victory doesn’t have a thousand fathers so much as a thousand sons. Since “Lost” became a phenomenon on ABC two years ago, the networks have repeatedly sought to replicate its formula. But what is that formula, exactly? Should producers follow the show’s first-year recipe precisely, mixing together a model U.N. on a tropical island after a plane crash, marinating each stranger in dark secrets, folding in a heaping of tensions (fistfights over the hot babes and the asthma inhaler) and a dollop of enigmatic threats (polar bears and murderous interlopers), then spicing to taste with the occult (a man who arises from his wheelchair, a baby coveted by the evil ones, some hydrating agent in the atmosphere that keeps everyone’s skin ideally moisturized)? Or should they mine “Lost” ’s own influences: “Twin Peaks” meets “Survivor” by way of “Lord of the Flies,” “The X-Files,” and, alas, “Gilligan’s Island”? Or ring fresh changes on the show’s narrative precursor, the wagon-train Western, in which motley pioneers are menaced by a war party? Or do audiences want commentary on the post-9/11 world—“Lost” ’s emergent theme being how, in a society under threat, freedom is bartered for security? (Not for nothing is Terry O’Quinn’s character, who orchestrates the group’s transition from a state of nature into a supportive confederation, named John Locke.)

The most promising of this fall’s “Lost” sheep is ABC’s “The Nine.” After swiftly introducing us to nine diverse Los Angelenos (the high-strung assistant district attorney, the cocky surgeon and his social-worker girlfriend, the kindly bank manager, etc.) and gathering them at the Fidelity Republic Bank just as two armed robbers enter, the pilot jumps ahead fifty-two hours, when a hostage drama that followed the botched holdup ends with cops storming in and bullets flying. The show portrays this moment and its immediate aftermath using bleached film stock, grainy flashbacks, and rapid-fire jump cuts, which warns us that the narrative won’t be linear, and the pilot never does give us an orderly understanding of the intervening events. But it’s clear, from elliptical hints, that a lot occurred in that bank: that at least one hostage may have known one of the robbers; that both the bank manager and his teen-age daughter underwent something nasty; and that Nick, the cop (the pod-person-handsome Tim Daly), tried to be a hero but got overruled, with bloody consequences. The show nudges us to root for Nick by giving him not only authority issues—after being rescued, he socks the hostage negotiator—but a gambling problem, TV shorthand for “rascally but redeemable.” Then, to make absolutely sure of us, it has Eva, the teller he had just asked out, die of gunshot wounds. Nick goes all broody for a few minutes and then starts eying the high-strung A.D.A., Kathryn (a simmering Kim Raver).

The hostage who emerges as a hero, having tackled one of the robbers, is Egan (John Billingsley), a sad sack who had been planning to kill himself. Afterward, he tosses out his old clothes and tells the bank manager, “I’ve got a second chance at life. We all do, don’t we?” This conversation occurs at Eva’s wake, but we get the idea; as John Locke declared in “Lost,” “Everyone gets a new life on this island.” The nine plan to meet periodically at a diner to work through their fresh crushes and traumas; everything is suddenly in play. We glean, for instance, that the social worker, Lizzie (Jessica Collins), newly pregnant, is going it alone because she was betrayed somehow in the bank by the surgeon, Jeremy (Scott Wolf, from “Party of Five,” who’s still such a Tom Cruise look-alike that you keep expecting him to hop up on the nearest couch). When they’re having their first post-crisis meal, Jeremy stares at Lizzie’s plate and says, “What are you doing? You’re a vegetarian.” She shoots back, “I wanted bacon!” After a beat, he says, “Do you want to talk about it?” “About what?” she replies darkly.

Wish I knew. Watching “The Nine” is like trying to do a crossword with only the Across clues. But it promises to reward our vigilance, which makes it very cunning programming; we like being unusually alert almost as much as the show’s advertisers like having us that way.

In CBS’s “Jericho,” the town of Jericho, Kansas, may be the only place left after nuclear weapons destroy nearby Denver and other cities—somebody’s response to a bellicose Presidential speech. The apocalypse cuts off escape routes and communications, and, less predictably, snuffs out everyone’s sense of humor. When the villagers begin to hoard and loot, the mayor (Gerald McRaney, coasting here after a vivid turn as the sociopath George Hearst on “Deadwood”) resets their moral compass with some folksy rumblings about coöperation and how the soul of America resides in Jericho. It’s a cornpone version of the speech Jack gave early on in “Lost”: “If we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.” The town’s incuriosity about the larger world (where, presumably, many of their friends and relatives live) shades at times into an unsavory suggestion that all those Gomorrahs in cinders—New York, Chicago, Atlanta—deserved their fate.

Just before the bombs fall, the mayor’s estranged son, Jake (Skeet Ulrich, all bug-eyed determination), returns for a one-day visit after a mysterious five-year absence. He quickly discovers that his ex-girlfriend is living with a banker (just once, I’d like to see the prodigal discover his ex with someone poor). Then, after yelling at his dad and his sanctimonious older brother and hugging his mom, Jake takes off again—only, post-catastrophe, to return to town at the wheel of a school bus full of children he rescued out there in the dark, including one to whom he gave a lifesaving tracheotomy by fashioning a breathing tube from juice-box straws. Uh-huh.

The elements of an isolated population under stress and a suspiciously knowing survivalist—Robert Hawkins (Lennie James), new in town but with his hazmat suit ready to go—are canny steals from “Lost.” Yet “Jericho” lumbers; its townspeople spend all their time in the bar squabbling—they know one another so well that they haven’t got room to grow. It might have been better to poach more thoroughly, extending the “Lost” franchise in the manner of “Law & Order” and “C.S.I.” Perhaps something like “Lost: Radioactive.”

“Jericho” ’s title sequence emerges from a black-and-white TV screen fuzzed with static, a trope that calls to mind the era when “Twilight Zone” episodes often featured characters isolated by atomic catastrophes. The whole point of a “Twilight Zone” was the ironic kicker. Similarly, you watch “Jericho,” if at all, only to learn the big secrets: who set off the bombs, and what do Jake and Hawkins know? And, most important, how many Biblical echoes can the show cram in? (The salt mine employed as a fallout shelter is a nice touch.) Playing out the curse that Joshua called down on efforts to rebuild Jericho—“With the loss of his firstborn shall he lay the foundation thereof, and with the loss of his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it”—would make a nifty special episode for sweeps month. And, as a bonus, it would decimate the cast.

ABC’s “Six Degrees” is executive-produced by one of “Lost” ’s creators, J. J. Abrams, and it shines with his trademark gloss. Handsomely shot on Manhattan locations, the show is laced with wit and blessed with fine actors, particularly Hope Davis as Laura, a playful woman who’s trying to get past her war-correspondent husband’s death in Iraq (she begins by tossing out his old clothes); and the majestically surly Campbell Scott as Steven, a once noted photographer who, after years of boozing, rediscovers his gift when he photographs a stranger—Laura—sobbing on a stoop.

Yet the coincidences that bring the show’s six wayfarers together to form their own little island on the big island are vexingly hokey. “No one is a stranger—for long,” Carlos, the public defender (Jay Hernandez), intones in a voice-over at the close of the pilot. He has just run into Mae (a dewy Erika Christensen) on the subway as she is about to leave town—after seeking her everywhere since winning her release on a charge of indecent exposure. She had clambered onto a moving street sweeper near Washington Square and thrown off her top in sheer jubilation at being young and bodacious in the greatest city on earth. First of all, that’s exactly what the good folks in Jericho, Kansas, suspect is going on here. Second, it would never happen—no sanitation driver would waste time re-wetting Fifth Avenue when the show’s production team had already slicked it down.

When Laura makes the acquaintance of Whitney (Bridget Moynahan) at the pedicurist, it’s because Whitney, a fellow-Wasp, notices her Sonic Youth T-shirt and wonders if it’s from a vintage store:

LAURA: I was at the show.
WHITNEY: At Roseland?
LAURA: Yeah. Fall of ’95. It was the night before—
WHITNEY: Thanksgiving. I was there.
LAURA: Really?

Are you sure that was us and not one of the show’s writers? Whitney, a high-powered P.R. woman, also prepares one of those “as if!” meals for her boyfriend on the roof of their building, complete with a wet bar, candles, tulips, champagne, and linen napery. There seems to be only one thing missing—hold on, I’ll think of it . . . Oh, yes: food.

In the second episode, after delivering a schmaltzy voice-over about how “anything is possible” here, Damien (Dorian Missick), a limo driver with a gambling problem (sigh), picks up a lucky penny that Laura lost on the street, and his fortunes turn. Apparently, there are eight million stories out there in this crazy, big-hearted town—but it’s all one story, really, the one about trusting in your dream. Please. Just play “New York, New York” and have done with it.

The deeper problem is that we always know more than the characters: we know that Laura’s new au pair, Claire, is really Mae, and that she’s on the run; that Whitney’s boyfriend is a roué; that Carlos’s client, accused of shooting a man, is innocent and that the actual shooter is his new friend, Damien. We’re meant to be ensorcelled by the show’s glittering web of serendipity, but we’re just impatient: C’mon, people, get up to speed! One reason “Lost” sustains interest is that the characters know more than we do, so it’s as if we’re working alongside them to solve the island’s mysteries. This makes us feel a part of their small tribe—as well as of the much larger one out there in the dark. It’s a simple formula: “Lost” is more.

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/critics/061016crte_television

clapple

10-22-06, 10:24 AM

This entire Fall TV season is the biggest flop of all time!

The only "new" show I even watch, after the 1st episode, is "Shark"; and that is only tolerable.

flint350

10-22-06, 11:49 AM

Baseball has become irrelevant.

Not here in Baltimore, bucko! We have a great stadium (right next to a great football stadium) and lots of spirit. And we hear that, in a few years time, we're going to get a pro team to replace the Double-A team we currently tolerate. Ah...when I think back to the old days of Brooks Robinson and Jim Palmer and Boog Powell. I remember Palmer being a decent hitter and occasional pinch-runner/base stealer. Imagine a prima donna pitcher being asked to do that today...kinda makes me want to cry.

Kracko

10-22-06, 11:59 AM

Not here in Baltimore, bucko! We have a great stadium (right next to a great football stadium) and lots of spirit. And we hear that, in a few years time, we're going to get a pro team to replace the Double-A team we currently tolerate. Ah...when I think back to the old days of Brooks Robinson and Jim Palmer and Boog Powell. I remember Palmer being a decent hitter and occasional pinch-runner/base stealer. Imagine a prima donna pitcher being asked to do that today...kinda makes me want to cry.

True. You guys DO have a great baseball stadium. When I used to travel I always made sure to do so when the Orioles were in town. People here love Dodger Stadium, and it's nice, but I prefer yours.

fredfa

10-22-06, 12:01 PM

Critic’s Notebook
Trite from the heart
By Doug Elfman Chicago Sun-Times Television Critic October 22, 2006

A few years ago, TV shows weren't big on voiceover narrations. Then came "Sex & the City," "Desperate Housewives" and the No. 1 "Grey's Anatomy." Now Hollywood copycats give us scads of voiceovers that stick to one theme: seeking inspiration and redemption in the face of adversity.

It's a clever tactic. Voiceovers give lead characters (usually women) a chance to emote directly to you. They help TV shows get picked up by networks. And they may give series a boost to avoid getting canceled.

The most popular voiceover series ("Grey's Anatomy," "Desperate Housewives") mix inspiration with details about characters. Other, more critically acclaimed series ("Veronica Mars," "Battlestar Galactica"), forego inspiration and focus mostly on plot and character descriptions.

Either way, voiceovers are so similar, I created the following essay using heartwarming thoughts from actual narrations this fall season. Read it out loud to see if you have a good voice for TV. Notice the tried-and-true transitional and empathy words, such as "sometimes," "maybe" and "we."

Holy smokes. [V]

Where does it come from, this quest, this need to solve life's mysteries, when the simplest of questions can never be answered? Why are we here? What is the soul? Why do we dream? [H]

How long must a girl play drunk and willing before someone tries to get her to take off her clothes? [V]

I don't know what made me the way I am, but whatever it was left a hollow place inside. People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel I fake them all, and I fake them very well. And that's my burden, I guess. [D]

I guess like anybody else, I just try not to lose faith. [S]

When things get difficult, like now, I keep reminding myself of where I am -- New York City. [S]

I'd sooner drink Mark McGrath's bathwater than anything here. [V]

You got some people who are here just to hide out. To lose whatever baggage they've got. To find something better. Some people think they've already found happiness but don't really know what's coming. And others, despite everything, are just trying to stay brave. [S]

I never felt more brave in my whole life. All I needed was me, my two hairy nipples and a diving board. [N]

One of the hardest things about being single is believing that you're worth something, alone. ... Here's what I think. Maybe there's a real value to figuring out who we are alone. Because we can't invest in someone really special until we invest in ourselves. Maybe being alone isn't something to be suffered through. [M]

Every storm brings with it hope that somehow by morning, everything will be made clean again, and even the most troubling stains will disappear -- like the doubts over his innocence, or the consequence of his mistake, like the scars of his betrayal, or the memory of his kiss. [DH]

So we wait for the storm to pass, hoping for the best, even though we know in our hearts some stains are so indelible, nothing can wash them away. [DH]

After the storm, after the rush, after the heat of the moment has passed, we can cool off and clean up the messes we've made. [G]

Time heals all wounds. All any of us wants is more time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time. [G]

It is these times, it is this pain, that allows us to look inside ourselves. [F]

Sometimes, when we're quiet, the answers we've been waiting for find their way to us. [M]

I believe that they are critical to morale, to maintaining some measure for hope.

Life is so very fragile. [F]

We must carry this in our hearts -- that what we have is special; that it can be taken from us. And when it is taken from us, we will be tested. We will be tested to our very souls. [F]

To this day, I can't make it through "Footloose" without crying. [E]

[b]THE KEY
+ [BG] "BATTLESTAR GALACTICA"
Narrator: President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell)
[D] "DEXTER"
Narrator: Dexter (Michael C. Hall)
[DH] "DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES"
Narrator: The deceased Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong)
[E] "EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS"
Narrator: Chris (Executive Pro-ducer Chris Rock)
[F] "FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS"
Narrator: Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler)
[G] "GREY'S ANATOMY"
Narrator: Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo)
[H] "HEROES"
Narrator: Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy)
[M] "MEN IN TREES"
Narrator: Marin (Anne Heche)
[N] "MY NAME IS EARL"
Narrator: Earl (Jason Lee)
[S] "SIX DEGREES"
Narrator: Damian (Dorian Missick)
[V] "VERONICA MARS"
Narrator: Veronica Mars, played by Kristen Bell

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/elfman/105101,SHO-Sunday-ELF22.article

fredfa

10-22-06, 12:07 PM

(This is the Canadian version, but can the U.S. TV Guide be far behind?)
TV Notebook
TV Guide tosses its print version
Bows to demands of new generation
By Thulasi Srikanthan Toronto Star business reporter

Remember the days of flipping through your TV Guide searching times for The Facts of Life or Diff'rent Strokes?

Or perhaps it was The Cosby Show or The Dukes of Hazzard.

You didn't realize it then, but the '80s were the height of TV Guide glory. It was a golden age that saw more than a million copies a week flying off the shelves.

But how times have changed.

Yesterday, Transcontinental Media announced the magazine — 243,695 in circulation at last count — will soon cease print copies and will move online. As of yesterday morning, six people were let go, leaving 28 others behind.

The last print issue will be on stands Nov. 20 and the Web launch — at http://www.tvguide.ca — is scheduled for Nov. 28.

The disappearance of TV Guide from the traditional magazine market reflects a struggling industry; consumers just don't read them as much as they used to, said Leslie Chan, a lecturer at the University of Toronto and a specialist in electronic publishing.

"I am surprised it's taken them that long to cancel the print publication," Chan says.

TV Guide was facing stiff competition as traditional TV programming is evolving, Chan said. Nowadays, most viewers can get on-demand services and get shows when they want them. "They don't rely on print guide anymore."

Or, they get show times from alerts on other shows, Chan said.

Also hitting TV Guide hard is a younger generation that consumes information much differently, Chan said.

As an example, Chan cites his children: "I don't think they know what a TV Guide is. That is not how they consume information."

The move is part of Transcontinental's 2010 business plan to invest $10 million in digital properties, said Transcontinental president Natalie Larivière.

The changes mean the magazine will become more time-sensitive and more detailed in its listings, she said.

It will also be free.

As for revenue, it will come from online advertising and listings sales.

But, observed a financial analyst who asked not to be named: "the question is going to be: can you get advertisers on it?"

TV Guide also faces competition from other online listing services such as zap2it.com.

"It isn't a space that they're going to occupy by themselves," the analyst said.

The growing power of the online medium is something that Larivière understands too well.

"Canada is one of the most online countries in the world — Internet access continues to grow. Those researchers tell us that the demand for more instant and more detailed TV listing continues to grow as technology permits," she said.

That's why she notes "we need to keep pace with market needs and demands" and why she says she views this as a big opportunity.

TV Guide in Canada — acquired by Transcontinental in its 2000 takeover of Telemedia, which had published it since 1976 — is a separate entity from TV Guide in the United States, which dates to 1953 and is owned by Gemstar-TV Guide International, controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Company officials say staff will be offered severance or compensation packages, as well as counselling.

They emphasized attempts will be made to try to place them elsewhere within the organization.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1161294618071&call_pageid=968332188492

fredfa

10-22-06, 12:17 PM

Critic’s Notebook
More 'Heroes' worship
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor Sunday, Oct. 22, 2006

Cliffhangers, cagey characters and super abilities all power the plot of NBC's "Heroes," which airs a marathon of reruns tonight (8 to 11 PM ET/PT before a new episode debuts tomorrow at 9.

In a recent teleconference with reporters, executive producer Tim Kring said there's a simple reason every episode ends with a cliffhanger.

"The pilot sort of dictated it because we were introducing so many characters," he said. "It sort of dictated that we had to come back to that."

That also resulted in a smattering of seemingly disparate stories. Kring said he's keeping the cliffhangers, but the stories are beginning to coalesce.

"If you sort of look at it as kind of funnel, it starts wide and starts to narrow. And as we get to know these characters and invest in them more, we're able to sort of drop one, you know, each episode or drop a couple each episode and focus on less and less stories. Also, as these characters start to cross paths, you no longer have to tell eight stories or four stories or three stories."

Kring cited "The Incredibles" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" as inspirations for "Heroes." But clearly there was another TV show's success that helped get "Heroes" on the air.

"Without 'Lost,' this would not have been made, without a doubt," said Masi Oka, the show's Japanese-speaking, subtitled-in-English Hiro. "Having diverse characters, having a character who doesn't speak English" is something "Heroes" can do because "Lost" had success in these realms first.

Unlike "Lost," which some fans complain takes too long to tell it's stories, "Heroes" has offered surprising plot turns weekly.

"The big complaint with a lot of larger saga shows is that people get frustrated that they have to go two and three and four episodes at a time where not much happens," Kring acknowledged. "We set out to do a show where we were going to make a different kind of pact with the audience, that if you watch our show, something is actually going to happen each week."

Something like the end of last week's episode that featured a future version of Hiro -- looking less geeky and speaking perfect English -- traveling back in time to deliver a message to Nathan Petrelli's brother, Peter (Milo Ventimiglia).

While Hiro has been the show's breakout character, others have also made an impression, including Niki Sanders (Alia Larter), a single mom/Las Vegas stripper whose mirror image doesn't do exactly what Niki does.

"For me, it wasn't about what kind of power she was getting, it was just about her dealing with her life and wondering if she's going crazy and what's happening to her," Larter said. "Where we're leading to is that there's going to be duality within my personality. So there's one side that has to conform to society's roles and laws and the shadow side that can actually live out the dark fantasies that are repressed within all of us."

Kring said test audiences, especially women, responded favorably to the Niki character.

"One of the things that has really popped for people, especially with women, is this kind of strong female character that Ali is playing," he said. "A lot of that is the sexuality of this character that I think women can really relate to, especially women who are mothers. The idea that this is a mother who can actually own her sexuality is a very powerful thing for women."

Kring said he gave Niki the powers she has because they stem from her personality.

"In the character of Niki, she was a single mother who is stretched as thin as could be and I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to have a character with the ability to literally be in two places at one time," he said. "And I chose most of the powers as a reflection of what the characters were feeling or going through."

Regarding the show's future, Kring said he has general ideas on the story for the second season (the first season appears to be pretty solidly structured), but there's no great "Babylon 5"-like five-year plan.

"We have not posited a conclusion," he said. "We're not saying there is an island to get off of or a timeframe to stop the show. So it allows us to kind of keep generating and spinning it wherever we want to go. ... The pilot sort of presented a prophecy that we will take this entire season to deal with. The second season, there will be something else that will be presented that must be turned around or stopped by our heroes."

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

flint350

10-22-06, 12:54 PM

Only here. I was reading that interesting comparison review on the mystery series (The Nine, Six Degrees, Jericho, etc) a few posts back. I like words, especially vividly descriptive words that summon an image in the mind. This was the first TV review I have read however, that left me "ensorcelled". I'll wager that much time will pass before I see that one again. Emaych would be proud as a peacock.

fredfa

10-22-06, 12:59 PM

Sadly, flint350, Tad Friend of the New Yorker only reviews shows on occasion. I agree his writing is far above the average critic. On the other hand, he needn't write daily news and reviews.

(And I have never seen the word used before.)

fredfa

10-22-06, 01:11 PM

The late ESPN HD and ESPN2 HD games for next Saturday have been added to the HD Football schedule at the top of the first post.

Posty-McPost

10-22-06, 01:51 PM

fredfa

10-22-06, 02:29 PM

Next Saturday's ABC NCAA football games have been added to the HD schedule at the top of the first post in this thread.

DoubleDAZ

10-22-06, 04:46 PM

Imagine a prima donna pitcher being asked to do that today...kinda makes me want to cry.That pretty much sums it up. I love the game, grew up with a glove on my hand (still have it too, it's almost 45 years old) and a bat on my shoulder. Played almost every day when there wasn't snow on the ground. Unfortunately, the game of today is just not the same as the game of yesteryear. :( Or maybe I just grew up. :)

Oh well, on to other topics.

fredfa

10-22-06, 06:25 PM

TV Notebook
ABC Denies Reports Luring Leno
By John Consoli Media Week Oct. 22, 2006

ABC says a report by Bloomberg News, picked up by various newspapers, quoting a Wall Street analyst as stating that the network is considering signing Jay Leno, host of The Tonight Show on NBC, is not true.

The story quoted a report written by David Miller of Sanders Morris Harris as saying ABC "would make a run at signing Leno to a multiyear deal."

An ABC representative called Miller's comments "total baloney," adding that "there is no truth to such a rumor or speculation." Sources also said ABC had contacted NBC officials to let them know that there was no truth to the analyst's statements.

In September 2004, NBC announced that Leno would step down as host of The Tonight Show in 2009, turning over the reigns to Conan O'Brien, who hosts Late Night with Conan O'Brien that leads out of The Tonight Show.

Leno, now 56, has hosted the show for 14 years. The annoucement that O'Brien would be succeeding Leno came at the same time that O'Brien had signed a new, long-term deal with NBC that industry observers speculated he would not have signed unless guaranteed The Tonight Show job.

At the time, Leno issued a statement that tried to dispel that notion, saying that when he signed his new contract, he felt "the timing was right to plan for" his successor, and endorsed O'Brien.

In his report, Miller speculated that ABC would cancel the news show, Nightline, and replace it with an entertainment show hosted by Leno.

fredfa

10-22-06, 08:15 PM

The Business of TV
They said it couldn't be done
The Golf Channel, which began in 1995, has become the most successful single-sport cable outlet, paving the way for others

By Greg Johnson Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 22, 2006

ESPN redefined sports broadcasting in 1979 by offering a smorgasbord of programming. But entrepreneur Joseph E. Gibbs and golf legend Arnold Palmer subsequently proved that some fans have an appetite for a channel that serves up only a single sport 24/7.

Since the Golf Channel went live in January 1995 with a tournament broadcast from Dubai, it has focused on preliminary rounds of PGA tournaments, seniors golf, the LPGA and overseas events, along with a healthy portion of how-to shows and interviews. And, of course, the intoxicating — at least to golfers — infomercials touting such got-to-have training devices as shaft-weighted swing trainers, dual-hinged drivers and the revolutionary Stance Minder.

Gibbs persuaded Palmer — the two met when the golfer was playing on a course where Gibbs lived — to become an early investor in the Golf Channel. Together, they secured the support of several large cable television companies. But the venture still had a rough go — it burned through $135 million in four years before breaking even.

The Golf Channel now reaches 70 million U.S. homes, or about 20 million fewer than sports giant ESPN. Its revenue from advertising and cable operator fees hit $101 million in 2005, making it the biggest single-sport cable channel, according to Kagan Research LLC. That dwarfs such rivals as Speed Channel and Tennis Channel, but noticeably lags ESPN ($966.5 million in revenue) and traditional broadcast networks.

Media analysts estimate the value of the channel, now owned by Comcast Corp., at about $1 billion.

"Give credit to Golf Channel," said longtime cable industry consultant Stephen R. Effros. "They saw the potential a lot earlier than other people did and they've capitalized on it very well. A lot of other entrepreneurs and the sports leagues themselves are now trying to emulate them."

To broaden its viewership, the channel now screens such fare as "Caddyshack" and a reality TV show that lets viewers catch LPGA golfer Natalie Gulbis at her annual swimsuit calendar shoot. Its "Big Break" series — part "Survivor," part Skins Game — pits nine male and nine female golfers against one another for the opportunity to play in a pro tournament. And, early next year the channel will invite duffers-turned-inventors to compete in a reality TV show that promises to determine "golf's next great training aid."

The bulk of the Golf Channel's programming continues to target hard-core fans. In January the channel will become the PGA Tour's exclusive cable partner — which means no more dashing from the Golf Channel to ESPN to the USA Network to determine which channel is carrying the early rounds of the weekend's PGA tournament.

Most of the Saturday and Sunday PGA action — and golf's four major events — will continue on the big networks and their cable partners, but the 15-year deal gives the Golf Channel exclusive TV rights to a dozen lesser tournaments, including the Sony Open in Hawaii in January.

The channel also has broadcast rights to some LPGA events, which gives its cameras access to players such as Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie. It also has about 30 commentators and analysts, who cover tournaments, including Nick Faldo.

Gibbs resigned as the Golf Channel's chief executive in 2001 to start a venture capital firm, and Palmer sold out his stake years ago, but their programming blueprint remains. Thursday through Sunday, the channel focuses on tournament action; the rest of the week is spent looking back or previewing the next event.

Gibbs' pitch at the outset was relatively simple. No one expected golfers to tune in around the clock, but, given the opportunity, he believed that dedicated golfers would search out the channel when they had time. He also was betting that advertisers would be drawn to a channel that reflected golf's upscale demographic.

Palmer was an important business partner, Gibbs said, one who could open doors and use his wealth of golf and business savvy to persuade cable executives, advertisers and IMG founder and sports marketing guru Mark McCormack to support the channel.

"It took three years of me living on the road five days week, making four or five pitches a day to convince people that this would work," Gibbs said. "Ultimately, we got enough support that we did have the Palmers, McCormacks and the PGA Tour come on board. But it happened piece by piece."

When Gibbs began soliciting investors, one future partner scratched his head upon receiving a nondisclosure agreement Gibbs mailed from his office in Birmingham, Ala. Cable TV veteran George Greenberg, who brought the Sci Fi Channel into life, worked for a while with Gibbs and now runs the HorseTV Channel, joked that, upon seeing the postmark from deep in the heart of the Bible Belt and the unknown TGC logo, "I figured that it's got to be The God Channel."

Today, 75% of the Golf Channel's viewers are males and the median age of its viewers is 51, with a median household income of nearly $80,000. Current Chief Executive David Manuogian says the channel is the wrong place to sell laundry detergent, but a great vehicle for marketing upscale automobiles, pricey golf clubs or financial services.

The Golf Channel's success spawned a number of imitators, but the economics of cable television, along with the rush of new technologies offering sports and entertainment, are making that pursuit tougher.

The biggest hurdle today is the unwillingness of cable operators to turn over more space to new sports channels. Newcomers are likely to end up on higher-cost digital tiers or satellite services.

But that hasn't stopped programmers from trying to copy Gibbs' success.

"I saw the Golf Channel and thought, 'How are they getting a channel when tennis isn't?' " recalled Tennis Channel founder Steve Bellamy, who in May left the channel to concentrate on other sports-related business interests. "That's when wheels started to turn in my head."

Success for sports-specific channels is determined largely by how well they manage the task of paying big sums for broadcast rights while struggling to build revenue from cable company fees and advertising. Industry analysts predict the Golf Channel will get a double-digit bump in ratings next year because it will be easier for viewers to find PGA action.

Although the deals help establish a channel's brand awareness, they can be expensive. Kagan Research, estimates that it will take six years for the Tennis Channel to break even.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-golfchannel22oct22,1,2154966,print.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

fredfa

10-22-06, 08:16 PM

Cable cash

ESPN's channels still dominate cable sports, but sports-specific channels are "storming the high ground," according to Monterey, Calif.-based Kagan Research, LLC. The top 10 channels in 2005 ranked by gross advertising revenue and year launched:
Rank Name GAR (mill.) Year
1. ESPN $966.5 1979
2. ESPN2 $192.6 1993
3. FSN $123.5 1996
4. Golf Channel $101.7 1995
5. Speed Channel $84.8 1996
6. ESPN Classic $63.3 1995
7. Versus* $52.9 1995
8. ESPN News $49.6 1996
9. Fox Soccer Net $36.0 1997
10. Outdoor Channel $26.0 1993

* formerly OLN. GAR: gross advertising revenue

Source: Kagan Research LLC

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-golfchannel22oct22,1,2154966,print.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

fredfa

10-22-06, 09:10 PM

The Business of TV
Chernin Reveals Strategy for News Corp.
By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable 10/23/2006

Peter Chernin has come a long way from his days as an editor at Warner Books in the 1970s. An English major whose parents rationed TV consumption, he had little interest in television.

Today, the News Corp. president/COO pulls the strings in a portfolio of TV, film and Web properties that’s the envy of the media industry. The company’s most recent get: social-networking site MySpace. The company’s cable networks—Fox News, FX and the Fox Sports regional channels—are growing strongly as rivals fade.

The strength of Fox’s broadcast network and its monster American Idol—whose audience averages 30 million weekly—is enough to have Chernin humming Kelly Clarkson songs.

Still, Chernin faces plenty of hurdles. Video over the Internet threatens to drain broadcasters’ ad revenues. News Corp.’s core businesses are in maturing sectors facing slow growth, notably its newspapers, broadcast stations and network.

And despite his ascent, he may never be named CEO at News Corp. if Chairman Rupert Murdoch is succeeded by one of his children.

As Chernin is inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame, he spoke to B&C Business Editor John M. Higgins about News Corp.’s digital strategy and his lack of a MySpace page.

Broadcast networks and stations are tough businesses. News Corp.’s cable networks are strong right now, but that sector is starting to slow down. How do you operate a maturing sector?

Peter Chernin: We have had a very clear strategy which has allowed us to grow at a faster rate than just about any other media company. We’re trying to have assets at three different stages. We have a bunch of core assets which some may call mature but are the generators of enormous stability and predictability and cash flow, probably including some of our broadcast properties, some of our print businesses.
We try to take the profits from those and make sure that we are aggressively investing those in the next generation of growth drivers. The high-momentum drivers are our cable channels, of which there’s no better example than Fox News, where we invested a lot of time and energy. We have satellite platforms and other foreign businesses that are generating tremendous growth now that we’ve been investing in them over the past five or six years.
Then you have the next generation we’re investing in right now, which are the MySpaces of the world, the IGNs of the world, some of the things we’re doing in Eastern Europe. We’ve bought broadcast stations in Indonesia recently. I believe that those will be the growth drivers of this company three to five years down the road.

MySpace is proving to be a great acquisition, but it doesn’t constitute a digital strategy for the whole company. How do you see the TV and movie worlds moving into digital and making enough to offset possible lost TV-ad sales?

Peter Chernin: The second part of the question is the most important part. The challenge and mandate is making sure that you’re building new businesses faster than old businesses may potentially decay.
If people decide they want to watch our content in different forms than they have, that’s fine with me as long as I get adequately paid for it.
The strategy of most media companies should be disseminating our content widely on as many new platforms as we can. We are doing almost any deal that makes sense, provided two things: One, we can get our margins protected, and two, we feel confident about the copyright protection. That ranges from various video-on-demand things to iTunes to MySpace to Movielink.
All the networks are experimenting with various ad-supported streaming efforts, shortly after the network window. There’s a tremendous scarcity of video advertising on the Internet, so you can get pretty high prices for it. Further, it’s generally all additive. It takes place after your network airing. And given the decline in reruns for most of these shows, that’s important.

How long will it stay additive, considering that the shows ABC is touting for online viewing—Lost and Desperate Housewives—have seen their TV audience shrink?

Peter Chernin: There is absolutely no correlation between them. First of all, the online numbers are so tiny. I certainly don’t want to say anything negative about the company, but, to the degree franchises like Lost or Desperate Housewives see declines—in my opinion, with absolute certainty—have nothing to do with the move of those shows onto various digital platforms.
No one’s been more aggressive than we have on a show like 24 about getting it out there on DVD, getting it out there on iPod, getting it out there on various digital iterations. And the ratings have grown every year. Unfortunately, in this life, most declines tend to be driven by creative issues. God knows, when we have declines in shows, I wish I could blame them on something else, but there are creative problems; the audience is unhappy with the storytelling. There are extraordinary opportunities for high-profile, successful shows. I have no concerns that various digital platforms and additional platforms are anything but a positive.
Conversely, I do think that what digital and what every other advance has done in the business is lead to more fragmentation. And the net result of more fragmentation is that successful shows get stronger and weak shows get weaker, because people have more choices.

What are the biggest misperceptions of MySpace?

Peter Chernin: One is, there’s a desire to see this as some sort of passing fad. We’ve 100+ million registered users around the world, 60 million-70 million people here. It’s been growing exponentially, both before we bought it and since we bought it. And the amount of time that consumers want to spend on it has been growing enormously. So I don’t think this is a passing fad at all. It is a real, in its own way, media platform. People are spending hours on this thing every day in order to essentially both entertain themselves and communicate.
The second misperception is, a lot of people want to think that somehow this signifies a complete sea change in the way young people are. I don’t think that’s true at all. First of all, it’s much broader than just young people; in fact, its age has been advancing. It’s actually the way young people have acted certainly for decades, which is that young people want to feel connected with as many of their friends as possible, feel popular; they want to express themselves.
People want to say, “Oh my God, have you seen what’s on there?” In the time I’ve spent on the site, I’m always amazed at the number of people who list under their heroes their parents. They list what their dreams are, and I think it’s actually fairly heartening.

I’ve searched, but I haven’t found your MySpace page.

Peter Chernin: Well, I don’t think you will be finding my page.

Is it a media platform, or does it only become a communications platform?

Peter Chernin: It’s whatever platform its users want it to be. It is a media platform if they decide. But it is one of the advantages our company has. All the networks have now started putting their current shows up on the Internet the day after they air, ABC.com, CBS.com, etc. We put ours on what’s essentially the single largest Internet site in the industry by putting them on MySpace. It gives us a huge traffic advantage over anybody else.

What does the YouTube/Google deal say to you? I assume you looked at buying it.

Peter Chernin: Yeah, we did look at it. As a content company, we see it as just one more validation of the value of content. Wider distribution of video on the Internet will be good for content companies because I think they will get generous and positive revenue splits.
The other side, given that, in MySpace, we have the No. 2 video site on the Internet behind YouTube, is that it just further validates the value of MySpace. We’re going to put our head down and continue to invest to hopefully close the gap and be a real competitor.

Why didn’t you buy it?

Peter Chernin: Look, I don’t want to be negative, because we look at it as being very attractive, but I think probably, at that price, given that we already had one, we weren’t buying.

And what do you think of the price?

Peter Chernin: It makes me feel good about all of MySpace for the $580 million we spent for it.

Are you surprised that no “old-media” company bought it?

