Hot Off The Press: The Latest TV News and Information - Page 2331

TV Notes
ESPN Acquires Wimbledon TV Rights for Next 12 Years
By Tim Molloy, TheWrap.com - July 5th, 2011

ESPN has acquired the exclusive U.S. television rights for Wimbledon for the next 12 years, ending 43 years of NBC airing the Grand Slam tournament.

ESPN announced Tuesday that the All England Club, which presents the tournament, had granted it the rights. The network promised, "Comprehensive coverage from start to finish across a variety of platforms will result in more tennis for fans and all of it live."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ESPN already had the rights to air the early rounds of Wimbledon. NBC played "Breakfast at Wimbledon" broadcasts of the finals.

The deal was the second long-term, major agreement for sports TV rights in the last month: NBC lost Wimbledon after outbidding ESPN and Fox to keep the rights to the Olympics through 2020.

The announcement had been expected since NBC said in a statement Sunday that "while we would have liked to have continued our relationship, we were simply outbid."

In this year's tournament, which ended Sunday, Novak Djokovic (above) beat Rafael Nadal in the men's final.

More to come. Here's the press release [CLICK LINK BELOW]:

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/es...12-years-28797

Well that is certainly different.

I haven't even done that. The most I did was negotiate not having to pay anything upfront for my D* HD equipment.

Sure, my bill has doubled - but over like 15 years. I also have a larger package than back then in my early cable days. 15 years ago I was paying $45 for basic cable - that's basic analog SD cable plugged directly into the TV. I pay just over $90 for a higher level package with HD and a DVR now through D*.

My parents got cable back in the late 70's for $35 a month - for around 60 channels. They now have over 100 channels on the same tier (several of which they do watch that they didn't previously have) and broadband internet for a total of around $60.

I shake my head at some of these numbers people quote. Either people are paying for too many options or they simply have providers that charge too much. Either way, I'm getting way more for my dollars than I used to despite the higher price.

Up goes the cable bill! Every time ESPN acquires additional broadcast rights, the fees are passed down to each and every cable subscriber.

Can't happen, at least not immediately. Only at the end of a contract, or near the end when negotiations start for the next contract, can rates possibly rise. We know they will, but by how much is determined by the negotiations.

So, depending on how much time is left on the current contract with your provider, will determine what the new ESPN rate will be when the next contract takes affect.

My bill has gone up about $20 - $30 over the past 15 years, and now I have access to HD, an HD-DVR and more channels that I didn't have back then. So meh.


Wow. I don't watch TBS because they slice up movies and love to stretch things (at least the last time I watched them), but that's taking it to a whole other level of bad.

I wish Conan were on another channel as well. I always forget he's on too. It doesn't help that we get the east coast feed of the channel either.

They certainly have a sweet business model. They can essentially bid on any sport they want and know cable/sat customers will subsidize the bill, as providers will just pass the demanded increase in carriage fees, as dependable as death and taxes, along to the poor beleaguered customer. Since no cable/sat provider would dare part with ESPN for fear of a bloody uprising, the Bristol Behemoth essentially has no limits on its ambition. And they sell advertising too! Nice gig if you can get it.

The problem with all that is it's just pouring gasoline on the bonfire of sports rights fees, which as they climb into the stratosphere, are passed along to the average sports fan in ever increasing player salaries, increased ticket prices and the overall cost of attending - or watching - major league sports. If you're a cable subscriber and a season ticket holder, congratulations. You get screwed twice.

The 2011-2012 Season
Midseason Status Report: 'Breaking In' Stays Alive With Cast Options Pickup, 'Common' & 'Album' Keep Some Actors,'Smothered' Dead
By Nellie Andreeva, Deadline.com - July 5th, 2011

June 30 marked the deadline for TV studios to pick up the options on the casts of broadcast pilots and series whose fate was still in limbo. Good news for fans of Fox's midseason comedy Breaking In: The options on the series' actors have been picked up until Nov. 15. And, in a rare move, I hear the network, Fox, has pitched in, splitting the cost of the option extension with producing studio Sony Pictures TV. Fox's decision to cancel the Christian Slater-starring comedy after a brief midseason run was one of the biggest surprises this past upfront season.

Among the pilots left in contention for midseason, Fox's comedies Little In Common and Family Album remain in the running for Fox's two-hour, four-show midseason Tuesday comedy block. But both projects will undergo some tweaking as reflected in their producing studios' decision to pick up only parts of their casts.

In the case of Rob Thomas' single-camera comedy Little In Common, produced by WBTV, departing are two adult leads, Paula Marshall and Lombardo Boyar, as well as one of the kids. The original pilot was about three families united through their kids' Little League sports. It centered on the Wellers (Rob Corddry, Marshall), who move from San Jose, Calif., to Austin, Texas, but find that their adjustment won't be quite that easy considering their Latino neighbors, the Pachecos (Alana Ubach, Lombardo Boyar), have a radically different approach to child-rearing than they do, while their other new neighborhood acquaintances, the African American Burlesons (Kevin Hart, Gabrielle Union), take sports very seriously. I hear in the reworked version, Ubach's character will be single, while Marshall and the kid will be recast.

