Hot Off The Press: The Latest TV News and Information - Page 501

TV Review
Strike Aftermath:
Pilot Delay Won't Stall May Upfront
By John Consoli, MediaWeek, February 18, 2009

Post strike, network TV faces some serious issues with production and distribution as well as coming up with ways to stop audience erosion. But the upfront is not one of them, media buyers said last week.

Despite a seriously delayed production process for new pilots next season, expect all the networks to be open for upfront business during the week of May 12-15. That includes NBC, which will probably not present at its usual Radio City Music Hall venue this year, but instead plans to hold some type of meeting for agencies and advertisers.

Since the networks will not have much in the way of new show clips, expect the May presentations to be more sales-focused. Attendees should expect to hear more detailed discussions about commercial ratings and how advertisers can twin TV and nontraditional media assets into more productive ad buys.

The upfront process was questioned publicly last month by NBC Universal president and CEO Jeff Zucker, who said the broadcast networks can “no longer spend millions putting on upfront presentations that are really aimed at half a dozen influential media buyers.”

Each network spends between $2 million and $5 million on their upfront presentation and cocktail party, with NBC on the high side.

“If we do scrap the big presentation, we will be committed to going to every one of the major advertising agencies, in person, and every one of the major advertisers, to explain our schedule, explain the rationale and deliver episodes,” Zucker said.

NBC is expected to announce next week how it will replace its traditional upfront presentation on May 12 with a more austere event, which one source familiar with the network’s plans said will take a “more creative customer-focused approach.” Another source likened it to NBC’s recent NBC Everywhere presentation, which showed buyers what the network has to offer in nontraditional, out-of-home platforms.

Media buyers said elimination of the upfront gathering would have been a mistake for the networks, and that even the postpresentation cocktail parties have some merit. “The upfront presentations are a good thing for network television,” said John Swift, executive vp and managing director of media activation at PHD. “It is a high-profile event that puts network television at the center of public attention for an entire week. Why would they give that up?”

Added Tim Spengler, president of Initiative USA: “There’s something to be said for gathering all the clients and agency executives together at the same time in New York to discuss the new programming and strategies of each network. To take away the presentations would be an opportunity lost for the networks.” Looking ahead to May, the network sales chiefs seemed to agree.

“We’re going to hold our upfront presentation as scheduled on May 13 at Lincoln Center,” said Mike Shaw, ABC Network sales president. “We may not have any pilot clips to show, but we feel good about what we are doing and the ratings for our shows in fourth quarter. And we want to tell advertisers about our plans for the fall and beyond.”

CBS will hold its upfront at its usual Carnegie Hall venue on May 14, while Fox will host its confab on May 15 at City Center, with a cocktail party following at Wolman Rink in Central Park. The CW is expected to host at its usual venue, the theater at Madison Square Garden.

Shaw said ABC might not hold its traditional mega-cocktail party in the tent outside Lincoln Center, but it will have some sort of scaled-down venue for top-level media buyers and advertisers to meet with network sales executives following the presentation. Ed Gentner, senior vp and director of national broadcast at MediaVest, said the postpresentation parties can be a place where advertisers in town for the events can meet network sales executives for some in-person dialogue.

And regarding the presentations themselves, Gentner said, “Maybe they have had too much fanfare and need to become less glitzy and more informational. But I understand why many believe it is important to get everyone in the same room to focus on broadcast television.”

The dearth of new programming to show media buyers in May means a lot of upfront buying will be sight unseen. ABC’s Shaw believes this will not present problems in putting together ad packages.

“If you look at the way the upfront process works, there are always a certain number of midseason shows that haven’t been completed or locked in,” Shaw said. “Programs are always canceled or moved during the season, we have to replace them, and that alters upfront packages. So these conversations will not be that different because pilots are not ready and won’t go on until midseason.”

Shaw estimates that even with new shows not ready to be shown during the upfront, about 85 percent of all of ABC’s gross rating points will be identified.

“Our fourth-quarter schedule will be 98 percent locked in,” Shaw said. “And as always, advertisers will be able to get money back if shows are cancelled, and we will work with advertisers if shows are shifted,” he said.

“We worked with advertisers all during the strike to make sure they got the gross rating points they bought in the upfront. We even went out of sale for a while to insure they got their makegoods. We’re going to work with them in this upfront too.”

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/rec..._id=1003711788

By adding the 15,503 posts from the original "Hot Off The Press" thread, DrLar, yours was actually #40,503 in the lifetime of the thread.

