Hot Off The Press! The Latest Television News and Info [Text View] - Page 81

dad1153

01-07-07, 02:43 PM

The Business of TV
Broadcast will find a way to let the F-bombs fall
By Andrew Wallenstein, The Hollywood Reporter - January 7, 2007

For the majority of the country unwilling to cough up hundreds of dollars in premium-cable subscription fees or multiseason DVD purchases, this is a terrific week. Two of HBO's reigning masterpieces, "The Sopranos" and "The Wire," start their off-network syndication runs Monday on A&E and BET, respectively.

But there is a catch for newcomers to these series: Both will be edited for language, nudity and violence. Basic cable has stricter content standards than premium cable, so if "Sopranos" fans were looking forward to strippers without pasties at the Bada Bing, their disappointment with A&E will be profound.

However, after taking an advance glimpse at A&E's edit of "Sopranos," I have to say it proves that a few judicious snips to a series can be made without entirely snuffing its profane soul. It's not the same "Sopranos" -- some of the substitutions for the F-bomb are about as seamless as the English-language dubbing in a ninja movie -- but it isn't all that different, either.

HBO's bustling syndication business is strange when you think back to NBC chairman Bob Wright famously griping in 2001 that the R-rated stylings of "Sopranos" posed a competitive problem. Could he ever have anticipated premium cable would grow its business by cleaning up its content?

And perhaps even more improbably, NBC's own "Saturday Night Live" recently pointed the way for broadcasters to boost their bottom line by shifting in the opposite direction.

But first consider premium cable, which would have presumably pressed its natural advantage with the most envelope-pushing programming possible. And there always will be some of that -- the woolly Western "Deadwood" may be HBO's hardest syndication sale.

But ever since "Sex and the City" worked wonders for TBS, it seems as if the generation of premium programming that followed it has been less graphic. Cut a few gratuitous nude scenes, and "Entourage" is practically tailor-made for Spike TV or Comedy Central. As provocative as the polygamist premise is on "Big Love," it still is essentially a family drama that TNT or USA could make its own.

Fellow premium cabler Showtime seems just as well poised to turn its latest batch of original programs into syndicated winners. "Dexter" and "Sleeper Cell" are about a serial killer and a terrorist group, respectively, but with minimal editing, even these shows could work on broadcast. There isn't any gore on display on "Dexter" that you haven't already seen on "CSI," and "Sleeper" is tackling similar territory to another CBS staple, "The Unit."

Also consider that premium cable practically created the optimal conditions for its aftermarket by prompting basic cable and broadcast to get more risque in order to capture HBO-style sizzle. For example, FX may have well shot past HBO and Showtime on the edge-o-meter with its new drama "Dirt," a seamy series featuring love scenes between star Courteney Cox and her vibrator.

How quaint it now seems that the series that made Cox famous, NBC's "Friends," was once considered among TV's raciest. The peacock recently reset that bar with the Dec. 16 "SNL" sketch dubbed "Dick in a Box," a faux music video featuring actors singing of gift-wrapping their own genitalia. While the word "dick" was bleeped 16 times, an uncensored version was released online, where it generated millions of streams.

I'm convinced that "Box" is a sign of things to come. Which broadcaster will be the first to charge viewers a nominal fee to access more graphic versions of favorite shows on unregulated digital platforms such as online or VOD? Think of what Steven Bochco could do with his next primetime effort: a tasteful sex scene without those strategically arrayed shadows or profanity-laced dialogue complete with F-bombs.

Shifting content standards has always been a defensive maneuver in the TV industry. Watch how the broadcasters, like cable before them, treat it as an opportunity.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/features/columns/tv_reporter/e3i5b2bddf1415bc8d717f5aca5beecfbe4

dad1153

01-07-07, 02:45 PM

TV Notebook
The FX Effect
By J. Max Robbins, Broadcasting & Cable - January 8, 2007

I wasn't surprised when the new FX series Dirt opened big last week, averaging 3.7 million viewers. The Courteney Cox vehicle about the editrix of a sleazy gossip mag, her schizoid ace-paparazzi pal and the sex-and-drug–addled stars they live to humiliate was in the same edgy wheelhouse as FX stalwarts The Shield, Rescue Me and Nip/Tuck. It's yet more proof that the basic-cable network is HBO with commercials.

Back in 2002, when The Shield premiered, naysayers predicted FX would fail by wading into programming waters that were strictly the province of premium cable. Maybe HBO could reinvigorate itself with original, transgressive stuff like Oz and The Sopranos, they said. But an ad-supported network couldn't build a brand on basic cable with a violent, morally ambiguous cop drama, no matter how well-produced.

The show, of course, was a hit, as were most of the FX series that followed. Just as HBO series The Wire, Sex and the City and Six Feet Under raised the bar for its pay-cable competitor Showtime, currently in the midst of a creative upswing, FX has changed the game for networks beholden to Madison Avenue.

Not everyone is pushing boundaries of taste and convention the way it does, but FX's success has been an essential catalyst for the resurgence of drama on TV in much the same way MTV and Comedy Central have laid the groundwork for innovation in reality and comedy.

It's unlikely that the current flowering of scripted series on cable—from the conventional on USA, TNT and TBS to the more original on IFC and Sci Fi—would've happened if FX hadn't rolled the dice.

The FX effect has been felt at the broadcast networks, too. Fox, the home of hit doc drama House, is run by Peter Liguori, who put the FX blueprint in place. NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly worked hand-in-glove with Liguori, developing FX's first generation of hit dramas, before helping the Peacock return to its blue-chip roots with shows like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. No doubt, ABC's comeback in the drama arena in recent years owes something to the example set by FX.

And there's no question FX knows how to market, spending between $8 million and $10 million to open its marquee dramas. Beyond TV spots and traditional ad buys in daily newspapers, FX touted Dirt in the very publications the series satirizes, from Star and National Enquirer to US Weekly and In Touch.

Celebrity-obsessed Websites like Gawker, PopSugar and PerezHilton.com were also used in the campaign.

Sure, you can spend money smartly to get viewers to sample, but folks won't stick around if a series doesn't have the goods. Dirt does. Despite a shaky start, the show begins to jell by Episode 3.

But even if Dirt should fade, FX won't lose its standing as an It network. The darkly funny sitcom Lucky, the Iraq war drama Over There and the short-run series Thief may have resonated more with critics than with viewers, but all were noble ventures that upheld the FX brand.

Under current boss John Landgraf, production and ratings have remained strong on FX's veteran series. And the network has series slated to premiere this year, including The Riches, with British comic Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver as married con artists, and a high-concept legal drama (described as Wall Street meets The Firm) starring Shield alumnus Glenn Close.

All promise to deliver to what viewers have come to expect from FX. And that's a good thing.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6404768.html

fredfa

01-07-07, 02:49 PM

(Repeating and clarifying HD program times)
HDTV Notebook
HEADS UP: “Rome” Season 1 replay starting TONIGHT!!

DSperber notes in another thread that HBO is repeating the entire first season of “Rome” leading up to next Sunday’s start of season two. Here is his post:

If you want to re-watch (or watch for the first time) Season 1 of "Rome", HBO is having a 1-week replay of the complete Season 1 throughout the week starting this Sunday 1/7, leading up to the debut of Season 2 which begins anew on Sunday 1/14.

For your information (times Eastern/Pacific):

PLEASE NOTE: Unless your cable or satellite system carries HBO HD west, the HD broadcast times are ET only.)

Sunday 1/7: 8PM #1, 9PM #2, 10PM #3
Monday 1/8: 8PM #4
Tuesday 1/9: 8PM #5
Wed 1/10: 8PM #6, 9PM #7
Thurs 1/11: 9PM #8, 10PM #9
Fri 1/12: 8PM #10, 9PM #11
Sun 1/14: 8PM #12

Then Sunday 1/14 at 9PM is episode #13 (i.e. the first episode of the new second season).

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9296796&&#post9296796

fredfa

01-07-07, 03:15 PM

TV Review
'Idol' Meets 'Grease' And the Audience Is the Biggest Loser
By Tom Shales Washington Post Staff Writer

Confoundingly, the quality of network television seems to be going in two directions at once: The best shows, at least the weekly dramas, get better, while the worst shows keep drooping deeper.

NBC, apparently determined to out-sink and under-stoop all rivals, dips yet more deeply tomorrow night with "Grease: You're the One That I Want," a cheaply made and shriekingly tedious imitation of Fox's phenomenon "American Idol."

"Access Hollywood's" Billy Bush, more madly enamored of himself than ever, co-hosts the show in full-preen mode, and he is still explaining the complicated rules as the 90-minute premiere finally draws to a close. Simply put, though, the premise is that producers of a forthcoming Broadway revival of "Grease," the musical about '50s high-school punks, are going to cast the male and female leads with unknowns -- discoveries chosen in a talent competition carefully modeled on "American Idol" nearly every step of the way.

That mimicry includes having a snippy twit with a British accent as one member of a three-judge panel. His name is David Ian, and he refers to himself as a "dumb Brit" -- and who are we to argue? The panel also consists of producer Kathleen Marshall, who brings a tiny touch of class to the proceedings, and Jim Jacobs, credited with helping to create the original musical play -- although most "Grease" references here involve not the play but the film, with clips of it scattered throughout the show to remind us how the songs are supposed to sound.

The movie, of course, starred Olivia Newton-John, who taped a few sound bites for use in this series, and John Travolta, who is much too big a star to bother. He and his representatives should get credit for having the sense to steer clear.

As for the allegedly creative Jacobs, his contributions include such witticisms as "Cut to the chase" and "About as exciting as watching paint dry." Where does he dream up such snappy remarks? At least when, on behalf of the judges, he says, "We're falling asleep here," members of the viewing audience can empathize.

Bush narrates and narrates and narrates. He has more lines than Clark Gable in "Gone With the Wind." Every occurrence, every turn of events has to be underscored with hyperbolic emphasis. At the outset, Bush insists we're about to witness "the biggest open casting call in history," in which "thousands will audition for the chance of a lifetime."

After roughly 10 minutes of windy and padded prologue, the competition finally begins -- poor soul following pool soul on a small stage singing "Hopelessly Devoted to You" hopelessly. If these were really auditions, wouldn't there at least be a pianist to accompany them? Most people sound fairly terrible singing a cappella, but then that, of course, is what NBC wants -- a large supply of ghastly and clueless losers to embarrass themselves in the interest of provoking easy laughter.

Those auditioning for the ingenue role of Sandy include at least two women who border on morbid obesity. They can't really think they have a chance to be cast as the romantic lead, so they're going along with the gag and grabbing their 15 minutes any way they can. A woman named Robin, who has a face like Tiny Tim, informs the judges that she can type 100 words a minute and knows how to "potty-train" parrots. Let's see Olivia Newton-John match that!

After what seems like hours of singing and dancing auditions for the part of the female lead, an army of young men in black T-shirts and slicked-back dark hair goes through similar motions in the hopes of landing the Travolta part. One man, who becomes tearful when he recalls how his brother longed to play the part, says he is auditioning in his late brother's name. With pointless cruelty, the judges kick him out, even though he's no worse than contestants of whom they blunderingly approve.