Peter Chernin: Clearly, one of the complicating issues inside there is the degree of copyright infringement. It’s easier for a third party like Google to come to some accommodation with the industry than it is for a content company to softball those issues.

How long can American Idol last?

Peter Chernin: Hopefully, forever.

Do you think it can?

Peter Chernin: Well, I have no idea, right? You sit here in October, and it sure feels like it’s been a long time since Idol has been on the air. And you feel like, “Wow, I really would love to see that.” There’s still a little bit more than three months to go before it comes back. Whether by intelligence or accident, the strategy we came up with to schedule it only once a year has been one of the smartest things we’ve ever done in this company. That gives Idol a really good chance of lasting a really long time.
Interestingly, you’re seeing a real sea change in the television business in that sense, which is virtually every one of these shows that has scheduling scarcity comes back stronger than ever every time. We’re seeing it with Idol, 24. Nip/Tuck, which was just off the air for six to eight months, is having its strongest season ever. The Shield, Rescue Me—these shows have scarcity in a world in which it feels like everything is shoved down your throat as a viewer.

What’s behind Fox News’ ratings slide?

Peter Chernin: The ratings are still remarkably strong. We still have a huge leadership position over our competitors, and we still have phenomenally talented people both on the air and running the channel. There’s maybe a little bit of burnout in the current news cycle right now. Americans are a little worn down by the war, a little worn down by whatever this week’s Washington scandal is.

How much does the political cycle, the decline in Bush’s popularity, affect Fox News’ ratings?

Peter Chernin: Probably not as much as people think. There is a core political audience, and maybe they’re a little burned out right now. But what tends to really drive the ratings of these things are sort of non-political stories, human-interest stories, whether it’s Katrina or Natalee Holloway in Aruba.

How do you feel about the weak start of MyNetworkTV?

Peter Chernin: I see it pretty straightforwardly. We’re in the game. We’ve gotten these shows up. We’ve got an audience, probably a smaller audience than we’d like right now but not necessarily a smaller audience than we would’ve expected. If the concept is appealing and we do a good job on these shows, we have a base to grow from. And if we don’t do a good job, we’ll stagnate here, and we’ll have a problem.

What are your thoughts about DirecTV right now? It was such a big priority for you all for a lot of years, and now you’re talking about selling it to Liberty Media’s John Malone.

Peter Chernin: I certainly don’t want to talk about any potential transactions or deals. But DirecTV is a great business and has a lot of growth in front of it. [DirecTV CEO] Chase Carey and the management have done a terrific job dramatically improving the financial performance. It is something that we’re obviously in the middle of discussions about, and I don’t want to talk about it publicly. But I don’t think it has any impact on what I think the value of DirecTV is and what a valuable property it is.

How is it working for a family-controlled company with a lot of family members hovering around the company?

Peter Chernin: Well, of course, there’s only one family member involved in the company right now. There’s a lot of advantages to working for a family-owned company. One of the great strengths of this company has been its ability to be focused on the long term and not to react to quarter-to-quarter pressure. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve been able to build it so aggressively and grow it so aggressively. I happen to respect the family members that I’ve worked with and have good relationships with them.

Does the ouster of Tom Freston over at Viacom give you pause about your own position?

Peter Chernin: There’s no relationship between what happened at Viacom and what happens here. Like most people in life, I have a boss; so did Tom. If I contribute to the company, which I believe I have and hopefully will continue to do, I’m quite secure. And if I don’t contribute to the company appropriately, then I’m as replaceable as any other person on earth. And I don’t think anyone in any one of these jobs has any illusions that they’re not replaceable.
That said, I don’t think there is any evidence or ever has been that [News Corp. Chairman] Rupert [Murdoch] is particularly capricious about these things. Rupert, who I think gets mischaracterized by a lot of things, is a very steady force. And if Rupert believes in you, he’s not a guy who is likely to be swayed because he doesn’t think the stock moved in the last three months.

When you were approached by Disney and other companies to become CEO, how far did those talks get?

Peter Chernin: I have enormous affection for this company and particularly enormous affection and allegiance to both Rupert and the board and people that employ me—probably just as much, if not more, for the people. And this company is significantly better-positioned than any other media company going forward.

How so?

Peter Chernin: If you look at almost any of the things that I view as important for the growth of a media company—a balance between traditional media and new media, growth prospects, a balance between domestic operations and international operations—this company is better-positioned than anybody right now.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6383673

TommyK

10-22-06, 09:31 PM

Baseball has become completely irrelevant.

Major league attendance among all ballparks drew 75,959,167 fans this year, breaking the all-time record. Difficult to call that irrelevant.

CPanther95

10-22-06, 09:53 PM

Between the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA 1-A Football and NCAA Div 1 Basketball...the NFL ranks 6th out of 6 in total attendance. But I doubt it would be considered the least relevant sport in the US.

Davinleeds

10-22-06, 09:56 PM

If the forum incorporates a tv schedule lineup and with your posts... I already use titan and read your info. TV guide was 20 years ago for me and they're changing with the paperless society, like it or not. I remember Golf Channel starting up on cband for $60/80 a month and I thought- damn. Looks like the strategy is working. Fox has turned into a powerhouse. Help my memory-didn't this speculation happen to Letterman?

TommyK

10-22-06, 10:25 PM

Between the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA 1-A Football and NCAA Div 1 Basketball...the NFL ranks 6th out of 6 in total attendance. But I doubt it would be considered the least relevant sport in the US.True, I see your point. 16 games per season vs. 162 games per season.

fredfa

10-22-06, 10:33 PM

Obituary
Jane Wyatt, 96
Played Margaret Anderson in “Father Knows Best”
(from wikipedia)

Jane Waddington Wyatt (born August 12, 1910 in Campgaw, New Jersey, died October 20, 2006 in Bel Air, California) was an American actress.

Her most famous roles were as Ronald Colman's love interest in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon (1937); as Margaret Anderson, the mother in the 1950s television comedy Father Knows Best; and as Amanda Grayson, Mr. Spock's mother on Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

She also appeared in other celebrated films, such as 1947's best picture Oscar winner, Gentleman's Agreement (with Gregory Peck), None but the Lonely Heart (with Cary Grant), and Boomerang (with Dana Andrews). Late in her career, she played Katherine Auschlander on the 1980s medical drama St. Elsewhere.

Wyatt's father, Christopher Billop Wyatt, Jr., was a Wall Street investment banker and her mother, the former Euphemia Van Rensselaer Waddington, was a drama critic for the Catholic World. One of her ancestors, Rufus King, had been a Presidential candidate. She had three siblings: Christopher III, Elizabeth, and Monica. She was also a distant cousin of Eleanor Roosevelt and the poet Harry Crosby, through their shared descent from Philip Livingston, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Her mother was a Catholic convert, and her father ultimately converted as well, although Jane did not attend Catholic schools.

Wyatt was raised from the age of three months in New York City, attended the fashionable Chapin School and later Barnard College. After two years of college, she left to join the apprentice school of the Berkshire Playhouse at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where for six months she played a varied assortment of roles.

One of her first jobs on Broadway was as understudy to Rose Hobart in a production of Trade Winds - a career move that cost her her listing in the New York Social Register (she later was relisted upon her marriage). Receiving favorable notices on Broadway and celebrated for her understated beauty, Wyatt made the transition from stage to screen and was placed under contract at Universal (and co-starred in Frank Capra's Columbia film Lost Horizon on loan from Universal). Of her experience in Lost Horizon, she noted in an article in the St. Anthony Messenger newsletter, "During the war, they cut out all the pacifist parts of the film—the High Lama talking about peace in the world. All that was cut because they were trying to inspire those G.I.’s to get out there and go ‘bang! bang! bang!’ which sort of ruined the film."

Though one of her early suitors was John D. Rockefeller III, on November 9, 1935, Wyatt married investment broker Edgar Bethune Ward (he died in 2000). The couple met in the late 1920s, when both were weekend houseguests of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt at Hyde Park. The Wards had two surviving sons. According to Wyatt's obituary in the Washington Post, a third son died in infancy in the early 1940s.

In the 1950s, she co-starred with Robert Young in Father Knows Best, the classic TV show chronicling the life and times of the Anderson family in the Midwestern town of Springfield. She won the Emmy for best actress in a comedy for three years in a row for her role as Margaret Anderson. Her film career suffered because of her outspoken opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy, the chief figure in the anti-Communist hysteria of that era. As a result, she returned to her roots on the New York stage for a time and appeared in such plays as Lillian Hellman's The Autumn Garden opposite Fredric March.

Wyatt died on Friday, October 20, 2006 of natural causes in her home in Bel Air, California at the age of 96. She is survived by sons Christopher Ward, of Piedmont, California and Michael Ward of Los Angeles; three grandchildren Nicholas, Andrew and Laura; and five great-grandchildren.

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

DoubleDAZ

10-22-06, 10:35 PM

Now that is very sad. RIP!

fredfa

10-22-06, 10:37 PM

Obituary
Phyllis Kirk, 79
Actress in TV's 'Thin Man', 'House of Wax’
As her career waned in the 1960s, she took stage roles and appeared as a celebrity contestant on game shows
By Valerie J. Nelson Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 22, 2006

Phyllis Kirk, an actress who played the damsel in extreme distress stalked by Vincent Price in "House of Wax," a horror movie considered the best and most popular 3-D film of the 1950s, has died. She was 79.

Kirk, who later starred in "The Thin Man" on television, died Thursday of complications from a post-cerebral aneurysm at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, said Dale Olson, her former publicist.

When first asked to appear in "House of Wax" (1953), the actress resisted, because she "was not interested in becoming the Fay Wray of her time," Kirk later said, referring to the screaming co-star of "King Kong" (1933).

Neither did she want to act in a movie that relied on a gimmick; the 3-D process required movie patrons to wear special colored glasses. Warner Bros. insisted that she take the part or be suspended from her contract.

"I went on to have a lot of fun making 'House of Wax.' It was just fun; Vincent Price was a divine man and was a divine actor," Kirk said in a 2004 interview with the Astounding B Monster, a website for fans of B movies and cult films.

The movie tested her endurance, because she continually had to be filmed running from Price, who played a mentally warped sculptor whose victims are turned into wax figures. It also tested her patience; she "loathed" being a model for a wax statue.

"That is no fun! They pour this stuff all over you to make a mold, and then some genius re-forms the whole thing into wax," Kirk told the website.

During the rest of the 1950s, she often appeared in television anthologies before being cast opposite Peter Lawford in "The Thin Man," which aired on NBC from 1957 to 1959.

The pair played sophisticated married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles in the series based on the Dashiell Hammett book and MGM movies that had starred William Powell and Myrna Loy.

"The Thin Man," which brought Kirk an Emmy nomination in 1959, "was the most happy and interesting work experience I ever had as an actress," she told the Associated Press in 1984.

Known for being outspoken, Kirk worked with the American Civil Liberties Union to campaign against capital punishment in the late 1950s.

Before the California Assembly, she spoke against the death sentence of Caryl Chessman — convicted on 17 counts of kidnapping, robbery and sexual assault — and visited him in prison several times before he was executed in 1960.

"It made headlines, but it hurt her career too," Olson said. "She was very opinionated and very passionate about her beliefs."

After the Watts riots in 1965, Kirk helped establish and fund two preschool programs in the area.

She was born Phyllis Kirkegaard in Plainfield, N.J., and moved to New York in her late teens to study with the legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner.

After appearing in several New York plays, she made her movie debut in "Our Very Own" (1950) with Farley Granger and Ann Blyth. Kirk went on to appear in nearly 20 other films.

Actress Ava Gardner became her best friend, Olson said.

As her acting career waned in the 1960s, Kirk took stage roles and appeared as a celebrity contestant on game shows.

In the 1970s, she quit acting when she began having trouble walking, a problem she linked to a childhood bout with polio and meningitis.

Her second career — in public relations, mainly at CBS — provided "by far and away the best work relationship" she ever had, Kirk later recalled.

She is survived by a sister, Megan Kirk Flax of Santa Rosa, Calif.; two stepdaughters; and a step-granddaughter.

Kirk was cremated and her remains will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery next to her husband, Warren Bush, a television producer she married in the 1960s. He died in 1991.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-kirk22oct22,0,7128793,print.story?coll=la-home-obituaries

fredfa

10-22-06, 10:41 PM

Critic’s Notebook
'Studio 60' needs a renovation
By Robert Bianco USA Today

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has offered viewers a variety of pleasures, but not the one that may matter most: a reason to care.

That's not how Studio's story was supposed to go. Heavily promoted and critically praised, this NBC drama (tonight, 10 ET/PT) combines two of TV's best-liked stars, Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford, with one of its best writers, West Wing's Aaron Sorkin. As you'd expect from a show with so much going in its favor, Studio quickly found an audience, and just as rapidly chased it away.

The problem is that rather than use his setting — behind the scenes at a Saturday Night Live-like show — as a jumping-off point for relatable workplace stories, Sorkin has delved ever more deeply into the intricacies of the television industry and, it seems, into his place in it. The background notes of self-righteousness and self-reference that were present in the pilot have become the dominant tone, to the extent that too much of the show comes across as a giant ego stroke.

The last straw was perhaps last week's episode, built entirely around a magazine profile being written by a famous reporter. Ostensibly designed to give us background on the romance between the show's head writer, Matt Albie (Perry), and one of its stars, Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson), the story actually seemed to exist to provide another opportunity to lecture us on the importance of the show to America, pop culture and democracy, delivered by yet another smug, glib, overly confident character.

What's hard to fathom is the air of portent that seems to surround everything that happens at Studio 60. When was the last time all of America was riveted by SNL? And while it's true we love a good celebrity scandal, it would take a lot more than a bad marriage and an old drunken-driving charge to get most Americans to even remember the name of a network president like Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), let alone be consumed by her personal problems.

Studio 60 still has far more going for it than most TV shows could ever hope to match, from the talents of its cast and crew to the underlying appeal of its main characters. But unless it wants to see those assets go to waste, the show has to make some course corrections. Five places to start:

1. Can the comedy

Sorkin has a prodigious gift for writing witty, literate, dramatic dialogue that can break the tension in a scene. But that's not the same as writing sketch comedy, and his show's attempts to do so have been so painfully dull, they call into question the oft-praised talents of Sorkin's alter ego, Matt. Tell us the idea for the sketch, but don't actually produce one.

2. It's not all about you

If you're giving your show autobiographical flourishes, as Sorkin admits to doing, you have to be careful not to make it look as if you're constructing the podium for the statue to come. Too many speeches praise Matt's genius, and too many characters exist to do the same.

3. More real/less ideal

West Wing's view of the White House as a world where personal ambition was set aside for the public good was a fantasy, but it was one we wanted to believe. Move it to Hollywood, and the fantasy becomes far less enticing. We're supposed to believe that no one is jealous of Harriet's favored status among the cast? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

4. A grateful nation does not await

Supposedly, Matt and his old friend and creative partner, executive producer Danny Tripp (Whitford), took this job because it was the only way they could work together, a situation that earned them instant sympathy. But rather than saving their careers, they now act as if they were saving us from reality-show madness and the pit of political divide. We would miss Studio 60 if it were canceled, but we would survive. All involved need to keep that in mind.

5. A little less earnest, please

You're making TV, not curing cancer. Stop putting such a burden of import on both versions of Studio 60, fictional and real. The shame is there is plenty of fodder for drama in network TV. Studio 60 airs for a company that is about to make some 700 underlings pay for the almost unprecedented incompetence of its top brass — who will, of course, go on collecting their outrageous salaries and bonuses.

That's a story that would resonate with a lot of Americans. Maybe even enough to make them care about your show.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-22-studio-60_x.htm

swamphhh

10-23-06, 08:06 AM

Critic’s Notebook
'Studio 60' needs a renovation
By Robert Bianco USA Today

........to the extent that too much of the show comes across as a giant ego stroke.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-22-studio-60_x.htm

Is that kind of like an "intellectual reach around"? ;)

dad1153

10-23-06, 08:29 AM

It would be nice if 'Studio 60' actually got away from the studio itself and spent time in other locations with the characters doing mundane things besides struggle over what skit to write/perform. Again using 'Larry Sanders' as an example (and sorry but this is the gold standard for 'behind the scenes' TV shows that 'Studio 60' has to live up to), how about time with Danny at home with a repeat of 'Studio 60' on a week off playing in the background while he's trying to date some girl? Some of the funniest moments in 'Sanders' happened when watching Larry watching himself with awkward body language (particularly if he had female company). Or all the writers on a retreat at a forest retreat or Hawaii beach (as some TV shows really do) throwing ideas up in the air? If 'Studio 60' survives this season I really hope something like those ideas above take place during a sophomore season. Because right now it feels like most of the show happens at the studio because it cost them (NBC and Warner) a pretty penny to build it and want to squeeze as much use of it as possible.

fredfa

10-23-06, 10:25 AM

Saturday Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Bummer first game of the World Series
Clocks an 8.6 household rating in metered markets
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct 23, 2006

Judging by Saturday's early numbers for Game 1 of the World Series, baseball may well be on its way to another year of record lows.

Saturday night's baseball game on Fox averaged a 8.6 household rating in metered markets, airing from about 8:15 p.m. to 11 p.m., according to Nielsen data. Those numbers will change when final ratings are released tomorrow, and they'll likely go down, if past years are any indication.

That would put Game 1 down 25 percent from last year's Game 1, which pulled an 11.4 in metered markets.

2005's Game 1 averaged a 9.5 final household rating, and 2002's Game 1, which averaged a 9.4 final rating. Those were the two lowest-rated games in World Series history.

Those two years also produced the lowest World Series averages in history, and with ratings already down double-digit percentages for baseball's postseason this year, many had predicted that the St. Louis Cardinals-Detroit Tigers matchup would fall even lower.

It looks like that may be true. By 10 p.m., Fox's average had dipped 13 percent from a 7.9 to a 6.9, according to fast nationals, as the Cardinals went on to blow out the Tigers 7-2.

The game did boost Fox to No. 1 by a wide margin both in households and adults 18-49 Saturday. In households, from 8 to 11 according to fast nationals, Fox averaged a 7.3 rating and 13 share, followed by CBS and NBC tied at 4.0/7, ABC at 2.9/5, and Univision at 1.4/3.

Among 18-49s, Fox averaged a 3.4/11, followed by CBS at 1.9/6, NBC at 1.7/5, ABC at 1.6/5, and Univision at 0.8/2.

Fox led every hour, starting with a 3.2 at 8 p.m. for the pregame show and start of the World Series game. NBC was second with a 1.9 for "Dateline," followed by ABC with a 1.4 for the first hour of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," CBS with a 1.2 for "48 Hours Mystery," and Univision with a 0.7 for "Sabado Gigante."

At 9 p.m., Fox led again with a 3.7, followed by a 1.9 for CBS's movie "The Bourne Identity," a 1.6 for ABC's "Potter," a 1.2 for an original episode of NBC's "Kidnapped" and a 0.9 for Univision's "Sabado."

At 10 p.m., Fox stayed ahead with a 3.3 for baseball, followed by CBS's 2.4 for "Bourne," NBC's 1.9 for a "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" repeat," ABC's 1.7 for "Potter" and Univision's 1.0 for "Sabado."

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8060.asp

fredfa

10-23-06, 10:47 AM

The Business of TV
Q+A with NBC's Kevin Reilly
A Broadcasting & Cable WEB EXCLUSIVE:
By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 10/23/2006

On the heels of last week’s major “NBC U 2.0” announcement, NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly spoke with B&C’s Ben Grossman about how the announcement will affect his division, whether NBC is truly getting out of the scripted business at 8 p.m. and what lies ahead for NBC in primetime.

What’s going to be the fallout from the decision to make this public announcement?

Kevin Reilly I think short term it is probably going to create a lot more anxiety and questions than ultimately will be warranted. This community, will it mean, “Oh my god they are going out of the scripted business, there are going to be less time slots, they are spending less money.” That will be their reaction, but I don’t think it will be warranted come May (when they define the fall schedule).There will not be a drastic departure.What it means now is beefing up our reality programming and playing with the mix a little bit.

So why make the announcement about 8 p.m. when you could have just done it and no one would have noticed?

Kevin Reilly Exactly right.To a certain extent we and the industry are doing it already, so why proclaim it?I think it’s wrong for the community to take a very narrow view of primetime, this is really company wide. Some of our competitors will try and fan the flames and say its some sort of a retreat or the rumor mill could build it up to a place where it signals a departure from our quality, but it wont be the case.So why declare it?I think to galvanize and focus the entire company, because there are going to be some personnel cuts, and that’s the main reason why.

So how frustrating is this announcement for you?

Kevin Reilly It is frustrating for me in that I am going to have to try and explain it, where as if it were unsaid, it would just be under the head of evolving business.We have just started the rebuild and are finally getting traction, that’s why I don’t want this to be a signal that we are going to come off the gas.

Will there be direct effects on development?

Kevin Reilly Where traditionally we would do those last 3-4 comedy pilots, now those funds will be diverted to reality, where frankly the batting average has been much higher and it is more feasible to experiment with digital interactive elements and advertising integration. But we are virtually closed for this year’s development and we have already bought very aggressively and we will make about as many pilots as we made last year.

How will the changes impact the primetime lineup?

Kevin Reilly Ultimately we are talking about cost measures and more of a dedication of resources to interactive and reality.When you really boil it down, that’s all it is at the network.It comes under a bigger headline of other stuff company-wide that may have a bigger impact right now.But, if we come to May and we only have a couple new shows on the air and the mix has drastically changed, then I’ll have a lot of explaining to do.

Where will this hit you the hardest?

Kevin Reilly Cost has been an issue here for several years as we ran into tough times, so we’ve already been doing the belt tightening and fancy footwork.Frankly, as for the reality part of it, we’ve already increased our budget accordingly and moved some money and resources around.We have been planning on this, so most of our stuff is already in motion.

But there are now 5-7 less slots for scripted programming?

Kevin Reilly There may or may not be. In order to try things like Studio 60, we are also going to do 1 vs 100, which costs a fraction and frankly has done a bigger premiere with no marketing budget than 95% of shows on any network.

So there will be no new scripted on at 8?

Kevin Reilly I don’t think I can say that, because there are certain timeslots where we will have to program a scripted show to counter a reality hit.So I can’t preclude that from happening.There may be shows at 8 that are smaller rated, but based on costs and loyal audiences and ancillaries may make it a very viable success, and that is one of the things we will look at in the future.

When will this 8 pm initiative take place?

Kevin Reilly It will evolve.This is not a light-switch situation. While we have been doing reality, it probably has not been as big a priority at the network and it now is.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6383721

dad1153

10-23-06, 10:52 AM

Saturday Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Bummer first game of the World Series
Clocks an 8.6 household rating in metered markets
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct 23, 2006

At 9 p.m., Fox led again with a 3.7, followed by a 1.9 for CBS's movie "The Bourne Identity," a 1.6 for ABC's "Potter," a 1.2 for an original episode of NBC's "Kidnapped" and a 0.9 for Univision's "Sabado."

At 10 p.m., Fox stayed ahead with a 3.3 for baseball, followed by CBS's 2.4 for "Bourne," NBC's 1.9 for a "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" repeat," ABC's 1.7 for "Potter" and Univision's 1.0 for "Sabado."

I predict NBC will pull 'Kidnapped' before the 13 episodes air with more 'L&O' reruns (from any of the three shows) or expanded 'Dateline' shows. F*** committment to quality or viewers burned by networks killing serials before they're over, when nobody is watching the deal is off! NBC is not a charity and the November sweeps are coming. Dump 'Kidnapped' on Bravo some week in mid-December and be done with it. Of course that's easy for me to say since I haven't seen the show. :rolleyes:

BTW fredfa, any word on the ratings for the 10/20 episode of 'Battlestar Galactica'? It was a pretty strong episode (the conclusion of the stories set-up on the premiere and 2nd episode) so I'm hoping more people tuned in than the 1.6 rating it received a week ago. Its criminal for TV this good to go unwatched! :(

fredfa

10-23-06, 11:03 AM

Last week's cable ratings get released later in the week, dad. I'll try to keep an eye out for BG numbers.

But some of the thread readers have better sources than I do so if they see something perhaps they'll post, too.

fredfa

10-23-06, 11:19 AM

The weekend prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

fredfa

10-23-06, 11:39 AM

Sunday Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Slide is easingfor 'Brothers & Sisters'
ABC primetime soap cranks a 5.0 in 18-49srkets
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer

Last week ABC gave new drama “Brothers & Sisters” a full-season order. Last night “Brothers” responded with its first week-to-week ratings uptick of the season, albeit a tiny one.

“Brothers” averaged a 5.0 rating among adults 18-49 at 10 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights, up 0.1 from last Sunday’s 4.9 but more importantly not sliding any more. The show had fallen by 1.3 rating points over the past few weeks after debuting to a 6.2 on Sept. 24.

Last night’s stabilized ratings were a promising sign for the drama, which has recently shown some creative growth as well. After being scolded by critics for its overly ambitious, character-heavy pilot, “Brothers” has settled into a more comfortable groove.

A TV Guide critic recently put the show among his top five for the new season, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV reviewer Rob Owen, who’d been harsh in his first assessment, now calls it “a show with an excellent cast that’s still finding its legs but showing signs of improvement as it goes along.”

The show is doing particularly well among women. In women 18-49 last night, “Brothers” averaged a 7.2, retaining two-thirds of “Desperate Housewives’” lead-in audience in the demographic, nearly two full points ahead of CBS’s “Without a Trace.” And in women 25-54, it averaged an 8.5, 2.1 ahead of “Trace.”

Also last night, the second game of Fox’s World Series, which was considerably more competitive than game one, did much better in the overnights, leading the network to No. 1 among households and 18-49s for the second consecutive night.

According to Fox, the game averaged 18.2 million total viewers, up 6 percent over last year's Game 2 and more than 5 million better than Saturday's game.

Fox averaged a 5.4 rating and 14 share among 18-49s, followed by ABC at 5.2/14, CBS at a 3.7/9, NBC at 2.1/5, Univision at 1.0/3, and the CW at 0.9/2.

As a reminder, fast nationals measure timeslot data and not actual program data. Ratings for baseball, which lasted past 11 p.m., are not accurate and will likely adjust when final numbers are released later today.

At 7 p.m., Fox’s NFL overrun and “The OT” were first at 5.4, followed by ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos” at 3.0, CBS’s “60 Minutes” at 2.6, NBC’s “Football Night in America” at 1.2, Univision’s “Hora Pico” at 0.8, and the CW’s “America’s Next Top Model” at 0.7.

At 8 p.m., Fox’s World Series pregame and game led at 5.4, followed by ABC’s 4.9 for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” CBS’s 3.8 for “Amazing Race,” NBC’s 2.3 for a “Heroes” rerun, CW’s 1.1 for “7th Heaven” and Univision’s 0.9 for “Cantando por un Sueno.”

At 9 p.m., ABC’s “Housewives” led with an 8.0, even to last week, followed by Fox’s World Series at 5.7, CBS’s “Cold Case” at 4.3, NBC’s “Heroes” rerun at 2.5, Univision’s “Cantando” at 1.0 and CW’s “Runaway” at 0.9.

At 10 p.m., Fox just edged “Brothers” with a 5.1. CBS was third with a 4.3 for “Trace,” NBC fourth with a 2.5 for the final “Heroes” rerun and Univision fifth with a 1.1 for “Cantando.”

Fox led in households with a 10.2/16, followed by CBS and ABC tied at 8.4/13, NBC at 3.3/5, CW at 1.6/2 and Univision at 1.4/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8081.asp

archiguy

10-23-06, 11:45 AM

I predict NBC will pull 'Kidnapped' before the 13 episodes air with more 'L&O' reruns (from any of the three shows) or expanded 'Dateline' shows. F*** committment to quality or viewers burned by networks killing serials before they're over, when nobody is watching the deal is off! NBC is not a charity and the November sweeps are coming. Dump 'Kidnapped' on Bravo some week in mid-December and be done with it. Of course that's easy for me to say since I haven't seen the show. :rolleyes:

Um, no thanks. I've been watching this one from the start, based originally on the critical reviews, and was pleased that NBC had the good sense to not alienate any more of their viewers by not only giving this show a chance to finish off the story properly and provide some closure, but also do it in HD on the flagship channel. Saturday's a good night for this; nothing else going on then. Good for them! Maybe this can start a trend...

fredfa

10-23-06, 11:53 AM

Team records and BCS rankings have been added to the HD football schedules at the top of the first post in the thread.

fredfa

10-23-06, 12:00 PM

Critic’s Notebook
Jane Wyatt, “The Amazing Race”

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal blog

Jane Wyatt has passed....She had a career of considerable merit in TV alone, from ''Father Knows Best'' to ''Star Trek'' to ''St. Elsewhere.'' And while people like to lump ''Father Knows Best'' in with syrupy family comedies of the '50s and '60s, the show had moments of real grit.

I'm still enjoying ''The Amazing Race'' -- which I think is the only thing the bride and I managed to watch in real time over the weekend -- and especially liked Sunday's episode. One of the better messages in this season has been the way contestants from different backgrounds have bonded. The Cho brothers took that dangerously far last night when they helped the Kentuckys get a free shot at the fast forward -- since in doing so the Chos risked their own survival. So it was great to see that their good deed did not lead to their elimination. And I had had enough of Peter and Sarah -- well, of Peter anyway -- that I didn't lament their elimination. Also nice to see at the end that Sarah had pretty well figured out Peter.

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

fredfa

10-23-06, 12:03 PM

Obituary
Jane Wyatt, 96
'Father Knows Best' mom
By Dennis McLellan Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 23, 2006

Jane Wyatt, a three-time Emmy Award-winner for her portrayal of the patient, understanding housewife and mother on the classic 1950s family situation comedy "Father Knows Best," has died. She was 96.

Wyatt, whose acting career spanned stage, screen and television over seven decades, died Friday in her sleep at her Bel-Air home, grandson Nicholas Ward said.

A Broadway veteran who made her screen debut in 1934, Wyatt appeared in more than 30 movies in leading and supporting roles, including "None But the Lonely Heart" with Cary Grant, "Gentleman's Agreement" with Gregory Peck, "Canadian Pacific" with Randolph Scott, "Task Force" with Gary Cooper, "Boomerang" with Dana Andrews and "Pitfall" with Dick Powell.

Her most memorable screen role was the ethereal young Shangri-la beauty who enchants Ronald Colman in "Lost Horizon," Frank Capra's 1937 film version of the James Hilton novel.

But Wyatt, who regularly left Hollywood to return to Broadway in the 1930s and '40s, never attained the kind of stardom on the big screen that she achieved on television opposite Robert Young on "Father Knows Best."

As the warm and charming Jim and Margaret Anderson, Young and Wyatt presided over their idealistically wholesome family at 607 South Maple Street in the typical Midwestern community of Springfield.

The series, which ran from 1954 to 1960 and in prime-time reruns for three more years, featured Elinor Donahue as eldest child Betty, or "Princess"; Billy Gray as Bud; and Lauren Chapin as Kathy, or "Kitten."

"Father Knows Best" began on radio in 1949 starring Young and Jean Vander Pyl. But Young and Eugene Rodney, Young's partner in ownership and production of the series, wanted Wyatt to play his wife on television.

When she was originally offered the role, however, Wyatt turned it down.

"I'd been doing a lot of live TV drama in which I was the star," she said in a 1990 interview with the Toronto Star. "I didn't want to be just a mother."

But months later, Wyatt's investment-broker husband, Edgar Ward, whom she married in 1937, told her she should give the script another read. She did, and, she recalled, "It changed my life."

When the show debuted in 1954, a reviewer for the New York Times praised Young and Wyatt for restoring "parental prestige on TV." The same year, the series won a Sylvania Award for excellence.

"Our shows were written to be entertaining, but the writers had something to say," she told the Associated Press in 1989. Every script, Wyatt said, "always solved a little problem that was universal. It appealed to everyone. I think the world is hankering for a family. People may want to be free, but they still want a nuclear family."

Wyatt was proud of the series, which has been criticized for not being a realistic portrayal of American family life.

"We thought it was," she told The Times in 1986, speaking for herself and Young. "We, each of us, has been married for 50 years. It is what we wanted to do for our children. We can't have it exactly like life; it would be too boring. We all thought it was life — as we wanted it to be."

Wyatt also disagreed with latter-day critics who complain that Margaret Anderson was always subordinate to her husband. "She was the power behind the throne," she said. "She helped her husband out. Mother always knew best, too."

During the show's heyday, Wyatt said, many viewers thought she and Young were really married.

"In fact, once I even thought I was Mrs. Jim Anderson," she said in a 1960 interview. "We were doing some personal appearances in Seattle, and when I checked into the hotel the clerk said, 'Why, you're Mrs. Jim Anderson.' I smiled, looked down at the register and before I knew, it, I had written 'Mrs. Jim Anderson.' "

During those years, she recalled in a later interview, she spent more time with Young than she did with her real husband.

"I remember once going over to the Youngs' house for a dinner party," she said, "and when I walked in, I fixed Bob's tie without even thinking about it."

Wyatt was also often asked if the children on the show were really hers.

She said she became close to Donahue, Gray and Chapin, "but you can never take the place of a real mother. I finally figured out that our relationship was more like a favorite aunt with her favorite nieces and nephews."

Wyatt, a mother of two sons, said she used to find herself correcting her TV offspring "just as I would my own children. But I guess the main difference was that I didn't feel the terrible responsibility that a real mother feels for her children."

Wyatt won her Emmys for the series in 1958, '59 and '60, the same year she received a citation from the California Assembly for "consistency in outstanding performance as Margaret Anderson in 'Father Knows Best.' "

Young, who died in 1998 at age 91, decided to end the top 10-rated show in 1960 because he felt it had used up all the potential story lines and the characters played by Donahue and Gray had grown up.

The cast was reunited for two TV movies in the late 1970s: "The Father Knows Best Reunion" and "Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas."

"They were fun to do, but enough is enough," Wyatt said in 1990. "People like the original show precisely because it's of another era. Why bore them by growing old?"

Wyatt was born Aug. 12, 1910, in Campgaw, N.J. Her father, Christopher Wyatt, was a New York investment banker, and her mother, Euphemia Van Rensselaer Wyatt, was a playwright, drama critic and editor.

Wyatt majored in history and took drama courses at Barnard College, but she left after two years to become an apprentice at the Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge, Mass.

She made her first appearance on the New York stage in "Give Me Yesterday" in 1931 and in 1933 succeeded Margaret Sullivan in "Dinner at Eight" on Broadway.

Signed to a short-term contract by Universal in 1934, she made her screen debut that year playing the heroine's supportive sister in James Whale's "One More River." Her first female on-screen lead was in "Great Expectations" in 1934.

Throughout the late '30s and '40s, she alternated between stage and screen, including starring on Broadway in 1945 opposite Franchot Tone in "Hope for the Best."

Wyatt had a brush with the Hollywood blacklist for several years in the early 1950s, when her film work dried up.

Wyatt, who had joined Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and other Hollywood stars on a flight to Washington in 1947 to protest the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, told the Chicago Tribune in 1989 that she would get a job offer on a film, "then all of a sudden it would be rescinded."

"I was never a member of the Communist Party, but they brought up all sorts of charges that I had been to the Lab Theater, which was considered subversive," she said. "All we did there were the classics, 'Volpone,' 'The Cherry Orchard.' I still don't know how they managed to find a Marxist subtext in [Georges] Feydeau" — a turn-of-the-century French playwright known for his sex farces.

Wyatt also was labeled as having been "prematurely anti-fascist" because she opposed Hitler before the United States entered the war.

"I attended a concert by the L.A. Philharmonic calling for a second front against the Nazis," she said. "I don't know why that was held against me, because [Franklin] Roosevelt was calling for a second front at the same time."

After "Father Knows Best" ended, Wyatt continued acting, including an appearance as Spock's mother on TV's "Star Trek," a role she reprised in the 1986 film: "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." She also was moderator-host of an ABC daytime series, "Confidential for Women," in 1967.

Over the next three decades, she continued to appear in regional theater and make TV guest shots, including a recurring role as Norman Lloyd's (Dr. Auschlander's) wife on "St. Elsewhere."

