Hot Off The Press: The Latest TV News and Information - Page 2724

TV Review
‘The Next,’ one would hope the last
New CW singing competition follows the tired mentoring formula
By Tom Conroy, Media Life Magazine - Aug. 16, 2012

Sometimes TV producers choose a title that tells us virtually nothing about their show. Sometimes that's because the show's premise isn't that interesting.

The CW's new series "The Next" turns out to be a singing competition in which each week four established musicians serve as mentors for 72 hours to unsigned wannabes from a different city with a good music scene. The four wannabes each perform a song at a local venue; the audience votes; and the winner will advance to finals to be held at the end of the season, the prize being a recording contract with a major label.

Since the star-mentor angle is lifted from NBC's singing competition "The Voice," this show varies it slightly by having the celebrities spend their mentoring time at their mentees' homes or hangouts. But these scenes are mostly played for laughs, and we learn next to nothing about music or performance skills. We don't even get to vote for a winner. We're left with four middling-to-good performances but little suspense or fun.

The premiere episode, airing tonight at 9, opens at the House of Blues in Orlando, Fla., where the host, Allison Hagendorf, introduces the four mentors — Joe Jonas, Gloria Estefan, John Rich and Nelly — and explains the premise.

"The best way to become a superstar," she says, "is to learn from one." But when we see the taped segments in which the stars spend time with the newbies, little learning takes place.

Jonas, who broke out as a teenager with the Jonas Brothers, goes to the home of an 18-year-old singer-guitarist named Taylor Buono, who already has a substantial Internet following. He first has to assure her parents that he's not looking for a date.

Jonas has Buono extemporize a song about babysitting to some children, then says he's going to talk to her friends. Psych! He actually talks to her dog! When he does talk to her friends, he learns that she needs to try to surprise people and come out of her shell. If those were the highlights of three days of training, the outtakes must be deadly.

In her performance at the House of Blues, Buono sings One Republic's "Secrets," revealing a light but serviceable voice that would probably get her a ticket to Hollywood on "American Idol."

Before asking the mentors' opinions, Hagendorf asks Nelly if he's ever babysat. He says that's not on his résumé, getting a huge laugh.

The mentors all overpraise Buono. "Whatever you told her," Rich says to Jonas, "it worked, because that was an incredible performance."

Estefan is assigned a glamorous singer named Cori Yarckin, who, Hagendorf tell us, was voted the top unsigned artist on MySpace and has already toured with the Jonas Brothers. After running Cori's lawn mower for a few seconds and helping her plant some tomatoes, Estefan tries to talk her out of her stage fright. "Thoughts create reality," Estefan says, "and fear is a very powerful emotion."

Yarckin's performance, of Lady Gaga's "Edge of Glory," feels slightly more professional than Buono's, but the mentors' comments are equally positive and generic.

The other two mentoring sequences are even more off-subject. Rich visits a country singer-guitarist named Michael Ray and goofs around, supposedly sneaking into his bathroom while Ray is showering to make him sing scales. Wouldn't you know the shower curtain would fall off the rod at just that moment!

Mentoring a singer named Itzy Rodriguez, Nelly warns her that they have only 72 hours to work together. He proceeds to share a roast-pig dinner with her family and go to her day job, a sunglass store.

Eventually, viewers will learn to ignore or fast-forward through the mentoring segments and try to enjoy the singing. Both Ray and Rodriguez turn in good performances. The right person wins the audience's vote.

Thanks to the reality-TV boom of the last 10 years, we already have too much of what "The Next" has to offer: talented unknown singers and celebrities trying to appear spontaneously funny on camera. Perhaps the show's title is a reference to what viewers will be saying at the end of the premiere: "Next!"

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/the-next-one-would-hope-the-last/

Is mentioned in the cablevision thread already but they just signed with NFLN/Redzone to start tomorrow.

Time Warner/Brighthouse only 2 major holdouts for now.

TV Sports
Bill Macatee nets lead role on CBS' U.S. Open tennis
By Michael Hiestand, USA Today - Aug. 15, 2012

CBS announced who will be just the fifth person to serve as the main play-by-play announcer on its U.S. Open tennis coverage: Bill Macatee.

Macatee replaces Dick Enberg, who has gradually retired from his various national TV roles to continue in his third year as a San Diego Padres TV announcer.

"Dick just wasn't available to do it with his Padres commitment," CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus said. "We've been planning to have Bill take this role for many years. It's a logical choice and was one of the easier decisions to make in terms of (CBS) announcers. Bill was the heir-apparent."

The only other lead announcers for CBS' coverage of the U.S. Open have been Bud Collins, when the network got the TV rights beginning in 1968; Pat Summerall and Tim Ryan.

Macatee, who joined CBS' tennis coverage in 1997 and is a host on the Tennis Channel, seems psyched. About the men's side of the draw: "We're in a golden age in tennis, where we're seeing some of the best tennis ever played — maybe the best." And about Serena Williams, the gold medalist "has clearly re-asserted herself as the leading force in the game."

Macatee also appears on CBS' golf and NFL coverage.

Something different: TBS will throw a change-up on its Los Angeles Dodgers-Atlanta Braves game Sunday (1:30 p.m. ET).

Spokesman Nate Smeltz said TBS will use a retired softball pitcher, alongside a retired MLB pitcher, as game analysts.

