Hot Off The Press: The Latest TV News and Information - Page 2529

Kinda feel the same way, I could tell that I didn't really care that much when Episode I came out and I didn't watch it for probably a year or more after the dvd was out, or did he try and hold the dvd out on that one too, I got really tired of his not releasing things on dvd and trying to gouge every last penny out of the whole deal.

??

I was commenting on his assertion that he received the channels "free."

What were you reading?

I think I'm one of a handful of people who have never watched "Star Wars" or any of the sequels/prequels. Live long and prosper!

[I guess I'm a good candidate to receive a gift of the complete Blu-ray box set.]

You only need the original three movies in their original condition. I wouldn't give the prequels to anyone.

Commenting on the whole topic, you just happened to be the last. Sorry.

Well, different strokes for different folks. I (and 100s of millions of others) loved the first three, eps 4,5,and 6). The last three, not so much.

By RotJ, you could see Lucas had lost his way. Should have stopped there. i wished i had not watched 1-3.

My Grandma took me to "Star Wars" in late '78. It was playing down the street from where she lived. It was about a year or more since its release and about the 3rd time it had come around. I was about 7, and knew nothing of this movie. No Holiday Special, no SW sheets, action figures or play sets. I guess "The Dukes of Hazard" was on my radar.

So my Grandma (Bless her heart) patiently sat through this with me. I WAS BORED OUT OF MY MIND! I don't know how many times I asked to leave.

Anyway, I enjoy the original trilogy today, having cherished my THX non-special edition for years. (I do realize the same transfer is now on DVD). My best friend in 4th grade was a huge fan, and get this...his given name was Dak.

I get them with the Ultimate TV/Internet/Phone bundle. All sports networks too.

Apparently FiOS subscribers outside NYC have to pay extra for them.

TV Notes
Monday's Highlights: House' on Fox
By Los Angeles Times' 'Show Tracker' Blog - Jan. 22, 2011

[ALL TIMES LISTED ARE PACIFIC TIME]

HOUSE (Hugh Laurie) runs tests in the lab himself in a new episode of the medical drama at 8 p.m. on Fox.

SERIES

Gossip Girl: Blair's (Leighton Meester) bachelorette party will be a night to remember in this new episode. Chace Crawford, Ed Westwick, Blake Lively and Penn Badgley also star (8 p.m. KTLA).

Pretty Little Liars: Toby (Keegan Allen) continues pursuing Spencer (Troian Bellisario), who realizes there's only one way to end it and keep him safe. Shay Mitchell also stars in this new episode (8 and 10 p.m. ABC Family).

Hart of Dixie: Zoe (Rachel Bilson) researches her family history and discovers she's eligible to join the Bluebell Belles, to the dismay of Lemon (Jaime King), who engineers a humiliating initiation ritual to keep her out in this new episode (9 p.m. KTLA).

Alcatraz: In this new episode, Rebecca (Sarah Jones) and her team try to stop Kit Nelson (Michael Ecklund), a kidnapper from the past. Jorge Garcia, Sam Neill and Parminder Nagra also star in this new episode (9 p.m. Fox).

The Lying Game: Ethan (Blair Redford) puts up a facade to protect Emma (Alexandra Shando) when she's on the outside looking in at the country club's Black and White Ball in this new episode (9 p.m. ABC Family).

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: In the season finale of this troubled unscripted series, Pandora pulls out all the stops to throw a glamorous wedding while Taylor reveals details about her own turbulent marriage (9 p.m. Bravo).

First Week In: An attorney is locked up for a Contempt of Court charge in this new episode (9 p.m. Discovery).

Cake Boss: Next Great Baker: The final four create cakes celebrating Miss USA, Alyssa Campanella (9 p.m. TLC).

The Layover: Tony stays in Los Angeles for 48 hours and finds his favorite restaurant (9 p.m. Travel).

American Masters: The season premiere examines the life and artistry of activist and singer-songwriter Phil Ochs, whose songs are inseparable from the anti-Vietnam War movement. Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Sean Penn are among those commenting (10 p.m. KOCE).

SPORTS

Hockey: The St. Louis Blues visit the Detroit Red Wings (4:30 p.m. VS); the Ottawa Senators visit the Kings (7:30 p.m. FSN).

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/show...se-on-fox.html

Technology Notes
Tablet and E-Reader Sales Soar
By Julie Bosman, The New York Times' 'Media Decoder' Blog - Jan. 22, 2011

There was no must-have toy of Christmas 2011 — for youngsters, anyway.

For adults, tablet computers and e-readers were the gifts of choice, judging by a new report that indicates the number of adults in the United States who own tablets and e-readers nearly doubled from mid-December to early January.

The report, which is expected to be released on Monday, confirms what book publishers say they have experienced in the last few weeks: a big jump in e-book sales after the holidays. A similar e-book boom came immediately after Christmas 2010.

The report, from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, found that the share of adults who owned tablet computers increased to 19 percent from 10 percent, with the same increase for adults who owned e-readers.

That was a sharp change from the period covering the middle of 2011 into the autumn, when the ownership of tablets and e-readers barely budged, the report said.

The increased ownership of tablets was especially pronounced among highly educated people with household incomes of more than $75,000. Almost one-third of people with college degrees now own tablet computers, the report said.

Women were heavier buyers of e-readers than men, a finding consistent with surveys that indicate women tend to buy more books than men.

The survey was conducted in November and December with 2,986 people aged 16 and older. Then, in January, Pew surveyed 2,008 adults 18 and older. Both surveys have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points.