On the single-camera Family Album, from 20th TV and 21 Laps/Adelstein Prods., picked up are three actors: the two leads (Mike O'Malley and Rachel Harris) as well as standout supporting player Rob Huebel. The project, from Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, centers on a passionate, overly enthusiastic former jock (O'Malley) who, determined to get some quality family time, embarks on a vacation with his extended family. Harris plays his wife, Huebel his brother. The project, which received an order for another pilot, is undergoing redevelopment as it is focusing on the family's daily life as chronicled in random family photos.

Another family comedy pilot which was hot in the weeks leading to the upfronts, ABC's Smothered, is not going forward. ABC had been high on the multicamera project starring Marcia Gay Harden, Julie White, Adam Arkin and John C. McGinley and, while it didn't make the cut in May, the network said back then it was keeping it in midseason consieration.

Meanwhile, another multicamera half-hour pilot, CBS' workplace Peter Knight comedy, from Sony TV, CBS Studios and Happy Madison, is very much alive for midseason after the studio picked up the options on the cast. It was one of two comedies CBS kept in contention in May. The other, the Rob Schneider sitcom, has since received an order for a new pilot and backup scripts.

On the hourlong side, the one project that had been eyed for midseason redevelopment, Fox's Exit Strategy, is now dead after the producers determined that, even with tweaks, the project won't be very different than the original pilot they delivered and opted to focus on new development instead.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/07/mids...mothered-dead/

TV Notes
Stephanie March, Diane Neal return to 'SVU'
By Lynette Rice, EW.com's 'Inside TV' Blog - July 5th, 2011

Two vets are returning to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit this fall. NBC and Wolf Films announced today that Stephanie March and Diane Neal will reprise their roles as ADA Alexandra Cabot and ADA Casey Novak, respectively, for an undetermined amount of episodes. March was a series regular during seasons 2, 3 and 4 and went part-time in seasons 5, 6, 10 and 11. Neal was a full-timer in seasons 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 and showed up for one episode last season, which was the drama's 12th.

In case you haven't noticed, there have been quite a few comings and goings on the Dick Wolf drama. Chris Meloni left the show while Kelli Giddish and Danny Pino have come aboard. Ice-T got a new deal, and Mariska Hargitay will still be around to catch the bad guys.

SVU returns to production later this month and will air on Wednesdays at 10 this fall.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/07/05/st...return-to-svu/

TV Sports
Enough With the Delays: Why Wimbledon Switched to ESPN
By Richard Sandomir, The New York Times - July 5th, 2011

ESPN's new 12-year, nearly $500 million deal to carry Wimbledon was driven by the All England Club's desire to have a single media entity carry the entire tournament and to show every match live ending NBC's past practice of tape delays.

We felt it was important to have a single narrative across the two weeks, Ian Ritchie, the club's chief executive, said on a conference call Tuesday. He added, We felt very positively that we wanted to put it into one arena.

ESPN has had the cable rights to Wimbledon since 2003, but the new deal gives it everything NBC has had, including all of the semifinals and finals.

In talks last weekend in London, ESPN outbid Comcast's NBC-Versus partnership, which could not guarantee a fully live plan until 2014.

After 43 years as the tournament's lead broadcaster after decades of Breakfast at Wimbledon and announcers like Dick Enberg and Bud Collins NBC's run had ended.

ESPN will begin broadcasting its live telecasts next year on ESPN; ESPN2; its broadband channel, ESPN3; and its mobile apps. It will also rebroadcast the men's and women's finals on ABC at 3 p.m. Eastern on the day of those matches.

Live is pre-eminent, Ritchie said. Live is the nature of the game now on sports around the world, not just for tennis, but for other ones. He added, I'm sure there is a place for tape delay and highlights, but the sports viewer wants to see things live.

Ritchie said that he had had conversations in the past with NBC about changing its tape-delay policy, but gave no details.

You understand from my comments that live is important, he said.

An NBC spokesman declined to comment on Ritchie's remarks.

NBC has stuck for many years to a policy of not pre-empting the highly profitable Today show to carry Wimbledon in the early morning. So although it carried some matches live in late morning to the Eastern time zone, it showed them on tape elsewhere.

The network's adherence to rigid time slots also led to chaotic incidents like one in 2009 when ESPN2's live coverage of a Tommy Haas-Novak Djokovic match was cut off at 10 a.m. Eastern, when NBC's window of coverage began. It carried the Roger Federer-Ivo Karlovic match on a two-hour delay, then showed the rest of Haas-Djokovic.

