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Critic’s Notes
'Lost' season finale should answer questions
One thing is certain: the ABC series has recaptured viewers.
By Maria Elena Fernandez Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, May 25, 2008

THE OCEANIC 6 are scattered all over the island, all over Membata, if viewers are to believe this is the name of the place where Oceanic Flight 815 crashed 101 days ago. The very island Locke (Terry O'Quinn) thinks he wants to move. Can move.

Every member of the elusive group of "Lost" castaways, who we already know will leave the island, is in peril. Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sun, Sayid and baby Aaron are all fighting separately to live, struggling to escape. They are nowhere near the helicopter that can fly them to the freighter in the ocean, the vessel that could save them, if there wasn't a bomb on it.

But how do they leave? When will they separate from the rest of the survivors? What price will they pay?

When the "Lost" two-hour season finale airs Thursday, it will end not just another chapter in ABC's island saga. It also will close a season of ground-breaking storytelling that has carried viewers from present and past narratives, the signature of the show, to the future -- to be colored further with flashbacks of the flash forwards -- that is, glimpses of the future that predate other future events the audience has already seen. This season, the writers filled in the blanks by showing us another snippet of the future that occurred before that moment to let viewers know that "he" is Claire's baby, Aaron.

Using the flashback technique to develop character has become so popular across the TV landscape since "Lost" premiered in 2004 that it seems likely that flashing forward in increments to drive plot will follow suit. "Lost" producers have used this device to push the story forward and to answer some of the many island mysteries that fans both love and hate.

"It's an interesting development in the story that suddenly we deal with the post-island world, but it's imperfect," said Michael Emerson, who plays Ben Linus, the master-manipulator leader of the Others, whom viewers have seen off the island as well. "It's as imperfect as the island world and the only way it can be inhabited by the Oceanic 6 is by way of the big lie. So it's a compromised world.

"And the island may be more important to the survivors when they leave it than when they stood upon it," he continued. "The island of the mind, if you will. But it's a place that has a hold over them. The island never loses its power."

Looking forward

EVIDENTLY, that's also the case for "Lost" viewers. The flash-forward device has energized many fans who had become disenchanted during last year, as more characters and mysteries were introduced and favorite castaways were sidelined. Averaging 14.6 million viewers, "Lost" ranks ninth among all TV series in the desirable 18- to 49-year-old demographic and has been the top-rated show in both of its time slots all season, despite being on a new night.

Viewers have responded favorably to the show's hastened narrative pace, but some have griped that, at times, piecing the timeline has been challenging. "By doing the flash-forwards, we made the audience deeply suspicious and they don't know what to believe when you want them to believe something," executive producer Carlton Cuse said, aware of the Internet chatter among Losties.

With only two hours left, the producers have much ground to cover. In the future, fans have seen Jack (Matthew Fox) and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) as a couple raising Aaron without mention of what happened to Claire (Emilie de Ravin). Hurley (Jorge Garcia) winds up in a mental hospital again; Sayid (Naveen Andrews) is working as an assassin for Ben around the globe; and Sun (Yunjin Kim) gives birth and mourns the loss of her husband, Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), even though viewers have not witnessed his death.

What fans have yet to see is what happened after last season's time-busting revelation that Jack and Kate leave the island in the future but something makes Jack want to return. On Thursday, "Lost" will take viewers to that very moment of Jack's pained "We have to go back!" and move beyond it. It also will disclose "one of the island's greatest secrets," according to Emerson.

"The finale is about the culmination of this idea that a group of people who desperately wanted to get off the island find themselves in the position of defending the island that they've been trying to leave," Cuse said.

But producers won't disclose what fans are dying to know. Many viewers, as evidenced on message boards, are convinced that next season post-island life becomes the present and the past is life on the island.

"All we can say is that it's going to be very hard to get back to the island for those guys," co-creator and executive producer Damon Lindelof said. "But life will continue for the people who are not with them. How are we going to tell that story? We're not going to tell that." In fact, Lindelof vowed during an interview that after the finale airs he and Cuse "are going into radio silence until next season."

But Emerson, talking from the Hawaii set by telephone, has a theory. "Every season, in the telling of 'Lost,' the lens pulls back another notch so that the picture gets bigger, includes more stuff, more people, more places," he said. "So I'll be curious to see what is now included when the lens jumps back another step. I think it will be more fragmented. The geography of the show as we've known it will be upset. Everybody will be in a new place."

Kim, who said there "will be casualties," took it one step further: "The finale will change the way you watch the show. It will introduce new variables that would never even be considered previously."

When viewers last saw the Oceanic 6, Jack and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) dodged the helicopter that could have rescued them to try to protect Hurley.

Hurley was hiding from the freighter folks who want to kill Ben. The Others came down the mountain and captured Kate and Sayid. Sun, Jin and Aaron were onboard the bomb-carrying freighter.

"Aw, man, the finale is crazy," Garcia said. "You will definitely see how we all end up together and back on civilization. But it's as if there is one obstacle after another in front of us and the fact that we make it off is definitely a miracle."

Choosing survivors

JUST HOW did these half a dozen plane crash survivors -- and not their counterparts -- come to be the Oceanic 6?

The producers began to make their selections in the second season but did not pick all six until after they had negotiated 2010 as an end date for the series and could plan out the rest of the stories. The first requirement was that they had to be passengers on flight Oceanic 815, which crashed on the island on Sept. 22, 2004, and not any of the other island inhabitants.

"Jack has been saying from the word go, 'I'm gonna get everybody off the island.' So we thought, 'What happens if the hero accomplishes his goal but realizes he's made a horrible mistake?' " Lindelof said. "And he would only qualify it a success if Kate were off the island as well. We also knew the baby had to be a part of it. Then we asked ourselves, 'Who are the other people who have something to go back to and what might their lives be like off the island?' "

The answer was Sayid, Sun and Hurley, but Lindelof and Cuse won't say exactly why, noting that some of their reasons are based on events in upcoming seasons that even the cast ignores at this point.

"Those choices are representations of the dramatic poles of the characters," Cuse said. "Jack is the ultimate empiricist. He's never believed in the mystery and the mythology of the island. He just wants to get the hell off this place whereas Locke has embraced the mysteries of the island. His goal is to understand what the island is about."

Nobody was more surprised to learn he was in the exclusive club than Garcia. Often, the emotional center of the show, Hurley, isn't in the middle of the action.

