The Business of Television
Harbert: Nets need to rethink biz
By Kimberly Nordyke The Hollywood Reporter Jan 18, 2007

LAS VEGAS -- The broadcast networks need to rethink their traditional programming model, Comcast Entertainment Group president and CEO Ted Harbert told NATPE attendees Wednesday morning during a "Coffee With" session at the Mandalay Bay.

Harbert, a former head of ABC Entertainment and NBC Studios, said the way that broadcast networks continue to do business needs to be "re-examined." He pointed out that the networks are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make pilots that will be presented as short clips to advertisers at the spring upfronts even though "we know that buyers don't buy off clips, they have to watch the shows."

Harbert, who oversees E! Entertainment Television, Style Network and G4, called it "silly" to keep working to fill a 22-hour primetime schedule, saying that broadcast should take a page from cable's book when it comes to scheduling.

"There's no rule that says they need to make that much television. We'll take a show and put it on Sunday night and (repeat it) Tuesday night and Thursday night -- we call ourselves auto-TiVo: If you don't see it Sunday, you can see it Thursday," he said. "A few broadcast networks are doing that, taking Saturday night and repeating dramas, and people say, 'How can you do that?' But they have to -- they aren't making money. (CBS Corp.'s) Les (Moonves) is the only guy making money."

During the session -- which was moderated by Andrew Wallenstein, digital media and TV features editor at The Hollywood Reporter, which sponsored the event -- Harbert pointed out that broadcast networks are spending millions of dollars creating shows that sometimes don't last more than a couple of episodes before they get yanked from the schedule.

"It really makes me upset to see the amount of money that went into these shows in the fall -- several of them quite good -- that are now gone," he said, citing ABC's "The Nine" and NBC's "Kidnapped" as examples.

He added that many broadcast telecasts are "very close on many nights to having cable ratings but are at least 10 times the cost" and that, for the most part, broadcast shows aren't recouping their costs in syndication or overseas.

Also during the session, Harbert discussed future plans for his networks, saying he along with the rest of the industry are still learning how to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by digital media and that he's continuing to work to improve his networks' sites and supply them with original content. He pointed out that today's younger generation gets their content from so many platforms that they aren't likely to return to linear television as previous generations have once they "settle down, get a job, get married."

Harbert added that E! has seen big payoffs in terms of ratings with its hiring of Ryan Seacrest and that he's looking to find hit shows for the network in 2007. As for G4, he's looking to get more money from Comcast so that the male-targeted channel can develop signature original programming.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i331bb2483795039baaead402bd0d3d9c

TV Notebook
The 'Grey's' controversy heats up again
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” January 17, 2007

The “Grey’s Anatomy” controversy over an ugly epithet has been kicked up another notch.

At Monday’s Golden Globes awards, Isaiah Washington, who plays surgeon Preston Burke on the hit ABC show, angrily denied ever calling his co-star, T.R. Knight, a homosexual slur.

Washington made his denial in a very abrupt way: A journalist in the Globes backstage press room asked “Grey’s” creator Shonda Rhimes, who was taking questions along with the entire cast of the show, about the controversy that erupted on the set in October over the use of that word during a scuffle between Washington and co-star Patrick Dempsey.

As Rhimes began her answer, Washington, who was standing on the far right side of the press-conference stage, walked up and grabbed the microphone and said, “I never called T.R. a [expletive]. Never happened.”

The entire cast looked on, grim and stone-faced, as Rhimes attempted to continue answering the question (video of the incident is here: http://www.hfpa.org/videogallery/ click on the "Grey's Anatomy" link). It was an awkward and unpleasant moment that cast a shadow on “Grey’s” Globes win as best television drama just minutes earlier.

On Wednesday, Knight went on Ellen Degeneres’ talk show (there's video of that here) to say that Washington did indeed use that word on the set, in reference to Knight, and “everyone heard it.” Knight added that the controversy surrounding the entire incident prompted him to reveal that he is gay.

On Monday, after the Globes incident, another “Grey’s” actor, Katherine Heigl, told Access Hollywood that she thinks that Washington should not talk about Knight and what happened on the set in October.

“He needs to just not speak in public. Period. I'm sorry, that did not need to be said, I'm not OK with it,” Heigl said.

Michael Jensen, a columnist for AfterElton.com, a web site that tracks depiction of gays in the media, wrote Wednesday that it is, in his opinion, long past time for ABC and the producers of “Grey’s” to “publicly repudiate what Washington said.”

“I said it back in October, and I’ll say it again,” Jensen wrote, “If T.R. Knight had said something as hateful about Isaiah, the outcome would likely have been very different.”

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

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
"Ugly Betty" sitting pretty…
…after winning meaningless award (there, I said it)

By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn” January 17, 2007

HOLLYWOOD -- It's not déjà vu if you really did do the same thing twice. Two busloads of TV critics and I are being herded through the Raleigh Studios parking lot and into the same hangar-sized building where, one year ago, we toured the set of “Commander in Chief,” a noble but doomed ABC drama about a strong female, played by Golden Globe winner Geena Davis.

On this crisp morning, we're here to tour the set of “Ugly Betty,” a noble ABC comedy about a strong female played by America Ferrera, who just the night before had picked up her Globe for her portrayal of the homely, plucky would-be tastemaker Betty Suarez.

This year, though, the walk-through has a different feel. People are happy, giddy even. Vanessa Williams, who plays one of the heavies on “Ugly Betty,” has bought the crew lunch. (A sign reads, “Thanks for all your hard work! -- Vanessa”) Inside the iPod-white walls of Mode, the fashion magazine where young Betty toils and dreams of greatness, everyone is clearly savoring their triumph.

Silvio Horta, one of the show's producers, hasn't let the show's Golden Globe trophy for best comedy out of his sight, though he allows critics to pick it up and gauge its heft.

I pick it up. I'm not even tempted to point out that the Globes are a poor predictor of Emmy success. For unlike “Commander in Chief,” “Ugly Betty” has wings, and that's the feel-good story of the TV season.

Betty -- a chubby brace-face first created for a South American soap opera -- has leapfrogged Borat and David Beckham to become the country's hottest cultural import. “Ugly Betty” is ABC's first hit show in its time period in a generation (it airs at 8 ET/PT tonight on ABC).

So, how'd they do it? As we walked around and chatted with cast and crew members, it became clear that “Ugly Betty” was designed from the ground up to be more than a low-rent “Devil Wears Prada.”
From Mark Worthington's whimsical, peek-a-boo design of the Mode offices, to Horta's decision to make Betty more than a male-worshipping social climber (as she was in the Colombian original, “Betty La Fea”), “Ugly Betty” projects an image of the new American woman -- independent, ambitious, a dreamer, yet caring and sensible -- that is less threatening than the Hillary Clinton caricature often seen in mass media.

“Right out of the gate, people responded to the show so warmly because of what the character meant to them,” said Ferrera, minus her braces, glasses or beauty sleep the morning after the Globes.

“Just last week I got to read a letter from a young girl who wrote into Cosmo Girl saying, 'Thank you for putting America Ferrera on the cover. When I watched “Ugly Betty,” it was the first time in my life I felt beautiful.' That was just overwhelming.”

Ferrera has played similar roles in films -- “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and “Real Women Have Curves” -- which made her a natural to Horta, who adapted “Betty La Fea” for producer (and guest star) Salma Hayek.

But Horta, who grew up watching telenovelas with his Cuban-American parents in Miami, also knew that Betty had to break free of Latin stereotypes before teenage girls here would embrace her.

“There are 40 or 50 adaptations of the show around the world,” Horta said. “Though they're all about a young woman who's struggling to be taken seriously, most of them take the turn (that) she's in love with her boss, and I wanted to stay away from that.

“I think that weakened her character, to be pining after someone who really doesn't treat her well.” In one scene from the Colombian version, her boss even puts her in the trunk of his car, “because you're too ugly to be seen!”

Eric Mabius, who portrays Betty's playboy boss, didn't even try to emulate the creepy Lothario figure of the original. “I don't like having my perceptions colored,” he said as he tried to keep warm on the set, a winter coat over his gorgeous Boateng suit. Besides, he added, “I don't speak Spanish.”

Horta is proud of the fact that the ABC version is starting to air in other countries, including those that put on a more traditional “Betty” of their own.

“There's something about this character that people love,” said Horta.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2007/01/dateline_hollyw.html#more

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
"Scrubs: The Musical: The Producer"
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn” January 17, 2007

On today's podcast, "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence talks about Thursday's musical episode, why it is a cult hit is getting a seventh season on a big network; and what the networks could learn from "Nobody's Watching," his online hit.

Click below to listen to Aaron's podcast:

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/files/TVBP6.mp3

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

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Trump:
Rosie still "disgusting," "not very smart"
By David Kronke Los Angeles Daily News Television Critic in his “The Mayor Of Television” blog January 17, 2007

And of course the Rosie O'Donnell question came up during NBC's press session for "The Apprentice: Los Angeles." And it seems that The Donald is getting bored with the whole thing: He's increasingly pretty uninspired in his responses - that, or maybe he should invest in a thesaurus.

Does Trump regret getting into the urinating match? "No."

Is he worried it could backfire against him? "It’s a very fair question. It started out having nothing to do with “The Apprentice;” it started out with Miss USA. … I gave her a second chance. And Rosie went totally nuts, absolutely crazy. Who would’ve believed it ended up being like it ended up being? It was a very big story. ...

"On the 'Today' show, the first question was about Rosie; the second question was about Rosie. The third statement was, 'Why do you talk about Rosie?' I did Larry King last night and he told me, ‘We’re not gonna talk about Rosie.’ I said great. The first question was about Rosie.

"I exposed her for what she is, terrible. She’s a terrible, disgusting human being. She’s not very smart. You’ll see the whole thing blow up (on ‘The View’). And when it does, I hope you’ll give me a little bit of credit.

"It only stops when the media stops asking questions about it."

On Barbara Walters: "She called me up from Europe, where she was on vacation. She knows what she said. … Then, she read a little line that Rosie gave her. … She never refuted the things she said.

"If someone attacks you, a lot of folks will defend themselves. Maybe the people who don’t defend themselves are better off, I don’t know.

"She’s a bully. When I was a kid in school, I learned early on that when you’re attacked by a bully, you hit the bully hard between the eyes."

On his reputation in the wake of the feud: "I think it's been helped. If someone says something bad and is a lie, you're showing you're willing to correct that person, you're willing to fight for yourself. ... I fought back and fought back harder than her.

"Fox did a poll -- I had 91 percent of the vote." (Note: Couldn't find a story stating that unless it was Trump himself quoting the statistic.)

"But Rosie's a slob and everyone knows it.

"The reason this feud became so big is, I was so unpolitically correct. That's why people liked it."

On "The View:" "The ratings have gone through the roof because of me. I feel terribly about it. In two weeks, you won't talk about it. Barbara Walters hates Rosie O'Donnell and this will go away and ratings will tank, and she will fire her. ... When you watch that show, without all the turmoil, it's a very boring show."

Trump's kids, Ivanka and Donald Jr., were also asked about Rosie. They essentially demurred; Ivanka said, 'We’re not going to give a good soundbite.'

Thoughts, Ms. O'Donnell?

http://www.insidesocal.com/tv/

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
at the Studio 60 studio
By Bill Goodykoontz Arizona Republic TV Critic in his Critic’s Tour blog January 17, 2007

BURBANK, Calif. -- Does the Los Angeles Times hate Aaron Sorkin?

I don't presume to know. But I'm pretty sure I know how Sorkin feels about the Los Angles Times. He made his feelings crystal clear during a visit to the Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip set. Seems the paper has done, by Sorkin's count, three stories about how the Internet chattering classes don't care for the show. The last, in December, seems to be the one that really set him off.

"That LA Times piece was a piece of nonsense," Sorkin said. "The LA Times should be ashamed of itself."

If you can't tell, Sorkin can be just a touch defensive. Which is fine, because when he's on his game, no one writes better TV. And late last year, Studio 60 started to move away from being the Personal Sorkin Big Message Vehicle to just a good show, and improved a lot because of that. The Christmas episode is the example most people point to, including star Matthew Perry, who said, "I'd stack that up with any movie that came out this year."

Hmm. He must not have seen Borat.

Anyway, Studio 60 definitely got better as it went along, but its audience is still relatively small, so when it comes back Monday, the numbers will be crucial.

"Not everything is for everybody," Sorkin said by way of explaining the low numbers, sort of. "When I compare the size of the Studio City audience to the Sports Night audience, I'm delighted."

Ah, Sports Night. Now THAT was a great show.

While he doesn't plan big changes, Sorkin said there will be plenty of romantic comedy, something that Perry approves of.

"I'm a big fan of it becoming a little more character driven, a little more about the people," he said, seated in the fake seats on the fake set of the fake show, which is of course located on a real set (following all that?). "That was the concern from the beginning."

Then, later: "I absolutely think it could use more of the relationship stuff."

So I'm guessing: more relationship stuff.

Trump roars (again)

PASADENA, Calif. -- How many Trumps are too many?

How many you got?

The Donald himself was here, promoting The Apprentice; Ivanka and Donald Jr. tagged along, as well. The Apprentice tanked in the ratings last week, so evidently fewer and fewer people care about the show. And I can tell you that at least in my case, I couldn't care less what he thinks about Rosie O'Donnell, or vice versa.

Not everyone feels the same way, alas. There was some not-very-serious talk about refusing to ask Trump about the whole Rosie mess, just to see if his head would explode. But it wasn't long before someone asked, and with that, he was off.

"I have no regrets," he said. "I exposed her for what she is. She's terrible. She's just a terrible human being.... She's a terrible, disgusting human being with a lot of problems, to put it mildly."

So, more of the same.

Oh, he also called her a bully. Don't want to leave that out, because it led to one of Trump's little life lessons: "When you're attacked by a bully, you hit the bully hard, right between the eyes."

Noted.

As is his wont, Trump placed the blame for the big ridiculous mess on ... us.

"I believe it only stops when you folks in the media stop asking the question," he said. "I don't talk about Rosie, but every question I get is about Rosie."

It galls me to say so, but it's kind of hard to argue at the moment.

But that's not enough. No, we also evidently need to know what his kids think. Really? Do we care what they think about anything?

Evidently we do. Here's a stunner: they're on his side.

"We're always going to defend our father.... In our eyes he can do no wrong, and I think he handled himself perfectly," Donald Jr. said. Just like the old man.

So there you have it. One man's cry for attention, satisfied again. Doubtless Rosie -- no stranger to craving headlines herself -- will answer in kind tomorrow on The View. And the cycle continues.

Lucky us.

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

Critic’s Notebook
Early ‘Idol’ is terrifying
By Diane Holloway Austin American-Statesman in her TV blog Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Happy as I am to have Fox’s “American Idol” back in my life, I dread the next few weeks of geek-filled auditions.

I know some people live for these excruciating performances — like last night’s totally delusional juggler/singer, the one who burst into four-letter words and then uncontrollable sobs.

But I just feel awful watching them. Why don’t I turn away, watch PBS? Well, because it’s my job to live and breathe “Idol” for the next four months. If I don’t watch, how can I write about a show that’s destined to be No. 1 from now through May?

The opening episode Tuesday night, showcasing the deadly auditions from Minneapolis, made my skin crawl from beginning to end. Previews of tonight’s freak show from Seattle looked even worse.

In Minneapolis there seemed to be a preponderance of untalented, unattractive men. There was at least one scary woman — the hefty blonde gal with the excessive black eye makeup who described herself as “Idol’s” No. 1 fan. But even she seemed mild compared to the dude in the cowboy hat who thought he was singing Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” Which he wasn’t.

Most of these people are so pathetic and so clearly unaware of how awful they look and how bad they sound that I worry about their grasps on reality.

I also worry about the brutal rejections they receive. Couldn’t such criticism set off a dire reaction? These people clearly are not living in the real world to begin with if they actually think they have a chance on “American Idol.” Making fun of the less fortunate, which is clearly what these episodes set out to do, seems cheap and cruel.

The trainwreck last night involved more than the contestants, however. I don’t know exactly what’s going on with Paula Abdul, but she was a mess. Was she loaded? Sleep-deprived? Wacked out on the frigid weather in Minneapolis? Something was wrong. She slurred and slumped for the entire two hours. Simon and Randy should do an intervention — before it’s too late.

Oh, and in other “Idol” developments, Diana Ross said on Tuesday’s “Late Show with David Letterman” that she will be functioning as “a mentor” on “Idol” this season. Talk about a job that needed filling!

http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/tvblog/

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Huge "Idol" return; the "Heroes" plan
By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic his TV Guy blog Posted on Jan 17, 2007

America showed its love for "American Idol" in a profound way Tuesday night: 37.3 million tuned in, the most-watched premiere in the show's six-year history. It was also the most-watched night this season ... and Fox's highest-rated night EVER with entertainment programming.

That startling news overshadowed NBC's day, Wednesday, at the winter tour of the Television Critics Association. Yet Kevin Reilly, president of NBC Entertainment, proclaimed things were looking up at his network after a rough patch. He cited the success of "The Office" and other series.

"I do think we brought back the love this year to the network," Reilly said.

Reilly said he hears genuine compliments about NBC rather than the "mealy-mouthed" variety. That latter kind "just kills you," he added.

The good feeling "eventually starts adding up," and NBC needs another big hit to tighten the ratings race, Reilly said.

The best news for NBC came from "Heroes," the most-watched new series this season. That show will produce 23 hours this season. Twelve have aired. The series returns with new episodes this Monday. Fresh installments will last through March. Then "Heroes" will take a break before returning with six new episodes to end the season. Reilly acknowledged there would be a dogfight between "Heroes" and Fox's "24," which are in the same 9 p.m. Monday slot.

Does Reilly know how "Heroes" will end this season?

"It's going to be mind-blowing," Reilly said. "We know where they're headed, and it's great."

Did he learn anything from ABC's handling of "Lost"?

He said the preferred way to air serialized shows is 22 in a row. He understands what ABC tried to do by breaking up the season of its hit. "We're reluctant to try something like that," Reilly said.

Reilly said it's premature to be discussing a "Heroes" spinoff.

In announcements, NBC said it was giving full-season renewals to four series: "The Office," "My Name Is Earl," "Heroes" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." Reilly said NBC is in the middle of negotations with "SVU" stars Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay to return. Could Reilly envision the show without them?

"I don't want to think about that," Reilly said.

The game show "Identity" will return in March. NBC also has ordered an improvisational comedy "Thank God You're Here," which was a hit in Australia. David Alan Grier is host, and Dave Foley plays a judge as groups of celebrities show their improv abilities.

And why did NBC bleep that famous "Dick in the Box" sketch on "Saturday Night Live"?

"I felt like it was potentially over the line," Reilly said. "That content felt appropriate for the Web." He called the decision to present the unedited skit on the Web a win-win because it brought more people to the Web and excited interest in the NBC show.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2007/01/huge_idol_retur.html

The Business of Television
Iowa Delays Mediacom-Sinclair Hearing
By Linda Moss MultiChannel News 1/17/2007

An Iowa General Assembly committee postponed a hearing, set for this week, on the Mediacom Communications-Sinclair Broadcast Group dispute, prompting six state senators to call for immediate restoration of the broadcaster’s TV stations in the interim.

The special hearing of the Assembly’s Joint Government Oversight Committee, to review facts in the ongoing retransmission-consent standoff, was delayed until next week so that representatives of Sinclair can attend.

“We are disappointed to learn about the cancellation of today’s meeting,” a group of six Iowa senators said in a press release Wednesday. “Resolution of this protracted dispute is overdue. Iowans want this dispute to stop disrupting their lives. While we understand that the Government Oversight Committee members have canceled today’s meeting to accede to Sinclair’s request for a delay, we also believe that resolution of this protracted dispute is overdue.”

Sinclair pulled the signals for 22 of its stations from Mediacom Jan. 6 in 12 states, impacting 700,000 subscribers.

“Today, we are calling on Sinclair to immediately allow Mediacom to resume carrying the KDSM signal in Des Moines market and the KGAN signal in Cedar Rapids until both sides have a chance to appear before the Government Oversight Committee and to resolve this dispute,” the six senators added. “Clearly, a resumption of carriage is in the best interests of Iowa's television-viewing public. It would show tremendous good faith on Sinclair’s part and go a long way toward restoring public confidence and showing viewers that they aren’t pawns in a game.”

The six state senators who called for Sinclair to restore its TV stations to Mediacom were Joe Bolkcom (D-Johnson), Bob Dvorsky (D-Johnson), Rob Hogg (D-Linn), Jack Hatch (D-Polk), Wally Horn (D-Linn) and Matt McCoy (D-Polk).

While the senators said in their press release that the Joint Government Oversight Committee was set to meet Wednesday on Mediacom-Sinclair, in its press release last week, Mediacom had said that the hearing was slated for Thursday. In any event, it will be rescheduled for next week.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6408147.html?display=Breaking+News

Who is using who? Is the Trump-Rose dustup an attempt to get “Apprentice” viewers? Maybe Rosie is using Trump. So who is stupid now?
The Business of Television
Rosie O' Donnell Closer to Solo Show
By Melissa Grego, Michele Greppi, and Chris Pursell Television Week January 17, 2007

Rosie O' Donnell will likely take her first steps toward returning to a solo talk show in the next four to six months.

The contract that the controversial co-host of ABC's "The View" has with the network stipulates that she must first negotiate with a division of the Walt Disney Co. in good faith if she wants to strike out on her own with a new show, according to people familiar with the contract. Disney owns ABC.

Those same sources said they are confident Ms. O'Donnell will trigger that clause by spring or summer.

Attendees at the National Association of Television Program Executives conference this week in Las Vegas speculated that Ms. O' Donnell already had a handshake deal with Warner Bros. for a new show. A spokesman for Warner Bros. said there have been no negotiations. A spokesman for Endeavor, which represents Ms. O'Donnell, could not be reached for comment by press time.

Still, if Ms. O' Donnell does leave "The View" for a show of her own, she has many connections to Warner Bros., suggesting she ultimately might land there. Hilary Estey McLoughlin, president of Warner's Telepictures Productions division, executive produced Ms. O'Donnell's popular 1990s syndicated talk show "The Rosie O'Donnell Show." Ms. O' Donnell likewise has longstanding ties with Jim Paratore, who was president of Telepictures when the division produced "Rosie," which Warners also distributed. Mr. Paratore now heads a Warner-based production company, ParaMedia, where he is producing upcoming news magazine "TMZ."

Disney likely would fight to keep Ms. O' Donnell should she leave "The View," according to ABC insiders. Since she joined the daytime roundtable, ratings for the 10-year old show have grown by double-digit percentages and hit all-time highs. In recent weeks, Ms. O'Donnell's feud with Donald Trump has generated a round of press coverage for the show. The ABC insiders also said the contract with Ms. O' Donnell protects the network from losing the comedienne easily. An ABC spokesman declined to comment.

Industry executives said a competitor to Disney or Warner could emerge in the pursuit of Ms. O' Donnell. CBS Television Distribution Group, which comprises the merged King World and CBS Paramount, could step in with an offer.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11411

TV Notebook
Dateline’s “To Catch A Predator” To Return
(NBC News Release) January 17, 2007

(New York, N.Y.) Jan. 17, 2007 In less than two weeks, "Dateline's" investigative series, "To Catch a Predator," returns to primetime with Chris Hansen traveling from coast to coast reporting in three more investigations. In the upcoming broadcasts, 80 alleged predators are arrested after chatting online about sex with a minor. Like the previous investigations, Chris Hansen confronts many of the men. In addition, on dateline.msnbc.com, Hansen will participate in a live blog during each of the broadcasts and the site will feature exclusive video footage of his conversations with potential predators. The six-week long series will air on Tuesdays, beginning January 30 at 8 PM/ET.

For the eighth, ninth and tenth investigations, Hansen and NBC News set up its hidden cameras inside homes in Long Beach, Calif., Murphy, Texas and Flagler Beach, Florida. Members of Perverted Justice, the Internet watchdog group and paid consultants to "Dateline NBC," pretended to be young teens chatting online (ages 11-13 in Long Beach; 12-14 in Murphy; and 13-15 in Flagler Beach). Most of the adults caught in the investigations allegedly attempted to solicit the Perverted Justice decoys for sex. Some sent graphic sexual images as well. Many of those same men showed up at the house or another location for a rendezvous with the child. For all of these investigations, Perverted Justice teamed up with local law enforcement. The police later arrested and charged the men.

Most of the suspects confronted by Hansen claim their intentions were innocent, and some even acknowledge that they have seen Dateline's reports on television and still came to the house. One man previously caught in Dateline's 2006 Riverside investigation showed up eight months later at the undercover house in Long Beach. Some of the most alarming cases involve prominent members of the community: an active duty police officer, a middle school teacher and successful businessmen. The hidden camera investigations attracted 35 men in three days in Long Beach, 24 men in four days in Murphy and 21 men in four days in Flagler Beach.

On dateline.msnbc.com, Hansen's live blogs will offer a behind-the-scenes look into his role throughout the investigations. As with previous broadcasts, the website will continue to feature exclusive video footage of the potential predators and Hansen and general online safety tips. In addition, previous shows will be available on-demand after the broadcast. To date, Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" content on dateline.msnbc.com has generated more than eight million page views and more than 25,000 people have individually emailed Dateline their personal stories and thoughts on the series via the Website.

Weekly Nielsen Notebook
Fox scores with football
NFL playoff match, BCS title game boost ratings
By Rick Kissell Variety.com January 17, 2007

Huge numbers for postseason college and pro football action lifted Fox last week to the highest primetime averages for any net this season.

Monday's Bowl Championship Series college football game between Florida and Ohio State (10.6 rating/26 share in adults 18-49, 28.8 million viewers overall) edged out Saturday's NFL playoff contest between the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles (10.5/29, 27.44m) as the week's top program, with the former drawing the largest overall aud for any primetime telecast this season.

Throw in Tuesday's big "House" and Sunday's two-hour preview of "24," and Fox couldn't be touched.

In fact, the net's 5.8 rating/15 share in adults 18-49 for the Jan. 8-14 frame is its best since late February and was nearly 2 full ratings points ahead of second-place CBS (3.9/10), which also benefited from big pigskin ratings. ABC (3.1/8) and NBC (2.9/7) were well behind the pack, with Univision (1.6/4) running fifth and the CW sixth (1.2/3).

Fox also rolled in every other key category, including the adults 25-54 (6.4/15) and people 12-34 (4.6/14) demos as well as total viewers (15.3 million), according to Nielsen.

Looking at its week, the college game on Monday gave Fox its best showing on the night in three years. It was down from last year's record-setting USC-Texas matchup (12.8/33 in 18-49, 35.63m) but up more than 30% over the USC-Oklahoma championship contest in 2005 (7.4/19).

And the Saints-Eagles NFL conference semifinal provided Fox with its biggest Saturday in more than 10 years -- since Game 6 of the World Series in October 1996.

On Tuesday, "House" (7.2/18 in 18-49, 17.78m) dominated its hour and matched its best demo delivery to date without benefit of an "American Idol" lead-in. And Sunday, "24" opened its sixth season strong (6.1/13, 15.79m) with the start of its two-night, four-hour premiere.

CBS got a lift Sunday with an 81-minute NFL overrun that generated a huge 14.0 rating/36 share in adults 18-49, leading into above-average scores for "60 Minutes" (4.9/11 in 18-49, 17.47m) and "Cold Case" (3.9/9, 14.53m).

Also for the Eye, "The People's Choice Awards" on Tuesday (3.5/9, 11.33m) was up a bit year to year.

Looking ahead, Jan. 21's AFC Championship game between New England and Indianapolis on CBS has the potential to become one of the most-watched non-Super Bowl telecasts of recent years.

These big numbers, along with the huge ratings Fox has drawn both last week and this week with "American Idol," should set up a tight race down the season's stretch between the two nets for the 18-49 crown.

Through 17 weeks, CBS was on top for the first time this season with a 3.7/10, followed by ABC and NBC (both at 3.6/10) and Fox (3.2/9).

The Alphabet's highlights for the week were limited to Thursday and Sunday. Net won Thursday behind the first "Grey's Anatomy" of the new year (9.3/22 in 18-49, 23.03m) and a solid showing for "Ugly Betty" (4.4/12, 13.49m); "Grey's Anatomy" was the week's No. 1 non-sports telecast.

And Sunday saw "Desperate Housewives" (6.8/15, 16.76m) win its hour over "24," although this repped the sudser's lowest firstrun score to date. Lead-out "Brothers & Sisters" (4.8/12, 12.32m) looked good, though, retaining a larger chunk of its "Housewives" lead-in than previous episodes.

NBC's best news came Thursday when laffers "My Name Is Earl" (4.6/13, 10.85m) and "The Office" (5.0/13, 10.15m) hit season highs.

Net had a slow Sunday with week two of "Grease: You're the One That I Want" (2.8/6 in 18-49, 8.28m) and "The Apprentice: Los Angeles" (2.8/6, 7.28m) -- both down more than 30% from their premieres. And that didn't make it easy for "Crossing Jordan," which followed them with low season-preem scores (2.2/5, 6.65m).

Disney Channel was the most-watched cable net for the week thanks to its big Friday premieres for telepic "Jump In" (8.17 million) and original series "Cory in the House" (7.59m).

USA edged out TBS for the cable lead in adults 18-49 (0.85 to 0.76).

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117957608.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

Weekly Cable Nielsen Notebook
Disney Two-for-Two in 2007
By Anthony Crupi MediaWeek January 17, 2007

Thanks to a pair of record-smashing Friday night premieres, Disney Channel repeated its stay atop the cable pile last week, averaging 3.19 million total viewers and a 2.6 household rating in prime time for the week ended Jan. 14.

On the night of Jan. 12, Disney took the wraps off its latest original movie, Jump In!, which drew 8.17 million viewers between 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., making it the most-watched program in the network’s history, surpassing the premiere numbers for last year’s Cheetah Girls 2 (8.12 million) and High School Musical (7.76 million). Disney retained the lion’s share of that audience with the debut of the live-action series Cory in the House, which delivered 7.59 million viewers at 9:30 p.m., securing bragging rights as the Mouse’s all-time most-watched series premiere.

Inasmuch as delivery of Disney’s target demos is concerned, Jump In! beat all comers, serving up 3.7 million kids 6-11 and 3.4 million ‘tweens 9-14, while Cory reached 3.4 million kids 6-11 and 3.4 million ‘tweens.

Among ad-supported cable nets, USA Network finished on top last week, averaging 2.61 million viewers and a 2.1 HH rating on the strength of its ever-reliable WWE Raw franchise. Between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. Monday night, Raw averaged 4.95 million viewers, enough for USA to lay claim to ad-supported cable’s largest audience for a single program for the week.

USA also finished No. 1 among adults 18-49 (1.11 million) and 25-54 (1.15 million), and finished fourth among the 18-34 set (461,000). TBS, which finished outside of the top five among total viewers, had a strong showing with its delivery of the core demos, ending the week tops among 18-34s (513,000), second in the 18-49 category (998,000) and fourth among adults 25-54 (894,000).

TNT finished second to USA with 2.04 million viewers and a 1.6 HH rating; the Turner net’s highest-rated program on the week was the Jan. 14 theatrical Air Force One (3.72 million viewers). Among the core demos, TNT had its best showing among adults 25-54, averaging 934,000 viewers in the category.

Rounding out the top five were: Lifetime (1.89 million/1.6 HH rating), A&E (1.84 million/1.5 HH rating) and Fox News Channel (1.79 million/1.6 HH rating). Lifetime finished first among women 18-49 in prime (624,000), getting a boost from its original movie To Be Fat Like Me, which drew 3.73 million viewers Monday night between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.

A&E welcomed 4.27 million viewers to the family Jan. 10 with the basic-cable debut of The Sopranos, which also delivered the third-largest audience of adults 25-54 (1.94 million), lagging behind only the WWE in the category. A&E also made a strong showing in the core demos, placing third in delivery of 18-49s (873,000) and 25-54s (909,000).

Predictably, Fox News enjoyed a shot in the arm last Wednesday night with its coverage of President Bush’s address to the nation, which from 9 p.m. to approximately 9:22 p.m. was seen by 4.45 million FNC viewers. The news net retained a significant portion of that lead-in with its post-speech analysis, as some 3.79 million viewers tuned in.

Another program of note last week was VH1’s debut of I Love New York, which delivered 4.43 million viewers and finished the week tops among all cable programming among the 18-49 camp (2.74 million) as well as 18-34s (1.98 million).

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003534257

Weekly Cable Nielsen Notebook
“24” Blows Up In The Ratings
By Gary Levin USA TODAY

•Clock starts. The sixth-season, two-hour premiere of Fox thriller 24 averaged 15.8 million viewers Sunday, the second-best opener behind last season's 17 million. Despite series-low numbers, ABC's Desperate Housewives (16.8 million) ranked first in 24's second hour.

•NBC stumbles. The network's Sunday lineup fumbled a promising start a week ago: Grease dropped 25% to 8.3 million, The Apprentice fell 20% to 7.3 million, and the delayed season premiere of Crossing Jordan crossed a worst-ever 6.7 million.

•Football rules. Fox's first BCS Championship Game drew 28.8 million viewers Monday, ranking first for the week but trailing last year's record 35.6 million for ABC's title game. Fox's Saturday NFL playoff drew a big 27.4 million, ranking second.

•Better Choice. People chose CBS' People's Choice Awards in greater numbers: Tuesday's 11.3 million viewers marked the awards' best in three years.

•Faux beat cops. Latest celebreality project Armed & Famous opened with a modest 8.1 million viewers Wednesday, won its slot among young-adult viewers and then dipped to 7.7 million with Thursday's special episode.

•Iraq news. President Bush's unveiling of his latest Iraq strategy Wednesday averaged 42.5 million viewers on eight broadcast and cable-news networks.

•Cable records. Latest Disney Channel movie Jump In! averaged 8.2 million viewers Friday, becoming the network's most-watched telecast ever. It was followed by its best-yet series premiere, Cory in the House, with 7.6 million.

•More cable records. Monday's premiere of I Love New York gave VH1 its best series opener Monday with 4.4 million. The first of A&E's sanitized Sopranos reruns set its own channel record with4.3 million Wednesday.

•More cable openers. The second season of HBO's Rome, 1.5 million viewers; Extras, 669,000; VH1's Ego Trip's (White) Rapper Show, 2.3 million. And FX's Dirt dropped to 2.4 million Tuesday from its 3.7 million opener.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2007-01-17-nielsen-analysis_x.htm

Who is using who? Is the Trump-Rose dustup an attempt to get “Apprentice” viewers? Maybe Rosie is using Trump. So who is stupid now?
The Business of Television
Rosie O' Donnell Closer to Solo Show
By Melissa Grego, Michele Greppi, and Chris Pursell Television Week January 17, 2007

All of us for giving a damn about these two clowns' made-up media fight? :rolleyes:

TV Notebook
Dateline’s “To Catch A Predator” To Return
(NBC News Release) January 17, 2007

The six-week long series will air on Tuesdays, beginning January 30 at 8 PM/ET.

Hooray! :D :D :D

I may have missed one or two, but as best I can gather, here are the upcoming premiere dates for most of the network TV shows the next few months from the major networks.

(This information is complete through the ABC and NBC presentations at the TCA Winter Tour and is updated as announcements are made in post # 3 of the thread.)

Upcoming Premieres
(Updated January 17th, 2007)

The Dresden Files Sunday, Jan. 21, 9 ET/PT, SCI FI
Lost Wednesday, February 7, 10 ET/PT, ABC
Survivor: Fiji Thursday, February 8, 8 ET/PT, CBS
Real Time Friday, February 16, 10 ET/PT, HBO
Amazing Race All Stars Sunday, February 18, 8 ET/PT, CBS
The Winner Sunday, March 4, 8:30 ET/PT (and 9:30 PM ET/PT) FOX (regular time slot: 9:30 starting March 11)
Rules of Engagement Monday, March 12, 9:30 ET/PT, CBS
The Black Donnellys Monday, March 5, 10 ET/PT, NBC
Raines Thursday, March 15, 10 ET/PT, NBC
Dancing With The Stars Monday, March 19, 8 ET/PT, ABC
The Wedding Bells Fridays, March TBA, FOX
Identity March, TBA, NBC
The Sopranos Sunday, April 8, 9 ET/PT, HBO
Entourage Sunday, April 8, 10 ET/PT, HBO
Drive Sunday, April 8, 8 ET/PT, Fox (Regular time-slot: Mondays 8 PM ET/PT)
John From Cincinnati Summer, HBO
The Traveler To be announced, ABC
On the Lot To be announced, FOX
Hidden Palms To be announced, CW
October Road To be announced, ABC
The Tudors To be announced, SHO
Curb Your Enthusiasm To be announced (2008), HBO

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Thursday, January 18

CBS makes its announcements. We'll probably hear about some shows being renewed for 2007-2008.

There will be a pair of informal presentations (“Jericho” and “Criminal Minds”) and a session with legendary CBS numbers guru David Poltrack who will discuss network content and new technology platforms.

Bob Barker will conduct what is being called a “farewell press conference”, and CBS will happily talk about the upcoming Super Bowl --which it will televise.

Friday: The CW.

Watching Idol now is like watching a train wreck -- you know it's coming and nothing to stop it. Are the producers having (had) a really tough time finding talent? Are potentially good people being weeded out in favor of freaks? Are they holding back on "the good ones" so as not to overexpose? Or does America want the wreck?

I would think Randy, Paula and Simon only see a few dozen people at most per day. If that day is mostly filled with side-show acts, then how many good people do they really have to choose from?

It seems America is transfixed by this particular train wreck, Paul

The TV Column
The Idolatry Holds Tight as 'Idol' Snags 37 Million Viewers
By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 18, 2007; C01

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 17---Indestructible "American Idol" stormed prime time Tuesday, snaring a crowd of 37 million-plus viewers for its sixth-season opener.

With that one set of numbers, the television season is over. Fox will again finish the season No. 1 among the young viewers coveted by advertisers; other networks will move their most valued programs out of "Idol's" path no matter where Fox expands it (ABC has already placed "Lost" and the return of "Dancing With the Stars" out of the way); and program development discussions for next season, which are already in full flower at the networks, will be divided into shows that will go on the air "Before 'Idol' " or "During 'Idol.' "

"NBC will officially be ending our season as of yesterday," NBC entertainment chief Kevin Reilly joked to the press here at Winter TV Press Tour 2007 the morning after the "American Idol" debut.

"There's precedent for this," Reilly added. "Fox pretty much disregards the fall and says baseball interrupts their flow. At NBC we can say we're just going to disregard the spring because 'Idol' interrupts the flow. That's the way . . . it's going to be."

Competitors had hoped that Fox's annual aw-shucks forecast of a ratings decline for "Idol"might finally prove true this year. Reality program fans are, after all, notoriously fickle, and a series entering its sixth year could be expected to slip.

Instead, "Idol's" debut bagged about 2 million more viewers than last year's, approaching the kind of crowd that watched March's Academy Awards broadcast (39 million viewers).

Tuesday's opening "Idol" crowd doesn't threaten the record-holding final episode of "M*A*S*H," which recorded an average audience of 106 million viewers back in the '80s, or the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of "Dallas" (83.6 million), the "Cheers" swan song (80.4 million) or the last gasp of "Seinfeld" (76.3 million). Still, the ability of a singing competition to collect this kind of crowd in its sixth season, in this cable-digital-Internet-DVD-VOD-iPod age, had industry mavens scratching their heads yesterday.

"These amazing numbers from our Season 6 premiere defy all reasonable expectations," "Idol" creator Simon Fuller said yesterday in a statement, while a trade paper reported the show had "defied the laws of gravity."

Of course, "Idol" is more like a five-month Super Bowl than a traditional TV series, and no one batted an eye when the 40th Super Bowl logged 90 million viewers last year. As with the football game, as long as people continue to have children who grow up wanting to watch the show and compete in it, "Idol" could keep this up for years. A sort of TV Circle of Life.

"There's no question to me the once-a-year thing helps it feel like an event -- it feels like it's the Super Bowl in anticipation," Fox's reality guru Mike Darnell told The TV Column yesterday. "There has never been this much of a gap between the biggest show and the next biggest show [on television] -- it's like 10 million viewers."

Additionally, he said, it helps that "not a week goes by that something doesn't happen" with one of the finalists from past editions. "When the fifth-place person from Season 3 wins a Golden Globe and is apparently going to be nominated for an Oscar, that's a big deal," Darnell noted, referring to Jennifer Hudson, a sensation in the movie "Dreamgirls."

"Growing up and wanting to be in television, it used to be my dream about doing a 'M*A*S*H' or 'Seinfeld' or 'All in the Family,' " Darnell said.

"And you know what -- I think I've accomplished that. Twenty years from now, professors from UCLA will be talking about this show."

And, finally, Darnell said, as he ticked off the reasons "Idol" continues to roll up gimongous numbers, "there is so much pixie dust on it."

We know what he means.

• • • • • • • • • • •

NBC has picked up "Heroes," "My Name Is Earl," "The Office" and "Law & Order: SVU" for next season; has ordered an improv comedy show for prime time; will expand the "Today" show to four hours a day . . . and Matt Lauer has officially become as dull as hair.

These are just a few -- okay, most -- of the revelations from NBC's day at Winter TV Press Tour 2007.

The "SVU" announcement was interesting because the other "Law & Order" series weren't included in the shout-out, nor have the stars of "SVU" been signed to new contracts. It's almost as if NBC wanted to send a message to Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni that their particular "Law & Order" series will go on, with or without them.

But Reilly told The Reporters Who Cover Television: "You shouldn't read into that at all."

Piffle, replied reporters, who pressed him on the status of the two stars' negotiations.

"The 'Law & Order' brand has proven before that it can be stronger than any one performer if it were ever to come to that," Reilly said. "But we're in the middle of negotiations. I can't comment on it. . . . I certainly hope they're going to be our stars for the run of the show."

Ouch!

The new improv show is called "Thank God You're Here." David Alan Grier hosts and Dave Foley is the judge, kind of. Improv comedians get into costumes without knowing why they are in that particular costume, then go through a door onto an elaborate set where they are met by a bunch of actors who exclaim, "Thank God you're here!" and they take it from there.

It killed in Australia, Reilly assured critics.

NBC News chief Steve Capus flew out to announce that "Today" will grow to four hours starting in September. "Today" executive producer Jim Bell flew out to announce that he "can't wait." Matt Lauer flew out to say:

"I'm watching some of you typing away on your laptops, and I'm not going to tell you what your headline should be. Far be it from me. But the headline, we think, should be ' "Today" Show Team Boringly Happy.' And I mean that."

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . . . . . . . .

His newish co-host, Meredith Vieira, on the other hand, flew out to say: "I need to apologize at this point because I can't get over the fact that I kissed a monkey this morning on the 'Today' show, and I initiated it, and, quite frankly, I can't stop thinking about it."

Now you're talking!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011702186_pf.html

but the green isn't. If you're using the white skin for the forum (like I am) it gives you retinal scarring and the weight of the orange serif font makes it hard to see.

I agree 100%. If you are using the white background like many of us are, the colors are terrible.

Please change back. :confused:

I agree 100%. If you are using the white background like many of us are, the colors are terrible.

Please change back. :confused:

vonzoog, there will be no more posts with the green/orange fonts in this thread... ever! Relax! :)

So you think it is a gonna?

Sorry for the long delay, steve.

Realistically, yes.

But if NBC decides it could use the prestige of having a highly-praised show and can stand the ratings hit, it could be back.

I don't see any way the network can help improve the ratings substantially.

Sorry for the long delay, steve.

Realistically, yes.

But if NBC decides it could use the prestige of having a highly-praised show and can stand the ratings hit, it could be back.

I don't see any way the network can help improve the ratings substantially.

Fredfa,

No problem although I don't like you answer. LOL


Thanks

The Business of Television
Malone Eyes Cablevision
By Peter Lauria and Zachery Kouwe The New York Post January 18, 2007

Chuck Dolan should be getting a call from John Malone about now.

The stunning rejection by Cablevision's special committee of the Dolan family's latest going-private offer opens the door for the Liberty Media CEO to try and pressure Chairman Chuck Dolan and his CEO son, James, into selling Rainbow Media, according to several sources.

"John's interest in Rainbow is clearly there," said one source close to Malone. "He wants those assets and will use the committee's rejection as an excuse to call up Chuck to see how willing he is to sell them."

Malone and the Dolans have discussed Rainbow - which includes IFC, AMC, WE: Women's Entertainment, about 20 high-definition genre networks and a smattering of regional sports channels - in what sources described as "informal chatter between friendly moguls."

But considering the special committee said it would listen to any new offers by the Dolans and included asset sales among its recommendations to produce additional value for public shareholders and help get a deal done, any talks could quickly take on a more serious tone.

Malone has flirted with buying Rainbow in the past, most notably in 2000. He also sat on Cablevision's board for a period in 2005, resigning just months before the Dolans first offered to take the company private with a plan that called for spinning off the Rainbow assets into a separate publicly traded company.

Speculation at the time was that Malone had stepped down because he planned on making a run at Rainbow and wanted to avoid the appearance of a conflict.

Moreover, the Dolans don't have to sell Rainbow to Malone outright - they could simply sell off a large chunk for a cash infusion like they did in 2001 when they agreed to sell 20 percent to MGM for $825 million. In another twist, Cablevision investor Mario Gabelli, who owns more than 19 million shares, said he would favor a higher offer by the Dolan family or the sale of assets to Time Warner Cable.

Though the Dolans labeled their rejected $30 per share offer as their "best and final," CreditSights analyst Jack Newman speculated in a report that, "If the Dolans are as stubborn as we think they are, we expect this is not the end of the saga."

A deal for Rainbow's programming assets would benefit both Malone - who is set to close a deal with News Corp. for a controlling stake in satellite operator DirecTV - and the Dolans. (News Corp. owns The Post.)

"Now that he has DirecTV, Malone needs to build some synergies," said The Carmel Group's Jimmy Schaeffler. "QVC and Starz/Encore are good beginnings, but it sure would help if he had control of other content assets as well."

Not to mention the fact that DirecTV has a big bet on HD content, publicizing widely that it will have 100 such channels by the second half of this year, and Rainbow is the largest single producer of HD programming.

And the $7 per share that Bear Stearns estimates the Rainbow assets are worth would easily help the Dolans get to the $35 per share price that many think would justify taking the company private.

Cablevision shares jumped 76 cents, or 2.7 percent, to close at $29.25 in New York Stock Exchange trading yesterday.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/01182007/business/malone_eyes_cablevision_business_peter_lauria_and_zachery_ko uwe.htm

Weekly Cable Nielsen Notebook
Tabloid tales:
FX's 'Dirt' takes a tumble
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine Jan 18, 2007

The media finds itself a fascinating subject, the general public less so.

There are plenty of examples of media-centric TV shows, movies and books that fizzled: Bravo’s reality show “Tabloid Wars,” the Julia Roberts movie “I Love Trouble” and MTV’s “Miss Seventeen,” about interns at the famed magazine.
Now it looks as if there could be a new addition to the list.

After premiering to solid numbers, FX’s new drama “Dirt,” starring Courteney Cox as a brutal, icy tabloid editor, took a steep fall in its second episode, the most recent for which numbers are available.
Last week’s “Dirt” averaged 1.68 million viewers 18-49, down 30 percent from the previous week’s 2.36 million. It dropped 32 percent among 25-54s, going from 2.13 million to 1.45 million.
Among adults 18-34, where it set a record for an FX premiere two weeks ago, the show’s dip was less steep, 22 percent, from 1.23 million to 946,000.
The show, which airs Tuesday at 10 p.m., faced essentially the same competition both weeks.
If ratings for “Dirt” stabilize it may yet make it to a second season, as it still ranks as a top 10 cable show in 18-49s. But such a large dropoff from the first to second week is never a promising sign.

“Dirt's" initial high ratings reflect the continuing fascination with the former "Friends" star.
Its big dip may be explained in part by Americans’ disinterest in shows where media is in the foreground as a major part of the plot. Discussions about journalistic ethics, or their absence, is the sort of industry insider stuff that causes viewers’ eyes to glaze over.

Media settings do work when they're the backdrop for storylines that are engaging in their own right. The setting is incidental. On “Ugly Betty,” the lead character works at a magazine but it could just as well be a fashion house. On "Frasier," the lead character had a radio show but he could just as well have been a psychologist handing out advice in a clinic.

But the other likely turnoff for "Dirt" is the character Cox plays, a most prickly editor believed to be based on the Star’s Bonnie Fuller. Even the adored Cox has a struggle on her hands in making her Lucy Spiller character appealing enough for even her fans to return.

Though certainly flawed characters have become an FX specialty, there’s a redeeming quality about the people on “Nip/Tuck,” “The Shield” and “Rescue Me” – they help people, as doctors, policemen and firefighters.
Lucy Spiller helps no one. She shows few flashes of humanity, and she's not really helping the greater good as a tab editor dishing trash on celebs.

Meanwhile, in other cable ratings for the week ended Jan. 14:

Top five networks in primetime (18-49s):
USA
TBS
A&E
TNT
FX

Top five networks in primetime (total viewers):
USA
TNT
Lifetime
A&E
Fox News

Top movie (18-49s): FX’s “Dodgeball” (Tuesday, 7:59 p.m.) 1.8 million

Top sporting event (total viewers): USA’s “WWE Entertainment” (Monday, 10 p.m.) 5.01 million

Shows making the top 10 among 18-34s, 18-49s and 25-54s:
USA’s “WWE Entertainment” (Monday, 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.);
VH1’s “I Love New York” (Monday, 9 p.m.);
Bravo’s “Top Chef” (Wednesday, 10 p.m.)

Show on the rise: Disney Channel’s “Jump In,” Friday 8 p.m. The story that does for double dutch what “High School Musical” did for theater nerds became Disney’s most-watched original movie debut ever among total viewers (8.2 million) and kids 6-11s (3.7 million).

Network on the decline: ESPN. Not that it’s a necessarily bad or unexpected thing -- with “Monday Night Football” and bowl week over, the network is settling down for a slower first quarter after a spectacular fourth.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_9577.asp

The "AI" juggernaut continues.

Yesterday’s metered market over-night prime-time ratings – and a few of Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s commentgs about what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

Nielsen Notebook
NBC's suddenly sinking Sunday night
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine Jan 18, 2007

During the fall, Sunday nights were responsible for NBC’s biggest ratings gains, up 88 percent from the previous year. This spring, Sunday night may be the network’s undoing.

The first edition of NBC’s fully revamped Sunday drew disappointing numbers last week, the week ended Jan. 14, airing against very tough competition. Should ratings fail to perk up in following weeks, the network will have to make changes or risk losing all the gains spurred by “Sunday Night Football” through the fall

No one expected the new Sunday night to come close to equaling the 4.9 adults 18-49 rating NBC averaged with “SNF.” But even with those lowered expectations, the most recent Sunday was bad. NBC averaged a 2.5 rating, a full 2 points behind No. 3 ABC, and didn’t have a show above a 3.0 rating.

That came against unusually tough competition with the season premiere of Fox’s “24,” and the competition won’t lighten for the next few weeks, either, with the AFC Championship game and Super Bowl upcoming on CBS, as well as new episodes of ABC’s hit lineup and Fox’s strong cartoon comedies.

What hurt NBC perhaps even more than “24,” which usually airs Monday, was a lineup without a strong anchor that put too much faith in former hits.

“The Apprentice” and “Crossing Jordan,” both now in their sixth seasons, posted series-low numbers. “Apprentice,” which airs at 9 p.m. opposite ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” averaged a 2.8 in adults 18-49, down 32 percent from the 4.1 it averaged in its premiere the week before.

At 10 p.m., “Jordan’s” season premiere averaged a 2.2, last in its timeslot and down 41 percent from last year’s 3.7 season debut.

NBC likely misjudged “Apprentice’s” staying power. The network thought that by scheduling only one run of the show this year and adding some twists to the game “Apprentice” could at least hold last year’s 4.0 average. But without a strong lead-in, like it had with “Deal or No Deal” last year, “Apprentice” wilted.

Meanwhile, NBC decided to delay “Jordan’s” premiere till midseason after seeing success with the same ploy a few years ago. Now, however, the show faces stronger competition from ABC and CBS in the timeslot, and viewers may have been angry that NBC waited eight months to resolve May’s cliffhanger, prompting them to move on.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_9576.asp

The Business of Television
DirecTV’s Turn for Rate Hike
By Linda Moss Multi Channel News 1/18/2007

Following in the footsteps of its direct-broadcast satellite rival, DirecTV is raising its rates this year and renaming its program packages, according to two Wall Street analysts’ reports issued Thursday.

The nation’s largest DBS provider will increases prices about 10% on its lower-tier services, which will average out to about 6% across all of its tiers, according to Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett.

Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet wrote in his report that DirecTV’s new price for its basic package will be $49.99 per month, up $5 from the prior $44.99.

News of DirecTV’s rate hike follows EchoStar Communications’ announcement late last year that its Dish Network will raise rates an average of 3%-4% this year and rebrand its program packages.

DirecTV is also renaming its packages, according to Bazinet. The basic package is being renamed Choice, with Total Choice being phased out. The Total Choice Plus offering, formerly $49.99, is now $5 more, at $54.99, and is being renamed Choice Xtra, he wrote Total Choice Premiere will be renamed Premiere.

DirecTV officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

DirecTV’s 6% increase is “significantly larger” than the 3.3% Sanford C. Bernstein projected for this year, according to Moffett.

“DirecTV’s pricing action is larger than EchoStar’s in both absolute and percentage terms, and it is more heavily focused on the highly subscribed, lower-service tiers,” he wrote. “While EchoStar is holding the line at the low end -- and, thereby, emphasizing its value advantage to price-sensitive consumers -- DirecTV is aggressively raising prices at the low end and keeping high-end rates flat, emphasizing their positioning as the premium provider of video, in our view. The move, which is consistent with their 2007 emphasis on HDTV, can be expected to further differentiate the two services at their respective ‘high-end/low-end’ poles.”

Moffett said the price increases will take effect Feb. 6, but Bazinet said they will go into effect March 1.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6408223.html?display=Breaking+News

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
NBC President Says Ratings Are Gaining Momentum
By Bill Carter The New York Times January 18, 2007

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 17 — Even in the face of what he acknowledged will likely be another tsunami of ratings from Fox’s “American Idol,” which again set a viewership record on Tuesday night, Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment, said here on Wednesday that his network had established significant momentum this season and had regained its status as the network of what he called “quality programs.”

Mr. Reilly pointed to a number of successes for NBC, including growth in shows like “The Office,” the comedy that has turned into a hit for NBC after being on the ratings critical list. “If you stick with quality, it pays off,” Mr. Reilly asserted.

It may be paying off for Mr. Reilly personally. After weathering rumors that his job was threatened, Mr. Reilly has seen his position solidified by the addition of this season’s biggest new hit, “Heroes,” as well as several other series that he said have “picked up buzz,” if not yet ratings.

In that category he mentioned the comedy “30 Rock” and the drama “Friday Night Lights.” He called those shows “too good to not leave them on.” Mr. Reilly all but committed to bringing “30 Rock” back next season, saying, “I’d be surprised if that went until May” before the network announced it would renew the comedy.

Alluding obliquely to his own situation, he said, “There has been a lot of conjecture and instability,” but now, he said, confidence has returned to the network’s program department. “Shockingly, weirdly, it’s become fun again,” he said.

NBC managed to finish the first half of the television season tied in some areas with CBS and ABC for ratings leadership. But National Football League games on Sunday nights are gone from NBC, and “Idol” is back, so those standings will not last much longer.

Still, Mr. Reilly said, “We’re one show away from really moving the momentum in the other direction.”

The next batch of potential shows from NBC will include far more closed-ended dramas, he said, with fewer serialized shows, many of which failed this season. He also said NBC’s comedies “will continue to be bold.”

One bold move that NBC may be the first to try is moving a show from the Internet to broadcast-network television. NBC ordered scripts based on a pilot called “Nobody’s Watching,” which gained wide exposure after playing on YouTube. Mr. Reilly said the show might have a chance to leap from the Web to the network next season.

One Web-based experiment that the network is sure to try, perhaps as soon as this spring, is putting a batch of the network’s pilots online: even as they are being screened by NBC executives. “Let that audience weigh in,” Mr. Reilly said. Among other subjects Mr. Reilly discussed was a new plan for the comedy “Scrubs,” which had been thought to be in its last season. It has scored impressively for NBC on Thursday nights, and now the network is seriously considering bringing it back again next season, Mr. Reilly said.

One deepening area of concern for NBC is its daytime lineup of soaps. One series, “Passions,” has already been canceled, and Mr. Reilly pointedly declined to commit to NBC’s most venerable soap, “Days of Our Lives,” beyond its current contract, which runs out in 2009. The soap opera genre has become “very, very tough for us financially,” Mr. Reilly said.

Surprisingly, he said, one of NBC’s pillars of profitability, late night, is also under some “economic pinch,” even though the network continues to dominate there with Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. He reconfirmed NBC’s plan to replace Mr. Leno on “The Tonight Show” with Mr. O’Brien in 2009, even though he acknowledged that Mr. Leno could decide to create a show on another network.

“Jay’s been a company guy and a team player for a long time,” Mr. Reilly said, adding, “I hope we can figure out the right arrangement” to keep him at NBC.

The network has an offer on the table for Mr. Leno with ideas for shows in both prime time and late night, Mr. Reilly said. But he conceded that the decision about where Mr. Leno will wind up after he leaves “Tonight” will “go right to the end” of his current deal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/arts/television/18nbc.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Critic’s Notebook
"Scrubs:" The Musical
By David Kronke Los Angeles Daily News Television Critic in his “The Mayor Of Television” blog January 18, 2007

“Scrubs,” the long-running NBC sitcom about upstart doctors shot in an abandoned Valley hospital, has been a perennial abandoned child on the NBC landscape, its wit and charms underappreciated by network bosses who kick it about the schedule, never allowing it to really find an audience. (Your Mayor has no idea why he empathizes so with this victim of benign neglect.)