Michele Smith, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, will join Ernie Johnson and former MLB pitcher John Smoltz to call the game.

Why? Ratings-wise, it can't hurt.

Since 2007, TBS' Sunday afternoon MLB games have averaged 0.5% of U.S. TV households. That diminutive rating results at least partly from TBS' coverage being blacked out in the local TV markets of teams playing.

The novelty of using Smith — presumably the first ex-female softball player to call national TV MLB action — should at least help TBS draw some attention.

She appeared on TBS sister channel TNT during its NBA Western Conference Finals coverage and used her pitching skills to strike out studio analyst Charles Barkley at a batting facility.

Olympic mystery: What's up with Kansas City and London?

Olympic TV viewer interest is traditionally highest in the West. So, it's no surprise that the Pacific time zone got the highest ratings for NBC's Olympic prime-time coverage.

And it's no surprise that Salt Lake City, which hosted the 2002 Winter Games, would draw the highest local ratings for NBC's London Olympic primetime — averaging a whopping 25% of local households there. (Nationally, NBC's primetime averaged 17.5% of U.S. TV households.)

The surprise: Kansas City, which wasn't even among the 10 highest-rated local TV markets for the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, ranked No. 2. NBC's primetime averaged 22.5% there.

If you have any theories why that happened, tweet them to @hiestandusat. (And no, it couldn't have been from lots of local athletes winning medals in London. According to U.S. Olympic Committee data, just two medals were won by athletes from the Kansas City area.)

A DJ for TV sports: UNITE, a live nightly show (midnight, ET) that will try to combine comedy and sports talk as it debuts Aug. 27 on ESPNU, will also have a DJ. No, we're not making that up. Rob Swift will use the so-called turntablism DJ style, scratching out new rhythms by pressing his hands against vinyl records on turntables.

ESPN won't say how many of its various game or studio analysts applied for the role.

The latest ex-coaches coming to TV: The CBS Sports Network cable channel will let three more former college football coaches try on its pancake makeup this fall. CBSSN, to carry 44 college football games from conferences including the Mountain West and Conference USA, will have ex-Mississippi coach Houston Nutt, ex-Illinois coach Ron Zook and ex-Minnesota coach Tim Brewster.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/story/2012-08-14/Michael-Hiestand-Bill-Macatee/57057284/1

Business Notes
DOJ Approves SpectrumCo Deal
Cable ops, Verizon Wireless agree to conditions
By Mike Farrell, Multichannel News - Aug. 16, 2012

A quartet of cable operators received approval from the U.S. Department of Justice on its $3.9 billion sale of wireless spectrum to Verizon Wireless, but not without a few concessions.

Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks agreed in December to sell their 122 Advanced Wireless Spectrum licenses -- held in a separate entity called SpectrumCo -- to Verizon, a deal that also included a landmark co-marketing agreement between the cable operators and the wireless giant, for $3.6 billion.

Separately, Cox Communications also agreed to sell its AWS spectrum to Verizon for $325 million.

The licenses, first purchased by SpectrumCo for $2.4 billion in the federal AWS auctions in 2006, cover 259 million people across the country.

That part of the deal was the source of some concern from competitors many of whom filed objections to the deal after it was announced.

Among the concessions made: Verizon has agreed not to sell cable products in markets where Verizon Communications' FiOS TV product also is sold and it would lose its ability to resell cable services in areas where Verizon sells digital subscriber line service in 2016, subject to renewal.

In addition, cable companies would be able to resell wireless services from Verizon competitors after five years, at which time they may also partner with other wireless service providers.

Verizon has also agreed to form a technology research and development joint venture with the cable operators.

The co-marketing efforts have primarily centered around offering pre-paid Visa cards with a bundle of cable and wireless services. So far, Comcast has launched joint offers with Verizon Wireless in 21 states -- Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Washington. Time Warner Cable has focused its initial co-marketing efforts on eight states -- Maine, Nebraska, Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Wisconsin - and Cox has launched offerings in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla.

In a statement, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the DOJ's antitrust division Joseph Wayland said the conditions "provided the right remedy for competition and consumers."

The Federal Communications Commission also is expected to approve the deal. Earlier today, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski recommended the commission approve the transaction based on the DOJ consent decree.

"Because of these substantial undertakings and in light of the Consent Decree the companies executed with the Justice Department today, I believe the Commission should now approve this transaction, and I will be circulating a draft order to my colleagues that would do so," Genachowski said in a statement.

Comcast, which owns the largest portion of SpectrumCo at 63.5%, was obviously pleased with the approval.

"We appreciate the timely completion of the antitrust review by the government of the proposed sale of spectrum and associated commercial agreements between Verizon Wireless, Comcast, and the other cable companies, Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said in a statement on a Comcast blog. "And, we are pleased that the consent decree that we have negotiated with the Department of Justice preserves the most important goals of the agreements, including Comcast's ability to market Verizon Wireless services throughout our footprint in order to offer our customers a wireless option, Verizon Wireless' ability to market our products in virtually all of our footprint, our ability to opt into an MVNO relationship with Verizon Wireless, and the essential structure of the innovation R&D technology joint venture. We are also pleased that the FCC is circulating an order proposing approval of the spectrum sale and we are hopeful that a final order will be issued shortly."

http://www.multichannel.com/article/488555-DOJ_Approves_SpectrumCo_Deal.php

TV Notes
Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson: Why ‘Copper’ is proving its mettle on TV ... and not at the movies
By David Hinckley, New York Daily News - Aug. 16, 2012

Barry Levinson doesn’t think it’s real hard to explain why an A-list of actors and directors has been migrating from the movies to television.