"I knew some people were getting off and some weren't and I assumed at the time that it was all going to be people close to the [satellite] phone," Garcia said. "But it turned out to be a bunch of us from all over the place and I thought it was cool because it became a puzzle to unravel as to how we all end up together off the island."

The only exception to the only-passengers rule is Aaron, who wasn't on the manifest because he was born on the island. That Kate is his mother off-island is one of the components of the intricate lie the Oceanic 6 weave when they reach civilization. From the beginning, viewers have wondered if Aaron is somehow at the center of the show's mythology. The producers have repeatedly said the island is not purgatory, but whether Aaron (or Locke or Ben or who knows?) is pivotal to a healing island with smoke monsters and electro-magnetic properties remains to be seen.

"It could go either way," said De Ravin, who plays Claire, who in the present could be dead or undead, depending on how you look at it. "Seeing as they've already revealed him to be with Kate, there's got to be some other twist there. He's just a little baby, so it's hard to tell if he has some crazy powers. Maybe he can see the future too."

The future doesn't look so promising for Jin, whose wife grieved by his grave in Korea. But many fans, taking a cue from his tombstone, which listed the day of the crash as the day he died, don't believe Jin is dead.

"I do like the fact that his fate is unresolved and that his life is in jeopardy," Kim said. "Now, believing that he might be dead, I'm getting a lot of people saying, 'Wow, please, don't be dead.' It's a nice sign of appreciation for a character that I haven't necessarily felt in the past."

The finale, Cuse said, will have "some spectacular romantic moments along with spectacular action moments."

"The story of the Oceanic 6 is the ultimate break-up story," Lindelof added. "That's what the finale is about -- everybody breaking up. And the show is going to have to proceed from here as to whether or not we're going to get everybody together. Who is still around to get together?"

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...93,print.story

TV Notes
Grey’s Anatomy Creator Talks About the Season Finale
(Which she wrote)
The End of the Beginning...
By Shonda Rhimes in the “GreyMatter” blog

So that was Season Four.

Right after we finished filming the finale of Season Three, I sat down with the Grey’s writing staff and I pitched them the last scene of Season Four. That’s how I do it. I start at the end. When Season Two concluded, I pitched the image of Cristina tearing off her wedding dress and crying in Meredith’s arms. For this season, I knew immediately that I wanted more hope. I knew I personally NEEDED more hope. So I pitched Meredith standing on Derek’s land in a field of candles telling Derek where the living room could be, where the kitchen could be, where the kids could play. Because I wanted them together. I hated them being apart. It made me sad. It made me sad in a way that was bad for me and for everyone around me.

But I also knew that, in order for Meredith to stand in that field of candles, she had to get there. Inside. Now I’m not an oogey inside person. I don’t do warm and fuzzy and I certainly don’t believe in therapy. For other people, it’s fine (yay, therapy!). For me, not so much. I write – that’s how I deal with my insides. And Meredith, she performs surgery – that’s how she deals with hers.

But in order to get her to a place where she could stand in that field of candles, Mer needed a little help. Professional help. Which shocked my writers. Cause they know how I feel about therapy. But I knew something they did not. Something I’d been keeping to myself for four seasons. Which was the fact that Meredith sat on the kitchen floor in a pool of her mother’s blood after her mother attempted suicide. See what I mean about me not being warm and fuzzy? Nothing warm and fuzzy about pools of blood. Which is why I kept that detail to myself. When you say things like that in a writers’ room, people tend to look at you funny. People tend to suggest that YOU need therapy. So I kept it to myself. For four long seasons. I didn’t even tell Debora Cahn, the writer of the episode in which Meredith CONFESSES her mother’s suicide to Dr. Wyatt. Not until the last possible second.

We’d have these discussions about Deb Cahn’s episode in the writers’ room where everyone would ask “Shonda, what is Meredith going to TELL Dr. Wyatt in this last scene? WHAT?” And I’d be all, “I don’t know. Stop talking about it.” And they’d sigh and shoot each other these looks. They love me but still, there were looks.

I’d like to point out that it is RUDE not to tell details like that to your writing staff. It is cold and withholding, to use therapy-speak. But I just couldn’t do it. Because of two things: one, while I had pitched Meredith all whole and healed in a field of candles, I wasn’t sure I could get to a place where I BELIEVED that Meredith would ever go to the field. And two, I love Ellis Grey. Love her. Even though she is dead. I think she is fantastic. And I couldn’t figure out, couldn’t fathom, what a mother says to her child when she is bleeding to death on the kitchen floor from self-inflicted wounds. For a long time, I felt like anything she would have said to a five year old kid in that moment would make her a monster. Because I have a five year old kid. And I can’t imagine doing something so horrible and damaging to her. What do you say to your child at a time like that? Why is your child even there? How do you redeem yourself in that horrifying moment?

And then I realized: be extraordinary. Be an extraordinary woman, Meredith. If you’ll remember, in Season Three when Ellis was lucid, she tells Meredith, “I raised you to be an extraordinary woman, Meredith and imagine my disappointment at realizing you are no more than ordinary.” That’s what she says in the episode RIGHT BEFORE Meredith falls in the water and chooses to stop swimming. To let herself go. That was Meredith’s own pool of blood.

So suddenly, I had my answer. Ellis would lie there in her blood and tell Meredith to be an extraordinary woman. To not depend on anyone. And she wouldn’t be talking about surgery. But Meredith, at five years old, could not possibly know that. And she’d become the surgeon in training who screws boys like a whore on tequila and then tries to drown herself. Instead of realizing what Ellis actually meant -- don’t have ordinary love. Have extraordinary love. And that made it all possible. It made it possible for Mer to stand in a field of candles because once she realizes that, her whole world opens up. She can just stand there in her joy.

But like I said, I don’t do warm and fuzzy. So that last scene, it was hard for me. To let her be oogey on the inside. So instead, Meredith is screaming and pacing and cursing like a fishwife. Because that’s how we do things at Grey’s. She’s going to love Derek and be with Derek but she’s going to go in kicking and screaming. And then I really didn’t want to just end with the two of them kissing. Everyone said, “end with the kiss, end with the kiss, end with THE KISS.” And I was all stubborn about it. Because this episode, it’s not about the kiss. It’s about the moment AFTER the kiss. It’s about the moment when she’s standing in the field of candles alone having just DONE the thing she was most scared of doing. She is free. She is free. And you’ll notice, there’s no voice over there, no Meredith telling us anything. Because, for once, my girl Meredith is speechless.