Post #15,000 was made back on August 28, 2006.

TV Notes
The real Andy Griffith lives among us, quietly
By Mal Vincent, The (Roanoke) Virginian-Pilot, February 17, 2008

The placid, lapping waters of the Roanoke Sound are the first things Andy Griffith hears most mornings, as he looks toward the tiny peak of the Wright Memorial, across from his waterfront estate on Roanoke Island, N.C.

He has a cup of coffee, reads The Virginian-Pilot and then goes out to feed his three dogs, Mary Margaret and the two sisters, Joe Piney and Charlene. There's a kiss and a hug for Cindi, his wife of nearly 25 years, whom he calls "the light of my life," adding, "I'm not just saying that 'cause I have to. This woman is something else. Always has been."

If he feels like it, he takes a ride across his 70-acre property in his John Deere tractor. "I have some problems walking. Nothing serious, but this gator will go straight up hills."

One of his favorite things to do is check on his nine antique cars, housed like royal guests in climate-controlled quarters. They include a 1930 Model A Ford, a 1938 Buick and a 1956 Thunderbird (which was actually a Christmas gift for Cindi). They are his proudest possessions.

This homestead, just down the road from "The Lost Colony" outdoor theater where he started his professional career, has been his for some five decades. "Nowhere else in the world I'd rather be."

But Griffith's quick description of the place and his day-to-day life there is about as close as anyone will be allowed to get to the island's most famous resident.

He's known throughout the world as Andy Taylor, a homespun man of the people who, at least on the small screen, lived in a community where everyone cared about everyone else. For more than 40 years, television viewers have invited him into their homes.

Today, he values his privacy. He's friendly and outgoing to a point, particularly when the conversation focuses on show business, but he's not going beyond that. He's been known to turn down requests for autographs.

"When my wife, Cindi, and I go somewhere and we don't want to be recognized, she says, 'Don't talk.' "

Getting this interview required a telephone. He'd talk for hours on the line, mainly about his long career. But if I suggested a personal meeting, maybe at the house or at a restaurant somewhere on the Outer Banks, there was a silence. Then a whisper: "Let's just talk."

Griffith is a telephone buddy, dating back some four decades.

He first called to react to a column in which I suggested his performance as an egomaniac television personality in the 1957 movie "A Face in the Crowd" - shot before his TV fame - was one of the greatest in film history. I still think so. I added that he could have been one of the great, serious film actors, "if he hadn't sold out to television."

He called about that and acted hurt. "That movie didn't make a dime, and, besides, roles like that don't come along often. I'd struck out on Broadway, and I'd struck out in the movies, so I kinda had to go to television."

That's a unique way of looking at it. He became the toast of Broadway and a two-time Tony nominee, and later he got rave reviews for "A Face in the Crowd" and the 1958 movie "No Time for Sergeants."

Today, talk to him about his career and he's quicker to explain the things that went wrong than to tout his successes.

He never won an Emmy, but he got a Grammy Award for his 1996 gospel album, "I Love to Tell the Story." He is in the TV Hall of Fame.

He's had terrible illnesses, including a near- fatal heart attack. He endured years of rejection between his two TV triumphs, "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Matlock."

If you want the TV comparison, he's closer to the analytical braininess of Ben Matlock than he is to the country wisdom of Andy Taylor. Matlock acted folksy and wore the same suit all the time, but he charged $100,000 per case and always won.

Griffith has steered his career in a way that belies his country-boy demeanor. At 81, he's always looking for his next show biz project.

"I 'preciate it," Griffith said in one of our recent phone conversations, about his 50-year career in theater, movies and television. But he added quickly that, "There's nothing in the world worse, emotionally, than not working."

For years, I didn't hear from him. Then, a few months ago, after I reviewed "Waitress," in which he played a cantankerous-old-man supporting role that got him some Oscar buzz but no nomination, he called. "It's Andy Griffith," he said, simply.

When I called him back, he admitted he had turned down a lot of people seeking an interview, "because I didn't know them and wasn't sure if they knew what they were talking about."

He remembers every detail.

Old-timers on Roanoke Island still think of him as the barefooted actor who came to town somewhere around 1947 to take a job as a soldier in "The Lost Colony," the outdoor drama that is the longest running in the nation.

It was here where he first worked professionally, graduating to the role of Sir Walter Raleigh after two years. When he got famous and rich, he escaped here from Hollywood and New York whenever he wasn't working. And he chose Roanoke Island for his permanent home after decades of moving back and forth.