ESPN's estimated $40 million annual rights fee exceeds the combined total of the $10 million it paid under its previous contract, and the $13 million NBC was paying.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/sp..._r=1&ref=media

So maybe it wasn't all about the money.

Critic's Notes
How 'Treme' Found Greatness In Ordinary People And Counterintuitive Storytelling
By Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter's 'Bastard Machine' Blog - July 5th, 2011

HBO's Treme wrapped up its second season Sunday and firmly entrenched itself not only as one of television's current greatest series but an intriguing little mystery behind the scenes of the show itself.

See, you could put 10 critics in a room, and even if seven of them agreed on the greatness of Treme, none of the seven would probably agree on what merits got it to such exalted heights. Nor would they likely agree on whether the show is going about its business the right way, even as they lay some praise on it. Treme is quite the enigma, it turns out. And if you haven't discovered that yet -- or, one might assume, the show itself -- then start renting or buying the episodes from the beginning (and say a little prayer that HBO's largesse continues toward this gem).

Before going any further trying to contextualize the achievements of Treme, it's necessary to talk about something series co-creator David Simon isn't too keen to talk much about anymore -- the fact he previously created arguably the greatest drama in TV history with The Wire. Just the fact that Treme is even in a conversation about top-tier television series is something of a miracle after that. The burden of expectation on Simon (and, in some sense, HBO) was enormous following The Wire, and the odds were long that a follow-up act would be any good. Why? Because making even one excellent series is rare. Repeating greatness in the arts is no easy feat. More so in television than almost any other medium -- even music, with the dreaded sophomore album. So that achievement -- and it's enormous -- needs to be thoroughly understood before moving forward.

It's this "past performance is no guarantee of future results" thing that might also be such a consternation when evaluating Treme. What I've sensed from critics is a difficulty contrasting, contextualizing and embracing the mostly linear storytelling of The Wire with the less structured, more free-flowing raft-on-the-ocean kind of storytelling of Simon, co-creator Eric Overmyer and the Treme writers. Almost every episode of The Wire through five seasons could be definitively deconstructed after each showing. Doing that for Treme is like writing definitively about a marathon at the first mile marker.

Even in Sunday's finale, when a number of story arcs seemed to reach a satisfying season-long conclusion, they didn't actually end, or resolve. It's more like they evolved. The overarching message at the end of Season 2 was, "These stories go on." And there's a real beauty in that which is entirely different, say, from the genius of The Wire or any other top-tier show. More than any other series in memory, Simon and Overmyer are telling, almost in real time, quiet stories about ordinary people. Simon is still able to riff on the things he loves -- institutional failure, how government shirks its duty to its citizens not just at the national level but state and local as well. But all of this is being done on a very personal level -- micro, not macro. It could be argued that Treme is a hell of a lot simpler than we all think it must be with Simon at the helm. He's a Big Idea guy, no doubt: Five seasons of dissecting Baltimore as an American city in decline, ravaged by a failed war on drugs, policing by the numbers, political corruption, an education system in tatters and a blind press will do that. But maybe Treme is about the rebuilding of a great American city by the only people who can really do it right and who really want to do it -- the people who live there. That's big, but simple, yes? Telling the stories of a random collection of people in New Orleans trying to accomplish this -- slowly, in real time -- is the template of the show. Immersing all of that with the distinctive culture of the place -- notably music, food and the native joie de vivre -- makes Treme a more visceral than intellectual series.

I think people want to dissect Treme intellectually because it was made by smart people. Plus, how do you explain viscera? That's complicated. I've often said that Treme is about a vibe, even though "vibe" is not a word I'm particularly in love with, nor is it exactly what I need it to be in reference to the series. In short, I just think Treme is better experienced than analyzed.

Beyond that, there's one more thing that needs to be acknowledged about the show: its taking advantage of HBO's unique place in the television landscape. Simon and Overmyer are being allowed to tell what Simon has called "organic" stories of normal people because HBO doesn't have to follow the rules of regular television. And that has almost nothing to do with sex or language or violence (all three exist in Treme, but are almost negligible in their importance). No, HBO is allowing Simon and Overmyer to write a vibrant novel for television in a languid fashion. There isn't so much urgency in Treme as other series. Allowing viewers to soak in the experience -- there's that visceral element again -- is a tremendous luxury.

The only question now is, how long does HBO keep giving this gift to viewers (and Simon and Overmyer)? Season 1 was 10 episodes. Season 2 was 11 episodes. The already renewed Season 3 will be 11 episodes. But at some point, given the trajectory that the two men have laid out for the series, Treme will have to find its own kind of resolution ( it obviously can't end by saying, hey, New Orleans is back and better than ever, so our job is done; cities are never finished evolving). If this kind of organic storytelling is to have some kind of ending -- and I'm not expecting a typical television "ending" -- it will probably need four or five seasons, depending on how languid HBO is going to allow the storytelling to be.