There were other kisses in the episode. Maybe you noticed? Callie and Erica. Callie and Erica!! My god, did we discuss this a lot around here. Because Callie kisses a girl. We had this really cool meeting with GLAAD where we talked about the idea that a woman could decide she had feelings for another woman after being perfectly happy with men and we all got joyous because the chemistry between Callie and Erica and Mark is hot and interesting and fresh and like nothing any of us had seen on TV before. And we wanted it to be real – not some stunt to get people talking. We wanted to see what would happen if a woman suddenly had feelings for another woman. Because that has got to be surprising. And it is for Callie who so likes men. Who so likes sleeping with men. You’ll be very surprised when you find out where this story is heading next season. Because we don’t do things the easy way. And none of this will be easy. Not for Callie. Not for Erica. And not for Mark Sloan…

How much do I love Mark Sloan? He’s a dirty pretty manwhore who ends up being a hero. And I love him for it. Not that he’s going to become a good guy. He’s no white hat. But for one moment, he did what he thought was the right thing. Because if there’s one thing he understands, it’s getting turned on by someone. And who is he to deny that?

Okay, there is more to say. I have more to say. About George and Lexie. About Alex and Ava/Rebecca and Izzie. About Bailey. About the Chief. About Rose. And about Cristina. Oh, do I have more to say.

But my fingers are tired. From writing all the kissing. So I’m going to end this now and post it. But I will write more tomorrow. I’ll finish what I started. But right now, I’ve got to head into the writers’ room and pitch them the end of Season Five…

Thank you so much for watching the show. Every single time you watch an episode, we are grateful. You are all extraordinary.

http://www.greyswriters.com/

The 2007-2008 Season
Broadcast networks under siege
Declining viewers and cable's subscriber-fee revenue advantage are forcing TV executives to consider radical changes in the way they do business.
By Scott Collins, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, in the Channel Island TV Industry column, May 26, 2008

IT SEEMS much longer than four years ago that NBC marketed the blazes out of a miniseries called "10.5."

A disaster epic about a series of giant earthquakes on the West Coast, "10.5" was a silly hunk of overripe cheese ("a four-hour tour de force of lameness," in the words of critic Tim Goodman). But the 2004 "event" movie was also emblematic of a then-cherished network tradition, the sweeps ratings period, when stations banged the drums for all sorts of specials and stunts crafted as viewer bait.

Like the networks themselves, though, the quarterly sweeps -- which some stations still use to set local ad rates -- have fallen on hard times. For the May sweep that ended last Wednesday, NBC couldn't be bothered to make the earth move. Among the network's prime-time offerings as the period drew to a close: repeats of "The Office," "Law & Order: SVU" and "Most Outrageous Moments."

That's right. During a supposedly competitive sweep, the fourth-place network went with a cornucopia of reruns. (NBC executives declined to comment, according to a spokeswoman.)

NBC paid a steep price for this approach, posting an alarming 27% plunge among adults ages 18 to 49 compared with the year-earlier period, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research. That's the kind of earthquake you don't want when you're running a network.

But let's not pick on one network alone. With the exception of Fox's surprisingly strong "American Idol" finale on Wednesday, the May ratings have been pretty atrocious across the board, in a strike-shortened year that's already shaping up as the TV executives' annushorribilis.

The worst part is this may be no temporary hiccup. Increasingly, the shutdown and aftermath of the writers strike that ended in February is beginning to look like a signal moment in the slow, painful meltdown of the broadcast-TV industry.

Broadcasting, simply put, isn't casting broadly anymore. As the sweep suggests, the TV networks are losing not just their viewers but also their sense of specialness. They're becoming just the lowest numbers on the multichannel dial, rather than the last outposts of mass culture. It's true that this evolution has been happening for years, but this year a tipping point was reached, a Rubicon crossed. Broadcast exceptionalism -- its supposed immunity from the market forces afflicting all other media -- is finally dead.

And that, fellow viewers, is a huge problem for those acronymic "legacy" networks. One, it undercuts executives' argument to advertisers that broadcast still delivers the most bang for the buck of any media (negotiations for the sale of bulk ad time next TV season are taking place right now, an inconvenient moment to be sure from the networks' standpoint). Also, the broadcasters' economic model, as it currently stands, is simply unsustainable compared with that of their chief competitors, cable networks. More about that in a minute.

This doesn't necessarily mean that viewers won't come back in greater numbers once the networks roll out their new shows come fall (although given the production interruptions caused by the strike, the number of series premieres will be reduced, which may also weaken ratings). And it's true that the importance of sweeps has been naturally diminishing in recent seasons as Nielsen has refined its measurement techniques.

Still, the May results delivered a jolt to the system. Ratings slipped during the strike as networks ran out of fresh episodes. No surprise there. But conventional wisdom held that viewers would trickle back as their favorite shows returned to the schedule.

For the most part, though, that didn't happen. Even big hits like "Idol" and ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" sank to their lowest numbers in years. In one typically sobering statistic, ABC lost more than one-fifth of its core young-adult viewers in May. Yes, strike delays may have played a role; "Lost" won't air its season finale until this Thursday, for instance, so its numbers won't count in either the sweep or regular-season tallies. But all the other networks logged double-digit sweep declines, even Fox.

Clearly, something happened. Where'd those viewers go?

Preston Beckman, Fox's scheduling chief, said he was always pessimistic about audiences beating a path back to network series post-strike, even though his employer has the most cause to celebrate of any broadcast outlet this year. When the medical drama "House" prepared to return in late April, Beckman said, he warned the producers that "the season's over." Viewers had simply dropped the habit of watching network series, he reasoned.

"I'm a believer in [the theory], 'Give me an excuse to stop watching your show,' " Beckman told me.

There may be something to that. When you look at the steep declines posted by the broadcasters, two additional statistics are telling. One is that compared with last May, the number of people using television actually went up, by 2%. The other is that this season, the average total viewing for ad-supported cable networks rose a healthy 7%, to 51.6 million.

So more people are watching television. More people are watching cable. And fewer, dramatically fewer, are watching broadcast TV.

