Hot Off The Press: The Latest TV News and Information - Page 2662

THURSDAY'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)
Lower key for ABC's new show 'Duets'
Reality singing program averages a 1.5 in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald, Media Life Magazine - Jun. 1, 2012

The second episode of ABC's "Duets" declined after a so-so debut last week, though it was still one of the highest-rated programs on a low-rated night.

"Duets" averaged a 1.5 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights, down 12 percent from a 1.7 for last week's premiere.

The decline came despite very little competition. Last week the reality singing show faced the season premiere of "So You Think You Can Dance" on Fox, which averaged a solid 2.4.

Last night, however, Fox aired the season finale of the new drama "Touch," which managed just a 1.3.

In fact, the highest-rated show of the night was actually a rerun of CBS's "The Big Bang Theory," which averaged a 2.3. Another rerun, "Bang" lead-out "Rules of Engagement," was No. 2 for the night with a 1.8.

"Duets" tied for third on the evening with a repeat of NBC's "America's Got Talent."

Another ABC original, the drama "Rookie Blue," maintained 100 percent of last week's premiere rating, averaging a 1.4 at 10 p.m.

CBS finished first for the night with a 1.6 average overnight rating and a 5 share. ABC was second at 1.5/5, Fox third at 1.3/4, NBC and Univision tied for fourth at 1.2/4, Telemundo sixth at 0.4/1 and CW seventh 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-four percent of Nielsen households have DVRs.

At 8 p.m. CBS was first with a 2.0 for repeats of "Bang" and "Rules," followed by ABC with a 1.4 for "Duets." Fox was third with a 1.3 for "Touch," Univision fourth with a 1.1 for "Abismo de Pasion," NBC fifth with a 0.8 for repeats of "The Office," Telemundo sixth with a 0.5 for "Una Maid en Manhattan" and CW seventh with a 0.3 for "Breaking Pointe."

ABC took the lead at 9 p.m. with a 1.7 for more "Duets," while CBS slipped to second with a 1.4 for a "Person of Interest" rerun. Fox and Univision tied for third at 1.3, Fox for more "Touch" and Univision for a soccer match between Mexico and Bosnia-Herzegovina. NBC was fifth with a 1.1 for a repeat of "America's Got Talent," Telemundo sixth with a 0.4 for "Corazon Valiente" and CW seventh with a 0.2 for a repeat of "The Catalina."

At 10 p.m. NBC led with a 1.5 for more "Talent," with ABC second with a 1.4 for "Rookie Blue." CBS and Univision tied for third at 1.3, CBS for a repeat of "The Mentalist" and Univision for more soccer, and Telemundo was fifth with a 0.4 for "Relaciones Peligrosas."

CBS was also first for the night among households with a 4.9 average overnight rating and an 8 share. ABC was second at 3.9/7, Fox third at 2.9/5, NBC fourth at 2.4/4, Univision fifth at 1.4/2, Telemundo sixth at 0.7/1 and CW seventh at 0.5/1.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/art...how-Duets-.asp

TV Notes
'Red,' 'Step Up' in development as TV shows at Lions Gate
By Ben Fritz, Los Angeles Times' 'Company Town' Blog - May 31, 2012

Lions Gate is developing the films"Red" and "Step Up," two of the most successful titles that came with its purchase of Summit Entertainment, into television shows.

Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer revealed the news on a conference call with analysts Thursday morning. The titles are the first examples of Lions Gate partnering its television production division with properties from Summit, which did not have its own TV unit.

"Red," an action film about a team of aging secret agents played by Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren, among others, also has a movie sequel in development. A fourth entry in the "Step Up" teen dancing series will hit theaters in August.

Feltheimer previously said that he hoped Lions Gate could turn Summit's teen vampire blockbuster franchise "Twilight" into a TV show as well, but the company has not yet taken any steps to do so, as it is focused on the fifth and final film that hits theaters in November.

While Lions Gate's financial results released late Wednesday initially disappointed investors, sending the stock down, shares were up 3% on Thursday after the call, at $13.25.

That was driven in part by Feltheimer's promise that his company expected to generate at least $900 million in so-called EBITDA -- earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- over the next three years.

Those future earnings are expected to come from "The Hunger Games," the blockbuster box-office hit whose profits have yet to show up on Lions Gate's quarterly reports. About 90% of the returns from the March film -- first in a series of "Hunger Games" titles, which has grossed $643 million worldwide -- have yet to accrue to Lions Gate's bottom line. The first sequel hits theaters in November 2013.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,4410383.story

Emmy Notes
Emmys Combine Lead, Supporting Acting Categories for Movies and Miniseries
By Tim Molloy, TheWrap.com - May 31, 2012

The Emmys are combining the lead and supporting categories in the movies and miniseries categories.

The consolidated categories (now titled Outstanding Actor in a Miniseries or Movie and Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries or Movie) will include six nominees each. The previously existing categories previously had five nominees.

The combination will likely make it harder for those in supporting film and miniseries roles to win Emmys. If the lead and supporting categories had been merged in 2010, for example, Julia Ormond would have had to compete with Claire Danes, who won the lead actress Emmy while playing the titular character in the movie "Temple Grandin." Ormond, who was nominated for supporting actress, had a much smaller role in the film.