Wyatt was heavily involved in charity work, especially the March of Dimes, for which she had worked since its founding in 1938. She also was involved with Los Angeles Beautiful, a civic beautification program, for many years.

Decades after leaving "Father Knows Best" behind, Wyatt was often recognized in public as the iconic Margaret Anderson. But in a 1990 interview, she acknowledged that she wasn't much like her famously domesticated TV character.

"I never vacuumed at home wearing my pearls," she said. "In fact, I never vacuumed at all; I was always working at the studio.

"I would have gone crazy staying at home like Margaret Anderson, and my family knew that."

Wyatt is survived by sons Christopher Ward of Piedmont, Calif., and Michael Ward of Los Angeles; two grandsons; a granddaughter; and seven great-grandchildren.

Services will be private, and instead of flowers the family asks that donations in Wyatt's name be made to the March of Dimes.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-wyatt23oct23,0,6083721,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

fredfa

10-23-06, 12:12 PM

The Business of TV
Writers, actors seek pay for downloads
By Richard Verrier Tribune Newspapers October 23, 2006

NBC lets consumers download "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Heroes." ABC makes episodes of "Lost" and "Ugly Betty" available free online a day after they air. MySpace.com offers episodes of the Fox drama "Prison Break," and Walt Disney Co.'s "The Little Mermaid" can be purchased for download to a video iPod.

In a digital free-for-all, Hollywood trumpets another round of ventures nearly every week making TV series and films accessible on the Internet.

But with each splashy announcement, resentment builds among writers and actors who believe studios are ducking the issue of how to properly pay them when their work is viewed via the Web. With major labor contracts expiring over the next two years, fears are growing that digital distribution will become such a contentious issue that it could prompt a strike.

"We've learned from history that when these new technologies emerge that we can be left behind," said Alan Rosenberg, president of the nearly 120,000-member Screen Actors Guild. "We have to make sure we don't wait 20 years to get properly compensated."

Standard Hollywood labor contracts are largely vague on what payment formulas should apply to the presentation of films and TV shows on something other than a movie screen or TV set. Studios would like to pay lower home video rates for movies and TV shows sold on the Internet, but actors and writers want scales similar to what they get when their work airs on pay TV.

Actors and writers make pocket change from downloads because the business is new. In many cases, talent isn't paid at all because the download is considered promotional for a show.

The current rift can be traced to the home video boom that started in the early 1980s. Studios and unions agreed then that distributors would keep 80 cents of every wholesale dollar earned selling videos. The various talent guilds divided the remaining 20 cents according to a complex formula. In theory, the deal was needed to help studios launch the new medium.

Instead, videocassettes, and later DVDs, became gold mines, leaving actors and writers grumbling that they were saddled with an antiquated formula. Unions have tried to revisit the issue, but studios refused to budge. Today's talent doesn't want to repeat that experience.

"We made a lousy deal for videocassettes about 20 years ago, and I think it's come back to haunt us," said writer Marc Cherry, who created the hit ABC show "Desperate Housewives."

Studio executives contend it is too early to establish pay formulas for such nascent markets and technologies. In many cases, they say, online streaming is merely promotional and doesn't justify extra payments. Both producers and talent benefit, they say, if the Web exposure boosts a show's popularity.

"We don't know how these markets are shaping up," said J. Nicholas Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. "When we get to the point where we can make some intelligent decisions, then we'll sit down and negotiate."

Studios contend that the guilds, in invoking their experience with home video contracts, fail to acknowledge how much their members have benefited from the popularity of DVDs. In 2005, an estimated $570 million in home video residuals--the extra fees talent gets when their work is reused--was allocated to entertainment workers, up from $220 million in 1995, industry data show.

Patric M. Verrone, president of the nearly 11,000-member Writers Guild of America, West, argues his members aren't naive about Hollywood economics and recognize the value in promoting a show with downloads.

But, he adds, writers need to cut a better deal for digital distribution with their contact expiring in a year.

Actors will tackle the issue in 2008, when their contract is up. Both unions expect the studios to take a hard line in negotiations.

If tensions don't ease by early next year, Hollywood could be in for a repeat of 2001. Although walkouts by writers and actors were averted, thousands of workers were furloughed anyway. That's because studios were so spooked by the threat of strikes that they built up a backlog of projects that had to be burned off before production resumed.

"Every time a new distribution system comes along, whether it's television or cable, video or cell phones, there's going to be a fight over who gets to stick their spoon into the money stream," said University of Texas professor David Prindle, author of a history of SAG.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0610230155oct23,1,1060012.story?coll=chi-ent_tv-hed

fredfa

10-23-06, 12:15 PM

Note:

If you have visited this thread for a while you have undoubtedly read some postings by frequent contributor RussTC3.

But you might not know (as I didn't until I accidentally found it yesterday) that he has a blog where he gives a pretty complete review of TV ratings.

It makes for good reading and can be found here:

http://wordpress.com/tag/broadcast-tv-ratings/

fredfa

10-23-06, 12:26 PM

The New Season
Re-Reviews:
“Jericho”, Studio 60” and “Six Degrees”
With 'Jericho,' the tension only numbs
By Andrew Lyons in medialifemagazine Oct 23, 2006

If this broadcast season stands out from past seasons, it is in the risk-taking in so many of the network's new shows, and arguably the leading innovators are CBS's "Jericho," NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and ABC's "Six Degrees."

And yet each in its own way is struggling, and here Media Life revisits them for a second mini-review to examine why.

For sure, all three are excellent dramas, coming from big-name producers and having impressive ensemble casts. Each offers an edgy premise, and the writing and production are superior.

Certainly, all three suffer to some degree from over-ambition, if well-intended, aiming to step beyond the mold of the traditional TV drama to capture the complexity of plot common to feature films but serialized over a season. It's a structural challenge, to say the least: what works over 120 minutes is a lot tougher to pull off in segments stretched over a season.

But their problems are more fundamental.

'Jericho'

“Jericho,” (CBS, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.), from Jon Turtletaub, with its small town, post-apocalypse premise, was problematic from the start.

The pilot was really two storylines, with one dwarfing the other in significance. There is the story of a loner (Skeet Ulrich) returning to his hometown after years, and it's a story building on characters, as the mystery of just why he left and just why he's coming begins to unfold.

But just as that story unfolds, we learn of a massive explosion that threatens the end of human life. The two storylines didn’t jell. The enormity of the nuclear holocaust makes those personal stories suddenly trivial.

These many weeks later, the problem still exists but in reverse. The nuclear holocaust is everything, at the expense of the personal. Everyone scrambles to find shelter before a radioactive storm hits town. The fuel supply dwindles rapidly.

There are some genuinely disquieting moments, but the effect is to give "Jericho" a crisis of the week feel.

What municipal predicament will the town folk face down next? One wonders how much longer our protagonist can run around town solving problems before the fundamentally depressing premise of the series begins to overwhelm.

What's missing is a personal dynamic emerging from the characters as they interact to give the drama a richer fabric.

'Studio 60'

“Studio 60” (NBC, Mondays, 10 p.m.) entered the season with the most impressive pedigree of any new show, coming from Aaron Sorkin and featuring a cast of stars that seemed to make it a can't-miss proposition. The ratings haven’t borne that out.

That’s no fault of the writers or actors. “Studio 60” is as clever and thought provoking as its pilot promised. “Studio 60” regularly tackles provocative issues with sharp dialogue and unexpected plotting.

Its failing is that the storyline seems stalled, held captive by the smart writing and that clever plotting. There's no sense of a direction amid the intensity we see on the screen. That was not an issue with Sorkin's long-running "West Wing." It was about the presidency; it didn't always have to move, just be. "Studio 60" needs to be going somewhere.

Another failing of "Studio 60" would almost seem an aside but is not. It's that the late-night comedy show-within-a-show just isn’t very funny. And those sketches take up enough screen time to matter.

To buy into the intensity of "Studio 60," the viewer must buy into the notion that it is a very good, very hip comedy show, which means it has to be very funny.

In not being funny, it takes away from the drama's reason for being. At the least, it creates an odd disconnect between the witty characters played by the likes of Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford and Sarah Paulson.

'Six Degrees'

“Six Degrees” (ABC, Thursdays, 10 p.m.), from J. J. Abrams, has proven to be a consistently charming, romantic drama that doesn’t overplay its central conceit. It is the one show of the three living up to its promise after a pilot that struggled under the weight of complex storylines.

"Six Degrees'" challenge will be in winning over viewers against sinking ratings.

Set in Manhattan, the show follows six people whose lives continually, fatefully intertwine. The risk was that the device would be overdone. But the we’re-all-linked hook quickly settles comfortably into the backdrop as the personal lives of these people take over.

The show stays rooted in the romantic entanglements of these flawed but likable characters, whether focusing on publicist Whitney’s (Bridget Moynihan) discovery that her fiancé is a cheating cad or public defender Carlos’s (Jay Hernandez) suspicion that the girl he’s falling for (Erika Christensen) isn’t as innocent as she seems.

Even the weak links in the pilot, Campbell Scott’s photographer Steven and Dorian Missick’s limo driver Damien, have been fleshed out.

Steven’s attempts to re-establish his career and his broken relationship with his young son after years of drinking are convincingly painful. And Damien’s desperate attempts to keep his history of gang-banging and current gambling problem from his girlfriend evoke real anxiety.

“Six Degrees” works by taking people whose lives are in disarray and exploring their attempts to rediscover hope.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_8067.asp

fredfa

10-23-06, 01:23 PM

The New Season
November Sweep Highlight

Just when you begin to think Fox has perhaps finally matured into a network featuring quality programming, the network reminds you of its heritage.

Here, from a Fox news release detailing its November sweeps “highlights”, are its listingS for the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend:

Saturday, Nov. 25
8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT COPS: BAD GIRLS SPECIAL EDITION #10/All-New Episode
8:30-9:00 PM ET/PT COPS: BAD GIRLS SPECIAL EDITION #9/Encore
9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT AMERICA'S MOST WANTED: SEX SLAVE SPECIAL EDITION/All-New Episode

(These are certainly the kinds of programs the whole extended family can gather around the TV and watch together.)

fredfa

10-23-06, 01:29 PM

The New Season
Dissecting Brandimensions' Picks, Pans
By John Consoli MediaWeek Oct. 23, 2006

One tracker of online buzz for broadcast prime-time programming has proven to be a fairly accurate predictor of which shows would succeed or fail thus far.

Three of the top six new shows that a Brandimensions preseason analysis predicted would succeed (by monitoring a broad range of Internet sources), among 26 programs, are so far the hottest shows of the new season. And the lowest show in its rankings was the first show to be pulled and put on hiatus.

In the Brandimensions report issued June 30 (Mediaweek, July 10), NBC’s Heroes ranked second, CBS’ Jericho ranked third and ABC’s Ugly Betty came in sixth. Fox’s Happy Hour, which was ranked 26th by Brandimensions, became the season’s first casualty, pulled off the air after only a few weeks.

Brandimensions did rank NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, based on online buzz, to be the show most likely to succeed. Brandimensions CEO Bradley Silver explained that while that show’s share of audience discussion going into the season was by far the highest, edging out Heroes, Jericho and Betty narrowly in “sentiment score,” it never met audience expectations. “The one fear of many viewers going in was that the content would be too ‘inside-Hollywood’ for most audiences, and that is how it has turned out to be,” Silver said.

Three new shows already cancelled—CBS’ Smith, NBC’s Kidnapped and CW’s Runaway—were ranked 13th, 14th and 18th respectively in preseason predictions.

As for Heroes, Brandimensions found from online discussions that “the comic fan community, a large number of males 18-49, is driving positive discussions for this show. These viewers are excited about the premise and will be giving the show a chance to meet their lofty expectations this fall.” Brandimensions found viewers were “intrigued by the premise of Jericho and feel like the cast may prove to be somewhat of a sleeper.” The report also predicted Ugly Betty could be a “surprise hit for ABC among younger female viewers.”

Interestingly, the Brandimensions report said a majority of the show’s fans were “not thrilled” with its initial 8 p.m. Friday time period. ABC, before the start of the season, moved the show to 8 p.m. Thursdays, when a greater number of the show’s potential young female viewers are generally tuned in.

Silver said the buzz data reports have worked because they can filter out “the noise,” i.e., viewers who complain or praise everything and who are not regular TV watchers or likely viewers of the shows on which they they are commenting. “We want to target discussions from the audience who are likely watchers of a particular show, because that will give a better indication of how the core target feels.”

Since the Brandimensions’ first report comes out after the new shows are announced during the upfront, when the media agencies buy for the new season, it is hard for them to use that data in their decision-making process. But some media buyers, who did not want to speak for attribution, said this type of data can be used to help them target shows for advertisers during the year in the scatter market.

“The accuracy of this data makes it another tool we can use when determining where our clients’ dollars would be best spent,” one buyer said.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/networktv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003286288

fredfa

10-23-06, 01:50 PM

The Business of TV
Telco Firms May Not See Big Growth In Video
By Daisy Whitney Television Week October 23, 2006

Telecommunications companies such as Verizon and AT&T will snag less than 5 percent of the video market by 2011, according to a new report from JupiterResearch.

Despite their aggressive marketing campaigns and lobbying efforts, the telcos' video offerings will reach only about 5 million homes in five years, the report said.

But they're stuck between a rock and a hard place: With the voice business a mature one-and with cable operators encroaching into that business-telcos have no choice but to get into the video business.

"Since the phone companies are publicly traded companies, they are under pressure to deliver increased earnings. In addition, they are facing competition on the voice front from the cablers themselves," said Todd Chanko, the lead analyst behind the JupiterResearch report.

The report also found that penetration of digital video recorders will reach 34 percent of homes and 54 percent of digital homes by 2011. The good news for cable operators is that the number of homes receiving cable DVR service will grow by 51 percent.

http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=30750

joblo

10-23-06, 02:43 PM

“Studio 60” is as clever and thought provoking as its pilot promised. “Studio 60” regularly tackles provocative issues with sharp dialogue and unexpected plotting.

Its failing is that the storyline seems stalled, held captive by the smart writing and that clever plotting. There's no sense of a direction amid the intensity we see on the screen. That was not an issue with Sorkin's long-running "West Wing." It was about the presidency; it didn't always have to move, just be. "Studio 60" needs to be going somewhere.
This is a good point.

The producers of this show have a very obvious political point of view. That’s fine; it’s a point of view with which I largely agree. But this isn’t West Wing or M*A*S*H, and there’s only so much political commentary you can make in a show about a TV show without looking ridiculous.

Tonight’s episode, which aired last night on CTV, is completely over the top in this respect. While watching it, I couldn’t help thinking these guys are expecting the ax to fall any day, and they just want to get in as many points as they can while they can, even if they have to sacrifice any semblance of credible plot to do it.

fredfa

10-23-06, 02:47 PM

That is sad to hear, joblo.

I keep hoping for the best -- I thought the final scene last week was wonderful....

joblo

10-23-06, 03:31 PM

Well, I didn’t say Studio 60 isn’t still worth watching. I’ve watched every episode so far, and enjoyed it thoroughly, even last night.

But there’s a moment – well, there are lots of moments, actually – but there’s one in particular, late in tonight’s episode, where I think most people, even those not in the industry, or maybe especially those not in the industry, are just going to say, “Oh come on, you’ve got to be kidding!”

And you really have to see it to believe it……

Thing is, if Sorkin wanted to do a show about saving the world, maybe he should have just pitched “Nations” to HBO for real.

fredfa

10-23-06, 03:43 PM

The New Season
Friday Night Lights:
It's 'Hail Mary' time time
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic at his website unclebarky.com Oct. 23, 2006

Fall's best new series -- nipping Heroes by a hair -- is down by three touchdowns in the Nielsen ratings with just a quarter left to play.

NBC's Austin-made Friday Night Lights (Tuesdays at 7 central, 8 eastern) needs to rally in a hurry or have its season suspended. That's a big shame because this is a gem of a drama that shines on two levels. Yes, it's primarily about a West Texas high school football team's impact on a small town without pity for losers. But sports aside, Friday Night Lights also excels as a heartfelt, sometimes heartbreaking look at kids, coaches and their families.

Whether on a practice field or under stadium lights, the football action is the best you'll ever see on a weekly TV series. That's apparently scared a lot of people off. Sports-themed dramas are tough sells, even when a show takes pains to paint larger pictures outside those lines. Watch Friday Night Lights and you'll get a look at the real-deal sights and sounds of an America that's largely been dealt out of prime-time. Authenticity informs every frame of this show, which looks and feel like nothing else this fall. Actually, like nothing else in a long time.

Still, most viewers are looking away and missing out on some terrific characters and compelling storylines. Friday Night Lights is in a black hole of a time slot, facing ABC's Dancing with the Stars, CBS' NCIS and now Game 3 of the World Series this week. NBC plans to give the show a shot on Monday at 9 central next week, where it will sub for the network's flagging Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Realistically, only a significant ratings uptick can save Friday Night Lights from a benching before the Nov. 2 start of the four-week November "sweeps" ratings period.

As has been written before here, let's win one for this Gipper. Let's appreciate the stellar work by Kyle Chandler as first-year Dillon Panthers coach Eric Taylor. Let's get involved in the stories of paralyzed star quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter), his wayward best friend, Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), and poignant backup QB Matt Saracen, whose dad is in Iraq and whose infirm live-in grandma leans heavily on her grandson.

Let's get deeper into what drives the team's star running back, "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles). Let's commiserate with Street's girlfriend, Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly), who so much wants to believe he can walk again. And let's cheer the coach's wife, Tami (Connie Britton), who stands by her man but is no pushover.

OK, pep rally over. Only you can save Friday Night Lights. And you need to start right now. Otherwise game's over.

http://www.unclebarky.com/abovethefold.html

fredfa

10-23-06, 03:45 PM

The Business of TV
EchoStar Faces Cutoff Order:
New Date: December 1st
By Todd Shields Media Week Oct. 23, 2006

EchoStar faces a court order to stop providing so-called distant network signals nationwide by Dec. 1.

The order issued late Friday by a federal judge could affect 800,000 Dish Network customers, Paul Gallant, an analyst for the Stanford Group, said in a research note Monday.

The court order caps a legal battle brought by affiliates alarmed at losing audience as Dish Network viewers turned to signals from New York, Los Angeles and other major cities.

EchoStar had issued no comment by Monday afternoon.

The order was issued by U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas in Florida.

Some affected customers could turn to local-into-local service that provides signals from nearby affiliates to Dish Network customers in more than 160 markets.

But in the 50 smallest markets such service is not available, and customers there would lose out-of-market signals unless EchoStar secures legislation from Congress or wins before a skeptical appeals court, Gallant noted.

Some EchoStar customers may turn to rival DirecTV, to cable operators or to antenna reception.

EchoStar has about 12 million customers.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003286880

timmy1376

10-23-06, 04:07 PM

Hey Fred,
In your opening page, you have in there that Las Vegas was supposed to premier last Friday night, the 20th. Now it shows at the 27th. I woulda swore on our guide on Tivo, it had it for last Friday, then it moved to this Friday. Did they bump it back? I hope they are not thinking about axing it....

fredfa

10-23-06, 04:10 PM

No, I just forgot to update the opening page, timmy. Thanks for noticing.

fredfa

10-23-06, 04:22 PM

Critic’s Notebook
TiNo and Vino; more "Shark," the "work stoppage" ends.

By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog “The Bastard Machine”

I need a secretary.

It is a poorly kept secret in the World O' Goodman that I can't manage my time properly. Neither can I be involved, even a smidge, in working a social calendar. I once triple booked something. That takes talent. I don't return phone calls promptly, if at all. It's a miracle that I show up anywhere I'm supposed to - though I'm never late. (It's kind of an all or nothing thing with me.) Planning ahead - not possible. I can't even entertain the idea. Virtually everything non-work related runs through Mrs. Cranky Pants. And guess what - she doesn't want to be my secretary.

What I can manage to do, apparently to a fault, is juggle my job duties. To do that, I always have to be aware. Translation: Can't be on the golf course. Can't be at the cafe, reading. And so that's probably why, when NBC announced it had slashed through its staff and Jeff Zucker was implementing the Dumbassification of NBC, I saw it on the wire. I got calls from people in the business. Then my boss sent a cryptic message, which I ignored (and he knew I would - he's wonderful at deflecting nonsense from above at the Chronicle, which runs on a gratuitous amount of nonsense from above). But I managed to stay away from doing anything Thursday even though all I could do was think about it. So much for vacation. Then Friday, I wrote the blog piece on NBC, which will be reverse engineered into a column for Monday's Chronicle. Friday - wasted. The only thing that saved it was watching "Battlestar Galactica." Strange, that.

Anyway, given that I had four days of vacation, er, "work stoppage," and two of those were spent at the Chronicle, plus one day ruined (Thursday) wishing I had been anywhere else but in front of my computer, my entire time off consisted of last Monday. Wheee. No, this is not whining (though it may sound suspiciously so), it's just an elaborate prelude to saying that after Friday, I barely turned on the TV.
Hey, anything good on?

Instead, I was opting to TiNo everything, while I tapped into the vino. Perhaps more of that equation as the season unfurls (or unravels, depending). I did notice that CBS gave "Shark" a full season order. And the CW did the same with "The Game" (uh, have they actually watched it?) and "7th Heaven." Not exactly breaking news. But neither was the fact that NBC shot itself in the head again, but I wrote that story anyway.

So, no, I didn't watch much for the Weekend Edition of "Feed the Machine." I did continue reading a book, however. "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence" by Amy Sedaris, who I'm going to interview Monday night for City Arts and Lectures. She's full-on fabulous. If you've read her book and/or love her dearly, feel free to leave a question in the comments section you'd like me to ask her. See? You're more than a secretary. You're hired help. I thank you in advance and for those of you going, I'm looking to stop in at Jardiniere for some bubbly starting about 6 p.m. Say hi. Especially if you have secretarial experience.

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

fredfa

10-23-06, 04:26 PM

Critic’s Notebook
David Milch Returns
HBO testing waters with 'John' pickup
By Nellie Andreeva The Hollywood Reporter October 23, 2006

HBO has given a series order to David Milch's surfing drama "John From Cincinnati."

After reviewing a rough cut of the pilot, the premium cable network picked up 11 episodes of the show, bringing the total order to 12 episodes, including the pilot.

"John" marks Milch's second consecutive series for HBO, following the recently canceled "Deadwood."

"It's a wholly originally piece from a truly original and brilliant talent," HBO Entertainment president Carolyn Strauss said of "John." "We've had a lot of success with David. We believe in him entirely and are extremely excited to be in business with him again."

Set in the world of Southern California surfing, "John" revolves around the dysfunctional Yost family of Imperial Beach and their encounter with contemporary American culture and commerce and other forces.

The Yost clan includes patriarch Mitch (Bruce Greenwood), a former surfing star; his aggressively unhappy wife, Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay); their drug-addicted, dissolute son, Butchie (Brian Van Holt), also a former surfing champ; and his son, Shaun (Greyson Fletcher). They find their lives disrupted by the arrival of the dim but wealthy John (Austin Nichols) from Cincinnati, a savant who has come to take surfing lessons, and Barry Cunningham (Matt Winston), who is returning to Imperial Beach to avenge a wrong done to him by the Yosts 23 years ago.

The cast of the series, from HBO Entertainment and Milch's Red Board Prods., also includes Ed O'Neill and Luis Guzman.

Milch wrote the pilot script for "John" with surfer novelist Kem Nunn.

"John" is set at the intersection of land and water and of two countries, the U.S. and Mexico, Milch said.

"It is at those crossings that drama occurs, and it's not just geographical, it has to do with generations," he said. "Those are people who seem very much lost. Them finding themselves is an engaging process to watch."

Milch plunged into "John" right after wrapping the final season of "Deadwood." While he was sad to see "Deadwood" go, Milch said he feels "delighted" that he will be able to wrap the stories on the dark Western in two movies, which made his transition to "John" much easier.

Milch is executive producing "John" with Mark Tinker, who directed the pilot, "Deadwood" executive producer Gregg Fienberg and Zvi Howard Rosenman.

Nunn, Peter Spears and Scott Stephens are co-executive producing, with longtime surfer Herbie Fletcher and his wife, Dibi, serving as consulting producers along with writer-producer Bill Clark.

In his research for the project, Milch spent a lot of time with the Fletchers, three generations of surfing idols, on whose life the series is loosely based. Herbie and Dibi's grandson, Greyson, plays Yosts' grandson on the show

http://hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3iOSRRySl2HdePTZrznADBSA%3D%3D?imw=Y

fredfa

10-23-06, 05:21 PM

The Business of TV
NBC Lite?
Cost-cutting NBC counting on game shows to revive its fortunes
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News Oct. 23, 2006

How bad are things at NBC?

Well, Jay Leno said on ``The Tonight Show'' late last week that things are so bad, ``our interns are calling Mark Foley, looking for work.'' He also asked guest Howie Mandel, host of ``Deal or No Deal,'' whether as a cost-saving measure that show would start using paper bags instead of its signature metal briefcases .

It was pretty funny stuff -- but what happened last week at NBC Universal, the parent company of NBC, wasn't very amusing if you happened to work there.

The company announced that it is going to cut expenses by $750 million and will lay off 700 people, about 5 percent of its workforce. The slicing and dicing is going to hit hard at NBC's news operations (including the faltering MSNBC), but the cuts apparently also will reshape at least some of what you see in prime time if you happen to watch the network -- which people aren't this season.

The suits at NBC -- most notably Jeff Zucker, CEO of the NBC Universal Television Group -- tried to paint all this as part of an overall industry downturn, sparked in large part by competition from digital and cable media.

As a result, NBC had to put together a plan -- dubbed NBCU 2.0 -- that would cut expenses, consolidate news operations and turn the 8 p.m. ``family hour'' into an all-reality-TV-all-the-time zone that makes Mandel's ``Deal or No Deal'' the network's new flagship show. At the same time, NBC Universal will try to beef up its digital operations.

Essentially, Zucker said: Don't blame us (and certainly don't blame me), because we're fighting changes beyond our control. (The network is up in the ratings only because it spent $600 million a year to snag the rights to ``Sunday Night Football.'')

Here's what ``NBCU 2.0'' will mean to viewers at home:

• NBC will emphasize cheaper reality shows in the 8 o'clock hour, becoming the second network to do so. ABC has built its prime-time lineup on that strategy; its only 8 p.m. scripted show this season is ``Ugly Betty'' on Thursdays. Come next fall, instead of such series as ``Friday Night Lights'' and ``My Name is Earl,'' NBC will be offering game shows that cost half as much to produce.

• You also can rest assured that at least temporarily, NBC will stop paying premium dollars for new shows. It dropped a considerable piece of change this season on ``Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,'' ``Kidnapped'' and ``Lights'' -- all of which have failed or are failing. That doesn't mean you can't find good series that cost less money, but in the TV world as in real life, you get what you pay for.

• As for the news, you'll probably notice the difference only if you watch MSNBC (which may change its format yet again) or the news shows on Telemundo. The cuts will hit hardest there. (NBC actually makes money off its news division because it includes such profit centers as ``The Today Show.'')

For now, this shift in the landscape is limited to NBC. ABC, CBS and Fox aren't in the same situation and somehow have managed so far to survive the evolving TV technologies reasonably well by actually finding series that draw audiences.

Maybe NBC could have tried that approach before declaring that the sky is falling.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/15827017.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

10-23-06, 05:26 PM

Any suggestions from you on how NBC could save some money?

How about only broadcasting the second half of Notre Dame home football games?

Perhaps the NBC HQ should move from expensive 30 Rock over to far less prestigious Seacacus NJ, where MSNBC is (now) ensconced.

And maybe, just maybe, a few of the management team which brought on this disaster could be let go, with the remainder giving back half their salaries until NBC becomes competitive again.

But the sad truth is that Zucker and of the other management folks who got NBC into this in the first place, will probably get bonuses for saving $$$ by firing 700 staffers and getting rid of those pesky and expensive 8 PM prime time programs.

FSugino

10-23-06, 05:53 PM

Any suggestions from you on how NBC could save some money?
Wasn't NBC the network that purchased two of those 103" Panasonic plasma displays to dress up their Sunday Night Football set? That's 2 x $70,000 they could have saved...

SJKurtzke

10-23-06, 06:34 PM

Any suggestions from you on how NBC could save some money?

Ditch Weather Plus?

NBC could also merge with The CW. "CNBC" or "WNBC"----It's like it was destined to happen.
There's also UPNBC

fredfa

10-23-06, 06:39 PM

The Business of TV
Dish Responds to Court Ruling
EchoStar Statement in Response to Florida Court Ruling
(Dish News Release)

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 2006--EchoStar Communications Corporation issued the following statement in response to the injunction issued on Friday by a U.S. district court in Miami:

"Over the nine year course of the litigation, EchoStar was able to reach settlements with seven of the eight plaintiffs, representing approximately 90 percent of all television network stations in the United States. We are disappointed the judge concluded that given the statutory language he was required to ignore those settlements and impose the injunction.

EchoStar will continue to do everything possible to prevent consumers from losing their distant network channels. We will ask Congress to clarify the statutory language, and ask the courts to re-consider their decision. In addition, we are taking numerous steps to protect our customers from unnecessarily losing access to those channels.

EchoStar has over 12.46 million subscribers, less than one million of whom subscribe to distant network channels. Federal law prohibits all satellite and cable companies from providing these channels to consumers except in very limited circumstances. EchoStar currently offers local ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox channels by satellite in 170 markets, serving over 96 percent of the U.S. population. These local networks are not part of the court injunction; therefore, a majority of our distant network customers will be able to watch their local network channels without interruption. In the limited areas where local channels are not available by satellite, we also intend to protect our customers by providing free off-air antennas and other alternatives.

Distant network channels are ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox broadcast channels that originate from a market outside the community in which a subscriber lives. The ruling does not involve, and there is no danger, that DISH Network customers will lose their local ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox network channels, or any of the other great programming available from EchoStar's DISH Network."

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=68854&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=920017&highlight=

fredfa

10-23-06, 06:44 PM

The Business of TV
Dish Responds to Court Ruling
Say What?

So in its statement, Dish says it will attempt to help customers who could be hit with the DNS shutdown by “….by providing free off-air antennas and other alternatives….”

Hello, Mr. Ergen. Were’n’t consumers only supposed to be eligible for DNS iif they COULDN'T get OTA reception? So what good will antennas do them?

Perhaps the same folks who have orchestrated DirecTV's HD-Lite statements are the ones who have figured out this genius plan for Dish.

shuttermaker

10-23-06, 06:45 PM

How about if they dump one or more of those "Law and Order" shows? Yeah, ill say it AGAIN, bring back "Surface".

JMCecil

10-23-06, 06:51 PM

This is in response to both the NBC issue and the above EchoStar issue. When will the networks realize that until they provide the programming WHEN the consumer wants it and in the FORMAT the users wants it, they will NOT watch it?

The easier it gets to "view on demand" the less people will show up on the network stats. Local stations need to adapt.

Maybe one day they will accept the new world instead of being forced into it. This idea that my community can only be supported by local broadcast stations is rediculous and soooooooooooooo 1890s. Commercial income for local stations needs to be revamped. The newspapers are dieing because they refuse to adapt to the new world. A local paper is not a local paper if the only local thing in it are advertisements. TV is no different.

The short sighted decisions by the legal system and the government to support an anachronism while promoting new technology(HD TV) is par for the course.

Davinleeds

10-23-06, 06:59 PM

National Assoc of Broadcasters /lobbyists.

fredfa

10-23-06, 07:14 PM

How about if they dump one or more of those "Law and Order" shows? Yeah, ill say it AGAIN, bring back "Surface".

Parhaps because last week three of the five top scripted hours on NBC were "Law & Order" shows?

(And if the orginal L&O weren't buried at 10 PM Friday, the numbers might be even more impresive.)

The only new NBC shows (aside from SNF) beating any of the L&Os is "Heroes".

Perhaps we should be surprised Zucker doesn't order Reilly to play "Deal or No Deal" Tu-W-F at 8, ("Heroes" can stay on Monday, "Earl" and "The Office" Thursday), followed by "1 vs 100" M-F at nine, with L&Os M-W at 10, then ER Thursday and another L&O Friday.

Saturday they could just repeat those dramas. Sunday (after football ends) "Deal or No Deal", "Medium", "Las Vegas" and Dateline.

That would be cheap -- and probably, sadly, would do better that NBC is doing now.

shuttermaker

10-23-06, 07:17 PM

Parhaps because last week three of the five top scripted hours on NBC were "Law & Order" shows?

(And if the orginal L&O weren't buried at 10 PM Friday, the numbers might be even more impresive.)

The only new NBC shows (aside from DNF) beating any of the L&Os is "Heroes".

Perhaps we should be surprised Zucker doesn't order Reilly to play "Deal or No Deal" Tu-W-F at 8, ("Heroes" can stay on Monday, "Earl" and "The Office" Thursday), followed by "1 vs 100" M-F at nine, with L&Os M-W at 10, then ER Thursday and another L&O Friday.

Saturday they could just repeat those dramas. Sunday (after football) "Deal or No Deal", "Medium", "Las Vegas" and Dateline.

That would be cheap -- and probably, sadly, would do better that NBC is doing now.

I knew they were some of NBCs best rated shows. I just dont like/watch them.

fredfa

10-23-06, 07:18 PM

The New Season
NBC’s Reilly Sees Signs of '83 in Ratings
Fortunes of New Series Seem to Portend Success
By James Hibberd Television Week October 23, 2006

Looking at the first four weeks of the fall season, NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly says he's reminded of the last time his network was on the verge of a major ratings comeback.

During the 1982-83 season, NBC's freshman shows were critically praised underperformers like "Cheers," "Family Ties," "St. Elsewhere" and "Remington Steele." The network decided to keep the titles, then added populist midseason replacements "The A-Team" and "Mama's Family." The next year the entire schedule rebounded, with the critical favorites becoming hits as well.

This fall, NBC once again has underperforming critic's picks: "Friday Night Lights" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." And Mr. Reilly has at least one populist breakout: "Heroes," the top-rated new drama of the season.

Now he has to see if he can generate enough sparks for the whole network to catch fire.

"We put one more `Heroes' into the mix," Mr. Reilly said, "and the whole equation can change."

The network's lineup so far has given NBC a 15 percent season-to-date bump compared with last season among adults 18 to 49-a success that's been overshadowed in the wake of 700 NBC Universal layoffs announced last week.

With rising production costs and networks increasingly creating lavish theatrical-style dramas amid a stingy ad market, such gains can seem like mountain climbing up an avalanche.

As programming chief for a network long overdue for some good news, Mr. Reilly is focused on pressing ratings upward. Thus far this fall he has done just that, though in unexpected ways.

The massively promoted and anticipated "Studio 60" has been a middling performer in its Monday 10 p.m. slot, and last week dropped to its lowest rating yet, a 3.1 18 to 49 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research. Fellow "SNL" parody "30 Rock" is dropping like, well, a rock, from a 2.9 to a 2.3 last Wednesday at 8 p.m.

"Heroes" has swooped out of nowhere on the same night to grab a 5.7.

The critically beloved "Friday Night Lights" is struggling, earning a 2.7 last Tuesday at 8 p.m. But new game show "1 vs. 100" built on its "Deal or No Deal" lead-in to win Friday night with a 4.2. NBC is holding its breath to see if viewers return for the second week.

"That's the nature of the game," Mr. Reilly said. "There are shows on the air that are literally making networks that they thought were their last-place show."

Meanwhile veteran 10 p.m. medical drama "ER" is suddenly a ratings driver again now that ABC's medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" is in the 9 p.m. hour and CBS's "Without a Trace" has been moved out of Thursday competition to Sunday.

John Rash, senior VP of ad buying agency Campbell Mithun, said "Studio 60" and "Friday" are unlikely to dramatically improve, but that NBC should continue to bank on quality dramas.

"By programming multiple genres and sub-genres-meaning reality and game shows, comedies and dramas-NBC has stabilized and begun to grow again," Mr. Rash said. "The poor performance of `Studio 60' and `Friday Night Lights' shouldn't discourage the network from still trying well written and well-produced dramas."

Last week, the industry also took notice of NBC Universal Television Group CEO Jeff Zucker's proclamation that NBC will no longer program comedy and drama at 8 p.m., due to dwindling ad rates.

