The Programming Insider

Marc Berman

Prime-Time Wednesday Ratings:
ABC Wins; Lost and Criminal Minds Share Dominance

Wednesday 10/25/06
Metered Market Ratings

Household Rating/Share
ABC: 10.2/16, CBS: 10.0/15, NBC: 5.1/ 8, Fox: 4.2/ 6, CW: 3.8/ 6

-Percent Change From the Comparable Year-Ago Evening (Wednesday 10/26/05)
(The CW is compared to the WB’s combination of One Tree Hill and Related; Fox aired Game 4 of The World Series – Chicago White Sox vs. Houston Astros; ABC aired a repeat of Lost)
ABC: +65, CW: +46, CBS: +27, NBC: -20, Fox: -64

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

Fast National Ratings

-Total Viewers:
ABC: 14.89 million, CBS: 14.73, NBC: 7.41, Fox: 5.52, CW: 4.52

-Adults 18-49:
ABC: 5.0 rating/13 share, CBS: 4.3/11, NBC: 2.9/ 8, CW: 2.1/ 6, Fox: 2.0/ 5

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

-Yesterday’s Winners:
Dancing With the Stars (ABC), Jericho (CBS), America’s Next Top Model (CW), Lost (ABC), Criminal Minds (CBS), CSI: NY (CBS)

-Honorable Mention:
The Biggest Loser (NBC)

-Yesterday’s Losers (excluding repeats):
30 Rock (NBC), 20 Good Years (NBC), The Nine (ABC)

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

-Ratings Breakdown:
ABC got over the “hump” in winning fashion, with a first-place Wednesday finish in the overnights, total viewers and adults 18-49. CBS ranked a competitive second. Once again, the little show that could, CBS’ Criminal Minds, gave ABC’s Lost a run for dominance in total viewers. And, yes, that is one of the biggest stories worth telling this season.

Beginning with 8 p.m., ABC mega-hit Dancing With the Stars danced to another stellar time period victory (great segue, don’t you think?) with a 13.4/21 in the overnights, 19.86 million viewers and a 5.1/14 among adults 18-49. Congratulations to the ultimate pro, Jerry Springer, who beat the odds and lasted longer than anyone thought. CBS’ competing Jericho also remains a show worth touting, with a respectable 6.8/11 in the overnights, 10.54 million viewers and a 3.2/ 9 among adults 18-49. And the CW’s rock-solid America’s Next Top Model lives up to that description, with a 4.8/ 7 in the overnights (#3), 5.48 million viewers (#4) and a 2.7/ 8 among adults 18-49 (#3). Keep in mind, of course, that Top Model’s primary strength comes from the young female viewers, and that Jericho is a marked improvement over year-ago occupants Still Standing and Yes, Dear.

With three solid shows in one time period, there was not much left for NBC’s Thursday-bound 30 Rock (Overnights: #4, 4.2/ 7; Viewers: #3, 6.01 million; A18-49: #4, 2.1/ 6) and the hiatus-bound 20 Good Years (Overnights: #5, 3.9/ 6; Viewers: #3, 5.40 million; A18-49: #5, 2.0/ 5). For more on the NBC sitcoms, see TV Tidbits below.

Fox replaced rained-out game four of The World Series with four repeat episodes of sitcom The War at Home, which averaged a 4.2/ 6 in the overnights (#4), 5.52 million viewers (#4) and a 2.0/ 5 among adults 18-49 (#5) from 8-10 p.m. As a reminder, total viewers and adults 18-49 are based on the fast national ratings.

At 9 p.m., there are now two shows dominating the hour, ABC’s Lost and CBS’ Criminal Minds. Take a look:

Wednesday 9 p.m.
Lost (ABC)
Overnights: 11.5/17 (#1t), Viewers: 16.80 million (#1); A18-49: 6.9/17 (#1)

Criminal Minds (CBS)
Overnights: 11.5/17 (31t), Viewers: 16.59 million (#2); A18-49: 4.4/11 (#2)

Criminal Minds, of course, is up by double-digit percentages year-to-year, while Lost is just the opposite. As for last night’s episode of Lost, all I can say is it was one of the best I have ever seen. Too bad, again, that ABC is making the mistake of taking it off for three months in place of upcoming drama Day Break, which debuts on Nov. 15.

Elsewhere at 9 p.m. was NBC’s The Biggest Loser (Overnights: #3, 5.2/ 8; Viewers: #3, 7.86 million; A18-49: #3, 3.4/ 9), which built from 20 Good Years by an ample 33 percent in the overnights, 2.4 million viewers and 70 percent among adults 18-49, and the CW’s One Tree Hill (Overnights: #5, 2.7/ 4; Viewers: #5, 3.57 million; A18-49: #5, 1.6/ 4). Retention for One Tree Hill out of America’s Next Top Model was a modest 56 percent in the overnights, 65 percent in total viewers and 59 percent among adults 18-49.

With a stronger lead-in (and no competition from ABC), CBS’ CSI: NY continues to benefit at 10 p.m., with a dominant 11.6/19 in the overnights, 17.06 million viewers and a 5.4/15 among adults 18-49. ABC clinker The Nine sunk even further, with a last-place 5.7/ 9 in the overnights, 8.02 million viewers and a 3.1/ 8 among adults 18-49. Comparably, that put retention for The Nine out of Lost of just 50 percent in the overnights, 48 percent in total viewers and 45 percent among adults 18-49. Had ABC known, it could have left former cult favorite Invasion in the time period. Food for thought for ABC: Considering how much is going on during Lost, how about something less intensive at 10 p.m.?

Also at 10 p.m. was NBC’s relocated Dateline at a second-place 5.9/ 9 in the overnights, 8.66 million viewers and a 3.2/ 9 among adults 18-49, which is a noticeable improvement over former occupant Kidnapped.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data


Ratings Box:
What’s Hot/What’s Not

-The CW vs. UPN and the WB:
Five weeks into the new season, the CW is reporting growth over the year-ago average for the WB (with regularly scheduled programming) of 6 percent among adults 18-34 (1.7/ 5 vs. 1.6/ 5) and 5 percent among women 18-34 (2.2/ 7 vs. 2.1/ 7). The CW mirrors The WB’s scheduling model with 6 nights and 13 hours of prime time programming. Compared to UPN (which programmed only 10 hours), the CW is on par in all key demos.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

For my money this guy is the best war correspondent in the Middle East on network TV news right now (sorry Lara Logan!). I was riveted by his coverage for ABC News during the fall of Baghdad in 2003 and shocked when NBC snagged him right afterwards. ABC News' loss is NBC News' gain though. If you're a news junkie like me you'll appreciate this in-depth look at Richard Engel's current stint in the Middle East.

Critic's Notebook
In Iraq, Journalist Richard Engel Sticks to the Story
NBC Correspondent Has Made War Coverage His Life
By Howard Kurtz The Washington Post October 26, 2006

NEW YORK -- After struggling for years to make it as a Middle East journalist, Richard Engel was living in Cairo, married to his college girlfriend and itching for a new adventure.

As the Bush administration geared up to invade Iraq, Engel decided he had to be there and bought an illegal visa. Once in Iraq, he became so absorbed in the conflict that his marriage became a casualty of war.

"There is no personal life," he says. "This is what I do all the time. It's not a solitary existence like I'm riding a camel in the desert, but you just don't have any personal space."

At 33, the baby-faced Engel has logged more time in Iraq than any other television correspondent, chronicling 3 1/2 years of carnage for NBC and shrugging off several close calls. As nearly all television correspondents rotate in and out of Iraq, Engel has stayed .

"In an era of instant media criticism, he calls balls and strikes in the middle of a war zone," says NBC anchor Brian Williams. "He is completely unbothered by any Web site that may have problems with his reporting while he's over in Iraq dodging bullets. . . . He is the most agenda-less person I've met in our business, I think, in the past 20 years."

On a rare visit home, Engel looks slighter than he does in flak-jacketed appearances from Baghdad, as if he doesn't quite fill out his suit. He speaks with an air of resignation about the worst that human beings can do to each other.

Earlier this month he interviewed a woman whose 13-year-old son was kidnapped. After she paid the $12,000 ransom, the boy was tortured and killed anyway.

"It's horrible," Engel says. "I've seen hundreds of dead bodies -- rotting bodies, bodies buried in shallow graves. One time I watched a dog carry a severed human head in its mouth. You're smelling bodies, you're seeing people who are so angry and insanely distraught. The people who are being killed are too old, too stupid, too poor, too young or too weak, socially or otherwise, to leave."

Engel frequently hits the punching bag as a form of therapy. "There are images that I would rather not have in my head," he says. "You can't let your guard down. . . . You have to go out every day assuming you're being hunted, that people want to take you for ransom."

Among the small circle of journalists who risk their lives in the region, Engel commands considerable respect.

"I admire Richard because he's passionate about the story, and he cares," Lara Logan, CBS's chief foreign correspondent, says from Iraq. "When he was a freelancer with no real support, he wasn't afraid to stay on his own in Baghdad for 'shock and awe.' He's also a really decent guy."

Why does he stay? When NBC made Engel its Middle East bureau chief over the summer, he agreed to a new contract and moved to the relative calm of Beirut. Days later he found himself covering a fierce war between Israel and Hezbollah -- and was suddenly reenergized. This, for better or worse, is what he does.

Not that Engel necessarily approves of military conflict.

"I think war should be illegal," he says. "I'm basically a pacifist."

* * *

Engel was taping a standup last week on Haifa Street, in one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods, where he was traveling with the 172nd Stryker Brigade.

Suddenly shots rang out. The unit was under sniper fire. "Let's go, go, go, go, go, go!" one soldier shouted. Engel scrambled for cover, but completed his report a few minutes later.

He has little patience for the notion that the media are suffering from Iraq fatigue because the story -- day after day of death and destruction -- has gotten so repetitive.

"Whether you agree with the war or not, I have a very soft spot for the guys who are out there. These guys have saved my life on more than one occasion, and they are dying at the rate of two a day, and they deserve to be talked about."

Danger lurks everywhere for Western correspondents in Iraq. Engel has survived two kidnapping attempts, one of which occurred when a pair of cars surrounded his vehicle, forcing his driver to make an evasive maneuver at 90 miles per hour with a third car in hot pursuit. And journalists' hotels are a periodic target. Engel's hotel room has been blown up three times in insurgent attacks, once collapsing the ceiling and another time blowing off the door as shrapnel filled the room.

"There's a fine line between fearless and crazy," Williams says. "Richard is not crazy. He has distilled risk to a science."

Few would have predicted that Engel would become an intrepid war correspondent when he was growing up on Manhattan's East 86th Street. He suffered from dyslexia and struggled in school.

"He was down in the mouth and low on self-confidence," says his mother, Nina Engel. "He lived in the shadow of his older brother, Mr. Perfect," who is now a cardiologist. In fact, she had only "a very faint hope" that he would be able to go to college.

When he was 13, Engel asked his parents to send him to a wilderness survival program in Wyoming. Frustrated by his learning disabilities, he was eager to escape the comforts of Upper East Side life and try a tougher environment.

He says he was "scared to death," especially when given a gun to hunt small game. Nina Engel remembers getting a letter from her son: "I just returned from my survival hike. I clubbed a bird to death and ate it." When the teenager returned, he told his mother: "I learned a lot about myself."

Engel says the experience began a transformation that largely enabled him to overcome his dyslexia and school problems. Despite his learning difficulties, he showed early promise in other ways.

"He was a great writer," says Ross Peet, who was a classmate at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. "But he struggled with anything that had a number on it."

At 16, Engel spent a year as an exchange student in Sicily. After graduating from Stanford in 1996 with a degree in international relations, Engel says, he decided that "the Middle East would be the story of my generation." He announced to his parents that he was moving to Cairo, where the family had once taken a trip.

"Are you insane?" Nina Engel recalls asking him. "Do you remember what a hellhole it was?" When her son said he was also considering Damascus, she allowed as how Cairo was not really that bad.

The aspiring reporter took his $2,000 in savings, moved to Cairo, enrolled in Arabic classes and found an apartment in a neighborhood where donkeys and dogs roamed the dirt roads.

Engel did some local freelancing and caught an early break when he was asked to take over the English-language Middle East Times after the staff walked out in the wake of the editor's firing. He wrote all the articles -- making plenty of mistakes in the process -- and took the proofs each week to a printing press in Athens, as a way to avoid Egyptian censorship laws.

Engel ran into trouble anyway as he began reporting on the group that would become al-Qaeda. He says Egyptian authorities started following him and bugging his phone. Once, after a weekend trip, an official called to ask how he had liked staying in Room 17 of a hotel in Alexandria. Engel reported the surveillance to the U.S. embassy, to no avail.

"The embassy was useless," he says. "It was my first lesson that you cannot rely on anyone else. No one is coming to help you."

In 1999, Agence France-Presse hired Engel to go to Jerusalem and cover the Palestinians. As the intifada protests against Israel turned violent, he says, "I spent the next three years on my stomach, getting tear-gassed and shot at with rubber bullets."

Most people might consider that a miserable existence. But Engel brightens at the thought: "I was lucky enough to be on the fault line as history shifts and moves."

Friends were not surprised at his constant need for an adrenaline fix. "He has no interest in a 9-to-5 job," Peet says. "He's very much into living on the edge. I don't think he has much interest in having a normal life."

By late 2002, as war with Iraq loomed, ABC News and the BBC had hired Engel as a freelancer. But even though he spoke Arabic, Engel wasn't on anyone's list to get an Iraqi visa. The networks were concentrating their efforts on their bigger stars.

Undeterred, Engel took $20,000, went to Jordan and bought a human shield visa, meaning that he was pledging to chain himself to an Iraqi facility as a deterrent against U.S. bombing. Engel got the visa from an Iraqi official who knew full well he was a journalist but was swayed by a few hundred dollars and some baby clothing that Engel had bought for extra persuasion.

Once in Iraq, Engel bought a generator and some crowbars, souped up two Volkswagens so he could move fast without being conspicuous, and hired an off-duty police officer. On the eve of the Western invasion, most of the networks pulled out their correspondents for safety reasons, a decision that Engel could not fathom.

"You knew it was going to be horrible -- that's why you're there," he says.

As other journalists either withdrew, were expelled or clamored to get in, Engel was for a brief time the only American television reporter in Iraq. He found himself much in demand by ABC, which still identified him as a freelancer. He did the videotaping himself with a small camcorder. Once Saddam Hussein was toppled, ABC and NBC both offered to hire Engel. He retained a top New York agent and decided he would prefer a fresh start with NBC, "coming in the front door as opposed to climbing up the fire escape and breaking in the back door."

In the invasion's aftermath, Engel would drive each week to such cities as Najaf and Fallujah, poking around to find stories. But that gradually changed as the security situation deteriorated. Now, unless he is embedded with a military unit, Engel usually finds himself confined to the safer precincts of Baghdad, an experience he describes as "a noose tightening around us." He increasingly relies on Iraqi staffers who are from certain neighborhoods or members of the same ethnic group as a given area's residents. But even that can be problematic. "I've gotten rid of the ones who I think cannot be trusted," Engel says.

Not everything he covers involves bombs and bullets. Engel did a piece earlier this year on the plight of children at a Baghdad orphanage, which drew so much public reaction that "NBC Nightly News" aired it a second time.

"I don't look for good-news stories or bad-news stories. I don't have an abacus," he says.

But bad news has a way of finding journalists in Iraq. On Memorial Day, Engel heard a nearby explosion. He soon learned that CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier had been badly wounded and her two crew members, Paul Douglas and James Brolan, killed by the blast.

His mother sent him an e-mail: "YOU ARE UNDER HOUSE ARREST UNTIL YOU CAN BOOK A FLIGHT OUT OF THERE . . . Mom's orders."

She writes him every day, but he has not followed her evacuation instructions. Still, there are psychological effects. Riding in an Army Humvee, Engel looked down at his legs and thought how fragile they looked. What if he lost them?

"You worry about how many lives you have and how many I've already used up," Engel says. "I don't think I'm invincible."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102501982.html

Mediaweek.com

NBC Orders Up More Scripts for Studio 60, The Nine

Marc Berman

OCTOBER 27, 2006 -

NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and three freshman series on ABC – Help Me Help You, The Nine and Men in Trees – have been given additional script orders. Four more scripts for the ABC series have been ordered, with three for Studio 60. Six other new series to-date -- ABC’s Ugly Betty and Brothers & Sisters, CBS’ Jericho and Shark, NBC’s Heroes and CW’s The Game -- have been given full season orders.

Below is the revised freshman series scorecard:

ABC
-The Knights of Prosperity: on hiatus indefinitely
-Big Day (Tues. 9 p.m.): debuting on Nov. 28
-Help Me Help You (Tues. 9:30 p.m.): four more scripts ordered
-The Nine (Wed. 9 p.m.): four more scripts ordered
-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.): four more scripts ordered
-Brothers & Sisters (Sun. 10 p.m.): full season renewal

CBS
-The Class (Mon. 8:30 p.m.): on the fence
-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.): three more scripts ordered
-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 (Mon 8 p.m.): now airing in this time period effective today
-Standoff (Tues. 8 p.m.): flipping time periods with lead-out House as planned
-Justice (Wed. 9 p.m.): 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

Wow, a vote of confidence from ABC for 'The Nine.' But will it keep it at 10PM Wednesdays or move it after 'Lost' wraps-up the first half of its season? Because if 'Daybreak' gets clobbered by 'Criminal Minds' (as everyone expects it will) then it could drag 'The Nine' down with it.

Jeff Zucker isn't the only one that wants big money game shows at 8PM. This new ABC entry with Shatner as emcee makes 'Deal or No Deal' sound like 'Jeopardy!'

The New Season
Answers! Dancers! Prancers! Vixens!
By Lisa De Moraes, The Washington Post October 27, 2006

We realize that earlier this month, when ABC announced William Shatner would host a game show for the network called "Show Me the Money," we wrote that details of the show, which were sketchy in the network's announcement, didn't really matter.

But that was before we heard the details.

Yesterday ABC filled them in.

Turns out we haven't even begun to plumb the depths of stupid to which reality television series can go.

On this particular show, for instance, contestants must answer a minimum of six trivia questions. After each answer, the contestant must choose from among 13 dancers on stage who, ABC assures us, will all be "stunning." Each dancer holds a scroll on which is written a dollar figure to be added or subtracted, for correct or incorrect answers, to the contestant's total.

A correct answer, combined with choosing a dancer holding big money, can catapult the player's winning into the millions. But a wrong answer, and the wrong dancer, can wipe out winnings in an instant.

The Answers and Dancers Show.

But there's more. At any given moment, the 13 Million-Dollar Dancers, as they're called on the show, may spontaneously break into any style of dance and, ABC promises, Shatner spontaneously "boogies with the beauties on stage."

Let's recap, shall we?

1. Trivia questions

2. 13 stunning dancers

3. Scrolls

4. Spontaneous dancing

5. William Shatner boogieing on stage

And suddenly, screaming at briefcases doesn't seem so idiotic, does it? Something almost operatic about it, really.

"Show Me the Money" is getting the 8 p.m. time slot on Wednesday once the current edition of "Dancing With the Stars" wraps next month. But that's where most pundits are expecting NBC to schedule "Deal or No Deal" now that it has moved scripted series "30 Rock" and "Twenty Good Years" out of the hour.

NBC execs announced recently they intend to schedule as much nonscripted programming as possible at 8 across the week, because they aren't getting the kind of ratings they need at 8 to justify the cost of scripted fare.

ABC clearly thinks William Shatner and Million-Dollar Dancers trump Howie Mandel and briefcase babes.

But all that really matters is, do you?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601747.html

I hope William Shatner can be half as entertaining on "Show Me The Money" as he is on "Boston Legal".

I'm a BIG "Boston Legal" fan.

Another sign of the times:

The FCC's Assistant Policy Chief has determined that an interview with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno counted as a bona fide news segment, and that his Democratic opponent is not entitled to equal time.

Actually the debate is nothing new. NBC acknowledged that this issue came up when Jack Paar hosted The Tonight Show in 1960, according to today's order. But the network also argued that the FCC has taken a more liberal view of what constitutes "news" in more recent rulings, including one involving Phil Donahue's talk show.

Source: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-2098A1.pdf

I'm glad to see Men In Trees get some support, I wish it had been a full season, but hey, it's still got life. :) It's one of my favorite shows this year.

In the above, you have "Vanished" listed on Monday at 8:00 pm as of today, shouldn't that be Friday at 8:00 pm?

In the above, you have "Vanished" listed on Monday at 8:00 pm as of today, shouldn't that be Friday at 8:00 pm?

According to his column, listed today 10-27-06 , Monday at 8 pm is the new time slot for "Vanished".

I looked on my cables program guide and, it doesn't show as scheduled for Friday or Monday at 8pm. Maybe a correction or update is forthcoming.

Seems Friday at 8pm is the time slot for "Vanished" on FOX.



OCTOBER 27, 2006
The Programming Insider

Marc Berman

Prime-Time Thursday Ratings:
Fox Wins Despite Lackluster World Series

Thursday 10/26/06
Metered Market Ratings

Household Rating/Share
Fox: 10.0/15, CBS: 9.4/14, ABC: 8.9/14, NBC: 5.9/ 9, CW: 3.2/ 5

-Percent Change From the Comparable Year-Ago Evening (Thursday 10/27/05)
(The CW is compared to Smallville and Everwood on the WB on the year-ago evening; Fox aired a repeat of theatrical Maid in Manhattan).
Fox: +186, ABC: +98, CW: -16, NBC: -19, CBS: -32

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

-Yesterday’s Winners:
Ugly Betty (ABC), CSI R (CBS)

-Yesterday’s Losers (excluding repeats):
nothing

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

Fast National Ratings

-Total Viewers:
Fox: 14.52 million, CBS: 13.21, ABC: 11.76, NBC: 8.40, CW: 4.23

-Adults 18-49:
Fox: 4.5 rating/12 share, ABC: 4.1/11, CBS: 4.0/11, NBC: 3.0/ 8, CW: 1.9/ 5

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

-Ratings Breakdown:
Opposite repeats on ABC and CBS from 9-11 p.m., game four of The World Series on Fox (Detroit vs. St. Louis) took center stage, with an 11.4/19 in the overnights from 8:30 p.m.-12:15 a.m., and an approximate 14.52 million viewers and a 4.5/12 among adults 18-49 in prime time. While that is certainly an improvement over Fox’s regularly scheduled Thursday delivery, compared to the game four match-up on Oct. 26, 2005 between The Chicago White Sox and the Houston Astros (Overnights: 14.8/24; Viewers: 19.98 million; A18-49: 6.6/18), it was also a decrease of a considerable 23 percent in the overnights, 5.46 million viewers and 32 percent among adults 18-49. Good? Yes. But a home-run? Absolutely not.

As a reminder, total viewers and adults 18-49 from last night are based on the fast nationals. Any prior results are based on the final nationals.

Airing opposite a clips edition of CBS’ Survivor: Cook Islands (which only demonstrated how deadly dull this season is) and Fox’s aforementioned baseball (including the half-hour pre-game show), ABC’s Ugly Betty dominated the 8 p.m. hour with a healthy 10.2/16 in the overnights, 13.15 million viewers and a 4.2/12 among adults 18-49. Second was Survivor: Cook Islands at a 7.9/12 in the overnights, 12.61 million viewers and a 4.1/11 among adults 18-49. The pre-game show scored a 6.7/10 in the overnights.

Repeats of NBC’s My Name Is Earl (Overnights: 5.4/ 8; Viewers: 7.56 million; A18-49: 2.8/ 8) and The Office (Overnights: #4, 4.6/ 7; Viewers: 6.38 million; A18-49: 2.7/ 7), which will begin airing into the return of Scrubs and the relocated 30 Rock in November, finished fourth in the 8 p.m. hour. The CW’s Smallville, meanwhile, held up at a 3.7/ 6 in the overnights, 4.79 million viewers and a 2.2/ 6 among adults 18-49. Comparably, Smallville matched its season highs in adults 18-34 and 18-49.

In the battle of the repeats at 9 p.m., CSI’s advantage over Grey’s Anatomy only solidifies the value of crime solving dramas versus serialized story-telling in off-network syndication. The CSI second-run averaged a potent (and first-place) 12.2/18 in the overnights, 16.63 million viewers and a 5.0/12 among adults 18-49 versus a third-place 9.0/13 in the overnights, 12.21 million viewers and a 4.5/11 among adults 18-49 for Grey’s Anatomy. As reported yesterday, Tony winner Liev Schreiber will be temporarily filling in for William Petersen on CSI beginning in January.

NBC’s competing Deal or No Deal, which the network is wisely removing from the competitive Thursday waters, scored a fourth-place 7.3/11 in the overnights, 11.03 million viewers and a 3.5/ 9 among adults 18-49. The CW’s Supernatural, which like lead-in Smallville is down year-to-year, capped off the hour with a last-place 2.8/ 4 in the overnights, 3.67 million viewers and a 1.7/ 4 among adults 18-49. Comparably, that put retention for Supernatural out of Smallville at 76 percent in the overnights, and 77 percent in both total viewers and adults 18-49.

In the battle of the repeats at 10 p.m., the No. 2 spot was shared between CBS’ Shark and another episode of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. Shark averaged an 8.1/13 in the overnights (#2), 10.37 million viewers (#2) and a 2.9/ 8 (#3) among adults 18-49, with Grey’s Anatomy at a 7.6/12 in the overnights (#3), 9.92 million viewers (#3) and a 3.8/10 among adults 18-49 (#2). A repeat of NBC’s ER was fourth with a 5.5/ 9 in the overnights, 7.20 million viewers and a 2.6/ 7 among adults 18-49.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data


Ratings Box:
What’s Hot/What’s Not

-Katie Couric Sinks to No. 3:
Based on ratings for the week of Oct. 16, The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric dipped to third in households, total viewers and key adults 25-54. But ratings year-to-year remained on the minor plus side, with growth of 310,000 viewers and 11 percent among adults 25-54. The NBC Nightly News was first, with minor erosion from one year earlier, while the ABC Nightly News finished second at levels consistent to the year-ago week.

-Households:
NBC: 6.0 rating/12 share (- 9), ABC: 5.9/12 (- 2), CBS: 5.2/10 (no change)

-Total Viewers:
NBC: 8.65 million (- 8), ABC: 8.45 (+ 2), CBS: 7.56 (+ 4)

-Adults 25-54:
ABC: 2.3 rating/ 9 share (no change), NBC: 2.2/ 9 (-12), CBS: 2.1/ 8 (+11)

----------

-Daytime Update:
Also based on ratings for the week of Oct. 16, ABC and CBS continued to dominate (both in daytime dramas and in total daytime), with CBS the most-watched network and ABC No. 1 among key women 18-49. CBS has now topped the daypart in households and total viewers for 917 consecutive weeks.

Take a look:

Daytime Dramas

-Total Viewers:
CBS: 4.03 million, ABC: 3.09, NBC: 2.35

-Women 18-49:
ABC: 1.7 rating/11 share, CBS and NBC: 1.4 rating/ 9 share each

-----------

Full Daytime

-Total Viewers:
CBS: 4.35 million, ABC: 3.11, NBC: 2.35

-Women 18-49:
ABC: 1.7/11, CBS and NBC: 1.4/ 9 each

Source: Nielsen Media Research data


On the Air This Weekend:
Prime-Time Programming Options

Friday 10/27/06

ABC:
8:00 p.m. Grey’s Anatomy (R)
9:00 p.m. Men in Trees
10:00 p.m. 20/20

CBS:
8:00 p.m. Ghost Whisperer
9:00 p.m. Close to Home
10:00 p.m. Numb3rs

NBC:
8:00 p.m. 1 vs. 100 (time period premiere)
9:00 p.m. Las Vegas (season premiere)
10:00 p.m. Law & Order

Fox:
8:00 p.m. Vanished (new day and time)
9:00 p.m. Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy

CW:
8:00 p.m. Friday Night Smackdown!

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

Saturday 10/28/06

ABC:
8:00 p.m. Movie: Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban (R)

CBS:
8:00 p.m. Numb3rs (R)
9:00 p.m. CSI: NY (R)
10:00 p.m. 48 Hours Mystery

NBC:
8:00 p.m. Dateline
9:00 p.m. Kidnapped
10:00 p.m. Law & Order: SVU (R)

Fox:
8:00 p.m. Baseball World Series, Game 5

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

Sunday 10/29/06

ABC:
7:00 p.m. America’s Funniest Home Videos
8:00 p.m. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
9:00 p.m. Desperate Housewives
10:00 p.m. Brothers & Sisters

CBS:
7:00 p.m. 60 Minutes
8:00 p.m. The Amazing Race 10
9:00 p.m. Cold Case
10:00 p.m. Without a Trace (100th episode)

NBC:
7:00 p.m. Football Night in America
8:00 p.m. NFL Pre-Game
8:15 p.m. NFL Sunday Night Football (Dallas at Carolina)

Fox:
7:30 p.m. World Series Pre-Game
8:00 p.m. Baseball World Series, Game 6 (if necessary)

CW:
7:00 p.m. Supernatural (R)
8:00 p.m. 7th Heaven
9:00 p.m. America’s Next Top Model (R)


TV Tidbits:
Notes of Interest

-Additional Script Orders:
NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and three freshman series on ABC – Help Me Help You, The Nine and Men in Trees – have been given additional script orders. Four more scripts for the ABC series have been ordered, with three for Studio 60. Six other new series to-date -- ABC’s Ugly Betty and Brothers & Sisters, CBS’ Jericho and Shark, NBC’s Heroes and CW’s The Game -- have been given full season orders. Take a look at the revised freshman series scorecard:

ABC
-The Knights of Prosperity: on hiatus indefinitely
-Big Day (Tues. 9 p.m.): debuting on Nov. 28
-Help Me Help You (Tues. 9:30 p.m.): four more scripts ordered
-The Nine (Wed. 9 p.m.): four more scripts ordered
-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.): four more scripts ordered
-Brothers & Sisters (Sun. 10 p.m.): full season renewal

CBS
-The Class (Mon. 8:30 p.m.): on the fence
-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.): three more scripts ordered
-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 (Mon 8 p.m.): now airing in this time period effective today
-Standoff (Tues. 8 p.m.): flipping time periods with lead-out House as planned
-Justice (Wed. 9 p.m.): 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

----------

-A Not So Simple Life:
Production on the upcoming season of E Entertainment’s The Simple Life has been put on hold while star Nicole Richie is undergoing tests to see why she cannot put back any of her lost weight.

-Law & Order: Criminal Intent Sold to the Fox O&O’s:
NBC Universal Television Distribution has sold the off-network rights of drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent to the Fox owned and operated stations in the top markets (including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago) beginning in fall 2007. Criminal Intent will air in a stripped Monday to Friday format instead of the traditional weekend window. The last scripted crime drama to be stripped in off-network syndication was 21 Jump Street, and that was 14 years ago. The last drama overall, meanwhile, was 7th Heaven in 2001-02.

USA Network currently has the weekday cable rights for Criminal Intent, and a Sunday repurposing of the episode that airs the previous week on NBC. Bravo has a three-hour window on Sunday nights for repeats of the first five seasons.

According to his column, listed today 10-27-06 , Monday at 8 pm is the new time slot for "Vanished".

I looked on my cables program guide and, it doesn't show as scheduled for Friday or Monday at 8pm. Maybe a correction or update is forthcoming.

It's been moved to Friday at 8:00 pm, it was in an earlier article posted in this thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8753185&&#post8753185 ... the World Series is tonight, I looked at the TIVO extended guide and it shows it at 8:00 pm next Friday. I'm probably one of few people that actually watch(ed) Vanished.

Critic's Notebook
'Housewives' settles down in TV's in-between
By Robert Bianco, USA Today October 26, 2006

With Desperate Housewives, it may be time to put both our hopes and fears to rest.

So far this fall, Housewives (Sunday, 9 ET/PT, ABC) has been markedly better than it was in its dismal second season, allaying concerns that the show had gone into an irreversible decline.

Yet it's also nowhere near as good as it was in its breakthrough first season, and with each passing week, those heights seem further beyond the show's reach.

What that leaves us with is a slightly less popular, ever more preposterous sitcomish soap — generally well played (at least by the stars) and frequently entertaining. It's no longer a pop-culture phenom and no longer ranks with TV's best, but it's also no longer an embarrassment, and that has to be of some comfort to its fans.

The credit for the creative improvement of this still-ratings-potent ABC Sunday hit goes to the show's decision to refocus its attention on its primary housewives and to put them together more often.

Gone are most of the extraneous characters and the imposed-from-the-outside mystery. Instead, the show has tied its main story to its main characters through their main men: a just-out-of-a-coma Mike — who is trying to remember whether he liked Susan or Edie — and Mike's assailant, Orson, who is now married to Bree.

Add in Lynette's extended family problems and Gaby's marital problems, and you have more than enough plot strands to keep all four stars busy.

As was often the case with Housewives even at its height, those plots are not all of equal interest and the episodes don't all hang together. But so far, at least, there have been fewer moments when you're looking at your watch wondering why you're still watching.

Yet while the show has regained its ability to amuse, the price paid has been a complete abandonment of reality. Actions have no consequences on Housewives, and horrid behavior is not so much forgiven as forgotten.

Edie burns Susan's house down without checking to see if anyone's inside, and Susan remains civil. Gaby tricks Carlos into catching her in bed with another man (a device the show already used with Andrew and Bree), and yet he still apparently wants to make their marriage work.

As for Lynette, whose pained maternal insecurities gave the show its most touching moments, she now seems content to torture her children on those odd weeks when she remembers they exist.

Lost forever, it seems, is the emotional resonance provided by that initial suburban-suicide plot. What's left are the flashy trappings of a Dynasty-style prime-time soap, fine for what it is but not exactly a must-see weekly event.

It was fun while it lasted, but for many of us, the Housewives love affair is over. We'll have to see whether we can just be friends.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-26-housewives_x.htm

And yet 'DH' continues to outdraw Sunday Night Football on NBC whenever the two air at the same time. So long as more people are watching 'Housewives' than NFL players this show is a force to be reckoned with, IMHO.

fred enjoy your time off

dad you are doing a good job in relief

Thanks! :)

It's official now: NBC is run by a bunch if whiny babies!

The Business of TV
Wright: Piracy imperils U.S. jobs, economy
By Carl DiOrio The Hollywood Reporter October 27, 2006

Bob Wright wants you to know that piracy is wrong.

And the NBC Universal chairman and CEO told a Wednesday night audience at the Beverly Hilton Hotel that intellectual property piracy isn't limited to ripping off Hollywood-created content. It imperils the nation's economic fabric, he warned.

"The U.S. economy is threatened by increases of counterfeiting and piracy in sectors as diverse as automobiles, aerospace, computer software, defense contractors, fashion design, high-tech manufacturing and pharmaceuticals," Wright told the dinner crowd of about 250.

"At risk," he added, "is every part of our economy where creativity, innovation and invention drive the creation of economic value and of high-wage jobs."

The Los Angeles World Affairs Council, which hosted the event, billed Wright's address as a "major policy speech." In it, the NBC Uni boss laid out a four-step plan for stemming the tide of product counterfeiting: greater recognition of the extent of the problem; spreading the word through the media that "piracy and counterfeiting are serious crimes"; increasing the use of government resources to fight the problem; and collaboration in all business segments to find technological solutions.

"The fact is, technological steps that would significantly reduce much of the piracy problem for media companies are available right now," Wright said. "We have the ability to insert a digital tag or watermark in our content. (Various) content industries have cooperated in developing technological standards for the new high-definition generation of DVDs, which will include provisions for detecting copyright watermarks in order to interfere with the playback of pirated material."

A recent MPAA study showed that piracy cost the group's six member companies $6.1 billion worldwide in 2005, he remarked.

"Absent piracy, 141,000 new jobs would have been added to the U.S. economy," Wright added.

China and Russia are among the worst global territories for piracy of Hollywood's intellectual property, he said, with counterfeit product rates of 95% and 80%, respectively.

But in remarks to a reporter after the speech, the NBC Uni topper expressed graver concern over increased piracy in developed territories such as the U.K., where cyber-piracy and other woes have pushed the counterfeit product rate to almost 20%.

Heedless of his gloomy message, Wall Street has been relatively unconcerned over Hollywood's vulnerability to content piracy, Wright acknowledged. "It's not a focal point for them," he said.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3i0q3OxqCLwzOwuDdr39J5ww%3D%3D

I could have gotten a normal version of this story from other sources. But I deliberately chose Variety's version so we can all rejoice in our universal hatred of this publication's practice of re-writing copy with its trademark 'Variety' copy style. WTH is the deal with these people anyway?

The Business of TV
Prickly Peacock nixes Chicks:
NBC cancels ads for Dixie docu 'Sing'
By Pamela McClintock and Josef Adalian Variety October 26, 2006

The Weinstein Co. is claiming that NBC and the CW have refused to air national ads for the new Dixie Chicks docu "Shut Up & Sing."

But while the Peacock has specifically said it won't accept the spots because they are disparaging of President Bush, a rep for the CW strongly denies the Weinsteins version of events.

Barbara Kopple's docu, which opens today in Gotham and L.A., revisits the fierce fallout that occurred in 2003 after lead singer Natalie Maines said she was ashamed that the president is from Texas, her home state.

The national spot shows a clip of Bush authorizing troops to fight in Iraq, then cuts to a clip of Maines' comment. Next is a clip of the president saying publicly that the Dixie Chicks shouldn't have their feelings hurt if people don't want to buy their records anymore. The final frame shows Maines saying that Bush is a "real dumb (bleep)."

TWC wanted the national ads to begin running next week in preparation for the movie's expansion on Nov. 11. Company said it hasn't heard back yet from the commercial clearance departments at ABC, CBS and Fox.

"It's a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America," Harvey Weinstein said in a statement. "The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is profoundly un-American."

According to the Weinstein Co., NBC's commercial clearance department said in writing that it "cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush."

TWC also quoted a rep from the CW as saying it had concerns that "we do not have appropriate programming in which to schedule this spot."

CW communications topper Paul McGuire rejected that version of events.

"That's not true," he said. "The spot was not declined. In fact, we were told they were not going to make a national spot buy on CW."

An email exchange obtained by Daily Variety between a media buyer for TWC and a CW standards and practices rep seems to back that up. The CW reps asks the media buyer if "you have a buy with us for the Dixie Chicks movie?" The ad rep for TWC replies, "We do not currently have a national buy with CW."

The Weinstein Co. isn't facing a total blockade against its ad.

Spot in question aired on the ABC-owned stations in New York and L.A. earlier this week during a broadcast of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" featuring the Dixie Chicks.

Ad has also aired on Peacock-owned stations in New York and L.A., as well as on CW affils in the same markets.

Earlier this week, CNN and National Public Radio said they wouldn't accept ads for the controversial film "Death of a President," about the fictional assassination of Bush. CNN said it had decided not to take the ads because of the "extreme nature" of the pic's storyline.

TWC said it will explore taking legal action.

East Coast-based Peacock sales execs couldn't be reached for comment, an NBC spokesman said.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952760.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

Critic’s Notebook
Paging Kenneth and a few other bits and pieces
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” October 27, 2006

The more I see of “30 Rock,” the more the show’s move to Thursdays makes sense. Tina Fey’s comedy does deserve a chance find its voice – one that was slightly more in evidence in this week’s episode.

I thought the first two episodes were pretty scattered and not all that funny, but Wednesday’s outing had several laugh-out-loud moments. Fey and her writers appear to be focusing on the characters a bit more, instead of the madcap antics of making a sketch-comedy show. That’s a wise move.

They’ve got a ridiculous talent in Alec Baldwin, who plays deadpan NBC exec Jack Donaghy. Here’s an exchange between Donaghy and Liz Lemon (Fey’s character), after Donaghy set her up on a blind date – with a woman.

“What made you think I was gay?” Lemon fumes.

“Your shoes,” Donaghy replies.

“Well, I’m straight,” Lemon says.

“Those shoes are definitely bi-curious,” Donaghy says.

A pretty funny line in the hands of a moderately talented actor – in the hands of Baldwin, who manages to be both hammy and dryly restrained at the same time, it’s comedy gold.

Donaghy’s more than enough reason to tune in, but after this week’s episode, Kenneth the page (Jack McBrayer) is by far my second-favorite character.

Donaghy discovered this week, to his surprise and consternation, that the sweetly idiotic Kenneth is a genius poker player. And the poker face of the happy-go-lucky Kenneth is not easy to read; he spent one game licking Doritos.

“He’s awesome,” says slovenly staff writer Frank (Judah Friedlander). “You can’t read his thoughts because he doesn’t have any.”

McBrayer’s really making the most of what could have been a nothing part; in his hands, Kenneth’s not just kind of naïve and goofy, but also represents the optimism of any small-town kid who’s ever dreamed of making it in showbiz.

I just have to segue here to shed a little light on some other unheralded comic performances I’ve been enjoying of late; the entire ensemble on “The New Adventures of Old Christine” is strong, but it’s admirable how Hamish Linklater fills out the part of what is often a throwaway character on sitcoms. Linklater plays Christine’s freeloading brother, but he imbues the role with a note of pathetic desperation that makes his character stand out.

And how great was “Malcolm in the Middle” vet Bryan Cranston as Ted’s mean boss on “How I Met Your Mother” this week? Cranston really hit it out of the park in his role as Mr. Druthers. And I am eager to see what Wayne Brady does in an upcoming episode – as Barney’s brother. Yes, you read that right. I have no idea what they’re going to do with that idea, but “Mother,” like Christine, has solid comic chops. Surely there will be much funny involved in Brady’s guest shot.

But back to Kenneth.

“In five years, we’ll all be either working for him… or dead by his hand,” Donaghy hissed as the floppy-haired young page rode his bike home.

If “30 Rock” concentrates more on Donaghy, the delightfully vacant Kenneth and even the brazenly crass Frank, and concentrates less on Lemon’s frustrated single-gal life and gives Tracy Morgan more to do than being the “out-of-control black man,” this show could become a real destination on Thursdays.

In other news:

-I don’t like the new version of the “Veronica Mars” theme. I really, really don’t like it. Why did they take a good song and de-good-ify it?

-Check out the new video from the “Nobody’s Watching” guy. See if you can spot the “Lost” cast member cleverly concealed within it.

-Department of being late to the party: The trailer for the new season of “24” went up a few days ago. It’s here.

-Also, in case you hadn’t heard, “Shark” has been picked up for a full season. And ABC has ordered more scripts for “The Nine,” so I have my fingers crossed on that front.

-To honor the passing of actress Jane Wyatt, who played Margaret Anderson on “Father Knows Best” as well as many other memorable roles, WWME-Ch. 23 is airing a two-hour marathon of Margaret-centric “Father Knows Best” episode starting at 11 a.m. Sunday.

-Here’s some fabulous news for “Project Runway” fans who are experiencing those troubling “Runway” withdrawal symptoms (you mumble Tim Gunn phrases under your breath, you think about buying a sewing machine, you feel inexorably drawn to fabric stores and have nightmares about Vincent): Project Rungay, one of the best sites that obsesses about the hit Bravo show, will start recapping the first and second seasons of the show next week. Currently up on the site are Tom and Lorenzo’s tart thoughts on the final collections and much more tongue-in-cheek “Runway” commentary.

-USA Today television critic Robert Bianco is staging an intervention for “Studio 60.” Like me, he thinks the drama can still be saved, and I think his suggestions for improvement are spot-on. Read his thoughts here.

-Which will end up being the goofiest stunt casting event of the fall? That’s a tough one. November sweeps haven’t even started, and already we’ve had K-Fed on “CSI,” Jerry Lewis on “Law & Order: SVU,” and now, coming up on Tuesday, Liza Minnelli stunts by, er, I mean, stops by “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” as a former beauty queen who was suspected in the 1992 death of her daughter.

-Speaking of “Arrested Development,” (Minnelli made a swell contribution to that canceled Fox comedy), “Arrested” creator Mitch Hurwitz is behind what might be the best TV news of the week. Hurwitz will be remaking the British comedy “The Thick of It” for American TV. “Thick” is one of the most painfully funny British shows in years; think of “The Office” set in the offices of a bumbling British cabinet minister and you get the idea. It was so accurate about the stupidity, cluelessness and arrogance that infest politics that those privy to the inner workings of Parliament would call the creators of the show to ask, “How did you know about that?” Anyhow, it’s good to know that Hurwitz is coming back to TV with a project as primo as “The Thick of It.”

-I’m probably going to be heartily attacked for this (hopefully not as much as I have been for my “Heroes” opinions, but whatever), but I’m digging this season of “Lost.” In fact, I thought the Sawyer episode that aired Wednesday was pretty darn solid. I know that for every question that gets answered on this show, three new questions take its place. But we’re never going to get all the answers, and so far, I’m still enjoying the ride.
Having said that, I can see why some other folks might have drifted away from the show; during most episodes, I have the feeling from time to time that I’m forgetting something important from past seasons that I no doubt should know (on that front, there are two new books out, “Finding Lost” by Nikki Stafford and “Getting Lost,” a collection of essays edited by Orson Scott Card that I’ve been using to refresh my memory).

Still, there’s a lot to keep track of regarding all these characters, and I’m always sure I’m forgetting a lot of stuff I shouldn’t be forgetting. Still, as long as the backstories stay away from brain-numbing repetitiveness (always a danger), I’m going to stay on board. By the way, did anyone else have the desire to start singing “I am the egg man, I am the walrus, I am the egg man, koo koo ka choo” during Locke’s whacked-out vision quest?

That is all.

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

Critic’s Notebook
Another British import? Aiieee! Wait...
By Bill GoodyKoontz The Arizona Republic October 27, 2006

Now here's a funny reaction: you read that another American version of a British TV show is getting underway -- this time it's our version of The Thick of It, a truly brilliant, hilarious skewering of British politics that you absolutely should click here right this second and take a minute and watch clips of and whatnot -- and the only thing that keeps you from screaming and fleeing the computer in horror is the queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach that keeps you anchored in your chair.

Why is that? After all, the American version of The Office, after a sort of clunky start, has blossomed into one of the best sitcoms on TV. So it's obvious that in the right hands -- in this case a great cast and former Simpsons executive producer Greg Daniels -- that the translation can be done.

Here's why: because the American version of Coupling, a British show that wasn't all that great to begin with, was just awful. Tear at your eyes with your fingernails awful. So awful that, yes, even now it produces a reaction of terror and nausea when you hear about British imports.

But in this case, once that wave passed, I found myself excited, because of the talent involved. One of the executive producers is Mitch Hurwitz. Who's he? Oh, only the creator of the greatest sitcom ever on television, (wait for it) Arrested Development. (Pause for applause.) For that alone, Hurwitz gets a lifetime pass. If anyone can do this -- and political comedy is notoriously tricky -- Hurwitz and Richard Day, who also worked on AD, can.

I hope.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Giving credit where it's due (and it's due here so rarely): good move by NBC to try to resurrect a two-hour comedy block on Thursday nights.

And this time around, the comedies are actually better -- none of the awful Seinfeld/Friends ripoffs that were routinely propped up by the other, better shows (perhaps you have burned The Single Guy out of your memory -- a wise choice).

Let's check out the lineup, which kicks into gear Nov. 30:

-- My Name Is Earl: Great show. Hilarious. Subversive. Yet has a gentle sweetness that allows it go get away with way more than it should (making fun of Marlee Matlin, for instance -- for being deaf!).

-- The Office: Current Emmy winner for Best Comedy. And deservedly so. British original was great, but this knock-off is really funny -- and the Jim-and-Pam romance is better than the similar romance in the original.

-- Scrubs: About time. NBC's been keeping it on the shelf so far this season (and not for the first time). Why? Who knows -- clearly things aren't going so great at the network. Bringing back this twisted-yet-poignant (what other show can you describe THAT way?) hospital comedy may help. Though that's sort of like using a teaspoon to dig a hole. The size of the job may be too much.

-- 30 Rock: OK, so it's not in the same league with the others. But with some work, who knows? Alec Baldwin remains hilarious. Some of it doesn't work, but there are always some real laughs. And there's that fellow my colleagues continue to insist reminds them of me (see below). Hmm. I don't see it, but who am I to argue?

Worth noting: None of these shows is a traditional sitcom. All are shot in the "single-camera" format, meaning they're made like movies, with the camera following the action around. None have laugh tracks.

It's a great two-hour block. It's a good move.

Too bad they didn't make it a couple of months ago.

http://www.azcentral.com/blogs/index.php?blog=5&blogtype=Entertainment

Nielsen Notebook
GMA Edges Closer to Today
By Allison Romano Broadcasting & Cable 10/26/2006

With co-anchor Diane Sawyer reporting from North Korea, ABC's Good Morning America edged a little closer to its rival NBC Today last week, although Today continued its streak as the most-watched morning news show.

For the week of Oct. 16, Today averaged 5.66 million viewers and 2.71 million adults 25 to 54, the key news demographic. GMA, meanwhile, notched 4.93 million viewers and 2.26 million adults 25 to 54. CBS' Early Show trailed with 2.52 million viewers and 1.05 million adults 25 to 54.

Both Today and GMA improved audiences slightly from last week, although Today was the only morning show to grow over the same week last year. Today has been no. 1 for 567 consective weeks.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6385640.html

The New Season
Answers! Dancers! Prancers! Vixens!
By Lisa De Moraes, The Washington Post October 27, 2006

…

Let's recap, shall we?

1. Trivia questions
2. 13 stunning dancers
3. Scrolls
4. Spontaneous dancing
5. William Shatner boogieing on stage

…

ABC clearly thinks William Shatner and Million-Dollar Dancers trump Howie Mandel and briefcase babes.

But all that really matters is, do you?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601747.html
Oh, Lisa, Lisa, Lisa...

His Pompousness the Shat acting as quizmaster and doing spontaneous jigs?!?

Why, yes, I think that just could be hilariously funny...

Far more entertaining than Mr. Mandel and his banker....

Back on Tuesday (10/24) Fred posted an article called 'Writing Lost' (Page 575, post ##17226) about how the scripts for the hit ABC show are put together. Consider this a quasi-spiritual sequel to that post.

Critic’s Notebook
Shooting 'Lost': Bring on the bug spray
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” October 26, 2006

Fans spend hours obsessing over “Lost’s” complicated plot points, but have they ever wondered what it’s like shooting in a dank lava cave? Or how hard it must be to re-create London, Korea or Nigeria — on the island of Oahu?

Cort Fey and John Bartley, the two directors of photography for the ABC show, have dealt with just those kinds of challenges. Fey is new to the show; his trial by fire was shooting Mr. Eko and Locke in a “lava tube” on Hawaii’s Big Island, which involved transporting actors, crew and tons of equipment from the show’s usual locations and soundstages on Oahu.

“The cave was pretty gonzo” recalls Fey.

On a trip to the cave’s location, “we were climbing down this nearly vertical stairwell; there was literally not an inch of level ground. The whole cave was really jagged lava rocks. Everyone was moving very slowly, and the actors’ faces were very pale.”

Still, Fey, along with the episode’s director and crew, got the shot, and it made for a gripping sequence in a recent — and very trippy — Locke-centered episode.

Bartley, who used to be one of the directors of photography on “The X-Files” and helped give that show its distinctive, mysterious look, had sworn off TV when he got the call from the “Lost” folks. “I didn’t want to do episodic [TV]. I felt it was taking away my life,” he recalls.

Still, when he arrived in Hawaii a couple of months after the first season began, he went to a meeting straight from the plane and was “out in the jungle shooting second unit with a rain machine” the next day.

For both Fey and Bartley, shooting on location is one of the most exciting things about the show, though it’s no picnic. Sunscreen is a must, as is heavy-duty mosquito repellent.

“We’re a 10-day show, eight days for main unit, two days for second unit,” Bartley says. “Five out of those days roughly are on location. Right now we’re shooting a flashback set in Florida.” Another upcoming episode is largely set in London; for those scenes, it’s likely that a few palm trees and other Hawaiian giveaways will have to be digitally removed.

The most difficult shoots Bartley recalls were the scenes of Walt, Jin, Michael and Sawyer on the castaway’s raft; their terrifying ordeal at sea closed out the show’s first season.

“Going out in the water at night was the hardest thing I think I’ve ever done,” Bartley says. “I always think I should have been able to do better, but there’s not much you can do for night lighting. I look back and think I could do better now. But I don’t know how we got through those nights.”

Some visuals are easier: For an upcoming flashback set in Australia, the footage was reversed so the steering wheel appears on the other side of the car. And that tidy “Others” village viewers glimpsed in the first episode of Season 3 was inserted with special effects (the show’s FX supervisor is now based in Hawaii, which makes those kinds of things easier to coordinate, Bartley says.)

Fey says shooting in the verdant greenery of Hawaii, a constant backdrop on “Lost,” is actually deceptively difficult. “One of the frustrating things is that you can go out and scout a location with a monkey pod tree in this grove with a great shaft of light coming through, and then you go back on the day [of shooting] and it’s a gray day.”

Shooting in the jungle, he adds, can be difficult because, on film, the jungle can end up appearing as “a green mash.” “We try to move the camera a lot and use light to define what makes [the forest setting] special. We try to create some dimensions and differences between the trees and shapes, and focus on distinctive features.”

For both men, one of the biggest rewards of working on this challenging show is getting involved in the story lines and the performances of the actors — just as fans do.

“The cast is spectacular, they bring it every day,” Fey says. “They’re troupers — they don’t require a lot of the usual niceties” that television actors get.

Shooting the “small” scenes — not the trademark epic “Lost” moments — can be the most interesting of all, Bartley says.

“Last season, I think Michael Emerson [who plays Benjamin Linus, a temporary prisoner of the castaways] did an amazing job,” Bartley says. “I’ve never seen an actor do so much while chained to a wall.”

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

Apparently Fred isn't the only one taking time off from the spotlight...

TV Notebook
LIEV IS FALLING INTO ROLE ON 'CSI'
The New York Post October 26, 2006

TONY Award winner Liev Schreiber is joining the cast of "CSI" as a regular character, according to reports.

The actor will fill in for 'CSI" star William Peterson, who is taking time off in mid-season to appear in a play.

Schreiber will play a seasoned crime scene investigator with a checkered reputation who has worked in a number of police departments across the country before joining the Las Vegas Crime Lab.

He will appear sometime in January 2007, the reports said.

Sources say he won't start shooting scenes for new job until next month.

"After meeting the people who run 'CSI,' it immediately becomes apparent why it has consistently been one of the top shows on television. I am a fan, how could I say no?" says Schreiber.

Schreiber won a Tony last year for his role in the revival of the Broadway drama "Glengarry Glen Ross."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10262006/tv/liev_is_falling_into_role_on_csi_tv_.htm

I need a BIG favor. If someone could please let me know whether they can provide me a VHS or DVD copy of the pilot episode of 'Heroes' (or a notice of the soonest a re-broadcast of it will air) I'd be eternally grateful. While I can't obviously pay you for the show I'd be willing to cover shipping and media expenditures. A friend of mine wants to watch 'Heroes' and has all the episodes after the pilot Tivo'ed from the Sunday marathon last week to the present but is tempted to just start watching from Chapter 2. I have to stop him, and I need your help. Thanks for indulging me and now back to our regularly scheduled thread!

I'm downloading Episode 1 or "The Pilot". If it turns out to be of watchable quality, ill let you know and we can work something out.

Seems Friday at 8pm is the time slot for "Vanished" on FOX.



OCTOBER 27, 2006
The Programming Insider

Marc Berman

Prime-Time Thursday Ratings:
Fox Wins Despite Lackluster World Series

...

-Friday Night Lights (Tues. 8 p.m.): OTO airing Monday, Oct. 30 at 10 p.m. ET

...
What is OTO?

The Business of TV
Univision's NY Station Finishes Second in Ratings
by John Consoli MediaWeek Oct. 27, 2006

Univision's New York City TV station, WXTV-Univision 41, for the first time since the implementation of Local People Meters by Nielsen Media Research, has finished second overall in the marketplace ratings for its 6 p.m. weekday local news telecast.

For the month of October, Noticias Univision 41 finished second among adults 18-34 (1.2/6), 18-49 (1.7/8) and 25.54 (1.9.8).

The Hispanic network newscast for the month outrated early evening news telecasts on WCBS-TV, WNBC-TV and Fox, as well as that on rival Hispanic station Telemundo.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003316022

TV Notebook
The Pick-Up Game: "Shark" keeps swimming, and Powers Boothe makes veep!
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic in her TV blog - Oct. 26, 2006

Oh yeah. I just remembered something.

I need to update this bee-yotch every so often. So, whaddaya want to know? How about this:

--"Shark" got a full season. I know, it happened oh, say, last Friday and I should have told you then. Instead I'm telling you now. "Shark" has been succeeding against stale ole "ER," which is quite a feat for any new show. Especiallly an annoying one.

--Powers Boothe ("Deadwood's" Cy Tolliver) will play Vice President Noah Daniels on this season of "24." This season's Commander in Chief, as you might have already heard, is Wayne Palmer (D.B. Woodside), making him be the best looking U.S. president ever, fictional or non.

--"Lost" will take a 13-week break in a couple of weeks and return on Feb. 7, running uninterrupted until the end of the season. Maybe the break will give the writers some time to actually MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN. Seriously, has the show gotten boring or what? No wonder "Criminal Minds" has caught up to it in the ratings. Another news item: Nathan Fillion, fondly remembered as Mal from "Firefly," will appear on "Lost's" Nov. 8 episode, the last episode before winter nap-time. We'll discuss "Lost's" dry spell some other time, mostly because at this point, I'm all about "Heroes."

-- Speaking of which: Jack Coleman, who plays Claire Bennet's evil, evil dad (and goes by the official title of H.R.G., as in Horn Rimmed Glasses), is now a series regular on "Heroes." This is a nice turn for Coleman, last seen on ABC's abysmal "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital" and perhaps nostalgically recalled as Steven Carrington #2 on "Dynasty."

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/

The Business of TV
Adelphia Documents Declassified
MultiChannel News 10/27/2006

Certain documents related to Adelphia Communications’ bankruptcy previously filed under seal and/or otherwise restricted from public dissemination have been declassified and made publicly available, according to a filing with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York by the bankrupt cable operator.

The declassified documents -- which relate to the resolution process created under the Bankruptcy Court's order in aid of confirmation, dated Aug. 4, 2005 -- are available online (www.adelphiarestructuring.com) for review and download.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6386181.html?display=Breaking+News

TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic (10/27/06)

Question: People keep referring to a "resurgence" of ER this season. Is this a resurgence of quality or popularity? If you're talking about quality, I can't really judge (I've never watched more than a few episodes of the show). But it seems to me the ratings aren't really anything to be all that happy about. The show's main competition, Without a Trace, moved away this season, so it has been winning the time slot again, but not by much. I would be concerned that a mediocre legal procedural (Shark) and an oddball semi-experimental ensemble show that has failed to gel (Six Degrees) are as competitive as they are. Granted, any show that has been on since the Eisenhower administration, like ER has, can't expect to double its ratings, but NBC seems to be exaggerating the "resurgence." — Staley

Matt Roush: I know this may come as a shock to those who've been reading me beat up on ER the last few years (I bailed altogether midway through last season, it was so miserable), but I think ER's resurgence this season has been noticeable on screen as well as in the ratings. Sometimes all it takes is a catalyst, in this case John Stamos, who brings welcome energy and humor to his portrayal of paramedic-turned-intern Tony Gates. Once we got past the dreadful season opener, which tied up ridiculous loose ends from last season's cliff-hanger, most of the characters have lightened up considerably, making for a more entertaining, yet still dramatic, ER. And Forest Whitaker in his new story arc? Brilliant. As for ER's ratings "resurgence," look at where NBC is on the night. It's being clobbered in the 9 pm/ET hour by the week's two biggest megahits, Grey's Anatomy and CSI. Despite those lead-ins, neither ABC nor CBS can yet capitalize with the so-so shows they've put on at 10. (Shark is doing well enough for renewal, and it's certainly more commercial than the hopeless Six Degrees.) The fact that ER, in its 13th season, can still draw a crowd on a night where NBC is otherwise mired in third place is cause for some celebration, however modest. And it was the right call for NBC to decide not to bench it at mid-season, as originally planned. Where ER will falter, though, is when it airs repeats. At that point, and no doubt during the summer, Shark will pick up viewers and possibly some steam. That's how Without a Trace, a much better show than Shark, eventually began to surge past ER.

Question: Is there any news on the Commander in Chief movie?— Tammy

Matt Roush: I have it on excellent authority that this project is no longer in the works.

Question: I just heard they are going to start Medium on Wednesday nights at 10 pm/ET. I am into The Nine, although I don't think it's the best show on television, and I am very upset about them moving Medium opposite it. I was hoping they would move Studio 60 out of the Monday time slot and put Medium back there. I think it would go more nicely with Heroes.— Jennifer

Matt Roush: The Medium move isn't necessarily a long-term thing. This gives NBC something besides Dateline to air in that tough Wednesday time period until the next mid-season shuffle occurs, probably right after the new year. If Studio 60 hasn't improved by then, I'd put money on Medium moving back to its old roost, where it used to perform quite well. I agree it seems more compatible with the wild fantasy of Heroes. NBC has another supernatural-themed crime drama, Raines, on tap for mid-season. It was originally set for Sundays but could work alongside Heroes as well.

Question: I have to say that I'm shocked and saddened by the news that NBC is giving up on the 8 o'clock hour. I don't think the time has to do as much with the network's ratings as its offerings do. Deal or No Deal and My Name Is Earl manage to find audiences at 8. So do Jericho, Dancing with the Stars and many others on competing networks. Personally, I wish there would be more scripted shows at 8 o'clock. I always find myself sitting in front of the TV at that time with absolutely nothing to watch. I get up at 5:30 in the morning, and watching a dense drama that demands my attention is a daunting task at 10, so when shows like the wordy Studio 60 come on, I fall asleep during the commercial breaks. I have recently been taping 10 o'clock shows and watching them at 8. I really wish Studio 60 would be moved to 8 on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Having watched the show at that time over the last few weeks, I even think it comes off as a little more lighthearted and a little less full of itself so early in the evening, before I start to get grumpy and sleepy. What are your thoughts?— Michael L.

Matt Roush: You're preaching to the converted, my friend. As a confirmed time-shifter from back in the prehistoric VCR days, I am all the time watching 9 pm shows at 10, 10 pm shows the next afternoon or early evening, you name it. The deal with the 8 pm/ET hour is that, from the network point of view, there's a lower concentration of viewers available, with many not yet ready to settle down in front of the TV. (These numbers are contradicted, of course, by the mega-numbers for shows like American Idol.) I agree, as I noted in my Dispatch last week, that NBC's announcement to move away from scripted comedies and dramas in the 8 pm hour sounded an awful lot like defeat and a shortsighted response to a current malaise. It feels like NBC is giving up instead of trying harder. That said, I think all of NBC's quality shows that are currently struggling would benefit by airing either an hour later or an hour earlier, in that sweet spot of 9 pm/ET. The trend among all of the networks has been to move toward reality or game shows in that first hour of prime time. NBC just stated it more baldly than the others have, at the same time sending a very mixed message to the Hollywood creative community that one less hour a night across the board was going to be available to them. Very dark tidings there. At the same time, NBC backtracks by insisting that the Thursday-night comedies will still air from 8 to 10. So it's not an absolute. Still, it's cause for anyone who cares about TV to be concerned.

Here's a similar reaction from Paul L: "With NBC's announcement about its plans to basically abandon the first hour of prime time to reality and game-show programming instead of scripted series, my frustration level is rising. I've never been a fan of reality TV, preferring programs that truly entertain me with smart writing and acting by people who have knowledge of what acting is all about. And the success of Deal or No Deal — which requires no knowledge, just a willingness to risk your winnings and ask another pretty model to smile and open a briefcase — doesn't bode well for truly intelligent, Jeopardy-type game shows in prime time. Do you think other networks will follow NBC's lead and cut costs by airing cheap nonscripted shows, or is there hope for those of us who want to watch fictional characters in well-written stories that make us laugh and care, regardless of which day or hour it is?"

As noted earlier, the trend is already upon us, with the 8 pm hour dominated many nights by all sorts of reality programming: Dancing with the Stars, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Survivor, America's Next Top Model, The Amazing Race and, soon enough, American Idol, of course. But there are plenty of scripted hits at 8 as well, from NCIS to Ugly Betty to (more modestly) Gilmore Girls and Smallville. The weird thing is that, in this particular hour of TV, the scripted shows are starting to look like counterprogramming, when that's what reality shows were initially intended to be.

Question: Lola Glaudini is leaving Criminal Minds (I think Oct. 25 was her last episode) and taking her character, Elle Greenaway, with her. Do you know why? Is it her choice or the show's, and who will be her replacement, if anyone? I really enjoy Criminal Minds, my third favorite crime drama behind Without a Trace and Law & Order: SVU, and I am afraid that the show will suffer without her. The cast, as they are now, click, and someone new could affect the dynamic. If you ask me, the one who should get the boot is A.J. Cook, who plays J.J. Why exactly is she a cast regular? She doesn't do anything a random recurring character couldn't do. At least they made Garcia a regular and got something right.— Nicole

Matt Roush: I can't say if the actress was involved in the decision to write the character off the show, but from what I can tell, at least the story line gave her solid dramatic reasons for departing, which is more than many such characters get. On the other plus side, one of my favorite TV actresses, Paget Brewster (Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Huff), is coming aboard to join the team. That might actually get me to tune in.

Question: Do you think fan response has any effect at all on what the writers put into their shows? After all, we're the ones who keep their shows on the air! I'm speaking specifically of Gilmore Girls and the fact that the majority of fans hate the Lorelai and Christopher story line and are furious at Lorelai's trashy behavior and breakup with Luke. The writers keep telling us to keep the faith and that the characters are on journeys of self-discovery, yada yada, but I'm beginning to think that they could really care less what we think and are just lying to pacify outraged fans. I really want to give up on this once wonderful program to show my disgust and anger, but I want to know what happens to everyone else on the show! Is there any hope of it getting better?— Stephanie G.

Matt Roush: Given the fact (spoiler alert!) that the producers are making no secret (second warning: spoiler alert!) that Lorelai and Christopher are about to elope in Paris, it sure doesn't look like they're going to pander to your or other unhappy fans' needs and wishes anytime soon. Look, I've gone over this material so often I'm beginning to bore myself. It's not that I mind them being together. I mind how they came together, more specifically the ill-executed breakup of Lorelai and Luke. (Underscoring the issue this week by having Christopher be open about his letter from Sherry, as opposed to the way Luke hid the existence of April, didn't wash with me. A little too easy, that comparison.) If you ask me, it's not pickles that are causing the stink around Stars Hollow. If I were any more emotionally detached from the show this season, I'd be watching it from across the street. (Not that there still isn't plenty that's charming and funny about the show many weeks.) But to answer your first question: Producers are rarely blind to fan response, but they rarely (I hope) use that alone as a deciding factor on the creative direction of a show.

Question: Why is it that everyone thinks Studio 60 doesn't work? The same people who thought The West Wing was idealistic and hopeful find Studio 60 pretentious and self-important. Television is supposed to be a commentary of the times we live in, whether set in the forum of a hospital, law firm, family home, government office or television studio. I can't tell you how many shows I've watched that have tried to make a statement about something, whether it be breast-cancer awareness, drug abuse or reality TV. If there's one thing that folks enjoyed about The West Wing it was the idealism of our nation's highest office. Why can't the same concept apply to a television studio? This is precisely the kind of show I want to see: witty dialogue acted out by a superb cast with great chemistry making social statements that aren't usually expressed in your average scripted program. If Josiah Bartlet were the president we wished we could vote for, why can't NBS and Studio 60 be the television station and show we wish we could watch? This is the only new show this season that is appointment TV for me, and I'm heartbroken at the thought of cancellation. It's the only show that doesn't make me feel like I dropped 20 IQ points by watching.— Michelle

Matt Roush: I'm having my own love-hate issues with the show these days, and much of it has to do with what I feel is the patronizing tone of the writing. In the wrap-party episode, that would include the hateful depiction of the clueless bimbos who couldn't comprehend what a "writer" like Matt does, and the remarkable assumption by Aaron Sorkin that Tom's parents from Columbus, Ohio, had never heard of Abbott and Costello or "Who's on First?" (I suppose Ed Sullivan was a nobody to them, too, in the day.) Yes, the show is smart — maybe too smart for its own good. I enjoy much about it, but I can't really argue against criticism like this, from Laura:

"I really want to like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I really do. I love all the actors in it, and I usually like Aaron Sorkin for the most part. But there is something about this show that just seems so off-putting. That's why the numbers are dropping. And it has everything to do with Aaron Sorkin. Self-indulgent and condescending are the two words that come to mind. I'm a reasonably intelligent, college-educated (go, Hoosiers!), well-read adult and a lover of all things media-related. I like to have my mind engaged as much as entertained by a show. But this one makes me feel stupid. I feel like I'm missing the joke because I'm unfamiliar with August Strindberg's plays, or I don't know the tiny details of the Hollywood blacklist. I agree that a lot of TV underestimates the intelligence of the audience. But in a way it seems that Sorkin is doing the same thing. The constant reliance on hip and obscure references seems to be his way of saying, 'This is smart TV, just in case you're too dumb to recognize it.' And the need to include all sorts of things to advertise how smart the show is just makes the whole series seem disjointed, like there is no real purpose to any story lines, until it is summed up with some trite little moment, like the blacklisted writer talking about how he wrote to impress a girl, cut to Matt's face and his recognition of the similarities between then and now. As if that point hadn't already been made by the observation that the network didn't like political humor back then. Sorkin needs to trust his audience to recognize smart and well-written scripts without all the fancy talk, and he needs to trust that his characters are interesting enough to engage viewers because of how they react in the situations he has created for them. Because nobody, regardless of their education level, likes to be called stupid."

Finally, to show you the range of passions that Studio 60 somehow inspires, here's a tribute from Barbara, a high-school librarian from Richmond, Virginia: "In a world of television schlock, I would like to commend this week's episode of Studio 60. It deserves a Peabody Award for its portrayal of common decency and hope. The dual story lines: Timothy Busfield exhibiting kindness and patience with the Eli Wallach character (and Wallach deserves an Emmy), slowly eliciting the truth about an era we should be all too uncomfortable with; and the Cinderella story of a kid who isn't a comedian, but is, instead, a comic writer. Simon got to 'give some back,' as well as underscore the need for black writers. I hope Studio 60 makes it, that NBC will give it time to build an audience. But I think 'The Wrap Party' is a stand-alone, a set piece. I'd buy it in a minute for our high-school video collection."

Question: It seems as though every week someone is griping about the "believability" of television. They take issue with the town's abnormal fascination with football on Friday Night Lights, how a polar bear could survive its alien climate on Lost, and how Susan can be as oblivious as she is on Desperate Housewives. These can all be responded to with a simple "just because." This is the world of television, a world where nuns once flew and 16-year-olds can be doctors. I realize we live in more sophisticated times (and audiences are more demanding), and of course a show's realism is to be praised. However, just because a series requires you to suspend your disbelief does not cause it to lose its merit as an outstanding work of television. We never questioned why Lucy and Ricky never slept in the same bed or debated the logistics of Samantha Stephens' powers. When did so many of us lose the ability to sit back and be entertained without tedious overanalyzing?— T. Paul

Matt Roush: A lot of that has to do with the machine you used to file this complaint: the computer. Viewers now have a device to feed and indulge their TV obsessions, which often means weighing in instantly on a show the minute it rubs them (usually) the wrong way. I agree it isn't always healthy. Sometimes it's all I can do to open the e-mail bag, the negative energy threatening to sap my own enthusiasm for TV. But the debate can often be interesting, which is why I still value compiling these columns every week. Just as you take TV itself with a grain of salt, don't let the constant bickering get you down. (That said, even I was underwhelmed by the return of the polar bear on Lost. Much more on that show in Monday's column.)

Question: Since Six Degrees is tanking, why not have ABC put back Primetime at 10 pm/ET with Diane Sawyer and Chris Cuomo? This might be more successful and get more viewers to watch Good Morning America. Either that or that new drama with General Hospital's Tyler Christopher. I think they should replace Six Degrees quick!— Sudesh K.

Matt Roush: Even I'm amazed at how patient ABC has been with this one. But don't look for ABC to restore a newsmagazine to the post-Grey's Anatomy slot anytime soon. The Grey's lead-in is too valuable. ABC's mission is to create a new hit show out of Grey's. It's obvious that Six Degrees, so ponderous and contrived, isn't that show. Here's another, and more frequently offered solution to the Six Degrees problem, from Chris L.:

"With the broadcast networks looking for the next Desperate Housewives/Lost-style immediate ratings smash, ABC should be lauded for exercising patience by giving their new shows time to find an audience while the other networks have already swung the cancellation ax (Smith, Kidnapped, Happy Hour, Runaway). With November sweeps starting soon, do you think it's more likely for ABC to stay the course, or are some shake-ups on the way? I could suggest one change: Six Degrees' bleed-out from Grey's Anatomy is too severe and should be bumped for Men in Trees, a better, lighthearted alternative to the serious-minded ER and Shark."

Judging from the mail I get, and from those I know who've stayed with it, Men in Trees seems to deserve much more than its current Friday time period. Again, I'm surprised ABC hasn't tried at least once to sub a Six Degrees episode for Men in Trees, to see if the audience would sit still for another adjoining hour of romantic comedy-drama as opposed to drifting over to ER (as so many seem to be doing) for more medical intrigue.

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

The Business of TV
AT&T Nixes Net-Neutrality Proposal
By Ted Tearn Multichannel News October 27, 2006

A senior AT&T executive rejected a proposal that would require the company to adhere to Internet-nondiscrimination rules in order to gain approval from the Federal Communications Commission to merge with BellSouth.

The Internet-regulation proposal -- advanced by a coalition funded by Google, Yahoo!, eBay and Amazon.com -- would require AT&T to promise not to discriminate “in their carriage and treatment of Internet traffic based on the source, destination or ownership of such traffic.”

The net-neutrality condition would apply to AT&T, but to no other provider of broadband Internet access in the United States.