The combination continues a streamlining that began with merging the movie and miniseries categories. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Board of Governors announced in February of last year that it would unite the category into one, partly in response to fewer miniseries being produced.

The decision came under the Emmy's "rule 14," allowing consolidation of categories if there were fewer than 14 submissions in a two-year period.

"It's kind of a respiratory system: You breathe in, you breathe out, you expand here, you contract there," John Leverance, the academy's senior vice president of awards, told TheWrap.

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/em...niseries-42191

Business Notes
Consumers Poised To Pay More For Web-Delivered Video Than For Discs: Report
By David Lieberman, Deadline.com - Jun. 1, 2012

Spending for DVDs and Blu-ray discs is falling so fast that 2012 likely will be first year when consumers will pay more to buy and rent movies via the Internet, according to a report today from IHS Screen Digest Video Intelligence Service.

The research firm says that the average household will spend $123.50 to buy and rent discs this year down from $133.21 last year and $149.53 in 2010. The average home spent $206.78 in 2006, when Blu-ray discs were introduced. Looked at another way, people spent $8.8B last year to buy packaged videos, down 12% vs 2010. That will keep falling to $5.4B in 2016 which IHS notes is the level in 1997 when DVDs were first launched.

Meanwhile, consumers paid $5.7B to rent discs last year, down 7.3%. Much of that drop was due to the cut backs at Blockbuster, as well as the snafus at Netflix' DVD rental business. With that largely behind us, and rental kiosks becoming more popular, disc rentals will increase slightly to $6B in 2016. IHS says that kiosks accounted for 34% of disc rental spending last year, and will grow to 41% this year, and hit 52% in 2015.

The silver lining for studios is that the online business is growing. If revenue were to be added from other viewing options such as video-on-demand, Internet-based sales and rentals, and subscription streaming from providers like Netflix and Hulu Plusconsumer spending across all outlets of home video would amount to nearly $17.2B, says IHS senior analyst for U.S. video Michael Arrington. In a separate report, IHS said that spending for online movies more than doubled to $992M last year, mostly due to the growth of Netflix's streaming service which passed Apple to be the No. 1 online movie provider. Web spending is expected to double again this year but then slow, the company says, unless a company such as HBO offers a standalone streaming service or someone offers a Web-based replacement for pay TV.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/cons...-discs-report/

I'd sure like to see them turn this around

The problem is, they'll do the one thing they shouldn't while this is happening: cut things to the bone to save costs, instead of investing in content and their core news operation to drive viewership numbers up.

Then again, maybe all they need is for things to boil over enough in Syria for a war to break out. People tend to tune into CNN for war and other event coverage than they do the other channels.

It's when all there is to talk about is politics that they flounder.

I wouldnt.

TV Notes
Will The Success Of Hatfields & McCoys' Spur A Wave Of Western-Themed Series?
By Nellie Andreeva, Deadline.com - Jun. 1, 2012

Just two weeks ago, TV networks' infatuation with period Westerns seemed to have waned. Of the slew of such projects put in development by the broadcast networks last season, only one, NBC's The Frontier, had been picked up to pilot, and it didn't make the cut to series. At the same time, TNT passed on its own period Western pilot, Tin Star. Two weeks later, History's Hatfields & McCoys burst into the scene, drawing huge crowds. Yes, its viewership skewed older, which is understandable given the historic subject matter, but there were plenty of 18-49-year-olds among the 13-14 million who tuned in for each episode to get the broadcast networks' attention. And the timing is perfect as pitch season is just around the corner.

NBC may be the first to jump in with the Kerry Ehrin Western originally developed this past season. The network has been the most aggressive among the broadcast networks in the arena, ordering period Western drama pilots for two consecutive years: The Crossing in 2011 and The Frontier this year. The network developed a total of three Western scripts and its executives were happy with all of them, eventually narrowing the field to The Frontier and the Kerry Ehrin project and ultimately going with The Frontier. I hear NBC is now revisiting the Kerry Ehrin drama, produced by Universal TV and Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner's Hazy Mills. Coincidentally, the project's producers and NBC brass met on Tuesday morning, when the big ratings for the first night of Hatfields & McCoys came out. Set in the 1880s, the Kerry Ehrin project centers on Jacob Morris, a young, eccentric East Coast doctor of mental disorders who moves to a primitive Western town at the foot of the Colorado Rockies. I hear NBC executives are open to ordering the script to pilot if a name actor and/or director are attached. Other high-profile Westerns that were developed at the broadcast networks last season included The Rifleman reboot at CBS with Laeta Kalogridis, Chris Columbus and Carol Mendelsohn; a Wyatt Earp Western at Fox penned by John Hlavin; and Ron Moore's Hangtown, set in the early 1900s, and David Zabel's Gunslinger, both at ABC. With TV business being notoriously reactive, look for some of those to be revisited too and new Western concepts to start coming fast and furious once the floodgates at the broadcast networks open.

