Hot Off The Press: The Latest TV News and Information - Page 1051

TV Notes
Mariska Hargitay sidelined from 'SVU'
By Michael Ausiello, EW.com - March 9, 2009

It appears the relapse Mariska Hargitay suffered last week was a bit more serious than first thought.

A Law & Order: SVU source tells me that the... Emmy winner underwent a second surgery last week related to a collapsed lung she suffered back in January. (Earlier reports said she was hospitalized for "routine tests" after experiencing "some discomfort.") And although her reps initially said production on SVU would not be affected, they're now confirming that Hargitay will in fact miss several weeks of work as she recuperates.

"Mariska is recovering well and is expected to return to SVU in the next couple of weeks," her camp said in a statement.

An SVU insider adds that the actress' prognosis is excellent. "She is doing great," maintains my mole. "She will recoup for a few weeks and be back better than ever." Phew.

Remarkably, the SVU source says Hargitay's absence is only expected to translate into one missed episode. And in that episode, titled "Bagagge," Ice-T's Fin "will step in for Mariska."

Also helping fill the void will be Stephanie March, whose ex-ADA Alex Cabot begins her six-episode return engagement tomorrow night.

http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/03/...ive-maris.html

Let's just hope that it's not an episode where Olivia has to go undercover as a prostitute...

TV Notes
Clooney on 'ER' This Week, Probably Definitely
From Matthew Gilbert's Boston Globe 'Viewer Discretion' Blog - March 9, 2009

NBC is playing a little game with the cast list for this Thursday's "ER," which is the fourth-to-last episode of the series.

The network will say that the parade of former cast members continues this week with Eriq La Salle as Benton, Julianna Margulies as Hathaway, and Noah Wyle as Carter, who is waiting for a kidney transplant. But, even though the NBC website announces that Thursday's ER guest stars will include the doctor Hathaway married, no one at NBC will confirm or deny the name of the actor who plays that lucky fellow: George Clooney.

Are you watching the final season? Looking forward to George?

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/blog/200...y_on_39er.html

Or a shipper episode where the sexual tension with Stabler reaches a boiling point!

Are you watching the final season? No....havent seen 1 episode ever.

Looking forward to George? No.

The Business of Television
Stations in the Balance
Debt-Ridden and Independent Outlets Run Most Risk
By Jon Lafayette and Andrew Krukowski, TV Week

With the local advertising market in the tank, everyone knows times are tough for television stations.

The problem is that business conditions aren't likely to get better any time soon, and that has industry executives talking about more station owners declaring bankruptcy, getting taken over by their banks or, in some cases, shutting down operations.

There are bound to be bankruptcies in broadcasting as there are in every other industry, said Frank Kalil of Kalil & Co., a leading station broker. Certainly there are problems and we're dealing with them.

A number of stations can't support their debt load, said Barry Baker, managing director at Boston Ventures, which owns and operates several stations in small markets.

Beyond over-leveraged operations, those in small markets without major network affiliations are at greatest risk, other broadcast executives said.

You go much beyond the top five or six [stations in the market] and those are always very difficult, said Tim Pecaro, founder of Bond & Pecaro, a consultancy that appraises broadcast properties. If you don't have one of the top four networks, or Univision or The CW, it's a tough business. You're dealing with fractions of the market and you've got to be in a pretty big market to live off the crumbs.

Mr. Pecaro said some big markets have been hit hard as well, including previously fast-growing locations such as California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida. Industrial areas in the upper Midwest also are hurting.

I'd hate to be running television stations in those kinds of markets today, because the floor has dropped out of advertising. Nobody knows where the bottom is, he said.

Mr. Kalil said that in some cases, his company has been asked by owners and banks to try to sell troubled stations, but securing financing in the current economic environment is an issue.
With the current owner being overextended, with advertising revenues tightening up, it's a matter of how long they can hold on, he said.

But if they can't, what happens next? There are some opportunists sitting on cash who could make a go of it where other owners have faltered.

The question then becomes, do the banks really want to run these things, said Mr. Pecaro. Those people who were out acquiring are generally good operators. They're experienced operators in a once-in-a-lifetime circumstance. And who might be better to run them than these guys?

For stations that can't make a go of it as a traditional broadcasting business, other options are emerging with new technologies.

On a panel in January at the National Association of Television Program Executives conference, Warner Bros. Domestic Distribution President Ken Werner mentioned the possibility that the economics of the station business could lead some to go dark. That would open the door for new uses of their signal spectrum.

Amid all the bad news for stations, it's important to note that stations still represent a profitable business proposition. While growth may stall, Mr. Kalil said most stations remain in the black.
If they can adjust, they can wait this thing outand I truly believe that it's a matter of waiting it outbusiness will improve, he said.

The thing about broadcasters is even though they're going to be in a lot of trouble this year, many of them are still going to cash flow, said Mr. Pecaro. It's not like the newspapers. Their fixed-cost levels are nowhere near as high. It's just the cash flows aren't going to be anywhere near where they were a couple of years ago.

The list of station groups that haven't been able to maintain adequate cash flow is growing.
Last year, big station owner Tribune Co. went bankrupt. Tribune, which also owns newspapers, took on massive amounts of debt in a leveraged employee buyout masterminded by financier Sam Zell.

Equity Media Holding, which owns 31 television stations, sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December after failing to sell its stations. Young Broadcasting, which owns 10 CBS and ABC affiliates, filed for Chapter 11 last month. The company listed liabilities of more than $500 million and said the filing was designed to bring its debt in line with current economic realities.

Debt is a problem for many station owners. In a January report, Moody's warned that with advertising revenue declining, Many broadcasters will not generate the [earnings] to comply with financial covenants in bank loan agreements, cause them to require waivers and amendments or face default.

Moody's predicted banks will be unlikely to amend terms with very highly leveraged companies or those that are burning through cash to fund day-to-day operations, leading to more bankruptcies.