Nobody really wins anything. The taped proceedings, edited into a kind of visual hangover, are only a small part of the process. Those who are given nods of approval get nothing grander than a trip to "Grease Academy," where they will rehearse and practice and provide more free talent for NBC to exploit. Thus instead of being told "You're going to Hollywood," as on "American Idol," contestants hear one or another judge say the considerably less imposing "You're the one that we want -- to go to Grease Academy."

Eventually the number of hopefuls will be reduced to 12 , NBC says, and then, on Jan. 26, viewers can see the first of six live episodes with still more competition -- and perhaps still more choruses of "Hopelessly Devoted to You," leading up to the night when, in "American Idol" style, viewers can phone in votes for their favorites. If there are any viewers left.

What a lot of trouble to go to, and how phony it all seems as it plods its ugly way along. If a contestant is eliminated and has the good sense to get weepy, in rushes Bush with a camera crew so he can be taped consoling the performer in the wings. "American Idol" has spawned sufficient imitations so that people entering the contest know how to behave in ways that will maximize their camera time, never mind the so-called competition.

To call this "reality television" is truly stretching the term to the outer limit of meaninglessness. To call it "good television" would be to risk being struck by lightning. Ian, who is producing the new "Grease" revival, says he dreads the possibility of picking up a trade paper and reading "what a stupid idea" it was "to do the casting on a television show."

That's not something to be dreaded, Mr. Ian. That's about the only way to give this travesty a happy ending.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010502221_pf.html

fredfa

01-07-07, 03:28 PM

The 2006 Cable TV Poll
Your Favorite Cable Shows

Thanks to all of you who voted -- I was stunned that so many hundreds of ballots came via PM. All told, more than 600 votes were cast.

1 Battlestar Galactica SciFi
2 Dexter Showtime
3 Deadwood HBO
4 Big Love HBO
5 The Closer TNT
6 Entourage HBO
7 Dr. Who SciFi
8 The Sopranos HBO
9 Monk USA
10 Brotherhood Showtime
11 Stargate Atlantis SciFi
12 South Park Comedy Central
13 Colbert Report Comedy Central
14 The Shield FX
15 Rome HBO
16 Rescue Me FX
17 The 4400 USA
18 Around The Horn ESPN
20 The Wire HBO
19 Weeds HBO
21 Psych USA
22 Firefly SciFi
23 Eureka SciFi
24 It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia FX
25 Curb Your Enthusiasm HBO
26 Dead Zone USA
28 Dog The Bounty Hunter A&E
27 The Daily Show Comedy Central
29 Nip/Tuck FX
30 Inside the NFL HBO
31 Fox News Watch F N C
33 Midsomer Murders Biography
32 NFL Sunday Countdown ESPN
34 CSI Spike
35 The O’Reilly Factor FNC
36 Stargate SG1 SciFi
37 Myth Busters Discovery
38 Laguna Beach MTV
38 Law & Order: SVU USA
38 Waking The Dead BBC America
41 Pardon The Interruption ESPN
42 30 Days FX
43 Larry King Live C N N
44 Good Eats Food Network
45 Aqua Teen Hunger Force Adult Swim
45 Drawn Together Comedy Central
45 Hannity & Colmes FNC
48 10 Items or Less TBS
48 Countdown MSNBC
49 Daytime GSN Lime-Up GSN
49 Lucky Louie HBO
49 Robot Chicken Cartoon
49 Situation Room CNN
49 Subterranean MTV2
54 Flip This House A&E
54 Iron Chef America Food Network
56 Dirty Jobs Discovery
56 Flip That House Discovery
56 How Its Made Science Channel
56 Inuyasha Cartoon
56 Real Time HBO
61 Rides Discovery
61 Three Sheets INHD/Mojo
63 Extreme Engineering Discovery
63 My Boys TBS
63 The Lost Room SciFi
63 Thief FX

fredfa

01-07-07, 03:30 PM

The 2006 Cable TV Poll
Favorite Guilty Pleasures
1 Daily Show
2 Driving Force
3 Monk
4 Big Love
4 Entourage
6 My Life On The D List
6 Around The Horn
8 ECW
9 Fox News Watch
9 Little People, Big World
11 South Park
12 10 Items or Less
12 Degrassi
14 House Hunters
14 Iron Chef America
14 Match Game
14 My Bare Lady
14 Pardon The Interruption
14 South of Nowhere
14 The Newlywed Game
21 My Boys
21 Real World
21 Rome
21 World Poker Tour
21 What Not To Wear

fredfa

01-07-07, 03:32 PM

The 2006 Cable TV Poll
Favorite Shows By Network
1 HBO
2 SciFi
3 Showtime
4 USA
5 Comedy Central
6 FX
7 TNT
8 ESPN
9 Fox News Channel
10 A&E
11 Biography
12 Spike
13 MTV2
14 BBC America
15 CNN
16 Fod
17 Cartoon Network
18 Adult Swim
18 TBS
20 MSNBC
21 GSN
22 Science Channel
23 INHD/Mojo

dad1153

01-07-07, 03:35 PM

So Fred, any chance Battlestar Galactica or Dexter (if the season is repeated chronologically) can be added to your season pass? Can your loyal readers/posters all be wrong? :D Happy to see that even on a slow year The Sopranos is still regarded high-enough to rank #8, although the likes of Deadwood and Big Love ranked higher. Funny how Sci-Fi ranks second only to HBO in the favorite networks poll on the strength of BG's popularity (don't think the Stargate shows and Dr. Who could compare).

fredfa

01-07-07, 04:02 PM

I am interested in perhaps exploring BG. Maybe in the dry period after the February sweep.

On the other hand, I watched the first several episodes of Dexter and found the show just wasn't for me.

I hope my personal likes and dislikes do not have any major effect on the thread. I try to post items of interest to those who enjoy TV -- and especially HD -- whether I happen to enjoy the shows or not. For example, I realize many here are big NFL fans, so I kept the NFL HD schedule updated all season.

Judged by the cable poll, many readers have very diffrerent tastes from mine. Which, of course, is just fine with me.

rebkell

01-07-07, 04:03 PM

fredfa

01-07-07, 04:19 PM

I was surprised by a lot of the results, rebkell.

But I just count them.

dad1153

01-07-07, 04:20 PM

I am interested in perhaps exploring BG. Maybe in the dry period after the February sweep.

Just say the word and I'll let you borrow my DVD Box Sets of the first two seasons (and you can catch-up on Season 3 when UHD starts repeating it). :)

BTW, entry #35 in the results post should be called The O'Reilly FACTOR, not 'The O'Reilly Report' (which is the name Bill's show had when it premiered on Fox News Channel back in '96)

rustycruiser

01-07-07, 04:49 PM

Based on the early polling of both Dexter and BG, I decided to watch both during my two week vacation. I enjoyed both, especially BG. I blew through the miniseries, seasoon 1, 2, and 2.5 in three days and am chomping at the bit waiting for Season 3 of BG to start on UHD.

BG really is a fantastic show.

rustycruiser

01-07-07, 04:51 PM

Fred, how close was it. Did BG win by a pretty decent margin?

fredfa

01-07-07, 07:18 PM

dad1153

01-07-07, 07:21 PM

Seven of the Top 10 cable shows on the poll were in HD (but only nine out of the Top 20 were HD) and all of them were from either HBO or Showtime. TNT's The Closer was the only HD show in the Top 20 not from either of the pay cable channels. Glad to know that even on an HD-biased website/forum the quality of the content (i.e.Battlestar Galactica's #1 placement in the poll) trumps the appeal of the sharp and very pretty pictures. :o

fredfa

01-07-07, 07:22 PM

Fred, how close was it. Did BG win by a pretty decent margin?

Yes, by about a 13-10 margin, rusty (117-73 in first place votes). Deadwood actually had more first-place votes than Dexter, but finished pretty far back in third.

fredfa

01-07-07, 07:58 PM

Next weekend's HD NFL schedule has been updated in the first post of this thread.

MnGuy

01-07-07, 08:55 PM

Finally, yesterday’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.

The big winner on Saturday was said to be Dallas at Philadelphia on NBC. That game was tonight (Sunday) on Fox. NBC had Dallas/Sea last night.

fredfa

01-07-07, 09:13 PM

Hey, Marc is a TV guy, not a sports expert...I'll always cut him some slack.

But thanks for telling me about the error, MnGuy -- I've edited the Saturday ratings post to make it accurate.

dad1153

01-07-07, 09:26 PM

CES 2007
Peace in DVD formats? A $1,200 player
LG introduces DVD player that supports competing formats ... an end to Blu-ray, HD war?
CNNMoney.com - January 7, 2007

South Korea's LG Electronics Inc. Sunday introduced a single DVD player that supports both next-generation, high-definition DVD formats, offering a solution in an escalating war between Blu-ray and HD DVD.

At a news conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, LG said its Super Multi Blu Player would be available in early February in the United States for about $1,200. A computer drive would be available in the first quarter for about the same price.

"Most of the consumers felt they are confused ... reluctant to buy the (separate HD DVD or Blu-ray) player," said Michael Ahn, head of LG's North American operations. "Growth was much slower than it could be and that is a concern in the industry. We recognized the consumer needed something more."

He said the combination player could handle the interactive features of Sony Corp.'s Blu-ray format, which includes looking at menus while a movie is playing.

For HD DVD, a format backed by a group led by Toshiba Corp., LG's machine can play the movies and has a simple menu, but it does not support all the interactive features included on an HD DVD disk.

"For most consumers this product will be the most useful and attractive product," Ahn said.

The consumer electronics and entertainment industries hope the high-definition formats, which provide better picture quality and more capacity, will jump-start the slowing $24-billion-a-year market for watching movies at home.

But the competing formats have been blamed for hindering sales of high-definition movies and players, with consumers recalling the bruising war between Sony's Betamax videotape and JVC's VHS version, which ultimately triumphed. JVC is owned by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. Ahn, in a later interview with Reuters, said LG did not generate ill will among its partners in the Blu-ray camp, suggesting that in an industry dependent on innovation it was inevitable someone would create such a device.

"They expected it, because technology is evolving always," he said, adding that he believes another company was also working on a combination DVD player.

LG (Charts) does not plan to offer personal computer makers the option of building the combination DVD player drive into their machines, and would sell it only as an LG-branded drive.

LG, also a leading maker of air conditioners, refrigerators and mobile phones, since 2003 has invested heavily in consumer electronics in the United States and positioned itself as a premium brand.

Ahn said he expects LG this year to improve its 10 percent market share for U.S. plasma TV sales. Longer term, he said lower costs would make large-size plasma TVs -- 50-70 inches -- standard for U.S. living rooms.

He also said as the category grows, falling prices and tighter profits may push some players out of the flat-panel TV market, but he predicted LG's ability to manufacture both LCD and plasma screens would strengthen his company's position.

At CES, LG also showcased a 100-inch high definition LCD TV, which it said was the biggest on the market. The TV is not being mass produced, however, and therefore has no price yet.

"I think that just a few companies can survive and become major players," he said. "As we have both (LCD and plasma) panels in-house, this makes us more competitive and flexible. We will become a major player step by step."