The only true Western series on the air right now is AMC's Hell On Wheels on Sunday. CBS has period drama Vegas coming out in the fall but despite its protagonist, played by Dennis Quaid, being a cowboy-type sheriff, the drama deals with the mob's 1960s takeover of Las Vegas. Ditto for FX's Justified, despite the lead's penchant for wearing cowboy hats. Another highly-rated Western miniseries, AMC's Broken Trail, didn't have a major impact on series development. But the success of Hatfields & McCoys comes as the Western genre has already built a strong momentum, making a new period Western series order within the next year a strong possibility.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/will...themed-series/

TV Notes
Comcast chief calls his 'Battleship' a 'large miss'
By Ben Fritz, Los Angeles Times' 'Company Town' Blog - Jun. 1, 2012

Volatility at Universal Pictures, particularly the huge loss the studio is taking on "Battleship," has kept NBC Universal from a steady performance this year, the chief executive of its parent company Comcast Corp. said at an investors' conference Friday.

After noting that the NBC Universal had a 34% increase in operating cash flow during the first quarter driven in part by the success of films "The Lorax"and "Safe House,"Brian Roberts said the Comcast-owned media conglomerate that also operates television networks and theme parks is now facing a "negative quarter."

A major reason is that this spring has been dismal for Universal Pictures, particularly compared to last year when it released the hits"Bridesmaids"and"Fast Five."

"This year we have, unfortunately, a large miss in 'Battleship' and another one in 'Five Year Engagement,'" Roberts said.

The overall result, he added, is a stable first half of the year for NBC Universal with one notable asterisk:

"I think you have to look at this business for what happened in the first six months: We're flat to slightly down, right around what we expected except for 'Battleship' and the film volatility."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,4410383.story

TV Review
Longmire: Contemporary Western Rides High
By Eric Gould, TVWorthWatching.com

Sheriff Walt Longmire is a widower grieving the loss of his wife. His house is full of empty beer cans, and his grown daughter has lost patience with him — a year after his wife's death he won't scatter the ashes, and doesn't seem able to move on.

Longmire's got a young, impatient deputy working under him who thinks Longmire's job ought to be his. But Longmire's still the best detective in fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming, with the sharpened instincts that come with being a veteran lawman.

And then there are the boots — lots of shots of the boots. A visual metaphor of Longmire's determination to walk through the pain.

A&E's Longmire — the new series based on Craig Johnson's novel's about a cowboy sheriff — premieres Sunday, June 3 at 10 p.m. ET. This western feels new. It's modern, with six-shooters and cell phones. And it's interesting to see western landscapes and lifestyles as they are today, and not in historical recreation.

The highlight of the series, though, is its star, Robert Taylor (The Matrix), an Australian actor who hasn't a trace of his native accent, and inhabits the hangdog Longmire character so thoroughly he singlehandedly carries the show. With his weathered features and inner storm, he's that interesting to watch.

And that's a good thing because the premiere episode, a mystery that starts with a dead stranger shot through the chest and found lying face down in the snow, is perhaps standard fare. And it's unraveled by some steady, standard detective work. But that's maybe a plus these days, since it's without the outlandish lab and technology antics we've become accustomed to on procedural shows like CSI. Longmire doesn't need fancy forensics — he knows that a rifle's been fired recently by the smell of the barrel.

As straightforward as the story is, the Longmire character is equally tangible in his dry wit, his earnestness and his demons. He's a plain-spoken, straight-talking, grizzled veteran riding the Wyoming highways and doing his job. Part of the long story arc is Longmire's struggle to keep his job. He's got a wet-behind-the-ears deputy, Branch Connolly (Bailey Chase) who thinks Longmire is washed up and is running against him in the next election.

There's also a strong supporting cast with Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) as Deputy Vic Moretti, a city emigre new to the wild west and loyal to Sheriff Longmire, and Lou Diamond Phillips (Numb3rs) as Longmire's longtime friend and owner of the local bar, "The Red Pony."

Longmire's struggle to get his job done and reestablish his authority while saddled by the past that still burns fresh in him, unresolved, is key to the series. It's well-written all over Taylor's face, and is something all of us can probably relate to.

When the widow of the victim in the pilot asks Longmire, "Does it ever stop hurting?", he says quietly, "Not really. I guess the only way it could ever stop hurting is that if maybe we could forget about them. That's the thing. I don't want to forget anything."

http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/will...themed-series/

TV Notes
Andy Samberg Officially Leaving 'Saturday Night Live'
By Tim Kenneally, TheWrap.com - Jun. 1, 2012

Andy Samberg is following Kristen Wiig out the door at "Saturday Night Live."

The comedian said he won't be returning to the late-night institution next season in an interview with the New York Times on Friday, confirming suspicions that his run on the show was coming to an end.

It's an incredibly emotional and strange moment in my life, Samberg told the Times. Obviously it's not a huge shock, but I did officially decide not to come back.

Samberg joined the show in the fall of 2005 and was largely known for his musical skits, such as "Lazy Sunday" and "Dick in a Box."

On last month's season finale of "Saturday Night Live," Samberg fueled speculation that he was on his way out with "Lazy Sunday 2," which had lyrics that included the line, "On these New York streets I hone my fake rap penmanship / That's how it began, and that's how I'm-a finish it.

Wiig departed the show during the season finale. Though no official announcement was made, her departure was made clear with a skit during which host Mick Jagger, as a school principal, announced that Wiig was "graduating" this year, and a musical number during which many of her former castmates danced with her.

NBC has not yet responded to TheWrap's request for comment.