The holiday season spawned a huge marketing and advertising push for the Nook Tablet, Barnes & Noble’s latest color device, and the Kindle Fire from Amazon. While many consumers bought the costlier Apple iPad at $500, tablets from Barnes & Noble and Amazon cost less than $250, a more tempting price for a Christmas gift. Some black-and-white e-readers cost less than $100.

“Publishers are putting a lot of effort into e-books; apps developers are cranking out more and more tools for tablets; libraries and tech companies are making e-books easier to borrow,” Lee Rainie, director of the Internet and American Life Project, said in an e-mail. “So the ecosystem of these devices is making them more valuable.”

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...oar/?ref=media

TV Notes
Death-defying 'Chuck' finally takes its final bow
By Bill Keveney, USA Today - Jan. 22, 2011

Chuck has a quality its title character would be proud of: the ability to survive.

NBC's fifth-season action comedy, a cult favorite perennially in danger of cancellation, has lived to write its own ending in a two-hour finale Friday (8 ET/PT).

"The biggest blessing about doing this last season was that it afforded us the opportunity to have closure with one another and with our audience," says Zachary Levi, who plays Chuck. "It's been a very tumultuous road, but we've always survived, and to be able to survive to the point of getting to have that closure is something I would wish on any show."

Despite less-than-stellar ratings throughout its run (just under 4 million viewers this season in a tough Friday time slot), the story of an electronics-store-employee-turned-secret-agent has boasted a passionate following that had influence beyond its modest size. Fans constantly rallied on behalf of the show, whether it was through devotion each year at Comic-Con, or a campaign to patronize advertiser Subway in order to persuade network and studio executives to continue the show.

Fans "are the reason we're around. They're the reason that Season 2 was picked up for a Season 3," executive producer Chris Fedak says. "When you have a show that has an incredibly loyal fan base, that X factor is incredibly helpful when you're trying to convince the network to pick up the show for another season. We would use all the fan campaigns as well as their enthusiasm and support as another factor in pushing the show and trying to convince NBC to bring us back."

There were some benefits to uncertainty. Levi says the threat of cancellation often earned Chuck media attention late each season. In the past three years, the series twice was the winner and once finished second in USA TODAY's Save Our Shows survey, which asks fans which "bubble" shows they want to see avoid cancellation.

In addition, "the fact that we were always on the chopping block allowed us to push the envelope every year and go for broke, because we didn't know if we were coming back," Levi says. "And then, once we came back, we're like, 'Well, we already pushed the envelope to there, and now we've got to push some more.' "

Fedak says the final season is "designed as a love letter to our fans," and the show has been going back to its first- and second-season roots as it nears the end. The Wienerlicious restaurant, which was seen in the pilot, is one early element that will make an appearance in the finale, he says. Linda Hamilton, who plays Chuck's mother, will be back, too.

Mostly, the final episodes are being built around Chuck and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski), the spy who eventually became his wife.

"We (are focusing) on what I think is the heart of Chuck, which is the Chuck and Sarah romance, and it will be difficult to watch because it's unexpected, what is happening, and I think it will leave audiences a little bit on the edge of their seats wondering how this is going to finish up," Strahovski says.
Will it be satisfying for those dedicated fans? "I hope it will be," she says. "The way it sort of gets tied up in a bow to finish it will be good."

As for whether this is truly the end for a show that wouldn't die, Levi says he could see a continuation via an online film. Again, it goes back to depending on the fans.

"I genuinely believe that our fan base, if given the opportunity to spend $5 on an hour-and-a-half Chuck movie to buy online and keep, I think they would," he says. "That would be a really fun thing to do."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/televis...evi/52745442/1

TV Sports
The Film Archivist of Legendary Football Preps for Game Day
By Brian Stelter, The New York Times - Jan. 23, 2011

When N.F.L. Films put a microphone on the Denver Broncos' surprise star Tim Tebow during a game against the Chicago Bears last month, it knew that every one of its television partners would want a piece of the audio and video of the quarterback.

So each was given a piece, stoking the country's interest in Mr. Tebow. ESPN's N.F.L. Matchup show replayed his technical conversations in the huddle. Showtime's Inside the N.F.L. shared his singing our God is an awesome God during warm-ups. Parts of the wire, as the N.F.L. calls the player and coach microphones, also were played on NBC Sports Network's N.F.L. Turning Point, on ESPN's Sunday N.F.L. Countdown and on NFL.com. For the N.F.L. Network, the audio was even turned into an hourlong special.

There's only so much that happens on any given Sunday of the football season, but there is a seemingly insatiable appetite for it on television. So the assignment for N.F.L. Films is to take the same material and make it entertaining in different ways for different shows, for different styles of fans, said Ross Ketover, who along with Pat Kelleher is a senior coordinating producer and oversees the 65 producers who slice and dice games for the division. They said they created a thousand hours of new programming last year.

While television networks focus on the live events each week, their division films the games yes, much is still on actual 16-millimeter film for an array of future purposes. They are simultaneously documenting the history of the sport, promoting the National Football League and providing an important revenue source.

I've always felt that a camera is an instrument of realism and a creator of myth, said Steve Sabol, whose father, Ed, founded what became N.F.L. Films in 1962. All together, the decades of films have given football a mythology that no other American sport has matched.