“The proper place to be debating the pros and cons of net neutrality is in the U.S. Congress or in an industrywide proceeding at the FCC,” AT&T senior executive vice president Jim Cicconi said in a prepared statement.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin agreed to launch an agency study of market conditions facing broadband-access providers and Web-based providers of voice, video and data services and applications.

The FCC vote, scheduled for Nov. 3, is the last regulatory hurdle facing the $81 billion deal. AT&T has been forced to make a number of concessions because only four of five FCC members are planning to cast votes.

A key issue is whether AT&T needs to embrace some form of nondiscrimination in order to persuade Democrats Michael Copps or Jonathan Adelstein to provide the necessary third vote.

Stifel Nicolaus telecommunications analyst David Kaut said he didn’t believe that AT&T would accept a nondiscrimination condition. “I think they are dug in on that -- they will not give that up, particularly in a merger proceeding where they would be the only company affected,” he added.

The Department of Justice approved the merger a few weeks ago without conditions. But Copps and Adelstein -- outraged that the DOJ let such a huge transaction pass unscathed -- refused to vote on the deal Oct. 13.

“I think at some point the odds are that they will work out a bipartisan deal to get this done. It looks like [Nov. 3] is in significant doubt,” Kaut said. “I just don’t think they are poised to get it done.”

AT&T put forward a number of voluntary conditions, although none of them dealt with one proposed by a few midsized cable companies that would require AT&T to exchange digital-phone traffic on fair and efficient terms.

Under current law, cable providers of voice-over-Internet-protocol calling services do not have the right to interconnect with AT&T, but cable operators have been able to route VoIP traffic through telecommunications carriers that do have interconnection rights.

Among other things, AT&T committed to offer broadband access to every home within its 22-state territory by Dec. 31, 2007. It also agreed to market $10-per-month broadband access to voice-service customers who have not previously signed up for digital-subscriber-line service. And within one year, customers in the nine former BellSouth states will not be required to purchase circuit-switched voice service in order to subscribe to DSL.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6386263.html?display=Breaking+News

TV Notebook
McCollum: So much for dawn of a new era in network TV
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News October 26, 2006

For a while back in September, it looked as if the notion that we now are in the real Golden Age of Television actually might have had some validity.

Many of the new series being offered by the networks had a bright and shiny look to them, promising good things for the audience at home. The combination of the newbies and a fistful of strong returning shows heightened expectations for a good season, one with an overchoice of prime TV viewing.

Hasn't happened.

Just a few weeks into the season, the networks already are scrambling to realign their schedules by bringing "midseason'' shows in off the bench to replace faltering series they had hoped would be the Next Big Thing. It hasn't helped that some high-profile returning shows -- most notably ABC's Lost and the CW's Gilmore Girls -- have run into artistic and ratings difficulties.

Just two new series -- ABC's Ugly Betty and NBC's Heroes -- really can be tagged "hits,'' a designation that involves both actual viewership and the ever-elusive buzz quotient. (The shows also happen to be good, but that's only a small part of the equation.)

A few others may yet reach that status. CBS's Jericho is getting surprising buzz, but its audience is still 11 million or so -- good but not great. CBS's Shark and ABC's Brothers & Sisters are so far what network executives call "time-period hits,'' hanging on to just enough of the audiences generated by their lead-ins (CSI, Desperate Housewives) to put up good Nielsen numbers.

But many of the most promising, most-hyped newcomers are already gone (CBS's Smith, CW's Runaway), on their way out (Kidnapped, Vanished) or in real trouble.

At the start of the season, there was a critical consensus that the five best new shows were Betty, NBC's Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip and Friday Night Lights, ABC's The Nine and CBS's The Class (I didn't agree on that one). Except for Betty, they're all on shaky ground with viewers, hanging on only because the networks either have a lot invested in them or don't have anything available to replace them with.

After a return to form last season with My Name Is Earl, How I Met Your Mother and The New Adventures of Old Christine, the half-hour comedy is having a particularly dreadful fall. Not only is there nothing remotely resembling a hit, but the shows with the most potential -- Class and NBC's 30 Rock -- have disappointed creatively.

So what are the season's winners?

Well, Heroes and Betty, for sure, with the sci-fi drama qualifying as the biggest surprise. No one really expected a series about reluctant superheroes to find a big audience, but Heroes has, particularly among younger viewers.

And then there's Jericho, the grim post-nuclear holocaust drama that has built a loyal following on Wednesdays even though it airs opposite ABC's Dancing With the Stars. Once Dancing goes away in November, the Jericho audience could get even bigger.

But the rest of the noise this season is coming from established shows.

In a bold move, ABC shifted Grey's Anatomy to Thursdays at 9, expecting it to give CSI a tussle and possibly to beat it among younger viewers. Instead, the medical drama has overachieved, becoming the most-watched series on TV.

ABC also has gotten a boost from Dancing, which initially looked like a one-trick pony but has evolved in its third season into a durable hit with an average of 19 million-plus viewers for its Tuesday and Wednesday installments.

While CSI has been trailing Grey's, it is still No. 2 in the ratings and its spinoffs -- CSI: Miami and CSI: NY -- rank sixth and seventh. In the most recent Nielsen ratings, the three shows combined for 57.5 million viewers -- a hefty number that is making CBS very, very happy.

CBS's Criminal Minds, on Wednesdays was lightly regarded when it debuted last season but has taken an unexpectedly big bite out of ABC's Lost this fall. The pop-culture juggernaut barely beat the good-but-hardly-flashy FBI drama in total viewers the past two weeks.

And House has almost single-handedly kept the lights on at Fox, whose new series largely have stiffed. (Only Justice -- which has moved to Mondays at 9 -- seems to have any realistic hopes of longevity.)

Of course, House will get some help -- actually, a lot of help -- in January when Fox unleashes its big guns: American Idol and 24. The arrival of those shows is sure to alter this season's ratings game yet again.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/15852411.htm

TV Notebook
1 vs 100's Bob Saget Reveals How He Got Game (Show)
By Joseph Hudak TV Guide 10/27/2006

Best known for benign turns on Full House and America's Funniest Home Videos, Bob Saget shattered his wholesome image with extremely ribald appearances on HBO's Entourage and in the film The Aristocrats. The comic showed us a little bit of both personalities when he chatted about hosting NBC's 1 vs 100 (Fridays at 8 pm/ET), the latest game show from the Deal or No Deal folks.

TV Guide: Why 1 vs 100?

Bob Saget: It's the most amazing thing ever made. [Laughs] I've been saying no to game shows since the video show. But [the producers] said I was the only guy who could do this, because once we got the palette laid — that sounds like I'm having sex with an art student — there's no script.

TV Guide: So you could show off your quick wit?

Bob Saget: Or "quick-twitted," if I were in England. It kind of combines my stand-up with conventional old-school TV. I keep calling it a quiz show, because I'm hoping we'll have a scandal.

TV Guide: Any game-show hosts you looked to for inspiration?

Bob Saget: I would say Groucho. I just loved You Bet Your Life. It was the perfect format for him. I started to like [the genre] again with Millionaire, because I could watch it with my kids.

TV Guide: Like you do with The Aristocrats?

Bob Saget: My oldest daughter, who's 19, did see that. She was like, "I'm walking into the theater," and I said, "Please don't do this," but it was too late. My mother wanted to see it, and I said, "No, you don't." It would finish her. But all my kids know me, they know that it's just words and that Dad is just like a 9-year-old hyper boy. I'm the guy that [comes over] your house, gets the kids all hyped up and then leaves when they have to go to bed. I'm Uncle Bob.

TV Guide: Does Full House still haunt you?

Bob Saget: I don't think it "haunts." I was talking to [John] Stamos the other day, and we were saying the "stigma" of Full House is only to be used in our favor now. It's, like, cool that we were all on it — even though he had a mullet and I had a bouffant. People wonder if my character was gay, and I say, "I don't think so...." Although Jesse looked good.

TV Guide: Did you ever think America's Funniest Home Videos would have lasted this long?

Bob Saget: I did, actually. I thought it'd last forever, because it's Candid Camera. The people supply the material. And Tom is the perfect host for it, because he doesn't get in the way of the videos. I would try to score comedically, and that doesn't always serve you. There are only four ways to narrate somebody getting hit in the nuts.

[B]TV Guide: You're directing a parody of March of the Penguins, aren't you?

Bob Saget: Yes, The Farce of the Penguins. It comes out in January. It's R-rated, man. It's a stoner movie. Samuel L. Jackson narrates.

TV Guide: And you also supply the narration for How I Met Your Mother.

Bob Saget: Yeah! I really like that show. It fills a sitcom void, because I'm obsessed with relationships and how they weave in and out. I think the mother should [turn out to] be some really sleazy bar woman, some whore. Or, maybe I [Ted] go through a sex change, [and] I am their mother. [Laughs]

http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Interviews-Features/Article/default.aspx?posting={8C03A7AE-C4BA-4FB4-9356-F034C1764D7F}

TV Notebook
Networks now are entering the dark days. Feel the fear.
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle October 27, 2006

An interesting thing happens to network programmers from May to September. That's the period when they announce their new shows and schedules in New York (May) and roll them out to viewers at home (September). They live the dream -- not unlike the dream lived by professional sports coaches in the off-season.

This could be it. This could be our year. We could win this thing.

Unfortunately, by the end of September it's gone to hell, mostly. The September swoon then meshes with the October doom and pretty soon nobody is sleeping at night and it's all Xanax and sad cocktails.

That's when it gets really interesting. Like right now. Let the tinkering begin.

Remember, television is a fear-based industry. It's a deadly numbers game. Each hour of each night in prime time tells a story of death or glory. Five networks, with shows in each slot, competing directly with one another (and indirectly with cable and the Internet).

Who won the hour? By how much? Did we win in total viewers? What about the target demo (18-34)? Are those numbers up or down over last week? What about the same period last year? What percentage of the audience did Show B hold from Show A? If it's an hour drama, did viewers tune out at the half hour (oh, please, TV gods, no!). If the show has been losing viewers (usually in the millions) from week to week, when will it level off? Will I be fired tomorrow? Have I been fired already and just haven't been told?

With the pressure on (the whimsy of your viewing habits is destroying the inner organs of executives in Los Angeles and New York, just FYI), it's no wonder that people in television feel the need to tinker. Or, in the case of NBC, slash and burn. Less than a week after announcing job cuts, consolidations and the widely ridiculed idea of putting only reality and game shows in the 8 to 9 p.m. hour, NBC announced that it was creating a two-hour comedy block on Thursdays (yes, keeping "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" in the 8 to 9 p.m. hour). The network will bring "Scrubs" back Nov. 30 and shift "30 Rock" from Wednesdays to Thursdays.

As for "Twenty Good Years," there was no announcement. There never is for the dead.

ABC tinkered as well. Last Friday it brought back "Extreme Makeover" -- not the feel-good "Home Edition" but the sleazy plastic-surgery original -- and just as quickly announced that it won't run again.

What kind of craziness is that? It's fear. So "Grey's Anatomy" reruns will air Fridays at 8 p.m. instead. Better to rerun a hit than flop with a dud. But what does this kind of jockeying tell viewers?

That it's almost November.

In November, a network believes that it needs to right the ship, that adjustments can't wait. November is a sweeps month. It's a moneymaking month. Things need to work.

And yet, for viewers, the tinkering creates confusion and confusion creates churn. Networks don't want churn. They want you in a predictable pattern. So how come things are so dysfunctional?

Because nobody in television truly, absolutely, knows what he's doing. Some of the time, yes. Most of the time -- guessing.

It's almost comic. Viewers want consistency. They want to know a show is on a certain night at a certain time -- without fail, every week. But with five broadcast networks to pick from (don't mention cable or the Internet), and an average of about 30 new shows to choose from, not to mention returning series, viewers can be excused for being confused. It takes them weeks to sample, to settle in. But in the TV business, weeks of waiting cause executives to go temporarily insane. They start playing tricks, like moving shows to special nights and times.

For example, NBC's low-rated "Friday Night Lights," normally on Tuesdays at 8 p.m., will get a special airing on Monday night at 10 p.m., in place of NBC's other low-rated freshman drama, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Why? Different night, different time, perhaps a different audience. So goes the thinking. NBC will then rerun "Friday Night Lights" in its Tuesday slot. For whatever that's worth.

The question is, will this garner new viewers for "Lights" or just freak out "Studio 60" viewers, who will see this as a snub of their tenuous show? Nobody knows.

There has already been so much tinkering that it plays like a comic opera, except it's more confusing without the supertitles, translated from television's programming native tongue: stupidity.

Take Fox. Because of baseball, the network aired much of its schedule in August, then pulled it off for the playoffs, then will stuff it back on the schedule after the World Series, hoping that people who watched those shows in the first place haven't forgotten them. A risk, sure. Except that now Fox has moved a couple of them around and put them on at different nights and times.

Yeah, that helps a lot. (In the interest of lessening the confusion, no effort will be made here to figure out the Fox puzzle.)

The CW, our nation's fifth and newest network -- and therefore one that ought to be doing all it can to make it simple to view the wares -- flip-flopped its Sunday and Monday night programming, plus canceled one of its two freshman series.

Even rock-solid CBS got into the act, moving the new sitcom "The Class" from 8 to 8:30 p.m. after a few weeks and outright canceling "Smith," its star-studded freshman drama, after a mere two episodes.

ABC has moved "Men in Trees" around so many nights, you have to wonder if Friday really is its permanent home.

Now, assuming you've figured out all of those moves (which doesn't even cover some of the double-super-secret Fox shenanigans and cancellations), the networks are hoping that your family's erasable whiteboard can handle a few more X's and O's.

For example, before NBC goes to its two-hour comedy block on Nov. 30 with "Scrubs" and "30 Rock," it wants to inform you that "30 Rock" will move there two weeks earlier, on Nov. 16, and will be "supersized" from 30 to 40 minutes, along with "Earl" and "The Office." Never mind that adding 10 minutes messes up everybody's DVR and VCR and annoys viewers.

On the off chance that you're still paying attention, you may ask yourself, "Why Nov. 16?" Oh, that's easy. The next Thursday is Thanksgiving. And you don't want to get into that.

This incessant tinkering and scrambling is setting up television's midseason, which used to start around January but is now so nebulous as to creep into November. Why? Because more shows are failing earlier. Why? See everything above.

"The O.C." returns to Fox on Thursday at 9 p.m. as a kind of checkered flag to start the midseason.

Look for "Medium" to come back to NBC on Nov. 15 -- but not in its normal time slot of 10 p.m., but as a two-hour special starting at 9 p.m. A week later it starts at 10. Got that? And guess what -- for those of you watching NBC's "The Biggest Loser" on Wednesdays, that series moves from 9 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 15. Why? Because NBC forgot to tell you that it was killing "Twenty Good Years," and you already know that "30 Rock" is jumping to Thursdays so, presto-change-o, there's a hole to fill from 8 to 9 p.m.

Come on, a child could figure this out.

CBS will unveil the Stanley Tucci medical drama, "3 Lbs.," on Nov. 14 at 10 p.m. This midseason series gets an early start because -- quiz time! -- that's right: "Smith" was canceled out of that slot.

You're doing great.

ABC will pull "Lost" off the schedule for 13 weeks and replace it with midseason series "Day Break" as of Nov. 15. The network also will unveil midseason comedy "Big Day" on Nov. 28 at 9 p.m.

As a gift to confused viewers, NBC announced that it will not pull "ER" off the schedule for midseason series "The Black Donnellys," but in so doing refused to say when "The Black Donnellys" will actually premiere.

NBC will, however, bring back previously held series "Las Vegas" -- tonight at 9, in case you were wondering.

If you have a headache after all that, maybe you can rest easier knowing that the executives frantically making these changes have had headaches since mid-September, when the season started, and the throbbing is not likely to abate until someone higher up in the corporation chops their heads off.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/27/DDGQ4M07J415.DTL

TV Notebook
Dick Clark returning for '07 show
Associated Press/Seattle Post Intelligencer October 27, 2006

NEW YORK -- As he did last year, Dick Clark will co-host the annual "New Year's Rockin' Eve." The former "American Bandstand" host, now 76, will join Ryan Seacrest and musical guest Christina Aguilera to ring in 2007 before a national TV audience of millions. Clark missed the show two years ago when he suffered a stroke but returned to the holiday staple last New Year's Eve.

Seacrest, the 31-year-old host of "American Idol," handled co-hosting duties last year and is expected to eventually succeed Clark as the show's host.

Clark originated the New Year's Eve program back in 1972. The only show he missed followed his Dec. 6, 2004, stroke.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/1401AP_People_Dick_Clark.html

What is OTO?

I have no idea...i just copy whats on the website and paste it here.

TV Notebook
What is NBC thinking?
By Scott D. Pierce (Salt Lake City) Deseret Morning News October 27, 2006

NBC has killed "Twenty Good Years."

And now it's killing "Scrubs."

The network is selling this as a return to the two-hour Thursday comedy block that once dominated the ratings. If anybody at NBC really believes that, they're living in a dream world.

Beginning Thursday, Nov. 30, NBC will follow "My Name Is Earl" (7 p.m.) and "The Office" (7:30 p.m.) with "Scrubs" (8 p.m.) and "30 Rock" (8:30 p.m.) — a move that isn't brave, it's foolhardy.

"We are excited about the prospect of two-hours of top-notch comedy on Thursday nights," NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly said in a prepared statement. "We will stay on-brand with the best comedy block on television, which will position us for the future on the night."

That's fine if you're looking for a future of third-place, wasting good shows against overwhelming competition.

Let's be realistic for just a moment. On Thursday nights from 8-9 p.m., ABC airs the No. 1 show on television, "Grey's Anatomy." At the same time, CBS airs the No. 2 show on television, "CSI."

Between the two, they've sucked up an average of more than 46 million viewers per week this season. And that doesn't leave a whole lot of viewers to watch anything on competing networks.

I'm a big fan of "Scrubs" — I've written that it's the funniest show on TV — but it's never been a big hit. Putting it in this time slot is cruel-and-unusual punishment for the show and its fans.

And it's not like "Scrubs" and "30 Rock" are going to get a lot of help from their lead-ins. "Earl" and "The Office" have been finishing a weak third in their time slots this season — fourth last week when Fox had a baseball playoff game. With hit shows "Survivor" and "Ugly Betty" sucking up an average of 31 million viewers between them, those shows aren't likely to have a sudden surge in popularity.

NBC is also going back to the lame "super-sized" episodes ploy on Thursday, Nov. 16, with 40-minute episodes of "Earl," "The Office" and "30 Rock." But that only works if you have really popular shows to begin with.

On the brighter side, that atrocious "Twenty Good Years" is toast. Beginning Nov. 22, NBC will fill Wednesdays from 7-8 p.m. (currently occupied by "Twenty" and "30 Rock") with specials. Until Reilly can figure out something else.

SPEAKING OF "CSI," Tony-winner Liev Schreiber will join the cast in the recurring role of "a seasoned CSI who has established a strong reputation in various police departments across the country before joining the veteran team at the Las Vegas Crime Lab." His first episode will air in January.

'I'm a huge Liev Schreiber fan," said executive producer Carol Mendelsohn in a statement. "On stage or in film, I think he's one of the finest actors of his generation."

Me, too.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650201908,00.html

OTO = One Time Only

OCTOBER 27, 2006
The Programming Insider

Marc Berman

Prime-Time Thursday Ratings:
Fox Wins Despite Lackluster World Series

Thursday 10/26/06
Metered Market Ratings

Household Rating/Share
Fox: 10.0/15, CBS: 9.4/14, ABC: 8.9/14, NBC: 5.9/ 9, CW: 3.2/ 5

-Percent Change From the Comparable Year-Ago Evening (Thursday 10/27/05)
(The CW is compared to Smallville and Everwood on the WB on the year-ago evening; Fox aired a repeat of theatrical Maid in Manhattan).
Fox: +186, ABC: +98, CW: -16, NBC: -19, CBS: -32

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

-Yesterday’s Winners:
Ugly Betty (ABC), CSI R (CBS)

-Yesterday’s Losers (excluding repeats):
nothing

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

Fast National Ratings

-Total Viewers:
Fox: 14.52 million, CBS: 13.21, ABC: 11.76, NBC: 8.40, CW: 4.23

-Adults 18-49:
Fox: 4.5 rating/12 share, ABC: 4.1/11, CBS: 4.0/11, NBC: 3.0/ 8, CW: 1.9/ 5

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

-Ratings Breakdown:
Opposite repeats on ABC and CBS from 9-11 p.m., game four of The World Series on Fox (Detroit vs. St. Louis) took center stage, with an 11.4/19 in the overnights from 8:30 p.m.-12:15 a.m., and an approximate 14.52 million viewers and a 4.5/12 among adults 18-49 in prime time. While that is certainly an improvement over Fox’s regularly scheduled Thursday delivery, compared to the game four match-up on Oct. 26, 2005 between The Chicago White Sox and the Houston Astros (Overnights: 14.8/24; Viewers: 19.98 million; A18-49: 6.6/18), it was also a decrease of a considerable 23 percent in the overnights, 5.46 million viewers and 32 percent among adults 18-49. Good? Yes. But a home-run? Absolutely not.

As a reminder, total viewers and adults 18-49 from last night are based on the fast nationals. Any prior results are based on the final nationals.

Airing opposite a clips edition of CBS’ Survivor: Cook Islands (which only demonstrated how deadly dull this season is) and Fox’s aforementioned baseball (including the half-hour pre-game show), ABC’s Ugly Betty dominated the 8 p.m. hour with a healthy 10.2/16 in the overnights, 13.15 million viewers and a 4.2/12 among adults 18-49. Second was Survivor: Cook Islands at a 7.9/12 in the overnights, 12.61 million viewers and a 4.1/11 among adults 18-49. The pre-game show scored a 6.7/10 in the overnights.

Repeats of NBC’s My Name Is Earl (Overnights: 5.4/ 8; Viewers: 7.56 million; A18-49: 2.8/ 8) and The Office (Overnights: #4, 4.6/ 7; Viewers: 6.38 million; A18-49: 2.7/ 7), which will begin airing into the return of Scrubs and the relocated 30 Rock in November, finished fourth in the 8 p.m. hour. The CW’s Smallville, meanwhile, held up at a 3.7/ 6 in the overnights, 4.79 million viewers and a 2.2/ 6 among adults 18-49. Comparably, Smallville matched its season highs in adults 18-34 and 18-49.

In the battle of the repeats at 9 p.m., CSI’s advantage over Grey’s Anatomy only solidifies the value of crime solving dramas versus serialized story-telling in off-network syndication. The CSI second-run averaged a potent (and first-place) 12.2/18 in the overnights, 16.63 million viewers and a 5.0/12 among adults 18-49 versus a third-place 9.0/13 in the overnights, 12.21 million viewers and a 4.5/11 among adults 18-49 for Grey’s Anatomy. As reported yesterday, Tony winner Liev Schreiber will be temporarily filling in for William Petersen on CSI beginning in January.

NBC’s competing Deal or No Deal, which the network is wisely removing from the competitive Thursday waters, scored a fourth-place 7.3/11 in the overnights, 11.03 million viewers and a 3.5/ 9 among adults 18-49. The CW’s Supernatural, which like lead-in Smallville is down year-to-year, capped off the hour with a last-place 2.8/ 4 in the overnights, 3.67 million viewers and a 1.7/ 4 among adults 18-49. Comparably, that put retention for Supernatural out of Smallville at 76 percent in the overnights, and 77 percent in both total viewers and adults 18-49.

In the battle of the repeats at 10 p.m., the No. 2 spot was shared between CBS’ Shark and another episode of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. Shark averaged an 8.1/13 in the overnights (#2), 10.37 million viewers (#2) and a 2.9/ 8 (#3) among adults 18-49, with Grey’s Anatomy at a 7.6/12 in the overnights (#3), 9.92 million viewers (#3) and a 3.8/10 among adults 18-49 (#2). A repeat of NBC’s ER was fourth with a 5.5/ 9 in the overnights, 7.20 million viewers and a 2.6/ 7 among adults 18-49.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data


Ratings Box:
What’s Hot/What’s Not

-Katie Couric Sinks to No. 3:
Based on ratings for the week of Oct. 16, The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric dipped to third in households, total viewers and key adults 25-54. But ratings year-to-year remained on the minor plus side, with growth of 310,000 viewers and 11 percent among adults 25-54. The NBC Nightly News was first, with minor erosion from one year earlier, while the ABC Nightly News finished second at levels consistent to the year-ago week.

-Households:
NBC: 6.0 rating/12 share (- 9), ABC: 5.9/12 (- 2), CBS: 5.2/10 (no change)

-Total Viewers:
NBC: 8.65 million (- 8), ABC: 8.45 (+ 2), CBS: 7.56 (+ 4)

-Adults 25-54:
ABC: 2.3 rating/ 9 share (no change), NBC: 2.2/ 9 (-12), CBS: 2.1/ 8 (+11)

----------

-Daytime Update:
Also based on ratings for the week of Oct. 16, ABC and CBS continued to dominate (both in daytime dramas and in total daytime), with CBS the most-watched network and ABC No. 1 among key women 18-49. CBS has now topped the daypart in households and total viewers for 917 consecutive weeks.

Take a look:

Daytime Dramas

-Total Viewers:
CBS: 4.03 million, ABC: 3.09, NBC: 2.35

-Women 18-49:
ABC: 1.7 rating/11 share, CBS and NBC: 1.4 rating/ 9 share each

-----------

Full Daytime

-Total Viewers:
CBS: 4.35 million, ABC: 3.11, NBC: 2.35

-Women 18-49:
ABC: 1.7/11, CBS and NBC: 1.4/ 9 each

Source: Nielsen Media Research data


On the Air This Weekend:
Prime-Time Programming Options

Friday 10/27/06

ABC:
8:00 p.m. Grey’s Anatomy (R)
9:00 p.m. Men in Trees
10:00 p.m. 20/20

CBS:
8:00 p.m. Ghost Whisperer
9:00 p.m. Close to Home
10:00 p.m. Numb3rs

NBC:
8:00 p.m. 1 vs. 100 (time period premiere)
9:00 p.m. Las Vegas (season premiere)
10:00 p.m. Law & Order

Fox:
8:00 p.m. Vanished (new day and time)
9:00 p.m. Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy

CW:
8:00 p.m. Friday Night Smackdown!

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

Saturday 10/28/06

ABC:
8:00 p.m. Movie: Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban (R)

CBS:
8:00 p.m. Numb3rs (R)
9:00 p.m. CSI: NY (R)
10:00 p.m. 48 Hours Mystery

NBC:
8:00 p.m. Dateline
9:00 p.m. Kidnapped
10:00 p.m. Law & Order: SVU (R)

Fox:
8:00 p.m. Baseball World Series, Game 5

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

Sunday 10/29/06

ABC:
7:00 p.m. America’s Funniest Home Videos
8:00 p.m. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
9:00 p.m. Desperate Housewives
10:00 p.m. Brothers & Sisters

CBS:
7:00 p.m. 60 Minutes
8:00 p.m. The Amazing Race 10
9:00 p.m. Cold Case
10:00 p.m. Without a Trace (100th episode)

NBC:
7:00 p.m. Football Night in America
8:00 p.m. NFL Pre-Game
8:15 p.m. NFL Sunday Night Football (Dallas at Carolina)

Fox:
7:30 p.m. World Series Pre-Game
8:00 p.m. Baseball World Series, Game 6 (if necessary)

CW:
7:00 p.m. Supernatural (R)
8:00 p.m. 7th Heaven
9:00 p.m. America’s Next Top Model (R)


TV Tidbits:
Notes of Interest

-Additional Script Orders:
NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and three freshman series on ABC – Help Me Help You, The Nine and Men in Trees – have been given additional script orders. Four more scripts for the ABC series have been ordered, with three for Studio 60. Six other new series to-date -- ABC’s Ugly Betty and Brothers & Sisters, CBS’ Jericho and Shark, NBC’s Heroes and CW’s The Game -- have been given full season orders. Take a look at the revised freshman series scorecard:

ABC
-The Knights of Prosperity: on hiatus indefinitely
-Big Day (Tues. 9 p.m.): debuting on Nov. 28
-Help Me Help You (Tues. 9:30 p.m.): four more scripts ordered
-The Nine (Wed. 9 p.m.): four more scripts ordered
-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.): four more scripts ordered
-Brothers & Sisters (Sun. 10 p.m.): full season renewal

CBS
-The Class (Mon. 8:30 p.m.): on the fence
-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.): three more scripts ordered
-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 (Mon 8 p.m.): now airing in this time period effective today
-Standoff (Tues. 8 p.m.): flipping time periods with lead-out House as planned
-Justice (Wed. 9 p.m.): 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

----------

-A Not So Simple Life:
Production on the upcoming season of E Entertainment’s The Simple Life has been put on hold while star Nicole Richie is undergoing tests to see why she cannot put back any of her lost weight.

-Law & Order: Criminal Intent Sold to the Fox O&O’s:
NBC Universal Television Distribution has sold the off-network rights of drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent to the Fox owned and operated stations in the top markets (including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago) beginning in fall 2007. Criminal Intent will air in a stripped Monday to Friday format instead of the traditional weekend window. The last scripted crime drama to be stripped in off-network syndication was 21 Jump Street, and that was 14 years ago. The last drama overall, meanwhile, was 7th Heaven in 2001-02.

USA Network currently has the weekday cable rights for Criminal Intent, and a Sunday repurposing of the episode that airs the previous week on NBC. Bravo has a three-hour window on Sunday nights for repeats of the first five seasons.

TV Notebook
Doctors on call: Hit remote, say 'ahhhh'
Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic October 27, 2006

Throughout broadcast history, medical dramas have tended to arrive in pairs. In 1961, Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey established popular practices. In 1969, Marcus Welby, M.D. and Medical Center started offering diagnoses. In 1994, Chicago Hope and ER battled for viewers while saving lives.

NBC's ER ultimately won. In its 13th season, and with none of the original stars remaining, a reinvented ER flourishes in a surprising medical boom.

ER outdraws two new series, CBS' Shark and ABC's Six Degrees. Grey's Anatomy on ABC ranks No. 1. Fox's House, which moves to 9 p.m. Tuesday next week, transformed Hugh Laurie into an irascible heartthrob.

CBS hopes to join the physician fad with 3 Lbs, which debuts Nov. 14. Stanley Tucci plays a neurosurgeon; the title refers to the brain's weight.

"If the four are successful at once, it will be a first in TV history," says Tim Brooks, co-author of The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows.

Brooks notes that doctor series have been draws since Medic in the 1950s. Viewers fondly recall St. Elsewhere, where Denzel Washington gained a following in the 1980s. Physicians have been central characters in Lost, Northern Exposure, Providence and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. But programmers have resisted going all out for doctor shows.

"They have never taken over TV the way Westerns or [crime] procedurals did," Brooks says. "It's a TV staple, but not broad enough to dominate television. Basically, when you're healing people, there aren't too many variations. A doctor is a doctor is a doctor."

But they are a more diverse group these days, from the racy plastic surgeons of FX's Nip/Tuck to the cutups of NBC's Scrubs, which returns Nov. 30.

ER executive producer David Zabel says his show was the only game in town for a long time. No more.

"Grey's -- they're doing much more a romantic comedy version of a medical show," Zabel says. "House is doing much more of a procedural medical mystery. While there are bunch of successful medical shows, each is delivering a different kind of storytelling."

And 3 Lbs will take still another approach. "We look at the brain as the final frontier," says Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment. "It's relatively untapped as far as storytelling."

Even so, in an uncertain world, TV's physicians have a similar appeal to viewers.

"They see doctors solving problems, curing diseases, saving lives," Tassler says. "It is generally a feel-good experience."

Current events have ensured that doctors are ready-for-prime-time players.

"Obviously, with the aging population, health care is a major concern," says Ron Simon, TV curator at the Museum of Television & Radio in New York. "Perhaps the medical shows are interactive. People can think about illnesses, then research them. You can go online and look up the symptoms."

In this TV era, doctors are more complex than Kildare and Welby.

"You weren't trying to get into Welby's psyche," Simon says. "Now we're as interested in doctors' humanity as their professional competence. With House, you're dealing with obscure illnesses. The doctors are compellingly drawn. You're as interested in who the doctors are as what the illness is."

With Grey's Anatomy, you're probably more interested in the doctors than in the diseases. Creator Shonda Rhimes designed the show that way.

"I think that we're a relationship show with surgery in it," Rhimes says.

The water-cooler conversations Friday mornings center on the latest problems of Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and former lover Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey).

Unlike Welby (Robert Young), today's doctors no longer must be dignified role models. Rhimes created Meredith as a flawed heroine. On House, Dr. Gregory House (Laurie) displays no bedside manner.

House is "the anti-doctor," says Preston Beckman, an executive vice president at Fox. "He's willing to break medical rules to get to solutions. Sometimes, he'll put patients in jeopardy to save their lives. He's addicted to painkillers."

On the upcoming 3 Lbs, Tucci's neurosurgeon displays an acerbic sense of humor. He could be dealing with his own medical condition.

"There are aspects of his character that are sometimes off-putting," CBS' Tassler says. "But you come to understand, via his actions, this is a man who is extraordinarily brilliant."

These doctors can produce brilliant ratings. In a vote of confidence, CBS is debuting 3 Lbs in the November sweeps, a vital ratings period. Grey's Anatomy has lifted ABC on Thursdays and helped ER, although the dramas are on different networks.

"I think Grey's is bringing some younger viewers to Thursday nights," ER's Zabel says. "At 10 o'clock, they're turning the channel to see what's on, and they're choosing our show. The shows are different enough that it doesn't feel repetitive to the audience."

In January, House will be slotted after American Idol on Tuesdays. "We take our two biggest shows and put them on the same night," Beckman says. "You need that big dominant night to win a season."

The male doctors can be sexier than hunky Kildare (Richard Chamberlain) was in the 1960s. Laurie's provocative appeal boosts House. On Grey's Anatomy, Mark Sloan (Eric Dane) causes a sensation by appearing in a towel. On ER, new addition John Stamos follows in the footsteps of George Clooney.

Stamos will be with ER at least two seasons. But he wasn't a fan before he joined. He is like many younger viewers who are coming to ER.

"I didn't realize," Stamos says, "how great the show was until I became part of it."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv/orl-tvmedical06oct27,0,5718060.story?page=2&coll=orl-caltvtop

The New Season
It's getting a little too soapy at 'The O.C.'
Fox's slick teen drama has been reduced to unsavory plots and stunt casting. Then there's that music.

By Jon Caramanica The Los Angeles Times October 29, 2006

"I don't do sarcasm anymore," Summer (Rachel Bilson) warns Seth (Adam Brody) on an impromptu trip home to tony Newport Beach from a tree-hugging first few weeks at Brown. "I'm post-ironic."

"You mean earnest?" Seth replies in an exchange from the first episode of "The O.C.'s" fourth season (Fox, 9 p.m. Thursday). He's befuddled — and why wouldn't he be? Straightforwardness has never been the stock in trade of this slick, teen-oriented soap, which has always appeared to be better and more fully realized as a writing exercise than as an actual televised drama.

Unlike, say, "Gilmore Girls," which has relied on complex, true relationships to anchor its flights-of-fancy dialogue, "The O.C." has always settled for brute archetypes, preferring a good brood or a zippy exultation to textured emotional interactions. Otherwise, actual feelings might get in the way of a good pop culture zinger or, worse, a sweet tune from a B-list indie rock outfit.

But things have changed in Newport — Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) is dead, killed in a car crash, and five months later her friends are, quite alarmingly, still coping. Out in Providence, R.I., Summer's rejected shaving her legs and regular pedicures and has all but traded in one neurotic clinger, Seth, for another, the earth tone-clad, didgeridoo-jammin' Che (Chris Pratt). Taking another road to clarity, Ryan (Benjamin McKenzie), always a masochist at heart, is now only speaking the universal language of fist-against-face.

The upside to Marissa's death is that it seems to have restored the Cohen family to their rightful places as paragons of nerdily liberal virtue, if only because everyone else is unreasonably disturbed. Their collective undoing last season was, if not wholly credible, still painful to watch, particularly that of Cohen pere et fils — father Sandy (Peter Gallagher) lost sight of his well-cultivated ideals in attempting to manage the Newport Group, the company owned by his wife's late father, while son Seth flubbed his application to Brown, thanks to an extended dalliance with marijuana.

But the Cohens are the core, the only thing preventing the show from sliding completely into Daytime Emmy territory. Marissa's mother, Julie (Melinda Clarke), is still popping a rainbow of pills, and her younger sister Kaitlin (Willa Holland), a new addition to the cast, seems most skilled at elongating her teenage frame for the perusal of others.

In addition to the unsavory plot turns and ham-fisted storytelling-via-lighting, the show has also been reduced to stunt casting — Steve-O, of "Jackass," barely keeps a sober face as a shot-downing Marine in the second episode, and Tia Carrere brings myriad meanings to her new title — dean of discipline at Harbor School — as if the role were cast by the editors of Maxim. (Additionally, teen R&B phenom Chris Brown will have a recurring role later this season as a high school classmate of Kaitlin.)

And the things that made "The O.C." so novel upon its debut in 2003 have, inevitably, become recognizable tropes. When Seth refers to Ryan as looking "strangely like a young Russell Crowe," it feels less like an internal critique (as it might have two years ago) than a nod to the press.

Furthermore, the choices of soundtrack music have become almost abusively literal — note the first episode's recurring use of Placebo's "Running Up That Hill," a spooky version of a spooky Kate Bush song by a spooky singer (which inevitably recalls the late Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" that oozed over the closing montage of the first season's final episode). Scriptwriters shouldn't be picketing reality shows — they should be protesting music supervisors.

Fox has hedged its bets on "The O.C." somewhat this year, ordering only 16 episodes of this fourth season (which will air opposite "Grey's Anatomy" and "CSI").

But there may be reason for optimism on the horizon. By the end of the second episode, Ryan's back in the petri dish that is the Cohens' pool house — sulking, to be sure, but also reined in. And as at the beginning of the series, he's just a poor kid getting emotionally manipulated and manhandled by rich folk — the most honestly felt dynamic the show's ever seen.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ca-monitor29oct29,0,1733535.story?coll=cl-tvent

OTO = One Time OnlyThanks for the answer!

TV Notebook
Designing Women stars reunite, swap memories
By Mike Cidoni AP/The Houston Chronicle Oct. 26, 2006

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. - The setting was California, but Georgia was on the minds of virtually all at the Museum of Television & Radio, as Dixie Carter, Jean Smart, Annie Potts and Delta Burke — the original stars of the sitcom Designing Women — gathered for a tribute to the show.

"Well, every few years we talk about getting together for lunch or something, and it never seems to work out. So this is nice," said Smart.

"It's thrilling," added Carter. "It's so exciting, being asked to come out."

Airing on CBS from 1986-93, Designing Women followed the full lives of four Atlanta interior designers. Thanks to reruns, the show has rarely left the airwaves.

"Well, it was really funny," noted Smart. "And I've said this in every interview and it never seems to end up in print, but (show creator) Linda Bloodworth was writing for sitcoms what no one else was doing anything like. And I'm not sure if she ever got the credit for it that she deserved. She was pretty amazing and ahead of her time."

While prime-time sudsers like Dallas and Dynasty were dishing and dicing for ratings supremacy, Designing Women built an audience by tackling such topics as sexism, ageism, body image and AIDS. And it never forgot that Women was a key part of its grand design.

"It was something so unique, because there had never been anything quite like it," said Potts. "We had Lucy and Ethel (on TV previously), but we never had that exponentially expanded, smart, attractive women who read newspapers and had passions about things and loved each other and stood by each other. So, I'm thrilled to be here and I'm not at all surprised to be here."

Creator Bloodworth, who was in attendance, was honored as one of 50 women in the museum's "She Made It: Women Creating Television and Radio" initiative.

Both Smart and Burke left the series two seasons before the series was canceled. Burke, who had gained weight as the series progressed, was fired, with producers alleging she was let go for creating discord on the set. But, on this night, the svelte-looking actress had nothing but fond memories of the gig.

"It was women supporting each other and loving each other and not trying to tear each other apart and being vindictive or manipulative," she recalled. "And we just had a lot of aspects that were weird, anyway. But it worked."

All the principals went on to other successes: Carter on the hit series Family Law and as a cabaret queen, Burke to Broadway in Thoroughly Modern Millie and in the upcoming live-action The Year Without a Santa Claus and Potts in the Lifetime series Any Day Now. Smart earned a Tony nomination (for The Man Who Came to Dinner), garnered two Emmys for guest appearances on Frasier and this year earned an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of the president's wife on 24.

Despite those successes, Smart said she wasn't sure Designing Women had improved the landscape for women in television. "I don't know. Television kind of historically was kind of a good medium for women. That's actually, unfortunately, changed."

The cast got together for a 2003 reunion special for Lifetime, but this event marked its first time together in public since Smart and Burke left the cast. A reunion show and even a stage play of the series have been rumored, but none of the actors would confirm anything. For the moment, fans will have to be satisfied with a Best of 'Designing Women' DVD from Columbia TriStar and reruns on Nick at Nite.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/4290952.html

The Business of TV
TW, Dis, Charter hit 52-week stock highs
By Georg Szalai The Hollywood Reporter Oct. 27, 2006

NEW YORK -- Several big entertainment and media stocks hit 52-week highs Thursday in the absence of big news as investors seem to have entered the third-quarter earnings and holiday-shopping season with optimism.

Among the key gainers were Time Warner Inc., whose shares hit a four-year high, the Walt Disney Co. and cable operator Charter Communications.

Overall, The Hollywood Reporter Showbiz 50 stock index gained $16.83, or 1.49%, to close at $1,143.65.

"Gas prices look better, and that boosts the consumer-spending outlook for the holiday season and in turn could bode well for advertising," media industry expert and Vogel Capital Management president Hal Vogel said. He also credited a Wall Street-wide move into big-cap stocks for the recent gains in some big media stocks. "After many years of underperformance of big-cap stocks and a focus on smaller issues, there has been a rotation into bigger (names)," which has helped lift big stock indices.

One of the beneficiaries is the world's largest media conglomerate. Shares of Time Warner Inc. went as high as $20.08 on Thursday before closing up 0.8% at $19.99. It marked the first time since 2002 that the stock broke through the $20 mark -- and also closed near it.

The only news out of TW on Thursday was that its board has approved another regular quarterly dividend at the 5.5 cents-per-share payout level. The stock has of late broken out of its tight trading range as investors have started focusing on solid growth at TW Cable, which the conglomerate plans to spin off next year, and analysts have expressed hope that a new strategy at AOL will turn the online unit around.

Shares of Disney also broke through their previous 52-week high of $31.79 on Thursday, finishing the trading session up 2.5% at $31.98. The stock has been one of the year's best performers in the entertainment sector and has been at five-year highs.

Analysts have credited such factors as the leadership of CEO Robert Iger and his more aggressive push into new-media opportunities as key drivers of the stock.

The Paul Allen-controlled cable operator Charter Communications rose 12.2% to $2.12 on Thursday and went as high as $2.19 intraday, easily besting the stock's previous 52-week high of $1.99.

Charter shares have been buoyed in recent days, with analysts pointing out general investor bullishness and appetite for cable stocks, which was further elevated Thursday by Comcast Corp.'s third-quarter results and earnings call.

The Associated Press said the stock also might benefit from continuing speculation that Charter could sell its Los Angeles cable systems, with TWC a possible buyer. Such a move would help Charter to reduce its industry-leading debt load.

Also Thursday, Google Inc. continued to move closer to the $500 mark -- at least in intraday trading, which various analysts have said it would reach before year's end. The stock hit a 52-week high of $491.96 before closing down slightly at $485.10.

News Corp. voting shares Thursday also closed near their 52-week high, rising 1.2% to $22.01 -- just shy of the $22.04 high for the year.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i0q3OxqCLwzOlXWNgFV37rA==

some thoughts this past week...
I dislike Friday Night Lights for one reason and one alone. I just cant stand the jittery camera work. I struggle trying to watch the show in frustration. Do I like the show? Yes. I watched every episode so far. Will I watch more... I'd say no.

Men in trees... music is a bit annoying. Way too many scenes with music in them. I notice them more and more. It felt like I was listening to a radio drama. Many scenes I felt would have worked better with the natural sounds of a "faked" Alaska.

kidnapped... thanks for making another organization with the initials "GG" in it. GracenGroup vrs the old "Gracen and Gracen". As a "Profit" fan that put a smile on my face.

TV New Season
'The Daily Show' Swinging Into Ohio
By Julie Carr Smyth AP/New York Daily News Oct. 28, 2006

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Comedian Jon Stewart will make a special preview appearance Saturday as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" gears up for a week of broadcasts from Ohio.

Stewart said the Saturday event will be at Value City Arena, an appearance added after spaces for the four nights of tapings at Ohio State University's more intimate Roy Bowen Theatre filled up.

The Ohio "Midwest Midterm Midtacular" excursion marks the popular news parody show's fifth trip outside New York in 10 years, but its first to "a random zone" outside a big city on the East or West Coast, Stewart said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We wanted to go there because Ohio was so crucial last time. They were sort of the focal point, the swing state, if you will," he said. "We want to know what happened to all that loving attention that they were given in 2004, and if they feel lonely."

Asked if he would be laughing at Ohio or with Ohio, Stewart equivocated.

"First of all, I didn't realize Ohio was laughing. I was not aware of that," he said. "We will be laughing with parts of Ohio at other parts of Ohio. But I won't say which ones."

Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James - whom Stewart called "for all intents and purposes, the king of Ohio" - will be the featured guest on opening night Monday.

Stewart said many of the big-name politicians the show approached - including U.S. Sens. George Voinovich and Mike DeWine, Gov. Bob Taft and gubernatorial candidates Ted Strickland and Ken Blackwell - declined.

As for Taft, he said, "We had a shot at him for a bit there. Then we realized that his approval ratings actually make Cheney seem likable."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DAILY_SHOW_OHIO?SITE=NYNYD&SECTION=ENTERTAINMENT&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

The New Season
They've lost some fizz in the interim
It's good to see the flawed protagonists of 'Viva Blackpool' and 'Cracker' again, but the story lines fall short.

By Paul Brownfield The Los Angeles Times October 28, 2006

*

`Viva Blackpool -- Ripley's Return'

Where: BBC America

When: 10 tonight

Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)

*

`Cracker'

Where: BBC America

When: 10 p.m. Monday

Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14)

*

In "Viva Blackpool: Ripley's Return," airing Saturday on BBC America, the U.S. export is the Vegas-style theme wedding. In Monday's "Cracker," which returns Robbie Coltrane as forensic psychologist Fitz, the export is war.

The two projects practically form a consensus of mood about America from across the pond, or at least of image. Anyway it's good to see you both: Ripley Holden, the con artist played by David Morrissey on "Viva Blackpool," and Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald, the voraciously flawed forensic psychologist on the classic "Cracker."

Though they come at life from opposite sides of the law, Ripley and Fitz are birds of a feather — men hiking up mountains of self-deception and petty behaviors to do the right thing, finally, or at least make a respectable stab at it.

Each main character is easily rich enough for another go-round, so it's not quite the characters who disappoint here so much as the celebrated creators behind them.

In the case of "Ripley's Return," that would be Peter Bowker, whose miniseries "Viva Blackpool" made a sparkling entrance on American soil last year.

Murder! Elvis Costello singalongs! Fish and chips! Tonally, the show was "a gas" in the spirit of that old show business superlative — part whodunit, part musical, part black comedy.

As Ripley, a wannabe Steve-Wynn-by-the-Irish-Sea, Morrissey's big performance had the feel of James Gandolfini on "The Sopranos" but amid a show that was looser and self-parodying, set against the faded, vaudevillian glamour of Blackpool, England.

The karaoke in "Viva Blackpool" was a la Dennis Potter's "Pennies From Heaven" or Steven Bochco's "Cop Rock." CBS is reportedly planning a remake of "Viva Blackpool" with Bowker and Hugh Jackman as executive producers.

When last we left Ripley, he had lost his dream of gambling arcade mogul-hood, and his wife had run off with the detective investigating his son for the murder in his casino. Ripley himself landed on the Las Vegas Strip, and I guess I was hoping we'd pick up where we left off, with Ripley perhaps attempting to work his way up from entertainment booker at the Stratosphere to head of food and beverage at the Mirage.

Instead, in "Ripley's Return," he's back in Blackpool with less than half a vengeance (though juking to Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"). We find Ripley living out of a mobile home in a boardwalk-adjacent car park with his daughter Shayanne (Georgia Taylor), now a single mother.

Ripley's new angle is the Vegas-style theme wedding (try the "Harry Potter" package), Ripley having been ordained by the Vegas Church of Christ the Economist. The collar gives him a new look, though he's the same blustering carnival barker of a self. "We're all liars," Ripley says consolingly to his chapel organist, who apparently wasn't in Dire Straits or the Rolling Stones, as he had claimed. "It's what separates us from the beasts."

Into his seaside house of matrimony walks an unreal Southern belle named, as in porn, Kitty De-Luxe (Megan Dodds). While Ripley's dream is to rebuild his Blackpool empire on the backs of the quickie wedding package, Kitty's is to star in her own ice show that she describes as "Paradise Lost" on skates.

"It's got sex, it's got religion, it's got skating," she tells Ripley.

Ripley falls hard, but never trust a skater. As in "Viva Blackpool," the two-hour "Ripley's Return" is about cons conning each other while deceiving themselves. But the Kitty character never coalesces around the referents — noir femme fatale meets Tonya Harding meets "Dancing With the Stars" (or is that "Skating With Celebrities"?).

To pad the intrigue, Bowker cooks up a plot involving the missing original World Cup and a dead friend of Ripley's whose ashes now reside in the cup part. What unfolds is all in good fun, but the jokes didn't seem as effortful the last time around.

It's been longer since we last saw Fitz in "Cracker," which ran on the BBC from 1993 to '96 and was then remade, also by CBS, starring the late Robert Pastorelli.

Now the Robbie Coltrane character's been brought out of shipping and handling by creator Jimmy McGovern, who did the beautiful, still-airing BBC miniseries "The Street."

Coltrane's Fitz is a little bigger now, a little grayer, Googling Viagra. He lives in Australia, which, given his indoor interests, seems a kind of punishment. With his long-suffering wife, Judith (Barbara Flynn), he's back for the wedding of his daughter.

Being in the neighborhood, Fitz is soon asked to help investigate a murder, which will lead him to a former British soldier (Anthony Flanagan) grappling with post-traumatic stress. Not from the Iraq war, which crackles from radios and TVs, but from a tour in Northern Ireland, and in a conflict now overshadowed. His flashbacks echo the impossible domestic situation for U.S. soldiers in Iraq. McGovern means to explore this, along with the coarsening of feeling in England at being dragged into American hegemony. Fitz gets the ball rolling at his daughter's wedding, bringing up Sept. 11 and then railing sarcastically about the day's lack of "dramatic structure," given that the most spectacular of the horrors — the planes going into the World Trade Center — came first when it should have brought the curtain down.

"News item," he goes on, "suicide bomber kills 10 in Iraq. Wouldn't you confess to even a slight tinge of disappointment? That not one of them was American, that they were all Iraqis that died? Isn't there a tiny part of you that just wants the chaos to go on and on until they realize they made a huge, bloody mistake?"

It's somewhat shocking and revelatory to hear a TV hero speaking about Sept. 11 like this. McGovern has it dovetail with the rampaging ex-soldier's rage. His first victim is highly symbolic if somewhat random — an American stand-up comic making nightclub jokes linking terrorizing British soldiers in Belfast to U.S. ones in Baghdad.

It's this that tips the storytelling from sharp and impolitic to something more treacly, particularly when McGovern brings onstage a bullying American lawyer (representing Bush administration arrogance) and the mother of the victim (Lisa Eichhorn, representing our compassionate side). They're straw dogs, though "Cracker" is still "Cracker," Fitz using his trusty empathic powers to forge catharsis on the work front while maintaining a proper mess of his own life.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-bbc28oct28,0,6608212.story?coll=cl-tvent-util

Can someone explain to me why broadcasters still put on, viewers are still subjected to, and advertisers still buy in to the whole Sweeps charade? As I understand it, Sweeps is supposed to be what the networks can do on a good night, so that an advertiser can see which network they want to run their commercial on (or whether they want to run it at all) and how much it will cost them. Thus, the networks load up their schedule with their best offering, remove the reruns and fluff, and pack in the celeb cameoes, etc., all in an attempt to prove that they are, in fact, the best (or better) network. And the advertsiders buy into this?

I can't think of any other industry that works this way. "Hey, let me put on my finest suit and invite all of my best friends over and then you can decide whether you like me. Just don't come by the next week because I won't be working then. You'll have signed my contract, so I'll just take the next four weeks (or 13 weeks - Lost!) off."

In this day and age, where computer statistics can be captured, gathered, dissected, analyzed, and, um, manipulated, in just about any way possible, its seems that the more appropriate scenario should be that advertising rates should be determined based on Neilsen ratings in an on-going fashion. We know week-to-week how the nets are doing. Shouldn't that information, comibined with a little common sense, be enough?

Now that the World Series is over let the bloodbath over Fox Sports' coverage of baseball (and the meager ratings the short series garnered) begin!

TV Sports
Action Wasn’t Always on Camera
By Richard Sandomir The New York Times October 28, 2006

Watching Fox Sports cover the World Series, I sometimes wanted to say, “Just show me the field, the whole field and nothing but the field.”

That’s where the action is. That’s why I tuned in.

Fox didn’t ignore the field but it was too often distracted by, or too interested in, what occurred in the stands and in the dugouts. Most viewers know that little happens in those areas to compete with what is happening on the field, even if it is just waiting for the next pitch.

But Fox believed that frequent cuts to spectators, and to the denizens of the dugouts, especially in the late innings, heightened tension and made viewers a bit sweaty.

But there was not much value in watching St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa or Detroit Manager Jim Leyland stand around. They did that a lot. La Russa especially stood alone quite a bit.

His unheard chats with his pitching coach, Dave Duncan, weren’t riveting but they were as de rigueur in the Fox canon of shots as Ed Norton’s entrances into the Kramdens’ apartment were in the Tao of “The Honeymooners.”

And while I fathom that watching fans wave towels might be interesting now and then, its impact waned after the first dozen times. Less can be more.

During Thursday night’s Game 4, Fox cut to the crowd 222 times. It cut to the inside of the Detroit and St. Louis dugouts 153 times.

That’s 375 images away from the field. If each lasted two seconds, the amount of time taken from the field would be 12 minutes 30 seconds.

Many of those 153 dugout shots were of La Russa and Leyland. It felt as if every time Tim McCarver or Joe Buck mentioned the Cardinals’ manager, we saw him — as if their tongues had the power to guide cameras.

Each manager has a poker face — and La Russa’s sunglasses give him Texas Hold ’Em eyes — so the abundance of shots revealed little.

And I didn’t see much exciting in watching the St. Louis starter Jeff Suppan sip Gatorade, or in watching players watch the game.

What worked best were reaction shots. Watching La Russa punch the air in delight or shake his head in dismay, live or on tape, was worthwhile.

So was seeing Leyland comfort his angry starter, Jeremy Bonderman, who was removed after putting two men on in the bottom of the sixth.

•Other elements worked, like hearing the injured Cardinals pitcher Mark Mulder, whom Fox wired for sound, discuss a few plays (on tape), and the prerecorded, in-game interviews with the managers, especially those with Leyland, who is more likely to avoid obfuscation for genuine candor.

Fox’s enchantment with frequent shots of fans mystified me. They’re watching the field, so why does Fox think we must watch them watching?

To see 222 crowd shots in nine innings is absurd. Are all those sightings supposed to bond viewers and spectators in some kind of baseball Kumbaya embrace?

Here are my simple rules: If fans are genuinely joyous or completely deflated, show them judiciously. Otherwise, don’t interrupt the rhythm of a game or an at-bat. Some of the best crowd shots at Busch were the most distant ones, which showed the sea of red cheering wildly.

One of the risks of too many crowd or dugout shots was missing a pitch.

In 16 instances Thursday night, Fox lingered a split-second too long with a fan or someone in a dugout and missed part of a pitcher’s windup. No pitches were missed. But in a sport where the action is dependent on the delivery of the pitch, to miss any part of one is wrong.

In a little more than 200 cases during the game, Fox got it right. It returned to the pitcher in time to show the full windup, or even better, had a 5- or 10-second cushion to show the dynamic between the pitcher and the catcher, and the leads taken by the base runners.

Another part of the Fox arsenal was the tight close-up, mostly of pitchers, which can linger too long. On Thursday, Fox was up close with the Detroit reliever Joel Zumaya, who had just thrown six consecutive balls. With the count 2-0 to Aaron Miles, McCarver described how shortstop Carlos Guillén was at the mound and “not mincing his words” with Zumaya.

But the screen was locked into Zumaya’s close-up; it did not pull back to a longer shot. McCarver spoke, but we did not see. Guillén’s visit was shown on tape.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/sports/baseball/28sandomir.html?ref=baseball

Can someone explain to me why broadcasters still put on, viewers are still subjected to, and advertisers still buy in to the whole Sweeps charade? As I understand it, Sweeps is supposed to be what the networks can do on a good night, so that an advertiser can see which network they want to run their commercial on (or whether they want to run it at all) and how much it will cost them. Thus, the networks load up their schedule with their best offering, remove the reruns and fluff, and pack in the celeb cameoes, etc., all in an attempt to prove that they are, in fact, the best (or better) network. And the advertsiders buy into this?

The four-times-a-year sweeps periods (November, February, May and July) date back several decades, when technology and computers weren't around and most ratings were measured by viewers with diaries and primitive 'people meters.' Nielsen couldn't provide year-round ratings reports for most TV stations around the country (logistically, financially and technologically impossible at the time). Only the network's own O&O stations in major markets got (and still get) year-round ratings reports. The sweeps periods were established so that small markets that can't afford year-round ratings (i.e. most stations below the Top-50 markets) could get their viewership measured at least four times a year so they could go to their local businesses with an accurate head count of how many people were watching their station in order to charge them. The networks also got a chance four times a year to measure the overall viewership of their entire line-up of stations and to set prices for their nationally-televised shows. So, in order to boost both their fortunes and their affiliate stations' bargaining power during price negotiations (an affiliate happy with good sweeps results that lets them charge more for local TV spots = an affiliate less likely to pre-empt or bolt network programming), the networks made it a point to have their best shows forward during sweeps month.

Ditto for the local stations, who with their eventual reliance on local news as centers of profit have gradually turned their local news into the same stunts chasing more viewers during sweeps. Ditto for syndicators with shows that want to preserve their cushy time slots (like 'Oprah' or the new 'Geraldo' news show) and are willing to crank-up the noise during sweeps months to make themselves integral to a local stations' schedule.

In this day and age, where computer statistics can be captured, gathered, dissected, analyzed, and, um, manipulated, in just about any way possible, its seems that the more appropriate scenario should be that advertising rates should be determined based on Neilsen ratings in an on-going fashion. We know week-to-week how the nets are doing. Shouldn't that information, comibined with a little common sense, be enough?

By your same analysis kids should be attending school year-round instead of taking summers off now that air conditioners exist. You did know American students take summers off from schools because in centuries past (a) summers were too hot for schools (particularly in urban buildings) to house children and (b) in rural areas the children were needed to help with agricultural chores?

In an ideal world yes, all stations should have daily ratings that get tabulated and do away with the need for sweeps. But remember that even to this date not every TV station can afford or wants to rely on expensive Nielsen measurements at a tune of several hundred thousand dollars a year, especially when those ratings can bring bad numbers/trends. Do you think the ABC affiliate in Topeka wants to show their advertisers that ratings for the local news are down 12% when a temp anchor team has been brought on board to replace a departing one? Or that the independent station in Sacramento wants it known immediately that its decision to replace 'Rachel Ray' with two back-to-back showings of 'Judge Judy' leading into 'Dr. Phil' has lowered the ratings of the latter even worse than what 'Rachel Ray' did? Some bad news are better digested over an extended period of time when trends settle in, particularly on local markets. Especially when make goods (free commercials the stations have to give a sponsor when the show sold to that sponsor for a specific viewer/rating promise fails to reach that threshhold) are involved that can turn a profitable show into a troubled time slot in a hurry.

Also remember that this is a business where programming decisions are made months and sometimes years ahead of time, and that some sort of established revenue stream needs to be set ahead of time for businesses (production companies, networks, studios, etc.) to set budgets, allocate resources, etc. Sweeps, for better or for worse, are the decades-long established method for stations to set the ad rates for the remaining 8 months of the year. It doesn't make sense, but then again TV is a business where businesses happily pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for :30 commercials everybody knows people are going out of their way to ignore (either with TiVO or by flipping channels).

TV Sports/Technology
Fox Sports overcomes crowded RF spectrum with custom wireless system
Broadcasting Engineering October 27, 2006

To overcome an increasingly crowded UHF band that varies from city to city, Fox Sports has begun using eight virtually identical custom-designed Sennheiser wireless systems for this season’s coverage of NFL football games.

Typically used for the sideline on-air talent, referees and parabolic microphones picking up audio from the field, the complete broadband RF packages are custom-modified for increased frequency, agility and setup continuity.

Each package includes a custom EM 1046 modular multichannel receiver, SKM 5200 handheld transmitters outfitted with the command channel option, custom SK 250 body-pack transmitters and the recently introduced A5000 CP antenna. Rental house CP Communications of Elmsford, NY, which has worked with Fox for many years, is providing the systems.

To assist in overcoming the crowded spectrum, Sennheiser supplied EM 1046 mainframes, each with eight receiver modules, custom-engineered to operate across a wider frequency band and multiple frequency ranges.

Rather than putting the receiver within a 24MHz window, CP Communications and Fox widened the modules to 36MHz and modified the antenna input module so four pairs of receiver modules are available “in radically different frequency ranges,” said consultant Joe Ciaudelli. As a result, Fox has a wide selection of frequencies spanning almost the entire UHF spectrum, which makes it easier to go into different stadiums weekly and find vacant frequencies to use.

CP Communications also ordered SKM 5200 handheld microphones with the command channel option, which allow the on-camera talent to easily keep in touch with a producer. Sideline announcers can push a button and route their mics directly to the speaker in front of the producer, allowing private communication.

Each package's SK 250 body-pack transmitters were customized with the addition of a switch so they can access two separate banks of 16 different frequencies, providing more flexible frequency usage.

http://broadcastengineering.com/news/fox-sports-wireless-system/

In case you missed it Matt Roush's latest TV Guide Q&A is in the previous page (578, #17319). In the meantime, how about a shoutout to our Pittsburgh PA readers?

TV Q&A
TV Q&A with Rob Owen
By Rob Owen The Pittsbutgh Post-Gazette October 27, 2006

Question: I was going through the channels the other night and came upon two game shows aimed at viewer participation. "Midnight Money Madness" (TBS) and "Playmania" (GSN), where you call in and answer questions and win money. My question is with the cost to call -- 99 cents per call -- how much money do they make compared to what they give out? Are these shows the new rage? The hosts (usually a pretty girl) entice you to call. Seems like a racket to me. - Bob, Emsworth

Rob: If you're implying it's somehow illegal, I don't think that's possible since people have to actively pick up the phone (of their own free will) and make a call in order to be charged.

According to a GSN publicist, "Participation TV is hugely popular in Europe, and we wanted to bring it to the American audience. Viewers can play along with 'Playmania' for free online by logging onto GSN.com. There is only a charge for those who choose to play via text messaging on their cell phones."

I wanted to check this show out, so I watched last Friday night, which turned out to be the show's 100th episode, and one of the blond models/hosts said they'd given away $200,000 to date. My guess would be GSN is making a good bit more than that if it's going to be worthwhile to continue the show.

Question: Whatever became of "The Grand Ole Opry"? It was on TNN, then it move to CMT on Saturday nights at 8 p.m. Now I can't find it anywhere.- Paul, Pitttsburgh

Rob: Several years ago it migrated from CMT to GAC (Great American Country), where it can be seen at 8 p.m. Saturday. Consult the cable conversion chart provided by your cable company to see if you receive that channel.

Question: I really enjoyed your article on "The Young and the Restless." I am just curious about the new set. I have never seen so many doors in all my life! Everybody has at least three doors to close before they can have a conversation. It is almost funny.

Concerning "Guiding Light," do you think it is on its last legs? The story line for the umpteenth time is way off base. Changing the time slot was not the smartest thing CBS did for it. I still forget that it is on at 10 a.m. - Eva, Pittsburgh


Rob: A guy writes one daytime soap story, and suddenly my mailbox looks like the in-box at Soap Opera Update!

I imagine the closing doors have to do with the desire to create more movement and action in the show. The executive producer discussed that in the article we published.

As for "Guiding Light," CBS did not change its time slot, local station KDKA did. It doesn't seem to have worked out all that well: "Dr. Phil" had lower ratings in October at 3 p.m. than "Guiding Light" did a year ago. Ratings for "Guiding Light" at 10 a.m. are down somewhat from when it aired at 3 p.m., but its audience share remains the same, so most viewers made the move with the show. And yes, I do think "Guiding Light" is on its last legs nationally, evidenced by CBS's willingness to allow KDKA and other local stations to change the time slot.

Need further proof the show is desperate? Here's a press release I received yesterday: "Television's longest running show, 'Guiding Light,' is teaming up with Marvel Comics to produce a very special "Inside the Light" episode unveiling a new super powered character, to be broadcast Nov. 1. The episode, titled "She's a Marvel," written by head writer David Kreizman, focuses on mild mannered and harried cop, mother and wife Harley Davidson Cooper, played by Beth Ehlers. Zapped by an electrical current, Cooper finds herself infused with the energy, and is able to channel it, giving her the powers of a superhero -- levitation and electricity conduction. How will her new powers affect her life?"

Question: On the Oct. 16 "Heroes," when Dr. Suresh was trying to talk to Nathan Petrelli when he was getting in a cab, a disheveled man bumped into Suresh. Was that the cop that Claire's father had prisoner in a lab? I thought it was, but couldn't tell for sure.- Audrey, Pittsburgh

Rob: No, it was not the cop (Greg Grunberg), who was in Los Angeles, not New York, where Suresh was.

Question: I saw the TV news piece and just read your article about "The Kill Pit," a series dealing with bank robbery.

There was a series last spring titled "Thief" about high-end professional thieves. It starred Andre Braugher, a good actor, and it has not been picked up for another season.

"Smith" was another series about high-end thieves with the well-known actor Ray Liotta. CBS gave it only three weeks to gather a following before canceling it.

What chance does "Kill Pit" have given the proclivity of the networks to cancel without giving a series much chance of success?- Paul, West Mifflin

Rob: If a show with an anti-hero thief as the lead is going to work anywhere, it's on Spike TV, a network that targets young male viewers. And if it's truly closer in execution to "24" than to "Thief," which was sort of slow, then it may work. We'll see.

Question: I am writing to ask if Lifetime has already canceled "Angela's Eyes." The show has only been on for a while, and I am still involved with the plot, and to have it end with no closure would be terrible. I know that they have a habit of ending shows with no warning at all. They just disappear.- Diana, Winter Park, Fla.

Rob: No decision on the renewals of "Angela's Eyes" or comedy "Lovespring International" have been announced. A decision will likely be announced in a month or two.

Question: Do you know what happened to "The George Lopez Show"? I hope it wasn't canceled!- Nick, Homer City

Rob: "Lopez" will return to ABC's schedule at mid-season (anytime between now and March).

Question: Any idea if "Men In Trees" will stay on for the season? It is nice to have a decent show to watch on Friday nights.- Robin, Pittsburgh

Rob: As I wrote in Saturday's column, I've become a fan of "Men in Trees" and hope that it will continue. It's not doing well in the ratings on Friday night, so I'm hoping ABC may give it a shot in another time slot, maybe 10 p.m. Thursday after "Grey's Anatomy."

Question: Is there a reason why HBO's "Big Love" DVD set is so ridiculously overpriced at $99.98? Even the "Sex and the City" DVD sets are approximately only $45 a season (and they appear to offer far more extras).- Lin, Pittsburgh

Rob: Actually, HBO TV on DVD titles are generally much more expensive than other TV shows on DVD (each season of "Deadwood" started at $99 suggested retail price, same for the upcoming "Sopranos" release). The discrepancy between "Sex and the City" and other HBO shows could have something to do with "Sex" episodes running 30 minutes when the dramas run up to an hour.

Question: Just a thought on "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip": I was feeling the same as you, and I'm trying to like the show, but there seemed to be a lack of focus and a compelling reason for each show. Why should we care, what is the central crisis that seeks our support, why care about these characters? Then in the second half of tonight's episode there was a glimmer of hope, a little insight. It may be too late, but this show could be good. Let's see in two weeks.- Rob, Sarver

Rob: I actually thought this week's episode was the worst one yet, a triple threat of treacly stories: The rubes from Ohio, the search for a sophisticated African-American comedian and the blacklisted writer. The first two featured dialogue that showed how out-of-touch Aaron Sorkin is with the characters he's trying to write; the third was just a too-obvious attempt to tug at the heartstrings.

Question: What HAS happened to "Grey's Anatomy"? The storylines are fractured. The cast is bloated and the writing is, too. The "Grey Matter" blog this week shows how unhappy viewers are. Where is Shonda Rhimes? The Mer/Der relationship is down to a few minutes of screen time. (Not that anyone cares anymore. What happened to dating? That lasted one episode!) In fact, "Grey" has disappeared! They had a good thing going; now it seems like they got the ratings and figure that we will take anything they hand us for stories. Burke will operate when he isn't able? Izzie gets no punishment for what happened with Denny? I guess they added "McSteamy" and thought we would forget continuity in what they already had built and had us vested in. "CSI" might not have much to worry about after all. Is the cast fighting because they are frustrated, too? Even they have to feel like this season is not going well.- Marsha, Morgantown, W. Va.

Rob: Actually, I liked last week's episode quite a lot.

Many of your complaints seem to arise from a desire for realism, but "Grey's" has never been all that realistic. As for Shonda Rhimes, she's still overseeing the show and, presumably, breaking up fights (the much publicized Isaiah Washington-Patrick Dempsey incident, see http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06294/731676-351.stm), although, interestingly, she's evidently not doling out punishment for bad behavior. You have to wonder if the epithet hurled had been racial rather than sexual if the outcome would be different, not because Rhimes is a black woman, but because society looks more disapprovingly at racial slurs.

Question: What's the story with Channel 13? The new season of "This Old House" was supposed to start the first week of October. WQED does not start the new season until the 21st. They then show a new episode of "Ask This Old House" and show a rerun from last season of "This Old House." I thought these shows were supposed to run together. Why a new show of one and a rerun of the other?- Rodger, Pittsburgh

Rob: WQED's programming is often a mystery, although once executive director of marketing Rosemary Martinelli explains it, this case does become more understandable:

"'This Old House' is a 26-episode program consisting of two construction projects per season. 'Ask This Old House' consists of the one-project-per show format.

"Because we are in the early stages of the second project of 'This Old House' from last season (which we repeat immediately after we air it in its entirety due to viewer interest), we are obligated to finish it before we start the new season. That new season begins at 4 p.m. Dec. 16 on WQED.

"'Ask This Old House' is in its current season and is the show that features individual home repair jobs. The episodes are new, and we are airing them at the time we note in our schedule, 3:30 p.m. Saturdays. Our WQED viewers are still seeing all the shows; rest assured that all the segments are included."

Question: As a follow-up to existing Comcast subscribers gaining Fox Sports Pittsburgh in HD, could you also please let us know when those of us coming from the land of Adelphia can expect to FINALLY get WPGH-DT added to the program list?- Tony, Murrysville

Rob: "We are currently reviewing channel line-ups," a Comcast spokeswoman said. "There will be no immediate changes to customer channel line-ups until [sometime] during 2007."

Question: I noticed in your Q&A's this week that Comcast is going to air FSN-Pittsburgh in HD. This is great news and long overdue. I, however, live in the Ross area (Fox Chapel) for Comcast. This area receives fewer HD channels than other Comcast areas. We do not receive, for example, ESPN2HD, TNTHD, WPMYHD, INHD2, UHD and others that I know are available in, for example, the Cranberry area. You mentioned in your Q&A section that Comcast broadcasts 17 -- that is far from the case in the Ross area.

Do you know when the Comcast Ross area will be getting the other HD channels that many of Comcast's other areas already receive? - Bill, Pittsburgh

Rob: Comcast has been promising upgrades to Ross for a long time, because I know we've answered this question before. But it looks as if there hasn't been much movement in getting you folks on board with the rest of the region.

Here's the Comcast non-response: "We are very much aware that High Definition is becoming more and more popular. Comcast Three Rivers Region is continuously evaluating the services that we provide. While there is no firm date at this time to make an announcement, it is our desire to offer services that our customers want."

Question: Do you know of any new Comcast HD channels due out soon and if they will bring back NFL-HD that they had last year?- Patrick, Upper St. Clair

Rob: According to Comcast, the eight live games that NFL Network has this year will be available on INHD1.

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

The New Season
Fighting for Ratings Dominance at the Same Time
By Edward Wyatt The New York Times October 28, 2006

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 27 — A titanic ratings battle is taking place this fall between the two top-rated shows on television, “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC and “CSI” on CBS, two series that, unlike the contestants in most years for most-watched show, are actually broadcast at the same time.

Despite going head to head on Thursday nights at 9, “CSI” and “Grey’s” have managed to expand the television audience to its highest level each week, together drawing 45 million viewers, as many as the combined draw of all five networks on a typical night, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Another, less noticed battle is also shaping up between two shows that run against each other on Wednesday nights at 9: “Lost” on ABC and “Criminal Minds” on CBS.

Together, the four shows, each of them ranking in the Top 10 in total viewers, have created one of the most competitive television seasons in years.

They also demonstrate the different tacks taken by ABC and CBS in attracting viewers. Though each of the ABC shows ranks close to its CBS competitor on total viewers, the ABC pair is far ahead in attracting viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, the demographic sweet spot that advertisers want when looking for shows on which to pitch their wares.

