FIVE SHOWS COMPRISE TV’S TOP TEN

The top ten broadcast TV shows last week were actually five, given the fact that all of them, with the exception of ABC’s Modern Family placed at least two episodes on the list. The season finale of Fox’s American Idol — the results show in which Phillip Phillips was crowned the winner — was the […]

HISTORY CHANNEL MAKES HISTORY

The History Channel’s Hatfields & McCoys miniseries, starring Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton, managed to make history in its own right this week by setting records for the biggest audience for any non-sports program on cable ever. Monday night’s launch captured 13.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen Research, with an additional 3.2 million watching the […]

FOX VIDEO ATTACKS OBAMA; EVEN CONSERVATIVES COMPLAIN

A four-minute video produced by Fox News that attacks the four-year tenure of President Obama has drawn criticism from at least one prominent conservative commentator. Radio talk-show host and newspaper columnist Ed Morrissey said on the conservative media blog Hot Air that the video gives Fox News critics unnecessary ammunition. “If anyone wanted to look […]

NETWORKS IN LEGAL BATTLES ON TWO FRONTS

Efforts by the major broadcasters to protect their business models against technological innovations hit legal roadblocks in two New York courtrooms on Wednesday. In one, a federal judge granted the DISH satellite service a temporary restraining order that in effect blocks Fox from pursuing a copyright infringement lawsuit against it over its ad-skipping Hopper DVR […]

FOR LIONSGATE, A LOSS NOW, PROFITS LATER

In Hollywood’s latest variant of “it takes money to make money,” Lionsgate, which produced The Hunger Games, one of the biggest hits of the year, reported a loss of $22.7 million in its fourth quarter ended March 31, due in large part to the costs involved in promoting and marketing the film. It also cited […]

EVERYTHING’S COMING UP MARIGOLDS FOR FOX SEARCHLIGHT

Fox Searchlight’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which has done gangbuster business overseas — it has taken in $81.2 million abroad — brought its domestic total to $19.4 million on Tuesday, thereby crossing the $100-million mark at the worldwide box office. It is currently playing on just 1,233 screens in North America — about a […]

RED TAILS TAKES OFF ON DVD

Red Tails, which producer George Lucas financed out of his own pocket after the major studios spurned it, flew to first place on the Nielsen Video Scan First-Alert chart in its first week on retail shelves. The 20th Century Fox movie, which earned nearly $50 million domestically, is the first action film by a major […]

WILL NBC’S THE WINNER IS BE A WINNER?

As if there weren’t a surfeit of singing contests on network television already, NBC announced on Tuesday that it was adding yet another one. Titled The Winner Is, the series will feature singers “dueling” against one another for a $1-million cash prize. The weekly competition will also include game-show elements. For example, a contestant will […]

AP GOES HD

In what it called “a major milestone,” the Associated Press announced Tuesday that it has completed its conversion to high-definition. AP said that it began upgrading its technical facilities to HDTV 18 months ago and in November 2011 began offering broadcast and cable stations entertainment news in HD. In January of this year, it started […]

GOOGLE LAUNCHES PC FOR YOUR TV

Google on Tuesday unveiled the latest device aimed at merging the Internet with television. Its Chromebox, manufactured by Samsung and using Google’s proprietary operating system, is expected to compete against Apple’s Mac Mini, which many consumers connect to their TV sets and use principally to record and play CDs and movies. (It can also be […]

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