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/an...ght-live-42466

Profile
Don’t Like the Movie? Let’s Talk About It
Joel Hodgson on ‘Mystery Science Theater’ and Riffs
By Paul Brownfield, The New York Times - June 3, 2012


The scene at a Cinematic Titanic event, with riffers onstage in front of the movie. (Photo: Josh Targownik)

It takes a certain kind of fan to recognize Joel Hodgson, creator of the cult 1990s Comedy Central series “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” and Shawn Queeney is that kind of fan. In his media and society class at Bucks County Community College north of Philadelphia, Mr. Queeney, an associate professor of communications, discusses the place of the “Mystery Science Theater” in the underbelly of cinema, and he and his wife spent a December evening watching Mr. Hodgson and friends perform their idiosyncratic comedy as part of the live B-movie heckling tour “Cinematic Titanic.”

So when Mr. Queeney spotted Mr. Hodgson at a restaurant not long after, he asked Mr. Hodgson to speak at his college. Mr. Hodgson agreed but later came back with a suggestion more befitting his sensibilities. And so was hatched one of the odder master classes ever offered in formal higher education: a workshop on the art and science of “movie riffing.”

On “Mystery Science Theater,” which began in 1988 and was integral to the early growth of Comedy Central, Mr. Hodgson played a janitor at a byzantine research lab who is sent into space, where he is forced to watch B and C genre movies with two robot companions named Tom Servo and Crow. But that setup, laid out in the theme song, was only the bones of the show. The meat each week was in the riffing, as Joel and his bot-pals, silhouetted at the bottom of the screen, commented on everything from killer lizard films like “The Giant Gila Monster” to cheesy instructional shorts like “Hired!”

“Hey, isn’t that the John Belushi biography?” Mr. Hodgson’s character says when the title appears. (Riff spoiler alert: It’s a reference to the book “Wired.”)

If “Mystery Science Theater” was part insult comedy aimed at movies, there was also something congenial in the show’s tone. (Perhaps it was the puppet robots, or that it was all being produced in Minneapolis.)

Six writers had to deliver a 90-minute episode every week, Mr. Hodgson said, with 600 to 800 riffs per movie, “when all the pistons were firing.” In devising the lines, no reference (Bella Abzug, Roy Lichtenstein) was too outré or rejected initially, Mr. Hodgson said. As he tried to convey to the students at Bucks, it’s best to brainstorm nonjudgmentally first and figure out what’s funny later.

Mr. Hodgson, now 52, left “Mystery Science Theater” in 1993 after, he said, a dispute with the executive producer Jim Mallon over the direction of a feature film based on the series.

Moving to Los Angeles, Mr. Hodgson landed a series of movie and TV deals while also keeping creative in more inimical ways. One of them was an event called the Super Ball, an annual “one-night World’s Fair” that Mr. Hodgson dreamed up with his brother, Jim, combining their interest in comedy, science and art happenings.

Mr. Hodgson, in this way, has long approached comedy as a chemist in a lab does, noodling with a drug protocol to make it more effective. In Minneapolis in the late 1980s he briefly taught a workshop called Creative Stand-Up and Smartology that was based on communication paradigms he’d read about in college. This was after he had earned appearances on “Late Night With David Letterman” and “Saturday Night Live.”

Years later he tried to rejigger the sketch comedy series format at HBO, where he made a pilot called “The TV Wheel.” Mr. Hodgson’s idea was to shoot the show live, with a camera that was locked down in the middle of a set that rotated like a record on a turntable. “Your TV doesn’t move, so why should the camera?” Mr. Hodgson said, explaining the philosophy.

Finally, in 2007, Mr. Hodgson, still regretful about leaving “Mystery Science Theater,” returned to movie riffing, forming the tour “Cinematic Titanic” with the writer-performers Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein, Frank Conniff and Mary Jo Pehl.

In class Mr. Hodgson kept things loose but wasn’t just fooling around either. In his travels with “Cinematic Titanic,” Mr. Hodgson said, he often meets people movie riffing Ã* la “Mystery Science Theater” but live. “I was always curious what it would be like to participate with these people who wanted to get into it.”

The class was made up mostly of theater, film and video majors, and a number of them were involved in improv comedy, including Kyle Reichert, 21. “Every class he would talk about something new,” Mr. Reichert recalled, “what he would go through on a daily basis making the show.”

Mr. Hodgson’s first lesson was simple: When riffing don’t be a jerk. (He used a different word.) The 25 students in Riff Camp 2012 were divided into groups. They had two and a half months to complete a film’s worth of riffs before performing at the college’s spring arts festival. They also had to dream up a back story and set it to a theme song. One group, the all-female New Valkyries of Valhalla are Valkyries by day, collecting Viking souls, and students in a women’s studies course at Valhalla Community College by night.

That explains why they would be watching “Consuming Women,” an oddly spooky short billed as a portrait of the female consumer circa 1967. The other films Mr. Hodgson assigned for other groups — from the public domain Web site archive.org, which houses the Prelinger Archives — included “Pennsylvania Fish Commission,” a riveting 1950s tour of trout farming narrated by the commission’s decidedly un-emotive executive director, and the delicious University of California romp “Health: Your Posture,” about a girl ostracized by her peers because of bad posture.

“It had nothing to do with posture,” said Stephanie Drejerwski, 20, one of the riffers.

