Speaking of Friday Night Lights, apparently NBC is going to run a day-long marathon of all the episodes shown to date this upcoming Saturday from 9AM to 7PM on Bravo as well as three episodes this Wednesday on NBC. VCR/DVR Alert! :)

TV Notebook
Field of Dreams
Beloved 'Friday Night' Gets Second Chance on Wednesdays
By Paige Albinak, New York Post December 24, 2006

Even though "Friday Night Lights" has yet to attract a wide audience, critics have praised the NBC show's gritty ambience and the feeling it gives viewers that they are well-informed flies on every football player's wall.

Every scene of the show is shot on location in Austin, Texas (the show's fictitious town is Dillon, Texas). For example, the Dillon Panthers' football field is real.

"It was a very difficult to find a field to shoot in because it is now football season in Austin," says Jason Katims, one of the show's executive producers. "But we found one that was not being used and we were able to make a deal to use it for the show. We had to do major renovations to it -- new turf, new scoreboard, new lights, new stands."

The football field also came complete with a field house, coach's office, weight room and locker room, all of which are used as some of the show's main sets.

To make these authentic locations come to life, "Friday Night Lights" films with a documentary-style approach. Camera operators use hand-held cameras equipped with telescopic lenses which makes the all-important nighttime football games look like the real deal and allows the actors to turn in more realistic performances because they are focused on playing the game and not worrying about hitting their marks while shooting.

"Actors like this style of filmmaking because they don't have to do scenes over and over again just to get all the angles covered," says Sarah Aubrey, another executive producer. "As a result, I think the material stays very fresh and there's a real lack of preciousness about it. There's not someone constantly saying, 'Cut,' and then someone else showing up to fix the make up and the props."

In fact, the actors don't rehearse, says Katims. "The actors come on the set and start doing the scene. As the scene evolves and develops, they are free to change their blocking.

"We're not spoon-feeding the audience," Katims adds. "We don't always linger on a moment they way you often do in a television drama. We just put it out there and then let the audience decide what they think about something."

The cast has clearly taken to the show's improvisational style. Kyle Chandler (Coach Eric Taylor) and Connie Britton (Tami Taylor) sit at the show's center, throwing off sparks as one of prime time's sexiest husband-and-wife combos. Chandler infuses the confident Taylor with compassion, and Britton balances him with sass.

The rest of "Friday Night Light'"s cast is composed of gorgeous but largely untested kids. The show spends a lot of time with the teenagers both on and off the field, exploring what drives them to excel and what holds them back.

"We had a fantastic casting director named Linda Lowy, who also cast ABC's 'Grey's Anatomy,'" says Aubrey. "When you are working with raw talent, and especially kids, even if they do a good audition, they have to have depth so they have somewhere to go. Some people come in and kill an audition and they don't have more layers than that. Linda was very smart about [steering] us toward people who had that depth."

As the Panthers' star running back Brian "Smash" Williams, Carnegie Mellon graduate Gaius Charles, charms as the team's boastful spokesman who has something to hide. Scott Porter plays Jason Street, the one-time star quarterback who was paralyzed on the field after one bad tackle. Former Abercrombie and Fitch model Taylor Kitsch is Tim Riggins, the player with problems at home who's only started to live up to his on-field potential. And Zach Gilford is the struggling sophomore quarterback Matt Saracen, who suddenly finds himself center stage after Street's accident.

Unlike the film on which the show is based, "Friday Night Lights" focuses on the women as well.

"I was very interested in exploring the lives of the girls and the women who live in this place where high-school football hangs over them at every turn," says Aubrey.

The show's female cast members, including Minka Kelly as head cheerleader Lyla Garrity, Adrianne Palicki as bad-girl Tyra Collete and Aimee Teegarden as the Taylors' daughter, Julie – give the show much-needed emotional dimension. Lyla is dealing with the social consequences of her affair with Riggins after her boyfriend's accident, while Julie is defying her parents in order to date the timid Saracen.

Thus far, the show has not fared especially well in the ratings, but NBC has showed its faith in the series by picking up a full season and then moving away it from Fox's steamroller "American Idol," and into a new time period on Wednesdays at 8 p.m., starting Jan. 10. There's also a marathon airing on NBC and Bravo this week.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

Wednesday, 8-11 p.m., NBC

Saturday, 9 a.m. – 7 p.m., Bravo

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12242006/tv/field_of_dreams_tv_paige_albiniak.htm

HDTV Notebook
Signals unclear to hi-definition buyers
Prices down, sales up ... but headaches abound
By Michael Schneider Variety.com Dec. 24, 2006

U.S. consumers were high on high-def this holiday season, purchasing digital TVs (particularly plasma and LCD models) in record numbers. But that doesn't mean they understand how those pricy sets work.

"People know what 'digital' means, but they're being asked to remember all these obscure terms," says Matt Swanston, director of business analysis at the Consumer Electronics Assn. "They could learn so much more about HDTV."

Like how to actually watch HDTV on those HD sets. It's not as easy as you'd think.

"People understand why they want an HD or digital set, (but) relatively few understand everything that needs to happen from the source to their set," says Swanston, who notes that consumers are used to bringing home new electronics devices and simply plugging them in.

"Unlike the cell phone or DVD player, they tend to need more," he says. "Your CD player had everything on board. But a high-def display is dependent on external sources. And that's where consumer understanding drops off."

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117956255&categoryid=14

I consider myself educated in high-definition from what I've learned here at AVS Forum as well as my experience working on television since 1996. But guess what? Even I have trouble keeping up with the terminology, meanings and how they translate into a pleasant HD viewing experience. And the CE's/studios expect that a nation of couch potatoes that were never able to make their VCR's stop flashing "12:00" embrace and understand HD? Ha! :rolleyes:

TV Notebook
Who's shouting now?
The opinionated Fox News Channel is giving ground to increasingly noisy competitors
By Nick Madigan, Baltimore Sun December 24, 2006

Ever since Fox News Channel, founded in 1996, proved that news delivered with attitude, opinion and even belligerence could wipe the clock of just about any competitor, CNN - once the undisputed leader of the cable news pack - and a handful of smaller channels have been struggling to find a formula that brings in the same kind of numbers.

Now, CNN and the others appear to have found an answer. Virtually all the competitors are slashing at the Fox ratings lead by offering their own versions of noisy and opinionated news. CNN has been closing on Fox and the others, including MSNBC and CNBC, have on occasion closed on CNN. They're all doing it by delivering the news with a strong personal flair.

The most salient examples of the trend are Headline News's Glenn Beck, who is showing the fastest-rising ratings of anyone on cable news; Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's pugnacious but cerebral resident lefty; his colleague Chris Matthews, long an opponent of the Iraq war who was recently off the air because of illness but who remains very much in the mix; Nancy Grace, whose acerbic, finger-wagging style on Headline News is aimed primarily at miscreants and their lawyers; and, on CNBC, the manic money maven Jim Cramer, whose flailing arms and booming delivery is sheer entertainment for stock-market players who don't mind being shouted at.

The shift toward all-opinion, all-the-time is also working on CNN for Lou Dobbs, who never tires of pushing protectionist views that have won him fans as well as critics. The somewhat stodgy Dobbs unabashedly labels his show "news, debate and opinion."

The shakeout among the main cable news networks is all the more notable for the audience losses at Fox News Channel, which has suffered a 21 percent decline in total viewers when compared to the fourth quarter of 2005. Its biggest star, Bill O'Reilly, virtually invincible for much of the Bush administration's tenure, has also lost a significant number of viewers in the past year as the administration's fortunes have waned, its Iraq policy in shambles and its midterm electoral defeats conclusive.

Overall, though, O'Reilly remains the king of cable, ahead of CNN's Larry King and the target of almost relentless invective from MSNBC's Olbermann, who cheerfully describes O'Reilly as "the worst person in the world."

O'Reilly, quick to take offense from any challenge to his bedrock conservative views, is equally dismissive of Olbermann. Watching the two go after each other is a spectator sport.

A spokeswoman for Fox, Irena Briganti, refused to make available for comment any of the network's executives or on-air personalities, writing in an e-mail message that there was "no reason" for Fox to contribute to a story that would include CNN and MSNBC.

She wrote also that both networks remain "in a death struggle for second place" behind Fox.

"Fox is still No. 1 thanks to O'Reilly," said Brian Stelter, who covers the industry on his TVNewser.com blog. "Without him, it would still be very competitive between CNN and Fox. Maybe the upstarts are starting to act a little more like Fox did, when Fox was David to CNN's Goliath. But now that Fox is Goliath, MSNBC and Headline News are starting to throw stones - or pebbles, at least."

Stelter was particularly impressed with the rise of Dobbs on CNN, "to the point where he occasionally beats Brit Hume on Fox." On Dec. 11, Stelter said, Dobbs even came in ahead of his CNN colleague Larry King, who normally trounces everyone on cable news except O'Reilly.

"I'd be worried if I were Fox," said Stelter about the surge by Dobbs, Olbermann, Beck and others whose numbers have been showing signs of momentum.

For the past decade, since Fox News Channel began broadcasting, there was always a ratings formula that seemed to describe the war between CNN, FNC and their distant challengers.

"It was 1 Fox equals 2 CNN, and 1 CNN equals 2 MSNBC," Stelter said. "Now it's not so simple any more. About half the time, MSNBC is beating CNN in the demo."

By "the demo," Stelter means the 25-to-54 age demographic that advertisers covet, and whose viewing habits are therefore the most studied.

Those are some of the same people who tend to watch Comedy Central's fake-news king, Jon Stewart - along with his late-night cohort, Stephen Colbert - and consider them the oracles of what's wrong and hypocritical in both media and government.

Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, said MSNBC's recent rise in audience numbers, largely because of Olbermann, is propelled by what he called "the Jon Stewart audience."

Olbermann's show, Countdown, is "informative, edgy and funny, and it respects its audience," said Kaplan, who found it remarkable that "Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert set a standard now."

Kaplan is distressed at the changes at Headline News, which, in the evenings, has become the op-ed page to CNN's hard-news shows.

"They used to be like the best AM radio news stations, in that you could turn them on at any time and get a fill of the headlines and hard news," Kaplan said of Headline News. "But now it's the same talking heads and ideologues and bullies as all the rest."

Kaplan was no kinder to CNN, where he appreciates only the midday feed from CNN International in London. "It's an hour of competently done international news done by professionals," he said.

Kaplan may have been on the mark with his criticism of the gravitas-free CNN anchor Tony Harris, who sometimes snickers his way through interviews. Kaplan said the network's morning shows "suffer from the same happy-talk disease that the broadcast networks have discovered is the key to ratings."

On the other hand, CNN's curmudgeonly Jack Cafferty is appealing because, Kaplan said, "he's become the truth teller, the guy who says, 'How dumb do they think we are?'

"It used to be more of a crank act," Kaplan said, referring to Cafferty. "But you get the sense now that there's more depth, a greater stake in the outcome. He's not just cynical. He's rooting for change."

On election night, CNN won the ratings race, concurrent with the Democratic gains in Congress.

"Fox did not do well in the elections," said Diedtra Henderson, a reporter in the Washington bureau of The Boston Globe and an avid election-watcher. "CNN's numbers were huge. CNN even took out full-page ads in The New York Times saying they were No. 1. Fox couldn't deal with the reality of the news, and CNN benefited because it was seen as bipartisan. CNN called races faster, while Fox anchors were arguing with guests."

Jonathan Klein, president of CNN's U.S. operations, said it was "clear that Fox has lost the pulse of the country."

Klein, who ditched the amiable anchor Aaron Brown a year ago in favor of the hustle-and-bustle Anderson Cooper, said Fox finds itself a victim of its almost unwavering support for the Bush administration, no matter what the reality in Iraq or elsewhere.

"The war is going badly and it's made people turn away from flag-waving, sloganeering and spin and it's made the audience seek out answers," Klein said. "They want insight. The audience is increasingly on to the fact that Fox is giving people the administration party line."

Klein cited as an example FNC's use of the slogan "New Way Forward" to identify Bush administration policy in Iraq. The slogan, Klein said, happens to be the administration's own title for its policy.

Klein said there other kinks in Fox's armor. A year ago, he said, Greta Van Susteren's On the Record had a 52 share in the ratings, against Aaron Brown's anemic 17-share on CNN. Now, Van Susteren is down to a still-appreciable 39 share while Brown's replacement, Anderson Cooper, is at 31, and catching up.

At MSNBC, Dan Abrams, who was appointed general manager six months ago, said he was thrilled that the network has found its focus and has become "regularly competitive" with CNN. "There's no question that in a competitive landscape we are the story of cable news right now," said Abrams, a former legal correspondent for NBC News. "We have shot up to a place where we are competitive. There's no question that Keith Olbermann is on fire; he's beating Paula Zahn on CNN in the key demo almost every night. From Imus to dayside programming to Chris Matthews to Keith Olbermann to Joe Scarborough - everything is on fire now. CNN has a lot to be worried about. CNN is in real danger of becoming the news dinosaur."

Not necessarily. Although growing, MSNBC's numbers remain mostly in the shadows of the larger channels.

Wolf Blitzer, whose daily Situation Room has come to define CNN's new, high-tech approach to breaking news, would not be drawn into comparisons with Fox, MSNBC or anyone else. "I welcome the competition," he said. "It makes us all better. If I play tennis with someone whose game is better than mine, I play better. Bring it on - the more the merrier.

"My attitude is, if I give our viewers serious, important hard news, they will come. We've got a news environment now that's dominated by two subjects - Iraq and politics, and they're related. And they're two subjects I know well. They play to my strengths, and I think that's why viewers are watching us."

The viewers of CNN, Blitzer said, are "news junkies" who "want some value" and "don't want junk."

Beck, a longtime radio host who was brought into the Headline News fold only in May, has seen his ratings increase since then by 84 percent among the most-coveted viewers.

"Crazy, isn't it?" asked Beck. "It just goes to show you how low our standards are. Who thought cable news would be fun?"

Then, turning serious, Beck said audiences "are hungry for news in a different way."

"Wherever you get your news during the day - CNN.com or Drudge Report, say - it's usually on the Internet," he said. "By the time you get home at night, you're already up to speed. Now what you're looking for is, what does this mean? You're not necessarily looking for outrageous opinion; you're looking for perspective."

Beck, who had over a million viewers for a special on militant Islam in November, said he was trying to avoid the "self-righteous, pompous shtick" common to some of his competitors, as well as the tendency to "put people in little boxes, yelling at each other."

"That's pretty much the cable news formula that makes you want to blow your head off nightly."

Trying to explain his on-air appeal, the conservative Beck said it is "not a left versus right thing," but rather "right versus wrong."

"It's the attitude that you don't take yourself too seriously," he went on. "If you think I'm wrong, please stand in line. I'm serving number 46 right now."

Referring to a new French all-news channel, Beck could not resist taking a dig. "I hear," he said, "that they'll show the white flag 24 hours a day."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/bal-id.cable24dec24,0,3063116.story?coll=bal-artslife-tv

Home Video Notebook
DVD-Isaster
Format Has Peaked - That's Bad News for Studios
By Peter Lauria, New York Post December 24, 2006

Bad news for movie studios this holiday season: Thanks to saturation and advances in technology, the DVD is dying.

Although movie revenues are expected to be up 5 percent and a strong slate of franchise films is set for release in '07, the most lucrative part of the movie business is flat-lining.

And a few developments last week threaten to not only accelerate its death but also to take a huge bite out of the movie studios' bottom lines next year.

According to Nielsen Media Research, DVD players overtook VCRs in U.S. households for the first time this year - they're now in some 92 million homes.

But Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator, is conducting experimental tests on releasing movies on-demand the same day they are released on DVD. If successful, the move could be extended to the company's entire 22 million-strong subscriber base. At the same time, big-box retailers Circuit City and Best Buy have reported year-over-year DVD sales declines in five of the last eight quarters.

Taken together, Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield is predicting that 2007 will mark the first year that consumer spending on DVDs declines domestically, which, in turn, is going to put a serious strain on movie studio profits.

"We suspect the risk to 2007 film industry profits is increasingly to the downside," Greenfield wrote in a recent report.

As Greenfield notes, in the last year Paramount, Sony, Time Warner and Disney all made management changes in their home-entertainment divisions.

"It is hard for us to imagine all of these changes would have occurred if the DVD business was vibrant," Greenfield said. "Rather, they are likely a reflection that the movie business is beginning to face the reality that 2007 is going to be a tough year."

While the theatrical window generates the biggest grosses for movie studios, it is DVD sales that make the most money. That's because box office receipts are split evenly with movie theater operators while studios keep all the revenue from DVD sales.

According to Sanders, Morris, Harris analyst David Miller, revenue from DVD sales can be as much as a film's entire domestic box office gross.

Small wonder then that, as U.S. households transitioned from VCRs to DVDs, movie studios rushed to release every film they could on the newer technology.

But now that player penetration is saturated and consumers have mostly completed buying their favorite films on DVD, "only the best film product will continue to drive sales as the U.S. market faces slower growth prospects," said UBS Managing Director Aryeh Bourkoff.

Though the $23.4 billion expected to be collected on DVD sales next year trails only 2006 in dollar amount, the 1 percent spending decline that represents is a far cry from the double- and triple-digit growth experienced since 1999.

Greenfield thinks the studios best equipped to weather the precipitous decline at retail are Disney, Fox and Paramount, all of which had successful theatrical releases due out on DVD next year or are less reliant on catalog DVD sales for revenue.

"Warner Bros. appears particularly exposed as it has a tremendous library DVD business (that has driven profits), and its recent film releases have been notably weaker than in the past three to four years," Greenfield said.

He is also concerned about pure-play studios such as DreamWorks Animation and Lionsgate, "whose profits are almost completely reliant on DVD sales, whereas the larger studios have other businesses to offset weakening industry economics."

Weakening fundamentals are a key reason why the studios have openly embraced new distribution technologies like iTunes and why Comcast was able to convince the studios to let it test movies on-demand, day-and-date, with the DVD release.

But as Greenfield bluntly states, "While day-and-date movies on VOD helps the cable operators sell digital boxes, we find it very hard to believe that this is additive to movie studio profitability."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12242006/business/dvd_isaster_business_peter_lauria.htm

TV News
Dizzying Adventures on the Anchor Carousel
By Jacques Steinberg, The New York Times December 24, 2006

For those Americans who still make a habit of watching the network evening news — and there are more than 26 million of them each night — 2006 was the year the (new) Big 3 fully settled behind their anchor desks.

With Charles Gibson named sole successor to the late Peter Jennings on ABC (after the network’s brief experiment with a dual anchor format) and with Katie Couric given custody of Dan Rather’s old broadcast at CBS (following an interregnum presided over by Bob Schieffer), Brian Williams of NBC was presented with the stiffest, most sustained competition since he succeeded Tom Brokaw in December 2004.

The first round, as measured by the so-called November sweeps, went to Mr. Williams, whose broadcast held its position as the most-watched of the three, with an average nightly viewership of 9.6 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. ABC, with an average nightly audience of about 8.9 million, remained in second place, as it has for more than a decade. And Ms. Couric — despite arriving on a wave of marketing hype that would have cost CBS more than $10 million had it not owned the network on which her endless promotional spots were broadcast — lolled in third place, as Mr. Rather had for more than a decade, with 7.8 million viewers.

There may yet be a horse race, as was evident during the week of Dec. 4, when Mr. Gibson very nearly overtook Mr. Williams, according to Nielsen. (That week, Mr. Gibson actually won among viewers 25 to 54, the demographic category of greatest interest to advertisers.) Thus far, Ms. Couric’s “CBS Evening News” has posed little threat to her competitors — though it is early, just shy of four months into her run.

For a brief moment in June, three months before Ms. Couric’s debut, Mr. Rather briefly returned to the spotlight, if only to say goodbye. He had already relinquished his anchor chair in March 2005 in the aftermath of a reporting scandal, but he had remained a correspondent on “60 Minutes” — though, he argued, in name only. Ultimately, he and the network announced that they had agreed to part ways, and Mr. Rather — uninterested in retiring at age 75 — moved on to a new assignment, with a vastly smaller audience, on HDNet, a high-definition television channel owned by Mark Cuban, who also owns the Dallas Mavericks basketball team.

As has been the case over the last two years, though, the most palpable buzz in television news was arguably emanating from a half-hour news show that was more fake than real — in this instance, “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, a spinoff of Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show.” In the spring, the program’s host, Stephen Colbert, touched off a cyclone of postings on the Internet (pro and con) after ribbing President Bush at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Speaking in character as a right-leaning Bill O’Reillyesque commentator, with the president sitting just a few feet away, Mr. Colbert needled the commander in chief over such sore subjects as the trajectory of the war in Iraq.

“Now, I know there’s some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating,” Mr. Colbert said, foreshadowing the results of a midyear Congressional election that was just a few months away. “But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking ‘in reality.’

“And reality,” he added, “has a well-known liberal bias.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/arts/television/24stei.html?_r=1&ref=television&oref=slogin

Critic's Notebook
Best of 2006: TV moments
The shows with the biggest buzz never happened
By Joanne Ostrow, Denver Post December 23, 2006

The biggest television moments of the year were those that never were: the O.J. Simpson "confession" interview on Fox, the Madonna "crucifixion" dance on NBC, the takeover of primetime by serialized dramas.

Just like the instant we all tossed out our old TVs and bought high-definition flat screens, they never happened.

Those figments of publicity offer a clue to the direction of popular culture in 2006: There are so many entertainment choices now, it's easier to get buzz than traction.

Katie Couric's jump to CBS produced more anticipation than long-term ratings. MTV's "Real World Denver" generated more blog excitement than actual viewership.

Meredith Vieira's ascent to "Today" and Dan Rather's sidestep to the mini-audience of HDNet were momentary blips. Charles Gibson got the ABC anchor chair, Rosie O'Donnell got the adoration on "The View." Nearly everyone, including Bob Dylan, got a show on satellite radio.

While CBS's "Survivor" made waves by dividing the tribes by race and ethnicity, in the end that development played out as no big deal.

The excitement around serial dramas, hailed as a turning point or even a new golden age for scripted TV, fizzled as "Kidnapped," "Smith," "Vanished," "The Nine" and "Six Degrees" failed to make it through the season. "Lost" slipped in both writing and ratings.

As scripted storytelling faltered, the Hollywood guilds campaigned to get union wages and benefits for writers of reality shows. (You didn't think all those reality shows magically developed plot structure, did you?)

The newly constituted CW fared well enough, rising from the ashes of the WB and UPN. The on-the-cheap telenovelas of MyNetworkTV were universally panned by critics and ignored by audiences.

On the plus side, "Heroes" and "Ugly Betty" proved it's still possible to construct an offbeat hit, as long as the stories are taut, the casting excellent, the direction clever and the timeslot tolerable. Two high potential underachievers, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Friday Night Lights," got reprieves from NBC. ("Lights" will move to Wednesdays in January to get out of the way of "American Idol.")

And the year's one TV catchphrase - "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" - wisely was retired by "Heroes" before it got old.

The welcome return of Aaron Sorkin, the reunion of Meredith and McDreamy and a first-rate season of "The Wire" gave reason to cheer; the ratings behemoth "Dancing with the Stars" and the ascendancy of cheap-to-produce game shows ("Deal or No Deal," "1 vs. 100," "Show Me the Money," "Identity") gave reason to fear.

The industry clambered aboard the streaming-video bandwagon.

As hits and videoclips migrated to iTunes and YouTube, the way decisions are made at the networks changed abruptly. Now podcasts get Nielsen ratings too. The popularity of NBC's "The Office" on iTunes reportedly kept that show alive.

In 2006, TV stopped worrying and learned to love its digital future.

http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_4881614

Cable TV Notebook
Cable turns tables
Networks seek to broaden horizons with originals
By Denise Martin Variety.com December 24, 2006

There's an old showbiz axiom that says stick to what you do best. But in 2007, cablers are adhering to another showbiz truism: Nobody ever succeeded by playing it safe.

In an ever-expanding universe, cablers are working on new shows that fulfill the triple goals of a network: a show that becomes must-see viewing, brands the network and spreads its success to the net's companion shows.

And cablers in 2007 will offer skeins that are very different from their usual fare. This could prove a tough sell, though, if auds struggle to match interchangeable shows with their ill-defined networks.

The male-skewing Comedy Central is starting a rare female-anchored show -- starring Sarah Silverman, no less.

Showtime is making a rare foray into historical drama. FX is working on its first family drama. And HBO is offering a show that's ... well, hard to describe.

While off-network series and theatrical movies are a cable staple, they're not the only way to get huge numbers. Look at TNT behemoth "The Closer," an original drama that grabs more viewers than almost everything on the CW.

The number of scripted one-hours has been growing in recent years, but things are about to get much more dramatic in 2007.

USA, Sci Fi Channel, FX, ABC Family and TNT have at least one hit drama apiece -- and each will unveil at least one more next year. (As FX can attest, a second or third hit skein can help cement a brand.)

Meanwhile, AMC, A&E, Lifetime, Spike TV and even MTV will throw down new contenders.

Indeed, cable has grown a crop of its own must-see TV that will return in the following months: a new (final?) season of "The Sopranos" on HBO, hardy faves "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central and no less than two "Flavor of Love" spinoffs ("I Love New York" and "Charm School"). And, of course, reality standbys such as cooking, home design and documentary programs will dominate the dial.

But cable excels when it shifts. A major change in 2007, in the wake of "The Closer's" success, will be the rollout of more femme-centered dramas.

Lifetime will unspool the Mark Gordon-produced "Army Wives," about spouses on a military base; Courteney Cox will play a she-devil editor on FX's tabloid drama "Dirt"; FX alum Glenn Close will return to the net to star in a courtroom thriller; and Holly Hunter will join Kyra Sedgwick as one of TNT's badge-wielding women in "Grace."

A cable power list of seven for '07 (in alphabetical order):

AMC's "Mad Men": What is an original weekly series doing on movie network AMC? Who knows? But chances are "Mad Men" will be worth sampling. It comes from Matthew Weiner, an exec producer on "The Sopranos," who says that the 1960s Madison Avenue-set story will revolve around a creative director for a ad agency hawking everything from cigarettes to political candidates. "There's certainly nothing like it on TV," he says.

Net execs say the project falls into its goal of programming that will flow into and out of classic pics like "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" and "The Apartment."

Comedy Central's "The Sarah Silverman Program": Laff net is hoping Silverman will work some magic on female auds when her show premieres. Not since the ill-fated "Wanda Does It" has the channel -- home to male-skewing "South Park" and "Drawn Together" -- attempted a female-anchored series.

Silverman's "Program" is the sort of sketch show that finds its star holding court with God, wreaking havoc in a wheelchair marathon and sending a homeless Vietnam vet into hysterics -- all to the strum of song. That is to say, it's the sort of sketch show only Silverman would attempt.

FX's "The Riches": Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver portray married con artists who take up the identity of well-to-do suburbanites, the Riches. In the cabler's first "family show," Izzard stars as Wayne Malloy, a father questioning the marginal life his family leads, while Driver will play his wife, Dahlia, newly sprung from prison and battling a drug habit.

FX excels at antihero tales. But unlike high-concept gambits "Over There" and "Dirt," "The Riches" scales things down to family-size intimacy. It's not unlike the familial angst that blew "Sopranos" into a king-sized hit.

HBO's "John From Cincinnati": Little is known about the tone of David Milch's new surf drama about a dysfunctional family. HBO says it's not a "surf noir," the description of the Kem Nunn novels that inspired the series. And insiders say the show even sports elements of the supernatural.

Whatever the case, Milch's script, co-written with Nunn, got HBO brass so hot and bothered that they quickly cut short Milch's acclaimed Shakespearean oater "Deadwood" so he could get started on "John." Show stars Bruce Greenwood as patriarch of the Yost clan and a former surfing star. Cast includes Rebecca De Mornay, Brian Van Holt, Greyson Fletcher, Austin Nichols and Matt Winston.

MTV's "I'm From Rolling Stone": It's no "Almost Famous." But for fans of MTV, this reality series, in which aspiring writers duke it out "Apprentice"-style for a paying gig at Rolling Stone magazine, features the best of the guilty-pleasure-inducing spats of "The Real World" and the fierce competition that's made shows like "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" addictive viewing.

Skein will send six eager twentysomethings through a gantlet of reporting challenges and deadlines. Show even features music mag magnate Jann Wenner to do some "Trump"-esque ousting.

Showtime's "The Tudors": You might think Showtime was a little late to the game, with its historical period piece arriving a full year after HBO debuted its ancient-times sudser "Rome." But whereas HBO's Caesar series was a true soap opera with plenty of intrigue among countless characters, Showtime's take on the early years of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is a focused endeavor mixing a high sex-and-betrayal quotient with performances from notable A-list thesps Jonathan Rhys Meyers (who shook his way to a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Elvis in the 2005 CBS mini), Sam Neill and Jeremy Northam.

Another reason to be hopeful: Showtime's got plenty of street cred these days, having earned high marks among crix for series "Weeds," "Brotherhood" and "Dexter."

TNT's "Grace": Holly Hunter will step up to the plate playing a complex protagonist in the upcoming skein "Grace." Thesp portrays an Oklahoma City cop turned cynical and jaded after her sister is killed in the 1995 bombing. She's visited by a petulant angel who offers -- or forces her into -- a chance at redemption.

TNT is shaping up to be the FX for women. While FX has made its name on testosterone shows like "The Shield" and "Rescue Me," Turner net has been beating the competition with "The Closer."

And execs swear "Grace" will not be the second coming of "Touched By an Angel."

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117956258&categoryid=14

Home Video Notebook
DVD-Isaster
Format Has Peaked - That's Bad News for Studios
By Peter Lauria, New York Post December 24, 2006

Bad news for movie studios this holiday season: Thanks to saturation and advances in technology, the DVD is dying.

Yes ... I suspect that there are a good number of folks (including me) who have stopped buying DVD's due to the increased availability of HD programming *and* anticipation of a working, "affordable" HD-DVD (a/o BD) format. ... The calm before the storm perhaps?

Critic’s Notebook
'Heroes' good, 'Lost' bad
By Doug Elfman, Chicago Sun-Times December 24, 2006

All year, TV critics have discussed the cinema-ification of TV. Some series really do look as good as movies, and a few are better than whole crops of films.

Certainly, "Heroes," "24" and "Dexter" fall into that category. In a year when some movie insiders say it's been a bad year for film, these are the shows that made 2006 a good year for great TV.

But before I get to my top 10 list for the year, I'd like to address which acclaimed shows do not make my list.

-First, "The Sopranos." It's well-shot and finely acted. It blissfully allows scenes to roll without music. But it was a bad year for the gangster soap. Many fans didn't like the dream sequences; I did. Others didn't like the gay mobster bit; I did. I really enjoyed Carmela (Edie Falco) traveling overseas and getting perspective. But everything else just fell flat, like the trash-can war or whatever that was.

-You also won't see "Lost" on this list, because it will be on my worst-of-the-year list. It is gorgeously photographed and admirably acted. But the scripts totally reek, and the writers treat viewers like chumps who don't deserve better. More on that at a later date.

-And as much as I respect HBO's "The Wire," I disagree with loads of critics who view it as a masterpiece. Yes, the pacing is even-keeled. Yes, it's bravely gritty and realistically paced. But the continuity is a mess, and too often nothing happens to advance character development or story lines. I stand by my review. It's very good. Not great.

Now, on with the good shows.

1.- "Veronica Mars": "Veronica Mars" kept me stuck to my couch every week during the second season that wrapped up around summer, but not the current, slightly disappointing third season. When the third season started, the mystery show got a new opening sequence (terrible) and the writers slightly narrowed the plots into fewer mysteries and characters (what a shame).

Last summer, creator Rob Thomas said he'd been convinced by reaction or possibly by network people that the second season was too thick with subplots and suspects. I think his conviction is off base, to say the least. That second season may have been confusing at times, if you didn't watch every week. But it was witty, surreal and post-noir in a way that sucked me in. It was so much fun.

2.- "24" It made me watch it every week, unpoint, instead of DVR-ing it and catching it later. I remember Roger Ebert once saying he doesn't use hackneyed phrases referring to the physical effects of a movie on him, unless that effect actually happened. Like, tingles up the spine. I try to follow that rule.

So believe me when I say watching "24" made my heart race on many occasions this year, as special agent Jack ran around Los Angeles, torturing terrorist suspects and stopping the mass murder of a city. Everything about "24" works. The characters, the acting, the plots, the pacing, even the music. Starting Jan. 15, we'll see if the next season can live up to the rapid, intense drama of this year.

3.- "Heroes": This could have been the cheesiest thing on TV. A drama about superpeople who awaken to their new powers? Doesn't sound especially interesting. But it is fantastic. There was the time when the cheerleader awakened from being dead and autopsied to find her body all cut up; she healed herself and ran away. There was the politician who suddenly, shockingly flew into the sky.

And Hiro, the time traveler, gets all the best lines, like "Save the cheerleader, save the world." He and his friend saw a painting of the future, where Hiro battles a dragon with a sword. His friend fretted. As usual, Hiro wasn't worried.

"I have to find that sword," he said.

One of the great things is the way the writers juggle plots, as in novels, with long prequel flashbacks, or short bursts of visions of the future. And then a character will die without warning, to keep us on our toes. What a blast.

4.- "Dexter": On Showtime, this show comes in at No. 4 on this list, but it's the series -- about a serial killer who kills only murderers -- that could, over the long haul, become the most classic series now on TV. It's filled with extremely entertaining contradictions. It's gruesome, yet the cinematography is luscious and lovingly filmed. Dexter is an emotionless creep, yet he's very charming, like a child.

And on a side note, the opening sequence is the best on TV. It's got closeups of Dexter, the killer, starting his day, squeezing the death out of an orange, and pulling his shoestrings tightly as if they were around someone's neck. If you don't have Showtime, do yourself a favor and rent "Dexter" or buy it whenever it hits DVD.

5.- "Family Guy": This is the series that makes me laugh the most. It's just the craziest, quickest comedy on now. I don't even watch "The Simpsons" much anymore. "Family Guy" is better. Way better.

6.- "Countdown with Keith Olbermann": It's a live-action, news and commentary version of "The Daily Show." It's funny, political (left-leaning but willing to take shots at dumb things that happen leftward, too) and smart. Olbermann and his staff ridicule Bill O'Reilly and others at Fox News, and give progressives their only place to see sociopolitical entertainment like this, other than Comedy Central.

7.- "30 Rock": "30 Rock" is very close to "Family Guy" in the laughs department, thanks to funny writing and the funniest person on TV, Alec Baldwin, who plays Jack, the boss of Liz Lemon (Tina Fey's). Here's just one funny bit. An actress Lemon works with had a bunch of face peels and stuff that gave her giant lips and red skin. The actress said she looked 10 years younger. Lemon said, "Even younger. You look like a fetus." Brilliant.

8.- "South Park": An old standyby, this continues to be relevant and funny, even if America has moved on from "South Park" fever, or whatever that was, once. I don't always agree with the social statements, but I don't care, because the show is so good.

9.- "The Loop": Here's the dark horse on this list. It is very funny. It is very, very stupid. It is the most underrated show on TV. Off the air since the end of its first season on Fox and still awaiting the start of its second, it's about a bunch of drunk people out of college, working awful jobs in Chicago and making fun of each other relentlessly. I usually don't sign up for that sort of show or movie. But "The Loop" is greatly written, directed and acted.

10.- "Nip/Tuck": "Nip/Tuck" had another good year of drawing bizarre, tormented characters who are good, bad and ugly. It's a soap opera for twisted fans of intelligent, demented people who are still true to life on various levels.

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/elfman/184486,SHO-Sunday-year24-TV.article

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

Have a safe and happy weekend everybody! I watched six movies in a row all day Saturday (Blood Diamonds, Letters From Iwo Jima, Rocky Balboa, The Departed, The Queen and Curse of the Golden Flower) which is easy to do in New York City where all the movie theaters are only a short walk or subway ride away. :D

Happy weekend to you, too, dad.

(And get some visine for those blood-shot eyes.)

As a native New Yorker, I understand your pride in the city.

But folks in the hinterlands have theaters which show sometimes more than a dozen different movies at once -- no subway, no walking -- except across the mezzanine to the new theater.

TV Notebook
Trump gets fired up, pumps `Apprentice'
By Phil Rosenthal Chicago Tribune Media Columnist Published December 24, 2006

On a conference call with reporters in May 2003, NBC executive Jeff Zucker was describing the concept of Donald Trump's "The Apprentice" seven months before the show's debut when someone interrupted with the question everyone had in mind:

"How much of a prize is a job with Donald Trump?"

Well, Zucker said, there was a six-figure salary, too.

For a few hot moments, "The Apprentice" was a big deal, and renowned New York developer Trump became an even bolder bold-faced name. His was a different kind of reality show, a program on which smart, accomplished viewers who wouldn't go near the cutthroat islands of "Survivor" or the virtual Skinner box of "Big Brother" actually could imagine themselves as fired-up competitors.

With its latest cycle set to begin next month, the program, no longer shiny and new, has the earmarks of having become a fixer-upper. The first go-round averaged more than 20 million viewers. The one that ended in June averaged less than 11 million.

NBC already has given the go-ahead for a seventh run, but that doesn't mean Trump and executive producer Mark Burnett, the man behind the resilient platinum standard for reality shows, "Survivor," are wrong to worry that their golden goose is laying ordinary eggs.

Their response, however, has not been that of business people confident in the quality of what they're peddling. Rather, they're acting as though the bottom has dropped out.

TV critics I know and respect tell me that from what they've seen of the latest version--relocated to sunny Southern California, the better to get beauties and beefcakes in their swimsuits--the show has been cheapened.

The humiliation of the worst reality shows has been embraced, with challenge losers not just at risk of going home but forced to camp outside the mansion where winners luxuriate.

Whatever patina of legitimacy this supposedly long-form job interview once had seems gone, and one can't help but detect a whiff of desperation.

Maybe that's why we've been getting so much of Trump lately in full-throated sales mode. You would think a billionaire--he's suing the author of a book that called him merely a millionaire for defamation--would be less concerned with what people say or how a TV show that should be a hobby fares.

But when your name is your brand, you tend to come out swinging. Trump speaks loudly and wields a big stick. Hard to believe that, unlike so much on "The Apprentice," there's no product tie-in. Louisville Slugger, maybe?

Rosie O'Donnell of ABC's "The View" last week was bluntly critical of him opportunistically injecting himself into a controversy at the Miss USA Pageant, though he owns the pageant, so it's his business. Suddenly, Trump was everywhere, giving those of us who don't work for him a hint of how much fun he is when he's ticked off.

"I'm worth billions of dollars, and I have to listen to this fat slob?" Trump said in one or more of the umpteen interviews he did to vent against O'Donnell, talk about Miss USA and, not coincidentally, tout "The Apprentice."

(An aside: For my money, Trump's Miss USA Pageant is missing a tremendous opportunity in not using this blow-up concerning unladylike behavior to reinvent itself as a beauty contest for the 21st Century. These things are utterly anachronistic in an era of Paris, Britney and Lindsay. Who cares how contestants would solve world hunger? Ask if it's harder to get out of a speeding ticket or into a hot club.)

The old "You're fired!" Trump often seemed a caricature, but he was a fun caricature. Now, not so much.

What he should have said to Rosie and about "improvements" for "The Apprentice," is what he said about Miss USA: We all say and do things we regret.

In October 2002, F. David Radler--then my boss and publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times, which sold its site to Trump for a tower now under construction--was honored by Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science. Trump was keynote speaker at the gala dinner.

"When David says something, you can bank on it," Trump said, according to the Sun-Times report at the time. "His word is his bond."

Radler has since pleaded guilty and will cooperate with federal prosecutors going after ex-pal Conrad Black and associates for allegedly looting the paper's parent company.

Working for him was no prize either.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0612240194dec24,1,2652498.column?coll=chi-ent_tv-hed

TV Notebook
Hallmark Channel: Movie-ing on up
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn”

Various dramas have swirled around Hallmark Channel, and I'm not talking about “The Christmas Card” and “Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus.”

There has been turmoil in the executive suites of the cable network named for Hallmark Cards, which owns it through a separate publicly-traded company, Crown Media Holdings. Mired in debt, the channel was put on, later taken off, the auction block. Some industry people have wondered out loud if there will even be a Hallmark Channel a few years from now.

On the other hand, Hallmark Channel just finished the biggest quarter in its history, with a prime-time Nielsen rating higher than that of all other cable networks save four -- higher than Fox News, Lifetime, Nick at Nite, and much higher than Bravo, a channel we go on about endlessly in these pages.

With a new chief executive, Henry Schleiff, on board at Hallmark Channel, I phoned him last week to ask what viewers can expect to see in 2007 on the air.

Sometimes it seems the TV business is one great big revolving door. Schleiff arrived from Court TV, which he ran for seven years and is credited with putting on the map through savvy marketing and edgy crime-themed programs (like the recent James Ellroy showpiece, “Murder by the Book”).

But Hallmark, as Schleiff noted, isn't Court TV. It's already well known and well liked. It's become one of the most popular channels in the cable universe. But it's not getting its due and that has hampered the growth of the channel, which was once known as Odyssey (and before that, the Faith and Values Network) before Hallmark bought a controlling interest in 2001.

“We have to do a better job, frankly, of getting the word out that we're the home of entertaining, great, fun, family-friendly movies,” said Schleiff.

To that end, the 10 p.m. reruns of “M*A*S*H” are no more. The classic sitcom will still air on Hallmark during the day, but the prime-time rights are going to TV Land. On New Year's Day there will even be a handoff, as Hallmark airs “M*A*S*H” from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the episodes' original, unshortened form, with TV Land taking over at 7.

From now on, said Schleiff (pictured), evenings on Hallmark will be “movie-movie, followed by a movie.” This week, for instance, begins with holiday movies, including a repeat of “The Christmas Card,” starring Ed Asner, at 6 p.m. Monday (all times CT). Then the rest of the week is Western-themed: “The Outsider” at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Confederate revenge fantasy “The Outlaw Josey Wales” at 8 p.m. Thursday and the channel's premiere of “Wyatt Earp,” the 1994 film starring Kevin Costner, at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Schleiff isn't interested in developing sitcoms or dramas. Some celebrity-hosted nonfiction is in the works. Overall, said Schleiff, Hallmark Channel isn't broken, and its financial distress doesn't reflect the quality of programs airing on the channel. (Parent company Crown Media, which is owned mostly by Hallmark Cards, recently sold off its film library to Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr. to pay down debt.)

Still, you get the sense Hallmark Channel is settling for a little less than the very best when it's putting a 30-year-old movie like “Josey Wales” on in prime time.

Compare that with Bravo, which now produces tons of new programming that connects with a younger audience, the kind of viewers that TV (and newspaper) advertisers want to reach. They are the tastemakers and trendsetters and if there's one thing Hallmark Channel fare isn't, it's trendy.

That may be one reason why Hallmark Channel doesn't get the same respect as other top-rated cable channels. And Aretha, you can spell respect M-O-N-E-Y. Cable operators pay for the privilege of carrying most basic cable channels. They have been Scroogelike to Hallmark Channel. It earns a small fraction of the subscriber fees for Fox News, even though Hallmark has a comparable audience. Even tiny C-SPAN, according to one study, wrings more money out of cable operators than Hallmark.

Without that extra income to supplement his advertising revenue, Schleiff knows he can't spend money on production and promotion. “We've got some work to do on the license fees,” he said.

That will be a challenge. Hallmark is a rare “indie” in the cable business, in that it's not owned by a media conglomerate, which would give it all kinds of leverage in negotiating rates. But Schleiff is betting that family-friendliness will give him enough leverage.

“Cable operators are under increasing scrutiny” from the government indecency police, said Schleiff, who notes that “salacious” fare like FX's “Nip/Tuck” have ignited angry e-mail campaigns. To the beleaguered cable provider, Hallmark can provide a shield from the more controversial fare on other channels.

“We're one of the few major networks that the family can sit down and not worry about,” said Schleiff. “I think that kind of predictability is a good thing.”

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2006/12/hallmark_channe.html#more

Critic’s Notebook
Last Gasps
What popped and flopped since dawn of 2006
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News Sun, Dec. 24, 2006

It was the year of YouTube, some inconvenient truths, ``American Idol'' and O.J. Simpson back on the loose. The still-defiant Dixie Chicks returned. Two wily veterans of the music wars came up with unexpected masterpieces.

The year saw the final words from Lemony Snicket, the death of a film master, a visit from a guy named Borat and the passing of one of TV's finest series. Katie Couric flew high, Mel Gibson had his ups and downs, Tower Records vanished and ``High School Musical'' became a cultural phenomenon. These are some of the moments that defined our popular culture in 2006:

Top pop of the year

There were other Web sites for viral videos, but the ultimate -- a sort of TiVo for the nation -- was YouTube. It resurrected dead TV shows (``Nobody's Watching''), revived interest in others (``Saturday Night Live''), helped jump-start careers (Stephen Colbert), damaged careers (Michael Richards), altered political races (the U.S. Senate campaign in Virginia) and created its own iconic figures and cultural controversies (Lonelygirl15, the Chinese Backstreet Boys). In the end, the popular site was gobbled by Google (for a snappy $1.65 billion) and could end up losing its guerrilla cache. But for one year, it loomed large on the cultural landscape.

January

America gets `Musical' When ``High School Musical'' debuted on the Disney Channel, almost no one over the age of 18 noticed. But millions of teens and 'tweens tuned in to the energetic, feel-good TV movie, turning Disney into the hottest cable channel, the movie's soundtrack into the top-selling album of the year and the cast into bona fide stars. Now, there is a concert version playing arenas, stage productions in dozens of cities across the country and a sequel in the works.

Million little lies Author James Frey seemed to have it all: His book, ``A Million Little Pieces,'' had received good reviews, became a No. 1 non-fiction bestseller and was blessed by none other than Oprah Winfrey. The only problem: Much of his inspirational memoir of drug addiction, crime, rehab and redemption never happened. When he appeared on ``The Oprah Winfrey Show'' to explain himself, the chagrined hostess treated him to a public pillorying.

April

Courting Katie For months, there had been rumors that Katie Couric, the star of NBC's ``Today Show,'' would take over the anchor desk on ``The CBS Evening News,'' becoming the first woman to solo anchor a network evening newscast. Rumor became reality April 5 when Couric signed a three-year, $45 million deal to sit in the chair once occupied by Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. So far, Couric hasn't been a big boost to the newscast's ratings, but it takes a while.

Mining Americana It sounded like one of those little projects that Bruce Springsteen fits in between big rock albums. But ``We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions'' was much more than that, with Springsteen injecting his rock energy and sense of showmanship into traditional folk songs popularized by Pete Seeger. Not only was the album a rousing success, but a ``Seeger Sessions'' tour -- with an eclectic and largely acoustic pickup group, rather than the E Street Band -- was a rare, must-see musical event.

May

An `Idol' moment You could pick any of a number of moments from the past season of ``American Idol'' to make a point about its transcendent popularity and the way it dominated network TV. With no disrespect intended toward winner Taylor Hicks, we'll go with the night in May when odds-on favorite Chris Daughtry got voted off, stunning the judges, Daughtry himself and seemingly much of the country. That his departure was talked about for weeks is a measure of just what a hold ``Idol'' had on America.

Return of the Chicks Three years after they talked smack about President Bush and the war in Iraq -- and incurred the wrath of country music stations, right-wing talk show hosts and much of their fan base -- a totally unrepentant Dixie Chicks finally came out with a new album, ``Taking the Long Way,'' and hit the road for a national concert tour. While concerts in some red state cities were canceled for lack of ticket sales, the Chicks did big business elsewhere. The album hit No. 1 on the charts and earned the group five Grammy nominations.

Out of office Officially, ``The West Wing'' didn't end its influential seven-season run until May. But that the seventh year of the White House drama would become its last was almost inevitable from the day John Spencer, who played presidential adviser Leo McGarry, died in December 2005. Spencer's death made it difficult for the show to continue and slumping ratings ultimately made it impossible.

Warming signs Who would have thought a documentary on a subject like global warming with an Al Gore lecture as its centerpiece would become a big hit at the box office? ``An Inconvenient Truth'' did just that, doing big business at the multiplex and becoming one of the year's most talked-about films. If Gore had been half as engaging on the campaign trail as he is in the film and during his appearances to promote ``Truth,'' he might not have lost the presidential election six years ago.

July

The other football Of all the sporting events this past year, just one had a cultural impact -- and it was one that went far beyond the confines of America. Soccer's World Cup gripped millions around the globe and, on a previously unseen level, made addicts out of Americans who previously had been lukewarm on the sport. There was a nice touch of diversity to the scenes of Americans from various backgrounds crowding local bars in the early morning hours to cheer on their teams. Plus one of the year's indelible images was France's Zinedine Zidane ramming his head into the chest of Italy's Marco Materazzi in the Cup final. It was the head-butt heard 'round the world.

Mel to pay It was a bad year -- make that a very bad year -- for Mel Gibson. In late July, the actor-director-icon got pulled over in his Lexus by a L.A. County deputy sheriff. His blood level was a snappy 0.12 percent, but that was only part of the problem. After the stop, Gibson launched into an anti-Semitic, profanity-laced tirade that got leaked to the press. Not even good reviews of his new ``Apocalypto,'' a stint in rehab and a skillfully executed effort at spin control could undo the damage.

August

Master of mystery Hard to believe but four decades into his career, Bob Dylan came up with one of his finest albums. Simple-sounding but complex in its emotions and ideas, ``Modern Times'' mixed jazz, blues, old-time rock and folk with Dylan-esque takes on God, politics and American culture. One track, ``Workingman's Blues #2,'' may be, when all is said and done, one of the most powerful songs the Artful Dodger ever penned.

October

`The End' game It may never have reached the lofty heights of ``Harry Potter,'' but the 13 books about the adventures of the Baudelaire kids written by Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler) won over a generation of young readers (and more than a few adults). In October, the series finally came to ``The End,'' satisfyingly resolving its long-running mysteries and making its final points about peer pressure and facing your fears.

November

Is Borat! Sure, Sacha Baron Cohen's ``Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'' -- now that's a film title -- is tasteless, offensive and, at times, just plain mean-spirited. But the faux documentary about a Kazakhstan reporter running amok in the United States also was hilarious, insightful and politically influential. It also struck a chord with moviegoers, bringing in more than $120 million at the box office. Even people who hadn't seen it talked about it.

An American original: Robert Altman did not go silently into that good night. To the very end, the 81-year-old was making films and planning to make films. And when he died Nov. 20, he left behind an imposing legacy of movies (``Nashville,'' ``MASH,'' ``McCabe and Mrs. Miller,'' ``The Player'') and television work (``Combat!'') that influenced and shaped a generation of younger filmmakers.

Game day In another era, fans would go into a frenzy over pop singers and movie stars, swarming theaters for a glimpse of their faves. These days, it's the latest technology that attracts the mobs, and at the start of the holiday shopping season, nothing was hotter than Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's new Wii. People lined up for hours to grab one of the new game systems, and entrepreneurs were reselling PlayStations online for double the retail price. Some shifty folks robbed buyers of their systems as they left the store. Now, that's the holiday spirit.

December

Towering inferno A moment of silence, please, for the passing of Tower Records. The record store chain was more than just a company. For a generation in the days before downloads and iPods, it was a place to hang out and talk about music, as well as to buy the latest albums and singles. But battered by the pressures of the growing Web economy, the chain filed for Chapter 11 and was sold to a liquidation company for $134.3 million. With that, Tower stores across the country started shutting their doors, ending an era.

THE HOT LIST

Gnarls Barkley One of the hottest albums of the year (``St. Elsewhere''), and the most addictive song (``Crazy'').

Abigail Breslin Finally, from the star of ``Little Miss Sunshine,'' Dakota Fanning gets some competition for Hot Young Actress.

`Civil War' A blockbuster series from Marvel Comics that pitted half the superheroes in the Marvel Universe against the others in a bloody battle over civil liberties and the nature of freedom.

Stephen Colbert ``The Colbert Report'' on Comedy Central is hot stuff, and the comedian's controversial appearance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April was an instant online classic.

Daniel Craig A blond James Bond? No way, they said. But Craig got the last laugh when ``Casino Royale'' pulled in more than $120 million in its first three weeks and got some of the best reviews in the history of the Bond franchise.

Miley Cyrus The daughter of the immortal Billy Ray Cyrus, she's the star of ``Hannah Montana'' and pulls in more than 2 million viewers on the Disney Channel. Plus her debut album opened at No. 1 -- against new releases by Fergie, Janet Jackson and Diddy.

Fashion world ``The Devil Wears Prada'' was the surprise film hit of the summer, ``Ugly Betty'' entranced TV viewers and ``Project Runway'' was television's most addictive reality show. Make it work, people.

America Ferrera At the age of 22, Ferrera scored big as Betty Suarez, the fashion-impaired but utterly winning young woman trying to make it in the New York fashion world in ``Ugly Betty.'' It's a classy, nuanced performance by a talented newcomer.

Jennifer Hudson She didn't win ``American Idol,'' and she was dissed by Simon Cowell, but her performance as Effie White in the film version of ``Dreamgirls'' is a winner.

Helen Mirren An Emmy for ``Elizabeth I,'' a sure Oscar nomination for ``The Queen'' and a final blaze of glory as Jane Tennison in ``Prime Suspect.'' Nice year.

`Heroes' The NBC show came out of absolutely nowhere to be the hottest and most-talked-about new series of the fall.

Rachael Ray Four shows on the Food Network, a new magazine, dozens of cookbooks and the hottest new daytime show since ``Dr. Phil.'' Plus, when you're loved and hated with equal passion, you've had an impact.

Martin Scorsese The crafty film director had his biggest hit in years by returning to the mean streets with ``The Departed.''

Meredith Vieira In the ``Today''/``View''/``CBS Evening News'' shuffle, Katie Couric and Rosie O'Donnell got all the attention. Vieira stepped into a tough job on ``The Today Show'' and handled it with class and style.

THE NOT HOT LIST

Kevin (KFed) Federline Yo, dude, the meal ticket has left the building!

`Gilmore Girls' Rarely has a very good TV series fallen so far so fast -- and really irritated its fans in the process.

Nancy Grace Lord High Executioner of CNN's Headline News -- and the most toxic presence in TV news.

Star Jones Reynolds The diva departed ``The View'' amid much uproar. Probably never to be seen or heard from again.

Michael Richards Chalk up the racist rant in a L.A. comedy club to the `` `Seinfeld' curse'' -- or some much deeper problems.

O.J. Simpson Do we really need to explain?

`Snakes On A Plane' The Internet can giveth (big advance hype) and the Internet can taketh away (bad word-of-mouth equals box office bomb).

Wesley Snipes Those federal tax charges are just a really big misunderstanding.

Britney Spears Dumped KFed (good move), picked up Paris Hilton (bad move), flashed the paparazzi and became an instant Web classic (really bad move).

Howard Stern Discovered what happens when your radio act is no longer free for the listening. Not quite reduced to a blip on the radar screen, but getting there.

Kaavya Viswanathan The 19-year-old author of ``How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life'' was the Next Bright Young Literary Thing -- until it turned out she lifted all the good stuff from Megan McCafferty's ``Sloppy Firsts.''

Yahoo Was supposed to be the force in original Web-based entertainment. Didn't happen.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/columnists/charlie_mccollum/16311669.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

TV Notebook
Field of Dreams
Beloved 'Friday Night' Gets Second Chance on Wednesdays
By Paige Albinak, New York Post December 24, 2006

The rest of "Friday Night Light'"s cast is composed of gorgeous but largely untested kids. The show spends a lot of time with the teenagers both on and off the field, exploring what drives them to excel and what holds them back

After finally catching up with the episodes i recorded, I have to say that the cast is universally great on FNL. The unknown kid actors are especially impressive considering the roles they have to play.

I wish this show was on HBO, where the gritty look and serious tone would be less problematic and hoping it stays on the air from week to week is less of a concern. I just cannot see the typical network audience wanting to sit down to this at 8pm on any week day, when other types of shows in this time slot are largely thoughtless fluff.

Critic’s Notebook
Best of 2006: TV moments
The shows with the biggest buzz never happened
By Joanne Ostrow Denver Post TV Critic

The biggest television moments of the year were those that never were: the O.J. Simpson "confession" interview on Fox, the Madonna "crucifixion" dance on NBC, the takeover of primetime by serialized dramas.

Just like the instant we all tossed out our old TVs and bought high-definition flat screens, they never happened.

Those figments of publicity offer a clue to the direction of popular culture in 2006: There are so many entertainment choices now, it's easier to get buzz than traction.

Katie Couric's jump to CBS produced more anticipation than long-term ratings. MTV's "Real World Denver" generated more blog excitement than actual viewership.

Meredith Vieira's ascent to "Today" and Dan Rather's sidestep to the mini-audience of HDNet were momentary blips. Charles Gibson got the ABC anchor chair, Rosie O'Donnell got the adoration on "The View." Nearly everyone, including Bob Dylan, got a show on satellite radio.

While CBS's "Survivor" made waves by dividing the tribes by race and ethnicity, in the end that development played out as no big deal.

The excitement around serial dramas, hailed as a turning point or even a new golden age for scripted TV, fizzled as "Kidnapped," "Smith," "Vanished," "The Nine" and "Six Degrees" failed to make it through the season. "Lost" slipped in both writing and ratings.

As scripted storytelling faltered, the Hollywood guilds campaigned to get union wages and benefits for writers of reality shows. (You didn't think all those reality shows magically developed plot structure, did you?)

The newly constituted CW fared well enough, rising from the ashes of the WB and UPN. The on-the-cheap telenovelas of MyNetworkTV were universally panned by critics and ignored by audiences.

On the plus side, "Heroes" and "Ugly Betty" proved it's still possible to construct an offbeat hit, as long as the stories are taut, the casting excellent, the direction clever and the timeslot tolerable. Two high potential underachievers, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Friday Night Lights," got reprieves from NBC. ("Lights" will move to Wednesdays in January to get out of the way of "American Idol.")

And the year's one TV catchphrase - "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" - wisely was retired by "Heroes" before it got old.

The welcome return of Aaron Sorkin, the reunion of Meredith and McDreamy and a first-rate season of "The Wire" gave reason to cheer; the ratings behemoth "Dancing with the Stars" and the ascendancy of cheap-to-produce game shows ("Deal or No Deal," "1 vs. 100," "Show Me the Money," "Identity") gave reason to fear.

The industry clambered aboard the streaming-video bandwagon.

As hits and videoclips migrated to iTunes and YouTube, the way decisions are made at the networks changed abruptly. Now podcasts get Nielsen ratings too. The popularity of NBC's "The Office" on iTunes reportedly kept that show alive.

In 2006, TV stopped worrying and learned to love its digital future.

http://www.denverpost.com/ostrow

Critic’s Notebook
Best of 2006: TV moments
The shows with the biggest buzz never happened
By Joanne Ostrow Denver Post TV Critic

Uhh, check post #19548 on this same page! :rolleyes:

Merry Christmas (Happy Holidays) everyone!!! :)

Cable TV Notebook
Comedy writers aren't laughing about 'Studio 60'
Some in the biz openly disdain the series set at a late-night sketch show.
By Deborah Netburn Los Angeles Times Staff Writer December 25, 2006

It is generally accepted that doctors hate shows about doctors, lawyers hate shows about lawyers, and so on.

So perhaps it's the order of things that many comedic writers appear to hate Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," the dramatic series about a "Saturday Night Live"-like comedy show. But is it natural for them to take such pleasure in it?

Take Ken Levine, a seasoned writer who has worked on "Frasier," "Cheers" and "The Simpsons." His blog, By Ken Levine, has become the hub of an online community of viewers who loathe "Studio 60," thanks to his running commentary on the first several episodes.

"After watching Episode 2 of 'Studio 60' I must let you in on a little secret. People in television, trust me, are not that smart," he wrote. "And they keep talking about how unbelievably talented that Harriet [Sarah Paulson] is. Have you seen evidence of it yet? I haven't. But then again, I'm not that smart."

One week later he was less forgiving, writing, " 'Studio 60' is like the Rand Corporation Think Tank doing a late night sketch show." (Sorkin could not comment on this article because he was on vacation.)

After its debut this past fall, many pop culture commentators were quick to predict the NBC show's imminent cancellation as it steadily lost viewers. But as "Studio 60" enjoys a midseason break over the holidays, with a full-season pickup and the confidence of its broadcaster, for now it looks like there will be plenty of opportunities for comedy writers to continue to riff on their anger to anyone who will listen.

Amelie Gillette, a blogger for the Onion-affiliated A.V. Club website, composed a recent post called "Aaron Sorkin Thinks You're Stupid." In it, she wrote: "So did anyone else watch 'Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip' on Monday? Did anyone else wait a day to write about it so their boiling anger could slow down to a more manageable simmer?"

The love-to-hate feeling is fun for some, profitable for others.

A few months ago, the Los Angeles sketch comedy troupe Employee of the Month put on a show called "Employee of the Month Celebrates the Comedy of Studio 60."

The tag line was serpentinely Sorkin-esque: "A sketch comedy show about a sketch comedy show in a drama about sketch comedy."

Troupe member Megan Lynn said the idea for an evening of sketch devoted entirely to "Studio 60" came about because nobody in the group could talk about anything else for weeks. "Honestly, we were just wasting so much rehearsal time complaining about the show," she said. "We thought, 'We can't shut up about this, other people talk about this, let's put a show together.' "

Lynn has a lot to say about what she thinks "Studio 60" gets wrong, but most important, she doesn't think the sketches are funny. And if the sketches aren't funny, then the entire premise of the show is undermined, since "Studio 60" is a show about the making of the funniest sketch show on television.

The original plan for "Employee of the Month Celebrates the Comedy of Studio 60" was to put on sketches that are referenced as being successful in the show, if not necessarily seen. "We wanted to see if they hold up as comedy sketches, knowing that they wouldn't," said Lynn.

So they put on a commedia dell'arte sketch that was said to have "killed" on "Studio 60's" show within a show, as well as "Nicolas Cage: Couples Counselor," in which an actor played a hyper, desperate Cage as a relationship expert, and the fake game show Science Schmience, based on the premise that religious people won't accept scientific evidence that explains the natural world.

Because Employee of the Month didn't want to make its audience sit through sketches they didn't think were particularly funny, they also had a backstage theme running with references from the show — Matthew Perry's character with a baseball bat, Nate Corddry's character talking about his brother being deployed in Afghanistan and Amanda Peet's character — a network president who got an inordinate amount of media attention because of a DUI eight years in the past — drunk and desperate for friends.

"We realized there was so much we wanted to make fun of," said Lynn.

Sorkin's "West Wing" was meticulously researched and seen as largely accurate about life in Washington: Did the auteur producer-writer raise the bar so high for himself that "Studio 60" is unfairly scrutinized? Is this segment of viewers in Hollywood simply too aware of what "Studio 60" gets wrong to enjoy the show?

One comedy show runner, who asked that her name be withheld, said: "The New Orleans crisis or the war has never touched my life in television."

"They never laugh," Levine said of the show's characters. "We laugh all the time. It is the one saving grace of the job."

"The fact that they don't seem to know how a sketch comedy show like 'SNL' is written, that needs to be remedied," said Joe Reid, who recaps "Studio 60" each week for Television Without Pity. "It doesn't seem authentic at all."

Gillette said Sorkin's approach to comedy just seems off. "He wants to get big ideas across and change people's minds," she said. "No comedians work that way. They go for the laughs first and the lesson second."

In contrast, all of these nitpicking writers and comedians seem to like "30 Rock," the Tina Fey sitcom on NBC that is also about the making of a "Saturday Night Live"-esque show.

"Even though it's essentially a cartoon, '30 Rock' is still a more realistic look at what behind-the-scenes life on 'SNL' is like," said Levine. "And it's worth watching just for Alec Baldwin."

Lynn said, " '30 Rock' isn't offensive at all.... When they do sketches, they're not thinly veiled opportunities for political commentary, they're goofy, 'SNL'-like sketches, which is appropriate for the show."

But a former "Saturday Night Live" employee, now a screenwriter and director who has stopped watching "Studio 60" and "30 Rock," said both shows gloss over everything that happens at the real late-night comedy show. "That place is so dark, they could never show what actually happens there," he said.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-studio25dec25,0,2144239,print.story?coll=cl-tv-features

Merry Christmas

to all

TV Notebook
Sizzling a Year Ago, but Now Pfffft ...
By Bill Carter The New York Times December 25, 2006

The telenovela, the steamy low-budget soap opera genre that has become the staple of television programming in Spanish-speaking countries, lives on its sudden bursts of uncontrollable — and loudly acted — passion.

Maybe that was what was burning in the hearts of network executives in New York about this time last year when, seemingly out of the blue, many of them announced a rush to begin developing a new form of programming for the summer: the American telenovela.

“It’s right to characterize what we were all caught up in last year as telenovela fever,” said Katherine Pope, the executive vice president of NBC Entertainment.

The ardor has apparently cooled. In the 12 months since news reports revealed that CBS was working on as many as seven scripts for telenovelas, that ABC had invested in as many as 45 existing telenovela storylines, and NBC was jumping in to adapt telenovelas already produced by Telemundo, the Spanish-language network that NBC owns, not much more has been said — or done. Not a single telenovela project has been put into production by any of those networks.

The networks’ intense interest in the telenovela genre was sparked by the need to find alternative, inexpensive programming in the summer to replace the round of repeats. Telenovelas are made cheaply in Spanish-speaking countries, for only a fraction of the $2 million to $3 million an episode that network dramas cost.

Once into development, however, financial realities began to set in. The networks discovered they would only alienate their viewers if they tried to make the shows of distinctly lesser quality than their regular shows. They also discovered that the production schedules required to grind out so many episodes in such a short time would be daunting. Most telenovelas shoot as many as 40 pages of script in a day; the conventional network drama seldom does more than about 15 (each page equals about one minute of screen time).

“The economics still have to be figured out,” Ms. Pope conceded.

ABC, has of course, added a new hit prime-time series called “Ugly Betty,” which is based on one of the most popular telenovelas ever produced. But nobody, certainly not its executive producer, Ben Silverman, considers the American “Betty” a true telenovela as the genre is commonly understood — that is, a stylized short-run series with a definitive ending, about 13 weeks long, broadcast in several episodes a week.

“We originally conceived the show as a true telenovela,” Mr. Silverman said, “but it got shifted by ABC to a regular hourlong drama series.” He added that the expensive look of the “Betty” series, which is set in the glamorous world of New York couture magazines, could never have been fashioned on the budget of a real telenovela.

“We could never have shot in New York,” Mr. Silverman said. “We could never have gotten a star like America Ferrara,” he added, referring to the actress in the title role.

Though versions of “Ugly Betty” have played as straight telenovelas around the world, in countries as far flung as Germany, India and Israel, the ABC adaptation is a regular highly produced, episodic network series.

If you want to see what an American version of a telenovela looks like, you would have to have tuned in this fall to one of the stations on the mini-network called MyNetworkTV (MNT), a collection of television stations (including Channel 9 in New York), mainly owned by the News Corporation. The stations were orphaned last winter when their old network, UPN, combined with its competitor, the WB, to form the CW network.

Not that many people have tuned in. MNT has so far tried four telenovelas, including one, “Fashion House,” starring the former sirens Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild (complete with catfight between them), and another, the current “Wicked Wicked Games,” starring Tatum O’Neal.

Running two episodes at a time five nights a week, the network has thus far made little noise with any of its telenovelas. Ratings for MNT’s telenovelas in the 18- to 49-year-old audience, the primary market for most broadcasters, have been negligible. They have been scoring about half a national rating point — or less — which translates to about 650,000 viewers in that group (compared with 8 million to 10 million viewers for a hit show in the same period).

“Obviously we’re not pleased with the ratings,” said Paul Buccieri, senior vice president of Twentieth Television, the production studio that supplies programming to MNT. (The studio is mainly the syndication arm for the Fox Broadcasting Company.) But Mr. Buccieri emphasized that the ratings have not diminished that network’s conviction that telenovelas would work with American audiences.

“We’re still definitely enthusiastic about the genre,” he said.

MNT’s experience has contributed to the slackening of interest among the big networks. Program executives at one network confirmed that the low ratings for MNT’s telenovelas put a chill on their own plans. Mr. Buccieri said that MyNetworkTV has learned many lessons in trying to make the form work, including adding cost-saving techniques like hand-held cameras. MNT has two more telenovelas in production to fill the gap when the current ones leave off.

Longer term, there are questions about whether the network can stay committed to giving up all its prime-time hours to the genre if the ratings do not improve. Reality shows and game shows would be considerably cheaper.

Still, if MNT connects on even one telenovela, it may reinvigorate the passion for them among the major networks.

Executives at ABC, CBS and NBC all said they still have some telenovela projects in development. Mr. Silverman, who continues to option rights to telenovelas made in Latin America, remains a firm believer. “I think someone should give it a shot,” he said.

Ms. Pope said NBC would almost surely stay in the telenovela game, for several reasons, beginning with its association with Telemundo. NBC owns the rights to all the telenovelas that play on that network (and that is almost the only kind of programming Telemundo does). If NBC did commit to a telenovela, it would shoot it in Miami, where Telemundo is based, finding economies by using that network’s studio and sets.

And then there is the interest of Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal Television. Ms. Pope said, “I personally believe we will definitely make a telenovela. Jeff grew up in Miami, he’s seen the form and he’s very dedicated to it.”

She added that many advertisers have also expressed interest in the genre and had indicated a willingness to sponsor a telenovela if a network decided to produce one.

“Ultimately, we are the best-positioned network to get one done quickly,” Ms. Pope said.

But not very quickly. “I’m not sure when you’ll see one,” she said. “It’s really unlikely anyone will make one as soon as next summer.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/business/media/25telenovela.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=print

TV Notebook
Past, present and … future?
Are Carson Daly and Ryan Seacrest engaged in a fizzy rivalry to replace you-know-who?
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times staff writer December 25, 2006

Carson Daly and Ryan Seacrest are roughly the same age (early 30s), have similar job descriptions (broadcasters/emcees-turned-producers with a pop-music bent) and even favor the same fashionably laid-back, I-didn't-shave-this-morning look. But Daly dismisses any notion that the pair is engaged in a fizzy rivalry to replace you-know-who.

"Dick Clark is a huge inspiration for the huge success he's achieved," Daly said in a recent interview. "But that's where I stop. The world is changing. I'm young; I have my own thoughts as a producer. I'm not trying to keep his tradition. I'm trying to do my own."

So, there you go: It's purely coincidental that Daly and Seacrest will be back Sunday night for their second annual New Year's Eve programming duel, which threatens to become an annual rite as the 77-year-old Clark — another broadcaster-turned-producer who made his name breaking pop-music acts in TV — continues his recovery from a 2004 stroke.

Clark, of course, has repackaged the Times Square madness for the homebound masses nearly every Dec. 31 since 1972, when he was considered the youthful interloper horning in on the turf of Guy Lombardo, the bandleader who popularized "Auld Lang Syne."

This year, Seacrest, Clark's heir apparent as well as Simon Cowell's sparring partner on "American Idol," will again do the heavy lifting in the booth for "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2007," ABC's 3 1/2-hour extravaganza starting at 10 p.m. The chief competition will consist of "NBC's New Year's Eve With Carson Daly, Presented by Chevrolet," which starts at 11:30 p.m. ("Presented by Chevrolet?" That could furnish Alec Baldwin's unctuous GE executive with a nifty little scene on an upcoming episode of "30 Rock.")

Last year's "Rockin' Eve" was Clark's first national TV appearance since the stroke, which he admitted to viewers had left him "in bad shape": "My speech is not perfect, but I'm getting there," he added.

Newspaper and blog opinion was divided on the wisdom of having the former "American Bandstand" host crop up on the show when he was visibly unsteady and sometimes difficult to understand; for perhaps the first time in his career, the preternaturally youthful Clark couldn't beat time. But his condition seemed to have improved a bit when he turned up for a short tribute at the Emmys in August, and he's saved himself at least a small role again on this year's "Rockin' Eve."