It doesn't appear the advertising market will turn around to save struggling operators.
Certainly it doesn't seem that the advertising picture will improve any time soon to bail out local broadcasters in trouble.

BIA Advisory Services last week forecast that local advertising revenues will fall at a compounded annual rate of 1.4% from $155.3 billion in 2008 to $144.4 billion in 2013. Traditional media, which lumps in TV, radio, newspapers and direct mail, will decrease at a 4.5% rate over that period.

Representatives for media companies that own station groups and broadcast networks declined to comment.

Beyond cutting staff, local station managers are trying a number of approaches to meet the financial challenges.

A big chore is compensating for the loss of automotive advertising.

You're scrambling to try to make up that revenue that hasn't come back, said Tim Larson, general manager of KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Mr. Larson said a lot of auto ads come from the national side, so stations need to look locally in order to fill the shortfall.

You try to go directly to the advertiser, particularly the local guy, and say, This is what we can do for you,' he said. And you have to sell that hard.

That's brought a cultural shift in his sales efforts, with more outbound calls and less order-taking from inbound calls.

It's not that way anymore. You've got to get out and you've got to sell, you've got to sell a lot of stuff, he said.

Mr. Kalil said he believes that stations can help themselves by stepping up their local ad sales efforts.

I truly believe that the solution, if there is an immediate, automatic solution, would be for every station to hire three to five more salespeople tomorrow, Mr. Kalil said.

Other companies are looking for ways to spread cost over more stations.

Mark DeSantis, general manager of WEEK-TV in Peoria, Ind., said its owner, Granite Broadcasting, has consolidated certain operations. For example, master control operations have been combined in multistation hubs and his weekend weather is being produced in Fort Wayne and uploaded back to Peoria.

Mr. DeSantis also said he's talking with other GMs in the area to pool resources on news coverage, for instance, sending one camera crew to gather footage.

This is the worst business climate that we've seen since we've been in broadcasting, he said, adding he's confident things are going to rebound.

Reducing the number of stations in a market might also make the survivors more financially sound.

We need duopoly. We need consolidation. There's no question about that, Mr. Kalil said. There are a lot of things that we can save money on in the industry by combining these properties in a given market.

In many markets, more duopolies can't be formed because of Federal Communications Commission regulations. Mr. Baker thinks the industry should go even further than duopoly.

I think ultimately there should be a move to an agency system, where stations just say we're sharing news, we're sharing back office, we are sharing everything, otherwise we can't be in business, he said. And hopefully the new FCC will say, You know what, they won't be in business so we might have less editorial voices in local news, but at least we'll have three separate sets of anchors.'

The prospect of stations pushing cable operators to get more money for the retransmission of local signals is unlikely to fill the void for broadcasters.

I think we're at a real turning point when you combine viewership lost to online video with the total financial situation and the lack of advertising, Mr. Baker said. All the retrans money in the world can't make up for it.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/03/n...subchannel.php

Critic's Review
Funny Boy
A down-and-dirty comedy on HBO
By Nancy Franklin, The New Yorker

The six-part HBO comedy series “Eastbound & Down,” now just past its halfway point, appears, on the face of it, to be another prefab house of laughs of the kind that’s been extruded, over and over, in the past couple of years by the belching adolescent-humor factory of Apatow, Ferrell, Stiller & Rogen. Will Ferrell is the only one of those comedy machers who’s directly involved in “Eastbound & Down.” (He and his partner, Adam McKay—who co-wrote and directed a couple of Ferrell’s vehicles and started the Web site Funny or Die with him—are two of the show’s executive producers.) Still, the many interconnections among “Eastbound” ’s producers, writers, directors, and performers and the members of the funny firm would require a seminar to enumerate; they and a half-dozen or so others—including Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Jack Black—form an omnipresent happy band, a sort of Boobsbury group, who create and play characters that range across the spectrum from slacker to jackass, and the body odor emanating from “Eastbound & Down” will be recognizable to anyone who has seen such films as “Superbad,” “Drillbit Taylor,” “There’s Something About Mary,” and “Tropic Thunder.”

One of the newer inductees to the core group of funnymen is Danny McBride, the star of “Eastbound & Down”; in the show, he’s Kenny Powers, onetime Major League star reliever with a fastball of a hundred and one miles an hour, a speed that steadily decreased as his self-destructiveness—a combination of bad attitude, bad habits, and bad karma—accelerated. Kenny, profane and bombastic, sees his own story as epic: in a voice-over at the beginning of the first episode, he says, “When my ass was nineteen years old, I changed the face of professional baseball.” As a rookie, he helped his team win the World Series, but eventually his careless ways caught up with him. “Sometimes when you bring the thunder you get lost in the storm,” he explains. Even this early in the series, we sense that a good character has entered our midst. Kenny Powers, we’re delighted to discover, is totally full of it.

If you’ve seen any of the half-dozen movies that McBride has appeared in over the past few years, his playing this kind of role, and being so good in it, won’t surprise you. For one thing, he looks the part of a pitcher gone to seed, with a puffy body that comes complete with gut and double chin, and baggy eyes that suggest both not enough sleep and too much sleeping it off. But he was new to me, and at first I didn’t quite know why he held my attention; I just knew that there was something about Danny. His film roles have mostly been small—he is a movie-pyrotechnics specialist on location in “Tropic Thunder”; a slovenly bum with too much self-esteem in “Drillbit Taylor”; and has a cameo in “Superbad”—and all spring out of his starring role in a 2006 movie called “The Foot Fist Way,” in which he played a small-town Tae Kwon Do instructor. I think that part of what enables McBride to seem so at home in his own skin is the fact that he’s also a writer and has control of much of his material, and he isn’t working alone. He and his two collaborators, Jody Hill and Ben Best, were students together at North Carolina School of the Arts. They wrote “The Foot Fist Way” and “Eastbound & Down” (another college mate, Shawn Harwell, substituted for Best on three episodes); Best appears in both; and Hill appears in “The Foot Fist Way” and directed that movie and two episodes of “Eastbound.” The three amigos, now in their early thirties (though they could, and do, play characters who are older than that but have the maturity level of people who are younger than that), are also executive producers of both projects. In this company, McBride is comfortable improvising, and in “Eastbound” there’s a lot of pleasurable tension in watching Kenny create difficult situations with his poor judgment and get out of them with his escape artist’s quick brain.