Some of N.F.L. Films' footage is woven into films, commercials, and future installments of Football Follies, the blooper reels that Johnny Carson helped make famous on The Tonight Show. But much of it like that of Mr. Tebow on Dec. 11 is turned around much more quickly so it can be shown on TV before next week's games. The unit has special couriers who rush raw film from stadiums to its building in Mount Laurel, N.J., near Philadelphia, where it is processed.

In essence, the shows keep fans entertained on the days when games are not played.

When Comcast was preparing last year to turn its Versus channel into the NBC Sports Network, executives who were searching for new programming immediately thought of N.F.L. Films, said Jon Miller, the network's president for programming. They share a similar storytelling philosophy as we do, Mr. Miller said.

Around the same time, when Discovery was turning HD Theater into Velocity, a channel for affluent men, executives bought two N.F.L. Films history shows and found that it helped get attention from advertisers. A relationship with the world's most powerful sports brand lent us instant credibility right out of the gate, said Bob Scanlon, the senior vice president of Velocity.

N.F.L. Films has a total of nine television partners now, including with one of its siblings, the N.F.L. Network, which was founded by the league eight years ago but is still not available on several major cable systems. N.F.L. Films is responsible for about a quarter of the network's taped schedule; shows like Sound FX double as weekly advertisements for the network.

The unit is part of the nonprofit N.F.L.'s profit-making N.F.L. Media division, which also runs the N.F.L. Network, N.F.L. RedZone channel and other properties. Revenues are not disclosed, but N.F.L. Media accounted for about 50 percent of the league's $9 billion take in 2011. Most of N.F.L. Media's revenue comes from live TV rights, but N.F.L. Films represents something more enduring the footage can be used and reused in perpetuity.

Mr. Sabol is being treated for a brain tumor and has difficulty speaking, but said he comes into work each day. I'm in the game, but I only have about eight players on my team, he said with a laugh on the phone last week. He expressed pride in the many innovations of N.F.L. Films microphones on players, super-slow-motion shots, reverse angle replays, montage editing.

In some ways the N.F.L. was far ahead of others in its recognition that it was in the media business, and should create its own content accordingly, bypassing the usual media makers.

The films unit frequently conceives and pitches shows to networks, and also churns out DVDs with titles like Two Minutes to Glory, looking back at past games and legendary players. Lately it has increased its amount of films for television, like A Football Life, which followed the New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick for the 2009-10 season and appeared on the N.F.L. Network last fall, and Namath, about the quarterback Joe Namath, which will be shown on HBO this week.

They embrace and approach every project like it is the only production on the N.F.L. Films calendar, said Rick Bernstein, the executive producer of HBO Sports, which has been a partner of N.F.L. Films since 1977.

The N.F.L. Films producers say they collaborate with the networks but have control over what is and isn't seen, which is why their programs are sometimes criticized as propagandistic. Mr. Ketover responded, We are trying to promote the game, no doubt, but we are doing it by being objective documentarians.

The most popular content is often from the wire, like the one Mr. Tebow was wearing. N.F.L. Films wires about 100 players and coaches each season, up from about 25 a decade ago. Our viewers, they want to see the game, but they also want to hear the game, Mr. Kelleher said.

Already his producers are busy preparing for the most important football day of the year, the Super Bowl, which will be played on Feb. 5. Because they try to release a DVD about the winning team within weeks, they were simultaneously preparing four films about the four semifinalists last week, assuming that each might be the winner. (After Sunday's games, they stopped production on two of the films.)

And they'll have a production truck on site for something that they produce even faster: the commercial that has a player proclaim, I'm going to Disney World! Yes, N.F.L. Films even produces that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/bu...ref=television

I was 13 in 1980 and went to the theater to see The Empire Strikes Back. I was blown away and came a big Star Wars fan. I never seen Star Wars at that time so I didn't know what to expect. The only reason I went is because some friends wanted me to go with them. I had the original trilogy on VHS untill I bought them on DVD. I also have the three prequels on DVD I but I like the original trilogy better. Still haven't upgraded to blu-ray since I've seen the movies so many times already.

Over the last 15 years I've spent a lot of time playing numerous Star Wars games. I have all the X-Wing series, all the Jedi Knight series, The Force Unleashed, Star Wars Starfighter, Episode I Racer, and several others.

A little off-topic and a few days old. But hey, it's "Star Wars" related and I want to keep the hits coming to "HOTP."

Tech/Business Notes
Star Wars: The Old Republic -- the costliest game of all time?
By Alex Pham, Los Angeles Times' 'Company Town' Blog - Jan. 20, 2011

With a price tag approaching $200 million, Star Wars: The Old Republic is likely to be the most expensive game of all time to produce -- and a colossal gamble for the game's publisher, Electronic Arts Inc.

BioWare, the EA studio responsible for the online game, had spent close to six years on the title, hiring hundreds of programmers, writers and artists, as well as a legion of contract workers. The hope is that The Old Republic will attract millions of players, each willing to spend $60 to buy the game and $15 or so a month to play out their fantasies of being Jedi knights or Sith warriors.

But creating an online universe that can satisfy the demands of both hard-core "Star Wars" fans and players of multiplayer online role-playing games is an epic undertaking, as our story in the Times describes.

"It's the single largest bet of J.R.'s career," said P.J. McNealy, a game analyst with Digital World Research in Boston, referring to EA's chief executive, John Riccitiello, who plunked down $860 million in 2007 to buy BioWare and Pandemic, a Los Angeles game studio that EA shut down in 2009.