Mr. Reilly said the 8 p.m. rule is not going to be a light-switch change and that counter-programming will still have to be considered.

"There are times strategically it's not going to make sense," Mr. Reilly said, having noted that putting reality against the likes of "Dancing With the Stars" would not be a viable tactic. "But we're going to try and play to that target. This time next year will we be still doing the likes of `Studio 60' and `Heroes'? Absolutely."

As for "Friday," "30 Rock" and "Studio 60," Mr. Reilly said he's frustrated they're not getting a larger audience, but is proud to have the shows on the air. Mr. Reilly has put "Friday" into "Studio 60's" Monday 10 p.m. time slot this week.

"`Friday' and `30' couldn't be in worse time periods, self-starting at 8 p.m.," he said. "For `Studio 60,' expectations were way out of line, yet I know we've hit an audience that absolutely loves it, and with that kind of talent you can't count it out."

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10936

fredfa

10-23-06, 07:32 PM

(I usually refrain from posting casting routine news, but since Rita has won at least one Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony, I’ll make an exception this time.)
The New Season
Rita Moreno has signed on for a recurring role on NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."
By Kimberly Nordyke The Hollywood Reporter October 23, 2006

Moreno will portray the mother of Vincent D'Onofrio's character, Detective Robert Goren, in at least three episodes of the series, from Dick Wolf's Wolf Films and NBC Universal Television Studio.

Moreno won a supporting actress Oscar and Golden Globe in 1962 for her role as Anita in "West Side Story." She also has won two Emmys, in 1977 for an appearance on "The Muppet Show" and in 1978 for a role on "The Rockford Files."

The actress, who also is a Tony and Grammy winner, also appeared in two other "Law & Order" series: "SVU" and "Trial by Jury." Her credits include roles on HBO's "Oz," Lifetime's "Strong Medicine" and CBS' "The Guardian."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3iOSRRySl2HdebBJ0gYkuAKQ%3D%3D

fredfa

10-23-06, 08:32 PM

(I neglected to post this earlier today. Sorry. The NYT claims she was born in 1911, other sources say 1910, so take your pick.)
The New York Times Obituary
Jane Wyatt, 95
Mother on ‘Father Knows Best”
By Robert Berkvist The New York Times October 23, 2006

Jane Wyatt, who reigned as America’s ideal suburban mom during the 1950’s when she starred with Robert Young in the television sitcom “Father Knows Best” and who nearly lured Ronald Colman away from diplomacy and into a lamasery in Frank Capra’s 1937 film “Lost Horizon,” died on Friday at her home in Bel Air, Calif. She was 95.

Her death was confirmed by her publicist Meg McDonald, The Associated Press reported.

A petite, attractive brunette, Ms. Wyatt found it hard to avoid being typecast and wound up playing quite a few of what she described as “good wives of good men,” though she confessed she would have been happier “playing the murderer or the heavy.” She did get to play a few offbeat roles on stage and screen. In Philip Barry’s wryly titled play “The Joyous Season” (1934), she was a moody member of a family seething with petty feuds. As the wife of an attorney (Dana Andrews) in the 1947 film “Boomerang,” she became embroiled in the corruption surrounding a notorious murder. And in Lillian Hellman’s “Autumn Garden,” on Broadway in 1951, she was married to an indolent drifter (Fredric March) for whom she felt nothing but contempt.

For the most part, however, as she shuttled between Hollywood and Broadway, she was called upon to be loyal, loving and courageous. In “None but the Lonely Heart,” a 1944 film starring Cary Grant and Ethel Barrymore, she was an adoring musician who pined for an indifferent Grant. She was cast as a courageous nurse in “Canadian Pacific” (1949); as the faithful, supportive wife of a naval airman (Gary Cooper) in “Task Force” (1949); and as a happily married (to David Wayne) mother of five in “My Blue Heaven” (1950).

Her Broadway credits included “Night Music” (1940), by Clifford Odets, a Group Theater production directed by Harold Clurman, in which she played a young woman who finds the love of her life in New York; and “Hope for the Best” (1945), by William McCleery, with Ms. Wyatt as a factory worker who helps a popular columnist (Franchot Tone) see the light of liberalism.

Jane Waddington Wyatt was born on Aug. 12, 1911, in Campgaw, N.J., into a family of distinguished lineage and grew up in New York City. Her father was an investment banker, her mother a writer for Commonweal and other publications. She attended the Chapin School and studied at Barnard College for two years before joining the apprentice school at the Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge, Mass. Back in New York she found work as an understudy in a Broadway show, and her name was removed from the New York Social Register. Clearly, the wicked stage was no place for proper young ladies.

Not daunted, she continued to audition and soon made her Broadway debut in 1931 in A. A. Milne’s “Give Me Yesterday,” as the daughter of an ambitious British politician (Louis Calhern). She achieved a breakthrough of sorts in 1933 when she succeeded Margaret Sullavan in “Dinner at Eight,” the hit comedy by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, and then toured in the show, leading to a contract offer from Universal and her Hollywood debut in “One More River” (1934), based on John Galsworthy’s last novel.

Ms. Wyatt said at one point that her favorite film role had been in “Task Force,” opposite Gary Cooper, but she is probably best remembered for her work in “Lost Horizon,” based on the novel by James Hilton and directed by Frank Capra. Most of the film’s action takes place in Tibet in a fabled region called Shangri-La, ruled by an ancient High Lama. A plane crash brings a small group of Westerners led by a British diplomat Bob Conway (Ronald Colman) to the lamasery. There, Colman meets and is entranced by Sondra (Ms. Wyatt), an attractive young woman who has grown up in Shangri-La. The High Lama is looking for a successor, Sondra is looking for love, and the Colman character must choose whether to stay or return to the war-torn world beyond the mountains. Critics agreed that Ms. Wyatt was luminous in the role.

Ms. Wyatt had already made a number of appearances in television dramas before she joined the cast of “Father Knows Best” in 1954. The show followed the lives of the Anderson family in the Midwestern town of Springfield, with Robert Young as Jim Anderson, Ms. Wyatt as his wife, Margaret, and their three children, two of them teenagers. Family crises arose — a son’s first dance, a daughter’s first crush — and were firmly but lovingly resolved. When CBS dropped the show in 1955 there were so many protests from viewers that NBC was persuaded to pick it up. “Father Knows Best” returned to CBS for the 1959-1960 season, its final run of new episodes. The show brought Ms. Wyatt three Emmy Awards. In 1977 she returned to the role, this time as a grandmother, in two made-for-television movies, “The Father Knows Best Reunion” and “Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas.”

Ms. Wyatt married Edgar Bethune Ward in 1935. He died in 2000. She is survived by their two sons, Christopher Ward of Piedmont, Calif., and Michael Ward of Los Angeles; three grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

One of her more offbeat television parts was that of Amanda, the human mother of Mr. Spock, the pointy-eared Vulcan member of the “Star Trek” crew of space voyagers in the late 1960’s. She reprised the role in the 1986 film, “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/arts/23wyatt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=television&pagewanted=print

mike_somd

10-23-06, 08:40 PM

what can NBC do to make itself more profitable?

Get rid of highly paid executives or give them paycuts and only performance based bonuses ie. ratings based

Take risks and not just order another Law & Order series or game show.

Not spend x hundred million dollars on SNF?

DO NOT move Battlestar Galactica to NBC

JMCecil

10-23-06, 09:49 PM

what can NBC do to make itself more profitable?
Get rid of highly paid executives or give them paycuts and only performance based bonuses ie. ratings based agreed, but it won't happen.

Take risks and not just order another Law & Order series or game show.
Again, agreed.........but CLEARLY we will get more L&O and game shows and very little in the way of new series.

Not spend x hundred million dollars on SNF?
Now, I have to disagree with this. Although their coverage is bush league at best, the ratings have made this the best move they have made in ages. I can't stomach their studio folks or the horrible announcing, crappy picture, sideline reporting while plays are going on, coming back late from commercials to find a play in progress, etc...etc... NBC should decide to be a professional network again before they complain about people not watching their shows.

DO NOT move Battlestar Galactica to NBC
LOL, that would kill it for sure.

I find it very ironic that Reilly sees similarities to 83. The thing that got them on track IS STICKING WITH GOOD SHOWS AND WAITING FOR THE AUDIENCE. If you cancel everything you won't have any shows left over next season to carry any audience with it. Mr. Reilly, if you only carry two shows over to next season IT ISN'T ANYTHING LIKE 1983.

I liked all of the Alien invasionish shows from last season that are all cancelled. They were all pretty good in their own way. In my mind the networks need to learn how to budget shows for the 5-8 million viewer range and give the shows some time to grow.

Also, things like the above mentioned sci-fi try from last season were seen as a flop for sci-fi on Networks. However, I'm inclined to think that the audience for those shows may not be your sit in front of the TV types. I know I don't watch network TV during the broadcasts ever. It's been maybe 3 or 4 years other than sports, concerts, PPV.

Maybe NBC should take a chance and target a HUGE demographic that doesn't fit the Neilson household model. Embrace the net, peddle sci-fi and gadget spy shows. But do it at network standards. And ABOVE ALL, really learn from 1983 and give it a chance.......

mike_somd

10-24-06, 12:53 AM

Now, I have to disagree with this. Although their coverage is bush league at best, the ratings have made this the best move they have made in ages. I can't stomach their studio folks or the horrible announcing, crappy picture, sideline reporting while plays are going on, coming back late from commercials to find a play in progress, etc...etc... NBC should decide to be a professional network again before they complain about people not watching their shows.

What I meant here is sure football gets them good ratings, but is it truly worth hundreds of millions of dollars? Thats alot of money and could buy quite a few well written and well produced shows. That would be a better use for the alotted budgeted so they don't lose money like they are blind and clueless.

RussB

10-24-06, 02:06 AM

fredfa

10-24-06, 02:55 AM

DNF?
Did you mean SNF?

Yes

fredfa

10-24-06, 03:00 AM

The TV Column
The Farrellys Get 'Stupid'
By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 24, 2006; C07

LOS ANGELES--Just days after hot TV producer Ben Silverman tells a TV industry function that political correctness is anathema to realistic television, he turns up in the trades with the Farrelly brothers, the go-to guys for politically incorrect flicks -- "Stuck on You," "Dumb & Dumber," "Shallow Hal," you get the drift -- to announce NBC's given them the thumbs-up to adapt a Britcom about a wheelchair-bound guy who takes in a homeless man.

Only one trade paper says "I'm With Stupid" is about an "unlucky guy" who becomes friends with "a man who uses a wheelchair" and moves into his home for the disabled.

Another trade goes out on a limb and says it's about a "down and out" guy who befriends the wheelchair-bound young man and winds up moving into his group home for the disabled.

The BBC, on its Web site, says "I'm With Stupid" is about a "wheelchair user" and a "homeless man" -- a "contemporary Odd Couple-style comedy," inspired by 21-year-old up-and-coming writer Peter Keeley. He has cerebral palsy, has been in a wheelchair from an early age and is a consultant on its version, and more than half the cast members are registered disabled, the BBC says.

The U.S. remaking team is a match made in heaven. The Farrelly name is attached to some of the most politically incorrect films of recent times, including "Shallow Hal," starring Jack Black as a guy stuck on a 300-pound chick he thinks looks like Gwyneth Paltrow because he's been hypnotized, and "Stuck on You," starring Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon as conjoined twins (they share a liver) who leave their fast-food jobs on Martha's Vineyard for Los Angeles to pursue one brother's dreams of becoming an actor, and sight-gag hilarity ensues. "Dumb & Dumber" we can't even talk about without breaking into hives.

Silverman, meanwhile, is usually introduced these days as the guy who produces tony adaptations of foreign TV hits "The Office" and "Ugly Betty." But in truth, he also has produced a mess of reality series, including uplifting ones (NBC's weight-loss competition "Biggest Loser" and FX's walk-a-mile-in-somebody-else's-shoes docu-series "30 Days") but also drinking-from-the-toilet-bowl-disgusting ones ("The Restaurant," "25 Million Dollar Hoax," "Celebrity Cooking Showdown").

Which it's best not to dwell on when sitting in the rooftop garden at the Museum of Television & Radio in Beverly Hills at dusk, nibbling prosciutto and listening to Silverman talk about how at his company, Reveille, "we try to do good and send strong messages."

Television, he said, addressing a gathering he acknowledged comprised almost entirely friends and colleagues, "is an unbelievable medium for influencing people and creating conversations."

To that end, he gave himself a well-deserved pat on the back for insisting ABC cast Hispanic actress America Ferrera in his adaptation of "Ugly Betty." He says he even brought Salma Hayek on board as an exec producer so she could champion Ferrera.

On the other hand, he warned, political correctness can kill good television.

"If you're always casting cops with minorities and criminals with the majority, that doesn't play in the reality of the real world," he said.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Tomorrow, Madonna takes her case for adopting a motherless boy from Malawi to the Court of Oprah.

The pop diva is scheduled to tape the interview today for broadcast tomorrow on Oprah Winfrey's syndicated show. It will be Madonna's first TV interview about the adoption controversy, Winfrey's Harpo Productions says.

Madonna woke up in a public relations nightmare recently when the father of the 13-month-old boy she's trying to adopt from an orphanage stopped telling detractors to knock it off and started saying he was tricked into signing the adoption papers.

Yohane Banda, who is illiterate, told Reuters TV over the weekend he did not intend for Madonna to actually adopt his son, David -- just take him back with her to educate and raise and then send him home. He said senior government officials did not tell him the truth about the papers he was signing.

"It would have been better for [David] to continue staying at the orphanage because I see no reason why my child should be given away forever when I can feed him," Reuters quoted Banda as saying from his village of Lipunga near the Zambia border.

The director of child welfare in the Ministry of Women and Child Development of Malawi, Penson Kilembe, told Reuters the ministry had explained every detail of the process to Banda and his family.

Madonna spent nine days in Malawi on what her reps called a humanitarian visit to help the south African country's orphans. By the time she left, she'd whipped up a storm of controversy over plans to adopt one of them, David, who was flown to London last week to join her. Malawian child rights groups argue Malawi law forbids international adoption and have have challenged the interim adoption order in court.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301106_pf.html

fredfa

10-24-06, 03:11 AM

The New Season
On TV as in Hollywood, Little Breathing Room for the Modest Success
By Edward Wyatt The New York Times October 23, 2006

LOS ANGELES— Few new television shows had as much going for them this fall as “Smith,” a CBS series about a career thief out for one last big score before he retires.

In most seasons, “Smith” would be considered a hit. Even after drawing mixed reviews from critics, its debut attracted 11 million viewers, and the first three episodes attracted an average audience of more than 9 million.

Then, like a thief in the night, “Smith” suddenly disappeared, pulled from the schedule by CBS after just three weeks — despite the fact that the producers had already shot or were well on their way to completing four more episodes.

The quick cancellation of “Smith” elucidates how television, like the movie industry, has become a business where there is little room for the modest success. Network executives might talk endlessly about how, in an era where the attention of audiences is ever more scattered, new shows need time to find themselves. But those same executives are often quick to pull the plug on an expensive production that does not immediately perform to expectations.

Combined with NBC’s announcement last week of plans to cut back on expensive programming, the experience of “Smith” demonstrates how the recent trend in television — costly serializations with large casts and complex plots — changes the basic rules of engagement for networks. Viewers cannot easily dip in and out of these kinds of shows, as they can with a half-hour situation comedy or game show. So networks have to make decisions on more expensive, more complex series based on very small samples — a few episodes, typically — to predict whether viewers will commit to an entire season, as they have for similar shows like “Lost” or “24.”

The calculation is perilous as well for the television studios, like Warner Brothers, which is experiencing a tough season. In addition to canceling “Smith,” CBS pulled out of another planned Warner Brothers series, “Waterfront.” Several other Warner series are also on the ropes, including “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” which is broadcast on NBC; “The Nine” on ABC and “The Class” on CBS.

Among the new fall shows, “Smith” had one of the best pedigrees. The series starred two accomplished actors, Ray Liotta, an Emmy winner, and Virginia Madsen, an Oscar nominee, as the thief and his unsuspecting wife. The show was the product of John Wells, one of the most prolific and successful television producers of current times, who had a hand in the building of the hit shows “ER,” “Third Watch” and, along with Aaron Sorkin, “The West Wing.”

The first episode of “Smith” cost $7 million, roughly double the usual cost of a television premiere. CBS executives were so enthusiastic about the results that they agreed to let the first episode run nearly a third longer than most hour-long dramas; to accommodate the extra length, they recruited a single sponsor — the Warner Brothers film “The Departed” — and ran the show with limited commercials.

Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment, said that “Smith” was not the victim of networks looking for quicker results. At a panel discussion here last week that featured the heads of all the major television networks, she said that at CBS the emphasis is on giving new shows the time and attention they need.

“One of the things we do very well is continue to work and develop a show well into its first year and second year,” Ms. Tassler said. She cited the network’s experience with “Criminal Minds,” which grew from a modest opening last year to last week attracting more viewers than ABC’s “Lost.”

When asked in an interview how those comments meshed with the network’s quick retreat on “Smith,” Ms. Tassler said the problems came from the show’s confusing story line. In addition, she said, “Smith” was keeping a shrinking portion of the audience of the two hit shows that preceded it on Tuesday nights, “The Unit” and “NCIS.”

“When you launch a new show, you certainly want it to retain a certain percentage of its lead-in,” she said. “You also want it to build in the second half hour, and we really weren’t doing that with ‘Smith.’ ”

In its first week, 11 million, or 93 percent, of the 11.8 million viewers of “The Unit” stuck around for the first episode of “Smith.” In the second week, that percentage fell to 81 percent, then plummeted to 63 percent in the third week.

Not only was “Smith” keeping less of its lead-in audience, but a shrinking portion of the previous week’s viewers returned each week to see the next installment of “Smith.” And the number of viewers also fell consistently from the first half hour to the second.

Still, those results were not so different from the experience of several other new shows this fall — most of which are still on the air. “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” has seen its ratings and viewers fall each week, from 13.4 million viewers for its first episode to 8.6 million for its fourth. “Vanished,” on Fox, “Kidnapped,” on NBC, “Brothers & Sisters,” on ABC, and “Jericho,” on CBS have all seen their audiences fall from week to week. But they are still on the air.

The problem with “Smith,” Ms. Tassler said, is that CBS executives did not believe it was going to get any better.

“We have a unique vantage point at the network,” she said. “I’ve seen cuts and read scripts for the next four to five episodes, so I could see where we’re headed creatively. And we weren’t 100 percent happy with what we were looking at.”

Specifically, she said, the show’s scripts were becoming harder to follow. “You have to have clarity in the story-telling,” she said. “Confusion kills. I think it was particularly challenged in that area.”

Neither Mr. Wells nor executives at Warner Brothers Television would agree to be interviewed for this story.

Despite cutting the series from its schedule after three weeks, CBS had a commitment to buy several more episodes, which Warner Brothers had spent handily to produce — well over $2.5 million a show, according to people close to the production.

Unlike most television series, which are filmed on studio lots in Los Angeles to help contain costs, “Smith” shot large segments of its debut episode on location — in Hawaii and Pittsburgh, for example — and made ample use of collisions, explosions and other special effects. “It was a gorgeous show,” Ms. Tassler said. “It looked beautiful. But an audience sits at home and they don’t watch a show influenced by how much it costs. It’s not a factor in why they become a fan of the show.”

Ms. Tassler said CBS was planning to put the already filmed episodes of “Smith” on its Internet site for viewing and to post synopses of the plans for the full season of shows.

From a financial standpoint, however, it might be hard to argue with CBS’s decision to can “Smith.” The week after the show was cancelled, the “CSI” re-run that replaced it drew more than 10 million viewers, 20 percent more viewers than the last episode of “Smith” and a far higher percentage of the lead-in audience from “The Unit.”

But with an average of nine million fans having tuned in, inevitably there were many disappointed viewers who went looking for the fourth episode of “Smith,” only to find yet another episode of “CSI.” Some of them took to Internet bulletin boards to express their outrage, like a viewer named Matthew on the Web site www.TVSeriesFinale.com.

“I just want to say how much of a relief it was to sit down and watch a show like ‘Smith’ without having to hear any medical mumble jumbo,” he wrote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/business/media/23smith.html?ref=media&pagewanted=print

fredfa

10-24-06, 10:07 AM

The New Season
Chandler isn't giving up the 'Friday Night' game
By William Keck USA Today Oct. 24, 2006

LOS ANGELES — In the pilot episode of NBC's Friday Night Lights, a retired coach of a winning high school football team warns his young replacement: "With expectations like this, the only place you can go is down. That's the problem with being this good."

It is a line of dialogue that has proved haunting to the show's star, Kyle Chandler, who plays that inexperienced coach.

After celebrating across-the-board positive reviews, Chandler has had to fight to keep up his spirits in the face of disappointing ratings. Although the show's numbers were up last week — 6.6 million viewers from 5.9 million the week before — it still got brutally tackled by CBS' NCIS (15.9 million) and ABC's Dancing With the Stars (21.3 million). Lights' fourth episode (of nine filmed so far) airs tonight (8 ET/PT).

Chandler, using a football metaphor, is hopeful. "I know we got a damn good team and can make it through the season," he says in a native Georgian drawl that has become more pronounced while shooting Lights in Austin. "We're slowly moving the ball down the field. That's why I'll do anything to keep this show on the air."

Chandler, over breakfast after spending a rare night with his L.A.-based family, says that if ratings rise enough, he'll relocate wife Katherine and daughters Sydney, 10, and Sawyer, 5, to a house in Austin, where he now shares an apartment with some exotic fish.

This morning, with his scruffy hair, unshaven face and solid 6-foot-1 frame, there is no trace of the roly-poly 5-foot-5, 125-pound kid who once played football at George Walton Academy in Monroe, Ga. But he still displays a hint of the boyish all-American actor audiences first came to know on the short-lived, early '90s war dramas Tour of Duty and Homefront. Then, from 1996 to 2000, he enjoyed a run as the star of Early Edition, playing a do-gooder who righted wrongs after an orange cat delivered him an advance copy of the newspaper. Last season, he took an Emmy-nominated guest turn on Grey's Anatomy as an ill-fated explosives expert.

His experiences are paying off. At 41, he is now comfortable playing the mature role of a team leader, both on and off screen.

Last week, he gathered together his cast of mostly unknown young men at co-star Connie Britton's apartment for a much-needed script read-through/pep talk. But like a real coach, Chandler was proud when young Zach Gilford, who plays the show's struggling quarterback, spoke up first. Recalls Chandler, "He said, 'It doesn't matter what we're up against, we just do what we do and not worry about what we can't control.' "

What they can't control is Dancing With the Stars, the reality competition powerhouse that inspires Chandler to connect to a line of dialogue his character spoke in last week's episode: "We oughta be beating these bums by 40 points!"

He believes the 8 o'clock hour — when dinner is being served — is more suited to an easy-to-digest show like Dancing, as opposed to Lights, a drama focusing on a financially strapped community, a quadriplegic athlete, racism and a grandmother with dementia. A switch to 9 p.m., he says, might be "more appropriate."

NBC seemingly agrees.

Next week, Lights will get a special tryout Monday at 10 p.m. (ET/PT) after NBC's biggest new hit, Heroes, in the time slot normally filled by the declining Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The same Lights episode will air the next day in its regular slot.

Last week, the network announced plans to fill the 8 to 9 p.m. hours entirely with less costly reality and competition shows. If Lights survives beyond November sweeps, it will likely be moved.

NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly says: "We plan to stick with Friday Night Lights. I know we're striking a chord with the viewers who have found it."

Says Chandler: "Everyone's rooting for us, and things are changing."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-23-friday-night-lights_x.htm

fredfa

10-24-06, 10:21 AM

The Digital Revolution
Retailers Primed For Black Friday Flat TV Push
By Greg Tarr This Week In Consumer Electronics (TWICE) Oct. 23, 2006

NEW YORK — America's love affair with flat-panel TV displays is predicted to intensify significantly this holiday season as retailers look to promote new aggressive price points starting on Black Friday, while setting the tone for next year's everyday pricing models, vendors, analysts and retailers told TWICE.

Mike Vitelli, Best Buy's senior VP for CE and product management, predicted in a recent conference call that average selling prices for flat-panel TVs will be down 25 percent to 30 percent year-over-year this holiday season. The declines, he said, bode well for Best Buy.

“The price drops will drive tremendous unit volume,” he noted. “More consumers will be entering the flat-panel space, and others will be trading up to the larger sizes that are now available. They can now buy a larger-size, 1,080p TV for the same price they would have paid for a smaller model last year.”

Best Buy hopes that mass market adoption of flat panels will also lead to increased labor attachment rates, and has beefed up its Magnolia home installation service offering accordingly.

This year's Black Friday promotions are expected to focus on LCD and plasma TVs, with emphasis on the former (see box.)

“These are lowest advertised prices for no-name brands,” explained Steve Kovsky, Current Analysis digital TV and displays principal analyst.

“We're expecting digital TVs to play a very important role in Black Friday promotions this year, not just for traditional CE players, but for retailers in other categories hoping to cash in on DTV's cachet,” Kovksy said. “For example, in the recent past, we've seen flat-panel TVs promoted by retailers such as Home Depot, Kohl's department stores, and even Pep Boys Auto Parts stores.”

Tamaryn Pratt, principal analyst for Quixel Market Research, predicted that, as in the past, national electronics retailers and warehouse clubs will continue to dominate the distribution of opening price point flat-panel sets during the holidays.

“However, the mass merchants and alternative channels, like grocery/mass merchant and even large gas stations will get into the action in strong way this holiday season,” she said, echoing Kovsky's predictions. “The mass merchants have been testing products successfully all year long and many of their customers are now finding flat TVs that are affordable. The grocery and discounters will push tier two and three branded flat TV in screen sizes from 15- to 42W-inches in some cases. Lately we've seen LCD TVs at TJ Maxx, Tuesday Morning and Big Lots.”

Pratt offered some additional opening price points slated to appear on shelves the day after Thanksgiving.

“We are expecting a few of the opening price point brands to offer 42W-inch HD at $999, while 50W-inch PDP could get close to $1,599,” she said. “Top tier 42W-inch HD PDP will probably average around $1,699-$1,799 and 50W-inch HD PDP could average about $2,499 or less,” she said.

“There are great values at 60W-inch PDP from top tier brands (one and two), which will range from $4,499 to $4,999. Thirty-two-inch LCD TV, which will be one of the long-term key sizes for the category, will be $699 from the opening price point players but stay as high as $1,299. There will be a big swing,” Pratt predicts.

In electronics-focused retail stores, Ross Young, president of DisplaySearch, forecast key holiday pricing to hit $799 for 32W-inch LCD TV, $999 for 37W-inch LCD TV and $1,499 for 42W-inch LCD TV.

“Those prices are already available in the warehouse clubs” and will migrate over the other channels for the Holiday crunch, Young pointed out.

Young said other rumored Black Friday price points include “a 50W-inch PDP from a major brand which may be priced at $1,999 at national retailers.”

The market forecaster also called for a 42W-inch ED plasma price of $999 and 42W-inch HD plasma as low as $1,199. Meanwhile, “37W-inch LCD TV can get to as low as $799 with 32W-inch as low as $625,” at national retailers, DisplaySearch said.

To remain competitive, top-tier brands this year have worked to offer “similar products (but not the same) to national electronics retailers, warehouse clubs and mass merchants. This way they can be a bit more nimble in the price competition with the opening price point products,” Pratt said.

At the same time, retail chains offering their own private label flat-panel models have continued to do well, Pratt said, but second and third tier brands continue to be the price point leaders, and market share leaders among entry product.

“Most large retailers are able to sell their private-label products but we have found [new opening price point brands] to be a skyrocketing segment. In some quarters, the second- and third- tier players have outsold all their competition at specific screen sizes,” she said. “It appears that many of the third-tier players just cycle through. A new one always pops up and sometimes with the same managers.”

Meanwhile, the story for step-up products this fall has centered on “Full HD” 1,080p resolution.

“The top manufacturers are really pushing the 1,080p issue on several fronts, like LCD TV, micro display rear-projection TV, HD DVD/Blu-ray and the new Xbox 360,” said Pratt. “Many video experts have demonstrated that under 50W-inch, consumers can see very little difference between the two resolutions but the marketplace has decided that 1,080p is the future and we will probably see even smaller sized LCD TVs promoted in 1,080p next year.

“It is a great story for the manufacturers that can offer affordable big screen micro-display rear-projection at 1,080p, as well as LCD TV 1,080p that is more expensive at the same screen sizes.”

She said the retailers and manufacturers should enjoy healthy profit margins from 1,080p this year, but price compression will follow quickly.

“By mid next year enough 1,080p opening price point LCD TVs will be available that we'll see the delta shrink dramatically, which is similar to what we are seeing this year with the MD manufacturers.”

In the battle between the flat-panel formats leading into the holidays, LCD TV has made significant inroads into plasma's core 42W-inch screen size segment this year.

“Pricing on 42W-inch HD LCD TV has been killing 42W-inch plasma,” noted Daniel Sparrow, a marketing consultant to the Chinese Hisense brand, and chief technology officer for Titan Global Commerce, which markets the high-end Epoq TV brand. “LCD pricing keeps getting lower but the production costs on plasma won't allow it to keep step.”

As for EDTV-level plasma models, Quixel's Pratt said “this holiday season will be the last hurrah” for the category. “Most manufacturers have stopped producing the product and are just selling off what they have. I think we'll see the same situation happening in the future with 720 PDP,” she added.

Expected Key 2006 Black Friday Price Points

• 32W-inch LCD TV, $599
• 42W-inch ED plasma (EDTV), $899
• 42W-inch plasma (HDTV), $1,199
• 40W-inch LCD TV, $1,299
• 50W-inch plasma, $1,799.
• 45W-46W-inch LCD TV, $2,499
Source: Current Analysis

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6383869.html

fredfa

10-24-06, 10:52 AM

The Business of TV
A rising stink over commerical ratings
NBC's cable group rejects Nielsen ad system
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct 24, 2006

Everyone agrees the idea is sound: measuring how TV ads perform, in addition to the shows in which they air. And to that end, Nielsen Research this summer released plans to begin measuring average viewing of commercial pods.

But in the months since, the TV rating services has faced mounting objections from both cable networks and ad buyers that its system is fraught with flaws, and yesterday NBC's group of cable networks, which includes Bravo, USA and Sci Fi, announced that it would not participate in the system.

The NBC cable announcement comes after a number of meetings between Nielsen and cable executives, as well as media buyers and the broadcast networks, and both sides are quick to say they are working toward an amicable resolution on their points of disagreement.

Cable networks, while applauding the aim of new system, worry that it won't give accurate readings because it relies on one-minute averages taken during ad pods. They complain the one-minute increments are too long, and there's also concern that they will overlap to include parts of shows in which the ads appear.

Over the summer, Magna Global USA's top researcher, Steve Sternberg, first raised objections to the proposed system, writing in a report: "These are not commercial ratings, nor are they an acceptable surrogate." Sternberg contends that one-second increment are what's needed.

The cable networks have also complained that Nielsen's system doesn't differentiate between national and local ads.

“We support commercial ratings being produced so long as it’s done the right way. The important things that need fixing are how Monitor-Plus reads commercial minutes with respect to cable in its current iteration,” says Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau. “In its current iteration, Monitor-Plus cannot distinguish between local and national cable commercials, and it cannot capture live sporting events.”

Adds Cunningham. “We’re working hard with our members to go through a lot of fixes. They’ve been cooperative. We’re all participating in fixing it together. It’s not like we’re at odds on anything we have to do.”

Initially, Nielsen had planned to roll out the first round of commercial data in November. That's now been pushed back until December, and even then it will still be in test, not for use in negotiating ad buys. Just when that might happen is still very much up in the air.

“The thing about this is, in the end we’ll probably have a good mix of broadcast and cable networks participating in this evaluation project,” says Nielsen spokesman Gary Holmes. “Obviously every network will have to make its own decision whether to participate or not, whether they decide to opt in now or later or even not at all."

In January, Nielsen will be making additional refinements to the system.

“It’s an ongoing process," says Holmes. "In January, for example, we’re installing hardware on our advertising tracking system – that’s Monitor-Plus – that will allow us to do a better job identifying national and local ads”

But even then a true ad rating system is still a ways off.

"Nielsen is moving in the right direction but what advertisers really want is a true commercial minute rating. That's probably several years away," says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate research director at Horizon Media.

"Advertisers would ideally like to know who watches their commercials," Adgate says. "As DVR penetration increases, there may be more steps needed down the road."

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8111.asp

fredfa

10-24-06, 11:06 AM

The New Season
'Friday Night' writer scorns the competition
By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist Oct. 24, 2006

It serves us right that ABC's Dancing With the Stars clobbers NBC's Friday Night Lights, says Chestnut Hill's Buzz Bissinger, on whose book the drama is based.

"America is getting what it deserves - crappy, stupid, artificial reality TV," says Bissinger, 51, a former Inquirer reporter and writer for NYPD Blue.

The acclaimed freshman Friday stars Kyle Chandler as a high school football coach in a small Texas town. It tackles such explosive issues as race and religion with understated dignity.

Exec producers include Peter Berg, who produced the '04 film; and The Da Vinci Code's Brian Grazer.

"It's distressing that so many people are flocking to a show that's obviously contrived and ridiculous," Bissinger says. "Our show is about real issues. It's a shame it's been struggling."

After three shots at 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Friday averages just 6.5 million total viewers, ranking 76th on Nielsen's Hit Parade. Number-4 Dancing averages 17.9 million; CBS's NCIS (16) has 15.1 million.

Still, Friday is not without hope. For starters, NBC Entertainment boss Kevin Reilly says he loves the family-friendly series and wants it to succeed.

"Not a day goes by that I don't get a random e-mail from a producer or friend who says I cannot take the show off the air because it's the best show on TV. When I see that kind of anecdotal evidence, even for a show that's not pulling big ratings, there is something going on."

Creatively, Friday "knows exactly what it wants to be," Reilly says. The scripts are good, the episodes are strong, "and it also happens to have a very sexy cast. There's a lot going on there."

To boost Friday's profile, NBC will air an original episode at 10 p.m. Monday, replacing a repeat of Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. (It's struggling, too, but has a strong 9 p.m. lead-in in Heroes.) Friday will be rerun at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Another good sign: NBC just ordered nine additional scripts. If the network greenlights them as episodes, Friday would have a full season's 22.

That's a big if, and Bissinger knows it.

"It's so frustrating. We talk all the time about how there's nothing good on TV, and here's a damn good show, worth watching, and very few people are watching it."

That may change. Friday is becoming increasingly sexually charged.

One example: A black player and white "bad girl" are discovered by his mother having sex. Another: The cheerleader girlfriend of the paralyzed quarterback hooks up with his alcoholic "bad boy" teammate.

Though neither situation is in Bissinger's '99 book, he has no problem with the increased hormones. "You need some of that to make it work on TV. That's the reality. Otherwise, you've got no shot whatsoever.

"I'm not one of these purists who says, 'My God, my book is sacred.' TV shows are a different form. I don't feel I've sacrificed the integrity of the book."

Reilly says he's not in a hurry to change Friday's time slot. He hopes to keep the schedule stable until midseason. Relocating shows "requires hefty lifting on the marketing side" and creates audience churn.

As for Dancing's popularity, the always-understated Bissinger fumes "there's a reason this country is disintegrating into second-ratism.

"We just want to sit in front of the TV and watch garbage."

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//15832524.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

10-24-06, 11:08 AM

The New Season
A tough time slot for 'Friday Night Lights'
By Ellen Gray Philadelphia Daily News Tue, Oct. 24, 2006

When NBC honcho Jeff Zucker suggested last week that there wasn't much point scheduling expensive scripted shows at 8 p.m. because viewers clearly preferred the "reality" of NBC's "Deal or No Deal" and CBS' "Survivor" at that hour, he was widely accused of sour grapes.

Sure, NBC's scripted shows might be tanking at 8 - and some at 10, too - but how to account for rival ABC's success with 8 p.m. Thursday newcomer "Ugly Betty"?