After Kenny’s baseball career dies, he goes back to his North Carolina home town, moves in with his brother and his family, and gets a job as a substitute gym teacher at his old high school—not because he wants to but because the I.R.S. needs to garnish his wages and he doesn’t have any wages. On his first day at work, he runs into a former girlfriend, April (Katy Mixon), who is now a teacher at the school and clearly ambivalent about Kenny’s return. She’s engaged to the principal, a smiley, sexless straight arrow (Andrew Daly, a former “MADtv” cast member), who clearly isn’t right for her. It’s a classic romantic-comedy situation, with—standing in for Cary Grant—a pasty Tar Heel who sports a mullet, rides a Jet Ski with a topless companion, says that “the best part about being a celebrity is cashing in on it,” and vomits at a high-school dance. The band teacher, Stevie (Steve Little), also went to school with Kenny; he idolizes Kenny—needless to say, Kenny doesn’t remember him—and jumps at the chance to be his “assistant,” a job that basically means taking the blame for Kenny’s antics. Over time, the nerdish Stevie starts to resemble his idol, angry and reckless and even a little dangerous. It’s funny, and disturbing, to watch Stevie’s transformation, and to see that Kenny doesn’t care what the consequences are for Stevie. But that’s what’s good about McBride and about the character. There’s cruelty and meanness in “Eastbound & Down” (the title is an homage to Jerry Reed’s theme song for “Smokey and the Bandit”), and the show’s creators don’t pander to Kenny or use him just for laughs. The comedy is broad but not freewheeling.

“Eastbound” doesn’t make too many claims for itself. It has a grass-roots feeling to it, and would seem even more organic if Will Ferrell had absented himself; he’s in a couple of episodes, playing a local car dealer who is alternately impressed with Kenny and contemptuous of him. The performance, however useful it may be in calling attention to the series, calls an unwarranted amount of attention to itself. There are only six episodes of “Eastbound,” and supposedly the creators are open to the idea of continuing the story. It’s complete now, though, and should be left alone, just as Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant left “The Office” alone after a relatively small number of episodes. In both cases, the main character was a perfect depiction of a real jerk who wasn’t just a jerk. We all know such people; to some degree, we all are those people. Like David Brent, Kenny Powers will live on in our minds after he’s left the screen.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...ision_franklin

God I hope she's OK!

Yaknow, for a LONG TIME I really didn't care for her character, but she really "grew on me" and now I can hardly imagine the show without her... and she's won just HOW MANY Emmy's for it? Well deserved, I'd say, too. I just felt, early on, her character was too "hard-edged." But through the years Olivia Benson has TRULY been fleshed out as a very well-rounded character.

One thing I've come to wonder about with the show, which I missed the first couple of seasons, was that it had SO MUCH "family time" with Stabler's home life the first couple of seasons, but since then they've all but eliminated his family from the story line, except for the occasional episode with his wife having a new baby or his daughter getting a DUI or being drunk and breaking into someone's house. I guess the writers/producers deciding to have his wife divorce him was a deliberate move AWAY from the show being as "family focused" and more about "the crimes," although when I get to see those early seasons in re-run I really enjoy the "family moments," much as I do with Joe, Allison and their girls on "Medium."

I don't think we see enough of that on TV any more, and NO I'm NOT one of those "family first" folks -- FAR from it. But I DO miss seeing that sort of thing in serious drama, as I'm not about to watch the melodramas or the "family shows" that I'm sure still DO provide it.
Jeff

Critic's Notes
Why 'Heroes' should set an end date
From James Hibberd's Hollywood Reporter 'Live Feed' Blog - March 9, 2009

Ask fans what the biggest problem with NBC’s “Heroes” is, and their top answer is “the writing.” Viewers expect big-ticket dramas to be as well crafted and exciting as top boxoffice movies nowadays, if not better.

“Heroes” has improved recently, and fans expect to see ongoing improvement with the return of "Pushing Daisies" creator Bryan Fuller to the show's writing staff. But overall “Heroes” has fallen short of the standard set by genre competitors like “24” and its own first season. Beyond advice like “better writing” or more specific notes like “less complex,” there’s something else NBC could do to improve the show: set a series end date.

The network has contemplated this option. Here are six reasons why it should pull the trigger:

Scarcity increases demand. Viewers like knowing there’s a grand plan, that the main story’s twists and turns are leading someplace finite. Viewers weirdly think of TV as both an entertaining distraction and a burdenlike “investment” of their valuable time. They want to know, like a marriage-minded lover in a relationship, that “this is going somewhere.”

Creatively, it helped “Lost,” "Battlestar Galactica” and "The Shield.” Serialized action dramas’ ongoing story lines and life-and-death stakes make long, open-ended runs problematic. Threats to central characters don’t carry much weight. Satisfying answers to long-standing questions are scarce. The writers longer are no longer telling the story; they’re telling the story before the story, and it gets more obvious every year. Once the end was in sight for “Lost,” “Battlestar” and “Shield,” writers confidently drove the story and even reached a pivotal event earlier than fans expected — getting off the island, the fleet finding Earth, Vic Mackey losing his job — then surprised audiences by moving toward a different conclusion than what long had been expected.

