LUCAS: HOLLYWOOD WON’T MAKE AN ALL-BLACK BIG-BUDGET MOVIE

His films may have earned more money than those of any other producer, but George Lucas says he was unable to find a single studio executive willing to back his film, Red Tails, about the Tuskegee Airmen, the heroic World War II group of black pilots. Appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Lucas [...]

ARE YOU READY FOR AN APOLOGY?

Hank Williams Jr., who issued an unapologetic statement following ESPN’s decision to yank his “Are You Ready for Football?” opener from Monday night’s NFL telecast after he compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler, issued a follow-up statement late Tuesday that he took pains to point out was “Not written by some Publicist.” With words in [...]

LENO AND LETTERMAN TAKE BIG RATINGS HITS

It was not an auspicious start-of-the-season week for either Jay Leno or David Letterman. With DVR use way up and more and more viewers watching shows via cable’s on-demand technology or via Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services, or catching hipper, less restricted hosts on cable, like Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien, the two late-night [...]

DID JON STEWART REALLY BEAT JAY LENO IN RATINGS?

NBC is disputing claims by Comedy Central that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart topped The Tonight Show with Jay Leno among 18-49-year-old viewers during the second quarter. Comedy Central had boasted over the weekend that the victory marked the first time in 10 years — or 40 quarters — that Tonight had been beaten [...]

ANOTHER MSNBC COMMENTATOR IS OUT

MSNBC has suspended yet another commentator. This time it’s Mark Halperin, an editor-at-large for Time magazine, who remarked during an interview on Joe Scarborough’s Morning Joe program Thursday that he thought President Obama “was kind of a dick” at his news conference on Wednesday when he discussed his deal with Republicans over the budget. Halperin [...]

WEINER SCANDAL: STEWART A LOSER; BREITBART A WINNER

The Anthony Weiner scandal has turned out to be an embarrassment for Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, who has been defending the congressman, and a victory for conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart, who has been, er, exposing him. Breitbart, in fact, “hijacked” — the word used by some reporters — Weiner’s news conference by taking the podium [...]

JON STEWART TOPS JAY LENO IN MAY

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart edged out The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to become the No. 1 late-night talk show among adults 18-49 during May. According to Nielsen Research, Stewart averaged 1,344,000 viewers to Leno’s 1,340,000. That’s a difference of just 0.3 percent, statistically insignificant, but Comedy Central remarked that it [...]

LATE-NIGHT VICTORIES FOR EVERYONE

Each of the major late-night shows on broadcast television has found something in the latest ratings to boast about. ABC’s Nightline trumpeted the news that it was No. 1 among total views, adults 18-49, and adults 25-54. However, analysts point out that Nightline‘s ratings are based on viewership during the 11:30 p.m. to midnight half-hour, [...]

DID NBC REJECT CRITICAL STORY ABOUT ITS CO-OWNER?

NBC News is being taken to task for failing to mention on its nightly newscast the disclosure that General Electric, which earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year ($5.1 million in the U.S.), paid nothing in federal taxes. Late-night talk-show host Jon Stewart was all over the omission earlier this week, and the Washington [...]

FOX AND CNN CORRESPONDENTS CONTINUE SNIPING AT EACH OTHER

In Day 3 of the secondary war in Libya being waged between CNN and Fox News, Fox News correspondent Steve Harrigan on Wednesday fired back at CNN’s Nic Robertson who had said that he had seen Harrigan more often at the hotel for breakfast than out in the field reporting. In an interview with the [...]

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