Zucker, reportedly eager to cut $750 million from NBC Universal's budget by the end of next year, is, of course, looking for the same thing every media outlet in America is currently seeking: a way to reach more customers while spending less. Much less.

It's a quest that's unlikely to leave anyone, even stockholders and investment bankers, feeling satisfied for long, but that doesn't mean Zucker's entirely wrong about 8 p.m.

Despite the moderate success of CBS' apocalyptic "Jericho," there's evidence in the daily Nielsens that lots of people like to ease into their evenings with something light and bright, leaving the heavier mental lifting for 9 or 10 p.m.

Whether that means Howie Mandel or "Ugly Betty's" America Ferrera says more about the creativity of an individual network than about the audience.

Creatively, Zucker's tenure as entertainment president will mostly be remembered for the rise of "Fear Factor," but after he was kicked upstairs and replaced by Kevin Reilly, things should have improved. Reilly might have overestimated the public's interest in what goes on behind the scenes at "Saturday Night Live," but he shoots higher than Zucker.

So why is his network still shooting itself in the foot?

One possibility: It doesn't know what to do with the shows it's bought.

Take "Friday Night Lights."

The show, which has averaged just 6.53 million viewers in its first three weeks - at 8 p.m., the very time slot Zucker admits isn't working for most of NBC's scripted shows - seems to have been looked at by the network as some sort of companion piece to its Sunday night venture with the NFL.

You know - football. Rah-rah. Sis-boom-bah.

Makes me wonder if the people promoting "Friday Night Lights" have even seen it.

There's just not that much that's light and bright about "Lights," which is shaping up as one of the best new shows of the season. A fictional adaptation of the movie based on H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger's nonfiction bestseller about high school football in Texas, it's quickly created a slew of memorable characters and run them through the kind of emotional plays we're more used to seeing at 9 or 10 at night.

It's the kind of show that's remained just as interested in the quarterback (Scott Porter) who was paralyzed in the first episode as it has in the kid (Zach Gilford) who's had to step into his shoes, as concerned with the coach's wife (Connie Britton) as with the coach himself (Kyle Chandler).

Too bad the people who'd probably like it most think it's not for them.

Those would be people who may or may not care about football but who did once care about shows like "My So-Called Life" and "Once and Again," who aren't so much looking for a rush from their TV as they are for recognition.

Those are the people "Friday Night Lights" is keeping the lights on for. Here's hoping they find it soon.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//15833886.htm

shuttermaker

10-24-06, 11:16 AM

fredfa

10-24-06, 11:22 AM

Monday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

fredfa

10-24-06, 11:29 AM

'Heroes' salute: Tops list of new series
NBC drama rises 9 percent in 18-49s from last week
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct 24, 2006

NBC ran a three-episode marathon of its new hit show “Heroes” Sunday night during “Sunday Night Football’s” usual spot, taking advantage of the NFL’s break for the World Series to let newcomers catch up on the season’s top-rated new show in adults 18-49.

Apparently that extra exposure did bring in some new viewers. “Heroes” climbed to a series-best 6.2 rating in adults 18-49 last night, according to Nielsen overnights, the best rating for a new show yet this season.

“Heroes” was up 9 percent over last week’s 5.7 and was the top-rated show on Monday night, bettering CBS’s “CSI: Miami” by 0.3. “Heroes” also tied a season high in total viewers with 14.3 million.

In its 9 p.m. timeslot, “Heroes” dominated, with CBS at No. 2 nearly two full points behind. The big performance helped NBC to its fifth Monday win in six weeks this season, though by a small margin.

NBC led with a 4.6 rating and 12 share, followed by CBS at 4.5/11, ABC at 2.9/7, Fox at 2.6/7, Univision at 1.6/4, and the CW at 1.2/3.

At 8 p.m., NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” led with a 4.4 rating, followed by CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother” (3.6) and “The Class” (2.9) at 3.3, Fox’s “Prison Break” at 3.2, ABC’s “Wife Swap” at 2.8, Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella” at 1.9, and the CW’s “Everybody Hates Chris” (1.2) and “All of Us” (1.2) at 1.2.

At 9 p.m., “Heroes” jumped ahead at 6.2, followed by a 4.3 for CBS’s “Two and a Half Men” (4.7) and “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (3.9), a 3.2 for ABC’s “The Bachelor,” a 2.0 for Fox’s relocated “Justice,” a 1.4 for Univision’s “Mundo de Fieras,” and a 1.2 for CW’s “Girlfriends” (1.2) and “The Game” (1.1).

At 10 p.m., CBS’s “CSI: Miami” dominated with a 5.9, followed by NBC’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” at 3.2, ABC’s “What About Brian” at 2.7, and Univision’s “Cristina” at 1.3.

“Studio 60” was up slightly from last week’s series-low 3.1 but lost half of its “Heroes” lead-in, a big cause for concern.

Among households, CBS led with an 8.8/13, followed by NBC at 7.8/12, ABC at 5.0/8, Fox at 4.7/7, Univision at 2.1/3, and the CW at 1.9/3.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8112.asp

fredfa

10-24-06, 11:30 AM

... artificial reality TV ??

Deserves?? I dont know about that but, its obviously getting what it wants judging by the ratings.

I guess it is to be expected that the FNL author might be a tad outspoken!

shuttermaker

10-24-06, 11:49 AM

Last nighs "Heroes" was the best yet. Glad to see that things are starting to come together. Absolutely CANT WAIT for the next episode.

HDTVChallenged

10-24-06, 11:52 AM

I guess it is to be expected that the FNL author might be a tad outspoken!

Ya know what? I feel the pain, but at the same time I just don't care. I (and my poor boom-o-phobic dog) live the "nightmare" almost every friday night in the fall. (Two fireworkin', cannon shootin' teams/stadiums within 2 miles of the house.) I don't need to see this all again on Tuesdays. ;)

It would seem that FNL is either preaching to the choir, or trying to find converts among the unwilling???? :)

shuttermaker

10-24-06, 11:59 AM

Ya know what? I feel the pain, but at the same time I just don't care. I (and my poor boom-o-phobic dog) live the "nightmare" almost every friday night in the fall. (Two fireworkin', cannon shootin' teams/stadiums within 2 miles of the house.) I don't need to see this all again on Tuesdays. ;)

It would seem that FNL is either preaching to the choir, or trying to find converts among the unwilling???? :)

Id like to see if there is a breakdown of ratings for this show by region, state or even city. The reason, Ive lived in lots of towns and cities and, high school football is absolutely huge in some place ive been and in other places nobody could care less.

HDTVChallenged

10-24-06, 12:23 PM

... For the record, I don't watch "Dancing..." (or AI) either, but if I had to choose, I'd probably pick the show with the obvious "eye-candy" factor over footballish stuff. But that's just me. :D

RussTC3

10-24-06, 12:41 PM

BTW fredfa, any word on the ratings for the 10/20 episode of 'Battlestar Galactica'? It was a pretty strong episode (the conclusion of the stories set-up on the premiere and 2nd episode) so I'm hoping more people tuned in than the 1.6 rating it received a week ago. Its criminal for TV this good to go unwatched! :(
The third week episode, "Exodus, Part II" received a 1.4.

There was another source earlier in the week that reported a 1.2 with a 0.8 in A18-49. It's assumed that number is the final national number, and the 1.4 is the coverage rating.

So, ratings so far for the series:
3x01-02 - 1.8
3x03 - 1.6
3x04 - 1.4

dad1153

10-24-06, 01:12 PM

Thanks Russ. Guess 'BG' is my 'Friday Night Lights' and 'Kidnapped'! :mad: :(

CPanther95

10-24-06, 01:16 PM

More important for BSG is the Live +7 number. Cablenet shows rarely fair well up against a primetime time slot.

fredfa

10-24-06, 03:14 PM

The third week episode, "Exodus, Part II" received a 1.4.

There was another source earlier in the week that reported a 1.2 with a 0.8 in A18-49. It's assumed that number is the final national number, and the 1.4 is the coverage rating.

So, ratings so far for the series:
1x01-02 - 1.8
1x03 - 1.6
1x04 - 1.4

Thanks for the info, RussTC3!

And as I noted a few days ago, anyone interested in getting even more information on ratings on a daily basis should check out the blog Russ runs. I check it every day and almost always learn something new. It is full of good information and you can find it here:

http://wordpress.com/tag/broadcast-tv-ratings/

fredfa

10-24-06, 03:21 PM

TV Sports
NFL Flexes Its Scheduling Muscle
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 10/24/2006

The NFL has announced its first game for NBC's flex scheduling. It will be the Nov. 12 game between the undefeated Chicago Bears and the division-leading New York Giants.

The game had been scheduled for 1 p.m. on Fox but has been moved to Sunday night on NBC.

Back in April, the NFL picked six games in the last weeks of the season that NBC will get to make their Sunday night game. The idea was to give NBC more competitive games rather than having to stick with ones that might not have playoff implications.

NBC picked games it would like in those slots, but the league gets the final determination. It has up until 12 days before the game to announce--with only six days for the last game to make sure it is one with playoff implications--but asked NBC if it could announce the first game to its owners meeting in New Orleans that starts Tuesday.

Flex scheduling has benefited NBC, but the league and its TV committee came up with the idea back in 2004, before NBC began talking about getting back into the NFL game.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6384369.html?display=Breaking+News

fredfa

10-24-06, 03:25 PM

The Digital Revolution
AT&T to Expand U-verse to 15 Markets
By Todd Spangler MultiChannel News 10/24/2006

In announcing third-quarter results Monday, AT&T said it expects to expand its U-verse HDTV service to 15 markets by the end of 2006, including a rollout in Houston next month.

That will increase U-verse’s number of homes passed to 2.4 million, compared with 1.3 million at the end of the third quarter, AT&T said.

U-verse first launched in San Antonio in June. AT&T plans to next offer TV service in Houston, with a launch scheduled for late November.

“By design, we're ramping the project in a measured way,” AT&T chief financial officer Rick Lindner told analysts on a conference call Monday. “We have made good progress this quarter on a number of fronts. The service is working well, customer response has been positive and our marketing approach is producing good results with deployment on track.”

Lindner added that 85% of U-verse customers in San Antonio are “taking higher-end video packages.”

AT&T said it has 3,000 U-verse subscribers in San Antonio, which represents about 10% of the total homes the company said it has marketed to.

"We're doing some innovative things in terms of marketing, including live demos available at a Cingular store, and that's proving to be effective," Lindner said on the conference call.

AT&T didn't specify which markets are among the 15, but Lindner said all of them will include HDTV channels at launch.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6384370

fredfa

10-24-06, 03:54 PM

The New Season
Fox's 24 Returns January 15th
But an Extended Trailer Has Just Been Released
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic at his website unclebarky.com 10/24/06

Tuesday's most eagerly awaited premiere hit shortly after 2 p.m. (central time) Tuesday. It's the "Special Extended Season 6 Trailer" for Fox's 24, which will return with a four-hour dose on Jan. 14-15. See it here: http://www.24trailer.com/

It's quite a tease. We glimpse Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in a full beard. Obviously he's been held captive for a while -- 20 months to be exact -- after being kidnapped and badly beaten by Chinese authorities in Season 5's final moments. But we hear that "A Threat Will Rise. Fear Will Grow. And our only hope lies with one man."

Guess who that might be? Yes, Jack will be back yet again because, "Mr. President, people are losing faith in our ability to protect them."

And who might the new president be? It looks as though it's the assassinated David Palmer's younger brother, Wayne Palmer (D.B. Woodside).

We see Jack being returned to the U.S., where his trusty old CTU boss, Bill Buchanan (James Morrison), is waiting for him. "Almost a thousand civilians are dead" from a new wave of terrorist attacks. And the only way they'll stop is if Jack is "sacrificed."

That's fine by him. "Mr. President," he says, "I know what's expected of me." And furthermore, "Today I can die for something. Finally, my choice."

What a great marketing ploy for a series whose sixth season will lead to a planned 24 feature film. So by all means, check out this trailer and get ready to rock. Bet you can't watch it just once.

http://www.unclebarky.com/abovethefold.html

fredfa

10-24-06, 04:17 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

10-24-06, 04:29 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

10-24-06, 05:10 PM

Critic’s Notebook
Who's my Hiro? Betty, of course
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” October 24, 2006

I have a message from the future: Next fall, at least five new shows will have cheerleaders. And strippers. Possibly both.

I’ve been trying to work out, you see, why “Heroes” has succeeded this season, while other strongly serialized dramas have not. I still think “The Nine” and “Kidnapped” are (should I write “were,” given that at least one has been given the hook?) far superior to “Heroes,” in plotting, acting, writing, execution – in pretty much every way.

But what do shows such as “The Nine” and “Kidnapped” and “Six Degrees” lack? Surely you’ve figured it out by now: indestructible cheerleaders!

That’s why, next fall, expect to see lots of new shows with scantily clad young women with super powers. Perhaps a detective who solves crimes in her cheerleader outfit – and who cannot be killed (Note to self: Register that idea with the Writers Guild).

This is all by way of saying that I caught up with “Heroes” via the show’s Sunday marathon and I also saw last night’s new episode. When I wrote my negative review a few weeks ago, I’d seen the first three episodes. Now I’m completely current with the show, and, with a few exceptions, my original assessment still holds.

I think I get more irritated by shows that have potential, but don’t use it well – that’s probably why I beat up on “Heroes” so much. It would be one thing if it were just bad and you could ignore it (i.e. “Twenty Good Years”). It’s not just bad – it’s frustrating, tantalizingly on the verge of being good at times. Then it hits me in the head with the obvious stick a few dozen times, and I go back to being irritated.

I do like the scenes with Hiro and his pal from Japan, though I really wonder if, in those scenes, the character of Hiro skirts dangerously close to the stereotype of the Asian nerd (thank heaven for Daniel Dae Kim of “Lost,” for showing that an Asian TV character can be sexy, flawed, handsome and not at all nerd-tastic. And it must be said, the Hiro from the future who appeared briefly seems to be very different from the Hiro we're seeing now).

The pace of the show and the plotting seem to have picked up a bit from those first three hours, but the main problem is that the show is still very vague about where it’s going (and I’m not at all sure that the creators have any firm ideas about that). I’d be able to give them a pass for wobbly storytelling if the characters were an incredibly intriguing bunch. For the most part, they’re not.

Greg Grunberg is great (I’d watch him read the phone book) and Hiro and his story show promise, but for every scene in which there is a spark of interest, there are three more that are blindingly obvious and repetitive. The show restates key parts of the premise so often that you wonder if the writers assume that a substantial part of their audience is, well, stupid.

I had to laugh when, in a key scene at the drug-addicted artist’s apartment, Milo Ventimiglia’s character lines up several of the painter’s canvases, sees that the pictures within them can be linked in a story and says, “It’s like a comic.”

You think?

Not like that’s the whole premise of the show or anything. Yeesh.

Anyhow, I’ll keep checking in on “Heroes.” I am a charter member of the nerd nation, so this should be right up my alley. I’ll keep waiting for the good parts of the show to outweigh the bad parts.

And I’ll keep waiting to see if a show about a cheerleader can really sustain my interest long-term. I’m thinking not, but you never know.

Speaking of shows that retain my interest, however, how “Ugly Betty” has gotten even better.

I started out liking this show quite a bit, but now I flat-out love it. Thursday’s episode was the strongest yet; the creators seem to have mastered the balancing act required by “Betty’s” disparate elements: the campy sarcasm, the warm if prickly home life and the workplace drama. Even the Fey Sommers storyline didn’t seem like a weird intrusion from Soapland.

This delightful show is hitting on all cylinders; it's even more funny and charming than it was at first. And they’re even doing the wardrobe better; in the scenes where Betty goes to a networking event, she’s wearing a dowdy blue suit – it’s not too outrageous, just something a young woman without much fashion sense would think was “professional.”

In Thursday's episode, I really enjoyed the interaction between Betty and the Mode staff’s other two assistants, Marc and Amanda -- that was a treat. The scenes of those three trying to save their behinds in the midst of a photo-shoot crisis were great.

And how much more obvious could they make it that Betty’s nephew, Justin, is gay? If he’s not gay, then my gaydar needs a serious overhaul. Even Daniel made a not-so-vague comment about it when he told Betty that “I’m sure your nephew is sick of the closet by now.”

Daniel was referring to the accessories closet, where the style-obsessed teen had hung out for hours that day, but still.

Justin is an extension, really, of the show’s message about tolerance, or at least being true to yourself, whatever the cost.

“Be who you are and wear what you want,” Justin was told by the usually snippy assistant Marc, who has a nice side that he keeps well hidden. “Just learn to run really, really fast.”

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

fredfa

10-24-06, 05:14 PM

Critic’s Notebook
Forget the Cheerleader — Save NBC
By Jon Hein at TVGuide.com October 24, 2006

NBC jumped the shark in 2004.

The Apprentice was the hottest show on television. We're talking absolute must see TV that was oozing buzz. NBC tried to capitalize on the show's success and put all their eggs in the Donald's reality basket.

I said it then, and I'm saying it now — moving The Apprentice to anchor Thursday nights sent the network right over the fin.

ABC learned its lesson with Millionaire. CBS always had CSI and Everybody Loves Raymond to go with Survivor and The Amazing Race.

Thursday nights belonged to NBC. It lost Friends and Frasier (which had jumped the shark years ago) and had nothing in the pipeline. First to fourth wasn't an "if", it was a "when".

I understand how tempting it is to lead off each night with a game show or reality show (i.e. inexpensive show). It's also another big mistake. Deal or No Deal is getting pummeled into the ground as I type as the contestants get more and more "wacky".

So you're Jeff Zucker... what do you do? Glad you asked.

1. Pluck Cable — The Universal merger gives NBC countless cable networks to use as a farm system. Take a show like Project Runway off Bravo and put it on the big network. Watch what happens.

2. Scale Back — Deal or No Deal once a week. Please. Make those suitcases a special thing.

3. Hero Worship — Heroes is a hit and could easily turn into the show of the year. Don't add cheesy marketing slogans like "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World." It doesn't need that. It needs a good show to go along with it.

4. Themes — Sunday is football night. Start the evening with the critically acclaimed/barely watched Friday Night Lights? Saturday is burn-off-the-shows-that-didn't-hit night. And as long as millions keep watching Law & Order, might as well have them all on the same night. A full night of the original, CI and SVU. You're already two thirds of the way there on Tuesdays.

5. More Creeps — We're fascinated by the creepy host and participants on the Dateline: To Catch A Predator series. Let's see those with more regularity.

6. Kill SNL and its Progeny — Having two shows spoofing your own irrelevant late night show is painful enough. Studio 60, 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live should all go away. That means big cash savings, and lots of empty time slots to play with.

7. Office Space — The next Seinfeld is already within your grasp — it's called The Office. Move it to Thursdays at 9, give it the right lead in (Heroes, anyone?) and bookend it with another great comedy (oh yeah, there's Scrubs). Thursdays on NBC — we'll all be there.

The answer to NBC's problems isn't job cuts and cheaper shows. The solution is airing quality programming on the right nights.

http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=700009783

fredfa

10-24-06, 05:32 PM

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

Question: I really enjoyed the first hour of Heroes. It set up an intriguing story with a diverse cast of characters. There were a couple of moments that made me cover my eyes, especially the infamous garbage-disposal scene, but I decided to keep watching. Then I watched the second episode. I was astonished by the amount of gore in this episode: the corpses with sawed-off heads and empty skulls, the body that remained pinned to a wall in the background throughout an entire scene, the corpses in Nicky's trunk. The third episode didn't improve much; there were plenty of graphic moments. I don't recall hearing anything about this level of gore in the reviews or previews for this show. Frankly, I don't understand why it's necessary for the story it is trying to tell. I have been drawn in by the characters and the plot (especially Hiro's part), but the ick factor is eventually going to drive me away. The same thing is true for Grey's Anatomy; I watched about three episodes, but there were too many graphic scenes, so I stopped. Why does good old-fashioned storytelling have to get lost in a sea of blood and guts? — Laura

Matt Roush: This is the first complaint I've ever read about Grey's being too gory. It's a hospital show, for crying out loud. Some of the injuries are a bit extreme, but a gorefest? As for Heroes: Yes, it's graphic, but comic books nowadays are called "graphic novels" for a reason, seems to me. There has been no more startling image all season than Claire splayed out on the autopsy table at the end of episode three. Either you can stomach these extremes, or you can't. It was so over-the-top that it didn't even strike me as that gory. Gross and bizarre? Yes. That also applies to the deaths in Sylar's wake. They're icky, to be sure, but like so many elements of Heroes, they're icky in a comic-book way.

Here's Joy, who's really grossed out: "Can you please tell me what the reasoning is that shows like CSI and Criminal Minds rely on such horrifically graphic gore? CSI has always been rather stomach-churning during the autopsy scenes, but the Criminal Minds episode with a beheading and railroad spikes through eyes (and the eyeballs in the victim's pocket) was a little over the top. After I recovered, I remembered the movie Seven and how much like the movie this episode was. What's your take on the public's need for such 'entertainment'?"

Wow, that episode sounds extremely gross. Glad I missed it. (Monday morning, I got a ton of e-mails alerting me to the fact that the railroad-spikes story line was on CSI: NY, not Criminal Minds. Which just goes to show how blurry the lines are between these soul-numbing procedurals. It also reveals that I generally steer clear from CBS on Wednesday nights, which I consider the worst successful three-hour lineup of TV during any given week.) For the most part, I will defend CSI's ick factor. Taking us inside the wound in creatively graphic ways is a signature of the show, which seems to me to reinforce the science-nerd aspect I find so appealing. These guys are so into their work, they can't even see how gross it is. At least we don't have to smell it. Clearly, these are not shows to watch over dinner. (On Thursdays, I make sure my plate's clean before CSI comes on.)

Question: There was a question in your Oct. 16 column about the recent disappearance of opening theme songs and credits. You responded that, "Whatever the reasons, something is lost when credits and theme songs that once were an iconic cultural signature for a show (and sometimes a network) have been dropped for mercenary purposes." I beg to differ! I would much rather enjoy 30 seconds of intern antics on Grey's Anatomy, a hidden clue on Lost or quick-witted banter on Studio 60 than the same catchy tune week after week. Perhaps that extra 30 seconds of actual show will turn into a more iconic cultural signature than a theme song ever could. The opening scenes of Lost and Studio 60 are often so engrossing that only the simple, one-note impact of the show title can do them justice. I think more shows should go this route. Give me more Emily Gilmore snarkiness and I certainly won't fast-forward through it, as I always do with the Gilmore Girls theme song.— Heidi

Matt Roush: The response to that topic was mostly on Heidi's side. Given the shrinkage of prime-time shows, cutting to the chase seems to be the way to go. Although would Friends have been Friends without that opening song each week? Here, taking the opposite tack, is Christina:

"I too miss seeing opening credit sequences. The Oct. 16 question reminded me of a comment made on the Wonderfalls DVD that the producers had to fight to be allowed to have words added to theme song because Fox felt it was too costly. Do you think this is why there are no longer theme songs to shows? I also wonder if having a well written song has helped shows find viewers (Friends, Cheers and The Greatest American Hero's themes come to mind). I think that perhaps the studios are just not willing to search out or hire someone to write the perfect song. I think Joss Whedon was particularly good at finding the perfect theme-song writers. Could you imagine Firefly without its theme!?"

Let me just say, I love people who love TV, and that includes people who love TV theme songs. I really do think that time, more than money, is the reason most shows forego title credit sequences. I miss them, but many shows work just fine without them. Lost especially. That haunting, whirling title card is perfect.

Question: After viewing the recent episode of How I Met Your Mother, in which a jealous Robin dragged Lily around New York City searching for Ted Mosby (architect), I am confused as to why this show has not garnered more attention. After hearing many comparisons to Friends about the new show The Class, which I have watched and hated, I can't understand why more of this type of praise isn't given to Mother. This show has been charming, funny and sweet, with likable but flawed characters you can relate to. I found this episode to be silly but heartwarming, something I think that few shows can accomplish. Mother isn't the funniest, most well-written show on television, but it certainly is entertaining and endearing. With these qualities, I would actually dare to say that this is the one show on the air that bears most resemblance to Friends. Where are the ratings and the buzz that the series and its characters deserve?— Allyson

Matt Roush: I'm enjoying How I Met Your Mother more and more this season. (The Class, which I had been enjoying, has been falling apart a bit as it tries to jam too many disconnected characters, not all of them appealing, into each episode.) The somewhat confusing framed-in-flashback premise may be holding Mother back from megahit status (we know Ted won't ultimately end up with Robin, for instance), but really, I think its modest profile has more to do with a general resistance and indifference to the half-hour comedy format these days. Even the best of the bunch are modestly rated, compared to the hottest of the dramas, and the media tends to respond accordingly, buzzing around hourlong shows (including comedies like Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty) while ignoring most of today's sitcoms. Mother has grown on me, and I liked how they flipped it in Season 2 so Ted is in a relationship for now while Marshall stays miserably single (his solo brunch mishap was a classic last week). And what would the show be without Barney, whose spring-loaded-to-stay-up toilet seat was a great sight gag. Will it ever reach Friends status? Doubtful. Can any sitcom reach those heights again? We'll see.

Question: Earl, The Office, 30 Rock, Scrubs. Four great comedies, all on NBC. Why can't the network see the light and put them all on Thursday, restoring the great two-hour comedy block? Sure, the night is packed with Grey's and CSI, but a couple of sitcoms could be just the ticket for effective counterprogramming. Any chance this will ever happen?— Adam W.

Matt Roush: Not anytime soon, it would appear. I couldn't agree more. A smart, funny, innovative lineup of comedy would keep NBC in the game, albeit in diminished numbers relative to the megahits on ABC and CBS at 9 pm/ET. But look at the benefits gained by ABC and CBS taking the night so seriously, a night NBC once owned thanks to comedy. As we just noted in the previous question, comedies simply aren't the flavor of the moment, and these NBC single-camera comedies, good as they are, fall way short of blockbuster status. Maybe that's why NBC is trying to spread the wealth, such as it is, and scatter them over several nights. If NBC bundled their best comedies together in a block and promoted the heck out of them, there could be significant payoff down the road. But even when NBC ruled the roost, they almost never allowed all of their best comedies to air together on Thursday. (Think of all those years of losers squandering the post-Friends time period. What a waste.)

Question: I'm delighted to read that House is moving back to its original time slot. It's been a nightmare having House and Gilmore Girls opposite each other, since in our house the TV doesn't go on until the toddler goes to bed, so I've had to choose between Hugh Laurie and Lauren Graham, a horribly unfair choice. I'd love to watch Friday Night Lights. Is there any chance at all of it being moved to a less-competitive time slot? One would think, with the critical response, the network would try it in a more strategic period.— Rachel C.

Matt Roush: That's the question of the moment where Friday Night Lights is concerned. There probably are no safe time periods for the show. Airing it on Fridays wouldn't work, because everyone's out at real high-school football games. Monday there's far less competition at 8 pm/ET, but factor in ESPN's Monday Night Football as a conflict. Wednesday at 8 isn't nearly as competitive, either, although there's still the Dancing with the Stars results factor. Things are looking up for this lovely little show. Last week's numbers grew a little (not a lot, but at least it's not in freefall), and NBC has given it a hefty order for additional scripts. This is one of those situations when we should be glad that the network also owns the show (through Universal), because everyone involved is passionate about it and wants it to succeed and survive. Next Monday FNL does get to play in a new time period for a week, with a new episode replacing a scheduled repeat of the Studio 60 pilot on Oct. 30 at 10 pm/ET (the episode will be repeated the next night in Friday's regular time period). There's probably no quick fix for this show, but I recommend it to everyone, and am encouraged that NBC isn't yet ready to throw in the towel.

Question: Some critics are running around like Chicken Little heralding the downfall of Lost (some with inexplicably gleefully undertones), given its recent decline in ratings in comparison with the same point last year. What's your take? Frankly, I was disappointed in the premiere (other than the first five minutes, which I thought were awesome), but I thought Episode 2 was much better, and it had me back to looking forward to this season. Yet the ratings dropped in the second week, to the point that CBS' painfully pedestrian Criminal Minds actually beat Lost. Should ABC (and those of us who remain fans of the show) be concerned? The 18-to-49 demos for Lost are still very strong, handily beating out Criminal Minds, which appears to skew considerably older, but is that enough to keep it in favor? I'm concerned this upcoming 13-week hiatus is going to do more harm than good for Lost's numbers. By the time it returns, the American Idol juggernaut will be in full swing. Should ABC rethink the 13-week hiatus? Should they try it in another slot? Or do you think the pearl-clutching is an overreaction at this point?— Lynn

Matt Roush: A big overreaction, although I share your concerns over the impending mid-November hiatus. NBC, on the other hand, made exactly the right move by deciding not to rest ER midway through the season for a 13-week hiatus, given its recent resurgence. Ordering a handful more episodes to take the much-improved ER as far into the spring as possible is a very wise decision. ABC is clearly taking a big risk, not only with Lost itself, but by its choice of replacement show: the truly bizarre Day Break. If this strategy doesn't pan out and further dampens Lost's increasingly fragile hold on its impatient fan base, I'm thinking the next step is for ABC to copy Fox's 24 strategy: run it straight through, without interruption, whether that means holding it off until January or starting in September, knowing it will be over in early spring. This midcourse interruption is fraught with peril.

Question: In your Oct. 14 column, someone asked, "How much of a role does critical acclaim have in determining whether a show will be picked up for another season?" I don't know how much networks listen to critics, but I think they do influence audience. I started watching Veronica Mars because of what you and other critics had to say about it. I can guarantee you that I would not have watched it, or even really known it existed had it not been for this column, and it has been one of my favorite shows. I am in the process of getting my hands on the DVDs of Battlestar Galactica because I have read so much about how great it is. Of course, I do have shows I watch because they catch my interest. My expectations of Heroes was low because of what you and other critics wrote, and I was shocked by how much I liked it. I won't continue to watch a show critics love if it doesn't pull me in, but good buzz will often get me at least to check out a show.— Karen L.

Matt Roush: Well, bless your heart. Just the sort of thing I love to hear after a long year of TV. This is the point I tend to make whenever the question of "What good are television critics?" comes up. We can't necessarily save a show, but our advocacy of challenging, wonderful underdogs can help give a show a lifeline and stimulate interest among a passionate fan base that might otherwise never have found the show in this crowded marketplace. Our celebratory coverage of cult items like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, even a gem like Everwood can help these shows thrive and even (in the case of Buffy in particular) achieve an iconic status that is never reflected in actual ratings (or Emmy nominations, for that matter). The very fact that Friday Night Lights hasn't yet been pulled from the schedule speaks to the power of critical attention, and the response to the show I'm getting from readers is fuel to keep me going.

Question: I have a question (or suggestion rather) regarding Deal or No Deal. Why don't they have 26 male models also? How come it seems that women are always the models on game shows (Bob Barker's Beauties, Vanna White, etc.)? I adore all of the 26 beautiful models on Deal or No Deal and enjoy seeing what they wear every episode, but wouldn't it be a great surprise if one night 26 gorgeous men walked down the steps with the cases? Just a thought.— Jenny

Matt Roush: Let's make a deal, Jenny. I like your style. I imagine a stunt like that could bring a whole new demographic to the show. Dream on, my dear. But seriously, to address your actual question, it seems to me that the glamorous, ornamental girls on game shows (from Carol Merrill of Let's Make a Deal on down) exists to give husbands something to look at and women something to comment on (Look at Vanna's hair! Her gown! What was she thinking?) while these silly games play on. There does seem to be a gender hierarchy at play: Hosts are almost always male, and the sidekicks tend to be pretty women. I agree: Turnabout should be fair play.

Question: I just read that the CW has canceled Runaway because of low ratings. Now that there is another timeslot available, do you think that Aquaman will be considered for the CW lineup? I am sure that the fans of Smallville will enjoy it and that it will have better ratings than Runaway, because Aquaman already has a fanbase from the DC comic books. It was a top download on iTunes when the pilot was released. Do you think it has a chance of making it on TV?— Zack

Matt Roush: To put it bluntly, no. The CW (I almost typed WB, and there's the real issue) has, from all I can tell, moved on. The download was a gift to comic-book fans, not a promise of things to come. That isn't to say, especially in the wake of Heroes' unexpected success on NBC, that the CW won't try to develop more fantasy franchises (at least one is underway already), or that Smallville won't be used again as a breeding ground for a spin-off of some sort. But for now, Aquaman appears dead.

Question: As a long-time ER fan, I can honestly say that I've enjoyed this season much more than the past three or four. It's by no means as good as the early days, but it has definitely improved. Now answer me this: Is there any hope for Ray and Neela? It certainly seems like Neela is leaning towards Gates, and yet there is so much chemistry and unresolved tension between Neela and Ray. Many of the Ray-Neela fans (we call ourselves "Roomies" fans) think that Gates is simply a rebound guy, and that the writers are saving a Ray-Neela hookup for a long-term story line. What do you think?— Mary

Matt Roush: Anything is possible. Not being in the spoiler game, I'm not sure what ER has in store for these characters, although it's clear that Gates' secret domestic home life is going to create some obstacles to his and Neela's obvious attraction toward each other. And as Gates and Neela continue to flirt, Ray's jealousy will spike, I'm sure. It's not like we can't see it coming. The real issue here is that, for all intents and purposes, John Stamos is the new star of ER. He's the first new character in ages who has come aboard with energy and humor, not seeming miserable and depressed all the time. Though CBS taking Without a Trace off Thursdays has helped, I think much of ER's resurgence this season rests on Stamos' shoulders. It's a better, more entertaining show all around these days, not nearly as grim and off-putting as the last few seasons. (I bailed on most of last year, catching a few pivotal hours on DVR, and even then was unimpressed.) Thinking of Stamos as a "rebound guy" is probably only wishful thinking. Ray's the character who's never truly come to life (no fault of the actor; the writers let this young man down). Neela can do better, and probably will.

http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Columnists/Ask-Matt/default.aspx

GeorgeLV

10-24-06, 05:36 PM

...next fall, expect to see lots of new shows with scantily clad young women with super powers. Perhaps a detective who solves crimes in her cheerleader outfit – and who cannot be killed.

Buffy-ronica Mars!

fredfa

10-24-06, 05:39 PM

Critic’s Notebook
Writing 'Lost'
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor Oct. 24, 2006

Decisions, decisions: Saturday night I had two competing events at the same time. I could go to a haunted house with friends or listen to a former "Lost" writer and Carnegie Mellon University grad speak at CMU. I opted for the latter (better not to let anyone see what a big chicken I am).

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, a 1991 CMU grad from the school's creative writing and literary and cultural studies programs, returned to campus to share tales of his experiences with current students and the public. For anyone with an interest in writing or how the TV business works (that would be me), it was an interesting and entertaining 90 minutes.

Chugging Red Bull before he got started, Grillo-Marxuach explained how a TV script is written. He would know. Currently as a co-executive producer on NBC's "Medium," Grillo-Marxuach has also written for UPN's "Jake 2.0," NBC's "Boomtown," USA's "The Dead Zone," The WB's "Charmed" and NBC's "The Pretender."

To illustrate how the writing process works, Grillo-Marxuach walked us through a first-season "Lost" episode. "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues," which was originally titled "What It Takes," a title others on the "Lost" staff deemed lame, leading the writer to come up with a new title. And that's lesson No. 1: TV is a collaborative process. You can't be too precious and in love with anything you write. You must have an open mind.

At the same time, Grillo-Marxuach said a TV show script is not just a technical document that has to be interpreted by 150 people working on the show (from the actors to the director to wardrobe and props), "it has to have its own integrity and truth???. It is an art. It is a craft."

In the version of "All the Good Cowboys???" that aired, Boone (Ian Somerhalder) accompanies Locke while looking for Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), who have been abducted by Ethan Rom (William Mapother) of the Others. This is the episode where Locke and Boone first discover the hatch, but in Grillo-Marxuach's first outline it wasn't Boone who accompanied Locke, it was two guest characters made up from whole cloth, Arthur and Sullivan. Instead those characters were scrapped for a series regular, Boone, and in so doing, Grillo-Marxuach said it became the genesis for killing Boone later in the season.