Beneath the surface of the ABC juggernauts, however, there appears to be at least one soft spot. Each week this fall, “Lost” has lost viewers from its first half-hour to its second, and at least some of them appear to be migrating midshow to CBS, where “Criminal Minds” has been gaining viewers each week in its second half-hour.

That two shows from both ABC and CBS have managed to gain strength through the first month of the season while going head to head with strong competitors is evidence that network television is far from the gasping dinosaur that it is sometimes portrayed as, said Kelly Kahl, an executive vice president at CBS who serves as the network’s chief scheduler.

“It’s almost unheard of to have the top two shows running at the same time on the same night,” Mr. Kahl said. “As we have seen time and time again, network television is very resilient.”

“CSI” ranked second in total viewers last year only to “American Idol,” the Fox hit that will return in January. This year, ABC decided to move “Grey’s Anatomy” from Sunday nights, where it had followed “Desperate Housewives,” to Thursdays, feeling that its drama about young doctors in love had a good shot at outdrawing “CSI” among younger viewers.

“Grey’s” did that and more, shooting to the top of the television rankings in nearly every category. In the first month of the season it ranked first in total viewers, averaging 24 million a week, about 1 million more than “CSI.”

But “Grey’s Anatomy” also killed the competition among what television executives call “the demo,” the 18-to-49 demographic group. There, it regularly draws a rating of 9.4 or better, according to Nielsen Media Research, meaning that almost 1 in 10 potential viewers in that demographic in the United States are tuned into the show. “CSI” draws a rating of about 7.5 in that age group.

Measured another way, “Grey’s” draws about 23 percent of the 18-to-49-year-old viewers who are watching television at that hour on Thursdays. The “CSI” audience measures about 18 percent of that group.

The trends this fall are similar for “Lost” and “Criminal Minds,” two shows that performed well last year but have gained strength in the new season — neither at the expense of the other.

In the number of overall viewers, the two shows have been running close to each other all season, with “Lost,” which has averaged about 17.5 million viewers each week, slightly edging out “Criminal Minds,” with 16.4 million. (When Nielsen includes a late-September edition of “Lost” that was a compilation of clips of the first two seasons, its average drops to 15.5 million.).

In the 18-to-49 group, “Lost” wins handily, drawing about 17 percent of people in that group who are watching television at the time, versus about 11 percent for “Criminal Minds.” But CBS has been loudly trumpeting the fact that on a few occasions “Criminal Minds” has been winning more total viewers in the second half-hour, from 9:30 to 10 p.m., when the number of “Lost” viewers typically declines and the number of “Criminal Minds” viewers climbs.

Those trends probably reflect a couple of factors. Shows like “Lost” that attract younger viewers also are more likely to have fans who record the show on a digital video recorder for viewing later in the week, or who go to the network’s Web site to watch the show. ABC, like some of its competitors, now regularly puts its biggest shows up on its Web site for free viewing the day after each episode is broadcast.

While the Nielsen ratings capture data about viewers who record a show and watch it the same day it is broadcast, the service does not measure those who watch a recorded episode later in the week, or those who view it online or buy a show through a service like iTunes.

ABC also said that the declines in the second half-hour of “Lost,” which measure about 500,000 a week, do not indicate a fundamental weakness in the show. Rather, it is a function of having a mass audience hit as a lead-in: “Dancing With the Stars,” the dance competition show that is drawing 17 million to 20 million viewers or more on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

Inevitably, some of those viewers end up staying tuned to ABC for the beginning of “Lost” but change to another channel or turn off their sets sometime during the first half-hour.

Those who do tend to be older viewers, it seems, the type more likely to be watching “Criminal Minds.” In only one of the first four weeks of the season did ratings for “Lost” in the 18-to-49 group fall from the first half-hour to the second. “The ones who are leaving are not in the same demographic as the ones who are staying,” said Jeff Lindsey, a spokesman for ABC. “It’s a high-class problem to have.”

The Wednesday competition has produced one more winner as well: Touchstone Television, the production company that, like ABC, is owned by the Walt Disney Company, which produces both “Lost” and “Criminal Minds.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/arts/television/28lost.html?ref=arts/

The four-times-a-year sweeps periods (November, February, May and July) date back several decades, when technology and computers weren't around and most ratings were measured by viewers with diaries and primitive 'people meters.' Nielsen couldn't provide year-round ratings reports for most TV stations around the country (logistically, financially and technologically impossible at the time). Only the network's own O&O stations in major markets got (and still get) year-round ratings reports. The sweeps periods were established so that small markets that can't afford year-round ratings (i.e. most stations below the Top-50 markets) could get their viewership measured at least four times a year so they could go to their local businesses with an accurate head count of how many people were watching their station in order to charge them. The networks also got a chance four times a year to measure the overall viewership of their entire line-up of stations and to set prices for their nationally-televised shows. So, in order to boost both their fortunes and their affiliate stations' bargaining power during price negotiations (an affiliate happy with good sweeps results that lets them charge more for local TV spots = an affiliate less likely to pre-empt or bolt network programming), the networks made it a point to have their best shows forward during sweeps month.

Ditto for the local stations, who with their eventual reliance on local news as centers of profit have gradually turned their local news into the same stunts chasing more viewers during sweeps. Ditto for syndicators with shows that want to preserve their cushy time slots (like 'Oprah' or the new 'Geraldo' news show) and are willing to crank-up the noise during sweeps months to make themselves integral to a local stations' schedule.



By your same analysis kids should be attending school year-round instead of taking summers off now that air conditioners exist. You did know American students take summers off from schools because in centuries past (a) summers were too hot for schools (particularly in urban buildings) to house children and (b) in rural areas the children were needed to help with agricultural chores?

In an ideal world yes, all stations should have daily ratings that get tabulated and do away with the need for sweeps. But remember that even to this date not every TV station can afford or wants to rely on expensive Nielsen measurements at a tune of several hundred thousand dollars a year, especially when those ratings can bring bad numbers/trends. Do you think the ABC affiliate in Topeka wants to show their advertisers that ratings for the local news are down 12% when a temp anchor team has been brought on board to replace a departing one? Or that the independent station in Sacramento wants it known immediately that its decision to replace 'Rachel Ray' with two back-to-back showings of 'Judge Judy' leading into 'Dr. Phil' has lowered the ratings of the latter even worse than what 'Rachel Ray' did? Some bad news are better digested over an extended period of time when trends settle in, particularly on local markets. Especially when make goods (free commercials the stations have to give a sponsor when the show sold to that sponsor for a specific viewer/rating promise fails to reach that threshhold) are involved that can turn a profitable show into a troubled time slot in a hurry.

Also remember that this is a business where programming decisions are made months and sometimes years ahead of time, and that some sort of established revenue stream needs to be set ahead of time for businesses (production companies, networks, studios, etc.) to set budgets, allocate resources, etc. Sweeps, for better or for worse, are the decades-long established method for stations to set the ad rates for the remaining 8 months of the year. It doesn't make sense, but then again TV is a business where businesses happily pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for :30 commercials everybody knows people are going out of their way to ignore (either with TiVO or by flipping channels).

Thanks for the well written explanation. It definitely explains the reasons behind sweeps periods, but less so as to why they are still are part of life. Just because something has been a certain way in the past doesn't mean it should continue (I know I'm not telling you anythin new here). Many parents would prefer a 12 month school year, but most I bet appreciate that there is a set time when a family can vacation. Just imaging how hard it would be for teachers to get anything done if students were constantly taking vacations (albiet not all at the same time). I'm simply postulating that if Neilsen averages from, say, the entire fall, or the entire spring, or the entire season were used to set ad prices for the following season (or half-season), that advertisers would get a more accurate picture of what their ad dollars were buying than what they are getting right now during sweeps. Closer to home is the fact that a larger portion of the tv season is devoted to stunt-casting, to be followed up with long stints of re-runs or worthless alterna-programming.

Your reference to local TV news affilliates participating in the sweeps shenanigans is further evidence of why I hate the practice.

It's not my money that's getting spent, so my opinion on the matter travels only so far . . . (about this far).

Jediphish, also remember that Sweeps months set the ad rates for the other months but that doesn't mean leave the stations off-the-hook if the shows they offer in non-Sweeps months don't deliver. Sure, ratings will surge during February when 'Lost' returns and that will allow ABC to charge more for commercials on its network than in January. But that doesn't mean if the March and April ratings fall short the sponsors will be hosed. They can still demand make-goods whenever the rating they're promised fail to uphold, although spots on the most desirable and watched shows (like 'Lost') will always command a premium in price and availability because of its stature.

As for year-round ratings, do you really think ratings 365 days a year for several hundred TV stations across the land would be welcomed by business executives that want some sort of stability in the price when selling ads? In an ideal world your idea should be already implemented. The fact that it hasn't is just a sign that the TV business is as entrenched in its business practices as other media conglomerates are in theirs: the Arbitron ratings for radio, the theatrical trailers and film reel distribution for motion pictures, etc.

TV Notebook
Lynne Cheney Lays Into CNN

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable October 28, 2006

Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, strongly criticized CNN Friday for its "Broken Government" series of specials in the run-up to the November mid-term elections and for its airing of tapes of snipers shooting American soldiers in Iraq.

In an interview with Situation Room anchor Wolf Blitzer, Cheney said the network's Vote 2006 specials contained "terrible distortions of the president's and vice president's positions on many issues."

She suggested CNN was working from Democratic talking points, and took issue with the negative tone of the title "Broken Government," suggesting it betrayed CNN's bias and countering that the administration had inherited a recession, been through some tough times like 9/11 and Katrina, but that the economy was healthy. "That's not broken, " she said, "this government has acted very well... I shouldn't let media bias surprise me, but I worked for CNN once [with Crossfire, according to Blitzer], and I was troubled.

Blitzer said the series was "probably" meant to be provocative, "to get people to think, to get people to discuss these issues."

Cheney turned the tables on Blitzer, becoming the questioner: "what is CNN doing running tapes of terrorists shooting Americans," she asked more than once, repeating a question CNN had been asked: "Do you want us to win?"

"The answer is, of course, we want the United States to win," said Blitzer. "We are Americans." Blitzer said airing the footage was not terrorist propaganda but "reporting the news. This is what we do... We make no apologies for showing it."

Later in the newscast, Lou Dobbs defended the "Broken Borders" series, saying that with all due respect, the government was broken in many respects and that he had been critical of Republicans and Democrats. He called Cheney's criticisms "power bridling at truth."

Cheney also complained that she wanted to talk about her children's book, Our 50 States, but had spent about 10 of the 15 alloted minutes for the interview responding to questions about her husband's comments about tactics used to question detainees and the citing of some passages of a book she wrote by Democratic Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb in defending some racy passages in his books. She said Webb was "full of baloney." Making lemons out of lemonade, CNN heavily teased the interview and Cheney's anger with the network for the first hour and a half of Situation Room.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386420.html?display=Breaking+News

Sweeps are primarily for the local affiliate ad rates for the local spots. We already have year-round ratings reported the following day for national Network programming. The national networks put their best foot forward during sweeps to drive viewers for the benefit of their affiliates.

TV Notebook
Series, Specials and Sports Highlights
What to watch the week of Oct. 29-Nov. 4.
The Los Angeles Times October 28, 2006

SUNDAY:

Grey Gardens 5 p.m. TCM - This 1975 documentary from Albert and David Maysles ("Gimme Shelter") takes an intimate look at the lives of an eccentric mother-daughter duo as they grow old together in a run-down mansion on New York's Long Island.

Prehistoric Park 8 p.m. Animal Planet - If "Jurassic Park" were a documentary, it would be this series starring wildlife expert Nigel Marven as a time-traveling zoologist. (New)

Prime 8 p.m. HBO - Meryl Streep stars in this 2005 comedy-drama as a counselor who is horrified when she discovers one of her patients (Uma Thurman) has been dating her son.

Vampire Secrets 8 p.m. History Channel - As this two-hour special explains, vampires have been the stuff of legend for centuries. (New)

Scariest Places on Earth 9 p.m. ABC Family - A family visits the creepy castle of a murderous countess. (New)

Without a Trace 10 p.m. CBS - Eriq La Salle ("ER") guest stars as a man displaced by Hurricane Katrina who later disappears. (New)
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MONDAY:

Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead 8 p.m. Lifetime - She talks to dead people! And she does it with a British accent! Medium Lisa Williams has crossed over from across the pond to help Americans who want to hear from their dearly departed. (New)

American Experience 9 p.m. KCET - "The Great Fever" recalls a deadly disease that killed as many as 100,000 Americans in the 19th century. (New)

Angel Rodriguez 9 p.m. HBO - A counselor (Rachel Griffiths, "Six Feet Under") takes in a troubled teen (Jonan Everett) in this 2005 drama.

The House Next Door 9 p.m. Lifetime - Lara Flynn Boyle ("The Practice") stars in this suspense tale. (New)

Bowery Dish 9 p.m. Sundance Channel - The effect of gentrification on longtime residents of a New York City neighborhood is detailed in this documentary. (New)

100 Greatest Songs of the '80s 9 p.m. VH1 - This five-part series counts down the best songs of the 1980s with commentary from the artists who made them hits and the artists they inspired. (New)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 11 p.m. Comedy Central - Tonight through Thursday, Stewart and his correspondents are in Ohio to report on the midterm elections from a key battleground state. (New)
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TUESDAY:

Nova 8 p.m. KCET - "Monster of the Milky Way" examines evidence that black holes are more common than previously thought, and that one may actually lie right in the middle of our own galaxy. (New)

Exorcism: Driving Out the Devil 8 p.m. History Channel - This special probes the history of this mysterious and controversial religious practice. (New)

Law & Order: Criminal Intent 9 p.m. NBC - Liza Minnelli guest stars as a mother who was once a suspect in the murder of her young daughter on Halloween night in 1992. (New)

Frontline/World 9 p.m. KCET - The repressive rule of Myanmar's military regime is examined in "Burma: State of Fear." (New)

House 9 p.m. Fox - David Morse ("St. Elsewhere") begins a guest stint as a police officer whom House (Hugh Laurie) treats for an infection. (New)

25 Biggest Decorating Mistakes 9 p.m. HGTV - This special shows what not to do and how to correct the oopsies and do it right. (New)

Hi-Jinks 9:30 p.m. Nickelodeon - This kid-friendly hidden camera show presents a Halloween-themed episode. (New)

Criss Angel Mindfreak 10 p.m. A&E - The magician brings together assorted celebrities for a séance in an allegedly haunted Death Valley hotel. (New)

Caroline Rhea: Rhea's Anatomy 10 p.m. Bravo - In this special, one of three spotlighting female comics, Rhea jokes about dating, airport security and spotting a potential terrorist. (New)
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WEDNESDAY:

America's Next Top Model 8 p.m. CW - "The Girls Who Made It This Far" takes a look back at the season to date, with some footage you've seen and some you haven't. (New)

Hawaiian Monk Seals: Surviving Paradise 9 p.m. KCET - This special gets up close and personal with these appealing animals, who, despite having been on the endangered list for 30 years, remain on the brink of extinction. (New)

Sci Fi Investigates 10 p.m. Sci Fi Channel - What comes after life? An afterlife? The cable channel explores one of the greatest mysteries of all. (New)
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THURSDAY:

My Name Is Earl 8 p.m. NBC - Roseanne Barr guest stars as the obnoxious manager of Earl's (Jason Lee) trailer park. (New)

The OC 9 p.m. Fox - Season four of the hit teen drama gets underway. (New)

Hacking Democracy 9 p.m. HBO - If you still have concerns about the outcomes of the 2000 and 2004 elections, don't let anyone tell you to get over it. According to this disturbing documentary, it's easier than you might think to tamper with vote counts. (New)

Iconoclasts 9 p.m. Sundance Channel - Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and chef Alice Waters are featured. (New)

Joan Cusack's Local Flavor 9 p.m. Travel Channel - Greece is the word as the actress samples the sights, sounds, smells and flavors of that Mediterranean nation. (New)

Shark 10 p.m. CBS - "Drew Carey's" Diedrich Bader guest stars as an executive whose company may be responsible for a sweatshop fire that killed four. (New)

Making of an HGTV Design Star 11 p.m. HGTV - This four-part series chronicles "HGTV Design Star" winner David Bromstad's journey from reality show first-place finisher to host of his own design show. (New)
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FRIDAY:

Class of 3000 8 and 10 p.m. Cartoon Network - You grown-ups who aren't into cartoons should at least give this series a look, especially if you're into music. It's the creation of Andre "3000" Benjamin of OutKast. (New)

Shootout 8 p.m. History Channel - The hard-fought Battle of Iwo Jima is revisited in the season premiere. (New)

Law & Order 10 p.m. NBC - "SNL's" Chevy Chase guest stars as a drunken celebrity who makes racist comments after a traffic stop. (New)

Dogfights 10 p.m. History Channel - The great aerial encounters of the Korean War are detailed in the debut installment of this series. (New)
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SATURDAY:

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives 9 p.m. Food Channel - In this special, Guy Fieri takes the memory-lane route to sample the goods at old-school eateries around the country. (New)

Monarch Cove 9 p.m. Lifetime - Soap veteran Virginia Williams ("One Life to Live," "As the World Turns") stars in this series about a woman who returns to her hometown after serving six years for a murder she didn't commit. (New)

Casanova 9 p.m. Starz - Jake, he's just not that into you: Heath Ledger ("Brokeback Mountain") portrays the legendary ladies' man in this spirited 2005 costume drama. (New)

Totally Awesome 9 p.m. VH1 - Billed as a long-lost, recently discovered '80s teen flick, this made-for-TV comedy goes all out spoofing the conventions of the genre. (New)

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang 10 p.m. Cinemax - Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer star in writer-director Shane Black's snappy 2005 twist on the action-buddy formula.

Roseanne Barr: Blonde and Bitchin' 10 p.m. HBO - The comedian and longtime sitcom star returns to the stand-up stage. (New)

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-tv-highlights29oct29,0,2882314.htmlstory?coll=cl-tvent

Speaking of Roseanne...

TV Notebook
Barr having last laugh
HBO special on tap
By Lynn Elber AP/New York Daily News October 28, 2006

Roseanne Barr sings! And it's not the national anthem!

Warbling a personalized version of "My Way" at the end of her new HBO comedy special, she proclaims: "And as the baseball fans all watched, butchered that song and grabbed my crotch. Yes, I was loud, but I was proud, and did it my way."

This time, the audience is with her. In 1990, when she performed a sharply off-key rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a baseball game and included a couple of crass gestures, she was greeted by jeers and worse.

The ensuing controversy - was she mocking America or only trying to be funny? - derailed her professionally, she said, and made her fearful for her and her family's safety. It took until now to believe she could reinvigorate her career.

"I feel like I'm leaving a real period of struggle," she said as she prepared to mark her first standup special in a decade with HBO's "Roseanne Barr: Blonde and Bitchin'," debuting Nov. 4.

Politics, baby-boomer parenting and the times are the targets of Barr's bold and biting humor.

"I joke that I became a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew, so I joined the Jehovah's Witness protection program," she said of one bit that carries this message: "Don't let a politician tell you about God. I mean, how phony is that? Better stop and think a minute before we let it go there."

Barr, 54, also has a guest role Thursday on NBC's "My Name Is Earl," as a trailer-park manager. It's a sitcom she admires for its blue-collar perspective, something she says has been missing on TV since her series, "Roseanne," ended its 1988-97 run.

She has been largely absent from TV since, except for a short-lived talk show in 1998, a situation she blames on veritable "blacklisting." It doesn't take much prodding for her to describe the aftermath of her performance at the San Diego game, in which she included baseball-inspired spitting. Barr, who says she was aiming for laughs, instead drew the wrath of many.

The comedian believes she was made a target for more than a single incident.

"I felt for a long time they censored me because of the people that I spoke for. They didn't want to hear anything about working-class people in this country because they don't want to hear anything about class or minimum wage or what people like Roseanne and Dan Conner are going through," Barr said, referring to the couple she and John Goodman played on "Roseanne."

Feeling under siege, she retreated to her home and limited her comedy to small clubs. She also concentrated on making music DVDs for children.

Barr credits her public reemergence to a four-year relationship with musician-writer Johnny Argent. Barr also got a morale boost from filmmaker Michael Moore when she joined him in 2004 on a college tour aimed at getting out the vote in the presidential election. Performing in front of thousands of students, she felt a "reignited" passion for political humor.

World events played a part as well.

"After 9/11, I was not going to hide out or let fear stop me. That's kind of what the [HBO] special is about, don't let fear stop you," Barr said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/465902p-392030c.html

The New Season
Current Cancellation Casualties/Odds

The latest odds/cancellations on the next series to be cancelled (this week) from brilliantbutcancelled.com’s Death Watch ’06:

1. Twenty Good Years, NBC: On Coma
2. Runaway, CW: Cancelled
3. Smith, CBS: Cancelled
4. Kidnapped, NBC: On Coma
5. Happy Hour, Fox: On Coma
6. The Class, CBS: 3-1
7. Men in Trees, ABC: 4-1
8. Vanished, Fox: 8-1
9. The Knights of Prosperity, ABC: 12-1
10. Help Me Help You, ABC: 15-1

http://www.brilliantbutcancelled.com/deathwatch/

Fast National ratings for Friday, Oct. 27, 2006

The clinching game of the World Series gave FOX a ratings win Friday, but the series as a whole didn't do all that well.

FOX averaged an 8.7 rating/15 share for the night, easily topping second-place CBS' 7.1/12. NBC came in third with a 6.0/10. ABC, 4.9/8, took fourth, and The CW was fifth at 2.7/5.

In the adults 18-49 demographic, FOX led the way with a 4.0 rating. CBS, 3.0, finished second, followed by NBC at 2.8. ABC averaged 2.5 and The CW 1.4.

The World Series pre-game and the start of Game 5 delivered a 7.2/13 for FOX at 8 p.m., edging "Ghost Whisperer," 7.0/12, on CBS. NBC's "1 vs. 100" drew a 6.1/11 in its time-period debut. ABC's Halloween special "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" was fourth with a 4.6/8. "Friday Night Smackdown!" on The CW trailed.

FOX improved to 8.7/15 at 9 p.m. with its baseball coverage. "Close to Home," 7.1/12, held steady for CBS. The season premiere of "Las Vegas" rolled a 6.0/10 for NBC. "Men in Trees" kept ABC in fourth, and "Smackdown!" concluded with a 3.1/5 for The CW.

The World Series peaked at 10.2/17 at 10 p.m. as the St. Louis Cardinals closed out the Detroit Tigers, four games to one. Still, this is likely to go down as one of the lowest-rated (if not the lowest, period) World Series in TV history. Both CBS' "Numb3rs," 7.1/12, and NBC's "Law & Order," 6.0/10, stayed right in line with their lead-ins. ABC's "20/20" posted a 5.6/10.

# Ratings information is taken from fast national data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change, especially in the case of live telecasts.

Overnight Ratings
Cardinals Clinch Friday Win for FOX
World Series carries night easily
Zap2it.com October 28, 2006

Fast National ratings for Friday, Oct. 27, 2006

The clinching game of the World Series gave FOX a ratings win Friday, but the series as a whole didn't do all that well.

FOX averaged an 8.7 rating/15 share for the night, easily topping second-place CBS' 7.1/12. NBC came in third with a 6.0/10. ABC, 4.9/8, took fourth, and The CW was fifth at 2.7/5.

In the adults 18-49 demographic, FOX led the way with a 4.0 rating. CBS, 3.0, finished second, followed by NBC at 2.8. ABC averaged 2.5 and The CW 1.4.

The World Series pre-game and the start of Game 5 delivered a 7.2/13 for FOX at 8 p.m., edging "Ghost Whisperer," 7.0/12, on CBS. NBC's "1 vs. 100" drew a 6.1/11 in its time-period debut. ABC's Halloween special "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" was fourth with a 4.6/8. "Friday Night Smackdown!" on The CW trailed.

FOX improved to 8.7/15 at 9 p.m. with its baseball coverage. "Close to Home," 7.1/12, held steady for CBS. The season premiere of "Las Vegas" rolled a 6.0/10 for NBC. "Men in Trees" kept ABC in fourth, and "Smackdown!" concluded with a 3.1/5 for The CW.

The World Series peaked at 10.2/17 at 10 p.m. as the St. Louis Cardinals closed out the Detroit Tigers, four games to one. Still, this is likely to go down as one of the lowest-rated (if not the lowest, period) World Series in TV history. Both CBS' "Numb3rs," 7.1/12, and NBC's "Law & Order," 6.0/10, stayed right in line with their lead-ins. ABC's "20/20" posted a 5.6/10.

http://www.zap2it.com/tv/ratings/zap-ratings102706,0,1270407.story?coll=zap-tv-ratings-headlines

Something to keep in mind when you're settling in front of your new high definition TV set this Halloween weekend for a horror movie marathon.

TV Notebook
Extreme Makeovers
For Hollywood Makeup Artists, Glamour and Gore Are All in a Day's Work
By Holly E. Thomas The Washington Post October 29, 2006

Whether they're creating angels or demons, beauty queens or corpses, makeup artists attempt to work small miracles every day -- convincing viewers that their creations are real.

Sometimes, even the most veteran makeup artists get spooked by their handiwork, as Cindy Barlow did on the set of the Spike TV series "Blade."

"One episode I did had a boogeyman, and he had glowing contacts that showed up when he was hiding in the bushes," Barlow said. "To this day, I still get scared by that."

Other artists find that creating the real thing is much more disturbing.

"Doing fantasy stuff is very simple, and I'm not frightened by imaginary creatures," said Todd McIntosh, who was head makeup artist for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." "But it's a much more visceral thing to try to make someone's head look chopped off. Making a living person look dead is scarier for me."

Thanks to today's sophisticated audiences, makeup artists not only have to portray their subjects accurately, but also must make them look good on camera.

"These shows revolve around supernatural activity, and audiences these days are pretty jaded," McIntosh said. "Everyone has seen the making of 'The Lord of the Rings,' so they know what goes into this, and they expect top-notch special effects."

Barlow, head makeup artist for the upcoming ABC Family miniseries "Fallen," relies on her study of forensic pathology to make her creations credible.

"It comes in handy when I'm trying to show that someone is dead," Barlow said. "I have to consider how long they've been dead, or if they've been buried. Even the time of year is important."

For shows that focus on real-life scenarios, such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," makeup artists spend a large part of their time doing research. Attention to the human body and the decomposition process is what primarily distinguishes special-effects makeup from its cosmetic counterparts.

"When I'm changing someone's look to make them more beautiful, I focus on the eye color, eyebrows, teeth, ears and hair," said Matthew Mungle, prosthetic artist and head of makeup for "CSI." "But if you need someone to be disfigured, you need to do a lot of research and figure out how they should look and why they look that way."

Mungle, who also heads the makeup departments on the sets of "House," "NCIS" and "Justice," said a key element of good makeup is preparation. "If we need to do an [on-screen] autopsy, we use dummies for the ones that have been through more trauma," Mungle said. "We have a set of dummy bodies ready to go in our lab, and we just add a face cast of the actor to finish it off."

Despite makeup artists' hard work on set, their success is determined by what viewers at home see.

"You have to be able to see through the lens of a camera and know the right balance of details and general makeup," McIntosh said. "That ability to see what things look like in the medium that you're working in is most important."

Mungle agreed. "I actually think less blood makes for better makeup," he said. "Sometimes [producers] don't want us to use too much blood on TV, so we have to create wounds and use less blood than would actually be there. It really shows our artistry -- anyone can just throw blood on a set."

Makeup artists don't get the on-screen time their creations get, but their work can make or break a show, lending it a sense of reality or, worse, artifice.

"One of my characters went into the lunchroom with his full makeup on, and he was asked to leave because no one could eat," Barlow said proudly. "When people say, 'Oh my God, that's so scary,' then you know you've done a good job."

With HDTV, Making Up Is Harder to Do

The advent of high-definition television means makeup magicians must pay more attention to detail than ever before.

"When you do regular TV, you can get away with a lot more," said "Blade" makeup artist Cindy Barlow. "When I do high-definition shows, I treat it as a feature film, which means when I look into the mirror at an actor, that's what the camera will see."

"CSI's" Matthew Mungle thinks HDTV will force the industry to produce better artists. "You'll have to watch what you do more, watch how much paint and makeup you use, and be more artistic," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401232.html

The New Season
November sweeps in changes and premieres
By Gail Pennington The St. Louis Post Dispatch October 29, 2006

As the first big ratings sweeps period of the new season, November carries a lot of hopes. The four-week period, beginning Thursday and running through Nov. 29, provides a measure of viewership that local stations use to set advertising rates. For the broadcast networks, November sweeps is a make-or-break test for underperforming series. Getting yanked from the schedule during sweeps is not a hopeful sign for the future.

Sweeps months used to be full of big-event programming: lavish specials, high-ticket miniseries or at least a ripped-from-the-headlines movie or two. Today, the networks highlight their regular lineups. That doesn't mean sweeps aren't busy. Here's a Top 10 list of November sweeps highlights.

'Medium': back from the dead

Frantic fans wondered where the supernatural drama, starring Emmy winner Patricia Arquette as psychic Allison DuBois, had gone. NBC had slotted it for midseason, which came earlier than expected after "Kidnaped" failed. The two-hour season première features Thomas Jane, Arquette's husband, as an old beau of Allison's, now deceased but typically unaware of the fact (8 p.m. Nov. 15, on NBC).

Two new doctors in the house

It's TV, they always say, not brain surgery. But with "3 Lbs.," a new drama on CBS, the subject actually is brain surgery. In a "House" meets Dr. McDreamy scenario, Stanley Tucci plays a brilliant but clinical neurosurgeon, with Mark Feuerstein as his underling, who wants to get to know the person to whom the head belongs. "3 Lbs." (the weight of the human brain) takes over for the canceled "Smith" (9 p.m. Nov. 14, on CBS).

Enter 'Day Break,' exit 'Lost'

ABC's strategy for avoiding repeats of "Lost" calls for putting the thriller on hiatus after six episodes, with a return set for February. Its replacement is another thriller, this one featuring Taye Diggs in a "Groundhog Day" scenario: He's a police detective framed for shooting the state's attorney and reliving the fateful day over and over, changing his own actions each time (8 p.m. Nov. 15, on ABC).

A new made-for-TV movie — no, really

Since CBS dropped its Sunday night movie, the field has been left largely to cable. But here's a new "Hallmark Hall of Fame" drama, "Candles on Bay Street," from the novel by K.C. McKinnon ("Dancing at the Harvest Moon"). It is the story of a free-spirited single mother (Alicia Silverstone) who comes home to Maine, upsetting the life of her first love (Eion Bailey). Annabeth Gish and Polly Bergen also star. (8 p.m. Nov. 26, on CBS)

The return of 'The O.C.' (minus Marissa)

The fourth season begins with the Cooper-Cohen-Atwood gang all mourning Marissa (Mischa Barton), killed off in last season's finale. Ryan (Ben McKenzie) moves out of the Cohen house; Seth (Adam Brody) copes at home, minus Summer (Rachel Bilson), who's at Brown, "reinventing herself as a left-leaning, tree-hugging activist." By the way, the episode is already available online via Fox station websites, including KTVI's myfoxstl.com (8 p.m. Thursday on Fox).

Music, music

Admirers including Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Christina Aguilera salute a legend on his 80th birthday in the special "Tony Bennett: An American Classic." (7 p.m. Nov. 21, on NBC). The next night, Madonna arrives in prime time with her "Confessions Tour Live," which will not include some of her more controversial bits (8 p.m. Nov. 22, on NBC).

More music

Also on the schedule are "The 40th Annual CMA Awards" (7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 6, on CBS) and "The 2006 American Music Awards" (7 p.m. Nov. 21, on ABC).

And dancing

"Dancing With the Stars" wraps up its third season with more fans than ever (7 p.m. Nov. 15, on ABC).

Holiday happenings

"The Simpsons" flash back to Halloween for their 17th "Treehouse of Horror" special, pushed into November by postseason baseball (7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 5, on Fox). After Thanksgiving Day parades, "Christmas in Rockefeller Center" arrives (7 p.m. Nov. 29, on NBC).

Guest stars galore

Big names doing series drop-ins include Linda Blair ("The Exorcist") on "Supernatural" (Nov. 9 on the CW) and the Who's Roger Daltrey on "CSI," (Nov. 23 on CBS). Plus, "The Simpsons" (7 p.m. Sundays on Fox) has the voices of Kiefer Sutherland, Dr. Phil McGraw, McCaulay Culkin and more.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/columnists.nsf/gailpennington/story/37155185AD2AC0E586257215000222F3?OpenDocument

TV Notebook
'Sabado Gigante' stays big by design
By Laura Wides-Munoz AP/The Chicago Sun-Times October 27, 2006

MIAMI -- In the first sketch, the actors strip to their underwear. Then come the puma and alpaca. Cue the Tejano singers with the hip-hop dancers, then the Mexican pop rocker who's just done a TV movie with Disney. Finally, there's a surprise for an 11-year-old Honduran boy who sneaked across the U.S. border to find his mother -- he won't be deported.

And that's all before the first break in taping of "Giant Saturday" -- "Sabado Gigante" as it is known to its 100 million loyal viewers. Even non-Spanish speakers stop channel-surfing for a peek when they see the show's dapper host Don Francisco, his pompadour slick, his grin malleable and his flock of beauties always nearby.

Univision's three-hour variety show, which airs at 7 p.m. Saturdays on WGBO-Channel 66 in Chicago, marks 20 years in the United States this year and next year will hit 45 in Chile, where it originated. Yet those who would dismiss Don Francisco as a relic of the "Gong Show" era of television would be sorely mistaken.

Beneath the sardonic and buffoonish Don Francisco is his alter ego, the show's mastermind and creator, Chilean entertainer Mario Kreutzberger.

"Sabado Gigante" -- the world's longest-running variety show, according to the Guinness Book of Records -- has allowed Kreutzberger to do what no politician in America has been able to achieve -- create a space each Saturday evening that unites a wide swath of Hispanics across nationalities, cultures and even age and gender.

During this week's Tejano performance, older women in the audience stand and sway to the familiar beat. During alt-rocker Belinda's thrashing pop, the teens bust out. The "Baywatch" demographic stays for the sexy and multicultural babes, while the kids love the animal segments.

Born in Chile to Jewish parents who fled the Holocaust in Germany, Kreutzberger got his first taste of fame performing in the conservatory where his mother, a former opera singer, enrolled him.

"It was in the genes," he says.

Kreutzberger, 65, tried following the footsteps of his tailor-father, but fame kept beckoning. He began his first show in 1962 in Chile and in 1986 headed to Miami.

It is his ease at moving between identities -- Jewish, immigrant, Chilean, Hispanic -- that has helped him relate to so many cultures, as well as the immigrant experience of many of his fans.

"To be an immigrant is never easy in any part," Kreutzberger says. "It's not easy to adapt yourself to a new place, new food, new friends. I was a star in Chile, and I came here and for the first time I was working for a community that was the minority."

Kreutzberger has been criticized for his use of scantily clad models and has become more reserved since he settled a sexual harassment suit in 1994 with a former model. He maintains his innocence. He concedes that his wife of 44 years, Temy, has on occasion been jealous, but he is unapologetic about the show's dancers, saying simply, "I like half-naked girls."

He keeps his show fresh by staying up with the current political and cultural trends. His latest read: The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs, with a foreword by Bono.

But will current trends, and changes in his audience, leave his show behind?

During a recent kids-with-animals segment, he had to remind one youngster of the Spanish word for chicken.

Kreutzberger says he isn't fazed by the expansion of Spanish-language and bilingual networks or studies that suggest Hispanics in the United States increasingly prefer English.

"There will always be more [immigrants]. Even if they put up electric fences, or whatever else, there will be millions of people on the other side of the border who are living in worse conditions than they could live here."

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/television/113173,WKP-News-sabado27.article

In case you have missed any episode of 'Dexter' aired to date remember that tonight (10/28) Showtime is going to repeat the first four episodes from 8PM to midnight ET/PT, leading up to a brand-new episode tomorrow (10/29) at 10PM ET/PT.

The New Season
'Dexter' gnaws at viewer's sense of right and wrong
By Matthew Gilbert The Boston Globe October 26, 2006

Recently, conservative watchdog L. Brent Bozell attacked the warm critical response to the Showtime series "Dexter" in a column. "Media tastemakers," he wrote, may be a "menace to society" for praising the "moral confusion" of this tale of a Miami serial killer who only kills serial killers.

But, four episodes into "Dexter," I'm finding the show increasingly exciting exactly because it so effectively challenges our judgment of good and bad. I'm feeling even more menacing to society than before, and invite you to co-menace with me by enjoying a drama that, along with "Weeds," "Brotherhood," and "Sleeper Cell," finds Showtime continuing to approach HBO. Now's the time to catch up with this rich series, particularly if you have On Demand; otherwise you'll be fated to power-watch when it appears on DVD.

As "Dexter" explores Dexter's personality each week, it further expands TV's morally gray areas into so many new shades of cloud, ash, silver, and slate. The show is a younger and more handsome cousin to other top-notch series famous for their morally complex leads, including "The Sopranos," "The Shield," and "Rescue Me." Dexter (Michael C. Hall ) is vile and indefensible as he murders bad guys, and yet Dexter, so loyal and humble and charming, is also the classic boy next door.

What could have been a trite concept -- vigilante justice -- has grown into a fascinating Rubik's Cube that forces viewers to twist out their own moral solution. "Dexter" is experiential TV, as we are left to reconcile our affection for Dexter with the brutality of his acts. There's no convenient dictum served to us on a platter in this series, as it would have been on, say, "Dragnet." The writers and producers, including James Manos Jr. of "The Sopranos," are inviting you to -- brace yourself, Mr. Bozell -- think and feel on your own.

On the one hand, Dexter is revealed as a contemporary superhero to admire -- sans spandex, which would not do amid Gold Coast trendiness. By day he is a Clark Kent-like blood-spatter expert for the police. He's a mild-mannered anchor for his cop sister, Debra, and his troubled girlfriend, Rita. By night he secretly tracks killers -- of children, of hospital patients -- with a controlled fury. When he finds a murdering immigrant-smuggler next week, his response is Batman-like disgust and decisive action. Dexter does not commit crimes of passion; he carefully proves his victims' guilt, drapes his crime scenes in plastic wrap, dismembers bodies, and methodically disposes of them. Like Jack Bauer on " 24," he goes outside the law to uphold the law, and yet it's easy to root for him.

The superhero motif extends into Dexter's back story, as we see flashbacks of him with his adoptive father, also a cop. The scenes have the mythic aura of Superman and Jor-El, with dad teaching young Dexter to use his skills for a social good. His skill , of course, is the ability to feel nothing, the result of a mysterious early trauma. He is a Man of Steel, emotionally speaking. But his father, Harry, played by James Remar , has instilled standards in him, and he exterminates only vermin. As on NBC's excellent "Heroes," we see a person with unnatural powers being tamed and directed toward usefulness.

The show invites us to bond closely with Dexter as we would to Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man. We overhear Dexter's innermost insecurities, as he talks in an intimate voice-over about the "mask" he wears to look like a normal person. "I don't know what made me the way I am," he says, "but whatever it was left a hollow place inside. People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all. And that's my burden, I guess." There's something sympathetic about his existential crisis, as he places himself outside humanity. We know he's an unreliable narrator, that his acute self-consciousness is really quite common. But he feels lost and alone, which is touching.

On the other hand -- and you knew this was coming -- Dexter is not just a superhero. He's a cold-blooded killer who takes the law into his own hands, a one-man system who convicts and punishes criminals to death. The moment he captures the evil smuggler next week, Dexter mutters, "God bless America" into the man's ear, as if he is a Constitution-loving patriot. He's not. He drugs his prey, ties them to a table, and makes them confess. He's extremely neat as he exacts his capital punishment, but if he's fussy like Tony Shalhoub's Monk, he's also as ruthless and disturbed as Hannibal Lecter .

A lot of TV shows tell you they're morally complex; this show makes you feel the ambiguity from start to finish. Indeed, even the opening credits of "Dexter" are a little masterpiece of coy insinuation and uncertainty, as the camera gives us close-up shots of our hero's morning routine. A razor on skin, a drop of blood, breakfast ham, a dash of Worcestershire -- are they images of innocence and daylight? Or are they sinister and beastly preparations?

You'll have to decide for yourself.

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/10/26/dexter_gnaws_at_viewers_sense_of_right_and_wrong/

The third week episode of Battlestar Galactica got a 1.5 final rating.

The 1.4 was based on overnights.

Could I have a link to that 1.5 rating figure Ross, please? The people at the tv.com 'Galactica' boards are hounding me for links ever since I broke the news to them that their beloved show is performing poorly (versus its own ratings last season) and are threatening me with expulsion if I don't provide proof of my blasphemy. :rolleyes:

TV Notebook
O'Reilly, Letterman renew confrontation
By David Bauder AP/San Jose Mercury News October 28, 2006

NEW YORK - Bill O'Reilly walked out for his appearance on David Letterman's "Late Show" with a plastic shield. He could have used it.

"That's cute, that's nice," Letterman said on Friday night's show. "You come out with toys."

Letterman and the Fox News Channel talk show host renewed their prickly confrontation from January, when Letterman told him "I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap."

Before O'Reilly even came out, Letterman made his feelings clear.

"I'm secretly hoping when Bill O'Reilly comes out here, I'll have the opportunity to call him a bonehead," Letterman said.

They discussed the Iraq war and the upcoming midterm election, with O'Reilly saying that Americans are depressed by the progress of the Iraq War, and that they'd rather watch escapist entertainment like "Dancing with the Stars" than the news.

He asked Letterman: "Are you going to be on `Dancing with the Stars'?"

"Ha ha," Letterman said. "You bonehead."

Letterman said that like many Americans, he was so angered in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that he wanted to strike out, and didn't oppose the Iraq War at its beginning. As time has gone on, he said he has realized that was wrong.

Asked by O'Reilly whether he wanted the Americans to win the war, Letterman said he wanted a solution that would result in the least loss of American lives.

As part of their confrontation, O'Reilly said Letterman was guilty of oversimplifying a complicated situation.

"You're putting words in my mouth," he told Letterman at one point.

"You're putting artificial facts in your head," Letterman responded.

O'Reilly didn't get angry with Letterman during his appearance, although at one point he told an apparent heckler in the audience to "knock it off." He told the audience that he and Letterman were really friends. "This whole thing is a big act," he said.

Letterman never agreed with him.

"I have no idea what I'm talking about," Letterman said. "But I don't think you do, either."

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/15873684.htm/

Could I have a link to that 1.5 rating figure Ross, please? The people at the tv.com 'Galactica' boards are hounding me for links ever since I broke the news to them that their beloved show is performing poorly (versus its own ratings last season) and are threatening me with expulsion if I don't provide proof of my blasphemy. :rolleyes:
Sure, no problem.

Season Three ratings slip from premiere (http://www.gateworld.net/galactica/news/2006/10/season_three_ratings_slip_from_premiere.shtml)

And the 1.4 (which as I said was the fast national rating) was originally reported here. (http://savestargatesg1.com/news/?p=455)

I should also note the following, which CP95 talked about a few pages back; the Live + 7 days rating. This one pertains to the premiere a few weeks back, but the same might be happening with recent episodes.

Galactica's premiere night got a noticable bump from DVR delayed viewing, with a "Live + 7 Days" rating of 2.0. (This is even with the show's second season finale in March.) Though an impressive increase and evidence of the show's Tivo-loving audience, note that this does not cancel out the 1.8 rating of "Live + Same Day," the number is regarded as more significant to advertisers.

The New Season
Current Cancellation Casualties/Odds

The latest odds/cancellations on the next series to be cancelled (this week) from brilliantbutcancelled.com’s Death Watch ’06

and just to clarify to everyone how isn't playing the Deathwatch game ... those odds are based on the votes of the site visitors only. And only a small portion of those voters read this thread to have an actual idea of how healthy those shows are. :)

This article is a week old (it came out before last Monday's episode) but its yet another 'Studio 60' intervention piece, this one from a left-leaning political site. Funny how everyone thinks they can improve the show by pointing out the obvious.

The New Season
Can Studio 60 Be Saved?
Aarok Sorkin's Sermonizing Sketch Comedy
By Dan Koits Slate.com October 23, 2006

What, exactly, is wrong with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? The new NBC drama from Aaron Sorkin, who created the much-loved West Wing, is underperforming: It lost a third of its premiere audience by the third week. Some critics have suggested that the show is too smart, or too inside baseball. But Studio 60's real problem is structural. The show, which is set behind the scenes of a live network sketch show (also called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), must be a brilliant hour-long drama and a brilliant sketch comedy. And so far, the sketch comedy hasn't been satisfying.

It's not just that the sketches aren't funny, although they're not. Take the third episode's centerpiece: a game-show parody called "Science Schmience," in which fundamentalists of all stripes—an Orthodox Jew, a Taliban member, an evangelical Christian, Tom Cruise, and a witch—attempt to refute science with faith. In premise, it's promising, if cluttered (that's a lot of yahoos on one stage). In practice, though, it's painful. To the evangelical, who's just claimed that life began 6,000 years ago, the game show's host pronounces: "You understand that archaeologists are in possession of a 3 million-year-old skull found by Johannesburg, which would put your answer off by 2,994,000 years." Yeah, it sounds about as funny as it reads.

However, these ham-handed sketches wouldn't be so problematic if Sorkin hadn't set Studio 60 up as a call to arms for quality TV. In the series pilot, the variety show's executive producer Wes Mendell has a breakdown, live and on the air: "This show used to be cutting-edge political and social satire," he fumes. "But it's gotten lobotomized by a candy-assed broadcast network hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge the audience." By the end of the episode, he's been fired, but the new network president (who thinks Mendell is right) has brought in a genius writer/director team determined to improve the show. When you begin your series with a soliloquy on the maladies of television, you're offering yourself up as the cure. And you're promising your audience that not only your show but also your show-within-a-show will be exemplary.

The show-within-a-show is a venerable dramatic form—ask the rude mechanicals in A Midsummer Night's Dream—but it's rarely called upon to set a good example: Most often, such productions are goofs, meant merely to provide gags that punctuate the primary plot. This tradition has held true on television, where programs from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Murphy Brown to Frasier to NBC's other fake-SNL show, 30 Rock, have played their embedded shows for laughs. (Think of Frasier offering droll advice to a lovelorn caller at an episode's opening, only to go home to the personal complication that kicks the episode into gear.) Even The Larry Sanders Show, whose lead, played by Garry Shandling, was occasionally proclaimed the best talk-show host on TV, didn't present its show-within-a-show as exceptional—instead, it came off as the naturally flawed but interesting result of flawed but interesting professionals doing their jobs.

Sorkin's previous foray into TV about TV, Sports Night, didn't exhibit the reformer's ethos demonstrated by Studio 60. The setting, behind the scenes of a SportsCenter-type highlight show, served only as a generic high-energy, high-pressure crucible to drive the episode-by-episode action of the series; you never got the impression that Aaron Sorkin had strong feelings about how Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann were doing their jobs. Curiously, it's Sorkin's success with The West Wing that may be responsible for his sermonizing approach; on that show, he offered up his brand of political theater as superior to that of real politicians in the real world. Whatever your politics, you had to admit that the speeches on The West Wing were the political speeches of your dreams.

So, what does Aaron Sorkin think is the sketch comedy of your dreams? What's his idea of "cutting-edge political and social satire" that challenges the audience? "Pimp My Trike," starring a blinged-out D.L. Hughley, and sketches poking fun at such timely and relevant superstars as Nicolas Cage and Juliette Lewis.

And Sorkin makes it even harder for himself when he forces his wan sketches to provide the dramatic payoff to episodes of Studio 60. The second episode, "The Cold Open," follows Matthew Perry's character, Matt Albie, as he struggles to come up with a dynamite opening for his first show back on Studio 60. His solution? A light-orchestra version of "The Major-General's Song." Leave aside the absurd notion that Sorkin thinks Gilbert and Sullivan are hip. Leave aside, as well, the fact (pointed out by Entertainment Weekly's Scott Brown, among others) that Saturday Night Live featured a parody of "The Major-General's Song" in 1995. Just imagine you tune in to Studio 60 the week after Wes Mendell's now-legendary on-air tirade, eager to see how the show deals with this momentous event. And you get ... a Gilbert and Sullivan song? With no mention of Wes Mendell's freakout? Filled with glib lines like, "To bite the hand that feeds you is a scary way of doing lunch," sung too quickly to be understood? To close the Studio 60 episode "The Cold Open" with this fussy and unfunny song—a close meant to be uplifting, climactic, ennobling even—hamstrings the episode and Sorkin's entire series.

Sorkin's already hired SNL and Kids in the Hall vet Mark McKinney to oversee Studio 60's sketch comedy, and it's unclear how much McKinney has contributed thus far. But maybe Sorkin should give McKinney more control over the sketches. It's telling that of all the Studio 60 skits we've seen, the only one that made me laugh was a brief midmontage glimpse of a sketch skewering overenthusiastic Tiger Woods fans. Two loudly dressed golf aficionados, one skinny, one fat, stand in the gallery making fools of themselves. "Get in the hole!" hollers the fat one, and I admit it: I cracked up. On SNL, that sketch would have gotten stale halfway through its eight minutes. But Aaron Sorkin has a golden opportunity on Studio 60—he doesn't have to fill 90 minutes a week with laughs. So, if McKinney can help him come up with 10 minutes of good material a week, the show will improve.

When he dreamed up Studio 60, Sorkin may not have understood how hard it is to write a great and funny sketch. Some of the best sketch writers in the world work for Saturday Night Live, and they usually can only come up with one or two good ones a week. It is certainly not Sorkin's strong suit: Sketch-writing requires economy, playfulness, and a complete lack of self-importance. Above all, you can't be afraid to sacrifice elegance—or the moral high ground—for a laugh.

http://www.slate.com/id/2151608/?GT1=8702

TV Notebook
Don’t Touch That Dial
By Bill Carter The New York Times October 29, 2006

IN every television season some new lesson about the American audience is imparted. This season’s lesson was clear within the first weeks of the fall: you can ask people to commit only so many hours to intense, dark, intricately constructed serialized dramas, to sign huge chunks of their lives away to follow every minuscule plot development and character tic both on the air and on Internet sites crowded with similarly addicted fanatics.

Ask for more and you will get what happened to every network this fall. “The Nine” got low numbers. “Vanished” was banished. “Kidnapped” went unransomed. “Smith” was swift-kicked. “Runaway” sounded like a command.

“The message we received was that people have strains on their lives,” said Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment. “People are saying, ‘I’ve got my handful of shows like this, and I don’t want more.’ ”

Or as Kevin Lubarsky, a recent Villanova University graduate who has relocated to Los Angeles, put it one recent afternoon: “Sundays you’ve got football. Then you’ve got a couple of these serialized shows. You can’t spend your life watching television.”

Inspired by the tremendous popularity of “Lost,” a program that is as hard to follow as it is to produce, the networks this fall introduced no fewer than 10 similarly demanding serialized dramas (and even a couple of comedies). Mr. Reilly was genuinely excited about the prospects for “Kidnapped,” NBC’s series about the abduction of a wealthy New York family’s scion. The show had high production values and an exceptional cast, including Jeremy Sisto, Delroy Lindo, Dana Delany and Timothy Hutton.

It had three chances on Wednesday nights before being exiled to the wastes of Saturday night, where it is expected to die a quiet, premature death. Writers will try to wrap up the story in 13 episodes instead of the 22 that were planned.

“Smith” won’t even get that minimally dignified exit. The CBS series, about a ruthless gang of master thieves, also had an impressive cast, headed by Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen. But it was expunged from existence after just three episodes. If you want to know what happened to those characters, you’ll just have to use your imagination. They will forever be suspended in midstory.

Similarly, will we ever know what “The Nine,” ABC’s drama about characters held hostage in a bank robbery, was supposed to add up to? It has the built-in advantage of following directly after “Lost,” but in its first four outings, it has frittered away an enormous number of viewers. That’s even more than “Invasion,” the serialized drama that last year tried to march into viewers’ homes on the heels of “Lost.”

The prospect of devoting time and passion to a show only to see it cut off, like a movie snapping in half in midprojection, has made a lot of viewers feel commitment-phobic this season.

Mary Beth Fay, a high school teacher from Round Hill, Va., has been a faithful fan of serialized shows like “Lost” and “Prison Break” from the beginning of their runs. And she was willing to try a few more entries this season.

But she said the demands on her time and concerns about cancellation sent her fleeing from some of the shows, like “Six Degrees,” ABC’s serial about intersecting events involving six New York strangers. “I decided not to stick with that one because it wasn’t being very successful in the ratings. It’s not worth watching a show if you’re not going to get the story completed on the air.”

Other viewers learned that lesson the hard way — by committing themselves to a show, only to be left at the altar a few episodes later. They tend to be bitter. Writing on the Web site misguidedthoughts.com, someone using the name Runaway Fan” lamented the injustice of it all: “They could have at least let us see the rest of the season instead of getting us hooked and then dropping it.”

It may be the network itself that pays the greatest price. On the same site, a fan named Jasmine wrote, “I’m not watching the CW at all anymore.”

Dana Walden, president of the 20th Century Fox Television studio, said: “What the audience seems to be saying is: ‘Enough. We can’t get involved with more of these.’ ”

Logically this result should have been expected. But logic often runs aground in the offices of television executives who endlessly try to anticipate the future by repeating the past. Or, as Preston Beckman, executive vice president for entertainment for the Fox network, put it, “In this business we always overcompensate.”

It all started six years ago with “24,” the first of the you’ve-got-to-see-it-every-week dramas built around a single, suspense-laden, seasonlong storyline. The show, which appeared on Fox, became a hit in the United States and abroad, and even validated the emerging business of sales of DVD’s of entire seasons of series.

ABC raised the stakes two years ago with “Lost,” which became a bigger sensation than “24.” And viewers of “Lost” don’t even get a resolution at the end of the season. They commit themselves to the show knowing that it will tease and confuse them for the entire length of its run.

Fox expanded the genre last year by adding “Prison Break,” a less spectacular but still solid hit that also told a continuing story.

Viewers were watching three of these densely plotted novelized series, and they were watching them with the kind passion network executives and program creators craved.

Soon Hollywood talent agencies, where writers first kick around concepts for shows, and studio and network development offices, where programs are pitched every year, were filled with what Ms. Walden called “big, hooky ideas” for more shows that would stir the same passions.

“It did sort of filter into the ether,” she said. “We were all having conversations about event drama, and all an event drama is is a serialized drama.”

Part of the appeal was the chance to take on a new kind of challenge. “It’s difficult to get creative people not to want to do this kind of show,” Mr. Beckman said. “After you do 15 cop dramas, you get resistance to do more of them.”

HANK STEINBERG already had the best kind of creative credentials when he walked into network offices ready to pitch his idea for “The Nine.” He had created a hit series in the CBS procedural drama “Without a Trace,” one of the many successful hourlong shows that tell a complete story each week. He was looking to branch out creatively.

“I wanted to do a serialized show after doing a closed-ended, episodic series,” Mr. Steinberg said. He was aware of “24” and “Lost,” he said, and how addicted viewers were to them, though he himself was not hooked.

But he and his co-creator, his sister K. J. Steinberg, wanted a more realistic series, without any supernatural plot twists. “We wanted the event to have a mundane quality to it,” Mr. Steinberg said. “A sense of randomness.”

The plan was to tell the story of a hostage crisis and the trauma it caused, but to tell it in flashbacks as the characters’ lives moved forward. How exactly this was going to translate into many years of episodes had not been completely worked out, Mr. Steinberg said. Maybe, he said, “we would propel Season 2 by a new series of events; we might not even be mentioning the bank.”

In essence, the idea for “The Nine” was a big premise to a single story, something you might see unfolding in two hours in a theater.

“It was more like a movie about a bank robbery, and by the end of the season you would see how that worked out,” Mr. Steinberg said.

For some critics of this year’s serial dramas, that was part of the problem. Many of the season’s new serial dramas seemed much more like ideas for movies than for extended television series.

A poster named GregB on the Metacritic Web site (metacritic.com) said he was reluctant to commit to “The Nine” after seeing the pilot. “Watching the pilot made me feel like I was reading a book and missing chapter 2-10, and then had all the characters talk about all those chapters,” he wrote. “I feel like I’m being teased.”

One senior network entertainment executive, who spoke anonymously because his own network had put on several of the shows in question, said: “You have this problem with these shows. If you don’t give people enough information about the main plot every week, they get antsy and want to quit. And if you give them too much information, you start to ruin the suspense. So you wind up with a lot of deliberate confusion. And confusion is death for shows like this.”

Another problem is that with such intricate plots, these shows are much more difficult to join in progress. Three episodes in, the audience for “Kidnapped” was dropping. Even if the network could attract more viewers, how could they follow the action if they had already missed the first three hours?

After the first season of “24,” the decision-makers at Fox were torn over whether the show’s gimmick — one story told over 24 hours in real time — should be maintained. Some said its second season should have a new format, where each episode would cover a self-contained 24-hour period. That would have made the series far less risky, more repeatable and utterly ordinary.

But it might have ended up that way save for one thing: DVD sales. The first season was in stores, and it was selling well. That gave Fox hope, and the original model was retained.

Now, Ms. Walden said, those elements are crucial parts of the formula for how to get a new serialized drama made. “At the studio we first check with our international sales and home entertainment departments before we go ahead.”

None of that really matters, of course, if the show doesn’t last. If a show can’t get by 3 or 6 or even 13 episodes, no DVD will get made, and the international broadcasters will be left as much in the lurch as the viewers.

That would seem to argue for networks to be as patient as possible with serialized shows. But, as Mr. Reilly noted, network executives get assailed for “having itchy trigger fingers” while also facing almost instant declarations in the news media that a new show is a flop and needs to be yanked from the schedule.

Patience is just one lesson the networks have been struggling to learn. Bob Wright, the chairman of NBC, said he learned another from his own wife: don’t schedule a show about a child’s kidnapping at 10 p.m., right before every mother in America goes to bed.

That pitfall extends to the whole premise of a series with dark and scary overtones. Some sense of uplift is needed in most of the episodes, several executives said, or viewers will feel a chill and walk away.

Another lesson is to find some way to increase the audience for a show if it demonstrates promise — and find it as quickly as possible. That’s why some shows — like “24” and “Prison Break” — have run “marathons” of multiple episodes in a single night to hook viewers who might be curious but reluctant to dive in midstream. In addition, replays available on network Web sites the next day are intended to ensure that early fans aren’t left adrift just because they had to attend a wedding or birthday party.

EVEN when serialized shows do become hits, they face challenges that conventional shows do not. They never repeat successfully, for one thing, making it crucial to attract big first-run audiences and strong DVD sales.

And holding onto huge ratings year after year is difficult. That seems increasingly to be the case with the genre’s biggest hit so far, “Lost.” Now in just its third season, the show has seen its ratings fall more than 25 percent. While those numbers are still exceptionally good, ratings tend to increase for almost every conventional hit drama in the third season. It appears that new viewers are unwilling to join “Lost” at this point because the story is so far along and so convoluted that it would take weeks of DVD viewing to catch up.Given all the risks, and all the failure early this season, serialized dramas might be expected to be at a saturation point, or worse — at the point when a creator walks into a network office to pitch a serialized drama and quickly gets ushered out of the building.

Some of that may already be happening. Ms. Walden described a new wave of ideas landing at the feet of drama developers this year. “We’re hearing an awful lot of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ in the corporate world, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ in a lawyer world.”

Even so, the door to serialized drama has not been completely closed. No one in the television business has overlooked the outstanding new hit of the fall season: “Heroes” on NBC. The convoluted, dense story of a group of people suddenly imbued with supernatural powers is straight out of the “Lost” playbook. And it is grabbing viewers and getting them to sign on for the long ride.

“Regardless of how saturated the landscape might be,” Ms. Walden said, “there’s always room for another great show.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/arts/television/29cart.html?pagewanted=1&ref=arts/

TV Notebook
Back as host, but it's a whole new reality
Former MTV VJ Kennedy returns as host of "Reality Remix."
By Mary McNamara The Los Angeles Times October 29, 2006

IN a Burbank television studio, fame is being redefined, once again.

At the center of the action is a dark-haired woman with a pretty, clear-skinned face and a multi-octave voice that seems intent on rendering this, and most things, slightly ironic. She is Kennedy, host of the year-old "Reality Remix," a show on Fox Reality evenings at 8:30 that encapsulates the latest developments on reality shows from "America's Next Top Model" to "Survivor" as well as providing postmortem interviews with the freshly axed.

And on a recent Monday, she was seeking to expand her portfolio.

"Can I get the 'Survivor' castoffs this year?" she asks a publicist from Fox. "I totally need to get the 'Survivor' castoffs this year."

The publicist allows that this might be a possibility, though she warns that Kennedy would have to wait until the appropriate show had aired and the winner became public.

"They don't know," says the publicist quickly. "Oh, they do," Kennedy says. "I mean they call each other up and say 'I totally voted for you' and they figure it out." Finally noticing the woman's darkening expression, Kennedy takes the animation level down a notch.

"Well, they shouldn't," she says, looking serious, like a very stern kindergarten teacher. "They certainly shouldn't." Then she ducks her head, her face sporting the original grinning mischief, her voice dropped to a cartoon whisper: "But they do."

Although no one can claim to have entertained a lifelong ambition to host a reality TV recap show, Kennedy comes pretty close. Having made her name as an MTV VJ — the pushy one in the geek girl glasses who supported Bob Dole and Dan Quayle — the former Lisa Kennedy Montgomery is all about pop culture. The glasses are still there, though a bit softer in their lines, as are the politics — at 34, Kennedy remains a registered Republican but considers herself a libertarian rather than a conservative. "I am certainly not an excited member of the Republican Party," she says. "These are not my people."

She is, however, shameless in her love of reality TV. "You can't escape reality, and why would you try" is her tag line, and her enthusiasm for the various players of the various TV shows could not be conjured from even the pithiest script.

"I'm pretty sure that's what got me this job," she says. "Because I know they interviewed all sorts of great people but I truly love reality TV. Madly. Deeply."

Why?

"The unpredictability of the human condition," she says with wide eyes and an exaggerated shrug. "You just can't beat it."

That unpredictability extends long after the shows are over. As reality TV increases in longevity and in share, an underclass of minor celebrities teems just below the radar of major media outlets. And often their first stop is "Reality Remix."

And therein lies a problem. Because as the years and shows mount, simple mathematics dictates that the probability of another blockbuster à la "American Idol" or "Survivor" has diminished. "The pie is getting larger, the pieces are getting smaller," Kennedy says.

As someone who moves among those who are so last season, Kennedy sees the effect even 13 weeks can have. "It is really hard for some of them to let go," she says. "They get agents or publicists who book them on local talk shows or college campuses or whatever and they think it will last forever, but it doesn't. It can't."

Having experienced the vagaries of New Order Fame — 30 years ago, there was no such thing as a video jockey, much less a former video jockey — Kennedy feels their pain. During her five years at MTV, she says, she waited for someone to offer her a fabulous show of her own. But in 1997, her then-boyfriend and now-husband, professional snowboarder Dave Lee, broke his back. During his recovery, the two decided she should leave MTV anyway. They moved to Seattle, where she got a gig as a radio talk show host.

Some of the winners and even some contestants of the entertainment-themed shows do go on to make ripples in their respective industries; others cling to the subculture that has arisen in the wake of so much nonstop reality, attempting to get on other shows, or special editions of other shows, sometimes at "Reality Remix."

"We have used some contestants as correspondents," Kennedy says, "and we've had some try out for hosting jobs. But though hosting may look easy, it actually is a skill you have to train for."

Six years ago, she and her husband moved back to L.A. after Kennedy got a development deal with 20th Century Fox Television to do a daily talk show, as well as an Internet talk show.

"It seemed so great; what could go wrong?" Well, the former fell through and the latter quickly ran out of money. So she took the opportunity to get her college degree in philosophy — "for a while there I was convinced I would become a professional philosopher. I mean, arguing is what I do best" — and have a baby.

Daughter Pele was born two weeks after she received her diploma in 2005 and motherhood put the thought of becoming the next Immanuel Kant pretty much out of her mind.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-kennedy29oct29,1,6251539.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews&ctrack=1&cset=true

TV Notebook
His Pointed Looks Speak Louder Than Punch Lines
By Joe Rhodes The New York Times October 29, 2006

IN the same way that droughts are often followed by plagues of locusts, the unrelenting wave of tawdry, low-budget and frequently cringe-inducing “reality” and “celebrity competition” television shows — your “Dancing With the Stars” or “Surreal Life” or “Bachelor: Rome” (and pretty much anything featuring Tyra Banks or a former cast member of “Saved by the Bell”) — has led to a secondary wave of even lower-budgeted television shows whose sole purpose is to make fun of them. It’s a growth industry.

The race is on to see who can become the celebrity gossip/pop culture equivalent of Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show.” VH1 has its “Best Week Ever,” with a rotating collection of stand-up comedians; Comedy Central has “The Showbiz Show With David Spade”; and ABC has Jimmy Kimmel, who highlights clips of the day’s most jaw-dropping television moments, usually including whatever inappropriate remark Rosie O’Donnell made on “The View.”

But the sharpest knives may belong to “The Soup,” which has as its host the actor-comedian Joel McHale. The show, on E!, is a fast-paced but charmingly casual half-hour compendium of awful talk shows, atrocious celebrity behavior and just plain weird bits of video madness taken from network reality series, obscure shopping channels, Spanish-language telenovelas, Japanese game shows, twisted children’s programming or any other mockable source the producers can get their hands on.

In recent weeks, viewers of “The Soup” (which has new episodes every Friday and reruns them throughout the week) have been treated to segments about the apparent reconciliation of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie; Madonna’s efforts to adopt a child from Malawi; Megan Mullally on her talk show singing about her breasts; the inevitable clips from “Survivor,” “Project Runway” and “Flavor of Love”; and Teri Hatcher’s disastrous appearance on James Lipton’s “Inside the Actors Studio.”

“Hey,” Mr. McHale remarked, “it looks like she annoyed the sycophant right out of him.”

“The Soup,” on the air since July 2004, went relatively unnoticed until the last few months, when its ratings started to climb. It’s now the third-highest-rated show on E!, right behind “The Girls Next Door” and “The Simple Life,” two of its favorite objects of mockery.

Its success results in no small part from Mr. McHale. Tall (6-foot-4) and lanky, with the face of a mischievous choirboy, he manages to deliver the snarkiest of lines without seeming malicious, getting as much reaction from “What the heck was that?” facial expressions as from his comments, no matter how pointed they might be.

When Lindsay Lohan reported that her purse had been stolen at a London airport, Mr. McHale noted, “They have not determined what, if anything, is missing, although authorities suspect it’s a strong male role model.”

Over lunch one recent Friday, still exhausted from a late-night Thursday taping at E!’s bare-bones one-camera studio (located just across from the lovely and occasionally fragrant La Brea Tar Pits), he explained his philosophy of snark. “If there’s no fun in it and a slight bit of truth,” he said, “then you’re just being a jerk to be a jerk.

“I don’t want the show to ever be too mean or too much about potty humor, because that would be easy to do. We make fun of celebrities, but only if they’re asking for it. We’re not ever going to go, ‘Where the hell is that Daniel Day-Lewis?’ But Lindsay Lohan breaking her wrist at a party, that’s fair game.”

Making fun of Paris Hilton is not exactly the pathway to stardom Mr. McHale had envisioned for himself. Born in Rome in 1971 (his father was dean of students at Loyola University’s Rome campus), he spent his early childhood in New Jersey and his adolescent years in Mercer Island, Wash., a Seattle suburb. A successful athlete and amateur performer, he turned down a theater scholarship at Santa Clara University and instead went to the University of Washington, where he was a history major. He started on a rowing scholarship but switched to football.

After completing the master’s program in acting at the University of Washington and working as a member of the Seattle improv troupe Almost Live, he moved to Los Angeles in 2000 with his wife, Sarah. (They now have a 2-year-old son.) He had a run of successful if small parts: appearances on “Will & Grace” and “CSI,” a scene as a snotty banker in “Spider-Man 2,” lots of work in commercials.

When he auditioned for an E! show then called “The What the? Awards,” Mr. McHale thought of it as a momentary diversion from his acting career, a chance to “do some sketches and be on TV for a half-hour a week, not a bad showcase.”

And not a bad fit. “He’s got a certain kind of charm that makes people want to hang with him,” said K. P. Anderson, the head writer and producer. “When he gets the Eddie Haskell thing going on, it’s pretty amazing.”

Ted Harbert, the president of E!, agrees. “Because he comes from an acting background,” Mr. Harbert said, “he knows when to go big and broad and when to be laser-sharp and smart. He knows that sometimes it’s just as funny to pause and look at the camera as it is to say something.”

Mr. Anderson says that Mr. McHale is almost always the final arbiter of whether a joke is too mean-spirited and, when there’s any doubt, invariably goes with a gentler version. Still, not everyone appreciates getting jabbed. Tyra Banks has been known to complain about the shots taken at her, and just a few weeks ago Hugh Hefner voiced his displeasure, too. Introducing a clip from Mr. Hefner’s E! reality show, which chronicles the adventures of Mr. Hefner and three much younger girlfriends, Mr. McHale had said, “If you don’t get enough football on a Sunday afternoon, flip over to E! and watch ‘the girls next door’ pass around an old piece of leather.”

Mr. Hefner’s hurt feelings aside, “The Soup” continues to tee off regularly on all of E!’s programming, including almost weekly shots at Ryan Seacrest, the network’s highest-paid personality. “Here’s Ryan Seacrest and Tyra Banks playing ‘Lady and the Tramp,’ ” Mr. McHale said, introducing a clip several weeks ago. “You figure out which is which.”

Nor is there immunity for the gone-on-to-bigger-things roster of former hosts of “Talk Soup,” as the show used to be called: Greg Kinnear, John Henson, Hal Sparks and Aisha Tyler. Mr. Sparks, who has fashioned a successful stand-up comedy and acting career (most notably in the Showtime series “Queer as Folk”), turned up this season on “Celebrity Duets” and has paid the inevitable price.

“Joel seems to have no problem picking at me,” Mr. Sparks said in a telephone interview. “But I would remind him that he may be making fun of me now, but at some point in his life, he too will be a former ‘Talk Soup’ host. He should think about that.”

Mr. Sparks’s warning was facetious, but he does think the show’s current incarnation has sharper elbows than the version he presided over. “I spent more time making fun of myself than I did other people,” he said. “It’s snarkier now, but Joel has a lightness about him that makes it work. He doesn’t come across as a mean guy, which gives him room to move.”

E! is thinking about what’s next for “The Soup,” including perhaps a live studio audience and more than one episode per week. Meanwhile, Mr. McHale is thinking about the future, too. He says he has been offered more acting opportunities as a result of this show than he ever was when he was a full-time actor.

“I’ve always made fun of television shows and how ridiculous some celebrity behavior is,” he said. “But I never thought my job would be commenting on it. There’s a side of me that’s happy I get to say these things out loud. But other times I feel like a whore.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/arts/television/29rhod.html/

TV Notebook
The not-so-sunny side
As MTV's "Laguna Beach" tries to recapture its cool chemistry, one of the new teen queens learns it ain't easy being mean
By Robin Abcarian The Los Angeles Times October 29, 2006

The cattiness started immediately on the third season of the MTV docu-soap "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County."

"And then there were the popular girls," says Tessa, the season's teenage narrator. "There's Cami, the Queen of Mean. She went out of her way to make my life miserable…. That is Kyndra, the leader of the popular clique. We used to be friends, but she turned her back on me when I needed her most."

Those are fighting words in the hermetically sealed bubble of beachside affluence that is home to the calculating teenagers of "Laguna Beach." To employ one of their favorite phrases: So much drama.

But now that the show has slipped a bit in the ratings, and it has become clear that the new cast may not have the zing of its predecessors, several of whom have broken out on their own, will so much drama be enough? And, in the way of reality shows gone stale, is "Laguna Beach" in danger of losing its freshness because its cast learned how to portray teenagers by watching … "Laguna Beach"?

When the show made its debut in 2004, it broke new ground in the reality genre and was an instant hit with MTV's coveted 12- to 24-year-old demographic. It was not a contest like "Survivor," nor a contrived situation like "The Real World." Instead, it was an attempt to document — using narrative techniques, lush cinematography and suggestions from producers — the supercharged social lives of a clique of overprivileged schoolmates.

For two seasons — in hot tubs, bistros, bedrooms, boutiques and Baja resorts — cameras followed the core cast of "characters," making a coherent narrative of the extracurricular ups and downs of their junior and senior years.

The show was a stunning success for MTV, with ratings that put it at the top of its time period against both cable and network shows. It spawned copycats, such as Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Orange County" and the flash-in-the-pan CBS show "Tuesday Night Book Club."

'Reality' spawns celebrity

IT also made minor celebrities of its protagonists, Lauren, Kristin and Stephen, who, luckily for the show's producers, happened to be caught up in a love triangle as shooting began. Lauren Conrad went on to star in "The Hills," an MTV spinoff show that portrays her life as an intern at Teen Vogue. Kristin Cavallari has become a spokesperson for Bongo, the clothing company, and has had an assortment of oddball acting jobs and magazine layouts. Cutie pie Stephen Colletti dropped out of San Francisco State, appears on MTV's "Total Request Live" and is trying to act.

"Laguna Beach," which airs at 10 p.m. Wednesdays, is just past the halfway point of the season. Its producers are making decisions about how to proceed with the fourth season, which begins shooting in December. Viewership, while still strong, has declined, which the show's creator said is to be expected. "It's sort of like if you recast ' 90210,' " said Liz Gateley, who is also the executive producer. Viewers, she said, have to make "a whole new investment" in the cast. This is where the delicate chemistry of a reality show can get thrown out of whack.

How can you keep acting like a high school kid when you know that a hit MTV show can pretty much derail your college plans and turn you into someone people recognize on the street? The current "Laguna Beach" kids are conscious of the template provided by their predecessors.