It probably improves ratings. Heavily serialized dramas tend to peak early, then lose viewers each year. We can’t know for sure that setting an end date helps because nobody knows what “Lost” and the other shows would have rated had they not decided to plan a series finale in advance. But judging by fan reaction and critics’ reviews, parties generally seem more satisfied with the shows once there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

“Heroes” is doomed anyway. “The toughest thing in TV is getting fans back to a show they have decided to quit,” one network executive notes. That “Heroes” is still the highest-rated drama on NBC is amazing considering it has dropped about 30% this season. The show is too expensive to keep trending in its current ratings direction. And given how much shows tend to fall during a summer break, next season has a strong chance of being the show’s last no matter what the network does. So why not set series finale for two years from now — May 2011? It would give the show the best chance of surviving next season.

You can always renege. Here’s the part that fans will hate, but, c’mon, if “Heroes’ set an end date and miraculously surged in the ratings, do you really think NBC would let it die on schedule? Even the patron saint of TV dramas, HBO’s “The Sopranos,” couldn’t resist agreeing to another eight “bonus” episodes after setting an end date. You can always use this lame-but-effective justification: “We discovered that we had more story to tell.”

Assisted suicide = death with dignity. Admittedly, an end date for “Heroes” might not creatively help the show as much as “Lost,” “BSG” and “Shield” because there’s no overriding central question consistently driving the NBC show that fans instantly will recognize as being resolved by a finale (which arguably is “Heroes’ ” biggest problem). In other words: What does ending “Heroes” mean? You can pick a dozen plot questions and character threads raised during the past few years. But at least having an end date would force writers to choose one or even decide a whole new one, figure out what the show is about and give “Heroes” a shot to finish on a strong note.

http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/03/heroes-end-date.html

• • • • • • • • • • •

'Breaking' good news; 'Dollhouse' DVR

The second season debut of AMC's "Breaking Bad" showed major growth compared to last year.

Sunday night's "Bad" (1.7 million viewers, 929,000 adults 18-49 viewers) was up 21% in total viewers from its first season premiere and 18% in the adult demo. AMC points out that compared to the first season's average, both measurements are up even further -- 40% in viewers and 36% in the demo.

Considering the debut season of "Bad" was cut short by the writers strike, and how other serialized dramas in the same boat fared when they returned, any improvement at all would have been considered an accomplishment. Gushing reviews for the new episodes couldn't have hurt, either (THR: "It's difficult to fathom a more dangerous and enthralling piece of television ... this is television as God intended.").

Also, for those wondering: Week two of DVR data showed both "Dollhouse" and "Terminator" improved 29% from their original airings. For "Dollhouse," that roughly matches the premiere episode's DVR gain while for "Terminator," its slipping a bit compared to the show's midseason debut. In either case those are some strong numbers.

http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/03/break...e-ratings.html

How do they figure that number? ER easily outpaced Heroes last week.

Unlike, I know, many here and even more in the BSG thread I frequent, I remain a MAJOR fan of "Heroes" and would love to see it run until Claire has grandkids, lol.

That said, I have to agree with the article posted above.

Although I felt (and feel) the same way about "Lost," I think setting the "end date" for the show TRULY gave it a focus and led to better episodes and a better story arc, overall... "A never-ending, open-ended story" CAN get VERY tiresome -- no matter HOW MUCH we like the characters, the actors, the subject matter and the storyline.
Jeff

I'm a big believer in creating a series with an end date. I hope some networks give it a shot at some point. If Heroes had run just one season it would have been so satisfying. Everything after that tainted what came previously.

I am concerned that this will become one of the most under-regarded news stories of the day. Question: Why should viewers care about the television stations' financial problems? Answer: Quite a lot.

I don't think I would have been so satisfied with just ONE season of "Heroes," although it DID end with what could have been a series finale.

Another EXCELLENT example of a series I believe ran just the previous season for just one season and had a story arc that not only pretty well ENDED the story at the end of the season, but TRULY left the writers with essentially NOWHERE to go in a second season, which was a fairly satisfying ending (albeit "satisfying" being a RELATIVE" term, considering how FAR-OUT the premise of the show was and even FARTHER OUT some of the scientific facts were from established POSSIBLE science) was NBC's "Surface."

When that one-and-only season ended with a MASSIVE typhoon striking the east coast of the U.S., bringing with it HUGE, six-legged amphibious, carnivorous lizards that can live in all SORTS of extreme environments and are practically impossible to kill, WELL, that was pretty much THAT for humankind, lol... We just moved WAY DOWN the food chain!
Jeff

The very diversity that extreme liberal groups decry (these are the groups that camp out on the FCC's doorstep touting how corporate America is killing the country, hhmm on second thought maybe they are right! Anyway.....) will be gone if stations are not allowed to do what it takes to stay in business. I for one am not a big fan of consolidation for obvious reasons, but there is a real possibility that many of the smaller stations WILL go under and I don't see anyone in Congress talking about a bailout for these guys.

The numbers you see in the trades about how much business is down is really alarming. To see numbers like 40% down overall it really opens your eyes. Admittedly most of that has been due to the downturn in the automotive industry, but for these small stations, the major car dealers didn't advertise with them anyway. Now Joe's Repoed Used cars did and those guys are drying up at an unbelievable rate. The religious stations are having problems too. You know its bad when God can't get his money.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the really small start up cable channels go away as well but I suspect that number will be pretty small since most of the cable channels are owned by the major media companies. And speaking of media companies, we are seeing medium sized groups filing for court protection now and I know of two groups off the top of my head whose stations are in receivership today with more just over the horizon.

Pretty scary times in an industry that has traditionally been Recession proof.

TV Notes
After G.M., Ken Burns Lines Up New Sponsors
By Elizabeth Jenkins (Compiled by David Itzkoff), The New York Times - March 10, 2009

Ken Burns’s 12-hour history of the national parks, which will be shown by PBS in September, will be his last documentary with financing from General Motors, a spokesman for Mr. Burns said.