It's not his birthplace. Andrew Samuel Griffith was born in Mount Airy, N.C., on June 1, 1926, the same day as Marilyn Monroe. He is the only son of Carl Lee Griffith, a skilled carpenter and foreman in a chair factory, and Geneva Nunn Griffith. In his first year he didn't have a crib; he slept in a dresser drawer.

According to townsfolk interviewed for a TV documentary, he was prone to sickness as a child, and his mother worried about him "playing too rough."

"I wasn't much of a student and didn't have an aim until I was about 14," he remembered in one of our conversations, "and then, I wanted music." Specifically, he wanted to play the trombone. He got a job sweeping out the high school for $6 a month to make the $36 he needed to buy the instrument. In his junior year of high school, he switched to singing. He wanted to be an opera singer. "I've got a better voice than you'd know. I certainly spent a lot of time vocalizing in my life."

At the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, he majored in music. He joined the respected Carolina Playmakers and landed several comedic roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.

He took a shine to a campus beauty, Barbara Edwards, who was getting many of the starring roles with the Playmakers. In the summer they both got acting jobs in "The Lost Colony." She had the role of Eleanor Dare, opposite his Raleigh. "I was never right for that part. I think they just gave it to me because of Barbara." He played it for five seasons, until 1953.

They were married on Roanoke Island in 1949. As he put it, "in an Anglican chapel by a Methodist minister to a Baptist maiden while a Roman Catholic pumped the pipe organ." Upon graduation, they went to Goldsboro, N.C., where he took a job teaching music at the local high school and she led the music program at a local church.

But the two wanted performing careers. They worked up a show in which she sang and danced and he did monologues and played guitar, touring all over the Carolinas for, as he put it, "$75 plus 10 cents a mile and free dinner before the show." They played Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, Kiwanis Clubs, clambakes, conventions, weddings - anything.

It was on the 45-minute drive from Chapel Hill to Raleigh that he made up a monologue about a country boy who had never seen a football game. "We only had one show, so we couldn't play any return engagements. We needed a new comedy routine."

He tried it out at the Jefferson Standard Life Insurance convention in Raleigh in 1953. They laughed.

A Chapel Hill record company recorded it later, Griffith doing the take over and over because he was worried it wasn't good enough. "What It Was, Was Football," with a down-home version of "Romeo and Juliet" on the other side, became so popular in North Carolina that Capitol Records bought the rights and put it out nationally. It became one of the top-selling comedy records of all time.

In the sketch, Griffith tells about a cow pasture where a bunch of men were fighting "over this funny little punkin' thang they wanted to play with. And I know, friends, they couldn't eat it because they kicked it the whole afternoon, and it never busted."

Getting up to full volume, he proclaims, "Friends, I saw that evening the awfulest fight I had ever seen in my life. I did. They would run at one 'nother and kick one 'nother and throw one 'nother down and stomp one 'nother and I don't know what all. And just as fast as one of 'em would get hurt, they'd tote him off and run another one on."

The Ed Sullivan Show called in 1954.

Griffith's fellow actor R.G. Armstrong ( who later appeared as a character actor in Westerns such as "Major Dundee" and "Ride the High Country") lent him a copy of the best-selling book "No Time for Sergeants." When he read it, Griffith realized that in the stage adaptation, the part of Will Stockdale, a country boy drafted into the Air Force, was perfect for him. He got the part over stiff competition. He was a Broadway hit at age 28 and picked up one of his Tony nominations.

Roddy McDowall, who co-starred, said in the TV documentary, "Andy Griffith is possibly the only actor I've ever known who had the instant ability to play inside a scene and then turn and relate with the audience. That's a very difficult thing to do."

"Since I had done it on the stage, I thought the movie version would be eazzzzzy," Griffith told me in one of our recent phone chats. "It wasn't. That camera is a strange thing. It gets right in your face, and it picks up everything. I had to learn a new craft, and I hadn't learned the old one yet."

Andy Taylor first surfaced on television in 1960 as a guest character on "The Danny Thomas Show." He was the sheriff and justice of the peace in a small town called Mayberry. It was written as anywhere in rural America, but he added references to places like Raleigh and the Outer Banks. That same year he became the central character in "The Andy Griffith Show."

"I didn't think it would last, to tell you the truth. I thought we'd be canceled and might not even make it through that first year. I look at that first year today, and I was so bad. I was so country, trying to be funny. It was pretty cornball. If it hadn't been for Don Knotts...