“Hollywood doesn’t give a s— these days about 75% of the audience,” he says. “They only want the big payday. And the kind of movie that gives you the big payday is so expensive you can’t just make $200 million. You need to make $400 million.”

Levinson says he has nothing against that kind of movie, with state-of-the-art special effects and superheroes and video-game levels of nonstop action. The kind that teenagers will see a dozen times with their friends, then download.

But if those films fill the whole multiplex, that doesn’t leave room for movies with, say, more complex characters or a more deliberate story that stimulates the mind, not just the adrenalin.

“We’re people who like stories,” says Levinson. “It’s in our DNA. We’re not just going to sit and stare at each other. We’re going to find them. And Hollywood is shutting 75% of us out. It’s like when GM was only building SUVs - and you see how that worked out.”

So Levinson has picked up his camera and, for the moment, gone elsewhere. To television.

More specifically, he’s gone to BBC America, where his 10-part series “Copper” launches Sunday night at 10.

The first scripted series commissioned by BBCA, “Copper” picks up in 1864 New York.

It focuses on Kevin Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones), who came back from the war to join the early NYPD, when it was almost entirely Irish because that’s one of the jobs the Irish could get.

Corcoran is haunted by multiple demons. His daughter was murdered, his wife disappeared.

He’s an imperfect man in an imperfect city where his circle includes a courtly black doctor, Matthew Freeman (Ato Essandoh); a cagey fellow cop, Francis McGuire (Kevin Ryan); a madam named Eva (Franka Potente); the shadowy aristocrat Elizabeth Haverford (Anastasia Griffith), and the even more shadowy aristocrat Robert Morehouse (Kyle Schmid).

Not to mention Annie Reilly (Kiara Glasco), a barely teenage girl forced to become old before she had a chance to be young.

Glasco's Annie, though, is not a tragic victim out of some Victorian parlor ballad. She’s got edges, and she may be the most intriguing television adolescent this side of Kieran Shipka’s Sally Draper on “Mad Men.”

Levinson frames this world in brooding gray and sepia tones. It’s civilized, but in many places barely so.

It will likely draw comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York,” which was set in the same notorious Five Points area, and the adjective “Dickensian” can be expected to come up.

“‘Dickensian’ is a good word,” says Levinson, after a moment’s thought, and he also doesn't mind the suggestion that “Copper” has elements of a Western.

“A lot of the things people associate with the West really didn’t start there at all,” he muses. “As we moved west, we just carried a lot of them with us.”

What drew him to “Copper,” he says, was simply the chance to tell a story about an interesting time with interesting characters, plus the space to lay it out.

“What was going on in New York then was fascinating,” he says. “You had the Civil War, you had friction with immigrants, you had civic corruption, you had the divide between the wealthy and the working class, you had the start of social movements.

“You had a lot of the problems we still have today. You see how New York’s problems would become the country’s problems.”

For all the universality of the themes, though, Levinson said he wants “Copper” to play as an authentic period piece.

“You have no idea when you start how much stuff you have to build and re-create,” he says. “You find you need some object, and how else are you going to get it?”

In contrast to a show like “Deadwood” or “Boss,” Levinson says he didn’t want a markedly poetic undercurrent in the language.

“I wanted it to sound like people would have talked then,” he says. “We wanted to use the music people would have been hearing. We have ‘Beautiful Dreamer,’ which Stephen Foster had just written. You’ll hear ‘Aura Lee,’ the tune that Elvis used for ‘Love Me Tender.’ We asked, ‘What would someone have been playing in a brothel in 1864?’”

These first 10 episodes will edge the story up toward the end of the Civil War, Levinson says, and there’s plenty of story to extend beyond there.

“I guess you could tell this story as a movie,” he says. “But it wouldn’t be the same. You’d have to squeeze so much out. You can do things on television you could never do in the movies.”

He adds here that he expects to make feature films again, including a finale to his informal “Diner” series.

But he’s never considered himself above television, executive-producing NBC’s “Homicide” in the 1990s and then HBO’s “Oz.”

He just says the pendulum of attractiveness has swung a little further toward TV of late.

“Most of my movies would never have gotten made today,” he says, running through “Diner,” “Rain Man,” “Tin Men,” “The Natural,” “Good Morning Vietnam,” “Bugsy” and more. “It’s just a different sensibility.

“When Paul Newman died, I started thinking about that.

“Here’s a guy who was a pretty big movie star. So let’s run through his filmography. Could ‘Cool Hand Luke’ have been made today? No, too depressing. ‘The Young Philadelphians’? No. ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’? No, nobody goes to Westerns. ‘Hud’? Not a chance.

“Maybe the only one of Paul Newman’s movies that would get made today is ‘The Towering Inferno.’”