Take Cami Edwards, now a 17-year-old senior. She is miffed about being dubbed "the Queen of Mean" by Tessa Keller, but is aware that hyperbole makes for better television. The show has exploited a rivalry between Tessa and Kyndra, playing up a short-lived love triangle between them and a boy named Cameron who, despite an awesome six-pack, just doesn't have the awkward sex appeal of boys from the previous two seasons.

Cami admitted she never felt much antipathy toward Tessa and Raquel before, but "the more they started filming, the more it started turning into a rivalry, just because of the filming, I think."

Now that she's been on TV and in magazines, Cami, who takes advanced placement economics and hopes to attend USC next year, isn't so sure she wants to go to law school. She was a junior when this season was shot, and doesn't hesitate when asked if being on this show can change her life: "I think it will if I push myself to go out and get a publicist. That's what Kristin did. She had the personality on the show to let her do that. Her and Lauren, they moved to L.A. and got publicists who do all that stuff for them — put them in magazines, go to red carpet events. I think Kristin is taking it as far as she possibly can. She's, like, famous for being famous, like Paris Hilton and stuff."

Kristin had the good fortune to be bright, telegenic and, best of all, the female equivalent of a player — manipulative, independent, romantically elusive and sexy. Lauren was not just beautiful and sweet, but weirdly, watchably sweet and in complete denial about Stephen's addiction to Kristin.

[b]Dealing with notoriety

WITH Cami and her best friend Kyndra Mayo, there's a less flattering dynamic at work, which, at least in Cami's case, has raised uncomfortable questions. What if you can't stand the way you're portrayed on the show? She knows that the producers have to whittle down a massive amount of footage for each week's show. Still, is being portrayed as one of the biatches of "Laguna Beach" worth it?

This is something that Cami seemed to be struggling with during a recent interview at the Heidelberg Café, a modest coffee and snack spot on Pacific Coast Highway where some of "Laguna Beach" has been shot. She wore tight black pants, a gray sweater over a camisole and revealed décolletage that would have gotten her sent to the principal's office in a not-so-distant era.

For the next hour and a half, as she fiddled with her hair extensions and waited for Kyndra, who arrived very late and looked very hair-extended, she explained why it is so annoying to be depicted as one of "Laguna Beach's" resident meanies.

Unlike for Kyndra, who in person exuded an air of 17-going-on-45, it has perhaps not sunk in for Cami that on a cast full of duds, including the narrator Tessa and her soggily sentimental best friend, Raquel, she is basically the wittiest and most polarizing cast member, and therefore the spice girl among the milquetoasts. (And as someone who describes herself as "a quarter black and three quarters white," she is also one of the few vaguely ethnic cast members besides the occasional uniformed housekeeper.) So she rails, a million miles a minute, against her fate.

"I never thought the little things I say, like, 'Oh Tessa's annoying,' would be turned into 'Cami and Kyndra are mean girls,' " she complained. "When I was younger, I was snotty, but who wasn't? Everyone who knows me knows that I am not a mean girl. I mean, everybody my age, if there's some girl who walks by in some outfit, you'd go, 'Whoa, that's a weird outfit.' Everybody says those little things. I mean, they're stupid and they're rude and, of course, we regret saying all that stuff now."

Some of the choicer snippets that have been broadcast to date:

Kyndra tells Cami she has invited her old friend Tessa to a barbecue.

Cami: That's super random. Why'd you do that?

Kyndra: 'Cause we used to be friends a long time ago.

Cami: Is she gonna bring her little friend Rack-well with her?

Kyndra: That'd be weird 'cause she isn't invited.

When Tessa shows up at Kyndra's party with Raquel in tow, Kyndra can't believe her eyes.

Kyndra: There's about to be a girl fight. Excuse me, I don't think so, someone's here I do not want here….

Cami: Tessa is sooo annoying.

The best friends dish.

Cami: I think Cameron has always had a thing for you.

Kyndra: Are he and Jessica still together?

Cami: Doesn't matter.

Kyndra: Does she still like him? 'Cause if she does, it makes it more fun.

Kyndra and Cami wait for Kyndra's Range Rover at the car wash, a day after they abruptly left a surprise party for Tessa at Raquel's house as guests sang "Happy Birthday":

Kyndra: I was glad we left when we did. It was getting super stupid. The funnest part of Raquel's was leaving.

Cami: I know. Raquel, like some of her wardrobe choices. Do you not own a mirror?

Unlike Cami, Kyndra, who is home schooled, doesn't seem perturbed by how people perceive her. "If everyone played the little nice girl, then no one's gonna watch the show," she said. "So I'd rather draw people into watching the show."

In person, Kyndra could barely contain her boredom, announcing as she flounced into the café in a short brown dress and flip-flops that she had to leave soon for a doctor's appointment. She'd had her appendix out the previous week and needed to be checked before getting on a plane the next day for New York, where she was being put up for free in exchange for an appearance — possibly at a club — that she didn't want to talk about.

'A double whammy'

KYNDRA answered questions in a distracted tone, stared out the café window and was snippy when asked what she felt were repetitive questions about the show. "I think I already answered that," she said, when asked whether she agreed with yet another comment from Cami about the show portraying them in an unflattering light. "And I don't really care," she added. "I feel like I am repeating myself." Later, she refused to step onto the beach to pose for a photograph, insisting instead that she stay on the staircase above the sand. (Two MTV publicity executives called later to apologize for Kyndra's behavior; Gateley also apologized.)

Gateley, who said she is happy with this season's cast and considers Tessa a sympathetic character to whom young viewers can relate, seemed a bit surprised by Cami's objection to her portrayal on the show. "I think we portray characters the way that they are. I wouldn't call them mean girls, but I would say mean things come out of their mouths. Mean things come out of everyone's mouth. With Kyndra and Cami, you get a double whammy."

Although Tessa's narration this season seems a bit forced — would a 17-year-old really describe a peer as "the Queen of Mean," which was coined for Leona Helmsley — Gateley said she didn't recall who thought up the phrase. "We basically write down what the narration needs to be in terms of catching people up on what's happened," said Gateley, by phone from New York. "I spoke to Tessa about this, and said, anything you are uncomfortable saying, let us know." (Tessa was not interviewed for this story. She had a minor car accident the day she was to be interviewed, and, despite requests, did not make herself available by phone.)

The current cast will be followed into Season 4, said Gateley, probably with some additions.

Cami is looking forward to next season for her own reasons. "I want to be on the fourth season just to clean things up," she said. "Not that I wouldn't be myself, but I would go out of my way to … I don't know. It just really, really, really sucks. Tessa seems like this goody two-shoes on TV, and I am just sitting there watching it, going, 'If you only knew.' "

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-kennedy29oct29,1,6251539.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews&ctrack=1&cset=true

TV Notebook
Drink Up. It’s Not Like You Have Lines to Learn
By Heather Fletcher The New York Times October 29, 2006

FOR Dave Kerpen, the drink of choice was Long Island iced tea. He says he downed eight of them during his first night as a cast member of the reality dating show “Paradise Hotel.”

“It was open bar 3 o’clock on, every day, for three months,” said Mr. Kerpen. He recalled, for example, that cast members were offered beer, wine, mixed drinks and shots before segments titled “Pandora’s Box,” in which roommates revealed secrets about one another. “It’s a very stressful situation to have so many cameras on you. It takes a lot of getting used to. So there’s a relaxation factor that alcohol can assist with. Like any situation in which people are drinking socially, it’s easy to keep drinking with them.”

Mr. Kerpen is one of a number of reality show veterans who, now released from the expired nondisclosure clauses in their contracts, say that alcohol was one of the producers’ favorite tools. The former contestants say producers made alcohol, but not food, very available, and encouraged them to drink before emotional scenes.

Now 30, married and living in Little Neck, Queens, Mr. Kerpen said he had no regrets about his days on the 2003 Fox show, even though he said he was drunk or nearly so for 4 of his 13 hours on television. “I think, for the most part, people sign up for reality shows knowing what to expect,” he said. “That being said, producers should be ethical. Producers shouldn’t go out of their way to encourage reality contestants to drink.”

Indeed, quickly flipping channels among various reality shows demonstrates the difficulty of finding one that does not feature alcohol consumption. But advocates of programs like VH1’s “Flavor of Love” and MTV’s “Real World” are steadfast that they do not cross the line and encourage excessive drinking.

“If the question is, ‘Has there ever been a reality show producer who has used alcohol to get more out of their contestants?’ I would say yes,” said Stuart Krasnow, executive producer of the Oxygen Network show “The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.” “And I’d be willing to bet my mortgage on that one.”

But many producers and network representatives argue that social drinking is a fixture of modern life — especially among young people — and that depicting alcohol consumption is an essential part of their shows’ verisimilitude. Besides, as even the former cast members acknowledge, they could have said “No, thanks.”

Tom Gutteridge, an executive producer on “Paradise Hotel,” said alcohol was often restricted on the set. Particularly for Mr. Kerpen, he added, who was the most colorful character and therefore was best kept sober.

“Obviously,” Mr. Gutteridge wrote in an e-mail message in response to questions about alcohol use on the set, “it would be rather difficult to bring guests to a ‘Paradise Hotel’ if the bar stocked no alcohol. (That would scarcely be reality, or paradise, for young people in their 20’s.) But it’s fairly obvious that the more the guests drank, the less interesting they became. We never stopped filming, but the barman was very firmly under our control and the guests/contestants had no access to alcohol except through that bar. And Dave may not remember, but it was no coincidence that the bar was never open for some considerable time before we filmed a major sequence.”

For his part, Mr. Kerpen said his access to alcohol was never cut off. “What Mr. Gutteridge is saying is totally inaccurate,” he said. “There was only one cast member cut off, and it wasn’t me.”

Sarah Kozer was a contestant on the 2003 Fox hit “Joe Millionaire,” in which she and others competed to win the affections of a bachelor. She says she was drunk or close to it in 90 percent of her on-air scenes. Champagne was served with lunch, dinner and in between during her 29 days on the set, she said in a telephone interview: “It was available 24/7.”

A 10-hour date at a winery with Evan Marriott (the show’s male love interest) and a 10-hour grand ball with one tray of appetizers and unlimited Champagne led Ms. Kozer to one conclusion: Producers were trying to get her sloshed. “Anytime anyone ever wanted something to drink, it was made available,” said Ms. Kozer, 31, who works as a television host and writer in Los Angeles. “Whereas if you requested tampons you’d have to wait a couple days.”

The producers of “Joe Millionaire,” Rocket Science Laboratories, declined several requests for comment, as did Fox.

On CBS’s popular series “Big Brother,” in which a group of strangers are placed in close quarters, Kelli Raftery, a network spokeswoman, said, “Alcoholic beverages are provided in limited quantities to participants.” She added, “Whenever provided, the alcohol intake is carefully regulated, the contestants’ behavior is closely monitored and everyone is of legal age.”

Even so, things can get out of hand. Producers withheld beer and liquor from the cast of “Big Brother 6” last year when it became clear that drinking was fueling fights. “There was so much hatred in the house, we didn’t need alcohol,” said Howie Gordon, 35, a former cast member recently featured on “Big Brother: All Stars.”

Susan Murray, an assistant professor of culture and communication at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, said alcohol use in reality TV was “a pretty common ploy to make the plot line move along and make it interesting.”

Even so, Ms. Murray, the co-editor of a compilation of scholarly essays titled “Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture,” said the encouraging of excessive drinking was problematic because it is often a clear attempt to manipulate situations.

In some of the most memorable situations in reality TV, alcohol was almost a part of the cast. In a 2005 episode of VH1’s “Breaking Bonaduce,” Danny Bonaduce, the former “Partridge Family” star, slit his wrists after a night of imbibing and pill popping. Not to be outdone, on VH1’s “Flavor of Love 2” Tykeisha Thomas (known on the show as Somethin’) lost control of her bowels during her hasty exit from a Champagne toast.

In May, FilmL.A. Inc., a nonprofit group that promotes film and television production in Los Angeles, said reality-television production in the first quarter of 2006 rose nearly 128 percent, to 1,942 days from 856 days, during the comparable period in 2005. For the second quarter, the increase was nearly 54 percent, reflecting 2,217 production days. And in the third quarter, reality programs accounted for more than 41 percent of the city’s 5,833 on-location television production days.

Marc Marcuse, who was an “Average Joe” contestant in 2003, now runs Reel Management, booking appearances for Mr. Kerpen, Ms. Kozer and more than 180 reality television personalities. He spoke on behalf of his clients, many of whom were under contracts that prevent them from speaking to the news media for a year without network permission. Those who did so could face large monetary penalties, Mr. Marcuse said.

“Some of the people that I represent have expressed concern about the way alcohol was given to them on their show,” he said. “Then there are others who feel it was up to them to say yes or no to drinking while there.”

Mr. Marcuse, for his part, said he did not find the practice to be unethical. “If you encourage me to pull out a gun and kill someone, I’m still not going to pull out a gun and kill someone,” he said. “There’s a degree of personal responsibility there.”

Mark Cronin, executive producer of VH1’s “Flavor of Love,” “My Fair Brady” and “The Surreal Life,” concurred. He said that a few cast members on his shows were in recovery from alcohol addiction and chose to abstain, but that on balance, “I don’t think it’s fair to blame a producer for your choices and actions.” He added that he adheres to an unwritten television network policy of showing adverse consequences for binge drinking, like passing out.

Graham James, a spokesman for MTV, which broadcasts “The Real World,” said, “Drinking is never glorified; consequences are shown.”

Mr. Krasnow, who is also the executive producer of “Average Joe,” said: “Alcohol is the socially accepted drug of choice for our culture. So when you see people abuse it on a reality television show, maybe we should be looking at the problem of alcohol abuse and not the reality show. Alcohol’s the problem; we’re just showing it.”

After a 21-year-old contestant, Ruthie Alcaide, began binge drinking, passing out, vomiting and driving while drunk on the 1999 set of “The Real World: Hawaii,” Jonathan Murray, chairman and president of Bunim-Murray Productions, which produces the series, said he went back and looked at Ms. Alcaide’s application. On it, he said, she wrote that she drank as much as any other college student.

That’s when Mr. Murray said he learned that many college students were binge drinking. “It was an interesting wake-up call for all of us,” he said. It was also a dilemma. “We don’t want to step in and be the adult, if at all possible,” he said.

Yet after Ms. Alcaide got behind the wheel, the producers finally interceded and sent her to a clinic in the middle of taping.

Ms. Alcaide, in a telephone interview, said she recalled asking counselors at the clinic, “Am I an alcoholic?” No, she said they told her, she was engaging in “problem drinking.” Now she lectures at college campuses about alcohol abuse.

“Watching the show, it was like, ‘Oh, no. There’s another drinking episode,’ “ Ms. Alcaide said. “People still think, ‘Ruthie’s an alcoholic.’ There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s not the truth. It’s a stigma attached to my name.”

As for Mr. Murray, he said he doesn’t see his shows’ alcohol policy changing anytime soon, even though his producers have to cut a lot of footage with slurred speech. “It just wouldn’t be real if we didn’t let them have it,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/arts/television/29flet.html/

So what you are saying is that CNN is still on the air? :p

TV Notebook
[FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red][SIZE=5] Lynne Cheney Lays Into CNN


http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386420.html?display=Breaking+News

No, just that Cheney teared into the network's alleged left-leaning bias while being a guest on the very network she criticized. Trust me, if Hilary Clinton were a guest on Bill O'Reilly's show and she teared into that network's alleged right-wing bias I'd be posting about it here too.

You know me and fredfa: fair, balanced, and unafraid! :rolleyes:

TV Notebook
Aiken to perform on ‘Days of our Lives’
By AP/MSNBC.com October 27, 2006

NEW YORK - Clay Aiken is about to enter a world of back-stabbing, scandal and diva fits — and no, it’s not backstage at “American Idol.” He’s taping an appearance on NBC’s “Days of our Lives.”

The 27-year-old Aiken will perform two songs, one from his new album “A Thousand Different Ways,” and “O Holy Night” from his 2004 CD “Merry Christmas with Love,” the soap opera’s spokeswoman, Kellie Kulikowsky, told The Associated Press.

He’ll take the stage for a private concert for Steve (Stephen Nichols) and Kayla (Mary Beth Evans) at the club Dune in the town of Salem. The episode is scheduled to air Dec. 22.

Aiken, whose devoted fans are called “Claymates,” was runner-up in the second season of Fox’s “American Idol” to Ruben Studdard.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15447707/

The Business of TV
When Is Entertainment Too Political?
Don't Ask the Dixie Chicks or Arnold Schwarzenegger
By Ira Teinowitz Zap2it.com October 27, 2006

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- As the hubbub mounts over negative political ads, a new controversy is emerging over what should count as political advocacy on TV and what is entertainment. Just this week, a Democratic candidate for California governor challenged an appearance by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on "The Tonight Show" as being akin to a political ad, and broadcast networks rejected an ad for a documentary film featuring the Dixie Chicks for being too political.

The Weinstein Co., Oscar-winning producer of "Shut Up and Sing" -- which follows the Dixie Chicks as they deal with the negative reaction to lead singer Natalie Maines' declaration that she's "ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas" -- said in a statement that NBC and the CW nixed ads for the film.

'Disparaging to President Bush'

According to producers, NBC said it "cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush." The CW's reason for not airing the ads: It does "not have appropriate programming in which to schedule this spot," according to the Weinstein Co. statement.

"It's a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America," Weinstein Co. Co-chairman Harvey Weinstein said in the statement. "The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is sad and profoundly un-American."

While the ads have been approved by CBS, MTV and Fox and approval from ABC is pending, a spokeswoman for the film company said NBC rejected the ads twice, the first time with the words "not acceptable, disparages President Bush" handwritten across the submission form and the second time with another handwritten note referring to the earlier rejection.

As bloggers and public interest groups blasted the media companies, Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, put out his own statement saying that if the reports are true, "a film about censorship now sounds as though it's being censored."

'Flat out inaccurate'

The CW said in a statement that it didn't even know what the Weinstein Co. was referring to. "Their press release is flat out inaccurate," said Paul McGuire, a network spokesman. "The whole matter is a mystery to the CW."

NBC said in a statement: "While a spot was submitted to our broadcast standards-and-practices department and was rejected because it violated our policy of not broadcasting ads that deal with issues of public controversy, the Weinstein Company did not make a national media buy, nor did anyone from the company inquire about buying time on the network."

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission late Thursday ruled a rival to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't entitled to equal time on NBC's California stations even though Mr. Schwarzenegger -- in the midst of a hard-fought campaign -- appeared for nearly 16 minutes on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." The FCC's Media Bureau said the Oct. 17 appearance was a "bona fide" news appearance rather than advocacy and was exempt from FCC requirements giving political candidates equal access.

'A serious question'

Mr. Schwarzenegger's rival Phil Angelides had complained that the appearance with Mr. Leno, who was master of ceremonies at Mr. Schwarzenegger's 2003 victory party, raised "a serious question" about whether it was based on "newsworthiness." The FCC said the Angelides campaign's assertion "is based on little more than speculation," and noted that it began taking a broader view of the "bona fide" news exemption in 1984 when it ruled interviews on "The Phil Donahue Show" weren't subject to equal-time requirements. Similar decisions were made about interviews on "Sally Jessy Raphael," "Jerry Springer," "Politically Incorrect" and "The Howard Stern Show."

"We are disappointed but not surprised that the Bush-controlled FCC has made a political decision over the use of our public airwaves," said Steven Maviglio, campaign advisor to Mr. Angelides. "The commission's tortured decision to try to certify Jay Leno as a modern-day Walter Cronkite is more laughable than one of Leno's monologues." He added: "'The Tonight Show' has failed to respond to multiple requests from the Angelides campaign to have Angelides appear on the show."

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=112814

The New Season
Criminal Minds
FBI Profilers Give 'Lost' a Run for its Money
By Deborah Starr Seibel The New York Post October 29, 2006

You'd think "Criminal Minds"' top sleuth, actor Mandy Patinkin, would be doing handstands over being on a hit series. You'd be wrong.

"I've asked myself a thousand times: What the hell did you choose this for?" says Patinkin, sitting in his luxury trailer on the Los Angeles set. The Broadway veteran and former star of "Chicago Hope" isn't whining about the long hours it takes to do the show. Patinkin's complaint is about spending those hours concentrating on horrific subject matter.

On this show, that means getting inside the minds of serial murderers, rapists, arsonists and terrorists.

"There are many days," says Patinkin, "that I'm a basket case and I can't do the show."

The stories are based on real-life criminals - think Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy - and even for an actor as seasoned as Patinkin, it's no cake-walk. "In six hours, I'm toast, running on empty, pumping the green tea and the dark chocolate and praying to God," he says. "Because Mandy has left the building."

"Criminal Minds" never got the splashy headlines or a big publicity push when it debuted last season. The series was considered just another procedural crime drama. But over the summer in reruns, these stories about an elite band of F.B.I. profilers started to catch fire. The show's executive producer, Ed Bernero, a former Chicago cop who spent 10 years wearing a badge, thinks he knows why.

"We have a completely different approach," says Bernero. "On 'Law & Order,' if they don't do their jobs right, somebody might get away with murder. If we don't do it right, someone else is gonna die. Most crime shows are after-the-fact. We're trying to keep another crime from happening.

"I think that's endlessly interesting, not only to cops, but to the audience."

It's worth noting that the "Criminal Minds" audience is not being fed a steady diet of blood and guts. The show, as a rule, relies more on the imagination than crime scene gore. And its bone-chilling premise is that the guy who's out to hurt you isn't some wild-eyed stranger in a trench coat hiding behind a tree. "It's your neighbor, your priest, your teacher," says Bernero.

All that has made this creepy crime drama into a kind of stealth television, steadily sneaking up into the Nielsen top 10 trumping once-invincible competitors such as ABC's "Lost." Unlike that show's endlessly convoluted, serialized storylines, "Criminal Minds" takes a disturbing tale and gives it - in one hour - a beginning, a middle and an end.

Bernero says he compares the characters on "Criminal Minds" to "knights of the round table. But these are modern-day knights and they're going out to fight the biggest dragons in society. And I think that's what people are responding to."

That's also what's keeping Patinkin on his own razor-thin edge of sanity. "It's especially tough on Mandy," says Bernero. "I've talked to him about my experiences as a cop, and he is now going through many of the things that I went through. When you immerse yourself in this world, it can't help but change the way you look at things."

"Sometimes, I can't let go,"Patinkin says. "I can't goof around. I can't treat it like a comedy. I try, but sometimes, I just can't."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10292006/tv/criminal_minds_tv_deborah_starr_seibel.htm

The New Season
"Shark" Attack
James Woods' new drama takes a bite out of the ratings
By David Kronke Los Angeles Daily News October 29, 2006

Take after take of a scene for CBS's new legal drama "Shark" is being shot, and each has a different endingends completely differently.
James Woods as Sebastian Stark, a former hotshot defense lawyer now working for the DA's office, ad-libs a petulantlycomic, muttered insult toward the judge each time.

In this take, the judge questions his outburst; Woods, as Stark, replies, "I'm sorry, sir — I had a little gas." The crew cracks up, and director Rod Holcomb declares, delighted, to no one in particular, "He never can fail!"

Woods' acerbic sensibility has helped "Shark" — which already has been picked up for a full season — become one of the fall season's bona fide hits. It is matching time-slot competitor "ER's" viewership; its retention of lead-in "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" approximates first-season levels of "Without a Trace," now a huge success for CBS.

While Woods exults that "Shark" represents a high-water mark in a career that won him two Prime-Time Emmys, a Daytime Emmy, a Golden Globe and two Oscar nominations, he concedes it comes at a bittersweet time. His brother Michael died the week production began on the series, just after the two had enjoyed a cross-country road trip together.

The past, the future

"If you had asked me six months ago what my life was going to be like; if I told you I was going to be one of the last surviving members of my family and that I would be in a TV series that I couldn't enjoy more, I would've said, 'I don't know what you're talking about,' " Woods says.

"It's inconceivable. Let me tell you, life throws you curves you can't imagine, and I got the worst and the best in the same week. We started shooting this episode, and I have to say, this series kind of saved my life. ...

Work as therapy

"Honestly, if I weren't doing this show, and I was out on my own, I'd just be sitting in a corner, really. I have no reason to do TV — I mean, I'm alone (Woods recently dated aspiring actress Ashley Madison, with whom he appeared on an episode of HBO's 'Entourage'). The only people who are here are my elderly mother, and I certainly have enough money to take care of her, and my two nieces and my nephew — I have no reason to work.

"I'm so kind of beaten up by this whole situation," he continues.

"But when I work, I put on my cheerful face and do what I have to do, and I'm around decent people who really get it — they're very, very supportive, spiritually supportive. I get up and I can do scenes where people laugh. And we have a good time and then I close that off and I go home and sort of deal with what I have to deal with."

Woods is sitting in his trailer and managing the nearly impossible veering from serious, heartfelt reflections on mortality to silly, anarchic comedy. During the interview, Woods snacks on pretzels, dropping an occasional one on the floor and avidly imploring his friendly terrier Angel to lap them up before his personal publicist (sitting nearby) does.

"His energy level is astounding," marvels Actress Jeri Ryan, who co-stars as DA Jessica Devlin, who's tasked with the unenviable job ofreining in her celebrated yet ethically dubious employee, marvels at her co-star:

"His energy level is astounding. When my son was 2, he didn't have that much energy, and I'm not even kidding. He's exhausting to keep up with, but it's amazing; I've never seen anything like it."

"He is this guy," offers series creator Ian Biederman. "He has a nice sense of moral outrage that works in all of his work. He's not always the bad guy, but he's this guy who straddles the line, which makes him fascinating. A bad guy doing good things is cool to watch."

Morality play

Biederman says his show "was bornof this series of high-profile criminal cases with celebrities where the celebrity has walked away, where it was a foregone conclusion that they were going to get off, whether they were guilty or innocent. It became very frustrating. So it was sort of a revenge fantasy on my behalf."

Robert Shapiro, who helped exonerate O.J. Simpson, is a consultant on the series.

Now in its sixth week, the series has explored the moral ambiguities Stark has ignored to become successful. The episode being shot today demonstrates that Devlin, despite her predilection for riding the high horse, has some skeletons in her closet as well.

"There's pros and cons, obviously, to this character, and I was acutely aware of that when I signed on," Ryan says. "I loved her strength, that ... she's a b-buster and she does not suffer fools. She has absolutely no respect for his tactics and lack of ethics in the courtroom. But at the same time, there's only so much finger-wagging you can do before it gets really, really tiresome to an audience.

"That's why it's nice to see a different dynamic between the characters, particularly in this episode," she continues.

"Theres something besides, 'Oh, you bad, naughty Shark.' And we're all very aware of that: You don't want it to be the same dynamic, because that will get tedious after a while."

Woods, however, decides to use the occasion of this character development to take a cheeky shot at his writing staff.

"Oddly," he says, "you're here in the 20-minute window when I'm not saying every other line that's in the scene. This is Jeri Ryan's first big episode where it features her, so she gets to do all the courtroom stuff. So it's kind of a nice relief.

"But they still had me sitting in the courtroom, so what was the point?" he adds in mock self-aggrandizement.

"I might as well be talking. I said to the writers, 'Look, the trick is you write him out of the scene so he has 20 minutes to go home and do his laundry. If he's here and not talking, then (expletive), he might as well be talking. I am the star of the show. If I have to be here, I'll say the stuff. It doesn't help for me to be here and sit on my ass and have someone else talk.' "

Alleviating his cheek, he adds, "God love 'em. I have warmhearted feelings for all of my wonderful writers and wonderful cast and great producers. It's the first time, I have to say, that the writing is so dedicated to my voice and what you imagine how I would be."

Dialogue with teeth

Woods admits to being highly flattered that the show's writers adhere so assiduously to his own sensibility.

"It's the first time I've felt in my life like I'm 'a star,' in quotes," he says. "This is the first time where I've felt like, the way everything's set up, well, yeah, the show doesn't work without you. It's really tailored to you, and guess what — you actually have an audience of people who like you.

"I'm mystified by the fact that people actually know me, and I'm starting to get that thing that actually makes me laugh out loud — people will call out, 'Hey, Shark!' Now I actually have a nickname that'll follow me forever."

http://www.dailynews.com/entertainment/ci_4568197

TV Notebook
'Angel' on his shoulder
A filmmaker's HBO movie reflects New York life
New York Daily News October 29, 2006

Jim McKay is a regular guy.
So this noted director of indie features, including "Our Song" and "Everyday People," likes to tell earnest stories about poor and working-class and regular people whose daily struggles organically create the dramatic conflict that propels slice-of-life narratives.

Premiering tomorrow at 9 p.m., McKay's latest HBO original film, "Angel Rodriguez," co-written with his wife Hannah Weyer, is about the struggles of a suddenly homeless 16-year-old inner city kid from New York who gets taken in by a middle-class white counselor and her husband.

Then stuff happens.

"I guess I make these kinds of movies because, on one level, we don't see them all that often anymore," he says. "It's funny because I've just started to do a little episodic TV work to pay the bills - 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent,' 'The Wire,' 'Big Love.' It's been fun, I've learned a lot, but it's made me look at the other whole area of entertainment. These are particularly high-quality and responsible shows. But the characterizations of working people, people of color and poor people are often stereotypes in a lot of popular entertainment. Or simply not fully realized. So just in terms of my own exploration, I'm drawn to things I haven't seen much."

McKay, who was born in Jersey but who lives in Brooklyn with his wife and child, says just living in the city inspires his movies.

"I don't spend a lot of time on the upper East Side, or neighborhoods like that," he says. "I spend most of my time around what Hollywood would call regular people. People with real lives who struggle and dream and live on hope. And so that's what I'm inspired to write about, because that's what I'm observing all the time."

McKay says he feels very fortunate to have done his third original film for HBO, which provides an artistic outlet for filmmakers who could never get a movie like this made at a Hollywood studio. Even if McKay had made "Angel" independently, it would've joined a glut of earnest human dramas battling for distribution.

"But my wife and I wrote a couple of drafts," he says. "We showed it to HBO, and, three months later, we were making the movie. That almost never happens. But HBO manages to straddle two worlds - they show their 'Batmans,' and they make top-quality series like 'The Sopranos' that earn a lot of money, which allows them to make riskier films like mine. I feel extremely lucky."

Only rarely since the heydays of the 1970s have filmmakers had the freedom to go out and make "personal" films that millions would see.

"My wife and I have worked together a lot in the past," says McKay. "I've worked a little bit on her documentaries. She also served as my uncredited script editor on my films. But we never officially co-wrote something before. I was coming off 'Our Song,' about young women, and 'Everyday People,' about adults, and I was interested in doing something about a young man."

Weyer had just formed a relationship with an at-risk young man at an after-school program in Manhattan called the Door. "Her experience with this kid," McKay says, "and our own experience as new parents and people who were approaching middle-age, set the initial conceptualization of this piece that has to do with extended families, reaching out from one community to another, across certain boundaries - whether they be generational, class or racial."

The give-and-take in that relationship created conflict, and so they just dove in and wrote the script. "It just kind of came out," he says. Once they got a green light from HBO, they cast Rachel Griffiths ("Six Feet Under") as the counselor, and held open casting calls to find Angel.

"Jonan Everett, who'd never acted before, saw a flyer in Union Square," says McKay. "He was 15 and he came in and auditioned. We loved him but made him come back about five times to make sure he had the chops. He went up against a lot of experienced young actors and got the part because he really got the character. On the set, he just got better and better and worked his a-- off. I'm hoping he gets more work out of this. He deserves it."

McKay and Weyer are collaborating on new projects, two New York-based dramas and a suburban piece. "They're all about regular people," McKay says.

Just like him.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/465846p-391949c.html

TV Notebook
'O.C. Blues' Aging Teen Fave Struggles
By Paige Albinak The New York Post October 29, 2006

Life's not as good as it once was in Orange County. Or at least not in Fox's "The O.C.," which starts its fourth season on Thursday night at 9 p.m..

The beautiful but troubled Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) died tragically in a fiery car crash last season. Summer, played by Rachel Bilson, has skipped town, enrolling at Brown University in Providence, R.I., and leaving her boyfriend, Seth Cohen (Adam Brody), twisting in the wind.

Worst of all, the show is competing against megahits ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and CBS's "CSI."

Still, Josh Schwartz, the show's creator and executive producer, thinks the show has a fighting chance.

"This year anything goes, and we're really doing the show that our fans will be excited to see," he says.

The death of Marissa and the end of high school has made way for several new characters. Chris Pratt ("Everwood") comes on the show as Che, a character Schwartz describes as "spiritual guru to Summer."

Che helps Summer evolve into a environmental activist, an unexpected about-face.

"I really like the direction they've pointed her in," says Bilson of Summer. "While she's dealing with her best friend's death, she turns into sort of a tree hugger, which I think is nice to see on a TV show, especially one with such a young audience."

Marissa will not be replaced, says Schwartz, but her little sister, Kaitlin, will fill her shoes at home.

"With Julie (Melinda Clarke) so despondent over the loss of one daughter, Kaitlin is there to say, 'I'm still here,'" says Schwartz.

Meanwhile, the original characters will also stay busy. Former delinquent Ryan (Benjamin McKenzie), who watched Marissa die in his arms, will take a giant step backwards. His adoptive parents will try to keep him on the straight and narrow.

"It's really a battle for Ryan's soul in the beginning of the season," says Schwartz.

And Julie will resort to actual hard labor to get her mind off of Marissa's untimely death. But that doesn't mean she's changed, Schwartz says: "Four words: 'Julie Cooper, Urban Cougar,' that's all we're saying."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10292006/tv/o_c__blues_aging_teen_fave_struggles_tv_paige_albiniak.htm

The Business of TV
Cost conundrum
As congloms squeeze movie prod'n costs, primetime TV budgets start to soar
By Ted Johnson Variety October 29, 2006

It's barely a month into the new TV season and CBS' star-studded heist drama "Smith" is already off the air. NBC's "Kidnapped," a thriller shot in New York City, has been banished to Saturday night for the remainder of its run. And the ratings for ABC's massively promoted hostage caper "The Nine" have been dropping.

The shows have one thing in common: They are some of the priciest new dramas in what may be the most expensive TV season in history, as studios pull out all the stops with intricate storylines, sweeping scope, large casts and $10 million marketing blitzkriegs, all in an effort to grab viewers' attention.

To many TV executives, their business is starting to resemble the film industry, where studios invest heavily in tentpoles that have one big opening weekend to prove themselves.

The irony is that the rising spending in network primetime is happening at the very moment that media congloms are making concerted efforts to keep feature film budgets under control.

"I think it is some indication of either myopia, naivete or just plain brain damage on the part of the industry," says News Corp. chief operating officer Peter Chernin. "Things are interconnected in this world, and I think the significant issue is that the fundamental economics of the television business are under a real challenge right now."

Network advertising sales were flat or up just slightly at this year's upfronts. Meanwhile, the costs of programming across all time periods at the four major networks rose 9% to $11.92 billion this year, from $10.97 billion in 2005, according to estimates by Kagan Research.

"At the end of the day, costs, whether they are talent costs, production costs, marketing costs, etc., are going to align themselves with reality," Chernin says. "And there are two ways for that to happen: It can either happen in an orderly process, with everyone trying to exert some discipline, or it can happen in a disorderly process. What you have seen in the movie business is some combination of both of those. When you see hundreds of people being laid off, that is disorderly, and it is harmful to all of the people involved. The same thing is going to happen in the television business. Costs are going to align themselves, whether anyone wants to hear it or not."

In mid-October, NBC announced it was laying off some 700 employees and, in an effort to get costs under control, said it plans cheaper programming (such as nonscripted fare) in the 8 p.m. hour, a strategy already used by ABC. Such mandates for fiscal discipline certainly could raise the contentiousness of upcoming talks between studios and Hollywood talent guilds, which are preparing to negotiate new contracts starting next year.

Industry sources estimate the average cost of a first-year drama rose from about $2.4 million per episode in 2004 to $2.8 million this year. You can see it on the screen, whether it be the massive set-within-a-set on "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," James Woods headlining "Shark" or "Jericho" staging a nuclear apocalypse.

Even the few sitcoms on the air come with bigger pricetags, as networks gravitate toward more single-camera comedies like "My Name Is Earl." Because of the method of production, they cost $1.5 million to $1.7 million per half-hour, as much as 35% more expensive than a multicamera comedy.

Compare that to what has happened to the average cost of a feature film: Production costs dropped slightly last year, to $60.0 million from $62.4 million in 2004, according to the Motion Picture Assn. of America. There are still ample examples of heavy spending: Universal is trying to keep the costs of the effects-laden "Evan Almighty" to less than $175 million while two comedies, Fox's "Night at the Museum" and Sony's Nancy Meyers pic "The Holiday," have budgets above $100 million, sources say.

Meanwhile, the race to make summer tentpoles continues, and "the single biggest cause of these overages is a forced release date," says Bill Block, CEO of financing and production company QED Intl.

But studios have been pulling the plug on big-ticket projects like "Halo" and the Jim Carrey-Ben Stiller comedy "Used Guys," slashing producing deals and demanding less generous star paydays. On a lesser scale, there was Sony, which canceled plans to make the drama "Against All Enemies," based on the book by counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke, after it could not come to terms with its chosen star, Sean Penn.

"I think more than ever they are trying to bring down costs," observes producer Mark Johnson. "In the past, it would be, 'We're making this movie.' Now it's, 'We're making this movie if you can get the costs down from $60 million to $35 million.' Everybody is constantly running numbers."

"Halo" was to be a bigscreen, $135 million adaptation of Microsoft's videogame, and Universal and Fox won the rights to make it with Peter Jackson on board as producer. At $120 million, "Used Guys" had not only the star pedigree, but Jay Roach on board as director. Both projects fell apart over studio concerns about high budgets combined with having to pay out significant gross points to talent and other major players.

Studios also have buffered their spending by bringing in private equity money to finance film slates. They're demanding deals for stars that allow them to share in a film's returns when a film breaks even, rather than when money starts flowing in from the box office.

In short, it's the type of austerity the TV business has been famous for.

And while TV execs have a long way to go before their spending habits match that of the film world, this season there is a marked difference in the way that shows resemble features in their production quality and in their marketing campaigns.

To launch its shows, NBC turned up the volume and hiked its marketing budget about 15%-20% across a variety of media, including radio spots, glossy magazine ads and digital promotions with Netflix and YouTube. Fox actually spent less this year, but that didn't stop it from engaging in elaborate campaigns with sister company MySpace, or a stunt last week in which a feature-like trailer for "24" debuted on the Jumbotron in Times Square.

"Over the past couple of years the pressure to succeed has become increasingly prevalent, and I think this year is the worst it has ever been," says Chris Carlisle, exec VP of marketing for Fox. "It is about creating events. You are constantly looking for that big noise you can make."

Marketing budgets have been rising for years, but the equation changed in 2004, when ABC concentrated its marketing muscle on "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," an effort estimated to have cost between $10 million and $20 million. Since then, other networks have followed the same strategy, zeroing in on a couple of new shows and making them into events.

"The point where it ratcheted up significantly is when ABC launched 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost,' " says John Miller, chief marketing officer of the NBC Universal Television Group. "Everybody sort of figured that was the new game. It got to be so that was the benchmark."

It is a far cry from the 1970s and '80s. To get "The Cosby Show" on the air, Miller recalls, the network launched it with "some on-air promotions, some radio and some TV Guide."

The change was felt not only in advertising but in production. Shows like "CSI" and "24" already had pushed the envelope in their techniques and formats, but "Lost" created even greater expectations. To compete to get onto the fall schedule, studios have delivered pilots with many more scenes, more intricate plots and more location shots.

Where once production seemed to be migrating to Vancouver -- where studio shows like "The X-Files" could take advantage of up to a 30% budget savings -- production has largely come back to Los Angeles and even New York.

"Nothing will ever replace a great story well told, but there is no question we live in a high-def world," says Jonathan Littman, president of Jerry Bruckheimer Television, which produces "CSI" and "Without a Trace." "We live in a time where networks are much more ambitious in what they are looking to program, and that is a good thing for TV overall."

Another cost factor, per studio execs, is the sheer size of show casts, creating additional expenses ranging from more makeup artists to more dressing room trailers.

"Because it is competitive among the networks, the networks are very aggressive about stretching the deals for talent that they think can make a difference in the success of a show," says Gary Newman, president of 20th Century Fox Television. "That has always been the case, but it just feels that it is more the case than ever before."

The pilot for the star-heavy "Studio 60," for instance, was said to cost more than $6 million, while sources say its price per episode hovers around $2.8 million to $3 million.

"We are now shooting pilots to be three, four, five times the episodic budget," Chernin says. "In what sense is that a prototype episode? The industry is rife with beautiful, extraordinary-looking pilots that bear no resemblance to the series. That is just lack of discipline."

Back in the 1970s, with familiar formulas, fewer scenes and smaller casts, shows like "Marcus Welby, M.D." or "Barnaby Jones" took six or seven days to shoot. Now a lot of dramas are taking nine or 10 days, or deploy second units.

"What drives up costs are the same kind of factors that have driven up costs in the film business for years," says Barry Jossen, exec veepee of Touchstone Television. "It is the depth of the talent pool, and the competitive markets that are created for that talent pool. Costs get driven up by supply and demand."

As the exec who oversees "Lost" and other Touchstone shows, Jossen gets ribbing from executives at other studios, who come up to him and say, "It's all your fault. You did 'Lost,' and that changed everything."

He challenges the notion that spending, while on the rise, is profligate. Before the pilot of "Lost" was made, there was a lot of consternation within the Walt Disney Co. as to the high price of an episode that included the re-creation of a plane crash and location shooting in Hawaii. Despite reports that it cost $14 million, Jossen says it was "significantly less than that," and even came in under budget.

"We had realistic expectations about what it was going to take, rather than have that everyday dialogue of, 'Oh my God, this is costing so much more and taking so much longer and what are you guys going to do?' " Jossen says. "We got to be much more focused on making sure that it was creatively as good as it could possibly be."

But in their zest to replicate the success of "Lost," networks have taken an extra gamble, as they invested heavily in serialized dramas as opposed to self-contained hours. It is all but essential that viewers join the show from the start, just to keep up with what's happening.

As Carlisle says, "If you don't get people in the beginning, it is nearly impossible to get them when the ship has sailed. There is definitely a glut this year of serialized dramas, and I think you also saw a lot of things that didn't work."

The public's thirst for investing in such series appears to be finite, leaving studios left holding the bag if a series does not work. For example, despite a promising premiere, Fox's abduction thriller "Vanished" has been relegated to Friday night. Sony Pictures Television produced NBC's "Kidnapped" and the series already has been sent to Saturday nights, where it will have a truncated 13-episode run to wrap up its plot.

" 'Kidnapped' remains a mystery to us because the quality was so good," Miller says. "We just couldn't get people in the door. ... It is not so much about the quality of these shows or the quality of other people's shows. It is about the preciousness of people's time."

So what will happen?

Studios and networks have tried in the past to get the cost of scripted fare under control, with uneven results. Jeff Zucker tried to usher in a new austerity in 2002 by making cheaper pilots, but the results, including one called "St. George's Island" that was shot in South Africa for $1.1 million, went nowhere.

In 2003, ABC took the draconian step of slicing the $6.5 million per episode budget of "The Practice" in half, but with six actors given pinkslips, including star Dylan McDermott, it created an entirely different show.

Dick Wolf predicts a shift away from serialized dramas, in part because they will have a hard time commanding the rerun revenue that procedural shows like his "Law & Order" franchise does. "The math just doesn't make any sense," he says.

As one exec says, "Something has to give."

With new uncertainty about the backend market -- syndication and DVD sales -- it is looking harder to deliver profit.

"You are in the risk business," Newman says. "You are going to have a lot more failures than successes. Traditionally, a couple of successes can pay for your failures but also deliver a nice return on your investment. What is really scary about our business right now is the road to success is far less certain than it used to be."

Networks and studios are talking about trying to adapt the same techniques that allow cable networks like TNT and USA Network to program dramas like "The Closer" and "Psych" at much cheaper rates. Production units like Warner Horizon and Fox 21 were set up for just that purpose. The differences, of course, will be that shows will have smaller casts and fewer scenes.

Some execs predict networks will further diversify their schedules, mixing cheaper reality fare with pricey dramas. That's the direction NBC signaled when it said it would change its strategy for the 8 o'clock hour.

In its own way, you could say that's akin to the studios' tentpole strategy: event pics supplemented by the much cheaper fare from their specialty divisions.

"Network revenues are growing at a rate that is much lower than the rate at which costs are rising," Jossen says. "That doesn't make sense for any other business -- why should it make sense here?

"There is no doubt that change is coming, and it is probably happening as we speak," he says. "We all just don't see it yet or don't know what it is, but it is definitely happening."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952819.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

HD ready*
*High-definition DVR, Camcorder, PlayStation, converter box, and Blu-ray discs not included. Are consumers ready to be complete converts? 28.6 million US households have high-definition TV sets...but only 9.4 million receive HD programming

By Scott Kirsner | October 29, 2006

If technology companies weren't so mercilessly persistent about introducing higher-quality recording and broadcast formats, we'd be listening to wax cylinders of Christina Aguilera and watching "Deal or No Deal" on a black-and-white screen the size of a Saltine.

But our high-tech economy is built upon rendering old stuff obsolete, and if it weren't, then what would we offer at our yearly yard sales, if not old eight-track tapes, cassettes, LPs, Betamax players, and laserdiscs?

The latest improvement being peddled by production studios and consumer electronics companies is high definition. Making the leap to a high-def TV will make your neighbors feel embarrassed about the severe shortage of pixels in their homes, and installing an HD radio in your car will give you more stations -- for free -- at higher fidelity (but still no Howard Stern).

Actresses are one constituency that is not happy about the march of progress. Blythe Danner, who appears on Showtime's "Huff," complained to the movie site Dark Horizons about "this dreadful high-definition, which makes anybody over 50 look as if they are 80." (Danner is 63.) And consumers, once they realize they're about to be sold not just a high-def TV, but a whole new arsenal of high-def gear, may have some gripes of their own.

The problem with high-def, if you're a consumer, and the magical profit opportunity, if you're a studio, cable firm, or electronics company, is what Jim Denney, vice president of product marketing at TiVo, calls "the cascading effect."

Buy a high-def TV set ($1,000 for a Samsung 32-incher), and you'll suddenly realize you need a new box from the cable company ($9.20 a month from Comcast). Then you notice that the shows you record on your old TiVo, even if transmitted in high-def, aren't being recorded that way ($799 for a new TiVo Series 3 HD digital video recorder.).

Home movies look better when shot with a high-def video recorder ($1,400 for a Sony HD model.). And let's not forget watching Hollywood blockbusters ($718 for a Blu-ray player from Samsung, or $549 for an HD DVD player from Toshiba) and playing videogames ($499 for Sony's new PlayStation 3, available next month ).

A cascade of expenditures for you; a cascade of profits for the manufacturers -- not to mention the movie studios eager to resell you your favorite movies on the new high-def discs.

By year-end, about 30 million Americans will have purchased their first high-def TV set and become familiar with the cascading effect, according to In-Stat analyst Gerry Kaufhold. By the end of 2009, he expects the number of HD initiates to hit 50 million.

Do consumers realize what they're in for when they make that first purchase? "Absolutely not," says Phillip Swann, president of TVPredictions.com, an Arlington, Va. website that tracks the television industry. "You don't have a wave of people saying, 'What's the next high-def thing I can get?' A lot of people are still very confused by the high-def process."

Part of the confusion comes from different quality levels and media formats. Consumers might sometimes mistake "enhanced definition" sets, which deliver 480 horizontal lines of resolution, for true "high-definition sets" delivering at least 720 lines. Blu-ray DVDs won't play on HD DVD players, and vice versa. Consumers are told that HD Radio offers more channels and better sound than terrestrial radio, but at the same time they're told that the Sirius and XM Radio satellite systems do, too.

Perhaps as a result of the multiple choices, Frank Roshinski, general merchandising manager for the video buying division at Tweeter, says sales of HD equipment at the Canton retailer this year have been "modestly higher than 2005" but "not dramatically higher."

Roshinski describes HD purchasers so far as Tweeter's "more affluent customers. The modest-income customer hasn't started investing yet," he says.

And consumers who responded to a survey conducted by the Consumer Electronics Association ranked a high-def TV near the bottom of their 10-most-wanted list for the holidays; at the top was a portable music player.

In-Stat analyst Kaufhold says "we're still in the product emergence phase" for high-def equipment. He recalls that it took about 10 years from the time the first color television was introduced before half of the sets Americans bought were color, and seven years for DVD sales to outpace VCR sales.

"The time for the uptake of a new technology to occur is getting shorter, but it's still not overnight," Kaufhold observes.

Unlike high-definition video, high-definition radio doesn't subject the buyer to the cascading effect, since it is a stand-alone device. (Tweeter sells a Boston Acoustics home radio for $299, and a car receiver for $349.)

Bob Struble, chief executive of the company that introduced HD Radio, iBiquity Digital, says he expects about a half million of the radios to be sold this year.

In Boston, 13 radio stations are now broadcasting in the all-digital format, including all five owned by Greater Media. But there aren't yet audience figures for HD Radio, so no one knows how many people are listening. Phil Rado, general manager for Greater Media's Boston stations, says that the radio industry hasn't yet perfected its pitch to consumers. "Nobody has ever complained about the fidelity of FM radio," he says.

"That's what makes HD a tough putt. It's not really about fidelity, it's about more choices and options." Boston's Magic 106.7, for instance, operates a smooth jazz station that can only be heard with an HD receiver.

But in order for high-definition to break into the mainstream, three things need to happen. Standards clashes, such as the one involving the incompatible Blu-ray and HD DVD discs, need to be resolved. Prices need to drop. And consumers need to show off their shiny new technology to everyone they know.

"We could spend millions advertising Blu-ray," says Andy Parsons, senior vice president of advanced product development at Pioneer Electronics USA in Long Beach, Calif. "But you talk to one friend, and that's a hundred times more credible than anything we could say in an ad. Word-of-mouth is absolutely essential for this adoption curve to take off."

Scott Kirsner is a freelance writer in San Francisco who maintains a blog on entertainment and technology, cinematech.blogspot. com. He can be reached at kirsner@pobox.com.

Taken from Boston.com:

http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2006/10/29/hd_ready/

The New Season
TV Review: 'The O.C.' Fights Back
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette October 29, 2006

The TV business is anything but predictable. Who would have thought that NBC's "ER," now in its 13th season, would have a sudden resurgence in popularity? Or that Fox's "The O.C." would begin to bottom out in year three (some would argue it began a free fall in year two)?

It's true that teen dramas, in particular, seem to have a shorter life cycle than other prime-time shows, but the life expectancy of "The O.C." (9 p.m. Thursday), once a hit, has been dramatically curtailed. Already, Fox has cut the show's episode order this season from the usual 22 to just 16 episodes.

It's tough times in this fictional Orange County, what with a time slot that puts "The O.C." opposite two of TV's biggest hits: "Grey's Anatomy" on ABC and the original "CSI" on CBS. The Fox show's days in the sun may be numbered, but May's season finale that dispatched core character Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) to that big beach resort in the sky may help boost interest in Thursday's season premiere.

The show picks up five months after Marissa died in the arms of Ryan Atwood (Benjamin McKenzie), the once-wayward teen taken in by the Newport Beach Cohen family -- Sandy (Peter Gallagher), Kirsten (Kelly Rowan) and son Seth (Adam Brody).

To the show's credit, Marissa's death is not swept under the rug with other past plots; rather, "The O.C." takes a pretty realistic (for "The O.C.") approach, allowing all the characters' grief, anger and shock to reverberate through the first four episodes made available for review.

Ryan has the most difficulty dealing with the loss. He's deferred his admission to the University of California, Berkeley, and is living in the back room of the bar he works at, refuses to accept Kirsten's care packages and has joined a fight club (of course!), getting the snot beaten out of him on a regular basis.

How do we know Ryan is tougher than ever? He has a five o'clock shadow at all hours. And he threatens to go down a dangerous path when he sets out to take Chino-style revenge on Kevin Volchok (Cam Gigandet), the lowlife who caused Marissa's death.

Ryan isn't the only one devastated. Marissa's mom, Julie Cooper Nichol Roberts (Melinda Clarke), is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, ignoring her surviving daughter, Kaitlin (Willa Holland), a budding troublemaker who's now hanging out with first season character Luke's newly invented twin brothers.

Marissa's death also takes its toll on Summer (Rachel Bilson), causing her to grow distant from boyfriend Seth while at college on the East Coast. ("I don't do sarcasm anymore," Summer declares. "I'm post-ironic.") She's abandoned her shallow ways for a newfound liberal conscience, befriending lefty activist Che (amusingly played by Chris Pratt of "Everwood").

Marissa's death also sparks some heretofore unexpected alliances that help propel these early fourth season episodes.

Despite the dark turn of the Ryan story, "The O.C." doesn't turn into a complete brood-a-thon. Thankfully, Taylor (Autumn Reeser) is the new Summer, adding a deft comic touch with her own predicament after a summer in France.

Seth, always a source of good humor, is working in a comic book store that's part of a new, gigantic mall set.

"I'm sorry, maybe I didn't understand," an incensed Seth says to a little girl before making her cry, "did you just ask if there's a comic book based on the 'X-Men' movies?"

In the third episode of the season, "The O.C." even offers a shout out to a rival, dispatching one character to the Pacific Northwest to work at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital of "Grey's Anatomy" fame.

Though "The O.C." is unlikely to ever return to its top spot among buzzworthy shows, this latest reinvention hews true to the show's initial tone and should satisfy long-time fans.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06302/733508-237.stm

The New Season
To be discontinued...
By David Kronke Inside Southern California October 29, 2006

The New York Times discovers today (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/arts/television/29cart.html) what we’ve been saying for quite some time now (and, in fact, warned in The Daily News’ Fall-TV preview in September – alas, the main story no longer seems to be online, so you’ll just have to take our word for this or, heaven forbid, pore through earlier posts here): There were too many serialized dramas on the networks’ schedules this season.

Though the network executives and the shows’ stars largely insisted to critics over the summer that if a show was good, viewers would watch regardless of the commitment required of them (Fox’s Peter Liguori was the lone network president to cop to some jitters), the new mantra is this, per NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly: “The message we received was that people have strains on their lives. People are saying, ‘I’ve got my handful of shows like this, and I don’t want more.’ ”

Let’s examine the body count:

* “Smith” (CBS): Cancelled.

* “Runaway (The CW): Cancelled.

* “Kidnapped” (NBC): Ordered to wrap things up in 13 episodes and consigned to Saturdays.

* “Six Degrees” (ABC): Squandering away a whopping 60 percent of its lead-in, “Grey’s Anatomy,” whose doctors should put this thing on life support.

* “The Nine” (ABC): Losing half its “Lost” lead-in.

* “Vanished” (Fox): Consigned to Fridays.

* Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (NBC): From 13+ million viewers for its debut, down to 7.7.

* “Friday Night Lights” (NBC): A veritable non-starter. NBC will see if there’s any life in it by trying it “Studio 60’s” timeslot on Monday.

Certainly, there have been successes: NBC’s “Heroes” is proving addictive to viewers, and CBS’s “Jericho” and ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters” have been picked up for the full season, as well. ABC’s “Ugly Betty,” the season’s biggest success story, ironically enough tends toward stand-alone episodes even though it’s actually based on a telenovela. (Perhaps that's one of the reasons for its success.)

Apparently, members of the Television Critics Association could program the broadcast networks at least as effectively as those who actually do the job. And, boy, is that a scary thought.

Chix flix nixed

Ironic fun fact behind the li'l dustup between the Dixie Chicks and NBC, which issued a statement that it "cannot accept" commercials for the new documentary "Shut Up and Sing" "as they are disparaging to the President" (has anyone at NBC gotten wind of what Keith Olbermann's up to over on MSNBC?): In 2002, the group shot a concert film for the network at Oscar's home, the Kodak Theatre, promoting their album "Home."

That, even though I'm pretty sure one of the songs on the album was entitled, "We're Also Ashamed of Jeff Zucker." As I recall, lead singer Natalie Maines spoke in subsequent interviews of how difficult the song was to write without a rhyming dictionary.

The CW also reported told the film's distributor that it did "not have appropriate programming in which to schedule this spot," like that's stopped them from running commercials for any other product.

http://www.insidesocal.com/tv/

TV Sports
Loose Lips Cost Jobs
Sports Analysts Say The Dumbest Things
By Roger Catlin Hartford Courant TV Critic October 26, 2006

The brash style of sports commentary that's incubated on sports talk radio and celebrated on cable TV has been colliding with the more genteel, mass-audience aim of big-game network play-by-play.

Earlier this month, a few offhand comments that wouldn't have done more than light up phone lines and wind up call-in regulars like "Norm from Long Island" on the round-the-clock sports-chatter shows have meant the end of TV careers for two commentators and the suspension of a third.

First to go was Steve Lyons, the Fox Sports analyst, for remarks the network deemed insensitive during Game 3 of the American League Championship Series between Oakland and Detroit on Oct. 13.

Lyons listened as fellow commentator Lou Piniella said the A's Frank Thomas needed to get "en fuego" - hot. Piniella also said another A's hitter, Marco Scutaro, who had gotten hot, was acting like a guy who "found a wallet."

Lyons, left with nothing better to say, said Piniella was "hablaing Espanol," adding, "I still can't find my wallet."

Referring to Piniella, Lyons said, "I don't understand him and don't want to sit too close to him now."

Meaningless enough, and somewhat characteristic of the blather that takes up time during extended games, but it still got him canned.

As a Fox spokesman tersely explained it, "Steve Lyons has been relieved of his Fox Sports duties for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate."

In his defense, Lyons told the Associated Press, "If I offended anybody, I'm truly sorry. But my comment about Lou taking my wallet was a joke and in no way racially motivated."

Nor was it very funny. But it may have been expected from a guy whose player nickname was "Psycho" and who once made fun of Jewish player Shawn Green for skipping a game on Yom Kippur. Earlier in this year's National League playoffs, Lyons and play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman made fun of a guy in the Shea Stadium stands who wore what looked like funny glasses, only to learn it was a special magnifying device for the virtually blind fan.

Lamar Thomas, an ex-University of Miami player, was in the booth during the Hurricanes' one-sided victory over Florida International at the Orange Bowl Oct. 14 that made the news when a huge brawl broke out.

As people fought, Thomas' school colors came out as he seemed to encourage the violence in his commentary.

"You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked!" he said. "You don't come into the OB playing that stuff. You're across the ocean over there. You're across the city. You can't come over to our place talking noise like that. You'll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing!"

When referees calmed the melee, Thomas sounded disappointed.

"Why don't they just meet outside in the tunnel after the ballgame and get it on some more?"

Mark Fuhrman, general manager of Comcast Sports SouthEast, said, "We don't condone Lamar's statements," adding that Thomas "blurred the line between what takes place as a participant and your role as a broadcaster."

Thomas was relieved of his duties, and his comments were edited from the rebroadcast of the game four days later.

Speaking with the Miami Herald later, Thomas seemed a little dazed that comments that what would have passed, or even been encouraged, on sports radio would have meant his job on TV.

"Everybody who knows anything about the Orange Bowl knows it's going to take at least 40 minutes to go down the elevator from the press box," he said. "I'm 36 years old, man - what am I going to do down there? It was a joke, but people didn't take it that way. That's the way it goes."

After all, he said, "I'm very new to this whole media thing."

The Speed Channel suspended pit reporter Ray Dunlap for racially insensitive comments he made last weekend.

During the show "Trading Paint," Dunlap was responding to driver Michael Waltrip about a statistic that said 10 percent of NASCAR fans are Hispanic.

Dunlap reportedly replied in an animated fashion, saying, among other things, that the only Hispanics at the track are those working there.

He explained to the Charlotte Observer: "As a guest on `Trading Paint,' you try to be edgy, controversial and entertaining. In a failed attempt at humor, I obviously crossed the line between funny and insensitive. For that, I am deeply sorry."

His offense wasn't deemed as offensive in the NASCAR world as it may have been for other sports.

Although NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said, "NASCAR is incredibly disappointed in remarks made by Ray Dunlap" and that "his remarks do not reflect NASCAR's values," Dunlap was only suspended from one race last weekend.

He'll be back to call the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series from Atlanta Motor Speedway Saturday.

http://www.ctnow.com/tv/hce-cast.artoct26,0,2767182.story?coll=hce-headlines-tv

TV Notebook
He’s lucky he’s funny
‘Raymond’ creator Philip Rosenthal pulls no punches — or punch lines — in memoir
By Aaron Barnhart The Kansas City Star October 29, 2006

It happened roughly two minutes after CBS announced that the ninth season of “Everybody Loves Raymond” would be the last. All over the country, critics like me surveyed the bleak landscape of situation comedy and wondered, “Will another decent sitcom come our way again?”

“No,” says Philip Rosenthal, who created “Raymond” with and for comedian Ray Romano. “Comedy is dead. When we left, there was no more sitcom. Not only that, the end of laughing, and soon, the end of smiling.”

It’s a funny line. Even funnier coming from the mouth of Rosenthal, a stand-up comic turned writer who has just gifted the world with a laugh-out-loud memoir, You’re Lucky You’re Funny: How Life Becomes a Sitcom.

Ostensibly a book about a TV show, it is in fact the sometimes self-deprecating, sometimes score-settling, always amusing account of how a nice neurotic boy from Queens, N.Y., took the craziness of his family life, and that of his colleagues, and distilled it into a TV show that America almost instantly embraced, even though CBS thought it didn’t have a chance.

You’re Lucky You’re Funny may be the funniest book by a TV personality since The O’Reilly Factor for Kids. Rosenthal, who clearly has made so much money off “Raymond” that he doesn’t need to care whose ox is gored, generously shares some jaw-dropping moments of stupidity and venality to which he bore witness during 16 years in the TV business.

Like the response he got to making what could have been a brilliant sitcom starring Peter O’Toole (an NBC suit told Rosenthal, “I’d rather not have someone with an accent on the network”).

Or the disaster that was “Baby Talk,” the 1991 sitcom that starred, briefly, George Clooney and a cast of crying, unmanageable babies. Rosenthal writes: “The second week (of taping) was like a train derailment. A train derailment where the train is filled with exploding manure and no one in town escapes without throwing up.”

After five years of disappointments and aggravation, Rosenthal writes, “I was starting to wonder if perhaps there wasn’t a better way.” Then he met Ray Romano.

It was not magic at first between himself and Romano, who was just coming off a terrific debut on “Late Show With David Letterman.” Dave’s people had signed Romano to a development deal, and he interviewed several writers.

“I was not his first choice,” Rosenthal writes, “but I got lucky. The other guy was from a new hot show, ‘Friends,’ but he was busy.”

This revelation comes on Page 73 of You’re Lucky You’re Funny, however, and by then we’ve already learned that the two men, one Italian and one Jewish, both from Queens, had plenty in common. Starting with their nutty families.

It was Rosenthal’s mother, not Romano’s, who was the source of one of the more enduring scenes from “Everybody Loves Raymond’s” first season. Ray decides it would be nice to sign his parents up for the Fruit-of-the-Month club. But when the first shipment of a dozen pears arrives, Marie (played by Doris Roberts) freaks out. The scene ends exactly as it did in Rosenthal’s own life, with his mother screaming, “I can’t talk anymore. There’s too much fruit in the house!”

Rosenthal shares embarrassing tales from his formative years and a couple from his current life (married to eventual “Raymond” cast member Monica Horan). These stories provide the “fuel for comedy,” as Rosenthal says, laying out a theory for TV comedy that is remarkable for its clarity and common sense.

“All the shows I valued took place on planet Earth,” he writes, “meaning, no matter what the situation, no matter how crazy, you believed that it could actually happen in real life.”

Indeed, we learn that in real life, Ray Romano really does have a brother who is a cop and envies him, and who once actually said, ‘It never ends for Raymond. Ehhhverybody loves Raymond.’”

You’re Lucky You’re Funny — the title comes from something Rosenthal’s wife tells him when they fight — is mostly about how he, Romano and the other writers on the show converted their crazy family experiences into comedy gold.

Rosenthal says he tried to give his writers normal working hours so they could “go home, get into fights, then come to work and tell us about them.”

By seizing on these particulars, no matter how minor, “Raymond” made itself a show with universal appeal.

“Marriage isn’t all nice and kissy,” Rosenthal says, “but a little bit of war, too.” And not just marriage: Letters arrive from all over the world, because “Raymond” is syndicated in 180 countries, from viewers who invariably tell him, “That’s my mom.”

There are great stories about how each part was cast; why Brad Garrett’s character sounds so much like Eeyore from “Winnie the Pooh”; why everything that comedy writers say in the writers’ room must stay in the writers’ room; why Rosenthal hates going on vacations; why he will never work for the Weinstein brothers; how he and Ray landed lunch with Johnny Carson; and a wealth of other showbiz anecdotes, told with a great ear and a minimum of back-patting.

The book jacket is adorned with testimonials from sitcom legends Carl Reiner, Norman Lear and James L. Brooks, so it’s no surprise when Rosenthal confesses he always wanted to make a show for Nick at Nite as much as for CBS.

What’s satisfying about this book is that Rosenthal achieves his goal, even when faced with the kind of obstacles that led Hunter S. Thompson to declare the TV business a trench where good men die like dogs.

Such as the studio executive who plots to squeeze Rosenthal out as the showrunner of “Everybody Loves Raymond” during the first season, or the CBS executive who insists that a certain actress be cast as Ray’s wife because CBS president Leslie Moonves dropped her name at a meeting. (The actress was all wrong, and Patricia Heaton came along a week later.)

Each of these little stories ends the same way, with our neurotic hero worrying himself sick, only to be vindicated in the end.

Rosenthal even makes somebody’s else dream come true. It’s the most incredible story of the book, and its details, I can report, have been confirmed independently. I won’t spoil it for you, but suffice it to say there’s a hit show currently airing on CBS whose producers should be sending hot pastrami sandwiches to Rosenthal’s office every week.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/15856921.htm

The New Season
Everybody's TALKIN' AT ME
TV critic Maureen Ryan takes a closer look at the new crop of daytime chat shows. One thing's for sure: Oprah's still the Queen
By Maureen Ryan The Chicago Tribune October 29, 2006

Who do you want to hang out with during the day?

That's really the question behind any daytime chat show. If you have the time or inclination to chill in front of the tube during the daytime -- probably while folding laundry or answering e-mails -- it really comes down to a question of chemistry. Who makes you feel cozy, curious, informed or just entertained?

This fall, we have several new daytime options, which lead us to the question: Would the best daytime buddy be a cooking-show personality, a "Sex and the City" writer turned self-help guru, a forensic psychiatrist or a former actress?

The answer might surprise you.

The most-hyped daytime debut of the fall was that of Rachael Ray. The increasingly ubiquitous Ray is perhaps the most famous celebrity chef Food Network has ever produced. On that channel, she hosts "30 Minute Meals," "$40 a Day" and "Tasty Travels"; the budding lifestyle entrepreneur also has successful lines of cookbooks and cookware, and a year ago, she launched her own magazine, Every Day with Rachael Ray.

She may have taken a different path -- through the kitchen -- than another daytime diva, but Ray is certainly following the media-domination template set by Oprah Winfrey. And that's to be expected, given that Winfrey, who successfully launched the "Dr. Phil" show four years ago, is one of the producers behind Ray's new daytime venture.

So far Ray's show appears to be a relative success.

According to the most recent daytime Nielsen numbers, "The Rachael Ray Show" trails behind established talk shows hosted by Winfrey, Dr. Phil McGraw, Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa, and Maury Povich. Ray's show is tied with Ellen DeGeneres' program -- both were pulling in about 2.2 million viewers each day in mid-October.

But the road to long-term daytime success is littered with many failures (see also Jane Pauley, Queen Latifah and another Oprah pal, Iyanla Vanzant, to name but a few). And given the manic state of her show, one wishes Ray had taken a few more lessons in host deportment from Winfrey.

Over the years, Winfrey has perfected an art that is all the more impressive for its seeming naturalness; she lets the audience come to her. Years ago, she waded out into the audience, seemingly in need of the audience's affection and approval. That era of Oprah is long over.

What she has now is a charismatic, sometimes fearsome reserve. The audience, the camera, the viewer -- all must come to her and pay homage. And it's pretty impossible not to, especially because Winfrey can so easily adapt her interview style. She's chatty with superstars such as Jennifer Aniston and Madonna, gossipy with her pal Gayle King, and appropriately stern, even prosecutorial, with transgressors of every kind.

There are many Oprahs, but all of them trust that the audience will know better than to tune out when she's talking. For the audience, the enjoyment of all those top-shelf celebrity puffball interviews and road-trip good-time stories is laced with a healthy dose of respect verging on fear. You do not want to make Oprah angry.

Still hungry

Ray, on the other hand, clearly is still in the hungry-for-approval stage. The stench of desperation is not an appetizing aroma; neither is flop sweat. Ray is like one of those party hostesses who cannot allow a second of silence at her gatherings. She must fill every moment with chatter and activity, so much so that, extending the party analogy, you want to edge away from her quickly, ideally with a stiff drink in hand.

And there's not much utility in the show's non-cooking segments. On one show, one of her "peeps," or lifestyle adviser pals, arrived to talk about making costumes from household items, including tape.

"Tape is awesome!" Ray yelped.

No, tape is not awesome. Neither was the advice from a Ray pal about how to reduce purse clutter: Get one of those makeup kits in which the eye shadow, blush and lipstick are all in the same kit. This is useful lifestyle advice? Most females figure that out before they're 12.

The one place that Ray still shines, or annoys the least, is in the kitchen. At the end of each show, she whips up one of her patented quick-and-easy meals, sometimes with a guest. Her endless prattle means that guests don't often get a word in edgewise, but Ray obviously feels comfortable in the stovetop arena.

Not so with guests and audience members. Ray likes to sit in the audience on occasion, chatting with the regular folks, and has a recurring segment in which audience members share "funny" stories from their lives. These segments invariably stop the show cold, and Ray's no master of light and breezy banter. Her opening gambit, in which she stands in front of the audience talking about whatever strikes her fancy, is equally frantic. Her show is not so much a relaxed daytime hang as a forced march.

Megan Mullally, on the other hand, has the relaxation thing down, perhaps too much so. Mullally, a former Chicago actress who played the helium-voiced socialite Karen Walker for eight years on "Will & Grace," debuted a daytime talker this fall as well, and it feels like an extension of a chat show's green room.

Mullally's guests are often fellow actors, and she appears to have palled around with many of them at events and awards shows over the years. The dialogue is of the sleep-inducing "You're great!" "No, you're great!" variety. Did we really need one more show that's really just a televised celebrity air kiss?

Despite Mullally's efforts to give the show some creative pizazz -- she created a superhero character called Danger Lady, who'll give that weepy, co-dependent friend the talking to she needs -- her show is a little too insider-ish and inconsequential.

Of course, the model for Mullally's perky show is DeGeneres' program, which, in its own quiet way, has rewritten the rules of daytime chat shows. Yes, celebs come on to flog whatever film or TV show they're promoting, but DeGeneres thinks of enjoyable ways to put the stars through their paces. She learned how to walk like an 18th Century queen from "Marie Antoinette's" Kirsten Dunst, had tennis star Andy Roddick do a silly version of a tennis game, and showed a commercial Hugh Laurie did in his starving artist days.

Quick-witted

What's not immediately obvious about DeGeneres' lively, enjoyable show is how crucial the host's quick wit is to the success of the enterprise. Being able to make small talk with celebrities who are on their 87th talk show appearance is no easy task, but DeGeneres' improvisational comic chops are strongly in evidence. She's not just letting celebrities plug their projects; she's able to use her quick wit on them, in a gentle way that's neither cruel nor awkward.

Then again, some shows thrive on confrontation; the two best talk show segments of the past week came, believe it or not, from Martha Stewart's daytime show. In separate visits to Stewart's pristine set, Cookie Monster and Amy Sedaris, an actress promoting a wackily subversive entertaining book of her own, "I Like You," both took the air out of Stewart's humorlessness and rigidity, in the most delightfully goofy ways.

Perhaps Stewart didn't get the memo: Cookie Monster's a bit out of control, especially when dessert preparation is involved. "Please don't spill the batter. This is all set up so our segment works really well. Be professional," Stewart barked to the puppet at one point.

But he gave as good as he got: "Yeah, whatever ... hurry up," Cookie Monster groaned, wanting to get to the goodies. "They not have to be perfect."

Not perfect? In Martha-land? Hah. But Sedaris' loopy appearance was even better; she spent the whole time goofing on the cheery "domestic diva" stereotype and making vaguely snide comments about Stewart under her breath. The last time she saw Stewart, she noted, the host was wearing a jeans outfit, "probably with an elastic waist because of bloating."

Looking over at Stewart's' cake, Sedaris cracked, "Yours looks a little sloppy." Stewart was oblivious to it all. Ah, you have to love Martha. She's not capable of comprehending it when people make fun of her. And that sort of cluelessness is kind of entertaining in its own weird way.

While it got chaotic in Stewart's kitchen with Cookie Monster, things have settled down a bit at "The View," where the first week of the Rosie O'Donnell era was like being locked in a cage with a troop of howler monkeys.

O'Donnell apparently got the memo about toning down her act; now the most obnoxious aspect of the show is its new, retina-searing blue set. Otherwise, things are perking along ; the show is more or less its usual self, and it's always fun to see those moments when O'Donnell shoots death rays with her eyes at Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Likable presence

Perhaps if "The View" ladies get too confrontational, they could visit the "Dr. Keith Ablow Show," where the forensic psychiatrist has waded into the psyche of former JonBenet Ramsey suspect John Mark Karr (with whom Ablow got a freakishly fascinating interview), abusive dads and moms addicted to prescription meds. The bald, handsome Ablow is a likable presence, even if he hasn't quite worked out how to look comfortable wading into the audience. And his show is a fairly sane oasis in a daytime world that can still sometimes get pretty trashy (I'm talking to you, Maury Povich).