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/07/technology/bc.electronics.lg.reut/index.htm?postversion=2007010721

TheRock

01-07-07, 10:37 PM

A couple questions about the CW.

I have noticed that on a very frequent basis shows that are suppose to be offered in HD are offered instead in SD. This wouldn't be a problem if it happened a couple times a year but this seems to happen all the time. Is this a problem with all of The CW or is this a local issue with KTLA?

Second. Why is it that SD programs on The CW are stretched and almost hit the edges of my widescreen HDTV? Are they doing this in an attempt to try and fool the viewer into thinking they are viewing HD content?

Also. Are there any plans to change the logo. It is easily one of the worst OTA stations around. It comes way to far into the middle of the screen. They don't seem to adjust for SD or HD content. Truly horrible.

fredfa

01-08-07, 02:05 AM

AVS Forum
3 5 0, 0 0 0 ! ! !

Congratulations to David Bott and Alan Gouger.

Another 50,000 new members have joined just in the last two months, bruinging the new AVS Forum membership to an amazing 350,000+!

GeorgeLV

01-08-07, 02:42 AM

dad1153

01-08-07, 08:15 AM

AVS Forum
3 5 0, 0 0 0 ! ! !

Another 50,000 new members have joined just in the last two months, bruinging the new AVS Forum membership to an amazing 350,000+!

So that explains why the site sometimes is so darn slow and/or inaccesible! :rolleyes:

dad1153

01-08-07, 08:24 AM

TV Notebook
'The Sopranos' to say ciao, but how?
Contra Costa Times - January 8, 2007

How will it all end? That question figures to be on the lips of millions of TV viewers this spring as we prepare to bid farewell to "The Sopranos" at long last.

Will Tony (James Gandolfini) wind up sleeping with the fishes? What's in store for Carmela (Edie Falco) and the kids? And who among our Jersey goons will be left standing once the dust settles?

The final eight episodes of a piecemeal Season 6 were supposed to launch on HBO this month, but were pushed back to April to allow Gandolfini to recover from knee surgery. Thus, 10 months will have passed since the first half of the season concluded.

Of course, lengthy delays are old hat for "Sopranos" fans, and we've learned that it's a fool's errand to attempt to predict what creator David Chase has planned. His plot-wielding tendencies, after all, are almost as difficult to predict as Uncle Junior's mental lapses.

All the uncertainty figures to make these the most eagerly anticipated episodes of the year. To get us primed, HBO will re-air episodes from the first half of Season 6 beginning next Monday.

Here are a few more television projects coming in 2007:

"The Black Donnellys" -- Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning writer of "Crash," co-created this drama series that follows the exploits of four young working-class Irish brothers involved in organized crime. March, NBC.

"The War" -- Ken Burns confronts the World War II experience by focusing on four American cities that were transformed by the event. It's another epic documentary -- clocking in at around 15 hours. Fall, PBS.

"On the Lot" -- Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg are behind this reality series that invites viewers into the filmmaking process. It follows 16 competing wannabe directors. Spring, Fox.

"John From Cincinnati" -- Writer-producer David Milch wowed us with "Deadwood," so expectations are high for this new series, which follows a wealthy Ohio native who moves to California and lives with a whacked-out family of ex-surfers. Summer, HBO.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07008/752051-237.stm

dad1153

01-08-07, 08:27 AM

The Business of TV
'The OC’: A Fast Start, a Faster Finish
By Edward Wyatt, The New York Times - January 6, 2007

The end was in sight for “The OC” by at least last summer, according to Josh Schwartz, the wunderkind creator of the show that, with its glamorous locations, beautiful actors and hip soundtrack, defined new trends for music, fashion, celebrity and, of course, television.

After a stunning debut on Fox in 2003, in which the series drew nearly 10 million viewers each week and a particularly high number of adults between the ages of 18 and 34, according to Nielsen Media Research, the show’s ratings fell in each of the last two seasons.

It entered the fourth season without its most recognizable face, the pouty rich girl played by Mischa Barton, who was killed off at the end of the previous season. Fox, meanwhile, demonstrated its lack of confidence by leaving “The OC” in its 9 p.m. Thursday time slot to face off against “Grey’s Anatomy” and “CSI.”

Fox ordered only 16 episodes, down from more than 20 in each of the first three seasons, and its budget for promoting the show’s return, Mr. Schwartz said, made clear that hopes for the series this year were not high.

“We tried to be realistic about it,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Few shows get to have their last season be their best. So if this was going to be the last season, we wanted to write the show we wanted to do and the show the fans wanted to see. It was creatively liberating.”

Fox, for its part, declined to address its reasons for ending “The OC.” No network executives were quoted in the news release, issued on Wednesday, announcing that this season would be the show’s last, and a spokesman for the network said Friday that no one would comment for this article.

When “The OC” had its premiere, it was quickly compared to “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Dawson’s Creek” and other series that drew raves for their chronicles of teenage angst. But while “90210” lasted 10 seasons, “The OC” will not even make it to the 100-episode milestone, considered a benchmark for profitable syndication.

It did, however, influence the culture. Orange County’s Newport Beach community became a tourist destination for young fans. At least two reality-based television series drew on the fame of “The OC”: “Laguna Beach,” an MTV series that billed itself as “the real Orange County,” and “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” a Bravo reality show that follows a gaggle of women from their tennis lessons to Botox sessions.

Thanks to its heavy use of mood music from emerging rock and alternative-music groups, “The OC” became known as a showcase for new bands, and it produced a half-dozen soundtrack albums featuring groups like Death Cab for Cutie and vocalists like Imogen Heap.

For all of its focus on good-looking rich kids, the show was also about adults, winning praise for developing parental characters with their own storylines and concerns. The show also created what were arguably the first Jewish heartthrobs on television: Sandy Cohen, played by Peter Gallagher, a public defender married to a wealthy gentile developer; and his son, Seth Cohen, played by Adam Brody, who dealt with his mixed religious heritage by promoting the family’s adoption of Chrismukkah as its winter holiday celebration.

Reviewing the show’s second-season premiere, Virginia Heffernan, a New York Times television critic, wrote: “In tone, diction, fashion and music, Mr. Schwartz knows just how to keep it credible with its swooning fans. But he is also mindful of the strict rituals that define television drama, and his discipline in tightening the world he has created — rather than giving in to impatience and blowing it apart — is admirable.”

In the end, however, the weakness of “The OC” might have been that it was too much the product of one person, conceptually, if not in practice. Just 26 when Fox agreed to broadcast the show, Mr. Schwartz was the youngest person in network television history to create and produce his own one-hour series.

He worked furiously, writing or revising every episode of the first season and several in the first part of the second year. After that, he cut back, and while other longtime collaborators like Stephanie Savage continued to work closely on the show, many fans expressed the opinion that the second and third seasons did not match the originality of the first.

Mr. Schwartz disputes that. “I really believe in my colleagues,” he said, citing his particularly close association with Ms. Savage and Robert De Laurentiis, a show-business veteran who has served as an executive producer since the first season.

In fact, Mr. Schwartz will be producing a new series with Ms. Savage. The CW network has signed the pair for “Gossip Girl,” an hourlong teenage drama set in New York City and based on the book series of the same name. NBC, too, has signed Mr. Schwartz for a series, a dark comedy-drama titled “Chuck,” which Mr. Schwartz has developed with Chris Fedak.

For now, Mr. Schwartz, who grew up in Providence, R.I., not on the California coast, said he was focused on “delivering the most satisfying finale we can” for “The OC.” The remaining episodes will feature an unexpected pregnancy and more of the show’s familiar love-triangle tussles. All of which could work to raise the size of the audience from the fewer than four million who have tuned in for each episode this season, according to Nielsen. But it is unlikely that the series will win any reprieve from what, for such early promise, could be viewed as an early death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/arts/television/06josh.html?_r=1&ref=television&oref=slogin

dad1153

01-08-07, 08:35 AM

CES 2007
Sony Introduces Internet TV System
By Glen Dickson, Broadcasting & Cable - January 7, 2007

Sony's big news at CES is a way to seamlessly bring Internet video content from providers like AOL and Yahoo! onto its big-screen HDTV sets.

The new product, called the Bravia Internet Video Link, is a small modem-sized module that will attach to the back of Sony's latest Bravia LCD high-definition sets and allow them to display Internet video without hooking the TV up to a PC or an external "media adapter" device.

A user will simply plug an Ethernet cable from a high-speed data modem into the module on one side, and then connect the module to the Bravia set via a standard HDMI link. The module will then be smart enough to grab streaming Internet video content, including high-definition content where available, and display it on the Sony set.

Internet portals AOL and Yahoo! are both supporting the Bravia Internet Video Link, which will become available this summer, and executives from both companies attended Sony's CES event to demonstrate the technology.

"They are the first of our vital partners in this initiative," says Sony Electronics President and Chief Operating Officer Stan Glasgow.

Content will also come from Internet video site Grouper, now part of Sony Pictures Entertainment, as well as Sony Pictures itself and Sony BMG; RSS feeds can also be used to generate user-customized features such as local traffic and weather channels.

AOL executive vice president Kevin Conroy helped demonstrate concert footage of the rock band Coldplay streaming from the AOL service and being played on a Sony Bravia display.

"This partnership with Sony represents a phenomenal opportunity to extend AOL content to platforms beyond the PC, and allow consumers to experience content anytime, anywhere," says Conroy.

The service will be free to consumers, as the ad-supported content should benefit from the exposure, says Nick Colsey, Sony's director of product planning for televisions.

A major feature of the Bravia Internet Video Link, says Colsey, is that it will use Sony's Xross Media Bar (XMB), an icon-based user interface, to allow viewers to simply browse Internet content by using a TV remote. Sony will constantly update the module via the Internet connection so that the TV will be able to find the streaming content, which Colsey says will be optimized by programming partners for big-screen viewing.

Sony did demonstrate high-definition content being streamed to the module, but executives admit that broadband speeds would have to improve significantly before HD over the Internet becomes reality. Whether viewers who have spent thousands on a big-screen HDTV will want to use it to watch streaming standard-def video remains to be seen, of course. AOL's content looked pretty good in the demo, while the picture quality of a user-generated Grouper video was relatively poor.

Randall Waynick, SVP of marketing for Sony's home products division, says the appeal of the Internet Video module is based more on convenience than image resolution.

"It's not just quality, it's about having access," he says.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6404799.html?display=Breaking+News

HDTVFanAtic

01-08-07, 08:37 AM

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2007-01-08-blackout-usat_x.htm?csp=34

Broadcast dispute could lead to higher cable fees
Posted 1/8/2007 12:44 AM ET

By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — A battle is underway which, no matter how it's resolved, could set a precedent affecting nearly all cable subscribers.
Sinclair Broadcast Group over the weekend yanked 22 of its TV stations off Mediacom Communications cable systems that reach 700,000 subscribers.

If the standoff continues, those cable customers could miss network TV shows including American Idol, CSI and Desperate Housewives while the companies squabble about how much cash cable systems should pay to retransmit a station's free over-the-air signals.