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/oscar-winning-director-barry-levinson-copper-proving-mettle-tv-movies-article-1.1136952

Business Notes
Cablevision Strikes Deal for NFL Network, RedZone
NFL Media's Rolapp says they are not talking with Time Warner Cable
By Tim Baysinger, Broadcasting and Cable - Aug. 16, 2012

Cablevision has reached a multiyear carriage agreement with the NFL Network, which will finally put the league-owned channel on the New York area's largest TV provider.

The deal, which also includes the league's RedZone Channel, will see the network debut on Cablevision systems Friday. It will be available to customers who subscribe to iO Preferred, iO Silver, iO Gold or the iO Sports & Entertainment Pak. RedZone will be part of the iO Sports & Entertainment Pak.

"We are thrilled to be partners with them," said NFL Media COO Brian Rolapp. "This is an important milestone for the NFL Network."

The agreement also means that NFL Network will now reach over 60 million homes. With the increased distribution, Rolapp said the league may soon join the TV Everywhere game. "We are embracing the concept of authentication or TV Everywhere," said Rolapp. "All these deals account for multiple platform distribution rights."

"We know there is significant interest in the NFL Network and NFL RedZone among our Optimum TV customers, and are pleased to have worked productively with the NFL to offer both channels in time for the upcoming season, and for years to come," said Mac Budill, Cablevision's executive VP of programming, in a statement.

The deal leaves Time Warner Cable as the only major TV provider that has yet to reach a carriage agreement with the NFL Network. "We are not talking, regrettably," said Rolapp. "We're obviously not close."

The MSO earlier this month pulled the NFL Network from its acquired Insight Communications systems serving Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. Rolapp said they offered a one-year extension with no price increase.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/488550-Cablevision_Strikes_Deal_for_NFL_Network_RedZone.php

TV Notes
Whipping up yet another chef show
But ABC's 'Time Machine Chef' has a twist: No electricity
By Louisa Ada Seltzer, Media Life Magazine - Aug. 16, 2012

Between "Hell's Kitchen," "MasterChef," "Top Chef" and the plethora of programs on Food Network, one might think every cooking show concept had already been attempted.

Not so.

Tonight ABC puts its own twist on the popular genre with the 9 p.m. special "Time Machine Chef," in which chefs are challenged to head back to the Tudor age and cook like they did back then, without electricity or running water.

It may be the first time on TV that a chef has been foiled not by what spice to use but how to tie his meat onto a spit.

ABC has ordered only one episode of the show, but if it does well the network has left open the possibility of filming more.

The network could certainly use a boost.

It's been a difficult summer, with its most touted new show, "Duets," drawing disappointing numbers and returning programs "Bachelor Pad," "Secret Millionaire" and "Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition" falling from last year.

The bright spot for the network was "The Bachelorette," which finished among the summer's top five shows, averaging a 2.8 adults 18-49 rating, according to Nielsen.

Perhaps if "Time Machine" does well, pulling anything more than a 1.5 rating, ABC could consider using the time machine concept for "Bachelorette" as well. It would be fascinating to see the contestants try to relate to each other without a hot tub.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/whipping-up-yet-another-chef-show/

NFL Network caved into Cablevisions demands as the channel is not in the widely available iO Family and iO Value packages which the NFL always wanted it to be in.

TV Notes
AMC Orders Taxidermy & Venice Beach Unscripted Series, Renews ‘The Pitch’
By Nellie Andreeva, Deadline.com - Aug. 16, 2012

AMC continues to expand its reality footprint by picking up two new unscripted series — Untitled Taxidermy Series and Venice Beach Freakshow (working title). Both series have been picked up for 8 episodes to premiere in first quarter of 2013. They join Kevin Smith’s Comic Book Men and Talking Dead, which have been renewed for second seasons, and the network’s most recent unscripted series, Small Town Security, now on the air. Additionally, AMC announced that The Pitch, its unscripted series chronicling advertising agencies as they prepare campaigns to try and win a major new account, which recently finished its freshman run, is being picked up for a second cycle. While the focus has been on AMC’s strong scripted lineup, the cable network for the past couple of years quietly has been building a reality roster and actually has more unscripted than scripted series at its disposal right now.

The Taxidermy Series, from Go Go Luckey Entertainment (Laguna Beach), is a hosted competition featuring different contestants each week who create an ultimate piece of artwork showcasing the craft of taxidermy. Gary Auerbach, Julie Auerbach, Tina Gazzerro, and Henry Capanna executive produce. This marks the fourth taxidermy TV series to get a green light in the past year following such shows on Discovery, History and Animal Planet.

Venice Beach Freakshow is a family drama that centers on former music producer Todd Ray as he pursues his dream to own and operate his own ‘Freakshow’ on the famed boardwalk in Venice Beach, CA. The series is executive produced by Todd Ray from Living Wonders and Greg Johnston from Endemol USA.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/amc-orders-taxidermy-venice-beach-unscripted-series/

Nielsen Notes (Daytime)
'Good Morning America' Reclaims Ratings Advantage Over Post-Olympics 'Today'
By Michael O'Connell, The Hollywood Reporter's 'Live Feed' Blog - Aug. 16, 2012

Today did not return from London with its record ratings.

The NBC morning show, which delivered huge gains and audiences as high as 6 million during its Olympic coverage, lost its advantage among total viewers and the coveted adults 25-54 just three broadcasts after heading back to its New York studio.