Absolutely brilliant in its first season, the show settled into an odd self-satisfaction in subsequent seasons, before deciding to veer into the realms of the utter bizarre in recent years – perhaps showrunner Bill Lawrence decided he had nothing left to lose, so why not make it as weird and quirky as his writers could imagine?

Tonight, “Scrubs” (9 pm ET/PTtakes its surrealism as far as it can go, with a wonderfully wacky Broadway-musical episode whose songs come from Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, the Tony-Award creative team from the Tony-winning “Avenue Q.”

In it, a patient (Stephanie D’Abruzzo, an original cast member of “Avenue Q”) collapses, then imagines her time in Sacred Heart Hospital unspools as a musical, hearing every medical assessment in song.

It’s kind of a mixed bag – an early song is entitled “Everything Comes Down to Poo” – but later songs are genuine show-stoppers, including “The Rant Song,” which allows Dr. Cox (John McGinley) and the Janitor (Neil Flynn) to rail yet again against J.D. (Zach Braff), and “Guy Love,” in which J.D. and Turk (Donald Faison) describe their friendship in terms viewers already understood, but never heard so vividly explicated (“There’s nothing gay about it in our eyes,” they croon).

In recent seasons, “Scrubs” has tread that far-flung bridge between, as the Washington Post’s Lisa de Moreas has observed, silly and sucky (perhaps that’s why Your Mayor empathizes so). Tonight’s episode emphasizes that chasm – while many of the lyrics are clever (“Friends Forever,” rhyming many medical maladies, would make Stephen Sondheim green with envy, or dyspepsia, or something involving bad digestion), many of them are, well, not so.

Still, it’s great to see that a show that the network has seemingly written off has defiantly refused to bury itself into rote punchlines, and it’s even more exhilarating to see that “Scrubs” has issued its defiance in such a way that can legitimately be described as “toe-tapping.”

http://www.insidesocal.com/tv/

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Second huge 'Idol' night: 36.9 million
Fox show tops last year's night two by 5.4 million
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine Jan 18, 2007

At this rate, it won’t take Fox much time at all to catch up with the Big Three, much less pull ahead. The second night of the network’s “American Idol” delivered ratings nearly as spectacular as night one, sending the other networks into a deep funk last night.

“Idol” averaged 36.9 million total viewers from 8 to 10 p.m. last night, according to Nielsen overnights, just 600,000 fewer than its record debut total Tuesday night. It was up an impressive 5.4 million over last year’s night two, though that show was only an hour long.

Among adults 18-49, “Idol” averaged a 15.4, 0.3 behind Tuesday’s debut. That was up 18 percent over last year’s 13.0 for night two. “Idol” peaked with 39.6 million total viewers at 9 p.m. and a 17.0 in 18-49s.

What’s more, “Idol” obliterated the competition last night, outdrawing the other four English-language networks combined. Only one show, CBS’s “Criminal Minds,” managed to draw a rating above 3.0 in 18-49s, and among total viewers, it was the only competitor to top 10 million.

In fact, in the 8 p.m. hour, “Idol’s” most-watched competitor was ABC’s double dose of “According to Jim,” with a mere 6.9 million viewers.

It seems “Idol” is poised for its most-watched season ever, and that’s saying something. The first two episodes have pulled the second- and third-most viewers in the show’s history, behind only season two’s 38 million finale.

And if “Idol” continues at this pace, long-lagging Fox will quickly catch up to the other three in season-to-date 18-49 average. As of Sunday, CBS was slightly ahead of ABC and NBC with a 3.7 average to the latter two’s 3.6. Fox trailed with a 3.2.

Another impressive night for “Idol” meant another easy first-place finish for Fox among 18-49s, as it averaged a 15.4 rating and a 36 share for the night. CBS was second at 3.1/7, NBC third at 2.2/5, ABC fourth at 2.1/5, Univision fifth at 2.0/5 and CW sixth at 1.2/3.

At 8 p.m. Fox led with a 13.9 among 18-49s for the first hour of “Idol,” followed by a 2.6 for Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella.” ABC was third with a 2.2 for an hour of “According to Jim,” CBS fourth with a 1.9 for “Armed & Famous,” CW fifth with a 1.5 for “Beauty and the Geek” and NBC sixth with a 1.2 for a repeat of “Friday Night Lights.” “Geek” did take third in 18-34s in the hour with a 1.8, behind “Bella’s” 2.9.

Fox increased its lead during the 9 p.m. hour with a huge 17.0 rating for the second half of “Idol.” CBS was second that hour with a 3.4 for “Criminal Minds,” NBC third with a 2.3 for “Deal or No Deal” and Univision fourth with a 2.0 for “Mundo de Fieras.” ABC dropped to fifth with a 1.4 average for “Knights of Prosperity” (1.4) and “In Case of Emergency” (1.4), with CW sixth with a 1.0 for “One Tree Hill.”

CBS took advantage of Fox’s absence during the 10 p.m. hour, leading with a below-average 4.1 for “CSI: NY.” NBC was second with a 3.1 for “Medium,” ABC third with a 2.7 for “Primetime” and Univision fourth with a 1.5 for “Don Francisco Presenta.”

Fox also had a huge night among households, leading the night with a 20.1 average rating and a 30 share. CBS was second at 7.1/11, NBC third at 5.0/8, ABC fourth at 4.0/6, Univision fifth at 2.5/4 and CW sixth at 1.8/3.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_9606.asp

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

The Business of Television
DirecTV’s Turn for Rate Hike
By Linda Moss Multi Channel News 1/18/2007

Following in the footsteps of its direct-broadcast satellite rival, DirecTV is raising its rates this year and renaming its program packages, according to two Wall Street analysts’ reports issued Thursday. ...

Oh joy ... and there's the perfect illustration of why D* and E* should *never* be allowed to merge. DirecTV by TCI, here we come :p

Then again maybe they should merge, so they can be treated like all the other monopolistic utility companies. :D

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
CBS: Nina Tassler
Morning Eye-opener
By Robert Philpot Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater blog January 18, 2007

The CBS entertainment-exec session is beginning. Nina Tassler, president of CBS entertainment, is talking, pretty much about how successful CBS is. So far, I'm gonna need stronger coffee.

'The Class'

A reporter just asked about The Class, one of the few (relatively) troubled shows on the CBS schedule, and whether it will be back next year. Nina Tassler used many words to not answer his question.

Demons, swingers and singers

This feels premature, but Nina Tassler is already talking about new fall shows, which won't officially be announced till May.

I'd heard of Demons, an exorcism drama from Joan of Arcadia's Barbara Hall; and Viva Laughlin, the U.S, version of the BBC musical Viva Blackpool (Hugh Jackman is involved with Viva Laughlin, and apparently will make appearances on the show).

Swingtown, about three couples (including, yes, one swinging one) living in a cul-de-sac in 1976, was also brought up. Can't say CBS isn't taking some risks in the fall. If these shows actually happen, that is.

http://blogs.dfw.com/yelling_fire/

Critic’s Notebook
Psych' returns:
with more silliness and alleged crime-solving
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” January 18, 2007

It’s about time.

“Psych” finally returns at 10 PM ET Friday on USA Network with a new mini-season of seven episodes alongside new episodes of the perennially popular comic detective show “Monk.”

Whatever your favorite smooth and fizzy drink is - champagne, root beer, cream soda, whatever - imagine going without it for months. That’s what it’s been like to wait for new episodes of “Psych,” which ended the first half of its first season in late August.

The chemistry between stars James Roday, who plays crime-solving fake psychic Shawn Spencer, and Dule Hill, who plays Spencer’s best pal, Gus, has always been the detective comedy’s biggest draw. These two can make almost anything funny, whether it’s donning Civil War uniforms to crack a murder among re-enactors (Gus’ desire to look like Denzel Washington in “Glory” was especially comical), going to a sci-fi convention and mixing with the geeks or even solving a case at a spelling bee, of all things.

Gus and Shawn’s relationship with each other and with Santa Barbara’s police force, which they assist in the duo’s own antic way, has always been the focus of the show, but the scripts for the comedy, in which the plots have sometimes been too slender, have been getting stronger, and Friday’s episode is no exception.

“That ’70s Show’s” Kurtwood Smith guests stars as a former police captain who thinks he may have information on a crime, but his memory is not reliable. Shawn believes the old man is onto something, but Shawn’s father, Henry, a former police detective, would rather that his old boss wasn’t made a fool of by his son’s unorthodox methods.

“He deserves better than that,” Henry says.

Corbin Bernsen plays the elder Spencer with just the right mixture of spiky disapproval and light sarcasm, and Henry’s barbed relationship with his unconventional son will continue to be difficult - despite Henry’s growing realization that Shawn’s detective skills, which he hides from the police by faking “psychic revelations,” are pretty solid.

“There are going to be some rocky times coming up” during the next seven episodes, Roday said in a recent phone interview. “We’re all on the same page - we don’t want to have [Henry] come around too quickly” and give Shawn his seal of approval.

“It’s tough; we’re such a lighthearted, silly, fun show. We want everyone to have a good time;, we want everyone to have that same kind of fun. It’s tough to keep reminding ourselves that Corbin still has to be a Grinch,” Roday says with a laugh. “But having that resistance gives the show a real, dramatically rooted relationship, which I think is important.”

Shawn’s relationship with the long-suffering Gus - and Hill’s deadpan, put-upon reactions are among the most enjoyable parts of the show - is also undergoing something of an evolution, Roday says. Gus will be stepping up and giving his input more into the team’s plans of action, however goofy they end up being.

“One thing I think you will be seeing, inside that construct of me being Peter Pan and him sort of reluctantly going along, is this idea that we are supposed to be business partners. We are supposed to be able to function as a team and be believable as a team,” Roday says.

One member of Spencer’s circle viewers have not met is his mother, but Roday says that’s not in the cards for this second half of the first season (the second season of the show begins airing in the summer).

“She’s sort of a wild card, she’s only been mentioned a couple of times,” Roday says. “Very smartly, the producers have left themselves that ace card. That we still have in our back pocket.”

The show’s ensemble, which includes Timothy Omundson (“Judging Amy”) and Kirsten Vick, a founding member of Chicago’s Roadworks Theatre Ensemble, is plenty pleasing as well (Omundson, in particular, offers a fine selection of simmering irritation and outraged reactions). And much of the shaggy charm of the show comes from not just the easy, sparky chemistry between the actors, but also from the loose, improvisational acting that Roday and Hill get to do.

In Friday’s episode, for example, Shawn and Gus impersonate two heavily accented European doctors in one scene, and in another, Shawn mugs and goofs in the background as Gus tries to speak with a potential client. It’s hard to think of another hourlong show on TV in which the characters get to have such completely silly, physical fun.

“I have more freedom than any actor should be allowed to have,” Roday says. “I keep waiting for the improvisation police to haul me off. I think, for this character, I’ve finally sort of hit pay dirt. Here’s a guy who’s constantly thinking on his feet and acting on whims. And coming up with stuff in the moment and improvising really does lend itself to what I can create.”

Besides, “for the first time, I have a halfway decent argument for my need to mess around on the set,” Roday adds with a laugh.

'Dresden Files':
Wizard adventures done with a light touch

There’s something generally appealing about “The Dresden Files” (9 PM ET Sunday, Sci Fi) but this new show probably will do best with a certain slice of the television audience, one that feasted on the likes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel.”

The drama, based on a series of popular Chicago-set mystery novels by Jim Butcher, is about a wizard who solves crimes. If you don’t like hints of Harry Potter mixed in with fairly straightforward procedural elements, this may not be the show for you.

Much of the show’s appeal stems from its lead actor, Paul Blackthorne, whose leading-man handsomeness is scuffed around the edges, giving Dresden the right mixture of sex appeal and private-eye weariness. The wizard’s also got a ghostly live-in pal named Bob (Terrence Mann), who can shimmer away - through solid walls - when visitors turn up; the dryly witty Bob may be my favorite character so far, and I hope we get more from him as the series progresses.

For reasons not yet disclosed, Bob’s in trouble with the High Council that governs magic, and one gets the strong impression that Dresden’s also on their troublemaker list. He’s also something of a thorn in the side of a Lt. Murphy, a police detective who grudgingly calls on Dresden for help when cases take a supernatural turn.

We get a few glimpses of Dresden’s past as the son of a traveling magician, though Dresden has forsaken his dad’s trade to list himself under “Wizards” in the Yellow Pages. He has no powers of his own, but he uses his supernatural contacts and knowledge - not to mention Bob - to solve cases that the police think are unsolvable or just plain weird.

All in all, the producers of this show, who have among their credits “Dark Angel,” “The 4400” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” know how to tell slightly otherworldly weekly stories in a solid and satisfying manner. “The Dresden Files” doesn’t quite have the storytelling ambitions or super-quippy dialogue of the Joss Whedon shows mentioned above, but if ghosts, amulets, potions and spells don’t put you off, there’s a decent helping of mystical escapism here.

A reminder: As of Sunday, Sci Fi’s signature series, “Battlestar Galactica,” moves to a new night, Sundays. It debuts in its new slot 10 PM ET. Sunday, after “The Dresden Files.”

Take note of the 'Scrubs' musical

The sixth-season musical episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” remains the high-water mark for warbling TV characters, but the all-singing, all-dancing edition of “Scrubs” (9 PM ET/PT. Thursday, NBC) is quite entertaining in its own right.

J.D. and Elliot, two doctors at the wacky Sacred Heart Hospital, come across a woman in a park who thinks everyone around her is singing all the time. They take her to Sacred Heart, where a huge production number awaits her, with patients, doctors and nurses singing the praises of their medical facility.

Before long, doctors are telling the woman that she’ll have to give a stool sample, because, as they sing, “Everything Comes Down to Poo” (the test is useful “whether it’s a tumor or a touch of the flu”), they’re pouring out their personal problems (nurse Carla considers staying home with her new baby in “We’re Gonna Miss You, Carla”) and they’re serenading each other over her bed (Turk and J.D. share the touching, “completely manly” duet “Guy Love”).

It’s all quite silly and done with a lot of zest and - given that it’s “Scrubs” - heart. Anyone who has seen the naughty musical “Avenue Q” knows that its creators are a perfect match for the zaniness of the “Scrubs” writers and cast, and guest star (and original “Avenue Q” cast member) Stephanie D’Abruzzo does a fine job as the bewildered, song-addicted patient.

Each of the show’s stars has a moment in the musical spotlight: Not surprisingly, the acerbic Dr. Cox gets a “Rant Song” reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and Carla does an entertaining rant of her own, after her own husband calls her Puerto Rican. Her song? “For the Last Time, I’m Dominican.”

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

Critic’s Notebook
Psych' returns:
with more silliness and alleged crime-solving
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” January 18, 2007


Cool, I love that show. :)

TV Notebook
NBC Drama Raines to Get Two Thursday Night Airings
(NBC News Release)

BURBANK – January 18, 2007 – NBC announced that the mid-season drama "Raines" will debut on Thursday, March 15 (10-11 p.m. ET) followed by a second episode on March 22 before the series settles in its regular day and time on Friday, March 30 (9-10 p.m. ET).

The announcement was made by Kevin Reilly, President, NBC Entertainment.

"We have been eagerly anticipating the premiere of this attractive and quirky new drama since we announced it last May at Upfront," said Reilly. "Combining the creative talents on and off camera with star Jeff Goldblum and Emmy-winning executive producer Graham Yost brings something uniquely different to NBC this Spring."

Emmy Award-winning writer-producer Graham Yost ("From Earth to the Moon," "Band of Brothers," "Boomtown") and star Jeff Goldblum ("The Lost World: Jurassic Park," "Independence Day," "The Fly") combine creative forces in the inventive police-drama that blends traditional noir storytelling with humor and intrigue.

Eccentric LAPD Detective Michael Raines (Goldblum) has a unique ability -- his imagination is so keen that when he's on a murder case, the murder victims actually take shape in front of him. At first he thinks he's losing his mind, but he finds that talking to these constantly evolving hallucinations (they're figments of his imagination, not ghosts) helps him discover their killers.

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Set visit: 'Studio 60'
By Robert Philpot Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater blog January 18, 2007

Playing a little catch-up during some down time, we return to set-visit Tuesday and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Some reporters didn't tour the set beyond the "writers' room," where creator/executive producer Aaron Sorkin held what one critic referred to as "a master's class in television."

Other critics raved about the set, which I didn't tour myself because I spent too much time talking (OK, mostly listening) to Sorkin, D.L. Hughley (actually did talk to him), Matthew Perry (just hung out with my tape recorder) and co-exec producer Thomas Schlamme (got off one or two questions).

The walls of the set are festooned with cue cards that seem to have come from random places, and with the occasional bit of graffiti (I believe one scrawl said "I have no talent," but I could be remembering incorrectly). Also noted: the dated, fake photos, such as the one for the 1942 radio program Studio 60 Theatre of the Air (even though it's not referenced on the show, Studio 60 apparently has some sort of radio history); the classic Fireball and Hit and Run pinball machines; and a photo of Bruce Springsteen in concert, I believe from the scruffy Born to Run era.

'Studio 60': Thomas Schlamme

TV directors are an underappreciated bunch (as they will tell you if you get into conversations with them), usually not mentioned in reviews while movie directors are so elevated that even the guy who did Beerfest gets noted by critics.

But Studio 60 co-exec-producer Thomas Schlamme (who's from Houston) did such a fantastic job directing the premiere episode, with his signature roving cameras and hallway talks, that I noted him in my initial review of the show. And I've been yearning for him to return, because the series hasn't lived up to the expectations set by the premiere. I didn't get to chat with him very long, but here's what he had to say about directing additional episodes:

"I'm actually directing an episode today [Tuesday]. I think it'll be [the third or fourth] after we come back. It's actually a very dark and interesting episode. It's pretty much a singular episode in which Matt and Harriet kind of split ways and he goes into a very dark place and flashes back to their early days. It's been very exciting and fun to do.

"Look, I'd love to direct all the time. ... But the way this works is this such a huge show to do, and Aaron [Sorkin] is sort of a playwright-in-residence, so everything else falls on my shoulders. ... And I do have three kids and a wife [actress Christine Lahti, who plays a recurring character on the show] and I try to see them _ but not very much. If I could cast all three of my children, this would be perfect."

'Studio 60': Matthew Perry

Matthew Perry, who plays ultra-neurotic show-runner Matt Albie on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, was sitting in the bleachers of Studio 60's show-within-a-show, surrounded by reporters. I didn't toss out any questions, but extended my recorder into the mix. Some of what came out of that:

--On whether he took on this role to put Friends' Chandler behind him: "It wasn't that. I'm very lucky in my life that now I can just too things that I want to do, that are available to me. I'm not getting offered everything _ but things that aspire to be good."

--On whether he hangs out with his old Friends: "We see each other a little bit. I saw Courteney [Cox at the Golden Globes]. It was fun, but we're all kind of busy and spread apart."

--On how doing Studio 60 compares to his real-life experience hosting Saturday Night Live: "It certainly matches the energy and craziness over there. I remember when I did it, I just never knew where I was. I was there for a week, and I don't know what floor it's on. It's just all this manic energy over there."

--On what's up for Matt and Harriet (Sarah Paulson) on Studio 60: "I love that relationship. I'm rooting for it to end, and then start again, and then end, you know what I mean? There's a long history of, just-happy couples get kind of boring to watch. [Perry and Cox's Chandler-Monica relationship on Friends was a rare example of a sitcom surviving a couple's pairing up.] So I think that has a kind of long, roller-coastery [vibe]. ...

"When Matt and Harriet break up [again], he doesn't deal with it very well. He goes in a little bit of a downward spiral, which is what we're doing now."

'Studio 60': D.L. Hughley

D.l. Hughley not only plays Simon Stiles on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, he's listed as a "consulting producer." Here he is on just what that means _ and a few other things.

--On his title and his input into the show: "I think I know comedy. I've logged more miles, told jokes in more [um ... shoddy is the closest adjective I can use here] places, in front of big audiences and small audiences. ... So when it comes to the authenticity of a comedic through-line, I think I can contribute there." (This is a risky thing to say, since one of the criticisms of Studio 60 is that its sketches aren't funny.)

--On being political and being a frequent guest on Real Time With Bill Maher: "You know what I never forget when I'm on Bill Maher? I never forget that I'm a comedian. At the end of the line, at the end of whatever I'm talking about, is a joke. I never take myself so seriously that I forget that I'm supposed to be funny."

--On whether Studio 60 and its characters take themselves too seriously: "One thing that we have to let people in on is that we don't take ourselves so seriously. We do know that we're joking. It's like aspirin and orange juice. My mother used to have to give me medicine, so what she did was put aspirin in the organge juice. And I think comedy's a lot like that." And here, that side of the tape ends. Second note to self: switch to digital.

http://blogs.dfw.com/yelling_fire/

Cool, I love that show. :)

me too. Psych has more genuine laughs than the majority of sitcoms on the networks. It's rare for a show to literally make me laugh out loud, but Psych has at least one stupid joke in each episode that can, like "I've been promoted. It's Captain Crunch now." and the spelling bee "Ba-na-na. The word is ba-na-na." line.

A good start to the weekend. :)

With the networks generally conceding Friday nights as a dumping ground -- or rerun haven -- Psych and Monk have a pretty clear field at attracting viewers.

TV Notebook
New Twist for “American Idol
By Greg Baumann Television Week

The sixth season of Fox's top-rated talent show "American Idol" will probably bring a twist to the singing contest's format that will give more aspiring musical stars a chance to be discovered, executive producer Kenneth Warwick said.

In the show's final weeks this season, the producers are planning on holding a competition within a competition for songwriters, Mr. Warwick said in an interview with TelevisionWeek Publisher Chuck Ross for TVWeek.com's Backlot Talk podcast feature.

Viewers will get to vote for their favorite song, giving them another way to participate in the show, Mr. Warwick said.

To find out which city doesn't have a lot of talent in Mr. Warwick's estimation, go to TVWeek.com's Backlot Talk for a podcast of the interview and a transcript. Click here:

http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=89

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11413

The Business of Television
FCC’s Martin Urges Arbitration
By Ted Hearn Multi Channel News 1/18/2007

Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin said Wednesday that he supports binding arbitration to end the bitter carriage dispute between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Mediacom Communications.

"I continue to believe that this would be good for both parties to be submitting to,” Martin told reporters after the agency’s first public meeting of the year. Consumers, he added, shouldn’t lose access to programming while a dispute is in arbitration.

Sinclair pulled 22 TV stations from Mediacom cable systems Jan. 6 after the two parties couldn’t agree on financial terms, triggering an acrimonious contract feud that has spread to the FCC and Congress. Loss of Sinclair’s TV signals involved 2 million viewers in 700,000 Mediacom homes.

After the FCC refused to force Sinclair to restore carriage, Mediacom chairman and CEO Rocco B. Commisso sent a letter to members of Congress to complain that Sinclair singled out his company for discriminatory treatment. Sinclair shot back in its own letter to lawmakers that Commisso’s claims were baseless.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6408350.html?display=Breaking+News

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
'Anatomy' of a bad situation
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor in his blog “Tuned In” January 18, 2007

It's time for Isaiah Washington to be let go from "Grey's Anatomy."

It was bad enough that he referred to co-star T.R. Knight on-set with an epithet for homosexual, possibly forcing Knight to declare that he was gay to People magazine last fall.

In October, Washington offered an apology, stating, "I sincerely regret my actions and the unfortunate use of words during the recent incident on-set. Both are beneath my own personal standards. I have nothing but respect for my coworkers and have apologized personally to everyone involved."

But Monday night at the Golden Globes, in response to a question, Washington claimed, "I did not call T.R. a [offensive term]." That rekindled the fire and casts Washington as a liar since he already offered an apology for his "unfortunate use of words."

On the "Grey's" set, sides have clearly been drawn, with actress Katherine Heigel suggesting to "Access Hollywood" that Washington "needs to not speak in public."

This morning after a panel for his other show, CBS's "Criminal Minds," "Grey's" executive producer Howard Gordon addressed the controversy.

"Obviously, nobody is happy about it," Gordon said. "We're all uncomfortable about it, but we're trying to solve the problem within our family, so to speak, as opposed to allowing the rest of the world to help us decide how to deal with it. We don't know how this is all going to play out at the moment. We're just trying to make our television show and figure out how to deal with the personalities."

Perhaps most disappointing in all this is that "Grey's" creator Shonda Rhimes, who is to be lauded for the diversity of the show's cast, has never really addressed the use of the epithet head-on. Last fall, she tried to turn it into a racial issue by calling reports that Washington would be replaced by former "ER" doc Eriq La Salle racist, as if black actors are interchangeable. She's right, but she had nothing to say about the use of a gay slur, and, oddly, I never heard the La Salle rumor until Rhimes brought it up.

When it was suggested to Gordon that if Knight had used the N-word toward Washington he'd be fired already, Gordon reacted: "That's not true. Are you saying because [Isaiah is] black he's getting special treatment?"

No, but it seems like one type of bigotry is being treated different than another type would be.

"We take it extremely seriously," Gordon says of the charges of a gay slur on set. "You have a very difficult situation: A successful show with an ensemble cast, a story line that involves Isaiah. He's a wonderful actor. I'm not excusing what he may or may not have done, but I do believe the man is a very talented actor."

But why is anyone involved still pretending the word was not said? Knight said on "Ellen" yesterday that it was clearly said on the set in front of plenty of cast and crew members who can corroborate Knight's account. No one has come to Washington's defense and no one has said the word was not said. So why pretend and seemingly give comfort to what sure appears to be a lie?

"It's terrible," Gordon continued. "I don't even know what to say or what I should say on or off the record. It's a mess and we're just trying to figure it out."

When asked if he thought if it was realistic to think both actors will remain on "Grey's," Gordon said, "I don't know. We're not at that place yet."

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

I realize that political and moral discussions are generally not welcomed here. Hey, I am the one who doesn't welcome them and you all have been remarkably well-behaved in that regard. In this thread, while hopefully tolerating many views, we still pretty much stay on-topic without getting into political and personal attacks.

For which I have thanked you time and again.

Yet the above blog entry by Rob Owen is, to me, a very thoughtful view of a most troubling episode in the TV landscape this year.

It has troubled me enough that I am going to post a note I sent to Rob. I am not really inviting comments, but I think the issue is important enough for me to mention my own feelings here. If my views offend you, I apologize in advance.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Rob:

What a thoughtful and good column about Grey's. I am sure you will take some hits for it, but what you wrote needed to be said, and I am stunned that no one from the TCA (to be best of my knowledge) has ventured into that (obviously mine-strewn) territory yet.

But I do find it strange that there were all kinds of columns written about the "rape" scene in "Rescue Me" last summer. That show, of course, is seen in far fewer homes than "Grey's" and has far less impact.

Personally I look forward to each episode of "Grey's" but have found the silence from Ms. Rhimes (not to mention the veiled threat of using the racism defense via the Eriq La Salle tactic) tremendously troubling.

(Sadly it probably needs to be said that I am a hetero male. I have no problem watching T.R. Knight in the show. A person's sexual orientation is if no concern to me -- hey, those Rock Hudson-Doris Day movies can still make for a good evening of popcorn munching!)

But a person's total lack of morality and personal responsibility is most troubling. Mr. Washington should have left the Golden Globes podium without saying a word. I am stunned his personal representatives and the "Grey's" producers hadn't demanded he keep quiet. But he is still, obviously, fighting his demons.

I sort of agree with you. But I think a more measured course is possible, too. I'd have Ms. Rhimes simply write him out of the show for the remainder of the season (his hand got worse, he went to the Mayo Clinic for treatment...) and let him deal with his personal hatreds.

If he can demonstrate he understands how hurtful and hateful his words were, and if the rest of the cast is willing to welcome him again, bring him back next fall. If not -- there are many fine actors (and more importantly fine people) to fill his place.

His words were not a victimless crime. Knight is entitled to his privacy -- as are we all. Who knows what future roles might now not be offered to him.

Shonda Rhimes would be well served to understand that in the fragile relationship between a program and its viewers, hatred -- and the protection of those who practice it -- can go a long way to breaking the bond of trust and affection viewers feel toward a program.

Thanks again for the blog note!

Fred

Washington Notebook
Boucher: Three Telecom Issues To Rule Early Debate
Dish-DirecTV merger “might make sense”
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 1/18/2007

Rick Boucher (D-Va.), House Energy & Commerce Committee member and co-chair of its subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, says three telecom issues will dominate the early debate in the new Congress, topped by network neutrality but including "encouraging broadband providers--perhaps requiring them--to offer standalone DSL."

He also said a merger between DirecTV and EchoStar might make sense, while a merger between XM and Sirius satellite radio would probably have to be pitched as a hardship case to overcome antitrust issues. He would not comment on the appropriateness of any possible merger

Boucher weighed in on those and other issues in an interview for cable net C-SPAN's Communicators series, which is scheduled to air over the weekend.

Asked whether emphasizing standalone DSL was a backdoor route to rate regulation, Boucher said he didn't see it that way. "I think what we would probably do is specify to the FCC that standalone broadband is the rule. They can publish regulations that entail exactly how its to be implemented. There has to be some kind of price standard, but it doesn't have to be price regulation."

Instead, for example, he said it could be a mandate that DSL is offered at the same price as it is offered by similar companies: "There are standards that would not get the FCC into rate regulation."

The other two issues on the front burner? Network neutrality and local governments offering competitive telecommunications services.

On the issue of network neutrality, which he called his first priority, Boucher said he opposed a two-lane model of the Internet which could put competing video-streaming services at a disadvantage depending on if you were on the slow lane or the fast lane, for which networks would charge more. He said that "places innovation at risk."

AT&T/BellSouth agreed to two years under a network-neutrality regime in order to get a politically deadlocked FCC to approve the merger, but Boucher said that condition, much praised by network-neutrality backers as a big victory, did not obviate the need for a bill mandating network neutrality.

But the Congressman also said he is not "at all concerned" about any anticompetitive effects of the AT&T/BellSouth merger.

Not only does he not think it creates "unhealthy market power," but he says that it may create a viable competitor to cable in multichannel video.

Boucher said that he thought the February 2009 hard date for the switch to digital TV will hold, but he said that the $1.5 billion to subsidize digital-to-analog converter boxes was too little and that he thinks, "at the end of the day," there will be a means test for those boxes, though he says that if there isn't a means test, "that's alright, too."

Boucher said he saw a robust future for satellite TV, which he said is a great and comparable alternative to cable for rural areas. He also said satellite companies will need to offer broadband and do so "aggressively and affordably."

After avowing that he wasn't saying satellite was better than cable, he gave the satellite industry a plug, saying "the service is excellent, the signals are good, the quality of the signals is superior, and, typically, the pricing is, if anything, a bit more attractive than cable."

What about a merger between DirecTV and Echostar? "This is a case where the merger of the two providers might actually make sense," he said.

Boucher says the multichannel video market is about to get very competitive with telco entry: "I think that if a merger between these two entities were presented today and the market were judged, not just as satellite providers taken in isolation but as multichannel video providers taken as a whole, including cable and telco, the analysis at Justice and the FCC on competition grounds could be very different."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6408353.html?display=Breaking+News

Washington Notebook
Martin Pitches a la Carte to Advertising Industry
By Ted Hearn Multi Channel News 1/18/2007

Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin said Thursday that the a la carte sale of cable networks would provide advertisers with greater understanding of the actual number of consumers that are watching particular channels.

“Allowing consumers to purchase programming on a more a la carte basis would give them greater choice and control over the programming that comes into their homes and would give advertisers more information about exactly who is watching your commercials; information you desperately want and need,” Martin said.

The sale of cable channels in large bundles or tiers, he added, tended to produce general viewership data for many channels but not the specific numbers advertisers need in order to know exactly the audience they are reaching.

“The current tying of channels of video programming is much the same as requiring consumers to buy 200 magazines or none at all. No consumer wants to be required to buy everything. And no advertiser wants to advertise on channels that no one watches. So I have to ask, why is your industry unenthusiastic about a la carte programming?” Martin said in a speech at the Association of National Advertisers’ Advertising Law and Business Affairs Conference in New York.

National Cable & Telecommunications Association vice president of communications Brian Dietz repeated the trade group’s long-standing view that a la carte would undermine the business, both by raising consumer prices and by reducing the quantity and quality of programming.

"Numerous economic analyses, including the FCC's own economists, have concluded that a la carte would harm consumers by driving up prices and eliminating channels that serve minority and niche audiences. The FCC has also reported that consumers enjoy more choice, more programming and more services than at any time in history. We agree with these findings that the marketplace is working,” Dietz said.

In his speech, Martin insisted that a la carte would provide the ad community with better knowledge about audience size than the current ratings system.

“Providing cable channels on a more a la carte basis would decrease the uncertainty for advertisers and their clients about the viewership of smaller cable networks not covered or not accurately covered by Nielsen [Media Research],” he added. “A la carte sales provide a much more accurate proxy for viewership than sales of the large tier of which the small network is currently one component.”

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6408411.html?display=Breaking+News

Well said, Fred!

Yes, I agree, and I have to think that above and beyond everything else, Isiah Washington doesn't seem to be sharpest knife in the drawer as evidenced by him using the term yet again while defending himself. :rolleyes:

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
CBS' Tassler Acknowledges Failures of Smith, 3 Lbs. "
By A.J. Frutkin Media Week January 18, 2007

Despite boasting the most stable schedule of all the networks, CBS has nevertheless witnessed some big failures this season. And entertainment president Nina Tassler addressed those failures at the network's portion of the TV critics convention held in Pasadena today.

Among the major disappointments this fall was the quick decline of its high profile action drama Smith. "Obviously, cancelling a show at any time is very hard," Tassler told reporters assembled at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pasadena. "We have a long history with [Smith producer] John Wells, and a great relationship. He was producing the show that he wanted to produce. We aired the show that he wanted us to air." Tassler also noted that the network delivered a substantial audience to Smith with lead-in The Unit. But with the dropoff "not only from people from The Unit into Smith, but then in our second half hour [of Smith], there was a clear indication that people were not watching that show," Tassler said.

Medical drama 3 Lbs. quickly replaced Smith, and also quickly failed. "I can't really say why it didn't work, but your audience tells you whether or not they want to continue watching," she said. However, when pressed to offer reasons for its demise, Tassler added this: "In hindsight, I thought the stories were a little too benign, a little too tame. I think they got maybe a little to erudite. When an audience goes to medical shows, you need to feel that sense of urgency, that there are stakes involved. And I think they were represented in that show to some degree, but that would be an adjustment I would make if we were to go in that vein again."

Appearing onstage at the TCA with fellow execs Nancy Tellem (president of CBS Paramount Network TV Entertainment Group) and Kelly Kahl (senior exec vp of programming operations at CBS), Tassler also addressed the network's cancellation of midseason drama Waterfront, long before it made air. "When you're looking at shows from our vantage point, you're looking further into the rough cuts, you're looking at scripts, and you have to make decisions, qualitatively, as to whether or not you want to move forward," Tassler said. "Obviously, it's not an easy decision to make, especially when you're talking about shutting down production. But we also had to look at the real estate available on the network and it just was the wisest decision for us to make at that time ... I wasn't happy creatively with the direction the show was going in ... and it's not easy. And it's really one of the more unpleasant things we have to do, but we have to do it."

Tassler even clued reporters into the thinking behind the network's latest reality entry Armed and Famous, saying "When we all talked about it, we all looked at each other and said, 'It's different,'" she noted. "And, in an atmosphere where you're trying to put something out there that will get talked about, that show certainly did."

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003534736

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
NBC: Home of the homeless TV pilots
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn” January 17, 2007

PASADENA, Calif. -- In a parallel universe where everyone has TiVo, or least knows how to program a VCR, the number one network in the land is NBC. But back here in Ye Olde Real World, where people still follow the TV listings, NBC's got a problem: a wealth of promising shows that it's having trouble getting to the public.

That point was made so emphatically during NBC's winter previews this week that I actually felt sorry for Kevin Reilly, the former FX whiz who's now head of entertainment for NBC. He's got all these ideas bursting out of his head and nowhere to put them.

Sure, he's got the hit of the year in “Heroes.” He's got “Sunday Night Football” now, too, and three other shows that are doing well enough that on Wednesday, Reilly announced he's renewing them, along with “Heroes,” through 2008 ("My Name Is Earl," "The Office" and "Law & Order: SVU").

“Vision is a word that gets thrown around a lot but is in short supply,” he told critics on Wednesday. “And when you've got it, you grab it.”

And put it on the schedule … where people will see it … right?

That is NBC's dilemma. On Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Reilly is forced to hand over key time periods to cheap ratings-boosters while his worthier shows languish.

“Friday Night Lights,” the football drama that may have the most talented young cast in television, is dying on the vine because Reilly can't find an 8 p.m. (CT) spot on the schedule for it. (The show airs 7 p.m. Wednesdays.)

“30 Rock” won a Golden Globe for comedy last week, but it hasn't won a renewal because hardly anyone's watching (at 8:30 p.m. Thursdays).

What NBC presented to critics Wednesday only made matters worse:

“Andy Barker, P.I.,” a laugh-out-loud takeoff on detective shows that reunites Andy Richter, Conan O'Brien and former O'Brien jokewriter Jonathan Groff. Problem: NBC already has four well-made comedies; where's it going to put this one?

“The Black Donnellys,” a brilliant drama about a troubled Irish family in New York, from Oscar winner Paul Haggis (“Million Dollar Baby,” “Crash,” not to mention a CBS show from the '90s, “EZ Streets,” that is still legend among critics). Dilemma: Another 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. show with no place to go on NBC's schedule.

And then there's “Raines,” an odd-looking but intriguing vehicle for Jeff Goldblum, who plays an investigator who solves murders by appearing to converse with the victims. Of these three, only “Raines” has a time commitment, and it's not much of one -- taking the place of “ER” for two weeks in March.

Meanwhile, Reilly said Wednesday he's bringing back the Penn Jillette-hosted “Identity” (“What's My Line” with jacked-up suspense) and yet another game show, “1 vs. 100,” to help “Deal or No Deal” keep his audience figures high.

Reilly also picked up six episodes of an American version of “Thank God You're Here,” a hit show from Australia in which comics walk into a scene and improvise their way out. Sounds like “Whose Line Is It Anyway,” which ABC famously used for years to kill time on Thursday nights.

He's got an hour of “Dateline” clogging up his schedule, which is a news program only if you find it newsworthy that perverts are trying to pick up your kids on the Internet. And on Sunday nights, when he should be airing “Friday Night Lights,” he's forced to schedule “The Apprentice” and Donald Trump, who escalated his feud with Rosie O'Donnell at TV critics' tour while simultaneously blaming the media for escalating the feud.

Reilly told the critics, “What I really feel right now inside (NBC) is a confidence in terms of what we're doing. … We continue to be bold and to take big swings.”

Unfortunately for fans of great TV, Reilly's job is predicated not on faith, but works.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2007/01/nbc_home_of_the.html#more

I don't think this has been posted previously, and I'm certainly not shilling for Netflix, but for those of us that do have Netflix, this DVD might be of interest.

************************************************************ *******

'Heroes' recap DVD coming to Netflix

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- NBC is joining with video rental service Netflix to offer a preview of two new dramas and a recap of "Heroes," one of the network's most popular shows.

A DVD exclusive to Netflix will offer a summary of the first 11 episodes of "Heroes" and a first look at two mid-season dramas, Zap2it.com reported Friday.

The DVD will be offered until Jan. 15, when all of the content will be available on NBC's Web site. The network hopes to build the show's already-large fan base with the offering.

The DVD will offer an extended preview of "Raines," in which Jeff Goldblum stars as a quirky detective in Los Angeles, and the pilot episode of "The Black Donnellys," a drama about four brothers created by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco.

"Heroes" is NBC's most-watched new show this season. It returns Jan. 22, Zap2it.com reported.

************************************************************ *****

Paul Haggis is the creator of the film "Crash".

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20070105-015946-6884r
United Press International - NewsTrack - 'Heroes' recap DVD coming to Netflix

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
CBS Resolves To Steer Clear of The Dark Side,
Even Though the Ratings Are Better
By Ray Richmond The Hollywood Reporter in his blog “Past Deadline” January 18, 2007

CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler wasn't taking any chances Thursday morning during CBS's portion of the TV critics press tour event that's currently winding down. Having previously experienced the wrath of this bunch, she had no intention of facing down these nattering nabobs of negativity on her own. So Tassler brought along a couple of high profile friends: Nancy Tellem, president of the CBS Paramount Network TV Entertainment Group; and Kelly Kahl, CBS's senior executive VP for programming operations.

Here Tassler had some legitimate -- and decidedly atypical -- stuff to brag about: namely, that the long older-skewing CBS had just moved into first place for the season in adults 18-49, which in itself is a major indicator that the earth has begun to spin in the opposite direction on its axis. It ain't quite MTV's demographics, but here it qualifies as a youth movement.

But it was just Tassler's luck to run straight into a buzzsaw of a different sort: the premiere this week of "American Idol" on Fox with its peerless dominance and propensity for laying waste to anything that dare test its mind-numbing power.

Suddenly, the session was transformed into an allegory of good vs. evil, the primetime landscape now analogous to an interplanetary faceoff of "Star Wars" proportions. "About the Death Star," began one critic, referring to "Idol," "other than sending in a plucky band of rebels, what do you do?"

"Well," Tassler replied gamely, "we can talk first of all about the Tuesday night performance of 'NCIS' for us. And even though the lights were off everywhere else, we like to say we had our deflector shield up."

"Our shows hang in there OK," reasoned Kahl, "while the other guys get...vaporized."

Yes, just when Tassler felt like she was finally managing to find solid footing in this potshot gallery, she somehow steps into "Stars Wars, Episode VII: The Wrath of Simon."

It was time for Tassler to move on to a topic with which she's more comfortable than having to tangle with Darth Cowell and his minions: the fact that CBS remains the most successful proponent of closed-ended procedural dramas like the three-pronged "CSI" franchise at a time when its fellow networks seem to be moving increasingly to serialized hours (with decidedly mixed success).

"Earlier this year we were talking about kind of throwing out the rule book and really trying new kinds of shows," Tassler stressed. "Barbara Hall will be doing a show for us about demons and exorcism. We're also doing 'Viva Blackpool.' We're doing a musical."

And what about this sudden surge in the 18-49 crowd? Was CBS in danger of abandoning its loyal core of Geritol and Depends users? "We are still interested, obviously, in all demos," Tassler assured.

Yes, even the Justin Timberlake demo, as it turns out. After CBS's problems a few years agfo with a certain Super Bowl halftime show and Timberlake's participation in the famed "warerobe malfunction" with Janet Jackson, the network is now featuring the singer on the Grammy telecast and a Victoria's Secret special. One critic inquired as to the message that might send.

"Certainly (Timberlakje is) prominent in the Grammys," Tellem allowed. "Obviously, as we're looking ahead to the Grammys, we also have to look at his popularity as well."

The other issue that seemed to strike a cord with critics on Thursday was the decision to air an episode of "Criminal Minds" following the Super Bowl telecast when the group appeared to have its heart set on the copmedy "How I Met Your Mother" to enjoy the windfall of the year's biggest audience lead-in.

Kahl: "'Criminal Minds' is, I think, the fastest-growing drama on TV this year from season to season. We're trying to kick iot up a notch...There's a whole audience out there that we're hoping to expose it to...I don't know that 'Grey's Anatomy' was a great fit (last year for ABC), you know, kind of a female-skewing soiap coming out of the Super Bowl. But it really worked for them. I think the point is you've got a huge audience sitting there, and if you have the chance to introduce them to a new show, you take it."

As long as The Death Star is nowhere in sight.

http://www.pastdeadline.com/

Days done in 2009! Just mentioned it and I'm already feeling the heat.

Oops...missed this one earlier today...
Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The Peacock is feeling proud again,
and makes the renewals to prove it
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Thursday, January 18, 2007

Humility has no place in the television industry for network executives. As a practice, they don't admit failure, they don't apologize for mistakes and they absolutely will not look at a season and say out loud, "Yep, this one's gonna be a real mutt."

This holds doubly true for NBC, the network that spent most of the '90s as the 800-pound gorilla before CBS got its hip replacement. Even then, executives still strutted around on top of the world until a bunch of pubescent singers and desperate housewives started kicking it around.

NBC entertainment head Kevin Reilly inherited the network at a real low point -- we're talking "Whoopi" territory -- and well, you almost felt sorry for him. And he knew it. On Wednesday, Reilly shared with TV critics at their winter meeting in Pasadena, Calif., that people used to treat him with polite pity.

"You bump into people, you know, your relatives, and you get the sort of mealy-mouthed comments like, 'Oh, yeah, you know, you guys are ... Yeah, it's great, you know."

Now, he quipped, "People (at NBC) are saying, 'What's this feeling that we have? ... Oh, that's fun.' "

"I do feel we brought the love back this year to the network," he said.

Viewers are definitely in like, but love? Such a strong word. Slow your roll, pal.

What NBC undeniably has is buzz. NBC, pre-"American Idol," comes in third place overall, but is tied for first in the 18-to-49 demographic and has the season's top-rated new series in "Heroes," which averages around 15 million viewers each week. "Heroes" also is getting an additional hour, bringing the first season total to 23 episodes.

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" is still struggling, but its small audience is also television's most upscale. "Friday Night Lights" has grown from a critical darling into a reliably great hour of TV, albeit one desperate to find a decent home and more attention from viewers.

For all those reasons, an emboldened Reilly announced a full second season order for "Heroes" along with full season renewals for "The Office," "My Name Is Earl" and "Law & Order: SVU."

But it did not go unnoticed that "SVU" received an early pickup, as opposed to the "Law & Order" mother ship, which has experienced a decline in the ratings since its move from Wednesday to Friday night.

Reilly said those early renewals didn't indicate a lack of confidence in "Law & Order: Original Flavor," "Studio 60," "Friday Night Lights" or "30 Rock." "When you've got the vision, you hold onto it," he said of "Friday Night Lights." Referring to Tina Fey's comedy: "It's well on its way."

"I certainly think you're going to see at least some of those shows come back next season, if not all of them," he said.

The emphasis at this point, Reilly explained, is establishing stronger tent poles throughout the week. Foremost among them is Thursday night's comedy block, something the network intends to keep intact.

And for once, Reilly said, NBC is facing down "American Idol" with the intent of defending its territory -- or let's be realistic here: bobbing, weaving and dodging -- instead of whimpering, rolling over and wetting itself.

You won't see any new comedies going up against it. "We're not even kidding ourselves with that anymore," he said.

But you will see a few new series get tryouts in the coming months, including "The Black Donnellys" from "Crash's" Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, and "Raines," a series starring Jeff Goldblum as -- wow, here's a switch -- a quirky detective.

Adding to its game-show slate, the pre-Christmas tryout "Identity," hosted by Penn Jillette, is set to return as a regular series in March.

NBC also is producing six episodes of "Thank God You're Here," an improv show hosted by David Alan Grier, with "Kids in the Hall" alum Dave Foley judging.

Also getting out of the way of "Idol" is ABC's "Dancing With the Stars."

"We wanted people not to have to choose between 'Idol' and 'Dancing', " said Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, as he announced "Dancing" would return with a two-hour premiere at 8 p.m. Monday, March 19. A week later comes the second two-hour performance show at 8, and the first results show on Tuesday, March 27, at 9.

Performance episodes move to Mondays from 8 to 9:30 as of April 2, with results shows airing Tuesdays at 9.

Such a move will nicely capitalize on "Idol" madness, allowing people to get their "Dancing" fix Monday nights and turn to see the results show after "Idol's" performances on Tuesdays.

He also said that the final episode of "Big Day" will air Tuesday, Jan. 30, and that "Day Break" will finish up online, something it originally was supposed to do in mid-December before ABC yanked it and hoped people wouldn't notice. But they did.

Apparently there was an issue with music rights, but that problem has been ironed out, McPherson said. Should you choose to believe him this time, look for the series to be back online before the end of February.

As for "The Nine," it's done. Production wrapped on its 13 episodes, and McPherson couldn't say whether or when the remaining hours would make it back on the air or get a final run on the Web.

"Six Degrees" mostly likely will make it back onto the schedule "before May or in May," he said. What he didn't say is that it is receiving the opportunity to work out the kinks that those other fine series didn't, largely (we're guessing) because like "What About Brian," it is one of J.J. Abrams's pets.

And "Boston Legal" fans can rest easy for now -- McPherson says it isn't going anywhere. "That's one of my favorite shows. I mean any show where, you know, the lead of the show can say, 'I think that midget I'm dating is my daughter' -- I mean, that's good television right there."

Also in the hopper:

"October Road," a drama about a screenwriter who returns to his hometown to reassess his life among old pals and family.

"Traveler," a holdover announced last summer about two young men who, on a dare from their longtime pal Will Traveler, pull a harmless prank at a New York museum that explodes after they leave it. Then Traveler disappears, and the FBI can't find any evidence that he ever existed.

"Notes From the Underbelly," a comedy that finds humor in the glories of pregnancy (i.e. hormonal imbalances, acne, constipation and gas), is tentatively scheduled to appear at some point in March, and disappear shortly after that.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/300091_tv18.html

a few points --

1. Barbara Hall is doing a show about demons and exorcism for CBS?? The same Barbara Hall that did Joan of Arcadia? One can only hope the demon show isn't as boring. By the way, I think this demon thing is going to be a ripoff of Supernatural on The CW, which doesn't get much exposure due to the channel it is on. If you're not watching SN, get the DVDs and catch up. It is a great adult oriented show. I guess someone at CBS sees this and thinks there is potential for a copycat show.

2. ABC, I'm giving you one last shot on new shows..if you ever schedule Traveler. I have heard good things about the pilot and the fall preview for it was intriguing.

3. Also looking forward to Drive. This is a cancellation waiting to happen (Nathan Fillion and Tim Minear are involved), but i'll give Fox one last shot.

It seems to me that "Raines" is also train wreck just waiting to happen....

Psych' returns:

Good to hear. I also enjoy that show. I wish it was on NBC all the time and not just for special occasions. It's worth watching in SD but it's much better in HD.

TV Notebook
Statements regarding the “Grey’s Anatomy” real-life drama
From Tim Goodman’s San Francisco Chronicle TV blog “The Bastard Machine”

Isaiah Washington:
“I apologize to T.R., my colleagues, the fans of the show and especially the lesbian and gay community for using a word that is unacceptable in any context or circumstance. By repeating the word Monday night, I marred what should have been a perfect night for everyone who works on Grey’s Anatomy. I can neither defend nor explain my behavior. I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I've asked for help.

I know the power of words, especially those that demean. I realize that by using one filled with disrespect I have hurt more than T.R. and my colleagues. With one word, I’ve hurt everyone who has struggled for the respect so many of us take for granted. I welcome the chance to meet with leaders of the gay and lesbian community to apologize in person and to talk about what I can do to heal the wounds I’ve opened.

T.R.’s courage throughout this entire episode speaks to his tremendous character. I hold his talent, and T.R. as a person, in high esteem. I know a mere apology will not end this, and I intend to let my future actions prove my sincerity.”

A B C:

"We have a long standing policy to create and maintain respectful workplaces for all our employees. We dealt with the original situation in October, and thought the issue resolved. Therefore, we are greatly dismayed that Mr. Washington chose to use such inappropriate language at the Golden Globes, that he himself deemed 'unfortunate' in his previous public apology. We take this situation very seriously, and his actions are unacceptable and are being addressed."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=24&entry_id=12765#comments

Grey's was a tremendous episode last night but you couldn't help but think about these recent events especially during the scene where Washington is consoling Knight about faith and science. Kind of took away the moment for me.

Grey's was a tremendous episode last night but you couldn't help but think about these recent events especially during the scene where Washington is consoling Knight about faith and science. Kind of took away the moment for me.Ditto that. I think of that every time they are in a scene together now and it does put those scene in a different light. It does bode well though that they can both act through it very well.

1. Barbara Hall is doing a show about demons and exorcism for CBS?? The same Barbara Hall that did Joan of Arcadia? One can only hope the demon show isn't as boring. By the way, I think this demon thing is going to be a ripoff of Supernatural on The CW, which doesn't get much exposure due to the channel it is on. If you're not watching SN, get the DVDs and catch up. It is a great adult oriented show. I guess someone at CBS sees this and thinks there is potential for a copycat show.

You'd think someone at Viacom would realize Supernatural's potential as a two-hour block companion piece after Ghost Whisperer (where currently Close to Home is just filling space while generating little buzz) and move it from the CW to CBS. Same for Everybody Hates Chris on Mondays. Doesn't corporate synergy dictate that if a product with untapped potential is underperforming in a certain market you move it where its more likely to produce results and advertise the hell out of it? :(

2. ABC, I'm giving you one last shot on new shows..if you ever schedule Traveler. I have heard good things about the pilot and the fall preview for it was intriguing.

The same ABC that has publicly stated they're desperate for a police procedural and last year unceremoniously dumped Nightstalker after only a few episodes? Your faith is as misplaced as mine is beaten down and defeated! :(

Good to hear. I also enjoy that show [Psych]. I wish it was on NBC all the time and not just for special occasions. It's worth watching in SD but it's much better in HD.

You could avoid watching the current season and wait 'till the end of the year when USA and other NBC-U owned networks go HD. USA is likely to have marathons of the old shows (including Season 2) when the third season of 'Psych' approaches later this year, assuming the show's ratings don't tank between now and then.

Isaiah Washington:
“I apologize to T.R., my colleagues, the fans of the show and especially the lesbian and gay community for using a word that is unacceptable in any context or circumstance. By repeating the word Monday night, I marred what should have been a perfect night for everyone who works on Grey’s Anatomy. I can neither defend nor explain my behavior. I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I've asked for help.

I know the power of words, especially those that demean. I realize that by using one filled with disrespect I have hurt more than T.R. and my colleagues. With one word, I’ve hurt everyone who has struggled for the respect so many of us take for granted. I welcome the chance to meet with leaders of the gay and lesbian community to apologize in person and to talk about what I can do to heal the wounds I’ve opened.

T.R.’s courage throughout this entire episode speaks to his tremendous character. I hold his talent, and T.R. as a person, in high esteem. I know a mere apology will not end this, and I intend to let my future actions prove my sincerity.”

Translation: I was attention-starved at the Golden Globes and I let my mouth run off. Please don't fire my ass from the #1 show on TV, I'll shut the hell up from now on.

I don't have the electronic copy yet, just the hard copy magazine version. In the Jan 15 issue of TelevisionWeek, they are reporting that the new FOX syndie morning show, "The Morning Show" is HD ready will be available to stations in 16:9 SD format to begin with. This is a new development that I think we want to watch for. I am not sure how it is being fed to stations (I doubt it will be over the splicer since the show is being sold to non FOX affiliates that don't have the splicer) and will only be available on FOX O & Os in the beginning. "The Morning Show" starts this Monday.

TV Notebook
Statements 'Chris' gets CW kiss
Order is for full third season of 22 episodes
By Josef Adalian Variety.com

The CW has given a big thumbs-up to "Everybody Hates Chris," picking up the Chris Rock-produced show for a third season.

CW Entertainment prexy Dawn Ostroff will announce the renewal Friday at the net's portion of the TV Critics Assn. winter press tour. Order is for a full season of at least 22 episodes.

Ostroff said "Chris" has "consistently proven itself to be one of the best comedies on television," crediting Rock and showrunner Ali LeRoi.

"This is a show we want viewers to associate with the CW," she said.

After a rocky start this season on Sundays, "Chris" has stabilized in its current Monday slot and has fit in well with the weblet's other laffers on the night.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117957717&categoryid=14

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
CBS' rise in ratings is tempered by return of 'Idol'
By Martin Miller Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 19, 2007

PASADENA — CBS, historically seen as the network for older viewers, has found itself quite popular this season with the younger set. And a trio of CBS executives wasted little time Thursday morning trumpeting the steady-as-she-goes network's rise to No. 1 in the highly coveted 18-to-49 age demographic after 17 weeks into the 2006-07 season.

"When we have a chance to brag about the 18-to-49 demo," said CBS programming chief Kelly Kahl during the morning's executive session at the midseason press tour, "we're going to do it."

But any celebrating is clouded by Fox's "American Idol," which registered huge audiences in its sixth season premiere this week.

The first two "Idol" episodes each drew about 37 million viewers — astonishing numbers in the current age of audience fragmentation.

"Our shows aren't 'Idol' proof," added Kahl, making special note of the solid performance of "NCIS" against Fox's ratings giant. "But they are 'Idol' resistant."

Kahl was on stage with Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment, and Nancy Tellem, president of CBS Paramount Network Television Group.

CBS' solid but not terribly flashy schedule has prompted its executives to seek out shows that will create more buzz. Though they own some of the most popular shows with the "CSI" franchise, CBS' targeting of the broadest audience has made it seem sleepy in comparison with more youth-oriented networks. So far this season, they have found success in this strategy with "Jericho," but failed with "Smith," which was canceled after only three episodes.

"We want to turn it up a notch," said Tassler. "We want to find shows that are going to be talked about."

But at least in the spring, there isn't much to discuss. The network is launching just one show, a new comedy called "Rules of Engagement" starring David Spade. The fairly traditional-looking sitcom begins airing Feb. 5 at 9:30 p.m., and clearly CBS executives hope its humor can cut into the serialized seriousness of its hot competitors in the Monday time slot — NBC's "Heroes" and Fox's "24."

Tassler said there may be more to talk about in the fall when a couple of shows could boost the network's profile among the media and public.

Barbara Hall, the creative force behind "Joan of Arcadia," is working on a show infused with dark humor and irony about demons. And another program tentatively called "Swing Town," which CBS is considering, is an "Ice Storm"-like look at three Chicago couples in the '70s dealing with open marriages.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-cbs19jan19,0,6584420,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

The New York Times Obituary
Ron Carey, Comic Actor, 71
By Dennis Hevesi The New York Times January 19, 2007

Ron Carey, the pint-sized, round-faced comic best known as the unjustifiably cocky Police Officer Carl Levitt on the long-running television situation comedy “Barney Miller,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 71.

He died of a stroke at a hospital near his home, a nephew, Michael Ciccolini, said.

At 5-foot-4 and with traces of an inner-city New Joisey accent, Mr. Carey played a plainclothes cop constantly seeking a promotion by currying favor with his superiors.