The biggest surprise of the newest crop of daytime talkers is the show from Greg Behrendt, who built a self-help career with the tome he co-wrote, "He's Just Not That Into You" (a phrase that was itself a product of "Sex and the City," where Behrendt once worked). Behrendt, who sports a spiky, verging-on-mulleted blond hairdo, turns out to be an engaging daytime host, despite his constant use of the word "dude."

His show revolves around helping people with their personal problems: One couple wants advice on how to deal with the fact that hubby's best friend lives with them; another guy won't commit to his longtime girlfriend; and one woman wants to learn how to stop getting fired for crying at work.

Behrendt's advice isn't anything radical or profound, but it's sensible and heartfelt. The show has a bit of a low-rent vibe (the set and on-screen typefaces seem borrowed from "Maury," but never mind), but Behrendt ably keeps things moving along. And he offers reluctant guests a choice: Take his concrete bit of advice (open a joint checking account; get therapy) or get a tattoo.

Some folks opt for the tattoo, but what are you gonna do?

FALL'S NEW DAYTIME TALKING HEADS

'The Rachael Ray Show'
When it's on: 2 p.m. weekdays on WBBM-Ch. 2
What's the deal: Cooking tips, celebrity visits
Should you watch? If you can stand her manic energy.
WHO'S WATCHING: 2,260,000 household

'The Greg Behrendt Show'
When it's on: 10 a.m. weekdays on WGN-Ch. 9
What's the deal: "He's Not That Into You" co-author dishes up advice and life tips.
Should you watch? Sure, it's energetic and fun, if you don't mind the constant use of the word "dude."
WHO'S WATCHING: 820,000 households

'The Megan Mullally Show'
When it's on: noon weekdays on WMAQ-Ch. 5
What's the deal: Celebrity visits, brief skits and such.
Should you watch? Only if you think Ellen DeGeneres' show is far too hard and grueling an experience for celebrities.
WHO'S WATCHING: 896,000 households

'The Dr. Keith Ablow Show'
When it's on: 3 p.m. weekdays on WPWR-Ch. 50.
What's the deal: A psychiatrist helps people get their lives on track.
Should you watch? It's not must-see viewing, but Ablow is knowledgeable and empathic.
WHO'S WATCHING: 1,045,000 households

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0610280195oct29,1,6565051.story?coll=chi-ent_tv-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

TV Notebook
Sociology of 'Jericho' intrigued Turteltaub
By Kimberly Nordyke The Hollywood Reporter October 30, 2006

In a time when world attention is focused on rogue states like North Korea having access to nuclear weapons, it might be all too easy to assume the producers of CBS' promising new drama "Jericho," which deals with the aftermath of a nuclear attack, are merely looking to play on Americans' fears. "Jericho" executive producer Jon Turteltaub does admit that a bit of real-life worry over an attack helps make the show more compelling.

"If people had no fear of nuclear bombs, then this show would kind of suck." he says, "But if America was in a panic over nuclear bombs, we probably couldn't make the show."

Turteltaub's intention isn't to prey on that fear in the name of easy scares. Instead, he aims to create intriguing stories that come via an examination of the way that the different characters -- survivors left isolated in a small Kansas town -- react in a crisis situation.

"I think what we have all really focused on is less the nuclear message and more of the sociology of how to behave when everything goes wrong," Turteltaub says. "Most of us are pretty wonderful during the good times, but our true character comes out when we're confronted with tragedy and disasters. True leadership appears, and really hard choices have to be made."

It's those choices -- many of which have arisen as a result of "societal conventions being stripped away" -- that intrigue Turteltaub, a feature film director who helmed "National Treasure" and next directs its sequel, as he gets deeper into his first foray into television. "Jericho," which recently received a full-season order, came out of a three-for-one deal that CBS inked with Turteltaub last year. The idea was brought to his Junction Entertainment by Jonathan A. Steinberg and Josh Schaer, credited as creators alongside Stephen Chbosky, and Turteltaub sparked to the concept.

"I like ideas where when I hear the initial part of an idea, it brings up thousands of other thoughts," he says. "This spawned a rash of other ideas -- everything from the fact that all of life would be changed by this event through where life doesn't really change at all if you live in small town and are already removed from the nonsense of a big city."

Another factor that appealed to him was that nuclear war hadn't been part of film or TV in some time, and even when it was, the stories had tended to deal with trying to stop a bomb from exploding rather than the fallout from an attack -- which, despite what's going on in the real world, ultimately makes the thought of a real-life "Jericho" even more frightening, he says.

"When we see a suicide bomber on a TV show, we think it's a sign of the times," he says. "But when we see a nuke explode, we think: 'Holy crap, where did that come from? That doesn't happen! TV and movie stars always stop the bomb with two seconds left on the timer -- they don't actually explode!' In this show, they do."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ij%20azXikHXCAstkkgtiPYNA==

Has anyone seen this ad? Since I fast-forward through all commercial breaks on my DVR I have yet to catch this but it's an intriguing (and long overdue) acknowledgment of the times we live in.

The Business of TV
Can divorce sell cars? Ford's bold ad will tell
By Susan Chandler The Chicago Tribune October 29, 2006

A mom and dad joke with their kids as their Ford Freestyle winds through scenic terrain. They stop at a roadside stand for a snack. They frolic on a beach at sunset.

They look like the perfect, happy family until the Freestyle pulls into a condo complex and Dad gets out. "Thanks for inviting me this weekend," he tells his ex-wife. Dad gives his kids a heartfelt hug and waves as the Freestyle crossover vehicle pulls away. A voice-over intones: "Bold moves: They happen every day."

The daring move here really belongs to Ford: showing a divorced couple in an advertising campaign.

Although millions of Americans have been divorced and millions of children no longer share an address with both parents, that truth is almost never reflected in the advertising that manufacturers and retailers use to woo consumers.

It's likely to stay that way, some marketers predict, because there is still a stigma attached to divorce, and most advertisers prefer to evoke images of happy nuclear families when pushing their products.

Others say the Freestyle ad has done exactly what it was supposed to do: create buzz and get people talking. If Ford's risky move is deemed a success, they predict consumers will see more ads that show unconventional relationships--gay people, mixed-race couples, divorced parents, stepchildren.

"We don't live in the world of Ozzie and Harriet anymore," noted Alan Siegel, chairman of Siegel + Gale, a brand strategy firm in New York. "I think advertising has to reflect what is going on in society."

Yet, traditionally, advertising's primary purpose isn't to reflect society; it is to sell as many products as possible to the greatest number of people. The desire not to offend means that advertising has been slower than almost any other medium, including TV shows and movies, to mirror changes in popular culture.

When advertisers do craft a message for a subset of consumers, such as gays and lesbians, there is often a backlash among conservative groups that worry about the degradation of "family values." Even so, advertisers from Stolichnaya vodka to Volvo have gone much further in courting homosexuals than they ever have with divorced people.

Christie Nordhielm, associate professor of marketing at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, thinks she knows why. When advertisers appeal to gay and lesbians, for instance, the attention is generally welcomed by a group that often feels overlooked. But divorced people may not have the same reaction.

"It's trying to take advantage of an emotional hot button. I can see where it would upset some people," said Nordhielm. "I'm not saying we should leave [divorced people] out, but I don't see the strategic reason to put them in."

Ford marketing executive John Felice said the company wasn't trying to make a social statement with its divorce ad. Rather, it was trying to make an emotional connection with its customers.

"It was about portraying a real-life situation," he said. "I've received passionate e-mails from divorced parents who said, `Thank you.'"

The ad drew ire from some unhappy Ford dealers who don't understand why the company would show a negative situation in its advertising. The ad stopped airing at the end of September because it had run its course, Felice said. He declined to speculate whether it would appear again.

Too bold?

Ford Motor Co.'s "Bold Moves" campaign, created by J. Walter Thompson's Detroit office, comes at a time when the company has its back against the wall. Its sales have declined precipitously as Ford fights the perception among U.S. consumers that its cars are stodgy and less well made than those of its Japanese rivals. Ford reported a $5.8 billion quarterly loss last week.

Most of the Bold Moves spots are quirky but not controversial, like the one where a woman pays the dry-cleaning tab for the cute guy in the car behind her.

The divorce spot stands out as more serious and provocative.

Only a minority of divorced couples end up with an amicable relationship when children are involved, divorce counselors say, and few would choose to spend an extended period of time with their ex in the close confines of a car.

Chicago divorce coach Kate van Dyke congratulates Ford for taking on a difficult topic and showing it with compassion. "I love the healthy role modeling going on there. Anything that can encourage the idea that you can be divorced and civil is a good thing to do."

But the spot struck veteran adman Tom McConnaughy as forced and a little sad. "I just didn't end up with a good feeling at the end of it. I sort of felt sorry for the guy. I just felt sorry. It didn't make me want to go out and buy a Ford."

At least one advertising executive says the Freestyle ad has achieved the Holy Grail of advertising: a spot that continues to work long after its 30 seconds of TV time have passed.

"That's the kind of promise we are making to our clients," said Steffan Postaer, chief creative officer at Euro RSCG Worldwide, a Chicago-based ad agency, and the creator of the "Curiously Strong" Altoids ad campaign.

"Around dinner tables, people will debate whether it was tacky or spot on. Whoever has the raw end of any given divorce may feel differently about that commercial. Parents may feel guilty about what they did with their kids. I see countless parents going to shrinks saying, `I saw this commercial and it made me feel uncomfortable.' That's possible. That's worth money."

Postaer says he remembers exactly the moment when he first saw the commercial because it struck a chord with him as a child of divorce and a parent. But as an ad executive, he also admired the twist at the end. "Picking up the kids to take a Sunday drive is a pedestrian story, but because of that narrative shift, it becomes all new again."

Under the headline "Divorcemobile," Slate contributor Seth Stevenson gives the ad a B- with "bonus points for progressive social stance" and "points off for muddled marketing message."

Separate but equal

How big is the market of divorced people? Some statistics say that 10 percent of the U.S. population was divorced as of 2002, up from 8 percent in 1990 and 6 percent in 1980. According to one estimate, one million children in America are involved in a new divorce each year. That's a big target market in a country of 300 million.

As a demographic group, though, divorced people are hard to pin down, marketers say. They cut across all income levels, ethnic groups, religions and age cohorts. They may be liberal or conservative

"It's hard to target divorced people," said Tim Calkins, marketing professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. "They don't watch certain shows or operate in certain ways. It is sort of like targeting people with brown hair."

It's also hard to pin down what products divorced people need. Is the car a divorced person drives different from other cars?

There is a tiny but burgeoning field of divorce-related products and services. There are divorce greeting cards and an online tool called "Our Family Wizard," which allows former spouses to update schedules for their children without having to speak to each other for a cost of about $200 a year.

There's even Divorce magazine, which features articles on everything from finding hidden assets to holding a divorce ceremony. Advertisers range from divorce lawyers and counselors to spas and Ikea, the Swedish retailer that offers a big range of value-priced furniture and home accessories.

Associate marketing professor Nordhielm thinks it's useless for advertisers to speak directly to those with doomed marriages unless they are marketing services to those in the midst of divorce. A better solution, she believes, is to reach out to consumers based on their attitudes, not demographics.

Smart advertisers such as Apple Computer and Volkswagen reach out across segments with messages that appeal to those who love music or cool design, Nordhielm pointed out.

Divorce coach van Dyke agreed that few divorced people want to be defined by the experience. "Divorce means a breaking apart. I don't know who aspires to that."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0610290493oct29,1,6852.story?page=1&coll=chi-ent_tv-hed

The Republican National Committee is NOT responsible for the contents of this story. :D ;) :D

TV Notebook
Brady Is Barney's 'Mother' Brother
In what would could Neil Patrick Harris and Wayne Brady be brothers?
Zap2it.com October 27, 2006

During November sweeps, "How I Met Your Mother" fans will be surprised to discover that Neil Patrick Harris' Barney has a brother and even more surprised at that brother's identity.

"Celebrity Duets" and "Crossover" star Wayne Brady will play Barney's sibling (the biological logistics have yet to be revealed) in an episode set to air on Monday, Nov. 27. Brady will be on the "HIMYM" set this week filming the episode, which could possibly open the door for possible future Brady appearances.

Mixed-race family pairings appear to be the new hip relationship on the small screen. Last week it was strongly implied that the characters played by John Amos and Derek Richardson on ABC's "Men in Trees" are father and son, while Peyton (Hilarie Burton) on "One Tree Hill" discovered an African-American half-brother earlier this week. That's not meant to imply that the "HIMYM" creative team is being inspired by "OTH" or "MiT," mind you.

Notable credits for Emmy winner Brady include "Whose Line Is It Anyway," "Chappelle's Show" and an arc on "Girlfriends."

http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-waynebradyhimymcasting,0,111955.story?coll=zap-tv-mainheadline

TV Notebook
TV's going cheap and cheaper
By Joanne Ostrow Denver Post TV Critic October 28, 2006

They're not firing, they're "rightsizing." They're not cost-cutting, they're inventing fabulous user-generated programming.

In the euphemistic world of network TV, executives make cutbacks sound like boldly progressive new ventures. The fact is, nobody knows whether today's cutback will yield tomorrow's creative, fantastically successful breakthrough program.

Last week NBC slashed jobs and put an end to expensive early-evening dramas, alerting viewers that, in the future, we should expect "Deal or No Deal" rather than "Friday Night Lights" in the 7 p.m. time slot. Cheaper to produce and more reliable in the ratings, quiz shows are one economical answer to NBC's current woes.

Wait - it gets cheaper.

The networks are launching do-it-yourself video sites, inviting amateur filmmakers to contribute content. They hail these new ventures as the wave of the techno-future.

Fox's "On the Lot," due early next year from Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg (online at thelot.com), offers would-be filmmakers the chance to work with the master. NBC-bound "It's Your Show," backed by Carson Daly (itsyourshowtv.com), offers cash prizes for the best homemade videos.

CBS is inviting user submissions to its "channel" on YouTube, hoping that partnership will strike gold. Eventually this may go beyond audition tapes for the next "Amazing Race."

Late-night host Daly recently talked about his online experiment, which eventually will be reshaped into a primetime show for NBC. Cashing in on the popularity of YouTube, Daly's "It's Your Show" is the viral video equivalent of "America's Funniest Home Videos," intended to entice amateur videomakers. Complete with a helpful production tool kit, it picks up where lonelygirl15 and lip-synching videos leave off.

"It's a sharing portal, but it does come with some structure," Daly said on a telephone conference call. The network provides a laugh track, for instance, sound effects, cartoon footage, music and a production framework. The tool kit can be applied to whatever mini-masterpiece contributors choose -from "Operation Grandma," where contenders teach a senior how to use new technology, to faux magic tricks pulled off with video editing.

Most appealing to the NBC brass is the fact that the content is practically free (not counting the weekly $1,000 award and a $100,000 challenge), because it's user-generated. The most expensive part of the whole enterprise must be the lawyers' fees for vetting copyright and clearance issues.

Fox's outlay is steeper: The winner gets a $1 million development deal at DreamWorks. Sixteen contestants will be split into teams and given resources to produce a short film. Each week they'll focus on a different genre (comedy, drama, romance, sci-fi) with a studio executive and a film critic among the judges, "American Idol"- style. The result could be a TV show rather than a movie, in which case 20th Century Fox TV has the rights.

Daly's gig is more modest. "The content will define the nature of the TV show," he said. Judging by the submissions online, that means a range from dumb to dumber.

The most popular challenge Daly's site has offered so far is called, "We shut up and you show us how it's done." Industry experts are convinced that air of turning over control to users is crucial. If you believe the hype, entertainment won't flow from a top-down hierarchy anymore; in the future, it will be up for grabs. Let a thousand stu- pid-pet-tricks bloom.

Just wait until audiences figure out that it takes more than a cellphone and a cute idea to create entertainment that can be sustained beyond two minutes.

Previously in this vein, NBC staged a contest for promotional spots for "The Office." The results were "genius," Daly said. In the same way, "It's Your Show" pushes tie-ins to various NBC Universal properties, to keep the corporate business in the forefront.

"Soon everybody's going to be videomaking," Daly predicted. He thinks viral video production will be a teenage rite of passage, like driving a car.

Could wonderfully inventive new entertainment arise from the chaos?

Anything's possible. And it won't cost much to find out.

http://www.denverpost.com/ostrow

This article is a week old (10/22/06) and somehow Fred missed it. I'm posting it now because (a) everybody's attention is back to NFL football after the World Series ended (b) it mentions the break-up of the Joe Theismann/PaulMaguire announcing team (no mention of Mike Patrick though) from when they did ESPN Sunday Night Football. I really miss these guys' chemistry between Maguire and Theismann, something Tony Kornheiser and Theismann cannot recreate. :(

TV Sports
Are you ready for some more of the same?
By Howard Burns The Hollywood Reporter October 22, 2006

Much like the great Sam Spence's majestic compositions over the decades for NFL Films, John Williams' thunderous orchestral theme music for NBC's new Sunday night NFL package conjures up a true air of warriors preparing for 60 hard-fought minutes of gridiron battle. It is, after all, "Football Night in America." Or is it?

With so much televised football now available in primetime in the course of a week, NBC's effort to designate Sunday evenings as must-see TV for fanatics of the game is more style than substance. And with the league's own NFL Network about to launch its own packages on Thursday and Saturday nights beginning on Thanksgiving, there will be even more of a TV football hangover.

Long gone are the days when "Monday Night Football" was really event television. When charged with creating pro football's first primetime TV package for ABC, the late Roone Arledge knew his network's broadcasts had to be different. After all, ABC reluctantly took on "Monday Night Football" in 1970 when confronted by the NFL's dalliance with Howard Hughes' well-heeled independent Hughes Sports Network. With ABC a distant third on Mondays in the ratings war with CBS and NBC, ABC feared there would be mass affiliate defections to the syndicated Hughes package if it did not carry the games itself.

Today, there's college football on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 as many as four nights a week. Add "Monday Night Football" on ESPN and the coming NFL Network games and there will be nationally televised football in primetime virtually every night of the week. So as much as NBC would want us to believe that Sunday is "Football Night in America," it is for now just another game on the tube.

All of the networks that broadcast NFL games put their best feet forward on their telecasts. Production values are state-of-the-art and the quality of the announcing teams are better than ever. CBS and Fox have the advantage of pretty much owning Sunday afternoons during football season, putting the onus on NBC and ESPN to make their broadcasts stand out from the more rigid primetime competition.

ESPN took a page out of the Arledge playbook and returned to the three-man booth with the play-by-play guy (Mike Tirico), the ex-jock analyst (Joe Theismann) and the opinionated commentator (Tony Kornheiser). While still a work in progress, this team has yet to develop the chemistry needed to resurrect the halcyon days of "MNF." Each is solid individually -- it's when they interact that the telecast breaks down.

Watching "MNF" on ESPN, you sometimes get the feeling that Kornheiser was put in the booth to be Theismann's foil, much like the interaction between Cosell and Meredith back in the day. Kornheiser often takes issue with Theismann's observations, and it can come off as forced. When Kornheiser's debating the day's sports stories with Michael Wilbon on ESPN's always entertaining "Pardon the Interruption," the fireworks can be magical. Thus far, it appears Kornheiser is probably better suited to being in the studio alongside Chris Berman & Co. than in the booth. It also begs the question of why ESPN felt the need to break up the combination of Theismann and Paul Maguire, partners for many years on "Sunday Night Football." Theirs was a simpatico that's going to be awfully hard to replicate.

To NBC's credit, it chose continuity over a whole new set of bells and whistles for its version of "Sunday Night Football." Much like when Fox acquired the Sunday NFC package and lured CBS' No. 1 announce team of Pat Summerall and John Madden to be its top tandem, NBC set its sights on ABC's Monday-night duo of Madden and Al Michaels, arguably the best pairing in the game. For good measure, the network deployed its signature face, the unflappable Bob Costas, to anchor its studio show. Nothing fancy, just tried and true.

What may elevate "Sunday Night Football" to event status will be starting in Week 10 of the season when its games will be chosen based on importance rather than a schedule that was made months in advance. If the league can do this right without alienating its other broadcast partners, NBC may be able to recapture some of the sizzle that's been missing from primetime football for some time.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/sports/e3iPs6%2Ftbsz%2Fa111uZlpjxWWA%3D%3D

I grew-up in a third-world country (El Salvador) throughout the 1980's, when the local TV industry experienced the same phenomenon chonicled in this article. And since I'm one of the few posters here that is not ashamed to admit he loves gameshows...

TV Notebook
Q: Vietnamese love what? A: Game shows
By Don Lee Tribune Newspapers/Chicago Tribune October 29, 2006

HANOI -- The game show contestant was sweating.

The final question would determine whether she would win the round and walk away with the prize. "What animal is the bridge on the Mekong Delta named for?" a host asked.

Before Trang, the contestant, could react, her rival blurted out the correct answer: monkey.

"I didn't do too well," said Trang, a forlorn figure on a set bathed in bright lights and festooned with tinsel and balloons.

Trang's pain will be broadcast to the nation when the game show episode airs later this fall. Talk about jeopardy: Trang is only 9 years old.

Vietnam is awash in TV game shows. Its eight major stations air more than 50 of them, many in prime time. There are programs geared to children, teens, seniors. Some cater to niche audiences, such as the show that tests soldiers on military life.

The game shows reflect Vietnam's rapid economic development. In the last decade, a middle class has emerged. Pit toilets are giving way to modern conveniences, cars are replacing motorcycles and 90 percent of Vietnamese households have TV sets. Game shows are helping influence Vietnam's first TV generation just like television transformed American culture in the 1950s.

In a society where education is seen as the way to economic freedom, Vietnamese say these programs serve as mass education. They are teaching people about world history, healthful living and modern lifestyles.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, the eyes of friends Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diep and Nguyen Thu Hien were glued to a large flat-panel Sony television in a relative's home here. The two 22-year-old women, who work as receptionists at foreign-based companies, played along as three families battled on "Sunday at Home," which quizzes contestants about health and homemaking.

The week's subject was about bathing. "To help you lose weight, what should you put into the bath water?" the host asked the three teams. "A) green tea leaves; B) ginkgo leaves; or C) Vietnamese mint leaves?"

The Vu family hit the bell first and answered C.

"Whoosh!" came the sound, telling them they were wrong. The Phams were next. Green tea leaves, they said. Drums banged, as the couple and their two sons took home the top prize: an air conditioner, valued at $260.

"Oh, I never knew that," Hien said after hearing the answer.

Some Vietnamese see game shows also as a chance to get their 15 minutes of fame. Others hope that old friends or long-lost relatives will see them on TV and contact them. Many regard shows as a kind of IQ test.

'Not good for the youth'

But there also is fear that the idiot box will live up to its name and that Vietnam will turn into a nation of couch potatoes.

"When TV has so many shows like that, it's not good for the youth because they spend most of their time watching TV without doing anything," said Nguyen Chau, a sociologist at Hanoi University of Foreign Studies.

As in China, the government controls the TV stations here. Before game shows began taking off in the last few years, programming focused mainly on government announcements and dreary educational fare.

The communist government has been flexible with game shows because they don't have political content. Entrepreneurs have been allowed to produce the shows, and networks are buying licensing rights and importing games from the U.S., Japan and Europe.

Among the most popular: Vietnamese knockoffs of American shows such as "The Price Is Right" and "Wheel of Fortune."

Drawn by prizes

The prizes are a big draw. "Sunday at Home" offers housewares and appliances. Other game shows, such as "Fairy Garden," give out books and scholarships.

One of the richest is "Who Is the Millionaire?" Except that in Vietnam, the winner gets about $6,500--or 10 times the average annual income. No one has correctly answered the 15 questions to win that prize in the two years the show has aired.

Vietnam's provincial networks are hastily coming up with their own game shows or knockoffs of the most popular games from the U.S., France and Japan.

Television producers say that if people are hooked on game shows now, the genre, having started in Vietnam just a decade ago, will only get stronger.

Chau, the Hanoi sociologist, says the trend may be short-lived. Calling game show watching a cheap, passive form of entertainment, he says people may favor other leisure activities as their incomes rise.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0610290504oct29,1,4795574.story?coll=chi-ent_tv-hed

TV Business of TV
Horror fans diving into Adult Swim
By Carly Mayberry The Hollywood Reporter October 28, 2006

The numbers don't lie. If you're a horror movie buff, you're probably staying up late watching the oddball animated fare on Adult Swim, too.

According to a recent survey by Nielsen//NetRatings@Plan, about 4.3% of more than 141 million adults in the U.S. with online access have seen a horror movie in theaters during the past 30 days, and 14.4% of online adults have rented a horror flick during the past 30 days.

Of those who rented a horror movie, the top draw on Web is AdultSwim.com, with about 42.6% of them having visited the site during the same period. Among those who had their thrills and chills in a theater, 21.3% visited the Adult Swim site. Among the latest Adult Swim programs likely to appeal to horror aficionados is "Lucy, Daughter of the Devil," which premiered Saturday.

The numbers also show that fans of macabre have an interest in crime and the legal misfortunes of others, with CourtTV.com ranking second among theatrical horror movie viewers at 15%, and No. 4 among horror renters at 34.1%. Among theatergoers, visits to Hollywood.com (14.3%), SciFi.com (13.3%) and MovieTickets.com (13.3%) rounded out the top five. Among renters, StarTrek.com (40.6%), AintItCoolNews.com (35.6%) and SonyPictures.com (33.8%) finished off the top five.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ij%2BazXikHXCBJ%2B%2FCvsFxLnw%3D%3D

The Business of TV
TCM sticks with classic plan
Basic-cable net has thrived despite absence of ads
By John Dempsey Variety October 29, 2006

"There are no old movies -- there are only movies you haven't seen before."
That aphorism, coined by film historian/director Peter Bogdanovich, is a favorite of Tom Karsch, exec VP and G.M. of Turner Classic Movies. The quote is one way to explain the success of a niche movie network that, in just 10 years of operation, now flickers in the cable and satellite homes of almost 75 million customers.

TCM's Turner Entertainment Networks parent thinks so much of it that it has just deposited TCM into the welcoming arms of Steve Koonin, promoted to president last week after successfully refurbishing Turner's TNT and TBS.

TCM has thrived despite being one of the few basic-cable networks that turns its back on advertising -- unlike rivals like AMC, which started taking advertising in 2003 -- in effect forgoing upward of $100 million a year in revenues from Madison Avenue.

But cable operators and satcasters more than make up the difference by forking over projected license fees of $199 million in 2006 and $210 million in 2007, according to Kagan Research. TCM spends less than 40% of those fees on programming.

With Madison Avenue off-limits, TCM can embrace older audiences without having to worry about getting punished by the advertisers who snub senior citizens.

These older viewers are a positive lure to Jerry McKenna, head of programming and marketing for top-10 cable operator Cable One, who says, "We carry TCM on 95% of our systems." McKenna is gung-ho for TCM at least in part because Cable One has a number of retirement communities in its electronic footprint spread across 19 states.

It's logical that old folks dote on TCM, but all the speculation about who watches the network is just that: speculation. TCM is one of the few cable networks that saves millions of dollars a year by not subscribing to Nielsen.

"That's really a detriment," McKenna says. "Ratings help me to position a network."

For example, a film tier might not be the most rational place for TCM because contempo-movie channels tend to skew young, and the typical 18- to 49-year-old recoils in horror from black-and-white movies.

But Karsch isn't giving up on younger viewers. TCM has commissioned Richard Schickel to make a 90-minute film on Steven Spielberg, interspersing interviews with clips from the director's movies.

TCM also has created a homevideo line, a robust Web site and 10 hours of video-on-demand movies a month that will balloon to 35 hours on Time Warner Cable before the year is out.

One of Karsch's goals is to get some of today's best-known actors to discuss on film some of the great stars of the past.

"If we could capture Johnny Depp conveying his admiration for Charlie Chaplin, lots of young people would want to check out Chaplin's movies," Karsch says.

TCM's only real competitor in the classic-movie niche is Fox Movie Channel, which doesn't do the high-profile originals produced by TCM, focuses exclusively on pictures from the library of 20th Century Fox and reaches only about 30 million subs.

AMC used to be a competitor, but it "abdicated the niche" in 2003 when it started to solicit advertising and phased out older movies in favor of pictures from the past two decades, says Laura Behrens cq, cable analyst with Gartner Research.

The purists were appalled, but AMC's strategy has worked, pumping up its revenues and its appeal to younger viewers.

But one sign that both TCM and FMC should stick to their knitting: a recent Beta Research study, which found that, among potential subscribers, FMC was by far the most sought-after service in the category of "emerging or digital networks," racking up a 62% score. (Hallmark Movie Channel and Discovery's Science Channel were a distant second, tied at 46%.)

Oldies may not be golden any more, but they're still a pretty good business.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952806.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

TV Notebook
Playing a 'fully rounded' urban killer with grace
By David Zurawik The Baltimore Sun October 29, 2006

Each Sunday throughout the HBO drama's 13-week season, TV critic David Zurawik will highlight a must-see character or story element in the current episode.

As the series returns tonight after a one-week planned hiatus, Omar Little (Michael K. Williams) finds himself locked up in the Baltimore City Detention Center with a bounty on his head. His prospects are so bad that even one of the most fearsome villains in TV history, the cool-hand robber of drug kingpins, is noticeably worried.

But steely-eyed Omar is not the type to go gentle into that good night - is he?

His fury as he fights for his life in the episode titled "Unto Others" is graphic, chilling and operatic in its range and intensity.

"A lot of Omar's story lines are written from the classic Westerns like The Wild Bunch," Williams says.

The Omar Little of the script, combined with Williams' performance in the role, keep the character from becoming a one-dimensional killing machine - and underline the show's excellence.

"The way I see Omar is that he's what you get when you oppress someone," says Williams.

"He's society's sore thumb. He's a man who has taken his bumps in life very early on and has come to terms with who and what he is - and plays from that field."

Williams sees his challenge in bringing the gunman to life as a "fully rounded" person: "You know, Omar has a home life, too," he says of the gay character, whose relationships and domestic life are explored with a wry wisdom rarely found anywhere in prime time - let alone an urban crime drama.

Savvy and nuanced scripts, like the one tonight from William F. Zorzi, a former Sun reporter and editor, make the task a lot easier, says the 39-year-old performer: "When the scripts come to me, Omar is already in there as a human being - they write him that way."

One extra dimension that seems to be mainly Williams' doing is the physical power and grace with which he infuses Omar - whether the character is striding through the streets of Baltimore wearing his Wild West duster and carrying his trademark shotgun, or locked in a hand-to-hand dance of death on a prison killing floor as he is tonight.

Williams says the physical style comes in large part from his days as a dancer and choreographer in music videos for performers ranging from Missy Elliott and Madonna to George Michael.

"That's where I started from - did a host of commercial music videos - and learned my way around a set. ... Now, I just try to bring it all to Omar," says the actor, who was born and raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn, N.Y.

And Williams - as Omar - will be bringing out a rap record by the end of the year.

"The title's not set, but we think it's going to be called Omar Comin' - no 'is' and no 'g' - just Omar Comin'."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/bal-ae.wirewatch29oct29,0,1943442.story?coll=bal-artslife-tv

The Business of TV
NBC News braces for the ax
Division tries to hold ratings lead amid uncertainty
By Michael Learmonth Variety October 29, 2006

It survived the retirement of Tom Brokaw, the defection of Katie Couric and a meltdown in primetime. But can NBC News survive Six Sigma?
With its top-rated shows, well-known correspondents and a sprawling portfolio of networks, NBC News has dominated the past decade in the ratings.

Even troubled MSNBC, perpetually in search of a winning formula against Fox and CNN, is a financial success in that it's produced on-the-cheap, bolted onto the network's infrastructure with its vast network of bureaus.

But now GE has applied its vaunted process for rooting out management defects to bring NBC U back to double-digit profit growth. And apparently, it has found the most inefficiency in the news operations, where as many as 300 positions are expected to be cut by the beginning of next year.

A week after NBC U TV prexy Jeff Zucker announced the implications of NBC U 2.0 -- a 5% cut in headcount across the board -- NBC News prexy Steve Capus met with various newsies under his control and has traveled to the West Coast to talk to staffers there.

At this point, Capus is taking volunteers for buyouts, after which more concrete decisions will be made as to how many layoffs occur and where.

For the network, the stakes could hardly be higher. NBC News is steward of franchises such as "Today," "Nightly News" and "Meet the Press," all No. 1 in their dayparts.

All three proved resistant to NBC's decline in primetime, and many analysts attribute the strength of NBC's local stations to the strength of "Today," which like "Nightly News" has spent more than a decade in first place.

But those positions are not invulnerable. "Nightly News With Brian Williams," for example, is in a much tighter race this fall than last year.

For the week of Oct. 16-20, Williams kept the total-viewer lead with 8.6 million, but ABC's "World News" was a close second (8.4 million) and won the 25-54 demo, while CBS (7.6 million) was only 1 million viewers behind.

The restructuring has already been set in motion. The network is building out two floors at 30 Rockefeller Center for MSNBC, which will include the 24-hour news desk headed by David Verdi.

"Countdown With Keith Olbermann" will be moved to 30 Rock, as will the control room for "Hardball With Chris Matthews." "Imus in the Morning" will move to CNBC headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

As MSNBC is merged into 30 Rock, insiders expect consolidation of production staffs, meaning probable layoffs of bookers, cameramen and producers. MSNBC doesn't have a lot of high-priced talent, and there may be cases where an MSNBC employee replaces one at NBC News.

"When GE looked at MSNBC, and looked at the amount of work product turned out vs. staffing, it was very lean," says one staffer.

Since Capus became president of NBC News, the network has added bureaus in Beijing, Bangkok, Beirut and New Orleans. But he's looking at ways the existing domestic bureaus -- network and cable -- can be merged with local stations to bring efficiencies.

The network is consolidating the operations of NBC News, KNBC and KVEA in Burbank, Calif. And CNBC's L.A. bureau, now at Universal CityWalk, may be folded back into Burbank, where it was until April.

Unlike MSNBC, CNBC has its own bureaus, many of which will be merged with local NBC-owned stations. CNBC's Silicon Valley bureau likely will be merged with KNTV in San Jose, while CNBC's Chicago bureau likely will move in with WMAQ; its D.C. bureau with WRC.

But sources predicted the cuts to CNBC would amount to tinkering around the edges. The network is keeping its own facility, and its on-air talent is being kept largely in place as cabler girds for the arrival of Fox Business Channel, expected early next year.

With all its networks, shows and bureaus, NBC U news personnel tend to flood the zone on every story, generating what must appear like a blot on the balance sheet to the Six Sigma suits giving NBC U a workover.

When the congressional page at the center of the Mark Foley molestation story met with the FBI in Oklahoma City, for example, producers from "Today," "Nightly News," "Dateline" and MSNBC all staked out the courthouse for what turned out to be a one-minute statement from the young man's lawyer.

During the Amish school shootings in Pennsylvania, Capus told staff, only half-facetiously, that the sheriff probably got more separate calls from NBC U bookers --from MSNBC to NBC News to local stations -- than all the other media combined.

Consolidating some of these functions would seem to be a no-brainer, but there could be pitfalls, and too much combining could affect the uniqueness of individual shows.

As competitive as the morning-show landscape is, would "Today" ever outsource on either of those stories?

"The downside is 'GMA' shows up and gets a sit-down interview; then we lose," says one staffer.

Yet there's a sense that the walls must come down to some extent, and editorial employees have to be more versatile in terms of the shows and networks to which they feed material.

This, essentially, is how "Dateline" has been instructed it will pay its way, by producing long-form segments for all NBC News units.

The show will likely become more active in producing for MSNBC, which has switched to taped programming for two hours of primetime.

"We are already doing a lot of stuff for other clients, which needs to be reflected in the accounting," says one "Dateline" staffer.

As Zucker and Capus make the cuts, it may expose a digital divide in the company where employees will be judged by their efficiency and track record of producing for multiple platforms.

"Technology is improving so rapidly, you can find cuts by just taking advantage of all the improvements coming in," says news analyst Andrew Tyndall.

At the same time, some journalists fear corporate tolerance for investigative pieces -- the kind that take weeks and sometimes win Emmys -- will be casualties.

Still others believe the changes, however painful they may be, are long overdue.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952807.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

TV Notebook
'House' guest
David Morse makes 'House' call in Fox guest-star arc
By Jay Bobbin Zap2it/Chicago Tribune October 29, 2006

Finally, Dr. Gregory House makes someone mad enough to strike back.

Not known for his bedside manner, the typically curt medic (played by Hugh Laurie) earns a new enemy in the police detective (guest star David Morse) he treats as a six-episode "House" arc starts Tuesday, Oct. 31, on Fox.

Seeking help at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital for an apparent infection, the cop is enraged by House's standard behavior. He soon gets the means to even the score, and House gets an education in rubbing somebody the wrong way -- not that it will change him, or he wouldn't be House.

Most recently a series star in "Hack," soft-spoken Philadelphia resident Morse knows medical drama, having been on board for the whole six-year run of "St. Elsewhere" in the 1980s. "We had the largest audience in our last season that we'd ever had," he recalls. "I felt what we did, in a way, was to prepare audiences for shows like 'ER.' They took it in their direction and had great success with it.

"One of the things 'St. Elsewhere' did was to push the boundaries of storytelling, and I feel series like 'House' have benefited. That show is pushing the edges in its own way with the medical stories it tells, and I think it's great. The more we challenge ourselves as storytellers, the better the stories are going to be."

With his recent run in feature films from "The Green Mile" to "16 Blocks," Morse wasn't looking for television work, but he knew "House" creator-producer David Shore from "Hack." "I don't tend to watch anything except news and some sports, but when I started telling people 'House' was interested in me, they went, 'Oh, my gosh, it's my favorite show! You've gotta do it!' I said, 'Well, OK. I'll talk to them.' "

Not only did Morse do that, he began watching the series and liked what he saw. "I watched this guy getting really cranky with people who looked like interns following him around, and I thought, 'Are they really getting away with this?' I developed an opinion about the guy, and it's been kind of fun to get to express that."

British talent Laurie evidently provides immediate inspiration. "He's terrific," Morse says, "not just as an actor, but also as a person. He'll always be the heart of that show. Everyone there, including the crew, loves him and has great respect for him. There's no ego; it's just about getting in there, having fun in the scenes and letting the characters live. As an actor, you can't ask for more than that."

As Dr. Jack Morrison on "St. Elsewhere," Morse was the image of righteousness, but he has played a number of devious turncoats since. "It's what all actors face," he reasons of the "House" stint that makes him nasty again. "When I was doing 'St. Elsewhere,' I played nice and sensitive, and I couldn't get a break from that for a long time. You start playing some bad guys, and people think you'll always be that. I don't know if there's a way around it; it just seems to go with the territory.

"In the conversation with (the 'House' producers), I expressed that concern. I didn't want to just be a bad guy on the show. Their feeling was that they wanted someone who was the equal of House, somebody who could really stand toe to toe with him and be as complicated, as lonely and as obsessed with his work. He 'gets' who House is on all levels and can really shake his foundation. That was interesting to me."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0610290468oct29,1,596678.story?coll=chi-ent_tv-hed

The New Season
'ER' at 13: Tourniquet not needed
Skein regains status of No. 1 program in its time period
By Rick Kissell Variety October 29, 2006

There's no evidence of triskaidekaphobia over at "ER" or "Survivor."

While the Thursday spotlight has been on the heavyweight 9 o'clock tussle between "Grey's Anatomy" and "CSI," the slot leaders in the evening's other hours are a pair of veteran skeins holding up well in their 13th seasons.

"ER" has been the most impressive, with its 6.3 rating in adults 18-49 down a tick from the 6.4 it had through five episodes last season. After declining by double-digit percentages for each of the past few years, the medical drama has certainly stopped the bleeding and has regained its status of being the No. 1 program in its time period.

While some have credited the addition of John Stamos to the cast and fewer depressing storylines, a couple of sked factors are likely more responsible.

First, CBS has removed former slot champ "Without a Trace" (6.5 rating at this point last year) and replaced it with the new "Shark," which has netted a 4.2. This alone probably saved "ER" from declining by another half point.

Also, ABC's skedding of "Grey's Anatomy" opposite the Eye's "CSI" means there are more than 45 million drama viewers watching these two nets at 9:59 -- and that can only help the top drama at 10.

And then there's the fact that "Grey's" isn't any old drama -- it's a hospital-based soap opera going after the same viewers (and their younger sisters) as those who watched "ER" in its heyday.

But give "ER" credit: It has been NBC's No. 1 drama for 12 seasons (the new "Heroes" has a shot to top it this season) and has been a constant bright spot even as the net's overall prospects have grown darker.

It also has had to contend with a second drama rival this fall as ABC has replaced newsmag "Primetime" with the new sudser "Six Degrees." The folks over at ABC may have underestimated "ER's" potency in season 13, though, as it has consistently crushed "Six Degrees," which inherits a huge lead-in audience.

For its part, "Survivor" has remained incredibly resilient over its 6½-year existence, which has produced 13 seasons of shows. While other unscripted contest phenoms have seen their ratings decline sharply from their peaks -- "The Bachelor" and "The Apprentice" among them -- "Survivor" has been a top-10 performer in each of its incarnations.

The pre-show hubbub over the splitting of tribes along racial lines didn't really juice ratings, but it didn't hurt, either. And like "ER," any show that can maintain viewer interest this late in its run has accomplished something.

Through six airings, "Survivor: Cook Islands" was averaging a 5.9 rating in adults 18-49, down just 3% from last year's 6.1 rating at this point for the Guatemala edition.

"Survivor" also has tougher competition this fall from ABC's "Ugly Betty" (4.6 rating, a 92% improvement for the net over last year's 2.4 for "Alias") and from NBC's comedy block of "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" (4.1 rating, up 17% from last year's "Joey" and "Will & Grace").

Both "Survivor" and "ER" are a few years removed from their greatest water-cooler moments, but if this year's Nielsens are any indication, don't expect either of them to be drying up any time soon.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952805.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

You know me and fredfa: fair, balanced, and unafraid! :rolleyes:

So you DO watch FOX News Channel!! :) :)

:confused: Fox News, CNN and MSNBC all get heavy rotation on my little picture-in-picture window on the TV with the sound on while the big screen is playing something else (a videogame, Monday Night Football, etc.). I'm a news junkie but also enjoy the political spectacle of pompous blowhards (O'Reilly, Olberman, Dobbs, etc.) talking to me as if they have my best interests in mind instead of feeding red meat to their respective demographics/target viewers. Scripted sitcoms cannot reach the heights of hilarity that some segments/programs/personalities on these news channels unintentionally achieve.

Complete speculation, but...

TV Notebook
'Studio 60’ Cancellation Iminent
By Roger Friedman Fox News (Fox 411) October 29, 2006

Here we go: despite receiving an order for three more episodes on Friday, the Aaron Sorkin NBC drama “Studio 60 on Sunset Strip” is about to be put out of its misery.

Cast members are already confiding in friends that the end is near. It’s likely NBC will pull the plug shortly I am told by insiders.

Last week, Studio 60 had 7.7 million viewers. Compare that with competing "CSI: Miami," with 17.5 million. That gap cannot be closed.

But ‘Studio 60’ has trouble internally at NBC, forget its intramural rivals. According to ratings stats, the “Saturday Night Live” behind the scenes soap opera loses almost half the viewers delivered to it a few minutes earlier by another new show, “Heroes,” which has become a surprise cult hit.

On Monday, ‘Heroes’ had 14.3 million viewers. The substantial drop off with 'Studio 60' is probably the last nail in its coffin. The order of the three extra episodes is considered by insiders to be a contractual move, and not one based on faith that they will ever be made or aired. The all important demo situation didn’t help: 'Heroes' had 15 percent of viewers aged 18-49. Studio 60 had 8 percent. The notion that 'Studio 60' is a big draw for NBC among desirables is, sadly, blown on those stats.

Sorkin and friends will argue that NBC has done something wrong, or that the audience isn’t smart enough. Alas, in this case, neither is true. 'Studio 60'—as I wrote on August 7th after viewing the pilot—is just a bad show. There’s nothing wrong with the acting, directing, or dialogue writing. But the premise is faulty. No one cares whether a bunch of over caffeinated, well off yuppies, some with expensive drug habits, put on a weekly comedy sketch show from Los Angeles.

Even worse: no one cares whether or not the people from the Bartlett White House puts on a comedy show. That’s what 'Studio 60' is, essentially: the "West Wing" annual talent show. There’s so much earnestness involved in this endeavour, you start to think that nuclear war will be declared if the 'Studio 60' staff doesn’t air some joke—usually one we don’t hear anyway. The whole thing just feels weighted down and frankly, not entertaining.

There is one winner to come out of 'Studio 60,' however: Matthew Perry. In this show he’s proven himself to be a star on his own separate from "Friends." His comedic timing and ability to ad lib, toss off lines, and give restrained physical reactions is what keeps 'Studio 60' even remotely interesting. We can only be hopeful that someone comes up with a great new show for him quickly—but a comedy that’s funny, not a drama that isn’t.

NBC will probably fill the lost 'Studio 60' timeslot with 'Deal-No Deal: The Next Generation,' or some such thing. So the losers here will be the audience, which is about to be pummelled by more reality and game shows. It’s too bad because around the dial there are good new dramas. Despite its heavy “thirtysomething” feel, “Brothers and Sisters” is worth keeping if only for Sally Field, Ron Rifkin and Rachel Griffiths. (But there a mistake was made, too: killing off patriarch Tom Skerritt in the first episode.)

Oh well: I hope Regis is warming up the holiday edition of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." We’re ready!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,226092,00.html

The New Season
Stars of frosh class
Nets turn 'niche' shows into hits
By Michael Schneider Variety October 29, 2006

Amid the gloom and doom of layoffs and primetime woes, Peacock execs last week could at least take comfort in their new "Heroes."
The drama has turned into this season's biggest frosh hit, scoring series highs Oct. 23 and giving an embattled NBC team something to cheer about.

On paper, "Heroes" reps this year's most unlikely candidate for top-rated new adult 18-49 skein -- a sci-fi genre piece in which regular folks suddenly acquire superpowers. A show that seemingly appeals to the limited teen acne-set could have been destined for the Sci Fi Channel.

Not so fast, say NBC's kings of marketing, John Miller and Vince Manze.

First off, Manze points out, the network never used the word "powers" to describe the show's characters. That's the stuff of comicbooks.

"We were careful to use the term 'abilities,' " notes Manze -- as in, "ordinary people who discover they possess extraordinary abilities." That's the stuff of top-rated adult drama.

That broad sell has paid off: "Heroes" is indeed tops among young viewers this fall.

Consider this the year narrow-targeted shows (on paper, at least) wound up boasting the broadest appeal.

"Heroes," with its super -- er, heroes, ABC's "Ugly Betty," an hourlong comedy set in the fashion world and based on a telenovela, and CBS' "Jericho," about the aftermath of a nuclear explosion: All three should be niche hits at best.

Instead, they're considered the season's biggest success stories.

First off, they look nothing like the procedural dramas that clog primetime slots -- or anything else for that matter. Breakout thesps like "Heroes'" Masi Oka and "Ugly Betty's" America Ferrara aren't the kind of faces you're used to seeing in primetime. And given how full most viewers' plates already are, it's the uniqueness of the premise and characters that has people coming back: the underdog you want to root for ("Ugly Betty"); the son who returns home ("Jericho") and the discovery of something extraordinary about yourself ("Heroes").

By focusing on those themes -- and at the same time targeting the core auds that could help open the show -- network marketers managed to launch all three to stronger-than-expected numbers.

In the case of "Heroes," Miller says NBC felt it had more than a sci-fi show on its hands.

"From the early testing we did, we realized that this show was potentially broader," he says. "There was a real human aspect that we wanted to embrace."

But first, to build buzz, the Peacock took the series to the ComiCon tradeshow, where hundreds were turned away from a screening room that held 2,000.

NBC managed to hook early believers in the show -- so much so that at least 60 "Heroes"-oriented Web sites were launched before the Peacock even debuted its own.

"We couldn't even buy 'Heroes-the-series.com,' " Miller says. "The fan was so rabid, he refused to sell it to us at $10,000."

But even in marketing to the base, Manze says the network never touted it as a purely sci-fi show.

"Sci-fi geeks like adult mysteries too," he says. "Otherwise, if you go too sci-fi, you're going to be very narrow. We never altered our creative message. But we went to them first so that they would act as messenger."

Beyond that, potential viewers had several opportunities to catch "Heroes" before it launched -- including on iTunes (via free passes handed out at select theaters) and on Yahoo.

"All summer long, it had the highest intent-to-view numbers of any new show," Miller says. "The title of the show had something to do with it -- 'Heroes.' We knew that if we got it exposed to as many people as we could, they'd be interested in it."

Over at ABC, "Ugly Betty" at first didn't appear to be a top priority at the net, which had scheduled it in a ho-hum Friday-night time period.

But then the buzz grew. And the critics raved. ABC realized it had more than a quirky little comedy with a sudsy twist on its hands -- and moved it to the more competitive (and prominent) slot in front of "Grey's Anatomy."

To drum up a core following, ABC tapped into Hispanic marketing -- which made sense, given "Betty's" Latina star and its telenovela roots. For the first time, the Alphabet web hired a specialized agency to target the Latino market.

But while "Ugly Betty" is set in the fashion world and boasts a strong Hispanic family at its core, the show has garnered impressive numbers by promoting its comedic chops and focusing on the show's main character.

" 'Ugly Betty' may seem narrow, but her story is a universal one," says Marla Provencio, ABC Entertainment senior VP of marketing. "People can identify with her. She's a hero we wanted to cheer for -- and that helped broaden it out."

And just like NBC shied away from highlighting the sci-fi aspects of "Heroes," ABC didn't dwell on the portions of "Ugly Betty" that might alienate certain viewers -- such as its fashion-world setting.

Instead, the network focused on the character of Betty. Billboards and posters for "Betty" simply showed the character decked out in her trademark glasses and wide, braces-bearing grin.

"It was all about Betty," Provencio says. "The character offers so much. Men and women can relate -- this is a character who feels good in her own skin."

Of course, all the marketing in the world wouldn't keep viewers glued to these shows -- it's the writing, acting and production values that are bringing them back week after week.

"Heroes" creator Tim Kring hails from the worlds of relationship drama ("Providence") and procedural hourlongs ("Crossing Jordan"), blending both forms with a dash of sci-fi. It clearly works: Viewership continues to explode, particularly as the show's current storyline -- dubbed intriguingly, "Save the Cheerleader" -- gains steam.

As for "Ugly Betty," showrunner/exec producer Silvio Horta managed to adapt a wildly successful telenovela for American auds, cranking up the camp factor and contrasting the lead character's sweetness with the crass world around her.

The result, in both cases: Shows distinct from much of the new fare that arrived at the same time, yet broad enough to play to the whole Nielsen room.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952809.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN LAST FRIDAY'S (10/27/06) EPISODE OF 'BATTLESTAR GALACTICA' *** SPOILERS ***

TV Q&A
It's a tough universe
By Kate Arthur Los Angeles Times/AZ Central October 27, 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.

Question: 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.

Question: 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.

Question: 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.

Question: 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.

Question: 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.

Question: 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."

Question: 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.

Question: 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.

Question: 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.azcentral.com/ent/tv/articles/1027battlestar1027.html

Technology
Zipping past ad zapping
By Brian Lowry Variety TV Columnist October 29, 2006

IN THE PAST FEW weeks, I have done something that's embarrassing for any respectable TiVo subscriber -- that is, actually watched commercials.
Not all of them, mind you, but those that stood out: The Rozerem spot where an insomniac receives advice from Abraham Lincoln and a talking beaver (what lad hasn't had that dream?), an Ask.com blurb in which a baby orangutan blurts out that humans are just "animals in pants," or a Jeep Wrangler ad in which giant apes swat at a bug that turns out to be a you-know-what.

Much of the hand-wringing about the changing TV environment stems from fear that viewers will soon have a TiVo or its digital-video-recorder equivalent in every entertainment cabinet, frantically zapping past commercials. This apprehension has accelerated pressure for product integration as well as shifting toward a pay-as-you-view model that, taken to extremes, threatens to undermine broadcasting.

Take a few steps back, though, and the sky isn't falling as rapidly as alarmists would suggest. Yes, TiVo adds to the challenge marketers face, but ad-skipping has been a significant issue since the remote control became ubiquitous. And while media buyers have cleverly staked out the DVR threat as a negotiating issue, the technological bogeyman provides them with a too-free pass regarding their own responsibility to hook viewers by creating the kind of clever campaigns cited above.

It's worth noting, too, that DVR penetration remains relatively low (roughly 12%), suggesting it's far from a must-have item beyond the priciest zip codes in Manhattan and L.A.'s Westside, despite insanely bullish growth estimates.

"No matter how wonderful a media device is, there are always people who say 'no,' " Knowledge Networks client services VP David C. Tice observed in an analysis last year, noting that many people feel they don't watch enough TV to need a DVR.

One reason the ad-avoidance picture stays consistently blurry is because everyone involved has a dog in the fight, from media buyers who don't want to pay extra for DVR viewing to network research execs who insist only modest percentages of viewers zap through ad pods. Whatever the outcome of that chess match, consumers' aversion to commercials is hardly new. Indeed, researching this piece I stumbled across a 1992 Psychology Today article titled "Revenge of the Couch Potato," fretting about how remote controls allowed viewers to channel-surf away from political spots for the elder George Bush.

At the same time, though, any culture that celebrates a national holiday to exult in advertising's blessings (something called "the Super Bowl") reminds us that marketers can still inspire some viewers to rest their thumbs during TV's mini-masterpieces.

Top advertisers have recognized as much, refusing to sit passively by and become victims of technology, producing short films such as American Express' "My life, my card" campaign, whose various spokespeople are frequently showcased more admirably than in their day jobs. Attention-grabbing commercials don't always translate directly into sales, but they do generate goodwill -- and occasionally free publicity, such as the Republican National Committee riff on the infamous 1964 "Daisy Girl" ad, which equates voting for Democrats with Osama bin Laden and mushroom clouds.

If that sounds wildly inflammatory, it did its job by garnering considerable news coverage -- just as the most effective product commercials can prompt even that jaded eighth of us with DVRs to press the "play" button. Because while I might not purchase a sleep aid any time soon, I sure do remember that damn anthropomorphic beaver.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952808.html?categoryid=1682&cs=1

The Business of TV
Televisa streams away from Univision
Web expects to make major announcement in November
By Michael O'Boyle Variety October 27, 2006

Mexican media conglom Televisa is positioning itself for the new media revolution as it further distances itself from longtime programming partner Univision, the No. 1 U.S. Hispanic broadcaster.

During Friday's conference call with analysts after a stellar third quarter, corporate VP of television Jose Baston said Televisa would make a major announcement regarding its new media business in the first two weeks of November.

Televisa is asking an L.A. District Court to validate its interpretation of its long-term programming deal with Univision, which ends in 2017, claiming it has the right to sell its content online Stateside from mid-December.

Univision is contesting this as it could hit ratings for its shows, which make it the top-rated Spanish-language network in the U.S.

In a separate suit, Televisa is seeking to end its programming deal with Univision altogether.

"Televisa risks becoming media for the older generation if it doesn't move enough into new platforms," said Philip Remek, senior equity analyst at Guzman & Co.

U.S. Hispanic broadcaster Telemundo has partnered with Yahoo! to distrib its content online and exec veep Alfonso de Angoitia said a similar alliance for Televisa was possible.

Televisa has been fine-tuning its content-on-demand platform, which includes its vast library of telenovelas as well as music from its Televisa EMI label and other major record labels.

Televisa will sell its 11% stake in Univision once U.S. regulators clear the takeover of the company by an equity group led by media mogul Haim Saban. Televisa said it expects to earn at least $1.1 billion from the sale.

Televisa is also aiming to buy up smaller cablers, announcing it is ready to pay $250 million-$500 million for acquisitions during the next three years.

During that period, Mexico's cable market is expected to rapidly change following the introduction of regulations allowing telcos and cablers to provide triple play services of TV, Internet and phone services.

Dominant phone company Telmex is planning to enter the video market mid-2007.

"In order to be a strong competitor, we want to take advantage of any opportunity that comes our way," de Angoitia said.

Mexico's antitrust agency recently blocked Televisa from acquiring a 50% stake in cabler TVI, based in Monterrey, where Televisa already owns a 60% stake in Cablevision Monterrey.

Televisa operates four nationwide TV channels; Sky, Mexico's only satcaster; and its second largest cabler, Cablevision in Mexico City.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952798.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

Complete speculation, but...

TV Notebook
'Studio 60’ Cancellation Iminent
By Roger Friedman Fox News (Fox 411) October 29, 2006

Here we go: despite receiving an order for three more episodes on Friday, the Aaron Sorkin NBC drama “Studio 60 on Sunset Strip” is about to be put out of its misery.
Isn't NBC committed to airing at least the first 13 episodes of the series, or risk paying for the un-aired episodes?

Secondly, I think they are mistaking the testing of "Friday Night Lights" in the time-period this Monday for benching the series.

TV Notebook
Noncommercial commercialism
PBS pushes corporate sponsor tie-ins for revenue
By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times October 29, 2006

When the producers of Fetch! were trying to piece together funding for the new PBS science program for tweens earlier this year, they got an assist from unlikely quarters: Arby's and Macy's.

The fast-food chain and the department store helped cover the costs of the 30-minute program, in which children compete in science challenges. What the sponsors got in return was more than an underwriting credit.

This summer, Arby's restaurants offered a kids meal featuring Ruff Ruffman, the animated dog who stars in Fetch! Macy's invited the show's young cast to inaugurate a new store in Chicago by conducting a scavenger hunt decked in apparel from Greendog, its children's clothing line.

Next month, Ruff Ruffman and the Fetch! kids will be featured on a Greendog float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Producers declined to say how much the companies spent on the sponsorships.

Fast-food and clothing tie-ins may sound like marketing tactics that would be anathema to noncommercial television. But as public broadcasting is facing constant challenges to its federal funding, PBS producers are seeking to sweeten the deal for corporate underwriters.

The result is that commercial backers of public television have a higher profile than ever.

Nowadays, the names of corporate underwriters are attached to every platform for a show, whether Web site, podcast or DVD. They are featured at screenings and other events, and their brand is plastered on educational materials distributed to teachers and caregivers.

Because federal broadcast regulations prohibit sponsors of public television from endorsing or promoting their products on the air, much of the new exposure is happening off the screen.

"The marketplace has kind of demanded it of us," said Marcia Hertz, managing director of marketing and client services at the Sponsorship Group for Public Television, the marketing arm of Boston station WGBH.

Commercialism fears

But the stepped-up efforts to court corporations alarm some watchdog groups, who fear commercialism is gaining a foothold in public television. McDonald's sponsors Sesame Street, and PBS partnered with Comcast last year to launch PBS Kids Sprout, an advertiser-supported cable channel for preschoolers.

PBS began selling banner ads in October from companies such as Disney and Albertsons on its Web site, pbs.org, citing the need to tap new revenue streams.

"It's just one more intrusion of the commercial ethos into an organization that was supposed to be firmly noncommercial," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a Portland, Ore.-based consumer group. "The line between them and the commercial networks is getting fuzzier and fuzzier."

Public television executives said they are vigilant about keeping a strong firewall between the programming and its corporate underwriters.Public Broadcasting Service President Paula Kerger noted that sponsorship spots take up a tiny fraction of airtime and do not interrupt programming.

But she is closely monitoring the efforts to generate new revenue, especially the system's foray into online advertising.

"I'm watching this personally very carefully, because this is new territory," Ms. Kerger said. Inconsistent taxpayer support for public broadcasting has fueled the push for more corporate backing.

The bulk of public television programs are produced by several PBS stations, which receive start-up money for the shows from PBS and the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. House Republicans have sought to cut CPB's budget for the coming years.

Even with federal money, stations must find additional financing from foundations, grants and corporations to cover the cost of programming – and sometimes that still isn't enough.

New York's WNET, one of the major producing stations, loses around $8 million a year on the shows it develops for PBS, said William F. Baker, chief executive of the Educational Broadcasting Corp., WNET's parent company.

"Without corporate underwriting, these programs would not exist, and public television as we know it would not exist," Mr. Baker said.

New efforts

In the last few years, WGBH – which produces a third of PBS' prime-time programs – has gone after corporate backers aggressively, seeking to change assumptions about what it means to underwrite a public TV show.

Antiques Roadshow sponsor Liberty Mutual, for example, sets up booths at the tapings of the top-rated program held in cities around the U.S., surveying the thousands of attendees who bring their antiques to be appraised. The tactic has generated an average of 1,200 new leads for the local Liberty Mutual offices in each market.

WGBH's approach has led to deals with companies that have never before sponsored public television, including Google, which last year waded into television marketing for the first time when it backed Nova.

PBS ombudsman Michael Getler said that although he does not believe PBS producers tailor content to please corporate sponsors, he has concerns about the perceptions created when commercial interests back public TV shows.

"The bottom line is a question of whether people trust what they see," Mr. Getler said. "People trust PBS generally, but is it an area where that trust could be eroded if it's not handled very, very adroitly and carefully? Yes, I think it could be."

http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/television/stories/DN-pbs_1029gl.ART.State.Bulldog.42017ef.html

Technology
Did you see the episode of ... Shhh!
Technology heightens risk of playing spoiler
The Baltimore Sun October 29, 2006

Conversations about television, usually no-fail icebreakers, are becoming trickier than discussing politics with your mother-in-law. And forget those chats by the water cooler about last night's hit TV show.

Spoil the ending of an episode of Fox's 24 for your boss? Watch your career trickle away.

Ruin your girlfriend's plans to watch Season 3 of The Sopranos in one weekend? Kiss the relationship goodbye.

Armed with iPods, cell phones, laptops, DVDs, on-demand cable and, of course, TiVo (the ultimate tool for personalized viewing), TV fans are clicking onto shows whenever they please. And that's wreaking havoc with discussions about television.

The new etiquette of television chatter demands sensitivity, timing and a variety of early warning systems. Some TV blogs and Web sites, including televisionwithoutpity.com, are even carrying "spoiler alerts" that signal to browsers that the content or ending of a show is about to be revealed.

"The only thing we all watch at once nowadays is the Super Bowl," says Jeff Davidson, who writes a column for the paparazzi Web site TMZ.com. "I'm betting we'll see more of the 'on demand' and previewing. There are always going to be a group of people who want to 'see it first.' "

This season, fans of HBO's The Wire have been able to view the show through the network's On Demand service six days before it airs, completely upending its traditional roll-out. (The buzz-making strategy backfired for HBO when bootleggers began offering downloadable versions to anyone who would pay, and not-yet-aired plot developments began leaking out.)

But even if you're not first to see a show, no worries. On CBS.com, you can click on full episodes of Smith, Shark or The Unit . On NBC's Web site, fans of The Biggest Loser are being asked, "Miss the premiere? Watch the full episode online!" ABC's site offers reruns of Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and Lost.

No wonder people don't know how much to say when talking to each other about any given program. "I find myself saying, 'Don't tell me the ending!' 'Don't tell me what happens!' " says Lina Shanklin, a film producer and director who recently got a TiVo digital video recorder.

Mark Ettlinger of Toronto alerts his friends if he is about to mention a telling detail. An avid fan of Lost, a show about marooned airplane passengers, he has encouraged friends to watch the series. But not all those who become hooked watch it at once, so their conversations and e-mail messages are often cautious. Mr. Ettlinger sometimes receives messages "telling me not to discuss a certain show." On other occasions, he might send a text message to friends "urging them not to miss a great episode," without, of course, spilling the beans.

Many viewers point to Fox's 24 as the ultimate example of a popular show trapped in the technology time warp. "I do my best not to tell anyone what happens on that show," says Rory O'Connor, a former TV news producer based in New York. "Although in general it appears that Jack Bauer single-handedly saves the world from utter destruction at the end of each show, so I don't know how much there really is to give away there."

What's vanished in all of this, some say, is the tribal experience of the same show being seen by millions of people simultaneously, and of sharing that experience with friends as soon as possible.

But John Marino, a public relations executive in New York, insists the notion of morning-after TV dissection is not entirely dead.

"In many respects the water-cooler chats really help keep 'live' TV as popular as it is," he says. "People hate to come in the office and miss out on The Sopranos chatter or find out who was kicked off Survivor the night before."

And the new technology can bring people together, suggests John Mammoser, a comedy writer.

Recently, he sat in a sports bar in Santa Monica, Calif., where a screen showed the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills in full battle.

"I was text messaging with a friend of mine who was TiVo-ing a football game as I was watching it live," Mr. Mammoser recalls. "He got home 30 minutes after the start, so was catching up gradually during commercials. He finally texted me when he was in 'real time' so we could commiserate on how sloppy the Buffalo Bills looked."

(The Jets won, 28-20.)

http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/television/stories/DN-spoiler_1029gl.ART.State.Bulldog.425228f.html

TV Notebook
Is showbiz a big draw for the average viewer?
Hollywood- focused shows don't seem to connect
By Marisa Guthrie The New York Daily News October 28, 2006

Shows about doctors, the police and lawyers long have been the meat and potatoes of network television. But nothing seems to fascinate Hollywood these days as much as a show about itself.

This season, 30 Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – one a madcap comedy, the other a seriously earnest drama – are the latest exercises in Hollywood self-love.

Yet here's the catch: Do we care about how television gets made or about the people who make it?

Both programs – different takes on the craziness surrounding a weekly, Saturday Night Live-like comedy variety show – had been the recipients of preseason buzz and anticipation both in network corridors and around office water coolers.

But defection from Studio 60 has been steady since the show premiered a month ago: More than 13 million people watched the first episode, according to Nielsen Media Research, and last week the number dropped to fewer than 8 million. (Monday, Studio 60's high-profile Monday night spot will be filled – for one week only, according to NBC – by newcomer Friday Night Lights.)

30 Rock debuted Oct. 11 with just more than 8 million viewers. By last week's second episode, it was attracting fewer than 6 million viewers.

Tina Fey, creator and star of 30 Rock, has said her show is simply "a workplace comedy." And since she was the head writer on SNL for nine years (and the face of its Weekend Update), her point of reference is self-evident (the show is also executive-produced by SNL creator Lorne Michaels).

Studio 60 creator Aaron Sorkin also created The West Wing and Sports Night, so he, too, has a well-informed vantage point from which to fire shots at the people who make decisions about what we watch.

Studio 60, Mr. Sorkin told reporters last summer, examines nothing short of the culture wars raging in America. "Certainly TV in general, and a sketch comedy show like this one, would have a front-row seat for that," Mr. Sorkin said.

But unlike shows about the police or politics, series about show business – even if they take on issues such as the First Amendment and the collision of government, religion and celebrity – don't come with inherent life-or-death stakes.

"Viewers are ordinary Americans, they don't relate particularly to spoiled rich people who are agonizing about how spoiled and rich they can get," says Tim Brooks, co-author of The Complete Directory to Primetime Network and Cable TV Shows.

The shows about TV people that have worked, such as The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, were about folks who just happened to work in television, Brooks says. "If you look back at The Mary Tyler Moore Show," he continues, "I don't think you learned a whole lot about the inner workings of the TV business."

HBO's Entourage follows that formula. It really isn't about making movies; when it comes down to it, it's about loyalty. In today's instant-celebrity world, a show about four friends who escaped the blue-collar life in Queens and infiltrated Hollywood has the ability to speak to everyday people while becoming a touchstone in the Hollywood idiom.

"How are you going to make people care about (A) someone who is rich, (B) someone who is famous and (C) someone who is great-looking?" says Entourage creator Doug Ellin. "At the end of the day, the show is about friendship. Hollywood is just the backdrop."

The series was inspired by Mr. Ellin's early experiences in Hollywood and those of his friend, actor and Entourage executive producer Mark Wahlberg (Boogie Nights, The Departed). Mr. Ellin is from the Long Island community of Merrick, N.Y., and Mr. Wahlberg comes from hardscrabble beginnings in a tough Boston neighborhood.

Entourage takes an outsider's view of the Hollywood spectacle, which is what makes it relatable to the millions of Hollywood outsiders watching it. 30 Rock and Studio 60, though, examine the entertainment industry from the inside. There's a big tonal difference between fly-on-the-wall observation and nose-against-the-glass obsession.

30 Rock may have a better chance of survival because, as a classic-style sitcom – complete with a blowhard boss played by Alec Baldwin, a narcissistic leading lady played by Jane Krakowski, and an off-the-hook second banana played by SNL vet Tracy Morgan – it asks viewers only to laugh at its characters' dysfunctionality. The setting is secondary.

This early in its run, it's unclear whether audiences will embrace 30 Rock as a relationship comedy with a peek into what makes a show like SNL tick, or reject it as a sitcom with too many in-jokes.

Says Mr. Brooks: "It all comes back to the people."

And then perhaps the laugh factory, like the sausage factory, should be off-limits for public consumption.

http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/television/stories/DN-showbiz_1028gl.ART.State.Edition1.3ee86cc.html

TV Notebook
Networks find God, Republicans
New series characters have nuance beyond religion, politics
By Matthew Gilbert The Boston Globe October 29, 2006

One of the most talked-about new TV characters this season appears on Aaron Sorkin's little-watched but much-hyped Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Her name is Harriet Hayes, she's as sweet as apple pie, and she is openly Christian. And on series TV, practicing Christians – she's Southern Baptist, to be specific – are about as common as ghost whisperers.

Harriet Hayes is a prime-time rarity, and so is Kitty Walker of ABC's Brothers & Sisters. Kitty is openly Republican, which is about as common as being openly Christian. A conservative talk-show panelist, Kitty is wont to fling political zingers at her mostly Democratic family and friends. "Just like a Democrat," she shot at one of them a few weeks ago. "Live by the polls, die by the polls."

How odd is it that these characters – who are drawn without the cartooniness of, say, Archie Bunker, or Alex on Family Ties or Bree on Desperate Housewives – stand out so starkly on TV lineups?

You could think that Republicans, Christians and the likes of the devout Texas small-towners in Friday Night Lights were American minorities. When the teenagers on the show join together in prayer meetings, it's strange to see pretty TV kids actually joining up for something other than coffee dates or the school's gay-straight alliance.

There are religious and conservative characters on series TV already, but most only make quick appearances in reality shows. Reality is the Issues R Us at the TV mall, and viewers expect to find heightened conflict there – particularly gender and racial conflict, which is why reality honcho Mark Burnett divided his Survivor: Cook Islands cast according to blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians.

What will distinguish Harriet Hayes, Kitty Walker and the kids of Friday Night Lights will be if they can keep from becoming reality TV types – that is, parodies of themselves, or simply stick figures with labels attached. If these dramatic leads become exaggerated symbols of their religion or their politics, then they will become the kind of blue-state punching bags that aren't entirely human.

When it comes to Studio 60, so far, so good, if not great. Slowly but surely, Harriet, who is played by Sarah Paulson, is acquiring traits beyond her identity as The Christian Comedian. In the first episode, it looked as though Mr. Sorkin created Harriet solely to defend her faith.

"I sang for his audience, not every one of whom necessarily is the grotesque stereotype you'd like them to be," she argued in defending her appearance on Pat Robertson's The 700 Club to her ex, Matt (Matthew Perry). "Most of these people have nothing but their faith, and that moves me."

But in a recent episode that began to flesh out why she and Matt were together in the first place, Harriet looked more like a woman, one who happens to be religious. We saw her trying to create her own version of evangelical Christianity – not a protester of everything "immoral," but someone with more nuance.

Brothers & Sisters creator Jon Robin Baitz is also working to keep his unusual heroine from becoming a single-note character. Kitty is the only distinctive element on Brothers & Sisters, to some extent; without her, it would be just another dysfunctional-family soap opera served with a sprinkling of cheese. Mr. Baitz is trying to show how politics does play out within adult family units, along with old grudges and money problems.

As a nationally known conservative pundit, Kitty, played by Calista Flockhart, is something of a pariah in her Southern California family. Her mother, Nora (Sally Field), roots for Kitty's liberal TV co-panelist as he attacks Kitty on the show Red, White, and Blue over the issue of withdrawal from Iraq.

Nora is also bitter toward Kitty, whose political position contributed to Nora's son Kevin's decision to serve in Afghanistan. Kevin now battles post-traumatic stress with substance abuse. Kitty also faces ribbing from her siblings, one of whom warns baby-sitter Kitty that her preteen kids are Democrats.

But Kitty is written to be more than just a party spokeswoman, as she deals with boyfriend problems and career questions that might face a flawed character of any political orientation on a nighttime soap. Still, Ms. Flockhart strains to play a woman of substance as she projects neurotic insecurity no matter how hard she tries. But in delivering an anomaly to prime time, the series deserves some credit.

The most unequivocally successful series to bring Christianity to network TV is Friday Night Lights. The show isn't at all polemical or wooden, and there's none of the goody-goodiness of 7th Heaven, a show about a Christian family led by a minister father.

A group portrait of Dillon, Texas, where football is king, Friday Night Lights lets its characters be both messily adolescent and religious. They are never put in the position of defending themselves; they are who they are.

When star quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter) winds up with an injury that will leave him in a wheelchair, his fellow students turn to prayer without apology. And when Jason's girlfriend, Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly), has a crisis of faith when she realizes Jason may never walk, her despair naturally includes God: "I thought God would do me a favor because I'm such a good girl," she says. "Isn't that the stupidest thing you've ever heard?"

The show, co-executive-produced by Peter Berg, takes no position on its characters' beliefs. Mr. Berg clearly wants to give us a series of small-town snapshots distinguished by realism and purity. There's nothing self-conscious about the religion in Friday Night Lights, and that is a sign of both diversity and good drama.

http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/television/stories/DN-tvconservative_1029gl.ART.State.Bulldog.429672b.html

The New Season
Online push isn't saving "Studio 60"
MarketWatch/Seattle Times October 29, 2006

The critics seem prepared to write an obituary for NBC's inside-TV series, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Tom Shales, in Tuesday's Washington Post, wrote that it is "also known as Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme's revenge on NBC for not renewing 'The West Wing' through the year 2525."

The San Francisco' Chronicle's C.W. Nevius was more generous and supportive of the show at the start of the season. But, "Sadly, it isn't working out. We've hung in there, but it is starting to have the feeling you get on NFL Sunday when it becomes clear that the home team isn't going to be able to stop those slashes off tackle," he wrote.