This can't continue indefinitely without the broadcasters taking what an airline pilot might call corrective action. The legacy networks can't just learn to be content with cable-size ratings and then call it a day. That's because cable networks have a huge, built-in competitive advantage. Unlike broadcasters, they derive revenue not just from advertising but also subscriber fees, which are part of viewers' monthly cable and satellite bills. Broadcasters, at least until now, have been utterly dependent on income from 30-second commercials.

The broadcast bosses say they're all about change now. NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker spent an hour last week on Charlie Rose's PBS show repeating the mantra that his network has to think now about developing material that can work on multiple "platforms," including online. Easier said than done though. NBC's "American Gladiators" and "Last Comic Standing" belly-flopped in heavily promoted outings recently ("Comic" drew just 5.7 million total viewers opposite the "Grey's Anatomy" season finale Thursday), and it's tough to believe those programs -- both cheap reality fare, with little to no replay value -- will suddenly turn on a magical cash spigot in a different medium.

In re-engineering so heavily toward marketing and various platforms, NBC is trying to have the cart pull the horse. The horse is left behind, wondering what's going on.

The people at Fox are taking a different approach. Two of its most high-profile new series next season, J.J. Abrams' super-expensive drama "Fringe" and Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse," will air with greatly reduced commercial interruptions. By cutting back the ad time available on those shows, the network hopes to persuade advertisers to pay a little more. At a time when network TV is getting buried in ads, sponsorships and product placements, this idea at least returns the focus to where it belongs: on the program.

And programs, ultimately, are the only things that will save the networks in their bid to stay relevant. It's about the programs. It always has been, and it always will be.

Four years ago I couldn't have imagined saying this, but "10.5" is starting to look pretty good now.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...41,print.story

The 2007-2008 Season
Deconstructing the TV Season From Hell
By Josef Adalian, Television Week

It’s become an instant cliché: The 2007-08 TV season was broadcasting’s annus horribilis, a year from hell that brought only pain and misery to the business.

“There will always be an asterisk next to this season,” said Fox scheduling chief Preston Beckman. “It’s like Roger Maris and his 61 home runs.”

But behind all the chaos and catastrophes of the last nine months—the writers strike, the confusion over DVR data, “Viva Laughlin”—an actual TV season played out.

New shows struck out or succeeded. Networks improved some time slots and faded in others. Executives’ career fortunes rose or dimmed.

“It was an extraordinarily challenging season, but through it, the networks were still able to launch some successful shows,” said ABC Executive Vice President Jeff Bader. “There were no breakouts, but there were successes.”

In other words, while the season just ended was unlike any other in TV history, in some ways, it was just like any other. Here’s a look at the people and trends that popped during the 2007-08 campaign. (All ratings numbers cited are for the 18- to 49-year-old demographic unless otherwise noted.)

The New Deans of Drama: Greg Berlanti and Josh Schwartz

During the 1980s and ’90s, David E. Kelley and Steven Bochco were TV’s go-to writer-producers, each juggling multiple series at any given moment. This year, Mr. Berlanti and Mr. Schwartz began emerging as possible successors to that legacy.

Mr. Berlanti, who scored a hit during the 2006-07 season with “Brothers & Sisters,” added two more ABC dramas to his resume this season. “Dirty Sexy Money,” averaging a 3.0/8, was a solid, buzzworthy part of ABC’s new Wednesday lineup. In the spring, “Eli Stone”—despite earning a smallish 2.8/8 as it struggled to find an audience in the post-strike chaos—had critics raving by the end of its run and will return next season.

Mr. Schwartz, meanwhile, took on the Herculean task of launching two new hourlong dramas in September: NBC’s “Chuck” and The CW’s “Gossip Girl.” The former was just about the only bright spot on the Peacock network’s fall schedule, while the latter emerged as a certifiable pop-culture phenomenon that, thanks to its download dominance on iTunes, threatened to redefine the definition of “hit show.”

Save the Cheerleader, Save the Network

“Heroes,” the show that was supposed to be NBC’s ticket out of the ratings basement, suffered a massive sophomore slump. After launching its second season with nearly 17 million total viewers, it ended its run in December with barely 11 million geeks still following the show’s increasingly convoluted storylines.

While the strike had nothing to do with the show’s Nielsen collapse, the early halt in production meant producers didn’t get the chance to win back fans right away. On the positive side, the strike delay provided plenty of time for them to regroup.

It’s hard to imagine “Heroes” ever recapturing the buzz of its first season. But as ABC’s “Lost” has proven, viewers are willing to give shows they love a second chance.

The Comedy Queen: Wendy Trilling

NBC gets all the hype, but CBS quietly positioned itself this season as the sitcom’s savior.
“Two and a Half Men” continued its reign as TV’s No. 1 half-hour, while that show’s creator, Chuck Lorre, launched another success last fall with “The Big Bang Theory.” And while it doesn’t always get a lot of love from senior CBS Corp. executives, “How I Met Your Mother” has given the Eye network endless blogosphere buzz and reaches younger viewers who might otherwise not even know CBS exists.

“They might not be the critical darlings, but they’re certainly favorites among viewers,” said Kelly Kahl, CBS’ senior executive VP for program planning.

“Mother,” for example, averaged a 3.3/9, more than NBC’s vaunted “30 Rock” or “My Name Is Earl.”

Even rivals are willing to give CBS comedy props.

“They come out of the season having kept alive the tradition of a ‘Must-See TV’ comedy block with four-camera shows,” said Fox’s Mr. Beckman. “Their patience has paid off there.”
CBS looks to expand its comedy empire this fall by moving utility player “The New Adventures of Old Christine” to Wednesdays and pairing it with newcomer “Project Gary.” It plans to bolster its Monday block with the single-camera half-hour “Worst Week,” which played well in clip form when screened for advertisers in New York earlier this month.

All the comedy kudos can’t be claimed by CBS, however.

ABC, whose blockbuster track record in launching drama hits hasn’t been matched on the half-hour front, finally achieved a comedy breakthrough this season with “Samantha Who?” Slotted behind “Dancing With the Stars” on Mondays, the Christina Applegate vehicle clicked with ABC’s target audience, averaging a nice 3.9/9.

“It’s a comedy that was right in our wheelhouse, a strong female-centered show,” said ABC’s Mr. Bader.