"He is the most comfortable and at ease when doing these shows," Seacrest explained in an interview. "These shows are like kids to him, his babies." (Seacrest speaks of "Rockin' Eve" with the pride of a scion taking over the family business: "It's a heritage operation," he said.)

But really, why all this TV succession drama on New Year's Eve? Can't the networks just take the night off? Aren't there too few sober people planted on their sofas for television execs to bother with, anyway?

To answer the last two: no and no.

Broadcasters started tussling for exclusive rights to the nation's No. 1 party night almost as soon as the medium was invented. Lombardo's radio telecasts from New York, which started in 1929, proved so popular that an unusual agreement was struck for CBS to broadcast the first part up until midnight, when NBC would take over.

The holiday's importance has since grown along with the media industry, which seldom misses an opportunity these days to lock down viewer loyalty. Last year's ratings make it depressingly clear that when the last night of the year rolls around, many of us still have nothing better to do than ... yes, watch more TV.

The one-hour block of "Rockin' Eve" that started at 11:35 p.m. last year averaged 20.1 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research — a large audience by any yardstick, and gargantuan by the standards of late-night TV. Daly's show, clearly the underdog, averaged 7.3 million viewers during the same period. That's still impressive when you remember that NBC's No. 1 rated "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" typically averages about 5 million.

Planting the flag on New Year's "really brands a network," said Tim Brooks, a TV historian and executive vice president of research at Lifetime Entertainment. "It helps promote and drive people to other programs. It's one of the things that makes networks special to people." And you can't get any cheaper programming-wise than training live cameras on drunk revelers at 44th Street and Broadway. Times Square on New Year's Eve might be the original reality show.

"Rockin' Eve" essentially consists of two parts: musical performances, some taped in advance, and the dropping of the ball, which viewers see live in the Eastern and Central time zones. The producers put a premium on big "gets"; last year Mariah Carey, the queen of mainstream pop, was the headline attraction. Sunday's roster includes the Carey-esque diva Christina Aguilera, country pop group Rascal Flatts and hip-hop queen Fergie. "It's a little bit of a circus," said Larry Klein, the program's executive producer.

Someday, Seacrest will presumably take over the franchise completely. But he's aware that at the moment the fancy car he drives is borrowed rather than bought. Of Clark, he said: "He and I have a great relationship. Whatever he wants to do, whether he wants to do more or less than last year, I'll do it."

Daly, former host of MTV's "TRL" and current host of NBC's late-night talkfest "Last Call," is going after a cooler, hipper vibe on his New Year's Eve show, which is decidedly not a heritage operation. The tunes will come from alternative rockers like Panic! at the Disco and OK Go, acts probably found on far fewer iPods than Fergie. The Daly camp doesn't take long to cast some college-rock aspersions at "Rockin' Eve:" "I mean, how many times have I heard Fergie sing 'Superlicious' or whatever she sings?" said David Friedman, Daly's executive producer. (Daly's cool cred isn't totally intact, though: Shortly before last year's show, the gossip blog Defamer leaked a transcript of NBC's script and then, for good measure, ripped Daly and Seacrest as "arguably talent-free.")

But the more important goal, Daly said, is to cover the Times Square party as a unique live story. So NBC will deliberately tone down the music to focus more on the crowds, the confetti, the insanity of it all. "There's this huge event happening that night," Daly said. "Why take eyeballs away from that?"

Of course, Daly has some way to go before his program poses a serious ratings threat to "Rockin' Eve." But he's willing to take the long view. After all, the odds at one time looked pretty bad for Dick Clark's assault on Fort Lombardo.

"It's about us staking a claim," Daly said, "and trying to build a tradition."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/cl-et-channel25dec25,1,2594227,print.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews

Godfather of Soul James Brown has passed away on Christmas Day: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Obit-Brown.html?hp&ex=1167109200&en=7b2c52eb394d9620&ei=5094&partner=homepage. Very upsetting to lose such a legend, one that shined on any TV appearance he did (even if it was in late night comedy shows via his arrest mug) as well as concerts and such.

:( :( :(

TV Notebook
No slowing down for this globe-trotter
By Gail Shister, Philadelphia Enquirer December 24, 2006

Tom Brokaw doesn't feel old enough to be a hall of famer.

"I don't think you think of yourself as being of that age," says NBC's Brokaw, 66, who recently was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Hall of Fame in L.A.

"You have to stop and calibrate your years in this business. (He has 44.) It doesn't make me feel old. For our generation, there's something called `the new old.' It means at 66, you play at about 52 or 53."

And if you're Tom Brokaw, you climb mountains in Tibet and go whitewater rafting in Chile. Without messing up a strand of your perfect anchor hair.

"Tom Brokaw Reports: In the Shadow of the American Dream" (8 p.m. Tuesday), about illegal immigration, is his sixth hour-long documentary since passing the "NBC Nightly News" baton to Brian Williams two years ago.

Brokaw reports from historically white Aspen and Vail, Colo., where an influx of Hispanics, mostly from Mexico, have taken construction jobs and filled the local schools, churches and clinics.

To Brokaw, America's "computer narcosis" is fueling the flood of illegals, making us soft and disdainful of hard physical work.

"Americans lead such `virtual' lives, we're not living real lives," he says. "We don't see anything in the popular culture celebrating hard work. It's all about flash and making big bucks on Wall Street."

Brokaw's biggest surprise: "There are very good jobs American kids don't want to take - $15- to $16-an-hour summer construction jobs I would have killed for in high school. They don't want to work that hard or do grunt work. They want computer work."

Americans have gotten flabby "by spending all our time riffing through Google and other Web sites. To what end? You're not going to solve the world's problems by hitting the delete button. You're not going to solve Islamic rage by clicking `help' on the toolbar."

Back to the Hall of Fame, where Brokaw's fellow inductees included famed director James Burrows ("Cheers"), daytime yakker Regis Philbin, and actor William Shatner. Exiled CBS anchor Dan Rather was inducted in 2004; ABC's late Peter Jennings has yet to make the cut.

"I'm not a big awards person," Brokaw says. "This one, I suppose, is kind of a capstone, particularly since it was awarded in California, where my network career began (at NBC-owned KNBC in L.A.) and (former NBC chairman) Grant Tinker was in the audience."

Even with his vigorous lifestyle and circle of younger friends, Brokaw insists he's in no danger of becoming hip. His three grown daughters are, though, and they give tips to the old man, he says.

"When I was a young man, I thought 66-year-olds dressed differently," Brokaw muses. "Now I dress like my kids. I wear running shorts. I wear jeans a lot. I stay younger because the culture is more accessible, in a way."

Despite repeated efforts to cut back his globe-trotting schedule, he shows no signs of slowing down.

Two weeks ago, the "Greatest Generation" author was keynote speaker at the 65th-

anniversary ceremonies at Pearl Harbor. This week, he'll be inducted into another Hall of Fame - at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

Next month, Brokaw and his wife, Meredith, will track gorillas in Rwanda. In July, he'll be in Alaska to report on global warming.

"I don't think about being 66 now," he says. "But sometimes, I wake up with a start and think, `God, 66, I can't believe it."

IN THE SHADOW OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

What: Tom Brokaw looks at the debate over immigration and its impact on the economy.
Where: NBC (Channel 4).
When: 8 p.m. Tuesday.

http://www.dailynews.com/tv/ci_4896148

(Reality) TV Notebook
Rural mothers are learning lines for TV
In depressed areas of the Midwest and South, stay-at-home workers happily transcribe reality show footage
By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times December 25, 2006

SWEET SPRINGS, MO. — When Marsha Snider tried to find a job earlier this year near this rural town of 1,550, she vied with hundreds of unemployed factory workers in the region — all hungry for a way to help their families make ends meet.

But a few months ago, the mother of six found opportunity in an unexpected place: Hollywood.

Now, she sits in front of her computer and spends her days transcribing thousands of hours of raw videotape footage filmed by the producers of reality TV shows — noting every verbal gaffe, random profanity and blush-inducing act.

The producers then use Snider's transcriptions as a way of sifting a mountain of location footage, and begin to piece together the show's story line.

"I never used to watch those shows. Now I'm hooked because I see all the behind-the-scenes stuff," said Snider, 37. "I never thought I'd say this, but Hollywood actually has helped ensure that my husband and I can make our mortgage payments, and buy Christmas gifts this year."

She's not alone. Snider is now one of 60 housewives and stay-at-home moms, mostly in economically depressed regions in the Midwest and the South, who work for Teresis Media Management Inc.

The Santa Ana technology firm was founded by Keri DeWitt, who grew up in this part of Missouri, about an hour east of Kansas City.

When she started her company in 2003, DeWitt initially chose the same path of other U.S. companies eager for cheap labor and contracted with a firm in India to handle the work.

After all, she said, bigger technology corporations have relied on a global workforce for decades; and recent advances in telecommunications have made it possible for smaller firms and start-up businesses like Teresis to do the same.

But she said she soon realized that outsourcing such transcription work, which relies heavily on accuracy and often comes with tight deadlines, was a mind-boggling chore that didn't end up saving her money in the end.

"I'd get back transcriptions that left out great gaps in conversation, or the workers simply couldn't understand the American colloquialisms and slang, such as 'back in the day' or 'y'all,' " DeWitt said. "If they didn't know the name of a town, they'd spell it out phonetically. And if someone had a thick accent — a Bronx accent, or a Southern accent, or a hard Northeastern accent — they simply couldn't do the work."

Trying to figure out a solution, DeWitt talked to friends and family in her hometown of Marshall, Mo. She learned that there was a dearth of jobs, particularly for mothers who wanted to work from home.

When DeWitt was growing up, her own mother worked two jobs: a day shift in a convenience store and a night shift at a fabric-dye factory. In 1989, her mother fell asleep while driving home from the factory job and was killed when she hit another car head-on.

"I knew that there were a lot of women back home in the same financial situation; people who used to be really solid middle class are having to stretch to survive," DeWitt said. "I thought that if this had been available to my mom, she wouldn't have had to work those crazy hours. So if I could send these jobs to India, why couldn't I send them back to my hometown?"

Last winter, DeWitt began recruiting staff with the help of the Central Missouri Technology and Skills Training Center in Marshall.

The requirements were simple: Workers needed to have high-speed Internet access, a computer and an electronic foot pedal to pause the footage when they needed a break.

And in the hyper-competitive world of reality TV, each Telesis worker must sign a nondisclosure agreement, barring them from discussing with others what they see.

Many of these firms are small and specialize in shows broadcast on cable channels, DeWitt said. LMNO Productions, which has tapped Telesis' transcribers to work on shows such as "Lance Armstrong: Running for Life" for the Learning Channel, will send the footage to the Orange County firm.

The rural transcribers then log into Telesis' secure database and download the footage onto their own computers. The video slowly plays back across the top of their monitor. Then, editing software allows the transcribers to type notes on each movement they see on the screen.

Though each tape is different, many are 30 minutes to an hour long; the transcribers usually have two days to finish a single tape.

"There's a difference between someone understanding American dialects and someone who understands English," said Jeff Rice, senior vice president of post-production for Encino-based LMNO.

"If you have an editor that's trying to find that one moment where a person said a particular word, and you have 1,000 hours of tape to search, you want to make sure the transcribers understand our accents well enough to spell words correctly."

In March, DeWitt hired fewer than a dozen women.

As the number of production companies and reality shows grew, so did the number of jobs in Missouri — as did word of the work. Earlier this year, one of Snider's closest friends, Crystal Stauch, 28, joined up. So did Stauch's mom, Carolyn Pearson, 52.

"Sometimes, it's completely boring: a shot of a building, or a bunch of feet walking back and forth in front of the camera," Stauch said. "Though sometimes it's shocking what you can hear and see: People smoking drugs, or talk about a person's gay partner, or a lot of profanity. When it gets really bad like that, I just note that it's bad language and move on."

Most of Telesis' workers hail from Missouri, and many of them are in the same situation as Snider. Her husband was laid off this year when his company, a small manufacturer of horse trailers, went out of business.

It took several months for him to land a new job, so "having this financial buffer made the difference between being able to pay the bills and having enough money to buy our eldest daughter her high school class ring," Snider said.

By many standards, the pay is modest.

Transcribers are paid 7 cents a line, so the more footage they wade through and the faster they type, the higher their pay. Pearson estimates that she's pulling in $8 an hour.

"I'm old and I'm slow," said Pearson, who also holds down a full-time job with a multicounty employment agency. "Then again, I'm only using this as extra income to pay down my medical bills."

Stauch and Snider say they're pleased to be averaging $15 an hour — taking home as much as $2,000 a month.

In a town where the median household income is about $34,000, and the median price of a house is just a bit more than $47,000, "people here consider that huge money," Snider said. "No, the job doesn't come with benefits. No, there's no retirement. But at least this work is fun and gives us a flexible work schedule. Besides, what are our other options?"

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-na-transcribers25dec25,1,3915271.story?coll=la-entnews-tv

If you're like me (perish the thought!) then you've wondered what those kids from the YouTube clip screaming when they get a videogame system for Christmas (which has been shown on the likes of 'Regis & Kelly,' 'The Tonight Show' and 'Jimmy Kimmel Live') think now that the clip has taken a life of its own as a TV commercial. Alas, my Christmas prayers have been answered! :rolleyes:

TV Advertising
Yes! YouTube kids living the scream
By Peter Kadushin, New York Daily News December 25, 2006

They are the kids you either love or hate - pajama-clad siblings maniacally tearing open gifts on Christmas morning in a recent BMW commercial.

The home video - which was shot eight years ago and discovered on YouTube.com - features 9-year-old Brandon Kuzma shredding gold wrapping paper with his 6-year-old sister, Rachel.

"Nintendo 64! Oh, my god!" Brandon screeches, followed by ear-splitting cheers from Rachel. Then the two blond-haired kids pump their fists in the air, shrieking, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Thanks to the ubiquitous ad, the Kuzma kids have found a notoriety they never could have imagined when doting dad Tom trained his video camera on them in 1998.

"We film the family all the time, and we could have never imagined one of the tapes being so popular online," said mom Lori Kuzma.

"It was just like any other Christmas - they just had a stronger reaction," she added.

Brandon, who is now a 17-year-old high school student, put the video on his Web site to share with friends and family, and it wound up on YouTube, the superpopular Internet video clearinghouse.

The next thing they knew, they were stars. Within months, the clip had racked up millions of views - and drawn the attention of advertising execs.

"I had no idea this would happen," said Brandon.

"I thought I would put it on my site, and we could all laugh about it. I was confused when I saw it on YouTube, and when I found out BMW wanted to use it for a commercial, I was just shocked," he added.

The luxury-car company bought the rights to the footage for an undisclosed sum, and has been running the ad nationally since Nov. 21.

"The commercial is so awesome," said Rachel, now 14 and in eighth grade. "I just can't believe it. The first time I saw it, I just couldn't stop laughing."

Despite their newfound fame, the Kuzma family wants a quiet Christmas at their Jupiter, Fla., home.

"The four us of just want to be together," Lori Kuzma said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/business/story/483033p-406573c.html (click the link for a picture of what these kids look now that they've grown eight years since the YouTube clip was shot).

The Associted Press' Year-in-Review roundup for TV: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06359/748294-237.stm

Merry Christmas fredfa and dad1153 and to all who lurk in these threads!!

TV Sports
Teeing off on move to the Golf Channel
15-year PGA deal already under fire
By Ed Sherman Chicago Tribune December 25, 2006

The Golf Channel has been around for more than a decade, and it can be seen in 75 million homes. But now the network really has to prove itself.

Next week the Golf Channel takes the plunge as a major player in television coverage of the PGA Tour. Beginning a 15-year deal, the network will go wire to wire for the tour's first three tournaments in 2007. That includes the season-opening Mercedes Championship, which begins Jan. 4 in Kapalua, Hawaii.

The Golf Channel then will carry the first two rounds of all PGA Tour events except the majors through the new playoff series in September. It will close the year covering the remaining tournaments in full.

How the Golf Channel measures up will be one of the significant stories of 2007.

It's been a rough start even before the first tee shot. Several critics, including some players, don't see the Golf Channel as a place to grow the game, something the PGA Tour desperately wants to do.

Avid fans will go to the Golf Channel to fulfill their obsession, so they'll find the tournaments. But what about channel surfers who don't have the Golf Channel on their favorites list?

If the tournaments were on ESPN or USA Network, the tour's previous cable partners, golf might snare a few of those surfers, especially if Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson is playing. Now the sport likely won't get those casual viewers.

Frank Hannigan, former executive director of the U.S. Golf Association, didn't mince words.

"For the tour to find and command a new audience would require a freakish event like a hermaphrodite dwarf becoming the leading money winner," Hannigan wrote for golfobserver.com. "And it would help if the dwarf's caddie could be Anna Nicole Smith."

Fred Couples was among the players most vocal about the PGA Tour ending its deal with ESPN. Remember the Champions Tour virtually disappeared from the radar with its ill-fated departure from ESPN to CNBC.

Consider this: Woods will be 45 when the new contract expires.

"I don't understand the new TV deal," Couples told Golf World. "We signed for 15 years with the Golf Channel? Isn't there a number between 1 and 15? How'd we lose ESPN? I don't get that.

"What if ESPN decides in three years that they want golf again? What does the PGA Tour tell them? 'Sorry, we're with the Golf Channel until 2021'?"

The Golf Channel is taking the comments in stride. Don McGuire, the network's senior vice president of production and operations, compared the initial reaction to what the NBA received when it moved the bulk of its big games to cable, including the conference finals and All-Star Game.

"Everyone thought that it would be terrible for the NBA, but it worked out," McGuire said. "Fans found the games. It's an educational process. You don't do it by snapping your fingers, but I think over time it will be a natural move."

Not only is the Golf Channel under the gun to attract viewers, the network will be expected to show them quality telecasts. The channel has received some knocks for not meeting standards in the past.

The network, obviously, knows it has to step it up several notches for the PGA Tour. It made a key move by signing Nick Faldo as lead analyst. The six-time major winner was terrific at ABC, and he will bring credibility to the telecasts.

But the Golf Channel decided to stay in house by choosing Kelly Tilghman as Faldo's partner in the 18th-hole tower. It is a big gamble. Tilghman has established herself as a studio host, but directing traffic at a tournament is an entirely different animal.

"Kelly has the ability to think quickly and get it to the viewer," McGuire said. "She knows the game, and she will have terrific chemistry with Nick. It'll be a fun listen."

McGuire said the Golf Channel's coverage will be total immersion into the tournament, saying the network will provide "more golf and deeper golf." After the tournament is over, there will be—what else?—a postgame show.

It's all golf, all the time, and the Golf Channel has been highly successful as a niche network. But it needed to have a deal with the PGA Tour if it truly was going to be "the" Golf Channel. That's why the network wowed the tour with the long-term pact to become the exclusive cable outlet.

Now the Golf Channel's biggest show is about to begin.

"If we had a goal, it would be to not be noticed dramatically," McGuire said. "We're not looking to trick up our golf telecasts. We want people to say this is a cool way to cover golf. We want to be white hot, not glaring hot."

The PGA Tour is counting on the Golf Channel to be hot enough to help grow the game. Otherwise, its deal could be a long-term burn.

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/cs-061224sherman,1,5245529,print.column?coll=cs-home-headlines

Thanks for the Holiday wishes, foxeng.

I hope 2007 is brings nothing but the best to you and yours.

Critic’s Notebook
In the Spirit of the Season….
Present Sense
By Amy Amatangelo in The Washington Post

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through L.A., TV characters wondered what they'd get the next day.

We've set our DVRs and checked air times twice. When it comes to TV, we know who's naughty and nice.

Across the networks from ABC to TNT, we're certain what should be beneath everyone's tree.

So please join in our reindeer game to see what Santa has for those with fame.

• A proper calculator for the banker on " Deal or No Deal," so he can rethink his offers, particularly early in the game. They seem pretty paltry to us!

• A subscription to "US Weekly" for Temperance (Emily Deschanel) of " Bones." She really needs to stop saying "I don't know what that means" about every single pop-culture reference.

• A big bottle of makeup remover for Melinda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) of " Ghost Whisperer." That girl always goes to bed wearing too much mascara.

• A complete set of the Nancy Drew mysteries for Veronica (Kristen Bell) of " Veronica Mars." She could use some tried-and-true tips from a classic teenage sleuth.

• A BlackBerry for Earl (Jason Lee) of " My Name Is Earl," to better organize his list.

• A membership in the chocolate-of-the-month club for Brenda (Kyra Sedgwick) of " The Closer." We think her addiction to processed sugar is just fine.

• A marriage counselor for Lorelai (Lauren Graham) andnew hubby Christopher (David Sutcliffe) of " Gilmore Girls." We suspect rocky times are ahead.

• A new theme song for Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) of " Criminal Minds," because you just know he wants to sing.

• A housekeeper for Allison (Patricia Arquette) and Joe (Jake Weber) of " Medium." It's too hard to have psychic visions and keep the floors clean.

• For Betty (America Ferrera) on " Ugly Betty," a guest appearance on "Extreme Makeover" or perhaps "What Not to Wear."

• An unbreakable watch for Hiro (Masi Oka) of " Heroes," as he perfects his ability to stop time.

• A weekend at a bed and breakfast for Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) of " Lost." They *so* need a little privacy.

• Match.com memberships for Cristina (Sandra Oh), George (T.R. Knight) and Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) of " Grey's Anatomy." They really need to stop dating the people they work with.

• A copy of "He's Just Not That Into You" for Karen (Rashida Jones) of " The Office," who just can't seem to grasp that Jim is still in love with Pam.

• Parenting classes for Sam (Linda Cardellini) on " ER." Different children have played her son, and she hasn't even noticed!

• A coupon organizer for Julius (Terry Crews) of " Everybody Hates Chris." You know the man won't spend $3.49 to buy one for himself.

• A pair of slacks for Charlie (Charlie Sheen) of " Two and a Half Men." Sometimes shorts really aren't appropriate.

• Tattoo removal for Michael (Wentworth Miller) of " Prison Break." He's just too identifiable with that ink all over his body.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901009_pf.html

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

I thought I was a workaholic but this Berman guy is too much. Crunching meaningless Nielsen overnights about a night when its a given all the networks have turned the lights off and gone home? Wow! :confused:

I'd disagree.

They are never meaningless -- they all count for the season averages,

The New York Times Obituary
Frank Stanton, 98
Broadcast Giant Ran CBS for 26 Years
By Holcomb B. Noble The New York Times HOLCOMB B. NOBLE December 25, 2006

Frank Stanton, a central figure in the development of television broadcasting in the United States and the industry’s most articulate and persuasive spokesman during his nearly three decades as president of CBS, died Sunday afternoon at his home in Boston, a longtime friend, Elizabeth Allison, said.

He was 98 and had been in declining health, she said.

Dr. Stanton was the right-hand man of William S. Paley, the tycoon who built the Columbia Broadcasting System empire from a handful of struggling radio stations in 1928.

From 1946 to 1973, they operated as probably the greatest team in the history of broadcasting, making CBS, for a time, the most powerful communications company in the world, and the most prestigious. It was under Dr. Stanton and Mr. Paley that CBS, mixing entertainment programming with high-quality journalism and dashes of high culture, earned its reputation as the Tiffany Network.

As a brilliant corporate builder and a technologically minded executive, Dr. Stanton — everybody used the “doctor” — played a pivotal role in CBS’s rise. He did so despite a relationship with Mr. Paley that was often strained and an object of puzzlement to those around them.

In her 1990 biography of Mr. Paley, “In All His Glory,” Sally Bedell Smith wrote: “Temperamentally, the two men were opposites: Paley, the man of boundless charm, superficially warm but essentially heartless and self-absorbed; Stanton, the self-contained Swiss whose business acumen, decency and understated humor endeared him to his colleagues.

“Paley had a restless, readily satisfied curiosity while Stanton probed more deeply and was interested in a broader range of subjects,” Ms. Smith continued. “Paley acted from the gut; Stanton from the brain. Paley could be disorganized and unpredictable. Stanton was disciplined and systematic.”

The two men did not socialize. Ms. Smith wrote that Mr. Paley had resented Dr. Stanton’s refusal to invite him to his home, calling his associate “a closed-off, cold man.”

Dr. Stanton was admired by politicians, businessmen and fellow broadcasters as a principled executive with high aspirations. The industry turned to him to lead their battles against government involvement in radio and television programming.

During the early days of television, when Mr. Paley clung to the idea that network radio would remain CBS’s meal ticket, Dr. Stanton realized that the company’s prosperity would rest with television and diversification into areas like the long-playing phonograph, whose growth he guided after its development by Peter Goldmark.

In 1946, Dr. Stanton began charting CBS’s sometimes painful growth as a television network. He was clear about what direction it should take. “Television, like radio,” Dr. Stanton said in 1948, “should be a medium for the majority of Americans, not for any small or special groups; therefore its programming should be largely patterned for what these majority audiences like and want.”

Frank Nicholas Stanton was born on March 20, 1908, in Muskegon, Mich., the older of two sons of Frank Cooper Stanton, a woodworking and mechanics teacher, and the former Helen Schmidt. After his family moved to Dayton, Ohio, when he was a boy, Frank learned electronics at his father’s workbench.

Young Frank majored in zoology and psychology at Ohio Wesleyan University, graduating in 1930 intending to become a doctor. But finding medical school too expensive, he accepted a scholarship to Ohio State to study psychology and earned a master’s degree in 1932. A year earlier, he married Ruth Stephenson, whom he had met at Sunday school when they were both 14.

While he pursued a doctorate, studying ways to measure radio audiences, he invented a kind of forerunner of the Nielsen audimeter. Dr. Stanton’s device could be installed inside a radio receiver to register what programs listeners were tuning in. Paul Kesten, a CBS executive, was so impressed that he offered Mr. Stanton a job in its two-man research department for $55 a week. The day after receiving his doctorate, in 1935, Dr. Stanton and his wife got in their Model A Ford and headed for New York.

By 1938, Dr. Stanton had become CBS’s research director with a staff of 100. With the social scientist Paul F. Lazarsfeld, he invented a device called the program analyzer, which enabled CBS to track the responses of 100 listeners to a radio program, gauging their likes and dislikes. CBS used it for a half-century.

Dr. Stanton remained with the network during World War II while serving as a consultant to the Secretary of War, the Office of War Information and the Office of Facts and Figures. By 1945 he had become vice president and general manager of CBS. He became president the following year, at age 38, after Mr. Kesten, Mr. Paley’s first choice for the job, declined. Mr. Kesten, citing poor health, recommended Dr. Stanton instead, and Mr. Paley invited Dr. Stanton to his Long Island estate. After dinner, they took a walk in the rain. Mr. Paley stunned his guest, saying, “By the way, Frank, I want you to run the company.” Mr. Paley said he wanted to be free of the day-to-day problems of running CBS.

As president, Dr. Stanton reorganized CBS into separate divisions for radio, television and laboratories. Programming was Mr. Paley’s domain, though Dr. Stanton was responsible for moving CBS’s biggest radio star of the 1940s, Arthur Godfrey, into television and taking a chance on a hard-drinking comic named Jackie Gleason.

“I think if there was anything I wanted to do with the company and I proposed it, there was a pretty good chance I could go ahead and do it,” Ms. Smith quoted Dr. Stanton as saying.

But one person he could not control was Edward R. Murrow, CBS’s most celebrated journalist. Mr. Murrow was close to Mr. Paley and repeatedly went over Dr. Stanton’s head to discuss his plans or problems with Mr. Paley. Mr. Murrow regarded Dr. Stanton as a numbers-cruncher who knew little about news, and he tended to blame Dr. Stanton, not Mr. Paley, when management thwarted him.

When Mr. Murrow’s acclaimed weekly program “See It Now” began to lose sponsors, Mr. Paley stepped in and cut the program to 8 or 10 broadcasts a year, before taking it off the air in 1958. Mr. Murrow’s diminishment seemed to elevate Dr. Stanton’s standing as a force at CBS News.

As network president, Dr. Stanton focused on the news division, creating an executive review board to keep news policy and editorializing separate. He combined the news and public affairs departments, increased the news department’s budget and extended the nightly news to 30 minutes from 15 minutes. He also created the weekly investigative and news documentary program “CBS Reports.”

In August 1958, the network was plunged into scandal after a contestant on the popular program “The $64,000 Question” revealed that he and others had been fed answers. Congressional and law-enforcement investigations were opened. Mounting his own investigation, Dr. Stanton forced the resignation of the executive responsible for the show and canceled the network’s remaining quiz shows.

Dr. Stanton saw diversification as necessary to CBS’s growth. The network began acquiring companies, publishing magazines and books, and producing Broadway shows like “My Fair Lady,” and it bought the New York Yankees. (The Yankees fared poorly under CBS, which sold the team to investors led by George Steinbrenner.)

Dr. Stanton oversaw the development of the network’s symbol, the CBS Eye, designed by William Golden. And he was chiefly responsible for shepherding its headquarters, the Manhattan skyscraper known as Black Rock, into existence. He chose Eero Saarinen as the architect and fought with Mr. Paley over the austere International-style design, with its black exterior. Mr. Paley wanted the building to be pink.

In dealing with the government, Dr. Stanton could count on powerful friends, including Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson. Yet he and Mr. Paley did not resist the anti-Communist hunts of the late 1940s and early 50s.

In 1950, to reassure advertisers and pressure groups, Dr. Stanton approved requiring CBS employees to take an oath of loyalty to the United States. The next year, with Mr. Paley’s approval, Dr. Stanton created a security office staffed by former F.B.I. agents to investigate the political leanings of employees. Writers, directors and others were blacklisted. Years later, in 1999, upon receiving an award for his efforts on behalf of the First Amendment, Dr. Stanton conceded that the network’s response to pressure might not have been the best one.

“I didn’t have the wisdom, nor did anyone else,” Mr. Stanton said. “The head of the law department was one of the fairest people I’ve ever known. When he said this was the course we should follow, we went along with it.”

With the 1960 presidential election approaching, Dr. Stanton persuaded Congress to suspend the “equal time” provision in the Communications Act, making it possible to televise debates between the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kennedy, and his Republican rival, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, without including candidates of smaller parties. Those debates signaled the arrival of television as a dominant force in presidential politics.

Dr. Stanton bore much of the criticism when Washington objected to CBS News’s coverage of the war in Vietnam, and was threatened with jail in 1971. CBS had broadcast an hourlong investigative report called “The Selling of the Pentagon,” about a $30 million campaign by the Defense Department to improve its image, and the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee demanded that he turn over material cut from the program. When he refused to comply, he was called before the committee.

He said the order amounted to an infringement of free speech and freedom of the press under the First Amendment. “If newsmen are told their notes, films and tapes will be subject to compulsory process so that the government can determine whether the news has been satisfactorily edited,” he said, “the scope, nature and vigor of their news reporting will be inevitably curtailed.”

The committee voted to cite him for contempt. But after an emotional debate, the full House rejected the committee’s citation.

When the Nixon administration began attacking the networks over their war coverage, it was often Dr. Stanton who answered. “Stanton was a firewall between the presidency and the reporters covering the White House,” said Robert Pierpoint, a former CBS White House correspondent.

For years, Dr. Stanton believed he would get the top job at CBS — chairman and chief executive — when Mr. Paley reached age 65 in 1966. Mr. Paley had promised him the job, after all. Dr. Stanton was so certain that he rejected an opportunity to become head of the University of California and turned down President Johnson’s offers to make him secretary of health, education and welfare or under secretary of state.

But Mr. Paley continued as chairman past his retirement age, and the relationship between the two men was never the same. In 1967, Dr. Stanton signed a new contract, which required him to step down as president in 1971 to become vice chairman and to remain in the post until his retirement at 65 in 1973.

After leaving that position, Dr. Stanton was chairman and chief operating officer of the American Red Cross for six years. He served on the boards of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Institution, the Stanford Research Institute and Lincoln Center. He was also the first non-Harvard graduate in the 20th century to serve on the Harvard board, and he spent much of the rest of his life in Cambridge, Mass., working on university projects. He sat on the CBS board until 1978, then became a consultant until 1987, though he was seldom called on to consult.

For all his accomplishments at CBS, Dr. Stanton had left the network in disillusion, disappointment and sorrow, assessing it as “just another company with dirty carpets.”

When he retired in 1973, he left Black Rock quietly, refusing to allow Mr. Paley to give him a party. His parting words were quoted by Lillian Ross in The New Yorker: “I think I’ll make it home in time for the 7 o’clock news.”

Dr. Stanton’s wife, Ruth, died in 1992. Mrs. Allison, who with her husband, Graham, helped care for Dr. Stanton in recent years, said that there were no survivors.

She said that Dr. Stanton had directed that there be no memorial service and no donations in his memory, which she said reminded her of his attitude upon his departure from CBS.

“When he left, he just left,” Mrs. Allison said. “He was consistent, right to the end.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/business/media/26stanton.html?ei=5094&en=cfbaee8a4dc9b2c3&hp=&ex=1167109200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

TV Notebook
Rock & a good place
By Virginia Rohan Bergen Record Staff Writer Sunday, December 24, 2006

Katrina Bowden was all set to move from her family's Wyckoff home into a college apartment in New York City when she found out in late August that she'd landed the role of Cerie, the reluctant receptionist on the NBC comedy "30 Rock."

"I was planning on going to college. I was going to go to Marymount Manhattan for acting. And then I got '30 Rock,' and I knew that I was going to be way too busy. So, I told them the day before I [would move] in that I couldn't go," Bowden says. "I had no problem with that. ... I wasn't really passionate about going to college like my friends were. I really just wanted to focus on my career. ... Of course, I know education's important, but I knew what I wanted. ... And I can always go back if I really want to do that, but I can't always do this."

"30 Rock," a single-camera comedy shot at SilverCup Studios in Long Island City and loosely based on Tina Fey's years as the head writer on "Saturday Night Live," is an emerging hit with a strong following. And some of the funniest (and most replayed on YouTube) scenes involve Bowden's Cerie -- who dresses in what the young actress calls "little things," and has no interest in professional behavior.

"My character's supposed to be kind of making fun of young Hollywood," Bowden says. "She's from a very rich family. Supposedly, her parents got her the job and no one knows why she's there.

Cerie's not serious

"Cerie's not the ditzy, dumb girl. She just doesn't really care, doesn't fit in, and, for some reason, she's still there. She's more interested in how she looks, and just having fun. ... She doesn't really want to have a job. She wants to just design handbags, marry rich, and go out and party." (Shortly before this interview, she'd filmed an episode where Cerie got engaged to a "rich billionaire shipping-heir kind of guy.")

On a recent afternoon, Bowden, 18, is friendly and poised as she chats in her Weehawken apartment -- her first apartment, which she'd moved into just a few weeks before.

"I like it a lot," she says. "I like spending time on my own. I like having my privacy."

She's quick to add, though, that she also likes to go out on weekends -- especially to the live broadcasts of "Saturday Night Live" and "SNL" after-parties.

"It's kind of cool, because a lot of the background people who are writers actually do work on 'SNL' as writers, so we as a cast get to go to 'SNL' whenever we want, and we get to meet all the guest stars," says Bowden, who especially enjoyed meeting Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz.

Her favorite "30 Rock" episode so far is the one in which Fey's Liz Lemon character -- the head writer for a sketch-comedy program called "TGS With Tracy Jordan" -- took Cerie aside to explain she shouldn't be coming to the office braless and in tiny track shorts.

"It's Paris Hilton kind of clothes. That's what they're going for," Bowden says. "It's inappropriate for office attire. I obviously stand out because of my outfits. They want me to wear bright colors. And a lot of times they'll take a normal length skirt and they'll just chop it.

"I love my wardrobe, but I would never wear it out in the street. It's all like summer clothes or gym clothes, like those little shorts. I wouldn't even wear those to the gym."

It's a big change from the "typical Catholic school uniform" that Bowden not so long ago wore at Immaculate Heart Academy in Washington Township, where she juggled her studies with auditions, acting and modeling work.

Bowden grew up in Wyckoff, where her parents, Karen and Derek Bowden, still live. (Her brother, Phillip, 20, studies engineering at NJIT.) When she was 14, a family friend whose children modeled suggested that Katrina send her pictures to Teaneck-based manager Shirley Grant -- who recalls Bowden's interview.

"I saw a very pretty girl. She hadn't really done anything, but we figured, well, we're going to groom this girl. We're going to make her a star. We just saw something," says Grant, who has discovered a number of young stars, including Christina Ricci and Keshia Knight Pulliam, in the 29 years her Shirley Grant Management has been in business. "I sent her for coaching lessons, and she's kept up with her acting coach. ... We knew it was going to happen."

After signing with Grant, Bowden started booking catalog jobs, then commercials.

"My dad was skeptical in the beginning, because he didn't want me to be a child star or get involved with the wrong thing," says Bowden. "He always drove me to all of my auditions, because he works from home. Once he started seeing me in magazines or on TV in commercials, he started getting very proud of me."

'Law & Order' fame

Eventually, she progressed to national commercials (for JC Penney, Dr. Pepper and T.J. Maxx, among others), which enabled her to join the Screen Actors Guild. She also did a few music videos (including one for Jewel) -- and then got a guest spot as a missing girl's best friend in a "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" episode that was loosely based on the Natalee Holloway story.

"It was a very small part. I was surprised by how many people said, 'I saw you on "Law & Order" [reruns].' 'Oh, my gosh, you did?' I barely saw myself when I was on it," Bowden says.

She also spent a couple of months on "One Life to Live" (as "mean girl" Britney), a job she got late last spring, but had to quit when she landed "30 Rock."

The comedy's original pilot had a different actress playing Cerie, but that role was recast just as Bowden was about to turn 18, an age when performers are no longer bound by child-actor regulations.

Bond with Baldwin

"I got a call back, and I went in and met with Tina, and I read with her," says Bowden. "Tina's the sweetest woman I've ever met. And she's so funny, too, but she's not obnoxious funny. She doesn't just smash out jokes all the time. She's very subtly funny."

Bowden also has high praise for Alec Baldwin, who just received a Golden Globe nomination for his hilarious portrayal of network executive Jack Donaghy.

"I really like Alec. He has, you know, that reputation for being arrogant. And of course, when I first met him, I was kind of intimidated because he's Alec Baldwin. He does have a sense about him. He's been around the block. He knows a lot. But he's so sweet. And he's so funny. He's a goofball on the set. He just does crazy things all the time."

Such as?

"He'll get really into a scene and just make up a completely different ending," says Bowden, adding that much of his improvisation makes it into the show. Considered a recurring "guest star," Bowden is nonetheless in all episodes, she says."Even if we don't have written lines, we'll be there in the background," she says.

How often does she get recognized in the street?

"Once in a while, in places that people know me, like at the gym or at Starbucks, they'll say, 'You're on that show "30 Rock," right?' " Bowden says, adding that when she's out on weekends with co-stars "people recognize us when we're together. We're more familiar as a group. If we're with Tracy [Morgan] especially, we all get bombarded. Then they take pictures with us. People always say they love the show, and I love hearing it. It makes me feel so good."

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyNzImZmdiZWw3Zjd2cW VlRUV5eTcwNDI0OTAmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3

2006 Cable Poll
Your top-5 Favorite Cable TV Shows

A few weeks ago you had a chance to vote on your favorite prime-time network TV shows. More than 300 votes were received.

Now it is time for your cable favorites.

So list them in order from 1-5 and either post them here in the thread or PM me.

If you would like, add a "guilty pleasure" cable show -- that is one you hate for your friends to discover you enjoy.

TV Notebook
Shaking the 'Trees'
Anne Heche's New Guy Doesn't Ask About Extraterrestrials
By Rita Zekas, New York Post December 25, 2006

James Tupper is a happy camper. Liter ally and figuratively.

In "Men in Trees," he portrays Jack, a fish and wildlife biologist who is the love interest of Marin Frista, played by Anne Heche, a jilted relationship coach snowed in at a small town in Alaska.

"You work 15 years (in the biz) and get a big break and this is mine," he says. "I did 30 or 40 plays in L.A. for no money and read tons of pilots. I have an uncle who is a fish and wildlife biologist in P.E.I. (Prince Edward Island) - it was so serendipitous that I found this role. I am the most blessed person."

The series is set in Alaska, shot in Vancouver, with exteriors done in Squamish, B.C.

Tupper is a Canuck, born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "It's good to be in the old country," he says.

The series has been picked up and did its best numbers last month, after being moved to Thursdays following red-hot "Grey's Anatomy."

"The Thursday slot is a Christmas present," Tupper says. "When we found out, Anne sent out for champagne. We were hugging each other. Anne's energy is great."

He does admit to some trepidation starring opposite Heche, who came with some baggage: her alter ego, Celeste, talked to extra-terrestrials.

"She's the best actress I've worked with and a great person," he insists. "I never got any of that [weirdness]; she's got two feet on the ground.

"We call it Camp Heche. Anne has this big trailer and we hang out, drink coffee and tea and play backgammon. We respect each other's work - it's real actor love."

Speaking of which, he won't divulge where the relationship between Marin and Jack is going.

"We called the fourth episode the 'sexpisode,' " he chuckles.

"We got it on. Complications evolve as their relationship grows. [Head writer] Jenny Bicks [from 'Sex and the City'] has a great take on relationships."

Tupper has four brothers and sisters, is in his mid 30s and married to a novelist/playwright.

He writes poetry but won't inflict it on others and is an avid bird watcher. It didn't take much to acclimate to Jack.

"I had done a lot of fishing in the Maritimes but I had to learn to fly fish and cast," he explains.

Yes, life is perfect on "Trees" except for one niggling thing: "I think I should have a pet wolf. I help animals so I need a wolf," he says.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12252006/tv/shaking_the_trees_tv_rita_zekas.htm

Washington Notebook
Year Ahead: NCTA Chief Opines on 2007
CableFAX Daily

With a Democratic majority in place, what does 2007 look like for the cable industry? NCTA pres/CEO Kyle McSlarrow says the verdict's still out. "I'm personally expecting to attend a lot of hearings" as the new leadership studies the evolving telecom industry, he told CableFAX. "We have to give them some time to figure out what agenda is... I do expect there to be a lot of activity involving telecommunications. I'm just not sure there will be a massive rewrite" immediately.

Beyond McSlarrow's comments, common sense suggests Congress will pay close attention to federal agencies led by administration appointees (i.e., the FCC). It's not clear what happens to the House and Sen Commerce committees' telecom bills that failed to pass this year. (Why, oh why, didn't we take up Rep Joe Barton (R-TX) on his bet? "I am a pretty good poker player; the odds are 2 to 1 that the president is going to sign a bill," he said during a press conference this year, goading reporters to gamble against him). While members voted the Sen Commerce bill out of committee largely along party lines, it's likely to at least serve as a jumping off point next year given its scope.

On the House side, Commerce member Hilda Solis (D-CA) told C-SPAN's Washington Journal that she expects continued debate but also the ability to "bring out more witnesses on our side, the Democratic side, and I think that that's going to be very important... My perspective is always coming from the consumers... how can we keep costs low, not impeding technology and make it available to those areas that currently don't have access to a lot of the high technology."

One issue facing Dems is net neutrality—especially considering interest from groups like MoveOn.org. But given the Dems' slim majority, it's unclear whether they'll be able to enact legislation. Franchising relief seems less important for Congress. "I expect the center of gravity for video franchising to be both at the FCC... and in the states," McSlarrow said. Indeed, the Commission is set to vote on a video franchise proposal Wed that reportedly treats cable and phone differently in some areas.

As for the states, "there is no cookie cutter recipe for how states will tackle it," McSlarrow said, noting that he doesn't think any of the laws in states with statewide franchising look exactly alike. "The operators on the ground have to figure out what's in their best business interest and make judgments accordingly on how they're going to interact with that process."

http://www.cable360.net/business/regulation/21294.html

Technology Notebook
Forget L.C.D.;
Go for Plasma, Says Maker of Both
By Eric A. Taub The New York Times December 25, 2006

What kind of company takes out ads in daily newspapers attacking one of its own type of products? In the case of Panasonic, the answer is a company that has significant investments in a rival technology.

Panasonic, the consumer electronics company owned by Matsushita Electric Industrial, is the world’s biggest seller of plasma TVs. And it has long extolled the benefits of that technology compared with L.C.D., another flat-panel TV product. At the same time, the company sells a full line of L.C.D. sets.

But the company believes that plasma technology is under unfair attack from competitors making “desperate attempts” to denigrate what it sees as plasma’s superiority, according to Bob Greenberg, Panasonic’s vice president for brand marketing.

There is another issue as well, which is that the profit margins on L.C.D. TVs have fallen sharply because of competition.

To demonstrate plasma is better, the company has offered picture comparisons for journalists at electronics shows. And it has developed marketing materials that dispel some of the myths of plasma’s limitations, like how often to refill the plasma gas (never) and the problems with picture burn-in (none anymore).

This holiday, Panasonic went a step further, running an ad in newspapers around the country under the heading “Six facts you need to know before you buy a large flat-panel TV.” The ad points out plasma’s superior contrast, color rendition, crisp motion, viewing angle and durability when compared to L.C.D. TVs.

Not so fast, says Sony. The company, which exited the plasma TV market to concentrate on L.C.D. sets, is running its own series of sportslike newspaper and magazine ads that promote what it calls an HD challenge. Once consumers see reflections of fluorescent lighting in the plasma set, they will opt for L.C.D., the ad contends.

While most people do not have fluorescent lights in their living rooms, Sony believes its challenge shows how bright light bulbs and other reflections can spoil a picture.

“The showroom is the only place where a consumer can compare two TVs,” said Phil Abram, the company’s vice president of product marketing.

To help Panasonic maintain sales of both technologies, it sells plasma sets from 37 to 65 inches on the diagonal, while its L.C.D. TVs can only be purchased in sizes from 23 to 32 inches. Sony, Sharp and other manufacturers sell L.C.D. sets from 19 to 65 inches on the diagonal.

Panasonic also looks to segregate the market. The company argues that L.C.D. TVs, which look brighter in daylight, are the right choice for kitchens and other rooms that need smaller sizes. But in larger sizes and for fast-moving sports scenes, plasma is the right choice, said Mr. Greenberg. Since the ad campaign began, “field research shows that the dialogue is changing. Once you point out that the blacks in plasma are blacker than in L.C.D., it is like pointing out the rabbit in the painting.”

Both technologies are gaining market share at the expense of traditional tube sets, with L.C.D. sales this year overtaking picture tube sets for the first time.

According to data compiled by the NPD Group, L.C.D. TVs held 49 percent of the market in 2006, compared with 26 percent last year. Plasma’s market share increased to 10 percent from 5 percent. At the same time, sales of picture tube TVs dropped by more than half, to 21 percent this year from 46 percent in 2005.

Does Panasonic’s strong support of plasma technology mean that it will never sell a very large L.C.D. TV? Well, not exactly.

“Panasonic in Japan is studying L.C.D. in its larger formats,” Mr. Greenberg said. “If we introduce larger-sized L.C.D. TVs, we will have overcome the problems in that technology.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/technology/25flat.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=print

Obituary
Frank Stanton, 98
Broadcast Giant Ran CBS for 26 Years

(CBS)---Broadcast legend Frank Stanton died Sunday afternoon at the age of 98. He had been in declining health.

The New York Times reports he died at his home in Boston.

He was the master builder of CBS, turning an also-ran radio network into a broadcasting powerhouse under company architect and founder William S. Paley, who appointed him president in 1946.

Stanton was known as the "conscience of broadcasting" for his battles for first amendment rights and the unwavering support of the journalists who worked for him, reports CBS News producer Gail Lee.

"He was very courageous and he was principled and he never let us down," said former 60 Minutes executive producer Don Hewitt.

Stanton had several run-ins with Washington over the years, but the one in 1959 over the quiz show scandals established him as television's leading statesman.

The allegations of staging in America's popular game programs attracted the glare of government and prompted him to take drastic measures to convince politicians that the new medium could police itself. Stanton investigated, took responsibility for problems, and then, risking lawsuits from sponsors, canceled all of CBS' high-stakes and high-profit game shows.

He also demanded that everything broadcast by CBS News be exactly as it purported to be, laying down the foundation for the CBS News Standards still followed today. The industry avoided government control, mostly because Stanton prosecuted the issue so vehemently himself.

Stanton's most public battle for free speech came near the end of his tenure as president when he stood up to the U.S. government in a First Amendment battle that became a landmark case.

He defied a U.S. House of Representatives subpoena for outtakes of a CBS News documentary in a move that solidified his status as the leading defender of broadcast journalism's equal status with print under the First Amendment.

Likening them to print reporters' notebooks, he told the full U.S. House in front of a television audience that he would not turn over outtakes from "CBS Reports: 'The Selling of the Pentagon,'" a 1971 report critical of the defense department.

It was a risk that could have put him behind bars, but after two days of hearings, House members in a roll call voted 226-181 not to hold CBS and its president in contempt.

Stanton was cited with his fifth Peabody award for this vigorous defense of broadcast journalism.

"The spirit and the purpose of the first amendment … is to protect not the government, not the press but the people," Stanton once said.

In 1963, after the assassination of President Kennedy, Stanton kept CBS News on the air for four straight days without commercial interruption. In 1971, he risked going to jail to keep CBS documentary notes and "out-takes" from congressional scrutiny.

As the late CBS News chief Dick Salant once remarked, "Stanton was the best non-practicing journalist who ever lived."

http://www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/25/people_late_great/printable2295140.shtml

Note:

The New York Times obit on Frank Stanton, posted earlier, has been updated and expanded.

TV Notebook
Miss fire
By Josef Adalian Variety.com

Like any war, the blowhard battle between Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell regarding the Miss USA "scandal" could result in some collateral damage.

Barbara Walters, for example, has already been caught in the crossfire. The Donald has made much of the fact that he and Babs are good pals, but Walters has to be careful not to appear as if she's backing away from her colleague on "The View."

Then there's Regis Philbin, whose syndie chatfest is paired with "The View" in many cities.

Reege and the Donald are tight, and Philbin normally comes to Trump's defense whenever the mogul finds himself in hot water. But Philbin was noticeably mum about the brouhaha last week -- perhaps not wanting to offend his schedulemates on "The View."

The only winner in the mess might be NBC. New season of "The Apprentice" had very little buzz surrounding it. Now, at the very least, people are talking about the show's star.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117956272&categoryid=14

TV Notebook
Milch stays on board at HBO with a surfing series, sort of
By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist Dec. 26, 2006

To a mad genius like David Milch, the phrase surf's up has very little to do with water.

With Milch's western, Deadwood, riding off into the sunset, his new HBO project, John From Cincinnati, is about a seriously whacked surfing family in California, the Yosts.

A mysterious stranger (Austin Nichols) - who may or may not be from Cincinnati - shows up chez Yost looking for surfing lessons. Drama ensues. HBO has ordered 12 episodes, to launch this summer.

Milch calls it "surf noir," but this particular surf is unlike any we've seen before, at least on this planet.

John "is about the effort to identify the genuine coordinates of reality," Milch says. (A recovering heroin addict, alcoholic and compulsive gambler, Milch is familiar with that effort.)

"It's such a strange idea. The strangeness of it is its essence. To try and demystify it is probably to do it a disservice. To fix the coordinates of the reality is itself the dramatic structure."

Got that?

The cast includes Bruce Greenwood, Rebecca De Mornay, Ed O'Neill and Luis Guzmán. Luke Perry, former Beverly Hills, 90210 stud (and surfer!), joined last month.

Originally, Perry was to have appeared only in the pilot. When his new NBC show, Windfall, got blown away, he went full-time. It's Perry's second HBO series; he had a recurring role on Oz in '01-'02.

"Surfers, more than most people, have difficulty identifying reality," says Milch, 61, whose credits include NYPD Blue and Hill Street Blues.

Not that Milch is an expert in riding the waves. "I probably know about as much about surfing as any Buffalonian."

Lucky for Milch that his coexecutive producer/writer is Kem Nunn, author of such dark surf-themed novels as Tijuana Straits and Tapping the Source, and a writer/producer for Deadwood.

Milch is no John-come-lately. He wrote the original script about five years ago. Titled John From Elsewhere, it had the same elements as Cincinnati John, Milch says, minus the surfing.

"It was about mistaken impressions; an uncertainty about where this guy's from."

HBO passed, and Milch began Deadwood. A year ago, Milch says, HBO asked him to help develop a series combining the premise of Elsewhere with the Fletchers, a real-life surfing family around whom HBO was going to develop a show.

"It was not exactly my cup of tea," Milch recalls. "If it were a story that began and ended with surfing, I probably would have felt I wasn't the guy to be involved in it."

As for John's geographical origins, "someone makes a mistaken inference" that he hails from Cincinnati, Milch says.

"Cincinnati does not leap to mind as a hotbed of surfing. If we had to bet - and we do, if we're compulsive gamblers - he's probably not from Cincinnati.

"Sometimes people have mistaken impressions about the nature of reality. I continuously have mistaken impressions about the nature of reality."

Back to Deadwood, shooting is set to begin in June or July on two, two-hour HBO movies that will wrap up the series, according to Milch.

After HBO had nixed another full Deadwood season, Milch was "quite ambivalent" about tying up myriad storylines in just four hours. "But we live in the world of the possible. I'm happy with the compromise."

To accommodate the show's compressed length, each episode will represent several years in the life of the lawless mining town instead of one day, Milch says.

Juggling two TV movies and a new series would be taxing for somebody with all his marbles, so we can only imagine how Milch is holding up. "That sound you hear is broken crockery," he says.

Locking in the cast will be tough, too. Some players - stars Ian McShane and Timothy Olyphant, for starters - are essential. "We'll do what we have to do to reach a critical mass of availability," Milch says.

"As Samuel Goldwyn once said, 'If necessary, we'll cast Mexicans.' That's show biz."

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//16317593.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Obituary
Frank Stanton, 98
TV pioneer who helped brand CBS 'Tiffany Network'

By Claudia Luther Special to The Los Angeles Times December 26, 2006 (Times staff writer Jon Thurber contributed to this report.)

Frank Stanton, a pioneering executive in early television who was a major force in branding CBS as "the Tiffany Network" while also defending its news division against 1st Amendment assaults, died Sunday afternoon at his home in Boston. He was 98.

Stanton, who had lived in Boston for the last eight years, had been in declining health for some time, according to Elizabeth Allison, a longtime friend who had been coordinating Stanton's medical care.

In a career at CBS that spanned his early days as a researcher for the radio division in the 1930s until his retirement as president of CBS Inc. in 1973, Stanton won five Peabody Awards for distinguished achievement and public service in broadcasting and made several lasting contributions to the industry.

He pioneered efforts to analyze audience responses to programming; instituted such innovations as block programming, bundling similar programs in blocks of time during the day; led the way in persuading Congress to suspend the equal-time rule as it applied to presidential debates, opening the door for today's familiar format of presidential debates between the leading candidates; and pulled the plug on CBS' quiz shows after it was found that several of the programs, which were produced independently of CBS, had manipulated the results.

"Stanton came to be regarded as broadcasting's foremost statesman, and more than anything else, it was his vigorous and admirable response to the 1959 quiz-show scandals that elevated him to that stature," Gary Paul Gates wrote in "Air Time: The Inside Story of CBS News" (1978).

Perhaps most notably, however, Stanton in 1971 risked jail for contempt of court rather than turn over to a House subcommittee the outtakes from a controversial CBS production sharply criticizing Pentagon spending. Stanton avoided jail when the full House refused to back up the citation.

"Broadcast journalism thrives today, to a large extent, because Frank Stanton defended our rights under the 1st Amendment…. " said Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports, in a statement released by the network.

"If broadcasting had a patron saint, it would be Frank Stanton," said Don Hewitt, the creator of "60 Minutes." "If CBS is the Tiffany Network, Frank Stanton deserves a lion's share of the credit."

Stanton worked with William S. Paley — the man who, with his father, had bought a fledgling radio network called Columbia Broadcasting System in 1928 and turned it into one of the most successful businesses in broadcasting.

Although Paley was definitely in charge at CBS and was the master of the strategic picture, Stanton for nearly 30 years was his right-hand man and carried out the network's day-to-day management.

Together with Paley, Stanton practically invented the idea of "branding" the network. They oversaw the creation of the CBS "eye" — the William Golden design that is one of the most effective graphic identities ever developed for a corporation. And they directed the construction of the company's distinctive corporate headquarters — the Eero Saarinen-designed "Black Rock" in midtown Manhattan.

Stanton also was to a great extent the public image of CBS, particularly when CBS was under attack for news programs that raised the ire of politicians in Washington.

"As president of CBS, Frank Stanton stood up for the broadcast press and resisted government efforts to intimidate it," former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite wrote in the foreword to Corydon B. Dunham's 1997 book about Stanton, "Fighting for the First Amendment."

Richard S. Salant, who was hired by Stanton to be president of CBS News during the 1960s and '70s, wrote in his 1999 memoir that Stanton insulated the news division from outside political pressures and did not interfere with his decisions.

As the years went by, Stanton became almost a more visible symbol of CBS than Paley. As Sally Bedell Smith wrote in her 1990 biography of Paley, "In All His Glory," "To much of the outside world, Frank Stanton, not Bill Paley, was Mr. CBS."

"He was better prepared and more eloquent than his counterparts at the other networks," Smith wrote of Stanton. "He knew every senator and congressman. His speech, conduct and look gave CBS a personal dignity that had little to do with what was appearing on living-room TV screens. Stanton's contribution to CBS' image was incalculable."

It is probably no surprise, then, that the seemingly all-powerful Paley began to grate at the attention Stanton was getting.

Even Stanton himself recognized this. Speaking in a 1994 interview with Arthur Unger for Television Quarterly, Stanton said that Paley at one point complained to him that his own friends "don't think I have anything to do around here anymore."

In 1966, Stanton was slated to take over as chief executive from Paley, who was going to retire at age 65 under the company's mandatory retirement rule. But, just minutes before a board meeting at which the changeover was to be announced, Paley decided he could not relinquish the reins of power of the institution that he had created almost from scratch.

Stanton was crushed.

According to David Halberstam, writing in "The Powers That Be," his 1979 book on important figures in media, Paley and Stanton became "like two people locked into a terrible marriage, two people who need each other, and dislike each other, and need to dislike each other" and for whom "divorce was unthinkable."

Stanton left CBS in 1973, bitter at being pushed out before he was ready. Paley continued on, through a series of top executives — none of whom matched Stanton's longevity or public stature. Paley died in 1990.

After leaving CBS, Stanton was chairman of the American Red Cross from 1973 to 1979. He was also an overseer of Harvard University and a trustee at Rand Corp., serving as chairman of the board of trustees from 1961 to 1967 and later as an advisory trustee.

Stanton was born March 20, 1908, in Muskegon, Mich., to a high school manual arts teacher and his wife, a weaver and potter, and grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Stanton showed pluck and ambition early in life. As a teenager, he took a job at a local department store and was soon so indispensable that he was nearly running the place.

The earnings put him through school, first at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1930, and then at Ohio State University, where he studied psychology and earned a doctorate in 1935.

He wrote his doctoral thesis on listener response to radio programs, which led to a $55-per-week research job at CBS.

In 1935, Stanton and his wife, high school sweetheart Ruth Stephenson, drove to New York in a Model A Ford. And at CBS, Stanton's propensity to make himself indispensable "burst into full bloom," Robert Lewis Taylor wrote in a two-part article in the New Yorker magazine in 1947.

Stanton's mantra was "Let's find out," which reflected his curiosity, his background in research and his drive to excel.

While at CBS, Stanton also worked with Austrian statistician Paul Lazarsfeld on a device to measure listener preferences, a precursor to the Nielsen audience meters.

"What's important is less the machine than its meaning," Randall Rothenberg and John Taylor wrote in Esquire in December 1996 of the Stanton-Lazarsfeld "program analyzer." "The alliance between Stanton and Lazarsfeld marked the first time in the history of modern communications that theorists, researchers, media executives and sponsors joined together not only to understand the public but to manipulate it."

On the basis of his research and hard work, Stanton quickly climbed the ranks at CBS. Within a few years, he was overseeing a staff of 100 whose research was being used to shape audience-friendly programming and attract sponsors.

In 1946, while still in his 30s, Stanton was Paley's choice to be president of CBS, and Stanton took his place as the preeminent "boy wonder" in broadcasting at the time.

A tall, good-looking, meticulously groomed man with blondish hair, Stanton immediately showed skill, intelligence and drive in running the network.

"He was indefatigable," Salant, the CBS news chief, wrote in his memoir. "He never seemed to need sleep. His integrity was uncompromising yet it was gentle. He nursed his associates along and taught them by osmosis and example, not by forbidding and righteous moralizing (or demoralizing) lectures."

One of Stanton's first major journalistic tests as a network executive came in 1954 when the network stood behind the airing of a controversial segment of Edward R. Murrow's program, "See It Now." In it, Murrow had pieced together footage of U.S. Senate hearings in which Sen. Joseph McCarthy intimidated the news media and entertainment industry in his hunt for communists. Murrow then methodically rebutted the charges.

Up until then, the media had been fearful of challenging the powerful Wisconsin Republican, who could just as easily turn his wrath toward them.

"The program exposed McCarthy by hanging him on his own words through footage skillfully edited to show the pattern of his demagoguery," Smith wrote in "In All His Glory."

After the program aired, CBS allowed the angry McCarthy time for a response.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago called the two programs, in retrospect, "among the most important in the history of television."

"In that blustery performance," the museum stated in its biography of Stanton, "many observers see the downfall of McCarthyism."

As many have commented since then, however, it was somewhat ironic that CBS was so instrumental in bringing McCarthyism to an end since the network had itself imposed a blacklist.

In 1991, when Stanton was given a lifetime achievement award for his 1st Amendment work by the New York chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, some of those who had been blacklisted at CBS objected.

Stanton, who was by then in his 80s, did not apologize, but neither did he defend the network's policy. He told the New York Times that at the time of the blacklist he "didn't have the wisdom" to resist the pressure from the head of CBS' law department, who had recommended a blacklist. Stanton had approved a loyalty oath to assure advertisers and others that CBS employees' politics were correct. It was a rare misstep for CBS and Stanton.

In 1971, Stanton and the network fared better from a freedom of the press standpoint when the network aired the CBS News documentary "The Selling of the Pentagon," a stinging rebuke of the Pentagon's desire to burnish its public image to the tune of $30 million. The response from the Nixon White House and Congress was immediate. Stanton was called before a House committee for questioning and ordered to provide to Congress the "outtakes" of the interviews done for the documentary. Stanton refused.

In his statement to a House subcommittee on June 24, 1971, Stanton said in part:

"If newsmen are told that their notes, films and tapes will be subject to compulsory process so that the government can determine whether news has been satisfactorily edited, the scope, nature and vigor of their news gathering and reporting will inevitably be curtailed."

After the subcommittee cited him for contempt, Stanton asked, "Is this country going to have a free press or is indirect censorship to be imposed upon it?"

A few weeks later, under heavy lobbying from other television and print news organizations, the House of Representatives rejected a proposal to cite CBS for contempt of Congress, sending it back to the subcommittee on a 226-181 vote. No further action was taken.

Thereafter, Stanton was viewed as a journalistic hero.

During his time at CBS, Stanton became well acquainted with several presidents, some of whom offered him positions in the government, which he refused.

In the days following the assassination of President Kennedy, CBS News offered continual commercial-free coverage of the national tragedy for four days, which earned plaudits from critics.

Stanton was closest to President Lyndon Johnson, whom he met when he was still a researcher at CBS and Johnson was a member of Congress.

Sometimes the president would call Stanton at home and berate him for hours over some CBS news story. Once, upset about a shocking report by war correspondent Morley Safer on a Marine action in villages in Vietnam, Johnson called to say, "Frank, this is your president, and yesterday your boys shat on the American flag."

"He could be very vile," Stanton said. "And then he'd say, 'What are you doing this weekend? Come on down and spend the weekend with Bird and me and relax. You're working too hard!' "

Years later, Stanton admitted he was probably "too close" to Johnson.

Stanton and his wife had no children. She died in 1992. He leaves no survivors.

According to Allison, Stanton left explicit instructions that there be no memorial service or suggestions for contributions in his name.

"When he left CBS as their legendary president, he wanted no gifts or parties," Allison said. "He just picked up his briefcase and went home. He was not a grandstander."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-me-stanton26dec26,0,4576022,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

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

Cable TV Notebook
Midterm Report Cards
How the networks have fared in the first half of the season
By Stephen Battaglio TV Guide

Thirteen weeks into the 2006-07 TV season, the four major broadcast networks actually have more viewers than they did a year ago and are even in the advertiser-coveted demo of 18- to 49-year-olds. So the grades on our ratings report card should be pretty good, right? It's time to take a break from watching all those canceled shows online and assess the season so far.

ABC: The network held up remarkably well considering the loss of Monday Night Football. Overall, it was only down three percent in viewers ages 18 to 49, but showed big gains among young women. The move of Grey's Anatomy to Thursdays improved ABC's 18-to-49 audience by 150 percent. Brothers & Sisters and Ugly Betty are real success stories. Dancing with the Stars has proven to be a durable franchise. But Wednesday has become a problem — the network practically goes dark when Lost isn't on. The second half of the season could get rough as ABC is typically hurt more by American Idol than the other networks. Midterm grade: A-

CBS: Believe it or not, CBS has actually tied for first place with ABC in the 18-to-49 ratings. The Sunday lineup of Amazing Race, Cold Case and Without a Trace has held up well against NBC's football night. Grey's took a big chunk of viewers from CSI on Thursday, but CBS and ABC are still neck-and-neck. In fact, CBS has been gaining viewers in the last few weeks, while ABC's biggest hits are in repeats — that's the advantage of having a stable of procedural dramas that viewers can join in any given week. Three out of CBS' four new series were picked up for the full season, but that success is a bit illusory: The network's development has been prolific at scoring midsize successes but has gone several seasons without a real ratings home run. It needs one. Midterm grade: A-

NBC: Thanks to Sunday Night Football (which has done better than expected), Heroes, and a return of a must-see-TV-style comedy night on Thursdays, NBC had laid the foundation for a genuine turnaround. The only thing wrong with Monday night, where Heroes has boosted NBC's ratings by a third, is that the network didn't have a 10 pm program to take better advantage of its massive lead-in (but we've seen that before, haven't we, ABC?). The network gave full-season orders to two dramas — Studio 60 and Friday Night Lights — that really should have been canceled. But let's dwell on the positive. While ABC and CBS have clashed with their big hits on Thursday, NBC has quietly built a real appointment comedy night with My Name Is Earl, The Office (now the No. 2-rated sitcom in all of prime time), Scrubs and 30 Rock. If someone has a smart, quirky sitcom for next season, which network do you think is going to get first crack at it? Midterm grade: B

Fox: Considering that none of its new shows have gotten much traction, Fox hasn't done as badly as you might think. Overall, it's down six percent in viewers 18 to 49, not exactly a collapse. Take out a ragged baseball postseason and that decline is four percent. House, growing in its third season, has kept the network from going terminal before Idol rolls in next month. Midterm grade: C

The CW: As expected, it's taken some time for viewers from the WB and UPN to migrate to a new network to find their favorite shows — as evidenced by week-to-week ratings growth. The real test will be next season, when the network will have to shed some of its aging shows (get ready to say goodbye to Gilmore Girls) and come up with a new generation of hits. Midterm grade: B-

http://tvguide.com/News-Views/Columnists/The-Biz/default.aspx

Nielsen Notebook
NBC 'Deal' dominates Christmas night
By Paul J. Gough, The Hollywood Reporter December 27, 2006

NBC's Christmas wish was granted Monday night as the Peacock led all broadcast primetime with a strong "Deal or No Deal" following the network's coverage of the Philadelphia Eagles' drubbing of the Dallas Cowboys earlier in the day.

NBC was the only network to carry original programming Monday night, and it showed. two-hour "Deal or No Deal" and "1 vs. 100" far outpaced its rivals with an average 14.9 million viewers and a 4.9/14, according to preliminary estimates released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research. Only ABC could muster anything close to a challenge against the game shows with a repeat of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl."

"Deal or No Deal" dominated the night with 16.4 million viewers and a 5.3 rating/16 share in the adults 18-49 demographic. Another NBC game show, "1 vs. 100" (11.9 million, 4.1/12) didn't do as well but it was enough to beat a repeat of "CSI: Miami" and the last hour of "Pirates of the Caribbean." ABC's "Pirates" averaged 8.6 million viewers and a 3.2/9 in the demo.

It was NBC's best Christmas night performance since 1997 and the biggest Christmas night viewership for any network since 2000 when ABC had "Monday Night Football."

Nightly averages: ABC (8.6 million , 3.2/9); CBS (5.1 million, 1.7/5); NBC (14.9 million, 4.9/14); Fox (3.8 million, 1.3/4); and The CW (1.4 million, 0.6/2).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i798a5ff89e0fc780edf8ffe67de4cad3

HDTV Notebook
TV personalities not ready for hi-def closeups
By Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn, Chicago Suntimes December 26, 2006

Vanity, thy name is hi-def TV.

The holiday shopping season was expected to boost the number of U.S. homes with high-definition televisions to nearly 33 million. For a growing number of image-obsessed on-air personalities, that's 33 million reasons to be concerned.

Besides spectacular vistas and shockingly real playing fields, hi-def clarity puts any and all wrinkles, pimples and pores on display in well-lit bathroom-mirror detail.

Some TV types say big-screen HDTV could lead to the end of the extreme close-up as we know it. Others predict hi-def fears could soon be reflected in artists' contracts.

When ''Good Morning America'' debuted in high-definition last year, host Diane Sawyer, 61, noted that viewers will now know when she has stayed up too late the night before. ''They will see it right there,'' Sawyer said, indicating the puffiness under her eyes.

Dissolve to the TV industry's behind-the-scenes pros, who are developing new ways to help the talent keep up appearances in today's hi-def world.

''The grain structure of film allows a softness that HD video tends not to have, posing more challenges, especially when it comes to capturing female faces,'' says Stephen McNutt, director of photography for ''Battlestar Galactica.''

''We seem not to care about seeing men in a rougher ... edgier way,'' he explains, ''whereas females, we're used to seeing them in a softer, more appealing way. ''

While lighting techniques have helped, new advances in cosmetic applications have done wonders, too, says Patricia Murray, ''Battlestar's'' head of makeup. Murray uses foundation and makeup airbrushed onto the skin.

She says it's not good for every show: ''We have a show that's very raw, and it's not so glamorous, so the application needs to be a little lighter because we allow the shine of the skin to come through ... with other shows, you have to watch the amount of shine you allow because high definition picks that up quite a bit.''

Some camera operators believe fears about HDTV exposure could bring an end to extreme close-ups on TV shows.

''I think there's a danger area of saying the extreme close-up is not flattering -- it's a part of the grammar of television to do that,'' says Tom Houghton, director of photography for ''Rescue Me.'' The Sony TV-produced show is shot in HD, but appears on FX, which still airs in standard definition.

Broadcast networks now offer the bulk of their prime-time programming and major sports coverage in HD. Cable provides some HD content, with a few channels that are dedicated to HD. A few local stations offer newscasts in hi-def.

With the Federal Communications Commission mandate that TV networks move from analog to digital by 2009, talent agent Harry Gold says concerns over HD may factor into some artists' contracts.

''You take a show like 'Desperate Housewives,' which is in really glossy high-definition. In order for those women to look as glamorous as they want to look, they need to really pay attention to how they're made up and how they're lit, what kinds of lenses are being used and all that kind of stuff,'' says Gold, president of TalentWorks.

Actress Kat Foster of the Fox HD comedy "Til Death" prefers traditionally applied corrective foundations that, she says, give her a more natural look onscreen. ''It would behoove everyone to see the real celebrity, wrinkles and all,'' declares Foster, 28. ''I think the more human we are, the more attractive we are to the people who watch us.''

Will she feel the same way in 10 years?

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/television/185951,CST-FTR-def26.article

TV Notebook
The great exchange
Along with those pink pyjamas, here a few more things we'd like to return
By Bill Harris, Toronto Sun December 26, 2006

'Tis the season to return all those hideous items you got for Christmas.