Also searching for the missing Claire and Charlie are Jack (Matthew Fox) and Kate (Evangeline Lily). In Grillo-Marxuach's initial outline, Jack and Kate come under a dart attack by the Others. Executive producer Damon Lindelof deemed that too "cheesy," and the darts were cut. The discovery of the hatch was also moved from earlier in the episode to the end to give it a cliffhanger.

"This is part of the process you go through," Grillo-Marxuach said. "Everyone on staff gives notes. The executive producers give notes."

The episode also features Jack's back story with his alcoholic doctor father. Grillo-Marxuach said he drew on his background as the son of a doctor (albeit, not an alcoholic one) for writing those scenes.

Near the end of the episode, Jack and Kate find Charlie strung up in a tree. Jack tries to revive him, seemingly to no avail for a long period of time.

"The hysterical CPR resuscitation is the biggest clich?? in the book," Grillo-Marxuach acknowledged after playing the scene of Jack repeatedly womping on Charlie's chest. "But the nine people who were writing for the show decided, maybe we earned that. It gave us the emotional payoff for the episode."

Grillo-Marxuach also read the three pages of script that described the action (there was little dialogue) between the time Jack and Kate find Charlie and the time he's presumed dead by the characters and by the audience thanks to a wide shot that Grillo-Marxuach admitted was a trick played on the audience to sell the idea that Charlie wasn't going to survive.

"What we try to do in those three pages, is to give an idea of the tone and rhythm of the scene," he said, explaining that every series has its own house style (set by the show's creator) and it's the job of everyone else to learn to conform to that style. To get satisfaction from the process, Grillo-Marxuach said a writer must find a way to make it his own even as he writes in somebody else's world.

When it was time for questions, no one raised his or her hand immediately. My plan had been to let the students go first, but they started out a little shy. After three beats of silence, I raised my hand and asked what I thought was an obvious question but Grillo-Marxuach deemed it "really political," which I hadn't intended. I asked, "Why did you leave 'Lost'?" It's certainly a hipper show than "Medium," but I also noticed he got a better title on "Medium," so I figured it was an opportunity to move up another rung on the TV writer ladder.

Grillo-Marxuach explained he left because "Lost" had moved in a different direction and he had "fallen out of the mainstream of the show's voice.

"Not every relationship is one for the ages," he said. "You shouldn't stay in a place where you no longer belong. It wouldn't have been a good match. Knowing when to cut and run is a good thing."

He hasn't watched "Lost" since leaving the show's staff, saying, "It's like hanging out with your ex-wife. The parting was amicable, but I don't need to see her for coffee."

Good line!

He also found "Medium" offered him a chance to try something new.

"It's a show with such a strong family element," he said. "It's a place to work those muscles out. The sci-fi side of me is not getting so much enjoyment out of that, so I write a comic book on the side."

Grillo-Marxuach got into writing for TV after he was plucked from a job at Kinko's in Los Angeles for an executive training program at NBC. That helped him learn the language of TV, meet the right people, network with them and helped pave his way into the writing position he'd wanted from the outset.

Today his TV favorites include "24," "Gilmore Girls" and "Battlestar Galactica," the same show I've been raving about for three years.

" 'Galactica' is the most subtle, nuanced show on TV," he said. "It's a shame no one is watching it" compared to other series that get a much larger audience.

He noted how "Galactica," "Lost" and most shows today differ from their predecessors, like, say, 1983's "Hardcastle & McCormick."

"In part it's the post-MTV world where shows ask you to process more visual information than ever before," he said. "It will continue from there. The audience always expects more. TV will continue to evolve and become more complicated. But at the end of the day, it's about whether someone is telling a good story or not."

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

fredfa

10-24-06, 05:45 PM

Critic’s Notebook
Madonna's Shocking Inability to Shock
By P.J. Bednarski Broadcasting & Cable in the BCBeat blog Tuesday, October 24, 2006

I think Madonna on a cross wearing a crown of thorns is her version of Jumping the Shark. Sacrilege has kind of been done, you know? Doubtless, millions of Christians are offended that she does the whole crucifix-and-thorns bit in her stage act, but Christians who don't go around in a perpetual state of anger toward pop culture, I think, can watch Madonna do her stupid act and write it off as Madonna doing something that once would have seemed outrageous and now just seems old.

NBC apparently won't show the offending segment of the concert when they air a Madonna special in November. I'm sure Madonna's very mad and just might not cash her check from NBC, except of course, she needs the money to give to orphans.

"This is not a mocking of the church," she said in an Associated Press story, when the whole crucifix thing started up in mid-September.

"It is no different than a person wearing a cross or `taking up the cross' as it says in the Bible. My performance is neither anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous. Rather, it is my plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another and to see the world as a unified whole. I believe in my heart that if Jesus were alive today he would be doing the same thing."

I'm so sure.

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

fredfa

10-24-06, 06:14 PM

I'll be posting the top 5 and bottom five programs by network in just a bit, once I get throigh processing this week's ratings.

fredfa

10-24-06, 06:23 PM

TV Sports
ESPN MNF Sets Cable Record
By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 10/24/2006

Monday night’s New York Giants-Dallas Cowboys Monday Night Football game drew the largest audience in cable television history, according to ESPN.

The game averaged 11,807,000 households with a 12.8 rating, surpassing a 1993 CNN debate between Al Gore and Ross Perot on Larry King Live that was seen in 11,174,000 homes.

And as Fox hopes a long World Series will help prop up its post-season baseball average, the network’s season-to-date average for its Sunday national football game is up 10% from a year ago to a 13.4/26 household average.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6384444

fredfa

10-24-06, 06:29 PM

TV Notbook
“Lost” Hello, “Extreme” Goodbye

Lost returns to the ABC Schedule on February 7th, when it will run uninterrupted the rest of the season.

Remember how ABC plugged Extreme Makeover into its Friday night at 8 hole last week? It finished dead last of all ABC shows, and is already gone.

Next week the annual Charlie Brown Halloween airing of “It’s A Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” fills the slot, and then ABC will again show repeats of the Thursday episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

fredfa

10-24-06, 06:45 PM

Nielsen Notebook
Last Week’s Bottom Five Shows By Network
Week of Oct. 16-22
(Original episodes only. Ranked by total viewers in millions)

56 20/20 ABC 7.59
58 What About Brian ABC 7.34
64 Men in Trees ABC 6.24
72 Extreme Makeover ABC 4.82
76 “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” ABC 4.64
43 Ghost Whisperer CBS 10.27
47 How I Met Your Mother CBS 9.05
51 The Class CBS 8.45
60 “The Bourne Identity” CBS 6.92
81 48 Hours Mystery CBS 4.41
97 One Tree Hill CW 2.97
99t All of Us CW 2.83
102 The Game CW 2.65
113 America’s Top Model (Sun.) CW 1.95
114 Smallville (Sun.) CW 1.83
62t Friday Night Lights NBC 6.55
62t Dateline: NBC (Sat.) NBC 6.55
66 30 Rock NBC 5.71
68 Heroes (9 p.m.) NBC 5.56
70 20 Good Years NBC 5.09

Note: With all the baseball programming last week, the Fox numbers are relatively meaningless.
• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

fredfa

10-24-06, 06:52 PM

Nielsen Notebook
Last Week’s Top Five Shows By Network
Week of Oct. 16-22
(Original episodes only. Ranked by total viewers in millions)

1 Grey's Anatomy ABC 22.05
2 Dancing With the Stars ABC 21.25
4 Desperate Housewives ABC 19.71
5 Dancing W/Stars Results ABC 19.23
10 Lost ABC 16.31
3 CSI CBS 20.49
7 CSI: Miami CBS 18.12
11 Two and a Half Men CBS 16.25
12 Criminal Minds (Wed.) CBS 16.20
13 CSI: NY CBS 15.99
69 Next Top Model (Wed.) CW 5.15
71 Gilmore Girls CW 4.85
74 Smallville (Thu.) CW 4.71
75 Friday Night Smackdown CW 4.67
90t Supernatural CW 3.29
8 Deal or No Deal (Mon.) NBC 17.47
19 ER NBC 13.72
23 Law & Order: SVU (Tue.) NBC 12.98
24 Heroes NBC 12.96
29 1 vs. 100 NBC 11.97
Note: With all the baseball programming last week, the Fox numbers are relatively meaningless.
• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

AAF

10-24-06, 10:04 PM

I keep hoping for the best -- I thought the final scene last week was wonderful....

I think I'm giving up on 60. I agree that scene about her mother was well done...but how do you explain this week's episode? It was a mess!

The parents? Holy cow was that...bad.

The blacklisted war vet? The records search and sit down w/ the vet was just wrong. I deal with WWII vets and records almost daily. If you're very, very lucky you can get good results over a few days...but not during the course of a late night party on west coast time. And the Busfield character assuming that sort of familiarity with the man's personal history? Way off.

You want brave writing about the Black List? Let's see somebody write and air an episode addressing what COMINTERN and Hollywood's fellow travelers were up to.

If I continue to watch it will only be for the "what did he borrow or rework from WW this week?" The politics of WW were not mine, but the show was almost always entertaining.

fredfa

10-24-06, 11:55 PM

Weekly Nielsen Notbook
ABC on a roll in 18-49, total viewers
By Paul J. Gough The Hollywood Reporter October 25, 2006

NEW YORK -- With five weeks in the new season already in the record books, ABC captured another victory in the adults 18-49 demographic with four of the top five shows in the demo, including top-rated "Grey's Anatomy," and a 5% margin between it and second-place CBS and Fox.

That has all been done without "Monday Night Football," which moved over to a record-breaking cable run on ESPN. Even without the "MNF" boost, ABC is up week-to-week in viewers and the demo and has been every week so far this season. CBS kept its own streak alive winning the week in viewership and adults 25-54.

"Grey's" was the week's top show in both viewers and the adults 18-49 demographic, according to data released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research. The 9 p.m. Thursday drama averaged 22 million viewers and a 9.6 rating/23 share in adults 18-49, once again overpowering rival "CSI" (20.5 million, 6.9/16), which came in third for the week in both measures. ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" (21.2 million, 6.0/16) came in between "Grey's" and "CSI" in viewership while "Desperate Housewives" (19.7 million, 8.1/18) took second place in the demo.

Rounding out the top five in the demo was "Lost" (16.3 million, 6.6/16), while the top 10 included Game 2 of the World Series (18.2 million, 5.9/15), "CSI: Miami" (18.1 million, 5.8/15) and two NBC shows, "Heroes" (13 million, 5.7/13) and "ER" (13.7 million, 5.6/15). The 10th spot was held by Thursday's thrilling Game 7 of the St. Louis Cardinals-New York Mets NLCS, delivering 16.5 million viewers and a 5.4/15. That was ahead of Saturday's Game 1 of the World Series (12.8 million, 3.6/12), the lowest-rated Game 1 in World Series history but also such reliable performers as "Survivor: Cook Islands" (15 million, 5.3/14), Monday's "Deal or No Deal" (17.5 million, 5.2/14) and "CSI: NY" (16 million, 5.2/14).

The CW had brighter news with the move to Mondays of its comedy lineup, which had fallen back when they were running Sunday. "America's Next Top Model" was in second in the time period in women 18-34, while "Friday Night SmackDown!" tied for its largest adults 18-34 rating to date on the CW.

Meanwhile, ABC's "World News" won the week in the evening newscasts with a 2.3 rating in adults 25-54 to the 2.2 for "NBC Nightly News" and a 2.1 for the "CBS Evening News." NBC still won the week in viewership, with 8.6 million viewers to ABC's 8.5 million and CBS' 7.5 million. It was the closest ABC had been to NBC in three months, and it was also the fourth week in a row that CBS had been in third place in viewership.

Weekly averages: ABC (11.2 million , 4.0/11); CBS (12.6 million, 3.8/10); Fox (11.9 million, 3.8/11); NBC (8.9 million3.2/9); the CW (3.6 million, 1.5/4).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i9mMlg9kPyEwFRHNEkWAsAA%3D%3D

fredfa

10-25-06, 12:09 AM

The Business of TV
The Telcos' TV Gambit
Armed with new fiber-fed video services, Verizon and AT&T claim that consumers are being won over by superior quality. Do they have a better product than cable?
By Craig Leddy Cable World

"All I want to do is kiss cable goodbye," a woman says in a TV commercial heralding the launch of television service as part of Verizon's FiOS offering in the New York City area.

The commercial is part of the telephone companies’ latest, comprehensive and vitriolic assault on cable’s core business. The telcos have made various attempts to move into television delivery before, and now they’re talking a big game again.

Verizon says consumers are being won over by FiOS TV’s superior video and audio quality, fueled by its fiber-to-the-home network and numerous high-definition TV channels. AT&T, even without HD at the outset, says customers subscribing to U-verse TV, an Internet protocol TV service, compare it favorably with the picture quality of cable’s HDTV.

As they seek to corral dissatisfied cable and satellite customers and more, each telco is implying that it is beating cable on a matter of quality—their quality of service, video and audio, and overall television viewing experience.

If that is true, and the telcos figure a way to capitalize upon it, then they could turn the issue of product quality into a strategic marketing offensive against cable and satellite. Already, the telcos are suggesting that they believe that video quality, right along with customer service, is cable’s Achilles’ heel.

Yet at this point it is nearly impossible for anyone to say whether the telcos really have built a better product or not. TV beauty largely is in the eyes of the beholder, and there is a variety of factors for each consumer that will determine which service they think is better.

In theory, the type of FTTH (fiber to the home) architecture used by Verizon provides a cleaner signal path into the home than hybrid fiber coax technology used by most cable systems, according to engineers. But much of the quality depends on what happens inside the home—not really in the last mile but within the last few feet. Much of Verizon’s overall success also depends on its ability to drive down the high cost of deploying fiber and stay ahead of cable’s own efforts to offer all-digital TV options.

As for U-verse TV, which uses fiber-to-the-node architecture, AT&T is still overcoming the technical challenges of delivering IPTV and developing its product line. In September, it sent a letter to its initial customers in San Antonio, promising that HDTV, more channels, games, personal photo options and other features were coming soon.

So at this point, the question of product quality is mired in a war of words between cable and telco representatives, who are making claims and counter-claims. In the middle are American consumers, who will increasingly be presented with their own opportunities to answer the question.

The Q Word

Increasingly, telco executives keep hawking quality.

“My biggest surprise has been the importance of getting quality right – the bigger notion of quality relative to ordering the service all the way through install and experiencing it afterward,” says Shawn Strickland, VP, FiOS TV product management. “The word of mouth around our video and audio quality has been phenomenal. It’s helped us as we’ve entered these markets because the word of mouth has a multiplier effect on marketing dollars. What we’re seeing is customers are willing to pay for quality.”

Earmarking $18 billion in net capital to support its FiOS Internet and TV network from 2004 to 2010, Verizon has about 100,000 FiOS TV subscribers. It’s aiming to attract 175,000 TV customers by year-end and 3 to 4 million by 2010.

HDTV is a priority for FiOS (it claims to be “No. 1 in the number of national high-definition channels it offers”), as well as interactive TV, which has begun with local traffic and weather features called Widgets.

Strickland says, “We want to be the first place that the programming industry comes to when a new HD product is launched.”

Verizon has been touting its all-digital capability from the outset, suggesting that it has built a better mousetrap than cable’s HFC plant.

“Our FiOS TV product is fully digital from day one, with tons of high-definition content,” Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said during the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show.

More recently, during a Verizon financial analysts meeting, Virginia Ruesterholz, president of Verizon Telecom, said customers “really see the difference in the quality.” Bob Mudge, EVP and COO, Verizon Telecom, added that TV retailers are displaying demos of FiOS, cable and satellite, and one store told them that seven out of 10 of its TV set buyers are adding FiOS.

Even without HD, Michael Grasso, assistant VP, consumer marketing, AT&T U-verse, says, “Customers...find the picture quality to be so sharp, so clean. In a number of cases they’ve compared our standard-def offering to the MSOs’ hi-def offering, and in many cases said it outperforms.”

Cable Fights Back

Cable operators aren’t buying the telcos’ story. “Our digital cable product is ahead of our competitors, and we certainly plan on maintaining that lead,” says Dave Watson, EVP of operations for Comcast.

Noting that Comcast recently added 100 hours of HD video on demand to its advanced services offerings, Watson says Comcast “provides an entertainment experience that the telcos are desperately trying to match.”

“They don’t have a better mousetrap,” says Time Warner Cable spokesman Mark Harrad. “To me, you yell ‘quality’ when you don’t have anything unique.”

Warren Jones, director of competitive strategy & retention, Cox, says, “We do not see anything in either Verizon’s or AT&T’s video products that materially differentiates their video services from the satellite competitors we have competed with for years.”

“I’ve never seen so much hype and baloney in my life,” says a Texas cable system manager who’s competing with a telco. “U-verse doesn’t work yet. FiOS doesn’t scale [economically]. They’re both caught in limbo-land.”

“They do like to say that, don’t they?” says U-verse TV’s Grasso of operators’ dismissals. “Yet we fly people in all the time to see our service and I’ve never seen anybody walk out without their jaw hanging down, absolutely impressed with what we’ve been able to accomplish with U-verse TV.

“And our ability to scale? Yes, we’re going to scale. We’ve already started scaling in San Antonio and you’ll see us scale in other markets,” Grasso says.

While noting that IPTV has been technically challenging, he says, “We’ve got all the right tools and the right people in place, and now it’s truly a matter of time until you see us out there, and that time line is fairly short.”

A Marketing Advantage?

Verizon says two-thirds of its FiOS TV subscribers are cable defectors. But even Strickland concedes that video quality alone probably isn’t enough to get cable subscribers to defect in droves. Verizon points to the cumulative effects of customer service, bundling, international channels, multiroom digital video recorder and interactive Widgets.

Yet the cable industry itself originally was built largely on its ability to provide better TV pictures. Satellite, too, benefited from the attention it got for its all-digital lineup. This is television, after all.

One FiOS TV subscriber interviewed for this story says the picture quality definitely is superior.

“It definitely is better than cable,” says William Donohue of Massapequa Park, N.Y. “It’s amazing. Picture-perfect reception. I’m sure the HD is about the same, but on regular TV the difference is like night and day.”

A former FiOS subscriber says the difference in picture quality was imperceptible on his TV sets, although the TVs are older models. The subscriber, Stanley Jacobs of Massapequa Park, says he and his wife couldn’t get used to the new FiOS channel lineup and remote control so they accepted a Cablevision Systems win-back offer.

“Now my wife is very happy. She has her old remote, her old channels, like channel 61 local weather,” Jacobs says.

Even if picture quality is a “selling point, would it provide a significant marketing advantage, especially when consumers have to see it first to believe it? Market researchers say customer service remains a bigger issue for cable than picture quality.

“Clarity’s not going to be a big issue, unless it’s not there,” says Steve Kirkeby, executive director, telecommunications and technology, J.D. Power and Associates. Telco IPTV services will be successful provided that they’re no worse than cable or satellite, he says.

“I expect Verizon to be immediately successful because there are a significant number of customers who just aren’t happy at all,” Kirkeby says. “They had a problem, you didn’t fix it, they’re gone.”

Bruce Leichtman, president of Leichtman Research Group, says, “The telcos are going to take some cable subscribers, so you have to figure out which ones you’ll let them get. It’s like a football game. They’re going to get yards but you want to limit those yards.”

Both the cable and phone industries have a group of potential switchers. According to Leichtman Research, 19% of U.S. households are interested in getting TV service from their local phone company while 17% are interested in getting phone service from their cable company.

The telcos’ moves into video comes as the market already is saturated, Leichtman says. The telcos also have an advantage with movers, since one of six Americans change their home location each year, and they tend to call their phone company upon arrival, he says.

Adios FiOS
Before the telcos launched TV service, cable began moving to provide all-digital service options through digital simulcast and switched digital video. Top MSO executives have denied that they’ll need to invest a lot more in capital to meet the telco threat.

Cable’s primary response to the telcos has included digital phone services and going after business customers. Time Warner has launched a $99 residential bundle in some markets. Internally, Cox in Northern Virginia has a competitive plan called “Adios FiOS.”

Comcast’s Watson says, “We expect to have 8 to 10 million phone customers before the Bells have even 1 million video customers in our footprint. We’ll continue to roll out advanced products as we always have and that will put the telcos even further behind than they already are.”

Verizon’s Strickland says there is no single killer app or silver bullet that will get consumers to switch. But, he adds, “At some point for each customer there’s going to be a tipping point where by adding that last thing you’ve got their interest and they’re willing to switch.”

J.D. Power’s Kirkeby says it’s better for each industry to fight over issues like customer service and quality rather than getting drawn into a price war.

“Forget price wars,” he says. “Let’s have service wars. How about that? How about performance and reliability wars?”

http://www.cable360.net/cableworld/features/basic/20292.html

fredfa

10-25-06, 12:19 AM

Cable Nielsen Notebook
Disney Beats ESPN to Lead Weekly Cable Ratings
By Anthony Crupi Media Week Oct. 24, 2006

Disney Channel pulled a seasonal coup last week, unseating sibling ESPN as basic cable’s most-watched network in prime time.

The non-ad-supported Disney averaged 3.5 million total viewers and a 2.8 household rating in prime time, according to Nielsen Media Research data for the week ending Oct. 22. Disney boasted six of the week’s top 10 programs, including three showings of Return to Halloweentown, the latest installment of its Halloweentown movie franchise. The Friday night premiere of Return drew the cable universe’s second-largest audience, with 7.53 million total viewers tuning in between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Return also beat out ABC, Fox and the CW in its Friday night time slot and handily won the night among all cable nets.

ESPN was easily the No. 1 rated ad-supported cable net last week, averaging 3.01 million total viewers and a 2.5 household rating in prime, thanks to another stellar performance by Monday Night Football. The showdown between the Super Bowl favorites the Chicago Bears and Matt Leinart’s Arizona Cardinals delivered 14.23 million total viewers and took all of the top demos, including adults 18-49 (7.35 million), adults 25-54 (7.61 million) and adults 18-34 (3.38 million).

Second place on the week went to USA Network, which drew an average audience of 2.18 million viewers and a 1.8 household rating in prime on the strength of its Monday night WWE juggernaut, which delivered an average 1.28 million viewers in its 9 p.m.-11p.m. time slot. USA trailed behind only ESPN in the core adult demos, averaging 1.03 million adults 18-49, 966,000 25-54s and 525,000 18-34s.

TNT took third among all ad-supported cable nets with 1.8 million total viewers and a 1.6 HH rating, while Nick-at-Nite came in fourth (1.43 million/1.3 HH), edging out Cartoon Net (1.4 million/1.3 HH).

The week’s highest-rated non-sports program was the season finale of Project Runway, which shattered Bravo’s previous all-time ratings record Wednesday night by luring 5.36 million total viewers and 3.44 million adults 18-49. Nip/Tuck was also a big winner for FX, winning over the fifth-largest audience on ad-supported cable with 3.98 million total viewers and 2.91million adults 18-49.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003287466

fredfa

10-25-06, 12:24 AM

The Business of TV
COX’S NEW APPROACH ON CUSTOMER ACQUISITION PAYS OFF
[SIZE=4Marketing to Non-Video Subscribers Contributes to 3Percent Customer Growth [/SIZE]
Cox Communications News Release

ATLANTA – Nine months after implementing a new acquisition strategy targeting non-video subscribers, Cox Communications, Inc., today announced that the approach is paying off with accelerated growth of customers who only purchase telephone and/or Internet services. Today, Cox leads the industry with more than 432,000 non-video subscribers; a figure that grew by 21 percent over the same period a year ago.

“Our world is changing, and we needed to change our marketing strategies too,” said Patrick Esser, president. “Our ‘line into every home’ strategy maximizes our return on the $16 billion investment we’ve made in our network since 1996. We’re pursuing business out of every home passed, even if that home is only interested in telephone service, or perhaps values their connection to the Internet more highly than a multi-channel video service.”

Supporting the growth in non-video subscribers was a strong quarter for both Cox High Speed Internet and Cox Digital Telephone. The company now has more than 3.2 million broadband subscribers, an 18 percent increase over the same period a year ago. With telephone service now ubiquitous in its availability across Cox, the company saw subscriptions rise to 1.9 million, an increase of 24 percent.

Even with the emphasis on new services, the company’s performance in video remained outstanding. Basic video subscriptions grew by 1.6 percent to 5.4 million and Digital Cable subscriptions grew by 14 percent to 2.7 million. Spurred by new features such as high definition, DVR and On DEMAND, Digital-to-Basic penetration now exceeds 50 percent.

The highlight of Cox’s quarter was 2.8 percent growth in total residential customer relationships to more than 5.8 million. Penetration of total customer relationships to homes passed stands at greater than 63 percent. “While our telephone competitors work feverishly to string fiber through neighborhoods and learn how to deliver a competitive video service, we’re reaping the benefits of ten years of vision, investment and experience, solidifying our customer relationships with proven products and customer service,” Esser said.

Cox ended the quarter with more than 3.3 million bundled customers, representing 57 percent of total residential customers and 16 percent growth over the same period a year ago. About 24 percent of customers elect to take all three services from Cox. Bundled sell-in continues to improve, with 18 percent of new customers opting for the triple play of video, voice and data. In Cox’s most mature bundled markets, triple play sell-in has exceeded 30 percent of new subscribers.

In the third quarter, Cox was distinguished with numerous honors. In July, Cox received J.D. Power and Associates' Highest Honors in Telephone Customer Satisfaction in the Northeast, Southwest and Western Regions; in August, it received the Highest Honor in the West in J.D. Power and Associates’ 2006 Residential Cable/Satellite TV Customer Satisfaction Study(sm). Cox is now the only company to receive highest honors for video, telephone and high-speed Internet services.

“We are focused on sustainable, consistent growth and are thrilled to have delivered yet another quarter of outstanding results by deepening our reach to consumers in our footprint,” Esser said. “Cox employees deliver the best bundle of services available and support it with unparalleled customer service; this positions us as the trusted provider in our markets.”

Historical subscriber data presented in this press release has been adjusted for Cox's May 2006 sale of certain cable systems that had approximately 940,000 basic cable subscribers. Data presented includes customers in New Orleans, but New Orleans data has been excluded for purposes of calculating growth rates.

fredfa

10-25-06, 09:59 AM

Nielsen Notebook
Games Are Big Winners
By Gary Levin USA Today Oct. 25, 2006

•Are you game? NBC's renewed appetite for cheap reality programming stems from the success of Deal or No Deal, which folded in 17.5 million viewers Monday, its second-best total yet. And new 1 vs. 100 (12 million) held much of last week's premiere audience, tying Numb3rs as Friday's top show.

•Fall classic. After a weak championship series and a record-low Game 1 (12.8 million Saturday), Fox's World Series rebounded for Sunday's second outing with 18.2 million viewers and won the night.

•Stepping lively. Dancing With the Stars, capitalizing on Sara Evans' abrupt departure, hit 21.3 million viewers Tuesday, the series' biggest episode apart from its two previous finales. Wednesday's results show trotted to 19.2 million, the most-watched results show yet.

•Scary. Disney Channel's latest movie, Return to Halloweentown, averaged 7.5 million viewers Friday, the best showing yet for the four-film franchise. It ranked second on cable last week and snared half of all "tween" girls (ages 9-14) watching TV that night.

•Runway takeoff. Bravo's top-rated series, Project Runway, set channel records, cataloguing 5.4 million viewers for Wednesday's third-season finale, up from 3.4 million last season.

•Katie watch. The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric remained in third place last week, though NBC's lead narrowed to 1.1 million viewers from 1.5 million a week earlier. Nightly News had 8.7 million, ABC's World News 8.5 million and Couric 7.6 million. ABC led a tight race among adults ages 25 to 54.

•Reality bites. Two series made their belated season debuts Friday to sluggish results: ABC's Extreme Makeover (the original, plastic-surgery kind) averaged 4.8 million viewers Friday, worse than Grey's Anatomy repeats that had aired there the previous four weeks. (They'll return next week.) And a double dose of Fox's Trading Spouses averaged 3.5 million.

•Ratings hostage. NBC's lame-duck Kidnapped returned in its new death slot, Saturdays at 9 ET/PT, with 4.2 million, not far below its last Wednesday airing.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-24-nielsens-analysis_x.htm

fredfa

10-25-06, 10:17 AM

The TV Column
Out in Left Field: New Series, World Series
By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, October 25, 2006; C07

New series continued to drop like flies last week, while having no breakout freshman hit left networks anxious. Also, the first two games of the World Series didn't pan out so well for Fox, but football exploded on ESPN.

Here's a look at the week's touchdowns and strikeouts:

WINNERS

"Monday Night Football." ESPN's coverage of the Chicago Bears' thrilling win over the Arizona Cardinals scared up an average audience of 14.2 million last week, beating all the broadcast networks in prime time. ESPN trumped that this past Monday when its coverage of the New York Giants' victory over the Dallas Cowboys copped 16.028 million viewers -- which is not, as ESPN claimed, the biggest audience in the history of cable television. The stranger-than-fiction November 1993 debate between Al Gore and Ross Perot on CNN's "Larry King Live" clocked an average of 16.837 million viewers, for instance. In making its claim, ESPN was referring to the number of "households" its game coverage averaged, rather than the number of actual people. But, of course, houses don't watch TV -- people do.

"Heroes." NBC's new Monday ensemble drama is this season's No. 3 series among 18-to-34-year-olds, behind only ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives" -- a very healthy development for a network trying to rise from the ashes of its former self.

"Project Runway." Los Angeles troll designer Jeffrey Sebelia won the third round of Bravo's fashion-design competition and attracted a crowd of nearly 5.4 million -- the NBC Universal cable network's biggest audience ever and nearly as many viewers as Tina Fey's much-ballyhooed sitcom "30 Rock" clocked on the NBC network at 8 that night. Next day, NBC Universal announced scripted series are dead to NBC at 8. Coincidence?

"Dancing With the Stars." More than 21 million people -- the ABC show's biggest audience ever except for its Season 1 and 2 finales -- stuck with it for nearly 90 minutes on Tuesday to hear host Tom Bergeron interview contestant-crooner Sara Evans in the final few minutes about why she quit the show so abruptly. Evans repaid them for their patience by revealing that it was because of something too private to discuss having to do with filing for divorce from Hubby.

"The Class." CBS has ordered additional scripts on its struggling new Monday sitcom, which means it wants to see where the struggling series is going creatively before deciding whether to continue with it. That's the good news -- and the bad news.

"Shark." James Woods's lawyer drama pulls to within 10,000 viewers of Thursday 10 p.m. time-slot winner "ER" and wins a full-season pickup.

"The Game." Having canceled half of the new series on its schedule -- that would be "Runaway" -- CW last week gave a full-season pickup to the other half, "The Game."

"7th Heaven." CW gave its aged soap a full-season pickup, surprising many who thought the show already had it.

"Criminal Minds." Mandy Patinkin's wonderful weekly exercise in scenery-chewing has pulled to within 10,000 viewers of ABC's too-hip-to-live "Lost" at 9 on Wednesdays. Chew on, Mandy!

LOSERS

"Extreme Makeover." ABC pulled its nip-tuck reality series after its one -- and apparently only -- broadcast, which attracted an anorexic 4.8 million viewers on Friday. Appropriately, "Grey's Anatomy" reruns will return to the slot, though this week it will be filled by "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

"Runaway." Donnie Wahlberg drama about family on the lam attracted just 1.7 million viewers -- too small a crowd even for the CW network, so it's kaput after just three broadcasts.

"Waterfront." Topping even Wahlberg's performance, however, this CBS series, starring Joe Pantoliano as the ethically challenged mayor of Providence, was pulled before it even got a time slot or a debut date. That brings to three the number of new CBS shows starring Pantoliano that canceled almost immediately -- the others being "The Handler" and "Dr. Vegas," though Rob Lowe deserves some of the credit on that one -- securing Pantoliano a place in the pantheon of Certified Show Killers.

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" apparently has leveled off with an audience of just under 8 million, barely ahead of ABC's "What About Brian" and about 10 million behind CBS's "CSI: Miami" in the Monday 10 p.m. time slot. Aaron Sorkin's only hope for his show's survival is the upscaleness of those 8 million.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401415_pf.html

fredfa

10-25-06, 10:30 AM

I think I'm giving up on 60. I agree that scene about her mother was well done...but how do you explain this week's episode? It was a mess!

The parents? Holy cow was that...bad.

The blacklisted war vet? The records search and sit down w/ the vet was just wrong. I deal with WWII vets and records almost daily. If you're very, very lucky you can get good results over a few days...but not during the course of a late night party on west coast time. And the Busfield character assuming that sort of familiarity with the man's personal history? Way off.

You want brave writing about the Black List? Let's see somebody write and air an episode addressing what COMINTERN and Hollywood's fellow travelers were up to.

If I continue to watch it will only be for the "what did he borrow or rework from WW this week?" The politics of WW were not mine, but the show was almost always entertaining.

I pretty much agree across the board.

It seems sad that such a great TV writer seems to have fallen victim to reading the glowing reviews of his work.

And the reviews of this particular piece of work should notye be even close to those of WW. But the critics fell in love before even going on the first date. This show has been consistently muddled, careening through story lines like a kid at a donut factory freebie day.

To think that all three principals would have the names and deeds of the "Hollywood Ten" etched so firmly in their minds is simply ludicrous. Knowledge of history in Hollywood generally is seen as someone who knows the names of Top-10 TV shows going back 25 years.

And the Network president's actions? Come on. First they were not in the slightest bit believable, and on top of that they were stupid and poorly written.

Aside from Sorkin's narcissim, there seems no reason to bring up that sorry (but retold over and over) part of TV and movie history. I shudder to even consider what gems he has lined up next.

fredfa

10-25-06, 11:08 AM

(From Marc Berman’s Programming Insider column at Mediaweek.com )
Fall 2006: Freshman Series Update

What follows is the latest update on the freshman class of 2006-07:

ABC
• The Knights of Prosperity: on hiatus indefinitely
• Big Day (Tues. 9 p.m.): expected to debut in late November
• Help Me Help You (Tues. 9:30 p.m.): on the fence
• The Nine (Wed. 9 p.m.): losing steam every week
• Ugly Betty (Thurs. 8 p.m.): full season renewal
• Six Degrees (Thurs. 10 p.m.): losing steam every week
• Men in Trees (Fri. 9 p.m.): on the fence

CBS
• The Class (Mon. 8:30 p.m.): four more scripts ordered
• Smith (Tues. 10 p.m.): canceled
• Jericho (Wed. 8 p.m.): full season renewal
• Shark (Thurs. 10 p.m.): full season renewal

NBC
• Heroes (Mon. 9 p.m.): full season renewal
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (Mon. 10 p.m.): on the fence
• Friday Night Lights (Tues. 8 p.m.): OTO airing Monday, Oct. 30 at 10 p.m. ET
• 30 Rock (Wed. 8 p.m.): major erosion in week two
• 20 Good Years (Wed. 8:30 p.m.): unlikely to survive past midseason
• Kidnapped (Sat. 8 p.m.): shipped to Saturday to complete its 13-episode run

Fox
• Vanished: moving to Friday at 8 p.m. on Oct. 27
• Standoff (Tues. 8 p.m.): flipping time periods with lead-out House as planned
• Justice: moving to Monday at 9 p.m.
• ‘Til Death (Thurs. 8 p.m.): three more scripts ordered despite minimal audience interest
• Happy Hour (Thurs. 8:30 p.m.): on hiatus

CW
• The Game (Mon. 9:30 p.m.): full season renewal
• Runaway (Sun. 9 p.m.): canceled

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

shuttermaker

10-25-06, 11:13 AM

Looking Forward to "3Lbs." starring Stanley Tucci.

fredfa

10-25-06, 11:18 AM

Me too, shuttermaker.

fredfa

10-25-06, 11:27 AM

Tuesday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

Rakesh.S

10-25-06, 12:31 PM

Berman didn't mention that Vanished is done after 13 episodes..that's what other articles have seemed to indicate.

jaydee353

10-25-06, 12:51 PM

Scrubs is coming back. :)

NBC Press Release:

NBC RE-MAKES TWO-HOUR COMEDY BLOCK ON THURSDAYS WITH RETURN OF 'SCRUBS' AND MOVE OF '30 ROCK' TO JOIN 'MY NAME IS EARL' AND 'THE OFFICE' BEGINNING NOVEMBER 30

MOVE IS PRECEDED BY SPECIAL 'SUPER-SIZED' NIGHT OF COMEDY FEATURING 40-MINUTE EPISODES OF 'EARL,' 'THE OFFICE' AND '30 ROCK' ON NOVEMBER 16

BURBANK - October 25, 2006 - NBC will return the Emmy Award-nominated "Scrubs" and move freshman comedy "30 Rock" to Thursday nights beginning November 30 to form a new two-hour 8-10 p.m. (ET) comedy block with "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office." The change will follow a special super-sized night of comedy two weeks earlier on Thursday, November 16, with three 40-minute episodes of "My Name Is Earl," "The Office" and "30 Rock."