“Barney Miller,” which ran from 1976 to 1982, starred Hal Linden as the captain of a New York City police precinct whose officers dealt with the zany characters who came, not always by choice, into the station house. Mr. Carey, as Officer Levitt, would inject unsolicited opinions on how to handle whoever was in the holding cell. Besides playing roles in other less successful sitcoms, Mr. Carey appeared in 15 movies, including “High Anxiety” in 1977 and “History of the World: Part I” in 1981, both with Mel Brooks.

In “High Anxiety,” a parody of Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, he played Brophy, the chauffeur and foil of Dr. Richard Thorndyke, the incoming administrator of the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous. Mr. Carey’s running gag in that movie was to grab something heavy and say, “I got it! I got it! I got it!” Then, unable to lift it, he would squeak, “I ain’t got it.”

“History of the World” traces mankind’s evolution, or lack of it, from the dawn of time. Mr. Carey played Swiftus, the agent-manager for Mr. Brooks’s character, Comicus, a stand-up philosopher in ancient Rome.

Ronald Cicenia (Carey was his stage name) was born in Newark on Dec. 11, 1935, a son of John and Fanny Cicenia. Besides his brother James, of Roseland, N.J., he is survived by his wife of 38 years, the former Sharon Boyeronus.

Mr. Carey started doing standup comedy in New York. His break came in 1966 when he appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show.” He later appeared on “The Jackie Gleason Show,” Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” and Ed Sullivan’s “Toast of the Town.”

Much of Mr. Carey’s comedy reflected his upbringing as the undersized, quick-witted kid on the block. An Italian Catholic, he considered the priesthood at one time, his nephew said. That ambition was realized when he played Father Paglia in “Have Faith,” a sitcom about inner-city priests, which ran for half a season in 1989.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/arts/television/19carey.html?ref=television

The TV Column
Another Precinct Heard From:
Rosie Weighs In on 'American Idol'
By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 19, 2007

"American Idol" clocked another 37 million viewers in its second night back on the air -- the singing competition's biggest-ever Wednesday audience, which is something considering that the finales air on Wednesdays. Nights one and two of the sixth season of "Idol" have now delivered the show's two biggest audiences ever.

Understandably, Rosie O'Donnell of ABC's "The View" wanted a little of that ratings action. So she made Wednesday night's episode of "Idol," in which the judges pilloried lousy auditioners, the subject of her Thursday morning "View" sermon.

First, they showed a clip of one Kenneth Briggs, age 23, whose performance was among the worst. Briggs looked like Peter Lorre, or, as "Idol" judge Simon Cowell noted, a bush baby.

Simon: "You look a little odd. Your dancing is terrible. The singing was horrendous and you look like one of those creatures that live in the jungle with those massive eyes. What are they called -- bush baby?"

Paula: "Simon, you are sick."

Randy: "Simon, you're crazy."

(Rosie forgot to include the clip in which Paula told Briggs:"I think you're awesome. Not right for this competition, but I think you're awesome." But that's life.)

"That's compassion for you," Rosie scowled after the clip aired. "Isn't that what America thinks is entertainment, to make fun of someone's physical appearance and then, when they leave the room, laugh hysterically at them? Three millionaires. One probably intoxicated."

Rosie called it "so sad."

"Who, Simon?" asked "View" colleague Joy Behar. "The whole thing, it's terribly sad to me," she said, as visions of double-digit ratings increases danced in her head.

"If you keep serving people crap and telling them it's a meal, they're eventually going to think that it's a meal," Rosie continued. She assailed the humiliation of "people who are obviously not capable to make a decision on whether or not they're strong enough to handle national humiliation."

The "American Idol" process, Rosie proclaimed, " is to ridicule people who are mentally unstable."

We're not sure where Rosie got the inside track on Briggs's mental health. She did not elaborate.

Former "Idol" contestant Kellie Pickler, who was on "The View" that morning, explained contestants are "very aware of exactly what you're getting into. I mean, you've watched the show before. This year is not going to be any different than next year. You know what you're doing when you get into it."

Fox declined to respond to Rosie's sermon.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Lucky CBS got to make its pitch to the press at Winter TV Press Tour 2007 the day "Idol's" second-day numbers came in, leading one reporter to ask CBS suits on stage, "Other than sending in a plucky band of rebels, what can you do" about "the death star" that is "American Idol"?

"We're kind of lucky in a way that our shows -- they're not 'Idol'-proof, but maybe kind of 'Idol'-resistant," CBS scheduling guru Kelly Kahl said, pointing to the fact that "NCIS" held on to 95 percent of its normal ratings against the first night of "Idol's" sixth season this week.

" 'Criminal Minds' did very well last night. So our shows hang in there okay. The other guys kind of get . . . vaporized."

"There's always the hope that the next iteration of 'American Idol' will show some weakness," said Nancy Tellem, head of the whole CBS entertainment ball of wax, adding wistfully, "Clearly it hasn't happened."

CBS has this year's Super Bowl broadcast and recently announced it would air an episode of its perv-tastic crime drama "Criminal Minds" in the best time slot of the year for a scripted series -- immediately following the game.

"Criminal Minds" stars Mandy Patinkin as the head of an elite team of profilers who try to catch serial killers before they strike again. In its sophomore season, its ratings are the fastest growing of any series on TV.

Critics wanted to know how "grim" the episode will be or whether it would be "lighter than usual" because CBS did not want to bring people down on what's a celebratory night.

CBS Entertainment chief Nina Tassler started to tap-dance, while seated:

"I think the interesting thing about 'Criminal Minds' [is] people are drawn into this show because I think they like the suspense. They really like being scared and they also like knowing at the end, the bad guy is going to get caught and the heroes ride away on the white horses."

Later, during a "Criminal Minds" Q&A session, executive producer Ed Bernero said James Van Der Beek will play a killer in the postgame episode. "He's posting videos of the killings on the Internet. And people's response to it is 'Wow, that's really cool.' "

Even Bernero confessed that he finds some of the material on the Internet troublesome: "This Saddam Hussein hanging went around viral like it was a comedy show or something."

Speaking of CBS and the Super Bowl, one critic reminded the CBS suits that Justin Timberlake "embarrassed the network, probably cost you a fortune in money, even if you never have to pay the fines."

He was of course referring to Timberlake's bodice-ripping performance with Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl halftime show the last time CBS aired the game. The FCC has slapped CBS stations with record fines, which the network is contesting.

"The repercussions of his irresponsibilities hurt the entire industry," said the critic, yet CBS gave him a platform on "The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show." "You're giving him a bigger one on the Grammys. What's the message here?"

Here, in its entirety, is Tassler's response:

"What is the message? Well, look, as far as Justin Timberlake is concerned -- and obviously as we're looking ahead to the Grammys, we also have to look at his popularity as well. Certainly he's prominent in the Grammys. You know, when we look back at what happened a few years ago, yeah, it did have repercussions. And as far as behaving punitively towards Justin Timberlake, I think that he also had to kind of respond to a lot of criticism in connection with that event. But we move forward."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011801999_pf.html

In the Jan 15 issue of TelevisionWeek, they are reporting that the new FOX syndie morning show, "The Morning Show" is HD ready will be available to stations in 16:9 SD format to begin with. This is a new development that I think we want to watch for. I am not sure how it is being fed to stations (I doubt it will be over the splicer since the show is being sold to non FOX affiliates that don't have the splicer) and will only be available on FOX O & Os in the beginning.

Is your station carrying (starting Monday or in the near future) "The Morning Show" foxeng?

TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask Matt column at TVGuide.com January 19, 2007

Question: : In your recent Ask Matt column, you said that The Amazing Race still blows a lot of us away. I definitely agree with you on that one! The show is nothing short of amazing in all aspects, and it definitely deserves another Emmy nod. The upcoming all-star Amazing Race stars some of my favorite past racers: Joyce and Uchenna, Charla and Mirna, etc. But I am not happy about Rob and Amber — is it really necessary for them to be on a second race when they've already been on Survivor (and won!) what seems to be 10 billion times?

Enough with those two already! Like they really need more money? And they have another reality show about Rob becoming a poker pro. As the staff at Seattle Grace would say, "Seriously!" I am from Boston myself and do not sound like Rob — he embarrasses us with his uneducated, overly thick accent. It's torturous to see him on the Race again, or anywhere on TV for that matter. Normally I would root for a fellow Bostonian, but in this case, I hope he falls in some "Dirty Water"!— Samantha

Matt Roush: I certainly agree, as you can see in my recent Dispatch on the all-star Race casting. But now that I think about it and see more comments like this, maybe it's precisely because Romber inflames such passions (some of them quite positive, as I've previously published) that the producers still look at them as the equivalent of good box-office draws. As I also noted, at least it gives us nonfans a team to root against.

Question: : Since both Cold Case and Without a Trace air on CBS on Sunday nights, do you think that a crossover episode between the two series is possible?— A.C.

Matt Roush: Possible, yes. Advisable, not so sure. Gimmicks like these should be used sparingly if ever, but it worked pretty well years ago for Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order, which also were set in different cities within commuting range of each other. Cold Case is set in Philadelphia and Without a Trace in New York, although unlike those NBC shows, neither is actually filmed there. Both are from Jerry Bruckheimer's procedural factory, so that could help iron out logistical production issues. And I suppose there could be a cold case involving a long-missing person that could be brought to the attention of the FBI unit. Should such a crossover ever come to pass (I've heard nothing, this is all speculation), look for it to happen in a sweeps month.

Question: : How can Showtime bring Brotherhood back after killing its most compelling character (Michael)? I mean, doesn't the fact that there is no longer a second brother kind of make the whole title moot?— Chip

Matt Roush: I checked with the other big Brotherhood fan in the office, and we agreed that while Michael was badly beaten in the shocking season finale, there's no reason to think he's dead. Heaven, or in his case hell, forbid. Look for him to return in the second season. And if you're a true Jason Isaacs fan, here's some more good news: He's the star of a much-anticipated BBC America miniseries airing next month, The State Within, a political thriller in which he plays the British ambassador to Washington, with Sharon Gless as the secretary of defense. Can't wait to watch that one.

Question: : I was surprised to see that Desperate Housewives had its lowest ratings ever this past Sunday. While it did have 24 against it, I thought this episode was the best of the season (except for the hostage episode, of course). For the first time this season, I became truly intrigued about the season's mystery; Bree finding the teeth was something I wasn't expecting at all. And how does Paul Young fit into the mystery? Because I have a feeling he's involved in some way. For the first time since Season 1, I am actually enjoying the show and would hate to see it suffer as it finally gets back on track. Why do you think the ratings are down? Do you think they will climb again given this week's episode?— Rob

Matt Roush: I'm not as keen on recent developments as you are, although I agree that the teeth under the floorboards were pretty creepy and compelling. But you answered your own question when you noted that 24's stunt programming on Sunday helped take viewers away from ABC and Desperate Housewives. (CBS' football overrun also disrupted viewing patterns for the night.) But even if Desperate Housewives' numbers are slipping, the show is still drawing a pretty huge audience, and the fact that it could still do this well against such brutal competition should allay your fears that it's in a period of serious decline. I was more encouraged by the fact that Brothers & Sisters, a much superior and more entertaining soap these days (in my opinion), did better than usual, even while Housewives suffered from the head-on collision with 24.

Question: : I really enjoy your column and your call-ins on Steve Cochran's show. I am writing to ask about The Nine — I was hoping that ABC would give it another chance. The show was well written and had a great ensemble. Is there any possibility that it might be given another slot? I think it might be great on Sundays after Desperate Housewives in March and April, instead of reruns of Brothers & Sisters. Also, do you think this is the end for The Apprentice? I liked the show when it first started, but Trump lost people when he opened his big mouth and replaced Carolyn with his own daughter. It also became much too commercialized.— Terry

Matt Roush: First, The Nine: ABC is still saying the show could get a relaunch later in the season, and putting the show after Housewives would be the best-case scenario for getting these episodes sampled. But I'm not sure ABC has enough confidence in the series for that. When ABC announces its plans, you'll know right away if there is truly a future for the show. I tend to be skeptical. As for The Apprentice: its days as a powerhouse are certainly over, and I think Trump deserves the blame, since he took the credit when the show was still performing strongly. To me, it's always felt like a weekly commercial for whatever company was participating in the challenge. Maybe it's become more pronounced this season, but The Apprentice sold whatever soul it had long ago.

Question: : Between your preview of Ken Burns' The War and all of his previous work, I'm very much looking forward to it. My one concern is that I don't know the latest as far as PBS' battle with the FCC over "profanity" in the piece, and I'm worried that it may suffer due to some idiot's narrow-minded view of what I should be able to watch. I know that Burns was pretty adamant about airing it uncut, but is that going to happen? Thanks for all your views, and have a great day.— Steve C.

Matt Roush: Same to you. I asked Ken Burns about that when he was in the office, and the impression I got was that this issue has perhaps been overstated. There will be some salty language used by his first-person witnesses, but not (from what I gathered) an overwhelming amount, and Burns didn't seem unduly concerned that either that or any of the more graphic war footage would be altered to fit FCC guidelines, such as they are. If Americans were asked to pick sides between Burns and the FCC, you know who would win that battle. Maybe that's why PBS has made his new project something of a litmus test.

I doubt there will be any serious complaints made, even by the most rabid of the watchdogs (even they, you'd think, would respect World War II veterans enough to give them their uncensored say). But to be honest, I haven't discussed the issue with PBS lately, and it's their member stations that truly have to worry about such things, in the form of arbitrary fines they can scarcely afford.

Question: : I've been a fan of your column for some time and usually agree with your assessment of shows. However, right now I'm distressed by the total snarkiness and cynicism of your comments about Gilmore Girls. Did you ever like this show? To hear you talk about it, I wouldn't think so. It's one thing not to enjoy a story line, it's another thing to suggest that you won't even remember Rory Gilmore! I agree the last two years of this show haven't always been great, but as a longtime viewer, I could never not care about what happens to Lorelai and Rory. I don't agree with you that the show has turned into total trash. I still enjoy an hour of Gilmore Girls a heck of a lot more than most of what's on TV these days.— Claire

Matt Roush: Sorry to distress you, but given how the show has progressed this season and last, I don't see the point in softening my opinions, rude though they may come off. (And believe me, you weren't the only Gilmore fan to call me on it. Keep reading.) I do take a little offense myself at being accused of never liking the show. Gilmore Girls for several years made it on my top-10 list, and I was an early champion of it back when it was still buried on Thursdays. I fought for it to be included on AFI's best-of lists back when it deserved to be. But this is a classic case of a show that has outlived its welcome and its creative promise by at least a season, if not two. A catastrophic collision of bad story ideas, executed with increasingly unsatisfying results, has led me to this sorry state, and if you think it doesn't pain me to come to this conclusion, you're greatly mistaken.

Question: : I really found your response to Melissa, who was asking you about Rory Gilmore and her romantic story line, to be downright rude. She's clearly a fan of the character, and the whole "I could hardly care less" and "this is how I would like to end up remembering Rory, if I do" was uncalled-for. It probably would also help if you actually kept up with the show. Rory is no longer living in "the impossibly rich, privileged, connected publishing scion's" apartment. As for Rory ending up "independent," she has never not been independent, but it's surprising how many people want to see her alone. According to Lorelai, Rory was supposed to have more than her mother, including, one would presume, a healthy, happy romantic relationship — not one screwup after another, reaching 40 and still alone. In this day and age, it constantly amazes me how people, especially men, think women can't have it all. Can't have a career and a marriage. Or maybe she can only have this with a poor man since we appear to be defining people by their incomes rather than their characters. You bring a lot of sexist and classist prejudice to this, don't you?— Sandy

Matt Roush: First off, my apologizes for making a factual mistake. It happens. I saw that episode in which she moved, but forgot. It's hard enough to remember what's going on in the shows I actually like without keeping track of the whims on this one. But on the other accusation, how can I say "Lighten up!" without sounding offensive? Sorry that I felt that, for a while, Rory looked like a "kept woman" to me. Sorry that I misconstrued all her moping around when Logan didn't have time for her, and her jealousy over his posh coworkers. Sorry that I felt they'd turned her into a whiny ninny. I'd get even more defensive, except I now feel I should take my own medicine and lighten up.

Question: : In response to the recent question about Niki's superpowers on Heroes, I'd like to say that to me, "power" implies "control." Niki seemingly has no control, and is typically appalled when it comes to Jessica and what she does. If she does have control, she hasn't figured out how to rein it in. To me, this is not a power but a curse.— Janis M.

Matt Roush: At least you didn't call me sexist. Thanks for that. One of the best things about Heroes is the ambivalence many of the characters feel over their abilities, which is maybe a better word overall than "powers." All of the characters are on a perilous learning curve, and that's part (actually most) of the fun. To Niki, it absolutely does feel like she's cursed. But her superhuman alter ego does possess a notable power, so I still think it's fair to refer to it as such.

Question: : I'm guessing that you get a lot of these e-mails, right? The ones telling you that you should actually pay attention to a show before you judge it? I read fan post after fan post pointing to articles that you write bashing the CW network. And while I will agree with you on a few points, such as 7th Heaven and Gilmore Girls, I will fight you tooth and nail about Supernatural, Smallville and Veronica Mars. Have you taken the time to sit down and watch even one episode of any of these shows? I don't know about you, but each episode makes me want to come back for more. Sure, the ratings may suck right now, but it's a brand-new network — what did you expect? That the shows were going to do fantastically great in the network's first year? No, this network is going to be taking baby steps to get up to the rankings of networks like ABC and NBC. It takes years of effort to get to the pedestal that those networks are on now. Maybe next week, I'll actually find a post that has you saying good things about the fantastic show that is Supernatural.— Natalie

Matt Roush: At least you didn't call me a sexist. Thanks for that. But what's with the hostile tone? Just because I criticize the network for a lack of vision and ambition doesn't mean I'm attacking each of the individual shows. In fact, I have covered Veronica Mars regularly this season and have gone on record saying that I thought this year was an improvement over the overly stuffed second season. I have also given Smallville and Supernatural credit for holding their own on a terribly tough night. Well-produced genre entertainment has always been a staple of WB (now CW) programming, and these are terrific examples of that. I don't see why I should be knocked for my honesty in declaring that, much as I would like to, I just haven't found a way to fit the CW's Thursday shows into my regular viewing schedule, since I feel that neither of those shows deserve to be watched casually or only sporadically. (Thankfully, we have others on staff keeping a watchful eye on them.) But let me steer you straight on one point: The CW is not interested in getting ratings up to the level of an NBC or an ABC, as nice a surprise as that might be. This is a niche network that is aggressively and narrowly targeting a young demographic, much like the WB and UPN did before, but there's still a way to do that with style, quality, originality and range, the way the WB did at its peak. My feeling is that the CW is resting way too heavily on its predecessors' past laurels, and until the network comes up with a hit or two of its own, I remain resolutely unimpressed.

http://tvguide.com/News-Views/Columnists/Ask-Matt/Default.aspx#01amazingrace

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
CBS' Tassler Acknowledges Failures of Smith, 3 Lbs. "
By A.J. Frutkin Media Week January 18, 2007


Medical drama 3 Lbs. quickly replaced Smith, and also quickly failed. "I can't really say why it didn't work, but your audience tells you whether or not they want to continue watching," she said. However, when pressed to offer reasons for its demise, Tassler added this: "In hindsight, I thought the stories were a little too benign, a little too tame. I think they got maybe a little to erudite. When an audience goes to medical shows, you need to feel that sense of urgency, that there are stakes involved. And I think they were represented in that show to some degree, but that would be an adjustment I would make if we were to go in that vein again."



http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003534736

I think they acted too quickly to yank that show. I enjoyed it.

Oops...missed this one earlier today...
Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The Peacock is feeling proud again,
and makes the renewals to prove it
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Thursday, January 18, 2007

"Day Break" will finish up online, something it originally was supposed to do in mid-December before ABC yanked it and hoped people wouldn't notice. But they did.

Apparently there was an issue with music rights, but that problem has been ironed out, McPherson said. Should you choose to believe him this time, look for the series to be back online before the end of February.

As for "The Nine," it's done. Production wrapped on its 13 episodes, and McPherson couldn't say whether or when the remaining hours would make it back on the air or get a final run on the Web.

"Six Degrees" mostly likely will make it back onto the schedule "before May or in May," he said. What he didn't say is that it is receiving the opportunity to work out the kinks that those other fine series didn't, largely (we're guessing) because like "What About Brian," it is one of J.J. Abrams's pets.

And "Boston Legal" fans can rest easy for now -- McPherson says it isn't going anywhere. "That's one of my favorite shows. I mean any show where, you know, the lead of the show can say, 'I think that midget I'm dating is my daughter' -- I mean, that's good television right there."

Also in the hopper:

"October Road," a drama about a screenwriter who returns to his hometown to reassess his life among old pals and family.

"Traveler," a holdover announced last summer about two young men who, on a dare from their longtime pal Will Traveler, pull a harmless prank at a New York museum that explodes after they leave it. Then Traveler disappears, and the FBI can't find any evidence that he ever existed.

"Notes From the Underbelly," a comedy that finds humor in the glories of pregnancy (i.e. hormonal imbalances, acne, constipation and gas), is tentatively scheduled to appear at some point in March, and disappear shortly after that.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/300091_tv18.html

Since she first wrote this section 4 days ago
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9466953&&#post9466953
the date for Daybreak finishing online has been announced
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9499711&&#post9499711

I'll have to be more careful with Melanie "repurposing" her earlier posts.

Thanks, cherry ghost!

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Faint golden afterglow for 'Ugly Betty'
ABC show is up 5 percent in total viewers
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine Jan 19, 2007

Along with two Golden Globes, ABC’s “Ugly Betty” picked up nearly a million more viewers this week.

Last night “Betty” averaged 14.1 million total viewers, its best in more than three months, and matched its second-best adults 18-49 rating of the season, according to Nielsen overnights. “Betty” averaged a 4.5 in 18-49s.

Among total viewers, it was up more than 700,000 over the previous week, a gain of 5 percent, and had its third-best audience ever. It also rose slightly, 0.1, among 18-49s, and that was against some decent competition from two smaller networks, the CW and Univision.

Both the Mexican and American versions of “Betty” did well last night. Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella,” like “Betty” based on the original Colombian telenovela, averaged 5.8 million total viewers and an impressive 2.5 18-49 rating, up 9 percent over the previous week. It likely will end its run soon, with viewership surging over the past few weeks, though Univision has not specified when.

Also in the 8 p.m. timeslot, CW’s “Smallville” posted its best numbers of the season with 5.3 million total viewers and was up an impressive 30 percent week-to-week in adults 18-34, to a 2.6 rating.

“Betty’s” bump likely came because of the publicity surrounding the Globes win. The first-year show received awards for best comedy and best lead actress in a comedy for star America Ferrera, who has appeared on multiple syndicated newsmagazines and in newspaper stories often in the days since.

“Betty” helped ABC finish first for the night among 18-49s with a 5.6 average rating and a 14 share. CBS was second at 4.9/12, NBC third at 3.2/8, Univision fourth at 2.1/5, CW fifth at 1.9/5 and Fox sixth at 1.8/5.

The night started with ABC in the lead with “Betty’s” 4.5 rating at 8 p.m., edging NBC’s 4.4 average for “My Name is Earl” (4.2) and “The Office” (4.5). That left CBS third with a 3.4 for a repeat of “CSI,” Univision fourth with a 2.5 for “La Fea,” CW fifth with a 2.3 for “Smallville” and Fox sixth with a 2.0 for “‘Til Death” (2.1) and “The War at Home” (1.9).

ABC led again during the 9 p.m. hour, this time with an 8.7 for “Grey’s Anatomy,” the night’s top-rated show. CBS was second that hour with a 6.9 for “CSI,” NBC third with a 2.7 average for “Scrubs” (2.9) and “30 Rock” (2.4), and Univision fourth with a 1.9 for “Mundo de Fieras.” Fox was fifth with a 1.8 for “The O.C.” and CW sixth with a 1.5 for “Supernatural.”

CBS jumped into the lead at 10 p.m. with a 4.4 rating for “Shark.” ABC followed with a 3.7 for “Men In Trees,” with NBC third with a 2.5 for a repeat of “ER” and Univision fourth with a 1.7 for “Aqui y Ahora.”

ABC and CBS tied for the lead for the night among households, each with a 10.3 average rating and a 16 share. NBC was third at 4.6/7, Fox fourth at 2.9/4, CW fifth at 2.6/4 and Univision sixth at 2.5/4.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_9635.asp

Yesterday’s fast national over night prime-time ratings – and some of 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.

You could avoid watching the current season and wait 'till the end of the year when USA and other NBC-U owned networks go HD. USA is likely to have marathons of the old shows (including Season 2) when the third season of 'Psych' approaches later this year, assuming the show's ratings don't tank between now and then.

I thought about that myself. Unfortunately my cable company seems very hesitant to add new HD channels. It seems like the channel has to be out at least a year before COX OC even considers adding it. I also have no interest in joining up with DirecTV. I guess in the end I just hope my cable company changes its ways. Or I hope Verizon's FIOS is offered in my area sometime soon.

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The CW Announces Plans, Streams Shows
By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 1/19/2007

The CW will stream episodes of Beauty and the Geek, Supernatural, Veronica Mars, One Tree Hill, Everybody Hates Chris, All of Us, Girlfriends and The Game on CWTV.com effective immediately.

The streams will be free to viewers, and will be available for up to four weeks following their network airing.

Among other announcements from The CW’s presentation at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif.:

• The network is giving Everybody Hates Chris a full-season order for 2007-08.

• The network is planning Crowned, an eight-episode competition in which mother-daughter teams pair to try and win a beauty pageant. A yet-to-be-announced celebrity mother-daughter pair will be among the judges.

• Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll will premiere Tuesday, March 6 at 9 pm.

• America’s Next Top Model will launch its eighth cycle on Wednesday, February 28 with a two-hour premiere at 8.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6408625

TV Notebook
New Fox Series to Get 'Idol' Boost
By James Hibberd Television Week January 19, 2007

With the sixth season of "American Idol" breaking ratings records, Fox plans to use the powerhouse reality show to help debut its new David E. Kelley drama, boost ratings for a struggling sitcom, and possibly launch other new shows.

Mr. Kelley's upcoming drama "The Wedding Bells" will premiere March 7, following one of several Thursday night "American Idol" results shows, before moving to its Friday at 9 p.m. slot. The Brad Garrett sitcom "Til Death" will move from Thursdays at 8 p.m. to Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. starting March 14, in order to follow the regular Wednesday night "Idol" results show.

Fox plans to announce some of its "Idol" scheduling strategy at its Television Critics Association press tour session on Saturday.

"We plan on using 'Idol' to give 'Til Death' a second wind, it's been in a really tough time period," said Preston Beckman, executive VP for strategic program planning at Fox. "We also will have a few Thursday night 'Idol' results shows. We're hoping to use those three results shows to get sampling for the new shows, one of which will be 'Wedding Bells.' You can't buy the kind of eyeballs you get with an 'Idol' lead in."

"American Idol" premiered Tuesday to a record-setting 15.7 rating among adults 18 to 49, according to Nielsen Media Research. Even more stunning was its Wednesday performance, which retained 99 percent of its premiere audience and represented an 18 percent increase over the same performance last year.

Few inside Fox thought "Idol" would retain its power this season. At 5 a.m. the morning after the "Idol" premiere, Mr. Beckman, Fox President of Alternative Programming Mike Darnell and Entertainment President Peter Liguori were all wide awake, checking their BlackBerrys and calling each other, shocked, as the numbers rolled in.

"You know I like the word 'relieved," Mr. Beckman said. "Every year we say, 'Can this be the year we see ['Idol'] decline?' Yet this show surprises us every year."

This year, Fox had no intention of resting on its "Idol" laurels and prepared a full spring slate of new dramas. In addition to "Bells," there's also the race-car drama "Drive," starring Nathan Fillion of "Firefly" fame. "Drive", will air on Mondays at 8 p.m. starting in April. This week the network also announced "When Women Rule the World," a classic Fox-style reality series, where men must perform as slaves to group of women to win.

But since "Idol" returned stronger than ever, Fox is in the enviable position to have the best of both worlds: New shows plus a ratings sledgehammer to drive them home.

"You have to take full advantage of 'Idol,'" Mr. Beckman said. "[But] we weren't counting on it this year."



http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11420

There are some (very minor in my eyes) spoilers in this extensive and illuminating interview with Aaron Sorkin.
There. Your have been warned.
Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Aaron Sorkin speaks about 'Studio 60,'
the press and those pesky bloggers
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” January 19, 2007

Since its September debut, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” which returns with a new episode 9 p.m. Monday (WMAQ-Ch. 5), has given viewers a look inside the creative process behind a sketch-comedy program.

Last week, several dozen members of the press, on a field trip from the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, got a look inside the thought process of the man behind the show, Aaron Sorkin.

The end result of Sorkin’s hourlong aria to the critics clustered around the giant oval desk in the “Studio 60” writers’ room? I just don’t know what the man wants.

He said he doesn’t mind critiques or negative press. “It’s the cost of doing business,” he said more than once. “Not everything is for everybody.”

But it’s hard to square those remarks with several of Sorkin’s statements on Tuesday. First, his contention that the press isn’t writing about the content of his show, and is only focused on its disappointing ratings, doesn’t ring true.

“When the people are reading, `Gee, this show is tanking,’ they’re less likely to tune in than Q: if the pieces said `Gee, there’s this show that everybody’s really excited about,’” said Sorkin, who noted that the show would have more of a romantic comedy feel going forward. “But that’s not your problem, it’s ours. Hopefully the next step will be that the ratings will tick up and you’ll start writing about that - or even better, about the content of the show.”

But people - television critics, bloggers, television critics with blogs, pretty much anyone with a computer keyboard - are writing about the content of the show. They’ve written that, despite a promising premise, many early episodes were heavy-handed and full of digressive rants. And they’ve said that the show within a show’s sketches are, well, bad.

A Los Angeles Times piece on Dec. 25, which included a collection of interviews with comedy professionals and with members of a sketch-comedy troupe reiterated these critiques.

That piece clearly got under Sorkin’s skin - he spoke forcefully about it for several minutes Tuesday. It seems that piece doesn’t qualify as “the cost of doing business.” Why? Because the people in that article are not “real comedy writers.” And the writers Deborah Netburn interviewed “are unemployed.”

“I read the headline and Q: I thought, `Does Q: Stephen Colbert not like the show? Does Billy Crystal not like the show? Tina Fey? Seth Myers? Real comedy writers - do they not like the show? No, she wasn’t talking about those people,” Sorkin said. “I would encourage you to go to the Web site for Employee of the Month, the improvisational comedy troupe that was complaining about the show, you will discover that they are unemployed and disgruntled.”

I guess Sorkin skimmed over the comments from a comedy showrunner, and the part in which a former “Saturday Night Live” employee was interviewed. Another employed professional interviewed for the piece, Ken Levine, wrote for “M*A*S*H,” “Cheers” and “Frasier.” In TV comedy, you don’t get much realer than that.

“I am a fan of his work, was hoping ‘Studio 60’ would be better, and would further hope that the criticism writers offer him would be taken constructively and not defensively,” Levine said in an e-mail.

Still, the subject of online critiques of his work - which the L.A. Times piece cited - set Sorkin off again.

“I do believe that we’ve seen an enormous rise in amateurism,” Sorkin said. “One of the things I find troubling about the Internet, as great a resource tool as it is, and as nice as it is that we can all communicate with each other, and that everybody has a voice - the thing is, everybody’s voice oughtn’t be equal.”

“You people are credentialed journalists in here… There’s a certain understanding that you had to be good to have gotten that job,” Sorkin continued. “When The New York Times quotes a blogger, saying `PastyBoy2000 says this,’ suddenly you give it the imprimatur of the New York Times - that’s, first of all, lazy on the part of The New York Times, second of all, incredibly misleading.”

But launching a broadside against The New York Times wasn’t enough for Sorkin. He also named L.A. Times writers - Scott Collins and Maria Elena Fernandez, specifically - whom he said had written negative pieces on his show.

That Dec. 25 L.A. Times piece, he contended, was “the third piece that the Los Angeles Times had done in four months about how people on the Internet don’t like `Studio 60.’”

As it happens, Fernandez’s piece, which came out in July, was about how Sorkin’s show had attracted a lot of Internet buzz - much of it positive - before “Studio 60” premiered. In October, Collins wrote one of many media pieces about how the show’s ratings were disappointing to NBC, and another Collins piece in September mentioned TelevisionWithoutPity.com in passing.

“I don’t want to get all Donald and Rosie about this, but in the thoroughly reported pieces we’ve done about `Studio 60,’ which includes a story about Sarah Paulson’s Golden Globe nomination, I’m confident that we’ve fairly reflected the challenges and triumphs the show has faced in its first season,” Kate Aurthur, television editor of the Los Angeles Times (which is owned by the Tribune Co.), said in an e-mail. "I'll leave it to the employed comedy writers in Deborah Netburn's piece to defend themselves, and as far as bloggers and equality goes, Mr. Sorkin has already gotten an earful from them already. But I obviously-- and shamelessly! -- stand by the journalism by the L.A. Times writers Mr. Sorkin named, Maria Elena Fernandez, Scott Collins and Deborah Netburn."

Despite Sorkin’s animus against some members of the press and sweats-clad Internet types, it’s not as though every single critique of the show has gone amiss. That stuff about the sketches being not-so-good?

“I’m not going to tell you all you’re wrong,” Sorkin said. “That’s one of those places where, if enough people tell you one thing, it’s got to be a little bit true.” The result is that he wants to more clearly communicate that “you’re not supposed to be finding this Q: sketch funny, you’re supposed to be finding it a rehearsal.”

Sorkin did hit the nail on the head with one of his comments.

“I think that’s what’s unusual about `Studio 60’ is that the people who don’t like it are extremely vocal about it,” he said.

He’s right. People do get worked up about the show - because some think there’s still time to right this ship. And before you hit “send” on that angry e-mail, dear reader, I’ll pre-emptively agree with you - yes, the last couple of “Studio 60” episodes before Christmas did show improvement.

Even NBC chief Kevin Reilly, is glad the show is heading toward romantic comedy.

“That’s something we talked about,” Reilly said in an interview Wednesday. “All I said to Q: Sorkin was, `We’ve got a phenomenal group of characters, you’ve got a phenomenal ensemble, let’s just cut ’em loose.’”

If that doesn’t work, at least Reilly won’t be blogging about it.

The following is a partial transcript of remarks Aaron Sorkin made to reporters on Jan. 16, on the set of “Studio 60.” I transcribed his answers to most, but not all questions. The audio was not entirely clear on some questions, so I’ve condensed the questions within brackets, to make it clear that they are not exact quotes. Warning: There are some spoilers about upcoming plot developments below.

Q: Why hasn’t the show caught on with viewers?

“I’m not greatly sophisticated when it comes to ratings or crunching the numbers. But I can tell you this - our audience is 10 percent bigger than you think it is. The reason why is, we’re the No. 1 timeshifted show on television.

“If you don’t know what that means, that means that more people TiVo us and watch us later in the week than any other show on TV, and when you add the number of people who are recording the show and then watching it later in the week, our audience grows by over 10 percent, 10.9 percent. So we’re getting screwed by our own petard. It is a high-end audience, they all own TiVos, but Nielsen doesn’t count those people because there’s an assumption that you’re fast-forwarding through commercials, so they’re of no use to advertisers.

“Not everything is for everybody. And when I compare the size of the ‘Studio 60’ audience to the size of the ‘Sports Night’ audience, I’m delighted. Would we like to have more people watching it? Of course we would. But we’re really happy with the audience that is watching it.

“It’s the most upscale audience on TV. We have the highest concentration …. of households earning more than $100,000 a year. …

“Would we like more people to come to the show? You bet. But there isn’t a lot we can do creatively. Let me say this -- I think it’s a mistake to do things creatively in order to attract that audience. As it happens, we’re coming in to a period now … [ of seven new episodes consecutively, and] we happen to be falling into a period where there’s a lot of romantic comedy on the show. Hopefully that is going to bring some people who wouldn’t have otherwise been interested.”

Q: Was that focus on romantic comedy intended all along or was it put in to make the show more accessible?

“No, it was intended all along. I planted it in there with Matthew Perry and Sarah Paulson’s characters, and I wanted to do some other things [ first]. We had a curveball from the beginning, what I didn’t write in to the pilot was that Amanda Peet was pregnant. She told Tommy [Schlamme] and me that she was getting married … that she wanted to get pregnant right away and we said, ‘Good luck with that and keep us posted.’

[Q: She told them before they got the results of her insurance physical]. At that point I kind of stalled for a couple of months, figuring out what I was going to do, was I going to hide the pregnancy, was I going to write her off the show for a couple months, was I going to incorporate the pregnancy. I chose the last one, to pursue a romantic story line between her character and Brad Whitford’s character, which is what you’re going to see unfold in sort of the first half of these seven original episodes, as well as the destruction of Matt and Harriet’s relationship, only to be repaired again.”

Q: What has NBC said about the show’s direction?

“Kevin Reilly and Jeff Zucker have been as supportive as you can possibly imagine. They’ve not said, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that, in order to get the viewers. They’ve sort of given us some target numbers that they’re looking for, but I can tell you that when we got the back nine pickup [ for a full season] that Jeff called and said, ‘I’m not thinking about the back nine episodes, I’m thinking about Seasons 2 and 3,’ so it was a very encouraging call.

Q: What about the high expectations for the show?

“I’m very proud that there were and still are high expectations for this show. It’s certainly better than the alternative. It’s not an advantage though. … The lion’s share of the press about the show certainly out of the gate … was simply about the show’s ratings and it was very difficult to get anyone past that. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, when the pieces are all about the ratings.

“When the people are reading, ‘Gee, this show is tanking,’ they’re less likely to tune in than Q: if the pieces said ‘Gee, there’s this show that everybody’s really excited about.’ But that’s not your problem, it’s ours. Hopefully the next step will be that the ratings will tick up and you’ll start writing about that, or even better, about the content of the show. There was writing about the New Orleans Christmas episode[and I really appreciated seeing some stuff about that. And there have been pieces about Sarah Paulson’s character.

Q: What about the backlash, and the idea of comedy writers not liking the show, etc.

“I’m sorry, I’m taking a moment to think whether I should answer that question honestly or diplomatically.”

Reporters: “Honestly.”

“OK then, if I’m going to answer honestly you’ve got to promise me that you’re really going to hear me on this and you’re not going to run with anything. Listen, we get a lot of negative press on this show, you get a lot of negative press when you’re doing anything. We got it on ‘West Wing,’ we got it on ‘Sports Night,’ I’ve gotten it on the plays that I’ve done, on the movies that I’ve done and public comments that I’ve made. It’s the cost of doing business. … It’s not fun, but you get used to it.

“The [Dec. 25] piece in the LA Times, I’m assuming you’re referring to that, was different, simply because. First of all, let me tell you, it was the third piece that the Los Angeles Times had done in four months about how people on the Internet don’t like ‘Studio 60.’ There was a piece by Maria Elena Fernandez about how people on the Internet don’t like ‘Studio 60.’ Then Scott Collins followed that up with a piece about how people on the Internet don’t like ‘Studio 60.’ This was followed up by the piece that you’re referring to, which blew the lid off the story about how people on the Internet don’t like ‘Studio 60.’

“As if there aren’t people on the Internet who do like ‘Studio 60,’ and as if there are people on the Internet who don’t like other shows. But that wasn’t the most aggravating part of the story.

“The most aggravating part of the story was - the comedy writers she’s referring to - first of all, her headline was ‘Writers don’t like “Studio 60.”’ She was smart to ignore the fact that one week earlier, the show had been nominated for two Writers Guild awards, as that would have undercut her thesis.

“Secondly, the comedy writers she interviewed are unemployed. The [sketch comedy] troupe that she’s referring to which is I think called Employee of the Month - because I read this, I read the headline and I thought, ‘Does Stephen Colbert not like the show? Does Billy Crystal not like the show? Tina Fey? Seth Myers? Real comedy writers - do they not like the show? No, she wasn’t talking about those people.

“I would encourage you to go to the Web site for Employee of the Month, the improvisational comedy troupe that was complaining about the show, you will discover that they are unemployed and disgruntled. Folks, it is not at all difficult to go on the internet and find opinions of disgruntled people, I don’t need to tell you that. So, that LA Times piece was a piece of nonsense.

“There have been negative pieces written about the show, which, like I said, it’s not fun to read, but I get it. I get when people write that there’s a smugness to the show, that there’s an arrogance to the show, I get when people write that the characters on the show take doing a television show too seriously. Again it’s not fun to read, I don’t necessarily agree, but it’s a well-considered piece of journalism.

“This was nonsense and the LA Times should be ashamed of itself. And frankly, an arts section in a town like Los Angeles running a piece like that - that was just godawful.”

Q: What about the rants on the show about bloggers?

“Oh, well, that’s a constant theme of mine. … I do believe that we’ve seen an enormous rise in amateurism. One of the things I find troubling about the Internet, as great a resource tool as it is, and as nice as it is that we can all communicate with each other, and that everybody has a voice - the thing is, everybody’s voice oughtn’t be equal.

“You people are credentialed journalists in here… There’s a certain understanding that you had to be good to have gotten that job. You had to have done something. If I start the Sorkin blog and if that opinion by your newspaper is raised to the level - when the New York Times quotes a blogger, saying ‘Pastyboy2000 says this,’ suddenly you give it the imprimatur of the New York Times - that’s, first of all, lazy on the part of the New York Times, second of all, incredibly misleading.”

Q: Has any commentary about the show being too inside and backstage resulted in the show changing direction?

“There are a lot of people I listen to, people who work here, Tommy, and other people who work here. There are journalists I listen to too. When they say something I really think about it. You’ve got to be careful to not let too many voices in your head… so I try to stay focused and keep writing the show I intended to write, which is I think what I’m doing.”

Q: But the closest thing we have to consensus on the show, whether people like it or hate it, is on the quality of the sketches - that they’re not good.

“I’m not going to tell you all you’re wrong. That’s one of those places where, if enough people tell you one thing, it’s got to be a little bit true. But I’ll tell you what my intention was, and hopefully I’ll get better at executing my intention.

“We never show you a full sketch. We show you a tiny shard of it, in rehearsal, when a writer is pitching it out. Even in the performance, we kind of slice across it for a second, and all I was trying to show was … to give it the feel of a sketch-comedy show. -- as on ‘Sports Night’ they would have a few seconds of the sports show or on ‘West Wing’ they would talk about the Council of Economic Advisers, that kind of thing.

“I think that if you saw a random 10 seconds of [ the ‘SNL’ sketch] Wayne’s World, I think if you saw a random 10 seconds of the Coneheads, or any ‘SNL’ sketch that you like, you wouldn’t necessarily say, that’s hilariously funny. You probably wouldn’t get it. So I do think about that now, when I’m writing that stuff, which is to say, I want to make it clear that you’re not supposed to be finding this funny, you’re supposed to be finding it a rehearsal.”

Q: It’s an expensive show to make, would you consider trimming the cast to keep costs down?

“… I don’t think we’d throw anybody overboard to continue doing the show. It’s hard to do the show, we have to tighten our belts. There are some things we can’t do, we can’t go on location as much as we’d like, we can’t build new sets as much as we’d like.”

Q: On ‘Studio 60,’ the behavior of the characters seems very squeaky clean.

“You’d have to say the same thing about ‘The West Wing’ too, couldn’t you? That ‘The West Wing’ presented an idealized, romanticized version of what the White House is like… That said, I can tell you that in these upcoming episodes, Matthew Perry’s character begins to spiral into drug abuse and there are things like that that go on.

“What you’re not going to see go on is ego battles like you might see at ‘SNL’ -- ‘this guys is getting more sketches on the air, he’s a hack, and she’s no good,’ that kind of thing. It’s just that I’m not very good at writing that. I have more fun writing a good group dynamic where everybody is after the same goal, they’re for each other, and they take their job seriously.”

Q: Is every character you? Can you talk us out of that idea?

“No, I won’t, because I could confirm that, if you ever saw me writing the show, it’s a very physical thing, and I’m up and I’m playing all the parts. But I’m glad that you’ve given me the opportunity to put the lie to the fact that I’m in any way writing autobiographically. If you spent a day with me, you would end that day knowing that Matt’s character is not me, that Brad’s character is not me. … I’m really not thinking about myself when I’m writing the show.”

Q: What do you know about running a show that you didn’t know on ‘West Wing’?

“I had an advantage on this, which was I got to start writing about five months before we went into production instead of five weeks, which is what you might ordinarily have. So I got ahead on scripts. What I’ve learned is that 5 months is not enough … [Q: because] the train has officially run me over. This morning we began shooting an episode that I haven’t finished writing yet.”

Q: Just like the old days.

“Just like the old days. But fortunately it’s happening on episode 17, not episode 7.”

Q: (Audio of this question is not audible.)

“I think that’s what’s unusual about ‘Studio 60’ is that the people who don’t like it are extremely vocal about it.

“There have got to be people who don’t like Grey’s Anatomy, they just don’t write letters about it. They don’t devote entire Web sites to it. Just to back to that LA Times piece for a second, for a group of people who don’t like the show, they certainly watch it obsessively and can quote every line from every episode.”

Q: Would you ever write about stuff you know from working in TV?

Q: He’s thought about writing an episode with three biggest cast members staging a sickout, something that happened on ‘West Wing.’ There really is a kind of interesting chess game that gets played. From a writers point of view, it was a very interesting dynamic, because those four actors and I were very close, we were a team, we were very close friends, and we weren’t allowed to talk to each other during that period.

Q: On writing for different mediums

“The difference between series TV and a movie or a play is that if I’m not writing well, I can stop… They’re not wild about it, but they usually understand. And for me, the very hardest part about series TV is that you have to write when you’re not writing well. In our case about 8.5 million people are going to see it and you’re all going to write about it. But that’s the cost of doing business. And I want to stay in this business because I truly do love series television.”

Q: Where’s the disconnect between what you’re doing and the reception or ratings for the show?

“I will tell you that ‘The West Wing’ was not a hit out of the gate…

“I think there was probably a perception about this show -- two misperceptions about this show, one, that it was angry, that it was a screed, that you were going to be made to eat your vegetables. And the other was that it was about me. I am me, and if somebody said there was going to be a show about you on TV, I wouldn’t watch. And I also wouldn’t want to watch a show that was coming from the pen of someone who was angry about TV.

“I’m like most people, I think, when it comes to TV, when I come home at night I want to have fun with characters that I like, it want it to be comfortable. One difference between this show and some other shows on TV is that this show is not good background TV. You can’t really watch it passively…. TV has a passive relationships with its audience, we’re [often doing other things while we watch it]. You need to watch it as if you’re watching a play or a movie.

Q: But doesn’t this show give you the opportunity to rant about things you don’t like, battles you’ve had, censorship, reality TV, etc?

“It definitely gives you that opportunity. The trick is to not seize the opportunity. You don’t want to write a script that’s sort of a personal grudge against someone or something that no one else is going to be able to relate to. The first and only thing I’m thinking about when I’m writing the show is how to keep you all entertained for however long I’ve asked for your attention.

“Now, there are entertaining things in what you just said, there are stories about censorship and the FCC and the slow creep of reality TV that you can write, but you’ve got to - it all comes down to everything you learned about dramatic writing when you were school, there’s an intention and an obstacle and it’s got to be interesting.”

Q: Jordan McDeere has a talent for making her bosses angry. Could someone like her really survive at a network?

“Only if Steven Weber was her boss.”

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2007/01/aaron_sorkin_sp.html#more

(I have been told there will be an audio version of this Sorkin interview available a bit later.

I will post it when I can.)

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
CW Exec on Gilmore:
"It Was a Little Rocky"
By Michael Ausiello TV Guide January 19, 2007

TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello kept notes at today TCA Q&A with The CW chief Dawn Ostroff. We’ll see fuller stories on many of these items later, but here, in a nutshell, is what she told the critics:

• Dawn's making some opening remarks. She noted that Smallville scored its best ratings of the season with last night's "Justice" episode.

• Just asked Dawn how confident she is that Lauren and Alexis will agree to another season of Gilmore Girls. "We are talking to them," is all she would say.

• Got in a follow-up about the likelihood of a fourth season of Veronica Mars. She loves the show and points out that it's having its highest-rated season yet. But no decision has been made.

• Veronica Mars will go on hiatus for eight weeks beginning Mar. 6 to make way for the Pussycat Dolls reality show. Mars will return with five stand-alone eps in April.

• "One Tree Hill has been such a great story for us," she says. "[Pairing it with Model] has reinvigorated the show."

• On Gilmore's creative direction this season, she concedes that "the first half of the season was a little rocky. [Dave Rosenthal] was painted into a story-line corner [from last season]. I think the second half of the season will be a lot stronger."

• Dawn confirms that the idea of picking up The O.C. "did come up," but adds that it's not going to happen.

• She'll be announcing a premiere date for Hidden Palms "very soon."

• If 7th Heaven ends this season, the final episode will be called a "series finale... again."

• One Tree Hill is definitely a candidate for next season, although it's unclear whether the show would take a four-year time jump, as has been rumored. She says the producers haven't approached her with that idea... yet.

• Supernatural is holding up "really well" in a tough time slot, and creatively the show is "at its best."

• When the time comes for Gilmore to end, she'd like to give producers time to wrap things up. But it's "premature" to talk about that now.

http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800006252

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Showcasing Bob Barker
(Press Tour/Day 10)
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic at his website unclebarky.com January 19, 2007

PASADENA, Calif. -- Life goes on, but can The Price Is Right? After 35 years of wheeling, dealing and Plinko, game show legend Bob Barker will be stepping on down this June. Don't underestimate his actual retail value.

"Oh, I'm going to miss it. Of course I am," Barker, 83, said at his "Farewell Press Conference" Thursday. "But this is an appropriate time for me to retire."

He looked dapper and fit as ever in a checked shirt, charcoal sportcoat and light gray slacks. But his timing indeed is impeccable. Barker is in his 50th year as a game show emcee after breaking in as host of Truth or Consequences. His stat sheet also says he holds the record for "continuous performances on the same network television show" after surpassing Johnny Carson's 29 years, seven months and 21 days with NBC's Tonight Show. The CBS studio where he works is named after him. He's in the Television Academy Hall of Fame. And no on-camera performer has more Emmys (17).

"And we're way up there in the ratings, right on top," Barker added. "And we have people lined up, sleeping out there on the sidewalk, to see our show. I want to go out on top."

His only smudge is a sexual harassment suit filed in 1993 by one of his "Barker's Beauties," with whom he acknowledged having an affair. Several others joined in before the company that owned Price chose to settle out of court.

Barker says he wanted to go to trial because "these were frivolous lawsuits based on distortions, exaggerations or outright falsehoods . . . But it's good business to settle when you can settle for far less than the lawsuit would cost."

He didn't blanch when the matter was raised anew Thursday. Barker outwardly remains one of earth's most unflappable inhabitants, a self-described "old-fashioned guy doing an old-fashioned show."

"Had I not enjoyed it so much I probably would have retired a long time ago," he said. "And then I'm blessed as far as genes are concerned . . . I eat properly and I exercise. I'm a vegetarian. I don't know how many of you are. But if you're not, you should give it a go."

Barker also is an avowed animal activist who once aspired to pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals. He recalls the time that future Hall of Famer Roger Clemens stopped to help an injured dog on a freeway and "got it off to a veterinarian. And someone interviewed him about it. He said, 'I'm just a regular Bob Barker.' I thought that was the greatest compliment."

His last taping of Price is Right is scheduled for June 6. There also will be a prime-time special during the May "sweeps" ratings period, with ample time for "a lot of good nostalgic moments."

"I don't know how I will react" on the finale, Barker said. "I am emotional, yes. You might not get that impression, but I am. And I cry very easily. We'll just have to wait and see."

Barker also is known for punching out Adam Sandler in the 1996 film Happy Gilmore. It helped bring him a new, younger fan base, even if many college kids already were lazing in dorms watching Price is Right.

"When they come to the show they will start saying 'Do the line, Bob. Do the line.' "

It's a good line. After decking Happy, Barker stood over him and taunted, "The Price is Right, bitch."

Clearly he's irreplaceable, but CBS will try anyway. Barker said he hasn't been consulted on his successor, and it seems to rankle him just a bit. Still, he's got a ready one-liner.

"You haven't been told?" he asked. "When I leave, not only is The Price is Right ending, all television is ending."

The End.

Don't mess with Les -- We're later at the "CBS Super Bowl Happy Hour" party. But corporation president Leslie Moonves isn't amused when told that a rival network executive who asked not to be named claims CBS is losing money on Late Show with David Letterman.

"Whoever said that is a (expletive) liar!" Moonves boomed. "Would I have re-upped him (Letterman) for the same money if I was losing money? Would I have done that? It's obviously making money for me because I'm not a stupid businessman."

CBS will make big money on next month's Super Bowl, its first since the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" debacle. Moonves is pleased with the four finalists playing this weekend. "I think we're very happy with how last week's games turned out," he said, referring to eliminations of the San Diego Chargers, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and Seattle Seahawks.

CBS has Sunday's AFC championship game between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. He'll be behind whoever wins that one.

"We're rooting for the AFC. We're the AFC network," Moonves said. "That's all I can tell you."

Envision the headline: "Les Moonves rooting against New Orleans." He laughed before adding, "Don't give anybody here that idea."

Standing by Katie -- The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric remains in third place and doesn't seem likely to improve that standing any time soon. Sean McManus, president of the network's news and sports divisions, said he anticipated nothing more.

"None of us are losing patience because none of us expected to be in much of a different position than we are right now," McManus said in an interview Thursday with unclebarky.com. "And we said that from Day One. All of our research said there would be a surge in the ratings, and then they'd go back down."

McManus acknowledged that the content of Couric's newscast "may have been a little soft" in the early weeks. "If you look at our show now, the mix is exactly what it should be. It's every bit as hard as any other newscast . . . The show that you're seeing now is pretty much the show you're going to see in the future."

Couric may simply be the wrong sex for some network newscast viewers. The bulk of the dinner hour audience is either nearing retirement age or already on Social Security.

"There are probably people out there, both men and women, who perhaps are uncomfortable having a woman anchor the news," McManus said. "But on the flip side, there probably are some people who like a different approach and like the fact that Katie is not the 'traditional' anchor. So how much that balances out, I don't know."

But McManus said the telescoped "scrutiny" of Couric has a lot to do with gender.

"She has to worry about a lot of things the male anchor doesn't have to worry about. How she looks or what she's wearing or how her makeup is or how her hair is. She's under enormous, enormous scrutiny on the peripheral elements of what she does. And then there are the core elements -- her interviewing skills, her delivery. For someone who's been under that much scrutiny, I think her performance has been outstanding."

Moonves said he's "very pleased" with Couric, and "the ratings are going to follow behind her. I think we're going to be fine."

Then he got combative again.

"Why don't you take a week of her show and put it up against the others in terms of hard news and soft news? And you'll find they're very comparable. I think the perception comes from the fact that she's a woman. Charlie (Gibson) and do a softer piece and Brian (Williams) can do a softer piece. But when Katie does it, they say it's a softer newscast. We don't feel it is."

http://www.unclebarky.com/presstour.html

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
CW Exec on Gilmore:
"It Was a Little Rocky"
By Michael Ausiello TV Guide January 19, 2007


• Veronica Mars will go on hiatus for eight weeks beginning Mar. 6 to make way for the Pussycat Dolls reality show. Mars will return with five stand-alone eps in April.


I don't understand this statement. Has there been another month added between Mar and April??

Critic’s Notebook
A wild and courageous guy
Verne Gay Newsday January 19, 2007

It is a pitch black night off the far north coast of Queensland, and the funny, odd, passionate and impossibly endearing man who seems to say "crikey" an awful lot dives off the side of a small boat that's lighted only by a lantern.

When he surfaces, he is in a state of rapture, for he is holding a snake. And not just any snake, but, crikey, a sea snake - one bite from which would render the average-sized adult human male quite stiff within a matter of minutes.

"Oooh! Ooooh!! OOOOH! Look at this," says this average-sized adult human male floating in the water, almost beside himself with unfeigned ecstasy. "It's the biggest sea snake I've ever seen in my life!... You wouldn't want to get whacked by this snake! Not at all! If he wanted to, he could kill me quite easily, [but] as long as you don't muck with them, you're in no danger...."

And, of course, the man is mucking with the sea snake. What else would you expect Steve Irwin to do anyway? Considering what happened within days of this encounter - now part of Irwin's last documentary and featured in the two-hour tribute Sunday (8-10 p.m on Discovery and Animal Planet) - a comical scene with a sea snake is suddenly poignant and cautionary. There are many others, too. There's Irwin with a stonefish, or poisonous conch, or his beloved saltwater crocodile, each of which can kill with a single bite. "Why, Steve?" you sigh. "Why?"

Irwin, 44, died Sept. 4 when a bullnose stingray he was swimming above jabbed its barbed spike tail into his chest. The world was shocked. His native Australia virtually declared a day of national mourning. And a hundred million or so fans around the globe wondered, "Why, Steve? Why?"

This Sunday, some answers. There are two parts to the tribute - a 90-minute documentary, "Ocean's Deadliest," at 8 that he taped last summer with Philippe Cousteau, grandson of the great oceanographer Jacques-Yves, followed by "Crikey, What an Adventure," a half-hour special on Irwin's life and legacy. Only the documentary was available for review and it is vintage Irwin.

When Irwin first sees Cousteau outside his car window, he turns to the camera - grinning broadly, hair unevenly parted down the middle - to say just how thrilled he is to meet a "COST-toe." Later, when he comes upon a black stonefish, he pumps his arms underwater like he's just booted one through the uprights. Upon releasing a croc, he yells at the top of his lungs: "Yooo-hoo! Mission accomplished, you beauty!"

There are, apparently, some people who didn't like Irwin. Too clownish. Too noisy. Someone without sufficient mien - like Sir David Attenborough, TV's other renowned naturalist - to be taken seriously. PETA didn't like the way he handled animals. Others were bugged by the way he dangled his infant son, Bob, near a croc's head. "Who is this nut?" they all seemed to wonder.