Yes, yes, it's the thought that counts.

It's just that some thoughts are better than others.

So as you're fighting through the Boxing Day crowds to exchange the pink rabbit pyjamas you received from a gender-confused aunt, we ask you to ponder what you've seen on TV lately.

And frankly, there are lot of things from the world of television that we wish we could exchange.

Namely:

• We'd like to exchange that commercial for a furniture store where the little girl says, "Santa, is that really YEEWWWW???" She's a sweet girl, no doubt, but clearly she was encouraged by the director to speak in a deliberate, fake-sounding way. It's not cute, it's annoying. We know one person who actually e-mailed the company and said it would ruin his Christmas if they continued to run it. Muting commercials is a great skill and the miracle of the PVR makes it even easier.

But there were a few other bad ads that breached our security system, such as the one for satellite radio with the moron singing along to Cherry Pie in his car, and the one for a coffee chain with the four emasculated men gathering in a snowbank to compare the gifts they received.

Where's Mr. Plow when you need him?

• We'd like to exchange that hugely disappointing live-action version of The Year Without A Santa Claus, starring John Goodman as St. Nick and Delta Burke as his wife. There actually was significant buzz about this new take on the famous stop-motion animation classic from 1974. Who would play Heat Miser? Who would play Snow Miser? As it turned out, Harvey Fierstein failed to cook as Heat Miser and Michael McKean left us cold as Snow Miser. But it wasn't completely their fault. The whole production looked cheap and they mucked with the story, too.

• We'd like to exchange Bryant Gumbel as an NFL play-by-play man. It's the league itself that hired Gumbel for the handful of games being shown on the NFL Network in the United States (picked up in Canada by TSN). But the snooty and nasal Gumbel does sports play-by-play as if he's interviewing an author.

• Speaking of sports, we'd like to exchange all the air time Canadian TV stations are giving to the potential sale of the Pittsburgh Penguins. This is being covered as if it's Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final combined with the assassination of JFK.

Honestly, this is weird. We guarantee the story is getting less coverage in Pittsburgh.

First of all, you just know that somehow, some way, the team is going to stay put. And why do we care so much, anyway? You can watch Sidney Crosby on TV from your living room whether he's playing in Pittsburgh or Kansas City or Dog River.

• We'd like to exchange the season-finale of The Bachelor, which provided 60 seconds of intrigue and crammed it into two hours. And at the end of it all, Prince Lorenzo didn't even give Jennifer an engagement ring. Riddle me this, Batman: What's to stop Lorenzo from walking out of the final camera shot and directly into the back of a limousine with the virgin who finished second?

Here's what would make The Bachelor really interesting: The dude and the winning gal are forced to get married, and if they want to get divorced they have to appear on Judge Judy. Now that would qualify as must-see-TV in 2007!

http://www.torontosun.com/Entertainment/Television/2006/12/26/3003539-sun.html

DVR/VCR Alert
'Ugly Betty' Marathon on ABC Family

Zap2it.com reports that ABC Family will run a day-long marathon of Ugly Betty episodes this Sunday Dec. 31st from 9AM to 8PM: http://www.ctnow.com/tv/hce-zap-uglybettyabcfamilymarathon.dec26,0,3994674.story?coll=hce-headlines-tv-top

Another reminder.....

2006 Cable Poll
Your top-5 Favorite Cable TV Shows

A few weeks ago you had a chance to vote on your favorite prime-time network TV shows. More than 300 votes were received.

Now it is time for your cable favorites.

So list them in order from 1-5 and either post them here in the thread or PM me.

If you would like, add a "guilty pleasure" cable show -- that is one you hate for your friends to discover you enjoy.

TV Notebook
With One Hour More, “Today” To Be Four
By Michael Starr The New York PostDecember 26, 2006

Stretching the "Today" show to four hours appears to be a done deal.

The extra hour. which would air from 10 to 11 a.m., would address a chronic problem for NBC, which in recent years has not been able to create a new show that keeps viewers from drifting off to other channels.

Martha Stewart's daily show airs there now.

NBC officials were unavailable for comment over the holiday weeekend, but the network released a statement indicating the fourth hour is a strong possibility

"Given the strength of the first three hours of the 'Today' show, we can see how a fourth hour would be attractive," it said.

"However, as we said to our affiliates earlier this month, no definite decision has been made."

It's not known who would host a fourth hour of "Today" - though it is clear neither Meredith Vieira or Matt Lauer would be the anchor. They both sign off now at 9 a.m. - after two hours - and leave the third hour of "Today" to a rotating group of hosts.

But insiders are saying that only a last-minute bump in the road can derail plans now.

The network is expected to make a decision early next year. The Post's Page Six reported recently that "Access Hollywood" co-host Billy Bush has interviewed for the job.

"Nobody has talked to me" about an offer yet, Bush said in a recent e-mail exchange. "At this stage, I know nothing" about whether the show is a "go."

Bush was "AH's" New York correspondent before being named to co-host the show in L.A.

It wouldn't be the first time NBC has expanded "Today" - TV's top-rated morning show for over 10 years now.

In 1999, it premiered "Later Today" (9-10 a.m.), hosted by Asha Blake, ex-"Brady Bunch" mom Florence Henderson and Jodi Applegate.

That show lasted only a year, and reverted back to "Today" in 2000 (with Al Roker and Ann Curry handling most of the duties).

The move to expand past 10 a.m. is, in fact, more promising than extablishing a third hour at 9 a.m.

Despite its name and familiarity, the third hour of "Today" has not been able to make a dent in "Live with Regis and Kelly," which remains one of daytime TV's most popular shows.

But in big cities like New York, the competition at 10 a.m. is less formidable.

Only the new "Rachel Ray" is established in that hour here.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/12262006/tv/with_one_hour_more__today_to_be_four_tv_michael_starr.htm

Another reminder.....

2006 Cable Poll
Your top-5 Favorite Cable TV Shows

A few weeks ago you had a chance to vote on your favorite prime-time network TV shows. More than 300 votes were received.

Now it is time for your cable favorites.

So list them in order from 1-5 and either post them here in the thread or PM me.

If you would like, add a "guilty pleasure" cable show -- that is one you hate for your friends to discover you enjoy.


My Top 5 Cable shows:

1) Laguna Beach
2) The Wire
3) The Closer
4) Monk
5) The 4400

Fred, I made some edits to my list.

TV personalities not ready for hi-def closeups
[''Rescue Me''] is shot in HD, but appears on FX, which still airs in standard definition.Interesting. I wonder if we'll see it syndicated on UHD or one of the other HD networks...

Maybe I missed the news, but I take it from looking at the Fox sked on the first page of this thread that The O.C. will continue to air on Thursday. There was talk about moving it to Wednesdays. Was that just talk?

I've been lazy and haven't updated the schedules for January yet, Antonio.

I'll get them done in the next few days.

Cable TV Notebook
Seeing the green light
HGTV's new reality show features Ed Begley Jr. (environmentally strict), his wife (less so) and information on saving energy
By Charlie Amter Special to The Los Angeles Times December 27, 2006

Ed Begley Jr.'s wife, Rachelle Carson, was freezing inside the couple's 1,700-square-foot Home last week. "He's like the Marquis de Sade," she said of her energy efficiency-minded husband, who refused to turn on the natural gas despite plunging temperatures inside the Begleys' Studio City house. "What about the warmth that I'm sending you right now, honey?" Begley asked. Carson smirked, and then embraced her husband.

Welcome to life at the Begleys. Next month, HGTV's new reality show "Living With Ed" (sneak preview, Monday at 1 PM PT, normal time 7 PM PT Sundays) will chronicle Begley's often extreme environmental rules, which sometimes impede his actress wife's desire to live more like her Hollywood peers.

In the pilot episode, for example, Begley times Carson with a stopwatch during what he considers a lengthy hot shower, reprimands her over not recycling properly and lectures her on how to save energy.

While the premise sounds gimmicky, the show rarely becomes mired in petty arguments between the two. HGTV executives are hoping Begley's personality, coupled with energy-saving tips on how to have a truly "green" home, will turn into a reality hit next year.

"Ed is so green, and green seems to be an increasing part of the national consciousness," said Andy Singer, vice president of original programming at HGTV.

"Living With Ed" is the Nashville-based cable network's first celebrity-driven project, and subsequently HGTV is pulling out all the promotional stops next month. "What's paramount to HGTV is that viewers learn something from our show," Singer said. " 'Living With Ed' is a docu-soap, but you are getting information on how to live green through watching an entertaining show."

Indeed, the show and its corresponding website offer tips for aspiring eco-friendly homeowners, including simple tricks like using fluorescent lightbulbs and more esoteric ways to save energy.

"This seemed like a good outlet for me because it's entertaining," Begley said of "Living With Ed," which he was initially reluctant to do. "How else are you going to get people's ear and get them to maybe try a solar oven or start up a compost bin?"

Begley said he and Carson have essentially been doing the show for years whenever guests visit their modest home.

"We can't help but do our 'Bickersons' routine when people come over," he said, "but will others find it funny? I don't know."

HGTV apparently found them funny enough to order an initial six episodes of the show, and already is keen on ordering more if "Living With Ed" performs well.

For now, Begley and Carson are excited to have the opportunity to reach viewers with their pro-environment message.

"Everything that I've done since 1970 has been not just good for the environment, but it's also been good for my bottom line," said Begley. "It will be great to reach the environmental crowd, but we don't want to preach to the converted. We want to reach people who maybe just want to save money."

Of course, it's not as easy as it seems for the layman to boast a $600-a-year electricity bill like Begley's — it takes big cash up front to shell out for the expensive solar panels that are hooked up to batteries in his garage. But once he starts talking about solar energy, it's easy to see why stars such as Larry David, Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow and Leonardo DiCaprio call him for advice.

"I'd say we're about 90% solar," he began, as he gestured to a cluster of 117 60-watt panels positioned on his roof. "When I was single, my electricity bill was only about $100 a year."

Carson rolled her eyes, no doubt having heard her husband say that many times since they wed in 2000.

Solar power isn't enough for Begley, who can't resist an illustrative power-saving device that makes up a key scene in the pilot episode — people-powered toast.

Begley pedals furiously on his stationary bicycle in the first episode of "Living With Ed," to make his morning toast. The bespectacled thespian is keen to show just how simply his daily workout generates the amps needed to power his toaster.

"All panels lead to the batteries ... the batteries lead to the inverter," he points out.

"The inverter then turns that DC power into AC. Because I have these batteries, I hooked this right up to my stationary bike," he says.

"This puts power into the plug down into the batteries. To make toast takes two minutes. I generate about two amps at 120 volts, so you figure about 15 minutes on the bike to make toast."

Somehow, Begley doesn't come off as holier-than-thou during the reality show — no small feat given his near-perfect energy efficiency that precious few Americans can match.

"I don't curse the darkness, I light the candles," he said. Begley himself never asked for the role of an environmental hero. He said: "I don't know if it's trust, or just that I appeal to common sense. I try not to focus too much on the environmental impact of it. I generally say things like, for example, 'You're going to save money right away with a compact fluorescent bulb and here's why.' "

Carson, who doesn't share the same level of enthusiasm for the environment as Begley does ("I have things to do during the day," she said), offered up a sincere "I haven't heard you say that in that way before, honey — that's good!"

"My God ... praise from my tormentor ... now this is exciting," said Begley.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-begley27dec27,0,5640624,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

Fredfa
Winter schedules can be found here: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/guide.aspx

I know, SJ, there are a number of sources. And I have the information, I just haven't taken the time to update my schedule posts.

I haven't found FC to be all that reliable, to be honest, so I usually get the skeds directly from the networks.

I guess I am also unhappy with FC because they take weekends off! :)

HDTV Notebook
TV personalities not ready for hi-def closeups


''I think there's a danger area of saying the extreme close-up is not flattering -- it's a part of the grammar of television to do that,'' says Tom Houghton, director of photography for ''Rescue Me.'' The Sony TV-produced show is shot in HD, but appears on FX, which still airs in standard definition.


Star Choice, a Canadian satco, recently added Showcase-HD and one of the programs listed at their site is "Rescue Me", it will interesting to see if it actually airs in HD on the channel. Another SC channel, The Movie Network, already airs "Stargate: Atlantis" in HD about 3-4 weeks behind the US airings.

Critic’s Notebook
Finest — and deservedly final — hours
By Robert Bianco USA Today

USA TODAY revisits the best and worst of the TV season's series, actors and trends, from the heart-rending to the head-scratching, from explosive to exploitive.

24 (Fox)

From its opening assassination shocker to its last-minute kidnap surprise, this dazzlingly audacious adventure put out its best season since the first — and its best sustained season ever. What other show left you this wound up, and this willing to rewind the clock?

Rest of the top 10

2. Grey's Anatomy (ABC)
3. The Wire (HBO)
4. Lost (ABC)
5. Rescue Me (FX)
6. Friday Night Lights (NBC)
7. The Nine (ABC)
8. Ugly Betty (ABC)
9. The New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS)
10. Dexter (Showtime)

Five worthy runners-up

• Bones (Fox)
• Brothers & Sisters (ABC)
• My Name Is Earl (NBC)
• Weeds (Showtime)
• Entourage (HBO)
Most improved series

Old Christine (CBS) Think the sitcom is dead? Check out Christine, which has grown to be TV's most reliable laugh-getter.

Biggest disappointment

Lost (ABC) "Disappointing" doesn't mean "bad," as witness the show's spot on the Top 10 list. But there's no question those fall marking-time episodes fell below our justifiably high expectations.

Most surprising success

Heroes (NBC) Big cliffhangers, odd plots, and variable acting. It's this generation's Batman. All that's missing is the cave and the tights.

Best movie or mini, non-fiction

When the Levees Broke (HBO)

Best movie or mini, fiction

Prime Suspect (PBS)

Movie most likely to make parents scream 'Stop watching that movie!'

High School Musical (Disney)

Reality stars of the year

Welcome:

Emmitt Smith

Not: Flavor Flav

Even less, please: The Shat

No more, we beg of you: Donald Trump

Worst show, reality division

Black/White (FX) There has never been a shortage of bad makeup, bone-headed behavior or lousy TV. Please, if that's all it took to bridge the racial divide, it would be bridged.

Worst show, scripted division

Smith (CBS) Apparently it doesn't take a thief. In a tight race to the bottom, CBS' deadly dull Smith edges out HBO's profanely inept Lucky Louie and ABC's one-night-wonder Emily's Reasons Why Not.

The season's undisputed TV queen

Helen Mirren. Elizabeth I last spring; Prime Suspect this fall. They should engrave her name on that miniseries Emmy and be done with it.

Breakout star, Winter Olympics division

Olympic Ice host Mary Carillo. Don't make us wait till 2010 to praise her again; give her a show now.

Best non- performance by a man who killed his wife, if he killed his wife

O.J. Simpson.

Upon further consideration

The media were mesmerized by the Katie Couric/Meredith Vieira job switch. So who's watching the shows now? Pretty much the same people who were watching before.

Most annoying commercials

Those Miller "Man Law" ads. Really? You guys are the arbiters of manliness? Well, then, what's the man-ruling on fake sports and bad face work?

The bottom of the 'Are We Really That Stupid?' game-show barrel

The Rich List (Fox) Think how bad a game show has to be to fail in one night in an era that supports Celebrity Duets, Skating With Celebrities and 1 vs. 100.

Worst TV trend

The talk-show confessional. You want to confess, call a priest. You want to apologize, call the people you offended. You want to explain what you did, tell your press agent to grant every interview request rather than just booking you somewhere that will let you soft-soap your way through a phony act of repentance.

Five fabulous performances

Female

Lisa Edelstein, House
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy
Sandra Oh, Grey's Anatomy

Male

Denis Leary, Rescue Me
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Hugh Laurie,
House
Patrick Dempsey, Grey's Anatomy
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock

Best hire

Rosie O'Donnell. When was the last time this many people were talking about, writing about or watching The View? The answers you're looking for would be "never."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-12-26-yir-TV_x.htm

Not TV news.

But sad nonetheless.

Former President Gerald R. Ford died today.

The Business of TV
Liberty-News tie-up ends with asset swap
By Paul Bond and Georg Szalai The Hollywood Reporter Dec 27, 2006

Now that Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. and John Malone and his Liberty Media have made it official that they are splitting up, the wave of speculation about what happens next has begun.

Tops on the list is whether DirecTV Group finally will merge with EchoStar Communications Corp.

The long-expected News Corp.-Liberty deal, announced Friday, has Liberty giving up its 16.3% stake in News Corp. in exchange for News Corp's. 38.5% stake in DirecTV Group. News Corp. also will pay Liberty $550 million in cash and give it regional sports networks FSN Northwest, FSN Pittsburgh and FSN Rocky Mountain.

In effect, News Corp. is buying back $11 billion in its own stock that was held by Liberty Media, which had been the conglomerate's second-largest investor behind the Murdoch family.

The swap, which ought to happen by the middle of next year following regulatory and shareholders approval, should move Liberty into the U.S. media big leagues by adding distribution muscle to its content assets with its control of satellite TV giant DirecTV, which boasts 15.6 million subscribers. (DirecTV rival EchoStar said Friday that its Dish Network surpassed 13 million subscribers.)

The companies said Friday that "it is expected" that DirecTV president and CEO Chase Carey will remain in that role, though Liberty will appoint new directors to fill board seats to be vacated by News Corp. representatives.

The Liberty-News Corp. agreement comes after more than two years of on-again, off-again talks and didn't surprise Wall Street, though some see more advantage for Liberty than News Corp. or DirecTV. After the deal was announced Friday morning, shares of Liberty Capital rose 4.5%, while Liberty Media shares fell 1.4%. DirecTV shares were off 1.8%, and News Corp. shares dropped fractionally.

Moody's Investors Service has since lowered its rating outlook on DirecTV to negative from stable, saying Liberty Media is a speculative-grade company that employs more aggressive financial policies than does News Corp.

Some observers pegged the value of the News Corp. shares that Liberty is giving up at $11.2 billion, while News Corp. was giving Liberty roughly $12.6 billion in cash and other assets.

News Corp. shareholders, though, will benefit from reduction of outstanding shares, and analysts expect that News Corp. will buy back up to $3.4 billion more of its stock in the coming years.

The deal also eliminates the risk that News Corp. assumed when it bought DirecTV, a one-product business, said Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto.

Noto told clients that News Corp. was selling its DirecTV shares for a fair price of $21, despite the fact that the stock closed Friday at $24.55, because it represents a slight premium to the stock's six-month average price. He also noted that the sale price is well above the $14 per share that News Corp. paid for its DirecTV stock.

Some analysts suspect that Malone will pursue the merger of DirecTV with EchoStar, an arrangement that might receive regulatory approval since Murdoch will be out of the picture.

"Politically, Malone is less of a lightning rod for criticism," said Phillip Swann, an analyst with TVPredictions.com.

Swann also sees the potential for Malone to simply sell DirecTV to a telecommunications company, particularly AT&T, which has been bundling its service with DirecTV's for years.

"We're all going to wait for the other shoe to drop," Swann said. "I don't see Liberty buying DirecTV just to hold it in its current form."

Other changes to look for could include stepped-up efforts at video-on-demand, which DirecTV will offer via high-speed Internet connections by about the middle of next year, and perhaps a shift in DVR strategy. DirecTV stopped marketing DVRs made by TiVo in favor of ones from NDS Group, in which News Corp. has a stake. When News Corp. no longer controls DirecTV, things could change.

"TiVo hopes Liberty is sitting back saying, 'Gee, it would be wonderful to welcome TiVo back into the fold,' " Swann said.

Murdoch and Malone were business allies once, though their relationship cooled in recent years. In late 2004, Liberty converted its nonvoting stock in News Corp. to a large voting stake without telling News Corp. ahead of time. Murdoch, who has controlled about 30% of News Corp., put in place an anti-takeover provision, or "poison pill," to prevent a hostile takeover.

Liberty executives, including chairman Malone and president and CEO Greg Maffei, repeatedly had said that they were supportive of News Corp. management and had no hidden agenda.

The two parties in their discussions focused mainly on producing the most tax-efficient transaction as Malone especially is known for abhorring tax bills. Observers estimated that Liberty could save about $2 billion in capital gains taxes in the final deal, with News Corp. saving more than $1 billion.

The stepped-up tax basis for Liberty adds about $15 per share in value, Bear Stearns analyst Spencer Wang said.

(Paul Bond reported from Los Angeles; Georg Szalai reported from New York. )

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ic429712e340e0fad36c3d212ec0b3f18

TV companies aim to demystify HDTV
Updated 12/27/2006 4:14 AM ET
By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Consumers are so confused by high-definition televisions that TV companies are launching education programs to explain them.
Perplexed TV purchasers often will hook up an HDTV incorrectly, then return it to a store as defective, says Rich Dinsmore, an executive with RCA Television's parent company, TCL-Thomson Electronics.

That may be one reason why HDTV sales, while solid, haven't grown faster. About one in three new sets are HD, says the Consumer Electronics Association. About 11 million will be sold in 2006, the group says.

TV makers and other high-definition providers are convinced that a little education will change that:

•Sony (SNE) has spent the past three months hosting 4,800 "HD Test Drive" events in retail stores, including Circuit City, Best Buy and Sears. Sony representatives have demonstrated HD technology more than 136,000 times, the company says. website www.sony-testdrive.com, features tutorials and prizes such as concert tickets and free TVs.

•Panasonic (MC) is fielding questions at 888-777-7134 during daytime hours. The line, known as the "Plasma Concierge," usually offers help to Panasonic plasma owners only. But the company opened it to anyone through December. The line has been such a hit that the company is extending the offer into 2007, says Rudy Vidal, customer service director.

•Comcast (CMCSA), which sells HD cable services, is running explanatory commercials on ESPN and Fox. In September, it ran short explanatory documentaries on the Starz channel. RCA next year will begin putting expanded information about HD on the outside of its TV boxes. And Motorola and many other companies offer online tutorials. The Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group, launched its own in November at www.myceknowhow.com.

High-definition sets, called HDTVs, have more lines of resolution on their screens than standard sets. That means they typically have a much clearer picture.

It sounds simple. But many consumers don't realize that to take advantage of an HD set, they must also have access to movies or TV shows that were recorded in high-definition. Standard programming can actually look worse on an HD set.

One in four HDTV owners is still watching regular programming and doesn't know it, says Bruce Leichtman, head of the Leichtman Research Group.

Shoppers may also not know that digital sets are not necessarily HD. Digital refers to the way the TV signal is processed, not the quality of resolution. And it can be confusing that different styles of sets have different screen types. Many flat-panel TVs have HD screens — but not all of them do, for example.

Still, says Sony Vice President Randy Waynick, once you show consumers the benefits of HD, "It's hard for them to go back."

HDTV TIPS

Shopping for a new TV? Some tips:

• Not all digital TVs are HDTVs; ask salesperson to confirm set is capable of full HD resolution.
• Choose a digital set either plasma, LCD, tube, rear or front projection based on room size, lighting, screen/cabinet constraints and budget.
• Contact your cable or satellite provider to find stations and programs in HD.
• Alternatively, visit antennaweb.org for advice on antenna types and free local "over-the-air" HD reception.


http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2006-12-27-hd-education-usat_x.htm?csp=34

TV Notebook
Ex-Vampire Turns Into Regular Guy
By Sean Mitchell, The New York Times December 27, 2006

When David Boreanaz was in the fourth grade, he says, he was pushed around and beaten up on the playground in Philadelphia. It is a scene that is difficult to imagine for those who have seen Mr. Boreanaz shouldering the manly role of the F.B.I. agent Seeley Booth in “Bones,” the forensic procedural drama now in its second season on Fox (on Wednesday nights). He insists the story is true but adds that resisting the bullying led him into sports, where he grew eventually into a 6-foot-1 offensive end and defensive back for his Catholic high school football team.

“I wasn’t the best of players, but I could go across the middle and catch a ball,” Mr. Boreanaz said in an interview at his home here. “I wanted to play sports my whole life. That’s all I really wanted to do.”

This despite the fact that his family had show business connections: his father, under the name Dave Roberts, was a television weatherman and talk show host for the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia; his mother a singer who turned down an offer to go on the road with the Tommy Dorsey band.

“I always thought of her as Doris Day,” said Mr. Boreanaz (pronounced Bo-ree-AH-nuz). His father, he said, was forced to shed his surname because “back in those days, you couldn’t use an ethnic last name.” Years later, his son has finally introduced the family name to popular culture.

In “Bones” Mr. Boreanaz is paired with Emily Deschanel, who plays the title role of Temperance Brennan, a k a Bones, a forensic anthropologist at a Smithsonianlike institution that lends her out to the F.B.I. With Booth, a hard-charging agent who distrusts science, as her partner, she investigates murders involving corpses that are not, well, fresh. The inherent gruesomeness of the task at hand is offset by the odd couple’s combative banter and their unmistakable, though unacknowledged, attraction to each other.

“We were looking for a leading man with retro appeal, a throwback,” said Hart Hanson, the creator and an executive producer of “Bones,” which has been a steady performer for Fox. Few of the network’s series performed well in the ratings this fall, but “Bones” has managed to increase its audience from fall 2005, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Until now Mr. Boreanaz was best known to television viewers as the vampire Angel on Fox’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and then in the spinoff series, “Angel.” His square jaw and action-hero physique attracted a legion of female fans in the seven seasons of “Buffy.”

“I didn’t come from a traditional background of studying theater and doing Shakespeare,” Mr. Boreanaz said. He did appear in a couple of Sam Shepard plays in small theaters in Los Angeles before getting his first television role as a biker on an episode of “Married With Children.”

Critics have compared Mr. Boreanaz and Ms. Deschanel’s sublimated romantic tension on “Bones” to that of Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd on “Moonlighting” and David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson on “The X Files,” though the badinage on those earlier shows never had to accommodate examinations of blackened flesh, reconstructed fetuses and, in one episode, jewelry extracted from the lung of a submerged corpse that had “melted during putrefaction.”

In some ways the traditional male-female roles are reversed in “Bones,” with Brennan, the scientist, cast as the stolid, lonely careerist, while Mr. Boreanaz’s character is, by contrast, emotional and caring, an unmarried father who is seeking redemption for his past as an Army sniper.

“He’s a stand-up, blue-collar guy,” Mr. Boreanaz said about Booth.

Though Mr. Boreanaz is not exactly from the streets, he fondly recalls working construction one summer while in high school and learning how to swing a hammer and use the right tools, an experience that has stood him in good stead. “I know the blue collar mentality,” he said. “You meet these guys, you make friends, that’s all stuff that I have.”

He said he never knew how to apply such personal details to acting until he began to work recently with the acting teacher Ivana Chubic. “I’m learning more how to do that now, draw on my own experience,” he added. “It’s a style she teaches that makes sense to me. I didn’t know this could be so much fun.”

“For me,” he continued, “what I was doing with ‘Buffy’ and ‘Angel,’ it was all about the pain and the torture and the sense of being in the alleyway. Not to take anything away from it, but those were some learning, hard, difficult times when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

Now, he and Ms. Deschanel meet every Saturday at Ms. Chubic’s home to work on the script they will be shooting the next week — an extracurricular form of preparation not common in the daily grind of a television series, in which actors cherish their weekends off.

Mr. Boreanaz did not begin acting until he moved to Los Angeles after graduating from Ithaca College in upstate New York. “I didn’t grow up as child actor,” he said. “I was fortunate to find this show with a small character that grew into this huge cult thing. I was like, ‘Let’s ride it.’ ”

The success of “Buffy” carried him, as he tracks it, from “a small apartment in Hollywood to a bigger apartment to a corner condo to renting a house.”

At 37, he now owns a house in the Hollywood Hills, just above the Sunset Strip, where he lives with his wife, the former “Howard Stern Show” personality and Playboy Playmate Jaime Bergman, and their 4-year-old son.

While Mr. Boreanaz said he was enjoying the experience of “Bones,” like many actors in television, he hopes to land a good role in a feature film. To date, he has appeared in a number of independent or low-budget features — “These Girls,” “Mr. Fixit” and “The Hard Easy” — but not yet a major movie.

“This is where I want to go, and I’m knocking on doors right now,” he said. “I’m not going away.”

One of the most memorable moments of this season for Mr. Boreanaz came while he was working late on a Friday night, sitting in his trailer on the set watching the World Series. Suddenly he heard the popular Fox play-by-play announcer Joe Buck urge viewers to watch “an all-new ‘Bones’ next week.”

“Joe Buck!” Mr. Boreanaz said excitedly. “Joe Buck!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/arts/television/27bore.html?_r=1&ref=television&oref=slogin

TV Notebook
TV Tonight
By David Bianculli, New York Daily News December 27, 2006

Special offerings tonight include an evening full of "Friday Night Lights" on NBC, BET's birthday celebration and a "Robot Chicken" marathon on The Cartoon Network.

Series

8:00 p.m. (NBC) "Friday Night Lights." Looking for a better night to house and nurture this fine, understated series, NBC has settled on Wednesdays, and makes the transition by making tonight's show hard to miss. Most of its network rivals are in reruns, and NBC is repeating the three most recent episodes - including the one in the final hour of prime time, which re-creates a cheerleader competition with impressive attention to detail.

8:00 (Fox) "Bones." NBC isn't the only network presenting multiple episodes of the same show tonight. Fox is televising two back-to-back hours of dem "Bones."

Nonfiction

10:00 p.m. (ABC) "Primetime: Basic Instincts." This hour of "Primetime" is intended to measure people's instinctive reactions to certain situations. My "fight or flight" instinct, for example, listens to this program description and instantly suggests flight.

Movies

7:00, 9:00 p.m. (OXY) "Breakfast at Tiffany's." If you saw last week's repeat of "CSI: NY," and didn't know who the trio of costumed female bank robbers were supposed to be, then you need to watch this 1961 romantic comedy. Audrey Hepburn stars as Holly Golightly, with a fashion sense that helped set the tone for the swinging '60s.

Specials

8:00 p.m. (BET) "25 Strong: BET Silver Anniversary." Say it loud: BET is silver and it's proud. The cable network celebrates its 25th anniversary with scheduled performances by, among others, Alicia Keys and Earth, Wind and Fire.

9:00 (TBS) "Funniest Commercials of the Year." Brought to you by still more, but less funny, commercials. If you don't like the concept, you can skip this. Or, for fun, you could TiVo it and fast-forward through the entire thing.

Marathons

10:00 p.m. (TOON) "Robot Chicken." Here's a treat that's like getting a DVD boxed set delivered to your home for free. Fifteen straight hours - 30 episodes - of this giddily skewed stop-animation sketch-comedy series are shown in a major marathon, courtesy of the Cartoon Network. My favorite bit: the Justice League of America superheroes, stuck in a confining and combative "Surreal Life"-type reality show.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/483349p-406856c.html

Are these guys for real??!! Who do they think they are, Chuck Wepner? :rolleyes:

TV Notebook
Brothers with larger-than-life tale claim 'Prison Break' was stolen from them
By Phillip O'Connor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch December 27, 2006

VERSAILLES, MO. — The Hughes brothers admit they conned a few people back in the day.

From mobsters, to bartenders to the Army, they told stories a bit short of the truth in return for quick cash, another free pour or to hide from the law.

This time, the brothers insist, they're not lying.

Sit a while and listen to them reminisce and you begin to wonder whether the tales they spin could possibly be fact. Advertisement

A wrongful imprisonment, a jailbreak, years on the lam. Correspondence with a U.S. president, cooperation in a corruption investigation, consorts with topless dancers.

It sounds like a script dreamed up by Tinsel Town. But it's all true, the brothers say. They lived it and even wrote a book about it. Then, they claim, Hollywood stole their story, put it on television and scored a hit.

Now the brothers say they want their share. And they've gone after a TV network with a federal lawsuit.

This, they insist, is no con job.

Bob Hughes, 59, turned on the television in his apartment, took two steps across his living room and settled into a worn leather easy chair that sagged to the left. He'd written the date in an open notebook on his lap.

It was moments before a 7 p.m. broadcast of "Prison Break," a popular second-year series on the Fox network.

On this night, his older brother Don, 63, who lives in an upstairs apartment, was off baby-sitting his grandchildren. Most Mondays, he sits next to Bob as they watch the one-hour show in search of any parallels between the story lines and their own adventures.

"I found 30 similarities the first season and 15 more this season," said Bob, who details their findings in the notebook. "If you took each one individually, it wouldn't be so unusual to have it in a story. But when you put them all together as a group, that's just like the odds of being struck by lightning."

They say the similarities begin with the show's basic premise: a wrongly jailed person freed by his brother.

"It just goes on and on and on from there," Bob said.

The breakout

The Hughes brothers' improbable story starts in 1964 in Gladstone, Mo., just outside Kansas City, when their mother accused Bob of threatening her with an ice pick.

Though she would later recant, Bob, then 16, wound up in a state juvenile center in Boonville, Mo.

He said he often saw inmates mistreated and told his parents he feared for his life. He asked them to contact Don to help arrange his escape.

To prepare for that escape, Bob got himself transferred from a work crew to the center's bakery. On July 8, 1964, Bob dropped off fresh-baked bread at the superintendent's house, which was on the grounds.

Don, meanwhile, pulled up near the house in a sedan disguised as a Highway Patrol cruiser. Bob dived through the open back window.

They slipped through a roadblock and began a four-year, cross-country odyssey, often just one step ahead of the law.

During that time, Bob claims, he took steps to reveal the brutality he'd witnessed. He wrote several letters to President Lyndon B. Johnson and even claims his parents arranged a private meeting with an FBI agent on a Friday in Kansas City. The agent let him go free, he says, with a warning that the pursuit would resume the next Monday.

In 1969, a federal report condemned the conditions at Boonville as prison-like, and the center was closed several years later.

In the meantime, Bob received his induction notice. A fugitive now for more than two years, he reported to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in September 1966, where he expected to be arrested. Instead, Hughes said, he qualified for officer candidate school.

But a week shy of graduation from training, the military learned of his wanted status.

He called Don, and the brothers were on the run again.

They settled in Southern California, where in September 1967, with law enforcement closing in, Don gave up.

"I was tired of running," he said. "We weren't raised like that."

He was returned to Missouri, where he was sentenced to time served and probation for charges of passing bad checks while on the run.

Bob sneaked back to Missouri, where he was arrested in November 1967. He was court-martialed and spent four months in the stockade at Fort Riley, Kan., and upon release faced jail time in Missouri.

The day before his extradition hearing in March 1968, The Kansas City Star ran a long story on the Hughes brothers' situation. A Kansas judge denied the extradition. The Missouri attorney general agreed to drop the case.

"I was finally free," Bob Hughes said.

No longer on the run

Eventually, the brothers settled down. A little.

They said they pursued photography careers for more than 30 years. They traveled the country and shot church directory portraits by day and strippers' portfolios by night.

They drank, partied, gambled, stretched the truth and ran some cons. Don says he even sold a tractor-trailer, filled with nonexistent televisions, to a mobster.

"The things we've done, we did out of necessity, to survive," Don Hughes said in a raspy voice he soothes with thin cigars. "I don't do anything like this anymore, but I loved to take advantage of greedy people."

In 1989, Don gained custody of his 9-year-old daughter. He hasn't had a drink since, he said.

He moved to Versailles in 1993 and opened a photo studio. Bob followed a few years later.

In 1998, The Kansas City Star recounted the brothers' escapades in a front page story. Friends told them they should write a book. So they retired and spent two years on the story. In 2000, they hired an agent to shop their manuscript. Among those they say rejected their work was the Fox network.

Unable to sell their story, they fired the agent. The brothers didn't think much more about the project until Don's daughter called in the summer of 2005, upset that he hadn't told her he had sold his story.

He hadn't, he told her.

"Well, it's coming on TV," she said.

When they saw a reference to D.B. Cooper on the première of "Prison Break," they were astonished. They had made reference in their manuscript to Cooper, who in 1971 jumped out of a hijacked plane over the Pacific Northwest with $200,000 in ransom, never to be seen again.

"Immediately, I said there's absolutely no doubt they stole our manuscript," Don Hughes said.

In an episode late in the first season, characters encountered a roadblock at the intersection of Highways 6 and 53, according to the Hughes' lawsuit. The brothers note that they live near the intersection of Highways 5 and 52.

In the same show, another inmate is shown passing a highway sign that reads "St. Louis 236 miles." The brothers point out that they live about 230 miles from St. Louis.

"That's when I thought they're actually jabbing us with sticks saying, 'Hey, hey, we got your manuscript and what can you do about it?'"‰" Bob said.

In October, the brothers filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Jefferson City, alleging copyright infringement. The suit seeks unspecified damages and other costs from Fox and the show's executive producer and creator, Paul Scheuring.

All have declined to comment. The brothers' former agent did not return messages seeking comment.

Fewer similarities

Back in his apartment, Don finished watching an episode filled with chases, close calls and daring escapes. He sat forward in his chair, raised his pen and wrote "none" before he closed his notebook.

The brothers say they're finding fewer and fewer similarities these days.

"They're actually having to write some of this themselves because they've used up all of ours," Don said.

Despite the lawsuit, the brothers say they are big fans of the show.

"We ought to be," Bob said. "We wrote it."

The series is on a hiatus and is scheduled to return Jan. 22.

The Hughes brothers plan to tune in.

That, they say, is no lie.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/7CA0581AFF33298A86257251000C29CD?OpenDocument

Fred, I made some changes to my top 5 list above.

TV Notebook
2006's most memorable moments
By Glenn Garvin, Miami Herald December 24, 2006

• The Wire (HBO) -- This extraordinary drama that explores the breakdown of courts, cops, schools, and politics in American cities has been the most intelligent series on television since its debut in 2002.

• Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (NBC) -- Aaron Sorkin turns his razor wit on television itself with hilarious and insightful results.

• The Sopranos (HBO) -- As this remarkable gangster drama draws near its end, Tony Soprano has had to confront not only his mortality but his morality. Pretty? No. Compelling? Always.

• Dexter (Showtime) -- Our freeways are clogged, our politicians corrupt, our barometric pressure lethal and our football teams inept, but hey, what about our serial killers? They rock.

• The Class (CBS) -- This sweetly hilarious tale of a group of 20-somethings whose lives have gone off-track proves there's nothing wrong with the sitcom that good writing can't cure.

• 30 Rock (NBC) -- This anarchic workplace comedy set in a television network is a comic mad dog that not only bites the hand that feeds it, but rips the whole arm off.

• Day Break (ABC) -- TV's most inventive drama, with Taye Diggs as an undercover cop living the worst day of his life, over and over again. Too bad you can't watch it -- it was canceled last week.

• Penn & Teller's Bull----! (Showtime) -- The Tourette's syndrome version of 60 Minutes.

• Shark (CBS) -- James Wood's raffishly charming portrayal of a glib, cynical prosecutor elevates a pedestrian legal drama into something special.

• The Shield (FX) -- Clean-up-TV groups that go after this renegade-cop drama for its insane violence, filthy language and degraded sexual content miss its profoundly moral point: that ends eventually become means, that shifting ethical boundaries eventually erase them.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/television/16302365.htm (clicking this link will show you the Miami Hearld's Year-in-Review on all aspects of entertainment: theater, music, movies, etc. Glenn Garvis' TV section is somewhere in the middle).

TV Sports
Teeing off on move to the Golf Channel
15-year PGA deal already under fire
By Ed Sherman Chicago Tribune December 25, 2006

It's been a rough start even before the first tee shot. Several critics, including some players, don't see the Golf Channel as a place to grow the game, something the PGA Tour desperately wants to do.

If the tournaments were on ESPN or USA Network, the tour's previous cable partners, golf might snare a few of those surfers, especially if Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson is playing. Now the sport likely won't get those casual viewers.

Fred Couples was among the players most vocal about the PGA Tour ending its deal with ESPN. Remember the Champions Tour virtually disappeared from the radar with its ill-fated departure from ESPN to CNBC. "I don't understand the new TV deal," Couples told Golf World. "We signed for 15 years with the Golf Channel? Isn't there a number between 1 and 15? How'd we lose ESPN? I don't get that.

"What if ESPN decides in three years that they want golf again? What does the PGA Tour tell them? 'Sorry, we're with the Golf Channel until 2021'?"

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/cs-061224sherman,1,5245529,print.column?coll=cs-home-headlines

Didn't the carriers of the PGA in years past (USA, TNT, ESPN, etc.) complain during renewal time that the TV rights were too expensive for the miniscule ratings golf generated when stars like Tiger or Mickelson didn't participate in a tournament? The cable companies offered less, Golf Channel (i.e. Comcast) offered more and the PGA bosses decided to go with the sure money and ran with it.

I've personally haven't tuned into Golf Channel much because they televise boring events like the Champions Tour, LPGA or non-PGA golf events. Now that Golf Channel has first and second round PGA coverage I might make it a point to tune in, especially if my TWC system gets the new Versus/Golf HD channel (yeah right! :rolleyes: ). Couples and critics of this deal fail to realize that on ESPN, USA or TNT PGA golf is small potatoes compared to their 'Law & Order' repeats, NBA games, original cable series and made-for-TV movies. It's better to be a big fish in a comparatively small pond (i.e. Golf Channel's 75-million reach ain't small) than be just another block of programming on a cable giant like ESPN.

Looks like CBS has finally chosen the Week 17 HD games.

12/31/2006 NFL Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cincinnati Bengals 1:00 PM
12/31/2006 NFL Miami Dolphins vs. Indianapolis Colts 4:00 PM
12/31/2006 NFL Buffalo Bills vs. Baltimore Ravens 4:00 PM

http://www.hdsportsguide.com/nfl.php

Thanks, rusty, I've been waiting to find out what CBS was going to do.

(Frankly, I forgot to call Fox and CBS yesterday to update my NFL schedules. Too much eggnog, I guess. Thanks for the reminder!)

I wonder if those games are right. It would be the first time that I can recall that the "D" team would get a HD game and the "C" team would be SD. Of course nfl.com could be wrong too on the announcer assignments.

According to nfl.com

Miami @ Indianapolis--Jim Nantz, Phil Simms
Oakland @ New York Jets--Greg Gumbel, Dan Dierdorf
New England @ Tennessee--Dick Enberg, Randy Cross
Buffalo @ Baltimore--Kevin Harlan, Rich Gannon

From
http://www.nfl.com/gamebygame/week17 (go into game notes)

Didn't the carriers of the PGA in years past (USA, TNT, ESPN, etc.) complain during renewal time that the TV rights were too expensive for the miniscule ratings golf generated when stars like Tiger or Mickelson didn't participate in a tournament? The cable companies offered less, Golf Channel (i.e. Comcast) offered more and the PGA bosses decided to go with the sure money and ran with it.

I've personally haven't tuned into Golf Channel much because they televise boring events like the Champions Tour, LPGA or non-PGA golf events. Now that Golf Channel has first and second round PGA coverage I might make it a point to tune in, especially if my TWC system gets the new Versus/Golf HD channel (yeah right! :rolleyes: ). Couples and critics of this deal fail to realize that on ESPN, USA or TNT PGA golf is small potatoes compared to their 'Law & Order' repeats, NBA games, original cable series and made-for-TV movies. It's better to be a big fish in a comparatively small pond (i.e. Golf Channel's 75-million reach ain't small) than be just another block of programming on a cable giant like ESPN.

I think the real problem is that when ESPN doesn't have rights to an event they somehow manage to seriously downgrade coverage of that event on ESPN, ESPN Classic, ESPN News, ABC, SportsCenter and every other tentacle Disney has surrounding the sports world.

On the other hand if ESPN does have rights, the events get promoted all over the Disney "brands".

Personally, I enjoy TGC's coverage of tournaments, especially the Q School finals each year -- which arguably are the most pressure-packed rounds of competitive golf played anywhere during the season. (And, of course, ESPN barely mentions the Q School tourney.)

But out on the West Coast, we Pac-10 fans are used to being ignored by ESPN. (FSN has the rights, duh!) It is just sad that so many actually believe what the network "reports" actually has anything to do with the newsworthiness of its subjects and not the financial connection to Disney.

I wonder if those games are right. It would be the first time that I can recall that the "D" team would get a HD game and the "C" team would be SD. Of course nfl.com could be wrong too on the announcer assignments.

According to nfl.com

Miami @ Indianapolis--Jim Nantz, Phil Simms
Oakland @ New York Jets--Greg Gumbel, Dan Dierdorf
New England @ Tennessee--Dick Enberg, Randy Cross
Buffalo @ Baltimore--Kevin Harlan, Rich Gannon

From
http://www.nfl.com/gamebygame/week17 (go into game notes)


I haven't checked the announcing assignments, jaydee353, but could the CBS broadcasts of Friday's Sun Bowl or Monday's Gator Bowl possibly have caused some NFL ripple effects?

I haven't checked the announcing assignments, jaydee353, but could the CBS broadcasts of Friday's Sun Bowl or Monday's Gator Bowl possibly have caused some NFL ripple effects?

Very good point. Also throw in the fact that I am sure with everyone waiting on NBC to announce their game on Christmas night also could of caused alot of last minute shuffling.

OK, you made me rouse myself to check, and here are the announcing teams for the CBS bowl games:

Sun Bowl: Craig Bolerjack, Steve Beurlein and Sam Ryan.

Gator Bowl: Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson

(To be honest, I have no idea if they do NFL games or not because I so rarely watch -- but I assume at least Verne and Gary do.)

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

OK, you made me rouse myself to check, and here are the announcing teams for the CBS bowl games:

Sun Bowl: Craig Bolerjack, Steve Beurlein and Sam Ryan.

Gator Bowl: Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson

(To be honest, I have no idea if they do NFL games or not because I so rarely watch -- but I assume at least Verne and Gary do.)

Beurlein does color for the preseason non network games for the Carolina Panthers.

TV Sports
A Very Merry Christmas for NBC
23.2 Million Watch Philadelphia Defeat Dallas; "NBC SNF" Averaging 1.3 Million More Viewers than MNF Last Year
(NBC News Release)

NEW YORK – Dec. 27, 2006 – NBC's special Christmas Day broadcast of the Philadelphia Eagles 23-7 defeat of the Dallas Cowboys averaged 23.2 million viewers, making it the most-viewed NBC NFL broadcast this season, according to Nielsen Media Research. The 23.2 million who watched is 61 percent higher than the viewer average for the comparable game last year, ABC's Week 16 Monday Night Football game (14.4 million for New England Patriots-New York Jets, 12/26/05). Through 16 games, "NBC Sunday Night Football" is averaging 17.7 million viewers, 1.3 million more than and an eight percent increase over ABC's "Monday Night Football" broadcasts last season (16.4 million).

MOST WATCHED NBC GAME OF THE SEASON
The 23.2 million viewers who watched the Eagles beat the Cowboys is the most for any NBC NFL broadcast this season, two percent more than the much-hyped Manning-Manning Indianapolis-New York Giants game on Sept. 10 (22.7 million viewers).

EAGLES-COWBOYS RATES 32% HIGHER THAN ABC MNF
Eagles-Cowboys on NBC drew a 12.1 national rating and 29 share, 32 percent higher than ABC's Week 16 broadcast last season (9.2/16).

NBC HIGHEST-RATED CHRISTMAS DAY GAME IN MORE THAN A DECADE
NBC's Eagles-Cowboys broadcast is the highest-rated Christmas Day NFL broadcast since 1995 (15.5/31 for Cowboys-Cardinals on ABC).

NBC HAS BIGGEST CHRISTMAS NIGHT FOR ANY NETWORK SINCE 2000
Powered by the lead-in of NBC SNF, the network dominated Christmas night in adults 18-49 and total viewers, with the highest December 25 18-49 average for the network (4.9 rating) since 1998. In total viewers, it's NBC's biggest Christmas-night primetime audience (14.9 million viewers) since 1993 and the biggest Christmas-night primetime audience for any network since 2000 (ABC's Monday Night Football Cowboys-Titans).

"NBC SNF" PACING AHEAD OF ABC'S "MNF"
Season to date, "NBC SNF" is averaging 17.7 million viewers, eight percent higher than ABC's "MNF" average through 16 games last season (16.4 million). "NBC SNF" is averaging an 11.2/18, three percent higher than ABC's MNF through 16 games (10.9/18).

On New Year's Eve, in the NFL regular-season finale, "NBC Sunday Night Football" presents what could be Brett Favre's final game as the Green Bay Packers (7-8) visit the Chicago Bears (13-2) at Soldier Field. Coverage starts with the "Football Night in America" studio show at 7 p.m. ET, with kickoff at 8:15 p.m. ET.

You should check in every once in a while on Mark Cuban’s blogmaverick.com to see what this HDTV pioneer is thinking. It is one of the best reads on the internet, and I am sorry I missed this fascinating post originally a few days ago.
Technology Notebook
Internet Video…
…and how the Broadcast Nets are Missing the HDTV Opportunity.
(From Mark Cuban’s blogmaverick.com)

There is an oft repeated business saying that sales organizations should "Go after the low hanging fruit". The meaning obviously is to close the easy sales before you have to work to climb after the more difficult sales. Its a maxim that is rarely wrong.

For major media companies, and an ever growing list of Web 2.0 video-hosting companies, the low hanging fruit right now is selling advertising around video content available via broadband connections over the net, and to a lesser degree, available through Video on Demand from cable and satellite.

Advertisers want to buy it. They are as ripe as ripe can be and sales-reps are grabbing their dollars before they fall from the tree and hit the ground.

Because there is so much low hanging ad money there for the taking, many in both traditionally big media companies and Web 2.0 firms see it as the money pot at the end of the rainbow that will be the catalyst for future growth. No question its a growing market, But the biggest Internet video bulls seem to forget that what is happening now is not very different than the introduction of Digital Satellite and Digital Cable to viewers and advertisers.

Imagine if all of the sudden there was digital bandwidth available across the world. That anyone who wanted to buy a small dish, or add a digital set top box, could do so and easily receive access to Gigabits of bandwidth. of video. Right to their TV for anywhere from 30 to 120 dollars per month. Imagine what would happen to the TV industry. The change would be incredible. Channels would pop up out of no where. Just about anyone could create a channel and get it distributed across the country. Tens of millions of people would get what would seem like unlimited number of TV channels.

Thats exactly what has happened over the last 12 years. The number of TV channels exploded. The amount of advertising spent on non broadcast TV exploded. But, here we are 12 years later and the distribution of those non network ad dollars goes to the networks that have an audience. Plain and simple. If you had an audience, you could get ad dollars. If not, not. If you are a network that cant draw a .1 for its prime time shows. Forget about it. Its not impossible of course, but you are gonna have to work your tail off to get ad buys.

Work your tail off may in fact be an understatement. Talk to people in the cable industry. TV Ad buyers don't like to make ad buys that require them to aggregate smaller network audiences. Its a hassle for them to buy 10 different networks, let alone 100 or 200. its a hassle for them to audit the buy. There are actually services that monitor ads to make sure they ran and provide the results to advertisers.

If its a hassle for ad buyers to buy 100 TV networks, how much of a hassle do you think its going to be for them to buy 100 websites and get them audited ? Whats more, what do you think all those Web 2.0 sites who are easily selling video ad inventory today because its a nice experiment for advertisers do when they cant sell their video inventory any longer ? Or when the biggest advertisers tell them they have to work through a publisher network like Yahoo or Google in order for them to get a buy ? Well, the first thing they are going to do is lower their ad prices. Which is exactly what we saw happen both on smaller digital video networks and on websites trying to sell display advertising. Its history repeating itself.

You know who has this figured out ? Google and Yahoo and the major media companies. . They all know that ad buyers are never going to deal with individual websites to buy video ads. They aren't going to put themselves in a position where they have to deliver and audit video files across hundreds of sites. Thats why Google and Yahoo and the big media companies are so excited about Internet video. They each want to be the one stop for Internet video advertising. They want their publishing networks to be gatekeepers to advertisers.

Google thinks they can monetize ads better and deliver them far less expensively (because of their data center delivery), Yahoo hopes it can do the same. The big media companies know they can bundle Internet video with their cable and broadcast audiences, along with their existing Internet properties to create a more comprehensive solution. Plus, if worst comes to worst, they bundle it as a free add if they need to implode the market pricing of Internet video. Which is exactly what I think they end up doing over the long run. The less Internet video can stand on its own as a business, the less Internet video sites can invest in content and promotion to create an audience and the bandwidth to deliver that content. Thats a good thing for media companies who have to spend millions per episode for broadcast network shows and who get paid by the subscriber by cable and satellite companies.

It also makes it a smart move for them to cross license their content to create a Youtube competitor. Not that i think they can have the social impact of Youtube, or reach their traffic levels. They probably cant But what they can do is drive enough of an audience that they can create a package that more economically and simply lets advertisers reaches Youtube users on non Google properties by combining their Internet, TV and Youtube Jr. sites into a single ad buy. Plus, if advertisers buy ads on their Youtube competitor as part of a bigger package, they aren't buying from Google. That makes it a smart move.

Which brings me to HDTV.

HDTV is the Internet video killer. Deal with it. Internet bandwidth to the home places a cap on the quality and simplicity of video delivery to the home, and to HDTVs in particular. Not only does internet capacity create an issue, but the complexity of moving HDTV streams around the home and tp the HDTV is pretty much a deal killer itself. Together, internet video is destined for the PC monitor for a long time to come. The only wild card that will have an impact is gaming consoles, but they dint offer access to internet video, they all kill themselves by only offering access to content inside their walled gardens. Internet video won't replace TV. It wont even complement TV offerings. It will flourish in the office. It will be a fun way to share personal content privately or publicly. It will be Community Access TV.

On the flip side, HDTV is here and now. Its gone from being a future technology that could be cool in our living room to being the King of this holiday shopping season. 10s of millions of HDTVs have been sold and will be sold in the next year. The number of households with HDTVs is exploding. Yet for reasons I cant figure out, the broadcast networks are ignoring the opportunity it presents.

The 4 broadcast networks are really the only 4 companies that create content on a daily basis that can put smiles on the faces of all those HDTV buyers. They broadcast most of their prime time signals over the air and have the greatest reach on cable and satellite HD delivery.

Bob Iger, Les Moonves, Bob Wright, Peter Chernin, why in the world are your networks not promoting the hell out of the fact that everything looks better in HD ?. Where is the "Congrats, you just bought an HD set, here is how to get our best programming ever , in HD. And oh by the way, if you haven't called your cable or sat company or hooked up an antenna, you aren't getting HD. Call your cable or sat company to see what you are missing"

Every study about HD viewing says over and over again that people with HD sets, particularly those who just bought them will tune to HD networks first. Not only do viewers turn to HD first, but more families are gathering around their brand new HDTV that they just bought and are truly excited about. Why in the world aren't you taking advantage of this opportunity ? This is a unique point in time where you can grab viewers from non HD networks simply by promoting what you are already doing. It could be the year where broadcast ratings explode because of HD.

Then there is the advertiser side. Sure internet video is the hot sexy thing now. But where do advertisers get the greatest value ? From putting their TV ads on the net ? By creating 10 second spots for pre or post roll and showing them on PC monitors ? Or by creating commercials in HD that look beautiful on the brand new HDTV that millions of homes just installed and are excited to see new programming, including commercials on ? Whats worst, is that by letting your advertisers continue to show commercials in Standard Def, you are making them look clueless to all those new HDTV viewers. How many things could be more brand damaging than looking like you dint have a clue ?

This is a unique point in time for all networks broadcast in HD to push the ball forward. HDNet is going to start a big ad push in 2007. Maybe we can carry the ball, but either way, its absolutely crazy, and stupid to not leverage this opportunity to the hilt.

Last year I said that Disney was brilliant for breaking the logjam and selling their shows on Itunes. This coming year, 2007 will be known as the year Broadcast TV leveraged HD to create a golden age of TV with huge gains in ratings vs non HD networks, or it will be looked back upon as the year Broadcast Networks blew it.

Either way, HDNet and HDNet Movies will be right in the middle of the High Def revolution

http://www.blogmaverick.com/

TV Sports
For N.F.L. Fans, the Cable Picture Isn’t Any Clearer
By Richard Sandomir The New York Times

Roger Goodell, the National Football League commissioner, visited Green Bay for last week’s Vikings-Packers game at Lambeau Field, where he discussed why many fans in Wisconsin would not be watching what was the sixth of eight Thursday and Saturday night games on the NFL Network.

The truth was this: The state’s dominant cable operators, Time Warner and Charter, don’t carry the network, but in the Packers’ home markets, Green Bay and Milwaukee, local stations showed the game.

“I was disappointed that it wasn’t available on a broader basis,” Goodell said yesterday in a telephone interview. “There’s a misunderstanding that we don’t want to put the network in front of as many people as possible.”

• • • • • • • • • • •

Actually, the NFL Network’s intent — to be distributed as widely as possible — is far from misunderstood. That’s the wish of any new cable network. But fans don’t care much about the contractual details or about squabbles between cable operators and networks.

And when a network with appealing programming is not widely distributed, fan disenchantment is sure to follow; it’s a feeling that can lead to disgust with the network or the cable operators. But a grass-roots movement of fans demanding the channel has not formed.

“Don’t cable operators have some responsibility to deliver product that consumers want?” Goodell said.

A responsibility? Maybe, but at prices that cable operators and the network can agree on.

Goodell believes the monthly fee to cable systems of 70 cents a subscriber is fair. Time Warner, Cablevision and Charter, three prominent cable operators, have said no, but many others have said yes.

“Our product is in demand and we’re in the business of delivering what people want,” Goodell said.

The network’s games have attracted as many as 6.4 million viewers (for its Denver-Kansas City debut on Thanksgiving), a figure that combines cable and satellite viewers with those watching on stations in the teams’ home markets that are simulcasting the games.

But what people want and what they get are two different things in the NFL Network saga. On Saturday, the channel will carry the Giants-Redskins season finale. The game will be seen on Channel 4 in the New York-New Jersey region and on WTTG in Washington. So it does not matter in those areas if the network has a cable deal.

But beyond those markets (and in Charlotte, N.C., and in St. Louis, where the Panthers and the Rams have a stake in the outcome), cable coverage is a geographic hodgepodge of NFL Network haves and have-nots.

The league would have had it a lot easier if it had accepted the $450 million annual fee offered by Comcast to carry the eight games on its Versus channel, which has about 70 million subscribers, compared with 41 million for the NFL Network. Or it could have kept the games as Sunday afternoon regional broadcasts that not all fans could see (except for those with the Sunday Ticket package on DirecTV) and the crop of late-season Saturday games that were formerly on CBS, Fox and ESPN.

“Easier isn’t necessarily what we’re in the business of doing,” Goodell said, citing the 365-day, full-time football focus of the NFL Network that networks with obligations to other sports cannot provide. But those other networks can provide more coverage to their broadcast and cable universes.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Easy is not wired into the N.F.L. channel’s business DNA.

Pressure from various quarters was needed to prod the network to expand viewership of the Texas Bowl, featuring Rutgers and Kansas State, which it is showing tomorrow night. Goodell said that he first believed that putting the bowl game on local stations in the New York-New Jersey and Manhattan, Kan., markets would be feasible, but showcasing the channel with a weeklong preview became the higher priority.

But why not break the exclusivity of the game by licensing it to local stations? “Would the Texas Bowl have minded that?” Goodell said. “Would they have minded a reduced fee?” The network is paying $575,000 for the game and the sponsorship rights. The possibility of the Texas Bowl taking less was never discussed, said David Brady, the bowl director.

Cablevision will show the game to all its subscribers, and is carrying the preview on its digital basic tier. Time Warner customers will see the full preview, plus the game, on its most widely available digital tier.

Rutgers’s involvement in the Texas Bowl — and the resolution in the New York-New Jersey market — had a ripple effect, leading to the preview being shown on Time Warner’s system in Kansas City.

The NFL Network is also carrying Friday night’s Insight Bowl between Texas Tech and Minnesota, and Time Warner is showing the preview in Texas markets like Austin, Dallas and San Antonio. There will be a split in Minnesota’s Twin Cities: Comcast will show the preview in St. Paul, where it carries the network, but not in Minneapolis.

Goodell said he will be watching the Texas Bowl. “The Rutgers program is a great story not only for the New York area, but for football in general,” he said.

Fortunately, the political, fan and news media outcry for the Scarlet Knights is letting many more people see it than originally envisioned.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/sports/football/27sandomir.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

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

For those who are interested, the FCC just published its annual "Report on Cable Prices" today on its website. (The commission posted a news release earlier this month which you may have seen earlier in this thread.)

The complete report is here: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-06-179A1.pdf

Some highlights:

- Cable prices increased overall by more than 5 percent last year, while expanded basic rates grew by more than 6 percent, or "twice the rate of inflation last year."

- Since 1995, rates for basic plus expanded basic cable service have gone up a staggering 93 percent, more than three times the rate the Consumer Price Index grew during that same period.

- Competition from satellite alone is not enough to hold down cable rates, but places with competing cable systems have rates as much as 20 percent lower than noncompetitive markets.

- More than half of cable price increases are caused by increased programming expenses.

- Overall, 38 percent of cable customers subscribe to digital programming but only 4 percent subscribe to HD programming.

_____


In a separate statement, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin clearly agreed with the report's finding that satellite is not enough to break cable monopolies.

Martin called on his colleagues to "remove regulatory barriers to the ability of a second cable operator to enter the market." Martin even included a chart with his statement, in which he claims that rates for local and long-distance telephone service have declined -- and wireless rates have plummeted -- since the landmark Communications Act of 1996, while cable rates have skyrocketed.

However, Commissioner Michael Copps said in his statement that he got something else out of the figures as he looked further into them: that there is a relationship between the size of a cable company and its rates.

"In other words, customers of a large national cable company that controls a large share of a local market generally pay more than customers of a company with either a smaller national or local market share," he wrote, adding that "this result certainly raises troubling questions about market power ..."

Copps also criticized the study for relying on reports from the operators themselves "without any auditing of our own to assure the accuracy of their data."

Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein also criticized the report for not fully addressing "the impact of consolidation, mergers and vertical integration ... on consumer price" in his statement.

And Commissioner Robert McDowell called the report "only a first step."

"For instance, are higher rates reflective of many factors including consumers buying more bundled service offerings, greater value being offered today compared with several years ago ... cost recovery due to regulatory burdens, or other causes?" he wrote.

However, Commissioner Michael Copps said in his statement that he got something else out of the figures as he looked further into them: that there is a relationship between the size of a cable company and its rates.

"In other words, customers of a large national cable company that controls a large share of a local market generally pay more than customers of a company with either a smaller national or local market share," he wrote, adding that "this result certainly raises troubling questions about market power ..."


Really? You think? I think I learned that in Econ-101 about 30 yrs ago. Control the market, control the price...(and the cheerleader was saved BTW. :p )

Cable TV Notebook
Weekly Cable Ratings:
Football Victory for ESPN
By Anne Becker Broadcasting & Cable 12/27/2006

Football led ESPN to a solid victory in the cable ratings for the week of Dec. 18. The sports network averaged 3.66 million total viewers in prime and claimed the most-viewed program of the week with the December 18 Bengals/Colts game averaging 14.22 million total viewers between 8:30 p.m. and 11:45 p.m.

USA took second with 2.79 million in prime, followed by non-ad-supported Disney with 2.55 million; TNT with 2.14 million and ABC Family with 2.06 million.

The week's most-viewed programming on cable was a mix of football, wrestling and Christmas-themed movies. Disney's showing of The Santa Clause 2 was the week's second most-viewed program with 6.23 million viewers at 8 p.m. Dec. 18, followed by two Dec. 18 showings of WWE wrestling on USA and TBS' beginning of its 10th annual 24 hours of A Christmas Story marathon, which averaged 4.74 million viewers Dec. 24 at 8 p.m.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6402857

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

_____


In a separate statement, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin clearly agreed with the report's finding that satellite is not enough to break cable monopolies.

.
And this is where cable will REAP rewards when the digital changeover occurs. Planned? Where will the uninformed person turn to? Buy cable stock just before the DATE? I hope this helps the lone Antenna installer. In my area TWC and Sinclair are battling over CBS coverage and the cable provider is offering "rabbit ears" to subscribers cause they can't come to an agreement and TWC will soon drop them. When they can't get a signal with rabbit ears without a STB in 09, who will they turn to? HD will have a tough time cause you DON'T have to change your TV if you stay with Cable and Sat if you're satisfied with SD.

Fredfa: I see an increase of new members around the change over and we should start a campaign of tolerance among current members, cause there'll be alot of "newbe" questions.

Looks like CBS has finally chosen the Week 17 HD games.

12/31/2006 NFL Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cincinnati Bengals 1:00 PM
12/31/2006 NFL Miami Dolphins vs. Indianapolis Colts 4:00 PM
12/31/2006 NFL Buffalo Bills vs. Baltimore Ravens 4:00 PM

http://www.hdsportsguide.com/nfl.php

So much for HDSportsGuide. The following is taken from CBS SportsLine.com

http://www.sportsline.com/cbssports/schedules/page/nfl

1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Cleveland @ Houston
1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Jacksonville @ Kansas City
1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Oakland @ N.Y. Jets (CBS HD)
1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. New England @ Tennessee (CBS HD)
1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati
4:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Buffalo @ Baltimore
4:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Miami @ Indianapolis (CBS HD)

Washington Notebook
Martin FCC Purges Per-Channel Cable Rates
Football Victory for ESPN
By Ted Hearn [b]MiltiChannel News 12/27/2006

Washington – The Federal Communications Commission under Republican FCC chairman Kevin Martin has stopped reviewing cable rates on a per-channel basis in part because consumers are not allowed to buy channels one-by-one from a menu of options.

The new policy announcement came Wednesday in the release of the FCC’s 2005 cable rate survey, which was adopted a week ago at the agency’s final public meeting of the year.

Martin has been the most vocal cable critic to lead the FCC in more than a decade, saying cable rates keep rising due to lack of competition, even though DirecTV and EchoStar serve nearly 28 million pay-TV households combined. Martin has angered cable operators and programmers by calling for the a la carte sale of channels.

Although the FCC has routinely crunched the per channel data in previous reports, it did not do so in the latest one.

“This [per-channel] data is [sic] not included in the 2005 price survey report because of the weaknesses associated with using it,” the FCC said. “If cable operators offered consumers the option to purchase channels individually, it would be appropriate to consider the prices charged to consumers for those channels.”

One possible reason for the new policy: While the price of cable programming tiers have risen, inflation-adjusted per-channel cable rates have declined in the decade before January 2005.

The FCC's report reviews the year-to-year price changes of the basic and expanded basic programming tiers, plus such equipment as remotes and set-top boxes.

The FCC said that cable rates on Jan. 1 2005 were up 5% for the year and up 93% overall since July 1995. An emphasis on nominal rates that are not adjusted for channel additions and other qualitative changes was appropriate, the FCC report said.

“The average rate per channel does not reflect the prices offered to consumers because cable operators do not permit consumers to purchase channels included in the expanded basic package on an individual basis, nor do they provide refunds to consumers who opt to have certain channels blocked,” the FCC said.

In a statement, Martin stressed the 93% increase and related data showing that cable rates drop 17% in markets where a second company competes with the incumbent. The FCC did not study the impact on satellite TV rates in a market after the arrival of a second cable operator.

It was still possible to track per-channel rates from the FCC report. For the decade, nominal per-channel cable rates rose 19.6%, from 51 cents to 61 cents. Inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was 25.05% for the same period.

Since inflation outpaced per-channel rate hikes, per-channel cable rates actually declined, a result that clashed with Martin’s emphasis on bundled cable rates.

The FCC report questioned the assumption that more value is created when operators add channels and raise rates at the same time. A 10% increase in channels along with a 10% increase in price “does not take into account how consumers might value the additional channels,” the FCC said.

It added, “In particular, a consumer who placed no value on the additional channels would see a 10% increase in his or her monthly cable rates, but no increase in quality.”

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6402861.html?display=Breaking+News

Critic’s Notebook
Entering TV's New Year: Mo' or No Mo'?
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic at his website unclebarky.com

Some have it, others don't. As 2006 gets ready to be ancient history, let's look at some of the stars, shows and networks with or without momentum on their sides. For short, we'll call it MO' and NO MO.' Ready, set, go.

MO' -- Carrie Underwood. She functionally performed at the Kennedy Center Honors in tribute to Dolly Parton. And on Christmas Day she got on the Texas Stadium field with boy pal Tony Romo, even if the Dallas Cowboys QB has a little case of No Mo' at the moment.
NO MO' -- Jessica Simpson. She dysfunctionally performed at the Kennedy Center Honors in tribute to Dolly Parton. So much so that she asked to be cut from the Dec. 26th CBS telecast. And her rumored fling with Romo turned out to be an incomplete pass.

MO' -- Dancing with the Stars. Buoyed by Emmitt Smith's upset win, ABC's hoof and puff extravaganza became TV's most-talked about reality show, at least until Fox's American Idol returns in January.
NO MO' -- Survivor. The Cook Island edition generated next to no buzz. How many can name its winner? Ratings remain decent, but CBS no longer has a juggernaut.

MO' -- Charles Gibson. ABC's newly installed World News anchor is gaining on Brian Williams' top dog NBC Nightly News, and lately has been edging it among advertiser-coveted 25-to-54-year-olds, the principal target audience for non-entertainment programming.
NO MO' -- Katie Couric. The thrill is gone, with her CBS Evening News slipping to a distant third place after early viewer windfalls. It's going to be very tough for Couric to dig out.

MO' -- Heroes. NBC's new serial drama has burst into the public consciousness, already ranking a heady No. 5 for the season with 18-to-49-year-olds, the key advertiser target audience for entertainment programming.
NO MO' -- Lost. Ratings are down and the storytelling is getting just a bit drowsy. Add a long layoff that stretches until February and a later Wednesday night slot that will pit ABC's twisty-turny against CBS' still potent CSI: NY. Diminishing returns are likely.

MO' -- The CSI franchise on CBS. All three editions rank in the top 10 with total viewers and in the top 15 among 18-to-49-year-olds. That's despite CSI: Crime Investigation sustaining a few dents on Thursdays from ABC's competing Grey's Anatomy.
NO MO' -- The Law & Order franchise on NBC. None of the three editions ranks in the top 15 in either Nielsen measurement. The granddaddy, Law & Order, has sunk to 41st place with total viewers and 52nd among 18-to-49-year-olds.

MO' -- Seinfeld alum Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Her New Adventures of Old Christine sitcom on CBS has won her a best actress Emmy and a pair of Golden Globe nominations.
NO MO' -- Seinfeld alum Michael Richards. His profane, racial diatribe at a Los Angeles comedy club has sunk his career like a two-foot putt.

MO' -- YouTube. The hottest media property in the land spurred Time magazine to name "You" its Person of the Year. A staggering $1.65 billion purchase by Google was the year's biggest business story. Now we'll see if the site is corporate-ized and therefore compromised in 2007.
NO MO' -- Yahoo. The Avis of web servers fell further behind Google, prompting another executive shuffle. Will it eventually go the way of Betamax?

MO' -- Showtime. The No. 2 premium cable network made great strides creatively with standout series such as Weeds, Dexter, Sleeper Cell and The Brotherhood. Audience levels remain low, but Showtime at least cracked the 1 million viewer mark with its recent Dexter finale. It also had more Golden Globe nominations for its series than HBO.
NO MO' -- HBO. Premium cable's longtime kingpin is struggling to find its next landmark series. Big Love made a pretty big impression, but Lucky Louie was pure stinkum. Rome will return for its second and last season on Jan. 14, Deadwood is all but gone save for a possible movie or two and The Sopranos will have its last gasp starting in March. The pump needs replenishing.

MO' -- Ugly Betty. ABC's loose but lush adaptation of the hit Spanish language telenovela has done well against Survivor and looks like a sure returnee next fall.
NO MO' -- MyNetworkTV's telenovelas. Cheap English language adaptations starring the likes of Morgan Fairchild, Bo Derek and Tatum O'Neal have done next to nada in the Nielsens. The fledgling network may have to do a complete course correction by next fall.