The announcements were made by Kevin Reilly, President, NBC Entertainment.

"We are excited about the prospect of two-hours of top-notch comedy on Thursday nights, which includes the return of 'Scrubs,'" said Reilly. "We will stay on-brand with the best comedy block on television, which will position us for the future on the night."

Beginning November 30, NBC's Thursday-night lineup will be "My Name Is Earl" (8-8:30 p.m. ET); "The Office" (8:30-9 p.m. ET); "Scrubs" (9-9:30 p.m. ET); and "30 Rock" (9:30-10 p.m. ET). "ER" will continue at 10-11 p.m. (ET).

Starting November 22, NBC will feature various specials on Wednesdays (8-9 p.m. ET), which will soon be announced.

Winner of a prestigious Humanitas Prize and a People's Choice Award, and nominated for a Producer's Guild and two consecutive Outstanding Comedy Series Awards, "Scrubs" (now entering its sixth season) focuses on the strange experiences of J.D. (Zach Braff, "Last Kiss," "Garden State"), a medical resident, as he continues on his healing career in a surreal hospital, crammed full of unpredictable staffers and patients -- where humor and tragedy can collide at any time.

Joining the rumpled J.D. at Sacred Heart Hospital are fellow residents Chris Turk (Donald Faison, "Remember the Titans," "Felicity") -- J.D.'s college buddy who is part of the elite surgical group -- and the beautiful, but socially awkward, Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke, "Roseanne").

Keeping a watchful eye over these young doctors are the caustic chief of medicine, Dr. Bob Kelso (Ken Jenkins, "Courage Under Fire"), the abrasive, but caring, Dr. Perry Cox (John C. McGinley, "Wall Street," "Platoon"), and Turk's wife and no-nonsense nurse, Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes, "Oz"). Neil Flynn ("Magnolia"), the hospital janitor, portrays J.D.'s nemesis, who never seems to miss an opportunity to harass his target.

"Scrubs" is produced by Touchstone Television. Bill Lawrence ("Spin City") is the executive producer and creator.

"30 Rock" is told through the comedic voice of Emmy winner Tina Fey (NBC's "Saturday Night Live") as Liz Lemon and features Alec Baldwin as the brash new network executive who has turned her show upside down with his meddling ways. Single Lemon is living every comedy writer's dream - head writer on a demanding, live TV program in New York City. Her life is jolted when executive Donaghy (Baldwin, "The Aviator") interferes with her show, and bullies Lemon into convincing Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan, NBC's "Saturday Night Live," "The Longest Yard"), a wild and unpredictable movie star, to join the cast. Tony winner Jane Krakowski also is featured as the star of "The Girlie Show."

Also rounding out the cast in the half-hour comedy are Scott Adsit, Jack McBrayer and Rachel Dratch ("Saturday Night Live").

"30 Rock" is from Broadway Video and NBC Universal Television Studio. Executive producers are Lorne Michaels ("Saturday Night Live"), Tina Fey ("Saturday Night Live"), JoAnn Alfano ("Sons & Daughters"), Marci Klein ("Saturday Night Live") and David Miner ("The Tracy Morgan Show").

Created and written by Emmy-winning Greg Garcia ("Yes, Dear), "My Name Is Earl" is executive-produced by Garcia and Emmy-winning Marc Buckland ("Medical Investigation," "Ed") and Bobby Bowman ("Yes, Dear"). The series is produced by Twentieth Century Fox Television and Amigos de Garcia. Jason Lee stars in the title role.

"The Office" - which earned the Emmy as Outstanding Comedy Series earlier this year -- is executive-produced by Ben Silverman, Greg Daniels, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Howard Klein. Golden Globe winner Steve Carell stars.

fredfa

10-25-06, 01:05 PM

thanks, jaydee353. I've been out of the house for a couple of hours and I much appreciate people helping me to keep things up to date here!

I guess "Twenty Good Years" is gone. No surprise there.

But what is NBC going to do about "Studio 60" and "Friday Night Lights"?

fredfa

10-25-06, 01:09 PM

The Digital Revolution
Hi-Def Set Ownership Grows
By Daisy Whitney Television Week October 25, 2006

High-definition television sets are now found in one of every six homes in the United States, according to a new report from Leichtman Research Group. That's up from one in every 14 homes just two years ago, the study found.

Not surprisingly, these sets are found in higher-income households. The mean annual income of a hi-def home is 42 percent above the overall average, and more than one-quarter of homes with annual incomes of more than $50,000 own a hi-def set.

The study also found that 26 percent of hi-def owners have more than one hi-def set, up from 11 percent last year.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10956

fredfa

10-25-06, 01:32 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
ABC holds Tuesday,despite baseball
Ties with Fox and its World Series coverage
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct. 25, 2006

Even against an admittedly diluted World Series, ABC’s Tuesday night keeps chugging along.

Another strong performance by “Dancing with the Stars” helped ABC tie baseball carrier Fox last night with a 4.2 adults 18-49 average and 11 share for the evening, according to Nielsen overnights. That was up 8 percent over the 3.9 ABC averaged the equivalent night last year, when “Stars” was not airing and “Commander in Chief” was.

Thus far this year, ABC is averaging a 4.4 on Tuesday nights, up 29 percent over the 3.4 it averaged on that night in 2005, according to Nielsen data crunched by Fox.

“Stars” remained the top-rated show on the night despite solid competition from the World Series. It averaged a 5.0 in its first hour, leading the Series by 1.5, and a 6.0 in its final half hour, 1.6 ahead of the Series.

The night will become much more interesting when Fox’s “House” returns from its baseball-induced hiatus and moves to the 9 p.m. timeslot. It had been beating “Stars” at 8 among 18-49s, though not total viewers, before going on break.

NBC finished third last night behind ABC and Fox with a rerun-heavy lineup, averaging a 3.3/9. CBS followed with a 2.9/8, CW was fifth at 1.7/5, and Univision was sixth at 1.5/4.

As a reminder, fast nationals measure timeslot data and not actual program data. Ratings for Fox’s World Series game, which ran until 11:39 p.m., will likely change when final ratings are released later today. Even so, it looks as though this year’s game will be down from last year’s Game 3.

At 8 p.m., “Stars” led with a 6.0, followed by the World Series at 3.5, CBS’s “NCIS” rerun at 2.9, NBC’s “Friday Night Lights” at 2.6, down slightly from last week, CW’s “Gilmore Girls” at 2.0, and Univision’s 1.9 for “La Fea Mas Bella.”

At 9 p.m., Fox led with a 4.7 for baseball, followed by ABC’s 4.6 for the last half hour of “Stars” (6.0) and “Help Me Help You” (3.3), a 3.3 for a rerun of NBC’s “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” a 2.9 for a rerun of “The Unit” on CBS, and a 1.4 apiece for CW’s “Veronica Mars” and Univision’s “Mundo de Fieras.”

At 10 p.m., Fox led again with a 4.6, followed by NBC at 3.9 for a “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” a 3.1 for ABC’s “Boston Legal,” a 2.9 for CBS’s “Criminal Minds” rerun, and a 1.1 for Univision’s “Ver para Creer.”

Among households, ABC led with a 10.4/16, followed by Fox at 9.2/14, CBS at 6.6/10, NBC at 5.8/9, and the CW and Univision tied at 2.0/3.

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8142.asp

Gaiwan

10-25-06, 01:42 PM

Wow, didnt someone on here propose for NBC to do that 2 hour comedy block just recently? I think it may have been on one of fredfa's articles, but either way its a neat coincidence that the two happened so closely. I think its a great move on NBC's part, although I would put The Office at the more prestigous 9pm hour.

fredfa

10-25-06, 01:46 PM

I don't think the move can hurt NBC, but looking forard, it has to replace four hours of programming on Sundays when the NFL ends, and American Idol will be returning at about the same time. Ouch.

fredfa

10-25-06, 02:07 PM

TV Notebook
'Scrubs' returns; 'Rock' rolls to new NBC Thursdays
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” October 25, 2006

NBC is scrambling its Thursday lineup again.

It’s a dose of very good news for “Scrubs” fans: The comedy will return on Nov. 30, along with “30 Rock” (last year we had to wait until January for new "Scrubs" episodes, so this slightly earlier return is a nice surprise).

“My Name Is Earl” and “The Office” will stay where they are on Thursdays, and the end result is that the Peacock network will once again have a two-hour comedy block on Thursdays. That new Thursday lineup again: “Earl,” “Office,” “Scrubs” and “30 Rock.”

Of course, “Scrubs” and “30 Rock” will now be going up against the ratings behemoths “CSI” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Then again, both those shows will likely head into repeats in December.

Before the new lineup debuts on Nov. 30, NBC will air supersized versions of “My Name Is Earl,” “The Office” and “30 Rock” on Nov. 16. I have no idea what will air on Nov. 23, but since that’s Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t be surprised if NBC airs some combination of repeats and/or “Deal or No Deal.”

Things aren’t looking good for “Twenty Good Years,” since NBC’s Wednesday press release says that in the 7 p.m. Wednesday spot, formerly occupied by “30 Rock” and “Years,” it’ll show “various specials.”

In a certain way, this is a vote of confidence in “30 Rock.” Despite the fact that the network is putting the newbie Tina Fey comedy up against the two strongest drama series on TV, NBC is also matching “Rock” up with much more compatible fare (and counterprogramming those hit dramas with comedy is not a bad idea).

Being part of a night of really good comedy, which is concluded at 9 p.m. by the resurgent drama “ER,” is probably a better fate for “30 Rock” than being stranded on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. with a very inferior show. Let’s hope that “30 Rock” fits in, quality-wise, with what will be a pretty darn good night of comedy.

And we’d better brace ourselves for whatever those “various specials” are going to be, given that NBC’s new policy is to air a rag-bag of reality and game shows at 7 p.m. going forward (except on Thursdays). And I’m not going to get too attached to this schedule; once Fox announces its “American Idol” plans for next year, I bet most networks are going to start ripping up their schedules.

In any case, I’m just glad we’re getting another super-sized episode of “The Office.” Two words: Suh. Weet.

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

fredfa

10-25-06, 02:17 PM

TV Notebook
NBC places its bets on comedy again
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn” Oct. 25, 2006

I told you "30 Rock" was a hoot. You wouldn't believe me. But who's laughing now?

NBC announced today that it is remaking its classic two-hour comedy block on Thursday nights after November sweeps. And "30 Rock" is going to be part of it, along with "Scrubs." It will have its coming-out party Nov. 16, during sweeps with one of those super-sized don't-touch-your-dial specials NBC seems to enjoy inflicting on the public. (I've got nothing against hanging onto your audience. But when did a show get better just by making it longer?)

The Tina Fey "write what you know" sitcom about life behind the scenes at a NBC sketch comedy show, "30 Rock" isn't exactly a classic. But it deserves better than it's gotten in that shotgun marriage with "20 Good Years," which appears to be toast, and not 20 good minutes too soon.

"30 Rock" will join "Scrubs" and current Thursday occupants "Earl" and "Office" Nov. 30, as the lead-in to "ER." Granted, it may turn into "Grey's Anatomy" roadkill like former time slot occupant "Deal or No Deal." But with "Scrubs" as its lead-in, I like to think they're replacing Howie Mandel with "The Real Deal."

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

fredfa

10-25-06, 03:00 PM

TV Notebook
NBC Shakes Up Programming
By Jim Benson Broadcasting & Cable 10/25/2006

In a major shakeup of its programming lineup, NBC is returning to an 8-10 p.m. comedy block on Thursdays and pulling its short-lived Wednesday night sitcom Twenty Good Years off of the schedule. There is no firm date set for its return.

Nine episodes of the older-skewing comedy starring Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow have been shot. NBC intends to complete all 13, indicating the network may bring it back at some point later this season.

Under the revamp, NBC will keep My Name is Earl and The Office from 8-9 p.m. Thursday. Starting Nov. 30, it will return utility hitter Scrubs at 9 followed by 30 Rock, which moves from 8 p.m. Wednesdays to 9:30 p.m. Thursdays leading into ER.

The third weekly edition of Deal or No Deal, which over five Thursday night airings this season at 9 had averaged a distant third-place 3.3 rating/8 share in adults 18-49, will be benched. But with all of the holes in NBC’s schedule, it is a safe bet that it won’t be gone for long.

The change will follow a special “super-sized” Thursday night of comedy two weeks earlier on Nov. 16, with three 40-minute episodes of Earl, The Office and 30 Rock.

On Nov. 15, Medium will return to the Wednesday night schedule with an extended 9-11 p.m. episode. The Biggest Loser will kick off the night at 8. In subsequent weeks, specials will air at 8, Loser at 9 (except for its expanded 8-10 finale in December) and Medium at 10.

The moves come after NBC had trouble getting its Wednesday night comedy block rolling with the two freshmen sitcoms, which faced off against stiff competition from ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and CBS’ Jericho.

In their two October airings, 30 Rock has been averaging a 2.6/8 and Twenty Good Years a 2.3/6. But from week one to two, 30 Rock dropped 21% from a 2.9 to 2.3 rating, while Twenty Good Years, which at 8:30 retained 88% of its 30 Rock lead-in audience, fell a like amount from a 2.5 to 2.0.

By returning to a comedy night on Thursdays, NBC will try to build on any momentum in the first hour with Earl (scoring in the high 3s) and The Office (low 4s). Deal had been hurting at 9 against two of TV top-ranked series, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and CBS’ CSI.

Scrubs, which last appeared with double runs from 9-10 Tuesdays starting last January, held up better than NBC anticipated against Fox’s American Idol overruns and House.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6384731

dad1153

10-25-06, 05:41 PM

I'll take the skeptic's route and say I think the reason NBC is turning Thursday night into sitcom night is to prevent 'Deal Or No Deal' from burning out with three weekly showings. 'DEND' is making money for the network, so they want to keep it from overextending itself by splitting it with '1 Vs. 100' on two weekly showings for each (Mon-Wed and then Friday) and leaving Thursday alone for the sitcoms. Of course this means 'Friday Night Lights' will have to go bye-bye to make room for the big-money gameshows at 8PM... mmphhh! :(

GeorgeLV

10-25-06, 07:03 PM

In a major shakeup of its programming lineup, NBC is returning to an 8-10 p.m. comedy block on Thursdays and pulling its short-lived Wednesday night sitcom Twenty Good Years off of the schedule. There is no firm date set for its return.

Nine episodes of the older-skewing comedy starring Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow have been shot. NBC intends to complete all 13, indicating the network may bring it back at some point later this season.

Who wants to bet the unaired episodes get dumped on Universal HD. Finally...a worthy companion for Complete Savages. :rolleyes:

dline

10-25-06, 07:21 PM

I posted this in the Cedar Rapids local thread, but the impact goes beyond that ...

Mediacom/Sinclair dispute

According to this article (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061025/NEWS/61025030&lead=1) posted today on DesMoinesRegister.com, a federal judge refused to grant Mediacom's request to intervene in its dispute with Sinclair Broadcast Group. Mediacom's right to retransmit Sinclair signals ends in December, and Mediacom has accused Sinclair of abusing its power by demanding that any deal with stations like KGAN (CBS 2, Cedar Rapids) and KDSM (Fox 17, Des Moines) be linked to payment for affiliates of lesser networks like MyNetwork and The CW.

The dispute could force Mediacom to pull the analog signals of Sinclair stations by December. Mediacom currently doesn't carry the digitals of Sinclair's Des Moines or Cedar Rapids stations.

As of this afternoon, the home page of www.kdsm.com contains a banner ad proclaiming: "Find Out Why Mediacom May Not Be Carrying FOX 17 After November 30, 2006, Or Sign Up For DirecTV." When you click on that, you'll get a statement from the station which says, among other things, that "FOX 17 WILL PAY YOU $150" in the form of 15 $10 rebates if viewers sign up with DirecTV before December 1.

(As you may recall, one of Mediacom's allegations was that Sinclair had a deal with a satellite company to send customers their way.)

"Let them [Mediacom] know that you would rather they use some of your cable fees to pay for programming you want, rather than for cable channels you likely never watch," the statement says.

As of yet, nothing similar has appeared on www.kgan.com, and nothing new has appeared on Mediacom's website or its link to investor news about it.

In a press release (http://www.sbgi.net/press/release_20061025_179.shtml) issued this afternoon, Sinclair tried to turn the antitrust issue Mediacom raised back on Mediacom.

"It is ironic that a near monopolist, such as Mediacom, would attempt to use the antitrust laws to gain an advantage against a single broadcaster like Sinclair," the release quotes Sinclair President and CEO David Smith as saying. Smith went on to claim that "after November 30, [Mediacom] will be virtually the only cable company not carrying our stations' signals.

The company says it remains willing to negotiate.

RemyM

10-25-06, 08:43 PM

HDSportsGuide is reporting that INHD2 will go off the air at the end of the year.

http://www.hdsportsguide.com/singleNews.php?page=300

fredfa

10-26-06, 01:20 AM

Good catch RemyM.
Let's hope that means a lot of the sports stuff offered by InHD2 will be available more readily to those ordering sports packages.
But the writing seemed to be on the wall a while ago when it was announced the programming at InHD2 was being reevaluated.
Also with all the new HD entrants (A&E, NGC and many others in the pipeline), the future probably looked bleak for any HD channel which didn't offer a distinct personality.

Marcus Carr

10-26-06, 07:37 AM

Comcast Reports Best Quarter in Decade

By Steve Donohue 10/26/2006 7:03:00 AM

Comcast reported its best quarter in a decade Thursday morning, adding 558,000 digital cable customers and 483,000 Comcast Digital Voice phone subscribers.

The nation’s largest cable operator added 24,000 basic video customers on Comcast systems, which was offset by a loss of 14,000 basic subs on systems acquired recently from Adelphia and Time Warner Cable. Overall, it added 10,000 basic video customers, compared to a loss of 44,000 basic video subs in the third quarter of 2005.

Comcast posted $2.437 billion in operating cash flow (up 25% from Q3 2005) on $6.432 billion in revenue (up 22%). Video revenue increased 9% to $4.2 billion, phone revenue jumped 51% to $252 million and ad revenue rose $10% to $395 million, driven by growth in political advertising.

“We think this year is an inflection point for our company and the [cable] industry,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said this morning on CNBC. Roberts refused to comment on whether Comcast was considering acquiring Sprint or Yahoo when pressed twice by CNBC reporters.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6385003.html?display=Breaking+News

fredfa

10-26-06, 09:04 AM

TV Sports
With baseball it's more than the teams
By Diego Vasquez MediaLife Magazine Oct 26, 2006

Through three games thus far, this year’s World Series on Fox is averaging a 9.9 household rating, about a half a point behind the first three games of last year’s World Series.

Since last year’s was the lowest-rated in history, it seems a good bet that this year’s matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers will set another record low. The question now becomes, will the World Series ever inch back up? It seems doubtful.

Four of the six lowest-rated World Series of all time have come in the last six years. Even the Boston Red Sox’ historic win in 2004 averaged a 15.8 rating, seventh-worst since Nielsen began keeping records in 1968.

Perhaps the critical issue in future World Series will be whether there’s a captivating storyline. Despite the charm of the long-losing Tigers, the consensus seems to be that there’s no such drama this year.

Media Life talks about these issues with Irving Rein, professor of communication studies at Northwestern University and co-author of “The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace,” and Nova Lanktree, executive vice president of marketing services at CSMG International, a global sports management firm based in Skokie, Ill.

Four of the lowest-rated World Series matchups have come in the past six years. At this point, is it realistic to think that ratings will ever go up again without a team like the Red Sox or Cubs?

Rein: The ratings are dependent on more than just the teams. While there is no question that a New York or another major city will influence ratings because of the size of their market, there are other factors.

Star power is a critical element and in this year's Series, other than Albert Pujols, there is really no one who stands out as a transcendent personality. Sports are no different from any other entertainment. You need drama, a storyline and stars. If it had them, this Series would draw better.

Lanktree: There could not have been a more dramatic win than there was by Boston a couple years ago. And if you think about it, there’s almost no presence at all in the national scene in terms of advertising from anyone who played in that World Series.

I think in the last few years, baseball has done a few things to shoot itself in the foot with [the steroid questions surrounding] Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, etc. Baseball has grassroots power, but it hasn’t ever really translated into the national marketing arena.

Considering the matchup for this year's Series (Tigers-Cardinals) and low ratings for the first three games, what's the best possible scenario for Fox?

Rein: The best situation is for a long series. While ratings are down, they still are significant compared to the competition. As the Series wears on and the viewers begin to relate to the players and their personalities, ratings could grow.

Lanktree: To focus on the heritage of both teams, because they’re both real baseball towns, to hook into the total emotionalism of that, would be best for them, to somehow translate it into a grassroots hype, not national hype. It would add to the drama.

Save for the Red Sox' 2004 win, ratings have been dipping steadily since the Series moved from NBC to Fox. Is that reflective of the decline in sports ratings in general, or do you think people are losing interest in baseball?

Rein: There is no question that sports ratings across the board, with the exception of the NFL, are declining as new competitors such as Ultimate Fighting Championships, World Wrestling Entertainment and poker are fragmenting the audience.

Baseball ratings are often local, and it's historically been difficult to create the national appeal of the NFL.

The other issue is that ratings are just one indicator of fan interest. Baseball had not only a record attendance year with 76 million fans going to the ballparks but it also generated $5.2 billion in revenue. Unfortunately, baseball ratings often suffer from a lack of scarcity of the product on television.

Lanktree: This is just a guess, not based on any research, but I think that baseball, while people love to watch it, TV probably isn’t the best place to experience it. Baseball has to find a way to capture that sense of being at the park [for the TV audience].

Also, baseball has the venue to address steroids, but it hasn’t. It hasn’t been addressed in a way that I think has been palatable, so I think there’s a reservation from marketers to get on board.

Fox is getting a reported $380,000 per spot for the Series. Do you think that's a fair price?

Rein: The price of a spot is based on supply and demand. The reason sports still receives a premium in such a fragmented media market is because of two things.

First, it's the only product that is broadcast in real-time, virtually assuring that people are actually watching it. Second, the broadcasts generate an emotional heat between the sponsor and the viewer that is not available in any other product.

In the Giants-Angels series in 2002, the games were exciting, as were last year's even though the White Sox swept. But those were the two lowest-rated series ever. How important is quality of play in determining ratings?

Rein: When it comes to baseball television ratings, the avid baseball fans are going to tune in to any World Series game because of quality of play is generally high. These are after all some of the best baseball players in the world.

However, the casual fan is often influenced by time of start, place connection, and certainly recognizable stars.

Lanktree: The quality of the play and excitement of the games is more a critical factor in other sports. Probably a lot of people watch the Super Bowl who don’t normally watch football. I think the World Series curiosity factor would make some people tune in, but if you try to make baseball the same as the NFL or NBA, [as in] easier to watch, baseball’s going to fall short.

I really believe that whole focus on the inherent grassroots beauty of the sport is what’s missing in the coverage. You really have to be willing to watch the drama unfold, and hopefully get some stimulation in between from the broadcasters.

Who do you think will win the Series?

Rein: The Tigers are going to win because it's a city that needs an emotional lift and all the karma is on their side.

Lanktree: It seems there’s a growing consensus that St. Louis will win, but Detroit’s underdog mentally is something that in the past has led teams to the top.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_8145.asp

CPanther95

10-26-06, 09:17 AM

Baseball ratings are often local, and it's historically been difficult to create the national appeal of the NFL.

What do you expect when there is absolutely no attempt at parity. MLB is basically a half-dozen contenders and a couple long shot cinderella teams each year that have a shot at the world series. The rest are basically farm teams developing players to be snapped up by one of the wealthy teams once they become solid producers.

How many co-workers, spouses, etc. that may not be real football fans still watch the home town NFL team when there is a bunch of local hype generated by a season with some potential for winning? How many of them then become moderate fans as a result?

Baseball is stuck with a handful of cities that can generate that hype each year. The rest of the country, with dead-end, no-potential teams will only draw the existing baseball fan....and those numbers will continue to drop off as the population gets older and the younger generations have latched onto other sports.

fredfa

10-26-06, 09:33 AM

The New Season
TGIT:
TV race has us on the edge of our couches
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Thursday, October 26, 2006

We're all a lot like the kid on that snack cracker commercial, forgoing the simple explanation of why things are the way they are. The thought of an enormous cheddar wheel smashing flavor into a flavorless square is infinitely more entertaining.

For the most part, everything circles back to the notion that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. Funny, even this idea is known by a fancy name -- Occam's razor.

It suits our slicing to the heart of Thursday night's battle between ABC and CBS. Lots of people pegged it as one to watch, but not a soul expected it be as heated as it is so early in the season.

"Ugly Betty," everyone thought, would be the underdog, scratching for its life against the stalwart "Survivor." Think about it -- a show about a young woman beyond the help of makeover miracles working at a fashion magazine? Wide reaching, cross-gender appeal didn't look possible.

Yet, "Betty" comes in second place to grungy "Survivor" and is closing in fast. That's not even the night's most significant shift -- "Grey's Anatomy" isn't only meeting "CSI" in the ratings, but stomped ahead of it among total viewers in four out of the first five weeks. So much for dismissing its prime-time soap operatics -- these suds made it the first contender in what seems like eons to successfully knock around the "CSI" juggernaut.

To those in the business of wondering how and why TV tides change, answering the why of it all is a killer task. Certainly you could paint this as a clash between "CSI's" Bush-era morality tales, i.e. unconventional sex leads to a gnarly death, and the rising rebellion against that puritanical idea, exemplified by "Grey's" fans rooting for the other woman for most of the first two seasons. It's a defensible argument. One day somebody will spin gold from it.

But the pure, easy explanation may be this: ABC is making Thursday nights feel better. Not the hearts--and-flowers-cutesy variety of feel good but the genuine, lasting mood-lifting kind. Here are a few reasons why.

• ABC uses a light touch to muscle in on dark, serious CBS:

One of the reasons "Must-See TV" died over at NBC was because the level of comedy suddenly felt rote and cloying, and couldn't stand up to the cinematic level of drama and thrills "Survivor" and "CSI" dished out.

NBC has abandoned hope of retaking its former glory, but it intends to stay with sitcoms between 8 and 10 on Thursdays. Starting Nov. 30, "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office," the current 8 o'clock occupants, will be followed by the return of "Scrubs" at 9 and "30 Rock" at 9:30. Though destined to be an also-ran in this contest (until 10, when "ER" rises to join the fight), NBC programmers can take a little comfort in knowing the network is still beating Fox and The CW.

This fall, ABC's Thursday finally grants viewers a viable second option to CBS's trips into the human soul's dark side. It's the kind of serotonin-enhancing television that used to draw viewers to Fox's "Ally McBeal" during the brief window that it actually was good.

There will always be an audience for watching real people lie, eat bugs and fake niceties to one another for the sake of winning a huge jackpot, but after a while the thrill wears off.

"Ugly Betty's" funniest moments may stem from the cruelties she endures and at times the characters border on cartoonish parody, but even its backstabbers are allowed to have embraceable frailties, and every stumble resolves itself with a feather's touch. The fact that it can incorporate a sinister mystery into the series makes it that much more enticing.

(Conversely, that may be why CBS's humorously biting legal show "Shark" is leaving ABC's moody "Six Degrees" in the dust at 10.)

• On "CSI," sex = death. On "Grey's" sex = relationship complications, good times, painful entanglements:

It's as true here as it is in real life -- sex complicates everything. Well, maybe not on "CSI," where it's fairly clear that if you mess around beyond acceptable ideas of morally acceptable sexuality, you'll end up in Gil Grissom's case files.

Take last week. A nightclub singer in a relationship with a rich Vegas car salesman falls into the arms of his friend -- who happens to be a Catholic priest. The wages of that sin was being clobbered to death and strung up on a cross in the priest's church.

I'll grant you, the show's not beyond making sex OK in some cases. This season is supposed to entice us with the idea that Grissom and co-worker Sara Sidle are hitting it. To date, it has remained precisely that -- an idea. Nothing much has changed.

Meanwhile over on ABC, what does extramarital sex get you? Panties on bulletin boards if you're a doctor, piercings snagged on IUDs if you're ex-spouses still getting it on. Even if you're tired of Addison, McDreamy and Meredith's love triangle, there's enough side-romance going on to ignore it. Addison bumped with Mark McSteamy Sloan, who jumped in bed with hot orthopedic surgeon Callie Torres at a weak point. All that and Izzy with her $8 million check she won't deposit. Bizarre! Leading us to the next point:

• ABC's brand of weird, fun! CBS's brand of weird, flinchworthy!:

What's great about a medical show is that you can explore all sorts of anomalies that amaze untrained viewers. On "Grey's," every illness informs another chapter in Meredith's journey to enlightenment, but even if it didn't, watching the characters handle them is always an emotional trip, with a twistier take than "ER's" adrenaline rides. You can talk about them around the lunch table. Not so with many "CSI" cases, the more famous of which have involved plushies, violently neutered transsexuals and all variety of loose men and women. Sharing a shudder or two works, but beyond that, can two TV fans really bond over what they found out about stain patterns on sheets? Would you want to?

• Finally, there's one very basic idea of why some people might leave CBS's Thursdays for ABC's:

With CBS, you pretty much know exactly what you're going to get.

That idea still counts as an asset to millions of viewers; it means they always can rely on quality entertainment. But ABC, which never had a strong presence on that night, seems fresher in comparison. Every successful veteran television series becomes too much of a known quantity at some point, and it could be that "Survivor" and "CSI" seem to have reached that threshold.

Of course, "CSI" isn't going down any time soon, and neither is "Grey's." The face-off between "Survivor" and "Ugly Betty" is a bit more precarious. One may be a fading veteran, but the other still has to prove it can maintain the level of substance supporting the buzz surrounding it.

Still, there are defectors from CBS's Thursday to ABC's; if that wasn't the case, "CSI" would be at least a few million ahead of "Grey's" every week. Five episodes into 2006-2007, "Grey's" is averaging 22 million to "CSI's" 20.5. And "Survivor: Cook Islands" has lost about 15 percent of its viewers year to year.

The season's still young, and the situation could change back with one or two sharp episodes -- and remember, "CSI" always repeats well, a quality "Grey's" hasn't really demonstrated. As the season rolls along, though, the contest may become as interesting to watch as the series themselves. It's enough to make a person excited about Thursday night television again. At long last.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/289949_tv26.html

keenan

10-26-06, 09:33 AM

What do you expect when there is absolutely no attempt at parity. MLB is basically a half-dozen contenders and a couple long shot cinderella teams each year that have a shot at the world series. The rest are basically farm teams developing players to be snapped up by one of the wealthy teams once they become solid producers.

No kidding when you consider that the Yankees, No.1 in payroll at almost $200 mil per year, have at least one player that makes $10 mil more per year than the whole Florida Marlins team combined.

http://cbs.sportsline.com/mlb/salaries/
MLB Baseball 2006 Salaries - CBS SportsLine.com

fredfa

10-26-06, 09:54 AM

fredfa

10-26-06, 10:00 AM

The New Season
ABC Upcoming Shifts:
Supernanny takes Monday's The Bachelor Slot
By Marc Berman Media Week Oct. 26, 2006

The third-season of ABC's Supernanny will move into the Monday 9 p.m. hour in place of concluded The Bachelor: Rome on Dec. 4.

Filling the Wednesday 8 p.m. hour after Dancing With the Stars wraps up season No. 3 will be Show Me the Money, a new game show hosted by William Shatner featuring contestants contending with a mechanism that can either cut their cash winnings or make them millionaires. It premieres on Nov. 22.

The Tuesday 8 p.m. hour, also soon-to-be vacated by Dancing With the Stars, will be populated with various repeats and specials including The American Music Awards on Nov. 21 and a repeat of A Charlie Brown Christmas on Nov. 28.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003315374

fredfa

10-26-06, 10:50 AM

The New Season
NBC rebuilding Thursday with sitcoms
Pairing 'Scrubs' and '30 Rock' in 9 p.m. hour
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct 26, 2006

If NBC didn't invent Thursday night television, it certainly perfected it over more than two decades. And as the network seeks to resuscitate its primetime, it's returning to what once worked so well.

In late November, NBC will revive its classic four-comedy, one-drama format, moving its struggling sitcom “30 Rock” to Thursday at 9:30 from Wednesday and returning "Scrubs" to air as its lead-in at 9.

“My Name is Earl” and “The Office” will remain at 8 and 8:30 p.m., with "ER" airing in its traditional 10 p.m. slot.

"Scrubs" and "30 Rock" will take over the slot now occupied by "Deal or No Deal," the game show that had been airing three nights a week. NBC may find another slot for the show eventually.

“Scrubs,” which had been waiting for a midseason slot, will return on Nov. 30.

"30 Rock," which is sagging paired with “Twenty Good Years,” will make the move on Nov. 16. The latter comedy is leaving the schedule, likely for good, after the Nov. 8 episode.

In place of "30 Rock" and “Twenty Good Years,” NBC is slotting in specials in the Wednesday 8 p.m. slot for an undetermined period starting Nov. 22. On Nov. 15, "Biggest Loser" will air at 8, leading into the two-hour season premiere of "Medium."

Both Wednesday sitcoms have been pulling low ratings--"30 Rock has averaged a 2.6 in 18-49s in two outings while "Twenty" has been pulling a 2.3--but the sense since the season began was that "30 Rock" had the better chance, having received mixed to decent reviews while "Twenty" was widely trashed.

At first glance, the switch looks as though NBC is simply sending “Rock” to slaughter. The move pits it against TV’s top-rated show in adults 18-49, ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” and the still-strong “CSI” on CBS.

NBC’s current timeslot occupant, “Deal,” has managed only a 3.3, below what it pulls on other nights, and competing shows on Fox and the CW have fared even worse.

But in reality, “Rock” may have a better chance of finding an audience in the new slot than the old, where it struggled against ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."

NBC’s comedies are decidedly different than the dramas on ABC and CBS. Like “Earl,” “Office” and “Scrubs,” “Rock” appeals to a more sophisticated audience than the over-the-top “Years.”

It’s a single-camera comedy, like all of those shows, and did well in its premiere among men 18-34, where “Earl” and “Office” are both strong. There should be good flow between the four shows.

Plus, “Scrubs” has a history of holding up against tough competition. Last year the show averaged a 3.1 in back-to-back Tuesday airings opposite Fox’s powerful “House” and CBS’s solid “The Unit.”

And with “ER,” the No. 1 show at 10 p.m., as a lead-out, “Rock” may draw some viewers tuning in early. It’s possible the show could improve on its disappointing thus far this season.

Of course it’s also possible the show could keep sliding. Its premise, about the backstage goings-on at a “Saturday Night Live”-type variety show with a volatile star, has been criticized as too Hollywood insider for a broad audience, a problem also facing the similarly themed “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” on Mondays.

In "Rock's" first Thursday airing, on Nov. 16, NBC will air a 40-minute super-sized episode, following super-sized episodes of both “Earl” and “Office.”

As for “Years,” it’s unclear whether NBC will bring the show back. The network has not stopped production on the sitcom, which also stars Jeffrey Tambor, but its poor ratings almost guarantee it will be gone for good

Two weeks ago, "Years” had the lowest premiere for an NBC sitcom since at least 1991, averaging a 2.5 rating and losing 14 percent of “Rock’s” lead-in.