Reality (Still) Rocks

The writers strike forced networks to rely on unscripted shows in a big way for much of the season. Some reality producers had worried the glut of unscripted would damage the genre, but if anything, the last season only proved how much of a cornerstone reality programming has become for the networks.

Not surprisingly, Fox—led by Mike Darnell, president of alternative programming—had the season’s splashiest unscripted hit with “Moment of Truth,” the train-wreck game show in which contestants reveal dark secrets in order to win cash. Its success proved reality’s Dark Prince still had his mojo, as did the successful “Hell’s Kitchen” spinoff “Kitchen Nightmares.”

But while Mr. Darnell once again stole the headlines, the folks at ABC’s reality division had reason to be happy, too.

“Dancing with the Stars,” despite some ratings declines, remains one of the Alphabet’s anchors, as does “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” on Sundays. ABC also has a strong bench of quiet utility players, including “Wife Swap,” “Supernanny” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

“Reality is an incredibly important part of our mix,” Mr. Bader said. “Those shows were down much less than our big scripted shows. They’re very reliable.”

Not every network fared as well with the genre.

NBC thought it had a hit on its hands with “American Gladiators,” which premiered to nearly 12 million total viewers during its first late-winter run. But returning for a second season in the middle of the May sweeps turned out to be a big mistake: More than half the show’s audience has abandoned it.

A Bad Year for Freshmen

While ABC had a good fall, the other networks got a chilly reception for most of their new shows last season.

CBS had a tough time convincing viewers to check out its much-hyped class of dramas, which veered away from the network’s time-tested procedural formula. By May, the network had decided to pull the plug on all of them, even those such as “Moonlight,” which attracted a rabid (but tiny) fan base.

“We talked about trying some things and pushing the envelope,” Mr. Kahl said. “Maybe in retrospect we pushed a little too far.”

Fox, meanwhile, may have played it too safe. The once-rebellious network struck out with conventional fall fare such as the cop drama “K-Ville” and the why-is-this-not-on-CBS comedy “Back to You.” And while midseason hour “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” did well enough to merit a second season—a huge premiere gave it a 4.5/11 season average—courtroom drama “Canterbury’s Law” and cult-ish crime show “New Amsterdam” barely registered.

Over at NBC, “Chuck” did OK, but the very expensive “Bionic Woman” malfunctioned badly. Sci-fi romance “Journeyman” quickly fizzled. Procedural drama “Life” didn’t do all that well, either—its 3.0/8 landed it at No. 66 for the season—but NBC executives believed in the show enough to give it a second shot.

And Then There’s the CW

While “Gossip Girl” ended up fine, viewers might not even remember the network premiered shows called “Life Is Wild,” “CW Now” or “Online Nation.” All struck out in a big way.

“Reaper” had more of an impact, but not much. Nonetheless, CW executives decided to bring the show back for a midseason run next year.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/05/d...v_season_f.php

The 2007-2008 Season
A Few Tremors in Oprahland
By Edward Wyatt, The New York Times, May 26, 2008

LOS ANGELES — Oprah Winfrey is still the queen of all media, but her crown is beginning to look a bit tarnished.

The average audience for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” has fallen nearly 7 percent this year, according to Nielsen Media Research — its third straight year of decline. “Oprah’s Big Give,” an ABC philanthropic reality show, beat every program on television except “American Idol” in its premiere week this winter, but steadily lost nearly one-third of its audience during the rest of its eight-week run, according to Nielsen.

The circulation of O, The Oprah Magazine, has fallen by more than 10 percent in the last three years, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, and the magazine is now seeking a new editor in chief after the announced retirement of its longtime steward, Amy Gross.

And while Ms. Winfrey still displays a Midas touch when it comes to the endorsement of books and products, some of her latest picks have attracted criticism from longtime fans as she has strayed into new-age spiritualism and, perhaps more dangerously, politics. Her endorsement of the presidential bid of Senator Barack Obama appears to have alienated some of the middle-aged white women who make up the bulk of her television audience, many of whom support Senator Hillary Clinton.

“Not too long ago, she was like the pope,” rarely criticized by her ardent supporters, said Janice Peck, an associate professor of mass communication at the University of Colorado and the author of “The Age of Oprah,” a new book on Ms. Winfrey’s cultural influence.

Since the endorsement, however, angry criticism of her political stance became a regular feature of the message boards on Oprah.com, Ms. Peck said. “There are a lot of her fans who are not Democrats or who support Hillary Clinton who feel betrayed,” she added.

The weaker ratings come as Ms. Winfrey is embarking on what is perhaps her biggest project yet: the start-up of OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a cable channel being created jointly with Discovery Communications. Its programming, though it will not include “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which is under contract with current stations through 2010, will entirely reflect Ms. Winfrey’s vision of what she calls empowering programming.

Tim Bennett, the president of Harpo Productions, Ms. Winfrey’s primary business venture, said in an interview that all aspects of her business are thriving and disputed the idea that her political endorsement had caused problems. The audience for her daytime talk show, he noted, remains roughly one-third larger than the next most popular competitor, “Dr. Phil,” featuring Dr. Phil McGraw, who was introduced to the talk-show world by Ms. Winfrey herself.

Any drop in her television ratings can be traced to general weakness in the overall television audience, Mr. Bennett said. Her political endorsement, which has never been highlighted on her syndicated talk show, has not generated any negative feedback from the stations that broadcast the program, he added.

“Those stations pay us a lot of money for that show, and if they felt she was doing anything that was diminishing the mother lode, we would get a call saying, ‘Enough,’ ” Mr. Bennett said. “We didn’t hear one iota of feedback.”

Ms. Winfrey was in South Africa last week and was unavailable for comment, her company said. She was there interviewing candidates to oversee the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, a school she built and sponsors there. That school itself generated negative publicity for Ms. Winfrey last year, when a dorm matron at the school was accused of abusing six students over four months. A trial of the former employee, who has denied the abuse charges, is scheduled to start in July.

Mr. Bennett also disputes the idea that Ms. Winfrey might be suffering from overexposure, even though she has recently expanded her empire with a satellite radio show, a network-television Oscar special, and a deal with Discovery Communications to start her new cable station.

“I’ve never witnessed someone more in touch with the audience she serves,” he said. “She paces herself very well.”