"Then we went to work on it. I said, 'Let Don be funny.' It turned around when I became the straight man. I would just react to him. I'm good at reacting."

Knotts, who died in 2006, went on to win the Emmy five times. Griffith was never even nominated.

In a 1964 interview for The Virginian-Pilot, Knotts said, "Andy is one of the funniest persons I ever met. I first met him at the first rehearsal of 'No Time for Sergeants,' and the first time we read through the play, I knew he had it.

"On the show, people thought he wasn't acting and that Andy Taylor was just naturally him. He was so good that he made it look natural. He was acting. It was a fine performance. Andy never got credit as a writer, but he was involved with the story line of every episode."

"You're supposed to believe in the character," Griffith told me. "You're not supposed to think, 'Gee, Andy's acting up a storm.' "

Originally, he had planned to do the show for just five years.

"After the fifth year, as we had agreed, Don left. Universal gave him a movie. It was to be called 'The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.' Don showed me the script and, after reading it, I said, 'Well, it isn't very funny.' I worked on it, but I never took any credit as a writer. I actually think I could be a pretty good writer."

"The Andy Griffith Show" was No. 1 in the ratings during its final year, 1968.

Griffith's decision to end the show got a lot of opposition across America. He had wanted to end it after the seventh year, but CBS made such a lucrative offer that he agreed to the eighth. "I was restless," he remembered. "I wanted to do other things. I thought the show was slipping and that it was time to go."

He owned 50 percent but sold the rights to the reruns, which, in hindsight, could have been a mistake. They continue to run today.

Griffith produced a successor show called "Mayberry R.F.D." starring Ken Berry, who also played a widower with a young son. When it was canceled, Griffith took the news hard. "CBS had decided it was going to purge the network of what it called 'rural' comedy. I think it was a bad thing for the country. When we try to hide our real roots, it's not good."

It was a sign of trouble to come for Griffith's post-Mayberry career, which was full of disappointments and outright disasters. "I thought I was hot stuff and would go right into movies. It didn't work out that way."

It seemed no one wanted to see Andy Griffith outside of Mayberry, even though Universal Pictures signed him to a five-year deal. In the first movie, 1969's "Angel in My Pocket," he played a minister. It flopped at the box office. Universal wanted to team him with Knotts in a movie, but Griffith refused and got out of the contract. "I wanted to prove that I could play something else, but there were 249 episodes out there of 'Mayberry,' and it was aired every day. It was hard to escape."

A return to TV in 1970 with "The Headmaster" didn't work. "I learned a lesson, and that is that it's hard as hell to mix laughter and messages. I needed to go back to making people laugh."

He formed his own production company, but the failed series "Salvage" and "Best of the West" resulted.

His personal life didn't go well, either. In 1972, his 23-year marriage to Edwards ended. He wouldn't go into much detail in our phone conversations, but he said, "Barbara wasn't thick-skinned enough for show business. You've got to be able to fail and stand it."

They had two adopted children. Edwards got custody of their 12-year-old daughter, Dixie Nann. Andy got custody of their 14-year-old son, Sam. The son was apart from the family for some years before his death in 1996. Sam Griffith's attorney was quoted in a Los Angeles Daily News report after the death saying Sam had suffered for years from alcoholism.

Dixie Nann has made Griffith a grandfather.

His second marriage was to Greek actress Solica Cassuto. It lasted eight years, from 1973 to 1981.

Griffith met Cindi Knight when she was a young dancer in "The Lost Colony." When I spoke to her by phone recently, she recalled, "It was a very slow romance to develop, over years of time.... Andy is a fine man."

They were married on Roanoke Island in April 1983. She was 27; he was 56.

Just two months later he was hit by a rare neurological disease called Guillain-Barre syndrome that attacks the nerves. It left him paralyzed from the knees down. "I couldn't walk for some eight months. When I did walk, it was with braces. I don't know how I could have made it without Cindi. She was by my side."

Then he proved that lightning can strike twice. After numerous, often villainous roles in TV movies, he got another series, and a big one - "Matlock," in 1986. "Matlock put me back in the business. I liked, particularly, that Ben Matlock was a smart Southerner. Not a rube."

This time he owned the show outright. It ran eight seasons. When it was passed over by NBC, ABC took it, a rare show to cross networks.