The car company has been a generous sponsor of Mr. Burns’s work for 22 years, going back to his public television series “The Civil War,” above, paying for 35 percent of his production budgets and, in some years, for education and marketing campaigns. But more than a year ago, the filmmaker learned that a 10-year deal, expiring this year, wouldn’t be renewed, and his production company, Florentine Films, began lining up new sponsors.

G.M., which has asked for federal bailout money, has been reviewing all of its sponsorships and canceling many of them. In a statement first reported by The Detroit News, a company spokeswoman, Kelly Cusinato, called Mr. Burns “the gold standard of documentary filmmaking.” She said no decision had been made about renewing the relationship with Florentine, but Dave Donovan, a spokesman for Mr. Burns, said, “We’ve known for some time that this would be the last film with General Motors.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/ar...ref=television

TV Notes
Alec Baldwin to host 'Essentials'
Actor takes on TCM's film showcase
By Cynthia Littleton, Variety - March 9, 2009

Alec Baldwin has signed as co-host of Turner Classic Movies' pics showcase "The Essentials."

The "30 Rock" star is a movie buff who will undoubtedly have a lot to say -- in his typically animated fashion -- about the pics and their influence on filmdom and pop culture. Baldwin will co-host the Saturday 8 p.m. slot with TCM's Robert Osborne. Rose McGowan co-hosted with Osborne last year.

Upcoming titles getting the "Essentials" treatment include "Rocky" (March 14); "Cat Ballou" (March 21); "Ben-Hur" (March 28); and "Take the Money and Run" (April 4).

Separately, TCM said it has tapped John Lithgow to host "The Essentials Jr.," a weekly family-film showcase set to run June through August.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...goryid=14&cs=1

TV Notes
Michael J. Fox: Optimisitic
From Verne Gay's Newsday 'TV Zone' Blog - March 9, 2009

This is what we in the trade call a significant program announcement, and perhaps the program will be too when it airs in a couple months -- assuming that by then, everyone is feeling about as optimistic as they do right now. Which is a shade darker than "pessimistic."

“Michael J. Fox: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist.”

That's the name of the special this May 7 at 10PM on ABC that will be hosted by...well, you know who.

Here's the quote from this afternoon's news release:

"For everything this disease has taken, something with greater value has been given,” Fox says, “So, sure, it may be one step forward and two steps back, but after a time with parkinson’s, I’ve learned that what is important is making that one step count.”

Here's the graf describing this:

"The whole world, shaken by economic woes, is taking a closer look at optimism. Imagine a country which measures its success with a figure for “Gross National Happiness” instead of Gross National Product. Fox visits the secluded Himalayan nation of Bhutan, a modern day Shangri La that stresses the importance of joy in everything it does. Can happiness actually be legislated? Fox is fascinated by this nation’s commitment to the positive well-being of its citizens."

http://weblogs.newsday.com/entertain...timisitic.html

TV Sports
Extra Innings: FiOS Finally Adds Baseball Fare
A Year Later, Telco Adds MLB Network HD,
Out-Of-Market Package To Lineup
By Todd Spangler, Multichannel News - March 10, 2009

Verizon is now carrying MLB Network HD and the league's out-of-market package, MLB Extra Innings, about a year after telling customers it was trying to secure a programming deal with Major League Baseball.

In February 2008, Verizon senior vice president of media relations Eric Rabe posted a blog entry saying the telco was optimistic it would clinch a deal "soon" with MLB to offer the Extra Innings package.

"Over the months, our launch schedule changed, and I've had to update information several times along the way," Rabe wrote in a blog posting Monday, announcing the deal with MLB. "But we've made it... Thank you for hanging in there with us."

MLB Network HD is available on channel 586 to FiOS TV Extreme HD package subscribers that have an HD set-top box. The standard-def feed of MLB Network has been available on channel 86 since Jan. 1 for customers of both the Extreme HD and Essentials packages.

MLB Extra Innings is a premium service option available for $199 for the season; Verizon is offering an early bird rate of $169 for subs who sign up prior to April 12. The package features up to 80 live out-of-market MLB games each week, with up to 10 of those in high-definition.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/...eball_Fare.php

TV Notes
On The Air Tonight
Tuesday Network Prime-Time Programming Options

(Reminder: If you are recording these programs, check your network listings for precise start/end times. For PBS, please double check your local listings.)

ABC:
8:00pm Homeland Security USA
9:00pm Scrubs (R) HD
9:30pm Scrubs (R) HD
10:00pm Primetime: What Would You Do?

CBS:
8:00pm NCIS (R) HD
9:00pm The Mentalist (R) HD
10:00pm Without A Trace (R) HD

NBC:
8:00pm The Biggest Loser (Two Hours)
10:00pm Law & Order: Special Victims Unit HD

Fox:
8:00pm American Idol (Two Hours) HD

The CW:
8:00pm Reaper HD
9:00pm 90210 (R) HD

MNT:
8:00pm Street Patrol
8:30pm Street Patrol
9:00pm Jail
9:30pm Jail (R)

http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/t...62/m/879100491

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan answers reader's question about various TV shows via streamed video: Part 1 (http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....questions.html) and Part 2 (http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune..../my-entry.html). One suggestion to Maureen: lose the shaky-camera inserts ("BG" your cubicle ain't ).

TV Notes
Hi-Def Takes the Field
More stations adopt HD electronic newsgathering operations
By Glen Dickson, Broadcasting & Cable, 3/9/2009 12:00:00 AM MT

Roughly a third of U.S. broadcasters have installed new digital microwave gear and switched their electronic newsgathering (ENG) operations to a new frequency plan as part of a spectrum relocation process managed by Sprint Nextel. And that should help pave the way for more local stations to begin offering high-definition pictures from the field as well as the studio.