Sunday is for them, as much as for the fans.

In a phone interview, Cousteau - chief ocean correspondent for Animal Planet and head of a conservation organization called EarthEcho International - recalls that September day. "We were on [Irwin's boat] Croc One, and were waiting to film tiger sharks and there weren't any around. Steve, who always had so much energy, wanted to go out and see what he could find. He was just going to go out there to see if he could get any B-roll [filler] with other animals." The stingray, he adds, was considered so harmless that it wasn't even going to be part of the final film. "It was just a freak accident and could have happened to any of us. I've seen millions of people swim next to stingrays."

With an unfortunate title, "Ocean's Deadliest" sounds like one of those tacky animal shockumentaries that have littered TV for years. But quite the contrary: It's a beautiful, intelligent and deeply serious film about some incredibly beautiful and imperiled animals. The message at the end tells us something that we pretty much know already: Man is the ocean's deadliest creature.

Cousteau has heard all the talk about Irwin's overly generous capacity for risk, and "the same thought went through my mind before I met him. But you don't see what goes on behind the scenes." Irwin, he says, was actually cautious to a fault. He'd shoot only one take, and prepare exhaustively for each of those, while never endangering his crew.

Yes, there were risks, "but people can't love something and can't protect it unless they know about it. Awareness may not be enough to get people to act, but it's the first step, and that was his mission - to bring these stories to people."

So watch Sunday night and you, too, will understand why so many of these people loved Irwin, and why so many still do.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-ettel5056548jan19,0,5685824,print.column?coll=ny-television-headlines

I don't understand this statement. Has there been another month added between Mar and April??

The last episode of VM to air before Pussycat Dolls is on February 27th. Pussycat gets the timeslot starting March 6th. I'm assuming it'll have 7 episodes, with VM returning on April 24th. That makes a 8-week hiatus.

EDIT: To add, VM airs six new episodes in a row starting Tuesday, through Feb sweeps.

The last episode of VM to air before Pussycat Dolls is on February 27th. Pussycat gets the timeslot starting March 6th. I'm assuming it'll have 7 episodes, with VM returning on April 24th. That makes a 8-week hiatus.

EDIT: To add, VM airs six new episodes in a row starting Tuesday, through Feb sweeps.
Okay, that makes sense, thanks.

The Business of TV
Sinclair-Time Warner Deadline Looms
By Linda Moss Multi-Channel News 1/19/2007 (Ted Hearn and Tom Steinert-Threlkeld contributed to this story)

Sinclair Broadcast Group has already granted Time Warner Cable two retransmission-consent extensions, and it remained to be seen if it would grant a third.

At press time Friday afternoon, Time Warner’s most recent extension to continue carrying Sinclair TV stations in former Adelphia Communications markets was set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

Without another extension or a new retransmission-consent pact, Time Warner would have to stop carrying Sinclair stations in markets -- mainly in New York, Ohio and Maine -- with roughly 1 million subscribers.

Sinclair and Time Warner were still negotiating Friday, according to Maureen Huff, a spokeswoman for the cable company, who added, “We are hopeful that we’ll reach a long-term agreement before midnight tonight. As we have previously stated, we do not expect Sinclair to force us to stop retransmitting the signal at applicable stations.”

Meanwhile, the retransmission-consent battle between Mediacom Communications and Sinclair heated up this past week as the cable company tried to rally political and regulatory support in its fight.

And next week, the dispute is expected to land in front of an Iowa General Assembly committee. The Iowa General Assembly’s Joint Government Oversight Committee rescheduled a meeting on the Sinclair-Mediacom retransmission-consent battle, postponed from this past week, for Tuesday.

Mediacom chairman Rocco Commisso and Ed Pardini, senior vice president of Mediacom’s north-central region, are set to appear at that session in Des Moines. Sinclair officials -- possibly CEO Dave Smith and general counsel Barry Faber -- were also expected to appear.

Mediacom -- which has called for Congress to investigate and hold hearings on its fight with Sinclair -- and the broadcaster continued to swap accusations this past week as their standoff dragged on. Mediacom lost carriage of 22 Sinclair stations Jan. 6, impacting 700,000 of its subscribers, when it couldn’t come to financial terms on a new retransmission-consent pact with the broadcaster.

Commisso questioned why Sinclair has allowed its TV stations to go dark on his systems but granted several retransmission-consent extensions to Time Warner.

“[Sinclair officials] need to tell people in Iowa and my other 22 states why they gave Time Warner three extensions, if it gets extended, and only one to Mediacom customers," Commisso said Friday.

“They need to explain to someone why, even though they have the same issues with Time Warner as they have with us, why they have undertaken a three-month frontal attack with potentially illegal bounty payments with our largest competitor, DirecTV,” he added.

Commisso was referring to the rebate, from $100-$150, Mediacom subscribers will get if they switch to DirecTV.

Sinclair officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin said Wednesday that he supports binding arbitration to end the bitter carriage dispute.

“I continue to believe that this would be good for both parties to be submitting to,” Martin told reporters after the agency’s first public meeting of the year. Consumers, he added, shouldn’t lose access to programming while a dispute is in arbitration.

Mediacom’s position is that the FCC can impose mandatory binding arbitration to resolve the cable operator’s ongoing fight with Sinclair, although the FCC’s Media Bureau has said it doesn’t have the authority to do so.

In fact, the day after Martin’s remarks, Mediacom filed an emergency petition with the FCC. Mediacom asked the regulatory body’s to reconsider its Media Bureau’s refusal to order Sinclair to restore its TV stations, pending final resolution of the cable operator’s FCC complaint against the broadcaster, including appeals.

In its filing last week, Mediacom argued that the FCC has the authority to make Sinclair and Mediacom submit to binding arbitration in situations where an impasse in retransmission-consent negotiations results in interruption of cable carriage of a broadcast signal.

“We’re in agreement that binding arbitration is the way to go,” said Thomas Larsen, Mediacom’s VP of legal affairs. “It’s just that we don’t agree on whether it’s mandatory or not … Our position is that [Martin] has the authority to order it.”

The number of accusations flying between Mediacom and Sinclair ratcheted up last week after Commisso sent a letter Jan. 13 to members of Congress to complain that Sinclair singled out his company for discriminatory treatment. Commisso called for a probe of retransmission-consent abuses.

Smith shot back with his own letter to lawmakers, charging that Commisso’s claims were baseless and that legislators shouldn’t intervene in a commercial negotiation.

To date, Mediacom has handed out “thousands” of antennas to its subscribers since Sinclair pulled its signals, but the cable company won’t specify exactly how many. Mediacom also declined to say how many of its customers have defected to other distributors, such as direct-broadcast satellite service, since the Sinclair stations went black.

In terms of replacement programming for Sinclair stations, in some systems, Mediacom has been letting subscribers preview and sample different digital-cable networks. And in Iowa, Mediacom has produced some local programming, with local sports, that it’s airing in place of Sinclair stations.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6408756.html?display=Breaking+News

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The CW Session
By James Hibberd Television Week in the “Critical Eye” blog Friday, January 19th, 2007

“This is a two-paragraph story,” grouses a reporter after CW Entertainment President Dawn Ostroff leaves the stage.

Ostroff has just finished giving The CW boilerplate answers to TCA critics who, admittedly, also asked The CW boilerplate questions. What mistakes did you make launching the network? (We didn’t. What mistakes?). Why didn’t the network offer their shows online earlier? (We were too busy launching a whole damn network, hello…). Will you dump the Monday night comedy block next fall? (Of course not, it’s a huge success, didn’t you know?). When will you retire “Gilmore Girls”? (Not yet, we love the show).

Ostroff says the network is gaining momentum. To ram it home, the word “momentum” appears on the screen behind her. It’s true, carryover shows from UPN and WB have during the past month or so hit series highs on the new network.

Still, the network needs to add new shows of its own. The other day over lunch, one production company representative complained The CW is completely disorganized. “One part doesn’t know what the other parts are doing,” the representative said. From a media perspective, The CW is aided by having The Two Pauls running their corporate PR, McGuire and Hewitt, who put the best spin on their network while still shooting straight.

Among the The CW’s list of announcements, Ostroff has renewed the low-rated (even by CW standards) sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris.” Ostroff urges critics to give the show another chance, noting that it dropped out of TVWeek’s Critics Poll this month. Later, I ask Ostroff if she’s not just keeping it going just long enough to acquire enough episodes for syndication and she claims she renewed it due to the quality of the show.

http://blogs.tvweek.com/?cat=12

Should we take the news that Veronica Mars hiatus for the pussycat show to mean the chances for a Veronica Mars season 4 is increasingly unlikely?

There are some (very minor in my eyes) spoilers in this extensive and illuminating interview with Aaron Sorkin.
There. Your have been warned.
Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Aaron Sorkin speaks about 'Studio 60,'
the press and those pesky bloggers
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” January 19, 2007]

I'm a whore for all things Sorkin but your spoiler warning has me worried. Are we talking about spoilers for the 1/22 episode this Monday? Or spoilers for the rest of the season and beyond (figers crossed)? Is it safe to read the interview after Monday's show air? If you're a huge 'Studio 60' fan is it OK to read or are the spoilers bad-enough to spoil something wonderful that is best left undiscovered 'till the shows air? :confused:

Should we take the news that Veronica Mars hiatus for the pussycat show to mean the chances for a Veronica Mars season 4 is increasingly unlikely?

My bet is that we haven't seen the last of our lovely teen detective. Ratings are up this season I believe, and while still anemic, that's at least a positive trend. And, it's still a "buzzworthy" show and the CW needs a little prestige factor at this point in its development as a network. I don't know how the DVD sets sell, but that may be a factor as well. I see Veronica coming back.

Is your station carrying (starting Monday or in the near future) "The Morning Show" foxeng?

Yes we are this Monday. 9 AM ET. I believe that is the live feed but we will not have it in 16:9. We are not set up to take 16:9 SD currently. The show will originate from the old FOX and Friends street side studio.

I am a huge fan of "Studio 60" dad, and I hate spoilers.

But I read the poece and found the spoilers to be very minor -- and not at all unexpected.

They certainly haven't ruined my anticipation -- but, of course, YMMV.



I'm a whore for all things Sorkin but your spoiler warning has me worried. Are we talking about spoilers for the 1/22 episode this Monday? Or spoilers for the rest of the season and beyond (figers crossed)? Is it safe to read the interview after Monday's show air? If you're a huge 'Studio 60' fan is it OK to read or are the spoilers bad-enough to spoil something wonderful that is best left undiscovered 'till the shows air? :confused:

Fredfa, BSG gets frequent mentions in the NRO group blog "The Corner". So I thought you might appreciate this take on the return of BSG (aside from the mistaken mention of 'LASER-beams' which don't appear in BSG). Interpretation is surely a function of which side of the couch you sit on, but all agree on its excellence.

National Review - Online
A Clash of Civilizations: On the pertinence, and the excellence, of Battlestar Galactica.

By Rebecca Cusey

The enemy is relentless. Where they occupy and control, they enforce their unyielding rules mercilessly. Areas they don’t control, they infiltrate. They seduce our friends, bunk next to our families, and creep into our military. Taking advantage of the freedoms of an open society, they make themselves indistinguishable from us. We know that agents are in our midst, but we do not know who they are until they unleash their violent mission upon us. Fanatically dedicated to a strict monotheism which calls for the extermination of an entire race, they are committed to winning by any means necessary. Radical Islam? No, this is the plight of the rag-tag band of human survivors in the Sci-Fi Channel’s surprise hit Battlestar Galactica. The show starts up again after an agonizingly long break on Sunday, January 21.

Wrapped in traditional sci-fi fare of space ships, robots, and laser-beam battles, Battlestar Galactica transcends its genre to appeal to a galaxy far, far beyond sci-fi lovers. There are no aliens with odd hair-dos, half-naked astrobabes, geeky space “anomalies,” or sanitized utopian ideals. Instead, the show focuses on gritty humans desperate to survive disaster.

Of all the series on TV, BSG is the show that best resonates with our post 9/11 world. The human battle with the renegade robots known as Cylons is, to use a current phrase, “a clash of civilizations.” Mankind may be flawed, but values freedom, creativity and dissent. Cylon-kind operates under a group mentality, with their religion, suspicion of humans, and desire to dominate inspiring them to exterminate the few remaining humans. The men and women of BSG, like us today, must find a way to fight for civilization while maintaining the values that make civilization worth fighting for. In-depth characters, amazing special effects, laser-fast action, fine acting, and political parable combine to make Battlestar Galactica an outstanding series.

The show opened three seasons ago against a backdrop of twelve human-inhabited planets: prosperous, powerful, and lulled by long peace into complacency. The humans of the twelve colonies long ago fought and vanquished the Cylons, human-created robots that rebelled (is there ever a robot in sci-fi that cheerfully does what it’s told?). The last time anyone saw a Cylon, it looked like a robot: a large, lumbering, chrome “toaster,” as the humans call them. But the Cylons have evolved to look human, act human, and dress in leather miniskirts with stiletto boots like humans. Government official Gaius Baltar (James Callis) is seduced by Cylon agent Number Six (Tricia Helfer) and allows her access to the colonies’ defense information. The Cylons attack and murder billions of people in a single deadly assault. Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos), on the brink of retiring both himself and his creaky old warship, leads the effort to rescue and gather survivors. His ship, because of its very obsoleteness, is the only one immune to the Cylon technological attack. Meanwhile, former teacher and current Secretary of Education Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) takes the oath of office and becomes president. She’s 43rd in the line of succession. The scene recalls LBJ’s succession after Kennedy’s assassination and evokes our deepest fears of the future. When all is tallied, Adama and Roslin lead some 50,000 humans in a handful of ships in search of the one refuge of which they know: a mythical, half-believed in planet called Earth. The Cylons pursue them doggedly.

The thin spacesuit-clad line that separates the human survivors from death is a stable of feisty fighter pilots lead by headstrong Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff), rigid Apollo (Jamie Bamber), and tough Sharon (Grace Park). These three delight in blasting Cylon “out of the frakkin’ sky” in high quality battle scenes that rival movies in special effects. This is not your grandfather’s Battlestar.

Between the pulse-pounding combat, the characters grapple with tangled personal relationships. Apollo pines for Starbuck but marries Dualla (Kandyse McClure). Apollo also wrestles with his thorny relationship with his father, Commander Adama. Starbuck has a thing for Apollo but marries a freedom fighter. Number Six and human traitor Baltar carry on an affair rife with passion, loathing, and manipulation. A Cylon is so obsessed with Starbuck that, during a Cylon occupation, he locks her in an apartment and pretends to be her husband. She kills him repeatedly with kitchen utensils, but he keeps coming back for more (Cylon are functionally immortal), demonstrating that there’s no accounting for love. Things became even more complicated in the first season when pilot Sharon was discovered to be a Cylon agent, although even she believed herself to be human. In fact, two copies were sent to infiltrate the Battlestar. One Sharon copy, nicknamed Boomer, was a trusted part of the fighter squad until she tried to assassinate Commander Adama, acting from hidden programming. At the same time, a second copy of Sharon was fighting her way though an occupied planet with pilot Helo (Tahmoh Penikett). Both copies of Sharon in some way choose humans over cylon. When Boomer is killed and awakens on a Cylon ship, she becomes an advocate among the Cylon for peaceful co-existence with humans. Number Six joins her cause. The other Sharon, imprisoned in the Galactica brig and closely watched, proves her loyalty to humans enough to regain her military uniform and earn the nickname Athena. Athena, now married to Helo, insists she can overcome her programming and choose allegiance to the human side.

Because the Cylon are so complex, as opposed to your tentacle-waving aliens of yesteryear, BSG is able to explore the dilemma of a free society at war. How far can the humans go in fighting the Cylon before losing their souls? When Cylon such as Sharon are captured, humans must find the line between decency in treating prisoners and the need to extract information from enemy assets. When a Cylon-killing virus is discovered, the humans must decide whether to unleash this biological weapon. The resistance under Cylon occupation must decide whether suicide bombings and attacks on non-combatants are moral. Others under the occupation must figure out how much they can cooperate before they become collaborators. After the humans are freed from the occupied planet, some are hungry for vengeance against perceived collaborators. Onboard Galactica, Adama and Roslin struggle to balance protecting the people and guarding liberty. The peoples’ right to information collides with the need to protect secrets. Tension rises between civil government and military leadership. All the while, an overworked and undersupplied military fights to maintain morale in an impossible situation.

Inside a large hall on Galactica, survivors have made a shrine to honor all they have lost. Photos of loved ones killed in the struggle line the wall from floor to ceiling. People come there to pray, to mourn, and to draw strength. Some believe the gods direct their path. Many have lost faith. They are war-weary and haggard, faintly hoping to put aside fighting, settle on some planet, and rebuild lives of comfort. Yet they keep on, because there is something worth fighting for. The survival of civilization, of humanity itself, depends on their resolve. By moving our current situation from the front page of the newspaper to the recesses of space, the show engages us in a national conversation about war, democracy, and commitment. It may not give all the answers, but it asks the right questions. This is what makes it the best show on television.

— Rebecca Cusey writes from Washington, D.C.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWIyMTk3NDgwMjg5NzBmMzcxOTUzYjdjYzkyZDRiODM=

As many of you know, I rarely post stories about the personalities at FNC, CNN or MSNBC because I have found those stories often invite incredibly partisan posts.
So this item bends – if not breaks – my rule, but is offered only in the interest of the ratings last night’s stunt provided to both O’Reilly and Colbert. There no need for piling on either side…..
TV Notebook
A cunning stunt brings…
…stunning Nielsen ratings
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn” January 19, 2007

OK, maybe I underestimated this O'Reilly fellow. Or maybe he just competes better in road games.

Whatever the reason, last night's "Colbert Report" with Bill O"Reilly returning the favor from earlier in the day, when Stephen Colbert appeared as his guest on the "Factor," was a looser, more entertaining give-and-take, with fewer awkward moments, than Colbert's turn in the no-win zone. The old sourpuss actually seemed to enjoy himself, and his attempts at humor were less strained. It's almost as if he needed some exposure to Colbert to figure out that the key to success is to let the young guy lead.

We have the overnights: "The O'Reilly Factor" blew up 67 percent in the 25-54 demo and its first run was watched by almost 3 million viewers, up nearly a million from his 4Q2006 average. And the stunt paid off for Colbert as well, with 1.6 million (versus regular 1.0 million) viewers, though his audience got slightly older, probably because of O'Reilly's geriatric audience switching over. Who knows how many more Fox News viewers would have tuned in had they been able to find Comedy Central on their dial. (I kid because I love ... watching Brit and Shep.)

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

That's fine AAF.

I know many readers here are passionate BSG fans and I try whenever possible to feed their addiction -- on a moderate scale.

Should we take the news that Veronica Mars hiatus for the pussycat show to mean the chances for a Veronica Mars season 4 is increasingly unlikely?

I don't think so. Veronica Mars isn't a show that you can just re-run, unless you re-run all of the episodes for that particular mystery (in series mind you).

With that said, would you rather The CW broadcast the rest of the season now, and then come May sweeps (a very important sweeps), broadcast the Pussycat Dolls? I don't.

Though honestly, I wish they would have broadcast the Pussycat dolls starting Tuesday, but during Gilmore Girls' timeslot.

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The Fox Session

Its scheduled for tomorrow, and coming off the smash ratings for “American Idol” and the solid “24” numbers, one would think the Fox folks will be in a very, VERY good mood.

So take some time out tomorrow to check in (as many times as you wish!) to find out the latest news (almost) as it happens in Pasadena at the closing session of the 2007 Television Critics Association Winter Tour.

Tim Goodman began using the term (which he apparently invented) “TiNo” to describe shows he had recorded – but not yet watched. Now he is coining a new term By the way, feel free to answer his question either by contacting him – or posting here in the thread (or both).
Critic’s Notebook
I'm TiVoiding my work.
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog “The Bastard Machine” January 19, 2007

Granted, it doesn't have the same ring or the same usage possibilities as TiNo, but it's true. Instead of actually watching stuff that I have TiNo'd, and crossing off that list (possibly even coming up with a column idea, which would be a great idea since I haven't so far...) instead, I watched "Assault on Precinct 13" (the remake) which was, sad to say, dreadful. And yet I still watched it.

Not a very good movie.

Why? I don't know. Because messing around with TiVo is like surfing the Web. It's a time suck. A great diversion. But it makes no sense. And here's where I need you to back me up by coming clean on your own pointless, illogical viewing. See, I've got a TON of DVDs I could be watching. Hell, I've got the next episode of "Lost." I've got the whole season of "Slings & Arrows." I've got a bunch of buzz-worthy midseason programming. But I'm not watching any of it. Why? Dunno. I TiVoided it. By watching dumb movies that I had TiNo'd. (I don't get out much to see good movies because I've got too much TV to watch. There's a logic in here somewhere.)

But the point is this: Fess up. What crappy ass stuff are you watching on your TiVo or DVR or even VCR, when you should be systematically watching all those back episodes of series you actually like. Or movies. Why do we kill time with rubbish? More important, what is the rubbish you're willing to admit to watching. Extra points if you Slingbox awful stuff while traveling.

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

My bet is that we haven't seen the last of our lovely teen detective. Ratings are up this season I believe, and while still anemic, that's at least a positive trend. And, it's still a "buzzworthy" show and the CW needs a little prestige factor at this point in its development as a network. I don't know how the DVD sets sell, but that may be a factor as well. I see Veronica coming back.


Thanks to you, and a number of other AVS'ers recommendations with similar viewing tastes to my own - the wife and I Netflix'd Season 1 of Veronica Mars and got hooked. Watching them as quick as we can get them. One more disc and we move on to Season 2.

Fantastic show. Hopefully, I'm not cursing the show to its cancellation by becoming a fan.

Thanks.

I think it is going to make it to next year, CP95 -- if the strong hints coming from Dawn Ostroff yesterday can be believed.

But no matter what, it isn't like the CW has a hoist of strong shows to shoulder Veronica off the schedule.

Here’s a great example of a rather arrogant TV producer showing just how cool, hip and connected he is – at the expense of a TV critic. I am sure the PR folks at the CW will be trying to explain that the answer (while a lot of fun to read) didn’t do the network any good to the roomful of critics. No good. At all.
Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Pussycat Dolls empower. Right.
By Bill Goodykoontz Arizona Republic TV Critic in his Critic’s Tour blog 01/19/2007

PASADENA, Calif. -- Wow. You don't get answers like this very often.

During a session for Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll, a reality show that is exactly what it sounds like, Glen Garvin, a critic for the Miami Herald who has gray hair and a white beard, dared asked the question, "'Don't you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me' -- in what sense does that celebrate other women?"

This in response to producer Robin Antin talking about the competition being empowering, blah blah blah, and McG saying we would see the women celebrating each other, etc. So Garvin asks the question, and McG responds:

"You must understand the fundamental paradox of a gentleman of your age demo asking that very question."

Whoa! Brutal. What?

"Why don't we address what's really happening?" McG continued. "This is a show, a talent competition, to find a girl who is right for the singing group. There's a group of very, very highly literate, highly educated people, and naturally this isn't in the wheelhouse of what you may find compelling on television or in your CD changer right now, and that is the vernacular, contemporary colloquialisms of how kids interact. I don't know if you two-way your friends on your Sidekick. I don't know if that's what is happening."

What a dope. I mean, maybe he's right. But who is he to say? How does he know? Maybe Garvin has Pussycat Dolls on his iPod. Or maybe he's never heard of them. I don't know -- and I wouldn't presume to. Is McG really that tone deaf? You can make your specious defense of empowerment all day long, whatever. But you generalize like that, you sound like a moron. And, of all things, a scold. I know this much: I'm gonna be sure to check out Garvin's review of the show.

Not that it was all stupidity. Paul McGuire, the CW's great and hilarious senior vice president for communications, ended the session with, "But you know, Jean-Paul Satre was known as a freak in his day."

Maybe next time he should write McG's answers.

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

By the way, here is Glenn Garvin’s bio from the Miami Herald webpage.

Glenn Garvin:

A lifelong television nut who is rumored to be the real father of Rachel's baby on "Friends," Glenn Garvin took over the critic's job in 2002 after 19 years covering Latin America -- the last five of them as The Herald's bureau chief in Managua, Nicaragua.

A 1975 graduate of Stanford University, Garvin is the author of two books on Latin America and the only living person who actually saw an episode of "My Mother, The Car."

He may not be in the right demo for the CW, but he definitely is not some third-rate journalist. At least not by judging from his background.

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The CW's Trying Start
By Roger Catlin Hartford Courant TV Critic in his “TV Eye” blog January 19, 2007

Four months into its inaugural season, The CW is still pretty consistently in (fifth) place. But Dawn Ostroff, president of entertainment at CW, said she knew the challenges in creating a new network from the remnants of the old UPN and WB networks.

“We said from the begin we’d be realistic with expectations, because we knew it would take tie for our viewers to find our network,” she says. “We had to communicate to 67 percent of UPN viewers that their favorite shows were changing channels, and we had to communicate to 28 percent of WB viewers that their favorite shows changing were channels, and by the way it will have a new name.”

“We’ve got a long way to go,” Ostroff said. “But we’re happy where we are.”

The logistics in getting a new network launched in less than nine months was so much work, that it wasn’t possible to get an ability to stream shows online until now.

This may seem late for a network that aims squarely at the inter-connected 18-34 market but, Ostroff says, “It was impossible for us to do everything at the same time” as starting a new network. “Now we’re able to focus on streaming.”

Effective immediately the shows “Beauty and the Geek,” “Supernatural,” “Veronica Mars,” “One Tree Hill” and the comedies “Everybody Hates Chris,” “All of Us,” “Girlfriends” and “The Game” will be available for viewing on their website, www.cwtv.com., immediately after their network debut. They will stay on line for up to four weeks after their telecast, “with limited commercial interruption,” Ostroff says.

The CW chief took the opportunity to show support for “Everybody Hates Chris” by announcing a full third season order for the Chris Rock produced show for the 2007-2008 season.

Debut dates were also announced for two reality series, the new “Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll,” a talent search for the pop group, begins March 6 for eight weeks.

And the eighth go-round for “America’s Next Top Model starts with a two-hour episode Feb. 28.

The addition of the Pussycat Doll show means a brief hiatus for “Veronica Mars.” But when it returns for its final five episodes, that critically-acclaimed show will be a little different. Instead of an ongoing mystery, the episodes will all have stand-alone stories.

No decisions have been made for any CW series to return, other than “Chris,” which raised a lot of questions about “Gilmore Girls,” in the middle of its first season without its creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and “7th Heaven,” the family drama that actually came back this year after saying goodbye forever last spring. It may be back, Ostroff says, or it may have its second annual series finale in May. “One thing I’ve learned,” she says, “is never say never.”

As for “Gilmore,” she said “The first half of the season was a little rocky,” said Ostroff, referring to new executive producer David S. Rosenthal, whom she says was “painted into a corner by what happened earlier.”

After a first year built on the best properties of the former WB and UPN networks, Ostroff says doing more new program development than either of those old networks had done.

The first new drama to air will be “Hidden Palms” from the creator of “Dawson’s Creek” and the movie series “Screams” that is said to have elements of both. In production is “Gossip Girls,” a new drama based on the series of popular books, co-created by Josh Schwartz of “The O.C.” fame.

Ostroff also said there had been discussions for The CW to pick up “The O.C.,” which is ending its run next month. “But that didn’t make sense for us for several reasons.”

Another drama in production, “Wild at Heart,” about a veterinarian at a wildlife preserve in South Africa, will actually be shot in South Africa, Ostroff says.

She also announced a new reality show in production called “Crowned” that follows mother-daughter teams working together as a pair to win a beauty pageant competition. Cameras will follow the teams as they prepare for the pageant in which the top team will win prizes including $100,000 cash.

Ostroff said the teams will involve daughters “of voting age.” Not that there will be a political component to the show, she said. “I didn’t want people to think it was Jon-Benet. It’s an adult show.”

http://blogs.courant.com/roger_catlin_tv_eye/2007/01/the_cws_trying_.html#more

Since there is obvious interest here in "Veronica Mars, I thought I should highlight this point (noted by Roger Catlin in the above post), which I had missed in earlier reports about the CW's presentation today.

"... when it returns (in late April) for its final five episodes, that critically-acclaimed show will be a little different. Instead of an ongoing mystery, the episodes will all have stand-alone stories...."

If you think the United States was confused about the future of HD -- well, you probably are on to something. But our neighbors to the north have even more problems. This story ran about 10 days ago, sorry I missed it originally….
Technology Notebook
Canada Mulls HD Dilemma
Critics cite no business model, threat to culture
by John Merli, TV Technology

OTTAWA--While the steady transition to HD in America continues to accelerate, its northern neighbor is going through some serious soul-searching on its own transition that, in part, may sound familiar to U.S. broadcasters.

For two weeks last month, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) held annual hearings to examine the state of Canadian broadcasting. Unlike America, Canada has not yet set an official analog cutoff date, although some broadcasters are recommending the adoption of one.

The theme of the hearings was set on the first day when the head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. told the CRTC he can find no adequate business model for HD services, but stations are being forced to pay for the expensive transition anyway.

CBC President Robert Rabinovich said advertisers in Canada (as in the United States) are not willing to pay higher rates for HD commercials.

"So basically they're saying if you want to shoot in HD, that's your business we're not going to pay you more," he told the review panel.

The CBC, which began 1080i programming in English and French nearly two years ago in Toronto and Montreal, is funded largely with tax dollars appropriated by Parliament.

American programming has always been a key scheduling component for Canadian broadcasters (including content that often features native Canadians such as Mike Myers, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Jill Hennessy, Dan Ackroyd, and the late Peter Jennings and John Candy, to name a few). U.S. imports are also popular with Canadian advertisers seeking to reach the largest Canadian audiences.

Canadian broadcasters were always required to air a certain percentage of Canadian shows, but the CRTC changed its rules several years ago to allow broadcasters to include reality TV and entertainment magazines, for example, in their quotas of Canadian shows (i.e., a Canadian interviewer talking with American movie stars in Los Angeles.)

Meanwhile, one Canadian investor signaled its interest in the burgeoning HDTV market in Canada last month by applying for a license to launch free HDTV broadcasts. HDTV Networks, a Vancouver, B.C.-based investment firm wants to deliver hi-def programming over-the-air to viewers in Canada's eight largest media markets, including Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax.

The company is a subsidiary of CSR Investments, which also controls Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite radio brand in Canada.

Commercial Canadian broadcasters routinely air U.S. shows and insert local advertising in them, a practice known as "simultaneous substitution." Local stations say the often-lucrative practice helps subsidize the production of Canadian programs. The practice (dubbed "simsubs") is allowed by the CRTC as a means of protecting the commercial revenues of Canadian broadcasters and usually only occurs when both local and distant signals are carrying the same (or similar) programming simultaneously.

[b]HIGH INTEREST IN HI-DEF

For its part, Canadian consumer interest in HD is high. At least that's according to Rogers Cable, the country's largest cable operator, which reported in late 2006 that in the past year, its HD subscribers more than doubled to over 200,000 households--from a population about one-tenth of its southern neighbor's.

(In 2006, according to Nielsen Media Research, there were less than 12.8 million TV households in Canada, compared to more than 110 million U.S. television households.)

Meanwhile, while several Canadian channels now air some HD content (TV Technology, April 6, 2005), the new format's overall growth may pose a less tangible, albeit more significant, dilemma than the lack of a business model.

According to Dr. Rebecca Sullivan and Dr. Bart Beaty, associate professors of media at the University of Calgary, HD also poses a serious threat to Canadian "cultural sovereignty," and for the most part, America inadvertently is to blame.

According to their new book, "Canadian Television Today" from University of Calgary Press, the Canadian viewer's heavy menu of American programs fed by Canadian cable (and U.S. signals penetrating the U.S.-Canadian border) would skew more American because most HD shows will originate in the United States.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

"Given that the shift to HDTV does not generate revenue or boost profit margins, or excite audiences, the only incentive for [Canadian] broadcasters to make this transition is competition--or more like cooperation or even collusion--with the United States," the authors charge in their book.

Beaty said once American broadcasters go fully HD in the next couple of years, "Then the product becomes different. Unless Canadian networks also go HD, they can no longer substitute the channel and block American commercials."

He said he believes the CRTC has become "obsessed" with HDTV. Sullivan said she does not think the new formats alone will attract viewers.

"To suggest the Canadian viewer will be drawn away from TV simply because it is not in HD is ludicrous. HDTV is the technological 'McGuffin' in this whole thing. It's not necessarily relevant to the bigger issue," she said.

Charles Angus said he believes it is relevant. A member of Parliament and Heritage Critic for Canada's New Democratic Party, Angus said his nation needs to get on with HDTV "to stay in the game" competitively.

"I agree [with broadcasters] there is no business plan right now for HDTV, and that we also have to have this discussion in Parliament to ask the question, 'Where do we want Canada's broadcasters to be in the 21st century?'" said Angus, who is a musician, writer and occasional contributor to CBC arts programs.

"The biggest problem for sovereignty would be if we don't produce quality shows in HD here in Canada," Angus said. "So much of [the] TV market here is along the Canadian border with the U.S. If the American market is switching over, we have to seriously think about it, too. Parliament has a commitment to a public broadcast system--a strong CBC for TV and radio--and without a plan that includes HDTV, the market is going to be seriously compromised. And the last thing we politicians should do is try to hold back technological change."

Some commercial broadcasters have suggested imposing fees on cable and DBS firms for use of broadcast signals to help pay for the transition--an approach that Rogers Cable told the CRTC in December is "a disastrous idea."

Cable mogul Ted Rogers testified that a lone exception for imposing a fee might be for the CBC. But he warned any fee imposed on cable simply would be charged directly to his subscribers via another line item in their monthly bills, according to The Globe and Mail newspaper.

As the debate continues, at least one Canadian group may have found a way to make money from HD. According to the CBC Web site blogger, the CRTC has already approved a license for "BabyHD."

The programming, which sounds a lot like the Teletubbies on the BBC and PBS, would offer ad-free HD shows "targeted to viewers younger than three."

As the CBC's blogger notes, "Welcome to the Earth, Suzie. Here's your credit card."

http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0082/t.653.html

I would expect there to be some spoilers in this transcript. I don't know the show well, and, frankly, haven't read the transcript carefully. So you are on your own.)

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Transcript: The “Supernatural" presentation

I know a lot of you enjoy “Supernatural” on the CW. Here is the transcript of today’s TCA session on the show, as presented by Marc Berman in his Programming Insider blog.

(FYI, Paul McGuire is the Senior VP of Communications for the CW. Previously, 2001-2006, he had served in the same position at the WB. Before that he had stints at UPN and NBC. Many of the critics attending the TCA think he is one of the best -- and most forthcoming -- of network PR people.)

Here is the entire transcript of the Supernatural session. Grab a tall cup of coffee and enjoy!

The Panel:
ROBERT SINGER (Executive Producer)
ERIC KRIPKE (Executive Producer)
JENSEN ACKLES (plays Dean Winchester)
JARED PADALECKI (plays Sam Winchester)
PAUL McGUIRE (Senior Communications VP, the CW)

PAUL McGUIRE: We're going to get started with the
afternoon portion of the program. Thank you all for
coming. Sincerely, thank you for sticking around for
"Supernatural" and "Everybody Hates Chris." We'll get
things started with a clip from "Supernatural" in a
moment. "Supernatural" has, certainly, among the
toughest time slots in television. Still manages to
hold onto a devoted, hardcore following. If you don't
believe me, just check out the over 20,000 blog sites
devoted to Jared and Jensen and hundreds of videos on
YouTube.

(Applause.)

There's the YouTube users there. Click.

This year the series has delved deeper into the
mythology, introducing a whole new world of hunters,
exploring the brothers' destiny and the meaning of John's
dying words to his son. All that and Playboy's current
covergirl, "Battlestar Galactica"'s Tricia Helfer as a
guest star. Pardon the inadvertent FOX [NBCU's SCI FI]
plug there.

QUESTION: Why isn't she here? Is she going to be at
the party?

PAUL McGUIRE: We'll see. I don't know. After your
behavior earlier today, Tom [Jicha], I'm not sure.

(Laughter.)

Anyway, the show also did a great number last night
following "Smallville"'s big ratings. So again, it's a
terrific show. We're very proud of it. And let's take a
look at a clip before we meet the panel. Thanks.

(Clip shown.)

Great clip for a great show. Please welcome executive
producer Eric Kripke and stars Jared Padalecki, Jensen
Ackles, who got up -- well, maybe just didn't even go to
sleep, to get down here today and be with you, and
executive producer Bob Singer. They'll take your
questions now. Thank you.

ROBERT SINGER: Not all at once.

JENSEN ACKLES: Yeah. Got to get me one of those
jackets.

JARED PADALECKI: You can borrow mine.

QUESTION: Hello. For the producers. As the series
goes on, what is the balance -- is the balance going
to change between standalone and arc? It certainly
looks like we're getting into deep waters with Sam's
character as far as what the big secret is.

ERIC KRIPKE: Right. No, I mean, I think -- I think
we'll kind of continue a similar balance we had
probably towards more of the second half of season 1.
I think, you know, we have -- we think standalones are
kind of our bread and butter and just have enjoyable,
scary stories. But every three or four episodes, we
have, like, a big mythology episode where we really
move the ball forward. We'll continue with that. I
think the mythology episodes, second half of season 2
especially, get pretty big. And every time we have
one, I think something pretty major happens. But
rather than having just sort of -- you know, it
becomes numbing after a while if, every week,
something big happens. And we like to save it for a
really big movement forward and really do it when we
can do it.

QUESTION: Right next to her, actually, same spot.
You guys seem to like to use actors from "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer," "X-Files," recognizable faces. And
then they just said that Tricia Helfer is coming on.
Any more guest stars that we can count on? Actually,
are you guys bringing Amber Benson back for another
guest spot?

ERIC KRIPKE: We would love to bring Amber back.
There's no plans as of yet, but love the character and
would love to see her again. I'd say besides Tricia,
we're bringing -- Emmanuelle Vaugier is coming to do
an episode, episode 17, where she has lots of hot sex
with Jared.

(Laughter.)

He paid us, like, 200 bucks --

JARED PADALECKI: I did. It was Canadian.

ERIC KRIPKE: So I guess we'll cast Emmanuelle, then,
because he paid us money, and so we have to give him
someone beautiful. Then we plan on, especially as we
gear up to the season finale, actually bringing back
lots of characters who have played throughout the
season, who have already made appearances on the show.
Gabe Tigerman, who played a character named Andy; a
character named Ava; you know, Jim Beaver, who plays
Bobby, hilariously named Bobby Singer.

JARED PADALECKI: Such a coincidence.

ROBERT SINGER: Unbelievable.

JENSEN ACKLES: What are the chances?

ERIC KRIPKE: We're bringing a lot of people back for
the finale run who have made appearances throughout
the season.

QUESTION: Could you talk just a little bit about the
first season versus the second season? Are we where
you anticipated we'd be at this point, and maybe just
how you made some decisions to -- that have brought
you to this point?

ERIC KRIPKE: Yeah, I'll speak to it. Then if Bob
wants to add to that, because we couldn't do it
without the two of us figuring this out.
Mythology-wise, I would say we're pretty much on track
with what we wanted. We started with about a -- I'd
say a two-and-a-half-, three-year plan of what
mythology reveals we want to do. I'd say we're
actually cruising along in that story right where we
thought we would be. And at this point we've kind of
now broken through season 3, and we're talking about
season 4 mythology at this point. So we're right
along that track. I mean, some things duck and move
and change and adjust but the big road map has been
the same. But versus season 1, you know, we feel --
in our own opinion, we feel it's a better series than
it was season 1. Bob and I sat down at the beginning
of this year, and we said, "All right, there's a lot
to be proud of season 1, but we want season 2 to be
better. And how can we do that?" And we wanted the
stories to be more vital, and we wanted to say more
interesting things, and we wanted to take some more
chances and really try to step up our game. And I
don't know if the audience feels we've done that, but
we feel we've done that. We're incredibly proud of
the product. So I would say the big thing about
season 2 is we learned a lot of mistakes from
season 1. We learned not to do bugs and windigos and
monsters that look really cheesy on camera. And I
think we figured out how to hone our game a little
bit.

QUESTION: Even with -- maybe the actors could talk a
little bit too about how they feel about the series
has progressed to this point.

JENSEN ACKLES: I think it's going really well. I
know that in the beginning, that was kind of, you
know -- not a concern, but just something that I
thought about quite a bit as far as where it was going
to go and where these characters' journey lied. And
it's really kind of comforting to know that Bob and
Eric have really a nice kind of plan -- at least I'd
like to think they've got this nice big road map in
their office and everything is planned out. But they
do; it's really kind of gone according to plan. And
that helps us out as actors as well, playing what we
need to from week to week and keeping that consistent
with where we need to be going. So I'm thrilled the
way it's been going, and I think it's only going to
get better.

JARED PADALECKI: I'm also definitely very excited
about the second season compared to the first one. I
think in the first season there's a learning curve for
everybody. The actors are finding the characters.
The writers and creator are finding out what works and
who's doing well with the dialogue, who's doing well
with the story, what's working, what's not working.
Like you said, you have to do a windigo and you have
to do a bugs to figure out you don't to do a windigo
and you don't want to do a bugs.

ERIC KRIPKE: No, you don't want to do those.

JARED PADALECKI: Yeah. And Jensen and myself have
to, like, try out a facial expression, just to see it
two months later and be like, "Oh, God, why? Why did
I do that?" So I think we're definitely -- and you
can really feel it up north, up in Vancouver, where
we're shooting, that we really -- it feels like a
well-oiled machine now. I remember sometimes, last
season, getting a script or just showing up on the day
and being like, "I feel like I'm starting from the
beginning, like it feels like it's day one of the
pilot all of a sudden." And it's definitely not felt
like that this year. And that goes with everybody
just sort of getting more comfortable. And I don't
understand -- you know, I've heard "sophomore slump,"
"second season is tough" -- because I'm so proud of
what's happened so far the second season. I think
we're pushing the envelope. I love that things are
happening. I love that Kripke and the rest of the
writers aren't answering questions with more questions
so much as they're actually getting something done.
There's nothing that frustrates me more as a fan of
television shows than when it's like, "Ooh, this is
where we're going to find out what.... Oh, now they
are shooting us that way." It just feels like they're
toying with you. So I've been really happy with the
second season. And it would be really a huge shame to
not see what happens in the fourth season, so --

(Laughter.)

ERIC KRIPKE: Right, right. Totally agree. I mean,
if we don't figure out the seven-season plan --

JARED PADALECKI: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JENSEN ACKLES: Locking that down.

JARED PADALECKI: It's going to be too bad.

QUESTION: How did you decide to do the one really
utterly unbelievable thing and fix the car?

ROBERT SINGER: It's "Supernatural."

QUESTION: How many cars have there been?

JENSEN ACKLES: Got to have that car.

ERIC KRIPKE: There's, like, I think -- how many
Impalas are up there?

JENSEN ACKLES: Four.

JARED PADALECKI: Four.

ERIC KRIPKE: There are four. You know, it's like the
Bionic Man. It's better, stronger, faster.

JENSEN ACKLES: Absolutely.

QUESTION: There seems to be a lot of credits that
come from "The X-Files": writers, maybe just some
directors. How much of an influence has that been,
and have you seen a lot of crossover from the fans of
"X-Files" to this show?

ERIC KRIPKE: Bob?

ROBERT SINGER: I don't know about writers, but John
Shiban, who is an executive producer with us, was an
"X-Files" guy. And we have Kim Manners, who directed
more "X-Files" than I've done shows total. But that's
about it for "The X-Files" people.

ERIC KRIPKE: We had Tony Wharmby --

ROBERT SINGER: Right.

ERIC KRIPKE: -- do the vampire episode last year.

ROBERT SINGER: But I don't think we think of that
much. It's something that we reference occasionally,
but I think we almost reference it in a way of "Well,
that was good in 'The X-Files,' but how do we do that
idea differently so it doesn't look like we're doing
'The X-Files'?" We try to really be "Supernatural"
and only "Supernatural."

QUESTION: I'm not saying ripping it off or anything.
I'm just wondering if fans of the show who like that
type of writing realize that --

JENSEN ACKLES: I've definitely come in contact with
people who have been big fans of -- avid fans of "The
X-Files" who are in turn fans of "Supernatural." And
I think they truly like that, you know, duo journey
that was -- you know, like you had with David and
Gillian.

JARED PADALECKI: He's much better looking than
Gillian.

(Laughter.)

ERIC KRIPKE: I would also say I think -- I mean,
speaking of that, speaking in terms of the fans is --
you know, I mean, I think "X-Files" -- people who have
been fan of "The X-Files" tend to really respond to
this show because I think we -- again, we work really
hard to have a literate show. We kill ourselves to
try to give it maturity and sophistication. I would
say season 1, we just worried about it being a horror
movie every week. This year we really worried about
making the characters -- giving them even more depth
and complexity and giving them some intricate,
interesting storylines. And I think "X-Files" fans
have responded to that. Quite frankly, my goal is to
have more of "The X-Files" fans out there who haven't
found the show yet to find it. And we're trying to --
in the slaughterhouse that is, you know, Thursdays at
9:00, I think we're just trying to wave our hands and
say --

JENSEN ACKLES: "Look at me."

ERIC KRIPKE: The people who don't want to watch,
like, doctors bang in an emergency room --

(Laughter.)

-- like the people that are out there who were "X-Files"
fans, "We're here" and "Watch, and we think we'll provide
something that will be really satisfying for you." And
you know, they're out there, and we'd actually -- my own
personal -- I'd love to find more of them and bring them
and kind of bring them to the party because I think
they'd have a good time.

QUESTION: You used the term "mythology" earlier.
That's the kind of word that sort of scares off some
potential viewers because they're afraid they're
coming to the dance too late and they don't know
everything that's going on. How do you find that
balance between making sure you've got the show
accessible, but you're also not cheating the fans who
have been there from the beginning?

ERIC KRIPKE: And I would answer that -- it's funny; I
would answer that by also referencing "X-Files." And
I would say the one thing we do talk about in terms of
"X-Files," although Bob is totally right, not specific
ideas, we talk about their balance of mythology,
especially in the first three to four seasons. I'd
say once they got into season 17 or whatever, towards
the end, once they got into their, like, last season,
9 maybe, they got way too wrapped up in mythology, and
people couldn't come to the party. But the first two,
three years, it was, every four or five episodes, they
would have a mythology episode. But their bread and
butter and our bread and butter are the standalones.
That's why we think people can still come to the
party, even in season 3, because at the end of the
day, the whole concept of the show is two brothers on
the road with chainsaws in their trunk, battling
things that go bump in the night. There, that's the
whole show. And people can watch that and enjoy
stories week in and week out that have beginnings,
middles, and ends. And that's why we feel we can
still -- no matter how far we go, we always feel that
we can bring new people to the tent. So I mean,
that's sort of the plan. We're never going to be
like -- we're just not -- just because it's not the
design. We're not a show like "Alias." We're not a
show like "Lost." We're not a show that is just one
long, you know, storyline or one long melodramatic
mythology. It's sort of -- we touch on it, but more
often than not, it's just -- it's about these two guys
hunting down and killing things. And that's just sort
of fun and red-blooded and a roller coaster ride.

QUESTION: If I could follow up on that, how much of
the show do you think, the success of it so far, is
the relationship between the brothers versus the
supernatural aspects?

ERIC KRIPKE: I would say it is 99 percent the
relationship between these guys and 1 percent whatever
the hell Bob and I cook up.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: Can you guys talk about working together
and how that relationship sort of developed?

JENSEN ACKLES: Us two or --

QUESTION: Yeah.

ROBERT SINGER: They don't care about us.

JENSEN ACKLES: Him [Robert Singer] and I, we go way
back. It was something that kind of just happened
from the beginning, I think, when we met each other.

JARED PADALECKI: Yeah. I think as far as -- I think
it was pretty effortless. I don't think -- it was
probably by design of these guys. We're pretty
similar. We have similar interests and similar
hobbies, and we're both pretty laid-back guys. We
take our work very seriously. We like to work on our
characters and like to have a good time and like to
keep the mood on the set fun. And we just got -- we
just clicked. Like I've definitely worked with my
share of people -- and I'm sure he has too -- that I'm
just like, "Oh, man, I'm going to work again. I've
just got to keep my tongue in my mouth and don't say
anything that's going to come back to bite me or just
shut my mouth and do my work." But we have a great
time. We have a fantastic crew up in Vancouver, and
it's just been pretty organic.

JENSEN ACKLES: I think it's also just the common love
we share for the show. We really look out for each
other when we're working with guest directors or
whatnot. And I think that it's just that we truly
want this to be a great program. So when we're
working, if I see something that he's doing or he sees
something that I'm doing, there's this, you know, very
open relationship. We're able to talk to each other
be like, "Hey, let's do this. Let's lock this down.
Let's get this going. I think we're missing a beat
here." So it's really neat to have that relationship
with your costar.

JARED PADALECKI: Right.

JENSEN ACKLES: It's very rare as well.

QUESTION: Given some of the things that you've done over
the last season and a half, just how twisted is this
writers' room? Or on the cover, how much fun is it?

ERIC KRIPKE: It's both. It's twisted and so much fun.
Just to give you a snapshot of my morning, even this
morning we were looking at these photos that our effects
guys up north sent us of dummies with eviscerated chests,
open rib cages and all the gore inside, and Bob and I are
like, "Do you think that wound is too big? Would the
werewolf tear off their face but take out the heart?"
And then you're playing that, and meanwhile down the hall
are editing suites that three episodes are getting cut at
any one time. There's always endless screams from the
cuts that are coming out. So there's rooms where the
actress or there's screaming coming out here. We are
looking at gory pits. We gotta go into the room to
figure out the best way to kill somebody this week. And
every so often we look at each other and we can't believe
this is our job. We love it.

QUESTION: Does it get tougher to top yourself? You guys
have done some pretty extreme stuff. Second question to
that is have you guys ever gotten a note from the network
that said, "No. Uh-uh"?

ERIC KRIPKE: You talk about the note from the network.

ROBERT SINGER: They've been great, and there were
negotiations, and those are also funny that you wonder,
"This is what I get paid for?" "We'll not do the
spurting blood, but we will expose the heart. Is that
okay?" So that's funny. But, no. They've actually been
great, and we've pretty much done what we've wanted to
do. We have our own governor, and we know that there's
some things we can do and can't do. Also, we, both Eric
and I, and I think we impart this to the directors, that
a lot of times in this genre you're kind of -- it's
better what you don't see than what you do see. And so
there's a lot of off-screen stuff that goes on on our
show, and we kind of leave it to the audience's
imagination. No. We've been great with the network.

ERIC KRIPKE: Yeah. It's been cool.

QUESTION: Bob, following up on the comments on the
difference between producing the show the first season --
first season and this season, and from a production
standpoint, what kinks did you work out that you
experienced last year? Have you been able to give your
two stars here more time off?

ROBERT SINGER: No. You know, we try our best to give
them time off. But really, the stories take us where
they take us. We're cognizant of how much we're working
them. We try to help them out occasionally. But
sometimes the stories just demand that they work really
impossible hours. So we love them, and we appreciate
what they do. I guess we could be better to them, but it
wouldn't make for a better show.

But what is better is that we really were very fortunate
that we got to keep the majority of our crew, and so this
season we just hit the ground running. Everybody sort of
knows what their job is, how to go about it in the most
efficient way. I think that we probably put more on the
screen for the amount of money we spend probably than any
show on television. And I think we're all really proud
the way the show looks and what we do accomplish for
limited resources.

QUESTION: For the two actors, your characters'
priorities have sort of changed -- your concerns have
sort of changed between first and second season where
Sam's main concern now seems to be am I going to turn
into something horrible, and Dean's main concern seems to
be what if Sam turns into something horrible.

(Laughter.)

Can you talk about playing that shift in concern as the
characters evolve?

JARED PADALECKI: I think the staff did a great job of
explaining our inner struggles and our arc over a period
of episodes as opposed to, you know, I'm like -- Jess,
I'm so messed up over Jess, and the next episode I'm
making out with some girls. They have given us some time
to sort of deal with what our prior demons are and
develop our new demons. And obviously with our father
passing away, that was a huge shift, and the death of the
Elder Winchester, so to speak, obviously made a huge
impact on both Sam and Dean. It wasn't immediate what
the effect it had been on them both, and that had a
chance to come out, and I think that's for the best that
they sort of spread it out over a few episodes to really
explain what I was going through and what he was going
through and give us time to ease under it and to commit
to it. I think that it was done gradual really helped
out.

JENSEN ACKLES: We were kind of well-aware it was going
to be a bit of a flip-flop as far as the characters go
for season 2. And I think we were prepared for that, and
it was a nice shift in tone for the show as well,
especially for our characters because we're able to peel
back a few more layers and see what truly drives these
guys.

And I think that when Dean lost his father, that was huge
for him. It was basically like, you know, that was the
captain of his ship, and he all of a sudden is out in the
middle of nowhere, and he's got his brother, and he's
trying to be a big guy, and now his brother's got a
problem. He's very confused, and sometimes he just wants
to get out. He's like, "Let's forget this. Let's get
out of here." So I think that shift in tone for him has
been a nice transition from last season when he was like,
"This is what we do. This is what we're going to do, and
this is how it's going to be. You can either like it or
love it." So it's been really nice to have that shift,
and I'm excited to see where they go forward from here.

QUESTION: For Jensen and Jared, you guys have been in
Vancouver for a while, so you're probably acclimated.
What do you do for your rare downtime? Is there an
equivalent of a Viper club there?

JARED PADALECKI: What downtime?

(Laughter.)

And speaking for myself at least, I'm nowhere near
acclimated. I still think that it's pretty harsh weather
and whatnot. It's interesting. We don't have a lot of
downtime. And that's not a pity party or anything. We
really just work a lot. In our off time, like my dogs
are up there. I love to spend time with my dogs, and my
girlfriend will come up or I'll come down, and work on
the script. Like the scripts are coming day in, day out.
And even between episodes, you go from finishing a huge
episode on Wednesday, and you're like, ahhh, another one
down. I feel good about that. I feel good about our
work, or let's have a Coors Light or something. And then
it's like this new 60-page, you know, script that we
gotta get used to. It's a lot of work, it really is, for
nine months out of the year. There will be weeks when I
wake up on Monday and I go to work, and then Friday comes
by and it's just been one blur of a week, and I'm like I
haven't called Mom. She probably thinks I'm dead or
something. There's not a lot of downtime, but just
relax. There probably are a couple equivalents to the
Viper room, but that would just burn the candle at both
ends. It would not be smart.

JENSEN ACKLES: It's a full, full-time job. And we
actually have to make an effort to go do something, to go
and relax. A few weeks ago, he and I went down to
Seattle to catch the Cowboys game. We're both Cowboys
fans. That was something that we had planned, and it was
great. We had a great time, but that was our Saturday.

ROBERT SINGER: They lost.

(Laughter.)

JENSEN ACKLES: So, you know, those Saturdays are
precious to us, and we try to make the best of them.
But, otherwise, it's lockdown, and we're trying to work
as hard as they can make us work.

QUESTION: Can you ask whether it's advantageous? I'm
from Dallas, so I feel your pain, but I'm also originally
from Wisconsin. And people say playing in Green Bay,
there's nothing to do but focus on football when you're
there. Is it somewhat similar in Vancouver? If you were
filming the series here, would it be an entirely
different experience do you think?

JENSEN ACKLES: We've talked about that. We talked about
what it would be like to film at home where we live here.
And we wondered how much different our off time would be
and stuff. And to be honest, the amount of work that we
do, I think it would be very similar. The only
difference is we would be able to get to sleep in our own
beds.

JARED PADALECKI: Probably six of one, half dozen of the
other.

JENSEN ACKLES: It's a full-time thing, and we crack down
on it every single day.

JARED PADALECKI: I think our downtime would probably be
a little more relaxing. We were filming at 3:30 in the
morning this morning in Vancouver and essentially got out
of the rain and the snow 12 hours ago. So instead of
going home, and it's an hour drive home, and you sleep in
your bed for eight hours and you wake up and head out to
Pasadena, it's like you're going to an airport to spend
two hours through customs and immigration to spend two
and a half hours on a plane to spend an hour in LAX
waiting for your bag because they probably lost it, spend
another hour driving through the Valley side. So I think
the work time would be pretty similar. The downtime --
once again, I'm speaking on something I don't know.

JENSEN ACKLES: We would be available for publicity,
guys.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: What was the transition from The WB to The CW
like for you?

ERIC KRIPKE: Honestly, very frankly, it was an
improvement. Speaking creatively, a lot of the same team
was in place, so I want to be sensitive to them. But
over all, season 2's been much more hands-off for us than
season 1. We found actually -- just purely speaking
about scripts and writing and show direction, we actually
found a lot more freedom and support with The CW, and
they have let us sort of go further in terms of making
the show exactly the way we want to make it. And I think
Bob and I both are extremely grateful for that. And,
again, we feel that quality of the episodes has shown
that we've just been able to take some risks and do some
unusual things and do some things that are edgy or
different, and so it's been great. It's been a real
positive experience.

QUESTION: Eric or Bob, you guys were sort of building up
the daughter at the Roadhouse. Looked like she might be
a sidekick for the brothers, and then she just
disappeared. Can you comment on that? Was that the
direction it was heading?

ERIC KRIPKE: Well, you know, the honest reaction is you
try some things, and we're very interested in expanding
the world of our show. We're very interested in
introducing other hunters and really fleshing out the
universe of this show and will continue to do so. She
was introduced for the purpose of being a love interest
with this guy. And the way TV works is you try some
things and certain things work, and you try some things
and you see them on screen, and they just kind of become
evident.

And she's an absolutely terrific actress and a great
character, and we're really proud of the work she's done.
On-screen, she read more as a friend of these guys, a
supporter of these guys, than a smoldering love interest.
And just like -- you have to adjust as things come on and
things become apparent. You can't try to force a square
peg in a round hole. We saw it. We said, you know, she
really works as a friend of the guys, so then let's
change into that direction. So we did.