ABC moved the production from Los Angeles to Wilmington, N.C., partially to cure Andy's homesickness. In the process, it saved a lot of money. In 1989 he brought the TV crew to Manteo to film a two-part episode, giving locals a chance to be famous. "During all the years of the old Griffith show I tried to talk them into filming something in North Carolina, but they said, 'Why? They already think you're in North Carolina anyway.' "

Sidewalks in downtown Manteo, "The Lost Colony" theater and the Green Dolphin Pub were among the TV sites. The episodes opened the "Matlock" season in September of that year, and it was a big deal for Roanoke Island.

The show ended in 1995.

Five years later he had a heart attack that resulted in quadruple bypass surgery at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.

"I didn't know it, but I had had several silent heart attacks before that. It came as a surprise to me that you could have a heart attack and not know it.

"This one I knew about. I had sharp pains in my chest, and I called 911.... They took me from Manteo to Norfolk in an ambulance, and when I got to the hospital, I was dying. Literally." Always mindful of the business, he didn't identify himself at check-in. "If they got wind of it in Hollywood or New York, everybody would think I was dying, and I'd never get work again. You have to be cleared by an insurance company at the beginning of a picture. I'm fine to work now, and I'm reading scripts."

He credits his doctor and the staff of Norfolk General with saving his life. He returned to Norfolk four years ago to speak at an event announcing a $94 million expansion of the hospital's cardiac care center.

It was a foregone conclusion that eventually he'd decide to spend most of his time on Roanoke Island instead of in Hollywood.

He'd first discovered the estate that lies along the Roanoke Sound in 1947 when the cast of "The Lost Colony" had a scavenger hunt that led him there.

"I knew if I had my choice of any place to live, this would be it."

During his first Broadway run, when he started to make real money, he bought it.

The estate's 60-year-old original, white house serves as a guest house behind the larger home he built after he sold his 7,000-square-foot Hollywood mansion in 1984. He maintained a townhouse in California.

"We stayed in Los Angeles to be on view, afraid if I wasn't seen they'd forget about me if a role came up. In the business, it's out of sight, out of mind, and Cindi thought we should be in Los Angeles. Then Don Knotts died, and I broke my hip, and I said, 'Cindi, let's go home.' And we did,... and the way things are in the industry now, they can always get me on the phone."

Reluctantly, some years ago, he put up a chain across the driveway, which is off the road that leads toward the " Lost Colony" amphitheater. Tourists were driving up to the house, and it got out of hand.

He goes out occasionally but says he's in bed by 8 most nights.

Surprisingly, for an Outer Banks resident, he isn't much of a fisherman, but he and Cindi have traveled around Roanoke Island in their pontoon boat a few times.

In 1998 he donated 319 acres near the Great Dismal Swamp in Chesapeake to promote nature conservation.

He was spotted at a public meeting about a proposed expansion of city water on Roanoke Island in the fall. He had waited until the last moment before the meeting began before sneaking in.

He explained, "I go wherever I want. People are nice, but they can be overbearing a little, you know. I wanted to be at that meeting to oppose city water. All of us who are not in the limits of Manteo have well water, and we like it that way. We don't want city water. I had to be there to say my piece."

On Thursday he visited "The Lost Colony" to donate the sword he'd wielded in the production years ago. The show's costume shop burned down last year.

Marjolene Thomas, Griffith's longtime friend and a "Colony" supporter, said, "People around here think an awful lot of Andy. We've known him for so many years that we just think of him as Andy. We respect his privacy. I think all the locals would do anything to protect him. He's one of us."

Things are hopping in his career again.

"Well, you can imagine that there aren't a lot of scripts for a man my age, but there are more than you'd think. It's just unusual to get a script where I don't die in the end."

He mused that he'd passed on the role of the foul-mouthed grandfather in "Little Miss Sunshine," the part that brought the supporting-actor Oscar to Alan Arkin last year. "I wouldn't say I was offered it or anything like that, but it was sent to me, and I read it, and I said, 'Nah. I couldn't ever go back and do a gospel album after I played that part.' "

A project called "I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down" is pending.

Most recently, he's been working in Hollywood on a movie called "Play the Game." It has Griffith as a grandfather whose grandson encourages him to get back into the dating game. Doris Roberts is one of his potential "dates."

"We both thought it was very funny," Cindi Griffith said during a recent phone conversation, "so we packed up and came back to Hollywood to do it." She was unnerved, she said, when the press met his plane in Los Angeles and made much of the fact that he was in a wheelchair.

"Andy is fine," she said in one phone call, "and we were worried they'd send out some kind of alarm. He doesn't work a 14-hour day the way he did back on 'Matlock,' but he works a solid eight-hour day. No problem."