MO' -- The Today Show. NBC hasn't missed a beat by plugging Meredith Vieira into the slot vacated by Katie Couric. Today remains No. 1, with no end to its reign in sight.
NO MO' -- The Early Show. Perennially last, it's in the midst of another makeover. Co-host Rene Syler unjustly became the first to walk the plank. But how will CBS boss of bosses Leslie Moonves handle holdover host Julie Chen's future? Possible sticking point: she's his wife.

MO' -- Rosie O'Donnell. Ratings for ABC's The View are up since she replaced Vieira and began braying insults and strong opinions. Her feud with Donald Trump afforded the opportunity to flip her mane in an imitation of his. Nice touch.
NO MO' -- Donald Trump. The billionaire blowhard's been pounding away at O'Donnell by calling her fat, ugly and unfit for television. But Trump's The Apprentice is on fumes and so desperate for attention that next month's edition will originate from Los Angeles, not New York. Bad move. He'll be fired by NBC after this one.

MO' -- Univision. The Spanish language network has moved into fifth place in prime-time with the three key advertiser demos -- 18-to-49, 25-to-54 and 18-to-34-year-olds.
NO MO' -- The CW. Arising from the ashes of The WB and UPN, the new network's blend of the old networks' programming is running behind Univision in those aforementioned key demographics. And it's barely ahead of Univision in total viewers despite spending a ton more money on its programming.

MO' -- NBC's Thursday comedies. They're not racking up the big-time ratings of predecessors such as The Cosby Show, Seinfeld and Friends. But the Peacock's new quartet of My Name is Earl, The Office, Scrubs and 30 Rock is starting to make a solid impression with 18-to-49-year-olds. Additionally, all four received Golden Globe nods.
NO MO' -- CBS' Monday comedies. Only Two and a Half Men does well with both total viewers and 18-to-49-year-olds. Old Christine also will be a keeper for next season. But The Class is a sure goner and How I Met Your Mother remains an under-performer despite CBS' big promotional effort on its behalf.

[FONT=ARIAL BLACK][COLOR=red] MO' --Tom Bergeron. The host of both Dancing with the Stars and America's Funniest Home Videos could make a fence-painting competition teem with excitement. Glib with an ad lib, he'd be the perfect answer for CBS' The Early Show. Then again, why would he want to do that?
NO MO' -- William Shatner. Shat's Show Me the Money on ABC flopped despite the host's recurring dance fevers with a bevy of beauties. That tarnished his alleged "Shat-tastic" mystique, although Denny Crane on Boston Legal is still in his bag of schticks.

MO' -- MSNBC. It was the only cable news network to gain viewers this year, with acid-tongued Keith Olbermann's Countdown leading the charge.
NO MO' -- Fox News Channel. Percentage-wise, it led the cable news league in audience erosion. Are President Bush's continued low approval ratings and the Democrats' mid-term election successes starting to turn heads?

http://www.unclebarky.com/reviews.html

So much for HDSportsGuide. The following is taken from CBS SportsLine.com

http://www.sportsline.com/cbssports/schedules/page/nfl

1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Cleveland @ Houston
1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Jacksonville @ Kansas City
1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Oakland @ N.Y. Jets (CBS HD)
1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. New England @ Tennessee (CBS HD)
1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati
4:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Buffalo @ Baltimore
4:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Miami @ Indianapolis (CBS HD)


Thanks for the update, rustycruiser.

I have corrected the HD NFL schedule in post #1.

The folks at HDTV Sportsguide usually do a very good job -- but everyone is human.

Critic’s Notebook
Cox dishes the 'Dirt' in role as a tabloid editor
By Bill Keveney USA Today

In FX's Dirt, the hunted gets to play the hunter.

As tabloid editor Lucy Spiller, Courteney Cox oversees the same kind of paparazzi that hounded her when she was pregnant with her daughter, Coco, now 21/2.

MORE: Dig deep into Dirt | Clip

"It was completely insane," she says.

It also provided inspiration for what would become Dirt (Tuesday, 10 p.m. ET/PT).

Cox, who also had experience with paparazzi while starring in Friends, insists her new drama isn't a tool for revenge. In Dirt, as in the real Hollywood, celebrities also have a role in the tabloid fame game, she says, providing information, negotiating coverage and trying to put their spin on the story.

"Magazines need paparazzi, paparazzi need celebrities, and the celebrities need the paparazzi to get in the magazines. It's just a cyclical thing," she says. In Dirt, "I don't think we're making anyone look particularly great."

Cox, 42, an executive producer with her husband, David Arquette, initially wasn't going to act in Dirt. But she loved the Spiller character, a tough-as-nails editor whose shell is starting to crack. "I played a girl for 10 years, and it's nice to play a woman," she says.

She gets raves from Arquette. "I'm so proud of her as an actress, this amazing character she's developing. She's taking all these risks," he says. Spiller "is strong and kind of cutthroat, an amazing woman and also really damaged. … It's such a departure from Monica" of Friends.

As a producer, Arquette says, "my favorite part is the story elements, looking at cuts, having suggestions."

His starring role in the upcoming ABC comedy In Case of Emergency means much of his Dirt involvement has been on the phone. One benefit is that he doesn't have to be on set for Cox's intimate scenes.

"Love scenes are rough, but it is part of this business. It used to be a lot harder to deal with, but we're really secure in our relationship now," Arquette says. He says some producing responsibilities are necessary but not a lot of fun.

"Your phone gets so hot you can hardly hold it to your ear."

Cox has support from some familiar celebrities. Friends co-stars Jennifer Aniston, who Cox says "loves the show," and Matthew Perry attended a premiere screening.

Dirt isn't based on real people or particular events, and at heart, "it's a salacious drama, all in fun," Cox says.

Nevertheless, Cox, Arquette and creator Matthew Carnahan, who has a daughter with actress Helen Hunt, can call upon real experiences.

During her pregnancy, Cox "couldn't leave the house without five cars following me." That has subsided, but she sees Aniston having to deal with that kind of scrutiny "all the time."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-12-27-cox-dirt-main_x.htm

TV Notebook
Editor and paparazzo dig deep
By Bill Keveney USA Today

LOS ANGELES — She blackmails stars with sex tapes and photos. He'll shoot their close-ups in the ICU or even the morgue.

Dirt (FX, Tuesday, 10 p.m. ET/PT) describes what tabloid editor Lucy Spiller (Courteney Cox) and paparazzo Don Konkey (Ian Hart) dig up. Perhaps surprisingly, they're not entirely covered in mud.

MORE: Cox slings mud as tabloid editor on Dirt | Clip

"At the time this project came up, it was hard for me to imagine writing a sympathetic paparazzo," creator Matthew Carnahan says.

As the drama developed, however, Carnahan and his fellow writers realized that much of Hollywood, not just the tabloids, is complicit in today's celebrity frenzy. And Konkey and Spiller evolved as "dysfunctional human beings," the former dealing with schizophrenia and guilt and the latter "this perfect porcelain object with the tiniest hairline crack."

That crack will widen as Spiller oversees two magazines, the tabloid Drrt (an actual publication has the Dirt name) and a more established and upscale publication, Now.

"Lucy is a strong woman," Cox says of a character who talks and acts macho, even throwing a lover out of bed after sex. "She uses people left and right."

Konkey's hallucinogenic departures provide "a great way to hold a crazy mirror up to celebrity culture," Carnahan says. The character's vulnerability also reveals the humanity in Spiller, an otherwise hard-boiled, hard-charging Type A.

"She does have a heart. It's in there somewhere," Cox says during a break from shooting at the Paramount Studios set. Konkey is "the best photographer out there, and he's the most loyal person to her. They really do need each other."

The character bond is evident during a scene in Spiller's office where Konkey spills details of a youthful trauma and Spiller calms him, holding his hands. After the scene ends, Hart kisses Cox on the forehead, and she leans her head on his shoulder.

"I love her," says Hart, who expertly disguises a strong English accent. "I come here from Liverpool, and this can be a very lonely town. She's made me feel welcome."

That welcome has included visits to the home of Cox and her husband, David Arquette, both of whom are executive producers of Dirt. Hart and other cast and crewmembers also have gotten to know Cox and Arquette's 21/2-year-old daughter, Coco, a frequent visitor who walks onto the office set just before shooting. Cox plans to have dinner with her during a break.

Although Cox describes Dirt's world as "apocalyptic," the episode being shot, which focuses on Spiller's attempt to put out a sex edition, shows that producers want to keep it from getting too heavy.

"It all sounds very serious, but for the most part, it's a salacious, naughty, weird ride," Carnahan says.

Dirt's mix of bloodlust and plain old lust is expressed visually by the vibrant reds of Spiller's office and an adjacent set that houses the home of the editor, whose only other close relationship is with her brother, Leo (Will McCormack). Cox, who has redesigned her homes, approves of the design touches.

In Spiller's office vault, which contains tapes, photos and other scandalous evidence, "there's a picture of Dante's Inferno. It's pretty wild," says Cox, who consulted with Janice Min of Us Weekly and Rebecca Wade of The Sun in London to get a feel for a magazine editor's duties.

"I love the office. It feels like a Los Angeles-based magazine," she says. "I love the deco feel. And I love that the conference-room desk is shaped like a coffin."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-12-27-cox-dirt-side_x.htm

TV Notebook
Ex-Vampire Turns Into Regular Guy
By Sean Mitchell The New York Times

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 26 — When David Boreanaz was in the fourth grade, he says, he was pushed around and beaten up on the playground in Philadelphia. It is a scene that is difficult to imagine for those who have seen Mr. Boreanaz shouldering the manly role of the F.B.I. agent Seeley Booth in “Bones,” the forensic procedural drama now in its second season on Fox (on Wednesday nights). He insists the story is true but adds that resisting the bullying led him into sports, where he grew eventually into a 6-foot-1 offensive end and defensive back for his Catholic high school football team.

“I wasn’t the best of players, but I could go across the middle and catch a ball,” Mr. Boreanaz said in an interview at his home here. “I wanted to play sports my whole life. That’s all I really wanted to do.”

This despite the fact that his family had show business connections: his father, under the name Dave Roberts, was a television weatherman and talk show host for the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia; his mother a singer who turned down an offer to go on the road with the Tommy Dorsey band.

“I always thought of her as Doris Day,” said Mr. Boreanaz (pronounced Bo-ree-AH-nuz). His father, he said, was forced to shed his surname because “back in those days, you couldn’t use an ethnic last name.” Years later, his son has finally introduced the family name to popular culture.

In “Bones” Mr. Boreanaz is paired with Emily Deschanel, who plays the title role of Temperance Brennan, a k a Bones, a forensic anthropologist at a Smithsonianlike institution that lends her out to the F.B.I. With Booth, a hard-charging agent who distrusts science, as her partner, she investigates murders involving corpses that are not, well, fresh. The inherent gruesomeness of the task at hand is offset by the odd couple’s combative banter and their unmistakable, though unacknowledged, attraction to each other.

“We were looking for a leading man with retro appeal, a throwback,” said Hart Hanson, the creator and an executive producer of “Bones,” which has been a steady performer for Fox. Few of the network’s series performed well in the ratings this fall, but “Bones” has managed to increase its audience from fall 2005, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Until now Mr. Boreanaz was best known to television viewers as the vampire Angel on Fox’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and then in the spinoff series, “Angel.” His square jaw and action-hero physique attracted a legion of female fans in the seven seasons of “Buffy.”

“I didn’t come from a traditional background of studying theater and doing Shakespeare,” Mr. Boreanaz said. He did appear in a couple of Sam Shepard plays in small theaters in Los Angeles before getting his first television role as a biker on an episode of “Married With Children.”

Critics have compared Mr. Boreanaz and Ms. Deschanel’s sublimated romantic tension on “Bones” to that of Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd on “Moonlighting” and David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson on “The X Files,” though the badinage on those earlier shows never had to accommodate examinations of blackened flesh, reconstructed fetuses and, in one episode, jewelry extracted from the lung of a submerged corpse that had “melted during putrefaction.”

In some ways the traditional male-female roles are reversed in “Bones,” with Brennan, the scientist, cast as the stolid, lonely careerist, while Mr. Boreanaz’s character is, by contrast, emotional and caring, an unmarried father who is seeking redemption for his past as an Army sniper.

“He’s a stand-up, blue-collar guy,” Mr. Boreanaz said about Booth.

Though Mr. Boreanaz is not exactly from the streets, he fondly recalls working construction one summer while in high school and learning how to swing a hammer and use the right tools, an experience that has stood him in good stead. “I know the blue collar mentality,” he said. “You meet these guys, you make friends, that’s all stuff that I have.”

He said he never knew how to apply such personal details to acting until he began to work recently with the acting teacher Ivana Chubic. “I’m learning more how to do that now, draw on my own experience,” he added. “It’s a style she teaches that makes sense to me. I didn’t know this could be so much fun.”

“For me,” he continued, “what I was doing with ‘Buffy’ and ‘Angel,’ it was all about the pain and the torture and the sense of being in the alleyway. Not to take anything away from it, but those were some learning, hard, difficult times when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

Now, he and Ms. Deschanel meet every Saturday at Ms. Chubic’s home to work on the script they will be shooting the next week — an extracurricular form of preparation not common in the daily grind of a television series, in which actors cherish their weekends off.

Mr. Boreanaz did not begin acting until he moved to Los Angeles after graduating from Ithaca College in upstate New York. “I didn’t grow up as child actor,” he said. “I was fortunate to find this show with a small character that grew into this huge cult thing. I was like, ‘Let’s ride it.’ ”

The success of “Buffy” carried him, as he tracks it, from “a small apartment in Hollywood to a bigger apartment to a corner condo to renting a house.”

At 37, he now owns a house in the Hollywood Hills, just above the Sunset Strip, where he lives with his wife, the former “Howard Stern Show” personality and Playboy Playmate Jaime Bergman, and their 4-year-old son.

While Mr. Boreanaz said he was enjoying the experience of “Bones,” like many actors in television, he hopes to land a good role in a feature film. To date, he has appeared in a number of independent or low-budget features — “These Girls,” “Mr. Fixit” and “The Hard Easy” — but not yet a major movie.

“This is where I want to go, and I’m knocking on doors right now,” he said. “I’m not going away.”

One of the most memorable moments of this season for Mr. Boreanaz came while he was working late on a Friday night, sitting in his trailer on the set watching the World Series. Suddenly he heard the popular Fox play-by-play announcer Joe Buck urge viewers to watch “an all-new ‘Bones’ next week.”

“Joe Buck!” Mr. Boreanaz said excitedly. “Joe Buck!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/arts/television/27bore.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=television&pagewanted=print

Weekly Nielsen Notebook
'CSI,' NFL keep CBS aloft
Network wins weak week in primetime
By Rick Kissell Variety.com

Repeats of its "CSI" franchise and a lengthy NFL overrun on Sunday lifted CBS to a primetime victory in key demos in one of the least-watched frames of the year.

The four major broadcast nets combined for an average audience of 28 million viewers during primetime, down sharply from the previous week's 40 million and easily the smallest tune-in since late August.

Week featured a smattering of firstrun programs, especially early in the week, but consisted almost exclusively of repeats and annual holiday movies the rest of the way.

In a rarity, a cable program -- ESPN's "Monday Night Football" between the Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals -- stood as the top demo draw for the week, averaging a 5.6 rating/15 share in adults 18-49 and a 5.9/15 in adults 25-54.

It was also the No. 2 telecast in total viewers (14.22 million), lagging only NBC's original edition of "Deal or No Deal" on Monday (15.37 million).

According to in-home viewing estimates by Nielsen, CBS finished on top for the Dec. 18-24 frame with a 2.5 rating/8 share in adults 18-49, followed closely by NBC (2.4/7). ABC and Fox tied for third (2.0/6), with Univision fifth (1.4/4).

The Eye also won in adults 25-54 (3.1/9 to 2.8/8 for NBC) and remained perfect for the season in total viewers (8.9 million, vs. 7.3 million for runner-up NBC).

Repeats of all three editions of the "CSI" franchise ranked among the week's top 10 shows in both demos and total viewers, with Thursday's original (3.8/11. 12.95m) and Wednesday's "NY" (3.8/11, 12.14m) both winning their timeslots with ease.

What put the Eye over the top, though, was Sunday's 45-minute NFL overrun (6.9/29 in 18-49, 20.52m) as both the Denver-Cincinnati and San Diego-Seattle contests went down to the wire.

NBC played some games of its own during the frame, with Monday's "Deal or No Deal" (4.4/12 in 18-49, 15.37m) and the premiere of the new "Identity" (4.4/11, 12.26m) tying as the No. 2 program for the week in 18-49.

"Identity" won four of its five nights, with its best numbers after its Monday bow coming on Wednesday (3.0/9, 8.76m). Show is a candidate to return at midseason (Daily Variety, Dec. 27).

ABC had another quiet week, with its few firstrun programs -- including Monday drama "What About Brian" (2.0/5, 4.58m) and Tuesday comedy "Big Day" (1.8/5, 5.06m) -- failing to make much noise.

Net was the leader on Saturday, though, with its annual airing of "The Sound of Music" (2.4/8, 8.34m).

Fox was paced by Tuesday's repeat of "House" (3.9/10 in 18-49, 10.11m), the week's No. 1 scripted telecast among adults 18-49. Among firstrun shows, "The War at Home" (1.8/5, 4.32m) didn't do a whole lot on its new night, Thursday, but it did retain nearly all of its lead-in from "'Til Death" (1.9/6, 4.94m).

Univision's "La Fea Mas Bella" averaged 1.8 million adults 18-34 in the 8 o'clock hour from Monday to Friday to beat all of the major nets.

ESPN dominated the week in cable thanks to "Monday Night Football" and a college football game on Sunday between Hawaii and Arizona State (1.2/4 in 18-49, 3.50m).

Of note on Christmas Eve was the start of TBS' 10th annual "24 Hours of A Christmas Story," as the first of 12 airings of the popular pic averaged a sturdy 1.8/6 in 18-49 and 4.74 million viewers overall from 8 to 10 p.m. The second airing also did well from 10 to midnight (1.6/7, 3.58m).

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117956352&categoryid=14

Fredfa: I see an increase of new members around the change over and we should start a campaign of tolerance among current members, cause there'll be alot of "newbe" questions.

I agree, Dave, there are a lot of new members, and presumably a goodly number have found us due to a recent purchase of an HDTV.

But I can really only worry about the civility on this thread -- though to be honest I have censored two of my own less than charitable posts today in another. I find the moderators here (Ken H, DrDon, CPanther95, markrubin and Alan Gouger) to be extremely vigilant in keeping a close eye on civility.

Most of the time I find the tone here --especially in this thread -- to be relaxed and tolerant. And you can rest assured that I'll speak up -- forcefully -- if I find that tone to be changing in a negative way.

Generally there seem to be few personal attacks here, and for that I am thankful.
This thread is far more about a knowledge exchange of people who enjoy TV than about a macho "I know it all" mentality which seems to exist so often on the net.

At least that is the way I see it. And if new members (or any members) ever feel slighted here I would hope they would PM me at let me know.

TV Sports
Wilbon now more of an ESPN guy
By Michael McCarthy USA Today

Sports analyst, talk show host and newspaper columnist Michael Wilbon is becoming more of an ESPN guy than a Washington Post one.

Wilbon has signed a multiyear contract extension with the Disney-owned all-sports cable network that will expand his role on ESPN and sister network ABC, according to ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys.

The award-winning sports columnist will serve as a full-time studio analyst for ABC's NBA coverage, including the NBA Finals. With Tony Kornheiser, Wilbon will continue to co-host Pardon the Interruption, the 5-year-old sports talk show that ranks as one of ESPN's most popular programs. He'll also provide more on-location analysis for ESPN's and ABC's NBA and NFL coverage.

"Last year, we had to navigate around his Washington Post schedule with regard to his NBA appearances. And there were conflicts," say Soltys, who declined to comment on Wilbon's salary. "This new deal gives ESPN priority. So we can continue to grow his role."

Wilbon, a 48-year-old Chicago native, says he's cutting down some newspaper duties to devote more time to his TV career. "The compensation from TV is such that it's something I wanted to do," says Wilbon, who joined The Post as a general assignment reporter in 1980 before landing a column in 1990. "A lot of the people I came into the business with, like Peter King of Sports Illustrated, have moved into TV."

Wilbon's new contract stipulates he can continue to write his columns. "That's been my calling. Why would I drop what appealed to them in the first place?" he says.

Wilbon concedes ABC's NBA studio team of himself, Dan Patrick and Mark Jackson faces a tough task competing with TNT's more popular and critically acclaimed team of Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith.

"They are the gold standard for basketball, football, whatever. They have Charles — and there's only one Charles," says Wilbon, who has co-authored two books with Barkley. "But I've known Dan for 20-plus years. I've known Mark since his sophomore year at St. John's. We need to be as smart as we can to cover the league."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2006-12-27-wilbon_x.htm

Critic’s Notebook
2006: TV's top 'Heroes' and losers
By David Bianculli, New York Daily News December 28, 2006

The year 2006, when all was said and done and televised, was a great one for TV. Here's a tally of the year's very best - and worst - with a lot of deserving contenders just missing the cut.

BEST SERIES: "Deadwood" (HBO), "Dexter" (Showtime), "Entourage" (HBO), "Heroes" (NBC), "Lost" (ABC), "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (NBC), "30 Rock" (NBC), "24" (Fox), "The West Wing" (NBC), "The Wire" (HBO).

Broadcast TV delivered six of the 10 most outstanding series this year - which, given the different economic models and censorial standards, is quite an achievement. "The West Wing" went out with an unexpectedly strong final season, while both NBC series about "Saturday Night Live"-type programs found their own entertaining voices.

BEST NEW SERIES: "Dexter," "Heroes," "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," "Thief" (FX), "30 Rock."

Only "Thief," at this point, is dead, and only "Heroes" is a solid hit - but all these freshmen series brought something new, and welcome, to the table.

BEST MINISERIES: "Bleak House" (PBS, "Masterpiece Theatre"), "Broken Trail" (AMC), "Elizabeth I" (HBO), "Prime Suspect: The Final Act" (PBS, "Masterpiece Theatre"), "The Street" (BBC America). Nothing from the commercial broadcast networks made the cut. Shame.

BEST TELEMOVIE: "Flight 93" (A&E), "Friends & Crocodiles" (BBC America), "Gideon's Daughter" (BBC America), "ShakespeaRetold: Macbeth" (BBC America), "Cracker: New Terror" (BBC America). Nothing from the broadcast networks made the cut, again. Double shame.

STANDOUT PERFORMANCES: Gillian Anderson, "Bleak House"; Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock"; Andre Braugher, "Thief"; Michael C. Hall, "Dexter"; Katherine Heigl, "Grey's Anatomy" (ABC); Gerald McRaney, "Deadwood" (HBO); Helen Mirren, "Elizabeth I" and "Prime Suspect: The Final Act"; Masi Oka, "Heroes"; Matthew Perry, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"; Forest Whitaker, "The Shield" (FX).

These are just the 10 most impressive this year, but there could have been double this amount worthy of note, starting with Robert Duvall of "Broken Trail" and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Richie on the CBS sitcom "The Class."

FIVE WORST TV SHOWS OF THE YEAR:

"O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How it Happened" (Fox). It doesn't matter that it never aired. It's bad enough that it could have.

"Fashion House" (MyNetwork TV). Morgan Fairchild and Bo Derek made a numbingly bad show even worse.

"Tuesday Night Book Club" (CBS). The worst reality show of the year, a dizzying achievement.

"Show Me the Money" (ABC). Even worse than "The Rich List" on Fox.

"Lucky Louie" (HBO). Even worse than "Twenty Good Years" on NBC.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/483614p-407120c.html

Nielsen Notebook
Wake-Up TV Losing Sleep
By Don Kaplan, New York Post December 28, 2006

The audiences for all three morning shows are slipping thus far this year, according to the latest ratings.

The changes are not huge - ranging from 2 percent for the "Today" show to 6 percent for "Good Morning America" and CBS' struggling "The Early Show."

The losses are in critical season-to-date numbers versus last year.

That all three shows are down indicate that whatever is happening is effecting morning TV across-the-board.

One industry expert believes that the Internet and digital cable TV are slowly killing the morning shows as a network TV staple.

"This could be the beginning of an ongoing, continuous erosion on morning news," says Mediaweek TV industry analyst Marc Berman.

In fact, he says, morning TV has "been relatively healthy for the last few years." Audience erosion has been common almost everywhere else on the TV schedule for several years now.

"There are so many other ways to get your morning fix," Berman says. "The challenge for the networks now is to stop the bleeding and that's going to be nearly impossible to do."

According to the most recent Nielsen numbers from mid-September to mid-December, NBC averaged about 5.8 million total viewers (down 2 percent from last year), ABC about five million (a 6-percent loss) and CBS about 2.8 million, also a six-percent loss.

The news was even worse for the network morning shows with adults 25-54, a group prized by advertisers. NBC's ratings shrunk 8 percent, CBS lost 10 percent, and ABC lost a whopping 14 percent.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12282006/tv/wake_up_tv_losing_sleep_tv_don_kaplan.htm

Critic’s Notebook
Best television show: 'Heroes'
BEST OF 2006
By Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette December 28, 2006

Anyone who complains about a lack of quality programming this year just hasn't looked hard enough. This may have been one of the most difficult years ever to narrow down a Top 10 list.

Even now I'm debating my choices, contemplating whether to yank something out to give ABC's "Boston Legal" a Top 10 berth. If you have a bone to pick with this list, you're not alone. I could argue many of these shows off the list and replace them with some of the "honorable mention" series.

Here's what I finally settled on:

1.- HEROES (NBC) In a season of serials, this drama about average people who develop super powers was the most addictive entry. What's not to love about an attractive, diverse cast and this season's best breakthrough newcomer, Masi Oka as Hiro? Where "Lost" lets questions linger, "Heroes" willingly coughs up answers. It's smart entertainment light enough to appeal to the mainstream, yet not dumbed down. And "Heroes" performs this astonishing deed: The show appeals both to comic geek fanboys and their parents. In this fractured media environment, that's a super-human feat in itself.

2. 'UGLY BETTY' (ABC) Despite a less-than-skin-deep premise, this one-hour comedy has blossomed as it has broadened, adding greater depth to its secondary characters, particularly Mode magazine's scheming assistants. But its star, America Ferrera, holds it all together as the kind, down-to-earth but fallible Betty. She's not the character most likely to grace a fashion mag cover, but Betty is the reason viewers are happy to get "Ugly."

3. 'BATTLESTAR GALACTICA' (SCI FI CHANNEL)
Even though it's set in a galaxy (presumably) far, far away, "Battlestar" continues to offer the most salient dramatic depiction of the current state of world affairs here on Earth. This season's early episodes were dark and depressing, but the "Battlestar" writers deftly turned the tables on viewers as would-be heroes staged suicide attacks on their Cylon occupiers. Add to this resonant story deeply shaded and decidedly unshowy performances by stars Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell and "Battlestar" proves that "a sci-fi show" can provide social commentary that's just as relevant as any Earth-bound TV drama.

4. 'THE OFFICE' (NBC) It's as embarrassingly painful as it is fall-down funny, but what saves the American version of "The Office" from being an exercise in sadomasochistic humor is that the writers, led by executive producer Greg Daniels, give the characters hearts and souls (Dwight may be an exception to this). Even Michael Scott (Steve Carell), pathetic as he frequently is, elicits empathy, often moments after making viewers cringe. Bringing the Stamford branch to Scranton this fall was a master stroke of plotting that opened up more story possibilities and believably upped the tension in the Jim-Pam relationship.

5. 'BIG LOVE' (HBO) Never would have thought I'd find myself sympathizing with a family of polygamists, but the characters of this light HBO drama won me over with their all-too-human quirks and their devotion to one another. The clenched-jaw performance by Chloe Sevigny as perpetually slighted, sour wife Nicki just makes watching "Big Love" all the more enjoyable.

6. 'WEEDS' (SHOWTIME) Has any series in 2006 offered more surprises? Not that I can recall, and "Weeds" is first and foremost a comedy about a suburban pot-dealing mom (Mary-Louise Parker). That the show's second season offered up more unexpected plot twists than any prime-time drama is a testament to the creativity of the show's writers.

7. 'SCRUBS' (NBC) Wacky but heartfelt, weird but lovable, this stalwart character comedy continues to amuse as it rolls out what may well be its final year. Never achieving the success or acclaim it deserves, this fantastic cast makes a trip to Sacred Heart Hospital seem like a frolicking field trip -- even when the grim reaper lurks, claiming guest stars in a way that roots the show in some realism despite all the goofy, tangential, visual asides.

8. 'FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS' (NBC) More a soap opera than a sports show, what makes "FNL" rise above WB-style claptrap is Kyle Chandler as Eric Taylor, who tries to juggle life under the microscope as a small-town coach in Texas -- where nothing seems to matter more than high school football -- and his duties as a father and husband. It's the latter, especially his relationship with his teenage daughter, that's most rewarding.

9. 'DEXTER' (SHOWTIME) Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is one seriously deranged dude. He's a serial killer, but he only has a thirst for taking the lives of bad guys who deserve it. Creepy and spiked with dark comedy, "Dexter" obliterates memories of Hall's "Six Feet Under" character as he breathes life into this murderous oddball, who protests he feels nothing a little too often and too loudly for it to be true. And even though it's about a serial killer, "Dexter" is much less gory than FX's over-the-top plastic surgeons drama "Nip/Tuck."

10. 'LOST (ABC) Down but not out, it was tempting to leave this show off the Top 10 list until I thought back to the out-of-nowhere deaths of Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) and Libby (Cynthia Watros) earlier this year. Yes, the core characters have been too splintered in recent fall episodes, but I still care enough about the story to look forward to the rest of the season that begins airing in February.

Honorable Mentions: "The Amazing Race" (CBS); "Boston Legal" (ABC); "The Class" (CBS); "The Colbert Report" (Comedy Central); "The Daily Show" (Comedy Central); "Deadwood" (HBO); "Entourage" (HBO); "Everwood" (The WB); "Grey's Anatomy" (ABC); "Men in Trees" (ABC); "My Name Is Earl" (NBC); "The O.C." (Fox); "Rescue Me" (FX); "The Shield" (FX); "Sleeper Cell: American Terror" (Showtime); "The Sopranos" (HBO); "30 Rock" (NBC); "24" (Fox); "The West Wing" (NBC), and "The Wire" (HBO).

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06362/749383-237.stm

Critic's Notebook
In Death Coverage, a Broadcast Rite of Passage Manages to Avoid the Melodramatic
By Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times December 28, 2006

Death is sad, at least in most cases. But the death of a former president has become an almost cheery television event.

It’s been more than 40 years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated. His successors died out of office, relatively quietly and well into old age. The passing of a retired commander in chief perks up the day with a wallop of stately special reports and bittersweet nostalgia, (plaid jackets, “Saturday Night Live,” détente) without undue anxiety or grieving.

And in Gerald R. Ford, who was 93 and served less than one full term, television found the avatar of comfortable presidential fadeouts. The deaths of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon were too fraught with the Shakespearean tragedies they lived in office. Ronald Reagan’s life and two terms were so momentous that the days leading to his funeral, though full and colorful, were also weighed down with mourning and Hollywood pageantry.

As president, Mr. Ford, the likable, reliable college football star, was most memorable for pardoning Nixon; all day yesterday, television showed the address in which Mr. Ford announced his decision as well as grainy color images of Mr. Ford looking on, stone-faced, as Nixon flung his arm in farewell as he boarded his helicopter on the White House lawn.

Yesterday, all the networks went live to Crawford, Tex., to cover President Bush’s tribute to Mr. Ford. Reporters stood vigil in front of the flags at half-staff at the White House, in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and Grand Rapids, Mich. Most morning news programs were too respectful to repeat clips of Chevy Chase doing his Gerald Ford fumbling pratfalls on “Saturday Night Live.” By midday, however, cable news shows were gingerly exploring the “lighter side” of Mr. Ford’s tenure.

In retrospect, it was remarkable how open to reporters the Ford White House was.

On NBC, “Today” flashed a black-and-white photograph by the former White House photographer David Hume Kennerly that showed Mr. Ford seated at a table with three aides, the president in a long-sleeve shirt and pajama bottoms. (One of them was his chief of staff, Donald H. Rumsfeld, who retired last month as President Bush’s secretary of defense; Mr. Rumsfeld, along with Vice President Dick Cheney, who also worked in the Ford White House, became among the most lasting, and contested, elements of Mr. Ford’s legacy.)

Mr. Ford’s retirement was dignified and decent, but not particularly distinguished: old news clips showed him in the 1980s and 1990s playing golf and attending fund-raisers for Republicans, not raising roofs for the homeless or public awareness about pandemics in Asia and Africa.

Richard Norton Smith, a former director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum, told ABC News that the former president “swam twice a day well into his 90s.”

On CBS, the presidential historian Douglas Brinkley somewhat apologetically told Harry Smith, a host of “The Early Show,” that while Mr. Ford’s post-White House legacy was eclipsed by the charity work of former President Jimmy Carter, “we must not forget what the Fords have done for people who have a drug addiction.” But it was Betty Ford who shattered taboos, first by publicly discussing her breast cancer, and later, her dependence on drugs and alcohol. And it was she who led the way for the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage.

After he tumbled into the presidency, Mr. Ford earned respect for the way he rose to the occasion. But as yesterday’s television eulogies showed, it was his first lady who seized it.

Tom Brokaw, who covered the Ford White House for NBC, went on “Today” to lead the network’s special report, but on ABC, it was Charles Gibson, not Diane Sawyer, who was on vacation. And that was a pity: Ms. Sawyer worked in the press office of the Nixon White House during its final days and was on the plane that took the disgraced president to retirement in San Clemente, Calif.; her reminiscences would probably have been more interesting.

All of Mr. Ford’s acquaintances and biographers spoke of his modesty and stalwart nature. In an interview with Mr. Brokaw taped for tonight’s History Channel special, “Gerald Ford: The Man and His Moment,” his daughter, Susan, described him as the “Steady Eddie” of the family. On the “CBS Evening News,” Bob Schieffer said that Mr. Ford was “the nicest and most decent” public figure he had ever covered.

It seems that Mr. Ford’s persona was not so overwhelming that it drove commentators to fold into the shadows. On “Today,” the NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell mentioned that she last spoke to Mr. Ford last February in California, “when he came over to see me and we had lunch.”

With the exception of those offered by Ann Curry, who on “Today” adopted her usual smarmily maudlin tone, most of the encomiums were by turns affectionate and respectful, but not unduly mournful.

After leaving the White House, Mr. Ford lived on healthily and happily for 30 years; as even recent clips showed, he — more than anyone — made the Oval Office seem like a ticket to longevity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/arts/television/28watch.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Nielsen Notebook
Nightly News Ratings: Williams Wins It
By Rebecca Stropoli, Broadcasting & Cable December 27, 2006

NBC's Nightly News With Brian Williams brought 9,480,000 pairs of eyes to the TV screen the week of Dec. 18, securing the No. 1 spot by 950,000 viewers (ABC's World News With Charles Gibson was No. 2 with 9,480,000).

Nightly also won in the key adults 25-54 demo, with a 2.4 rating/9 share, to World News' 2.2/9. But World News did manage a win with women 25-54 for the sixth straight week and had a year-to-year ratings increase of 1%.

CBS' Evening News With Katie Couric was a distant third with 7,440,000 viewers and a 1.9/7.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6402799.html?display=Breaking+News

This story is really inside, but if you are a fan of “The Office” it might appeal to you. If not, just skip it.
(Thanks for dad153 for finding it.)
TV Notebook
Methods to 'The Office' madness
By Lauren Horwitch Back Stage West

It wasn't easy getting NBC's "The Office" off the ground in 2005. Sure, the show had an extraordinary creative team, including executive producer-director-writer Greg Daniels ("The Simpsons"), director Ken Kwapis ("Freaks and Geeks," "The Larry Sanders Show"), and a star, Steve Carell, whose success with that year's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" gave him a boost in the household-name category. But execs didn't know whether an American version of Ricky Gervais' hit British series of the same name would fly - or die, as the U.S. remake of "Coupling" had in 2003 on the same network.

Two years and an Emmy for outstanding comedy series later, the U.S. "Office" has become a hit without the need for laugh tracks. The show's success is largely due to its tight-knit ensemble, each member of which is perfectly at home with the show's sometimes dark, cringe-inducing humor.

Back Stage talked with some of the cast members about how they landed their roles, how much of the show is improvised, real-life office nightmares, and how they get "The Office's" specific tone just right.

Back Stage: What was the casting process like?

Angela Kinsey ("Angela"): I was brought in for the role of Pam. It does totally seem weird. I felt so good about my audition, but I was surprised that they laughed in places that I hadn't counted on. The feedback I got was that they really liked me but that my Pam was probably a little too feisty.

Brian Baumgartner ("Kevin"): I went to the callbacks to read for Stanley, actually. I was not very smart but smart enough to know that that was not the part that they were going to cast me as. The role of Keith from the British version that they were calling "Kevin" was really where I felt like I had a legitimate shot.

Kinsey: It wasn't conventional casting. For once, not being a prominent face on TV was a help. I feel like a lot of times I would go to auditions and sitting across from me was a girl who was a series regular on another show at one time. And this time, there were no recognizable faces. It just made it feel to everyone who watched it like they were discovering these people for the first time, as well.

Leslie David Baker ("Stanley"): You don't want an office where everybody is 20 years old. It's unrealistic. "The Office" looks like real offices. Everybody is not looking like they just stepped off the cover of Vogue.

Kate Flannery ("Meredith"): I think there are many more Merediths in the world than somebody from "Friends." I think we're done with that: the false reality, the false studio-style audience and laugh track. I hope we're done.

Baumgartner: They really wanted these people to be real, that they existed in this paper company in Scranton, Pa. That was a big thing. They did not want it to seem like a joke.

Back Stage: Why do some of the characters have the same first names as the actors?

Kinsey: Most of us are new characters to the BBC version. Phyllis, Oscar, Creed, and myself were all new characters, and so we have our own names. As far as I knew, I was going to have three lines in the pilot. When the pilot got picked up, I had no idea if I was going to be in any subsequent episodes. And then when I showed up to work, my character's name was Angela. I thought that was hilarious.

Back Stage: Did you feel the show would be successful from the start, especially because the original version was such a hit?

Baker: We got a lot of naysayers saying, "This isn't going to work. It's not going to be good. Remember what happened with Coupling.'" And something happened with this combination of actors: Magic happened, which rarely does happen. Especially when it's a show that's been done already and has been as successful as the original.

Oscar Nunez ("Oscar"): When I went (to audition), I thought, "Oh, The Office.' Well, that's another thing that'll fail because it won't translate." And then I found out that Steve Carell was going to play the lead. Then I got excited. I thought, "This has a chance."

Melora Hardin ("Jan"): When we first did it, everyone was like, "Oh, God, is this going to be a mushy, glossed-over, Americanized version of a British show?" I think what we realized is it's in the right hands. Greg gets it that it has to push those boundaries. It has to keep being on the verge of too much or too little. [/FONT] [/COLOR]

Back Stage: The cast and crew spends 60 hours a week on-set together, which is not unlike working in a real office. How does that affect your acting?

Jenna Fischer ("Pam"): I might sit at my desk for three hours before my scene. That's very different from when you're doing a movie and you leave your trailer only to say your lines. I sit at my desk in my pantyhose for 10 to 12 hours a day. That's going to make you feel kind of glum.

Rainn Wilson ("Dwight"): It gets so claustrophobic, especially in that damn conference room. You pick up a script, and you see, "Oh, geez, we've got the next five pages involving 11 people sitting in this conference room. We're going to be here from 7:15 in the morning until probably 5:45 at night, and it's under fluorescent lights. Brutal."

Baumgartner: We are there so much, most of the time we see the people we're working with more than our own families. I don't think there are a lot of shows that are like this, and I think it is because we're all there all the time. There is such communication with the editors and the writing staff and the executives. We're just always there. They can't avoid us.

Fischer: We always get really excited when Melora or David Denman (who plays Roy) comes, because they're, like, a new person. It was so exciting, too, to have Ed (Helms, who plays Andy) and Rashida (Jones, who plays Karen) from (the office in) Stamford. They were the new kids in the class.

Back Stage: Melora, your character appears only occasionally. Is it difficult to come into this tight-knit group?

Hardin: Just as any group would welcome fresh blood, that's sort of how I feel most of the time. It's a different vibe, a different person, different energy. It kind of shakes things up a little, and Jan kind of does that. I work a few days a week - three days, maybe four at the most.

Back Stage: What do you do at your desk while you're waiting to film a scene?

Baker: I like to read (the website) Television Without Pity to see what they're saying about the show. I also like to send Phyllis (Smith, who plays Phyllis) emails to make her laugh when she's trying to keep a straight face. She sits right across from me, so if I can make her crack up when she's not supposed to, then my work is done.

Flannery: Sometimes I'm on MySpace talking to fans. But I actually write other stuff, too. I wrote a short story that's getting published.

Wilson: I try and catch up on blogs for Dwight on the NBC website. But (Dwight) would never do it on work hours. He would get up at 4:30, milk the cows, fertilize the beet fields, then he'd go write his blog. Then he'd come into work an hour and a half early.

Fischer: I do all kinds of things. Last year, I did all my Christmas shopping online from my desk. I have a MySpace account, so I'll write a blog or check messages. We found this online Boggle game that we could all play at the same time from our desks. We've played pretty much every online game there is. A lot of the guys on our set are in a Fantasy Football league. So a lot of times they're online checking stats and making trades. John Krasinski (who plays Jim) went around and set up all of our computers with instant message, and so now we can IM each other.

Back Stage: Do you ever communicate with each other in character?

Fischer: Angela is almost the closest person to me because we share a divider, and she would pass me notes in character. One time, she passed me a note that said, "I would be honored if you would join me on Saturday for the birthday party of my cat Sprinkles. Please RSVP by the end of the day. I mean it." We created this world sort of organically, and then these little things end up in the episode.

Flannery: We have a lot of fake paperwork. It's so crazy and bizarre. (The props department) literally made up these Dunder-Mifflin worksheets.

Nunez: There is a lot of paperwork there. I don't know what decade we're in. Nowadays, everything's on the computer. Sometimes I catch myself sitting there with reams of paper, and I'm like, "What am I, Dickens or something?"

Fischer: Phyllis used to sit at her desk and make fake sales calls. I kid you not, one time the director yelled "cut," and people started getting up and milling around, and she finished her call. She hadn't made the sale yet. She kept going.

Back Stage: Do the writers look to you for input on your characters: who they are, what happens to them outside Dunder-Mifflin?

Baker: We were never really told who our characters were in terms of their hopes, wishes, dreams, ambitions, hobbies. We are able to add those ingredients to our characters as we go along. That makes a big difference.

Fischer: It's so inclusive and collaborative. That's very unique. Other things that I've done, it's definitely that the actor is hired to say the material that's given to them. When we first started the show, Greg came up to me and said, "Jenna, tomorrow we're going to do some talking heads about you and Roy (Pam's then-fiance, played by Denman). I just want you to think about how you think that relationship got started and why do you think you're with him, and maybe a little bit about his family." That's never happened to me before. Usually it's the actor saying, "I need motivation; what's my motivation here?"

Back Stage: How much of the dialogue is scripted, and how much is improvised?

Baumgartner: It's 100 percent written and then 100 percent improvised, which means that everything is always written, and we shoot like a one-hour drama of those scenes, essentially verbatim, and then it's always shot as an alternative way. (The director says,) "Okay, you guys, go ahead and do what you want to do."

Kinsey: We have frickin' awesome writers. I just think we're so lucky to have this group of people: They're smart and they're funny. So, our show is 100 percent written, even down to, "Angela gives Dwight a glare."

Wilson: The important thing is it's going to have the feel of improv. There's a lot of time I feel like I could say anything, but I really choose to say the writers' lines because those are the best and the funniest lines.

Hardin: The kind of improvisation that I come from, which is different from most of the people in the cast, is not a real comedy improv but more of the improv coming out of the truth of the moment and letting the humor come out of that. And that works really well for our show.

Fischer: A good example of improv that paid off was in our episode "The Gay Witch Hunt" (Season 3, Episode 1). That kiss between Oscar and Steve (Carell) was not scripted. And all of our reactions are the real reactions. It speaks so much to Oscar's professionalism that he did not break.

Nunez: I do not break. You can write that down. He wasn't supposed to kiss me. We did it a couple of times, and he wasn't kissing me. And then that once, I see his lips coming closer and closer; I'm like, "Dear God, he's going to kiss me." And sure enough, he planted one on my face.

Fischer: In the moment you don't know. It's like, "Did we just go too far?" But it was so great! And then Rainn got up and tried to kiss Oscar, and we all lost it.

Back Stage: The humor is very unique and subtle - full of awkward pauses and long silences. Was that difficult to master?

Wilson: We have to allow the comedy to come from the characters and the situations and not from jokes.

Baumgartner: It's much funnier to be the undercurrent beneath the joke. I think that's what was very effective about the style of the show that was created even in the British version. Oftentimes the thing that makes you laugh the loudest is not what somebody says or does, but it's that moment right after what they say or do where the camera finds somebody's reaction in the office. I mean, nothing, really, is happening. The comedy comes from you getting to know and see these characters.

Baker: Plus, it doesn't have a laugh track. Most shows, they tell you, "Laugh here, only here." With our show, you can see one episode several times, and each time you'll see something that you may have missed the last time.

Back Stage: Many actors have worked office jobs. Have you ever had co-workers similar to "Office" characters?

Kinsey: I've definitely worked with a few people similar to my character. I totally now realize that it all has a purpose.

Nunez: I did have a boss like Michael (Carell). He was insane. He had a Napoleonic complex.

Flannery: I used to do temp work in Chicago. Every day felt like it was three days.

Fischer: I worked for many years as an administrative assistant. It's funny because those years of drudgery and going to those receptionist jobs, I always sort of wondered, "What is the purpose of this?" And then it turns out it was the most elaborate research I could've ever done. It was perfectly planned.

Baker: I've run into a bunch of Stanleys, I've run into a bunch of Michaels and Phyllises. We all have. I think that's why America identifies with the show so much.

Wilson: I think people wouldn't identify with the show and feel so strongly about it if it didn't resonate with them in some way. It touches on something very real about the human condition. There's a certain kind of suffering that happens in the office that doesn't happen anywhere else.

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/tv/articles/1227theoffice1227.html

TV Sports
Fox To Put Bowl Championship Series Online
By Ben Grossman, Broadcasting & Cable December 27, 2006

Fox Sports is making a strong online push to back its first year of airing college football’s Bowl Championship Series, making full-length replays of all five games - including the national title game - available online on a pay-per-view basis via several different sites.

The initiative marks the first time Fox Sports has made downloadable content available via the Web.

The package will be available via Foxsports.com, Fox Interactive Media’s direct2drive.com, Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Unbox, AOL Video, CinemaNow and Instant Media.

In addition to full-length replays, Fox will also offer condensed games (approximately 20 minutes each), preview shows and highlights.

Preview shows will begin December 28, and most full-length game replays will be available for download within 24 hours of the game’s completion.

Full-length game replays will cost $2.99 apiece, while other programming will cost $1.99. Fox will also offer an all-inclusive subscription for $19.99.

Foxsports.com and direct2drive.com will also stream the January 1 Cotton Bowl live and free of charge, which Fox says is the first time a New Year’s Day bowl game has been streamed live via the Web.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6402801.html

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

So Far, Owners Happy With the NFL Network

By Mark Maske
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 28, 2006; E04



The NFL Network's first half-season of broadcasting regular season games has been marred by often sloppy play and by ongoing staredowns with cable companies that have kept viewership lower than the league's planners originally had envisioned.

But as the league-owned network prepares to carry its eighth and final game of the season Saturday night at FedEx Field, with the Washington Redskins facing the New York Giants, the chairman of the NFL's broadcasting committee says the product has been good enough to convince him that having regular season games on the channel will be part of the sport's permanent landscape.

"I think they're doing a heck of a job with the games when you consider they're coming in as a whole new network," Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen said by telephone this week. "As far as I'm concerned, it's pretty well going to remain a staple of what we do. . . . Just speaking for myself, I'd be highly surprised if it did not continue for the foreseeable future, if not forever."

Bowlen and the broadcasting committee, including Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, made a bold move when they, along with former commissioner Paul Tagliabue, decided to put regular season games on the NFL Network this year for the first time. They could have sold the eight-game package of prime-time games on Thursday and Saturday nights in the second half of the season to a network for a rights fee worth several hundred million dollars per year. Such rights fees are the financial backbone of the league, with the NFL's deals with Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV bringing in nearly $4 billion annually.

Instead, Tagliabue and the owners on the committee decided to go into the game-carrying business, beginning to position themselves for a future in which games perhaps could be carried over all sorts of new digital-media devices.

"From a business standpoint, I think the NFL Network exists solely for the NFL to use as leverage against the other networks every time its TV contracts are up," said an executive from another network, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he expects to have to negotiate with the league in the future. "From a product standpoint, what they're doing is fine. It's not great yet. I'm sure it will get better. But it's certainly not terrible. They brought in experienced people from other places."

According to Bowlen, the NFL Network is not yet profitable. But that, he said, is not the point.

"If we sold the games to another carrier, we just would have gotten some more money," Bowlen said. "We don't need any more money. We've made a lot of money with our other broadcast deals. What we want is an asset."

The product that the NFL Network has put out has drawn mixed reviews. The league hired Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth as the game announcers. Gumbel was decades removed from play-by-play experience, and some viewers complain that he has been too restrained and that the broadcasts have been lifeless.

"We're better now than we were in Week 1," producer Mark Loomis said as he sat in a production truck parked outside the Georgia Dome just before the NFL Network's Dec. 16 broadcast of the Cowboys-Falcons game in Atlanta. "By the Redskins game, we'll be better."

There have been the usual headaches. The day before the game in Atlanta, which was on a Saturday night, some members of the NFL Network's broadcast crew were delayed for eight hours by bad weather in Seattle, where the network had broadcast a Thursday night game. As Gumbel and Dick Vermeil, the former NFL coach who fills in for Collinsworth when Collinsworth is unavailable because of his commitments to other networks, did pregame rehearsals hours before the kickoff in Atlanta, Vermeil was sick and his voice was so scratchy that Gumbel had to call for a glass of water with lemon and honey to be delivered.

Vermeil was busy defending Falcons Coach Jim Mora even though Mora's comments on a radio show that week about being willing to leave the team instantly if the coaching job at the University of Washington, his alma mater, ever became available had angered Falcons owner Arthur Blank. The NFL Network has demonstrated during its broadcasts that it is not beholden to the owners of the teams even though they are, in effect, the bosses. The Oakland Raiders ridiculed NFL Network reporter Adam Schefter, issuing a written statement that called him a rumor-monger with an anti-Raiders slant, after he reported during a recent broadcast that the team planned to fire Coach Art Shell after the season.

"One of the things that I talked to Steve [Bornstein, the president of the NFL Network] about before I signed on, I said: 'Look, Steve, I don't want to do a broadcast and get 32 phone calls on Monday from 32 owners saying you should have done this. I wish you'd done that. I like the way you did that,' " Gumbel said as he stood in the booth before the Cowboys-Falcons broadcast. "I said: 'I really just don't. I don't. I don't want to.' I said, 'I have no problem with answering to you.' But I said, 'I don't want to answer to 32 different owners.' And that has held true."

Gumbel said he is signed for three more seasons -- the same length that Bowlen says the owners originally committed to having games on the network -- and he has enjoyed calling the games after initially feeling uncertain because of the rustiness of his play-by-play skills. Gumbel created a stir even before his first broadcast when he made critical comments about the league and NFL Players Association chief Gene Upshaw on his HBO show. Tagliabue said that Gumbel's status with the network would be reviewed, but successor Roger Goodell took no action.

Gumbel said that "absolutely no one but no one but no one at the NFL aside from then-outgoing commissioner Paul Tagliabue really gave it much concern at all," and added: "Honest to God, it was never an issue. It really wasn't."

Some of the Thursday games carried by the network have been sloppily played by teams that had only three days to prepare, a point that was noted by Gumbel and Collinsworth during a broadcast. But Bowlen said it doesn't matter if coaches or even some owners don't like the Thursday games.

"We're going to keep playing them," Bowlen said. "You're going to have to play some Thursday games whether you want to or not."

Through the Dallas-Atlanta game, the games on the NFL Network had been watched by an average of about 4.2 million viewers per broadcast. That's a significant number considering that the channel is in only about 40 million U.S. households, but it's a fraction of the number of viewers that see most nationally televised NFL games.

The NFL has been unable to settle disputes with several large cable companies, including Cablevision, to get the channel into more households. When the late Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt was hospitalized in Dallas on Thanksgiving, he was unable to watch his team's game that night because the hospital didn't get the NFL Network. Bowlen said the disputes with the cable companies have produced lower-than-expected ratings.

"If anything has been disappointing, it's been that," Bowlen said. "[But] we don't want to make bad deals and we don't want to embarrass people we made deals with already. I didn't think it would be easy and it's proven it isn't easy. And yet I have no problem with what we're putting out there."

Sorry I missed this last week….
The Business of TV
EchoStar to raise most bills by 3%
HD: Now a $20 Monthly Tab
By Joyzelle Davis Rocky Mountain News December 22, 2006

Most Dish customers will pay about 3 percent more next year to watch satellite TV, a smaller increase than most cable customers are facing.

The America's Top 120 package increases $3 a month to $46, while America's Top 180 also goes up $3 a month to $56. America's "Everything" Pack jumps $5 a month. Dish's most popular package, America's Top 60, holds the line at $29.99.

Prices for several other packages offered by EchoStar's Dish Network stay the same: DishFamily remains $19.99, while DishLatino stays at $24.99. All of the prices are effective Feb. 1.

Price increases at cable providers, which are still rolling out their adjustments, are running at about 5.4 percent for basic analog video, according to a report by Sanford Bernstein. That's still lower than usual. Cable prices increased 93 percent from 1995 to 2005, according to a recent Federal Communications Commission report.

Cable prices are determined in each market, and Comcast hasn't announced 2007 rates for the Colorado market.

DirecTV, EchoStar's larger satellite-TV rival, also hasn't announced next year's pricing.

Dish Network also is overhauling the names of its programming packages to reflect recent channel additions. America's Top 60 is now America's Top 100, a name that encompasses newly added NFL Network, ReelzChannel and, starting in February, 32 Muzak channels. America's Top 120 becomes America's Top 200, and America's Top 180 is now America's Top 250.

Douglas County-based EchoStar also simplified its high-definition pricing, making it a $20 monthly addition to any other Dish package.

Dish's price increases were driven by higher programming costs, which increased 8 percent this year.

"We fight to keep our business costs low and make improvements to Dish Network, but we simply cannot offset the unavoidable costs of increased television programming fees," the company said in a statement.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_5230345,00.html

The TV Column
The Week’s Winners and Losers
'Deal' Has a Gift For Getting Viewers
By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 28, 2006; C07

'Twas the week before Christmas when viewers were nestled all snug in their media rooms, while visions of Rudolph, Jimmy Stewart, BB guns, Victoria's Secret undies, and a singing nun -- but mostly, briefcases filled with money -- danced in their heads.

Here's a look at the week's sugarplums and fruitcake.

WINNERS

"A Christmas Story." TBS's 10th annual marathon showing of the cheese-tastic movie about a little boy who wants a Red Ryder BB gun opened on Christmas Eve with an audience of about 4.4 million -- ad-supported cable's No. 1-ranked entertainment program last week.

"Victoria's Secret Fashion Show." This year's Irony Is Not Dead Award goes to the CW for rerunning CBS's skivvies show -- which clocked 2.7 million viewers -- in the exact same Tuesday time slot where, one week earlier, it had aired the "Eighth Annual Family Television Awards," which, incidentally, logged 1 million fewer viewers.

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." In his second outing on CBS this holiday season, Rudolph still managed to log nearly 11 million viewers (the Dec. 8 broadcast snagged nearly 13 million), handily winning his Thursday time slot and beating even the fourth broadcast of "Identity," NBC's new Profiling People for Profit reality series (9.5 million).

"Sound of Music." Treacly singing-nun flick finished No. 21 among all broadcast shows -- an early Christmas ratings miracle, given that AB C broadcast it on Saturday.

"Deal or No Deal." Last Monday, viewers started the countdown to Christmas by crowning NBC's screaming-at-briefcases reality series the No. 1 show of the week.

LOSERS

"The Class." CBS announced it will shutter early its new Monday sitcom about pretty white 20-somethings linked by the bond of a common third-grade teacher -- where do they come up with this stuff -- to make room for the return to sitcom TV of skin-crawlingly creepy David Spade, who will play a single skankster chick magnet in "Rules of Engagement." "Rules" debuts Feb. 5, the night after CBS's Super Bowl broadcast, which means lots of Spade ads in the game, during which we can check in on the action at Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl. "The Class" calls it a wrap March 5.

"King of Queens." It took nine years, but CBS finally decided to put this poster child for Male Pattern Optimism -- pudgy idiot man married to hot non-idiot chick -- out of our misery. Thanks, Santa!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/27/AR2006122701641_pf.html

TV in 2007
TV's Top 10 for 2006
By Ellen Gray Philadelphia Daily News

‘Tis the season when TV critics get asked, more than once, for their own naughty-and-nice lists, and to be honest, I'm all polled out.

It's no secret that I think HBO's "The Wire" was the best thing on TV this year, or that NBC's "The Office" makes me laugh. When it's not making me cringe.

After those two, I could fill a Top 10 list faster than anyone on even an Aaron Sorkin show can talk. Problem is, it might have 20 shows.

Because 2006 has been a great year for television, an ever-expanding medium that while offering more time-wasters than ever - the naughty list would stretch on for pages - continues to challenge Newton Minow's 1961 description of it as a "vast wasteland."

To quote the former Federal Communications Commission chairman a bit further: "When television is good, nothing - not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers - nothing is better."

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but there are many things - and many people - that made me happy with television this year.

Here, in no particular order, are 10:

1. Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy."

"Grey's" creator Shonda Rhimes may have peopled Seattle Grace with adolescents masquerading as surgeons, but she gave us at least one grown-up: Bailey, whose nickname, "The Nazi," doesn't begin to do justice to her strict sense of honor and concern for patients. She's the conscience of that show, and some weeks, the only thing that saves it for me.

2. Matt and Amy Roloff and their four children, the focus of TLC's documentary series, "Little People, Big World."

It was a big year for little people on TV, what with Peter Dinklage on FX's "Nip/Tuck" and Meredith Eaton playing feisty bombshells on both ABC's "Boston Legal" and Fox's "House." But for moving beyond the obvious - yep, they're short - you can't beat the Roloffs, whose approaches to parenting their mixed-height children proved more instructive than exploitive, making this less of a sideshow than anything I've seen featuring so-called real families in some time.

3. Alec Baldwin, on NBC's "30 Rock."

I'm still not all the way there with the rest of "30 Rock," but Baldwin's every appearance as network executive Jack Donaghy is so perfect, and yet so demented, that by next year, he may require a list all his own. Meanwhile, though, he's not just stealing scenes, he's raising the game of every actor on the show who shares face time with him.

4. Tim Gunn, of Bravo's "Project Runway."

The suave but kindly Parsons fashion-design honcho, not Heidi Klum, is the real star of "Runway," where he functions as a Dutch uncle to a group of Donna Karan and Michael Kors wannabes and gives sewing-challenged viewers a reason to take fashion seriously. (Plus, his "make it work" is a much better catchphrase than Klum's "auf wiedersehen.") The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan recently reported that Gunn's not yet signed for a fourth season, which is one slip that sure needs addressing.

5. The four boys of HBO's "The Wire": Randy (Maestro Harrell), Namond (Julito McCullum), Duquan (Jermaine Crawford) and Michael (Tristan Wilds).

There were times when Season 4 of the Baltimore drama rested almost entirely on the shoulders of four young actors portraying characters coming of age in a confusing and dangerous world. One amateurish or even actor-ish performance could have sent the whole structure tumbling like a house of cards, but instead those boys crawled so deep under viewers' skins we may never be free of them.

6. Chris Johnson and Cody Perkins, of David Sutherland's "Country Boys."

Along with the boys of "The Wire," I'll carry Chris and Cody, the very real subjects of Sutherland's ("The Farmer's Wife") latest miniseries for PBS, a haunting exploration of adolescence in Appalachia.

7. Cheerleaders.

Yep, cheerleaders. It's no surprise that we fell in love with ABC's "Ugly Betty," since neither braces nor bad sweaters could make "Betty's" America Ferrera a whit less adorable. But cheerleaders? Who likes cheerleaders? This season, NBC does, and both "Heroes' " Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) and "Friday Night Lights' " Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) have been allowed to rise above the snooty stereotypes to show us girls even girls who had thighs in high school can love.

8. Matthew Perry on NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

Sorkin's "Studio 60" may be the disappointment of the fall, but Perry's not only not the problem, most weeks he's the reason to keep watching and to hope things get better. And if they don't, Perry will be the reason to give his next project a look, too.

9. Jeanne Tripplehorn on HBO's "Big Love."

It's probably unfair to choose just one wife from the polygamy drama, which also featured fine performances from "sister wives" Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin, but Tripplehorn's depiction of a woman who's done more than most would do in the name of love anchored "Big Love" in a way no one else could.

10. Watching online.

Once upon a time, we relied on recording devices to keep up with missed TV shows. And shows, once canceled, disappeared forever. But all that's so last year. This year, I've been able to watch the resolution of NBC's canceled "Kidnapped" (Episode 12 was posted on NBC.com on Friday), track "Vanished" for several episodes after Fox pulled it and to keep up with everything from CBS' "Shark" to ABC's "Lost" without leaving my PC. Or paying a cent to iTunes.

Next year, maybe they'll find a way to let me watch while I'm asleep.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//16325602.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Critic’s Notebook
TV's finest hours
The best series on television in 2006? They weren't all on HBO.
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle

If nothing else, a look back at the best series on television helps confirm the notion that brilliance exists if you look beyond the ubiquitous lameness. And in 2006, it wasn't too difficult to spot the exceptional (helped, no doubt, by the fact that a calendar year encompasses almost two seasons of television).

Below you will find the 17 best series on television -- ranked in order. No ties. No excuses. And no doubts. Why 17? Because 10 is a cliche, plus not enough to cover the worthy.

In a sidebar, you can find the best of the rest. Together they make a pretty convincing argument that within the mythological 500-channel universe, a judicious viewer can find the most creative storytelling, best writing and finest acting in any medium.

A note: This is a consideration of everything on television, regardless of the channel. You will find, as usual, quite a bit of HBO offerings here. And you'll find cable channels you may not get or may not watch even if you do get them. The list is based solely on quality, not popularity or availability.

• 1. "The Wire." HBO. What's most amazing about "The Wire" this season is how far it separated itself from its closest competitors, how easy it was to pick it as No. 1, which is quite a feat given the brilliance of the handful of series directly below it. The truest words about "The Wire" have already been written here -- that it is dense and novelistic, peopled with nuanced characters from those on the screen for 13 minutes to the main players in all 13 episodes. Beyond that, it tells difficult stories of inner-city America and the failure of institutions, families and individuals. "The Wire" is a masterpiece and must be considered not just the best series this season, but a landmark achievement in the history of television.

• 2. "Deadwood." HBO. As in "The Wire," the use of language in "Deadwood" is one of those elements that sets it apart, that fuels its genius. A Shakespearean Western that was both epic and intimate, three seasons were not enough to tell the story and now, as creator David Milch and HBO move on prematurely to another series, history may say it was the biggest mistake of Milch's career and a real blunder on the part of HBO, even if viewers are ultimately given the as-promised movies that will wrap up the story. A bitter end to a grand series.

• 3. "Rescue Me." FX. What's glorious about this audacious tale of post-9/11 New York firefighters is that creators Denis Leary and Peter Tolan never listened to anyone but themselves. Otherwise nobody would have let them try the impossible: fusing emotionally wrenching drama with searing, politically incorrect humor. A tonal nightmare on paper, but the results onscreen are stunning.

• 4. "Weeds." Showtime. You have to love a series that could implode at any minute with its wild abandon in the storytelling department. Whether "Weeds" lasts one or five more seasons, it so far has managed to be absurdly funny, sad and sweetly touching at the same time.

• 5. "Country Boys." PBS. A bleak but moving documentary about two boys growing up poor and adrift in rural Appalachia, this was a powerful portrait by filmmaker David Sutherland that left its mark on viewers long after it ended.

• 6. "Dexter." Showtime. Probably the surprise of the season. Michael C. Hall went from "Six Feet Under" to a serial killer with a twisted moral compass -- he only kills other killers. It walked a delicate balance of being eerie, intense and funny but, along with "Weeds," made Showtime a destination for original fare.

• 7. "The Sopranos." HBO. This lower-than-expected ranking is merely a hedge against an unfinished season and story. The first few episodes were some of the best the series has ever done but a flattened story line about Vito being gay created a sense of anxiety and unmet expectations in the viewer. Here's to the final episodes (now nine) sending one of TV's greatest shows out on a high note.

• 8. "The Shield." FX. The constantly evolving nature of this series as it tackles the darker sides of police work, injustice, corruption, violence and individual ambition marks five seasons of superb boundary-pushing.

• 9. "Big Love." HBO. Polygamy was the hook, but the storytelling and relationships that built up slowly through the season coalesced to make "Big Love" more than a big (or strange) premise. There were great performances scattered in the least likely places. And patience once again paid off for HBO viewers.

• 10. "Prime Suspect." PBS. The final installment of the superb, enduring detective series found Helen Mirren at her best -- which is saying something. She carried this finale on her back -- one of the few instances here where an actor (and there are a lot of exceptional ones in this mix of series) had to be better than the material.

• 11. "Lost." ABC. Despite all the complaints -- many of them legitimate -- about the lack of answers, pacing, new characters, etc., the truth is that few series on broadcast television gave viewers anything more substantial than quick thrills or temporary entertainment (not that there's anything inherently bad about that). With "Lost," there's an investment, an involvement, that makes it special.

• 12. "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia." FX. Riotously rude, funny and inspired, "Sunny" was TV's next great comedy the first year it was on. Now it's simply the best comedy you didn't watch in its first season, but since it's been renewed, you have a chance to redeem yourself.

• 13. "24." Fox. Sometimes logic, plausibility and nuance are overrated. "24" is one of television's most thrilling series, an entertaining juggernaut best experienced with your brain snapped off and your seat-belt on.

• 14. "Entourage." HBO. Smart, subversively accurate and funny on several different levels, "Entourage" proves that not every HBO series takes three or four episodes to reveal its genius. A self-aware and savvy depiction of Hollywood, fame and friendship.

• 15. "Battlestar Galactica." Sci-Fi. This is stripped-down science fiction that relies more on the story than special effects. A fine cast, a penchant for real-world politics and a calculating mix of armed forces, sex and intimate personal stories make this a worthy crossover.

• 16. "The Office." NBC. Forever defying the odds as the benchmark of broadcast sitcoms, "The Office" continues to evolve. What could have been a sappy, pandering finale last season became a shrewd and winning plot twist. This series has countless small moments (minor characters, one-off jokes) that add value from episode to episode.

• 17. "Sons & Daughters." ABC. No, you probably didn't see it, can't remember it and yes, it was canceled (all too quickly, as expected). Comedy is so much more relative than drama (and certainly less universal), but this mostly improvised, ridiculous, hilarious and note-perfect sitcom would have probably lived longer on cable but earned ABC a lot of critical respect. Why? Because it was a gift. And you can never get enough of those on TV.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/27/DDGJPN4NNP33.DTL&type=printable

Critic’s Notebook
The Year In Television
25 reasons why 2006 was a good year to watch.
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News Dec. 28, 2006

There are days when I find myself bemoaning the state of television. And there are days -- like the one when I sat down to write this survey of the year -- when I think the state of the medium is strong.

There was enough good stuff on and about television this past 12 months that a number of strong possibilities didn't make the cut for this list. (I feel particularly bad about ``Without a Trace,'' ``Cold Case,'' PBS' ``Bleak House,'' ``South Park'' and the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block of shows.) But, regrets aside, here are the 25 best things about TV in 2006:

1. HBO Sunday night dramas

If I listed the dramatic series from HBO separately, ``The Wire'' would be No. 1. ``Deadwood'' would be No. 2, ``The Sopranos'' somewhere in the top 5 and ``Big Love'' might have squeezed into the bottom of the rankings. Let's just acknowledge that if it's Sunday night, it's time for HBO.

2. ``Grey's Anatomy'' (ABC)

The most completely satisfying hour of entertainment on network TV.

3. ``24'' (Fox)

The premise initially looked like a one-trick pony. But ``24'' had its best season ever -- in its fifth year.

4. ``The Daily Show with Jon Stewart'', ``The Colbert Report'' (Comedy Central)

Smart, on-target satire that cuts through cultural hype and political spin.

5. ``Battlestar Galactica'' (Sci Fi)

Sure, it has spaceships and Cylons. But the show tackles very complex, risky topics on a weekly basis and does it with intelligence and passion.

6. ``Weeds'' (Showtime)

Solidified its spot as the best, edgiest comedy on American TV.

7. BBC America

How essential is cable's BBC America? Let me count the ways: ``The Thick of It,'' ``Footballers' Wives,'' ``Life on Mars,'' ``Viva Blackpool: Ripley's Return,'' ``The Street,'' ``Hex,'' ``Bad Girls,'' ``Rocket Man'' and the return of ``Cracker.'' There's a reason the first four series are being remade for American TV.

8. ``Lost'' (ABC)

No. 1 last year at this time. It has seemed a bit off its game so far this season, but it's still a strong show.

9. ``The Shield'', ``Rescue Me'' (FX)

Superior series that make FX the must-see channel on basic cable.

10. ``When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts'' (HBO)

A powerful documentary and one of Spike Lee's best films ever.

11. ``Heroes'', ``Friday Night Lights'' (NBC)

The first is a big hit; the second is struggling to find an audience. But these are the best of the networks' new series.

12. ``Project Runway'' (Bravo)

Absolutely addictive, and never more so than this season.

13. ``Dexter'', ``Brotherhood'' (Showtime)

``Dexter'' was the more compelling of these new, very good Showtime dramas. Together, they proved that the cable channel is gaining some ground on rival HBO.

14. ``House'' (Fox)

The storyline about Gregory House's Vicodin addiction has been going on a bit too long, but the series remains appointment TV on Tuesdays.

15. ``Prime Suspect: The Final Act'' (PBS)

A marvelous swan song for Helen Mirren's Jane Tennison.

16. ``The Office'', ``My Name Is Earl'' (NBC)

The funniest hour on network TV. And ``Scrubs'' makes it 90 minutes.

17. ``Ugly Betty'' (ABC)

A heady mix of solid family drama, high camp and cheeky observations on our obsession with looks and fashion. And this new series is getting stronger as it goes along.

18. ``Entourage'' (HBO)

An always-clever comedy that really hit its stride.

19. ``Meerkat Manor'' (Animal Planet)

Who knew life with a tribe of meerkats could be sweet, funny and emotionally involving?

20. ``MI-5'' (A&E)

The most abused series on TV. A&E executives ought to be whipped for the way they handled this excellent spy drama, scheduling it at weird times and cutting off the most recent season after just two episodes.

21. ``Veronica Mars'' (UPN/CW)

A big, sharp drop from No. 5, where it was in 2005, because the storytelling has lost some of its spark. Still, snappy dialogue and the performance by Kristen Bell keep it on the list.

22. ``The Tonight Show'' (NBC)

Ever since Jay Leno agreed to give up his late-night crown a couple of years from now, it's like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. His jibes were sharper and more knowing this year than those of -- dare I say? -- David Letterman.

23. ``The Amazing Race'' (CBS)

After last year's unwatchable family edition, it's been game-on for this top reality series.

24. ``Broken Trail'' (AMC)

An old-fashioned but compelling western miniseries with top performances by Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church.