I hope it gets there. The ratings for Season 2 were down from Season 1. But, in our world of latecomers who can access DVDs, series on demand (and HBO GO, of course), there's hope still. Two seasons -- 21 lovingly made episodes filled with personal stories based on ordinary people -- will be there for viewers to experience (marinate in?) until Season 3 kicks off sometime in the spring of 2012. Why not opt in for a viewing experience that is so unique (and so mystifyingly excellent to many of us professional critics)? Treme is shaping up to be a wholly different viewing experience. Not revolutionary so much as natural. And the commitment appears to be there from HBO to see this vision from Simon and Overmyer all the way through. As viewers, we're lucky to have that largesse.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bas...rdinary-208035

Yeah I'll just drive 800 miles to where my favorite teams play.

Money is ALWAYS part of the equation. If NBC offers $2 bil instead of ESPN's $500 mil they woudln't care if they NBC delayed the matches.

only $30? I doubt that. Hell Charter in my area as well as DirecTv and Dishnetwork have been raising rates at $5 or more per year. Let's have fun with math. $5 a year for 15 year is $75 increase. Of course that's not couting increases in pricing of HBO and other premium channels or STBs or DVRs etc etc.

Critic's Notes
The curious case of the TV-less TV critic
By Alan Sepinwall, HitFix.com - July 5th, 2011

I don't have a TV in my office.

This may sound strange, given that I watch TV for a living, but it's been the arrangement I've had for the last few months. Long story short, a few months back I moved into a new office space where it turned out that getting cable/satellite/Fios/etc. installed would be surprisingly complicated. This was near the end of the network TV season, and I was so busy writing about finales, upfront schedules, etc., that I put off figuring out a solution until things calmed down.

Things have calmed down, and yet for now, at least, I find myself not needing the thing in here.

Some of this is just a matter of logistics. First, I get a ton of stuff on DVD screeners, and it's just as simple to watch those on my laptop as it would be if I had a bigger screen, separate DVD player, etc., on hand. Second, most of what I write about airs in primetime, and so I'm at home in front of my HDTV set when the stuff I haven't seen in advance airs.

Third - and perhaps the biggest mark of how things have changed in the last few years - I got an iPad around the same time I moved into this office, so I already have a second screen on hand. And between Hulu, the ABC Player app, Netflix, HBO Go, etc., etc., I never lack for things to watch if I'm between screeners.

Some of this is just me going back and watching old stuff. I was so put off by the finale of "The Killing," for instance, that I started rewatching "Veronica Mars" season 1 on Netflix Instant(*) to remind myself that it's possible to do the season-long murder mystery thing right. If I'm just doing busywork, I can pop on an old episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "Cheers" or "NewsRadio" and amuse myself more than I likely would with whatever was on my cable system at that moment.

(*) Though that also illustrated one of the downsides to my approach, in that I didn't realize Netflix's license to stream the show was about to lapse, and I only made it to the 6th or 7th episode before it disappeared. Time to go get the DVDs.

But it's also providing me an excuse to watch things I might not otherwise bother with if I was going the TV route. The only reason I gave "Happy Endings" a second chance was because all the episodes were on ABC's iPad app, for instance. And when Hulu picked up the British "Misfits" - about a group of juvenile offenders who develop strange superpowers after a lightning storm - I decided to sample it to see if it was any more successful at the civilian super genre than, say, "Heroes" or "No Ordinary Family." (The short version: in the four episodes I've seen so far, not too shabby. Certainly, it's more nimble than those shows, and has fun grafting superpowers onto various teen angst dilemmas.)

As we talked about when I discussed the whole phenomenon of "cutting the cord" a few months back, you miss out on certain things like this. I can't see most live sporting events where I am, and live news can be a hassle depending on the quality of the different streaming sites. (Today, though, this was a good thing, as it means I wasn't the least bit tempted to watch the Casey Anthony verdict live, whereas if I had easy access to a TV with cable, I'd have at least put on the whole disgusting sideshow for a few minutes, if only so I would have an excuse to yell at Nancy Grace.)

Again, I still watch a whole lot of TV the usual way at night, and would be frustrated if I couldn't, so I'm not exactly a poster boy for the merits of cord-cutting.(**) But it's been much easier to go without during the daytime than I would have thought a few months ago.

(**) And if I'd wholly cut the cord, I wouldn't be able to access HBO Go, where you still need an old-fashioned HBO subscription to access. I'll be curious to see whether HBO makes the service available for a fee to people who don't have cable, or if they'd feel that would undercut their core business model too much.

For those of you who do most/all of your viewing via the Internet, I'm curious what shows you've picked up that you don't think you would have ever become a fan of if you were watching TV in the traditional way?

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-al...less-tv-critic

TV Notes
HLN to face withdrawal symptoms from Casey Anthony verdict
By Joe Flint, Los Angeles Times' 'Company Town' Blog - July 5th, 2011

HLN, the cable network that has enjoyed tremendous ratings growth from its virtually nonstop coverage of the Casey Anthony trial, may now face a brutal withdrawal from its addiction to the case now that the verdict has come in.