Mr. Hodgson instructed students not to riff more than once every three seconds, so that the audience could absorb each joke. As on “Mystery Science Theater,” scripts were time- and color-coded to indicate when the film’s narrator was speaking (“You need a thorough checkup by your family doctor to discover the cause of your posture defects”) and when the riff was interjected (“Sir? We don’t have insurance?”).

Though the practical application of a course on movie riffing seems negligible, Mr. Hodgson has perhaps hit upon something in the age of social media. Facebook and Twitter, among others, are portals not dissimilar to the sad, empty cinema where Joel, Servo and Crow watched bad movies, their riffs providing a sense of community.

Maybe that’s why “Mystery Science Theater” keeps enjoying afterlives. Michael J. Nelson, who replaced Mr. Hodgson on the TV series until it ended in 1999, offers RiffTrax, audio riffs to play alongside DVD releases of current and older films. The comedian Doug Benson, host of the popular podcast “Doug Loves Movies,” organized a live screening series in Los Angeles, “The Doug Benson Movie Interruption,” in which he and friends (like Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman and Ed Helms) riff on a movie for the audience. And Kevin Smith, the filmmaker and inveterate podcaster, is starting a show on Hulu this week called “Spoilers.”

Mr. Smith was quick to note that this was riffing not like “Mystery Science Theater” but in the tradition of his first film, “Clerks,” in which the characters spitball about a movie everyone’s already seen, “Star Wars.” In “Spoilers” Mr. Smith plans to screen a current release at Universal City Walk in Los Angeles then take the audience to a nearby studio for what he sees as a live version of a movie chat room.

“I don’t think a movie discussion ever dies anymore,” he said.

Meanwhile, as alumni from Riff Camp 2012 prepared to perform this weekend at the Colonial Theater in nearby Phoenixville (the same theater where scenes from the original “ Blob” were filmed), Mr. Hodgson and his fellow “Mystery Science Theater” alums were busy putting together a “Cinematic Titanic” show set for July in Ann Arbor, Mich. They will be riffing on two 1970s films — “Rattlers” (rattlesnakes and nerve gas!) and “The Doll Squad,” which, Mr. Hodgson said, is about “a seven-woman army that was supposedly the prototype for ‘Charlie’s Angels.’ ” Set riffing engines to full throttle.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/mo...ref=television

It may have already started.


CNN has been down for a long time. Not sure a war can pull them back to number 1. The last Gulf War was to have done that and FNC won that "war". Over the last year or two, FNC has equaled them or pulled slightly ahead on breaking news. But I agree, lack of big breaking news has hurt them overall but if that is your only claim to fame, time to clean house and look for a new shtick.


Yep.

The problem with Iraq is that is was a ground and bunker war. It's not entertaining for the viewer seeing guys walking, driving and periodically crouching down to shoot at someone or shake them down for weapons. When the war became unpopular, people started tuning into the yelling heads on the other channels who agreed with the viewer's opinions. Fox and the others won out by saying what the viewers wanted to hear, not for reporting on the events.

Kuwait, by contrast, was an air war taking place mostly at night over a much smaller and more contained area. CNN excelled at bringing live images of it back home - so much so, the military would occasionally use the coverage to see if they hit their targets.

CNN has always done right by live, breaking news coverage from anywhere in the world - be it war, terrorist acts or natural disasters. Fox loses out to that every time. The one thing CNN always seems to do better is showing the event as it unfolds. Too often, Fox and the other news channels cut away to the studio leaving the viewer at home nothing compelling to look at. The problem is, when there's nothing compelling to show, CNN languishes because they have nothing to to say to draw people in.

When speculation and accusations are the only thing left to say when facts are unknown, the viewer is going to want their thoughts projected back at them. They want to be validated by someone. The other news outlets do that well.

The fact is, when someone harms a child or shoots up a building full of people, the viewers don't want to hear words like "allegedly" or "suspected of". The want to hear someone agree with them this is a bad dude.

What CNN needs for the rest of the time is some roundtable shows where people debate each other (intermixed with regular news updates) with the ability to pre-empt it to go somewhere live at a moments notice. Make the shows informal, while the news and breaking stories are at the news desk to shift people's focus from opinion to "this is really important right now, so don't tune away" stuff.

They can't go to automation during those periods or they'll lose the one ace they have in the hole to get instant ratings.

CNN does the terrible thing of reporting news, while the others are just as interested if not more so in creating news. I notice it more and more, the big ratings go to the channels that seem to interject their opinion in the reporting and blur the line between news and opinion. of course that's just my opinion

Now, now, now. They're all guilty of that depending on your perspective. And, yes, I speak as a trained journalist (though I never went into news work). I learned from the best. And "the best" still shake their heads at the heavy slants we see, today. Including CNN. Read Bernard Goldberg, sometime.

More likely, in a medium of images, CNN chooses the wrong ones. I still say preference of news networks has less to do with bias and more to do with images. Pretty pictures, flashy graphics, conversational style done by attractive people. It wins every time. Local stations learned this a LONG time ago. CNN missed the memo. Sorry, but Wolf and Candy scare people. Shep and Megyn don't. For that matter, Robin Meade is easy on the eyes, but HLN gets the redheaded stepchild treatment. Otherwise, HLN would beat its sister station most of the day. They do a better job.

You can argue pretty people and production values. Sadly, it's style over substance when you're going for a mass audience. ...but let's not get a bias war going. They're ALL biased. End of story.