Sprint Nextel has been working with traditional broadcasters to convert their ENG operations from analog to digital microwave technology as part of a $4.8 billion spectrum deal it brokered with the FCC in February 2005. The wireless operator agreed to spend more than $500 million to replace existing microwave technology with new digital gear that operates in a smaller swath of the 2 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum.

The 2 GHz Relocation Project was initially supposed to be completed in September 2007, but Sprint Nextel ran into delays due to operational and technical complexities. It asked for, and received, an extension until March 5, 2009, and subsequently asked (in conjunction with broadcasters) for an additional extension to February 2010. Last week, the FCC said it would give Sprint Nextel a 45-day extension while it considered the latest request.

Sprint Nextel isn't charged with providing stations with new high-definition links, just replacing existing analog gear with comparable standard-def digital equipment. Stations have to pay for “upsell” equipment like HD encoders and decoders. In general, stations have been waiting to receive the digital gear from Sprint Nextel before installing the additional equipment needed for true HD newsgathering. Now that large markets like Detroit, Cleveland and Atlanta have made the transition, viewers can expect to see more true HD pictures from the field instead of upconverted 4:3 or 16:9 standard-def video.
Early Adopter

One of the early adopters is WXYZ, the ABC affiliate and Scripps-owned station in Detroit. WXYZ began experimenting with high-def feeds from the field two years ago, using satellite links to deliver live coverage from special events. Last summer the station, along with others in Detroit, began receiving new digital microwave radios as part of the 2 GHz conversion. That allowed it to start backhauling HD pictures from the field on a regular basis via microwave links.

“Once we got the [Sprint] Nextel microwave gear, we've had HD live shots in every show,” says WXYZ Director of Engineering Ray Thurber.

Like other Scripps stations, WXYZ uses JVC ProHD camcorders for its field coverage that have built-in MPEG-2 encoders. The ProHD cameras can pump out a compressed HD signal that can be fed directly into a microwave or satellite radio using a Miranda FireWire-to-ASI converter.

“The camera is the encoder, and you just wrap it with ASI,” Thurber explains. He initially outfitted a live truck with several JVC cameras, Miranda FireWire-to-ASI bridges and a FOR-A HD switcher to produce live special-event shows in HD.

The built-in encoding capability of the JVC ProHD camera eliminates the need to invest up to $20,000 in a high-definition encoder to backhaul HD signals. It represents a significant savings for stations like WXYZ, which has 12 live trucks (three are equipped for both digital ENG and SNG operation).

All of WXYZ's microwave trucks are now converted to digital operation using new 2 GHz digital gear from NuComm. The 19.7 megabit-per-second MPEG-2 compressed signal that the JVC cameras output works well with the 12 MHz microwave slots that WXYZ is using as part of the 2 GHz relocation.

The only part of WXYZ's ENG infrastructure that hasn't yet been converted to high-definition digital operation is its helicopter, which is being rebuilt as part of the Sprint Nextel process. Helicopters are incredibly complicated to retrofit with the new gear, as they require special wiring and engineering to comply with Federal Aviation Administration requirements. The station is currently using a rental helicopter that can only produce 4:3 standard-def pictures while its chopper is being reconfigured for HD links.

Thurber was initially concerned that HD microwave feeds wouldn't travel as far as SD feeds, but that hasn't been a problem. Latency with the compressed signal also hasn't been an issue, with the delay being less than a second. The station continues to experiment with its new digital microwave gear to achieve the best reception.

“There is still a learning curve on this,” says Scripps VP of Engineering Mike Doback. “Some stations are using diversity receivers, and we've been experimenting with different modulation ratios.”

WXYZ originally used standard-definition Sony DVCAM cameras to provide widescreen coverage from the field. Since then, it has transitioned to the JVC ProHD camcorders, which let it produce edited packages in HD. Part of the reason WXYZ was able to go widescreen earlier than other stations in its market was that the Apple Final Cut Pro laptops it uses in its trucks can easily deal with either widescreen SD or HD pictures, according to Thurber.

Since launching HD live shots last summer, WXYZ hasn't been inundated with viewer feedback, possibly because the station had already offered SD widescreen live shots. But as Thurber puts it, “We've gotten letters saying how good the talent looks in the field.”

WRAL, the CBS affiliate and Capitol Broadcasting station in Raleigh, N.C., launched HD news from the studio back in 2001 and began experimenting with HD live shots from the field in 2004. The station's news helicopter has also been providing HD pictures since 2005.
A Good Balance

WRAL had fed HD pictures from its Panasonic DVCPRO HD cameras through its old NuComm Analog Coder digital-to-analog modems. The station uses a mix of encoders from JVC and Harmonic to compress the signals from the camera's uncompressed HD-SDI (1.5 gigabit-per-second) output. Staffers found a bitrate of 21 Mbps to be a good balance between signal robustness and picture quality.

WRAL has now received new NuComm digital COFDM microwave radios as part of the 2 GHz relocation. It is also converting its field acquisition from DVCPRO HD to XDCAM HD, Sony's optical-disc format. The station has bought a new encoding device from Sony, the HDCA-702 MPEG TS (transport stream) adaptor, to work with the new cameras.

The Sony unit, which lists for $4,100, attaches to the back of an XDCAM HD camera and pumps out MPEG-2 compressed video over an ASI link, which can then be easily fed into the station's new microwave radios. The HDCA-702 will also work on a standalone basis, as it can take an HD-SDI input and deliver an MPEG-2 compressed picture over ASI.

The Sony encoder units and NuComm digital radios have already been deployed in all nine of WRAL's news trucks, and the station has used that HD microwave setup for live shots—mainly parades and special events. It plans to ramp up its HD field coverage as it deploys the XDCAM HD camcorders later this year.
HD From the Start

WMBF, the NBC affiliate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., owned by Raycom Media, has never done anything but high-def ENG. The station was launched as an NBC digital affiliate last August just in time for NBC's Beijing Olympics coverage and produces all 28 hours of its news each week in HD, including HD microwave feeds.