Overnight numbers for Wednesday have Good Morning America besting Today in both categories, posting advantages of 517,000 with the audience (4.52 million over 4 million) and 178,000 in the key demographic (1.86 million over 1.68 million).

This win comes on the heels of July's first demo victory for GMA in 17 years and just a day after the ABC broadcast reclaimed the total viewers crown that had been out of its reach for the two weeks Today hosted NBC's exclusive Olympic coverage.

On Monday, Today maintained its advantages, topping GMA by 338,000 in total viewers and 156,000 in adults 25-54. Tuesday saw GMA top Today by 186,000 total viewers, coming in just 97,000 shy in the demo.

GMA, which has co-host Robin Roberts on vacation this week, likely benefited from Wednesday's highly publicized sit-down between George Stephanopoulos and Robert Pattinson. The actor has made few media appearances since his Twilight co-star and girlfriend Kristen Stewart admitted to having an affair with her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/good-morning-america-today-ratings-robert-pattinson-363254

Critic's Notes
Bianculli's Best Bets
By David Bianculli, TVWorthWatching.com - Aug. 17, 2012

TEACHERS ROCK
CBS, 8:00 p.m. ET
I’ve partial to this type of TV special, even if it does go for a bit too much surface gloss. It’s a celebration of teachers, with celebrities talking about the teachers who inspired them, while other performers, including Garth Brooks and Carrie Underwood, entertain by singing and playing in salute. What celebrities, you ask? (Well, maybe you ask. Maybe you’re just reading silently, while I’m writing aloud.) Meryl Streep, Jennifer Garner, Adam Levine and others. One of the others is Matthew Morrison of Glee, who isn’t a teacher – but he plays one on TV.

BOSS
Starz, 9:00 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: The Boss is back. And this year, Chicago Mayor Tom Kane (played by Kelsey Grammer) is, simultaneously, even more forceful and more fragile. For a full review, see Ed Bark’s Uncle Barky’s Bytes.

STRIKE BACK
Cinemax, 10:00 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: This series has turned out to be the biggest original Cinemax hit in years – not that it has that much prime-time competition, but still. And this year, this high-action drama about special forces working abroad on secret missions has a new operative: Rhona Mitra, who was wasted in ABC’s The Gates but unforgettably good in ABC’s The Practice and Boston Legal.

REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
SERIES RETURN: Bill Maher is back from his summer hiatus, and it’s too bad he picked such a slow news week on which to make his return, and to welcome such guests as Chelsea Handler. Aside from, say, Mitt Romney announcing the vice presidential spot on his Republican ticket, not much has happened…

BULLET IN THE FACE
IFC, 10:00 p.m. ET
MINISERIES FINALE: This Alan Spencer cop and action-movie spoof presented its first three episodes last night, and presents the final three tonight. This is the night when guest villains Eddie Izzard and Eric Roberts get most of their good scenes, and when Max Williams as Gunter Vogler, a bad guy given a good guy’s face, gets to share screen time with them. But keep your eye on Kate Kelton as the femme fatale brunette – and the femme fatale redhead as well. She has, and generates, the most fun of all here.

http://www.tvworthwatching.com/

TV Notes
HBO picks up Christopher Guest comedy starring Chris O'Dowd
By Nuzhat Naoreen, EW.com's 'Inside TV' Blog - Aug. 16, 2012

Filmmaker Christopher Guest is bringing his quirky sense of humor to the small-screen. HBO has placed a straight-to-series order for a new single-camera, documentary-style comedy from Guest, the director behind For Your Consideration and Best in Show, a rep for the network confirms.

The half-hour series, Family Tree, will star Bridesmaids actor Chris O’Dowd, as a recently jobless (and single!) 30-year-old who begins investigating his family lineage after receiving a mysterious box from a great aunt he never met. His research leads him to uncover a slew of unusual stories and characters, which in turn help him to establish a better sense of identity.

Both Guest and co-exec producer Jim Piddock are set to appear on the series, which will also air on BBC2. Karen Murphy, who worked with Guest on Best in Show and other projects, will also co-produce.

No word yet on when the show is set to premiere, but we’re already looking forward to the very special dog episode.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/08/16/christopher-guest-comedy-chris-odowd/

Tennis Channel's victory with the FCC is getting it better placement on Uverse and Comcast per filings with the Connecticut PURA. Uverse will move it from the Sports Package to U300 on October 1 and Comcast will move it from the Sports Pack to Digital starter on September 6, at least in CT.

Business Notes
Cablevision Systems stops carrying Tribune stations
By Joe Flint, Los Angeles Times' 'Company Town' Blog - Aug. 16, 2012

Unable to reach a new distribution agreement, New York-based cable operator Cablevision Systems Corp. said it is no longer carrying TV stations owned by Tribune Co.

Cablevision stopped carrying Tribune's stations at midnight Thursday. Shortly after that, the cable operator issued a statement saying that "Tribune and their hedge fund owners are demanding tens of millions in new fees" for its New York City TV station WPIX and other stations it owns.

Cablevision has about 3 million subscribers, primarily in the New York City region. Besides WPIX-TV New York, other Tribune stations no longer on Cablevision systems include WCCT-TV in Connecticut and WPHL-TV Philadelphia.