ROBERT SINGER: Having said that, she actually comes back
in an episode coming up.

ERIC KRIPKE: Yeah.

ROBERT SINGER: She is quite spectacular in it, and it
really helps him paying her character off. We love her
and brought her back because we do love her. In this
episode coming up, she's really great. It's a great
episode.

QUESTION: Do you have any weird dreams after doing this?
Like when you go home at night? Do you start --

ROBERT SINGER: I dream that I roll over, and instead of
seeing my wife, I see Eric.

ERIC KRIPKE: Which is horrific. Absolutely horrific.

JENSEN ACKLES: Going to be an episode about that.

ROBERT SINGER: No. I don't. When you break these
stories down, and they become so sort of business-like,
kind of that thing of whatever is out there that goes
bump in the night or just kind of story problems for us,
and so I don't think it affects us in that way.

JARED PADALECKI: I think for me, I don't either. But I
love nothing more -- as far as the show, I love nothing
more than hearing somebody say, "Man, it really scared
me. I had to turn away." Our guest actress, Tricia
Helfer, was talking about a few episodes, and she was
like, "Literally, I jumped. Like, my husband threw food
on the floor. I screamed, and it scared me." And it's
so funny to me because we're sitting there staring at a
piece of tape or something and running away, and we see
it all happen, and we know -- I watch the show sometimes
and I'm like, "I remember there was the boom guy like
right between my legs."

So I'm thinking about all sorts of stuff, which is
another reason I try and wait before I watch the shows,
because they're too fresh in my mind if I watch them on
television. But I love hearing about scaring people or
giving them nightmares or that they can't watch it. To
me I'm dealing with it day in or day out. I'm like, "Oh,
yeah. Jensen was grabbing my butt in that picture." I'm
sorry to sell you out.

(Laughter.)

That was a hypothetical.

QUESTION: Jensen and Jared, when does your much
anticipated season hiatus begin, and what plans do you
have? What jobs are you pursuing for your hiatus?

JENSEN ACKLES: April. First week of April I think we
start that. It's a little too soon to start locking down
a project for that hiatus. Probably start looking at
stuff in the next month or two. But much needed sleep, I
think. We've got a trip to -- a publicity trip to Europe
planned, I think, that we're going to do in May. But
other than that, it's catch up with our friends and
family.

JARED PADALECKI: Last year this time of year I was
thinking, man, I'm just going to sleep for three months.
And I ended up --

JENSEN ACKLES: Sleeping for three months

JARED PADALECKI: -- seeing my brother graduate med
school and seeing my buddy get married and my sister's
21st birthday, and I went and traveled the world.

This year I'm actually looking forward to working. Once
again, like Jensen said, it's a little early to start. A
lot of the things that are casting right now are filming
in February or March. So that's out of the picture. So
I think in a couple months I'll start reading scripts and
auditioning, and hopefully...

QUESTION: Who is the distributor of "Ten Inch Hero,"
and what's the release date for that?

JENSEN ACKLES: That's a great question. Have to get
back to you on that. I don't know. They're just now
starting to shop around at the festivals and stuff like
that. But honestly, being up in Vancouver, I've been
completely out of the loop with most of that stuff.

QUESTION: Was that filmed on your last hiatus?

JENSEN ACKLES: Yes. Towards the end of last year,
summer.

PAUL McGUIRE: Okay. We've going to wrap this. The four
guys will be at the party tonight. I especially want to
thank Jared and Jensen. You know, when you have a show
with two stars, they work their butts off, as opposed to
a lot of ensemble casts. So, again, thanks to them for
taking the time to come down and be with us today and
tonight. Thank you. Be right back with Chris Rock and
company in just a couple of minutes.

http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/63310451/m/68410882/p/13

Critic’s Notebook
I'm TiVoiding my work.
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog “The Bastard Machine” January 19, 2007

...Fess up. What crappy ass stuff are you watching on your TiVo or DVR or even VCR, when you should be systematically watching all those back episodes of series you actually like. Or movies. What is the rubbish you're willing to admit to watching.

OK, I'll bite.

Like Tim I have a ton of DVD's (well over 1,000) both home made and from movie/TV studios, many of them still shrink-wrapped. Why? Classic Game shows! Every single day (including weekends) I TiVo (DVR actually but TiVO'ing sounds cooler) four episodes of Match Game, two Super Password, one Password Plus, one Body Language, two Card Sharks, one Newlywed Game, The Price Is Right on CBS and 100 Mexicanos Dijeron (a Spanish-language adaptation of Family Feud for the Latino audience in the States) on Telefutura. Plus Deal or No Deal and 1 Vs. 100 on NBC. Heck, I'd also TiVO Press Your Luck and $100,000 Pyramid but GSN is so damn cheap they keep repeating the same batch of episodes (about a season's worth) over and over and over again. :mad:

And when I watch DVD's many of them are for gameshows not repeated on GSN that collectors have taped and traded with me for my rarities: B&W The Price Is Right shows from the Bill Cullen era (as well as a few Barker era 'TPIR' when fur coats were no big deal), Jim Perry's $ale of the Century, Chuck Woolery-hosted episodes of Wheel of Fortune (yes, he hosted it before Pat Sajak took over in the early 80's) and Scrabble, etc.

I also TiVo The McLaughlin Group (doesn't get better than when Tony Blankley and Eleanor Cliff try to out-shout each other's sentences) and usually leave my two tuners on MSNBC and Fox News so after finishing a gameshow or two on the hard drive I can rewind both channels to see the fireworks. Great way to watch O'Reilly Factor and Countdown and flip back and forth between the two when either Bill or Keith say something that makes you want to throw the TV out the room.

Why do we kill time with rubbish?

My DVR only has a 35 hr. recording limit. When factoring the other shows I TiVo (all three Law & Order Shows, Studio 60, Heroes, Conan O'Brien & Jimmy Kimmel every night, Battlestar Galactica, HBO Boxing, etc.) I basically have to watch what I record ASAP or risk the DVR running out of memory, resetting and erasing a bunch of shows I've recorded and kept for posterity. A two-hour movie on DVD is a luxury I can seldom afford to watch because in those two hours I could watch six half-hour gameshows (or three hour-long one's) by fast-forwarding through the commercials.

But the real reason most of my viewing time is consumed by gameshows is because I'm a student and lover of television broadcasting, not the narrowcasting and demographic-targeted segmentation of viewership we get from today's TV networks, programmers and show makers. Gameshows are the purest and longest-running form of broadcast entertainment still running strong today (variety shows are older but they pretty much died with Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman) and I'm a fan of established formats with a strong personality (Tom Kennedy, Allan Ludden, Bob Barker, etc.) in control of the format and rules. Since I work for a TV production company that does mostly direct response commercials it's very hard for a fictitious TV show to make me forget about how TV is put together (both creatively and behind-the-scenes) so I tend to gravitate toward non-fiction programming. I'm also a political junkie so try as I might the politically-slanted pundit shows on cable and Sunday mornings are like kryptonite.

Also remember that I'm a foreigner that didn't come to the States until 1989 (and didn't speak much English to boot) so all these old shows are basically new to me. Since my love for broadcasting came from my homeland of El Salvador (which went through a growth phase in the late 1970's to mid-1980's that mirrored American TV: stations used to come on at 12PM after half-an-hour of test patterns, lots of classic B&W shows like The Rifleman, My Favorite Martian and The Lucy Show to fill dead time slots, primitive voice-over -and biased in favor of the ruling government- newscast that gradually got on-camera anchors and spiffy graphics, etc.) coming to American and being able to watch good TV from way before I was even around felt (and still does) like a privilege I can't afford not to take advantage of. Paraphrasing conservative pundits when somebody criticizes the U.S. Constitution as outdated or out of touch with contemporary society, just because a bunch of dead white guys did network TV in black & white with primitive equipment doesn't mean it was (or is) bad TV. I'll take the scratched-and-dirty B&W kinescopes of What's My Line? (the 1950-68 version hosted by John Daly, not the dated color syndicted versions with Wally Brunner and Larry Blyden) over the High-Definition current incarnations of Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy any day (and twice on weekends).

Phew, that felt good! Off the soap box now. :p

Re: The Supernatural interview, I haven't seen last night's ep, but other than a few mentions about guest stars, there is really nothing spoiler-like in the posting. Good interview BTW.

I am so glad to hear that, Jim.

I hate to inadvertantly post items which ruin anyone's enjoyment of a show.

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
McG “Aspires” Women
By James Hibberd Television Week in the “Critical Eye” blog Friday, January 19th, 2007

Upcoming CW competition reality series “The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search For the Next Doll” has turned into an unexpected TCA highlight when critics and “Charlie’s Angels” director / “Pussycat” executive producer McG get into a fight over whether the burlesque group are empowering women to bring about the “third wave” of feminism, or merely “skanks” corrupting the underage daughters of TCA critics.

Things got started by McG baiting the crowd by insisting the Dolls are about more than simply pop songs and thigh highs.

“It’s something that’s aspirational and fun for a woman to be involved in,” says McG (who later describes “America’s Next Top Model” as “awesome and aspirational”).

The show’s judge and executive producer Robin Antin adds, “There’s so many different types of ‘Pussycat Dolls’ in the world, and that’s what is so inspiring to women. The message is just finding your ‘inner Doll.’”

So a critic asks: “Why should young girls aspire to dress up like skanks?”

“First of all,” Antin says, “there’s nothing slutty about it. There’s nothing skanky about it. Their clothing is cute.”

The critic counters: “You’ve been using words like ‘empowering’ and sounding like these girls are running for president.”

“There’s a reason why people like Scarlett Johansson, Gwen Stefani, Cameron Diaz and Charlize Theron have all been so interested in what ‘Pussycat Dolls’ is about,” says Antin, entirely missing, if not proving, the critic’s point. “Those are women that I am really inspired by and are classy. These are women that have wanted to be a part of it because they feel that it is empowering to get up there and dress like a Doll.”

McG, getting irate, wades into the battle.

“Not everything is going to solve the crisis in the Middle East,” he says, almost certainly not for the first time in his career. “Sometimes you want to have some fun … and women celebrating one another being beautiful, and, frankly, being appreciated by me, has been around for a long time. Under no circumstances is it shameful. And there’s even a position to take that this is, frankly, third-wave feminism. You know what I mean?”

The critics don’t know what he means.

One middle-aged critic asks how lyrics like, “Don’t you wish you were a freak like me?” celebrates women.

“You must understand the fundamental paradox of a gentleman of your age demo asking that very question,” McG says. “I don’t know if you two-way your friends on your Sidekick … It’s just saying, ‘Don’t you wish your girlfriend could be free and comfortable in her own skin and do her own thing like me?’ That’s what we’re saying.”

According to the official CW transcript, what follows next is “[Booing].”

The Last CW Word: Chris Rock

Chris Rock, here to support his ratings-challenged sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris,” is a blast.

“My TiVo won’t even watch my show,” he says. “First we’re on UPN, now The CW. What’s next, BET?”

A critic asks if would hire Michael Richards.

“I dunno …” Rocks says, seeming to give the matter some real thought. “Probably. But I have to make sure all the non-‘nigger’-screaming people didn’t need the job first.”

Tomorrow is Fox, which has an “Idol” panel, plus a lot of critics eager to ask about O.J. Should make for a fine TCA finish.

http://blogs.tvweek.com/?cat=12

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The Fox Session

Its scheduled for tomorrow, and coming off the smash ratings for “American Idol” and the solid “24” numbers, one would think the Fox folks will be in a very, VERY good mood.


I doubt that good mood extends to Thursday nights. With them getting beat by the CW this week, I wonder how long it is until they start pulling out the "When the Worlds Most Dangerous Animals Attack During High Speed Chases" fare.

Good point, George.

But the "AI" ratings, unless they slump, pretty much assure Fox of the 18-49 demo win for the season.

So they will be a happy group of folks.

dad -- I hope you emailed your TiVo list to Tim Goodman!

Can't. SF Chronicle system won't let me register! :(

TV Review
'Ocean’s Deadliest'
A Final Adventure for the Consummate Animal Hunter
By Ginia Bellafante The New York Times January 20, 2007

Probably no creature in the history of the animal kingdom ever needed the image-enhancing public relations services of, say, a Hill & Knowlton, as much as the stingray that attacked and killed Steve Irwin off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in September. Of all the naturalists to choose to make a victim! Mr. Irwin, of course, had gained celebrity engaging with unwieldy and lethal reptiles as if they were, on a scale of fearsomeness, roughly equivalent to a table of society matrons at tea.

For the 10 years before he died, he was the host of “The Crocodile Hunter” on Animal Planet and various other television specials. When Mr. Irwin was killed, the world mourned him — children, conservationists, Russell Crowe — in an outpouring that gave him the posthumous stature of a great revolutionary or a member of the House of Windsor.

Mr. Irwin’s appeal — his goofy, uncontained alacrity, the aperçus delivered in commoner’s twang — is nowhere obscured on “Ocean’s Deadliest,” to be shown tomorrow evening on Animal Planet (8 PM ET/PT), his last television project, and one for which he was gathering film in Queensland when he lost his life.

What could have wound up an entirely macabre enterprise amounts to another chapter of extravagant tribute instead. The special has as its host Philippe Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, whose narration reminds the viewer over and over how “honored” he is to be watching Mr. Irwin at work.

“I’ve been around marine scientists my entire life,” Mr. Cousteau says, presumably endangering any inheritance yet to come to him, “but I’ve never seen such rapport between a human and a creature of the sea.”

Mr. Cousteau follows Mr. Irwin about as he takes his dive boat, the Croc I, to go searching for great white sharks, stonefish (apparently responsible for more than 50,000 injuries to humans annually), saltwater crocodile (able to hold hostage animals the size of wild boars) and other pernicious inhabitants of the sea. Nowhere is Mr. Irwin shown imperiled beyond the point of his usual routine.

The mission is noble in purpose too, as Mr. Cousteau informs, because along the way Mr. Irwin is joined by scientists who will collect venom from the sea snakes he and his team catch and will use it to make “antivenom.” The hazards involved in all this are apparently considerable.

“This is very dangerous business,” Mr. Cousteau says gravely, “but so vital it’s worth the risk.” (Though not a scourge of the Northeastern beach holiday, sea-snake bites are often fatal and plague much of the world.)

Mr. Irwin was not one to intone or take such matters so seriously himself. Here he is, in fact, on the subject of the sea snake: “We are so lucky, we are so honored to have the king of all sea snakes cruising around right next to our boat so as we can get a good look at him,” he says from the Croc I in his trademark safari shorts.

“Sea snakes are a beautiful animal,” he goes on, lingering over the adjective as if he were using it in regard to a pretty 20-year-old. “Lots of people think they’re evil, ugly serpents living down in the water wanting to kill people. That’s not true at all.”

Mr. Irwin remained, above all, a populist, a promoter of animals that were as graceless and inelegant in appearance as they were terrifying in their intentions. He liked the mess and disorder of the natural world, making the business of the adventurer, still stuck in connotations of a benighted aristocracy, seem a workingman’s game. There was nothing hush or highborn in his observations. The standard nature documentary, reliant as it often was on a disembodied voice offered at the volume of someone speaking in a reading room at Oxford, seemed even fustier and more exclusionary through Mr. Irwin’s reimagining.

If the old-school style, a staple of the era that preceded cheap travel, reminded viewers that the world beyond their middle class living rooms was vast but largely inaccessible to them, Mr. Irwin understood that the new age demanded a more intimate and inherently less condescending posture. The world of the box jellyfish is a pretty frightening one, but in many cases, it’s just a plane ride away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/arts/television/20ocea.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=television&pagewanted=print

The Business of TV
Sinclair, Time Warner Settle
By Linda Moss Multi Channel News (Ted Hearn and Tom Steinert-Threlkeld contributed to this story)

Sinclair Broadcast Group and Time Warner Cable reached a "mutually acceptable three-year agreement" late Friday, after the broadcaster granted the MSO two retransmission-consent extensions.

At press time Friday afternoon, Time Warner’s most recent extension to continue carrying Sinclair TV stations in former Adelphia Communications markets had been set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

Without another extension or a new retransmission-consent pact, Time Warner would have had to stop carrying Sinclair stations in markets -- mainly in New York, Ohio and Maine -- with roughly 1 million subscribers.

Meanwhile, the retransmission-consent battle between Mediacom Communications and Sinclair heated up this past week as the cable company tried to rally political and regulatory support in its fight.

And next week, the dispute is expected to land in front of an Iowa General Assembly committee. The Iowa General Assembly’s Joint Government Oversight Committee rescheduled a meeting on the Sinclair-Mediacom retransmission-consent battle, postponed from this past week, for Tuesday.

Mediacom chairman Rocco Commisso and Ed Pardini, senior vice president of Mediacom’s north-central region, are set to appear at that session in Des Moines. Sinclair officials -- possibly CEO Dave Smith and general counsel Barry Faber -- were also expected to appear.

Mediacom -- which has called for Congress to investigate and hold hearings on its fight with Sinclair -- and the broadcaster continued to swap accusations this past week as their standoff dragged on. Mediacom lost carriage of 22 Sinclair stations Jan. 6, impacting 700,000 of its subscribers, when it couldn’t come to financial terms on a new retransmission-consent pact with the broadcaster.

Commisso questioned why Sinclair has allowed its TV stations to go dark on his systems but granted several retransmission-consent extensions to Time Warner.

“[Sinclair officials] need to tell people in Iowa and my other 22 states why they gave Time Warner three extensions, if it gets extended, and only one to Mediacom customers," Commisso said Friday.

“They need to explain to someone why, even though they have the same issues with Time Warner as they have with us, why they have undertaken a three-month frontal attack with potentially illegal bounty payments with our largest competitor, DirecTV,” he added.

Commisso was referring to the rebate, from $100-$150, Mediacom subscribers will get if they switch to DirecTV.

Sinclair officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin said Wednesday that he supports binding arbitration to end the bitter carriage dispute.

“I continue to believe that this would be good for both parties to be submitting to,” Martin told reporters after the agency’s first public meeting of the year. Consumers, he added, shouldn’t lose access to programming while a dispute is in arbitration.

Mediacom’s position is that the FCC can impose mandatory binding arbitration to resolve the cable operator’s ongoing fight with Sinclair, although the FCC’s Media Bureau has said it doesn’t have the authority to do so.

In fact, the day after Martin’s remarks, Mediacom filed an emergency petition with the FCC. Mediacom asked the regulatory body’s to reconsider its Media Bureau’s refusal to order Sinclair to restore its TV stations, pending final resolution of the cable operator’s FCC complaint against the broadcaster, including appeals.

In its filing last week, Mediacom argued that the FCC has the authority to make Sinclair and Mediacom submit to binding arbitration in situations where an impasse in retransmission-consent negotiations results in interruption of cable carriage of a broadcast signal.

“We’re in agreement that binding arbitration is the way to go,” said Thomas Larsen, Mediacom’s VP of legal affairs. “It’s just that we don’t agree on whether it’s mandatory or not … Our position is that [Martin] has the authority to order it.”

The number of accusations flying between Mediacom and Sinclair ratcheted up last week after Commisso sent a letter Jan. 13 to members of Congress to complain that Sinclair singled out his company for discriminatory treatment. Commisso called for a probe of retransmission-consent abuses.

Smith shot back with his own letter to lawmakers, charging that Commisso’s claims were baseless and that legislators shouldn’t intervene in a commercial negotiation.

To date, Mediacom has handed out “thousands” of antennas to its subscribers since Sinclair pulled its signals, but the cable company won’t specify exactly how many. Mediacom also declined to say how many of its customers have defected to other distributors, such as direct-broadcast satellite service, since the Sinclair stations went black.

In terms of replacement programming for Sinclair stations, in some systems, Mediacom has been letting subscribers preview and sample different digital-cable networks. And in Iowa, Mediacom has produced some local programming, with local sports, that it’s airing in place of Sinclair stations.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6408756.html?display=Breaking+News

The Business of TV
Extra Innings Exclusively on DirecTV
By Richard Sandomir The New York Times January 20, 2007

Major League Baseball is close to announcing a deal that will place its Extra Innings package of out-of-market games exclusively on DirecTV, which will also become the only carrier of a long-planned 24-hour baseball channel.

Extra Innings has been available to 75 million cable households and the two satellite services, DirecTV and the Dish Network. But the new agreement will take it off cable and Dish because DirecTV has agreed to pay $700 million over seven years, according to three executives briefed on the details of the contract but not authorized to speak about them publicly.

InDemand, which has distributed Extra Innings to the cable television industry since 2002, made an estimated $70 million bid to renew its rights, more than triple what it has been paying. Part of its offer included the right to carry the new baseball channel, but not exclusively.

The baseball channel is scheduled to start in 2009.

M.L.B., DirecTV and InDemand officials declined to comment.

DirecTV is also the exclusive outlet for the N.F.L.’s Sunday Ticket package, for which it pays $700 million annually. Sunday Ticket has about 2 million subscribers; Extra Innings about 750,000, according to The Sports Business Journal.

Extra Innings lets subscribers, for a fee, watch about 60 games a week from other local markets except their own.

The only other way that fans without DirecTV will be able to see Extra Innings will be on MLB.com’s mlb.tv service, but they must have high-speed broadband service. About 28 million homes have high-speed service, less than half the number of cable homes in the country. The picture quality of streamed games is not as good as what is available on cable or satellite.

DirecTV is available to about 15 million subscribers.

Last month, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who was then the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cited DirecTV’s exclusivity with Sunday Ticket as a reason to strip the N.F.L. of an antitrust exemption to negotiate all TV contracts for its teams. Comcast, which has complained that it cannot carry Sunday Ticket, is a Philadelphia-based company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/sports/baseball/20base.html?pagewanted=print

TV Review [/C Steve Irwin's Last Adventure ' [/FONT][/SIZE]
Ocean Documentary With the 'Crocodile Hunter' Is Paired With a Tribute
By Kathy Blumenstock Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 21, 2007

In his final documentary, Steve Irwin displays the exuberant passion that was as familiar as his trademark khakis. Cradling a six-foot sea snake and exclaiming over a massive crocodile called Kennedy, Irwin bubbles with enthusiasm for his critters and their conservation.

"He turned up the energy a little bit on camera, but he really was so excited about all these things," said Philippe Cousteau, who was working with Irwin on the program when a stingray barb fatally pierced Irwin's heart on Sept. 4.

"Ocean's Deadliest," a 90-minute documentary featuring some of the most dangerous residents off Australia's coast, will be simulcast on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel (Sunday 8 PM ET/PT) and will be followed by "Crikey! What an Adventure," a half-hour program honoring Irwin.

The tribute will include previously unaired footage but "will be something a little more personal than just the clips from shows," said Maureen Smith, general manager of Animal Planet. "People will get more of a sense of Steve, the family man."

Irwin's widow, Terri; his longtime friend and manager, John Stainton; and other family members and friends contributed their personal remembrances to "Crikey!"

Cousteau was among those who tried to resuscitate Irwin after he was struck by the stingray. "One knows that this kind of thing can happen, because you're out in the wild, working with animals in unpredictable circumstances. But it was a shock for us all," Cousteau said.

After Irwin's death, tens of thousands of people left mementos and flowers at the Australia Zoo, where Irwin's "Crocoseum" served as the site of a Sept. 20 memorial service.

Known as the "Crocodile Hunter," Irwin spent a decade with Animal Planet, essentially putting the network on the map, Smith said.

"He redefined what animal programming could be," she said. "Prior to Steve, people's experience with animal programming was sort of the scientific nature documentary with an unseen narrator. And here you had this guy who not only immersed himself with the animals, but had this personality that reached through the TV screen and grabbed you and brought you along."

Irwin also educated viewers about "the beauty in creatures people would say are ugly or scary," Smith said. "He'd show the most amazing things about spiders and snakes and sharks. That's why 'Ocean's Deadliest' is so special."

In one segment, Irwin and his team extract venom from sea snakes to provide antidotes to lethal bites. In another, he demonstrates how a stonefish, a dark, craggy creature resembling a rock, can inject venom from its dorsal spines into a human foot. The final segment shows how whale hunting and pollution destroy sea life, and offers stark visual reminders that fishermen's nets can snare turtles, dolphins and sea birds as well as fish.

Cousteau, whose legendary grandfather Jacques made the family name synonymous with ocean exploration, cited Irwin's respect for animals and his reluctance to interfere with their routines.

"His camera crew was always spot-on because he refused to do more than one take" in those situations, Cousteau said.

"Ocean's Deadliest" does not refer to Irwin's death until its closing shot: a still photo of Irwin, smiling broadly, and the words "In Memory of Steve Irwin."

"Doing the last few minutes of narration was pretty tough," said Cousteau, who serves as the on-camera guide and voice of the project. "It got a little emotional at the end. I kept thinking of all the things Steve and I talked about -- how humankind is the deadliest predator in the ocean. The strong conservation message comes through, and that's a great tribute to him."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/16/AR2007011601728_pf.html

TV Notebook
TNT Keeping Sedgwick,
CNN Keeping Cooper;
Multi Channel News January 20, 2007

Turner Broadcasting System rewarded two of its top-level talent with contract extensions.

Kyra Sedgwick, who earned a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a drama for her starring turn in The Closer, added another year to her six-year pact with TNT for the series.

Sedgwick, according to sources at the drama network, has a producer’s title to her role as Brenda Johnson, a transplanted Atlantan and former CIA-trained interrogator now serving as deputy chief of the LAPD’s Priority Homicide Squad.

The second season of The Closer was the top-ranked original series in basic cable in 2006.

TNT executives declined to comment on Sedgwick’s contract extension.

Meanwhile, Anderson Cooper inked a new multiyear deal with CNN, netting the newsman a significant raise and allowing him to continue to deliver segments for CBS’ venerable 60 Minutes, according to sources at the No. 2 cable news network.

"Anderson Cooper is an exceptional journalist, and his dedication in going after important stories wherever they occur makes him a natural fit for CNN,” CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to more of his groundbreaking work in the years to come."

MCN sister publication Broadcasting & Cable first reported news of Cooper's contract on Friday.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6408766.html?display=Breaking+News

TV Review
Steve Irwin's Last Adventure '
Ocean Documentary With the 'Crocodile Hunter' Is Paired With a Tribute
By Kathy Blumenstock Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 21, 2007

In his final documentary, Steve Irwin displays the exuberant passion that was as familiar as his trademark khakis. Cradling a six-foot sea snake and exclaiming over a massive crocodile called Kennedy, Irwin bubbles with enthusiasm for his critters and their conservation.

"He turned up the energy a little bit on camera, but he really was so excited about all these things," said Philippe Cousteau, who was working with Irwin on the program when a stingray barb fatally pierced Irwin's heart on Sept. 4.

"Ocean's Deadliest," a 90-minute documentary featuring some of the most dangerous residents off Australia's coast, will be simulcast on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel (Sunday 8 PM ET/PT) and will be followed by "Crikey! What an Adventure," a half-hour program honoring Irwin.

The tribute will include previously unaired footage but "will be something a little more personal than just the clips from shows," said Maureen Smith, general manager of Animal Planet. "People will get more of a sense of Steve, the family man."

Irwin's widow, Terri; his longtime friend and manager, John Stainton; and other family members and friends contributed their personal remembrances to "Crikey!"

Cousteau was among those who tried to resuscitate Irwin after he was struck by the stingray. "One knows that this kind of thing can happen, because you're out in the wild, working with animals in unpredictable circumstances. But it was a shock for us all," Cousteau said.

After Irwin's death, tens of thousands of people left mementos and flowers at the Australia Zoo, where Irwin's "Crocoseum" served as the site of a Sept. 20 memorial service.

Known as the "Crocodile Hunter," Irwin spent a decade with Animal Planet, essentially putting the network on the map, Smith said.

"He redefined what animal programming could be," she said. "Prior to Steve, people's experience with animal programming was sort of the scientific nature documentary with an unseen narrator. And here you had this guy who not only immersed himself with the animals, but had this personality that reached through the TV screen and grabbed you and brought you along."

Irwin also educated viewers about "the beauty in creatures people would say are ugly or scary," Smith said. "He'd show the most amazing things about spiders and snakes and sharks. That's why 'Ocean's Deadliest' is so special."

In one segment, Irwin and his team extract venom from sea snakes to provide antidotes to lethal bites. In another, he demonstrates how a stonefish, a dark, craggy creature resembling a rock, can inject venom from its dorsal spines into a human foot. The final segment shows how whale hunting and pollution destroy sea life, and offers stark visual reminders that fishermen's nets can snare turtles, dolphins and sea birds as well as fish.

Cousteau, whose legendary grandfather Jacques made the family name synonymous with ocean exploration, cited Irwin's respect for animals and his reluctance to interfere with their routines.

"His camera crew was always spot-on because he refused to do more than one take" in those situations, Cousteau said.

"Ocean's Deadliest" does not refer to Irwin's death until its closing shot: a still photo of Irwin, smiling broadly, and the words "In Memory of Steve Irwin."

"Doing the last few minutes of narration was pretty tough," said Cousteau, who serves as the on-camera guide and voice of the project. "It got a little emotional at the end. I kept thinking of all the things Steve and I talked about -- how humankind is the deadliest predator in the ocean. The strong conservation message comes through, and that's a great tribute to him."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/16/AR2007011601728_pf.html

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The CW party:
More Supernatural, more Jensen
By Robert Philpot Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater blog January 20, 2007

... and Jared, too, in a separate post. Ask and ye shall receive.

Took awhile to get to Supernatural's Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki after the entered the CW party (although they were easier to get to than Beauty and the Geek producer Ashton Kutcher _ couldn't get close to him, even after Jensen chatted with him). But patience won out, and after the reaction they've gotten here, I had to kick off by asking them about their fans.

"The cool thing about sci-fi fans and people in [this genre] is they're very dedicated, they're very avid, they're super-loyal," Ackles said. "I think that television right now strives for that type of programming, and I think that audiences are lookinng for [it]. Last year, a lot of networks tried to deal with something 'of' the supernatural. Not a lot of things clicked. I feel very lucky to be part of something that actually did a little bit, and I'm very happy to see that those audience members have latched on to it, and I hope that they tell their friends who also like that stuff and can help us out a little bit, 'cause I gotta tell ya, Thursday nights _ it's deadly."

On his workload: "Just to know that [Jared] and I are the two series leads of a television [show], and we work so hard and so diligently and we make such a conscious effort to be in day in and day out _ and then to hear that so-and-so was vacationing, during the season, in Tahiti, or so-and-so was in Hawaii hanging out on the beach on their day off. I get excited by not being in the last scene of the day, much less having two or three days off."

On what's coming up: "I can't give you too much, just because I don't know, and they keep a lot from us. I can tell you ... we just finished filming a very, very comedic episode, which I'm in love with just because I love comedy, and I think it's going to be a nice refresher for the series. There's also a lot of progression as far as the mythology goes. At the same time, we're not going to lose sight of what we do day in and day out, and that's scare the hell out of ya."

On the humor that's already on the show: "I think it's a delicate balance between the melodramatic, the heavy dramatic, and the comedic. And I think that's one thing our show touches on very evenly. ... I personally [was] super-attracted from the beginning to the role of Dean, because he harnesses a little bit of that comedic personality."

On what scares him: "The things that we deal with on set, they don't necessarily freak me out at all. I don't know if that's just being a part of it, and having it be tangible, and putting my hand into a bucket of worms and dealing with that, or getting blood shoved down my nose and into my sinuses and things like that. That's just a part of the job."

The CW party:
Justin Hartley, a k a The Green Arrow

There's this series that's about what it means to be a hero, about trying to figure out your destiny, about the effects that can have on your family, about people banding together to fight evil. And it was around for five seasons before Heroes came along.

Still, the Smallville people at the CW's TCA party (and there weren't many, because most of them are filming in Vancouver) don't have any sense of Heroes envy or resent the attention its getting. In fact, Smallville, which manages to find new layers every season, is doing just fine, thanks. But I pitched the Heroes question to Justin Hartley, who's made a splash as Oliver "Green Arrow" Queen this season.

"I think they're two different shows," Hartley says. "I love Heroes. ... they address totally different demographics, they address different things. ... I'm in the thick of this, so I think we're getting a lot of attention."

[b]On the hardest part of the role: "I think the superhero aspect, just because you have on all this gear, and a lot of the dialogue doesn't roll off your tongue like the other stuff does. It's kind of stiff and superheroish."

On being on Thursday, the toughest night in television*: "I think it's an honor to be on that night. I don't know much about how to build a network, but I would imagine you either have two different ways to go about it: You give up Thursday, or you try to compete. Everybody seems to want to compete, so if [the network] puts you on a Thursday, they must have some faith in you."

*Before American Idol came back, anyway.

http://blogs.dfw.com/yelling_fire/

TV Notebook
Violence: The New Indecency?
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 1/22/2007 (Additional reporting by Ben Grossman and Anne Becker)

A viewer surfing primetime broadcast TV last fall could find a woman’s decapitated body hanging from a ceiling fan and a man with railroad spikes driven through his eye sockets on CSI: NY (CBS); or the body of a woman pinioned to her staircase with kitchen knives, next to a decapitated man on Heroes (NBC); or a deranged killer holding a knife to the neck of a kid at a birthday party, urging him to shoot his own mother with an AK 47 on Criminal Minds (CBS).

And if the neck-biting, back-stabbing, bus-bombing opening of Fox’s popular 24 this month is any indication, it’s bloody business as usual in 2007.

In recent years, as lawmakers have focused on flashes of skin and profanity, TV violence has become not only more pervasive but more graphic—even cartoonish in its gore. These days, a person isn’t simply shot; the camera gives a close-up of the bullet as it rips through skin and bone, then lingers on the autopsy. While the TV industry perennially tests regulators’ elusive definitions of indecency, critics and creators alike say the forces are now aligning for a crackdown on TV carnage.

The FCC is readying a report, two years in the making, prompted by, among others, the current chairmen of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and the Telecommunications subcommittee. Among the issues the report addresses are the negative effects on kids of cumulative viewing, the limits on the FCC’s power to regulate violence, and the definition of “harmful” TV violence.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin may be looking to distribute the report before a Feb. 1 FCC oversight hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee. The House will probably hold a similar hearing soon after. While there are constitutional hurdles to regulating violence, they’re not insurmountable if Congress wants to give the FCC the authority.

“COARSEST AND MOST VIOLENT PROGRAMMING”

Martin inherited the violence report and currently has his hands full with defending the FCC’s indecency policy. But he reiterated his concern over violent programming in a speech to advertisers just last week: “I have said that, with hundreds of channels to choose from, consumers today have access to some of the best programming ever produced. But television today also contains some of the coarsest and most violent programming ever aired.”

He quoted a survey that found that 58% of people believe there is too much cursing and sexual language on TV, 50% believe there is too much explicit sexual content and 66% of people believe there is too much violence on television.

Indeed, media critics seem emboldened by the shift in Congressional power to Democrats, who, according to an old Washington maxim, are as eager to crack down on TV violence as Republicans are to rein in TV sex. Tim Winter, the new head of the Parents Television Council (PTC), which recently released a report calling the 2005 TV season “one of the most violent in recent history,” plans to make TV violence his priority.

And although Hollywood discounts the conservative agenda of the PTC, the activist group has proved itself a force to be reckoned with on the indecency issue. It helped generate hundreds of thousands of e-mail complaints that propelled the FCC’s March release of a host of rulings on indecency and profanity, the latter challenged by broadcasters in federal court.

Some Congressional leaders aren’t waiting for the FCC report—or any court—to act. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a frequent media-violence critic, plans to take action. “Obviously, the preference would be to have the industry police itself when it comes to excessive violence,” he says. “However, if they can’t or won’t do it, then Congress must step in and address this growing societal problem.

“One of the most basic steps we can take is to give the FCC authority to regulate violence,” he adds, “and if necessary, the courts will then work out the constitutional issues on a case-by-case basis. Just sitting on our hands and doing nothing to protect children is not an option.” Rockefeller will re-introduce a bill giving the FCC the authority to regulate violence as it does indecency, according to a source with knowledge of the bill.

Many producers and creators defend most violent scenes as hardly gratuitous, critical to storylines and necessary for competing with critically acclaimed fare, such as The Sopranos and 24.

“We are very sensitive to our obligations regarding indecency and really have endeavored to make sure that what we have on-air is not indecent. We think we have been successful,” says Nancy Tellem, president of the CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group. “I am concerned about what chilling effect the increase in penalties is going to have. When you look at our 9/11 special, which was to me a wonderful special and very tasteful, 10% of our affiliates opted not to air it simply out of fear of the FCC. That to me is of great concern, especially as [the FCC] is shifting from just language and sex and casting a wider net.”

Media violence is an issue that surfaces periodically in Washington, from the hearings of Sen. Estes Kefauver (a Democrat) in the 1950s to efforts by Janet Reno (Democratic appointee) and Sen. Paul Simon (Democrat) in the early 1990s that led, ultimately, to the adoption of the V-chip.

But recently, as the media universe has become more splintered, many shows look to violent acts to heighten attention during powerful shifts in drama. Close-ups of violence—and increasingly, its repercussions—are staples of successful gritty police procedurals, such as the CSI series.

PTC’s report, titled “Dying To Entertain,” found that TV violence had increased 75% since a similar 1998 study “despite the overwhelming evidence pointing to a direct and causal relationship between violent entertainment products and aggression in children.” Increasingly, the report said, violent scenes included a sexual element. The group called on the industry to rein in the “alarmingly more frequent and more disturbing” content.

While the report looked only at broadcast primetime programming, Winter says he is also concerned about the syndication of violent shows like Law & Order or CSI in the afternoons and of the move to basic cable of the reruns of the ultra-violent Sopranos, which debuted on A&E recently to strong ratings. Unlike broadcast shows, cable programming is not currently subject to content regulation.

Winter, a former TV executive with MGM and NBC who took over the PTC reins from Brent Bozell Jan. 1, says that, without taking anything away from PTC’s indecency effort, “violence is far and away my number-one personal concern.”

V-CHIP: A FAILURE?

The V-chip was supposed to fix all this. Designed to be a widespread tool for parents to block unwanted programming, it is not useful as a safeguard for parents, according to the FCC.

In defending its profanity decisions before a federal appeals court, the agency’s legal counsel argued that the V-chip isn’t effective because most people don’t know it’s available or how to use it and that, even if they did know how, the networks don’t consistently use the content descriptors that would help parents filter out programming.

Jim Dyke, executive director of TV Watch, the network-backed lobby for the V-chip/ratings system, says that every show is rated but “whether a V or a FV or some other descriptor should be added to the rating is a subjective decision, just like what parents think is appropriate for kids to see is subjective.”

Taking issue with the FCC characterization that the chip is ineffective, House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a driving force behind its adoption, says it has “already become a very useful tool in millions of American households.” He cites a 2004 Kaiser Family Foundation study that concluded that 42% of parents with a V-chip–equipped set had used the chip.

Markey and House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) were among those who tasked the FCC with producing the violence report, now being vetted by the commissioners. A number of members of the House Commerce Committee tried to make violence part of the indecency bill crafted in the wake of Janet Jackson’s infamously exposed breast. The bill was eventually pared down to only boost indecency fines.

In 2005, Rockefeller teamed with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) to give the FCC explicit authority to regulate violence. That bill, which would also have extended that authority to cable and satellite, went nowhere, but the violence-definition part could get new life, particularly with Rockefeller now a prominent member of the Senate Communications Committee majority.

TOUGH SELL TO THE COURTS

Communications attorney and former FCC General Counsel Jack Goodman says that adding violence to the definition of indecency would be a tough sell to the courts. Moreover, the legal definition of indecency is rooted in excretory or sexual functions, and historically, the FCC does not have authority to regulate violence as it has indecency.

Thus far, FCC chief Martin has made no secret of his agenda. According to the commission’s online Fact Sheet, “American television is the most violent in the world,” with the average American child “witnessing 12,000 violent acts on television each year” and violence up on the broadcast networks.

The FCC has “seen a dramatic increase in the number of indecency complaints,” Martin says. “And several years ago, Congress requested the FCC study 'Violent Television and Its Impact on Children.’ Our report finds that there is a deep concern among parents and health professionals regarding harm from viewing violence in the media.” He has pushed for industry solutions: notably a family hour, effective ratings, local stations’ ability to preempt programming, and, on the cable side, family tiers and à la carte.

Broadcast networks and show creators say they’ve self-regulated, even as cable shows have grown racier. “I feel like we self-regulated it once we started to see that [Heroes] is a show that people are watching with their families and skewing much broader with the age range than I thought it would,” says the show’s creator, Tim Kring. “I am sort of torn personally as a parent and as a producer trying to reach a broad audience. I am offended,” he adds, “by the FCC trying to get more involved in my business.”

Says Dick Wolf, creator of the Law & Order franchise, “There is no violence on network TV that is objectionable, and there hasn’t been for years.”

Some in the production community aren’t so sure. “We agree that there is a problem,” says Jonathan Rintels, executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, whose membership includes NYPD Blue’s Steven Bochco and America’s Funniest Home Videos’ Vin Di Bona.

Rintels says the violence has gotten “a little more graphic, a little more bloody.” But he adds that the industry is just catching up with other media, like films and videogames, and that all are chasing a generation raised on that diet.

“We think the solution is technology and education, not government censorship,” he says. “If the V-chip isn’t working, fix it. If the ratings aren’t working, fix them. If people aren’t educated, educate them.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6408809

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Pussycat Dolls:
"It is empowering to just chill out "
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic at his website unclebarky.com January 20, 2007

PASADENA, Calif. -- Cats got your tongues? Not at this "press tour" classic pitting promoters of the CW network's upcoming hunt for a seventh Pussycat Doll against TV critics with their claws out.

A colleague from Canada led the charge Friday after den mother Robin Antin essentially portrayed the Pussycats as veritable Carrie Nations exemplifying every woman's search for her "inner doll."

McG (real name Joseph McGinty Nichol), best known for directing the two Charlie's Angels movies, didn't help by earlier extolling the Dolls as "powerful, sexy and sort of like a snapshot of the contemporary woman being everything she can be."

Frankly, what a load of McCrap. So from the lion's den came this: "My daughter's almost 17, and just to be devil's advocate, she sees this all as like a giant step back for women. Why should young girls aspire to dress up like 'skanks' and sing 'Don't you wish your boyfriend was hot like me?' "

Antin, who launched the Dolls concept in 1995, preferred to call their outfits "cute." Then co-executive producer Ron Fair invoked the name of existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre in explaining that "there's a lid for every pot. Not everybody's going to respond to it in the same way. We're in the entertainment business and we've made great strides and been very, very careful to not make this into a burlesque show . . . So I applaud your daughter for her position, but it just might not be for her."

To which the unmoved critic retorted, "You've been using words like 'empowering,' and it sounds like these girls are running for president."

Fair, Antin and ex-con rapper Lil' Kim will be the three judges on CW's eight-episode Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll, which doesn't have an air date yet. The singing, dancing, writhing sextet's debut CD has sold nearly six million copies worldwide and spawned five hit singles ranging from Don't Cha to StickWitu. They'll be in Dallas at American Airlines Center on Feb. 21.

The Dolls didn't attend Friday's festivities, but Lil' Kim says they're "one of my favorite groups ever." Not only that, they are "everything that I've developed myself into being. Just the allure of being in front of that camera and able to show your sexiness and your sensual side is something that all women like to kind of bring forward at one point in time."

Another critic wondered about that. "I'm just always puzzled by this thing about how it's celebrating women," he said before repeating one of the Dolls' song lyrics -- 'Don't you wish your girlfriend was like a freak like me?' In what sense does that celebrate other women?"

McG gazed upon the questioner and saw a middle-aged man with a thick beard, a thicker physique and a what-the-hell-do-I-care-what-I-look-like wardrobe. So he McPounced.

"You must understand the fundamental paradox of a gentleman of your age demo asking that very question," he sniffed. "Naturally this isn't in the wheelhouse of what you may find compelling on television or in your CD changer right now. And that is the vernacular, contemporary colloquialisms of how kids interact. I don't know if you two-way your friends on your Sidekick."

Oh, this was getting good. Gabby Hayes fired back, saying, "I think hot girls are tremendous." But he still wondered about that "freak like me" riff.

"It's very simple," said Fair. "It's just a word. And what we mean by empowering is putting catchy songs into the universe that become hit records that people can cut loose to on Friday after a long week at work. It is empowering to just chill out and dance to the song. . . And that is a celebration when you can do that freely and get out of the constraints of your own brain for three minutes and 25 seconds."

All concerned got out of the constraints of their own brains for a full 40 minues before CW head of communications Paul McGuire drily called it quits.

"But you know how Jean-Paul Sartre was known as a 'freak' in his day," he said. "On that note, we gotta wrap this up."

http://www.unclebarky.com/presstour.html

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The CW party:
Jared Padalecki
By Robert Philpot Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater blog January 20, 2007

You really don't run into that many tall actors out here, so Jared Padalecki's 6-foot-4 height stands out as he walks into the CW party. Didn't get to talk to him as long as his Supernatural co-star, Jensen Ackles, but here's what he had to say:

On working with Jensen: "We just hit it off. It was just lucky, because we spend so time with each other, if it took any effort to get along with him, we would be at each others' throats, fighting. We're both stubborn guys, but luckily, we're supported of each other, and we get along."

On how passionate Supernatural's fans are: "It's so great to hear. Jensen and I are a little bit removed. This is bizarre for me, to be here during this event, right here in Los Angeles. I'm sorta looking around, going, 'Wow, I can't believe that there are five people around me right now, caring about what I say [and sticking recording devices in his face]. 'Cause we're in Vancouver, working 80-hour weeks, and we're just going nuts. We go to work, we go home. We go to work, we go home. So it's interesting to be here, and so flattering and so motivating to really see that fans really care."

On the Thursday-night competition: "We're in the toughest time slot in the history of television. We have, essentially, the No. 1 and No. 2 show on our night, in our hour of television. So we're like the 100-pounder throwing punches at the 300-pounder. We're getting 'em in and we're trying our damnedest. ... I've caught an episode of CSI, I've caught episodes of Grey's Anatomy. They're great shows. Period. No one can deny that. But to know that people are tuning into us [instead of] tuning into them, it inspires me to keep on working."

On the writers' secrecy: "I think they like keeping Jensen and I in the same boat as Sam and Dean. Like, 'You don't know what you're doing next week. You don't know where you're going to be next month. Who knows what's going to happen?' And so they keep us living that life, and we sort of act well by default.
Another writer asked him what the strangest dream he ever had was. "I had a weird dream the other day. One of those ones where I woke up and I go, 'What the hell was that?' ... I can't remember what it was, but I was getting chased around my grandma's house. ... I can't remember why, but I was getting chased. I was going in circles."

Hey, at least his grandma wasn't stuck to the ceiling and on fire...

The CW party:
More 'Smallville'

While I was talking to Smallville's Justin Hartley, Alfred Gough, the show's co-creator, was brought over. I asked him what he thought of the attention Heroes is getting.

"Well, when we premiered in 2001, we got a lot of attention, too," Gough says. "I mean, I really like [Heroes]. I watch it every week, I enjoy it, a lot of former Smallville people work on that show. ... I don't mean this arrogantly, [but] it certainly took a page out of the Smallville playbook in that there are no costumes, it treats its subject matter very seriously. It's a much more mythology-driven show than ours is, but it's really enjoyable. ...

"Season one, we had a Rolling Stone cover and four TV Guide covers, but the question is, 'Where are you in season six?' And I think the fact that we're still here, and doing a good show, and always trying to expand the show and do something new _ that's the hardest part, and it's the most satisfying part. ... I hope that Heroes is around in five or six years, and I'd like to think that we paved the way for some of that to happen."

Gough also said that the Aquaman pilot, which didn't air but did great on iTunes, will be on Smallville's season-six DVD set. He thinks that Smallville has at least a couple of seasons left in it. "Television's all about staying relevant," he says. "So if you hear the crickets chirping, it's time to leave. But the fans are as passionate as ever, so thank God."

http://blogs.dfw.com/yelling_fire/

»www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/busin···homepage

Once Given Up for Dead, Comcast Defies Its Obits


By GERALDINE FABRIKANT
Published: January 21, 2007

THREE years ago, with the cable television industry in the doldrums, the Comcast Corporation’s chairman, Brian L. Roberts, approached Mel Karmazin, then the president of Viacom, with a modest proposal: give Comcast the right to show programming from such Viacom properties as CBS and MTV on the cable company’s channels so it could have a leg up on its rivals.

Mr. Roberts was accompanied by one of his senior managers and he vividly recalls Mr. Karmazin’s reaction. “He scrunched up his eyes, looked at us and said, ‘So you want us to give you all this stuff for free and people will use it on video?’ ” Mr. Roberts recalled with a laugh. “And we said, ‘Yes, that’s what we want.’

“No, no, no. Let me tell you want I would like to do,” Mr. Karmazin responded. “I would like to put my head down on the desk, close my eyes, and when I count to 10 and look up, I want you both out of my office.”

Mr. Karmazin, who now runs Sirius Satellite Radio, confirmed the story. “We were a content company with valuable content, and every opportunity we had to charge for my content, I would do it,” he said. “It was not in my DNA to give away valuable content for free.”

Even today, Mr. Roberts recalls Mr. Karmazin’s reaction as typical of those misguided souls who fail to realize that consumers increasingly have the ability to record and watch programs where and when they want. “A person who wants to watch ‘CSI’ or ‘Desperate Housewives’ when the programs are not on, they are going to do it anyway,” he observed. “As a content owner, you should want them to watch your show.”

Brian Roberts has always conducted himself thus — with a straightforward, plain-spoken, that’s-the-way-the-world-works approach to his company, his customers and his competitors. Those qualities have stood Comcast in good stead as it emerges from a gloomy period in which (even though it was making scads of money, thank you) some analysts had written it off as a moribund, wire-bound behemoth doomed to be eclipsed by more nimble telecommunications concerns.

Today, the entire cable business, and Comcast, the country’s largest cable company, are sitting pretty. Amid the scramble that will decide which companies provide consumers with the flood of new media, entertainment and communications services, cable suddenly looks to be the winner. Analysts now say cable operators are better positioned than their rivals. Until quite recently, however, that wasn’t a foregone conclusion because Wall Street — even discounting the myopia that often distorts its vision — had good cause to be pessimistic.

On one side, satellite broadcasters like DirecTV and EchoStar Communications were stealing video customers by offering lower rates and other benefits. On the other, telephone companies, led by AT&T and Verizon Communications, were eager to use cash harvested from their shrinking land-line services to push into growth businesses like high-speed Internet access and video. Cable companies had to fend off these interlopers by investing heavily and continuously in expensive system upgrades to remain competitive. Critics worried that these costs would devour cash and profits, without any certainty of a return on the investments.

“The telephone companies were out there all the time talking about how they were going to kill cable,” recalled Mr. Roberts, whose unsolicited bid for the Walt Disney Company in 2004 led many investors to conclude that even the strongest cable companies were worried about the future. Fortunately for Mr. Roberts and his shareholders, the Disney bid fell apart. Comcast continued to focus on its cable business: expanding revenue and increasing cash flow by offering digital cable, high-speed Internet access and, starting in 2005, digital telephone service.

Money rolled in. Comcast’s cash flow per subscriber, a common industry measurement, has risen at least 10 percent a quarter for 25 consecutive quarters, Mr. Roberts said, and Wall Street has noticed. After falling 22 percent in 2005, Comcast’s stock rose more than 60 percent last year, and it has climbed an additional 5.4 percent so far this year. From an intraday low of $25.35 a little more than a year ago, the shares now trade at $44.61.

Comcast is by far the industry leader, with 24 million cable subscribers, of whom 11 million also pay for high-speed Internet and 2.1 million also have telephone service. Smaller rivals are also getting a new measure of respect from investors. The board of Cablevision Systems, based in Bethpage, N.Y., rejected an $8.9 billion buyout offer from its founding family, the Dolans, just last week, saying the bid undervalued the company.

Institutional investors, meanwhile, have been scooping up Comcast stock: Marsico Capital Management has acquired about 60 million shares, or 5.2 percent of the company, for example. Dodge & Cox funds of San Francisco has accumulated 109.5 million shares, and Geico, a subsidiary of Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, owns 11 million.

Satellite services and telephone companies are still vigorously competing for cable’s subscribers, but cable companies, led by Comcast, have taken charge by using competitors’ new technology against them. They took advantage of the fact that it is easier to add phone service to cable systems than it is to deliver video over phone lines, and easier and cheaper to add video-on-demand to a cable system than for satellite services to make their signals interactive.

Lo and behold, phone, pay-per-view and high-speed Internet revenue at Comcast have all been rising smartly. To maintain that pace, Comcast has aggressively expanded its video menu and now offers roughly 8,000 movies and television programs on demand. Most of that programming is (don’t read any further, Mr. Karmazin) free.

Free, says Mr. Roberts, works. It persuades subscribers to try new things and encourages them to graduate to paid services. “If the consumer loves what we do, they will use it a lot and eventually they will pay for it,” he said. “We have seen a big increase in our pay-per-view business because people got in the habit of being able to watch programming on demand.”

IN recent months, Comcast’s leaders have gone out of their way to reassure shareholders that they will remain focused on expanding and improving the cable business, and that their dreams of Disneyesque diversification are behind them.

That approach was tested last November, when Comcast agreed to buy Disney’s 39.5 percent share of E Entertainment Television, a cable network, for $1.23 billion. Comcast’s stock fell on news of the deal, which gave the company full control of the network, although it did not rattle big investors like Tom Marsico, of Marsico Capital Management.

“There had been an issue among shareholders about what Comcast would do with its cash flow,” he said in a telephone interview. “I don’t think they will make a significant acquisition. That is our impression.”

Aryeh Bourkoff, a cable analyst at UBS Securities, said that Comcast faces some competitive factors, but that they are not meaningful enough to stop its growth this year.

Not long ago, such confidence was in short supply. From 2002 through 2005, James Chanos, the short-seller who had presciently bet that Enron was in trouble long before Wall Street saw a problem, was quoted as being negative on Comcast’s stock. Mr. Chanos did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Comcast shares did indeed slide, to as low as $18.64 in October 2002. But several big investors — including Chieftain Capital Management, Dodge & Cox and Geico — believed that the market was wrong. They did not see Comcast as seriously threatened by rivals or by its debt levels, and some urged it to buy back as much as 15 percent of its stock.

Comcast has bought back 10 percent of its stock since the end of 2003, but it didn’t buy more because “they were scared,” said one investor, who still has a relationship with the company and spoke only on the condition he not be named. “They were too worried about the press and the stock price,” the investor added.

After the failed $54 billion bid for Disney, some investors also believed that Mr. Roberts wanted “to keep his powder dry because he wanted to make another acquisition,” as the investor put it.

Mr. Roberts shrugged off such backseat driving. “I am happy to be accused of being too conservative,” he said. “I would disagree with the argument that I wasn’t bullish. We bought AT&T Cable and spent $10 billion to buy back our stock.”

Mr. Roberts also helped engineer a deal that gave Comcast access to MGM’s library, and teamed up with Time Warner Cable to buy Adelphia. The companies split up Adelphia’s customers and swapped some of their own systems to give them greater control in certain markets like south Florida and Los Angeles.

Mr. Roberts’s confidence may seem unsurprising from a son of the company’s founder and scion of the family that still owns a controlling stake in it. As the only one of Ralph J. Roberts’s four children with an interest in cable, Brian was a natural successor to his father, who at 86 remains on the board and runs its executive and finance committees.

As he has settled into the roles of chairman and chief executive, Brian Roberts has earned investors’ confidence. Compared with James L. Dolan of Cablevision Systems — whose public squabbles with his father, Charles F. Dolan, the company’s founder, have been extensively chronicled in the tabloids — Brian Roberts and his family appear singularly united.

Ralph Roberts founded Comcast in Tupelo, Miss., in 1963. The elder Mr. Roberts, who began his career as a belt salesman, still comes to work four days a week and has his office next to his son’s. Brian Roberts says he often consults with his father. When the elder Mr. Roberts has advice to give, the son said, he is always discreet. “My father will say, ‘Have you thought about doing it this way?’ ” he said.

That is not to say that Comcast is completely conflict-free. While its overall performance has been good for investors, there are caveats. Glass Lewis & Company, a research firm that advises institutional shareholders on governance issues, argues that Brian Roberts, his father and three other top managers were grossly overpaid in 2005.

Altogether, the group reaped $84.9 million in salary, bonuses, other compensation and the value of restricted stock and stock-option grants, Glass Lewis said. It named Brian Roberts as the sixth-most-overpaid executive among companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, with a compensation package valued at $24.9 million.

Several investors said privately that they were particularly annoyed that Ralph Roberts continues to receive a lucrative pay package when he is no longer chairman. Glass Lewis valued his compensation at $18 million.

In rebuttal, a Comcast executive vice president, David L. Cohen, said that more than half of Ralph Roberts’s compensation — $11.7 million — was in the form of a pension, life insurance and tax relief that the board agreed to pay him when he was still chief executive. Nearly $19 million of Brian Roberts’s compensation, he added, was performance-related pay based on growth in operating cash flow.

While some shareholders grumble about executive pay, Brian Roberts has won praise for assembling a respected management team, led by Stephen B. Burke, whom he hired away from Disney in 1998.

Mr. Burke’s skills as the operations chief complement Mr. Roberts’s talent for strategy, and Mr. Burke has shown no signs of chafing as Comcast’s No. 2. He might be following the example of his father, Daniel B. Burke, who served deftly as second-in-command at Capital Cities/ABC under Thomas S. Murphy.

“I watched my dad for 30 years work with Tom,” Mr. Burke said. “I know they had a wonderful time and a wonderful relationship, and Brian is the same way with me.”

The way Mr. Burke sees it, the cable business is like a layer cake: the bottom layer is TV, the next is high-speed data, and then come digital TV, telephone and, finally, commercials. “The bottom layer is growing maybe 4 or 5 percent a year,” he said. “If you want to be a company that grows 13 percent to 15 percent a year, you have to keep adding layers.”