Anthony was cleared by a Florida jury Tuesday of murdering her daughter Caylee, much to the chagrin of Nancy Grace, the HLN host who has been outspoken in her belief in Anthony's guilt.

"We must live with it," Grace said of the jury's decision.

Time Warner Inc.'s HLN will also have to live with it. The trial had given the channel, formerly known as Headline News, a sense of purpose. Besides Grace's constant coverage, the rest of the network also jumped on board. Much of HLN's programming focused primarily if not exclusively on the trial, including Dr. Drew Pinsky, who joined HLN this year and devoted extensive amounts of time to covering Anthony.

In using the Anthony trial to fill its schedule, HLN borrowed a page from Court TV, a cable network created to follow high-profile trials as well as coverage of the legal system.

But Court TV eventually found that there were not enough criminal cases to sustain big ratings. The channel, now called TruTV, has become more of an all-reality channel, with shows such as "Hardcore Pawn" about pawn shops and "Southern Fried Sting" about a group of rogue crime fighters.

The challenge for HLN will be to keep the viewers that it wooed with its Anthony coverage. Given that trials that captivate the nation the way the Anthony case seemed to are few and far between, that could prove to be difficult.

"You cannot manufacture trials," noted Andrew Tyndall, a consultant and analyst of television news. The good news for HLN, he said, is that it established itself as home for "the sensational trial." The bad news is that "we may have to wait for another five years for the next trial of the century."

For now, HLN is not sure what will be on its schedule in five days, much less five years. A spokeswoman for the network said it will focus on reaction to the verdict for the next few days, although whether audience interest will be as high remains to be seen.

Media coverage of the trial was blasted by Cheney Mason, one of Anthony's defense attorneys, who said he hoped that "this is a lesson to those of you have indulged in media assassination for three years." While he didn't call out Grace or HLN by name, Mason said he was sickened by "incompetent talking heads" and "disgusted" by lawyers who went on television to offer detailed opinions about a case that they were not involved in.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...-verdict-.html

Critic's Notes
Casey Anthony Is Acquitted; the Media Trial Is Just Beginning
By James Poniewozik, TIME's 'Tuned In' Blog - July 5th, 2011

You could have watched the Casey Anthony verdict on another channel besides HLN,* but that would have been like watching election returns on ESPN.

Other networks covered the trial, some more fervently than others notably TruTV, formerly known as Court TV. But it was HLN that threw itself into the trial with lust and bloodlust, that captured (and inflamed) the emotional tone of the child-murder case, scoring mammoth ratings in the process.

And when the Florida jury returned a not-guilty verdict (on the major charges) in the murder of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, it was HLN, with its head anchor/inquisitor Nancy Grace, that voiced its shock passionately.

Under Grace, the former prosecutor with a righteous voice and burning glare, HLN's coverage had a clear subtext: Casey Anthony was guilty, and retribution was due. (Maybe not even subtext: the channel's coverage was branded "JUSTICE FOR CAYLEE," with a picture of the murdered girl flashing constantly onscreen.) Grace took over coverage as the verdict became due at 2:15 p.m. E.T. and was almost taunting toward the defendant, whom she had dubbed Tot Mom. ("Tot Mom is about to chew her fingers off," Grace said, observing edgy Anthony's nail biting.)

When the not-guilty verdict came in, there was a brief, chilling silence, punctuated only by the paper-shuffling sounds of the courtroom. Afterward, Grace was measured but searing about the fact that Caylee's death "will go unavenged." Her description of the girl, in the moments after the verdict, was lurid, emotional and almost novelistic:

[Caylee was] found just 15 houses from where Tot Mom puts her head on the pillow every night, her body decomposed, nothing but skeleton, gnawed on by animals ... in a trash dump that used to serve as a pet cemetery. Little Caylee thrown away like she was trash. And now and for the rest of our coverage, Caylee will be in our hearts, regardless of what this jury or anyone else does or says. This is about 2-year-old Caylee.

Though much of the weeks of coverage have been about Nancy Grace. Let me be clear: I'm not judging the verdict or Casey Anthony's guilt or innocence. I didn't sit in the courtroom or cover the trial. But the success of HLN and Grace over the past several months, going wall-to-wall Casey Anthony, is proof that in trial-TV today much like in prime-time cable news there is no ratings penalty for taking a side.

Viewers may want information and analysis, but at least a good chunk of them also want to hear their opinions and judgments declaimed passionately, and Grace gives them that with gusto and icy fury. Let the rest of the press cover the American justice system; Grace covers the American vengeance system.

In the aftermath of the verdict, the tenor of HLN's analysis was plain: How did this guilty woman go free? "I cannot give any other explanation," reporter Jane Velez-Mitchell said, "other than human beings are not rational."