Disputes between programmers and distributors are becoming commonplace in the television industry. Earlier this year, satellite broadcaster DirecTV briefly stopped carrying Tribune stations when the two sides were unable to reach an agreement. Eventually a new pact was signed.

A Tribune spokesman did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment, and there was no notice about the spat with Cablevision on either WPIX-TV's website or the Tribune site.

Tribune is the parent company of the Los Angeles Times.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-tribcvc-20120816,0,3482736.story

TV Notes
New ABC Comedy Series ‘Family Tools’ Changes Showrunners
By Nellie Andreeva, Deadline.com - Aug. 16, 2012

EXCLUSIVE: There has been a change at the helm of the upcoming ABC comedy series The Family Tools. Bobby Bowman, who developed the adaptation of the British comedy White Van Man and wrote the pilot, has stepped down as executive producer/showrunner of the series. Veterans Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimiglia (That ’70s Show) have come in as executive producers and new showrunners. I hear the change stems from ABC and ABC Studios’ desire to have someone with showrunner experience steering the series. This is Bowman’s first series as a creator and/or showrunner. He previously worked as a key writer-producer on Greg Garcia’s three comedy series: Yes, Dear, My Name Is Earl and Raising Hope. I hear the network and the studio valued Bowman’s voice on the show and offered him to stay on staff but he chose to step aside and give the new showrunners a clean slate.

Family Tools centers on Jack Shea (Kyle Bornheimer) who inherits his father’s (J.K. Simmons) handyman business after he has a heart attack. Co-starring on the show, slated to launch in January, are Edi Gathegi, Danielle Nicolet, Leah Remini and Johnny Pemberton. Sternin and Ventimiglia will executive produce alongside Mark Gordon, Andrea Shay and Paul Buccieri.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/new-abc-comedy-series-family-tools-changes-showrunners/

TV Notes
Best tube bets this weekend
The top draws on broadcast and cable and in sports
By Louisa Ada Seltzer, Deadline.com - Aug. 17, 2012

FRIDAY

Best bet on broadcast: ABC, "20/20," 9 p.m. Barbara Walters, Elizabeth Vargas, Sharon Alfonsi and Cameron Mathison look at extreme parenting.

Best bet on cable: Starz, "Boss," 9 p.m. Season premiere. The mayor is showered with praise after he helps update airport terminals, but his health isn't good.

Top sporting event: Fox, "NFL Football," 8p.m. Preseason matchup between the Lions and Ravens in Baltimore.

SATURDAY

Best bet on broadcast: NBC, "Saturday Night Live," 11:30 p.m. Re-airing of an episode hosted by Jason Segel with musical guest Florence and the Machine.

Best bet on cable: Food Network, "Wedding Impossible," 10 p.m. Special follows "Restaurant Impossible" chef Robert Irvine as he plans his wedding to professional wrestler Gail Kim.

Top sporting event: NFL Network, "NFL Football," 7 p.m. It's the team that won the Super Bowl versus the team that gets all the media attention–and they play in the same stadium. The Giants take on the Jets and new team member Tim Tebow in a preseason game.

SUNDAY

Best bet on broadcast: NBC, "Sunday Night Football," 8 p.m. NBC's NFL coverage returns with a preseason game between Indianapolis and Pittsburgh.

Best bet on cable: TNT, "Falling Skies," 9 p.m. Season finale. Tom makes a discovery that could change things for the 2nd Mass.

Top sporting event: NBC, "Golf," 4 p.m. Final match of the U.S. Amateur championship from Cherry Hills Village, Colo.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/best-tube-bets-this-weekend-343/
Edited by dad1153 - 8/18/12 at 11:49am

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)
‘Big Brother’ surges again on Thursday
CBS reality show tops the night with a 2.3 in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald, Media Life Magazine - Aug. 17, 2012

"Big Brother" continued its post-Olympics gains, hitting its best Thursday rating since its premiere last night.

"Brother" averaged a 2.3 in adults 18-49 at 9 p.m., according to Nielsen, easily finishing as the highest-rated show in primetime.

The lack of Games competition on NBC certainly helped. The show surged 28 percent over last week, when NBC was showing the Olympics. ABC's "Wipeout" also surged without facing the Olympics, up 33 percent from last week to a 1.6.

Note, though, that CBS carried preseason football in two markets and that may have artificially inflated its ratings.

"Brother" lifted CBS into a tie for first place for the night with Fox, which had won the previous three nights as well.

Each network averaged a 1.8 overnight rating and a 6 share. ABC was third at 1.4/4, Univision fourth at 1.3/4, NBC fifth at 1.0/3, Telemundo sixth at 0.5/1 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.

Also, ratings for Fox's NFL coverage are approximate as fast nationals measure timeslot and not actual program data. And NBC and CBS both had preseason football coverage that preempted regular programming in two markets.

At 8 p.m. CBS led with a 2.0 for repeats of "The Big Bang Theory" and "Two and a Half Men," followed by Fox with a 1.8 for football. ABC was third with a 1.6 for "Wipeout," Univision fourth with a 1.3 for "Por Ella Soy Eva," NBC fifth with a 1.0 for reruns of "The Office" and "Parks and Recreation," Telemundo sixth with a 0.4 for "Rosa Diamante" and CW seventh with a 0.3 for a repeat of "Oh Sit!"