Both Mr. Bennett and Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment, said that a second season of “Oprah’s Big Give” would have been a shoo-in for ABC’s prime-time lineup.

“We loved that show and absolutely would have loved to bring it back,” Mr. McPherson said, addressing reporters this month at the announcement of ABC’s fall schedule. “But it was something she didn’t want to do.”

The first episode of “Oprah’s Big Give” attracted 15.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen, second that week only to “American Idol,” which drew about 27 million. But it averaged only 11.1 million viewers over eight weeks and finished the season 32nd in total audience among all prime-time programs.

Ms. Winfrey’s daytime audience has also declined, to about 7.3 million this year from 7.8 million a year ago and a peak of nearly 9 million in the 2004-2005 season. (Those Nielsen figures include viewers who record the show and watch it within seven days.)

Robert Madden, a senior executive vice president at CBS Television Distribution, which oversees the syndication of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” said he is unworried by that decline.

“It has been the No. 1 talk show for 471 consecutive weeks,” Mr. Madden said. “That’s a good barometer if her show is in trouble or not, and obviously if you’re No. 1, you’re not in trouble.”

Certainly Ms. Winfrey has demonstrated she can still draw an audience. Her April 3 interview with the “pregnant man,” a female-to-male transsexual whose retained reproductive organs are carrying a child, drew an audience a third larger than the season average.

Though the program has lost nearly one-quarter of its audience of women between the ages of 25 and 54 over the last three years, Mr. Madden said current viewership is about equal to where it was 10 years ago, and the recent declines can be tied to the more general falloff in television watching, particularly among daytime shows.

“Ratings are down just because there are other things people are doing,” he said. Though Ms. Winfrey has lost viewers in some markets while “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” has gained, Ms. Winfrey’s show has regularly outdrawn Ms. DeGeneres’s when the two programs have gone head-to-head.

Neither does the audience decline worry David Zaslav, chief executive of Discovery Communications, which will start OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network in the second half of 2009. Her Web site, Oprah.com, will be part of the new venture, and Mr. Zaslav noted that fans of Ms. Winfrey’s book club downloaded a recent online seminar about her current book pick some 30 million times.

That book pick, “A New Earth,” by Eckhart Tolle, sold faster than any of the previous 60 selections of “Oprah’s Book Club.” But it also has attracted some criticism for Ms. Winfrey on her Web site, where some of her fans have said that the book’s spiritualist leanings go against Christian doctrine.

“She is endorsing a kind of spirituality that can be offensive to traditional Christians,” Ms. Peck, the University of Colorado professor, said.

The circulation of O, the magazine, ticked up by about 1 percent to 2.4 million at the end of last year from a year earlier, but is down from nearly 2.7 million in 2004, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. A spokeswoman for Ms. Winfrey’s magazine said it had enjoyed five straight years of growth in advertising pages. Ms. Gross, the magazine’s editor in chief since July 2000, has said she will delay her retirement until a successor is named.

Ms. Winfrey is also continuing to develop new programs. A spinoff talk show featuring Dr. Mehmet Oz is planned for 2009, and earlier this year she signed a development deal for television projects featuring Kirstie Alley. A syndicated talk/cooking show featuring Rachael Ray has been less successful and has recently fallen out of Nielsen’s list of the top 25 syndicated programs.

If Ms. Winfrey has cut back any part of her schedule, it has been in appearances in support of Mr. Obama. Following high-profile rallies just prior to the Iowa caucuses in December and leading up to Super Tuesday in February, Ms. Winfrey all but disappeared from the campaign trail, leading some pundits to wonder whether she had gauged a negative effect on her business.

A Gallup poll conducted in October, shortly after Ms. Winfrey announced her support of Mr. Obama, found that her “favorable” rating fell by 8 percentage points, to 66 percent, from 74 percent in January 2007; her “unfavorable” mark jumped by more than half, to 26 percent from 17 percent.

“I think the endorsement probably backfired with a number of her fans,” said Steven J. Ross, chairman of the history department at the University of Southern California, who is working on a book about Hollywood and politics. Movie moguls for decades have counseled stars not to stray into political endorsements, Mr. Ross said, “because once you open your mouth, you alienate 50 percent of your audience.”

Mr. Zaslav, of Discovery, said he disagrees that the political endorsement has caused her any problems.

“Oprah is a truly authentic personality, and she says what she thinks and what she believes in,” he said. “That is part of her authentic charm.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/bu...nt&oref=slogin

He already voted (as did Mrs CP95) just four minutes after the original request for ballots.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...ostcount=18146

Television Review
"The Andromeda Strain"
Offers a full dose of paranoia
By Maureen Ryan in her Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”, May 26, 2008

Any adaptation of Michael Crichton’s thriller “The Andromeda Strain” needs to do one thing: Serve up a heaping helping of paranoia.

The glossy, four-hour version that A+E airs 8 p.m. (CT) Monday and 8 p.m. (CT) Tuesday does that with workmanlike competence and a bit of high-tech flash. If this tale of a possibly alien virus on Earth doesn’t really improve on the suspenseful 1971 Robert Wise film of the same name, that’s not necessarily a dismissal of the new version.

Wise’s film was a memorable slice of ’70s sci-fi and reflected that venerable director’s respect for the serious questions that Crichton’s 1969 novel asked about government cover-ups and what our response should be to deadly threats – alien and terrestrial.

The new “Andromeda Strain” has some unnecessary bells and whistles that mark it as a production overseen by the flashy filmmaking brothers Ridley and Tony Scott. We really didn’t need to extended shot of the characters taking a slow-motion decontamination bath, and this cast, though it performs solidly, isn’t nearly as quirky or memorable as the troupe in Wise’s film.

Still, Crichton’s story serves up so many interlocking layers of distrust, fear and competing agendas that it’s hard not to get sucked into its thicket of conspiracy theories. And this version of “The Andromeda Strain” is paced well; it gives Crichton’s story a hint of blandness but it also marches through the plot with no-nonsense efficiency.

Benjamin Bratt plays Dr. Jeremy Stone, the head of a team of scientists who are recruited by the government to investigate a strange occurrence in a small Utah town – unbeknownst to the rest of America, most of the town died soon after a satellite crashed nearby. One reporter, Jack Nash (Eric McCormack), starts to question the odd things that begin to happen in Utah, but his addiction problems could prevent him from getting the full story.