CNN has the best sets, I'd say. Hate the new graphics though. Loved the old minimalist look.

My problem with CNN is that the anchors are either completely disinterested in the story (because it is beyond banal, especially during the daytime hours) or speak to the viewer as if either he/she the anchor has only a first grade education or the viewer does.

Say what you will about Fox and MSNBC, but just about every anchor on either network believes that his show is the most important on television and his viewers the most informed, and treats them as such. CNN acts as if the only news consumption any of its viewers gets is from Access Hollywood or People magazine.

Its his revenge....

I agree with this. I've had occasion to watch CNN recently, usually in doctor/hospital waiting rooms, and I cannot believe how boring they have gotten. When I want that, I can turn on NPR on the radio. TV is a visual as well as audio experience and that applies to the news as much as any drama or sitcom. If the "journalist" looks uninterested in the story or guest, why should I stay tuned? When I want the news, I don't care about bias, but I do want a pleasant experience and CNN just doesn't give me that anymore. I actually think our local ABC, NBC and IND do better jobs.

As for wanting stuff repeated back to me, that is just plain hogwash, and I won't comment further or Dr Don won't be happy.

I must be unusual, because I like to watch both Wolf and Candy. Wolf is occasionally guilty of parroting the daily DNC talking points, but he does it in a nice way. Candy is to me just the consummate journalist, and I never see bias there. But she doesn't get much airtime. Guess she's not skinny enough. And Jack Cafferty isn't as biased as he used to be, but is still a "hoot", and fun to watch.

I just hate to see CNN in danger of folding. I don't want to see the only real cable news being FNC. While their "news" programs are fairly balanced, the revenue shows in primetime are strongly right leaning. But at least they do present opposing views, something the NBC cable news network doesn't allow.

My opinion, which network execs consider worthless, is we need honest journalism in cable news. The future doesn't look good there.

That's the main reason I RARELY watch ANY TV news on any network, especially the sliced, diced and edited news from the NBC outlets. With the internet, there is no need to watch them along with way too many promos and commercials.

Oh, plus I'm over 50, so broadcasters and advertising/marketing reps could care less about me anyway.

To me, it's just the same only a different medium. I'm sure you have your favorite sites, so how is that any different from someone who has their favorite channels?


I'm over 65, so I'm even less appreciated about than you.

Oh... we appreciate you, We appreciate every viewer that likes a good, well told, informative news story. That's us at 60 MINUTES.

TV Notes
Face the Nation': Have you heard of Ed Rendell's book?
By Hal Boedeker, Orlando Sentinel's 'TV Guy' Blog

The Sunday morning guest list:

Former Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., has a book to sell, and it's called A Nation of Wusses. He will be part of a Face the Nation panel with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Michael Gerson of The Washington Post; and Bob Shrum, former chief strategist to the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign. The CBS program airs at 10:30 a.m. on WKMG-Channel 6. Other guests include David Axelrod, senior strategist of the Obama Re-Election Campaign; Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee; David Sanger of The New York Times and author of Confront and Conceal; and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek and author of Kill and Capture.

Former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., will be a guest on NBC's Meet the Press at 9 a.m. on WESH-Channel 2. Two governors discuss the presidential campaign: Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass., supports Barack Obama, and Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, backs Mitt Romney. The panel will be Mayor Kasim Reed, D-Atlanta; Kevin Madden, senior Romney adviser; Steve Schmidt, senior strategist for Sen. John McCain in 2008; and Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress.

Paul Krugman of The New York Times will be a panelist on ABC's This Week at 11 a.m. on WFTV-Channel 9. Other panelists are George Will, Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile, Stephanie Cutter of the Obama campaign and Eric Fehrnstrom of the Romney campaign.

Ed Gillespie, senior adviser to the Romney campaign, is a guest on Fox News Sunday at 9 a.m. on WOFL-Channel 35. Obama will be represented by Steven Rattner, former lead adviser of the president's auto task force. The panel will be Juan Williams, David Brody of CBN News, A.B. Stoddard of The Hill and Chip Saltsman, former campaign manager for Mike Huckabee.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, talks to CNN's State of the Union at 9 a.m. Other guests are Gov. Bob McDonnell, R-Va.; Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/ent...ells-book.html

TV Notes
NBC's 'Whitney' getting new showrunner
By James Hibberd, EW.com's 'Inside TV' Blog

Another NBC series is getting a new showrunner. This season has seen top writer-producers exit on Smash, Community, The Office and now freshman comedy Whitney is making a big change.

Executive producer Betsy Thomas is stepping down from her post on the Whitney Cummings sitcom. Instead, Friends veteran Wil Calhoun will take the lead (who were you expecting, Dan Harmon?). Calhoun most recently worked on NBC's Kath & Kim, CBS' Gary Unmarried and Fox's I Hate My Teenage Daughter. Meanwhile Thomas has already landed another gig: She's moving over to serve as co-executive producer on NBC's upcoming comedy Guys With Kids.

Whitney wasn't exactly a ratings sensation on NBC this year and some were surprised when the show was renewed. But this fall Whitney will open a new comedy block for the network at 8 p.m. on Friday nights, leading into the return of Community.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/05/31/whitney-showrunner/

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TV Notes
Boss' season 2 trailer

Muscle rigidity, whole body tremors, it's an acute acceleration of the disease yup, TV's most feel-good drama is coming back. Starz' grim political drama Boss is returning for a second season with a new showrunner, Dee Johnson (The Good Wife), and several new co-stars, including Jonathan Groff (Glee).