He stayed up until 10 p.m. recently to watch presidential primary debates on television.

And in the spring, he and Cindi plan another boat trip around the island.

Just the two of them.

http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/real...ong-us-quietly

It was a delightful read I stumbled across and was hoping some of the folks here might enjoy it.

I am glad you did, SowegaBowler.

The Business of Television
'Knight' rides back to success
'Dexter' kills in primetime ratings
By Rick Kissell, Variety, February 18, 2008

NBC rode nostalgia to pay dirt Sunday night as its two-hour "Knight Rider" movie revved up some nifty Nielsens and made its case to return in series form next fall.

The retelling of the Peacock hit from the 1980s featuring a crime-fighting, wise-talking car, was easily the night's top draw among young adults and racked up the best demo score for a movie on television in nearly three years.

Sunday also saw CBS score decent numbers for its initial broadcast of Showtime series "Dexter," with its preem drawing about eight times what it was pulling in on the pay cabler.

Overall, it was a busy Sunday of original programming, although the long holiday meant viewing levels were down; as a result, every firstrun series was below average. Also a factor was TNT's coverage of the NBA All-Star Game, although preliminary numbers won't be issued until today.

As for "Knight Rider," Nielsen prelims show it averaged a strong 5.0 rating/12 share in adults 18-49 and 12.7 million viewers overall from 9 to 11 p.m., building gradually from start to finish. No movie on television -- telepic, theatrical or multipart original -- has fared better in the demo since ABC's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" in March 2005.

"Knight Rider," from Universal Media Studios and Dutch Oven Prods. and starring Justin Bruening, Deanna Russo, Sydney Tamiia Poitier and Bruce Davison, appealed to a broad aud. It won its 9-11 p.m. timeslot in the 18-49, 25-54 and 12-34 demos, and fared best among men 18-49 (5.6/14) and 25-54 (6.4/14).

"Knight" has to be considered a strong candidate to return in some form next season, with NBC announcing its 2008-09 series selections in May.

Of course, recognizable and nostalgic titles often get auds to show up for a premiere, but that doesn't always mean they'll stick around for the series.

NBC opened "Bionic Woman" to big numbers in the fall, but that redux quickly tumbled and is considered a long shot to return. Net fared better with its January preem of "American Gladiators," which opened strong and then held up well enough in subsequent airings to earn a second-season pickup.

In its season finale Sunday, where it served as the lead-in to "Knight Rider," "Gladiators" averaged a 3.0/8 in 18-49 and 7.3 million viewers overall. It outperformed everything else NBC has aired in the 7-9 p.m. timeslot since football ended in December.

As for "Dexter," it bowed on CBS with a third-place finish among the broadcast nets (prelim 2.3/6 in 18-49, 8.1 million), but it gave the net its best perf in the 10 o'clock timeslot since December.

In its first season on Showtime, the serial-killer drama averaged 733,000 viewers. "Dexter" will continue to air Sundays on CBS, and its third season bows on Showtime later this year.

ABC, second to NBC on the night in demos and first in total viewers, was paced by a two-hour "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" (prelim 4.6/11 in 18-49, 13.5 million).

In other ratings news of note, CBS latenight entry "Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson" achieved a milestone during the week of Feb. 4-8, beating original episodes of NBC's "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" in total viewers for the first time (1.85 million to 1.82 million).

The victory comes with an asterisk, though, as CBS coded out its Tuesday episode as a "special" due to Super Tuesday coverage that may have disrupted viewing patterns. As a result, its weekly average includes only four nights (and excluded what's typically its lowest-rated night), while the NBC show counted all five nights.

O'Brien would have won if both shows counted all five nights, but it would have been close, as Ferguson has gained ground of late. O'Brien continues to lead rather comfortably among the 18-49 crowd, while Ferguson is neck and neck with its NBC rival it in adults 25-54.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117981094.html

The Business of Television
Look Who Controls the Pursestrings
Advertisers Analyze Gender-Related Viewing Differences
By Debra Kaufman, Special to TelevisionWeek

What women watch is an easier question to answer than Freud’s plaint about what they want. Women watch TV, more of it than men do. They watch cable, especially in the daytime, in numbers that rival prime time. Women surf the Internet more than men, although they’re less likely to watch video content than men. And women time-shift, using the DVR, also more than men.