EA declined to comment on the amount it spent to create The Old Republic. That hasn't stopped Wall Street analysts from pegging the game's production costs at $150 million to $200 million or more, a figure that people knowledgeable with the game's budget don't dispute.

Unlike films, whose budgets are routinely reported, game development expenses are closely guarded secrets. As a result, cost comparisons are difficult to come by.

"You hear about RockStar Games as having the richest budgets in the business and spending over $100 million on a Grand Theft Auto game," said John Taylor, managing partner with Arcadia Investment Corp. in Portland, Ore. "Star Wars seems to have gone way above that."

The good news for EA is that the Redwood City, Calif., company has already absorbed those costs into its finances, expensing them as they were incurred.

"It's all sunk costs," said Atul Bagga, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets.

Not quite all. EA must continue to devote significant amounts of resources to keeping the game running. That means maintaining a vast network of computers, a dedicated staff to deal with customers who have technical or billing issues, as well as a core team of developers constantly adding new content to the game to keep players interested.

EA has said that covering the game's operating costs will require 500,000 paying subscribers. At $15 a month, the figure implies that the game costs at least $7.5 million a month to maintain, including an undisclosed royalty fee to Lucasfilm, which owns the "Star Wars" license.

"Very few companies can afford to make this sort of bet," Taylor said, "And EA is one of them."

EA executives insist the company, with about $3.6 billion in annual revenue last year and about $1.5 billion in cash and short term investments, will not collapse should Star Wars fail to hit its marks.

"We're not betting the company on Star Wars," said Frank Gibeau, president of EA Labels, which oversees the Star Wars game. "While it's a major undertaking, it's one aspect of a larger strategy to transform EA from a company that sells discs to one that derives the bulk of its revenue from digital games and services."

The upside, however, is undeniably lucrative. Should the game win 4 million subscribers -- compared with over 10 million for World of Warcraft, the big Kahuna of the genre -- EA's operating profit rises to $395 million a year, representing a 50% margin, according to Doug Creutz, an analyst for Cowen & Co.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...blic-cost.html

Critic's Notes
CBS' 2 Broke Girls' is the funniest new show of the season - and the most explicit
By David Hinckley, New York Daily News - Jan. 23, 2012

With the 2011-2012 TV season now half over, at least two things are clear:

CBS' Monday comedy 2 Broke Girls (8:30 p.m.) is the most explicit new show on broadcast TV.

It's also the funniest.

That throws a lot of credit to the writers, crew and cast, because pulling off the combination is harder than it sounds.

Critics of television including both people who think TV shows are too dirty and people who just think they aren't very good often argue that cleverness and humor have been replaced with cheap, easy and witless sex gags.

Those critics are right.

Far too many shows, instead of finding situations or interactions that could set up actual humor, settle for a lazy crack about cup size or a humiliating confession about a failure in bed.

It's one of many reasons why viewers have been migrating away from prime-time broadcast shows for the last decade.

Yes, some TV fans will always enjoy shows that just talk dirty. But eventually most will want more, and that's where 2 Broke Girls comes in.

It has wit, heart and two characters, Max (Kat Dennings) and Caroline (Beth Behrs), whom we root for.

Okay, it also talks dirty. It tosses around the v-word the way Max and Caroline toss blue-plate specials at the diner where they work. Vibrators, chest size and oral sex talk are always on the menu here.

One night when an obnoxious yuppie party left a camera on a table, Max told the lascivious cook Oleg (Jonathan Kite) to take a picture of your junk before the yuppies reclaim it. Oleg returns it with the news he shot a video.

The thing is, though, that sex talk here isn't gratuitous. It's funny. It blends well, even artfully, with the nonsex talk.

That's subjective, of course, and not everyone agrees. At an uncharacteristically tense Television Critics Association panel earlier this month, several questioners kept demanding that Michael Patrick King, co-writer of the show with Whitney Cummings, justify or defend the jokes.

He tried to accommodate for a while, then finally asked why no one seemed to want to talk about how the show is just plain fun. That's the right question, and King has the cred to answer it.

He wrote Sex and the City, which also dripped with sex talk that fit its characters.

In a sense, it's the same issue that came up with profanity and violence on The Sopranos or Deadwood. Explicit, yes. Uncomfortably raw, sometimes. But it was right, even necessary for the show.

Yes, Sex and the City, The Sopranos and Deadwood were all on HBO, which is pay-cable. 2 Broke Girls is on broadcast.

But the principle holds. When the show drives the explicit content, that's a far different situation than when it's the other way around.

2 Girls ain't broke and it don't need fixing.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain...icle-1.1009437

TV/Business Notes
MundoFox to launch in the U.S.
FIC, RCN form joint venture
By Anna Marie De La Fuente, Variety - Jan. 23, 2012

Fox International Channels (FIC) and Colombia's RCN Television Group (RCN) have formed a joint venture to launch MundoFox, a new Spanish-language terrestrial TV network aimed at the U.S. Hispanic market.

Slated to launch in the Fall of 2012, MundoFox will seek to bring the Fox Network sensibility and RCN's primetime content to U.S. Hispanic auds. FIC owns a 51% stake in Colombian shingle Fox Telecolombia which produces primetime content for RCN and FIC, including hit RCN telenovela "El Capo."

"There is an increasing demand for quality Spanish-language content in the U.S. from both viewers and advertisers," said Hernan Lopez, President & CEO of Fox International Channels. "FOX saw similar dynamics in play 25 years ago when it launched the Fox network, and it would be a missed opportunity not to provide an alternative for the 50+ million Latino viewers who currently have limited options in Spanish-language broadcast television," said Lopez. "There is still room for growth in the U.S. Hispanic advertising market," he added. MundoFox will go up against market leader Univision, NBCU's Telemundo as well as Telefutura and Azteca America in the Spanish-language terrestrial TV arena.