Boss returns Aug. 17. Here's the first trailer [CLICK LINK BELOW]:

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/05/31/bo...first-trailer/

Technology/Legal Notes
TiVo Sued by Cisco Over DVR Patents
By Eriq Gardner, The Hollywood Reporter's 'TV Guy' Blog - Jun. 1, 2012

TiVo is involved in another big fight over DVR patents.

Cisco Systems has filed a lawsuit against the DVR pioneer that seeks to invalidate four of TiVo's patents and is asking for a declaratory judgment that its products are not infringing.

The plaintiff says in a lawsuit filed in California federal court that it is facing a threat from TiVo, which has resisted giving a license to reserve the possibility of a lawsuit. Cisco is a provider of DVRs to AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Verizon Communications, among others.

"Absent a declaration of invalidity and/or non-infringement, TiVo will continue to wrongfully allege that Cisco DVRs and Cisco's customers infringe the TiVo patents and thereby cause Cisco irreparable injury and damage," the Cisco lawsuit argues.

TiVo declined a request for comment.

The company has previously been involved in litigation with Microsoft, AT&T, Motorolla, Verizon and Dish. The lawsuits have yielded some big-dollar settlements including $500 million from Dish last month and $215 million from AT&T earlier in the year. The company's dispute with Microsoft also was recently resolved.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr...patents-332206

Critic's Notes
When Dallas' Was the Capital of America
By Heather Havrilesky, The New York Times' 'Riff' Column - Jun. 3, 2012

In the 1980s, there were two competing visions of wealth on TV: Dallas and Dynasty. People tend to lump the two nighttime soaps together, but aside from the characters' habit of resolving major conflicts in the swimming pool, the two shows couldn't be more different. Dynasty constructed a fantasy of domestic royalty and jet-setting escapism, offering a portrait of the rich as diamond-strewn, evening-gown-clad ghosts drifting from their private jets to their enormous mansions as servants rushed about carrying silver platters. Dallas, by contrast, stayed firmly rooted in middle-class American values, presenting a picture that was more Big Boy breakfast buffet than Breakfast at Tiffany's. With its cowboy hats and flocked wallpaper and Hatfields-versus-McCoys-style feuds, Dallas was as provincial and preglobal-economy as it gets. Even Southfork's décor, with its dark paneling, garish paintings and low ceilings, mirrored the claustrophobia of the country club: cramped, wall-to-wall carpeted spaces packed with small-minded people lugging their gigantic egos around behind them like overstuffed golf bags.

But Dallas was never designed to inspire so much as to haunt. Unlike the Carringtons, who were always dashing off to overseas business meetings or throwing glitzy events or calling their brokers to sell stock, the Ewings were slow-moving, repeated themselves often and had an unmatched tolerance for long, uncomfortable silences. They certainly didn't have glamorous problems: Sue Ellen was an alcoholic, Lucy popped pills and slept around, Jock was an overbearing patriarch and Bobby was a little brother with an inferiority complex. Although its characters may have been preoccupied by the oil business, Dallas was mostly about struggling to maintain your identity not to mention your sanity within the suffocating confines of the middle-American family. Those interminable scenes in the den at Southfork, in which the whole clan gathered to toss back drinks, their elbows always brushing past plants or nearly knocking over lamps, their bodies always shifting uncomfortably in their armchairs, captured the airless prison of dysfunctional kinship.

While Blake jetted off to Tokyo and Alexis intimidated Krystle with her (then-exotic) British accent, what most concerned the Ewings of Ewing Oil wasn't the relatively modern (and now shockingly common) goal of international success. The Ewings simply wanted to keep power within the Ewing family and to keep outsiders from infiltrating their ranks. (He's not our kind was a common refrain.) The most important discussions at Southfork centered on whether you were or weren't a real Ewing. Whether Bobby and J. R. were feeling affectionate or angry, they referred to their parents as Mama and Daddy. Anyone who would dare to insult Jock or Miss Ellie could expect a sock to the jaw. Defectors were reminded repeatedly that without their family identity, they were nothing. Despite our differences, Bobby, you're still a Ewing, Jock told Bobby through gritted teeth when Bobby tried to leave Southfork at the end of Season 3. We've only got each other. We've got to stick together.

From the first moments of TNT's Dallas remake (or continuation, because the show picks up 20-odd years after the original story left off), something is askew. It isn't just the sudden, verdant lushness of Southfork, which in the old days always had the flat, yellowing look of a place you would never want to get stuck. It isn't the bland, Abercrombie & Fitch-model prettiness of the show's young stars Jesse Metcalfe, Jordana Brewster and Josh Henderson that has nothing in common with the regular-folks charms of Patrick Duffy, the creepy-uncle appeal of Larry Hagman or the homecoming-court runner-up magnetism of Charlene Tilton. Where the big fish of Southfork once circled their small pond with the clumsy resignation of trapped creatures, this new generation of Ewings talks and moves with the slick efficiency of characters in a swashbuckling high-capitalist adventure directed by Michael Bay. When we witness J. R.'s son John Ross and his girlfriend, Elena, whooping it up over newly discovered oil, or we see Bobby's son Christopher chatting excitedly about the promise of methane drilling while pacing back and forth in his pristine office loft, the contrast becomes especially clear: These younger Ewings are all about action and entrepreneurship, about seizing the day and making a name for themselves in the wider world outside.