25. ``10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America'' (History)

An ambitious and innovative series of documentaries by top filmmakers on such major bits of American history as the battle of Antietam, Shay's Rebellion, the Homestead steel strike, the Scopes trial and Elvis' first appearance on the ``Ed Sullivan Show.''

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/16323747.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Critic’s Notebook
The Best of 2006
Best television show: "Heroes"
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette December 28, 2006

Anyone who complains about a lack of quality programming this year just hasn't looked hard enough. This may have been one of the most difficult years ever to narrow down a Top 10 list.

Even now I'm debating my choices, contemplating whether to yank something out to give ABC's "Boston Legal" a Top 10 berth. If you have a bone to pick with this list, you're not alone. I could argue many of these shows off the list and replace them with some of the "honorable mention" series.

Here's what I finally settled on:

1. 'HEROES' (NBC)
In a season of serials, this drama about average people who develop super powers was the most addictive entry. What's not to love about an attractive, diverse cast and this season's best breakthrough newcomer, Masi Oka as Hiro? Where "Lost" lets questions linger, "Heroes" willingly coughs up answers. It's smart entertainment light enough to appeal to the mainstream, yet not dumbed down. And "Heroes" performs this astonishing deed: The show appeals both to comic geek fanboys and their parents. In this fractured media environment, that's a super-human feat in itself.

2. 'UGLY BETTY' (ABC)
Despite a less-than-skin-deep premise, this one-hour comedy has blossomed as it has broadened, adding greater depth to its secondary characters, particularly Mode magazine's scheming assistants. But its star, America Ferrera, holds it all together as the kind, down-to-earth but fallible Betty. She's not the character most likely to grace a fashion mag cover, but Betty is the reason viewers are happy to get "Ugly."

3. 'BATTLESTAR GALACTICA' (SCI FI CHANNEL)
Even though it's set in a galaxy (presumably) far, far away, "Battlestar" continues to offer the most salient dramatic depiction of the current state of world affairs here on Earth. This season's early episodes were dark and depressing, but the "Battlestar" writers deftly turned the tables on viewers as would-be heroes staged suicide attacks on their Cylon occupiers. Add to this resonant story deeply shaded and decidedly unshowy performances by stars Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell and "Battlestar" proves that "a sci-fi show" can provide social commentary that's just as relevant as any Earth-bound TV drama.

4. 'THE OFFICE' (NBC)
It's as embarrassingly painful as it is fall-down funny, but what saves the American version of "The Office" from being an exercise in sadomasochistic humor is that the writers, led by executive producer Greg Daniels, give the characters hearts and souls (Dwight may be an exception to this). Even Michael Scott (Steve Carell), pathetic as he frequently is, elicits empathy, often moments after making viewers cringe. Bringing the Stamford branch to Scranton this fall was a master stroke of plotting that opened up more story possibilities and believably upped the tension in the Jim-Pam relationship.

5. 'BIG LOVE' (HBO)
Never would have thought I'd find myself sympathizing with a family of polygamists, but the characters of this light HBO drama won me over with their all-too-human quirks and their devotion to one another. The clenched-jaw performance by Chloe Sevigny as perpetually slighted, sour wife Nicki just makes watching "Big Love" all the more enjoyable.

6. 'WEEDS' (SHOWTIME)
Has any series in 2006 offered more surprises? Not that I can recall, and "Weeds" is first and foremost a comedy about a suburban pot-dealing mom (Mary-Louise Parker). That the show's second season offered up more unexpected plot twists than any prime-time drama is a testament to the creativity of the show's writers.

7. 'SCRUBS' (NBC)
Wacky but heartfelt, weird but lovable, this stalwart character comedy continues to amuse as it rolls out what may well be its final year. Never achieving the success or acclaim it deserves, this fantastic cast makes a trip to Sacred Heart Hospital seem like a frolicking field trip -- even when the grim reaper lurks, claiming guest stars in a way that roots the show in some realism despite all the goofy, tangential, visual asides.

8. 'FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS' (NBC)
More a soap opera than a sports show, what makes "FNL" rise above WB-style claptrap is Kyle Chandler as Eric Taylor, who tries to juggle life under the microscope as a small-town coach in Texas -- where nothing seems to matter more than high school football -- and his duties as a father and husband. It's the latter, especially his relationship with his teenage daughter, that's most rewarding.

9. 'DEXTER' (SHOWTIME)
Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is one seriously deranged dude. He's a serial killer, but he only has a thirst for taking the lives of bad guys who deserve it. Creepy and spiked with dark comedy, "Dexter" obliterates memories of Hall's "Six Feet Under" character as he breathes life into this murderous oddball, who protests he feels nothing a little too often and too loudly for it to be true. And even though it's about a serial killer, "Dexter" is much less gory than FX's over-the-top plastic surgeons drama "Nip/Tuck."

10. 'LOST (ABC)
Down but not out, it was tempting to leave this show off the Top 10 list until I thought back to the out-of-nowhere deaths of Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) and Libby (Cynthia Watros) earlier this year. Yes, the core characters have been too splintered in recent fall episodes, but I still care enough about the story to look forward to the rest of the season that begins airing in February.

Honorable Mentions:

"The Amazing Race" (CBS)
"Boston Legal" (ABC)
"The Class" (CBS)
"The Colbert Report" (Comedy Central)
"The Daily Show" (Comedy Central)
"Deadwood" (HBO)
"Entourage" (HBO)
"Everwood" (The WB)
"Grey's Anatomy" (ABC)
"Men in Trees" (ABC)
"My Name Is Earl" (NBC)
"The O.C." (Fox)
"Rescue Me" (FX)
"The Shield" (FX)
"Sleeper Cell: American Terror" (Showtime)
"The Sopranos" (HBO)
"30 Rock" (NBC)
"24" (Fox)
"The West Wing" (NBC)
"The Wire" (HBO)

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/06362/749383.stm

Critic’s Notebook
2006: TV In Review
Gay Mobsters, ‘Country’ Britney, Youtube Exploded And So Did The Hatch
By Kimberly Potts Metromix

The boob tube spat out a number of shockers this year: "The Sopranos" finally came back, only to kill off a character in one of the most disturbing scenes we've ever seen—even on cable. Then there were the rants and subsequent apologies from Hollywood's loose-lipped haters (we're looking at you, Mike and Mel).

But all that darkness just made us appreciate the bright spots more, like a Baldwin (yes, the funny one) in primetime and a slew of sexy docs invading our Thursdays.

Take a look at our picks of people, places and things that made TV land such an enjoyable (and sometimes really, really weird) place to visit in 2006.

Sorry TV
If you made an ass of yourself in public this year, TV was the place to apologize for it. Michael Richards went to "The Late Show" after his shocking, racist comedy club rant. Mel Gibson did a whole apology tour after his anti-Semitic remarks during his Malibu DUI arrest. And remember James Frey's meek apologies after Oprah eviscerated him for fooling her and her audience into believing the tall tales in his supposed memoir, "A Million Little Pieces"? Then of course there was the infamous O.J. Simpson interview that never aired, in which the disgraced gridiron great might have apologized for the murders he didn't commit, after maybe telling us how he might have committed them if he had, in fact, committed them. Which he didn't. Allegedly. Maybe.

Mr. Pibb and Red Vines, Crazy Delicious
The infectious "Lazy Sunday" skit actually debuted on "Saturday Night Live" in December 2005, but, as the single best thing to come out of the show since the "More Cowbell" skit, it created a stir on YouTube in 2006, with more than 5 million views.

TV: It's Not Just for TV Anymore
Speaking of YouTube…between watercooler moments popping up on that site daily, AOL's In2TV (which offers free episodes of everything from "Alice" and "Wonder Woman" to "Batman: The Animated Series" and holiday installments of "The Smurfs") and nearly all the broadcast networks offering free streaming episodes of their hit shows, your TV set might just be the last place you actually watch TV these days.

A Matter of Perspective
"If there was any shame in a dude getting a pedicure I don't think there would've been a feature about it in Details magazine." - Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), "How I Met Your Mother"

The Comeback Kid
Rosie O'Donnell returned to daytime, as the feistiest, most outspoken co-host of "The View," making the show, well, appointment viewing again. Star who? Rosie also got to have sex with Julian McMahon on "Nip/Tuck." Not a bad year at all.

Could It Be…Satan?
"First of all, I just want to say how scared Elisabeth must be right now to have someone tell her she's not Christian enough." - Rosie O'Donnell, after "The View" guest host Shon Gables told Elisabeth Hasselbeck that Halloween is a "devil holiday."

Finally, the Finale
The hatch blew up, we found out what caused Flight 815 to crash, we caught a glimpse of Desmond's chick and Walt and Michael set sail for, well, we still don't know where exactly Walt and Michael got off to. But after a sophomore season that was, most fans agree, more frustrating and less satisfying than the first, the May season-ender of "Lost" really packed a wallop.

A New Network Launches
The new CW, a melding of the WB and UPN, looks just like the old WB. Except almost everyone's Caucasian. And Tyra Banks is a little crazier. And the "Gilmore Girls," unfortunately, don't talk as quickly.

Child-Rearing 101
"In this town, as long as I keep her off an "E! True Hollywood Story," I've done my job." - Ari (Jeremy Piven), "Entourage," on raising his daughter

Brokeback Mobster
Vito Spatafore was just another earner in the Soprano "family" until Tony and the gang found out that he'd rather hang with leather-clad dudes than the Bada Bing ladies. Vito went on the lam—and even enjoyed a brief fling with a diner owner he affectionately called Johnnycakes—but when earning an honest living proved too boring for the big guy, he returned home where he met his end with (gulp!) the business end of a pool stick.

Grossest TV Tie-In Ever
The actor who played "The Sopranos" Vito, Joseph Gannascoli, is now launching his own line of pool sticks called "A Cue to Die For: The Bada-Breaker." Gannascoli's first name for the cues: "The Brown Tip Special." Glad he decided to fughettabout that one.

Bada Bang
"The Sopranos" other big, um, bang? Crazy old coot Uncle Junior shot Tony, and it looked like the head gangster might not make it for several episodes. The rest of the season, the show's penultimate, was downhill from there, but we do still wonder: Is Uncle Jun really crazy, or crazy like a fox?

Again With the Perspective
"In the West Bank, a group calling itself the Lions of Monotheism firebombed four churches, telling the Associated Press, 'The attacks…were carried out to protest the Pope's remarks linking Islam and violence.' The irony—and this is often the case, we find—was completely lost on them." - Jon Stewart, "The Daily Show"

"24" Kills
The producers of "24" continuously assert that no one, not even heroic lead Jack Bauer, is safe on the show—last season they proved it early and often. Beloved former president David Palmer was murdered in the first hour of last January's season five opener, while Jack's best pal Tony, Tony's wife Michelle, and newbie CTU-er Lynn McGill also bit the dust before the season wrapped. And then there was Edgar. Oh, Edgar. As if suffering through his mom's suicide and his unrequited love for Chloe weren't enough, Edgar was cruelly taken out by the Sentox nerve gas the baddies set off inside CTU, as Chloe and the other CTU-ers were forced to watch him die.

"O.C."-Ya, Marissa
One TV character death that didn't seem to elicit many viewer tears? "The O.C." bad girl Marissa Cooper, who was run down by her drunk ex-fling Volchok. The character (not to mention the tabloid-fave actress who played her, Mischa Barton) had become tiresome, and was a large part of why the once-hot show began to rapidly lose its buzz. Post-Marissa, "O.C." fans agree that the gang is worth watching again, though the ratings have yet to agree.

All the Rage
"The big controversy is the 9/11 miniseries, because people are upset that it's not accurate, because, as you know, nothing is typically more accurate than the made-for-television movie. So why shouldn't 9/11 get the same respect that the Amy Fisher story gets?" - Jon Stewart, "The Daily Show"

The Big TV Show in the Sky
A moment of silence for the other shocking deaths on the tube in 2006. Sweet heart patient Denny Duquette on "Grey's Anatomy" and mysterious papa John Winchester on "Supernatural," both played by actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who also plays (via flashbacks) the dead hubby on "Weeds";"Lost" losses Ana Lucia, Libby and Mr. Eko; "Smallville" super dad, Jonathan Kent; "Alias" spy daddy Jack Bristow; Veronica, Tweener and Abruzzi on "Prison Break"; Lem from "The Shield"; "One Tree Hill" uncle Keith Scott; and beloved "West Wing"-er Leo McGarry (after his portrayer, Emmy-winner John Spencer, died in real life).

R.I.P. Ed Bradley
Other stars who died in 2006: "Roseanne" grandma, Shelley Winters; Franklin Cover from "The Jeffersons"'; sportscaster Curt Gowdy; "The Andy Griffith Show" alum Don Knotts; "Gunsmoke" star Dennis Weaver; "A Christmas Story" star Darren McGavin; "Press Your Luck" host Peter Tomarken; "Hee Haw" funnyman Buck Owens; "Wall $treet Week" host Louis Rukeyser; "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin; primetime soap king Aaron Spelling; "As the World Turns" Daytime Emmy-winner Benjamin Hendrickson; movie star and Depends spokeswoman June Allyson; comedian and frequent TV guest star Red Buttons; "Crazy Like a Fox" star Jack Warden; and "60 Minutes" Emmy-winner Ed Bradley.

Touché?
"I'm not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling that 60 percent of what you say is crap." - David Letterman to guest Bill O'Reilly, "The Late Show"

Commercials That Made Us Grateful for TiVo's FWD Button
The Gap Audrey Hepburn ad. All cell phone company spots. The Head On ("apply directly to the forehead") ads, and the new Head On ads that make fun of the old ones. Lastly, we can't stomach Jennifer Aniston's creepy St. Jude's commercial—the former "Friends" star comes off as so frosty that she can't even warm up to a kiddie cancer patient.

Best Commercials of the Year
The Geico caveman ads. Love 'em, can't see enough of 'em, especially the one where the indignant caveman spots one of the insulting billboards at the airport. Runner-up for best commercials: The other Geico campaign, featuring celebs like Charo, Burt Bacharach and movie trailer voiceover guy Don LaFontaine "interpreting" Geico customers' stories.

Oprah
"Ice Cube has joined Ludacris and 50 Cent in criticizing Oprah for not having rappers on her show. They have a good point. I mean, if there's three things my mother-in-law won't shut up about, it's pimps, ho's and shooting a bitch in the face with a deuce-deuce." - Joel McHale, "The Soup"

"Idol" Chatter
The fifth season of "American Idol" continued the show's dominance of the winter TV ratings, with the season premiere setting a new record for the series with 35.5 million viewers. The other networks so fear the ratings juggernaut, in fact, that ABC recently announced that "Lost" will move to the 10 p.m. timeslot this winter, just to avoid the "Idol" results shows.

Oprah Redux
"It got so hot in Chicago yesterday, Oprah let Stedman sleep in the house." - Jimmy Kimmel, "Jimmy Kimmel Live"

Reality TV Jawdropper of the Year
The night Chris Daughtry, the early fave to win the fifth season of "American Idol," got the boot. As shocked as the viewers and the judges were, no one was more surprised than Mr. Daughtry, who didn't bother to feign his reaction. Perhaps it was that feeling that he was getting a bit too big for his tight-fittin' britches that turned some viewers off.

Reality TV Jawdropper of the Year, Part Deux
The apparent death of Shakespeare Whiskers. The heroic star of Animal Planet's breakout series "Meerkat Manor" appointed himself the watchkat of the Whiskers clan, but after surviving a wicked snakebite and saving his sister's pups from the rival Lazuli family, little Shakes went MIA. So beloved is the meerkat that, despite producers' assumption that Shakespeare is dead, viewers on the show's message boards continue to concoct theories about how he might be alive and kicking.

Reality TV Jawdropper of the Year, The Sequel
We'll be brief with this one: "Flavor of Love." Season 2 premiere. A contestant had to go to the bathroom. She didn't quite make it. Moving on…

Overexposed
"On this week's "Dancing With the Stars," one of the contestants snagged her dress on something and accidentally exposed her rear end. Fortunately, no one noticed, because everyone on that show looks like an ass." - Conan O'Brien on "Late Night"

McDreamy, McSteamy and McStamos
Not since a certain Sexiest Man Alive (that's you, George Clooney) roamed the halls of County General has the Thursday night primetime line-up been littered with such medical McHottness. Patrick Dempsey, as "Grey's Anatomy" resident Dr. McDreamy, was actually runner-up to Clooney for this year's People mag sexy honors; John Stamos is leading a season of rejuvenated fan interest and ratings for "ER"; and Eric Dane's McSteamy towel scene on "Grey's" (and you know which towel scene we mean) is forever burned into our TV hunk mental scrapbook.

Best New Series of 2006
"Heroes." No wait, "Ugly Betty." No, no, "30 Rock." Or maybe "Jericho." "Friday Night Lights"? The good news about the new fall TV season: The networks' cups runneth over with good shows. The bad news: There were so many decent new shows that viewers couldn't keep up, which spelled doom for the underwatched "Smith" and "The Nine."

Best Putdown
"I like you. You have the boldness of a much younger woman." - Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) to employee Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), "30 Rock"

Alec Baldwin, at Last
Speaking of "30 Rock," it's the role that Alec Baldwin was born to play. The second most frequent guest host of "Saturday Night Live" has shown time and again that he is the master of the deadpan delivery, and his dry-witted "30 Rock" network exec, Jack Donaghy, gives him the chance to drop quip after hilarious quip every Thursday night.

Will They Or Won't They?
We want Jim and Pam to get together. But then we don't. But then we do. But then we don't. The waiting really is the hardest part, but that's what makes "The Office" so great.

Best Excuse
"Back in the '60s, I was with the Grass Roots. We toured with Janis Joplin, The Doors, Cream. We had a lot of fun. And now I do quality assurance for a paper company. As you can imagine, drugs played a part. They still do. I, uh…My work calls last about 90 seconds and that's about as long as I can concentrate."
- Creed (played by Creed Bratton, who really was a member of '60s rock band the Grass Roots), "The Office"

Sweet Spot
Tennis champ Andre Agassi saved the best for last: His U.S. Open match vs. Marcos Baghdatis was one of the year's best sports highlights. Agassi, who needed anti-inflammatory injections after every match just to get to his second round match against No. 8 seeded Baghdatis, eventually lost to the much lower ranked Benjamin Becker in the third round, but his fine form in his final Grand Slam tournament netted him an eight-minute standing ovation and many weepy fans when he made his post-Open retirement speech.

No, Really This Time: Best Excuse
"We're country." - Britney Spears, during her gum-smacking June "Dateline NBC" interview with Matt Lauer, trying to explain why she drove a car with her baby sitting on her lap, instead of in a car seat.

http://www.ctnow.com/tv/hce-natent-tv-2006tvinreview,0,7536766.htmlstory?coll=hce-headlines-tv-top

Nielsen Notebook
'NBC Nightly News' Wins Week Before Christmas
By Michele Greppi, TV Week December 27, 2006

During the week before Christmas, "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" finished first in total viewers and among the 25- to 54-year-old demographic that is of the most interest to advertisers in news programming.

In recent weeks, ABC's "World News With Charles Gibson" has been edging or tying "Nightly" in the demographic.

According to data from Nielsen Media Research for the week of Dec. 18, "Nightly News" averaged 9.48 million viewers and a 2.4 rating/9 share in the demo. "Nightly's" total viewership was off 1 percent from 9.55 million vs. the comparable week a year ago.

"World News" averaged 8.53 million total viewers and a 2.2/9 in the 25-to-54 demo. The flagship ABC News show was the only one of the three programs that could point to any year-to-year improvement in total viewers, up 1 percent from 8.48 million viewers.

"CBS Evening News With Katie Couric" averaged 7.44 million viewers and a 1.9/7 in the demo. Year to year, "Evening News" is down 2 percent from a year ago, when Bob Schieffer was keeping the anchor seat warm and the average total viewership was at 7.59 million.

In the 25-to-54 demo, all three flagship newscasts were off compared to a year ago, "Evening News" by 1 percent, "Nightly" by 9 percent and "World News" by 10 percent.

A ratings point represents the percentage of TV homes that were tuned to the program. The share is the percentage of all sets in use that were tuned to the show.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11275

TV Sports
NFL ratings grow on all four carriers
Football scores big for networks
By John Dempsey Variety.com Dec. 28, 2006

The National Football League scored a touchdown with its Nielsen ratings in 2006, delivering gains in total viewers on all four of its major carriers: NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN. In the key adult-male demos, all of them were up year to year, except for CBS, which was flat.

"It's nothing short of amazing that these networks are up across the board in viewers, particularly with NBC on Sunday and ESPN on Monday," said Kevin O'Malley, a sports-media consultant and former top exec at Turner Sports. "I would never have predicted that."

O'Malley said he was convinced going into the NFL season three months ago that "NBC wouldn't be unable to overcome football fatigue on Sunday night," referring to the phenomenon of game-saturated viewers who've watched the Sunday daytime NFL doubleheader on CBS and Fox and feel more than a little bleary-eyed when 8:15 p.m. ET rolls around for the start of the NBC contest.

And ESPN on Monday faces strong entertainment programming from the Big Four broadcast networks, including ABC; last year, ABC's "MNF" competed with only three major broadcasters.

"I can't remember a previous year when all of the major carriers of the NFL went up in the ratings simultaneously," said Mike Trager, another sports-media consultant.

Trager chalks up the gains to "the fact that so many teams are in the hunt so late in the season. There's so much parity in the league that a number of teams have a shot at the postseason."

This parity "kept CBS and Fox from getting hurt by the flex schedule" that the NFL -- for the first time -- drew up for NBC on Sunday nights, Trager said. The flex sked allows NBC to scrap its predetermined Sunday game -- as it did on three occasions this season -- and pick a more meaningful contest within two weeks of the air date.

Season to date, covering 16 telecasts, NBC's Sunday package is up by an average of 5% over ABC's Monday of a year ago in total viewers and in key male demos. It certainly helped that the popular Dallas Cowboys aired four times on the Peacock.

Fox's numbers are even better year over year. Its coverage of the NFL on Sunday afternoon is up 5% in total viewers, 11% in men 18-34, 7% in men 18-49, and 6% in men 25-54.

CBS' Sunday afternoon games grew by 1% in total viewers, and were flat among men 18-34 and men 18-49. They dipped by 1% with men 25-54.

ESPN's "MNF" engineered the biggest gains in the only appropriate comparison, to the network's carriage last year of "Sunday Night Football." (ABC, which gets into 20 million more homes than its ESPN sibling, broadcast "MNF" last year.)

ESPN soared by 42% in total viewers, by 32% in men 18-34, by 29% in men 18-49, and by 29% in men 25-54.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117956401&categoryid=14

Critic's Notebook
So... This Is Christmas?
By Jim Benson, Broadcasting & Cable's 'BC Beat' Blog Dec. 27, 2006

During this time of year, it’s interesting to see what the TV networks think constitutes “holiday programming.”

Two nights before Christmas, ABC ran the heart-warming, Oscar-winning classic The Sound of Music, while at the same time NBC scheduled a two-hour episode of Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator about busting would-be child molesters. NBC’s seemed like an odd choice, as the only holiday-related connection I could think of is that NBC usually has a plate of fresh baked cookies awaiting the predator, in order to keep him from leaving the “trap” before being surprised by reporter Chris Hansen.

On Christmas Eve, CBS apparently thought murder on Cold Case was the perfect lead-in to its Christmas-themed 9 o’clock movie—perhaps to illustrate that you can’t appreciate the good in life if you don’t experience enough of the bad.

NBC seemed to put out an effort for its Christmas primetime, dressing the Deal or No Deal models in holiday attire and having Santa Claus as part of the 1 vs. 100 mob. But ABC must have figured that Johnny Depp’s goateed buccaneer was better than a fake bearded Santa, thereby airing the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

The night after Christmas, with the exception of ABC’s Rudolph’s Shiny New Year, the holidays seemed almost forgotten. NBC scheduled Tom Brokaw Reports, in which the former anchorman explores the consequences of illegal immigration. Simultaneously on Fox, TV listings show an episode of House had a 7-year-old boy plunge from his bedroom window “after telling his parents that aliens were after him.” They were of the outer space variety.

So, for a couch potato or someone just wanting a break from shopping and the relatives, it’s just as easy to find some holiday fare on TV as it is to escape it.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138/post/1000006100.html

Cable Favorites:

1. The Wire (HBO)
2. The Shield (FX)
3. Deadwood (HBO)
4. Battlestar Galactica (SciFi)
5. The Closer

Thanks BiggiE48

Cable Favorites:

1. The Wire (HBO)
2. The Shield (FX)
3. Deadwood (HBO)
4. Battlestar Galactica (SciFi)
5. The Closer

To bad Charlie McCollum had to lump all the BBC America shows together. But at least he mentioned Life On Mars. It was one of my year's top shows. My list:

1) The Wire (And it is so far out front, its like Lexus in JDPower surveys.)
2) Deadwood
3) BSG
4) Life on Mars
5) The Shield

Anyone notice the lack of love for Veronica Mars in all those articles about the 10/20/100 best shows/actors/etc posted over the past few days? The only mention I remember was in the "25 Reasons to Watch TV"--and it was #21!
Although the third season isn't VM at its best, it still beats most stuff on TV.

Critic’s Notebook
Entering TV's New Year: Mo' or No Mo'?
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic

MO' --Tom Bergeron. The host of both Dancing with the Stars and America's Funniest Home Videos could make a fence-painting competition teem with excitement. Glib with an ad lib, he'd be the perfect answer for CBS' The Early Show. Then again, why would he want to do that?

Of course, why would Bergeron want to do something he did before? He was the inaugural co-host of FX's "Breakfast Time", and later Fox's "After Breakfast". Both were light-hearted shows from the Fox "Apartment" in Manhattan, and his improv comedy really showed. I think the more serious aspects of CBS' The Early Show would be too restrictive for him.

The move to Prime Time is exactly what he needed - much like how Anderson Cooper went from ABC News Overnight to the reality show "The Mole", before CNN grabbed him and put him on in prime time.

Critic’s Notebook
You Can Find ‘Friday Night Lights’ on Monday, Tuesday... Even Friday Night
By Virginia Heffernan The New York Times Dec. 29, 2006

The magic of the holiday season has meant that “Friday Night Lights,” NBC’s outstanding football drama, has been available in a perfect time slot: whenever you want it to be on.

In the Web’s winter wonderland, NBC.com has allowed viewers to stream episodes of the show at their leisure. Past episodes can even be watched when the network should have scheduled it in the first place: on Mondays at 10 p.m.

Oh, but that’s right. NBC already has a show at that time. It’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” the network’s “Ishtar” about show business, with the jokes that don’t quite land, and the master-of-the-obvious ideology.

Among other things, the new series by wunder-self promoter Aaron Sorkin raises a troubling question: Why did we trust Mr. Sorkin to get the ambience of the White House right in “The West Wing,” when his vision of a late-night comedy show — a world that must be easier for him to penetrate — is so off?

In driving its ratings, NBC has shot up “Studio 60” with so much anabolic money and androgenic hype that the show’s skills at the simple game of drama have been obscured. It’s as juiced up as the “Friday Night Lights” teenager Smash Williams (Gaius Charles), the running back for the Panthers, the Texas high school team around which the series revolves. His recent acne, shiny forehead and minor glandular turbulence are a credit to the show’s makeup team.

The suspense in the physical details of “Friday Night Lights” — and it is built on exquisite details — is only a fraction of what’s exciting about the series, which was compelling from the first episode and has only become more intense. If you’ve missed it, it’s probably because you’ve had trouble finding it. It has been languishing with audiences on Tuesdays, and the next new episode will appear in another junior varsity slot next week: Wednesdays at 8. (At least there it’s out of the way of Fox’s “American Idol.”)

All the more reason to turn to NBC.com, where back episodes will be available for streaming until Wednesday. On “Friday Night Lights” adolescent violence and sexuality play out in the mirage of Texas heat, while every human collision still seems plenty real. The games are persuasive too, with N.F.L.-like sound effects. That intimate sound mix — along with the sultry, languorous style of the show — provides a counterpoint to the supreme abstraction of the games, with their faceless players, padded forms and chalkboard plays.

Unlike the action on “Studio 60,” which is written to within an inch of its life, the characters in “Friday Night Lights” — I’m thinking especially of the heartbreaking Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly), doomed Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), earnest Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and canny Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki) — are given air to breathe. There’s silence in the scripts, as in “The Sopranos.” The actors, unlike the “Studio 60” cast, are not part of some predictable network repertory company. There are many new faces, and they all look as if they belong here.

“Friday Night Lights” is not a witty show; it’s not sharp. Maybe that’s why NBC doesn’t get it. You almost want to protect the drama in “Friday Night Lights,” along with the powerful fantasies — about teamwork, America, recovery, winning — that inform it. The characters, to a one, crave sustainable illusions of potency. As sympathetic figures, they seem to deserve such illusions. Don’t we all? Sometimes watching “Friday Night Lights” is like lucking into a winding conversation with a great but old and injured professional athlete who used to date movie stars.

And that old athlete could only have played American football. Maybe he started in Texas and played for a team, like the fictional Panthers, that required that everyone in its radius give it all he had. See, that’s the other, other, other good thing about “Friday Night Lights”: It’s not just about life. In some elemental way, it’s also about football.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/arts/television/29fnl.html?ref=television&pagewanted=print

TV Notebook
Nets wrestle with covering Saddam fate
By Paul J. Gough The Hollywood Reporter Dec 29, 2006

NEW YORK -- Television news executives on Thursday debated what they're comfortable with showing in their coverage of Saddam Hussein's impending execution, which may be videotaped and perhaps aired on Iraqi TV.

The timing of Hussein's execution was unclear, but late Thursday CBS, NBC and Fox News Channel reported that the former Iraqi president, convicted this year in the deaths of 148 Iraqis in 1982, would be turned over to the Iraqi government within 36 hours and hanged before the start of a Muslim holiday on Sunday. Several sources said Saddam's execution would be videotaped by the Iraqi government, though it wasn't clear whether it would be released to the public or broadcast.

As word spread Thursday in network news circles that Saddam's execution could happen as early as today, questions arose over how news outlets would handle any possible video or still photographs taken during and after the sentence is carried out. Judging from the Iraqi government's release Tuesday of videotape of the hanging of 13 convicts, it could be gruesome. Meetings were held Thursday in at least two network headquarters over how to handle the potentially graphic images.

"We will video everything," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouffak al Rubaie told CBS News.

ABC and CBS said they wouldn't air the full execution if the video became available and might not air anything or show a brief, nongraphic portion. NBC and ABC plan to break into regular programming to announce that Saddam's sentence had been carried out. NBC News said it still was discussing what it would do, but it's clear it also won't run graphic footage.

"We're very aware that we're coming into people's living rooms and that there could be children watching," CBS News senior vp Linda Mason said.

Mason and her network counterparts have broadcast standards and procedures they follow in these cases. Phil Alongi, special-events executive producer at NBC News, said there are ways the network can approach the video or photographs that will get the point across without having to be graphic.

The operative word: taste.

"We have very, very strict guidelines with how to deal with that," said Bob Murphy, senior vp at ABC News. "If there were pictures made available of the execution, they would have to be viewed by senior management before we would put them on the air, and we would make a judgment of taste and propriety of what we would show."

CNN and Fox News Channel still were discussing what they would do if the footage were made available. It also wasn't clear what the newly launched network Al-Jazeera International would do. An e-mail and phone call to the channel's Qatar headquarters weren't returned Thursday. Despite popular assumptions to the contrary, Al-Jazeera's pan-Arab channel has never shown an execution.

While video of an execution would be unprecedented in U.S. television, the war in Iraq has led to a number of judgment calls on graphic video. The U.S. military released graphic photographs of Saddam's two sons who were killed in a U.S. raid on their Mosul hideout in July 2003.

"We edited down the pictures to show only what was appropriate, what we thought was appropriate," Murphy said. "We didn't show the pictures live (when the network received them), and we made sure that they showed enough of the bodies so that it was clearly them, but we didn't dwell on it."

None of the networks showed the beheading of Nick Berg, an American who was kidnapped and killed in Iraq in May 2004. But Berg's beheading by kidnappers -- along with the killings of others, including a South Korean -- was distributed on the Internet and fed to American networks that chose not to use the footage.

Mason, Alongi and Murphy said Thursday that an execution video widely distributed on the Internet wouldn't change their minds about not airing the graphic portions of any video.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i73449c66171eef17a8079bc811c950a2

TV Sports
NFL to Allow Fox, CBS to Air Double Doubleheaders
By John Consoli Media Week DECEMBER 28, 2006 -

The National Football League, for the first time ever, is giving its broadcast network television partners, CBS and Fox, this Sunday a right to air two games each in markets that do not have a home football team--a double doubleheader.

"With tight playoff races and so much interest in so many games, a Week 17 double doubleheader offers fans more football as they look ahead to the playoffs," said Howard Katz, NFL senior vp of broadcasting.

Those NFL markets where there is a home game will receive two out of market games, one on Fox and one on CBS, both in either the 1 or 4 p.m. time period, whichever slot is not when the home team is playing.

A total of 20 teams are still vying for the playoffs or playoff seeding entering the final week of the season.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003525800

Of course, why would Bergeron want to do something he did before? He was the inaugural co-host of FX's "Breakfast Time", and later Fox's "After Breakfast". Both were light-hearted shows from the Fox "Apartment" in Manhattan, and his improv comedy really showed. I think the more serious aspects of CBS' The Early Show would be too restrictive for him.

The move to Prime Time is exactly what he needed - much like how Anderson Cooper went from ABC News Overnight to the reality show "The Mole", before CNN grabbed him and put him on in prime time.


Welcome to the thread, MWJones!

Personally, I don't think even the cast of "Grey's Anatomy" could help "The Early Show" all that much.

CBS has been in a morning sinkhole forever, and seems incapable of climbing out.
It hasn't worked with Wallace, Cronkite, Osgood, Kuralt, or the host of well-established names (including those running the show) who have followed.

Tom Bergeron is, I am sure, smart enough to stay far away.

Critic’s Notebook
We couldn't make this stuff up
The year's finest reality TV moments, from the shows we hate to admit we love
By Amy Diluna, New York Daily News December 28, 2006

HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU: "The Bachelor: Rome" gave us the most ill-advised dating show move, ever. Thank Lisa, "Bach"-phile and bride wanna-be, for making all other women feel normal. And not only because she tried on a wedding dress in front of her date, but also because - oh, for crying out loud, isn't that enough?

STEP AWAY FROM THE POMPOMS: Gimme an S! C! A! R! Y! What's that spell? Championship cheerleading, in Lexington, Ky., on "Cheerleader Nation." Attention moms: No matter how hard you try to relive your youth through your daughters, you're never pulling off a back handspring, ever again.

PUTTING THE FUN IN DYSFUNCTIONAL: The Carters - the brood that produced Aaron and Nick - have never lived together like a "normal family." So E! gave them "House of Carters" so they could fight it out like real siblings - by calling each other "trailer trash" and "slut" and throwing poop on each other's beds. News flash: They'll never be a normal family.

YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING IN YOUR HAIR: Careful walking around the city when hirsute hairstylist Jonathan Antin's in town. As we learned on the last season of his Bravo show, "Blow Out," he likes to lob a glob of his own Jonathan-branded hair goop over his hotel balcony as a celebratory "Yay, I'm in New York" ritual. So if you wind up smacked with a dab of Dippity-Doo while strolling down the street, don't say we didn't warn you.

READING IS HARD!: Now why'd they go and cancel "Tuesday Night Book Club"? Just because there was no, you know, actual reading of books? Jeez. To some people, having Restylane parties is way more interesting than discussing some stupid story. Also, it's difficult to read when the wine you're drinking keeps dribbling from your numbed, swollen lips onto the pages and smudging the writing.

I'LL GET A PLACE IN THE ROCKAWAYS, THANKS: You know what will probably be really cheap next year? A summer share on Fire Island. Because if the stars of "One Ocean View" didn't lower property value, nothing will.

STRANGE TASTE IN OUR MOUTHS: The second installment of Flavor Flav's dating show "Flavor of Love" offered screen time to women so astonishingly tacky, the season created public outrage. The bad news: The worst one of them is from New York.

DAMN, THAT PAPER'S GOOD: Even though we work among them every day, it was hard not to treat the stars of "Tabloid Wars," the reality series crafted around the real-life adventures of Daily News reporters and editors, like celebrities. So yes, we blushed a little when we ran into Kerry Burke in the hall, and we are not ashamed to admit it.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/483975p-407405c.html

Critic’s Notebook
R.I.P.: TV Shows That Tuned Out In 2006
By Wendell Wittler, MSNBC.com

• 'Alias,' ABC This was the show that turned producer J.J. Abrams from ‘the guy who gave Felicity a haircut,’ to a master of derriere-booting action-adventure, earning him carte blanche to make new shows for ABC (“Lost”, “What About Brian?” and “6 Degrees” -- one out of three is better in baseball than TV) and the karmic punishment of Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible III.” It also made Jennifer Garner a star worthy of becoming half of BenJen II. But after three-and-a-half story arc ‘reboots’ and those Rambaldi Prophesies (a kind of low-rent DaVinci Code), it was hard to tell exactly what series was ending.

• 'Arrested Development,' Fox A critical favorite, and one of the few on FOX not to be killed in its infancy(see: ‘Firefly,’ ‘Wonderfalls,’ etc.), it was a show that held its head up high even as it was stumbling into the abyss, with a two-hour finale of unaired half-hours that wrapped up most of its absurd plotlines in an equally absurd, yet satisfying manner. Its legacy may be uncertain (Jeffrey Tambor jumped immediately to the new show “20 Good Years” that lasted 4 bad weeks), but wherever TV comedies eschew the three-camera format, empower unlikable characters or employ painful punning in the service of smart comedy, ‘Arrested’ will be remembered.

• 'Emily's Reasons Why Not,' ABC There is a special place in TV Hell (a kind of Hell of Fame) for a series that only airs one episode before being canceled. And with its Jan. 8 premiere/finale, this dysfunctional relationship sitcom starring Heather Graham had the honor of being both the first new series of 2006 and its first casualty. After somehow getting greenlighted without a pilot episode or even a full pilot script, the show’s high concept (an advice columnist trying to take her own advice) proved impossible to do well and Heather showed that not all actors who do nine good episodes of "Scrubs" can carry their own series. 2006’s other shortest-running series: "The Rich List" (FOX, 1 episode), "Tuesday Night Book Club" (CBS, 2 episodes), "Celebrity Cooking Showdown" (NBC, scheduled for 5 consecutive nights, cut off after 3).

• 'Everwood,' WB 2006 saw more than the end of a lot of shows; it saw the end of two networks, UPN and the WB. Technically merged into the New CW network, the death of the mini-nets meant a bloody purge of cancellations. Almost amazingly, only one of the deleted shows was actually missed. (And it was NOT “Charmed,” which held on for eight seasons just out of spite for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s” seven.) “Everwood” was part family drama that was less saccharine than “7th Heaven” and part teen drama that was less condescending than “One Tree Hill”. But both of those other shows made the jump to the new network and “Everwood” didn’t..

• 'Joey,' NBC The series finale of “Will & Grace” was the end of NBC’s Must See TV as we knew it, yet the unheralded disappearance of Matt LeBlanc’s “Friends” spin-off a few weeks earlier was more significant. Why, you may ask? Well, don’t be surprised if a publisher soon announces a book by LeBlanc titled “If I Killed Thursdays for NBC.” It was the kind of spin-off that gives spin-offs a bad name, by forcing one of the less-interesting characters from an comedy ensemble to carry an entire show. Plus, its setting was Hollywood and showbiz, always a minefield of potential disasters for TV comedy, and “Joey” stepped on every mine.

• 'Starting Over,' syndicated Normally, a syndicated daytime series that runs for three years would get no more than a footnote, but “Starting Over” was unique: a reality show that depended on real people in real situations, showing stories that didn’t always have happy endings (or sometimes, any ending). And it had far less manipulation (although the resident life coaches did sometimes try) and slick editing than you would expect from Bunim-Murray, the same producers behind the unreality of “The Real World.” “Starting Over” was a noble experiment that maybe sorta partly succeeded.

• 'That '70s Show,' Fox The time period of ‘That ‘70s Show’ supposedly started in mid-1976, covering three-and-a-half years in eight seasons, five of which included Christmas episodes. Some of the actors playing teenagers looked thirtysomething by the end of the series, unlike the also-ending "Malcolm in the Middle" which allowed its kids to grow up gracefully. But it was also the end of another era, the last series from the Carsey-Werner partnership that produced "The Cosby Show" and "Roseanne." And it brought us Ashton Kutcher, Topher Grace, and Wilmer Valderrama. One outta three ain’t bad.

• 'Vanished,' Fox The only thing worse than cancelling a series after a season-ending cliffhanger, is cancelling it midseason with a half-finished story arc. Just ask fans of "Reunion." This season, the network tried to be kinder to “Vanished,” a complex paranoid mystery about the kidnapping of a Senator’s wife. Fox ordered the producers to wrap it up in 13 episodes, but still couldn’t make it past episode 9. So they made the last four hours available online, requiring broadband internet and a tolerance for MySpace to see the ending. And that practice seems to be spreading, with NBC’s obviously titled kidnapping drama "Kidnapped" doing the same thing (just without the MySpace).

• 'The West Wing,' NBC Running one year less than the Presidential term limit, "The West Wing" started with Martin Sheen’s presidency already in progress and ended with the inauguration of Jimmy Smits, who convinced electoral rival Alan Alda to take a Cabinet position, an unprecedented bipartisan move that was the political equivalent of “and they all lived happily ever after.” But then, compared to real life politics, "The West Wing" always was a fairy tale. The short-lived "Commander in Chief" with Geena Davis as President drew inevitable comparisons, but its strangest similarity was behind the scenes: "Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin was replaced as show runner after four seasons, "Chief’s" creator Rod Lurie only lasted seven episodes.

• 'Yes Dear,' CBS There’s a category of sitcoms that, when they show up while channel surfing, make you say "Is that still on?" 2006 saw a mass kill-off of these shows, the longest-running being “Yes Dear” at 6 seasons and 122 episodes. Expanding the concept of “The Odd Couple” to entire families (The Felix family vs. the Oscar family), "Yes Dear’s" obscurity provided an almost-private training ground for producer Greg Garcia, who went on to create "My Name Is Earl." Other "Is that still On?’ shows that no longer are: "Bernie Mac" (FOX, 5 seasons), "Less Than Perfect" (ABC, 4 seasons), "Still Standing" (CBS, 4 seasons), "What I Like About You" (the WB, 4 seasons), and "Hope and Faith" (ABC, 3 seasons).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16176526/

Critic’s Notebook
TV characters make New Year's resolutions
By Linda Holmes, MSNBC.com

• Pam Beesly, 'The Office' "I will not be a dummy."

Pam got herself in a pickle when her best friend Jim declared his love to her -- twice! -- and she rebuffed him for her knucklehead fiancé. Jim then bolted to Connecticut to lick his wounds and has only recently returned. The newly knucklehead-free Pam is, of course, bubbling with jealousy over Jim's new romance. He's gone the emotionally healthy route of actually taking no for an answer, so the next move is going to have to be hers. If she wants things to improve in 2007, she'd better make that move. Sure, she's uncertain, insecure, and risk-averse, but Pam also spent much of this year being just plain dumb. You don't usually get what you want without asking for it, especially when you've already rejected it once. You're very lovable, Pam, but make 2007 the year you get a clue.

• Meredith Grey, 'Grey's Anatomy' "I will find a nice, single, sane boyfriend and stop behaving like a clown."

Title character Meredith has trouble remembering the first cardinal rule of choosing a boyfriend: he should not be married. Sure, McDreamy's marriage was on the rocks, his wife betrayed him first, and they're supposedly now off on a better new direction. But involvement with a married guy who doesn't mention he's married until far into the process will eventually exhaust even the most inexhaustible drama queen. (Which Meredith, of course, is.) Every time she engineers goofy high-school foolishness such as the competition between the boyish McDreamy and the well-adjusted (and therefore doomed) veterinarian Finn, Meredith hurts her own chances. She could use a few years of therapy, but at the very least, she should start by forcing herself to go on a few dates with a normal, non-jealous, non-possessive, non-creepy math professor or something. She's a doctor. She should have choices.

• Ted Mosby, 'How I Met Your Mother' "I will not become boring now that I have the woman of my dreams."

"How I Met Your Mother" constantly walks a tightrope. The central romance in this romantic comedy is Ted's pursuit of his friend Robin, which finally found success at the end of the first season. This was an unusually quick resolution to a story like this, and it would ordinarily kill the dramatic and romantic thrust of the show. But because viewers know that Ted apparently doesn't wind up with Robin after all, we still don't really know what's coming. Still, this dynamite show is still learning to live without Ted's determined hopefulness, and there is a lingering risk that Ted will become a cliché of the harried boyfriend, like Chandler on "Friends" once he started dating Monica. For the show's strength to survive, Ted needs to stay sharp and funny, and he needs to find some other outlets for all that optimistic energy.

• Jordan McDeere, 'Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip' "I will not think that unwelcome pursuit is romantic."

As "Studio 60" has stumbled to find its feet, one of the storylines that did show promise was an interesting little friendship between self-righteous cocaine addict Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) and winsome network president Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet). When Peet's pregnancy forced a change of course, showrunner Aaron Sorkin apparently decided to accelerate their budding relationship. Therefore, at the end of the show's otherwise improved Christmas episode, Danny abruptly announced that he was falling in love with Jordan, and without ever giving her a chance to say yes or no, promised that he would come after her no matter what she said. Since the beginning of time, television has believed that pursuing unwilling women is romantic (pursuing unwilling men, of course, is merely pathetic), but Jordan's resolution for 2007 should be not to fall for it. If she likes him, they can have dinner. If she doesn't like him, she can call the police.

• Jack Shephard, 'Lost' "I will not use my medical training to advance my personal agenda."

Professional schools are not always equipped to teach students how to deal with the real questions that may arise in a day-to-day practice. Still, someone probably taught Jack the part about doing no harm. In the fall finale leading into the winter hiatus, Jack found himself kidnapped and forced to perform surgery on his enemy (naturally), knowing the whole time that his on-again off-again crush Kate had just had intimate knowledge of the highly sketchy Sawyer, whom Jack views as a bum of sorts. Overcome with sympathy for the lovers, Jack decided to do a little extra slicing on the patient and threaten not to fix it unless Kate and Sawyer were allowed to escape. The American Medical Association will not be happy to hear about this.

• Lorelai Gilmore, 'Gilmore Girls' "I will not get married unadvisedly."

Apparently, someone decided that Lorelai and Luke had been together for too long and needed to be split up, and the split took the form of the return of Lorelai's ex, Christopher. Christopher came back, Lorelai slept with him, and then Lorelai married him. In a show with a clear romantic direction dating back to its first season, marrying one party off to someone else is almost always a mistake, and here, it just makes Lorelai look inert and incapable of behaving rationally. Lorelai has been proposed to and engaged quite a lot in six and a half seasons, and it might be time for her to stop being involved in weddings and engagements for a while. Of course, this will now require her to get divorced.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16384404/from/RS.4/

TV Sports
CBS' Nantz, Simms set to hit Super stage
By Michael McCarthy USA Today

CBS' telecast of Super Bowl XLI on Feb. 4 will be the first time the network's lead announcing team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms work the big game together.

Tony Petitti, executive vice president of CBS Sports, predicts the two, now in their third season together, will show viewers they're the best NFL team in the business. Better than NBC's Al Michaels and John Madden, Fox's Joe Buck and Troy Aikman and ESPN Monday Night Football's Mike Tirico, Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser. And better than the NFL Network's new team of Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth.

In the weeks leading to the Super Bowl telecast from Miami, Simms and Nantz will call AFC wild-card and divisional playoff games and the AFC Championship Game. "I think they're the best," Petitti says. "They give the best balance of good, hard football information with a great rapport."

This will be CBS's first Super Bowl since the halftime-show disaster with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake during Super Bowl XXXVIII. Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" sparked hundreds of thousands of viewer complaints and a crackdown by the federal government on broadcast indecency.

Since then, the NFL has taken control of the halftime and pregame entertainment, vetting everything from performers to song lyrics and costumes.

Has CBS' former sister company, MTV, which produced the Jackson debacle, been banned for life? "I'm not aware of that," Petitti answers with a laugh.

CBS has its on-air team ready to go. Simms will be calling his fifth Super Bowl: three for CBS and two for NBC. He called Super Bowl XXXV and XXXVIII with Greg Gumbel. Nantz, who hosted two Super Bowl pregame shows for CBS, will call his first Super Bowl game. He'll join Curt Gowdy and Dick Enberg as the only play-by-play announcers to call both the Super Bowl and the NCAA men's basketball title game.

CBS' pregame programming will start at noon ET, with kickoff scheduled between 6:25-6:31 p.m., says Petitti. The NFL Today pregame crew of James Brown, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason and Shannon Sharpe will broadcast from sets inside and outside Dolphin Stadium. CBS, which dumped sideline reporters this season, will use reporters Lesley Visser, Sam Ryan, Solomon Wilcots and Steve Tasker on the sidelines and other areas as "extra eyes," Petitti says.

Double dip for Fox, NBC

Get ready for the NFL's first-ever TV "double doubleheader" Sunday afternoon.

With 20 teams still chasing playoff spots, the league announced Thursday it has given CBS and Fox the green light to air games in both the 1 p.m. ET and 4:15 ET slots to about 76% of the nation's TV households. The league had been planning such a move since April, when it put together this season's schedule, NFL Network spokesman Dan Masonson said.

Here's how the New Year's Eve double doubleheader will work: Every TV market, except for the 14 with NFL home games Sunday afternoon, will get four — rather than the usual two or three — Sunday afternoon games. Among those 14 markets are Washington (the Redskins host the Giants on Saturday night), Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

All markets also will get to see NBC's Sunday Night Football, which has the Bears playing Green Bay (that game will be shown in Chicago because it's a sellout and thus not subject to the NFL's local blackout rules).

The markets with NFL home games will get three Sunday afternoon games: the local team's home game (no games will be blacked out this weekend because all are sold out, Masonson said), plus two other games. These markets include: New York, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Denver and Philadelphia.

New York-area football fans, for example, can watch the Oakland Raiders at New York Jets game on CBS at 1 p.m. and then tune in competing games on CBS and Fox at 4:15.

The bottom line: The move is good for the fans. But the networks probably won't like it. Average ratings will be lower than normal because games that normally would be unopposed by another NFL game in the same time slot now will have another game opposite them.

On the other hand, the number of total viewers Sunday should go up.

NBC hopes Hull will add NHL spice

Brett Hull rarely was shy on or off the ice during his 19-year NHL career. NBC hopes Hull's shoot-from-the-lip style helps TV ratings for its second season of NHL coverage.

Hull will join Bill Clement and Ray Ferraro on NBC's studio show Jan. 13, according to Sam Flood, NBC Sports coordinating producer.

Hull is working for his former team, the Dallas Stars, as a special assistant to the president. The two-time Stanley Cup winner says he was only interested in a studio-analyst job, not working as an in-game analyst.

"I have no interest in doing games, that's way too monotonous for me," says Hull, who scored the winning goal of the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals over a diving Dominik Hasek. "I've never done anything like this before. So I'm going into this with my eyes open. I'll just be myself. Hopefully, that will make our (coverage) a little spicier and more outspoken than usual."

The son of NHL great Bobby Hull was known for standing up to players, coaches and NHL commissioners — and to Canadian hockey fans by choosing to play for Team USA in the Olympics. But he could make the rookie mistake of many player-turned-analysts by saying he'd rather criticize coaches than players.

"They're easy targets," Hull says. "If a player makes a bonehead play, you know he'll be the first guy to get grief in the dressing room from the guys. I'll treat it just like that. I will make light of it — rather than saying, 'What a bad player.' "

Count Hull among those who believe fighting is part of the game. "You poll 15,000 in the seats — one half are there for the goals, the other half want to see a fight.

"The people who want to see the goals also want to see a fight."

Bowl overload gives fans plenty to digest

Even the hardiest college football fan might end up with the 1,000-yard TV stare after this New Year's weekend.

From Friday afternoon through Monday evening, there will be 15 bowl games in four days. With the exception of Sunday, when the NFL bigfoots sports TV coverage, college games will be on from noon through night.

In addition to watching games, fans will be able to buy digital versions of their favorite games.

The highlights of this weekend's bowl frenzy:

• Fox takes over as the primary TV home of the Bowl Championship Series with its New Year's Day broadcast of the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Calling the game for Fox will be play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman, analysts Charles Davis and Barry Alvarez and sideline reporter Chris Myers.

Fox announced Thursday that fans can purchase full-length or condensed versions of the AT&T Cotton Bowl and Tostitos BCS championship games, plus pregame shows and highlight packages, at Internet stores such as Apple's iTunes. "The digital rights are becoming more important every year," says Gary Ehrlich, executive vice president of Fox Sports Enterprises.

• ESPN, ABC and ESPN Radio will cover 11 bowl games this weekend. Through its various outlets, ESPN, which owns five bowls, is putting 57 on-air commentators to work this bowl season: 18 play-by-play announcers, 23 analysts and 16 reporters. Reporters Rob Stone and Todd Harris will work the most bowls: five. Gary Thorne will call play-by-play on the most games: four. Todd Blackledge and Andre Ware will be the busiest analysts, with four bowls on TV and/or radio.

"I think college football blows away pro football," Blackledge says. "But I think there are too many bowls, personally. I don't think teams that finish 6-6 should be rewarded with playing in a bowl game."

• CBS will air the Brut Sun Bowl on Friday, with Craig Bolerjack, Steve Beuerlein and Sam Ryan. Monday, CBS has the Toyota Gator Bowl, with its lead team of Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson.

• After having the Texas Bowl on Thursday, NFL Network will show the Insight on Friday, with Derrin Horton, Dick Vermeil and Alex Flanagan.

NFL pregame shows stoking rivalry

There's a food fight brewing between the rival pregame crews at Fox NFL Sunday and CBS' The NFL Today.

During last Sunday's telecast, Fox NFL Sunday contributor Jay Glazer told viewers nationwide that CBS' "NFL insider" Charley Casserly, the former general manager of the Houston Texans and Washington Redskins, was interviewing for the New York Giants' GM job.

Fox analyst Howie Long scoffed, saying he couldn't believe an NFL team would consider Casserly after Casserly's Texans selected Mario Williams with the No. 1 pick in the 2006 draft, rather than Reggie Bush or Vince Young.

"How does this happen? I don't get it," said Long. "What do you put on your résumé? Heath Shuler (the quarterback bust picked No. 3 in the 1994 draft by Casserly while with the Redskins)? The last Houston Texans draft?"

Casserly could not be reached. But CBS Sports spokeswoman LeslieAnne Wade says: "The Fox guys have talked about Charley for the past three weeks. Obviously, they're interested in, and maybe concerned with, Charley if they're going to talk about him three weeks in a row."

Fox Sports spokesman Lou D'Ermilio denies Long meant to attack a TV rival. "Howie was talking about Charley Casserly as a GM candidate, not as the insider on NFL Today. It didn't have anything to do with his role at CBS.

The network that has the NFC package of games traditionally leads the pregame-show ratings race. Fox NFL Sunday has been the top-rated NFL pregame show since going on the air in 1994.

Fox's show leads CBS' by 19% in the ratings this season, posting a weekly average of 3.2 vs. 2.7. But the race is tightening. CBS' show has outrated Fox's on four of 15 weekends this season.

As for negotiations between Casserly and the Giants, Wade says: "Charley is under contract with CBS."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/mccarthy/2006-12-28-mccarthy-weekend_x.htm

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

(The KTLA HD coverage, without commercials, is carried in a number of cities.)
The Business of TV
One less rose on KTLA's parade float
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer December 29, 2006

When the Rose Parade starts Monday morning at 8 (PT), one familiar face won't be among the throngs lining Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. She'll be someplace else, someplace far away, 2,000 miles from Southern California, in fact, up north where it's freezing and people won't pluck roses again till springtime.

For the first time since the Carter administration, veteran broadcaster Stephanie Edwards will be MIA from the No. 1-rated local parade coverage on KTLA-TV, where a generation of viewers came to know her as Bob Eubanks' chipper co-host and, some joked, once-a-year on-screen wife. Thanks to a satellite hookup at a family member's house in her native Minnesota, the exiled Edwards will experience the station's 2 1/2-hour tournament smorgasbord the same way more than 1 million Angelenos will: sitting down with nary a TV camera in sight.

"I'll watch the parade with my family, in my jammies, weeping softly into my hot cocoa," Edwards told me by phone this week.

She was kidding about the tears, of course.

Or maybe not.

To those new in town: A year ago, Edwards stood at the center of a storm over her peeled-back role at the parade. Station executives took heavy criticism from viewers outraged that Edwards, now 63, had after more than 25 years been cast out of the broadcast booth in favor of a much younger woman, Michaela Pereira, an anchor of KTLA's "Morning Show," who cozied up with former "The Newlywed Game" host Eubanks (who turns 69 next month) while Edwards was downgraded to a sideline role chatting with folks in the grandstands.

In the rain.

Hard rain, the kind that flummoxed the sailors in "A Perfect Storm."

The spectacle was too much for Edwards' loyal fans, who spied an ugly real-life parallel to "The First Wives Club," this time without the happy ending.

My colleague Patt Morrison complained in her column of another "icky, letchy, older man-younger woman anchor team."

"Shame on KTLA," scolded one Times reader. Wrote another: "In 2007, let's hope for sunshine and Stephanie back up where she belongs: in the TV booth."

Not gonna happen.

As LAObserved.com first reported last week, Edwards will sit this one out entirely. When I reached her Wednesday, she tried to be gracious about the outcome: "There was a mutual agreement between management and myself that it would be best for me not to appear in a sort of 'halfway' arrangement this year," she said.

"Halfway" is a nice wayof putting it. According toEdwards, the station this year offered her only a role on the pre-parade show (the station's coverage kicks off at 6 a.m.)but wouldn't commit to anything during the main telecast, in the grandstands or anywhere else.

"I didn't have that much fun in the pre-parade; it isn't my strong suit," Edwards explained. And clearly, she's still wounded by what happened a year ago. While she insists she didn't mind working the bleachers, calling it "an adventure" that she would gladly have repeated, there ultimately wasn't much percentage in being a good sport: "I worked three times as hard for one-fifth the salary," she said. (Edwards declined to specify the amounts involved but claimed as co-host she earned "considerably less" than the $50,000 or so Eubanks receives.)

"There's nothing permanent in television," Edwards said.

Hard to argue with that. Edwards' fade-out from one of the top live events in the nation's No. 2 television market offers an instructive little morality tale on aging in the public eye, not to mention a peek behind the curtain as a onetime star and her cost-conscious bosses part ways.

KTLA's parade coverage isn't your typical serve-the-yokels fare. The station, which like The Times is owned by Tribune Co., devotes the entire day to the parade and makes it a fanfare event, with a live, commercial-free first run followed by several repeat telecasts for late-risers. There's no shortage of national attention — this year, ABC, NBC, Univision, HGTV and Travel Channel will air coverage of the Rose Parade, with an estimated worldwide audience of 35 million — but local viewers seem to prefer KTLA's saturation strategy.

Last year, an average of 1.9 million total viewers tuned in, according to Nielsen Media Research, enabling KTLA to crush rivals such as KNBC-TV (239,000) and KABC-TV (222,000).

"We approach the parade differently than anybody else does," Eubanks said. "We don't use it as a PR vehicle, we treat it as an event. We're prepared in a way no one else is."

Veteran producer Arthur Forrest, overseeing NBC's 90-minute nationwide telecast anchored by "Access Hollywood's" Nancy O'Dell and Billy Bush, admitted that KTLA's telecast is all but untouchable in its home stadium. The commercial-free airing "is something we can't do," he said. "There's no way to beat them there."

That prominence, though, may explain why local viewers take Edwards' fate so personally.

The daughter of pioneering TV producer and host Ralph Edwards ("Truth or Consequences," "This Is Your Life"), she realized her days at KTLA were numbered when Vinnie Malcolm, the station's general manager, sat her down at a business lunch during summer 2005.

"I don't want you to think I'm inviting you to lunch to fire you," she remembers Malcolm saying. "I'm taking you to lunch because I'm thinking of firing you."

Malcolm explained that he wanted one of KTLA's regular on-air personalities to do the parade. The station also needed to save money on the telecast, she recalls him saying.

Edwards wasn't happy with the pay cut the station ultimately proposed, but she gamely went along with the grandstand gig. She figured that Eubanks was surviving in the booth not just because of his name recognition but also because his contract, unlike hers, wasn't up. "I really do not think it was ageism in our case," she said.

After the telecast, though, Edwards' future at KTLA became as dark as the parade route had been. Malcolm called her back for another meeting, she said, where he sketched a graph that showed declining profits for the parade coverage. "He was also quite upset with the negative mail that had come in" concerning her demotion, she said.

The fans' devotion gratified her: "It was like hearing my eulogy without having to die," she quipped.

Malcolm, reached by phone Thursday, said that Edwards had a two-year deal that would have included working on Monday's parade. But she asked to be released when she couldn't agree with the station on her salary, he said.

As for the profit graph Edwards described him drawing, Malcolm said he didn't recall doing that. But he did say that KTLA spends nearly $1 million on telecasting the parade, not including the rights fees, and is looking for ways to do things more economically while also netting more exposure for the station's regular lineup. It was never anything personal against Edwards, he said.

"The question is: How do we make the parade grow?" he said.

As this year's parade approached, the new reality sunk in. Edwards was kissing goodbye to a high-profile event that had been a big part of more than half her adult life.

She cringed when a parking-lot attendant recently recognized her but couldn't place the name, asking, "Who did you used to be?" She did her Christmas shopping early and "spent a lot less," she said.

Asked about his former co-host, Eubanks, who'll return again with Pereira at his side, balked, saying, "It has nothing to do with me." After a moment's reflection, however, he called Edwards "a good friend" and added, "I'm very sorry she and KTLA could not come to some sort of agreement."

Things change. Edwards knows that. As she put it, "It's not an easy time to be in television." But that doesn't necessarily make acceptance easy.

"I miss the money, I miss the people," she said. "And I'll miss the parade."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-channel29dec29,0,6171858,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

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

UHHHH??!! :confused: :rolleyes: :D

Thanks for noticing the editing error, dad. It has been corrected.

If you are curious about the top-rated TV shows of all time, Variety has a handy chart.

You can access it here:

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=chart_pass&charttype=chart_topshowsalltime

This isn't directly related to TV, but it does have to do with broadband and with two companies who may very well get into the TV business ...

AT&T Proposes New Commitments for BellSouth Merger

AT&T is proposing new concessions in an effort to get its merger with BellSouth approved.

In a letter to the FCC, a top AT&T official expressed frustration with the approval process, but said the company was willing to make additional commitments to its territories to get the merger finalized. The FCC published the letter (http://www.fcc.gov/ATT_FINALMergerCommitments12-28.pdf), in .pdf format, on its website.

Among these new commitments:

- The merged company would repatriate 3,000 BellSouth jobs currently outsourced outside the U.S by the end of 2008.

- The company would offer broadband Internet "at speeds in excess of 200 kbps in one direction" to 100 percent of its combined territory by the end of 2007, and it will make special offers beginning next summer to entice its current dial-up customers to switch to advanced DSL service.

- Video services like Uverse and HomeZone, currently being rolled out by AT&T, will also be introduced in the current BellSouth territories "subject to obtaining all necessary authorizations" and "in a manner reasonable consistent with AT&T's roll-out of such services within the AT&T in-region territory. The combined company hopes to be capable of reaching at least 1.5 million homes in the current BellSouth area with fiber-based technology by the end of 2007.

The FCC would be able to enforce these and other conditions for 42 months after the merger closes.

In his letter, Robert Quinn, AT&T's senior VP for federal regulatory affairs, noted that his company has already made a number of special commitments even though he didn't believe they were necessary "in light of the demonstrated public interest benefits of the merger and the lack of any cognizable harm to competition."

"And, we noted, this merger involves even less competitive overlap than did the AT&T/SBC and Verizon/MCI mergers, both of which the Commission unanimously approved just last year with fewer, less extensive commitments than we offered in our October 13 letter," Quinn wrote. "Nevertheless, merger opponents continue to demand even more concessions, including those they were unable to obtain from Congress, or that are being considered in pending, industry-wide rulemaking proceedings."

Source: http://www.fcc.gov/ATT_FINALMergerCommitments12-28.pdf

_____

In an unrelated note, the FCC announced that it will be closed next Tuesday, along with most federal offices, due to the national day of mourning for the late President Gerald Ford.

Thanks, dline.

Personally, I think the merger may turn out to be a nightmare for cable companies. But we shall see.

Thanks, dline.

Persoinally, I think the merger may turn out to be a nightmare for cable companies. But we shall see.

Is that a good nightmare, as in we the consumer will get better deals because of it?

Absolutely, rebkell.

As the DBS companies have shown in the past decade, competition at least tempers the price hikes of the cable companies.

And does anyone seriously think there would be much of an increase in cable HD without the spur of Dish and DirecTV? Cable seems far more interested in high speed internet and deliving phone service than in improving its TV offerings.

Top 10 Lists
The Best and Worst of 2006:
Mr. TV’s Picks and Pans
By Marc Berman Media Week

In honor of the about to conclude 2006, here are Mr. TV’s picks for the best – and worst – programming in 2006. With only 10 individual shows allotted to each category, a number of the also positive entries were also showcased as “honorable mention.” On that note:

THE BEST
1. 24 (Fox) – Gets better every season.
2. Lost (ABC) – Even a disappointing Lost is still must see TV.
3. The Sopranos (HBO) – Worth repeating: Even a disappointing The Sopranos is still must see TV.
4. Dancing With the Stars (ABC) – Who says variety is dead?
5. Brothers & Sisters (ABC) – I like this drama…I really like it!
6. Ugly Betty (ABC) – Creativity can go a long way.
7. The Closer (TNT) – Emmy should not ignore Kyra Sedgwick this time around.
8. The Amazing Race (CBS) – The most riveting and picturesque reality hour on television.
9. Desperate Housewives (ABC) – Not as good as season one, but still a delicious treat.
10. My Boys (TBS) – If you like Sex and the City you will not be disappointed.

HONORABLE MENTION
Friday Night Lights (NBC)
Heroes (NBC)
House (Fox)
Men In Trees (ABC)
Nip/Tuck (FX)
Rescue Me (FX)
Survivor: Cook Islands (CBS)
The Wire (HBO)

THE WORST
1. Show Me the Money (ABC) – William Shatner, why?
2. 20 Good Years (NBC) – John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor, why?
3. Fashion House (MNTV) – The person responsible for approving this “drama” should be slapped!
4. Everything else on MyNetworkTV – This is a network?
5. Happy Hour (Fox) – What you would call a real fiasco.
6. The War at Home (Fox) – Please Fox – put this “comedy” out of its misery already.
7. Breaking Bonaduce (VH1) – Please Danny – keep your personal life personal.
8. Big Day (ABC) – Not so big when the ratings came in.
9. The Greg Behrendt Show (syn.) – This is a relationship expert?
10. ‘Til Death (Fox) – Everybody does not like Brad!

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

Hey Fredfa,
Dec 31 is quickly approaching and Post#2 is yet to be updated. No mention of The Class in list of cancelled shows and no return dates. Just a friendly reminder, as I refer to that post as often as any other on this board. It is especially helpful for planning my DVR calendar for the new winter/spring TV season. Thanks!

Top 10 Lists The Best and Worst of 2006:
Mr. TV’s Picks and Pans

Sorry Marc:

No Battlestar Galactica = No Credibility

It has been a busy few weeks, jediphish, and I apologize for being tardy in updating the second post. (But I am glad SOMEONE looks at them!)

I promise to get to the updating process as soon as I can.

I am going to post the network schedules as a linked Xcel .pdf. I hope that will be useful.

I have been having a hard time (as you have noticed!) keeping the several various schedules lists up to date in post #2.

Sorry Marc:

No Battlestar Galactica = No Credibility

Agree 100%. I don't see how anyone who professes to be a knowledgeable critic in the medium could leave it off a "Top 10" list. No way there are 10 superior shows over the past year.

Hey guys, opinions differ.

Frankly, there are few more knowledgeable than Marc Berman about TV. Just because he disagrees with you on whether he enjoys a particular show is no real reason to bash him.

So far I have found most of the top-10 lists pretty weird. Some have included almost nothing on the networks; others have been strangely silent on a raft of quality programming.

If we start believing only those who agree with us are knowledgeable about TV, we will have a very, very small base of people to listen to.

But by reading the lists of the critics we can get a small idea of any prejudices they might have.

(Which is why I list my own personal TV viewing favorites in post #4. BSG is not on my list, and I hope you will excuse me.) :)

Sorry Fred:

No Battlestar Galactica = No Credibility ;)

Well, CP95, under such peer pressure, I guess I could edit my own personal list.....

:)

TV Sports
Fox set for its BCS kickoffs
By Neil Best Newsday December 29, 2006

When we last left the BCS, Texas was edging Southern Cal in an epic championship game that drew epic ratings. At the mike was Keith Jackson, bowing out after an epic career at ABC.

Jackson was past his prime, but still, it was a fun, classic ride, live from the Rose Bowl.

Now this: The 2007 title game in Glendale, Ariz., Jan. 8 will be called by . . . Thom Brennaman? On Fox, which other than the Cotton Bowl has a college football tradition limited to, well, nothing.

As the network's biggest star might say, "D'oh!"

Here we are, though, more than two years after Fox signed a four-year, $320-million deal to carry four of the five BCS bowl games, and it finally is time to see how the only network that doesn't usually cover college football covers college football's biggest games.

"It is a significant challenge," Fox Sports president Ed Goren said. "We feel we're ready, that it's going to look and sound like football. I have no doubts about that."

Goren said Fox faced a similar task when it assembled a NASCAR booth from scratch for the Daytona 500 in 2001, now recalled for Dale Earnhardt's fatal crash.

This time, though, there were three trios to hire, with Brennaman working both the Fiesta Bowl and finale.

The result is an odd collection that will have much to prove at the Fiesta (Monday), Orange (Tuesday), Sugar (Wednesday) and championship game. Pat Summerall has the non-BCS Cotton on Monday. ABC will telecast the Rose Bowl later that day.

Brennaman has called the last seven Cotton Bowls but is known primarily for baseball, where along with since-fired analyst Steve Lyons, he infamously poked fun at a vision-impaired Mets fan in October.

Joining him are former Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez and Charles Davis, a former Tennessee defensive back who has analyzed games for TBS, among others.

Goren said Fox wanted "a fresh team" for the title game and liked the fact that Alvarez was "as current as can be" as a recent coach.

Davis said he feels "more excitement than pressure." He warmed up with Brennaman and Alvarez on a live Seahawks-Cardinals game Dec. 10. "There was no safety net under the tightrope," he said.

Matt Vasgersian, the Padres' play-by-play announcer, heads the Orange Bowl team and will be beside veteran analysts Terry Donahue and Pat Haden, the latter on loan from NBC.

The most intriguing trio is at the Sugar, where Kenny Albert will be with two stars of Fox's NFL pregame: Hall of Famers Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long.

Bradshaw hasn't called a game in many years; Long never has.

"It's been an interesting process for me, and exciting," said Long, who has been on the road to prepare, including a visit to LSU.

Long said he, Bradshaw and fellow NFL pregame host Jimmy Johnson, who joins Chris Rose as an on-site pre-game host for all four games, often spend Saturdays watching college games.

"Terry gets three TVs in his room in the hotel," Long said. "We are big college football fans."

Said Johnson: "I coached in two Fiesta Bowls, a couple of Orange Bowls, played in the Sugar Bowl. We've got strong connections not only to college football but also the bowl system."

Goren said he hopes to add regular-season games eventually, but for now, other networks control those rights. "It's not our desire," he said, "just to show up in January."

Just wondering: No Stu? Boooo!

Sorry, Bears ticket-holders, but better you than Jets fans to be stuck paying the New Year's Eve price for the flex scheduling system.

(Look for the divorce rate to spike in Chicago.)