Hey, I'm a Washington Redskins fan — I know that feeling.

I'm also a fan of "Studio 60." Although I am an episode behind, and, after the last show, I thought they've got to wrap up this head-writer-loves-show-actress-but-they-broke-up-but-they-have-to-work- together-and-they-really-want-to-make-up story line. It is, or maybe was, getting tedious.

One reason I've been rooting for the show is that NBC really was aggressive using new media to promote the show and build buzz. The premiere episode was on a Netflix DVD weeks before it aired. I think you could download it, too. Apple's iTunes is selling shows now: five episodes in a $9.95 package. The show's producers did a live blog after the premiere. And the NBC Web site for the show has been firm and packed with blogs and video.

But the dog isn't hunting — on TV or online. A fan blog is generating less than a dozen comments for its show summaries. There's nobody home at another site, too.

Now, NBC has chosen to play an episode of a great show, "Friday Night Lights," in the "Studio 60" time slot Monday. An NBC spokesman told the New York Post that "60" was slated to have a repeat then, anyway, and "Lights" deserves a shot at the upscale audience the Sorkin-Schlamme show is drawing.

He said execs at the Peacock Network do not consider "60" a disaster.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2003326572_tv60comment29.html

TV Notebook
Looking good: fashion on TV
By Elizabeth Wellington Philadelphia Enquirer/Seattle Times Oct. 27, 2006

Alexis Small watches them all: "Project Runway," "America's Next Top Model," "Ugly Betty" and "Fashion House."

She likes Bravo TV's "Runway" because it's "so real," and she tunes in to "Ugly Betty" because she's a fan of actress America Ferrera, the star of ABC's ugly-duckling-in-a-world-of-swans comedy-drama.

But the 25-year-old publicist's favorite guilty pleasure is "Top Model" on the CW network.

"It's almost like you get to live in a fantasy land," said Small. "The great clothes. ... It's an escape."

"Project Runway's" third season may have already crowned winner Jeffrey Sebelia, but fashion-television addicts will still have their pick of shows steeped in style. "Ugly Betty," MTV's "The Hills" and WEtv's "Unwrapping Macy's" are driving viewers to the small screen much as law, medical and cop shows have for decades.

The audience gravitates toward the programming because it's fresh and sexy and offers an inside view of haute worlds unattainable by most people. Add to that catty she-devil bosses, hunky men, smart heroines and fabulous clothes, and chick-lit hits the tube nightly.

"It's not surprising that fashion-based shows would find a home on [network] TV because they are so youth-driven," said Brad Adgate, senior vice president and director of research for Horizon Media, an advertising and marketing consulting firm. "Look at it — there are all these models and celebrities. They are fun. They are glitzy. And they have a built-in, hard-to-reach target audience."

Fox Broadcasting announced recently it was developing Lauren Weisberger's novel "The Devil Wears Prada" into a half-hour comedy that may debut next year.

Said Susan Levison, senior vice president of comedy development at L.A.-based Fox: "These shows have the good old-fashioned elements that make good television: outrageously specific characters and the potential for great story lines."

Fashion-based programs are far from being the most viewed — "Ugly Betty" is the only show in the group that ranks in the top 20 for the still-new season, with an average of 17 million viewers each week, according to A.C. Nielsen Co. But, Adgate said, networks are clamoring to make fashion the center of story lines because it draws the hottest commodity for advertisers — female viewers.

Unlike the days of "Dynasty" and "Designing Women," advertisers now acknowledge that women control the purse strings in most American households, said John Rash, media expert at Minneapolis-based advertising agency Campbell Mithun. These days, he said, women make up 60 percent of prime-time network TV viewers.

So it's no wonder department stores such as Macy's — lead sponsor for "Project Runway" and the center of attention in WEtv's new show — are willing to pay top dollar for advertising slots and product placement. This type of cachet can help a retail chain recapture the market share it has lost to specialty stores over the last several years.

According to Advertising Age magazine, the CW charges $135,000 for a single 30-second commercial during "America's Next Top Model," making it the network's highest-grossing show.

The number of women ages 18 to 49 watching fashion programming on WEtv during prime time has increased 45 percent in the last year, said Kim Martin, the network's general manager. Even its newest addition, "Hair Trauma," does better than WEtv's nonfashion shows in the ratings.

"We have advertisers calling us all the time saying, 'Hey, we'd like to have some of our products used,' " Martin added. "While we don't feel this is an organic way to create a show, we realize this content is important to our advertisers."

In fact, fashion programming has served as something of a guinea pig for advertisers battling technologies that allow viewers to skip commercials.

In fashion TV, product is a natural fit with existing plotlines. For example, during the L.A.-based drama "Fashion House," the actors tout specific beauty and fashion items during what the industry calls "interstitials" — which aren't commercials or part of the show but rather are seconds-long segues that link them together.

The "Runway" designers' use of sponsor TRESemmé's products on their models has created new awareness of the company's products. "It has played an important role in helping us broaden our interest as well as build and create buzz around the brand," said Don Kvam, executive vice president of the Campbell Mithun agency, which also represents TRESemmé.

And come December, Wal-Mart's Metro 7 brand will be featured on lead characters in yet another glamorous MyNetworkTV show, "Watch Over Me."

Since 2000, fashion has become more and more accessible to everyday people. Pop-culture observers say the trend began when companies such as Target and H&M made deals with designers like Isaac Mizrahi and Karl Lagerfeld for high-end collections at affordable prices.

That came on the heels of a slew of reality-makeover shows that populated cable channels in the late 1990s. Another precursor in television was HBO's popular "Sex and the City," which familiarized women nationwide with strictly aspirational brands like Manolo Blahnik.

Given the continuing push from advertisers, television executives say the challenge is to find more plotlines and not overdo the already done — gay designers and nasty bosses. After all the glitz and glamour, viewers want to see real stories with three-dimensional characters.

"Now that the shackles have been unleashed, they [television writers] are diving into the fashion world and mining it for the great backdrop and color that it can provide," said Fox's Levison. "The trick is to avoid the stereotypes and try to execute them better."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/television/2003325049_fashshows27.html

TV Notebook
The laugh track could be canned
By Bill Goodykoontz AZ Republic/Seattle Times Oct. 27, 2006

How many folk singers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Two. One to change it and another to sing about how much better the old bulb was.

OK, now laugh. Harder! That, in a nutshell, is how the laugh track works on television comedies. It's a cheat, a cue to make you chuckle, in case you didn't find the joke funny to begin with.

Make note of it, because the laugh track may be on the way out.

Long a staple of television comedies, along with "taped before a live studio audience," the laugh track is getting more difficult to find. Such returning hits as "The Office" and "My Name Is Earl" do without prompts and without a studio audience at all. None of ABC's four new sitcoms has either.

You can still find traditional, canned-laughter sitcoms on the TV schedule, but you don't have to be a meteorologist to see that the winds in Hollywood are shifting. Lose the laugh track, the prevailing wisdom goes, and gain realism and freedom.

Laugh tracks and rabid, pumped-up audiences go back as far as "I Love Lucy" (Desi Arnaz, in fact, invented the form). So what happened?

"My sense is, a couple of extremely innovative shows came along, single-camera, with no laugh track," said John Lithgow, who stars in "20 Good Years," a new multicamera NBC comedy shot in front of an audience (you'll have to decide for yourself whether the guffaws have been sweetened by a laugh track). "People thought, 'This is sensational.' "

He didn't name the shows, but he might as well have: "Arrested Development" won an Emmy for best comedy in 2004 and influenced much of the current crop. "Malcolm in the Middle" and "The Bernie Mac Show" also eschewed laugh tracks and studio audiences and were plenty funny. Suddenly, edgier comedies without canned laughter were hip, even though it's difficult to get network executives to say that's what got them on the bandwagon.

"We didn't make a decision on style," said Stephen McPherson, ABC's entertainment president. "We didn't say we don't want to do comedies with laugh tracks, we don't want to do multicameras. We certainly went out there and said we want to break the mold."

As for the laugh track itself, "I don't think audiences listen for it or even notice it," said Fran Matera, an Arizona State University journalism professor. "Maybe they have been trained over time to understand the comedic setups, or maybe they never needed it."

Indeed, stories of the fights over use of a laugh track on "M*A*S*H" are TV legend; a compromise was struck where the laugh track was used only for jokes outside the operating room, never inside (check out the reruns).

That the argument goes back that far, and much further, tells you how engrained the laugh track and studio audience are in popular culture, and why, even if it makes for a better show, networks see risk in getting rid of them entirely.

But not, evidently, ABC's McPherson.

At least no more risk than in anything else.

"I think comedy is risky, in general, right now," he said, "because it's kind of broken, and I think that's a great thing. You know, five years ago people said drama was dead, and now I think it's the golden age of drama in broadcast television, and cable, too. So I think it's a risky time, but that's a good time. People are taking chances."

And that's no joke. (Laughter optional.)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/television/2003325054_laughtracks27.html

The New Season
NBC lights up Monday with more football
By Susan Young Inside Bay Area October 29, 2006

NBC hopes "Heroes" can come to a promising new show's rescue.

Trying to boost interest in the critically acclaimed series "Friday Night Lights," the network is popping an original episode into the 10 p.m. time slot on Monday. The series continues to air in its Tuesday night slot, with another original episode airing this week.

This Monday night boost is a one-time-only deal, however. Unless, of course, it improves on the ratings by current place-holder "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Right now, "Studio 60" is hemorrhaging viewers to the NBC hit new series "Heroes," which airs at 9 p.m.

"Friday Night Lights," about a small Texas town's obsession with high school football, tackles such issues as religion and racism, while spotlighting a lifestyle seldom depicted on network television these days.

Like "Studio 60," the writing and acting are superb. And, like "Studio 60," it has failed to gain viewer support.

So, do viewers get the programming they deserve?

That's what Pulitzer Prize-winner H.G. Bissinger, author of the book "Friday Night Lights," recently told Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Gail Shister.

His book is the basis for the series, which is getting sacked by "Dancing with the Stars" every Tuesday night. "FNL" averages about 6.5 million viewers, while "Dancing" averages 17.9 million.

"America is getting what it deserves — crappy, stupid, artificial reality TV," Bissinger, 51, a former Inquirer reporter, told Shister. "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... there's a reason this country is disintegrating into second-ratism. We just want to sit in front of the TV and watch garbage."

NBC executive Kevin Reilly is determined to give "FNL" every opportunity to succeed. He just ordered nine additional scripts, and if it can just get an audience, those episodes will mean a full season of 22 episodes.

"Cracker: A New Terror"
10 p.m., midnight Monday
BBC America, On Demand (Comcast)

It's been nearly been nearly a decade since the last "Cracker" was produced, more's the pity.

The title refers to the portly psychologist Fitz, a genius when it comes to getting inside — or "cracking" — the criminal mind but a dolt when it comes to being a good husband to his long-suffering wife and father to his disillusioned children.

When last we saw Fitz, he was taking his wife and baby son off to a new life in Australia. He's back in Manchester for his daughter's wedding, staying with his grown son's family.

Robbie Coltrane, currently best known for playing Hagrid in the "Harry Potter" films, offers up a searing portrait of a self-absorbed man.

"I've had several careers," Coltrane says. "(First) as a sort of young, dangerous lefty comedian, then as kind of a straight actor, then as a guy who did stuff that was kind of very near the line, and now suddenly I'm the children's friend."

As Fitz, he's the kind of guy who lists his daughter's numerous failed romances in his wedding toast, sending her sobbing to the restroom. He's the kind of man who, when he fails to perform in the bedroom with his still-fetching wife, blames her for becoming old and saggy.

In fact, the only time Fitz really shines is when he's tracking down criminals — and even then he's as socially clumsy as Hagrid but a whole lot meaner.

Fitz may have come back to England to attend his daughter's wedding, but he quickly ditches his family duties when an American stand-up comedian is killed after performing at a local club. It turns out that he is part of a very well-connected family, and his brother becomes the second victim.

As much as Coltrane fascinates us with this character, it is the way screenwriter Jimmy McGovern tackles the genre that is the most alluring part of the "Cracker" series. McGovern's dramas are not police procedurals; they are incisive comments on political issues.

" 'Cracker' is about the big stuff," Coltrane says. "It's not about, you know, 'You say you were on the 4:17 to Fenchurch. There is no 4:17. It's a 4:30. So obviously you murdered Margaret.' It's a huge departure from Miss Marple, right?"

And this new offering is no exception to the "Cracker" rule.

There's no mystery as to who the killer is: Kenny, a policeman and former British soldier who served in Northern Ireland. He's haunted by what he saw while serving there and disturbed by the barrage of TV images in the wake of 9/11. The movie deals with his rage, which is channeled toward this American comedian making jokes about the Iraq war.

"I was the child of an imperial power in a part of the world that had been devastated by that power," McGovern says. "I realized that it's easy to be Irish and patriotic — you've been suppressed by the British for years. But being British, how do you deal with being part of that oppression and colonialism?"

Compounding those emotions was the impact of 9/11.

"When 9/11 happened, the American funding for the (Irish Republican Army) dried up, which meant that 30 years of war in Northern Ireland was suddenly forgotten," McGovern says. "When the world's attention moved from Northern Ireland to Afghanistan and Iraq, many of the British soldiers wondered what they'd fought for."

It's a theme that rings constantly in this piece, which is critical of American involvement in Iraq and the British support of the Iraqi war.

Coltrane says that the essential engine of "Cracker" has always been that violence only begets violence.

"Whatever you think about the world and whether you are left or right or whatever it is, once one of your relatives comes back in a body bag, the reason goes out the window, and you start behaving like a savage," Coltrane says. "And once you've decided to behave that way from the start, then all that will come from that is more and more violence and more and more unhappiness and more and more descent into being our ape forefathers."

http://www.insidebayarea.com/tv/ci_4570542

TV Notebook
Success in surgery
Shonda Rhimes, the creative spark behind television's No. 1 show, is obviously comfortable around doctors
By Lola Ogunnaike New York Times News Service/Minneapolis Star Tribune October 29, 2006

It perhaps was inevitable that Shonda Rhimes would create "Grey's Anatomy," ABC's runaway hit about the romantic entanglements and complicated lives of surgeons and their overworked interns at a Seattle hospital. For two years during high school, she worked as a candy striper.

"I loved that job," she recalled recently. "I'm perfectly comfortable in hospitals." She also admits to having a passion for shows about medical procedures: the pressure, the blood, the scalpels; she finds it all intriguing. "I love to watch all those surgeries on the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel," she said. "I'm a surgical junkie."

Apparently, Rhimes is not the only one. Her show's mixture of medicine, drama and sex has proved such a winning formula that it is TV's top-rated program so far this season.

But the biggest sign of the show's success is ABC's decision to move it from Sunday nights after "Desperate Housewives" to Thursday nights, where it is now going head to head with CBS' popular crime series "CSI," a former No. 1 show. The latest Nielsen ratings put "Grey's Anatomy" in the top spot with 22 million viewers.

"It's an amazing vote of confidence, and I was thrilled that the guys at ABC think that we can anchor a night," Rhimes said.

Her accomplishment is particularly noteworthy in a field that is still dominated by white males, said Ron Simon, a curator at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York. "She's the only black woman show-runner on a dramatic show at this point on the major networks," he said. "It's a tremendous achievement for a woman, African-American or otherwise."

Collaboration tough at first

At her office, Rhimes, 36, sat in front of a computer, tweaking a script for a future episode. Posters of some of the films Rhimes had written before coming to television hung on the walls: "Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement"; "Crossroads," a coming-of-age movie starring Britney Spears; and the television biopic "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge," which won Halle Berry an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

She says that writing for TV is more demanding than writing for the movies. "Before, I would write one or two movies a year, which means I'd work two months out of the year," she said. "Television is 24 hours, seven days a week, and I never thought I'd like something like this, but I love it. It's such an adrenaline rush."

She said that learning to collaborate with a team of writers was an adjustment. On the show's official blog, www.greyswriters.com, writer Krista Vernoff recalled Rhimes' first day on the set. "There was, of course, Shonda, who had never been in a writers' room before and who lurked outside the door, brooding and disturbed like maybe we were all vampires who would eat her soul if she stepped foot inside."

Rhimes acknowledged her initial trepidation. "The concept of sitting in a room with a bunch of people and spilling out the ideas in my head seemed a little exhausting, and it seemed antithetical to the process by which I work, but now it doesn't feel that way at all," she said. "I became incredibly grateful for my staff of writers really quickly."

Diversity 'just makes sense'

The executive producer has made a strong commitment to having an ethnically diverse cast, which includes a black chief of surgery, a black chief resident and Asian and Hispanic interns as well as various white characters. "We had everyone of every color read for every single part, and it was about casting the best actor in the room," she said. "I don't think a lot of shows do that, but it just makes sense to me."

That diversity, she said, makes writing a bit easier for her. "If you have a show in which there's only one character of color -- which is what most shows do -- then you have a weird obligation to make that person slightly saintly because they are representing all the people of color," she explained. "But if you have all different races, people get to be good or bad, flawed, selfish, competitive."

Growing up the youngest of six children in Chicago, Rhimes said, she preferred reading books to watching television. "I read everything from Nancy Drew and 'Secret Garden' to 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' when I was 10," Rhimes said.

She graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in English literature and creative writing and landed a job in advertising. After a year she decided she hated it and enrolled in film school at the University of Southern California.

"I loved it immediately," she said. "I discovered that this is what I wanted to do." In the mid-to-late '90s, she sold her first screenplay, "Human Seeking Same," about a couple who fall in love through ads in the personals section. The movie was never made, but the mid-six-figure check she received made it possible for her to write full-time.

Adoption spurs TV watching

It wasn't until Rhimes adopted a child, now 4, that she began spending time at home and really watching television. "I realized a lot of the really good character development is happening on TV," said Rhimes, who was a huge fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."The language was great, the world was great, and you completely invested in those characters. I'm still not over its cancellation."

Rhimes, who once watched three films a day in movie theaters, hasn't been to the cinema in three years, she said. When she does have a spare moment from "Grey's Anatomy" (which is rare) she prefers watching TV shows such as "Lost,"Weeds" and "Project Runway."I'm freakishly obsessed with the American version of 'The Office,' " she said.

She is fiercely protective of her show's plot points, refusing to divulge any details about the new season. Will Meredith end up with McDreamy for good?

"I've always been a person who hated spoilers," she said, shrugging. "If you already know what's happening on a show, why are you watching it?"

http://www.startribune.com/459/story/771453.html

The New Season
‘Criminal Minds’ is creeping up on ‘Lost’
The self-contained serial killer series is becoming a ratings challenger to the mythologically complex ABC series
By Scott Collins The Los Angeles Times October 30, 2006

CBS' "Criminal Minds" is a gory, creepy, serial-killer show. It's dissed by critics as a stapled-together knockoff of the network's many other crime dramas. Its mirth-free tone is epitomized by Jason Gideon, the grumpy, taciturn FBI profiler played by Mandy Patinkin. And it's up against the ultimate water-cooler show on Wednesday nights, ABC's mythologically complex "Lost."

Yup, conventional wisdom would dictate that "Criminal Minds," now in its second season, should be moldering on TV's rubbish heap.

So why is the series growing into a bona-fide hit that last week delivered its most-watched episode ever, with 16.8 million total viewers, just a shade behind the still-formidable "Lost" (17.1 million), according to Nielsen Media Research?

That's one of the top questions bedeviling TV veterans in the first weeks of this season, which has already proven a disorienting wasteland for network executives praying for a fresh batch of big hits. Viewers with near-infinite programming choices are supposed to be gravitating toward the creatively daring and the critically acclaimed, such as "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" or "The Nine."

Instead, the masses are screaming for ... "Criminal Minds"?

Well, yes. Since "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" broke through two years ago, programmers, trainable creatures that they are, just figured the audience wanted more. So networks loaded up on serialized dramas that inspired — and also required — slavish devotion from fans. Forget to TiVo a couple episodes and you may be, well, lost.

This season brought fare such as ABC's "The Nine," which follows the interconnected lives of hostages who survived a bank robbery, and NBC's "Friday Night Lights," designed as a rural Southern answer to "The O.C." But neither series has clicked with viewers. Nor did other serialized shows such as NBC's "Kidnapped" or ABC's "Six Degrees."

"This was the year of serialized dramas trying to recapture lightning in a bottle the way that 'Desperate Housewives,' 'Lost,' '24' and 'Grey's Anatomy' did," said John Rash, director of broadcast negotiations for Minneapolis-based ad firm Campbell-Mithun. "But almost all of them were rejected by the audience."

The growth of "Criminal Minds" is maybe the most convincing proof that not everyone wants to be chained to a dense, character-packed drama that unspools like a Dickensian novel. And even those who do have their limits. There is a reason why formula sells, why genres become generic in the first place.

To the surprise of no one, executive producer Mark Gordon rejects the notion that "Criminal Minds" is as pedestrian as the critics would have it.

"It's nothing like those other CBS procedural shows," he said. That Gideon and his team are typically pursuing serial killers — including an 8-year-old suspect in last week's episode — changes the plot dynamics. "It's about people solving crimes as they're happening rather than after they've happened."

Writer-producer Ed Bernero, who oversees "Criminal Minds" day to day, contends that the show is a lot smarter than critics give it credit for. The writing staff views the series as based on Arthurian legends, he said, with the FBI assuming the role of King Arthur and Gideon the stand-in for Lancelot.

Two recent episodes featured a killer who called himself the Fisher King, a direct reference to Arthurian myth.

"People learn something from watching the show," Bernero, a former Chicago cop, said during a break in shooting at a Valley location last week on this season's ninth episode. (Critics who've noticed the show's tendency to focus on bloodied female victims have suggested the show's teachings may be mostly misogynistic. Bernero counters that many serial-killer victims in the real-life cases the writers draw upon happen to be women — and that, by the way, "Minds" does particularly well among female viewers.)

But Bernero also sees clear differences between his show and the competition. The team on "Criminal Minds" cracks a mystery every week.

"Lost," meanwhile, has been drubbed by many fans for leaving too many questions unresolved about its central characters, who survived a plane crash on a mysterious tropical island.

"I'm a fan of the show, and I don't feel like they're giving me solutions to anything," Bernero said of "Lost."

Of course, it may be simplistic to assume that frustrated viewers are fleeing "Lost" and hopping aboard "Criminal Minds" (coincidentally, Walt Disney Co.'s Touchstone Television produces both). The series are among TV's most-watched, suggesting that there's room for both.

And while "Criminal Minds" has been steadily gaining on "Lost" in total viewers, the ABC series retains a huge advantage among young adults, the group advertisers covet most. The median age of "Lost" viewers this season is 42; for "Criminal Minds," it's 53.

But the producers of "Lost" realize they're walking a fine line between mapping out the grand fictional world that sophisticated fans expect and delivering the single-episode payoff that will keep casual viewers satisfied.

Last season dwelled on what happened when some of the survivors went "down the hatch," a mysterious hole that led to unexpected confrontations. This year will focus on the survivors' face-off with "the others," another group inhabiting the island.

"This season is a sequel as opposed to a show you can just drop into," said "Lost" executive producer Damon Lindelof. "You have to go back and do your homework. That could make it less appealing to a broader audience."

Added executive producer Carlton Cuse: " 'Lost' makes no promises. It's an exercise in delayed gratification."

He's not kidding about the delay. After the Nov. 8 episode — this season's sixth — "Lost" will take a three-month hiatus before returning in February. But Cuse promises that some mysteries that intrigued and possibly annoyed fans will get resolved soon. For example, how did Locke, the resourceful maverick played by Terry O'Quinn, wind up in a wheelchair? "That's going to get answered at some point this season," Cuse said.

"Criminal Minds," meanwhile, will be adjusting to a major cast change. Lola Glaudini, who played the morally ambiguous Agent Greenaway, has left the series to return to the East Coast. Bernero said Glaudini was unhappy living in Los Angeles. (Through a representative, Glaudini declined to comment). Paget Brewster, perhaps best known for a recurring part on "Friends," has joined the cast as a new profiler.

Aside from the personnel shift, however, the producers expect "Criminal Minds" to keep chugging along and hopefully edge past "Lost" soon.

Bernero isn't worried about running out of material.

"At any given time, there are 30 serial killers working in the United States," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/cl-et-channel30oct30,1,3428876.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews

TV Notebook
Reality show seeks bachelor farmer
W. Texas casting call draws lonesome cowboys
Associated Press October 29, 2006

LUBBOCK – Farmers and ranchers came from around Texas to a casting call on Sunday for a new reality show from the producers of "American Idol" and "The Price is Right." In "The Farmer Wants a Wife," city girls and others will vie for a chance to become a farmer's wife.

Micah Keeney didn't come in a cowboy hat or boots from nearby Shallowater, preferring his typical "comfy" farmer look. He lives alone in a small, old farmhouse on his more than 3,700 acres of cotton, cattle and hay.

Though he doesn't date, the 24-year-old blond said he thought he'd come see if he could find a single woman willing to come live on the land with him.

"I've been waiting for something like this for a while, and I want to be on TV," Keeney said. "I want to be picked. That's the reason I'm here. I think it'll be fun."

The show will air next year on one of the four major networks, said Billy Kemp, the head of casting for Fremantle Media. The format isn't finalized. It could be one farmer or rancher in each of as many as 13 episodes or it could be a different one each week, Kemp said.

"We don't expect the turnout we get for 'American Idol,"' Kemp said. "This is a very, very different kind of show."

It won't be like Green Acres, where Lisa Douglas, played by Eva Gabor, begrudgingly gave up her life in New York City to join her husband, Oliver Wendell Douglas, portrayed by Eddie Albert, in his dream of living the farmer life.

The new production will be an American version of others that have found success in Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands.

The next casting call was scheduled Friday in Lincoln, Neb. Producers then visit Des Moines, Iowa, on Nov. 5 and Springfield, Mo., on Nov. 10. Producers are accepting applications from across the country and have had interest from states such as California and Wisconsin.

Those casting the show are looking for single men 25-35 years old who live and work on a farm or ranch, preferably someone who has crops and animals, but that's not required.

"We're not looking for any one thing in particular," said Rebecca Greenberg of Fremantle Media. "We're not limiting ourselves."

Casting for the show's women will begin at a later date.

Urged on by those who know him, Doug Wilde drove about 200 miles from Wall, near San Angelo, for the casting call.

"I've probably gotten 10 phone calls and e-mails from kinfolk and friends" asking if he'd heard of the show, said the 28-year-old Wilde, who stands 6 feet, 5 inches tall. "It sounds like a good deal."

Any woman dating or married to a farmer or a rancher quickly learns that days are long and schedules get tossed when storms – whether sand, wind, rain or snow – strike.

Keeney said he's looking for a woman who could smell cow manure, "and then not think I'm a bad guy."

Wilde and Keeney said they're not unhappy living the single life.

"But I would love to have some love out there, too," Keeney said. "It gets lonely."

"They got to be fun," Wilde said. "I don't want a stick in the mud."

http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/television/stories/103006dnTexCasting.20e9a68.html

TV Notebook
CNN hopes blogging is election-night blessing
An event aimed at getting instant reaction from online opinion makers is but a part of cable channels' efforts
By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times Staff October 30, 2006

Who says the mainstream media don't respect the blogosphere?

CNN is trying to incorporate bloggers directly into its coverage of next week's midterm elections by inviting them to an "E-lection Nite Blog Party," an event aimed at corralling some of the top online opinion makers in one place to provide instant reaction as the results come in.

The cable news network plans to host more than two dozen bloggers from across the political spectrum — including sites like RedState and Daily Kos — at a Washington Internet lounge where they can monitor the election returns on a slew of flat-screen televisions. (Each blogger will get his or her own monitor, which can be tuned to any channel.) There will be free wireless access — and plenty of food and beverages, natch.

CNN Internet reporters Jacki Schechner and Abbi Tatton have been assigned to cover the gathering and provide regular updates on the air about the topics that are generating the most chatter.

"Bloggers are leading the conversation," said David Bohrman, CNN's Washington bureau chief. "You could argue that most of the political dialogue in this country is happening online, so if you don't incorporate that into your coverage, you're missing a major element."

Subscribers to CNN Pipeline, the network's broadband service, will be able to monitor the happenings at the blog party through one of the online channels, which will be dedicated exclusively to footage from the event.

The blog party is just part of stepped-up political coverage already dominating cable news channels — and their companion websites — in the days leading to the election. Nationwide campaigns have historically driven up ratings for the cable networks, and executives hope this year will be no exception.

Fox News is kicking off a week of campaign coverage today with interviews of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who are sitting down with Sean Hannity and Neil Cavuto, respectively. On election night, FoxNews.com will feature an election tracker that will allow viewers to monitor specific races on a customized Web page, with updated results every two minutes.

For its part, MSNBC plans to devote all of its daytime programming to politics this week. Candidate profiles are available on MSNBC.com, along with an election map that highlights the key races around the country.

Even business channel CNBC is jumping on the political bandwagon. On Tuesday, the network is airing a series of special reports about economic issues expected to affect the vote.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/cl-et-news30oct30,1,4936146.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews

TV Sports
Broken bat for Fox
Five-game Series another ratings loser
By Rick Kissell Variety October 29, 2006

After a somewhat promising opening weekend, the World Series on Fox went out with a whimper and continued the Fall Classic's overall downward ratings trend.

The St. Louis Cardinals' surprise three-game sweep of their home games meant the Series did not extend to at least a sixth game for the third consecutive year. And that, according to at least one sports consultant, was expected to put Fox "tens of millions of dollars in the red" (Daily Variety, Oct. 23).

Fox had reason to be optimistic when the best-of-seven series was tied at one win apiece, but the Cardinals' strong run at home put an end to what ratings momentum the series had been building and left America's so-called pastime with its smallest average audience on record for a second straight season.

Friday's 4-2 title-clinching victory for the Cardinals averaged an 11.4 household rating/19 share in Nielsen's metered-market overnights -- a 26% falloff from Game 5 of the 2003 World Series between the New York Yankees and Florida Marlins (15.4/23), the last time the Series went to a fifth game.

Game delivered a 4.3/13 in adults 18-49 and 14.4 million viewers overall on Fox's affils from 8:30-11 p.m., with the national numbers expected to rise a bit when issued by Nielsen today.

For the World Series as a whole, Fox's five-game overnight household rating and share (11.0/18) was down 16% from the four-game average from last year (13.1/21), when the Chicago White Sox swept the Houston Astros.

In total viewers, this year's series will come in short of 16 million, down from 17.2 million for last year. Prior to last season, the lowest average audience was 18.1 million for the 2000 "Subway Series" between the New York Yankees and New York Mets.

Fox, hopeful that its recent run of short Series will soon come to an end, recently signed an eight-year deal with Major League Baseball that will keep the World Series on its air for the next seven seasons.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952899.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

TV Review
'Dead' To Rights
She Stops People in the Street with Messages From Beyond
By Linda Stasi The New York Post October 30, 2006

"Lisa Williams: Life Among The Dead" Tonight at 8 on Lifetime - FOUR STARS

LIFETIME'S brilliant new show, "Lisa Wil liams: Life Among The Dead," needs only a three word review: I love Lisa!

But since I get paid to write more, and I assume you've plunked down your dough to read more, in the words of Ricky Riccardo, "I've got some 'splainin to do."

Brit-born Lisa Williams is a punk clairvoyant (yes), who actually used to be lead singer in a band. She now works full time as a clairvoyant and lives an otherwise-normal life with her husband, Kevin, and little boy, Charlie, in Reddich, Worcestershire, England.

Luckily for Americans, Lisa and family are now residing on our shores (L.A. to be exact) while she does this show.

And if Lisa appeals to the rest of the country the way she appeals to me, they'd better start getting their green cards in order.

Punky, spunky, chunky (thank you Jesus!), thoroughly lovable Lisa of the spikey, many-hued hair is clearly not your average clairvoyant - not in looks nor, more importantly, in talent.

She comes by her gifts legitimately. Her grandmother was the world-renowned psychic Frances Glazebrook, ghost whisperer to British pols, punks and pop stars - and very secret psychic adviser to many American ceo's.

Lisa's show is nothing short of startling. In fact, the DVD arrived with a letter from producer Merv Griffin who clearly was blown away also.

"Lisa has a very different talent from any of my previous finds, like Whitney Houston, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor or Ryan Seacrest," he writes. "Unlike these earlier discoveries, I had to suppress my personal disbelief to recognize that Lisa 'pops' as a star and what she does makes for compelling television." 100 percent accurate, Merv.

The show begins with loopy Lisa stopping a couple of very surprised guys on the street for whom she does on-the-spot readings.

Now, admittedly, it's not every day that a white, spike-haired British punkster stops a couple of skeptical, African American guys and starts talking to them about their dead friends and relative, practically bringing them to tears.

She tells one man that his cousin who wore the cross appreciates his remembrances. The guy nearly dies himself and then picks up his shirt to reveal a T-shirt underneath, printed with a picture of his dead cousin. He then shows her, around his own neck, the twin to the cross his cousin wore.

But it's when she reads for a 27-year old grieving widow of an American soldier killed in Iraq that you will really become a believer - unless, of course, you are blinded by tears, which I was.

I won't give it all away, but one of the things Lisa says that the dead soldier "tells" her is "I wasn't alone! I wasn't alone in dying that day."

In fact, 11 marines died with him in that town that day.

She also meets with a woman who never knew she was the child of rape.

"Lisa" is slated to air only for the next six Mondays - but I wish it would be on every day. For a very long time.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10302006/tv/dead_to_rights_tv_linda_stasi.htm

TV Notebook
Ratings dip, but Couric stays upbeat
By Peter Johnson USA Today October 29, 2006

CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric says she's "feeling great, I'm having a great time," despite her newscast falling from first to third place in two months.

"We kind of ignore people who are observing everything we do and praising, criticizing or analyzing it, and we're just doing what we want," she said Friday in a rare interview since taking the anchor chair Sept. 5. "People have to sell newspapers and take shots, but I understand that's part of their jobs. I'm hearing incredibly positive things from people who really appreciate the fact we're trying new things. Not everything is going to work. I knew that coming in."

The former NBC Today star drew more than 10 million viewers to Evening News in her first week. Since then, ratings have fallen behind NBC and ABC, though compared with last year Evening News has gained while the others are down. For the week of Oct. 16, Evening News drew 7.6 million viewers; NBC, 8.7 million; ABC, 8.5 million.

Her coming in and becoming No. 1 "was never an expectation by anyone at CBS News, and it shouldn't have been an expectation by anyone in the outside world," Couric says. "Viewing habits are slow to turn around."

Nonetheless, correspondent Byron Pitts says there's "some anger, but a good kind of anger" at CBS News. "Every discussion starts and stops with, 'How can we be No. 1?' We're like a franchise football team that went out and got a superstar and brought in some big hitters and we expected to be 8-and-0 at this point, and we're not."

Early in her tenure, Couric says she has "the luxury of being able to tinker with the format and try new things." Thursday, she talked for five minutes with actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, on his political activism and his response to criticism by radio's Rush Limbaugh. Couric calls it "absolutely riveting TV, not to mention an important news story."

The interview with Fox meant that the controversial Free Speech segment, the only one of its kind on broadcast news, did not run that night. "We never said it was going to run every night," Couric says. "We said from the outset that we're going to try new things and we may adjust and re-evaluate, but that doesn't mean 'Oh, it's not working.' "

Couric says she's open for criticism "if it's based on facts or from reporters who take the time to watch the program. But when they make snap judgments or do a kind of lemming-like journalism, that's when I'm disappointed."

Couric cited a column by Variety's Peter Bart: "He said we 'kiss off Iraq in a sentence and North Korea in a clause.' (That was) so completely unfounded."

(In response, Bart said his comment "was part of a facetious column in which I dispensed random advice to the likes of Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty and the president of North Korea. ... I did not claim to have made a precise measurement of the time allotted to Iraq. I hope I got her thinking, anyway.")

Couric said the lesson of the past two months is, "Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will The CBS Evening News. It's a process, and being in the middle of the process, while it's sometimes challenging and can be frustrating, that's really in many ways the fun part."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-29-couric-ratings_x.htm

TV Watch
Scary, Like Funny Scary
By Alessandra Stanley The New York Times October 29, 2006

It’s not that campaign ads are so nasty. They are always nasty, brutish and 30 seconds long. If anything, the scare tactics that loomed so large in the 2002 election in the wake of 9/11 now seem passé. This time around, many of the most powerful political ads are funny — 2006 marks the Comedy Centralization of politics.

Some are playful, others are mean-spirited, snarky and downright scurrilous. But the new breed of humorous ads don’t just mock the opponent, many of them wink at the absurdity of the entire campaign process.

It’s not so surprising. In a culture where growing numbers of viewers say they get their news from “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report,” and at a time when anything shocking or amusing on television can be downloaded and e-mailed instantly, candidates are co-opting the YouTube revolution.

They imitate the spirit of citizen-created parody spots, siphon off pop culture, and go to extremes to stand out and win a free ride on the Internet, on news programs and comedy shows.

In his campaign against Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat Ned Lamont has produced ads that make fun of the classic scare tactics found in conventional ads — to engage viewers and deflect, with mockery, incoming attacks of his opponent. One shows Mr. Lamont in black and white as an ominous narrator says: “Meet Ned Lamont. He can’t make a decent cup of coffee.” As Mr. Lamont shuffles papers, red letters cross the screen and freeze into a warning: “Messy Desk.”

In New Jersey, Tom Kean Jr. has tried to whip up voters by alleging that the Democratic incumbent, Bob Menendez, is corrupt. A recent ad paid for by Free Enterprise Fund Committee, a Washington-based group, shows an actor who looks like Joe Pesci in a black leather jacket chatting on his cellphone, telling a fellow “wise guy” that they are in trouble because Mr. Menendez is on the outs. “Bada bing,” he says in a parody of the New Jersey mob family in “The Sopranos.” (The ad irritated some Italian-Americans, who took offense at the suggestion that mobsters are Italian-American. Mr. Kean repudiated the ad.)

Smears about sex or race may seem especially heated now, but they are hardly new. The much-seen Tennessee ad against Harold Ford Jr. placed by the Republican National Committee in support of his opponent, Bob Corker, was seen as racist. It featured a bare-shouldered blond party girl coaxing Mr. Ford, who is African-American, to “call me.” When Republican strategists in 1988 tried to stoke subliminal racist fears with the infamous Willie Horton ad, the message was deadly serious. This spot is anything but: The G.O.P. went with a “Daily Show”-style send-up of conventional negative ads. Instead of recruiting real people coached to express concern about the rival candidate’s experience or ethics, the attack ad has actors lampooning Ford supporters.

“Terrorists need their privacy,” a career woman says.

“Canada can take care of North Korea,” a grandfatherly farmer says. “They’re not busy.” And a sleazy looking fellow scoffs: “So he took money from porn movie producers. Who hasn’t?”

Mr. Corker’s own biographical ads gauzily showcase his conservative family, yet even he seems determined to assure voters he is no square. “After 20 years, he still makes me laugh,” Mrs. Corker says tenderly. In another one, his 18-year-old daughter, Julia, says of her father, “I think he’s hilarious.”

Mr. Corker was undoubtedly less amusing around the house when pictures of Julia kissing a girl on the lips at a college party on Facebook.com began whipping around cyberspace: one of the perils of 21st-century technology is that those who live by the Internet can die by the Internet.

As Senator George Allen, the Virginia Republican who was caught on tape calling a college student of Indian descent a “macaca,” learned, video cameras are everywhere. So, of course, campaign ads increasingly include a clip of an opponent saying or doing something foolish on camera. Some include snippets of the opponents’ own ads. Video grabs are easy thanks to advances in digital editing and popular because so many Internet sites and comedy shows thrive on them.

“It’s the ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ effect,” said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a firm based in Virginia that tracks advertising. “Candidates drive the volume to the loudest point they can get and hope the message sticks.”

Not every ad that stands out is funny, of course. Michael J. Fox’s spot for candidates who favor embryonic stem cell research had special resonance, mostly because the actor’s shaking as a result of Parkinson’s disease was so pronounced. (The impact of the ad was also heightened by the radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s saying that the actor exaggerated his symptoms for dramatic effect. Mr. Limbaugh flailed his arms to illustrate his point.)

But there is a shift in sensibility — even many of the soft-focus biographical ads that vaunt the candidate’s homespun virtues do not play it straight. In an ad for Jon Tester, the Democratic Senate candidate in Montana, the governor, Brian Schweitzer, stands next to the candidate, who has a buzz cut, and praises his character. At the end, the governor turns to Mr. Tester. “Jon, one thing,” he says, “I’m not getting one of those haircuts.” The two men laugh merrily.

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico stars in his own mock-Western ad, wearing a cowboy hat and sheriff’s badge and ordering a glass of milk in a saloon. At the end, Mr. Richardson ambles into the sunset saying, “Next time, let’s make a space movie.”

Smear campaigns are as old as the Constitution. Negative ads have been a staple of politics for decades. Humorous spots are not a novelty, either. But in this election, campaigns are not just using the Internet to spread their message, they are picking up on the message voters are sending across the Internet.

They mock their opponents, they laugh at themselves, and most of all, they affect a comic detachment from their own campaigns. Candidates don’t cut and run, they run as cut-ups.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/weekinreview/29stanley.html?ref=television

TV Notebook
Flee the hard-party crowd
Pols could use own channel
By David Hinckley The New York Daily News October 30, 2006

It was somewhere between a report on a Montana Senate tracking poll and a tangled argument over Patricia Heaton's reply to the Michael J. Fox Missouri stem cell ad the other night that I suddenly had a vision as powerful as America itself.
What if, around election time every two years, we set aside two TV channels as the Republican Channel and the Democrat Channel and funneled all political news and discussion there?

What if all other channels waited until Election Night, when they had actual votes, news, information and winners?

What a blissfully peaceful world that would be.

Now I don't mean to suggest we'd have a better democratic republic if our citizenry spent the election campaign watching "Dancing With the Stars" and thought their voting choice was Vivica A. Fox or Tucker Carlson.

I suggest only that under the present system, with TV, radio, bloggers and traditional media, not to mention paid ads, most of us don't learn much about the real candidates anyway.

The fault here does not all rest at the feet of candidates, reporters or commentators. Many are well informed and well intentioned. Left on their own, in a world where we could hear their voices, they could sort out a lot of things for us.

But it doesn't work that way. Trying to follow an election campaign through television these days is like swimming in a pool where 200 people have suddenly decided to do cannonballs.

It more or less kills the chance of any further swimming.

Herding all the politics

to two channels would, for starters, fit the contemporary television philosophy of niche programming, where ESPN or HBO or BET "super-serves" people whose primary interests lie in one area.

It would also enable Republicans and Democrats to watch the news they like, which in this niche era is what most people seem to want.

Fox viewers would be happy. So would Air America listeners.

The only drawback to my vision is that it wouldn't work.

For one thing, contentious political material isn't a problem for cable news channels or talk shows. It's a lifeblood.

Truer yet, politics is always messy, ragged and dirty. Candidates and supporters have been shouting at and over each other since the first caveman discovered fire and the second caveman challenged him as a reform candidate for fire marshal.

It's often argued the sheer noise of election campaigns is one reason less than half of eligible Americans bother to vote. By Election Day, it's said, we just want everyone to shut up.

We don't, really, because if that happened we'd be North Korea. But I'm keeping my vision on file, anyway, because the 37th time I hear a New Jersey gay marriage debate tonight, I'm going to really need it.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/466409p-392451c.html

TV Review
Did You Hear That Joke About the I.R.A.? It’s a Killer
By Anita Gates The New York Times October 30, 2006

“Cracker” is back, in the form of a gripping new two-hour movie. And its hero, the British forensic psychologist Eddie Fitzgerald (the amazing Robbie Coltrane), is completely in character.

Fitz, as everyone calls him, cannot even get through his daughter’s wedding reception without making a scene. A little bit drunk as usual, Fitz makes a toast that insults both his daughter and her new husband.

More to the point, he snarls an accusation at a baffled guest: Wouldn’t you have liked the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks better if they had happened in reverse, he says, just for the sake of escalating drama? First the plane falls out of the sky in Pennsylvania, then the Pentagon is hit, and then the World Trade Center.

Some British critics have accused “Cracker: A New Terror,” which has its United States premiere tonight on BBC America, of preachiness, heavy-handedness or both. One review suggested that since everyone in London sits around at dinner parties expressing anti-Americanism all the time, there was no good reason to repeat all those sentiments in a murder mystery.

That sort of thing plays a little differently here. First, there is a sense of relief that characters on television are talking about the events openly and irreverently. Then there is the punch of confirmation that much of the rest of the world may indeed despise the United States for what the Bush administration calls the war on terror. And for local viewers, there is a hint of vindication when the mother of the movie’s first victim tells a Manchester police officer: “My son wasn’t American. Not in that way. He was a New Yorker.”

That victim is a stand-up comedian who has the nerve to get laughs with a Gerry Adams joke, suggesting that Mr. Adams’s Irish Republican Army branch, Sinn Fein, is pretty pale terrorism compared with Osama bin Laden’s efforts. Unfortunately for the comic, his audience includes Kenny Archer (Anthony Flanagan), a former British soldier traumatized by the deaths of his colleagues in Northern Ireland.

Kenny is a husband and father and has a particularly respectable job, the revelation of which is the plot’s biggest shock. He wants to kill himself but cannot bring himself to pull the trigger and so kills others instead. The combination of his homicide spree and the police force’s investigation of the murders makes intense drama.

Mr. Coltrane’s Fitz is at the center of the investigation of course, narrowing down the suspect list at one point to roughly 100 men in Manchester who wear uniforms and have short brown hair.

The last episode of “Cracker,” created by Jimmy McGovern (who wrote this film too), was made 10 years ago, so Fitz is older and wearier. He and his long-suffering wife (Barbara Flynn) have been living in Australia and are back in Britain for the wedding.

Fitz continues to abuse his body with cigarettes, alcohol and food, and the years have taken their toll. One memorable juxtaposition has the murderer getting into bed with his wife, high on the success of his crime, and Fitz getting into bed with his wife, only to get up soon after, go to his computer and look up Viagra.

Longtime “Cracker” fans may feel a bit like Fitz’s wife, comparing this latest encounter unfavorably with the show’s early days. But also like his wife, they may be forgiving because their love for the character is true and enduring. Compared with most television crime investigators, Fitz is still the king.

CRACKER - A New Terror

BBC America, tonight at 9, Eastern time; 8, Central time, 10 Pacific time.

Directed by Antonia Bird; Andy Harries, executive producer; John Chapman, producer, Jimmy McGovern, writer.

WITH: Robbie Coltrane (Fitz), Anthony Flanagan (Kenny Archer), Stefanie Willmore (Katy Fitzgerald), Andrea Lowe (Elaine Archer), Barbara Flynn (Judith Fitzgerald), Nisha Nayar (Detective Saffron Saleh), Joel Davies (Daniel Archer), Charlotte Forsyth (Amy Archer), Nathan Tunnah (Jake Archer), Richard Coyle (Detective Walters), Rafe Spall (Detective McAllister), Andrew Norris (Mr. Thorpe), Lisa Eichhorn (Jean Molloy), Demetri Goritsas (Harry Peters).

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/arts/television/30crac.html?ref=television

It has begun...

Technology
No More 'Daily' YouTube
Colbert Off Video Site Too
The New York Post October 30, 2006

THOUSANDS of video clips from Jon Stew art's "Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "Colbert Report" were yanked off the popular YouTube website over the weekend.

Apparently, a copyright claim from Comedy Cental, the cable channel that airs the two news spoof shows, forced YouTube to take down what may be the most heavily watched videos on the site.

Clips too from "South Park" - another Comedy Central show -were gone.

Instead, when people clicked on links for those clips, they got a stark message: "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation."

Users of YouTube who had posted Comedy Central clips in the past said they received emails late Friday from the site informing them that, if they did it again, it would "result in the deletion of your account."

YouTube - a year-old web site that offers video clips of homemade films but also is the go-to site for countless snippets taken from commerical TV - has had copyright trouble in the past. But this appears to be the largest purge to date at the site.

From the beginning, TV companies - including Comedy Central - looked the other way when their stuff showed up on YouTube. Many saw it as promotion for their shows. "Getting it off the Internet is no different than getting it off TV," Stewart told an interveiwer recently.

What changed?

YouTube's acquisition last month by Internet giant Google for $1.6 million, it seems.

With TV networks losing more audience and advertisers each day to the Internet, they are less willing to let it pass now that Google is behind the site.

Comedy Central officials could not be reached yesterday because of the weekend.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10302006/tv/no_more_daily_youtube_tv_.htm

TV Review
A Teenager Seeks Counsel, Then the Real Trouble Begins
By Susan Stewart The New York Times October 30, 2006

Most television movies about troubled teenagers follow a familiar formula. There’s trouble. Then the intervention of a caring adult or an after-school program for children at risk turns the potential delinquent into a dutiful citizen and leaves the viewer with the happy illusion that despair and crime will be eradicated as soon as the right social policies are in place. Trust HBO to present a different view.

In “Angel Rodriguez,” which will be shown tonight, the 17-year-old title character takes a step or two back for every step forward. From one minute to the next you’re never sure what he’s going to do: steal a pornographic movie or apply for a job, clean the kitchen or strangle somebody. That doesn’t mean you won’t root for him.

Angel, played by a newcomer, Jonan Everett, has a keen intelligence, a watchful way about him and a split lip from a recent fight. His father has kicked him out of the house. His high school social worker, Nicole (Rachel Griffiths), has invited him to stay in the spare room of the chic apartment where she lives with her husband, Henry, a businessman. The three share a dinner fraught with tension.

Henry (in a terrific small performance by Denis O’Hare) disapproves of his wife’s temporary lodger but clumsily chats him up anyway. It’s hard to tell if Henry is trying to make Angel uncomfortable or just doesn’t know how to approach him. Henry gives a rhapsodic description of roughing it in Central Park, where he once slept outside and showered in the public restrooms.

“Did you take conditioner?” his wife asks. “Or just shampoo?”

The remark is hilarious, and deeply cutting. Ms. Griffith’s character is full of good intentions, but this actress adds enough vinegar to neutralize any self-righteousness. Her years on the dark HBO series “Six Feet Under” have left their mark. She can make the eating of a bowl of cereal seem like a meal in hell.

Thanks to Ms. Griffith’s performance, among others, “Angel” avoids most of the clichés of its genre, or at least camouflages them. There’s no background music, only the ambient noise of TVs, video games and urban chatter on the mean streets of Brooklyn. Most effective are the silences, as the tortured lead characters ponder their dismal options.

As a solitary Nicole plucks a gray hair, or Angel joylessly rifles through her bedroom drawers, viewers educated at the Lifetime school of movie crisis resolution may pine for a shooting or a scholarship — anything to put these people out of their misery. If only everybody weren’t so muted. A little melodrama would tell us how to feel, and leave us feeling better. But “Angel” is far too smart for that formula.

ANGEL RODRIGUEZ

HBO, tonight at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.

Directed by Jim Mckay; written by Mr. McKay and Hannah Weyer; produced by Paul Mezey. A Journeyman Pictures production in association with C-Hundred Film Corporation.

WITH: Jonan Everett (Angel Rodriguez), Rachel Griffiths (Nicole), Denis O’Hare (Henry), Wallace Little (Raymond), David Zayas (Angel’s father), David Fonteno (principal), Jon Norman Schneider (Jamie), Darien Sills-Evans (receptionist), Anna Simpson (Monique), Catherine Kellner (Heather).

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/arts/television/30ange.html?ref=television

TV Review
A tension must be paid to 'Cracker'
By David Bianculli New York Daily News October 30, 2006

CRACKER: A NEW TERROR. Tonight at 9, BBC America. (4 STARS OUT OF 4)

Long before Kyra Sedgwick cracked cases on "The Closer," and Mandy Patinkin and his team profiled serial killers on "Criminal Minds," Robbie Coltrane played a fascinatingly flawed - but deductively brilliant - criminal psychologist in the British series "Cracker."

He was "House" as a cop, stubbornly isolated and single-minded, and both the series and the portrayal were riveting.

A decade after the last of the "Cracker" episodes was produced, Coltrane is back as Dr. Edward (Fitz) Fitzgerald, in a new telemovie written by "Cracker" creator Jimmy McGovern, who also wrote the current, outstanding BBC miniseries import "The Street."

The stand-alone drama, in which Fitz returns to England for his daughter's wedding after retiring to a quiet life in Australia, has him pulled into a high-profile murder case - the death of a visiting American standup comic, just after performing a topical routine on global terrorism.

One murder leads to another, and, ultimately, to one of those stellar, intense interrogation scenes that always made "Cracker" such a jolting experience.

There's an extra jolt this time around, though - one that has slipped beneath the radar, partly because this BBC America presentation, tonight at 9, has a different title now.

For viewers in this country, it's called "Cracker: A New Terror." When shown back in the United Kingdom, its title reflected the incendiary nature of its political and historical subtext. Over there, it was called "Cracker: Nine Eleven."

What's so incendiary about that?

This is: The killer (in "Cracker," as in "Columbo," the suspense here isn't whodunit, but the thrill of the dance between killer and investigator) is a former British soldier who was stationed in Northern Ireland. The decades-long struggle, known too simply as "the Troubles," led to U.S. funding of Irish insurgents - then, after 9/11, a sense that the conflict in Ireland was relatively insignificant.

The American standup comic joked about that, and was murdered for it. Later, the killer (played marvelously by Anthony Flanagan) uses a particularly devious method to enter the home of a wealthy American, using a dead pigeon to explain the smashing of a window and the trigger of an alarm. The killer corners his intended victim, and explains his motivation with a directness, and coldness, that is unsettling for U.S. ears to hear.

"I want revenge," he says, "for every British soldier killed in Northern Ireland - every bullet hitting every British soldier bought with American dollars.

"You funded terrorism for years. Then, hallelujah, you get what's coming to you: 9/11. And, suddenly, you don't like terrorism one little bit. I call that hypocrisy."

I call that incendiary - yet, in this drama, directed artfully by Antonia Bird, it's anything but gratuitous. Coltrane, improbably even better than before as the world-weary, hard-drinking Fitz, finally gets to interrogate his prime suspect and quickly homes in on the key question.

"What did you think about 9/11?" Fitz asks.

"What has that got to do with this?" the suspect snaps back.

As it turns out, everything. As a political lesson, as well as a character study, "Cracker: A New Terror" is unforgettably vivid and disturbing. If you don't know "Cracker" at all, or only from the inferior American version starring Robert Pastorelli, you owe it to yourself to sample the undiluted original article.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/466410p-392453c.html

TV Notebook
Which anchor will win election night?
Peter Johnson's USA Today Media Mix Column Oct. 29, 2006

For more than two decades, most Americans got the results of national elections from three men: NBC's Tom Brokaw, ABC's Peter Jennings and CBS' Dan Rather.

But next week, when their successors — NBC's Brian Williams, ABC's Charles Gibson and CBS' Katie Couric — preside over the midterm results coverage, viewers will get to see how the new people handle their first election as evening news anchors.

This election could tip the balance of power in Congress, but covering it isn't a make-or-break night for the Big Three networks since broadcast news has "ceded a good deal of both election night and political conventions to cable news," says Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

But the 10 p.m. ET/7 PT hour devoted to results could attract new fans or cause defections to each of the networks, depending on what viewers think of their coverage.

"Election night will be a test for all of them," says Harvard media analyst Alex Jones. "My bet is that they will be focusing on not screwing up more than in having a magnificent coup, which tends to be only in the eyes of the networks."

"A lot of it will depend on how well the anchors do their homework — and they'll all do it — and how well they are able to orchestrate and ask the right questions," says CBS News vice president Paul Friedman. "They've all done that before, but each one of them has their challenges."

At NBC, Nightly News anchor Brian Williams will be flanked by Brokaw, who stepped down two years ago, and Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief and host of Meet the Press.

"It's like having Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle on either side of me," says Williams. He downplays how important the night is to the respective network news divisions. "Look, all three of us (anchors) have a lot of experience covering politics, so I don't think viewers are going to be ill served anywhere they turn," Williams says.

But NBC president Steve Capus says that in Williams, who anchored on MSNBC for 12 straight hours during the contested 2000 presidential election, NBC has a leg up on ABC and CBS. "My hunch is Brian has done more election-night coverage" than Couric or Gibson. "In fact, I know he has. Election night is one of those events that helps define a news organization."

For the past 20 years at ABC, Gibson's duty was to talk about the elections the morning after on Good Morning America.

But Gibson, a former ABC News Capitol Hill correspondent, always came into ABC News the night before to look at the results and watch Jennings, who died in 2005, anchor the coverage.

Now, as World News anchor, he'll be joined by This Week host George Stephanopoulos and in Washington by ABC's Cokie Roberts.

"If we do a better job than the other networks, will that help us generally in winning loyalty from viewers?" Gibson asks. "Sure, but what can you do about that? What you can do is prepare and prepare, but this is the first time I have done it, and I don't know what to anticipate. I don't know what I don't know and what pitfalls I'm going to go through."

CBS' Couric will be joined by her Evening News predecessor, Bob Schieffer, who hosts Face the Nation, plus Democratic political consultant Mike McCurry and Republican consultant Nicole Wallace.

"My goal is not to try to impress people with my policy wonkiness but to talk about trends and get perspective from people who live, breathe and sleep politics," Couric says. "I'm going to be right with the viewers in some ways, learning as much as they are, going along."

CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts, who'll report on the Connecticut Senate race, says that "at CBS these days we look at every story as an opportunity to define who we are in this new world. Planning for this (night) has been as big as for any story I can remember in the 10 years I've been at CBS."

But Couric says she does not view the night as a big chance to gain some new fans. "I'm not thinking 'How can I distinguish myself?' so much as 'How can I do the best job?' We don't want to bombard people with facts, figures, statistics and graphics. I think it's a night where people are hungry for perspective and meaning."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/mediamix/2006-10-29-media-mix_x.htm

TV Notebook
Where Everyone Loves to Love Chris
By Felicia R. Lee The New York Times October 30, 2006

It was a scream heard all the way down the block on Decatur Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant. If you know TV, or if you know that Brooklyn neighborhood, you know it’s a sweet stretch of well-tended homes and the setting for “Everybody Hates Chris,” the comedy series on the CW network inspired by the adolescent adventures of the comedian Chris Rock.

The scream was for Tichina Arnold, who plays Rochelle, the no-nonsense mother on the show. Ms. Arnold had just wandered into Waterfalls, a restaurant near Mr. Rock’s childhood home, serving Jamaican and American food, where she was exuberantly recognized by the owners. Close on her heels and prompting fresh squeals was Terry Crews, the actor who portrays Julius, Mr. Rock’s penny-pinching, hard-working father.

“I love the show!” shouted Danie Burris, 22, whose parents own the small restaurant. She and her sister Althea, 28, scurried to serve the TV couple two steaming lunch plates, one of curried chicken and one of oxtails.

“Everybody Hates Chris” tells the story of a black, working-class family during the early 1980s and Mr. Rock’s adventures in being bused to a white school. Narrated by Mr. Rock, who is also its co-creator, it made its debut last fall to critical acclaim and high ratings. But this fall has brought lower ratings, which CW executives say has to do with factors other than quality. Not only was the show’s original home, the UPN network, merged with WB to create the new CW, but initially the show was also moved from Thursday to Sunday nights.

The show’s Oct. 1 season premiere showed that it had slipped 72 percent among viewers 18 to 49 (it was seen by 2.44 million viewers in total) from its debut last season, its worst showing to date except for reruns.

This month the show was moved to Monday nights, along with three other comedy shows (“All of Us,” “Girlfriends” and “The Game”). The ratings on Oct. 16 surged to 3 million viewers, and the show had 3.19 million viewers for the Oct. 23 episode, according to Nielsen Media Research.

“ ‘Everybody Hates Chris’ is an absolute crown jewel of a comedy, and we’re committed to protecting and nurturing Chris Rock and Ali LeRoi’s brilliant creation,” Dawn Ostroff, president for entertainment at CW, said in a recent e-mail message. “We feel that moving the show to Monday at 8 will, in the long run, strengthen the ratings and ensure a long, prosperous run on the CW.”

Critics say that among the many charms of “Chris” is its authentic evocation of time and place, with its period music, clothes and cars. Filmed on a brownstone block on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles, the fictional Chris is bused to a middle school named Corleone Junior High in South Shore, a fictional Italian neighborhood. Those were the days before crack and before gentrification.

In real life Mr. Rock attended two predominantly white Brooklyn schools, Public School 277 in Gerritsen Beach, and Marine Park Junior High, and was bused beginning in grade school.

“One thing I distinctly remember is that the white kids called each other by their last names, in grade school,” Mr. Rock said in a telephone interview. “They all cursed. The bad black kids cursed, and the white kids cursed in general conversation. It was another world — Italian, Irish. They pretty much picked on me and the Jews.”

Ms. Arnold, small-boned and with a short, chic haircut, grew up in South Ozone Park, Queens, and is a busing veteran herself. But Mr. Crews, a 250-pound former N.F.L. linebacker, had never set foot in Brooklyn and wanted to check it out, accompanied by a reporter for his first visit. He and Ms. Arnold were in New York to promote the show’s second season.

“It’s more beautiful that I thought,” Mr. Crews said. “I thought I’d see bleakness. It’s gorgeous.”

The yellow brick house in which Mr. Rock grew up is still there, on a block where gentrification announces itself with small, printed notes stuck on mailboxes asking owners if they want to sell.

Some neighbors who stopped to chat said they liked the show because they had grown up with Mr. Rock.

“I lived across the street from him all his life,” Dave Waters, still a Decatur Street resident, said. He had ambled over to shake hands with Ms. Arnold and Mr. Crews. “He and my brother were best friends. I saved Chris’s life four or five times,” he said, mentioning various dust-ups with local roughnecks.

“I’m very proud of Chris,” Mr. Waters said. “Chris got a lot of his comedy from this block. Everybody on this block is funny.”

Just as in the show, Mr. Rock’s family rented out the top floor. The fictional Chris has a brother and a sister while Mr. Rock had six siblings. His father drove a truck for The Daily News and his mother worked with mentally handicapped people.

Their block was jokingly called “Decatur Towers,” and was “the richest block in the ghetto” Mr. Rock said.

“I loved my block,” Mr. Rock said. “I had a good set of friends. We played stickball and football in the snow. My dreams weren’t as grand as my life has become. My dream was just to have food delivered to my house.”

Mr. Rock’s family lost the house in the late ’80s after his father died, he said. “I could afford it now I suppose,” he said. “ But it’s not the buildings that matter. It’s the people.”

Ms. Arnold and Mr. Crews seemed to be having a fine time in Bed-Stuy on their visit, shaking hands with fans and posing with them for photographs. Both said they had the kind of working-class roots that “Everybody Hates Chris”’ celebrates. “The TV family just clicked,” Ms. Arnold, the 37-year-old mother of a young daughter, said. “It was like we had the same memories.”

Ms. Arnold (who played Pam on the Fox series “Martin”) was bused to school in Flushing, where she thrived and was recognized for her singing talent. “I got my Equity card when I was 12,” she said. “I never met Chris’s mom, but she likes the show. I pull from my mom for the character — a woman doing her best to keep her family together. Our show takes place during a time when there were no time-outs, there were spankings.”

Mr. Crews, who has been married 17 years and has five children, grew up in Flint, Mich., where his father juggled jobs as a foreman at General Motors and cleaning a Laundromat. “There’s a lot of Julius in that,” he said.

The Flint economy went south in the 1980s with the decline of the automobile industry. “We went from 10 high schools to 3,” Mr. Arnold said. “Everyone left. There were no jobs.”

His talents as an artist and a football player led to a scholarship at Western Michigan University. For seven years Mr. Crews played professional football, spending time with the Green Bay Packers and San Diego Chargers, among other teams. He retired from the N.F.L. in 1997 to pursue acting, and in 1999 was cast for the first thing he auditioned for, an extreme sports show called “Battle Dome.”

“Everybody Hates Chris” represents a return to showing ordinary folk finding their way, Mr. Crews said. After “The Cosby Show,” which ran from 1984 to ’92, featuring an affluent black family, “everybody had to be making money,” he said. “The pendulum swings the other way to our show. The heart is not what we do but who we are. Like 95 percent of the world.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/arts/television/30chri.html?_r=1&ref=television&oref=login

The Business of TV
CNBC Looking to Distinguish Itself
By David Bauder AP/Newsday October 30, 2006

NEW YORK (AP) -- Both times it aired earlier this month, the CNBC documentary "The Age of Wal-Mart" attracted larger audiences than any other business program on the network that week.

That's not particularly noteworthy until you consider that they were reruns. More than a rerun: the Peabody Award-winning film is two years old and CNBC has shown it 44 times.

Television executives notice those kind of numbers, and the trend explains how Josh Howard got his job 10 months ago, running a newly formed documentary unit at CNBC and preparing the network's first newsmagazine for its December debut.

"It just tells you that there's a real appetite for in-depth documentaries on people and trends (in business)," said Mark Hoffman, CNBC president.

The unit's next film, "Big Brother, Big Business," premieres Wednesday. It's about all the little-known ways that businesses can spy on and collect information about their employees and customers, and follows this month's well-received documentary on the inner workings of American Airlines.

It's a challenging time at CNBC, which is facing job cuts due to parent NBC Universal's recent directive to cut costs and a potential challenge from a new business network under consideration by the creators of Fox News Channel.

After failures with the likes of John McEnroe and Dennis Miller, CNBC under Hoffman has been trying to make prime-time programming that's more consistent with the business-oriented news that dominates its daytime schedule.

CNBC's average prime-time audience this year of 128,000 is a fraction of industry leader Fox News Channel's 1.4 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. But CNBC's numbers have inched up from last year. The two airings of the Wal-Mart documentary on Oct. 15 averaged 236,000 viewers, while the two premiere showings of "Inside American Airlines: A Week in the Life" averaged 345,500 people.

Documentaries are costly, particularly compared to studio shows with a couple of people talking, and that's why they've become endangered species at broadcast networks.

But a broadcaster won't show a documentary 44 times. If a lower-budget cable network can get this kind of a ride from a film and maintain ratings, it makes the expense worthwhile, executives said.

American Airlines offered CNBC extraordinary access for the two-hour film, in which executives and labor representatives talked in detail about steps taken to save money during a challenging time in the industry. They explained why ticket prices on the same flight could vary so widely, and about how they abandoned American's much-advertised plan to offer more leg room in coach than competitors - they needed the extra revenue from squeezing in more seats.

This week's "Big Brother, Big Business" details the wealth of public information about people that many don't know exists.

For example, Google has a record of every search made on its Web site, and who made it. Some new cars are equipped with black boxes that record how fast a driver went, and this information was used to convict one motorist of manslaughter in an accident caused by speeding, Howard said.

A rental car company installed GPS devices in its cars and, until stopped by a court, charged exorbitant fees to drivers who crossed a state line - a restriction that had been buried in the fine print of a contract offering unlimited mileage, he said.

"It was a perfect subject for us," Howard said. "It sheds light on a growing industry ... But it also appeals to just about everybody who has used a credit card, rented a car or applied for a job."

Howard is also in charge of CNBC's newsmagazine, which doesn't have a title yet but is scheduled to debut Dec. 6. It's modeled after HBO's "Real Sports" in having one fresh episode each month that is repeated multiple times.

The newsmagazine will have three stories a month, a mixture of profiles, investigative pieces and features. That's a comfortable format for Howard, who spent many years at CBS' "60 Minutes" and was executive producer of the now-defunct "60 Minutes II."

The job is an unexpected second chance for Howard, who was forced to resign from CBS when, under his watch, Dan Rather's 2004 story about President Bush's National Guard service collapsed because the authenticity of documents could not be verified.

Howard expected to leave television news after his job running "60 Minutes II" evaporated, and wasn't sure if there would be a stigma attached to him.

"I saw this as an opportunity to try something completely different," Howard said. "I didn't think I could ever top `60 Minutes,' so maybe this was an opportunity to do something outside of television."

But the CNBC job intrigued Howard, an amateur investor with a longtime interest in business news.

Howard is one of television news' great producers of long-form television, Hoffman said. He said he studied the issues surrounding the National Guard case and dismissed it as "irrelevant to what he could contribute at CNBC." There have been no outside complaints or questions about Howard getting the job, he said.

Howard said he's found it refreshing. He had moved high enough in CBS News to where he was spending most of his time managing people; CNBC's operation is so small that he's back to producing television programs.

"In a way, it's the most fun I had in a while," he said.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/wire/sns-ap-ap-on-tv-all-business,0,7465832.story?coll=sns-ap-tv-headlines

The New Season
The Ring Cylon
'Galactica' Prequel Tells How the Robot War Began
By Don Kaplan The New York Post October 30, 2006

The Sci-FI Channel is pushing ahead with plans to develop a spin-off to "Battlestar Galactica," the network's most buzzed about show ever.

The first drafts of "Caprica" scripts - a series that would take place about 50 years before the war between machines and man at the heart of "Galactica" - arrived at the network this week.

"It's not a war show; it's not even a space show or an action-adventure show," "Battlestar" executive producer Ronald Moore said in a recent interview. "It's a family drama and a political drama about corporations and politics. It's almost [more] like a sci-fi soap than it is an action-adventure series."

Galactica, now in its third season, has become the most eagerly followed science fiction series since "Star Trek."

On the epic space drama, a small community of humans are pursued across the galaxy by a race of machines called Cylons. The machines were originally created by the humans decades earlier on their home-world of Caprica.

But since then, they have taken on a life of their own and rebelled against their creators - wiping out most of the people on Caprica in a nuclear holocaust.

Fleeing through space, the war against the Cylons is fought mostly from the bridge of a tremendous battleship, the Galactica, commanded by it's captain, Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos).

"Galactica" took a big gamble by pushing on the borders of traditional sci fi, incorporating such hot-button, contemporary issues as terrorism, torture and ethnic politics into its storlines.

And it has worked.

The first two seasons on DVD right now rank among the top selling box-sets on Amazon and at other retailers. The ratings for the show hover around 2 million viewers a week - very good for cable.

"Caprica" would aim to build on that success.

"It's the story of the creation of the Cylons," says Moore. "We're trying to do something different within the genre and give a different flavor to the material than Battlestar Galactica does."

The story, Moore says, "centers around two families, one of whom owns an enormous corporation, à la Microsoft, and it builds the first Cylons; then the other family is Adama's father, who's a lawyer at the time and starts to become an opponent of what they're trying to do."

Even if the show receives the green light, it could be some time before it lands on the schedule due to the length of production time needed to create a new
shows.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10302006/tv/the_ring_cyclon_tv_don_kaplan.htm

The New Season
It Doesn’t Take a ‘Comic Book Nerd’ to Create a Superheroes Hit
By Bill Carter The New York Times October 30, 2006

On Tuesday, after NBC got the ratings for the latest episode of its new serial drama “Heroes,” Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment, was ready to make it official.

“We have the only real hit of the fall, and it’s growing,” Mr. Reilly said.

ABC would argue about “Ugly Betty,” which until Oct. 23, when “Heroes” overtook it, had pulled in more overall viewers. But “Betty” has always been well behind “Heroes” in the younger-viewer categories that advertisers desire, which ABC, like NBC, uses as its chief measuring stick of success.

That “Heroes” broke through came as a surprise in some quarters; but NBC, putting more marketing effort behind “Heroes” than any other fall series, had pegged it, Mr. Reilly said, as its best hope.

All of those expectations rested on the slim shoulders of Tim Kring, a veteran writer and producer whose previous credits would hardly have foretold the creation of a show so sublimely in tune with the Internet-television-comic-book nexus that it was the hit of last summer’s Comic-Con International convention in San Diego.

When Mr. Kring and the cast appeared there for a screening of the pilot, the reaction was electric. “The first thing I saw was a guy jumping up and down with a horn coming out of his head,” Mr. Kring said. “The next thing I saw was a 400-pound Harry Potter sitting there with a wand.”

The series, which plays on Monday nights, has continued to exploit the comic-book association through its Web site (nbc.com/heroes), which offers a digital comic-book version of the series and regular interviews between comic-book publications and members of the “Heroes” cast and writing staff.

One of those writers is Jeph Loeb, a longtime friend of Mr. Kring, who is also a highly regarded writer of comics, including “X-Men” and “Batman.” Mr. Kring has also had a long working relationship with Damon Lindelof, another comic enthusiast, better known as one of the creators of “Lost.”

All of this makes it sound as if Mr. Kring comes from the same comic heritage — except he doesn’t. Mr. Kring, who is 49, has a résumé filled with shows that someone who likes to dress like Harry Potter would not likely ever become obsessed with.

The series he previously created for NBC, “Crossing Jordan,” is unabashedly mainstream television, based mainly in murder mysteries.

“I was not a comic book nerd,” Mr. Kring said, sipping an iced tea with lemonade in a restaurant near the studio lot here where “Heroes” is shot. “But the truth is that nowadays that world is so pervasive, especially when you have kids, that you go to movies in the summertime and that’s what you see. I didn’t really feel like I had to come from that world.”

The world Mr. Kring comes from seems almost antithetical to the comic traditions. He was a religious-studies major who somehow turned that interest into a master’s degree in filmmaking.

After several years getting by as a camera operator, Mr. Kring made a move in the mid-1980s into script writing, starting on one of the signature schlock shows of the 1980s, “Knight Rider.” For the next decade Mr. Kring built up credentials as a reliable writer of television movies before moving onto more high-quality series, like “Chicago Hope” on CBS. Eventually he landed as a writer and producer on the NBC series “Providence.”

Angela Bromstad, president of NBC Universal Television Studio, said, “I began to notice that every time Tim wrote a script for ‘Providence’ it was one of their best episodes.” Ms. Bromstad encouraged NBC to sign Mr. Kring to develop his own shows.

The first idea Mr. Kring hatched centered on a young woman who worked as a small-town sheriff. But the studio was looking for a show about a female medical examiner. Jordan Cavanaugh morphed into an Irish-Catholic medical examiner in Boston.