The new web will include sports programming from Fox Deportes, blockbusters, two newscasts a day and original Fox Telecolombia skeins such as "Tiempo Final." The Shine Group will be producing their first original Spanish language content for MundoFox.

A search is underway for an exec to head MundoFox which will be based in Los Angeles.

"RCN has provided the main Hispanic networks in the US with much of their primetime content for over two decades. We now plan to maximize our capabilities and bring an increasing variety of fresh and innovative productions directly to Spanish-speaking viewers," said Gabriel Reyes, CEO of RCN.

RCN has mainly provided content to Telefutura, the sister channel of Univision. "El Capo" was a major hit for Telefutura with its finale luring 1.2 million viewers in the 18-49 demo. No new RCN productions have been committed to other U.S. Hispanic webs this year in anticipation of the MundoFox launch.

MundoFox aims to be carried on stations covering 75% of US households. Several affiliate deals are being finalized in leading Hispanic markets across the country.

Fox International Channels operates 350 channels in 35 countries, and a consortium of three cable networks targeting the U.S. Hispanic consumer: FOX Deportes, Utilisima and NatGeo Mundo. RCN is one of the largest producers and exporters of Spanish-language television in the world and operates cable channels throughout the Americas.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...ews|LatestNews

TV Sports/Critic's Notes
Boston Gets a Gift, New York Gets a Break -- And I May Get an Ulcer
By Eric Gould, TVWorthWatching.com - Jan. 23, 2012

Standing at midfield with CBS Sports' JIm Nantz Sunday night, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said into the microphone, his words reverberating throughout Gillette Stadium, "I sucked pretty bad today, but our defense saved us."

It was blunt and accurate -- though not, perhaps, the most eloquent post-game recap by a top national sports figure. Especially with kids watching. But you had to admire the honesty and the grit of the moment, which followed a tense, last-minute 32-yard field goal attempt by Baltimore Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff, with the Patriots leading by three points.

Cundiff proceeded to shank it to the left, and handed the Patriots a 23-20 victory they perhaps neither earned nor fully deserved.

Hours later, on another network and another football field, another special-teams mistake led to another last-second victory. Actually, it was a victory after the last second, because it was well into overtime when Kyle Williams of the San Francisco 49ers muffed his second punt return of the day, allowing the New York Giants to pounce on the ball deep in enemy territory.

Four plays later, Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes lined up his 31-yard field goal -- only one hard closer to the goal posts than Cundiff's shanked shot -- and kicked it through the uprights to secure his team's 20-17 in overtime.

The result: the Patriots and Giants will face each other in a Super Bowl rematch of their 2008 jaw-dropper, when the Giants ended the Patriots' perfect season, and won Super Bowl XLII, with Eli Manning's miraculous last-minute pass play that still pains Patriots fans. Fans like me, for example...

Given Brady's passing fireworks this year (he was among three quarterbacks to go over 5000 yards this season, the first time that's happened in NFL history), and the six touchdowns he threw last week in a divisional playoff (another record), Sunday's game was not the one most people expected.

The Baltimore defense, one of the stingiest in the league this year, played Brady tough all afternoon long. They picked off four of his passes, with two of the interceptions negated by penalties on the Ravens.

It was a game for the Patriots to lose --literally, as it turned out -- especially with poor play-calling by the New England brain trust, bungling a chance to get a first down, and run out the clock, with two minutes left.

From the Patriots' formation on second down on that series, everyone in the stadium knew they were going to run. And they did. Running back Ben Jarvis Green-Ellis got stuffed behind the line, leaving four yards to go for a first down.

On the next, obvious, passing down they somehow made the ingenious decision to attempt to get the first down, and win the game, by throwing a short pass in the direction of Baltimore free safety Ed Reed.

Reed has been called one of the greatest defenders ever to play the position. Often, he has been referred to as just that by none other than Patriots coach Bill Belichick -- an icon himself, with a unparalleled winning record since he arrived in New England in '00.

Reed was all over the receiver, and that pass dropped incomplete. The Patriots were forced to punt, and Gillette Stadium and the rest of the national audience watched as the Ravens, with plenty of the time left on the clock, marched down the field against a New England defense that was one of the worst in the league in yardage allowed this year.

The Ravens knocked off some large chunks of yardage, and looked likely to score at the end to win -- or at least, easily, to tie the game and send it into overtime.

And then, the unbelievable miss by Cundiff sent the Patriots off in the direction of to Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis in two weeks.

It was one of those games where you wondered whether your team (for us here in Boston) won the game, or was just given a freakish gift by other team that shot itself in the foot, so to speak, on its way to tying the game.

You'd be hard pressed to find one pro NFL kicker that wouldn't routinely make that 32 yard kick, anytime, anywhere. Yet both games Sunday had their goats -- one an errant kicker, the other a fumbling punt returner -- and what matters, in the end, is that the Patriots and Giants are meeting again.

That Super Bowl won't be played until February 5 on NBC -- but I'm tense already...

http://www.tvworthwatching.com/contr...ns-get-a.shtml

And this will be a boring Super Bowl. Yawn. I am already asleep.

The last time these two teams met in the Super Bowl, in 2008, Eli Manning threw a touchdown with 35 seconds to go in the game to beat the undefeated Patriots 17-14. It doesn't get any more exciting than that...