After years of getting no cash, Sinclair is asking for "no more than 50 cents" per subscriber a month for each station Mediacom carries on cable in a market, says Sinclair general counsel Barry Faber. That's about what many operators pay for CNN and USA Network.

"If you ask people, 'What do you think they pay more for: your Fox station or Animal Planet?' — I've never heard anybody say Animal Planet," Faber says.

But Mediacom says that Sinclair is playing economic hardball to set benchmarks for station compensation that, if applied throughout the cable industry, could raise cable prices by up to $6 billion a year.

"It will have a dramatic effect," says Mediacom CEO Rocco Commisso. "If the No. 4 or 5 station gets away with getting paid, what happens to the No. 1 or 2?"

Until recently, cable operators won the right to carry ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC stations by agreeing to carry their parent companies' cable channels such as Disney's ESPN2 or NBC Universal's MSNBC.

Broadcasters didn't have much leverage. Cable was a virtual monopoly. That started to change a few years ago, when satellite companies DirecTV and Dish Network deployed technology to offer local stations. They agreed to pay stations to retransmit their signals. Now Verizon, which is building a rival fiber-optic TV service, has agreed to pay cash.

While many cable operators, including Mediacom, accept that they'll have to pay for broadcast TV, they say that the stations now have the upper hand with control in their market of a national network's shows.

Unlike satellite services, which can charge extra for local channels, federal law requires cable to offer the stations in their cheapest package.

dad1153

01-08-07, 08:41 AM

CES 2007
Home video spending records another decline
By Mike Snider, USA Today - January 8, 2007

LAS VEGAS — The love affair between consumers and DVD stayed strong in 2006 but not strong enough to prevent a second year of decline in overall home video spending as VHS withered.

DVD rentals rose strongly from 2005's $6.5 billion to $7.5 billion, while DVD sales inched up from $16.3 billion in 2005 to $16.6 billion last year, according to figures due today from the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry trade group.

Overall, $24.2 billion was spent on DVD and VHS, lower than in 2004 ($24.5 billion) and 2005 ($24.3 billion). VHS accounted for just $100 million in spending last year; as recently as 2004, VHS spending topped $3 billion.

The flattening of DVD sales and growth in disc rentals suggests "there is some limit to how many video programs consumers are willing to buy," says Tom Adams of Adams Media Research, a Carmel, Calif.-based research firm. "That limit went up dramatically over the past eight years from (what had been) about $6 billion in 1996 before DVD came along. There was huge growth in the amount people were willing to spend buying video content."

Since DVD arrived in 1997, more than 200 million players have been purchased in the USA, and about 88 million homes have at least one. Last year, consumers bought 33 million DVD players.

"With VHS all but diminished," says DEG executive director Amy Jo Smith, "DVD and high-definition packaged media will coexist with emerging forms of digital entertainment."

But Adams expects that with new formats not mass-market ready, home video spending will remain flat this year. "There's just too few homes with the ability to download movies or have a high-definition playback device," he says. "It's going to take a few years for millions of homes to get there."

Studios' hopes that movie lovers would embrace new super-sharp discs have been hampered by dueling formats. Sony and most studios support Blu-ray Disc; Universal is putting out its films only on the competing HD DVD format. Warner and Paramount release films on both.

This week at the Consumer Electronics Show, Warner plans to announce a Total HD disc that holds Blu-ray and HD DVD versions of movies on one disc and plays in either player. And LG Electronics will display a player that handles both formats.

If the electronics industry could resolve the format war, home video growth could spike again, Adams says. "That is the best shot studios have at reasonable growth rates going forward," he says. "Thirty million homes have (an HD TV) with not much to play on it."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2007-01-07-home-video-decline_x.htm

dad1153

01-08-07, 08:50 AM

TV Review
Able ‘Lincoln’: ABC Family drama exhibits amazing grace
By Amy Amatangelo, Boston Herald - January 8, 2007

“Lincoln Heights.” Tonight at 7 on ABC Family. Grade: B+

A good family drama is hard to find.

These days, TV shows are enthralled with hip heroes, hidden mysteries and hot doctors. So “Lincoln Heights,” premiering tonight at 7 on ABC Family, is a refreshing surprise.

In the one-hour series, L.A. police officer Eddie Sutton (Russell Hornsby) takes advantage of a police department home-ownership incentive and moves his family back into the inner city, where he grew up.

His wife, Jenn (Nicki Micheaux), and children, Cassie (Erica Hubbard), Tay (Mison Ratliff) and Lizzie (Rhyon Brown), are less than thrilled to leave their middle-class neighborhood. “You lost your mind,” his wife tells him. His police partner, Kevin (Michael Reilly Burke), doesn’t understand why Eddie would even consider the move. “Even with all the incentives they’re throwing at us, does the department really believe they can get some schmuck to move into this dump?” Kevin wonders.

At their new schools, Tay has his lunch money stolen. Lizzie is benched on the basketball team. And Cassie is ostracized because her father is a cop. Their new neighbors aren’t happy about the Sutton family’s arrival - shortly after they move in, their home is ransacked. “Folks around here see the police as more dangerous than the Ebola virus,” one man tells Eddie. When Eddie tries to reach out to a local gang member, he is told, “You could be George Washington Martin Luther Bush. But here, you’re in my yard.”

With its solid acting, particularly from the compelling Hornsby, “Lincoln Heights” plays on several levels. Eddie is mired in department politics and quickly finds himself the subject of an internal investigation. His police partner is subtly racist - an issue it seems the show might explore more in later episodes. Eddie’s decision to move strains his marriage. And, like any good family drama, “Lincoln Heights” already has a solid teen romance in the works. Cassie immediately finds herself drawn to the reserved and dreamy Charles (Robert Adamson).

To the show’s credit, “Lincoln Heights” quickly proves it won’t take the easy storytelling road. The pilot episode concludes with a shocking death, which emphasizes that problems won’t be easily resolved at the end of every hour.

“Lincoln Heights” also has the distinction of being the only prime-time TV series focused on an African-American family. But this show could be about any family. If only all TV shows could tackle weighty subject matters with such grace.

http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=175855

dad1153

01-08-07, 09:04 AM

TV Notebook
How ‘Ugly Betty’ Changed on the Flight From Bogotá
By Larry Rohter, The New York Times - January 7, 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO -- So North Americans are finally getting a taste of something Latin Americans have long enjoyed: the guilty pleasures of the telenovela. “Ugly Betty,” a weekly series adapted from a wildly successful Colombian serial, has been one of the surprise successes this fall season for ABC, helping to set off a brief burst of enthusiasm for bringing even more — and purer — examples of the form to American living rooms.

Like any other genre of popular art, the telenovela has its own codes, tropes, and customs, and while “Ugly Betty” obeys many of those conventions, it slides past others to accommodate American viewers.

So it may be worth a close look at “Ugly Betty” and how the series changed as it migrated from Bogotá to Hollywood, if only for a hint at what audiences in the two Americas have in common — and don’t.

“Ugly Betty” tells the story of an awkward, fashion-clueless young woman from a Mexican immigrant family living in Queens who stumbles into a job at a fashion magazine in Manhattan and manages to survive her many pratfalls through decency, luck and folk wisdom passed on by her family.

In the Colombian “I Am Ugly Betty,” Betty worked at a design house rather than a magazine, and in her move to Queens, she changed nationality and acquired a social world with a lot more ethnic, racial and linguistic diversity. In Colombia, she turned from ugly duckling to swan and won the heart of her rich boss. It isn’t clear whether she can do that in New York. Still, one quality wasn’t lost:

“You can’t look at ‘Ugly Betty’ as being just about a charming little misfit, and how, by extension, Latinos in the United States are also misfits,” said Claudia Milian, a professor of Latin American literature and culture at Duke. “You can’t simply say this is an entertainment, because inevitably there is a message and a political reality, too.”

First of all, a disclaimer: a telenovela is not just a soap opera and “Ugly Betty” is not, strictly speaking, a telenovela. The classic form runs for a fixed period, usually five or six days a week for six months or so, with a beginning and happy ending. “Ugly Betty” has no such arc in sight.

Nevertheless, it is faithful to the telenovela’s essence: While the main narrative normally focuses on family or sexual conflicts and betrayals, usually there is a subtext dealing with a social or political problem.

Although the telenovela never preaches, no issue is off limits if addressed artfully and obliquely enough. Telenovelas in Colombia have touched on that country’s civil war, and Argentina’s most popular series last year evoked the issue of the “disappeared” — opponents of military rule in the 1970’s who were arrested and never heard from again. In Brazil, plots have involved land reform, corruption and human cloning.

“It is not the function of the telenovela to discuss social issues,” said Aguinaldo Silva, the author of some of Brazil’s most successful telenovelas. “Journalism does that. A serial wants to be entertaining. But that does not prevent you from addressing those themes. It just has to be in the context of the plot, or else the spectator won’t want to listen to what you are saying.”

“Ugly Betty,” whose title character is played by America Ferrera, juxtaposes the wholesome girl from Queens with the snobbery and infighting of the rich and shallow in Manhattan. With that, the producers have assured the necessary froth and intrigue. But the story line also seems meant to make a viewer ponder issues like immigration, social mobility, ethics in the workplace and the place of Latinos in American society.

The template for the modern telenovela developed in Cuba and descended from “El Derecho de Nacer,” or “The Right to Be Born,” a radio series by Félix B. Caignet that was a hit from its first broadcast on April 1, 1948. Mr. Caignet said it was his intention to “speak in metaphors” about social themes. “What I did was to take advantage of popular emotion to sow something moral, something good,” he wrote.

“El Derecho de Nacer” implicitly raised questions about racism by having its affluent but illegitimate white protagonist disowned by his authoritarian grandfather and raised by his loving black nanny.

These days, in a region that is famous for social stratification, the gap between rich and poor — and the dream of magically overcoming it through hard work or marriage — is far and away the favorite topic.

“The use of class, high and low, with the poor rising to become rich, has always existed in the novela, and has always proven successful,” said João Daniel Filho, Brazil’s most famous novela director. “That’s been true since the time when Victor Hugo, Dickens and Dostoyevsky were writing serials.”

Most telenovelas also contain a camp element — a quality that allows Latin American sophisticates to wink at bad lighting or preposterous plot developments as they watch novelas with their maids. Main characters tend to be broadly drawn archetypes acted in an over-the-top style, with the good guys and bad guys clearly signaled.

Silvio Horta, a Cuban-American raised in Miami who is an executive producer of “Ugly Betty,” freely acknowledges incorporating what he calls “that cheesy element” into the import. Asked about the scheming villain in “Ugly Betty” played by Vanessa Williams, he cited a 1980’s Mexican telenovela, “Cradle of Wolves,” in which the villainess wore a black eye patch. “It’s all very Cruella De Vil and Cinderella,” he said.

Not that the creators of “Ugly Betty” always stuck to the standard playbook. One notable difference is the absence in Betty Suarez’s family of a mother figure; her father is the anchor of her family.

“In the Latin American telenovela, the poor family usually has a loving, nurturing mother” who stoically absorbs all of life’s adversities, Ms. Milian said. “That matriarchal aspect is missing in ‘Ugly Betty,’ perhaps because that kind of passivity just wouldn’t fly with an American viewership.”