The four-comedies-and-a-drama format was developed by Fred Silverman in the early '80s, and it became the backbone of NBC primetime strategy--a strategy that kept it at No.1 for most of two decades.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8146.asp

fredfa

10-26-06, 11:19 AM

Wednesday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

fredfa

10-26-06, 11:36 AM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
A sinking feeling for ABC's 'The Nine'
Bank heist drama slips again, to a 3.0 in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct 26, 2006

ABC’s “The Nine” hit a new series low last night, losing more than half “Lost’s” lead-in and finishing third in its timeslot for the first time.

With November sweeps upcoming and ABC’s lead among adults 18-49 just 0.1 ahead of CBS, it seems a big question for the network is how much longer “Nine” will survive.

Last night “Nine” averaged a 3.0 rating in adults 18-49, according to Nielsen overnights, down 6 percent from the 3.2 overnight it earned the last two weeks.

That marked a new low for the 10 p.m. show, which dropped 57 percent of “Lost’s” 6.9 lead-in. The show also hit a low in total viewers with 8.0 million.

“Nine” premiered to a 4.6 18-49 rating and 11.96 million total viewers three weeks ago. Last night it finished behind NBC’s “Dateline” in the timeslot.

“Nine” received sterling reviews but has struggled against CBS’s “CSI: NY.” Some have complained that the plot is moving too slow, with too many questions and not enough answers about the bank robbery that’s at the center of the program.

Others have theorized that perhaps the rabid “Lost” audience isn’t up for another complex character drama after so much action at 9 p.m., or perhaps they’re too busy on chat boards discussing the show to watch anything afterward.

Whatever the reason, it would seem “Nine’s” days may be numbered. “Lost” has only a few more weeks before its planned hiatus, when it will be replaced by the new Taye Diggs drama “Daybreak.” At that point ABC could try a new show at 10 as well, perhaps bumping “Nine” to a different slot or removing it entirely during November sweeps.

Or the network could wait until mid-winter, when “Lost” returns, and put a new show at 10 p.m. then, letting “Nine” stick around in hopes that the good buzz will help it build viewership.

Despite “Nine’s” slump, ABC still won the night easily among adults 18-49, averaging a 5.0 rating and 13 share, followed by CBS at 4.3/11, NBC at 2.9/8, the CW at 2.1/6, Fox at 2.0/5, and Univision at 1.6/4.

Game 4 of the World Series was rained out last night, forcing Fox to air four reruns of “War at Home.”

At 8 p.m., ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” led with a 5.1, followed by CBS’s “Jericho” at 3.2, CW’s surging “America’s Next Top Model” at 2.7, NBC’s struggling “30 Rock” (2.1) and “Twenty Good Years” (2.0) at 2.1, Fox’s “War” at 2.0, and Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella” at 1.9.

“Model” was up 8 percent week to week and placed second in 18-34s.

At 9 p.m., ABC stayed ahead with “Lost” at 6.9, followed by CBS’s “Criminal Minds” at 4.4, NBC’s “Biggest Loser” at 3.3, Fox’s “War” at 2.1, CW’s “One Tree Hill” at 1.6, and Univision’s “Mundo de Fieras” at 1.5. “Lost” stayed ahead of “Minds” among total viewers, 16.8 million to 16.6 million.

At 10 p.m., “CSI: Miami” led with a 5.4, followed by NBC’s “Dateline” at 3.2, ABC’s “Nine” at 3.0, and Univision’s “Don Francisco Presenta” at 1.4.

In households, ABC just edged CBS with a 9.6/15 to the latter’s 9.5/15. NBC was third at 4.9/8, followed by Fox at 3.8/6, CW at 3.0/5, and Univision at 2.2/3.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8169.asp

CPanther95

10-26-06, 11:52 AM

Yet won't this year give us the seventh consecutive different WS champion?

Clearly baseball no longer holds the nation in its grip as it used to. But there are few things that ignite and excite a city or region for as sustained a period as a team in a pennant race: whether it be Detroit, the Mets, or many others.

Football is obviously king. That doesn't mean there isn't plenty of room for baseball, basketall and NASCAR at the TV sports table.

Detroit, the Mets, and a few others - not "many others". Many more cities have lost any real competitive chance and have little luck developing any new fans to the sport.

And sure there's plenty of room for 30 or 40 different sports at the table - but baseball is quickly becoming less and less significant a part of that landscape. It's tradition and part of Americana among the 50+ demographic, but they stopped cultivating fans for a good 20 years now and it may be too late to avoid becoming a niche sport in the near future even if they'd implement some radical changes today.

cherry ghost

10-26-06, 11:52 AM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
A sinking feeling for ABC's 'The Nine'
Bank heist drama slips again, to a 3.0 in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct 26, 2006

“Nine” received sterling reviews but has struggled against CBS’s “CSI: Miami.” Some have complained that the plot is moving too slow, with too many questions and not enough answers about the bank robbery that’s at the center of the program.

Toni needs to get his CSIs straight

fredfa

10-26-06, 12:00 PM

I've messaged her....
Sometimes minor errors creep in when folks are working on deadline. I am sure she'll correct the mistake promptly.
By the way, cheery ghost, welcome to the thread -- keep posting!

fredfa

10-26-06, 12:02 PM

The “Hot Off The Press” Sticky
Help Wanted

I need some assistance during the next few days.

So, If any of you would be available to pitch in, PM me – or email me at fdfarrar@aol.com and I’ll let you know what I need.

Thanks!

Fred

cherry ghost

10-26-06, 12:08 PM

fredfa

10-26-06, 12:16 PM

I guess I should have said "her" instead of "his". Oops.

Thanks for the welcome

And toni isn't the only one who errs, even my welcome was mispelled, cherry ghost!

fredfa

10-26-06, 12:29 PM

Critic’s Notebook
Random Thoughts
If Oprah can break bread with Jon Stewart, can we get those darn 'Deadwood' movies? Probably not.
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle

Everything we know we learned from television:

• The idea that Oprah had dinner at Jon Stewart's house is just mind-boggling. When did sincerity and snark ever hug it out?

• You may have heard that ABC has denounced a report that alleged the network would be going after Jay Leno, who will give up the "Tonight Show" chair (allegedly with his blessing) to Conan O'Brien in 2009. Not true, says ABC of the Bloomberg News report. And Mediaweek followed with a story that indicated that ABC execs had phoned NBC execs to say they weren't tampering. Which of course makes the whole thing seem absolutely legit.

• Now that HBO has officially given David Milch the green light for 12 episodes of his surf noir series, "John From Cincinnati," which begins production next month, we can all start the countdown to the demise of those two "Deadwood" movies that will allegedly wrap up the stalled tale. Not to be cynical or anything, but Milch has a reputation for being able to focus a bare minimum on what he's currently working on. Not a multitasker, they say. But if that's true, what to make of Milch, who after telling Daily Variety that starting production on "John" in November will allow him to air the show in the summer, turned around and said he's working on the script for the first two-hour "Deadwood" movie, which could start production in November for a summer release? Uh, what's it going to be? The new show HBO is now touting for summer, or the dead series HBO is mum about?

Got it.

• Not counting on that Christmas card from NBC's Jeff Zucker this year.

• HBO finds itself in a jam that we're sure is causing a small amount of Pepto guzzling. If at least one of those two "Deadwood" movies doesn't get started soon, then the likelihood that both will get made dwindles exponentially. If neither gets made, there will be an enormous backlash against "John From Cincinnati." Without a "Deadwood" movie in the pipe or at least filming, that first "John" episode will have to levitate or be the TV equivalent of a million-dollar hooker.

• Having not watched CNN much of late, we're wondering if "This Week in War" is now titled "Your Daily Dose of Crazy S -- from Around the Planet."

• If sell-out agreements with NBC and CBS didn't doom the hip cachet of YouTube, and if being sold to Google for $1.6 billion didn't alienate anti-corporate fans of viral entertainment, well, maybe this will do it: PBS is putting stuff up on YouTube. Hey, rate the first 29 hours of our new Ken Burns documentary!

• Oh, we kid because we love. Burns is one of our favorites, and PBS still makes great programs. But doesn't it seem as if your Aunt Mildred stuck her pie recipe up on YouTube (as illustrated by Uncle Barney, who borrowed a newfangled two-megapixel camera from the Old Adopters Lending Library)?

• If you haven't noticed, a whole bunch of new fall series have blogs from their creators. Go to any network site and you'll find them. Some are even live-blogging each episode. The latest from "Kidnapped" on NBC: "Hey, we're on Saturday nights now. Hello? Anybody out there :(?"

• T.R. Knight of "Grey's Anatomy" said he was gay. No big deal, really. More of an issue is whether homophobic comments from at least one cast member were really said or not.

• R.J. Helton, a former "American Idol" contestant, also announced he was gay. But that doesn't count. If you're a reality TV participant, you're not really a star. If you're not a star, you're just a gay guy. Not news.

• When VH1 put "Celebrity Paranormal Project" on the air (don't ask) and Gary Busey was anointed head of "Team Crazy," that's precisely the moment Congress should have enacted a law forbidding niche cable channels from (a) scraping the barrel's bottom, creatively, and (b) using Busey in anything. That joke isn't funny anymore.

• Variety reported recently that CBS, which loves close-ended crime-and-punishment series because the viewing public can't get enough of them, would now branch out into "edgier" fare. Edgy for CBS is when the crime scene forensics that will jail a killer in the 59th minute are not filed properly.

So what are we to make of CBS picking up the rights to remake the BBC's "Viva Blackpool," a twisted musical thriller? Given the short leash CBS gave "Love Monkey" and "Smith" -- two series that deviated from CBS protocol and weren't immediate, wealth-producing hits -- not much. We'll believe it when we see it.

• NBC and ABC are taking two very different paths when it comes to assessing this season's serial drama fallout. And by fallout we mean fatigue. For example, an argument can be made that tired, boring, totally-over "ER" has had a resurgence because people are just sick of having to watch so many serialized dramas. In fact, "ER" has done so well that NBC won't pull it off the air temporarily, as planned, to run "The Black Donnellys" from Oscar and Emmy winner Paul Haggis. (The show will air sometime, it just won't unseat "ER" for 13 weeks to do it.)

Now, if you're going to tell hitmaker Haggis that he's gonna have to wait, that must mean your research people have hit the mother lode on viewer feedback. Translation: "If we pull 'ER,' we're idiots."

And so NBC won't. Now, ABC still has plans to pull "Lost" after six episodes and replace it with another serialized drama, "Day Break," for 13 weeks. What seemed like a good idea at the time -- no reruns for "Lost," yay! -- now seems like the kind of thing you might get fired for. "Wait, you pulled a convoluted series that was struggling against 'Criminal Minds' and replaced it with another serial right when people were getting answers?"

• Speaking of "Lost" -- and yes, that was the world's longest transition -- word is leaking out that cast members are worried there are too many new cast members being added. To which we say -- you're only worrying about that now? Fans have been annoyed for two seasons. Maybe there will be fewer actors on "Day Break."

• The Absurd Haiku: " 'Deadwood' movie lags/ John from whatever, who cares?/ HBO don't surf."

• Bring me the head of George Hearst.

• The High Fives: 1. "Weeds." 2. "Battlestar Galactica." 3. "The Backyardigans." 4. "Dexter." 5. Return of the "everything we know..." column. And sorry for the delay.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/25/DDG8LLUPVU1.DTL

fredfa

10-26-06, 06:51 PM

The “Hot Off The Press” Sticky
OK, here's the deal:

I'll be gone the next few days.

Shuttermaster will be posting the Marc Berman Programming Insider column along with Toni Fitzgerald's 18-49 demo report and dad1153 will post the Friday overnight numbers early Saturday afternoon ET.

If anyone else finds articles you think would be of interest to the thread, please post them. But thans in advance to shuttermaker and dad1153.

I'll update all the first few items in the thread when I return the middle of next week.

This is my first extended absence since I started the thread more than two years ago, and I appreciate your patience and help.

And please, keep checking in to see what is happening -- the page views are the only way I know you like the thread.

Have a great (long!) weekend.

Thanks!

Fred

RemyM

10-26-06, 08:38 PM

Have a great, well deserved, vacation Fred. Your posts here are greatly appreciated.

RussTC3

10-27-06, 01:33 AM

Have a great, well deserved, vacation Fred. Your posts here are greatly appreciated.
Seconded.

Have a great vacation Fred. :)

steverobertson

10-27-06, 06:05 AM

fred have a great vacation and thanks agin for all the work you do this thread is great

Joseph

10-27-06, 06:54 AM

fred have a great vacation and thanks agin for all the work you do this thread is great

x4! :)

dad1153

10-27-06, 07:03 AM

Obituary
Arthur Hill, 84
'Owen Marshall' actor Arthur Hill dies
By AP USA Today October 27, 2006

Veteran character actor Arthur Hill, whose dozens of television and movie appearances included the title role in the series Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, has died. He was 84.
Hill died Sunday at a Pacific Palisades care facility after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, his friend Walter Seltzer said Thursday.

Hill, who hadn't worked in the motion picture or television business since 1990, was a well-known face on TV, appearing on Alfred Hitchcock Presents,The Defenders,Ben Casey,The Untouchables,The Nurses,The FBI,Mission Impossible,The Fugitive and Marcus Welby, M.D.

He was the star of Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law from 1971 to 1974.

Hill also appeared in the films Harper,The Ugly American,The Andromeda Strain and A Bridge Too Far.

Born Aug. 1, 1922, in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada, Hill served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and attended the University of British Columbia, where he studied law but was lured to the stage.

He moved to Great Britain in 1948 where he performed in a variety of stage productions, then he moved to New York 10 years later and established himself on Broadway.

Hill made his Broadway debut opposite Ruth Gordon in The Matchmaker, then went on to star in such stage hits as Look Homeward Angel.

The actor won Tony and New York Drama Critics awards for his role as George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in 1962.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-26-arthur-hill-obit_x.htm

dad1153

10-27-06, 07:08 AM

The writing is on the wall for the "other" kidnapping show that hasn't been dumped to Saturday nights.

The New Season
'Vanished' is a wisp of its former self
by Gary Levin, USA TodayOctober 27, 2006

Fox drama Vanished hasn't solved the case of the missing senator's wife, but star Gale Harold did a disappearing act of his own.
In an unusual move, his character was killed — and the actor was fired — in the series' most recent episode, which aired Oct. 2. Now the show is clinging to life with a new star, Eddie Cibrian (Invasion), a new and weaker time slot (its return Friday at 9 ET/PT probably delayed because of World Series rainout) and six remaining episodes to exact a ratings miracle. Without one, it will vanish by December.

"You can't ignore the trend of the failure of Vanished, Kidnapped and Smith," Fox programmer Craig Erwich says. "These are shows that are very exciting to do, because they're very liberating, but they're also very tricky to pull off" in extending the inciting incidents of their pilot episodes for full seasons.

Erwich asked executive producer Josh Berman to wrap up Vanished's central story line, involving the disappearance of Sara Collins — the senator's wife with a mysterious past — in 13 episodes rather than the planned-for 22.

Though a larger conspiracy will be left dangling in the unlikely event the series continues, the quick wrap-up is designed to avoid turning off the remaining viewers, as Fox did last season with the abrupt exit of Reunion, which left its time-lapse murder mystery unresolved. "We will complete the arc of who is Sara Collins and where is Sara Collins, which are the questions that were asked in the pilot," says Berman. "Should we go past that, there are certainly threads to follow."

When Vanished took a break during baseball, Sara, thought dead, was seen held captive in a plot involving confirmation hearings of a Supreme Court justice.

Daniel Lucas (Cibrian) takes over the case after FBI agent Graham Kelton (Harold) angers superiors, storms the Senate and is gunned down by a curly-haired assassin on the Capitol steps just as he tells the senator his wife is alive. And Lucas happens to be the ex-boyfriend of nosy TV reporter Judy Nash (Rebecca Gayheart), adding a new layer of sexual tension.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-26-vanished_x.htm

dad1153

10-27-06, 07:22 AM

Since I live in New York City how about some reviews/opinions from NYC tabloids to break fredfa's reliance on West Coast publications? Hey, I'm the temp co-author of this thread so respect my authoritaa! Besides, I don't have an account to many of the online newspapers fredfa subscribes to. ;)

Critic's Notebook
'Horror' is frightfully hit & miss
By David Bianculli New York Daily News Oct. 27, 2006

"Masters of Horror." Tonight at 10, Showtime.

The Showtime anthology series "Masters of Horror," in which genre directors get free rein to make one-hour horror telemovies, begins its second season much the same way it successfully launched the first.

Enthusiastic filmmakers, both veterans and up-and-comers, serve up wildly different stories and moods, from playful to stomach-churning.

But this year's opening trio, doled out weekly on Friday nights, is a bit less impressive than last year's.

Tonight's second-season opener (at 10), called "The Damned Thing," has some grisly, gross-out moments - self-mutilation in one scene, the drawn-out shooting death of a helpless victim on another.

"The Damned Thing" is based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce, but in a free adaptation by R.C. Matheson, directed by Tobe Hooper (the same pair who did last year's "Dance of the Dead").

How free? Well, Civil War-era author Bierce wrote very little about such things as cell phones, video-surveillance rooms and high-speed highway accidents.

Sean Patrick Flanery stars as a sheriff fighting against his, and his town's, violent nature when evil seems to bubble up suddenly, like oil oozing from the ground. (Very much like it, actually.) The effects are much better than the story.

That same criticism can be leveled at "The V Word," Ernest Dickerson's bloody vampire drama (written by Mick Garris) that premieres in two weeks.

Michael Ironside stars, but in a wasted, throwaway role - and the hour's strong opening scene, immersing viewers in the first-person-shooter point of view of violent videogames, doesn't even merge with the rest of the drama in a satisfying, much less foreshadowing, way.

In between, showing up next Friday, is the best of this year's initial batch. "Family," directed by John Landis, stars George Wendt as a suburban loner with a bizarre home life - and with new neighbors next-door who are understandably curious about it.

Meredith Monroe, who played Andie on "Dawson's Creek," gets not only a strong part here, but a startling one. Brent Hanley's teleplay gets you inside the loner's mind, then surprises you, more than once, by what goes on there.

It's "Family" viewing in name only. Once again, though, director Landis - who provided last year's "Masters of Horror" high point with the alternately comedic and shocking "Deer Woman" - comes up with just the right approach, tone and topic to make the series worth supporting.

Still, remember that this series, like all anthology collections, scores the most points for its best efforts, not for its average.

Last year, the very best efforts - "Deer Woman," Joe Dante's allegorical anti-war drama "Homecoming," Dario Argento's creepy "Jenifer" - came later in the run. So keep watching, and be patient.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/465518p-391709c.html

dad1153

10-27-06, 07:39 AM

I know HBO wants as many people as possible to watch 'The Wire,' but maybe this wouldn't be happening if the DVD Box Sets weren't so pricey (IMHO)

The New Season
Outlaw ratings for 'The Wire': HBO series is hit by an outbreak of bootleg viewership
By David Zurawik and Sam Sessa The Baltimore Sun/Newsday Oct. 27, 2006

Baltimore — In a season when new technology is changing the way in which television networks reach viewers, "The Wire," HBO's Baltimore-based drama, has found a new and avid audience in East Coast nightclubs and at online auction sites.

There is, however, one problem: These new viewers are watching bootleg DVDs or illegal downloads of the entire season, often sold at a fraction of the cost to subscribe to HBO or buy a DVD of a full year of the drama. Some viewers are going online and posting "spoilers" - descriptions and comments pertaining to episodes that have yet to air on HBO.

Playing by the rules

Not only is HBO losing revenue, but subscribers to the premium cable channel, who are playing by the rules and watching each Sunday night at 10 (or viewing six days in advance via On Demand technology), are angry about having the suspense ruined by viewers who have seen the whole season illegally.

"HBO is aware of these copies," said Diego Aldana, a spokesman for the cable channel. "We vigorously protect our content and use all means at our disposal to do so," he added, quoting an HBO statement issued last week that promises prosecution.

It appears that HBO is suffering an unintended consequence of its innovative efforts to bring the critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning drama to a larger audience.

In July, the cable channel sent DVDs containing all 13 episodes of the fourth season to critics across the U.S. - even though the season was not scheduled to begin until September.

At the time, the future of the low-rated drama about urban life was in doubt, and the network and the producers were trying to generate critical buzz for what they thought was their best season to date. The July mailing got the DVDs to reviewers and reporters in advance of the Television Critics Association summer tour in Los Angeles, which featured a press conference with HBO executives, producers and several actors from the show.

By those terms, the mailing was a success. Stories about the fourth season appeared in several large daily newspapers in July. Previews for the season opener in September were generally lavish in their praise. And the audience followed. Legitimate Sunday night viewing of "The Wire" is up about 15 percent over last season, when the series averaged about 1.5 million viewers per episode.

But it is now clear that several of those DVDs - through theft or illegal sale - found their way into the hands of bootleggers who copied them and started selling them in nightclubs in Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Newark. These are the very cities in which "The Wire" is most likely to find its largest audience, given its emphasis on examining urban America through the lens of life in Baltimore.

"Yeah, some people didn't do the right thing apparently," said David Simon, creator and executive producer of the series, in response to an e-mail seeking comment on the situation. "HBO is looking into it, I'm told." They will not have to look far.

A number of people who claim to own the entire fourth season are selling it on ********* and Craigslist.org. Through Torrentspy.com, a peer-to-peer site, people are locating and downloading free screener episodes of all 13 season-four episodes - including seven which have yet to air.

Chat rooms on several Web sites are full of talk about the downloads and DVDs, as well as anger about the spoilers being posted by those who have already seen episodes yet to air.

One fan on TelevisionWithoutPity.com asked for specifics on downloading the entire fourth season.

One viewer wrote of paying $200 for a flawless copy of the fourth season, while another mentioned paying $16 outside a nightclub.

Please don't be a spoiler

The most plaintive posting came from Baltimore, pleading for an end to spoilers: "Stop, stop, stop. I love this series, and you are ruining it for all of us." HBO has added to the confusion by offering On Demand showings of each episode six days before the Sunday night premiere. The idea was to enlarge the audience by offering the show in a way that lets viewers watch on their schedule rather than that of the network.

Analysts believe the practice will become more widespread.

But while all networks this fall are offering series On Demand after they air, only HBO is offering them before they air. In addition to "The Wire," HBO is doing so with "Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-ettel4948015oct27,0,807224.story?coll=ny-television-headlines

dad1153

10-27-06, 07:49 AM

Critic’s Notebook
'Masters of Horror' and 'Pumpkinhead'
Blood, Gore, Demons and the Suburban Life
By Virginia Heffernan The New York Times October 27, 2006

The second season of “Masters of Horror,” Showtime’s anthology of 13 new horror flicks, rolls out some old bugaboos: kewpie dolls, priests, toxic suburbs, lightning storms.

But there are also more distinctive sources of unease in this series, including vengeful fathers and spooky bachelors with violent designs on little girls. In fact, father figures who lose it, à la “The Shining,” seem to be the best bets in today’s horror.

For visual shock, Showtime’s movies display bodies that seem to melt, leaving gore on bones. A tangle of intestines, heavily sauced in red-orange blood, seems to be the cutting edge of ghastly. On “The Damned Thing,” tonight’s installment, directed by Tobe Hooper (the original “Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” “Poltergeist”), we see it at least twice. Someone can’t get enough of it.

But for my money, the most gruesome sight in Mr. Hooper’s entry is a scene where a young man suddenly takes a hammer, haphazardly, to his own face and head. He doesn’t stop till he’s dead. The spontaneous madness that drives him to this suicide seems more horrifying, somehow, than the epicurean calculation of a full-dress villain like Hannibal Lecter. Maybe it depends on whether you like your monsters socially powerful or powerless, in control or anarchic.

But the powerful self-thrashing scene is only a sidebar to the predictably muddled action in “The Damned Thing,” which bops around various houses, chronicling waves of demonic possession in a small Texas town. The creature doing the possessing is a big, bloblike thing; pop psych would tell you it’s something repressed (Waco?) making its inevitable reappearance. The soundtrack to this movie is thunder, lightning and crashes, and the lights are kept low, even before the electricity cuts off. The effect of the loud sounds and low light is too much vérité for adequately stylized horror. “The Damned Thing” might be an underwritten war movie. It all seems to happen in a fog.

Next week’s installment, “Family,” is much better. For one thing, it’s not so dark. Instead, it opens on a high-noon scene of cherry blossoms in a suburb, and it brightens after each horrible interlude (and there are many), which has the effect of giving the viewer rest from his subconscious, and even encouraging some amnesia. This is a good thing, since in this one you have to watch the melting flesh stuff over and over. John Landis, who directed, gives it a tight structure, with a twist: it doesn’t devolve into scattershot screams and severed arms. Why don’t more horror directors realize how important this is? George Wendt (Norm!) is perfect here as Harold Thompson, a portly Norman Bates for our time.

Kidneys are harvested by hand in “Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes,” tomorrow night on the Sci Fi Channel. They’re stored in a cooler, with beer. That’s gross, as is the slicing up of a hand, but it’s not memorable, because the film — a second sequel in a franchise that started in 1989 — is rote slasher stuff, set largely in a swamp and colored in festive black and orange. The soundtrack to this “Pumpkinhead” features mostly moaning, screams and the rattling of chains. That’s not much of a breakthrough. That was a fad in fright more than a century ago.

MASTERS OF HORROR

The Damned Thing

Showtime, tonight at 10, Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central time.

Directed by Tobe Hooper; written by Richard Christian Matheson; Lisa Richardson and Tom Rowe, producers; Steve Brown, Morris Berger, John W. Hyde, Andrew Deane, Keith Addis and Mick Garris, executive producers.

WITH: Sean Patrick Flanery (Sheriff Kevin Reddle), Marisa Coughlan (Dina) and Ted Raimi (Father Tulli).

PUMPKINHEAD: ASHES TO ASHES

Sci Fi, tomorrow at 9 p.m., Eastern and Pacific times; 8 p.m., Central time.

Directed by Jake West; written by John Werner and Mr. West; Brad Krevoy, Reuben Liber and Dana Dubovsky, executive producers.

WITH: Doug Bradley (Doc Fraser), Douglas Roberts (Bunt Wallace), Lisa McAllister (Dahlia Wallace), Tess Panzer (Molly Sue Allen), Emanuel Parvu (Oliver Allen), Ioana Ginghina (Ellie Johnson) and Lance Henriksen (ghost of Ed Harley).

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/arts/television/27horr.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin

dad1153

10-27-06, 07:55 AM

Critic’s Notebook
In Galactica, It’s Politics as Usual. Or Is It?
By Virginia Heffernan The New York Times October 26, 2006

With its attention to suicide bombings, insurgencies and the tenability and ethics of long-term military occupation, this “Battlestar Galactica” season looks suspiciously like an allegory for Middle East politics. And that infuriates people.

But it’s not ideologues who get mad at “Battlestar.” It’s critics. For critics, allegories are a huge bummer. Who wants to be a translator of pig Latin? If — in a novel, say — there’s a gang of hoods who stand for the world’s disenfranchised, and a character who equals Jesus, and a nightclub that’s the garden of Gethsemane, where’s the pleasure in analysis? Reading becomes an umb-day ritual of cracking rote codes.

This notion of allegories as static and dull — an idea derived from 17th-century works of moral instruction like “Pilgrim’s Progress” that featured characters with names like Everyman and Sloth — turned 20th-century critics against them. For many of them allegory was a lesser genre, didactic and prim, and lacking sophisticated literary features like ambiguity, irony, dissonance, verisimilitude. Readers, on the other hand, continued to embrace allegory in all kinds of popular fiction by writers as disparate as Ayn Rand and George Orwell.

Ultimately, genre discrimination is not good for anyone. And it has been particularly hard on science fiction like the newest “Battlestar,” which has been snubbed by some critics who fear its didacticism and (scarier still) the ardor of its fans. The earliest practitioners of science fiction in literature, especially H. G. Wells, were known for clunky parables. With that as a partial excuse, many critics, including this one, have nervously dismissed the proselytizers who buttonhole them to rave about the importance of “Battlestar Galactica.”

Still, it has to be granted that this latest “Battlestar” is a quantum-leap improvement of the campy franchise that began in 1978. The recent series, with its unexpected seriousness, first appeared on the SciFi Channel two years ago, having already had its world premiere in Britain. There, Sky One’s confidence in the show, which had begun as an American mini-series in 2003, far outstripped that of SciFi’s parent company, which waited until American fans had downloaded the show from sharing sites like ********** (**********.com) in huge numbers before committing to broadcasting it. Now it appears on Fridays, and the premiere of this third season, on Oct. 6, set ratings records for the SciFi Channel.

So what’s it all about, this fancy “Battlestar”? The short answer is politics, whatever that means: genocide, abortion, torture, the clash of civilizations. In a deft opening move, “Battlestar” defined a race of genocidal creatures who are decidedly other: in this case, robots called Cylons who look all-too-human but are certainly not part of the brotherhood of man. These figures can’t love, or die; in any case, they’re definitely Not Us. Which in some sense is a relief: unlike races and ethnicities in the real world, the Cylons can be deprived of their rights without a second thought. They can be attacked and tormented because they’re not even human. Or can they? Sound familiar?

“Battlestar,” which is forever recapping its own plot, is somewhat anxious about getting into the tortured farragoes for which science fiction is infamous, so the plot has been reduced to a simple recitable creed. It’s this: “The Cylons were created by man. They rebelled. They evolved. There are many copies. And they have a plan.”

Having wiped out most of humanity and chased the remaining men and women through space, the Cylons have followed them through to their temporary safe haven, a habitable planet called New Caprica. The Cylons now occupy this makeshift civilization, interacting with humans in all kinds of morally dubious ways: seducing them, recruiting them, torturing them, befriending them. The humans, for their part, both collude and rebel.

A faction of insurgents, led by a Weather Underground-type, Col. Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan), has become increasingly bloodthirsty. Initially the insurgents enjoyed the backing of the leader of the humans — a onetime cabinet member named Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) who rose to the office of president when those ahead of her in the line of succession were wiped out — but lately she has found their suicide tactics insupportable.

A recent exchange between Laura and Gaius Baltar (James Callis), an oily human recruited by the Cylons to be their puppet dictator, was like a punch in the stomach. Audience sympathies are generally with Laura, a middle-aged woman and a seeming softie who may be a stand-in for the new sci-fi viewers, who are increasingly women; she’s human, for one, and she’s generally liberal, sympathetic to underdogs, a former teacher. But talking to Gaius, who is furious at the insurgents for their attack on the Cylon-collaborating human police, she becomes an extremist in defense of suicide bombing by humans. “Desperate people use desperate measures,” she says.

Gaius then challenges Laura to say she supports suicide bombing in public places and, thus, the murder of civilians by naïve soldiers strapped with explosives. She cannot in good faith defend the practice, and she folds. Is she an American who might have supported the tactics of suicide bombers in the Middle East? Is the show’s argument that resisting colonization is not only futile, but sometimes immoral? Should the Iraqis — that is, the humans — just yield to occupation?

Fortunately, it’s not crystal clear. And that’s what makes “Battlestar,” week after week, riveting. The truth is, allegories don’t really exist. Characters who initially seem to “stand for” figures in myth or current events eventually take on their own dimensions and — with any luck — subvert the symbolic system that was supposed to confine them.

That has happened in extraordinary ways with “Battlestar Galactica”; the exchange between Gaius and Laura is only the most remarkable recent example. The other characters — the morally bewildered leaders, lovers and warriors — have also outgrown their simple roles as Terrorist or Hawk or Diplomat, and their every action now has its own strange, engrossing logic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/arts/television/26batt.html?ref=television/

dad1153

10-27-06, 08:30 AM

The Business of TV
With teens, it's a bang-up new season
Big Four see a 6 percent rise among 12-17s
By Toni Fitzgerald Media Life Magazine October 27, 2006

With all the distractions kids have these days, from video games to instant messaging to even homework, it wouldn’t be surprising if teenagers were watching less broadcast television. In fact, you’d probably expect it.

But that’s not the case. Six weeks into the new season, the average rating for the Big Four networks is up 6 percent over last year, from a 6.3 last year to a 6.7 this year, according to Nielsen numbers crunched by Fox.

It’s the biggest increase for any major demographic, including adults 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, which are basically flat. And it comes as 18-34s have seen a dramatic dip in broadcast viewership over the past three years.

So why the boost for teens? It’s a matter of programming. Usually Fox is the only network of the Big Four with shows that really speak to teens, but this year ABC and NBC both have new programs that are major teen hits.

NBC’s average among teens is up 60 percent year to year, from a 1.0 to a 1.6. Nearly all of that has been driven by teenage boys, who are tuning into “Sunday Night Football” and superhero-themed “Heroes.”

“Heroes” was the highest-rated new broadcast show among teens last week by a wide margin, averaging a 3.5. That’s a point behind ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” last week’s No. 1 show with teens, and equal to ABC’s “Lost,” which tied for third on broadcast.

Meanwhile, “SNF” has been nearly tripling NBC’s teens average from last season.

ABC has also seen gains in teens, its being driven by female teens. The No. 1 network in teens is up 19 percent year to year among females, from a 2.1 to a 2.5, mainly because of two soapy new shows.

“Ugly Betty” is the season’s No. 2 new show in teens, and it’s particularly popular among Hispanic teens. The show is more than doubling last year’s Thursday 8 p.m. timeslot average among teenagers.

“Brothers & Sisters,” Sunday’s “Desperate Housewives” lead-out, is also popular among teens. It averaged a 1.8 last week, ranking third behind “Heroes” and “Betty” among new shows.

And teen ratings will likely rise over the coming weeks. CBS remains even to last year at a 1.6. Fox is the only network down from last year in the demographic, falling 17 percent from a 1.8 to a 1.5. Some of that falloff is attributable to teen favorite “The O.C.,” which premiered in early September last year but does not debut until November this year.

With “The O.C.” and “House,” a top-five show with 12-17s, returning next week post-baseball, Fox’s teen average should bounce back, giving the Big Four an even bigger boost.

Note: The CW is not included in this analysis as it took the place of two networks, the WB and UPN, and thus year-to-year rating points comparisons including those networks are not practical.

Meanwhile, in broadcast and basic cable ratings for younger viewers for the week ended Oct. 22:

Among teens 12-17: ABC was first with a 2.0 rating, followed by the CW at 1.8, Fox at 1.7, CBS at 1.6, NBC at 1.5, Univision at 0.8, Telefutura and Telemundo tied at 0.2, and Azteca at 0.0.

Among kids 2-11: ABC lead with a 1.5, followed by Fox at 1.3, NBC at 1.1, CBS and CW tied at 1.0, Univision at 0.8, Telemundo and Telefutura tied at 0.2, and Azteca last with 0.0.

The top five shows among 9-14s: 1. “Ned Declassified” (Nickelodeon, Sunday 7:30 p.m.); 2. “Zoey 101” (Nickelodeon, Sunday, 8 p.m); 3. “Drake & Josh” (Nickelodeon, Sunday 7 p.m); 4. “Ned Declassified” (Nickelodeon, Monday 6 p.m.) 5. “Ned Declassified” (Nickelodeon, Friday 6 p.m.)

The top five shows among 12-17s: 1 “Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC, Thursday 9 p.m.); 2. “Desperate Housewives” (ABC, Sunday 9 p.m.); 3. “Lost” (ABC, Wednesday 9 p.m.); 4. “Heroes” (NBC, Monday 9 p.m.); 5. “WWE Entertainment” (USA, Monday 9 p.m.)

The top five shows among 12-24s: 1. “Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC, Thursday 9 p.m.); 2. “Desperate Housewives” (ABC, Sunday 9 p.m.); 3.“Heroes” (NBC, Monday 9 p.m.); 4. “Fox NFL Sunday-National” (Fox, Sunday 4:32 p.m.); 5. “Lost” (ABC, Wendesday 9 p.m.)

Cable shows making the top 30 among 18-24s: 5. “NFL Regular Season” (ESPN, Monday 8:30 p.m.); 15. “Nip Tuck” (FX, Tuesday 10 p.m.) 23. “Project Runway” (Bravo, Wednesday 10 p.m.); 30. “Family Guy” (ADSM, Thursday 11:30 p.m.)

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8172.asp (scroll down to the bottom of the page for lots of Top 30 lists about ratings/viewership levels on a variety of demos/categories).