To keep the video layer competitive, Comcast has aggressively pursued video-on-demand, seeking to use free videos to entice customers to pay for more expensive digital video packages. It offers HBO’s older shows on-demand free, for example. Time Warner, which owns HBO, until recently charged $5 a month for HBO on-demand service on its cable systems and now offers it free.

Other media companies are also skeptical of giving away premium programming, whatever the presumed payoff down the road.

Of course, his company does not make its money by producing programs or movies; it earns a living by delivering them. But since that meeting, even some “content” companies have agreed to make their programs more widely available, often without charge. Just last month, CBS, which was spun off by Viacom in 2006, said it would no longer charge 99 cents every time a viewer wanted to watch an old program; now they are free.

COMPETITION has still taken its toll at Comcast. “We had our satellite assault years ago and they took 10 percent of the business,” Mr. Burke said. “Now that has stabilized.”

Today, there are more than 28 million satellite subscribers: 15.6 million for DirecTV and 13 million for EchoStar. Comcast, with its 24 million cable subscribers, is fighting for more. Two months ago, for example, it said it would offer some movies to its cable subscribers on the same day the DVD version arrives in stores, rather than 60 days later, as had been the custom.

“This is the first time the studios have done this,” Mr. Roberts said, “and it is partly because they are worried about the death of DVDs. Our theory has always been that simultaneous release won’t hurt DVDs. You could go to Blockbuster and rent the film the same day.”

Still, Comcast and other cable providers are in for a long fight with phone companies and satellite services. As the cable companies have branched into telephone service and other products, the phone companies and satellite services have cooperated to offer comparable “bundles.” The phone companies offer wireless service in their bundles, too. To counter, Comcast has struck a deal with Sprint to offer cellular service as part of a bigger package.

However the race plays out, Comcast executives say, they think video delivered over high-speed cable will remain central to their business.

“Technologies don’t just disappear,” Mr. Burke said. “Ten years from now, when you watch TV you will have a big screen and you will be watching through a big pipe in your house.” That pipe, or delivery system, “hopefully will be ours,” he added.

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Day 12 _ Fox
By Robert Philpot Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater blog January 20, 2007

Good morning from Pasadena, where after several relatively mellow days for the Television Critics Association press tour, Fox has decided to have a nearly wall-to-wall schedule. I'll just hit the highlights:

Hell's Kitchen _ breakfast: Ordinarily, I show up at least a half-hour late to breakfast here, but I feel like I should be on time for this one if I don't want to get sworn at and have my food dumped on the floor.

American Idol: Last time we had one of these was during the Corey Clark mess, and something came up that made Paula Abdul cancel at the last minute. The pool has already started on whether she shows this time.

Executive session with Peter Liguori, president, entertainment, Fox Broadcasting: The clock is already ticking on the "So, the O.J. special _ what were you thinking?" question. We know it didn't air, but still ...

The Winner: Featuring former Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry. That's all I need to know to want to be there.

The Simpsons: What, is there a movie coming out or something? Only Yeardley Smith and Dan Castellanetta will be there from the voice cast. D'oh!

Crazy like a Fox

Fox must be cutting its budget. Usually, there's a sack at each workstation with six different kinds of snacks. This time, there's only four. We have Goldfish, some sort of misshapen Gummi-somethings, M&Ms, and mini-Ritz crackers, apparently in honor of us being at the Ritz-Carlton.

OK, the stuff from the press releases:

The Wedding Bells, starring Teri Polo and less familiar names as sisters who own a wedding-planning business, gets one of those "special sneak previews" after Idol on March 7, then moves to a March 9 time slot, The comedy-drama is the latest thing from the fertile, twisted mind of David E. Kelley.

The Winner, starring Rob Corddry as 32-year-old arrested adolescent who decides to grow up, premieres March 4 for a three-week, six-episode run in Fox's Sunday comedy block.

Drive sounds like might type of show _ it's an action drama about a cross-country road race. It premieres April 15.

Fox will not give up on 'Til Death (moving to Wednesdays beginning March 14); The War at Home (back to Sundays March 4), or Standoff (returning to the air Friday, March 30).

http://blogs.dfw.com/yelling_fire/

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Day 12 _ Fox
The executive session
By Robert Philpot Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater blog January 20, 2007

Will the O.J. question or the Idol question come first? The Idol question does, regarding the harshness of the judges, which is nowhere near as harsh as what you might hear in my own living room, especially during the early episodes.

The O.J. question

Less than 10 minutes in, and almost to the word as I predicted it: "O.J. Simpson _ what were you thinking?" Fox Broadcasting entertainment honcho Peter Liguori demurs, citing legal issues.

'Drive'

"If Lost is like a surreal version of Survivor," Peter Liguori says, "Drive is like The Amazing Race with much higher stakes." Of course, it could also be Cannonball Run with much higher stakes. Speaking of Lost, this is a huge panel. Liguori tells us to make sure we look at the seating chart, which nobody I'm sitting near can find, but I recognie Nathan Fillion amd Melanie Lynskey.

Driving humor

Nathan Fillion: "I was in a terrible accident when I was 2 years old. I shouldn't have been driving in the first place ..."

http://blogs.dfw.com/yelling_fire/

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The Fox Sessions
Excuses, excuses
By Bill Goodykoontz Arizona Republic TV Critic in his Critic’s Tour blog January 20, 2007

PASADENA, Calif. -- Peter Liguori, Fox's entertainment president, appeared Saturday morning for an executive session and said ... not much.

Not much about what we wanted to talk about, anyway. You may recall -- it was in some of the papers -- that Fox scheduled a special during November sweeps called If I Did It, Here's How It Happened, in which O.J. Simpson would describe, theoretically, of course, how he killed his ex-wife and her friend. After the public outcry, the show was pulled, the accompanying book was never published, the publisher was fired, on and on and on. So you might imagine that a room full of critics, given the chance to quiz the network's entertainment president, would want to know what the hell they were thinking.

No dice.

"I don't mean to frustrate you with this answer," Liguori began, signaling us that he was about to do just that, before saying that pending lawsuits prevented him from talking about O.J. in any way, shape or form.

"I apologize for that," he said. "I understand where the question is coming from.... I can't answer any O.J. questions. I hope you appreciate the situation we find ourselves in here."

Completely -- the situation you put yourselves in when you OK'd the special to begin with.

Liguori also doesn't think the American Idol judges have gone too far this year -- surprise -- which is the current scandal-de-jour for America's Favorite Show.

"I think the judges know what makes the show tick," Liguori said. "I think this season is just a continuation of what makes it a sensational formula."

Translation: Dude, we got 37 million viewers! You think I'm gonna rain on that, you're nuts.

Don't think Liguori doesn't know what he's doing. He does, after all, have America's Favorite Show on his network, and he is demonstrably smarter than all the other network presidents. How do we know? Because, during the course of talking about a new Fox reality show, Are You Smarter than a Fifth-Grader, Liguori said creator Mark Burnett pitched the concept to all the network presidents. (The idea is that four normal kids are an adult's lifeline; questions come from fifth-grade textbooks.) Only one came away having won any money.

Which? Liguori raised his hand.

How about that? Presumably no O.J. questions were asked.

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

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

Last month, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who was then the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cited DirecTV’s exclusivity with Sunday Ticket as a reason to strip the N.F.L. of an antitrust exemption to negotiate all TV contracts for its teams. Comcast, which has complained that it cannot carry Sunday Ticket, is a Philadelphia-based company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/sports/baseball/20base.html?pagewanted=print
I wonder if Sen. Specter is doing all the math:

Sunday Ticket exclusivity + Extra Innings exclusivity + "Bounty payment" arrangement with Sinclair vs. Mediacom = hmmm ...

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Fox:
Candy for Breakfast
By James Hibberd Television Week in the “Critical Eye” blog Saturday, January 20th, 2007

Fox has a literal car accident staged outside the Ritz Carlton in promotion of their upcoming series “Drive.”

Their “Hell’s Kitchen”-themed buffet spread is filling—omelet bar, buffet and a candy station (Fox is exactly the type of network that gives you candy for breakfast). Fox staffers wolf down omelets along with the press, no snobbish class separation here. The ballroom is covered in snow-white tones and their pages wear parkas

This is the last day of press tour. Critics are exhausted. Yet Fox has so much news potential. They ask about Paula Abdul’s latest breakdown, about accusations of “24” vilifying Muslims, about whether “Idol” judges have become too mean, about the OJ Simpson mess.

Then Fox Entertainment President Peter Liguori throws cold water on the party with answers that seem cautious even by broadcast network executive standards.

Fox is “pleased what Paula does for ‘American Idol.’” He claims he cannot talk about OJ due to pending litigation. “24” has villains of many kinds of ethnicities. Mean “Idol” judges are part of the culture of the show.

http://blogs.tvweek.com/?cat=12

Liguori is sitting on top of the world for as long as AI delivers Super Bowl-like ratings. I'm amazed OJ is monopolizing the queries from reporters on the tour though. Fox's continuous Fall schedule blunders only to have AI bailing them out come Winter/Spring would be what I'd ask Liguori over and over until the can't dance around the questions no more. :)

I wonder if Sen. Specter is doing all the math:

Sunday Ticket exclusivity + Extra Innings exclusivity + "Bounty payment" arrangement with Sinclair vs. Mediacom = hmmm ...

This really goes one step further -- the NHL Center Ice package is also going to Directv! As a Tiger/Red Wing fan, living in the south, in a condo with no exclusive use area this is not good for me! :mad:

Kevin Reilly has some positive words about the future of Friday Night Lights (from the Friday issue of EW). I'm not sure what the policy is about posting those types of things (from a subscription based magazine). Let me see if they have it on their online site.

It's only one little paragraph (they had a nice four page layout in the mag).

Let me know if its okay to post it.

It is fine, but I posted his remarks after he made them earlier this week, Russ.

His remarks were even more positive to "30 Rock" as I recall, since he all but promised it would be renewed for 2007-2008.

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
The Fox Sessions
Cruelty on 'American Idol'? Fox Plays Possum
By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Sunday, January 21, 2007

TV critics suddenly woke up, discovered "American Idol" judges are tough on lousy auditions in early episodes and demanded answers from "Idol" judges and Fox entertainment chief Peter Liguori at Winter TV Press Tour 2007.

Actually they've known it all along. They're just knicker-knotted about it now because Rosie O'Donnell sermonized about it on "The View" earlier in the week, when "Idol" returned for its sixth season. In much the same way reporters jumped all over the The Donald Trump-Rosie O'Donnell kerfuffle a couple of weeks back, after Rosie sermonized about Trump and the Miss USA/Miss Universe pageant Trump owns.

Yes, O'Donnell is the national press's new assignment editor.

O'Donnell and, therefore, critics were particularly exercised about last Wednesday's telecast, featuring bad auditions of two men, Kenneth Briggs and Jonathan Jayne.

Besides being a very bad singer, Briggs has enormous eyes, similar to those of an animal called a bush baby, which judge Simon Cowell noted during Briggs's audition.

Jayne, meanwhile, appeared to be mentally challenged and, according to an online biography from a private school he attended in Seattle, he participated in the Special Olympics, the New York Times reported.

"I take your point -- it's a singing competition and why should I call someone a bush baby," Simon Cowell told critics, when asked about the decision to broadcast those two auditions.

"We've never tried to censor this show," he said, admitting there are times when "I've watched it back and said, 'I wish I hadn't said that' and 'why did they put that in the show?' But it's something we all sign up for," Cowell added that he prefers the idea that the program "show the warts as well as the good things."

Cowell said the judges did not know Jayne had participated in the Special Olympics but wondered why someone who had should be disqualified from the opportunity to audition for "American Idol" if they want to, saying it "smacks of censorship."

"I'm not saying it's particularly pleasant to watch . . . I don't think we should be censored on the type of people" who audition and make it to air, Cowell said. "What we're trying to do is be representative."

Judge Paula Abdul noted that both men appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's ABC late-night show to discuss their "Idol" experience and that it "seemed like they were thrilled to death."

Exec producer Ken Warwick noted that when hideously bad William Hung auditioned for "Idol" in 2004 "we got a lot of criticism."

Hung got cut right away but went on to sign a recording contract.

"Peter, the comments -- harsh comments from the judges on 'Idol' -- do you take these seriously?" one critic asked Liguori during his Q&A session.

"I think it's part of what makes 'American Idol' 'American Idol,' " Liguori said.

"Let's face it, this show's been on the air for six years and the judges have been critical for six years. Hundreds of thousands of auditions have occurred. People know what the show is about."

"You'd never tell the judges to back off?" another critic said, as if he meant it to sting.

"I think the judges know what makes the show tick," he said. "This season is just a continuation of what's been a very successful formula."

Speaking of successful formulas, Liguori got great results playing possum in response to all questions about that O.J. Simpson interview special Fox had scheduled to coincide with the release of Simpson's book, "If I Did It," in which he detailed how he would have whacked his ex-wife.

"I don't mean to frustrate you with this answer, but it's been published that there is pending and threatened litigation against the corporation, and our lawyers have asked me to not comment about O.J. I apologize for that. I understand where the question's coming from," Liguori said.

BTW, whenever a network suit says, "I don't mean to frustrate you with this answer," he means to frustrate you with his answer.

Anyway, it worked. Only one other critic, in a room of more than 100, took a halfhearted stab at O.J., asking Liguori if advertisers had embraced the TV special.

"Unfortunately, again, I do apologize. I can't answer any O.J. questions. I hope you appreciate the situation we all find ourselves in here," Liguori said.

Of course, the only way to handle a possum is to grab it by the tail and yank up sharply, but Liguori remained firmly planted in his chair throughout the Q&A.

Rupert Murdoch, CEO of Fox parent News Corp., scrubbed the TV show and the book at the eleventh hour, saying he'd discovered it was "an ill-considered project." He discovered it after Fox stations started saying they wouldn't air it and booksellers started saying they wouldn't sell it, or would donate all profits to charity, presumably to ease their sense of corporate shame.

Not long after that, Murdoch sacked Judith Regan, who had headed publication of the book.

Liguori did, however, have a humdinger of an explanation for the latest iteration of Abdul's weird behavior during recent televised interviews promoting the show.

He said he had not seen them, saying his "guys" who were at the interviews told him that she'd just finished talking with about 30 different TV stations over about three-plus hours.

"We had audio problems where she was actually answering questions from a number of our affiliates, and after that amount of time and questions coming from all angles I would probably be a little slap-happy at that point."

Abdul told exactly the same story during the "Idol" Q&A. But she added that when she saw the resulting bizarro interviews, which made their way to YouTube, her reaction was "Oh, my God."

"How does it make you feel when people are in print and on blogs writing you are drunk or drugged?" one critic wondered.

"It's really fun," she answered facetiously. "You know what, I've been in this business 20 years; I've never had to weather the storm" like she has since she's been in "Idol."

"It's the show -- it's huge," she said, admitting her entire previous career as a singer, dancer and choreographer is "almost insignificant because I'm a judge on the world's biggest show.

"I love it, but it's often daunting. Yeah, sometimes it is very frustrating. Like this!"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/20/AR2007012001781_pf.html

Wow, the thead has gone real quiet. Must be the playoffs! :rolleyes:

Actually, dad, I travelled much of yesterday and last night and am trying to get things posted on a very small computer without my normal formatting amenities.

(And the TCA ended!)

Normalcy will return shortly.

Yesterday’s fast national over night prime-time ratings –- and a brief (and pithy!) comment from Media Week Analyst Marc Berman -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Aaron Sorkin:
in his own words
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn” January 21, 2007

The co-creator of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" invited TV critics onto his set last week, and held forth about the future of his show, criticism of "Studio 60's" less-than-scintillating sketch comedy pieces, and what he really thinks about bloggers and the L.A. Times.

You've read the transcripts, but there really is no substitute for Sorkin in his own entertaining voice.

You can hear it here, and it is a great listen:

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/files/TVBP8.mp3

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

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Aaron Sorkin:
in his own words
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn” January 21, 2007]

Thanks. Hearing Sorkin speak only makes me more sad that the Sports Night DVD Box Set came with no bonus features whatsoever (i.e. no commentary tracks, which I love to listen to). I'm so starved for some Studio 60 goodness (it's been almost a month-and-a-half since the last new episode aired with no regularly-scheduled repeats) that tomorrow I'll actually watch the show air in real time for the first time (been DVR'ing 'Heroes' and 'Studio 60' because of 'Monday Night Football').

Go ahead and post it, Russ -- I hven't seen it in precisely that way yet.

Kevin Reilly has some positive words about the future of Friday Night Lights (from the Friday issue of EW). I'm not sure what the policy is about posting those types of things (from a subscription based magazine). Let me see if they have it on their online site.

It's only one little paragraph (they had a nice four page layout in the mag).

Let me know if its okay to post it.

Television
The future of Friday Night Lights
Small segment of EW piece titled "Friday Night Fights"
By Ken Tucker Entertainment Weekly, January 26, 2007

NBC's Reilly comes tantalizingly close to committing to a second season, without quite doing so: "I feel as if we'd have a better shot at reintroducing it to a bigger audience next season--put it out on DVD, let people catch up with it in reruns, and hope it pops next year."

Television
The future of Friday Night Lights
Small segment of EW piece titled "Friday Night Fights"
By Ken Tucker Entertainment Weekly, January 26, 2007

NBC's Reilly comes tantalizingly close to committing to a second season, without quite doing so: "I feel as if we'd have a better shot at reintroducing it to a bigger audience next season--put it out on DVD, let people catch up with it in reruns, and hope it pops next year."

Why isn't Studio 60 getting the same love from NBC? Could it be because Warner owns it instead of NBC-U (who stands to profit if 'FNL' takes off)? I know, I know. 'FNL' is the best show ever, all the critics says it, Reilly is making a stand for quality programming, etc. I just wish corporate politics could favor 'Studio 60' (which is airing on NBC because the network outbid other networks for it) for a second season as much as 'FNL.

If I was to hazard a guess, it would be 1) it's not their product, like you said and 2) it's just more expensive to produce than FNL.

It was also not very heavily advertised and promoted when it first debuted, unlike Studio 60 which got tons of praise and advertising prior to its launch.

And both shows, like 24, Lost and many other shows, don't repeat well at all (based on ratings to date). Yet Reilly says in his quote he hopes people will "catch up with it in reruns" which implies that if renewed for year 2 'FNL' will get prominently repeated and sold on DVD. Mmmphhh... :(

And both shows, like 24, Lost and many other shows, don't repeat well at all (based on ratings to date). Yet Reilly says in his quote he hopes people will "catch up with it in reruns" which implies that if renewed for year 2 'FNL' will get prominently repeated and sold on DVD. Mmmphhh... :(
I think he meant that people could catch up with it on DVD and with reruns this summer, prior to the beginning of season 2.

Critic’s Notebook
People behaving badly on parade,
from the British to the American
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Television Critic Monday, January 22, 2007

Everything we know we learned from television:

• People on TV have been very, very bad these days. In England, allegations of racism from "Celebrity Big Brother" forced the removal of one contestant (nobody you're likely to know) and she's now under 24-hour protective custody because she's caused so much anger. The whole country is talking about the racism there, including Tony Blair.

On our shores, we've got the highly annoying publicity stunt (and Pavlovian media responses) involving Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell; "Grey's Anatomy" actor Isaiah Washington first denying, then apologizing for his gay bashing (and outing) of a cast member; and Simon Cowell of "American Idol" making fun of a contestant who, according to reports, was "mentally handicapped" and had participated in the Special Olympics.

Not television's finest moments.

• It's surprising that Cowell's act hasn't tired earlier among those who ingest that stupid show. No, wait. Actually, it's not surprising at all.

• If you think this tsk-tsking on our end means we're turning on television (thus allowing all of you who hate the television you actually don't watch in the first place to write e-mails in agreement), forget it. It's not a black-and-white world on TV. Some of it is culturally horrific, some of it is brilliant. Portions are so insipid that they pull down national intelligence (no small feat, that), and other parts are smart and informative. Television is a fun house mirror; it's all about the angles and how you look at it.

• The recently concluded winter version of the Television Critics Association press tour (we chose to sit that one out) had a number of moments of note, but this is probably not one of them: The CW is thinking about asking Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel to stay on for another year of "Gilmore Girls." To which we say: Oh, please God, no. First, Graham is waaaaaay too smart for that and second, the show is already set in Stupid Hollow. Let's not move it to Exceedingly Pointless Cove.

• We've been told that as the CW presented its portion to critics at the TCA, an announcement was made -- paraphrasing here -- that the network loved everyone dearly except for the person in the third row, second seat: yours truly. But, of course, not being there, we didn't feel the love. And let the record show that despite loathing much of what the CW has offered (well, at least what UPN offered in the past), we continue our undying love for "Everybody Hates Chris," easily the best sitcom you're not watching. The network has picked up "Chris" for a third season, which is fine news indeed.

• Not being at the press tour enabled us to also avoid the whole Courteney Cox masturbation thing (don't ask -- if you need to know, you can search www.thebastardma chine.com), but not only did it resurface again on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" (thanks, Jimmy) when Cox's husband, David Arquette, appeared (and he even named-dropped Mrs. Cranky Pants, which is probably a first), but it also came up in the FX "Dirt" session. Fortunately, as one coy wag noted, there was a happy ending for all.

• A far more troublesome occurrence we couldn't spin because we weren't there is the lack of credit we're getting for calling "American Idol" the Death Star. Now it's all over the Web thanks to so many people writing about it after rival entertainment presidents like NBC's Kevin Reilly and CBS' Nina Tassler used Death Star to reference the huge Fox hit. Then other critics picked up on it and used it in questions (legitimately, since "Idol" continues to be an unnaturally efficient damager of opposing shows). But we'd like to add here -- and we could certainly be trumped on the origins in the end -- that we've been using Death Star in reference to "American Idol" since at least March 2005. Yes, 2005. Apparently we'll have to stop missing these press tours in order to get what's ours, defend ourselves, and eat and drink excessively with all of our friends (and enemies). Noted.

• If you were wondering why Trump and Rosie were so eager to throw mud at each other, consider that "The Apprentice" has tanked (and has been virtually unwatchable since the first installment) and that Rosie is reportedly looking to jump from "The View" back to her own new talk show. Of course, they should have learned from this that bad publicity doesn't necessarily mean good ratings. Also, both of them are insufferable.

• Ratings for the censored version of "The Sopranos" on A&E fell nearly 50 percent. Most of the blame goes to -- what else? -- competition from the Death Star, but perhaps there's something else at work here. Couldn't it be possible that people tuned in and found that A&E has let unseemly reality shows ruin both the "Arts" and the "Entertainment" portion of its title? Just a thought.

• Tricia Helfer from "Battlestar Galactica," which returned Sunday, is the cover star of Playboy's current issue. Having not seen the spread, we're still willing to wager that whatever's inside can't compete with Grace Park's previous photos in Maxim. They've got a lot of good-looking people on "BSG." Superb series as well.

• CBS is so desperate to give Katie Couric more publicity in hopes that, well, it didn't take a bunch of money and throw it in the air, that the network will have her be a part of its Super Bowl pregame coverage. What next, a guest role on "Gilmore Girls"? Note to CBS: Write it off.

• A new CW reality show called "Crowned" will feature mother-daughter duos. We think that sounds appropriately heinous for the CW (and, no, this is not some childish retaliation for calling us out, but wouldn't it have been so much more fun to borrow from "Arrested Development" and use the "Motherboy" concept? At least then it would have been intentionally funny).

• Apparently there's a ratings race going on that bears tracking: Are more people watching MTV's "I'm From Rolling Stone" or crazy late-night preachers on local access?

• Bring me the head of Simon.

• One of the hardest parts about skipping the TV critics press tour is how our pride is often buffed to a sheen when hearing how the majority of critics speak truth to power (or, conversely, how that same pride winces at some of the softballs and the sucking up). Anyway, two gems that happened down there (among many, we're told):

• When Danny DeVito showed up for his session with "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," someone was quick to note his notorious tosspot performance on "The View" and asked, "Are you drunk right now?"

• And a producer of the CW's reality series about the Pussycat Dolls (searching for the new Doll!) said that the show was not only "third-wave feminism" but was "aspirational" for young women. Question from a critic: "Why would young girls aspire to dress up like skanks?" If only the White House press corps was that fearless.

• The High Fives: 1. Return of "Battlestar Galactica." 2. The blood of "Rome." 3. How Katie Couric couldn't save the network news. 4. The Warriors trade. 5. Miffy.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/22/DDGQLNJTPB1.DTL&type=printable

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Fox Happy with More BCS, Less MLB
By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable 1/22/2007

College football’s Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a welcome addition for Fox, while dropping a portion of the baseball playoffs beginning this fall is an even more welcome subtraction, according to network entertainment president Peter Liguori.

Liguori said Saturday he was “really heartened” by the scheduling of the early-January BCS, during a week the network would normally be airing reruns.

“I have to admit that we were a little nervous with the fact that the BCS Championship Game was actually going to appear on Monday,” he said. “I think it just created an even greater stir. I believe at that time, that was the highest-rated show of the year, the BCS Championship game. The guys at [Fox Sports] did a terrific job. They did a terrific job producing it, scheduling it. We're very fortunate to have it. It's another arrow in our quiver come January.

Liguori also reiterated his pleasure with parent company News Corp.’s decision to scale back its post-season baseball coverage.

Liguori’s comments come in the wake of a fall in which the network struggled to gain any traction for its new shows, and had few bright spots before the January launches of American Idol and 24.

While acknowledging the fall shows were not up to par from a quality standpoint (“We have to have better shows in the fourth quarter,” he said), Liguori said he believes cutting back on baseball will help from a scheduling standpoint.

“I think that will give us a little bit of flexibility in terms of how we roll out and when we premiere,” he said “I do think we're going to premiere earlier than our competition. We just have to because of that two-, two-and-a-half-week hiatus that we take. But I think the only change strategically is the recognition that we have a little more flexibility.”

Also on Saturday, Liguori noted the effects of government regulation on the network’s day-to-day operations.

“The situation we all find ourselves in with the FCC is a very difficult one,” he said. “It definitely has a chilling effect on the creative. There's no hard and fast rules.”

Liguori also declined to answer any questions about the O.J. Simpson special the network announced and subsequently cancelled, as the executive claimed he was unable to discuss the topic due to “pending and threatened litigation.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6408898

Critic’s Notebook
What Will the Morning Bring?
By Tom Shales in Television Week January 22, 2007

We don't care what something is; we care what it will become. And then when it becomes something else, we want to know what it will become next. The moving finger writes and having writ, moves on; so does television morph and having morphed, morphs more.

Morning television especially is in a pretty perpetual state of amorphous morphing. For decades it's been a bountiful font of free-flowing gossip-dueling divas (of both sexes), feuds and jealousies, egos and clashes and of course Machiavellian maneuvers. Now NBC has brought the subject back to the water cooler with the announcement that in September, the "Today" show, ratings leader of the group, will grow from three hours daily to four, and then maybe five, and-who knows?-maybe NBC daytime will turn into talk radio, blabbering on all day with fluff and piffle until the affiliates' local news and then "Nightly News" take over.

"Today" would be less a program than a service-maybe a little like "Monitor," which dominated the NBC radio network when there was an NBC radio network. Remember? "You're on the Monitor beacon, boop-beep-boop." It sounded so cool and futuristic.

NBC is, of course, on a cost-cutting bender that is becoming embarrassing (case in point: "Grease: You're the One That I Want," with less impressive production values than "The Jerry Springer Show" but minus its scintillating content). The network has little to lose by dumping some, much or all of its daytime lineup for a "Today" supercast (possible slogan: "All day, suckers!"); the daytime roost has long been ruled by CBS soaps and its "Price is Right." Naturally NBC's costs would decline, especially since "Today" lends itself so readily to product placement, promotional tie-ins, 800-number crapola and "You can buy Meredith Vieira's dress" or "You can have a mirror like the one Matt Lauer loves." Morning means money.

A State of Flux

These shows always seem to be in play, or at least in flux, and now, with fairly recent major cast changes at both "Today" and "Good Morning, America," sands are shifting again. "GMA" looked like it had a real shot at equaling and maybe bettering "Today's" ratings, but Charlie Gibson was needed elsewhere (even if it took ABC News executives a while to realize it) and now its once-gallant surge has fizzled.

"Today's" numbers have declined, too, from glory days of the past. TV blogs are saying that, among other demographical unpleasantries, "Today" is down 16 percent in women 25 to 54 from a year ago, and at least one blogger blames it on Vieira, the classy and accomplished co-anchor who replaced Katie Couric. This seems unthinkable because Vieira, though different in style from Couric, can do anything "Today" calls upon her to do.

If viewers haven't hugely warmed up to Vieira, then part of the reason may be misbehavior by her hammy co-host. Repeatedly and perhaps vindictively, Matt has seemed intent on tripping Vieira up on the air-interrupting, hogging the spotlight, cold-shouldering her, subtly putting her down. Matt perhaps doesn't want to be outshone by a woman once again.

When "Today" celebrated Lauer's 10th anniversary on the show recently, a tape of congratulations from Couric was part of the party. Lauer, with Vieira at his side, made a big deal about how much he missed Katie as if to say he was unhappy with his new partner.

Meredith and Matt are a dream team, however, compared with "GMA's" incompatible duo Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts. To a greater degree than Lauer, Roberts appears intent on embarrassing the co-anchor-mocking Sawyer, stranding her when she needs assistance and butting in when not needed. After a recent piece on soccer-boy David Beckham, Roberts made some coy crack about Sawyer being able to "bend it" pretty well herself. One morning she greeted Sawyer by saying she just wanted to gaze upon her for a moment in silent adoration-smarmy, snide, painfully obvious.

Supergal Sawyer can do gritty reports from trouble spots or chat sassily with stars-an outstanding series on North Korea or a solid session with anti-Semite Mel Gibson. The trouble is, Sawyer now seems too big for any of the jobs in television that are available or opening up-or is she? Larry King is still the biggest attraction at CNN-he's CNN's panda-but we must face the fact that he's starting to make Andy Rooney look like Errol Flynn (the dashing young one or the bloated and besotted geezer, no matter). Those suspenders are sinking into his skin.

King's contract with CNN reportedly does not guarantee him the 9 p.m. (Eastern) time slot. He could be moved to 2 a.m. or 4 p.m.-so that none other than Diane Sawyer could take over that prime-time hour and give it spectacular new life. It's not a bad idea, no it's not.

Revitalizing `GMA'

Let's say, though, that Sawyer stays at "GMA" (though her agreement allows her to leave before summer). The show will never have a shot at No. 1 with those two at the helm, so what could be done to rejuvenate it? Sawyer needs a partner worthy of her-a male partner to give the show variety and sexual tension. How about this: Anderson Cooper. Languishing and almost vanishing within the stuffy confines of CNN, super Cooper needs and deserves a much better showcase. Imagine Cooper and Sawyer side-by-side at 7 a.m. They'd be the most gorgeous and telegenic couple in the history of the morning news.

Oops! At press time we learned that Cooper has just re-upped with CNN and signed a new multimillion-dollar contract. Maybe he'll be the next Larry King, but obviously he isn't headed to "GMA."

Sawyer still manages to be buoyant and vivacious on the air, but I sense a subtle undercurrent of unhappiness. Who wants to sit next to Lady Macbeth and try to be charming? ABC News President David Westin has to ride in on a white horse and rescue her-somehow-or lose her, which would be disastrous for ABC News, especially with the legendary Barbara Walters cutting back on her Herculean work load.

Change seems virtually inevitable at both "GMA" and "Today." Morning television promises to remain lucrative and important at the networks; urbanites will need something to watch on their video iPods, or whatever gadget succeeds it, on the bus or subway, and there's no reason to think that kitchen-viewing on actual TV sets, with big pictures you can really see, will erode. Or-wait. Is it eroding already? Are the numbers going to trend down further? Is network morning TV going to have to become something else in order to survive? We're a nation of futurphiliacs. We don't care what's here; we want to know what's coming.

I wish to hell I knew.

http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=31382

TV Notebook
Anatomy of an Insult:
ABC Is Stung by an Actor’s Anti-Gay Slurs
By Edward Wyatt The New York Times January 22, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21 — Executives at ABC and its parent, Disney, are mulling the future of the actor Isaiah Washington, a star of the hit series “Grey’s Anatomy,” after Mr. Washington last week publicly used an anti-gay slur for the second time in roughly three months, a Disney executive said Friday.

The situation has potentially great implications for ABC, which is reaping millions of dollars in advertising revenues from a show that, in its third season, is among the highest rated on television.

The executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because company officials were instructed not to go beyond a prepared statement, said that Mr. Washington’s behavior could be considered grounds for dismissal under Disney’s corporate antidiscrimination policy.

ABC and Touchstone, Disney’s television studio, called Mr. Washington’s behavior “unacceptable” in a statement issued on Thursday, three days after Mr. Washington’s most recent remark, which occurred in the backstage press room at the Golden Globes ceremony last week.

Mr. Washington later apologized for the remark and said that he was seeking help for “issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul.” But the damage might be done for Mr. Washington, 43, who portrays Dr. Preston Burke on “Grey’s Anatomy,” which this season has attracted an audience of more than 18 million viewers each week, according to Nielsen Media Research. On Thursday, the first broadcast since the show won for best dramatic television series at the Golden Globes, the audience numbered nearly 22 million, according to ABC.

Mr. Washington first got into trouble for using the same slur during an off-camera dispute on the set of the show in October. The remark was aimed at T. R. Knight, who portrays Dr. George O’Malley on the series and who had not previously talked publicly about his sexuality. It followed a brief fight between Mr. Washington and a third actor on the show, Patrick Dempsey. After that incident became public, Mr. Washington apologized, and Mr. Knight publicly acknowledged that he was gay. The October fight has continued to be the subject of gossip around the show, and after the Golden Globe victory for “Grey’s Anatomy,” the show’s actors and creator gathered backstage to answer reporters’ questions. One asked about the fight and the remark.

Mr. Washington moved to the microphone and denied that he ever used the slur to describe Mr. Knight, at the same time repeating the word. Fellow cast members who were with Mr. Washington appeared shaken, quickly going from jubilant to solemn. After the awards show another “Grey’s” actor, Katherine Heigl, publicly repudiated Mr. Washington’s remarks.

Mr. Knight appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Wednesday and disputed Mr. Washington’s denial of using the slur in October.

As discussion of the incidents grew, Mr. Washington remained silent until after ABC issued a statement chastising him.

“We have a longstanding policy to create and maintain respectful workplaces for all our employees,” the ABC statement said. “We dealt with the original situation in October, and thought the issue resolved. Therefore, we are greatly dismayed that Mr. Washington chose to use such inappropriate language at the Golden Globes, language that he himself deemed ‘unfortunate’ in his previous public apology. We take this situation very seriously. His actions are unacceptable and are being addressed.”

An ABC spokeswoman declined to comment on how the issue was addressed in October and what steps were being considered now.

After ABC issued its statement, Mr. Washington again apologized, after first firing his publicist. He expressed his regret to Mr. Knight, colleagues, fans “and especially the lesbian and gay community for using a word that is unacceptable in any context or circumstance.”

The statement appeared to acknowledge that Mr. Washington had used the slur before, despite his most recent denial. “By repeating the word Monday night, I marred what should have been a perfect night for everyone who works on ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ” the statement said. “I can neither defend nor explain my behavior. I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I’ve asked for help.

“I know the power of words, especially those that demean,” the statement continued. “I realize that by using one filled with disrespect I have hurt more than T. R. and my colleagues. With one word, I’ve hurt everyone who has struggled for the respect so many of us take for granted. I welcome the chance to meet with leaders of the gay and lesbian community to apologize in person and to talk about what I can do to heal the wounds I’ve opened.”

Mr. Washington added: “T. R.’s courage throughout this entire episode speaks to his tremendous character. I hold his talent, and T. R. as a person, in high esteem. I know a mere apology will not end this, and I intend to let my future actions prove my sincerity.”

Neil G. Giuliano, the president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, told CNN on Friday that he expected to travel to Los Angeles this week to meet with ABC executives and Mr. Washington.

Kelly Mullens, Mr. Washington’s new publicist, declined to comment on Mr. Washington’s plans for a meeting or his expected future with the show.

“Grey’s Anatomy” ranks fifth overall among prime-time shows. It ranks second overall among viewers ages 18 to 49, the demographic group for which networks charge the highest advertising premium.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/arts/television/22grey.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=television&pagewanted=print

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.

I've always wanted to post my own rambling on sex and violence on TV, so here goes...

"The problem with sex and violence on TV is... there's too much violence, and not enough sex!".

OK? :D

Works for me, humdinger.

But the violence partisans have yet to be heard from.

Television
The future of Friday Night Lights
Small segment of EW piece titled "Friday Night Fights"
By Ken Tucker Entertainment Weekly, January 26, 2007

NBC's Reilly comes tantalizingly close to committing to a second season, without quite doing so: "I feel as if we'd have a better shot at reintroducing it to a bigger audience next season--put it out on DVD, let people catch up with it in reruns, and hope it pops next year."

just don't put it on at 8pm in the frivolity zone again. Just because it's about a high school doesn't make it lightweight fodder that kids are looking for. Put it in a 9/10pm slot where serious drama lives and people will have already settled down to pay attention.

In Raw World of Sex Movies, High Definition Could Be a View Too Real



By MATT RICHTEL
Published: January 22, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 21 — The XXX industry has gotten too graphic, even for its own tastes.


Stormy Daniels says she isn’t sure “why anyone would want to see their porn” in high definition because it makes the picture so crisp and clear.

Pornography has long helped drive the adoption of new technology, from the printing press to the videocassette. Now pornographic movie studios are staying ahead of the curve by releasing high-definition DVDs.

They have discovered that the technology is sometimes not so sexy. The high-definition format is accentuating imperfections in the actors — from a little extra cellulite on a leg to wrinkles around the eyes.

Hollywood is dealing with similar problems, but they are more pronounced for pornographers, who rely on close-ups and who, because of their quick adoption of the new format, are facing the issue more immediately than mainstream entertainment companies.

Producers are taking steps to hide the imperfections. Some shots are lit differently, while some actors simply are not shot at certain angles, or are getting cosmetic surgery, or seeking expert grooming.

“The biggest problem is razor burn,” said Stormy Daniels, an actress, writer and director.

Ms. Daniels is also a skeptic. “I’m not 100 percent sure why anyone would want to see their porn in HD,” she said.

The technology’s advocates counter that high definition, by making things clearer and crisper, lets viewers feel as close to the action as possible.

“It puts you in the room,” said the director known as Robby D., whose films include “Sexual Freak.”

The pornographers’ progress with HD may also be somewhat slowed by Sony, one of the main backers of the Blu-ray high-definition disc format. Sony said last week that, in keeping with a longstanding policy, it would not mass-produce pornographic videos on behalf of the movie makers.

The decision has forced pornographers to use the competing HD-DVD format or, in some cases, to find companies other than Sony that can manufacture copies of Blu-ray movies.

The movie makers assert that it is shortsighted of Sony to snub them, given how pornography helps technologies spread.

“When you’re introducing a new format, it would seem like the adult guys can help,” said Steven Hirsch, co-chief executive officer of Vivid Entertainment Group, a big player in the industry. Mr. Hirsch added that high definition, regardless of format, “is the future.”

Despite the challenges, pornographers — who distributed some 7,000 new movies on DVD last year and sold discs worth $3.6 billion in the United States — are rapidly moving to high-definition.

One major company, Digital Playground, plans to release its first four HD-DVD titles this month, and plans four new ones each month. In March, Vivid plans to release “Debbie Does Dallas ... Again,” its first feature for both HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

Vivid, like Digital Playground, has been shooting with high-definition cameras for two years to build up a catalog of high-definition movies. Both studios have released the movies in standard definition but plan to make the high-definition versions available as compatible disc players and televisions become more popular.

The studios said their experience using the technology gives them an advantage in understanding how to cope with the mixed blessing of hypercrisp images. Their techniques include using postproduction tools that let them digitally soften the actors’ skin tone.

“It takes away the blemishes and the pits and harshness and makes it look like they have baby skin,” said the director known as Joone, who made “Pirates,” one of the industry’s top-selling videos. It will be available this month in high-definition.

Joone does not use a last name, but he does use a number of techniques to keep his films blemish-free. They include giving out lifestyle tips.

“I tell the girls to work out more, cut down on the carbs, hit the treadmill,” he said.

Within the industry, the issue seems to have created a difference in perspective that cuts roughly along gender lines. Some male actors have begun using makeup to mitigate wrinkles or facial flaws, but generally they, and the male directors, are less worried about high-definition’s glare and more enamored of the technology.

Ms. Daniels said that attitude was just so typical of men.

“Men are all about outdoing each other, being up with the times, being cool, having the latest technology,” she said. “They’re willing to sacrifice our vanity and imperfections to beat each other” to high-definition, she said.

Other female actors say they generally like working with high-definition — except for the cosmetic-surgery part.

Jesse Jane, one of the industry’s biggest stars, plans to go under the knife next month to deal with one side effect of high-definition. The images are so clear that Ms. Jane’s breast implants, from an operation six years ago, can be seen bulging oddly on screen.

“I’m having my breasts redone because of HD,” she said.

The stretch marks on Ms. Jane from seven years ago when she gave birth to her son are also more apparent. But she deals with those blemishes in a simpler way: by liberal use of tanning spray.

Still, Ms. Jane likes the technology, as does her close friend Kirsten Price, 25, who appeared in “Manhunters” and “Just Like That.”

“HD is great because people want to see how people really look,” Ms. Price said. “People just want to see what’s real.”

Ms. Price is allowing them to do so, mostly. She had laser treatments to diminish tiny purple veins on her thighs that weren’t visible to viewers before.

“You can see things you cannot see with the naked eye. You see skin blemishes; you see cottage cheese,” said Robbie D. “But some cellulite is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s kind of sexy.”

The technology makes the experience more intimate, he said. “People look to adult movies for personal contact, and yet they’re still not getting it. HD lets them see a little bit more of the girl.”

That’s not necessarily good, said Savanna Samson, an actress who last December directed her first movie, “Any Way You Want Me.” During a scene in which she played a desperate housewife, she ran into a problem: the high-definition camera revealed she had a tiny ill-placed pimple.

“We kept stopping and trying to hide it. We put on makeup and powder, but there was no way,” Ms. Samson said. Finally, they tried another approach: “We just changed positions,” she said.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/business/media/22porn.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087%0A&em&en=a02bc9090d122b96&ex=1169614800

Let's hope Mr. Reilly's resolve is not weakened as FNL faces the "Idol" juggernaut in the upcoming weeks.

just don't put it on at 8pm in the frivolity zone again. Just because it's about a high school doesn't make it lightweight fodder that kids are looking for. Put it in a 9/10pm slot where serious drama lives and people will have already settled down to pay attention.

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Huge numbers for Colts-Patriots game
AFC championship draws 43.1 million total viewers
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 22, 2007

Simon Cowell’s got nothing on Peyton Manning. Last night’s AFC Championship game between Manning’s winning Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots looks poised to break the season-best mark set by “American Idol” less than a week ago.

According to Nielsen overnights, the AFC Championship game on CBS averaged an impressive 43.1 million total viewers and a 16.1 adults 18-49 rating last night from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Fast nationals measure timeslot, not actual time period, data, and CBS’s true performance for the game, which ran from approximately 6:30 to 10:30 p.m., won’t be known until final ratings are released tomorrow. But early numbers indicate it could well be the highest-rated program of the season in 18-49s as well as the most-watched in total viewers.

“Idol” grabbed those distinctions with last week’s huge debut Tuesday, averaging a 15.8 18-49 rating and 37.4 million total viewers.

But it would be little surprise for the AFC game to surpass them. The Colts-Patriots is a huge rivalry, and two years ago the AFC Championship on CBS averaged a 16.0 for the Patriots-Pittsburgh Steelers game. The AFC and NFC championships rotate in primetime each year.

Last night’s average was up quite a bit from Fox’s NFC Championship coverage on the same night last year, which averaged just a 10.7 in 18-49s from 7 to 10:30 p.m. That game was a one-sided blowout.

But this year’s AFC game lived up to its billing, with the final outcome not sealed until the final minute in a contest that tipped back and forth until its exciting conclusion.

The game peaked with a 17.2 among 18-49s and 46.3 million total viewers at 7 p.m.

That helped CBS to a rare but very easy first-place finish for the night among 18-49s as the network averaged a 14.9 rating and posted a 32 share. ABC was second at 4.7/10, NBC third at 2.6/6, Fox fourth at 2.3/5, Univision fifth at 1.3/3 and CW sixth at 0.9/2.

CBS led each hour of the primetime night, starting with a 16.4 at 7 p.m. for the AFC Championship. ABC was second with a 2.5 for “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” NBC third with a 2.4 for “Deal or No Deal” and Fox fourth with a 1.7 for repeats of “Til Death” and “The War at Home.” Univision was fifth that hour with a 1.1 for “Hora Pico” and CW sixth with a 1.0 for an hour of “Reba.”

At 8 p.m. CBS led again with a 15.0 rating among 18-49s for the Colts-Patriots game. ABC was second with a 4.8 for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” NBC third with a 2.8 for “Grease: You’re the One That I Want” and Fox fourth with a 2.6 for reruns of “The Simpsons” and “American Dad.” Univision was fifth again, this time with a 1.4 for the first of three hours of “Bailando por la Boda de Mis Suenos,” with CW sixth with a 1.1 for “7th Heaven.”

CBS had its biggest hour of the night at 9 p.m., as the Colt-Pats game rose to a 16.6 among 18-49s. ABC was second with a 6.6 for “Desperate Housewives,” NBC third with a 2.8 for “The Apprentice” and Fox fourth with a 2.6 for repeats of “Family Guy” and “American Dad.” Univision remained fifth with a 1.4 for “Bailando” and CW sixth with a 0.8 for a “Beauty and the Geek” rerun.

At 10 p.m. CBS closed the night on top with an 11.5 for the end of its game and half of “Without a Trace.” ABC was second with a 4.6 for “Brothers & Sisters,” NBC third with a 2.4 for “Crossing Jordan” and Univision fourth with a 1.3 for the last hour of “Bailando.”

Among households, CBS led the night with a 22.6 average rating and a 33 share. ABC was second at 7.9/11, NBC third at 5.1/7, Fox fourth at 3.4/5, CW fifth at 1.7/2 and Univision sixth at 1.6/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_9666.asp

The Business of Television
Sinclair Details Time Warner Pact
By Linda Moss MultiChannel News 1/22/2007

Time Warner Cable’s new retransmission-consent deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group includes carriage of the analog and digital signals of 35 TV stations owned or operated by the broadcaster in 22 markets, Sinclair said in a press release Monday.

The cable operator and Sinclair finalized a new retransmission-consent pact Friday just hours before an extension of their old agreement was set to expire.

The new retransmission-consent deal expires Dec. 31, 2009, according to Sinclair. And the pact marks the first time Time Warner has agreed to carry Sinclair’s digital signals to most of its customers, according to the TV-station owner.

The broadcaster is still embroiled in a retransmission-consent dispute with Mediacom Communications, and it pulled the signals for 22 of its stations from that midsized cable operator Jan. 6, impacting 700,000 subscribers.

In its press release Monday, Sinclair said the TV stations covered by the new Time Warner agreement reach about 6 million Time Warner customers, “many of whom receive two stations owned and/or operated by Sinclair.”

Time Warner spokeswoman Maureen Huff has previously said that the expired Sinclair retransmission-consent affected just 1 million subscribers. Time Warner couldn’t be reached for comment on the discrepancy in the subscriber numbers.

"Sinclair is very pleased to have reached this agreement with Time Warner, which carries our stations to more subscribers than any other cable company," Sinclair CEO David Smith said in a prepared statement.

"We are excited that this agreement not only ensures retransmission of our signals by Time Warner for the next three years, but also provides for the carriage of our digital signals for the first time to most of Time Warner's subscribers,” Smith added. “This agreement -- which represents a mutually acceptable economic agreement between the parties -- is further indication of the value of our television stations to cable companies and provides a strong illustration of the successful operation of the free market for negotiation of retransmission-consent agreements."

Sinclair’s agreement with Time Warner includes: WABM/WTTO in Birmingham, Ala.; WNYO/WUTV in Buffalo, N.Y.; WDKA/KBSI in Cape Girardeau, Mo./Paducah, Ky.; WMMP/WTAT in Charleston, S.C.; WCHS/WVAH in Charleston. W. Va.; WSTR in Cincinnati; WSYX/WTTE in Columbus, Ohio; WKEF/WRGT in Dayton, Ohio; WMYV/WXLV in Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem, N.C.; WDKY in Lexington, Ky.; WTVZ in Norfolk, Va.; WCGV/WVTV in Milwaukee; WEAR in Pensacola, Fla.-Mobile, Ala.; WPGH/WPMY in Pittsburgh; WGME in Portland, Maine; WLFL/WRDC in Raleigh, N.C.; WUHF in Rochester, N.Y.; KABB/KMYS in San Antonio; WGGB in Springfield, Mass.; WNYS/WSYT in Syracuse, N.Y.; WTWC in Tallahassee, Fla.; and WTTA in Tampa, Fla.

The agreement also provides for the carriage of Sinclair's MyNetwork TV affiliates in Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, both of which are transmitted as digital multicast stations, according to Sinclair.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6409025.html?display=Breaking+News

TV Sports
CBS' AFC Championship Is Season's Top-Rated Show
By John Consoli MediaWeek January 22, 2007 -

The AFC Championship Game on CBS last night (Jan. 21) in which the Indianapolis Colts defeated the New England Patriots earned an overnight household rating/share of 28.1/40, up 4 percent from the comparable AFC Championship Game (Patriots vs. Pittsburgh Steelers) in the same time period in 2005, according to Nielsen Media Research data.

The 28.1/40 represents the highest-rated AFC Championship Game in the metered markets since CBS re-acquired the NFL in 1998, and overall, the highest-rated AFC Championship game since Jacksonville-Indianapolis in 1997 (28.3/46). It was also the highest rated television program this season, beating the two premiere telecasts of the Fox reality hit American Idol (21.8/31 and 21.7/31).

"Going into Super Bowl XLI, we could not be happier to see a record-breaking audience for the AFC Championship combined with the strong audience for the NFC Championship and for NFL football across the regular season," said Sean McManus, president CBS News & Sports. "It confirms the remarkable power of the NFL as a television property and the AFC as a Conference."

CBS’ AFC playoff average for the 2006-07 season earned an overnight 21.5/36 rating/share, up 3 percent from a 20.9/37 in 2005-06.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003535770

TV Sports
Fox's NFC Championship Up 21% Over Last Season
By John Consoli MediaWeek January 22, 2007 -

Fox Sports' afternoon broadcast of yesterday's (Jan. 21) NFC Championship Game in which the Chicago Bears defeated the New Orleans Saints, drew a 25.1/45 overnight household rating/share, according to Nielsen Media Research data, 21 percent higher than last year’s Carolina Panthers vs. Seattle Seahawks NFC Championship Game.

The game averaged 43.2 million viewers, making it the most watched NFC Championship Game in 10 years. The game peaked with a 27.6 rating and 46 share at 5:30 p.m., with 48.1 million viewers tuned in.

The Chicago market averaged a 46.1/74, while the Indianpolis market was the next highest rated with a 38.9/56.

Fox Sports’ four NFC playoff games averaged a 19.9/35 and 32.9 million viewers, the highest rating and most viewers since 2004.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/networktv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003535844

While MediaCom seeks Congressional and state legislative help in its battle with Sinclair, one unhappy local community is considering just taking over the MedaCom operation entirely.
The Business of Television
Amid complaints about providers, city looks into running its own system
By Emily Ristow The Columbia (MO) Missourian January 22, 2007

Promoting competition and providing the best cable service possible are among the reasons Mayor Darwin Hindman gave for exploring city-owned cable in Columbia.

The City Council passed a motion at its meeting Tuesday asking the staff to provide a report on the possibility of providing cable as a city utility rather than through franchise agreements with Mediacom and Charter Communications.

“I think that it’s responsible to have all your options out on the table,” said Fifth Ward Councilwoman Laura Nauser, who suggested the idea.

The report was requested after a frustrated council allowed a three-month extension of existing franchise agreements with Mediacom and Charter, a move made necessary by stalled negotiations over new agreements. The council had already granted a one-year extension on Jan. 17, 2006, because the city was reworking ordinances governing cable providers at the time.

A franchise agreement between the city and the cable companies is a federal requirement that allows the cable companies to “occupy the public rights of way, which belong to the city” said Randy Hollis, senior manager of government relations at Mediacom.

Discussion of the franchise extension at the council meeting centered on the council’s frustration over the length of the negotiations and the quality of local cable service.

Nauser said she had not received an overwhelming number of complaints from residents about cable service, but Third Ward Councilman Bob Hutton said he’d received many complaints.

“To me, Mediacom is very expensive and provides very poor service,” Hutton said.

At the council meeting, Hutton mentioned a complaint from a developer who was having difficulty getting Mediacom to install cable in new subdivisions. Nauser discussed her own difficulty in getting Mediacom to install cable at her home, saying she made several fruitless calls but got quick results when she finally identified herself as a council member.

“Complaints about Mediacom are way out of proportion with complaints on other utilities,” Hindman said.

Nauser said she would be interested in adding cable to the utilities the city provides because it would be a local service provided by local people.

“I think it’s very exciting,” Hutton said of the idea. “I wish we’d done it years ago.”

Water and Light Director Dan Dasho said his staff will begin looking at the possibilities soon. City Attorney Fred Boeckmann said the notion of municipal cable service isn’t out of the question.

“I think it’s definitely possible,” Boeckmann said. “But it would take a lot of study to see if it’s really feasible.”

Columbia’s Water and Light Department already does some work with fiber optics for the city, county and school districts, Dasho said.

“The idea would be to put together some of our thoughts about where we are today and to take a look at where we can be with today’s and tomorrow’s technology,” he said.

Eddie Trower, government relations manager at Charter Communications, said that if the city were to begin providing cable, it would not prohibit current cable providers from continuing to do so as well. He added that he was unaware of any situation in Missouri where both a cable company and the city provided the same service.

Regarding the extension of negotiations on the franchise agreements, Hindman said he was “uncomfortable not following standard procedure” but thought the council had to grant the extension because it is unsure what might happen if new agreements don’t come through.

Boeckmann said that current negotiations are primarily with Mediacom, but representatives of Charter Communications have told him the terms of the franchise with Mediacom will likely be acceptable to them as well. If not, Boeckmann said another extension could be anticipated to finish Charter Communication’s new agreement.

Trower said he is comfortable with the city first working with Mediacom because it has a larger presence in Columbia.

Gary Baugh, Mediacom manager in Columbia, said at the Tuesday meeting that nothing in the negotiations was “insurmountable” and that an agreement should be reached within three months.

Hollis echoed these thoughts. “While we’ve made quite a bit of progress, there are a couple of items the city is requesting that have a significant cost. That cost will have an affect on customer bills.”

Boeckmann said he, too, is confident about the prospect of new agreements.

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/print.php?ID=23822

The Business of Television
Iowa B’cast Group Weighs In on Sinclair-Mediacom
By Ted Hearn1 Multi Channel News January 22, 2007

The head of the Iowa Broadcasters Association said Monday that Sinclair Broadcast Group should be allowed to demand cash for cable carriage from Mediacom Communications without interference by regulators.

"In our view, there is no valid reason for any arm of the government to become involved in the Sinclair-Mediacom matter," IBA president Steve Martinson said in a three-page letter to the entire Iowa congressional delegation.

On Jan. 6, Sinclair pulled 22 local TV stations from Mediacom, a midsized cable operator, impacting 700,000 subscribers. Without success, Mediacom has sought help from Congress, the courts and the Federal Communications Commission.

In 1992, TV stations gained from Congress the right to seek cash from cable and satellite TV providers in a triennial process called retransmission consent. Both sides are required to bargain in good faith.

"Sinclair's position, like that of a growing number of television broadcasters, is simply this: If the cable operators wish to sell to their subscribers the programming that broadcasters invest to produce and acquire, the cable operators should pay broadcasters for the value those programs deliver," Martinson said.

He added that Mediacom subscribers have "several ways to continue to enjoy Sinclair's programming," either by using an off-air antenna or by signing up with a satellite-TV provider.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6409245.html?display=Breaking+News

Washington Notebook
Washington may take up TV violence
Amid rising criticism of gore, some members of Congress are pushing for action that could include letting the FCC punish broadcasters
By Jim Puzzanghera Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 22, 2007

WASHINGTON — Despite efforts to quell complaints that they air too much death, blood and mayhem, broadcasters are facing a renewed battle over regulating televised violence.

With a fresh Congress sworn in and a major federal report expected soon on TV gore, pressure is likely to mount to more aggressively stem graphic and gratuitous scenes in shows. One proposal would give regulators powers similar to those they have now to punish indecency and coarse language over the airwaves.

In addition, TV violence is shaping up as a 2008 presidential campaign issue with some of the leading potential candidates already at the forefront of the issue. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has long talked about the effect of gory TV shows and video games on children. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) favors allowing families to buy cable channels separately so they can spurn objectionable shows. Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) also have bemoaned TV violence.

"It's such an easy thing to do, curse Hollywood, curse television," said Jack Valenti, the former top movie studio lobbyist who is leading an industry initiative to head off government action by teaching parents how to block objectionable TV shows. "It makes headlines…. It looks like they're doing something and they get political brownie points for it."

This month, the Parents Television Council stoked the fires by unveiling "Dying to Entertain," a report that concluded that TV violence had reached epidemic proportions. The media watchdog found that broadcast TV violence rose 75% in six years.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to fuel the debate further when it soon releases its long-awaited study on the subject, which experts believe will have similar findings. FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin gave a preview this month, saying the study's findings would show "a deep concern among parents and health professionals regarding harm from viewing violence in the media."

FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, a Democrat, this month warned that the door might be opening to regulation of violent programs.

"In the absence of action from the industry, I think we need to be looking at all our options," Copps said.