For a time last year, American networks seemed eager to produce true telenovelas. That enthusiasm seems to have waned.

But South American veterans of the telenovela industry suggest the genre may have a North American future, after all. The growing income gap in the United States reminds them of their own societies, they say, and it may assure an appetite for feel-good stories about social mobility.

“Betty opens a pathway, because it gives us an idea of what kind of stories will go down well” with American audiences, said Jayme Monjardim, a telenovela director here. “It’s going to be a slow process, because you don’t have a culture up there of watching novelas day in and day out. But this is something we know how to do very well, and when we find out how to translate our sentiments, well, then just watch out.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/weekinreview/07rohter.html?ref=television

dad1153

01-08-07, 09:28 AM

TV Review
Family has the blues in 'Lincoln Heights'
By David Kronke, Los Angeles Daily News - January 8, 2007

Our rating: Two-and-a-Half Stars (Out of Four)
What: An idealistic L.A. cop moves his family from a cramped apartment into a large home in the troubled neighborhood he polices.
Where: ABC Family.
When: 7 p.m. tonight.
In a nutshell: Earnest but likable.

"Lincoln Heights" is sort of ABC Family's answer to HBO's "The Wire," with all the attendant positives and negatives such a description implies.

While it aspires to present an earnest depiction of inner-city life, it's likewise hamstrung by its need to serve its target audience. "The Wire" treats its audience as intelligent adults; "Lincoln Heights" can't quite afford to do that.

Russell Hornsby is immensely likable as Eddie Sutton, an idealistic L.A. police officer who moves his family back into the tough neighborhood he grew up in as part of an incentive program for cops to live in the areas they patrol.

"It's not Disneyland," he concedes of the neighborhood, and indeed, his kids are bullied and taunted at school and their home is broken into. Still, Eddie's wife Jenn (Nicki Micheaux) remains supportive, and the neighbors begin to warm to his presence, sort of, though one tells him, "Folks around here see the police as more dangerous than the Ebola virus."

But before the drama behind that tension can be played out, the show's writers jump the gun and have Eddie shoot and kill a young thug during a convenience-store holdup/hostage situation involving his daughter. Then they up the ante with an Al Sharpton-type condemning Eddie and the police force rabidly engaging in a witch hunt, even though he shot the man in self-defense.

If that's how the police department treats its cops who move into bad neighborhoods, one doesn't see much of a future for the project.

And anyway, the storyline seriously distracts from the show's intentions; it's an OK plot, but should've been saved for later in the series rather than dominating its first episodes.

http://www.dailynews.com/tv/ci_4967475

dad1153

01-08-07, 09:36 AM

(International) TV Notebook
The British Like to Control TV With Their DVRs, Too
By Eric Pfanner, The New York Times - January 8, 2007

LONDON — An announcement from British Sky Broadcasting last week that it had sold more than two million digital video recorders demonstrated the international appeal of a technology that wrests control of television schedules out of the hands of broadcasters and into the homes of viewers.

With digital recorders in more than 20 percent of households that subscribe to Sky, the leading British pay-television company, penetration rates in Britain are comparable to those of pay-TV companies in the United States. While Britain is far ahead of the rest of Europe and other parts of the world in adoption of DVRs, other markets could start to catch up as broadcasters study the results of how Sky develops and markets the technology, which it calls Sky Plus.

“Sky Plus is one of the most interesting, innovative and aggressive DVR rollouts, certainly in Europe, but probably outside Europe as well,” said Ian Fogg, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research in London.

Sky sold about 700,000 digital recorders last year as SkyPlus, introduced in 2001 as a £399 (about $770) premium device, evolved into a £99 ($191) mass-market product. The company’s stated goal — putting the new boxes into a quarter of its 8.3 million households by 2009 — should be passed this year, said Robert Fraser, a spokesman for Sky.

Like other DVRs, Sky Plus allows users to record television shows at a touch of a button, using an electronic programming guide. During playback, viewers can easily fast-forward through commercials, a feature that alarms advertisers and broadcasters that derive the bulk of their revenue from advertising.

Sky said an analysis of audience habits showed that just 12.2 percent of viewing in Sky Plus homes was “time-shifted.” But channels that show movies or entertainment, rather than news or sports, are more heavily affected. Between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., when British broadcasters generally schedule their most popular dramas, 22 percent of shows were time-shifted, as viewers watched them later or recorded a second program as they watched their first choice immediately. Sky has tried to reassure advertisers, saying that while DVR users might skip some ads (it did not specify what percentage), they end up watching more television over all — 2 hours and 26 minutes of television a day, compared with 2 hours and 7 minutes for Sky subscribers without the DVR — increasing their exposure to commercial messages. While Sky, whose largest shareholder is the News Corporation, generates much of its revenue from subscriptions, it also makes money from advertising, so it has to be careful not to appear to overplay the benefit of skipping ads, analysts say.

Many satellite and cable companies initially were reluctant to embrace DVRs, worried about offending the ad-financed broadcasters whose channels they transmit. That left independent providers like TiVo in the United States to develop the DVR market.

TiVo has had a hard time gaining a foothold outside the United States, however, and its growth has disappointed investors of late. Analysts say this is partly because many consumers have concluded that the DVRs that come with many cable and satellite subscriptions, while less function-rich than TiVo, are good enough.

In Europe, growth in DVRs has been relatively slow, though they are making inroads in Italy, where Sky Italia, another satellite broadcaster in the empire of Rupert Murdoch, is the dominant pay-TV provider.

As digital recorders spread into more homes, television companies are adding features. Sky, for instance, said recently that it would add video-on-demand for Sky Plus customers, helping it to compete with new television-like offerings from broadband providers like BT, the former British telecommunications monopoly. Mr. Fraser said Sky was also looking at ways to send advertising directly to DVRs, possibly through a partnership it recently signed with Google.

Some analysts said DVR providers ought to think twice about forcing advertising on subscribers who are attracted by the ability to avoid commercials. And they may want to think twice about cramming too many functions into set-top boxes.

One of the prime attractions of Sky Plus, particularly for customers who never could figure out how to program their videocassette recorders, has been its ease of use, said Carl Gressum, senior analyst at Ovum, a telecommunications consultancy.

“The lesson of Sky Plus has been, if you want to introduce a new technology, keep it simple,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/technology/08dvr.html

dad1153

01-08-07, 09:42 AM

CES 2007
Verizon, networks get hitched
Showbiz a major presence at CES
By Ben Fritz, Variety - January 7, 2007

LAS VEGAS -- Broadcast television is coming to cell phones.

In a major step for the fledgling mobile video space, Verizon Wireless on Sunday at the Consumer Electronics Show unveiled a new service that will stream full-length TV programs to cell phones from partners including CBS, NBC, Fox and MTV Networks.

V Cast Mobile TV will launch in select major markets by the end of the quarter.

According to network sources, Verizon's two major competitors, Cingular and Sprint, are working on similar offerings. By the end of the year, all three major cell providers should be providing full-length TV programs to their subscribers.

Previously, cell providers have offered only shortform video, news and sports.

The mobile vid biz has been slow to take off in the U.S., and it remains to be seen whether consumers will be interested half-hour or hour-long shows on their phones.

V Cast Mobile TV will initially launch with eight channels: CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN, MSNBC, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon. Due to network limitations, shows will not be available on demand. Instead, each net will program its own cellular channel.

CBS wireless topper Cyriac Roeding said his network will offer entertainment and news programs during "primetime for cell phones," which is typically during the day.

MTV networks senior VP of wireless media Greg Clayman said his three channels would experiment with different lineups, including, in some cases, simulcasting.

As with Internet streaming, broadcast nets will only be able to offer shows they own unless they reach a deal with their respective partner studios.

All nets plan to experiment with advertising.

V Cast Mobile TV will initially be available on two types of phones; users will pay a multisubscription fee that Verizon has not yet announced.

As for the general CES preparations, a record 11,000-plus professionals from the entertainment industry are registered to attend the show, where they'll not only be courted by a slew of technology companies looking to get their hands on premium content but take centerstage for the first time themselves.

In a first for the annual tech confab, two of the five keynote slots will be taken by big-media execs -- Disney topper Robert Iger and CBS prexy Leslie Moonves -- who will talk about their companies' increasing focus on broadband content. Iger is expected to unveil significant upgrades to the Disney.com Web site and discuss the Mouse's overall strategy online.

Even tech execs will, more than ever, talk about their partnerships with Hollywood as content increasingly goes digital. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, for instance, unveiled partnerships with Fox Sports, Nickelodeon, Starz and Showtime as part of his opening keynote Sunday night, centered on the new Windows Vista operating system.

CES won't be the only confab this week where tech and entertainment are meeting. At Apple's annual MacWorld event, which always takes place at the same time as CES, Steve Jobs is expected to provide more details on iTV, a new Apple product debuting this winter that will stream video content from a PC onto a TV.

In addition, numerous Apple watchers expect it to debut a new "iPhone" that plays songs downloaded from iTunes onto a cell phone. Its previous attempt at the market, the Rokr phone made by Motorola and sold by Cingular, has been a flop.

However, despite dogged attempts to sign up more studios, Jobs is not expected to unveil many more partnerships to sell movies via iTunes. Since launching pics on iTunes in September with content from Disney, in which Jobs is the largest individual shareholder, Apple hasn't signed up any more studios for the service, primarily because Apple wants to pay wholesale prices lower than DVDs. Sources at most studios confirmed they are not yet close to signing with Apple, though one or two remain possibilities.

Topics expected to be hot at CES this year include devices and software to watch digital content at home and on the go; increasing availability of premium content on the Web; the dueling high-definition DVD formats and attempts to end the divide; and new technology allowing consumers to burn secure DVDs at home and in stores.

Gates was to unveil Sunday the long-in-development Windows Vista operating system upgrade, dedicated in large part to showcasing digital content while also attempting to allay studios' concerns over piracy. Most consumer versions of the software, which goes on sale Jan. 30, feature Windows Media Center, which is designed to be connected to a TV screen and mix broadcast and broadband content.

Upgrades to the software will allow users to watch high-def TV through a cable connection to the computer and allow networks to design Media Center-specific experiences that can be watched on a TV and PC and used with a remote control.

Fox Sports, for instance, has designed an intricate feature allowing users to keep track of numerous games at once. Nickelodeon is putting its TurboNick broadband service, featuring ad-supported clips and full-length episodes of its shows, onto Media Center for the first time as part of the Vista launch. Showtime will sell downloads of its programs via Media Center on Vista for $1.99, similar to its offering on iTunes. Starz is adding its Vongo broadband service, which lets users watch movies on the premium channel for a $9.99 monthly subscription fee.

Microsoft already is working with numerous other networks and broadband content services to enhance their Web offerings for Vista Media Center. While 30 million consumers worldwide have bought PCs with earlier versions of the software, not many have yet connected it to their TVs to make it the center of their digital experience. Microsoft is hoping the upgrades will lead more buyers to do so, giving it an advantage over competitors like Apple, Sony, cable operators and telcos, all of whom want to control the digital living room.