TV Notes
'All Star Dealers,' cleaning out the attic
Collecting and selling sports memorabilia sounds fascinating
By Tom Conroy, Media Life Magazine - Jan. 23, 2012

Even people who work in unusual businesses with colorful or famous people have dull days. In fact, the dozens of reality shows set in such workplaces suggest that dull days are the rule, not the exception.

Premiering this Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 8 p.m., Discovery's new series All Star Dealers follows the staff at a company that deals in sports-memorabilia, an inherently interesting product that should put them in contact with well-known athletes. But in the episode submitted for review, the process of acquiring the merchandise is mundane, and the celebrity appearance is uneventful. Since the usual sources of dramatic tension in workplace shows are absent, the half hour passes very slowly.

The title dealers are the staffers of Grey Flannel Auctions, a former bookie named Richie Russek and his sons Michael and Darren, who specialize in game-worn uniforms. In the review episode, Richie and Mike pick through a storage space filled with the possessions of the former NBA star Dennis Rodman, and Darren has experts appraise two jerseys that may have been worn by famous NFL players.

As Richie rummages through Rodman's old clothes and memorabilia, he tells Mike to keep an eye out for the wedding dress that Rodman wore to a book signing in New York. If they can find it, Richie tells the camera, his company will be famous instantly.

We won't tell you how the search turns out not to avoid spoilers but because it's boring.

Among the items Richie selects to put up for auction are a basketball painted with a portrait of Rodman's former girlfriend Madonna and the top hat he wore to the Oscars. Richie meets with Rodman in a hotel room in order to get his permission to sell the items and to see if Rodman has any anecdotes that might add value to them.

In this segment, Rodman fails to live up to his outrageous reputation. No one will be fascinated while learning that Vivica A. Fox was Rodman's second choice as date to that Oscar ceremony.

The scenes in which Darren takes the jerseys for appraisal will be too familiar to anyone who has seen one of the dozens of other shows about buyers and sellers of used goods. Once again, we learn that there are people who have developed incredibly detailed knowledge in tiny areas of expertise in this case, an autograph expert goes on at length about Dan Marino's usual method of signing jerseys.

Darren tries to build up suspense by saying that if the jerseys are fakes, the company could lose thousands of dollars. Since the company works on consignment, that's only true in the sense that they're won't be making that money in profit.

Since there's no downside risk in the episode, the suspense is minimal. Most workplace reality shows try to create drama by showing the regulars racing against a deadline, but the Russeks seem to set their own schedule. Richie treats his sons respectfully, and nobody throws a tantrum. The absence of the usual bullying and screaming is a plus, but the show needs to find another source of energy.

If nothing else, All Star Dealers leaves us with the comforting thought that maybe our own jobs aren't that dull after all.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/art...the-attic-.asp

TV Sports
NBC add Breeders Cup as ESPN exits TV horse racing
By Michael Hiestand, USA Today - Jan. 23, 2012

NBC has added horse racing's Breeders Cup, as ESPN gives up those TV rights, and will this year air the first-ever running of the $5 million Cup Classic in primetime.

Mike Smith on Drosselmeyer (3) celebrates after winning the Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 5, 2011. For ESPN, which has been airing fewer horse races in the seven years that it's had Cup TV rights, the move represents an exit from covering horse racing, which now joins hockey and golf as sports that ESPN has largely walked away from. The Cup will be held Nov. 2-3, when ESPN/ABC already has lots of college football and NASCAR action.

For NBC, which already has racing's Triple Crown, the Cup provides more complementary big-event programming to fill hours on its recently rebranded cable channel, the NBC Sports Network.

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...horse-racing/1

I was 14 when it came out. Saw it 7 times that summer, waiting in the hot Tucson sun for hours every time.

Zzzzzzzzz ....

On the other hand, "SpaceBalls: The Movie" is one of my all time favorites.

"We ain't found s*** !!!"

SUNDAY's fast affiliate overnight prime-time ratings -and what they mean- have been posted on Analyst Marc Berman's Media INsight's Blog.

Nielsen Overnights (18-49)
'Once Upon a Time' holds up against football
New ABC drama averages a 3.2 in 18-49s, down just 0.1
By Toni Fitzgerald, Media Life Magazine - Jan. 23, 2012

Fox dominated the competition with football Sunday night, as expected, but ABC did have at least one bright spot.

The new drama "Once Upon a Time" held up well against the NFC Championship Game, becoming the night's only program to average more than a 3.0 in adults 18-49 opposite the New York Giants' 20-17 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers.

"Time" averaged a 3.2 in the 8 p.m. timeslot, according to Nielsen, down just 0.1 from last week.

Lead-out "Desperate Housewives" was also almost even to the previous week, averaging a 2.6, while ABC's 10 p.m. drama "Pan Am" actually grew by 0.1 from the previous week, to a still-low 1.3.

Still, it was mighty slim pickings for highlights versus Fox's game, which likely averaged more than 50 million total viewers. Accurate ratings for the contest will not be released until later today.

Fox did order time zone-adjusted ratings for the postgame special edition of "American Idol," which did not start until nearly 11 p.m. because the game went into overtime. It averaged a 7.9 rating and 19.8 million total viewers.

According to the overnights, which measure timeslot and not actual program data, Fox was first for the night among 18-49s with an 18.7 average rating and a 40 share.