Violence on TV has been a target of activists and politicians dating to the late 1950s, when shows such as "Captain Video" and "The Untouchables" drew criticism for potentially contributing to juvenile delinquency. Today, critics say gore is proliferating partly because of the popularity of medical and crime dramas such as "Nip/Tuck" on FX, "Grey's Anatomy" on ABC and the "CSI" franchise on CBS.

But although the FCC has regulatory power over coarse language and sexual content, it has no clear authority to fine broadcasters for excessive bloodshed and mayhem.

Some in Congress have been eager to change that. In 2004, a bipartisan group of 39 House members — including the new Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) — asked the FCC to study the effect of violent programming on children and how its airing might be restricted.

One option pushed by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) would give the FCC the authority to address graphic violence in TV programming, including cable and satellite. His 2005 bill went nowhere, but he plans to reintroduce it. With his own party now in the majority, Rockefeller may get hearings and a vote, further propelling the issue.

"Obviously, the preference would be to have the industry police itself when it comes to excessive violence," Rockefeller said. "However, if they can't or won't do it, then Congress must step in and address this growing societal problem."

Another reason TV violence may take center stage in the Washington culture wars is that indecency is no longer the hot issue it once was. Last year, Congress boosted indecency fines tenfold, to $325,000 for each violation, helping blunt some of the criticism that Washington wasn't doing enough. In addition, broadcasters have tied up the indecency issue in court by suing the FCC.

"Of sex, violence and profanity, which do I see as the greatest risk to children?" said Timothy Winter, president of the Parents Television Council. "It is the violence."

Hollywood saw it coming, which is why Valenti, the well-connected retired head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, was drafted last year to lead a $300-million, 18-month public campaign aimed at defusing the controversy. The program is aimed at teaching parents how to use the V-chip and cable boxes to block objectionable shows, based on their ratings. Ads began airing last summer.

"The only way you can deal with it is to have parents do it in the home," Valenti said. "You can't do it by legislative fiat and you can't do it by regulation, because what is too much violence?"

Defining violence could be as difficult as defining indecency, and it carries additional constitutional hurdles. The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that the FCC could regulate indecency on broadcast TV and radio, but it has not given the agency authority to regulate violent content.

"There's no reason they couldn't say, 'We define indecency as gratuitous violence' and then go after it," said Craig R. Smith, director of the Center for First Amendment Studies at Cal State Long Beach. "They've resisted it, but there's a lot of pressure out there."

Attempts by California and several other states to ban the sale of violent video games to children have been halted by the courts on constitutional grounds. But Rockefeller said the stakes on TV violence were high enough for Washington to attempt legislation.

"One of the most basic steps we can take is to give the FCC authority to regulate violence, and if necessary, the courts will then work out the constitutional issues on a case-by-case basis," Rockefeller said. "Just sitting on our hands and doing nothing to protect children is not an option."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-fi-violence22jan22,0,6951445,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask Matt column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush: TVGuide.com TV Critic Monday, January 22, 2007

Question: I know competing networks need to try to outdo each other, but does it make sense for Fox and NBC to schedule Heroes against 24? Both of these shows have a similar audience and are probably going to nip away at each other's ratings. I love both shows and am going to have a major decision on Monday night at 9. Also, The O.C. is one of Fox's most loyally watched "franchise" shows, but it had the unenviable task of being sandwiched between CSI and Grey's Anatomy. I think The O.C. could still be profitable for Fox. Heck, why not schedule it post-American Idol, where I am sure it would thrive again. Or just move it to another night entirely where the competition was not as hearty. Is it better to cancel a show than to get creative with its scheduling, or would the powers-that-be at Fox "lose face" by bowing to Grey's and CSI?— Chris

Matt Roush: It may not make sense to you, but put the Heroes-24 dilemma this way: Who was going to blink on Mondays? Not Fox, which has waited all season to relaunch 24 as part of a powerhouse Monday night. Not NBC, which can point to Heroes as one of its rare good-news breakthroughs, revitalizing an important night of the week. This is one of those questions where I get hammered if I don't bring up the obvious. Most people serious about watching TV will be able to watch both shows, recording one while watching the other live, or time-shifting both if you've got the equipment and the inclination. There's no question the audiences for these shows overlap, but there's room in the time period for both (and room as well for CBS' comedies as light counter-programming). Yes, it's annoying, but this showdown was inevitable. May the best show (24) win, but may both thrive.

As for The O.C.: The bloom began to fade on that show when Fox moved it to Thursday, where it never flourished and was not helped by what are generally regarded as some "off" seasons. Fans are saying that this season is a return to form (I don't particularly agree, though I'm glad they're enjoying it), but it was too little too late. I'd rather see Fox put its muscle behind turning a show like Bones into a bigger hit by keeping it airing close to Idol than squandering this platform on a show that once burned bright but now is being eased off the air with at least a modicum of decency. Now, back to 24, the show of the moment.

Question: 24's first day was about preventing the assassination of David Palmer. Four years later it was all for naught, because he was assassinated anyway. 24's second day was about preventing a nuclear bomb from going off in Los Angeles. Four years later it was all for naught, because a nuclear bomb went off anyway. So if we're continuing in this fashion, will next season feature the release of a nationwide biological weapon? Because after all, in 24's third day, that was prevented, too.— Marcus

Matt Roush: In other words, are you implying that 24 is getting darker by the season? That's no doubt true, and certainly there was a sense of hopelessness after last week's fourth-hour climax, with the detonated nuke and the death of Curtis at Jack's hand. This is how it has to be on 24. If it didn't continue to push the bounds of homeland terror, we would gripe that the show has lost its edge. And yet, I got one letter this week from a member of a military family horrified and angry that the show would dramatize a nuke attack in the U.S. during a time of actual war. This complaint has dogged 24 from the beginning, when the pilot (which included the destruction of a commercial airliner) was aired not long after Sept. 11, 2001. It's a risky proposition, going this dark this soon, but it's an essential part of 24's DNA. Watch it at your own risk of sleepless nights.

Question: Last season I used the term "breathless" to describe how I felt after watching 24. I would have to say that this season's words are "dark" and "gruesome." I had no idea Jack Bauer could bite someone's jugular to get free; but then again, he is JB after all. To think he kept saying, "I don't think I can do this any more," worried me a bit. Especially after he had already done so much. (By the way, wasn't he stabbed in the back by an ice pick or something? He seems to be fine. What is up with that? Do they honestly think the fans forget something like that?) I was wondering just a few things: First, why was Curtis killed off? I really liked him, and he always seemed to be there for Jack. Second, will Rick Schroder be a breath of fresh air, or will he bring some of his NYPD Blue character with him?— Amy D.

Matt Roush: I think we've lived long enough with 24 and Jack Bauer to accept it on faith that our hero can take a serious licking and keep on ticking, no matter what. To fret over it misses the point. Here's a guy who'll go vampire, if he has to, to achieve his goals. As for killing Curtis: Why ever would you think this character wouldn't eventually be sacrificed? I just never figured he'd go out this way. Every time a character leaves a show, violently or otherwise, the question arises: Why? The answer: Because shows of this sort, even procedurals like NCIS and Criminal Minds, need to shake things up once in a while. Sometimes the actor wants out (as in the case of Sasha Alexander of NCIS). More often it's a creative decision, one that we should learn to live with and move on. Losing familiar characters is a staple of 24 that many fans have a hard time dealing with (especially last season). While I sometimes agree that 24 can be too bloodthirsty — after watching this season's flat CTU scenes so far, I bet the producers regret offing Edgar — it comes with the exhilaratingly intense territory. I'm not about to prejudge Rick Schroder or his character until I see him in action. On paper, he appears to be a perfect fit for this world.

Question: Why have Peter MacNicol on 24? He's not really funny, but he can be humorously annoying. And he's not dramatic, just annoying. Guess I'm saying he's not my cup of tea. Surely there are any number of guys who could play a surly lap dog without the baggage that he carries. I hope Jean Smart comes back and slaps the crap out of him. And while I'm whining: What happened to Chloe? New hair, wearing makeup, the new team player. Leave us something for a guy to love. She's like the female equivalent of Steve Buscemi or Paul Giamatti, the kind of guy interesting women fall for. And her hubby comes off as the House of CTU.— Jon D.

Matt Roush: And so the nit-picking and griping begins. I actually like the casting of Peter MacNicol against type, and that he's not being asked to be cloyingly eccentric. You may not like him, but judging from the number of panicked Numbers questions I got when he left that show temporarily to take this role, yours isn't a universal opinion. It's still early days, so we can't yet see how dangerous this bureaucrat is going to be in his influence over the new President Palmer, but I do love your suggestion that Jean Smart come back to knock some sense (or at least civic responsibility) into him. Anything to bring the former first lady back to the show as soon as possible. As for your Chloe gripes: fair enough. I still adore her, but find her trapped in a much drabber CTU environment now that so many of our past favorites have been killed. (The tiresome squabbling between Morris and Milo was easily my least favorite material in the first four hours.)

Question: After an American Idol season finale that included the on-stage humiliation of a Clay Aiken wannabe, and after the self-congratulatory recap and Jewel introduction on last Tuesday's premiere, the first thing I'm treated to is the painful five-minute humiliation of the first girl to audition, in front of her idol, no less. I'm frankly reminded of why I tend to skip the show until the actual talent round begins. I know enough about TV and film production to know that all of these unfortunates sign release waivers. I also know that many people watch the show particularly for these moments, but what a way to leave an immediate bad taste in my mouth before the season has a chance to begin. I think I'll put this one on auto-delete until we get to the dialing and texting round.— John B.

Matt Roush: You, sir, are my hero of the week. It's in these opening episodes of American Idol when we are most reminded that, in fact, this is a Fox reality show we're watching. Which means it has a broad streak of exploitative cruelty and a disregard for human dignity. I watch these audition episodes because 1) it's my job to keep up with phenoms of this caliber (I need to be able to talk about it on the radio, TV and elsewhere), and 2) because I'm looking to see if, on occasion, I can spot someone early who's likely to make it into the final round.

Even in these despicable audition segments, occasional quality shines through. But it's clear that the intent of these early episodes is to encourage the delusional to make fools of themselves on TV, and to pander to those at home who revel in others' humiliation. This is absolutely my least favorite period of the Idol process. For me, the show will truly begin roughly a month from now (Feb. 20 and 21), when we're down to the top dozen guys and top dozen gals, and the serious elimination process begins.

Question: I absolutely love the HBO series Rome. I anxiously awaited its second season premiere and was rewarded with another masterful installment. I know HBO has decided that this will be the show's final season, but how did they come to such a decision? What is too expensive, the talent? The CGI? The remote locations? Surely they have made an initial investment in sets and clothing that might offset some other expenses? Is there any chance Rome will see a third season? Thank you for any light you can shed on this for me!— Marilyn

Matt Roush: I don't know enough about the expenses of producing Rome to be an authority, and HBO doesn't tend to comment on such matters, but I think it's fair to say that filming an episodic period epic on location, using primarily British actors on Roman sets, is enough to break even HBO's bank. It's an international coproduction, involving the BBC and Italy's RAI. But still, I think the bigger issue here is that if Rome had become HBO's "next big thing," which it really didn't, the expense might have become something of a moot point. The show is a grand, garish guilty pleasure to be sure, but it didn't quite become HBO's next signature series, so we have to settle for two seasons instead of the usual open-ended experience. (In that regard, it's more like the BBC's series, which often air for far shorter durations than American shows.) In short, don't get your hopes up for a last-minute extension. This Rome is already one for the history books.

Question: Do you think Men in Trees and Friday Night Lights will be getting another season? Men in Trees is charming, and it fits well with the Thursday lineup of Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy. Of course, it still loses a lot of the Grey's lead-in, so that leaves me worried. Friday Night Lights has been showing a slight audience increase week-to-week in its new Wednesday time slot. Will NBC work within this schedule for the next TV year?— Kiks

Matt Roush: I'm betting it will be down to the wire for both of these shows. I believe the networks are behind both and would like to be able to bring them back. Men in Trees probably stands a better chance, since it is more commercial and more compatible with ABC's other programming. If it continues to improve creatively, I'll be cheering it on as I have been lately. Speaking of cheerleading: I go hoarse singing the praises of Friday Night Lights, but that's going to be a tougher, potentially more painful call. I'm hoping NBC will give it a longer lease on life, the way it did for American Dreams a few seasons ago, but I can't imagine the circumstances under which this show will ever achieve "hit" status. If Lights does only last one season, I'll always regard it fondly as a superb "year-in-the-life" chronicle, much the way I do another great, underappreciated NBC high-school masterpiece: Freaks and Geeks. Should NBC renew Lights' contract, that would be the best news of an often discouraging season.

Question: If ratings mean everything in television, why don't more shows change networks (a la Buffy the Vampire Slayer years ago)? I would much rather get a 20-plus-episode season of The Shield on Fox than its 10 or so on FX, and I'm thinking NBC could use a Monk or Closer instead of another Deal or No Deal. Sports have free agents, why not television? It would be nice to see a show that bombed on one network (Kidnapped, The Nine) get another chance on another net.— Steve F.

Matt Roush: Nothing wrong with wishful thinking, but besides the fact that a show jumping networks is the exception to the rule, here's why none of your particular examples would work. Even if you got double the episodes of The Shield on Fox, the likelihood that it would even resemble the show that you love on FX is questionable. Fox has its edgy moments, but even that network wouldn't be able to let The Shield, with its TV-MA mandate, get away with what is allowed on FX. (Besides, while The Shield looks like a success on FX, its forbiddingly dark nature would probably keep it from being a network-size hit, so it would likely look like a flop on Fox.) For NBC, comparing a cost-effective smash like Deal or No Deal with mainstream cable dramas — whose cost would likely go way up if made for network consumption — ignores the reality of the marketplace, and of NBC's programming priorities in its current depressed state. As for ratings failures like Kidnapped and The Nine (regardless of their merit), why would any network pick up something that failed somewhere else? The reason these particular shows failed in the first place is that, despite encouraging reviews, they didn't open strongly and they faded.

Question: The networks seem to lack the imagination to handle serials properly. Why do the networks think it's such a bright idea not to show reruns of serials? For viewers who missed the start of a continuing story but were impressed by the buzz, reruns are the only way to catch up on the background. NBC made that possible with Heroes. For the viewers who find it disruptive to the story, all the networks have to do is display "THIS IS A RERUN" on the screen. Even if ordinary reruns don't work, how about a late-night marathon in the low-viewer hours? And don't axe a serial mid-story. That's like selling a book with missing pages! Aren't the execs paid to think?— Charles

Matt Roush: If only it were that simple. It's not an issue of imagination. The networks would like nothing more than for each of these serials to explode out of the gate and run successfully. That didn't happen this season, which puts the programming suits in a bind because they're responsible for the "business" end of show biz. And to rebroadcast episodes of a dying serial in hopes of gaining audience is a case of throwing good money after bad. NBC can replay Heroes because it's a hit, and even if the repeats don't equal the original broadcast's numbers, at this point it's all about exposure for a successful franchise. The networks have turned to the Internet as a way to increase the odds for their serials, but even that is a limited proposition.

Even using Saturday (typically a dumping ground) to burn off Kidnapped didn't work. Apparently even endless repeats of Law & Order-type series can be sold more efficiently than a serial too few are watching. I hope I'm not sounding like too much of an apologist for the networks. Looking at the fall schedule, it was quite obvious to everyone, even the network heads, that it was a calculated risk to have so many serials premiering at the same time. Like everything else in TV, the odds were that most would eventually fail. It's just that the residue of a canceled serial tends to carry a lot more emotional baggage among fans.

Question: As much as I try to get into What About Brian, something about it just doesn't stick. It has its moments. I hope the newest addition of Tiffani Thiessen changes that. She's great at playing the tease. Though I have to say, I was hoping Thiessen would make a cameo/brief appearance at least on Grey's Anatomy as another one of Derek's sisters with a McSteamy past. What are your thoughts?— Veronica

Matt Roush: Just guessing, but if Thiessen had her choice, I bet she'd have picked going on Grey's over Brian as well. As for her joining the What About Brian ensemble: another case of too little too late.

http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Columnists/Ask-Matt/Default.aspx#01heroes

Any word on how Battlestar Galactica did in its new time slot on Sunday?

I normally don't talk about Deal or No Deal around these parts because its considered anathema (even though it scored a few points in Fredfa's Network Guilty Pleasures poll a few weeks back) but I'm gonna go on a limb and predict last night's 'Deal' will score a higher-than-usual win in its time slot. The spectacle of a crazy woman contestant (a NASCAR nut that happened to be crazy, not the other way around! ;) ) that went from insanely nutty to depressingly coy as the show wore on was perhaps the best installment of 'Deal' to date. And since the woman hung in there until the last possible moment it meant there was little chance for audience drop-off from quarter hour to quarter hour.

And I second the enquiry for 'BG's' Sunday debut. For a second part of a cliffhanger the show has generated surprisingly little buzz from the faithful in the internet forums I've visited. :confused:

TV Notebook
Some people do like Aaron Sorkin's 'Studio 60!'
Fans of the series are hard to find, but they're out there
By Deborah Netburn Los Angles Times Staff Writer January 22, 2007

A little less than a month ago I wrote a story about comedy writers who hate Aaron Sorkin's most recent show "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." The show is a behind-the-scenes look at a "Saturday Night Live" style sketch comedy show, and, as I noted in the piece, legions of comedy writers love to talk about how much they hate it.

Last week, no less than Sorkin himself singled out my story as an example of the shoddy hate journalism that "Studio 60" must contend with. "Folks, it is not at all difficult to go on the Internet and find opinions of disgruntled people, I don't need to tell you that," he said to a room full of reporters who were visiting the "Studio 60" set. "So, that L.A. Times piece was a piece of nonsense. …Really … that was god-awful."

Well, Sorkin is right about one thing: It is not difficult to look on the Internet and find people who don't like his show. Much more challenging is finding people who really love it. But Sorkin supporters are out there. So, while it has been an interesting experience having a celebrated TV producer publicly hate my guts, in an attempt to see the other side of the story, I now present some of "Studio 60's" staunchest defenders.

Dan Hindmarch is a 32-year-old TV writer who has written for "The Unit." On Dec. 5 Hindmarch posted a blog on his MySpace page titled "In Defense of Studio 60." In an e-mail interview Hindmarch said he routinely has to defend the show from his friends who work in television comedy. "Similarly 'House' and 'Grey's Anatomy' must be defended from people who work in medicine," he wrote. "It should be understood: 'Studio 60' does not represent television reality any more than 'The West Wing' represented political (reality)."

In the blog Hindmarch applauds Sorkin for deeming the TV writing profession worthy of television depiction, and for taking risks with subject matter. "If 'Studio 60' goes down, it means that everybody on TV's gotta be doctors or lawyers or cops or related, and that's a slight to the medium of television," he wrote. "… It means that writing should be procedural, that experimentation is verboten, and that failure will be predetermined by focus groups." These things, he wrote, "cannot stand."

Hindmarch said he might not be informed enough about the show to be "a plausible authority," but that he'll watch it as long as it exists. "Personally I'll look forward to any 'Studio 60' I can get my hands on," he wrote. "The most I'm hoping for right now is a complete 22-episode season that I can get on DVD. Anything past Season One I'll consider a blessing."

TheSunsetStrip.blogspot.com has been tracking "Studio 60" for more than a year. ("For Aaron Sorkin, Let's Hope Third Time is Once Again A Charm" reads the cryptic tag line). The blog is written by Chris M. whose full name is Christian A. Missonak. Missonak has tried to ignore the unflattering buzz around "Studio 60," but on Jan. 5 he'd had enough. "You'll notice very little has been said in this blog about the negative press 'Studio 60' has been getting in the recent months, and to be perfectly frank a lot of the reason is that I just didn't feel like getting into it," he wrote. "But enough's enough."

Missonak is frustrated that it has become trendy to hate "Studio 60"--that the cool kids rant about how it takes itself too seriously, or that it's arrogant, or that the sketches aren't as funny as they should be. He doesn't necessarily disagree with all these points, but he still likes the show. "Sorkin's never been short on ego, there's no doubt about that ... but this is an intelligent, well-written, well-acted show. And any moron can and should be able to see it," he wrote.

Another fan, Mayrav Saar, freelance reporter and editor of fishbowlLA on the Media Bistro website, said she had high expectations for "Studio 60" and that it didn't disappoint. "It's a very entertaining show and the story lines that deal with relationships are some of the best on television," she said. And she doesn't see why it matters whether the sketches in the show within a show are funny. "It's supposed to be a take on 'Saturday Night Live,' and the sketches in that show aren't funny so I don't see how that argument makes a lot of sense," she said. "The sketches aren't hilariously funny, I don't see how Commedia (dell'arte) could be funny, but what they are saying with that is that audiences aren't stupid."

And finally, entertainment reporter Paul Cullum said: "Aaron Sorkin is a really smart guy who writes really great features. His dialogue is syncopated and a pleasure to listen to and if this is the vehicle for it, so be it. And if it offends overpaid comedy writers my sympathy is with them."

I suspect Aaron Sorkin couldn't have put it better himself.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-spinoffs-studio6022jan22,1,4456755.story?coll=la-entnews-tv

Television Notebook
USA channels Friday win;
'Monk' tops
By Kimberly Nordyke The Hollywood Reporter Jan 23, 2007

USA Network's combination of obsessive-compulsive detective "Monk" and fake-psychic series "Psych" kicked off the second halves of their current seasons with solid performances Friday night.

"Monk," officially debuting the second half of its fifth season after two recent special episodes, averaged 5.2 million total viewers from 9-10 p.m., slightly higher than the Season 5 premiere tally of 5.1 million in July, according to Nielsen Media Research. The episode was the most-watched basic cable program in primetime Friday among total viewers, adults 18-49 (1.7 million) and adults 25-54 (2.2 million).

"Psych" averaged 3.8 million total viewers from 10-11 p.m. Friday. The show's series premiere in July drew 6.1 million total viewers, with its season-to-date average now at slightly more than 5 million. Friday's episode was the most-watched show in basic cable that night among adults 18-34 (600,000).

Following "Monk" and "Psych," the second episode of Disney Channel's "Cory in the House" at 8:30 p.m. Friday ranked as the No. 3 cable program of the day in total viewers (3.7 million). It also came in as Friday's top program in the target demos of kids 6-11 (1.7 million) and tweens 9-14 (1.8 million).

In other cable ratings, "The Wire" is averaging nearly 700,000 total viewers on BET after two 90-minute airings. The off-HBO acquisition debuted at 9 p.m. Jan. 11, with 601,000 total viewers, while a second episode the following week built on that figure, drawing 793,000 total viewers.

However, the 697,000 average total viewership for the two episodes is off from the 1.02 million average for the time period a year ago (which included a combination of acquired comedy "Girlfriends" and miniseries "The Corner," original series "Beef" and a repeat of the BET Awards).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3iaa988f920334c89cfc49b46ed51b9030

Television Sports
On the matter of Super Bowl ad clutter
By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 23, 2007

Clutter is a headache for media people under any circumstances, making it harder for an advertiser’s message to stand out.

And when you’re paying a record $2.6 million to deliver that message, as are those advertisers with spots in this year’s Super Bowl on CBS, it’s even more of a concern.

According to a report released late last week by TNS Media Intelligence, the Super Bowl has become more cluttered than ever. Last year’s game on ABC contained a record 47.2 minutes of ads, nearly four more minutes than Fox had the previous year. That includes promotions for the Super Bowl carrier’s own shows, a category that has exploded over the past five years.

In 2001, the Super Bowl carrier ran 5 minutes and 55 seconds of self-promotion. Last year that soared to 10 minutes and 25 seconds. TNS also found that over the past 20 years, the Super Bowl has run more than 11 full hours of commercials for 221 advertisers, representing an investment of $1.72 billion.

But such clutter may be less of a worry to veteran advertisers who have gotten used to the Super Bowl environment. TNS projects nearly two-thirds of this year’s Super Bowl ad spending will be by advertisers who also participated in last year’s big game.

Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at TNS Media Intelligence, talks with Media Life about Super Bowl clutter, how the game stacks up against other sporting events, and the hot ad category the past few years.

MediaLife: You found that last year's Super Bowl had a record amount of clutter. How much of a concern is this for media people?

Jon Swallen: I think clutter’s a concern for all advertisers because it does impact consumer’s recall. Arguably it’s probably less of a concern for Super Bowl than for normal programming, but still, all those commercials competing and advertisers paying what they’re paying--it still remains an issue when they have to justify what they’re paying.

MediaLife: How cluttered do you think the game will get before we finally start to see it sink or plateau?

Jon Swallen: I don’t know. I was surprised when I saw the statistics from last year, because it had stabilized before for a couple years at around 41 or 42 minutes, and last year it jumped to over 47 minutes.

Part of the issue here is the rights the networks pay to broadcast the games. To recoup those fees the network has to be able to sell ads and generate revenue. So I think what puts pressure on the clutter level is the rights fees and the networks’ desire to turn a profit on the event. I think as rights fees rise, we’ll continue to see clutter on the rise as well.

MediaLife: How valuable is the promotional platform that the Super Bowl carrier receives to advertise its own shows?

Jon Swallen: I think it’s extremely valuable. The commercials you run on your own airtime is the primary mechanism to promote your own programming, and it’s a large captive audience, so it’s a great way to promote your own shows. It won’t guarantee people will watch them, but they’ll be aware of them.

There’s also kind of new a tradition now of a network running one of its programs in the slot immediately after the Super Bowl, using it as a terrific lead-in. The choice the network makes is another promotional benefit the Super Bowl represents for them.

MediaLife: Have you noticed any trends in advertising spending over the past few years for the Super Bowl? Why are they important?

Jon Swallen: The rates continue to creep upwards, and clutter does too, and those two together keep pushing revenue higher and higher each year.

One of the things that’s changed over the last decade is the composition of advertisers.

Beer and car companies are always there, but what other categories fill out the Super Bowl? That’s where you see some of the trends in the industry. In ‘99 and 2000, there was huge volume of dot.com ads. There’s still those now, but not nearly the level it was at six or seven years ago.

In the past several years one of the strong categories has been movies. For the movie category the Super Bowl is a great opportunity because of the huge audience, so it’s the fringes that kind of reflect the trends in advertising.

MediaLife: In-game ads receive most of the attention, but there's a lot spent on network pre and post-game ads as well. What is the value of spending on these programs for advertisers? Are there reasons advertisers prefer these spots to in-game ads other than the obvious pricing considerations?

Jon Swallen: I think a good chunk of it is you have to look at the target audience, who’s watching. The game itself attracts a significant female audience, but the pregame stuff is skewed more toward males, the regular-season football demographic. If you’re an advertiser trying to reach upscale males, the pregame shows are a good venue.

But how much does it cost? Less than the game because audience is smaller. But because the pregame telecasts consume a lot of airtime, it creates sponsorship opportunities for advertisers who don’t want to pay the rates of Super Bowl but still want to target that demographic.

So I think the pregame show in particular can be used very strategically as an alternate to in-game spots.

MediaLife: You find that retention rate of incumbent advertiser money is 62 percent, which is actually lower than the Academy Awards and World Series. Why is that and what does it mean?

Jon Swallen: I think it’s first the unit rate. Paying upwards of $2 million for a 30-second spot is a pricey proposition and one that’s always under scrutiny. So that works against a retention rate. By comparison, a spot in the World Series, while pricey, doesn’t come any where close to the Super Bowl.

The second thing is, particularly with Academy Awards, it has been called the Super Bowl for women, it’s the single largest female audience outside of Super Bowl itself.

By contrast, on the sports audience side if Super Bowl is too pricey, there are more alternatives, so I think that makes the Academy Awards sponsors more eager to renew their commitment as opposed to the male-targeted advertisers.

MediaLife: The TNS report also examines ad revenue for the World Series and Final Four events, and it finds that Final Four revenue has grown the most over the past five years. Why is that?

Jon Swallen: I think the Final Four has become--the whole March Madness, the whole tournament--arguably the second or third marquee sporting event of the year. The Super Bowl is No. 1, and then you can make a choice of the World Series or the college basketball tournament for No. 2 and No. 3.

I think the timing. The end of the first quarter, beginning of the second works well for basketball. There’re not a lot of other events, so the timing is in its favor. And fan and viewer interest in the event has grown enormously over the past decade. So that helps prop up the viewership level and lets the network increase the rates. The Final Four is the culmination of a two- or three-week event, whereas the Super Bowl is just a one-day event, so it builds to a conclusion.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_9669.asp

Thank god for TIVO as there is now more commercials than football it seems.

Even during the regular season:
Kickoff, drive (three and out) Punt
Commercial break
Drive (six plays, FG)
Commercial break
Kickoff
Commercial break. etc.


But, to be fair, no one seems to care. The ratings just keep on rising for football.

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
“CBS, the CW and Fox
By Marc Berman MediaWeek in his "Programming Insider" newsletter

Although attending NATPE did keep me away from the ABC and NBC portion of the Television Critics Association Press Tour, here are the highlights of note from CBS, the CW and Fox.

CBS

CBS, the No. 1 network, opened its executive session but announcing something it has never had the luxury to do -- a first-place position among key adults 18-49.

“Just yesterday, we did move into first place for the season in adults 18-49 with the AFC championship coming up, the Super Bowl, and the Grammys still to come,” said Nina Tassler, president of entertainment. “Now, we all know that the death star known as American Idol is going to have a lot to say here. But at this point, CBS does have more young adult viewers than any other network. Our content is also proving to be very popular online as well. We've embraced a wide range of digital platforms. It's very much a part of our strategy and our philosophy at the network. And a great example of this is on YouTube where clips of CBS content are averaging nearly 1 million views per day.”

In other news from the CBS executive session:

• The network claims that freshman sitcom The Class has gone through some “exciting, interesting changes.” But the network remains mum on its future. “We are cautiously optimistic,” said Tassler. “But we also have a lot of other great stuff in development, so we’re looking forward to having a good comedy development season this year.” (Editor’s note: Given ongoing rating losses for The Class out of How I Met Your Mother, do not count on a second season).

• CBS said that the canceling of Ray Liotta drama Smith after just three episodes last fall was a reflection of declining ratings. “Smith dropped 15 percent in week two and then another 15 percent in week three,” said Kelly Kahl, senior executive vice president, programming operations, CBS. “And at week three we saw lead-ins NCIS and The Unit both go up about 15 percent. At that point you have to wonder what the future of the show is.” (Editor’s note: Most new shows drop in the vicinity of Smith’s decline in weeks two and three, so there was more to Smith’s premature cancellation than the ratings.).

• Other than Big Brother, nothing new has been confirmed for this coming summer (and that includes the potential return of Rock Star).

• CBS, which dumped its Sunday Movie for the first time in 21 years, will have fewer original movies on its slate next season.

• William Petersen will be returning to CSI next season.

The CW

The CW opened its executive session on Friday with hope, optimism and promises for more original programming in 2007-08. According to Dawn Ostroff, president, entertainment, the CW:

“We’ve said from the beginning that we were being realistic about our expectations because we knew that it would take some time for our viewers to actually find the CW. Now we’re at the midseason point and we still believe in being patient, but we’re adding a new word: momentum. Since our launch, we’ve had steady ratings growth for many of our series as viewers continue to find us. Shows like Top Model, Veronica Mars and Beauty and the Geek have had some of their best ratings ever. And One Tree Hill recently hit its highest ratings in two years.”

Unfortunately, the return of Fox’s American Idol has now stalled some of that recently found momentum. One Tree Hill, in fact, plummeted to a season-low 2.20 million viewers opposite Idol on Wednesday, Jan. 17.

The CW is in discussions to keep veteran Gilmore Girls on the air for another season, and the network is high on a number of pilots in contention for next season, including a drama called Gossip Girl from the creator of The O.C., Josh Schwartz; and Wild at Heart, another drama about a New York veterinarian and his family who move to a wildlife preserve in South Africa. As for the rumors that the CW was picking up Fox’s now canceled The O.C.:

“Obviously, it came up. But we really didn’t think it made sense for us for several reasons,” said Ostroff. “And we’re excited about Josh’s new show.”

In other news at the CW:

• The next cycle of America’s Next Top Model will begin on Wednesday, Feb. 28 with a two-hour season-premiere.

• Midseason reality/competition Pussycat Dolls: The Search for the Next Doll will debut on Tuesday, March 6 at 9 p.m. (out of lead-in Gilmore Girls). Pussycat Dolls will pre-empt current occupant Veronica Mars for eight weeks, which will return in early May for the first of five self-contained episodes. Prospects for a fourth season of Veronica Mars will, no doubt, be heavily dependent on the ratings for these potentially final episodes. The CW is also expected to officially end veteran 7th Heaven this spring.

• The CW will keep its Monday night sitcom line-up intact for next season, but there could be some potential programming changes. One show that is confirmed to return is Everybody Hates Chris, which was given a 22-episode order.

• The CW will introduce Crowned, an eight-episode reality/competition that features multiple mother-daughter teams working together as pairs to win a beauty pageant. The team "crowned" the winner will receive $100,000 and representation to appear at charity events across the country. No air-date has been announced yet.

• Effective immediately, episodes of the CW’s Monday night comedies, Beauty and the Geek, Veronica Mars, One Tree Hill and Supernatural will be available free to viewers (and presented with limited commercial interruption) at www.CWTV.com. Each episode will be streamed on the website for up to four weeks following their telecast on the network.

Fox

Since we all knew the opening question at the Fox executive session would focus on American Idol, here is what Peter Liguori, Fox’s President of Entertainment, had to say about the mega-hit when asked about the harsh comments from the judges.

“I think that is part of what makes American Idol. Let’s face it, this show has been on the air for six years. And the judges have been critical for six years. The judges know what makes the show tick, and this season is just a continuation of what’s been a very successful formula.”

As for the controversial Paula Abdul:

“Paula’s been in the business for 20 years. With our show, she gives 100 percent. America loves her. She’s successful on the show. We’re pleased with what Paula does for American Idol.”

Liguori, who would not comment on the O.J. Simpson interview the network nixed at the last minute, confirmed that Fox is in conversations for a third season of Prison Break. No official date, meanwhile, has been announced for the return of reality/competition Hell’s Kitchen.

As for Fox’s always lackluster fourth quarter:

“I think we can avoid that, frankly, by having better shows in fourth quarter. This is my second year at the network, and I just don't accept that that we're a network that has a ratings surge and comes to life and blossoms in January, and that fourth quarter is just something we have to tough out. We need better shows in the fourth quarter. Now, granted, with all that being said, we do have to accept the realization that our two biggest horses come to bear in January. I mean Idol and 24, and our circulation is at its lowest in the fourth quarter. The only thing that's going to solve that is great work.”

In other news, Fox will introduce three new series – two dramas and one sitcom – this spring, while freshman entries ‘Til Death and Standoff and sophomore comedy The War at Home will move to new time periods.

New dramedy The Wedding Bells, which focuses on a family-owned wedding planning business, will debut on Friday, March 9 at 9 p.m. following a preview on Wednesday, March 7 (out of American Idol). The Winner, the first live-action comedy from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, will launch with two episodes on Sunday, March 4 at 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. ET. It will remain in those two time periods on March 11 and March 18 until the return of King of the Hill and American Dad on March 25. New drama Drive, which tells the story of a diverse group of people who participate in an underground cross-country road race, will preview with a two-hour episode on Sunday, April 15 at 8 p.m. ET. One night later it debuts on Monday, April 16 at 8 p.m. ET.

Fox will also launch a new comically driven game show called Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, which goes into production this week, at some point later this season.

Til Death, the struggling sitcom headlined by former Everybody Loves Raymond star Brad Garrett, will move to Wednesdays on March 14 at 9:30 p.m. Sophomore sitcom The War at Home is relocating to Sunday at 7:30 p.m. on March 4, and the recently introduced Standoff to Friday at 8 p.m. on March 30. Nothing, meanwhile, has been confirmed for Thursday. Sitcom The Loop, which premiered last spring, will return at a later time with 10 new episodes.

What follows is Fox’s revised spring schedule:

Monday
8:00 p.m. Prison Break / Drive (premieres on April 16)
9:00 p.m. 24

Tuesday
8:00 p.m. American Idol
9:00 p.m. House

Wednesday
8:00 p.m. Bones
9:00 p.m. American Idol
9:30 p.m. ‘Til Death

Thursday
8:00 p.m. TBA
9:00 p.m. TBA

Friday
8:00 p.m. Standoff (new time period effective on March 30)
9:00 p.m. The Wedding Bells (premieres on March 9)

Saturday
8:00 p.m. Cops
9:00 p.m. America’s Most Wanted

Sunday
7:00 p.m. Sitcom Repeats
7:30 p.m. The War at Home (new time period effective on March 4)
8:00 p.m. The Simpsons
8:30 p.m. The Winner (premieres on March 4) / King of the Hill (returns on March 25)
9:00 p.m. American Dad
9:30 p.m. The Winner (premieres on March 4) / American Dad (returns on March 25)

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

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
Simon Cowell tries to convince us he's the crazy one;
(plus, the real NCIS speaks)
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his TV Barn blog

PASADENA, Calif. -- Simon Cowell gets paid a reported $36 million a year to do “American Idol.” That includes appearing on the show, enduring countless atrocious auditions and helping whittle the field of several thousand self-styled music artists down to the two dozen semifinalists you see on TV.

However, it seems that Cowell's job description has grown to include a less publicized but far more essential task. Increasingly he is called on to act as a one-man heat shield for a program that sometimes looks like it will be crushed under the intense pressure of its own mad success.

Twice during a session with TV critics here Saturday, Cowell fell on his sword, manfully taking the blame for show-related embarrassments that probably weren't his doing. The first happened when a critic asked why the press conference, on a day jam-packed with presentations, had started 40 minutes late.

“It was my fault,” Cowell said. “I flew in late from London, so I apologize.”

Nobody, and I mean nobody in the assemblage of critics was buying that. Suspicion fell, instead, on fellow “Idol” judge Paula Abdul, whose wacky behavior has become such a given that Defamer recently celebrated the show's return with the headline, "America Cheers as Paula Abdul Climbs Back on the Crazy Train."

Just last week, the show was in another damage-control tizzy after the former Laker Girl did a live remote with a Seattle TV station. The video, which immediately made its way to YouTube, shows Abdul swaying in and out of the picture and giving the camera an odd come-hither look. People debated whether she was drunk or high.

Neither, according to Abdul. Explaining that she was hearing audio feeds from two different cities in her earpiece, she said, “I was holding on, waiting, and I'm in a swivel chair and I'm swiveling and I'm very animated with my hands … and I was waiting for the glitch to get better.”

Once again, her unlikely knight in charcoal T-shirt came to Abdul's defense. “The whole thing was overblown,” declared Cowell. “I've done it so many times, these public interviews. By about the end, I'm talking complete and utter rubbish. … If anyone had put the same clip as me on YouTube or anything else, it would have been even worse.”

An informal poll of critics after the press conference found none who accepted this interpretation. But since it had the imprimatur of the man known as “Idol's” straight shooter, the matter died quietly on the Pasadena Ritz-Carlton's ballroom floor.

While he was at it, Cowell apologized for making Abdul look like a fool last year, when she blabbered on the air about a Chinese proverb that went, in her version at least, “The moth who finds the melon finds the corn flake always finds the melon.” (He claimed that he fed her the wise old saying.)

Cowell also defended his comments at the Seattle auditions, which were broadcast last week as the show recorded its highest opening numbers yet. Some 57 million viewers watched “Idol,” according to Fox entertainment chief Peter Liguori. (The tryouts continue this week at 7 p.m. tonight and Wednesday on Fox 4.)

The incident most critics honed in on was Cowell's treatment of Kenneth Briggs, an unfortunate contestant whom he dubbed a “bush baby” for his “massive eyes.” After Briggs left the auditioning room, viewers watched as Abdul and third judge Randy Jackson erupted in laughter.

Another contestant who was ridiculed by Cowell, the New York Times reported, had taken part in the Special Olympics, the inference being that “American Idol” had stooped to picking on the mentally challenged.

Asked about these auditions, Cowell shrugged.

“There are times -- trust me -- when I watch it back and I just think, 'God, I wish I hadn't have said that and why do they put it in the show?'” he said. “But it's something we all sign up for …

“Truthfully, on auditions or anything you do like this, bad things do happen, and I think that's why the audience trusts us, that we will show the good things as well as the bad things.”

• • • • • • • • • • •

Up against the shortened “Idol” tonight -- the four networks are simulcasting the President's State of the Union address at 9 PM ET -- is “NCIS.” It's considered one of television's few “Idol-proof” series, meaning that CBS can air it against TV's biggest show without hearing that giant sucking sound of millions of viewers being pulled away to Fox.

I visited the set with other TV critics last week. “NCIS” is filmed in what looks, from the outside, like a low-slung office park, in studios located in the remote L.A. suburb of Valencia -- yes, the same city that took a nuke last week on “24.”

The big discovery I made on my set visit is that there is an actual Naval Criminal Investigative Service, with offices at nearby Camp Pendleton as well as dozens of other outposts worldwide.

But much of the work the real NCIS does bears little resemblance to what you see on TV: counter-intelligence and protecting American property abroad. Pete Rozman, an NCIS agent CBS brought to the set, noted that his colleagues were among the first to the scene in 2000 when al-Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in Yemen.

If you're a fan, you've probably noticed a favorite theme of the show is NCIS agent Gibbs (Mark Harmon) butting heads with outside agencies over jurisdiction of criminal cases. Rozman said, “99 percent of the time, it's not like that. It's a little exaggerated.” In fact, he added, in the post-9/11 world NCIS coordinates with other law enforcement groups more than ever.

Leon Carroll, a retired NCIS who's now a full-time consultant to the show, said there was some debate when the producer of “JAG,” Don Bellasario, approached NCIS about doing a spinoff that focused on the agency. But the feedback he gets is all good now.

Not surprisingly, the show has given a huge PR boost to the agency that Carroll said used to think of itself as “the Rodney Dangerfield of federal law enforcement.”

Recognition has led to respect and another word that begins with R.

“My last few years with NCIS, I did recruiting,” said Carroll. “And I can tell you that in that department, it has really, really helped immensely.”

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2007/01/dateline_pasade_8.html#more

So who won last night's battle: "Heroes" or "24"??
And did "Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip" get any ratings bounce after its layoff?

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

And I second the enquiry for 'BG's' Sunday debut. For a second part of a cliffhanger the show has generated surprisingly little buzz from the faithful in the internet forums I've visited. :confused:

I suspect the numbers will be "abbynormal" thanks to the effect of the AFC championship game. I, for one, watched the episode (and Dresden Files) delayed via TiVo ... as usual.

Whatever the ratings for BSG, it will be skewed because of the AFC Championship running long in the east coast markets.

A better (and more realistic) picture will be this coming Sunday (January 28) when there's no football at all to go against it.

LOL ... Is there an echo in here? :D

What follows is Fox’s revised spring schedule:

Monday
8:00 p.m. Prison Break / Drive (premieres on April 16)
9:00 p.m. 24

Tuesday
8:00 p.m. American Idol
9:00 p.m. House

Wednesday
8:00 p.m. Bones
9:00 p.m. American Idol
9:30 p.m. ‘Til Death

Thursday
8:00 p.m. TBA
9:00 p.m. TBA

Friday
8:00 p.m. Standoff (new time period effective on March 30)
9:00 p.m. The Wedding Bells (premieres on March 9)

Saturday
8:00 p.m. Cops
9:00 p.m. America’s Most Wanted

Sunday
7:00 p.m. Sitcom Repeats
7:30 p.m. The War at Home (new time period effective on March 4)
8:00 p.m. The Simpsons
8:30 p.m. The Winner (premieres on March 4) / King of the Hill (returns on March 25)
9:00 p.m. American Dad
9:30 p.m. The Winner (premieres on March 4) / American Dad (returns on March 25)The only thing that jumps out at me is that Family Guy is noticably absent from the schedule. Why eventually go to an hour of American Dad instead of the usual Family Guy/American Dad hour? Is its season over by this time, or is it something else?

The AFC title game (massive ratings aside) shouldn't hold too much of an impact on BSG since they were only in competition for BSG's first quarter hour. I think BSG's ratings will go up in this slot. I know Sunday was the first time I watched BSG live since....ever.

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

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
In first face to face, 'Heroes' beats '24'
Newer NBC show averages a 6.5 in adults 18-49
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 23, 2007

NBC’s first-year hit “Heroes” held off its first serious challenge of the season last night, but Fox’s “24” showed there will be room for more than one hit in the timeslot as the two dramas faced off for the first time.

In its first new episode in six weeks, “Heroes” averaged a 6.5 adults 18-49 rating, according to Nielsen overnights, equaling its last original outing on Dec. 4.

It drew 14.8 million total viewers, just 200,000 fewer than its last original episode, and finished first in its timeslot on both measures.

By comparison, Fox’s “24” averaged a 5.4 in 18-49s and 14.4 million total viewers, though it finished 0.1 ahead of “Heroes” in households with an 8.6 rating.

“24” was down 13 percent from the 6.2 it averaged in the Monday 9 p.m. timeslot the previous week as “Heroes” became the first show to trump “24” in 18-49s on a Monday since the “Everybody Loves Raymond” finale on CBS in May 2005.

But it looks as though both shows will continue to thrive on the night, with their ratings holding steady through the 9 p.m. hour. Much like “Lost” proved opposite “American Idol” last year, it’s quite possible to have two successful programs in one timeslot.

Actually, make that four. CBS also turned in a solid performance in the hour last night with “Two and a Half Men” and “The New Adventures of Old Christine” combining for a 4.5. The hour is shaping up to be among the most competitive on television, as there’s rarely three networks averaging above a 4.0 in one hour on broadcast television this year.

The night as a whole has become more competitive as well with Fox’s new lineup. NBC finished first on a tight Monday night among 18-49s, averaging a 5.0 rating and posting a 12 share. Fox was second at 4.8/11, CBS third at 4.6/11, ABC fourth at 3.2/8, Univision fifth at 1.9/5 and CW sixth at 1.1/3.

NBC started the night in the lead, taking the 8 p.m. hour with a 5.2 rating for “Deal or No Deal.” Fox was second that hour with a 4.2 for the winter return of “Prison Break,” ABC third with a 3.5 for “Wife Swap” and CBS fourth with a 3.3 for “How I Met Your Mother” (3.5) and “The Class” (3.2). Univision was fifth with a 2.5 for “La Fea Mas Bella” and CW sixth with a 1.1 for “Everybody Hates Chris” (1.2) and “All of Us” (1.1).

At 9 p.m. NBC led with its 6.5 for “Heroes,” followed by a 5.4 for Fox for “24.” CBS was third with a 4.5 for “Men” (4.9) and “Christine” (4.2), with ABC fourth with a 3.6 for “Supernanny,” Univision fifth with a 1.7 for “Mundo de Fieras” and CW sixth with a 1.1 average for “Girlfriends” (1.1) and “The Game” (1.1).

CBS took over the lead during the 10 p.m. hour with a 6.0 rating for “CSI: Miami.” NBC was second with a 3.2 for “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” ABC third with a 2.6 for “What About Brian” and Univision fourth with a 1.5 for “Cristina.”

That final-hour surge helped CBS finish first for the night among households, as the network averaged a 9.0 rating and a 14 share. NBC was second at 8.0/12, Fox third at 7.4/11, ABC fourth at 5.2/8, Univision fifth at 2.4/4 and CW sixth at 1.7/2.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_9697.asp

Television Critics Winter Tour Notebook
“CBS, the CW and Fox
By Marc Berman MediaWeek in his "Programming Insider" newsletter

Although attending NATPE did keep me away from the ABC and NBC portion of the Television Critics Association Press Tour, here are the highlights of note from CBS, the CW and Fox.

Friday
8:00 p.m. Standoff (new time period effective on March 30)
9:00 p.m. The Wedding Bells (premieres on March 9)

So that looks like the end of the first and only season of Standoff. Being given that horrible timeslot, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't pulled before it ends this run.

I agree.

I think it is being played off out of the sweep periods, where it won't hurt Fox too badly.

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

http://www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin/blog/index.jsp?uuid=f3edf41a-fc12-41a2-8bd6-2c4c6d6cfd14


Washington's Grey's Days May Be Numbered
By Kristin Veitch
Jan 22, 2007 5:15 PM

Isaiah Washington might be on his way out.

I just received word from a highly placed source within the Touchstone/ABC family that one option ABC and Disney executives are considering is firing Isaiah Washington from Grey's Anatomy, effective immediately, without having him appear in any kind of farewell episode.

According to this reliable source, if the network does follow through with this option, the producers are likely to run a full-screen announcement at the beginning of the first Burke-less episode that announces Isaiah Washington is no longer part of the show.

I'm also told by various sources that the loss of Preston Burke is not an easy task for Grey's writing staff to deal with, given that he has a major storyline (including a life-changing event) coming in the next few episodes that airs during February sweeps. Those episodes have already been shot.

So...what do you think? Is this move justified? Feel free to weigh in below.

Interesting. (But I'll weigh in here, thank you.)

The unusually harsh statement from ABC late last week made it clear Washington is/was skating on very thin ice.

And the silence from the cast/crew in support/defense (or even sympathy) for Washington has been deafening.

I suspect he had weathered the storm -- until his stupid (is there any other word for it?) post Golden Globes statement, which took almost al the attention away from the show and put it back on that unfortunate blow-up last fall.

Now, who knows?

But it is more than a little ironic (and very sad) that a program which has blown past traditional taboos on racial, ethnic and other stereotypes is feeling this kind of heat.

Perhaps the biggest victim in the whole mess (after T. R. Knight's and his right to privacy and respect, of course) is Sandra Oh. Without Washington, what does her character do?

Perhaps the biggest victim in the whole mess (after T. R. Knight's and his right to privacy and respect, of course) is Sandra Oh. Without Washington, what does her character do?


Actually I think it sets her character free. She'll be more entertaining single then in a emotionless relationship. Did she ever seem happy to you? Is she capable of being happy is probably a better question.

Personally I think the whole mess is a case of political correctness being taken too far, EXCEPT for his idiotic (and likely alchohol induced being the Golden Globes) decision to repeat the word again. Hard to cut someone slack for such a public mistake.

And if they DO axe his character it makes more sense to do so in a well thought out way, not a stupid black screen. Those of us who watch the show have invested time in the show and the characters, and to do so in such a way would be a tad insulting to us. Have his hand get worse and send him off somewhere to teach med school. Or have him die in a tragic jazz accident :-)

You make a good point about Christina, Iteki.

I think the easiest way to get rid of Burke is the his-hand-suddenly-got-worse-and he's-at-the-Mayo-Clinic-getting-it worked-on arc.

Then, of course, he eventually accepts a job at Mayo and Grey's moves on.

As you and I both noted, the PC fallout of this episode had died down, until the Globes. And I think most viewers were willing to let it die.

But Washington himself is the one who brought it back front and center -- and for absolutely no explainable reason. If he is indeed asked to leave, it is no one's fault but his, and all fans of the show should direct their displeasure, it seems to me, at him.

Here are some Battlestar Galactica ratings numbers some of you have been asking for….

Weekly Cable Nielsen Notebook
“Battlestar” Struggles in Sunday Debut
By R. Thomas Umstead MultiChannel News 1/23/2007

Battlestar Galactica’s jump to Sundays wasn’t all that smooth from a ratings standpoint.

The first of 10 episodes from the popular Sci Fi Channel series’ third season debuted Jan. 21 to a lukewarm 1.4 household rating/1.8 million viewers, according to an ABC Cable Networks Group analysis of Nielsen Media Research data.

That’s below the 1.9 rating/2.1 million viewers the show averaged during the second half of its sophomore season from January-March 2006, when it aired on Friday nights, along with lead-in series Stargate Atlantis and Stargate SG-1.

The first 10 episodes of the series’ third season averaged a 1.4 rating Friday nights without the strong lead-in from the two Stargate series. Battlestar’s current lead-in -- freshman supernatural crime dramedy The Dresden Files -- also drew a 1.4 rating.

Battlestar and Dresden faced stiff competition Sunday, particularly from CBS’ Indianapolis Colts-New England Patriots National Football League American Football Conference championship game, which drew 46.7 million viewers -- the best performance for the pigskin playoff game in 20 years.

Sci Fi sister service USA Network fared better with returning series Monk and PsychFriday. The Jan. 19 debut of Monk’s fifth season and Psych’s sophomore campaign averaged 3.9 and 2.9 household ratings, respectively, to finish among the top-20-rated shows of the week.

Although Psych’s numbers were down considerably from its July 7 freshman-season premiere, which drew a 4.5 rating, it was enough to help propel USA to a 2.2 primetime rating for the week and a first-place finish in the weekly network primetime-ratings race.

Disney Channel -- on the strength of repeat airings of original movies High School Musical and Jump In!, as well as a new That’s So Raven episode -- finished second with a 2.1 rating, followed by TNT’s 1.6.

AMC’s Jan. 20 airing of 1970s Robert Redford Western flick Jeremiah Johnson helped the network to a rare top-10 spot in the primetime network weekly listings.

AMC’s 35th-anniversary airing of the movie garnered 4 million viewers and a 3.1 household rating -- the fourth highest ever for the service -- and helped to propel it to a 1.3 weekly ratings tie with A&E Network, Hallmark Channel, Nick at Nite and Fox News Channel for fourth place, according to Nielsen.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6409565.html?display=Breaking+News

Critic’s Notebook
Further thoughts on the 'Grey's Anatomy' controversy…
…and Isaiah Washington's future
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” January 23, 2007

If this was a normal week, fans of “Grey’s Anatomy” (9 PM ET/PT Thursday, ABC) would be thinking about the budding romance between Drs. Alex Karev and Addison Montgomery and wondering how Dr. George O’Malley will cope with his father’s death.

But this is not a normal week, nor was last week. It was hard to watch the Jan. 18 edition of the hit show and not think about all the offstage drama affecting “Grey’s.” No doubt the same will be true for some time to come.

After “Grey’s” won a Golden Globe for best TV drama on Jan. 15, the cast talked about the win backstage with the media. A reporter asked whether T.R. Knight and Isaiah Washington had worked through their much-publicized differences. Washington charged up to the microphone and said he’d never called Knight an ugly anti-gay slur - the slur that was at the center of an October conflict on the set (more on that here: http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2007/01/the_greys_contr.html).

It was a mind-boggling act (and on the Globes press-room stage, the rest of the cast appeared ashen and stunned). Why on earth would Washington use that word to describe a colleague - for a second time - in such a public forum?

It seems clear that Washington said the slur in the October argument with cast member Patrick Dempsey, since, in a Jan. 18 statement, Washington apologized for “repeating” the slur at the Globes. ABC issued a statement the same day saying that it was “greatly dismayed” over Washington’s actions.

As of press time, we had still not heard from Shonda Rhimes, the University Park native who created the show. Through representatives, she declined to comment for this piece.

It’s a shame. Rhimes should speak up and make clear to everyone who works on her show and to the public that she condemns Washington’s ugly words.

At the Globes, even after Washington’s outburst, she failed to deal with what Washington had just said - right in front of her and before the world’s press.

“Things were created in a very odd way by the press that were not necessarily completely reported as true,” she said, referring to the October conflict. But how did the press create Washington’s angry repetition of that word at the Globes?

Perhaps it took a while for Washington’s words on that Globes stage to sink in. And it must be painful to deal with such ugliness within the “Grey’s” cast. But Rhimes needs to step up and do what “Grey’s” characters do at length each week - say what they’re thinking. Every day that Rhimes remains silent and fails to condemn Washington’s actions, she chips away at the accomplishments of “Grey’s Anatomy,” which are many.

“Grey’s” has done a few remarkable things, besides help revive the fortunes of ABC. It put an unapologetically multicultural cast on prime-time television. It gave us female characters who are ambitious, but unlike most television shows, it doesn’t secretly mock or belittle the professional ambitions or personal desires of its women.

And thanks to Knight, we also have an openly gay man on a prime-time network drama. Knight said on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show last week that he felt he had to come out after the on-set “Grey’s” drama last fall. For him to do so was brave, since most out actors wait until their career is well established before coming out (if they do so at all).

“I’ve never been called that [word] to my face,” Knight told DeGeneres. “So I think when that happened, something shifted, and it became bigger than myself.”

If there’s one person who comes out of this with his class and dignity not only intact but increased, it’s Knight. Not only have his performances in the last couple of “Grey’s” episodes been exemplary studies of understated grief, but his public course of action has shown him to be a courageous, thoughtful person.

It can’t have been easy for Knight to work with Washington these past few months. But Knight acquitted himself well in recent scenes in which his character, George, asked Washington’s character, Dr. Preston Burke, for advice regarding the care of George’s father.

But those scenes fell flat for a different reason - it’s impossible to watch those two actors without thinking about the words that came out of Washington’s mouth, and the broiling anger with which he said them. The off-stage ugliness is impossible to ignore, and it makes one want to look away from any fictional drama involving Burke. The character has been overshadowed by the actor’s real-life actions, and that’s not good.

Others who cover television have called for Washington to be fired over his remarks. Personally, I feel as though the journey of his character, Burke, had already reached a natural end point before the post-Globes controversy began. Burke’s romance with Dr. Cristina Yang is on the rocks, and the drama of his injured hand has been strung out for the entire season. All things considered, it’s time for Burke to move on.

Seriously.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/

The Business of TV
Sinclair, Mediacom Execs Testify on Retrans Battle
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable,1/23/2007

Executives from Sinclair and Mediacom were in Iowa Tuesday testifying before the state Senate there on their ongoing retrans battle.

Sinclair pulled its signals from a number of Mediacom cable systems Jan. 5 after the two sides could not agree on the price Mediacom would pay for carriage. That included from systems in Des Moines (the Fox affiliate) and Cedar Rapids (CBS), Iowa, affecting about 250,000 subs and big-ticket shows including American Idol and, if there is no deal by then, the Super Bowl.

Mediacom Chairman Rocco Commisso and Sinclair President David Smith were both said to have made their case to the Iowa Senate, which is apparently hearing it from viewers/constituents, particularly after last weekend's CBS broadcast of the Colts/Patriots game, one of the most exciting conference championships ever.