It wasn't just HLN, though, that seemed to be operating on the presumption of guilt. Analysts called Anthony a sociopath and a "monster," and even straight-news pundits seemed to have a clear sense of where they thought the trial was going; on ABC, George Stephanopoulos said that "jaws dropped" in the studio at the verdict.

Now, the press is not the legal system. Journalists are bound to be fair, not to presume innocence until proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But at minimum, the general shock over the verdict raises the question of whether the press was discounting weaknesses in the prosecution. And combined with the collapse of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case whatever you think about his behavior and character it shows a press quick to jump to conclusions, if not about actual guilt than at least about guilty verdicts.

And really, will anyone lose readers or viewers in the long run for it? Doubtful. In the short run, even less so. A guilty verdict would have given Grace, HLN and company something to chew over for a day or two. But not guilty? As Grace notes, there is no recourse and therefore, a grievance, anguish and recriminations that will never end.

After the Tuesday verdict, there were a lot of comparisons to the 1994-95 O.J. Simpson case, but I don't buy them beyond a point. Yes, there was a shocking not-guilty verdict, and yes, there were a lot of people watching. But there were not the larger cultural repercussions about celebrity, privilege and race, or the sense of two Americas seeing the trial, and the world, with different eyes.

Of course, the Casey Anthony trial had its own cultural valences, about motherhood and Anthony's reported lifestyle of partying, among other things. And like the O.J. case, there was talk about the meta-influence of the media circus. Immediately after the verdict, defense lawyer Cheney Mason decried the "media assassination" of his client.

But for TV producers, it will be close enough. There will be arguments, there will be anger and, despite the jurors' initial refusal to talk, there will certainly be jousting for morning-show and newsmagazine bookings. And Grace sounds like she has outrage enough to last her for months. A couple of hours after the verdict, she responded to a report that the defense team was in a bar having a champagne toast. "You know what? I'm not a preacher," she said, sounding like a preacher:

I'm not a rabbi. But there's something wrong with that. Because Caylee is dead. And her body decomposed, 15 houses away from where the Anthonys put their head on the pillow every night, every day searching, searching for this little girl. [Deep breath.] Now I know, I know it is our duty as American citizens to respect the jury system. And I do, believe me I do ... But I know one thing. As the defense sits by and has their champagne toast after that not guilty verdict? Somewhere out there, the devil is dancing tonight.

The verdict may be in. But Nancy Grace's prosecution is just beginning.

*Disclosure: HLN is a sister company of TIME in Time Warner, not that the coverage has made me immensely proud of that fact.

http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2011/0...ng/#more-16154

Indeed, and while I'm not excited about my cable bill eventually going up, I definitely like the idea of having the live viewing opportunity, and no doubt there will be tape-delayed broadcasts(re-runs) for those that prefer that method of viewing sporting events.

You can doubt it, but it's a fact. I could only find stuff from 10 years ago, but back then, I was with Charter, and I was paying $66-ish for digital cable with an extra SD box. 3 years ago when I signed up with DirecTV I was paying $82 for Choice Xtra/HD Access/HD box/SD box. Today, with DirecTV I have Choice Xtra/HD access/HD-DVR/HD box, and I'm paying <$90.

You're not taking into account the discounts that are always available if you'd call them once in a while. In fact, had I signed up for direct-pay or whatever it's called, I could save an additional $10 off of that.

Sure prices went up, but it sure as hell wasn't by $75.

TV Notes
USA Picks Up 'Common Law' To Series
By The Deadline.com Team - July 5th, 2011

EXCLUSIVE: A couple of weeks ago, Deadline reported that USA Network was finalizing a series pickup of the comedic buddy cop comedy Common Law. And now it has: USA has ordered 11 episodes to begin production next month in New Orleans.

The twist on the cop series stars Michael Ealy and Warren Kole, who play wildly different personalities who are the elite team in the LAPD homicide squad until their constant bickering gets them put on probation. To fix their problems, their captain (Jack McGee) sends them to couples therapy. Common Law, from CBS Television Studios and Junction Entertainment, is executive produced by Cormac and Marianne Wibberley. Jon Turteltaub and Craig Sweeny are executive producers. Junction's Dan Shotz and Karim Zreik are co-executive producers. Turteltaub directed the pilot.

"When CBS Television Studios sent us the script of Common Law, we immediately fell in love with the writing, the characters and the premise, USA Network co-presidents Jeff Wachtel and Chris McCumber said. "We're very lucky to have the Wibberleys, Jon and Craig guiding the process on this show; and with Michael and Warren, we have two stars who bring out the best in each other." Common Law was one of three cast-contingent pilots ordered by USA last summer, along with Necessary Roughness and Suits (formerly A Legal Mind). The other two have already been picked up to series.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/07/usa-...law-to-series/

Exactly my point ... So why do we always feel we should be entitled to "free" sports entertainment. Season tickets plus round trip airfare per game ... kind of makes your cable bill look a wee bit smaller, hey?