ABC was second at 2.0/4, CBS third at 1.6/3, NBC and Univision tied for fourth at 0.3/1 and Telemundo was sixth at 0.3/1.

As a reminder, all ratings are based on live-plus-same-day DVR playback, which includes shows replayed before 3 a.m. the night before. Seven-day DVR data won’t be available for several weeks. Forty-three percent of Nielsen households have DVRs.

Fox led each hour with football, starting with a 20.5 rating at 7 p.m., followed by CBS with a 1.5 for "60 Minutes." ABC was third with a 1.2 for "America's Funniest Home Videos," NBC fourth with a 0.9 for "Dateline," Univision fifth with a 0.6 for "La Vida es Mejor Cantando" and Telemundo sixth with a 0.3 for "Pa'lante con Cristina."

At 8 p.m. Fox was first with an 18.0 for football, while ABC moved to second with a 3.2 for "Time." CBS was third with a 2.2 for "Undercover Boss," NBC fourth with a 1.3 for more "Dateline," Univision fifth with a 1.1 for "Gran Show de los Peques" and Telemundo sixth with a 0.3 for more "Cristina."

Fox was first again at 9 p.m. with a 19.3 for football, with ABC second with a 2.6 for "Housewives." CBS and Univision tied for third at 1.1, CBS for a repeat of "The Good Wife" and Univision for more "Gran Show," with NBC fifth with a 0.8 for "Prime Suspect" and Telemundo sixth with a 0.3 for the first hour of the movie "Fantastic Four."

At 10 p.m. Fox was first with a 17.2 for the end of football and its postgame show, followed by CBS with a 1.4 for a repeat of "CSI: Miami." ABC was third with a 1.3 for "Pan." NBC and Univision tied for fourth at 0.7, NBC for more "Prime Suspect" and Univision for "Sal y Pimienta," and Telemundo was sixth with a 0.4 for its movie.

Fox was also first for the night among households with a 28.9 average overnight rating and a 39 share. CBS was second at 4.8/7, ABC third at 4.0/6, NBC fourth at 3.1/4, Univision fifth at 1.4/2 and Telemundo sixth at 0.3/0.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/art...t-football.asp

TV Notes
RLTV targets aging boomers
Cable channel RLTV caters to the 50-plus set with programming starring aging boomers. Will advertisers follow?
By Joe Flint, Los Angeles Times - Jan. 22, 2012

Kids have Nickelodeon and Disney. Women have Lifetime and Oxygen. Jocks have ESPN, and nerds have G4. Gays and lesbians have Logo. There's even Animal Planet, for pet people.

Everyone has a TV channel these days, except senior citizens. The fastest-growing and wealthiest segment of the population has been ignored or forgotten by Hollywood's broadcast and cable networks. Until now.

John Erickson, a 68-year-old who made his fortune building large retirement communities, has created RLTV, a cable channel designed for the AARP-adjacent. He has programmed it with talk shows including "Making Medicare Work for You," documentaries such as "To Not Fade Away" about the early stages ofAlzheimer's disease and, on a lighter note, reality shows including "Another Chance for Romance" and "Sunset Daze," best described as a"Jersey Shore" for adventurous senior citizens in Surprise, Ariz.

Fronting the shows is a collection of aging TV presenters. Former morning news hosts Joan Lunden, 61, and Deborah Norville, 53, have RLTV shows. So do former prime-time personalities Sam Donaldson and Florence Henderson, both 77.

For decades, the television industry has built its business around reaching people younger than 50, in part because TV advertisers believe they are easier to persuade to try new products. And anyway, according to Nielsen, people watch more television as they age. Programmers figure they don't need to make any special effort or create shows to bring older viewers to TV or keep them there.

So prime time is loaded with raunchy sitcoms, racy dramas and exploitative reality shows populated by beautiful women and buffed-up men. If there are characters older than 60 on these shows, they're generally there as a punch line or to talk dirty a la 90-year-old Betty White on TV Land's "Hot in Cleveland" or 85-year-old Cloris Leachman on Fox's"Raising Hope." Even news programs, which traditionally skew older, have become a little obsessed with youth.ABC's once hard-hitting"Nightline" now spends much of its time covering pop culture trends.

But the power of the aging baby boomers can't be ignored. According to the 2010 census, there are more than 99 million Americans older than 50. The over-50s are also one of the fastest-growing groups on Facebook.

And they have money. The AARP, citing information from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey, says adults over the age of 50 spent $2.7 trillion on consumer goods in 2010.

At the same time, the networks may be slowly turning their attention to the power of the aging audience perhaps as network executives age and find they are not the people their grandparents were.

One of NBC's few successes of the last few years is the legal drama "Harry's Law," starring 63-year-old Kathy Bates as a tough-talking lawyer.

Tim Allen, the 58-year-old comedian who in the 1990s played a dad in the ABC comedy hit "Home Improvement" is back on the network playing a grandfather in"Last Man Standing." The recently rediscovered Betty White is headlining a new NBC hidden-camera reality show, "Off Their Rockers," in which old people pull pranks on their juniors.

Even HBO, whose programs are often filled with nudity and sex among the young and gorgeous, is getting into the act. Its new horse-racing drama "Luck" stars 74-year-old Dustin Hoffman and 70-year-old Nick Nolte.

Network TV advertisers, the ones who ultimately pay for that programming, are coming to the party too.

"Advertisers are waking up to the fact that the 50-plus population is an audience they have to pay attention to," said Kevin Donnellan, an executive vice president with the AARP, the chief lobbying arm for older Americans and a producer of two magazine shows for RLTV. "We're no longer living in that era where people are thinking about their father's Oldsmobile."