“Jordan” did well by NBC for five years, never a huge hit but always dependable. That encouraged NBC Universal to want more from Mr. Kring.

Like many writers he felt hemmed in by the conventions of series television. “The kind of closed-end TV that all of us have done for years is not what a lot of writers want to do,” Mr. Kring said.

He noted the emergence of shows like “24” and “Lost.” Mr. Kring said: “I wanted to do a large, ensemble saga. I was intrigued by these other shows that were working and this kind of Dickensian storytelling, with chapters unfolding one after another.”

But what kind of story would merit that treatment? “You know how when you raise kids you think about how complicated the world is compared to when you were a kid?” Mr. Kring said. “The world is a very big and scary place now. So I started to think about what’s missing. And what was missing was the idea of heroes.”

That’s where the notion of superheroes came in, though he had no interest in anybody “donning a costume.” Instead, he said, he wanted to make ordinary people suddenly extraordinary.

Mr. Kring called on Mr. Loeb (years earlier they had collaborated on that memorable film “Teen Wolf Too”), visiting his office on Ventura Boulevard. They walked for four miles discussing the series idea. “It turned out that everything I was thinking about had been done not only once but 50 times by every comic book in the world,” Mr. Kring said. “I was smacking into some sort of big archetypes.”

Still, Mr. Loeb was encouraging. So was Mr. Lindelof. Mr. Kring decided he could use the familiar archetypes of sudden superpowers as long as he ensured “it was about the characters and how it affected them.”

He said he first created the characters and then fit a superpower to them: a single mother who could be in two places at once, a teenager trying to be like her friends, except she learns that she is indestructible.

Mr. Kring ran into one issue. “I had a nagging feeling that the show was getting too dark in that the characters were all burdened by these abilities. There was just a lot of angst.”

He turned to his wife, who had an inspiration: Why not add a character somehow based in the Japanese comic-book genre known as manga?

Mr. Kring came up with what is now likely the show’s most popular character, the Japanese-speaking office worker who can stop time and teleport himself — a character, not coincidentally, named Hiro. “I wanted somebody to embrace the idea that this was happening to him,” Mr. Kring said.

Hiro became not only a character thrilled to prove he was destined to do the extraordinary, but also comic relief.

Mr. Kring said the show uses angles familiar from comics and graphic novels, like close-ups shot upward from the floor. The show’s on-screen lettering, including the inevitable closing “To be continued,” was taken directly from fonts created by Tim Sale, Mr. Loeb’s artist partner on comics.

With an audience of 14.3 million on Oct. 23, more than the comic-obsessed are watching now. Whether they will continue will obviously depend on how the stories play out. Mr. Kring said he had not laid out five years’ worth of plot twists.

“A show has a life of its own,” he said. “If you’re willing to listen to it, it will take you where it wants to be.”

That said, he did acknowledge that he knows exactly where the current season is going. “We have a central prophecy, and we’ll arrive at that in the first season,” Mr. Kring said. “I do know how that ends. But once these people are out there and people know they are out there, it may become dangerous for them.”

And of course after that it’s “to be continued.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/arts/television/30hero.html?ref=television

Nielsen Ratings
World Series ratings sink to record low
By Paul G. Gough The Hollywood Reporter October 30, 2006

The 2006 World Series logged the series' lowest ratings ever, according to preliminary data compiled by Nielsen Media Research.

The 10.1 household rating/17 share for the five-game series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers beat the record low tallied by last year's World Series. In 2005, the Houston Astros-Chicago White Sox four-game series averaged an 11.1/19 household rating, which was the lowest since the 2000 Subway Series between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets (12.4/21).

Friday's game, which the Cardinals won to clinch the championship, averaged 16.3 million viewers according to time-zone adjusted fast-national ratings assembled by Nielsen. It averaged a 5.0 rating in adults 18-49, giving Fox the win for the night in both measures.

Game 5 marked the first time in three years that the World Series went more than four games, and it was the first Friday night World Series game since Fox took over airing duties. Fox won in major demos during each of the five games.

In a conference call with reporters last week announcing the Turner Broadcasting rights deal, Major League Baseball executives said they were concerned with the ratings but would wait until the end of the series to comment.

But Fox executives could not have been happy about getting a series with smaller-market teams St. Louis and Detroit. Fox said Sunday night that a contributing factor to the low turnout was the fact that St. Louis and Detroit had 800,000 fewer households than last year's teams.

That is not to say that the series wasn't popular in the teams' cities. St. Louis averaged a 4.9 rating/65 share for the entire World Series -- including a 5.1/71 for the clincher. Only Phoenix (5.3/72) in 2001 and Boston (5.1/72) in 2004, when both teams won the World Series, rated higher. Detroit averaged a 36.9/53 for the series.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3iSvX2Mh9HIlKXxaKTk4d92w%3D%3D

TV Notebook
Bright spots scarce on `SNL'
By Maureen Ryan The Chicago Tribune October 30, 2006

There was an unexpected, inspired moment during this weekend's edition of "Saturday Night Live."

The musical guest was Beck, whose band, during the second musical number, sat at a table set with plates, glasses and silverware. Pounding on the table and using dinnerware as percussion, the band did an entrancing version of the song "Clap Hands" while Beck played a small brown guitar. Puppets at the side of the stage played along on a tiny table of their own.

As for the rest of the show, well, I'll be kind to host Hugh Laurie. Laurie's no stranger to comedy -- in fact, the "House" star's career in England was largely built on his work in the classic "Blackadder" series and other British comedies. Always the trouper, Laurie brought a deftness and game energy to the skits in which he performed.

In his witty monologue, Laurie promised plenty of English "humour": "When I say humour, I mean overly elaborate puns that may take you days to understand, with very little payoff." There would be many skits about bad teeth, plus copious rain and the saying of "by Jove" and "jolly good."

That didn't turn out to be quite true. Not only were there no "by Jove" moments, there wasn't even a sketch parodying "House," which, despite the fact that it's one of the best programs on TV, presents plenty of juicy opportunities for satire.

Maybe Laurie didn't want to do a "House" sketch, but it was a glaring missed opportunity. And it's not as though anything else on the program was any better than even a moderately inspired "House" parody would have been.

The only real high points of the broadcast were Laurie's monologue, a funny folk-song parody performed by the host, Beck's music and an opening skit starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Kazakhstan's roving reporter, Borat, who promoted his upcoming film with some rude and fairly funny jokes. Do you notice a pattern there? None of the even mildly memorable moments of the broadcast came from the show's regular cast, which recently survived a round of budget cuts that reduced the roster of players to 11. Perhaps more budget cuts are in order. Quick: Name a sketch Jason Sudeikis has been in. Yeah, I can't either.

The mostly tepid remaining "Saturday Night Live" cast does have some standout performers: Amy Poehler is wonderful even in subpar sketches, and her recent Nancy Grace imitation captured that anchor's condescending monstrousness perfectly. Fred Armisen is also a freakishly good mimic, as an "Ugly Betty" parody a couple of weeks ago proved. The underused Kenan Thompson and Maya Rudolph always put a twist on the delivery of their lines that makes the material better than it is on the page.

Though Darrell Hammond is rock solid -- to the extent that next week's episode is a "best-of" compilation of Hammond's work -- his Bill Clinton and Chris Matthews imitations, while spot-on, feel shopworn thanks to overuse.

At least Tina Fey had the good sense to leave the show after last season (and boy, does "Weekend Update" miss her. It's astonishing that the week before the mid-term elections, the show's political humor, in "Update" and the rest of the show, was so toothless and predictable).

"30 Rock," Fey's new sitcom, and "Studio 60," both of which concern sketch-comedy shows and both of which are struggling creatively and in the ratings, have amply demonstrated that the creation of skits is just not that interesting, at least as depicted on TV. "30 Rock," which moves to a new NBC Thursday comedy block Nov. 16, is making tentative steps toward quality character-driven comedy, through the increasingly savvy use of network executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and naive page Kenneth (Jack McBrayer).

We saw no such memorable characters on Saturday night. Competent imitations of famous people, jokes about flatulence, tired stereotypes and Hugh Laurie in a dress (an aside: the man has great gams) do not great comedy make.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0610300143oct30,1,6504094.story?coll=chi-ent_tv-hed

While watching NFL games yesterday I was thinking the exact same thing David Carr writes about in this article: shouldn't the quality of these trucks sell themselves without resorting to jingolistic music?

The Business of TV
American Tragedies, to Sell Trucks
By David Carr The New York Times October 30, 2006

Before the second game of the World Series, the singer John Mellencamp warmed up the crowd with “Our Country,” a paean to American greatness. Sports fans could be forgiven for having a bit of déjà vu, having heard the same chorus in heavy rotation during college football, N.F.L. football and now the World Series, as a backdrop to a commercial to the new Chevrolet Silverado.

Consumers are used to General Motors wrapping itself in the flag, having been variously urged to “Keep America Rolling” for “An American Revolution” and to listen to “The Heartbeat of America.” But this new version of patriotism took on a more desperate air, all but setting the flag on fire to honor it.

As the commercial begins, an industrial history rolls out, touching the usual icons of the Statue of Liberty, busy factory workers and Americans at their leisure. But then a more conflicted narrative emerges, quickly flashing on bus boycotts, Vietnam, Nixon resigning, Hurricane Katrina, fires, floods, then the attacks of Sept. 11, replete with firefighters.

All that’s missing is a plague of locusts, until the commercial intones “This is our country, this is our truck” as a large Silverado emerges from amber waves of grain.

The message seems to be that, even though America has been in the ditch several times during its history, it has always managed to pull itself out. And what is true for the country must be true for General Motors. It could be pointed out that Detroit and General Motors are in a ditch mostly because they drove there, ignoring global competition and consumer needs in pursuit of quarterly profits. But the back story of the disaster is obscured by the universal need to rebound.

Critics have attacked the ad, in part because it also invokes Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks to sell trucks. But something more subtle, perhaps more cynical, may be at work here: the image of America (and its leading auto manufacturer) as victim, mostly of itself, but still worth loving.

“The first time I saw it, I thought, holy mackerel, they are using negative images to generate positive emotions,” said Bob Garfield, the advertising critic of Advertising Age. “I have never seen that in a commercial.”

“I feel a little violated when I watch it,” he said. “I don’t mind when they have a tent sale on President’s Day, but those guys have been dead for 200 years. I’m not sure I’m ready for a Rosa Parks sale-a-bration.”

Kim Kosak, director of advertising and sales promotion at Chevrolet, said there was no thought given to drawing a parallel between the struggles of a nation and the struggles of a corporate icon.

“We never discussed that or thought about it,” she said in a phone interview. “The idea was that the pickup consumer is honest, hardworking, authentic and real. In order to be real and honest, we needed to show the scars and bruises, as well as the triumphs, of this country in order to be true.”

As a piece of television craft and song craft — I’m humming that sucker in spite of myself — “This is our country” is a gorgeous, A.D.D. version of Ken Burns’s best work. But it is landing with a thud in the advertising community, and not just because it achieved the impossible: making viewers nostalgic for Chevy’s last anthem, Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock.”

“The message seems to be, ‘If you don’t buy our truck, we will go bankrupt,’ ” said Al Ries of Ries & Ries, a brand consultancy. “The kind of people who buy trucks are not going to buy them because a company is in trouble. People like to buy from winners.”

Jerry Della Femina, who runs an ad agency in New York, says he believes the spot is something of a new low.

“You see all these moving images and at the end of it, all you get is a lousy Chevy truck,” he said. Mr. Della Femina called the ad “manipulative” and said it suggested that G.M. was “somehow coming up from the depths.”

National travail obviously touches the heartstrings and it’s hardly surprising that Sept. 11 became a theme in political advertising. At the Republican National Convention in 2004, Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose finest hour occurred during those attacks, recalled in his speech that he confided to Bernard B. Kerik as the towers fell, “Thank God George Bush is our president.”

But what works in politics may be dangerous in commerce. Who didn’t feel a little dirty participating in the group hug watching the first N.F.L. game in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina? And while Robert De Niro’s commercial about New York — including his reference to ground zero as “my heartbreak” was evocative — it was used as a branding moment for American Express.

And now we have Mr. Mellencamp, who’s done some rebranding of his own, having dropped the “Cougar” from his name back when his image needed a folksy turn. His political values seem equally elastic. He and his spouse once wrote a jeremiad against the Bush administration that said, in part: “It is time to take back our country. Take it back from political agendas, corporate greed and overall manipulation.”

That was in 2003. Now he’s sitting on the fender of a Chevy truck, strumming a guitar and singing, “Well, I can stand beside ideals I think are right, and I can stand beside the idea to stand and fight.” He can also stand beside a nice shiny truck, if the fee is right.

A few days ago, Gawker, the Manhattan media site, ran a picture of a bar advertising, “The happiest happy hour south of ground zero.” Whether or not the statement is clinically true — a bit tough to measure, that — the message was beyond crass and deserved our contempt.

When it comes to selling bars, trucks or even politicians, you can wave the flag or you can drape one over a coffin. You can’t do both.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/business/media/30carr.html?ref=business

Weekend overnights: NBC's '100' dips in new slot


Facing the World Series and moving to a new timeslot, NBC’s new game show “1 vs 100” continued to decline from its big debut in its third outing Friday, averaging a 2.8 among adults 18-49 and 9.5 million total viewers, according to Nielsen overnights. In its debut Oct. 13, the show averaged a 4.1 in 18-49s and 12.6 million viewers.

Still, NBC points out that “100” doubled last year’s 8 p.m. timeslot average, and it did face its toughest competition yet after moving out of the 9 p.m. slot to make way for the return of “Las Vegas.”

Fox won the night easily with Game 5 of the World Series, averaging a 4.0 rating and 12 share. As a reminder, fast nationals measure timeslot data and not actual program data, and the game ran well past 11 p.m. Final ratings will likely rise when they’re released later today.

CBS was second for the night with a 3.0/9, followed by NBC at 2.8/9, ABC at 2.5/8, and the CW at 1.4/4.

At 8 p.m., CBS’s “Ghost Whisperer” led with a 3.1, followed by Fox’s 2.9, “100’s” 2.8, ABC’s 2.6 for “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” and CW’s 1.2 for “Smackdown.”

At 9 p.m., Fox moved into the lead with a 4.0 for baseball, followed by a 3.1 for the premiere of “Vegas,” a 2.7 for CBS’s “Close to Home,” a 2.2 for ABC’s “Men in Trees,” and a 1.6 for “Smackdown.”

At 10 p.m., Fox led again with a 5.2 for baseball, followed by CBS at 3.1 for “Numb3rs,” NBC at 2.6 for “Law & Order,” and ABC at 2.7 for “20/20.”

In households, Fox led with an 8.7/15, followed by CBS at 7.1/12, NBC at 6.0/10, ABC at 4.9/8, and the CW at 2.7/5.

On Saturday night, ABC’s movie “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” led the network to No. 1, averaging a 2.0/7 over three hours. Fox was second at 1.8/6, CBS third at 1.7/6, and NBC fourth at 1.4/5.

“Potter” was first at 8 p.m. with a 1.7, followed by Fox’s “Cops” and NBC’s “Dateline” at 1.7, and CBS’s “Numb3rs” repeat at 1.3.

“Potter” led again at 9 p.m. with a 2.0, followed by a 2.0 for another “Cops” rerun on Fox, a 1.7 for a “CSI: NY” rerun on CBS, and a 1.1 for an original “Kidnapped” on NBC.

“Potter” led at 10 p.m. with a 2.4, followed by a 2.2 for CBS’s “48 Hours Mystery” and a 1.7 for NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” rerun.

Among households, CBS led at 4.9/9, followed by ABC at 3.7/7, NBC at 3.6/7, and Fox at 3.2/6.


http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/cat_index_31.asp

Report: NBC's struggling 'Studio 60' will get the axe


Last week NBC gave its highly touted but ratings-poor new drama “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” an order for three more scripts, indicating the network was still standing behind the sinking show. Not so, says FoxNews.com columnist Roger Friedman. He says the show is about to be canceled, that cast members have all but confirmed the news, and that those extra episodes may not be shot much less aired. Last week the show averaged a 3.2 adults 18-49 rating, losing nearly half its “Heroes” lead-in and down 36 percent from last month’s series premiere. The show, which goes behind the scenes at a “Saturday Night Live”-style show, was created by “West Wing’s” Aaron Sorkin and has won wide praise from media people for its writing and acting. That makes the show’s ratings woes all the more distressing. In a recent Media Life poll, respondents tabbed “Strip” the season’s biggest disappointment. The show does do quite well among affluent viewers, one reason NBC has left it on the air.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/cat_index_31.asp

TV Sports
World Series hits a new low in ratings
The five-game series averages a 10.1 in households
By Toni Fitzgerald Media Life Magazine October 30, 2006

It was clear since Game 1 of this World Series that ratings would hit all-time lows once again. The only question was just how much worse the Series would do than last year.

The answer: Nearly 10 percent worse, including the least-watched final game of any Series since 1969.

The five-game Series on Fox, which finished up Friday night, averaged a 10.1 household rating and 17 share, according to numbers released yesterday by the network. That’s down 9 percent from last year’s record-low 11.1/19. And it marks the fourth time in six years that the Series has fallen to worst-ever ratings.

Friday’s final game, in which the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers to clinch their first title in 24 years, averaged a 10.3 household rating and 16.3 million total viewers, according to Nielsen’s time-zone adjusted overnights.

The 16.3 million were 3.6 million fewer than watched last year’s final game between the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros. It was the least-viewed final game since 1969, when the New York Mets-Baltimore Orioles series-ender averaged 15.8 million. Nielsen records only date back to 1968.

Many had anticipated the ratings decline based on the cities playing in the Series. As Fox pointed out, the cities of St. Louis and Detroit combined for 800,000 fewer households than last year’s Series participants, Chicago and Houston.

Games usually draw huge ratings in their hometown, where this year’s Series games averaged a 65 share in St. Louis. But in Detroit, they averaged just a 50 share.

Neither the Tigers nor the Cardinals have a large national following, like the New York Yankees or Chicago Cubs. They also don’t have the mystique of the Boston Red Sox, whose first World Series win in decades (over the Cardinals) averaged 25.4 million total viewers two years ago.

Strong competition on the broadcast networks also did not help Fox, nor did lukewarm interest in the Series by national media.

Fox was in full spin mode yesterday regarding the numbers, knowing that all the headlines will be about the Series hitting a new low. The network pointed out that it won every Series night among adults 18-49.

With viewer fragmentation hurting ratings for nearly every annual event, from the NCAA men’s basketball championships to the Oscars, Fox probably won’t see big ratings for another Series for years unless the Cubs manage to make it.

Already the network and Major League Baseball have agreed to switch the first day of the series from low-rated Saturday to Tuesday next year, hoping to draw more viewers from the start.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8213.asp

The Programming Insider

OCTOBER 30, 2006

Marc Berman

Prime-Time Ratings:
Weekend Highlights

Friday 10/27/06

Note: The following results are based on the fast national ratings (Live Plus Same Day data).

Household Rating/Share
Fox: 8.7/15, CBS: 7.1/12, NBC: 6.0/10, ABC: 4.9/ 8, CW: 2.7/ 5

-Total Viewers:
Fox: 13.64 million, CBS: 10.87, NBC: 9.20, ABC: 7.57, CW: 4.44

-Adults 18-49:
Fox: 4.0 rating/12 share, CBS: 3.0/ 9, NBC: 2.8/ 9, ABC: 2.5/ 8, CW: 1.4/ 4

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

-Friday’s Winners:
Ghost Whisperer (CBS), Numb3rs (CBS)

-Honorable Mention:
Close to Home (CBS), Las Vegas (NBC)

-Below Average Results This Season:
The World Series, Game 5 (Fox)

-Friday’s Losers (excluding repeats):
Men in Trees (ABC)

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

-Ratings Breakdown:
Fox led the Friday troops, with game five of The World Series (St. Louis vs. Detroit) at a respectable (but far from spectacular) 8.7/15 in households, 13.64 million viewers and a 4.0/12 among adults 18-49. Despite the added interest on Fox, three of the four competing networks (ABC was the exception) were not negatively impacted.

Second overall was CBS with its combination of Ghost Whisperer (HH: #2, 7.0/13; Viewers: #2, 10.79 million; A18-49: #1, 3.1/11), Close To Home (HH: #2, 7.1/12; Viewers: #2, 10.81 million; A18-49: #3, 2.7/ 8) and Numb3rs (HH: #2, 7.1/12; Viewers: #2, 11.01 million; A18-49: #2, 3.1/ 9).

NBC’s revamped Friday took the No. 3 spot in the three surveyed categories. Game show 1 vs. 100 moved into the 8 p.m. anchor spot with a third-place 6.1/11 in households, 9.53 million viewers and a 2.8/ 9 among adults 18-49. Comparatively, that was a decline from it’s week-ago performance in the Friday 9 p.m. hour (Viewers: 11.97 million, A18-49: 3.7/12 on Oct. 20) of 2.44 million viewers and 24 percent among adults 18-49. And it was down from week-ago time period occupant Deal or No Deal (Viewers: 11.07 million, A18-49: 2.9/10, also on Oct. 20) by 1.54 million viewers and three percent among adults 18-49.

The fourth-season premiere of Las Vegas on NBC followed 1 vs. 100 with a 6.0/10 in households (#3), 9.28 million viewers (#2) and a second-place 3.1/ 9 among adults 18-49 at 9 p.m. Comparably, that was on par with its Friday delivery last season. Las Vegas led into veteran Law & order at a disappointing 6.0/10 in households (#3), 8.79 million viewers (#3) and a last-place 2.6/ 8 among adults 18-49.

Over at ABC, repeat holiday special, It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was not so great, at a fourth-place 4.6/ 8 in households, 7.89 million viewers and a 2.6/ 9 among adults 18-49. That led into Men In Trees at a weak (and also fourth-place) 4.5/ 8 in households, 6.84 million viewers and a 2.2/ 6 among adults 18-49, which is similar to year-ago occupants Hope & Faith and Hot Properties. Personally, I still think ABC should test Men In Trees out of Grey’s Anatomy on Thursday given the collapse of current occupant Six Degrees.

Old faithful 20/20 capped off the evening for ABC with a 5.6/10 in households (#4), 7.97 million viewers (#4) and a third-place 2.7/ 8 among adults 18-49. Comparably, that was an increase over lead-in Men In Trees of 24 percent in households, 1.13 million viewers and 23 percent among adults 18-49.

Despite facing The World Series, the CW’s similar skewing Friday Night Smackdown! remained consistent at a 2.7/ 5 in households, 4.44 million viewers and a 1.4/ 4 among adults 18-49.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

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

Saturday 10/28/06

Note: The following results are based on the fast national ratings (Live Plus Same Day data).

Household Rating/Share
CBS: 4.9/ 9, ABC: 3.7/ 7, NBC: 3.6/ 7, Fox: 3.2/ 6

-Total Viewers:
CBS: 7.11 million, ABC: 6.16, NBC: 5.17, Fox: 5.02

-Adults 18-49:
ABC: 2.0 rating/7 share, Fox: 1.8/ 6, CBS: 1.7/ 6, NBC: 1.4/ 5

----------

-Saturday’s Winners:
Nothing

-Saturday’s Losers (excluding repeats):
Dateline (NBC), Kidnapped (NBC)

-Ratings Breakdown:
ABC and CBS shared leadership on this typically bland Saturday, with CBS first in households and total viewers and ABC No. 1 among adults 18-49. CBS opened the evening with a repeat of Numb3rs (HH: #1, 3.8/ 7; Viewers: #1, 5.59 million; A18-49: #4, 1.3/ 5 at 8 p.m.), followed by a repeat of CSI: NY (HH: #1, 5.5/10; Viewers: #1, 8.17 million; A18-49: #2, 1.7/ 6) and 48 Hours Mystery (HH: #1, 5.4/10; Viewers: #1, 7.67 million; A18-49: #2, 2.2/ 7) from 9-11 p.m. A repeat of theatrical Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban on ABC averaged a 3.7/ 7 in households (#2), 6.16 million viewers (#2) and a first-place 2.0/ 7 among adults 18-49 from 8-11 p.m.

NBC’s combination of Dateline (HH: #2, 3.6/ 7; Viewers: #3, 5.22 million; A18-49: #2t, 1.5/ 5), another burn-off episode of Kidnapped (HH: #4, 2.6/ 5; Viewers: #4, 3.78 million; A18-49: #4, 1.2/ 4), and a repeat of Law & Order: SVU (HH: #2, 4.6/ 8; Viewers: #3, 6.52 million; A18-49: #3, 1.7/ 6) finished third overall in households and total viewers, and fourth among adults 18-49. One thing you have to give NBC credit for is running the 13 scheduled episodes of Kidnapped instead of yanking it without any resolution. Four repeat episodes of Fox’s perennial Cops finished fourth in households (3.2/ 6) and total viewers (5.02 million), but second among adults 18-49 (1.8/ 6) from 8-10 p.m. What an evening!

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

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

Sunday 10/29/06
Metered Market Ratings

Note: The following overnight results exclude the Miami and Orlando markets.

Household Rating/Share
CBS: 11.1/17, NBC: 10.6/16, ABC: 9.8/15, Fox: 3.3/ 5, CW: 1.8/ 3

-Percent Change From the Comparable Year-Ago Evening (Sunday 10/30/05)
(The CW is compared to the WB’s combination of two Reba repeats, and repeats of Charmed and Supernatural).
CBS: +50, NBC: +40, ABC: - 1, WB: -28, Fox: -51

----------

Note: The fast national results for Sunday (plus the listing of the winners and losers) will be posted at www.pifeedback.com at 12 p.m. ET. Go to the website, click on Ratings Box (the first category), then Last Night’s Results and, finally, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006.

----------

-Ratings Breakdown:
CBS led Sunday in the overnights courtesy of its combination of 60 Minutes (#1, 13.2/21 from 7:15-8:15 p.m.), The Amazing Race 10 (#3, 8.7/13 from 8:15-9:15 p.m.), Cold Case (#3, 10.0/15 from 9:15-10:15 p.m.) and Without A Trace (#2, 9.9/17 from 10:15-11:15 p.m.). Note: Due to an NFL Football overrun, CBS’ regularly scheduled line-up began at approximately 7:15 p.m. ET. Although CBS won the metered market battle, expect either ABC or NBC to rule among adults 18-49 once the fast national ratings are posted on www.pifeedback.com at 12 p.m. ET.

Second overall in the overnights was NBC’s line-up of the NFL Football pre-game (estimated 5.8/ 9 from 7-8:15 p.m.), followed by the Dallas vs. Carolina match-up at a 12.4/19 from 8:15-11:15 p.m. ABC finished third (but, again, potentially first among key adults 18-49) with its combination of America’s Funniest Home Videos (#2, 7.0/11), Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (#3, 9.1/13), Desperate Housewives (#1, 13.9/20) and Brothers & Sisters (#3, 8.7/14). Retention for Brothers & Sisters out of Desperate Housewives remained disappointing at just 63 percent.

A night of all repeats on Fox ranked fourth in the overnights in each half-hour beginning with a 7 p.m. edition of The Simpsons (3.2/ 5), followed by a Sunday edition of ‘Til Death (3.1/ 5), regularly scheduled The Simpsons (4.0/ 6), American Dad (3.3/ 5), Family Guy (3.7/ 5) and The War at Home (2.8/ 4). Despite disappointing results for ‘Til Death, Fox has placed an additional script order.

Over at the CW, 7th Heaven is the only series generating any interest on Sunday with a 2.6/ 4 in the overnights at 8 p.m. -- doubling a repeat of lead-in Supernatural (1.3/ 2 at 7 p.m.). Comparatively, however, 7th Heaven trailed year-ago occupant Charmed (3.4/ 5 on Oct. 30, 2005) by 24 percent in rating and one share point. A repeat of America’s Next Top Model capped off the evening for the CW with a 1.6/ 2 at 9 p.m.

As a reminder, Note: The fast national results for Sunday (plus the listing of the winners and losers) will be posted at www.pifeedback.com at 12 p.m. ET. Go to the website, click on Ratings Box (the first category), then Last Night's Results and, finally, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data


Ratings Box:
What’s Hot/What’s Not

-Ghost Hunters Scores on Sci Fi Channel:
Sci Fi’s Ghost Hunters came in well above-average on Wednesday, Oct. 25 at 9 p.m. in both adults 18-49 (1.2 million) and adults 25-54 (1.8 million). Comparably, that was up by 21 percent and 10 percent, respectively, over the season three premiere on Oct. 11. In celebration of Halloween, look for a six-hour Ghost Hunters marathon beginning tomorrow at 11 p.m. ET.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

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

On the Air Tonight:
Prime-Time Programming Options

Monday 10/30/06

ABC:
8:00 p.m. Wife Swap
9:00 p.m. The Bachelor: Rome
10:00 p.m. What About Brian

CBS:
8:00 p.m. How I Met Your Mother (R)
8:30 p.m. The Class (R)
9:00 p.m. Two and a Half Men (R)
9:30 p.m. The New Adventures of Old Christine (R)
10:00 p.m. CSI: Miami (R)

NBC:
8:00 p.m. Deal or No Deal
9:00 p.m. Heroes
10:00 p.m. Friday Night Lights (time period test)

Fox:
8:00 p.m. Prison Break
9:00 p.m. Justice

CW:
8:00 p.m. Everybody Hates Chris
8:30 p.m. All of Us
9:00 p.m. Girlfriends
9:30 p.m. The Game


TV Tidbits:
Notes of Interest

-New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on ABC:
Workaholic Ryan Seacrest will anchor ABC’s annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve special with Dick Clark for the second consecutive year. Christina Aguilera will be the musical guest.

-Vanished About to Vanish on Fox:
Freshman Fox drama Vanished will wrap up the kidnapping of the Senator’s wife after just 13 episodes, making it the third failed series of this particular genre. NBC’s Kidnapped is also concluding after 13 episodes, and the CW’s Runaway aired for just three telecasts.

-Super Deluxe from Turner Broadcasting System:
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. will launch Super Deluxe in January, an ad-supported male 18-34 targeted multiplatform brand consisting of original produced comedy in formats ranging from short films and sketches to episodic series and more. In addition to being online, Super Deluxe content will be available via cable VOD, wireless devices and personal media players.

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

Nielsen Ratings
ABC tramples competition on Sunday
By Paul J. Gough The Hollywood Reporter October 31, 2006

Despite CBS's rush of ratings from a half-hour of football overrun and a strong "60 Minutes," ABC rumbled over the competition in Sunday night's primetime.

New episodes of the ABC lineup gave the Alphabet Network wins in viewers (15.4 million) and the adults 18-49 demographic (5.6 rating/14 share), according to preliminary estimates released Monday by Nielsen Media Research.

CBS and NBC split second-place honors, with CBS there in viewers (15 million) and NBC's "Sunday Night Football" there in the demo (5.2/13).

"Desperate Housewives" (21.1 million, 8.3/19) was the night's most popular show in both key audience measures. Nothing else came close, including NBC's "Sunday Night Football" (whose live nature made ratings unreliable).

"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" (15.8 million, 5.5/13) was the winner in the 8 p.m. hour, while it appeared the Dallas-Carolina game would win the 10 p.m. hour against ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" (12.7 million, 5.0/13) and CBS's "Without a Trace." ABC's "America's Funniest Home Videos" averaged 12 million viewers and a 3.5/10 in the demo at 7 p.m.

CBS's primetime lineup got started a half-hour later thanks to a football overrun, which gave CBS 22.5 million viewers and a 6.7/19 in the demo between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

That seemed to benefit "60 Minutes" (15.8 million, 4.1/11). CBS lost some viewers for "The Amazing Race" (12.3 million, 3.9/9) before getting some of them back for "Cold Case" (14 million, 3.6/8).

The 10:30 p.m.-11 p.m. half hour of "Without a Trace" averaged 13.6 million viewers and a 3.7/10 in the demo. But the numbers may still be revised later on.

Fox, which would have had Game 7 of the World Series if St. Louis hadn't clinched on Friday night, programmed repeats and averaged 4.4 million viewers and a 2.0/5 in the demo.

Nightly averages: ABC (15.4 million, 5.6/14); CBS (15 million, 4.2/10); NBC (13.3 million, 5.2/13); Fox (4.4 million, 2.0./5); and The CW (2.1 million, 0.8/2).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ixx6vKosotqGSfYJJ5J3Beg%3D%3D

Technology
Super broadband plan for Turner
By Andrew Wallenstein The Hollywood Reporter October 30, 2006

A company known for minting brands that make a mint in cable, including CNN and TNT, is angling to do the same in broadband and beyond.

Time Warner-owned Turner Broadcasting is scheduled to announce today its intent to launch a new multiplatform brand in January boasting original shortform videos laced with edgy humor from professional comics and ambitious amateurs alike.

Dubbed Super Deluxe, the free, advertiser-supported venture will target men 18-34 with a mix of live-action and animated material that won't skimp on profanity and toilet humor. "It's like cable TV without the rules," Turner Entertainment Group president Mark Lazarus said.

Super Deluxe will be Turner's first programming venture to launch without the customary linear cable channel format that such well-known brands as TBS and Cartoon Network occupied.

Super Deluxe's online incarnation will be equipped with community tools that enable users to establish profiles, post videos and interact. The Web site collapses the traditional distinction -- and distance -- between performers and consumers, putting user-generated content and original output from notable comedians side by side.

Lazarus declined to specify individual talent involved, citing negotiations still under way. Artists on the site will have their own customized areas to promote exclusive videos and upcoming appearances.

A third party also will get a seat at the Super Deluxe table: advertisers. Marketers will be heavily integrated into the site with pages of their own alongside users and performers. Although Turner declined to specify which advertisers have signed up for Super Deluxe, they are expected to deliver entertaining videos in addition to pre-roll and post-roll spots.

In addition, Turner is in negotiations with distributors all over the digital-media landscape that would put Super Deluxe sans social networking functions on cable VOD, mobile phones, portable media players and video game consoles.

The venture reflects the growing interest of established content outlets in alternative platforms that are siphoning an increasing flow of advertising dollars from traditional media, particularly online, where younger viewers are flocking to everywhere from indie upstarts like CollegeHumor.com to Comedy Central's broadband home, MotherLode.

"Everyone is trying different things out there," Lazarus said. "There is no established pattern in the industry for making this happen."

Overseeing Super Deluxe is Drew Reifenberger, the new brand's senior vp and general manager. Reifenberger, who reports to Lazarus, was executive vp Turner Sports Interactive.

Reifenberger has spearheaded outreach to Hollywood's creative community in search of content from them. Although budgets for multiminute clips aren't expected to be as generous as what they could get from longform programming, Turner is expecting the creative freedom of Super Deluxe to attract significant interest.

"This is professional, high-quality content, not kids dropping Mentos in a bottle," said John Buzzell, vp product development at Super Deluxe, and leader of the team that created the concept for the brand.

Turner also is making deals with relatively unknown content creators and is expected to sign other amateurs who establish a presence on Super Deluxe to development deals. In addition, Turner is open to functioning as a studio for select site members, helping with financing and other arrangements.

Between comedy pros and newbies, Lazarus estimates Turner will have signed at least 100 deals by its launch that will seed the site with ample content.

Super Deluxe users also will be allowed to embed videos from the site elsewhere on the Web, as is typical behavior from subscribers to MySpace and YouTube.

Turner will adopt a more stringent set of standards for admittance of video than YouTube, charging a team to constantly monitor uploads for copyright-infringing or offensive material.

Videos also will be bookended by short pre-roll and post-roll ads, in addition to display ads. Marketers also will get their own branded pages where they can post video like anyone else on the site.

Turner will hire a separate advertising sales team to sell space on Super Deluxe, though current Turner ad sales execs also will be able to offer placements on the site in combination with existing Turner brands.

Super Deluxe joins a growing broadband portfolio at Turner including CNN Pipeline, an extension of the 24-hour news network and GameTap, a gaming venue.

Lazarus would not divulge how much Turner is spending on Super Deluxe, but described the outlay as a fraction of what it would cost to launch a linear cable channel.

Super Deluxe also could serve as a hothouse for programming concepts that move to other Turner networks, most likely Cartoon Network's Adult Swim or TBS. While Turner is not averse to extending its online brands, as it did with TNT and its online spinoff, DramaVision, the company chose to launch a separate brand. An online extension for TBS is expected to be introduced next year.

Lazarus said there will be some informal cooperation between Super Deluxe and Adult Swim, which share a similar demographic focus as well as the same headquarters in Atlanta. The networks may cross-pollinate some content.

"While Adult Swim has some mature content, this will be more mature in some ways," Lazarus said of Super Deluxe.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3iSvX2Mh9HIlLBrE13tEdDEg==

The Business of TV
Upheaval at 'Martha Stewart'
By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable October 30, 2006

In a behind-the-scenes shakeup at syndicated talker The Martha Stewart Show, Co-Executive Producer Rob Dauber is out, and a search for his replacement has begun.

Dauber has been with the show since its inception, and was recruited by Martha Executive Producer Mark Burnett after the duo worked together on NBC’s The Restaurant. But as first reported by the New York Post’s Michael Starr, Dauber and the domestic diva have clashed behind the scenes.

One contender for the job is Bernie Young, who, like Dauber, is a former staffer on The Rosie O’Donnell Show. Young was executive producer from 1999 to 2001. Former Today Executive Producer Tom Touchet also interviewed for the position but is said to no longer be under consideration.

With strong syndication experience said to be in the job description, other candidates include Jerry Springer and Sally Jessy Raphael veteran Burt Dubrow, and former Tony Danza Executive Producer Jill Blackstone.

While Martha earned its highest ratings in nearly five months the week ending Oct. 15, the 1.4 average was off a full 18% from its already disappointing first season. Despite the modest numbers, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO), which is enjoying a good run under CEO and former ABC exec Susan Lyne, still considers the show a strong branding asset.

The show is produced as a partnership between MSLO and Mark Burnett Productions and distributed by NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution. Sources close to it say that arrangement makes Martha a strong candidate for third-season renewals, as opposed to if it was just owned and distributed by NBCU.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386259.html

Nielsen Ratings
World Series Ratings Hit Record Low
By Ronald Blum AP October 29, 2006

A World Series to remember for the St. Louis Cardinals was one to forget when it came to television ratings.

The Cardinals' five-game victory over the Detroit Tigers averaged a record-low 10.1 television rating and 17 share, Fox said Sunday. This year's rating dropped 9 percent from the previous bottom, an 11.1 for a four-game sweep by the Chicago White Sox over the Houston Astros last year.

What made the low rating more remarkable was that this year's Series went five games and was not a sweep. St. Louis' 4-2 victory in Friday night's finale got a 10.3/18 in figures compiled by Nielsen Media Research, just above the record low for a Game 5, a 10.0/17 for the San Francisco Giants' 16-4 rout of the Anaheim Angels in 2002.

Games 1 (8.0), 3 (10.2) and 4 (10.4) also were record lows for their games, and Game 2 (11.6) was above the low of 11.1, set last year.

Still, in an era of declining network ratings because of the spread of cable television, Fox was pleased it won prime time in all five nights among viewers 18-49. In an effort to avoid low-rated Saturday night games, the World Series will start on a Tuesday next year, the first season of baseball's new TV contracts.

"We are in the business of winning nights and the World Series consistently helps Fox achieve this goal," Fox Sports president Ed Goren said. "There is also no questioning the tremendous yearly promotional power that one of the worlds greatest sporting events and its 15.8 million viewers per night provides the network."

The Pittsburgh Steelers' 21-10 victory over the Seattle Seahawks in February's Super Bowl got a 41.6/62 on ABC, while the Miami Heat's six-game win over the Dallas Mavericks in June's NBA finals averaged an 8.5 rating on ABC. NBC televised the final five games of the Carolina Hurricanes' 4-3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in June's Stanley Cup finals, averaging a 2.3/4.

In St. Louis, World Series Game 5 got a 51.7/71 and the Series averaged a 48.9/65. Detroit got a 34.3/50 for Game 5 and averaged 36.9/53 for the Series.

The national rating is the percentage of U.S. television households tuned to a program, and each point represents 1,114,000 homes. The share is the percentage of households watching a broadcast among those homes with televisions in use at the time.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BBO_WORLD_SERIES_RATINGS?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-10-29-18-29-41

The Business of TV
FiOS TV Subs Double in 3Q
By Todd Spangler MultiChannel News October 30, 2006

Verizon Communications more than doubled the number of FiOS TV customers in the third quarter of 2006, adding 63,000 new subscribers during the period to stand at 118,000 as of Sept. 30, the company said in reporting quarterly financial results Monday.

The company said FiOS TV was available to 1.2 million homes across all of its markets at the end of the third quarter, meaning that the service has about a 10% rate of penetration.

Verizon offers FiOS TV in nine states, and it has obtained rights to deliver television service to 3 million homes.

Verizon also ended the quarter with 496,000 customers for the DirecTV service bundle it sells, having added 64,000 net new customers during the quarter. For the first nine months of 2006, Verizon added 170,000 DirecTV subscribers.

The company said, "New broadband and video sales have more than made up for a reduction in primary wireline voice access lines of customers who turned to wireless, cable or Internet-protocol services."

The telco's primary residential access lines decreased by 419,000 during the third quarter of 2006 compared with the previous quarter, while it added 539,000 residential broadband and video customers over the same period.

AT&T, meanwhile, said last week that it has signed up 3,000 subscribers for the fledgling U-verse IPTV service. The company began deploying U-verse TV in June in San Antonio, and it expects to roll out the service to 15 markets by the end of 2006.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6386511.html?display=Breaking+News

Technology
Brightcove, others aim for TV on Web
Associated Press/Boston Globe October 30, 2006

CAMBRIDGE -- Eyebrows went up when Google Inc. recently agreed to spend $1.65 billion for YouTube, the most popular website for free video clips. But that figure could be blown away one day if some emerging companies achieve their much broader visions for the future of online TV.

These companies are building flexible online networks that can host content, serve up ads, and dish out interactive features. While "viral" video-sharing sites like YouTube focus on individual clips -- many pirated -- these new Internet TV platforms are designed to host full-fledged channels that content creators control.

One of the best positioned is Brightcove Inc., which today is taking the wraps off an Internet video network that handles most everything for content creators.

Aiming to serve everyone from garage auteurs to major media companies, Brightcove offers free publishing tools and runs video wherever publishers want it.

That could be on the central Brightcove site, which is accessible through the video search functions at Google, Yahoo, and AOL. Or content publishers can use Brightcove to run video on their own separate, branded sites. Or they can syndicate it to third-party websites, such as blogs or MySpace pages, where the content might run alongside user-generated material.

All those videos can be sold as paid downloads or streamed for free with ads. Brightcove will sell ads and pool them among its customers, or it will plug in commercials that content creators sell themselves.

"They can launch a business in our system in a week," said Brightcove's founder and chief executive, Jeremy Allaire, who formerly was chief technical officer at "Flash" graphics creator Macromedia Inc.

Brightcove has pulled in $28 million in funding from such companies as Time Warner Inc.'s AOL LLC, Hearst Corp., General Electric Co. and IAC/Interactive Corp. And Brightcove's flexibility has attracted diverse publishers trying to expand their broadband video presence. National Geographic, the Travel Channel, Warner Music, The New York Times Co., which owns The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post are all Brightcove customers.

Brightcove wins big praise from Forrester Research video analyst Josh Bernoff, who says Allaire "has really got it all figured out."

Even so, Brightcove is not alone in holding video publishers' hands as they reach the Internet.

NBC Universal recently launched an Internet video distribution system called NBBC (short for National Broadband Co.) that is working with NBC affiliates and even traditional NBC rivals such as CBS Corp. and News Corp.

Another key player, Maven Networks Inc., is headquartered in the same Cambridge office complex as Brightcove. (The ties aren't just geographic: Allaire briefly served as an adviser to Maven before founding Brightcove in 2004; Maven licensed a video publishing tool to him and owns a minuscule stake in Brightcove.)

Like Brightcove, Maven is hosting video for customers and giving them quick, mouse-click methods of positioning content and setting up ad campaigns. Unlike Brightcove, Maven doesn't want to double as a video portal or dip into the ad business. Maven gets paid when viewers check out one of its customers' videos.

Maven's customers include CBS-owned College Sports Television and The Weather Channel. Maven also powers aspects of NBBC's system, while 20th Century Fox uses Maven to show movie trailers

http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2006/10/30/brightcove_others_aim_for_tv_on_web/

As if tonight's TV viewing options weren't already tough with 'MNF,' 'FNL,' 'Heroes,' 'Prison Break' and the relocated 'Justice'...

The New Season
The Tease: 'Weeds' Season Finale
By Daniel Fienberg Zap2it 10/27/06

Before discussing the fantastic second season finale of Weeds, I have a little business that must be taken care of...

Dear Showtime,
Please pick up a third season of Weeds. Not in two months or three months, but tomorrow. Thank you.
Love and rockets,
Daniel

Weeds ends a superlative second season with a slew of cliffhangers so precarious that I'm already frustrated by the inevitable need to wait at least six months for more episodes. If Showtime's two-seasons-and-out curse -- high profile victims have included Street Time, Huff and Dead Like Me -- rears its ugly head again, I'm going to be one ticked off critic.

In its second season, Jenji Kohan's comedy went from a one-joke (suburban mom sells pot) laffer fueled by a few good performances to a show so packed with both laughs and genuine dramatic stakes that 25 minutes per-episode has rarely seemed like enough.

The transition was hinted at in the season one finale, when dealer-on-the-rise Nancy Botwin (the splendid Mary-Louise Parker) discovered that her new boyfriend (Martin Donovan) was a DEA agent. That twist set off a season in which most of the show's core relationships deepened and darkened, including Nancy's ties to partner-in-crime Conrad (Romany Malco) and former hook-up Heylia (Tonye Potano). Meanwhile, Nancy's eldest son Silas (Hunter Parrish) became increasingly rebellious, her youngest son Shane (the cast's most improved player Alexander Gould) found a productive outlet for his eccentricity and brother-in-law Andy (Justin Kirk) explored becoming a rabbi and lost two toes. On the side, we've also been treated to Celia's (Elizabeth Perkins) descent into politics, voyeurism and, worst of all, an affair with Kevin Nealon's Don.

Everything comes to a head in the finale, titled "Pittsburgh" and written by Kohan. The episode features an elementary school graduation, a Mexican (or Armenian) stand-off, some sex, some death and a Snakes on a Plane joke so satisfying it deserves to be the last one ever filmed. It also includes what I hope won't be Zooey Deschanel's last appearance as Kat, a wacky free-spirit who once stabbed Andy for stepping on her spirit turtle and thinks nothing of cat-fighting with a 12-year-old girl.

The one real problem with the finale is just how many plotlines end in limbo. The only place we get actual resolution is with the sham marriage between Nancy and her DEA beau and even that is likely to cause both legal and emotional complications in the future. And would it have killed them to bring back Meital Dohan's Yael for one last appearance?

Last year, Showtime made fans wait until mid-December (in the aftermath of three Golden Globe nominations) for renewal. Please don't do that again.

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2006/10/the_tease_weeds.html

TV New Season
'Heroes' hand for 'Friday Night Lights'
Special airing of the struggling sports drama
By Diego Vasquez Media Life Magazine October 30, 2006

Monday night football is back on broadcast, at least for one night. But if NBC’s experiment goes well, it could become a permanent fixture.

Tonight the network is airing an original episode of “Friday Night Lights,” its struggling high school pigskin drama, in the post-“Heroes” 10 p.m. timeslot, hoping to give the critically acclaimed series better exposure with a big lead-in.

It takes the place of a rerun of Aaron Sorkin’s struggling new drama “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” which goes on a one-week break.

In its usual Tuesday 8 p.m. slot, “Lights” has struggled. It’s tough for any drama to lead off a night, much less a sports drama, which has limited appeal to begin with, airing opposite ABC’s immensely popular “Dancing with the Stars.”

The young-skewing “Lights,” which does well among teens, is also not that compatible with its lead-outs, two “Law & Order” shows that have solid ratings but attract a different audience. Through four outings, “Lights” has averaged a 2.6 adults 18-49 rating and ranks No. 67 among all shows, according to Nielsen.

NBC seems willing to stand by “Lights,” despite the low ratings. The network has ordered several more scripts after the initial nine episodes. And pairing it with “Heroes” could be a success.

“Heroes” is the No. 1 new show with teens this year, and extra exposure in that demographic couldn’t hurt. If anything, it couldn’t be a less-compatible lead-out than “Studio 60,” which is losing nearly half “Heroes’” lead-in. In tonight's episode, Voodoo clashes with the coach as the team readies for a big game against Arnett Meade.

If “Lights” does well, NBC may consider swapping it with “Studio 60,” whose viewership, while small, is quite upscale and thus desirable. A new timeslot could give the show the kick it’s been missing as well, though a rumor sprouted up over the weekend that "Studio 60" soon will be canned.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8199.asp

TV Notebook
Wanted: Our TV faves back
Why have these 5 series lost their lustre?
By Doug Elfman The Chicago Suntimes October 30, 2006

TV shows shouldn't suck, but they do -- and for a variety of reasons. Such is the case with five series this fall. Each sucks. None should.
If you want to see for yourself, two are on tonight: "The Class" and "What About Brian." It's easy to say the entertainment industry can learn from the mistakes of these shows. But that's not true. All these series prospered once by taking big chances, but they're failing creatively because they made big changes.

The lesson isn't to avoid risk. It's to execute change better, though no one can guarantee fine execution. So it's possible these series -- listed in order of my disappointment level -- have just been cursed by sudden bad luck, which only looks like bad writing and directing.

1. 'Veronica Mars' (8 p.m. Tuesdays, WGN-Channel 9)

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. "Veronica" was my favorite series last season. It was witty, suspenseful, sexy.

This year, piffle.

What went wrong? Our hero Veronica (the collegiate detective) doesn't have many snarky comments ruminating in her head. The writers have turned her boyfriend Logan into a wimp. She and he don't engage in loving put-downs anymore; that was a third of the fun.

Plus, the detective plots of each episode -- a van got robbed? really? -- run aground. There's also something wrong with the sound. I can barely hear the dialogue, not even on my gangsta-car-loud home theater.

"Veronica" hasn't jumped the shark, but the shark is within sight, and it's hungry like the, uh, wolf.

2. 'The Class' (7:30 p.m. Mondays, WBBM-Channel 2)

This new sitcom, the story of eight adult friends from elementary school, was cute at first. It was paint-by-numbers, but silly and funny.

The problem: Each episode juggles eight friends, so we see only a few minutes of each person. How do you build up a good, funny story line for any one character in just a few scenes?

Just when you think you can cling to characters, writers turn them into doofi. Richie (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) was a sweet, suicidal guy with a crush on a nice girl. Then we find out he's a married jerk. What kind of out-of-left-field nonsense is this? It totally torpedoed all the good work Ferguson had put into Richie.

It's possible "The Class" can be salvaged. Dear writers, please get rid of all characters involved in the footballer's wife's lover's realm. Make it a dream sequence that Richie was married. And make Lizzy Caplan, who plays Kat, the star. In fact, just rename it "The Lizzy Caplan Show." She steals it, anyway.

3. 'The Nine' (9:01 p.m. Wednesdays, WLS-Channel 7)

Nine people were held captive in a bank robbery, and now they're moving on with their lives? OK, I get it, I get it.

Like "Veronica Mars" and "The Class," "The Nine" is betraying very good actors with slack storytelling. Besides, why is the captivating Kim Raver (playing Kathryn) not in every scene?

The gimmick is that each week, we see in flashbacks a few more minutes of what happened during the bank heist. But we know who lived and died. And from week to week "The Nine" is not giving us much else to feel suspenseful about. Also, all those white-swipe special effects are gonna give me a seizure someday, and I'm gonna sue.

4. 'What About Brian' (9 p.m. Mondays, WLS-Channel 7)

I don't have much patience for thinking about this show. It had promise last year. Rosanna Arquette led a capable cast of thirtysomethings who were more wino than whine-o.

This year, the circle-of-friends drama is so silly, with its wedding thing and cheating and unrequited love, I can't even take it seriously.

The problem with most characters is the same: If they're going to make crazy or cowardly life decisions, they should be prepared to let themselves off the hook and stop beating themselves and each other up about it.

Instead, we've had married swingers acting stupid to each other (just have sex already) and a bride-to-be feeling guilty about being in love with someone else, but not really, or something. Why can't anyone get his or her act together?

5. 'Ghost Whisperer' (7 p.m. Fridays, WBBM-Channel 2)

OK, so I'm a girl for having liked "The Ghost Whisperer" last year. It reminded me of TV I watched with my Nana. Get off my back.

This year, Jennifer Love Hewitt's guiding-spirits-to-the-big-bright-light just isn't working. Between last season's finale and this season's second episode, someone smacked "Ghost Whisperer" on its head with a big wheel of cheese.

The premise and story lines aren't necessarily cheesier than before. It's the dialogue, I think. And the sheer number of times we've now seen Hewitt and other characters cry over departing dead people is getting old. Though, it has helped to have Jay Mohr added to the series.

Can it be salvaged? Sure. It might need an overhaul of spirit and direction. As it is, on Friday night -- the night of pale women -- it's not keeping up creatively with ABC's "Men in Trees," Anne Heche's romance dubbed "Sex and the City"-meets-"Northern Exposure." Jennifer Love Hewitt: Anne Heche is kicking your spooky kiester. Suck it up.

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/elfman/116492,CST-FTR-ELF30.article

The Business of TV
Analysis: A Dem Win Could Stifle Ownership Reforms
By Todd Shields MediaWeek October 30, 2006

A victory in the Nov. 7 elections could give Democrats power to block Republican-led attempts to relax media ownership regulations. Democrats also might seek legislation requiring cable operators to carry multiple digital channels from each local broadcaster, and could seek increased subsidies for consumers switching to digital TV.

Such policies are among the most-watched as Washington’s telecommunications community braces for elections next Tuesday in which Democrats seem likely to gain control of the House and possibly the Senate.

Leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees telecom legislation would pass to Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), a veteran lawmaker so in step with the current chair, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) that the two are known as co-chairmen. Inouye habitually seeks consensus and Senate rules allow passage only of widely-accepted measures, so most observers expect changes only at the margin of the committee’s course. Inouye cooperated as the panel’s Republican majority passed sweeping telecom reform legislation this year.

Things are different in the House, where rules prevent minorities from blocking action and a thin majority can carry the day. Leadership of the Energy and Commerce Committee would pass from Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) to Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), and the telecommunications subcommittee would be headed by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) rather than Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

Dingell and Markey have indicated they would consider legislation to compel cable carriage of multiple digital channels in return for broadcasters’ guarantee of increased public interest programming. The two veteran Democrats also say the government should provide more subsidies for owners of old-fashioned analog TVs when the country switches to digital TV in February 2009. The law crafted under Barton sets the subsidy at $40 for each set top box needed to translate analog signals to digital, with a limit of two per household. Democrats want two free boxes for each household, and more spending on publicity for the coming change.

Like other House Democrats, Markey and Dingell have criticized the Federal Communications Commission’s attempts to relax media ownership rules. The agency is again redrawing the rules under the leadership of Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican who in 2003 supported sweeping deregulation that was rejected by a court. “Democratic control of either or both houses creates a more difficult environment for the Republican-controlled FCC to loosen the ownership rules,” said Paul Gallant, an analyst for Stanford Group. House Democratic foes of relaxed rules may find allies in both parties in the Senate, which has voted to overturn the FCC’s decisions of 2003.

Little change, however, is expected with broadcast indecency where both parties have backed stiffer penalties.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003316045

The New Season
'Cracker' returns, with Iraq war theme
By Ellen Gray Philadelphia Daily News October 30, 2006

CRACKER. 9 tonight, BBC America

THERE WAS A time when it was thought that only the British could get away with putting an arrogant, substance-abusing genius at the center of a TV series.

Then Fox imported the veddy British Hugh Laurie to play a Vicodin-addicted genius of a doctor in "House," and he became very, very popular.

He does, of course, speak like most of us. Because ABC's "Lost" and "Heroes" notwithstanding, we're still thought to have problems with accents.

And he's not fat.

Because only sitcom husbands get to be fat.

So while the American TV landscape has changed considerably since the late Robert Pastorelli starred in a short-lived and somewhat muffled stateside version of "Cracker" for ABC in 1997, there's still nothing remotely like the real thing here. Just as despite the explosion in women cops on TV, there's no one remotely like Britain's prickly Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren), who'll return to PBS Nov. 12 and 19 for one last time in "Masterpiece Theatre's" "Prime Suspect: The Final Act."

Fortunately for those with BBC America, the real "Cracker" is back tonight.

It's been 10 years since Robbie Coltrane played the profane and occasionally profound criminal psychologist Dr. Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald in "Cracker," years in which he's become world-famous as the gentle giant Hagrid in the "Harry Potter" movies. Fitz has been in exile in Australia, where we're told he's actually been behaving himself.

As tonight's two-hour movie, "Cracker: A New Terror" opens, Fitz and his wife, Judith (Barbara Flynn), are back in the northern British city of Manchester for their daughter's wedding and to spend time with family, all of whom get short shrift when Fitz gets pulled into the investigation of the murder of an American in the restroom of a comedy club.

Set against the backdrop of the war in Iraq - in Britain, the movie was known as "Cracker: Nine Eleven" - "A New Terror" reunites Coltrane with "Cracker" creator Jimmy McGovern ("The Street") a decade after they both figured they'd put Fitz to bed.

"Why would you not want to play Fitz again, you know? It's the best part an actor can ever get offered, really," Coltrane told reporters in July.

"But the way Jimmy and I left it, we always said we would do three [seasons]. And as they say in show business, 'Leave them wanting more rather than wanting less.' You got to leave at an absolute high. But we always left it that if either one of us had a really great idea for a 'Cracker' episode, we would phone each other up.

"And, of course, Jimmy had this terrific idea about - well, the world as it is, you might say," he said.

It's the world as it is from a British slant, though, so to find what occurs in tonight's "Cracker" even remotely believable, you're going to have to remember that terrorism is a much older reality for those who faced it on their own soil long before anyone had heard of Osama bin Laden.

Carrying torch for 'Lights'

NBC's airing "Friday Night Lights" tonight (10, Channel 10) in place of what would ordinarily have been a rerun of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

The time slot's not exactly been a charm for "Studio 60," but there's apparently hope that viewers who've not yet seen "Lights" - pinned as it is at 8 p.m. Tuesdays beneath behemoths "Dancing with the Stars" and "NCIS" - might take a look at one of the season's best shows.

I'm hoping, anyway.

Don't make me beg.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//15883196.htm

TV Notebook
Seek 'Justice'
By Scott D. Pierce Deseret Morning News October 30, 2006

"Justice" deserves a lot more respect than I gave it in my original review — and I liked the show when it premiered back in August.

The series, about a team of high-profile L.A. lawyers who use every high-tech trick at their disposal, proved last week that it's both courageous and really, really smart. Our heroes (Kerr Smith, Victor Garber, Rebecca Mader and Eamonn Walker) actually lost the case — something that happened to Perry Mason only once in 271 episodes.

But "Justice" (8 p.m., Ch. 13) always shows viewers what actually happened after the verdict was announced. It turned out the client was innocent; the real killer was a huge surprise, but the twist made sense — it didn't come out of nowhere.

That doesn't happen often in television and movies.

As much as the show is about a mix of legal and media drama, and high-tech innovations, it always rings true. That's due at least in part to the fact that writer/executive producer Jonathan Shapiro spent nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor. Early in his career, he faced the attorney who represented former Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Berry "and he had all of the visuals that we see (on the show)," Shapiro said. "He had used focus groups and he used shadow juries. ... He used the forensics that we're really making use of here on how to try a case.

"And the federal government gave me a big piece of butcher paper and a pen."

"Justice" is about "trying to present what really goes on in a case like O.J." It's the latest in the long line of TV series about defense attorneys, and Shapiro looks to "Perry Mason" as a "forefather of this show."

"I still watch 'Perry Mason,"' he said. "It's his commitment to the system of justice that makes you love him. And I think, in a way, we respect the audience enough to not pander to their need to like every single second (of the lawyers or their clients). We're the law version of 'House,' in the sense that these are not sugar-coated issues or characters.

"How it differs, I think, from other law shows is, we're making a statement that no matter what you use in terms of the technology, trying a case is about telling a story," Shapiro said. "When you learn how to try a case, the first thing they teach you is, you must tell the jury a story. The side that tells the most compelling story wins. So all this great technology, at the end of the day, if the lawyers aren't great showmen and storytellers, they can't win."

Shapiro, who's also an adjunct law professor at USC, said that "Justice" is "the most accurate portrayal of what trial lawyers do nowadays than any show that's been on."

The difference being that viewers end up knowing what the defense attorneys on the show do not. "The one thing even the best lawyer never knows is exactly what happened. So the ending is to sort of give the audience the opportunity to see what our characters can never see, which is, the truth," Shapiro said.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650202250,00.html

The New Season
'Weed'-ing out a winner
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette October 30, 2006

For someone who's an anti-drug boy scout, I'm shocked at how much I love Showtime's "Weeds," one of the best comedies on television that has its second season finale tonight at 10. But I guess I shouldn't be shocked. The show may have a pot-growing business backdrop, but it's really about the chracters, none of whome are all that likeable. But they are funny. Even better, "Weeds" has some of the best plot twists on TV.

Those "Weeds" surprises continue tonight. Suburban pot dealer widow mom Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker) finds herself in a pickle when the DEA agent she married for convenience (guest star Martin Donovan) demands she and Conrad (Romany Malco) sell their pot stash and give him all the proceeds.

Meanwhile, Nancy's youngest son Shane (Alexander Gould) is about to graduate from elementary school and senses his mom may be in trouble.

"I've been doing some research on the Internet and really think Pittsburgh is the place for us," he announces when Nancy suggests the family may pick up stakes and move. After a gun goes off in the house, Shane says, "This would have never happened in Pittsburgh."

The episode, titled "Pittsburgh," ends with a nail-biting cliffhanger involving multiple characters. Showtime hasn't yet renewed "Weeds" for a third season, but it seems likely. I can't wait for this clever comedy to sprout anew.

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

The New Season
'Heroes' earns its top new-show ranking
By Rick Kushman The Sacramento Bee October 30, 2006

Thinking out loud today. Well, not technically "out loud." And there's some debate about how much actual thinking is involved in this column. So, uh, here's some stuff about shows.

• First, NBC's "Heroes": There's a reason it's the lone hit among new serialized shows. It's great, and it keeps getting more great.

"Heroes" (at 9 tonight on Channel 3) mixes a continuing story with old-school derring-do, an intriguing story line and the eternal kid's fantasy about special powers. And there are lessons here for all TV producers.

The scenes move quickly, but most pay off. The mystery deepens because it's advanced, not because information is withheld. And viewers get rewarded with groovy moments, from a bad guy getting flattened to a satisfying revelation to the cliffhangers that are striking on their own, not just teases.

Single best moment: Hiro (Masi Oka) coming from the future as a legit superhero, costume and all.

• "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip": For people who watched an early episode and then bailed, give it another shot. The first episodes were setups and had a claustrophobic focus inside the studio.

Over the past two weeks, it's expanded to be about the people and their lives, and there've been scenes that were as stirring and romantic and as simply outstanding as anything on TV.

And here's a thought (see, told you there'd be one or two): Maybe Aaron Sorkin took "Studio 60" to the wrong network. Sorkin, the talented creator of "Sports Night" and "The West Wing," said in an interview this summer that he had good offers from CBS and NBC but just felt the show belonged at NBC, because "The West Wing" was there and because of NBC's tradition of grown-up TV.

The sentiment is classy. But the reality is, CBS could have found a better time slot -- maybe at 9 p.m., considering the attention this show requires -- and could have promoted it more. CBS is the ratings leader, and most new CBS shows are doing at least OK.

By the way, "Studio 60" won't air tonight. It's off one week so NBC can test "Friday Night Lights" at 10 p.m. (on Channel 3). Which brings us to ...

• "Friday Night Lights": Another excellent show that isn't doing well. In part, it's getting killed by its 8 p.m. Tuesday time slot against ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" and CBS' top-10 show "NCIS" (in Sacramento, it's against "The Unit").

As great as "Lights" is, it's not an easy watch. The camera jumps. People talk fast. Scenes of realistic-but-stupid fanaticism are uncomfortable. Those make for great drama, but the show needs viewers to pay attention. It, too, could use a 9 p.m. slot.

Also, stop with the "Why isn't 'Friday Night Lights' on Fridays?" Fridays are low-viewership nights and better for less intense TV. And, it's about high school football. There's a large potential audience that'll be -- say it with me -- watching high school football.

• "NCIS": The CBS military/ cop series has earned its Top 10 spot. "NCIS" (at 7 p.m. Tuesdays on Channel 13) is clever, self- mocking, has an engaging star in Mark Harmon and includes a pack of satisfyingly stand-up characters.

• "Lost": It rocks, again, this year. It's probably out of reach for newcomers, but producers have added so much meat this season, it's been a feast. "Lost" doesn't pull the lame trick of just not answering questions. Instead, it answers with larger, more complicated questions. But it doesn't forget its roots. Best of all, the polar bear is back.

• "The Office": Just want to say, I love this show. Love it.

• "30 Rock": The series, ironically, suffers from the same problem as the show- within-a-show -- Tracy Morgan's character (also named Tracy) doesn't fit.

The joke of "30 Rock" is that fake Tracy was ham-handedly jammed into "The Girlie Show," but episodes focusing on him also feel the same hands-of-ham. This isn't real Tracy's fault. He's a funny guy. But he's playing a loud, sitcomy character, and "30 Rock" only works when it goes with deadpan irony. The good news: Now that fake Tracy's been introduced, he's not dominating the real series.

• "House": It was just off for the World Series. Scheduled back Tuesday.

http://www.sacbee.com/127/story/47323.html

TV Q&A
Dan Rather unleashed': TV legend talks about his new cable show
By Neal Justin McClatchy Newspapers Oct. 30, 2006

Old anchors don't die. They just go to digital cable. Dan Rather, who has survived war reporting, crazy cab rides, muggings, on-air battles with presidents and an unceremonial dumping at CBS News, now takes his inimitable brand of journalism to Mark Cuban's HDNet, where he'll host "Dan Rather Reports" and do occasional documentaries. We talked to the veteran newsman by phone last week:

Question: I know this is a busy time for you, but you're always busy. Do you ever take a vacation?

Rather: By most people's standards, I guess my life looks hectic, but I've never considered it that way. What other people see as hectic, I see as joy. I do love to be in the outdoors whenever I have the time. The closest thing to heaven for me is a very nice trout stream. I have fished a couple times up in northern Minnesota, near the Canadian border, and had a great time.

Question: Why are you and Mark Cuban a good team?

Rather: I was looking for who I thought might be the next Bill Paley (founder of CBS) or the next Ted Turner, and if I didn't find that in Mark, then I found the next best thing. He's as direct as a punch in the face. He comes right at you, and hard news needs backers who don't back down and don't back away. Among the first things he said to me was that he was willing to give me full editorial control. I figuratively rolled my eyes, but he later put it in writing. I think that's unique in journalism.

Question: But everyone needs an editor. If you have full control, who's checking on you?

Rather: The first person I hired was Wayne Nelson, who was with CBS for more than 20 years and will be my executive producer. We've been in a lot of tight places together in datelines long forgotten. We're simpatico. He's the conscience of the show, as I hope I will be. Everything that goes on the air will go through at least three editorial processes. We also have an outside person who's knowledgeable in both law and the news who will go over everything.

Question: Mark has described the new show as "Dan Rather unleashed" and you have said you hope to do stories you couldn't do at CBS. Are network newsgatherers handcuffed?

Rather: I wouldn't use that term. Let me make it explicitly clear: I had 44 great years at CBS and I loved every minute of it - the good times, the bad times, the hard times. However, there's no question that all the networks are owned by global megacompanies. The supercorporates have so many outside interests that they run the risk of, and sometimes they do, permeate the news organization. Increasingly, anything that's controversial is deemed bad for business.

Question: Did CBS ever tell you not to do a particular story?

Rather: No. But by words and by deed, they showed that there were stories they wish we hadn't done and they were reluctant to put them on the air. We had the Abu Ghraib story as a worldwide exclusive, but they never promoted it, they never repeated it and they delayed it three weeks. It's important to give CBS credit. They did put it on the air.

Question: So what kind of stories will you be doing that would have been tough sells at CBS?

Rather: I just got an e-mail from Mark telling me not to give too much away. I can tell you that it's hard to probe even moderately deeply into the influence of money on the legislative process and look at the immense penetration that lobbyists have when you work at a large network, because media companies are among the biggest spenders in Washington. We're going to have freedom because Mark owns his company lock, stock and barrel, like Paley and Turner once did. There will be no sacred cows.

Question: You used to close your broadcasts with the word "courage." How courageous are today's journalists?

Rather: There are any number of journalists who display physical courage, particularly right now in Iraq. The more difficult courage is to question power, to get up and look them in the eye and ask tough questions, even if you know you're going to catch hell for it. We need patriotic journalism, especially in a time of war. I'm not talking about wearing a flag in your lapel or standing up and cheering when they play "Stars and Stripes Forever." I'm talking about the role journalism plays in our system of democracy and freedom. It's supposed to be a checks-and-balance system and it's our duty to participate in that.

Question: What do you think of blogs?

Rather: The blogosphere is filled with all kinds of different things. Some provide news and insight, but many have no accountability. They can put anything down they please and smear at will.

Question: You yourself have been the victim of that.

Rather: I would not use the word "victim." Put me down as saying I'm not going to address that.

Question: Where do you get the news on a daily basis? Do you read papers on the Internet?

Rather: I try to get up around 5:30 or 6 a.m. and, in the last six or nine months, the first thing I've done is go online quickly and get the headlines. But I prefer to have newsprint in my hands. I look at 10 newspapers a day and try to thoroughly read three papers a day.

Question: What about TV news? What do you think about the changes at CBS?

Rather: Quite frankly, I've been traveling so much in the past six to eight weeks that I haven't seen much. I know from the time I transitioned into the "CBS Evening News" chair that it takes a while for a broadcast to settle in. The time to assess change will be around the end of February.

Question: How much interaction did you have with Sean McManus when he took over as head of CBS News last October?

Rather: I had none. When I was there, I never met with him or spoke to him, with two exceptions. I saw him at the funeral services for a colleague and I once ran into him at an affair honoring Ted Koppel. At his request, we had lunch after I left (as CBS anchor).

Question: I find that incredible, that the two most important people at CBS News didn't even talk.

Rather: I prefer the word puzzling. I don't know why that turned out that way, but I'm a forward-looking person. I'm an optimist by nature.

Question: You turn 75 this week and your birthday is on Halloween.

Rather: When I was young, I thought that was a great thing. Now that I'm at the age where I don't want people to know that I'm getting older, I'm not so sure.

Question: You've had a lot of strange things happen to you over the years. Do you think it's because you were born on that day?

Rather: (Laughs.) I never thought of that. Anyone who has lived as long as I have has incidents. The difference is that when you're in the public eye, they tend to get overblown. I'm sure you know lots of people who have had more weird situations than I have.

Question: Actually, I don't.

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/tv/articles/1030danrathertv1030.html

The Business of TV
Program Access on FCC Agenda
By Ted Hearn Multichannel News October 30, 2006

The Federal Communications Commission is making plans to review its program-access rules, which generally require cable operators to sell their satellite-delivered networks to DirecTV, EchoStar Communications and other pay TV providers, an agency official said Monday.

The FCC last looked at the rules in 2002, one decade after program-access provisions were enacted as part of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992. Congress imposed forced-sale mandates on cable to ensure that the satellite-TV providers could gain access to cable channels that were too expensive for new entrants to duplicate.

Four years ago, the FCC examined the cable-programming market and concluded that it would not use its discretion to allow the cable-exclusivity ban to sunset. Instead, the commission extended the ban until October 2007, setting up the review it has nearing the launch pad.

The program-access regime has expanded beyond the original congressional design as a result of FCC-imposed merger conditions. Comcast and Time Warner Cable can’t withhold terrestrially delivered regional sports networks from rivals for the next six years under Adelphia Communications merger conditions adopted in July. However, Comcast did manage to secure a waiver for SportsNet Philadelphia.

And News Corp., in order to take control of DirecTV in 2003, promised to make its cable-programming services available on a nonexclusive basis for as long as the FCC’s program-access rules remain in effect.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6386692.html

The Business of TV
Media people are less happy over pay
Nearly half respond that higher-ups get the raises
By Diego Vasquez Media Life Magazine October 30, 2006

It would seem to stand to reason that media planners and buyers would be happier with their salaries these days. The media economy is generally stronger, and younger planners are especially in demand to handle all the new business coming into agencies.

But they are not. The level of dissatisfaction over media department salaries is actually on the rise. A Media Life survey, taken over several days last week, found a decline in salary satisfaction levels from six months ago.

The question: How do you rate your agency in terms of fairness in compensation?

Nearly half, 48.3 percent, agreed with the statement: "I am less than satisfied. Our agency is generous with more senior managers but is tight-fisted when it comes to salaries and benefits of junior staffers."

That's up from 43 percent in back in April.

At the same time, the share of media people who expressed satisfaction with their salaries has declined: 35.5 percent agreed with the statement: "I’m satisfied with my salary and benefits and feel I’m fairly rewarded at my annual reviews." That figure was 41.1 percent back in April.

Just why the dissatisfaction is growing is unclear. It may simply be a case of raised expectations as the ad economy continues to improve and word gets out over the rising demand for media planners and buyers, especially those with several years’ experience.

But there also appears to be a sense, as the first answers suggest, that people now worry more that they are being passed by as raises go to others. Or, put as a question, if things are better, and others are getting raises, especially new people, how come my paycheck isn't fatter?

Media Life asked the first question a little differently to get a response as to how media people generally felt about salaries and fairness versus whether they felt they were being treated fairly by their particular agency.

The question: What is your most pressing salary concern?

The leading response by far, at 39 percent, was to agree with the statement: "I am satisfied with my salary but worry that it may be less than market value when compared with others of my experience level."