OTOH, I consider it a crime to make the rest of us non-sports fans subsidize your addictions. Make it ala-carte and the pricing will reach true market value.

Critic's Notes
On Tonight: 'Flipping Out' Returns
By Roger Catlin, Hartford Courant's 'TV Eye' Blog - July 6th, 2011

The falling fortunes of the housing market has been clearly reflected on TV in recent years.

Where once cable was filled with various shows on flipping houses, now they're all dried up. And the one that survives, "Flipping Out" (Bravo, 9 p.m.) has changed its approach, just as its eccentric subject Jeff Lewis has.

Rather than flipping house, Lewis is now a fulltime interior designer with an expanding staff and workload (he is on TV, which goes a long way to advertising in West Hollywood).

Luckily the title still applies to his mostly off-putting, demanding personality, which is enabled by Bravo, the network that loves difficult characters.

As the fifth season begins, he's trying to make an office manager as tough as he is, is worried about becoming a public speaker and is dating someone on his staff.

And compared to some of the off-putting characters on the various "Real Housewives" shows, he may also not be the most annoying person on the network.

A Top 48 is named tonight on "America's Got Talent" (NBC, 9 p.m.) and now it will take forever to whittle it down, especially if they continue to concentrate just as much on the judges as the contestant.

The judges may want to tone it down too on "So You Think You Can Dance" (Fox, 8 p.m.) where last week they were all kissing each other. They'll probably want to continue that this week when the guest judge for the Top 14 is Carmen Electra.

It takes a lot to bring the late night news show into prime time. For tonight's "Primetime Nightline: Beyond Belief" (ABC 10 p.m.), it's apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a Wisconsin chapel.

It may go down as the worst blind date setup on TV: "Love in the Wild" (NBC, 10 p.m.), soon to be obscured altogether by the return Thursday of "Big Brother."

See Anna Paquin grow by switching back and forth by switching between "The Piano" (Sundance, 10 p.m.) and the latest episode of "True Blood" (HBO, 10 p.m.).

Robert Osborne picks the films tonight on Turner Classic Movies with "Springtime in the Rockies" (8 p.m.), "Cover Girl" (10 p.m.), "The Spiral Staircase" (midnight), "Gaslight" (1:30 p.m.) and "Three Strangers" (3 a.m.).

Jason Alexander plays the client on "Franklin & Bash" (TNT, 9 p.m.).

Yankees at Indians (ESPN, 7 p.m.) gets a national audience. Other games include Blue Jays at Red Sox (NESN, 7 p.m.) and Mets at Dodgers (SNY, 10 p.m.).

In the women's soccer world cup, it's Guinea vs. Brazil (ESPN, 11:45 a.m.), Australia vs. Norway (ESPN2, 11:45 p.m.), Sweden vs. U.S. (ESPN, 2:30 p.m.) and Korea vs. Colombia (ESPN2, 2:30 p.m.).

* * * *

DAYTIME TALK

Regis and Kelly: Larry David, Bernadette Peters, Chef Richard Blais
Gayle King: Shirley MacLaine, Toni Braxton (rerun)
The View: Diane Sawyer
The Talk: Ray Romano, Raven-Symone, Jill Scott
Ellen DeGeneres: Tom Hanks, John Rich (rerun)
Wendy Williams: John O'Hurley, Lil' Jon (rerun).

http://blogs.courant.com/roger_catli...ut-return.html

Tech/Business Notes
Why Latin America Is Netflix’s Next Big Market
By Ryan Lawler, The New York Times/GiGaOM.com - July 6th, 2011

Netflix announced plans to go truly global Tuesday, with the news it would introduce its streaming video subscription service in 43 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. While many expected Netflix to launch in one or maybe two new countries this year, the news that it’s aggressively launching throughout Latin America has significant implications for the company’s growth over the next several years.

There are about 600 million residents between Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean, which makes the addressable market about twice the size of the U.S. That by itself offers a lot of opportunity for growth. But rapidly expanding economies, the growth of broadband connectivity and a wide-open market for low-priced entertainment could be a winning combination as Netflix looks to expand its offering outside the U.S.

Rapidly expanding economies

Many economies in the area are still developing, but many are poised to see dramatic growth over the next several decades. Mexico and Brazil, in particular, are expected to boom, as Goldman Sachs has forecast that those two countries will join the top 15 global economies by 2030, and both could be in the top five by 2050. But growth isn’t just limited to those two countries, and economic growth should drive opportunity throughout the region.

Jumping into the mix for media and entertainment in these emerging economies could be one way for Netflix to stake a claim before those markets develop. By doing so, Netflix may be getting in relatively cheap, compared to entrants that come later. By trying to tackle the entire market at once, Netflix also should benefit from the type of economies of scale that it wouldn’t see if it were just going after France, the U.K. or Germany.