Nash’s distrust of the government cover stories us just one small part of this web of paranoia. Stone doesn’t necessarily believe what his government handler, Gen. George Mancheck (a typically decisive Andre Braugher), is telling him. Mancheck begins to suspect the motives of his own civilian bosses, and the members of the scientific team Stone assembles don’t necessarily trust each other. Despite their differences, they all begin to think the government’s claims about the mysterious satellite that carried the deadly virus are bogus as well.

Could the Andromeda crisis be related to a sea-mining operation that the government is trying to get approved? Is one of the president’s aides even shadier than he first appears? And for the scientists, the scariest question of all is, could this organism adapt and become even more deadly?

Certainly Crichton’s tale has proven that it is highly adaptable to the paranoias of any age. His novel has been updated here with energy but also a mild overlay of melodramatic cheese. Still, “The Andromeda Strain” is one hardy entity that’s nearly impossible to destroy.


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

The Business of Television
Climate change for Weather Channel sale
Landmark may need to lower expectations
By Georg Szalai, The Hollywood Reporter, May 26, 2008 (Paul J. Gough and Reuters contributed to this report.)

Privately held Landmark Communications likely will have to lower its expectations for the Weather Channel, with Time Warner and the team of NBC Universal and private-equity firm Blackstone Group looking like the only suitors remaining as second round bids were due Friday.

The bidders were expected to offer $3 billion-$4 billion each for the cable channel, down from the $5 billion originally earmarked by Landmark, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The newspaper also cited a range of other possible bidders. However, sources said that CBS Corp., News Corp., Liberty Media, Viacom and Comcast were not planning to submit bids, even though some had been looking at the channel.

Landmark vice chairman Richard Barry and representatives for all the possible suitors declined comment on the auction.

Sources said the high asking price for the Weather Channel, a lack of synergy and different corporate priorities had caused the field of suitors to thin out since a first round of bidding in March. Potential suitor CBS Corp. said this month that it will acquire digital media company CNET for $1.8 billion, reducing its interest in another major deal.

NBC Universal is expected to combine the Weather Channel with its digital weather network NBC Weather Plus if it wins the auction. A deal also would add to NBC Uni's fast-growing cable networks unit.

TW could find opportunities to cross-promote the Weather Channel with its CNN news powerhouse. Both networks are based in Atlanta, which would allow for cost savings.

TW CEO Jeffrey Bewkes will add $9.25 billion to the conglomerate's war chest in the spinoff of Time Warner Cable, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter. With TW's new focus on content assets, Bewkes said cable networks would be "a good area for us" for acquisitions.

The Weather Channel has more than 96 million U.S. subscribers, meaning it reaches more than 97% of U.S. cable TV homes.

A sale of the network for $3.5 billion-$4 billion would value the Weather Channel at about $35-$40 per subscriber. NBC Uni paid $22 per subscriber for Bravo in 2002 and less than $12 per subscriber for Oxygen last year. Cablevision Systems recently agreed to acquire the Sundance Channel for about $19 per subscriber.

Blackstone Group is one of the owners of THR parent The Nielsen Company.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...6e5f3f9fc8f51d

TV Notes
A Retirement Rain Check for Schieffer
By Michele Greppi, Television Week

High atop the list of good news last week was word that Bob Schieffer has decided once again to postpone his retirement and will remain for some time to come at the “Face the Nation” post he has held since 1991.

Mr. Schieffer, 71, who has a talent for boiling down major events (both professional and personal) with a straightforwardness The Insider has long admired (but seldom been able to imitate), said the deal was easily and simply done.

CBS News and Sports President Sean McManus asked him not to step down as planned with the inauguration of a new president in January. “We really have become friends,” Mr. Schieffer said of his boss.

Mr. Schieffer then ran the idea past wife Pat, with whom he had been sketching out travel and other retirement plans. “Pat’s happy, and that’s important to me,” said the CBS newsman of four decades. “We just decided to do it.”

Mr. Schieffer allowed that politics can be an “acquired taste.” But he said he has “just never lost my fascination with it.” Especially after this unprecedented presidential campaign that has whipped public interest to unusually high levels, he said, it will be fun to cover whichever new administration is installed in January.

His decision to stay on underscores what he has said before: “I’m just not going to work anywhere else. This is my home and it always will be.”

His decision pleased Mr. McManus.

“Bob is not just a standout at CBS News; he is a standout in all of journalism. There just aren’t that many voices which are as instantaneously recognizable or that convey the experience, perspective and trust that Bob's does. He embodies what CBS News stands for," the news executive said in a statement to The Insider.

The inevitable question is whether Mr. Schieffer’s new long-term deal puts him in the bullpen for “Evening News” duties again. “The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric” has lost the audience (and then some) that Mr. Schieffer accrued during his year and a half of interim anchorship on the show between the turns of Dan Rather and Ms. Couric.

Mr. Schieffer said bluntly, “This deal has nothing to do with anything except ‘Face the Nation’” and his role as a contributor to the network’s major political coverage.

Mr. McManus’ vision, which Mr. Schieffer said would require only “a little tweak here, a tweak there,” was one of the things that factored into the anchor’s decision to stay.

It gives Mr. Schieffer a chance to help Mr. McManus restore the CBS News bureau to the glory days when it set the news agenda with correspondents who were “real experts” on their beat, he said. It was an era recalled by former CBS newsman Roger Mudd in “The Place to Be: Washington, CBS and the Glory Days of Television News,” which Mr. Schieffer sums up as “a charming book.”

Mr. Schieffer had taken great pleasure in playing the same sort of role, as a mentor/cheerleader elder, while keeping the “Evening News” anchor seat warm for Ms. Couric.

It’s a mentoring function he continues to play with contributions of his time, energy and experience to the journalism school that bears his name at alma mater Texas Christian University.

”I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing,” said Mr. Schieffer, who beat bladder cancer that was diagnosed in 2003. “I feel good. I’m enjoying myself.”

Since Mr. Schieffer has lately found himself an avocation as a songwriter and singer with the D.C.-based Honky Tonk Confidential, The Insider made a rookie journalist’s mistake of assuming he might have had a rooting interest in “American Idol.”

But when she asked which David he had voted for, Mr. Schieffer declared himself “a ‘Dancing With the Stars’ person.” He and wife Pat recorded the Monday competition and Tuesday elimination shows in order to watch both back-to-back.