And speaking of Sunday ... What happened to ESPN's much-hyped New Year's Eve show that debuted last Dec. 31 live from Times Square?

ESPN's answer: "While there are no current plans for a 2006 show, ESPN's presence in the New Year's Eve show genre is still alive conceptually. Our show in 2005 proved to us there is an opportunity for us in that space and we will now take the time to explore our options."

Fair enough. But getting through 2007 will be a challenge without a New Year's resolution from Stuart Scott. Remember his thoughtful suggestion in the final minute of last year?

"When you go to the sporting events and you're watching the athletes compete as hard as they can, stop booing, OK?" he said. "There's no point in booing these athletes. They've all worked hard. They've all trained hard, and let's see you get out there and do it, all right?"

Best's bets: Catching up with Hoover

Just when we were worried that 2006 would end without seeing any of MTV's "Two-A-Days," a popular reality series about the Hoover (Ala.) High football factory . . .

A helpful PR person sent the first-season DVD set that went on sale Tuesday. (You also could tape reruns yourself; MTV showed all nine episodes just yesterday.)

How is it? People over 18 will find the social entanglements of laconic jocks and vacuous cheerleaders difficult to take.

But grown-ups might find the depiction of big-time Southern football interesting, from a blowhard head coach out of the 1950s to his assistant who never has heard of asparagus to a team chaplain who says this before a big game:

"Get up in their grill! Stick one in their ear hole! Knock them off their feet! God bless every one of you!"

The second season debuts Jan. 30.

Murcer has surgery

Bobby Murcer, a Yankees player and announcer for most of the past four decades, yesterday had surgery in Houston for the removal of a brain tumor, a YES Network spokesman said.

According to Murcer's wife, Kay, by early evening he was awake, talking and watching the Oklahoma State-Alabama bowl game.

It was unclear whether the tumor was malignant or benign. Murcer, 60, had not been feeling well and had an MRI on Sunday that revealed a tumor.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/ny-spwatch295032716dec29,0,1129286,print.column?coll=ny-sports-columnists

Nielsen Notebook
CBS conquers Thurs. with all repeats
By Paul J. Gough, Hollywood Reporter December 29, 2006

CBS won in both key audience measures in an all-repeat primetime lineup Thursday.

There wasn't much to trumpet this holiday between Christmas and New Year's with viewers having seen all of the shows before. "CSI" (13.8 million, 3.9 rating/11 share in adults 18-49 was the night's most-watched program and its highest-rated in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to preliminary estimates released Friday by Nielsen Media Research.

But while CBS was far ahead in viewers, it was only a tenth of a point ahead of second-place Fox, whose telecast of the film "Sweet Home Alabama" (7.2 million, 2.8/6) did well considering.

NBC won in the demo at 8 p.m. with "My Name Is Earl" (7 million, 2.7/8) and "The Office" (5.7 million, 2.6/7) against CBS' "Criminal Minds" (9.9 million, 2.3/7) and ABC's "Ugly Betty" (6.7 million, 2.1/6).

But NBC couldn't compete at 9 p.m. against "CSI" and "Grey's Anatomy" (7.9 million, 2.9/8) with "Scrubs" (4.4 million, 2.0/5) and "30 Rock" (3.8 million, 1.7/4).

And CBS took 10 p.m. with "Shark" (9.8 million, 2.5/7) against "Men in Trees" (6.5 million, 2.2/6) and "ER" (4.4 million, 1.8/5).

Nightly averages: ABC (7.1 million, 2.4/7); CBS (11.2 million, 2.9/8); NBC (5 million, 2.1/6); Fox (7.2 million, 2.8/9); and The CW (2.5 million, 1.0/3).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ic550d8052cf4a588d11d7d2ccf78f6f2

Well, CP95, under such peer pressure, I guess I could edit my own personal list.....

:)

Fred, there are a few of us scratching our heads over how it could still not be on your list. Have you just not tried it yet? Usually, that's all it takes if one is a fan of intelligent, challenging (yet still sufficiently action-packed) TV. Absent that one glaring omission, I find your tastes are generally pretty admirable. ;)

Berman's omission is odder still. He's a big fan.

Yes I have tried it several times.

It is just not my cup of tea.

Yes I have tried it several times.

It is just not my cup of tea.

You're forgiven. Reluctantly. :)

(Which is why I list my own personal TV viewing favorites in post #4. BSG is not on my list, and I hope you will excuse me.)

Yes I have tried it several times.

It is just not my cup of tea.

:eek: :mad: :eek: :mad:

Oh well, who am I to talk? Compared to Fred's my list of shows I don't watch that I should mirrors the list of foreign policy books our elected leaders should be well-versed on but aren't! :rolleyes:

Did you ever watch the mini-series Fred? That was awesome. Season 1 was pretty strong, season 2 I thought was terrible. I stopped watching after that.

Critics still seem to enjoy the show, but I've moved on. The attitude that's forced upon others by some of the shows fans is quite annoying as well. The show gets too much credit and its faults are ignored and overlooked far too often.

Here's my top 5 for Cable. I don't watch nearly as much cable television as I do broadcast, but here they are:

1. Rome
2. Big Love
3. Deadwood
4. The Sopranos
5. Monk

And some other favorites I watch, but not on a regular basis: South Park, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report. I also watch Real Time with Bill Maher, but it's a talk show, so I left it off my list.

Also into Sci-Fi like SG-1, Atlantis and Doctor Who.

My guilty pleasure would be Rob & Big.

It's always hard to narrow stuff down to just your favorites!

The Washington Post's Midseason Check-Up (which for some reason is just a scan of the newspaper page and not an HTML document; guess Katherine Graham's boys and girls have turned the lights off and gone home for the three-day weekend): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2006/12/22/PH2006122200827.html.

When the ratings for repeat network shows are posted.

Do the networks know if they are new viewers or just the same ones watching repeats ( if the ratings numbers do not show an increase ) ?

They don't know, they have to try to figure it out.

For example, last night "Men In Trees" beat "ER" substantially. You would have to assume that a lot of folk who watched "ER" the first time around decided to give "MIT" a shot.

Similarly "CSI" whacked "Grey's Anatomy". A good portion of that probably is because serials don't do terribly well in repeats, but many of the added viewers might well have been "GA" fans who didn't see "CSI" originally.

(On the other hand, many TV programmers still believe that lead-in and lead-outs are really important. In this day of universal remotes and DVRs I think that has become a very small factor.)

Fred, there are a few of us scratching our heads over how it could still not be on your list. Have you just not tried it yet? Usually, that's all it takes if one is a fan of intelligent, challenging (yet still sufficiently action-packed) TV. Absent that one glaring omission, I find your tastes are generally pretty admirable. ;)


It's not on my list either. I found the first season to be dull, illogically plotted and full of SF cliches.

Like Fredfa said, it's just personal opinion. Same way that critics didn't rate Heroes out of the gate and still think Lost is excellent TV.

Business Notebook
FCC Approves AT&T-BellSouth Merger
MultiChannel News 12/29/2006

The Federal Communications Commission approved AT&T’s merger with BellSouth late Friday, with the telephone companies agreeing to several conditions, including a controversial network neutrality provision aimed at protecting Web players such as Microsoft and Google.

AT&T has been eager to close the $80 billion-plus for several months. FCC approval was the last hurdle facing the merger.

AT&T was forced to yield on network neutrality because FCC Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein insisted on protecting Internet-based providers of data, video, and applications from potential anticompetitive harms. Because four FCC members are voting – Republican Robert McDowell hasn’t been participating – Copps and Adelstein held a veto over the deal.

In an 11-page letter made public Thursday night, AT&T said it would “maintain a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service.” In terms of definitional substance, AT&T said it wouldn’t offer “any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet transmitted ... based on source, ownership or destination.”

The two-year pledge, AT&T added, would not apply to its IPTV networks or to managed IP networks on behalf of large business customers. The commitments also go away if Congress passes a net neutrality law within two years.

In other concessions, AT&T promised to sell DSL service for $19.99 a month on a standalone basis, meaning the consumer would not need to buy “circuit switched voice grade telephone service” at the same time. The 30-month commitment, by its terms, would not prevent AT&T from conditioning the DSL purchase on the purchase of some other service, such pay-TV or mobile phone service.

Statement from FCC chairman Kevin Martin and FCC member Deborah Taylor Tate:

“The telecommunications market continues to be a dynamic one. New technologies and services are continuing to transform every aspect of our lives. The merged AT&T/BellSouth (AT&T) promises to offer consumers a wider array of IP-enabled services, including voice, data, wireless, and video services. In particular, the merger will enable the combined company to accelerate its deployment of broadband and IPTV in the BellSouth region. The merger also will enhance national security by creating a stronger and more efficient U.S. supplier of critical communications capabilities. Further, the merger will allow the combined entity to expand its global reach and be better positioned to provide the broad range of communications services that enterprise customers demand. As a result, today the Commission finds that this merger will further many of its broadband, competition, and public safety priorities and finds that the merger, on balance, will serve the public interest.

In particular, this merger promises to result in greater competition in the broadband and video markets. Broadband deployment to all Americans remains one of the highest objectives for us at the Commission. This deployment is critical to our nation’s competitiveness in the global economy and to our national security. All consumers should expect to benefit from this technology. The merging parties recognize this and continue to deploy high bandwidth broadband to consumers. This merger will enable the combined entity to build upon the progress the companies have individually made in the deployment of broadband technologies in the combined territory.

The merging parties are also engaged in plans to deploy IPTV service throughout their territories to compete with other video providers, like cable and satellite. By enhancing the ability of new entrants to provide video services, we are advancing our goal of universal affordable broadband access for Americans, as well as our goal of increased video competition. Greater competition in the market for the delivery for multichannel video programming is a primary and long-standing goal of federal communications policy. Consumers across the country will reap the benefits of this new competition – and sooner as a result of this merger. The addition of new entrants in the video marketplace holds prices down and improves service. The additional competition, as well as the nature of IPTV, will also improve the availability and control of content that American consumers demand. Moreover, the delivery of quality video services that demand a quality broadband infrastructure will only further encourage the deployment of broadband networks into yet unserved or underserved areas.

Although we believe that this transaction offers significant benefits to consumers, we have reservations about some of the voluntary commitments offered by the merger applicants. Like the review by the Department of Justice, nineteen states, and three foreign countries, the order we adopt today does not find there to be any public interest harms resulting from the merger. Unlike the Department of Justice and these other entities, however, we nevertheless impose a number of conditions on the merging parties.

Some of the conditions will certainly provide additional consumer benefits. We find the imposition of some of the conditions, however, to be unnecessary. And, some of the conditions impose burdens that have nothing to do with the transaction, are discriminatory, and run contrary to Commission policy and precedent.

To be sure, we are pleased that some of these conditions should accelerate the deployment of broadband facilities and adoption of broadband service throughout the 22-state region of the merged company. For example, the applicants have committed to offer high-speed broadband services to all consumers in the combined territory by the end of 2007. They have also committed to providing new retail broadband customers a $10 a month broadband Internet access service throughout the combined region and they have committed to provide a stand-alone broadband service – one that doesn’t require the purchase of other bundled services – at $19.95 per month. While we would not impose these requirements as regulations, we are pleased that these conditions will further encourage the deployment and adoption of broadband by consumers. As such, these are certainly consumer-friendly concessions and are additional public benefits of the transaction.

Other conditions, however, are unnecessary and may actually deter broadband infrastructure investment. The conditions regarding net-neutrality have very little to do with the merger at hand and very well may cause greater problems than the speculative problems they seek to address. These conditions are simply not warranted by current market conditions and may deter facilities investment. Accordingly, it gives us pause to approve last-minute remedies to address the ill-defined problem net neutrality proponents seek to resolve.

Importantly, however, while the Democrat Commissioners may have extracted concessions from AT&T, they in no way bind future Commission action. Specifically, a minority of Commissioners cannot alter Commission precedent or bind future Commission decisions, policies, actions, or rules. Thus, to the extent that AT&T has, as a business matter, determined to take certain actions, they are allowed to do so. There are certain conditions, however, that are not self-effectuating or cannot be accomplished by AT&T alone. To the extent Commission action is required to effectuate these conditions as a policy going forward, we specifically do not support those aspects of the conditions and will oppose such policies going forward.

For example, today’s order does not mean that the Commision has adopted an additional net neutrality principle. We continue to believe such a requirement is not necessary and may impede infrastructure deployment. Thus, although AT&T may make a voluntary business decision, it cannot dictate or bind government policy. Nor does this order. Similarly, this order does not bind the Commission to reregulate prices or reestablish price controls. Specifically, with regard to special access condition #6, AT&T is required to file an amended tariff which reduces its wholesale special access prices for DS1, DS3, and Ethernet services to some but not all companies. Unlike the commitment to offer broadband services to consumers for $19.95 a month, this condition provides no consumer benefit and is aimed at large enterprise customers and some competing carriers. And, AT&T will not be giving theses discounts to all customers equally. Specifically, the merged entity will lower the prices for some carriers but not for others. Carriers such as Verizon and Qwest do not qualify for these discounted rates unless they also lower their rates in their respective regions. In effect, therefore, the Democrat Commissioners want to price regulate not only AT&T but also Verizon and Qwest. Accordingly, not only are the conditions unnecessary as there is no finding of public interest harm, but the conditions attempt to impose requirements on companies that are not even parties to the merger. As such, this condition imposes burdens on carriers that are not even parties to the transaction. This condition surely imposes burdens that have nothing to do with the transaction.

Moreover, unlike other voluntary business commitments, this condition requires future Commission approval. Such approval would contravene established Commission policy and precedent and we would object. In short, we object to effectuating a change in Commission policy by a voluntary commitment by one company.

First, the reimposition of rate regulation in the special access market is inconsistent with the Commission’s general policies of deregulating prices in competitive markets.

Second, such a condition is explicitly inconsistent with Section 202(a) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, that prevents discrimination in, among other things, charges, practices, or services and finds it unlawful to give any undue or unreasonable preferences or advantages. See 47 U.S.C. § 202(a) (prohibiting unreasonable discrimination in charges or services for like communication services directly or indirectly); Maislin Industries, U.S., Inc. v. Primary Steel, Inc., 497 U.S. 116, 130-31 (1990) (invalidating order allowing a carrier to charge a tariffed, regulated rate to certain customers and not others); MCI v. CompTel, 842 F. 2d. 1296, 1304 (1988) (stating that the Commission is required by statute to ensure that special access tariffs “conform to the dictates of section 202(a). If certain prices are discriminatory, it is not enough to point to the fact that they were computed in accordance with dissimilar methodologies. The FCC has no choice but to see that the terms of section 202(a) are observed, even if that entails some modification of the methodologies used to derive the proposed charges.”). Carriers that are denied the discounts would be subject to a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace.

As such, even when AT&T attempts to fulfill its merger commitment by filing its tariffs, the Commission is not bound to approve these tariffs. Indeed, consistent with the Commission’s prior policies and precedent, we would oppose such discriminatory practices and would encourage such tariffs to be rejected.

Finally, in addition to the fact that this condition appears aimed to give certain competing carriers an advantage over others, we note that there is no requirement that the benefits of the discounted special access rates get passed through to customers.

AT&T’s proposed commitments turn the clock backward to rate regulations of a decade past. While the company has voluntarily agreed to these conditions, the Commission is required by law to recognize competition and will continue to use other tools and legal avenues to continue down the deregulatory path envisioned by Congress.”

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6403270

If you are curious about the top-rated TV shows of all time, Variety has a handy chart.

You can access it here:

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=chart_pass&charttype=chart_topshowsalltime
You know, seeing this has reminded me of something.

When advertisers and networks look at ratings for television programs, are they more concerned with how many households are watching, or how many total viewers? I know adults 18-49 are really key when it comes to setting ad-rates and the like, but I've always been curious what factor is more important. I guess a case can be made for both instance.

It's probably not really all that important in the grand scheme of things, I've just always wondered about that. :)

It depends on the advertiser.

But generally, the number of 18-49 viewers is the most important statistic.

Business Notebook
AT&T-Bell South Merger Completed
By Ira Teinowitz, TV Week December 29, 2006

AT&T and Bell South merged Friday night shortly after the Federal Communications Commission gave its final approval to the $86 billion merger and a day after two Democratic commissioners wielding unusual clout extracted major concessions to win the deal's OK.

The merger further rewrites the competition field for cable TV programming. Earlier this year merger or acquisition deals for Adelphia Communications, DirecTV and now Bell South have gone through as companies like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T move to offer competition to cable operators.

Even as the approval was coming down there was a new warning from Congress that the procedure the FCC used to reach an agreement will bear scrutiny when Democrats arrive next week.

"I am pleased to learn that all sides have reached agreement and that the merger will soon close," said John D. Dingell, D-Mich., incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "At the same time, I have significant concerns over the process followed at the FCC during these final weeks, and believe that such process may be suitable for Committee review."

Mr. Dingell has been upset that FCC chairman Kevin Martin tried to get a third Republican, Commissioner Robert McDowell to vote. Mr. McDowell, a former telecom lobbyist, recused himself from voting.

Today's approval puts into AT&T four of the baby bells broken apart by the government in 1984 out of the original AT&T and changes the competitive environment in several ways.

Consumer groups say concessions made by AT&T could alter the competitive environment not just for AT&T but for its rivals. AT&T agreed not to charge content providers extra for video delivered using new high speed pipes for 30 months, to aggressively roll out cable alternatives in Bell South's area and to require AT&T provide unbundled DSL service to consumers who don't want phone lines.

They also said that some wireless spectrum required to be sold could provide another potential video competitor to cable.

Others including the two voting Republican members of the FCC today said many of the concessions were unnecessary, noting that the Justice Department put no conditions in its approval of the deal.

"We find the imposition of some of the conditions, however, to be unnecessary. And, some of the conditions impose burdens that have nothing to do with the transaction, are discriminatory, and run contrary to commission policy and precedent," Commission Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate said in a statement.

Democrats meanwhile said the decision wasn't ideal but the best they could muster in the face of a Justice Department inaction that Commissioner Michael J. Copps called "a strange and tortured odyssey."

He called the merger "not a triumph for huge corporate mergers but a modest victory for American consumers."

Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said a historic merger warrants historic conditions.

"This transaction has given me serious pause, but through hard work and genuine compromise, we were able to achieve a result that delivers major, tangible benefits to consumers."

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11285

TV Notebook
TV Executives Debate Whether to Show Execution
By Bill Carter, The New York Times December 29, 2006

The apparently imminent execution of the deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein threw executives at television news organizations into hurried consultations today over how to handle pictures or video of the hanging.

Though it was not known whether images of the execution would be released, the news divisions at ABC and CBS said that, should video become available, they will show some visual documentation of Saddam’s death but will not use overly graphic images or show complete execution.

NBC News, however, indicated it might go further. Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said that network may show “a wide shot of Saddam hanging.” He said NBC would make its decision based on questions both of taste and of history.

“I think it might be appropriate at some point to see an image of Saddam after he is hanged,” Mr. Capus said, citing previous historic images of dictators who had been killed. “I think about that iconic image of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania, lying literally in the gutter,” Mr. Capus said. “I want to do this with a measure of taste, but I don’t want to stand in the way of history.”

The cable news networks CNN and the Fox News Channel were less definitive about what limits they might not impose on any images of Mr. Hussein in death, saying they would decide after they saw what was available. (MSNBC, the cable channel owned by NBC, will follow the policies of NBC News.)

None of this means that the complete images of the hanging, should such video be taken by Iraqi authorities, will be unavailable. Executives throughout the television news business said they fully expect these images to turn up at least on Web sites.

“Somehow it will get out,” said Paul Friedman, vice president of CBS News. “That video is going to be available somewhere on some channel or some site.” Mr. Friedman said he had met with the CBS News staff working today and told them: “There will be a lot of pressure to use the pictures” of the actual hanging. But he added, “CBS will not show it, no matter what.”

Bob Murphy, the senior vice president of ABC News, said the network planned to interrupt whatever program was being broadcast to report the news of the execution in the form of a brief report. “I suspect there will be some form of video released that will confirm the death for the Iraqi people,” Mr. Murphy said. ABC will “fulfill our obligations as journalists in documenting the event,” he said. But he emphasized, “We will absolutely not go too far in showing graphic images. Taste and propriety are the two key guidelines.”

He also stressed that ABC News will not allow its Web site to show anything more than what is permitted on television. “The decision will be for all of ABC News,” Mr. Murphy said. “What is excluded for ABC News on television will be excluded for all ABC News outlets.”

Mr. Friedman said editors from CBS’s Web site had also been told that they would be under the same restrictions as the broadcast network. Mr. Capus also said the MSNBC Web site’s choices will be governed by what the network decides.

David Rhodes, the vice president of news for the leading all-news cable network, the Fox News Channel, said questions of what the network might show were “still hypothetical at this point.” He said of what the channel might eventually show: “If you could tell me exactly what we were going to get, I could give you an answer.”

As to whether the channel’s Web site might be able to show more images than what appeared on television, Mr. Rhodes said, “We haven’t had the discussion yet about whether we would be anything different on the Web site.”

CNN released only a statement saying, “We will make our final call once we see what the Iraqi government releases.”

Most of the news outlets cited decisions they made in the aftermath of the killing by U.S. troops of the two sons of Mr. Hussein. Mr. Murphy of ABC said that the network had shown still shots of the faces of the dead men but had excluded graphic video that showed multiple wounds on their bodies.

A spokeswoman for CNN, Laurie Goldberg, noted that questions were still being raised at the time about the identities of the sons, so more images were shown to make comparisons to previous pictures taken of them.

Still unclear was what other news and video outlets might do if they gain access to video images from the hanging. Representatives for the Arab news network Al Jazeera did not respond to messages. And a representative from YouTube did not respond to questions about the policy of that popular video site, which has previously offered videos with graphic battle footage from Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/business/media/29cnd-netw.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

TV Sports Notebook
After no regular season, Fox tackles 5-game bowl lineup
Ray Frager's Baltimore Sun 'Medium Well' Column Dec. 29, 2006

Remember Rosie Ruiz? She was the woman who jumped into the 1980 Boston Marathon less than a mile from the end and then crossed the finish line as the apparent winner.

Now, that's not to say Fox is doing the same thing by jumping into the college football season at the end by televising five bowl games, including the national championship, but it was the best analogy I could come up with on short notice.

"It's sort of like our first season of NASCAR, when we started with the Daytona 500," Fox Sports president Ed Goren said in a conference call Wednesday. "This certainly, without a regular-season conference package, has been a challenge."

Sure, he came up with a better analogy, but, then again, he's a high-powered network executive.

During preparation for the bowls, Goren said, "the theme of our production seminars [has been] 'This isn't the NFL.'" So in addition to focusing on game-related matters, Fox wants to consider "the history and tradition of these schools."

It's not as if Fox personnel have felt removed from the college game. "We're big college football fans," said Howie Long, Fox NFL Sunday analyst, who will work the network's Sugar Bowl telecast Wednesday (7:30 p.m., WBFF/Channel 45 and WTTG/Channel 5) along with NFL studio colleague Terry Bradshaw and play-by-play man Kenny Albert.

When the Fox crew is on the road, Long said, Bradshaw will have three televisions in his hotel room to watch college football. Analyst Jimmy Johnson, who will work the pre-game, halftime and post-game shows at the national championship game (Jan. 8, 7:30 p.m.) said he stays in regular contact with coaching friends from his days in the college ranks.

And Goren said Fox would like to stop being a bowl-come-lately.

"I've been very public in meetings with conferences," he said, indicating specific interest in the Big 12. "I'd love to be involved. We don't want to just show up in January."

Bowling partners

The announcing team for Fox's Fiesta Bowl (Monday, 8 p.m.) and the Bowl Championship Series title game will be play-by-play man Thom Brennaman, joined by former Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez and former University of Tennessee player and TBS analyst Charles Davis. Goren said Fox selected Alvarez, Wisconsin's athletic director, because "I thought it was important for our national championship game to have someone who is still part of the game."

No doubleheader here

Because the Ravens are home, Baltimore misses out on the NFL double doubleheader Sunday. For the first time, the NFL has allowed two networks to carry two regular-season games each. Here, CBS (WJZ/Channel 13) will have the Pittsburgh Steelers-Cincinnati Bengals at 1 p.m., followed by the Ravens-Buffalo Bills. Channel 45 carries the Detroit Lions-Dallas Cowboys at 1, but no late game. Those who get Washington's Channel 5 can see the Atlanta Falcons-Philadelphia Eagles in the late game. But what kind of Ravens fan are you?

No Ms. Pac-Man?

It's being touted as a precursor to what poker became on TV. So be warned - the gamers are coming.

Tomorrow at 3 p.m., CBS airs They Got Game: Stars of the World Series of Video Games, profiling some of the top competitors in this World Series, which will be televised on CSTV next month.

The event will feature tournament play in Counter-Strike 1.6, Quake 4, Warcraft III: Frozen Throne, Halo 2, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.

Good to see Frozen Throne in there. I don't know about you, but ever since Archimonde and the Burning Legion tasted defeat, I've been eager to return to Azeroth.

(OK, I confess: I've never been to Azeroth, which I hadn't ever heard of until visiting a Warcraft Web site moments ago. And Archimonde? Is he buddies with Betty, Veronica and Jughead?)

My 17-year-old gaming consultant informs me these games are all good choices, especially Counter-Strike, though he pronounces Halo 2 overrated. If you disagree, please don't send the Burning Legion after me.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/bal-sp.frager29dec29,0,1428242.column?coll=bal-artslife-tv

Anybody watching the Saddam Hussein deathwatch on the cable news channels? Knowing they are not going to show the actual execution video it's as if these cable channels hope to compensate for the lack of pictures with talking heads and Saddam stock footage galore. Actually this little game is a nice way to pass time until the real deal happens: http://www.gsn.com/ :D

Yes I have tried it several times.

It is just not my cup of tea.

I'm that way with Prime Suspect and Helen Mirren. I found the entire series lacking and Helen Mirren's character simply unlikable. Yet some critics thought it was terrific stuff. I suspect they just gave it attention since series 7 was the last run and she's done well in theatrical releases recently.

The only thing I can think of, Antonio, is that the critics must (or at least should) watch literally everything on TV. We can pick whta we want to see.

So perhaps their tastes change faster than ours.

And, in addition, many migrate from the newspaper arts section to TV criticism, so they may have been brought up on the theater or film, and thus have a far different frame of reference from the average TV viewer who simply is looking for some entertainment he or she can enjoy.

Saddam, In the news.

TV Notebook
New 'Today' team isn't taking tomorrow lightly
By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times Staff Writer December 31, 2006

New York — It was holiday time on "Today," and Meredith Vieira was quizzing Martha Stewart about picking a Christmas tree.

"Do you get the real thing, or do you like to fake it?" Vieira asked the domestic doyenne, her face fixed in an innocent expression.

"I do both," Stewart said, going on to explain the benefits of using artificial trees.

Vieira's subtle double-entendre might have gone unnoticed if Joy Behar, her former co-host from ABC's "The View," hadn't been on later in the show to promote her new children's book. She pounced on the exchange. "That was very slippery of you — the old Meredith slipping in from 'The View!' " said Behar, chortling as Vieira grinned guiltily.

There's no question the 53-year-old broadcaster has toned it down since her days moderating the ABC coffee klatch. But three months after succeeding Katie Couric as co-anchor of NBC's "Today," Vieira's clearly feeling more at ease in her role on the morning powerhouse, evident in the frequent flashes of her impish humor.

"It takes time to turn your new house into your home," she said later that morning, sitting cross-legged in her small dressing room over Rockefeller Center's Studio 1A, her hair pinned up in large curlers. Now "there's that comfort level where I can really be myself, and no one is going to fire me. Like, 'Oh my God, that's her?' "

In fact, while Couric has fielded sniping about the changes she's made to the "CBS Evening News" this fall and Rosie O'Donnell has stirred a new controversy nearly every week since arriving at "The View," Vieira's transition to "Today" has been almost placid by comparison.

So now, the top-rated show is looking to its next challenge: plotting out innovations that will keep the program competitively sharp down the road, while fending off the complacency that allowed ABC's "Good Morning America" to nearly overtake it in the ratings last year.

"I do think we've got to mix things up, and now that everybody's there, I think we're ready to do it," said Phil Griffin, senior vice president at NBC News in charge of "Today," as he headed to a meeting with the show's producers to map out new projects for the next year.

A possibility on the table: expanding the program to a fourth hour, a move that could generate substantial new revenue for the news division.

"We don't want to paint by numbers," said Jim Bell, the show's executive producer. "We are both aware of the competition and the show's very rich tradition, but we don't want to be so bound by it that we find ourselves just going through the motions every day and saying, 'Well, we'll just do this because that worked yesterday or the month before.' We have to keep changing."

Vieira's arrival was the biggest change on the 54-year-old program since Matt Lauer replaced Bryant Gumbel almost a decade ago.

• • • • • • • • • • •

PRESSURE'S ON

Her first few months at "Today" may not have received the same amount of scrutiny as Couric's at CBS, but the stakes are just as high for NBC. As the top moneymaker for NBC News, the three-hour-long morning show is its most valuable commodity. A dip in viewership could mean the loss of millions of dollars.

"Fear of failure is a big motivator for me," Vieira said. "There was so much hype around this, just this sense that I was going to let down an entire broadcast, not just one person, but everybody who put a tremendous amount of faith in me — I felt the weight of it."

But her co-workers said she fit into the show surprisingly easily. "She's got a certain sense of anarchy that the rest of us have," said Al Roker, the show's weatherman. "What's great about her is it's not all about her. And that's not to say anything about anyone else. It's just that she's not like, 'Hey, look at me!' She's just part of the team."

So far, "Today's" audience has remained fairly steady, averaging about 5.78 million viewers through mid-December, 2% less than last season, according to Nielsen Media Research. The show has widened its lead over "Good Morning America," which lost longtime co-anchor Charles Gibson to the evening news last May. So far this season, ABC has averaged 4.95 million viewers, a drop of 6%. CBS' "The Early Show" lags far behind with 2.76 million, also down 6% from last season.

But "Today's" competitors believe the program has some vulnerabilities. Jim Murphy, senior executive producer of "GMA," noted that the ratings have fluctuated during the last several months, with NBC's lead swinging by as much as half a million people week to week. "It's all over the map, which I think would indicate that people are still moving around and shopping a little bit," he said. "I don't think their own audience fully accepts what has happened."

Steve Friedman, CBS' vice president of morning broadcasts, acknowledged that "Today" has a strong lead, but pointed out that its numbers have dipped in the last month, especially among 25- to 54-year-old women. "Let's put it his way: Certainly Meredith is not hurting the 'Today' show," said Friedman, a former executive producer of the NBC program. "But on the other hand, she isn't helping it either."

NBC executives dismissed that notion. "We were the one that lost our main anchor and we survived it," Griffin said. "All the trends are in our favor and we're getting stronger."

After 11 years in first place, "Today" has reason to be confident. But the staff won't soon forget spring 2005, when the show's margin over "GMA" dwindled so dramatically that it looked as if it could lose its crown.

"That scare of 18 months ago will last a long time," Lauer said. "When you look in the rearview mirror at a period where it wasn't fun around here and people were nervous about that winning streak, that's kind of a great motivator."

Added Ann Curry, the program's news anchor: "There was a sort of trepidation about how it would all come together, or if it would. Now it's much more settled and much more on mission."

These days, "Today" doesn't take any chances. In October, when Diane Sawyer scored the first interview with Mel Gibson after he made a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks during a drunk driving arrest, NBC shifted its national advertising so its morning program wouldn't be rated by Nielsen at the time ABC was airing its exclusive. The result: "Today" won the day by a huge lead. "We try to be as aggressive as we can," Bell said.

Now NBC executives are having serious discussions about expanding "Today" to that fourth hour, perhaps next season. Conceived as a "younger, hipper" lifestyle and consumer hour, it might feature "Today" regulars Curry and Natalie Morales, as well as up-and-coming NBC Universal personalities such as Telemundo's Maria Celeste Arraras and Access Hollywood's Billy Bush and Maria Menounos. (The later hour would not include Lauer, who appears minimally on the show's third hour, or Vieira, whose job as host of the syndicated "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" gig prohibits her from being on NBC's air after 9 a.m.)

The extra hour would cost little to produce, but could generate significant revenue for the news division, as well as save NBC affiliates the cost of purchasing syndicated programming for the 10 a.m. time slot. In preparation, a secondary set upstairs from the main "Today" studio is being wired so it could be used for a fourth hour in case Lauer and Vieira need to anchor breaking news downstairs at the same time.

Expanding the show is one of several initiatives that executives are considering for next year, including projects that will take the show out of the studio as was done this summer, when "Today" broadcast from outside Rockefeller Center while its set was being renovated.

"What makes this show work is there's a relationship with the audience," Griffin said. "I hope you see a bunch of big projects, big events, like taking the show outside."

• • • • • • • • • • •

A NEW RHYTHM

For their part, Lauer and Vieira are working on finessing their on-air interaction.

"The chemistry was there, strangely, from the beginning," Lauer said. "I think what's changed and what's evolving is the comfort level, just in terms of understanding, a little bit like quarterback and receiver — where that person is going to be when the ball is in the air. I'm getting a better sense of where she's going to take a conversation."

After anchoring the show for nine years with Couric, with whom he enjoyed the repartee of a long-married couple, Lauer said he and Vieira are developing their own kind of banter.

"It's fun to get her juices going," he said. "I'll pretend they're talking in my ear and say, 'There's something breaking and Meredith, you're going to have to do eight minutes with the Palestinian leader.' We just really try to unnerve each other a little bit."

"We tease each other a lot," Vieira added. "My biggest problem with that is he's a really good practical joker. And I think I've got him on something, and he always tops me."

While Vieira said she misses the "free form" of "The View," the onetime "60 Minutes" correspondent said returning to hard news has been "a joy" after nine years on a daytime talk show. She's had a harder time mustering enthusiasm for the show's fashion makeover segments.

"I wear the same thing every day," Vieira said, going over to her closet and tossing a pair of jeans, a black T-shirt and a pair of clogs on the floor to illustrate. "I'm a tomboy. I'm just not into that stuff. I'm trying to — not fake it, but you know, understand it more."

Vieira got a note of encouragement from her predecessor when she took the job, and said Couric is "doing a great job" in her new role at CBS.

"I feel for her now," she added. "There's a lot mean-spirited stuff out there. It takes a long time to build audience. So when I read some of this stuff, I get angry, because it's just not fair. I don't think you can judge me in my role or Rosie who took over for me or Katie in a matter of a few weeks. It's really going to be over the long haul."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ca-today31dec31,0,5703798,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

(An updated prime-time schedule grid will be posted -- as soon as I finish double-checking it -- at the bottom of post #2 shortly -- probably by late Saturday afternoon PT.)

TV Notebook
Americans say TV's trash, but won't tune out
By Adam Nichols, New York Daily News December 30, 2006

We may claim to think it's all junk but Americans remain glued to their TVs.

Although 76% of people questioned in a new poll said the quality of programs this year was worse or showed no improvement to 2005, few touched the dial to turn it off.

And the majority - 58% - admitted to becoming hooked to at least one show.

The telephone poll, conducted for The Associated Press and AOL, asked 1,000 people what they had been watching in 2006.

"House" and "Grey's Anatomy" topped the list for programs Americans considered unmissable, with 11% admitting to being addicted to each.

They were followed by "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "CSI: Miami," which were watched by 6%.

Despite reports of a box office slump, many also admitted to dragging themselves away from the TV to go to a movie theater.

But, again, few were impressed by what they saw: 59% of respondents saw no improvement in the quality of films compared to last year, and 25% classed 2006's offerings as worse than usual.

The poll showed 71% saw at least one movie at a theater this year; and that the average number of movies most Americans see a year is five.

Top of the list was "Cars" and Johnny Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," both of which were seen by 5% of respondents.

The movie industry reported making an estimated $9.42 billion this year, which is $430 million more than last year's takings. "Pirates of the Caribbean" helped the bumper year with a record-breaking opening day bringing in $55.8 million.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ent_radio/story/484231p-407658c.html

TV Notebook
Opposites attract (viewers, that is)
Ashton Kutcher has a TV marriage made in heaven in Season 3 of "Beauty and the Geek."
By Jon Caramanica, The Los Angeles Times December 31, 2006

Who knew that Ashton Kutcher would become a social and ethical barometer of our time?

Since he debuted "Punk'd" on MTV in 2003, it's been clear that he's unusually keyed-in to the frailties of celebrity culture. The hidden-camera prank show, which set up celebrities in ridiculous situations, was less about embarrassing the famous than about exposing what they were like beneath the veneer of stardom, for better or worse. It coincided neatly with the rise of tabloid magazines that juxtapose two sides of celebrities — how they desire to be represented and how they actually behave — and presaged the rise of online video tabloids such as TMZ.com, which capture stars and pseudo-stars ruthlessly and unforgivingly.

But there is no better punk than reality. Just as "Punk'd" thrived on unpredictability and playing against type, Kutcher's second entry into pseudo-reality television (along with producing partner Jason Goldberg) also hinges upon defying expectations. Beginning its third season on Wednesday, "Beauty and the Geek" (the CW, 8 p.m.) is one of the most endearing and engaging reality programs, largely because of its core belief that people, even walking stereotypes, contain a capacity to transform.

"Beauty and the Geek," in which pairs of B&Gs compete, also stands apart in its self-conception as a "social experiment" as opposed to a long-form game show, even though the winning team of beauty and geek take home $250,000. It's highlighted at this season's first elimination; rather than the show's traditional face-off between two teams nominated to go home, in the first episode teams are tempted with money — are they in it for the cash, or for the experience?

Ultimately, no one takes the bait, and what a relief. "Beauty and the Geek" is the only reality show in which greed is punished, and which tests the earnestness of people's intentions. And watching the geeks introduce themselves, it's hard not to believe in just how seriously they're taking their participation in the show. They're not so nerdy that they've never seen, or wanted to participate in, reality television. But still — they're pretty nerdy. Speaking about women, "Star Trek" devotee Drew laments, "It's as if they're Romulans and I'm the Federation." Gripes tech-loving Sanjay, "One thing that makes me mad about women is when they don't know about Linux." He later tries to impress the ladies with an impression … of a blender. (There is a host, Mike Richards, but he's inoffensively bland, probably so as not to create an obvious testosterone centerpiece.)

If "Beauty and the Geek" fails at all in its mission, it's due to a slight misogynistic streak. No matter how poorly they perform in challenges, the nerdy men can't get much more unappealing. Clearly, though, some schadenfreude is at play watching attractive women get taken down a notch as they struggle with their assigned tasks — in the first two episodes this season, that includes fumbling with the Dewey Decimal System and, in a wonder of product placement, a TV news interview with a barely-holding-it-together Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of "Freakonomics." Both sides are here for growth, but only one is really ripe for humiliation. (Perhaps a gender switch is in order for next season?)

Every herd has it codes — it's how assiduously one sticks to them, or one's willingness to break rank, that makes one cool. "Beauty and the Geek," of course, rewards such change. Much like the Woody Allen-ish virgin Richard Rubin of Season 1, this season's obvious breakout star is Nate, who sports bushy hair, proudly wears contrasting plaids and red Crocs and fronts a "Star Wars" tribute band. In a videotaped introduction, Nate sings a verse from one of his band's songs. Similarly, in her introduction, Nadia, one of the beauties, gleefully recites the cheers she perfected in high school and clearly never let go of. The show's just getting started and, by comparison, Nate already seems kinda cool. How about that.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-ca-monitor31dec31,1,4753349.story?coll=la-entnews-tv

TV Q&A
TV Q&A with Rob Owen
By Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette December 29, 2006

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "The 4400," "Flip This House" and celebs on talk shows.

As always, thanks for reading, and keep those questions coming.

Question: When will the new season of "Kyle XY" start? Also, do you think that by revealing that Kyle is a human clone in last season's finale the show may have already lost some of its "mystery" ? - Jim, Upper St. Clair

Rob Owen: "Kyle XY" returns to ABC Family with new episodes in the summer. I don't think the writers/producers have blown it by apparently revealing Kyle to be a clone. Better to know something than to keep dragging viewers along forever with the same old questions. My true concern is that the show needs to maintain its mix of alienated outsider angst, family matters and the big mystery. Toward the end of the season it was all about the mystery. I hope there's a better balance in season two.

Question: Will the remaining episodes of "The Nine" be shown online by ABC? - G., McKees Rocks

Rob Owen: ABC claims "The Nine" will air on TV again. If that doesn't happen, then the remaining completed episodes will be burned off online.

Question: What are the odds that they will make an "Arrested Development" movie? At the end of the series finale they hinted at the idea, but do you know if there is any chance that it will happen? - Niki, Pittsburgh

Rob Owen: There's always a chance, but until a movie is announced, it remains just that.

Question: What is "Your View" of "The View"? I'd be interested in reading your opinion. - Linda, Pittsburgh

Rob Owen: Because I'm usually working -- either in the office or at home watching shows to review -- I don't have much time to watch daytime TV. I've caught snippets of "The View" since Rosie O'Donnell joined the cast, but not enough to offer an informed opinion. I will say this for O'Donnell and Donald Trump: They deserve one another.

Question: I know I need to get a life -- but: What happened to the mother on "That's So Raven"? I know they have a spinoff with the little brother. Was she just not needed? Or was it her plan to leave? (I watch A LOT of Disney Channel with my daughter) - Jen, location unknown

Rob Owen: According to Disney Channel, in "That's So Raven" and its new spinoff, "Cory in the House" (9:30 p.m. Jan. 12), mom Tonya Baxter, played by T'Keyah Crystal Keymah, is in England studying law. Keymah decided she wanted to pursue other opportunities.

Question: That's it! I'm no longer giving ANY new series a chance! (OK, I'm lying.) But really. I can understand why networks pull shows that don't do very well in the ratings, but for goodness sake, why don't they give them a chance? I thought "Day Break" was smart, new and suspenseful. What does ABC do? Get you hooked and pull it with NO NOTICE! This show was only meant to run during "Lost's" hiatus. Couldn't ABC just leave it on for a few more weeks rather than run reruns of shows that aren't particularly entertaining anyway? I mean, it's not as if this show had no end in sight. I guess now we'll never know any of the answers to all of the questions they posed. Well, at least I have an hour of my life back each Wednesday! - Heather, Penn Hills

Rob Owen: Networks rarely give much notice when they yank a show from the schedule, though we always report in the Post-Gazette as soon as we can.

Question: Last year, A&E's "Flip this House" featured the group from Trademark Properties in Charlotte, N.C. This year only reruns from Trademark are on and new shows from Atlanta and San Antonio are shown. Do you know if the Trademark group will be back on with new shows? - Kathy, Plum

Rob Owen: They will not be back. According to an A&E publicist, Trademark is no longer part of "Flip This House."
"We have two new casts this second season and will be adding a third new cast next season," the A&E publicist said. A new "Flip This House" episode premieres tomorrow at 8 p.m. (Edit: repeats of this episode are still airing this weekend; check your local cable schedule for time).

Question: I understand that celebrities do interviews and the daytime shows ("Oprah," "Ellen," etc.) when they are promoting a new film or show, but is there any rhyme or reason to do "Good Morning America" as opposed to "Oprah" or an interview with Barbara Walters or "The Tonight Show"? Are they paid? - R.J., North Hills

Rob Owen: Talk-show guests are paid a nominal appearance fee (no more than a couple hundred dollars), which many will simply donate to charity rather than accept. They also get trinkets (a T-shirt from the show they're appearing on or a mug). As far as which shows they'd go on, "Oprah" is probably the biggest coup among the ones you mention. Because her show is largely independent of a network, any pressure to book a guest can be ignored, whereas "The Tonight Show," for example, probably has to have guests on to promote other NBC properties.

Question: What ever happened to the shows "The Shield" and "The 4400"? - Mike, Norwich, N.Y.

Rob Owen: Nothing but a normal hiatus. "The 4400" will be back this summer and "The Shield" will return sometime in 2007, most likely in March.

Question: On NBC's "Today" show, there is a guy in the outside audience named Linny. He's become a regular and somewhat of a celeb. Can you find a brief biography of him? I presume he lives near the studio. What's his story? Family? Job? Retired? He's a fascinating character on the show and we know so little about him. - Jim, Roseburg, Ore.

Rob Owen: The New York Times profiled Linny earlier this year. According to the Times article, Linny Boyette, the ultimate "Today" fan, was born in Jamaica and raised in both New York and London. He's described as a "retired United States Army man" who is a childless bachelor who commutes from the Bronx to the "Today" studio in Manhattan six days a week. You can purchase the full New York Times article here: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C13F8345A0C728FDDAC0894DE404482&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fO%2fOgunnaike% 2c%20Lola.

Question: Just curious about the pledge drives on WQED this year. Are they really hurting for money or are they just getting greedy? So far the only programming my pledge dollars have supported are more pledge drives. I will not be renewing in the future because of this. Do they have plans to cut back on them in 2007? - Jennifer, Economy

Rob Owen: At last week's WQED Multimedia board meeting, director of local and national on-air fundraising and production Linda Taggart offered a whole presentation on the station's plans for pledge. It was fascinating stuff. She showed how pledging core programs ("Nature," "Masterpiece Theatre") brings in far less money than pledge events like an Italian singer or Suze Orman (the Top 10 pledge events in 2006 brought in $179,640 and pledging for the Top 10 core programs brought in only $56,660). But Taggart said she'll continue to pledge core programs and hope that fans support them.

Taking a page from public radio, WQED will experiment with goals of "20 new members" rather than a goal of $10,000 "in the next hour." WQED will also make greater efforts to retain new members by giving them more reasons to feel an affinity with the station through more communication and "donor education." She's more fond of live pledge than pre-recorded pledge events that don't generate as much of a bond with viewers and their local station. As far as cutting down on the number of pledge days, that's already happened at WQED-FM. Taggart said on the TV side, it's certainly a goal to reduce the number of pledge days, but it's dependent on WQED developing new revenue streams and greater viewer support.

Question: A TV station is turning 50 next year! I was wondering if WPXI will have a special logo next year to celebrate their 50th year on TV! - J.P., South Fayette

Rob Owen: No plans for a special logo, according to general manager Ray Carter, but there will be a 50th anniversary on-air campaign. The opening of the station's new building just off I-279 near the McKnight Road exit will be a part of the station's anniversary celebration.

FEEDBACK Not really a question but more information on DVRs. In your column about Comcast's DVR and issues of it not recording, my suggestion is to by a DVD Recorder with a hard drive. Panasonic makes a couple different models, some with a VCR built in, too. It has TV Guide as your information to set up recording, or you can do it manually and tell it to record daily, weekly or only once. You can also adjust the times if a program is going to start early or run long. Another plus is if you want to burn a copy of what you have recorded, I do this quite a bit. Something to ponder for you and your readers. - Adam K. Smith, North Fayette
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I'm a Pittsburgh-area transplant STUCK south of Baltimore. We have Comcast, Millennium Digital Media and Verizon's FIOS in our area all using Motorola DVR boxes. The issues you cite happen nationwide to ALL versions of the Moto box. I have agonized with others and come to my own conclusions about the DVR idiosyncrasies. They are:

1. When trying to record HD, if your picture begins to pixellate, the box sees this as an interruption of service and stops the recording.

2. If you try to schedule two at the same time with the box off, you can't turn it on until both are done being recorded (to work around this, you must leave the box on all the time).

3. While recording two shows, the DVR shows "MUTE" on the screen and no sound occurs (to work around this, you must leave the box on all time and on one of channels you wish to record).

4. DVR always seems sluggish. This is due to live TV. The box buffers live TV so you can pause and rewind.

I have had all kinds of DVR/PVR devices on PC's, from cable companies and from other providers. The best is ReplayTV, but alas they do not support HD recording.

- Patrick Ignaczak, Pasadena, Md.
____________________________________________________________ _____

Thank you for keeping the story about Rev. Brent Dugan alive. He meant a lot to many people, and the story of KDKA's role in his death is sickening. Interestingly, The New York Times ran an article last week about gay parishioners and pastors in fundamentalist churches, and how difficult life is for them. The Dugan story, although not about a fundamentalist preacher, certainly fits into that tale. He was lovingly accepted by so many people, and would have been forgiven, if embarrassed and shamed, by his private life being made public, even in such a distasteful way. But I believe that, knowing Brent Dugan well in the 1970s and '80s, and knowing his high degree of professionalism, that he simply couldn't bear this truth being known about him. And yet the real truth of the matter is that many people loved him and would have forgiven him and helped him through it.

- Betsy Talbott, Glen Ellyn, Ill.
____________________________________________________________ _____

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The TV Q&A column may still be recovering from New Year's Eve next Friday, but will return rested (?) and ready for 2007 on Jan. 12.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06363/749287-238.stm

TV Sports (Nielsen Ratings)
Rutgers Scores Strong TV Ratings
By Peter Lauria, New York Post December 30, 2006

Rutgers blowout victory in the Texas Bowl Thursday night likely drew a larger audience in the metro area than a competing college bowl game on rival ESPN, preliminary rating information shows.

The Scarlet Knights-aided ratings win for the NFL Network is impressive as it came with much less promotion than ESPN's airing of the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl.

The sizable audience could also help the NFL Network win key support among young male viewers as it seeks to convince cable companies to carry the channel as basic cable programming.

An average of 132,000 viewers in the New York-New Jersey market tuned in to watch Rutgers blow out Kansas State 37-10 to win its first-ever bowl game.

The game drew a national audience of 776,000, but the New York-New Jersey audience is more important since the NFL Network and Cablevision and Time Warner agreed to air the game as part of a weeklong "freeview" of the channel.

While that's not likely to happen given the miniscule ratings for the rest of the programming that aired during the NFL Network's "freeview" week, the Rutgers game generated more than respectable ratings for the channel.

Consider that California's drubbing of Texas A&M in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl on ESPN averaged only 153,000 viewers in New York-New Jersey during the same time period last night.

Since Nielsen's preliminary figures don't include Cablevision or Time Warner Cable subscribers, when final numbers are released next week the audience for the Rutgers game should eclipse the ESPN audience.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12302006/business/rutgers_scores_strong_tv_ratings_business_peter_lauria.htm

Critic’s Notebook
Finding The Legends Of the Fall
By Brendan Bernhard, New York Sun December 26, 2006

The fall 2006 television season brought us everything from a serial killer with a conscience ("Dexter") to the international launch of a 24-hour news channel (Al-Jazeera English) that, in this country at least, could only be watched on the Internet. There were sad farewells (Helen Mirren in "Prime Suspect") and welcome arrivals (Alec Baldwin in "30 Rock"). As always on the box, it was the best of times and the worst of times, with good shows and bad crammed together like runners at the start of a marathon. Herewith a guide to some of the season's high points (and a couple of the lows).

• FIRST PRIZE FOR AMBITION: NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" was the fall season's big network attempt to recapture a vanished concept of classy entertainment and make it fly in a landscape dominated by sitcoms, gimmicky reality shows, and all the rest. This isn't to say "Studio 60" was the only program to try for class, but simply to point out that it was the only one eager to let its audience know about it.

In that sense, despite the liberal politics, "Studio 60" was reactionary at heart: Something had gone wrong with network television, and good writing and smart dialogue were going to help fix it. That was the message. "You're raising the bar pretty high, aren't you?" Bradley Whitford asked Amanda Peet early on. Answer: "Clear it." Matthew Perry established himself as TV's smartest leading man, but some people are still waiting for Aaron Sorkin's feet to leave the ground.

• LEAST EFFORT, MOST LAUGHS: "30 Rock," also on NBC, also a television show about a television show, came equipped with wings of gossamer: Its feet never touched the ground. Satirical points were made swiftly and neatly. Told to pick up a prescription tranquilizer pronto for a freaked-out comedian at a "Rite Drug" on 46th Street and Eighth Avenue, the show's gopher arrived at his destination, looked around, and saw a "Rite Drug" on every corner. The comedic point — which "Rite Drug" — meshed effortlessly with the satirical one: the corporate takeover of Manhattan illustrated to perfection in, oh, about two seconds. Plus Tina Fey is as wonderfully self-effacing as Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan are hilarious showboats.

• WAKE ME WHEN THEY'RE OVER: The fall season was crammed with ambitious network series — ABC's "Six Degrees" and "The Nine," NBC's Heroes," CBS's "Jericho" — so pregnant with sprawling story lines and an implicit threat never to come to an end (you could sense, even after one episode, that they intended to go on forever), that most people threw in the towel after a couple of rounds. ("Heroes," about real-life comic book superheroes in New York, caught on for some reason.)

• BEST NEW DRAMA: Fortunately, NBC's "Friday Night Lights" arrived to provide some real excitement, both intimate and athletic, driven at a furious pace that never detracted from the richness of its characterizations. Apparently, the fact that it's about a high-school football team in a nowhere Texas town has damaged its ratings capabilities, but the show can be so visually and emotionally potent that it made many of the shows set in Los Angeles or New York look positively somnolent in comparison.

• BEST ONGOING ODE TO INDOLENCE: Not that being a little laid-back is necessarily a bad thing. If you were looking for something offbeat to while away the time, or just a really good actress to watch, that was probably Season 3 of "Weeds," the Showtime series about a perky, pot-dealing widow portrayed by Mary-Louise Parker with a loosy-goosy style that is uniquely her own. Set in a perfect little California suburb ripe for send-up, "Weeds" may be TV's most decadent show. It takes place in an America where nothing matters, or could conceivably matter, which makes it something of a guilty pleasure, since that manifestly is not the case. But it's so well acted and so succinct (each episode is only 30 minutes long) that it's possible to sit back, enjoy, and not care.

• MOST COMPELLING PSYCHO: Showtime offers two nominees for this award, and we'll call it a draw between Oded Fehr as the terrorist mastermind on "Sleeper Cell" and Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan on "Dexter." Mr. Hall plays a "blood spatter expert" for the Miami police department who is also a serial killer, but only of other serial killers who evade the law. "One's real life is often the life that one does not lead," Oscar Wilde wrote, but Dexter would appear to be in the peculiar position of leading both his real life (killing people) and the fake version (pretending to be just another guy on the Miami police force). But now doubt has arisen: Perhaps forcing his murderous urges through a moral channel (killing other murderers) is itself a kind of fakery? That particular dilemma looks set to become the theme of next year's installment of this uniquely creepy show.

• BEST CHARACTER: Easy: LAPD Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) of TNT's "The Closer." TNT recently treated us to a two-hour out-of-season special in which Johnson moonlighted for the CIA in unraveling the murky background to the mysterious death of an Arab teenager. I know one is supposed to admire Johnson for her mental brilliance — and I do, I do — but I can't help recalling with particular fondness an episode early in the first season when, for strictly police-related reasons, to be sure, she was forced to style her hair, wear a lot of makeup, and try on lots of revealing dresses. Maybe we could have just a bit more of that when next season resumes? No one's as good as Ms. Sedgwick at being smart, sexy, and funny all at once, and somehow getting all those categories mixed up in novel ways.

• BEST LATECOMER: A new twist on the sitcom formula and a surprise lateseason pleasure was the arrival of Jordana Spiro as P.J. Franklin, the tomboy sportswriter heroine of TBS's "My Boys."The boys in question are a bunch of pizza-munching slackers who make use of her roomy Chicago pad for poker and other entertainments like an army of Kramers bursting into Jerry Seinfeld's apartment. Though undoubtedly fetching, P.J. is so much one of the boys that the boys never look twice at her. Other men do, however, and though friends-as-family is a well-worn sitcom premise, this one tugs with particular, even neurotic, persistence on the theme of the pleasures of the group versus the needs of the individual — and how the former conspires against the latter. You could read Claire Messud's "The Emperor's Children" for a more rarefied treatment of the subject, but "My Boys" has a pleasing if lowbrow authenticity.

• WORST NEWS: One of the most prescient writers about television, George W.S. Trow, died November 24 in Naples, Italy. I missed the December 18 episode of "Studio 60," but I hear Trow's most famous book, "Within the Context of No Context," was referenced. Kudos to Mr. Sorkin for that.

http://www.nysun.com/article/45675

TV Notebook
Admit it: We're all video junkies now
By Rachel Abramowitz, Los Angeles Times December 31, 2006

I have to say I was kind of happy when our big-screen TV broke. Relieved. Liberated.

The 15-year-old honking monstrosity dated from the pre-plasma days and resembled Jabba the Hutt, but it worked, sucking us into its vortex of images and sound. My husband and I watched movies when we could find something at the local video store we hadn't seen, but increasingly it became TV shows — "Prime Suspect," "Cracker" and, for one hallucinatory summer, three entire seasons of "The Shield." Addictively, like we were strung out on the crack cocaine of Michael Chiklis' angry adrenalin.

Apparently I'm not alone in my inability to voluntarily shut down the pop culture morphine drip.

According to the Census Bureau's 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States, the average American spends 9.6 hours a day inhaling media — watching television, using computers, listening to the radio, going to the movies and/or reading. We as a nation apparently spend on average two months of every year just watching TV. Perhaps it's not crazy given that, according to the 2006 International Television and Video Almanac, we have 392 national cable channels to choose from and 40,000 DVD titles. And let's not forget the 175,000 books published annually, or the hundreds of movies released each year and the billions of Internet pages.

And still we want more — according to the census data, America's per capita pop culture consumption is expected to increase from 3,333 hours a year in 2000 to 3,518 hours in 2007. As Brian Graden, president of entertainment for the MTV Networks Music Group, notes, "the more media that's consumed, the more it drives overall usage. It's like an echo chamber effect."

Twenty years ago, people worried about the New Yorkers stacking up in their bathrooms, but now there's also 100 hours of TV stacked up in their TiVo and a long line of desired videos in the Netflix cue as well. Contemplating media overload, savvy media consumers and social scientists have even more weighty concerns: Is the glut of entertainment polarizing our country, killing our attention spans and turning us into a nation of fickle dilettantes?

On a personal level, how do people cope with the technoworld of infinite choice, particularly those who need to keep ahead of the curve?

Roy Lee, known around town as Hollywood's go-to guy for the latest sensation from Asia, manages to keep current by giving up sleep. He's down to a mere three to four hours a night. The 37-year-old producer on such fare as "The Grudge" and "The Departed," Lee watches a movie every night from 10 to midnight as he works out on the elliptical trainer, then spends the next three hours online trolling through websites, reading entertainment bloggers such as Jeffrey Wells and David Poland or searching cinema sites such as Twitchfilm.com or Cinematical.com for hints of what's cool in Seoul, Hong Kong and Taipei, Taiwan.

For books and music, he relies on Amazon.com's list of top sellers. The only medium that flummoxes him is TV — "I feel overwhelmed by the amount of TV. I try to limit myself to one show that I watch."

His friend, and rival, producer J.C. Spink stays abreast by reading 150 publications a month — including newspapers, magazines and the trades; other established publications such as Entertainment Weekly, his bible for TV; and more obscure publications such as Fortean Times and Mental Floss, which has "some great trivia. You find out how frozen dinners came into existence."

He researches his options further by surfing online, hunting for "niche people who like the same things you like, and looking at their recommendations." He reads the self-anointed commentators on IMDB, and if he likes what they say, looks for their other posts. Spinks, who no longer buys CDs but simply downloads songs, hunts for "peer-to-peer tastemakers." Recently, he has been relying on Cornerstone, a CD/video sampler compiled by a marketing group that he mysteriously began getting every month because they'd deemed the 33-year-old producer of "A History of Violence" a tastemaker. "I get to hear and see 60 new bands every month. I usually end up downloading songs by a bunch of them," he says.

DreamWorks chief executive Stacey Snider, who's renowned among intimates for having seemingly read every book possible and seen every cool movie worth seeing, says she winnows her choices by relying on peer recommendations — but only from friends and acquaintances. "It's a group of people — they turn me on to stuff and I turn them on to stuff. We know our tastes are comparable," she says.

For instance, "Tim and Eric" — i.e. Working Title Films producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner ("United 93" and "Pride & Prejudice") — "made me the anglophile I am today" and turned her on to people such as director Edgar Wright and comic Ricky Gervais. Another friend sends her CD samplers a couple of times a year. Sometimes it's not even people she knows well. "There's a guy at UTA, Charlie Ferraro — we barely know each other but every couple of months he calls and says 'I have your reading assignment.' "

Snider admits she'd rather stay home and watch "some weird movie" than go out to dinner. "I've always been a homebody that way. I was that way when I was single, so I can't lay it on my kids."

• • • • • • • • • • •

YouTube? I don't

Of course, media glut becomes more manageable if one filters the information or even deletes whole categories of options. (I'm older than 18. I don't YouTube. I don't game. I don't practice any of the quasi-entertainment options such as IMing or texting.)

Producer Michael London admits: "I've always been a media junkie. I've always been vulnerable to disappearing down the rabbit hole. When the rabbit hole has gotten bigger and deeper through the Internet, for people like me who multitask, it's created a real danger. It creates a perfect meltdown scenario to people who are vulnerable to trying to do too much at once. You can sit in your office, and you can be having a phone conversation while reading Variety online, and answering your e-mail, and having an IM chat with somebody. It sounds crazy, but it's not an exaggeration."

Ever hear a suspicious pause at the other end of the phone? As if whomever you're talking to just missed what you said?

"The thing that suffers," London says, "is your focus and your creativity. It limits the time you have for sitting and watching a movie, or reading a script, or thinking about an idea. The things that suffer and get thrown away are the things that require the most sustained thought." That's why London has been "trying in my own humble way to disconnect a little bit. You have to force yourself to go cold turkey. I literally tried to listen through an entire album a couple of weeks ago, to try to get back to that space where you listen to things as a whole instead of just sample. We live in a culture where everyone is sampling."

London, known for his taste after having produced such cool indie gems as "Sideways" and "Thirteen," is actually on the cutting edge of another emerging trend — what USC professor Jeffrey Cole calls the "e-nuff already" phenomenon.

Cole, the director of the Annenberg School for Communication's Center for the Digital Future, has been conducting a long-term longitudinal study on the effects of Internet use and computers on families. Surveying 2,000 households for the last six years, the researchers discovered that some of the "most advanced users of technology were saying, 'I'm tired of always being tethered to other people. Before I go to sleep I have to answer all my e-mail.' It's really a function of being overwhelmed by the amount of things technology makes available."

The e-nuff-already types are "mostly people who've been online six years or more. The real e-nuff-already people — the most extreme are the ones with BlackBerrys — but everybody feels the pangs. There's just too darn much.

"People talk about wanting choice, but they don't want too much choice," says Cole. "That comes out of psychology. In 1975, when there were in most markets seven TV stations, 90% of the viewing was on three channels — the three networks. Twenty years later, most people had well over 100 channels, but 90% of the viewing was on seven channels. You give people more choice, and they don't use that much more of it. On the Internet, 90% of Internet use is on 15 websites."

Swarthmore College professor Barry Schwartz, who specializes in psychology and economics, goes even further, and says that "when you give people too many options and too many variables, it paralyzes them and they end up choosing none, or if they do choose, they end up dissatisfied with their choice because they're sure they could have done better with all those options. Given the chance, people will choose lots of options and then suffer for it."

Schwartz, author of the book "The Paradox of Choice," cites research done by questionnaires as well as a study of how people choose their 401(k) plans and adds, "It's a relatively new thing that there is this explosion of choice everywhere. People have to learn how to handle it, and at the time, people are not handling it well."

Schwartz believes that the abundance of choice leads to a certain polarization in American society. "What worries me about the media explosion is it's killing any common culture because no two people experience the same stuff at the same time. No one is ever forced to encounter an idea they disagree with. Some people watch O'Reilly. Some watch 'The Daily Show.' Both represent the pure view. All you do is talk to people who agree with you. That's not good for democracy."

Trend spotter Marian Salzman, the New York-based chief marketing officer for ad agency JWT Worldwide and coauthor of the new book "Next Now: Trends for the Future," says that the media glut is making people "emotionally overloaded. There are too many things pulling on our heartstrings, and we're becoming emotionally desensitized. People cease choosing and become superficial grazers." Consumers are responding to the smorgasbord by becoming what Salzman calls "brand sluts."

"We're becoming promiscuous about our choices, and we'll go to wherever we get immediate emotional gratification," says Salzman, who bases her interpretation on an analysis of market research (an online panel of 80,000 American households), focus groups and journalistic trends.

MTV's Graden, whose company exhaustively researches its target youth demo, offers a different view. "I do think it's a sampling culture, but sampling can drive a deeper attachment," he says. He cites, for example, MTV's reality show "Laguna Beach." "The more media we put across on different platforms, the more personal attachment is fueled on behalf of the consumers — they feel like it's more personally their show, and that will drive ratings up."

• • • • • • • • • • •

Managing the overload

Despite the all-out cultural bombardment, no one suggests that Americans want to revert to a Soviet-style cultural dictatorship or even revert to the pastoral media climate of the 1950s. "What everybody wants is control," says Cole. "They want to know the good stuff."

Indeed, what appears to be rising almost as fast as new ways to stream media are lists, filters, any handy-dandy system to cut through the dross.

Professor Larry Gross, director of USC's Annenberg School of Communication, says that for the last 60 years, since the advent of TV, "research showed the key ingredient in media influence is other people. The term 'opinion leader' came into use. It refers to people who on the whole pay attention to the media and who to a large extent are influencing their friends." In other words, most people didn't rely on the media directly but on chosen intermediaries who deciphered it all for them.

Today, those intermediaries are often not even human, as many of the big online retailers have adopted the Big Brotherish tactic of tracking each consumer's buying patterns and making recommendations based on what similar buyers already bought. (My son recently looked online inside the book "Electronics for Dummies," and so Amazon breezily recommended he check out "Robot Builder's Bonanza." Not bad. Still, it's creepy knowing how much of my family's personal information is being stored by corporate America.)

For those who actually make the media that's consumed, all this choice can be a good thing — in that it keeps creators from getting lazy.

"Our ability to sell junk is diminishing," says movie producer Nathan Kahane ("Stranger Than Fiction," "The Grudge"). "Up until the last 24 months, you could market almost anything and make it look slick. They seem to be smelling rats more these days. The information spreads through the blogosphere and MySpace. That's the best thing in the world for the movie business. Any time a businessman has to take a look at their product and make it better in order to have consumers means the product is going to get better."

That said, choice makes life a lot more stressful for content providers. "I don't feel at all overwhelmed," says Kahane, 34, who has a 4-month-old and is spending more time at home, where his wife controls the clicker. "I feel overwhelmed as someone who claims to be creating entertainment to have a renewed sense of the massively changing tastes and how different younger people want to be entertained. Where are they going to take entertainment over the next 10 to 15 years? I think the truthful answer is we have no idea."

For my family, our adventure without TV lasted six weeks. We read more books. We talked more. We felt more virtuous. My 3-year-old even gave up "Dora the Explorer." But then we began to long for what we were missing: new episodes of "The Wire," the new season of "America's Next Top Model," the latest electronic news on the war in Iraq.

Finally, we broke down, hired a van, journeyed to Costco. Reader, we bought a 42-inch Sony LCD. And when the installers arrived to hang it on our wall, one thing became abundantly clear — this TV wasn't big enough.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-ca-innundated31dec31,1,6716014.story?coll=la-entnews-tv

Anybody find Verne Gay's selections (below) for his TV Top 10 list of 2006... I don't know... odd??!! :confused: :confused: :confused:

Critic's Notebook
The best television of 2006
By Diane Werts, Newsday December 31, 2006

So, maybe people don't yearn to watch TV on their computers, iPods, cell phones or eeny-weeny cable channels in the three-digit range.

Maybe people actually, still, shock of shocks, prefer to watch big-budget shows on big-time network television, at the exact same time everybody else does. (With the option to catch up in another format or dig deeper online, of course.)

But if the new hit shows of 2006 proved anything, it's that the networks might remember how much actual creativity and care count toward continued eminence. Develop an inspired show, with first-class production values, and present it with pride and enthusiasm. (HBO, anyone?)

Fall's biggest hit, "Heroes," was the most sterling example, well-launched by NBC as an imaginative character drama, taking the wind out of sci-fi skeptics' sails. Yes, the show has fantasy elements and adventure. But it's the people, stupid, that make its sprawling superpowers saga so addictive.

"Ugly Betty," too, got a big push from ABC that focused on the show's distinctive underdog attitude, not its telenovela roots, or its heroine's Hispanic heritage. The story and the tone were the thing, deftly folding in romance, family drama, pop-culture satire and even fairy-tale flamboyance, creating a sort of storytelling origami, satisfying from all angles. And a second show that might have been marginalized instead became a mainstream smash.

Both these 2006 hits hewed to the fall trend of serialized storytelling. But they worked, where shows like CBS' "Smith" and ABC's "Six Degrees" didn't, because we could care about the characters and relate to their motivations. Viewers haven't lost their desire for that personal connection. We just like it packaged now in ongoing sagas delivering weekly payoff thrills. Call it the "24"-ization of the landscape. In this ultracompetitive environment, even intimate character dramas need the Big Event rush that compels us to catch each episode, that leaves us feeling left out if we aren't in on what happened last night. "Grey's Anatomy" showed the way toward melding the two requisites of emotion and adrenaline: Which dreamy guy will Meredith choose, and will the bomb blow up? Gotta get that buzz.

Comedy still doesn't have it, despite a bumper crop of acclaimed outings, including NBC's "The Office" and "My Name Is Earl." Thumb your nose, if you want, at the brassy old sitcom recipe where a studio audience yukked it up on the soundtrack. But that shared response did lend an energy the new single-camera-coms haven't been able to capture. While we can admire them all we want, they seem to keep their distance somehow, never quite inviting personal affinity across a broad-based viewership. They stir deeper loyalty from fewer viewers (cult-coms?), rather than widespread enjoyment by the masses.

That's the weird thing. At the same moment the networks appear to be getting back their scripted-series mojo - with other ubiquitous hits like "House" and "Lost," plus the imminent return of "24" - they also seem poised to squander this dominant position atop the TV heap with more niche attractions, quick-hit cheapies and general white-flag-waving. They've ceded original programming on Saturday night completely, and now weeknights at 8 we see NBC coughing up flashily lit but empty-headed game shows showcasing contestants alternately sweating and squealing. This, to save short-term money, while at the same time, provocative series like "Heroes" and "Friday Night Lights" can reclaim the quality high ground to build long-term strength. Does NBC not remember what once made it great? (And oh so profitable.)

It's true that mushrooming modes of viewing, not to mention other electronic entertainment options, have radically altered the network landscape. Reruns, always a crucial part of the financial equation, are increasingly untenable, essentially kicking a crutch out from under the balance sheet. But first quickie reality series and then brain-dead game shows are robbing the networks of their pre-eminent position among all those dozens of channels and other choices. To paraphrase Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard," the shows are still big; it's the networks that have gotten small.

If they're not careful at this defining moment, their diminished offerings will soon seem perfectly suited for those little iPods and cell phones. The networks may relinquish the big living-room screen at precisely the moment it was once again theirs to rule.

VERNE GAY'S TOP 10

1. Katie Couric to "The CBS Evening News" – This was the most hyped anchor change in TV history, stoked by a lollapalooza of media speculation that basically managed to do all of CBS' work for it. The media were more excited about Couric's move to the anchor chair than was CBS, which tried to manage expectations - to no avail. When Couric's "Evening News" failed to topple Brian Williams' "Nightly News," the schadenfreude coverage began. But the fact remains: This was, is and will always be an historic move no matter what the ratings (or media pundits) ultimately say.

2. The YouTube revolution – Number one on my list is an old media move and number two is a new media one, but they could easily be interchangeable. YouTube and what it wrought - the Google model essentially (if crudely) applied to video - changed the way we consume television. ABC's iTunes deal further proved that viewers like their gratification instantly, and so each of the major networks (and cable as well) now stream repeats of big hits. Remember that old rallying cry of the Internet - that information yearns to be free? Apparently television does as well.

3. Bob Woodruff – In the annals of TV News history, his name - sadly - will earn only an asterisk, denoting the man who briefly replaced Peter Jennings (as part of a dual anchor team that also included Elizabeth Vargas.) Woodruff was nearly killed in January by a roadside bomb while covering the war in Iraq, thus depriving viewers of a chance to witness a promising career grow into a brilliant one.