CBS was first at 9 p.m. with a 2.3 for "Brother," followed again by Fox with a 2.0 for football. Univision was third with a 1.4 for "Abismo de Pasion," ABC fourth with a 1.2 for the special "Time Machine Chefs," NBC fifth with a 0.9 for "Saving Hope," Telemundo sixth with a 0.4 for "Corazon Valiente" and CW seventh with a 0.3 for the series premiere of "The Next."

Fox moved to first at 10 p.m. with a 1.6 for football, with ABC second with a 1.3 for "Rookie Blue," up 18 percent over last week. Univision and NBC tied for third at 1.2, Univision for "Amor Bravio" and NBC for "Rock Center with Brian Williams," with CBS fifth with a 1.1 for a repeat of "Person of Interest" and Telemundo sixth with a 0.5 for "Pablo Escobar: El Patron del Mal" (0.7) and "El Rostro de la Venganza" (0.4).

Among households, CBS was first for the night with a 4.1 average overnight rating and a 7 share. Fox was second at 3.3/6, ABC and NBC tied for third at 2.9/5, Univision was fifth at 1.8/3, Telemundo sixth at 0.7/1 and CW seventh at 0.6/1.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/big-brother-surges-again-on-thursday/

One of those guilty pleasures that many watch but wont admit it

Kind of hard to pump both of them together. Dish is still taking a beating over not having AMC. Customers of DirecTV moaned for a few days over the loss of the Viacom channels, but most seemed to be on their side in the dispute. Plus, it ended rather quickly.

Fully agreed. We're talking apples and potatoes here - not even in the same family.

In fact, despite negative growth in the US for subs for the first time (an amount that didn't even come to a half a percent), they're still growing south of the border and will likely see surges taken from other providers if they continue to add channels like they recently did while longer disputes potentially happen with other providers, like Dish, Cablevision and Time Warner (which loves to have disputes).

Plus, Dish can't seem to go more than 12 months without getting sued for something and they're getting their lunch eaten with the Blockbuster acquisition (I'm pretty sure the customers getting best use out of that deal are ones least likely to leave). As a D* customer, it makes me glad it makes me glad the merger Dish tried to pull off with D* didn't get approved.

While I'm sure all of us have channels we would like to see added (or wish had been added sooner), D* has definitely shown that not being too quick on the draw in negotiations can make for good business. It also gets them taken more seriously when renewals come around. I can think of plenty of other providers that would have had a much longer dispute with Viacom - and likely will as those contracts come due.

It's like that with Charter. you either have to get the Digital tier 1 package or the sports package. Both are $10. Since neither offers me anything other then NFL Network I want to watch essentially I'm paying $10 for NFL Network. Of course because of that I only have NFL Network during football season. Funny that MLB Network, Golf Channel and NBC Sports are available to everyone.

That's not taking into population growth so that should concern them more. Pay TV lost 325,000 subs in the last quarter. but if you factor in that US households are growing at a rate for 250,000 per quarter that's really a loss of 500,000. Just to maintain with population growth pay TV should be seeing increases of over 200,000 per quarter.

No one counts population in regards to TV. It's all about households. If it were based on the number of people, John and Kate would need at least 10 TVs...

If you go by TV households (households which actually have a TV), the number of actual TV households (per Nielsen) dropped by over 1 million in the last year. That means 96.7% of the households in the US have a TV - down from 98.9 percent last year. In other words, you have several scenarios:

- Some people aren't replacing TVs when they quit working, either because they find they don't need them or the money isn't there due to lost income.
- You have people just entering the housing market who are used to using alternate devices to view media and don't need a TV
- There's been an uptick in young people moving home due to a stagnant job market, meaning more people be counted as one household.
- People who were relying on analog cable service from a provider that has gone all digital simply dropped the service rather than get a box.
- The Hispanic population is growing, which tends to have larger households that the white majority.

I'm sure there are other reasons, too.

However, it should be pointed out, that since 2008, D* has averaged an increase in subscribers of around 198,000 per quarter. Further, D* still added 26,000 new subs in the US and reduced their churn rate from 1.59% to 1.51%. Also, unlike cable operators which don't have a world wide operation, D* added 593,000 new subscribers in Latin America.

Further, D* has a rather large Hispanic package available that is likely to attract Hispanic viewers in the US as the economy potentially improves and their numbers increase.

I really don't think D* is worried at this point and their investors likely aren't overly worried, either. However, since the recent news likely caused a dip in the stock price, it's likely a good time to buy a few extra shares since it's likely the price will more than rebound by this time next year.

Cable, on the other hand, does have some reason for concern, though I think it's a bit too soon to really see where alternative viewing is really headed. With Google getting into the multichannel provider game and Apple wanting to make set top boxes for MSOs, there may be a reversal of recent trends coming down the pike.
Edited by NetworkTV - 8/17/12 at 6:24pm

As long as there is a need for broadband Internet service I don't think cable really has anything to worry about, not to mention that future delivery of linear TV channels from a cable provider will be via broadband instead of the current QAM system anyway. If you want Internet, you need cable(or one of the telco solutions), and everyone wants Internet, not everyone wants TV, and those that do will get it via the Internet in the future. Wireless solutions are already pricing themselves out of the Internet/TV market so don't expect that to be an alternative solution.

