TODAY’S TV NEWS

SPECIALS SOAR; REGULAR SHOWS PLUMMET IN RATINGS

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:22:47 -0800

While special-event programming like the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics, and the Oscars has been drawing record or near-record audiences this year, the day-to-day primetime schedules of the networks have been declining, the Associated Press observed today. It cited the example of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, whose ratings are down 22 percent from last year and Desperate Housewives, which is off 13 percent. The A.P. quoted Horizon Media analyst Brad Adgate as saying, "That's where the rubber meets the road, because that's every week." Bucking the trend, the wire service noted, are CBS's The Big Bang Theory and NCIS. Thanks to its Oscars telecast, the pre-Oscar Red Carpet coverage, Barbara Walters's celebrity special and the finale of The Bachelor, ABC was the clear winner last week with an average rating of 7.4 and a 12 share. Fox, thanks primarily to American Idol, placed second with a 6.5/11. CBS, the usual winner, came in third with a 6.4/11, while NBC trailed with a 4.1/7.

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research:
1. Academy Awards, ABC, 23.3/37; 2. Oscar's Red Carpet 2010, ABC, 15.2/24; 3. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 13.4/21; 4. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 13.1/20; 5. NCIS, CBS, 11.8/18; 6. American Idol (Thursday), Fox, 11.2/18; 7. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 10.1/15; 8. The Bachelor, ABC, 9.6/15; 9. Barbara Walters Special, ABC, 9.4/16; 9. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 9.4/15; 9. The Mentalist, CBS, 9.4/17.

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

CABLE AND SATELLITE PROVIDERS ASK LAWMAKERS FOR HELP

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:18:05 -0800

Hoping to forestall another set-to between the broadcast networks and cable providers over retransmission-consent fees like the one that threatened the Oscar telecast in the New York area last Sunday, a group of cable, satellite and phone providers has asked the FCC to revamp its rules on retransmission. The group includes DirecTV, DISH Network, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. Current rules, which went on the books in 1992, are aimed at ensuring that cable providers carry over-the-air stations in every market. In its petition to the FCC, the providers said that the rules weigh heavily in favor of the broadcasters. The providers have proposed that disputes with broadcasters be submitted to neutral arbitration and that the broadcasters be prevented from shutting down their signals as a leverage tactic. In a statement on Tuesday, Time Warner Cable said, "Consumers are increasingly being put in the middle of disputes between programmers and distributors, including recurring threats of going dark, high-stakes public negotiations, and, in the case of ABC's recent withdrawal of programming from three million Cablevision subscribers, highly disruptive blackouts." Comcast, which is seeking approval to buy a controlling interest in NBC, was not among the petitioners, but did issue a statement saying, "As a company that will be in both the cable and broadcasting businesses, looking at the issue from both sides, we hope we can play a constructive role in working toward a resolution of these issues." Meanwhile, CBS chief Les Moonves told a media conference in Palm Beach, FL Tuesday that he intends to get tough on affiliates who don't share their retransmission payments with the network. When a station in Jacksonville, FL refused to do so, he said, "we ended the affiliate agreement, and they went from the No. 1 to the No. 5 station."

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

ANY RICHTER STILL ANGRY ABOUT LENO

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:16:30 -0800

There's no lack of ill will remaining in the wake of the debacle that wound up with Conan O'Brien exiting The Tonight Show and Jay Leno taking over. Appearing as a guest host on Tuesday's Live with Regis & Kelly, Andy Richter, O'Brien's announcer, acknowledged that he still had hard feelings toward NBC. "Everybody said they were going to do something and they didn't," he remarked. He clearly included Jay Leno in the mix, scoffing at Leno's claim that he was merely a bystander and doing what his bosses had asked him to do. He remarked facetiously, "You know how multimillionaires are always being forced to do things they don't want to do." When Ripa asked him to reveal more about the fiasco, he pulled up short. "I've got to be careful," he said. "I have children! I still need work." He also acknowledged that he is still receiving a weekly paycheck from NBC, "so we'll see if those checks keep coming." On Monday night ratings for The Tonight Show trailed those for David Letterman's Late Night among the key 18-49-year-old demographic for the first time since Leno's return.