WMBF uses Panasonic P2 HD solid-state camcorders to capture live shots in the field from its two live trucks (one ENG, one combo ENG/SNG), and produces edited HD packages using Grass Valley Edius nonlinear editors and Bitcentral servers. The only content it shows on-air that isn't natively produced in HD is news footage it retrieves from other Raycom stations through Bitcentral's Oasis content-sharing system. When WMBF gets content through Oasis that is 4:3 standard-def, the station upconverts it to 16:9 HD.

WMBF News Director Matt Miller previously worked as assistant news director at Scripps' WCPO Cincinnati, where he experienced the transition from SD to HD news in 2007. “I'd gone through a lot of the headaches,” says Miller, who notes that WCPO initially had issues mixing SD and HD footage with its editing systems and also didn't have 16:9 monitors.

At WMBF, Miller made sure that his engineering and production staff were well-versed in making 16:9 pictures from the start. He says the only challenge WMBF has had is running out of recording space on the 32 gigabyte (GB) P2 memory cards, which each store only 32 minutes of HD video.

Viewer feedback about the HD coverage from the new station in town has been positive, he adds. “I was at a charity event [recently], and the usual comments are that people started watching us because they love how our pictures looked. They just got a big-screen TV, and now they continue to watch because of our content.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/art..._the_Field.php

I guess my point is that I was satisfied with the ending of season 1 of Heroes and would have been disappointed if they hadn't tried a season 2. But season 2 and especially season 3 have been bad enough for me that season 1 has lost a bunch of its luster for me. (Plus I stopped watch last fall because the show became dreadful, imo.) If the show hadn't been renewed I would have been bummed but I would have always have held it up as truly enjoyable experience.

These serial shows really need to wrap up in one season. The viewer loss is so high in subsequent seasons it makes sense. Tell the viewers at the beginning, "This will wrap up after one season stick with us to see the end." That is not to say the next year or the year after there can't be spinoffs or something like that. :-)

Look at the Journeyman, that would have been the perfect one season show. Make 28-30 episodes but complete the story and let everyone no that there will be a payoff. It is going to happen with Life on Mars which is cool. Not by design, but that one is working out.

It is on.
There will be a massive rally in Albany Wednesday. State troopers will escort a mile long convoy of film and television industry vehicles into the center of the capital.

At around noon, there will be a gathering of industry speakers at the corner of Washington and Swann addressing the public.

Nielsen Overnights (18-49)
Best-ever premiere for ABC's 'Dancing'
Averages 22.5 million viewers and a 5.9 in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald, Media Life Magazine - March 10, 2009

Even with The Bachelor gone, ABC kept its Monday momentum going with another series best.

The eighth-season premiere of Dancing with the Stars averaged a series-high 22.5 million total viewers, according to Nielsen overnights, up 5 percent over last fall's 21.34 million.

Among adults 18-49, Stars averaged a 5.9 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., its second-best premiere ever in the demo and 11 percent better than last fall's 5.3. That boosted ABC to a 5.1 rating and 13 share for the night, well ahead of second-place Fox's 4.2/11.

That marked the second straight Monday win for ABC in the demo, a week after the controversial Bachelor finale drew its best total viewers average in more than five years and post-finale special After the Final Rose scored its best numbers ever.

Of course, Bachelor may still have given Stars a bump, as winner Melissa Rycroft, who was jilted during last week's Rose special, joined the show as a replacement for an injured dancer.

Unfortunately for ABC, Stars' momentum did not carry over to new 10 p.m. timeslot occupant Castle, which lost 48 percent of its total viewers lead-in, averaging 11.6 million.

Among 18-49s, the show mustered only a 3.3, losing half of the 6.6 Stars averaged in its final hour and falling 22 percent from its first half hour to its second, from a 3.7 to a 2.9.

As a reminder, all ratings are based on live-plus-same-day DVR playback. Seven-day DVR data won't be available for several weeks. Twenty-eight percent of Nielsen households have DVRs.

For the night, CBS placed third at 4.0/10, NBC fourth at 2.5/7, Univision fifth at 1.6/4 and CW sixth at 0.5/1.

At 8 p.m. ABC was first with a 5.3 for the first half of Stars, followed by Fox with a 4.8 for House. CBS was third with a 3.6 for The Big Bang Theory (3.6) and How I Met Your Mother (3.5), NBC fourth with a series-low 2.0 for Chuck, Univision fifth with a 1.7 for Cuidado con el Angel and CW sixth with a 0.5 for a repeat of Gossip Girl.

ABC was first again at 9 p.m. with a 6.6 for more Stars, while CBS moved to second with a 4.2 for Two and a Half Men (4.7) and Rules of Engagement (3.7). Fox was third with a 3.6 for 24, NBC fourth with a series-low 3.2 for Heroes, Univision fifth with a 1.8 for Mañana Es para Siempre and CW sixth with a 0.5 for a One Tree Hill rerun.

At 10 p.m. CBS took the lead with a 4.3 for CSI: Miami, while ABC slid to second with a 3.3 for Castle. NBC was third with a 2.5 for Medium and Univision fourth with a 1.3 for Cristina.

ABC also finished first for the night among households with an 11.9 average overnight rating and an 18 share. CBS was second at 7.2/11, Fox third at 7.0/11, NBC fourth at 4.1/6, Univision fifth at 2.1/3 and CW sixth at 0.9/1.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/art..._s_Dancing.asp

Well they still have Shortwave locked up. Talk about a wasteland. Most days, It's down to Radio China, Havana and the religulous folks.

BBC WorldService? Gone to XM/Sirus (or BBCAmerica TV)

Are you going LL3HD?