Increasing access to broadband

While economies throughout Latin America and the Caribbean are growing, so is access to broadband throughout the region. Broadband access may be a limiting factor to Netflix growth in Latin America, at least in the short term, as Internet connectivity and available broadband speeds tend to be lower in most markets than in most areas of the U.S. But that, too is rapidly changing.

Dan Rayburn does a good job of breaking out what broadband penetration rates are like in six of the largest Latin America markets: Brazil, for instance, had a 37.8-percent Internet penetration rate with 75 million users and average broadband speed of 4.46Mbps, while Mexico had a 27-percent Internet penetration rate with 30.6 million users and an average broadband speed of 3.54Mbps. In both cases, we expect those numbers to increase dramatically as infrastructure improves and the economy expands.

Citi’s Latin American telco analyst James Rivett estimates there are approximately 45 million broadband subscribers in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 36 million of those in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina. In a research note this morning, Citi estimated Netflix could achieve 8-percent penetration among broadband subscribers in the region, based on its 8-percent penetration of broadband households in Canada within seven months of launch there.

Going global, staying local

Netflix has done an excellent job of attracting subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, but expanding into new markets isn’t easy. With this expansion, it may have benefited by taking a region-wide approach rather than picking one country or another to launch in. It’s likely Netflix was able to secure rights for Hollywood content for much of the Latin American region, rather than bargaining country-to-country. That’s possibly one reason why it’s tackling Latin America and not Western Europe, where the media landscape is much more segregated.

By launching region-wide, Netflix shows it’s taking its global expansion very seriously. But it’s also going local: Rather than just source content from the Hollywood studios, Netflix also plans to ramp-up content from local programmers. This two-pronged approach could allow it to offer a combination of content with broad appeal while also ensuring it has content relevant to subscribers in different counties.

Challenges ahead

All that said, it won’t be easy. Any time a company attempts to tackle an entire region, there are bound to be local nuances attached to reaching customers in each individual market. While the Latin American region is more homogenous than, say, Western Europe, such an aggressive launch will require Netflix to have a local presence in multiple countries rather than a rollout into a single market.

And it’s not clear if Netflix’s particular brand of subscription service will be popular in those markets. A lot depends on the content mix, and if local consumers believe the company provides value to them. Much will depend on the price of the offering, as well, which Netflix hasn’t yet disclosed.

But the opportunity likely outweighs the risks. The good news for Netflix is that it’s getting in on the ground floor in a region where there’s mostly upside to be had.

http://www.nytimes.com/external/giga...ref=technology

Since I don't work for the cable company there were no discounts for me. My bill with Cox Cable was $43 a month in 2003 and it went up to $83 a month by 2008. Other people in this thread said they are now paying $90 a month.

Hasn't Charlie Sheen been roasted enough on the late night talk shows.

I don't work for them either, man, and neither do all the other people in this thread that have called you out on the gross exaggerations you constantly make about the cost of pay TV. As I've said before, if you pay list price for it you are a sucker.
My cable + HSI bill is $80 a month for 2 years, so in effect I'm paying the same rate for cable ($40) for around 100 HD channels that I paid 15 years ago for around 70 analog SD channels. When that promo is done, I'll find another.

TV Notes
Fox draws up an All-Star play for 'X-Factor'
Will air preview of much-anticipated fall reality show
By Toni Fitzgerald, Media Life Magazine - July 6th, 2011

Media buyers have already pegged "The X Factor" as fall's breakout new hit, but Fox is leaving nothing to chance.

The network will air an extended preview of the show next Tuesday night as a lead-in to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which usually ranks as its most-watched program of the summer, hoping to draw the biggest possible audience for its splashy new show.

What Fox is touting as the "world premiere preview" of "Factor" will air in the pregame run-up to the annual event, starting at 8 p.m.

The preview will only be a few minutes long, but it underlines just how important the program is to Fox. It's the first time the network has used the All-Star game as a launch pad.

It comes more than two months in advance of "Factor's" fall debut, which is slated for Sept. 21.

"Factor" is a singing competition produced by former "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell, based on the British hit of the same name.

The show has drawn thousands of wannabe stars to auditions this summer as they vie for a $5 million prize, the biggest reward ever offered on a U.S. reality show.

"Factor" has already suffered some early problems. Original judge Cheryl Cole, who appeared on the UK "Factor," was booted after just a few days, and an attempt to bring her back a few days later was aborted.

Host Nicole Scherzinger took over the fourth judging slot instead, joining Cowell, L.A. Reid and Paula Abdul, Cowell's former judging mate on "American Idol."

The latest rumor to emerge is that Mariah Carey will also join the judging panel in some capacity, though Cowell has not confirmed that.

"Factor" will air Wednesday and Thursday nights in the timeslots occupied by "Idol" last spring.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/art...-X-Factor-.asp