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

MURDOCH WANTS TO INVEST IN MIDDLE EAST BUT FEARS CENSORSHIP

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:14:58 -0800

News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch has called on leaders in the Middle East to lighten up on the news media if they wish to attract foreign investment in the media sector of their economies. Murdoch, whose own newspapers, including the London Times and Sunday Times and the Wall Street Journal, have been censored and condemned for their reporting on the debt crises in the United Arab Emirates, told the Abu Dhabi Media Summit today (Wednesday), "In the face of an inconvenient story it can be tempting to resort to censorship, or civil or criminal laws to try to bury it." However, he recommended "a gentle touch." Murdoch, who has been accused of kowtowing editorially to China's rulers in his newspaper and satellite-TV operations, insisted however, that he is moving ahead with plans to augment News Corp's Middle East operations, including setting up their headquarters in Abu Dhabi and augmenting it with a unit that will produce television documentaries. Last month News Corp acquired a $70-million stake in Rotana Group, controlled by Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who, in turn, has invested in News Corp. Although, Rotana doesn't really need his money, Murdoch said, "We are partnering Rotana for something more ambitious: To tap into Arab talent and ultimately produce original Arab content for markets both here and abroad."

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

CABLEVISION VS. ABC: WHO WON?

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 14:03:28 -0800

Neither side is providing details of the deal over retransmission-consent rights that put Disney/ABC-owned WABC-TV back on the New York area Cablevision system Sunday night shortly after the Oscar telecast began, but Moody's Investors Service said Monday that Cablevision was the likely victor. Disney and ABC "presumably ceded more ground than it would have liked," Moody's said in its report. "If not, Cablevision's track record suggests that a blackout of the ABC TV station programing would have almost certainly ensued." Indeed, the station had been blacked out on Cablevision for more than 20 hours as the two sides played a determined game of chicken. According to Daily Variety, which cited unnamed insiders, the deal calls for WABC-TV to receive 35-40 cents per subscriber each month, rising to 60-65 cents by the end of the three- to four-year deal. Disney had reportedly been demanding $1.00 per subscriber. But although Cablevision won in the short run, Moody's forecast that the stand-off was likely to cost the cable company subscribers in the long run as they grow tired of blackouts and switch to satellite and phone companies. In the end, the ratings service concluded, the network stations are likely to prevail "mainly because they have some of the most popular programing content that the cable and other pay TV companies need in order to keep subscribers and stay competitive." In an interview with the Associated Press, Robin Flynn, an analyst at SNL Kagan, said, "There's a lot of money at stake. ... There are a lot more fights coming up."

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

OSCARS NAB BEST RATINGS IN FIVE YEARS

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 14:00:33 -0800

Although it won no major award Sunday night, just having Avatar in contention at the annual Oscar awards was probably responsible for boosting the ratings of the telecast to their highest level since 2005. Some 41.3 million viewers tuned in, according to Nielsen results from the nation's 56 largest markets. That was up 14 percent from the 36.3 million who tuned in a year ago, when Slumdog Millionaire won for best picture and 32.01 million in 2008 when No Country for Old Men won. About 70 million watched at least six minutes of the telecast, according to Nielsen. The huge ratings are expected to solidify the Oscars' reputation as the annual broadcast with the second-highest ratings. The No. 1 broadcast remains the Super Bowl, which recorded an average of 106.5 million viewers last month.

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

MARCH MADNESS COMING TO YOUR IPHONE

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 13:59:08 -0800

Television networks have yet to figure out how to earn significant income by repurposing their entertainment programs on the Internet or on mobile devices. But CBS has apparently found a way of hooking into Internet-connected iPhones to do so with its sports programming. Indeed, it has developed a separate unit, CBS Sports Mobile, which on Monday announced that it will offer live video of the annual men's college basketball tournament, to users of the iPhone and iPod Touch from March 16 to April 5. It will cost those caught up in "March Madness" $9.99 for the app allowing them to watch any of the 63 games of the tournament. It is available from Apple's iTunes store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cbs-sports-mobile/id356988414?mt=8. A free app is also available providing updated scores, player statistics and video highlights. In a statement, Rob Gelick, who heads CBS Mobile, said, "Last year, CBS Sports Mobile witnessed a huge appetite for mobile video when we were the first to stream live sports events over the iPhone, and this year, by including Wi-Fi and 3G, we expect that appetite -- and audience -- to grow even more." Meanwhile the NFL and Verizon reached an agreement on Monday that will allow Verizon to offer mobile access to Sunday afternoon football games for the first time next season.

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

TIVO -- THE NEWS ISN’T ALL BAD

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 13:57:51 -0800

TiVo may have become as associated with digital video recording as Google is with online searching. Even users of DVRs not manufactured by TiVo often remark that they "TiVo'd" a certain program. But TiVo has continued to struggle, usually unsuccessfully, to keep out of the red. When it reported a loss of $10.2 million on Monday, the figure was regarded as good news, since most analysts had expected a much larger loss. It has been a week of good news for TiVo. Investors sent TiVo's shares soaring on news that a federal appeals court has ordered EchoStar to pay TiVo $300 million in damages and other penalties for patent infringement. Since the court ruling late last week, TiVo's stock has risen nearly 70 percent.