4. Fox's O.J. Debacle – While searching for the real killer, O.J. Simpson took some time off to tell Judith Regan - publisher of his memoirs as well as Fox TV inquisitor for a day - how he would have killed his ex-wife if he had really done it. The most deviant "special" in TV history was canceled before it aired, but the view from the sidelines was, simultaneously, entertaining and depressing. Regan not only lost her special but ultimately her job.

5. "Grey's Anatomy" – One of the great things about TV comes under the heading, "You Just Never Know." You just never know when a show is going to come out of left field to completely change the prime-time landscape. Just never know when a show will launch new stars, or revive careers, or re-order the language, viewing habits, and (for that matter) Thursday night. "Grey's Anatomy," take a bow.

6. "The Office" – The finest comedy of the new century came into its glorious own last year. "Office" also won an Emmy for best comedy series, debunking a long-standing theory that the Emmy voters couldn't shoot straight. With this one, they hit the bull's-eye.

7. Jon Stewart and the Oscars – First, Bob Hope was the standout host of the Oscars. Then, Johnny Carson was the standout host of the Oscars. Now... Jon Stewart? Maybe: He had a terrific night, flawlessly blending Hollywood reverence with Hollywood contempt.

8. Ed Bradley – He was the quiet giant of broadcast journalism, whose death shocked an entire industry. It's easy to say that there would be no "60 Minutes" without creator Don Hewitt or Mike Wallace - easy because it's true - but "60 Minutes" would never have had monumental success without Bradley either. He was simply one of the best.

9. "The Path to 9/11" – TV's most controversial miniseries of the year may have been a Rorschach test for political beliefs (conservatives thought it was just fine; Democrats found it outrageously biased) but also proved that 9/11 is not just recent history but a still-raw and gaping wound.

10. Dave and Bill and Cosmo Kramer – David Letterman bookended 2006 with the two most memorable interviews of the year. First, there was the verbal brawl with Bill O'Reilly. Next, the somewhat bizarre encounter with Michael Richards, who was making amends for a bizarre racist meltdown at an L.A comedy club. Dave subsequently signed a new contract that'll keep him around (at least) three more years.

DIANE WERTS' TOP 10

1. Heroes (NBC). Nothing else on TV looks, moves or feels like this sprawling ensemble adventure of ordinary people discovering "powers" that let them bend time, heal instantly, see the future or literally take flight. Those of us who loved its down-to-earth fantasy from the beginning have since been joined by doubters to make it the fall's breakout hit. Potent payoffs arrive weekly as its scattered protagonists come together in an effort to "save the world" - while still coming personally to terms with the unexpected changes in their bodies, experiences and relationships. Don't we all deal with change every day? This is no cursory comic book. It's gut-deep metaphor. (With superpowers!)

2. The Shield (FX). Forest Whitaker created one of the year's most indelible characters as the near psychotically obsessed internal affairs dude determined to bring down the undercover police Strike Team that's been bending (if not obliterating) the rules since Michael Chiklis' alpha dog offed a cop in the pilot episode. Which was five seasons back. This show has made our Top 10 list every season, and its internecine conflicts just keep getting meatier and more tangled. Beneath the kick-butt character drama lies tough questions about the way we Americans see our society policed. Whitaker's underhanded ways only emphasize our own dilemmas over what we'll tolerate to keep the streets clean.

3. Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi). Terrorism? Insurgents? Political rivalries? Civil rights violations? This rock-'em-sock-'em drama was all over it, in outer space, robustly depicting civilizations in conflict over religion and power. The beauty is that its big meanings are delivered through such small moments, subtle characterizations and accumulating connections - with "right" and "wrong" framed in such realistically murky terms.

4. Friday Night Lights (NBC). Nothing huge happening here. Just daily life depicted with exquisite sensitivity, through the prism of a Texas town whose lives revolve around the high school football team. Both adults and teens are fully fleshed out in human scale, which often means a knowing glance or what's left unsaid. Texas location filming adds the extra point.

5. 24 (Fox). Was Jack ever back, in a fifth season that finally won both actor and drama Emmys for this action-packed nailbiter. The worldwide stakes just keep getting higher. And so, this season, did the body count. But the hazards that claimed Tony, Michelle and cuddly Edgar also showcased some sublime new stars, including Gregory Itzin's squirrelly president and Jean Smart as his tormented first lady. Kiefer Sutherland's inner authority sets an intense tone that continues to keep us transfixed (instead of nitpicking all those real-time incongruities).

6. House (Fox). The medical mysteries and Hugh Laurie's richly contentious lead portrayal would be reward enough. But this drama is also mining some rich psychological veins in regard to self-image and truth-telling. Both its regular characters and its visiting patients find themselves forced by circumstances to 'fess up to fears and weaknesses they'd rather not face.

7. Dexter (Showtime). If the previous pick's protagonist is a spirit-killer, this cable drama's leading man is a literal death-dealer. Michael C. Hall hits just the right note (again, as he did in "Six Feet Under"), playing a hollow-souled Miami forensic specialist whose sense of justice extends to the serial killing of heinous criminals who might otherwise go unpunished. Once again, we have to examine who we're rooting for and why. Dang if he isn't one charming (and perhaps justice-serving?) guy.

8. The Wire (HBO). TV's toughest viewing continues to be some of its most rewarding. This searing urban slice-of-life turned much of its focus this fourth season from Baltimore civic policy to the young lives shaped by those games of political football. As police and mayoral rivalries raged, we got to know four at-risk kids caught up in crime, punishment and a school system seemingly more designed for confinement than education. Societal choices never get any easier, but this show makes them a whole lot more real.

9. Ugly Betty (ABC). Finally, some comedy. (Though there's plenty of humor in "House" and "Dexter," too, and even in "The Shield.") This hourlong sendup of our glam-obsessed culture is also a fresh take on the family drama: A sincere ugly duckling tackles the cutthroat fashion publishing by being herself, maintaining her outer-borough family life with her dad, sis and nephew. Oh, yeah, she's Hispanic, which, when it isn't adding flavor, is beside the point. Consider it multicultural icing on the cake that is this underdog delight.

10. South Park (Comedy Central). Still savage, taking keen-eyed aim at the excesses of American life, be they Oprah's book club or activist atheists. These guys even roasted one of their own when Chef-voicing Isaac Hayes split over their 2005 skewering of Scientology. TV's most timely, observant and sharp adult comedy still rocks, 10 years on.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-fftv5030898dec31,0,6163874.story?coll=ny-television-headlines

The Business of TV
Can John Malone Remake His Cable Empire in the Sky?
By Mark Robichaux Broadcasting & Cable 1/1/2007

In a quiet room high above the graveyard of Trinity Church in lower Manhattan, where naval hero Captain James Lawrence and the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, are laid to rest, 65-year-old Liberty Media Chairman John Malone ruminates over his own legacy as head of the largest video distributor in the world.

After months of laying low, Malone last week struck one of the biggest asset swaps in media history: an $11 billion trade that makes Liberty the controlling shareholder in DirecTV, the largest satellite-TV provider in the world and the archrival of cable operators everywhere. In exchange for the 16.3% stake in News Corp. that Liberty had accumulated over the years, News Corp. agreed to give Malone its 38.5% stake in DirecTV Group, three regional sports networks and $550 million in cash. The swap saved millions of dollars in taxes, a signature preference of Malone.

What intrigued many wasn't so much that cable-TV pioneer Malone, the former chief of cable giant TCI who held the faithful spellbound at conventions, bought the enemy he swore to fight. What competitors and comrades alike are wondering is: What's next?

Malone, a tall, trim, white-haired executive who looks like a Marine Corps general and speaks like a Yale professor, keeps his cards notoriously close to his vest. But one thing is clear: He's ready to deal. On a recent cold winter day, Malone took time between meetings at the Bank of New York Building to discuss what lies ahead for Liberty, his new executive team and his changing role at the helm, and the big swap that thrust him into his position as Cable Enemy No. 1.

More than anything, DirecTV's 16 million subscribers give Malone something he's missed ever since he sold TCI to AT&T in 1999 for $50 billion and left with Liberty Media: distribution clout. DirecTV can now boost the value of Liberty's current—and future—portfolio of content assets, which includes Discovery Communications' suite of cable networks and Websites, the QVC TV shopping empire and Starz, a multiplatform pay-movie service.

The swap is the biggest deal so far in Malone's effort to remake Liberty into more of an operating company and less of an investment company, and caps a year of converting passive investments in companies into cash and operating businesses. In May, for example, Liberty sold its 50% stake in Court TV for $735 million to Time Warner. So far, Wall Street has rewarded Liberty Media Capital, driving the stock up around 20% over the past six months.

"Rationalizing" investments

Given this strategy, Malone believes Liberty's full potential can't be unlocked unless other investments in Liberty's portfolio can be sold, converted or, in Malone's words, "rationalized."

"You knew sooner or later we had to work something out with [News Corp. Chairman] Rupert [Murdoch]," Malone said. "We also have to work something out with CBS, Sprint, Time Warner and Viacom"—all of which are unconsolidated investments in Liberty's extensive holdings—as well as "rationalize our relationship" with InterActiveCorp, of which Liberty owns 22%.

"This is one more asset, one more piece of the puzzle," said Malone, peering out the window. "And as [Cablevision Chairman] Chuck Dolan told me the other day, he says he figures this makes us a 30-plus million subscriber company if we do this, you know? And that's the biggest ever, including the international and domestic, with a lot of upside still. It puts us back in the video-distribution game in a very meaningful way. And so it's an interesting shift of fate here."

Besides the satellite subscribers in the U.S., Liberty Global operates cable broadband systems reaching 13 million subscribers in 17 countries in Europe, Japan, Chile and Australia, as well as media and programming businesses, such as Jupiter TV in Japan and Chellomedia in Europe. (Liberty tracks its U.S. holdings with two stocks, Liberty Media Capital and Liberty Interactive.)

For News Corp., the swap allows a corporate stock buyback and removes any potential takeover threat from Liberty. But Malone said his intent was never to wrest control of News Corp. from the Murdoch family, only to "focus" its chairman: "For Rupert, it gets rid of a block of stock that could potentially give him heartburn down the road, which is good because I never wanted to put the company into a hostile posture. I'm glad that we're getting this resolved while Rupert and I are still young men."

Murdoch, 75, invested in DirecTV three years ago to complete his global satellite-TV empire, but retreated in the face of cable operators' aggressive "triple-play" offerings of TV, telephone and Internet services. But Malone sees growth and opportunity for his own assets, despite Wall Street analysts' contention that satellite-TV business growth has slowed.

"I continue to say what I've always said, which is I think cable television is a great business," he said. "But I think satellite TV is also a great business. And they will compete with each other, and they have different attributes. And you play the cards you're dealt, right? Would I rather have a 15 million-subscriber cable base in good shape and with no debt? Sure.

"DirecTV has 15.5 million subscribers with no debt, a wonderful cash flow, is sharing any growth in the video market with Echo Star. Cable guys, net, aren't growing in video. And DirecTV specifically is about to be able to offer an explosion of high-definition services that cable is going to have a hard time matching."

Despite chatter on Wall Street to the contrary, Malone isn't likely to merge DirecTV quickly with the other dominant satellite-TV operator, EchoStar Communications, run by business maverick Charlie Ergen. Still, he hopes the two companies can forge deeper ties.

"You know, if the government wouldn't let us put the businesses together today, we can at least save a lot of cost and capital by cooperating in certain areas," Malone said. "If you think, 'What are the possibilities for DTV?' Well, we could form an alliance with EchoStar and share a high-definition platform, which would either double the capacity or cut the costs in half or some combination. We could develop content jointly with EchoStar for that high-definition platform, which would be very interesting."

To match the cable operators' "triple play" of services, DirecTV needs robust Internet service and phone service. Rumors of a quick sale or outright merger with a telephone company are unlikely given the enormous tax implications, but huge opportunity lies in the telephone companies' need for a video play. AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon are all potential candidates for joint ventures and partnerships. "We can form a warmer and fuzzier relationship with the telcos in terms of being their video answer for their platform," Malone said. A sale to AT&T would be a trip down memory lane; after he sold TCI to AT&T in 1999, Malone walked away with TCI's programming arm, known today as Liberty Media.

Liberty owns at least two companies that can alleviate his need for Internet service. Current Communications, which delivers Internet service over power lines, has "promise but not ubiquity," said Malone. He also has high hopes for WildBlue Communications, which delivers broadband to rural homes via satellite. "We've already done joint-marketing deals with both Echo and Direct and AT&T for WildBlue. So there, we're in a position to be both the retailer and a wholesaler of high-speed transport for the rural market," he said. Moreover, DirecTV already has partnerships with Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth.

"Between Wi-Max , power-line broadband, even Wi-Fi network, we think that there's going to be lots of ways that the public is going to be able to get high-speed connectivity," Malone said. "But their ability to get lots of video channels is going to be somewhat limited. Cable can do it and satellite can do it, and we don't see any other way, any other technology can do it. So I think DTV is actually a great business. To continue to be a great business, it has to continue to innovate technologically. It has to come up with solutions for those people who want to bundle the communication services."

[b]Building 'bench strength'

When asked about what his fellow cable operators thought—particularly Comcast, the largest cable operator—Malone smiled. "Maybe we can do some joint-program things together, who knows? But you know, if you put [Comcast] scale together with our scale, including international, you're looking at some big numbers, the ability to underwrite some pretty interesting projects in terms of content. So it doesn't necessarily have to be because you're competing in one aspect of the game space that you can't cooperate in other aspects.

"I really think that's the world we're in. You've got to be able to see yourself in some situations as an ally, as neutral or as an adversary, a competitive adversary. It works that way pretty universally."

As content as he appears to be with the DirecTV deal, Malone is equally satisfied with the executive team he's put in place.

Liberty Media President/CEO Greg Maffei, who joined the company in the fall of 2005, previously served as president/CFO of Oracle, CFO of Microsoft Corporation and Chairman of Expedia. Michael T. Fries, a 20-year veteran of the cable and media industry, was appointed president/CEO of Liberty Global in June 2005. Just recently, Malone greenlighted the hire of David Zaslav, president of cable and new-media distribution for NBC Universal, to become Discovery's new CEO. Finally, Chase Carey, the News Corp. veteran who serves as DirecTV president/CEO, will stay in his post.

By his own description, it is the first time in a while that Malone has a team that could very well serve as a succession plan.

"The mantra that I sing now is, 'Let's make sure we have a team with bench strength and not just a one-man band,'" Malone said. "And, finally, maybe we're getting a set of CEOs and management team of the next generation that can carry it for the next 20 years, which is great. We really have struggled with this whole concept of, 'So now who's going to run it?'"

Maffei, who has taken over more operating responsibilities, says the recent year of deals, especially DirecTV, make Liberty "relevant again," and working for Malone has been "a challenge in the best sense."

Any plans Malone has in store must wait until after the deal closes, likely in the middle of next year. But he is content to wait.

"I'm sitting in all the planning and budgeting meetings this year, but I don't know why," he said. "This may be the last year when I decide that I ought to do that. It's much easier as a director to pull back on the reins than it is to supply energy. Reins are not a good energy supplier—it's like pushing on a string. So I would much rather—I've learned in my old age here—have very energetic, aggressive guys running the businesses and being more of the brake than to have to supply the energy."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6403293

Favorite "cable" shows:

1) Battlestar Galactica
2) Deadwood
3) Weeds
4) Real Time w/ Bill Maher
5) The 4400

Guilty pleasure:

Nip/Tuck

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

fredfa is there anymore news you have seen on the recent preview for CSI next week that hints to Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) leaving the show? I'm surprised no one is talking about this. He to me is the anchor of that show, and has/always will be the icon that is CSI, that no spin off show/character can ever replace. I really hope he doesn't leave but if he does it is really sad and should be discussed.

He is leaving for a handful of episodes. I think it is for a movie, but, frankly, I forget the details.

I think he is missing a total of seven CSI episodes, but I could be wrong. I'll try to find out more info for you.

Actually he has been appearing on stage in "The Dublin Carol" in Providence RI since late November. The run extends through January 7th.

So, with the holiday break, Peterson will miss just four episodes of CSI.

His contract with the show (where he also serves as an executive producer) extends through next season, so perhaps he is getting everyone ready for the future without Gil Grissom.

He has made it clear for years he doesn't see himself doing the show forever, and wants to return to the stage whenever possible.

cdp1276, back in October I posted this article on this very thread:

LIEV IS FALLING INTO ROLE ON 'CSI'
Post staff writer

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

So there you have it. Petersen is taking some time off to star in a theater play, recharge his batteries and then continue with the show. Remember that working on an hour-long TV drama is back-breaking and tedious work, and Petersen's been anchoring CBS' #1 hit show for six-and-a-half years now. The man is burned, and if time off to do theater will keep him from bolting (back in 2003 he said he was quitting but Bruckheimer threw a ton of cash at him to keep Petersen onboard: http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,591819_3_0_,00.html) then more power to him. If Jesse L. Martin can take time off from Law & Order to do the film version of Rent then so can Petersen.

I disagree on Law & Order Jesse Martin wasn't the lead or main focus of the show. For CSI it's almost all about Grissom. Unless the temporary replacement is really fantastic I expect the ratings to drop.

I agree, cocoon.

"Law & Order" has continued to thrive through many, many cast changes over the years. (Although I think the death of Jerry Ohrbach started it on a steady descent.)

But with "Grey's Anatomy" back with originals during the Peterson absence, I suspect "CSI" will lose some ground.

But that probably just means "CSI" will do far better with repeats when "Grey's Anatomy" goes into its repeats.

The January prime-time network schedule grid has been added to the bottom of post #2 as a pdf.

It is here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=4265637&&#post4265637

The January prime-time network schedule grid has been added to the bottom of post #2 as a pdf.

It is here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=4265637&&#post4265637

Hi Fred,

You have The Class listed at both 8:00 and 8:30 on CBS on Monday on the grid. Should be How I Met Your Mother at 8 o' clock.

:p

Also wanted to say one thing quickly. Based on the high rankings the critics and AVS form regulars gave Dexter and Battlestar Galactica over the last few weeks in this thread, I took it upon myself to check both shows out while I am on holiday.

Watched the full series of Dexter - Loved it.
Watched the BSG miniseries and half of Season 1 (so far) - loving it too.

I am going to hustle and watch the rest of BSG Season 1, 2.0 and 2.5 in the next few weeks, so that I can start watching Season 3 in glorious HD and 5.1 sound when it premieres on UHD in late Jan.

Thanks to this thread for the great recommendations.

Hi Fred,

You have The Class listed at both 8:00 and 8:30 on CBS on Monday on the grid. Should be How I Met Your Mother at 8 o' clock.

:p


Thanks, rustycruiser. I hope others will keep their eyes peeled for errors.

I tried to check everything again and again, but as readers of this thread realize, I make mistakes by the ton!

Critic’s Notebook
Gail Pennington's TV Top 10
St. Louis Post-Dispatch December 31, 2006

For television, 2006 sometimes felt like a big game of musical chairs. Familiar faces appeared in unfamiliar places or disappeared altogether. Whole networks changed their names. And, of course, favorite shows came and went, some departing after many years and others exiting with head-spinning abruptness.

Here are 10 of the people, events and trends that made TV news in 2006.

• Katie Couric Rumors that CBS was trying to lure her away from the "Today" show to anchor "The CBS Evening News" swirled for months before the announcement in April. Couric's Sept. 5 debut lifted CBS to first place from third, but the boost was temporary. After two months, the show's ratings had slipped below a year earlier, when Bob Schieffer was anchoring.

• Charlie Gibson A year ago, ABC had just appointed Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas as co-anchors of "World News Tonight." Then, on Jan. 29, Woodruff suffered severe head injuries while reporting from Iraq. He continues to recuperate. In May, Vargas stepped down to have her second child, and Gibson (who had previously been passed over for the younger duo) got the solo job.

• Rosie O'Donnell The dominoes that started to fall when Couric took the CBS job continued in April as NBC tapped Meredith Vieira, co-host of "The View" on ABC, to fill Couric's spot on the "Today" couch. Barbara Walters quickly coaxed O'Donnell out of retirement to moderate "The View," then in June said a not-so-fond farewell to Star Jones. Despite reports of conflict and buzz that O'Donnell may split when her one-year contract runs out, the conversation (and ratings) have never been better. And Vieira has eased seamlessly into "Today" since her Sept. 30 arrival.

• The CW CW? That's the acronym they came up with when UPN and the WB announced a surprise merger, turning two struggling networks into one. In St. Louis, KPLR (Channel 11), the former "WB 11," became "CW 11" when the new network launched its first season in September. Former UPN station WRBU (Channel 46), meanwhile, signed on with MyNetworkTV, running serialized dramas in prime time.

• Aaron Sorkin His "West Wing" ended its run in May, but NBC had already promised a slot on the fall schedule to Sorkin's new show, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Set backstage at a late-night comedy show, "Studio" couldn't equal the best of "West Wing" for quality, but NBC stuck with the new show, renewing it for the full season.

• Farewells Besides "West Wing," "Will & Grace" signed off, along with "Malcolm in the Middle" and "That '70s Show." But venerable "7th Heaven" has to retract its gala goodbye party after being uncanceled by the CW.

• 'Heroes' If one show can save a network, it might be this freshman thriller, which gave beleaguered NBC new life and new buzz.

• 'American Idol' The Fox talent competition — a ratings blockbuster from Day 1 — didn't lose a beat, remaining the top program on television and drawing more than 50 million phone votes in one week alone.

• Serial overload When the networks scheduled so many continuing dramas for fall 2006, observers suggested that viewers might be reluctant to commit their time to so many serials, especially after others had been cut short without a conclusion. That concern proved true; a few serialized dramas (notably CBS' "Jericho" and NBC's "Heroes") have become hits, but far more fell victim to early cancellation. Some unaired episodes were made available as streaming video, but viewers remained annoyed, with many vowing not to watch another serialized show until the DVD set comes out.

• The local scene The biggest headline came last, when anchor Karen Foss announced that she would retire from KSDK (Channel 5) after 27 years. Her final day was Thursday; Deanne Lane will be her replacement. KSDK led the way in 2006 by broadcasting its news in high-definition but couldn't maintain its lead at 10 p.m., losing to longtime rival KMOV (Channel 4) in November sweeps. KMOV could also boast of being the top-rated late local newscast in the United States. KTVI (Channel 2) hired Kingsley Smith as news director, replacing Brad Remington. KMOV said goodbye to news director Marty von Housen. KPLR (Channel 11) appointed Keryn Shipman chief meteorologist, replacing Garry Seith. KETC (Channel 9) appointed Jack Galmiche president and CEO after a yearlong search. Galmiche, a native St. Louisan, faces the challenge of doing more (original programming) with less (fewer days devoted to pledge drives).

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/stories.nsf/tvradio/story/C03C757EC0E085F386257253007E3A61?OpenDocument

Critic’s Notebook
In and Out List
A Year-End Look at the Shows and Players That Made a Splash
New York Post Staff December 31, 2006

SERIES

IN -- 'Heroes' Tim Kring's compulsive addictive superhero series combines intrigue, vibrant graphics and smart casting to deliver this season's fastest-growing hit.
OUT -- 'Lost' Stranded is more like it. Not even Evangeline Lilly in her tank top can get this convoluted show back on track. Secret: It's the new 'Alias.'

NEW YORKERS

IN -- Rosie O'Donnell Tough broad takes on Trump. Mano a mano, we know who would win this schoolyard smackdown: O'Donnell in the tenth round.
OUT -- Donald Trump Publicity starved mogul is desperate for someone to watch "The Apprentice" in January before the "Housewives" crush it once and for all.

CREATORS

IN -- Salma Hayek The clever co-creator of "Ugly Betty" has bolstered the show by appearing on the most endearing new series of the season.
OUT -- Aaron Sorkin Ok, so NBC gave "Studio 60" a full-season order, but ratings for this show still stink. What happened to all those "West Wing" fans who couldn't wait for Sorkin to return to TV?

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12312006/tv/in_and_out_list_tv_.htm

Critic’s Notebook
With Friends Like These...
Courteney Cox's "Dirt"
By Troy Patterson Slate.com December 29, 2006

It's considered poor critical etiquette, for some sniveling reason, to linger on what the piece of entertainment under review might have been—to fault the fundamental approach—so I won't go on and on about how Courteney Cox's Dirt (FX, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET) stood a chance of being fun. The show, a fantasy about tabloid magazines, might have been a madcap riff on scandal and compromise, frothy with soap and frothing with bile, if developed by producers with the right sense of humor or, in fact, any discernible sense of humor at all. But Dirt is far too busy cultivating its dour heavyosity to bother with funny business, and we must push away the thought of pleasure and poke at the dish we're served, which is cold, bitter, and bloating, with a gritty aftertaste. Dirt is quick-moving but painfully solemn, somehow constituting a plodding romp. At their very best, the first three episodes play like bad Kubrick.

The antiheroine, an editor named Lucy Spiller (Cox), first appears at a Hollywood party sheathed in a gown of imperially bitchy crimson. An agitated rock song grinds away on the soundtrack as Lucy oozes across a terrace and assembles an imaginary magazine cover just by surveying the scene and deploying a predator's intuition: The male actor ogling male ass is ripe for the outing; the bingeing waif is a bulimia cover line waiting to happen. Returning to her martini, Lucy bumps into a movie mogul, a heavyset gentleman named, with the cumbersome fake-backstaginess of the show, Harvey.

After opening with some chit-chat about his desire to poison her drink, Harvey simultaneously seethes at Lucy and praises her as a gossip savant. She parries by barking out the obvious with requisite smugness: "As much as you all hate to admit it, you need me." And soon we see the lights of all Los Angeles stretching out to the horizon, and then terrible clouds shroud the city, as if a plague is gathering or there's an unhealthy particle-pollution level, and a crimson noose is tightening around Lucy's neck, and she wakes from this dream with a gasp.

Ah, the rich nonsense of Hollywood Gothic! Lucy's got a bad conscience and worse karma, but Don Konkey, her star paparazzo and dirtiest worker, helps her bear the weight. He's her soul mate, the Renfield to her Dracula, and (for the sake of some old-school glamour and Weegee-esque cred) "the last pap to shoot on film." The actor in the role, Ian Hart, has the authentically rodentine air of hardened sleazemongers—the ferrety look that comes with years of distinguished service to Page Six and such—which is a nice touch. The character himself is a schizophrenic, which isn't. It looks like Don is going to spend the life of the series hallucinating visions of Kira Klay, a starlet who committed suicide (in the hot tub, with the cocaine) after he turned her unplanned pregnancy into a national scandal. Kira wafts around in her Laura Palmer pallor, a glum muse and a voice from the cellar at once, forming a trinity with Lucy and Don to symbolize the rotten heart of the gossip business. Here it is, kids, disease and desire, just like back in Comp Lit.

Lucy and Don traffic in sensational celebrity indiscretions. There's a freebasing Christian rocker, a closeted action hero, and an adulterous basketball star (Rick Fox, a former Los Angeles Laker, deploys his innate greasiness to fine effect). There's an actress with a pill problem and sex tape, her duplicitous boyfriend, and a homicidal R&B producer. And what would a show like this be without a hot lesbian drug dealer? If you can follow the show's intricate and frantically spun web of ambition, blackmail, and deceit, you'll notice that none of its threads is especially interesting, and it doesn't help that the actors playing movie stars in this Hollywood Babylon are manifestly lacking in star quality. Dirt requires you to believe that Grant Show, formerly of Melrose Place, could be an A-list actor, despite the fact that he looks an awful lot like Grant Show, formerly of Melrose Place. Further, Lucy has a love life. In the pilot, she emerges from another party to discover a studly young man reading a novel while waiting for the valet to come around with his car. Savvy connoisseurs of trash will already know what the book is:

Studly Young Man (breathtaken): The whole thing happens because the guy dips a cookie in some tea.

Lucy: It's not just any cookie. It's a madeleine.

Interviewed by the New York Times, Matthew Carnahan, who gets the creator credit on Dirt, said that he wanted to make this "a show about the cultural apocalypse" and went on invoke Faust. Meanwhile, in Entertainment Weekly, Cox—a producer as well as the star—told a story about recruiting one real-life paparazzo as a consultant for the show after he trained his lens on her baby daughter at Disneyland. At first, Cox and her husband were going to order the photographer exiled from the happiest place on earth, but they had a change of heart: "I felt bad because it's Anaheim, and he followed us so far so I said, 'Look, you can have one shot, then leave us alone. But I want your card.' " That quote is awesome—the player's trade, "it's Anaheim"—and a clue that Dirt is less interesting as a show about cultural apocalypse than one more blinking indicator of it.

http://www.slate.com/id/2156394/fr/flyout

A little something for the ladies! ;)

TV Notebook
Love Story
Kate Walsh Dishes About 'Grey's Anatomy' Man-Candy
By Paige Albiniak, New York Post December 31, 2006

On "Grey's Anatomy," gorgeous redhead Kate Walsh plays the Prada-and-Armani-clad Dr. Addison Montgomery, the former wife of Dr. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd

But off camera, Walsh, 39, is the down-to-earth girl who will share secrets over beers with you at the local bar until the wee hours.

In season one of the ABC mega-hit, Dr. Montgomery Shepherd showed up unannounced at Seattle Grace when Derek (Patrick Dempsey) and Meredith (Meredith Grey) were madly in lust. She came off as a class-A bitch, saying to Meredith, "You must be the woman who's been screwing my husband." For months to come, the merely average intern shriveled in her presence.

Addison spent most of season two trying to save her marriage, which became irreparably damaged when her husband caught her in bed with his best friend, Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan (Eric Dane), who now also works at Seattle Grace. Still, Addison tried everything to keep her marriage together, including moving from her Manhattan brownstone to Derek's Airstream trailer in the Seattle woods.

"She was a little pathetic," Walsh says, "but I think people are a little pathetic when it comes to love. I personally would be. It's not pretty, but it's real. And even if you were like, 'God, let it go, sister,' you couldn't help but feel compassion for Addison."

Viewers certainly did. In fact, the show's producers and fans so took to Walsh's portrayal of the character that her five-episode guest arc soon turned into a permanent gig.

Kate Walsh was born in San Jose, CA, and grew up in the city made famous by the Dionne Warwick pop hit, and in Tuscon, Arizona. Though, at five-feet-ten, she was tall enough to be a model, Walsh pursued acting, studying drama in Chicago at the Piven Theatre Workshop. She earned some cool early television credits on "The Drew Carey Show" and "The Mind of the Married Man" before taking a headlong plunge into network television drama. It's paid off, handsomely. The actress, who lives in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, says, "Being on 'Grey's has changed my life in every way. My life is now so much bigger than it ever was before," she says. "I went to Robertson [Avenue] the other day to buy something and there were photographers there. That was a very strange experience, but I feel like I'm moving gracefully into dealing with it."

Addison is dealing less gracefully with her life this season. She's newly divorced. Mark is back to his old mattress-hopping ways, and everyone's wondering when the gorgeous obstetrician is finally going to get busy like the rest of the show's hot doctors.

"You have to watch the show to see if she's going to be dating anyone," Walsh hints coyly, "but there may be a love scene in her future. Let's pray, anyway. She needs some action."

Even though Addison and McSteamy seem to have cooled down, with Addison endeavoring to ignore the sculpted piece of man-candy that's always strutting around in front of her. Walsh says their story is far from over. "There's a bunch of stuff coming up for them," she says. "They take two steps forward and one step back, and then come back to it again a little later."

Besides the evident on-screen chemistry Walsh shares with her co-star, she is effusive about Dane, and his wife, actress Rebecca Gayheart. On camera, Walsh says Sloan is the man you can't resist. "Mark's the guy you shouldn't be with, but you can't help it. He's the guy that you look at and say 'I know better, but I'm going to do it anyway,'" she says.

Attentive viewers also recently caught Addison sharing a meaningful glance with cocky intern Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), but Walsh doesn't know where that subplot's going.

"That's a tricky situation," she says. "There's some intrigue there, but he's an intern so she's not supposed to date him. I think that Alex and Addison are cut from the same cloth. He's the intern form of her in a way."

GREY'S ANATOMY

Thursday, 9 p.m., ABC

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12312006/tv/love_story_tv_paige_albiniak.htm

TV Notebook
Saddam execution sees networks rely on Arabic sources
Fox News, CNN, MSNBC first to report
By Michael Learmonth Variety December 30, 2006

The hanging of Saddam Hussein turned Friday night into a high-wire act on TV news as the networks raced to determine if the former dictator's sentence had been carried out and how they much should show of it.

The Iraqi government kept a tight lid on the proceedings after Hussein was handed over from U.S. custody for execution, keeping the mostly Green Zone-bound U.S. correspondents in the dark and forcing American news nets to rely heavily on Arab news sources for information.

Because of the secrecy the networks had to watch as the information trickled out to Arabic-language sources while they struggled to confirm it. Shortly after 10 p.m., Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC were all reporting the hanging had taken place, quoting Arabic news services.

"We're hearing this straight off of Al-Arabiya," said CNN's Aneesh Raman, in Baghdad. The Dubai-based 24-hour news channel had a representative present at the execution, CNN said.

NBC was the first U.S. broadcast network to break into primetime programming, reporting at 10:14 p.m. EST that Hussein had been executed, according to three "very credible" Arabic-language stations.

CBS was the first network to independently confirm Hussein's sentence had been carried out. Katie Couric broke into primetime with a special report at 10:18 p.m. with a live report from correspondent Randall Pinkston in Baghdad.

"All of us saw the quotes on Arab media but we were not going to go with it until we could confirm it. Then we sat and sweated until we got a second source," said CBS News VP Paul Friedman.

ABC was the last network to break into primetime at 10:25 p.m., but because it was in the midst of "20/20" and had "Nightline" to follow, it was able to offer the most comprehensive coverage on network TV.

Shortly after anchor Elizabeth Vargas read the news for the Alphabet at 10:25 p.m., "20/20" made the jarring switch from a shot of Nicole Ritchie's emaciated body to a packaged report on Hussein.

ABC's "Nightline" ditched its planned line-up for a pre-taped Hussein retrospective, which tracked his rise from poverty to become Iraq's strongman.

After the initial report, networks stood by waiting for the images, which they expected to be grisly.

"We aren't going to get these images and just slap them on TV," said CNN's Anderson Cooper.

When the images finally came from Al-Arabiya, shortly after 3 a.m, network execs screened it expecting the worst.

"Producers in the control room held their breath when the tape started rolling -- they didn't know what was coming," said ABC News SVP Bob Murphy.

In the end, the initial decision was a relatively easy one. The video showed the final preparations, Hussein being led onto the gallows, and a noose being tightened around his neck, but did not show the hanging.

"I thought it was a powerful scene; here was the Butcher of Bagdad, as ruthless as he was, totally powerless," Murphy said.

Because little editing was required, CNN and Fox News Channel began airing the video shortly after 3 a.m. EST. Network TV aired the video on their Saturday morning news shows.

Later, nets received a video of Hussein's face, which zoomed in and showed his broken neck. Most networks decided to air the wide shot as a still image, rather than the whole tape.

Network execs said they still expect the official recording of the execution from Iraqi state TV to be released. A CBS News producer in Washington, DC received a video of the actual hanging on his cell phone, indicating that the entire video is probably already circulating on the Web.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1400000990.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

TV Notebook
Turning the tabloids Courteney Cox leaves Monica behind in `Dirt'
By David Kronke, Los Angeles Daily News December 31, 2006

Courteney Cox, who stars as a tabloid editor in the new FX series "Dirt," received insight into just how well-oiled a machine the celebrity-tabloid industry really is when she paid a visit to the London offices of The Sun.

"I just wanted to watch how it works," Cox recalls. "I walked through one bank of computers, and someone asked me, 'Do you want to see what you've been doing for the past day?' And he showed me online photos of my leaving my hotel that morning, getting in the car and entering the Sun building. And I had been there for all of five minutes."

Cox plays Lucy Spiller, a brittle, driven career woman who chases down Hollywood's most salacious stories.

Fans of Monica Geller, Cox's character on "Friends," may not even recognize the actress in her nasty new role, which she says is "absolutely" her motivation for taking it on.

"When I first signed on to do the show, we were developing it, and I was just going to produce," Cox recalls. "The original idea didn't have a lead female, and the main character was not an editor. But we knew we wanted it to be set in a tabloid."

Novelist and playwright Matthew Carnahan was brought in and tinkered with the concept, introducing, at FX's suggestion, "a female antihero."

'Flashes of real brilliance'

Carnahan and Cox met with The Sun's editor Rebecca Wade, which Carnahan said inspired "a revelation about the character - I got a much better take on the character, went back to work on her. The secret for me was prior to meeting her, I never really respected the character, and you can't write like that. After meeting Rebecca, I had a tremendous amount of respect for (Lucy). I connected with her wit and sense of mischief and flashes of real brilliance. It was an interesting thing to meet this person and have my preconceived notions blown away."

At that point, Cox says, "The script was so rich, I had to play it. The appeal of not playing a character who was anything like Monica was very much part of it."

Cox hopes "Friends" fans will accept her as a dark character.

"The pilot is very much an ensemble piece, and Lucy's very much the puppet master. They can watch as I ease my way out of Monica into Lucy, and they can ease their way in, as well - (Lucy's behavior) does get worse."

As does virtually every character's in the series. In "Dirt," the young Hollywood stars Lucy's reporters cover have all manner of hedonistic vices and peccadilloes, all portrayed with a frankness that pushes the envelope even for basic cable.

"It's amazing what you can do on FX," Cox marvels. "We've created this kind of a morbid world, then we show what happens in it. On 'Friends,' the dialogue was pretty mamby-pamby compared to what we do on this show. If FX actually says no to something we want to do, then chances are we probably shouldn't do it."

As the series demonstrates, the dynamic between stars and the tabloids can be trickier than simply dismissing scandalous exposes as lies. Tabloids can help careers as easily as they can ruin personal lives, particularly at a time when fan interest in celebrity seems to be attaining feverish highs.

'Not a great bargain for an actor'

"The difference between a tabloid and the real news is like the difference between a comic book and (Russian novelist Fyodor) Dostoyevsky," notes Ian Hart, co-star of the series, who plays photographer Don Konkey.

"Celebrities are aware of their part of the bargain. Naively, that's what we do, and they get bitten in the ass. Nine times out of 10, it's probably not a great bargain for an actor."

"It's a vicious cycle - the public wants to see glossy tabloids, and the glossy tabloids need paparazzi," Cox adds from the makeup trailer on the set of the show, where she has been running lines with Hart. "You can't get away from it; the competition is so strong. There are so many of them, it gets out of hand."

Cox and her husband, actor David Arquette (who also has a new series debuting this week: ABC's "In Case of Emergency," on Wednesday), have found themselves tabloid fodder through the years.

"That was annoying," Cox concedes. "But nothing gets me down.

"Sometimes, I'll say 'no comment' if they try to contact me. But I've never tried to sue. It's not worth it."

The show also takes hits at young Hollywood's party patrol: "Everyone's taking a hit here," she says. "We're not sparing anybody."

Carnahan demurs on the ethics of the industry his new series essays.

"Do (celebrities) deserve that sort of scrutiny? I don't know. Is this just the price of fame? I don't know. Is it some moral or ethical comeuppance? I'm not sure. There are questionable tactics used by paparazzi and tabloid editors and stringers all the time.

"The bigger question or observation is the gluttonous, nonstop appetite for it. That, for me, is what's surprising.

"It's this bonfire - the more you feed it, the bigger it grows, the bigger it grows, the more out of control it gets. It's a bonfire of excess and cultural shadows."

But, Carnahan confesses, he's not immune to the allure of the tabloids himself.

"As a result of doing this show, I'm hooked too," he admits. "In our writing room, we have 30 of these things on our table at any given time. So, yeah, you can catch me reading the latest on Britney."

http://www.dailynews.com/tv/ci_4925092

TV Notebook
Don't Ask Me to Predict 'American Idol'
By Adam Buckman, New York Post December 31, 2006

You want a year in review?

I'll give you one - mine!

What kind of a year did I have? Let me tell you.

My favorite story of the year was the one I wrote about the amazing handwalkers of rural Turkey - a family of human "quadrupeds" who walk on all fours. They were profiled on "Nova" in November.

The year's most priceless quote comes from a column about "Flavor of Love," starring Flavor Flav, on VH1. It was uttered on the show by one contestant when another interrupted her prayers. "Girl," she said, "you better quit interruptin' my prayers 'fore God direct me to whup yo' ass!"

The year's most ridiculous story was the one about "Survivor" winner Brian Heidik shooting a neighbor's dog. The lead sentence read: "An early morning puppy hunt landed the winner of 'Survivor: Thailand' in a Georgia jail."

And for bold punning, it would be hard to beat this lead sentence from a "Project Runway" story last March: "It was a clothes call - but in the end, Chloe Dao had victory all sewn up."

But there was much more to my 2006 than clever wordplay. There were reviews, interviews and miscues.

Who can forget the time last March when a night editor mixed up the photos of Katharine McPhee and Melissa McGhee and placed the wrong one on my "American Idol" story? Readers didn't let me forget it; they sent me nasty e-mails for a week.

On the plus side, I was delighted to champion "Heroes," "Dexter," "The Wire," "Deadwood," "Entourage" and "Rescue Me."

And I was glad to help send the following shows packing. Who can forget ""Free Ride" (Fox), "Courting Alex" (CBS), "Get This Party Started" (UPN), "Lovespring International" (Lifetime) and "Dane Cook's Tourgasm" (HBO)? Answer: Everybody.

I would like to thank the following celebrities for giving me great interviews: Megan Mullally, Bob Saget, Danny DeVito (months before he showed up drunk on "The View"), Stanley Tucci, Gerald McRaney, Gregory Itzin (President Logan on "24") and Michael Chiklis.

And I got a big kick out of meeting the following stars in person: Michael C. Hall of "Dexter," Tina Fey of "30 Rock," Justin Kirk and Elizabeth Perkins of "Weeds," Ice Cube (producer) of "Black. White.," and the incredible teen-aged actors from "The Wire."

Concerning 2006, I have no regrets - not even for going way out on a limb and wrongly picking Paris Bennett to win it all on "American Idol" based on her first audition.

Oh well - in the TV business, as in life, you can't win 'em all.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12312006/tv/dont_ask_me_to_predict_american_idol_tv_adam_buckman.htm

TV Q&A
TV Q&A by David Inman
Boston Herald December 31, 2006

Question: My question is about the show “Leave It to Beaver.” I know the boy who played Beaver is still alive. What happened to the actor who played the older brother, Tony Dow? Is he still alive?

Answer: Golly, yes! Lately, however, Dow has been more active behind the camera, directing episodes of the cable series “Cover Me” and “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show.”

Question: I’m trying to remember a western series from the 1960s in which one of the characters was named Johnny Madrid. Can you help?

Answer: Affirmative. The show ran on CBS from 1968 to ’70 and the title was “Lancer,” although a more descriptive title might have been “A Show About a Family Living on a Big Ranch Out West, But Not ‘Bonanza.’ ” Andrew Duggan played rancher Murdoch Lancer. His estranged sons, who came to love the old son-of-a-gun as time went on, were Scott (Wayne Maunder) and Johnny (James Stacy), who had previously gone by the name Johnny Madrid.

Question: When I was growing up, I remember watching a Christmas special on TV about a father, his daughter and maybe a housekeeper. Anyway, I think it was called “Oh, Christmas Tree” and the father was not in the Christmas spirit. He wouldn’t let the daughter have a tree and then in the end he did and it was such a sad but heartwarming show. I have never seen it since and wondered if you might know what I am remembering. It seems like the actor was the white male who often played in “All in the Family.” Can you help? Is it on video?

Answer: That was “The House Without a Christmas Tree,” a 1972 TV movie with Jason Robards, Lisa Lucas and Mildred Natwick. There were several sequels - 1973’s “The Thanksgiving Treasure” (also known as “The Holiday Treasure”), 1975’s “The Easter Promise” and 1976’s “Addie and the King of Hearts.” All of them featured Lucas, Robards and Natwick.

Question: There is a commercial for the NFL Network with a song that includes the words “don’t let them take it away.” Can you tell me the song’s name and who sings it?

Answer: The song is “Words,” the group is the Doves and the CD is “The Last Broadcast.”

Question: Whatever happened to Patricia Richardson of “Home Improvement”? I heard she had a role on some hospital show but I never could find her. What else has she been doing?

Answer: Since “Home Improvement” went off the air in 1999, Richardson has been a semi-regular on two TV series. She played Dr. Andy Campbell on the Lifetime series “Strong Medicine” from 2002to ’05 and last season she was Sheila Brooks on NBC’s “The West Wing.”

Question: I remember seeing a Christmas show, probably in the 1970s, that starred Fred Astaire. It seems like Astaire played Santa, but not in regular costume. I would love to know the name of it, and if I could find it to watch again. I really thought it was excellent.

Answer: That’s the 1979 TV movie “The Man in the Santa Claus Suit,” which also stars Gary Burghoff and Nanette Fabray. It’s on video.

Question: Back in the mid-1970s there was a made-for-TV movie about a prisoner who produced counterfeit money while behind bars and had an elaborate plan to escape with it. Can you tell me the title and if it’s on video?

Answer: That’s the 1973 TV movie “Money to Burn” with E.G. Marshall, Mildred Natwick and Cleavon Little. It’s not on video or DVD.

Question: I was watching a rerun of “The Cosby Show” the other day and I swear Alicia Keys was playing a friend of one of the kids. So I actually have two questions. 1. Was that Alicia Keys? 2. Were there other young actors on the show who later became famous?

Answer: Keys did appear in a 1985 episode of “The Cosby Show” titled “Slumber Party.” It aired during the first season and she appeared under the name Alicia Cook. Some other young actors who appeared before they became famous include Kristoff St. John (in “How Ugly Is He?” from Season 1), Robin Givens and Blair Underwood (in “Theo and the Older Woman” from Season 2) and Adam Sandler (in “Dance Mania” from Season 4).

http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=174600

Critic's Notebook
TV Reviews: 'Knights,' 'Emergency' join ABC
By Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette December 31, 2006

Knights of Prosperity," a new comedy from the producers of "Ed," gently amuses, tickling the funny bone even if it doesn't elicit gut-busting laughter. It's a cute show, but the premise is so paper-thin you have to wonder how the writers will sustain "Knights" (9 p.m. Wednesday, ABC) for a full season, let alone many years, if successful.

Donal Logue ("Grounded for Life") stars as Eugene, leader of a modern-day band of Robin Hoods who devise a plan to steal "from the rich and give to the poor: Us." He hatches his plan after a co-worker -- another janitor at his dead-end job -- dies while mopping the floor.

Eugene dreams of opening a bar he imagines as "an oasis of cheer in an urban wasteland." After he sees an E! report on Mick Jagger's $52 million apartment on Central Park West, he comes up with a plan: "Let's Rob Mick Jagger," which was an earlier, better, more evocative title for this show.

Eugene assembles his motley crew, a comedic assortment of oddballs that includes his fellow janitor Squatch (Lenny Venito), cab driver Gary (Max Jobrani) and deep-voiced security guard Rockefeller (Kevin Michael Richardson), who demands there be cookies at their first meeting.

Subsequent additions to the group include nerdy college communications student Louis (Josh Grisetti) and beautiful Colombian waitress Esperanza (Sofia Vergara).

They all agree to only steal enough from Jagger to finance their dreams. Any amount above that will go to a charity of their choosing (Rockefeller selects "feline AIDS").

The gang's first effort to stake out Jagger's apartment begins with little promise. They can't seem to synchronize their watches. The caper antics grow wearisome quickly.

The second episode shows more promise as they send the virgin intern to seduce a woman (Reiko Aylesworth, "24") who has the access code to the security system in Jagger's apartment.

Created by Rob Burnett and Squirrel Hill native Jon Beckerman, "Knights" doesn't shine as brightly as one might hope in these early episodes, but there are enough hints of great comedy that there's reason to expect further improvement.

'In Case of Emergency'

Alas, there's little hope for "In Case of Emergency" (9:30 p.m. Wednesday, ABC), a show whose pitch you can easily imagine: "It's about that time in life when we're too old to list our parents as our emergency contact, but we're not sure who to write down. An ex-wife? A best friend? Someone we're dating?"

On paper, it's not a bad concept. TV shows have certainly been built from less. But rarely has a grounded premise led to such an unbelievable -- as in, contrived characters behaving in outlandish, unrealistic ways -- series.

Four high school friends re-connect through a series of coincidences. Neurotic, divorced Harry (Jonathan Silverman, "The Single Guy") goes to a massage parlor seeking sexual release and reconnects -- literally, eww -- with the high school valedictorian, Kelly Lee (Kelly Hu).

Financial whiz Jason (David Arquette, "Scream") is suicidal over deals gone bad. Turns out he even lost investment money belonging to diet guru friend Sherman (Greg Germann, "Ally McBeal"), who falls off the diet wagon when his wife leaves him and he steals a truck full of pastries.

Lori Loughlin ("Full House") also stars as a doctor Jason begins stalking after meeting her in the emergency room following his botched suicide attempt.

Alleged wackiness ensues along with a sad underlying theme about how none of the four high school chums lived up to their potential.

"We're all whores," Harry tells Kelly, who's the professional in that field. "I was going to be Kurt Vonnegut and now I write greeting cards."

Never thought a TV comedy would leave me wistful for Silverman's NBC bomb "The Single Guy," but "In Case of Emergency" manages to do just that. In an emergency that calls for comedy, best to look somewhere -- almost anywhere -- else.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06365/749903-237.stm

Underneath the surface this puff piece about actress Lauren Graham shows just how much the wheels have fallen off the once-great (I'm told) Gilmore Girls bandwagon when she's asked about the new executive producers. I'm a big fan of Studio 60 but that doesn't mean I'm ready to write for it!

TV Notebook
The Insider: Lauren Graham
By Amy Amatangelo, Boston Herald December 31, 2006

• Character: Fast-talking, pop-culture-quoting Lorelai Gilmore on “Gilmore Girls” (Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on WLVI, Ch. 56).

• Hometown: Honolulu.

• Age: 39.

• Love life: Unconfirmed rumors say Graham is dating longtime pal Matthew Perry. Fueling speculation, Graham appeared on Perry’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” earlier this season.

• Where you’ll see her next: Graham plays Steve Carell’s wife in the upcoming film “Evan Almighty” and Diane Keaton’s daughter in the upcoming “Because I Said So.” She’s also developing a slate of new television shows through her production company, Good Game Entertainment.

• Fun Fact: She hates working with the dog who plays Lorelai’s pet on the show. “It’s nothing against him,” she said. “I am a fan of dogs. I have a dog. I like dogs. I just am not a fan of dog comedy.”

• On how she felt about the disintegration of the Lorelai and Luke romance: “It wasn’t my favorite stuff to play, to kind of be dictated to by Luke. But, again, I think, you know, it was a real - it was a believable conflict, you know, and a believable obstacle between them, and that’s why the end, to me, made perfect sense. . . . But I think you had to have that buildup to get to where we got. I mean, if everything had gone the way the fans wanted it to go in terms of that relationship, the show would be over, or I would just be calling Rory, like, ‘What are you doing tonight?’ ”

• On having new executive producers this season: “I am a huge fan of (former executive producers) Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino. I loved that writing. I had some of the best, most interesting, fun, great scenes ever. But I also think there is room for it to grow and . . . now we have these people who are so enthusiastic, who come in as fans, who come in as people who have kind of fresh voices to lend to it.”

• Where you’ll see her in five years: Finally winning an Emmy when one of her TV shows wins for Outstanding Comedy.

http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=174598

Critic's Notebook
TV Review: 'Dirt' doesn't dig deep into story, characters
By Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette December 31, 2006

Everyone knows dirt is messy. Turns out, so is "Dirt," FX's meandering drama about a tabloid magazine editor played by Courteney Cox ("Friends").

Premiering at 10 p.m. Tuesday, "Dirt" is not in the same league as FX's other acclaimed dramas. "Nip/Tuck" may now be grotesque and sensational, but when it started, it had something to say about body image and plastic surgery. "The Shield" continues to be a smart, sophisticated character drama about the many shades of morality.

But "Dirt" is pretty much just a soapy, shallow look at how gossip is currency in Hollywood. The show posits that when one works for a tabloid, blackmail is just a routine reporting technique.

Cox stars as Lucy Spiller, editor of the tabloid Drrt and the People magazine-like Now. She's a determined go-getter editor.

"Gossip is what lands you in court," Lucy cautions. "The only real defense we have is the truth. Preferably with photos."

Schizophrenic paparazzi photographer Don Konkey (Ian Hart), a friend of Lucy's from college, is her go-to photo guy. Never mind that he hallucinates regularly and has conversations with corpses no one else can see. He gets the job done.

At times, it seems like "Dirt" creator Matthew Carnahan ("Fastlane") is far more interested in exploring and developing Don's character, as if Lucy was shoe-horned into the plot once big-name Cox became available. Don has as much face time in the three "Dirt" episodes sent for review as Lucy, if not more.

Other characters include rising-star couple Holt (Josh Stewart) and Julia (Laura Allen, "The 4400"), who play their own complicated games with the tabloids, attempting to use them to further their careers.

As for Lucy, she has a brief fling with an aspiring rock star and turf battles at the office with her publisher boss (Jeffrey Nordling). But so far, she's not that complicated. In this TV-MA-rated series, viewers see her at home in her bed, procuring a vibrator from the nightstand and pleasuring herself. In "Dirt," this counts as she's-a-powerful-career-woman-who's-lonely character development.

In an attempt to give this blank canvas some depth, the writers give Lucy a gay interior decorator brother (Will McCormack) in the third episode. He gets a job redecorating the home of a macho action star (Grant Show, "Melrose Place"), who preaches family values on a talk show. Can you guess what hypocrisy will be revealed about this macho action star once he gets a gay decorator in his home?

"Dirt" excels at showcasing the grimy and unseemly, but so far the stories are flat and the lead character is pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06365/749919-237.stm

Critic’s Notebook
A look ahead at the week in TV
By Glenn Garvin, Miami Herald December 31, 2006

• The Knights of Prosperity (9 p.m. Wednesday, ABC) A bunch of lifelong losers decide to reverse their fortunes by robbing Mick Jagger. Unfortunately, they're even more inept at organized crime than they were as janitors and waitresses. Donal Logue (Grounded For Life), Lenny Venito (Rescue Me) and Sofia Vergara (Hot Properties) star in this helplessly funny new sitcom that was originally titled Let's Rob Mick Jagger. Jagger, oddly, was willing to appear in the show -- his bits mocking his own swinishly rich lifestyle are scathing mirthful -- but vetoed that title. Whatever; the show is hilarious.

• In Case of Emergency (9:30 p.m. Wednesday, ABC) Four high-school classmates, reunited 20 years later, discover that being valedictorian or most-likely-to-succeed didn't count for much outside the pages of their yearbook. David Arquette (Scream), Jonathan Silverman (Weekend at Bernie's), Greg Germann (Ally McBeal) and Kelly Hu (The Scorpion King) give it their all, but In Case of Emergency still seems like a less-funny, less-sweet rough draft of CBS' The Class.

• Dirt (10 p.m. Tuesday, FX) Courteney Cox returns to TV as both producer and star of this drama about a lying, cheating, wiretapping, blackmailing and perving editor of a Hollywood tabloid. Pretty entertaining, and it made me realize how underfunded The Miami Herald is -- we don't even have a regular homemade porn-screening room, much less one with a secret entrance. No wonder my career has always felt incomplete.

• Final 24 (10 p.m. Thursday, Biography) A new documentary series focused on the last 24 hours of life of various celebrities. The opening episode, about John Belushi, includes an interview where Belushi's comic partner Dan Aykroyd speaks for the first time about his pal's drug-overdose death.

• Revolucion: Five Visions (11 p.m. Tuesday, WPBT-PBS 2) This documentary on Cuban photographers -- both on the island and in exile -- finally appears after being postponed from its original airdate earlier in December.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/television/16346004.htm

Critic’s Notebook
Who killed off the new serials?
We wonder why shows like Smith vanished so quickly
By Bill Brioux, Toronto Sun December 31, 2006

The past year in television was like House: Smart, cranky and best enjoyed with pain killers.

This fall, the U.S. networks premiered some of the most challenging dramas in years, including Smith, The Nine, Kidnapped and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Almost all of them were immediately rejected by viewers.

Smith, starring movie stars Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen, was a slick crime thriller executive-produced by hit maker John Wells (ER, The West Wing). It lasted three weeks. All those new serials that seemed so promising were done in by serial killers.

Were viewers simply overwhelmed by too many quality options this fall? One theory had it that consumers already had shows like 24, Lost, Prison Break and Desperate Housewives punched into their PVRs and just didn't have time each week to invest in a new crop of continuing dramas, no matter how well they were made.

Perhaps, but here's another theory: Too many of those shows were really big-budget TV-movies that had nowhere to go after their splashy pilots. The cool criminals in Smith couldn't keep blowing up museums and engaging in high-speed boat chases every week. No show can sustain that kind of budget. The Nine had a cool premise -- nine people trapped in a bank heist gone wrong -- but, really, that's a movie. How can you go back and relive that premise for an entire season? Isn't that called therapy?

Studio 60 may have been the most intriguing show of them all. It was The West Wing meets Saturday Night Live, smart meets funny.

The pilot was brilliantly cast and written. Critics hailed it as the catch of the year. CTV bought up the entire Warner Bros. studio rookie lineup -- a load of junk, as it turns out -- just to snare Studio 60 for its schedule.

Then it opened soft and lost ground every week. Was it too inside the industry or just too inside executive producer Aaron Sorkin's head? Or just not funny enough, especially the show-within-a-show comedy sketches?

Answer: All of the above, although, by the recent Christmas episode, the two main characters, Matt and Danny (Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford), had grown into real people you actually cared about. Studio 60 has become the show critics can't abandon, even if audiences already have. By the time the horn solo faded on that beautiful jazz coda at the end of the Christmas episode, I'd decided that I'd rather watch Sorkin fail on TV than watch just about anyone else succeed.

Here's what else caught my good eye in 2006 (in no particular order):

• Heroes (ABC, Global, Mondays at 9 p.m.): This intriguing gem makes being a geek look cool -- no wonder a lot of critics embraced it. Hiro is our hero. Not only is he into Star Trek, he's good at working around deadlines. The series is just exceptionally good at making fantasy look real, plus it is fun -- a lost element in a lot of today's serious dramas.

• Dexter (The Movie Network, Mondays at 9 p.m.): Some people are scared (or turned) off by the premise of this weird little series -- a forensic investigator by day is a serial-killer avenger by night. Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) is chilled to perfection as the bloodless hero, strangely likable despite his penchant for cutting horrible killers into tiny little bits. Here's more killer news: Dexter is taking a stab at a second season.

• Rescue Me (Showcase, Tuesdays at 10 p.m.): Denis Leary's deeply flawed New York firefighter Tommy Gavin has kicked down the doors for all the Dexters to follow. I'll say it again: no show on television goes from laugh-out-loud funny to gut-wrenching sorrow like Rescue Me.

• YouTube: Maybe all those serial dramas tanked because a large segment of the audience now takes their entertainment in three-minute bursts. Plus, why download a whole hour-long episode when you can catch all of TV's water-cooler moments at your convenience? Some of the biggies: Faith Hill's "Whaat?" award winner; Danny DeVito's drunken View rap; Borat's Saturday Night Live intro.

• Ugly Betty (City-TV, Thursdays at 8 p.m.): Like its brace-face hero, winningly played by America Ferrera, this show is sweet, funny and easy to root for. Ugly Betty just snuck up between all those high-powered serial dramas to become one of the breakout hits of the year.

• Rock Star: Supernova: Canada 2, World 0 as skunk-haired Toronto-native Lukas Rossi joins INXS frontman J.D. Fortune as the only two winners of this Mark Burnett music reality show. Now he just has to survive living with Tommy Lee. Rock on, Canada.

• Three Worst New Shows of the Year: Lame-o-comedies 'Til Death and Twenty Good Years plus William Shatner's dumbass game show Show Me The Money. Set phasers for stunk.

• 2006 SHOWCASE AWARDS: Jennifer Love Hewitt's 'TWO CO-STARS' - Television Entertainer of the Year (tie)

• PREVIOUS WINNERS: 2005 J.D. Fortune / 2004 Conan O'Brien / 2003 Arnold Schwarzenegger

http://www.torontosun.com/Entertainment/Television/2006/12/31/3097132-sun.html

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE HERE

Thanks, rustycruiser. I hope others will keep their eyes peeled for errors.

I tried to check everything again and again, but as readers of this thread realize, I make mistakes by the ton!


Fredfa,
You also have Celebrity Duets listed at 9:00 PM on FOX Thursdays. Has The O.C. been cancelled without any announcement? Also, isn't the AI results show on Wednesdays just a half hour (or does it run for 60 minutes during the early weeks)? Thanks for the schedule BTW.

Fredfa,
You also have Celebrity Duets listed at 9:00 PM on FOX Thursdays. Has The O.C. been cancelled without any announcement? Also, isn't the AI results show on Wednesdays just a half hour (or does it run for 60 minutes during the early weeks)? Thanks for the schedule BTW.


Thanks, jed.

That, and a few other, corrections ahve been made to the schedule grid.

TV Notebook
The road ahead: Seven for '07
TV business braces for sharp twists this year
By Michael Schneider, Josef Adalian Variety.com

Net execs aren't crooning "Auld Lang Syne" with much joy, as 2007 rings in with mounting challenges.

Comedy's still in crisis. The Internet still looks like the Wild West for broadcasters. Programming costs continue to climb while advertisers are growing more impatient with network erosion.

Then there's that not-so-little fear of a strike.

Not all is grim, however, and some looming issues are just par for the course in this ever-evolving business.

As webheads chug a few antacids to start the new year, here are seven subjects to keep an eye on in '07:

The nets will go on a programming diet.

NBC already trumpeted its intention to scale back on scripted programming by saying it wants to air nothing but reality and quizshows in the 8 p.m. hour. Mandating a certain kind of programming for a timeslot makes little sense, but the idea of reducing costs by cutting back on scripted fare is likely to gain traction.

That's because nets are desperately trying to come up with new business models at a time when the Internet is siphoning away both viewers and ad dollars.

In addition to adding more low-cost unscripted fare, nets may start slashing entire genres. Original movies continue to struggle, while concert specials may become extinct -- especially following a year in which even big names like Madonna couldn't attract eyeballs.

It's report card time for the CW and MyNetworkTV.

Thrown together in less than nine months, the CW and MyNet went on the air with programs that weren't even originally developed for them.

But that's no longer an excuse. The CW, which has held its own despite low-rated newcomers and aging returnees, will hit the May upfronts with its first slate of homegrown fare.

With MyNet's stripped sudsers barely registering in the Nielsens, News Corp. is expected to change the netlet's programming strategy by summer: A likely move would be to reduce reliance on English-language telenovelas.

Comedy and animation will be tested yet again.

Although no net other than Fox has launched a hit animated primetime skein since the 1960s, CBS will soon give it another try with "Creature Comforts."

A U.S. adaptation of the hit U.K. skein (from the Aardman animation house), "Creature Comforts" could, if successful, spawn a wave of such projects. If it stumbles, expect the non-Fox nets to once again shy away from any new toons.

As for laffers, it could be a do-or-die season for comedy writers and producers -- as well as the studio and network execs behind the shows. The nets are airing the fewest number of sitcoms since the early days of television, and with no new breakout hits, there's no sign that next fall will look any different.

However, entries like CBS' "Rules of Engagement" and ABC's "Knights of Prosperity" could turn the tide. Still, come May, the nets will likely again be debating whether mainstream auds are turned off by too many quirky single-cam comedies.

TiVo may finally help the networks.

Webheads have been worrying about the impact of digital video recorders for years, fretting that their ratings have been negatively impacted because Nielsen couldn't keep up with new technologies. Even when the ratings giant started incorporating TiVo usage into its numbers, advertisers still refused to acknowledge eyeballs that watched shows after they originally aired.

All this could change in 2007. Nielsen is expected to further tweak its sample, adding more TiVo homes while improving the count of out-of-home viewing by, for example, including college students. What's more, network execs believe they're close to getting Madison Ave. to recognize the legitimacy of TiVo-boosted ratings.

NBC: Changing of the guard.

It's been clear for months that Jeff Zucker is all but certain to replace Bob Wright as the ultimate boss at NBC. Barring a surprise twist in the storyline, a timetable for the succession could even be put in place in January.

Once he's given the brass ring, a sort of Zucker 2.0 may emerge in the form of a more patient exec.

While he's amassed a chorus of critics over the years (most of them outside NBC), Zucker is a talented dealmaker with a knack for bold strokes. A few big announcements or acquisitions, and Zucker could remake his image as effectively as Bob Iger has done in the post-Eisner era.

Zucker's likely rise could also mean good news for some NBC execs in Burbank.

Marc Graboff, the NBC West Coast prexy who's essentially been Zucker's No. 2, will become more powerful in overseeing the day-to-day of the network.

NBC Entertainment prexy Kevin Reilly might becomemore secure in his gig. His contract expires in the spring, but -- thanks to "Heroes" and "The Office" -- current betting is that Zucker will ask him to stay on.

If, for some reason, Reilly doesn't stick around, look for programmer Katherine Pope to take his place.

"American Idol" will bring shake-ups.

"Idol" will once again put fourth-place Fox back into the game -- and likely crush some of the competish in the process. But at some point, "Idol" will cool off. The question is when?

It has defied odds by rising in the ratings five years into its run -- and could do so again this year.

The pressure is on for "Idol" and fellow January returnee "24," as well as new shows like "Drive," since none of Fox's new fall shows made the grade.

Should "Idol" take a big dip in the Nielsen numbers, Fox's adults 18-49 crown -- which it has held for the past two seasons -- figures to be up for grabs.

But if the show's a hit again, rivals will just shrug -- and hold out secret hopes that 2008 will bring its decline.

All bets are off if there's a WGA strike.

The contract deadline is still 10 months away, but if scribes walk off the job, no other predictions really matter. A strike -- if it went on long enough -- could prove devastating to the network business.

Whether the strike talk is sincere or saber-rattling, in a few months, nobody in TV land will be talking about anything else.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117956450&categoryid=14

Thanks, jed.

That, and a few other, corrections ahve been made to the schedule grid.


The download link is now missing.

Fred, I haven't really paid attention to the ratings for "Supernatural" as I had never watched it before. I recently watched the whole first season on DVD and really liked it, it's a smart little show, with great interaction between the the two leads, and some pretty darn good special effects for a show on a network will a limited budget. Is "Supernatural" going to make it to a third season, and, how many episodes have been aired so far in season 2?

Thanks

With the troubles the CW is having, I don't expect them to screw with the Smallville/Supernatural pairing on Thursday nights. The tandem did much better than expected last year, and I believe there was some dropoff this year, but not enough to make it a "problem area".

The download link is now missing.

Sorry.

Got it fixed now.

With the troubles the CW is having, I don't expect them to screw with the Smallville/Supernatural pairing on Thursday nights. The tandem did much better than expected last year, and I believe there was some dropoff this year, but not enough to make it a "problem area".
I hope so. One thing that's nice about this show is they're self-contained episodes, but there is still a serial concept flowing through it, sort of like a poor man's X-Files.

Jim: "Supernatural" does OK for The CW on Thursdays, although it does lose about a third of the lead-in it gets from "Smallville".

Of course it IS on at 9 PM, when "Grey's Anatomy" and "CSI" battle it out.

Here are the season-to-date ratings for all of the CW's shows, through last week, with the number of episodes for each so far this season:

Rank Program Persons 2+ Episodes
103 AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL 5.36 12
113 SMALLVILLE 4.42 12
116 FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN 4.37 13
116 GILMORE GIRLS 4.30 13
116 7TH HEAVEN 4.04 11
124 REBA 3.85 5
132 ONE TREE HILL 3.48 11
133 SUPERNATURAL 3.29 12
137 EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS 2.94 13
137 REBA SUN 2.86 5
137 VERONICA MARS 2.99 10
141 ALL OF US 2.70 13
141 GIRLFRIENDS 2.77 13
148 GAME, THE 2.52 13
153 AMERICA'S TOP MODEL-ENC 2.15 12
159 TOP MODEL:BRIT INVASION 1.72 1
161 RUNAWAY 1.92 3

(viewers in millions)
• Source: Nielsen Media Research data



Fred, I haven't really paid attention to the ratings for "Supernatural" as I had never watched it before. I recently watched the whole first season on DVD and really liked it, it's a smart little show, with great interaction between the the two leads, and some pretty darn good special effects for a show on a network will a limited budget. Is "Supernatural" going to make it to a third season, and, how many episodes have been aired so far in season 2?

Thanks

TV Notebook
ABC banking on hourlongs to capture ratings crown
Network is tied with CBS for the lead among young adults
By Rick Kissell Variety.com Dec. 31, 2006

This season has already been something of a roller-coaster ride for ABC, but the net has to feel pretty good about where it's come to a stop.

The Alphabet is tied with CBS for the lead among young adults and is positioned to challenge for the season title when the dust settles in May.

In "Grey's Anatomy," "Desperate Housewives," "Dancing With the Stars" and "Lost," it has some of television's top-rated shows, but it's also clearly not the same force -- as it found out following the November sweep -- when these skeins are on the bench or in repeats.

Making its perf all the more impressive in the fall was that ABC was the only major net that didn't benefit from the lofty ratings generated by the National Football League. (After 36 seasons, "Monday Night Football" left ABC for cable sibling ESPN.)

In fact, ABC is the season's clear-cut ratings leader if you exclude sports from everybody's numbers -- a key fact that could help it rise above its rivals when it comes to collecting upfront advertising coin next spring.

For the season, ABC, CBS and a sure-to-improve Fox should be headed for a tight finish in adults 18-49. NBC, while the only net to improve this season and in position to stay ahead of Fox for much of winter, is expected to finish fourth for a third straight season.

In the first of a midseason series analyzing the nets, here's a closer look at ABC:

What sizzled: The potentially risky move of "Grey's Anatomy" to Thursday paid off handsomely, as the medical drama emerged as the top-rated show on the key night in demos like adults 18-49 and 25-54. It's the first time in decades that the net has been competitive on Thursday -- let along winning in most categories.

"Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" have both lost a step but remain top-10 shows, consistently winning their timeslots in key demos. Net also has a couple of good additions to its sked in newbies "Ugly Betty" and "Brothers & Sisters," while "Dancing With the Stars" is coming off its biggest season.

Another high point has been ABC's delivery of upscale viewers. "Brothers & Sisters" has emerged as the season's highest-indexing new skein among young adults earning $100,000 or more, teaming with the likes of "Desperate Housewives" and "Boston Legal" to make the Alphabet the No. 1 net by this measure.

Overall, ABC deserves kudos for its ambitious roster of hourlong skeins, which scored a whopping 11 noms at the Golden Globes. It's tough to maintain these shows at such a high level of quality, and it's also not easy finding the right skedmates for such unique programs.

What fizzled: It's been another tough season for half-hour laffers, as "Help Me Help You" and "Big Day" became the latest single-camera comedies to bomb on the net. ABC has such a rich history of success with domestic and blue-collar comedy, and instead should be looking for the next "Home Improvement."

On the drama front, "The Nine," "Six Degrees" and "Day Break" were lost in a sea of high-concept, serialized skeins this fall. Best of the lot, and thus the most disappointing and perplexing, was "The Nine," a well-cast, well-executed pilot that auds clearly went out of their way to avoid.

Another bust was William Shatner-hosted gamer "Show Me the Money," which looked like a turkey from the start.

What's ahead: Likable laffer "The Knights of Prosperity" will take over the 9 o'clock Wednesday slot, following vets "George Lopez" and "According to Jim" in the net's first real comedy block of the season.