Warner Bros. topper Barry Meyer will appear at an event sponsored by his studio on Tuesday to showcase "True HD," a new type of DVD offered by WB that will feature Blu-ray and HD DVD versions of movies on one disc in an attempt to end the split between the two high-def DVD formats. Consumer confusion over the two, which are backed by different studios, is a key factor limiting widespread adoption.

LG Electronics, meanwhile, is taking the opposite approach to the problem by showing a DVD player at the show that will play both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.

Though entertainment has had a significant and growing presence at CES for the past few years, show organizers have aggressively gone after Hollywood professionals this year, as the manufacturers who display at the show increasingly need the approval and interest of the entertainment industry for their digital media products.

"Our exhibitors have urged us to reach out to the entertainment community, and we made a big effort to do that this year with our keynoters and our attendees," said Jason Oxman, VP of communications for the Consumer Electronics Assn., which organizes CES. "There has really been a momentous shift away from devices to the content and services enabled by them."

In addition, the technology and engineering Emmys will be held for the first time at CES tonight.

Based on registrations, the expected 11,000 attendees from the entertainment industry rep the fastest-growing industry group to attend the show. Last year, 150,000 people came to CES.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117956879.html?categoryid=1009&cs=1

dad1153

01-08-07, 09:48 AM

From TV producer/creator to inventor? Rick Rosner's done it all! :rolleyes:

CES 2007
Satellite Television in a Portable Box
By Lorne Manly, The New York Times - January 8, 2007

Rick Rosner is a self-described television junkie.

Not only he is the creator and producer of many television series, most notably “CHiPs” and “The New Hollywood Squares,” he feels an overpowering need to surround himself with television everywhere he may be. Fourteen television sets jostle for space in Mr. Rosner’s penthouse condominium in Marina Del Rey.

When more than a decade ago he moved into his previous home, in Coldwater Canyon, only to learn he could not pick up a cable signal, he dispatched a production assistant to Phoenix to get something not yet available on the West Coast: DirecTV. On location shoots he would lug one of his DirecTV set-top boxes along and then rent or buy a satellite dish and attach it to his balcony railing with duct tape.

That hassle got him thinking: What if there were a portable satellite dish, which folds up like a piece of luggage, and could be used for camping and tailgate parties or in dorm rooms? And that’s how a longtime television producer turned into an inventor.

The result of his obsessive handiwork will be on display today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, when DirecTV will unveil the Sat-Go, a mobile satellite and television system weighing about 25 pounds that will sell for $1,000 to $1,300. DirecTV hopes that the Sat-Go will help differentiate the company from its cable-television competition and attract a different type of customer when the product goes on sale this spring.

“I love to try different things,” the 65-year-old Mr. Rosner said when asked to explain the moonlighting. “That’s sort of the story of my life.”

Mr. Rosner’s affection for all things television began as a child, when shows like “Captain Video and His Video Rangers” and “The Howdy Doody Show” captivated him, and working as a page at NBC during college cemented that connection. When he dropped out of veterinary school at Cornell University after six weeks, he moved to New York and reclaimed his post at NBC before getting a job at “Candid Camera” and becoming a television producer.

The walls of his condominium are crammed with pictures of people he’s worked with and for over the years, like Mike Douglas, Regis Philbin, John Davidson and Joan Rivers. But even while involved in the television business, his enthusiasms took him in different directions.

When on one episode of “The Steve Allen Show” the host was made to scuba dive, an emergency rescue unit came in to school Mr. Allen, and Mr. Rosner struck up a friendship with the visitors. That led him to taking a course at the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department. One night, he and his partner were parked at a Winchell’s doughnut shop in Los Angeles when two California highway patrolmen, complete with darkened helmet visor and shiny boots, pulled up behind them. But that intimidating sight melted when the two took off their helmets and sunglasses.

“Right there, it hit me,” said Mr. Rosner over a lunch of shrimp cocktail and Caesar salad at a dockside restaurant near his condominium. “That’s a TV series. Two guys racing around the L.A. freeway system. Two good guys doing a job.”

“He incorporates parts of his life into his business,” said Michael Gelman, executive producer of “Live With Regis and Kelly,” who became friends with Mr. Rosner when he worked on “The New Hollywood Squares” more than 20 years ago.

A similar connection explains the genesis of Sat-Go. After getting his inspiration for Sat-Go during an early morning walk in Vancouver, he hooked up with David Kuether, a friend who was an engineer at DirecTV, and the two set out to build a mobile satellite TV.

Mr. Rosner then called in a favor from another friend, his former art director on “The New Hollywood Squares” who is now the head of “The Tonight Show’s” prop shop. They built a prototype — “it looked like a big sewing machine,” he said — and then tried to persuade DirecTV to build and sell it.

At first, they were greeted with a decided lack of interest. But the head of the set-top box division sent Mr. Rosner and his contraption to see Eric Shanks, executive vice president of DirecTV Entertainment. Luckily for Mr. Rosner, Mr. Shanks was a “CHiPs” fanatic and jumped at the chance to meet its creator. “It’s my second-favorite show,” he said. (“The A-Team” is No. 1.)

DirecTV will be selling Sat-Go in places it has never been before, like Cabela’s, the hunting, fishing and camping store, and advertising in unfamiliar publications, like RV magazine. Although the modest first-run of production (about 10,000) makes Sat-Go an expensive toy, that price should come down, and the monthly subscription fee of $4.99 is the same as adding a box, according to Mr. Shanks.

Mr. Rosner has continued to be involved in every aspect of the Sat-Go’s development, particularly its design. Mr. Rosner and DirecTV executives both knew they wanted it to look like a high-end piece of luggage, one that could come from the likes of Louis Vuitton. But the color never satisfied. After the fifth or six try with the manufacturer, Mr. Rosner arrived one day with a carton full of Hershey dark chocolate bars — the hue reminded him of an early Bentley from Rolls-Royce — and announced this was the color the SAT-Go casing should be.

“It just looked so rich,” said Mr. Rosner, who this late December day in a chilly Southern California was wearing a chocolate brown slacks with a chocolate brown Sat-Go sweater. “It said money.”

Mr. Rosner’s nearly constant presence — in the past year and half he estimated that he dropped by DirecTV’s headquarters in El Segundo two or three times a week — could be unnerving to SatGo’s development team, so much so that the head of engineering called Mr. Shanks to complain that Mr. Rosner was distracting him. But Mr. Rosner has a history of barreling through obstacles and getting what he desires.

“Rick has always been a champion of the what-if scenario of television,” said Harry Friedman, executive producer of “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy” and a friend of Mr. Rosner’s since they worked together on “The New Hollywood Squares.” Mr. Rosner was the first to take game shows out on the road, plopping “The New Hollywood Squares” down in New York’s Radio City Music Hall and on the beach in the Bahamas. Now that the Sat-Go is a reality, Mr. Rosner can turn his attention to his next big entertainment project, a feature film based on “CHiPs.” Wilmer Valderrama (“That 70s Show,” “Fast Food Nation”) will play Officer Frank “Ponch” Poncherello, the Erik Estrada role, and Warner Brothers expects to shoot the picture this year.

But Mr. Rosner is not done with DirecTV; he is helping the company develop different Sat-Go offshoots. The Sat-Go Pro will come in a hardened plastic case and be marketed to users like FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Sat-Go Light will be about half the weight. And Mr. Rosner wants DirecTV to build a version with a digital video-recorder, too.

“I am the biggest DirecTV fan in the world,” he said. “No one appreciates that company more than me.” And Mr. Rosner wants to make sure no one will ever have to go without television again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/technology/08satellite.html?ref=technology

dad1153

01-08-07, 09:55 AM

CES 2007
A high-def hug for DVD rivals?
Warner Bros., LG unveiling products that merge Blu-ray, HD DVD
By Ben Fritz, Variety - January 7, 2007

Will the Cold War among hi-def DVD formats thaw at the Consumer Electronics Show this week?

After a launch year that saw very slow pick-up for the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats, two separate approaches to ending the split between them are expected to be unveiled at the CES confab in Las Vegas:

-Warner Bros. will debut a format it calls "True HD" that features both Blu-ray and HD DVD movies on one disc. Theoretically, it allows consumers not to have to worry whether they have the right kind of player when buying a hi-def DVD.

-LG Electronics, and possibly other manufacturers, will show new DVD players that read discs in both formats. Though it will likely debut at $1,000, it should appeal to high-end consumers who have avoided buying a hi-def DVD player for fear they'll end up with the 21st century version of a Betamax machine.

Thus far, the biggest driver of hi-def DVD adoption has been Sony's Playstation 3, which comes standard with a Blu-ray drive, and Microsoft's Xbox 360, which offers an HD DVD attachment for just $200.

Neither looks likely to change their technology to play both formats.

Similarly, Blu-ray backers like Sony and Disney and HD DVD backer Universal don't seem too interested in Warner's hybrid format.

So while both solutions have the potential to end consumer consternation over the competing formats, they may in the short run be one more confusing option for hi-def adopters to sort through.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117956801.html?categoryid=1009&cs=1

dad1153

01-08-07, 09:56 AM

CES 2007
HD DVD backers see big 2007 ahead
By Richard Lawler, Endgadget.com - January 8, 2007

The North American HD DVD Promotional Group took advantage of its press event to spread the good news about HD DVD, noting that over 300 additional HD DVD titles should be arriving in 2007. As of January 5th, the group estimates there were more than 175,000 HD DVD players sold in America, with an annualized attach rate of 28 movies per player. The group projects sales will reach 2.5 million players by the end of this year and more than $600 million worth of movie revenues. HD DVD buyers can look forward to more HDi enhanced titles, now featuring internet features that were demoed at the event, as well as more players hitting the market from manufacturers like Lite-On, Alco, Alpine, Meridian and Onkyo. Look for the trend of combo releases to continue, as the format's backers see it as a viable way of introducing current DVD owners to the format and building a library prior to upgrading. With Sony already hitting 1 million PS3s shipped and HD via IPTV picking up steam HD DVD surely has its work cut out for it in 2007 but with a slew of reference quality releases and enhanced hardware offerings they expect to hit all their goals.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/01/08/hd-dvd-backers-see-big-2007-ahead/

dad1153

01-08-07, 09:59 AM

TV Review
In the Old Neighborhood: Old Problems, New Life
By Virginia Heffernan, The New York Times - January 8, 2007

Imagine trying to make a PG-rated “Wire.” That’s the tall order assumed by the producers of “Lincoln Heights,” an ABC Family drama about a middle-class black family moving into a former crack house.

Being on ABC Family ties the show’s hands: no obscenity, nudity, sex, gore or crudeness. Mean streets on a family channel are likely to translate to stick-ups and shouting matches, the latter-day equivalent of stealing hubcaps, which used to be name-checked when kids needed a lesson about hoodlums and peer pressure.

ABC Family, after all, was started by Pat Robertson in 1977. And although television’s foster kid has morphed through the years from CBN Cable to the Family Channel to Fox Family to ABC Family, it’s still obliged by Mr. Robertson’s post-CBN stipulation to keep “Family” in its name and show his “700 Club” twice each weekday: new episodes in the morning, reruns at night. For the cohesiveness, the sensibility of the tough-looking “Lincoln Heights” has to work somehow with church and family.

