DOUBLE DOSE OF EMMYS ON WEST COAST SAVES THE DAY

The decision by NBC and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to air this year’s Emmy awards show live coast-to-coast not only didn’t hurt the telecast’s ratings, but it apparently improved them. Daily Variety reported today (Tuesday) that Nielsen combined the “unduplicated viewership” of the live West Coast telecast with the taped repeat that […]

BROADCASTERS HOPE TO DUMP LONGFORM EMMYS

Not only do the Emmy categories for TV movies and miniseries shut out the broadcast networks — who rarely produce such fare anymore — they also act as a drag on the awards show itself, broadcast execs complain. “Once those longform awards come on, it’s the death march of boredom,” one unnamed network executive told […]

MORGAN CONCEDES HE’S TALKING TO CNN

For the first time, America’s Got Talent judge Piers Morgan has confirmed that he is in talks with CNN “for a primetime position.” It has been widely reported that Morgan is in line to succeed Larry King when King steps down in the fall. Buttonholed by New York Times TV reporter Brian Stelter at the […]

CBS ON TOP DESPITE RERUNS

Despite airing an entire night of repeats, CBS remained the No. 1-rated TV network Monday night among both total viewers and adults 18-49. The network came in second only during the first hour of primetime at 8:00 p.m., when How I Met Your Mother with 5.23 million viewers and Rules of Engagement with 5.74 million […]

TAKERS TAKES FIRST

Fewer moviegoers turned up at theaters on Sunday than the studios had expected — and far fewer decided to take in The Last Exorcism. While the movie opened strongly on Friday, well ahead of the pack, it lost steam on Saturday, and by the time Sunday’s returns were counted, it had fallen to second place […]

AN UNINTENDED MESSAGE FROM PANDORA

James Cameron’s MessageFromPandora.com website apparently accidentally disclosed information about the upcoming release of Avatar: Collector’s Edition on Monday. The website offers a preview of a full-length documentary that Cameron has produced about worldwide efforts aimed at halting construction of the Belo Monte Dam in Brazil, which, the website alleges, could have a profound effect on […]

BLOCKBUSTER SHAREHOLDERS MAY SUE COMPANY

Their shares may already be next to worthless, down to just eight cents apiece at midday today (Tuesday), about a tenth of what they were worth only a year ago, but a group of Blockbuster shareholders said on Monday that it plans to take legal action if the company goes ahead with widely reported plans […]

FORMER “JACKSON ASSOCIATE” PLANNING ANOTHER JACKSON DOCUMENTARY

Ron Newt, a self-described “gangsta pimp,” who sometimes calls himself Prince Diamond, claims that he has put together a 64-minute documentary using footage from the Jackson 5’s Triumph Tour. The tour covered 36 U.S. cities over 10 weeks in the summer of 1981. The celebrity website TMZ.com, which describes Newt as “a former Jackson associate,” […]

MOVIE THEATER PREPARES FOR LOST MARATHON

A London movie theater is planning to screen all 121 episodes of Lost back-to-back beginning at 10:00 a.m. on September 13. The London Sun reports that paramedics will be on hand for anyone who “loses it” over the 80 hours. Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse issued a statement to all those planning on […]

HUGE CROWD ON HAND FOR BECK RALLY

The number of people who participated in Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington Saturday was variously reported as 87,000 (CBS), 300,000 (NBC and the National Parks Service), and 450,000 (Beck himself). But whatever the number, the size of the crowd demonstrated Beck’s power to attract a massive, politically […]

Next Page »