"Knights" is probably the best new ABC comedy of the season, and it targets one of "Idol's" most vulnerable demos (young men), but the odds would seem to be stacked against it. The comedy bar is pretty low though, and if it can do a 3 demo rating and generate buzz, the net would be happy.

Keep an eye on midseason drama "Traveler," among the two or three best pilots from last fall. Net may understandably be skittish due to its serialized nature, but a spring rollout should help it stand out.

Also waiting for a timeslot is softer drama "October Road," which could air on Friday or in the 10 o'clock hour on Monday or Thursday. And gamer "Set for Life," hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, also figures to get a shot and is the net's best chance at a second-half game-changer.

ABC should also benefit from a later 10 p.m. slot for "Lost," which will air all firstrun segs for the final 16 Wednesdays of the season. Skedding makes sense since the net has had a tough time finding a program to work behind "Lost," and this also gives Alphabet affils at least one weeknight where its late local newscasts will have a lead-in edge over its rivals.

Biggest question marks: "Dancing With the Stars" will be back for another edition this season, but where it airs remains a mystery. The 8 o'clock hour on Monday and Wednesday are the best bets, although the net could take a risk and sked it opposite "American Idol" on Tuesday, especially if the Fox juggernaut shows signs of cooling off.

ABC would like to see ratings improvement from young relationship dramas "Men in Trees" and "What About Brian," which do well among the net's increasingly core femme 18-34 aud but not so much beyond that.

Bottom line: CBS is more consistent, and Fox will put up bigger numbers down the stretch, but don't count out ABC in the season's 18-49 race.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117956449&categoryid=14

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

Jim: "Supernatural" does OK for The CW on Thursdays, although it does lose about a third of the lead-in it gets from "Smallville".

Of course it IS on at 9 PM, when "Grey's Anatomy" and "CSI" battle it out.

Here are the season-to-date ratings for all of the CW's shows, through last week, with the number of episodes for each so far this season:

Rank Program Persons 2+ Episodes
103 AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL 5.36 12
113 SMALLVILLE 4.42 12
116 FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN 4.37 13
116 GILMORE GIRLS 4.30 13
116 7TH HEAVEN 4.04 11
124 REBA 3.85 5
132 ONE TREE HILL 3.48 11
133 SUPERNATURAL 3.29 12
137 EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS 2.94 13
137 REBA SUN 2.86 5
137 VERONICA MARS 2.99 10
141 ALL OF US 2.70 13
141 GIRLFRIENDS 2.77 13
148 GAME, THE 2.52 13
153 AMERICA'S TOP MODEL-ENC 2.15 12
159 TOP MODEL:BRIT INVASION 1.72 1
161 RUNAWAY 1.92 3

(viewers in millions)
• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

That's not very pretty, but it is the CW's 8th rated show so that's something I guess. I'd imagine it's fairly expensive to produce though, lots of CGI etc, so ratings may not be the whole story.

Fred, I haven't really paid attention to the ratings for "Supernatural" as I had never watched it before. I recently watched the whole first season on DVD and really liked it, it's a smart little show, with great interaction between the the two leads, and some pretty darn good special effects for a show on a network will a limited budget. Is "Supernatural" going to make it to a third season, and, how many episodes have been aired so far in season 2?

Thanks

The best I can determine, and it's usually a pretty reliable source, there have been 9 episodes aired so far. Looks like Croatoan was the last new ep shown on 12/7.

Supernatural will likely be back for season 3...even if the ratings are low, the show is doing very well creatively. They have definitely taken it up a couple notches this year -- the show is a lot darker and the acting and chemistry has improved.

Smallville/Supernatural should be locks for next year.

In television, nothing is a lock.

In television, nothing is a lock.
The Super Bowl? :p

The best I can determine, and it's usually a pretty reliable source, there have been 9 episodes aired so far. Looks like Croatoan was the last new ep shown on 12/7.
That's what epguides says as well, I'm trying to get caught up by..uh..alternative means. ;)

I hope so. One thing that's nice about this show is they're self-contained episodes, but there is still a serial concept flowing through it, sort of like a poor man's X-Files.Regarding Supernatural, I'd like to urge anyone with an interest in the genre to please give this show a chance.

The show fairs well in comparison to the X-Files. While the X-Files overall arc became a mess after about the half-way point of the series, Supernatural's has remained consistent, and clear so far. The show has also picked up a number of creators from the X-Files including David Nutter and John Shiban.

Supernatural has great potential, but it needs more viewers. If you haven't caught it yet, please give it a shot. Although it's a serialized drama, most of the episodes are self-contained.

Scott

Looks like CBS' 60 Minutes will not replace Ed Bradley's empty seat with a replacement... yet! Anybody think Anderson Cooper's jumping at the bit to upgrade from his CNN show to a network primetime gig? :rolleyes: http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/stories/T/TV_60_MINUTES?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=ENTERTAINMENT

HDTV Notebook
Will CES Solve the HDTV DVD Format War?
By Robert Smith, TVPredictions.com December 31, 2006

The Consumer Electronics Show has a tradition of setting the stage for the next year in the electronics marketplace. Last year’s show introduced the new HD disc players and new video game systems. There is now a chance that this year’s CES, due to begin January 8 in Las Vegas, will virtually decide the HDTV DVD format war.

The industry wants this format war resolved. Sales of both formats (players and discs) have been smaller than expected, and there is a clear feeling of frustration among retailers and the movie studios about the prospects of having two very similar formats to confound the customer. This Christmas season, HDTVs were selling well, yet HD-DVD and Blu-ray players remained a curiosity to most consumers.

A year ago at CES, it appeared that Blu-ray was a shoo-in. The Blu-ray format was judged technically superior, and Sony had assembled an impressive coalition of CE companies and studios to support Blu-ray, capped by the PlayStation 3 gaming system. In contrast, Toshiba appeared to have little going for its simpler HD DVD format, except for an earlier launch date and support from Microsoft.

However, Toshiba lowered the price of its entry-level player to $499, and the launch titles from Warner Bros. and Universal were stunning. In contrast, the only Blu-ray player to launch was the Samsung, overpriced at $999; more importantly, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment launched with rather poor looking Blu-ray titles. So, by last summer, the rap on Blu-ray was that it was twice as expensive but not as good as HD DVD.

First impressions count and cost Blu-ray any chance of an early victory. However, the Blu-ray group has steadily made progress since the fall. Titles from both formats are on a par in terms of quality, and while Blu-ray has yet to demonstrate convincingly that it is better, the higher-capacity 50GB disks are now common and it appears that studios like Disney and Fox are learning how to use Blu-ray’s features to create a compelling product.

Toshiba and ally Microsoft have been nimbler, more customer responsive, and have used the Internet (such as avsforum.com) to great advantage. They orchestrated a 180-degree turnaround in support among early adopters. Sony and other Blu-ray companies have seemed stubborn and unresponsive, and have stayed with their game plan. Sony was also hit by any number of problems throughout its business, some of which it handled badly.

But at this point, it appears to this observer that the Blu-ray game plan is finally working. CES may ratify this, or may put yet another twist on the format war. Let’s see why.

Studio Plans

Looking at the content area, Blu-ray has 6 of the 7 major studios now shipping Blu-ray titles, while HD DVD only has 3 of the 7 majors. Blu-ray started later and had a rocky start, but Blu-ray is catching up rapidly. There are now 58 Blu-ray titles announced for the future, compared to only 15 similar HD DVD titles. By the end of January, Blu-ray will be ahead in total title count. If studio support does not change, and current release trends continue, I estimate that Blu-ray will have twice as many titles as HD DVD sometime in 2007.

Studio support may change at CES, or it may be reconfirmed. Here is a run-down by studio.

• Universal is exclusive to HD DVD and is very unlikely to change.

• Paramount is supporting both formats exactly equally and will not change.

• Warner Bros. is supporting both, but is about 23 titles ahead on HD DVD. Indications are, however, that Warners plans to catch up with Blu-ray and support both formats equally in 2007.

• Sony is exclusive to Blu-ray and will not change.

However, Sony has not helped Blu-ray as much as expected, due to poor initial picture quality and a small number of titles. Recent Sony titles are fine.

• Fox appears to be very supportive of Blu-ray and is doing good work. A change to also supporting HD DVD would be extremely significant but I predict it will not happen.

• Disney is supporting Blu-ray and has been rumored to be interested in supporting HD-DVD as well. This would really help HD-DVD. However, I predict that Disney will remain exclusive with Blu-ray. I think Disney wants the format war to end, and that supporting HD DVD would in their view prolong it.

• MGM is currently supporting Blu-ray exclusively. MGM is 20 percent owned by Sony and distributed by Fox, so is unlikely to start supporting HD DVD.

Mini-major LionsGate is exclusive to Blu-ray. I predict that there is a 50-50 chance they will announce support for HD DVD, but this seems less likely to me than it did several months ago.

Other providers, including up-and-coming Weinstein, have different affiliations. It looks like Weinstein will support HD DVD exclusively, but this will have a minor impact throughout 2007, since they are still building their empire.

Hardware support is also important. Consumers like to buy things from brands they trust, and they want to choose from a certain variety.

At the present, Toshiba is the main supplier of HD-DVD players. RCA sells a "rebadged" Toshiba, and Microsoft has an add-on for their XBox 360 video game system, also manufactured by Toshiba, for $199 (but you have to have the XBox 360 to use it). Toshiba just shipped its second-generation HD-A2 player for $499, and is expected to start shipping the higher-end HD-XA2 player for $999 within a few days, and it promises excellent quality.

For months, the only Blu-ray player was the under-appreciated Samsung listing at $999 (now available for less). Since October, Blu-ray players have shipped from Panasonic, Philips, and Sony; the highly praised but expensive Pioneer just started shipping. Sony also started shipping the PS3, with over a million shipped to the US and Japan, at $499 and $599. The PS3 has been very well received as a Blu-ray player, and it is now clear that game consoles are a large part of the format war.

Blu-ray now has more models in the US marketplace, and more players in homes (including game consoles), and this advantage is increasing daily.

New Hardware

It is expected that there will be a variety of new hardware announcements at CES. Here are some of the things to look for:

• More HD DVD manufacturers: Don’t expect Pioneer or Panasonic to start supporting HD DVD, but maybe LG and conceivably Samsung. Some of the “boutique” manufacturers like Marantz and Denon may get into the game, but they have been reluctant to make big investments until the format war is resolved.

• More announcements from Blu-ray supporters: Look for LG, Sharp, perhaps JVC. Look for models with HDMI 1.3 and the next level of Blu-ray support. I am guessing that we will see a stand-alone Blu-ray player announced for $499.

“Combo” players: there has been a lot of talk about players that would support both Blu-ray and HD DVD, with parts companies building components that would work in both. A combo player would put an interesting spin on things, but I am not sure that it will help or even happen. A combo player would be expensive (perhaps more than buying both formats!), and the format war may be resolved before the combo even ships, making it an instant white elephant. I am betting 50-50 that we do not see one actually announced at CES, but will see some prototypes or trial balloons, possibly from LG.

Perhaps the biggest event that is likely would be a lower-cost stand-alone player. Next to content, this is the most important issue. At present, both formats have solutions at $499 list (if you include game consoles, as the market seems to be doing.) A $399 or $299 player would shake things up. If this happens, it will probably come from Toshiba or a new HD DVD ally; Toshiba has already shown a willingness to subsidize players and also has shown a better understanding of the customer that anyone in the Blu-ray camp.

Overall, here is my prediction: the Blu-ray game plan is now finally working, and if things remain on their current course, Blu-ray will win the format war sometime in 2007. But this can change dramatically with either added studio support for HD DVD or new player initiatives. Anything can still happen, but CES should give us a lot of information about the outcome.

Stay tuned for my follow-up report after the show.

http://www.tvpredictions.com/rsmith122906.htm
____________________________________________________________ _____

This guy conviniently forgets to mention that HD-DVD movies/stand-alone players (which excludes the PS3 and XBox 360 add-on) continue to outsell Blu-ray on every sales statistic (example: www.thedvdwars.com). Throw in the PS3's 700,000+ units sold to date and HD-DVD's current sales dominance is even more impressive. Also, the reason Blu-ray has many more announced movies for 2007 than HD-DVD is because the BD studios already announced a large slate of titles that would have been revealed at the CES show. The BD studios got the hype rolling early, but Toshiba asked its supporterts to hold all its announcements until the Jan. 7th pre-CES press conference. Toshiba and HD-DVD need a killer CES showing to fight the marketing/hype from Sony and the Blu-ray camp, but it's hardly the slam-dunk for Blu-ray that the guy above makes it seem. :mad:

Fans of Law & Order (particularly the Criminal Intent spinoff) and Desperate Housewives will want to read this article regardless of its slightly-misleading title. Trust me! :)

The Business of TV
'The Golden Girls' Goes Global
By George Winslow, Broadcasting & Cable January 1, 2006

The future of American TV production took an international plot twist in mid December when two men named Vincent showed up at a sprawling Long Island, N.Y., mansion for the shooting of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

As expected, Vincent D'Onofrio was there, playing detective Robert Goren investigating a homicide. But the other Vincent—major French film star Vincent Perez—had flown to the U.S. along with French actress Sandrine Rigaux and several French producers. They were in New York to study the cast and crew of Criminal Intent.

That's because they're turning the NBC drama into Paris Enquetes Criminelles, a French version of the Dick Wolf series. It debuts this spring on France's largest commercial broadcaster, TF1.

Russian versions of Law & Order: SVU and Criminal Intent are in production now, part of an effort by NBC Universal to create foreign versions of those shows all over the world. NBCU and other producers will be peddling those format rights to foreign broadcasters at NATPE this year, even as they're also selling the American versions of hit shows.

In perhaps the most ambitious effort to remake a current U.S. network show, Walt Disney Co.'s Buena Vista TV last summer began producing a Spanish-language version of Desperate Housewives filmed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and it has committed to two more Spanish and Portuguese versions.

When Desperate Housewives first bowed in 2004, Disney's Latin American sales staff was convinced that it would be a hit in the region but were unable to sell it to major broadcasters in the key territories of Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

So they began floating the idea of local productions, and by October of 2005 had convinced broadcasters in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil to co-produce three versions, one in Portuguese and two in Spanish. That left Leonardo Aranguibel, production manager, Walt Disney Television International, Latin America, less than a year to translate all the scripts, find a studio, build a huge set, cast actors and deliver a finished tape of the first Spanish version, Amas de Casa Desperados, to the Argentine Broadcaster, RTR.

To make the show economically feasible, Disney decided to produce all the versions on one set in Buenos Aires. Measuring 180 meters inside a huge building 30 miles outside of the city, it took workers four months to construct Calle Manzanares, the Latin American version of Wisteria Lane. All that effort has paid off with rock-solid ratings.

The enormous set and the star-studded casts are expensive by Latin American production standards, but the gamble has so far paid off. The series is pulling in about a 20 rating on RTR in its 11:30 p.m. time slot in Argentina, which has a late primetime, and a 42% share since it bowed in mid August.

The taped version of the Argentine show has also performed extremely well in Uruguay, where it is winning its time slot on Teledoce with a 25 rating and is the No. 2 show overall.

Selling 'I Love Lucy'

Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount and Buena Vista also have all been working with broadcasters in Europe, Asia and Latin America on other local versions of familiar America series such as The Nanny, I Love Lucy, Perfect Strangers, Bewitched, Golden Girls and Home Improvement.

"Everyone wants the top American shows: Lost, Desperate Housewives, House, CSI," notes Steve Kent, senior executive VP of production at Sony Pictures Television International. "But after that, they want local productions. This is a way to fill that demand."

Sony produced a version of Married with Children in Germany on RTL in 1995. That show flopped, but Sony has since successfully produced dozens of them around the world and built up an enormously successful local production business with offices in many major territories, including Germany, the U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Russia and Beijing. The studio produces about 10,000 hours of TV programming outside the United States. Comedies, dramas and soaps account for about half their output.

The concept has taken on a new urgency in the last few years, as rapidly growing international TV markets boosted budgets for local productions. Seeing an opportunity to break into markets like France and Russia, where few imported series make it into primetime, studio executives began hunting through their libraries for shows that could be adapted into local versions. Over the last two years, that has translated into a flurry of deals.

Disney sold Golden Girls, Home Improvement and Hope and Faith in Russia and Turkey. In October, Warner sold the rights to old sitcoms including Suddenly Susan, Perfect Strangers, Step by Step and Full House to several Russian broadcasters. Paramount has done format deals for The Odd Couple and I Love Lucy in Russia, Poland and Italy. Besides the Law & Order deals, NBC Universal is talking to foreign broadcasters about remakes of Kojak, Northern Exposure and some comedies.

The concept has some obvious risks, however. With the exception of Sony, which has 70 people working on local productions around the world and production offices in many major territories, most Hollywood studios have little experience producing a TV series in a foreign country.

Says Kent, "I don't think a lot of people understand how much work is involved in these productions.

"It isn't just a matter of translating the scripts and changing the place names from Newark to Moscow."

Translation problems

While Aranguibel and his team had to make only minor changes to the storylines of Desperate Housewives, more substantial adaptations are often required.

One episode of Criminal Intent, for example, featured a male executive who has been laid off but continues to pretend to go to work. To support his family, he has an affair with a wealthy woman and begins taking her money.

"In the U.S., affairs are still somewhat shocking, and that made it a great plot twist for the end of the episode," notes Leslie Jones, VP of international sales and format production for NBC Universal International Television Distribution, which is spearheading the studio's local production efforts. "But in France, everyone would just say 'Of course. He's having an affair.'"

The legal systems in France and Russia are also very different than in the U.S., a factor that made it easier to create a foreign version of Criminal Intent, which focuses on the investigations, and tougher to complete the flagship Law & Order series.

"In the American version, the detectives go about investigating the crime and the suspects in a relatively polite and gentle matter," Jones adds. "That isn't the case in Russia. So the actors had to make this very Russian. When they go about grabbing a suspect, they are really grabbing them."

But can these shows grab an audience? The answer will begin to be revealed in a few weeks, when Criminal Intent and SVU bow in Russia on NTV.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6403297.html

The Business of TV
COMMENTARY
What Now, Doctor John?
by Jimmy Schaeffler, senior analyst, The Carmel Group in MultiChannel News

Looking back over the past twelve and a half years, to the time on June 17, 1994, when Lemoyne Martin in Jackson, Miss., became the first subscriber nationwide to sign up for a direct broadcast satellite service, this reviewer harks back repeatedly to the idea of a soap opera. That is because the idea of a regular story attended by remarkable developments and huge drama swings fits the story of DBS in America as well as it does any Days of Our Lives epic.

Yet at this stage in the drama, there’s a quirkiness to the repetitiveness of the story line. For instance, back in 1997, Rupert Murdoch, Charlie Ergen and Dr. John Malone were the key threesome that fought over the future of DBS, in the form of Malone trying to keep Murdoch from buying Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network. Flash forward almost a decade and the three are grappling yet again. This time, however, Murdoch leaves DBS stage left, and the one-time cable magnate and DBS-enemy, Dr. John Malone, re-enters stage right, but this time as a DBS-magnate. Nonetheless, this remains constant: Malone still squares up today, like he did back then, against his neighbor and rival in Denver, CO, Charlie Ergen.

Turning to the individual players in this performance, the audience wonders what will happen to DirecTV now that it has a new Colorado-based controlling ownership. In order to retain the appearance of a calm transition, especially for shareholders and would-be investors, new owners typically champion the concept of maintaining the status quo. Yet not only does Chase Carey know little if anything about the deals and culture of his new boss, Liberty, more important, he has been a News Corp. guy for a decade and a half. His views of financial, marketing, technical and legal realities are markedly different than any he could ever have at his new employer.

Dr. Malone will undoubtedly replace Carey and his existing top-level management within the next six to twelve months. Based only on the performance of DirecTV’s stock up until the first rumors of the sale to Malone occurred, one hopes that the new stars of the “DirecTV DBS Show” will have more success explaining and implementing the story line than did their predecessors.

Once those new stars have learned their lines, a first line of business will follow two key themes: One will be finding ways to speed up the ultimate merger of DirecTV and EchoStar, and the second will be that of finding a bundle that DirecTV controls.

Having worked on numerous multichannel projects and studies during the past fifteen years, this consultant finds it truly a question of when, not if, a DBS merger will occur in North America. Focused merely on the duplication of resources within the EchoStar and DirecTV systems, and two sets of the same personnel and infrastructure used to carry the same premium, basic, pay per view and other content, all of that could be brought onto one single stage via a merger.

In fact, the only significant content today that is not available for duplicative carriage on DirecTV and Dish DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket. By opening up at least half the satellite bandwidth to additional programming and other content, a single DBS entity could completely dominate the digital video scene in post-merger America.

The day is clearly visible when DBS becomes the dominant video force, while cable operators and telco fight it out over prime bundles of two-way Internet and voice services, supplemented by cost-effective (yet inferior) video services of their own. Moreover, the day is also clearly visible when the majority of merger critics in Washington, D.C., accept the idea of this achieved efficiency, on the condition that the telcos become a dominant third competitor in the majority of U.S. telecom markets.

As for the “controlled” bundle, it remains a laudable goal, yet this writer would argue that with a merger, it becomes much less a necessity. If the DBS video store is that much superior to that of cable operators and telcos, DBS may not so badly need its own competitive bundle.

In short, DBS and multichannel pay TV in America just got a new set of writers and actors, yet the show was easily renewed and will be for many, many more seasons. After all, where else in corporate America can serious observers relish this kind of intrigue, mystery and pure audience satisfaction?

(Jimmy Schaeffler is chief service officer and senior analyst at The Carmel Group, a publisher and consultancy based in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif. The company covers telco, satellite, cable, wireless and related services, as well as computers and the media.)

http://www.multichannel.com/blog/30000203/post/1150006115.html

HAPPY 2007 EVERYONE!!!

Please check the previous page (#659) for lots of stories/commentaries added in the past few hours. :)

Re: "Supernatural".

As best I can tell, there have been 11 episodes shown this season thusfar (despite Nielsen claimning a dozen).

By the way, he episode guide at tv.com agrees with me that 11 have aired, not that tv.com (or certaqinly me for that matter) is infallible.

Re: "Supernatural".

As best I can tell, there have been 11 episodes shown this season thusfar (despite Nielsen claimning a dozen).

By the way, he episode guide at tv.com agrees with me that 11 have aired, not that tv.com (or certaqinly me for that matter) is infallible.
The below is what epguides.com says. What episodes does TV Guide say have aired that don't show below?


Season 2

23. 2- 1 3T5501 28 Sep 06 In My Time of Dying
24. 2- 2 3T5502 5 Oct 06 Everybody Loves A Clown
25. 2- 3 3T5503 12 Oct 06 Bloodlust
26. 2- 4 3T5504 19 Oct 06 Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things
27. 2- 5 3T5505 26 Oct 06 Simon Said
28. 2- 6 3T5506 2 Nov 06 No Exit
29. 2- 7 3T5507 9 Nov 06 The Usual Suspects
30. 2- 8 3T5508 16 Nov 06 Crossroad Blues
31. 2- 9 3T5509 7 Dec 06 Croatoan
32. 2-10 11 Jan 07 Hunted
33. 2-11 18 Jan 07 Plaything

Critic's Notebook
The Knights of Prosperity
Bottom Line: Their enterprise is criminal, but the laughs are honest.
By Barry Garron, The Hollywood Reporter December 27, 2006

9-9:30 p.m., Wednesdays (ABC)

In the world of the sitcom, television has become the catalyst for more television. When Earl Hickey watched Carson Daly talk about karma, the premise for "My Name Is Earl" was off and running. In this series, Eugene Gurkin (Donal Logue) spies jaded celebrity Mick Jagger showing off his digs on E! News. That becomes the inspiration for "The Knights of Prosperity."

"Earl," amid small town trailer trash, and "Knights," in urbanized Queens, are both single-camera comedies about a quest for the Impossible Dream. In each, the well-intentioned hero is surrounded by a cadre of ordinary looking guys and at least one knockout woman. In fall 2005, "Earl" was the beneficiary of an all-out NBC marketing blitz. Now ABC, in its own way, is doing the same for "Knights," which originally was scheduled for fall.

Good thing. Based on the first couple of episodes -- and particularly the pilot -- "Knights" will be a welcome addition to a TV season suffering through a longterm comedy drought. It bursts with humor thanks to a solid cast, smart writing and a quick pace.

What's more, creators Rob Burnett and Jon Beckerman trusts the audience to get jokes without making characters refer to the obvious. Whether it's a Loni Anderson poster in the background or T-shirts with Yiddish expressions taken from Glickman's Jewish Supplies, "Knights" rewards you for paying attention in ways most comedies don't.

Initially, the show was called "Let's Rob Mick Jagger." In the pilot, Eugene, an overnight janitor for the last 20 years, wakes up to the idea that, unless he does something now, he'll die with a mop in one hand and a toilet plunger in the other. To finance his dream of owning his own bar, he seizes on the idea of burglarizing Jagger's apartment. Jagger is listed as an executive producer (along with his producing partner Victoria Pearman) and does a great self-parody cameo in the pilot, but it's unlikely he'll turn up in many, or any, other weeks. Then again, as the second episode indicates, you don't need Jagger to do a funny show about robbing him.

Eugene puts together a group of six, each with a dream that lacks only a pile of money to make it a reality. There's fellow janitor Squatch (Lenny Venito), beautiful waitress Esperanza (Sofia Vergara), frustrated cabbie Gary (Maz Jobrani), ample security guard Rockefeller (Kevin Michael Richardson) and Louis (Josh Grisetti), initially recruited as a naive intern promised college credit to help produce a sequel to "Taxi." Come to think of it, though, if the writing holds up, this group of dreamers and misfits could be counted as a descendant of "Taxi."

Logue is a terrific Everyman and gets strong support from the entire ensemble. Burnett, who produced, created, wrote, directed and maybe even supervised the craft service table, has a lively sense of human foibles, a keen eye for detail and an appreciation for the comically absurd. May his knights live long and prosper.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/television/reviews/article_display.jsp?&rid=8572

Critic's Notebook
In Case of Emergency
Bottom Line: This sitcom would stand out even more in a "Class"-less society.
By Barry Garron, The Hollywood Reporter December 29, 2006

9:30-10:00 p.m., Wednesdays (ABC)

Though I was nowhere near him, I still can imagine the pained expression on the face of Howard Morris when CBS premiered "The Class" last fall.

"The Class," one of the fall's better sitcoms, is about former classmates who reunite after not seeing each other for years. They've had varying degrees of success but never quite measured up to the promise of their school years. At the center of the group is a genuinely nice guy who's been dumped by his girl. Another classmate is on the verge of suicide.

Morris is the creator, writer and exec producer of "In Case of Emergency," which has enough similarities -- right down to the dumped guy and the near-suicide -- that it could be a response to the same classroom assignment. The similarity of the two premises makes comparison inevitable which is too bad because "Emergency," especially the pilot episode, is a solid sitcom with a strong cast and a lot of potential.

There's room for improvement, of course. Jonathan Silverman, who plays jilted greeting card writer and all-around nice guy Harry Kennison, needs to take his performance down a notch or two. Also, there's no clear need for Dr. Joanna, the character played by Lori Loughlin. She catches the eye of Jason Ventress (David Arquette) after she patches him up following the suicide scene but the relationship is forced and awkward, a speed bump in an otherwise smooth and well-paced show.

The others in the ensemble are Kelly Lee (Kelly Hu), the class valedictorian who ended up providing sensual Korean massages, and Sherman Yablonsky (Greg Germann), who shed his high school girth and became the author of a bestselling diet book. When Sherman's wife splits unexpectedly, the shock sends him back to binge eating.

The show operates at a frantic pace -- sometimes too frantic -- but it has its funny moments as well. Hu is adept at physical comedy and Germann makes his pathetic character oddly appealing. Morris mixes heart with humor and blends smart dialogue with visual gags so that you never have to wait long for the next laugh. You get the feeling that if this show is given enough time to find its strengths and understand its characters, it could be around for quite some time.

Wednesday night has been in desperate need of comedy. At the start of the season, the only two broadcast sitcoms were NBC's "Twenty Good Years" and "30 Rock." The former is gone and the latter has been moved to Thursday. That should create an opportunity for ABC's duo of "The Knights of Prosperity" and "Emergency."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/television/reviews/article_display.jsp?&rid=8583

Critic's Notebook
Dirt
Bottom Line: This "Dirt" is just better off under the rug.
By Barry Garron, The Hollywood Reporter December 28, 2006

10-11:00PM, Tuesday Jan. 2nd on FX

We live in an age of celebrity. People are famous for being famous and marketed like soda. Now there are cable channels, syndicated programs and publishing empires that exist simply to meet the demand for intimate details about people who are of no consequence in our personal lives.

"Dirt" opens the doors to one such enterprise, a sensational tabloid edited by Lucy Spiller (Courteney Cox). Spiller is obsessed with the quest for scandalous details. And if she can't find any, her magazine gladly will pay someone to manufacture them. Not surprisingly, Spiller also is delusional, having convinced herself that she is really on a mission to uncover truth.

Her most trusted ally and chief henchman is a resourceful paparazzo whose delusions are more of the classical psychotic variety. Ian Hart plays functional schizophrenic Don Konkey, whom Lucy met in journalism school where, apparently, both ignored everything that was taught.

Matthew Carnahan, who created the series and wrote and directed its premiere, fashions a world that is dark and simplistic. His Hollywood is a nest of vipers. Actors, agents, producers, reporters -- even nannies to the stars -- they're all the same. Everyone is corrupt or corruptible, shallow, self-absorbed and, usually, addicted.

That dismal set of characteristics extends to the main characters as well. Though Carnahan gives Lucy and Konkey texture, they remain starkly unappealing. Hart delivers a tender portrayal of Konkey, a wounded soul. In the end, though, the guy has no more conscience than a serial killer. Cox's Lucy is less well defined, reveling in her power one moment and displaying a touch of emotional vulnerability the next.

Together, they go to great lengths, including blackmail and entrapment, to destroy celebrities' lives. And yet they are surprisingly apathetic about the pain they leave in their wake. For Lucy, its all about newsstand sales. For Konkey, it's all about being loyal to Lucy. For viewers, it's all about becoming weary of the ongoing warfare between the scorpions and the snakes.

Is Carnahan putting us on? Are we trying to overanalyze what might be mere camp? Not likely. Although several characters are refugees from central casting, there is too much of an earnest streak running through "Dirt" to dismiss it as a breathless soap. So let's give Cox credit for trying something a galaxy away from Monica of "Friends" and acknowledge Hart's acting chops and then maybe let it go at that.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/television/reviews/article_display.jsp?&rid=8577

Critic's Notebook
Looking forward, some no-no's for the New Year
By Brian Lowry, Variety December 31, 2006

Most critics spend part of December assembling best and worst lists from the year that was, taking inventory of those viewing hours that rewarded them and the ones they will never, ever get back. But why dwell on the past?

Regarding shows we've slighted and those which creatively slighted us, as they used to say on "Ally McBeal," "Bygones." So instead of rehashing what transpired on TV and elsewhere in 2006, here's a look forward to that which we could really do without going forward, in the hopes of a happier 2007.

• Demands for "The View's" Rosie O'Donnell to apologize. Let's just assume she's sorry and move on.

• Race-baiting and social engineering in reality TV. Love or hate "Survivor," it's a piss-poor venue to pit whites against Asians against Hispanics against African-Americans. Let's leave that kind of divisiveness to political conventions and cable news.

• Quotes from Robert Thompson, the Syracuse U. professor who doubles as director of the important-sounding Center for the Study of Popular Television and is available for sound bites on, well, just about anything.

It's often hard to find knowledgeable experts to weigh in on short notice about Miss USA going into rehab or O.J. (again), but as CanWest News Service noted, the ubiquitous Thompson amassed 60 media quotes in June alone. There have to be communications profs out there sitting by the phone like the Maytag repairman, waiting for Thompson to take a breather.

• Emails from publicists that begin, "Dear colleague." Granted, the flack-hack relationship is a symbiotic one, but we're not all working toward the same goal in the way that greeting implies. You're trying to get us to write about stuff (nicely), and 97% of the time we're trying to get you to go away.

• Articles and analysis that seek to project five or 10 years into TV's future. At the rapid pace things are evolving, crystal balls get fuzzy about 12 months out and become virtually useless much beyond that.

• Reality shows starring people who have long been out of the limelight and are willing to do anything to claw back into it.

• Movie ads featuring a rhapsodic Larry King. Seriously, if that's the most prestigious "critic" you can reference, just call it a "crowd-pleaser" and cut your losses.

• Another 27 improvisational sitcoms. Honestly, planning ahead and writing jokes down at least has the potential to be funnier, recent evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

• News programs that traffic in cheap scares aimed at parents. Although it's hard to get attention these days, alarmist "children in peril" tactics represent TV news at its lowest.

• Sportscasters who act as if they're providing play-by-play for the D-Day invasion. Mellow out, guys, especially when you're calling Akron vs. Appalachian St.

• More "Lost" clones. Please, try copying something else for awhile.

• Limited series masquerading as open-ended dramas. Know when to fold 'em.

• Speaking of knowing when to fold 'em, enough with the poker shows. If aliens receiving current TV transmissions arrive in the next few years, odds are they'll say, "Take us to your dealer."

• Gameshows that don't require any knowledge or skill, allowing contestants to flee with piles of cash even if they have the IQ of a fire hydrant.

On a closing note, it's only fair to confess that critics don't always get it right and seldom take advantage of the opportunity to go back and update a review, publicly copping to errors in judgment. So in the spirit of renewal, I'd like to amend my initial reaction to Showtime's "Dexter" and NBC's "Friday Night Lights." Although I pegged the latter as a tough sell ratings-wise, the creative misgivings expressed turned out to be unfounded, and both have gradually blossomed to rank among TV's best programs.

I sit corrected and hope to do better next year. And as noted above, here's a little prayer that some of those on the other side of the ball do better, too.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117956447.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

i know this is a little late.. but.. the last statement.. well thats a no brainer.. Me and the family mutt could do better than bryant gumble....

TV Sports
CBS' Nantz, Simms set to hit Super stage
By Michael McCarthy USA Today

CBS' telecast of Super Bowl XLI on Feb. 4 will be the first time the network's lead announcing team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms work the big game together.
.. And better than the NFL Network's new team of Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth.

Of course you are right (as usual!), Jim -- I counted a couple which have been shot but not yet run.

But please give me a break, it's New Year's Eve and I have to get ready to go to the Rose Bowl in the morning.

The below is what epguides.com says. What episodes does TV Guide say have aired that don't show below?


Season 2

23. 2- 1 3T5501 28 Sep 06 In My Time of Dying
24. 2- 2 3T5502 5 Oct 06 Everybody Loves A Clown
25. 2- 3 3T5503 12 Oct 06 Bloodlust
26. 2- 4 3T5504 19 Oct 06 Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things
27. 2- 5 3T5505 26 Oct 06 Simon Said
28. 2- 6 3T5506 2 Nov 06 No Exit
29. 2- 7 3T5507 9 Nov 06 The Usual Suspects
30. 2- 8 3T5508 16 Nov 06 Crossroad Blues
31. 2- 9 3T5509 7 Dec 06 Croatoan
32. 2-10 11 Jan 07 Hunted
33. 2-11 18 Jan 07 Plaything

To all of you who contribute to the thread, for all of you who just check in and read it, for all the TV writers and critics, for anyone who enjoys TV -- and for anyone I may have left out....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Enjoy the game and Happy New Year.

TV Sports
Gumbel’s Studio Skills Are Lost in Transition to NFL Network Booth
By Richard Sandomir The New York Times January 1, 2006

The plan to turn Bryant Gumbel into a play-by-play announcer for the NFL Network was always a risky wager that at age 58, he could adapt his broadcasting skills from the studio to the booth without prior experience.

By the evidence of his eighth and final game of the season, the Giants’ 34-28 victory over the Redskins on Saturday night, Gumbel has shown how difficult mastering play-by-play is. Or he has made it seem tougher than it is.

Gumbel’s hiring was a surprise, but he is a big name and all the best play-by-play voices were under contract. Choosing Cris Collinsworth as the analyst was an easy choice; he is fearless, blunt, amusing and self-deprecating and has worked well with various partners. Experience helps, and he has had to dominate the games to buttress Gumbel’s weakness.

I thought Gumbel would be better than he has been. Maybe it was the faith that he would be able to adapt more adroitly than he has. You can harp on the thinness of his voice, but that’s a minor element of his struggles.

He is far from mastering the job’s mechanics, although he’s a little better than he was a few weeks ago. But he still doesn’t identify players, see penalty flags or describe action with requisite speed and detail.

He does not seem to see what is happening as well as veteran announcers do, which can be attributed to inexperience or aging eyes.

• • • • • • • • • • •

In his call of a clearly incomplete pass in the first quarter, he gave us a call that sounded like a completion. “Manning with time,” he said. “Tim Carter. Close to the marker. Ade Jimoh.” Collinsworth, too polite to correct the miscall, simply paused before he criticized Carter for the dropped ball.

In the third quarter, on a pass that seemed to have been scooped by Carter, Gumbel said: “Manning throws, this time to Tim Carter.”

Was it incomplete or not? Gumbel didn’t say.

In separate but identical circumstances, Gumbel showed a startling lack of knowledge about elementary football.

Late in the third quarter, Eli Manning completed a 10-yard pass to David Tyree, but it was not enough for a Giants first down on third-and-17.

Gumbel said: “Complete to David Tyree, but he’s going to be short of the first-down marker and the Giants are going to give it up on downs.”

Out came Jeff Feagles, who punted the ball 42 yards on fourth down.

Gumbel did not correct himself.

Nor did Collinsworth.

It is football 101 that when one team surrenders the ball on downs, after an unsuccessful fourth-down play, the other starts at the yard line where the previous series ended.

But with 2 minutes 26 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Gumbel displayed the hole in his knowledge again when Tiki Barber ran for 7 yards on third-and-10.

Gumbel said: “He’s going to be short of a first down and the Redskins will take over on downs,”

And out came Feagles again to punt.

And Gumbel did not correct himself.

If his producer, Mark Loomis, tried to help, we don’t know.

In moments when he converses, debates or jokes with Collinsworth, Gumbel is comfortable; these exchanges mirror his studio experiences.

But on the type of plays during which Al Michaels, Jim Nantz, Joe Buck and Mike Tirico raise their voices and provide exciting and detailed calls, Gumbel doesn’t.

On Barber’s first touchdown run Saturday night, Gumbel and Collinsworth were mired in a conversation about the Redskins’ lack of takeaways this season; Barber had been knocked down and was on his feet before Gumbel caught up to the play.

Gumbel’s call of Barber’s second rushing score, of 55 yards, was passable, but his description of Barber’s final touchdown run, a 50-yarder, was rendered this way: “First down, Giants. Barber.”

He broke for four seconds of silence, without noting the yard lines Barber was passing, the Redskins he was outrunning or the defenders who missed tackling him.

Then he resumed the call: “Touchdown, Giants.”

Afterward, he fell silent for a few more seconds, then offered some of the details he should have given during the immediate, live call. The task, though, is to be quiet — or “lay out” — after a touchdown, not during it.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Gumbel has shown at the highest level that his career shift — from what he has called semi-retirement — was more difficult than he could have imagined.

He has 11 months until his next broadcast to prove that he can be better than the play-by-play announcers who are ranked lowest on Fox’s or CBS’s depth charts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/sports/football/01sandomir.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=football&pagewanted=print

Critic’s Notebook
You That Familiar Ticking Grows Fainter
By Tom Shales Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, December 31, 2006

Television, the master medium that dominated American entertainment for a half-century, is being pulled this way and that, going in seemingly contradictory directions at once. And no one knows for sure where the evolution is leading us.

Sometimes the passing of the old guard is epitomized in sudden, shocking and, in one conspicuous case, sorrowful events. This year, the death of Ed Bradley, stalwart veteran of the "60 Minutes" team, was a jolt not only because the viewing nation felt it had lost a friend and icon, but because it dramatized the fragility of the seemingly invulnerable -- even the show itself.

"60 Minutes" -- not only a rewarding national habit for decades but also a kind of lonely civilizing influence -- is a bellwether of myriad facets. Several months before Bradley's death, it was announced that fellow correspondent Mike Wallace, an amazing 88, would be lightening his workload -- although his energies and enthusiasms, and that magnificent broadcasting voice, appear undiminished -- and this disclosure, clearly not Wallace's idea, focused attention on the advanced ages of most of the show's correspondents. As with all news broadcasts, the program's audience "skews old," in demographic terms, and although it also skews affluent and influential, the age factor is an industry obsession.

It's discouraging, meanwhile, to concede there's an element of precariousness to even so seemingly inviolate an institution as "60 Minutes." To adapt and survive, the program has done what virtually every network news production now must do: Develop an Internet alter-ego to which viewers are referred for supplemental material and assorted ephemera (if it was edited out of the report that aired, then doesn't that mean it's probably not necessary?).

Everybody, of course, has to have a Web site. (Even Cottonelle toilet paper has a Web site; I haven't ventured over there to see what's on it.)

When the great "60 Minutes" surrendered to Web-site mania, there was something humbling about it, something moderately ominous. It's what the Web site represents that's discomforting: the Internet's encroachment on traditional media that continues apace every year, as well as the changing role of the audience that goes with it.

As TV changes, what's definite is uncertainty. What's reinvented today might be re-reinvented again tomorrow.

Ask not for whom the stopwatch ticks. It ticks for everything, even itself.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/29/AR2006122900260_pf.html

Of course you are right (as usual!), Jim -- I counted a couple which have been shot but not yet run.

But please give me a break, it's New Year's Eve and I have to get ready to go to the Rose Bowl in the morning.
Enjoy the game and have a safe New Year. :)

TV Notebook
Dead Ahead This Year
7 Picks for '07
By Don Kaplan, New York Post January 1, 2007

The new year means new episodes of the most highly anticipated shows. Here's a look at what's coming up in the beginnng of 2007:

• "American Idol" (Fox) - King of all reality shows finally returns Jan. 15. Up first, a month or more of deluded wannabes.

• "24" (Fox) - Jack Bauer, the anti-terrorist super agent, finally returns to save the world Jan. 14. Last time we saw Jack, he'd been Shanghaied, beaten to a pulp and put on a slow boat to China. It's a start.

• "Heroes" (NBC) - Can a group of ordinary folks with extraordinary powers save the world from a super-powered serial killer and nuclear winter? It's back Jan. 22.

• "Lost" (ABC) - Back Feb. 7.

• "I Love New York" (VH1) - The return of Tiffany Pollard - the angry young girl dubbed "New York" by rapper Flavor Flav - extends the life of TV's Cinderella story, the wacky dating show, "Flavor of Love." This time she's in the driver's seat in a "Bachelorette"-style show with men competing for her affections.

• "Battlestar Galactica" (SCIFI) - Returns Jan 21.

• "The Sarah Silverman Program" (Comedy Central) - Her new show, debuting Feb. 1, is described as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" with a girl.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01012007/tv/dead_ahead_this_year_tv_don_kaplan.htm

For anbody that grew-up in a Hispanic and/or Spanish-speaking household (here in the States or in Latin America) the following are beyond monumental news. Never, and I mean never, did I think that Televisa would make anything other than gameshows, musical variety specials and telenovelas to amuse the uneducated masses that have kept it in business for decades.

(International) TV Notebook
Televisa's youthful complexion
Network's primetime formula adds series and sitcoms to soaps
By Michael O'Boyle, Variety December 31, 2006

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican media conglom Televisa is embarking on an ambitious shift in programming in 2007 in an attempt to draw young auds back to broadcast TV.

Under the direction of veep of television Jose Baston, Televisa has been planning to revamp primetime on its two main channels with an unprecedented move into producing weekly series and sitcoms, as well as creating a new roadmap for telenovelas.

It's a complete shift in Televisa's normal production style. Telenovelas air five days a week, their stories run for a set time and duration -- so no additional seasons -- and are shot as close to their airing date as possible to allow producers to tweak storylines based on audience response. The new shows are a series of 13 episodes each that will run once a week and are being developed with an eye to second and third seasons.

In May, Televisa will bow dramatic series "Mujeres" (Women) a Mexican "Sex and the City" meets "Desperate Housewives"; comic action series "La Pantera" (The Panther), based on a Mexican comicbook; horror/suspense series "13 miedos" (13 Fears); and "Y ahora que hago?" (Now What Do I Do?), a comedy series in the vein of "Seinfeld," starring popular Mexican comic/variety show host Adal Ramones.

The shift has been orchestrated by Eduardo Clemesha, Televisa's director of new formats.

"These series have an entirely different visual language..., they have a new texture and taste," Clemesha says. "It was clear a year and a half ago that we had to bring out new product, but this has been a trend everywhere. The only thing for us to do was raise the bar in every way."

Clemesha put together the teams producing each show, many of which include fresh blood from outside the Televisa factory. Production company Lemon Films is co-producing "13 Miedos." The series is to be shot on 16mm by directors from Mexico's film industry. The other three series are being shot on HD.

Unidentified U.S. veterans are working as consultants on the shows.

"We want Televisa's first venture in this area to be vaccinated against failure, so we are turning to experts in these genres," Clemesha says.

Televisa is prepping its "vanguard telenovelas," which move away from traditional melodramatic conceits toward more reality- inspired stories.

"Televisa during its 50 years has always been an innovator," says producer Rosy Ocampo. "But recently we have seen more competition from other Spanish-language producers in Argentina and Colombia, and that has pushed us to again move in new, original directions."

U.S. Hispanic broadcaster Telemundo similarly has experimented with its telenovelas, but Televisa is aiming to go it one better.

Ocampo is prepping "Si muero lejos de ti" (If I Die Far From You), a telenovela based on migration to the United States.

Telenovela is based on real-life stories collected by Televisa writers who were dispatched to the U.S.-Mexico border to conduct interviews and research. "This is marking a whole new style of producing telenovelas," Ocampo says.

The second, "Salida de emergencia" (Emergency Exit), focuses on stories of divorce and the pressures that lead to couples splitting up.

The third axis of Televisa's current renovation project is revamping its comedy lineup with sitcoms under the direction of producer Roberto Gomez Fernandez.

Other Latin American broadcasters have remade versions of U.S. sitcoms pushed by Sony Pictures Television Intl., such as "Married ... With Children." Televisa is getting onboard with "The Jeffersons."

Gomez has already produced the pilot for "The Jeffersons," dubbed "Perez eres y Perez seras" (Perez You Are, and Perez You Will Be).

Gomez says the format seems "more Latin American than American."

For Mexico, the racial element has been exchanged for class divisions. Instead of the successful drycleaner, the Mexican version is based on the sudden rise to wealth of a taco-stand owner who moves his family to one of Mexico's City's wealthy enclaves.

Gomez says the shift to producing U.S.-style series was driven by the goal of making local hits that had have a better chance of being exported.

"The comedy of Mexico is very particular, and it has been difficult for our comedy shows to travel," Gomez says.

Gomez knows what he's talking about. He is the son of Roberto Gomez, creator and star of "El chavo del 8," the hit '70s children's comedy show that continues to run in syndication today.

Mexican comedy has been defined by sketch comedy written by one or two writers. On "Perez" a team of writers work together, just as they do Stateside.

Mexico's market -- dominated by Televisa, which draws around 70% of broadcast auds and a similar chunk of ad revenue -- has only a handful of indie producers.

"In Televisa, decisions about transmission are taken at the same time as production decisions," Gomez says. "We are opening up the number of productions being developed so executives have a real gamut of pitches to choose from, making it more like the process in the U.S."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117956446.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

TV Notebook
An Overnight Death Watch, and Then Images of the Hangman’s Noose
By Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times December 31, 2006

Of course American television was going to show Saddam Hussein’s execution. In a medium that feeds on immediacy, it was just a question of not having to wait too long to see it. And the coverage of the Iraqi dictator’s last moments turned out to be an enervating, overnight death watch.

When the first images of the hanging began trickling onto CNN and other cable news shows just before 4 a.m., the death looked oddly casual. Mr. Hussein, who refused a hood, wore a black overcoat and a calm, bland expression that made him look almost like a visiting dignitary on a factory tour.

Some news reports said the condemned man shouted “Allah-u akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” on the gallows, but the camera showed Mr. Hussein being escorted by masked men into a shabby room, seemingly listening in a considering way as one of the guards gestured to his own neck as if to explain how the process works. The man slipped a black scarf around Mr. Hussein’s neck, then the noose, and then the camera stopped.

It took another few hours for Fox, MSNBC and CNN to transmit Iraqi television’s record of the aftermath: grainy, jumpy shots, possibly taken by a cellphone camera, of Mr. Hussein’s body, lying wrapped in a sheet, his face uncovered and his neck, as a Fox anchor put it, “horribly twisted.”

Throughout the night, cable news anchors repeatedly assured viewers that for deep-rooted cultural reasons, the Iraqi public would need to see a videotape of Saddam Hussein’s execution — as if implying that left to their own devices, the anchors would prefer to just flash a photocopy of the death certificate.

For its own cultural reasons, American television needed to paint morbid curiosity and the competitiveness of live television as a duty executed soberly and reluctantly. “This need to show pictures, some of which are very gruesome, frankly, must be important” for the Iraqi government, the CNN overnight anchor, Stephen Frazier, told Ryan Chilcote, as the close-ups of Mr. Hussein’s body crossed the screen. Mr. Frazier then asked the reporter to explain the “apparent bruising” on the dead man’s face.

The Saturday morning shows were more subdued, trying to finesse the jarring contrast between scenes of American well-wishers lined up outside a church in Palm Desert, Calif., to pay their respects to former President Gerald R. Ford, and Iraqis dancing in the streets of Sadr City in Iraq — and Dearborn, Mich. — to celebrate Mr. Hussein’s inglorious execution.

The networks mostly chose not to begin the day with the most lurid shots. On ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Terry McCarthy, a Baghdad-based reporter, said the network was not showing Iraqi images of Mr. Hussein’s body because “we think they are a little too graphic to show on television.”

The news that Mr. Hussein was indeed dead came late on Friday night, and anticlimactically after hour upon hour of creepy music, blood-colored graphics and montages of Mr. Hussein’s most infamous moments, particularly his spider hole capture in 2003, when an American military camera recorded a hairy, befuddled Mr. Hussein being prodded and poked like a vagrant being searched for lice.

As the deadline loomed, and commentators filled time with pronouncements like “the clock is ticking on Saddam Hussein,” even on-air personalities looked restless. After devoting his entire hour on CNN to the impending hanging, Larry King asked, “Is there something ghoulish about this?” Mr. King looked a little let down when he had to sign off before the execution, promising viewers, “It is really imminent now.”

Shortly after 10 p.m., anchors announced that Iraqi news organizations were declaring Mr. Hussein dead, but there were no live images or sound bites to bolster those bulletins. Baghdad was still asleep, so reporters who stayed up all night to record the moment could not deliver an instant reaction.

CNN got around it by showing tape of Iraqi-Americans holding a rowdy outdoor demonstration in Dearborn, Mich. Iraqi state television apparently also felt the need to punctuate execution images with celebratory scenes: CNN reported that Iraqi state television was also showing images of Iraqi-Americans cheering in Dearborn. Those turned out to be images taken from the CNN signal.

Before the first pictures arrived, some anchors fretted on air about whether they could be shown. CNN’s Anderson Cooper seemed most worried about the content, telling viewers that a decision over how much to show would be made “at the highest levels” of CNN. But Iraqi television did not show Mr. Hussein’s death throes on Friday, so the ethical quandry was somewhat muted.

Fox was much less squeamish, pumping up the Friday night vigil with graphics that promised “The end is near!” and “Date with Death” and urging viewers to stay tuned to Fox News.

All the networks tried to prepare viewers with long biographies of Mr. Hussein and his many crimes. CNN put together a report on the history of toppled leaders’ executions, from Mussolini in 1945 to the deposed Afghan president, Najibullah, who was hanged from a Kabul traffic post by the Taliban in 1996. CNN even interviewed a forensic scientist who used a plastic medical school dummy, a rope wrapped around its neck, to explain that asphyxiation can be painless and quick.

But when the pictures arrived, there was no getting around the raw barbarity of the moment. On New York’s ABC “Eyewitness News,” the morning anchor, Michelle Charlesworth, turned to Jim Dolan and said, “Remind us of what kind of monster this man was.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/world/middleeast/31tvwatch.html?_r=1&ref=television&oref=slogin

• • • • • • • • • • •

TV Notebook
Hard Choices Over Video of Execution
By Bill Carter, The New York Times January 1, 2007

Confronted with a second, unofficial and more graphic video account of the moments leading up to the execution of Saddam Hussein, and the hanging itself, executives at television news organizations made a series of what one executive, President Steve Capus of NBC News, called “delicate editorial decisions” about what they would put on the air on Saturday night and Sunday to augment the first pictures of the execution.

The new video, almost certainly shot by a cellphone camera by one of the guards or witnesses at the execution, includes exchanges between Mr. Hussein and either the witnesses or guards leading up to the moment when the trapdoor opens and he falls. No national American television organization has thus far allowed the moment of the drop to be shown.

But the same niceties were not observed on numerous Web sites, which have posted the complete video, including the moment that Mr. Hussein, noose around his neck, falls, and a close-up of his face afterward. Some prominent sites, like Google’s video site and the conservative blog Littlegreenfootballs.com, have posted the complete cellphone coverage of the execution, including the moment Mr. Hussein falls from view.

Fox News and CNN ran the cellphone video — freezing on Mr. Hussein’s face before the final moment — most of the day on Sunday. Fox was the first to use the video on Saturday evening, after the Arab-language channel Al Jazeera aired it. ABC ran some of the video starting in its late newscasts Saturday night.

David Rhodes, the vice president for news at Fox News, said one reason the network chose to transmit the new video was that it contained the verbal exchanges between Mr. Hussein and those about to put him to death. Most television news executives interviewed Sunday said these hostile exchanges made the new video newsworthy. Jon Klein, the president of CNN’s domestic operations, said the flavor of sectarianism cinched the decision. “It really was a microcosm of the various strains in Iraqi society at the moment,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01tube.html?ref=technology

TV Notebook
Tiki's $10M TV Deal
EXCLUSIVE
By Andrew Marchand, New York Post January 1, 2007

As part of a massive four-year, $10 million contract with Disney, Tiki Barber is expected to work for both ABC News and ESPN, The Post has learned.

For ABC, Barber will be on two of its most prominent news programs. The agreement calls for Barber, 31, to work on both Good Morning America and 20/20. His exact position has yet to be fully defined.

For ESPN, his role is unknown, but Barber would figure to be a prime candidate if Tony Kornheiser were to decide to leave the Monday Night Football booth. An ESPN spokesman declined comment.

By retiring now, Barber relinquished a total of $8.3 million he was owed over the next two years by the Giants.

Instead Barber - barring an injury in the playoffs - will leave the game with his health and will make more money in total over the next four years.

While the average per year is less, the chance at a long TV career could prove much more lucrative than a few extra NFL paychecks.

If Barber ends up on ESPN's NFL broadcasts, he will likely need to make peace with analysts Michael Irvin and Tom Jackson. After Irvin and Jackson questioned Barber when his retirement plans became public, Barber shot back by labeling the duo "idiots."

Barber already has plenty of broadcasting experience. His long resume includes co-hosting Fox & Friends on Fox News every Tuesday morning.

In that role, Barber impressed network executives with his smoothness.

Barber's representative had talks with all the networks, but ABC and ESPN were very aggressive from the moment Barber became available.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01012007/sports/giants/tikis_10m_tv_deal_giants_andrew_marchand.htm

Critic’s Notebook
Courteney Cox returns to TV dishing some 'Dirt'
Maureen Ryan's Chicago Tribune 'The Watcher' Blog January 1, 2007

You may not have ever bought a tabloid magazine -- maybe you consider yourself above such things -- but for most of us, the temptation to at least page through one of those colorful mags at the doctor’s office or in line at the supermarket is too much to resist.

Even if you think the world of celebrities is a silly waste of time, it’s a vicarious thrill to have your assumptions confirmed by the paparazzi photos of drunken starlet antics and the plastic-surgery tell-alls in these empty, delicious, sometimes vicious weekly rags.

If only “Dirt” (9 p.m. Tuesday, FX) reflected that zesty sense of schadenfreude. The series does have a great premise: In her return to television, “Friends” star Courteney Cox plays a tenacious tabloid editor who will do literally anything to get a scoop.

Paying off the servants of the stars, sending a photographer to snap a dead actress in her coffin, forcing cooperation from celebs who hope to prevent the publication of reputation-ruining stories: It’s all in a day’s work for editor Lucy Spiller.

The trouble with Spiller, however, is not that she’s ambitious, duplicitous and nearly amoral (as are many of cable television’s most magnetic characters). It’s that Cox and the shallow “Dirt” scripts fail to bring this woman to life.

Cox, a gifted comedic actress, just doesn’t appear to have the dramatic range to portray Spiller as anything but cold and ruthless. And the stars that Spiller manipulates mainly come off as petulant and not terribly bright.

It’s a pity, since television could use more love-to-hate-her ladies. Three of my favorite current ones are played by Melinda Clarke (Julie Cooper on “The O.C.”), Elizabeth Perkins (Celia Hodes on “Weeds”) and Polly Walker (Atia of the Julii on “Rome”).

Whatever the level of the writing on these shows -- and “The O.C.” has not always been kind to the talented Clarke -- these ladies never fail to bring a healthy helping of wit and intelligence to their rhymes-with-rich characters. These women can be ruthless, sure, but they’re also good company.

But the relentless Spiller doesn’t belong in their catty company. And we’re far from the saucy shenanigans of “Nip/Tuck” here: Spiller’s sex scenes -- with a random bartender or solo -- are about as sizzling as a trip to the dentist. Spiller looks as though she’d rather be checking her Blackberry, and as those scenes drag on, so would you.

Spiller’s ace in the hole at her tabloid empire is a photographer called Don Konkey, who, thanks to his schizophrenia, sees scary visions as he roams L.A. snapping pictures of indiscreet stars. In the end, Konkey’s repetitive hallucinations are distracting and irritating, because they don’t shed much light on anything but his mental illness.

What’s frustrating about “Dirt” is that Spiller’s quest to create a weekly tabloid that appeals to both “Wal-Mart mommies” and “rich sorority girls,” is an excellent idea for a TV show. Thanks to the greed and ambitions of would-be Hollywood players, there are scoops to be found by those willing to wade through the depths of the entertainment industry.

Spiller and Konkey do get those scoops, but there’s little verve in any of “Dirt’s” depressing Hollywood machinations.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/

Will this news dramatically affect the HD-DVD and Blu-ray announcements at CES '07 a week from today? Mmmphhh...

Technology
Studios’ DVDs Face a Crack in Security
By John Markoff, The New York Times January 1, 2007

An anonymous computer programmer may have skewed the competition over standards for high-definition DVD discs by possibly defeating a scheme that both sides use to protect digital content.

The standards, HD-DVD and Blu-ray, are being backed by rival coalitions of Hollywood studios and consumer electronics and computer companies that are eagerly marketing a new generation of digital media players and video game machines tailored for widescreen TVs.

The HD-DVD coalition includes companies like Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba and NEC; the Blu-ray camp has Sony, Philips and Samsung. Among studios, Universal is exclusively backing HD-DVD. Paramount and Warner Brothers also support HD-DVD, but not exclusively. Representatives of Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers are on the board of the Blu-ray group.

The two groups have taken different technical approaches in their efforts to prohibit consumers from making copies of movies and other digital material stored on discs. Both groups use an encryption scheme known as Advanced Access Copy System. The Blu-ray system also adds a software-based component that makes it possible to modify the copy protection scheme on new discs if the old one is broken by hackers.

The standards are brand new, but it appears that the two groups’ copy protection schemes are already about to be tested.

The HD-DVD camp may have suffered a setback when the programmer, who identified himself as Muslix64, announced in the Internet discussion forum Doom9 on Dec. 18 that he had successfully copied movies distributed in the HD-DVD format. The note directed readers to a site where demonstration software he had written could be downloaded.

“I was not aware of anyone having done that, so I did,” he wrote.

In an accompanying video demonstration posted on the YouTube Web site, the programmer showed encryption keys for six movies and concluded by stating “A.A.C.S. is unbreakable? I don’t think so. Do you? Stay tuned for source code in January. Merry Christmas.”

Because the encryption system has a hierarchy of encryption keys, simply breaking the system for a single movie does not mean that it is possible to copy all movies.

Technical experts who have examined the software posted by Muslix64 said that it was only a partial solution for making copies of the digitally protected material, but that it did not bode well for the Advanced Access Content System.

“They’re playing with something that is incomplete, but it is still a troubling sign,” said Richard Doherty, the president of Envisioneering, a consumer electronics industry consulting firm.

The programmer has said that he plans to post more software on Tuesday, describing a more complete attack on A.A.C.S.

On Friday, the industry group that is completing the A.A.C.S. protection standard issued a short statement saying that it was aware of the claims but had not yet verified them.

If the person who identified himself as Muslix64 is able to create a complete version of a decryption program, or if others extend the software so that consumers without technical expertise can readily make copies of movies, that would create a crisis for the HD-DVD camp. That system contains a “revocation” mechanism for shutting down HD-DVD players whose encryption system has been compromised. But industry analysts say that taking such a step would give the HD-DVD system a tremendous black eye, angering consumers and shaking the confidence of Hollywood studios in the system.

Today’s DVDs are protected using an earlier encryption technique known as Content Scramble System, or C.S.S. That system was undermined in 1999 by a small group of programmers, and movie studios have said that the new A.A.C.S. would not fall victim to the same kind of technological attack.

The Blu-ray system adds modifiable copy protection software, known as BD Plus, that is based on an approach pioneered by a group of technologists at Cryptography Research in San Francisco as a safeguard in the event the A.A.C.S. is compromised. Industry executives said that Microsoft opposed the Cryptography approach because it would shift control to the studio and away from hardware makers.

If the HD-DVD protection system has indeed been compromised, it was not immediately clear which camp would benefit most directly.

Some posters in Internet discussion groups have argued that the cracking of HD-DVD may increase the popularity of the system among consumers eager to make copies of movies they have purchased.

At the same time, a weakened encryption system could undermine studio support, causing some to turn to the Blu-ray technology instead and giving the Blu-ray group an advantage in offering a wider range of content.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/technology/01hack.html?ref=technology

TV Sports Notebook
NFL NOT-WORK
Phil Mushnick's New York Post 'Equal Time' Column January 1, 2007

The good news about The NFL Network is that it's no worse than the NFL's four other networks. And that ain't good news. Saturday night's Giants-Skins telecast would've been weak for any network, let alone the eighth and final try for the NFL's own brand in its first live-games season.

For starters, having noted all the deficiencies about the Giants' coaching staff, Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth didn't say a word as that staff's worst blunder of the year formed right in front of them.

After Tiki Barber scored to make it 33-21 with 6:13 left, the Giants kicked the extra point to go up 13. What the hay? They had to go for two!

Washington would reasonably get two more possessions. Thus, whether the Giants led by 12 or 13 made no difference - they could still lose. Had they made a two-point conversion for a 14-point lead, the best the Skins could do was tie.

Sure enough, with just over two minutes left the Skins, down six, had the ball with a chance to win! But on the NFL Network, not even a hint of the Giants' inability to do simple math.

There was more where that came from. In the second quarter, up 10-7, the Giants had a first-and-10 from their own three. Big plays coming, no?

But at that point, NFLN decided to focus - in taped highlights and two separate sideline cuts to NFLN's Marshall Faulk - on the careers of both Barber and Faulk. Not even a third-and-six from the seven could shake NFLN from this mindless, ESPN Monday Night Football-like abandonment.

Yet, in the same series, when the Giants had a third-and-seven from their own 18, Gumbel said, "This is a big down for the Giants" because the Skins could get good field position. (Meanwhile, the large, superimposed-on-the-field graphic read, "2nd and 7.")

Gumbel could use a terminology coach. With every timeout taken, most of which made sense, he said the Giants or Skins, "burn a timeout." Burn? Burn suggests that a timeout is being wasted. Why not simply say, "call" a timeout?

And Gumbel's use of "turning it over on downs" as the punt team appears, is wrong. The ball's turned over on downs when a team fails to make a first down on fourth down.

Even the telecast's best moments came up small. Late in the first half, Collinsworth was appalled by the behavior of Skins DB Ade Jimoh, who'd just been flagged for taunting, a call that led to a field goal. Collinsworth lamented that trash talking has become a senseless part of our culture. Strong stuff, good stuff.

But two quarters later, Collinsworth was just another panderer. The game ended with a pushing, trash-talk hassle, TE Visanthe Shiancoe taunting the Skins with a muscle-flex. Collinsworth noted that Shiancoe, "is pointing to his bicep, as well he should." Oh, OK.

There was one other thing, a case of the NFL Network being sabotaged through an open microphone. Twice in the second half, loud, unmistakable human burps - "Bah-eeerp! - were heard. No fooling.

Everyone's a critic.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Speaking of burps, Friday night on MSG the Rangers were down, 1-0, at Ottawa when the picture was lost for the rest of the game. And when video was restored, MSG picked up the Knicks-Suns, just in time for the "Heineken At The Half Halftime Show." Guess Heineken can repeat on ya, too . . . This was the year when TV began to place Fantasy Football over real football. Yesterday, CBS left Raiders-Jets to show Cowboys RB Marion Barber score from one yard out.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Darren Woodson is yet another ex-star player hired by ESPN and just thrown on the air as an inside expert. Friday on "Cold Pizza," Woodson said he liked the Giants to beat the Skins because Michael Strahan was back to play his second straight game. Two days earlier, Strahan had been placed on IR.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Ex-Jet great Joe Klecko was on the air, yesterday, subbing for Ray Lucas on SNY's Jets postgame show, when his cell phone rang. It was a call to tell him that his son, Dan, a defensive lineman for the Colts, had just lined up at fullback - and then caught a TD pass from Peyton Manning.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01012007/sports/nfl_not_work_sports_phil_mushnick.htm

The Business of TV
Murdoch vs. Regan: Hollywood Girds for Latest Boldface Battle of Egos
By Sharon Waxman, The New York Times January 1, 2007

When it comes to spectacle, Hollywood enjoys nothing better than a nasty legal battle between two determined and egotistical adversaries: Bette Davis meets Joan Crawford, in a courtroom.

In the past such face-offs have featured prominent figures like the former Disney chairman Michael D. Eisner, the DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, the superagent Michael S. Ovitz, the humorist Art Buchwald and the actress-writer Joan Collins. Many of them cringed to hear their private comments and inner thoughts offered up for public consumption.

And so may it go if the headline-making book publisher Judith Regan proceeds with a lawsuit her lawyers have threatened against the News Corporation, which owns HarperCollins, the publishing house that fired her in December after the O. J. Simpson book and television project imploded.

In an interview last week Ms. Regan’s lawyer, Bert Fields, said he was preparing to file a lawsuit for libel and wrongful termination against the News Corporation shortly after the New Year because of allegations that she had been fired after making anti-Semitic remarks during a heated phone conversation with a company lawyer.

“My present thought is that we would sue not just for breach of contract but for libel,” he said. “They issued false and defamatory statements about Judith. This has been terribly destructive to her career, and I think the damages could be huge.”

A News Corporation spokesman declined to comment officially because the matter involved an imminent lawsuit, but he provided what he said was the company view: the News Corporation was confident about its case and not worried that a third party, a temporary worker who was briefly Ms. Regan’s assistant, had emerged to support Ms. Regan’s account of the conversation that led to the dismissal.

“We’re very confident that what we said is not false,” said the company executive, who added that the News Corporation chairman, Rupert Murdoch, was taking an active interest in the matter. “But this seems to be heading more toward a public relations war than a litigation.”

Well, naturally so. In Hollywood battles a war of words often precedes legal formalities, and Mr. Fields has plenty of experience. He has played legal counselor in headline-grabbing cases like Mr. Katzenberg versus the Walt Disney Company in the mid-1990s, and two Tom Cruise defamation cases, in Britain in 1998 and in California in 2003, both over allegations that he was homosexual.

In those instances Mr. Katzenberg and Mr. Cruise got satisfaction, either financial or legal, although they had to suffer through headlines that, in Mr. Cruise’s case, repeated the unsupported allegations and, in Mr. Katzenberg’s case, unearthed a nasty remark about his diminutive height.

But a case involving Ms. Regan may well prove to be uglier and more prurient. Legal scholars and prominent litigators said that proving libel is extremely difficult, but it opens the door to a public airing of the litigants’ private affairs.

“Libel is a very, very high mountain of proof to climb, and you can get destroyed in the process,” said Pierce O’Donnell, a leading litigator who successfully sued Paramount in the 1980s for Mr. Buchwald, who contended that the studio had stolen his screenplay idea in its movie “Coming to America.”

Ms. Regan, whose lively personal life is already well-worn fodder for tabloid gossip, will find lawyers poring over every off-color remark she may have made, Mr. O’Donnell said. Former colleagues have already emerged to confirm that she was reprimanded in the past for making an anti-Semitic remark at work.

Mr. O’Donnell said: “She will open herself up to every scurrilous allegation. She will not enjoy one minute of this litigation. They’ll hire a bulldog, and it’ll be a bloodletting.”

Meanwhile HarperCollins, which owns ReganBooks, would probably face uncomfortable questions about why it tolerated Ms. Regan for so long if the company found her behavior so objectionable.

And executives would also have to submit to a detailed examination of their decision-making process in the Simpson project, a book titled “If I Did It” and a television interview conducted by Ms. Regan, which unleashed such a cascade of public outrage that both were canceled.

“Everything that went on will get into evidence,” Mr. Fields promised. “What really happened with that interview, what Jane Friedman,” the president of HarperCollins and Ms. Regan’s former boss, “is really like.”

A significant issue for a jury, Mr. O’Donnell said, would be whether the accusations of anti-Semitism were merely a pretext for getting rid of the controversial publisher. HarperCollins “may say that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the other side may say the straw was really the embarrassment over O. J.,” he said.

The breach-of-contract matter might be considered a garden-variety case, except for the accusation of anti-Semitism. With four years remaining on her contract, Ms. Regan would have been paid several million dollars had she not been fired for cause, a general term that usually includes behavior like dishonesty, failure to carry out orders or sexual harassment.

But the charge of anti-Semitism itself is not a clear-cut one for either side, legal experts said. In its termination letter News Corporation did not specify the reason for Ms. Regan’s dismissal, though the company did later release its account of the allegedly anti-Semitic remarks to the news media.

Mr. Fields said he planned to argue that a HarperCollins lawyer, Mark Jackson, knew that Ms. Regan never said that a “Jewish cabal” was in league against her during that phone conversation.

“He stated it, knowing it was false,” Mr. Fields said. “These days people don’t want much to do with an anti-Semite or an anti-black person.”

Others said it was more complicated. “It really is a he said-she said,” said Alan R. Friedman, a leading New York entertainment lawyer. “Both sides have their reasons. Both witnesses have reason to be less than objective. And you have to show that it has an impact on her reputation. Will this really change anyone’s opinion of Judith Regan, a ‘Jewish cabal’? This isn’t like denying that the Holocaust occurred. That’s just a burden.”

David R. Ginsburg, who is executive director of the entertainment law program at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that if a jury believed she made the remark, it would be a basis for firing. “Taking it in the abstract, it is damaging for a company to take no action while a senior executive purportedly makes anti-Semitic remarks,” he said.

Several lawyers said they imagined that the matter would never have received this much attention if not for the furor over O. J. Simpson. And they said they believed it would be settled quietly once the media noise died down because the negative implications for both sides were so great.

On the eve of the new year there were indications that a window might open toward conciliation. Mr. Fields suggested an apology: “In my view they should retract what they said. If they did, it might limit the damages. We’d still sue for breach of contract, but we might not sue for libel.”

The News Corporation executive said the company would prefer to settle the matter quietly. “We’d like this to go away quickly, amicably and professionally,” he said. “We’re not going to settle at any price. We have a very strong case. But having the winning case doesn’t mean you want to go to court.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/books/01wran.html?ref=business