It’s a minor marvel, then, that this show isn’t a complete wreck. The pop morality play you might expect fails early on to assert itself, and the clean language doesn’t seem artificial.

Screenwriters have become so adept at writing around speech codes that they are able to win authenticity for characters without four letter words; on “Lincoln Heights,” Tay Sutton (Mishon Ratliff), a small but rangy boy, makes his entrance commenting on his sister’s breasts. It’s an innocuous line, but it’s delivered brother to sister, which gives it fair shock value. He needn’t say an unwholesome thing for the rest of the episode, and we still buy him as a tough-enough kid.

The same is true with Tay’s mother, Jenn Sutton (Nicki Micheaux), who doesn’t have to do evil, dress recklessly or set a bad example. She’s already real in how little she wants to move to the ghetto with her husband, Eddie (Russell Hornsby), to prove a point about revitalization. (Eddie, a cop, grew up in Lincoln Heights; he’s hoping to help make it safe by moving his family there.) Jenn agrees to go with him to the onetime crack house — she even buys him a book on renovation — but fights him every inch of the way.

As do his children, for the most part, who have to adjust to a more dangerous school. The daughters, Cassie (Erica Hubbard) and Lizzie (Rhyon Brown), seem to be set up as catnip for the “One Tree Hill” “OC” types in the audience. And they succeed, especially Cassie, who is ready for her Teen Vogue close-up. She even keeps a diary on the “Lincoln Heights” Web site (abcfamily.go.com/lincolnheights) and by Episode 2 has found a controversial but telegenic boyfriend, Charles (Robert Adamson), who looks like a teen-show prototype, acquired straight from the factory. He’s perfect.

In short “Lincoln Heights” is lightweight for HBO fans. But its police drama elements — especially once real violence surfaces, and Eddie gets into serious ethical and departmental trouble — may confound viewers who like its “Cosby Show” factor. “Lincoln Heights” determinedly tries to maintain a balance, and refuses to drop the fluffy stuff or the cops-and-robbers stuff. That’s impressive, and if there are any families left who watch television together, maybe they really will enjoy “Lincoln Heights.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/arts/television/08linc.html?ref=television

dad1153

01-08-07, 10:00 AM

AVS Forum gets a mention in this Hollywood Reporter story about CES 2007! :)

CES 2007
Web chatter on rise as CES looms
Microsoft most-discussed brand; HD DVD, Blu-Ray also draws
By Alex Woodson, The Hollywood Reporter - January 8, 2007

NEW YORK -- In the run-up to this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a 20% increase in CES-related discussion has registered on newsgroups, blogs and message boards compared with the same frame a year ago, according to Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

Microsoft, led by its new Zune, is the most-talked-about brand in the online conversations surrounding CES, with Web discussions devoted to the company up 4.5% from a year ago. In addition to Zune, other Microsoft products ranking in the top 10 for buzz volume include Windows Vista and Xbox 360. Apple, which does not present at CES, is the second-most-talked-about brand in discussions surrounding the conference. BuzzMetrics credits the discussion to the strong market for iPod accessories and Apple's Macworld conference, which takes place at the same time as CES and is seen by consumers as a competitor to the Las Vegas showcase.

Sony is the third-most-talked-about brand, but that company's buzz is down from last year, mainly because its new PlayStation 3 debuted last year at CES.

The most popular discussions surrounding CES center on the home theater/video category, which accounts for 35% of all consumer-generated media posts, BuzzMetrics said, with HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats leading the discussion. High-definition multimedia interface, the format that connects PCs to HD displays, is the most-talked-about technology, accounting for 9% of CES buzz this year.

Leading the discussion are such technology blogs as Engadget, Gizmodo and TechCrunch, which highlight new products that will be showcased at CES.

"Blogs continue to penetrate and shape the public conversation about consumer electronics, including major events like CES," said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer at Nielsen BuzzMetrics. "Our research finds that such buzz can greatly impact consumer purchase behavior and the success or failure of new product launches."

The site that generated the most CES buzz is www.avsforum.com, which facilitates conversations about home entertainment, video and gaming. In anticipation of Blu-ray news at the conference, discussion on forum.blu-ray.com also has seen an increase, up 2% compared with a year ago.

As consumers see a limited amount of discussions regarding satellite radio and gaming at this year's CES, sites devoted to that technologies, including www.nintendo.com, www.ps3forums.com and www.satelliteguys.com, are down compared with a year ago. Gaming, however, still remains the second most-talked about category in CES-related conversations.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i5b2bddf1415bc8d7c3f4b2d8f0af67bb

fredfa

01-08-07, 11:03 AM

Yesterday’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.

fredfa

01-08-07, 12:13 PM

TV Sports
Bowls Hit Ratings Pay Dirt
By John Consoli MediaWeek January 8, 2007

The skeptics predicted the bowl season was going to be a boring glut of college football—32 postseason bowl games in 21 days from Dec. 19 through Jan. 8—resulting in viewer apathy and lack of tune-in. It turned out instead to be a rather desirable cornucopia of live action TV that viewers embraced, much to the pleasure of the advertisers who bought up the commercial time.

Sixteen bowl games on ESPN cumulatively produced a household ratings hike of 9 percent over last season’s comparable games, with the Alamo Bowl, in which Texas defeated Iowa, 26-24, drawing 5.5 million viewers, the most to ever watch a college bowl game on ESPN.

The Rose Bowl game on ABC, in which USC bested Michigan, 32-18, produced a 13.9 household rating, up 12 percent from the Rose Bowl two years ago between Texas and Michigan, and up 7 percent from last year’s Fiesta Bowl, which aired in the comparable time period. Last year’s Rose Bowl was the national championship game between Texas and USC, and aired on another day and time period, so an even comparison cannot be made.

On Fox, the Sugar Bowl matchup in which LSU thumped Notre Dame, 41-14, scored a 9.3, up 3 percent from the 2006 Sugar Bowl.

Fox did have a few ratings disappointments in its Bowl Championship Series games, with the Orange Bowl producing a 7.0 rating, down 43 percent from a 12.3 last year. The Fiesta Bowl’s 8.4 was down 35 percent from a 12.9 last year. But this year’s Orange Bowl had two smaller schools on the national level, Louisville and Wake Forest, and the Fiesta Bowl, which produced an exciting 43-42 final score, had Oklahoma losing to tiny Boise State.

Fox is expecting to get a more solid rating in the Jan. 8 national championship game when Ohio State and Florida square off, and although it is not expected to top last year’s championship game (Rose Bowl) rating of 21.7, it likely will still be the top-rated prime-time program of the coming week.

While most BCS advertisers bought packages on Fox for all four Bowl Championship Series games, remaining scatter ads for the championship game were selling for $800,000 per 30-second spot. Even with some down ratings, media buyers were happy. “As everything else on television gets easier to watch at a person’s leisure with DVRs and VOD, live sports continues to hold up and even grow very nicely,” said Ray Warren, CEO of Carat USA. One of Warren’s clients, Papa John’s pizza, was a first-time sponsor of the PapaJohn’s.com Bowl which ran on ESPN2. “We had clients in the bowl games all over the place and they all seem to be happy with the [ratings] results,” he said.

Steve Sternberg, executive vp of audience analysis for media agency Magna Global USA, said there is a very simple answer to why viewers embraced the bowl telecasts this season. “People just like football,” he said.

And Carat’s Warren added, “With all the repeats of scripted programming on television at this time of year, many people want to watch something fresh and live, and college football fills the bill. It is family-friendly, advertiser-friendly and has viewer interest from around the country.”

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003528491

fredfa

01-08-07, 12:14 PM

The Sunday Fast National Nielsen ratings have been delayed. They'll be available shortly.

AAF

01-08-07, 12:26 PM

fredfa,

I saw this post on mediabistro.com last Thursday and wondered if you have the full list?

The 2006 cable primetime ranker is out, and Fox News Channel is the only cable news in the top 20. FNC is #8, behind Nick at Nite and ahead of FX. The channel averaged 1,404,000 viewers in primetime in 2006.

CNN came in #26, averaging 752,000 primetime viewers. MSNBC is ranked #35, averaging 382,000 viewers.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/2006_s_fnc_8_on_all_of_cable_50554.asp

Thanks,

fredfa

01-08-07, 12:31 PM

On the other hand….
TV Sports
Tonight's the big game, except for Fox
By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 8, 2007

There have been weeks of buildup for tonight’s highly anticipated college football national championship game between Florida and Ohio State. But judging by the disappointing ratings thus far for the Bowl Championship Series, new BCS carrier Fox just might sink to record lows for its bowl finale.

Through the first three BCS games, Fox’s household ratings are down 28 percent compared with last year’s bowls on ABC. The Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls have averaged a cumulative 24.7 household rating, down from last year’s 34.2.

Among adults 18-49, ratings are down 22 percent, from a 17.8 to a 13.9.

No game so far has topped 15 million viewers. That may mean Fox will fall below 2002’s BCS title game record low of 21.6 million viewers for Miami vs. Nebraska.

Last year was an exceptionally strong one for the early BCS games, what with a triple overtime game between legendary coaches Joe Paterno at Penn State and Bobby Bowden at Florida State and a matchup of two of college’s most popular teams, Notre Dame and Ohio State.

Even so, the year-to-year dip has been quite sharp. Fox finished behind NBC in adults 18-49 on Orange Bowl night, a year after ABC won every night of its BCS coverage handily. And all three bowls posted some of their lower ratings of the past decade.

There are several factors hurting the numbers, all of which could affect tonight’s finale, which kicks off at 8:15 p.m.

The first is competition. Fox not only faced the premieres of broadcast shows like the CW’s “Beauty and the Geek,” which set series highs among some key demographics, and ABC’s “The Knights of Prosperity,” it was likely hurt by cable as well.

FX’s “Dirt” debuted opposite Tuesday’s Orange Bowl, drawing a solid 3.7 million total viewers and 2.4 million 18-49s. The Orange Bowl, by contrast, drew 10.7 million viewers. Monday’s Fiesta Bowl aired opposite strong premieres for E!’s “High Maintenance 90210,” ABC Family’s “Wildfire” and MTV’s “Next.”

And tonight the competition is even tougher. Last year the broadcast networks mostly aired repeats against the BCS title game. Tonight, ABC and CBS have entirely original lineups, while NBC airs a new “Deal or No Deal” to lead off the night.

On cable, ABC Family and VH1 have three shows premiering between them, and Lifetime has the heavily promoted movie “To Be Fat Like Me” and the new reality show “Gay, Straight or Taken.”

Another problem for Fox has been little excitement for the games. BCS participants Louisville, Boise State and Wake Forest simply draw lower ratings than traditional powerhouses like Nebraska, Penn State and Florida State, none of which made the BCS this year.

While Ohio State and Florida are both popular teams, the controversy surrounding one-loss Florida’s selection will not help ratings.

In the eight BCS championship games thus far, the games that have done the best paired undefeated squads like last year’s record matchup between USC and Texas, the most-watched finale since the BCS began.