TV Notes
'Law & Order' and a stiff upper lip
NBC's police procedural franchise gets translated for the telly
with British settings, accents and pacing
By Greg Braxton, Los Angeles Times

Pitted against edgy procedurals, trendy reality shows or ensemble dramas, NBC's "Law & Order" for nearly 20 years has persevered as one of TV's most recognizable and durable brands. And if it lasts a few more seasons, the hybrid cop-and-lawyer series would eclipse "Gunsmoke" as television's longest-running drama.

But even as the franchise remains a popular draw for viewers -- the so-called mother ship, along with its two satellite series "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," air as many as 90 times a week between first-run episodes and repeats in syndication -- "Law & Order" is facing a new trial across the Atlantic, where it is being judged by a new jury: the British television audience.

Swimming against the flood of recent British imports to American television -- " The Office," " Life on Mars," "American Idol" and " Dancing With the Stars," to name a few -- "Law & Order" becomes the first American drama to be adapted for British television. The remade version of the stalwart crime and punishment series premiered late last month.

Working from scripts already produced for the American show, the British one, with its local cast and crew, has been reworded and reworked to reflect the sensibilities of its new home. With its thick British accents and courtroom wigs, you might call it "My Fair Law & Order."

"I wanted to demonstrate that no matter what the system of justice is, 'Law & Order' works," said the franchise's creator, Dick Wolf, during a breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge. "The biggest difference is that there's not as much plea bargaining there as there is here. And the bottom line is our own legal system is based on English common law."

It's not the first time that "Law & Order" has been refashioned for a European audience. Two years ago, Wolf expanded the brand to France for "Criminal Intent" and to Russia for both "Criminal Intent" and "Special Victims Unit." And the Anglicized version of "Law & Order," co-produced by London-based Kudos Film and Television, Wolf Films and NBC Universal, was green-lighted even though its American inspiration has been broadcast for years on British TV.

"I love it because it feels the same," said Wolf. "But yet it's totally different."

Producers were pleased with the tune-in for the first broadcasts. "Law & Order: U.K." attracted more than 6.3 million viewers to ITV1 and won its 9 p.m. Monday slot, beating out the popular BBC series "Who Do You Think You Are?" in which celebrities trace their ancestry. The second week declined to 5.8 million viewers.

Brit crits weigh in

Initial critical reaction in Britain to the series was generally positive. Said Matt Baylis of the Daily Express: "Even though it's not exactly new -- it feels like a breath of fresh air." And the "We Love Telly" column of the Daily Mirror wrote, "It's all highly professional and heroic."

But the Guardian's Sarah Dempster was less enthusiastic: "There is the original series' clipped dialogue and caffeinated camera work, but trying to affix the same razzle-dazzle principles to the British crime drama is like trying to fit a rain cloud into a tuxedo. Fiddly. And wrong."

Much of the U.K. version of the show remains the same -- most notably its format and no-nonsense tone. The first half-hour is the investigation of a crime by two detectives. Then, just as in its American cousin, the focus switches to the legal arena in the second half-hour as prosecuting attorneys tackle the case.

Just as New York serves as a prominent character in the U.S. version, London, with its rich history and picturesque locales, takes on that role in the U.K. program. The series also share the trademark two-tone "ch-chunk" pulse that backs up the black cards announcing a change in location.

"We really wanted to take care of Dick Wolf's favorite offspring," said Kudos founder Stephen Garrett, whose creative team culled through 150 episodes to find the best candidates for adaptation. "From the very beginning, we wanted to do things the American way, but also reach out to British audiences. There's some procedural niceties that just didn't correspond. But they're basically the same."

But still there are inevitable differences, particularly in language and cultural references. Said Wolf: "They are fraternal, not identical twins. There are subtle differences." Whereas the original version gives personal information about its characters sparingly, the U.K. version delivers slightly more: about eight lines per episode. One detective eats sushi on the go rather than grabbing a snack at a food cart.

"There's also a different rhythm in the drama," said Wolf. The British "don't like the crashing, speedy pace of dramas that we have here. Characters there like to take their time when they talk," resulting in scripts that are two scenes shorter than the American counterpart.

TV historian Tim Brooks said the flashy sensibilities of American shows usually don't lend themselves to adaptation for British audiences.

"American shows are much more violent, louder, with more special effects," said Brooks, who co-wrote "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows." "They have flashy sidekicks. They can run there in Britian as curiosities, but their dramas are much more methodical, more about the intricacies. But maybe 'Law & Order: U.K' is a portent of things to come."

Perhaps the most immediate difference to U.S. audiences would be the famous opening pronouncement that precedes the first scene. In the American version, the announcer says, "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories." But in the British version, it's the Crown Prosecution Service that prosecutes the offenders.

There and back?

In the world of TV, there's no end to borrowing, cutting and pasting. If the show proves successful overseas, Wolf hopes the U.K. version can then cross back to America. "I would love 'Law & Order: U.K' to run over here," said Wolf. "I think it would be perfect programming for Saturday night," referring to the period when most networks, including NBC, program reruns or unscripted programs.

NBC Universal executives appear open to the idea. "It's definitely something we're having a conversation about," said Angela Bromstad, who manages NBC's studio and network program development. "It is a really great show."

But Bromstad, who had been running a production unit for the company in London before taking on her current duties last year, also wondered whether American audiences would have trouble grasping the series. "It's very British," she said. "It might do much better on BBC America than for us. Still, the show is completely reinvented, and it beautifully showcases London."

Whether "Law & Order" returns home or not, Wolf is optimistic about tailoring his series for export to a host of other countries. "There could easily be a 'Law & Order: Istanbul,' " he said. "Remember: Murder is still illegal in every country on Earth."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,1195893.story

I'll be there. I'm going up tonight.

Chuck and Heroes - lowest original airings among adults 18-49 ever....ouch.