With the advent of new-media choices, including time-shifting, the Internet, video-on-demand and mobile platforms, what women watch may become less important than where they watch. But the fact that they watch at all is crucial business for advertisers and their broadcast and cable TV partners. Horizon Media Senior VP of Research Brad Adgate, author of a report on the women’s market, estimated that women control 85% of family spending, or $500 billion. “Women have been called the household’s CPO [chief purchasing officer],” he said.

Remember the soccer mom? This 42-plus-year-old mom is still driving her children to sporting events in her minivan, but she has been supplanted by the Alpha Mom, the educated multitasker between 18 and 39 with a household income of $75,000-plus. “Marketers consider these Alpha Moms as females who are plugged in and whose opinions are trusted by their peers,” Mr. Adgate said.

According to Mr. Adgate, Alpha Moms are “very adept with technology,” surfing the Web an average of 87 minutes a day and communicating about online and product experiences via e-mail, BlackBerry, cell phone and their own blogs.

What do women watch online? “A Piper Jaffray survey in 2006 showed that while news is the most popular content for both genders, women are more inclined to watch movie previews, followed by music videos,” said Mr. Adgate, noting that men are more likely to watch amateur videos, then music videos and then movie previews.

Talking about what women watch, however, has its limits. Analyst Bruce Leichtman, president of Leichtman Research Group, insisted that age has to be part of the mix. “We have to think of it in slices of women,” he said. “I look at it as a combination of gender and age. A younger woman doesn’t behave the same as an older one, and the same goes for men.”

Perhaps nowhere is that more clear than with regard to new media. “The early adopters are usually young men,” said Mr. Leichtman. “After them are the fast followers, middle-aged men and younger women. You do see women in the early-adopter group, however, in the
18 to 34 age group, but the young men are still faster to want to adopt new technologies than young women.”

Women have not abandoned television—far from it. Sam Armando, Starcom senior VP and director of video research, noted that in recent years women’s cable share has gone from a 39 (Q4 2004) to a 45 (Q4 2007), with the daytime cable share rising
5 points in the same period.

“There’s been a bit of migration of female viewers from network to cable,” he said. “A lot of cable networks have established dramas in the daytime, so more women have migrated there in the day than in the past.”

“When you look at what networks have the highest concentration of women watching, cable is what pops up,” said Mr. Armando. “SoapNet has 80% of their audience made up of women, Style is 76%, then comes Lifetime and the Lifetime Movie Network.”

That women predominate in cable daytime viewing is only part of the picture; what’s more surprising is how the numbers compare with prime time. “Weekend daytime cable is 80% to 90% of the audience size of prime time,” said John Spiropoulos, MediaVest VP and director of video investment and activation. “For some networks, like Food Network and HGTV, the numbers are equal.”

Broadcast TV is also still in the picture for women viewers. “When we saw the ABC lineup, I said that ABC was going to be the Lifetime of the broadcast world,” said Mr. Armando, listing “Big Shots,” “Women’s Murder Club,” “Private Practice” and “Grey’s Anatomy” among other women-centric shows.

“Women are the last vestige of the broadcast-dominant viewer,” Mr. Spiropoulos said,
“Especially women over 50. The broadcast networks gear their programming to the female audience because they’re the ones most likely to watch entertainment programming. On average, it’s 65% to 70% female on network prime time, and with CW and others that focus on women, it skews 70% to 75% female for female-targeted shows.”

Men do watch entertainment programming, he added, but not in the same numbers as women. Instead, male viewers gravitate to sports and, to some degree, news and documentary. As a viewing bloc, men are much more fragmented than women. “You have many different genres that appeal to men, but in smaller numbers,” Mr. Spiropoulos said.

With large numbers of female viewers come more nuanced female roles and dramas. National Organization of Women VP Latifa Lyles pointed out that, although TV entertainment is still a “mixed bag” when it comes to the representation of women, she has seen some positive developments.

“We’re definitely finding a lot more progress in gender and diversity across the board,” she said. “We love ‘Ugly Betty.’ ‘30 Rock’ is a show by a woman. In ‘Medium,’ Patricia Arquette is a working mom. ‘Girlfriends’ is one of the few shows with a leading cast of all women of color, and other shows, like ‘Lost’ and ‘Heroes,’ are culturally diverse.”

Women are as savvy with the DVR as they are with the Internet. As audiences—especially those made up largely of female viewers—time-shift, TV undergoes a sea-change. “TV will not be capable of supporting our packaged goods clients’ business needs within a few years,” said Mr. Spiropoulos. “New media and time-shifting are taking away a considerable amount of inventory we can quantify via Nielsen. Using the word ‘dire’ is dramatic but not off base.”