Critic's Notes
Bianculli's Best Bets
By David Bianculli, TVWorthWatching.com - Aug. 4, 2012

WALL-E
ABC Family, 8:00 p.m. ET
I adore this 2008 animated film, which takes great narrative risks, and emerges with incomparably rich rewards. Along with such much more serious movies as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner and A Clockwork Orange, it deserves to be discussed, in the same breath, as one of the best science-fiction movies ever made. If you don’t believe me, watch it – or watch it again.

THE TIMEY-WIMEY OF DOCTOR WHO
BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET
BBC America sure isn’t making it easy for me to keep trying to persuade the uninitiated of the intrinsic value of Doctor Who – not with a title for a Who special that’s as fanciful as this one. (It reminds me of trying, all those years ago, to insist to my understandably dubious friends that a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer was truly TV worth watching.) Timey-Wimey is cute Whovian for time travel, and this new special examines all the trips back to the future, and to the past and present, that the Doctor and his companions have taken over the years – millions of them. And if I haven’t persuaded you to tune in by now, I won’t waste any more of your timey-wimey. Or any more of miney.

THE NERDIST
BBC America, 10:00 p.m. ET
Chris Hardwick and his fellow nerds spend this new hour of The Nerdist presenting A Tribute to Time Travel. They’ll take their time with it, no doubt – but just as doubtlessly, it’ll all be over in an hour.

DARK MATTERS
Science Channel, 10:00 p.m. ET
This installment covers something more than 40 years old, but still unforgettably creepy. I remember when news of this got out when it happened, and perhaps you do, too. At Stanford University in 1971, Phillip Zombardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment” randomly assigned some college students as guards, and others as prisoners, then monitored them secretly to see how long it would take either the guards or prisoners to rebel as those in charge were instructed to treat their “captives” more and more ruthlessly. The shocking thing was, none of the students demanded to quit – and this account of that experiment’s results, and its ramifications, are explored in this new documentary.

SEPIA CINDERELLA
TCM, 4:30 a.m. ET
It’s Freddie Bartholomew day on TCM, an all-day salute that includes, in prime time, two favorites: 1937’s Captains Courageous at 8 p.m. ET, and 1938’s Kidnapped at 10:15 p.m. ET. The rarity, though, arrives very late at night, when Bartholomew makes a camera appearance, as himself, in a 1947 musical that’s barely televised: Sepia Cinderella, a film aimed primarily at black audiences, and including lots of nightclub acts popular at the time.

http://www.tvworthwatching.com/

TV Notes
‘The Tonight Show’ Lays Off 20 Staffers And Host Jay Leno Takes Pay Cut To Save Jobs
By Nikki Finke, Deadline.com - Aug. 17, 2012

EXCLUSIVE: NBC insiders tell me The Tonight Show went through ”downsizing” today and that 20 staffers lost their jobs. Others tell me the number is more like 25, and producers were forced to take pay cuts or lose their jobs. I’ve also learned that Jay Leno took what is being described as a “tremendous” pay cut to “save as many people’s jobs as he could”. Leno’s Tonight Show is consistently the #1 late night talk show in both households and demographics, except for some anomalies when Leno does get beaten. And that’s despite the fact that the network’s primetime ratings have been dismal for many years or that Leno himself was harshly criticized by the media for that January 2010 standoff with Conan O’Brien.

Even so, The Tonight Show has been and still is a cash cow for NBC. So what happened to merit the downsizing? “I don’t think ad sales are off. I just think the people who bought this company, Comcast, wants to go through everything at NBC and get their money back,” an NBC insider tells me. ”It’s hard to go through those kinds of cuts. It’s more a network issue than a late-night issue. And I would say that Jay doesn’t get credit for digging out of a gigantic hole every single night. He’s a very valuable guy to NBC and someday everyone will understand that. He does a great job.”

Leno has said publicly that he’s able to bank his entire Tonight Show salary and live on the hefty fees he makes from his hectic personal appearance schedule. Leno’s new salary is reportedly $27M-$30 million a year. He reportedly brings home another $15M-$20M a year from his other gigs.

Leno replaced Johnny Carson as host of The Tonight Show in 1992 after having been a regular substitute host since 1987. He “officially” ended hosting of The Tonight Show in 2009 when Conan O’Brien started on June 1st. Leno was going to be paid for all of 2009 by NBC even though he was only working six months of it. When his ratings dipped, O’Brien was asked to move The Tonight Show‘s time slot later to make room for Leno’s return at 11:30 PM. O’Brien refused. NBC gave Conan a $40M payoff (including salaries for his staff) to leave The Tonight Show hosting job which Leno resumed in 2010.

http://www.tvworthwatching.com/

No shame here, I LOVE "BIG BROTHER" although this applies more to following the feeds/recaps online and the Showtime 2 "After Dark" show than the edited-for-dummies CBS recap. It's a 24/7 ant farm inside the Big Brother house, and checking on the house guests during lunch or throughout the day (especially weekends when POV comps and positioning for Monday's Veto ceremony) is the real fun of the experience. Heck, last night was one of the best nights of "BB" ever and most of you won't get to find out why until next Wednesday if you only follow the CBS edit. Speaking of "Big Brother"....