Finally, the switch from longtime carrier ABC to Fox may have hurt the BCS most of all. Fox doesn’t air regular-season college football games, and thus did not have a great platform to promote the postseason games.

And the network tends to see lower ratings compared with the Big Three when it carries events shared by all the broadcasters, such as the Emmys and Super Bowl, due to distribution, shorter primetime window for promotion, and the relative youth of the 20-year-old fourth network.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_9375.asp

fredfa

01-08-07, 12:42 PM

TV Sports
A media buyer's primer on Super Bowl
With just four weeks to go the hype is upon us
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 8, 2007

At this time every year, two things inevitably happen. We see a huge post-holiday spike in traffic to online diet sites, and we hear the annual round of predictions about the Super Bowl begin.

What’s perhaps much more interesting is not how many people will watch the big game--85 million, give or take 5 million--or how much ad prices will rise (figure $100,000 per year or so) but how the game works as an ad vehicle.

So here’s a quick look at what media buyers need to know about the Super Bowl.

According to media buyers who spoke with Media Life, the average 30-second spot for the Feb. 4 game on CBS is a record $2.6 million, or 4 percent more than last year’s $2.5 million on ABC.

Roughly 80 percent of the inventory has already been sold, much of it in package deals that moved at last spring’s upfront. Those who buy in the final weeks usually receive price cuts, as do advertisers who buy multiple ads, but advertisers always pay a premium to have their ads run during the desirable first-half slots.

That’s when viewers are still engaged, the game is usually still close, and the halftime beer run has not yet been made.

“The pricing is greater, significantly greater, for spots that run in the first half of the game than spots that run in the second half or pre- or postgame,” says one buyer. “If you run outside the premium areas, you’re going to get a better rate.”

The debate has raged for years over whether the ad buy is worth it. In 1999 and 2000, when money was flowing into the dot.coms, it became a trendy buy, with nearly $50 million spent over those two years by startup companies. Now very few dot.com advertisers remain, this year most notably CareerBuilder and GoDaddy.

Some companies think the exposure of a Super Bowl ad is worth blowing nearly their entire ad budget. In 2005, Diamond of California bought a spot for $2.4 million to promote its fledgling Emerald Nuts brand, representing a quarter of the previous year’s ad budget, according to a report from ad buying agency Carat. But it worked, as the company credits the ad for sales of the snack food rising 56 percent that year.

Indeed, movies promoted during the Super Bowl generally achieve double the opening weekend and final box office numbers as non-Super Bowl advertised movies, according to Carat.

The Super Bowl audience is an attentive one. An Ipsos-ASI study a few years back found that 46 percent of Super Bowl viewers claimed to have watched every ad in the game, compared with levels under 15 percent for several other sporting events.

What’s more, nearly 90 percent could name at least one advertiser in the game, double the level for other sporting events.

There’s always much talk about Super Bowl viewership, which over the past decade has ranged from a high of 90.7 million last year to a low of 83.7 million in 1998. But in these days of increasingly fractured TV viewing, even a Super Bowl featuring a dull matchup between small-market teams will still draw an incredibly large audience.

Last year’s game more than doubled the number of total viewers for the season finale of “American Idol.” Seven of the top 10 most-watched shows in history are Super Bowls, and the game has been the most-watched TV show of the season for 11 straight years.

Beer, movies and automobiles have been the leading advertising categories since 2000. Media buyers say that will hold true again this year, with Anheuser-Busch the top advertiser once again.

Expect lots of promos for “CSI” and the like this year. The last time CBS carried the Super Bowl, it set a record with 27 promos for its own shows. Up until 1999, networks rarely inserted such non-paid commercial minutes in the game.

Finally, one mythbuster. It’s long been held that the Academy Awards are the Super Bowl for women, but that’s incorrect. The Super Bowl actually draws more female viewers than the Oscars, according to an analysis done by Horizon Media in 2005, and by a large margin.

That year the Super Bowl drew 19.3 million women 18-49 compared with 12.1 million for the Oscars in that demo.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_9360.asp

fredfa

01-08-07, 01:12 PM

Yesterday’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.

fredfa

01-08-07, 02:02 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Not so Rosie: 'Apprentice' hits new low
Debut of Trump reality shows earns 5.7 in households
By Toni Fitzgerald medialifemagazine Jan 8, 2007

Donald Trump’s much-publicized tiff with “View” co-host Rosie O’Donnell failed to pump ratings for the sixth-season premiere of “The Apprentice” last night. The show nearly equaled last spring’s series-low bow among adults 18-49, and it sank to its worst-ever premiere among households, according to Media Life records.

“Apprentice” averaged a 4.1 rating among adults 18-49, according to Nielsen overnights, 0.1 better than last year’s season five premiere. It drew a 5.7 among households, down half a point, or 8 percent, from last year.

The 90-minute premiere, which began at 9:30 p.m., built in every half hour in 18-49s but did lose 20 percent of its lead-in, the new show “Grease: You’re the One That I Want,” sinking from the latter’s 4.5 at 9 p.m. to a 3.6 at 9:30 p.m.

“Apprentice” has declined in every season since its 2004 premiere, when it was an instant hit on Thursday night. NBC even held it off the schedule last fall, hoping to build anticipation for the show in a way that has worked for other reality programs like “American Idol” and “The Bachelor.”

But even against the last half of a weaker-than-usual episode of ABC’s hit show “Desperate Housewives” last night, “Apprentice” showed little of its old spark. It finished behind ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters” in 18-49s at 10 p.m. and was third behind that and CBS’s “Without a Trace” in total viewers.

The media-savvy Trump had tried to spur ratings with a recent PR blitz over his feud with O’Donnell, which began last month.

Meanwhile, “Grease” had a solid debut, growing in each half hour.

Fox was first for the night among 18-49s with a 7.0 average rating and a 16 share. ABC was second at 4.8/11, NBC third at 3.8/9, CBS fourth at 2.9/7, Univision fifth at 1.2/3 and CW sixth at 0.9/2.

As a reminder, fast nationals measure timeslot data and not actual program data. Thus Fox’s ratings for its live NFL wild card coverage will adjust when final ratings are out tomorrow.

NFL football runover helped Fox to a first place finish during the 7 p.m. hour, as the network averaged an 11.0 rating for the end of the game between the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles. NBC was second that hour with a 2.8 for “Deal or No Deal,” ABC third with a 2.4 for “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and CBS fourth with a 1.9 for “60 Minutes.” CW was fifth with a 1.0 for an hour of “Reba” and Univision sixth with a 0.9 for the awards pre-show “Noche de Estrellas.”

At 8 p.m. Fox led again, this time with a 5.4 average for “The Simpsons” (6.2) and “American Dad” (4.7). ABC was second with a 5.1 for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” NBC third with a 4.3 for the first hour of the premiere of “Grease” and CBS fourth with a 2.5 for a repeat of “Cold Case.” Univision jumped to fifth that hour with a 1.3 for the first hour of “Premios Furia Musical 2007,” with CW falling to sixth with a 0.9 for a repeat of “Beauty & the Geek.”

ABC took the lead at 9 p.m. with a 7.3 rating for “Desperate Housewives.” Fox dropped to sixth with a 4.6 average for an hour of “Family Guy” repeats, with NBC third with a 4.0 for the last 30 minutes of “Grease” (4.5) and the first half hour of the season premiere of “Apprentice” (3.6). CBS came in fourth with a 3.5 for “Cold Case,” Univision fifth with a 1.4 for “Premios Furia Musical 2007” and CW sixth with a 0.8 for another “Beauty & the Geek” rerun.

At 10 p.m. ABC remained on top with a 4.6 for “Sisters.” NBC moved to second with a 4.3 for the last hour of “Apprentice,” with CBS third with a 3.7 for “Without a Trace” and Univision fourth with a 1.1 for “Premios Furia Musical 2007.”

Fox finished first for the night among households, averaging a 9.9 rating and a 15 share. CBS was second at 8.2/12, ABC third at 8.0/12, NBC fourth at 6.2/10, CW fifth at 1.6/2 and Univision sixth at 1.5/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_9387.asp

fredfa

01-08-07, 02:04 PM

Technology Notebook
Comcast Offers TiVo Features for DVR Service
By Anthony Crupi Media Week Jan. 8, 2007

Nearly two years after announcing their plans to collaborate, Comcast and TiVo are ready to begin offering the cable operator’s digital subscribers a full menu of TiVo functionality.

In an announcement made Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Comcast said that TiVo software can now be implemented into Comcast’s existing digital set-top boxes for an additional monthly fee. The software upload will not require a truck roll.

Although Comcast already offers its digital subs DVR service, as TiVo adherents are quick to testify, generic DVR does not offer nearly as many features as does TiVo, which among other wrinkles has bolstered its service with an online scheduling application and a mobile viewing option.

The companies joined forces March 2005, but only began testing the service toward the latter part of last year.

For TiVo, the Comcast integration––the company has a similar deal in place with Cox Communications––is one of many steps taken by then-vice chairman Tom Rogers to try and stave off the company’s dissolution. (Rogers, the former NBC executive vp and president of NBC Cable, ascended to the post of president and CEO of TiVo on July 1, 2005.)

Although TiVo was one of the first movers in the DVR space, having launched back in 1997, the company has struggled to compete with cable’s less expensive DVR offerings.

At last count, TiVo has about 4.4 million subscribers, although more than 60 percent of those are DirecTV customers. While TiVo and DirecTV last spring extended their maintenance contract for three years, the DBS company no longer markets TiVo, as it is developing a proprietary DVR product with corporate sibling NDS.

All told, there are about 16 million DVR deployed nationwide.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003528862

fredfa

01-08-07, 02:20 PM

The Business of Television
Comcast Lands in Sinclair’s Jungle
By Linda Moss & Ted Hearn MultiChannel News 1/8/2007

Comcast subscribers became the latest TV viewers to face the prospect of losing feeds of CBS, NBC and Fox stations supplied by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Under the gun, Comcast Friday began notifying a small number of subscribers that they could lose access to analog feeds of Sinclair stations within 30 days. At issue: paying cash to Sinclair in order to retransmit signals of its stations’ broadcasts.

"Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the nation’s largest broadcast-television-station owners, has demanded large cash payments from Comcast and, ultimately, consumers so that these customers can continue to view broadcast-television stations that are available over-the-air for free,” Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said in a prepared statement.

Sinclair VP and general counsel Barry Faber said, “We’ve barely begun negotiations with Comcast,” and it was too early to declare that the two companies were involved in a dispute.

Even so, Comcast became the third MSO to balk at paying cash to Sinclair for carriage of its stations.

About 700,000 subscribers belonging to Mediacom Communications, based in Middletown, N.Y., lost access to Sinclair signals at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second-largest MSO, is also facing the prospect of losing access to Sinclair signals, but on New Year’s Eve, it worked out an extension of its current retransmission deal through Friday, Jan. 12.

Sinclair and Time Warner agreed to extend their expiring contract so that they could continue to work out terms regarding stations in markets where the cable company purchased systems last year from now-defunct Adelphia Communications.

That negotiation involves systems with roughly 1 million subscribers, concentrated in New York in towns such as Buff