Media buyers acknowledge that over the last few years more dollars are being pushed toward content that attracts an older audience.

"There is a shift," said Andy Donchin, director of media investments at Carat, which buys ad time for companies including Home Depot and the restaurant chain Outback. "The older people are very important. They watch a lot of television, and they have disposable income."

John Erickson got the idea for RLTV originally called Retirement Living TV and recently changed to Redefine Life after he built TV studios for residents of his retirement communities and watched them program their own in-house networks.

"What amazed me was the interest level of the residents in their own lives and how much attention they paid to this little television channel," Erickson said.

So in 2006, Erickson hired a few executives with TV experience and hit the road to pitch the concept to the cable and satellite operators who serve as the gatekeepers to the airwaves. His quest: to start a network aimed at the forgotten demographic.

He was not given a warm welcome.

"People would say, 'I think it is probably a good idea, but I don't think anybody will ever carry it,'" Erickson said. "Fortunately, I heard the first half and ignored the second."

Erickson persevered and eventually finagled a meeting with Steve Burke, then president ofComcast Corp., the nation's largest cable operator, with more than 20 million subscribers.

Burke, too, was resistant. He told Erickson that Comcast gets asked to launch hundreds of new channels, and most flop. "If that's what you're here for, let's move on to the next subject," Erickson recalls Burke saying. (Burke, who is now chief executive of Comcast's NBCUniversal unit, declined to comment for this article.)

Erickson argued that the older-than-50 crowd was going to be the only significantly growing segment of the population for the next 15 to 20 years and it was silly to ignore them.

"They have most of the wealth in this country, and it is very easy to find out what they're really interested in if you engage them instead of thinking they should all sit at home and watch another 'Murder, She Wrote' rerun," Erickson told Burke.

Burke wasn't completely sold, but he cut a deal to sell RLTV a block of afternoon time on a few Comcast systems in the Northeast for $5 million a year.

Erickson recruited Elliot Jacobson, a veteran production executive with credits ranging from MTV to PBS, to program his channel.

"I gave him the topics," Erickson said. "Healthcare, finance, politics, travel the categories are pretty easy."

Jacobson soon hired former NBC News White House correspondent John Palmer to host an interview show called "Encore" and a financial advice program called "The Prudent Advisor."

Erickson also bought some time on satellite broadcaster DirecTV to give his start-up a national footprint. In time, Burke agreed to become more of a partner. Comcast took a 20% stake in RLTV, which helped Erickson pay for developing the channel. The rest of the $125 million invested in RLTV has come from Erickson's own venture.

With Comcast on board, Erickson was able to sign up other distributors and increase the reach of the network to 15 million homes nationally. Erickson said RLTV has had successful talks with major cable operators and hopes to double its reach by the end of 2012.

But it's still slow going and that may continue. "There's no doubt about it, it's a hard sell," said Paul FitzPatrick, who was hired as RLTV's president and chief operating officer after stints as chief operating officer of the Weather Channel, Golf Channel and Hallmark Channel parent Crown Media.

Right now, RLTV's reach is too small to attract much national advertising beyond cheesy direct marketing spots. But RLTV has been reaching out more to advertisers to build awareness for the network. Last fall, RLTV executives went to New York and Los Angeles to pitch their network to top advertising agencies, with some success.

"I've looked at them a little more closely," said Francois Lee, a vice president at MediaVest, whose clients include Wal-Mart, Kraft, Procter & Gamble and Microsoft.

RLTV's current lineup features "Brady Bunch" mom Florence Henderson hosting a talk show and co-hosting a cooking show. ABC News veterans Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts co-host "Primary Issues," about the presidential campaign. Former"Today" co-host Deborah Norville has a show called "Making Medicare Work for You." Former"Good Morning America" co-host Joan Lunden has a show about caring for the aged called "Taking Care With Joan Lunden." Reruns of NBC's popular Sunday morning political magazine"Meet the Press" air on RLTV on Monday nights.

RLTV's brass wants a mix of public affairs and entertainment programming, but there are no immediate plans for the channel to produce its own sitcoms or buy reruns of other shows.

On Jacobson's wish list is a boomer version of Fox's hit "American Idol"and a prime-time game show, as well as programs focused on intergenerational issues. What he won't do, he promises, is take shots at his audience or abandon them for younger shows to boost ratings.

"It is important for us to be advocates for the demographic we serve," he said.

As RLTV becomes available in more homes, it will start to open up its wallet for new material. Erickson hopes to invest an additional $40 million to $50 million on programming and promotion over the next few years.

At least one of RLTV's earliest casting coups now seems pleased to be associated with the channel, though she was at first resistant.

"I can't even wrap my brain around the fact that I'm 60-plus," former anchor Lunden said. But since starting her first RLTV show in 2010, she has two new RLTV projects in the works. "The 50-plus audience is a force to be reckoned with," she said.

She may have more company soon. RLTV founder Erickson said older TV actors resent being dismissed from prime time. "I don't care who you are in Hollywood; you've been pastured by this time," he said. "This gets you to come back. We're getting good access to talent."

RLTV's first show host said his peers seem eager to join the new network.

"I've had inquiries from a half-dozen people I know in the business who are no longer working asking how to get on RLTV," said John Palmer, 73.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...378,full.story

... until the following Super Bowl.

... if you're a football fan; if not, watching paint dry is more exciting.