A quick dissection of the entire season and the outcome—he had been impressed by Miami Dolphin Jason Taylor’s drive into the finals but was tickled that former Olympic figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi won—easily convinced The Insider he wasn’t kidding when he said it’s his favorite prime-time show.

“It was a great season. It was,” he said.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/05/a...eck_for_sc.php

Sunday’s fast affiliate overnight prime-time ratings (which include the total viewers and 18-49 demographic estimates) have been posted near the top of Ratings News -- the second post in this thread.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post10367387

The Business of Television
Cable Networks Trying to Build on Their Gains in Ratings
By Brian Stelter, The New York Times, May 26, 2008 (Stuart Elliott contributed reporting.

If executives at VH1 starred in their own reality show, they could call it “Best Quarter Ever.”

VH1 and a long line of cable channels — including USA Network, Bravo, TBS and E! — are enjoying their highest ratings ever, while their broadcast network brethren look back on their worst year ever.

The traditional September-to-May broadcast season ended last week with a whimper. In the 18- to 49-year-old demographic highly favored by advertisers, ABC, CBS and NBC each recorded double-digit declines, while Fox showed a slight uptick of 2 percent over last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. During the same time frame, ad-supported cable channels showed a 9 percent audience gain.

Cable networks do not measure seasons from September to May, the way broadcast networks do. But ad-supported cable is on track for another record year. So far this season, ESPN, TBS and Spike are each attracting a quarter of a million more viewers in prime time. At least 10 other networks with more than a million prime time viewers are also posting gains, from the History Channel (up 15 percent) and Fox News (12 percent) to AMC (9 percent) and USA (7 percent).

Cable channels have been eroding broadcast viewership for years, and comparisons between them are inexact. This television season, though, the shifts are especially sharp. And some executives, like Brooke Johnson, the president of the Food Network, partly credit last winter’s writers’ strike.

“The strike provided an opportunity for new viewers to sample the network,” Ms. Johnson said.

Cable’s gains were especially evident during the first quarter of 2008, as the broadcast networks ran out of scripted shows.

When the strike began in November, ad-supported cable channels averaged a 44 percent share of the total TV audience. By April, when new episodes of many sitcoms and dramas re-emerged on the broadcast networks, cable had a 48 percent share, or a gain of four share points. The networks lost four share points during that period.

“The strike may be charged with aiding and abetting” the audience shift, said Ted Harbert, the president of Comcast Entertainment Group, who oversees the E!, Style and G4 networks. But he said the absence of scripted shows on the broadcast networks merely shined a spotlight on what viewers already knew.

“Cable’s dependable. Broadcast isn’t,” said Mr. Harbert, a former programming executive at ABC. “If you like the kind of stuff that E! does, you can turn it on any night and it’s there.”

Despite the gains, only a handful of cable series and specials — “High School Musical,” “WWE Raw” — draw audiences comparable to those of broadcast.

And it is not a totally fair fight. More than broadcasters, cable networks rely extensively on repeats and a handful of signature shows that define their brand. If viewers miss a new episode of “Zoey 101” on Nickelodeon, they know the episode will be replayed many times.

But as the ratings for broadcast decline and the ratings for cable increase, the two types of television are gradually becoming more alike. Breaking with tradition this month, Turner Entertainment decided to hold its upfront presentation for advertisers during the same week as the broadcasters’.

On stage at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, Steve Koonin, the president of Turner Entertainment Networks, asked the audience to consider which network promoted shows featuring “a man in a unitard” and “a talking car named KITT” — and which network offered shows starring Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning actresses.

The answers: NBC presents men in unitards on “American Gladiators” and the talking car in “Knight Rider,” while Turner’s TNT cable network presents the award winners Holly Hunter in “Saving Grace” and Kyra Sedgwick in “The Closer.”

Not so long ago, Mr. Koonin said, agencies and advertisers would have assumed that the silly shows were on cable TV and the master thespians on broadcast TV. Later, in an interview, he said cable networks were enjoying unprecedented success.

“While the recent strike was certainly a factor in the migration of more viewers to cable, the bigger story is that broadcast ratings were down sharply before the strike even began,” he said.

Since the early 1980s, when they represented 10 percent of all TV viewership, cable channels have slowly and steadily expanded their share of the audience, to more than 55 percent now, including both ad-supported ones and premium services like HBO.

“Prime-time TV viewing by household has been relatively flat since the early ’90s, so broadcast’s losses have been cable’s gains,” Bill Gorman, an editor of the ratings Web site TV by the Numbers, said.

Aided by the strike, cable executives are looking forward to the summer, when they traditionally schedule new scripted shows to take advantage of the networks’ usual reliance on reality shows and repeats.

USA will introduce “In Plain Sight,” about the witness protection program, on Sunday. Lifetime will bring back “Army Wives” one week later. New seasons of “The Closer” and “Saving Grace” will have their debuts on TNT in July. The premieres are likely to draw more viewers to cable before the broadcasters begin their fall season in September.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/bu...gewanted=print

TV Sports
Versus Toasts Best Stanley Cup Cable Rating Since 2002
Game 1 Detroit-Pittsburgh Series Netted Service's Second-Highest Nielsen Mark
By Mike Reynolds, Multichannel News, 5/26/2008

Versus’ May 24 coverage of the first game of the series netted the best Nielsens for a Stanley Cup Finals contests on cable since 2002.

The Detroit Red Wings’ 4-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins Saturday night averaged a 1.8 household rating and almost 2.32 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data.

That marked the highest-rated and most-watched game in the Stanley Cup Final round on cable since 2002 and the best-ever on Versus. The Saturday-night shutout topped the 1.7 delivered by the Penguins-Philadelphia Flyers on May 11 in the second game of the 2008 Eastern Conference finals.

Moreover, the 1.8 average, up 157% from the 0.7 mark for the 2007 Cup opener and double the 0.9 for the first game of the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals, was the second-best for the Comcast Corp.-owned service, which earned a 2.1 household rating on July 24, 2005, Lance Armstrong’s final ride in the 2005 Tour de France.

Locally, Versus scored an 8.4 household rating in the Detroit DMA, tops in all of cable for the time period. In Pittsburgh, Versus garnered a 19.0 mark, No. 1 in all of TV for that time period.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.as...leID=CA6564072