Sinclair says it is a simple case of price vs. value. It argues Mediacom is not willing to pay what its stations are worth to them. Mediacom says Sinclair is not dealing in good faith, with the viewers the ultimate losers.

Mediacom VP of Legal Affairs Tom Larsen says the company has yet to hear back from the FCC on its petition for emergency relief. The company filed a complaint with the FCC against Sinclair for bargaining in bad faith. The FCC's Media Bureau rejected the complaint, which Mediacom appealed to the full commission. But Mediacom has also asked the commission to reinstate the affected stations while it considers the appeal.

Larsen said Mediacom wanted to hear back from the commission "immediately, and certainly before the Super Bowl."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6409583

The Business of TV
Lawmakers push end to TV feud
By William Ryberg Des Moines Register Staff Writer January 23, 2007

“Git ‘er done.”

The comedian known as Larry the Cable Guy wasn’t there, but his tagline was the message that legislators gave Tuesday to top executives of Mediacom Communications and Sinclair Broadcasting.

The two companies can’t reach an agreement that would put KDSM-TV in Des Moines and KGAN-TV in Cedar Rapids back on the Mediacom cable system.

Company representatives appeared before a packed session of the House and Senate Oversight Committee to answer questions about the dispute that yanked the two channels from the Mediacom cable system on Jan. 6.

Several legislators directed pointed comments at Sinclair executives.

Sen. Thomas Courtney, D-Burlington, the committee chairman, told the Sinclair leaders that some of their answers seemed to suggest a “let them eat cake attitude” when it came to consumers.

Rep. Ralph Watts, R-Adel, however, said the state should stay out of a dispute between two private companies, adding “shame on us for asking you to come here.”

Several committee members urged both companies to work hard to reach an agreement to put Sinclair stations back on the Mediacom system.

Twenty-two stations owned by Sinclair in 12 states were removed from Mediacom’s cable TV lineup on Jan. 6 after the contract giving Mediacom the right to retransmit the stations’ signals expired. The two companies cannot agree on how much Mediacom should pay Sinclair for the retransmission right.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070123/BUSINESS/70123031/1001

Personally I think the gay slur that Washington used should carry the same weight as the black slur that Michael Richards used. If the n word had been bandied about on set, I think the repercussions would have been swifter. Unfortunately at this point in time, gay slurs don't carry the weight that racial slurs do.

Personally I think the gay slur that Washington used should carry the same weight as the black slur that Michael Richards used. If the n word had been bandied about on set, I think the repercussions would have been swifter. Unfortunately at this point in time, gay slurs don't carry the weight that racial slurs do.

Not to hijack the thread, BUT:

First I'm neither homosexual nor African American. So if that disqualifies me from having an opinion on the matter then so be it.

Nevertheless, I think the 'n' word analogy is being dangerously overused. I don't think you can equate 2 centuries of slavery and degradation, followed by another century of civil rights strife with a derogatory remark about one's sexual preference. Especially a remark that when used by most males is more of a 'you're a girly girl' insult as opposed to a literal remark about one's sexuality.

As Jules once said "ain't in the same ****'n ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same ****'n sport"

The original furor over this was way overblown, and if it hadn't happened on the set of a Top Ten show it would never have made headlines.

Where ABC should seriously consider removing Washington from the show stems from his behavior at the Golden Globes. He can't claim ignorance of the word's power and the effect it has on people. He embarrassed the network, producers, cast and crew of his show on what should have been one of their proudest moments.

I'm all about giving people second chances, and he blew his. I say let him finish out the season in a storyline that makes sense, then write him off.

I always find enjoyment over watching Dr. Burke on TV, and can seperate him from his real life character Mr. Washington. As proposterous as his behavior was, I don't think this should strip a wonderful drama one of its leading actors. In sports, players do all sorts of unacceptable behaviors, but they usually get fined, benched, etc. The team never takes an action that would result in their loss.

Not to hijack the thread, BUT:

First I'm neither homosexual nor African American. So if that disqualifies me from having an opinion on the matter then so be it.

Nevertheless, I think the 'n' word analogy is being dangerously overused. I don't think you can equate 2 centuries of slavery and degradation, followed by another century of civil rights strife with a derogatory remark about one's sexual preference. Especially a remark that when used by most males is more of a 'you're a girly girl' insult as opposed to a literal remark about one's sexuality.

As Jules once said "ain't in the same ****'n ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same ****'n sport"

The original furor over this was way overblown, and if it hadn't happened on the set of a Top Ten show it would never have made headlines.

Where ABC should seriously consider removing Washington from the show stems from his behavior at the Golden Globes. He can't claim ignorance of the word's power and the effect it has on people. He embarrassed the network, producers, cast and crew of his show on what should have been one of their proudest moments.

I'm all about giving people second chances, and he blew his. I say let him finish out the season in a storyline that makes sense, then write him off.

I always find enjoyment over watching Dr. Burke on TV, and can seperate him from his real life character Mr. Washington. As proposterous as his behavior was, I don't think this should strip a wonderful drama one of its leading actors. In sports, players do all sorts of unacceptable behaviors, but they usually get fined, benched, etc. The team never takes an action that would result in their loss.

Well the ratings certainly haven't suffered, if last Thursday was any indication. ABC may very well put him on "Sudden Death PC Probation" and otherwise leave it alone.

I always find enjoyment over watching Dr. Burke on TV, and can seperate him from his real life character Mr. Washington. As proposterous as his behavior was, I don't think this should strip a wonderful drama one of its leading actors. In sports, players do all sorts of unacceptable behaviors, but they usually get fined, benched, etc. The team never takes an action that would result in their loss.


Yes I do admit to having a bias. I'm gay. That being said, I'd rather not see him fired either. But as was pointed out in the article above, what's been missing from all of this is a public condemnation of his use of the slur by Shondra Rhymes, even after he cut her off mid sentence at the Golden Globes to use the word again. She picked up where she left off and acted as if it never happened. That's understandable for being caught off guard, but enough time has passed for her to at least acknowledge that what he said was wrong.

The word may not have centuries of history behind it, but the hatred that is behind both words is equally strong.

Welcome to the thread, barcod.

You'll have to trust me on this, I guess, but we usually spend our time with far less tabloidy matters.

But welcome nonetheless.


I always find enjoyment over watching Dr. Burke on TV, and can seperate him from his real life character Mr. Washington. As proposterous as his behavior was, I don't think this should strip a wonderful drama one of its leading actors. In sports, players do all sorts of unacceptable behaviors, but they usually get fined, benched, etc. The team never takes an action that would result in their loss.

Welcome to the thread, barcod.

You'll have to trust me on this, I guess, but we usually spend our time with far less tabloidy matters.

But welcome nonetheless.

Sorry, my fault :-(

Not at all, Iteki. Thanks for volunteering to jump on the grenade, but I'll take full blame.

I have posted a number of items about this story since October -- and certainly since Washington's post-Golden Globes relapse.

Everything about the TV experience is fair game in this thread -- as long as we all keep our comments from becoming personal or political attacks.

And so far, we have managed to do that pretty well.

Sandra Oh was pretty good in a comedy role in Arli$$. I wouldn't mind Grey's writing to her comedic talents to lighten the show up a bit.

News
NASCAR On ESPN: In-Car HD Cameras
The sports network resumes coverage for the 2007 season.
By Phillip Swann

Washington, D.C. (January 23, 2007) -- ESPN's 2007 NASCAR broadcasts will include a first in televised motor sports: High-Definition cameras in the cars.

That's according to an article at TruckSeries.com, a web site that follows the auto racing industry.

The site reports that ESPN will debut the HD in-car camera for the NASCAR Busch Series season-opening Orbitz 300 on ESPN2 HD on February 17 from Daytona, Florida.

“In-car cameras are probably the most dynamic facet of motorsports coverage and taking that into the high-def world is huge,” Rich Feinberg, senior coordinating producer for NASCAR on ESPN., told the web site.

ESPN will broadcast NASCAR events this year after a six-year absence from the sport; TNT and Fox will also broadcast NASCAR races, including the Daytona 500 on Fox.

ESPN says that 60 of the 75 cameras it will use for NASCAR broadcasts will be high-def. The network says the cameras -- and the transmission systems within the car themselves -- had to be re-engineered for HD.

The network tells TruckSeries.com that ESPN's NASCAR coverage will be the most technologically advanced in the history of the sport. In addition to the in-car HD camera, ESPN will feature a "grass cam," "crew cams" and even robotic cameras around the track.

”We have built a production plan that will provide a truly exceptional presentation to our viewers," says Jed Drake, a ESPN senior vice president.

Click TVPredictions.com to see today's Swanni Sez.

© TVPredictions.com
http://www.tvpredictions.com/espnnascar012307.htm

Nielsen Notebook
Football is the champ
By Gary Levin USA TODAY

•Super championship. CBS' AFC football championship averaged 46.7 million viewers Sunday, marking its biggest audience since 1986 and a 20% jump vs. last year's daytime game. Fox's afternoon NFC final averaged 43.2 million, that conference's best since 1997.

•Idol makers. The sixth-season premiere of American Idol finished second, but Tuesday's 37.4 million viewers marked the series' second-biggest episode ever, behind the 2003 finale, and continues its yearly growth streak, up by 2 million from last year's opener. Wednesday's second episode (36.9 million) ranked third in Idol history.

•Globe trotters. NBC's Golden Globe Awards tapped 20 million viewers Monday, its biggest audience since 2004.

•24 steady. Monday's Part 2 premiere of Fox thriller 24 (15.7 million viewers) matched last Sunday's opener and grew 5% over last year's comparable episode.

•Betty gains. ABC's Ugly Betty (14.1 million) got a 600,000-viewer lift after winning two Globes, hitting its highest numbers since Oct. 5. CW's Smallville (5.3 million) had its biggest crowd since February.

•Cable premieres. USA's Friday pair Monk (5.2 million) and Psych (3.8 million); Sunday Sci Fi Channel duo The Dresden Files (1.7 million) and Battlestar Galactica (1.8 million); Steve Irwin's final documentary Ocean's Deadliest (a combined 3.4 million on Discovery and Animal Planet); MTV's The Hills (2.5 million) and Jennifer Lopez-backed Dancelife (1.6 million); and Comedy Central's Naked Trucker & T-Bones Show (1.3 million).

•Romeredux. Week 2 of HBO's Rome rose to 2.1 million from 1.5 million for last week's premiere.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2007-01-23-nielsens-analysis_x.htm

Nielsen Notebook
Fox, CBS pull ahead in ratings
'Idol,' pigskin provide edge
By Rick Kisselll Variety

The race for the season's demo (18-49) crown has been narrowed to CBS and Fox after big events on those nets dominated last week's action.

ABC remains the No. 1 network in nonsports averages, and NBC stands as the most improved, but at roughly the halfway point of the season, the Eye and Murdoch nets are positioned to lead down the stretch in adults 18-49.

Jan. 15-22 frame produced the season's three highest-rated primetime telecasts in the AFC Championship game on CBS (17.6 rating/39 share in adults 18-49, 46.7 million viewers overall), Tuesday's "American Idol" premiere on Fox (15.8/36, 37.44m) and Wednesday's "Idol" (15.5/36, 36.94m).

Fox carried the week with a huge 6.3 rating/15 share in adults 18-49 -- the largest for any net since Super Bowl week a year ago on ABC and the best delivery for any net without sports help in nearly four years.

CBS was a strong second (5.4/14), with ABC (3.1/8) and NBC (3.0/8) well behind. The Eye led in total viewers with 16.5 million -- the largest weekly aud for any net since in nearly a year; Fox had 15.2 million.

In the adults 18-49 season race at the midway point (18 weeks), CBS led with a 3.8 rating, followed by ABC and NBC (both 3.6) and Fox (3.3).

Fox will be the top-rated net in most weeks from here on out thanks to the multinight "American Idol" and "House," the smash Tuesday hit that figures to fare even better now that "Idol" precedes it.

In addition to its top-rated entertainment series in "CSI," the Eye can also count on a boost from the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards, the NCAA basketball title game and the series finale of "King of Queens."

The Eye also looks to be a lock to capture the season once again in both adults 25-54 and total viewers, leading comfortably in both. And Fox has moved into the lead in the 12-34 demo (2.8/9), a category it should come to dominate by season's end.

Back to last week, the top program was Sunday's NFL showdown between the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots (Daily Variety, Jan. 23) -- the most-watched American Football Conference title game in 21 years.

In both demos and total viewers, it was the top-rated non-Super Bowl program on television since the series finale of "Friends" on NBC in May 2004.

It was also a huge week for "American Idol," which is off to its best start to date.

Tuesday's two-hour opener easily delivered the show's highest-rated preem to date, outperforming last year's bow by 3%. It also came in as the week's No. 1 telecast in viewers 12-34 (14.6/38).

Also for Fox, "24" (5.9/14, 15.73m) bowed on its regular night opposite the Golden Globes and was on par with the previous year's delivery on the night. Sixth-season skein beat the kudocast in key male demos.

In addition to Sunday's football game, CBS was led by "CSI" on Thursday (6.9/16, 21.41m) and its lead-out "Shark" (4.4/12, 15.09m). Latter first-year drama led its hour (opposite a repeat "ER") and matched its best delivery to date in key demos.

Net's "NCIS" (3.7/9 in 18-49, 15.95m) also impressed despite "Idol" competish -- off just 10% from its firstrun season average and remaining in the top 10 for the week in total viewers.

ABC was led by Thursday's "Grey's Anatomy" (8.7/20, 21.94m) and the second best delivery to date for skedmate "Ugly Betty" (4.5/12, 14.10m).

Alphabet's Sunday dramas "Desperate Housewives" (6.7/13, 17.14m) and "Brothers & Sisters" (4.6/10, 11.79m) held up pretty well opposite football, and Monday's unscripted combo of "Wife Swap" (3.7/9, 8.36m) and "Supernanny" (3.9/9, 8.99m) hit season highs.

NBC was led by the "64th Annual Golden Globe Awards" (6.5/15 in 18-49, 20.04m), which drew the kudocast's best numbers in three years -- and the Peacock's strongest Monday demo delivery (excluding the Olympics) in more than 2½ years.

Also winning their timeslots in 18-49 for NBC were Tuesday's "Law & Order: SVU" (4.7/12, 14.17m), Thursday's "My Name Is Earl" (4.2/12, 9.77m) and Friday's "1 vs. 100" (2.5/8, 8.81m) and "Las Vegas" (2.8/8, 8.55m).

Fifth-place Univision enjoyed its strongest week of the season as weeknight telenovela "La fea mas bella" averaged a best-yet 6.2 million viewers for the week.

The CW was paced by "Smallville" (2.3/6 in 18-49, 5.26m), which logged its best numbers since last February on the WB. And skedmate "Supernatural" (1.5/4, 3.44m) had its best showing since Oct. 26.

At the halfway point of the season, the newbie net is up a tick over the WB's 18-34 average of a year ago (1.5 vs. 1.4).

USA led the cable nets thanks to "WWE Raw" on Monday (1.6/4 in 18-49, 2.81m) and "Monk" (1.3/4, 5.16m) and "Psych" (1.3/4, 3.78m) on Friday.

Outside of wrestling, the top 18-49 draw was Bravo's "Top Chef" on Wednesday (1.6/4), and the top 25-54 performer was "Monk" (1.8/5).

• • • • • • • • • • •

On Monday of the current week, the return of "Heroes" (6.6/15 in 18-49, 14.90m) lifted NBC to victory among adults 18-49, while another returning show, Fox's "Prison Break," achieved season highs (4.2/10, 9.86m).

In the drama battle at 9, "Heroes," with its first original seg since Dec. 4, won out over Fox's "24" (5.4/12, 14.47m), which held tough and was down only a bit week to week. "Heroes," the season's No. 1 new show in various categories, led in every key demo except men 25-54.

NBC's "Deal or No Deal" (5.2/13, 17.61m) remained the pace-setter at 8 o'clock, as did CBS drama "CSI: Miami" (6.1/15, 18.86m) at 10, with both on the high end.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117957965&categoryid=14

Cable Nielsen Notebook
Two cablers win viewers, by 'Crikey!'
By Kimberly Nordyke The Hollywood Reporter Jan 24, 2007

More than 3.2 million total viewers tuned in to Discovery Channel and Animal Planet on Sunday night to watch the late Steve Irwin's last documentary.

"Ocean's Deadliest," which aired from 8-9:30 p.m. on both networks, averaged more than 1.5 million total viewers on Animal Planet, improving on the network's January 2006 primetime average by 157%. At Discovery, more than 1.7 million viewers tuned in to the docu, which Irwin was shooting when he was stung by stingray and died in September.

The docu was followed by a half-hour tribute to Irwin's life at 9:30 p.m. titled "Crikey! What an Adventure!" which drew more than 1.2 million viewers on Discovery and 1.5 million on Animal Planet.

In other cable ratings, Sci Fi Channel debuted new series "The Dresden Files" on Sunday night as well as the midseason premiere of "Battlestar Galactica," which has relocated from Fridays. "Dresden Files" averaged 1.7 million viewers at 9 p.m., which was off when compared with recent Sci Fi series debuts like "Eureka" in July, which garnered 4.2 million viewers, setting network records.

Meanwhile, "Battlestar" averaged 1.8 million at 10 p.m., marking the network's best performance at 10 p.m. Sunday since June 2003 ("Terminator 2: Judgment Day") and building on the Dec. 15 midseason finale, which drew 1.7 million viewers.

It should be noted that Sunday night's programs faced huge broadcast network competition in the form of CBS' telecast of the AFC championship game, which drew 46.7 million viewers, making it TV's most-watched program since last year's Super Bowl postgame programming. The game ran from roughly 6:30-10:30 p.m. EST.

Meanwhile, ABC Family continues to see solid returns on its original movies, with "Lovewrecked," starring Amanda Bynes and Chris Carmack, averaging 2.5 million total viewers from 8-10 p.m. Sunday. That figure was up 169% compared with year-ago time-period levels (938,000).

Boosted by the movie's premiere as well as an encore airing, ABC Family was Sunday's third-most-watched basic cable network in primetime in total viewers (2 million) and came in tops in such demos as adults 18-49 (948,000) and adults 12-34 (984,000).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ia674a4eb4d4077c0d7341385288526e4

TV Notebook
'Behrendt' Show Axed by Sony
By Chris Pursell Television Week January 23, 2007

Sony Pictures Television daytime talk program “The Greg Behrendt Show” is officially the third casualty of the season for syndicators. Production crew and staff members were informed Tuesday that the series was ending production and would not return next fall for a second go around.

Production for the series is expected to continue at least for the short term and possibly for the rest of the season, according to multiple sources close to the series and Sony.

A spokesperson for Sony Pictures Television was unavailable for comment.

“The Greg Behrendt Show” has averaged a 0.8 rating this season, tying for last place among talk programs with “The Megan Mullally Show.”

The Tribune station group, where Sony had sold the series in major markets, passed on renewing “Behrendt” in favor of the upcoming “Jerry Springer” spinoff series “The Steve Wilkos Show.”

Sony made an effort to pitch the Behrendt show to other stations at the National Association of Television Program Executives show last week, but was unable to find takers.

The cancellation marks the third major first-run syndicated series to receive the axe this season. In December, NBC Universal announced that “Mullally” would not return for a sophomore year. Soon after, Twentieth Television pulled the plug on newsmagazine “Geraldo at Large.”

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11439

Nevertheless, I think the 'n' word analogy is being dangerously overused. I don't think you can equate 2 centuries of slavery and degradation, followed by another century of civil rights strife with a derogatory remark about one's sexual preference. Especially a remark that when used by most males is more of a 'you're a girly girl' insult as opposed to a literal remark about one's sexuality.



before we fall into a long thread going off topic, I'd like to disagree with this. You cannot base the severity of a derogatory comment on it's length of use. A term which is insulting to some members of society should carry the same weight regardless. There are plenty of insulting terms for all races and members of society which have only entered common usage in the past 100 years. That doesn't and shouldn't make them any more acceptable to the people it does affect.

Congratulations to Fred on his thread achieving yet another (daily?) milestone: 700 pages! Like Bob Barker hosting Price Is Right this thread just keeps going and going and... :)

Nielsen Notebook
Tortoise-like, CBS eases up into No. 1
Programming strategy that looked overly cautious

By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 24, 2007

CBS’s big weakness last fall, its lack of innovation, has suddenly become the network’s great strength.

While NBC and ABC have seen big downturns over recent weeks or, in the case of Fox, are still struggling to overcome a terrible fall, CBS has remained steady, neither any better nor any worse off than it was a few months ago.

That’s helped the network take over sole possession of first place among adults 18-49 this season, a lead it seems likely to hold for at least the next month with the Super Bowl coming up in just over a week.

This is the first time the network has held the top spot in young adults by itself in more than a year, and it speaks to the stability of the network’s schedule.

CBS is averaging a 3.8 rating and 10 share, 0.2 points ahead of both ABC and NBC. Fox trails with a 3.3/9.

CBS seemed to be slumping last fall, when NBC and ABC sprinted ahead with new or relatively new hits like “Sunday Night Football” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

Both networks also took chances with their schedules, NBC relying on an unproven sci fi drama to revive its Monday and ABC moving monster hit “Grey’s Anatomy” to Thursday to compete with CBS’s “CSI.” Both moves worked and their ratings rose.

Meanwhile CBS had just five new shows on the schedule, keeping the bulk of its lineup intact from the previous year. It quickly canceled two of the new programs and stubbornly left “Survivor” in the lineup for another season, despite marked rating declines.

But now in January, CBS’s conservative decisions are looking pretty smart, considering the sudden tumble ABC and NBC have taken. ABC burned through a huge November lead with aggressive missteps such as replacing “Lost” for three months with unproven new drama “Day Break,” which flopped miserably.

NBC’s gains dried up as soon as “SNF” ended earlier this month, and “Heroes’” recent return can’t hide the fact that all the network’s other new shows are struggling. The past few weeks, its 18-49 average has been several tenths below its season-to-date average, including last week’s 3.0.

CBS, on the other hand, has been quite consistent. Last week’s 5.5 was a season high, but it was boosted significantly by the record-high AFC Championship. Since November, CBS has seen the least variance in its week-to-week average.

That’s because though many of its aging shows have declined compared with last year, they still draw decent 4.0 or better ratings, such as “CSI,” “Survivor” and “Without a Trace.” CBS had 12 top-30 shows last week, better than any other network.

Meanwhile, in other broadcast ratings for the week ended Jan. 21:

Bottom five (18-49s):
T91. “The Game” (CW) “Girlfriends” (CW) 0.8
T95. “Reba” (CW), “Gilmore Girls” (CW) 0.7;
T97. “Veronica Mars” (CW) 0.5

Bottom five (total viewers):
93. “All Of Us” (CW) 1.76 million
94. “Gilmore Girls” (CW) 1.67 million
95. “Girlfriends” (CW) 1.63 million
96. “The Game” (CW) 1.58 million
97. “Veronica Mars” (CW) 1.20 million

Show on the rise:
“Without a Trace” CBS, Sunday 10 p.m. Using CBS’s highly rated coverage of the AFC Championship game as a lead-in, “Cold Case” saw an 18 percent week-to-week boost among viewers 18-49, from a 4.0 to a 4.7, matching a season high.

Show on the decline:
“Armed & Famous,” CBS, Wednesday 8 p.m. Ahh, the perils of running head-to-head against “American Idol.” CBS’s celebreality crime fighting show took a 37.9 percent week-to-week dive among 18-49s while up against Wednesday’s edition of “Idol,” from a 2.9 to a 1.8.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_9701.asp

Cable Nielsen Notebook
Crunch time for Freshmen shows
Low-rated titles will try to expand numbers
By Rick Kissell Variety January 24, 2007

For fans of freshman skeins such as "Men in Trees," "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" or "Friday Night Lights," the coming weeks could go a long way in determining if they'll be back next fall.

All three of these ratings-challenged series will get uninterrupted runs of five weeks or longer to expand their audience -- at a time when their respective nets are trying to get a handle on their needs for next season.

This time of the season is also key for on-the-fence frosh because after the February sweeps, viewing habits change as most of the top scripted shows on the sked go into repeats -- and viewership in general begins to decline. And if there's no improvement with these shows in January and February, there's no guarantee they'll be back for their final batch of episodes in the ratings-sensitive May sweep.

The Alphabet's "Men in Trees" was on the upswing in its most recent outing last Thursday (3.6 rating/10 share in adults 18-49, 10.4 million viewers overall), its second best score in five firstrun tries behind "Grey's Anatomy."

That still repped just 41% retention of its 18-49 lead-in, and ABC would like to see it get closer to a 4 rating as it airs behind firstrun episodes of "Grey's" for six straight weeks. In seven firstrun airings on Friday with much weaker lead-ins, "Men" averaged a tepid 2.0.

NBC's "Studio 60" isn't as good a fit thematically with its skedmate, "Heroes," but the Aaron Sorkin skein can't complain about the sizable lead-in it provides. Monday night, in the first of six straight original episodes behind the rookie smash (which did a 6.6), "Studio" delivered a 3.1 demo rating -- up from the 2.9 for its last original episode on Dec. 4.

The show averaged a 3.3 in the November sweep, and the net would like to see it grow by a few ticks during this run of originals that will continue through the end of February.

And then there's "Friday Night Lights," which will lead off NBC's Wednesday lineup for six straight weeks. Show has hovered around a 2.4 rating in a timeslot where a 3 rating would be considered a success.

One thing that "Men," "Studio" and "Friday" have in common is that they are favorites at their respective nets -- and the slightest improvement at this time could be enough to tilt the renewal odds in their favor.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117957958&categoryid=14

TV Sports
Has the NHL become invisible?
By Brian Biggane (Special to the Palm Beach Post) Wednesday, January 24, 2007

DALLAS — Aside from the fans in the stands, the only witnesses to tonight's NHL All-Star Game will be true believers determined to find the telecast on an obscure cable channel.

And for now at least, that seems to be OK with both the league and its main broadcast partner.

When the NHL returned in October 2005 from its year-long lockout, it ended its long association with ESPN in favor of the Outdoor Life Network.

That outlet, which can't be viewed by basic-cable subscribers in Palm Beach County unless they upgrade to digital cable, was just beginning to attract a following among hockey fans when it changed its name to Versus in September.

The NHL, hoping tonight to showcase 19-year-old superstar Sidney Crosby as well the league's sleek new uniforms, knows it is almost starting from scratch with Versus.

"They will continue to grow. It will continue to get better," Commissioner Gary Bettman said Tuesday.

The big question is how long it will take for the NHL to benefit from being a major property for Versus instead of a minor property for ESPN.

You have to start somewhere, said Marc Fein, the senior vice president of programming and production for Versus.

"There's a long-term vision at work here," he said. "We all do have the faith it's going to work out."

So far at least, that faith is not based on ratings. Games on OLN last season had an average national rating of 0.2 - fewer than 200,000 households nationwide. The ratings are virtually unchanged for 32 telecasts this year on Versus.

The players have noticed. All-Stars questioned about the poor numbers this week said that, as excited as they are about the new, faster-paced NHL, they're equally concerned about the league's ability to attract new fans.

"Our ratings haven't been great for a few years," said Minnesota left wing Brian Rolston. "We have a terrific fan base, and now we need to reach outside of that. How you do that I'm not sure."

Pittsburgh's Crosby, the new face of the league, admitted that part of the load he'll shoulder - along with Washington star Alex Ovechkin - will be to help not just the NHL grow, but also Versus.

"It's not so well-known, (and) we can make it more known, to bring that interest," he said. "We just have to do our best to make that possible."

There are areas where Versus feels it already has a leg up on ESPN. With coordinating producer Mike Baker, ESPN's top hockey producer for years, and on-air talent such as Mike Emrick and Bill Clement, the network has personnel in place equal to, if not better than, what ESPN had.

The rest of the games this season, including the playoffs, will be broadcast in high definition, a significant improvement. The league and players' association have also cooperated by providing players for interviews before, during and after games.

"I couldn't be happier with the product," Baker said. "We have people with the talent to call the games the way they can be best appreciated."

The trick, of course, is attracting an audience. While Versus claims to be in 71.1 million homes - an increase, Bettman said, of more than 8 million in the past 18 months - the network said it could not say how many viewers get it through basic cable and how many have to pay additional fees to access it.

Fein said one way to increase the audience is to attract viewers to other events and then lure them to hockey, and vice versa. Other events on the Versus calendar include the Tour de France, America's Cup sailing, Mountain West college football and basketball, martial arts and rodeo.

"We had Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals and were pushing a million viewers," Fein said. "The Tour de France drew more than 1 million. People are starting to find us, and hopefully when they come from one event they'll see the promos and come back for another."

Tonight's All-Star Game brings a new set of awareness problems. It returns on a weeknight after being staged on weekends from 1993 through 2004 - and then skipped the past two years because of the lockout (2005) and Olympics (2006).

Scheduling it on a Wednesday night is largely a nod to sponsors who prefer making it a part of their business week, and also teams who don't want to lose weekend dates.

The NHL/Versus marriage can only get better, but the questions will linger if that doesn't happen quickly. The shadow cast by ESPN, and the relative success the NBA, NFL and MLB have had with the network, will affect the relationship as long as it lasts.

As Bettman put it Tuesday, "This is not going to be a decision that's easily judged in the short term. This will be a decision where we're going to look back in three or four years and decide whether or not it was the right decision.

"As we sit here today, I maintain that for this game, long term, this was the right decision."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/panthers/content/sports/epaper/2007/01/24/a1c_nhl_star_0124.html

before we fall into a long thread going off topic, I'd like to disagree with this. You cannot base the severity of a derogatory comment on it's length of use. A term which is insulting to some members of society should carry the same weight regardless. There are plenty of insulting terms for all races and members of society which have only entered common usage in the past 100 years. That doesn't and shouldn't make them any more acceptable to the people it does affect.

I actually typed a long response to this, but decided against posting it. I'll leave a quick response so we don't hijack the thread any further :-)

While some have focused on the 200 years portion of my post, they seemed to have overlooked the important word: Slavery. The 'n' word is that experience carried forward to the present day. You can't compare the experience of slavery to modern day american examples of discrimination. Well, ok, you can but it wouldn't be a fair comparison.

We can legislate slurs out of existence if we like, but that won't stop the underlying problems behind why they are used in the first place.

Congratulations to Fred on his thread achieving yet another (daily?) milestone: 700 pages! Like Bob Barker hosting Price Is Right this thread just keeps going and going and... :)


Thanks dad.

But I have my pages set to hold 60 posts, so I have just reached 351.

But I guess I'll get to 700 some day!

Yep - I'm at 351 also. But that's still a boat load.

Critic’s Notebook
Many joys in TV's midseason,
but most of them are disposable
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Television Critic Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Enough about "Heroes." What else you got?

It's a good thing that television's so-called "midseason" has such nebulous boundaries. Those series launched at the beginning of the fall TV season in late August and early September seem so -- what's the word? -- old. January, the unofficial beginning of midseason, has seen a flood of new series, but they are still not enough to keep boredom at bay. Here we are now -- entertain us, indeed. Luckily, February, March and April ought to be filled with even more series coming off the bench to save our country from an uncomfortable march to books or intimate conversations with family. But those prospects do raise the issue of whether too much television is a bad thing. (Oh, please, save the letters.)

Seriously, we have too many good (although not enough great) TV shows to choose from. This plethora of good has created a disposable viewing experience. It has chipped away at the loyalty of viewers, instead cultivating an insatiable desire for something new on another channel, in a sexy new genre, in a sweeter time slot.

Granted, this may have a little something to do with quality -- you're not going to bail out on a truly riveting series -- but it also has a lot to do with wondering what the next big thing is, the shiniest new light with the hippest new premise.

Look, "Heroes" is a fine diversion, but precious few of the freshman series have been enough to satiate curious viewers. "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" -- clearly not must-see until the kinks are worked out. "Brothers & Sisters" -- compelling but not addictive. "Ugly Betty" -- sure, why not? And if you miss an episode, no big loss. "Friday Night Lights" -- oh, right, it's still on. Isn't it? "Dirt" on FX is supposed to get a whole lot better in a week, but if you've given up already, will you go back?

There are some shows that can't be missed. That honor goes to the likes of "Battlestar Galactica," "24," "Rome," "Extras" and "Lost" (when it's on -- talk about a good way to lose your fan base). Both "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" are staples, as are "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report" and "Everybody Hates Chris" -- but they often stack up on the TiVo and get a little dusty before I can catch up. Why is that? Because there's so much else out there.

You know, like "SportsCenter," and periodic PBS offerings, and imports from BBC America, and obscure gems on the Sundance Channel and Oxygen. David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, assorted children's shows, forgotten feature films -- if you flip around, you'll find something. But sticking there is another matter entirely.

Although there's loyalty to favorites, when they're off season ("The Wire," "Rescue Me," "The Shield," etc.), they might as well be dead. In their stead comes a sampling of "How I Met Your Mother" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine" and a horde of multicolored gunk on Adult Swim, but it's all so much speed dating.

That is why midseason holds such allure. Sarah Silverman has her own Comedy Central show coming Feb. 1. CBS has a new sitcom, "Rules of Engagement," on Feb. 5 (although with an already sorry track record of trying to watch ABC's "The Knights of Prosperity" and catch up with NBC's improving "30 Rock," so who knows how much devotion is left in the tank.)

NBC has two dramas, "The Black Donnellys" (March 5; from Paul Haggis, who did "Crash" and "Million Dollar Baby") and "Raines" (March 15; with Jeff Goldblum); Fox returns "King of the Hill" on Sunday and the Rob Corddry comedy, "The Winner" (March 4), along with the David E. Kelley dramedy, "The Wedding Bells" (March 7).

Showtime has two hotly anticipated series in "This American Life" (March 19; yes, the radio series is coming to TV) and "The Tudors" (April 1; starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers); and HBO returns "The Sopranos" and "Entourage" (April 8). FX brings back "The Shield" for its final season and also offers up the Eddy Izzard-Minnie Driver series, "The Riches," sometime before midseason ends.

That's only part of it. That's only a tiny needle's head of it. Dozens of new and returning series are likely to cross your screen before the television season officially shuts down in May.

And here's the thing -- the industry no longer turns the lights out. The broadcast networks have a symbolic end to their season in May, but they still air new reality shows after that (hey, you never know what will be interesting). And cable really comes alive in the summer, taking advantage of the networks' pause for air.

It's a season without end.

The question is, are we better off having a ton of good series to distract us temporarily until the next one comes along, or would it be better to suddenly have five or six surprisingly great series land on the schedule? Wouldn't that only complicate matters? I closed out 2006 with a year-end list of Top 17 (ostensibly that covers two television seasons, if you want to get technical), along with a lengthy list of terrific series that just missed being in that acclaimed field. All told -- a lot of superb television.

Perhaps too much?

Maybe it's better, then, to sample. You had a taste of "Jericho" and moved on. The same goes for "The Nine." You liked "Kidnapped," but it was canceled -- and "Six Degrees" got yanked as well. But one slow night you found "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" and never looked back, or you're perfectly happy with an episode of "Men in Trees" one week, "Medium" the next.

Welcome to the modern era of TV watching, where being loyal is something your parents did and freedom of choice is mentally crippling. No wonder people sigh loudly and sag back on the couch, transfixed by fleeting images.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/24/DDG4PNN67S1.DTL&type=printable

Top Ten Questions To Ask Yourself Before Buying The 108-Inch Television



10) "Do I want the neighbors to know that I watch 'Maury'?"

9) "Will I finally see all the rich detail I've been missing in 'According to Jim'?"

8) "Is my living room roughly the size of Yankee Stadium?"

7) "Will a 108-inch Wolf Blitzer scare the dog?"

6) "Do I really need to spend ten grand to watch 'Judge Joe Brown'?"

5) "Are these the same bastards that sold me that 108-inch toaster?"

4) "Do I need a television that weighs more than I do?"

3) "What do I do with my old 103-inch television"?

2) "If I don't buy it, do the terrorists win?"

1) "Can I still get the 'Late Show' in low-definition?"

Top Ten Questions To Ask Yourself Before Buying The 108-Inch Television

Is this a real Top 10 list from The Late Show or did you come up with it zebras23?

It's real ... from last week, IIRC

Wow, the quality of writing on Letterman has plummeted!

Wow, the quality of writing on Letterman has plummeted!

Personally, I thought it (The Top Ten) was quite amusing.

It appears that the MLB baseball package will be leaving cable and available only on Directv. I have also read that the NHL package will follow to Directv also since they are both in demand packages. This is not the only place I have read about this and saw a post this morning that it was on the radio today. :( :mad:




MLB:EI is only on DirecTV

According to The New York Times, who are rarely wrong about such things, Major League Baseball signed an exclusive deal with DirecTV to become the new home for MLB: Extra Innings.

There was a rumor last week of this happening, and I hoped it wouldn’t come to pass.

Extra Innings has been available to 75 million cable households and the two satellite services, DirecTV and the Dish Network. But the new agreement will take it off cable and Dish because DirecTV has agreed to pay $700 million over seven years, according to three executives briefed on the details of the contract but not authorized to speak about them publicly.

At least there’s some good news. According to the article, we’re going to see a 24-hour baseball channel beginning in 2009. It will be similar to the NFL Network, I’d assume.

Major League Baseball is close to announcing a deal that will place its Extra Innings package of out-of-market games exclusively on DirecTV, which will also become the only carrier of a long-planned 24-hour baseball channel.

…

The baseball channel is scheduled to start in 2009.

So now I need to make a decision for next year. I can either switch from cable to DirecTV, which would be a hassle and not entirely feasible, or go with the MLB.tv option. The Extra Innings package is more expensive, but it’s far better quality and I can use my DVR to record the games. MLB.tv is cheaper, and I can watch games on any computer, but I’d have to watch the games on a computer. I spend enough time as it is online.

It’s going to be a tough decision for me, and countless other baseball fans.


http://thepastime.net/2007/01/21/mlbei-is-only-on-directv/

Top Ten Questions To Ask Yourself Before Buying The 108-Inch Television

6) "Do I really need to spend ten grand to watch 'Judge Joe Brown'?"

Please tell me where I can get that 108" TV for $10,000.

Well, at least maybe Dish will get HD-RSNs come baseball season. :p

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
A bigger tune-in for State of the Union
Bush speech pulls 31.4 million viewers on Big Four
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Jan 24, 2007

President Bush most likely had his most-watched State of the Union address in several years last night, though he owes some of that to Fox’s warbling “American Idol” wannabes.

The Big Four networks combined for 31.4 million total viewers during the two-hour presidential address and Democratic rebuttal last night, 14 percent better than the 27.6 million they averaged last year during the same 9-11 p.m. slot.

That’s according to Nielsen overnight figures, which measure time period and not program data; some of the networks moved to non-political programming after 10:30 p.m. Nielsen will issue numbers later today that break down the numbers by timeslot and include cable and Spanish-language network ratings, which will give a more complete picture of the real numbers.

For the third straight year, Fox led among total viewers for the SotU as fans stuck around after the 8 p.m. episode of “American Idol.” Fox averaged 10.5 million viewers from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., up 24 percent over last year’s average.

NBC was second with 7.5 million, followed by CBS at 7 million and ABC at 6.3 million. The Big Four combined for a 10.3 adults 18-49 rating for the speech, which was 2.3 points lower than Fox’s “Idol” averaged to open the night.

The increased tune-in was due in part to “Idol” but likely also to the president’s recent decision to send more troops to Iraq, a decision that has polarized Washington and sparked debate throughout the country. The recently launched presidential campaigns of prominent Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama also likely sparked more to tune in to see their reaction to the speech.

“Idol” had a slightly bigger audience than last year’s SotU night performance, though last year the SotU aired one week later. “Idol” averaged 31.2 million total viewers, 3 percent better than last year, and a 12.6 in 18-49s, 2 percent better than last year.

But the third episode of the hit reality show was down from last year’s third episode, a two-hour show that averaged 34.8 million total viewers and a 15.0 rating. The downturn may have been because of the SotU or the shorter length of the show, but it’s an interesting development after last week’s monster premiere.

“Idol” led Fox to a first-place finish among 18-49s with a 6.5 average rating and a 17 share. CBS was second for the night at 2.3/6, NBC third at 2.2/6, Univision fourth at 1.8/5, ABC fifth at 1.7/4 and CW sixth at 1.4/4.

At 8 p.m. Fox led comfortably with a 12.6 rating for “Idol.” CBS was second with a 3.3 for “NCIS,” Univision third with a 2.1 for “La Fea Mas Bella” and NBC third with a 1.8 for “Dateline.” CW was fifth that hour with a 1.7 for “Gilmore Girls” and ABC sixth with a 1.4 for a repeat of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

All of those networks except CW aired Bush’s speech during the 9 p.m. hour, with Fox first with a 4.3 rating, NBC second at 2.6, ABC and CBS tied for third at 2.1 and Univision fifth at 1.9. CW was sixth that hour with a 1.5 for “Veronica Mars.”

At 10 p.m. NBC led with a 2.1 average for State of the Union coverage and a repeat of “The Office,” with ABC second with a 1.6 for a whole hour of State of the Union banter. CBS was third with a 1.5 average for State of the Union and a “Two and a Half Men” rerun and Univision was fourth with a 1.4 for “Mundo de Fieras.”

Among households, Fox led the night with a 9.4 average rating and a 15 share. CBS was second at 6.2/10, NBC third at 4.8/7, ABC fourth at 3.9/6, Univision fifth at 2.3/4 and CW sixth at 2.2/3.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_9728.asp

Well, thank you! I have been reading the thread for quite some time now, just participated now. I hope to participate even more in the future, trying to apply the same high quality of discussions as I have been accustomed to seeing in this thread.

Welcome to the thread, barcod.

You'll have to trust me on this, I guess, but we usually spend our time with far less tabloidy matters.

But welcome nonetheless.

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 Four networks combined for 31.4 million total viewers during the two-hour presidential address and Democratic rebuttal last night.

Fox averaged 10.5 million viewers ...NBC was second with 7.5 million, followed by CBS at 7 million and ABC at 6.3 million.

So the network with the worst PQ of the speech had the most viewers. :eek:

http://www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin/blog/index.jsp?uuid=55744e4c-abd8-4192-a549-09b131ec6477

Breaking: Isaiah Washington Enters Facility; Grey's Boss Speaks Out
By Kristin Veitch
Jan 24, 2007 11:40 AM

Isaiah Washington has entered a treatment facility. This is what sources connected to ABC and Touchstone have confirmed to me, after Life & Style magazine broke the story about an hour ago.

According to my ABC sources, one of the options that the higher-ups at ABC/Disney had been considering was to release Isaiah from the cast of Grey's Anatomy, without giving him a farewell episode. However, I'm told by an insider that Washington agreed to do "whatever it takes" to keep his position at Grey's and make amends with the gay and lesbian community. He also vowed to seek help for his psychological issues--hence, his entry into a treatment facility this morning.

Grey's Anatomy boss Shonda Rhimes has released the following statment:

"I speak for all the executive producers here at Grey's Anatomy when I say that Isaiah Washington's use of such a disturbing word was a shocking and dismaying event that insulted not only gays and lesbians everywhere but anyone who has ever struggled for respect in a world that is not always accepting of difference.



"We’ve been working within the Grey’s family as well as with ABC and Touchstone Television to address the issue in a way that underscores the gravity of the situation while giving us all a foundation for healing. We applaud and encourage Isaiah's realization that he needs help and his subsequent choice to seek immediate treatment for his behavioral issues.



"We appreciate the support the fans have always given our show, particularly during this stressful time. Creatively, we continue to strive to make the best television we can with the hope that our show reflects the talent, hard work and professionalism of our cast and crew. "

So...What do you think? Is it time to move on? Should Isaiah be allowed to come back to Grey's? Post your comments below.

Just the carry over from American Idol for FOX.

Isaiah Washington has entered a treatment facility.

So...What do you think? Is it time to move on? Should Isaiah be allowed to come back to Grey's? Post your comments below.That is hysterical- a treatment facility?

What the heck goes on there?
They must have a room filled with dog trainers and old dogs refusing to roll over...
And maybe outback they have a big corral with a lot of horses refusing to drink.


--
Oh yeah, to answer the question- He apologized already, let’s get over it, be done with this absurdity already. Or would some prefer to have cameras follow him in this “treatment facility” and turn it into a reality show.

http://www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin/blog/index.jsp?uuid=55744e4c-abd8-4192-a549-09b131ec6477

Breaking: Isaiah Washington Enters Facility; Grey's Boss Speaks Out
By Kristin Veitch
Jan 24, 2007 11:40 AM

Isaiah Washington

Isaiah going to rehab for calling someone a f*gg*t during a heated argument? That's just ridiculous - what exactly is the treatment, shock therapy? :rolleyes:

Isaiah going to rehab for calling someone a f*gg*t during a heated argument? That's just ridiculous - what exactly is the treatment, shock therapy? :rolleyes:

Having to watch the entire series run of 'Darma & Greg'. Oh, the horror....

If that doesn't work, then he'll have to endure a makeover from the "Queer Eye" guys. At the very least, he'll then be able to accessorize properly with those hospital scrubs.

That is hysterical- a treatment facility?

What the heck goes on there?
They must have a room filled with dog trainers and old dogs refusing to roll over...
And maybe outback they have a big corral with a lot of horses refusing to drink.


--
Oh yeah, to answer the question- He apologized already, let’s get over it, be done with this absurdity already. Or would some prefer to have cameras follow him in this “treatment facility” and turn it into a reality show.


The request for comments was from the original article, not from me :-)

That is hysterical- a treatment facility?

What the heck goes on there?


for the same amount of money he can visit my house. I'll punch him in the face, tell him to stop acting like an ass and to keep his mouth shut when there's a camera around.

That will be $10,000. Thanks.

Isaiah going to rehab for calling someone a f*gg*t during a heated argument? That's just ridiculous - what exactly is the treatment, shock therapy? :rolleyes:

It is indeed funny. He's going down the PR checklist...meeting with the insulted parties, saying the right things, and now going into 'treatment'.

I'm sure someone will put a shock collar on him while playing word association while being shown pictures of various sexual orientations. Every time he utters an inappropriate phrase....ZAP!

The request for comments was from the original article, not from me :-)I know, my sarcasm was not aimed towards you. ;)
There’s a wealth of comedy in that “Breaking” report, very difficult to pass up. :D

Isaiah going to rehab for calling someone a f*gg*t during a heated argument? That's just ridiculous - what exactly is the treatment, shock therapy? :rolleyes:

I'd imagine it's more the Golden Globes incident that pushed the button on this. A semi-private argument on set is one thing, but dropping an epithet in such a public way was a no-no.

Treatment facility is ridiculous, unless he has some sort of underlying substance abuse issue that hasn't been mentioned.

http://www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin/blog/index.jsp?uuid=55744e4c-abd8-4192-a549-09b131ec6477

Breaking: Isaiah Washington Enters Facility; Grey's Boss Speaks Out
By Kristin Veitch
Jan 24, 2007 11:40 AM

Isaiah Washington has entered a treatment facility. This is what sources connected to ABC and Touchstone have confirmed to me, after Life & Style magazine broke the story about an hour ago.

According to my ABC sources, one of the options that the higher-ups at ABC/Disney had been considering was to release Isaiah from the cast of Grey's Anatomy, without giving him a farewell episode. However, I'm told by an insider that Washington agreed to do "whatever it takes" to keep his position at Grey's and make amends with the gay and lesbian community. He also vowed to seek help for his psychological issues--hence, his entry into a treatment facility this morning.

Grey's Anatomy boss Shonda Rhimes has released the following statment:

"I speak for all the executive producers here at Grey's Anatomy when I say that Isaiah Washington's use of such a disturbing word was a shocking and dismaying event that insulted not only gays and lesbians everywhere but anyone who has ever struggled for respect in a world that is not always accepting of difference.



"We’ve been working within the Grey’s family as well as with ABC and Touchstone Television to address the issue in a way that underscores the gravity of the situation while giving us all a foundation for healing. We applaud and encourage Isaiah's realization that he needs help and his subsequent choice to seek immediate treatment for his behavioral issues.



"We appreciate the support the fans have always given our show, particularly during this stressful time. Creatively, we continue to strive to make the best television we can with the hope that our show reflects the talent, hard work and professionalism of our cast and crew. "

So...What do you think? Is it time to move on? Should Isaiah be allowed to come back to Grey's? Post your comments below.
Yes; if he fulfill ABC and his Grey Anatomy's required corrective action. There is a certain amount of politics here we all realize that, plus a huge amount of stupidity and bigotry on his part. This reminds me more of John Rocker's interview that did not cost him to loss his job. He was eventually driven out of his profession I believe because of these incident. This may also happen with Mr. Washington he is not Mel Gipson you know.
My employer has these same step in their EEO policy. But no one is every fired for first or sometime even second offense unless it involves striking or inappropriate touching of someone. I imagine with a actor under contract it maybe the same as far as firing him. There is a bottom line of public perception and dollar and cent and which the company chose.

It is indeed funny. He's going down the PR checklist...meeting with the insulted parties, saying the right things, and now going into 'treatment'.


You forgot "fire publicist", which he did a couple days ago.

There is a certain amount of politicsThat is sad.

a huge amount of stupidity and bigotry on his part. Sadder and very true.

This reminds me more of John Rocker's interview that did not cost him to loss his job. He was eventually driven out of his profession. No it wasn't his mouth. It was his arm. He’d be playing today if he could shut down a lineup, no matter what stank came out of his mouth.

"I speak for all the executive producers here at Grey's Anatomy when I say that Isaiah Washington's use of such a disturbing word was a shocking and dismaying event that insulted not only gays and lesbians everywhere but anyone who has ever struggled for respect in a world that is not always accepting of difference."



Well said.

Even I think him going to some facility is overkill. If he had volunteered to record a PSA that would have been more than enough. I hope this is the last we hear of it and his character can continue on Gray's.

There was an episode like this on some show I saw somewhere.

Sorry I have been away all day -- travelling back from a visit to the frigid midwest (which makes the 62 degrees here in SoCal seem like the equator!)

Thanks Iteki for the Washington update -- and to all of you for, as usual, keeping the discussion on as high a plane as possible.

TV Notebook
'Knights' can't get much satisfaction
Well-liked ABC sitcom having timeslot issues
By Jon Weisman Variety January 24, 2007

In order to fulfill their mission to rob Mick Jagger, the underdogs known as "The Knights of Prosperity" have needed to operate in stealth mode.

Unfortunately for them, ABC's sitcom detailing their adventures is succeeding all too well at flying under the radar. The past two weeks have brought a double dose of decidedly unprosperous news for the goofy but likeable show.

"Knights" premiered Jan. 3 to a 9 p.m. Wednesday audience of 7.2 million viewers. The program then had one week to build upon that foundation before facing the show-eating beast known as "American Idol" on Jan. 17.

But in what lead Knight Eugene Gerkin (Donal Logue) would undoubtedly consider another example of the world conspiring against him, President Bush had to go and speak to the U.S. about his Iraq policy Jan. 10, right when the second episode of "Knights" was to air on the East Coast.

Rather than preempt the seg, ABC delayed it in the New York time zone. The show did air in its normal timeslot in Los Angeles, but amid enough confusion that it dropped out of TiVo's schedule as well as listings in newspapers including the Los Angeles Times. Viewership fell 28% to 5.2 million.

Last week, "Knights" finally faced its doomsday in "Idol" and got Simonized, shedding another 1.4 million viewers to drop to 3.8 million. Moreover, random conversations around town revealed that folks who had been won over by the pilot were left confused or annoyed by Week 3 developments that played off a previous episode they weren't even aware of.

In a cutthroat fight for viewers, launching "Knights" has proven a greater challenge than disarming Mick's security system. ABC delayed the series premiere from its original Oct. 17 date to better market it -- only to then throw it to the "Idol" wolves. Another program delayed from ABC's original fall schedule, "Notes From the Underbelly," might be better off for still languishing offscreen.

From its inception, "Knights" faced an uphill battle gaining traction, with its decidedly offbeat premise -- you might call it "24" meets the bar regulars from "Cheers" -- a visual style that will remind you as much of '70s cop dramas as anything, a main antagonist (Jagger) who would not commit to any episodes beyond the pilot, and a sense of humor that merges lowbrow and highbrow in unfamiliar ways. For the most part, the formula seems to be working critically, but with recent events, it all adds up to a lot for the Knights to joust against.

With 10 more produced episodes of "Knights" already in the vault, including tonight's, you can feel ABC's yearning for the show to somehow defy the odds and kick in with the masses. One thing in the Alphabet web's favor? If ABC ever lacks for hope, it can always turn to Eugene Gerkin, the lowly janitor dreaming of scheming his way to millions.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117958005&categoryid=14

In a cutthroat fight for viewers, launching "Knights" has proven a greater challenge than disarming Mick's security system. I really enjoy this show. I wish they would rebroadcast the first three episodes. If people tuned in, I’m sure an audience would build.
It’s very funny with good writing and perfect casting. I especially enjoy the New York locations. This brings a very refreshing look to the sitcom.

Clearly it is a very, very difficult time for any network sitcom to gain traction these days.

I am sure, as with just about all prime-time network genres (with the possible exception of westerns) sitcoms will again regain some ratings glory, but I am not sure it will be soon.

(As usual here on the Hot Off The Press thread, the SAG TV winners will be posted as they are announced Sunday night. So, if you are watching other favorites during the broadcast, go ahead and enjoy. Just check in here during commercial breaks to see who has won.)
TV Notebook
Julie Andrews wins lifetime achievement award
By Ellen Gray Philadelphia Daily News January 24, 2007

THE SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS. 8 PM ET Sunday, TBS and TNT.

Three years ago, writer-director Blake Edwards made a memorable entrance onstage at the Academy Awards, racing an electric wheelchair into a wall, Pink Panther-style, during his acceptance of an honorary Oscar.

"Didn't he?" Julie Andrews, Edwards' wife, replied last month when the incident was mentioned. "Didn't he just?"

Don't expect much in the way of slapstick Sunday when Andrews is honored with a lifetime achievement award of her own from the Screen Actors Guild.

"No, better leave that one be," said Andrews, 71, sounding just a bit like "Mary Poppins," the Oscar-winning role in which she made her debut as a screen actor more than four decades ago.

"I just hope I can find some words that adequately express how wonderful it is," she said. "It's been a lovely life and I'd like to put it together as well as I can."

Not that she's had much to say about the manner of Sunday's presentation.

"As a matter of fact, I have not been asked about it," Andrews said. "I believe my personal manager has been supplying something for them... And it's kind of nice, because it will be, I hope, a lovely surprise."

Not every performer is wild about the idea of receiving a lifetime achievement award when they're still out there achieving, but Andrews isn't complaining.

"I'm simply thrilled and so honored," she said. "It came really out of the blue, and I am just knocked out by it."

Andrews, who for most of her career was as famous for her singing as for her acting, lost most of her celebrated five-octave range to throat surgery several years ago, only to see the pace of her career actually pick up.

"The most amazing thing is that since I've not been singing, it seems that I've been busier than ever," she said, with roles that included queens in two "Princess Diaries" movies, "Shrek 2" and the upcoming "Shrek the Third," as well as a very un-Mary Poppins-like nanny in television versions of "Eloise at the Plaza" and "Eloise at Christmastime."

On a more adult note, she was reunited with with "Sound of Music" co-star Christopher Plummer in 2001 for a live version of "On Golden Pond" on CBS.

"The Princess Diaries" have brought Andrews fame among a generation that might not have seen her in "Mary Poppins" or "The Sound of Music," and she happily recounts an encounter with a 6-year-old whose mother listed the actress' credits to her with no response until she got to "Diaries," at which point the child said, "Oh, cool."

Actresses of Andrews' age seldom get much in the way of onscreen romance, as her Queen Clarisse did at the end of "Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement," which culminated in a surprise wedding to Hector Elizondo's character.

"I got the guy. And listen, better also that I got to wear all that real jewelry and got to wear all those great clothes... It was great fun, believe me," she said.

"Best of all was working with [director] Garry Marshall, who's just a honeybun."

Plus, "I have another day job now," running her own imprint, "The Julie Andrews Collection," at HarperCollins Publishers, along with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton.

Andrews, who's been writing children's books for more than 30 years, last year published the 15th she's written with Hamilton, "The Great American Mousical," a story set in a Broadway theater, and even recorded a new song, "The Show Must Go On!" to accompany a Web-based game tied to the book. (Both can be found at www.julieandrewscollection.com, where the song can be downloaded separately for $3.50. A portion of the book and song proceeds goes to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.)

"There was a song that was necessary and of course the first person they came to was me. And I said, 'I don't think I can, and they said, 'Could you try?' "

She told them, " 'If you wrote it in the only five notes I have these days and in a very low key, I'll run it up the flagpole,' " she said, adding that there was also some "technological wizardry" involved.

"I couldn't be more thrilled. So I play the voice of the beaver," named Adelaide, she said, after the character in "Guys and Dolls."

Still, she said, of her singing voice: "It's really non-existent. I just have the four or five bass notes... I don't have my soprano voice anymore and it's very sad, and I miss it terribly."

Her daughter, she said, had recently noted that writing had given her a different voice, and "it sort of helped put it into perspective," Andrews said.

"But yes, I really do miss it, and more than I can say and would love to be able to get it back. But I do see the glass as half-full" most of the time, she said, adding, "I'm meant to learn something from it and I'm just beginning" to understand what it is.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//16531525.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Cable Nielsen Notebook
Cable Ratings: State of the Union
By Anne Becker Broadcasting & Cable 1/24/2007

Of the cable news networks last night, Fox News drew the most total viewers for its nightly State of the Union coverage, averaging 3.9 million total viewers and 1.17 million viewers 25-54 between 9 and 11 p.m., according to Nielsen Media Research.

CNN took second in total viewers with 2.12 million, while MSNBC took third with 1.63 million. MSNBC, however, took second in news' target 25-54 demo with 751,000 viewers to CNN's 668,000.

Fox News' and CNN's coverage peaked in the 9:45-10 p.m. window with 4.76 million and 2.61 million total viewers, respectively. MSNBC peaked between 10:30 and 10:45 p.m. with 1.82 million.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6409878.html?display=Breaking+News