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

ONLINE CAMPAIGN NETS BETTY WHITE “SNL” HOSTING GIG

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 13:55:37 -0800

A massive Facebook and Twitter campaign has apparently succeeded in persuading the producers of Saturday Night Live to invite 88-year-old Betty White to host the NBC show. People magazine reported on its website Monday that White had confirmed she'll be hosting the show but had provided no details. "I don't know why or how, but it's been wonderful," she told the magazine. White recently received a lifetime achievement award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Although she has appeared in several movies, including last year's The Proposal, starring Oscar winner Sandra Bullock, she is best known for her work on television. Indeed, she may have the longest continuous career of any performer in the medium, having first appeared as a sidekick to pioneer disc jockey Al Jarvis on Los Angeles TV station KLAC-TV (now KCOP-TV) in 1949 .

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

OSCAR RATINGS ARE BIGGER BUT FAR FROM BIGGEST

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 11:49:35 -0800

Once again demonstrating that live network specials can vastly overcome DVR recording and competition from cable and the Internet, the 82nd annual Academy Awards presentations averaged a whopping 39.24 million viewers, giving it a 12.5 rating and a 30 share -- an 8 percent boost from the Oscars' 2009 ratings, according to overnight Nielsen figures. However, the ratings were down slightly from 2007, when the telecast counted 40.17 million viewers. And they were clearly outshined by the 1998 Oscar telecast -- the year of Titanic's triumph -- when 57.25 million tuned in. Earlier in the evening, Barbara Walters' final Oscar special captured 20.97 million viewers -- an 82-percent increase over last year's special -- which led in to a half-hour red-carpet feature that drew 31.6 million viewers.

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed

WHAT HAPPENED TO OSCAR MAKEOVER?

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 11:47:31 -0800

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may have hired new producers to mount the latest Oscars presentation for television, and they in turn may have hired two hosts, instead of one, to double the pleasure, which many critics have long suggested needed doubling, if not quadrupling. (They doubled the number of best picture nominees, too -- in an effort to include the most popular movies along with the most meritorious, which are often not the same.) But in the end, most critics agreed, it was all another exercise in same old, same old. "From their opening monologue, co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were surprisingly unfunny," wrote Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. "Their opening lines would have been funny delivered by one emcee, but having them do alternate reads from the prompter was a mistake." So was the opening production number, said the New York Times's film critic, Alessandra Stanley. "Neil Patrick Harris and a troupe of Las Vegas-style dancers ... was meant to suggest opulent old-fashioned showbiz-as-usual, but mostly tested the clock," she commented. Writing in the Hollywood Reporter, Andrew Wallenstein agreed. "The curious choice of opening the telecast with a musical number from overexposed thirtysomething TV star Neil Patrick Harris, rather than with veteran hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, could be interpreted as a hedge against coming across too old. Then again, it might have been a wise decision: Baldwin and Martin were slow to warm up." On Newsweek's website, Ramin Setoodah chimed in: "Steve Martin lacked any flair during solo duties in 2001 or 2003, so why would anybody bring him back? Instead, the Academy paired him with the unpredictable Alec Baldwin, who was completely predictable. The two comedians opened the show like the old uncles at your family reunion." And Robert Bianco in USA Today quipped: "It was like they were doing vaudeville for an audience that has never heard of vaudeville." Calling the show "more retread than revolutionary," veteran Oscars observer Josef Adalian, who now writes for TheWrap.com, commented, "Instead of establishing some new paradigm for awards shows, Oscar 2010 was in many ways like an Academy Awards show from the past -- complete with lame dance numbers, awkward host banter and jokes so corny and predictable, you'd think they were written by Bruce Vilanch. Oh, wait: Vilanch actually was, once again, a writer for the Oscars." But presenting a standard-formula Oscar show wasn't necessarily a bad idea, film critic Michael Phillips suggested in the Chicago Tribune. "The prevailing philosophy seemed to be: Let's have an old-fashioned Oscars!," he remarked. "I'm sure this wasn't the edict going into Hollywood's 82nd annual company picnic. But in good ways and lame ones, the televised ceremony rolled along with a retro vibe."

Leave Comments Here -- Spamming, Flaming, and Offensive Language Will Be Removed