In fact, this extreme-makeover version of Dallas could take place anywhere on the globe; call the show London or Mumbai or Beijing, and you've got the same fit humans tapping away at their laptops and pumping their fists over the latest business deal. Aside from John Ross's cowboy hat and the occasional outdoor barbecue, this is just another gaggle of energetic, beautiful people with international ambitions and very little body hair, bedding and double-crossing one another to a generic twangy-guitar soundtrack. None of the claustrophobia or the character of the original series remains. No one in China cares what a Ewing is, after all. All that matters is the ability to reinvent yourself, over and over again, in accordance with the market's demands.

Maybe that old Ewing game of outsiders and insiders, of us against them, of loyalty and closed-minded allegiance, was too specific a product of the patriotism and white-man's-burden supremacy of Reagan's America to reproduce for the Facebook age. Because make no mistake, the megamansion fever dream of Dynasty may have spawned a whole generation of offspring aspirationally named Krystle and Alexis, but Dallas is the show that is most emblematic of its era. How else did a scoundrel as arrogant as J. R. Ewing wind up on the cover of Time magazine in 1980? J. R. wasn't even meant to be the lead character of Dallas, but when audiences were first treated to his smooth patriarchal condescension in 1978, they couldn't get enough. A far cry from the deeply conflicted protagonists of today's TV dramas Don Draper, Walter White, Tony Soprano J. R. was always smugly satisfied with his bad behavior. The show's writers may have flirted with J. R.'s suicide as the ultimate cliffhanger to round out the series in 1991, but self-destruction was never his thing; he was all about backslapping sadism. There was always something familiar about J. R., the way he couched his overconfidence and malice in the relaxed, folksy wisdom of the country boy. Even when he was outnumbered, he never felt outmatched, and the more power he had, the more sure he felt that power was his birthright. Or, as Ronald Reagan put it in his 1984 State of the Union address: We can be proud to say, We are first; we are the best; and we are so because we're free.'

This flavor of swagger isn't as common today, outside Kanye albums and certain self-promotional Twitter feeds. But it once represented a period-specific American grandiosity that felt synonymous with Texan pride. In the '80s and early '90s, plenty of us watching Dallas bought into this mythical vision of Texas as the heart of the country, the last frontier, a land of handsome cowboys galloping across the grassy ranchland, home of the freest and the bravest. Even the campaigns against littering (Don't Mess With Texas!) felt a little menacing, faintly mimicking America's cold-war foreign policy. Reagan tapped into this Lone Star love affair with his frequent allusions to the frontier spirit and near-constant appearances on horseback, waving and smiling like Roy Rogers. His Hollywood-friendly cowboy routine helped pave the way for the far less charismatic Texas oil millionaire George H. W. Bush, who made the best of his home address, despite the fact that he couldn't quite shake the Kennebunkport mud from his rubber galoshes.

In the past decade, though, the bloom came off Texas's yellow rose, as J. R.'s cartoon of provincial arrogance seemed to shove its way into the real world. Between Enron's spectacular flameout, Dick Cheney's South Texas shooting accident and George W. Bush's good-old-boy recklessness on an international stage, it seemed best to forget the Alamo. And this was all long before Rick Perry, the Texas governor, struggled to form simple sentences behind the Republican debate lectern.

Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that in the new Southfork, bourbon-fueled outbursts have been replaced by nonchalant wheeling and dealing. I'll need $75,000 for the driller, Elena tells Sue Ellen, who, like all of the other characters on the show, seems to strike up major business partnerships after a minimal exchange of pleasantries. (I'll have it transferred into your account today, Sue Ellen replies. Thank you, Sue Ellen. My pleasure.) Instead of settling the clashing obligations of family and business with poolside fisticuffs, today's Ewings consistently prioritize the entrepreneurial over the personal. Christopher offers Elena, a former girlfriend, a $20,000 check after they work together to make sure there's never any legal dispute about who owns what. And John Ross asks Elena, If I agree to go back in business with you, what about us? One step at a time, she replies, making it clear that money should always come before love. The assumption that extreme ambition and avarice are natural for young and old alike and that moneymaking schemes take precedence over all else looms over this story like a noxious cloud.

Maybe this is the version of Dallas that we deserve. Amid the swirl of news about the wobbly Facebook initial public offering and a $2 billion loss for JPMorgan Chase within just six weeks, TNT's fantastical tale of rich kids free to pursue their wildest, riskiest, most expensive dreams fits the current times just as well as the original Dallas fit Reagan's America.

So why do I feel a whiff of nostalgia for the stifling nightmares of Southfork, for Sue Ellen swilling liquor and slurring her words, for J. R. chuckling malevolently at his little brother? At least it was obvious that those characters were meant to echo our worst selves and that they would pay a price for their recklessness. When faced with the soulless, fast-moving ciphers of the new Dallas, I find it hard not to prefer trapped people with bad hair and big problems, knocking over lamps and spilling their drinks on the rug. They may have believed that they were first and best, but they never thought for a second that they were free.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/ma...ref=television