Media people seem at odds over whether salaries are going up and by how much. Their answers to the same questions over the six months are divided on whether more or fewer raises are being handed out.

The question: Based on your experience and what you’ve heard from others, are media salaries going up in general?

Last week, 6.6 percent agreed with the statement: "Yes. They’re rising substantially across the board." That's up from 4.3 in April.

But at the same time more respondents believe a small number of raises are being handed out.

Last week, 18.8 percent agreed with the statement: "Very few people are seeing raises of any sort, and even those are very modest." That's up from 14.5 percent in April.

Certainly, salary is the leading concern among media people. Media Life asked this question: What is most important to you at your job?

Pay was way out ahead, at 56 percent. Those agreed with the statement: "Salary. I want to be paid what I'm worth."

A distant second was job flexibility, at 21.6 percent. They agreed with the statement: "I can tolerate a lot in exchange for flexible hours that allow me more time with my family."

Quality of benefits came in third at 10.3 percent and prestige--a big title at an important agency--hardly registered at 2.1 percent.

Media people believe medium-size agencies offer the fairest compensation, at 52 percent. Just under a third, 30.6 percent, think big agencies offer the fairest compensation, while 17.4 percent believe smaller agencies do. That's largely unchanged from six months ago.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8216.asp

TV Notebook
Price Reups With 'Early Show'
By Michele Greppi TV Week October 30, 2006

Dave Price has signed a new multiyear contract with "The Early Show" on CBS.

According to a CBS News spokesperson, Mr. Price's contract now also promises "entertainment-based projects" with CBS.

When Mr. Price joined "The Early Show" in July 2003, his contract was three-pronged. He did early morning weather for WCBS-TV in New York City, scooted across town to do weather and features on "The Early Show" and he had a development deal with King World, the CBS-owned syndication studio.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10981

Technology
MySpace to Filter Out Unauthorized Recordings
By Daisy Whitney TV Week October 30, 2006

Leading video destination MySpace plans to implement a music content filtering system from Gracenote designed to keep unauthorized recordings off the site, the companies announced today.

The deal is the latest move in a quickly growing whitewash of video-sharing sites as they aim to expunge unauthorized content from their pages. YouTube recently removed 30,000 videos from Japan that were unauthorized and also struck deals with several music labels to ensure that music videos used on the site are copyright protected.

MySpace will use the Gracenote technology to review all music audio recordings uploaded by members and block them if the files violate copyright.

Sites such as MySpace and YouTube have built their huge traffic numbers in part on the unauthorized content that users upload.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10979

Technology
Viacom's Copyrighted Content Yanked Off YouTube
Removal of Comedy Central Clips Creates Uproar Online
By Abbey Klaassen Advertising Age October 30, 2006

Last Friday, Jeff Reifman received a letter from YouTube, noting the video-sharing site had disabled some material he'd posted—a couple of video clips of "The Daily Show." Mr. Reifman, a former MSN exec who lives in Seattle, wrote about it on News Cloud, an open news website he founded. And that set off the firestorm.

Not who you'd expect

Mr. Reifman wasn't surprised to see content companies begin to crack down on infringement -- he expected such since Google announced its acquisition of YouTube. He was surprised, however, that the first major media publisher to make news by yanking down clips was Comedy Central. He points out that in a Wired magazine interview just over a year ago, "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart and executive producer Ben Karlin didn't seem to have a problem sharing the show online.

"This instantly puts a clear frame on what exactly did Google buy and was it worth $1.6 billion?" Mr. Reifman said, later adding, "Someone at Viacom has a sense of humor, saying you guys are crazy to pay $1.6 billion and we'll show you how crazy."

Indeed, YouTube is a business that since its inception has turned a blind eye toward copyrighted content. And now that it's part of the online behemoth Google, one of the biggest marketing and ad-sales uncertainties for major media owners is how much to play along with YouTube.

BET and MTV also involved

The latest content to be removed wasn't limited to Comedy Central clips; the letter came from Viacom's corporate office and asked YouTube to remove some copyrighted content from a variety of Viacom's cable networks, including BET and MTV. Comedy Central, however, took the brunt of the blogosphere's buzz, perhaps because its content is represented in greater quantities across YouTube.

Actually, said Jim Nail, chief marketing and strategy officer for the word-of-mouth-analytics firm Cymfony, Viacom is smart to be trying to make a business out of its copyrighted content rather than just letting it be sliced and diced for use on YouTube.

"There is a good market for consumer-paid and legitimately acquired video," he said, pointing out how successful ABC has been putting "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" on iTunes. "We've clearly seen there's an economic and business model and a consumer desire to get the content they want how they want it, and they're willing to pay for that, sometimes with attention to ads, sometimes with cash."

Big opportunity lost

Unlike marketers who use YouTube as a way to seed viral videos, Comedy Central and its Viacom siblings have a natural place to put its clips online: their own broadband players. Yet clips of "The Daily Show" and its spinoff "The Colbert Report" are regularly uploaded to YouTube in three- to five-minute bites just after the show airs -- and before Comedy Central even uploads the clips to its own site. And because Motherload, Comedy's broadband site, snares CPMs of about $40, there's a potentially big opportunity lost when tens of thousands of internet viewers are conditioned to seek "Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" clips on YouTube rather than at ComedyCentral.com.

But will Viacom's actions harm them, making them seem like a greedy corporation trying to keep a too-tight reign on its content? And how much has the viral marketing of YouTube helped linear TV ratings? Indeed, it's hard to tell if Viacom loses more by not sharing its clips on YouTube than it does by being there and foregoing ad impressions on its own sites.

To Mr. Reifman, the Comedy Central incident is the same as looking a marketing gift horse in the mouth. "It's free marketing and the people who've linked to these videos are free marketers," he said. "They're sort of slapping all those marketers in the face."

'Finding the right business model'

Viacom issued this statement: "Like our peers in the media industry, we are focused on finding the right business model for professionally created content to be legally distributed on the internet. We want our audiences to be able to access our programming on every platform and we're interested in having it live on all forms of distribution in ways that protect our talented artists, our loyal customers and our passionate audiences."

Incidentally, much of the criticism over the Comedy Central's decision to pull content off YouTube focuses on the quality of the viewing experience at Motherload. One reader of the popular blog BoingBoing.net posted the top five reasons he hates the viewing interface of Motherload, including the fact users couldn't resize the viewing window and that the player uses java script for its pop up window, which means it doesn't have a visible web address for people to copy and paste in an e-mail to friends or on a blog.

And that is where some evolution will have to take place, said Mr. Nail. First, there's the lesson of iTunes -- that a superior user experience is as important as the content and the business model. Second, networks and producers are used to thinking about distribution in a first-linear-then-online fashion -- but it doesn't have to air in that order. "Consumers are saying that doesn't work for me," he said. "The audience is saying, 'I want it, at the latest, simultaneously.'"

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=112876

TV Notebook
Cable network's game isn't just games anymore
By Cary Darling McClatchy Newspapers Oct. 28, 2006

It's like they gave some random 18-year-old dude his own network.

Take the latest word on video games, toss in some viral videos, some geek news ("We gear up for the Transformers convention!") and talk about "guy shows" ("Lost," "Heroes," "Battlestar Galactica"), sprinkle it with snarky irony ("You got the new Iron & Wine CD? It rocks, dude") and a spritz of TAG body spray. The result is G4TV, the cable outlet once devoted solely to video games but now branching out as a young men's lifestyle channel.

Beginning in January, the Los Angeles-based network even inaugurates its first reality show, "The Block," about party-hearty life at a California snowboarders' hotel. But the face behind G4TV doesn't belong to some teenage punk ditching English class to run a renegade station out of his basement for his buddies. It belongs to G4TV's 41-year-old president, Neil Tiles, a former DirecTV marketing VP who in 2005 was tapped by the channel's corporate parent, Comcast, to give the relatively little-known station an audience beyond hardcore gamers.

"We've spent the last year evolving away from 100 percent video games," Tiles explains. "It's still the cornerstone of what we stand for, it's the demographic we're targeting, but (games) are not the only thing they're interested in."

Some G4TV programming kept around from the days when it was known as G4TechTV (a 2004 merger brought together the then 2-year-old G4 and the very similar TechTV) includes "Attack of the Show," a pop-culture news hour, and "X-Play," a video game-review series. And, sure enough, there are other programs - like "Cheat," which offers tips and shortcuts, and "Tokyo Game Show," about what's new and hot - aimed at the gamer audience.

But now they've been joined by "Star Trek 2.0," an interactive take on the original series, in which viewer feedback appears onscreen; rubber-burning car shows like "Street Fury" and "Formula D"; the seriously twisted animated series "Happy Tree Friends"; and reruns of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Arrested Development," "Cheaters" and "The Man Show."

This puts G4TV on a programming collision course with the likes of SpikeTV and The Cartoon Network, other outlets with a heavily young male viewership. And indeed, the executives at SpikeTV are watching their new competitor with interest. Still, they think their own mix of action, hobby and sex appeal - original movies like the upcoming "The Kill Pit" starring John Leguizamo; the gamer-themed infotainment show "Game Heads"; and a steady diet of ultimate-fighting championships - will keep Spike viewers loyal. (Spike is available in 90 million homes, G4 in 60 million.)

"I hear about (G4TV) becoming a general-entertainment, men's-lifestyle network, and I've been down that path with this network," says SpikeTV General Manager Kevin Kay. "I don't think men are interested in lifestyle. We tried that with Ultimate Guys Vacation' and giving grooming tips. I don't want to be a bad men's magazine. What we've learned is you've got to give guys the five major food groups: girls, games, gadgets, cars and guys beating the crap out of each other."

Not that anyone's going to confuse G4TV with the Style network. You're still more likely to see alien extermination than facial exfoliation. Besides, says G4TV's Tiles, Spike skews much older than G4TV, so, in a sense, it's not direct competition. "Their average viewer is 42; ours is 28.

"What we're doing is TV for the iPod generation," Tiles continues. "We're sticking to our roots in technology, but I see our competition as networks that are more similar, like (Cartoon Network's) Adult Swim."

Spike's Kevin Kay concedes that his viewers are older, but says, "We're not looking to 21-year-olds. Our sweet spot is 36 and 37, and we're getting very close to that."

So far, Tiles says, the move to widen G4TV's audience is working. The network claims that it is the most-podcasted cable channel in the U.S., that its Web site has had more than 25 million page views and that the network earned a 1.1 rating this summer (each ratings point is roughly 1,102,000 households). That's not much ratings punch by CBS standards, but it's reputable for a niche cable network.

There's been some carping by aficionados of the old G4 and TechTV who don't like the drift to lifestyle programming. The complaints underscore what a tightrope a network walks when it tries to expand its viewership.

"They were definitely a geek channel beforehand, and it was an interesting set of circumstances that gave rise to their birth: gaming becoming more mainstream," says Dean Takahashi, the author of "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked" and a technology writer at the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. "The irony is, they're chasing away (the gamer viewer) with the likes of The Man Show' ... It's not going to help them in the long run if they broaden (too much) ... It's a very weird interplay where they are trying to appeal to more than geeks, yet they exist because of gaming."

Tiles maintains that the network had no choice but to evolve. "Unfortunately, whether (the gamers) like it or not, we're a business first," he says. "We're preserving much of what they like and are familiar with, but we believe there's a larger audience. We're looking for success with VoD (video on demand), the Web and podcasting, and we're targeting early adopters, (ages) 18-24. We already are where TV is heading, so in a very real sense, this is the way networks will be in the future."

A quick peek at shows in G4TV and Spike

Both G4TV and SpikeTV are moving in interesting directions with their programming. Here are a few highlights. (Parents should note that because G4TV is aimed at young men, some of its shows' content - video-game violence and mildly sexual material - may be inappropriate for young children. As G4TV President Neil Tiles says, "We're TV14.")

G4TV

• "Attack of the Show": With its tagline of "TV's only source for all the stuff you care about," AOTS is a cool little daily dose of pop-culture news. (7 p.m. weekdays)

• "Happy Tree Friends": The colorful, cute animation makes HTF seem innocent enough, until - like what happens with The Simpsons' Itchy and Scratchy characters - things get very violent. (Midnight Mondays)

• "Icons": Sort of a Biography for the under-25 set, this documentary series' profiles range from graphic artist Shepard Fairey to actors Seth Green and Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Borat). (11 p.m. Sundays)

SpikeTV

• "Afro Samurai": This animated series features the voice of Samuel L. Jackson as Afro, a black samurai in feudal Japan. (Begins in January)

• "The Kill Pit": Written by James DeMonaco (who penned the remake of the cult hit Assault on Precinct 13) and starring John Leguizamo, this saga, about a group of Iraq War vets who stage a bank heist, promises major action. (Airs in June).

Click on these other hidden gems

G4TV is not the only less-than-well-known cable/satellite outfit whose quirky and intriguing programming you might have overlooked. (Note that some of these channels may not be available on your particular cable or satellite system.)

• American Life Network: Also pitching itself as "Your baby boomer TV choice," ALN has a schedule chock-full of often forgotten TV shows, such as "Homefront" (starring "Friday Night Lights' " Kyle Chandler), "Combat," "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," "The Gallant Men," "Cheyenne," "The Honeymooners" (color episodes), "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and, of course, "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." My pick is the brilliant (and still-not-on-DVD) "I'll Fly Away," an early 90s drama about the civil-rights era, starring Sam Waterston and Regina Taylor (9 p.m. Sundays). www.goodtv.com

• BBC America: If you still think the American offshoot of the BBC is all about high tea and high-handedness, guess again. The wonderfully soapy "Footballers Wives" (5 p.m. weekdays) and "Footballers Wives Overtime" (10 p.m. Sundays) chronicle the off-field brawling and back-stabbing among soccer players and the women who love them, and show that Brits take off their pants one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. At the other end of the spectrum, the sober "BBC World News" (6 a.m. daily and 6 p.m. Monday-Friday) often gives a very different and refreshing journalistic perspective compared with its American brethren. www.bbcamerica.com

• IFC: The Independent Film Channel is much more than a showplace for indie films, such as "The Tao of Steve" and "Amelie." It's also home to edgy original series like the hit-or-miss but often hilarious "The Business" (think "The Office" set in the movie world; 11:30 p.m. Sundays) and comedienne Laura Kightlinger's acclaimed comedy series about Hollywood, "The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman" (11 p.m. Sundays). Both are now in reruns. www.ifc.com

• MTV TR3S (MTV Tres): MTV's global expansion continues with this bilingual Latin and English pop channel, offering the stuff you know (Shakira, Justin Timberlake) and some worth discovering (Bacilos, La Oreja de Van Gogh). Similar in concept but generally available only on satellite are MTV Desi (aimed at Indian Americans), MTV K (Korean Americans) and MTVChi (Chinese Americans). www.mtv.com/mtvsites

• TV One: Positioning itself as an alternative to BET, this channel targeted to African-American audiences airs a lot of "227" and "Good Times" reruns. But it's also getting more into original programming, such as "Bill Bellamy's Who's Got Jokes," which is billed as a "clean" comedy competition. It debuts at 9 p.m. Oct. 28. www.tv-one.tv

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/tv/articles/1028g4tv1028.html

Analysis
Many Types Of Viewers Look For Heroes This Season
By Wayne Friedman Media Post Publications Oct. 30, 2006

Never doubt that it is called broadcasting for a specific viewer reason. This season a wide range of viewers is looking for heroes--hopefully unlikely ones.

NBC's launch marketing of its rookie hit "Heroes" worked this careful aim--with on-air messages about a show featuring "regular human beings with extraordinary abilities." NBC's marketing executives were careful never to say extraordinary "powers."

Why? Talking about people with extraordinary powers puts the show in comic-book land. And that might restrict the audience to some acne-infested teens who, unfortunately, don't make up a large enough quantity of audience--not enough for advertisers to spend $300,000 for a thirty-second spot.

This is much the same way television marketing executives usually lay down a game plan for a new show--or even new networks. For instance, former marketing chiefs at WB, Bob Bibb and Lew Goldstein, never billed the network "The WB: TV for Young Women." That would have been too restricting.

NBC's "Heroes" are all about comic-book-like characters--so much so the young Japanese man, played by Masi Oka, carries around a comic book which seemingly has stories in it about events that just happened to him.

Theatrical movies of this type work much the way: There's a cool young horror-fantasy-type movie that produces want to make. They hope it's interesting enough to draw in older viewers. WB's "Buffy" and "Angel," TV shows that Bibb and Goldstein marketed, were cool enough for the young crowd, but interesting enough for older audience to latch onto.

Successful TV show--like successful theatrical movies--need many diverse viewer groups to work. But their success always starts with the "core" viewers.

Apart from "Heroes," two other rookie shows--ABC's "Ugly Betty" and CBS' "Jericho"--also have their individual core viewers and separate marketing paths to broaden their respective appeal after their promising openings.

Overall, viewers for all three new rookie shows are seeking the same objective.

Surely, viewers are looking for some heroes in "Heroes." Some would say the lead character played by America Ferrara in "Ugly Betty" is a hero. Finally, the small Kansas town of "Jericho" is always seeking heroes to help save the town from the ravages of nuclear destruction.

All shows might not have super-powers. But they all have good abilities to draw a TV crowd.

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showTodaysArticle&art_type=34

The Business of TV
Martha Renewed for Season Three
By Jim Benson Broadcasting & Cable October 30, 2006

The NBC O&O stations are among the station groups renewing NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution’s Martha Stewart daytime “how to” talk show for a third season.

The program has been cleared for 2007-08 on nine of the ten NBC-owned stations that have carried it from the start (WRC in Washington, D.C. does not air it), along with outlets belonging to Gannett, Belo, Fisher, Scripps and other groups.

The renewal follows the departure of co-executive producer Rob Dauber and the search for a replacement (B&C, Oct. 30: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386259.html?display=Breaking+News).

Although Martha is down 24% season-to-date from last season (1.7 to 1.3), which included curiosity sampling around the series debut following Stewart’s release from prison—there have been some encouraging signs lately.

In the most recent Nielsen national rankings for syndicated barter shows, the series earned its best weekly number (1.4) since late May. During the week ended Oct. 15, it also performed strongly in metered markets, posting new season highs in nine large markets, including New York.

Martha Stewart and Mark Burnett are executive producers of the show, which is produced by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and distributed by NBC U.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386702.html

The New Season
Save This Show! No, Not That One! This One!
James Poniewozik Time.com's TV Blog Oct. 30, 2006

Tonight at 10 p.m. E.T., NBC gives what may turn out to be one last, best chance for the best new drama of the season, one that viewers have ignored despite its intelligence, heart and emotional resonance. No, I haven't changed my mind about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, nor have I been drinking. For one night only, NBC is turning over the Studio 60 timeslot to Friday Night Lights, its sadly overlooked high school football drama, which has only gotten better since its debut.

The timeslot switch is an ironic contrast, because it's FNL that has the real virtues that Studio 60 was hyped as having. Both shows are about the enormous social stakes entertaiment can have for a community--here, football as opposed to late-night comedy--but in FNL, the pride, pressure and almost desperate love for the home team in this down-on-its-luck hometown is palpable and real, without the producers having to showily convince you of it by hauling in every hot-button issue and historical reference under the sun. You'll find no commedia dell'arte references in FNL, but its naturalistic, verite storytelling is what really smart TV drama looks like: that is, it's smart without trying to prove how many trivia questions it can answer, and it trusts its audience to have the intelligence to sympathize with its flawed characters without romanticizing any of them. FNL shows, where Studio 60 tells (and tells, and tells, and tells...). And while Studio 60 prides itself on addressing red-state-blue-state issues because it includes One! Whole! Genuine! Christian! among its cast, FNL immerses itself in the culture of a religious Texas town--the kind of place where they work the upcoming ballgame into the Sunday sermons--without looking down on its characters' faith or putting it on a pedestal. These Texans' Christianity doesn't make them paragons or hypocrites: it's just a natural part of their lives and characters, and FNL has an easy comfort with it like few network shows ever have.

That's the kind of show fans of intelligent TV should be supporting. I've taken a lot of shots at Studio 60, but I have to give credit to its fans for this: they genuinely, passionately want to support TV that challenges its audience. If they stick around tonight, they just might find that sometimes, smart TV wears a helmet.

http://time.blogs.com/tuned_in/

TV Notebook
Oprah gives audience members debit cards
AP October 30, 2006

Oprah Winfrey has famously given members of her audience new cars, paid off their debts and fulfilled their wildest dreams. Now she's given them what she calls the "gift of giving back."

On a show that aired Monday, Winfrey gave more than 300 audience members $1,000 debit cards sponsored by the Bank of America to donate to a charitable cause.

Winfrey called the show her "favorite giveaway ever."

"I can honestly say that every gift I've ever given has brought at least as much happiness to me as it has to the person I've given it to," the 52-year-old talk-show host said. "That's the feeling I want to pass on to you."

People can give the entire sum to one person - relatives aren't eligible - or they can split it among charitable causes. Audience members also received a DVD recorder to tape their stories for a future show.

"You're going to open your hearts, you're going to be really creative, and you're going to spend it all at once on one stranger or spend a dollar on every person," Winfrey said. "Imagine the love and kindness you can spread with $1,000."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PEOPLE_OPRAH_WINFREY?SITE=MOSTP&SECTION=ENTERTAINMENT

The New Season
What Happened?
By J. Max Robbins Broadcasting & Cable October 30, 2006

Before this season began, not so long ago, the media were hailing the new class of network shows as one of the strongest they'd seen in years. Critics cheered the triumphant return of Aaron Sorkin with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. They marveled at the Hollywood production quality of new serialized dramas like Kidnapped and The Nine. They swooned over Ugly Betty.

Well, at least they were right about Betty.

Six weeks into the fall, few of the early hopefuls look like they have staying power, and none of the fall's strongest-performing rookies could reasonably be called a breakout hit. What happened?

It certainly isn't the first time critics got jazzed about programs that fell flat with audiences. But how could so many critics be so wrong about so many new shows?

Nearly half of the 60-plus critics and TV writers we surveyed in our fall-season poll (Sept. 4) said Studio 60 was the best new show overall—an opinion I shared (see Robins Report, Oct. 2). They voted ABC's The Nine as the best new drama. Both of those shows will be lucky to see a second season. Other favorites, like CBS' Shark and The Class and NBC's Friday Night Lights, have been Nielsen disappointments.

The critics did get it right with ABC's Ugly Betty, voting it best new comedy. But they virtually ignored NBC's Heroes and CBS' Jericho, two of only a handful of shows that seem to have legs.

If so much of this bumper crop of shows was truly that good, why has so little resonated with the audience? Some of the blame lies with overblown expectations—and not just those stirred by critics. The more these expensive pilots look like theatrical films, the more they're expected to open like blockbusters. Too often, the creators of these series can't sustain the quality displayed in those splashy premiere episodes (Studio 60 and The Nine are prime examples).

And with so much money, time and effort spent upfront, the more obvious it becomes when quality begins to tail off in later episodes.

It reminds me of the old joke about the dead network executive who's given a choice between eternity in Heaven or Hell. After reviewing taped presentations on each, he chooses Hell, only to find that the truly infernal place is not the hedonistic party that was advertised on the tape. "That was just the pilot," St. Peter explains.

But if networks are encouraging unrealistic expectations for their shows, they're also making unreasonable demands of their viewers. Already, more than 20 new shows have debuted on broadcast television. Network and studio executives have long complained about the insanity of launching so many shows at once. But although more shows are rolling out over the course of the year, there's still too much of a logjam every fall.

Moreover, at least a dozen of this season's new shows are serialized dramas with dense plots and richly drawn characters. No one—not even people who watch TV for a living—can commit to the level of attention required for all of these shows week in and week out.

And the truth is, critics and those of us who write about the business sometimes forget how most people watch TV. We watch under the best of circumstances: commercial-free on digital screeners at our leisure.

We can pick our hits from each year's rookies, but ultimately, the only critics that matter are the viewers, and the only true test is time.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386385.html?display=Max+Robins&referral=SUPP

I don't know if it means anything or not, but at the end of Weeds tonight, they did say "Find out what happens next on an all new season of Weeds, coming in 2007"

I don't know if it means anything or not, but at the end of Weeds tonight, they did say "Find out what happens next on an all new season of Weeds, coming in 2007"

Don't forget Showtime also ran a trailer after the last season of Huff that had Blythe Danner saying "until the next season of Huff begins ..." or something like that. Huff had already been canceled at that point.

Bounce for NBC
Sunday night football

Returns after MLB layoff to a 5.8 in 18-49s

By Toni Fitzgerald
Oct 30, 2006

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” went into a one-week World Series layoff with its lowest rating yet for an Oct. 15 game between the Denver Broncos and awful Oakland Raiders. Last night Terrell Owens and the suddenly revived Dallas Cowboys gave “SNF” a post-hiatus shot in the arm.

The Cowboys’ surprising 35-514 victory over the Carolina Panthers averaged a 5.8 among adults 18-49 from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights. As a reminder, fast national ratings are based on timeslot data and not actual live program data, and the game started at 8:15 and lasted past 11.

We’ll know for sure when final ratings come out tomorrow, but based on results for the similar time period two weeks ago for the Broncos game, it seems safe to say that “SNF” pulled out of its brief slide.

The three-hour average was up 49 percent over the Broncos-Raiders’ 3.8 average for the same time. It also jumped by nearly 5 million in total viewers, from 10.1 million to 14.9 million.

That’s not a huge shock as Owens and the Cowboys have been a potent ratings elixir all season, driving “Monday Night Football” to cable’s best-ever household rating last week and pumping “SNF” ratings in previous appearances.

It also helped that there was no postseason baseball airing on Fox last night to pull away sports fans. Two weeks ago, the network aired Game 4 of the National League Championship Series opposite “SNF.”

ABC regained No. 1 on the night after temporarily losing it to Fox and the World Series last week, averaging a 5.6 adults 18-49 rating and 14 share. NBC was second at 5.2/13, followed by CBS at 4.2/10, Fox at 2.0/5, Univision at 0.9/2, and the CW at 0.8/2.

CBS led at 7 p.m. thanks to football overrun, averaging a 5.4 for the NFL and the first half of “60 Minutes.” ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos” was second at 3.5, followed by NBC’s “Football Night in America” at 3.4, Fox’s “Simpsons” and “’Til Death” reruns at 1.6, Univision’s “La Hora Pico” at 0.9, and the CW’s “Supernatural” rerun at 0.5.

At 8 p.m., ABC jumped ahead with a 5.4 for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” followed by the final 15 minutes of “America” and the first 45 minutes of “SNF” on NBC. CBS took third with the last half of “Minutes” (4.2) and the first half of “Amazing Race” (3.7) at a combined 3.9, followed by Fox’s 2.3 for reruns of “Simpsons” 2.5” and “American Dad” 2.2, a 1.1 for CW’s “7th Heaven,” and a 0.9 for Univision’s “Reyes de la Canción.”

At 9 p.m., ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” dominated as usual, averaging an 8.3 and up 4 percent over the previous week’s 8.0. NBC’s “SNF” was second at 6.1, followed by CBS’s 3.7 for the end of “Race” (4.1) and the start of “Cold Case” (3.4), Fox’s 2.1 for reruns of “Family Guy” (2.5) and “War at Home” (1.6), a 0.8 for Univision’s “Reyes,” and a 0.7 for a rerun of “America’s Next Top Model” on the CW.

At 10 p.m., “SNF” took over the lead with a 5.9, followed by ABC’s new drama “Brothers & Sisters” at 5.0, equal to last week. The final half hour of CBS’s “Case” averaged a 3.7, as did the first half hour of “Without a Trace,” while Univision’s “Reyes” finished with a 0.9.

Among households, CBS led with a 9.7/15, followed by ABC at 9.4/15, NBC at 8.7/14, Fox at 2.8/4, the CW at 1.5/2, and Univision at 1.3/2.


http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8232.asp

TV Notebook
Roseanne's raising the bar
Nine years after her sitcom ended, a new HBO special
Associated Press October 31, 2006

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Roseanne Barr sings! And it's not the national anthem! Warbling a personalized version of "My Way" at the end of her new HBO comedy special, she proclaims: "And as the baseball fans all watched, butchered that song and grabbed my crotch. Yes, I was loud, but I was proud, and did it my way." This time, the audience is with her. In 1990, when she performed a sharply off-key rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a San Diego Padres baseball game and included a couple of crass gestures, she was greeted by jeers and worse.

The ensuing controversy - was she mocking America or just trying to be funny? - derailed her professionally, she said, and made her fearful for her and her family's safety. It took until now to believe she could or should reinvigorate her career, Barr said.

"I feel like I'm leaving a real period of struggle," she said as she prepared to mark her first stand-up special in a decade with HBO's "Roseanne Barr: Blonde and Bitchin'," debuting Saturday at 10 p.m.

Politics, baby-boomer parenting and the times are the targets of Barr's bold and biting humor, delivered in her carefully deadpan style that suggests a child hiding a serious trespass.

"I joke that I became a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew, so I joined the Jehovah's Witness protection program," she said of one bit that carries this message: "Don't let a politician tell you about God. I mean, how phony is that? Better stop and think a minute before we let it go there."

On stage, the 54-year-old Barr plays dress-up in an Asian-style silk robe and long blonded locks swept into a ponytail; offstage, she's in simple sweater and slacks and hair casually held back by glam sunglasses. "Aren't they cool?" she asks with a satisfied grin.

Barr also has a guest role Thursday on NBC's "My Name is Earl," a clever turn as a vindictive trailer park manager whose life is transformed by an apparent encounter with God and then upended by Earl (Jason Lee).

A blue-collar hiatus

It's a sitcom she admires for its blue-collar perspective, something she says has been missing on TV since her Emmy-winning series, "Roseanne," ended its 1988-97 run. That's a long time "waiting for somebody to pick up the thing I tried to do," Barr said.

She's been largely absent from TV since, save for a short-lived talk show in 1998, a situation she blames on veritable "blacklisting." It doesn't take much prodding for her to describe the aftermath of her performance at the San Diego game, in which she included baseball-inspired spitting. Barr, who says she was aiming for laughs, instead drew the wrath of many. Even then-President George H.W. Bush weighed in, terming it disgraceful.

"There's been an enormous toll in every way you can imagine, from having to have armed guards around my house because of death threats" to financial losses, she said, including canceled business deals and entertainment projects.

The comedian believes she was made a target for more than a single incident.

"I felt for a long time they censored me because of the people that I spoke for. They didn't want to hear anything about working-class people in this country because they don't want to hear anything about class or minimum wage or what people like Roseanne and Dan Conner are going through," Barr said, referring to the couple she and John Goodman played on "Roseanne."

Feeling under siege, she retreated to her home and limited her comedy to small clubs where she felt less exposed. And, in a tiny, efficiently designed office and studio she established in the coastal Los Angeles suburb of El Segundo, Barr concentrated on making music DVDs for children.

Barr moved here to raise her youngest son, 11, and to remove herself from the Hollywood scene she calls a "world of illusion."

Working-class hero

"I've got five kids. I come from working people," said the Salt Lake City native. "I've got to go to work every day, get up, wake my kid, make breakfast, wash my own dishes. I have to live my beliefs every day, or I just turn into a jerk."

She keeps her brood close. On a recent afternoon, a son and son-in-law were at the studio working on "Seven Days at Minimum Wage," a Web log Barr is hosting with the AFL-CIO and ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) as part of a campaign to boost state pay standards.

Barr credits her public re-emergence to a solid, four-year relationship with musician-writer Johnny Argent (following the end of her third marriage), who jokingly refers to himself as her "current boyfriend." Barr also got a morale boost from activist-filmmaker Michael Moore when she joined him in 2004 on a college tour aimed at getting out the vote. Performing in front of thousands of receptive students, she felt a "reignited" passion for political humor.

World events played a part as well. "After 9/11, I was not going to hide out or let fear stop me. That's kind of what the [HBO] special is about, don't let fear stop you," Barr said.

Now, she said, "doors are starting to open, there are conversations about sitcoms."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-ettel4953464oct31,0,2249015.story?coll=ny-television-headlines

Advertising
Nike Reaches Deeper Into New Media to Find Young Buyers
By Stuart Elliott The New York Times October 31, 2006

NIKE has been no slouch when it comes to using nontraditional media to help sell shoes and athletic apparel. Now, the company is expanding those efforts to introduce the next version of its successful line of sneakers endorsed by the basketball star LeBron James.

The sneakers — formally known as the Nike Air Zoom LeBron IV — are receiving a sendoff that will include the first episode of “Sports-Center” on ESPN to be sponsored by a single advertiser, scheduled for 6 p.m. tomorrow; the distribution of 400,000 copies of DVDs about the making of the shoe and the ad campaign; saturation advertising on espn.com and mtv.com; a so-called pop-up retail store in Manhattan; video clips appearing as short programs on the MTV2 cable network; and a retro-chic neon billboard near Madison Square Garden that will show a continuously dunking Mr. James.

The campaign also features traditional elements like television commercials and print advertisements. They include Mr. James as “the LeBrons,” characters who represent four sides of his personality and who first appeared last year in ads for the Nike Air Zoom LeBron III shoe.

But the new-media aspects of this campaign are much more prominent than they were when versions III, II and I of the James sneakers were brought out.

“We’re not afraid to try new things,” said Adam Roth, director for United States advertising at Nike in Beaverton, Ore. “We focus on flying out on the bleeding edge.”

“Our marketing model is evolving pretty quickly,” Mr. Roth said. “It’s fair to say we’ve gone deeper into pushing content into the world consumers are already living in.”

The decision by Nike to add so many unconventional elements to its ad buys is occurring amid increasing interest among major marketers in exploring the brave world of new media. For example, the Dove line of products sold by Unilever is sponsoring a video clip, “Dove Evolution,” that appears not on TV, but on YouTube.

American Express is offering fans of the TV series “Prison Break” a chance to watch a preview of the season-premiere episode on a Web site, fox.com/prisonbreak. And Ford Motor is trying to burnish its tarnished brand image through a series of articles, blogs and films available only on a Web site, fordboldmoves.com.

“There’s still a little fear out there about shifting away from the traditional marketing tactics,” said Doug Scott, who recently joined the North American operations of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, part of the WPP Group, as executive director for branded content and entertainment.

Even so, Mr. Scott said, more advertisers “are interested in how to build this content and own it, entering into a dialogue with consumers and marketing in a more direct way.”

Marketers like Nike, which aim a preponderance of product pitches at younger consumers, are particularly eager to rewrite their media plans to include more new-media outlets.

“The younger consumer digests media in so many different ways,” Mr. Roth said. “It presents more opportunities, but it’s also a challenge because you can’t drive them to any one channel.

“So we use TV now as a catalyst to extend a larger idea into different areas.”

That is the idea behind having the new shoe be the sole sponsor of the 6 o’clock episode of “SportsCenter” tomorrow night. Between the commercials will be segments featuring Mr. James, in makeup and costume, being interviewed as two of the characters he plays in the spots: an old-school version of himself called Wise and the entrepreneurial side, known as Business.

“We hear every day from advertisers, ‘Bring me ideas I haven’t heard before that will help me break through,’ ” said Ed Erhardt, president at ESPN/ABC Sports customer marketing and sales, part of the ESPN unit of the Walt Disney Company.

To assist the shoe spots in their quest to be noticed, ESPN is reducing the commercial load during the hourlong episode of “SportsCenter” to about 10 minutes from the typical 15 minutes, Mr. Erhardt said. The cutback is being made through steps that will include eliminating network promotions, he added.

Sean R. H. Bratches, executive vice president for sales and marketing at ESPN, said it was coincidental that Nike, the first sole sponsor of an episode of “SportsCenter,” uses the same ad agency as the network. The agency is Wieden & Kennedy, which handles Nike from its flagship Portland, Ore., office and ESPN from its New York office.

Wieden & Kennedy is creating the television and outdoor elements of the campaign. Deep Focus, an interactive agency based in Brooklyn, is handling the digital aspects.

Nike spent just under $1 million last fall for ads in major media to introduce the Air Zoom LeBron III, according to data from Nielsen Monitor-Plus, part of the Nielsen Media Research unit of VNU. The budget for the LeBron IV is being estimated at two to three times that.

The online saturation ads for the LeBrons, in what are called home-page takeovers, will appear on Web sites that include — in addition to espn.com and mtv.com — Bet.com, CBSSportsLine.com, LebronJames.com, nba.com and nikebasketball.com. Those ads are scheduled to start appearing today. The DVDs, with about 15 minutes of content, are to be distributed inside the November issue of Slam magazine, which will also carry print ads for the sneakers. The magazine’s Web site, slam.com, ran teaser spots last week to whet reader appetites for the full campaign; other Web sites carrying the teasers included youtube.com.

The pop-up store is planned to remain open for a week, beginning on Nov. 11. It will be located at 476 Broome Street in SoHo, between Greene and Wooster Streets. The store will sell James apparel along with limited-edition versions of the new shoe.

The neon sign, at Seventh Avenue and 34th Street, is scheduled to be activated on Nov. 12, the day before Mr. LeBron and his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, play the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The sign’s image of an animated Mr. James in perpetual dunk mode is meant to evoke classic neon billboards in locations like Times Square and Las Vegas.

Mr. Roth of Nike said it was important in producing a campaign as varied as this to “try to tell different parts of the same story in different ways” in the different media outlets.

“We can reach consumers 24/7,” Mr. Roth said, “but we don’t want to be such a presence in our consumers’ lives to the point it becomes an annoyance.”

At ESPN, Mr. Erhardt said, now that the ice has been broken in offering episodes of “SportsCenter” to single sponsors, the intent is “to do it on a limited basis, to keep it special.” That would be “probably every five or six weeks,” he estimated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/business/media/31adco.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The New Season
Fox springs into 'Drive'
Net orders 12 episodes of the already-filmed pilot
By Josef Adalian Variety October 31, 2006

Fox has greenlit series production on "Drive," an hourlong actioner from creators/exec producers Tim Minear ("Angel") and Ben Queen.

Net has ordered 12 episodes on top of the already-filmed pilot. Goal is to get the 20th Century Fox TV-produced show on the air in time for a spring debut, possibly taking advantage of the net's "American Idol" lead-in.

In addition to "Drive," Fox had been mulling a midseason order for the space-themed "Beyond," from 20th and Imagine Television. With "Drive" picked up to series, "Beyond" will not move forward now, Fox said.

"Drive" lensed over the summer, outside the usual pilot production season. Greg Yaitanes ("Bones") directed and exec produced the pilot.

Skein has been described as a sort of "The Amazing Race" on acid, focusing on an illegal cross-country race in which every participant needs to win, but only one can. Minear told Daily Variety the show also has elements of "Cannonball Run" and the Michael Douglas starrer "The Game."

"I described it to Joss (Whedon) as 'Magnolia' on wheels," Minear said. "It's really about the people in those cars."

Scribe said the tone of the show is "deeply action, deeply funny and deeply emotional," all at once.

"It (can) be as silly as 'Rat Race' or as scary and cool as 'The Game,' " he said. "It's a canvas on which we can do anything we want."

"Drive" features a large ensemble cast that Minear said can expand or contract at will. In addition to the drivers in the race, skein will eventually explore the people staging the race -- "the puppetmasters," as Minear calls them.

It's expected Fox will request changes to the pilot episode, with recasting of certain parts also a possibility. Thesps in the pilot included Ivan Sergei, Alan Ruck and Kristin Lehman.

Minear's past credits include "Wonderfalls," "Firefly" and "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman." He's on staff at Fox's "Standoff."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952974.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

The Business of TV
NLRB backs NBC in WGA spat
By Carl DiOrio The Hollywood Reporter October 31, 2006

The National Labor Relations Board has issued a complaint against the WGA in a dispute with NBC Universal over some proposed webisode spinoffs from its network-produced shows.

The complaint charges that the guild improperly encouraged writer-producers on "Crossing Jordan," "The Office" and other shows produced by NBC Universal Television Studio to refuse to cooperate with webisodes production. The situation is related to a WGA demand that NBC pay residuals for such Internet reuse of TV content.

The peacock, arguing that the webisodes were strictly promotional in nature, refused to pay webisode residuals and filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB.

A transcript of the NLRB complaint was not available. But both parties in the dispute acknowledged that the complaint has been issued and a hearing is expected on the matter in mid- to late December.

"We deny that we have violated the law and will file an answer within the next two weeks," WGA West general counsel Tony Segall said.

An NBC Universal Television spokesman said: "We are pleased that the National Labor Relations Board has filed a complaint against the WGA supporting our position. We look forward to continuing to be able to create and produce Internet content to promote and supplement our programming."

Execs hope to persuade showrunners and others to resume cooperating with scripted webisode production immediately. The network has been using other sorts of Internet promos while the webisode dispute was being sorted out, the spokesman said.

NBC also aims to produce webisodes for shows including "Heroes" and "Battlestar Galactica."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3itCJkcg1ZdpkIhvigd43x6w%3D%3D

Technology
Nets gain viewers by making Web the land of the free
By Marisa Guthrie New York Daily News October 31, 2006

More people are watching television on their computers, according to a recent study. But that's not necessarily bad news for the networks.

This season, several broadcast networks have made a significant number of prime-time series available free online. And viewers are responding.

Since CBS began offering shows on its "innertube" platform, the network has seen weekly streams of "Jericho" and "Survivor" in the six figures, said a network spokeswoman.

NBC's "Rewind" - the network's large-format video player - reached nearly 4 million video streams in its third week. Since September, ABC.com has received more than 7 million requests for episodes of returning hits including "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" and new series like "Ugly Betty."

"Television is a wonderful mass medium," said Vivi Zigler, executive vice president of NBC digital entertainment and new media. "But we air it once. Certainly there are devices that allow you to record, but online you don't have to go through those steps. You don't have to have preplanned. You don't have to have programmed anything. It makes it up to the user."

One out of 10 online consumers watches TV online, according to the latest research by the Consumer Internet Barometer. Many who do watch online do so because it's convenient and they can avoid advertisements, because commercial breaks are shorter and less frequent, researchers found.

While some network executives may have had visions of viewers fleeing traditional TV in droves for the anytime convenience of the Web, that nightmare scenario has not happened.

"When you start unlocking the restraints, you only increase consumption," said Albert Cheng, executive vice president of digital media at ABC. "So it's all good."

Connecting people in an increasingly fragmented media environment has turned grass-roots sites like YouTube and MySpace into pop-culture phenomena, and TV networks have tried to capture the community experience. A show like "Heroes," with its fantasy elements and overarching mystery, are tailor-made for the addition of Web components.

"We did a live blog with ("Heroes" creator) Tim Kring," said Zigler. "It was amazing. There were about 4,000 blog comments in about 40 minutes."

Ultimately, the networks have little to lose by offering series online. As viewing habits continue to evolve, TV is likely to become even less communal. The family rarely comes together over a few hours of TV in the evenings. (Of course, there are exceptions like "American Idol" and the Super Bowl.)

So, logic has it that giving increasingly distracted viewers more ways to watch can only be a good thing.

"Television viewing is at an all-time high," said ABC's Cheng. "I think that tells us that all of the digital opportunities has only reinvigorated viewership."

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/466712p-392744c.html

With the success of 'Ugly Betty' we all knew this was coming...

The Business of TV
'Cafe' percolating
Telenova penned by 'Betty' scribe Gaitan
Variety October 27, 2006

Mexican media conglom Televisa is betting it's found the next telenovela phenom.

It's remaking Colombian hit telenovela "Cafe con aroma de mujer" (Coffee With the Scent of a Woman), penned by "Yo soy Betty, la fea" scribe Fernando Gaitan. "Betty" has become a worldwide sensation, winning ratings in its original and localized versions.

Producer Nicando Diaz is finalizing casting for the telenovela under the working title "Ardiente pasion" (Burning Passion). Angelica Rivera and Eduardo Yanez are in talks to take the lead roles.

Heroine of the Colombian original is a coffee picker. Televisa version, adapted by Kary Fajer, transposes the story to an agave plantation, where heroine harvests succulents.

Telenovela is set to begin shooting Friday in Mexico's tequila basket and will bow January in the 9:30 p.m. slot on Televisa's Canal 2.

Ben Silverman, producer of ABC's "Ugly Betty," acquired rights for an English version of "Cafe" in May; his version will be set in a winery.

Televisa's "Betty" remake "La fea mas bella," has been a major hit in Mexico as well as Stateside on Univision.

"Televisa excels at remakes. It doesn't matter if the story has already been told -- we make it a hit," Diaz said.

"Cafe con aroma de mujer" bowed on Colombia's RCN back in 1994. About 160 episodes were produced.

Skein was exported to Mexico, where it helped launch the then-new TV Azteca. Two years ago, FremantleMedia Latin America began developing a version of the sudser with Gaitan (Daily Variety, March 1, 2004).

Run of Diaz's previous telenovela, "Contra viento y marea" (Against All Odds), was a hit on Univision earlier this year, drawing big auds at 8 p.m. among adults 18-34.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952825.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

Technology
ABC News is courting next gen on Internet
By Paul J. Gough The Hollywood Reporter October 31, 2006

As the news networks come to grips with the digital revolution, ABC News is merging the old and new world every day with an original newscast whose primary audience have video iPods.

Each of the networks have carved out a news presence on the Web. NBC News was the first among the Big Three, putting "NBC Nightly News" onto the Web and adding the "Early Nightly" video blog recently. "CBS Evening News" is simulcast on the Web.

But only ABC News creates a 15-minute daily newscast, separate from "ABC World News" though often using the same anchor, Charles Gibson. "World News Webcast" airs live at 3 p.m. ET on ABCNews.com and the ABC News Now digital channel. It's available for downloading on iTunes a little more than an hour later and it's popular: In September, there were 5.2 million downloads via ABCNews.com and iTunes, according to ABC. So far this month, there's been 5.2 million.

The webcast is similar to the broadcast in some ways. Gibson sits in the same studio; the control room is the same. It's treated as a full-on broadcast, though it's much leaner personnel-wise, with senior producer Tom Johnson and another producer assembling and writing the newscast with help from others as time permits.

There are the headlines of the day on both newscasts. But owning to a much younger audience, the story selection often diverges from "ABC World News." There are often quick Q&As with correspondents and features that may not get on the broadcast but have real, often quirky appeal to a younger demo. ABC News knows that it's an audience who doesn't watch the evening news, and it isn't just because they're not home at 6:30 p.m.

What it has become is much more of a broadcast aimed at people who use the Web and who are much more Web-savvy than people who watch the broadcast," says Jon Banner, who is executive producer of both broadcasts. "You still get a lot of things that are on the broadcast every evening, but they're done in a much more Web-friendly style."

Johnson said they're always on the lookout for enterprising, creative pieces that will work well in the more fast-paced format, things that may not have made it onto the broadcast in pre-webcast days. But it's not for evening-news castoffs.

"We want pieces that are smart and interesting," Johnson says.

Some of the pieces have a decidedly new-media feel to them. A correspondent recently shot a piece walking on the streets of Baghdad to explain what it was like to wait in line for gasoline and pay more than Iraqis are accustomed to paying. It was closer to a video blog entry than a traditional report.

Some pieces earmarked for the webcast play so well that they find their way to the broadcast. A David Muir piece on the rise of phoneless telephone booths did just that recently, and that's only one example.

The webcast itself has evolved. There's a partnership with Google that provides the webcast with the top Web searches and keywords. Another innovation is the chaptering and Web links that make the iTunes product much more interactive, Johnson says. And the staff has found a way to compress the file even further, so that it downloads faster than it did when it was first offered.

Banner is thrilled by all of these things and more. He says it has also given people who wouldn't normally have a chance an opportunity to train themselves to do more producing and editing and, in some cases, both.

"It's changed the culture (of the newsroom) in some ways," Banner says. "It's a very exciting time when the Web is driving content on 'World News.'"

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/466712p-392744c.html

Technology
Nets gain viewers by making Web the land of the free
By Marisa Guthrie New York Daily News October 31, 2006


Id love to see a day come where networks show all of their programming on the net. Simulcast it just as its seen on the tube. Of course the cablecos would probably jack up internet prices or find some other way to make an extra buck because of it.

The New Season
Fall Season Scorecard
Broadcasting & Cable October 30, 2006

BEST SCHEDULING MOVE: Grey's Anatomy to Thursday

ABC is back in the game on TV's most lucrative night, thanks to the switch of Grey's Anatomy to Thursday. And it has helped the network overall. “We didn't think, with the loss of Monday Night Football, we would be as competitive as we are,” says ABC scheduling chief Jeff Bader. “But Grey's is making up for the loss.” Putting telenovela adaptation Ugly Betty on at 8 p.m. ET has helped, too, but the network will have to make a move at 10: Serial drama Six Degrees is bleeding too many of the viewers that the network has finally begun to draw in earlier in the night.

WORST SCHEDULING MOVE: Everybody Hates Chris to Sunday

One of the most promising comedies on TV when it debuted last year on UPN—and a potential anchor for the new CW—Everybody Hates Chris began its second season this fall at 7 p.m. on Sunday, when many target viewers are watching football. After a sluggish start, The CW moved it to Monday at 8, but the show's luster has worn off.

Almost as ill-conceived was NBC's decision to schedule Twenty Good Years at all. The geriatric sitcom, starring heavy-hitters John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor, misfired badly and was shelved last week.

MOST UNDERRATED SHOW: Criminal Minds

Pop quiz: Who stars in this CBS drama about an elite group of FBI behavioral analysts? About 16 million viewers per week could tell you it's Mandy Patinkin, but Criminal Minds may be the least-talked-about hit in recent years. Now in its second season, the series regularly ranks among the top 10 network shows. Lost may be a cultural phenomenon—and it still dominates in the 18-49 demo—but Criminal Minds has proved that it can beat the ABC show head-to-head in total households on any given Wednesday night.

MOST OVERRATED SHOW: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

The NFL and supernatural serial Heroes have brightened NBC's fall, but Studio 60 has been an unmitigated disappointment. Despite a big-name ensemble cast, big-name creator and huge pre-launch buzz, early samplers have fallen away week after week, and the show looks to be settling in at just above a 3 rating. Yes, the audience skews upscale, but it's never a good sign when a network keeps pointing that out. Most Americans didn't care about behind-the-camera drama the last time Aaron Sorkin mined that vein on Sports Night, and they don't seem to care about it now.

MOST SURPRISING TURNAROUND: ER

In its 13th season, ER has emerged from its midlife stupor to become one of NBC's strongest assets—yet again—prompting the network to kill its plan for a midseason hiatus. The modest performances of its competitors, new dramas Shark on CBS and Six Degrees on ABC, have certainly helped. “Clearly, the dramas against it are struggling, and we are benefiting from the tune-out,” says NBC Executive VP of Scheduling Mitch Metcalf. The show's dramatic jump in viewers coming out of game show Deal or No Deal has prompted NBC executives to joke that ABC's Grey's Anatomy may be the best lead-in ER has ever had.

HOTTEST GENRE: Unscripted

NBC executives may have backed off on the “Reality-at-8” mandate they touted as part of the network's plans to cut costs on primetime scripted series, but the point stands: Unscripted programs are potent and lucrative. From ABC's Dancing With the Stars to The CW's America's Top Model to CBS' still-strong Survivor, reality television and its relatively inexpensive production budgets are enjoying a second boom. And not just on broadcast. It surely hasn't escaped NBC that shows like Project Runway and Top Chef on its cable cousin Bravo and Flavor of Love on VH1 are attracting viewers and buzz to cable networks.

COLDEST GENRE: Serialized Dramas

With the number of new serialized dramas in the double digits, networks may be learning that they can expect only so much of a commitment from viewers. Heroes and CBS' Jericho may have hooked viewers, but the glut of similar shows (including NBC's Kidnapped), along with their limited backend value in syndication, suggests that this genre has overstayed its welcome. Meanwhile, the network sitcom has remained on the endangered-species list as another fall has come and gone without a new hit. Twenty Good Years is off the schedule, Fox's comedies haven't worked, CBS' The Class has underwhelmed, and ABC seems afraid to launch any of its own.

MOST SURPRISING DEVELOPMENT: The Success of Jericho

It's a show about American survivors of a nuclear attack. Like Surface, Invasion and Threshold—all of which bombed last year in attempting to tap into Lost's popularity—it has a sci-fi streak running through it. And of all the networks it might have found a home on, CBS is the least likely. So why is Jericho one of the best-performing rookies this fall and one of only a handful of new shows to be picked up for a full season?

If network executives knew the answer to that, they wouldn't have to launch so many new shows every fall.

LEAST SURPRISING DEVELOPMENT: Networks' Itchy Trigger Fingers

Network executives like to chide the media for prematurely pronouncing shows dead, but they are the ones tweaking shows' schedules—or cancelling them altogether—after just a few airings. “We are both probably a little guilty of rushing to judgment,” says CBS head of scheduling Kelly Kahl, whose network was the first to cancel a show this fall, killing Smith after its third episode. Says NBC's Metcalf, “A few years ago, we would have been more patient, but now, you just can't afford to.”

THE NEXT GENRE TO BE MILKED DRY: Game Shows

First, it was procedural dramas. Then, serialized dramas. Now, it's the game show's turn to be cloned ad nauseum in primetime. With the explosion of NBC's Deal or No Deal last year, the networks are falling over themselves to find the next hot (and cheap) hit game show. NBC just launched 1 vs 100, with host Bob Saget, and coming soon are ABC's Set for Life, starring Jimmy Kimmel, and Show Me the Money, starring William Shatner, as well as Fox's The Rich List. And that's just the start: A raft of ideas are making their way around Hollywood right now. Consider yourselves warned.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386366.html

In the NBA, it's
the year of the princes

This is the fourth and key basketball season

By Toni Fitzgerald
Oct 31, 2006

For years, the NBA has been pining for its next Michael Jordan. This year it may have found not only Jordan but also a Larry Bird and Magic Johnson to go with him, setting up the most promising season of pro basketball in years.

Tonight when the new season tips off, the trio of LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwayne Wade enter their pivotal fourth seasons in the league, a time when players traditionally begin to thrive. They’ve all reached a comfort level with the NBA playing style, taken on leadership responsibilities, and boosted their teams out of the lottery and into the playoffs.

It’s arguably the first time since Jordan, Bird and Johnson dominated in the late 1980s and early ‘90s that the league has had a threesome of star players this appealing. All three are mature, well-spoken and generous with their charity work.

For a league that’s had an image problem for years, with thugs, flakes and spoiled brats dominating the rosters, the emergence of these three could help the NBA become compelling again.

Already they have helped raise ratings. Ratings for last year’s NBA Finals, which pitted Wade’s winning Miami Heat against the Dallas Mavericks, were up 4 percent over the previous year to an 8.5 household average, not a big swing but notable since nearly every sport is trending downward.

The first two rounds of the playoffs, when James’ Cleveland Cavaliers and Anthony’s Denver Nuggets played, were up double-digit percentages on ABC and ESPN.

The NBA seems to realize how beneficial the good buzz around the threesome could be, and it’s been talking them up this preseason. The three appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Wade is the coverboy for GQ this month.

Of the three, Wade is the most Magic-like. He is clutch under pressure on court with loads of charm off it, and he’s excelled being paired with a former Laker, big man Shaquille O’Neal.

James proved during last season’s playoffs that the constant comparisons to Jordan are not premature. He nearly led the Cavaliers to the Eastern Conference Finals and had the third-highest scoring average for a player in his first postseason series, averaging 35.7 points.

Anthony had perhaps the best resume of the three coming into the draft, leading Syracuse to an NBA title his freshman (and only) year of college. But in his first two years, he earned a reputation for laziness and poor decision-making off-court.

Yet Anthony has matured rapidly the past 18 months. Along with James and Wade, he was named a co-captain of the U.S. national team this summer, and last year he led the NBA in game-winning shots. Duke and national team coach Mike Krzyzewski even praised his work ethic, and he was the only U.S. team member named to the FIBA All-World All-Star team.

The season begins tonight with the Chicago Bulls visiting Wade's Heat at 8 p.m. on TNT.

Meanwhile, in sporting event ratings for the week ended Oct. 22, Fox had seven of the top eight ranked on households with its baseball postseason and NFL regular-season games.

Fox’s late national games ranked No. 1 for the week with a 13.1 rating, edging Game 2 of the World Series with an 11.6.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8204.asp

The Business of TV
No settlement in sight between Time Warner and NFL Network
All-NFL channel not likely to be picked up by Time Warner
By Leighton Ginn The Desert Sun October 29, 2006

NFL fans hoping for a resolution in the dispute between the NFL Network and Time Warner Cable might be in for a long wait.

As a result, football fans in the Coachella Valley most likely will miss out on the NFL Network's eight-week primetime schedule that begins Thanksgiving night with the Denver Broncos facing the Kansas City Chiefs.

Although a month remains before the Thursday night schedule kicks off on cable, NFL Network spokesman Seth Palansky is resigned that his network will not be picked up by Time Warner.

"Time Warner has made it clear to us they will not carry our channel," Palansky said. "With that being the case, we're working hard with people who do carry us to have special promotions to offer service to those customers."

When the NFL negotiated its latest round of television contracts, the league wanted an additional package with key primetime games leading up to the playoffs.

The NFL was offered up to $550 million, according to some reports, but elected to keep the games for their three-year-old cable network to increase its visibility.

"The NFL is hoping to build a billion dollar asset in the NFL Network so it is important to recognize that this goal dictates strategies that have not been commonplace in sports," said David Carter of The Sports Business Group in Los Angeles. "As it builds toward this powerful and 'must have' channel, it will no doubt encounter challenges along the way and the dispute with Time Warner is one of these."

While satellite systems such as DirecTV and Dish Network and cable companies elected to pick up the NFL Network, Time Warner passed.

Time Warner officials say NFL fans comprise about 24 percent of its customer base. Rather than charge everyone the $137 million asking price, Time Warner wants to put the network on a sports tier, a group of networks that fans would pay extra to view.

"We want to be competitive on our basic, and we can't be competitive if basic absorbs the high price of the network, particularly a niche network," said Mark Harrad, the senior vice president of corporate communications for Time Warner. "We are ready to sign up today or yesterday, if it makes business sense. We haven't been able to at this time. It's not a matter of who will yell chicken."

Palansky disputes the NFL Network is a niche network. He points out that as many as 90 percent of the most-watched shows on cable have been NFL games.

This season, the NFL has drawn strong ratings for Monday Night Football on ESPN, Palansky points out.

As far as the league is concerned, football has a huge following that justifies the price tag.

And cable channels on tiers have generally not done well.

"It would be a significant reduction in viewers, depending on the tier and how much is cost," said Neal Pilson, former president of CBS Sports for 19 years who negotiated contracts with the NFL. "I would look at it as being a significant loss of viewers if it was on a tier."

The battle between the NFL and Time Warner has even been waged on the information superhighway, with each starting a Web site to publish their stands: nflgetreal.com for Time Warner and iwantnflnetwork.com for the NFL Network.

Neither Palansky nor Harrad are ruling out a last-minute deal, but Palansky said indications are it will not happen this year.

"It's always a concern about losing customers if the programs they want are not on your service," Harrad said. "But we feel the avid, hard-core fan deserted cable a long time ago when the NFL gave exclusive rights to their NFL package to DirecTV. That has never been made available to cable.

"These fans have been lost some time ago, but people can still get NFL games on our systems."

Locally, Time Warner Desert Cities has never carried NFL Network and spokesperson Kathi Jacobs doesn't anticipate a huge uproar.

"I suppose there is that possibility (of losing customers to satellite) I don't believe we will lose customers because we didn't offer it previously," Jacobs said.

Harrad also points out that Time Warner will still carry the same number of games it always has through coverage provided by the networks and ESPN's Monday Night Football.

Both Harrad and Jacobs said they have not received many inquiries from subscribers about the NFL Network. According to Time Warner, the NFL Network ranks 35th among all cable networks in popularity.

Palansky points out the NFL Network is only three years old and they are proud of their quick rise. Also, the ranking came out before live NFL telecasts began.

Pilson said the dispute on cable is nothing new.

One fan, Rancho Mirage's Harry Cordall, is upset over the dispute and has demanded to get NFL Network.

"I've been writing to them that if they want too much money, pay it," Cordall said. "Those who want it will gladly pay for it.

"I would love to have it. If they don't have it or not charge us, fine. We can drop Time Warner and pick up satellite."

http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061029/SPORTS04/610290339/1002

OCTOBER 31, 2006
The Programming Insider

Marc Berman

Prime-Time Metered Market Monday Ratings:
NBC Wins Despite Dim Friday Night Lights at 10 p.m.

Monday 10/30/06
Metered Market Ratings

Household Rating/Share
NBC: 8.5/13, CBS: 8.1/12, Fox: 5.3/ 8, ABC: 4.9/ 7, CW: 2.5/ 4

-Percent Change From the Comparable Year-Ago Evening (Monday 10/31/05)
(The CW is compared to the UPN’s combination of One On One, All of Us, Girlfriends and Half & Half; ABC aired Monday Night Football)
NBC: +37, UPN: +25, Fox: + 6, CBS: + 3, ABC: -55

----------

Note: The fast national results for Monday will be posted at www.pifeedback.com at 12 p.m. ET. Go to the website, click on Ratings Box (the first category), then Last Night’s Results and, finally, Monday, Oct. 30, 2006.

----------

-Yesterday’s Winners:
Deal or No Deal (NBC), Heroes (NBC), Two and a Half Men R (CBS), CSI: Miami R (CBS)

-Yesterday’s Losers (excluding repeats):
Friday Night Lights (NBC), What About Brian (ABC)

----------

-Ratings Breakdown:
Based on the overnight ratings (the fast national results will be posted on www.pifeedback.com at 12 p.m. ET), NBC moved past repeat ridden CBS, with an advantage of 5 percent. But the news was not all positive for NBC, with Friday Night Lights in a Monday 10 p.m. time period test dropping from first to a distant second (despite facing a repeat of CBS’ CSI: Miami), with erosion out of lead-in Heroes of a considerable 41 percent in rating and five share points. Heroes won the 9 p.m. hour with a typically potent 9.7/14 in the overnights, followed by Friday Night Lights at a 5.7/10 at 10 p.m. While this was a notable improvement for Friday Night Lights over its recent Tuesday 8 p.m. telecast (4.0/ 6 in the overnights on Oct. 24), Studio 60 last Monday averaged a higher 6.3/10 in the hour. Unfortunately, good family dramas don’t always have the luxury of finding an audience.

Earlier in the evening, NBC’s Deal or No Deal (which will benefit by being removed from the Thursday 9 p.m. hour) kicked-off the evening with a time period winning 10.1/15 in the overnights.

A night of repeats on CBS was down, on average, by just 14 percent in the overnights from original telecasts one week earlier. How I Met Your Mother opened with a 5.8/ 9 (#2), followed by struggling The Class (#3: 5.1/ 7), Two and a Half Men (#2, 9.3/13), a very funny installment of The New Adventures of Old Christine (#2, 7.3/11), and old faithful CSI: Miami (#1: 10.4/17), which still wins the 10 p.m. hour hands down despite facing original episodes of ABC’s What About Brian and the aforementioned Friday Night Lights on NBC.

ABC kicked off the evening with a repeat of Wife Swap at a fourth-place 4.7/ 7 at 8 p.m., followed by typical overnight deliveries for The Bachelor: Rome (#3: 5.7/ 8) and What About Brian (#3: 4.3/ 7) from 9-11 p.m. Does anyone even care about The Bachelor franchise anymore?

Fox’s combination of Prison Break (#2: 5.9/ 9) and the relocated Justice (#4: 4.7/ 7) was on par with its performance from one week earlier, while original episodes of UPN comedies Everybody Hates Chris (#5: 2.8/ 4), All of Us (#5: 2.5/ 4), Girlfriends (#5: 2.6/ 4) and The Game (#5: 2.3/ 3) built by 25 percent from a night of all repeats one year earlier. Although Girlfriends and The Game may be a vast improvement from former occupant Runaway, the WB’s veteran 7th Heaven was a stronger option at 8 p.m.

Don’t forget, for a more detailed analysis using fast national data, go to www.pifeedback.com at 12 p.m., click on Ratings Box (the first category), then Last Night’s Results and, finally, Monday, Oct. 30, 2006.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data


CBS in November 2006:
Programming Highlights

With the start of the November 2006 sweep just two days away, here are the programming highlights of note on CBS:

Series Premieres
-3 Lbs.: Tuesday, Nov. 14, 10 p.m. ET

Movies
-Candles on Bay Street (Hallmark Hall of Fame): Sunday, Nov. 26, 9 p.m. ET

Guest Stars
-Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio on Without A Trace: Sunday, Nov. 5, 10 p.m. ET
-Sara Rue (Less Than Perfect) on Two and a Half Men: Monday, Nov. 6, 9 p.m. ET
-JoBeth Williams on Criminal Minds: Wednesday, Nov. 8, 9 p.m. ET
-Kathy Najimy on Numb3rs: Friday, Nov. 17, 10 p.m. ET
-Roger Daltry (The Who) on CSI: Thursday, Nov. 23, 9 p.m. ET
-Wayne Brady on How I Met Your Mother: Monday, Nov. 27, 8 p.m. ET

Also of Note
-Paget Brewster joins the cast of Criminal Minds: Wednesday, Nov. 15, 9 p.m. ET
-Survivor: Cook Islands: two castaways are voted off on Thursday, Nov. 16, 9 p.m. ET


Ratings Box:
What’s Hot/What’s Not

-Morning News Update:
Meredith Vieira has, no doubt, made a seamless transition replacing Katie Couric on NBC’s The Today Show. Based on season to-date ratings through Oct. 20, 2006, Today remains locked in the dominant position, with an advantage over ABC’s second-place Good Morning America of 16 percent in households, 840,000 viewers, and as much as 22 percent in the two key 25-54 demos. NBC is on par with it’s year-ago delivery, while Good Morning America is down by as much as 14 percent. CBS’ The Early Show, meanwhile, remains marred in third-place, with losses of as much as 20 percent among adults 25-54.

What follows are the season to-date rating results for NBC’s The Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America and The Early Show on CBS.

-Households:
NBC: 4.4 rating/16 share (- 2), ABC: 3.8/14 (- 7), CBS: 2.1/ 7 (- 5)

-Total Viewers:
NBC: 5.69 million (+ 1), ABC: 4.85 (- 8), CBS: 2.64 (- 6)

-Women 25-54:
NBC: 2.8/17 (-10), ABC: 2.5/16 (-14), CBS: 1.1/ 7 (- 8)

-Adults 25-54:
NBC: 2.2/16 (- 4), ABC: 1.8/13 (-14), CBS: 0.8/ 6 (-20)

Source: Nielsen Media Research data


On the Air Tonight:
Prime-Time Programming Options

Tuesday 10/31/06

ABC:
8:00 p.m. Dancing With the Stars
9:30 p.m. Help Me Help You
10:00 p.m. Boston Legal

CBS:
8:00 p.m. NCIS
9:00 p.m. The Unit
10:00 p.m. CSI: NY (R)

NBC:
8:00 p.m. Friday Night Lights (R)
9:00 p.m. Law & Order: Criminal Intent
10:00 p.m. Law & Order: SVU

Fox:
8:00 p.m. Standoff (new time)
9:00 p.m. House (new time)

CW:
8:00 p.m. Gilmore Girls (R)
9:00 p.m. Veronica Mars


TV Tidbits:
Notes of Interest

-NBCU Renews Martha:
NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution has renewed syndicated talker The Martha Stewart Show for a third season on a number of leading broadcast groups, including the NBC owned and operated stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco; and stations from Gannett, Belo, Fisher and Scripps.

"We are thrilled with Martha's strong return to daytime television and the overwhelmingly positive response we have received from our local broadcast partners and viewers," said Barry Wallach, president of NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution. "Martha's fresh and lively approach to how-to instruction, mixed with the show's live format, has been a winning combination from the start."

Added executive producer Mark Burnett: "Thanks to NBC Universal and our station partners for showing such incredible support so early in this, our second season. We look forward to a third year of entertaining content, filled with great storytelling and how-to information that will make a difference in the daily lives of our viewers."

Season to-date (through Oct. 16, 2006), Martha ranks No. 10 out of 13 talkers in the category with a 1.3 household rating. Comparatively, that’s a loss of 24 percent from one year earlier. Martha also ranks No. 10 among key women 25-54 with a 0.8 rating in the demo -- down 20 percent.

---------

-Hallmark Channel Launches Two National Marketing Campaigns:
Cable net Hallmark Channel will support its upcoming slate of holiday programming with two national integrated marketing campaigns. The first will promote the premiere of theatrical March of the Penguins, and the second the original upcoming holiday movies including The Christmas Card (Dec. 2), What I Did For Love (Dec. 9) and Love’s Abiding Joy (Dec. 16). The campaigns will include on-air media, off-air national advertising, and an online presence at www.HallmarkChannel.com and www.Hallmark.com.


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

Technology
To the Media, YouTube Is a Threat and a Tool
By Yuki Noguchi and Sara Kehaulani Goo The Washington Post October 31, 2006

Media companies are of two minds about Internet video-sharing site YouTube, which rocketed to fame by letting users share homemade videos along with copyrighted clips from movies, TV shows and music videos.

They are unsure of whether YouTube is a friend or a foe -- a threat that could siphon off their TV audiences and ad dollars or a powerful promotion machine that could generate buzz for the shows. While users have had virtually unfettered freedom to post and watch whatever clips they want, big media companies are starting to reassert control by seeking removal of some shows.

If all or most of the bootlegged content disappears from YouTube, some users wonder whether YouTube can live up to the promise Google Inc. saw when it agreed to buy the site for $1.65 billion in stock this month.

Last week, Comedy Central asked YouTube to remove some copyrighted clips of its "South Park" and "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." At the same time, NBC Universal Inc. has opted to let copyrighted clips of its "Saturday Night Live" and "The Office" stick around on the site.

"Everybody is learning, in some sense, how to draw the line," said Rick Cotton, executive vice president and general counsel for NBC Universal. Cotton said NBC asks YouTube to take down more than 1,000 clips a month, including some that cross an obvious line by including an entire episode of a show. But NBC thinks exposing other clips on YouTube could help the network.

"This medium is at the cutting edge," Cotton said. "I think our creative executives feel that 'The Office' and 'Saturday Night Live' benefit from the significant attention we've gotten online."

YouTube is the most recent example of how the ease of sharing digital information poses copyright threats to media companies. Internet users can self-publish just about anything, including clips of popular TV shows that they record at home. Over the past year, the site has brought Internet video to the masses, drawing 81 million visitors in September, according to ComScore Networks Inc. Now, as more people spend more time watching video on the Web, companies such as NBC are looking to YouTube to help figure out the future of television.

Not all networks are open-minded about YouTube. Last week, a group representing Japanese authors and copyright holders reportedly asked YouTube to take down 30,000 videos. News Corp. also toes a hard line, asking the site to take down all infringing content.

Comedy Central and its parent company, Viacom Inc., declined to comment on the request it made to YouTube last week. A spokeswoman for YouTube, Julie Supan, also declined to comment on the Comedy Central removals.

But thousands of clips from Comedy Central shows remained on YouTube yesterday, including ones from "South Park" and "The Daily Show."

One of YouTube's challenges is that some media companies haven't developed a unified policy on how to deal with violations of their copyrighted material, according to Supan, YouTube's senior marketing director.

"On one phone call, we're getting asked to remove the content. The next one is from a marketing team from the same company who is uploading it and asking where it is" on the Web site, she said.

Six of the top 20 most-watched videos on YouTube.com as of yesterday came from movies, TV shows, commercials or music videos. Viewed more than 5 million times each, they include clips from NBC's "America's Got Talent," the movie "Napoleon Dynamite" and Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" music video.

Posting copyrighted clips violates the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But under that law, YouTube and similar sites cannot be held liable if they have a mechanism for taking down copyrighted materials "expeditiously." YouTube said it plans to launch technology that will help it automatically identify copyrighted content. Rival site Guba, which has about 2 million monthly users, has its own filtering technology that blocks copyrighted goods from being posted more than once.
Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University, predicted that content owners will find a middle ground between yanking everything and letting YouTube users have free reign. "It would in some ways be a suicide pact for them to take down everything, because they would lose the attention" that the Web generates, he said.

Already, NBC, CBS, Warner Music and others have inked deals to provide YouTube with officially sanctioned videos. In some cases, YouTube is sharing ad revenue with content owners.

Not all YouTube users see copyrighted content as the main attraction of the site, where users post more than 100,000 clips daily.

Rebeccah Snyder, a 26-year-old college student from Ypsilanti, Mich., is a regular contributor who posts videos of herself talking about her life. "I was never on [YouTube] looking for the 'South Park' episodes or the jokes from 'The Colbert Report,' " Synder said. "It's always been a community thing."

But for many, the TV shows are the big draw.

Lawrence Lee, a 22-year-old who lives in Arlington, has posted "Daily Show" clips to YouTube and doesn't worry too much about copyright infringement. "There's been such a separation from my generation in that area. Not many people are as concerned about the copyright issue," Lee said. "People want to have entertainment. People want to share their experience with their friends. This is not really going to change all that much until [TV] networks get behind using this new technology to push their media out."

Another user, Jeff Reifman, said he was upset to discover that clips he and others had posted of "The Daily Show" were removed Friday.

Reifman said he had felt comfortable posting clips after the show's star, Jon Stewart, seemed to endorse video sharing in an interview with Wired magazine.

Removing its fare from YouTube is a move Comedy Central will come to regret, Reifman said. "All the people who posted videos are volunteer marketers for Comedy Central," he said. "The network benefits from people talking about their programming, becoming the water-cooler chatter at the office. They've shot themselves in the foot."

Some companies apparently recognize the appeal of illicitly copied videos and try to make their material look pirated to generate excitement among users.

Nike Inc., for example, posted the same short video of soccer star Ronaldinho on YouTube, once under the user name "nikesoccer" and again under the "joeB" moniker. Nike spokeswoman Morgan Shaw acknowledged that the company posts videos under different names to appeal to teen audiences.

"It's really, really common" for companies to try to pose as average users, YouTube's Supan said, adding that the company encourages TV and movie studios and big advertisers to upload videos under their company names. "Users want to know it's legitimate content."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001198.html