All the vaunted opportunities of new media’s more targeted audiences certainly apply to women. “If women want to follow women’s tennis, they’ll go to women’s tennis Web sites, so advertisers who have a core following for tennis players have a better connection,” said Mr. Spiropoulos.

“A more focused audience will make the effort to watch their content in the new-media spaces.”

Regardless of the role new media plays in future viewing patterns, women continue to hold the purse strings, meaning one thing is certain: Where the Alpha Moms go, purveyors of entertainment content will set up shop.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/02/l...e_pursestr.php

Hopefully Andy will be with us for quite a while longer.

Maybe that memorization is why you produced football coaches, Scarlett.

Gee, chitchatjf, I take one day off from posting them and I get all this grief!

You can see the Saturday ratings here:

http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/t...51/m/443108301

(But "Jericho" finished a bad 4th in both viewers and the 18-49 demo. If I had to guess, I would say its opening week numbers have not helped its cause in the slightest.)

Critic's Notes
Dancing With The Stars: Season 6
Deaf Matlin dances in Mills' footsteps
By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY

Heather Mills competed with a prosthetic leg on Dancing With the Stars. Next up: a woman who can't hear the music.

Marlee Matlin says she's not worried. The Oscar-winning actress (Children of a Lesser God) is one of 12 celebrities announced Monday for the latest round of ABC's hit ballroom dance show, premiering March 17 (8 ET/PT).

Mills, who wowed Season 4 viewers and Dancing's judges with gutsy performances, "really made an impression," says Matlin, who has severely limited hearing. "She really raised awareness of what someone with a physical disability can do."

Matlin hopes she'll boost the image for the nation's 26 million deaf and hearing-impaired. "Deaf people can do anything except hear. My deafness will limit my ability only if I let it," says Matlin, 42.

Matlin's career has largely been defined by dramatic roles, including her current run on Showtime's The L Word. She hopes Dancing viewers will see her lighter side.

Learning ballroom dance might not be as hard as some would believe, she says. "Seeing as I haven't let my it affect my acting, I don't think I'll have more difficulty than other cast members," she says. "You try to imagine what it's like when you can't hear the music. I'll let my partner be my music."

Digital hearing aids help her distinguish some sounds. "Imagine yourself in the shower with the door closed and you can kind of hear the stereo in the next room at a reduced volume," says Jack Jason, her producing partner and interpreter.

Matlin's husband, Kevin, and four preteen children are big fans of Dancing With the Stars and were excited she had been asked to appear. She also consulted her friend, director/choreographer Anne Fletcher (Hairspray, 27 Dresses). "Anne said, 'You've got the moves,' " Matlin says. "Then it was me telling the producers, 'OK, you've got me.' "

Matlin says she's more worried about a pratfall than her limited hearing. "The stairs at the front of the stage I'm thinking heels, stairs, and I start to sweat."

Matlin and other celebrity competitors are in Chicago today to meet and tape The Oprah Winfrey Show episode airing Thursday.

What Dancing With the Stars' 11 other celebrities have to say about joining the show's Season 6:

Tony award winner Marissa Jaret Winokur, 35: "I want to wear the spray-on tan. The costumes. I just want to be part of that fun party thing."

Actor and radio personality Adam Carolla, 43: "It's like a cosmic joke. Dancing's really the one thing I don't do."

Actress Shannon Elizabeth, 34: "I've always wondered how I'd do. It looks like fun."

Actor Cristián de la Fuente, 33: "I guess they needed one Latino per show. They went down the list and said, 'Let's call Cristián.' I don't want to let them down."

Actor Steve Guttenberg, 49: "It's my mom's favorite show."

Actor/entertainer Penn Jillette, 52: "When you look like Sasquatch, it's more comfortable watching the show."

R&B singer Mario, 21: "This is definitely something new for me. It's exciting. Every time I watch the show, I'm amazed how honest and real everyone is."

Actress/businesswoman Priscilla Presley, 62: "I'm putting myself out there. I'm out of my comfort zone. But what makes you grow is taking chances."

Tennis star Monica Seles, 34: "I'm a tennis player. I don't know a tango from a mango."

Miami Dolphins football star Jason Taylor, 33: "What are my teammates going to say? Good question."

Olympic skater Kristi Yamaguchi, 36: "I have the feeling people will expect more from me. But this is a whole new experience."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/televis...terstitialskip